Not the statement of a messianic megalomaniac, certainly, and all the evidence of Swedenborg's contemporaries goes to show that he was free from such insanity.
Among his character witnesses, so to speak, there is a Swedish-American pastor by the name of Nicholas Collin, who published his recollections of Swedenborg in the Philadelphia Gazette, in 1801.8
As a young man Collin had had frequent opportunities to see Swedenborg during the years 1765-68, and he too testified that although the latter was firmly persuaded of his religious mission, "he had no desire to see it enforced by violent measures; nor did he exert himself in making proselytes except by his writings. As to Sweden he never intimated a wish to be the head of a sect; but indulged in the fond hope that the ecclesiastical establishment would by a tranquil gradual illumination assume the form of his New Church. His natural mildness, education, connections, learning and experience both in public and private life produced a warm esteem for social order inimical to fanatical turbulence."
Not that Collin thought Swedenborg lukewarm in his beliefs. The Swedish-American Lutheran pastor wrote, "All parties generally agree that he had a firm belief in all his doctrines, and all his visions in the spiritual world. I never heard any person in Sweden surmise the contrary. He withdrew, in the unimpaired possession of his talents, from a career of public life which would have led him to greater honors and emoluments; and he sacrificed the enjoyments of his favorite sciences. He could expect no pecuniary advantage from his new pursuits; and the compensation of honor was dubious. By the laws of Sweden he was not permitted to print his books at home, nor to translate them; neither could he set up as a public teacher."
Pastor Collin was full of admiration for Swedenborg's character, his "integrity and benevolence," but that it was "an extraordinary character" and a frequent subject of public discussion he also admitted. As Collin was tutor in the house of Dr. Celsius, who knew Swedenborg well, he had opportunities to make observations, since the latter not only received company in his own house but "appeared in public and mixed in private societies."
In the summer of 1766 the young tutor himself called on Swe-
