cause of unrest. Need I prove it? Need I say that the deepest and most distressing of all restlessness is the restlessness which arises from sin? The heart that knows its own bitterness knows this too welland where is the heart which, by sad experience, has not been taught something of this truth? But here again Christ meets our need: and, just because it is our deepest need, He sets Himself to meet it all the more. It is as the Saviour from sin that Christ stands out most clearly as the world's Rest-giver. From the burden which arises from a consciousness of sinfulness He can deliver us, for He can speak the word of forgiveness. In the sharp conflict with the ever-opposing powers of evil He can help us, for it was not without meaning that these Divine words were spoken -"My grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness." By the very fact of His teaching us that sin is not an insuperable evil--that through divine forgiveness and divine help we may be delivered from its guilt and power; and, above all, by His dying for our offences, and rising again for our justification, He has declared to us a Gospel which cannot but bear a message of peace to every weary, heavy-laden heart. If then the utterance of our longing souls is“Oh, that I had wings, like a dove! for then would I fly away, and be at rest!" let us not think that all we can do is sadly to repeat the cry. In Christ there is an answer to it-an answer as full as the heart of faith can desire-an answer which seems ever to become more large, more blessed, and more satisfying, as our thought dwells upon this His own most gracious message to humanity:-"Come unto Me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." SONNET. DEATH came to me, and cooled my burning hand, I stood amazed. The first God-splendour roll'd Across my spirit, while the lonely hearse Moved with its little dust to spice the mould; And they who loved me had no comfort scarce That I was not within the shroud's snow-fold, But throbbed eternal through the universe. HERMIONE IN Emmanuel Swedenborg. N 1771, as passers-by went along Fleet Street, they must often have rubbed shoulders with a venerable old man who, with pensive look in his bright but dreamy eyes, seemed to have little interest or business in the turmoil of London life: and, indeed, he had none, for he was Emmanuel Swedenborg, the seer of visions and dreamer of dreams. We can picture the thin old man of eighty-three, walking along in full dress of black velvet, long wrist-ruffles, a cocked hat, with an innocent sword dangling at his side. Kindly shrewdness lighted up his brown visage-though it is doubtful how much of that dark hue was natural, for the dreamer never washed his face or hands, believing mistakenly that no dirt could ever soil him. Sometimes he would stop to chat in broken English and give children a share of the gingerbread, with which his ample pockets were filled. At other times he would pause, his eyes would become strangely brilliant, and his lips would move in muttered talk, for he was speaking to spirits; and in the midst of the noisy throng of London he would hold angry commune with St. Paul, whom he hated; or converse with the vague personality of Melchisedek. On 29th of March, 1772, at his lodgings with the friendly wig-maker, at Cold-bath Fields, he died; having foretold the day with as much pleasure as if he were preparing for a holiday. It may not be uninteresting to recall the simple life, and far from simple theology of this remarkable man, who has left disciples in that little Swedenborgian Church of the New Jerusalem, consisting of over 3000 guileless members, in this country. Emmanuel Swedenborg was born on 29th January, 1688, in Skara, in Sweden. His father, Bishop Snedberg, had risen to high position in the Church, by steady attention to his own interests-a pious, kindly, self-seeking man, who had made himself energetically prominent in the country, and a favourite with Charles XI. He married three times, with a careful regard to the godliness and the dowry of his wives. He was possessed of a high opinion of his literary merits, and was proud to think "ten carts would scarcely carry away what I have written and printed at my own expense. Yet, verily, there is as much not printed." This statement makes us learn with considerable satisfaction that the worthy man's library was burned three times. Emmanuelas, almost from his infancy, a pious child. "From my fourth to my tenth year," he says, "my thoughts were engrossed in reflecting upon God, on salvation, and the spiritual affections of man. I often revealed things in discourse which filled my parents with astonishment, and made them declare at times that certainly the angels spoke through my mouth." This pious precocity was increased by the too fond admiration of his parents, the copious preaching and catechising of his father, who inculcated his belief that a guardian angel watched over him. There was a