L'instruction fait tout; et la main de nos pères The more enlightened the education, and the clearer the perception of truth, the more genuine and perfect is conscience. And as men's conduct is said to be moulded by circumstances to a great extent, so the truths of conscience are various in accordance with every one's religion; but still, wherever it exists, it is felt as an inner dictate, bidding man to cease from evil and to do that which is true and good. These considerations show how important it is to take into account all the circumstances surrounding the lives of men whose work in the world is contemplated by their posterity. How much evil has been occasioned by those who have neglected to act up to this simple rule, both as to social and religious life, when discussing the actions of men who undoubtedly were following their consciences and convictions such as they were, and according to their lights-it is impossible to estimate. "He alone reads history aright," says Lord Macaulay, "who, observing how powerfully circumstances influence the feelings and opinions of men, how often vices pass into virtues and paradoxes into axioms, learns to distinguish what is accidental and transitory in human nature from what is essential and immutable." Even as wrong deductions have been drawn from common history, and the lives of men, who were considered great in their day and generation, have been taken out of the dark waves of thought and feeling in which their contemporaries were immersed, and have been held up to the light of the present day, and by it judged, so mistaken minds have misunderstood the divine histories of the Word of God itself, and have held up some of its apparently darker passages to the scorn and derision of the multitude, without troubling themselves with what ought to be important considerations, if not the plane of their deductions, viz., time and place and circumstance. In considering the growth of morality amongst those who have not received a true conscience, or in other words, amongst those who have not imbibed the spiritual life of the Word, we are struck with the manner in which extremes of man's twofold nature are cherished. We see clearly that in the absence of that true conscience which with the Christian is a perfect bond of union between his faith and charity, his truth and goodness, there is no regulation of the outward conduct; and that, in proportion as a man destroys the con science or conscientiousness of his dual nature, by feeding the desires of the one to the exclusion of the other, he becomes a moral wreckbeautiful, it may be, without, as far as his external faculties and talents are concerned, but a filthy sepulchre within. Macaulay gives a brilliant sketch, in his own unparalleled style, of the growth from its earliest stages of that particular state of moral feeling among the Italians which, four centuries ago, looked with complacency and even admiration upon the person and writings of Macchiavelli, whom he describes as a man who seems an enigma, a grotesque assemblage of incongruous qualities, selfishness and generosity, cruelty and benevolence, craft and simplicity, abject villany and romantic heroism; as a man whose dual characteristics are interwoven like variegated threads in shot silk, giving to the whole texture a glancing and everchanging appearance. In showing the causes which led to the state of feeling I have described, as willing to endorse the opinions and follow the precepts of such a guide, Macaulay traces the progress of elegant literature and of fine arts for which Florence became the mistress of the world, when the annals of England and France presented a miserable spectacle of poverty, barbarity and ignorance. It will be seen, from the clear inferences which every New Churchman is likely to deduct from the sketch, that the results of following the pursuits of the intellect apart from real goodness, which has its abode in the will, are as disastrous as with those who go to the other extremeascetics who retire from the world, and deny themselves the comforts of social intercourse, that they may be at liberty the better, as they imagine, to commune with their God. It will be felt, from a contemplation of the picture and its lessons, that real happiness is only ensured when every faculty is exercised in a spiritual, a rational, and an orderly manner; but that in the state of feeling under notice-the love of self and the world-one half of human nature has been allowed to run waste, while the other is plunged in self-hood and sense, which, with its external and transient glories, has been taken as the guide of the mind. Though Macaulay ascribes the early greatness and the early decline of the Italian States to the same cause the preponderance which the towns acquired in the political system-he tells us enough of their moral and intellectual training to demonstrate that the causes we have just mentioned weighed mightily in the balance, when the wickedness and folly, the vanity and emptiness of the principles which were followed as the rule of their social life, became manifest. He touches upon the gradual defects that crept into the military service as civilization and commerce, with sedentary habits at the desk or loom, advanced, till the richest and most enlightened part of the world was exposed to the brutality of Switzerland, the arrogance of France, and the fierce rapacity of Arragon; so that, as he shows, whilst among the rude nations which lay beyond the Alps valour was indispensable, and cowardice was considered the foulest reproach; among the polished Italians,-enriched by commerce, governed by law, and passionately attached to literature,-everything was done by superiority of intelligence. Courage was the point of honour in other countries; ingenuity became the point of honour in Italy. "From these principles were deduced, by processes strictly analogous, two opposite systems of fashionable morality. Through the greater part of Europe the vices which peculiarly belong to timid dispositions, and which are the natural defence of weakness, fraud, and hypocrisy, have always been most disreputable. On the other hand, the excesses of haughty and daring spirits have been treated with indulgence, and even with respect. The Italians regarded with corresponding lenity those crimes which require self-command,, address, quick observation, fertile invention, and profound knowledge of human nature." He then institutes a telling comparison between this condition of the Italian people, after Florence had seen the zenith of her glory, and that of the Greeks of the second century before Christ, when they