When the truth of these words is not realized to our experience, may not the reason be, that we are impatiently seeking an immediate escape from the tempest, instead of a patient endurance of it until it be overpast? "Ye ask, and have not, because ye ask amiss." Try unreserved surrender to the Divine Love.

DV.

The individual mother in the church, is to her child what the church is to her children. If the church feed only with falses, the mother born in her, and who obtains not elsewhere some better food, cannot train up her child in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. And yet the effectual preparation of the child (when become a man) for eternal life, depends mainly on the mother's previous training. Certainly it so depends no less than the preparation of her children for eternal life depends upon the church. The faithfulness, or faithlessness, of the church, will ever be found running parallel with the faithfulness or faithlessness of the individual mother. Well, then, may a mother, when mentioned in the Word, represent the church.

DVI.

To preach the Christianity of apparent truths (called orthodoxy) powerfully, all the exterior talents of rhetoric and literature must be brought into full play; but to preach with due effect the Christianity of genuine spiritual truths, the same powers must be placed under severe restraint. The true wisdom of God disdains to seek acceptance through the meretricious intervention of the wisdom of man, and therefore recedes from such attempted degradation. (See 1 Cor. i. ii.) This accounts for the simplicity of the previously elegant Swedenborg, as exhibited in his later or theological works.

DVII.

The more intelligent readers of purely didactic compositions, are habituated to crack the shell of words, and enjoy the kernel of ideas contained within. But others, for want of a chastened taste, or the needful energy, do not break the shell, but cast it away, taking for granted that it is empty. These, having perceived only the meaning of the separate words, do not realize the meaning of the sentences, much less the gist or purpose of them. So children, in learning to read, if taught by means of unamusing or to them uninteresting books, are content with taking in the meaning of the separate words at the most; and how large a proportion of matured readers, who read for excitement or for amusement, prove to be of this childish class of readers, whenever purely didactic compositions are put into their hands!

(To be continued.)

SYMBOLS AND CORRESPONDENCES IN NATURE, AND THEIR PERCEPTION BY THE HUMAN MIND.

(Concluded from page 337.)

Ir may be objected that this mode of teaching spiritual truths by symbols was so easily capable of being misunderstood, and perverted to bad purposes, that it was an unfit medium for the conveyance of those truths. But if we will carefully examine into the matter, we shall find that this symbolic mode of teaching was not only the one best adapted for the conveyance of these spiritual truths, but that it was in reality the only one possible, from the nature of man himself. In observing our mental operations, one of the first things we discover is, that we have no ideas or images in our minds but what are derived from something external, and that abstract notions cannot be expressed in any way without the use of some of these sensational images or ideas. It is not possible that such ideas or images can exist but as derived from impressions made upon the senses. We may indeed conceive of things which, in their compound state, we have not seen, as, for instance, of a winged horse, or of the extinct animal, the ichthyosaurus, of which the fossilized bones are found in the earth; but these are only different combinations of parts we have often seen. We can have no conception of any thing but what has been derived, in whole or in separate parts, from the natural world around us.* A certain object, as we have already seen, with the first men, represented a certain quality or a certain condition of mind, and thus, the primary language had a double signification;-first, the literal, external meaning, and secondly, the internal sense of which the external thing named was the symbol. Thus all teaching was allegorical. Where the language was perfect, as we suppose that given by God to the first men was, it was impossible to

* Every word of abstract meaning, as we have just seen, has been originally one belonging to the external world; and at first, therefore, the only mode of inculcating any abstract truths was by figurative teaching. Our present modes of conveying abstract truths are only more or less figurative, and at best highly imperfect. It appears clear that any mode of communicating such things will be more perfect the more nearly it approaches the way in which the mind itself first perceives them. If the mind must have images, and form abstractions from such images, the images thus representing the abstraction, it follows that language, in order perfectly to represent thought, should follow the same course, and thus a name of an external thing will stand for an abstract quality or spiritual thing, or a verb derived from nature's operations will stand for a mental operation. Primarily, it seems probable this was the case.

mistake the meaning of any teaching thus conveyed. There was a definite, clear, internal sense conveyed along with each thing of the outward world spoken of. This internal sense was not then, as now, guessed at by men; but the language given by God, by connecting the outward thing and the inward sense together, shewed precisely the internal thing by the external. What this original language was is now unknown, but it is probable that several of the more ancient languages, the Hebrew and the Sanscrit among the rest, are closely allied to it. In the Scriptural account, whatever be our opinions of the narrative of the building of the tower, and the circumstances connected with it, we are clearly given to understand that the confusion of tongues was a punishment and a curse. When this confusion took place, probably each of the tongues into which the one tongue was divided would retain some elements of the primitive language, the rest taking other elements, and combining them differently. The great loss, however, never to be fully restored by human ingenuity, would be the loss of the grand chain of connection between the internal and the external sense. This was the key which opened all mysteries. For it may easily be seen that with such a connection, the material and external thing constantly and unerringly corresponding with and symbolizing the unseen and spiritual thing, the invisible things of God and of man would be clearly revealed; every natural operation, every action of man would indicate the moving spirit within, and the whole universe would become lucid and transparent to the eyes of the beholder. But the key, through the fall of man, was taken away, and man was left to grope almost in darkness, thankful if now and then a scintillation of the ancient light was vouchsafed him through the medium of some poet or prophet.

