Page:The New View of Hell.djvu/172

 It bears about it the air of fable. Our reason and the enlightened sentiment of the present day repudiate it utterly.

Let us turn, now, to the new doctrine revealed through Swedenborg; and see if that be as unreasonable or improbable as the old. What, according to this new revelation, is the Devil and Satan of Scripture?

Consider that evil spirits are not all in the same kind or degree of evil. They are not all alike, any more than men on earth or angels in heaven. There are innumerable varieties of evil in hell, as there are of good in heaven. And those who are in similar kinds and degrees of evil, prefer to be together. They are therefore drawn by the law of spiritual affinity into the same society. Every devil is carried to that particular society whose general character most nearly resembles his own. There he finds himself at home. He is drawn to it by an irresistible attraction—for in the other world each one goes where his ruling love leads him. Spirits can no more resist or cut themselves loose from the law of spiritual attraction, than our earth can resist or cut itself loose from the law of material attraction.

By virtue of this law, and of the endless variety of goods and evils in the other world, both in kind and in degree, there are in heaven and in hell a countless number of societies, each one of which is in some specific kind and degree of good or evil. All the societies in heaven, viewed collectively, constitute one gigantic Man