Page:Heaven Revealed.djvu/270

 sideration. Some say they are too beautiful to be true. Too beautiful to be true! Is anything too beautiful or too good for the Lord to do? Is not He the very perfection of all beauty and all goodness? Did He not create man for heaven, and is it not his constant effort to bring all into the heavenly state? What is there, then, in the nature of the case, in the revealed character of God, in the laws of Divine Providence, or in the state of little children themselves, to prevent their lot in the other world from being precisely as Swedenborg has revealed it? Nay, is not the Lord's infinite mercy a sure pledge that such and so blessed will be their condition? And does not his Word give assurance of the same? What affecting tenderness and love for little children did the Saviour exhibit, when He called them to Him, put his hands upon them and blessed them! And how plainly did He declare their fitness for the realms above, when He said: "Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. xix. 14). Again, when He set a little child in the midst of the disciples, saying: "Verily I say unto you, except ye be converted and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven" (Ib. xviii. 3). And again when He said: "For I say unto you that their angels in the heavens do always behold the face of my Father which is in the heavens" (Ibid. v. 10).

It thus appears that Swedenborg's disclosures on this subject have the support of sacred Scripture as well as of sound and enlightened reason.

Then try them by that sure and infallible test which