151.* To the above I shall add TWO MEMORABLE RELATIONS. FIRST. As I was going home from the school of wisdom (concerning which, see above, n. 132), I saw in the way an angel dressed in blue. He joined me and walked by my side, and said, "I see that you are come from the school of wisdom, and are made glad by what you heard there; and as I perceive that you are not a full inhabitant of this world, because you are at the same time in the natural world, and therefore know nothing of our Olympic gymnasia, where the ancient _sophi_ meet together, and by the information they collect from every new comer, learn what changes and successions wisdom has undergone and is still undergoing in your world; if you are willing I will conduct you to the place where several of those ancient _sophi_ and their sons, that is, their disciples, dwell." So he led me to the confines between the north and east; and while I was looking that way from a rising ground, lo! I saw a city, and on one side of it two small hills; that which was nearer to the city being lower than the other. "That city," said he, "is called Athens, the lower hill Parnassus, and the higher Helicon. They are so called, because in the city and around it dwell the wise men who formerly lived in Greece, as Pythagoras, Socrates, Aristippus, Xenophon, with their disciples and scholars." On my asking him concerning Plato and Aristotle, he said, "They and their followers dwell in another region, because they taught principles of rationality which relate to the understanding; whereas the former taught morality which relates to the life." He further informed me, that it was customary at times to depute from the city of Athens some of the students to learn from the literati of the Christians, what sentiments they entertain at this day respecting God, the creation of the universe, the immortality of the soul, the relative state of men and beasts, and other subjects of interior wisdom: and he added, that a herald had that day announced an assembly, which was a token that the emissaries had met with some strangers newly arrived from the earth, who had communicated some curious information. We then saw several persons going from the city and its suburbs, some having their heads decked with wreaths of laurel, some holding palms in their hands, some with books under their arms, and some with pens under the hair of the left temple. We mixed with the company, and ascended the hill with them; and lo! on the top was an octagonal palace, which they called the Palladium, into which we entered; within there were eight hexangular recesses, in each of which was a book-case and a table: at these recesses were seated the laureled _sophi_, and in the Palladium itself there were seats cut out of the rock, on which the rest were seated. A door on the left was then opened, through which the two strangers newly arrived from the earth were introduced; and after the compliments of salutation were paid, one