Page:A Compendium of the Theological Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg.djvu/58

l this well, draw your conclusions correctly, and you will discover the reason." From the time Swedenborg claims to have been in direct communication with the spiritual world, he abandoned his study of Natural Science and devoted himself for the remaining thirty years of his life, exclusively to the work of writing, arranging and publishing the truths which he believed he received directly from the Lord, and the promulgation of which he understood to mark the advent of the New Church foretold in the Apocalypse. Finding his duties as Assessor incompatible with the work to which he felt himself called, he applied to the king to be relieved from them. The immediate occasion for this application was the death of Councillor Bergenstierna, and a unanimous recommendation from the College of Mines that Assessor Swedenborg should be promoted to his place. In a letter to the king he prays his Majesty to make another selection, and most graciously release him from office altogether. He then goes on to add another request:

, June 2, 1747.

"But as I have been for more than thirty years an Assessor in your Royal Majesty's College of Mines, and have at my own expense made several journeys abroad, to visit mines and other places, and as I have printed there several works for the benefit of my country, for which I have never yet asked the least recompense from the public, but, on the contrary,—that I might be able to devote myself uninterruptedly to these objects,—have given up half my salary, which during the last eleven years, has amounted to upwards of 20,000 rix-dollars in copper, I therefore entertain the hope that you will graciously grant my request, and allow me to continue to draw the half of my salary, as I have been doing. I have less doubt that you will grant this request, because I have performed the duties of an Assessor for more than thirty years, and as well as I can remember, no favor has ever been denied me.