EDITORIAL NOTES       Editor       1889


NEW CHURCH LIFE

Vol. IX.     PHILADELPHIA, JANUARY, 1889=119.     No. 1.
     IN the historical Person of JESUS CHRIST men could see even with their natural eyes, hear with their natural ears, touch with their natural hands the LORD GOD the Creator, Who had thus come into the world to be the Redeemer and Saviour. This assumption of the Human constituted His First Coming for the redemption and salvation of the world. Without this general or historical Coming, He could not effect His Coming to the individual son, but this renders it possible.
     When the Church established by the LORD at that time, had arrived at its end, He effected His Second Coming in the same Divine Human which He had assumed and glorified at His First Coming-even the Word made Flesh, having the Glory which He had before the world was. Thus He appeared as the Word-as the Divine Truth made manifest to the spiritual apperception of men, in the Divine Books whit He caused to be written through His servant, Emanuel Swedenborg.
     As is true of the First, so of this Second Advent: without it He could not effect His Coming to the individual soul, but this has rendered it possible.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     IN His glorified Human, "the LORD is present with every man, and urges and insists that He may be received; and when man receives Him, which is done when he acknowledges Him to be his God, Creator, Redeemer, and Saviour, it is His First Coming, which is called the dawn. From this time man, as to the understanding, begins to be enlightened in spiritual things, and to progress in wisdom more and more interior." (T. C. R. 766.)
     When man acknowledges that this, His God, has come into the world a second time, and wrought a Second Redemption, and when He receives Him in the glories of the Internal Sense of the Word as now revealed, then the LORD makes His Second Coming to him as an individual, and his former enlightenment increases: it be- cornea "as the light of seven days." The Coming and Presence of the LORD is in the Word, because the or as Divine Truth proceeding from the LORD, and what proceeds from the LORD is the LORD Himself; wherefore they who read the Word, and then look to the LORD, by acknowledging that all truth and all good is from Him, and nothing from themselves, are enlightened, and see truth and perceive good from the Word; this enlightenment is from the light of heaven, which light as Divine Truth itself proceeding from the LORD, for this appears as light before the angels in heaven. The Coming and Presence of the LORD in the Word is meant in Matthew by seeing the Son of Man: "Then shall the sign of the Son of Man, and they shall see of Man coming in the clouds of heaven, with virtue and glory" (chap. xxiv, 30); for a "cloud" is the Literal sense of the Word, and "virtue and glory" Internal Sense; the Literal Sense of the Word is called a "cloud," because it is in the light of the world, and the Internal Sense is called "glory," because It is in the light of heaven; and, moreover, in the Internal Sense the LORD alone is treated of and His Kingdom and Church. Hence is the holiness of the Word, and hence the Coming and Presence of the LORD with those who, whilst they read the Word, look to Him and their neighbor, which is the good of their fellow-citizens, of their country, of the Church, of Heaven, and do not look to themselves. The reason is that the former suffer themselves to be elevated by the LORD unto the light of heaven, but the latter do not, suffer themselves to be elevated, for they keep their view fixed on themselves and the world. From this it may be manifest what is meant by seeing the LORD in His Word. (A. C. 9405.)
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     IN Heaven as well as on earth, marriage between two is not entered into immediately upon their recognition that they belong to each other. It is, indeed, provided by the LORD that conjugial pairs should be born, and that these should be continually educated for marriage, and that, after the time is completed, they meet in some place as if by fate and see each other; and that then, as if from a certain instinct, they immediately know that they are consorts, and from a certain dictate within, think in themselves, the young man: "She is mine," and the virgin: "He is mine." But only after this has been some time seated in the minds of each, do they deliberately ask to each other and betroth themselves. (C. L. 229, 316.)
     Both in heaven and on earth, it is according to order that their conscious affection for each other should be some time seated in their minds before they even speak to each other on the subject and betroth themselves. It is stated that "conjugial love precipitated without order and the modes of it, burns out the marrows and comes to an end," for that love then commences from a flame, which eats out and corrupts those sacred recesses in which it should commence; this is done if the man and the woman precipitate marriage without order. (C. L. 312.)
     It is similar with every act of man's in which there is the spiritual marriage of good and truth, and of the will and the understanding. So-called "enthusiastic" natures are generally ardent to satisfy immediately an emotion that may have been enkindled in them. But it is according to order that the perception of a good or a truth should be seated in the mind for some time before the affection for it be wedded to the intelligence to carry it into effect, and before the act itself is performed or the word is spoken. Where action or speech is precipitated without due order, the flame is apt to flare up and die out.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     THE sphere of the world, in which hurry and rush revail, favor that state of mind which is bent on immediately doing what is perceived to be useful. But in order that this may be truly useful, it is necessary that the element of digestion should enter. The prevalence of indigestion on the corporeal plane represents the prevailing state of mental indigestion. Men have no time to think, and wanting in practice they become disinclined to think even when they have leisure. Newchurchmen are affected by this state as it exists in the world. Yet by taking time to think, they would greatly enhance their own reformation, for the delights of meditation, thought, and reflection for the sake of certain ends which are of use, are the principal means which the LORD uses to separate the evil and purify man, and to lead him away from evil and exonerate him. The ends which are of use are as many in number as the particulars and singulars of one's business and function; and also as many in number as there are delights of reflection, to the end that he may appear as a civil and moral, and also as a spiritual man, besides the undelightful things which interpose. Forasmuch as these delights are of his love in the external man, they are the means of separation, purification, excretion, and abduction of the delights of the concupiscences of evil of the internal man.
     The process in an evil man is similar to that in a good one. In both, the internal delights are let down into the external delights, and are mixed like food in the stomach, and there they are separated, purified, and drawn off. But there is this difference, that in an evil man there takes place no other separation, purification, and removal, but that of more grievous evils from the' less grievous, whereas in a good man there takes place a separation, purification, and removal, not only of more grievous evils, but also of the less grievous; and this is effected by the delights of the affections of good and truth, and of justice and sincerity, into which he enters in proportion as he considers evils to be sins, and. therefore shuns them and holds them in aversion, and still more if he fights against them. (D. P. 296.)
     Thus meditation and reflection, both in the evil and the good man, serve as an important use for the spiritual benefit of each. The process of digestion can go on better, and the spirit can become healthier and stronger to perform the uses which, in the LORD'S Providence, have been given to him to perform.
CONJUNCTION BY ASPECT 1889

CONJUNCTION BY ASPECT        BENADE       1889

     (Delivered at the meeting of the General Church of Pennsylvania, at Allegheny City, Pa., on the LORD'S Day, November 18th,1888=119.)

     "I am become a great Voice as Spirit on the LORD'S day and I heard behind me a great voice as of a trumpet, saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last; what thou seest write in a book, and send to the Churches, to those in Asia, to Ephesus; and Smyrna, and Pergamos, and Thyatira, and Sardis, and Philadelphia, and Laodicea. And I turned to see the voice which spake with me, and being turned I saw seven Golden Candlesticks. And in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of Man, clad in a robe reaching to the feet, and girt to the breasts with a golden girdle; and His head and hairs white as wool, like unto snow, and His eyes like a flame of fire. And His feet like unto burnished brass, as in a glowing furnace and His voice like the voice of many waters; and having in His right hand seven stars, and going forth from His mouth a sharp two-edged sword; and His face as the Sun shineth in his potency. And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as one dead, and He laid His right hand upon me, saying unto me 'Fear not, I am the First and the Last; and He who is Living; and became dead; and behold, I am Living to ages of ages, Amen'; and I have the keys of hell and of death; write what thou hast seen, and the things which are, and which are to be hereafter; the mystery of the seven stars which thou host seen in my right hand, and the seven golden Candlesticks; the seven stars are the Angels of the Seven Churches, and the seven Candlesticks which thou host seen are the Seven Churches.'"-Apocalypse, i, 10-20.

     WE are taught of the LORD that "the conjunction of good and truth in the Spiritual World is effected, by aspect." (A. E. 998.) This, as we are further instructed, appears manifestly from the angels in the Heavens, who, when separated from their conjugial partners, are indeed in intelligence, but not in wisdom; when they are with their conjugial partners they are also in wisdom; and that, in as far as they turn their faces each to the conjugial partner, in so far are they in a state of wisdom. And this is so, because the wife is good, and the man is truth; that is to say, because the wife is the love of the husband's truth, and the husband is the truth of the wife's love, which love is her good. From this it is evident that as truth turns itself to good it is made alive, and becomes an act. Truth is turned to good, where one who has received it into his under- standing ceases to hold it as a mere subject of thought, and begins to consider how he shall do the good thing of life concerning which the truth has given information. And this conversion of the mind from the one to the other becomes entire, when the man's love is affected by that good thing, and he is moved to bring it actually into his life. In this state the truth is no longer truth, it has become a good and indeed a good of life. This is what is meant by the vivification or making alive of truth by aspect. And this also is meant by "the conjunction of good and truth in the Spiritual World being effected by aspect."
     Truth and good are one in the LORD, for He is Good itself. And His Good proceeds as Truth from Himself to angels and men. Thus it proceeds as one, but is received as two as good and truth. And it is because they are one in the LORD, from whom they proceed, that there is in them from this Origin a perpetual tendency to conjunction-i. e., to return to their union in the Divine. They are conjugial partners, which, because they are perpetually looking for each other, when they meet, will perpetually look to each other, to the end that they may be conjoined in their own common life, the life which they had in the beginning in the one source of life. And, as they stand face to face, eye to eye, they draw ever nearer; their hands meet and close together upon their common duty and work, and in their work they grow together and grow eternally, until the one is no longer truth alone and the other no longer good alone; but they are one good clad in its own beautiful and shining garb of truth-one man before the LORD-in the image and likeness of the Divine Man, who is Love itself and Life itself. For Good is of Love, and Love is of Life, and Life is Use. And if we will carry these truths forward to the human subjects who have been created and formed to receive them into themselves and to live by them, we shall understand why it is said, that man has intelligence and wisdom according to the quality of the Conjugial Life in which he is. Conjugial love in angels and men is from the Divine Love, which is Good itself and which in its internal form with man is the love of bringing into act what the LORD teaches him to be true. This is effected when he conjoins truth with good. Thus he enters into true intelligence and wisdom, which suffers not his self-love and will, his self-conceit, to come between the LORD'S Word to his understanding, and his own loving submission to its Divine teaching and guidance. The LORD'S Word is the Truth of Revelation, in which the Divine Love sends down its own Good to man, and when man follows on the way opened by this truth to shun his selfish desires and foolish conceits, he becomes obedient and humble, and willing to be led by the hand of the LORD'S Infinitely Loving Providence. Out of these states there grows up in man a new life, not his own, but the LORD'S life with him.

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For in these states, as receptive planes, there is implanted a seed of truth rationally seen, and into them there flows by an internal way, and all unconsciously to himself from the LORD, the vernal heat of a new love, bringing a joy and delight, which quietly turn the thought to interior and heavenly things. Then, as he lifts up the eye of his understanding to look for the source of what he perceives to have come to him, he sees that what he has believed to be true has taken on a living form in his words and acts. The seed of truth has become a growing tree in the garden of his sciences and knowledges, and the fowls of the heavens begin to lodge in the branches thereof. His intelligence is becoming wise, because animated by affections which seek the peace of a good and useful life and pursue it. Such is man's conversion, the conversion that is made complete in the conjunction of what he perceives to be true, with the affection of doing what he sees to be the good thing that the LORD is leading him by the truth to do.
     The life of the Church, which is the life of love to the LORD and charity toward the neighbor, begins in this conjunction or marriage, and is perfected in every act of genuine charity toward the neighbor and of love to the LORD, whereby that marriage is made more full and complete to eternity. Therefore, when the LORD from His Infinite Love for the salvation of human souls, gave the "Revelation of JESUS CHRIST," as a preparation for the institution of His New and Crowning Church, Re chose as the instrument of that revelation, in its natural or literal forms, that disciple from among the twelve who had followed Him in the world-who represented not faith, not charity, but charity in act. Charity in act is the good of life; a living good which is with all who honestly desire to live a good life, according to the LORD'S Will, by shunning their evils as sins against God, and obeying the commandments. This good the LORD guards and protects in all who are of Him and who can be saved. This good He has ever protected against the assaults of evil for it His remnant with man, concerning which He says to Peter in the Gospel, "If I will that he remain till I come, what is it to thee? Follow thou me."
     Peter represented the truth of faith, and in the passage referred to, he represents faith separated from charity, for he was unwilling that John, who represents the good of life, should also follow the LORD. When the LORD comes to establish His Church anew by revelation of Divine Truth, the Truth is not believed, even as He says: "When the Son of Man cometh, shall he find faith?" (Luke xviii, 8.) And this is not because men do not have an abundance of what they call faith; it is not because they do not know, think, and understand many things, but because they reject whatever is not in accord with their selfish and worldly wills. There is not in them any love that is looking for a partner, any love that will know Him when He comes; nor is there any-thought that goes forth to the Truth that shall make for eternal life. And so it is that it is not Peter, but John; "the disciple who lay at the LORD'S breast" and followed JESUS of his own accord, who "remains till comes," even to the present day. Wherefore, also, the good of life is now taught from the LORD for those shall be of His New Church, which is the New Jerusalem. (A. R. 16.)
     It is John who "hears behind him a great voice, as of a trumpet." They who would lead a good life, and who would know how to be saved from sin, are ever affected by the truth when it is revealed to them from the LORD. They are said to hear a voice behind them, because the influx into the affections is into the spiritual occiput, from which they have a manifest perception that what they hear comes from the LORD. But, as influx into the affections gives only perception, and; not understanding and thought, it is said by John, "And I turned to see the voice that spake with me." The affection of the will moves the understanding, and converts or turns it to look for the source and meaning of the voice that has produced such an effect. The spirit of the Divine Love has found a receptacle in the little remnant saved from the wreck of life, and enters by this interior was into the understanding, by the love into the faith,
     at once, or perhaps only by degrees, reveals each to the other the partners who from the beginning have desired and sought each other. And when they have found each other they have also found the New Heaven and the New Church, and in them the LORD Himself, from whom are all things of Heaven and the Church. Then are these "disciples glad when they see their LORD," when they see the "seven golden candlesticks," and "in the midst of the seven candlesticks, one like unto the Son of Man."
     "The conjunction of good and truth in the Spiritual World is effected by aspect," yes, but this only when the love perceives in the midst of the truth received by the understanding one like unto the Son of Man, and when the thought of the understanding beholds in the good of the affection the Face of the LORD, "as the sun shineth in his power," and when seeing both together fall at his feet as dead. In this conjoint adoration from humiliation of heart, man's own selfish life begins to die, and the LORD in His mercy lays His right hand on the pair and says: "Fear not, I am the First and the Last, and am He that liveth and was dead, and behold I am living to ages of ages. Amen."
     The right hand of the LORD is the Infinite Power of Love, present at first in the little remnant of a desire for the good of life, and re-creating or regenerating that love into the beginning of a new will in the understanding when it lies at the feet of Him who is the Truth itself, and acknowledges Him in His New Revelation, as coming to save and make alive to eternity. The mutual aspect of the affection of good and the thought of truth is conjunction or marriage in the Spiritual World, because the LORD is seen in the one and in the other as the only Good. He is One, and by Him are they made as one. From this spiritual marriage flows the true marriage of conjugial pairs in Heaven and the Church. And when, and only when, the LORD has thus joined them together in minds and in bodies, is Heaven in the Church, and the Church from the Heaven, which descends from God is adorned as a bride prepared for her husband. Then, and only then, is Re in the midst to re-create His children as He created them in the beginning, when He created man and made them male and female. And then, and only then, is His Church established when His Will is done in earth as in Heaven, and when faith is no more alone, and charity is no more alone, but face to face, eye to eye, heart to heart, and hand in hand they walk on the way of eternal life, and follow their LORD whithersoever He leads.-AMEN.
CONVERSATIONS ON EDUCATION 1889

CONVERSATIONS ON EDUCATION              1889

     CONJUNCTION.

     FROM what has been adduced thus far from the Divine Teachings, may be seen more clearly the imperative duty of parent and teacher to bring the natural affections and thoughts of the children committed to their charge into subordination to their more mature reason.

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This is one of the ends of all instruction and education. The child is to be prepared for the life of heaven, and this preparation is made by external means; by introducing and forming the first thoughts of infancy and childhood, not only the thoughts that are first as to time, but also the thoughts that are first produced in regard to this or that subject or object. (See A. C. 3665, 3669, and 3679.) These first thoughts are not to be conjoined with good, but they are to be employed as the means whereby the child is led to genuine good-in other words, to the formation of a truly human character. This end cannot be attained in any other way than by the parent's guiding and directing the thoughts of the child to the thinking of such apparent truths, and the affections of the child to the performance of such apparently good acts, as shall form in the mind planes for the gradual reception of truer thoughts and more real affections of good. This point is thus illustrated:

     "Before man is regenerated, the good of truth is inverse to the truth of good, bit afterward they are conjoined. . . . For example, a man who is such that he can be regenerated (this the LORD foresees, and because He foresees, also provides for), is at first like an infant boy, who as yet knows not what are works of charity toward the neighbor, because as yet he knows not what charity is, nor what the neighbor is; wherefore, because he knows from the Word, that he ought to give to the poor, and that he who gives to the poor has a reward in Heaven, he therefore does good to beggars more than to others, believing that they are the poor who are meant in the Word, and not considering that persons who beg in the streets, for the most part, live impious and also wicked lives, and despise everything that is of Divine worship, giving themselves up to ease and idleness. He who is regenerating, nevertheless, in his first states does good to such from the heart; these goods are the goods of external truth, from which he begins. The truth of good, which is interior, flows thus into those goods, and operates this according to the cognitions in which the boy is. But afterward, when he is more enlightened, he desires to do good to all whom he believes to be poor and wretched, and scarcely as yet makes any distinction between the pious and the impious poor and wretched, believing every one to be a neighbor in a similar respect and degree. But, when he becomes more enlightened in these things, he then makes a distinction, and affords aid only to the upright and the good, knowing that to give aid to the evil is to do evil, to many, because by benefits and kind offices they are supplied with greater means of doing evil to others. Finally, when he is regenerated he does good only to the good and the pious, because he is then not affected by the man whom he benefits, but by the good itself that is with him; and because the LORD is present in what is good and pious; he thus by affection toward the food also testifies love to the LORD. When he is in this charity from the heart he is regenerated. Hence it is evident, that his prior state was inverse respectively to this state-namely, that he had believed that to be good which was not good; but, nevertheless, that he was bound to do that in the beginning of his regeneration, because the cognition of the subject had not advanced any farther with him, and because the good of chant would not inflow interiorly into any other truth than that which was of his cognition; and, further, also, that good was always interiorly at hand, and operated this, and that this could not have manifested itself before he had been successively enlightened concerning the quality of goods and truths."-A. C. 3688.

     Observe in this teaching the infinite care with which the infant child is guarded against the leading of merely natural affections and their delights. Whilst encouraged to follow the movings of natural pity for the poor and wretched, the thought of the child is led to the Word of the LORD, and formed from its literal teaching, so that he shall do acts of external charity not from natural pity alone, not for the sake of praise or commendation; not for any external reward, but because it is duty enjoined by the LORD, in His Word, and because it will produce a reward in Heaven and lead to consociation with the angels. This reward is one that may well be offered to the thought and acceptance of the child, because the LORD Himself offers it in the letter of His Word, and because it raises the thought from what is external to what is internal and eternal. In this Divine teaching we have thus laid open to us a true method of educating the affections and delights of the child and of training the active forces of his child-life. His natural affections are to be encouraged and their delights are to be gratified, but they are ever to be held under the control of the Word of the LORD, which is to be read to him, to be spoken in his ears, so that he may connect it with what he desires to do. The truth of the Word in its literal form thus placed in the thought is to be conjoined with the acts of the hands done from the will, and this again is to be elevated by suggesting a reward in Heaven and not on earth. By such means the LORD is brought present, audibly present to him, and also visibly present in his acts done from natural delights. By His presence He saves and stores up in his interiors the affections of those acts, as remains in which, for the time being, He hides Himself, in preparation for the time when the Son of Man can manifest Himself to him in his world, and do in him the work of regeneration. When this time comes then is the order of this preparation inverted, and man returns, as it were, on the way of the appearances of good on which his mind has been formed, and attains the end or the good of life, which has been hidden within him, and by which, from its hiding place, the LORD has led him, although he knew it not.
     The means of this Divine operation, although in their external form and manner they were not good, nevertheless, by representation, they prepared planes in the mind for a more interior reception of light from Heaven and for the formation of a truer and more elevated thought by the growth and expansion of which provision was made by degrees for a conjunction with the genuine good, which was being brought successively into more ultimate forms of life.

     The preparation for regenerate life, which a parent or teacher who is guided by the laws of Divine Order thus seeks to make, is, to appearance, very far removed from the life which man is to attain by regeneration. Indeed, as was said, it appears to be the inverse of that life. But this, like so many things of the Divine accommodation to the states of men, and especially to the states of infants and children, when rightly understood and, applied, are without difficulty seen to be the very way of regeneration.
     The effects present the truth in clear light, for they are the results of successively more interior conjunctions of good with truth by which the natural affections are elevated into higher planes and purified, and the child is slowly made ready for the work of the man, who is, as of himself, to ascend up and meet the LORD at His coming to him.
NEW CHURCH AND THE OLD 1889

NEW CHURCH AND THE OLD              1889

     THE following from a recent issue of a New Church periodical is one of the best specimens of the arguments to prove that "the New Church," as this writer puts it, "is not and was never intended to be a mere sect:"

     "The Church that Swedenborg speaks of as having been-consummated, is not the Church of to-day. There is only one Church at one time on the earth. All Christian communions are partakers more or less of the light of the New Age [and exhibit signs] of returning light and life, and not of spiritual death. Swedenborg tells us that the state of the world and of the Church after the Last Judgment, compared with what it had been before that event, was as morning and day compared with evening and night.

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After the Last Judgment there was light in the world of spirits, because of the removal thence of the infernal societies that had been interposed like clouds that darken the sun. A similar light also arose in men in the world, giving them new enlightenment.
     "Surely," adds this writer, "it must be clear to the most ordinary understanding that the light of the New Dispensation is not confined to the organized New Church, but that it is universal."

     As an offset to this, we beg to quote the very similar and even stronger language which Swedenborg makes use of in speaking of the Christian Church in its beginning, as contrasted with the state of the consummated Jewish Church:

     "All the Churches which had been before the Coming of the Loan were representative Churches, which could not see Divine truths but as in the shade; but after the Coming of the LORD into the world, a Church was instituted by Him which saw, or rather was able to see, Divine truths in the light. The difference is like that between evening and morning: the state of the Church before the Coming of the Loan is also in the Word called evening and the state of the Church after His Coming is called morning."- T. C. R. 109.

     There is much more of the same kind, and many illustrations are added to show the difference more strongly. We have italicised the words, "or rather was able to see," because in the work on the Last Judgment there is a precisely similar qualification in reference to the present state of the Christian world, and because in these very words lies the whole gist of the controversy on this subject. The passage is as follows:

     "They [i. e. the angels] said, that things to come they know not, for that die knowledge of things to come belongs to the LORD alone, but that they do know that the slavery and captivity in which the man of the Church was formerly, is removed, and that now, from restored liberty, he can better perceive interior truths, if he wills to perceive diem, and thus to be made more internal, if he wills it; but that still they have slender hope of the men of the Christian Church."

     How often, we observe in passing, do we see the preceding part of this chapter quoted, but how seldom the portion here liven, and especially the words we have put in italics.
     Could anything, therefore, we ask, be more alike or identical than the teaching of the Writings in these quotations respecting the Christian Church at its commencement and the New Church to-day? Is it not manifest that if we can argue from the one set of passages that the New Church is not and was never intended to be a sect-by which we suppose is meant a distinct organization and religious body separate from the denominations of the old and consummated Church-we can with equal logical consistency argue from the other that the Christian Church never was intended to be a sect, or organized body distinct from the sects of Judaism. We presume the writer before us and his fellow-believers would hardly carry out their doctrine to a reductio ad absurdum such as this.
     The truth is, there is but one position which is logical, or even rational, to be held on this subject, and that is the one everywhere set forth in our Doctrines with reference not to one alone, but to every New Church in its relation to the old after its consummation, namely, that whatever may be the appearances to the contrary, "then the LORD recedes from the former Church and comes to the new" (A. C. 4535), and that, then, "while the men of the New Church have illumination, those of the old have night" (A. C. 10,134), and, as it is elsewhere said, "the darkness which daily increases; because [mark the reason!] the Church has come to its end" (L. J. 14; H. H. 311).

     If, in the face of such plain declarations as these, any one can still find "signs of returning light and life" in the Old Church of to-day, he must either ignore or overlook these teachings altogether, or else interpret them in some "non-material sense" which, to people of ordinary comprehension, would be wholly impossible. The fact that after the Last Judgment "a light arose to men in the world giving them new enlightenment," or, as it is in the Treatise on the Last Judgment "that now, from restored liberty, he [the man of the Church] can better perceive interior truths, if he wills to perceive them, and thus be made more internal, if he wills it," no more render it necessary or probable that he will do so, as a general rule, and receive this new light, than does the fact that the sun shines and the rain descends on the thorn or the thistle as well as on the rose or the lily, render it necessary or probable that the former will therefore be converted into the latter.
     We read in the Apocalypse Explained, n. 1029, respecting the Roman Catholic religion:

     "'It shall not be inhabited forever,' etc., signifies the destruction thereof to eternity . . . . for they who destroy good and truth and afterward embrace what is false in the place thereof cannot be

     And of the Reformed, or Protestant Church, we are taught in the same work (n. 1013) as follows:

     "'It is done,' signifies to be consummated that is, that there is no longer any good and truth, thus no longer any Church. This was said after the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air, whereby is signified that all things appertaining to men's thoughts are averted from heaven, whence there is no Longer communication of the men of the Church with heaven, and when this communication is broken, the last judgment then comes; for so long as there Is communication of heaven with the Church, all things are held together in connection, but when communication perishes it is like a house which falls when the foundation is taken from under it."

     The writer cited above tells us that "the Church which Swedenborg speaks of as having been consummated is not the Church of to-day," but that "all Christian communions are partakers of the light of the New Age." How, then, we ask, does this comport with the declaration above, that the Old Church is destroyed " to eternity," and that "they who destroy good and truth, and embrace what is false in the place thereof, cannot be reformed," as also with this teaching, in the same number in explanation of the phrase, "the Church is no more":

     "Not that their idolatrous worship in the world is to be destroyed with themselves, for this will continue, but not as the worship of any Church, but as the worship of paganism."

     Doubtless these are unpalatable truths both to ourselves and to our fellow-men. But they are truths, nevertheless, revealed from the LORD out of heaven; and, while it is not necessary that we should be always dwelling upon them, there are times when it would seem right that they should be brought strongly before the attention of the Church. And the present, when the enemies of the Church as an organized body are making use of her teachings to overthrow and destroy her, and when many in the Church itself are, if not actually seconding their efforts, at least striving to make it appear that the denominations of the Old and consummated Church of to-day form part of the New, appears to the writer to be such a time. And he is firmly convinced that until New Church people generally come to see this subject aright, and to believe that there is indeed but one Church in the world to-day, and that that is the organized and visible New Church, and thus that our Church is a Church in reality as well as in name, like every other which has existed on the earth, and not "a castle in the air," the Church will never-he will not say grow and prosper-but go forward to the accomplishing of her true mission in the world.

6


Notes and Reviews 1889

Notes and Reviews              1889

     THE Rev. William Diehl publishes monthly a six-page, German Sunday-school paper, Der Kinder-Bote.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     A SEASONABLE lecture on "Courtship and Betrothal," delivered by the Rev. R. J. Tilson, to the young people of his society, has been published in Morning Light of November 17th.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     THE name of the New Jerusalem Tidings will be changed to New Church Tidings. The price will be raised from twenty-five to fifty cents a year, extra copies to be twenty-five cents a year. "The items of Church news will appear on the last pare instead of the first of each number, thus giving the priority to the Doctrines of the Word."
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     PROF. SCOCIA has translated into Italian, and published, as numbers nine and ten of his Biblioteca della Nuova Epoca, Mr. Giles discourses on Life, Its Origin and Nature, and The Death of the Body and the Immortality of the Soul. He is about to prepare an analytical catalogue of all the Italian New-Church publications, which will be freely distributed.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     THE Calendar for Daily Reading in the Writings and the Sacred Scripture, published by the General Church of Pennsylvania, can be obtained from Geo. G. Starkey, Secretary, 1638 Green Street, Philadelphia, by any one sending name and address, with necessary postage (one cent). Extra copies will be furnished on receipt of either an additional name and address for each copy, or of five cents apiece.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     FOR some time past the Messenger has been publishing a series of "Biographical Sketches of Early Newchurchmen of Ohio and Indiana," by Mr. Milo G. Williams. The manuscript from which they have been printed is the property of the Ohio Association. The persons described are the Rev. Adam Hurdus, the Rev. Thomas Newport, Ogden Ross the Rev. David Powell, Sr., Josiah M. Espy, Alexander Kinmont, John Murdoch, Daniel Roe, Oliver Lovell, the Rev. Nathaniel Holley, Dr. William Brazier, the Rev. Adam Haworth, the Rev. M. M. Carll, the Rev. John H. Miller the Rev. David Powell, Jr., the Rev. Elisha Hibbard Luther Bishop, the Rev. Henry Weller. The series is closed with a sketch of Mr. Williams himself, reprinted from the Magazine.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     Emanuel Swedenborg, Servus Domini, a pamphlet of sixty-two pages, by the Hon. John Bigelow, is a sort of apology for the existence of Swedenborg and his Works. No attempt is made to give an account of the Works themselves. Indeed, they are little more than mentioned, except in those cases where they forestall modern scientific discoveries. The Appendix contains a complete list of all of Swedenborg's Works, in print and manuscript, known to be in existence.
     We may lay it down as a general law that no satisfactory biography can be written, unless the biographer grasps the grand purpose of the life which he is describing. This is especially true of the life of a man like Swedenborg. But, whilst Judge Bigelow is an undoubted admirer of Swedenborg, whose Theological Writings he regards as having saved him from skepticism, he certain y as failed to comprehend the nature of these Writings. He regards them almost in the same way as the scientific works, and speaks of them as the best exposition of one part of the Word he has ever met with. Although he quotes Swedenborg's own testimony concerning his mission, he quietly sets it all aside. Thus writes he: "Whether Swedenborg's did hear the Saviour's voice, whether he did hold the commission and receive the instruction he professes to have received, are questions which cannot be determined by the testimony of Swedenborg; for though there was never probably a more truthful man, nor one who lived more exclusively to the honor and glory of God, he was human, and therefore liable to illusions; neither can these questions be determined by other witnesses because from the nature of the case, there were and could have been none. This must be determined, if at all, by the character of the communication he professed to have received."
     It is very much to be doubted that "those who are too conscientious to believe in statements which they cannot reconcile with their experience or their reason," and "who think the human intellect is fully competent to measure and appropriate all the truth of which man has need in this life," will be likely to find "unspeakable comfort," or be willing to see that they are "the victims of their own blindness."
     As a biography, the sketch before us is disappointing; as an account of Swedenborg's Works it is unsatisfactory, and as a presentation of the Doctrines he has been the means of publishing it is misleading, as must always be the case when they are not regarded as the LORD in His Second Coming.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     The Massachusetts New Church Union, 169 Tremont Street, Boston, has published the first issue of a New Church Almanac, being for the year 1889. It contains tables of Scripture lessons, arranged for daily use, and for the Sundays and other Holy Days throughout the year. It is full of interesting and useful information, principally statistical, concerning the New Church in America, past and present. Thus, there is a historical sketch of the New Church in its early days, then a historical sketch of the General Convention, and an account of its sessions for the year 1888, and a list of its officers and committees. The Western Convention, the Central Convention, the American New Church Congregational Union, and the German Synod are briefly passed in review. Then follow chronological lists of Associations, Societies, and Ministers, an alphabetical list of the present Ministers and authorized Candidates, statistics of Associations, a directory and statistics of Societies. There are accounts of the American New Church Sabbath-School Association, the Convention's Theological School Urbana University, the Academy of the New Church, and the New Church institute of Education (Waltham), the missionary and publishing organizations, and the New Church periodicals. Various statistical information of a secular nature is added, such as a list of the officials of the United States government, the postal rates, the area and population of the United States and of foreign countries, the principal religions of the world, tables of weights, measures, and money. At the end of the Almanac is a sketch of Swedenborg's life and a list of his Theological Writings. There are three illustrations: portraits of the Rev. Chauncey Giles and the Rev. Joseph Pettee, and a portrait of the Council of Ministers taken last spring at Boston Highlands. Owing largely to the "lack of care or interest which has existed in the Church concerning the preservation of Church records," much of the matter in the Almanac is imperfect, "and the Editor earnestly desires that all who can furnish any additional information, or any correction of errors which may have crept in, should not fail to communicate with him." "For the purpose of obtaining statistics of the several organizations of the Church, circulars were sent out last July to all the Societies of the New Church in this country, the results of which are contained in the statistical tables. It is to be regretted, however, that the circulars did not meet with so general a response as was hoped. Many Societies did not reply to them at all, others only partially, and the result naturally is a very imperfect record. A similar circular will be sent to all centres of Church work about the first of next June to collect material for the Almanac of 1890, and it is hoped that no Society or individual receiving one will fail to respond promptly and fully." Communications concerning the contents of the Almanac should be addressed to the Editor, Mr. T. W. Harris, Cambridge, Mass.
     Notwithstanding the many errors which necessarily creep into a publication of this kind, especially at the outset, and which all the care of the Editor did not keep out, the book is replete with such valuable and useful information that we warmly recommend its adoption in every household.

7



     The Journal of the thirty-fifth annual meeting of the Ohio Association, held in October, contains among the reports, that of the Conference of Ministers on the General Pastorate, being a condensation of the three papers on that subject prepared, respectively, by the Rev. H. C. Hay, the Rev. P. B. Cabell, and the Rev. Wm. Mayhew, the first, named treating of" Congregationalism and the Episcopacy," from a historical point of view, the second of "The Permanence of the General Pastorate from the Standpoint of Use," and the third of "The Uses of the General Pastorate." These papers have been published in full in The New Jerusalem Magazine for December. The report reads as follows:
     "The first paper called attention to the fact that the Episcopacy was a natural growth to meet the needs of the first Christian Church. Abuses of it gave rise to Congregationalism in the 16th Century. An abolition instead of a reformation of the Episcopacy was sought. The weakness of the Episcopacy is in the opportunity is offers to personal ambition and selfishness. Congregationalism offers instead a ministry in which differences of endowment, duties, and responsibilities, and of influence attending them, have no official recognition. It fails to appeal to higher motives in the ministers, for the differences still exist in reality. It transfers the authority in a measure from the clergy to the laity, who are not so well qualified to exercise it, since their employments do not bring an influx of wisdom in Church matters. It restores freedom in things temporal; but freedom in things spiritual is not as safe as in the hands of a clergy who are less constrained by the need of popularity, and more by the need of loyalty to the Church and the Loan. The sense of individual responsibility is also safer in such hands. Flexibility in methods of work and worship may be as well provided by the Episcopacy when shorn of needless formalities. And the principle of providing orderly external forms that by means of them the internal man may be reformed, instead of leaving an unregenerate internal to find its own forms of expression, is sanctioned, yes, taught by Swedenborg (A. C. 1618). Unity of faith is promoted by neither, but unity of external organization is secured in the degree that the Episcopacy is in substance, or in fact, adopted. The Methodists, who use three forms of organization, show the following results in the United States in 1887, namely:
                    CHURCHES.     MINISTERS.     MEMBERS.
Methodist Episcopal     44,220     27,393     4,346,516
Presbyterian          2,777          1,840          167,392
Congregational          105          255          18,750
The Baptists have          40,347     27,439     3,682,007

The Baptists, being Congregationalists, have nearly twenty-five per cent, less in membership than the Methodists, who are Episcopalian; but the former have a larger number of ministers, showing an economy of ministerial power under the Episcopal form. Summing up all the denominations in this country, the result is as follows, viz.:
                    CHURCHES.     MINISTERS.     MEMBERS.
Episcopal Polity          55,737     38,985     8,787,733
Congregational Polity     49,551     34,915     4,520,412
Presbyterian Polity     26,947     18,111     2,710,632

Which indicates, so far as figures go, that the Episcopacy makes the work of the ministry twice as effective. The Episcopacy should be an organization, not of authority, but of uses. The grades of usefulness should be recognized and classified for the sake of good order and effective work.
     "The next paper dwelt upon the permanence of the General Pastorate from the standpoint of use. 'The Kingdom of Heaven is a Kingdom of Uses.' If the uses performed by a General Pastor are shown to be higher than those performed by a Pastor, or other Minister of the Church, there would seem to be no good reason why the General Pastors should not form a class by themselves and be regarded as superior officials. Where there is no Pastor the interests of the Church languish and die; and where there is no General Pastor, the general interests of the Church languish and die. The use of the ministry is to secure proper and orderly instruction and worship. The Pastor is the unit of the ministry, being the head and guide of his flock: How is he generally selected? First, from those who are being prepared, or, have been prepared for the work, by study, by instruction from those in it, by life, and by actual trial of the work. These, in a state of preparation and trial, form a class by themselves, and are said to be of the first or lowest degree of the ministry, because they perform interior uses; they are working for themselves and for their own improvement more than for others. When they succeed in teaching, in diligent application to the ministerial office, and in a blameless walk and conversation, they become settled Pastors. Their lives and hearts become closely united to those of their people; but this is a work of time, a growth. The adage, Once a priest always a priest, has its foundation in the fact of this growth of ability to minister and of a pastoral relation with the people. This law of growth is recognized in all callings. The greatest success, the largest usefulness in any, is secured by choosing one's calling early in life and holding fast to the performance of it to the end of life, the only orderly change being from lower to higher degrees of it. Division of labor, which is a distribution of uses among those qualified to perform them is the secret of modern material progress. Societies call Pastors with a recognition of these principles, I and not with a view to rotation in office. The members do not say to one another, 'You be Pastor this year and I will be Pastor next.' The Societies that change Pastors least are, as a rule, the most prosperous. The general interests of the Church are subject to the same principles as the interests of Societies. The general interests include, 1st, the Missionary Use, 'Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature,' said our LORD. Several Societies can combine to support a minister in this work, to send out an Apostle. He gives unity and efficiency to the combined effort. An Association comes into existence. 2d. He also learns the wants of different communities, knows when and how to send aid; can inform local Pastors and small Societies, and isolated receivers how they can extend their usefulness, and most profitably expend their zeal and money. When a General Pastor has been doing this for some time he has gained an experience, skill, and influence which the Association cannot afford to lose, for fear that he may become too important in his own eyes, or enjoy distinctions beyond the rest of his brethren in the ministry the principle of permanence applies even more strongly in his case. The necessity of this office and of permanence in it will increase with the growth of the Church. 3d. The preservation of uniformity and purity in the teachings of the Church will became an important part of his duties, and it will devolve upon him to see that only suitable men are ordained as ministers. 4th. Questions or differences of opinion may arise in the Societies, in the settlement of which such an officer will be found useful and useful according to the wisdom and influence derived from long experience in the service. Thus it is seen that the office should remain with the man because the use has become inherent in him.
     "The last paper assumed that there is a use of the General Pastorate, and discussed its nature and quality. In the LORD who is the Good Shepherd, it has its perfect exemplification The true Pastor will seek to reveal to men something of the love, the wisdom, and the helpfulness of the LORD. And he can only reveal to others what has been revealed to him. Hence his usefulness will depend upon the degree in which he makes the LORD his Pastor, all owing himself to be taught, fed, and led by the LORD. The duty of the priest is 'to teach men the way to heaven and to lead them therein.' (N. J. H. D. 315.) This is peculiarly the LORD'S work, and in a peculiar sense He confides it to those who make the pastoral use their calling; they receive a special influx for it from the LORD. With such preparation as is implied by this, and such qualifications, one enters into pastoral relations with a people who feel drawn to him. The General Pastoral use requires similar qualifications. But the uses differ in degree and variety. The General Pastor ministers not to one or two Societies, but to a considerable district. To Societies without Pastors and scattered receivers and even to Societies having Pastors he holds relations. The writer then dwelt upon the particulars of these relations with profit to all; but there is not space to consider them in this report, especially as they have been treated in another application in the account of the preceding paper.

