LATER PERIOD OF LIFE: CONCLUSION
was tender and touching:—'Whether I shall come again, that,' said he, 'I do not know; but of this I can assure you, for the Lord has promised to me, that I shall not die until I have received from the press this work, the Vera Christiana Religio, which is now ready to be printed, and for the sake of which I now undertake this journey; but if we do not meet again in the body, we shall meet in the presence of the Lord, provided we live in this world according to His will, and not according to our own.' He then took leave of me in as blithe and cheerful a frame of mind as if he had been a man in his best of years; and the same day he departed from Sweden for the last time.
"I asked Swedenborg once whether his explanations would be received in Christendom. 'About that,' said he, 'I can say nothing; but I suppose that in their proper time they will be received, for otherwise the Lord would not have disclosed what has heretofore lain concealed.'
"He was never ill, except when temptations came over him, but he was frequently troubled with toothache. I came to him once on such an occasion, when he complained of a severe toothache, which had continued for several days. I re-
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