heaven, and the duties which we have to perform, if we desire to become the inhabitants of heaven, or angels, it was divinely commanded that a lamb should be sacrificed morning and evening, and that this should be a continual sacrifice, never by any means to be neglected. Now, although we have not at present to offer lambs, yet we are required to offer a morning sacrifice, "and in the morning to direct our prayer unto the Lord." (Psalm v. 3) The lamb was the emblem of innocence, and the sacrifice of the lamb denoted worship from innocence, which is the essential principle of all goodness, from which alone the Lord can be worshipped. There are the sacrifices of contrite hearts and the sacrifices of thanksgiving and righteousness, and these are the sacrifices which we are now required to offer to the Lord. In family worship, we read a portion of the Word, and offer up the Lord's prayer. This should be done at least once a day, and the morning is a suitable time, before the duties of the day have commenced, or rather, let this be considered as the very first and all-important duty, which will shed a benign influence over every other duty, and affect with a heavenly serenity and sweetness the state of mind from which all duties should be performed. By the solemn reading of the Word the heavens are opened to the mind, because the Word is the medium of conjunction with the Lord, and of consociation with angels. There is no other medium. If we do not employ this means we have no just reason to conclude that the heavens can be opened to us. But if the Word is read and the heavens are thus opened, a blessing always descends from the Lord, and the mind of the family is brought more fully into conjunction with Him. This blessing is treasured up in the internal man, and it manifests its influence and power during the day by keeping the conscience, which is the operation of the internal man into the external, more alive and sensitive to what is evil and good, and thus we are disposed to shun evil when it approaches the thought, with a more vigorous resistance. I can assure you, my dear sister, that those who neglect family worship, which should always consist in reading a portion of the Word, as well as in prayer, neglect the greatest and most salutary duty of life, especially as it concerns the moral and religious training of their children. By this means also the children are gradually trained to the public worship of the Lord. For you must often have observed, when at church, how thoughtless and frivolous young people appear in the house of God. Their countenances plainly betray the thoughtless and frivolous states of their minds. I can soon tell, when I see young people at church, whether they are accustomed to family worship at home. Those who have been thus accustomed are, in general, far more serious,

and consequently in better states to perform the duties of public worship, than those who have not been thus initiated at home by their parents. I will only observe that you must have all your servants, as well as your children, at the family altar in the morning. Let no one in the household, if possible, be absent. The minds of all are thereby more closely associated in the sphere of goodness from the Lord by the power of His Word, which is not only the medium of conjoining us with Himself, but of consociating us more closely one with another in concord and love. Let a small portion of the Word be read,-a Psalm, a Parable, or a Miracle, or from the historical or prophetical parts; but I would prefer and recommend that the Word be read from the beginning to the end consecutively, omitting only such chapters as contain mere names, or such things as, even in the letter, children are not yet expected rightly to understand. After the reading, let each child tell something which he has heard read. Insist upon this as a duty not to be omitted, for this is an excellent plan of training and fixing the attention of children. After which, let one or two questions for self-examination be put, and then a pause for meditation, awakened by some appropriate remark of the parent. Conclude by a brief prayer and the Lord's Prayer, or by the Lord's Prayer only. This most useful and delightful exercise would not require more than twelve or fifteen minutes; and what parent is there, if he be in his right mind, who cannot make an arrangement for this most useful and most heavenly duty ?"

Here the lecture which the uncle gave to his sister, on the moral and religious training of her children, concluded; and as we highly approve of it, we sincerely recommend it to the attention of our readers, and especially to all parents.*

(To be continued.)

*The readers of this Periodical well know that there are already in the New Church several excellent works as helps to piety and family worship. We especially recommend Mr. Mason's "Help to Devotion, together with Questions for Self-examination," &c.; also "Manual of Piety," consisting of prayers composed, for the most part, by the late Rev. Mr. Hill, and highly approved of by the late Rev. J. Clowes; also "Spiritual Reflections for every day in the Year," by the late Rev. Thomas Goyder. These works, which are admirable helps to awaken in the mind sentiments and feelings of devotion, and which afford excellent means for pious and enlightened meditation, must on no account whatever be used in the place of the Word, for the Word has power to open heaven to the mind, and to consociate it with angels, and conjoin it with the Lord,—a power which other works, however excellent, have not. Let a portion of the Word be first read, as stated in the Uncle's Lecture, then these books can be employed as excellent helps and means of prayer, devotion, and meditation.

417

HOW MUCH A MEDIATE REVELATION WHICH IS EFFECTED BY THE WORD IS SUPERIOR TO AN IMMEDIATE REVELATION WHICH IS EFFECTED BY SPIRITS.

