gratefully accept my offer to conduct a reading class on Sunday afternoons. But not our young men only yielded to the pressure of the new influence. The feeling speedily became contagious. Our elder members were manifestly lifted to a higher level of faith and hope, and our simple missionary effort certainly built up our little church from within, whether it failed to built it up from without or not. This effort was followed up by an uninterrupted series of advertised Sunday evening lectures, which proved to be exceedingly attractive, both to our own people, and especially to strangers. I soon found that to appeal successfully to the outside world I must set myself to meet the felt wants of the day, to answer the great religious questions of the time. No subject came amiss to me. Whatever seemed likely to interest the people instantly, for that very reason, interested me. I felt that could I but get them to give me a hearing I should be able, as a recipient of the world-renewing principles of the New Jerusalem, to instruct, and perhaps in spire, as well as interest my hearers. In connection with these Sunday evening services our friends here are so satisfied with present results that they have already decided to continue the Saturday advertisements for at least twelve months. C. H. W. WIGAN.-A closing conversazione of the Mutual Improvement Society was held on March 22nd. The schoolroom was tastefully decorated, and a great variety of interesting objects arranged for the instruction and delight of the visitors. Mr. Johnson presided, and opened the proceedings in an appropriate address. From the report we fearn that during the session ten meetings have been held, the subjects treated being varied. Seventy-one members were on the books; the charge for membership being so low as barely to cover the expenses. During the evening readings, recitations, and music were given; the proceedings passing off very pleasantly, and reflecting credit on the committee. Births. On Thursday, March 22, at 122 Holland Road, Kensington, Mrs. J. A. Bayley, of a daughter. On the 16th April, at 5 Calder Terrace, Lower Hopton, Mirfield, Yorkshire, the wife of Mr. Joseph Hartley, of a son. (John Wilson.) Obituary. James Walmsley, aged for its extension. Died at Bath, 2nd March, Ann, wife of Mr. Richard Langford. During the last forty-four years of her life Mrs. Langford was a member of the Lord's New Church. She endured many years of affliction; and as her pains increased with the decline of her natural powers, so increased her confidence in the goodness of her heavenly Father. She departed in peace at the ripe age of 81. R. L. Died at Morpeth, on the morning of Sunday, March 25th, Robert, elder son of Mr. J. S. Cottam, Edinburgh. This is the brief record of the removal, in his 17th year, of one of the five victims of the "accident" to the Scotch express train when passing through Morpeth station on its way to London. story of this catastrophe has been told by every journal in the kingdom, coupled with the affecting details attending the death of this son of a New Churchman-himself brought up in con The nection with the Edinburgh Society from early infancy. It is known to all that the part of the train in which the victims were ensconced became a perfect wreck, and during two hours (in darkness and rain), during which most gallant efforts were made to extricate the unfortunate subject of this brief notice, he continued perfectly conscious, bearing the agonies of his condition and position with the courage of a true Christian hero, now and again thanking those engaged in the perilous task of liberation allowing no murmur to escape his quivering lips, only the hope that he " 'might be able for work on Tuesday." Such as were witnesses of this " passing away" will never forget it-never cease to remember the heroism of the brave-hearted boy, who, though wounded unto death-fearfully mangled by the jagged, torn timbers of the wreck, could still "regret the trouble he was giving," and ask the dim-eyed rescuers not to over-exert themselves at their melancholy task. Only a few months since the writer of these few imperfect lines saw Robert Cottam, brimful of health and happiness and loving-kindness, helping an old and ailing friend in the late harvest-field: both harvesters are now garnered spring has opened to both in another, brighter field. In this removal of a son who all his life has been to them a joy, a source of many pleasant thoughts and anticipations, his parents find another link with heaven;" and though for long the knowledge of their loss may cause them many a heartfelt pang, yet these will be softened by the knowledge that as the Redeemer liveth, so their son has truly entered into life. EASTON. meek and patient. She quietly supported whatever she thought was good. She diffused a spirit of gentleness and peace through her family circle and amongst her friends; and thus prepared for that blessed world, whose sweetest appellation is, the Kingdom of Peace. J. B. Departed this life, at Ashton-underLyne, on the 10th of March, Mrs. Ann Moorhouse, relict of Mr. Edwin Moorhouse, aged 64, The departed was a well-known and highly esteemed