# Swedenborg's Maximus Homo/Independent Witnesses/Chapter 2

II.
CONCLUSION.
A brief record of the following incident may not be an inappropriate conclusion (or part of it) to the foregoing chapters, and may be of interest to all who are interested in the widest and speediest promulgation of the doctrines of heaven.
Since the foregoing pages were prepared and more than half of them in type, I received a letter from a devoted Newchurchman in relation to the "Cloud of Independent Witnesses." And after speaking of the great pleasure with which he had read the work, and expressing his deep sense of its importance, and its value as a New Church missionary, especially to the clergy, he wished to know what an edition of a thousand copies of the ​work would cost, to be given to ministers and theological students. In answer to this brother's inquiry I sent him the figures at once; and not many days thereafter I received from him another letter ordering a thousand copies printed, and enclosing his check for the cost of the edition. And in this letter he says: "I wish some one else would send enough to make the edition 2000 instead of 1000. But if not, perhaps by the time the 1000 are distributed, I may be able to pay for another edition."
Our brother particularly requested that no publicity be given to his name in connection with this transaction. This, viewed in connection with his well-known blameless and Christian character, proves that it was no selfish or worldly consideration, but a Divine impulse which moved him to this generous and benevolent deed. One would hardly suppose that a bad book, or a book that counsels ministers to pursue a course which is "essentially dishonest," would receive such a signal token of the Divine approval as the "Cloud of Independent Witnesses" has received in the incident here recorded. It is much easier and much more reasonable to believe that the worthy editor of the New Church Messenger has "erred in vision and stumbled in judgment," than to believe that the Lord ever makes a mistake ​in his choice of methods or agencies for the diffusion of truth given for the upbuilding of his kingdom on earth.
Was it not the Divine Providence that moved the heart of Mr. Iungerich to bequeathe a liberal sum for furnishing gratis to ministers and theological students some of the principal works of Swedenborg? And the trustees of this bequest report their doings annually to the New-Church General Convention of which they are members; and these reports are gladly received, and appear to give great satisfaction to every member of the Convention. Already they have sent above a hundred thousand volumes of these works to more than thirty thousand ministers and theological students who have expressed a desire for them and remitted the amount of postage. And it is well known to the Convention and to the editor of its organ that hundreds, and probably thousands, of these ministers have read these volumes with interest, have accepted the sublime truths they contain, and are now teaching those truths to their people, confirming them from the Word, from reason, from human experience, and the known laws of our mental and moral constitution, but without any mention of Swedenborg. And they well knew when these "Gift Books" began to be distributed, that such would be the case. Yet the New Church Messenger has never administered ​any reproof to the Iungerich trustees, nor intimated that they were doing anything which merited reproof. It has allowed them to go on for ten or fifteen years encouraging—yes, aiding and abetting—this multitude of ministers in a practice which it considers "essentially dishonest," without uttering a syllable of dissent or reproof, or intimating that they were doing anything reprehensible; yet the editor must know that the aiders and abettors of wrong are quite as blameworthy as the wrong doers themselves. We leave others to explain, if they can, this singular inconsistency. Possibly our esteemed Orange brother can himself explain it.
Near the conclusion of the last great work he wrote (T. C. R.), the herald of the New Jerusalem says:—
From this it would seem that the principal work to which the receivers of the heavenly doctrines should devote themselves to-day, is, or ought to be, to aid in the removal of the cum​brous heap of old errors from the minds of the clergy, and in the substitution of the new truths in lieu of them. And how can this be better done than by furnishing the clergy with some of the luminous works of the New Church or with works calculated to whet their appetites for the new revealings? And this is the very work now in operation, and has been for fifteen years or more, and its success and efficiency are becoming more and more apparent every year.
The agencies employed are clearly of Divine appointment, and have been moved by a wisdom and power not their own. No intelligent New-churchman can for a moment doubt that the Divine Providence moved the heart of Mr. Iungerich to make the bequest he did, and for the purpose above named. And equally plain is it that the same Divine influence moved the heart of Dr. John Ellis to send free to the clergy more than a hundred thousand of Swedenborg's smaller works; and the heart of the President of the Connecticut New-Church Association to send free to them (except cost of postage) the many thousands of Madeley's "Science of Correspondences Elucidated"—a work still in progress and rapidly increasing. And in continuation and enlargement of the same blessed work, the heart of another receiver of the New Christianity has been moved by the same merciful Providence to send to ministers ​and theological students who will remit amount of postage—ten cents per volume—a thousand copies of "Independent Witnesses." And the numerous testimonials in this volume show that among the agencies employed in this blessed work of uprooting the old errors from the minds of the clergy and implanting therein the new truths, the Swedenborg Publishing Association holds a conspicuous place.
But in this grand work no special merit is due to, or is claimed by, individuals or organizations. The chief point of interest, and that to which we invite the reader's special attention, is, that more than a hundred years ago, Swedenborg was so enlightened as to foresee and foretell by what method or instrumentalities mainly the New Christianity would be propagated; and events transpiring in our own day, an ample record of which is to be found in "Independent Witnesses," are a manifest realization of the very thing he foresaw and foretold.
Let all, therefore, who have been enlightened and blessed by the new doctrines of heaven, and who desire their speediest and widest promulgation, cordially accept this divinely appointed method, and lend it their hearty co-operation. And one of the simplest and cheapest ways of doing this, is, to help the circulation of "Indedependent Witnesses" among ministers, and ​those who are preparing for the ministry, outside of the New Church organization. The reader can, for the present, and until further notice, lend a hand in this good work, by sending the name and address of some one of this class (with ten cents for postage on the book) to the
Swedenborg Publishing Association,
Germantown, Pa.