Bald, naked Universalism is not popular; but there is a very general disbelief, among the leading men of the times, in the old orthodox doctrines of heaven and hell, of the last judgment, the everlasting punishment of the wicked, or that our eternal state is fixed by that in which we die. Swedenborg had greatly modified these doctrines, and taught that the punishment of the wicked is purely negative; that men are in hell only inasmuch as they are not in harmony with God; and not to be in harmony with God, that is, good, is to be out of the Divine protection, and exposed to all the sufferings incident to our abandonment to the natural order of things. He had also recognized different heavens, rising one above another, and different hells, one below another; and had hinted or asserted the possibility of the inhabitants of each improving, and advancing in wisdom and virtue, by their intercourse with the inhabitants of this world. He had himself even instructed angels, and assisted feeble and undeveloped souls. Here were the germs of all that was required. The spirits were to teach that there are different circles in the other world, into which souls are admitted according to their respective tastes and degrees of development, with the chance to rise in due time, if faithful, from the lowest to the highest. In the lower circles, they are improved by intercourse with us, as we are ourselves improved by intercourse with spirits of the higher circle. The dominant doctrine of our age is that of progress; that the universe started from certain rude and imperfect beginnings, and, by a continued series of developments and transformations, is eternally advancing towards perfection, without however reaching it; and that man, beginning, if not in the oyster or the tadpole, at least in a feeble and helpless infancy, develops and advances towards perfect manhood. This doctrine, which a few facts in natural history, in geology, and anthropology, at first sight seem to favor, is at bottom wholly repugnant to the Christian doctrine of a fixed creed, of final repose or beatitude in God, of final causes, and the final consummation of all things. So the spirits are to accept it, systematize it, and propose, as the highest reward of virtue, to be placed on the plane of eternal progression.