These ideas per

world that Frenchmen are unconquerable. sistently adhered to by the leaders, and the people ignorant of the true state of things by the unscrupulous want of truth of those who give them information, the nation seems doomed to an extinction or to a radical change of its political and social life, and to be plunged into a furnace of affliction so fiery and intense as must needs result in its purification and to the opening of the sight, to perceive that a form like to the Son of God walks with it to that end, if its people will have true deliverance from the only one "who can deliver after that sort." (Daniel iii. 25–29.) Can the result be other than this? can it be less true that a truth has been enunciated for the future good of the world; which is, that enduring, fostering power, individual or natural, can exist only as it rests upon justice and liberty, and has neighborly love as the basis of its action? The imperial sway having reference to personal power, looking to its dynastic interest instead of the best interests of the governed, must of necessity have a limited duration; for it is not founded upon the Rock of Ages, and is not guided by His teachings.

"He hath showed thee, O man! what is good: and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" (Mic. vi. 3.) "Depart from evil and do good; seek peace, and pursue it." "The face of the Lord is against them that do evil, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth."

The incubus of selfish imperialism having been cast down from the shoulders of those who supported it from the delight of hearing the echo of its footsteps reverberate among the nations, as the horn of the huntsman sounds in the valleys and over the hills, startling his prey, this power lying low and its voice mute- must there not succeed it a freedom of thought and independence of action with those concerned, conducive to their, and the world's future good, and to true liberty gaining a foothold upon earth firmer than ever before?

Must not the sight of their beautiful city to which they

chanted such pæans-low and soiled; must not the general privation endured, the cessation of luxurious habits and sensual indulgences, the suffering, the tearing asunder of the closest ties of affection and friendship, the loss of national honor and prestige, must not these things be potent to bring about a change in the underlying strata of French society which shall forever affect its surface favorably?

It seems reasonable to suppose, in view of the extraordinary result of the struggle between France and Germany, that some deep hells are about being closed in the spiritual world; -as Swedenborg says is the case in judgments which have occurred and that the spirits from them will never more oppress the earth, and deceive the nations, as there is good reason to suppose was the case in the first French Revolution, the horrors and atrocities of which have neither been repeated, or found their parallel, at the present time.

In Germany, the effect of the war will be, it is reasonable to infer, a freedom grounded in the union of its parts; giving it liberty of action and ability to work out its providential destiny, untrammelled by fear of interruption in its progress by other nations jealous of its advancement or envious of its greatness. Its intellect will find work in practical things, and rub off its learned dust in the exercise of building up a new State, and in consolidating its various elements to the formation of a new social life, and a more generous nationality, a social life more genial and expansive, a nationality protective and not aggressive, to all true progress in the world. Its mysticism will be dissipated by the force of a new and an enlarged current of thought, vibrating along the chords of its imagination, and producing a music expressive of Divine Harmony; helping on the work of drawing "nations, and tribes, and tongues," into the "kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ."

Upon Italy, the effect of the war between France and Germany has been for her to be able to gather the fruit she has so long hungered for, without herself being obliged to agitate the branches of the tree which bore it; to obtain

Rome, and to complete her territorial unity. And henceforth there can be no chance that papal rule, in any part of her dominion, can check her advancement towards true freedom and social and political regeneration. As she advances in these principles of a true and permanent State, she will be acting also for the best interests of other States; introducing to man new and peculiar sentiments, and trains of thought which shall enlarge and beautify his mental and spiritual domain, and excite a healthy activity in this regard over the world; after her measure, assisting to prepare it for the reception of the truths, so eminently pure and rational, now descending from heaven for the lasting blessing of mankind; causing all governments to live in peace and confidence instead of constant war and enmity; ruling with nations to give their people the benefit of laws made for their good, and not to oppress them.

It is more than a probability, too, that the mingling of the elements of character, so different with the Germans and the French, will, by the force of inevitable circumstances, tend to the benefit of each, make each more truly man· -in other words, truly human-as has been already plainly to be observed in their art.

The weird mysticism and abstruse methods of investigation of the Germans will be qualified and rendered more sensible by the simple sentiment and naturalness, the love of ultimate form, of the French. The spontaneous traits of the French their abandon, to use their own word—will give heart and human zest to the thrift and to the financial accumulative instincts and ability of the Germans, leading to love of acquiring for the sake of others, instead of self alone. The transcendentalism of the Germans and their scepticism may be checked, and their naturalistic philosophy rendered vital, by the rectifying influence, by the simple faith of the common people of France, looking to guidance from a source out of and above themselves, and by the disposition of those above them, in the political and moral scale, to follow the lead of some great principle which they regard, sometimes

most irrationally, as of universal application, preparative for the reception of Divine truth from the Word through the living Church.

With the French, sensualism, literalism, and love of display, may be elevated and rendered expressive of interior truth through the influence of the German imagination and habit of introversion; their craving for the enjoyment of luxury, and the gratification of appetite, may be turned in a more healthy direction by the domestic and homely loves of the Germans; the prevailing disregard of the French for the only principle which can make the intimate love of man and woman innocent and "twice blessed," may be broken in upon, and the roaming indulgence of passion be turned to legitimate love by the purer relation which prevails among the Germans; the ignoring of home virtues, family pleasures, the rich gifts of virtuous love, and the true foundations of a happy community - may give place to enlightened and pure sentiment, by the contact of German domestic life and love of Fatherland, as the source of delightful association, and as the bond of harmony of political and fraternal unity, which renders a people invincible against foes from within and from without.

Thus may the German intellect vitalize and purify the affectional element of the French character, give being, with the former, to fresh forms of human feeling and thought, illustrating the doctrines of the New Church, which teach that love alone is wisdom alone; knowledge, or obedience, separate, cannot produce what is truly human and progressive, but only by their true union is the regeneration of man effected.

Swedenborg says that the sensual man cannot be regenerated, only as it is elevated out of itself into the natural degree of man's life. This is for the reason, apparently, that the sensual mind, where it governs the man, is so really and so intimately connected with the hells, that evils and falses rule in it to the degree of depriving man of freedom by his acting from it, as it were, instinctively, his will being

drowned and deprived of truth by the floods of spirits from below; but when it is brought on to the natural plane of the mind, into fresh air, the spiritual lungs can play, and the heart can beat, freedom is gained, and the desires can be purified by knowledges of truth, and these knowledges made living by good desires.

May it not, then, be one important end of the Divine Providence, in permitting the war we are considering, that the state of sensualism into which the French have sunk should, by their sufferings and collision with opposing elements, be so restrained, so vastated, as to bring them, as a first step in regeneration, into a natural state, in which they may be taught lessons conducive to the desire of a purer and more useful life, and to the final reception of good and truth to make them "free indeed"?

Considerations growing out of the fact incident to war that so many persons, and in large masses, enter the spiritual world in company, force themselves upon the mind of any one seeking to look at the events we have had under review, in the light of the doctrines of the New Jerusalem. By these doctrines we are taught that the progress of the human family to a state of regeneration, to a new life from the Lord that the growth of the Church upon earth, its advance to a state of integrity-depends upon the growth of the new heavens, now forming by the Lord from the Church upon earth; and also that these heavens, on account of the degeneracy of adult man at the present day, are largely reinforced from young children who leave this world. It is said that the deaths of children in Paris have been very much greater than usual of late, where they were always large in number; from these will the new heavens have increase. From the individuals of adult age, as they take, more or less, a just and orderly position - whether of good or evil, as they elect the evil being separated from the good, the falses dispersed with those who are in heart lovers of truth, and no object existing, no advantage to be gained by the constitution of the spiritual world — for those who

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