world.

412. Infants are instructed especially by representatives adequate and
suitable to their genius; the great beauty and interior wisdom of which
can scarcely be credited in the world. I am permitted to adduce here two
representations, from which a judgement may be formed in regard to the
rest. On a certain time they represented the Lord ascending from the
sepulchre, and at the same time the unition of his human with the
divine. At first they presented the idea of a sepulchre, but not at the
same time the idea of the Lord, except so remotely, that it was
scarcely, and as it were at a distance, perceived that it was the Lord;
because in the idea of a sepulchre there is somewhat funereal, which
they hereby removed. Afterwards they cautiously admitted into the
sepulchre a sort of atmosphere, appearing nevertheless as a thin vapor,
by which they signified, and this with a suitable degree of remoteness,
spiritual life in baptism. They afterwards represented the Lord's
descent to those who were bound, and his ascent with them into heaven;
and in order to accommodate the representation to their infant minds,
they let down small cords that were scarcely discernible, exceedingly
soft and yielding, to aid the Lord in the ascent, being always
influenced by a holy fear lest any thing in the representation should
affect something that was not under heavenly influence: not to mention
other representations, whereby infants are introduced into the
knowledges of truth and the affections of good, as by games adapted to
their capacities. To these and similar things infants are led by the
Lord by means of innocence passing through the third heaven; and thus
spiritual things are insinuated into their affections, and thence into
their tender thoughts, so that they know no other than that they do and
think such things from themselves, by which their understanding
commences.

413. XXI. IT IS THERE PROVIDED BY THE LORD, THAT WITH THOSE INFANTS THE
INNOCENCE OF INFANCY BECOMES THE INNOCENCE OF WISDOM (AND THUS THEY
BECOME ANGELS). Many may conjecture that infants remain infants, and
become angels immediately after death: but it is intelligence and wisdom
that make an angel: therefore so long as infants are without
intelligence and wisdom, they are indeed associated with angels, yet are
not angels: but they then first become so when they are made intelligent
and wise. Infants therefore are led from the innocence of infancy to the
innocenc