to take this effectual plan to cut away the foundation of all idle and malicious gossip.

Du

Nicholas Collin, a young clergyman, at this time visited Swedenborg, and thus pleasantly narrates his interview. "In 1765, I went to reside at Stockholm, where I continued for nearly three years. ring that time, Swedenborg was a great object of public attention in the metropolis, and his extraordinary character was a frequent topic of discussion. He resided at his house in the southern suburbs, which was in a pleasant situation, neat and convenient, with a spacious garden and other appendages. There he received company. Not seldom he also appeared in company, and mixed in private society; sufficient opportunities were therefore given to observe him. I collected much information from several respectable persons who had conversed with him; which was the more easy, as I lived the whole time as a private tutor in the family of Dr Celsius, a gentleman of distinguished talents, who afterwards became bishop of Scania. He, and many of the eminent persons that frequented his house, knew Swedenborg well. "In the summer of 1766, I waited on him at his house. ducing myself with an apology for the freedom I took, I assured him that it was not in the least from youthful presumption. I was then twenty, but had a strong desire to converse with a character so celebrated. He received me very kindly. It being early in the afternoon, delicate coffee, without eatables, was served, agreeably to the Swedish custom; he was also, like pensive men in general, fond of this bever

age.

Intro

We conversed for nearly three hours; principally on the nature of human souls, and their states in the invisible worlds; discussing the principal theories of psychology by various authors. He asserted positively, as he often does in his works, that he had intercourse with spirits of deceased persons. I presumed, therefore, to request of him, as a great favour, to procure me an interview with my brother, who had departed this life a few months before, a young clergyman, and esteemed for his devotion, erudition, and virtue. He answered, that God, having for good and wise purposes separated the world of spirits from ours, a communication is never granted without cogent reasons; and asked what my motives were. I confessed that I had none besides gratifying brotherly affection, and an ardent wish to explore scenes so sublime and interesting to a serious mind. He replied, that my motives were good, but not sufficient; but that if any important spiritual or temporal concern of mine had been the case, he would then have solicited permission from those angels who regulate these matters. He showed me his garden. It had an agreeable building, a wing of which was a kind of temple, to which he often retired for contemplation; its dim religious light rendering it suitable for such a purpose. "We parted with mutual satisfaction; and he presented by me, to the said Dr Celsius, an elegant copy of his Apocalypsis Revelata, then lately printed in Amsterdam."

Swedenborg was of a very mild temper, yet just, and incapable of perverting truth for human respects or any other motive. Robsahm, one day, asked him if a certain preacher, lately deceased, and greatly esteemed in Stockholm for his flowery sermons, had a place in heaven. No," said Swedenborg, "he went directly into the abyss; for he left his devotion in the pulpit: he was not pious, but a hypocrite; proud and greatly vain of the gifts he had received from nature, and the goods of fortune he was continually seeking to acquire. Truly," continued he, "false appearances will stand us in no stead hereafter; they are all separated from man at his decease; the mask then falls from him; and it is then made manifest to all, whether he is inwardly good or evil."

The exact month of Swedenborg's next foreign travel is uncertain; but just before he undertook it, Robsahm met him in his carriage, and asked him how he could venture to take a voyage to London, at the age of eighty, and expressed a fear lest he should not see him again. "Be not uneasy, my friend," said he, "if you live, we shall see one another again, for I have yet another voyage of this kind to make."

At Elsinore, on these voyages, he frequently visited M. Rahling, the Swedish Consul, and during this transit, he made the acquaintance of General Tuxen, at the Consul's table. The General asked him how a man might be certain whether he was on the road to salvation or not. Swedenborg answered, "That is very easy. A man need only examine himself and his thoughts by the Ten Commandments; as, for instance, whether he loves and fears God; whether he is happy in seeing the welfare of others, and does not envy them; whether on having received a great injury from others, which may have excited bim to anger and to meditate revenge, he afterwards changes his sentiments, because God has said that vengeance is His, and so on; then he may rest assured that he is on the road to heaven: but when he discovers himself actuated by contrary sentiments, he may know that he is on the road to hell."

This led Tuxen to think of himslf, as well as others, and he asked Swedenborg whether he had seen King Frederick V. of Denmark, deceased in 1766, adding that though some human frailty attached to him, yet he had certain hopes that he was happy. Swedenborg said, Yes, I have seen him, and he is well off; and not only he, but all the kings of the house of Oldenburg, who are associated together. This is not the happy case with our Swedish kings.' Swedenborg then told him that he had seen no one so splendidly ministered to in the world of spirits as the Empress Elizabeth of Russia, who died in 1762. As Tuxen expressed astonishment at this, Swedenborg continued, "I can also tell you the reason, which few would surmise. With all her faults, she had a good heart, and a certain consideration

in her negligence. This induced her to put off signing many papers that were from time to time presented to her, and which at last so accumulated that she could not examine them, but was obliged to sign as many as possible on the representation of her ministers; after which she would retire to her closet, fall on her knees, and beg God's forgiveness, if she, against her will, had signed anything that was wrong."

At the conclusion of this interesting interview, Swedenborg went on board his vessel, leaving a firm friend and future disciple in General Tuxen. Some years after, Tuxen wrote, "I thank our Lord, the God of heaven, that I have been acquainted with this great man and his writings. I esteem this as the greatest blessing I ever experienced in this life, and hope I shall profit by it in working out my salvation."

