look at the houses and churches, and temples! What magnificent
buildings!" But I must say the material alone struck me as something
sublime and unearthly. So transparent and rich in color, reflecting light
as if through a veil or mist! "This caps all," said I, as doctors and
lawyers, artists and authors, whom I had known, stepped up to greet me,
smiling and full of life. "Why, how is this?" "Is this you?" "Where did
you come from?" Questions like these came from all sides. Francis and
Brady, Willis, Morris, and a host of New Yorkers who had slipped out of
sight and almost out of mind, now gathered around me as if by miracle. I
rubbed my eyes in wonder. Spying Brown, I cried out, "Why, how is this,
Brown? It can't be that I am in heaven! Do you have such things here?
Houses, stores, and works of art on every side?"

"Yes; people must live," said he, "wherever they be."

"And are men here the same, with all their faculties?" I asked.

"Yes; why not? Have you any you'd like to lose?"

I shook my head and walked on absorbed in thought. And are all our
paraphernalia for funerals, our solemn black, and our long prayers but
useless ceremonies? Why, according to this, the beliefs of the Chinese,
Hottentot, African, and Indian are nearer the truth than our civilized
creeds!

I find that there are few things in which society in this world so much
differs from that of earth as in its social and political arrangements.

All the great system of living for appearances, and the habit of
self-deception whereby men live outwardly what their secret lives