Page:The Doctrines of the New Church Briefly Explained.djvu/221

world of fancy. It wants substance. The idea of a world in wbich beings exist without these gross bodies, . . strikes them as a fiction. What cannot be seen or touched, appears unreal. This is mournful, but not wonderful; for how can men who immerse themselves in the body and its interests, and cultivate no acquaintance with their own souls and spiritual powers, comprehend a higher, spiritual life? . . This skepticism as to things spiritual and celestial, is as irrational and unphilosophical as it is degrading." (Works. Vol. IV., p. 219.)

And how, or by what method, would this great thinker and writer strengthen the feeble and waning faith of Christians in the Hereafter, and bring the sublime doctrine of a future life home to men's minds as a grand and inspiring reality?

"This method," he says, "is to seek some clearer, more definite conception of the future state. That world seems less real, for want of some distinctness in its features. We should all believe it more firmly if we conceived of it more vividly. It seems unsubstantial from its vagueness and dimness." (Ibid., p. 220.)

And the. lack of distinctness in the features of the other world which the soul of Channing longed for, or thought so desirable, is beautifully and amply supplied by the disclosures made through Swedenborg. And we have only to subject these disclosures to a careful examination—to survey them, calmly and without prejudice, in