cannot, as I understood, be removed from it but by process of law; he is therefore likely to enjoy a support from it during the remainder of his days; a providential provision, by which he will be enabled, I trust, to go on performing the high uses for the church in which he has been so long engaged. He became acquainted with the doctrines, as he told me, at the age of seventeen, first hearing of them from a person, if I remember rightly, in whose employment he was, or with whom he was studying, and who was a partial receiver of them, but rather more inclined to the views of Jacob Behmen. (What great uses are oftentimes unconsciously performed by feeble instruments! This instance should teach us to despair of no efforts, however seemingly ineffectual, to make the doctrines known; one who becomes but a partial receiver of them, may be the means of introducing them to another who will become a full receiver, and a most efficient man to the church.) After passing through the Tubingen University, Dr. Tafel studied divinity, and began to preach; but on his views becoming known, was soon suspended. At the early age of twenty-five he began to labor in the cause of the New Church.

"I spent four days with Dr. Tafel, and, as may be supposed, had much interesting conversation with him on a variety of topics. He speaks English remarkably well for one who has never been in a country where that language, is spoken. He informed me, that in consequence of a decree of the German Diet, tolerating to a partial extent meetings of religious dissenters, it had been determined at once to take advantage of it, by calling a Convention of the receivers of the New Church doctrines in Germany and Switzerland, which was to be held at Canstadt, near Stuttgardt, on the 1st of October. This seemed and excellent movement. He showed me the manuscripts of Swedenborg's Adversaria, and also of the newly-discovered scientific work On Generation. The hand-writing is exceedingly difficult to read, and it would seem to require a degree of patience and perseverance possessed almost peculiarly by the German mind, to edit such manuscripts. The eminent use which Dr. Tafel is now performing in this way it seems as if he was peculiarly fitted for, and it surely behooves the church at large to sustain him in it. He was a little discouraged, just at this time, by having received information from the London Printing Society, that, on account of the embarrassed state of their finances, they would be unable to aid him any further for a considerable time to come. I trust that efforts will be made in America, east and west, to sustain Dr. Tafel in the prosecution of his important labors.

"The last day of my stay was Sunday. We held a little meeting of worship, and at Dr. Tafel's request I read them a short discourse, the first New Church sermon, as he remarked, that he had ever heard. It was a pleasant time for us, our number, indeed, was small enough,—there were none but Dr. and Mrs. Tafel and myself; but we thought of the Lord's words, 'Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.' On the same evening, at nine o'clock, I took leave of my kind friends, with many affectionate words at parting; thus concluding a visit which had been exceedingly interesting, and one to be remembered as long as I live.”

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"On my way through France, I stopped to pay a visit to M. Le Boys des Guays, the author of that admirable work, the Letters to a Man of the World. St. Amand, the residence of M. Le Boys des Guays, is about thirty miles south of Bourges, whence there is a railway to Paris. I reached St. Amand about six in the evening, and soon found M. Le Boys des Guays' house. On hearing my name, and that I was from America, he welcomed me with much warmth and cordiality. He is rather under the middle size, a man of quick, ardent temperament, dark hair and eyes, and small fine features, and speaks very rapidly. He is fifty-four years of age, though you would not take him for more than forty-five. His countenance has a very sincere and earnest expression, not unlike that of Dr. Tafel,-except that the one is a German and the other a Frenchman. M. Le Boys des Guays does not speak English; he reads it a little. He took me up at once into his study, where, at that table, he has labored so

