BX 8729 .M3 H39 1863 Hayden, William B. 1816- 1893. Ten chapters on marriage ,33 1 I Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2014 https://archive.org/details/tenchaptersonmarOOhayd TEN CHAPTERS ON MARRIAGE: ITS NATURE, USES, DUTIES, AND FINAL ISSUES. / BY WILLIAM B. IIAYDEN, MINISTER OP THE NEW-JERUSALEM CHURCH. SecoiiU islittton. BOSTON : WILLIAM CARTER & BROTHER, 21, Bromfield Street. 1863. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1862, by WILLIAM CARTER AND BROTHER, In the Clerk's office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. HUSTON: PRINTED BY JOHN WILSON AND SON, 5, Water Strekt. DEDICATION. ®0 mg §jel0fr*fo W&ifo, THE COMPANION OF MORE THAN TWENTY YEARS OF WEDDED LIFE, BY WHOSE THOUGHTFUL CO-OPERATION SO MANY OF ITS LESSONS HAVE BEEN LEARNED, AND SO MANY OF ITS DELIGHTS ENJOYED; WHOSE TENDER LOVE HAS CHEERED SO MANY OF ITS ARDUOUS LABORS, AND SMOOTHED SO MANY OF ITS TRIALS ; AT WHOSE REQUEST THESE PAGES WERE PREPARED, AND WITH- OUT WHOSE FOSTERING INFLUENCE THEY NEVER WOULD HAVE BEEN COMPLETED, — ibis SStork is Inscribed, AS A JUST TRIBUTE OF ESTEEM AND GRATITUDE, BY HER AFFECTIONATE UUSBAND. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. The Dual Creation. — The Analogies of the Physical Universe, Animate and Inanimate. Sexuality of the Soul 1 CHAPTER II. The Implanted Law. — Origin. Mental Distinctions. Distinguishing Characteristics of the Two Sexes. Women's Rights. The True Order of Develop- CHAPTER III. The Betrothal. — Religious Principle, the Primary Thing. Purposes. Cautions. Amenities. Duties. Pleasures of Courtship 35 VI CONTENTS. CHAPTER IV. The Uses or Marriage. — To the World. To the In- dividual. Means of populating Heaven, and of promoting' Personal Regeneration _ Co CHAPTER V. Means oe Union. — Advice to Married Partners. How to become united. The Divine Precepts of Life, the true Ground of Union. The purifying Prin- ciple 77 CHAPTER VI. Mutual Duties. — Conjugial Love, in its Essence, a Spiritual Love. What Things are to be given up. True Jealousy. Singleness of Attention. The Church supplies the Wedding Garment .... 80 CHAPTER VII. What of the FUTURE Life. — Immortality of the Sex- ual Distinction. The Lord's Words to the Saddu- cees refer to the Spiritual Marriage, and not to the Connubial Relation : shown from Scripture . . .105 CONTENTS. vii CHAPTER VIII. The Coxjuoial Relation ix the Life after Death. 12:! CHAPTER IX. The Two Ways ; or, The Called and the Ciiosex. — A further Unfolding of the Spiritual Laws, by which they who are internally united here are joined for ever, and they who are not are sepa- rated for ever 135 CHAPTER X. The Visiox of Beatified Ones. — Extracts from Swe- denborg. A Memorable Relation. Glorification of the Lord. Restoration of Conjugial Love . . 149 CHAPTER FIRST. " Female and male God made the man: His image is the whole, not half; And, in our love, we dimly scan The love which is between Himself." The Angel in the Bouse. CHAPTER I. THE DUAL CREATION. God created man in his own image; in the image of god created he him j male and female created n£ them." — Gen. i. 27. TF we stop to regard attentively this visible universe in which we are placed, we shall find it bound together by a common unity of plan. A system of general laws is seen every- where running through it, — a system which is at once grand, simple, and harmonious ; grand, on account of its vastness, and the steady, on- ward march of its events ; simple, when viewed in the light of those great principles of order which underlie all its operation ; and harmonious, because of no discord or contradiction in their united and complicated results. The compact of unity is seen in the thread of law running everywhere through nature, embracing every atom and every movement, 4 THE DUAL CREATION. weaving the whole together in a common network. Analogies everywhere exist. Ideas found in one place are discovered repeating themselves in others. There is likeness and similarity in the different departments of na- ture. Principles that are common in one plane or degree are found to recur in and pervade all others. Higher forms and processes repeat themselves in lower, while lower ones continu- ally look up to and imitate those which are higher. Things invisible are seen in things visible ; things impalpable are touched in things tangible. Spirit everywhere images itself in matter, and matter everywhere reflects the light thrown over it by spirit. Thought and affection type themselves in form and process. The outer- exterior world is a glass, or mirror, in which are shown to the life the laws of the interior or human world; for the one corresponds to the other. The most conspicuous and pervading princi- ple which we find recorded on the tablet of the physical universe is that of Marriage. It is fundamental and universal in every department. It exists in all higher forms, and repeats itself in all lower ones. Without it, there would be THE DUAL CREATIOX. 5 neither production nor increase, prolification nor fructification. It is first seen in the light and heat which proceed together from the sun. The effect of their union is the vivification of all nature. As the cold of winter recedes, the light and heat flowing in from the sun revive and re-animate every thing in the vegetable and animal king- doms : the earth is reclothed with verdure, the fields covered over with grain, and the trees with leaves and blossoms. The whole animal kingdom is divided into male and female. Wherever we go, in its three grand divisions — of fowls of the air, beasts of the field, and fishes of the sea — the same law is universal ; and by it the different species are produced and increased. The vegetable kingdom images and imitates the same thing. All its members, throughout their indefinite variety, are developed according to some form of duplicate powers ; and fructifi- cation comes by the union of the two. It descends into the mineral kingdom, and writes itself upon the inorganic world around us. It is seen in the laws of polarity and chemical affinity. The combination of two forces or principles is always required in order 6 THE DUAL CREATION. that any thing new or any thing further may be produced. Even the elementary substances, of which all material forms are composed, like, better than any other mode, to combine in single pairs ; and nearly every original substance found in nature is the result of such simple unions occurring in the first place, followed by other similar but more complex combinations after- wards. The vast mechanism of the heavens obeys it ; and the floating worlds, as they wheel their ways through space, are held to their orbits and guided safely on their flight by the nice adjust- ment and balanced union of two contending forces. Thus is the first great law of the social human world imitated in all nature. And that which is visible everywhere around us comes forth from that which is invisible. Spirit writes its own impulses upon matter, and matter everywhere obeys the laws imposed upon it by spirit. The powers and forces which move the creation descend into it from the Crea- tor Himself. Attributes of His own mind are displayed in it ; eternal elements of His own in- effable nature are symbolized in it, and look out through it. The method seen in it is the very THE DUAL CREATION. 7 method in which the Divine Mind moves ; the laws impressed upon it are expressions of the mode in which the Lord's own thought and the Lord's own feeling go forth into operation ; and it is because the infinite principle, to which marriage corresponds, exists in the mind of the Lord, that we find an image of it impressed upon every thing of the creation. The two fundamental constituents of the Di- vine Mind are Love and Wisdom. These infinite elements exist in Him as perfectly distinct and distinguishable powers, but always act in uni- son ; and, when they are sent out into operation by Him, they flow forth together as one, as the light and heat of the sun are united in the same ray. It is from His Infinite Love, acting by and through His Divine Wisdom, that all things in the universe have been produced ; and it is this supreme, ineffable, and incomprehensible union, existing in His own mind, which is everywhere typed and repeated and re-echoed in nature. The law has but one source and origin; and from that it descends into the minds of the human family. Men are endowed with faculties and adapta- tions and proclivities and aptitudes and capaci- 8 THE DUAL CREATION. ties, which fit them to give this law a higher expression than it obtains in the universe below them. They may not only receive it, but con- sciously retain and appropriate it. To them it comes as a light in which they may dwell, while it illustrates and illuminates their whole mind. To nature below them, it descends only as a light thrown upon polished surfaces, which is all reflected that others may see. It is commonly supposed that the distinction of sex originated in the purpose of the Lord, expressed in a literal sense of a passage in Genesis, that man should have a help-meet for him, and that they together might multiply and replenish the earth. It is supposed to be only natural in its character ; to be a condition of a physical state of existence ; and hence confined to the life of this present world. It is thought to be a distinction unknown in a spiritual state of existence. Spirits and angels are supposed to be beings of no sex : and, when persons pass from this world by death, they are expected to enter the other life undistinguished in this respect ; rising there, not as men and women, neither as male nor female. Hence the affections proper to the conjugial relation have been deemed to be merely natural THE DUAL CREATION. 9 affections : and the mutual attraction which each sex feels towards the other — leading them to seek each other's society, to associate together, and to form alliances with each other — is only a physical desire, so to speak ; something per- taining to the "mortal body and the visible world ; a proclivity of mind that is not immortal, but which is put off and left behind when the mate- rial body is cast aside. In this way, marriage has been degraded. At best, it has been thought to be only a good worldly relation ; and all the ideas formed in the minds of men concerning the relations and the union of the sexes have suffered in consequence. The conjugial relation has been supposed to be destitute of a truly spiritual element, and a life of celibacy has been pointed at as the higher and purer and holier attain- ment. In the revelations of the New Jerusalem, however, another and fuller light is thrown over this important subject ; and this light is made to break forth from the Word of God. In the passage which forms the motto of this chapter, we read that " God created man in His own image ; in the image of God created He him ; male and female created He them." 10 THE DUAL CREATION. From this we learn, that, when God created the human race, He made them according to His own image ; and we also learn, that, by the distinction between male and female, this image and likeness were rendered more perfect and complete. As we have before shown, therefore, this distinction is founded on the very constitu- tion of the Divine Nature, and proceeds from a fundamental distinction in the elements of the Infinite Mind. It is a principle more interior than the physi- cal constitution. It pertains to the spirit as well as the body. Every element of the soul is permeated and penetrated by it. All the human faculties and powers are thoroughly sexual. The mind of the male is in every thing mas- culine, and the mind of the female is in every thing feminine. Both for ever retain these constitutional characteristics, and go on appro- priating more and more their specific qualities into their inner life. There are forms of faculty, and aptitudes of susceptibility, peculiar to one, which are not possessed by the other. Either alone does not fully image the Maker, — does not exhibit the completed circle of human faculties. It is only in the two united that both sides of THE DUAL CREATION. 11 humanity are seen, and the full man (homo) pre- sented to view. In the poverty of our English tongue, we have no word to denote the whole man, but are obliged to use for this purpose the same term by which we usually speak of the male only; while in the ancient languages — as the He- brew, Greek, and Latin — are found terms which express the idea of man as including both sexes. CHAPTER SECOND. " Marriage is a figure and an earnest Of holier things unseen, And reverence well becometh The symbol of dignity and glory. Keep thy heart pure, Lest thou do dishonor to thy state. Selfishness is base and hateful; But love considereth not itself." M. F. T. CHAPTER II. THE IMPLANTED LAW. " But, from the beginning of the creation, god made THEM MALE AND FEMALE/' — Mark X. 6. ri^HERE are two spiritual principles which reign universally in the creation : these are Good and Truth. Every thing which exists according to divine order has relation to these two. They descend into and appear, in a kind of image, in every thing which the observing mind can rest upon. The reason is, because these two principles exist in the Lord God, who is the Author and Creator of all. The universe is produced by Him, and hence is a work proceeding from Him; and must needs, therefore, derive into all its parts somewhat of those principles which are in Him, — somewhat of that Divine Good and that Divine Truth which are not only in Him, but which He really is : for He 16 THE IMPLANTED LAW. is Essential Love and Essential Wisdom ; and love has relation to what is good, while wis- dom has relation to what is true. It is in accordance with this principle that man has heen created. He was made to image his Creator ; and, therefore, has been created male and female. This distinction has its seat primarily in the soul, and belongs to the mind ; for God is a spirit, and a distinction which should pertain to the body only could not image or be a likeness of Him. It is in the faculties of the mind that this image exists ; and there are certain charac- teristics of mind implanted in the male which are not proper to the female, while there are certain others implanted in the female that do not belong to the male. It is true that each individual separately im- ages the Divine Mind in a certain manner and degree. Each is a distinct personality, and each possesses a form of finite faculties cor- responding to the Infinite Form. Both have understanding and will ; and both, therefore, are conscious recipients of the Divine Love and Wisdom. Each sex, by itself, can exer- cise both affection and thought; and each can become the habitation of good and of truth. THE D1PLAXTED LAW. 17 And yet, notwithstanding this general simi- larity, there are also the most striking differ- ences between them. They do not both possess those faculties in the same degree, nor manifest them in the same mode. In man, the under- standing predominates over the will; while, in woman, the will predominates over the under- standing. His constitution is fitted more dis- tinctly to manifest wisdom, while hers is more distinctly fitted to manifest love. He is more specifically distinguished for intellectual power, and steadiness of judgment ; while she is dis- tinguished for emotional power, and strength of affection. The one possesses, by nature, an innate faculty of becoming chiefly a form of truth; and the other, a similar faculty of becoming chiefly a form of good. And as these two principles proceed from the Lord as one, and, in their descent into nature, are in a perpetual effort to conjoin themselves, therefore there is from nativity implanted in the minds of male and female a mutual inclina- tion to unite and form themselves into one ; and as understanding and will were created to form one mind, so these together were de- signed to form one united and complete man. The essential distinction between the two 18 THE IMPLANTED LAW. principles is this : In the masculine principle, love is inmost, and its covering is wisdom; whereas, in the feminine principle, the wisdom of the male is inmost, and its covering love thence derived. There are two principal loves or great lead- ing desires which characterize man as a rational being, and serve to distinguish him from the brutes : these are the love of growing wise and the love of wisdom. The first of these is pro- perly a masculine love, and the other is properly a feminine love. The faculty of growing wise is imparted to the male by the Lord in propor- tion as he applies himself to the things of genu- ine wisdom ; whereas the love which is pecu- liar to the female is imparted to her through the wisdom of the male : wherefore the strictly feminine principle is derived from the mascu- line ; a truth which is represented in Scrip- ture by its being said that the woman was taken out of the man. Thus we read in the second chapter of Genesis, where there appears a second account of the creation of the human race : " And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept ; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof: and the rib, which the Lord God had taken from THE IMPLANTED LAW. 19 man, made He a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of man" (ver. 21-23). It is not difficult here to see, that, behind the thin veil of the letter, something spiritual is described; and to perceive, that, although the body is spoken of, the mind is what is really meant. As already said, " The faculty of acquiring wisdom is that which distinguishes man from animals ; and wisdom itself is that which raises him above them. As, however, no intellectual acquirement can be made but from the prompt- ings of some love or desire, man cannot acquire wisdom but from the love of growing wise. This is that primary love which lies at the foundation of all human improvement, and gives man the power of endless progression. We see it in its earliest development in the thirst for knowledge, so ardent even in childhood. And that this love is a pure inspiration from the Father of lights, for the purpose of leading His children to Himself, is evident from the circumstance of its existing in the mind before there is any rational motive to give it birth. It 20 THE IMFLANTED LAW. is not, indeed, in its earliest state, the spiritual love of growing wise, but it is at once a rudi- ment and a beautiful type of that love ; and man never comes into the genuine love of which it is the germ, until he again becomes a little child, and is willing to be instructed in the wisdom that is from above by his Father who is in heaven. " But when, from the love of growing wise, man has acquired wisdom, and loves that wis- dom in himself, he forms to himself another love, which, as before said, to distinguish it from the first, we call the love of wisdom; but, as this is the love which a man has for his own wisdom, it is the pride of intelligence, or self-conceit." This love, therefore, is an evil love ; and, if it were allowed " to remain with the male human being, it would destroy" his rationality, " by re-acting against the former, and turning his wisdom into folly. It was there- fore provided, from creation, that this latter love should be taken out of the man, and im- planted in the woman," so that she might become the love of his wisdom, preventing him from loving his own intelligence in excess, and laying the foundation for a conjunction of minds between them. THE IMPLANTED LAW. 21 The love which man has for his own wisdom is the rib, — the intellectual self-hood, — which is taken out of the man, and made into a woman, by which she becomes bone of his bones, and flesh of his flesh. By this beautiful act of creative wisdom, that which would have be- come in man the narrowest and most debasing self-love has been transformed into an object of the most disinterested and ennobling affection. At the same time, it is provided that the wis- dom of the man shall still be loved, and he still loved for his wisdom ; not by himself, but by another, dearer to him than himself, whose love shall have a continual tendency to improvement and happiness. By this means, it is also pro- vided that the man shall be preserved in the single love, — the love of growing wise ; and the woman shall be kept in the single love, — the love of his wisdom : from which both derive their faculty and inclination to re-unite, so as again to become, as it were, one man." From this account of the primitive formation, or original mental constitution of humanity, it follows, that, by birth, the character of the male is intellectual, and that the female partakes more of the will principle. The male is born into the affection of knowing, of understanding, and of 22 THE IMPLANTED LAW. growing wise ; and the female is born into the love of conjoining herself with the male : and as the interiors form the exteriors to their own likeness, therefore the sexes differ from each other as to the features of the face, the tones of the voice, and the form of the body. They dif- fer also in their gestures and manners. In a word, they are not exactly similar in a single respect. The male principle in the male is masculine in every part of his body, even the most minute ; and also in every idea of his thought, and in every spark of his affection. The same is true of the feminine principle in the female. In the words of the great English poet, de- scribing Adam and Eve, — " Their sex not equal seemed : For contemplation he and valor formed, For softness she and sweet attractive grace; He for God only, she for God in him." The moment we come to observe the sexes in the practical development of their social life, we shall find these distinguishing characteristics displaying themselves. Their several functions and uses are perfectly distinct from each other, and yet run side by side in two exactly parallel lines. Those of the one correspond to those of THE IMPLANTED LAW. 23 the other, and the two together complete the whole circle of social life. The aptitudes of each sex fit it to perform the functions required of it, and the inclinations of each attract them to the peculiar duties de- volving upon them. The male, in childhood and youth, delights in a rougher, hardier, more robust class of sports ; and in manhood is led to those uses of a mechani- cal, laboring, professional, and civil nature, which are calculated to develop his peculiarly intellec- tual capacities, as well as being fitted to his hardier mould of body and mind. The female, on the other hand, has an innate inclination to a different class of pastimes and amusements, as well as a disposition to devote herself to manual works, and offices and mini- strations of a more quiet, retiring, and domestic nature. The more attentively these things are exa- mined, and a minute observation given to every characteristic of man and woman, and to every use, function, and requirement of human society, the more will it be seen that the inmost qualities of the two natures are entirely distinct, and that, therefore, the functions of the two are entirely distinct ; and the truth of the following words 24 THE IMPLANTED LAW. of our Lord will be more and more confirmed : u But, from the beginning of the creation, God made tkem male and female.''' 1 f Another truth which the careful and just con- sideration of this divine institution brings to light is the perfect equality of the sexes. They are two halves of one whole. Each is the per- fect complement of the other, and both, mutually and equally, need and require the other. No truly human and complete thing can be done without the consent and co-operation of both. They are equally created an image and likeness of God, — are equally possessed of the human faculties of will and understanding. Both pos- sess freedom and rationality ; both possess simi- larly immortal natures ; and, in the sight of the heavenly Father, stand on precisely the same footing with respect to religious and eternal, life. / Neither is superior to the other in any respect. The distinction between them is that of qualita- tive difference; and not of degree, as of more and less, or of higher and lower. Women are not inferior to men even in their boasted power of understanding. Although the understanding of the woman does not manifest itself in the same way as does that of the man, yet it is none THE IMPLANTED LAW. 25 the less excellent on that account. As we have said, it is of a different quality, but not inferior, in degree or power. The feminine intellect is more perceptive, and quicker in its action : the masculine intellect is reflective, and compara- tively slower. The aptitude of the female mind, when properly trained, is to a fine perception of truth as a practical principle, of its effect in life, of its beauties and uses ; in other words, of the good of the truth. At the same time, it is not constitutionally fitted for that full, rational analysis and severe study necessary for pursuing the higher walks of intellectual labor, which are needed in the search after and eluci- dation of abstract truth, and to which the male mind is peculiarly adapted. So, too, on the other hand, the affection of the man, domestic and social, is not inferior to that of woman, but different in quality. It occupies a different place in his mind from what it does in hers, and therefore fulfils a different function. With him, affection is innermost, and intellect is outermost. Being with him on the surface, therefore, intellect is the most active and the most frequently displayed, while affection is comparativel} r concealed. With her, on the con- trary, affection is outermost, and, being thus on 26 THE IMPLANTED LAW. the surface, is most active and the most continu- ally displayed, while intellect is correspondingly concealed. From these various considerations, it will have been seen that the difference of the sexes is a difference of equality ; and that the equality of the sexes is not an equality of sameness, but of diversity. " Their diversity is the ground of their unity." It is because they are so distinctly two that they are capable of becoming so com- pletely and perfectly one. Each has peculiar excellences of mind and disposition that are not possessed by the other, which are incommuni- cable from one to the other, and which render each attractive to the other. And this distinction of character, which is of divine ordinance, having its foundations laid in the inmost soul, ought to be scrupulously preserved. The more it is preserved in man and woman, the more capable are they of perma- nent and happy union. Persons of neither sex should imitate the manners nor strive to acquire the qualities proper to the other. It is only what is purely masculine in the male, and what is purely feminine in the female, that can unite together in true conjugial relationship. What- ever, therefore, of mind or character, which one THE IMPLANTED LAW. 27 party acquires or assumes, that properly belongs to the other, tends to separate them. "While it continues, it must obstruct their full interior union ; and cannot fail to disturb their harmony, while it mars their happiness. So important is it that this principle should be acted upon in practical life, that we find in the Sacred Scriptures a distinct prohibition of its violation. It is given in Deut. xxii. 5: " The woman shall not wear that which pertain- eth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment ; for all that do so are abomination unto the Lord thy God." These words are declaratory of a law of divine order ; and, as they occur in the Inspired Word of God, we can see that they have a deeper mean- ing in them than they appear to have in the mere letter. Material garments, which cover only the body, have no spiritual character in them, and cannot be an abomination or otherwise in the sight of God. Still, the precept in its literal form is a good civil regulation, and derives its significance from the correspondence which there is between spiritual garments and natural gar- ments : for as natural garments clothe the body, and give it a character as seen by men ; so do spiritual garments clothe the mind, and give that 28 THE IMPLANTED LAW. its character as it is apprehended by men. Spi- ritual garments are maxims or precepts or doc- trines, which we learn and approve, and which we apply to life, in our own development and in our intercourse with others : in other words, they are the maxims which we live by, whether they be good or bad, true or false. Hence it is seen that they are what form our character. If these maxims are genuine precepts of divine truth, then what our minds wear will be properly woven, our characters will be rightly formed, and we shall be clothed in wedding garments. The man will not have on what belongs to the woman, nor the woman be covered with what is proper to the man. The masculine principle will not desire to array itself in a clothing of characteristics and ideas and qualities and habits and manners which are peculiar to the feminine, nor will the feminine principle seek to attire itself in a habit of qualities and man- ners which especially belong to the male. The masculine principle is given to the male by the Lord, the Creator ; and it is his office to give it a right development. It is his duty to clothe it in his own mind with its appropriate kinds of mental acquisition; to acquire know- ledge, to get understanding, and form ideas. He THE IMPLANTED LAW. •20 should strive to form to himself a sound rational judgment, clear intelligence, and practical wis- dom. This he can do truly and well only in the light of divine truth. He must cultivate in himself a principle and a hahit of obedience to the precepts of the Holy Word ; and seek hea- venly knowledge in the fear of the Lord, and worldly knowledge for the sake of uses. And, as he obtains this knowledge and wisdom, he must guard himself against the evil of prid- ing himself on account of it. Genuine wisdom is always accompanied with humility ; and, if he allows himself to become enamoured of his own endowments as to intelligence and judg- ment, he will grow conceited, and his wisdom will be turned into folly. Let him preserve, spiritually, the perpetual attitude of learner: thus will he keep his mind open for the recep- tion of continual influx, and that influx will render him wiser and better. In order that he may be preserved from yield- ing to the temptation of falling in love with his own wisdom or his own habits and manners, and preserved from it in the way intended by the Divine Providence, let him seek to ally him- self in marriage to one of the opposite sex, so constituted and endowed as to be able to respect 30 THE IMPLANTED LAW. and appreciate his abilities, and who is willing to become, at first the affection of his intelli- gence, and at length the love of his wisdom. By cultivating the masculine principle in himself, striving to clothe it with all noble qua- lities and every manly virtue, eschewing all effeminacies, he will render himself more accep- table and attractive to that truly feminine ele- ment which it his desire to associate to himself, and he will thus enable the object of his choice the more easily to become what he wishes to have her become. She will become pleasing in his eyes in proportion as she can defer to his judgment, and love his wisdom ; and, the sound- er that judgment is, the more freely (if she be rightly endowed) will she be able to defer to it ; and, the more that wisdom is cleared of unwis- dom, — of selfishness, unmanliness, and conceit, — the better can she love it. So, on the other hand, the feminine principle has been implanted in the female. Her peculiar constitution is the direct gift of the Lord to her. He is good to all, and His tender mercies are over all His works. Her form of faculties is the very best possible to fit her to be the companion and helper of man. The more she is enlight- ened in regard to her adaptations and powers, THE IMPLANTED LAW. 31 and is aware of her peculiar sphere and function, the more truly intelligent may she become ; and, the more she conforms to the laws of her spirits ual and social constitution, the greater will be her happiness. She has to clothe her mind with its appropri- ate habiliments. She is to acquire knowledge, and strive to be intelligent and wise in her degree ; but _ she is not to enter into all the knowledges, or strive to possess in herself the wisdom, peculiar to the male. She is to love that wisdom ; but she is to love it in another, not in herself. If she acquires it to herself, she will incur the danger which the man incurs, — of loving it in herself ; and so of becoming con- ceited, arrogant, and proud on that account. But her danger is greater than that of the man : for her peculiar innate faculty is the love of wisdom ; and if she cultivate the masculine fa- culties of study, acquiring knowledge, and of getting such an understanding as the male has, and so of becoming wise in her own right, she is almost certain to love that masculine princi- ple in herself, and thus to become masculine in her character, discontented with her own sphere of duties, and unfitted to render home and do- mestic life happy. 32 THE IMPLANTED LAW. There is a literary acquirement as extensive, and an intellectual culture as elevated, as that belonging to man, which is proper to woman; but the two do not take the same direction, nor exhibit the same qualities. The intelligence pro- per to the female is in itself modest, elegant, pa- cific, yielding, soft, tender; while the intelligence which is the proper characteristic of the male is, respectively, in itself grave, robust, harsh, hard, and daring, rugged and adventurous, fond of roving, and of ascending lofty heights. It is not by cultivating the latter qualities of mind that the female becomes attractive to the male : on the contrary, it is by avoiding them, and by becoming the opposite of what he is in these respects. Her real sphere is that of the affections, — the loves and amenities, the proprieties and offices, of private, social, and domestic life ; her pecu- liar love, the love of wisdom as it is manifested in man. She should study to give development to these elements in herself, and to form her cha- racter with reference to them ; guiding her foot- steps by the light of heavenly truth, and, in humble dependence on the Lord, fitting herself to become the affection of some form of intelli- gence in the male. THE IMPLANTED LAW. 33 Thus proceeding, the two sexes will mutually prepare themselves for each other's society ; and prepare themselves to be not only more mu- tually attractive to each other, but also more useful and important to each other. They will thus enter into the states provided for them in the laws of their being. Each will be led to seek the complement or completion of their nature, not in themselves, but in the other. They will be aided in being drawn forth out of self; and by obeying, like dutiful children, the injunctions of the heavenly Father, will lay in themselves imperishable foundations of happi- ness, not only for the pure pleasures and mental delights of the conjugial relation on earth, but likewise for those ineffable joys and unspeak- able satisfactions which flow in from the Lord to similar conjugial unions among the angels in heaven. 3 CHAPTER THIRD. " Seek a good wife of thy God; For she is the best gift of His providence: Yet ask not in bold confidence That which He hath not promised. Thou knowest not His good will : Be thy prayer, then, submissive thereunto And leave thy petition to His mercy, Assured that He will deal well with thee.' CHAPTER III. THE BETROTHAL. " The lord god of heaven, which took me from my fa- ther's HOUSE AND FROM THE LAND OF MY KINDRED, AND WHICH SPAKE UNTO ME, SAYING, UNTO THY SEED WILL I GIVE THIS LAND; HE SHALL SEND HIS ANGEL BEFORE THEE, AND THOU SHALT TAKE A WIFE UNTO MY SON FROM THENCE." — Gen. xxiv. 7. TTOW beautiful the incidents recorded in this twenty- fourth chapter of Genesis! It contains, indeed, the very poetry of history. "With what a divine dignity does the general march of the narrative proceed ! and yet with what touching and minute simplicity are the dif- ferent portions of the story related ! It strikes one of the tenderest chords in the human heart, and has been read with equal interest by all the nations and by all the ages. Time does not wear it out, nor circumstances change it: it is as new and fresh to-day, and comes home as nearly to our human affections here and 38 THE BETROTHAL. now, as it did to Arabian shepherds or to J ewish tradesmen three or four thousand years ago. As man is essentially a religious being, this element of love in our nature, like every other, finds its true development only as it is exercised in obedience to religious truth. "We are born with the natural part of our minds depraved as to inclination or bias ; and the simple love for the opposite sex, as it first operates in the feel- ings, is a merely natural propensity. Like all the other natural inclinations or desires, it re- quires regeneration. It needs to be acted upon by the rational and spiritual parts of the mind, and to be subordinated and held in subjection to them. It has most important and indispensable uses to perform in the economy of human life ; and it should be made to serve in those uses, in strict obedience to the commands of Him who framed the faculties of the soul, and who has mercifully revealed to us, through His Word, some of its principal necessities and laws. Unless we thus treat this inclination, unless it be restrained and guided and qualified by a determinately religious principle, it remains na- tural, having a continual tendency downward to THE BETROTHAL. 