mately present and associated with it as the soul is with the body. While clothed with material flesh, we are dwellers at one and the same time in both worlds; consciously and sensibly in the natural world, unconsciously, because of the closed condition of our spiritual senses, in the spiritual world. And every individual is internally and spiritually associated with one or another class of spirits, by whom he is daily and hourly influenced almost as the body is actuated by the soul. We do not see the spirits that are near and operating upon us, because our spiritual eyes are closed; but we may know their general character by attentively considering the nature of our predominant thoughts and affections,—the ends at which we aim, the prompting and governing motives of our lives. All these flow into our minds and hearts through the medium of spirits in close fellowship with us; and they take their character, therefore, from the character of the spirits. If our ruling purpose is supremely selfish—one that shuts out from the heart all reverent regard for the Word of the Lord and the good of the neighbor, we may know that infernal spirits are our invisible companions—that our souls are in fellowship with devils, inhaling from hour to hour the pestilential atmosphere of hell. But if our aims are good and heavenly, if we regard our neighbor's welfare as our own, and desire above all else to know and do the will of the Lord, then angels are our associates, our spirits receive influx from them, we walk and work in their company, and breathe the balmy air of heaven. This accords with the dictates of enlightened reason, and is precisely what the great law of spiritual affinity would lead us to expect. Accordingly Swedenborg says:
