new abode, to prevent him from sinking to lower depths of evil, and consequent suffering.

The reader will find Swedenborg's "Heaven and Hell" an exceedingly interesting and profitable book to read, if he has any care for his eternal welfare; and to that work we must refer him.

"There is no death! what seems so is transition,

This life of mortal breath,

Is but a suburb of the life elysian,

Whose portal we call death."-Longfellow.

XXX.

State of Infants in the Other Life.

HAT parent is there who has lost a little child by

WHA

Ideath that has felt no interest in the fate of their darling after it had left the tender care of its earthly parents? The writer well remembers, although about thirty years have passed since the sad event, watching carefully with his wife the sick and, as the event proved, dying couch of our then only child, a little boy about one year old-a beautiful and promising child as we thought. With what feelings of sadness and sorrow we closed his eyes in death! and then, O then! the uncertainty, the veil that was between us and the object of our affection! Into whose keeping had he gone? how was he cared for? why should the Lord place us in such darkness? were but questions which had arisen with thousands thus circumstanced before us. With many tears we laid the mortal remains of our dear one in an earthly grave-dust to dust.

One night my wife awoke from sleep in the greatest excitement, sprang up in bed, and declared that she saw our little boy; that he was sitting upon her lap, when a beautiful lady appeared, one whom she recognized and called by name, a playmate and companion of her younger days, but who had died several years before this event. She, with the most pleasant and kind expression, beckoned

our darling boy to come to her; he raised his little arms and with expressions of joy passed to her, and was clasped in her loving arms. At this instant the excitement was too great, the curtain dropped, and my wife awoke as above. It was all so real, so life-like, that we felt that it was more than a dream and were comforted. How much this event had to do in preparing us for the full reception of the disclosures in regard to the spiritual world, and the doctrines of the New Jerusalem revealed by the Lord in the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg, the reader will perhaps be able to judge after reading the few extracts which we propose to make from the above writings.

"As soon as infants are raised from the dead," says Swedenborg, "which takes place immediately after their decease, they are carried up into heaven, and delivered to the care of angels of the female sex, who in the life of the body loved infants tenderly, and at the same time loved God. Since those angels when in the world loved all infants from a sort of maternal tenderness, they receive them as their own; and the infants also, from an affection implanted in them, love them as their own mothers."Heaven and Hell.

Up into heaven, means not up in material space, but in spiritual state. The angels attendant on little children, we read, do always behold the face of our Father in the heavens.

"Some believe," says Swedenborg, "that only the infants who are born within the church are admitted into heaven, but not those who are born out of the church; and they assign as a reason that children born in the church are baptized, and are initiated by baptism into the faith of the church. But such persons are not aware that heaven is not imparted to any one by baptism, nor by faith either; for baptism is only instituted as a sign and memorial that man is to be regenerated, and that it is possible for those to be regenerated who are born in the church, since the church possesses the Word, in which are contained the

divine truths by means of which regeneration is effected, and in the church the Lord is known, by whom it is accomplished. Be it known, therefore, that every infant or little child, let him be born where he may, whether in the church or out of it, whether of pious or wicked parents, is received when he dies by the Lord, and is educated in heaven, where he is instructed according to Divine Order, and is imbued with affections of good, and, through them, with knowledges of truth; and that afterwards, as he is perfected in intelligence and wisdom, he is introduced into heaven and becomes an angel. Every person who thinks from reason may be aware, that no one is born for hell, but all for heaven, and that if man goes to hell the blame is his own, but no blame can attach to infants or little children.

"When infants die, they are still infants in the other life. They possess the same infantile mind, the same innocence in ignorance, and the same tenderness in all things. They are only in rudimental states introductory to the angelic; for infants are not angels, but become angels. Every one, on his decease, is in a similar state of life to that in which he was in the world; an infant in the state of infancy, a boy, in the state of boyhood, and a youth, a man, or an old man, in the state of youth, manhood, or old age. But the state of every one is afterwards changed."— Heaven and Hell.

"Many persons may imagine that infants are for ever infants among the angels in heaven. They who do not know what constitutes an angel, may be confirmed in this opinion from the images which are sometimes seen in churches, where angels are exhibited as infants. But the case is altogether otherwise. Intelligence and wisdom constitute an angel; and so long as infants are without intelligence and wisdom, although they are associated with angels, they are not yet angels. When they become intelligent and wise, then they first become angels. I have, indeed, been surprised to see that they then no longer

appear as infants, but as adults, for they are then no longer of an infantile disposition, but of a more mature angelic character. Intelligence and wisdom produce this maturity. Infants appear more adult in proportion as they are perfected in intelligence and wisdom, and thus as youths and young men, because intelligence and wisdom. constitute essential spiritual nourishment. That which

nourishes their minds nourishes also their bodies, from correspondence, because the form of the body is nothing but an external form of the interiors. It is to be observed, that infants who grow up in heaven do not advance beyond early youth, but remain in that state to eternity. That I might be assured of this, it has been granted me to converse with some who were educated as infants in heaven, and who had grown up there. I have also spoken with some when they were infants, and afterwards with the same when they had become young men, and heard from them the progression of their life from the one age to the other." (Ibid.)

As the child, we are told, grows up to, but does not advance beyond early youth, so, Swedenborg informs us, that those who die in old age, return gradually in appearance to the state of early youth, and remain thus forever.

XXXI.

On the State and Condition of the Heathen and Gentiles in another Life.

WE

E cannot do better than to make a few short extracts from a communication recently published from a Hindoo convert to Christianity, Dadoba Pandurung, of Bombay, entitled "A Hindoo Gentleman's Reflections respecting the works of Swedenborg, and the Doctrines of the New Jerusalem." He says:

"What parents, whether Christians or Heathen, I ask, would not feel a most heartfelt consolation in the fate after death, as it is described by Swedenborg, of the little

children, and of the millions of heathens who are daily and hourly ushering into the next world, but who, from their helpless and unavoidable condition, are precluded from the benefits accessible to grown-up Christians of mature age and consideration?

"Christianity, as is now taught and preached to the world, appears to me to be almost silent on the important question touching the fate and future destiny of that vast and incalculable number of human beings who have died, and who at this day are daily dying in total ignorance of its voice; not to speak of that inconceivable number of human beings who had occupied and left this our earth during a period of thousands of years previous to the advent of the Lord Jesus Christ.

"But I am here thinking, and thinking quite naturally, of those millions of millions of heathens who have died and are daily dying for want of the requisite good in their case, viz.: the blessings of Christianity. I am not referring to those who have led wicked and sinful lives-to the avaricious and worldly men who have never turned to their God with a penitent heart, for the fate of such persons is the same, whether they be in Christendom or in heathendom; but I refer particularly to such Gentiles as have led a virtuous life, of which it may be predicated that it cannot be otherwise than pleasing in the sight of the Lord, nor can it ever be affirmed that heathendom is altogether devoid of pious, good, and virtuous men and women, for such an assertion, in my opinion, amounts to a gross blasphemy. In reference to such queries as these, in order to remove our over anxiety on the subject, we are no doubt sometimes shown such small passages in the Old and New Testament as Deut. x. 17; 2 Chron. xix. 1; Prov. xxiv. 12; Matt. xvi. 27; Rom. x. 6 to 14; Gal. vi. 7, 8; 1 Peter i. 17, in the assurance that they will satisfy our curiosity. But these are shown with such trembling hands and flattering words, as to leave the general impression on the minds of the heathens, that eternal damnation is their in