Once when I was walking with my feelings at rest and my mind pleasantly at peace, I saw in the distance a park, in the middle of which was an avenue leading to a small palace. I saw young women and men, and husbands and wives, going in. I went there in spirit and asked a doorkeeper who was standing at the entrance whether I might go in too. He looked at me, so I said, 'Why are you looking at me?'

He replied, 'I am looking at you to see whether the peaceful pleasure to be seen in your face has anything of the pleasure of conjugial love about it. Behind this avenue there is a small garden with a house in it, where there is a newly-married couple, and their friends of both sexes are coming to them today to congratulate them. I do not know the people I admit, but I have been told that I could recognise them by their faces. If I see there the pleasure of conjugial love, I am to admit them, but no others.' All angels can see from other people's faces the pleasures of their hearts, and the pleasure of the love, which he saw on my face, was from my meditation on conjugial love. This shone out of my eyes and so pervaded the inner levels of my face. So he told me I might go in.

[2] The avenue by which I went in was made of fruit-trees with their branches interlacing, so as to make a continuous wall of trees on either side. Coming through the avenue I entered a small garden, fragrant with shrubs and flowers. The shrubs and flowers were arranged in pairs, and I was told that such gardens are to be seen around houses where weddings are or have been taking place, so they are called wedding gardens.

Later I went into the house and saw the couple holding hands and conversing under the effects of truly conjugial love. I was then able to see from their faces a picture of conjugial love and learn of its living force from their conversation. After expressing my good wishes along with many more visitors and congratulating them, I went out into the wedding garden. I saw on the right a group of young men, which all who left the house hurried to join. The reason for this was that they were talking there about conjugial love, and this talk had some hidden power to attract the minds of them all. Then I listened to a wise man speaking on this subject, and the gist of what I heard is as follows.

[3] 'The Lord's Divine providence', he said, 'is at its most detailed and its most universal on the subject of and in marriages in the heavens, because all the pleasures of heaven pour forth from the pleasures of conjugial love, like sweet waters from a sweet spring. Provision is therefore made for couples to be born who are well matched in marriage for each other. Under the Lord's continual guidance they are brought up with a view to their marriage, though neither the boy nor the girl is aware of this. When in due course the young woman, as she is then, is of an age to be married, and the young man, as he is then, is ready for marriage, they meet somewhere as if by fate and see each other. Then by some instinct they at once recognise that they are well matched, and they think to themselves, as if by some inward prompting, the young man 'She is the one for me,' and the young woman, 'He is the one for me.' After allowing this to sink into their minds for a while, they resolve to speak to each other, and they become engaged. We say as if by fate and by instinct, but we mean by Divine providence, because when it is not known, it looks like this.'

He proved that couples were born to be married and are brought up for marriage, although neither was aware of this, by demonstrating that the face of each showed plainly how alike with a view to marriage they were, and by the inmost and everlasting union of their characters and minds, something that could not exist, as they do in heaven, without the Lord's foresight and providence.

[4] When the wise man made this speech, the group applauded. He went on to say that the conjugial principle is present in the tiniest details of each human being, both male and female, but still it is different in the male and in the female. The male's conjugial principle is designed to be linked with the female's and vice versa, even in the tiniest details. He proved this by the marriage of the will and the intellect in each individual, the two of which act together on the smallest details of both mind and body. This enables it to be seen that every substance, even the smallest, contains this conjugial principle, as is evident from compound substances made out of simple ones; or from the fact that we have two eyes, two ears, two nostrils, two cheeks, two lips, two arms and hands, two hips, two feet; and inside the body two hemispheres in the brain, two ventricles in the heart, two lobes in the lungs, two kidneys, two testicles; and where there are not two, the organ is none the less divided into two parts. The reason for this duality is that one belongs to the will, and the other to the intellect, and they work together so wonderfully that they act as one. So the two eyes produce single vision, the two ears single hearing, the two nostrils one sense of smell, the two lips one speech, the two hands one piece of work, the two feet one step, the two hemispheres of the brain one seat of the mind; the two chambers of the heart one life-giving action to the body by means of the blood; the two lobes of the lungs one act of breathing, and so on. But the male and the female, when united by truly conjugial love, make one fully human life.

[5] While he was saying this, a flash of lightning was seen to the right, which was reddish, and another to the left which was white. Both were gentle, and penetrated the eyes to reach our minds and also enlighten them. These were followed by a clap of thunder, which came as a gentle murmur flowing down from the heaven of the angels and growing in volume. On hearing and seeing this the wise man said, 'These are a sign and a warning to me, to add another detail to what I have said. The right one of these pairs stands for their good, the left one their truth. This is due to the marriage of good and truth, which a person has imprinted on him both in general and in every detail. Good relates to the will, truth to the intellect, and both together relate to one. This is why in heaven the right eye is the good of sight, and the left eye its truth; the right ear is the good of hearing, and the left one its truth; the right hand is the good of a person's power, the left one its truth; and likewise in the rest of the pairs. It was because right and left have these meanings that the Lord said:

If your right eye gives you offence, pull it out; and if your right hand gives you offence, cut it off. [Matt. 5:29, 30]

He meant by this, that if good becomes evil, it is to be thrown out. He also told the disciples to cast the net on the right side of the boat, and when they did so, they caught a huge quantity of fish [John 21:6, 7]. He meant by this that they were to teach the good of charity, and they would thus gather people.'

[6] After this was said, the two flashes of lightning came again, but milder than before. It looked then as if the whiteness of the left-hand flash was tinged with the ruddy fire of the right-hand one. On seeing this he said, 'This is a sign from heaven to confirm what I have said, because anything fiery in heaven is good, and anything white is truth. The appearance of the left-hand flash having its whiteness tinged with the ruddy fire of the right-hand one is a sign to prove that the whiteness of light, or light in general, is the same as the radiance of fire.' On hearing this all went away fired with the good and truth of happiness by the flashes of lightning and what was said about them.