Most Noble Duke and Landgrave,* It gladdened me, most noble Duke, to receive and to read your letter written to me on 1 July. I trust that the work most recently published entitled TRUE CHRISTIAN RELIGION came subsequently into your hands.

If it please you, would you arrange for some learned members of the clergy in your duchy to pass judgments on it and publish them; but I beg of you that learned members of your clergy be selected who love truths and are delighted with them because they are truths. Others will not see a gleam of light in that work, but everything in darkness.

What is being said about me having predicted the death of the daughter of the Margrave of Schwedt is a fabrication coming from some gossiping newsmonger or other. I was not present there, nor did I know anything about that lady. What is being said about the brother of the Queen of Sweden however is true, yet this must not be regarded as some miracle but only as a noteworthy occurrence like those noteworthy occurrences concerning Luther, Melancthon, Calvin, and many others, which have been recounted and set out in that work. For occurrences such as these are not miracles but only witnesses to the fact that I have been introduced by the Lord as to my spirit into the spiritual world and that I therefore speak with angels and spirits.

As for the persons named on the paper you enclose, I have not spoken with four of them, to wit, Belie Isle, de Bombelles, Kameke, and Beck. I did speak six months ago with Stanislaus the King of Poland. It was in some gathering where he was and in which nobody knew it was he, for he found it a joy in life to wish to remain incognito when he was in groups of people and so be with angels and spirits as one of them and converse with them as equals. At a later time I saw him when he had been transferred to a northern part, and I heard that he had been removed to that place to administer a certain society of Roman Catholics over which he is set as the principal ruler.

I have spoken frequently with the late Roman Pontiff. After his death he remained in my company for three days, and when he left he went down to congregations of Jesuits whom he presided over for a full month. I also saw him coming up from there when I was again allowed to speak with him, but I am not permitted to divulge more about his course of life and state. Concerning him who served as Pope 30 or 40 years ago, please see what appears in n. 820 of that work.

Furthermore I shall remain most zealous and attentive in all things touching your honour and command.

Most noble Duke and Landgrave Your most humble servant Eman. Swedenborg Amsterdam 13 July 1771

* On 22 June in another letter that is now lost, the Landgrave apparently asked for a list of books published by Swedenborg, for in a brief reply of 3 July 1771 the latter refers to such a list and also to the enclosure of the recently printed RESPONSUM AD ERNESTI. In a letter dated 1 July, written in German, as were all his letters presumably, the Landgrave expresses his thanks for trouble taken to obtain ARCANA COELESTIA and then continues as follows:

'I certainly hope to find in this book things which are in harmony with the marvellous stories that have been brought to me from time to time concerning your visions and prophecies. Up to the present I find the following, among other stories, to be the most remarkable: that on a certain occasion, what at the home of Princess Ferdinand, daughter of the Margrave of Schwedt, you expressed yourself to a Young lady who sat at table as follows: "The young lady is sad, but she has indeed reason to be, for she will soon die, but yet will first be married." This prophecy was confirmed by its early fulfilment. 'Attentive as I have been to stories of this kind, I would be yet more attentive to stories involving your having the gift of being able to give news concerning the state of deceased persons. But I must confess that I all but conjecture that these stories might be unfounded as that which was told concerning a lady in Leipzig for whom, after previous discourse with her deceased husband, you recovered the receipt for a considerable sum of money which was claimed from her a second time, and pointed out the place in a cupboard where it was to be found, which story you yourself told my consistorial councillor Venator in a different way. That I may have some assurance in this matter, and may convince myself to my own satisfaction, I ask you to send me some news concerning the state in that life of the deceased persons on the enclosed sheet...' [Though the Landgrave's actual list has been lost, Swedenborg's reply of 13 July indicates the names that were on it.]