(Now first translated from Swedenborg.*)

It is believed [by some] that a man could be more illustrated, and that he could become wiser if he had immediate revelation by speech with spirits and angels; but the contrary is the fact. Illustration by the Word is effected by an interior way; but illustration by an immediate revelation by speaking with spirits is effected by an exterior way. The interior way is through the will into the understanding, but the exterior way is through the hearing into the understanding. A man is illustrated from the Lord through or by the Word, in proportion as his will is in good; whereas a man can be instructed, and, as it were, illustrated, by the hearing, although his will is in evil; and whatsoever enters into the understanding of a man whose will is in evil, is not within him, but without him; for it is only in his memory, and not in his life, and whatsoever is out of a man, and not in his life, is gradually dissipated, if not before, nevertheless after death; for the will which is in evil either ejects it, or suffocates it, or falsifies and profanes it. For the will constitutes the life of a man, and continually acts or operates into the understanding, and regards that which is from the memory in the understanding as something extraneous; whereas, the understanding does not act or operate into the will, but only teaches how the will should act. Wherefore if a man knew from heaven all things whatsoever the angels know, or if he knew all things which are in the Word, and also all things which are in the doctrines of the church, and all things which the Fathers have written, and which councils have taught, and yet whose will is in evil, nevertheless after death he is regarded as one who knows nothing, because he does not will what he knows; and because evil hates what is true, the man himself then rejects those things, and in their stead adopts falsities which are in accordance with

* We have received, through the post, from Germany, some sheets of the concluding portion of Swedenborg's Spiritual Diary, which has been lately sent from the Royal Academy of Sciences in Stockholm to Dr. Tafel, for publication. The manuscript, which is in Swedenborg's own handwriting, contains things of importance, which we shall, in successive numbers of the Magazine, present to our readers. For the present, we translate the above article, which we think of importance at the present period, when so much is said about clairvoyance and communication with spirits.-EDITOR.

the evils of his will. Moreover, no spirit and no angel has any permission to teach any man on this earth divine truths, but the Lord Himself teaches every man by the Word, and He teaches just in proportion as a man receives goodness from Him into the will, and he receives this goodness just in proportion as he shuns evils as sins against Him. Every man also is, as to his affections and his thoughts thence derived, in the society of spirits, in which he is, as it were, one with them. Wherefore the spirits who speak with a man, speak from his affections, and according to them; for a man cannot speak with any others, except the societies, in which he is, be first removed, which removal is not effected but by a reformation of his will, because every man is in society with spirits who are of the same religion as himself, wherefore the spirits who speak with him confirm all things whatsoever of his religion; thus enthusiastic spirits confirm all things which belong to the enthusiasm in which a man is; Quaker spirits confirm all things which belong to Quakerism; and Moravian spirits all things which belong to Moravianism; and so forth. Hence, by such open communication with spirits, there would arise such confirmations of false doctrines and principles as could never be extirpated. From which it is evident that mediate Revelation by the Word is better than an immediate revelation by spirits [or direct and open communication with spirits]. As to myself, it has not been permitted to take any thing from the mouth of any spirit, or of any angel, but from the Lord alone [whilst reading the Word].

THE SPIRITUAL BODY; ITS NATURE, LIFE, AND APPELLATIONS.

(Continued from page 396.)

THAT the soul or spiritual body is a form in exact correspondence with the external, material body; that it possesses a similar series of parts and features; and that it undergoes no change in these respects when it casts off the material envelope, and enters the eternal world,— unless to acquire infinite access of beauty or distortion, according to its governing principle of conduct, good or evil,-is involved in ghost-belief; a belief which, when rightly directed, has infinitely more truth in it than the dogmatic nonsense which describes the soul as a mere 'principle.' How often do we find men's actual, secret faith a thousand leagues ahead of their spoken creeds and Articles! The former comes of the truthtelling intuitions of the heart; the latter are the manufacture of the

*

less trustworthy head. Every one knows that there is such a thing as feeling a proposition to be true, though the understanding may be unable to master it. The feelings, it has been well remarked, are famous for 'hitting the nail on the head.' Unlike the conclusions of the intellect, which are shaped more or less by education and country; their voice is no solitary sound, but the utterance of essential and universal human nature. It is to our feeling rather than to our thinking, that all the sublimest arguments in the universe are primarily addressed. Where logic works out one truth, the heart has already realized twenty; because love, which is the heart's activity, is the profoundest and nimblest of philosophers. All things that live and are loveliest, are born of the heart. Hence the value of the fact that in all ages and nations there has existed an intuitional conviction that the spirit of the newly dead immediately enters the eternal world, carrying with it an unmistakeable corporeal personality; and that it can re-appear, under certain circumstances, to the survivors. It is obvious that the re-appearance of the dead requires, as a necessary condition, that there shall be a spiritual body, perfect in form and feature, as in the case of Moses and Elias. Unfortunately, the actual, solemn truth of the matter has had so much that is false and foolish heaped upon it, as to be in itself wellnigh smothered. Rightly understood, ghosts are no mere offspring of vulgar, ignorant, superstition and credulity. All human beings are at this very moment ghosts; but they do not so appear to you and me; nor do you and I, who are also ghosts, so appear to our neighbours and companions, because we are all similarly wrapped up in flesh and blood, and seen only as to our material coverings. Literally and truly, the ghost of a man is his soul or spiritual body; and in order that this may be seen, it must be looked at with adequate organs of sight, namely, the eyes of a spiritual body like itself. We have such eyes, every one of us; but during our time life, they are buried deep in flesh and blood, and thus it is only when specially opened by the Almighty, for purposes of his providence, that it is possible for a ghost or spiritual body to be beheld. Much as our material eyes enable us to see, they prevent our seeing inconceivably more. Such an opening of the spiritual sight took place at the Transfiguration, when the ghosts or spiritual bodies of Moses and Elias were seen. Such also takes place when the ghosts or spiritual bodies of the dead are now seen, and without it, it is impossible they can be viewed. Material eyes to material substances; spiritual eyes to spiritual ones. Ghosts, therefore, so far

* See on the quickness of woman, as resulting from this divine institution, the author's Sexuality of Nature.'