them were the Mahometans, also distinct according to their countries, who all appeared in the southwest. Beyond these, the Gentiles were congregated in vast numbers, constituting the very circumference; and on their outer side an appearance as of a sea, was the boundary.
This arrangement of the nations in the various quarters, was an arrangement according to each nation's common faculty of receiving divine truths; for in the spiritual world every one is known from the quarter and the part of it in which he dwells; and, moreover, in a society with many he is known from his tarryings being made with reference to the quarters. It is the same when he goes from place to place. All advance to the quarters is then effected according to the successive states of the thoughts derived from the affections which belong to his proper life; in accordance with which all those who are spoken of in what follows, were led to their own places. In a word, the ways in which every one walks in the spiritual world are actual determinations of his thoughts; whence it is, that ways, walkings, and the like, in the spiritual sense of the Word, signify the determinations and progressions of spiritual life [because of their correspondence].
In the Word, the four quarters are called the four winds, and a gathering is called a gathering from the four winds; as in Matthew, where the last judgment is the subject treated of, "He shall send his
