infinite Wisdom has suggested—by their fruits. We know, or can readily infer, the inevitable effect of the Old doctrine on the minds of its believers. We know that it contains no solace for bereaved parents when death has snatched some little one from their embrace. It cannot suppress one sigh, nor mitigate one pang, nor minister one drop of comfort to their stricken hearts. Nay, the thought which it suggests of the bare possibility that their darling may be counted among the reprobates—forever doomed to the torments of the damned—is calculated to wring their souls with indescribable anguish. And what a reproach does the Old doctrine cast upon the character of the infinitely wise and loving Father! What a monster of injustice and cruelty does it make Him!
But the New doctrine as revealed through Swedenborg, while it accords with reason and Scripture and the unspeakable love and wisdom of God, is full of heavenly consolation for bereaved parents. It assures that weeping mother as she bends for the last time over the pulseless body of her darling child, that her precious one is still alive—brighter and happier, too, than ever before; that it has gone from the cold, dull earth to the warm, bright heavens; that it is already in the tender embrace of loving angels, and in due time will itself become an angel; that as soon as it left its earthly tenement and its eyes opened on the spiritual world, it beheld an angel mother smiling on it, and eager to fold it in her loving arms; that there this angel mother will love and tend it, and angel teachers instruct and guide it; that there it will play with other children who are
