Biography of Swedenborg. 305 



freely through imagined realms of spirits, and have been chiefly 

 confined to regions in which his statements could be tested, 

 and his alleged facts subjected to proof. 



From his father, Swedenborg inherited what he took for 

 the faculty of spirit intercourse. " From his childhood, when 

 on his knees at prayer, his breath was curiously holden within 

 him ; strange rays of light, from the sun of another country, 

 from time to time had broken in through his darkness." These 

 words are his biographer's, but he tells in his own, how flames 

 of various colours appeared to him while he was writing one of 

 his books, as evidences of the truth he was recording ; and 

 " this was before the spirits began to speak with him as man 

 with man." The development of the visionary faculty took 

 place at a comparatively late period of his life, and is placed 

 by Mr. White as lasting from his fifty-fifth year to his death 

 at eighty-five. 



In 1858 a small volume was offered for sale to the Eoyal 

 Library at Stockholm. It proved to be a diary kept by 

 Swedenborg between 1743 and 1744, and the extracts cited 

 by Mr. White show that he passed through well-known stages 

 of religious madness. A sense of desolation was experienced, 

 though in a mild form; but soon, he says, " all was heavenly, 

 clear at the time, but inexplicable now. In one word I was in 

 heaven and heard speech, that no tongue can utter, nor the 

 glory and the innermost delight which followed this speech." 

 He next believed that Jesus Christ appeared to him in person, 

 and in the whole of his subsequent life he believed himself to 

 be a divinely chosen instrument for conveying religious truth 

 to man. As a curious instance of his mode of interpreting 

 his visions, we find this entry. 



" Dr. Morsus appeared to be courting a handsome girl, and 

 she allowed him to do with her what he liked. I joked with 

 her because of her easy consent. She was a handsome girl, 

 and grew taller and prettier. This means that I should obtain 

 information and meditate about the muscles." 



In London he appears to have gone quite out of his mind, 

 stripping himself naked, and rolling in a deep, muddy gutter, 

 but he did not remain in this condition, and was soon 

 able to take care of himself, and act rationally until his death, 

 though seeing visions, and receiving spiritual visitants nearly 

 the whole time. Returning home he resumed his official 

 duties, and employed his leisure in learning Hebrew; but 

 believing himself to have' a divine mission, he soon resigned 

 his assessorship, and devoted the rest of his life to theological 

 pursuits. 



The theological career of Swedenborg could only be fairly 

 traced in connection with the history of religious thought. 

 VOL. XI. — NO. IV. x 



