Page:The Doctrines of the New Church Briefly Explained.djvu/197

Rh wise or otherwise, as the vital currents of thought and feeling perpetually flowing forth from their innermost and ruling love, that moulds the character of those under their charge. Their own spiritual sphere—the unconscious but resistless influence of their cherished thoughts and purposes—this, as a formative and educatory power, is vastly more potent than any instruction by word or printed page. It is this spiritual atmosphere, extensive and far-reaching enough to encompass a multitude of younger and feebler minds, that the souls of our children are inhaling continually—day by day and hour by hour. How important, then, that this atmosphere be pure and sweet—as the breath of heaven fresh wafted from the throne of God!

The institution of marriage has ever been held in honor by Christians generally; yet there are few subjects on which even educated people in nearly all the churches of to-day, are more profoundly ignorant, or on which instruction is more needed, than the nature of true marriage; and none on which the teachings of Swedenborg have been more strangely misapprehended, or their meaning more grossly perverted.

A right understanding and thorough