to the spiritual world? Every thing is made present by poetical creation, and in some measure familiar to us; the persons, indeed, appear somewhat strange to us; not much more strange however than foreigners of our own hemisphere; and every thing seems natural, and not much unlike what we have commonly been accustomed to, saving that in heaven, it is more splendid and glowing than any of the ob jects, and scenes, and landscapes, which we witness on earth. Nothing reminds us of a spiritual world, but the perpetual recurrence of the words, and the constantly repeated asser tion that, though the beings, and scenes, and substances are all such as we here behold, yet they are still spiritual. No sort of relative connexions between individuals and societies are unknown. Weddings have been witnessed by Sweden. borg in heaven, and illicit love in hell. And though the union of the sexes in heaven is represented as consisting of the most pure and elevated affections, yet it is described in terms of such rapturous delight, and depending so entirely upon the distinctions of sex, that it seems to differ little from a virtuous and refined state of wedlock in this terrestrial world. In what then does the heaven of Swedenborg differ materially from the heavenly paradise of Mahomet ? In the christian scriptures a cloud hangs over the future, which does not indeed destroy our curiosity, but which makes our hopes and our conceptions obscure and imperfect, as they ever must be, concerning a state of being we have never wit nessed, and whence no traveller has returned. It doth not yet appear what we shall be: this however is the dead letter, and Swedenborg finds the internal sense to be-It doth now appear what we shall be. In heaven they are neither married nor given in marriage:' of this the internal sense is, that marriages are frequent in heaven, celebrated with splendour and enjoyed with rapture. It is not possible, we affirm, in our state of being, to conceive of such representations, without sensual images; without having a material world brought to view, newly decorated indeed, and tricked out with an ornate drapery worthy of a fabulous age; but essentially the same as that in which we now live and move, Waving the difference of character between the two pretended prophets, and allowing that Swedenborg was selfdeceived, and that Mahomet was a wicked impostor, which we think is doing justice to both; there appears to be no essential difference in the evidence with which their revelations are accompanied. Mahomet, as well as Swedenborg, admitted the inspiration of Moses, and the authority of the Pentateuch, and of the prophetic writings; and also acknowledged the divine mission of Christ, and the truth of the christian scriptures. Mahomet claimed to be commissioned to purify these former dispensations from their corruptions, and as the last and greatest prophet, to communicate divine instruction to mankind. Swedenborg professed to be instructed from heaven to exalt what was low in our conceptions of the Jewish and Christian religions, and to unfold that which, though comprising their most valuable contents, was before unknown. Both think rather meanly of the miracles of Moses and of Christ. The Mahometan accounts the Koran itself as a perpetual miracle, and the greatest of miracles; the Swedenborgian esteems the inspiration discovered in the writings of his prophet, and the intercourse which he held with the spiritual world, too dignified to be placed in competition with the greatest miracles that were ever wrought. The remarks made by Mr. White, in his Bampton Lectures, concerning Mahomet's representations of another life, apply with no material variation to Swedenborg's account of the spiritual world. He (Mahomet) generally descends to an unnecessary minuteness and particularity in his representations of another life, which excite disgust and ridicule, instead of reverence: and even his most animated descriptions of the joys of paradise, or the torments of hell, however strong and glowing the colours in which they are painted, are yet far inferior in point of true sublimity, and far less calculated to promote the interests of piety by raising the hopes and alarming the fears of rational beings, than that degree of obscurity in which the future life of the gospel is still involved, and those more general terms in which its promises and threatenings are proposed to mankind.' One remark has forced itself upon us, in our examination of the writings of Swedenborg and his disciples, that they turn what is just enough as a rhetorical comparison into a proposition of logical truth. We have no objection to comparing the radiance of truth to the radiance of light, nor to likening the progress of the understanding to the progress of the horse. These figures of speech, though good taste forbids their being harped on, are extremely excusable, particularly in young writers. The evil is to turn this into a foundation for grammatical interpretation, to say because truth is like the sun, that wherever the sun is mentioned in an ancient author, truth is meant; and that when he speaks of chariots and horses, he does not mean chariots and horses, but doctrines and tenets; and that what the honest reader had taken for a four legged animal is after all a great theological mystery. Moreover, if we may here waste an argument, this said doctrine of correspondences seems quite shallow and drawn up with very little skill. If every thing here has a correspondence with higher things, and the horse and chariots, the trees and rivers of this world mean doctrines, and science, and understanding, and good; what do the truth, and science, and good, which are here, correspond to? Because all these things to a certain degree exist, as well as horses and trees; and having assigned your spiritual ideas as correspondences to earthly chariots and horses, what have you left to correspond to earthly