that feels that to love himself more than others is evil? and who therefore knows that there is any evil in it? when, nevertheless, it is the head of all evils."—"Man is by birth like a little hell, between which and heaven there is perpetual disagreement. And no one can be drawn out of this hell by the Lord, unless he sees that he is there, and wishes to be delivered."[1] Again says the Doctrine of the New Church, "Few, if any, know, that all men whosoever are withheld from evils by the Lord, and this with a stronger force than man can conceive. For there is in every man a perpetual tendency to evil, and this as well from the hereditary evil into which he is born, as from the actual evil which he has induced upon himself; so much so, that unless he were withheld by the Lord, he would rush headlong every moment towards the lowest hell. But such is the mercy of the Lord, that he is elevated every moment, yea, every smallest part of a moment, and withheld from rushing thither. This is the case even with the good, but with a difference according to the life of their charity and faith. Thus the Lord continually fights with man, and for man with hell, although to man it does not so appear."[2]
Such is man's real state, although he has so little idea of it: such is the real condition of man's soul, as it appears before the Divine Eye,—a mass of corrupt passions and inclinations, all pulling him downward with a tremendous force, so that were it not for the perpetual mercy and upholding of the Lord, he would
