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Our Duty to the Children: 58 total pages.

and its hard intellectualness may be soft­ened by a regard for use. In the panorama of life presented in the Bible story, this faculty of rationality is represented by Abraham's sons Ishmael and Isaac. Ishmael is the first, natural reason, critical and hard;-the son of the Egyptian hand-maid, a man of the deserts, described as "a wild-ass man, his hand against every man, and every man's hand against 49 50 OUR DUTY TO THE CHILDREN him." In explaining these words about Ishmael, Swedenborg describes the character of one whose rationality is developed only in a natural way, and is not yet softened by regard for use. "He is morose," he says, "impatient, in opposition to all others, regarding every one as in the wrong, in­stantly rebuking, chastening, punishing; he is without pity, and does not try to bend the minds of others; for he regards everything from truth, and not from good." Again, the natural rationality likened to the wild ass is described as "morose, contentious, having a dry, hard life."' When one who has been a good arid

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