Page:Swedenborg, Harbinger of the New Age of the Christian Church.djvu/267

 when he first came to reside as pastor among the inhabitants of Steinthal, they had many superstitious notions respecting the proximity of the spiritual world, and of the appearance of various objects and phenomena in that world which from time to time were seen by some of the people belonging to his flock. For instance, it was not unusual for a person who had died to appear to some individual in the valley. This gift of second sight, or the opening of the spiritual sight, to see objects in a spiritual state of existence, was however confined to a few persons, and continued but a short period and at different intervals of time. The report of every new occurrence of this kind was brought to Oberlin, who at length became so much annoyed that he was resolved to put down this species of superstition, as he called it, from the pulpit, and exerted himself for a considerable time to this end, but with little or no desirable effect. Cases became more numerous, and the circumstances so striking as even to stagger the scepticism of Oberlin himself. About this time, being on a visit to Strasburg, he met with the work on Heaven and Hell, which a friend [probably Jung