perfect dispensation of heavenly truth. We have space for only a very small portion of what is said on this subject.—The following general statement in regard to the character and qualifications of our author, is followed by an immense number of specific evidences, of the highest authority.
"In Swedenborg, every requisite gift was centred. Well imbued, first under the tuition of his learned father, and then at the University of Upsal, with all the usual elements of a learned education, he for a time cultivated classical literature with diligence and success. He then applied himself to the most solid and certain of the natural sciences, and not only by domestic study and by correspondence with foreign literati, but by repeated travels in all the scientifically enlightened parts of Europe,—in Germany, Italy, France, and England,—he made himself thoroughly acquainted with all the knowledge of his time, and was admitted, by general consent, to a station among the first philosophers of the age. As, in the midst of the distinctions with which he was honored by his compeers in learning, and by sovereign princes, he never forgot for a moment his original piety and modesty, his scientific writings constantly breathing the humble and devotional spirit of a true Christian philosopher—the acquisitions he made in natural science, must be acknowledged to have formed an admirable preparation, and a most suitable basis, for the apprehension and explication of the spiritual truths which he was to be the instrument for unfolding. Between the book of nature, read by the eye of humble intelligence, and the Word of God, every one intuitively perceives there must be an exact agreement; and spiritual views can never be so little likely to partake of delusion, as when they take for their foundation a copious store of sound natural science. An extensive acquaintance with the knowledge of God in his works, must be the best preparation for a superior perception of the, knowledge of God in his Word; and by the former was Swedenborg eminently distinguished."
In a subsequent section the writer examines and very fully exposes the falsity of the charge of insanity, a charge which even now continues to be repeated in some quarters, notwithstanding it has been a thousand times refuted and shown to be groundless. In this connection it is remarked that:—
