CCCCXLIX.

Blunt people give themselves credit for frankness and sincerity; but they would be nearer the truth, if they were to attribute to themselves a good degree of self-conceit, and a selfish disregard to the feelings of others.

CCCCL.

When the love of money is inordinate, it is sure to encroach more or less on the possessions of others; and when the love of liberty becomes excessive, it is sure to degenerate into a tyrannical encroachment on the liberties of others. An enthusiastic advocate of liberty may be individually a tyrant, on the same principle that the warmest advocate for honesty in his debtors, may himself be deficient in honesty towards his creditors.

CCCCLI.

Genuine good manners are the natural exponents of good feelings. To suppose the latter can exist without the former, is to suppose an internal can exist without an external! Although artificial good manners may exist without good feelings, good feelings cannot be preserved except they are embodied in good manners.

CCCCLII.

A sense of honour without religion is bad; but religion without a sense of honour, is infinitely worse.

CCCCLIII.

It may truly be said of the gate of the holy city, New Jerusalem, as well as of the gate of eternal life, "Strait is the gate, and few there be that find it;" for nothing can really enter therein that "loveth or maketh a lie."

CCCCLIV.

Passing by the knowledge of physical subjects, the first knowledge acquired, in well educated childhood, is celestial, relating to God and heaven; the second, spiritual, relating to charity; and the third, moral, relating to forms of human action, good and bad, and their natural consequences. In proportion to the fulness of moral knowledge, man is more perfectly introduced into the life of morality, or the good of obedience, and thence more perfectly introduced into the life or good of charity, and, lastly, into the life or good of celestial love. Thus it appears that the order of the progress of knowledge is, from celestial by spiritual to moral; but the order of the progress of the life of knowledge is, from moral by spiritual to celestial. Moral knowledges obtained by

means of history, biography, observation, and the study of moral philosophy, and corrected by self-examination and self-knowledge, are essential to the full expansion and practical success of the celestial and spiritual principles, for these principles dilate, and expand, and strengthen themselves, by means of such knowledges. Celestial things may be compared to the head; spiritual, to the body; and moral, to the hands and feet; for similar is their relation to, and dependence upon each other.

CCCCLV.

All perfection of spiritual knowledge commences with unity of thought concerning the unity of God, and all perfection of spiritual life commences with unity of purpose, or simplicity of heart. Unless we start from these points of unity, we shall make no progress in either knowledge, or the life of knowledge. He who sets out from two incongruous ideas, is like a man who should endeavour to walk in two ways at once!

CCCCLVI.

Reasoners who plume themselves on their candour, will often mistake the rude expression of their strong wills, for an indubitable evidence of the vigour of their understandings!

CCCCLVII.

Two opposite scales are resorted to in forming an estimate of character. One class judges others by comparing them with those above them, and therefore necessarily detects deficiency, and thus judges severely; the other class compares people with those below them, detects relative good points, and thus judges mildly, and mercifully.

CCCCLVIII.

Dependence is necessarily greatest during the helpless period of life. We depend first on parents; then on masters; then on friends and patrons; but generally, as life advances, the inclination, and indeed the power, to depend on others recedes, and this, in no small degree, is owing to the failure of our expectations from those on whom we have placed dependence. Such is the order of Providence, to the end that we may gradually learn to live a life of dependence on the Lord alone. "The sympathy of others is a luxury rather than a necessity. We must all of us learn to lead our own life, according to the best of our ideas, and the best manner in which we can realise it, whether we have to encounter good report or evil report." "The fear of man [and also the hope of man] bringeth a snare."

CCCCLIX.

The term " worthless," as applied to characters, is often used in a relative sense, meaning worthless for a specific purpose; thus a man may be admirable for his general talents as an intellectual man or man of business; and yet be worthless as a friend, owing to the prevalence of a selfishness which demands what it will not yield, and the influence of a sensitive pride, equally ready to give and to take offence. To continue the friend of such a man, requires more forbearance (or else policy) than falls to the lot of people generally.

CCCCLX.

The precepts of charity and the golden rule are approved by all, but there is this great difference in the quality of men's approbation. The good, in approving them, apply them interiorly, or subjectively, to themselves as their proper subjects; but the evil shew their approbation of them by exclusively applying them exteriorly, or objectively, to others, as their only objects; the former apply them in regulating their dispensation of benefits, but the latter misapply them only, in exacting benefits from others.

CCCCLXI.

