Personal Experience of a Physician Part 2

I had many things during childhood and early youth to be thankful for. My father and grandfather before him were accustomed to gather the family, night and morning, and read, or have some member of the family read, a chapter in the Bible, and then prayer was offered. Now, when this is done regularly, and especially if the Bible is read, in course, with here and there a few kindly remarks by the father or mother, no one can tell the good impression which is made on the children; they learn to reverence the Bible, and, what is of exceeding great moment, they hear it read through and through several times before they reach manhood, and they become comparatively familiar with the good and living precepts therein contained.

The Sabbath-school, once a week for an hour or two, is all very well; but, in my estimation, it is very little, compared with daily family wors.h.i.+p and acknowledging the Lord, and asking a blessing. O, that all Christian men and women could be aroused to the importance of such religious observances?

Some years ago, I went with my wife and a friend for a summer outing to the Catskill Mountains, and spent a few days at the Mountain House. There were a large number of guests there, of the various religious denominations.

Those religiously inclined had established the custom of meeting every morning around a table, in a large room, when a chapter from the Bible was read, followed by singing and prayer. There have been few, if any, incidents of my whole life that I have more frequently thought of, or with greater pleasure and delight, than of those large, non-sectarian, and, as it were, family gatherings and simple services.

My mother died, as stated in the first part of this work, when I was ten years old. After remaining a widower for three years, during which period my grandparents, who lived with us, died and my only sister was married, my father married a widow, the mother of several children, a good Christian woman and a member of the Baptist Church.

I have always been thankful that I had a step-mother. No own mother could have been more kind, or have exercised a stronger influence for good over a son than she strove to exercise over me. She entered our home when I was thirteen years of age, when I needed a mother's influence and care perhaps as much as at any period of my life after I had ceased to draw my nourishment from my mother's b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Tears come into my eyes as I recall the pleasant, useful, and happy evenings and Sunday afternoons which I spent with her, when we happened to be alone in the house, reading and conversing about the interesting stories in the Bible and other religious books and papers that she thought would interest me. She may have had faults, yet I was about to say I do not remember one; but, unfortunately, she had one--she was a smoker of tobacco. Years before she had been troubled with "water brash," and a physician who, without much question, was himself a smoker, advised her to smoke; so she commenced smoking. He did not tell her to stop smoking as soon as she felt relief, as any intelligent physician should have done, if he was so unwise as to make such a prescription; but it is a question whether she ever experienced any permanent relief; for she was a bright, intelligent woman, and would have been likely to stop smoking of her own accord if she had been cured. In my estimation the physician who made the prescription was much more to be blamed than she was for the habit which followed. But seventy years ago very little was known as to the fearful slavery and diseases and mortality which result from the use of tobacco, compared with what is known to-day.

The sin of ignorance cannot be pleaded in extenuation of such habits to-day, as it could then.

As to intoxicating drinks, I remember hearing my grandfather, when he was over eighty years old, after taking a drink of cider-brandy, exclaim: "A good gift of G.o.d, if taken with faith and prayer."

Fortunately, or providentially, I would say, the temperance reformation commenced soon after, and my father and other prominent members and the clergymen of the Baptist and Congregational churches in our town took an active part in the new movement. My father signed the pledge not to drink intoxicating drinks, and I followed his example; and I thank the Lord that I did so, for it gave me the strength and courage to say, "No, I thank you, I never drink," when invited and tempted to drink intoxicating drinks. No intoxicating drinks have been publicly sold in that town (Ashfield, Ma.s.s.) for many years. During a recent visit there I found that, within the past three years, there have been 61 deaths in the town, of whom 15 only were under 50 years of age, whereas 20 were over 80 years, of whom 4 were over 90 years of age. What do you think of that, Christian brother?