8


In heaven the writer said we are taught, there is perfect order and subordination; the less wise looking to the more wise, and the more wise looking to the LORD. And in the Church, the LORD'S Kingdom on earth, there must be some reflection of this order. Presumably the General Pastors should be the more wise to whom the less wise are to look,-and especially should they be men who have learned to look to the LORD. It is for such that the office stands. Among his duties that of providing students or candidates for the ministry with authority and, in due time with ordination, is a most important one which distinguishes his office from that of the Pastor. While he is not alone in judging of these things, a peculiar responsibility rests upon him. This is a most important and exalted use; for the character of its ministry is of vital moment to the Church. Thus the nature and quality of the use of the General Pastor is such that it should be intrusted to only the more wise of the ministry, and, therefore, it cannot be passed from one to another according to popular approval. We are taught that dignity is adjoined to every function according to the dignity of the use. (H. H. 389.) To make this office other than distinct and permanent is to detract from its dignity and its use."

     In discussion, the following points were added, viz.:

     1.     That in hell they have congregations; but in heaven, societies with order and subordination.

     2.     Congregationalism leads us to look up to men; the Episcopacy, to the Church.

     3.     That rotation of office is not according to Divine and heavenly, or even true earthly order. Think of the heart and lungs rotating in office!

     4.     Priestly rule is made offensive by abuse. The easiest remedy for any abuse always seems to lie in total abstinence; but the true remedy is in the temperate, orderly use of the given thing.

     5.     When a General Pastor retires temporarily or finally from the activities of his office he does not lose the qualifications and should no more be deprived of his rank than should a physician who retires from practice be deprived of his degree.

     6.     A bugbear is made of the idea of authority. The keynote is found in the reply of the Centurion, "I am a man, under authority." The President of the United States is not elected to authority, but is under authority, not of the people, but oft he law of the common good. The Old and New Testament, the Writings, and the conatus of all Church organization teach subordination in the ministry in three orders, as the best form.

     7.     The suggestions of the Rev. Mr. Hayden's address to the ministers of the General Convention in regard to the practical operation of the General Pastorate seem to us excellent and practicable.
CONCUBINAGE AND MARRIAGE 1889

CONCUBINAGE AND MARRIAGE              1889

     Communicated.

     [Inasmuch as in this Department Correspondents have an opportunity to express their individual opinions, be they in favor of the principles on which New Church Life is conducted or adverse to them, the Editor does not hold himself responsible for any of the views whatever that are published therein.]


     EDITOR OF NEW CHURCH LIFE.-Dear Sir,-I also have read the articles on "Concubinage," and beg the privilege of adding one more question to the list already published. Where is the woman of any "morality," respectability, or delicacy that is going to consent to be this Newchurchman's concubine?
     Please answer.
                         ANOTHER NEWCHURCHWOMAN.
NEW LONDON, December 10th.

     ANSWER.

     THE correspondence on this subject has turned from the plane of principles, where it belongs, to that of means or methods. It is a common tendency to interpose questions of expediency and practicability when principles are being discussed. This inevitably leads to confusion, obscurity, doubt, and denial. Our correspondent will, therefore, pardon us if, in our answer, we first return to the consideration of principles.
     In the establishment of the Church we need to be constantly reminded of this fundamental: that truths must be established by virtue of their inherent quality, aside from any questions of practicability. Truth is creative and formative: "By the Word of JEHOVAH were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth" (Psalms xxxiii, 6). If allowed to do its own work, it will produce and call forth its means. It was so in the creation of the world, it is so in every particular creation, and we by so much oppose its operation as we deny this its quality in the re-formation and re-creation of man, for which, indeed, the world itself was created. The doctrine concerning concubinage is given as part of the doctrine of the reformation and regeneration of man. The Divine Truth alone being operative in this, it alone is operative in those states of reformation which render concubinage advisable, and will, therefore, if suffered to do its work unchecked, call forth the necessary means. But that it may do so, the Truth must be seen and acknowledged in the mind; without this, its acknowledgment, it cannot reign and operate.
     The LORD never permits a state to exist for which He does not make provision that it may be rectified, provided man be willing that this should be done. If the Divine Providence is most particular and most universal concerning marriages and in marriages (C. L. 229), its operation extends to all the unchaste, natural, and external states out of which man is to be lifted into the chaste, spiritual, and internal states of conjugial love. Thus, as the LORD'S Providence has permitted the existence of conditions whose operations have brought about the state in men making such a thing as concubinage allowable, the same conditions, operating in a different way, have been the cause of related circumstances in women-circumstances, the existence of which is recognized in the directions that "pellicacy is preferable to roaming lust, provided there be not dealings with more than one, nor with a virgin or undeflowered woman, nor with a married woman, and it be kept separate from conjugial love." (C. L. 460.) The same applies to concubinage. If this quotation be attentively considered, it will be seen to answer our correspondent's query. The man is limited in his choice of a concubine to those who are neither virgins nor live in the marriage state. The reason is plain. The allowance is on the ground of the preservation of the conjugial to the man. Therefore, only those women whose conjugial will not be endangered by the relation, can enter into it. A person who has delivered up her virginity is such a one, and yet she is not necessarily one or whom there is no chance of salvation. (See A. C. 1113.) She may have an inclination for morality, and may become even a woman of respectability and delicacy. As the LORD came to call not the just but sinners to repentance (Matt ii. ix, 13) sinners, even such as the adulteress who was brought to the LORD (John viii), ought to be considered, and the gradual elevation out of sin, impurity, unchastity, naturalism, and externalism, according to the directions of the Doctrines, ought to receive the support, not the denunciation, of the members of the Church.
     There are other cases which tome under the description given above.

9


If, as has been indicated in the last issue of the Life, there are circumstances under which a man, having cause for legitimate separation, has cause for concubinage, the same applies to the woman. The legitimate causes for separation apply in her case; and such a woman, after being separated from her husband legitimately, may, if she adjudge it proper, enter into the concubine relation without loss of her morality, respectability, or delicacy.
     Other cases may also arise. In all, it must not be forgotten that this is a relation in which the parties themselves are the most competent to judge; and if they are evidently entering into such a relation, not for the purpose of merely gratifying their passions, but with the honest endeavor to conform with the Divine allowances, in order that they may ultimately reach, each for himself-or, it may be, together-the benefits of the Divine provisions, and if they do not violate any of the Doctrines of the Church, then it is the duty of the members of the Church to exercise that charity which is due to all who look to the LORD, and shun stile because they are sins against Him.
     It is because Newchurchmen are still influenced by fear of public disapproval that they object so strenuously to the doctrines in the Work on Conjugial Love and Scortatory Love. And, because the Doctrines contained in the First Part of this Work have not yet come home to them, they are not prepared to accept those contained in the Second Part. Public opinion, instead of the Divine Revelation, is suffered to form the judgment. But should this be so in the New Church? Within her sphere, should not eternal ends be regarded, and not those that are temporal, and this above all in marriage? That this should be so is generally acknowledged in the first states of marriage, for then there is with every one something emulous of love truly conjugial, but it is forgotten as these states gradually change, and many parents, even in the New Church, consult the temporal and worldly good of their children in engagements for marriage, and often interfere with attachments which are the result of an internal attraction, and endeavor to shape matters so as to conform with their worldly notions. Were the spiritual and heavenly goods of marriage made to preponderate over temporal benefits, then, whatever makes for the preservation and development of love truly conjugial would commend itself more favorably to the judgment for the judgment would be determined by the spiritual and heavenly-not by the natural and worldly.
     As the world goes, aye, even as the nominal New Church goes, how many are the women of any morality, respectability, or delicacy that would not consent to marry a man for his position, or for his riches, or with the object of being provided for, or for the sake of order in the world, or with a view to the education and distinct care of children, or with a view to inheritance, or for other external reasons?
     Force is given to this question as a reply to our correspondent's query, by the teaching that unless -eternity or eternal conjunction is thought of in the marriage relation "she is not a wife, but a concubine" (D. S. Pars III, 2, p. 213, n. 16). Yet women of eminent respectability and also of morality, do not hesitate to enter into marriage for reasons similar to those enumerated above, women who at the same time would spurn a concubinage such as our correspondent refers to. But, in the light of the Divine Truth, a marriage entered into from motives enumerated above, may easily lead to a lax regard of the marriage tie, and to wantonness (A. C. 4171), while concubinage which is engaged in from legitimate; just, and truly sufficient causes, may help to preserve conjugial love (C. L. 476). For let it he borne in mind, that such concubinage is not opposite to conjugial love. The treatise on "The Pleasures of Insanity concerning Scortatory Love" begins, therefore, with this important declaration:
     "At this threshold, it ought first to be disclosed, what is meant in this chapter by scortatory love. The fornicatory love which precedes marriage, is not meant; nor that which follows it after the death of a consort; nor concubinage which is engaged in from legitimate, just, and sufficient causes; neither are the mild kinds of adultery meant, nor the grievous kinds of it of which man actually repents, for the latter do not become opposite, and the former are not opposite to conjugial love; that they are not opposite, will be seen in the following pages, where each will be treated of. But by scortatory love opposite to conjugial love is here meant the love of adultery, when it is such, that it is not reputed as a sin, nor as a thing evil and dishonorable against reason, but as what is allowable with reason; this scortatory love not only makes conjugial love the same with itself; but also ruins, destroys, and at length nauseates it."-EDITOR
ESSENTIAL ELEMENT TO THE PROSPERITY OF THE CHURCH 1889

ESSENTIAL ELEMENT TO THE PROSPERITY OF THE CHURCH       X       1889

     WHAT I regard as an essential element to the prosperity of the Church is the undivided interest of each and all of its members. I mean by undivided interest that its social life be not divided between the New Church and the Old Church. If we would succeed in anything we undertake, that undertaking must receive from us our undivided attention. We find that this principle applies in all the various relations and duties of life. The merchant, to succeed, finds it necessary to give his most watchful and undivided care to his business, and to require this at the hands of each one in his employ. He has no time to attend to his neighbor's business, and failure would result were he to attempt to. The captain of a vessel, to bring it safely into port, must give to it his undivided mind. He cannot keep the logbook of another vessel. Shipwreck would result from an attempt to do so. The soldier has in mind constantly the thought of home and country, which he loves with an ardent love. Re regards the enemy as an enemy, and thus fights for his country. He who has time for both sides in battle is a deserter, the punishment for which is death. This principle applies to every one. The workmen in our factories, the husbandman, the artist, the servants in our homes. Each and every one must give his whole mind up to the work he sets about to do, and thus the general good is served and happiness made to prevail. From this we see that in the lower planes of life it is found to be necessary in order to succeed to not be divided in our minds as to our duty when we enter upon any office or employment.
     Now let us apply the principle to higher things. We are taught that the Church is our neighbor, whom we are to love, in an eminent degree; in fact, the neighbor to whom we are to do good, in next to the highest degree. Our Writings abound in beautiful references to the Church. John at first saw the New Jerusalem as a city-then as doctrine-and with more interior sight he beheld it as an espoused virgin in beautiful apparel. (A. R. 881.) We are taught that the New Church will exist to all eternity. That if it were not for it, mankind could in no wise exist, but all and each of them, must needs perish. (A. C. 637.) It is called a "crown of glory," a "royal diadem," the "Throne of JEHOVAH," a "quiet habitation."

10


There "the mountains shall drop new wine. The hills shall flow with milk and it shall remain from generation to generation."
- Such is the Church. As man is born to eternal life and is introduced into it by the Church, he ought to love the Church, for it teaches the means that lead to eternal life, and introduces him into it. (T. C. R. 416.) Man regarded in himself is much viler than the brutes; and were he left to himself, that is, were the benign influences of the Church withdrawn from him, he would rush headlong to his own destruction. With these truths before us, we cannot fail to see that the Church should receive from us our undivided interest and support. The principle we find true in those things which refer more directly to our temporal welfare, we find applies in a pre-eminent sense to the higher things which have regard to our eternal welfare.
     Why our affections should not be divided in this matter of the social life of the Church there are very strong doctrinal reasons.
     We read that the faith of the Old Church and the faith of the New Church do not agree together. The faith of the Old is likened to a dragon, the faith of the New to a woman which the dragon is in the effort to destroy. The faith of the Old is a faith based upon the idea of three gods, the faith of the New upon the idea of one God; hence there is a repugnance to each other, and there must inevitably be collision and conflict, such as would prove fatal to everything relating to the Church. In fact, the mind that would attempt to entertain the two must become delirious or insensible to spiritual things. Those who would divide their social life with the Old Church should take warning from this, for the inevitable result in such cases has hitherto been delirium, or utter apathy with regard to the things of the Church and eternal life.
     Another reason why we should cultivate a distinctive social life, is that here upon the earth we are closely associated with our brethren in the world of spirits in their efforts to build up the LORD'S New Church. We are taught that the New Church on earth increases according to its increase in the world of spirits, for spirits from thence are with men and are from those who were in the faith of their Church while they lived in the world. Their number in the world of spirits now daily increases, and, therefore, according to their increase this Church, which is called the New Jerusalem, increases on earth. (A. E. 732.) You will see that this is a just and most important reason why we should not divide our social life with that of the Old Church. In thus doing, we would, as it were, be removing the prop from under our brethren in the world of spirits, and also be depriving ourselves of their sympathy and co-operation, for it is most reasonable to conclude that they who would otherwise be our constant companions, could not accompany us in our convivalties amongst the dragonists, who are their deadly and open enemies. It may be said that our Society is too small, and, therefore, incapable of sustaining a social life commensurate with the requirements of our different natures and dispositions. This thought, however, must disappear when we consider the large number with whom we are associated in the world o spirits. It ought to be a source of great comfort and encouragement to us to contemplate the fact that, though comparatively small in number here, we have an ever-increasing number of friends in the world of spirits who are in entire sympathy with us, and with whom it is our delightful privilege to co-operate. Let us bear in mind, then, that     only by cultivating a distinctive social life in our Society we can hope to be in good spiritual company, and, it is said, you know, that "a man is known by the company he keeps."
     Another, and perhaps the most important, reason why we should not divide the social life of the New Church with that of the Old Church, presents itself when we consider its teachings on the subject of marriage. Conjugial love is an all-important factor in our lives, and is inseparably connected with the social life of the Church. That we may have correct views on this subject should be of the deepest concern to each one of us. We have beautiful and positive teachings on the subject in our Writings. We read that it is provided that conjugial pairs be born, and that they be educated for marriage-both the boy and the girl being unconscious of it-continually under the auspices of the LORD. And, after the required time, they somewhere meet, as if by chance, and see each other. She then a maiden and he a youth, fit for marriage; and then at once, as by a certain instinct, they recognize that they are mates, and from a kind of inward dictate, as it were, think within themselves-the young man: "She is mine;" and the maiden: "He is mine." And when for some time this has been settled in the minds of both, they speak to each other and betroth themselves. (C. L. 229.) We learn from this that the LORD provides conjugial pairs and educates them for marriage, and we may also know in what this education consists; that there cannot be love truly conjugial between two who are of different religions. For this reason, marriages in the heavens are formed with those that are within the same Society, and not with those that are out of the Society. (H. H. 378.)
     They that are born within the Church ought not, to unite in marriage with those who are out of the Church. The reason is that there is no conjunction between them in the spiritual world, and as there is no conjunction between such in the spiritual world, there ought to be no conjunction on earth. For this reason, marriages on earth between those who are of different religion are regarded in heaven as heinous; and more so between those who are of the Church and those who are out of the Church. (A. C. 8998.) This clear and emphatic teaching upon this sublime and momentous subject should impress us most forcibly with the great importance of giving our undivided energies and support toward sustaining a distinctive social life in the Church, and inspire us to put forth our best efforts to make it vigorous and healthy, that thus it may prove a magnet to our boys and girls, our young men and maidens, attracting them to it that they may have no inclination to wander away and find gratification to their desires in the for bidden pleasures of the Old Church. In conclusion, I beg to read from Mr. Allbutt's pastoral letter: "Let me invite you to be regular and punctual in your attendance on public worship; to show an interest in the various meetings of the city; to be active in the performance of any office or function to which you maybe appointed; cheerfully to contribute your share in providing for the upkeep of needful machinery in connection with Church I work; and thus will the LORD prosper our Society."
     X

     [A paper prepared to be read at one of the regular monthly socials of the Toronto Society, but which was omitted for want of time.]
second part of the Rev. John Worcester's Correspondences of the Bible 1889

second part of the Rev. John Worcester's Correspondences of the Bible              1889

     The second part of the Rev. John Worcester's Correspondences of the Bible has just been published by the Massachusetts New Church Union. It treats of the plants, the minerals, and the atmospheres, and comprises 330 pages duodecimo.

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CHRISTMAS AT THE ACADEMY SCHOOLS, PHILADELPHIA 1889

CHRISTMAS AT THE ACADEMY SCHOOLS, PHILADELPHIA       FIDELIA       1889

     THE Philadelphia schools of the Academy had a service this year in celebration of Christmas, for the first time since their establishment. From this service Santa Claus, the traditional saint of the Catholic Church, was banished, as being unworthy of a place in any ceremonial in honor of our LORD. The heathen Christmas tree was also discarded, because, being a tree without roots, it is dead; and with its lifeless branches, adorned with glittering gewgaws and hung with fruits that never ripened upon them, is a correspondence of the dead Church by which it has been adopted. (T. C. R. 461, 186.)
     Children have been accustomed to lock forward to Christmas as a day for receiving numerous presents the most valued of these being sweetmeats, which they are permitted to indulge in even to satiety-while the true meaning and the appropriate observance of the day have been equally neglected. Thus the influence of the prevailing method of observing the day tends to concentrate a child's thought upon himself, and to strengthen his natural selfishness and self-indulgence.
     As a change in this popular programme had been decided upon some time in advance, the children of the school had been duly instructed that in order to think wisely of this day they must think of giving rather than of receiving-that they would find the truest happiness in acknowledging that all the blessings the enjoy of Church and School and Home come from the LORD, and that this could best be done by offering a gift to Him of something that they value of their own possessions. This suggestion was hailed with evident pleasure by one and all.
     The very youngest had plants to offer of which they were fond. Even the children is yet too young for school entered into the general sphere of giving in honor of the LORD. Several days be ore Christmas one little prattler of three years stood before the Chancellor, and eagerly informed him of a flower that he would bring to offer to the Heavenly Father.
     So, on Christmas Eve, instead of the usual tree, the spaces on each side of the platform in the Hall were occupied by wide tables on which were arranged representations, taken from the literal sense of the Word, of scenes at the birth of our LORD. On the left was a landscape where were flocks of sheep whose attendant shepherds, in attitudes expressive of awe and astonishment, gazed at the angel who announced the glad tidings of the babe in the manger. On the right-hand side was a representation of an Oriental horse-stable, showing better than any description In words how humble and mean and wretched was the birthplace of the LORD. Palms and plants, such as might grow in Palestine, surrounded these tables without intercepting the view, while the walls around were decorated with inscriptions. Over the repository was one taken from the Doctrines, and one on each side from the letter of the Word. There were others also in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin.
     At the opposite end of the room wee suspended many photographic views of scenery in the Holy Land. Water-bags and other articles used by the inhabitants of that country were hung about the Hall. A table was placed on the platform at the right of the altar to receive the offerings.
     When the pupils, accompanied by their teachers and followed by their parents and friends, reached the top of the stairs, they were met by the Chancellor, who preceded them into the Hall. Here they found the lights turned down except those that illuminated the above-mentioned representations. The children gazed at these with deep attention and interest, while those behind were taking their seats. Then, the entire Hall being lighted, there followed a most impressive and delightful service of prayer and reading from the Word and the Doctrines, and singing and responsive recitation-which latter consisted of quotations from the Doctrines read by the Minister and appropriate responses from the letter of the Word by the schools.
     Then followed a short address by the Chancellor, explaining the use of making our offerings to the LORD, and showing the weaning of the gold and frankincense and myrrh brought by the wise men to the infant Saviour.
     At its close the youngest children, who had been seated in front, went with their offerings to the table, aided by their teacher in carrying such gifts as proved too heavy for such little hands.
     After them followed the larger girls with their teachers, bringing whatsoever it seemed to them best to give; then the students, and lastly the parents and friends.
     After singing the anthem "Unto us a Child is born," the Chancellor caused fruit of various kinds to be distributed, making appropriate remarks as to the correspondence of fruit and connecting it with the event celebrated.
     After the benediction, a short time was left for social intercourse and enjoyment, while the children inspected more closely the representations made for their benefit.
     Then the young people gathered near the piano and sang "Oh! lovely Night," and this large family slowly dispersed, each one with the memory of an evening, profitably as well as pleasantly spent, and with the conviction that a right beginning has been made in the way of celebrating the coming in the flesh of our LORD and SAVIOUR, JESUS CHRIST.
     The children will have time before the next celebration to prepare some gift with greater care. Even the youngest may be taught to lovingly tend some plant, or prepare some simple gift, suited to their age; and thus from their tenderest years become accustomed practically to acknowledge that all they have and all they are comes to them from the LORD, and is theirs only to use. Thus the holy event of our LORD'S birth will cease with them to be celebrated in a way to strengthen self-love and foster self-indulgence.
     FIDELIA.
LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND 1889

LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND       JAS CALDWELL       1889

     IT is not usual to notice here the essays read at the very enjoyable monthly social tea meetings of this Society, held on the second Sunday of each month, but a remark or two on Mr. Alfred Swift's paper, read at the November meeting, may not be out of place. The subject was the vexed one of the slow growth of the external organization of the Church, and how to accelerate the rate of growth. The paper may be described as a plea for the recently appointed Missionary and Tract Distribution Committee for support, to which he wound up with an appeal. The proposals were not novel, and it remains to be seen whether any greater success will follow their most recent presentment by Mr. Swift with his undoubted earnestness. The points in the paper that I desire to notice are, however, unconnected with the practical proposals, which I do not care to criticise. If Mr. Swift's methods succeed to the degree he anticipates, none will rejoice more than I. But Mr. Swift claims to be charitable; and it was surely unnecessary to decry and misrepresent the methods of others who are desirous of extending the borders.

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His zeal led him to reflect bitterly on the narrow sectarianism of a section in the Church; but probably the section he had in his mind are of the opinion-as deep-rooted as his and as well-grounded in doctrine-that the narrowing process he alludes to and does not, I fear, quite understand, is the surest method of ultimately broadening and deepening the foundations of the LORD'S New and Eternal Church. He referred warmly to a party that made Ecclesiasticism the sum total of our religion, in the same breath that he denounced the bearing of false witness. For my part I don't know of such a party. Again, he spoke of wrangling and contention; also of threats of excommunication. Of course, he knows the old saying, "that it takes two to make a quarrel." As to excommunication, it is a remarkable fact that the only instance known to me of such a thing being proposed in the Church is furnished by the ultra-charitable party of which Mr. Swift is a prominent member in Liverpool. An estimate of the prospects of extending the LORD'S Kingdom in the earth may be formed from the quality of those who are favorable to it, as supplied by their comments on the paper. One gentleman, who doesn't believe in an external organization at all, could not refrain from making delighted ejaculations of approval during the reading of the essay. Another, who said he was heartily sick of the wine question, and thought it didn't matter whether the element used at the holiest act of worship was ginger-beer or water, or what it was, gave it as his opinion that the paper was the best he had ever heard at those meetings. A third supporter of the ideas set forth in the essay animadverted on certain New-churchmen who declared that they found support for the most abominable practices in the Writings. Verily, Mr. Swift's project is launched under exceedingly favorable auspices. I am glad to say that the misstatements of the essayist and others were not allowed to pass unchallenged, thanks to Mr. J. Sweet, Dr. Livsey, Dr. W. E. Livsey, and others. Yours truly,
          JAS CALDWELL.
     LIVERPOOL, Nov. 12th, 1888.
DENVER, COLORADO 1889

DENVER, COLORADO              1889

     IT would seem to be useful, as a matter of information to the general Church, that a statement concerning the New Church in Denver, Colorado, should be made. This statement involves the fact that there are now two Societies of the New Church in this city. Within the present year a number of the members of the old Denver Society have formally withdrawn from its connection, and have organized a new Society, known as the "Denver Society of the LORD'S Advent," and are holding services of worship for the present at No. 2658 Stout Street. This latter Society has purchased and paid for a lot in an eligible part of the city, and are now trying to procure the necessary means to erect a building upon it, for the uses of a New Church Society. An application to the Building Fund Committee, of the General Convention, for a loan, has met with the response that it has no funds on hand to lend. In view of this fact, our Society would make an appeal to the Church at large, in hope that some person or persons, prompted by a desire to assist a Society to secure a permanent place of worship, may kindly loan us the money needed. While we will thankfully receive any amounts, no matter how small, as gifts to further this end, we are prepared to negotiate a loan of say $1,600 at six per cent. or less, and give a mortgage on our lot and the building to secure the loan. The lot is unencumbered, is now worth $1,000, and likely to increase in. value. Will not some New Churchman advance us this sum to help us to procure a suitable place of worship? Who will help us? Further particulars may be learned, and sums received by addressing the pastor, the Rev. Richard de Charms, No. 2736 California Streets or Mr. Elis Bergstrom, Treasurer, No. 1230 South Ninth Street, Denver, Colorado.
WHAT IS GOD? 1889

WHAT IS GOD?       ANSGARIUS BOREN       1889

     MEN of all generations have asked this question, which can only be answered by Divine Revelation. But since we have Divine Revelation, we can obtain some knowledge on the subject. It must be known, however, that since such, a knowledge is the Alpha and Omega of all wisdom, intelligence, and order from the LORD, no man can acquire it, unless there be a reciprocal conjunction between him and the LORD; otherwise man is merely natural-rational (according to The True Christian Religion, n. 369). In a state of natural rationality, man turns his face away from the Lord; thus he is spiritually dead, and can have no vivifying knowledge of the LORD.
     In order to have a true knowledge concerning the LORD, man must, first of all, see that his own goods are mere evils, and that hence his own truths are of the same nature, or that they are falses. To this may be added that he must see himself to be a mere organ of life. (See The True Christian Religion, n. 362.) In a word, man commences to know something and also to increase his knowledge by shunning evils as sin against the LORD.
     It, is true that man's understanding may not be reformed, and still he may have a clear natural idea of spiritual things, and even naturally love them, because his understanding maybe elevated into spiritual light; for we must recollect that he has rationality and liberty. If, then, his love is spiritual, his wisdom will become spiritual; otherwise they will both remain infernal, in spite of all appearance to the contrary. (More of this in The Divine Providence, n. 222-225.) Hence it is that popular ideas of the Godhead have always been in compliance with popular life, or, what is the same, with popular love, which we now will attempt to illustrate.
     That the peoples of the Most Ancient and of the Ancient Churches had true ideas concerning the LORD is very evident, and they possessed this knowledge, because the LORD by different means could show them that they had nothing from themselves and everything from Him. The people of the Most Ancient Church, before they desired a proprium, conceived of the LORD as an infant does of its mother. For the first dawn of knowledge with the infant-man is that his mother is all in all to him, and he seems to be conscious-not so much of himself as of his mother's love. Slow but sure was the de dine of that Church, for the generations immediately before the flood-not, however, those who perished believed the LORD to be an old man, bearded and holy and their religious "ne plus ultra" consisted in a desire to be holy and bearded from Him. They seem to have labored under the impression, that the holiness of the LORD consisted in His beard. How the people of the Ancient Church lost all spiritual knowledge is described in Arcana Coelestia, n. 1327, and elsewhere.
     The people of the Second Ancient or Hebrew Church, we are, told, acknowledged the LORD and called Him JESUS. They had an internal worship within external ceremonies and sacrifices.

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That Church derived its name from the descendants of Heber or the Hebrew nation. And we are told in Arcana Coelestia, n. 1343, that when all the nations of the Hebrew Church became idolatrous, and selected each one its different chief god, the Hebrew nation called its chief idol Jehovah, from which the name Jove is said to have been derived.
     The Jews had the same idea of the LORD as had the Antediluvians mentioned above, because JEHOVAH did represent himself before Moses through an angel from one of the natural celestial societies, where the angels look old and bearded.
     The Jews considered JEHOVAH as a mere man, possessing great magical powers, and dwelling in the tabernacle or the temple. They believed in many other gods, all strong and powerful, yet they became inclined to think that no other god was more powerful than their own JEHOVAH. He was held to be a jealous God, not easily deceived or cheated, and for worthy reasons alone it was not advisable to offend Him. Since the wickedness, cruelty, and hatred of the Jewish nature are boundless, they were incapable of better ideas concerning the LORD. But they had two very useful qualities, namely: 1st, that abject fear and trembling by which they were compelled to an external representative worship; and 2d, their burning hate toward the rest of mankind, by; which profanations were prevented and the Sacred Scriptures jealously kept intact.
     The idea of a plurality of gods originated from a misunderstanding of the Divine Esse, a misunderstanding which arose from the fact that the merely natural man cannot distinguish spiritual and Divine things from what is merely natural. Hence Divine revelations are, perverted. Polytheism is therefore nothing else than true revelations turned into falses.
     Of the various modes of worship sprung from the consummation of the Hebrew Church, more or less is known to us.
     The popular belief among the Egyptians was crude, material, and pantheistic. They had no idea of any other immortal life than the transmigration of souls. Each god could appear in many animal forms at the same time; this, however, with some exceptions as to the higher gods. The lower gods in animal forms were, for longer or shorter time, to become the dwellings of their souls; but they held that all life ultimately was to be absorbed in the god Osiris. And since they also believed that the grave was an eternal abode. Osiris and the grave may have been the same thing. With regard to the triads among their higher gods, their minds seem to have formed the same idea as the Christians of today concerning the trinity. One of their gods, Serapis, was made up of two distinct gods in one person. In fact, it may be safe to say, that their religion constituted all forms of religious insanity; yet the modern scientific world is in a far more grievous state, since it acknowledges no life but from nature, no intelligence but from nature, and no real being but nature. Egypt, as we all know, signifies science. The Egyptian priests, aided by lingering remains from the science of correspondence and traditions from lost revelations, may have held better doctrines, but whatever they did believe, they jealously guarded from the people.
     The people of Greece believed in a whole tribe of gods-gods, who in their pursuits of life, affections, and enjoyments were very much like the Greeks themselves, for the superiority of the gods consisted mainly in their physical strength, the acuteness of their senses and the swiftest of their motion. But the charms of Greek mythology are so well known that it is unnecessary to dwell upon them. The earlier philosophers held that the gods, when cleared from scandalous fables-for which they blamed the poets-were only so many personified attributes of the one god, and that Zeus alone was the true centre of worship.
     Phidias made a statue of Zeus, copies of which are still extant. The grand Pan-Hellenic ideal godhead seems to have been conceived in this work. The entire nation seems to have acknowledged that those indeed were features worthy of him, who ought to be worshiped as the father of gods and men, and who by his slightest nod could shake the lofty Olympus. While independent, the Greeks never persecuted men of different religion, except in the case of Antiochus Epiphanes, who, although a terror to the Jews, nevertheless did much toward spreading Greek culture throughout the East. The trial of Socrates cannot properly be called a religious persecution.
     The Roman gods belonged exclusively to the state and pertained to the state. Even their Venus and Bacchus were supposed to frown on those mortals who neglected their duties toward the state. On this account there is as much difference between the Olympian Zeus and the Capitoline Jupiter as there is between poetry and prose. To the Roman people political organism and religion were almost the same thing; hence their religion was more local than the Greek religion, and could not have existed away from the Tiber. For those gods which the Roman colonists carried along from Rome became Greek gods in the course of time, although, in most cases, their Roman names were retained. Rome had no theogony, although it borrowed one from Greece, which by no means soothed the characters of the gods. The Romans permitted all kinds of worship, and they considered such a policy pleasing to their gods, because it secured the state from seditions. The first indication to intolerance manifested itself in the time of Claudius Caesar, who prohibited Isis-Osiris-worship in Rome, and also banished the Jews from the capita, but this took place on account of scandalous conduct among the respective votaries of those religions. C. Caligula attempted to introduce his own image in the temple at Jerusalem, but, since this was a political mistake, it was generally pronounced an impious act. The persecutions against the Christians were invited by iconoclastic tendencies among the Christians themselves. They were persecuted for the good of the state. Since the Emperor was considered, as it were, the embodiment of the state, it is no wonder that the Romans should deify their Caesars. This habit became so powerful, that the Senate for some time continued to enroll their Christian Emperors among the gods of their ancestors.
     The gods of Greece were eminently the gods of social life. From this reason the Greeks-politically divided-were held under the sway of a common language, and made one nation by their religious-social games alone. The gods of Rome were the gods of state-organism, hence the Romans organized a long-enduring empire. If we turn our gaze from the south of Europe to its wintery north, to Scandinavia, we find a marked contrast. The Scandinavian gods were gods of hospitality and home, the givers and protectors of individual rights and valor, and for this reason the true government of Scandinavia was patriarchal. For the Scandinavians obeyed their King only so far as he would leave their patriarchal power intact. That the aims of life am those three nations were in exact correspondence with their respective ideas of the godhead may be seen, if history be viewed in the light of the New Church.
     The Scandinavian Odin had the character of a Scandiaavian king: he was the highest patriarch among patriarchs.

