a stumbling-block to those seeking light and life. However, it is not what we call things, but the use we make of them that determines results; it is not the pseudo-philosophical falsity of ignorance, but the constant affirmation of the positive and known good which produces the salutary effect.
There are those who admit the propriety of Divine healing as a thing useful in former ages and as something quite probable in times to come. They are well grounded in doctrines about order, influx, and correspondence; but here they rest like the impotent man upon his bed. Continuous thought upon the Lord's question "Whether it is easier to say, thy sins be forgiven thee, or take up thy bed and walk" does not occur to these partial believers. It would be a startling discovery to those who swallow Swedenborg whole, but never digest his system in detail, and who argue that sickness of body is not incompatible with health of soul, if they should realize the full meaning of both the Bible's and Swedenborg's teaching on the matter. In Divine Providence, No. 142, it is stated that "no one is reformed in a state of sickness, because reason is not then in a free state; for the state of the mind depends upon the state of the body. When the body is sick, the mind also is sick."
It quite often happens that a sphere of humility and goodness pervades the chamber of a sick person; but here again the teaching of Swedenborg and the Bible are in accord. The Bible would teach that the mind was weak and diseased, else it would affect its body with health; Swedenborg teaches that sicknesses, griefs, and misfortimes break the lusts and desires of the self-life and hold the man in a state of humility and acknowledg-