I remember very well the first ideas I had of G.o.d when a boy, which I derived from the preaching and praying of ministers. It was that G.o.d and our Lord Jesus Christ were two distinct Beings. We had for a time a venerable gray-headed old man who preached one Sabbath, and a young man who preached the next. I thought the old man represented G.o.d the Father and the young man represented Jesus Christ.

When I arrived at manhood and came in contact with men of different religious views, and read some of their writings, the doctrine of the Trinity became more and more a mystery to me. At one time I was slightly inclined to Unitarianism, but I could not reconcile their doctrines with the Bible. Yet the Trinitarians seemed to teach distinctly that there are either two G.o.ds, possessing different attributes, or that Jesus Christ was not G.o.d. It does not make any difference what we say with our lips; the question is, What do we "think in our hearts"? When I heard a bishop of one of the prevailing denominations stand up in his pulpit, as I have, and represent Jesus Christ as standing with one hand upon the throne of Jehovah, and the other hand resting upon the sinner's head, pleading with the Father to forgive him for his (Christ's) sake, was there not in the mind of that bishop a distinct idea of two Beings, possessing different feelings and pa.s.sions? Now, were both of them G.o.ds, or was one of them not G.o.d? And when I heard prayers so frequently terminated by the phrase, "Forgive us for Christ's sake," the question naturally arose, to whom were such prayers addressed? If there are any intelligent rational ideas connected with the phrase in the mind of the one using it, has not his prayer unquestionably been addressed to some G.o.d outside of the Lord Jesus Christ? Who is that G.o.d? Can Christian men safely reject the express teaching of our Lord Himself when on earth, when He declared: "I and my Father are One;" "Whose hath seen me, hath seen the Father"? and the apostle's teaching, that "G.o.d was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself"? Is there any other way to the Father at this day except through the person of the Lord Jesus Christ--G.o.d manifest in the flesh? Is He not the "Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last"?

Why, then, pray to an unknown G.o.d? In the Old Testament, we are told that "I, Jehovah, am your Savior, and beside me there is no Savior," and in the New Testament we are told that in Jesus Christ dwelt all the fullness of the G.o.dhead bodily. He is "Immanuel--G.o.d with us." Let us, then, wors.h.i.+p Him--One G.o.d in One Divine Person.

The doctrine of election and predestination early troubled me. I could not reconcile it with the loving kindness which the Sacred Scriptures proclaim as characteristic of our Heavenly Father.

The doctrine of justification by faith alone, "without the deeds of the law," as the old hymn read, was not a doctrine which appealed to my reason, but it was a very consoling doctrine. Every young man who has been carefully reared by religious parents, and under the influences of a church, expects to be converted and get religion some time before he dies, and to join a church. But if he enjoys good health and the prospect of living for many years, especially if he is taught that, by merely believing or having faith at any time in the "atoning blood of Christ," he can escape the consequences of his evil deeds, there is great danger of procrastination.

A clergyman once said to me: "If a man repents and gets converted one hour before his death, the worse he has been or lived, the happier he will be."

It seems to me better to be guided by the Word of the Lord, and to believe that the evil doer shall not go unpunished. The Lord came into the world to save men from sin and from the penalty only so far as they co-operate with Him. Sin is the cause, the penalty is the effect; and effect follows cause as a normal and necessary consequence.

The young, as well as the old, should be taught the great truth, that every thought we harbor, and every word we speak, and every act we do, aid in building up our spiritual organism, and will tell on our eternal destiny, just as the natural food and drink we use, and the exercise we take, will tell on the future health of our material bodies, for good or evil; and there is no avoiding it. If a man or woman, young or old, would be right in the future, he must do right in the present. No one should forget that, even if we reach heaven, the mansion which we will occupy there will depend on our lives here--every one will unite with those like Himself. No one can tell the immense harm which has been done to our race, by teaching that either by faith alone, or through the influence or efforts of the clergy, men can be saved from the penalties or consequences which are sure to follow an evil life. The "willing and obedient" shall eat the good of the land. Our blessed Lord tells us: "If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love" (John xv: 10). Thus beautiful, symmetrical, spiritual organisms are built up, not by "sowing wild oats" during youth, and disobeying the divine commandments during the subsequent period of life. It is well for all, young or old, to remember the Word: "Be not deceived; G.o.d is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." (Gal.

vi: 7.) At this day we need practical doctrines, which shall unite religion and life, or faith and charity, and such alone will command the respect of non-churchgoers.

