“Third—How patiently does God, through inflexible and unerring law, work out such stupendous results.
“Fourth—Man while in the flesh would arrogate unto himself the attributes of a God, when in truth it requires ages of effort and progress only to disclose to him that yet he is not yet an angel. But still how grand are the possibilities before man, inviting him onward. They can not be fully conceived by the finite mind, much less described.
“We saw many translucent streams, whose pellucid waters were charming to behold. There is a law appertaining to all advanced spiritual intelligences that induces the profoundest meditation, the sublimest adoration, when beholding, although only partially, the infinite variety and splendors of the creation; and I must occasionally pause in my narrative to give expression to this law of my soul.
“We were next conducted to a vast building, wherein was deposited the grandest library of books, and they were simply collections on scientific subjects alone. Elsewhere were vast collections on other subjects not intimately connected with science—books as tangible and objective to us as the slate on which I am writing is to your touch and sight. Mr. Swedenborg, being naturally of a scientific turn of mind, became absorbingly interested in this department, and it was with reluctance he took his departure therefrom. He made arrangements to return to study some things to be found here and which he has not been able to find elsewhere. He is promised aid by the members of the Society of the Literati.
“We then visited an assembly of representative men, and I am now about to tell you something that will surprise you, but it is nevertheless true. When I use the expression representative men I mean that each planet has representatives to every other planet in the solar system. I must reserve the next sitting for a description of the grand system of planetary diplomacy—envoys extraordinary or ministers plenipotentiary, as you would call them. The power is too nearly exhausted to enter upon the subject at this sitting. We notify you now that by these ministrations and recitals you are living many, many years in advance of this age of your planet.
“April 3. In your solar system you only claim eight planets, exclusive of the Asteroids between Mars and Jupiter, but the truth is there are thirteen in number; five of them have long since passed into their spiritual orbits, and consequently are not objective to your telescopes, and this state is to be the ultimate of all planets. Every planet, including the earth, is continually undergoing change, that is to say, gradually passing from the gross to the more refined, and by a continually advancing series of geologic and progressive changes from the lower to the higher, from the crude to the more refined, from the material toward the spiritual, all will ultimately in time pass into spiritual conditions or orbits. But as this theme is scientific, and not directly in the line of or pertinent to my narrative, I will abandon it, at least for the present.
“In my last I told you that each planet was favored with representatives from every other planet in our system, and it is from this system, spiritually originating, that you have derived your system of international representation. I do not mean that any spirit communicated this to the nations, but that in the early formation of nationalities and the commercial intercourse between nations, susceptible public men, by reason of their exceeding impressibility, got the inspiration from surrounding spiritual influences, and to a certain degree and extent carried it into execution in the establishment of ambassadorial relations between friendly governmental powers. But there is a marked difference between your nations and the spiritual worlds in the objects and purposes of such system. In the spiritual worlds representatives are deputed one to the other for an entirely different purpose from yours in sending ministers to England, France, Russia, etc. Your accredited agents of government abroad are simply spies to watch other countries, lest some trivial advantage may be gained against you in some minor and unimportant matter. Selfishness is the law by which they are to be governed. They are expected to be, and generally are, lorded and feasted, dined and wined, all in the high-sounding names of civilization and national urbanity. Ours are sent on an entirely different mission—to gather knowledge for the benefit of all. Our public and representative men are not engaged in learning the rules and laws of the stock market, how to manipulate it and how to create corners in the bountiful productions vouchsafed by the Infinite, nor how to secure safe investments with large and profitable margins, but to learn the laws of the planets, to the end that they may be utilized in the development and progress of their varied and numerous peoples. Through whatever other planets, farther advanced than ours—have passed, we, too, must pass, and hence by our representative spirits learning of their varied progressive experiences, they are enabled to prepare for and assist in the changes that must inevitably ensue.
“I can not carry my thought further than to say in addition that our solar system, as a system in its entirety, has representatives to thousands of other solar systems revolving in space, circling around their respective central suns. You perceive that the grandeur of creative glory is looming up before us in majestic proportions, far beyond our power to comprehend and portray. We look forward with great pleasure to each succeeding meeting, when we hope to continue our narrative if conditions continue to favor us.
“April 6. After feasting in the examination of the library of the Society of the Literati I felt an intense desire to learn something in regard to the religious teachings on the planet in its past, as applied to the embodied Marsians, in the curious desire to find out whether their theological and religious history bore any resemblance to ours, and if dissimilar, wherein by contrast the dissimilarity consisted. Of course, in the very nature of things, this opened up a wide field of investigation, and I can only give you points condensed and with the utmost brevity, and without any attempt at elaboration. As I have already informed you, the denizens of Mars do not use our language or mode of speech, and therefore I am compelled to transfer their thoughts into our language, and you must consider that much will be lost in the transmission.
“The planet Mars, in point of time, is much older than the earth, and consequently has passed through many more changes; these successive changes or epochs have had their respective theologies, and I was utterly surprised to learn that in some respects they resembled ours—that is to say, their earlier theology—the later and truer has no resemblance whatever to ours or any that we have had in the past. The people of Mars in the dim and distant ages of the bygone have had many gods and many bibles. Their older books or bibles are now treasured as simple curiosities belonging to the infancy of the race, and the wonder now is how it was possible at any period of their history that a people could be found seemingly so hopelessly ignorant as to believe them. The same fate, my friend, awaits your Bibles, Korans, Zend-Avestas, etc. But in all their speculations in religion they were never taught to believe that their remote ancestors had fallen from an imaginary state of perfection, nor that somebody else’s sufferings and death were imperatively necessary to extricate them from the peril, and to reinstate them into the loving esteem and saving grace of their creator. While they had many follies in their early history, they had none like unto our own. They never believed God to be angry and revengeful nor that he would ever destroy their own or any other world by water, fire or otherwise, nor that men were made out of dust and women from ribs, nor that fish swallowed men, preserved them in good condition in their stomachs, and delivered them subsequently and in safety upon the dry land. These silly recitals of your bible will be ridiculed and laughed at some of these coming happy days.”