Page:Swedenborg, Harbinger of the New Age of the Christian Church.djvu/104

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG

return till November, 1740. Proceeding to Hamburg he called on Pastor Christopher Wolf with letters from Benzelius, as we learn from a letter of Wolf's to Benzelius, dated Sept. 1, 1736:—

"I received recently your most welcome letter, which was handed to me by your relative, the most noble Swedenborg, who was known to me by name already. I value his most celebrated work in mineralogy so much the more, because in the present age scarcely any one can be compared with this most excellent and clear-headed man in this department."

Of this and other journeys and sojourns in foreign lands we have many notes of his own hand, mentioning places, persons, churches, and libraries visited, with interesting comments on the manners and customs of the people, and with an occasional remark on what he then had in hand. It was no longer metallurgy and the material elements that he was studying, but man—body, mind, and soul—and his relation to the Supreme Being. For some years he had given close attention to the study of Anatomy, and to this he now devoted several years' labor, yet with the soul always in view. Already in September

92