EMANUEL SWEDENBORG.

Evening Star, Issue 12926, 14 April 1908, Page 1

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG.

The present is oji age that delights in rewriting the verdicts of history and in offering tribute to the remains of the dead. Even as the saint has been taken from his niche, and the villain of his age has been transformed into its benefactor, so, too, has the oncedespised or neglected had posthumous honors paid to his memory. The ashes of Paul Jones, the famous " pirate," were but recently removed from France to the United States, amid the bared heads and draped flags and booming guns of two great nations; those of Zola, the reviled and condemned, arc to be placed in the Pantheon; and now all thai, is left of what was mortal of Emanuel Swedenborg is being taken from the place where, for 136 years, it lias rested, and returned to the land that gave him birth. Tho remains, we are advised, have been placed aboard* Swedish frigate for conveyance to Karlscrona. ]t was here that Swedenborg, at the age of twenty-eight, assisted Polncm, the great Swedish engineer, in the formation of tho basin of that port at the express wish of the Royal Swede, King Charles XII., who had a high opinion of Swodenborg's genius. An enumeration of hie works, if possible, would bo the beet test of Swcdenbarg's marvellously fecund and all-oomprehensivo intellect.. To say that ho was an engineer, mathematician, writer, statesman, metallurgist, traveller, anatomist, physiologist, scientist, practical man of affairs and theologian is barely to hint at the reality of his labors. He was thoroughly scientific in his methods, accumulating all tho known facts, and investigating and testing before decLariiy; his principles or forming his general i;-a-tious. He is said to be the originator of the modern science of Crystallography, in have anticipated the atomic theory oi Dal ton, and as a result of his obscna-t-ions he predicted the French Ki'v 1 .;- tion of 1789. His first publications !>■■ tween tho ages of twenty and thirtv include select sentences from Seneca, Irc.-itis. :; on algebra, on a decimal system ~\ money and measures, on the cnrtli .11: I planets and tides and docks and slui ■■■:-. A man of the highest character, reserved., secure in the friendship of his contemporaries, his life, which was lived without wife and child, was singularly happy and void of adventures of the common sort. The publication of his 'Prinoipia' ,n> 1754, the first volume of which was an attempt to construct a cosmology a priori, though written in a spirt of piety, was too modern for his age. It was held to contravene the position that God creatod all things out of nothing, and as irreconcilable with a literal interpretation of the first chapter of Genesis, and was prohibited by Papal authority in 1739. It is as a seer, a theologian, an interpreter of the Holy Scriptures, the creator of the science of correspondence, and the founder of tho New Church that Swedenborg lives. Strange, repellent, irritating as much of what is known as Swedenborgianism may bo to those who have never paused to consider it, and apt as men are to dismiss its author as a quack, a charlatan, or a mentally weak religious fanatic, the fact remains that during the last thirty years there has been ;.n increasing demand for his work"-. Learned and highly intelligent men aro interpreting them, societies exist for their sale, colleges are built for their study, an<i\ many churches for their exposition. Christianity, as interpreted by Swedenborg, has nothing obviously obnoxious about it-, while hi? method of Biblical interpret jiiion is illuminating, and. consciously or unconsciously, is (wpuhir in many pulpits other than those of tho New Chinch. It was his claims to " have. lice.ll called to a holy by the Lord, who most graciously manifested Himself in person to me, His servant, in the year 1745, aud opened my sight, into in" spiritual world, grantijtg inc the rrivile_< of conversing with spirits and angels," that gave rise to derision and rej<xt.io ; i. To the, believer in the imputation of the sears ami propheis of the Old Testament, this claim, however, ought not to lie in credible.- 15c this a.s it may, at the age of fifty-dght, Swedenborg cut himself free of his old life. He ceased the pursuit cf science aud gave himself over to the study of Hebrew and a perusal of the Scrii)tures. This from his earliest years had been his desired work. "From my fourth to my tenth year." he writes, "mythoughts were constantly engrossed by reflecting on God, on salvation, and on tho spiritual affections of man. From my sixth to my twelfth year it was my greatest delight to converse with the clergy concerning faith." Precocious and mysterious child ' What wonder that ai the years to come he saw visions and dreamed dreams? He made no claim t:> inspiration, but to "an opening of his spiritual sight and a rational instruction in spiritual things," granted to him " li* convey to the world a real knowledge <if the nature of Heaved and Hell, and thus of man's future existence."* To-day Swedenborg—the man whose nume had long been a synonym for crank —is coming into his own. The homeland thai he loved so truly and served so faithfully has asked for and received his ashes, and to these a proud and grateful people will pay revorent homage.