Page:Heaven Revealed.djvu/268

 body in each world is formed of substances homogeneous in their nature with its respective world. But they do not grow old there as here. They do not advance (in appearance) beyond the age of early manhood and womanhood, but retain forever the freshness and vigor of that early period. (See p. 227 for further remarks on this subject.)

But all children are born into this world with a certain hereditary evil taint. They inherit from foregone ancestry proclivities which, in their full development, incline them to all kinds of evil. This is what Swedenborg calls the natural or hereditary proprium, which he says is altogether infernal, and within or above which every regenerate soul receives from the Lord a new and heavenly proprium. This is what constitutes the new man—the new creature—the new birth from Above. And do not those who die in infancy, it may be asked, take with them this natural proprium? If so, what becomes of it? Does it never manifest itself in the world beyond? And if it does, how are their hereditary tendencies to evil to be overcome or got rid of?

It is true that children take with them into the other world all the evil proclivities with which they are born into this world. But their evils are never aroused or called into activity there, and are therefore never appropriated; that is, they never become their own by actual life. Their perverse tendencies gradually lose their strength by not being brought into exercise; for whatever is endowed with life, loses its vital force in the degree that exercise is denied it. This is a universal law. Every mental faculty and disposition as well as every