lowing the "pained fiend" in his flight through chaos;
nothing of Dante's terrible imagery appalls us; we are led on from heaven
to heaven very much as Defoe leads us after his shipwrecked Crusoe. We
can scarcely credit the fact that we are not traversing our lower planet;
and the angels seem vastly like our common acquaintances. We seem to
recognize the "John Smiths," and "Mr. Browns," and "the old familiar
faces" of our mundane habitation. The evil principle in Swedenborg's
picture is, not the colossal and massive horror of the Inferno, nor that
stern wrestler with fate who darkens the canvas of Paradise Lost, but an
aggregation of poor, confused spirits, seeking rest and finding none save
in the unsavory atmosphere of the "falses." These small fry of devils
remind us only of certain unfortunate fellows whom we have known, who
seem incapable of living in good and wholesome society, and who are
manifestly given over to believe a lie. Thus it is that the very
"heavens" and "hells" of the Swedish mystic seem to be "of the earth,
earthy." He brings the spiritual world into close analogy with the
material one.

In this hurried paper I have neither space nor leisure to attempt an
analysis of the great doctrines which underlie the "revelations" of
Swedenborg. His remarkably suggestive books are becoming familiar to the
reading and reflecting portion of the community. They are not unworthy
of study; but, in the language of another, I would say, "Emulate
Swedenborg in his exemplary life, his learning, his virtues, his
independent thought, his desire for wisdom, his love of the good and
true; aim to be his equal, his superior, in these things; but call no man
your master."

THE BETTER LAND. (1844.)

"THE shapings of our heavens are the modifications of our constitution,"
said Charles Lamb, in his reply to Southey's attack upon him in the
Quarterly Review.

He who is infinite in love as well as wisdom has revealed to us the fact
of a future life, and the fearfully important relation in which the
present stands to it. The actual nature and conditions of that life He
has hidden from us,--no chart of the ocean of eternity is given us,--no
celestial guidebook or geography defines, localizes, and prepares us for
the wonders of the spiritual world. Hence imagination has a wide field
for its speculations, which, so long as they do not positively contradict
the revelation of the Scriptures, cannot be disproved.

We