Verse 31 The meaning is, that the change necessary to prepare the soul for heaven is a change in the affections and feelings of the heart; and any extraordinary revelations from heaven, or marvels of any kind, though they might produce wonder or alarm, would have no tendency to awaken love.--We must not allow the material images, which our Savior uses in this parable, to fix themselves permanently in our minds, and give form to our conceptions of the world of spirits. In this our present state of being, we can form no correct ideas of that world. The Savior teaches, in this parable, only certain spiritual truths, employing very striking imagery to give vividness and emphasis to the expression of them. These truths are, 1. That the conditions of men in this life do not correspond with their characters, and will often be reversed in the world to come, 2. That the ruin in which the sinner will then find himself involved is a permanent ruin, admitting of no restoration or remedy; and, 3. That the change necessary to prepare the impenitent for heaven, is a moral change, which can be produced only by moral influences.