these could only be saved by the coming of the Lord, and thus were incapable of before being elevated into heaven, therefore in the meantime they were kept in the lower earth, in places there which in the Word are called pits, which earth, as was observed, is surrounded by the hells abounding with falses, by which at that time they were much infested; nevertheless they were still guarded by the Lord. But after the Lord came into the world, and made the humanity in Himself Divine, then He delivered those who were there in pits, and elevated them into heaven; and out of them He formed a spiritual heaven, which is the second heaven. This is meant by the descent of the Lord to those who are beneath, and by the deliverance of those who were bound" (A. C. 6854). It is evident, therefore, that the passages quoted from the Diary do not describe the state and the deliverance of any who were actually in hell, but of those who were in the middle state; but in that part of it which is so minutely described in the passages we have cited from the Arcana. In all these passages, it may be remarked, Zech. ix. 11 is quoted, and is said to describe the state of those in places of vastation in the middle state. It is to be remembered that the Diary consists of memoranda which the author made at the time for his own use, and, as might be expected, that some parts of them are so elliptical, and some so loosely expressed, that considerable skill is required to make them intelligible. Some of the entries besides were made soon after his introduction into the spiritual world, and relate to the state of the world of spirits, prior to the Last Judgment. So that even if we suppose he did not at first accurately discriminate between the lowest parts of the middle state and the hells by which they were surrounded, we should do no injury to his reputation as a divinely commissioned seer. Indeed, such a supposition rather strengthens than weakens his claim on our faith and confidence, for such a contingency is natural, and shows the absence of contrivance, which always aims at being consistent with itself. Be this as it may, it is obvious that what the author in this part of the Diary calls the lowest hell, from which the afflicted were delivered, was the lowest part of the world of spirits, where vastation is effected. For even supposing the place of the wicked to be here meant, why should deliverance be obtained from the lowest hell? And on what ground should we expect among the very worst of the wicked ones appeals to Christ, which bespeak penitence and a desire for His saving mercy? To contend for the verbal accuracy of his statement in support of the non-eternity of hell, would also be to claim too much; for on the same ground the noneternity of heaven might be maintained. In No. 228 of the Diary the author speaks of those furies who are still permitted to dwell in the ultimate heaven. In the title to No. 240, we are told "that there are also sirens (who are the worst of all spirits) in the ultimate heaven." And in No. 248 we read "that when the ultimate heaven is not directed by angels, the spirits who are there burn with anger and are malicious." Every attentive reader of the Writings must be aware that this ultimate heaven is what the author in his published works calls the imaginary heavens. For, "from the time of the Lord's being in the world, when He executed the Last Judgment in person, it was permitted that those who were in civil and moral good, though in no spiritual good, so that they had the appearance of being Christians, notwithstanding they were devils in internals, should continue longer than the rest in the world of spirits, which is in the midst between heaven and hell, and at length they were allowed to make there for themselves fixed habitations, and also by the abuse of correspondences and by means of phantasies to form as it were heavens to themselves, which they likewise did form in great abundance; but when these were multiplied to such a degree as to interrupt spiritual light and heat in their descent from the superior heavens to men upon earth, the Lord executed a last judgment, and dispersed those imaginary heavens, which was done in such a manner that the externals, by which they assumed the appearance of being Christians, were removed and taken away, and the internals, in which they were devils, were laid open, and then they appeared such as they were in themselves; and they were proved to be devils, and were cast into hell, every one according to the evils of his life" (A. R. 865). In entering at such length into this subject, we have done so with the desire of presenting the teaching of the Writings in unmistakeable clearness. We can sympathize, so far as natural feeling is concerned, with those whose yearning after universal happiness leads them to hope, and to cling to anything that appears to raise hope into belief, that even the inhabitants of hell may be ultimately delivered and raised into heaven. But truth must be allowed to correct natural sentiment. And if it be a truth, as we believe it to be, that "the life of man cannot be changed after death," so that "they who come into hell remain there to eternity, and they who come into heaven remain there to eternity" (A. C. 10,749), we must bow to the law of eternal order-a law as practical as it is absolute. A French correspondent, M. Moison, who has written to us on this subject, though in reference to another passage quoted in our last, mentions that those who oppose the permanent condition of the evil in the other life, seem to do so on the common assumption that they are placed and detained there as a place of punishment,-the truth being that the wicked cast themselves into hell, and remain there of their own choice. We cannot, however, agree with him when he asserts that the Writings, like the Word, so express themselves as to afford the means of confirming either view. The distinction which they enable us to draw between the genuine and apparent truths of