"In 1740," continued Monsieur Becker, after a slight pause, "Swedenborg fell into a state of absolute silence, from which he emerged to bid farewell to all his earthly occupations; after which his thoughts turned exclusively to the Spiritual Life.He received the first commands of heaven in 1745, and he thus relates the nature of the vocation to which he was called: One evening, in London, after dining with a great appetite, a thick white mist seemed to fill his room.When the vapor dispersed a creature in human form rose from one corner of the apartment, and said in a stern tone, 'Do not eat so much.' He refrained.The next night the same man returned, radiant in light, and said to him, 'I am sent of God, who has chosen you to explain to men the meaning of his Word and his Creation.I will tell you what to write.' The vision lasted but a few moments.The ANGEL was clothed in purple.During that night the eyes of his INNER MAN were opened, and he was forced to look into the heavens, into the world of spirits, and into hell,--three separate spheres; where he encountered persons of his acquaintance who had departed from their human form, some long since, others lately.Thenceforth Swedenborg lived wholly in the spiritual life, remaining in this world only as the messenger of God.His mission was ridiculed by the incredulous, but his conduct was plainly that of a being superior to humanity.In the first place, though limited in means to the bare necessaries of life, he gave away enormous sums, and publicly, in several cities, restored the fortunes of great commercial houses when they were on the brink of failure.No one ever appealed to his generosity who was not immediately satisfied.
A sceptical Englishman, determined to know the truth, followed him to Paris, and relates that there his doors stood always open.One day a servant complained of this apparent negligence, which laid him open to suspicion of thefts that might be committed by others.'He need feel no anxiety,' said Swedenborg, smiling.'But I do not wonder at his fear; he cannot see the guardian who protects my door.' In fact, no matter in what country he made his abode he never closed his doors, and nothing was ever stolen from him.At Gottenburg--a town situated some sixty miles from Stockholm--he announced, eight days before the news arrived by courier, the conflagration which ravaged Stockholm, and the exact time at which it took place.The Queen of Sweden wrote to her brother, the King, at Berlin, that one of her ladies-in-waiting, who was ordered by the courts to pay a sum of money which she was certain her husband had paid before his death, went to Swedenborg and begged him to ask her husband where she could find proof of the payment.The following day Swedenborg, having done as the lady requested, pointed out the place where the receipt would be found.He also begged the deceased to appear to his wife, and the latter saw her husband in a dream, wrapped in a dressing-gown which he wore just before his death; and he showed her the paper in the place indicated by Swedenborg, where it had been securely put away.At another time, embarking from London in a vessel commanded by Captain Dixon, he overheard a lady asking if there were plenty of provisions on board.
'We do not want a great quantity,' he said; 'in eight days and two hours we shall reach Stockholm,'--which actually happened.This peculiar state of vision as to the things of the earth--into which Swedenborg could put himself at will, and which astonished those about him--was, nevertheless, but a feeble representative of his faculty of looking into heaven.
"Not the least remarkable of his published visions is that in which he relates his journeys through the Astral Regions; his descriptions cannot fail to astonish the reader, partly through the crudity of their details.A man whose scientific eminence is incontestable, and who united in his own person powers of conception, will, and imagination, would surely have invented better if he had invented at all.The fantastic literature of the East offers nothing that can give an idea of this astounding work, full of the essence of poetry, if it is permissible to compare a work of faith with one of oriental fancy.
The transportation of Swedenborg by the Angel who served as guide to this first journey is told with a sublimity which exceeds, by the distance which God has placed betwixt the earth and the sun, the great epics of Klopstock, Milton, Tasso, and Dante.This description, which serves in fact as an introduction to his work on the Astral Regions, has never been published; it is among the oral traditions left by Swedenborg to the three disciples who were nearest to his heart.