"It is the soul's prerogative—its fate
To shape the outward to its own estate.
If right itself, then all around is well;
If wrong, it makes of all without a hell.
......Turn where thou wilt, thyself in all things see
Reflected back.—
......Who has no inward beauty, none perceives.
Though all around is beautiful.—
......
Soul! fearful is thy power, which thus transforms
All things into thy likeness."
If such be the power of the soul here on earth, to "transform all things into its likeness," what should result when it is released from its material clog and earthly limitations, and brought consciously into a world, the substances of which being altogether spiritual, are plastic to its every breath? What but the very thing declared in the passages cited near the commencement of this chapter? We submit that the only rational conclusion to be drawn from the brief argument we have here presented, is, that there is just such an outward or objective world in heaven as Swedenborg has described, the character or aspect of which is determined by the great and universal law that he has revealed—the law according to which the Sacred Scripture is written, and creation has proceeded from the beginning, and spirit in all worlds forever seeks to embody itself—the law of correspondence.
And let it be added in conclusion (and this is further evidence of its truth) that the doctrine is not purely speculative, as might at first be supposed, but one of