significant physical peculiarity in the child. When on his knees at prayer the action of his lungs seemed to be suspended, like one in a trance, and this peculiarity explains much of his after life. He was sent to the University of Upsala, where he soon indulged his inveterate literary propensities by printing some Latin selections. He travelled-for he had curiosity, money, and leisure-to Germany, France, and England, till his father could get occupation for him. He worked at poetry and mathematics; he applied his restless mind to mechanics, and made wonderful contrivances, such as an aquatic clock, a chariot for floating through the air, a method of discovering the desires of the mind by analysis, diving ships, and air-guns, which met with the usual fate of unsuccessful inventions the polite commendation of severely tried friends, and the steady neglect of the world. His scientific abilities were not, however, without recognition, and in 1716 he was made Assessor of Mines by Charles XI., to whom his own talents and his father's energetic petitions had made him known. Further, by the Bishop's pertinacity he and his brothers were ennobled, and their name was changed from Swedberg to Swedenborg, which Emmanuel was to make famous. In 1721 we find him on the Continent, having gone away despondent, in consequence of discomfort at home, and want of honour in his own country. Indefatigable in his inventions, he was indefatigable in his writings, and now at Amsterdam, now at Leipsic, and now at Stockholm, he published books and pamphlets on natural philosophy, on means of finding the longitude, on construction of docks, an explanation of chemistry by geometry. In fact, nothing escaped his notice, whether the construction of the sun, smoky chimneys, circulation of the blood, or the nature of the soul. He had a theory for each question, but not always a reason for his theory. Religion was out of his thoughts meanwhile, and it was not of spirits but of matter that he thought, as years passed by of busy scientific toil and travel. He at last studied anatomy and metaphysics and religion with all eager versatility of mind. The press teemed with his laborious works in crabbed Latin, and in his "Animal Kingdom," published in parts, from 1741 to 1744, he discussed the nature of the body with wondrous minuteness; and in his "Worship and Love of God," he tells how the world, plants and animals, and Adam and Eve were created, in manner truly marvellous and circumstantial. It sounds like a quaint fancy to the Talmud to hear how Adam was hatched from an egg on the Tree of Life, and how the Spiritual Essences contrived a dance to celebrate the event, consisting of "mutual influxes in spiral windings." There is, however, no fine imagination in his views. There is the matter-of-factness of the Assessor of Mines in all his theories, and there is no magic touch of poetry to elevate delusious with genius. In 1743 there occur in his fragmentary Diary records of strange dreams which were to issue into a whole theology, in a man who mistook his fancies for revelations, and the results of a disordered body and mind for the inspiration of God and angels. He writes down his dreams with his interpretations of them as punctually as he would keep a ledger. If he dreams of coins, these coins, he thinks, signify "corporeal thoughts;" he dreams of losing himself in the dark forest, and when he awakes bursts into tears because "I had loved God so little. He has horrid nightmares, scores of visions, absurd, quaint, or loathsome, or diabolical, all laboriously related in tedious solemn pages. It was when in England in 1744, that he startled the lodging-house keeper by his strange conduct. One night he rushed after him, foaming at the mouth, and stammering when he found utterance, proclaimed himself the Messiah, and that he was come to be crucified by the Jews. Next day he went out and rolled himself in the gutter. Another time he ran into the fields like a madman, and his keeper could not catch the elderly but active prophet of fifty-six. From this insane fit he seems soon to have recovered. Swedenborg used to date his Seership from 1745. He related how one day he had ate largely, and at the end of the meal he saw on the floor, through a mist, serpents, toads and reptiles, and then in a corner of, the room he saw a man who said to him, "Eat not so much;" and thereupon left him. "The following night the same man appeared to me again. I was this time not at all alarmed. The man said-‘I am God, the Lord, Creator and Redeemer of the world! I have chosen thee to unfold to men the spiritual sense of the Holy Scriptures. I will myself dictate to thee what thou shalt write.' The same night the World of Spirits, Hell and Heaven, were convincingly opened to me, where I found many persons of my acquaintance, of all conditions. Thereafter the Lord daily opened the eyes of my spirit to see in perfect wakefulness what was going on in the