While a young man my attention was early called to the doctrines of the Universalists, but their doctrines did not seem to me to accord with the Sacred Scriptures; nor did I think that all men could be equally happy hereafter, when there is such a vast difference in their conduct and lives here. Genuine happiness is the result of right willing and doing; in other words, of keeping the commandments. I have no doubt but the Lord desires that all men should thus live and be happy; but we know that all men are not willing. Having created them free agents, G.o.d does not compel them here to love the Lord and their neighbor, which loves manifestly const.i.tute heaven; what reason, then, have we to think He will compel them to do it hereafter? If a man deliberately leads an evil life here, growing ever stronger and more confirmed in that life, until he has made evil his good and rejoices in it, what reason have we to suppose or a.s.sume that he will change when he enters the next life? I am willing to leave him in the hands of the Lord--he has pa.s.sed from my sight. I well remember the remarks of my grandmother when she was eighty-six years of age, a few days after the death of her husband, my grandfather. She said: "I do not fear to die, for I feel that G.o.d will do me no injustice." Within a few days she departed in peace.

The Millerite excitement commenced when I was a young man. When I was about twenty years old I was traveling in central Ma.s.sachusetts. One night there was a meeting of Millerites in the neighborhood where I was stopping, and I attended the meeting. The speaker was very zealous and earnest in his remarks. There was a comet with quite a long tail then visible, and he seemed to think that that comet, with its tail, might sweep across the track of our earth and work its destruction, which he antic.i.p.ated. I remember very well my reflections on leaving that meeting. A few days before I had stood upon the side of a hill near the track, and had seen for the first time a railroad train on its way from Boston to Worcester. I said to myself: "Now we have railroads, steamboats, friction matches, temperance societies, Sunday-schools, the Bible translated into various languages, which but a few years ago were unknown. This great continent, from being a wilderness, inhabited by a comparatively few wild Indians, has been discovered and is being developed and cultivated by civilized and Christian people, and gradually being made capable of containing and sustaining hundreds of millions of inhabitants." With all these facts before me, I said to myself, "It looks a great deal more as though the world is just beginning to live; in fact, that a new era is dawning, than it does that the world is going to be destroyed." From that night the Millerite doctrine never troubled me any more, for I felt that I beheld, in all the wonderful inventions being made and changes going on in the world, the dawning light of a better day for the inhabitants of our earth.

CHAPTER V.

THE DAWN OF A NEW DISPENSATION.

We behold the dawn of a new day before we see the sun, from whence the light proceeds.

The young in the Baptist Church, not having been baptized in infancy, are brought up to feel that they are out of the Church, and that they have to be converted, or "to get religion," before they join the Church, instead of being brought up to feel that, having been baptized, they belong to the Church and must believe its doctrines, and live the life which they teach.

Thus I remained out of the Church until I was over thirty years of age.

After I was twenty-three years old I attended different churches, as was most convenient. For a time I attended the Episcopal Church, while studying medicine; and after I graduated I attended the Congregational Church for several years more frequently than any other; but I had no thought of joining that Church, for during those days I always thought that immersion was the only true mode of baptism.

