Heaven and Hell - Swedenborg Foundation

HEAVEN AND HELL 266
343. Several times when a number of children that were in a
purely infantile state have been with me in choirs, they were
heard as a tender unarranged mass, that is, as not yet acting as
one, as they do later when they have become more mature. To
my surprise the spirits with me could not refrain from inducing
them to talk. This desire is innate in spirits. But I noticed, each
time, that the children resisted, unwilling to talk in this way.
This refusal and resistance, which were accompanied by a kind
of indignation, I have often perceived; and when an
opportunity to talk was given them they would say nothing
except that “It is not so.” I have been taught that little children
are so tempted in order that they may get accustomed to
resisting, and may begin to resist falsity and evil, and also that
they may learn not to think, speak, and act from another, and
in consequence may learn to permit themselves to be led by no
one but the Lord.
344. From what has been said it can be seen what child
education is in heaven, namely, that it is leading them by
means of an understanding of truth and the wisdom of good
into the angelic life, which is love to the Lord and mutual love,
in which is innocence. But how different in many cases is the
education of children on the earth can be seen from this
example. I was in the street of a large city, and saw little boys
fighting with each other; a crowd flocked around and looked
on with much pleasure; and I was told that little boys are
incited to such fights by their own parents. Good spirits and
angels who saw this through my eyes so revolted at it that I felt
their horror; and especially that parents should incite their
children to such things, saying that in this way parents
extinguish in the earliest age all the mutual love and all the
innocence that children have from the Lord, and initiate them
into the spirit of hatred and revenge; consequently by their
own endeavors they shut their children out of heaven, where
there is nothing but mutual love. Let parents therefore who
wish well to their children beware of such things.