The affections here described,—love to the Lord and the neighbor,—constitute the essential principles of heaven.—To love the Lord as goodness and truth, and to love to be useful to the neighbor,—this is true charity, this is the very life of heaven. Where these affections exist in perfection, there is heaven. Every man and every spirit is approaching heaven, just in proportion as he is approaching a state of perfect love for the divine goodness and truth, and of love for a life of constant usefulness to his neighbor, to society, the church and the kingdom of the Lord. We have no reason hewever, to believe that there are more than a very few who, while they remain in this life, arrive at that state of perfect love towards God and man, called heaven. There are some, however, who are faithfully seeking to gain that heavenly state, and their efforts, if continued, will most certainly be crowned with success.
But let us again turn our eye downwards from the contemplation of this celestial state, and ask where and what is hell? The precise opposite of heaven. To love the Lord and the neighbor is heaven; to love self and all things else, for the sake of self, is hell.
But this statement will surprise some persons, while others will instantly reject it with contempt. There are multitudes even of religious men, who regard it as the wildest fanaticism, to maintain that the human mind can, by any possibility, be moved by any motive that does not contain the love of self, as an inmost principle, or end. With such, persons it is in vain to reason. They know that it is impossible for them, in their present state, to act from any other than selfish motives, and why should they be expected to ascribe any better motives to their neighbors? "What! take from me," they will say, "the love of self and of selfish and worldly enjoyments! These are my only incentives to action; my very life will be gone; I could not raise my hand without some such motive." It is more than useless to attempt to reason with the mind while in such a state. You
