Page:Emanuel Swedenborg, Scientist and Mystic.djvu/38

26 which his father describes twice to make sure it will be clear how much he cares for the poor and how little for the "worldly." When his fine new stone house had been built for him, he gave a banquet for the paupers and hospital patients of the town. Swedberg himself, his wife and children waited on them. Emanuel was ten years of age then. All that was lacking to inform the left hand thoroughly of what the right was doing was a radio commentator and a movie camera.

As a pendant to this story there is one of how a little blackmail was used on the King. When the young hero, Charles XII, was engaged in ruining the poor people of Sweden with his obstinate warfare, he ordered total mobilization, even of the servants of the clergy. Jesper Swedberg insisted to the King's face that he had to be allowed to keep his coachman. But Charles was flintily silent, whereupon the Bishop burst out:

"I've been reading the books of wise statesmen, O most gracious King, and I've found that among the devices for keeping subjects obedient is the one by which the Government takes care to have the clergy on its side. If the common people go mad, nobody except the parson can manage them. But if the parson is badly treated he'll tell everything he knows, even in the pulpit, which is not right. The farmer sits and listens, and he sighs, and so it goes whenever they meet. We hope with the help of God, that God will spare us riot and rebellion. But they have happened and they can happen again. That is why the Government has always thought it wise to keep the clergy in good humor."

To all of which Charles answered not one word.

Still more striking Emanuel must have found the discord between the chapters in which his father describes the excellence of his own disposition, and some of the examples he gives elsewhere of his behavior. The Bishop (as he now is) duly thanks God for his fine mind and beautiful character; how since his youth he had always sought good and hated evil; though to begin with he had some faults, yet he loved to be told of them; how he only hated quarrels and enmities; how he took special joy in forgiving his enemies and doing good to them. He admits to a quick temper, but stresses his gentle and forgiving heart. He was always sober. But