Page:Emanuel Swedenborg, Scientist and Mystic.djvu/333

XXIV ] The two young men grasped at the straw. "There still exists in heaven a love of the sex—what else is conjugial love?"

"That," they heard, "is not love of the sex, but love of one of the sex." It went from the soul to the mind, to the body, "and thus becomes love in its fullness." The angelic spirits added, "In heaven they are in total ignorance of what whoredom is . . . with the male all the nerves lose their proper tension at the sight of a harlot, and recover it again at the sight of a wife."

The newcomers, now all attention, asked, "Does a similar love exist between married partners in the heavens as in the earths?"

Altogether similar, the angelic spirits said, even to "the ultimate delights," but it was "much more blessed because angelic perception and sensation is much more exquisite than human . . ." Furthermore, the only offspring was an increase in both partners of love and wisdom, ". . . hence it is that angels after such delights do not experience sadness as some do on earth, but are cheerful . . ." also because their powers continually refreshed themselves, "for all who come into heaven return into their vernal youth and into the vigor of that age . . ."

The three newcomers, Swedenborg says, were "made glad by this intelligence," and fired with a-new-found-desire for heaven and with the hope of heavenly nuptials, they declared they meant to lead a chaste life, "that we may realize the enjoyment of our wishes." 5

The hope of reward, needless to say, was not Swedenborg's idea of the right reason for morality, but here he was speaking to the kindergarten.

Like a primer too, with answers to many questions from people he knew, is the account he gives of what he saw as happening to earth-marriages after death. Explaining that for some time in the world of spirits, man behaves outwardly as he always did, he says that married partners come together again and live together until their real inclinations manifest themselves, "and if it be in mutual agreement and sympathy they continue to live together a conjugial life, but if it be in disagreement and antipathy their marriage is dissolved."

In cases where a man had been married several times he lives