While practicing medicine in Detroit, a gentleman whose family I was attending asked me if I would not like to read a work on "Heaven and h.e.l.l,"

written by Emanuel Swedenborg, who claimed, he said, to have had open intercourse with the spiritual world, and to have written of what he had seen and heard in that world. He said that he had read it, and believed that the views therein contained were rational and true. If I had ever heard of them at all, at that time, I had never heard the writings of Swendenborg spoken of favorably before. Out of respect to the gentleman, I took the book home with me, but did not feel sufficient interest in it to attempt to read it through in course, but read here and there a few pages; and, after keeping it a few weeks, I returned it to the owner, feeling from what I had read no interest in its contents. Not long after this a lady whom I was attending asked me if I would not like to read Professor George Bush's reasons for accepting as true the revelations contained in the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg. Well, I thought to myself, if the gentleman who lent me "Heaven and h.e.l.l," if my patient here, who is a very intelligent woman, and Professor Bush, whom I had understood was a very learned man, believe that Swedenborg's writings contain truths good and useful, it may be well for me to read the pamphlet then before me. So I took the book home with me and commenced reading it. About that time Rev.

George Field commenced the delivery of a course of lectures on Creation and the first chapters of Genesis, treating the subject from the standpoint of Swedenborg's writings. I attended his lectures, which added very much to my interest, and I read Bush's reasons with care. Then I obtained "Heaven and h.e.l.l," and read it carefully through with the greatest interest. When a small boy I remember very well listening with fear and trembling to a discourse delivered by a clergyman, on "G.o.d is angry with the wicked every day," in which the speaker dwelt upon the fearful sufferings which the Lord had in reserve for the wicked in a h.e.l.l of fire and brimstone, where they were to be tortured forever and ever.

When I came to read Swedenborg's "Heaven and h.e.l.l," I found a very different and more rational doctrine taught--that heaven consists in loving the Lord and the neighbor, or in religious obedience to the divine commandments; and that h.e.l.l consists in loving one's self and the world supremely, or sensual and selfish gratification, without regard to use; that either heaven or h.e.l.l is within us, according to the character of our ruling love; that the Lord casts no one into h.e.l.l, but does all He can, without interfering with man's freedom, to prevent men from going to h.e.l.l; if they go there, they go of their own free choice, among their like, where selfishness in some form rules the hearts of the inhabitants; they would not and could not be happy among those who are ruled by love to the Lord and the neighbor; or by obedience to the divine commandments. The spiritual world is a more real world than this; therefore, in that world the motives, thoughts, and intentions of men cannot be hidden as readily as in this world; consequently, there is a great gulf between heaven and h.e.l.l. One is opposite to the other. When love to the Lord and to the neighbor rules in the hearts of all the inhabitants, there is no need of penal laws or punishments, for each one is a law unto himself, and all are striving to do good to each other and to all; consequently, unity, peace, and harmony prevail.

How different from this is h.e.l.l, where selfishness prevails; where the love of dominion over others, or the love of vain show, the love of acquiring unfairly that which belongs to others, the love of riches for the sake of being rich, and of selfish and sensual gratification without regard to use, rules in the hearts of all the inhabitants. We know that such perverted pa.s.sions make a h.e.l.l hot enough here; and, as death does not change the character of a man's ruling love, they will make a h.e.l.l hot enough hereafter. But the Lord, in His mercy which endureth forever, by His angels governs the h.e.l.ls as well as the heavens, and does not permit vindictive punishments. All punishments are for the benefit of evil doers, to restrain and prevent them from doing evil to others and themselves, and from sinking to greater depths of wickedness; we may, therefore, safely leave the inhabitants of that world in His care.

