into the spiritual world, which continued only for short periods, and at distant intervals; and if he had not read Swedenborg's work, he could not rationally and satisfactorily have explained to himself the various objects and phenomena he had beheld.

6

would be their elevation in the Lord's kingdom, either to the first, second, or third heaven. His flock were extremely delighted to hear his remarks concerning heaven; and the manner in which he explained to them how the love of the Lord above all things, and the love 466. "From this time, he observed, he ceased of our neighbor even better than ourselves, to manifest his opposition against the super- constitutes the life and soul of the heavenly stition' in question, and endeavored, when kingdom, served, no doubt, to kindle that ceany thing occurred, to turn it to the instruc- lestial fire of mutual love amongst his people, tion and edification of his people. He care- which made them a bright and shining light fully wrote down every occurrence, and drew to all around them. For the numerous infrom it some salutary instruction, which either stances of remarkable self-denial, of benevowarned his flock against evil, or encouraged lence to the orphan, widow, and stranger; of them in goodness and virtue. He said that he liberal contributions from their scanty means had a large pile of papers, which he had writ- to procure Bibles for those in the surrounding ten on this kind of spiritual phenomena, con- districts, that did not possess the Word of taining the facts, with his own reflections upon God, and to purchase articles of clothing, and them. One of these occurrences I can here re-implements of use for those who were destitute, late. In the year 1806, a tremendous convul- and not able to work for the want of necessasion of nature occurred in Switzerland, which ry means: these facts, I repeat, when considdeeply moved the whole of Europe: it was the ered in connection with the general exemption fall of the Rossberg, a great mountain, which from vice and crime, were striking proofs of suddenly fell, and buried several villages un-something like that genuine spirit of Chrisder its ruins. This catastrophe excited the tianity, which has seldom been witnessed upon greatest consternation throughout the whole earth, but which, as the New Jerusalem Church surrounding country, and deeply affected Ober-advances, will not be so great a stranger lin and the people of Steinthal. As it was amongst men.

customary in cases of deep excitement for 468. "From seeing, as explained by Swesome person or other in the valley to become denborg, that the Lord's kingdom is a kingclairvoyant, that is, to have their spiritual dom of uses, Oberlin resolved all the exertions vision opened; so in this case, several individ- and operations of his life into one element uals became clairvoyant, and the unfortunate USE. He taught his people, that to be useful, people who had been destroyed by the moun- and to shun all evil as sin against the Lord, tain, were seen in the world of spirits. They in being useful, is the truly heavenly life. On appeared, said Oberlin, in places very similar this account, when his flock assembled in the to those they had left in the natural world, church on the week day, to hear from their and associated together, as they had been ac- beloved pastor some instructive and edifying customed to do, but by degrees they separated discourse, the females brought with them their from each other, and were associated accord- knitting, needlework, and platting, and thus ing to their moral worth. This account, Ober- worked with their hands, whilst their minds lin observed, was in agreement with what were being instructed in various kinds of useSwedenborg says respecting the state of man ful knowledge. His discourse on some weekimmediately after his departure from this day evening was not exclusively theological world; and likewise respecting what he states and religious, although religion was blended in regard to the manner in which spirits associate together, or constitute societies; for all are there arranged according to their moral worth,' those who are good, and, in similar affections, constitute heavenly societies, and those who are evil, and in similar malignant dispositions, form infernal societies. 467. So convinced was Oberlin of the salutary importance of teaching his flock respecting heaven and hell, and the correspondent relation which man sustains to the spiritual world, that he formed a chart, or map, representing heaven, which he hung up in his church. This celestial diagram, as it was called, was taken from Solomon's temple, which, in all respects corresponded to heaven. These correspondences Oberlin had derived from Swedenborg, and he pointed out to his flock, that according to their humility, piety, fidelity, and their love of being useful to each other,

with every thing he said; but it frequently conveyed some eminently practical ideas on the various useful arts of common life. These useful ideas on the concerns of ordinary life were always connected with something heavenly, and ascribed to the goodness of our heavenly Father; in this manner Oberlin connected the concerns of earth with the realities of heaven, and brought down a celestial influence into the common duties of life.

469. "The day after my arrival was the Sabbath, and I anticipated much pleasure in hearing the venerable pastor address his flock, He preached in French; his discourse was characterized by simplicity and warmth. He almost invariably called Jesus his heavenly Father, which struck many as a peculiarity not common with Christians in general, but I well knew how he had contracted this habit of addressing the object of his supreme love

472. Let us now recur to a further notico of the interior value and eminent importance of Swedenborg's writings, considered both from a theological and literary point of view.