world, and to converse broad awake with angels and spirits." From that day and from that vision, which a doctor would trace to a very ignoble physical cause, he renounced worldly learning, and sought to perform the Divine mission alone. con. How shall we explain all this man's strange career, began at the mature age of 58? It is difficult to distinguish that vague point where sanity gives way to insanity, and the prophet becomes the madman. The notion of his being Messiah seems to have passed from Swedenborg's mind, but his belief in intercourse with God and spirits became intense, and his " versation was in heaven," in a peculiar and particular sense. He acted in all ordinary concerns as a sensible man: he was cheerful and observant and intelligent on worldly matters, though influenced with this persistent idea, that the Heavens were opened to him, and that he could pass at will into the spiritual regions. Visions came and went. He passed into incessant trances, and often paused suddenly in social conversation to enter into silent talk with Adam, or the dead Charles XI., or Saint Paul, and then begin again, with calm unruffled manner, to chat of music or chimneys, with his friends; but quite ready to tell what he had seen and to repeat what he had heard in Heaven the moment before. "I was," he says on one occasion, "the whole night, nearly eleven hours, neither asleep nor awake, in a curious trance;" but it is generally remarkable in his case how the visionary and real blend. His Spiritual Diary, which he began in London and kept for seventeen years, is full of strange thoughts, wild dreams, and weird imaginings: how spirits tempt him to steal, conspire to suffocate him, spoil his taste for pure butter, and seek to throw him under the carriage-wheels; how sirens try even to get the pears, pigeons, and almond cakes on which he loved to feed. While filling his diary with incoherent fancies, he was busy with his "Arcana Celestia," or "Heavenly Secrets;" the first volume of which appeared in 1749, and, at the rate of a volume a-year, was finished in 1756, in eight quartos. It was at first published extremely cheap in parts, but few bought it, fewer still read it through, and only one or two forlorn disciples waded through that quagmire of diffuse hallucination, which interpreted the Bible in spiritual manner, and showed that all was a wondrous allegory; how Adam meant the Church; the Deluge signified falsehood; and the invasion of Canaan was symbolic of the victory of Christ over Hell. During the years of work at his marvellous Arcana, he lived chiefly alternately in London, and Stockholm, and Amsterdam, and his diary shows the course of his thoughts by the record of his delusions. He tells wild stories of the Moravians and Quakers, whom he accuses of abominations that cannot be repeated. He converses with David, whom he considers most wicked, and Paul, whom he believes the worst of the Apostles, and associated now with the worst of devils; he talks with Calvin, whose theological opinions the seer detested, and whom he rated soundly when he appeared to him, and bade "be gone! blush for yourself and your wicked doctrine." What then are the views which Swedenborg revealed in his many and tedious works? It would be impossible here to follow him in his multitudinous vagaries, but a few may be noted shortly, though these may not be the doctrines the Swedenborgian Church lay most stress upon. He held that there is no resurrection of the fleshly body, but that every soul survives in a spiritual body exactly similar to his old one; when he dies he opens his eyes on a world of spirits, a fac-simile of that he has quitted on earth, so that he with difficulty can believe he has passed the great terror, death; and then he has similar appearance, work, clothes, and house. There are cities, gardens, amusements, and occupations, as on earth. But gradually a change comes over each spirit's nature, and the ruling passions gain mastery: the wicked no longer conceal their evil, the good manifest their holiness, until the time of probation is ended. Then the evil spirits pass through the dark and sooty gates of Hell, from whose depths fetid smells issue, in which the evil rejoice. The good pass to Heaven, where they are met by friendly and familiar angel faces, and in a congenial air and happy home they pursue their various occupations. In Heaven there are innumerable societies of angels, bound together by spiritual affinities, for only those know each other whose hearts are kindred. The angelic host is divided into three kingdoms: an Inmost, or Highest, where dwell the celestial who love the Lord supremely; a middle, or second, where live the spiritual who love Divine Wisdom, rather than goodness and love to discuss truths before practising them; and the Outmost or First Heaven, where are obedient angels, living according to morality, but having no particular concern for improvement. In Heaven, the Lord