30 what is impure and unheavenly and unclean. This downward tendency is, of course, always to be resisted. Let every thing, therefore, which goes to impair perfect purity in this respect, whether in thought or word or look or action, be studiously avoided and left out of the con- duct. As this love is pervaded by a genuine reli- gious principle, and is exercised in obedience to the Lord's commandments, its whole cha- racter is gradually changed. From being a merely natural propensity, which man has in common with the animal creation, it becomes at length a spiritualized desire, rational in its order, and truly human in all its ways. The operation of holy truth is to exalt it and lift it up. Its strength is not abated, its pleasures are not diminished, by the process ; but its qua- lities are changed, and its objects rightly defined. Things not proper to it being refused, it loses by degrees every element of grossness, and continually becomes more and more imbued with what is essentially pure and clean: and, as this state advances, its satisfactions are in- creased ; for the Lord can flow in with His Spirit where His precepts are obeyed, and com- municate unspeakable delights. 40 THE BETROTHAL. Let us look a moment at a few general princi- ples, by way of further introduction to this subject. True marriage consists in the union of two only ; that is, in the union of one man with one woman. Such is the precept given in the Sa- cred Scripture, and such is the uniform teaching of the Christian religion. This is a doctrine, too, which reason corrobo- rates, and observation everywhere confirms. It flows along in harmony with all the analogies of the subject. The unions which correspond to marriage and are emblems of it, both in the natural and spiritual worlds, are conjunctions between two. While the more strictly this is the case, the more nearly do those emblematic forms image the higher or truly human mar- riage. The observance of this law is essential ; for it lies in the very inmost framework of the soul. The constitution of the human mind requires that the conjugial relation should be between one husband and one wife : hence the precept in the gospel is not merely a forensic regulation, which we are legally bound to obey; but also a divine, authoritative declaration of the constitutional fact. The principle we are contemplating, THE BETROTHAL. 41 therefore, is not a truth of one degree only, operating on a single plane, or level ; bnt is fun- damental, striking down through all planes and degrees. It is a natural truth, physical, civil, and moral ; while it is also spiritual, heavenly, and divine. In the light of this law, there may be seen many of the duties that spring out of this rela- tion ; and some of these commence long before marriage itself takes place. They begin, indeed, in the latter period of youth, when that com- merce between the sexes is initiated which occurs in the common intercourse of society. Much may be done by parents and teachers in educating young people to prepare them for this period, and to give them practical aid and gui- dance after they have entered it. Marriage is one of the ends for which they were created. They were made to come together, to associate with each other, to select companions, to enjoy friendships, and to form unions ; and this gene- ral fact deserves to be never pushed aside or left out of view. This mutual attraction between the two sexes of the human family — what a well-spring of delight it is to young and old ! The imaginative 42 THE BETROTHAL. thought of its youthful period has furnished the fairest fields in the romance of the world's lite- rature, and tinges with the light of joy and hope many a landscape in the early experience of all, that otherwise would have been given over to the realms of shadow and coldness. " If thou art to have a wife of thy youth, she is now living on the earth : therefore think of her, and pray for her weal ; yea, though thou hast not seen her." A truly beautiful and use- ful suggestion. But why confine it to one side or one sex alone ? Why may not both the pro- spective parties in this holy relation lift up their thoughts and affections, each for the other, to Him who sitteth on high? There- fore we say to the youth of both sexes, with respect to the future though possibly undis- covered partner, " Think of and pray for him or her." In its early stages, this love is indetermi- nate in its object, and therefore general and indiscriminate in its attentions. Its first and normal state is one of search for a partner with whom to ally itself; and, until such an alliance is formed, the seeking attitude is of course maintained, and the advances made and re- ceived on either side are different from what THE BETROTHAL. 43 afterwards they become. This period has joys peculiar to itself : it is the morning of the un- derstanding, and the spring-time of the heart. To the dawning light of the one, therefore, it adds the glowing impulse and bursting life of the other, and is filled with all the promises of expectation and hope. A thoughtful and sententious writer, address- ing the young man at this period, has happily said, " Pray for him or her, that the Almighty may keep and strengthen and prepare you both for those mutual services which one day you will be called to render unto each other." Is it not an inspiring and helpful thought, that, in our youthful days, we may look up to our heavenly Father thus, and ask Him, in reve- rence and love, to protect and lead, in His all- seeing providence, the unhnoicn one to whom hereafter we are to become united by ties so peculiar and endearing? "We are told in the Writings of the Church, that it is lawful to ask of the Lord a legitimate and lovely union for ourselves with one of the opposite sex. ' ; Yet." as the poet says, " ask not in bold confidence that which He hath not promised. Thou knowest not His good will: be thy prayer, therefore, submissive thereunto ; and leave thy petition to 44 THE BETROTHAL. His mercy, assured that He will deal well with thee ; " and the prayer for our own preparation and leading, with the blessing invoked for the partner, will descend as a refreshment upon the heart, bringing down with it a benediction from on high. A principal thought, which occurs here as important to impress, is the value of honesty in the intercourse of the sexes. Nowhere else does the manly and womanly virtue of sincerity shine with a more conspicuous lustre than when performing its duties here. Let singleness of purpose, with openness of conduct and frankness of manner, not overstepping the just bounds of a prudent reserve, by all means be cultivated. If we adopt the principle of Christian righteous- ness as the general rule by which we mean to live, we shall seldom be at a loss how to decide in favor of pui'ity and sincerity in the special cases that arise. As youth advances, the love which at first was vague and general in its objects has a tendency to become special or definite in its addresses. Instead of wandering to all or to many of the opposite sex, it prefers to select a few individu- als, or perhaps a single one, upon whom to THE BETROTHAL. 45 bestow its attentions. And this is a change of character very proper for it to assume, — a change that comes in the order of the true laws of its nature ; for, as clearly implied in what has been said before, true conjugial love is of such a nature, that it cannot subsist in any mind towards more than one of the opposite sex. Viewed in its highest results, as it is realized in the heavenly world, it is a union between two purified souls. To divide it between different objects would be to destroy it. Now, as one of the principal uses of the union here below is to prepare us for the heavenly union here- after, we can see that the time ought to arrive here, when the attentions of this love are all di- rected to one, and, as they are received and reciprocated by that one, should be withheld and withdrawn from all others ; being reserved for and bestowed entirely upon that single object. Wrapped up in this general truth, we shall find concealed most of the maxims necessary for the period of courtship. Honesty of intention, and singleness of purpose, are everywhere the simple rule. Let the attentions shown be al- ways the fair representatives of the sentiments carried within. It is true, that the growth of 46 THE BETROTHAL. this sentiment in a given direction is often very gradual, and sometimes the degree of growth does not come fully into the consciousness of the person in whom it occurs : but we are sure that we can always do so much as this ; namely, we can refrain from indulging a desire to mislead another in regard to our feelings or intentions. We can refrain from a design to convey a false impression, as well as from manners and atten- tions calculated to say more than the heart means. Deceptions practised in affairs of this kind belong to the worst species of dishonesty; and the one who pursues them gives us the best possible grounds for distrusting his integrity in other things. Need we add to this, that addresses of a spe- cial nature ought neither to be paid to nor encouraged from two different persons at the same time ? While they are offered or bestowed in one place, they should be withheld from all others ; and, while they are accepted and re- ceived from one source, they should be discou- raged from every other. It does not accord with the precepts of true order to retain the wandering habit after the wandering period pro- perly has passed ; while the clearest dictates of justice unite in declaring, that our intentions THE BETROTHAL. 47 ought always in reality to be just what we have designedly made them seem to be to the person most deeply interested in them. But how shall we treat the next stage of this interesting development? What can we say here to the young, more than what a firm reli- gious principle will naturally be apt to suggest to all thoughtful or ingenuous minds ? Perhaps not many things ; and yet a few words of appro- priate advice seem nearly indispensable. First, then, in regard to the selection of a partner for life. It will readily occur, that qua- ^ lities of mind and character are to be regarded far more than every attraction of a fortuitous or exterior nature. Trifles ought not to be allowed to win us or determine our love in so important a connection as this. Simple accom- plishments, though by no means to be despised, are never sufficient of themselves to satisfy, for any length of time, the just demands of the heart ; while affections grounded in mere senti- ment or on natural or worldly considerations possess little of the principle of real constancy, and seldom fail to disappoint, in the end, the par- ties so forgetful of the dictates of true wisdom as to found their union upon them. Those en- -IS THE BETROTHAL. during elements of character, which are right and commendable in themselves, contain in them real beauty ; offering at the same time the surest foundation for a virtuous union, and the best se- curity to permanent happiness : to which, also, similarity of general tastes, with congeniality of disposition and equality of acquirement, will severally contribute their important helps. After exercising freely one's own rational perceptions in the matter, additional safety will be found in having recourse to the superior judgment and larger experience of parents or other elders, who are bound to us by similar ties of affection and interest. Thus will the errors of a precipitate haste be avoided; for they may perceive objectionable features which the inexperienced eyes of the young have failed to discover. Sincere and upright minds will almost inevi- tably be led to ask themselves some serious questions in prospect of this relation. " Can I be useful to the proposed partner ? " and, " Can we be mutually useful to each other ? Is the union one that seems calculated to promote the re- generation of both ? or are there probabilities of its being detrimental to this process in either of us ? " These are most important inquiries, THE BETROTHAL. 49 demanding calm and serious answers. "We shall undoubtedly give utterance to a perfectly cor- rect maxim, if we say, that the interests of the spiritual life are never to be subordinated to the apparent interests of the natural life : and a connection which has every prospect of sur- rounding us with influences adverse to Our growth in the spiritual life cannot be sought or entered with that thorough clearness of the con- science in which we ought to endeavor always to act ; nor can we, in any just sincerity of heart, look up to the heavenly Father to invoke His blessing upon it. Just at this point, too, there arises another question which frequently occupies the thoughts of some, and one which religious minds have put for many ages before : that is, How far is it lawful to marry out of the Church? It may be somewhat difficult to give a precise answer to this which shall be infallible for all cases, so many are the modifying circumstances that sur- round us in life, not unfrequently dictating a course of conduct that would be inexpedient in other circumstances ; an exception to the gene- ral rule, and contrary to the usual maxims of propriety. The most we can do, therefore, is to unfold a general principle, leaving it to indivi- 4 50 THE BETROTHAL. dual discretion and judgment to make the necessary applications of it to particular in- stances. We are enabled to make a declaration of the highest law on this subject with great clearness and simplicity : for the truths relating to it have been definitely revealed for our use in' the Writings of tbe New Jerusalem ; and these teach, that similarity of religious convic- tion and belief is a very important constituent in a true marriage union. Several principal reasons for this appear quite obvious as soon as the subject begins to be considered ; for, as already seen, the final object of marriage ia to join two persons in mind and heart, so as to render them at last, in many important respects, one. The law of its life, therefore, is, that it constantly looks towards a union of souls be- tween the two parties who have entered into it. Now, as we are taught, the religious element, where it exists as a firm or rational conviction, is in the highest part of the mind, being supe- rior or interior to the other parts ; and is the faculty into which we receive those good influ- ences, which, in the Divine Providence of the Lord, are bestowed upon us from the spiritual world. Our faith, therefore, or, in other words, our conscientious convictions of religion, serve THE BETROTHAL. 51 to mould the character and determine the quality of the life far more than any other influences to which we are subject. And as persons of oppos- ing or contrary convictions in regard to religion receive the spiritual influences that flow into their minds from opposite or contrary sources, or through opposite or contrary mediums, the spiritual disadvantages of such a union become at once apparent ; for not only are they sepa- rated as to the most interior things of their minds (the point at which, above all others, there should be union), but the constant tendency of the religious instruction they respectively im- bibe, as well as the religious influence they receive, is to draw them, in this respect, still more widely apart : and this tendency would be strong and operative in the degree that each should become confirmed in the thought and imbued with the spirit of their respective princi- ples. The more nearly any two forms of religion are related to each other, the less is the objec- tion arising from this source ; while the incon- veniences and dangers of such a union increase in proportion as the difference between them is greater. We can perceive, therefore, at a glance, how desirable it is, to say the least, that marriages 52 THE BETROTHAL. should be contracted for the most part between persons imbued with similar principles of reli- gion. It is quite true, and a truth we do not wish to have forgotten, that partners of differ- ent religions may come into a good degree of mental union, may live in obedience to the Lord's commandments, may perform well their duties to each other respecting all the bonds of marriage, exercising mutual love, and living very happily together all their days in the natural world. All we have meant to do is simply to declare the highest spiritual law on this subject, for the benefit of those who are desiring for themselves an interior conjugial union, and are willing, therefore, to take the steps which lead up towards it. It may be that this truth is one of those to which are applicable the words that our Lord used on a certain occasion : " But He said unto them, All men cannot receive this saying, save they to whom it is given." But it is revealed for the instruction of those who can receive it, being willing to obey it ; opening to them a gate to more exalted and more enduring blessedness, and conducting them one stage further in the pathway to heaven : while it is, undoubtedly, a truth of higher importance to those who have THE BETROTHAL. 