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exist already, can outward circumstances influence the soul to sin. And so long as man was "alone," that is, so long as love to God gave singleness of purpose to his whole being, both these possible sources of evil remained latent. But at length the time came when "it was not good for man to be alone." The intensity of his absorption in that supreme love for the Source of Life had successively diminished. The sense of selfhood grew stronger, until it was no longer pleasing to him to live only from the Lord, but he desired also to live from himself. We say "live from," because that from which, and not that in which man lives, determines the character of his whole nature.

It may be that the life of a human being in the world is an unceasing struggle to provide for the daily wants of daily life, with no time or power left to look beyond the narrow circle of his existence, to others, their wants, their cares and sorrows. Still, though life may be, in its outward form, à constant effort to provide for self, if the man thus circumstanced live from love to God and man, this, and not the toils in which he lives, gives quaiity to his whole nature. So the largest benevolence in action is corrupt at the core, if the gift comes from self and the world. Doubtless the steps which led to the destruction of that singleness of purpose which belonged to the Adamic race were slow and wide apart. Not at once would that bright nature lose its heavenward look, and grovel among the things of self and sense. Slowly is the fair earth submerged by the hungry sea,-slowly works the attrition and decay which carry at length the lofty summit to the land below. And doubtless, at first, by steps almost imperceptible did man go away from God. But the first blemish transmitted by inevitable law (as tendencies to goodness also are), increased from generation to generation; until, at length, the time came when the singleness of life and purpose which distinguished primeval man, gave place to that duality in which the love of self stood opposed to the love of God.

Then the tempter could be heard; and being heard, obeyed. Then the hissing serpent gained a willing ear from the love of self. To be "as gods, knowing good and evil," was pleasing to the pride of that love, which, lowest would yet be highest. "And the woman ate of the fruit of the tree." But when the heart is corrupted, the head cannot long maintain its clearness of vision. The will binds the intellect to its chariot wheels, and drags it through the mire of its own evil course. "And from the woman the man received the fruit, and ate." And when the heart and mind are both corrupt, the one from evil and the other from the errors which justify and confirm it, the whole man has fallen; and thus the Eden of the soul was lost, since the quality of its affections

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was such as to be opposed to God and heaven, and true order was subverted, since that which should serve had become supreme, the love of self in the will, and appearances derived from the senses in the understanding. Thorns and thistles began to spring where only good and pleasant trees had grown. The garden became a wilderness; but the hearts and minds of men transform the world into their own image. The world is changed when man is changed. And if to-day, proud oppression tramples down feeble humanity, if ruthless selfishness heeds not the woes that grow over all its course,—if man preys on man that so he may get gain or power by another's loss,-if nothing is sacred that bars the way to sinful lusts, these things are so because the wild and poisonous growths of a fallen, selfish nature have forced themselves outward on the world we live in. We wander, indeed, in the wilderness waste and howling which man has insanely made for himself. Still we are not left alone; for God's mercy is not less because man's ingratitude is great. The serpent's head is bruised, and another Eden stands; in the remote distance, indeed, but yet attainable. May we strive to reach it! And he best smooths the path to it for others who, by steady conflict with evil in himself, and humble effort to do the good that falleth in his way, opens his own soul to the goodness and the fragrance of its fruits and flowers. And life has no higher purpose than this, to re-establish that order and beauty of love, thought, and life in ourselves which were man's possession when all things were "very good."

G. P.

(End of No. II.)

FUTURE PUNISHMENT: ITS NATURE AND DURATION.

PART II.

Duration of Future Punishment.

ANOTHER important question remains to be considered, distinct from the former, though closely connected with it, namely, that of the duration of future punishment,-the question whether the wicked, after a period, longer or shorter, wi1l or can be delivered from their evil state, or whether they must continue in it unchangeably.

This is a question which has greatly interested men's minds in all ages, and various and conflicting opinions have been held in regard to it. In the bright light of the New Dispensation, this, like most other great theological questions, is beheld under a new aspect. In the preceding part of this Essay, it has been shown that the punishment of the wicked, after death, is not revengeful nor arbitrary; that it is not so properly suffering inflicted by way of retribution for the evils they have done in

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the world, as a consequence of the evils which they continue to do in the other life. It has been shown that the state of existence termed hell is not to be thought of as a dungeon into which bad men are cast, there to be tortured for their past sins; but that it is essentially a state of man's own mind,—a state in which a love of evil is the ruling principle, just as heaven is a state of mind in which the love of goodness is the ruling principle. The true question, then, is, not whether, according to the old idea, God will choose, by and by, to take a man out of this place of torture, and elevate him into a certain beautiful place called heaven (which idea throws the burden of responsibility, so to speak, on the Divine Being), but the true question is, whether a man's state of mind can, after death, be changed from the love of evil to the love of good.

