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382 any tendency to mystic fanaticism which might have been interwoven in his nature. He was born in Stockholm, in 1689, and was the son of the Lutheran Bishop of West Gotha. From his earliest days he applied himself to the study of science, under the best masters, and made such progress, that he published some works at the age of twenty. His merit recommended him to his Sovereign, Charles XII., the warrior King of Sweden, and he received an appointment as Assessor of the College of Mines. At the siege of Frederickshall, in 1713, he accomplished an extraordinary work, by the transmission of the siege artillery over the ridge of mountains which separates Sweden from Norway. It was considered one of the boldest attempts of military engineering ever accomplished. His application to study was continual, and from time to time he published works which gave him a European scientific reputation. It would have been well for himself had he never meddled in theological speculations; but his extravagances prove that the strongest minds, when destitute of Faith, fall into the grossest errors. His system was, that there is a spiritual world around us corresponding in everything to the material world we inhabit. He used himself, he assures us, converse with people in the most distant climes, and was in daily communication with those who were dead for ages. When a man dies, he says, he exchanges his material body, of which there is no resurrection, for a substantial one, and can immediately enjoy all the pleasures of this life, even the most gross, just as if he were still in the flesh. In fact a man frequently does not well know whether he is living or dead. Jesus Christ is God himself, in human form, who existed from all eternity, but became incarnate in time to bring the hells or evil spirits into subjection. He admitted a Trinity of his own, consisting of the Divinity, the Humanity, and the Operation. This Trinity commenced only at the Incarnation. He travelled through a great part of Europe, disseminating his doctrines, and finally died in London, in 1772, and was buried in the Swedish Church, Ratcliffe Highway. His followers have increased since his death, but they still only form small and obscure congregations. They style themselves "the Church of the New Jerusalem."

5. The Patriarch of Methodism was John Wesley, who was born in 1703, at Epworth, in Lincolnshire, of which place his father was rector. At the age of seventeen he was sent to the University of Oxford, and being more seriously inclined than the generality of young men there, applied himself diligently to his studies. One of his favourite books at that period was the famous work of Thomas á Kempis, "The Imitation of Christ." During his long and varied life this golden work was his manual, and he published even an edition of it himself in 1735, but, as should be expected, corrupted and mutilated. His brother Charles, a student like himself, at Oxford, and a few other young men, formed themselves