“When a child first begins gardening, he is so impatient to see the result of his work that he is almost sure to dig up his seeds in order to find if they are sprouting. The parent looks on, and perhaps smiles complacently at the child's folly, bidding him be patient for a few days till the little plants have time to show themselves. Yet it is quite probable that that very parent treats the seeds of thought he sows in the mind of the child, with an impatience just as foolish as that of the child over his flower seeds. He tells him a truth, and expects it to spring up and bear fruit as soon as it is sown. He looks to reap the harvest in the character of his child before the seed-time is over. He probes his child's heart with questions, to find out if the truth he sows is germinating, before the warmth of the Divine Love has had opportunity to expand the germ and quicken it into life. He will not wait for the gradual way in which the Divine Providence, through the ministry of circumstance, quickens the spiritual nature of the child; and then by the rain of His truth and the sunshine of His love causes the seeds sown, it may be years before, and lying till then darkly and inertly, to take root and grow, and bear fruit many-fold. "Seeds have many ways of springing. Some of them come up almost immediately, and in a few weeks are covered with bloom. Others come up, but remain of little worth during the first year of their life, blooming only the second. Others, again, require long terms of years to bring the time of the blossom and the fruit; and it is the plants of the greatest value that, for the most part, require the longest time to arrive at perfection. In one point they all agree. Before there is any growth upward into the light and air, there is always a growth downward, in darkness and secrecy. The delicate rootlets must first clasp the earth, and be prepared to draw nourishment from it, before the tender blade begins to grow. All this corresponds precisely with the growth of the principles of truth in the human mind; and all this should teach us to sow patiently, and wait the Lord's good time for the springing of the seed and the whitening of the harvest." It is said that self-knowledge is at once the most importantof all knowledge and the most difficult to acquire. With thoughtful attention, this little book will do much to make that knowledge both easy and pleasant. S. B. Poetry. We must not linger side by side, Dear Friend! Our roads lead far apart, Than were the erring human heart. To that might seem as worse than vain POETRY. It is not so! We part, nor meet, LOVE tempers to our several states. God's Love! which our poor, mutual love The low, green earth o'er which it bends. God's Love! which doth us wanderers seek,— What though the path displease our eye? For not alone on Calvary's heights, But day by day, and hour by hour, While solemn centuries onward roll, Men, serving self, the world, the flesh, And put Him to an open shame. Then let not, friend! our hearts repine, His loved He chastens; and though now Yet none beneath the rod who bow But own full soon how light His yoke. 283 How lighter far than loads they bear And life is short; and once we tread Yet life is long; and who may say That in its unscanned future lies No page, wherein who part to-day May read as one with joy-dimmed eyes?— May, backward, through rough paths made plain, The cross, the parting, and the pain Hail raptured, which they quail to face? E'en now, though here my pathway lie,- If not, still where It points we tread, And patience earn her promised meed. That hope which, (through experience wrought, Of all earth's fragile treasures,) fraught With quenchless joy, pervades the breast; That sure and certain hope (love's birth, To crown in heaven, our heart's desires. MARY C HUME 285 MISCELLANEOUS. INQUIRIES WITH ANSWERS. THE EXTERNAL MAN THE SEAT OF EVIL. We offer a few remarks on some points, with the view of removing the difficulties of a correspondent. They are not put exactly in the shape they have assumed in his mind, but in one which general utility requires. 1. We are taught in the Writings that all evil is of the external man only; yet we learn from the same source that man is wholly corrupt, both internally and externally; and that the internal must first be reformed, and afterwards the external.. The difficulty here arises from confounding two things that are distinct. The internal into which evil does not enter is the spiritual internal, or the internal man; but the internal which is corrupt, and from which evil is to be removed, is the natural internal, or the internal of the external man. The first of these points is explained in D. L. W. 270:-"The reason why evil and consequent falsity reside in the natural mind, is, because that mind is in its form or image a world, whereas the spiritual mind is in its form or image a heaven, and evil cannot find an abode in heaven, wherefore the latter mind is not opened from birth, but is only in the power of being opened. The natural mind also derives its form partly from substances of the natural world, but the spiritual mind only from substances of the spiritual world, which are preserved in their purity by the Lord, that man may have the power of being made a man; for he is born an animal, but is made a man." The second point is treated of in T.C.R. 593: "The quality of the internal natural man from birth shall be described. His will is prone to evils of every kind, and his thought, originating in the will, is alike prone to falsities of every kind: this is the internal man which is to be regenerated." Although evil never enters the spiritual mind, yet when his natural mind is corrupt, man is wholly corrupt; for the spiritual mind remains closed, and is as if it did not exist. 