CHAPTER XI.

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG AND HIS DOCTRINE OF CORRESPONDENCES.

Whatever estimate we may seek to place upon some of the doctrines of the great Swedish philosopher and seer, Emanuel Swedenborg, it is impossible to overlook fairly his enormous contribution to spiritual and liberal religious and philosophic thought, for though many of his followers are extremely conservative,—and apparently intolerant of all claims to modern illumination after the time of Swedenborg,—no narrowness on the part of subsequent generations can remove any lustre from the career of the highly learned and truly marvellous man to whom we are all very deeply indebted for calling renewed attention to very ancient ideas concerning Holy Scriptures quite at variance with the conventional orthodoxy of his period. As a distinguished man of science and of letters, also as a marvellous clairvoyant. Swedenborg shines forth brilliantly in contrast with the general dulness and deadness of his age. The 18th century was remarkable for the prevalence of cold religious formalism and much looseness in morality, and to counteract both these depressing tendencies Swedenborg worked with skill and energy truly marvellous.

The literary output of this amazing writer would be wonderful if judged from the superficial standpoint of voluminousness alone, but when we take into account the extreme excellence of this enormous mass of literary material we cannot feel other than convinced that we are in the presence of a mind trained and cultured far beyond the ordinary.

As the religious denomination known as Swedenborgian has for a great many years been industriously circulating many of Swedenborg’s theological writings, either gratuitously or at merely nominal cost, the reading public is fairly well acquainted with “Heaven and Hell;” “Divine Providence”; “Divine Love and Wisdom,” and several other of the smaller books, but we doubt if very many, apart from special students, have waded through “Arcana Cœlestia,” “Apocalypse Unveiled;” or even “The True Christian Religion;” all of which are decidedly bulky volumes and written in that precise, leisurely, scholarly style which shows their author to have been a singularly careful, and evidently unhasting, though wonderfully fertile writer. To appreciate in any due degree the revolutionary character of Swedenborg’s method of dealing with the accepted Bible of his day and country, we must remember that though he strenuously insists that there are two interior senses—Spiritual and Celestial—within the literal, which he calls the Natural sense of those portions of the Bible which he says are verily the Divine Word, he by no means allows that the entire 66 documents which constitute the Holy Bible of Protestant Christendom are to be regarded as an absolutely divine revelation. On the contrary, he places them just about where the Church of England places the Apocrypha, which it recommends for reading, even in church services, but to which it assigns no such authority as to the Old and New Testaments.

The Pentateuch, or Torah, according to Swedenborg, is indeed a divine revelation, but not externally as touching literal history, sacrifices, and various ceremonial observances, but as to an interior meaning which has to do, primarily, not with man’s outer formation, but with the 7 stages of human regeneration, which are spiritually set forth in the opening chapter of Genesis. It is quite easy to see how complacently Swedenborgians smiled at that revolutionary Darwinism which convulsed the religious, as well as the scientific, world during the middle of the 19th Century, for the doctrine of correspondences could not be adversely affected if it were proved that man had been on earth millions of years instead of only 6,000. It is extremely interesting to look up interior meanings in Swedenborg’s “Dictionary of Correspondences,” for there we are told that Balaam’s ass represented his natural affection for good, and that saved him from destruction when the direful consequences of his disobedience to Divine direction were ready to overwhelm him. To many minds such a mode of exegesis must appear arbitrary and far-fetched in the extreme, but such is not necessarily the case if we take into consideration the Hermetic method of teaching, which virtually all Mystics, alike of ancient and modern periods, have insisted upon as the only really important aspect of any edifying and spiritually enlightening literature. It cannot be seriously admitted by thoughtful minds that a record of merely exterior events in human history is specially revealed from Heaven, but it is conceivable that outward narratives have been used illustratively and allegorically to enshrine teachings of the utmost value through all succeeding generations.

As there can be no completer summary of Swedenborg’s teaching, as to its foundations, than his dissertation concerning the interior meaning of the seven “days” of Genesis, we append his interpretations translated from the original Latin (the language in which he always wrote) contained in that intensely interesting work “The Life and Mission of Emanuel Swedenborg” by Benjamin Worcester. The six days, or times, which are so many successive states of man’s regeneration, are in general as follows: The First state is that which precedes, both from infancy and immediately before regeneration, and it is called a void, emptiness and thick-darkness. And the first movement, which is the mercy of the Lord, is the spirit of God moving itself upon the face of the waters.

