"My dear Monsieur Wilfrid," said the old man, looking at his guest, "I
often tremble in every limb as I read, during the long winter evenings
the awe-inspiring works in which this man declares with perfect
artlessness the wonders that are revealed to him. 'I have seen,' he
says, 'Heaven and the Angels. The spiritual man sees his spiritual
fellows far better than the terrestrial man sees the men of earth. In
describing the wonders of heaven and beneath the heavens I obey the
Lord's command. Others have the right to believe me or not as they
choose. I cannot put them into the state in which God has put me; it
is not in my power to enable them to converse with Angels, nor to work
miracles within their understanding; they alone can be the instrument
of their rise to angelic intercourse. It is now twenty-eight years
since I have lived in the Spiritual world with angels, and on earth
with men; for it pleased God to open the eyes of my spirit as he did
that of Paul, and of Daniel and Elisha.'

"And yet," continued the pastor, thoughtfully, "certain persons have
had visions of the spiritual world through the complete detachment
which somnambulism produces between their external form and their
inner being. 'In this state,' says Swedenborg in his treatise on
Angelic Wisdom (No. 257) 'Man may rise into the region of celestial
light because, his corporeal senses being abolished, the influence of
heaven acts without hindrance on his inner man.' Many persons who do
not doubt that Swedenborg received celestial revelations think that
his writings are not all the result of divine inspiration. Others
insist on absolute adherence to him; while admitting his many
obscurities, they believe that the imperfection of earthly language
prevented the prophet from clearly revealing those spiritual visions
whose clouds disperse to the eyes of those whom faith regenerates;