Swedenborg's stay in London at this time must have been but brief, for on the 28th of November, 1768, we meet him again in Amsterdam, whither he had gone to print another important work, Conjugial Love, and its chaste Delights; also Adulterous Love and its insane Pleasures." This book he published with his name, as written "by Emanuel Swedenborg, a Swede." This is the first of his theological works to which he affixed his name. His reason for giving it in this instance, is said to have been, that no other person might be censured for writing on this delicate subject. We will now examine the contents of this wondrous book.

CHAPTER 22.
Conjugial Love.

A wise man might well suspect the soundness of any system of morals which did not take into careful consideration the conjugial relation. Marriage-the most important event in life, the relation which occupies the whole thought of one sex, and the most serious regards of the other, the institution around which all that is highest and holiest in life groups itself, family, home, all that human hearts feel dear-must ever hold a prominent position in a true code of moral and spiritual laws. How then could the subject be omitted from the heavenly writings of the New Jerusalem? or how could its apostle forget or pass it by.

Swedenborg, in his treatise on Conjugial Love, first speaks of marriages in heaven. He shows that a man lives a man after death, and that a woman lives a woman; and since it was ordained from creation that the woman should be for the man, and the man for the woman,

and thus that each should be the other's,-and since that love is innate in both, it follows that there are marriages in heaven as well as on earth. Marriage in the heavens is the conjunction of two into one mind. The mind of man consists of two parts, the understanding and the will. When these two parts act in unity, they are called one mind. The understanding is predominant in man, and the will in woman; but in the marriage of minds there is no predominance, for the will of the wife becomes also the will of the husband, and the understanding of the husband is also that of the wife; because each loves to will and to think as the other wills and thinks, and thus they will and think mutually and reciprocally. Hence their conjunction; so that in heaven, two married partners are not called two, but one angel. When this conjunction of minds descends into the inferior principles which are of the body, it is perceived and felt as love, and that love is conjugial love.

To this doctrine of marriage in heaven, will arise an objection from the Lord's words to the Sadducees, when they asked Him whose wife, in the resurrection, a woman should be, who had been married in succession to seven brethren. The Lord replied, "The children of this world marry, and are given in marriage; but they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage."-Luke 20. 34, 35. To understand this reply, we must bear in mind the nature of the question. A woman had been married, quite in accordance with worldly usage, to seven husbands. Of course, nothing of this kind takes place in heaven, for, as the Lord says, there "neither can they die any more." After that fashion indeed there is no marrying or giving in marriage in heaven; in truth, marriages, such as they are in heaven, could never have been comprehended by the gross and carnal minds of the Jews, and had the Lord entered into details, they would have been as grossly misapprehended by them as when he said, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up; and they said, "Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days?" not knowing that he" spake of the temple of his body."-John 2. 19-21. Now Swedenborg very plainly shows that Christians think as naturally of marriage as the Jews did of the temple, if they suppose that the true marriage of minds does not take place in heaven, or that it was any but the carnal and sensual connections of earth that the Lord declared had no place in eternity. In the spiritual sense of the Lord's words, by the marriage that does not take place in heaven, is meant the spiritual marriage, or union of goodness and truth in the mind;-in other words, regeneration: this must be accomplished in this life, or not at all. When the spiritual sense of the Word is understood, this interpretation becomes manifest as the only true and rational mode of understanding the text, and all the rest of Scripture goes to confirm it.

Moreover, it is true that there is no marriage in heaven in the exact sense of the word. Partners are born into this world, and by life in it are disciplined for each other. Separate, they are but parts of one whole, and in each there is a continual longing for unition. Seen by the eye of Omniscience, they are ever married-they are one, however divided they may be by space or circumstances. Their meeting in heaven and recognition of each other is only the external completion of what had before in essentials been effected. And in this sense it may be said that there are no marriages in heaven; for all are married, in reality, before they reach heaven.

Marriages on earth, Swedenborg teaches, are at this day entered upon so generally from merely worldly and sensual motives, and with so little regard to similarity of mind, that but in few cases are they maintained and perpetuated in the other life. Married partners commonly meet after death, but as their internal differences of mind are manifested, they separate; for no married partners can be received into heaven, but such as have been interiorly united, or are capable of so being united into one; which is understood by the Lord's words, "They are no longer two but one flesh." Such as are thus separated— possibly both very good people-meet in due time a fitting partner, whose soul inclines to mutual union with the soul of the other, so that they no longer wish to be two lives, but one.

The meeting of young partners in heaven is thus charmingly described:-"The Divine providence of the Lord extends to everything, even to the minutest particulars concerning marriages, because all the delights of heaven spring from the delights of conjugial love, as sweet waters from the fountain head. On this account it is provided that conjugial pairs be born, and, these pairs are continually educated to their several marriages under the Lord's auspices, neither the boy nor the girl knowing anything of the matter; and after a stated time, when both of them become marriageable, they meet in some place as by chance, and see each other, and in this case they instantly know, as by a kind of instinct, that they are pairs; and by a kind of inward dictate, think within themselves-the youth that she is mine, and the virgin that he is mine; and when this thought has existed some time in the mind of each, they accost each other from a deliberate purpose, and betroth themselves. It is said as by chance, by instinct, and by dictate, and the meaning is by Divine providence; since, while the Divine providence is unknown, it has such an appearance; for the Lord opens internal similitudes that they may see each other."

We are now led by Swedenborg, and introduced to a knowledge of the nature of Conjugial Love, and shown in what consists its essential blessedness. He shows that this love originates in the marriage of goodness and truth. Everyone who has experienced anything of regeneration, knows that there is no bliss so intense, no joy so extatic,