lacerate their minds, and so "rend them." It is not written, "he that hath ears let him hear," but "he that hath ears to hear let him hear."" "No man, when he hath lighted a candle, covereth it with a vessel, or putteth it under a bed."

R: W.

PERCEPTION AND REASON.

WE are living in a world of ceaseless inquiry and bustling activity. Mind is constantly asserting its mastery over matter, and the external progression of nature appears to be slow and sluggish when compared with the interior and spiritual movements of our intellects. Man is endowed with faculties which have conferred on him the government of the world. He is able to reduce the objects of his contemplation to an orderly arrangement, to view them as a perfect whole, or as a dependent series of connected parts, to select, to compare, and to reason, and to draw his conclusions from an enumeration of detailed and acknowledged facts. He often prides himself on the depth of his researches, and on the admirable stretch and extent of his ingenuity. He pushes his inquiries to the very outermost verge of the external world, and not unfrequently gazes beyond the prescribed limits with an earnestness of effort whose success would be wonderful if it were only half proportioned to its boldness and daring.

But man has never succeeded in effecting much by the pride of his intellect. When he is most earnestly bent on the accomplishment of some rational scheme of benefit to the world, there would seem to be a countervailing principle of selfishness or ignorance within him, that renders his most assiduous labors nugatory and futile. He himself may indeed believe, and even make the world believe, that he has accomplished some vast work of intellectual enterprise, calculated to impart an inconceivable amount of good to society. But if we proceed to institute a closer inquiry into the result of his labors, it will be found, in almost every VOL. XLIV. 7

case of this kind, that the department of knowledge to which his attention was directed has, after all, remained stationary, and that the world has become no better or wiser than it was before. We have reference here, not so much to man's scientific, as to his moral attainments. Philosophy never did much to enlarge and secure the happiness of mankind. Its light, like the electric fluid in the skies, has sometimes dazzled for a moment, but has immediately afterwards gone out in darkness. Or, if it has continued to shine with a seeming illumination, it has been found, at last, to be but a phosphorescent sparkle, beautiful in external appearance, but without life or heat to benefit the world.

Religion itself, in all times, has rather retrograded from its primal splendor than advanced to a period of more increasing effulgence. When, in the end, the brightness ought to have been greatest, the sun was seen to be darkened, the moon failed to give her light, and the stars fell from heaven. This was not because men did not think or reason on the subject. In all ages of the world, the spiritual has, more or less, formed an important theme of inquiry for the human intellect. The affections of men, as well as their understandings, have been deeply exercised in an investigation of the nature of the soul, the acknowledged existence of an invisible world, and the relation towards each other of the principles of good and evil. These inquiries have had, for their chief end, a more clear discernment and exposition of the sacred duties which we owe to God and to each other. But who will say that the rational faculties of men were equal to the task of effecting, successfully, the purposes in question? So far as regards the institutions of religion, as they have, from time to time, existed in the world, we know that they have been severally impaired rather than improved by being subjected to the test of our natural reason, and by coming in conflict with our hostile affections of the love of self and the love of the world. God has, in all ages, abundantly shed forth the light of truth for the approval and instruction of His intel

ligent creatures; but men have uniformly perverted that truth to the extinguishment of all spiritual discernment, and, in the progress of time, have induced on themselves a still more gross and impenetrable shade of darkness than had before prevailed. Relying on their self-derived intelligence, they have reasoned naturally and selfishly on the great truths of religion, until they have turned these truths into the falsities most congenial with their own loves and affections.

