visible forms, of the beautiful thoughts and lovely affections of the angels. Now, what is all ideal painting but the art of expressing sentiments and states of the mind in suitable forms and colours? God Himself, indeed, is the Great Artist, who sets forth the splendid representative pictures of the spiritual world; but from His Divine faculty He gifts some men, and doubtless some angels, also, with the talent of bringing forth similar works for the delight and instruction of those around them.

In concluding the subject of spiritual employments, I may adduce the following remarks, made, as described in the Relation above referred to, by one of the wise ancients to the novitiate spirits :

"Eternal rest," said he, "is not idleness, for idleness produces a languor, torpor, stupor, and drowsiness of mind, and thence of body; and these are death and not life, still less the eternal life in which the angels of heaven are. But eternal rest is a kind of rest which dispels these, and causes man to live; and this is something which elevates the mind, some employment and work by which the mind is excited, vivified, and delighted; and this is according to the use from which, in which, and to which, the mind operates. Thence it is that the whole heaven is regarded by the Lord as containing uses, and every angel is an angel according to use; the delight of use carries him on, as a favouring breeze does a ship, and causes him to be in eternal peace, and the rest of peace. This is what is meant by eternal rest from labours."--C. L., n. 207.

We now come, in the last place, to speak of the joys and delights of the spiritual world, which, as Swedenborg declares, exceed a thousandfold those of the natural world, and in the heavens are unspeakable. Here shall we learn what will be the grand result of a well-spent life, what will be the crowning reward of a course of faithful duty and firm obedience to the Divine commandments,- a life, the great object of which has been, not to amass wealth, or rise to worldly honours, but to get the heart purified, the evils of our present disordered state subdued, the passions overcome, the appetites mastered, and the whole man brought into a state of fitness for heaven.

Our author, in comparing the delights of this world with those which are enjoyed after death, makes the following remarks :

"All delights are of such a nature that they are grosser and more worthless the nearer they approach external things, and the happier the more they are elevated towards things internal; wherefore, in proportion as external things are thrown off or separated, the more pleasant and happy do delights become. Which appears from this, that the delight of man's pleasures, while he lives in the body, is vile and poor compared with his delight after the life of the body, when he comes into the world of spirits; so much so, indeed, that good spirits altogether despise the delights of the body, nor would they be willing to return to them, even if they could be gifted with all that the world affords. In like manner, the

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delight of those spirits becomes itself poor and of little worth when they are elevated by the Lord into the beaven of angelic spirits, for then they put off the former interior delights, and enter upon such as are still more interior. And so, also, the delight which angelic spirits enjoyed in their heaven, seems of but little account when they are raised by the Lord into the third heaven, or heaven of angels, where, since internal things are, as it were, living, and there is nought but mutual love, the felicity is ineffable.”—Arcana Cœlestia, n. 996.

In another beautiful passage Swedenborg presents a general view of heavenly felicity:

"Heavenly felicity," says he, "can by no means exist but from heavenly harmony, and from the agreement of the states of the angels, and from a state acquired by vastation or temptation. Such delights are imperceptible to man, and exceed the most sublime imagination. This state of felicity may be represented by a celestial paradise, affording absolute and inexpressible delight with indefinite variety; for the representations are so vivid that they immeasurably surpass the imagination and conception of man. This arises from mutual love, and from the agreement of all, so that no one wishes to be his own, but each desires to be the property of all, and this from inmost affection. But words are wanting to describe this delightful state."—Spiritual Diary, n. 301.

"What heaven is, and what heavenly joy is," continues our author, "scarcely any one at this day knows. Those who have thought about them have conceived so general and so gross an idea concerning them, that it can scarcely be called an idea. The reason why it is not known what heavenly joy is, is because those who have thought about it have judged of it from the external joys wbich belong to the natural man, and have not known what the internal or spiritual man is, nor consequently what its delight and blessedness are. If, therefore, it had been declared by those who are in spiritual or internal delight what heavenly joy is, it would not have been comprehended, for it would have fallen into an unknown idea, thus into no perception, and consequently would have been something which the natural man would have rejected. Yet every one may know that man, when he leaves the external or natural world, comes into the internal or spiritual; whence it may be known that heavenly delight is internal or spiritual, not external and natural; and being internal and spiritual, that it is more pure and exquisite, and affects the interiors of man, which belong to his soul or spirit.