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The free-born man of this nation was always ready so to entertain his guests or visitors as he himself wished to be entertained and amused by Odin in his Walhalla. On this account his hospitality was unlimited but there is a verse in the song Havamal-if I remember right-warning visitors from imposing on hospitality by these words: "Disagreeable will an agreeable man become when he sits long on other people's benches."
     It is a mistake to suppose that Walhalla was the common abode for all the gods, for they had all their separate patriarchal establishments of different names They were only held together by the mere fact that some attribute of one god was always the compliment of another's deficiency. Otherwise they were independent, and held their ranks in the divine confederacy according to the quality of their attributes. Freya, the virgin-goddess, like any other unmarried odal-woman, kept her own house, second in splendor to Walhalla alone, and by an agreement with Odin, she entertained as her guest half of the honest men who had fallen in battle or else had killed themselves, for it was not allowable for male Scandinavians to die a natural death.
     The blue-eyed Valkyrias were only hand-maidens attending on the guests of Odin and Freya. They were also present on every battle-field to gather the spirits of the slain. The gods of a superior order were twelve and there was an equal number of goddesses. As to nature, they were like the Greek gods, but the gods of Asagord were more moral than those of Olympus.
     Odin and his associates were only superior men; fated to undergo a second death and resurrection. But the Scandinavians believed in an all-powerful god with whom the Asa-gods could not be compared, and whose name was too holy to be mentioned. After that terrible battle which was fated to bring on the destruction of the world, or Ragnarok, he alone would gather all good people to himself, and reign forever over a new earth and a new race of men, from his eternal abode "Gimle." Am I wrong in believing that in this point the ancient Scandinavians had a far better idea of the Godhead than the modern, or, rather, a less harmful one?
     The ancient Scandinavian doctrine of Ragnarok was correct, for the old earth-that is, the old church-has now been destroyed by its falses and consummated. That God to whom the Asa-gods were as nothing, who since ages has been little known and whom, they believed, were to come and make Himself known by making everything new, is now doing all this. He has come in His Writings given through His servant Swedenborg, who was prepared for his mission on the site of that very temple, where the Odin-culture had its principal home, and where the drotts or priests would tell the people of the one God who was to come.
     These few illustrations may be sufficient to show us that men's conception of the Godhead is in agreement I with their affections, for man's understanding is really ruled by his affections. But what is our idea of the LORD? What is our Godhead? The Divine Writings will answer our question: "What is God?" For they are Infinite Truth from Infinite Good, and speak of nothing else.
     But, will, we, by the mere reading of the Writings, obtain a clear and permanent idea of the LORD? Yes, if we first of all can obtain a clear and permanent idea of the fact, that we, as to our proprium, are huge masses of more or less hideous evils. But the Writings will show us all this, and seeing it, we will commence to shun evils as sin, and we will then know that the LORD is the Source of our life. But we cannot say, like the seaman with the finger on his chart, here we are! thus far we have advanced. For we know just as little of the state of our own will and understanding as concerning the state of our neighbor's. But we can always know that we have evils to shun and uses to perform, and we know something of the LORD, when we are wide-awake to the fact that the LORD knows us perfectly well.
     ANSGARIUS BOREN.
COMING OF AGE 1889

COMING OF AGE              1889

     DURING the past two years the General Church of Pennsylvania has had under consideration the adoption of three new rites, one on coming of age of a young man or maiden, another as introduction into Church Societies, and the third, a public "Confession of Faith." These three rites would practically take the place of the rite of "Confirmation," and cover more ground.
     At the sixty-second meeting of the General Church of Pennsylvania, held in November of the year 1887, the Council of the Clergy embodied, in its report, recommendations concerning this matter; and, at the same meeting, a paper bearing on the subject was read and discussed. (See Journal, pages 82, 34-50.) During the past year, the first and third rites have been administered in several instances, although they have not as yet been finally adopted by the Council of the Clergy. The rite, on the Coming of Age, as prepared thus far, was used in the New Jerusalem Society of the Advent, on Sunday, the 30th day of December, when the time usually set apart for worship was wholly devoted to this ceremony.
     The services were opened in the usual way (pages 3 and 4 of the Liturgy). After the Sanctus the responsive service on page 66 was read. This was followed by the singing of the first Psalm, "Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly," etc. (page 307). Bishop Benade read verses 23 to 40 of the cxxxvii Psalm, "From the Lord are the steps of a man made firm," etc. He then presented the doctrine concerning the changes of state during man's life, reading some of the passages quoted on pages 34 to 46 of the Journal of the General Church of Pennsylvania.
     The Bishop then read from Matthew xxiii, 8-12, "But be not ye called 'Rabbi,' for one is your Master, Christ, but all ye are brethren. And call not your father upon the earth; for one is your Father who is in the heavens," etc., and added the explanation of this passage, as found in The Apocalypse Explained, n. 746 [e.]
     At the conclusion of this explanation, the parents and their son were to arise and stand before the Minister, but as, in this case, the young man's parents live in England, an older son, representing the parents, read the following letter from the young man's father:
     "My Dear Sir.-You have reached your twenty-first birthday, and it is now, incumbent upon me to renounce any further control over you. Henceforth you, yourself; will be held responsible, both by the LORD and your fellow-men, for all your actions.
     "According to the Doctrines of the Church, parents and guardians stand in place of the LORD to the children intrusted to their care until they have reached an age when they have fully entered upon the use of the faculties of liberty and rationality-when they begin rationally to understand the nature of the evils they are to shun as sins against God-and the goods to do from Him, and can freely act according to this The age at which young men are fully initiated into the use of these two faculties, and can thus will and think as of themselves, is about the twenty-first year, which is also the age recognized by the civil law as the commencement of manhood.
     "As you have now attained this age, it will, my son, be my duty as parent to render into your own hands all the authority and control which I have hitherto exercised over you.

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And it will be your duty as son henceforth to look to the LORD and obey Him as your Heavenly Father, and be guided by Him in the right exercise of those faculties which constitute essential manhood."

     The conclusion of the letter was of a personal nature. Reference was made to the fact that this particular son had been the first of the children born after the parents had received the Doctrines of the New Church, and that he had been the first of the family to be baptized into the New Church.
     After the reading of this acknowledgment on the part of the parents that their son had been set free from their parental control, to the end that in the exercise of his own right and his own judgement, he might assume that place in the Church and in the State, for which his infancy, childhood, and youth had been the preparation, the Bishop, addressing the youth, asked, "Are you willing to accept the freedom thus offered, and to assume your responsibilities to the LORD?" to which the son answered "I am," and, turning to his brother as representative of his parents, expressed to them his heart felt thanks for their loving guidance of his life up to the present moment; and added, "I accept the sacred boon which is granted me, with the solemn resolve to show my gratitude to the LORD and to you, by a life of love to the LORD and of charity toward the neighbor. To Him alone will I henceforth look for guidance and help, to Him Who is my Father, my Master, and my LORD."
     All knelt in prayer. At its conclusion, the novitiate remained kneeling, and the Bishop, placing his hands upon his head, invoked the LORD'S blessing upon him. (Numbers vi, 24-26.)
     The Bishop then delivered the following address:

     "You have come of age in your natural life. This time corresponds to the state of be ginning spiritual manhood, when you have entered into the state of your own right and your own judgment, of your own rationality and liberty, and of your own responsibility to the Loan alone as your Heavenly Father. From henceforth you are free from the control and direction of your human parents. Their parental authority and accountability ceases, and you will have to think and act as of yourself. It will be for you to see to it that as the lines of control fall from the loving hands of your human parents they are placed by your free voluntary, and rational action in the hands of your infinitely loving Divine Father. They have stood to you in His place, let Him hereafter stand to you in His own place by a rational obedience to His Divine Laws of Order and Life and by a humble submission of your will to His Will. Seek ever the light of His Truth for your guidance and government, and trust in Him alone. Let that light have full entrance into your life, to the end that you may see and know your evils and shun them as sins against God. This is now your duty of charity toward the neighbor and of love to the LORD. Cease not to honor your parents as the LORD'S agents in giving to you a natural existence and affording you natural subsistence, comfort, and instruction to the end of your preparation for Heaven; but, beholding in these their acts the way of the Divine Providence for the accomplishment of eternal ends, give supreme honor to the LORD your SAVIOUR by loving His Good and His Truth, by opening your heart and mind to their effectual working in all your words and acts, and to their leading you into eternal conjunction with Him in all the ways of His Justice and Judgment.
     "By this entrance into your own life, and by this solemn acknowledgment of your rational freedom as a man among men, yon have taken upon yourself most grave and sacred responsibilities. Respect these, and guard them with earnest and jealous care, to the end that your natural manhood may be at the same time the beginning of a true, spiritual manhood fore the LORD to whom alone may be devoted your whole life of affection and thought, and of word and deed. From this time forth you are to act in your own right and judgment, but, let me exhort you ever to remember, that this action is to be as of yourself with the full acknowledgment, that it can be true and good, only as it is from the LORD alone. We are glad to welcome you as a brother in this your new manhood, and shall be more glad to see you grow daily into the fullness of this life, as it shows forth the LORD'S gift of new graces and powers.
     "What we say to you we would say to all, who like you, have entered upon the state that must come in the progress of life. And in expressing our gratification because of the true and wise renunciation by your parents of their duty of control and government of you, now that you have come of age, we are bound to admonish all parents, whose children have reached a like state, to heed well the Loan's teachings on the subject, and freely to yield to His Will, and by coming into His Order not to suffer their own providence and their own will to come in the way of right and Justice. The parent who would keep back a son or daughter from freely taking upon him or her the responsibilities of life, acts against the Divine Providence, disobeys the laws of Divine Order, and does violence to the kingdom of the Loan in the individual man, and in all men."

     After the address, the cxxi Psalm, "I lift up mine eyes unto the mountains from whence cometh my help," etc., was chanted.
     The Bishop then read the story of the blessing of the little children by the LORD, and of the young man who came to JESUS asking Him what he must do to have eternal life (Matthew xix, 13-24). The Novitiate responded by reading verses 9-16 of the cxix Psalm. The Bishop read the first nine verses of the cxxxii Psalm.
     Then followed the singing of the hymn "Thy Way not mine, O LORD, whatever that way may be; Lead me by Thine own hand, and choose the path for me," etc. (Liturgy, page 477); and the benediction closed this solemn and impressive rite.
     If any one of those present had had a doubt as to the usefulness and propriety of this ceremonial, that doubt must have vanished when he witnessed its administration. The importance of acknowledging a state which is according to the LORD'S Order, can be seen clearly enough by reason instructed by the teachings on the subject. But when such an acknowledgment is actually made in public, by parents and son and by the Church, the conviction of its use is vastly strengthened and confirmed. The truth received in the mind has become an ultimate act, a good, whose fruits cannot but become apparent as time goes on.
GALVESTON, TEXAS 1889

GALVESTON, TEXAS       STEPHEN WOOD       1889

     EDITOR NEW CHURCH LIFE:-The New Church Society at Galveston consists of twenty-two members. We have a Sunday-school of about twenty; I have been here seven weeks, and the attendance at our regular meetings, on Sunday morning has been very steady, with a little increase. If the Society had a settled, efficient pastor, I see no reason why it should not increase. It is well united and has some active members, who not only love the Heavenly Doctrines, but the uses of the Church, and are striving to bring its teachings into life.
     A minister stopping but three or four months does not become sufficiently acquainted to do efficient work in building up a Society. I expect to visit two or three other places in Texas to see and to learn what is needed.
STEPHEN WOOD.
     GALVESTON, December 24th, 1888.
extension of the New Church Doctrines 1889

extension of the New Church Doctrines              1889

     THE extension of the New Church Doctrines rests not on expediency or on human prudence. It rests upon the preparation of men's hearts by the LORD. When they are ready to receive the Truth it is brought to them, often in the most unexpected and even surprising ways,-ways that would never have been chosen by men who consult expediency.

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NEWS GLEANINGS 1889

NEWS GLEANINGS       Various       1889


NEW CHURCH LIFE.
A MONTHLY JOURNAL

TERMS:-One Dollar per annum, payable in advance.

Six months on trial for twenty-five cents.

     All communications must be addressed to Publishers New Church Life, No. 759 Corinthian Avenue, Philadelphia, Pa.

     In Great Britain subscriptions may be sent to
     MR. S. WARREN POTTS, Book Steward, 61 Cathedral Street, Glasgow, Scotland.
     REV. R. J. TILSON, "Oakley," County Grave, Camberwell, London, S. E.
     MR. G. A. MCQUEEN, Crowhurst Road, Colchester.
     MR. JAS. CALDWELL, 59 County Road, N., Liverpool.
     MR. C. E. SCHROEDER, 13     Ashfield Terrace, Newcastle-on-Tyne.
     MISS FLORENCE G. GIBBS, 8 Camden Square, London, N.

PHILADELPHIA. DECEMBER, 1889=119.

     CONTENTS.

     Editorial Notes, p. 1.-Conjunction by Aspect (a Sermon), p. 2.-Conversations on Education, p. 5.-The New Church and the Old.
     Notes and Reviews, p. 6.
     Concubinage and Marriage, p. 8.-An Essential Element to the Prosperity of the Church p. 9.-Christmas at the Academy Schools, Philadelphia, p. 11.-Liverpool, England, p. 11.-Denver Colorado, p. 12.-What Is God? p. 12.-Coming of Age, p. 14-Galveston, Texas, p. 15.
     News Gleanings, p. 16.-Births, Marriages, and Deaths, p. 16.
     AT HOME.

     Pennsylvania.-AFTER having been tried before the Consistory, on charges brought by five members of the Council of his Society, the Rev. L. H. Tafel has been enjoined from exercising his functions within the limits of the General Church of Pennsylvania. He has begun preaching in Milton Hall on North Street, above Nineteenth, to a number of members of his former Society, the New Jerusalem Society of the Advent. This Society continues holding services at Glenn Hall corner of Seventeenth and Brandywine Streets, Philadelphia, under the charge of the Bishop of the Diocese.
     SERVICES are held in Clifton by ministers of the Philadelphia First Society. The audiences range from forty to seventy persons.
     THE Rev. Chauncey Giles has conducted services in Germantown.
     THE annual meeting of the New Church Book Association of Philadelphia was held in the Sunday-school room of the Chestnut Street Society, on December 11th. By the payment of one dollar per annum, or more, any parson can become a member of the Association, which maintains a book-room and free library, and publishes a weekly tract in the form of a little periodical, The Helper.
     Washington D. C.-The Rev. Wm. B. Hayden, of Maine, has accepted a call to preach for the Washington Society for six months, beginning with the first of December.
     Massachusetts.-BEGINNING with December 2d, services will be held in Cambridge every Sunday afternoon, under the auspices of the Boston Society. About ninety persons attended the first services,-which were conducted by the Rev. James Reed.
     ON December 9th, General Pastor Joseph Pettee visited Lynn, baptized five children and seven adults, "received twelve persons into the General New Church," and administered the Holy Supper to twenty communicants.
     AN account of "The Fraternity," an organization of the Boston Highlands Society, is published in the Messenger. Meetings are held once a fortnight, and begin with religious services. The President then takes the chair reports from the committees are read, and the business transacted. The remainder of the evening is spent socially. Every member of the Association is expected to serve on one or more committees. The Committee on Religious Services assists the Pastor, that on the Manual issues the paper, The Fraternity, and that on Mission Work operates in connection with the sewing-school and kindergarten, and in following the district nurse. There are other committees besides.
     New York.-THE Hempstead Society is making efforts to buy a lot and build a church.
     Tennessee.-THE Rev. Jabez Fox arrived at Graveston, Knox Co., on November 16th, and has been evangelizing in this State.
     Missouri.-THE Rev. F. L. Higgins, of Topeka, Kansas, following a call to the Society of St. Louis, removed to this city in the beginning of December.
     Minnesota.-THE Rev. J. S. David, of Parkdale, Canada, has accepted a call to the Minneapolis Society, and will begin his ministrations to them In January.
     California.-New Church Pacific has, during the past year-the first of its existence-been the means of largely increasing the isles of New Church books at the San Francisco depository, has assisted in the extension of local circles and societies, and has been the means of introducing persons to the Doctrines, besides performing other important uses.
     Iowa.-MR. D. T. Rickey, of Ferguson, Marshall Co., appeals in the Messenger for material for use in their Sunday-school.
     Canada.-THE Rev. E. S. Hyatt, of Erie, has received a call to preach to the Parkdale and Hamilton Societies for three months, beginning on January 1st.
     THE Rev. J. E. Bowers preached in Harrow, Essex Co., recently, a new place In his field.

     ABROAD.

     Great Britain.-THE Society at Willesden Green, London, has bought a plot of ground for a place of worship, for L255.
     The fourteenth annual festival of the New Church Evidence Society was held in the school-room of the Flodden Road Church, Camberwell, on November 18th. As is known, this Society eagerly scan the literature of the day to endeavor to rescue the name and teaching of Swedenborg from misconception or ridicule.
     THE bi-monthly meeting of the ministers of the New Church in Lancashire, was held on November 20th, at Manchester. The Rev. J. T. Freeth, the new minister of the Bolton Society, read a paper on "The Human Form, and its realization in Society."
     THE first annual meeting of the London branch of the New Church Temperance Society was held at the College, Islington, London, on November 24th.
     THE Rev. Arthur Potter, of the Walworth Road (London) Society, baptized thirteen adult members on November 25th.
     Germany.-Mr. Albert Artope has issued a call to the members and Societies of the New Church in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, for the formation of a new association, the former Union of Germany being virtually defunct.
     Sweden. The Rev. C. J. N. Manby has completed an extended missionary tour in Sweden, visiting seventeen stations.
     Italy.-The Rev. Frank Sewall and the Rev. J. R. Hibbard and their families occupy contiguous apartments in Florence, not far from Professor Scocia. Sunday services are held in Mr. Sewall's parlor. For several years the feeble health of Mr. Ford as prevented him from preaching or leading in public worship, and the few who formerly met with him are scattered to the Old Church sects.
EDITORIAL NOTES 1889

EDITORIAL NOTES       Editor       1889




     BIRTHS, MARRIAGES, AND DEATHS.





17



     Vol. IX.     PHILADELPHIA, FEBRUARY, 1889=119.     No. 2.
     "No Old Church now exists. It passed away with the Old Heavens in the year 1757. There is now in Christendom no Church but the New Church, and no Christian religion but that of the New Church." For a Church, even one that is being vastated, can lay claim to the name of "Church" only while it is in some connection with Heaven. When, therefore, we use the term "Old Church," we do so because it is a convenient expression to cover the Catholics, Protestants, Unitarians, and others outside of the New Church who call themselves Christian. So, when we speak of the Christian world, we do not mean that it is truly Christian, and that the Spirit of CHRIST rules in its affairs, but we use the term as a convenience to designate those countries in which the so-called Christian Church is established.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     IN the Writings, the term "Christian" is often used in this sense, as, for instance, where it is said, "Those who come into the other life from the Christian World, are the worst of all, hating the neighbor, hating the faith, and denying the LORD" (A. C. 1885a). "Thus it was proved that the Christians at this day are worse than the Jews were" (S. D. 6978).
     The term "Church" is also used in the Writings in the sense indicated in our first Note. In The True Christian Religion, which was written thirteen years after the Judgment of the Old Church had taken place, it is written: "From this brief review of their discordances or disagreements, it is manifest that the faith and imputation of the New Church cannot possibly be together with the faith and imputation of the former or still subsisting Church" (n. 648). "Because those things which the LORD said concerning the consummation of the age, and concerning His Coming, before the disciples, coincide with those which He afterward revealed in the Revelation by John, concerning the same things, it is clearly manifest that he meant no other consummation than that of the present Christian Church" (n. 758).
     The term "Church" is evidently used here not in its genuine sense, but to designate the semblance of a Church which appears outwardly to be Christian. But that "the present Christian Church" has no conjunction with Heaven, is not only involved in the statement just quoted, but is also unequivocally taught in many other places, like the following: "Every man in Christian countries, who does not believe in the LORD, is not hereafter heard with acceptance; his prayers, in Heaven, are like ill-scented odors, and like eructations from ulcerated lungs" (T. C. R. 108).
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     FROM time to time we hear it said that, since the day when Swedenborg wrote, the falses of the Old Church have been in process of uprooting among its clergy, that their teaching is now utterly unlike that of the eighteenth century and that it is approximating more closely to that of Swedenborg. It may be granted that many of the clergy no longer preach such gross doctrinal sermons as in the past, but they do not approach the teachings of the Internal Sense; their sermons are mostly disquisitions on moral, social, and civil questions.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     IT is written in The True Christian Religion, n. 784, that, "As this New Heaven increases, so far the New Jerusalem, that is, the New Church, conies down from that heaven; wherefore, this cannot be done in a moment, but it is done as the falses of the former Church are removed; for what is new cannot enter where falses have been ingenerated, unless they are eradicated, which will be done among the clergy, and thus among the laity." Hence the necessity that the New Church clergy be prepared for their office by a thorough training at New Church theological schools. The mental atmosphere in Christian countries is so replete with the falses of the Old Church theology, not only on the spiritual plane, but also on the moral, civil, and scientific planes, that Newchurchmen breathe them ii in freely, often without perceiving their quality. The clergy, as teachers and leaders of the people, need, therefore, to undergo an especial and prolonged training, so that they may learn to judge of these falses, and remove them from their minds and those of others. Then the truths of the New Church can come down and fill all planes of human thought and life.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     THE statement that "marriages on earth between those who are of different religion are in heaven accounted as heinous" (A. C. 8998), is sometimes explained to mean marriages between Christians and Mohammedans, Buddhists, and Brahmins, and not marriages between the various religions obtaining in Christendom. But this is imposing a limitation to the meaning of the word "religion" which is not warranted by the use of that word in the Writings, where (as in S. S. 92) it is used to cover also the various "heresies" in "Christendom," among which heresies, are the "Papal, Lutheran, Calvinistic, Melancthonian, Moravian, Arian, Socinian, Quaker, and Enthusiastic" (A. E. 1176). That Swedenborg used the term "religion" to include and cover these various Christian sects, when he wrote the statement in n. 8998 of the Arcana, is further evident from the same doctrine as it is given in Conjugial Love, n. 242: "That of the internal causes of colds [in marriages] the third is, that the one [consort] has one religion, and the other another. The reason is, that with these, good cannot be conjoined with its correspondent truth, for the wife is the good of the truth of the husband, and he is the truth of the good of the wife... hence from two souls there cannot become one soul; hence the spring of that love is shut, which being shut, they come into the conjugial which resides below, which is that of good with another truth, or of truth with an other good, than its own, between which there is not given concordant love; hence with the consort, who is in falses of religion, cold first commences, which is increased according as such consort goes away into what is diverse from the other."

18


Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     IN illustration of the doctrine concerning the heinousness of marriage between those who are of different religions, Swedenborg narrates the following interesting incident: "Once in a great city I wandered through the streets with, the end of inquiring for a habitation, and entered a house, where consorts of different religion were living; then the angels, having accosted me, ignorant of the fact, said, 'We cannot abide with you in that house, because the consorts there are in discordant religion;' this they perceived from the internal dissension of their souls" (C. L. 242). It is extremely unlikely that the consorts here referred to were, one of the Christian, the other of a Mohammedan, Buddhist, or Brahmin religion. It is not impossible that the incident related is the same one referred to in Mr. Henry Peckitt's notes, where the maid of Mr. Shearsmith (Swedenborg's landlord in London) said "that before he [Swedenborg] came to their house, he was offered another lodging in the neighborhood, but he told the mistress there was no harmony in the house; which she acknowledged, and recommended him to Mr. Shearsmith's" (Doc. II, p. 646).
"THE NEW AGE." 1889

"THE NEW AGE."       Rev. B. B. HYATT       1889

     "Behold, I make all things new."-Rev. xxi, 5.

     IT is always necessary to put away false ideas concerning the Word before we receive the true; otherwise there will be danger of fluxing the true and the false, of confusing the new with the old, leading to states more injurious than the old, because actively instead of passively opposed to the orderly completion of that primary stage of regeneration which corresponds to the first day of Creation. There can be no beginning of regeneration without the Light of Divine Revelation; therefore, the LORD says first, "Let there be light." But that light, in order to be effective of even the first stage of regeneration, must be altogether separated, and kept separate, from the darkness which forms the whole of man's own intelligence. Not until we allow the LORD to "divide the light from the darkness" in our minds, can the first day's work of our regeneration be accomplished. Indeed the one great work on the part of the man who receives the light, of the LORD'S Revelation is to closely observe this division, in order that he may shun the leading of that darkness feigning light which man acquires from merely human sources, and so follow the only Light which leads man to heaven.
     With Newchurchmen, there is a constant temptation to read more or less of the letter of the Word according to the natural understanding of it, and to mingle in' their minds the teaching so derived with the teaching of those Doctrines whence alone true understanding of the Word can be obtained. Hence the light is not divided from the darkness, and an extraordinary amount of confusion results. This temptation to take the letter of the Word according to the natural understanding of it, and to rest therein; comes especially with regard to those parts of the letter which seem so clear as to need no Divine interpretation. This may indeed be done by the simple, who are without the light of the Doctrines; but it cannot be too well impressed upon the mind that no part of the letter of the Word, in its merely natural conception, can be taken and confirmed as New Church teaching, and thereby mixed in the mind with the Doctrines of the Church without serious injury to the mind in which such a mingling of light and darkness takes place.
     Few parts of the letter of the Word have been more abused thus in the New Church than the text which we are now to take into consideration: "Behold, I make all things new." These words have been taken in their natural sense, and then natural events, the new natural inventions, the new natural conveniences, which minister so largely to natural comfort, and which accelerate, the race and intensify the competition for the wealth of this world, have been pointed out as the fulfillment of this prophecy. The steam-engine, the electric telegraph, the telephone, and countless other things which human ingenuity has constructed for the service of man's own ends, have been held up as the new things which the LORD promises to make in connection with the establishment of His New Church. If this be not mere naturalism applied to the Word, what is it? Has the Old Church ever made a more grossly natural interpretation of the Word? This is, indeed, part of the naturalism which infests the New Church, by means of which true Doctrine, as taught by the LORD, is rendered of little or no effect in the minds of those who thus defile that doctrine by the darkness of their own intelligence; who thus fail to divide the light from that darkness, thereby inducing upon themselves such an obscurity of mental vision as to prevent all clear understanding of the Doctrines when they read them.
     Let us, then, beware of this error, and always come to the Spiritual Sense of the Word with our minds as far as possible divested of merely natural interpretations, turning away from the things of time and space with which the literal sense is so full, and prepared to find the LORD'S thoughts marvelously different from our own. Let such a state of humility before the LORD prevail in our minds, and then, indeed, will the way he opened for the LORD to make all things in us new; otherwise, our study of the Word itself will be apt to only confirm is in the love of those old things we cherish, and which are so popular in the modern so-called Christian Church. For, is it not a very old thing to regard evil states as good, if only they put on a fair appearance? Is not the desire to judge from our own intelligence as to what is good and what is evil as old as Adam? Is not the charity which cries for peace where there is no peace as old as the history of the Churches? Has not the notion that the existence of hell is in some way incompatible with the LORD'S love been a favorite argument with the old serpent ever since he first said, "Ye shall not surely die"? We all know something of how fast and widely these and many other exceedingly old things are spreading in the world at this day; how much such old notions are infesting even the New Church. What confirmatory evidence they present of the spiritual death of the Old Church, of the grievous infestation of the New! What, then, are we to think of the idea of putting forth these very notions, which are as old, as the existence of evil, yea older-for they are of the notions that primarily led to evil-the idea of putting forth the spread of these very notions as evidence of the spread of the New Church? How can we think of it, in the light of revealed Truth, but as the "culmination of that folly" into which self-intelligence sooner or later leads all who trust to it, all those whose "horses are flesh and not spirit"-the folly of mixing things new and old, light and darkness, until all discrimination between them is lost, lost forever, unless the LORD'S Truth be permitted to divide the light from the darkness, and so make discrimination between the new and the old possible.
     Dismissing, therefore such notions from our minds, and putting ourselves on our guard against their infestation, let us turn to the consideration of the text, "Behold, I make all things new," in the light of those Doctrines in which the LORD has revealed the very Spirit of His Word, first in its universal application to the simple good of all religions, and then in its specific application to the New Church.

19



     First, then, as to its universal application. The LORD makes natural things new, when He gives them a Spiritual Internal, when He opens within the natural man the spiritual degrees of his mind. What proceeds from the natural man is always old, because it constantly tends to corruption and death; but what proceeds from the LORD is forever new, leading ever to more and more vigorous youth. What is old and what is new may have, often do have, similar externals, the difference lying altogether in the quality of the internal while in this world. Thus, we read that of many who have outwardly lived alike in the world, some are adjudged to heaven and some to hell; the former being those who have to some extent suffered the LORD to make the things within them new. It is the end in view which gives the real quality to everything. Whatever is done from any kind of a selfish end is old from containing the seeds of spiritual death within it the very same thing done for the sake of the LORD'S Kingdom is new from containing the seeds of spiritual life within it. Therefore, with all men of whatsoever religion, that really shun evils as sins against God, the LORD to that extent flows in, and imparts a spiritual life which will eventually make all things of such men new-all their acts, however commonplace in appearance, will become new as to their internal quality. But the change being one often of internal quality only, it is evident that we cannot, from our own judgment, form any reliable conclusion as to how much or how little the LORD is thus making things new in the minds of men-only the LORD Himself knows this; and we know, and can know, absolutely nothing of it beyond what it has pleased Him to reveal in the Doctrines of the Church, respecting the state of the world, and the consummation of the first Christian Church.
     But it is in the specific application of the text to the New Church that the fullness of its spiritual meaning appears. In the Summary Exposition of the Doctrine of the New Church we read: "That the laying bare and rejection of the dogmas of faith of the modern Church, and the revelation and reception of the dogmas of faith of the New Church is understood by these words in the Apocalypse, 'He that sat upon the throne said, "Behold! I made all things new. Write, because these words are true and faithful!"' 'He that sat upon the throne,' that is, the LORD, said these words to John when he saw the New Jerusalem descending from God out of Heaven" (B. E. 95, 96). Thus we see how the LORD' makes all things new in the New Church-namely, by the laying bare of the dogmas of faith of the modern Church and by the revelation of those of the New Church. Also how man must co-operate in order that this making of all things new may be effected within himself-namely, by the rejection of the dogmas of faith of the modern Church, and by the reception of those of the New Church. There is no other way revealed, and both the rejection of the old and the reception of the new are necessary-neither the rejection of the old will avail anything unless it be followed by the reception of the new; nor yet will the reception of the new unless accompanied by rejection of the old, for otherwise the new Truth received will be falsified in the act of reception and thus become no longer new but of an essentially similar quality to the old. The mason of this is thus stated in the Writings: "That the falsities of the dogmas of faith of the modern Church are first to be laid hare and rejected before the verities of the dogmas of faith of the New Church are revealed and received, is because they do not agree in one point or part . . . in modern faith there is not anything of the Church. But the contrary holds with the Dogmas or Doctrinals of the New Church, these are all essentials, in each of which is Heaven and the Church. . . From these few things it can be clearly seen what is meant by these words of the LORD, 'He that sat upon the throne said, "Behold! I make all things new,' and He said, "Write, because these words are true and faithful"'" (B. E. 96, 97).
     Genuine truths are the means by which the LORD makes all things new for His Crowning Church, no other Church having been in such truth, for we read in the Divine Providence, "Genuine truths, in which the Spiritual Sense of the Word is, are not revealed by the LORD sooner than after the Last Judgment has been accomplished, and the New Church, which is understood by the Holy Jerusalem, has been established by the LORD. It is predicted in the Apocalypse that after the Last Judgment has been accomplished, genuine truths would be disclosed the New Church established and the Spiritual Sense disclosed. . . . That genuine truths would then be disclosed is predicted by these words in the Apocalypse, 'He that sat upon the throne said: "Behold! I make all things new"'" (n. 264).
     Those new things which proceed from genuine truths have this difference from those new things which the LORD operates in the simple good of other religions-that they are actual, while with the latter they are only new in potency, the actualization of which comes only in the other life. Those new things not only form the actual internal of the Church, but they are able to ultimate themselves in corresponding new externals-hence the newness can be complete from inmost to outermost. The operation of these truths is not merely internal, still less is it merely external; but, beginning from internals, it forms also new externals whereon to rest, thus making all things internal and external new. We all know to how very small an extent the New Church is received in the world; but, if we observe the degree of newness which is manifested in the professed New Church, if we investigate how far the truths revealed by the LORD to the New Church have by ultimation made that Church in externals as well as internals so new as to be different from anything that is or has been-no less would be the effect of genuine truth faithfully applied to its life-we must be compelled to admit that, small as is the extent of the professed New Church, the degree in which the truth that is with it is actually received and brought forth into its life is of exceedingly smaller extent. The Spirit of the LORD'S truth dwells indeed with the Church; but, with very small exception, it is not yet in the Church (John xiv, 17). The LORD, in His New Revelation, for the most part stands but at the door knocking for admittance, waiting to enter while the professed members of that Church are too busy fraternizing with the Old Church; are too occupied in the vain attempt of combatting evils, or rather the natural results of evil, by the old methods; are too content in exercising what they call "charity," but which is as old a perversion of the genuine as the origin of evil; are too intent upon all these old things to give heed to that truth which would call upon them to sweep all these things out-of-doors, so that there might be room for the LORD to enter and fulfill His promise with them of making all things new.

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For the LORD has so constituted man that his voluntary co-operation is absolutely necessary for the     realization of this promise.     Man must voluntarily acquire from the new written Revelation genuine forms of truth before he can possibly receive any new influx of spiritual life from the LORD; for the newness of that influx depends upon the quality of the recipient vessels in the minds of men. With the LORD all things are ever infinitely new, not in time but as to their Divine quality-what proceeds from Him, therefore, always has been and always will be alike infinitely new, for is He not a God that changes not; the same yesterday, to-day, and forever? We must, therefore, have new bottles into which to receive the new wine of His Divine Truth, otherwise it cannot help but be altogether perverted in the act of reception, and thereby the new made old. Wherever the LORD is received into genuine forms of spiritual truth, there the work of making all things new is necessarily and constantly active, for the Truth can only rest in ultimates-the more internal the Truth the more external an ultimate does it demand; and thus because the truths of the New Revelation are more internal than have been revealed before, and are capable of ever more and more internal reception, therefore will there be correspondingly greater manifestation of them in new externals, and this increasingly more and more external as the truths themselves are more and more internally received, by the men of the Church. From this we can to some extent see how vastly different from all other forms of religion the New Church will become when the LORD makes all things new therein, which will take place as soon as, and in the degree that, the men of the Church make it possible by their voluntary co-operation, thus in the degree to which they open the door for the LORD to enter.
     All things will in time be thus made new in the Church, which is to be emphatically a Church of new things. Let us glance at some of the groups of things which will be affected.
     In the first place, and as the primary, and most important means for facilitating the reception of all other new things, the education of New Church children will be made new. The old lines of procedure will be more and more rejected; the falsities and errors of the Old Church, as well those ultimated in Science as in Doctrine, will be banished from New Church school-rooms. In their place the new things of the Church will be taught, and even the things of the world be made new by being put into their rightful connection with the things of the LORD'S Kingdom; new methods will be used, agreeing with a new understanding of the laws of the development of the human faculties; the whole carried out under the guidance and authority of that immediate Revelation of Himself by which the LORD has come to establish His New Church, and make all things new therein. Then, instead of the present tendency to obliteration of the mental distinction between the sexes, the children so educated will become more manly men, and more womanly women than are known at this day. Thus will the men of the New Church, even in the preparatory and natural plane of their lives, be made new, and have increased capabilities for the reception of those new things which are of eternal life.
     Children so trained will regard marriage in a Divinely new light, and will more and more follow the LORD'S directions in Conjugial Love (n. 49), whereby they may receive truly conjugial partners even in this world. Hence all things of family life will be made new, and the children born of such marriages will, each generation, become more receptive of those new things with which the LORD infinitely desires to bless us.
     Also, as the men of the Church thus become new, from having their minds more and more molded according to the LORD'S Doctrines, they will bring, a new spirit into public life, and will ultimately apply the same Doctrines, which have made the New Church, to the civil government of their country, whereby new things, and the blessings of a new order will extend even beyond the Church. Then, and then only, will men be able to experience what a really free country is, for the government will seek to be exclusively from and by that Truth which alone can make men free. Thus will all things of civil life be made new, and in the distant future a really New Age be inaugurated.
     The Church, which has received the Doctrines of the New Jerusalem from the LORD, has already, to the extent of its reception, been made new; but there is no limit to the Increase' of new things which will proceed from the fuller reception and application of those Doctrines. As those Doctrines are more internally received, they will also be more externally expressed, so that the very forms and ceremonies of the Church will be made new, not only as to their internal quality, but in externals as well. The Church will also ultimately take a new position in the world, which will not then be a subordinate, but the preeminent position, as the acknowledged and authorized custodian and teacher of those truths which ought to guide men in all things of life-all things, civil and moral, as well as spiritual. Thus will the Divine Laws of Order prevail, and all things of the world, as well as of the Church, be ultimately made new, and the New Age realized.
     There is one paint which should be particularly impressed upon every mind before leaving the subject, and which, if recalled whenever the words of the text are considered, will prevent; in the mind of all who are guided by the LORD'S' teaching, those fundamentally false interpretations which were just now mentioned. This is thus expressed in the Doctrine of the LORD: "It is said in the Apocalypse, 'Behold, I made all things new,' by which no other is understood than that in the Church now by the LORD'S to be established THERE WILL BE NEW DOCTRINE, which in the prior Church was not" (n. 65). We are thus confronted with the only new thing which are promised in the text as the LORD'S immediate work; and, therefore, no other new things whatever can have any connection with the promise of the text except such as are involved in, and result from, the reception and application to life of His New Doctrines. Those, on the other hand, who internally reject these New Doctrines thereby condemn themselves to perpetuate their old states of evil and falsity forever. This is involved, in the statement that it is "He that sat upon the throne," who said, "Behold, I make all things new." For a throne is a judgment in a representative form (A. R. 886). Such also is the case with those who attempt to receive the new wine into old bottles, whereby the wine runneth out and the bottles perish (Matt. ix, 17).
     All things, therefore, of our external life depend upon our reception or rejection of these New Doctrines; thus upon our co-operation with the LORD as to whether all things be made new with us or not. How earnestly, then, we should work in that co-operation which will make possible indefinitely more than all the new things which have been here but feebly expressed, and which would so far realize Heaven upon earth-to be that realization is indeed the appointed lot of the New Church. Let us constantly remember that the LORD will certainly do all this, that He is ever waiting to make all things new for us, to bless the Church with an eternal increase of new things; but that the rate of the increase depends upon the voluntary co-operation of the men of the Church with the LORD.

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Let us then be in earnest in doing our part as the LORD teaches us, and ever pray: "Amen, even so come, LORD JESUS."
CONVERSATIONS ON EDUCATION 1889

CONVERSATIONS ON EDUCATION              1889

     CONJUNCTION.

