can have no narrow or selfish aims. Their supreme desire and purpose will be, to serve others by performing the highest use they are made capable of performing. They will not forget "to do good and communicate," knowing that, "with such sacrifices God is well pleased." They will intend nothing and do nothing but what will contribute to the welfare and happiness of their neighbor. In short, they will study to know, and in all things seek to do, the will of their heavenly Father. And this, according to Swedenborg, is precisely what the angels intend, seek, love and do.
Thus far in our inquiry, we have found the truth of Swedenborg's disclosures to be amply sustained by reason and Scripture and the known laws of the human soul. We have seen that angels were not created such, but were all once inhabitants of the natural world; that they are all human—men advanced to a higher and more perfect state. This view presents the angelic host, not at an immeasurable distance from, but in a near and brotherly relation to people here on earth; while at the same time it reveals the possibility, and can hardly fail (one would think) to kindle in the hearts of believers the desire of some day becoming angels themselves.
It has been further shown that every man takes his own life with him into the other world, and that his life is his ruling love. This is the soul's real life. And such as is the nature or quality of this love at the time of death, such it remains. And since heaven is essentially a state of life, therefore all who go to heaven must carry their heaven with them; at least they must