The Second state is when distinction is made between the things which are the Lord’s and those which are man’s own; those which are the Lord’s are called in the Word ‘remains,’ and are here especially the knowledges of faith which man has acquired from infancy, which are stored up and are not manifest before he comes into this state. This state seldom exists at the present day without temptation, misfortune or grief, which cause the things of the body and the world, or his own, to become quiet and, as it were, to die. Then the things of the external man are separated from those of the internal; in the internal are the remains stored up by the Lord for this time and this use.

The Third state is that of repentance, in which from the internal man he speaks piously and devoutly, and brings forth good things, as the works of charity, but which are nevertheless inanimate because he regards them as from himself. These are called the tender grass, then the herb yielding seed, and afterwards the tree yielding fruit.

The Fourth state is when he is affected by love and illumined by faith; he before indeed spoke pious things and brought forth good things, but from a state of temptation and distress, not from faith and charity. These, therefore, love and faith, are now enkindled in the internal man and are called the two great lights.

The Fifth state is that he speaks from faith and thereby confirms himself in truth and good; the things which he then brings forth are animate, and are called fishes of the sea and birds of the heavens.

The Sixth state is, when from faith and thence from love he speaks true things and does good things, the things he then brings forth are called the living soul and creature. And because he then begins to act from love as well as from faith he becomes a spiritual man which is called an image of God. His spiritual life is delighted and sustained by the things that are of the knowledges of faith and of the works of charity, which are called his food; and his natural life is delighted and sustained by the things that are of the body and the senses; from which there is a combat until love reigns and he becomes a celestial man.

They who are regenerated do not all arrive at this state, but some, and the greatest part at this day, only to the first; some only to the second; some to the third; the fourth, and the fifth; few to the sixth, and scarcely any to the seventh.

The Seventh state signifies a condition of complete regeneration.”

From the above outline our readers can gather at least a faint idea of how completely Swedenborg does away with all simply external interpretations of the Pentateuch, and when he proceeds to deal with the Book of Revelations he finds no difficulty in explaining the many elaborate hieroglyphics with which the mysterious Apocalypse abounds.

It is indeed to his “Apocalypse Unveiled” that we must turn for anything like an adequate view of his special doctrine concerning the Church of the New Jerusalem, which he regards as a new dispensation of truth, in the advantages of which the world is now measurably sharing, though the full glory of the new age has not yet burst upon us. This most wonderful of all his writings was never completed or published by the author, although carefully prepared for the printer as far as the middle of the nineteenth chapter. The general plan of the work closely resembles that of the “Arcana Cœlestia”; the full text of each chapter is given, then elaborate expositions of single verses follow; some of which are treated at great length, others briefly.

According to Swedenborg a new age of the world began in 1757, and it was after that year that he undertook to minutely explain the Apocalypse, which he declares (particularly in its closing chapters) symbolically describes the ideal condition of humanity yet to be realized.