many years in the cause of the New Church. He writes, as he informed me, ten hours a day,-viz. from seven to nine in the morning, from eleven to five, and then again from seven till nine in the evening. He said he was never so happy as when poring over the works of Swedenborg; he seemed then to be in the full sphere of spiritual truth, which was delightful to him. He has now reached the twenty-second chapter of Exodus, in his translation of the Arcana, and expects to finish the work in a few months. He then intends to undertake the Apocalypse Explained. He informed me, that he has been a receiver of the doctrines fourteen years, having become acquainted with them while on a visit to Paris, when about forty years of age. After much interesting conversation, we went out to visit some of the members of the society. The number of receivers here is about twenty-five; there are usually present at worship from twelve to fifteen. The meetings are held in M. Le Boys des Guays' house, and he officiates as minister to the society. After a pleasant evening, spent at the house of one of the members, who is married to an English lady, I returned to M. Le Boys des Guays' to pass the night. The next morning he woke me early, to take a walk with him to a neighboring hill, which commanded a fine view of the town and surrounding country. St. Amand is rather a handsome town, of about 8,000 inhabitants; the country around is beautiful. M. Le Boys des Guays was for some time prefect of the district, but resigned the post, and at present holds no office, public or private, but, as I understood, is possessed of a moderate competency, which supports him. Returning to breakfast, I had the pleasure of being introduced to Madame Le Boys des Guays, an interesting and intelligent lady. At nine o'clock I was forced to bid adieu to my kind friends, taking the diligence to Bourges, and thence the railway to Paris, which I reached the same evening at ten o'clock."—Intel. Repos. p. 35-39.

SUPPLEMENT TO SWEDENBORG'S "ANIMAL KINGDOM."

"No

Our readers, we are certain, will be glad to learn, that the parts necessary to complete the magnificent work on the " Animal Kingdom," have recently arrived from the press in Germany. Our indefatigable friend Dr. Tafel has edited the work with his usual care and ability, from the manuscripts kindly lent for that purpose by the Royal Academy of Sciences at Stockholm, to the Swedenborg Association in London. The" Animal Kingdom," as translated by Mr. Wilkmson, was described by Mr. Emerson, in his lectures at the Manchester Athenæum, as one of the most magnificent works of the age. thing (said Mr. Emerson) could exceed his bold and brilliant treatment of a subject usually so dry and repulsive; it was a picture of nature so wide and free, as the most impassioned poet could not have surpassed," &c. It is obvious that the publication of the Animal Kingdom in English, and also of the philosophical works of the author, is the pioneer to the acknowledgment of Swedenborg's claims as a writer on theology, and on the loftiest subjects that can engage the human mind. We therefore congratulate the "Swedenborg Association" on possessing the parts necessary to the completion of the Animal Kingdom. The general contents of the work are, 1. On the common trunks of the Carotid Arteries. 2. The common branch of the External Carotid Artery. 3. On Sensation in General. 4. On the Sense of Smell. 5. On the Ear and the Sense of Hearing. 6. On the Eye and the Sense of Vision. 7. On Light and Colors. 8. On the Senses, or, on Sensation in General. Epilogue. This chapter is of immense importance; it is suggestive of the highest philosophy in relation to the mind, its perceptions and affections, and its operations in general. 9. The rules, or laws of Harmonics, or Music, and, lastly, 10. On the Understanding and its Operations. This chapter teaches us what logic really is, or how, according to nature, we must proceed to form ideas, and to develope the powers of the mind. This work is of great importance, not only to the scientific, but to the general reader. To the teacher it presents numerous suggestions as to the development and cultivation of the mind; pointing out the true order in which we must proceed to

arrive at correct ideas on all subjects, and also the relation between the natural and spiritual state of man; showing that only in the spiritual state can the true and happy destiny of man be realised and enjoyed. The work is prepared in the usual lucid and scientific form of the author. It now remains to be seen how soon this useful work can be translated and published. Mr. Wilkinson, we are glad to hear, is girding himself again for the labor of translating, and in a short time, if properly encouraged, will present it to the public in an English dress. To this end, however, subscribers are indispensably required, who, we trust, will readily, yea, zealously come forward to assist the publication of this work, which completes the Animal Kingdom of Swedenborg.-Intel. Repos. Jan. 1849.

PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTS ILLUSTRATING SWEDENBORG'S DOCTRINE OF THE SOUL.

THE following letters are taken from the Autobiography of Sir John Barrow, Bart., and are inserted here from the" Morning Herald" of September 18th, 1848. The sensations which the young man, whilst in the act of drowning, experienced, caused, especially to the minds of Lady Spencer and Sit Henry Halford, much thoughtful inquiry. We present the following documents to our readers, because we believe that Swedenborg, in his works referred to below, has explained this (as Sir John Barrow designates it) "most curious, mysterious, and solemn subject;"-

Sensation while in the Act of Drowning.

