Page:The Doctrines of the New Church Briefly Explained.djvu/84

78 to draw together those of like character, and to separate those who are unlike.

In this way there came at length to be an immense multitude of evil spirits in the other world—in short, a hell of devils. And the race once fairly started on its downward course, like a young man who has once broken the bonds of conscience and moral restraint—has begun to lie, swear, cheat and gamble—sunk rapidly lower and lower into the abyss of darkness and woe. Thus the hells increased more rapidly than the heavens; and at last they became so multitudinous, so gigantic in strength and overmastering in their power, that their disorderly and malignant sphere threatened to deprive the human race of liberty and rationality; began to infest the bodies as well as the souls of men, and even threatened the stability of the heaven of angels.

Here, then, was a great crisis in the moral universe. The human race was about to perish. Man's freedom and rationality were about to be destroyed through the preponderating influence of the hells. It is easy to understand this, if we reflect for a moment on the degrading and corrupting influence of drunkenness, profanity and licentiousness in a community where these vices have become extensively prevalent, and consider also the intimate connection between spirits in the other world and men in this. And the Bible