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WHEN IS THE NEW JERUSALEM TO COME?

"Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth, as in heaven." When once the will of God is done on earth as in heaven, then is the kingdom of God and the New Jerusalem also come on earth. But for the arrival of this happy state of an universal Christian spirit and truth, an unanimous charity, faith, and hope, within the whole human race, no term or time can be fixed.

A friend of Swedenborg's, the Counsellor of Commerce, Christophe Springer, asked Swedenborg, two or three weeks before his death, the question—“When i the New Jerusalem to come?" Swedenborg answered-"No mortal, not even the angels, know the appointed time. But that it shall come, you can see yourself in Apoc. xxi. 2; Zech. xiv. 9."*

It is in the nature of the subject that nobody, save the Omniscient, can know the hour of this great and marvellous event. We can but hope and prognosticate it. But let us first cause the New Jerusalem doctrines to be spread and preached over the world, and obeyed by its inhabitants; let our love of God and charity to our fellow-creatures be pure and unanimous; let our faith, not with regard to the dogmatical tenets, which vary on earth among men as in heaven among angels,† but with regard to the life of faith, that manifests itself in all Christian goodness and virtue, as the sun manifests itself in daylight, the spring in blossoms, and the summer in fruits; let this faith be unanimous among us, unanimous the hope, the true Christian confidence, which, during all the tempests of time, has its sure anchor-hold beyond the grave, in eternal life; let, then, the communication between the spiritual and the material spheres be more opened than at present, as open as it was in the paradisiacal time of Adam-and we shall see all things renewed, and the great Sabbath-day, whose morning we now are but dimly aware of, dawning upon us.

A Swedish Professor of Oriental Languages, I. I. Björnstähl, gives us, in a letter from London, dated 19th March, 1775, some notices of Mr. Springer, which seem to be not unworthy of being remembered. He says

"I am lodging in the same house as our renowned countryman, Mr. Springer. The old man is now more than seventy-one years of age, but is cheerful and lively. He is familiar with the politics and secret history of Europe, especially

See Springer's Letter to Pernetti, of 18th January, 1782, inserted in the Preface to the latter's French translation of "Heaven and Hell. Berlin, 1782.” + Swedenborg says "Differunt omnes in cœlo quoad vera." (Diar. Spirit., Pars II., sec. 5451.)

"Resa till Frankrike, Italien, Sweitz, Tyrkland, Holland, England, Turkiet, och Grekland. Stockh. 1780." Andra Delen, sidd. 179, 221, 222.

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of Sweden, Russia, and England. He speaks as a prophet of past and future things, is reputed as an oracle even by the highest lords, seems to be cut-out for state affairs, and has a very good administrative capacity. I call him Old Papa of the Swedes here. Through good economy, the Swedish church in London is now rich. Her funds are deposited in the bank, and are not exposed to the danger of being dissipated, as has formerly happened. And this arrangement is due to the prudence of Mr. Springer, who is the oldest supporter of the church, and at present its warden."

Then the letter contains a short account of Springer's life, his commercial and political activity, his misfortunes and imprisonment in Sweden, his travels in foreign countries, as in Russia, Poland, Germany, and England, and his inextinguishable, zealous love of his ungrateful native country. The entire letter is a small, but not inconsiderable, "item" in the Swedish history of the time.

In the above-quoted letter, Mr. Springer says to Pernetti

“I can give no reason for Swedenborg's intimate friendship for me, who am not a learned man. We were, to be sure, acquainted in Sweden; but that our intimacy should be so constant as it has been, I never could have imagined. All that Swedenborg has told me concerning my deceased friends and enemies, and the secret transactions I have had with them, is more than astonishing," &c.

Perhaps Springer had his old friendship and familiar conversations with Swedenborg to thank for the circumstance, that Björnstähl, three years after Swedenborg's death, was still admiring Springer's words as those of a prophet or an oracle.

Lund, Sweden.

ACH. KAHL.

MENTAL EXCITEMENT.

By the late Rev. W. MASON.

AN excitable temperament is, without doubt, a great misfortune to its possessor; but if the giving way to it be a fault, and that fault be measured by the extent of the mischief it causes, it is a very serious fault indeed. Not only does it deal acrimoniously and unjustly, because it exaggerates the errors of those with whom it enters into judgment; not only does it exhibit want of patience, calmness, and candour, on occasions of collisions of interest or opinion; but it is the fruitful creator of faults in others, by disturbing their equanimity, exciting their hostility, and opening in their lower principles the sluices of false, perverting, bitter thoughts, and not the less so because policy may restrain them from going forth into corresponding devouring expressions. Devouring expressions they may indeed be called, because of their tendency so to

act upon the original kindler of the fire as to destroy in him, for the time, all capacity of rectitude of judgment. Such a disturbing of the equilibrium of social life does, it must be admitted, sometimes originate with persons who, in the main, are well-disposed, and even, in some degree, sincerely religious. In this case, an excitable temperament proves not to be incompatible with a subsequent considerable exercise of forbearance towards those who have been brought into a state of hostility by it, when that hostility retaliates by resentful words or actions. The unhappy subject of excitement has had time to cool. Reason reveals the mischief he has done; and then conscience whispers that it would be better not to return evil for evil, since the present offender was not the real originator of the strife. But what is the effect of this too-late forbearance? In most cases it tends to confirm the injured party in his view of the greatness of his unprovoked injury; it appears like a confession of offence without the accompaniment of contrition.

