interior and permanent states are unfolded, continue to desire their companionship, unless they perceive a near spiritual relationship—unless they are of a similar internal quality. The sum of this instruction may be gathered from the following extract from Swedenborg's treatise on Heaven and Hell:
"The World of Spirits contains a great number of inhabitants, because it is the region in which all first assemble, and where all are examined and prepared for their final abode. * * * All meet in that world, and converse together, when they desire it, who had been friends and acquaintances in the life of the body; especially wives and husbands, brothers and sisters. I saw a father conversing with his six sons, all of whom he recognized; and many others conversing with their relations and friends; but as they were different in disposition, resulting from their course of life in the world, after a short time they separated. But those who go from the World of Spirits to heaven, and those who thence go to hell, afterwards neither see nor know each other any more, unless they are similar in disposition and similar in love. The reason that all who had been acquainted see one another in the World of Spirits, and not in heaven nor in hell, is, because, while they inhabit the world of spirits, they are brought into states similar to those which they experienced in the life of the body, passing from one into another. But afterwards all are brought into a permanent state, similar to that of the governing love; and then, one individual only knows another from the similitude of his love; for similitude conjoins, and dissimilitude separates."—H. H., 426, '7.
But if parents become regenerated on earth, and there be found a close spiritual affinity between them
