in this world are prepared for heaven,
where they become angels. According to him, God has not created angels;
none exist who have not been men upon the earth. The earth is the
nursery-ground of heaven. The Angels are therefore not Angels as
such ('Angelic Wisdom,' 57), they are transformed through their close
conjunction with God; which conjunction God never refuses, because the
essence of God is not negative, but essentially active. The spiritual
angels pass through three natures of love, because man is only
regenerated through successive stages ('True Religion'). First, the
_love of self_: the supreme expression of this love is human genius,
whose works are worshipped. Next, _love of life_: this love produces
prophets,--great men whom the world accepts as guides and proclaims
to be divine. Lastly, _love of heaven_, and this creates the Spiritual
Angel. These angels are, so to speak, the flowers of humanity, which
culminates in them and works for that culmination. They must possess
either the love of heaven or the wisdom of heaven, but always Love
before Wisdom.

"Thus the transformation of the natural man is into Love. To reach this
first degree, his previous existences must have passed through Hope and
Charity, which prepare him for Faith and Prayer. The ideas acquired
by the exercise of these virtues are transmitted to each of the human
envelopes within which are hidden the metamorphoses of the _inner
being_; for nothing is separate, each existence is necessary to the
other existences. Hope cannot advance without Charity, nor Faith
without Prayer; they are the four fronts of a solid square. 'One virtue
missing,' he said, 'and the Spiritual Angel is like a broken pearl.'
Each of these existences is therefore a circle in which revolves the
celestial riches of the inner being. The perfection of the Spiritual
Angels comes from this mysterious progression in which nothing is lost
of the high qualities that are successfully acquired to attain each
glorious incarnation; for at each transformation they cast away
unconsciously the flesh and its errors. When the man lives in Love he
has shed all evil passions: Hope, Charity, Faith, and Prayer have, in
the words of Isaiah, purged the dross of his inner being, which can
never more be polluted by earthly affections. Hence the grand saying
of Christ quoted by Saint Matthew, 'Lay up for yourselves treasures
in Heaven where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt,' and those still
gr