     As before remarked, the preparation for regenerate life is in appearance far removed from the life attained by regeneration. The egg is totally unlike the animal produced from it, although it contains the whole animal in its first or beginning forms. As a preparation for the regenerate life the LORD has provided the historical portions of the Word; these are especially for the use of children. How far removed do they appear to be from the life of the child, and yet how full of interest to it.
     It is interested in them and delights to read them, or to hear them read, because they are stories, because they present pictures of human life and action in a connected series, and thus apply themselves to the love of learning from sensual and objective forms peculiar to the mind of the child. Inmostly, these histories of the Word are Divine forms of the Infinite Love of the Lord, and thus are forms of the LORD Himself. When these forms are introduced into the mind of the child through the senses, angels are present, and of the fullness of their delight in thus seeing the LORD they communicate this to the child. The narratives themselves, as they appear in the letter, do not so affect the angels, for of these they know nothing and think not at all, but the interior true and good things of the LORD'S Wisdom and Love represented and signified by them, produce in them the activities of most bumble and grateful love. But these internal things of the delight of the angels are as far removed from the literal statements of the histories of the Word, as heaven is from earth; and yet, in the aspect now presented to us by Divine Revelation, we can see that they are most closely related and as near to each other as is the body to the spirit, the effect to the cause. The same is true of the delights produced in the minds of angels and children by reading them and hearing them rend. For when the Word of the LORD in the letter is in the mouth, or in the sight and hearing of children, the Word in the Spirit is in the heart of the angels, and the LORD is present in both, and when angels and children thus come to them, He puts His hand upon them and blessing them, fills them with delight and happiness. This coming of the children to the LORD by angelic ministrations from the Word is one of the meanings of this rebuke of the disciples,-"Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not; for of such is the Kingdom of God" (Mark x, 14). When heaven is thus brought near by the appearances of Divine things in the literal histories of the Word, and when the affections of children are so moved by the delight inflowing from the angels as to think about and seek to make actual and objective to themselves the things read and heard, to live them over again, then are the internal good things of the LORD'S love and wisdom implanted in them, and stored up in their interiors, that they may remain with them forever. However far off from their young lives in appearance, because the LORD has hidden them within for future use, they are, nevertheless, present within them; and in their presence and sphere is there a Divine gift and a Divine promise, which imparts certain quality, otherwise unattainable, to theirs' growing minds and forming characters, and which aid in maintaining a certain direction of thought under the disposing influence of the LORD'S Love, that shall make for their salvation. These remains are a subtile essence of heavenly flavor entering into the lives from within, to which they are to serve both as seeds of life, and as first soils for the germination of these seeds. Let us read what the LORD, teaches on this subject. In Arcana Coelestia, n. 8690, it is written:

     "Life is said to be more remote (from Divine Doctrinals) when it is in external truths; and when it is lived according to them; as is the life of the infancy and childhood of those who are regenerated (see n. 8888). In order to show further what and of what quality that life is, a few more things may be added. All the historicals of the Word are truths more remote from Divine Doctrinals themselves, but still they are of service to infants and children, that by them they may gradually be introduced into the interior Doctrinals of truth and good, and at length into the very Divine Doctrinals; for the Divine is inmostly in them when infants read them, and are affected by them from' innocence, then the angels with them are in a state of heavenly delight, for they are affected from the LORD by the Internal Sense, consequently, with those things which the historicals represent and signify; the heavenly delight of the angels is that which inflows and causes delight with infants. In order that there may be this first state, or [the state] of the infancy and boy hood of those who are to be regenerated, the historicals of the Word were given and so written, that alt and singular things therein might also contain in themselves Divine things. How remote these are from Divine Doctrinals may appear from an example [drawn] from those historicals. He who at first knows no more than that God descended upon Mount Sinai, and gave the tables to Moses, on which were written the Ten Commandments, and that Moses brake these, and that God wrote like things on other tables,-whilst he is delighted solely with this historical, is in the life of external truth, remote from Divine Doctrinals; but afterward, when he begins to be delighted and affected with the Commandments themselves, or with the precepts there, and lives according to them he is then in the life of truth, though still remote from Divine Doctrinals themselves. For a life according to them is a moral life only, the precepts of which are known to all who are in human society, from its civil life and laws; as that the Deity is to be worshiped, parents to be honored murder not committed, and not adultery, nor theft. But he who is regenerating is led by degrees from this more remote life, or from a moral life, into a life nearer to Divine Doctrinals-that is, into spiritual life, When this takes place, then he begins to wonder why such Commandments or precepts, were sent down from heaven in so miraculous a manner, and written on tables by the finger of God, when yet they were known to every people, and also written in the laws of those who had never heard anything out of the Word. When he comes into this state of thought, if he be amongst those who can be regenerated, he is led by the LORD into a still more interior state, into a state, namely, in which he thinks that deeper things are hidden within, which he does not, as yet, know; and when he reads the Word in this state, he then discovers in the prophets throughout, and especially in the Evangelists, that each of these precepts contains within itself more heavenly things; as that, in respect to honoring parents, when men are born anew-that is, when they are regenerating, they receive another Father, so that they then become His sons, and that it is He who is to be honored; thus, that this is the sense which is hidden interiorly in that precept. By degrees he also learns who that new Father is; namely, that he is the LORD, and at length how He is to be honored; namely, that He is to be worshiped, and that He is worshiped when He is loved. When one who is regenerating is in this truth, and in a life according to it, he is in a Divine Doctrinal, and is then in an angelic state, from which he regards the things that he knew before, as succeeding in order, and as flowing from the Divine as it were like the steps of a ladder, above which is JEHOVAH, or the LORD, and upon the steps His angels ascending and descending. In this manner he sees the things which previously had delighted him more removed from himself according to degrees. The case is similar in respect to the other precept of the Decalogue (see n. 2609). Hence now it may appear what [is meant] by a life mare remote from Divine Doctrinals, which is signified by this, that 'Jacob went out from Beersheba.'"

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TWELFTH CHAPTER OF GENESIS 1889

TWELFTH CHAPTER OF GENESIS              1889

     THOSE who have been reading the Arcana Coelestia in accordance with the plan adopted by the General Church of Pennsylvania, finished the twelfth chapter during the past month.
     It is prescribed in Doctrine that, after the particular explanations of the words and sayings have been studied, the series should be contemplated in connection, according to the explanations, for then it is completed, and presented as a whole, and its beauty is more clearly seen.
     To all who have an affection for the surpassing contents of the Divine Word, and specifically to those who have just read the Internal Sense of the twelfth chapter of Genesis, the following study is presented, in the hope that it may help them to a still clearer understanding of the chapter, and that their affection for these heavenly arcana may be increased.

     THE LORD from eternity, who is JEHOVAH, came into, the world that He might subjugate the hells and glorify His Human. Without this, no mortal could have been saved; and those are saved who believe in Him. The glorification of His Human consisted in its being made Divine. With Him alone the correspondence of all things that are of the body with the Divine, was most perfect, or infinitely perfect; hence there was the union, of corporeal things with things Divine celestial, and of sensual things with Divine spiritual things; thus He was Perfect Man, and Only Man.
     The LORD'S inauguration into this is described in the Internal Sense of Genesis xii.
     In the first, verse, the LORD'S first state is described when He was born, He was, in this, like another man, except that he was conceived of JEHOVAH, yet born from a virgin woman, and by birth from the virgin woman He derived infirmities, such as man has in general. These infirmities are corporeal, and the first verse treats of His receding from them, and that celestial and spiritual things were presented to His view. By "Abram" is meant time LORD as to His Human Essence, specifically the celestial man. "JEHOVAH said to Abram, go away to thee from thy land," signifies the first animadvertence of all, that He should recede from corporeal and worldly things-namely, from such as are exterior, as pleasures and sensuals ("and from thy nativity"), and such as are interior, as affections and scientifics ("and from the house of thy father"). Receding from them, he was to accede to spiritual and' celestial things which were presented to view ("to the land which I shall make thee to see"-i. e., the land of Canaan, which represented the kingdom of the LORD).
     In the second and third verses, His first animadvertence is continued, that He was to put on things celestial and Divine. In the sense of the letter, it is said that JEHOVAH promised to make Abram "into a great nation." In the Internal Sense this signifies that the LORD became aware that His would be the kingdom in the heavens and on the earths, for He is the "great, nation," that is, He is the celestial Itself, and Good Itself, for all the good of love and of charity is from Him alone. Wherefore also the LORD is His Kingdom, Itself-that is, the all in all of His Kingdom.
     JEHOVAH'S promise to Abram was, further, "I shall bless thee" which signifies that in the LORD is the fructification of celestial things and the multiplication of spiritual things; "and I shall make great thy name," which signifies that He has Glory-a glory not such as men strive for but the celestial, which is not to strive to be the greatest of all, but the least of all, serving all, as he saith, "So shall it not be among you, but whosoever wishes to be great among you, ought to be your minister; and whosoever wishes to be the first ought to be your servant; as the Son of Man came not that He might be ministered unto, but that He might minister, and give His soul a redemption for many" (Matt. xx, 26-28; Mark x, 44, 45); thus the glory of giving all that is His-His very Self to the human race. Thus was He to be a "blessing.", He it is from whom are all and single things celestial and spiritual, and hence things natural, worldly, and corporeal. When, therefore, JEHOVAH said to Abram: "And I shall bless those blessing thee, and those cursing thee I shall curse, and in thee shall be blessed all the families of the ground," it signifies, in the Internal Sense, that all happiness is to those who from the heart confess and acknowledge the LORD, who sing to Him, make known His salvation and preach H is Wisdom and Power; while those have unhappiness who do not acknowledge Him, for they avert themselves from Him, and yet from the LORD are all the goods and truths of the faith of love which is of the Church.
     Thus far His animadvertence.

     In the fourth verse begin the progressions of His Human Essence to the Divine, of which progressions He had, as described, become previously aware that they must be effected ("And Abram went as JEHOVAH spake to him"). "And there went with him Lot"-that is, his sensual and corporeal man. "And Abram was a son of five years and seventy years when he went forth from Charan;" this signifies that, as yet, there was not so much of the Divine, five signifying few, and seventy, the holy Divine, for He was in an obscure state ("Charan") such as is in human childhood.
     "And Abram took Sarai his wife:" to His and was adjoined truth; "and Lot the son of his brother." This signifies that the first that was insinuated into the LORD when a boy-as is the case with other boys also-was sensual truth, for in childhood the judgment does not go higher. It is a sensual truth that He sees all earthly and worldly things as created by God, and all and single things for an end, and in each and everything something like the kingdom of God. This sensual truth is not, insinuated except in the celestial man, and because the LORD alone was a celestial man, these and similar sensual truths were insinuated into Him in first boyhood. Thus was He prepared to receive celestial things.
     Abram took also "all their acquisition which they had acquired," that is, there were insinuated into the LORD all the things which are sensual truths-that is, every scientific from which man thinks; for in the case of the infant LORD, as with every other man, Be could not, as to the human, have any idea of thought without scientifics acquired from sensual things and impressed upon the memory, for scientifics are the vessels of spiritual things, and affections from the pleasures of the body are vessels of celestial things. Abram took also "the soul which they had made"-that is, all the essential living thing which could be given in that obscure state. Celestial love is the very life of man. Nothing living can be given which is not from that. So much of good from celestial love as His Human could have in that obscure state is, therefore, signified by "the soul which they had made."
     Thus, then, He advanced to the celestial things of love ("and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan "). "Canaan", is the LORD'S kingdom, and celestial things of love alone constitute His kingdom; and He came through to the celestials of love ("and they came into the land of Canaan").

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     The first state of the LORD, represented by "Charan," is past.
     After He had, in His Human, advanced to celestials, and had come up to them, then they appeared to Him. This is the second state of the LORD, and is expressed in the sense of the letter by the words "and Abram passed over through the land even unto the place Schechem," for "Schechem" signifies the first appearing of celestial things. In celestial things is the very light of the soul, because in them is the Divine Itself, that is, JEHOVAH Himself; and because the LORD conjoined the Human Essence to the Divine, when He came through to celestial things, it could not be otherwise than that JEHOVAH should appear to Him.

     We thus come to His third state, which is very near the second, namely, the state of his first perception, signified by the "oak grove of Moreh." As soon as JEHOVAH appeared to the LORD in His celestial things, it follows that He acquired perception, for all perception is from celestials, since the LORD is present only in celestials. But, as He was still a Boy, His spiritual things were not interior, and so His perception, as it was the first, was also external, as of the scientifics which are of the external man. This is signified by the "oak grove." "The Cansanite was them in the land"-that is, there was at that time the hereditary evil from the mother in His external man which afterward expelled by temptation-combats and victories.
     When JEHOVAH appeared to the LORD, when He was yet a child ("and JEHOVAH was seen to Abram "), He was instructed that those who would have faith in Him would be gifted with celestial, ("and He said, To thy seed I shall give this land"-"seed" signifies faith, "land" signifies celestials), and He then offered His first worship of His Father from celestial love ("and he built there an altar to JEHOVAH Who was seen to him").

     The LORD'S fourth state, when a boy, was that of the progression of celestial things of love. ("He removed thence to the mountain from the east of Bethel"-a "mountain" signifies the celestial, "Bethel" signifies the cognition of' celestial things.) The celestial things of love are love toward JEHOVAH, and love toward the neighbor, and in these, innocence itself. These celestials are implanted especially in man in his state of infancy even to boyhood, and, indeed, without cognitions-without his knowing about them. Because the LORD was born like another man, He was also introduced into celestial things according to order, and, indeed, by degrees from infancy to boyhood, and then into cognitions, and because he was to progress into the cognitions of celestial things (which are signified by "Bethel"), it is said that "He passed over thence into the mountain on the east of Bethel."
     "And He stretched a tent"-that is, He now began to be in the holy things of faith from love. But as yet His state was obscure as to the cognition of celestial and spiritual things, while the cognitions of worldly things were in clearness. This is signified by the words "Bethel from the sea (or west), and Ai from the east," for "Bethel" signifies the cognitions of celestial things, and these being on the side toward the "sea," signifies that they were in obscurity, while "Ai," the cognitions of worldly things, was on the east, in clearness. And from that state He offered external worship of His Father, and internal worship ("He built there an altar to JEHOVAH, and called on the name of JEHOVAH").

     Now begins the fifth state: the LORD'S progressions into cognitions. This further progress is expressed by the words "and Abram set forth, going and setting forward." For that the LORD was also instructed like another man is manifest in Luke: "The little Boy grew and was strengthened in spirit, he was in the deserts unto the day of His appearing to Israel" (i, 80). "The Boy grew and was strengthened in spirit, and was filled with wisdom, and grace was upon Him" (ii, 40). "Joseph, and the mother of JESUS, after three days found Him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, and hearing them, and asking them questions; all that heard Him were amazed at His intelligence and answers. They, seeing Him, wondered, but He said to them: 'What is this that ye have sought Me, know ye not that it behooves Me to be in those things which are My Father's?'" (ii, 46-49). This happened when He was twelve years of age (ii, 42). "From that time forth JESUS advanced in wisdom and age, and grace with God and men" (ii, 52). His progression then was into goods and truths, thus into a bright state as to the interiors, ("Abram set forth, going and setting forward toward the south"), for He was to become as to His Human Essence also, the Light of Heaven. The "south" signifies intelligence which is acquired by cognitions; cognitions open the way for seeing celestial and spiritual things, for they are so many vessels in the external man into which celestial things inflow. Cognitions with man never, come in boyhood from the interior, but from the objects of the senses, especially from hearing, while the internal man flows in and helps. So was it with the LORD, for He was born like another man, and instructed like another, but the interiors with Him were celestial, which adapted the vessels of the memory to receive cognitions, and the cognitions to become vessels to receive the Divine; the interiors with Him were Divine from JEHOVAH His Father. His exteriors were human from Mary His mother; hence there was with the LORD equally as with other men, with His External Man, in boyhood, a want of cognitions, expressed in the letter, "And there was a famine in the land." In consequence, "Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there"-that is, the LORD was instructed in cognitions from the Word-for "Egypt" signifies the science of cognitions, and to "sojourn" signifies to be instructed. The external man cannot be reduced to correspondence and concordance with the internal man except by cognitions. The external man is corporeal and sensual, nor does it receive anything celestial and spiritual, unless cognitions be implanted in it as in soil; in cognitions celestial things can have their recipient vessels; but the cognitions must be from the Word; cognitions from the Word are such, that they are open from the LORD Himself, for the Word itself is from the LORD through Heaven, and in each and everything of it is the LORD'S life, although it does not appear in the external form. Hence it may be manifest that the LORD did not wish to be imbued with any other cognitions in childhood than those of the Word, which was open to Him from JEHOVAH Himself; His Father, with Whom He was to be united and become one, and all the more because nothing is said in the Word which does not regard Him in inmosts, and which does not first come from Him, for the Human Essence was only an additament to His Divine Essence, which was from eternity.
     The LORD'S power of learning was greater than that of any other man, but because He was to be instructed in celestial things before spiritual things, differently from other men, and also because the hereditary evil from the mother was in His External Man, against which He was to fight, and which He was to overcome, therefore it is further said, "for heavy was the famine in the land"-that is, there was great want in His External Man.

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     But, before that want could be satisfied, a preparation was necessary; lest the instruction be precipitated without order. So "it was, that when Abram approached to come into Egypt"-that is, when the LORD began to learn, "he said to Sarai his wife," that is, he thought as follows, concerning truths to which celestial things were to be adjoined. "Sarai," the wife, is truth adjoined to the celestials which were with the LORD It is `said truth adjoined to celestials, because all Truth with the LORD was first; the celestial has truth with it, one is inseparable from the other, as light is from flame, but it was stored up in His Internal Man Who was Divine; the scientifics and cognitions which He learned, are not truths or verities, but only recipient vessels; as whatever is in man's memory is nothing less than true, although it is said to be true, but in them as in vessels is the truth. The truth conjoined to the celestials was with Him in the Internal Man, and would flow down and fill the vessels when they were formed; these vessels were to be formed by instruction in cognitions from the Word by the LORD, or rather to be opened, so that celestials should not only be insinuated into them, but that these cognitions should also become celestial, thus Divine; for the LORD conjoined the Divine Essence to the Human, so that His Human things should also become Divine.
     And this is what the LORD thought: that truth from a celestial origin is delightful ("Behold, I pray, I know that a woman beautiful to the sight art thou"), and that the science of cognitions is such when they see celestial cognitions ("and it shall be, when the Egyptians see thee") that they will care nothing for celestials, but only for the mere cognitions which they will carry off ("and they will say, his wife is this, and they will kill me, and thee they will make alive"). The science of cognitions has this; and it is something natural that is in it; this is manifested with boys, when they first begin to learn-namely, the higher the things are, the more do they lust after them, and when they hear that they are celestial and Divine, they lust still more; but this delight is natural, and arises from a lust which is of the external man. This lust causes with other men that they place delight merely in the science of cognitions, without any other end; when yet the science of cognition is nothing else than something instrumental, for the sake of use-namely, that it may serve celestials and spirituals for vessels, and then for the first time, when they thus serve, are they in use, and receive their delight from use. Because the LORD, when a Boy, knew this, he thought that if He were carried away by the mere lust of the science of cognitions, then His science would be such that it would no longer care for celestials, but only for cognitions, which the lust of science would carry off.
     The LORD was, therefore, instructed by His Father concerning all order, and thus how His External Man `was to be conjoined with the Internal-that is, how His External Man like unto the Internal was made Divine, thus as to each Essence JEHOVAH, which was done by cognitions, which are means; without cognitions as means, the external man cannot indeed become man. Science lusts after nothing more than to enter into celestials and explore them, but this is contrary to order, for thus it violates celestials; the order itself is that the celestial by the spiritual should enter into the rational, and thus into the scientific, and adapt this to itself; unless this order be observed, there never is any wisdom. Hence the LORD was instructed that the truth, which was conjoined with the celestial in the Internal Man, should be presented first as intellectual truth, ("Say, I pray, my sister art thou"), thus the celestial could not be violated ("so that it may be well to me for thy sake"), and that thus the celestial might be saved ("And my soul may live because of thee"). Thus did the LORD think.'
     When He began to be instructed, the science of cognitions was such that it was very pleasing to itself; and so also the primary precepts from the Word were pleasing, and occupied His animus. ("And it was when Abram came into Egypt, and the Egyptians saw the woman that she was very beautiful, and the princes of Pharaoh saw her, and praised her to Pharaoh, and the woman was taken to the house of Pharaoh.") The "woman" signifies the truth-here the truth which is in the sciences-with which the LORD was captivated in boyhood; those truths, however, being from intellectual truth, signified by sister, for it was on the representation of her being Abram's sister, that the woman was taken to Pharaoh's house, that is, occupied the animus, the love of knowing and learning. "And to Abram he did well for her sake," that is, the scientifics with the LORD were multiplied. It is said that science (which is signified by "Pharaoh") "did well to Abram," that is, to the LORD as Boy, and this "for her sake," that is, for the sake of intellectual truth, which he desired:-the desire of truth was that from which came the enriching. "And he had flock and herd, and asses, and servants, and maid-servants, and she-asses and camels"-all things in general which are of scientifics, namely, scientifics in themselves ("asses and servants"), their pleasures ("maidservants and she-asses"), common services ("camels"), and possessions ("flock and herds").
     In boyhood, scientifics are acquired with no other end than the end of knowing: with the LORD, from delights from the affection of truth. Scientifics which are acquired in boyhood are very many, but they are disposed by the LORD into order, that they may serve for use, first that he can think, then that they may be for use by means of thought, and finally that use may become, namely, that his very life consist in use, and be the life of uses. For these things do the scientifics serve which he obtains in boyhood; without them the external man can never be conjoined with the internal, and at the same time become use. When man becomes use, that is, when he thinks all things from an end of use, and does all things for an end of use, if not by manifest reflection, still by a tacit one from an acquired disposition, then the scientifics which had served for the first use that he may become rational, are destroyed, because they no longer can serve for more. Therefore, "JEHOVAH smote Pharaoh with great plagues"-that is, scientifics were destroyed-"and his house," that is, all that he had collected, "because of the word of Sarai the wife of Abram," that is, because of truth adjoined to celestial things. For, unless the scientifics which served for the use in boyhood, that man may become rational, be destroyed, so that they are nothing, truth can never be conjoined to celestials. Those first scientifics are for the most part earthly," corporeal, worldly. Although the precepts are Divine which the boy gets, still he has no other idea concerning' them, than from such scientifics, wherefore so long as those lowest scientifics adhere, from' which are his ideas, the mind cannot be elevated. So also was it with the LORD.

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     Then the LORD remembered ("And Pharaoh called Abram"): the science itself which the LORD had when a boy, thus addressed the LORD, or rather, JEHOVAH, by means of science; and He grieved when He knew that He ought to have no other truth than that which would be conjoined to the celestial ("And he said, what is this thou hast done to me, wherefore didst thou not indicate to me that she is thy wife"). The affection which is in these words is an indignation, as it were, of science, and the grief of the LORD, and indeed a grief for this that thus are destroyed the scientifics which He had obtained with so much pleasure and delights. It is as when infants love something which the parents see is hurtful to them-when it is taken away from them, this is a cause of grief to them.
     In this order did the LORD proceed to intelligence, and thus to wisdom, that, as He was as to the Divine Essence, He might wholly become also as to the Human Essence-Wisdom Itself. For He then knew not otherwise than that He would have intellectual truth, and thus the truth could have been violated, which was to be conjoined to the celestial ("wherefore didst thou say, my sister she, and I might have taken her to me for a woman "). "And now, behold thy wife, take and go"-that is, now the truth would be conjoined with the celestial. And as when celestials are conjoined to intellectual truths, and these become celestial, then all things which are inane are dissipated of themselves, it is said that "Pharaoh commanded men concerning him, and they sent him away," that is, that scientifics left the LORD; "and his wife," that is, they also left truth conjoined to the celestial; "and all things that he had," that is, all things which were of celestial truths.

     Thus ends the chapter, which contains such infinitely wonderful arcana concerning the Infancy and Boyhood of the LORD, revealed to us that we may give to the Divine Human the greater glory, ascribing to Him all Love and Wisdom, and turning to Him in humility, so that from Him as the only Source we may receive the good of love and charity, which alone can vivify us and make of us, even in the manner described in the chapter, images and likenesses of the LORD.
CORRECTIONS OF THE RECEIVED TEXT 1889

CORRECTIONS OF THE RECEIVED TEXT              1889

     "SINCE there are three senses in the Word, the natural, the spiritual, and the celestial, and since its natural sense, which is the sense of the letter, is the continent of the two senses, the spiritual and the celestial, it follows that the sense of the letter of the Word is their basis; and since the angels of the three heavens receive their wisdom from the LORD through the Word with them, and their Words make one with our Word, by correspondences, it also follows that the sense of the letter of our Word is the basis, support, and firmament of the wisdom of the angels of heaven; for the heavens subsist upon the human race, as a house does upon its foundation; hence the wisdom of the angels of heaven likewise subsists upon the science, intelligence, and wisdom of men, from the sense of the letter of the Word; for by the sense of the letter of the Word there is communication and conjunction with the heavens. Hence it is, that of the Divine Providence of the LORD it has come to pass that the Word, as to the sense of the letter from its first revelation, has not been mutilated, not even as to a word and letter in the original text, for every word is a fulcrum and to some extent also every letter" (A. E. 1085).
     It is worthy of note that in this passage Swedenborg first wrote, "changed" [mutatum] then crossed it out, and wrote over it the word "mutilated" [mutilatum]. This alteration' would seem to indicate that the sense of the letter of the Word has suffered changes, but that they have not been sufficiently great to destroy the Internal Sense and confuse the angels. What lends additional probability to this conclusion, is the fact, that in a number of instances Swedenborg; under the Divine inspiration, has corrected the received Hebrew and Greek text. His corrections sometimes coincide with the reading of other ancient versions, but at other times they stand alone.
     M. Aug. Harle, one of the editors of La Nouvelle Jerusalem, published in France during M. Le Boys des Guays' lifetime, made an especial study of these corrections, and noted a number of them in the Latin version of the Word prepared by Le Boys des Guays and himself, and elsewhere. The results of his studies, and his observations thereon are, of such interest to all who look upon the Writings as the Divinely inspired Exposition of the sacred interiors of the Word, that we present a translation of some of them.
     In a preliminary note, he says:
     "The determination of the received Hebrew text of the Old Testament in the form in which we possess it at the present day, as is known, is the result of the labors of the Massoretic rabbis, who, from the sixth century up to our time, devoted themselves to the application and development of a system of vowel-points an a of numerous notations, intended to point out even the least details in the reading. These doctors, moreover, comparing the manuscripts, indicated in the margin the variations, or the adopted reading which they believed ought to be substituted for a written word, investigating everything that could contribute to assure the integrity of the text; even counting the words and the letters. (See the Doctrine concerning the Sacred Scripture, n. 13.) The revisions made in the eleventh century by two rabbis, Aharon Ben Ascher, of the Palestine school of Tiberias, and Jacob Ben Nephtali, of the Oriental school of Babylon, acquired above all such a reputation, that the former manuscripts which differed from them were neglected and eventually lost. Now, as minutely scrupulous as these works were, it may be conceived, that, because of their date, the variations furnished by documents of an earlier origin are important, and may here and there preserve the trace of an altered primitive text running through successive transcriptions and revisions.
     "It is the same with the Greek text of the New Testament; to the variations of the original manuscripts, of which the two most ancient are the Alexandrian manuscript of the British Museum, of the fifth century, and the Constantinopolitan manuscript of the Vatican library, going back, perhaps, to the end of the preceding century, there are to be added the variations of documents of an earlier origin."

     M. Harle gives three classes of corrections. In the first class he includes corrections of the received text which are sustained by ancient versions, but which are found in Swedenborg alone of modern translators. The following are the instances adduced:

     Genesis xv, 9: "Take to thee a heifer of three years old," etc. See text in the Arcana and n. 1821, 1823 [also n. 9391, A. E. 701 d].
     "Take to thee," "sume tibe," [Hebrew], the same as the Syrian version, instead of "take to me," [Hebrew], according to the received text. See verse 10, [Hebrew] "and he took to himself all these things."

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In regard to this Hebraisin . . . see Exodus xxx,23; also Leviticus ix, 2 xv, 14, 29, and many other places where the verb "to take," in the original is used in the same construction.
     Genesis xvii, 16: "And I shall bless her, and I shall give thee of her a son; and I shall bless him, and he shall be into nations, kings of peoples shall be of her." Text explained in A. C. 2069.
     "And I shall bless him, and he shall be into nations," [Hebrew] instead of "and I shall bless her, and she shall be into nations," [Hebrew] the received text. The Latin of the text, "Et benedicam illi et erit in gentes," because of the ambiguity of the gender of "illi," and also of the verb "erit," has left the reading undecided; but the explanation in n. 2069 expressly implies that these words relate to, Isaac, as indeed they are rendered by the Seventy, the Vulgate, and the punctuators of the Syriac version (followed by the Swedish version), which, however, fall afterward into another mistake by continuing to refer to Isaac the end of the verse, where they read: "And kings of peoples shall be of him," [Hebrew] instead of "shall be of her," [Hebrew] of Sarah, as Swedenborg reads with the received text. The Samaritan text, alone, like these last, documents referring the passage concerning Sarah to Isaac by the words "and I shall bless him," [Hebrew] has preserved, like Swedenborg, the contrast of the return to Sarah, with the sole difference that this return takes place from the words "and she shall be," [Hebrew], into nations, in place of "and he shall be," [Hebrew], as Swedenborg reads with the versions designated above.
     It will be noticed that the repetition, according to the Masoretic text of the words "and I shall bless her," applied both times to the same subject, Sarah, is badly explained; so also the second "and" has puzzled the translators, some of whom suppress it, while Seb. Schmidt translates it "ita," "thus," as also Swedenborg after him, reads in n. 1416 of the Latin edition of the Arcana Coelestia, showing thereby that he no longer perceived the correction as regards this text.

     [We do not agree with this conclusion of M. Harle's. On the contrary, it appears to us that the reading in n. 1416 fully carries out the teaching in n. 2069, and shows that the blessing of Sarah involves the blessing of Isaac:
"And I shall bless her, and I shall also give thee a son of her, thus I shall bless him, and he shall be into nations, kings of people shall be from her." The first blessing signifies the multiplication of the truth of good, which is intellectual truth, and the second blessing signifies the multiplication of the rational which is born from the intellectual truth. The rational cannot be multiplied unless intellectual truth from which it exists be multiplied. This, as we conceive it, is involved in the "ita" in n. 1416. That Swedenborg did not write "ita" because Schmidius used the word, is evident when the entire verse as quoted in n. 1416 is compared with Schmidius' version.

     Arcana, n. 1416.

     "Et benedicam illi, et etiam dabo ex ea tibi filium, ita bene dicam illi, et erit in Gentes, reges populorum ex illa erunt.     

     Schmidius.

     "Benedicam aamque ipsi, eti amque ex ipsa dabo tibi filium, its (isquam) benedicam ipsi, ut sit in gentes, (et) Reges populorum ex ea existant."

     It will be seen that Swedenborg's version is about as independent of that of Schmidius, as any could be; not only are there the differences, indicated by the italics, but the order of the words is also different, in stricter conformity, with the Hebrew.-EDITOR].

     Genesis, xlix, 22: "A son of the fruitful one is Joseph, a son of the fruitful one upon the fountain, of a daughter who walks upon the wall." Text and n. 6419, 6438; [Also n. 3969 and A. E. 448 b.]
     A difficulty in the original text appears here more than in the preceding passage; by very strange departures from the variation in the translation. The still received text gives in the plural the word girl [Hebrew] as, in n. 2709 of the original Latin, Swedenborg had read it in connection "fountain of daughters." The paraphrast Onkelos, explaining this word by the "two tribes who will come forth from the sons of Joseph," shows that he has read, the same as the Masaoretes, the plural as read the Vulgate, and the Arabic versions. The Samaritan text, the Samaritan version, and the Septuagint read in the same place "my son" [Hebrew] ("my little son" [Hebrew] instead of [Hebrew] "who walks" (in the feminine).) The Syriac translation, seeing here a feminine substantive in the singular number, of an apparently unusual form, refers to the sense of the root [Hebrew] "to build" and has drawn from it this translation: "a fountain, a solid building ([Hebrew]? [Hebrew] for [Hebrew] from 'to strengthen'), which rises with the wall." But what is this unusual form, which has proved such an obstacle to the translators that they derive so many variations from it, this form of the root [Hebrew] "to build whence, indeed, are derived in the original the-word [Hebrew] ben, "son" and the word [Hebrew] bath, "daughter," contracted from a primitive [Hebrew] benth, as the plural [Hebrew] banoth shows? There is a supposition which may help to explain all these variants-that is, that the original word may have been precisely this primitive [Hebrew] benih, which otherwise has disappeared from the Hebrew of the books of the Word, and been preserved in the Arabic. Thus, this word furnishes (1) a plausible explanation of the sense supposed by the Syrian translator who appears to have read it with out change. (2) The [Hebrew] final appears to have been changed into with the Samaritans and the Seventy, by a confusion frequent enough, of which an example occurs in the following verse. (3) The revisers of the received text seem to have taken this very word to be an irregular case of orthography, called defective-that is to say, without a written vowel-and to have supplied, the vowel [Hebrew] of the full common orthography of the plural [Hebrew] in spite of the anomaly of disagreement with the verb in the feminine singular. (4) Finally, Swedenborg gives the sense of daughter in the singular, resting upon the spiritual signification, which may be seen developed in the paragraphs indicated above.
Notes and Reviews 1889

Notes and Reviews              1889

     THE Rev: G. L. Allbutt, B. A., has succeeded the Rev. J. S. David as editor of New Church Tidings.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     THE Rev. Messrs. Mercer, King, John Goddard, and Smyth have published sermons on Robert Elsemere.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     THE Board of Publication has just issued the third edition, revised and corrected, of the Compendium of the Theological Writings of the New Church.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     A NEW book, entitled Missionary Talks on Subjects of New Church Doctrine, by the Rev. John E. Bowers, will be published shortly by Mr. James Speirs.

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Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     A RE-ARGUMENT against the use of fermented wine at the Holy Supper is published by Mr. J. B. Hoffer, of Mount Joy, Pa., under the title The Holy Supper is Representative, together with a review; by Dr. John Ellis, of the Rev. Edward H. Jewett's Communion Wine.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     THE American Swedenborg Printing and Publishing Society, which has been advertising Heaven and Hell, and The True Christian Religion in The Golden Rule; an Evangelical paper, has been requested by the management to discontinue the advertisement, as "the protests" of their readers have kept them busy, and they "haven't time to answer" these protests. The Messenger remarks, philosophically and truly, "Well, it was worth while to publish that advertisement."
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     THE Swedenborg Printing and Publishing Society is about to print a new edition of its set of the Latin Works, and requests that corrections of typographical errors be sent at once to the Rev. J. C. Ager, 296 Carlton Avenue, Brooklyn, N. Y. Of the new volumes to be published, De Amore Conjugali is nearly all in type. The Rev. S. H. Worcester will begin with De Caelo et Inferno in a few weeks, but, at the rate at which he is proceeding, a year will probably elapse before all the plates of this work will be completed. It is to be greatly regretted that Dr. Worcester cannot devote all his time to the editing of the Latin Reprints. De Coelo et Inferno is especially in demand at the present time.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     The New Church Pacific has been enlarged to six pages, which admits of the introduction of several new features.
     In a letter published in January Pacific, a gentleman, who sent the paper fifty dollars, states "that in the midst of the vintage season It seemed impossible to secure the crop before the coming of the rain. I said to the LORD, 'Give us fair weather and I promise to remember the Church for Thy bounty.' The LORD hath blessed us abundantly. So I am only now performing a use, and making good my vow." That this man is probably following a custom because he has found it described in the letter of the Word (see Gen; lxviii, 20-22) is perhaps not surprising, but that the clerical editor of a New Church periodical should publish his statement approvingly does seem a little strange. (See explanation of Gen. xxviii, in A. C. in loco, also in n. 5998 and 10,559.) The "vow" makes the "promise to remember the Church" conditional on the LORD'S fulfilling the man's desires, as if men should not, under every circumstance and in all conditions, remember the Church for the LORD'S "bounty." For there is none so poor who is not living on the LORD'S bounty.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     "THE decay in our Church" is a subject that has been discussed in Morning Light recently. One correspondent attributes the decay to five causes: (1) Lack of zeal in the small Societies themselves; (2) lack of outside assistance; (3) the apathy of the New Church at large; (4) the occasion of this wide-spread apathy; (5) the idea prevalent with many that if they support their own Society they have done all that can be reasonably expected of them. One of the best things said by the writer is under cause four: "Cause four, in my opinion, is a closed Bible, unread Doctrines, lax attendance at Church services, languid support of Church meetings. Get up a social party, and throw in dancing as an attraction, and you may fill your room, but invite the members to a doctrinal meeting, and if you cannot count the attendance on your fingers, it is better than my experience leads me to expect. Swedenborg's Works look very nice indeed in a book-case. With their sober binding, bright gilt letters, and their air of learnedness, they may impress a visitor, but to some who see them they look dreadfully new, and one cannot help feeling that a little spoiling (from more frequent use) would be of no real disadvantage."
     For support, this writer might have referred to the news columns of Morning Light to advantage. Here, from one to four closely-printed pages are weekly devoted to the chronicling of a social party here, a musicale there, a literary meeting elsewhere: There are very few accounts of doctrinal classes or of meetings for reading the Writings or of events which indicate how the spiritual pulse of the Church in Great Britain is beating. In this respect the New Church Messenger compares much more favorably with, its British contemporary.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     THE American Swedenborg Printing and Publishing Society certainly deserves every encouragement, for the noble work which it is performing. The Life has frequently called attention to the Latin Reprints of the Writings published by this Society, which are not only most care fully edited, but also published in the best style. Something further concerning this matter is said in the present issue. The Society's English edition of the Writings is well known to all, and the promise of improvement, of which we have an earnest in its latest publication, is also spoken of in this issue. But the Society extends its operations to the translation of the Writings into other languages, and herein it has the honor, if we mistake not, of being the first to place in the hands of the Dutch a Work printed in their native tongue. What makes the event all the more interesting is the fact that Swedenborg chose their country for the original publication of a number of the inspired Works-eleven of them having been printed in Amsterdam. The work published by the Society is Van het Nieuwe Jeruszalem en zijne Hemeleche Leer, als geopenboard uit den Himmel (Concerning the New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrine as revealed from Heaven). The references to the Arcana Coelestia at the end of the chapters have been omitted, but an account of Swedenborg's life and works has been prefixed. The whole forms a neat brochure of ninety-five pages, and, as the translator says, is published in this convenient form in order to call attention to these Writings, also in the Netherlands, in the hope to awaken the inclination for further study. The favorable description of the character of the Dutch people which is given in the Writings furnishes good ground for the belief that this hope will be realized.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     UNIFORM in size and style with the Dutch translation of the New Jerusalem except that the print is a little larger, is the Spanish translation of the ninth chapter of The True Christian Religion, entitled De La Penitencia, published by the same Society. It comprises fifty-eight pages, of which eighteen are devoted to the "Introduccion," which is a Spanish version of the same sketch of Swedenborg's life and Works as is printed in the Dutch pamphlet.
     The increasing intimacy of our relations, as a people, with the Mexicans and other Spanish-speaking peoples invests the publication of this pamphlet by an American Society with peculiar interest. The Mexicans are passionate, but they are chivalrous and just. And, while there may be some question whether one of the Doctrines concerning the LORD would not have been the best first work, there is no doubt that the doctrine concerning "Repentance" will readily reach the "remnant" among the Spanish-speaking peoples, who, from their close connection with the Roman Catholic Church, are led to examine themselves and confess their sins.
     The Dutch and the Spanish treatises have each a list of the Writings with a brief explanation of the contents of every one of the Works, the number of pages of the English translation, and its price. The addresses of the American Publishing Society and of the British Swedenborg Society are given.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     FOR years it has been the desire of the Secretary of the American Swedenborg Printing and Publishing Society to issue the Writings with alternate pages of Latin and English. For the realization of this wish it was necessary that the translation should be set up in type with this end in view. In the Rev. S. H. Worcester's new translation of De Athanasii Symbolo this was borne in mind, and the result is that the student can secure this Work of Swedenborg's (which must not be confounded with the Athanasian Creed from the A. E.) in Latin, in English and in Latin and English. It has doubtless cost considerable calculation and painstaking to make every page of the translation agree with the corresponding page of the Latin; and to secure a perfect agreement must be impossible, unless the typographical evenness of the page be marred. But the Publishing Society has come as near perfection as was possible. The great use of such an edition of the Writings is apparent. Not only will those who make a practice of reading them in the Latin be pleased with it, but also those who have a scanty knowledge of Latin will secure an immense advantage, for it will help them when reading the English to refer without trouble to the Latin when they wish to do so, and will also increase their knowledge of this tongue.

