The Spiritual Diary of Emanuel Swedenborg - Being the Record During Twenty Years of His Supernatural Experience; Numbers 4545 to 5659, Including the Portion Usually Known as the "Smaller Diary" #233643

IT is nearly six years since I commenced my labours on the present volume of The Spiritual Diary of Emanuel Sweden borg; and now that these have at length reached an end, I feel that some explanation is due to the Subscribers to the work for such a long delay. When Professor Bush's ms. Was first placed in my hands, it was given, and received, in the belief that all that would be required was a careful reading over (for the rectification of manifest oversights and the putting of finishing touches) before sending to the printer, and, afterwards, seeing the work through the press, reading proofs and performing whatever ordinary editorial duties might be called for. It was on this under standing, accordingly, that I began the perusal of the ms. But I had not gone very far, before I was struck with astonishment at the number of evident errors, some of them of the most elementary character and the most glaring description; and many of them, such as could only be accounted for by regarding them as amazing aberrations of the pen. This discovery warned me that I must, henceforth, exercise great wariness. I proceeded, therefore, with increased care and vigilance; with the result that the farther I advanced, and the greater the care I exercised, the more numerous and grave became the errors I detected. At length, a suspicion which had been gradually forming in my mind as my acquaint ance with the ms. Progressed, grew into the firm conviction, that Professor Bush had never intended this ms. To go into the hands of the printer, except after a subsequent careful revision by himself. This conviction my further acquaintance with, and study of, the entire ms., has but served to develop into a positive belief.