is the life of the angels, and appears as their Sun. There are, however, no seasons, no bleak winter or dark nights in that realm, but there is brightness and gloom, spring and summer, according to the changes in the mind of each angel; and the blight they feel is not of winter, but of self-love. Neither is there any time. external to them, but the period of a year, or month, or minute, where used by men, spirits translate into states of mind, for in happinell is bright and swift, and in sadness all is tedious and dull. Neither is there space, for there distance is measured not by miles but by feelings. When an angel goes from place to place he arrives quickly and soon, if ardent; and late, if indifferent and reluctant. The angels live in cities, some of which are splendid with glory: the trees have silver leaves and golden fruit; the flower-beds are like rainbows. Many angels marry, but live not with those they married on earth, unless they are congenial in nature.* They live as on earth; but every delight is intensified, every faculty is heightened, and every form is beautified. The good, who have died worn, maimed, and old, assume a loveliness beyond all conception, because Goodness moulds their forms in its own image, and causes the countenance to beam with grace and sweetness. "In fine," says Swedenborg, in one of his really fine utterances, "to grow old in Heaven is to grow young." To Heaven character, not creed, is the only passport, and he is happiest who most loves God and his neighbour. As a man dies so shall he live anew, for "it is impossible to communicate heavenly life to those who have led an infernal life on earth." In hell how different, and how ghastly! Self-love is the cause of all its horrors, and is the source of every evil and lie. As angels are divinely lovely, devils are hatefully ugly, clad in filthy rags, with hideous ulcerous forms and features, and wild and loathsome lives. Το paint the abodes and miseries of devils calls forth the seer's laborious ingenuity, but we are sensible at every paragraph he is no Dante dowered with terrible or glorious imagination. We have no relate the Swedenborgian Apocalypse, of the inhabitants of heavens, hells, and planets, which is expounded with matter-of-fact detail, and with the minuteness of a panorama, not the striking effect of a picture. space to In the long series of apocalyptic works Swedenborg issued, few are more daring than the "Last Judgment," which was published in 1758, by which the unconscious world was told that the previous year the Last Judgment had taken place. "It was granted me to see it with my own eyes," proclaimed the prophet, "that I might describe it, and which was commenced in the beginning of the year 1757, and fully accomplished by the end thereof." Excitement ceases, however, when we learn that this startling event took place only in the world of spirits, which had been glutted with the inhabitants, who for ages had been crowding in; but * Swedenborg believed was, in the next world, to marry a Countess de Gyllenborg henceforth no spirit shall remain longer than thirty years in the purgatorial world, but shall pass to Heaven or Hell, without waiting for a general judgment. Such are fragments of Swedenborgian teaching, scattered through his works, which appeared every now and then, from the press at London, Amsterdam, or Stockholm, without any public notice, except from the curious and learned, who turned weariedly over the works in Latin, full of diffuse tedious revelations, circumstantial statements, often intolerably dull. There are occasional passages where a brilliant truth is given, where a fine conception shines forth, amidst the obscure wastes of verbiage, and striking ideas, which impress us with a sense of strange power in the teacher, but there are not those remarkable anticipations of future science which admirers have attributed to him. What redeems his works from literary condemnation is the perfect sincerity of the man who passes out and in the unseen world as if he had the pass-word, and could converse with God, or Adam, or Herod, as commonplace events of every day. It is not surprising that a man possessing such acquaintance with the spiritual world, should be supposed able to reveal its secrets and to predict events, and communicate as medium with the dead. Wherever he lived most, particularly at Amsterdam or Stockholm, he was regarded, with half scepticism, half trust, as a prophet, and entrusted with messages to the departed, from whom he often brought information, as if derived from long interviews and told in perfect calmness. Stories are told, and supported with perplexing weight of evidence, of strange news he could give of unseen things. One night at Gottenburg he was at a party, when he astonished the company by describing, stage by stage, a fire which he said was in progress at Stockholm at that moment, and at eight o'clock exclaimed, as if seeing it all before his