John the Revelator is said to represent those who are in the good of life from faith in the Lord who remain steadfast through the desolation of the church, and who are the first to become aware of their Lord's coming, which being “in clouds,” and in the midst of “seven golden candlesticks,” represents a manifestation of light in the midst of obscurity in the letter of the Word. The seven churches are the members of the Christian Church in seven distinct conditions. What was seen through the door in heaven (Chap. 4) was the ordering of all things in preparation for judgment. Those who sit on different-colored horses mean those who variously understand the significance of the Word. Souls under the altar are those who have lived a good life reverencing the Lord, and though oppressed by rulers of the external church, have been preserved by divine care. The rolling away of heaven as a scroll represents the dissolution of that fictitious heaven which pretended Christians form for themselves as soon as their inner condition is disclosed by the light of the Lord's coming. The mystical 144,000 are they of the true church of every kind who are sanctified within. The “woes” follow the exploration of the states of those who rely on faith without charity. The woman clothed with the sun (Chap. 12) signifies the new church that is to come; the man child whom she brings forth is the strong doctrine of that church which is opposed frantically by the dragon which represents the false doctrine of faith alone. The ruling of the nations with a rod of iron by the man child represents the power of the new doctrine which will be illustrated both from the letter of the Word and by rational argument from the facts of nature. War in heaven results in the overthrow of those fictitious states which outwardly appear as heavens until their inner lack of true affection is discerned. The golden vials full of divine anger signify the holy good and truth of heaven flowing in and making evil secreted in the church manifest, that it may be vanquished. Babylon described as a “harlot,” reveals the state of those who misuse their position in the church for ends of self-aggrandisement. The “Beast” is the letter of the Word in the hands of those who pervert it to base ends. The coming church, confirmed in genuine truth, is described as the bride of the Lamb, clad in fine linen; the doctrine of this church is described as a Holy City descending from God out of heaven into which there shall not enter anything false or defiling. The foregoing are but a few out of multitudinous explanations of striking metaphors with which this marvellous book abounds, but though few they suffice to afford some clear insight into Swedenborg’s general line of interpretation. In addition to all this remarkable expository comment Swedenborg has given us an immense number of personal experiences of a superphysical character not only in his “Diary” but scattered through almost all his works. To any unprejudiced reader many of these narrations may serve the double purpose of acquainting us not only with Swedenborg's spiritual experiences but also with his own mental bias, which was particularly strong in certain definite directions. Being educated as a Lutheran he seems to have inherited a certain affection for some forms of Protestant Christianity and a very decided dislike for Roman Catholicism, and this, as Emerson has pointed out, together with many similar incidents, serves to foster the opinion, entertained very widely, that however true a seer he may have been his revelations were all more or less colored by the mental medium through which they flowed; they are therefore no more to be regarded as infallible than those of other seers. But this rational position is so distasteful to extreme Swedenborgians that they appear resentful when this great man, whom they so very highly extol, is placed upon something like the same level with other great philosophers who have also enjoyed spiritual revelations. The remark of the apostle Paul, “We have this treasure in earthen vessels,” is universally applicable to all human experience, and it is just at this point that simple Theism proves its unconquerable superiority to all sectarian systems, adherents to which invariably claim far too much for some one leader whom they extravagantly exalt, and often far too little for other noble teachers with whose positions they are not in sympathy. The foolish statement that God makes a perfect revelation through an imperfect medium is a fantastic bubble which bursts as soon as it is pricked, for there is no question of divine but only of human ability at stake; and if we are in this world undergoing gradual training, and it is the divine will that we should unfold by a succession of progressive experiences, we may safely conclude that there is no cut and dried revelation once for all ready to our hand. It is undoubtedly far best for us to be situated exactly as we are, without such a revelation, but with every inducement and ever-increasing opportunity to arrive at more and more knowledge of truth for ourselves by faithfully and continually exercising those very faculties with which we are clearly endowed for the purpose of enabling us to find out truth through the agency of their exercise. Though this common-sense position, as it may well be called, is in entire agreement with all our actual experiences of human education, and is moreover strictly scientific in all its tendencies and implications, it can never satisfy any who demand a complete unveiling of the mysteries of the universe, for they set themselves in an attitude toward revelation which renders it impossible for there to be a gradual unwinding of the scroll of truth to human understanding, seeing that if their position be tenable, all truth must be already in our possession. Needless to argue that no really illumined teacher at any time anywhere ever took so insane a position, which is one, moreover, that no professedly Orthodox or Catholic theologian will attempt to maintain if engaged in controversy with an intellectual opponent.

