diate revelation of truth by angelic spirits.[1] Hence Africa in its confines, or in its circumferential regions, must be
- ↑ The distinguishing truths of Christianity are "comprehended and received by the Africans" in the other world, "inasmuch as they think more interiorly and spiritually than others. Such being the character of the Africans even in this world, there is therefore at this day a revelation begun among them, which is communicated from the centre round about, but does not extend to the sea coasts. They acknowledge our Lord as the Lord of heaven and earth, and laugh at the
tivate the rice, cotton and sugar plantations of the South, and of the West Indies, than the whites; and why black can never compete with white labor in mountainous and frosty regions. The negro has this power in the peculiar organization of his skin, which not only has an additional layer that secretes a black pigment, but also a more copiously and rapidly perspirable structure. By the blackness and the greater perspirable property of his skin, he radiates heat and evacuates humors more readily and rapidly than the white man. Hence the animal heat and morbid humors which, pent up by his white skin, kill the Caucasian in Africa with fevers, are no impediment to the negro's free and full enjoyment of life there. This is one reason why the whites have never yet been able fully to explore the centre of Africa. The Mighty Lord has encircled that centre with a wall of fire, which is a far more effectual barrier against the inroads of the Europeans, than the wall of China ever was against those of the Tartars. And as this is a clear indication of the divine will that Africa should be inhabited, improved, reformed, regenerated, governed and elevated solely or mainly by Africans, therefore justice to Africa demands that Europeans, and their descendants in America, who hold her sons in servile bondage or slavish apprenticeship, should send them back to her, having previously fitted them for a happy repose on her bosom!
We conclude, that, as the african race, color and all, are correspondents of heat in the torrid zone; and as heat there is a correspondent of love in the celestial kingdom of the spiritual world; therefore Africans are of a celestial genius. Their degraded forms and characters here, and their hideous forms and horrid barbarities in the circumferential parts of their own country, are the results of the utter perversion of their more noble nature. For, as all evil is but perverted good, the more exalted and more perfect the good, the more debased and more deformed must be the evil which results from its perversion.
When we know that the quarters of the compass in this world signify the four cardinal states of the soul in the other world; and that the east in the spiritual world is where the Lord is in love to him and from him; we may see what is the spiritual position of Africa, relatively to Asia and Europe, from the following revelation: "The angels, when Asia is named, perceive the south; when Europe is named, they perceive the north; and when Africa is named, they perceive the east.: (Ap. Ex. 21.) This shows that, in the perception of the angels, Africans are of the celestial genius.
