Child," at page 90, by a late amiable and pious clergyman, whose contributions sometimes adorned the early volumes of the Intellectual Repository under the signature of Seth, being an anagram of the initials of his name, the Rev. E. T. S. Hornby; but our space does not permit us to extract it.

The following short description of "True Philosophy," from one of the philosophical works of the illustrious Swedenborg, is of a different character. It well deserves the widest possible circulation, and to be deeply engraved on every mind that meddles with philosophical studies: wherefore we extract it:

"TRUE PHILOSOPHY.

"Without the utmost devotion to the Supreme Being, no one can be a complete and truly learned philosopher. True philosophy and contempt of the Deity are two opposites. Veneration for the Infinite Being can never be separated from philosophy; for he who fancies himself wise, whilst his wisdom does not teach him to acknowledge a Divine and Infinite Being, that is, he who thinks he can possess any wisdom without a knowledge and veneration of the Deity, has not even a particle of wisdom. The philosopher sees, indeed, that God governs his creation by rules and mechanical laws, and that the soul governs the body in a similar manner; he may even know what those rules and mechanical laws are; but to know the nature of that Infinite Being from whom, as from their fountain, all things in the world derive their existence and subsistence;-to know, I say, the nature of that Supreme Intelligence with its infinite arcana, this is an attainment beyond the sphere of his limited capacity. When, therefore, the philosopher has arrived at the end of his studies, even supposing him to have acquired so complete a knowledge of all mundane things that nothing remains for him to learn, he must there stop; for he can never know the nature of the Infinite Being, of his supreme Intelligence, supreme Providence, supreme Love, and other infinite attributes. He will therefore acknowledge that, in respect to this supremely intelligent and wise Being, his knowledge is nothing; he will hence most profoundly venerate Him with the utmost devotion of soul; so that at the mere thought of Him, his whole frame or membranous and sensitive system will awfully yet sweetly tremble, from the inmost to the outermost principles of its being." ."-Swedenborg.

We must give a specimen of the Poems; among the most excellent of which are several under the signatures of P. and C. P.,-Charles Procter, the author of the admirable Essay on the Credibility of Swedenborg. This real but unhappy genius, who so soon terminated his course, was as excellent a writer in poetry as in prose. Among his poems in this volume are two extraordinary ones, entitled, respectively, Soliloquy of a Redeemed Spirit," and "Soliloquy of a Condemned Spirit;" of which the latter is awfully sublime, worthy of the pen

66

of a

Byron, whilst, though speaking of hell, it has a heaven-ward tendency seldom to be found in the productions of that similarly wayward genius. "SOLILOQUY OF A CONDEMNED SPIRIT.

"Immured within this den, where gloom prevails,
Save when the lurid flash and deafening peal
Send desolation through these groaning hells,—
A Spirit of damnation, dark, I stand,
Self-tortured and condemned; my agony
Still multiplied when I its source survey!
The future or the past no solace yields !
With turbid influence, the present swells
The sin-distended heart, which now appears
The fated centre, where remembered ill,
Or evil, on each coming instant borne,
In dread and endless confluence now join.
Oh, horrible identity of sin,-

Of burning evil and its brother woe!
Will ne'er thy horrid consciousness subside,
And, e'en by dread excruciation bought,
No ultimate extinction e'er be found,

Or rocks to crush, or mountains vast to hide?
A vivid light sheds swiftly o'er the past
A terrible effulgence, and I see
Probation's record opening on my view.
Oh, torture infinite of self-reproach,
Of degradation deep, and fiery rage,
When I in memory thus am led to trace,
A state where radiant, cheering hope was known,
Or righteousness possessed a transient charm!
Where time, whose value now revealed in hell,
Can make a universe to nothing sink,

I made the season of each evil seed,

The germ of endless and increasing woe!
Yet courage! where art thou? do I repent?
Does torture wring a penitential tear,
And heaven glow in bright and envied view,
Displaying charms that I would fain enjoy?
The sense of heaven is dead in all but name,
And hell a fitter heaven is to me.
What, to immortal, independent minds
Sustained by dignity (yet how abased!)
Are meekness and obedience, when self
Inflated with a mighty, towering pride,
Demands its homage from a thousand knees,
And worships at its own created shrine ?
Yes! in the mirror of the latent mind,
Bent to the shade which fancy there reflects,
Myself I've worshiped as a sovereign God,

And then beheld myself (a loathsome worm)
Reflected in the spirits round I view-
The principles which pride adores! and yet
I hate the homage then required of me
By those of vice or weakness more profound.
Oh! how as deadly indignation swelled
My breast with fearful ire and burning pain,
When thus commanded to incline the knee,
And call him great with filth and pride insane,
Or good, who sought oppression, and desired
To torture all who would resist his sway!
These are thy fearful alternations, Hell!
Tortures which self on selfishness inflicts,
And, (strange infatuation!) still beloved,
Save when the memory thunders forth the past,
Contrasting what I am and might have been-
A being filled with good, now filled with hell!
Dread power, Remembrance, thou who dost reveal
That which I would oblivion should hide ;-
Who callest forth each recollected pain,

And bidst past agonies again revive!
Thou, and the evil which united seems
With the enduring soul's vitality,

In combination, ye now form my hell-
The fire, the brimstone, the undying worm.
In torments deep again I must descend:
Beason concludes her interval of power,
And chaos and confusion seize my mind.
Rage, now redoubled by a short restraint,
Insanity, and lust impure break forth,
And once again the torment-smoke ascends!
A gloomy luridness again prevails,

And teeth are gnashing with despair!—I sink!

