new church life: november/december 2017
that he had built up a theosophy from his imagination, and I know enough to know
that no human imagination was capable of producing anything of that kind that
would not bristle with weak points, which could not all escape the penetration of
even so poor a theologian as I was. So I turned to other places to see what he said,
for example, of Abram’s subsequent misrepresentation to Abimelech; what of Isaac’s
repetition of the same fraud in Gerar; of the tower of Babel; of Hagar; of Jacob and
his mother’s scheme to deprive Esau of his birthright.
In this way I spent the entire day and looked through the whole volume. Much of
it was too mystical to be intelligible to me then, but to my mortification it began
to dawn upon me that it was unintelligible to me much for the same reason as the
“Mechauique Celeste” would have been. While I ran upon many things that were
quite new to me and seemed wise, I did not find anything upon which I could move
to put the author out of court. On the contrary, the desire to read grew by what it
fed on and begat a longing to know something of the author’s personality.
I met Mr. Kierolf again at dinner in the evening and said to him that I had spent the
day with his friend, Swedenborg, but that the value of what I had read depended
so largely upon the tenor of his life and the character he had borne in the flesh that
I felt as though, before spending any more time upon his works, I would like to be
enlightened upon these points.
Mr. Kierolf, therefore, ran over the prominent events of Swedenborg’s life in a rather
enthusiastic strain, and wound up by assuring me that no other man in history
could be named who had succeeded more completely in delivering himself from the
sway of the world, the flesh and the devil. And he was, fortunately, able to supply
me from his luggage a collection of documents relating to Swedenborg, compiled
by Professor Bush, formerly a professor of Oriental literature at the University of
New York, with whom I was not only personally acquainted, but for whom both as a
scholar and a man, I had the profoundest respect.
The book was entitled Documents Concerning Swedenborg (published by Prof.
Bush in New York in 1847) and consisted chiefly of letters and publications of
Swedenborg’s contemporaries showing the estimate, and reasons for the estimate, in
which he was held by them.
I read the book at a sitting, and laid it down with mingled surprise and
mortification that I had lived till then in such dense ignorance of the career and
work of so remarkable a man, at once so great and so good as Swedenborg was there
shown to be, while I had spent so much of my life in trying to make myself familiar
with the lives of men unworthy to unloose the latchets of his shoes.
Whatever doubts I had entertained of Swedenborg’s good faith and sincerity this
book effectually dispelled. He might have been subject to illusions, but I had
no longer any suspicions of his being an impostor. These convictions naturally
increased my curiosity to know more of his writings and especially of his theology,
though still my curiosity was all of a purely intellectual origin and character.
I asked Mr. Kierolf, who joined with me in employing a schooner to convey us to
New Orleans, to take with him whatever books he had about Swedenborg, that
I might acquaint myself with them on our voyage, for which we had made final
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