On the page of history, the “Diary” throws some wondrous light. In it, we read of interviews with many of the famous men of ancient and modern times. From some names which the world has learned to revere, the mask of excellence is quite torn away, while the infamy of others is proved to have been but judgment from appearance, and from scandal. Any one who is infected with the spiritual disease of hero-worship, should read the “Spiritual Diary.” He will there discover that the most dazzling intellect fades into moping idiocy and insanity, when it lacks the sterling heart, and honest aim; and that goodness alone is the life and soul of true wisdom. He will also learn why it is so. We would here say a word upon a jest started by Emerson, (and which has re-appeared under many forms,) to the effect that all the souls with whom Swedenborg held converse, talked Swedenborgese. In reply, we would ask, how they could speak in any other way? Swedenborg did not profess to be a mimic; and if Cicero or anybody else spoke with him in the spiritual world and in the spiritual language, Swedenborg, in translating the speech into his own simple diction, would, of course, seize the substance, and care nothing for the form. That the language was not Cicero’s, might be true; but if the ideas were, what matter? The subject would hardly be worth mentioning, did we not see the jest receiving a wide currency; but a few words of common sense are all that are necessary to take the life out of it. There is no work with which we are acquainted, that can give its readers a better idea of the reality of the future life, than the “Spiritual Diary.” No other book, we know, can so stir up a man to set his mind, or spiritual house, in order here, so that he may be spared the turmoil and sorrow which otherwise he will encounter beyond the tomb. In its pages, the life after death is portrayed in all its stern reality; not as a vague dream, or a shadowy vision, of which the mind can form no fixed idea. We read of the awful states induced in the other life, by evil habits contracted in this; from loose speech, jesting upon sacred subjects, indulgence in idleness and luxury, down to blacker crimes. We learn from sight, as it were, how evil is its own torment, and how goodness is its own sweet and rich reward; and in view of the momentous issues of what we too often regard as the trifles of life, we feel impelled to make our peace and heaven here, that we may bear them with us into the Hereafter. Such high uses does the “Spiritual Diary” subserve.