The

It will thus be seen that the whole question resolves itself into an inquiry as to the laws and nature of the human mind. Now, it is a great fact, stated and explained by Swedenborg, that death fixes the form of the mind, so that it cannot be afterwards essentially changed. The reason is this. The mind is composed of two parts, a spiritual and a natural; the latter is the basis on which the former rests. natural mind is a kind of mould, as it were, in which the spiritual mind is formed, and by which, consequently, its state and condition are determined. Now, on leaving the natural world at death, that mould becomes fixed, its form is settled, and consequently the character of the interior mind that rests upon it becomes fixed and settled also. The reason why the natural mind cannot be changed after death, is obvious, -because it is no longer in the natural world, and therefore can no longer be added to, subtracted from, or in any way modified, since there is nothing which can act upon it. The natural mind is composed of natural thoughts and feelings, ideas and impressions received from and in the world of matter. When, then, the world of matter is left behind by death, no more such impressions can be received, and consequently that mind cannot any longer be affected. Man, indeed, takes it with him; but it remains quiescent, serving only as a basis for the spiritual mind, which alone is active after death. And that spiritual mind remains of such a nature as it had received in the mould of the natural mind while in the world. If the natural mind was a form of truth and goodness, then the spiritual has a character of truth and goodness for ever; if, on the contrary, the natural mind had become a form of falsity and evil, then the interior mind remains of a similar quality, and cannot be changed. In that case instruction cannot reform it, because the spiritual truths received, flowing down into the

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natural mind, find there no basis on which to rest,—that mind being in a form of opposition to truth,-and consequently such instruction is dissipated, and makes no permanent impression. Or, suppose even heavenly affections to be temporarily communicated to the spiritual mind, these, flowing down into the quiescent natural mind, and finding there no support for themselves, but only the forms of evil passions, presently grow cold and pass off, or are changed from good into evil. But let us hear our author's own language on this important subject:

"Man after death (says he) can no longer be reformed by instruction, as in the world, because the ultimate plane, which consists of natural knowledges and affections, is then quiescent, and cannot be opened, because it is not spiritual; and yet upon that plane the interiors of the mind rest, as a house on its foundation. Hence it is, that man remains to eternity such as his life had been in the world." *

This is more fully explained in another place, as follows:

"So long as man lives in the world, he is in the ultimate of order, and has a corporeal memory, which increases, and in which those things that belong to his interior memory must be enrooted. The greater the concordance and correspondence of goodness and truth in those memories and between them, the more life he has from the Lord, and the more he can be perfected in the other life; for the exterior or corporeal memory is that in which the interiors are rooted. Man, after death, has, indeed, all his exterior and corporeal memory, but that memory can no longer increase; and when it does not increase, a new concordance and correspondence cannot be formed. From this may be understood what is meant by the saying, 'As the tree falls, so it lies.' It is the concordance of the internal or spiritual man with the external or natural, which remains as it falls. Man has both the internal and the external in the other life, but the internal or spiritual is terminated in the external or natural principle as its ultimate. The internal or spiritual is perfected in the other life, but only so far as it has concordance with the external or natural: but this latter cannot be perfected in the other life, but remains such as it was acquired in the life of the body."+

"While man is in the life of the body, he can be reformed; for he is then in the possession of a corporeal memory, on the vessels or ideas of which interior ideas are based, so that a plane of ideas is prepared in which the order is terminated. But in the other life, this implanting or enrooting in the corporeal memory does not take place, for in that life it is not permitted to use the corporeal memory; wherefore spirits are not there reformed, but remain in the state in which they were in the world."‡

Our author then proceeds to describe the very forms themselves of the mind, the opposite forms in which the good and the evil mind respectively are:

"Of what quality (says he) these purely organic substances and forms are with the evil, and of what quality with the good, shall now be told. With the good Treatise on Heaven and Hell, n. 480. + Spiritual Diary, nn. 4645-6. S. D. 4037-8.

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they are spiraled forwards, but with the evil, backwards; and those which are spiraled forwards, are turned to the Lord, and receive influx from Him; but those which are spiraled backwards, are turned to hell, and receive influx thence. From these things it may appear what kind of form or what kind of organ an evil man is, and what kind of form or organ a good man is, namely, that they are turned contrariwise; and as a turning once induced cannot be twisted back again, it is manifest that such as it is when the man dies, such it remains to eternity."*

Having thus explained the principle, our author then proceeds to illustrate it by experiences from the spiritual world. And it is this, it may be remarked, which gives the teachings of Swedenborg their weight and authority, namely, that while other writers merely speculate on these subjects, and thus leave the mind in uncertainty, he, having first stated and explained a principle, then confirms its truth by solemn facts, stern realities, from the eternal world ::

"I can testify (he says) from much experience, that it is impossible to implant the life of heaven in those who, in the world, have led a life opposite to that of heaven. There were some who believed that they should easily receive Divine truths after death, when they heard them from the angels, and that they should believe them; and thence should live otherwise than they had lived, and thus should be received into heaven. This was tried with very many, yet only with such as were in that belief, to whom the trial was permitted in order that they might know that repentance is not given after death. Some of those with whom the trial was made, understood truths and seemed to receive them; but, as soon as they turned to the life of their love, they rejected them, yea, spoke against them. Some rejected them immediately, being unwilling to hear them. Some were desirous that the life of their evil love which they had contracted in the world, might be taken away from them, and that angelic life or the life of heaven might be infused in its place; but when the life of their love was taken away, they lay as dead and had no longer the use of their faculties. From these and other kinds of experience, the simple good were instructed that the nature of man's life cannot in any wise be changed after death; that evil life cannot in any degree be turned into good life, nor infernal into angelic, since every spirit is from head to foot, of such a quality as his love and thence his life is; and that to change this life into the opposite would be altogether to destroy the spirit. The angels declare that it would be easier to change a bird of night into a dove, or an owl into a bird of paradise, than an infernal spirit into an angel of heaven."+ These statements of experience are exceedingly instructive. They show us that it is from no arbitrary condemnation,-by no act of Divine vengeance at all, that the evil are excluded from heaven, but that it is altogether by their own act. They themselves reject heaven, because they hate and cannot bear the laws of heavenly order, which are Divine truths; and the reason they hate them is, because they love what is evil, and evil, in its very nature, is opposed to the laws of Divine orderTreatise on Divine Providence, n. 319.

+H.H, 527,