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Indeed, such is the simplicity of Swedenborg's style, and so many are the English words that are derived from the Latin that this new edition may help some who are ignorant of this language to acquire sufficient knowledge to read the Writings in the original tongue-a great desideratum, since even the most faithful translator, as the present one cannot always express in English the exact idea conveyed by the Latin.
     The price of the Latin-English edition of The Creed of Athanasius, the Lord, is thirty cents, and of the English alone is fifteen cents.
EVIL OF CONCUBINAGE 1889

EVIL OF CONCUBINAGE       G. N. SMITH       1889

     Communicated.

     [Inasmuch as in this Department Correspondents have an opportunity to express their individual opinions, be they in favor of the principles on which New Church Life is conducted or adverse to them, the Editor does not hold himself responsible for any of the, views whatever that are published therein.]


     CORRECTION NOTES.

     IT is not often that I have anything to say anent the editorial teachings of the Life, or indeed of any of our genuine New Church papers, but the late teachings on the subject of "Coucubinage" moves me to say this: They do not bring out, as ought to be done, the teachings so clearly given that it is an "evil" (C. L. 452), "unchaste, natural, and external love" (n. 460, comp. also ii. 462 and n. 475), and is permissible only in the face of another worse and more dangerous one which can be escaped only through it, as an intermedial,"- by which conjugial love can be prevented from perishing" n. 459), yet, for the time, "covering, interrupting, intercepting it, awaiting removal by death" (n. 475).*
     * Since writing the above, I find reference (without numbers named) is made to the doctrine to which I have called attention. See the January number of Life.
     It ought always to be spoken of and thought of as such, and so ever be "held separate from conjugial love" (n. 460).
     I do not see that any one reading your articles would get such an idea of it, or that it was at all less good and orderly than being "able to restrain the heat of lust" (n. 459), or to hold "reserved for a wife "(ib.). Of course, those who read and accept the Conjugial Love know this, but there are many of your readers who seem, like one of your clerical opponents, "to hold the volume" subject to correction or even rejection, and for such, and those who are under their influence, the truth needs to be made so plain as to leave them no excuse for so treating it. Another point is needed to make the truth clearer That men may be, and while regenerating necessarily are, in evils. Yet, they are not, therefore, necessarily evil, unless the purpose, intention, and end be evil. "No love with angels or men is pure" (n. 91). "Eating the flesh of animals," is characterized as "somewhat profane" and "bestial" (A. C. 1002). "And yet now no one is ever condemned for it" (ib.). The New Church only puts more clearly and rationally the old Christian doctrine of a "sin not unto death," which was never denied till now.
     But, when I come to the attitude of your opponents, I find only cause of astonishment.
     One of your opponents with a "Rev." to his name, alludes to the subject in these amazing words: "The teaching in question is deduced (in the New Church Life) from a volume,* which, if it contain that doctrine, is, certainly not from the LORD but is a crowning instance in proof that the Writings of Swedenborg must be tested and interpreted by the Word of God." And yet, the utterer of these words, which, if true, would make the New Church not only a false pretension, but an impossibility, calls himself, just after, a Newchurchman. The Doctrines claim to be "The LORD'S Advent," in teachings from the Word, which, "without doctrine, cannot be understood" (T. C. R. 226), and in which, "nothing that pertains to these Doctrines is from any other source than "the LORD alone" (n 779). How dare any one call himself a Newchurchman and deny this fundamental claim of our Doctrines? Teachings that were given to interpret the Word that otherwise "cannot be understood," cannot of course, be interpreted by that which they alone can interpret. And a "volume" which is a part of these Doctrines, so distinctly called, and pointed to as the doctrine on this subject (T. C. R. 315, and Doct. Life 77), cannot, of course, be excluded from the claim that refers everything pertaining to those Doctrines to the LORD alone; unless we reject all together. Such words from a "Newchurchman" are so close to self-stultifying absurdity as to simply amaze me.
     * It happens, however, to be contained elsewhere. See Indexes to Missing Treatise.
     The teachings of the Conjugial Love are from the LORD, or we have none that are; all are false and impossible together. And, if they are from the LORD, as every one's heart must affirm that has in it a single chord responsive to the wonderful openings, there alone found in all the world, of the purest, sweetest love in earth or heaven, then its teachings are truths, and we have no right to reject or change them to suit our own conceits.
     As, for example, what right has any one to bring the case of the "vicious criminal," who has no "open fountain of conjugial love" and who may belong to the class mentioned, that "if not detained from the love of women; also from intoxicating drinks," would become mere excrement (S. D. 3177), to prove false such teachings as this: "It is vain to recount the damages which too great a restraint of the love of the sex may cause and operate with those who, from superabundance, labor under venereal excitement; from this source with such persons are the origins of certain diseases of the body, and disorders of the mind, not to speak of the unknown evils" (C. L. 450, comp. n. 459 and n. 98). The teaching is plain and unmistakable. How does a Newchurchman try to prove it false? Every observing physician has had scores of cases that prove it true. Who will dare deny that the "intermedial" doctrinally provided, would save thousands from wreck of body and mind, and the "perishing of conjugial love" from one "unknown evil" that is especially prevalent under the "pure" ideas of Christendom, and is found nowhere else in the world as it is here.
     And what right has any one to assume that with the class in question, the higher purity is through the most rigid abstinence, in the face of such teachings as these: "that [by the intermedial aforementioned] the ardor of venery, in the beginning boiling and as it were burning, is allayed and mitigated, and that thus the lasciviousness of salacity which is filthy, is tempered by something analogous to marriage" (C. L. 459).
     What right has he to assume that such a relation is a "connivance" at the promiscuous practices of the harlot, with all their "intense and loathsome sufferings," and not rather, as it must be, a reform of them by "something analogous to marriage," which is, of course, not possible without abandonment of all promiscuity; and a faithfulness to one.

29


This is certainly a benefit and not a "wrong" to her so reformed. "For who unless he is vile. . . can share the couch with a harlot?" (n. 469).
     Again, what right has he to assume that one so constituted that he finds this "intermedial" a necessity the causes of which have been explored by him" (n. 452), is necessarily worse than others ("vicious criminals," shall we say?) in the face of this teaching: "Men have copia, according to the love of propagating the truths of wisdom, and according to the love of doing uses":
(n. 220), also that eternal life is not endangered by celibacies enjoined with those who are in external worship, as it is with those who are in internal worship (n. 155). See, also, the first of the number, which shows that the love implanted by creation, cannot be kept under without danger of resting in heat that may defile the interiors).
     We have, myself included, too long looked in the wrong direction for some of the worst and most dangerous evils which beset the class of men to whom "these things are said" "to none others" (n. 459).
     They must be Newchurchmen, as others do not know of these things, nor would they believe them if they did;' nor indeed do a good man "Newchurchmen" But certainly those that do are not in any serious danger from the promiscuous evils that lie on the other side, to which we have all been looking; as they are from those that the Doctrines point out with the remedy, on the side that we have from our medieval papal prejudices called the side of the highest purity.
     I have re-read the rule for the minister (T. C. R. 422, Doct. Charity, A. C. 4311 et al.), and find it no different from that for any other man, only this, that he cannot be allowed anything that "scandalizes," for the sake of his office, which, as the public mind now stands, right; or wrong, he would be speedily forced to resign were he to do as recommended in the first mention of the subject in the Life. That as a fact settles the question as to his
rights.     G. N. SMITH.
EVIL OF CONCUBINAGE AND THE MINISTER'S RELATION TO IT 1889

EVIL OF CONCUBINAGE AND THE MINISTER'S RELATION TO IT              1889

     IF, as is alleged, the Life has not made it sufficiently clear that concubinage is an evil, this was due to the circumstances under which its articles were prepared: they were all, from the first, replies to special points-and also to the fact that it took for granted that all its readers considered concubinage to be an evil; the Life merely tried to bring forth the teaching concerning the quality of this evil, namely, that when practiced as directed it is not an evil opposite to conjugial love. That it is an evil, is involved in the teaching concerning fornication quoted in the October article, to which the reader is referred. The teaching concerning fornication is:
     "By fornication is understood the lust of a youth or of a young man with a woman-a harlot-before marriage, but lust with a woman not a harlot, that is, with a virgin or with the wife of another is not fornication, but with a virgin it is stupration, and with the wife of another it is adultery. In what respect these two differ from fornication cannot be seen by any rational [person] unless he sees clearly through the love of the sex in its degrees and diversities, and on the one part its chaste things, and on the other its unchaste, and divides each part into genera and into species, and thus distinguishes; otherwise, the distinction between more and less chaste, and between more and less unchaste, cannot be prominent in the Idea of any one, and without these distinctions all relation perishes and, with it, perspicacity in matters of judgment, and the understanding is involved in such shade that it knows not how to discriminate fornication from adultery, and still less the mild things of fornication from its grievous ones, and those of adultery in like manner; thus it mixes evils, and from diverse ones makes one pottage and from diverse goods one paste."-C. L. 444*.

     Fornication, pellicacy, and concubinage-being unchaste-are evil: so is adultery committed from purpose; but all these are not evils in like degree, for the last- named evil is opposite to conjugial love, nauseates and destroys it, while the former evils are not of such a quality except as they tend toward adultery.
     To prevent the "mixing of evils" and the "making one paste of diverse ones" is the underlying end an a object of the Life's utterances. For if evils be mixed, and the distinction between more and less evil be not observed, perspicacity in matters of judgment perishes, and the understanding is involved in such shade that it knows not how to discriminate fornication, pellicacy, and concubinage, from adultery, and still less the mild things of these evils from their grievous ones.
     Since Dr. Smith calls particular attention to the evil of concubinage, it may be well to consider this matter in detail, and that can best be done by adducing in full the passage to which he refers. This passage, by the way, treats not of concubinage but of fornication; but what is there said will also apply to concubinage, although the two are "diverse." To understand the subject clearly, the reader ought to observe what is taught in the preceding part of the chapter, whence this number is taken, under the propositions, "that fornication is of the love of the sex; that the love of the sex, from which fornication is, commences when a youth begins to think and act from his own understanding, and the voice of his speech begins to become masculine; that fornication is of the natural man; that it is lust, but not the lust of adultery; that the love of the sex, with some, cannot without damage be totally restrained from going forth into fornication; that therefore in populous cities brothels are tolerated; that fornication is light, so far as it looks to conjugial love and prefers it." The last proposition is the one to the explanation of which Dr. Smith refers, for there it is written:

     "There are degrees of the qualities of evil, as there are degrees of the qualities of good; wherefore every evil is Lighter and more grievous, as every good is better and more excellent. The case is similar with fornication, which, because it is lust, and the lust of the natural man not yet purified, to an evil; but because every man is capable of being purified therefore, as far as it approaches a purified state, so far that evil becomes a lighter evil, for so far it is wiped away; thus, as far as fornication approaches conjugial love, which is a purified state of the love of the sex. That the evil of fornication is more grievous, so far as it approaches the love of adultery will be seen in the subsequent article. That fornication is light, so far as it looks to conjugial love, is because, then, from the unchaste state in which he is, he looks to a chaste state; and as far as he prefers this, so far he is in it also as to the understanding; and as far as he not only prefers it, but also loves it better, so far he is in it also as to the will, thus as to the internal man; and then fornication if he nevertheless continues in it, is to him a necessity, the causes of which have been explored by him. There are two reasons which render fornication light with those who prefer and love better the conjugial state; the first is, that to them a conjugial life is a purpose, intention, or end; the other is that with themselves they separate evil from good.
     "As regards THE FIRST, that to them a conjugial life is a purpose1 intention, or end, it is because man is such a man as he is in his purpose, intention, or end, and such he is also before the LORD, and before the angels, yea, such also is he regarded before the wise in the world; for the intention is the soul of all actions, and makes in the world inculpations and exculpations, and after death imputations.
     "As to THE OTHER, that those who prefer conjugial love to the lust of fornication, separate evil from good, thus the unchaste from the chaste; [it is because] they who separate these two in perception and intention, before they are in the good or the chaste; are also separated and purified from the evil of that lust, when they come into a conjugial state.

30



     "That the case is not thus with those who in fornication look to adultery, will be seen in the article now following."-C. L. 452.
     The chapter then continues to explain "that the lust of fornication is grievous, so far as it looks to adultery; that this lust is more grievous, as it verges toward the desire of varieties; and toward the desire of defloration; that the sphere of the lust of fornicating, such as it is in the beginning, is mediate between the sphere of scortatory love and the sphere of' conjugial love, and makes the equilibrium; that care Is to be taken, lest conjugial love, by immoderate and inordinate fornication; should be destroyed, inasmuch as the conjugial of one man with one wife is the jewel of human life, and the repository of the Christian Religion; that this conjugial, with those who for various causes cannot as yet enter into marriages, and on account of salacity cannot govern their lusts, can be preserved, if the love of the sex become restricted to one mistress; that pellicacy is preferable to roaming lust, provided there be not dealings with more than one, nor with a virgin or undeflowered woman, nor with a married woman, and it be kept separate from conjugial love."-C. L. 453-460

     Now, if the doctrine concerning concubinage will be carefully read, and the explanation quoted above from n. 452 concerning the degrees of the qualities of evil will be borne in mind, it will be seen that if concubinage is carried on conjointly with a wife, it is adultery, a sin to be abominated and shunned as the lakes of hell, but that, if it be carried on apart from the wife, for the legitimate, just, and real sufficient causes enumerated in n. 462-476, it is an evil, and undesirable in itself-but, nevertheless, it is a means of man's regeneration and salvation, and therefore not a vice or a sin-or an evil which is then and there to be shunned as a sin against God. If that which is "allowed" for the sake of preserving the conjugial, and thus for the wake of salvation, is to be shunned as a sin against God, how can the conjugial be preserved and man be saved? It is explicitly taught that conjugial love is preserved with those who prefer marriage to concubinage, and enter into concubinage from the causes referred to (C. L. 475).

     It is to be regretted that Mr. Smith has detracted somewhat from his otherwise excellent communication by the erroneous position contained in his closing remarks, wherein he says, "that a minister cannot be allowed anything that 'scandalizes;' for the sake of his office, which, as the public mind now stands, right or wrong, he would be speedily forced to resign, were he to do as recommended in the first mention of the subject in the Life. That as a fact settles the question as to his rights."
     Two distinct points are made in this statement: one, that a minister "cannot be allowed" to apply the doctrine concerning concubinage to his own case, because it would create scandal; and the second, that were he to apply the doctrine, he would be forced to resign.
     The doctrine referred to in support of the first position is as follows:

     "With priests and presbyters, who preach holy things, and yet live and believe badly, there are not good spirits but evil ones," even when they are in a worship apparently holy in its external form, for it is the love of self, and of the world, or the love of acquiring honors, and of gaining lucre and fame, on account of, these things, which inflame them, and present the affection of the holy, sometimes even to such an extent that nothing simulated is apperceived, and then it is not believed by themselves; when, nevertheless, they are in the midst of evil spirits who are then in a similar state, and breathe upon them and inspire them. That evil spirits can be, and that they are in such a state, when they are in externals, and are puffed up by the love of self and the world, has been given me to know from much experience, of, which, from the Divine Mercy of the LORD, in what follows at the end of the chapter. These have no communication with heaven with themselves, but those have who hear and take the words from their mouth, if they are in a pious and holy internal; for it matters not from whom the word of good and of truth flows forth, provided there be not to them a life manifestly criminal [scelerata), for this scandalizes "- A.C. 4311.

     It will be seen that in this teaching, wicked priests are treated of, and not those who "prefer marriage to concubinage," and from the heart desire to keep conjugial loves stored up in them, clean and undefiled. It will also be noticed, That it is a life evil in the interiors, which is allowed to come to the manifest observation of men in criminal deeds that actually destroys a priest's usefulness. It does not, therefore, bear the application made of it in Mr. Smith's communication. If it did, then it would nullify the teaching in Conjugial Love, and bid the minister subject himself to those very evils, from which he is sought to be guarded in this Work, such as "diseases of the body, disorders of the mind, and unknown evils which are not to be named" (C. L. 460).
     As to the second point, the fact that a minister may be forced by his society to resign his position, ought not to determine him to act contrary to the advice given to him in the Writings. It is the duty of every New- churchman to live up to his convictions, right or wrong, and not to be governed by expediency, where this conflicts with his convictions. If he acts according to his conviction of what is the Divine Truth, then he confides in the Divine, and those who confide in the Divine attribute all things to Him, and are in the stream of Providence, and are carried continually to happiness, "howsoever the means may appear," and they are not in the stream of Providence who trust to themselves alone, and attribute all things to themselves, for they are in the opposite, for they derogate Providence from the Divine, and vindicate it to themselves.
     "They have care for the morrow, who are not content with their lot, who do not trust in the Divine, but in themselves, and who look only to worldly and earthly things, and not to those that are heavenly; with them there reigns universally solicitude for the future, the lust of possessing all things, and of ruling over all, which is enkindled and increases according to increments, and finally above every measure. These grieve if they do not obtain what they desire, and are in anguish when they suffer their loss- nor have they consolation, for then they grow angry against the Divine, reject it together with all things of faith, and curse themselves; such are they with whom is the care for the morrow.
     "Altogether otherwise with those who trust the Divine; although they have care for the morrow, yet they have it not, for they do not think of the morrow with solicitude; still less with anxiety; they are of an equal mind, whether they obtain what they desire, or not; at its loss they do not grieve, they are content with their lot; if they become rich, they do not set their heart on riches; if they are raised to honors, they do not regard themselves as more worthy than others; if they become poor, they are not saddened; if low of condition, they are not cast down; they know that for those who trust to the Divine, all things succeed for a happy state to eternity; and what happens to them in time, still conduces to the same."- A. C. 8478.

     The question, therefore, which is to determine ministers or laymen in any matter is not whether there is a likelihood of their scandalizing the neighbor, and thus of their losing position or wealth; but whether their action would give just cause for scandal. If they are acting in accordance with the LORD'S teaching, and thus following His lead, so that the LORD may save them, then surely, though, the neighbor may be scandalized, he has not just cause.-EDITOR.]
Rev. J. J. Lehnen 1889

Rev. J. J. Lehnen              1889

     ON one of his missionary trips, the Rev. J. J. Lehnen visited (at Albion, Ia.,) Mr. David Worcester, a younger brother of the author of Worcester's Dictionary.

31


ANXIETY UNNECESSARY 1889

ANXIETY UNNECESSARY       S. S. SEWARD       1889

     EDITOR NEW CHURCH LIFE:-Apropos of the articles on "Concubinage," I desire to say that, in my opinion, no one who believes in the LORD JESUS CHRIST in His Divine Humanity as the Saviour from all sin (Ezek. xxxvi,: 25; Ps. cxxx, 8; Matt. i, 21), need take to himself any anxiety upon the subject. He may be sorely tempted, but he will be given the victory.
     S. S. SEWARD.
          NEW YORK, Jan. 16th, 1889.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT 1889

ACKNOWLEDGMENT              1889

     EDITOR NEW CHURCH LIFE.-Dear Sir,-Allow me to thank you for your clear and comprehensive statement in reply to my question [see page 8]. It already enables me to better understand the teachings of Conjugial Love. In fact, it has gradually been dawning upon me of late that the LORD'S love in His permissions, is one of the most wonderful of Divine things.
     As I read my question now, it has a tone of sarcasm which was unintentional. I merely sought information.
     Again thanking you for your attention, I remain
     A COMPANION IN THE FAITH.
WINE OF THE LORD'S SUPPER, IN THE LIGHT OF CHURCH HISTORY 1889

WINE OF THE LORD'S SUPPER, IN THE LIGHT OF CHURCH HISTORY       STEPHEN WOOD       1889

     As the heart and lungs act through the body and govern its involuntary motions, so the Church has a corresponding action upon society, and manifests its inward condition in its external rituals.
     The study of the history of the Christian Church from the Apostolic times to the present day, and of the relation existing between its teachings and its rituals, and, of their corresponding effects upon society, becomes very, instructive to one who is interested in the philosophy of history.
     At the last meeting of JESUS with His disciples before His crucifixion, He washed their feet, and gave them His last charge in these words: "If I, then, your LORD and Master, have washed your feet, he also ought to wash one another's feet; for I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you." To wash the feet signifies the purification of the natural mind by overcoming the evils of self-love, in doing justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with our God.
     While the Church was in this state of humility, the rite of feet-washing was observed; but when the Church receded from the good of life, represented by feet-washing, and began to contend about doctrine and faith as the essentials of religion, the rite was neglected and finally forgotten. This neglect was of Divine Providence that the rituals of the Church might correspond with its public teachings. But baptism and the eucharist in both its elements were retained so long as a knowledge of the teachings of the Divine Word was allowed the people. But when the priesthood wished to rule over the souls of men, it was found necessary to prevent direct access to the Bible by the people, and Church dogmas were substituted instead. Swedenborg says:

     "External worship without internal prevails in the catholic religion for it is not given to the common people know the tenor things of the or since they are forbidden to read the Word. On which account, also, by the Divine Providence of the LORD, It has come to pass that in the Holy Supper the bread, which is the flesh, and not the wine; which is the blood, is given [to the laity), and yet the blood is what vivifies the flesh, as the wine the bread for as bread without wine does not give nourishment to the body, so neither does the good of love, which is signified by bread and by flesh without the truth of, faith, which is signified by wine and by blood, give nourishment to the soul. By the Divine Mercy of the LORD, it has also come to pass that the priest should drink wine, because by it is signified the nourishment of the soul by Divine Truth without the good of love, which is an external holy without an internal holy. That this has come to pass by the Divine Providence of the LORD they do not know, by reason that they idolatrously adore things external, and thus do not apprehend things internal wherefore, if it had been otherwise, they would have profaned things holy in like manner as the Jews. By drinking wine alone is signified to know Divine Truth alone whilst the common people did not know it, only according to the quantity and quality in which they will them to know it, which is also the case." (A. C. 10,040.)

     When the Protestant Church separated from the Catholic religion, they restored the wine to its true place in the eucharist, because they restored the direct teachings of the holy Word to the laity. But in its later subdivisions different practices have prevailed.
     The Disciple Church, which was organized early in the present century, taught that the Bible should be read and explained like any other book, asserting that its only sense is its, natural or letter sense, so that in their teachings spiritual truth was withheld from the people. They also substituted unfermented grape-juice, or raisin water, for wine in the Holy Supper.
     The Second Adventists of both schools deny that there is a spiritual sense in the Bible, and declare that the prophetical parts are mere predictions of terrestrial events in the history of nations. I have been informed, but have not the proof, that they forbid the use of wine, and make a prepared substitute for the eucharist.
     The Latter-Day Saints or Mormons, also accept the Bible in its natural sense only, and forbid the use of wine entirely, except in the eucharist, and this must be prepared by themselves; most of them use raisin water. I am told that some use water only in this most holy rite, which corresponds to their rejection of spiritual truth in the Divine Word.
     Other branches of the Protestant Church, probably from similar causes, are using various vinous substances, prepared by art, for the wines on the lees well refined.
     All these things take place, by the Divine Providence of the LORD, that their rituals may more nearly accord with their spiritual states, "lest they profane things holy in like manner as the Jews."
     The effect on society of these operative causes, in the Christian Church, is seen in the prohibition wave that is sweeping over the Protestant portion of America and Great Britain.
     Although this wave maybe caused by the upheaval of man's selfhood, in an attempt to reform the old proprium, by transferring his personal responsibility, in freedom, to the enactments of legislative bodies; yet it is permitted, like all other permitted perversions, to prevent, if possible, greater evils; and that, at length, itself may be seen as evil, and forsaken.
     STEPHEN WOOD.

     GALVESTON, Dec. 24th, 1888.
CONFERENCE Committee 1889

CONFERENCE Committee              1889

     A CONFERENCE Committee has issued a circular letter to the isolated Newchurchmen of Great Britain, of whom upward of five hundred are known to the Committee. The circular is intended to bring those to whom it is addressed into closer connection with Conference and to secure for them the benefits of such a connection.

32


NEWS GLEANINGS 1889

NEWS GLEANINGS       Various       1889


NEW CHURCH LIFE.
A MONTHLY JOURNAL

TERMS:-One Dollar per annum, payable in advance.

Six months on trial for twenty-five cents.

     All communications must be addressed to Publishers New Church Life, No. 759 Corinthian Avenue, Philadelphia, Pa.

     In Great Britain subscriptions may be sent to
     MR. S. WARREN POTTS, Book Steward, 61 Cathedral Street, Glasgow, Scotland.
     REV. R. J. TILSON, "Oakley," County Grave, Camberwell, London, S. E.
     MR. G. A. MCQUEEN, Crowhurst Road, Colchester.
     MR. JAS. CALDWELL, 59 County Road, N., Liverpool.
     MR. C. E. SCHROEDER, 13     Ashfield Terrace, Newcastle-on-Tyne.
     MISS FLORENCE G. GIBBS, 8 Camden Square, London, N.

PHILADELPHIA, FEBRUARY, 1889=119.

     CONTENTS.

     Editorial Notes, P. 17.-"The New Age" (a Sermon), p. 18.-Conversations on Education, p. 21.-The Twelfth Chapter of Genesis, p. 22.-Corrections on the Received Text, p. 25.
     Notes and Reviews, p. 26.
     The Evil of Concubinage, p. 28.-Anxiety Unnecessary, p. 31.-An Acknowledgment, p. 31, The Wine of the LORD'S Supper in the light of Church History, p. 31.
     News Gleanings, p. 32.-Marriages and Deaths, p. 32.
     AT HOME.

     Pennsylvania.-THE Ministers and Candidates of the General Church of Pennsylvania, residing in Philadelphia, conduct services at stated times for the Society or the Advent, the Lancaster society, the Allentown Church, and the German Society of Brooklyn, E. D., N Y.
     THE discussion of free-will offerings for the support of the priesthood, which formed so interesting and instructive a feature of the recent meeting of the General Church of Pennsylvania, has led to consideration of the subject by the Pittsburgh Society. Thus far, about five-sixths of the members are in favor of making the offering for this distinct purpose a part of the Divine worship.
     ON Tuesday evening, January 22d, the Rev. C. T. Odhner, Instructor In the Schools of the Academy, delivered the first of a series of lectures on Mythology in the light of the New Church.
     New York.-MR. Bastow continues his colportage on Long Island, and with considerable success. In connection with his work he lectures on temperance.
     Massachusetts.-"THE Swedenborg Club" has been organized in Chelsea, with fifteen members, the object being to study the Writings. The True Christian Religion is studied at present.
     Georgia.-THE little society at Atlanta has been visited by the Rev. Jabez Fox.
     Ohio.-THE fall term of Urbana University closed on December 20th. The enrollment in preparatory and college classes had been twenty-eight. The instruction at the University is reported to be growing more distinctively New Church.
     THE house of worship of the Cleveland Society is free of debt, the Young People's League, recently formed, has bought an altar, desk, and pulpit for the church, and intends to acquire chairs. The attendance at services has been increasing.
     Michigan.-THE Rev. J. E. Bowers recently spent three weeks in this State, visited fourteen places and delivered eleven public discourses in six of these places.
     THE Rev. G. N. Smith is compelled to discontinue work as Evangelist of the Michigan Association, as its fund is exhausted.
     Illinois.-MR. J. H. Sudbrack has been preaching in Quincy, Marshall, and Wellsville, Mo., and has administered the sacraments.
     Kansas.-DURING November and December the Rev. A. J. Bartels made a five weeks' missionary tour through parts of Kansas and Texas. Near Castleton, Reno County, he remained two weeks, preached every evening, conducted services three times on Sundays, and gave daily instruction to nine children, whom he baptized on the last Sunday, when he administered the Holy Supper to nineteen persons. There are live families, formerly Mennonites, who are interested. Near Pawnee Rock, Mr. Bartels found some ten families receivers of the Doctrines who had been Mennonites. He organized them into a society, counting fifteen members, who joined the German Synod.

     ABROAD.

     Great Britain.-THE Rev. G. H. Lock, formerly of Worsley, has removed to Hull where he entered upon the pastorate of the Hull Society on December 3d.
     Sweden.-THE Rev. C. J. N. Manby, has written to the Board of Home and Foreign Missions of the American Convention acknowledging receipt of one hundred and fifty dollars, and giving details of his work. He states that "behind him stand two Societies and a pretty large number of isolated receivers."
     Germany.-MR. ARTOPE who from the first has claimed to be an independent exponent of the Internal Sense of the Word, and has imbibed nearly every known heresy of the New Church, has at last called forth the indignant protest of a number of people who had been somewhat or entirely favorable to him. Of the former class, Professor Pfirsch is an exponent (in Monatblatter) and of the latter class; the Rev. A. J. Bartels (in Bote). The cause for this sudden turn is his recent revival of an old heresy, that the gospel narrative is not historically true. He thus denies the historical advent of the LORD.
     Australia.-The New Age for November publishes an "Australian New Church Directory" on its cover, from which it appears that there are Societies in Sydney, Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, and Rodborough (near Carisbrook, Victoria). The Rev. E. G. Day is minister at Adelaide, the Rev. W. A. Bates, at Brisbane, and the Rev. J. J. Thornton, at Melbourne. The same issue of the New Age contains, as a supplement, an appeal for aid to raise funds for the erection of a new school-building and lecture-hall adjoining the present church. The architect's designs accompany the appeal, and in this form bring the New Church in far-off Australia very near her older sister in America.
     New Zealand.-THE New Church in the city of Christchurch "has had a checkered experience. There was a numerous Society here years ago, but by joining with the Freethinkers it was shattered and there has been no organization in Christchurch for more than ten years. There are, however, probably twenty sincere New Church friends in and around the city, and there is a splendid field for the activities of a minister."
     The New Church Society of Auckland has issued a letter inviting the co-operation of friends scattered over New Zealand to extend a knowledge of the Doctrines. They propose to keep in stock New Church literature for sale and distribution, to incorporate the Auckland Society, and when feasible to engage the services of a "missionary lecturer and superintendent of New Church work generally throughout the colony."
     Mauritius.-AN interesting letter written by Mr. J. H. Ackroyd to the New Age of Melbourne, Australia, contains the following history of the New Church in Mauritius, an island of the Indian Ocean, belonging to Great Britain. The Writings were first introduced in 1847 by Mr. Herbert Poole, who came from Adelaide. Among these who became interested was M. Edmond de Chazal, who wrote publicly in their favor, and was engaged in several controversies with ministers of the Old Church. He instituted public worship and administered the sacraments. This continued at his house for many years. In 1859 a Society was formed, which was legally incorporated in 1877, with a membership of twelve. A place of meeting was also acquired. Four of the members of 1877 have since died, and about a dozen new members have been received. Services are held once a month, as the members live scattered; on other Sundays each family holds its own services. The congregation varies from thirty to one hundred and ten. The Sacrament is administered twice a year to from thirty to forty-five communicants. At one time the Society published a paper, the Echo. The letter closes with the significant remark: "One thing I can say, however, that we are united, and that all our children as they have grown up have remained members of the Church. We may add, that M. de Chazal had a numerous family, and that his children likewise have a fair proportion of offspring."
EDITORIAL NOTES 1889

EDITORIAL NOTES       Editor       1889




     MARRIAGES AND DEATHS.




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     Vol. IX.     PHILADELPHIA, MARCH, 1889=119.     No. 3.
     AN interesting illustration of the teaching that "there are many words in the Hebrew tongue which contain the complex of many ideas in one, from opposite to opposite, so that the sense cannot be understood except from the series, and this from the interior," etc. (S. D. 2833), is furnished by the varying translations of Genesis i, 2, found in the Writings. In most instances where this verse is quoted, [Hebrew] is translated "vacuitus et inanitus" or "vacua et inanis," but in Coronis, n. 23, it is "vasta et inanis." The reason for this variation is, according to the teaching above referred to, to be found in the series. In Arcana, xi. 17, for instance, the word "vacant" is used because man is described before regeneration, when nothing of good is as yet inseminated into him. In the Coronis, n. 23, on the contrary, the first two verses of the Word are quoted in that series in which they give in brief the history of the Adamic Church in a most general form as introduction to the particulars which are to follow. "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth; and the earth was waste and empty:" the LORD established the Most Ancient Church, and then it became such that there was no longer any good of life or any truth of doctrine. The particulars of the rise and fall of that Church are described afterward.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     THE Memorabilia, or, as they are called in the Arcana, the Mirabilia or Wonderful Things, are not scattered through the Writings at random. They are always connected with the chapters to which they are prefixed or appended, although sometimes the connection may not be apparent at first sight. Thus, the Mirabilia which precede and follow the thirteenth chapter of Genesis treat of the light in which the angels live, and of their paradises and habitations. The chapter is said to treat of the External Man with the LORD, which was to be conjoined with His Internal Man. At first the connection between the chapter and the mirabilia is not very manifest. But a study of the Internal Sense in its particular unfoldings will reveal how they depend one upon the other interchangeably. For instance, where the plain of Jordan, seen by Lot, is said to have been "like the garden of JEHOVAH," we are taught that "the Rational of man is compared to a garden from a representative which is presented in heaven . . . yea, hence there are presented visible paradises, which exceed in magnificence and beauty every idea of human imagination; it is the effect of the influx of celestial spiritual light from the LORD, nor is it the paradisiacal pleasantnesses and beauties which affect, but the celestial spiritual things which live in them" (A. C. 1507). And, again, "the beauty of the [LORD'S] External Man when conjoined with the Internal, cannot be described, because it is not with any man, except with the LORD alone . . . nevertheless, a very little can appear from the LORD'S image as to His External Man in the heavens. See n. 553 and 1530" (A. C. 1590). No. 1530 is one of the series of numbers prefixed to the thirteenth chapter, and treats of the LORD as the Sun of Heaven, being the Source of light of all in heaven.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     "THEY who are in the science of truth and good are not affected with truth and good but only with their science, hence they are delighted with truths on account of science; but they who are in the affection of truth and good are not affected with science but with truths and goods themselves, when they hear and perceive them with others; such an affection is common with good women; but the affection of the sciences of truth is common with men, hence it is that those who are in spiritual perception love women who are affected with truths, but do not love women who are in sciences; for it is according to the Divine order that men be in sciences, but women only in affections, and thus that they do not love themselves from sciences but the men, whence is the conjugial; hence also it is that it was said by the ancients that women should keep silent in the Church.
     But it is to be known that the case is in this wise with those who are of the LORD'S spiritual kingdom, but the reverse with those who are of the celestial kingdom; in this, the husbands are in affection, but the wives in the cognitions of good and truth, hence is the conjugial with them" (A. C. 8994).
     A misapprehension of this, teaching has led some to believe that in the celestial kingdom the wife takes the lead and instructs the husband, and that her voice is heard in the public councils.
     This is not so. The relations in the celestial kingdom differ vastly from those in the spiritual kingdom. In the latter, truth-the man-leads; in the former, good-the husband-leads; A wife who is "in the cognitions [not the sciences] of good and truth," and therefore represents the truth of the Church,-after the death of her husband represents "those who are in truth without good, and still desire to be in good, consequently who love to be led by good, the husband is the good which should lead" (A. C. 4844).
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     NEW CHURCH controversies occasionally present a humorous side. A recent occasion is to be found in a letter published in an English New Church journal by a gentleman who had contended for the permeation theory, that is, the theory that New Church life and light is permeating the Old Church, which is thus, in fact, becoming the New Church. This falsity was combatted so ably and effectually in the columns of the same journal that the theorist was forced to give unmistakable evidence of his defeat. Part of this evidence consisted in his falling back upon an argument (?) often used by men when worsted by those who are younger. The form which it assumed in this particular case was that he "once thought on all points just as he [the opponent] does. That, however, is long, long ago."
     History records that, ever since the days of Socrates, it has been assumed by some men that the truth which a young man presents is annihilated the moment that he is reminded of his youth.