"Heaven in itself is such that it is full of delights, so that, viewed in itself, it is nothing but what is blessed and delightful; for the Divine good, proceeding from the Lord's Divine love, constitutes heaven in general and in particular with every one there; and it is the very nature of the Divine love to will the salvation of all, and the happiness of all, from inmosts and fully. Hence, whether you say heaven, or heavenly joy, it is the same thing.

"A man who is in the love of self and of the world feels, so long as he lives in the body, a sensible delight in those loves, and in each of the pleasures derived from them; whereas the man who is in a state of love to God and of love toward the neighbour does not, while be lives in the body, feel the same sensible delight in those loves, and in the good affections thence derived; but only a certain blessedness, which is scarcely perceptible, because stored up in his interiors, and veiled over by the exteriors, which are connected with the body, and blunted by

the cares of the world. But after death, these states are entirely reversed. The delights of the love of self and of the world are then turned into what is painful and direful, which is meant by 'infernal fire;' and, at times, into filth and defilement, corresponding to their unclean pleasures. But, on the other hand, the obscure delight and almost imperceptible blessedness, pertaining to those who in the world had been in love to God and the neighbour, is then changed into the delight of heaven, which is in every way perceptible and sensible; for the blessedness which had been stored up in their interiors while they lived in the world, is then revealed and brought out into conscious sensation, because they are then in the spirit, and this was the delight of their spirit.

"Heavenly joy, such as it is in its essence, cannot be described, because it is in the inmosts of the life of the angels, and hence in every particular of their thoughts and affections, and from these in all their words and actions. It is as if the interiors were fully opened and unloosed to receive delight and blessedness, which communicates itself to every fibre, and thus is spread through the whole man; for what commences in the inmost principles, flows out into each of the particulars thence derived, and so propagates itself with continual increase towards the exteriors. Good spirits who are not as yet in that delight, because not yet elevated into heaven, when they perceive it from an angel, through the sphere of his love, are filled with such delight that they come, as it were, into a sweet swoon. This has sometimes happened to those who desired to know what heavenly joy is. "Almost all, as before said, who come into the other life are ignorant of the nature of heavenly blessedness and happiness, because they do not know what internal joy is, having no idea of it but such as they have derived from bodily and worldly joy and gladness; hence, what they are ignorant of they suppose to be nothing, when yet bodily and worldly joys are comparatively worthless. The well-disposed, therefore, in order that they may understand what heavenly joy is, are first taken to paradisiacal scenes, which exceed every idea of the imagination; then these suppose that they have come into heaven; but they are taught that this is not happiness truly heavenly; wherefore, it is given them to perceive interior states of joy, even to their inmost principles; they are then brought into a state of peace even to their inmost, when they confess that nothing of it is at all expressible nor conceivable ;—at last, they are brought into a state of innocence, even to their inmost sense. Thus it is given them to know what truly celestial and spiritual good is.

"In order that I might know," continues our author, "of what quality heavenly joy is, it has been often, and for a long time, granted me by the Lord to perceive the delights of those joys. Hence I was enabled to have a perception of them, though I can by no means describe them; something, however, shall be said, in order to convey some idea of them. It is a sense of innumerable joys and delights, presenting together a certain general affection, in which are the harmonies of numberless particular affections that do not come to the perception distinctly, but only obscurely, because the perception is a most general one; still it was given to perceive that there were in it innumerable things, indescribably arranged, and flowing in according to the order of heaven. It was perceived that the joy and delight came from the heart, diffusing itself most softly through all the interior fibres, and thence into the fibres compounded of them, with such an inmost sense of gratification that the fibre was, as it were, nothing but joy and

delight, and all the perceptions and sensations thence derived seemed, in like manner, alive with happiness. The joy of bodily pleasures, compared with those joys, is as a gross clod of earth, compared with a pure and most delicate aura.