No man or woman can read "Heaven and h.e.l.l" attentively, carefully, and prayerfully without great benefit. It is clearly shown that, to escape h.e.l.l, an evil man has but to repent, to look to the Lord and shun evils as sins against Him, and that the Lord is no respecter of persons, but that He gives to every man the ability to do this, if he is willing. When we examine ourselves carefully in the light of the Sacred Scriptures, and discover an evil, if we shun that evil as a sin against the Lord, He keeps us in the effort to shun all evils, and enables us more clearly to see other evils to which we are inclined. Here is an open door for approaching the Lord, free to all; there is no mystery about it. If an evil man is to be reformed, he must repent or face about and commence a life of shunning evils as sins against G.o.d; otherwise, there will be no radical change, but a miserable shuffling from one evil habit to another. Even if a man shuns one evil habit, like the smoking or chewing of tobacco, because it injures his health and is likely to destroy his life, and not because it is a sin, and without the acknowledgment that it is a sin, he is almost sure to seek as a subst.i.tute some form of intoxicating drinks--opium, strong coffee, or tea. We make a great mistake, as Christians, if we try to subst.i.tute coffee- or tea-houses for saloons; not that the effects of coffee and tea are as pernicious as intoxicants, but they are unnecessary, and often diseases and great suffering result from their use. We should strive to show men and women, in the light of this day, what substances are unmistakably injurious to health and endanger life, and strive to lead them, by precept and example, to shun their use as sins against G.o.d.

After reading "Heaven and h.e.l.l" I read the "True Christian Religion," which is the last work that Swedenborg published, containing the essential doctrines of the New Christian Church, or the New Jerusalem now descending from G.o.d out of Heaven, "making all things new." In this work it is clearly shown that G.o.d is one in essence and in person, and that in the Lord Jesus Christ that one G.o.d is manifested to men. G.o.d is love. "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was, with G.o.d and the Word was G.o.d." Here we have the Father or Divine Love, the Son or Divine Wisdom, and the Holy Spirit or Divine Proceeding, flowing from the Father because He is a being of infinite love, wisdom, and power, through the Son, a trinity in unity. The Divine Being is no more three persons than a man is three persons, because he is created in the image of G.o.d and has affection or love, an understanding, or thoughts, words, and acts that flow from his love through his understanding out toward his fellow men. All the doctrines of the New Christianity are based upon the Sacred Scriptures and appeal to our highest reason; and we are to receive them because we see them to be true and in strict harmony with the Word when the latter is correctly understood.

But I have neither time nor s.p.a.ce to discuss these doctrines here. I will simply say, that when we come to see clearly that there is but one G.o.d whose name is one, who was manifested in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, and that whoso seeth Him seeth the Father, then a number of false doctrines which proceed from and cohere with the doctrine of a tri-personal Deity will disappear like mists before the rising sun; and we shall be prepared to see and understand the rest of the beautiful and rational doctrines taught in "The True Christian Religion," and the mystery of Babylon and all man-made creeds will disappear before this new revelation from our Lord Jesus Christ.

After reading the "True Christian Religion" I read the work on Divine Providence, which gives such a clear view of the Lord's providential care over men that it strengthens and encourages the earnest seeker after truth wonderfully. It is a book which should be read by every Christian man and woman.

Next, "The Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and Wisdom" throws a flood of light on the origin of the material universe and all created things. In this work we are clearly shown that the Lord is Love itself, because He is Life itself: and "that angels and men are recipients of life;" and "that all created things in a certain image represent man," and "that Love is the life of man."

But Swedenborg's "Apocalypse Revealed" was one of the most satisfactory works I ever read. It opened up to me a new world of thought, of expectation, hope and joy. The reading of this work and the first volume of his "Arcana Celestia" satisfied me that the Sacred Scriptures are divine or a special revelation from G.o.d to man, and differ from all merely human writings as much as a living man differs from a statue; for they are filled with a Divine spirit. The Lord says: "My words are spirit and life."