It is much to be regretted that so few admirers of any great teacher seem willing to place him among the world’s enlighteners, simply as one of them, instead of exalting their chosen hero to a rank entirely beyond that of all the rest. This attitude toward Swedenborg, on the part of his devotees, has led many to turn away entirely from his revelations because they could not accept them as infallible, though they doubtless contain much ennobling philosophy, and can well be studied as helpful textbooks by all who are seeking to acquaint themselves with the history of modern seership. Though, for ourselves, we totally deny everlasting continuance in hells, which most Swedenborgians believe is a necessary inference from their leader’s disclosures concerning the spiritual world, we can entirely agree with Swedenborg’s doctrine of dominant affection regulating our condition in the hereafter. Clairvoyance may be perfect, to the extent of clearly revealing post-mortem conditions as they now exist, without throwing any light whatever on how radically those conditions may have changed before another century has rolled away. We have not the slightest warrant for supposing that any soul will choose evil everlastingly, though we can comprehend the idea that if one did actually desire to spend eternity in a hell, the privilege would be accorded him of gratifying his dominant propensity. But how pitiably absurd is such a vile conjecture in the light of Swedenborg’s primary teaching regarding human origin, for he attributes all life to a sole Divine Being, whose life animates the entire creation. Swedenborg accounts for evil by styling it an inversion of good, but why an inversion should continue forever can never be explained reasonably. There is no diabolical fount of life whence some portion of the creation has emanated, and if all souls are alike divinely created why should some choose to spend eternity in opposition to their Creator whom Swedenborg beautifully describes as perfect Love and Wisdom? In the hideous and utterly irrational idea of even a greatly modified unending hell we see traces of the pernicious Lutheran doctrine which Swedenborg never completely left behind, though he wonderfully improved and in every way greatly modified it. Running all through Swedenborgian theology is the supposition, to say the least, that some human souls have, during the brief term of a single embodiment on earth, so confirmed themselves in love of evil,—which of course implies hatred of good,—that of their own volition they will remain forever in a state of alienation from all truth and goodness. In this inference we can see nothing but shortsighted failure to discern the true inwardness of human nature. Where those fictitious characters are to be found in real life who have no love of goodness in them we have never been able to discover, though it needs no more than the most ordinary observation to discern widely different degrees of manifest goodness, not only in different individuals, but also in the same individuals at different times and in the midst of varying circumstances. We are often reminded by Swedenborgians that the Lord coerces no one, but leaves every individual free to choose a destiny; but the full acceptance of that proposition does not in the slightest measure sustain the position we are combating, for it can be assented to in its entirety by all who take a reasonable view of human nature and be by them employed to illustrate the certainty that that very freedom of choice upon which Swedenborg insists so strenuously will prove the agent through which the transformation of all hells into heavens will be ultimately accomplished. Were this point only a theological quibble, having no immediate bearing upon our conduct toward our fellow beings here and now, we might well consign it to the category of those mysteries which may be cleared up in a future life, but not in the present; but nothing can be more misleading than to assume that an anthropological doctrine can be void of present influence upon the mutual practical conduct of those who entertain it. The whole question of Prison Reform is affected vitally by the views of human nature which we at this moment entertain, and it is not too much to condemn as shockingly immoral a doctrine of innate and perpetual, therefore presumably irremediable depravity. With the breaking down, in nearly all Christian communities, of the frightful old views of hell which Swedenborg did so much to modify, a wave of humanity is now sweeping over the earth, which promises ere long to completely transfigure all our penal institutions; and so powerfully is the good influence exerted by the “new theology” being already felt that we can hardly take up a periodical, or even a newspaper, without finding some account of good work accomplished through the beneficent influence exerted by the dissemination and application of humane views of human nature. The Southern States of America have long been in the clutch of extreme religious and other phases of conservatism, and it has generally been considered that the North is far more open to accept needed reforms in thought and practise than the South; but it is now happily true that the South is entering upon a new era of prosperity and awakening to embrace the same noble philanthropic spirit which is now making rapid headway in the North and in the West. As recently as March 29, 1910, a representative Southern newspaper, “Virginian Pilot,” Norfolk, Virginia, contained the following beautiful account of an address delivered in that city by Judge Benjamin Lindsey, of Denver, Colorado. Our special object in inserting the report in this volume is to show exactly how human nature actually responds in this world to the right sort of treatment, and it is this same human nature with which we have to deal when we are contemplating the future state of our humanity. As we read this noble record of the gracious helpful work of a truly brave and strong, as well as intensely kindly man, let us keep steadily before us the fact that Judge Lindsey is dealing with that element in society which is designated “incorrigible” in many instances by people who can see no latent love of virtue below the mass of débris behind which it is often deeply hid. When theologians as a whole believe that the law which regulates the universe is at least as good and wise as its manifestations in the persons of many living philanthropists, though they may still have much more to learn, they will cease speculating upon the fate of the “finally impenitent.”

BOYS’ CHAMPION IS ENTHUSIASTICALLY WELCOMED.

Judge Ben. B. Lindsey, of the Juvenile Court of Denver, Colo., one of the most noted workers in the interest of juvenile court work in the United States, and the author of the sensational political story, “The Beast in the Jungle,” which has been running in Everybody's Magazine for the past six months, lectured to a large audience at the Academy of Music last night on “Juvenile Court Work.” The lecture was given under the auspices of the Co-operative Clubs of Norfolk and Portsmouth and directly under the auspices of the Norfolk section, Council of Jewish Women.

After his lecture, which was received with great warmth, Judge Lindsey was besieged by the representatives of a half dozen clubs and organizations of the city and promised to make his appearance before four of them.

It is no wonder that the “kids” of Denver took Judge Lindsey into their confidence and told him their troubles when no other judge had ever been able to get a word either as evidence or confidence. Judge Lindsey is a man who has a personality which attracts youngsters and inspires confidence. He has an honest, appealing sort of a face with not a hard expression in it, but always a laugh about his eyes when the rest of his countenance seems serious.

He carried his audience away with him last night on many little trips into boys’ hearts and boys’ lives. He told about things which have happened to about every man who listened to him last night, but most of them had forgotten and were delighted when their memories were refreshed. He brought out the fact that interest is everything in a child’s life and that the child is changing the whole scheme of things. What is most needed, he said, is a little love in the law and less of that inconsiderate harshness which classes the mischievous boy with the criminal man. Fewer jails and more schools; more education, more tolerance, more patience and more sympathy, and less browbeating, is Judge Lindsey’s prescription for saving boys’ futures. He believes that there is some good in every boy and that the good dominates the bad.

