Page:Emanuel Swedenborg, Scientist and Mystic.djvu/295

XXI ] and yet no man's heaven and no man's hell like another's. The angels shiver at the thought of monotonous conformity; their unity is a harmony of units, not a similarity. If the reader smiled at the similarity of some of the angelic environments to those of earth, he could not of course realize that these were what Swedenborg termed "appearances," though they seemed actual to those whose states of mind they expressed. These angels and angelic spirits lived in houses and Swedenborg said he had been in them. They were much finer than earthly ones, with every kind of room and court. There were gardens, flower beds, fields. Palaces shone with gleams of gold and precious stones and architecture was in its flower, because, Swedenborg said, that art was itself from heaven. There were towns with streets, roads, and marketplaces. There were temples, because angels, having reason and affection, were capable of having them infinitely perfected; and there was government and administration because though all were equally good not all were equally wise; and each member of the community had many duties which, however, were joys, as a mother who loves her children "does not think about merit like a hired nurse, but grieves if she is deprived of that useful function and is willing to give all she has only to be allowed to possess her joy."

The functions of the angels were innumerable, both such as they were conscious of and such as they were not. Some instructed new arrivals, some were with men and reinforced any good impulse, some protected others, some gently awoke the dead.

They talked with each other about every kind of question pertaining to much the same things that men discuss. Swedenborg said he had often heard them. Some lived in communities, some lived in separate abodes, and they were "the best of angels." One thing they never argued about was faith." "They say, 'What is faith? I feel and see that this is so.' As if someone showed another a garden and said, 'You ought to believe that this is there,' when he sees it before his eyes."

Heavenly pleasure could not be understood, Swedenborg said, by those who did not know what spiritual joy was. Nor could those who put their joy in honor and profit and carnal pleasure believe that there can be inexpressible joys having nothing to do with these, any more than thick and pungent dust was comparable to a pure