The Sacred Scriptures are written in accordance with the law of correspondence between spiritual and natural things. The spiritual is the cause, the natural is the effect; and effects must correspond to their causes in every particular. The Lord is the sun of the spiritual world and the creator of all things: consequently our natural sun corresponds to the spiritual sun, or the Lord. From the Lord, or the spiritual sun, love and wisdom proceed, and give life to man's spiritual body; from the natural sun flow natural heat and light which enable the natural body to live; natural heat and light therefore correspond to spiritual heat and light, or to love and truth, which are heat and light to the spirit of man. Through the natural clouds and atmosphere which surround the earth we receive natural heat and light from the natural sun, as we receive spiritual heat and light or love and truth from the Lord through the literal sense of the Sacred Scriptures; Consequently the clouds of heaven in which the Lord was to come are the literal sense of his holy Word, unfolding its spirit and life and manifesting the Father clearly to His children. The sun which was to be darkened was not the natural but the spiritual sun, or the Lord obscured to man's spiritual perception. When men in their creeds separated the Lord into three persons, and framed doctrines in accordance therewith, which, in their estimation, would enable them to reach heaven by believing certain dogmas, instead of by a life according to the Divine Commandments, then was the sun indeed darkened in the minds of men. Then a true faith or knowledge of the Lord was destroyed and the moon became as blood. A true faith reflects the light or wisdom of the Lord upon man, as the natural moon reflects the light of the natural sun. Water corresponds to truth upon the natural plane of the mind, for it cleanses the natural body as truth cleanses his spirit; it also circulates throughout the natural body, conveying nourishment to all the structures of the body as truth circulates through the spiritual body, conveying that which is good and true to strengthen and develop the spiritual body. It is owing to this correspondence that water is used in the ordinance of baptism, for it performs the same office for the natural body that truth does for the spiritual body; it cleanses and conveys nourishment; and therefore baptism by water signifies that man is to be regenerated by receiving and living according to the truth. It is also the Christian sign--a sign that one baptized is of the Christian Church, or professes the Christian religion.

The "Fruit of the Vine," or pure unfermented or unleavened wine, has been organized by the Lord in the vegetable kingdom; it therefore not only contains water, but also organized nourishment for the structures of the body, which supply in a most remarkable degree the wants of the body, like a mother's milk to her infant child; it therefore most beautifully symbolizes blood, and corresponds to spiritual truth, united with good from the Lord, which nourishes and builds up the spirit of man, when he drinks or appropriates it, or when he lives as divine truth teaches, shunning evils as sins against G.o.d. It is consequently used appropriately in the Most Holy Supper.

It has been my aim above to simply give the reader a glimpse of this most wonderful and beautiful of all sciences, and really the foundation of all sciences-the science of correspondence between natural and spiritual things. He who reads carefully and without prejudice the "Apocalypse Revealed" and the "Arcana Celestia," with a desire to know and live according to the truth, cannot fail to see that the Sacred Scriptures are plenarily inspired, and are a special revelation from G.o.d to man; and that, different from all merely human writings, they contain within the letter a connected spiritual sense. That the science of correspondences was once understood by the inhabitants of our earth, is to be seen in the relics which remain in a more or less perverted form in the hieroglyphics of Egypt, the idolatry among many nations, and sun-wors.h.i.+p, where the spiritual signification has often been lost and men have come to wors.h.i.+p the natural objects instead of the spiritual, which they represent. The mythological writings of many nations, and even Masonry, contain remains of this once well known science. The first chapters of Genesis and the entire Word are written in strict accordance with this science. The first chapters of Genesis, like the Parables of our Lord, were not intended to be understood literally; the very names therein show this clearly. A tree of life, a tree of knowledge of good and evil, a talking serpent, how can any man for a moment suppose these to be natural trees and a natural snake? Do serpents ever talk? the garden eastward in Eden, and an Ark which would not hold the hides and teeth of all the animals on earth--were these to be understood literally?

CHAPTER VI.

A NEW DAY TO OUR EARTH.

"'Behold He cometh with clouds,' signifies that the Lord will reveal Himself in the literal sense of the Word, and will open its spiritual sense at the end of the church."--_A. R. 23._

A church, we are taught, comes to its end when the true doctrines of the Word are falsified by its members, to justify evils of life; or when the members of a church who are in the love of ruling over others in civil and ecclesiastical affairs, for their own aggrandizement, or for vain show, or who love money or sensual gratification without regard to use, strive to justify the gratification of their perverted loves and appet.i.tes by an appeal to the Sacred Scriptures, and thus frame creeds and doctrines which exalt faith and ceremonials above a life of charity, and when men come to live in accordance with such false doctrines the church comes to its end.