Children's Questions answered.

and worship. From the work On Heaven and Hell, he had clearly seen, that no other is acknowledged throughout heaven as the Divine Father than the Lord Jesus Christ alone, for 'he that seeth him seeth the Father.' The church was full, and humility and devotion seemed impressed upon every countenance. 473. "It is extraordinary" says Mr. WilHe addressed them like a father addressing his kinson, “how well Swedenborg has answered children, and often called them his chers en- the children's questions; those inquiries of fants, - his beloved children. He said he little tongues that the parents divert, but do had baptized nearly all of them, and, as in- not satisfy. If we wished to give his theolofants, had taken them in his arms; and they, gy an experiment, we should select for its rewhen the service was over, assembled around cipients children of from five to ten years of him, and called him papa, inquiring after the age, and teach them nothing of it except in health of himself and his family. They also answer to their own inquiries. The whole testified their regard and their gratitude by scheme would be elicited presently by the sending him various presents - the first flow-moving curiosity of almost infantine querists. ers of the spring, the first vegetables and fruits As a satisfaction to such like, including those of the garden, were presented to the beloved simple adults whose faculties are as those of pastor, thus reciprocating the sweetest affec- children, there is a completeness in his revelations of the mind by external emblems of tions; the first circle of intellectual wants is gratitude and love. How delightful, I thought, gratified with parental forethought; the profit is to be a pastor, when this sweet spirit of fered education, drawn forth by the pupil himreciprocation exists! where the minister, in his self, is exact and suitable; and the youthful anxiety and labor to perform the arduous du- mind runs no danger of subsequent complexities of his office, is soothed and strengthened, ty in the learning with which his easy teacher not only by the consciousness, depending on provides him. The personal Maker of the divine mercy and assistance, of having endeav- world, his name and abode; His quality as ored to do what he could for the instruction the best of men; the purpose of all things for and salvation of his flock, but by the sweet our use; the immortality not of the soul but reciprocation of acknowledgment and affection. of the man, or rather not his immortality but 470. "I afterwards was eager to embrace his straight continuance; the way in which the opportunity of enjoying some conversation people die and rise again; the great pleasantwith Oberlin on the spiritual sense of the ness of heaven for the good, and the pain of Word. But in this matter I was disappointed: hell for the naughty; the men and women he acknowledged that the Word has a spiritual living in each of the bright stars, and one day sense; but his knowledge of it seemed scanty to be our friends these are things to satisfy and obscure. He told me, he regretted that babes of all conditions and ages. We would he had never been able to procure Sweden-back Swedenborg for comforting little ones borg's works, in which the Word is explained weeping over a lost brother or sister, against as to its spiritual sense, these works not hav- all the clergy that ever preached. We would ing been translated either into French or Ger- back him at a marriage for throwing upon the man, and the Latin copies being so scarce, wedding ring a brighter shine of the skies. that he could never procure them. The works We should have confidence in him for the real of Swedenborg which he possessed, were the events and unguarded moments that happen Heaven and Hell, Divine Love and Wisdom, to men through life. However this may be, Divine Providence, and, if I mistake not, a he is the first theologian with a voice that German translation of the Earths in the Uni- penetrates into the nursery, and becomes part

verse.

471. "The different biographers of Oberlin have carefully concealed his predilection for the writings of Swedenborg; they all agree, however, that he had peculiar views concerning heaven and hell and the human soul. And M. Morel, who has recently written memoirs of Oberlin, says, Oberlin had much originality in his conceptions, and his most singular ideas bore the impress of a great soul: he attached an emblematical sense to colors. His ardent imagination, nourished by the mystical works of Swedenborg, delighted to bound over the threshold of the tomb, and to expatiate in the mysterious world which awaits the soul, when separated from its earthly bonds." Documents, pp. 116-120.

of the mother's tale, or the governess's explanations. Indeed he has answered none but children's questions, which are the first pure wants of knowledge. Until these were met, no questions had been answered; and so he began at the beginning. He is preeminently the Gamaliel for the youngest faculties."

