2294. On many occasions when young children who were still mere infants were present with me in groups (chorus) they have sounded as something gentle but without order, so that they were not yet acting as one in the way they would do later on when they had become more grown up. And what astonished me, the spirits present with me could not refrain from trying to direct their thought and speech. Such a desire comes naturally to spirits, but I have noticed every time that the young children resisted, being unwilling to think or to speak as the spirits directed. Quite often I have detected a kind of anger accompanying such refusal and resistance; and once they were able to say anything at all they merely said, No! I have been told that young children undergo such temptation in the next life so that they may become accustomed and disciplined not only to resist falsity and evil but also not to think, speak, and act from any other, and so not to allow themselves to be directed by anyone but the Lord alone.