reason, judgment, conscience. For instance, in interpretation, let us grant that the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof' has nothing to do with the miraculous event, which actually was taking place, or with a real vision, but refers to some mystical notions of doctrine and knowledge. What then will you do with every prudent man dealeth with knowledge ;'* to what does that correspond? Or is the system timid and pusillanimous, seeking correspondences where they are convenient, and shrinking from a thorough work? 6 We have devoted more of our pages than we first intended, to a subject which some of our readers may think undeserving of so much attention. When we began our remarks, we were disposed to believe the doctrine of the New Jerusalem rather a harmless delusion, except as it regards those who profess to be, or expect to become, teachers of the christian religion; a harmless delusion, we mean, to the individual who embraces it, for we are far from admitting the innocency of error. Solitary instances there may be of persons of a peculiar temperament, who by superadding to the simple doctrines and plain moral precepts of Christ, a religion of the imagination, attain to a state of serenity, of cheerfulness, and of hope, amidst all the vicissitudes of this mortal life, far beyond what falls to the lot of most good christians. But we must be careful how we admit this as an argument; for * Prev. xiii. 16. such a religion is not far removed from one that consists in raptures, and ecstacies, and perpetual revelations, and borders on madness. If, in the course of our remarks, there be any seeming want of courtesy towards the members of the New Jerusalem, or any disregard to their feelings, we can truly affirm that nothing of this kind was intended. We are happy in this place to declare, that we have known those of this communion (who are now beyond the reach of our praise or blame, but who, if living, we should be most loth to wound) in whom, we believe, resided spirits as pure, as amiable, and as exalted, as humanity admits. And we still know many of the same communion, who merit similar praise. Our prepossessions therefore in a great portion of individual examples have been in favour of the benign influence of this new doctrine, though we have never deemed them sufficiently numerous to establish a general conclusion. In the little progress that this new doctrine has made in our country, and throughout the christian world, we perceive no occasion for alarm. If we have given an account sufficiently full and fair of what is peculiar to it, it must be evident, we think, that it is a religion suited to a few and a few only. Such vagaries, as make up a great part of the scheme, can never take possession of a well balanced mind; and so great is the demand which they make on our credulity, that the proselyting brethren of the new church generally begin their operations, by recommending to the inquirer such of the writings of Swedenborg, as are least likely to excite merriment or disgust. His expositions of the commonly received doctrines of christianity, in many cases, seem to us the most probable, and in many they appear very irrational and absurd. But, as we before remarked, it is what is peculiar in his views of religion that chiefly concerns us, and furnishes the true ground to try his exalted pretensions. If in this trial he is not found wanting, we must give up all title to sound judgment in weighing evidence, and with it all anxiety about the progress of error, superstition, and fanaticism; for if the understanding of all mystery and all knowledge is to be attained in dreams and visions only, who would not abstract himself from the world, and commune by day and by night with beings all pure, and perfect, and wise, in the world of spirits? C. Custing. ART. VI.-1. Reflexions Politiques sur quelques Ouvrages et Journaux Français concernant Hayti, par M. le Baron de Vastey, Secrétaire du Roi, Chevalier de l'Ordre Royal et Militaire de Saint Henry, Précepteur de Son Altesse Royale Monseigneur le Prince Royale d' Hayti &c. A Sans-Souci, de l'Imprimerie Royale, 1817, 8vo. pp. xx. 206. 2. Reflexions sur les Noirs et les Blancs &c. par le Baron de Vastey. Au Cap-Henry, chez P. Roux, Imprimeur du Roi, 1816, 8vo. pp. 112. 3. Acte de l'Indépendance d'Hayti. Au Cap-Henry, 4to. 4. Code Henry. Au Cap-Henry, chez P. Roux, Imprimeur du Roi, 1812, 8vo. pp. 754. 5. Gazette Royale d'Hayti. 6. Des Almanachs Royals d'Hayti, 8vo. 7. Des Ordonnances, Declarations, Proclamations, &c. du Roi d' Hayti. 8. Relation de la Fête de S. M. la Reine d' Hayti avec un Coupl'œil Politique sur la Situation actuelle du Royaume d'Hayti. Au Cap-Henry, chez P. Roux, Imprimeur du Roi, 1816, 8vo. pp. 76. 9. L'Entrée du Roi en sa Capitale, Opera Vaudeville, par M. le Comte de Rosiers. A Sans-Souci, de l'Imprimerie Royale, 1818, 8vo, pp. 43. SOME of these works have considerable intrinsic merit; and we have therefore resolved to place them before our readers, not only because they are little, if at all, known in this country, but also because they were written by the descendants of negroes, and by nobles of the late kingdom of Hayti. They will afford us a specimen of the literature of that singular nation, and some means of judging of the intellectual dignity, which a population of blacks may hope to reach, in the most favourable circumstances. The writings of M. de Vastey, which consist of a chief part of the works at the head of this article and of a few pamphlets of less importance, are very favourable specimens of the native mental force of a Haytian. Self-educated, as are most of his countrymen of any distinction, struggling constantly for the first thirty years of his life against every thing which could damp or stifle a literary ambition, he has nevertheless acquired a respectable style, a correct knowledge of his language, and a store of information of considerable variety and |