d healthy, or had become thin and emaciated by
protracted illness. The longer the time spent in review, and the more
quiet and peaceful the surroundings, the deeper will be the etching which
is made in the desire body. As already said, that has a most important and
far reaching effect, for then the sufferings which the spirit will realize
in purgatory on account of bad habits and misdeeds will be much more keen
than if there is only a slight impression, and in a future life the still
small voice of conscience will warn so much more insistently against
mistakes which caused sufferings in the past.

When conditions are such at the time of death that the spirit is disturbed
by outside conditions, for instance the din and turmoil of a battle, the
harrowing conditions of an accident or the hysterical wailings of
relatives, the distraction prevents it from realizing an appropriate depth
in the etching upon the desire body. Consequently its post-mortem
existence becomes vague and insipid, the spirit does not harvest fruits of
experience as it should have done had it passed out of the body in peace
and under normal conditions. It would therefore lack incentive to good in
a future life, and miss the warning against evil which a deep etching of
the panorama of life would have given. Thus its growth would be retarded
in a very marked degree, but the beneficent powers in charge of evolution
take certain steps to compensate for our ignorant treatment of the dying
and other untoward circumstances mentioned. What these steps are, we shall
discuss when considering the life of children in heaven, for the present
let it be sufficient to say that in God's kingdom every evil is always
transmuted to a greater good though the process may not be at once
apparent.

_Purgatory._

During life the collapse of the vital body at night terminates our view of
the world about us, and causes us to lose ourselves in unconsciousness of
sleep. When the vital body collapses just subsequent to death, and the
panorama of life is terminated, we also lose consciousness for a time
which varies according to the individual. A darkness seems to fall upon
the spirit, then after a while it wakes up and begins dimly to perceive
the light of the other world, but is only gradually accustomed to the
altered conditions. It is an experience similar to that which we have when
coming out of a darkened room into sunlight, which blinds us by its
brilliancy, until the pupils