Opening of Religions and Superstitions. 474. "We have not yet done with that opening or roadmaking which radiates from his works as centre. There is no large space of thought that has not become more accessible, and we will add, more lovable, in consequence of what he wrote. Observe the broad access laid down in his works between his own

theology and other religions. The science of Protestantism opened in its way the spircorrespondences, the link between the worlds, [itual world; and Swedenborg has gone far to comes easily into lower relations, and pro-show that the visions of Mahomet, whether claims the original unity of religious systems. fantastic or not, may have been actual repreThe Hindoo and Grecian mythologies are sentatives in the spiritual atmospheres; and translated into a Christianity as old as the he does not imitate Grotius and his successors, world, through the restoration of that universal in branding the Arabian prophet as an imposlanguage whose symbols are sun and moon, tor. Indeed he has given a clew to the leand the objects of creation. The first mani-gendary and fairy lore of all nations, so that fested word of God was the world itself; the we hope in time to make it serviceable for the meaning that lay in the world was what the combined purposes of a spiritual and natural first readers understood. They wrote their anthropology. mythologies, not in vowels and consonants, but 477. "As the world's superstitious sciences, in hieroglyphical things. Those mythologies, they are so important a field, that we reat length, were ill and perversely written, and gret to have little space to devote to them in at last the symbols overpowered the sense and their connection with Swedenborg's principles. occupied its place. But still, whatever truth There is a truth lies in them all. They are they have is to be attained by hieroglyphic in-founded severally upon certain large insights terpretation. What a field is here opened for and thaumaturgic powers, which are never missionary enterprises. The heathen may be alien to nature when harmonious man appears. led back from the entanglement of their re- Magic itself is but the evil application of the ligions, to their own ancestral truths; and science of correspondences; the prevalence of then, by a readier passage, towards the Chris- magic was a reason why that science was tian centre. The church is the heart and taken away from the earth. In our own day, lungs of the world, and by such a missionary simultaneously with the appearance of Sweenterprise, its pulses and attractions begin to denborg, these lost arts and sciences are compermeate the Asiatic and Mahometan remote- ing back, especially through mesmerism and ness, to discuss and eliminate the accretions its kindred progeny of truths. We can only of time, and to raise the whole race as a man, indicate that the student of these subjects will into warm-blooded life. No evidences, or find them amply treated from the spiritual even examples, plastered upon heathenism, side in Swedenborg's writings, and above all, will convert the barbarian, but heathenism in his Diary, where it is shown that they are itself is the unwilling witness to the Christian faith.

matters most accredited in the spiritual world. The wonders of that world are palpable enough. 475. "There is something well fitted to the Perhaps, however, until our own day, no one Asiatic in Swedenborg's genius. His concep- was sufficiently aware of how wonderful Nature tion of the Grand Man, although we belive herself is going to be, when the ages are riper, scientifically original, is in singular harmony or of how certainly the height of the spiritual with the large and spheral thought of the ori- is the prophecy of the future of the natural. ental religions. Indeed, his scientific views To our Savior, this world was as plastic as are so similar to the Chinese cosmogonies, that any world need be; and to his true disciples, were it necessary to seek for the parentage of he promised the like powers, and the like obethe works of genius (which it never is,) we dience from the world. In short, he inaugu might easily build up the former out of the rated the miraculous as the order of nature, latter. There is, however, an element in him and the realization of this we look upon as the which the East has not, a more than Europe- outward measure and standard of the human an, perhaps a peculiarly Scandinavian activity, regeneration. In the mean time, the despised which demands a material world as the stern and obscure truths, by which nature already proof-place of thoughts and contemplations. emulates the spiritual, may group themselves, There is also, by consequence, a reliance on where their aims are good, round Swedenborg's personal man, which tramples out Pantheism, principles and correspondences, as round a and will be satisfied with no perfection less spirit-shaped than a personal God; and this is a side of life that the East has squandered and forgotten.

fortress sufficiently able to consolidate and protect them. But as they value self-preservation, let them resign their baser worldliness, and cease to lean upon the corrupt impotence of materialism.

476. "The Mahometan creed is not unnoticed by Swedenborg, and he regards it differ- 478. "Nothing is more evident to-day, than ently from the Protestant divines. With him that the men of facts are afraid of a large it is a permitted, provisional religion, midway number of important facts. All the spiritual between Christianity and the ancient East, facts, of which there are plenty in every age, which availed to extirpate the idolatries of are denounced as superstition. The best atmany nations, and to declare some important tested spirit stories are not well received by truths, such as the unity of God, which may that scientific courtesy, which takes off its in time be united to the Christian facts. grave hat to a new beetle or a fresh vegetable Moreover, Mahometanism the old-world alkaloid. Large-wigged science behaves worse

