assured that I am not a follower of Swedenborg. The love of truth
alone impels me to give this faithful account of a fact which has
been so often stated with details that are entirely false. I
certify to the truth of what I have written by adding my
signature.

Charles-Leonhard de Stahlhammer.


"The proofs which Swedenborg gave of his mission to the royal families
of Sweden and Prussia were no doubt the foundation of the belief in
his doctrines which is prevalent at the two courts," said Monsieur
Becker, putting the gazette into the drawer. "However," he continued,
"I shall not tell you all the facts of his visible and material life;
indeed his habits prevented them from being fully known. He lived a
hidden life; not seeking either riches or fame. He was even noted for
a sort of repugnance to making proselytes; he opened his mind to few
persons, and never showed his external powers of second-sight to any
who were not eminent in faith, wisdom, and love. He could recognize at
a glance the state of the soul of every person who approached him, and
those whom he desired to reach with his inward language he converted
into Seers. After the year 1745, his disciples never saw him do a
single thing from any human motive. One man alone, a Swedish priest,
named Mathesius, set afloat a story that he went mad in London in
1744. But a eulogium on Swedenborg prepared with minute care as to all
the known events of his life, was pronounced after his death in 1772
on behalf of the Royal Academy of Sciences in the Hall of the Nobles
at Stockholm, by Monsieur Sandels, counsellor of the Board of Mines. A
declaration made before the Lord Mayor of London gives the details of
his last illness and death, in which he received the ministrations of