world, and, by degrees, to the infinitely remote parts of earth.
Terrestrial effects being thus linked to celestial causes, all things
are _correspondent_ and _significant_. Man is the means of union
between the Natural and the Spiritual.'

"The Angelic Spirits therefore know the very nature of the
Correspondences which link to heaven all earthly things; they know,
too, the inner meaning of the prophetic words which foretell their
evolutions. Thus to these Spirits everything here below has its
significance; the tiniest flower is a thought,--a life which
corresponds to certain lineaments of the Great Whole, of which they
have a constant intuition. To them Adultery and the excesses spoken of
in Scripture and by the Prophets, often garbled by self-styled
scholars, mean the state of those souls which in this world persist in
tainting themselves with earthly affections, thus compelling their
divorce from Heaven. Clouds signify the veil of the Most High.
Torches, shew-bread, horses and horsemen, harlots, precious stones, in
short, everything named in Scripture, has to them a clear-cut meaning,
and reveals the future of terrestrial facts in their relation to
Heaven. They penetrate the truths contained in the Revelation of Saint
John the divine, which human science has subsequently demonstrated and
proved materially; such, for instance, as the following ('big,' said
Swedenborg, 'with many human sciences'): 'I saw a new heaven and a new
earth, for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away'
(Revelation xxi. 1). These Spirits know the supper at which the flesh
of kings and the flesh of all men, free and bond, is eaten, to which
an Angel standing in the sun has bidden them. They see the winged
woman, clothed with the sun, and the mailed man. 'The horse of the
Apocalypse,' says Swedenborg, 'is the visible image of human intellect
ridden by Death, for it bears within itself the elements of its own