e boundaries or set up the pillars and stretched out the curtains of
their sectarian tabernacles; who, in halls and "upper chambers" and in
the solitude of their own homes, keep alive the spirit of devotion, and,
wrapping closely around them the mantles of their order, maintain the
integrity of its peculiarities in the midst of an unbelieving generation.

Not long since, in company with a friend who is a regular attendant, I
visited the little meeting of the disciples of Emanuel Swedenborg.
Passing over Chapel Hill and leaving the city behind us, we reached the
stream which winds through the beautiful woodlands at the Powder Mills
and mingles its waters with the Concord. The hall in which the followers
of the Gothland seer meet is small and plain, with unpainted seats, like
those of "the people called Quakers," and looks out upon the still woods
and that "willowy stream which turns a mill." An organ of small size,
yet, as it seemed to me, vastly out of proportion with the room, filled
the place usually occupied by the pulpit, which was here only a plain
desk, placed modestly by the side of it. The congregation have no
regular preacher, but the exercises of reading the Scriptures, prayers,
and selections from the Book of Worship were conducted by one of the lay
members. A manuscript sermon, by a clergyman of the order in Boston, was
read, and apparently listened to with much interest. It was well written
and deeply imbued with the doctrines of the church. I was impressed by
the gravity and serious earnestness of the little audience. There were
here no circumstances calculated to excite enthusiasm, nothing of the
pomp of religious rites and ceremonies; only a settled conviction of the
truth of the doctrines of their faith could have thus brought them
together. I could scarcely make the fact a reality, as I sat among them,
that here, in the midst of our bare and hard utilities, in the very
centre and heart of our mechanical civilization, were devoted and
undoubting believers in the mysterious and wonderful revelations of the
Swedish prophet,--revelations which look through all external and outward
manifestations to inward realities; which regard all objects in the world
of sense only as the types and symbols of the world of spirit; literally
unmasking the universe and laying bare the profoundest mysteries of life.

The character and writings of Emanuel Swedenborg constitute one of the
puzzles and marvels of metaphys