the Word, and the knowledge which they give us of the constitution and laws of the world of mind, would avail us but little, if they left us to grope our way to an uncertain conclusion on so momentous a subject. One of the great blessings we enjoy under the New Dispensation is that of certain knowledge. That knowledge must indeed conflict with and overturn some of our cherished notions. But genuine truth brings its reasons, or rather its light, with it; and never fails, if we follow its teaching, to convince us of the wisdom and goodness of God in all His dealings with His creatures, both in the natural and in the spiritual world. A true knowledge of the subject will enable us to see the truth of the inspired declaration, even in reference to those who are in hell, "Unto Thee, O Lord, belongeth mercy, for Thou renderest to every man according to his works" (Ps. lxii. 12). The four following inquiries are from other correspondents : In "Heaven and Hell," n. 419, Swedenborg says: "It has been granted me to behold the extent of heaven which is inhabited, and also that which is not inhabited, and I saw that the extent of heaven not inhabited is so vast, that myriads of earths as thickly peopled as ours could not fill it to all eternity." Now, fully, as I do, holding the New Church doctrine that heaven is not a place but a state, and a state in which all the surroundings are dependent upon the states of the inhabitants, I confess to a difficulty in accordance with such views, as regards a wide expanse, which is very like space, without inhabitants, even if there were not another difficulty in comprehending how a finite vision could embrace the view of an infinite heaven, for such a heaven must be that "could not be filled to all eternity." That heaven never will have a limit I most fully believe, because it depends upon this infinity of the Lord Himself, and each succeeding angel will extend it; but I cannot understand its existence before inhabiting angels came, so to speak, to fill it with the correspondences of their inward states. The writer seems to be under the impression that heaven can have no actual extence, and perhaps no substantial existence, but what it derives from its inhabitants. We do not so understand the subject. Our author says that "the spiritual and natural worlds are alike, the only difference being that everything in the former is spiritual, and everything in the latter is natural, and being alike, each contains atmospheres, water, and land as its general elements, and from which the whole exists, with all its particulars, in infinite variety (D. T. W., 173). The heavenly inhabitants do not create, but modify that which is created-that is, they do not produce the substance, but modify the form and appearance of the world in which they live. Indeed, they themselves, as organized beings, are formed of the substances of the spiritual world, as men, as natural beings, are from the substances of the natural world. As the natural world existed before men, so the spiritual world existed before angels. Our seer could therefore obtain a view of that part of heaven which was not inhabited, as well as of that which was. So much does the author regard the immensity of heaven as having relation to space, or as having an actual extense, that in the chapter itself from which our correspondent quotes, he treats it as a matter of simple calculation. "The inhabitants of a million earths, each containing three hundred million of inhabitants, in 6000 years would not nearly fill the space occupied by this earth," which is a mere speck, having almost no ratio to the extent of the visible universe. That heaven is a place as well as a state appears also from the passage quoted in the previous article, in which the author speaks of wicked spirits having occupied that region of the spiritual world which was afterwards given to those who formed the spiritual or second heaven. But the writer finds "another difficulty in comprehending how a finite vision could embrace the view of an infinite heaven, for such a heaven must be which could not be filled to eternity." Infinite is not of course strictly predicable of that which is created. The image of infinite which heaven presents is its capacity of being filled and perfected to infinity. If the angelic heavens are only as immense as the astral heavens, how vast must they be! True, the more vast the more difficult to understand how a finite mind could embrace them. To conceive of the seer's capacity to behold them, we must understand of him what he says of the angels; they do not think from spaces but from states. The extense of the uninhabited heaven would therefore be seen by him and them as the appearance of the extent of unformed or unperfected states. There is also an aspect under which this subject may be seen, which does not so much carry the mind away into the idea of mere vacant space. "Heaven in the complex resembles one man, and corresponds to all and every thing in man, which correspondence cannot in any wise be filled to eternity." To perceive the capacity of the Grand Man for endless and indefinite increase would give a view of the immensity of heaven as being so great that it could not be filled to eternity; for the sight of the eye corresponds to the sight of the mind; so that what is seen by the mind as the capacity for endless increase and progress towards a perfection which can never be reached, is seen by the sense as an expanse that can never be filled. The boundlessness of the uninhabited heaven may be illustrated by the experience of the individual man, as well as by the state of the Grand Man. The human capacities are finite, and yet can never be filled. And the more they receive and contain the greater is their capacity for reception. The more a man knows the more he sees that what he does know is as nothing compared with what he does not know. The field of knowledge is illimitable, it can never be exhausted; and so is the human mind, which has been created for