and perform the other duties required by law, when I met the baron
returning to the house. 'Your ministrations are superfluous,' he said;
'our child is to be without name on this earth. You must not baptize
in the waters of an earthly Church one who has just been immersed in
the fires of Heaven. This child will remain a blossom, it will not
grow old; you will see it pass away. You exist, but our child has
life; you have outward senses, the child has none, its being is always
inward.' These words were uttered in so strange and supernatural a
voice that I was more affected by them than by the shining of his
face, from which light appeared to exude. His appearance realized the
phantasmal ideas which we form of inspired beings as we read the
prophesies of the Bible. But such effects are not rare among our
mountains, where the nitre of perpetual snows produces extraordinary
phenomena in the human organization.

"I asked him the cause of his emotion. 'Swedenborg came to us; he has
just left me; I have breathed the air of heaven,' he replied. 'Under
what form did he appear?' I said. 'Under his earthly form; dressed as
he was the last time I saw him in London, at the house of Richard
Shearsmith, Coldbath-fields, in July, 1771. He wore his brown frieze
coat with steel buttons, his waistcoat buttoned to the throat, a white
cravat, and the same magisterial wig rolled and powdered at the sides
and raised high in front, showing his vast and luminous brow, in
keeping with the noble square face, where all is power and
tranquillity. I recognized the large nose with its fiery nostril, the
mouth that ever smiled,--angelic mouth from which these words, the
pledge of my happiness, have just issued, "We shall meet soon."'

"The conviction that shone on the baron's face forbade all discussion;
I listened in silence. His voice had a contagious heat which made my