“Nevertheless,” said Monsieur Becker, slowly, “though I have drunk deep in this torrent of divine light, God has not opened the eyes of my inner being, and I judge these writings by the reason of an unregenerated man.  I have often felt that the inspired Swedenborg must have misunderstood the Angels.  I have laughed over certain visions which, according to his disciples, I ought to have believed with veneration.  I have failed to imagine the spiral writing of the Angels or their golden belts, on which the gold is of great or lesser thickness.  If, for example, this statement, ’Some angels are solitary,’ affected me powerfully for a time, I was, on reflection, unable to reconcile this solitude with their marriages.  I have not understood why the Virgin Mary should continue to wear blue satin garments in heaven.  I have even dared to ask myself why those gigantic demons, Enakim and Hephilim, came so frequently to fight the cherubim on the apocalyptic plains of Armageddon; and I cannot explain to my own mind how Satans can argue with Angels.  Monsieur le Baron Seraphitus assured me that those details concerned only the angels who live on earth in human form.  The visions of the prophet are often blurred with grotesque figures.  One of his spiritual tales, or ‘Memorable relations,’ as he called them, begins thus:  ’I see the spirits assembling, they have hats upon their heads.’  In another of these Memorabilia he receives from heaven a bit of paper, on which he saw, he says, the hieroglyphics of the primitive peoples, which were composed of curved lines traced from the finger-rings that are worn in heaven.  However, perhaps I am wrong; possibly the material absurdities with which his works are strewn have spiritual significations.  Otherwise, how shall we account for the growing influence of his religion?  His church numbers to-day more than seven hundred thousand believers,—­as many in the United States of America as in England, where there are seven thousand Swedenborgians in the city of Manchester alone.  Many men of high rank in knowledge and in social position in Germany, in Prussia, and in the Northern kingdoms have publicly adopted the beliefs of Swedenborg; which, I may remark, are more comforting than those of all other Christian communions.  I wish I had the power to explain to you clearly in succinct language the leading points of the doctrine on which Swedenborg founded his church; but I fear such a summary, made from recollection, would be necessarily defective.  I shall, therefore, allow myself to speak only of those ‘Arcana’ which concern the birth of Seraphita.”

Here Monsieur Becker paused, as though composing his mind to gather up his ideas.  Presently he continued, as follows:—­