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But, then, the truly wise old men, like Socrates, have always smiled at this assumption, although they have in consequence been calumniated as teaching the young to show contempt for those who are older, and, as in the case of Socrates, have even been condemned to death on this charge. But death has not effaced their smile, which has spread, to others, and is called forth whenever the assumption is repeated. It fades only at the display of such a self-complacent acceptance of one's fate as is contained in the further declaration of the theorist: "Since then I have had thirty years' experience, and I have grown either more foolish or more wise."
REGENERATION THE WORK OF THE LORD 1889

REGENERATION THE WORK OF THE LORD       Rev. W. F. PENDLETON       1889

     "Behold, I send an Angel before Vice, to guard thee in the way, and to lead thee through to the place which I have prepared. Take heed of His Face, and hear His voice, lest thou exasperate Him, for He will not bear your prevarications, for My Name is in the midst of Him. Because if hearing thou shalt hear His voice, and shalt do all that I speak, I will act an enemy to thins enemies, and will act a foe to thy foes."-Exodus xxiii, 20-22.

     REGENERATION is the work of the LORD alone. It is a new birth, or birth into a new life. It takes place while man lives in the world, continuing through the whole period of his natural life. When the work is completed he passes into the full fruition of the work done in him by the LORD while here.
     The means by which the LORD works in man and for him, by which He leads him out of his natural life into the spiritual life, out of his natural world into the spiritual, by which He guards and protects him at every step of progress, are truths of doctrine and goods of life. These means are from the LORD, are the LORD Himself with man. Through no other means, under no other name, is the LORD present in the Divine work of the re-creation of man, preparing him to become an angel of Heaven.
     Through these means the LORD removes the falses of doctrine and evils of life, implanted in man by his natural birth and confirmed in him in his natural life. These stand in man as obstacles to his regeneration, obstacles so great, having behind them the whole power of hell, that Omnipotence alone can remove them.
     In this work man stands far away in the utmost boundary and co-operates. The work is the work of the LORD alone, and the co-operation from without is from the LORD by man, as of himself. By this co-operation and according to it, the LORD enters and works, and in working leads man out of hell into Heaven, into the place prepared for him.
     Such, in general, is the teaching contained in the chapter from which the passage proposed for our consideration is taken, and such is the teaching in a more particular form in the passage before us.
     The LORD says, "Behold, I send an Angel before thee," that is to say, the LORD Himself goes before and leads. It is the journey from Egypt to the land of Canaan in which the LORD is the Leader. The LORD Himself in His Divine Human is the Angel who is sent, and who guards and leads in the way.
     In that Church which has faded from the view of Heaven and is no longer a Church before the LORD, natural and material views prevail concerning things Divine and Heavenly. The idea of space and time enters into and governs call its thoughts. This thought, distorted and warped by things as they appear to the bodily senses, is applied to a consideration of the attributes of God, and God is seen in time and space, and thought of from and according to them. Hence a false theology, that has perverted all things of the Church.
     When it is said in the Word that the Father sent His Son into the world, an idea of space, and of separation by space, is at once applied. The Son is conceived to be a separate person from the Father-the one on earth and other far, away in Heaven. When the LORD returns into Heaven, He is still a separate person, sitting on the right hand of the Father, and a third person stands near, and anon goes forth into all the world to execute the commands of the Father given through the Son. The doctrine that the Son proceeds from the Father, and the Holy Spirit from the Father by the Son is thus grossly perverted by merely natural ideas which had previously formulated the conception of three Divine Persons.
     Where the idea of space and time rules the whole thought of man a purely spiritual idea cannot enter, and so the spiritual idea of "proceeding" or "going forth," or "being sent," cannot he known or understood. The Christian Church, even in its beginning, did not and could not fully receive this idea, and it is only now in His Second Coming that the LORD has revealed it in a form that it may be received and rationally understood by man, but only by those who are- willing that their thought should be elevated above the idea of time and space. The natural man even may now understand, but the elevation with him is only a temporary state. Truth of doctrine alone may elevate man for a time, but truth of doctrine conjoined with good of life elevates him forever.
     The spiritual or angelic idea of "going forth" or "proceeding" is to be of Himself, or to be His own. This angelic idea is explained to mean the making of one's self present before another in a form accommodated to him, thus to be the same only in another form. When it is said of the LORD that He "goes forth," "proceeds," or "sends," it is not the proceeding of another that He has sent through space, for He Himself is in all space without space. He is still of Himself, His own, He does not separate Himself from Himself. He is still, the same, but under another form. This is what is meant by the LORD'S words, "I came forth and come from God" (John viii, 42).
     The Father loveth you, because ye have loved Me, and have believed that I came forth from God. I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world; again, I leave the world and go to the Father. The disciples said, We believe that Thou camest forth from God" (John xvi, 27, 28, 30).
     What is meant by proceeding, or coming forth, may be illustrated by examples. Truth is said to go forth or proceed from good, when truth is the form of good, or good itself in form, a form accommodated to the understanding Good can never be received and be seen by the understanding as good, but in its form, which is truth. It is still good, but under another form. The same is true of the understanding and the will. The understanding is but the will formed, or the will taking on a form by which it may be seen. A man cannot see his will as it is in itself, but he can see it when it takes on an accommodated form, which is the understanding. So we cannot see the thought of another, until it takes on another form, which is speech. The speech is not separated from the thought, it is not another thing, it is the thought, but the thought proceeding, coming forth to view, under another form, a form accommodated to him who hears.

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The same is true of will and action, and many other things. The field opens here to a very wide application, but we cannot now follow the subject further; what is said is sufficient to illustrate the doctrine of the Divine proceeding, and to show that it is the Divine' formed as a Man, thus the Divine accommodated to the perception of those who believe in Him, and that God Himself came into the world, and is present as a Man, leading in the way to Heaven. "Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to guard thee in the way, and to lead thee through to the place which I have prepared."
     The presence of the LORD as a Man, guarding, protecting, leading, is called His Providence. With the Divine Providence is also the Divine Providence. Good is provided, and to it man is led; evil is praevided, or foreseen, and from it man is guarded. If evil were not praevided, good could not be provided; if the LORD did not guard man from evil, and remove it from him, He could not provide good, and bring Heaven to him.
     "I will guard thee in the way." "The way "is truth, and also falsity, and the word here signifies both; for in the course and progress of regeneration both are present, and the LORD leads in the one and guards from the other. The false, being present, infests and assaults the truth, producing disturbance, confusion, conflict; but the LORD guards and protects by separating the false, removing it, and bringing freedom by the truth. It is the falsity of evil that infests, assaults, and disturbs, confusing the understanding, driving away peace from the mind. The falsity not of evil, such as is with those who are in charity, does not infest and disturb; it is even bended by the LORD to good, and when seen is easily removed. But the falsity that is implanted in evil of life, is removed only through serious conflict and anguish of spirit.
     The spiritual operation described in the words before us is the preparation of man for Heaven, though it is said in the letter that Heaven is prepared for man. "I send an Angel before thee to guard thee in the way, and to lead thee through to the place which I have prepared." And in the Gospels, "Come ye blessed of my Father, possess as an inheritance the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world" (Matt. xxv, 34). "I go away to prepare a place for you, and if I shall go away and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and will take you to Myself, that where I am, ye may be" (John xiv, 2, 3). Heaven is not a place, but a state, and hence to "prepare a place" is to prepare a state of life, and this is prepared in those who are to be introduced into Heaven. The LORD prepares this in man by removing the falsity of evil, guarding lest it return, and establishing and confirming good and its truth, or the truth of good, in which is power against the falsities of evil. Heaven, the gift of the LORD'S Mercy, is in him, and he is in Heaven, and after death he is actually introduced; and he then has a place in Heaven, a place corresponding to his state of life and faith, but even the place looked at in itself is a state. "I shall lead thee through to the place which I have prepared."
     This work of preparation for Heaven is not performed for man as a passive subject, as vainly imagined by the theologians of the Old Church, but in him as an active subject. There is something for man to do actively from the LORD, as of himself, in order that the LORD may enter into him, work by him, and for him. The Covenant with God is not fulfilled on the part of man until he acts as of himself against evil and for good. "Take heed of His Face, and hear His voice."
     All the things which man is to do are included under two universals, the- acknowledgment of the Divine Human of the LORD, and obedience to His precepts. These are the two meant when it is said that on them "hang all the Law and the Prophets," that is, they contain all Divine Truth. By them the door is opened to all things, and man himself is opened to the LORD. The first is meant by, "Take heed of His Face," and the second by, "Hear His Voice."
     The Divine Human is here called "His Face," and "His Voice," it was just before called an "Angel," immediately afterward in the text it is called "My Name." All of these, and others beside used in the WORD, are expressive of the Divine accommodated to man under different aspects.
     The "Face of God," or JEHOVAH, is the Divine of the LORD appearing to man by the Divine Human, in a form accommodated to his sight, acknowledgment, and reception; even as the face of man is the means by which the interiors of his mind shine forth, and present themselves to be seen by others. It is the Divine Good of the Divine Love, and Divine Truth from that Good in the Heavens and in the Church, thus it is the WORD, or Revelation. Of this is the command "Take heed," that is, acknowledge.
     The acknowledgment spoken of here, appears in the letter as if it were that of fear, and such it was with the Jews, and such it is with evil men and evil spirits. They are capable of no other acknowledgment, hence it was the bond by which the Jews were governed, the common bond of all the evil. Hence to them as a warning the letter is addressed, "Take heed," which means literally "guard," that is, watch, be very careful-"Take heed of His Face, and hear His Voice, lest thou exasperate Him, for He will not bear your prevarication, for My Name is in the midst of him."
     The Internal Sense, however, is for those who are in charity and faith, whose acknowledgment is not that of fear, but of love. There is, indeed, with them a bond of fear, but not the fear of the evil arising from hatred and aversion, not a fear lest they should be deprived of honor, reputation, gain, not a fear of the punishment of the law or the loss of life, but a fear that is called holy fear, having its origin in love. With respect to the Divine it is a holy tremor at His presence, admiration, wonder, a holy reverence, a fear without terror or anxiety; fear lest in any manner the LORD should suffer hurt, or the neighbor, or good and truth, lest anything should be done contrary to conscience; not a fear lest the LORD should be angry and punish, but lest man himself should become angry, and enter into punishment by turning away to the falses of evil, that lead him to follow the truth in all things, without regard to consequences to himself or his natural life. "Take heed of His Face, and hear His Voice, lest thou exasperate Him, for He will not bear your prevarication."
     It is according to the appearance to the natural man that it is said the LORD is "exasperated," or excited to anger, when man disobeys Him; but it is according to the real truth, that man in turning away from the LORD to the falses of evil, enters into a state and sphere of anger, hatred, revenge, cruelty, a sphere that resists and opposes the Divine Truth, producing the state that is meant by "prevarication," which it is said the LORD cannot bear. A similar state is understood by the words in the Psalms ii, 12: "Kiss the Son lest He be angered, and thou perish in the way; blessed are all that confide in Him."
     There is a reason for the holy fear, which causes a tremor of man's interiors, which is that the Divine Itself is in the Human, and shines forth, and is perceived by man to be present. "For My Name is in the midst of Him."

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     The presence of the Divine in the Human, when perceived by man, and its effect upon him is described in the Apocalypse i, 17: "And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead. And He laid His right hand upon me, saying unto me, 'Fear not, I am the First and the Last.'" The natural man, under government of the appearance of time and space, cannot receive a true idea of God, for the idea of God is not a natural but a spiritual idea. A true idea of God is the idea of the Divine Human, for there can be no other idea of God than as a Divine Man; every other idea is a phantasy. Nor is the idea of a Divine Man the natural, but the spiritual idea of a man. The natural man does not admit the idea of a Divine Man, who has all Love, all Wisdom, all Power, ever-present, guarding from Hell, leading to Heaven. To him the LORD JESUS CHRIST is either a second divine person separate from the Father, whose Human assumed in the world is like the human of another man, or He is not Divine but an angel, or angelic messenger sent into the world; or He is merely a man, as to soul and body like other men. With such ideas implanted in the interiors of man's thought, there can be no acknowledgment, love, or holy fear at the presence of the Divine, a fear which precedes a closer drawing and more intimate conjunction-but rather hatred, then terror, followed by flight, a removal as far away as possible from "Him who sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb."
     It is true, there is in the letter of the WORD an appearance of separation between the Divine and the Human, the Father and the Son; as in the text, JEHOVAH says, "Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to guard thee in the way, and lead thee through to the place I have prepared." The appearance is that JEHOVAH, the Father, had sent another, but it is a mere appearance. When the spiritual idea of "send" is received into the mind, the appearance is dissipated, no separation is seen, but a real appearance presents itself, of the Divine accommodated under a form comprehensible by man. The truth, as it is in the spiritual idea, comes forth at times even in the letter, as is seen in the next verse: "Take heed of His Face, and hear His Voice, lest thou exasperate Him, for He will not bear your prevarications, FOR MY NAME IS IN THE MIDST OF HIM."
     The Name, JEHOVAH, is in the midst of Him. The very quality of the Divine itself, the Father, is in the Son, the Human of the LORD, called here the "Angel." "He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father, and how sayest thou shew us the Father" (John xiv, 9).
     That the Divine and the Human are one in the LORD is also shown in the words which follow in the text, "Hear His Voice, and do that which I speak." The "voice" is the voice of the "Angel," yet it is JEHOVAH Himself in the Angel who speaks. "The words that I speak unto you, I speak not of Myself; but the Father that dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works" (John xiv, 10).
     It was said that there are two universal essentials to salvation, acknowledgment and obedience. But there are myriads and myriads of particulars of Divine Truth contained under these two, enlarging, expanding, filling, and enforcing them. These are to be received by man, according to the measure of his mind and life. They enter first his memory by instruction, pass on into his understanding by believing, and thence into his will by doing.
     In order to guard from the falses of evil, and lead to Heaven, the LORD instructs man in truths, gives him the power to believe them, and the will to do them. If the rationality to understand, and the liberty to do were not given by the LORD; He would never say "Hear His voice,-and do that which I speak." What a monstrous idea of God! He commands everywhere in His WORD the doing of His precepts, and yet gives man no power to execute His commands. It is the conception of devils, not of rational men!
     When man, by virtue of the power given him, which he acknowledges as of the Divine Power, and not his own, receives by hearing, understands by believing, acts in willing, the LORD enters and dwells in him, and he in the LORD. The LORD is always in man, dwelling in his inmost; He dwells thus even in evil spirits;-but man is not in the LORD until he understands and does His precepts. The LORD then descends from His inmost seat, and wakes His abode even in the ultimates of life, and being the First He becomes also the Last, in the work of regenerating and saving.
     When this takes place,-He does, and has done that which He promises, "I will act an enemy to thine enemies, and a foe to thy foes." There are two classes of evil spirits meant, who make the whole of hell; Satans, and Devils, and the evils which reign in them. Satans are those in whom the falses of evil reign, called "enemies;" and Devils, in whom reign the very evils themselves, from which are all falses, called "foes." Over these the LORD has power when He descends into the ultimates of man, and all evil spirits with their evil flee away.
     Man of himself has no power whatever against any evil or falsity of evil. Just as in every good and truth of good there is present the whole of Heaven, and the Divine Omnipotence itself, so in every evil and falsity of evil, the whole of Hell is present with all its infernal power. Against this, man is powerless, he cannot fight the whole of Hell, Omnipotence alone can do this; and man is all the more weak-because he himself is evil, and nothing but evil. Evil cannot make war against itself, and overcome itself; this can be done only by the LORD through the truth of good which is with man.
     It is of supreme importance for man to realize in resisting evil that the whole of hell is in it, and that his struggle is utterly useless, so long as he continues to resist from himself, and does not look to the LORD, who alone hath power and giveth aid according to need.
     The acknowledgment of evil as evil, and that its power is irresistible when compared with man's own effort and power of resistance, and at the same time that evil has no power in the LORD'S presence, and where His aspect is this acknowledgment is the one essential of all essentials in the regenerating life of man; it is the one teaching of the Divine Word; there is no passage in the Doctrines of the Church where it does not shine forth from this alone do we obtain a view of the universal end in the LORD'S coming into the world, the Redemption effected by Him, and the Glorification of His Human; this universal view and this alone enables us to see the LORD in His Second Coming in the fullness of His power and glory, and this alone makes the New Church a Church to endure for all ages, the LORD'S Heaven on the earth.
     And coming to the Church as it is with men, and the poor feeble man of the Church,-may we not see in this the cause of such slow growth, such little progress, in the want of clear acknowledgment of the power of the hells as against the feeble efforts of man, but of the Omnipotence of the LORD by the truths of His WORD as against all? May we not see in the individual life a reason why evils are not put away, why they return again and again? They return because they have not been put away, because we have resisted them from ourselves and have not allowed the LORD to enter and do His work.

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For, let us realize with all the fullness of its meaning, an evil once removed by the LORD will return again no more to all eternity.
CONVERSATIONS ON EDUCATION 1889

CONVERSATIONS ON EDUCATION              1889

     CONJUNCTION.

     THIS Divine teaching may aid in giving us a better understanding of the truth, that instruction is but a broadening and clearing of the way to Heaven, first opened in the mind by obedience. Obedience having established a willing state, instruction follows by introducing into the mind from without the things read in the letter of the Word, seen and heard in the world, and obtained from science. These are succeeded by the inculcation of rational truths; after which come intellectual truths, and finally, celestial truths. By the introduction of these things the mind is gradually turned toward the truth, and thus more widely opened to Heaven. Through this opening the celestial inflows and descends by the spiritual into the rational, and by the rational into the scientific; and by means of this influx into each successive plane there is effected an adaptation of the things existing in those planes to the higher incoming light and its life. Influx is perpetual, but the preparation for its reception, and the actual reception, with consequent enlightenment, takes place in the order and manner above stated. The real purpose of instruction is, therefore, to form in the mind as many planes as possible, and these as perfect as possible, to receive the influent light of Heaven. And such planes are provided when information is imparted in orderly series, concerning the Word and the spiritual world; concerning the natural world and its sciences; and when this information is perfected by the extension and elevation of the ideas formed by the cognitions that have been introduced, and by their being opened to the activities of the life in application to uses. A scientific or a cognition takes on a real form in man, only when something of his life or love enters into it, and adapts it to the uses and purposes of his life. Apart from this, the scientific or cognition is a dead thing. Thus, the whole science and art of analysis and reasoning, with their innumerable possibilities, are not in the sciences and reasons themselves which make them, but in man s faculty of thinking, judging, and willing. And thought, reasoning, judging, and concluding are not from the things learnt, but by means of them. Their real derivation is from the celestial things of love and its applications, received from the LORD, and from the spiritual things of truth which inflow through Heaven from the LORD, and which remain with man when recipient planes have been formed in his mind on the successive steps of their influx, and when these planes and, their contents can be so adapted to each other as to come to some consciousness with man in thought, judgment, speech, and act. (See A. C. 1495.) The interior things of good and truth, when received by means of the various matters of reason, nature, and science, introduced by instruction and observation, appear in these according to their quality, and are there presented in images of themselves, which we call ideas of thought, or ideas of the mind. The term "idea," derived from the Greek [eido - Greek] I see, does not express the figure, outline, or appearance of' an object presented on the sensory by means of the sense of sight, but rather a concept and form of thought produced in the mind by means of the sight of the object. This concept and form of thought is made up of many things known and implanted in the memory, which are called forth by the appearance of the object, and which may be far removed from that appearance. Such an idea or image or thought is not from the object without, but from the things inflowing into the mind from within, and, although resting on the external object as an ultimate basis, it is composed of spiritual substances belonging to the spiritual world of the mind of man, and connected with the object as a cause is connected with its effect. Kant, the philosopher, defines "ideas to be, as it were, the essence and matter of our intelligence." The fact that all ideas have with them something derived from space and time, is a fact common to all human conceptions, and indeed to all our thoughts concerning spiritual things, and only demonstrates the dual nature of man and man's intelligence, and their permanent relation to the world of spirit and the world of matter.
     What enters from without and is presented in the sensory as an objective image, is accepted and adapted to that which inflows into that image from within- that is, from the spiritual world-and appears to the thought subjectively-i. e., as a subject of thinking and understanding, whilst to the eye it appears objectively, or as a form, a figure, and a shape. In this way the natural world, by entrance through the senses, serves the mind as a mirror, in which it can see and examine the things of its own interior or spiritual world. All true ideas are really derived from the central idea of the LORD formed by means of Revelation made by the Word, and its exterior and interior presentations in words, and their objective and subjective images, the former taken from the world of nature, and the latter from the world of spirit or by Heaven from the LORD Himself. All religion, all life, and all intelligence are thus formed, and depend for their quality upon man a idea of God so formed or so conceived, and taking form in His understanding and its thought. (See A. C. 10,736 et al) In this view of the matter all natural ideas, or all ideas formed from nature, are in reality spiritual ideas, or ideas formed from the spiritual states of his mind, and becoming manifest to him by assuming and clothing themselves in forms and appearances taken from his natural mind and memory. (See A. C. 10,551.) And when spiritual ideas so-formed proceed out of the mind and its thought, they fall into the words of human language, stored up in his memory, and there present themselves in ultimate or last images. (See A. C. 10,604.)
     These remarks may prepare us, in some degree, to comprehend the teaching of the LORD in Arcana Coelestia, n. 3691, which is as follows:

     "Goods and truths are altogether distinct from each other according to degrees. Interior goods and truths are in a superior degree, and exterior [goods and truths] are in an inferior degree. In a superior degree are the goods and truths which are of the Rational, and in an inferior degree are the goods and truths of the natural; and in the lowest degree are the sensual goods and truths, which are of the body. Interior goods and truths, or those which are of a superior degree, inflow into exterior goods and truths, or those which are of an inferior degree, and there present an image of themselves, almost as the internal affections of man [present an image of themselves] in the face and its changes. Thence it is evident that the interior goods and truths are altogether separate from exterior goods and truths, or, what is the same thing, those which are in a superior degree [are altogether separate] from those which are in a inferior degree, and so separate, that the interiors, or those which are in a superior degree, can exist without the exteriors, or without those which are in an inferior degree." (Here follows teaching concerning the degrees in Heaven, in man, and in love to the LORD and the neighbor.)

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     "Hence it may in some measure appear how the case is in respect to degrees, namely, that those things which are in a superior degree present themselves in an image in those which are in the degree proximately inferior. In lore to the LORD, there is a proximate image of the LORD, which is called a similitude; wherefore, those who are in love itself to the LORD are called His similitudes in charity there is also an image of the LORD, but more remote; for in charity itself the LORD is present; wherefore, those who are in it are called His images. (See A. C. 50, 51, 1013). But those who are in the affection of truth, and thence in certain kind of charity toward the neighbor, are also images of the LORD, but still more remote. The three Heavens are distinguished into these degrees, and according to these degrees the LORD inflows with Divine Good and Truth, thus with wisdom and intelligence, and with heavenly joy and felicity."
THIRTEENTH CHAPTER OF GENESIS 1889

THIRTEENTH CHAPTER OF GENESIS              1889

     THE twelfth chapter of Genesis described how the LORD, because He had been born like another man, also progressed from an obscure state to a brighter one. "Charan" is the first state, which is obscure, "Shechem" is the second; the "oak-grove of March" is the third the "mountain where Bethel was from the sea, and Ai from the east," is the fourth; thence "toward the south" into "Egypt" is the fifth.
     In the thirteenth chapter, the External Man with the LORD is treated of, which was to be conjoined with His Internal; the External Man is the Human Essence, and is represented by "Loth;" the Internal Man is the Divine Essence, and is represented by "Abram." The quality of the External Man before the conjunction is treated of, by which conjunction it was to become Celestial and Divine, like the Internal. The chapter, therefore, describes the continuation of the LORD'S life from Boyhood, up to the sixth state.
     There are two things with man which disable him from becoming celestial, one appertains to his intellectual part, the other to his voluntary. That which appertains to his intellectual part, are empty scientifics, which he imbibed in boyhood and adolescence. That which appertains to the voluntary, are pleasures from lusts, which he favors. Both kinds stand in the way of his coming to celestial things. They must first be cut away, and when they have been cut away, then can he for the first time be intromitted into the light of celestial things, and finally into celestial light.
     Because the LORD was born like another man, and was to be informed like another, it was requisite for Him to learn scientifics. This was represented and signified by "Abram's sojourn in Egypt." And that empty scientifics finally left Him, was also represented by "Pharaoh's commanding concerning him men, and they sent him away, and his wife, and all that was his." But that the pleasures-which are of things voluntary, and constitute the sensual man, but the outmost, also left Him, is represented in this chapter by "Lot," that he "separated himself from Abram;" for "Lot" represents such a man.

     THE first four verses of this chapter describe what the state of the External man was in boyhood, when it was first imbued with scientifics and cognitions; that it proceeded thence more and more to conjunction with the Internal. "And Abram went up from Egypt"; the LORD emerged from scientifics which left Him ; and therefore, there also emerged the celestial truths which were at that time with the LORD ("he and his wife"), and all things which would be of celestials ("and all that was his").
     "And Loth was with him." "Loth" signifies things sensual, by which is meant the External man and its pleasures, which are of things sensual, those which are most external, and are wont, in boyhood, to captivate and lead away from goods. But because these pleasures, arising, as they do, from lusts, thus shut off the approach to celestials, they are to be repressed and removed. Before this can be done, additional light is necessary, and hence in the LORD'S progress from the state when empty scientifics left Him, but in which progress He was yet in a sensual state, He came into celestial light. "Abram and his wife and all that he had and Lot with him" came "toward the south."
     There are two states from which is celestial light: the first is that into which man is introduced from infancy, when the first remains are implanted; in the second state he is introduced into spirituals and celestials by cognitions, which ought to be implanted in the celestials with which he has been gifted from infancy. With the LORD, these were implanted in His first celestials, hence He had Light, which is here called the "south."
     Then the LORD was enriched with goods ("and Abram was very heavy with cattle") and truths ("silver"), and goods from truths ("and gold"). It is said "goods from truths," because, as shown in the twelfth chapter, the LORD had conjoined truths intellectual to celestials.
     "And Abram went according to his journeyings." Progressing, from earliest infancy, to celestials, according to the Divine Order, the LORD, according to this order, now progressed from the light of intelligence (" from the south ") into the light of wisdom ("and even to Bethel"). That is called the light of intelligence which is acquired by the cognitions of the verities and goodnesses of faith; but the light of wisdom is of life, which is acquired from the former. Intelligence is not wisdom, but leads to wisdom, for to understand what is true and good is not to be true and good, but to be wise is to be true and good. Man is introduced to wisdom or life by knowing, or by sciences and cognitions. The light of wisdom is that which remains after death.
     In this progression to the light of wisdom, the LORD came into the holy things which had been with Him before He had been imbued with sciences and cognitions ("even to the place where his tent was before"-before he had journeyed into Egypt), and into the celestials of cognitions and worldly things ("between Bethel and Ai").     
     In the twelfth chapter the words occur, "And he betook himself thence into a mountain from the east of Bethel, and he stretched his tent; Bethel from the sea, and Ai from the east," signifying that the LORD'S state at that time was that of a Boy, which is such that worldly things ("Ai") are present; for worldly things cannot be cut away before truth and good is implanted in celestials by cognitions, for man can never distinguish between celestial and worldly things before he knows what the celestial is, and what the worldly is; cognitions make a general and obscure idea distinct, and the more distinct an idea becomes by cognitions, by so much the more can worldly things be separated.
     As to the LORD, because He conjoined human things to things Divine, He progressed according to order, and now first He came to that celestial state which He had when He was a Boy, in which state worldly things are also present; thence to continue on into a state still more celestial, finally into the celestial state of infancy, in which He conjoined the Human Essence fully to the Divine.
     In this first holy state were also the holy things of worship which He had when a Boy (Abram came between Bethel and Ai "to the place of the altar which he made there in the beginning"), in which state He also had internal worship ("and here Abram called upon the name, of JEHOVAH").

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The same phrase is used in the twelfth chapter (verse 8), for the states are similar, excepting that the one now recorded is bright as compared to the former one, being made so by the cognitions which have in the meanwhile been implanted in the former state. When truth and good are conjoined by cognitions to the former celestial, then its active is thus described, for worship is nothing but something active existing from the celestial which is within. All the good of love and of charity is the very active essential.

     THUS far the state of the External man is described such as it was in Boyhood, when first imbued with scientifics and cognitions, that it progressed more and more to conjunction with the Internal.
     But there were still many things in His External man which stood in the way of the conjunction.
     The External man receives its life principally from the Internal. But for this purpose its organic vessels need to be opened by means of the senses, especially hearing and sight, and thus by scientifics and cognitions which are of the understanding, and by pleasures and enjoyments which are of the will. It cannot but be that there then insinuate themselves scientifics and cognitions which cannot concord with spiritual truths, and that there insinuate themselves pleasures and delights which cannot concord with celestial good, such as all things which regard bodily, worldly, and earthly things as ends, which, when regarded as ends, drag the external man outward and downward, and thus remove it from the internal; wherefore, unless such things be dissipated, the internal man can never concord with the external, therefore, before the internal man can concord with the external, such things must first be removed. Their removal or separation in the case of the LORD is represented and signified by Lot's separation from Abram, for we read, "And to Lot also who went with Abram there was flock and herd and tents," that is, the external man which was with the LORD abounded in possessions and in worship; but the possessions were not good, although expressed by the words "flock and herd," for they were to be separated; and the worship (the "tents") was not holy.
     "And the land did not bear them to dwell together." Those things in the External man which concord are from the Internal man, that is, through the Internal man from the LORD, like a face which beams forth from charity, or a face of charity, or innocence in the expression and gestures of infants. But the things which discord are of man and his proprium, and flow forth from the love of self and from the love of the world, and all things which are thence regard self or the world as the end.
     The reason why those things which are of celestial internals cannot be together with those which are signified by Lot, is expressed in the letter of the Word: "Because their acquisition was great, and they could not dwell together," that is, the things acquired by the Internal man cannot concord with those which are acquired in the External. "And there was strife between the shepherds of Abram's cattle and between the shepherds of Lot's cattle," that is, the Internal man and the External man did not agree. The "shepherds of Abram's cattle" are the celestials of the Internal man in worship; while the "shepherds of Lot's cattle" are the sensual, which are of the External man in worship. These things regard what was previously called Lot's "tents," while the "acquisitions" retard what was previously called Lot's "flock and herd."
     In worship it is especially known what and of what quality is the discrepancy between the internal man and the external, yea, in the single things of worship. When, in this, the Internal man wants to regard the ends of the Kingdom of God, and the External wants to regard the ends of the world, there is thence a discrepancy, which manifests itself in worship, and indeed to such an extent that the least of the discrepancy is noticed in heaven. This is what is signified by "the strife between the shepherds of Abram's cattle and the shepherds of Lot's cattle." The cause is also added, namely, that "the Canaanite and the Perizite were then dwelling in the land," that is, that evils and falses were in the External man, the "Canaanite" signifying the hereditary evil from the mother, and the "Perizite," the false thence.
     Where there is hereditary evil, there also is the false, for this is born from evil; but the false cannot be born from the evil before man has been imbued with scientifics and cognitions; evil has nothing else into which to operate or inflow, except scientifics and cognitions; thus evil which is of the voluntary part is turned into the false in the intellectual part, wherefore this false was also hereditary, because born from a hereditary, but not false from principles of the false; but there was in the External Man what the Internal Man could see was false, and because there was hereditary evil from the mother before the LORD was imbued with scientifics and cognitions, or before "Abram sojourned in Egypt," it is said that then the "Canaanite was in the land," but not the "Perizite" (xii, 6); here, however, after He had been imbued with scientifics and cognitions, it is said that the Canaanite and Perizite dwelled in the land."
     No man can ever be born of a man, unless he thence derive evil. But the hereditary evil which is from the father is one thing, and that from the mother is another thing. The hereditary evil from the father is interior and remains to eternity, for it can never be rooted out; such the LORD did not have, since He was born of the Father JEHOVAH. Thus He was the Divine or JEHOVAH as to internals. But the hereditary evil from the mother is of the external man, which was with the LORD, and is called "the Canaanite in the land," and the false thence is called the "Perizite."

     FROM these things in His External man which stood in the way of its conjunction with the Internal, the LORD wanted to be separated, and this His will is thus described:
     "And Abram said to Lot," that is, the Internal man said to the External. "Abram" signifies the Internal man, "Lot" signifies that in the External man which was to be separated, namely, the things which are discordant; those which are concordant are "Abram," even these in the External man, for they constitute one thing with the Internal and are of the Internal. "Let there not, I pray thee, be a contention between me and between thee, and between my shepherds and between thy shepherds," that is, the Internal man said to the External, that there ought to be no discord between them, for they are united in themselves like truth and good ("because men brethren are we.")
     The Internal man and the External are altogether distinct, because celestial and spiritual things affect the Internal man, but natural things the External. But, although distinct, yet they are united when the celestial spiritual of the Internal man inflows into the natural of the External and disposes this as its own, whence this becomes celestial and spiritual, but exterior.

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With the LORD alone the Internal man was united to the External. This union is expressed in Abram's words: "Let there not be a contention between me and between thee" regards good; that the good of the Internal man should not be separated from the good of the External man; and "let there not be a contention between my shepherds and between thy shepherds," regards truth; that the truth of the Internal man should not be separated from the truth of the External man.
     "Is not the whole land before thee? Separate, I pray, from me; if to the left, end I shall go the right, and if to the right, I shall go the left." These words signify that every good cannot appear unless that which is discordant become nothing and be separated. The Internal man here addresses the External, but those things in the External man which are discordant, as a man is wont to do when he apperceives some evil in himself from which he wants to be separated, as happens in temptations and combats. While the combat lasts; the things that are discordant cannot be separated, but still the man desires the separation, and sometimes so much so as to become angry at the evil, and to want to expel it. Thus the Internal man wants that to separate itself which in the External man is discordant, for, before it is separated, I the good which continually inflows from the Internal man cannot appear. When the discordant element quiesces, then first the goods inflow and affect the External man.

     CONSEQUENT upon the will that those discordant things in the external man be separated, was the appearance, to the LORD, of the External man such as it is in its beauty, when conjoined with the Internal; then also such as it is when not conjoined.
     First the External man appeared to the LORD such as it is in its beauty, when conjoined with the Internal.
     "And Lot lifted up his eyes:" this signifies that the External man was enlightened from the Internal. When the External man perceives what the External man is when conjoined with the Internal, or what it is in its beauty-then it is enlightened from the Internal, and then it is in Divine vision, which is here treated of. Nor can it be doubted that the LORD when a Boy, as to His External man, was often in such Divine vision, for He alone conjoined the External man to the Internal. The External man was His Human Essence; but the Internal was His Divine Essence. In this Divine vision he perceived those goods and truths which are with the External man ("and he saw all the plain of Jarden") that they could increase there ("that the whole of it was well-watered"), when the external man is not destroyed by the lusts of evil and the persuasions of the false ("before JEHOVAH destroyed Sodom and Amorah"-"Sodom" signifies the lusts of evil, which are of the will, and "Amorah" signifies the persuasions of the false, which are of the understanding). These two destroy the External man, and separate it from the Internal, so that good and truth do not flow in except remotely.
     Because in the human race the External man was thus, destroyed, and its bond with the Internal, that is, with good and truth, was broken, therefore the LORD came into the world, that He might conjoin and unite the External man with the Internal, that is, the Human Essence with the Divine.
     In this Divine vision the LORD perceived, that when the Internal and the External were conjoined, then the rationals of the External man are celestial, that is, from a celestial origin, as it was with the most Ancient Church ("as the garden of JEHOVAH"-a "garden" signifies intelligence, and the rational of the external man is intelligence). The Rational is the medium between the Internal man and the External-it is the interior of the External man, the scientific is the exterior, and the sensual is the outmost. The Rational is that by which the Internal man is conjoined to the External, wherefore, as is the Rational such is the conjunction; but the Rational in itself is nothing unless affection inflow into it, and make it active, and that it live. When the affection of good inflows, then this affection becomes in the Rational the affection of truth. Now, the scientific applies itself to the rational, and is its instrumental. It therefore follows, also, that the affection inflows into the scientific and disposes it when the External man is conjoined to the Internal; this affection, which comes through the Rational and quickens the Scientific, is good; hence it is further said that the "plain of Jarden" was "as the land of Egypt in coming from Zoar," for "Egypt" signifies science, and "Zoar" the affection of good.
     What the beauty of the External man is like when it is conjoined with the Internal, cannot be described, because it does not exist with any man, but with the LORD alone, nevertheless a very little may appear from the image of the LORD as to His External man in the heavens. The three heavens are images of the LORD'S External man, the beauty of which can never be described by anything that presents an idea what it is like to the comprehension of any one. But as much as can be described to our comprehension is given to us in the description of the heavens, and therefore the mirabilia which immediately precede and follow their explanations of this chapter in the Arcana give a description of their beauty.
     While the LORD thus perceived in the Divine vision the beauty of the External man when conjoined with the Internal, there also appeared to him the deformity of the External man when disjoined. This is described as follows:
     "And Lot chose for himself all the plain of Jarden, and Lot set forward from the east, and they were separated, a man from his brother," that is, the External man was such as to recede from celestial love; and they separate, for what disjoins the External man from the Internal is principally the love of self, but what unites the two is mutual love. "Abram dwelt in the land of Canaan"-the Internal man was in the celestials of love, "and Lot dwelt in the cities of the plain"-and the External man was in scientifics. "Cities" signify doctrinals, which in themselves are nothing else than scientifics when they are predicated of the External man, when this is separated from the Internal. "And he moved and set-up-his-tent even to Sodom," that is, the External man extended to lusts. Thus while the External when conjoined, is like "the garden of JEHOVAH, like the land of Egypt in coming from Zoar"-the affections of good, so when disunited, it "dwells even to Sodom," it extends to lusts. In the one case it serves the Internal as something instrumental, so that its ends become uses, and uses are presented in effect, and thus there is a perfection of all things,-while in the other case it wants to serve itself alone, yea, it wants to domineer over the Internal, which is principally from the love of self and its lusts. How beautiful the one, how deformed the other!
     "And the men of Sodom were evil and sinners to JEHOVAH exceedingly." "Men" signify, in the Internal Sense, intellectuals and rationals, here scientifics, because they are predicated of the External man when separated from the Internal. These were "men of Sodom," and "Sodom "signifies lusts. Scientifics are said to extend to lusts when they are learned for no other end than that one may become great, not that they may serve for use that the man may become good, when yet all scientifics are for the end that man can become rational and thus wise, and that he can thus serve the Internal man.

