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eat"? And do we not also remember the recorded words "not that which goeth into the mouth, but that which cometh out defileth a man." If we would become perfect, therefore-giving to the intellect that mastery and power over the body which is its dueit must be obtained, not by the selection of food merely, but by the cultivation of every power, & knowledge of facts, of laws, of duties. Ignorance being the parent of crime, ignorance must be banished from our fire sides-habits of thought, engendered by reading, must occupy our spare moments. As our knowledge expands, our acquaintance with life through the world becomes more general, our little prejudices and narrow notions, will vanish like dew before the sun. We shall thus approach the stature of men, be on the threshhold of the highest lesson of human existence-that, "to be carnally minded is death, to be spiritually minded is life and peace."

THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF EMANUEL

SWEDENBORG;

BY GEORGE DAWSON, ESQ., M.A.

[Delivered in the Guildhall, Bath, to the Members of the Athenæum.]

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG, said Mr. Dawson,-long despised and often forgotten,-had the privilege that belongs to all men who devote their lives to thought -that as the world grows older, they get more reverenced, better known, and better loved. The men who are run after during their lives-the men of action, the men of noise, receive their recompense in this world. Charles the Twelfth was a man of great abilities, a wonderful soldier, and in some respects a great king, but he was fading very fast from men's memory; whilst Swedenborg, who was his contemporary, had the privilege of finding & larger audience in every successive generation. The king is now scarcely known, as to any influence he exercised upon the world, while the philosopher's influence is great, and is becoming greater every day. It was one thing to have a name written in a book, and another to have a name always living, always connected with thought, and always bringing forth, in every successive generation, new thoughts and new feelings. Swedenborg had the privilege of finding a larger audience every decade that passes, and in proof of this, he need only to refer to the audience before him. It would have astonished Swedenborg's friends, a quarter of a century ago, could they have known that in a few years, a popular lecture would be given upon Swedenborg and his

doctrines, under the auspices of a Literary Institution. Swedenborg had generally been looked upon as a mere sect-maker, and as one to whom the language of Festus to Paul was really applicable-" much learning hath made thee mad." The restrictions that had so long existed as to the subjects which should be introduced in public Institutions and assemblies, had also prevented Swedenborg, and others similarly circumstanced, from being understood. It was a rule with most Institutions that there should be no politics and no religion introduced, forgetting that when those two things are taken out of life and conversation, what is left is but like a chip in porridge,—a dead, dry, dull, material hortus siccus thing of this world and its affairs.

He was not there to declaim against Swedenborg. Those who knew most of the man, knew that, if one were so inclined, an evening would not be long enough to abuse him. How little then could he (Mr. Dawson) hope to do him justice in so short a time. He did not pretend to have read all that Swedenborg wrote, and for all his deficiencies in describing the man and his writings, he would ask pardon from those who knew him well. His object was to roll away the clouds that fools had rolled around the memory of one of the most pious, most pure, most noble of men; who chose the pen as his profession, adhered to it all his life long, and laid down that great rule, that knowledge is worse than ignorance if it does not lead men to live wiser and better; and that all science is worse than idleness if it does not end in God. Swedenborg fell on very extraordinary times. He appeared just when it was best he should come, as God always appoints. He came when men's faith had long ceased to have anything prophetic and inspiring in it. Religion had come to be a mere historical business. It was a dependent on past history. It prated in church about a living God, but in reality it was worshipping

a God that had withdrawn from any active concern in human affairs. Or, religion was morality merely, without a spiritual basis; a sort of magisterial religion, very good if one never got into trouble. Afterwards came that grand and gigantic French Revolutionary attack upon all the internal mystical side of life. This world and all it contains were reduced to what you could see and feel. Men talked about God as a force, and put the next world into a coffin. They believed in nothing in this world but what could be seen, felt, and tasted, with the bodily organs. They believed in nightingales provided they were roasted. In short, they looked upon this world as one great workshop and cookshop; and all the tales about spiritual communion, and influences, and utterances, as the tales of inspired madmen, and fools of old times. Then there was another sore evil. The men who were really religious could not stand their ground against the encroachments made by the waves of the sea of science. The scientific flood was always taking away scraps and morsels of the Christian's endowment; as the sea, in some places, encroached upon the lands of some beneficed clergyman. There were good people who thought that Bible truth and scientific truth could not be harmonized, and therefore they took their stand upon Bible truth; and when they were very honest, they said plainly that knowledge must be twisted to meet the literal statements of the Scriptures. On Sunday, people felt bound to admire the spirit of the New Testament; they would rejoice in turning one cheek if smitten on the other, and the next day would curse the smiter, and rejoice in a man who had what they called plenty of spirit in him, who would resent rather than receive an insult; and upon the whole, on Monday they thought the Duke of Wellington was much more of a man than some of the saints. By and by they put religion in a little world by itself, and tried to systematize trade and politics, and all other matters,

and place each under its own set of rules, and morals. Thus we had the political world, the religious world, the scientific world, and circles and worlds without number, governed by different moral codes, and with very little sympathy between them. Now all these things were evil. It was an evil whenever a man's religion entered into a battle with anything that is not immoral and sinful, and so a wrong to conscience. That could not be a great religion that could not take into itself everything that is not hostile to the life and light of the Lord God. What this age wanted, was some reconciling faith,-a faith in which religion and science would be brought together and married. The history of the world was a contest between the material and spiritual elements in man; in one age the spiritual having the ascendancy, and in another the material. Now if any man could show that this world is not a "waste howling wilderness;" that body, soul, and spirit are not separate things, are one within the other; that man is in heaven while in time, in soul while in the body; and that every duty is not to be considered beautiful or important according to the effects that follow from it, but in its essence, we should welcome him, and gladly receive his teachings. This contest between heaven and earth, religion and science, body and soul, duty and delight, Swedenborg had done much to set at rest. If men had studied the Gospels, they would have read that when the wine flagged at a marriage festival, in Cana, it was supplied by miracle. The Holy Book began its miracles at Cana or Galilee. As for some ascetic people, wearing hair shirts, they thought they could reach heaven by some wretched rope ladder, or by a flight of wings, and that the less flesh they carried, the sooner they should get there.

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Such, then, were some of the signs and portents of the times when Swedenborg appeared on this world's stage. It would be useless to dwell long on Swedenborg's life. It was a quiet life; there are not

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