eyes, "Thank God! The fire is extinguished-the third door from my house!" Of course, according to the narrator, all things had occured as he in vision had seen. In his pleasant home at Stockholm the old man lived a simple life, and yet in another sense a double life. He was heard talking night and day to spirits, as he walked or lay in bed, for an unconscionable time, and would tell the friends he cheerfully met the subject of his visions; and yet he could be playful too, as for instance, to the girl who asked him to show her an angel, when he led her to a looking-glass, said, "Lo! Here is the angel! י ! A man so honest, so sincere, and so harmless, we do not like to call insane; and we feel comfort in the knowledge that the designs of his nephew, Bishop Filenius, to get him convicted as a madman and shut up in an asylum were defeated. He was sufficiently practical to take part in the political affairs of the Swedish Diet, though his success as an orator and statesman was less than moderate. He was a man of much scientific knowledge and many social qualities. He was not loved by the clergy, however, for as he associated so much with angels he did not feel it necessary to attend church, which was then, it must be remembered, ministered in Sweden by an intolerably indifferent, cold and dull body of clergy. Enough for him to write those wonderful revelations, to the accompaniment of copious pinches of snuff, which fell so plentifully that the very carpet made visitors sneeze-to live quiet serene days, undisturbed, except when tormented by hypocritical spirits, or suffering toothache, which he felt convinced was due to the malice of Saint Paul. On his visits to the towns, or to London, he was grieved sorely to find his books, whether in Latin or translated, were not bought; though it was said the few who did read them always became converts, "But," said the old man, with a sigh, to his London publisher, "the voil [world] is not vordy of dem," in that broken English, which proves he spoke better the tongues of angels than of men. In 1771 he visited London for the last time, and after a shock of apoplexy, from which he partly recovered, he died 29th March, 1772, having, it is said, prelicted the day of his death, and trusting for the quick establishment of the Church of the New Jerusalem, which Daniel, St. John, and he had prophesieda Church of simple creed: that there is one God, even Jesus Christ; that saving faith is to believe in him; that good should be loved, and evil shunned and hated.-G. The Court of the Gentiles. THO THOUGH EMERSON. OUGH Emerson was descended from eight generations of clergymen, and was himself ordained, I am going to claim him as a Gentile. To my doing so, very many I imagine will not object. Their reasons for claiming him as a Gentile, are in all probability very different from mine, but as we are agreed as to the conclusion, we need not argue, as the logicians say, about the premises. In the eyes of many, these are a small matter, and though I cannot agree with them, I am willing enough to concede the point for the present, seeing that we are at one with respect to the main question in hand. There are two other points on which I should like us to agree. One is, as to the perfect truth of the good old Christian Father's saying that the only heresy is wickedness-a saying, by the way, which deserves to be written up in clear and conspicuous letters in every study and in every home, and to be deeply impressed on every mind. The other is, that while every one has a right to form his own opinion as to the author he reads or studies, and to say whether, in his opinion, the doctrines he teaches are true or false; no one has any right to throw dirt at an author, or to call him hard or offensive names. Depend upon it, no man, unless he be utterly devoid of sense, will rush into print, without a strong conviction that what he says is true; and certainly no author's works, however much. they may be condemned by some, can attain a wide popularity among all classes, unless the doctrines and convictions to which they give utterance, touch some of the deeper sentiments of the human soul, have a solid basis in reality, and reveal more or less completely some of the everlasting moralities, or something of the eternal beauty of truth. During his life, Emerson had much dirt thrown at him. Certain perambulating philosophers and timorous pulpiteers thought it their duty to throw it. And therein they proved their weakness and ignorance. Opinions or doctrines are never put down by the sheer force of denunciation. If untrue, they drop from the press still-born, or after a brief day of unhealthy popularity, are cast as rubbish to the void. But if true, they are immortal, and the more they are denounced the more they propagate themselves; and being taken up into the great stream of the world's thought, are treasured up, as Milton says of good books, "on purpose to ae beyond life." If |