This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

beyond the grave, save the simple fact of the soul's immortality?

Whether we consult reason or revelation, therefore, we are brought to the same conclusion. We find ample warrant for the belief that some such disclosures concerning the other world as are found in Swedenborg's pneumatology, are clearly in accordance with the ways and workings of Divine Providence, and therefore to be expected sooner or later. And how could such disclosures be made without the aid of a human instrument? How, but by the opening of the spiritual senses of some chosen and duly qualified servant of the Lord, and his consequent intromission into that world while still an inhabitant of this? How, in short, but in the precise manner alleged by the illustrious Swede?

But we are met with another objection—or rather excuse for giving no serious attention to Swedenborg's pneumatology—which is: That a revelation concerning the spiritual world, even if true, could serve no valuable purpose; that it is needless, and might be worse than useless; that it could only gratify a morbid curiosity or a love of the marvelous, which had better be denied than gratified.

Those who make this objection, or offer this excuse in justification of their indifference respecting the disclosures in question, do so, we think, without sufficient consideration. The same persons would hardly be willing to say, that the astronomer, the student of the higher mathematics, the inventor or builder of telescopes, any one devoted to the acquisition and impartation of knowledge respecting our solar system and the