53 begun to walk in the light of the New Jerusa- lem than to others ; for to them it has been given to come to some knowledge of the spirit- ual sense of the Holy "Word, and of the laws which govern the life after death. This general law appears not unfrequently in the natural or obvious meaning of the Scrip- ture, but always clothed and modified so as to adapt it to the recipient states of men. See, for instance, how beautifully the light of this truth is made to shine forth — with the ex- treme directness of its beam a little parried, and its fullest brilliancy softened to the unused spiritual eye by the cloud of the letter — in this passage of the chapter already mentioned : " And Abraham said unto his eldest servant of his house, that ruled over all that he had, Put, I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh : and I will make thee swear by the Lord, the God of heaven and the God of the earth, that thou shalt not take a wife unto my son of the daughters of the Canaanites among whom I dwell ; but thou shalt go unto my country and to my kindred, and take a wife unto my son Isaac." Thus, in the very beginnings of the Church, when the numbers were too few to afford a wide range for choice, rather than contract THE BETROTHAL. marriage with a religious principle wholly op- posed, and therefore destructive of the Church, it was directed that an alliance should be sought at a great distance with one the most nearly related in religious principle of any that could then be found ; for Nahor and Bethuel belonged to the remnant of the ancient Hebrew Church. And from correspondence we know, that by the command to seek a wife in one's own country, and among one's own kindred, is meant, in the spiritual sense, to seek among one's own spiritual kindred, who are in a simi- lar religious principle. This law was afterwards embodied in a pre- cept for the Jewish Church, and became a fixed regulation of their polity. With refer- ence to the nations round about them, it is said, " Neither shalt thou make marriages with them : thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son ; for they will turn away thy son from following Me, that they may serve other gods " (Deut. vii. 3). And one of the charges brought against Solomon was, that he loved many strange women, and married foreign princesses, by whom his heart was turned away to other and false religious principles. THE BETROTHAL. 55 The thought may arise with some, that obe- dience to this rule, in our times, might, in many cases, limit the freedom of selection within very narrow bounds ; and hence not unfrequently, perhaps, be productive of disagreeable results. A doubt somewhat akin to this seems to have been suggested in the mind of Abraham's ser- vant, after receiving his directions; for he says in his reply to his master, " Peradventure the woman will not be willing to follow me unto this land." As, then, it might not be easy to find a willing partner within the restricted limits of a single kindred ; so, now, a similar difficulty may sometimes arise within the limits of a single church. But the reply which the servant re- ceived to his doubting suggestion removes all moral difficulty from our way, and renders the path of duty, under all circumstances, eminently clear and plain. First, trust in the Lord is exhibited, and that delightful aspect of the Divine Providence, in which partners mutually adapted are watched over with tenderest care, and preserved, and at length, when the proper time arrives, are un- erringly led to find each other, by the heaven- ly Father, is most touchingly and beautifully brought forth : " And Abraham said unto him. 56 THE BETROTHAL. . . . The Lord God of heaven, which took me from my father's house and from the land of my kindred, and which spake unto me, and that sware unto me, saying, Unto thy seed will I give this land; He shall send His angel before thee, and thou shalt take a wife unto my son from thence." Abraham relied on the promises and provi- dence of the Lord : he was resolved to act in accordance with the highest truth to which he had been called ; and he had no doubt that angelic influences would attend on the perform- ance of duty, making the way prosperous, and bringing the whole enterprise to a successful and happy result. And what need have we of any better lesson in this respect ? Why not we, with equal confidence in the love and mercy, and tender, watchful care, of the heaven- ly Parent, pursue the highest truth we know, trusting in Him to render our search success- ful, and to bring our journey to a happy ter- mination, especially as we have given us so much rational doctrine concerning providential laws and heavenly influences? But though this is the straight path, and the one in which every truly regenerating one will rather choose to walk, yet the way to a different THE BETROTHAL. 57 issue, where success does not attend our efforts in this, is not entirely closed up ; for, in the reply given to the servant, — after the words we have already quoted, — Abraham continues : " And if the woman will not be willing to follow thee, then thou shalt be clear from this my oath." Where there is wanting the ability to practise the highest order of truth, there the application of a lower rule of life becomes admissible. And it sometimes pleases the Lord to give us a marriage-union quite different from the one we would picture to ourselves in thought : so, if He denies us the realization of our highest, and what we may esteem the most spiritual, desire of our hearts, in this relation, leading us by the seeming pressure of outward cir- cumstances to form a different connection, we may be sure that He has some high purpose with respect to us to accomplish by this means. The final union, for the most part, is not in this world. The connection here is principally for discipline, and preparation for the union here- after. "We may, for our good, therefore require a partner here differing much from our ideal portrait, and much from the one we could finally be happy with. Many things in our cha- racters have need of being changed : there are 58 THE BETROTHAL. qualities pointing in some directions, requir- ing retrenchment and softening down ; others are deficient, and need stimulating into greater activity, or to be developed into more promi- nence. Our motives of conduct need constant elevation to higher purity; and we are some- times permitted to commit mistakes, in order to show us the way up to a higher spiritual dwelling-place. We may have been disposed to place too low an estimate upon the religious truth in which we have been educated, and are led to form a union in which we shall be enabled to see the inestimable value of that which before we had too lightly esteemed. Thus, whatever the connection we at length find ourselves settled in for life, we may be as- sured, that, all things considered, it is the right one for us, — the one, on the whole, best fitted to develop our character, to bring to light and remove our faults and defects, to promote our regeneration, and thus to prepare us for living in the heavenly world. Let no one who is married, therefore, be too easily cast down or disturbed by the thought that he or she has not made the best selection, or is not conjoined with the right connubial part- ner. It will prove to be the right one for our THE BETROTHAL. 59 growth in goodness, and for our final happiness, if we make the best use we can of our advan- tages, performing faithfully and well the duties which we owe in this divinely instituted rela- tion. We should endeavor to live in all things as though it were the right one, and the mer- ciful Saviour will not fail to bless the dutiful effort. If, on the other hand, no partner is found, and no union ever formed, in the natural world, it ought not to be the occasion of sorrow or of any painful regrets. There are reasons in the divine economy, applicable to our case, for this peculiar provision in regard to our lot. Single- ness will then, we may rest assured, afford us, on the whole, the best opportunity we can have, with our traits of character, to fit us for eternal life, by purifying us of our evils, and so prepar- ing us for the heavenly union, which is to last for ever, and into which it is the gracious design of our heavenly Parent to lead us. But after the period of search has issued in finding, and mutual understanding has ripened into full consent, then follows the betrothal: with which, ancient custom used to connect a formal ceremony, that has latterly fallen out of CO THE BETROTHAL. practice ; but, withal, a beneficial observance, and one every way worthy of being revived. When an agreement of marriage has been made between two parties, their relations to each other become thereby changed in some impor- tant respects. New duties in regard to each other begin to develop themselves, — duties which look forward to the future connection they are intending to form. A state of affec- tion is then beginning to grow up in the mind of each for the other, which very nearly resem- bles the love by which they are to be united after they have become married partners : and it is liighly important that this young love, so free and spontaneous in its offerings, should be carefully tended and guarded ; having protection given it against whatsoever might impair its pu- rity, or chill its appropriate ardor, or injure its continued growth. True conjugial love — some principle of which is so deeply implanted in the human mind, especially of the female, as already seen — seeks, by the law of its life, to be more and more intimately conjoined in mind to the one partner, and to no other : hence any thing which stands in the way, tending to prevent or obstruct this conjunction, weakens the love, and hinders its growth. The truest happiness, THE BETROTHAL. 61 therefore, will be found in avoiding every thing that needlessly offends or crosses these new desires. Neither party should be willing to hurt or injure these tender feelings existing in the mind of the other. There are certain attentions, and outward marks of affection and respect, that belong peculiarly to this period, which each party has a right to expect from the other, which, if thoughtlessly or capriciously bestowed on or encouraged from another, dis- turb these affections, and inflict an injury upon them. Hence they are to be guarded with a proper jealousy, and never treated with levity or fickleness in any stage of their develop- ment. The time between engagement and marriage should not be too short. There is no need to consummate with too much haste the nuptial ceremony : there are many useful things to be gained by a little delay. The thoughts and affections of the parties are determined a good deal to each other ; they are beginning to re- gard each other as partners ; and a little time will give these feelings and thoughts oppor- tunity to take root, and become more deeply implanted. A surer foundation for future hap- piness may thus be laid : for the disposition of 62 THE BETROTHAL. each is gradually forming to meet the tastes and peculiarities of the other ; while a spirit of mu- tual forbearance and concession pervades the period, in which it is comparatively easy for either to yield to the wishes or convictions of the other. Innumerable points of mutual agree- ment, attachment, and sympathy, will thus natu- ally be formed, of great value to them in all their subsequent intercourse. We read that our Lord was present at a mar- riage once in Cana of Galilee, and there turned water into wine. So He is always present, both by His Spirit and His Providence, at every mar- riage which is sought and contracted in an obe- dient regard for His truth ; turning every thing connected with it into something better than it would be without His presence, inspiring the love which draws the partners together, impart- ing the mutual good-will by which its duties are performed, and communicating the delights by which all its pleasures are enjoyed. CHAPTER FOURTH. " Bride and bridegroom, pilgrims of life, Henceforward to travel together In this the beginning of your journey, Neglect not the favor of Heaven; And at eventide kneel ye together, That your joy be not unhallowed: Angels that are round you shall be glad, Those loving ministers of mercy; And the richest blessings of God Shall be poured on His favored children." CHAPTER IV. THE USES OF MARRIAGE. , " For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, AND CLEAVE UNTO HIS WIFE." — Mark X. 7. \VTHO shall adequately describe the social ~ " uses of marriage ? They are numerous and twofold, — natural and spiritual; or those which relate to the body and the world, and those which relate to the soul and to heaven. All these conspire and flow together, coalescing in one most beautiful, perfect, and harmonious system. The natural functions, with the adapted affections which grow out of them, are the bases or receptacles of the spiritual uses, with the loves and affections which are proper to them. Therefore the connection between these two classes of use is far more intimate and vital than is commonly supposed. 1. This relation is the means of populating the globe. This may, indeed, be considered its 66 THE USES OF MARRIAGE. most conspicuous natural use ; but is also the means by which are produced future inhabitants for the spiritual world : and so, by the same in- stitution, is the perpetual increase of heaven provided for ; and population, added there, re- mains for ever. Thus we see that its greatest spiritual use springs forth from and grows im- mediately of its principal natural function. It is so of the others. 2. This institution is the parent of all family relationships ; and hence, too, of all those de- lightful social affections that form the endearing ties of the different degrees of consanguinity. It is highly important that these various natural affections should be brought forth in the human mind, and rendered active from the earliest stages of our growth. In our tender years, we are the most easily formed by the outward in- fluences that surround us ; and were it not for the emotions that are awakened in us by the endearments of home, and the tender ties that are formed by the relations of parents and chil- dren, brothers and sisters, with the other affini- ties which are less near and dear, the heart would remain lone and unapproachable. Cold- ness and selfishness would be almost sure to settle around it. Intercourse with the world THE USES OF MARRIAGE. G7 would be far more likely to harden than to soften it. The spiritual affections would find it difficult to form in such a mind. Mutual love, or love to the neighbor, could not be so readily felt by one who had never exercised a similar love in the family. The heavenly Father cannot be so easily or willingly loved, obeyed, and worshipped, by one who has never first learned to love, respect, and obey an earth- ly parent. Proper affection, and an unselfish regard for fellow-members of the Church, cannot be so readily called into exercise by one who has not from youth had the love of kindred drawn forth in him in a circle of relatives and friends. All the spiritual affections of heavenly love need the corresponding affections of good natu- ral love to afford them shells, or coverings, in which they may grow, and from which they may derive a species of nourishment, or support, while in their infantile or formative state. They are what first open the mind and expand it, and so impart to it a greater capacity of reception for other and higher thinga, which enlarge the character and build up the man. From this point, therefore, it will be instruc- tive to take a view of the superior dignity and 68 THE USES OF MARRIAGE. excellency of the uses connected with marriage. They cluster about it, and ray out from it on every side : at the same time, they all regard and look to it as their focal point, or centre. In it God associates man with Himself in the great work of creating human beings. He ad- mits him to be a helper, and consents to carry on, through his subsidiary instrumentality, that most sublime of all natural works in which He is engaged. He wills to give ultimate effect to His own divine creative acts through the con- sent and co-operation of man. It is a perpetual operation, which He has much at heart, and which He takes ineffable delight in perfecting and fulfilling. "What wonder, then, that the married state is the most receptive of happi- ness ; that into it are collected the highest joys and purest satisfactions that the human mind can experience : and those joys and satisfactions go on increasing, not only while we remain in this world, but unfold into indefinitely superior delights in the heavenly world. Thus we see that all things centre in marri- age, — the production of human beings, the po- pulation of the globe, and the increase of heaven. It is the centre also of all affections, happiness, and delight; and the spiritual life of man has THE USES OF MARRIAGE. 60 its origin and first principles in the same semi- nary. The spiritual uses derived from it to the in- dividuals who enter into it begin from the first moment of their exterior union. It is the state the best fitted, in all respects, to form the cha- racter ; the one most favorable to the growth of all the social and moral virtues ; and that most promotive of the graces of Christian acquire- ment, the affections and traits of truly heavenly life. "When its offices are performed from religious principle and a sense of duty, it tends to spirit- ualize and purify the mind more than any other relation in which we can be placed. It draws out our love, and places it on other objects than self, and, by determining the flow of the affec- tions very strongly to those objects, makes it easier to forget self ; affording a kind of mental lever, by which we are lifted out of a state, from which, without some extraneous aid, we should find it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to extricate ourselves. This is effected by all the circumstances that surround married partners in a family. The children form a common bond between them, and attract the desires and intentions of pa- 70 THE USES OF MARRIAGE. rents to an activity with reference to their good, instead of a concentration of that activity on themselves. Many, no doubt, regard the love of offspring as the primary love ; the one, perhaps, of superior interest, excellency, and obligation. And many parents love their children better than they do their married partners ; while it is believed that not a few love their partners principally on account of or for the sake of the offspring. Without genuine doctrine on the subject, it could never be known that this is not true order. Commendable and proper and necessary and obligatory as the love of offspring is, and as useful, pure, and elevated as it is capable of becoming, it is yet not to be placed on the same level with love to the married partner. It belongs to a different plane : it is neither so lasting in its nature, nor so profound in its quality. The relation of parents to chil- dren, and of children to parents, is one which belongs to the present world. When the natu- ral body is laid aside, and the other world is entered, this peculiar relation no longer exists. When children enter there, or when those who have entered as infants come to be instructed there, they are no longer taught to regard earthly parents in the same light in which it was THE USES OF MARRIAGE. 