Forgive the scene,—if truth forgiveness needs,

Time's value learn, and dread the fate of hell."*

These specimens, we think, cannot fail to recommend the work.

TO THE READERS OF THE INTELLECTUAL REPOSITORY.

In concluding another volume of this periodical, we cannot allow the opportunity to pass, without offering our congratulations to our Readers

Inflated

read ). Page 224.

*For the imperfect line, page 223, "Inflated with mighty pride," read with a mighty, towering pride. Same page, after worm for For bids read biḍst; after worm for; read.

and Correspondents, on the gradual progress which the Holy Cause which it is the object of this periodical to promote, is gradually making in the world. It is well on certain occasions, like the traveller who is pursuing his way through a country of diverse prospects-some pleasing and delightful, others gloomy, dangerous, and distressing-to take a stand and survey our present position and our opening prospects. The termination of the year affords a suitable opportunity for this useful and profitable review.

It is evident, we think, from the principles of an enlightened philosophy, that before important changes can take place in the interiors of men's minds, great revolutions must be effected in the ultimates of civilized life. The physical relations with which, in our ultimate or corporeal life, we are immediately connected, and which exercise, by the laws of reaction, a great power upon mental states and principles, must be changed and modified before those mental and spiritual states can be entirely renewed. "Ultimates contain superior or interior things in their connexion and form;" (A. C. 8895.) now, it follows that if ultimates are changed, interior things will also, in due course, be changed and renewed. The Lord, at his second coming, "creates a new heaven and a new earth,"-things both internal and external are entirely renewed. The "old bottles" of ultimate forms, both in relation to civil and religious life, are not adapted to receive the “ new wine" of truth mercifully given by the Lord through the opening of the spiritual sense of His Word. The ultimate forms of the mind, both in relation to the objects and phenomena of nature, which in the aggregate constitute our systems of science, must, by the new outpouring of living principles from the Lord, as the source and centre of life, undergo a mighty change;-new foundations must be laid before a new mansion of rational and spiritual intelligence can be reared.

But in taking a survey of the ultimate relations, both physical and civil, of human society, what mighty changes and revolutions we behold! Revolutions not effected by convulsive and destructive powers,--not attended with bloodshed and suffering to the millions,—not caused by the demon of war, or the sword of the military despot; but in imitation of the genial revolution of the seasons, when the vernal sun gradually changes the aspect of nature from the cold, dark, dismal states of winter, to the warm, genial, gladsome, fruitful days of spring and of summer. Such is the revolution which we now behold taking place in the ultimate states and forms of human society, and which is effected by the rising of a new sun of truth and of love on the families of mankind. Those who take a view of effects from their primary causes, can

plainly see that these benignant changes are the attendants of the Second Advent.

The two essential forms of our ultimate or civil life are the means of intercourse and interchange with each other. No sooner is a new colony established, than the most available means of intercommunication are adopted. Man, isolated and solitary, is the most helpless and destitute of beings. The inhabitants of the spiritual world cannot even think but in consociation with others. The great law of our being is, that we should, from the only source of Good, be mediums and channels of good to each other; but this law is realized in its benign efficacy in proportion as the means of intercourse and interchange are effective and speedy. And how greatly are these two forms of intercourse and interchange, which now obtain in our civil life, changed and improved! The locomotive, corresponding to a new developed power in the rational mind, approaches in its speed to the quickness of thought, and rapidly brings multitudes into a circle of acquaintance and fellowship with each other. Here is a new ultimate of civilized life, and according to what we have stated respecting the law of ultimates, the plane for a new order of mind is hereby laid. Old ideas and old systems of thought will be gradually changed, and new states of mind, in correspondence and harmony with the new forms in ultimates, will be inevitably caused. The transmission to one another, however remote, of our intellectual life, is so speedy and effective, that mind can act upon mind in a manner hitherto unprecedented and unknown. The beneficial effects of this will be very conspicuous in another generation; and we doubt not that all is tending to prepare the way, in the general mind, for the reception of the truths of the new Dispensation.

The law of interchange in respect to the various gifts, whether natural or mental, we possess, is that which forms the basis of commerce and trade amongst men. The heavens, says Swedenborg, are founded on the principles of mutual love; there no private, separate, selfish interest can exist. Every thing is freely interchanged, and the universal good is thereby promoted and preserved. "Freely ye have received, freely give." Now the laws of mutual love in heaven and in the church find their correspondent basis in the mutual transactions of trade and commerce amongst men. These mutual transactions are amongst the ultimates of our civil and physical life; the more they are free and extended between man and man, and between nation and nation, the more the ultimate basis of heaven is enlarged and extended' upon earth. Hence the great changes which have recently taken place