"I cannot here omit (says Sir John Barrow) the opportunity of giving to those who may condescend to peruse my little volume, the following clearly! expressed letter of the late Lady Spencer, describing with great accuracy, from having once only heard it read, a most interesting letter of great length and circumstantial detail, on a subject most curious, mysterious, and solemn. "The letter of Lady Spencer is as follows:

'MY DEAR MR. BARROW,

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Spencer House, December 6, 1829.

"I am not going to ask a job of you, but to request your assistance to ob tain from Captain Beaufort, the very intelligent and eminent hydrographer, actually at the head of his peculiar department, the favor I am exceedingly anxious to procure from him.

"Some years since, my dear and regretted friend, Dr. W. Wollaston, showed me a most interesting and extraordinary letter, addressed to him from Captain Beaufort, in which he had, at the particular request of Dr. Wollaston, described his own sensations and thoughts, of body and mind, while in the act of drown ing, when a young man, in Portsmouth harbor. He was happily preserved from a fatal termination of this alarming accident; but he one day described so vividly and so strikingly his state of mind while in danger of death under water, and again while in the process of recovery on shipboard, that Dr. Wollaston was instantly solicitous and earnest to persuade him to write down the precise details, which he had so admirably related to him.

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Captain Beaufort yielded to his entreaties, and wrote to him the letter which Wollaston read to me, and of which he promised to give me a copy, on my eagerly petitioning him to do so. Alas! he was seized by disease and died before he performed his promise. Now, my present object in troubling you, my dear Sir, is to entreat you to discover if Captain Beaufort would kindly bestow on me a copy of this highly interesting narrative. Wollaston told me that he was very anxious to prepare that which he possessed for the Royal Society; and this leads me to suppose that Captain Beaufort was not unwilling to impart it to his friends, since it had been in contemplation to prepare it for the public eye. God knows he might safely exhibit such a description

of fortitude and rectitude of thought as this beautiful account of his mind displays, when in the fearful peril of death. Yet I feel that my request to possess it requires the intermediate assistance which I venture to claim from you. "Sir Henry Halford has urged me so strongly to attempt to acquire this valuable document, that he gave me courage to make the attempt. He is pursuing a peculiar subject, to which this very curious statement of facts relative to the human mind, while struggling with death, would be of invaluable assistance. In conversation with him on this topic, I naturally mentioned the letter Wollaston had shown to me; and the result of our conversation was a strong desire of obtaining a copy of it. You now have all I can say to excuse my present application. Will you forgive me? I feel sure that you will. Believe me, my dear Sir,

"Entirely yours,

"LAVINIA SPENCER.'

"I shall now insert a copy of the letter sought for by her ladyship, which has been kindly given to me, at my request by Admiral Beaufort; and which, for its composition and style, but still more for its subject, is deserving of, and will receive, the approbation and admiration of all who may peruse it; being no common subject, nor handled in a common manner.

"Copy of a Letter to Dr. W. Hyde Wollaston, written, I think, in 1825, and returned to me by his Executor in 1829.-F. B.

"Dear Dr. Wollaston.-The following circumstances, which attended my being drowned, have been drawn up at your desire; they had not struck me as being so curious as you consider them, because, from two or three persons who, like myself, had been recovered from a similar state, I have heard a detail of their feelings, which resembled mine as nearly as was consistent with our different constitutions and dispositions.

"Many years ago, when I was a youngster on board one of his Majesty's ships in Portsmouth harbor, after sculling about in a very small boat, I was endeavoring to fasten her alongside the ship to one of the scuttlerings; in foolish eagerness I stepped upon the gunwale, the boat of course upset, and I fell into the water, and not knowing how to swim, all my efforts to lay hold either of the boat or of the floating sculls were fruitless. The transaction had not been observed by the sentinel on the gangway, and therefore it was not till the tide had drifted me some distance astern of the ship that a man in the foretop saw me splashing in the water, and gave the alarm. The first lieutenant instantly and gallantly jumped overboard, the carpenter followed his example, and the gunner hastened into a boat and pulled after them.

"With the violent, but vain, attempts to make myself heard, I had swallowed much water; I was soon exhausted by my struggles, and before any relief reached me I had sunk below the surface-all hope had fled-all exertion ceased-and I felt that I was drowning.

