34. (19) Conjugial love depends upon the wife's love, and such too is the husband's love reciprocally; the wife's love does not depend on her husband's love. The reason is that just as the will acts on the understanding, good acts on truth; that is why it is said that a man ought to cleave to his wife. The reverse is true of those who are not in conjugial love.

699. To witness the torment of those who are in hell, and also the vastation of those who are on the lower earth, I have several times been sent down there. (Being sent down into hell does not involve being taken from one place to another; it involves being admitted into some community of hell and yet remaining just where you are.) Let this one experience be described here: I once perceived clearly that a sort of column was surrounding me. This column grew noticeably thicker. Then it was instilled into me that this was 'the wall of bronze' mentioned in the Word, ¹ and that it consisted of angelic spirits, so that I could be sent down to the unfortunate and yet remain unharmed. While I was there I heard miserable wailings, in particular these, 'O God, O God, have mercy on us, have mercy on us and this went on for a long time. I was also allowed to talk to those wretches, and to do so quite a lot. Most of all they moaned about evil spirits longing and burning to do nothing else but torment them. In their despair they said they were convinced that the torment would last for ever. But I was allowed to comfort them.

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