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TESTIMONY OF ULRIKA, QUEEN OF SWEDEN. 229
" ’ Hei-e you have my anecdote from the world of spirits, and I hope you will have noth-
ing to object against the credibility of a lady, such as the late Queen Ulrica was, who tes-
tifies that she herself was the person who experienced the occurrence ; and also that you
will have no objection to an authority like that of M. Thiebault, who having heard it from
the mouth of the Queen herself, has related it to the whole world. By heaven! this is a
wonderful occurrence,—indeed, it would be something quite incredible if it vi^ere not con-
firmed by witnesses so trustworthy. The beautiful feature of the matter is, that suppose
a-.I the tales about the apparition of spirits ia the whole world were set aside as not true,
this single narrative by the Queen Ulrica of a fact which she herself experienced, ought to
give us the greatest certainty as to the continuation of our life, and of our personality after
death;—a fact which renders all the experiments which Dr. W. requires philosophy to
make, superfluous. Swedenborg, an esteemed Swedish nobleman, in independent circum-
stances, a mathematician, a natural philosopher, and a mineralogist by profession, who in
these depaitments of science had acquired celebrity, and during the first fifty years of his
life, was always este-med as a very rational man, assures us, that through the favor of God,
the invisible world was opened unto him,and that thus he could converse face to face with the
spirits of the departed. This man was commissioned by his Queen (in order to put him to
the test, and in a manner in which she considered deception to be impossible) to inquire of
her deceased brother about something, which except herself and her brother nobody could
know. After some days Swedenborg returned to the Queen and told her, word for word,
what she desired to know, stating at the same time, all the particulars as to the place and
the time [where and when the event occurred between herself and her brother]. Swe-
denborg, therefore, must, of necessity, have received his information from the spirit of the
departed; he had consequently seen him and spoken with him; the departed, therefore, stili
continued to live in a world invisible to us; he remembered exactly the most particular cir-
cumstances of his former life, and he had consequently retained his entire personalityJ^’
All this is certain and undeniable, in so far as the Queen and her delaration is concerned.
’Now what can we reasonably desire to know more concerning the continuation of our life
after death ? Could so respectable a guarantee be for a moment doubted ? It appears,
however, that this wonderful proof [of the continuation of our life after death] did net
suffice to heal the Queen of her unbelief, for notwithstanding all this, she at length declared
that she did not believe that Swedenborg had had any conference with her deceased
brother. And (says Wieland) to speak sincerely, I believe it as little as the Queen did.’
*’ Thus Wieland, notwithstanding his entire conviction that ’ Swedenborg must
have seen and spoken with the departed Prince,’ declares his unbelief after all ! And
so it is, for the most part with all miraculous evidence. As, however, there are
some who by these undeniable fads, as both Kant and Wieland call them, may
be led to inquire and to read the writings of Swedenborg, and thus to see, not
from any a posteriori or miraculous evidence, but from the truths themselves
which abound in his works, the genuine doctrines of a renovated Christianityj
denoted by the ’ New Jerusalem.’ "
,
• The Italics in this extract are the same as in the German.
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