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     AFTER the contrast of the two opposite states of the External man, which was thus presented to the LORD'S Perception, He received the promise, that, when the External man was conjoined with the Internal, or the Human Essence was conjoined with the Divine Essence of the LORD, all authority would be given to Him. This promise was apparently spoken by JEHOVAH, because it was before the External man, and this is expressed in the words "And JEHOVAH said to Abram." He spoke "after Lot was separated from him;" that is, when the lusts of the External man were removed so that they no longer stood in the way. For when they were removed, the Internal man, or JEHOVAH, acted as one with the External, or with the LORD'S Human Essence. With the LORD, after He expelled the hereditary evil, and thus purified the organics of the Human Essence, these also received life, so that the LORD, as He was Life as to the Internal man, also became Life as to the External man. This is what is signified by the" glorification" spoken of frequently in the New Testament as where "JESUS saith, now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him. If God is glorified in Him, God will also glorify Him in Himself, and will straightway glorify Him" (John xiii, 31, 82).
     When, then, nothing stood in the way on the part of the External man, it follows that the LORD saw all things that were to come, hence there follow in the literal sense the words, "Lift up, I pray, thine eyes, and see from the place in which thou art there, toward the' north, and toward the south, and toward the east, and toward the west," signifying that in the state in which the LORD then was, He was enlightened and perceived all as many as are in the universe, those who had been as well as those who were to come; and also the states of the human race as to love and faith. The "north" signifies those who are without the Church, namely, those who are, in darkness as to the verities of faith; and also darkness with man: the "south" signifies those who are within the Church, namely, those who are in light as to cognitions; likewise the light itself: the "east" signifies those who had been before them; also, celestial love: and the "west" those who were to come; likewise those who are not in love.
     "For all the land which thou seest, to thee I shall, give it." In these words, according to their Internal Sense, is expressed the great and fundamental truth that the heavenly Kingdom would be given to the LORD-a truth which shines forth from the letter of the Word in so many places; as in Isaiah: "A Boy is born to us, a Son is given to us, and the Principality shall be upon His shoulder, and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, God, Hero, Father of eternity, Prince of Peace" (ch. ix, 5); in Daniel: "I was seeing in the visions of the night, and behold with the clouds of the heaven, there was coming as the Son of Man, and He came even to the Ancient of days, and they made Him come near before Him: and to Him was given dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, and all peoples, nations, and tongues shall serve Him; His dominion is an eternal dominion, which shall not pass away, and His kingdom which shall not perish" (ch. viii, 13,14). The LORD Himself also says this in Matthew: "All things are given to Me of My Father" (ch. xi, 27); and elsewhere, "To Me is given authority in heaven and in earth" (ch. xxviii, 18). That to Him would be given the heavenly Kingdom, and all authority in the heavens and in the earths, was now Been and promised to Him before His Human Essence was united to His Divine Essence, which was united, when He overcame the devil and hell, namely, when, with His own power and His own forces, He expelled all evil, which alone disunites.
     As He was thus to have the heavenly kingdom, those who would have faith in Him-would also have it, and therefore it is added, "and to' thy seed even to eternity." For "the Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things to Him in His hand: he who believeth in the Son, hath eternal life; but he who believeth not the Son shall not see life" (John iii, 35, 36). "As many as received Him, to them gave He authority, that they should be the sons of God, believing in His Name, who not from bloods, nor from the will of the flesh, nor from the will of man" (ib. i, 12, 13). And their belief, their faith of love, or their love, will consequently be multiplied immensely: "and I shall place thy seed as the dust of the earth," which, that it may not be doubted, is solemnly affirmed in the words: "that if one can number the dust of the earth, thy seed also shall be numbered."
     "Arise, walk through the land according to its length and according to its breadth, for to thee I shall give it," that is, that He should survey and perceive the heavenly Kingdom, according to its celestial and spiritual, or its good and truth, for it is His.

     THUS, step by step, the LORD came to a still more interior perception. "And Abram moved and set up his tent, and came, and dwelt in the oak-groves of Mamre, which are in Chebron." For "to move-and-set-up-the-tent" is to be conjoined, since the "tent" is the holy of worship by which the External man is conjoined to the Internal; the "oak-grove" signifies perception. In the twelfth chapter the "oak-grove of Moreh" was mentioned, which is the first perception, but here the "oak-groves of Mamre" are mentioned in the plural, which signify more, that is, a more interior perception; this perception is called the "oak-groves of Mamre, which are in Chebron." As the LORD from His own power conjoined His External man with the Internal, and filled the cognitions with celestials, and implanted them in celestials, and, indeed, according to Divine Order, first in the celestials of Boyhood, then in the celestials of the age between Boyhood and Infancy, finally in the celestials of His Infancy, He thus became at the same time as to the Human Essence Innocence Itself and Love Itself. As the LORD implanted cognitions in celestials, thus He had perception-for all perception is from conjunction. The first perception, when He implanted the scientifics of Boyhood, which perception is signified by the "oakgrove of Moreh;" the second, which is interior, when He implanted cognitions, which perception is signified by the "oak-groves of Mamre, which are in Chebron."
     From this state he again worshiped (" And he built there an altar to JEHOVAH"); the worship which is conjunction by love and charity, and in which worship man is continually when he is in love and charity. The Angels are in such worship, wherefore with them there is perpetual sabbath-the sabbath which is the LORD'S Kingdom.
     Thus, in the order described in the thirteenth chapter of Genesis, did the LORD reach the sixth state in the Divine process of glorification in which He was eventually to become in His Human, "LORD also of the Sabbath day."

42


DREAMER OF DREAMS 1889

DREAMER OF DREAMS              1889

     A FRAGMENT.

     ONE evening in the year 1789, an old man was seated all alone in a small shoemaker's shop in the Sodermalm, or South Side, of the city of Stockholm. Hammer and I having been put by with the closing of the doors, the white-haired old shoemaker was now busied with a book, which he appeared to read slowly and with close attention, now and then a half-smile of pleasure lighting up his furrowed, gentle face.
     And as he read, a door opened at the back of the shop, and a young girl came in.
     "Well, little Sigrid?" She was not little; it was a term of endearment merely.
     The girl's skin was fair, her eyes blue, her hair light, and luminous, like the silk in the green corn. Just now, with that tender glow on her face, she was beyond question beautiful.
     "I have something to tell you, dear grandfather." Kneeling down, she leaned against him, averting her face.
     "What may it be, little one?" asked the shoemaker, kindly stroking her bright hair.
     "Nils-Nils Svenson"-she had begun to blush-"he-he loves me."
     The old man's face became all at once very grave, but he said nothing for a little while. Then: "Nils Svenson-do I know him?"
     "You have mended shoes for him."
     "Now I remember. His father's brother was my comrade in the wars-the great wars." He forgot his companion for a moment in the crowding recollections of the glories and humiliations of the great Charles of Sweden. Coming back to her, he asked, "And you love him, little Sigrid?"
     When she had answered very softly with fresh color, he all at once sighed heavily.
     "What for do you sigh, beloved grandfather?"
     "I sigh to think that when I am gone you will have no thought for anything but this fine young man, and will forget the heavenly truths I have taught you, little Sigrid."
     "He will not make me forget," the girl protested, earnestly. "He likes to talk about all such things. Oh, dear grandfather, he is good. I do believe he is altogether right-minded and devout."
     "A good Lutheran, I dare say. I'd as lief he were a, faithful devotee of Odin and Thor. . - Ah, little one, there are so few. In all this great city I only know of seven who believe."
     "Seven?" echoed the girl. Her attention became fixed on a pen-and-ink inscription on the fly-leaf of thee book which the old man had been reading: "Hic Liber est Adventus Domini."
     "What does that mean, grandfather?"
     "That was written on a Latin copy of this book by the LORD'S Servant himself. One day at our meeting they showed it to me, and I asked them to write it on mine. I do not know Latin, but they say it means that this Book and the others contain that wonderful revelation, which is the Second Coming of the LORD."
     The girl's face became very serious, but she made no remark; the doctrine was not new. The old man was about to speak further, when the door opened, and merry laughter, together with vigorous cries of "skoal!" came to them from the interior of the house.
     "There is company this evening?"
     "Herr and Fru Lundstrom and Herr Vinqvist," the girl answered, then turned to Maja, the house-maid, who forthwith announced that Fru Kjellgren desired the presence of Mamsel Sigrid.
     "Bring him, to see me," suggested the old man, significantly, as the girl was going, whereat she looked glad and hopeful.
     "Well, Maja, what is the time?"
     "Nine o clock, Herr Berggren," and the servant closed the door.
     Half an hour later there was another interruption. This time it was Fru Kjellgren, the old man's daughter.
     "Are you still up?" she asked, impatiently. Fru Kjellgren was a large, red woman who fed on ale, and had a hasty temper. "Burning up candles here every night for nothing!" she added, with a certain fierceness of accusation which suggested the demeanor of a small dog when desirous of provoking a fight. Herr Berggren closed the book slowly and reverently before he looked up. "You grow more miserly every day, Lovisa," was his calm rejoinder.
     "If I don't take care of the money my dear husband left me, who will?" she retorted.
     "Your 'dear husband,' Lovisa? You would do better to say the unhappy old man whom you wheedled into a marriage for the sake of his money, and whose death gave you secret joy."
     "I was sorry! You know it-you know how I wept for him!"
     "Your grief was showy, but insincere. You are very rarely sincere, Lovisa."
     Fru Kjellgren blazed with indignation, hesitating not to accuse her old father. She spoke of things which happened years ago. She bade him recollect that he was no longer successful in his trade, that she was obliged to look after him-and yet he abused her!
     "Let us speak the truth, Lovisa," said Herr Berggren, after patiently hearing her out, going on then to remind her that, after she became rich, prompted by ride, she had urged him to give up his humble trade, but that he had only partially yielded. He was willing for her to assume the support of his granddaughter, but not his own. So, although he gave up the old shop, he insisted on making another of this room which opened on the little street behind her house. Since then, it was true, he had made little money, but always enough to pay her for food and lodging. She need not fear that he would ever call upon her for one runstycke of her riches; it was his determination to go on working to the last, for until the last he desired still to be of some use in the world. He believed that when his time of usefulness was past the LORD would remove him.
     Fru Kjellgren writhed. It was insufferable to hear him say such things. "I believe you hate me-your own daughter!" she cried.
     "I do not hate you, Lovisa. Nor can I claim to love you."
     "I knew it! He acknowledges that he hates me"-rolling her outraged eyes toward the ceiling-"he cares for nothing but that silly child Sigrid and those nasty old books."
     "In the beginning I tried hard to teach you, Lovisa, said Herr Berggren, calmly, "but it was useless. You think always of yourself-always. Your only aim in life is selfish enjoyment. You will not listen when I tell you that such a life is infernal and leads down, down, down."
     "You are crazy!" the woman cried out, in wrath. "You-you are always seeing wicked things in people and-"
     "And in myself."
     She sat in outraged silence a moment, then continued: "If I do say it, I-I am a good Christian, which is more than Sigrid can say.

43


As for you, you never go to church. And yet you accuse me! I know whit is the matter: your head has gone wool-gathering over those dreadful books written by that crazy dreamer of dreams. You were not always so; you are completely altered completely."
     "Ah, no, Lovisa! I am scarcely altered at all. You little know how you praise me."
     "It is a disgrace to the family," she continued, far from comprehending him. "I feel bound to tell people that you are no longer able to go to church."
     "And every time you do it, you know that you are lying."
     Fru Kjellgren's red face flamed redder still, as she rose, ejaculating, "Oh! how awful! I wish I could burn up every book that madman ever wrote!" she declared, fiercely. "It would give me the greatest delight."
     "The hells would no doubt rejoice with you Lovisa."
     This was too much-the very abandon of insanity! Fru Kjellgren endeavored to assume a pitying demeanor, but became frightened and beat a retreat.
     Left alone, Herr Berggren devoted a few moments to reflection. "It may be I am too harsh with her," his thoughts ran. "Poor Lovisa! how my evils come out in her. She started with a bad heredity. Ah, yes; I had an ugly temper in my youth." He rose, and, carefully placing his book in a little case against the wall, locked the door and pocketed the key. Then, candle in hand, he left the shop and climbed up to his chamber.
     Giving herself a little time to recover, Fm Kjellgren returned to the guests in her reception-room. The ale and eatables on the side table had already been copiously indulged in, but not to the extent of drowsy lightheadedness: there was still opportunity for connected conversation. Fru Kjellgren craftily brought up the subject of Swedenborg. What did they think of him? For her part, she thought he must have been a man of wicked cunning, a very sorcerer; she had heard of persons who were completely ruined from merely reading his books.
     The guests were but feebly interested.
     "Oh," said Herr Lundstrom, a middle-aged man of affairs, whose exterior anatomy testified to the quantity of ale he habitually imbibed-"oh, he was quite a learned man in his early days. If he had only left the spirits alone-"
     "Was it wine or ale that he abused?" demanded Herr Vinqvist, a little bald-headed bachelor of sixty, whereupon Fru Lundatrom and Lovisa Kjellgren shook with laughter at this wonderful joke.
     Herr Lundstrom smiled the stagnant smile of a man who is bored, and proceeded: "But even after he wandered off into dreamland, his work can hardly he despised. His description of the great terra incognita shows a remarkable play of the imagination, and is bravely done. I suppose we could only call it the cunning of insanity, however."
     "There is one thing they say which I always liked about that Swedenborg," spoke up Fru Lundstrom, a bright-faced young matron, "I mean his taking the little girl, who asked how the angels looked, and showing her her own face in a looking-glass."
     "No, Swedenborg certainly did not have an inferior intellect to begin with," said the witty Vinqvist, patronizingly. "The king really thought quite well of him. Speaking of the king," he continued, with a pompous flourish of his wineglass, "reminds me that I have recently made the acquaintance of Herr Carlson, the Borgmistare, who is high in favor at the court. He is a most extraordinary man"-and Herr Vinqvist proceeded to tell a far from extraordinary anecdote, which, however, effectually diverted further attention from Swedenborg, the unimportant dreamer of dreams.

     Near the closing hour a day or two later, Herr Berggren stood at a window of his shop watching the heavy fall of snow without. "Ah, how I loved a snowstorm in my youth," was his thought. "It made the blood tingle and the heart beat." He looked along the vista of low, white-piled roofs to the stretch of sombre, leaden sky, and thought of the other world. "But there will be no snow there-no snows of the cold Northland in heaven-none-none."
     The door at the back of the shop opened violently, and Sigrid entered. Her face was flushed, her eyes excited, and, as she ran to her grandfather, she looked behind her fearfully. "That horrid old man"-she panted-"Herr Vinqvist-he asked me to marry him, grandfather, and caught hold of me and tried to-to-kiss me."
     "Vinqvist!"
     "Aunt Lovisa purposely left us alone together, and when I ran out of the room, she tried to force me to go back. There she is now!" the girl added, in a panic, shrinking back behind her grandfather.
     "You little simpleton," said Fru Kjel]gren, angrily as she entered the shop. "Go back to that parlor and behave yourself like a sensible young woman."
     "I will not," declared Sigrid, from behind her grandfather.
     Herr Berggren's face was pale with indignation, and bespoke sternly: "Is it possible that you have such a diabolical design on foot, Lovisa?"
     Fru Kjellgren elevated her upper lip in great disdain.
     "Diabolical, indeed! Humph! All because I want to provide my niece with a good, well-to-do husband."
     "Understand me, Lovisa Kjellgren: I have told you before that such a marriage would be heinous, and need not repeat it. What I do say is, that this child is not your daughter, and you shall not force her into the company of that old man."
     "We shall see."
     "I say you shall NOT."
     The woman fiercely resisted her father's gaze, but in the end wilted before it, dropping into a scat and bursting into tears and exclamations. She was a poor, unhappy creature, weighted down with responsibilities; she wished to do her duty, but was rudely opposed in everything-was, in fact, met with monstrous ingratitude on all sides. Alas! hers was a thorny path. Her father and her niece were both on the borders of lunacy; she alone still retained some remnant of common sense in that unhappy home. She did her best; if it came to the worst, nobody could blame her. And so on, to the end of her tirade.
     "If you have done, Lovisa, leave us in peace."
     She had scarcely gone, when the front door of the shop was opened by a tall young man of a fine open countenance, and Sigrid ran to meet him with an exclamation of delight. They smiled tenderly for each other while he was shaking the snow from his outer coat, then turned to Herr Berggren, who had risen.
     "I told him to come, and here he is, grandfather," said Sigrid, gleefully.
     "And so you love this child?" asked the old man, after speaking his courteous words of welcome.
     "Ay, so I do, Herr Berggren," was the young man's hearty response.

44



     "And wherefore do you love her?-for the bloom on her cheek?"
     "Ay, Herr Berggren.
     "Only for that? The bloom is soon gone-what then?"
     "Nay, not for that only. I love her much because she charms my sight, but I love her more because her mind and heart are mated to my own."
     "How know you this?" asked Herr Berggren, eagerly.
     "Our acquaintance is two years old, and we have talked of many things," the young man answered. "All her thoughts and wishes seem allied to mine. I have long seen that her heart is not set upon the world. She is always glad to speak of heavenly things, and it pleases her to join me in hoping that our marriage may be eternal."
     Herr Berggren stared at young Svenson as if he would read his soul. "And you?" he said,-"did you learn through her to love these things?"
     "I learned through her to love them more and more, but it was my father who taught me," was his slightly hesitating reply.
     "Did your father read certain books translated from Latin by Dr. Beyer?" asked the old man, with suppressed excitement.
     Nils Svenson looked troubled, but answered promptly: "He did, and so do I."
     "And you believe those heavenly Doctrines?"
     "I do."
     They were seated before him on a bench, and, as the old man suddenly stood up, he grasped young Svenson's head between his hands, and him on both cheeks.
     "My son, my son," he murmured, tears in his eyes. "The LORD is good; He has provided for you, Sigrid." When he resumed his sent, they gave him their hands, and, holding them close pressed, he talked to them long and earnestly.
     "And you never told me," said Sigrid, faintly reproachful, as her lover lingered at the door of the shop.
     "I feared to frighten you away from me. But I had determined to tell you soon."

     Fru Kjellgren stormed, argued, and entreated by turns, according to what her state might be at the time. That Sigrid should turn her back upon a golden opportunity in the person of bald-pated Herr Vinqvist merely for the good looks of an impecunious young man, was to her a thing most deplorable. It was impossible for a person of her form of mind to conceive that young Svenson might be preferred for other and deeper reasons. In her argumentative moods she gravely informed Sigrid that young men, though fair spoken, were notoriously treacherous, and that graybeards were by far the safer, pointing with satisfaction and pride to her own married experience. But Sigrid, though gentle and respectful always, showed unmistakably that such advice wash wasted upon her, and Fru Kjellgren lost her temper as often as the subject was broached.
     Soon after the episode last outlined, Herr Berggren's eyes began to fail, and he daily became more feeble, until at last he could scarcely go back and forth from his chamber to his shop. He could now neither work nor read, but seemed to take pleasure in handling his tools, or in sitting quietly with one of his beloved books close pressed within his folded arms. So when-in spite of, Fru Kjellgen's opposition-a happy marriage was celebrated in the house, he was unable to take part in the festivities. But he was not forgotten. The newly married pair stole out from among the guests and joined him in the shop, where Sigrid appeared more than ever a lovely vision in her wreath of myrtle and her soft white gown. They sat on the bench before him and listened to his words, until Fru Kjellgren came to shame them for deserting the company.
     "Teach your children," was his parting injunction. Those were his last words to them, for that night in his sleep he died.
     Lovisa Kjellgren's love for her father had seemed a very faint spark indeed during his life, but, as soon as she knew that he was dead, it burst into a turbulent flame. She declared that her heart was broken, and mourned for him with unflagging earnestness during the three days his body lay in the house. When they were ready to remove it, her cries stirred many of those present to tears. She repeatedly kissed the dead face of her father, afterward enjoining upon Sigrid to do the same.
     "Go and kiss him for the last time," she urged.
     "No, Aunt Lovisa," whispered the girl, distressfully. "Refuse to kiss your grandfather!"
     "That dead body is not my grandfather. My grandfather is alive; he is this day risen to life in the other world."
     "You wicked, wicked girl!" Fru Kjellgren burst into agonized sobs, and white faced, frightened Sigrid escaped from the room.
     The, girl, too, had grieved; for the sudden departure of Herr Berggren had not failed to shock her rudely. But her grief was rather the subdued flow of the natural feelings, than the hopeless wail of the others in the house. She listened calmly to all that her husband said about the resurrection of Herr Berggren, and the probability of his joining at once that small society in the world of spirits composed of believers in the Second Coming; she did not forget that her grandfather had told her not to grieve deeply for him-that too much thought of him, while harmful to herself, might tend to hinder his progress in the other world.
     The real ordeal, for her as well as for her husband, was the graf-ol-the long evening of eating and drinking and mourning and talking of the deceased. Nils Svenson was impatient to take his wife away, but Fru Kjellgren claimed her presence, and Sigrid thought that they must remain. So, during the funeral-festival, they sat together in a retired corner of the assembly room, and watched the proceedings with heavy hearts.
     It was a large gathering. The Lundstroms were there, and Herr Vinqvist (who bore his disappointment with becoming cheerfulness), and all the other friends of the house. Fru Kjellgren sat among them with an air of great importance, weeping with much noise and drinking with a great appetite alternately. To the observant eye of Nils Svenson, she appeared to take a theatrical pleasure in her position.
     "To lose my dear husband," she moaned, "and then so soon to lose my dear father! Ah, he was such a good father; he loved me so dearly, and as for me, I always thought of him first in everything."
     And again, after much sobbing: "He was so good-so devout-always such a good Christian. And to think that he should be cut off and go down in the grave!" (desolate sobs).
     In the lull which followed, a certain Johan Pehrson, who had once aspired to the hand of Lovisa Kjellgren, remarked: "I have heard it hinted that he set great store by Swedenborg in his latter days, but I never believed it. I knew he was too good a Christian."
     "It is false!" declared Fru Kjellgren, and her moist eyes flashed fire in the direction of the daring Pehrson.

45


"He never dreamed of such a thing."
     Here Sigrid turned her outraged eyes upon her husband, who quietly smiled at her.
     "In his latter years," continued Fm Kjellgren, "he never went to church, but it was because he was too feeble. Many a Sunday he said to me: 'Lovisa, dear, it is hard to be deprived of the inestimable privilege, but God loveth to chasten His chosen.'"
     "What a sentiment to attribute to Herr Berggren!" murmured Nils Svenson.
     "And now he is cut down like a flower and must lie in the cold grave," Fru Kjellgren added, reminding her friends of the cruelty of destiny. She then led a chorus of feminine wails, afterward communing long and lovingly with a horn of ale. The cruelty of destiny should not interfere with the solid comforts of life.
     So the graf-ol went on, with its eating and drinking, its mournful sighs and sobs, its false words, its hollow pretense of pouring the balm of religion upon the wounded hearts of those whose faith was deformed and dead!
     The sphere of it all became more and more oppressive, weighing down upon the two believers in the corner, until they became incapable of rational thought. After all, these people might be right and they wrong. Their religion carried with it the weight of tradition, the' authority of the ages, while Swedenborg's was a thing of yesterday. It might be that their "faith alone" was really the magic key which would unlock the gates of heaven, and that true charity and love to the LORD were but the vain fancies of a speculative mind; it might be that the awful, vengeful God of the simple, or the vague Nature of the learned, was after all the true Deity, and that the glorious Divine Man of the New Jerusalem, infinite in love, wisdom, and mercy-the LORD-was only a dream of dreaming Swedenborg.
     "We must leave this place," said Nils Svenson at last, uneasily,
But Aunt Lovisa-"
     "We can do nothing for her."
     "Wait-wait," the young wife pleaded. Something held her.
     Nils Svenson settled again in his seat; he would wait a little longer. The waiting was well meant, but perhaps not wise. The unwholesome sphere, with its temptation-doubts and perplexities, seemed to intensify as they hesitated, until at last Sigrid huddled against her husband, shuddering:
     "I feel suffocated," she whispered.
     Then up he rose and led her out, amid the hiccoughing remonstrances of Fru Kjellgmen. The clock was striking twelve as they went down the stairs, and outside the street-door the fresh-morning air blew in their faces, bringing intense relief. They felt, all at once, as it were set free.
     The Old was behind them; the New was before them.
MR. John McGowan 1889

MR. John McGowan              1889

     MR. John McGowan, 10 Love Lane, Allahabad, East India, asks the authors and societies of the New Church in Europe and America to send him their books and, tracts on commission sale. Any rate of commission will do, the object being to spread the Heavenly Doctrines in his country by advertisement and sale.
ALL subscriptions for New Church Life 1889

ALL subscriptions for New Church Life              1889

     ALL subscriptions for New Church Life should be addressed to 759 Corinthian Avenue, Philadelphia; all communications relating to the editorial management to 722 Bellevue Street, Philadelphia.
LETTER FROM GREAT BRITAIN 1889

LETTER FROM GREAT BRITAIN       JAS. CALDWELL       1889

     Communicated.

     [Inasmuch as in this Department Correspondents have an opportunity to express their individual opinions, be they in favor of the principles on which New Church Life is conducted or adverse to them, the Editor does not hold himself responsible for the views that are published therein.]

     I PROPOSE, with your concurrence, to send you a monthly letter for publication. What precise form or character the letter will assume remains to be seen. Having numerous duties of various kinds to attend to, I may not always be in "good form" for writing just at the time required, but I shall endeavor always to make my letter something more than a mere news budget. In dealing with opinions and practices which are not in harmony with the teaching of the LORD in the Writings of the Church, it shall be my earnest effort, whilst "nothing extenuating," to "naught set down in malice." As to persons, I shall, of course, only refer to them incidentally and in connection with the subject in hand. Presumably, when a person expresses an opinion or advocates a policy, he does so from honest convictions, and is both ashamed of his opinion or advocacy. Again, if he is wrong, he will not, if honest, object to his views being called in question, provided the criticism be fair and courteously expressed. Of course, it will be necessary to use discretion; and I hope none of the brethren on this side of the pond will find any cause of complaint on that score. Having said so much by way of introduction, I may come to the letter proper.
     I shall, of necessity, have recourse largely to Morning Light for the subject-matter of my letters-unless, indeed, secretaries of Societies which issue "Manuals" or similar publications will kindly send me copies of these. In that case I should have fuller and more accurate information. My address is 69 County Road, Liverpool, N.
     Sometimes the news in the news columns of the Morning Light is very scant, but in the issue for January 26th there is quite a number of interesting items. Some essentials of Sunday-school efficiency were under discussion at Blackburn at a meeting of the Accrington District Sunday-school Union. Whilst the essayist and other speakers gave expression to "opinions,"" thoughts," "strong convictions," "warm approvals," etc., I do not gather from the report that any of the light of heaven as given in the Writings of the Church was thrown upon the proceedings.
     At Bolton there has been an accession of Primitive Methodists to the Church, the result, it is said, of the sowing of the good seed by the Rev. T. Mackereth and Mr. Heald. I shall be pleased to learn of the permanency of this addition to the membership. Everything will depend on the recognition of the LORD by the new members. As John, on turning to see the voice that spoke to him, recognized the LORD in the midst of the candlesticks, so must men who are in the will to lead a life of charity acknowledge that the LORD alone, in His new Revelation, is their Illuminator and Guide.
     I am glad to observe that the Glasgow (Cathedral Street) Society, where the Rev. Messrs. J. F. Potts and A. Faraday minister, is in a good state in all respects. It is out of debt, and has increased its membership from 99 to 113. The Glasgow Parent Society is governed on principles of Divine order so far as these are applicable to present day conditions. The minister is the head, as he should be, of all the institutions of the Society. Possibly the fourteen new members were added and the debt of L100 wiped out within a year under the strongest priestly pressure but I have no knowledge of such being the case.

46


My information, on the contrary, all points to a most peaceable and harmonious Society devoted to its pastor, and united to advance the cause of the LORD'S Kingdom in the earth.
     I shall close this letter by alluding to one other news item in the same issue of Morning Light. At the quarterly meeting of the Argyle Square (London) Society, there was an animated debate and division on the sacramental wine question. The original proposition, viz., that unfermented wine should be provided for those who wished for it, was lost, and a substitute "emphatically protesting against the use of so-called (sic) unfermented wine as being contrary to the teachings of the Writings of the New Church," became the resolution, and was carried by a "large majority." The resolution also protested against the continued agitation of the subject "as being calculated to disturb the peace and harmony of the Society, and to seriously injure the religious and spiritual life of its members." The resolution was complete without the latter part. So long as Societies are governed by committees and resolutions, it is better that any considerable minority should openly agitate their grievance than that they should do so secretly. The disturbing effect on the worshipers would be greater in the latter case than in the former. I am glad to observe that the "minister, officers, and the great majority of the members of the Society are determined not to submit" to the innovation proposed by the temperance party.
     LIVERPOOL.     JAS. CALDWELL.

     P. S.-Mr. Swift is anxious that I should correct my last letter (which appeared in the January number) in two particulars. First, It is said there that one of the speakers in favor of the paper was a disbeliever in an external organization. He hopes that it will not be inferred from that that he is a disorganizer. An impression to that effect was certainly formed in the minds of several, but the essayist corrected the erroneous impression. Second, Mr. Swift contends that the only part of his essay that was challenged "by Dr. Livsey and others" was that part which seemed to indicate a disorganizing policy and which, as I have just said, he afterward explained satisfactorily. Hence the closing paragraph of the letter in question require modification.
     J. C.
CORRECTION NOTES 1889

CORRECTION NOTES       G. N. SMITH       1889

     ON the just now much agitated "wine question," I have tried to read and carefully compare with the teachings of the Church every word written on both sides. And the more I read and compare, the more clear does it become to me that the idea of unfermented wine, as the only true and fit wine for use, was never thought of by the writer of those teachings, and was only forced into them by assumption of principles that are not taught, and overlooking those that are taught. I do not make this conclusion from inclination, as my hereditary and educational bias has all been on the strictest total abstinence side, making me naturally willing to give the arguments of that side a ready assent if loyalty to the teachings would permit. But, on the principle on which I have always tried to study them, not as the leading "two-wine" advocate claims that he did assuming that the Doctrines could not possibly teach so and so; but of simply trying to find out what they did teach, assuming nothing that is not taught, and overlooking and slurring over nothing that is taught; the more I see of both sides in the light of this principle, the more clearly I see that they do not permit.
     One assumption made by the anti-fermentationists, without which they have no case at all, is that, because the ferment or leaven "corresponds to falsities of evil," therefore the product of the ferment process must be evil. I have looked in vain for them to brink forward the first statement in our teachings in proof of this. On the contrary, the teaching is plain that this product corresponds to a good, and one, too, of a very high order in the regeneration of the "spiritual"* man, and for which this very principle of the "falsities of evil" is an absolutely necessary forming factor. This good is the only saving good of men regenerated by the "spiritual"* process of a new will formed in the separated intellectual principle, the old will being altogether evil and lost (deperdita, damned), (see A. C. 2256, 5353 et al.); and it is formed through temptation-combat between the falsities of evil, from the old will, and the truths received in the separated intellectual. Without this leavening, the purification of truth from the false with man cannot possibly exist, "the resulting state being the good of charity" (A. C. 7906, comp. n. 59). This is strong language, affirming positively that the good of charity cannot possibly exist except as the product of leavening. And here (compare D. P. 25 and 284 et al) it is the leavened or fermented wine that is said to correspond to this good. And, in this connection, I find a point of doctrine that I have never seen noticed, rendering the attempted escape of the anti-fermentationists from the dilemma in which this teaching puts them impossible. For want of it we have let their claim that this is only a non-significative comparison go unchallenged. The doctrine is that the comparison is made because it is a correspondence; because all comparisons in the Word are correspondences.** (See D. P. 284; A. C. 3579; A. E. 69, 401 [e], 403 [e], 411 [c], 589 [b], 644 [b].) Consequently the fermented wine referred to in the above and other places corresponds to a saving good.
     * As contradistiguished from the celestial.
     ** They say the "comparison is to clearness."- True, clear wine; pure truth; both made so by leaven and its fermentation. The good to which it corresponds in the Holy Supper (H. D. 212).
     And that settles it. There is the doctrine. And it is plain. And we ought not to listen to any assumption that tries to prove it false, and that can be true only when it is proved false. Therefore I dissent from the position of one of my friends whose positions I usually hold in high respect, "that though an evil it may represent a good." An evil, it is true, may represent a good; but cannot signify or correspond to it. (On the difference between them see A. C. 1361, 1409, 2988. For the correspondence, see n. 5165, 5915, 9139, 9206.) A good perverted may become and then may correspond to an evil, as the Doctrines everywhere show, this among the rest. (See n. 2240.) But it is plainly assumption and not doctrine that makes it evil, except in its perversions by evil men.
     Another point that I have never seen noticed, which shows that even intoxicating wine has a good correspondence in the Holy Supper, may be seen by comparing Apocalypse Revealed, n. 795, concerning the Papal "wine mixed with water, lest they should be intoxicated," with Divine Providence, n. 257, where this wine if not separated from the bread, is said to "correspond to holy truth." I add this to the suggestion recently made of the force of the passage citing the saying concerning the sacramental wine, "What does it differ from the similar things upon my table?" (T. C.R. 722), showing that the new idea of unfermented wine for the Sacrament is not in the doctrine, "unless construed in a sense which was never intended."

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     Great stress is laid by the anti-fermentationists upon the correspondence of wine to blood. Rightly. Lay a little stress also upon the fact that unaerated blood is unpurified, and unfitted for the uses of life. Perhaps we shall then see another point in the correspondence, hitherto overlooked. But they say that the process does not purify. The doctrine says it does. Which is true? They say fermented wine has dragged many a man from the sacramental table to the drunkard's ditch. The doctrine says: The Holy Supper is for the regenerate (T. C. R. 722). Is a regenerate man going to be dragged from it to the drunkard's ditch? The regenerate believe in the LORD (ib.). And those that believe in the LORD shun evils. (See Doct. of Faith 36, T. C. R. 2, 3, and A. C. 8159, 8626.) And drunkenness is an enormous sin. (S. D. 2422). Are we not in danger of carrying too far the modern craze of trying to save a rotten tree by all kinds of stays and props?
     And yet they themselves say that "fermented" does not necessarily mean "intoxicating." (See recent number of The Dawn.) What, then, is the alarm all about? Herein the authors of the "Quartet Pamphlet" came to the rescue, proving from the doctrine, what I am glad to learn, that the teachings provide as the most appropriate wine for the Supper, a sweet and not strong wine-fermented, of course; the correspondence demands that; but not intoxicating; such is freely used all over the East. Any child may drink it freely and safely. I have made it and tested it, and know it is perfectly feasible. Is not this a better meeting-ground than any extreme can possibly be?
     G. N. SMITH
SWEDENBORG'S OWN TEACHING AS TO THE TRUE COMMUNION WINE 1889

SWEDENBORG'S OWN TEACHING AS TO THE TRUE COMMUNION WINE       DEPENSOR SANCTORTUM       1889

     IN an article in the February number of the Life on "The Wine of the LORD'S Supper," Mr. Wood shows us very plainly how the quality of the wine in use in the Church has degenerated along with the perversion of' the Truth of which it is the symbol. But the passage from the Writings which he quotes in reference to the practice of the Romnish priests (A. C. 10,040), appears to me to contain in itself perfectly incontrovertible testimony as to the proper wine to be used in the Holy Sacrament. No one certainly will maintain that any other wine than such as is fermented or intoxicating is used in the Church of Rome. And yet, in this extract from the doctrine of the Church, there is not a word of condemnation of the Roman Catholic clergy for using such wine, but, on the contrary, what they are condemned for is doing precisely that which our so-called Temperance Reformers would have the clergy of the New Church do, viz., withhold it from the people. And in another place they are apparently censured for mixing water with it in order to counteract its intoxicating effects.
     But, that there may be no doubt on this point, and as to Swedenborg's own view as to what is the proper wine to be used in the Holy Supper, we have the following paragraph in the Diary, which I think has never before been brought forward in connection with this controversy:

     "Of the Sacrament of the Supper, that among the Papists they have separated the bread and wine.
     "6059. There was a conversation concerning the sacrament of the supper among time Papists, why they have separated the bread from the wine, give the people the bread, and themselves drink the wine, when, nevertheless it was otherwise instituted by the LORD, and when it has not been done on account of the deficiency of wine, because in Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, the interior of Germany, Hungary, there is wine, and where wine is not produced, as in England, Holland, Sweden, Denmark, and in Germany where there are Protestants, wine is not native, and yet it is used in the sacrament of the supper. The papists were not able to give any reason, except the secret one that the monks, when they make masses for the souls of the dead, and generally at such times as they engage in it, do not suffer fatigue in their continued labor, because they are then refreshed by wine; other reasons could not be found, but it was said [to them] that this came about of the Divine Providence of the LORD, that, inasmuch as they had devastated the Church of all good and truth, they separate them, because good is not good if it is separated from truth, for good is in truth, nor is truth in any case truth except from good."

