Page:The Other Life.djvu/275

 whose soul is wedded to the dogmas of the old theology, who is thoroughly devoted to the external things of some evangelical Church, who has a high degree of pride in his own spiritual knowledge and culture, and who has a keen eye to his own temporal interests. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for such a man to comprehend or believe the truths of the.

Truths are received into the memory as food into the stomach. They will be found indigestible and unassimilable, and will be rejected, unless there is something in the emotional nature which has an affinity for them and draws them to itself and incorporates them with its own being. Truths can never be made a part of a man's faith and insinuated into his life, until they have become the objects of his affection.

How is it possible, then, for the heavenly doctrines of the New Church to be implanted in the affections of men?

There are three universal affections insinuated by the Lord in some degree into all men, the basis of our knowledge, the sources of our happiness, the badges of our spiritual life, distinguishing it from that of the brute. These affections are the