Page:The Life and Mission of Emanuel Swedenborg.djvu/29



the middle of the seventeenth century, while our New England fathers were clearing land and making new homes for themselves in the American wilderness, where they might worship God and bring up their children according to their own conscience, the grandfather of Emanuel Swedenborg, Daniel Isaksson, was rearing his family on his homestead called "Sweden," near Fahlun, a hundred and twenty miles northwest from Stockholm. Daniel, like his father before him, was a miner and mine-owner, "honest, far from worldly pride and luxury, and bent upon speaking the truth." For the sake of his large family of children, he piously thought, his undertakings were prospered. One of twenty-four hard-working miners who succeeded in draining a deserted mine, with the rest he became wealthy. Far, however, from being made proud by his prosperity, Daniel Isaksson would often say while at dinner, "Thank you, my children, for this meal, for I have dined with you, and not you with me; God has given me food for your sakes."

Daniel's son Jesper, born in 1653, took the name of Swedberg, from the homestead. The father's piety was continued in the son, and was strengthened at an early age by his rescue from great peril. A flood caused a small mill-stream in the neighborhood to overflow its banks. Jesper and an older brother stood near the mill. The brother sprang on a beam