member of the New Church. She had passed through considerable worldly changes, though holding to the end of her life a position of comfort and respectability. She had also experienced many and painful domestic afflictions and bereavements. She was the mother of a numerous family, of whom two only arrived at maturity; and of these, one, her son, was cut off in the bloom of life. With the single exception of her daughter, who remained to close her eyes in death, she had seen the close of the earthly life of all her children, and had often realized the plaintive teaching of the letter of the passage, "Rachel weeping for her children." In all her states of life one object was dear to her. She loved the Church, and ardently desired its prosperity. The chapel in which the society at Ashton worships was erected chiefly by her husband, not in his state of worldly affluence, but when he had retired from worldly business, and was living in quietude on the well-deserved fruits of wisely-directed industry. It was a pain to him and to our departed sister not to have seen it freed from debt, but the completion of this work was necessarily left to others. Mrs. Moorhouse was through life distinguished by an unostentatious and generous hospitality. Many indeed connected both with the Church and the world have felt the warmth of her genuine welcome. For many years the preachers were welcomed and hospitably entertained at her house; and the cheerfulness with which she ministered to their comfort must be long remembered by them. And now her active and useful life has closed, not a few of those who knew her will be strengthened by her example. She has passed through the toils and troubles, the anxieties and cares of earth. She rests from her works of religious conflict and of spiritual to the tempest-tossed bark. As years labour, and reaps the abiding harvest of rolled on, however, the large room in her faith and love. R. S. For Chandos Buildings became also too small for its needs, and a handsome church was subscribed for and erected in Henry Street. Increase of means and numbers does not always bring increase of happiness or harmony, and soon after the opening of the new building some unpleasantness arose through the jealousy of those who sympathized more with the logical preaching of Mr. Keene, and those to whom the more poetic style of Mr. Barnes was most agreeable. In consequence of this, and in the interests of peace, Mr. Barnes resigned the ministry, and behe had founded, faithfully attended the coming a private member of the Society ministrations of his coadjutor. some years he occasionally ministered to the congregation at Bristol, where his presence was always hailed with pleasure; while in his private walk of life in Bath he was as unremitting as ever in forwarding the interests of the church. Some ten years ago, in the midst of a career of unostentatious usefulness, he illness, which necessitated his retirewas seized with an alarming attack of ment from active life, and soon after, to the heartfelt regret of many who had known him for years, he quitted Bath. In the simplicity of a childlike old age he has passed his later years, tended by the loving presence of his only surviving daughter, who, in resigning the care of his helplessness, feels that her most pleasurable occupation in life is ended, and that her only consolation is in the hope of a blessed reunion, where there shall be no more parting. A loving and faithful servant, he tried fice of the Great Master, and both in the to emulate the humanity and self-sacricapacity of a New Church minister, and that of his private citizenship, he ever strove for the good of others, and the extension of what he deemed the truth. His end, like his life, was peaceable, and in the hearts not only of his children, but of all who knew him, his memory will be a sweetness. Departed this life, on the 26th of March, in the 83rd year of his age, at 126 Gower Street, London, the Rev. J. W. Barnes, the founder and first minister of the Bath New Church Society. By one of those providences which men call chance, in the heyday of a careless youth, he became possessor of one of the works of Swedenborg, and was led to an eager and appreciative study of his voluminous writings. Experiencing the greatest delight in the new world of ideas opened up to him in the works of that author, he was consumed with the desire of making others participators in his gains; and to the extension of the truths of the New Church he devoted the best years of a long and active life. His occupation as a practitioner of medicine gave him unexampled opportunities of disseminating the doctrines, and few who came under his care for the ailments of the body but received kindly administration to the needs of the spirit; indeed, so great was this zeal, that he materially injured his worldly and pecuniary prospects by promulgating ideas that in those days brought more prejudice and ill-will than credit or sympathy. The first to share with Mr. Barnes his intellectual treat was Mr. Keene, his brother-in-law; and these two young men, seized with that active desire which springs from love, felt most anxious to