331.  The state of children in the other life far surpasses their state in the world, for they are not clothed with an earthly body, but with such a body as the angels have.  The earthly body is in itself gross, and receives its first sensations and first motions not from the inner or spiritual world, but from the outer or natural world; and in consequence in this world children must be taught to walk, to guide their motions, and to speak; and even their senses, as seeing and hearing, must be opened by use.  It is not so with children in the other life.  As they are spirits they act at once in accordance with their interiors, walking without practice, and also talking, but at first from general affections not yet distinguished into ideas of thought; but they are quickly initiated into these also, for the reason that their exteriors are homogeneous with their interiors.  The speech of angels (as may be seen above, n, 234-245) so flows forth from affection modified by ideas of thought that their speech completely conforms to their thoughts from affection.

332.  As soon as little children are resuscitated, which takes place immediately after death, they are taken into heaven and confided to angel women who in the life of the body tenderly loved little children and at the same time loved God.  Because these during their life in the world loved all children with a kind of motherly tenderness, they receive them as their own; while the children, from an implanted instinct, love them as their own mothers.  There are as many children in each one’s care as she desires from a spiritual parental affection.  This heaven appears in front before the forehead, directly in the line or radius in which the angels look to the Lord.  It is so situated because all little children are under the immediate auspices of the Lord; and the heaven of innocence, which is the third heaven, flows into them.

333.  Little children have various dispositions, some that of the spiritual angels and some that of the celestial angels.  Those who are of a celestial disposition are seen in that heaven to the right, and those of a spiritual disposition to the left.  All children in the Greatest Man, which is heaven, are in the province of the eyes-those of a spiritual disposition in the province of the left eye, and those of a celestial disposition in the province of the right eye.  This is because the angels who are in the spiritual kingdom see the Lord before the left eye, and those who are in the celestial kingdom before the right eye (see above, n. 118).  This fact that in the Greatest Man or heaven children are in the province of the eyes is a proof that they are under the immediate sight and auspices of the Lord.