Page:The Other Life.djvu/68

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

and by what miracle he has been transported. Then some dearly-loved one approaches, some friend long lost, long folded from his vision in the light of heaven, and proceeds to instruct him about the differences between the spiritual and the natural world, which underlie the apparent resemblance, and thus to lift the veil of darkness from his spiritual sight.

What good spirits and angels do for men newly deceased, Swedenborg by divine permission has done for the Church and the world. To those at least who accept from his illuminated pages the philosophy of heaven, the Word of God is no longer a sealed book. Death is no longer a leap in the dark, nor the resurrection afar off, nor the spiritual world a dream!

The differences between the spiritual and the natural world flow from the difference which exists between the suns, which are their respective centres, and which, each in its own sphere, creates, illumines and animates all around it.

The natural sun is supposed to contain matter in a state of constant and intense ignition; whence there are emanations of heat and light. The sun of the spiritual world is life itself, the first proceeding from the Divine Essence; and its emanations