propagate their doctrines. For this purpose they commenced the first effort at New Church public worship and instruction in a small room in Westgate Buildings, Bath, where they alternately preached to a small but attentive circle of friends. Their num bers increasing, a much larger room, once the drawing room in the mansion of the Earl of Chandos, was secured, and where, in former times, the midnight revel was wont to be held, the doctrines of the new dispensation were for many years taught. The derision and persecution experienced by the small band of recipients was such that at times they were almost disheartened, and once, when it was decided to discontinue the ministrations, the drooping courage of Mr. Barnes was revived by the appearance, after a peculiar dream, of a beautiful dove in his room, which he looked on as a message of hope sent J. D. B. Mr. Howarth Departed this life at Bury, Lancashire, on the 30th of March, Mr. John Howarth, aged 72 years. is much regretted, having been for many years the treasurer and the principal supporter of the New Church Society in this place. BEFORE I enter on the consideration of the nature and extent of Swedenborg's illumination, it will be necessary to speak of the difference of his state and functions as the apostle of the New Jerusalem, as compared with those of the prophets and evangelists of former dispensations. Like the prophets and evangelists, he exercised the two distinct functions of teacher and seer. But his state and condition, both as a teacher and a seer, were entirely different from theirs. They wrote by divine inspiration; so that the books which are called by their names are truly the Word of God, and contain within the literal sense a spiritual sense, a celestial sense, and a divine sense. The nature of inspiration accounts for this. Divine Truth, in itself incomprehensible to finite minds, passed through successive spheres of diminishing life and light till it was accommodated to the perceptive faculties of the celestial angels, from them it passed accommodated to the minds of spiritual angels, and from them it descended into the natural sphere of life accommodated to the apprehensions of men. We must not, however, suppose that only so much of the pure Divine Truth descended to the lower intelligences as the higher had been able to see and receive. This would have made the celestial and 1 A lecture by the Rev. W. Bruce, delivered at the New Church College, Islington, April 10th, and now published at the request of the audience. spiritual senses not the Word of the Lord, but the word of the angels. We are to understand that Divine Truth, in its descent, clothed itself successively with the angelic and human ideas in which it had been received; we should rather say, which itself had previously generated in the minds of angels and men. Indeed, Divine Truth, as it came by inspiration, did not pass through the active faculties of will and thought either of angels or men. For, in giving His Word through the prophets and evangelists, the Lord spoke through an angel, whose independent powers of willing and thinking were for the time suspended, so that the Divine Truth clothed itself with its celestial and its spiritual sense from the memory of the angel, not immediately from his active will and thought. It was the same with the prophets and evangelists themselves. The Divine Truth of the Word did not come through their will and understanding, but it clothed itself with its natural sense from the language and imagery, and from historical facts, existing in their memory. On this subject our Author says (H, and H., 254), "The Lord did not speak with the prophets as he did with the ancient inhabitants of this globe, by an influx into their interiors, but by spirits sent to them, whom the Lord filled with His Spirit, and so inspired the words which they dictated to the prophets." It is not necessary for our present purpose to know precisely how this was effected. It is sufficient to understand that the very words of the Sacred Writings are the words of God, since they were pronounced in their ears, not indeed by an outward but by an inward way, though not less audibly than if they had been conveyed through the atmosphere to the outward organ of hearing. The case of the prophet of the New Jerusalem was essentially different from this. Those faculties which were quiescent and inactive in the prophets were awake and active in him. If there was any power which was active in them it was the memory; the power which was most active in him was the understanding. Both wrote from dietation, but theirs was external, his was internal; theirs was the dictation of words, his was the dictation of ideas. Both wrote also from influx; but theirs was mediate influx, his was immediate. External dictation and mediate influx come from the Lord to man mediately through the heavens; internal dictation and immediate influx come directly from the Lord through the interiors of the mind. Mediate influx supplies knowledges, immediate influx gives light. What comes by internal dictation and immediate influx enters into and illustrates that which comes by external dictation and mediate |