2598. When I read in Judges 17 and 18 about Micah, how the Danites stole his graven image, seraphim, and Levite, a spirit from the gentiles was present who during his lifetime had worshipped a graven image. As he listened attentively to what happened to Micah and how he grieved for his graven image which the Danites had taken away, he too was overtaken and filled with grief, so much so that he scarcely knew as a result of interior grief what to think. I perceived his grief, and at the same time innocence in every one of his affections. Christian spirits as well were present and looking on and they were amazed that the worshipper of a graven image could be filled by so strong a feeling of compassion and innocence. Afterwards good spirits spoke to him, saying that a graven image ought not to be worshipped and that this he was able to understand because he was a human being. They told him that instead his thoughts ought to go beyond the graven image to God the Creator and Governor of the whole of heaven and the whole of earth, and that this God is the Lord. While they were saying these things I was given to perceive the feeling or emotion within him with which he worshipped, and which was communicated to me. It was far more holy than feelings and emotions present in Christians. From this it became clear that gentiles, as accords with the Lord's words in Luke 13:-29, 30, enter heaven more easily than Christians do today who are not stirred by the same feelings and emotions. For in that state he was able to absorb all things of faith and to receive them with interior affection, since there existed in him that compassion which is the expression of love, and his lack of knowledge had innocence within it; and when these are present all things of faith are received so to speak spontaneously, and with joy. He was after this received among angels.