it, and the Word of Truth is ever upon us in the nurture and admonition of the Lord."

"Bring them up

Many things must be omitted here concerning the state of infants and children after death, and why they are removed in so great numbers so early from the natural world, both because we have not space, and because, in another chapter, something of this will be alluded to. Infants in heaven perform for man in the world some of the most important uses of regeneration. By their tender and celestial quality, they can approach him in his more infantile states, and do for him what no other spirits can. It is not in divine order for infants to die, but since by a general state of sin and disorder they do depart thus early, they perform a very necessary work for man indeed, an indispensable work. But it is for us, more practically, to recognize the wonderful Providence in the creation and care of these infant souls; and if we are at all impressed with such an amount of divine, interior truth, to let it have its proper influence in rebuking our indifference, and in leading us to coöperate more faithfully with the Lord of all souls, in bringing many children to heaven.

CHAPTER XXIII.

DIVINE PROVIDENCE IN MARRIAGES.

"They who enter into a state of marriage, cast a die of the greatest contingency, and of the greatest interest in the world, next to the last throw for eternity." -Jeremy Taylor.

"Those who are in love truly conjugial, in marriage regard what is eternal, because there is eternity in that love.". Swedenborg. "Thou shalt not commit adultery."- Exodus, 20: 14. "What God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.". - Matt.

19: 6.

We have now approached a subject to which we have been looking from the commencement of this work. The Marriage of Human Souls! and external relations in correspondence therewith. It is a theme most vitally practical, most fundamental, lying as it does at the very root of all good and evil, all happiness and misery. It regards not only the parties themselves, in their most sacred and intimate relations, but their offspring, and their eternity. Here, it must be confessed, is the germ of the soul first molded into its ultimate form, which, to a certain extent, it never recedes from. Say, if you will, that all deformities and evils may be eventually outgrown or eradicated; still, if there is any truth in eternal causation, what takes place here will never utterly cease, while life or being continues. The inexorable law which from the beginning eternally governs degrees, comes here into operation. Had nobler parties united in marriage, nobler beings would not only have been born into the world, but born into eternity. And hence, though it is not strictly true, as shown in the last chapter, that souls are first formed in the womb of the earthly 377

32*

mother, for they have come down through three heavens previously to that, yet it is true that they here receive their outer integuments and coverings, to which the interiors are in a degree limited and confined, and by which they are forever characterized, more or less, in the peculiarities of individual genius.

Certain hereditary evils too are thus permanently introduced into the human constitution. On this subject there is the profound psychology of Swedenborg, so foreign and even contrary to the prevailing science, which assures us that the soul is from the father, and the body from the mother. And it cannot, I think, be doubted, that the descent of the soul is through the father, as a graft or off-shoot of the divine spiritual principle in orderly succession, and that it is the office of the mother to clothe this germ with its suitable investment, from which the body is ultimately evolved. This is evinced from the fact that the disposition, affection, and peculiarity of the father, more than of the mother, is transmitted to the child, and appears conspicuously from generation to generation. Also that facial resemblances distinguish for so long a time whole families and even nations of men, from their first father. The body, which is from the mother, may resemble either parent, according as more external influences operate to mold it; but the soul, being more interior, is continually in the effort to break through; and if it does not so fully in the immediate offspring, it will reappear after a while, apparently overleaping three or four generations. On this account it is, that "there are two hereditary principles which are connate in man, one derived from his father, the other from his mother;" as it was with our Lord in the incarnation. "The infirm part or principle which man derives hereditarily from his mother, is somewhat corporeal, which is dispersed during regeneration; but what man derives from his father remains to eternity." A. C. 1414. By this it is to be understood, not that the evil necessarily remains active to eternity, but that still it remains, in a certain inherent

form of character, as may be seen in the chapter on memory. Or, not to be dogmatical, it remains far into eternity.

In earthly marriage, then, in two distinct senses, is the beginning somewhat of eternal character. Souls that are to be married for eternity, are here, by this marriage, formed and characterized. Shall human beings at all regard so fundamental a truth? or shall they rush on, indifferent to eternal things, peopling the world with discords and miseries, and eternity itself with imperfections and abortions? We may be assured that God will regard it, and that in a system so vast and comprehensive as his universe, He will, despite all the sin and folly of man, conduct an ever-watchful providence, to right as far as possible the gigantic wrongs of the world. Man will co-operate as fast as he is regenerated. He will grow rational and considerate of eternal things, in proportion as he grows spiritual. What tremendous responsibilities are men and parents now incurring, and (illustrative of their own state) what inconsistencies are they guilty of! They will frequently send over a whole country, and to other continents, to procure good seed corn, fruit grafts, and other seed, to improve and replenish their granaries and orchards, and take special pains to cull out the finest and fairest of the seed, while they will encourage the most pitiful and indiscriminate marriages of themselves and their children, thus producing a harvest of discord, extending indefinitely beyond the bounds of time. What they will do for a potato patch, or a field of corn, they will not do for their own eternal sons and daughters!

We have alluded to this earthly beginning of human souls, that the subject may rise before us in its own true proportions, and rest upon the foundations which God has designed for it. Here we are, planted in the natural, and adjoined to the material. We are bound to respect it. If we do not, then our professions may be what they will; it is plain to perceive that we do not regard them, and that we are not what we would seem to be.

But we ascend to what with most persons will be deemed more easily practical. Men do not in general so much regard what offspring they may produce, as their own happiness and improvement, in this act of marriage. And here it is that the highest principles of the Divine Nature, as they are humanized in men and women, come into play. We are happy or miserable, exalted or degraded, according as we embody more or less of the Divine Nature in our own humanity, and in relations of principles such as they sustain in the Divinity. Now, a divine marriage is the first thing discoverable in the Deity. It is the ineffable and perfect union of the Divine Love and Wisdom. These are equally related parts (so to speak) in the Divinity. They form the infinite Oneness of his nature. It is the primal marriage, the first cause of male and female human souls, and the origin of the bond between them. Human souls being but offshoots from the Deity, the woman, predominantly, is an embodiment of Divine Love, and man of the Divine Wisdom. We say predominantly, for both the woman and the man have love and wisdom, each as an individual. But as finite beings, being made to share each other's happiness to the very utmost, they are so constituted as greatly to predominate, the one in the affections, the other in the intellect; and still, each to possess a degree of what the other is distinguished for. Were it not for this, they could not associate as they now do, but would be merged into a more monotonous life, at the same time separated by a greater interval; whereas now they can unite, and still be distinct; increasing the happiness by union in separation, and separation in union.

But it must be distinctly remembered that these particles of human essence have come down from God. They are distinct emanations from his own Divine Substance, mysteriously but beautifully formed and endowed. Must there not, then, have been a perfect marriage in first principles? How is it possible that male and female souls could proceed from the Divine