Owing to this dereliction, it was found difficult to make frequent excursions to earth with them.  Those attracted to their terrestrial homes were attended by ladies who had them in charge, and who would kindly accompany them, for one or two weeks, to visit their friends upon earth.

I told her that I had lost a child some years ago, and had thought till recently to find it still an infant.

Many cases of this kind, she said, had occurred under her observation.  People did not view the matter rationally.  Ladies had called at the “Golden Nest” to inquire for children that had left earth twenty or thirty years ago, and it was painful to witness the distress they exhibited when told that their children were grown men and women.

One lady had called there some three days since, and claimed as her own a little child, an infant about two months old, who had been brought from earth three weeks previous, while the child she had lost had been in the spirit world seventeen years!

But no amount of argument would convince her that her child had grown up, and that the infant she selected was not her own.

She was finally permitted to take the child away, as they knew it would be properly cared for.  Many of the children while young were thus adopted.

“It appears marvellous,” remarked this noble lady, “that any parent should wish to cramp the body and soul of his child by keeping it in a state of infancy, when, if it had remained on earth, it would necessarily have arrived at years of maturity.

“Nature does not suspend her operations in transplanting from earth to heaven!  The soul is formed for expansion, and surely the spirit world is not the place to suppress unfoldment!”

As I listened to her intelligent conversation, I blushed to be reminded of my own error in supposing my own darling, who had reached the spirit world so long before, would greet me with the prattling talk of babyhood!

Pleased with our visit and the information we had received, we bade adieu to Lady R. and the “Golden Nest,” and pursued our flight in another direction.

“Do let us next find out,” said I to Morris, “what they do here with criminals; there must be many a wicked reprobate who arrives here from earth fresh from murders and villanies of all sorts.”

As I spoke, two grave-looking gentlemen, whom I took to be either doctors or judges, crossed the path before us, and I proposed to make these inquiries of them.

Who should they prove to be but William Penn and the omnipresent Benjamin Franklin!

“Yes, yes,” said Penn, in reply to our questions shaking his head deprecatingly; “’tis too true; we are obliged to have what Swedenborg calls “our hells,” for you send your criminals from earth so hardened that we are compelled to keep them under guard.  Come with us and we’ll show you how we treat them.”

We were very glad of this opportune meeting, and followed with alacrity.