to the first, second, or third heaven. We think that no one, in whom reign the heavenly principles of “love” to the Lord and the neighbor; “joy” in duty under all circumstances; “peace” in every change of state; “long-suffering” under all provocations; “gentleness” of behaviour; “goodness” of disposition, ever manifesting itself in good actions; “faith” or truth, believed, loved, and thence trusted in; “meekness” in doing and in suffering; “temperance” both in external and internal delights, Gal. v. 22, would be an unwilling inhabitant of such a heaven as Swedenborg describes. Is not this at least presumptive evidence that he has spoken truly? The three heavens are further subdivided into innumerable societies, some smaller, and some larger; some consisting of myriads of angels, and some of hundreds. Their association into societies, is a result of similarity of character, which similarity is imaged in their faces; and a general likeness of countenance is observed among the angels who form one society. All who are in similar love know each other, just as men in the world know their kindred, relations, and friends; and thus, as it were, spontaneously associated, they feel at home and in freedom, and thence in the full delight of their life. From this it also follows that angels who differ much are far apart; and few depart out of their own society into another, because to go out from their own society is like going out of themselves, or out of their own life, and passing into another which is not so agreeable. Nevertheless all the societies of heaven are bound together in one perfect form, which is strictly human. All angels are in the human form, and are just such men and women as they were on earth, except that they have rejected the material body. That we should have to write and enforce such truisms—for such they must appear to a mind really rational,—is owing to the strange and ridiculous fancies that are commonly entertained on this subject. We often hear the departed talked of as shades, and thought of as minds without forms, or mere thinking principles composed of some sort of ethereal vapor; and when artists draw them, we see perhaps an exquisitely beautiful human form, but disfigured with large feathery wings, which, having no adequate muscles, would have no power of motion. None of these vague, shadowy, and erroneous ideas do we find in the Bible. The angels seen by Abraham, Lot, Manoah, the prophets, and the Lord’s disciples, were all seen as men, and talked with as men. Our author writes thus explicitly on this subject. “The angelic form is in every respect human; angels have faces, eyes, ears, breasts, arms, hands, and feet; they see, hear, and converse with each other; and, in a word, no external attribute of man is wanting, except the natural body.”