to our ancestors than to our vermin. Evi- 480. Another synthesis effected by Swedendence on spiritual subjects is regarded as an borg is that of poetry with reason and science. impertinence by the learned; so timorous are Never were things more separate than these they, and so morbidly fearful of ghosts. If for the last thousand years. It has been a they were not afraid, they would investigate; disastrous quarrel for both parties, but especialbut nature is to them a churchyard, in which ly for science. Poetry has that in it which they must whistle their dry tunes to keep up can stand by itself; of native right, it takes their courage. They should come to Sweden- the milk and honey of every land, and solidly borg, who has made ghosts themselves into a appropriates the pictures and fruits of neverscience. As the matter stands, we are bold failing nature. Yet apart from knowledge, it to say, that there is no class that so little follows its own rules of uncaring experiment and induction, or has so little respect for facts, as the hardheaded scientific men. They are attentive enough to a class of facts that nobody values, to beetles, spiders, and fossils,but as to those dear facts that common men and women, in all time and place, have found full of interest, wonder, or importance, they show them a deaf ear, and a callous heart. Science, in this, neglects its mission, which is to give us in knowledge a transcript of the world, and primarily of that in the world which is nearest and dearest to the soul.

is a savage maiden, beautiful only as the landscape, whereas its proper loveliness is of the stars and the skies. Moreover in the wild state it feeds upon terrors as well as delights, upon good and evil alike, upon the monstrous equally with the divine, until its food governs its inspirations, and the bard becomes a charmer instead of a prophet. The science of correspondences puts the truth of nature and revelation into it, and sends an adequate criticism abroad with it in its wildest flights. The poet may be doubly rapt when the muse is sailing with creation. He is never so safe or so wildly joyous as when in the convoy of the heavens. Imagination is never so tasked as Opening of History and Science. when it has to follow its Maker. Subtlety, 479. "Swedenborg has also conducted a novelty, freedom, frenzy are all too little nimrailroad from the 19th century to Eden; able to keep pace with that infinite wisdom sympathy from the historical to the unhistori- whose sport and play is the world. Poetry cal ages. Of all histories there is none so by gaining a science of the real, enters upon desirable, or so unattainable, as the narrative the only space where there is no limit, but of that happy state before history began. The where imagination may tire its nervous wing, day of no annals is the only portion of human yet sleep for refreshment when it will upon experience which deserves to be recorded. the humblest truths. The science which emanThe tables of goodness and happiness give cipates poetry, is none other than that of harthe kings and priests of the immemorial epoch. mony, which we call, after Swedenborg, the Paradise was its name. The re-discovery of science of correspondences. that time and country is due to Swedenborg's 481. "Science too has every thing to gain Arcana, elicited from the simple record in from its union through the same medium with Genesis. All is written there, but till Sweden- poetry. Hitherto the literary class, representborg came, no man could read it. The science ing the beauty of knowledge, have been unacof correspondences in union with spiritual ex- quainted with the scientific, contending for its perience, has opened the path to those ancient severer truth. Science has suffered from the realms. What wings for the poor gravitating exclusion. Poetry has its admitted aristocraantiquary in such disclosures as these! what cy -names for all climates, ages and sexes: a conversion of research into a key to the lost Homers, Shakspeares, and the like. Science and future happiness of the race. No matter has no names to match them. The art of if at first the discoveries are of the spiritual understanding the world has enlisted none kind; they will lead without fail to the mun- of the genius that has eagerly run towards dane account of the earliest people, and unite adorning life with song and beauty. The with the archæological sciences when reason structure of Iliads and Hamlets is more divine holds them with a firmer hand. The strata than any structure of the universe that has of the earth have been explored; Sweden- been shown by Newton or Laplace. This is borg has explored also the strata of the heav- because poetry has not become the soul of ens geology and ouranology are natural science, which in truth it should be. Whatcounterparts; and the science that lies between ever grasp has been yet attained by scientific them and unites them, will give the physical principles, has issued from the imagination as story, and the metaphysical education, of our a force; from some leak of poetry that has progenitors. Thereafter we shall never travel run into science: we ought then to open a by that road which lands civilization back to ship canal between the two through this great savagery for its origin, or carries the savage middle science of harmonies. Never till then to his first Adam in the monkey, but we shall can there be a science of fire and beauty, and see in the primitive man a creature and a so long as this is wanting, science is deprived power worthy to issue from the immediate of one clear half of its dominions. Nay, until God, though committed to nature and progress then she is not in possession of one single for his destined perfections.

complete fact, because every thing in creation | the tomb, and stands as the open gate between has its own peculiar beauty.

