it to be forever changed, to long to enter Heaven and the sphere of
Hope.'

"His doctrine of Marriage can be reduced to the following words: 'The
Lord has taken the beauty and the grace of the life of man and
bestowed them upon woman. When man is not reunited to this beauty and
this grace of his life, he is harsh, sad, and sullen; when he is
reunited to them he is joyful and complete.' The Angels are ever at
the perfect point of beauty. Marriages are celebrated by wondrous
ceremonies. In these unions, which produce no children, man
contributes the _understanding_, woman the _will_; they become one
being, one Flesh here below, and pass to heaven clothed in the celestial
form. On this earth, the natural attraction of the sexes towards
enjoyment is an Effect which allures, fatigues and disgusts; but in
the form celestial the pair, now _one_ in Spirit find within theirself
a ceaseless source of joy. Swedenborg was led to see these nuptials of
the Spirits, which in the words of Saint Luke (xx. 35) are neither
marrying nor giving in marriage, and which inspire none but spiritual
pleasures. An Angel offered to make him witness of such a marriage and
bore him thither on his wings (the wings are a symbol and not a
reality). The Angel clothed him in a wedding garment and when
Swedenborg, finding himself thus robed in light, asked why, the answer
was: 'For these events, our garments are illuminated; they shine; they
are made nuptial.' ('Conjugial Love,' 19, 20, 21.) Then he saw the two
Angels, one coming from the South, the other from the East; the Angel
of the South was in a chariot drawn by two white horses, with reins of
the color and brilliance of the dawn; but lo, when they were near him
in the sky, chariot and horses vanished. The Angel of the East,
clothed in crimson, and the Angel of the South, in purple, drew
together, like breaths, and mingled: one was the Angel of Love, the