for, to use the words of his greatest disciple, 'Flesh is but an
external propagation.' To poets and to writers his presentation of the
marvellous is amazing; to Seers it is simply reality. To some
Christians his descriptions have seemed scandalous. Certain critics
have ridiculed the celestial substance of his temples, his golden
palaces, his splendid cities where angels disport themselves; they
laugh at his groves of miraculous trees, his gardens where the flowers
speak and the air is white, and the mystical stones, the sard,
carbuncle, chrysolite, chrysoprase, jacinth, chalcedony, beryl, the
Urim and Thummim, are endowed with motion, express celestial truths,
and reply by variations of light to questions put to them ('True
Christian Religion,' 219). Many noble souls will not admit his
spiritual worlds where colors are heard in delightful concert, where
language flames and flashes, where the Word is writ in pointed spiral
letters ('True Christian Religion,' 278). Even in the North some
writers have laughed at the gates of pearl, and the diamonds which
stud the floors and walls of his New Jerusalem, where the most
ordinary utensils are made of the rarest substances of the globe.
'But,' say his disciples, 'because such things are sparsely scattered
on this earth does it follow that they are not abundant in other
worlds? On earth they are terrestrial substances, whereas in heaven
they assume celestial forms and are in keeping with angels.' In this
connection Swedenborg has used the very words of Jesus Christ, who
said, 'If I have told you earthly things and ye believe not, how shall
ye believe if I tell you of heavenly things?'

"Monsieur," continued the pastor, with an emphatic gesture, "I have
read the whole of Swedenborg's works; and I say it with pride, because
I have done it and yet retained my reason. In reading him men either
miss his meaning or become Seers like him. Though I have evaded both