71 their duty to regard them while they remained in the natural world. They are then taught to look up to and acknowledge the Lord Himself as the only Father, and to regard all in heaven as brethren and sisters ; and as soon as they ar- rive at years of maturity or rationality, so as no longer to require the care and attention of their angelic matrons or nurses, they are instructed that the Bride — the Lamb's wife, the Church as it exists in heaven — is what is there under- stood by " mother." From this we can perceive, that the love which binds parents to children, and children to parents, is comparatively ephemeral in its na- ture ; that its principal sphere of operation is the present life ; and that it does not endure to eternity. Not that the love for children or the young ever decays in the human breast. Far from it. That love is stronger in the minds of angels than it ever is in the minds of men ; but their love gives birth to spiritual affections. They love all children better than their parents do. They do not love their own any more or any differently from what they love those of others. They do not claim as their own those that were born to them on earth ; but acknowledge those, 72 THE USES OP MARRIAGE. equally with others, to belong only to the Lord and to heaven. Thus that specific love by which parents re- gard their natural offspring as being peculiarly their own children ceases when we enter the heavenly world, and is replaced by the angelic love of children; and that specific love with which children regard their natural parents is replaced by a spiritual love for the Lord and His Church. Not so with the love between conjugial part- ners. This comes from a deeper ground in our V nature. It has its birth on a more interior plane in the soul, and stirs a more interior class of emotions. The principles it affects, and the sympathies it gives rise to, flow from and enter into the permanent constituents of our being. It does not cease when we have finished our journey in the present world ; it continues : it is endowed with attributes which are everlast- ing. When the things of time and natural sense are dismissed, it does not close like states connected only with the body, but continues to open perpetually more and more inwardly. On ascending into the heavenly world, it does not, like the love of children, grow more general or wide-spread in the objects of its affection: on THE USES OF MARRIAGE. 73 the contrary, it becomes for ever more and more specific. It is more and more intently deter- mined to one, and more and more strictly con- fined to that one. Such is the state into which all ought to come ; for it is the state in which all must be, and for ever remain, if they dwell in the heavens. Being so deeply rooted, therefore, in the in- most parts of our constitution, the sympathies and duties which grow out of this relation in the world are calculated to stir the heart, and affect us more deeply than those which spring from any other. Its varied trials and encou- ragements, its joys and sorrows, its hopes and fears, its pains and pleasures, move the profound- est principles of our nature ; and, while they thus operate upon the character most powerful- ly, may at the same time be made to do so most beneficially. While, as we have seen, marriage affords some of the best opportunities for calling forth and putting into exercise the good affections belong- ing to our nature, it also furnishes the very best external means of getting rid of our evil pro- pensities. In the first place, it enables us to see them. 74 THE USES OF MARRIAGE. It brings us into frequent and most intimate contact with the wills of others ; and, in this way, innumerable discrepancies between our desires and the desires of those most dear to us are brought to light. The disagreements that take place necessarily lead to comparison of views, and it is seen that those things which cause jarring and disharmony are evils ; that they stand in the way of union and happiness ; and that they are alike contrary to conjugial love and the divine precepts. In this way, count- less faults of disposition and character in our- selves are manifested to us, which otherwise would have remained unseen by us, and we should have continued to retain them. In the second place, it furnishes us with a superior set of motives for putting them away. To deny ourselves on account of others is a better work than to do so merely for the sake of our own improvement. To deny a selfish grati- fication, in order to promote the happiness of another, is highly beneficial to our own states. To avoid a bad habit, or reform a disagreeable trait of character, because it annoys the feelings or disturbs the peace of a beloved partner, will add new stamina to our moral forces, and strengthen our power of goodness. To curb THE USES OF MARRIAGE. 75 and restrain an unruly temper or morbid pro- pensity because it is not only contrary to the divine law, but also injurious to one who is bound to us by the closest of ties, will have a tendency to lift us higher above it, and separate it farther from us, than it would to do so simply as a work of single, isolated regeneration. CHAPTER FIFTH. Let no one have thy confidence, O wife! saving thy husband: Have not a friend more intimate, 0 husband ! than thy wife. In the joy of a well-ordered home, Be warned that this is not your rest; For the substance to come may be forgotten In the present beauty of the shadow." M. F. T. CHAPTER V. MEANS OP UNION. "And they twain shall be one flesh: so, then, they ake no moke twain, but one flesh." — Mark x. 8. 'E are taught in the Writings of the New * T Church, that there is continually proceed- ing directly from the Lord Himself a universal conjugial sphere. This sphere is an emana- tion of life ; and it flows out, therefore, with a perpetual tendency, conatus, and endeavor, towards the production of results, — towards the production of effects which are peculiar to itself. These effects are conjunctions between pairs of opposite polarity, and the propagation of offspring therefrom. This is the medium through which the renewal of creation is car- ried on, and its perpetuity maintained. In the animal world, it is prolification : in the vegeta- ble world, it is fructification. so MEANS OF UNION. This sphere and conatus pervade the entire universe. It is that divine spiritual energy which imparts to universal nature animation and activity. It encompasses every object in the creation like an atmosphere, — from first principles to last, from highest to lowest. All are recipient subjects of its influence, — from the most elevated angel in the highest heaven to the meanest worm that creeps upon the earth's surface. Into each subject it is received and manifest- ed according to the form of that subject. In men, it gives rise to love ; in animals, to in- stinct ; in vegetables, to organific force ; in minerals, to motion and affinity. In the superior heavens, it is received as the unity of two minds, effected through the conjunction in them of heavenly love with heavenly wisdom. In the inferior heavens, it is received as a similar conjunction, effected to a less perfect degree. With men, it may be received in a natural manner or in a spiritual manner ; in a disorderly and inverted way, or in an orderly and right way; either as the promptings of blind desire, of carnal lust, or as the impulses of rational love and hallowed affection. MEANS OF UNION. 81 The divine precept to married partners is, that they shall become one ; and the unity thus meant is a unity of mind, — a consenting agreement of understanding and will, of affec- tion and thought. And, when such a union of soul — of heart and mind — has been effect- ed between two, they can no more be put asunder, neither in this world nor in the world to come. They have then been joined by the Lord through the medium of His divine truth, and His work endures to eternity. From the account we have already given of the constitution of the male and female minds, we see that they are mutually adapted to each other, and fitted in their very natures to act together and to become one. Each supplies, to the other, elements of affection and thought, which it requires to render its own being full and complete. The female is gifted with love, and needs the male mind to give it form, to sur- round it with intellectual hardness, affording it outward protection and defence. The male is gifted with understanding, which needs the female mind to afford it a place of rest ; where also warmth and impulse may be imparted to it. The innate tendency of the two minds, after marriage, is to become one ; and they will 6 82 MEANS OF UNION. continue to do so more and more, of their own accord, if the partners only remove pre- ventives out of the way. This is a most mer- ciful provision of our Father in the heavens. "We have not to effect this union of ourselves. If it were left to our powers to perform, it would never be accomplished. We could never work out such a change in our own minds ; but the Lord makes constant provision for its being done for us. All that two partners have to do to bring it about is simply to remove obstruc- tions out of the way ; to quiet discords, and can- cel defects; to desist from those things which separate them ; to give up, successively, those particulars of self-will, and those gratifications of selfish desire, in which each crosses the will of the other. The progressive conjunction will then go on. The Lord, by the outflowings of His Spirit, will effect it. The universal conju- gial sphere proceeding from Him will continually flow in, and exert its formative influence on the two minds. It will perpetually draw them to each other, and it will continually inspire into them the various affections and thoughts neces- sary to bind them more and more closely into one. It is the self-wiil of each that is to be given 5IEANS OF UNION. S3 up, and not merely the will of one to the will of the other. A species of conjunction may take place from the habitual submission of one to the will of the other, or of each, in certain cases, to the will of the other ; and thus by the balancing of dispositions, and the offset of one natural desire against another, an equili- brium may be produced which will effect a practical concord. But such an agreement does not constitute true union : it is nothing more than the nega- tive consent of the unregenerated will. The harmony produced by it is only apparent, and not real ; resting on the surface of the mind, and not reaching to the interiors. The work to be done is the giving-up the natural and selfish wills of both to the will of the Lord. The moment we are no longer deter- mined or anxious to carry out selfish desires, conformity to the will of another becomes com- paratively easy ; and, where both are willing to enter into the same state of effort towards con- junction, difficulties rapidly disappear. The precepts of divine truth offer a standard of light, and afford a common ground of union. The new or regenerated wills of the two, being formed from similar views of the truth and by 84 MEANS OF UNION. a similar affection of the truth, will be in com- plete unison. The old wills of the two are what are not united, and those old wills never can be truly united, to each other. It is not in their nature to become so : for, in their nature, they are essentially selfish ; and selfishness al- ways tends to division and separation. As the old wills of the parties are lost, a new, united, or conjoined will is formed through the insemina- tion and growth of holy truth, — a common will of good, of right, of heavenly love, of obedience to the divine commands. This is what is meant by becoming one flesh. It is also provided by the Lord, that the several duties which pertain to each shall have a tendency to conjoin mar- ried partners more and more into one ; for all the offices and employments of the wife connect themselves with those of the husband, and, as it were, make one with them. The happiness of the husband requires that he should have per- formed for him those offices which belong to the wife, and the happiness of the wife requires that she should have performed for her those which belong especially to the husband. The two spheres of employment, or duty, afford mu- tual aid to each other at every point of contact; and they have points of contact throughout the MEANS OF UNION. 85 entire circle of each : so that they flow mutu- ally together to form one united and complete house. The conjunction is more rapidly promoted by both partners giving their specific attention to their own peculiar sphere of use and duty. The whole round of duties proper to the man cannot be so well performed by the woman as by him ; and the more she retires from them, giving them up to him to perform, the better opportunity will she give the husband of con- joining himself to her : and the more the hus- band, on his part, looks to the happiness of the wife in the performance of his own duties, the more will that conjunction be effected. So, on the other hand, the circle of employments suita- ble to the female cannot be so well executed by the man as by her ; and, the more he withdraws from meddling or interference in that depart- ment, the better opportunity will he afford the wife for conjoining herself to him : while the more the wife, on her part, regards the happi- ness of her husband in all the works of her department, the more will that conjunction be effected. " In the duties proper to the men, the pri- mary agent is understanding, thought, and wis- £6 MEANS OF UNION. dom; whereas, in the duties proper to wives, the primary agent is will, affection, and love; and the wife, from the latter principles, performs her duties, and the man, from the former, per- forms his : wherefore their duties, from the nature of them, are diverse, but still conjunc- tive, in a successive series." * To those who are gifted, or who are begin- ning to be gifted, with true conjugial love, there is a perception given that they may be- come, and that they are becoming, more and more united both as to understanding and will ; and this perception is a source of inmost de- light. By means of it, there are at times inspired, into the hearts of partners, feelings of love which are full of innocence, peace, tran- quillity, and inmost friendship. These give rise to full and entire confidence in each other, and to a mutual desire of mind and heart to do each other every good in their power, and to be in an effort each to promote the happiness of the other. From this conjunction, or marriage, of the two minds, a progeny is produced ; a progeny of the spirit; an offspring of minds and hearts; an * Conjugial Love," No. 175. MEAN'S OF UNION. issue, or seed, of affections and thoughts. States of mind are produced from it, of the greatest satisfaction, delight, and pleasure, — emanations which are ever becoming more and more full and delightful as the union of soul progresses, satisfactions which are only the earnest and foretaste of those heavenly enjoyments that are to constitute the blessedness of eternal felicity. This marriage of the mind successively opens the souls of the two partners to the reception of a higher love and a better wisdom. The man is all the while being gifted with a clearer intelligence, and the wife is all the while being gifted with a purer affection for that intelli- gence. Thus the husband becomes constantly more truly wise, while the wife becomes con- stantly more truly lovely. This is the progres- sion of the pair to eternity. Thus may two minds, like two branches of a living vine, by careful pruning and bending, be trained, not merely to grow together in the same general direction, but likewise to intertwine, lacing their twigs together, and mingling in a common mass their fragrant leaves, their blos- soms, and their fruit ; and this by a mutual attention to the labor of cultivation, which shall yield its varied satisfactions at every step. CHAPTER SIXTH. " If thou wilt be loved, Render implicit confidence; If thou wouldst not suspect, Receive full confidence in turn: For, where trust is not reciprocal, The love that trusted withereth." M. F. T. CHAPTER VI. MUTUAL DUTIES. "What, therefore, god hath joined together, let not 'ROM what has been thus far said, it will have -*~ been perceived, that conjugial love, viewed in its inmost, true, and essential nature, is a spiritual and heavenly love ; and it will also have been seen, that it is a different love from spirit- ual love to the neighbor. The difference consists in this : In conjugial love, each partner desires to belong to and become more and more the other's, to see themselves in each other, and to give themselves to each other. In neighborly love, there is no such desire of conjunction ; but a desire to do heavenly justice to the neighbor, and to see him exalted in blessedness, and eter- nally happy. In addition to that exclusive love for each other which it is both the duty and the privilege MAN PUT ASUNDER." — JIark X. 92 MUTUAL DUTIES. of married partners to cultivate, there should be between them a constant effort to act in all things in unity from love. Upon this the progress of their union and their happiness greatly depend. We have said that their unity of action ought to proceed from the united love of each ; for only in such union is there true freedom. It is important that the perfect freedom of each mind be carefully preserved ; " since it is impossible for any mutual love or happiness to exist where one party assumes dominion, and reduces the other to a state of servitude." " The absence of all inclination to govern by mere authority is essential to the very existence of conjugial love." — "This liberty," in which each should study to leave the other, " does not imply a license for either party to follow freely any vicious inclination, or any course inimical to the conjugial state or to their domestic happi- ness. It implies liberty in all things that are orderly ; the free enjoyment of the rights which belong to the husband and wife as parties in a covenant, the benefits of which can only be truly realized by the freest affection ; by mutual ser- vice yielded by love, not extorted by fear. True love ever desires reciprocation, and love can only be reciprocated by love ; but there can be MUTUAL DUTIES. 