"So far, these facts were either partially remembered after my recovery, or supplied by those who had latterly witnessed the scene; for during an interval of such agitation a drowning person is too much occupied in catching at every passing straw, or too much absorbed by alternate hope and despair, to mark the succession of events very accurately. Not so, however, with the facts which immediately ensued; my mind had then undergone the sudden revolution which appeared to you so remarkable-and all the circumstances of which are now as vividly fresh in my memory as if they had occurred but yesterday.

From the moment all exertions had ceased-which I imagine was the immediate consequence of complete suffocation-a calm feeling of the most perfect tranquillity superseded the previous tumultuous sensations-it might be called apathy, certainly not resignation, for drowning no longer appeared to be an evil-I no longer thought of being rescued, nor was I in any bodily pain. On the contrary, my sensations were now of rather a pleasurable cast, partak ing of that dull but contented sort of feeling which precedes the sleep produc

ed by fatigue. Though the senses were thus deadened, not so the mind; its activity seemed to be invigorated, in a ratio which defies all description-for thought rose after thought with a rapidity of succession that is not only indescribable, but probably inconceivable by any one who has not himself been in a similar situation. The course of those thoughts I can even now in a great measure retrace-the event which had just taken place-the awkwardness that had produced it-the bustle it must have occasioned (for I had observed two persons jump from the chains)-the effect it would have on a most affectionate father-the manner in which he would disclose it to the rest of the family— and a thousand other circumstances minutely associated with home, were the first series of reflections that occurred. They took then a wider range--our last cruise-a former voyage, and shipwreck-my school-the progress I had made there, and the time I had mis-spent-and even all my boyish pursuits and adventures. Thus travelling backwards, every past incident of my life seemed to glance across my recollection in retrograde succession; not, however, in mere outline, as here stated, but the picture filled up with every minute and collateral feature; in short, the whole period of my existence seemed to be placed before me in a kind of panoramic review, and each act of it seemed to be accompanied by a consciousness of right or wrong, or by some reflection on its cause or its consequences; indeed, many trifling events which had been long forgotten then crowded into my imagination, and with the character of recent familiarity.

"May not all this be some indication of the almost infinite power of memory with which we may awaken in another world, and thus be compelled to contemplate our past lives? Or might it not in some degree warrant the inference, that death is only a change or modification of our existence, in which there is no real pause or interruption? But, however that may be, one circumstance was highly remarkable; that the innumerable ideas which flashed into my mind were all retrospective; yet I had been religiously brought up-my hopes and fears of the next world had lost nothing of their early strength, and at any other period intense interest and awful anxiety would have been excited by the mere probability that I was floating on the threshold of eternity; yet at that inexplicable moment, when I had a full conviction that I had already crossed that threshold, not a single thought wandered into the future-I was wrapt entirely in the past.

"The length of time that was occupied by this deluge of ideas, or rather the shortness of time into which they were condensed, I cannot now state with precision, yet certainly two minutes could not have elapsed from the moment of suffocation to that of my being hauled up.

"The strength of the flood-tide made it expedient to pull the boat at once to another ship, where I underwent the usual vulgar process of emptying the water by letting my head hang downwards, then bleeding, chafing, and even admistering gin; but my submersion had been really so brief, that, according to the account of the lookers-on, I was very quickly restored to animation.

"My feelings while life was returning were the reverse in every point of those which have been described above. One single but confused idea-a miserable belief that I was drowning-dwelt upon my mind, instead of the multitude of clear and definite ideas which had recently rushed through it-a helpless anxiety-a kind of continuous nightmare seemed to press heavily on every sense, and to prevent the formation of any one distinct thought-and it was with difficulty that I became convinced that I was really alive. Again, irstead of being absolutely free from all bodily pain, as in my drowning state, I was now tortured by pain all over me; and though I have been since wounded in several places, and have often submitted to severe surgical discipline, yet my sufferings were at that time far greater, at least in general distress. On one occasion I was shot in the lungs, and after lying on the deck at night for some hours bleeding from other wounds, I at length fainted. Now as I felt sure that the wound in the lungs was mortal, it will appear obvious that the overwhelming sensation which accompanies fainting must have produced a perfect conviction that I was then in the act of dying. Yet nothing