If the above remarks be founded in reason, then it must be confessed that men have not been loyal to the claims of either philosophy or religion. Nor must we suppose that this has happened because they did not feel a sufficient interest in these claims to bestow on them their serious regard and attention. The records of past history, when examined, must convince us that, in bygone times, they expended much thought, they exercised much reason, and they wrote many books, in relation to these important subjects. But what, on investigation, is not a little calculated to surprise and embarrass us, is, that the more they thought, the more they reasoned, and the more they wrote, the more positively dark and intricate became the labyrinths of error into which they suffered themselves to be led. We think we may charitably say, that neither ancient nor modern philosophy has done much to reform the minds and tempers of even their most earnest and devoted advocates. If the dew fell on the narrow and shrunken fleece, there was dryness and sterility on the broad and expanded waste around it. Almost until the days of Bacon, men had cultivated little more than a barren philosophy; and even now their speculations in this direction are, for the most part, unfruitful and unprofitable. And, as regards the benign institution of religion, every New Churchman knows how sadly blinded and bewildered the Christian world has become on this important subject. The light of heaven has been almost entirely extinguished, and not one stone has been left in the temple of truth that has not been cast down.

To what may be fairly attributed the existence of so much perversity and error? If men, in past ages, have really been in earnest in the pursuit of truth, in what way may we account for it that they have succeeded so badly? If they really endeavored to see the objects before them in their true relations, why was it that their optics became so disordered that they either could not see them at all, or that they always saw them in a light that rendered them misshapen and distorted? The proper answer to these questions can only be found in a consideration of man's inherent selfishness and presumption. He relied too much on himself. He wished to become the prompter of his own destiny. He mapped out for himself what he regarded as a royal road to wisdom, and was too proud to advance in his search after truth on any other. His great propensity was to doubt and interrogate, rather than to believe and be satisfied. He was too proud to be humble, and too aggressive to be honest. He knew not what it was to receive wisdom as a little child. God made a free offer to him of the faculty of perception. But he despised this offer, not so much, perhaps, because it subjected him to no labor and no exertion, as because it emanated from God, and not from his own disordered reason. He arrogantly supposed that the discovery of truth depended on his argumentative powers. He extinguished the light of his interior consciousness by an attempt to substitute a process of external reasoning in its place.

Thus man lost the faculty of perception, which, in some degree, he shared in common with the angels; but which, we are sorry to say, he shares with them no longer. And yet we are unwilling to believe that this faculty has been wholly lost. We think we are plainly taught in the New Church Writings, that, although it is confined, in its true plenitude and power, to the celestial angels, yet it has an existence, to some extent, with angels of a lower sphere, and may even be fairly seen to impart a vital motion and influence to the minds of a few good men of our own dis

ordered world. The Bible teaches us how it is to be acquired, and how it is to be used. We must be made willing to renounce, as dangerous and injurious, our own self-derived intelligence. We must earnestly strive to overcome our hereditary evils. We must be content to receive the Kingdom of God as little children. In our search after a high and exalted standard of truth, our language must be yea, yea, and nay, nay. We must cease to reason from a feeling of self-love and love of the world. We must behave ourselves as a weaned child, not presumptuously meddling with things that are too high for us, but looking to the Lord alone for a suitable measure of light and instruction. In short, we must, in instances which daily present themselves to our minds, learn how to perceive the truth, rather than how to reason about it. We must prefer to behold it in its naked, unadorned, and beautiful simplicity, rather than in its wonted garb of ingenuity and sophistry.

But what, after all, it may be asked, is this faculty of perception, to which you are pleased to attach so much importance? We have already said that it is a celestial principle, almost exclusively belonging to the higher order of angels, but felt, to some extent, as the prompt expositor and detector of truth and virtue even in our own disordered and sinful world. We can convey our meaning better by citing a passage from one of the books of our New Church Scribe: "As to what concerns Perception, in general," says Swedenborg, "inasmuch as few know what it is, it is to be declared: There is perception of good and truth in things celestial and spiritual, there is perception of the just and equitable in civil life, and there is perception of the honest in moral life. With respect to perception of good and truth in things celestial and spiritual, the interior angels have this from the Lord, and the men of the most ancient church had it, and the celestial have it who are in love to the Lord. They know instantly, by a certain internal animadvertence, whether a thing be good and whether it be true, for the Lord insinuates this, inasmuch as they are conjoined to the