spirits. He attempts to expound the mysteries of the Book of Revelations. He expressed himself by symbol and allegory. His style is an imitation of the Scriptures, and, like the Book of Jasher, reads like a close imitation. This style of composition, we conceive, by an uninspired writer (whose credentials were not most clear), to be taking a most reprehensible and audacious liberty with the Word of God.

His science of correspondencies, which it is pretended was lost by Job, and only revived by Swedenborg himself, is a species of figurative allegory. It shows acuteness and fancy ; but we can find in it no innate force compelling the conviction of the understanding. It is also singular in this respect, that it translates figurative allegories into the most literal phraseology, whilst it gives a symbolic translation to the simple records of history. Mr. Barrett speaks thus of it: "The Science of Correspondencies, as revealed in the writings of Swedenborg, furnishes us with a rule, and the only rule, as we have before said, for interpreting aright the word of God." Yet this species of comment and translation is full of the most startling assumptions. It denies the historical accuracy of Genesis, defining the limits of true history, which is declared to have commenced at the calling of Abraham. The first eleven chapters are taken as one continued allegory. Adam is thought to typify the first Church: the Flood, to mean a flood of ignorance and sin over the moral world. The Waters are understood as truths or fables, as they relate to good or evil. By Noah, and the creatures preserved in the Ark, are rendered the preservation of good principles and sound doctrine, by the Divine Providence. All this is very ingenious and plausible; we can hardly assign it a worthier title. Speculation and fancy may run on, in this manner, ad libitum. Purde allegory, on the other hand, is construed

into an exact and liberal narrative of futurity-a prophetic relation, in part accomplished. The New Jerusalem is localized; the Judgment Day is identified with a past epoch. Parable is considered synonymous with matter of fact history. A wise man often discovers the most wisdom in letting some things alone; in leaving moot points at rest. Swedenborg could not abstain from a rash curiosity of gazing upon the Holy of Holies; he must needs intrude into the awful precincts of the Apocalypse. And here in his daring rashness, he evinced equal folly.

His visions, and publications of an intercourse with the spiritual world, are of a piece with the rest. It is painful to see the state into which that man's mind must have fallen, who could write out such accounts as we find in Lecture xii. (pages 415, 416-418, in particular.) We are almost tempted to exclaim,

Lo! what a noble mind was here o'erthrown!

Had Swedenborg lived a century earlier, he would have been cited as a memorable instance in old Burton's chapter on Religious melancholy. A few sentences will comprise all the criticism on the Lectures we have to offer. Mr. De Charms is the clearest writer: Mr. Barrett is more ambitious and flowery. Both are sensible thinkers, yet fall into gross blunders whenever they attempt to exalt their Hero and Master. A rather presumptuous parallel is here drawn. "We would therefore beg all who are disposed to ridicule and reject the writings of Swedenborg, on account of the alleged visions which they contain, to pause and consider, whether they do not, in their hearts, if not with their lips, mock at the views of the Apostles and Prophets, and reject

the Scriptures as a revelation from God." We can, by no supposition, conceive how a rejection of Swedenborg's mission, invalidates the genuineness of the Scriptures, or can presuppose such invalidation.

The followers of this fanciful theorist (for as such, in the History of Religion, the character of Swedenborg, we suspect, will finally rest) are, in the majority of cases, pureminded and honest men; in some cases guided by a poetical temperament in the choice of a religion; in others, governed by the specious "rationality" of the Swedenborgian scheme. Very few eminent men are numbered in its ranks. Dr. Hartley, the metaphysician, we believe, was one; Kant appears to have been, and Coleridge was for a while attracted by Swedenborgianism, as indeed he was by every current fashionable novelty, and curious ancient heresy. American would-be Coleridges assume the doctrines, as a fair text for imposing rhetoric. It must be allowed, as we have admitted more than once, that parts of the teachings of the Swedish Apostle are imbued with the loftiest Christian morality; that his spirit bathed in an atmosphere of the purest refinement; that he saw keenly into much of the spiritual part of our nature. Here we stop in our eulogium. As a moralist, Swedenborg is above our praise; as a religious teacher, a biblical critic, an expounder of mysteries, we regard him as unsafe, dangerous, and rash. His sect is still very small, and its polity being nearer to the Congregational form of Church government than to any other, tends continually to independency, and disunion among its members. It is without an abiding principle of unity; and its excessive spirit of liberty is liable to run into licentiousness of doctrine. In Sweden there are very few of this belief; more in England and on the continent. In this country they have several

congregations but we apprehend no stability in Swedenborgianism as a Church; but that it will gradually die out like the Quakers and the Unitarians. Still, the Church may derive excellent hints from some of the strictures of Swedenborg; and, indeed, from more than one of the spiritual Christian philosophers of modern Europe.

XVI.

RELIGIOUS SATIRE.

MANY well-intentioned, but not very deep-thinking people, are mightily frightened by anything approaching to the argumentum ad absurdum, in matters of religion or morality. They fancy a disrespect, at least, if not a secret contempt of Christianity from satirical assaults on those who profess, only to disgrace it. They apprehend evil from the air of levity with which such subjects are treated; an apprehension rarely verified, except in the case of the very weak, who are sure to go wrong in almost every possible event. No man but a fool or a radically bad character, ever could conceive of universal hollowness, because there were many demure and sly hypocrites in the world. A total want of faith is the unerring sign of a temper not to be trusted; of a fickle heart and a false tongue. But satire of the pretenders to true religion is, in effect, an eulogy of the sincerely good; indiscriminate praise and universal censure being alike in this respect, that finally they tend to nothing, as they nullify each other by

opposite extravagances. It is true, that satirists have sometimes transcended the proper limits of truth and discretion; have calumniated where they should have calmly censured ; and have written a libel instead of a criticism. The most piquant satire is, necessarily, one-sided, and carried to the extreme verge of truth; at times overpassing it. Epigrams lose in point where they approach the truth. A moderate thinker is rarely to be found among professed wits. For, when a man comes to ponder and weigh opposite qualities and conflicting statements, to admit this excuse and allow that apology, when circumstance and occasion are considered; and, in a word, when he endeavors to strike a just balance of the actions and characters of men, he rarely can escape a trite conclusion or a mediocrity of argument. In a knowledge of most elementary truths and general propositions, the philosopher and the peasant are on a par; the difference between them consists in a knowledge of the intermediate chain of thought and reasoning on the part of the first, and ignorance in the case of the last. It is only when a point is driven home, when to paint one trait vividly, the rest of the features are thrown in the shade, that brilliancy is attained at the expense of fidelity and a liberal construction. To a reader of sense, however, a defect of this nature makes itself apparent at once, and he sifts out the false from the fair: to all other readers it matters little, for they might misconstrue the most irreproachable writer. We have frequent proof that the best book in the world has fared the worst in this respect.

Religious satire has generally been directed either against the extravagances or the hypocrisy of reformers; and when just and intelligent, it has certainly been of essential service. It may not benefit the immediate objects of it. It may harden or dishearten proselytes and late converts, re-changing