and their children who have gone before them into the other world, then the family connection may be continued throughout the ages of eternity, with its blessings multiplied, its joys refined, and its delights greatly augmented. This, as Swedenberg tells us, is sometimes the case.
"Certain souls," says he, "who were with me, were let into a state of innocence, from which they conversed with me through [the medium of] spirits; and they confessed that it was a state of such joy and gladness, that neither eye, nor ear, nor mind, nor human intellect could perceive it, for it was their inmost principles which were affected. * * * They were with those who had been their parents, grandsires, and ancestors, thus with the whole family for two centuries back. They were admitted together with them in that heaven, and the joy was such as to be entirely ineffable."—Sp. Di., 832, '4.
But it is a doctrine of the New Church—a doctrine whose truth Scripture, observation, and each individual's own experience, abundantly confirm—that we are all born with a certain hereditary evil taint. We are born with a perverse nature, or with tendencies to all kinds of evil; and this, on account of the moral disorder of the race. When we arrive at maturity, we find a supreme selfishness to be the overmastering force within us; until, through the regenerating power of Divine Love, we lose this supremely selfish life, and receive the opposite life from on High—the life of love to the Lord and love to the neighbor.
