Page:Heaven Revealed.djvu/286

 about the relation hereafter. But they who have the intensest desire for the eternity of the conjugial tie, and the firmest belief that marriages do exist in heaven, are usually those whose state of life is nearest that of the angels—the wisest, purest, humblest, best—those who have experienced most of the exalted and spiritual delights of marriage here on earth. Yes: it is the most heavenly-minded consorts who most ardently long for the eternity of marriage, and who are least willing to admit that it exists not beyond the grave. It is painful to them to think of the utter cessation of the conjagal relation at death; for they feel that heaven without marriage would be no heaven to them.

"That they who are in love truly conjugial," says Swedenborg, "regard what is eternal, is because there is eternity in that love, and its eternity is from this: because that love with the wife and wisdom with the husband increases to eternity, and in the increasing or progression consorts enter more and more deeply into the blessedness of heaven, which their wisdom and the love of it at the same time store up in themselves. Wherefore if the idea of eternal should be rooted out, or from any accident escape from their minds, it would be as if they were cast down from heaven. What state consorts in heaven have, when the idea of eternal falls out of their minds, and the idea of temporary falls in in its place, came into open view with me from this experience: Once, from permission given, two consorts were with me from heaven; and at that time the idea of eternal concerning marriage was taken from them by a certain worthless spirit speaking cunningly; which being taken away, they began to wail, saying, that they could live no longer, and that they felt a wretchedness which they never felt before; which being perceived by their fellow-