"Those who are in heaven are ever advancing towards the spring of life; and the more thousands of years they live, the more happy and delightful is the spring to which they attain, and this to eternity, with continual increase according to their progress in love, charity, and faith. Of the female sex, those who have died old and worn-out with age, having lived in faith in the Lord, in charity towards their neighbour, and in happy conjugial love with a husband, come, after a succession of years, more and more into the flower of youth, and into a beauty which exceeds every idea of beauty ever beheld by the eyes. It is goodness and charity putting forth a likeness of itself, so that the charming and beautiful soul of charity beams forth from every part of the countenance, causing it thus to appear as the very form of charity. The form of charity, which is seen to the life in heaven, is such that the whole angel, especially the face, is as it were charity visible; and this form, when beheld, is ineffable beauty, affecting chastely the very inmost life of the mind. In a word, to grow old in heaven is to grow young;-those who have lived in love to the Lord, and in charity towards the neighbour, become such forms and beauties in the other life."-Heaven and Hell, nn. 395-414.

Such is the general view which Swedenborg presents of the nature of heavenly happiness. We see that it is a state of the soul in which a flood of joy is poured through the heart from the Great Fountain of joy, the Lord Himself,-commencing at the inmost principles of the mind, and diffusing itself through all the intermediates even to the outermost thoughts, feelings, and senses, till the whole man is one living form of joy. Into such delights do those come after death who, by a life of faith in the Lord, and obedience to His commandments, -a life of combat with the evils of their own hearts,- -a life of duty and of principle,—a life, it may be, of suffering and trial,-have become at length purified and regenerated, and so fitted for heaven. And when we consider that those joys are to endure through eternity, ever increasing, ever deepening, forever enriched with new thoughts, new affections, and consequent new delights, how can a thinking man do other than make the attainment of those heavenly states the one object of his ambition, his one great aim through life! This life of threescore years and ten, compared with that, is but as a mite to a mountain; and yet we see men giving their thoughts and affections to this little span of existence as if it were all! And why? Simply because this is present, and that seemingly distant. But the wise man remembers that the time will come when that which is now future will by-and-bye be present; and he prepares himself accordingly.

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THE PHENOMENA OF PLANT-LIFE.

No. III.-APRIL.

APRIL, if the season be moderately genial, is one of the most remarkable months of the English year. Winter, though it may return now and then in bitter nights, is no longer felt injuriously during the day; the east winds may blacken the poplar-flowers, and try our tempers; but spring, in defiance of all hindrances, pursues its way, steadily, resolutely, and with success. Nowhere is this more beautifully shown than in the vegetation of the seeds bequeathed to the soil in the previous autumn, and which after lying in the earth apparently dead for many months, now assert their intense vitality, and lift their green blades into the air. A seed is one of the most wonderful things in the world, containing not only the first principles of the plant, but holding the power to lie, as it were, asleep until the fitting period for the expansion of the germ, and meanwhile, withstanding influences of destruction such as totally dissolve objects that have no life in them. When we consider the exquisite minuteness of many seeds, this property becomes still more amazing. Peas, beans, and similar seeds, though by no means the largest, are yet of immense bulk compared with the seeds of the orchis; and these last, though so fine as to be scarcely visible except in a heap, are in their turn probably as much larger than those of the moss. There is reason to believe that in the atmosphere are constantly floating millions upon millions of delicate germs; that we take these germs into our bodies when we breathe; that they become embedded in every species and description of food; that they are associated, in a word, with every conceivable substance, and are as universal in their penetration as the light of the sun. The inexpressible minuteness of every particular seed alone renders this possible, and perhaps it is by the minuteness that the indestructibility is partly ensured. Seeds, accordingly, are not to be thought of merely in the idea of those we sow in the garden, with a view to wholesome vegetables and fragrant flowers. These form but a very minute portion of the entire quantity; and though their destiny may seem more dignified, it may be questioned whether in the economy of nature the little seeds which we never behold do not play a part quite as salutary and important. For in judging of nature and its processes, we err if we think those only to be grand and splendid which are promotive of benefit to ourselves. Since all things have been created for the glory of God, an equal splendour attaches to every phenomenon and process, however trifling in our eyes, that conduces in any way to the