To obtain a clearer notion of the value of such a symbolic language, we may look for a moment to some of those writers who have approached, as nearly as our modern, heterogeneously-constructed languages would allow, to the style of instruction and communication for which we suppose the primitive language to have been peculiarly calculated. Take, for instance, Bunyan, in his Pilgrim's Progress, or his Holy War. Though teaching religious truths throughout, and of a practical nature, too, these books are among the most fascinating in our language. A child or an old man may find in their pages abundance both of pleasure and instruction. No other books written with such intention and conveying such truths, are so read. And yet, from the want of connexion between external and internal meanings in our language, the real allegory is extremely bare and imperfect. It is but here and there that the writer has been able to connect the thread of external narrative with

the thread of spiritual meaning;-the rest is merely a necessary filling up, sometimes of the simple narrative, without any spiritual meaning, and oftener with long conversations and teachings, much like sermons, to convey which, the writer was not able to find any suitable external objects or circumstances. In other places, again, certain things and actions which he intends to be understood as symbolic, have to be explained by an interpreter. But if John Bunyan had written in such a language as we have been supposing, there would have been none of these painful haltings, long comments, and disjointed circumstances in his narrative. Every action of the pilgrims, every circumstance about them, every word of the narrative, would have told its tale in both senses perfectly, and the result would have been a thousand-fold more beautiful and replete with meaning.

It may be said that there is no proof that the primitive language was of such a character as we have been indicating. In reply we may say, that if we admit there is no positive, direct proof of it, yet taking all the circumstances known, it appears morally certain that it was of this nature. In the first place, such a language would be clearly most in consonance with the structure of the human mind itself, which constantly seeks to express its feelings by using external signs which will best indicate the feelings. In fact, to look at the matter â priori, it is an absolute necessity in a language. Consider the problem :-given, a number of men, capable of speech, without any language. What must be the primary thing considered in the construction of a language for them? Words may easily be affixed to outward and visible things and operations, but how shall the inward thoughts (by far the most important things to be provided for), — how shall these mental operations be communicated? There is no possibility of making words for these things, such as shall be understood by any one beside the maker, unless there is some common footing in the external world. By the spiritual perception which we have spoken of in the former part of this essay, this footing is gained. We perceive intuitively a spiritual meaning in each outward thing, and thus the outer corresponds with the inner world. But if this spiritual perception becomes clouded and confused, the result is a confusion of meaning in the use of words. And probably this was the case in the confusion of tongues in the building of Babel. In the account of this affair given in Genesis, there appears to be much more of meaning than we are able readily to attach to the circumstance. The people, it is said, were all " of one lip, and words of union." This "words of union" indicates much. But God confounded their language, and thus caused them to separate. If the language was what we have

supposed, their clearness of perception would keep them united in language, in religious belief, and in opinions on a vast number of subjects on which we now differ. But if these spiritual perceptions were confused, there would be endless diversity on all these subjects in a moment. Each would be alarmed and astonished beyond measure at the novel, heretical, and monstrous notions of his neighbour. Differences of opinion on these subjects were before impossible; and now, each being unconscious of the real source of his errors, and of his own misconceptions of things which before seemed so perfectly simple and natural that a mistake was not dreamt of, would almost unavoidably conclude that those who differed from him were insane. This accounts for their separating immediately into different bodies, and spreading themselves over the whole face of the earth. The farther each division could get apart from the others, the safer would they be from such awful heresies and fanaticism as the rest had fallen into.

Another circumstance which highly favours the notion that such a language was the primitive one, is, that the higher we reach into antiquity, the more the structure of language approaches to the type we have supposed. Universally, the symbolic element, or that which is usually termed the poetic, is far more prevalent and influential in the oldest than in the modern languages. This needs no proof, as it is generally acknowledged. But it appears also pretty evident that the hieroglyphic mode of writing of ancient Egypt was merely the using of natural symbols for the communication of abstract doctrines, and truths which were not meant for the common ear. The priestly caste of Egypt kept the knowledge of this hieroglyphic writing to itself, and there was another mode of writing by alphabetic characters in use among the people generally. The Chinese mode of writing is somewhat of the nature of the Egyptian hieroglyphic writing; the characters are all symbolic, not of the phonetic kind, — so that their written language is quite a different one from their spoken language, and the one has to be translated into the other. There are indications even that alphabetic characters have been symbols of the nature of hieroglyphics. Each character of the Hebrew alphabet is said to signify some object, asaleph, an ox, or a leader; beth, a house; gimel, a camel, &c. All these, with many other circumstances of ancient history, in fact, everything we know of it, confirms the notion that anciently the symbolic mode of expression and communication was far better understood than amongst us. It is more than probable that this is the reason of the universal mingling of facts and fables which so confuse historians when they get beyond the period of authentic history. The fabulous history was authentic enough to those who