om His face, and affects the mind (_animus_). The inhabitants also,
when they come of age, speak with spirits, by whom they are instructed
concerning the Lord, and how He ought to be worshipped, and also how
they ought to live. When any desire to lead astray the spirits who are
from that earth, and to draw them away from faith in the Lord, or from
humiliation towards Him, and from uprightness of life, they say they
wish to die. On these occasions there appear in their hands small
knives, with which they seem to desire to strike their breasts. On
being questioned why they do so, they say that they would rather die
than be drawn away from the Lord. The spirits of our Earth sometimes
mock at them on this account, and assail them with reproaches for
acting so; but their reply is, that they are well aware that they do
not kill themselves, but that this is only an appearance flowing forth
from the will of their mind (_animus_) rather to die than be drawn
away from the worship of the Lord.

99. They said that sometimes spirits from our Earth come to them and
ask them what God they worship, their answer to whom is, that they are
insane, and that there can be no greater insanity than to ask what
God any one worships, when yet there is but one God for all in the
universe; and that still more insane are they in not saying that the
Lord is that One only God, and that He governs the whole heaven, and
consequently the whole world, since He who governs heaven must also
govern the world, because the world is governed by means of heaven.

100. They said that on their earth there are some who call the
nocturnal light (_lumen_), which is great, the Lord, but that these
are separated from the rest, and are not tolerated by them. That
nocturnal light (_lumen_) comes from the great ring which encircles
that earth at a distance, and from the moons which are called the
satellites of Saturn.

101. They related that another kind of spirits, who go in troops,
frequently come to them, desiring to learn how things are with them,
and that by various methods they elicit from them whatever they know.
They said of these spirits, that they are not insane, except in this
particular, that they desire to know so much for no other use than
that simply of knowing. They were afterwards instructed that these
spirits are from the planet Mercury, that is, from the earth nearest
the sun, and that they are delighted with knowledges alone, and not so
much with t