The Mountain Cove Journal And Spiritual Harbinger

ADDRESS TO PARENTS.

Our Savior, descending to Earth, in love and condescension infinite, for purposes of grace to man, appeared first in infantile form, as paradisiacal child, and thereby entered into experience of the pleasures, the wants, the sufferings of infants, and of children here. During His continuance on earth He made little children the especial objects of His loving favor and care: and after His re-ascension He prepared a new Eden for their abode, in the Seventh Intermediate Degree, which is the outer expanse of Paradise. This He formed like unto the ancient Eden, and caused all His works creative, unfolded through its expanse, to wear forms and hues of beauty before in Paradise unrevealed. He caused all affections of His own incarnate infancy to repeat their infinite sweetness of innocence in floral creations of odor most precious and of unfading hue. Here also He caused Palaces to appear enriched with treasures of celestial Art. In them He provided habitations for maternal spirits: exceeding most in tenderness of love, that they might receive infants at their departure from earth, and unfold their natures into pure, perpetual life. Mary, the Blessed Virgin, He chose in affection ineffable, the Guardian, Celestial and Maternal, of this pure abode, and from His own Sacred Being communicated an atmosphere of fragrance and delight, pervading all of its indwellers with joys of affections of innocence like unto His own.

Here abide children who have been uplifted from mortal form, receptive of His Life through gracious condescensions of His Divine Procedure. Their spiritual forms unfold into beautiful maturity in absolute unconsciousness of sensuous desires. Their employments are adoration of the Lord: social enharmonic pursuits, scientific, artistic and floricultural; and glad unceasing ministrations to each other's needs. The externals which they behold, are flowers, landscapes adorned with stately trees, statues and temples; and in their habitations forms which correspond to pictures, books alphabetical and hieroglyphical, instruments needful for scientific investigations and for music in every form, and glorious shapes of sacred Art unknown among mortal men. Alternations of combined employment are provided, in order that all faculties of the spirit may be unfolded into perfect symmetry thro' perpetual successions of delight. Here also they are instructed in all Revelations which God has made to this earthly race, and taught to dwell in disinterestedness and holy unity with all, and in filial reverence and obedience before Him. Lest they should become forgetful of those who loved them, and remain below, they are made familiar with all the filial and fraternal affinities and laws, and are borne by their conductors to revisit their earthly parents, brothers and sisters, at some most suited period of each returning day, and that no impure influence may stain their tender natures, they are surrounded with celestial life, and borne as the shepherd bears the tender lamb.

Mary, the Blessed, mother of Jesus, in His incarnation, is Guardian Maternal to all children in Paradise. She is the instructress of all in the holy doctrine of Redemption through His Love. She is perceived in her celestial loveliness, and in melodious voice she leads their hymns of reverent and grateful praise, and thus she guides them to the feet of Him who is Creator, Savior and Lord of all. Paradisical Maidens, purest of the pure, whose earliest recollection is her smile, and who have blossomed into youth beneath her care, dwell in a circle of direction with the Blessed Virgin as their head, and rule this realm of innocence with sweetness, and with sanctity of love.

John, the Lord's beloved disciple, is the Messenger of this abode of Innocence. He directs those bands of Paradisical Youths and Maidens, whose charge it is to lift the children from the cloud of death, and bear them to the skies. When infants leave the earth, these cradle them in soft embrace, and calm them into sleep, that they may wake beneath the Virgin's smile in their immortal home. The angels, whom he leads, wait daily on the plains of Paradise to conduct the children as they go to revisit their mortal homes. When these have attained the sweet perfection of their prime, they leave this Paradise of childhood for willing and untiring labor in the great harvest field of life. John, as an elder brother, leads them to the Lord's Throne of Redemption, where they worship and prefer petition to be employed as instruments in the great work of saving men from error and from sin. Accepted for the service of the Lord, they thence descend in holy ardor, and in holiness serene, to earth, and seek to guide the souls of men to virtue, faith and heaven.

Mary, Maternal Guardian of the Eden of Innocence in Paradise, thro' John, her messenger, addresses this to all who are entrusted with care of children, especially to parents, dwelling on the earth.

Blessings, through establishment of open intercourse with Paradise, being now about to descend from Him who once appeared on earth in mortal form divine, it behooves you all, Beloved, to prepare for these new disclosures and duties with pure hearts and undefiled. Our Lord desires that children now on earth should be saved from participation in those perplexities and griefs, because of darkness, bereavement and sin, which you have suffered, and with regenerate souls, serene spirits, illuminated minds, and healthful and consecrated forms become the holy, obedient members of His kingdom of eternal sanctity and peace.

But that this may be their blessed lot, pure emotions must flow around them in their homes. and truth from heaven must be their daily food.

Unfaithful parents serve unconsciously the Powers of Darkness. They are instruments in the hand of invisible enemies of God, who seek to allure the young into those paths of corrupt enjoyment that wind downward to the grave and lead from thence through realms of anarchy and pain into the lowest death of night. The spiritual endowments of the child are as the ark of the covenant of God. Whosoever infuses corrupting sensations, destroys the manna of divine good flowing therein. Whosoever instills the doctrine of the Fatalist, the Pantheist, the Atheist, defaces those sacred tablets of intelligence which God has formed to bear the record of His Law: and whosoever inducts into the unsuspicious mind the habit of deceit, destroys the never blooming rod of power to conquer evil with the good, thus despoiling the child of heaven's most perfect gift. The person of the child is as the Temple of the Lord in the Holy Jerusalem. Its outer understanding is as the courts of the sanctuary, and its inmost consciousness as the holy of holies. God descendeth there: and conscience ministers, being high priest, and in prostrate attitude of homage listens to His holy oracles. Affections and Intelligences of Good, seven, and seventy times seven, are as the Seers and Prophets and Scribes and Sacerdotal Messengers of God. Outward faculties are as the Levites, servants and ministers, encamping around about. Whosoever mars and wounds the child, defaces God's temple. Whoso dishonors and pollutes the senses, corrupts the Keepers of the sanctuary, and defiles its courts. Whoso binds and darkens the emotions of charity the desires after holiness, the perceptions of moral or spiritual good, the faith in God, the thirst for celestial immortality, kills the Prophets and the Seers and the Priests, even at the altar. Whoso paralyzes conscience, slays the High Priest, and causes the light of the shekinah to shine no more. Whoso, through sensuous deception and spiritual guile, makes the child to become rebellious in intelligence and carnal in desire, lays desolate the sanctuary of the Holy One, and on its ruined altars burns sacrifice with strange fire to demons, and makes of its chambers a haunt for serpents and a den of ravenous and unclean beasts. Spirits of darkness invisible are as the armies of the Syrian and the Egyptian, servants and worshipers of Moloch and of Bel, seeking to change into a Temple of Idols the Shekinah of God, or to burn it with fire. And ye, O Parents, are the keepers of the gates of the walls that are around it; and woe is the heritage of the forgetful or the untrue; and blessings are laid up in store for all who continue faithful in their trust. Spirits of Light and Peace, boundless in love for every little child, dwell in your every home. Instruct your children in the Truth of Heaven, the word of God. Impress them with the truth that angels are their constant companions, their ministers, their friends. Make them to know that wicked feelings and deceitful words and angry passions will lead them into shame and grief and night. Teach them of Jesus, of His life below, His resurrection and His Paradise where the immortal children bloom. Uplift them thus to Him in faithful arms, and He shall open the spiritual senses, inflame the inward mind, and plant within their inmost essence principles of Life, pure and immortal, quickened from His own.