Page:The New View of Hell.djvu/134

 whose heart love to the Lord and the neighbor has long been the ruling principle of action?

Now under the operation of this law—a law too generally recognized and too long established to be for a moment called in question—what ought to be the appearance of evil spirits in the other world, where infernal loves have taken full possession of their souls, from centre to circumference? Why, they ought to be monsters in form as they are in feeling and purpose. Their looks and tones ought to be the true expression of the infernal loves that rule them. Accordingly Swedenborg says:

"All the spirits in the hells, when inspected in any degree of heavenly light, appear in the form of their own evil; for every one there is the effigy of his own evil, because with every one the interiors and exteriors act in unity,—the interiors exhibiting themselves visibly in the exteriors, which are the face, the body, the speech, and the gestures. Thus their quality is known as soon as they are seen. In general, they are forms of contempt of others; of menace against those who do not pay them respect; of hatred of various kinds; also of various kinds of revenge. Ferocity and cruelty from their interiors are transparent through those forms. But when others commend, honor, and worship them, their faces are contracted, and have an appearance of gladness arising from delight. It is impossible to describe in a few words all those forms, as they actually appear, for no one of them is similar to another. Among those, how-