93 neither love nor reciprocation, except where there is liberty." The attempt of either party to rule, in the marriage relation, has almost an inevitable tendency to set the minds of the par- ties more or less at variance. If it sometimes be so slight as hardly to cause itself to be out- wardly observed, yet it can scarcely fail to work towards a species of inward alienation, far more to be dreaded and to be more studiously guard- ed against. If not removed, it will ever prove a fruitful source of disagreements and misunder- standings. There is, indeed, a genuine fear connected with conjugial love ; but it is not the kind spo- ken of above. It is a fear lest that love should suffer hurt or injury, and lest any thing be done to disturb the affection or alienate the mind of the partner. It is analogous to that fear which a dutiful child feels of disobeying a kind and judicious parent; or which an humble and de- vout follower of the Lord feels of proving recre- ant to duty, or transgressing the will of the heavenly Father. Hence, too, it is a truth, in connection with this subject, which ought to be known, that there is such a thing as a genuine and proper jealousy. This truth ought likewise to bo ac- 04 MUTUAL DUTIES. knowledged in practice. Of the natural or self- ish or disorderly or improper kinds of jealousy it is not our design to speak : they are, of course, to be avoided, and put away from the mind. But true jealousy is a different emotion. It is a spiritual affection, having its seat in a more interior region of the mind. It originates in a fear lest conjugial love should be in any way divided, and should thereby perish, wholly or in part. Thus it is set as a guard in the mind to protect this most valuable jewel of the human soul. In the figurative language of Scripture, the Lord himself is not unfrequently represented as being jealous, lest his Church, which is be- trothed or united to him in spiritual marriage, should in some way prove unfaithful in her high duties. The more any two partners are really united to each other internally, the more sensitive will each be in this respect, and the more intensely will their jealousy burn against those who infest, or who in any way seek to disturb, the simple and sacred unity of married love. Those who are spiritually united to each other regard their mutual and reciprocal union into one as the pri- mary end of life. In that union they find their spiritual rest, their satisfaction of mind, their MUTUAL DUTIES. 95 solace or gladness of heart. Having, therefore, put disunion away from their thoughts and affec- tions, they are greatly disturbed by any thing which threatens it, and that threatens it even in the remotest manner. When, therefore, even a chance exists that injury will be offered to it, or an appearance of separation happens, through the outward attentions of love being diverted to another party, this sentiment is aroused, and its fire possibly may sometimes appear even as a burning zeal directed against the intruder or offender. All affection of genuine love is attended with fear and grief, — fear lest it should perish or be injured, and grief in case it does perish or is in- jured. It is the innate sentiment of self-preser- vation, possessed by every principle of life there is in the universe. Hence we may see that the jealousy which has place with those married partners who tenderly love each other, and who are in a right effort to be truly united, is a just fear or grief, grounded in sound reason, lest their conjugial love should be divided, and should thereby perish, or suffer hurt, or come into jeo- pardy. As reason and sound judgment and intelligence and wisdom are faculties most peculiar to the 9G MUTUAL DUTIES. male, and the wife is affected by them princi- pally by reception through the husband, so con- jugial love, with its affections and perceptions, resides pre-eminently with the female : and the husband is inspired with and feels it principally by reception through the wife. Wives are its peculiar recipients. With them it is stored, and through them it is dispensed. They are by na- ture its constituted warders, or keepers ; and, in a profound sense, they are the watchmen and overseers of what properly belongs to it. For this purpose, they are gifted with peculiar per- ception. They have a nicer appreciation than the men of all its contingent proprieties, and a quicker sense of the approach of any thing tending to molest or impair it. Hence their bo- soms are oftenest the seat of that peculiar but true jealousy we have just endeavored to de- scribe ; and its ends and monitions should be carefully and generously allowed, appreciated, honored, and defended by the husband. From the same cause, the love of women is more constant than that of men. Their affec- tions, once determined in a given direction, are not so liable to change. The conjugial principle is innate with them ; and where, from a sense of religious duty, they give it a right cultivation, it MUTUAL DUTIES. 97 is easier for them to conform to its just require- ments : but their determination, in great measure, depends upon the husband. The Aryan people, who settled anciently in the valley of the Ganges, and from whose records and institutions sprang the religions of Brahmin- ism and Buddhism, had a beautiful symbolical rite connected with this subject. When a youth- ful pair, just united* in wedlock, betook them- selves to their new home, they were required to light a lamp of a peculiar kind, and one which, according to their customs, was allowed on no other occasion, nor devoted to any other purpose. It was reserved for this single use. The flame of that lamp, once lighted, was to be kept con- stantly burning night and day. Never was it allowed to be extinguished ; but at all hours, in every season, year after year, through all the changes of life, that lamp burned on, until the death or separation of the parties. This was the remaining tradition of a spirit- ual correspondence derived from the Ancient Church. Who does not see in that nuptial lamp a striking emblem of that flame of conjugial love, pure and constant, then to be lighted in that dwelling, and which ought to warm and unite those hearts through the whole of their life ? 7 98 MUTUAL DUTIES. "Women love the bonds of marriage if the men do, and are seldom inclined to break them : but conjugial love is of such a nature, that it requires reciprocation in kind ; and, where singleness and constancy are given, singleness and con- stancy are naturally demanded in return. With men, the special conjugial principle is not so conspicuously innate: their love is more given to wandering, and to seeking a variety of objects upon which to bestow itself. The bonds of mar- riage operate more as a restraint to them, and they find it less easy to fall in with and conform to all its proper and just requirements. Hence we perceive the work that is to be done in them : those wandering or roving tendencies are what require to be resisted and restrained ; and they need all the aid that the wives can contribute, through their greater constancy and nicer per- ceptions, to enable them to overcome, and to enter into that true conjugial state for which all were designed. The importance of these truths cannot be over-estimated. It is impossible to exaggerate their value. They possess an intrinsic reality, which, the more it is studied, the more will it be seen ; and, the more it is seen in its true light, the more highly will it be appreciated. Marriage is MUTUAL DUTIES. 09 the keystone of human society ; and conjugial love, the cement that binds it to its place. If that love be rendered unholy or impure, the ce- ment turns to sand, aud the whole fabric totters or falls. Precisely in this relation lies the central re- form of all others. On it is based the whole hope of the world. The renovation of humanity is to begin just here. This is the very focal point of its initiation. Here the Church enters into the life of man ; and it is through the Church that sanctification is to be wrought, and general improvement insured. It has been long a recognized truth, that forth from human homes, as from little fountains, were to proceed the influences that are to reform and elevate society ; but a closer examination carries the analysis back a step further, and shows the conjugial relation as the centre of the home, and the spring, or fount, of the influences in it. The state of conjugial love with the married partners determines the state of the family : and, if that love has the Church (or heavenly love and wisdom) in it, the family will have the Church in it : and, if the family has the Church in it, the world will have the Church in it. But if conjugial love be allowed to decay, or 100 MUTUAL DUTIES. descends to a low plane of the mind, becoming only a worldly or a natural or a civil relation, or one of selfish convenience and gratification, there will be nothing spiritual or purifying or elevat- ing in it. The Church then leaves it. And, if it have nothing of the Church in it, no spiritual, purifying, elevating influence will go forth from it into the family, nor from the family into the world. Where true conjugial love exists with the parents, better hereditary tendencies are trans- mitted to the children. The innate evils of their nature are modified and mitigated. Old ances- tral propensities are a little broken up, and the offspring partake somewhat of the acquired dis- positions of the parents. To the sons is commu- nicated a better faculty of growing wise, and to the daughters a better faculty of loving the things of true wisdom. Thus by both is inhe- rited a greater capacity of receiving the Church, and a more ready aptitude for bringing forth into a life of regeneration the seeds of holy truth. It was by a gradual fall that the world has sunken to its present state ; and it is by a gra- dual rising again, extending through many suc- cessive generations, that the human race as a mass must lift itself out of its corruptions, and MUTUAL DUTIES. 101 stand forth at last in the fulness of its original purity, and endowed with more than its origi- nal strength. It has many times heen said, that the hopes of humanity rest with mothers ; that, to them being intrusted the care and education of the young, the duty devolves on them of giving them a culture and a training, in their tender and impressible period, which shall turn them in the right direction, and which, it is hoped, they will continue to pursue after they have grown up. The truth of this conception we have no wish to deny. Let humanity avail itself of such education to the utmost extent. The good of it none will gainsay. And yet we have another and a different word to speak in regard to it. It may be true, that " education forms the common mind ; " it may be true, that, "just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclined." But it will be found in after-years, that the kind and quality of the fruit which the tree will bear depends more upon the nature of the seed from which it is propagated, than on any peculiar bending or training that might be bestowed upon it while it was a mere twig or shrub. 102 MUTUAL DUTIES. We must go back a step further to get at the initial point. The hope of the world rests with wives. They are the repositaries, the warders or keepers, and the dispensers, of conjugial love. "With them the reform must begin ; and from them, through the willing and active co-operation of husbands, it must be propagated. Marriage is to be made not only a thing of the natural life, but of the spiritual life ; not a merely worldly arrangement, but a religious state. The inner and the outer life will then be brought into correspondence. A harmony will be established between the things of the Church and the things of the world, between the things of heaven and the things of earth. A plenary union between the two will take place. The members of the Church will come into spiritual and natural marriage at the same time ; the Lord's truth will be brought to an intimate con- junction with the minds of His Church ; and thus the Church will prepare herself to become the Bride and Wife of the Lamb. The New Jerusalem will descend ; God Him- self will tabernacle among men ; the state of heaven will be transferred, and become the state of earth ; the Tree of Life will be planted once more in the midst of the garden, and its leaves MUTUAL DUTIES. 103 will be scattered abroad for the healing of the nations. The Church will be clad in her true wedding garments, — in complete vesture from head to foot. Because she will have a new spi- ritual quality, she will be called by that new name which the mouth of Jehovah shall utter. She will be called Hephzibah; and her land, Beulah : for the Lord will take delight in His people, and their land shall be married. CHAPTER SEVENTH. Death is another life. We bow our heads At going out, we think, and enter straight Another golden chamber of the kings, Larger than this, and lovelier." FESTUS. CHAPTER VII. WHAT OF THE FUTUEE LIFE? " Fob, in the resurrection, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of god in HEAVEN." — Matt. xxii. 30. TMMORTALITY ! — do we often realize the meaning of the word when we use it ? The soul of man lives for ever. What is it that sur- vives the earthly tenement ? What is the soul ? We are taught in the Writings of the New Jerusalem, that every thing which enters into the composition of the human mind is immortal. Every faculty and every fundamental proclivity possesses everlasting life. Not a single quality, trait, or disposition, that a man has, is laid off with the material body. They are all parts and constituents of his spirit, and they all go with him when he passes away. His ruling purpose, with all his affections, desires, and loves, remain with him. They combine to form his character, and make up the man in the other world as they formerly did in this. 108 WHAT OF THE FUTURE LIFE? The sex of each individual remains ; and the men are still men, while the women are still women. The affections which are proper to each remain, and are never put off or dispensed with, to eternity. The distinction of sex being founded in the most fundamental principles of our being, the desires, the affections, and the love which spring forth from it are deeply rooted, and remain among the most firmly fixed that a man takes with him into the other life. There they exercise a controlling influence over his state and destiny, and form an essential element in his happiness or his misery. The various relations between the sexes, which exist on earth, exist also in the other world. Friendships are contracted, alliances formed, betrothings entered into, conjugial unions con- summated, and lives consecrated to the fulfilment of their spiritual duties and uses. The doctrine now given may appear to con- flict (in the minds of some) with what our Lord says in the words which stand as the motto of this chapter, as well as in the parallel passages of Mark and Luke : — " And Jesus, answering, said unto them, The children of this world marry, and are given in marriage ; but they which shall be accounted wor- WIIAT OF THE FUTURE LIFE? 109 thy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in mar- riage." — Luke xx. 34, 35. As they read in the literal sense, these words have the appearance of teaching a doctrine which is directly opposed to the one we have just now brought forward ; and, if we knew nothing of the spiritual sense which is contained everywhere in the Sacred Scripture, we also, no doubt, should rest in the belief of the truth of that appearance. But, in the light that is afforded by the spiritual sense, we see this matter dif- ferently. "We see that the Lord's words here have not been rightly understood. The subject about which He is speaking has not been truly apprehended. Men have supposed that He was speaking of the same things about which the Sadducees were thinking when they put their questions to Him, and that He meant the same kind of resurrection and the same kind of mar- riage which they meant. But we know, because in His "Word He so says, that the Lord's thoughts are not as men's thoughts ; that His thoughts are as high above theirs as the heavens are higher than the earth. And, when He was in the world, He was continu- ally speaking to men about those higher things ; 110 WHAT OF THE FUTURE LIFE? He was continually teaching them the truths of spiritual and eternal life : and when He ap- peared, to those about Him who did not believe on Him, to be directing His discourse to them, and to be thinking and conversing about the natural things which occupied their minds, He was in reality speaking of spiritual things, and addressing His discourse to all who shall be of His spiritual kingdom in all ages, both on earth and in heaven. He spake by correspondences ; and so veiled those heavenly truths which He uttered, from the natural and unbelieving crowd around Him, in material and worldly symbols. "When He talked with the woman of Samaria, at the well, concerning the spiritual truths of everlasting life which a man ought to thirst after and receive into his mind, He did so under the figure of natural water that might be drawn from the well. The woman understood Him to speak only of the natural symbol ; and He did not undeceive her : He allowed her to remain in ignorance of His true meaning. When He foretold in the presence of the Jews His own resurrection, predicting that He should rise again on the third day after His burial, He did so by saying to those around Him, " Destroy this temple, and in three days I will rear it up." WHAT OF THE FUTURE LIFE? Ill Those who heard supposed Him to mean the building of wood and stone in or near which they were standing ; and He did nothing to remove that appearance, or to correct the im- pression which they received. The explanation which we now find recorded in that place — "But He spake of the temple of His body" — was not heard by the Jews, but was supplied by the evangelist many years