Truly there is no bane of human existence more general or more deadly than excitement; it is so general, because mankind are so extensively under the influence of the affections of the natural man, which are its origin. The affections of the internal man are ordinate and pacific; and so are those of the external, when under the influence of the internal. With those whose internal is closed, being altogether unregenerate, the affections of the natural man break out into excess of feeling, when not restrained by external considerations,-an eager excitement which disturbs the operation of the judgment, by distorting the view of men and things. With those in whom the internal is opened, and who are in some degree regenerate, the natural man may from want of vigilance, or owing to peculiarity of temperament, for a time cast off the restraints of the internal man, and go into action by itself, and the necessary result is an over eagerness or excitement, and its sad consequences.

When a man has fallen into a state of excitement, and so long as it continues, his presence exercises an unhappy influence upon all who come into communication with him. The influence of one class of affections will by this means extend itself injuriously into the sphere of another. Thus, a person begins with feeling cross about something, or about nothing; he may feel not well; perhaps he has been disappointed in some matter, and this influences his behavour to persons in no way connected with that matter. A child may vex a parent prone to sudden excitement; and then the other parent, the servant, or the friend, may come in the way of the party thus thrown off his equilibrium, and so

come in for the influence of the already clouded or stormy sky. He feels that this is not justly due to him; a counter excitement is occasioned; both parties are in a state not pacific. Hence comes eventually a realisation of the words of James-" Behold how great a matter a little fire kindleth!" From the mere circumstance of having lost time and being in a hurry, an excited tone is given to the voice;-the words flow hastily, and therefore not considerately, or with a just anticipation of consequences. In this state of feeling, remarks of what should have been, or concerning what is wished to be, by an excess in their spirit, and want of proportion in their form, strike upon others harshly, put them out of their proper key, and the result is discord with increase. Who has not often seen, and too often felt, "how great a matter a little fire kindleth"? Many an unhappy marriage has had no cause for its unhappiness but the proneness to excitement in one or both of the parties. Even where the parties have had all the other elements of concord, the existence of excitement with one party has effectually precluded uniting qualities from going into union, or keeping in union, which, but for that excitement, would have become most tenderly united. It would not be far from the truth to conclude that this excitement is the great cause of disunion between married parties, parents and children, employers and servants of every kind.

And here the question may be asked, What useful conclusion is to be drawn from the fact of the existence of this excitement? What is the revelation intended to be made to us by the detection of its commencement? To this it may be answered that, like pain in the body, it should be regarded as a warning of the approach of danger, as an indication that some source of evil is open and active. If, then, a person instead of being watchful against it, and so curbing the natural man, or instead of being warned by it of the commencing disorder, suffers it to spread a dark veil over his thoughts, and communicate a peace-destroying tendency to his actions, he is like a man who is led by pain of body to commit suicide or murder, instead of consulting his medical adviser.

A previous remark is worthy of being repeated, that it is one of the sad results of giving way to excitement, that when the subject of it has done the mischief, and becomes painfully sensible of the existence of it, it is commonly too late to remedy it. The unguarded remark, the unmeasured, and therefore so far, the undeserved reproof, has incurably alienated an excitable mind not used to self-government. A friend is turned into an enemy; a child, into a repining slave; a servant, well enough before, into a vindictive plague. In fact, the too late restraint

of excitement has an effect on some persons altogether for the worse, just as, when a braggart boy is beaten by another at school, his subsequent submissiveness is attributed altogether to his cowardice, and is therefore treated only with contempt and derision.

It is strange that, although obviously a guard against the evils of excitement is most urgently called for when we have to deal with the ignorant who have not attained self-government, being unacquainted even with its laws-and such persons are servants and uneducated persons in general-there is the greater proneness to give way to excited feeling and unguarded expressions. People will commonly guard against betraying excitement in the company of well-bred persons, who would be able to refer it to its proper source, and would not therefore be so likely to be affected by it, while in dealing with the low minds of their inferiors and dependents, they yield themselves up to the pernicious influences of excited feeling. Surely, the more ignorant the parties we have to deal with, the more circumspect we ought to be in our matter and manner,-in what we say, and how we say it; and that on the grounds both of duty and policy. It is by this means-adopting the simile applied to servants, that a new broom sweeps clean"-that the broom which sweeps clean at first, may not only be kept from wearing out, but be caused to sweep cleaner and cleaner the whole time that it remains in use.

Even the mere appearance of excitement is injurious, when, in reality, nothing is felt but a legitimate earnestness of purpose. The observer easily mistakes the latter for the former. Strong intellectual convictions are urged with an imprudent degree of vehemence; and what may be, viewed in themselves, calm and sober deductions, pass with others for heated, and perhaps angry expressions of passion and excited feeling, and nothing more.

In conclusion, it may be observed, that if a person be found frequently "at outs" with his friends or his servants, it may safely be calculated, on general principles, that excitement has done the mischief. Great matters originate from trifles, and spread and increase like the plague; and on taking a calm and clear retrospect, it is found that the whole "great matter" originated at the first from a "little fire!"—a little of that fire of hell by which the natural man is actuated in every one, immediately the Lord's precept is forgotten-"Watch and pray, lest ye fall into temptation."

Every good man desires to live in peace,-desires to possess and preserve, as well as to merit estimation,-desires to be rightly understood, and rightly to understand,-desires to recommend his principles