Page:The Other Life.djvu/99

 clouds of earth) with power and great glory, accompanied by his holy angels.

Such is the language of God to man.

The words of spirits and angels represent in objective forms their affectional and intellectual life. Their forms of speech and power of expression differ, therefore, according to their own interior states. Whilst all are wise and beautiful, some are far wiser and more beautiful than others; and the highest delight of those who have much wisdom is to impart it, so far as possible, to those who have less.

Spiritual thought, so full and so symbolic of emotional life, has a strong tendency to take on a rhythmical, poetic, and musical form. The language of angels is more in the style of the psalms of David and of the prophets, than in that of our prose compositions. In some heavenly societies, indeed, their speech is poetry and the sound of it is music. It is probable that the souls of poets and musicians are brought into contact with these harmonic spheres, and derive from their very cradles, by conjunction with such spirits, their constitutional passion for music and song.

Swedenborg says the reason why the speech of angels has a tendency to measured cadence and