after the Lord's words were uttered. And when, on another occasion, in the pre- sence of a similar audience, He delivered His sublime doctrine concerning that spiritual good and spiritual truth which He came into the world to convey to men, and which He unceas- ingly imparts to all those who truly come to Him that they may receive it, He veiled the heavenly realities behind natural symbols, and spake to them about feeding men with His own flesh and blood. Then said the Jews, " How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" and, though they " strove among themselves " on account of it, He gave them no explanation of His meaning. He did not attempt to correct the wrong impression His words had made, but left their thoughts to take their own natural downward direction. He allowed their understandings to remain 112 WHAT OF THE FUTURE LIFE? just where they were with respect to His doc- trine. This was not merely an occasional or excep- tional mode of speaking on the part of our Lord : it was, on the contrary, His most usual form of discourse. To the multitudes He clothed His teachings in parables, or hid the interior truths behind representative symbols which might be sensuously apprehended. They were generally at a loss to understand Him; finding it even more difficult to penetrate through the husks of His words to the corn of His meaning, than men now do to detect the meat of their spirit in the shell of the letter. So, when He conversed with the Sadducees on the occasion recorded in the twenty-second of Matthew, their meaning is not to be taken as the measure of His meaning. Their thoughts took one direction ; but His thoughts took quite another. They were thinking about life in this world, and were intent on a physical resurrec- tion ; but He thought of life in the heavenly world, and spake of a spiritual resurrection. Their minds were wholly occupied with the subject and relations of natural marriage, while His dwelt upon the holy mysteries of the spirit- ual marriage. WHAT OF THE FUTURE LIFE? 113 By the spiritual resurrection is meant the process of regeneration, — that change which is called passing from death unto life ; the pro- cess by which a man rises out of a natui-al or worldly state as to his interiors into a spiritual or heavenly one. This change has no respect to the body, but affects only the mind. By it the man is raised out of a state in which he was dead in trespasses and sins into one in which he becomes alive to the requirements of divine truth and the affections of divine good. It is the same resurrection of which our Lord speaks in another place, where He says, " I am the resurrection and the life." By which is meant that He Himself is the sanctifying power by which regeneration is effected. It is that change of heart and mind referred to by the apostle in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews, where he speaks of " a better resur- rection " than that of being raised again from natural death into conscious life. In the twen- tieth chapter of Revelation, it is called "the first resurrection ; " and it is said, " Blessed and holy is he that has part in the first re- surrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ." 8 114 WHAT OF THE FUTURE LIFE? That this is the resurrection which is meant by our Lord in the passage before us, is quite clear from the words which are there used ; for the Lord teaches, that the resurrection of which He is speaking is attained to only by the good, and not by the evil. Thus He says, " But they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world," — implying that they who are not worthy do not attain to the resurrection of which He is here treating ; and He adds, " For they are equal unto the angels, and are the children of God, being the children of the resur- rection." It is plain, therefore, that the common resur- rection of all men cannot be the one here referred to, — that resurrection by which every man rises after death into conscious life in the world of spirits ; for that resurrection is attained to by every human being. The evil as well as the good, and the evil equally as the good, are thus raised up, and come forth into the existence of the other world. But the children of that re- surrection which our Lord here describes " are equal to the angels, and are the children of God ; " and they are said to be the children of God because they are children of this resur- rection. Whence it is clear, that the " first WHAT OF THE FUTURE LIFE? 115 resurrection " is the one here meant, — the resurrection of regeneration, the resurrection from a state of spiritual and moral death to a state of heavenly and holy life, — a rising-again, which does not bring a man back to life in a new physical body here in this world, nor necessarily take him out of the world of men into the world of spirits, but which, when he does pass from the mortal sphere, will lift him beyond the " power " of " the second death," into an asso- ciation with the inmates of the angelic hea- ven. As it is with respect to the resurrection here treated of, so it is in regard to the marriage mentioned at the same time. It is the spiritual marriage that is meant. It will be seen, on a careful examination of the passage, that the two things are very closely connected ; and, in order to maintain the unity of the thought, we must give it this interpreta- tion. By the spiritual marriage is meant that con- junction with the Lord which a man attains by regeneration. His heart and mind become re- novated, and he is joined to the Lord in love. His affections are united to the truth. He wills 116 WHAT OF THE FUTURE LIFE 7 and desires to obey the Lord's commandments ; finding his chief enjoyment and delight in con- forming to their requirements. The more this union is effected, the more are order and quiet and harmony and peace introduced into all the faculties of the mind : and, when the members of a church come into this state, they are said to dwell in the land of Beulah ; that is, the Church is then called " the Married Land." As we read in the Book of Isaiah : — " For thou shalt be called Hephzibab ; And thy land, Beulah: For Jehovah delighteth in thee, And thy land shall be married." [Isa. lxii.] In a supreme sense, the spiritual marriage takes place in the Lord Himself, and is seen in the union of His Supreme Divinity with His Glorified Humanity, — the entire conjunction of two natures in one Person, — the union by which all things of the Church are produced, and through which men are redeemed, regene- rated, and saved. In a derived or representative sense, the spiritual marriage is that relation which exists between the Lord and His true Church, — the one by virtue of which the Lord is called in the Scriptures the Bridegroom and Husband, while WHAT OF THE FUTURE LIFE? 117 the Church is called the Bride and Wife. As we read in Isaiah — " For thy Maker is thy Husband ; Jehovah of hosts is His name." We see, therefore, that, in the Sacred Scrip- ture, the kingdom of Heaven is compared to a marriage, and is frequently called a marriage. And, when our Lord was on earth, He spake of spiritual things by this comparison or corre- spondence. He called the kingdom of Heaven a marriage or a wedding. He spoke of that un- derstanding, and faith of genuine doctrine, with which a man's mind should be clothed, as being a wedding garment ; He spake of hearing the gospel preached, as being invited to a wed- ding ; and of seeking to know something of the kingdom of God, as going out to meet the bride- groom ; and described entrance into a heavenly state of mind, and so internal union with the Church and spiritual conjunction with Himself, by entrance into a marriage feast. Thus we read in Matthew: — " The kingdom of Heaven is like unto a cer- tain king, which made a marriage for his son, and sent forth his servants to call those that were bidden to the wedding." — Chap. xxii. 118 WHAT OF THE FUTURE LIFE 7 And in another place : — " Then shall the kingdom of Heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the Bridegroom/' Five of them being wise, or prepared, entered in with him to the marriage. — Chap. xxv. And in the Book of Revelation : — " The marriage of the Lamb is come, and his Wife hath made herself ready." — " Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage-supper of the Lamb." — Chap. xix. So in the prophet, where the Church is spo- ken to as the Married Land, it is said, — " For as a young man marrieth a virgin, So shall thy sons marry thee; And as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, So shall thy God rejoice over thee." Finally, by turning to the twenty-second of Matthew, we shall find that the Lord's words to the Sadducees are in reality a part of His dis- course on the marriage of the king's son ; that, though His hearers might have passed from that subject, He Himself had not, but was still speaking in continuation of it : therefore His own immediate words serve to determine the marriage of which He was speaking. WHAT OF THE FUTURE LIFE? 119 From the things which have now been ad- duced, we may form a rational conclusion as to what the Lord meant when He spake of mar- rying and of being given in marriage. We can see that He was thinking and treating, not of natural things, but of spiritual things ; that He was not referring to connubial unions between two persons of opposite sex, but was giving doctrine concerning that conjunction of soul which may exist between a man and the heaven- ly kingdom. When He says that the children of this world marry and are given in marriage, He means that this present life is the time for regenera- tion. This world is the place where the sons of the Church may truly marry the Church. Here, before they depart to another life, must the work be done which unites them spiritually to the heavenly kingdom, and makes them chil- dren of God, and heirs of salvation. This world is the place where the oil must be got, and where the lamps must be filled and trimmed, and set to burning. Here is where our various evil propensities are to be opposed and over- come, and where our selfish and worldly loves are to be put away, in order that, in their stead, Ave may be able to receive into our 120 WHAT OF THE FUTURE LIFE? minds, and feel, those opposite good loves to the Lord and the neighbor, which will produce a living connection between the good and the truth within us ; that will unite our affections intimately to the divine law as the rule of life, and conjoin us in understanding and will to the Lord Himself. And when He says, " But they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage," He means that none of this preparatory work can be done in the other life ; that the work of regeneration is not re- peated ; that, such as is the union between the soul and heaven which has been provided for here, so it essentially remains. Oil not bought — a state of spiritual good not prepared for here — can in no wise be procured there. They that are ready go in to the marriage ; but, to others, the door is shut. Essential quality of state is not changed with man to eternity ; and whatever progress a spirit makes, after entering the other world, consists in the further opening and production of the quali- ties acquired in this. From all that has now been said, we are able WHAT OF THE FUTURE LIFE? 121 to see something of the great significance and importance of that kind of marriage which con- sists in the union of man and woman. We have seen, that, in its origin, it is not only spiritual and heavenly, but also divine and infinite ; that it is a relation not limited to the conditions of this present world, but pertaining equally to the life after death ; and that, therefore, unions which are formed in time, may, if they are truly constituted, last to eternity. With these views in mind, we shall be pre- pared to go forward, and consider in their proper light some of the characteristics and conditions of the marriage relation in the other life. CHAPTEK EIGHTH. " To whom the angel, with a smile that glowed Celestial rosy-red (Love's proper hue), Answered, ' Let it suffice thee that thou know'st Us happy; and, without love, no happiness. Whatever pure thou in the body enjoy'st, (And pure thou wert created,) we enjoy In eminence, and obstacle find none Of membrane, joint, or limb, exclusive bars: Easier than air with air, if spirits embrace, Total they mix, union of pure with pure Desiring; nor restrained conveyance need, As flesh to mix with flesh, or soul with soul.' " Paradise Lost, book viii. CHAPTER VIII. THE CONJUGIAL RELATION IN THE LIFE HEREAFTER. " But he said unto them, all men cannot receive this sating, save they to whom it is given." — matt. xix. 11. rpHAT there are marriages in heaven has al- ready been maintained or implied in the preceding treatment of this subject; and it now remains to state some general principles in regard to them, and offer a few considerations The first inquiry which naturally arises in this connection is in relation to the marriage cove- nants of earth, — whether they are ratified in heaven or not. Many who are married here will desire to know whether they will meet again after death ; whether they will then know each other; whether they will there be again united as they were in the world. It is our design to make a few statements in regard to the condi- growing out of those principles. 126 THE CONJUGIAL RELATION tion of married partners after death, in such form as to suggest answers to numerous questions of this kind as they arise in different minds. There will also be an endeavor to give them in such connection with the spiritual causes which pro- duce them, as that the rational ground of them may be seen at the same time. It has been already premised, that every thing really belonging to a man lives with him after death. Every love, affection, desire, inclination, propensity, and appetite goes along with him, and survives in the other world. Nothing what, ever pertaining to the mind and its states is laid aside in the transition from this life to that. Only the earthy matters, covering the real body like a crude shell, are put off at death. As the whole man and whole woman lives again, or rather continues to live, after the phy- sical body is cast off, therefore the properties, passions, emotions, endowments, and qualities peculiar to each, remain the same. Those things which mark the distinction of sex begin in the inmost region of the soul, and thence proceed outwards and downwards into all things of the mind and all things of the body. Hence those peculiarities of the emotional nature innate to each, by which the sexes are mutually attractive ; IN THE LIFE HEREAFTER. 127 the love, with all those tendencies and aptitudes severally characteristic of each, — especially remain : they are among the most permanent things of the life. Having their seat and origin in the inner parts of the spiritual nature, they flow forth as from a continual fountain, pervad- ing and qualifying the more outward things of the life. However transitory other states of mind may have been, however slight a hold other dispositions and qualities may have acquired on the spirit, and however easily or rapidly they may be rejected and removed in the other life, those which pertain to the sexual and conjugial relations are more abiding. Those states not only continue with the individual, but they con- tinue of the same quality they had acquired in the world. That general state which was in- wardly in them, while here, remains inwardly within them there. As was the interior thought and will with respect to marriage while in the life of the body, so it continues to be when men and women come into the life of the spiritual world. Those who here were in chaste love, or love truly conjugial, are in similarly pure love there ; while those who contracted unchaste or anti-conjugial love here are in similarly impure and unholy love there. It is in the nature of 128 THE CONJUGIAL RELATION this love to open and expand itself continually more and more ; thus, as it were, to grow ; to evolve new things, to pass continually into new states, and to unfold from within itself new de- lights. Pure and chaste love opens and expands in this manner, in the light and heat of the spi- ritual world, perpetually more and more towards heaven, with its satisfaction, delight, and bless- edness ; while impure and unchaste love opens in a similar manner, in the spiritual world, in an opposite direction, and continues to expand and unfold itself until its essential qualities are clearly manifested ; when it is judged, or joined to its like, in what is for ever unholy, unhappy, undelightful, and unblessed. When men and women pass out of the body, and enter the spiritual world, they go through a preparation for the life they are afterwards to live. At first, they are in externals ; that is, in those exterior states of mind nearest the body, and in which they principally were while they lived in the life of the body. These were the states into which they entered when they went into the society of others in the world, — the habit of mind and outward character they were accustomed to display and wear in their current intercourse with their fellows. Consequently, IN THE LIFE HEREAFTER. 