The next day the same angel as on the previous day came to me and said: 'Would you like me to take and accompany you to the people who lived in the era or age of silver, so that we can hear from them about marriage in their time?' He said that these too were not to be approached except under the Lord's guidance. I was in the spirit, as previously, and I went with my guide, first to a hill on the border between east and south. When we were on the slopes of that hill, he showed me a great expanse of territory. We saw far off a towering mountain, between which and the hill on which we stood there was a valley, and beyond it a plain with a slope rising gently from it.

We came down from the hill to cross the valley, and saw in places on either side pieces of wood and stone carved to resemble human beings and various animals, birds and fishes. 'What are they?' I asked the angel. 'Are they not idols?' 'Far from it,' he answered. 'They are shapes designed to depict various moral virtues and spiritual truths. The peoples of that age knew about correspondences; and since every person, animal, bird and fish corresponds to some quality, each carving depicts some aspect of a virtue or truth, and a number of them taken together depict the whole virtue or truth in its general full form. These carvings are what in Egypt are called hieroglyphics.'

[2] We crossed the valley and on entering the plain saw horses and chariots. The horses had various kinds of metal disks on their harness and halters; the chariots were of different types, some carved to represent eagles, some whales, some stags with antlers, some unicorns. Also finally we saw some waggons with stables at either side of them. But when we came near the horses and chariots both disappeared, and we saw in their place people walking in twos, conversing and reasoning. The angel told me: 'The kinds of horses, chariots and stables which can be seen at a distance are appearances of the rational intelligence of the people of that age. For a horse stands by correspondence for the understanding of truth, a chariot for its teaching, and stables for lessons. You know that in this world everything has an appearance in keeping with its correspondence.'

[3] Passing these by we climbed a long ascent and at length we saw the city, which we entered. As we walked through, we looked at their houses from the streets and squares. They were all palaces built of marble. In front they had steps of alabaster, and at the sides of the steps columns of jasper. We also saw temples of precious stones, sapphire and azure coloured. 'Their houses,' said the angel, 'are built of stones, because stones stand for natural truths, precious stones for spiritual truths. All the people who lived in the silver age were made intelligent by spiritual truths, and thus by natural truths. The meaning of silver is similar.

[4] As we toured the city, we saw here and there people in pairs, and since they were husbands and wives, we waited to be invited in somewhere. While we had this in mind, as we went past we were called back by two people and invited to their home. We went up and inside it. The angel spoke with them for me, explaining the reasons for my visit to this heaven. 'It is,' he told them, 'so that he can learn about marriage among the people of antiquity, of whom you here are representatives.'

'We came,' they replied, 'from the peoples of Asia. Our age was devoted to the study of truths, the means by which we acquired intelligence - this was the kind of thing that appealed to our souls and minds. But the thing that appealed to our bodily senses was devising forms to represent truths. Our knowledge of correspondences made a link between our bodily sensations and the perceptions of our minds, so giving us intelligence.'

[5] After hearing this the angel begged them to tell us something about marriage among them. 'There is,' said the husband, 'a correspondence between the spiritual marriage, that is, of truth with good, and the natural marriage, that is, of a man with one wife. Being students of correspondences, we saw that the church with its kinds of truth and good could not possibly exist except among those who live in truly conjugial love with one wife. For the marriage of good and truth makes the church in the individual. All of us, therefore, who are here now, assert that the husband is truth and the wife the truth's own good. Good cannot love any truth but its own, nor can truth return that love to any but its own good. In other circumstances the inner marriage which makes the church would be lost, and the marriage would become merely outward; and it is not the church, but idolatry, to which this corresponds. We therefore call marriage with one wife a sacrament; but if it happened in our community with more than one, we should call that a sacrilege.'

[6] Following this speech we were taken into an ante-chamber, where there were many devices on the walls and small pictures which looked as if cast in silver. 'What are these?' I asked.

'They are,' they said, ' paintings and forms which depict for us many qualities, attributes and pleasures belonging to conjugial love. One group depicts the unity of souls, another the linking of minds, another the harmony of hearts, another the delights which arise from these.'

As we gazed, we saw a kind of rainbow on the wall composed of three colours, purple, blue and white. We noted how the purple colour passed through the blue and turned the white dark blue; and this colour then flowed back through the blue into the purple, enhancing it so as to resemble a flaming ray.

[7] 'You understand that?' the husband said to me. 'Tell me,' I replied. 'The purple colour,' he said, 'because of its correspondence stands for the wife's conjugial love; the white colour stands for the husband's intelligence. The blue stands for the beginnings of conjugial love as perceived in the husband by the wife, and the dark blue, which tinged the white, stands for the conjugial love then present in the husband. This colour, flowing back through the blue into the purple and enhancing it so as to resemble a flaming ray, means the husband's conjugial love flowing back to the wife. We see such things depicted on our walls, when we think about conjugial love, its natural, successive and simultaneous union, and fix our gaze upon the rainbows depicted there.'

To this I said, 'These matters are more than mysterious to us today, since they are a way of picturing the secrets of the conjugial love of one man with one wife.' 'Yes, that is so,' he replied, 'but they are no secrets to us here, so not mysteries either.'

[8] When he had said this, a chariot was seen a long way off, pulled by white ponies. On seeing it the angel said, 'That chariot is a sign for us to leave.' Then when we came down the steps, our host gave us a bunch of white grapes with vine-leaves attached; these leaves suddenly turned silver. We took them away as a token of our conversation with the peoples of the silver age.