striking changes; but there are traces throughout the whole of one and the same spirit which is working within. So with respect to the changes in the external objects about a society of angels, or about a particular angel. They are not arbitrary or violent, but are governed by fixed laws. The great outlines are preserved; the distinctive character is never lost, as it is brought forth to view in forms of new and ever increasing beauty and perfection. In the world of spirits, where the inhabitants have not yet come into their final state, external objects have less of permanence than in heaven and in hell. Swedenborg, speaking of the objects in the spiritual world, says that "they exist according to the states of the angels, and continue accordingly, so that they make one therewith, whence they are also varied, as the states are varied; but this is chiefly the case in the world of spirits, into which every man comes first after death, and not so in heaven and in hell; the reason why this takes place in the world of spirits is, because every man there undergoes changes of state, whereby he is prepared for heaven or for hell." Apoc. Ex. 1218.

It is also true that the correspondences which appear before the angels in the lower heavens and those in the world of spirits, are often produced for their use and instruction by the angels of the higher heavens. Still the law of the spiritual world is universal, that external things depend on the internal states of the inhabitants; and it is because the ruling love of the angels is established, and their faith is sure, that their hills are everlasting and their rocks immovable.

But the laws of the natural world are altogether different. External objects are here fixed, and do not change with the states of men as they do in the spiritual world. A person may cultivate and beautify the things about him, or he may neglect them; and in this sense they depend upon him. It is also true that the natural world depends on the spiritual, and the two can exist only as they are held in connection. The latter is the cause from which the former exists, and the former is the foundation on which the latter rests; and as all men, as to their souls, are in the spiritual world, they may, in common with angels and spirits, form the link in this chain of creation. But there are no animals or vegetables which are the external sensible manifestations of the thoughts and affections of a man, and which appear and disappear with these thoughts and affections, as in the spiritual world.

The great exponents of the natural world are space and time. All objects are extended, and the extense does not depend on the state of the beholder, but remains fixed and measurable. Days and nights, summer and winter, also succeed each other at stated periods of time; and

these periods are measured, not by our feelings, but by instruments for the purpose. Fixed spaces and stated times thus become essential to the manifestation of matter. But in the spiritual world, space and time, like external objects themselves, depend on the state of the angels. Things without them appear extended, altogether as in this world; but distant objects and persons become present simply by a change of affection. So there is progression and succession of events: but the time which elapses is long or short, according to their states. Their sun does not rise and set like ours, and divide the day from the night in an absolute way, independent of their affections. And should they attempt to measure the distance of objects, this distance, depending on higher causes, might be lengthened or shortened before the result was ascertained. But all the angels of the heavens are bound together as one man; and the affections and thoughts of this man succeed each other after the most perfect method and order. The consequence is, that their external relations as to space, having a sure foundation, and not depending on caprice or aught that is arbitrary, there is no appearance of a want of permanence or stability in regard to them. So there is a regular progression as to time, altogether similar to our days and weeks. Some are not employed in their uses, while others are asleep or engaged in recreation. They could not thus be helpful to each other. But they are all successively engaged in their employments, their recreations, their rest, or their worship, because they are all governed by one heart and one soul. Space and time are not masters, but servants. They do not think from them, but these flow from their affections and thoughts. Their wills and understandings cannot be chained or governed by outward things.

The natural mind must first be opened and formed by such things as are in the natural world, and into its image. Every man is born altogether sensual, insomuch that even the five senses of the body are to be opened by use. All knowledge, and all the developments of the human mind, have their origin in the senses. The infant is at first a purely sensual being; or perhaps more properly, he must first learn to use his senses, and thereby lay the foundation of all his future progress. He neither sees nor hears, according to our understanding of the meaning of those words. We seldom reflect how large a part of the operation of seeing is an intellectual, and even a rational act. We glance at an object, and have at once a distinct idea of its substance, its form, and its use. But in doing this, the mind avails itself, instantly and intuitively, of a fund of knowledge which it has been many years in acquiring. Not so with the infant. By slow degrees he learns to perceive the quality

and form of the objects of the senses, and to fix their distance; and these objects, by little and little, become arranged and classified in his mind. We may see why the memory can never extend back to the beginning of life, since there were then no thoughts or ideas to be remembered.

When we close our eyes, our minds are still filled with images, or visual appearances, which are almost as distinct and vivid as are the objects which are actually witnessed by the senses. But when the eyes

are closed in the earliest period of infancy, there are no such images. These visual appearances have been gradually acquired and stored up in the memory, by the use of the senses; and, as they form the basis of all the higher operations of the mind, so they mix with and aid almost indefinitely the operations of the senses themselves. We see, for example, some familiar object. The eye recognizes it at a glance, for it is at once referred to its prototype among the patterns or images in the mind; or, if it be something new, it is referred to that class of objects to which it belongs. Thus, suppose that we witness a new species of tree. We had before the general idea or image of a tree, and all we have to learn is, what there is peculiar in this particular case. How totally different must be the process where the child is learning to see! I have spoken of these visual appearances as being acquired by the use of the senses; for even those knowledges which enter by the ear fall into the same appearances.