At the same time, there remain some who are still in the good of life, or striving to live good lives in obedience to the Divine commandments. Such comprise the common people who receive the Lord with joy at His coming, and follow Him, among whom a New Dispensation of Divine Truth commences. Such may be found both among the clergy and laity. The end of the world is the end of the Dispensation or Age, and not of the material earth--"The earth endureth forever."

We are told by Swedenborg that the angels rejoiced greatly that it had pleased the Lord to reveal a knowledge of correspondences so deeply concealed during some thousands of years; "and they said it was done in order that the Christian Church which is founded on the Word, and is now at its end, may again revive and draw breath through heaven from the Lord."--_Conjugial Love_, 532.

So we are not to look for the destruction of the prevailing religious organizations, but for the rejection of their false and irrational doctrines, and the receiving of new light and life from the Lord. And how is such a result to be brought about?

It was apparently the opinion of Swedenborg that his writings would be read by the clergy, who would teach the doctrines therein contained to their congregations; and thus the glorious truths for this new Era or crowning Church would be spread among the people; for, in speaking of the descent of the New Church, or New Jerusalem, from G.o.d out of Heaven, he says it can only take place "in proportion as the falses of the former Church are removed; for what is new cannot gain admission where falses have before been implanted, unless those falses are first rooted out; and this must first take place among the clergy, and by their means among the laity."

That Swedenborg's antic.i.p.ations are surely and somewhat rapidly being realized at this time seems beyond question; for over 30,000 clergymen of the various religious denominations of our country have already sent for and obtained Swedenborg's "True Christian Religion" and "Heaven and h.e.l.l,"

and over 25,000 have received his "Apocalypse Revealed." It is known that large numbers are reading the above works with great interest, and that hundreds if not thousands are full receivers of the doctrines therein contained, and that they are teaching them to their people as fast as they find they can receive them. In fact, many of Swedenborg's writings were translated into English by the late Rev. John Clowes, Rector of St. John's Church, Manchester, England, who, for many years, without ever being required to sever his connection with the Church of England, openly and boldly taught the doctrines revealed through Swedenborg. Mr. Clowes says:--

"Nothing, therefore, can be plainer than that the New Jerusalem Dispensation is to be universal, and to extend unto all people, nations, and languages on the face of the earth, to be a blessing unto such as are meet to receive a blessing. Sects and sectarians, as such, can find no place in this General a.s.sembly of the ransomed of the Lord. All the little distinctions of modes, forms, and particular expressions of devotion and wors.h.i.+p will be swallowed up and lost in the unlimited effusions of heavenly love, charity, and benevolence with which the hearts of every member of this glorious New Church and Body of Jesus Christ will overflow one toward another. Men will no longer judge one another as to the mere externals of church communion, be they perfect or imperfect; for they will be taught that whosoever acknowledges the incarnate Jehovah in heart and life, departing from evil, and doing what is right and good according to the commandments, he is a member of the New Jerusalem, a living stone in the Lord's new Temple, and a part of that great family in heaven and earth whose common Father and Head is Jesus Christ. Every one, therefore, will call his neighbor _Brother_, in whom he observes this spirit of pure charity; and he will ask no questions concerning the form of words which compose his creed, but will be satisfied with observing in him the purity and power of a heavenly life."

"The Gentiles," says Swedenborg, "cannot profane the holy things of the Church like Christians, because they are not acquainted with them." "They are afraid of Christians on account of their lives." "Those who have lived well, according to their religious principles, are instructed by the angels, and easily receive the truths of faith, and acknowledge the Lord,"

"for they have not formed for themselves any principles of falsity opposed to the truths of faith, which would need to be first removed."