740. After all these things had taken place a voice was heard from heaven, saying to the angel with the trumpet; "Choose ten men from all those assembled, and introduce them to us; we have heard from the Lord that He will so prepare them that the heat and light, of love and wisdom, of our heaven may be borne by them without harm for three days."
Ten men were then chosen and followed the angel. And they went up a steep path to a certain hill, and from this to a mountain on which was the heaven of those angels, which had before appeared to them at a distance like an expanse in the clouds. The gates were opened for them, and when they had passed the third the introducing angel ran to the prince of that society or heaven, and announced their arrival. And the prince said in reply, "Take some of my attendants, and carry back word to them that I am pleased that they have come, and introduce them into my ante-court, and give to each his own room and bed-chamber. Take also some of my courtiers and some servants to wait upon them, and render them any service they may desire." This was done.
When they had been admitted by the angel, they asked whether they might be permitted to go and see the prince. The angel replied, "It is now morning, and he cannot be seen before noon; all are still engaged in their own duties and labors. But you are invited to dinner; and then you will sit at the table with our prince; and in the meantime I will conduct you into his palace where you will see magnificent and splendid things."
[2] When he had led them to the palace they first viewed it from without. It was spacious, built of porphyry, with a foundation of jasper. Before the doors were six tall columns of lapis lazuli. The roof was made of plates of gold, the high windows were of the clearest crystal, and their frames of gold. They were then led into the interior of the palace, and conducted from room to room; and they saw ornaments of indescribable beauty, and on the ceilings decorations of inimitable carvings. Placed against the walls they saw tables of silver fused with gold, on which were various useful articles made of precious stones and of whole gems in heavenly forms. And more things they saw, which no eye on earth had ever seen, and therefore no one had been able to believe that such things exist in heaven.
[3] While they were standing amazed at the sight of such magnificence the angel said, "Do not be astonished; these things that you see are not the work or fabrication of any angelic hand, but were made by the Architect of the universe and bestowed as a gift on our prince, so that architectural art is here in its perfection, and from it come all the rules of art in the world." The angel said further, "You may suppose, perhaps, that such things fascinate our eyes and so far infatuate them that we believe these things to be the joys of our heaven; but they are merely accessory to the joys of our hearts, our hearts not being in them; and so far therefore as we contemplate them as accessory, and as the workmanship of God, we contemplate in them the Divine omnipotence and kindness."