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The sensual images which are first acquired, are, as it were, the raw material, from which, by means of an influx from within, all the higher operations of the mind are sublimated and extracted. Swedenborg says, that the imagination is the interior of the sensual mind. This power is among those which are developed the earliest; and is childhood and youth, than in the later periods of life. the region of pictures, in the plane of the imagination; as in the spiritual world, they are all in the province of the eyes, where the images of external objects are painted in forms of living light. Within and above actual vision, is imaginative thought, or that thought which exists in the forms or images of the objects without us. The mind gradually becomes stored with an almost infinite variety of such images; and these images are, in later periods of life, varied and modified indefinitely by its higher powers. We are always looking, with more or less distinctness, at some picture. We carry about with us a living panorama of the natural world; and the warmth of the heart and the light of the intellect are for ever giving it new forms and new hues. There is some resemblance between this panorama, and the external objects which appear about angels and spirits. We know that these appearances depend on the

affections and thoughts of the angels, and change with them. In like manner the picture which is presented to our minds, is always assuming new forms, corresponding to the states of the inner man.

The interior of the sensual mind, which constitutes the imagination, would seem to be not far removed from the plane of the internal or spiritual senses. Swedenborg says, that the interior sensual corresponds to the heaven of spirits, by which is meant the first heaven; and that this heaven answers to this principle in man.-A. C. 978. And it would seem that our affections and thoughts become, as it were, visibly represented in the interior sensual, or the imagination, as the affections and thoughts of the angels of the higher heavens appear in corresponding objects before the senses of those of the lowest. One great use—the great use of the imagination, to which all others are subservient-seems to me to be, to receive a transcript of the appearances and of the laws of the spiritual world, which are essential to an understanding of the correspondence of external things with internal, and of the spiritual sense of the Sacred Scripture. The spiritual senses of men cannot be safely opened at the present day. The great purpose for which this was permitted to Swedenborg, was that others might distinctly imagine what he actually saw and heard.

I have been led to think that insects correspond to and represent imaginative thought. "In the spiritual world," says Swedenborg, "there appear flying insects of various kinds, but they are appearances from the ideas of the thoughts of spirits."-Apoc. Ex. 410. "Winged animals signify truths or falses; hence winged insects signify like things, but in the extremes of man."-A. C. As man prepares the richest clothing, fit for the garment of a prince, out of a thread of the finest texture spun by an insect, which insect lived on the leaves of a tree that drew its nourishment from the earth and the atmosphere; so the purest affections and the highest perceptions of truth, by means of the imagination and the impressions received through the senses, derive from the outer world their appropriate forms of beauty. And as the bee passes from flower to flower, and extracts their hidden nectar, which she brings back and stores up for the use and service of mankind, so the imagination penetrates into the secret beauties of nature, and returns laden with its purest elements, which afford nourishment and delight to the spiritual man. And the sensual mind performs this function by a sort of instinct of its own, as the organs of the body perform their several functions. As the eye and the ear are organs precisely adapted and formed to receive what the external world is precisely formed to communicate, so the sensual mind is adapted to take these impressions from the senses

themselves, and sublimate them and make them serviceable to the higher powers of the soul.

(To be concluded in our next.)

EVERY-DAY DUTIES.

WE frequently hear men complain of their lot in life as obscure, and as offering no opportunity for extensive usefulness; and sighing for wealth, or eminent position, in order that they might devote the desired blessing to the cause of their fellow men; neglecting, at the same time, those opportunities of usefulness which come within the sphere of their present influence. They trade not with their "one talent," but eagerly desire "ten." Were ten talents entrusted to them it is greatly to be feared that they, as was the case with the one, would be buried in the earth.

These persons complain of the tedious common-place lives they must lead, and suppose themselves out of their proper sphere, and pass their time in vain wishes and hopes of future opportunity, when in reality they are accumulating a vast responsibility for opportunities continually passed by unimproved.

But he who is in earnest in the work of regeneration finds in every occurrence of life a stepping stone in his career. If, for a time, anxiety and care be his portion, and occurrences of a painful nature lie in his path - if difficulties confront and threaten to overwhelm him, he assumes the weapons fit for his spiritual warfare, and daily and hourly, with humble but unshaken trust in the Great Captain of his Salvation, he fights his way through the disputed ground. And after each toilsome encounter with the enemies of his soul, when ready to sink and lose the fruits of his victory, consolation and hope are instilled into his troubled soul—the angels come and minister unto him.

If, for a time, his journey lies through more even ground, and events pleasing and gratifying, succeed each other, he does not lay down his arms,―he remains on his guard. It is hard to say which to him is most dangerous, war or peace,—that is, the deceitful peace which this world can give. And, as before he has been able to draw strength from apparent causes of weakness good out of what seemed to be evil- so now he remembers that apparent strength may be without foundation; in sweet things the poison may lurk, and that which to the eye is pleasant, may

turn to ashes in the mouth.

All the events of life are indeed dead and powerless in themselves. They are to each of us individually what we make them. To the good