Page:Heaven Revealed.djvu/218

 "Evil spirits may also be known from their faces, for all their lusts or evil affections are inscribed on their faces; and it may likewise be known from their faces with what hells they communicate; for there are very many hells all distinct according to the genera and species of the lusts of evil. In general their faces, when seen in the light of heaven, are almost without life, being ghastly like those of dead bodies, in some cases black, and in some monstrous; for they are the forms of hatred, cruelty, deceit and hypocrisy; but in their own light among themselves, they appear otherwise from fantasy."—A. C. n. 4798.

Many more passages similar to these might be cited; and however the phraseology or form of expression may vary, their substance will be found invariably the same.

And here, as on other subjects, the seer's assertions address themselves to our rational intuitions, and meet with a ready response from every enlightened and unprejudiced mind. For every one sees that, if the character of the angels is as pure and exalted as he tells us it is, their personal appearance cannot be other than he has so often described it. If their interiors are purer, their souls more beautiful, than those of men—if they are wiser, nobler, more loving and unselfish, then we should expect them to be more beautiful in form and aspect. This is so reasonable that a child sees the utter absurdity of any doctrine essentially different. For a child sees that it is impossible for such exalted human excellence as that to which the angels have attained, to exist under hideous and repulsive forms; and it has an equally clear and instinctive perception that these latter are the appropriate forms of wicked spirits or demons.