Page:Heaven Revealed.djvu/330

 doing. No one can be happy or be in heaven without being actively employed. But work there is never fatiguing, as it often is on earth. It is the free, spontaneous and healthy exercise of the faculties;—is all joyous and delightful like the dearly-loved plays of children.

"There are," says Swedenborg, "so many offices and administrations in heaven, and so many employments also, that it is impossible to enumerate them on account of their great number. Those in the world are comparatively few. All, how many soever there be, are in the delight of their occupation, and labor from the love of use, and no one from the love of self or gain. Nor is any one influenced by the love of gain for the sake of maintenance, because all the necessaries of life are given them gratis,—their habitations, garments and food. From these considerations it is evident that they who have loved themselves and the world more than use, have no lot in heaven. For every one's own love or affection remains with him after his life in the world, nor is it extirpated to eternity."—H. H, n. 393.

And we are further told that every one's happiness in heaven, is in proportion to the importance of the use he performs there, and to the affection and earnestness with which he devotes himself to it.

"Every one in heaven is remunerated according to the excellence of his use, and at the same time according to his affection of use. No one that is idle is there tolerated, no slothful vagabond, no indolent boaster of the studies and labors of others; but every one must be active, skilful, attentive and diligent in his own office and business, and must place honor and reward not in the first but in the second or third place. According to these circumstances there is an influx among them of necessaries, of the useful things of life, and of the de-