Harmony or Union.

two worlds of life. The letter of the Word has audibly communed with the spirit, and man, in the twain voices, hears the harmonies

to show, in a few words, that each existing sphere already contained within itself a longing and an earnest of the atonement which is thus individually begun, and which the human race must carry forward.

482. "The works of Swedenborg proclaim of God. The Bible has done what no book this marriage of the rational with the imagina- could do for it, namely, proved its own divinitive powers. His works are the first fruits of ty. The marriage of the soul and the body it. He shows by a series of wonderful exam- has been solemnized in the conscious spirit; ples that the highest imaginations are the human reason has become the mean of a sumerest scientific truths. We could expect no pernatural revelation; the senses and the soul other. It seems eminently reasonable that have been at one in a soul with spiritual the human powers at their full stretch and in senses; and a mortal has entered the spiritual their lustiest life, should touch the facts that world, has seen it by doctrine, and underthe living God has made, more nearly and stood it by sight. There is no apparent conreally than crawling and commonplace sensu- trariety so great but may henceforth be overalism can. If you want to understand a bee-come. Orthodoxy and oddity, reason and tle, look at it with all imagination through the mystery, have met without confusion, and glass of the universe; translate it into a min- have kissed each other in the streets. The eral, into a vegetable, and into a man; run it eldest religions have been placed at the feet along its own line of genera and species, and of the youngest. Science and superstition, let it catch illumination from them all; and philosophy and reality, the golden age and the when you have enlarged it from this associated iron, and many other natures seemingly as empire, its atomic theory will be palpable and distant, have been shown the way of peace by distinct; and every habit, limb and entrail the mission of Swedenborg; and more is yet will be a self-evident proposition. At any to hope. It remains, after this recapitulation, rate the whole world will stand up for it. Creation itself, in this science of correspondences, is the method of study. The order of things gives the terms of the mighty syllogism. The four seasons are laws of thought that apply to every thing; spring, summer, autumn and winter are one formula that dissects it for you. A stone or a man put fairly 484. "But first we will set before the readthrough their logic buds, blossoms, fruits and er one topic of importance in regard to Swewinters. The mineral, the vegetable and the denborg, we mean, his often alleged mysticism. animal are another of these formulas. Using Now he is called a mystic by some, because them so, they unlock another cabinet of truths he speaks of things of the other world, which in every thing, for every thing contains them. would be a reason, were it valid, for calling The bones, for example, are the mineral man; the angels mystics. The phrase is occasionalthe organs are the vegetable; the nerves and ly founded also upon his interpretation of the the muscles are the animal; the lungs the Scripture according to another sense than that atmospheric; and the brains are the solar; discoverable from the letter. But here again, and so forth. These it is true are analogies, if the letter speaks to one set of faculties, and and not correspondences, but analogies are the spirit to another, and if both discourses. the direct offspring of correspondences. The are distinct and divine, and mutually harmonscientific world knows that truths of this kind ic, there is no mysticism, but mere reality. have already made natural history into a more Swedenborg is the only theologian who is not living science; and we advertise them that mystical, the only one who craves plain expemore potential harmonies still lie in that sci-rience for every sphere, the only one who inence of correspondences which Swedenborg sists that words shall answer to outward facts, supplied; and whose leading function it is, to whether in this world or the next. There is extend analogies from the natural to the spir-nothing more mystical in the sight of an angel, itual, and to bring the light of a personal deity or of God himself, than in the sight of any working through all nature to a personal spirit object of nature; nor are the inductions in man, to bear upon every form which variegates and constitutes the world.

483. "Swedenborg's inseparable life and doctrine are then a new conjugal force introduced into experience, recalling to mind his own prediction, that marriage will be the restorer of the ages, and will lead down to the earth a still youngest child of God, or a new celestial church. We have seen that already a grand reconciliation is prepared. Through death an arrow of light is shot, and it quits

The Philosophers are the Mystics.

founded upon either sight to be called mystical, if those based upon the other are scientific. It would be mystical if the sight were not sight, but some philosophical intuition, but if good eyes are the seers, it is no matter whether their optic nerves are of spiritual flesh-glass, or of natural, — there is no mystery in the case. This is a view which must commend Swedenborg to the countrymen of Bacon and Locke, for so practically does he assent to the inductive plan, as to extend its sphere to the highest