Page:The New View of Hell.djvu/33

 most advanced thinkers in all the churches. Says a learned critic of rare candor in the New York Independent (March 18, 1869):

"More than any other form of religious thought, Swedenborgianism is a leaven 'hid in three measures of meal.' To a careless reader of ecclesiastical statistics, the Swedenborgian Church would seem to be one of the least of the great household of faith. To a careful student of religious thought, it appears to be among the most important. It has made very few converts from the faith of orthodoxy; but it has materially modified that faith. . . . As a little salt changes the contents of a large vessel of water, so Swedenborgianism, seemingly lost in the great multitude of churches, has more or less modified the form of faith of all."

And this very candid writer, and careful observer of the theological and religious tendencies of these new times, specifies some of the modifications already wrought in the old theological beliefs by the teachings of Swedenborg. After referring to the old doctrines of the Trinity, the Atonement, and the Sacred Scripture, and showing how these have been already modified by the writings of the Swedish seer, he concludes his list of specifications thus:

"The church [meaning all the so-called orthodox denominations] holds fast to the solemn truth, which no one has ever taught more vividly than Christ himself, that after death is the judgment, and after judgment heaven