“We are dealing with human hearts and souls and qualities,” said Judge Lindsey. “We ought to deal with a lad as a child is dealt with, and not a criminal. Give boys what they need—sympathy, assistance, encouragement and co-operation, and see what you get in return.

“Fathers and mothers in the home if they are wise will get the truth from the child taken in delinquency, for if a child gets by with a lie, in many cases, it is lost. Take them when they are young and mould their character while it is plastic and you make for better men and better citizenship.”

Judge Lindsey divided the study of juvenile court work into three classes, each of which, he said, was closely allied with the other. He cited the physiological, the sociological and the psychology of the boy’s nature, each of which must be approached from an entirely different standpoint, but which are very closely linked together. Because of a total ignorance of these qualities, or perhaps because of an utter disregard for them, Judge Lindsey declared, 100,000 children go to the courts of the country every year, which in a generation makes more than 2,000,000 “kids,” as he referred to them, who are up against hard propositions which they don’t understand. These conditions are attributable to careless parents, political corruption, and the grinding of the mills of the wealthy, which he declared crushed hundreds of lives which might have become a valuable asset to the nation.

Once let the members of the New Jerusalem Church follow their gifted leader further than the actual words of his writings, now long stereotyped, may be able to carry them and they will see that the greatest honor we can pay to a spiritual pioneer is not to cling slavishly to the letter of the record he has left behind him but to go steadily forward along the line suggested by the obvious trend of his philosophy. If there be any spiritual revelation it must be progressive, and instead of stupidly claiming, as many shortsighted people do, that you must take a revelation in its entirety or else utterly reject it, we claim that all revelations, no matter of what nature, must be fearlessly and dispassionately examined in accordance with the wise injunction, “Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.” The scientific spirit needs to prevail in religious as well as in all other circles. Nothing is too sacred for examination; no revelation can be final and none can be complete, because our capacities for acceptance and for comprehension are continually on the increase.

During the Darwin Celebration at Cambridge, England, held in June, 1909, many learned men who expressed the sincerest admiration and esteem for the hero of the occasion did not hesitate to call attention to his limitations while extolling his nobility of character and paying high tribute to the enormous value of his work. If some similar attitude were taken, by his admirers, toward Swedenborg, much good would undoubtedly be accomplished, and we should soon be able to assign to the gifted seer and sage of Scandinavia the place which rightfully belongs to him in his three-fold capacity of Scientist, Philosopher and Theologian. All who wish to estimate Swedenborg fairly, and to profit as much as possible from his immense literary output, should not confine themselves to his theological, but should make a study of his earlier scientific and philosophical writings also, for in these we can trace the gradual growth of his perceptions and watch, with much interest and profit, how he applies the universal law of correspondences to the entire field of nature, which he most industriously examined. Swedenborg’s entire work will be far better comprehended, and his mission far more clearly understood, when some review of it in its entirety is undertaken by impartial and unprejudiced examiners. But these are usually difficult to find, because bias does exist, either for or against, to a large extent, even in the minds of men as widely comprehensive as Ralph Waldo Emerson, whose essay on Swedenborg is, to an extent, marred by his evident disrelish for any attempt to map out even a small portion of the unseen universe. Emerson's distinctive bias led him to eulogize Plato, almost extravagantly, while his review of Swedenborg suffered from the same cause. Many of Emerson's criticisms of Swedenborg's “heavens” are very just, but there is more to be said in favor of their naturalness than a man of Emerson's temperament would be likely to discover. It is quite true that, when describing domestic life in the spiritual world, Swedenborg's married angels do appear something like “country parsons and their wives,” though on rather a glorified scale; but it is quite conceivable that Swedenborg was really intromited into just such a state in the spiritual universe, his clairvoyance enabling him to see exactly what he described and was in full sympathy with; and just because his ideals and aspirations concerning the hereafter were not quite the same as Emerson's, his own selected heaven would not be the same as that chosen by one whose tastes and feelings were in many respects unlike his own. By carrying out the dominant Swedenborgian theory of will and choice as ruling factors regulating our condition in the heavens, we can dispose of many difficulties which appear at first insuperable, and it must be with Swedenborg himself for guide that his own philosophy will yet be much more fully elucidated. Here we may rest our argument, at least for the immediate present. We all make our own spiritual conditions here and hereafter, and the same law works uniformly in all worlds and through all ages. In accordance with the strictest implications of this rational and orderly proposition, we can logically proceed to construct a sound, sane, and ever-widening philosophy.