2. We are taught that creation proceeds from spiritual to natural, and yet we read that "that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural, and afterwards that which is spiritual." The first of these relates to physical, the second to spiritual creation, or the first to creation and the second to regeneration. In regard to creation, it "commenced from the supreme or inmost, because from the Divine, and proceeded to ultimates or extremes, and then first subsisted. The ultimate of creation is the natural world." (L. J. 9.) It is not, perhaps, philosophically correct to say that the spiritual world was created before the natural, if we have in our minds the idea of time in speaking of a work which may be said to have been effected before time existed, or with which time is co-existent. "The creation of the world, and of all things in it, cannot be said to have been effected from space to space, nor from time to time, and so progressively, but from eternity and infinity." (D. L. W. 156.) When, therefore, we speak of the spiritual world being created before the natural, we only mean to express the relation of prior and posterior, of cause and effect. In regeneration, however, the natural is before the spiritual, at least in appearance. 3. How can it be said that animals derive their shape from their nature, when the quality of the life is according to the form into which it flows? We must not confound the recipient form with the outward shape, although there is no doubt a relation between them. "Organical forms are not only those which appear before the eye, and which can be discovered by the microscope; but there are also forms still purer, but which cannot be discovered by any eye, naked or artificial. These forms are of an interior kind, as forms which are of the interior sight, and finally those which are of the intellect, which are inscrutable; but still they are formsthat is, substances." (A. C. 3570.) In regard to the external shape, it is a universal law that "the external is nothing but the internal so formed that it may act suitably in the world where it is." (A. C. 5337.) The last inquiry is not of sufficient importance for an answer. 286 "LET US MAKE MAN." To the Editor. MISCELLANEOUS. Rev. Sir,-On lately reading a tract entitled "The Divine Trinity made clear," my attention was arrested by the explanation given to the 26th verse of the 1st chapter of Genesis, with a view to elucidate the Divine Trinity. The words are these:-"Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." The words us and our are interpreted to be addressed to the angels. With all respect for the opinion of the writer of the tract, it to me does not appear to be the correct interpretation; for if Swedenborg's authority be taken, that "all angels were once men,” (H. H. 311.) how could angels be appealed to, to make man, before man was spiritually created? The same authority further informs us that—"The rise or morning of the most ancient church is described by man being made or created in the image of God; this is also what is meant by God's breathing into man's nostrils the soul of lives, because lives in the plural means love and wisdom, which two are essentially God." (Coronis, 26.) Is not the Divine love and wisdom, above referred to, that which is meant when God said "Let us make man?" It appears to me in harmony to understand it as the love and wisdom of God, united to form man in the image and likeness of that love and wisdom, which are the very essential principles of Jehovah Himself. The first state of man is described as evening, or a state of spiritual darkness; may we not therefore suppose that man was first created or born, as to his body and soul, into a condition of infantile ignorance in regard to the love and worship of the Lord? It appears then to me, that the man of this earth could not be addressd as angel before he was spiritually born or created. Then what, then who, are the angels that the tract inquestion states are addressed? Does the writer mean to say it was to angels from other and superior earths? That surely cannot hold good. In making the above remarks, my object is to know the truth of Scripture upon this subject-"The making of man," which is surely second only to the redemption of man. I beg to apologise for thus troubling you, my excuse being that I thought the subject worthy of notice, and remain, humbly yours, A SOJOURNER. We have been favoured with the following answer by the writer of the tract : Our correspondent has started a very interesting and important question, especially to novitiates in the heavenly doctrines. There can be no doubt, we presume, that the statement of the tract as to the true doctrine of the passage is correct, for it is that of Swedenborg on the verse itself, as given in A. C. 50, where he observes-" The angels, indeed, guide man; but herein they only minister to the Lord, who alone governeth him by angels and spirits; and whereas such government is effected by the ministry of angels, therefore it is here at first said in the plural-' Let us make man in our image;' but inasmuch as the Lord alone governeth and disposeth, in the following verse it is said in the singular-' God created man in his own image.'" But then comes the question of our correspondent - -"Whence came the angels, who were ministering spirits, to the first man?" The question, however, goes upon the assumption that the whole description of the first chapter refers to the regeneration of one first individual person. We should remember that it is the description of the spiritual states of the Most Ancient Church, up to the sixth, when everything was good. Judging from the course of other churches, it would be a considerable period before the people of the most ancient time (who were born, as our correspondent rightly conceives, in innocence and ignorance, represented by the darkness of evening, which preceded the light of the morning), could pass through the several states of regeneration up to the sixth. During this period, some, probably great numbers of people-for churches rise and sink slowly-would pass into the eternal world, and these would become angels, and minister to their brethren upon earth, and assist them to rise to higher states on earth than they had themselves attained. Hence, then, would come the angels, who were made ministers in the Lord's hands, to raise the members of the Most Ancient Church to that high state of spiritual intelligence and goodness called Man, in the image and likeness of the Lord. This explanation does not preclude the one offered by our correspondent |