Dr. Chalmers, in a sermon on the golden rule, says (substantially) that a man should so interpret it, as that what he exacts, and what he yields, shall be equal; for by how much the former exceeds the latter, by so much he sins against the rule; and thus he shews that policy, under the influence of this rule, combines with duty, to restrain the demands of selfishness in such a manner, as to balance them exactly against the dictates of conscience. Whatever we wish another to do, we must be prepared to do the same. If we wish another to give us half his property, we are bound by the indulgence of that wish to give the half of our property to him! Let, then, a man determine thus to apply the golden rule, and there is an end of covetousness. But Dr. Wardlaw asks in reply to this interpretation, (as if while he commended it, he were not satisfied with it) "Am I then bound, because I have wished to receive a gift, to hand over the same amount to some one? Am I to do wrong by giving away unreasonably, because I have wished another to act so?" To these questions it may be replied, that wishes indulged without advertence to the golden rule, are not bound by it; but when the rule is admitted, and full in view, to act otherwise than as Dr. Chalmers sets forth, is to sin against it.

CCCCLXII.

It is worthy of remark, that the golden rule runs, "Give as you exact," and not "Exact as you give," shewing that its object is not to confine liberality, but to restrain selfishness. In applying this rule, the only steady light is afforded by the dictates of love and charity, where they rule the mind and conduct, for from the Lord, by them, is "the light of life." On the precepts of love to God and man, it is said, “hang (or depend) all the law and the prophets," which means, that on these precepts, as on their essential principles, depends all the practice enjoined by the Word; but it is said also, that the golden rule "is the law and the prophets," meaning, that it is that law of action which pervades the whole Word, by which love and charity, and the precepts thereof, are rightly and effectually brought into practice.

CCCCLXIII.

If a man's religion be superficial, its existence is chiefly exhibited in times of trouble, in the form of supplications for help: but if it be deep seated, it shews itself, especially in seasons of peace, in expressions of gratitude not grounded in any persuasion of meriting the Lord's gifts, but in a deep sense of the Lord's great and unmerited mercy.

CCCCLXIV.

Much religion always means much gratitude to God, which is inseparable from much gratitude for kindness bestowed by man.

CCCCLXV.

Do we wish to be a blessing to others? We can scarcely be a greater blessing to those who reject our offers of priceless truth, than by exercising towards them a sentiment of tender, compassionate forbearance. 'They know not what they do."

CCCCLXVI.

The recovery of a temporal loss is but a temporary acquisition; but a religious submission to a temporal loss is an eternal gain.

CCCCLXVII.

It has been said that men are not so bad or so good as they appear to be, because more act from impulse than from principle. From Matt. v. 22, it appears, that some of those who are evil act from depraved thought (or impulse), some from depraved intention, and some from a confirmed depraved will. Of course, as regards the good, it follows that some act from good thought (or impulse), some from good intention, and some from confirmed good-will.

CCCCLXVIII.

It matters little to the aggrieved party from what degree of evil the aggressor afflicts him; but it is a point of great consequence to the aggressor himself.

CCCCLXIX.

It is a common mistake to suppose, that because a man's duties are spiritual or religious, his motives and character must therefore be of a corresponding superior quality, as compared with those of persons engaged in what are called secular duties, and thus, for instance, that a clergyman must be a holier person than a tradesman. No imagination can be more groundless and absurd than this. A man engaged in any work of mercy to men's bodies may be actuated by the purest motives; while a preacher of the words of eternal life, and even a very successful one, may be influenced by such motives only as are sordid or vainglorious. There is no necessary connection between a man's sphere of duty, and the sphere of his individual spiritual life.

(To be continued.)

M. DE LAMARTINE AND SWEDENBORG.

M. DE LAMARTINE, in his history of the Girondists, speaks of Swedenborg, and calls him "The sublime and obscure Swedenborg." In the French New Jerusalem Magazine for September last, we find the following comment on this declaration of M. de Lamartine :

:

"Swedenborg is indeed sublime, since nothing can be more sublime than the truths he has presented to our view. But obscure—this can never be admitted by any who have read and studied his works.

"Swedenborg is naturally sublime; he is sublime because he speaks in simplicity of divine things; he is sublime because he does not think of being so. But in what respect is he obscure? In vain I examine his works to see if they merit this accusation. Is it in that portion of his works called 'memorable relations' that he is considered obscure? But in these relations, improperly called visions, he only describes and records; and he knows how to describe and record as well as any other author; his literary and scientific works being proofs of this; and in his religious works he has written in the most simple style of the Latin language. I agree that in these memorable relations of Swedenborg respecting things heard and seen in the spiritual world, there are some times emblematic images the signification of which is not so easy to