its reception. This is especially the case with the spiritual mind, which corresponds to heaven, and is itself a little heaven, an image of the greater. There are in the regenerate mind inhabited places-places tenanted by angelic principles as heaven is tenanted by angelic beings; but there are also uninhabited places, capable of receiving, but incapable of being filled, to all eternity. The human mind is not in space, and yet if its capacity were presented outwardly, it would be seen as an extense that could never be filled, so as to leave no room for more. In the A. C. 643, the author says that "gopher-wood is a wood abounding with sulphur, like the fir, and many others of the same kind; of the sulphur is predicated concupiscence, because it easily takes fire." Now there is no sulphur in gopher-wood or in fir. How is this to be reconciled? For the following answer to this question we are indebted to Professor Tafel : That gopher-wood had a relation to sulphur is proved from this fact, that a derivative of this word, viz. gapherith, is used in Scripture to denominate brimstone and sulphur, as in Gen. xix. 24 and Isa. xxx. 33, xxxiv. 9. The fact that gapherith means sulphur may either be explained so that the word gapher or gopher meant originally sulphur, in which case the proper translation of gopher-wood would be sulphur-wood. Or else it may be assumed that gapherith originally meant the pitch derived from gopher-wood, and as this would be a highly inflammable substance, its signification was extended so as to embrace sulphur or brimstone. Such is the explanation given by Fürst (Hebr. Lexic. vol. i. p. 271). If this assumption is correct, the definition of gapherith would be a highly inflammable substance such as pitch and sulphur. From Swedenborg's use of the word sulphur, it is evident that he did not use it specifically for brimstone, but used it generically for any highly inflammable substance; for he says in A. C. 643, “it is said of sulphur that it signifies concupiscences, because it easily catches fire." In saying, therefore, "that gopher-wood is a wood abounding in sulphur, just as the fir and other trees of the same kind," he means that the gopher-wood is a species of wood abounding with a highly inflammable substance, just as the fir and other trees of the same kind. That Swedenborg understood sulphur in this sense is proved also by his saying, in A. R. 452, that sulphur is that which flows forth in common from fire and smoke; for he says that the concupiscences represented by sulphur flow forth in common from the love of self and of the world and of the pride of intellect, represented by fire and smoke. Now it is a fact that sulphur is obtained in this manner by distillation from volcanoes, and pitch and tar, in a like manner, by distillation from resinous woods. Moreover, pitch has in a like manner reference to concupiscences as sulphur, as in A. C. 1861, where burning pitch is said to correspond to direful lusts or cupidities. When pitch and sulphur, however, are used together, the former signifies the falsities and the latter the evils of concupiscences. (See A. C. 1299.) In the "Arcana Coelestia" the author says, "that no one is ever punished for his evil actions if he has acted from an end truly good" (1936)," for the end intended qualifies every act" (4839). He certainly says that this cannot be comprehended by the rational mind; but to me it appears too paradoxical to be received at all. I cannot understand how any one influenced by the teachings of the Holy Word and the religion of Jesus Christ can be capable of doing an evil action for a good end, though I have that confidence in Swedenborg that there must be a meaning in what he says, but which is beyond my ability to perceive. Another passage in the "Arcana" gives a sufficient answer to this. He says, "There are two kinds of false principles-the false principle which is derived from evil, and the false principle which produces evil. The false principle derived from evil is all that a man thinks whilst he is in evil, namely all that favours evil; but the false principle which produces evil, is when a man conceives any principle grounded in his own particular religious tenets, and thence believes it to be good and holy, when yet in itself it is evil; as, for example, whosoever is led by his own particular tenets to believe that it is in the power of man to give salvation, and on that ground worships and adores such a man, he does evil grounded in the false principle. The same is true in respect to every other principle, grounded in religious tenets, which is false" (A. C. 2243). What is the origin of the ordained ministry in America? Mr. Hargrave was the first ordained minister in America. In the November number of the American Magazine we are informed that Mr. Hargrave was ordained by the laying on of the hands of the male members of his congregation, two in number. This was in the year 1798. Mr. Goyder's "Concise History of the New Church" contains the following extract from a letter of that first pastor: 'A few friends having assisted in building our house of worship, I was left alone in a very few months after it was opened, to preach our profound and heavenly doctrines, when I might be considered a child yet sucking at the breasts of the Lord's New Church; and for fourteen years afterwards did I preach these doctrines (according to the measure of the grace received) before another preacher was raised up in this country. Since then, however, I have had the unspeakable pleasure to ordain several other ministers, who again have ordained others, so that now about fourteen of these ordained ministers can be counted, and almost as many more licentiates. In Baltimore, indeed, there is yet no helper raised up to aid me in the ministry," &c. DARKNESS AND LIGHT. AN ALLEGORY. THE sun in radiance rose, as I beheld A race almost infinite as the sun's. Scenes glory-dim they left far in the past— The sun now sets. His light commingles, as it were, above— |