"I love to read this verse, and imagine what the angels would think
if they could hear the words as I read them. And, truly, although
angels do not hear through our gross material atmosphere, can they
not _see_ the image of what we read in our minds? It is beautiful to
think that they can; and it is pleasant to conceive how an angelic,
perfectly spiritual mind would understand these words, 'And Abraham
gave up the ghost.' The angels would see that the spirit of Abraham
had laid off that gross material covering, which was not the real
man--only the appearance of a man. To angels, this body, which
appears to us so tangible, must be but the _ghost_ of a reality, for
to them the spirit is the reality.

"With us, in this outer existence, the laying off of the body is
death, that symbol of annihilation; it is as if our life ceased,
because we no longer grasp coarse material nature. But with the
angels, the laying off of the body is birth; it is the beginning of
a beautiful, new existence. The spirit then moves and acts in a
spiritual world of light and beauty. It no longer moves dimly in
that dark, material world which is as but a lifeless, ghostly
counterpart of the living, eternal spirit-world.

"Thus, it seems to me, the angels would understand the words 'And
Abraham gave up the ghost.' And the words which follow would have
for them a far different signification than to us. For with us 'old
age' presents the idea of the gradual wasting away and deterioration
of the powers of the body it is the shadow from the darkened future,
foretelling the end of life. But angels see the spirit advancing
from one state of wisdom to another, and to grow old in Heaven must
be altogether different from growing old on earth; and we can only