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8 them there, but the expansion and culmination of the truth and the organic course of events." Accordingly we find his name to-day in all the literature of "new things" and his writings are often quoted; but his teachings get sadly perverted in the process; and his name is used as authority for opinions that otherwise want a character. Nothing but the study of his works, on the line of his unvarying claim for them, that they contain "doctrines received from the Lord alone while reading the Word" can have any weight in deciding upon their contents.

Swedenborg was the son of a Lutheran Bishop, a scholar, a practical engineer, entrusted with high official position, a man of science, a philosopher, a theologian and a seer who lived between 1688 and 1772. This life of fourscore years' untiring energy divides itself, upon superficial observation, into two periods. The first fifty years of it were devoted to the pursuit of natural learning and independent investigations in science and philosophy. In early life his mind was carefully and severely cultivated, and he developed a vigorous and acute intellect, with a capacity for the most profound and