we are all made capable of attaining in some measure. But the only way of attaining it, is by strict and religious obedience to the revealed laws of the angelic life,—precisely as bodily health and vigor are attained and preserved by strict conformity to the laws of health. Encouraging and strengthening by exercise the growth of angelic dispositions, is the sure way of ultimately attaining to angelic beauty. Our bodies in the Hereafter will be just what we, by our volitions and conduct here, choose to make them—moulded into forms exactly correspondent to the dispositions we cherish and the feelings we habitually indulge—perfect images of our ruling loves: beautiful and symmetrical if we are careful to strengthen and confirm the principles that beautify the soul, but ugly and deformed if we encourage the growth of the opposite principles.
To conclude. It is a solemn and impressive fact, that within each of our material frames is a spiritual and immortal body, receiving its daily and hourly sustenance from the spiritual world; a body which lives and grows upon the food of angels, or the food of devils. And every year—yea, every day—this immortal body is approximating the exquisite symmetry and grace of heaven, or assuming more and more the hideous deformity of hell: and this, according to the prevailing tenor of our daily lives,—according to the dispositions we habitually cherish, and the motives from which we uniformly act. For here, in the flesh, our immortal part is daily and hourly taking on its enduring shape. Here it is continually developing—every feature and lineament—in exact correspondence with the nature of the principles