were subjected to the power of the Romans. "The conquerors, brave and resolute, faithful to their engagements, and strongly influenced by their religious feelings, were, at the same time, ignorant, arbitrary, and cruel With the vanquished people were deposited all the art, the science, and the literature of the western world. In poetry, in philosophy, in painting, in architecture, in sculpture they had no rivals. Their manners were polished, their perceptions acute, their invention ready; they were tolerant, affable, humane; but of courage and sincerity they were almost utterly destitute." He then portrays the Italian statesman of those days,—“a character which seems at first sight a collection of contradictions, a phantom as monstrous as the portress of hell in Milton, half-divinity, half-snake, majestic and beautiful above, grovelling and poisonous below." His whole soul is occupied with complicated schemes of ambition. Hatred and revenge eat into his heart; yet every look is a cordial smile, every gesture a familiar caress. His purpose is disclosed only when it is accomplished. His face is unruffled, his speech courteous, till vigilance is laid asleep, till a vital point is exposed, till a sure aim is taken; and then he strikes for the first and last time. To do an injury openly is, in his estimation, as wicked as to do it secretly, and far less profitable. With him the most honourable means are those which are the speediest and the darkest. "Yet," exclaims Macaulay, "this man, black with the vices which we consider most loathsome, traitor, hypocrite, coward, assassin, was by no means destitute even of those virtues which we generally consider as indicating superior elevation of character. Indifferent to truth in the transactions of life, he was honestly devoted to truth in the researches of speculation. Wanton cruelty was not in his nature. On the contrary, where no political object was at stake, his disposition was soft and humane. The susceptibility of his nerves, and the activity of his imagination, inclined him to sympathize with the feelings of others, and to delight in the charities and courtesies of social life. Perpetually descending to actions which might seem to mark a mind diseased through all its faculties, he had, nevertheless, an exquisite sensibility both for the natural and the moral sublime, for every graceful and lofty conception. He had the keenest enjoyment of wit, eloquence, and poetry." We give the picture as it stands. The great writer, whose words we have followed so closely, has presented us with ample material for reflection. It is a confirmation of many truths which it is the high mission of the New Church to propound. One of these is the key-note of all that we have said,—that true conscience is the spiritual life of man, and that when he acts according to the dictates of his conscience, he acts from his spiritual life; and that this true conscience is formed by the truths of faith from the Word, according to his reception of them. The conscience of what is good is the conscience of the internal man; the conscience of what is just is the conscience of the external man. The former follows the precepts of faith from inner affection; the latter observes civil and moral laws from external affection. The conscience of what is good, with the man who exercises it, embraces and fulfils the conscience of what is just; but those who merely enjoy a conscience of what is just, and are thus still external, have but the faculty of receiving a conscience of what is good. This may lead us to a solution of the problem furnished in the remarkable sketch just quoted, when we see all that is hypocritical in human nature, combined with a certain elevation of intellect, and an apparent charity and affability of disposition. But as infernal spirits are able to feign themselves angels of light, it was easy for such men to raise their minds into the light S of wisdom when yet their hearts were utterly selfish. The real cause of the character so graphically described by Macaulay as being a collection of contradictions, a phantom as monstrous as the portress of hell in Milton, half divinity, half snake, majestic and beautiful above, grovelling and poisonous below," is that the love of his will is not elevated by means of his understanding. Such a man Swedenborg likens to an adulterer, who conceals a harlot in a cellar below, and who goes up to the highest apartments of the house, and discourses wisely concerning chastity, and then withdraws from the company there and returns to the object of his lust; also to a thief on a tower, who pretends to act the part of a watchman, but who, as soon as he sees any object of plunder below, hastens down and seizes it (Soul and Body, 14). He shows that a man, in order to be reformed, imbibes from infancy the knowledges of truth and goodness, which are to teach him to live well, that is, to will and act aright, and so, that the will may be formed by means of the understanding, he has the faculty of elevating his understanding almost into the light enjoyed by the angels of heaven, that he may see what he ought to will and thence to do. "He becomes prosperous and blessed if he procures to himself wisdom, and keeps his will under its obedience; but unprosperous and unhappy if he puts his understanding under obedience to his will." This is just what led to the terrible state of feeling described when by learning to put on, in their countenance, their gestures, and their speech, appearances which did not belong to them, men dissimulated their ruling love. "Man is man by virtue of his will and of his understanding as thence exercised, and not by virtue of his understanding in separation from his will" (H. and H. 26). Another truth which our great author lays down, and which is very appropriate in this connection, is, that "man can only be formed for heaven by means of the world." This meets at once the two extremes of charaeter exhibited in our previous remarks the ascetic, who withdraws himself from the world, and tries to annihilate the things of sense for the contemplation of his spiritual nature, and, on the other hand, the man who thinks he can find peace and contentment in the wisdom of the world, its science, and art, and ceremonial. For though declaring that man can only be formed for heaven by means of the world, Swedenborg does not commit himself either to the theory of the recluse, or that of the materialist. He goes on to demonstrate that it is in the world that ultimate effects have their station, into which the affection of every one is to be determined; for unless the affection puts itself forth, or |