"After the year 1745 his disciples never saw him do a single thing from a merely human motive.
"One man only, a Swedish priest named Matthésius, accused him of madness. By a singular coincidence this Matthésius, the enemy of Swedenborg and his writings, went mad not long after, and was living a few years since at Stockholm on a pension allowed him by the King of Sweden.
"A discourse in honor of Swedenborg was composed with great care as to the details of his life, and read at a general meeting in the Hall of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Stockholm, by Monsieur de Sandel, Councillor to the College of Mines, in 1786. Finally, a deposition laid before the Lord Mayor of London testifies to the smallest circumstances of Swedenborg's last illness and death under the ministrations of Pastor Férélius, a Swedish ecclesiastic of the highest respectability. The persons attesting declared that, far from recanting, Swedenborg always averred the truth of his writings.
"'In a hundred years' time,' said he, 'my doctrines will govern the Church.'
"He foretold very precisely the day and hour of his death. On that day, Sunday, March 29th, 1772, he asked what o'clock it was.
"'Five o'clock,' was the answer.
"'It is all over,' said he. 'God bless you!'
"And ten minutes after he died quite calmly with a gentle sigh. Thus, moderation, simplicity, and solitude were the features of his life.
"Whenever he had finished writing a treatise, he took ship to have it printed in London or in Holland, and never talked about it. He thus published twenty-seven works in all, written, as he declared, at the dictation of angels. Whether or no this be true, few men are capable of enduring this flaming language.
"Here they all are," said the minister, pointing to an upper shelf on which stood about sixty volumes. "The seven books on which the Spirit of God has shed its brightest light are: The Delights of Wisdom in Conjugal Love; Heaven and Hell; the Apocalypse Explained; An Exposition of the Inward Sense; On the Divine Love; The True Christian Religion; The Angelic Wisdom of the Omnipotence, Omniscience, and Omnipresence of those who share the Eternity and Immensity of God.