CHAPTER XXII. DIVINE PROVIDENCE IN REGARD TO LITTLE CHILDREN. "Children are roses in the hand, And stars that gem the nuptial band ; They wake-they breathe from God's own arms. Surrounded by an angel sphere; Three heavens above the cradle bend; Mercy and peace their steps attend.". - Rev. T. L. Harris. IN approaching a subject so interior and holy as the Divine dealings with little children, we feel oppressed with a sense of our own insufficiency. And as we have already much exceeded the limits which we had proposed to ourself for this book, the most that we can pretend to do here is to bring forth some general principles concerning the nature and mission of children, the structure of their infant minds, and the provisions which the Lord has made for their salvation. For it is only by conforming to the laws and principles of the Divine Providence, that that Providence is most fully accomplished; and nowhere, perhaps, is this conformity more neglected on our part, or is this neglect attended with greater and more fatal consequences, than in reference to the children which the Lord our God hath given us. How divinely sacred and holy is a new-born child! We know not if there be a greater mystery on earth: we doubt if - death itself can be contemplated with half that sacredness and devout wonder, with which we justly look upon the birth into this world of a new immortal. For what is death but the continuation of life? And under what aspect does that life most deeply affect us, if not when it first opens upon us from its mysterious sources; when it comes, all helpless and dependent, in the form of a human infant, with the faculties of an angel; the genius, intellect, and affections of a mighty man or lovely woman, and the possibilities of a devil in hell, wrapped up in germ in its most tender brain, which a breath even, a rude touch, may cause to perish from our mortal sight forever? To think of the eternity of such a child! Surely, if the Divine Providence is to be exercised particularly any where, it must be in reference to such a being. The very hereditary of such a being, that it should come into this world, "Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come "shades," too, "of the prison house upon the growing boy ;"and the truth also that the myriad inclinations to evil, and susceptibilities to good, which every such child brings with it into this rudimental sphere, must be in a measure the limits of action of the Divine Spirit for a whole eternity of varied and wonderful life; when we consider all this, it would seem that there could not be a more suitable case for the Divine Providence to exert itself, than towards such a creature. But first, in reference to the source of this wonderful creation. Be it understood, then, that every human spirit comes down in creation from Jehovah God through the heavens. There are, we are told, above the inmost heaven, or what is the same thing, within and beyond the inmost and celestial degree of the mind, the substances of what are called human internals. These human internals, however, are never con scious in man; they constitute a deep and sacred region in the mind, and are the veriest and most immediate entrance of the Lord himself. Swedenborg's language in regard to them is, that "what is done and transacted here, cannot be comprehended by man, because it is above his rational principle, from which he thinks." A. C. 1940. Again-"The heaven nearest to the Lord consists of these human internals; this, however, is above the inmost angelic heaven; wherefore, these internals are the habitation of the Lord himself." A. C. 1999. It is by these human internals, which are so near the Lord, that He has "the whole human race most intimately present," and "under his eye." The substances, then, of which these internals are composed, we can easily comprehend, are the exceedingly pure and almost divine substances which emanate in a very immediate sphere from the Divine Human of the Lord Himself. They are the first proceedings, next to the Spiritual Sun, (so far at least as we can conceive of it) of the Divine Love and Wisdom. And every particle of that substance may be conceived of as the proximate germ of a human soul. "This germ, however, descends first to the celestial heavens, in whose sublimated auras it weaves for itself a body which is its celestial will-principle, and is the beginning of a finite individuality; thence it descends to the spiritual heavens, and there clothes itself in the initial form of a spiritual understanding, which is also in a perfect human form; then again it descends to the spiritual-natural heavens, and there takes the initiament, the first and inmost form of a spiritual-natural body." * As yet there is no consciousness, for the human soul must descend still further into the world of nature, and through the father to the mother, ere that life begins which is so wondrous in its working and divine in its origin. And even when it commences, it is as yet unperceived, and is only per*N. C. Repos., Jan. 1857, p. 24. ceived obscurely, even in adult age, under cover of natural and worldly things. Such being the origin of the human soul, it is easy to be perceived that in infancy, before that soul has become perverted and corrupted by any actual evils which it has made its own, it is necessarily the subject of many high and celestial influxes from the Lord, and is a peculiar charge of the celestial angels. Indeed, before birth, and before even conception, it may be conceived how the Divine Providence must operate to bring together such human pairs, so far as they can be thus influenced in this corrupt and sensual state of the world, as shall most conduce to the perfectness and purity of the new-born soul. Even while in the mother's womb, and through the whole process of gestation, those angels are appointed to watch over the germal infant, and the embryotic form, who dwell in provinces in heaven which correspond to Conjugial Love. By them the infant soul and body are protected from any harm or injury which might otherwise accrue to them. At birth, there are also angels who assist in the process, and who separate, as we believe, any impurities or external obstructions which may gather upon the spirit to prevent its more perfect refinement and expansion. They assist at birth into this world in like manner as they do at death, or birth into the spiritual world. Also, infant spirits who have passed into the other life, afterwards frequently attend them, and confer upon them peculiar influences. The hereditary evils of children, not having as yet become active, they continue for a long time to receive of the purest and best influxes, and these become the first inseminations, which serve as a foundation for the after life. "Their angels," said the Lord in reference to this subject, “do always behold the face of my Father in heaven,” (Matt. 18: 10.) This is said in reference to the exceeding purity of the inmosts of children thus descended from the heavens, which, not being as yet contaminated with any actual evils, are so holy that their angels behold the Divine Humanity of the Lord continually with them. This perception is through the interiors of the child. By this direct influx from the Lord and his angels, and by the tender associations it brings them into with parents, nurses, and other children, which is of love most heavenly, they have prepared in their minds such receptacles of divine good and truth as constitute for them the ground of their future regeneration. But here we are introduced to a subject which is one of the most remarkable and important in the whole arcana of spiritual things. And we are compelled to present it, not in our own language, but in the language of him-the distinguished Seer of the New Jerusalem. The truth here contemplated is denominated by Swedenborg the Doctrine of Remains; that is, the remains of innocence and goodness which have been preserved in man uninjured by the Fall, with the addition of those given in earliest childhood, and treasured up in his interiors from generation to generation. These, in after life, become the sole ground of regeneration. "Remains are not only the goods and truths acquired by man from infancy, from the Word of the Lord, and thus impressed upon his memory, but likewise all the states thence derived; as states of innocence from infancy, of love towards parents, brethren, instructors, and friends; of charity towards our neighbor, and also of compassion towards the poor and needy; in a word, all the states of goodness and truth. These states, with their goods and truths impressed on the memory, are called remains; and they are preserved in man by the Lord, being stored up in his internal man, without his consciousness, and carefully separated from whatever is of his proprium, or from evils and falses. All these states are so carefully treasured up in man by the Lord, that not the least of them is lost, as was proved to me by the fact that every state of man, from infancy even to extreme old age, not only remains in another life, but also returns, and this exactly such as they were during his abode in this world. Thus not only the goods and truths stored up in the memory, remain and return, but likewise all the states of innocence and charity; and when states of evil and the false, or of wickedness and phantasy, |