129 in this state, in the other life, men are very little changed from what they were before they left this world. Their character is the same; their general conduct very much the same ; and their whole outward aspect, though in some cases undergoing slight modifications, yet, in general, remaining almost exactly similar ; while the good and the evil are still mixed together. In this condition, departed spirits continue for some time, — until they are prepared by the or- derly development of their life to pass into the next state. While they remain thus, they are for the most part associated with those whom they had known or been assimilated to in the world, — neighbors, relatives, friends, acquaint- ances, countrymen, who had departed this life before them, or near the time at which they did. Those who had been married partners on earth meet there, provided both are deceased ; know each other, and live together again as in the world. This they continue to do as long as that state lasts : for, while they are in their exteri- ors, they are not aware of their internal, spiritual state with regard to each other, and cannot de- termine whether they are conjugially united for eternity or not, any more than they could while they lived in the world; but this is revealed 130 THE CONJDGIAL RELATION to them when they pass into the second condi- tion. Those who have been twice married on earth meet both partners in that first state, if the times of their respective decease are near enough to allow ; and both unions are repeated, as in the world. Men who have had several wives, successively join themselves to each, provided they meet them there, and their mutual sympa- thies afford sufficient attraction. The same is true of women who have had several husbands : they are successively joined to each. These successive changes and unions are ef- fected in mutual freedom between the parties there as they are here, and can take place with- out disorder or confusion in that first state ; for those different married partners do not all enter that state at the same time, and hence are seldom prepared to depart from it at one and the same time. Many years are frequently spent there. Those who decease earliest, and go there, soonest depart : and one who was twice married in the world might be successively united to the two partners again in that state, both not being there at the same time ; one having passed from it before the other entered. But circumstances of this nature take place IN THE LIFE HEREAFTER. 131 .with very great variety ; and it not unfrequently happens, that the natural decease of partners occurs so far distant from each other in time, — as twenty or twenty-five years, — that the one who departed first will have passed from that state before the other enters it : in which case, of course, they do not meet and live together. The same is true also of those who are of dis- positions so diverse and inharmonious as to render it manifest, while in the world, that they were not united. All these things are under the constant su- perintendence of the Divine Providence ; and although many of the events connected with them may have the appearance of occurring irregularly or by chance, yet such in reality is not the case. It is provided by the Lord, that all those pairs shall meet and associate there to whom any good can be imparted by it ; while those who would not receive benefit from it are not led into such a connection. Those are led into it with whom there was an appearance of their being united while they were in the world. They were united as to their external affection and thought, and opportunity is there given for them to discover in freedom whether they be also united internally and spiritually. If such 132 THE CONJUGIAL RELATION is the case, then, when they have finished that first period together, they pass into the next in association, and continue married for ever. The end or design of these preparatory states in the other world is, that every one's life may be brought into harmony or consistency with itself ; that his external may come fully to agree with his internal ; and that all transitory or out- ward qualities, not agreeing with the ruling bent and inclination of the life, may be put off ; also that each one may be associated with a partner agreeing in quality and state with this ruling love or disposition, that so the union may be one of inmost mutual sympathy, and, being founded on unity of soul and spirit, may en- dure to eternity. For this purpose, the transi- tion there from the state of the exteriors to the state of the interiors is successive and gradual. Spirits begin by alternating from one state to the other. They are remitted for a while into their interiors, and then return to their former external condition. It is a circumstance resulting from the es- sence of things and the spiritual constitution of man, that the good are wisest and best when in their interior states of mind ; and, when they go down into their exterior states, they appear EN THE LIFE HEREAFTER. 133 comparatively unwise, or no wiser than others. Their good also is covered and clogged, and 60 obscured, by the frailties and impurities of their natural life. They are unable to bring forth all their good and truth, and manifest them to view, in their outward life and conduct. With the evil, the case is different : their ex- ternal states are their best states. When they are remitted into states of their interiors, they are thereby removed from the good and truth they possess, and thence become less wise and more evil. Thus, while the good and the evil may externally appear very much alike, inter- nally they are quite different, and even oppo- site. From this cause it is that the good and the evil separate from each other on passing into the second state in the other life, and each join themselves to their like. For the same reason, also, married partners, who are both good, and who, until then, have remained to- gether, frequently separate on entering that state ; for then it is that those inward diver- sities of character are revealed which forbid that they should ever be freely united into one. Hence those, who then make that discovery in regard to themselves, withdraw from each other, and the connection is dissolved. Sometimes the 134 THE CONJUGIAL RELATION. husband first makes the discovery, and leaves his wife ; at others, the wife first has a percep- tion of it, and withdraws from her husband ; and sometimes it is perceived alike by both, when they mutually retire from each other. CHAPTER NINTH. " The wicked tumeth good into evil; For his mind is warped within him: But the heart of the righteous is chaste; His conscience casteth off sin." • CHAPTER IX. THE TWO WAYS ; OR, THE CALLED AND THE CHOSEN. " SO THOSE SERVANTS WENT OUT INTO THE HIGHWAYS, AND GATHERED TOGETHER ALL AS MANY AS THEY FOUND, BOTH BAD AND GOOD; AND THE WEDDING WAS FURNISHED WITH guests." — Matt. xxii. 10. I^HE effect of that alternation of state from the - 1 - exteriors to the interiors of the spirit, and back again, — of which we have already spoken, — is to reduce the two to consistency and cor- respondence ; to make them fully agree with each other, so that the whole exterior of the person shall be in exact harmony with his inte- rior will and disposition. The good, in this way, are enabled to manifest completely all the good- ness and all the intelligence there is in them ; and the evil clearly reveal all the wickedness and all the falsehood there was inwardly concealed in them. The wisdom of this spiritual law becomes manifest the moment it is contemplated in ra- 138 TOE TWO WAYS ; OR, THE tional light. How often do all good men regret the loss of favorable opportunities ! With what an ardent wish of retrospective reformation do earnest and truthful minds sometimes look back upon certain portions of their own past history ! How frequently do we think ourselves, and hear it expressed by others, that, if certain events of life were to happen again, we should conduct ourselves quite differently in regard to them ! We foster an impression, that we should do bet- ter a second time in certain emergencies than we did the first. The good man regrets many of his past acts, and states of mind, and judges that, another time, he should avoid certain unkind deeds and unwise words. Not a few declare, that, if they had their lives to live over again, they should pursue a very different course, and display a very different character; and it has nearly passed into a settled maxim of worldly wisdom, that a man needs almost to have lived one life here in the world in order to know how to pass through it aright. Well, these desires or aspirations are to be realized by each and every one ; not in the pre- sent world, but in the other. Our life is to be lived over again, in those preparatory states, in the world of spirits, of which we have just spo- CALLED AND THE CHOSEN. 139 ken. The precise scenes of earth are not to be reproduced, nor shall we be surrounded by the same circumstances or the same friends and ene- mies ; but the same general states of mind will be excited, and return, in successive order, as they occurred in the world, from childhood to death. All our former experiences will re- appear, and we shall have the opportunity of selection and revision. It will then be seen whether our retrospective repentances have been real ; whether our sor- rows for past misconduct were inwardly sincere ; whether our regrets for sinful states, acts, and words, were indeed genuine contritions. In that spiritual review' of our past lives, we shall in- evitably cling to and keep whatsoever we had inwardly loved. Those things which in the world we had internally meant will be the things which we shall then select and perpetually ap- propriate. By being remitted alternately, as we have said, into exterior and interior states, spirits in the other world are enabled to view both sides of their former life in succession and contrast ; and that which is most attractive to them they will be sure to adopt. When the good come into their interior states, they remember the 140 THE TWO ways; or, the fallacies and bad' feelings which had animated them while in externals ; and they reject, repu- diate, and condemn them more and more at every returning opportunity. When they again pass through a state in which they had before been betrayed into wrong by some propensity of their natural life, they carefully avoid a repetition of the evil, and, instead thereof, bring forth and manifest some of their interior wisdom and in- terior love in the very externals of their con- duct. By continual recurrence of experiences like these in that preparatory state, the good are at length enabled to bring their exteriors into harmony with their interiors, so that they entire- ly correspond the one to the other. Their out- ward conduct, habits, manners, and appearance are brought into perfect accord with their in- ward desires and intentions. It may be said, that they realize in actual life their own ideal of character; for they are completely what they most desire themselves to be. They are then permanently in states of their interiors; and, after some further instruction, are made ready for heaven. With the evil, the experience is similar ; but the result is different. In the exterior states, in which they are permitted for some time to CALLED AND THE CHOSEN. 141 remain, and in which they have more or less in- tercourse with the good, they can perceive the wickedness, and also the fallacies, and, as it were, the insanities, of their interior life ; and, if they would, they might then repent, and re- ject and remove them : but, if they loved them in the world, they are sure to love them there ; for the ruling love is not changed. The oftener they return into their interior states, the more they return into themselves, the more do they love their insanities and their iniquities, and the more do they reject from themselves all the out- ward semblances of goodness and truth ; until at length their outward states and inward states perfectly agree, and they are joined for ever to their own spiritual kindred. While that love which is in accordance with gospel precept leads continually to heaven, adulterous love, or all that is contrary to such precept, leads as con- stantly towards hell. From this brief statement, we may derive some understanding of the kind of trial and judgment that awaits all men in the other life ; and we can also discern from it some of the uses to married partners which grow out of the repetition of their wedded life in that pre- paratory spiritual state. 142 THE two ways; or, the If they were only naturally united in their love, and not at the same time spiritually, it gives them an opportunity of making the dis- covery. The divine mercy and providence of the Lord are always over us every moment of our lives, every step of our journey, at every stage of our existence ; and a first end of that mercy is to provide for our freedom. The human mind must for ever choose for itself in the light of the best intelligence it is able to command. In no other way can any evil be rejected, or any good appropriated. In no other way can any love be increased, or any affinity strengthened. For this reason, the Lord carefully guards all the ties and fastenings and fixtures of the mind, that they be not too rudely severed or too deeply injured. If two partners, not conjugially united, are nevertheless joined together in strong natural affection, they are permitted, in the other life, to make the discovery of their want of internal union by slow degrees and by actual experi- ment. It is allowed to become mutually per- ceptible to both, that the affection may gradually undergo a change, and at length the connection be relinquished freely, from mutual consent and choice. On the other hand, where two are con- CALLED AND THE CHOSEN. 143 jugially united, it affords opportunity for that fact to become equally manifest to both. It serves also to cement and perfect their union. In the returning states of their earthly life, they can perceive those things which stood in the way of complete harmony ; and, as they succes- sively recur, they can remove those obstructions out of the way. Each can reject those outward things which mar the happiness of the other ; and both can avoid those contrarieties of habit and demeanor, of love and thought, which took their minds from each other, and prevented their entering into the complete conjugial state. As this goes on, they are continually becoming more and more married. Their souls enter ever more implicitly into each other's states ; and their spirits, as they vibrate, are constantly attuned to a fuller harmony. Their whole minds become attempered to one life. They feel a com- mon love, and think a common wisdom. The will of the one becomes also the will of the other, and the understanding of one becomes the understanding of the other. Perpetually more and more do they acquire " one heart, one mind, one way." Thus are they prepared for heaven, as the heavenly state descends, and finds reception and 144 THE TWO WAYS; OR, THE an abiding-place in their minds : for heaven does not come or descend until internal and external are one ; until love and wisdom, or good and truth, are one ; until male and female, or hus- band and wife, are one. No pair can enter into heaven, and permanent- ly remain there, who are not conjugially united as to the interiors of their minds, or spirits ; for, in the spiritual world, the differences of mental state create the spaces or distances. Difference of taste or love or state removes people from each other. Contrariety of state corresponds to distance in space : the latter is the natural symbol of the former, and the former is typed and expressed in the latter. Hence, in the other world, those who are- in states most unlike are most remote from each other; while such as are in states most nearly similar are respec- tively nearer together. From this law of ar- rangement and distribution, it follows, that those only are able to live intimately associated, and to abide together in one house, who are closely united in mind, and can continue to remain in exactly similar states of affection and thought. Those who, after they have been prepared for if, still enter into the confines of heaven in a CALLED AXD THE CHOSEN. 145 single or unmarried state (as is the case with all who have lived in chaste love and been obe- dient to the Lord's commandments), have part- ners there provided for them. After they have found them, nuptials are celebrated ; subsequent to which, the employments of heaven — the offices, ministries, and uses, with the joys and delights, of angelic life — are entered upon. The case is similar with those who have passed into the other world in infancy or childhood, and have been trained and educated in the heavenly societies. As soon as they arrive at maturity, they find partners, and are married, as the angels are. We are told, that when two meet, in the heavenly realm, who are intended for each other, they instantly know that they are mutual partners by an internal perception or dictate. The meet- ing most frequently has the appearance of coming by chance. They are not, however, matters of accident, but are caused in full freedom of the parties, under the fatherly care and divine pro- vidence of the Lord. Thus heaven consists mainly of married pairs ; and none remain there single after the age of full maturity. They who on earth have lived good lives, and yet have confirmed themselves in a celibate state from a principle of religion, in 146 the two ways ; or, the are indeed admitted into heaven, but dwell there only about the circumferences ; for the universal conjugial sphere which flows down into heaven from the Lord, encompassing and pervading every part of it like an atmosphere, is exhaled everywhere as an aromatic perfume, or odor, most grateful and delightsome, indeed, to the spiritual sense of the angels, but which is per- ceived as something not agreeable or delightful to such as are inwardly principled in a life of celibacy. Hence they have a perpetual inclina- tion to withdraw from it. It is a property of the heavenly atmosphere, that objects seen through it at a distance, when illuminated by the light which shines down from the Lord through the sun that appears above heaven, take upon themselves an outward appearance corresponding to their inward quality. Thus an angel of the superior heavens, who is princi- pled in perfect innocence of mind, appears from a distance as an infant : for the infantile form corresponds to and symbolizes that state, as innocency is the state of infancy ; and it is not until a near approach that the apparent infant is discovered to be a man. So, too, a married pair, who are perfectly united in mind, appear, when viewed a long way olF, as one person ; and it is CALLED AMD THE CHOSEN. U7 not until ihey draw near to the beholder that their distinctness is perceived, and they are seen to be male and female. It is from this cir- cumstance, among others, that a husband and wife are called one man, and, in heaven, one angel. All the angels are married pairs. No single individual in the whole heavenly world is an angel by himself or herself. It is only as two become one that angels are produced. Hence the popular Christian superstition, that angels are without sex, has a basis of genuine truth for its ground, while its rational explana- tion comes in a manner quite different from the anticipation. CHAPTER TENTH. " A happy lot, and hallowed, Even as the joy of impels, Where the golden chain of godliness Is intwined with the ro