Page:Marriage Its Origin, Uses, and Duties.pdf/20

 of all the means of becoming spiritual when they grow up. Every one, whether descended from good or evil parents, inherits the conjugial principle, and the faculty of becoming a subject of the heavenly marriage, and an inhabitant of heaven. This principle, and this faculty, are in the inmost of every human soul, where the Lord is present with his love and wisdom united. From this secret place of the Most High, the spheres of his love and wisdom descend through the mind into the body, and from them the spiritual derive conjugial love, the natural the love of the sex, and both the love of offspring. Although none but the good can love their conjugial partners, the evil as well as the good can love their children, and in some cases do love them with a more intense, though with a much less pure affection. But, besides the conjugial principle and faculty implanted from creation in all souls, every one derives from his parents a particular inclination in favour of that which they, and even his more remote ancestors, have made a principle of life. From those who are united in love truly conjugial, children derive an inclination to perceive the things of wisdom, and to love the things which wisdom teaches; and when to this we add the superior principles by which spiritually minded parents are actuated in the education of their children,—to fit them not only for this world but for another,—we cannot but conclude that marriage is the true seminary of heaven, as well as the legitimate means of replenishing the earth. Parents, therefore,