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 of the best men and women everywhere, and the constitutional requirements of both sexes, unite in attestation of their truth. We have seen, too, what is the nature of marriage as it exists in heaven; also what true conjugial love is, whence it originates, who only can receive it and on what conditions, and what paradisiacal delights flow from its reception. From a union of souls in heaven, spiritual offspring (which are heavenly thoughts and affections ever fresh and new) are continually being born to the wedded pair; and these exalt and strengthen their love, as natural offspring do on earth—but in a far higher degree.

"The angels," says Swedenborg, "have conjugial love according to their wisdom, and the increments of that love and its delights according to the increments of wisdom. And the spiritual offspring that are born of their marriages, are such things as are of wisdom from the father and of love from the mother, which offspring they love from spiritual storge; which love adds itself to their conjugial love, and continually exalts it, and conjoins them."—C. L. n. 211.

We are taught to pray: "Thy will be done on earth as it is done in heaven." If marriages, then, really exist in heaven, their nature, when revealed, should teach us what marriages here on earth ought to be—yes, and what they will be when the Father's will shall be done here as it is done in heaven. What, then, is the practical lesson to be derived from Swedenborg's disclosures on this subject? What, in view of this new doctrine, will be the primary thought and chief aim of those contemplating marriage, or who have already entered upon it,