     We suppose it will not be for a moment denied that the wine here in question, which is spoken of as being produced only in certain countries, and which is used by both Catholics and Protestants, is true fermented wine, and that it is this wine that the Roman Catholic clergy are here blamed for withholding from their communicants. Swedenborg does not so much as suggest that they might, in the scarcity of such wine, resort to grape juice, raisin-water, etc., as some of the heretical sects were in the habit of doing; but he argues that inasmuch as Protestants, living in countries where wine is not native, are yet able to procure the genuine article for use in the Communion, they surely, inhabiting for the most part wine-growing districts, cannot make the difficulty of obtaining it an excuse for refusing to allow the laity to participate in its administration.
     Of this fermented, intoxicating wine, it is moreover declared in the passage above cited from the Arcana:

     "By the Divine Providence of the LORD, it has came to pass that in the Holy Supper the bread which is the flesh, and not the wine, which is the blood, is given, and yet the blood is what vivifies the flesh, as the wine the bread; for as bread without wine does not give nourishment to the body, so neither does the good of love, which is signified by the bread and the flesh, without the truth of faith, which is signified by the wine and the blood, give nourishment to the soul." And by the priests drinking this wine, it is further said, "is signified the nourishment of the soul by Divine truth without the good of love."- A. C. 10,040.

     In view of such teaching as this, shall we continue to hear this holy symbol and representative employed in "the holiest act of worship" stigmatized as "the drunkard's cup," "the soul destroyer," "poison," and I know not by what other opprobrious epithets and titles? Doubtless there will be an attempt to evade and explain away these, as there has been every other plain teaching of the Doctrines on this subject, but may we not hope that the vituperation and abuse which have been heaped upon the sacred symbol itself, may cease, at least en the part of those who claim to be receivers of the Heavenly Doctrines of the New Church?
     DEPENSOR SANCTORTUM.
NEW CHURCHMEN'S SINGLE TAX LEAGUE 1889

NEW CHURCHMEN'S SINGLE TAX LEAGUE       JOHN FILMER       1889

     THIS organization, formed for the study and exposition, in the light of the truths of the New Dispensation, of the principles of the single tax, as set forth in the writings of Henry George, earnestly invites correspondence with all who may be interested in this work.
     Further information regarding the objects of the League and the methods proposed to accomplish them, can be obtained on application.
     JOHN FILMER, Secretary.
     318 Broadway, New York.

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NEWS GLEANINGS 1889

NEWS GLEANINGS       Various       1889


NEW CHURCH LIFE.
A MONTHLY JOURNAL

TERMS:-One Dollar per annum, payable in advance.

Six months on trial for twenty-five cents.

     All communications must be addressed to Publishers New Church Life, No. 759 Corinthian Avenue, Philadelphia, Pa.

     In Great Britain subscriptions may be sent to
     MR. S. WARREN POTTS, Book Steward, 61 Cathedral Street, Glasgow, Scotland.
     REV. R. J. TILSON, "Oakley," County Grave, Camberwell, London, S. E.
     MR. G. A. MCQUEEN, Crowhurst Road, Colchester.
     MR. JAS. CALDWELL, 59 County Road, N., Liverpool.
     MR. C. E. SCHROEDER, 13     Ashfield Terrace, Newcastle-on-Tyne.
     MISS FLORENCE G. GIBBS, 8 Camden Square, London, N.

PHILADELPHIA, MARCH, 1889-119.

     CONTENTS.

     Editorial Notes. p. 33.-Regeneration the work of the LORD (a Sermon), p. 34.-Conversations on Education, p. 37.-The Thirteenth chapter of Genesis, p. 38.
     The Dreamer of Dreams, p. 42.
     Letter from Great Britain, p. 45.-Correction Notes, p. 46.-Swedenborg's own Teaching as to the True Communion wine, p. 47.
     News Gleanings, p. 48.-Births, Marriages, and Deaths, p. 45
     AT HOME.

     Connecticut.-INTEREST has recently been awakened in Kent. General Pastor Pettee visits the circle there from time to time. On one of these visits in May, 1887 he baptized some seven or eight, confirmed three or four, and administered the Holy Supper.
     New York.-THE twenty-fifth annual meeting of the New York Association was held in Orange, N. J., on February 22d.-Eight of the eleven ministers connected with the Association were in attendance. The Association has assisted the Paterson, the New York German, and the Hempstead Societies in paying the salaries of their ministers.-The Brooklyn German Society began the issue of a German Sunday-school paper.-Mr. C. B. Chace, of Cincinnati, has been engaged by the Hempstead Society for five months.-At Elizabeth. N. J., a doctrinal reading class holds weekly meetings.- Mr. Bastow beside his colportage work on Long Island, has done a month's house-to-house visiting in New York city.-It was "Resolved That (if, first, the General Convention at its approaching meeting so amend its Constitution that the Presiding Ministers of Associations can have conferred on them ordaining powers during their incumbency in office; and if, secondly, the approval of the Convention be required for such action) the delegates of this Association be instructed to apply to the General Convention for its approval for the conferring of these powers upon our Presiding Minister."-Mr. Ager declining re-election, Mr. Seward was elected.-Mr. Ager offered two resolutions, one being that if the Convention fail to make satisfactory provision, the Board of Officers be authorized to confer the powers of General Pastor on the Presiding Minister of this Association during his incumbency of the office. After an animated discussion, in which this was considered as militating against loyalty to Convention's Constitution, the resolution was withdrawn.
     A New organ has been built for the New York Society. Sunday and Industrial
Schools and Young People's League are all flourishing and growing.
     Maryland.-THE annual meeting of the Maryland Association was held on February 22d.
     Washington, D. C.-THE Rev. W. B. Hayden is reported in the Messenger as being in very poor health, which may soon necessitate his return to the North.
     The interior of the house of worship was destroyed by fire on September 9th. The Maryland Association met at Wesley Chapel.
     Florida.-THE Rev. T. F. Wright spent three weeks visiting the friends in Florida; holding sixteen public discourses.
     Indiana.-MR. G. H. Dole, of Chicago, has been asked to preach to the La Porte Society for six months from February 1st.
     Texas.-AT Pearsall, the Rev. Stephen Wood delivered nine persons into membership of the New Church.
     Kansas.-THE Rev. G. Reiche has accepted the position of minister of the Topeka Society. He makes that city the basis of his evangelistic operations.
     Pennsylvania.-THE Academy School on February 22d, took the form of a very pleasant musicale. A poem composed by a student in honor of the day combined the elements of patriotism and loyalty to the school.
     The Rev. Wm. L. Worcester has delivered course of four religious lectures on the scene of the LORD'S life, illustrated with lantern pictures.
     THE Rev L. H. Tafel conducts services on Broad Street corner of Olive Street, for the "Philadelphia Union of the New Jerusalem."
     South Carolina.-ON his Southern Missionary journey, the Rev. Theodore F. reached at a colored Baptist Church in Aiken, the Pastor of which "loved our books because they 'opened the Word to him.'"
     Tennessee.-AFTER visiting Knoxville, the Rev. Jabez Fox stayed ten days at Chattanooga, the Society of which city was greatly pleased with his visit.
     Ohio -Two thousand dollars were contributed to the Ohio Association Mission Fund up to January 1st.
     Minnesota.-THE Rev. J. S. David is delivering a series of Sunday evening talks on the New Church at the Minneapolis house of worship.
     Canada.-A CLERGYMAN of the Reformed Episcopal Church of Hamilton has been forced to resign his pastoral charge because of his New Church teaching. He and his wife how attend the New Church meetings.
     California.-A portrait of Swedenborg, in oil, painted by the San Francisco artist George H. Burgess, and elaborated from a comparison of the various engravings of Swedenborg extant, with a study of the descriptions of his personal appearance, has been presented to the First San Francisco Society.

     ABROAD.

     Germany.-AMONG the most recent protests against Mr. Artope's heresies are those of Mr. Jacob Eggman, President of Mr. Artope's Herisau (Switzerland) Society, and of Mr. Charles Mertin, Secretary of Mr. Artope's Berlin Society. Both gentlemen have resigned their positions in their respective Societies, and have communicated their views to the Rev. F. Gorwitz's paper, Monatblatter.     
     Great Britain.-The New Church Society in Colchester recently engaged suitable rooms in which to hold its various week-evening meetings, and which are to be used as a Library.
EDITORIAL NOTES 1889

EDITORIAL NOTES       Editor       1889




     BIRTHS, MARRIAGES, AND DEATHS.


          


49




Vol. LX.     PHILADELPHIA, APRIL, 1889=119.     No. 4.
     THE usefulness of presenting the Internal Sense connectedly, somewhat in the manner in which this has been done in the studies in Genesis, published in the last three numbers of the Life, appears both from the explanation of the fourteenth chapter in the Arcana, as also from the Mirabilia prefixed to the fifteenth. In conclusion of the explanation it is written: "These are the things, which in general those [words] involve in their Internal Sense, but the series itself of the things, and its beauty, cannot appear, when all and single the things are explained according to the signification of the words, as when they were grasped in one idea; when all are grasped in one idea, then the things which are scattered, appear beautifully cohering and connected" etc. (A. C. 1766). So in the Mirabilia Swedenborg says: "Of the Divine Mercy of the LORD, it has also been granted to me to see the Word of the LORD in its beauty in the Internal Sense, and this often, not only when the single words are explained as to the Internal Sense, but all and single things in one series; which it may be said is from an earthly paradise to see a heavenly paradise" (A. C. 1772).
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     IN order to obtain the real benefit or a connected series of the Internal Sense, it is necessary first to read the particular explanations given in the Writings, not only because then the particulars are more clearly impressed upon the mind, but also because they are confirmed by Proof-passages from other parts of the Scriptures. These Proof passages are omitted by some readers, but to do this is a grave error. They are given to serve as a full "basis, continent and firmament" of the doctrine of the Internal Sense.
     Any one desiring to read the explanations of the chapters of Genesis from day to day, as planned in the Calendar published by the General Church of Pennsylvania, can obtain a copy from the Secretary, Mr. George G. Starkey, 1638 Green Street, Philadelphia.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     The Philadelphia Press recently addressed a circular of inquiry as to the increase or decrease of crime, to the chiefs of Police of one hundred and fifty of the cities and towns of the United States. Their answers, which are of great interest, show that, despite the many and varied efforts made to suppress crime, it is on the increase. And indeed according to the census report, the increase has been so rapid, that while in the year 1880the proportion of criminals was as 1 to 30,442 of population, in the year 1880 it was as 1 to 887 of population.
     Among representative men who were interviewed, New York, who has much practical experience with criminals assigns the causes of the increase to love of dress, idleness and the want of proper home influences. Elbridge T. Gerry, President of the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, makes out a strong case against the public schools, whose want of moral training he condemns; and William M. F. Rounds, Secretary of the National Prison Association, believes the remedy for the increase of crime to lie in stricter enforcement of the law and of the punishments it inflicts. Mr. Gerry's position is the most significant, and virtually covers that of the other two gentlemen; for a proper moral training in school will cultivate the affections, direct them into right channels, and subject them more strictly to the laws of conduct. The moral is above and within the civil, and rules it. If the morals be right, the civil law will be obeyed. A Newchurchman will follow this out still further. He recognizes that the spiritual is still higher and more interior, and that it rules both the moral and the civil. Hence the importance and necessity that the daily training of children in school and out should be in the hands of those who acknowledge and adopt the spiritual principles of the Church.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     THE returns made to the Press by the Philadelphia officials, are perhaps the most striking. They show that, while the operation of high license and increased vigilance of the police force have caused a decrease in open crime, it has increased in secret. That while "during the year 1888 there was a falling off of from fifteen to eighteen per cent, in the deaths, directly the result of crime, in 1887 the decrease was probably ten per cent. There was, however, an increase of twenty per cent, over 1887 in the deaths due directly to the influence of alcoholism. . . This state of affairs exists to a very great extent among the poorer classes, who provide for Sunday-drinking by Saturday night purchases, and then soak themselves with the liquor at home. These people are seldom arrested for drunkenness, but death carries them off early."
     If the moderate use of wine, beer, and the like with food were popularly recognized, and the trade in liquors properly regulated, but not meddled and interfered with, there would be less incentive to abuse these drinks.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     ANOTHER item worthy of attention in these Philadelphia reports is, that while, according to the Superintendent of Police, "the vigorous assaults of the Police Department have materially decreased immorality," the Coroner states that "Investigation proves that the crime of malpractice has increased nearly sixty per cent.[!] in the past five years." The facts which come to his notice by virtue of his position lead the Coroner to think "that while prostitution has decreased, there is a greater degree of immorality among girls employed in stores and factories." There can be very little doubt that to prevent, as far as possible, this deadly secret evil and its increase, is one of the reasons why, in the Divine Providence, a lesser though public evil has been "tolerated by kings, magistrates, and thence by judges, inquisitors, and by the people, at London, Amsterdam, Paris, Vienna, Venice, Naples, and also at Rome, besides in many other places" (C. L. 461).

50


"The LORD foresees and sees all, and single things, and provides and disposes all and single things, but some from permission, some from admission, some from leave, some from good pleasure, some from will" (A. C. 1756). And this has been revealed so that men may know, acknowledge, and believe it, and rationally co-operate with the LORD, in order that mankind may, by successive steps, be raised out of its infernal condition into that of heaven. Whitening the outside of the sepulchers will cause them indeed to appear beautiful without, but it does not remove the bones of the dead, and the uncleanness which are within.
FOURTEENTH CHAPTER OF GENESIS 1889

FOURTEENTH CHAPTER OF GENESIS              1889

     IN the twelfth chapter of Genesis, the LORD'S first instruction in scientifics was described, and His progress to truths celestial. In the thirteenth chapter, the External Man with the LORD was treated of, which was to be conjoined to His Internal. The present chapter treats of the LORD'S temptation-combats by which this conjunction was effected.
     No one can ever fight against evils and falses before he knows what evil and false is, wherefore he cannot fight before he has been instructed. Every man fights, first of all, from the goods and truths which he has accepted by means of cognitions, and from them and by means of them he judges of evils and falses. Every man, also, when first he begins to fight, thinks that those goods and truths from which he fights are his own-that is, he attributes them to himself, and at the same time attributes to himself the power with which he resists; this is also permitted, for man cannot then know otherwise. But afterward he is enlightened more and more. When man is in such a state that he thinks that the good and truth are from himself, and that the power of; resisting is his own, then the goods and truths from which he fights against the evils and falses are not goods and truths, although they so appear, for the proprium is in them, and he places self-merit in the victory, and glories as if he had conquered the evil and false, when yet it is the LORD alone who fights and conquers. Because the LORD in early Boyhood was introduced into the most grievous combats against evils and falses, neither He could think otherwise-both because it was according to Divine order that His Human Essence should by continual combats and victories be introduced to the Divine Essence and be united to it, and also because the goods and truths from which He fought against evils and falses were of the External man; and, because those goods and truths were not thus altogether Divine, therefore they are called appearances of good and truth. His Divine Essence thus introduced the Human, that it might conquer from its proper power. In a word, in the first combats, the goods and truths with the LORD from which He fought, were imbued with hereditary things from the mother, and in so far as this was the case they were not Divine, but by degrees, as He overcame the evil and the false, they were purified and made Divine.
     These apparent goods and truths are meant by the kings and nations mentioned in the opening of the chapter and because He entered into and sustained the combat when He was imbued with sciences and cognitions, it is said and it was in the days of these kings; "and it was in the days of Amraphel king of Shinear, Arjoch king of Ellasar, Kedorlaomer king of Elam, and Thideal
king of Gojim."

     But the kings against which these, kings fought, signify the evils and falses against which the LORD fought, which were the most general or most universal evils and falses. "They made war with Bera king of Sodom, and with Birsha king of Amora, Shineab king of Admah, and Shemeber king of Zeboim, and with the king Bela, this is Zoar."
     And these were unclean.     "All these were gathered together to the vale of Siddim,"-in the uncleanliness of lusts; "this is the sea of salt,"-the falsities from those lusts were deformed.

     THOSE evils and falses, against which the LORD fought, did not appear earlier than in Boyhood, but they then broke forth; before that they served apparent goods and truths: "Twelve years they served Kedorlaomer." For, in infancy, ignorance excuses and innocence causes even what is of the love of self and of the world to appear good. In that age evils and falses cannot effect anything, but they are subjugated and serve, because man has not yet acquired to himself a sphere of cupidities and falsities. When, however, that state comes to an end, then temptations begin: "And in the thirteenth year they rebelled," which beginning of temptations in the case of the LORD took place in His Boyhood. Evils or evil spirits rebel, in so far as the man, who wills to be in goods and truths, confirms with himself some evils and falses, or in so far as cupidities and falsities insinuate themselves in his goods and truths, for in these is the life of evil spirit, while in goods and truths is the life of Angels: hence infestation and combat, whence arises a pain which is the more acute the more interior the perception is. In the case of the LORD, Who had an interior and inmost perception, His temptation was proportionately greater than in the case of any man.

     THE LORD then overcame and completely vanquished all kinds of persuasions and the false: "And in the fourteenth year"-this was His first temptation-"came Kedorlaomer"-apparent good in the external man-"and the kings that were with him"-apparent truth which is of that good-"and smote the Rephajim in Asteroth Karnaim, and the Susims in Ham, and the Emin in Shave Kirjathaim,"-the persuasions of the false, or the hells of such, which the LORD thoroughly vanquished. There are many kinds of persuasions of the false, not only according to falsities, but also according to cupidities, to which they are adjoined or into which they are infused, or from which they flow forth and are produced. The most direful persuasions of the false were with those who had lived before the flood, especially with those who are called Nephilim these were such as by their permissions to take away all the faculty of thinking from the spirits to whom they flow; so that these seem to themselves hardly to live, still less to be able to think anything true. Such were the heinous nations against which the LORD fought in early Boyhood, and which overcame; and unless the LORD had entirely vanquished them by His coming into the world, no man would at the present day remain on this earth, for every man is ruled through spirits by the LORD. At the present day those spirits from their fantasies are surrounded, as it were, with a misty rock, out of which they constantly endeavor to arise, but in vain. Persuasions of the false are either from the love of the world or from the love of self. Persuasions from the love of self are the most filthy; but these also did the LORD overcome, for He smote also "the Chorites in their Mount Seir," the "mount" signifying the love of self.

51


The extension of the LORD'S first victory over the hells is described in the words, "unto Elparan, which is above in the desert," but what this signifies in particular has not been revealed.
     After the LORD had overcome the persuasions of the false arising from cupidities of evil, that is, from evils-which persuasions are signified by the "Rephaim," "Susims," "Emim" and Chorites," He overcame falses and evils themselves, or falses from which are evils, the "Amalekite" and "Amorite." "And they returned and came to En Mishpath (the fountain of judgment), this is Kadesh"-the contention concerning truths. "And they smote all the field of the Amalekites"-the kinds of falses-"and also the Amorite dwelling in Chazezon Thamar"-the kinds of evils that are from those falses. The false from evil is one thing, and the false and evil thence is another. Falses well forth either from cupidities that are of the will, or from assumed principles, which are of the understanding. Falses from cupidities that are of the will are foul, nor do they suffer themselves to be extirpated thus, because they cohere with the very life of man. The very life of man is what desires, that is, what loves; when he confirms with himself this life, or cupidity, or love, all confirming things are falses, and are implanted in his life; such were the antediluvians. But falses from assumed principles, which are of the understanding, cannot be thus inrooted in man's voluntary part, as are false or heretical doctrinals, these being from an Origin outside of the will, and from the imbuing of such things from infancy, and then from confirmation in adult age; but because they are false, they cannot do otherwise than produce evils of life.
     The evils and falses against which the LORD fought were infernal spirits who were in evils and falses, that is, they were hells infilled with such, which continually infested the human race.
     After overcoming the falses and the evils from them, the LORD also thoroughly vanquished the other reigning falses and evils which were of less degree: "And there went forth the king of Sodom, and the king of Amorah, and the king of Admah, and the king of Zeboim, and the king of Bela, this is Zoar." And that these evils and falses attacked the LORD is expressed in the letter of the Word by "And they set in order with them the battle." For it is the evil spirits that attack; the LORD never began the combat with any hell, but the hells attacked Him. The LORD never wills to do evil to any one, or thrust him down to hell, even were he the worst and most enraged enemy of all, but it is this enemy that brings up the evil, and casts into hell. The ensuing temptation is an unclean state; the battle was set in order "in the vale of Siddim." Against this attack the LORD defended Himself by the truths and goods in the External Man; the battle was "with Kedorlaomer king of Elam, and Thideal king of Gojim, and Amraphel king of Shinear, and Arjoch king of Ellasar;" "Kedorlaomer king of Elam" signifying truths, and "Thideal king of Gojim" or "nations," goods, and the others, the things which are thence. "Kedorlaomer" is mentioned first, because truth is the first of combat, for the combat is waged from Truth, for from Truth it is known what is false and what is evil. And because truths and goods are united, therefore those representing the apparent goods and truths were "four kings" who fought "with the five," "five" signifying the disunion of evils and falses. "And the valley of Siddim was pits of bitumen." Thus is described the uncleanness of falsities and cupidities; "pits" signifying falsities, from the unclean water that is in them, and "bitumen" signifying cupidities, from the foul sulphurous stench in such water. "And the kings of Sodom and Amorah," that is, all the evils and falses (also those signified by the other kings), "fled and fell there," were conquered,-but not all: "And the rest fled into the mountain," to the love of self and the world, whence is all revenge and cruelty. The LORD was fought against by all the hells from early Boyhood up to the last hour of His life in the world, and He continually subdued, subjugated, and conquered them, and this solely from LOVE toward the universal human race, and as this Love was not human, but Divine, and as the temptation is as great as the love is, it may be evident how grievous were the combats, and on the part of the infernals how ferocious.
     But the hells were deprived of the power of doing evil ("And they took all the riches of Sodom and Amorah") and of the power of thinking the false ("And all their food") and thus they were left ("And went away"). In temptation-combats evil spirits are permitted to draw forth all the evil and false that is with man, and to fight from man's evil and false; but when they are conquered, then they are no longer allowed to do this, for they immediately perceive with man, that good and truth has been confirmed, what answer will be returned them, etc. Evil spirits are with the regenerate as well as with the unregenerate, but with the regenerate they are subjugated and serve.

     THE Glorification being a continuous work, it follows that the apparent goods and truths from which the LORD fought are next treated of, and how they were purified by degrees. These apparent goods and truths, which were not goods and truths in themselves, occupied the External Man, and all the things that were t ere ("And they took Loth, and his acquisition, the son of Abram's brother, and went away"). "Loth" signifies the Sensual or External Man, here the External Man as to apparent goods and truths which are here "Loth's acquisition." His state is indicated in the words, "And he was dwelling in Sodom."
     The Rational Man, who is "Abram the Hebrew," perceiving this, vindicated and liberated him. The Interior Man is the middle between the Internal and the External, and is called the Rational Man, which, being in the middle, communicates with the Internal where is good and truth itself, and also with the exterior where is evil and the false. It is spiritual or celestial when it looks upward, and animal when it looks downward. It is the seat of conscience with the spiritual man, and of perception with the celestial. This Interior Man conjoined with the Internal Divine, is here called "Abram the Hebrew," and that the LORD perceived from His Interior Man is expressed in the words: "And there came the escaped one, and indicated to Abram the Hebrew." The state of perception from the Rational Man is further expressed in the words, "And he was dwelling in the oak-groves of Mamre the Amorite," while the state of the Rational Man as to the External, what was the quality of its goods and truths, is expressed in the words, "the brother of Eshkol and the brother of Aner, and they were men of a covenant of Abram." By "Mamre, Eshkol, and Aner" are represented and signified angels who were with the LORD when He fought in early Boyhood, who were adequated to the goods and truths at that time with the LORD; they are named from goods and truths.
     The Internal Man is of the LORD alone. When the celestials or goods from the Internal Man inflow into the Interior, then the Internal appropriates the Interior or middle to itself, and makes it its own, and the Internal Man is said to be in the Interior or Middle.

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This is what "Abram" now represents. Still, the Interior or Middle Man is distinct from the Internal. Likewise, when the Internal Man by means of the Interior or Middle Man inflows into the Exterior, it then also appropriates this to itself and makes it its own; still the Exterior Man is distinct from the Interior. Thus, then, when the Internal in the Interior, or Middle perceived that such was the state of the External Man, "And Abram heard that his brother was made captive"-that is, that goods and truths not genuine, but apparently so, occupied it, from which he had fought against so many enemies-then he inflowed and reduced all things to order, and liberated it from those who infested, and thus purified, so that they were not apparent goods and truths, but genuine goods and truths, and thus conjoined to the Internal or Divine, and this by means of the Interior or Middle. In this the LORD was not like any man, that His Interior Man as to celestials or goods was Divine, and from nativity itself adjoined to the Internal; the Internal with this Interior was JEHOVAH Himself, His FATHER; but in this He was like other men, that His Interior Man as to spirituals or truths was adjoined to the External and thus Human; but this, also, by continual temptation-combats and victories from His own power, was made Divine, that is, JEHOVAH. The External Man is what is called "Loth," but in the former state he is called his "brother's son," while in this, Abram's "brother;" for it is called the "brother's son" when apparent truths and goods occupied it; but "brother"-when genuine goods and genuine truths. "And he expedited his initiated ones, those born of his house," that is, those goods which were with the External Man, which were now liberated from the yoke of servitude, and made genuine; they are called Abram's "initiated" or "novitiates," for they were initiated and novitiate, and because they were acquired of his own power, they are called "born of the house." And their quality as being holy things of combat is further signified by their number, "eighteen and three hundred men," for these numbers are composed of "three" and "six," and "three" signifies what is holy, and "six," combat. "And he pursued them even to Dan." "To pursue enemies" here is to expel the evils and falses which were with the goods and truths, and caused them to appear as if they were goods and truths-and thus to liberate and purify them; "even to Dan,"-to the last border of Canaan, thus to the extreme limits to which those who infested the goods and truths of the External Man fled. But because "Dan" was the border of Canaan and thus within Canaan, lest they be there, he routed them further, namely, to "Choba on the left of Damascus," and thus purified them. "And he distributed himself upon them by night,"-in the shade in which apparent goods and truths were, for there is shade when it is unknown whether it be good and truth apparent or genuine-"he and his servants"-the Rational Man, and those things in the External (like affections and scientifics) which obeyed, "and smote them,"-that is, vindicated them; "and pursued them even to Choba which is from the left to Damascus."
     As often as a victory is obtained, the LORD brings back into order the goods and truths from which the combat was waged, and thus they are purified, and in as far as they are purified, celestials of love are insinuated into the Exterior Man, and a correspondence is effected.
     "And he brought back all the acquisition," "the acquisition" being what Kedorlaomer and the kings with him had taken from the enemies. "And also Loth his brother, and his acquisition he brought back," that is, the External Man, and all things that are his; "and also the women and the people," that is, goods as well as truths.

     AFTER those combats the evil and false submitted itself: "And there came forth the king of Sodom to meet him after he returned from smiting Kedorlaomer, to the vale of Shave, this is the King's vale," the "vale of Shaveh" signifying the goods of the External Man, and the "King's vale," its truths.

     THE LORD'S Internal Man in the Interior, or the Divine in the Rational is "Malkizedech," from whom is the benediction after combats. The Internal Man inflows into the Interior, either by means of Celestials or of Spirituals. The Internal Man in the LORD was JEHOVAH Himself; the Interior Man, when purified after temptation-combats, was also made Divine and JEHOVAH, likewise also the External. But now when He was in a state of temptation-combats, and not so purified by the temptation-combats, it is as to celestial, called "Malkizedech," while from the state of Peace it is called "king of Shalem," of whom it is said that he "brought forth bread," that is, celestials and recreation thence, and "wine," that is, spirituals and recreation thence; "and he was Priest," that is, the holy of love, "to GOD MOST HIGH," that is, to the Internal Man Who is JEHOVAH. "And he blessed him," and his blessing involves the annunciation and preaching of the conjunction of the LORD'S Human Essence with His Divine. "He blessed him" signifies the fruition of celestial and spiritual things, which comes from His Internal to His Interior Man ("Blessed be Abram to GOD MOST HIGH"), when the Internal Man or JEHOVAH is about to be conjoined with the Interior and Exterior ("Possessor of the heavens and the earth").
     The Internal Man, JEHOVAH Himself, Who is here called "God Most High," is called "Possessor of the heavens and the earth," before the plenary conjunction or union is effected, that is, Possessor of all things, which are with the Interior and the Exterior man. "And blessed be GOD MOST HIGH, Who hath given over thine enemies into thine hand."
     And from this victory He had remains or states of good and truth from combats ("and he gave him tithes of all"). Remains are all the states of love and charity, hence all the states of innocence and peace, with which man is gifted; man is gifted with these states from infancy, but less by degrees as man proceeds to adult age; but when man is being regenerated, then he receives new Remains in addition to the former ones, thus new life. Remains acquired in temptation-combats are those that are meant here-they are all the celestial things of love which the LORD acquired to Himself by continual combats and victories, by which He was continually united to the Divine Essence, until His Human Essence likewise became LOVE, or the Esse of life, that is, JEHOVAH.

     THOROUGHLY vanquished, the evil and infernal spirits sought life, nor cared they aught for the rest; but nothing was taken from them by the LORD, because He has no strength from their evils and falses; but they were given over to the authority of good spirits and angels: "And the king of Sodom," that is, the evil and the false that was conquered, "said to Abram," that is, the LORD'S rational, "give me the soul, and the acquisition take to thyself," that is, that He should give them life, and they would not care for the rest.

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The life which evil spirits have and desperately love; is a life of the cupidities of the love of self and of the world, hence a life' of hatreds, revenges, and cruelties; in no other life do they think that delight can be given. But answer was made ("And Abram said to the king of Edom") that such was the mind with the LORD ("I have lifted up my hand to JEHOVAH, GOD MOST HIGH"), that it was conjoined with the Internal Man ("Possessor of the heavens and the earth").
     As long as the LORD was in a state of temptations, He spoke with JEHOVAH as with another, but in proportion as His Human Essence was united to His Divine He spoke with JEHOVAH as with Himself; for in proportion as He remained in the hereditary from the mother, He was, as it were, absent from JEHOVAH, but in proportion as this was extirpated, JEHOVAH Himself was present. In the case of the LORD, a plenary conjunction or eternal union with JEHOVAH was effected by His victories, so that His Human Essence Itself is also JEHOVAH. "Abram" represented the LORD now as Victor, thus those things which were of celestial love, which He acquired to Himself by victories; and the "king of Sodom" represented the evil and the false, of which there was nothing with the LORD the Victor, or with celestial love. Hence, Abram said further to the king of Sodom, that of all things that were unclean, natural, and corporeal ("If from the thread and even to the latchet of a shoe"), nothing is with celestial love ("if I shall take of anything that is thine"), and nothing of this gives the LORD any strength ("lest thou say, I have enriched Abram"). With the evil and infernal spirits there reigns the love of self and of the world, whence they think that they are gods of the universe, and that they can do a great deal. When they are vanquished, then, although they apperceive that they can do nothing at all, they still remain in the opinion of their authority and dominion, and think that they can contribute much to the LORD'S authority and dominion, wherefore, in order that they also may reign, they offer their services to good spirits, but because that by which they think that they can effect anything is nought but evil and false, and with the LORD, or celestial love, there is nothing but good and truth, the answer was here returned to the "king of Sodom," by whom such are represented, that there is nothing of the kind with the LORD, or that the LORD has no power from the evil and false. Dominion from the evil and false is altogether contrary to the dominion from good and truth; dominion from evil and false is to will to make slaves of all, dominion from good and truth is to will to make all free; dominion from evil and false is to destroy all, but dominion from good and truth is to save all; from which it is manifest that dominion from evil and the false is of the devil, but dominion from good and truth is of the LORD. This dominion of the LORD'S is extended to the angels who fight for man in temptations. Angels were also present when the LORD was in temptation-combats and the LORD gave them from His own power the force, and, as it were, the power of fighting at the same time, for all the power that angels have is from the LORD. The angels who were with the LORD were of all the three heavens, the good spirits and angelic spirits of the first and second heavens are called "boys," and the angels of the third heaven, "men:" "Except so much as the boys have eaten, and the portion of the men who went with me, Aner, Eshkol and Mamre, these may take their portion." "Aner, Eshkol, and Mamre" signifying the goods and truths from which the "boys" and "men" fought, who are called by these names. "Let these take their portion:" the evil spirits were given over to the authority of these angels; for angels have dominion over evil and infernal spirits, but the LORD foresees and sees all and single things, and provides and disposes all and single things, governing thus in the most minute of all.

     HE to whom it is not given to know heavenly arcana may think that it was not necessary for the LORD to come into the world to fight with the hells, and by temptations admitted into Himself to overcome and vanquish them, when from Divine Omnipotence He might have subjugated them and shut them up in their hells; still it is a constant and eternal verity that unless the LORD had come into the world, and, by temptations admitted into Himself, had subjugated and utterly vanquished the hells, the human race would have perished, and they could not, otherwise, have been saved, not even those who had been on this earth from the time of the Most Ancient Church.
     Into these most grievous combats against evils and falses that have been described in this chapter, the LORD was introduced in early Boyhood,-while man is introduced into corresponding temptations in adult age, since, before that, he is not strong in understanding and judgment.
     Temptations are the means by which evils and falses are loosened and dispersed, and by which a horror for them is induced, and a conscience is given and corroborated, and thus man is regenerated; which is the I reason why those who are being regenerated are let into combats and undergo temptations; and those who do not in the life of the body, do so in the other life, if they be such that they can be regenerated; wherefore the LORD'S Church is called militant. But the LORD Alone, from His own forces, or from His own power, sustained the most cruel temptation-combats, for He was surrounded by all the hells, and continually and thoroughly overcame them. It is also the LORD Alone, who fights in the case of men who are in temptation-combats, and `Who conquers; man can, from his own power, effect nothing against evil or infernal spirits, for they cohere with the hells in such a manner that if one were surmounted, another would rush in, and thus to eternity; they are like the sea which presses upon the every part of a dyke, if a breach or small passage were to be made in the dyke, the sea would never cease to rush through and inundate until nothing were left remaining. Similar would be the case, unless the LORD Alone sustained the temptation-combats with man.
     "Allelula, Salvation and glory, and honor and power be to the LORD our GOD."-Amen.
CONVERSATIONS ON EDUCATION 1889

CONVERSATIONS ON EDUCATION              1889

     CONJUNCTION.

     [Continued.]

     WHEN the heavenly things of good and truth appear in the ideas of thought as so many images formed in the mind by instruction, there is effected a communication of the internal of man with his external. And as such ideas are open on the one hand to Heaven, and on the other to the World, being formed in the rational, which is intermediate between the spiritual and natural minds, there is brought about a communication, and from this a conjunction of Heaven and the Earth. This early and very general communication of the Divine with man is represented by what is related of Jacob in Genesis xxviii, 10, 11, where it is written: "And Jacob went forth from Beersheba, and went to Charan.

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And he lighted upon a place, and passed the night there, because the sun was set, and he took up the stones of the place, placed them under the things for the head, and lay down in that place." - Concerning this placing of the stones, we are instructed that-

     "It signifies communication with the Divine, of a most common kind, as appears from the signification of 'under the things for the head, or the things for the neck, which is a communication with externals, thus a most common [communication], for that the back of the neck or the neck, is communication of the interiors with the exteriors, or what is the same thing, of the superiors with the inferiors, and thence conjunction, may be seen in n. 3542, 3603. Hence, those things which are under the back of the neck, or the neck-that is, the things of the neck, signify this communication of inmost or Divine things with things outermost, which communication is also most common; for the external is respectively common and the most external is most common, because the single thing of the interiors appear as one, thus as a common in the exteriors. These things are also represented by the ladder placed on the earth whose head reached to heaven, and the Angels of God ascended and descended upon it."- A. C. 3695.

     Such a communication of Heaven with Earth, or of the inmost Divine with the outermost of man, takes place in infancy and childhood in state of tranquillity, signified by Jacob's "lying down there." And because the storing up of remains in fullness depends on this communication, it is evident that the longer a state of peace in externals, called tranquility, can be maintained, the more full will be the remains of interior good laid up within the child. And tranquillity is maintained by freedom from thought of self, and care for self, produced by the child's entire dependence upon parents and teachers, by complete trust in them and their forethought, and by confidence in their doing all that needs to be done. Man passes out of the tranquil moods of childhood when worldly cares and anxieties begin to take the place of his dependence on others; for when these enter into him, the cupidities of the love of self and the world become active, and a long train of falsities occupies the mind. In the degree in which these latter states prevail, less of good from Heaven is received to be stored up for future use, for the communication with Heaven becomes restricted, the formation of true ideas of thought is obstructed, and conjunction with the Divine is rendered more remote. (See A. C. 3696.)
     Without "a ladder set upon the Earth, with its head in Heaven, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon it," without such a perpetual communication with Heaven, man could receive no instruction, no knowledge of truth and good, no remains of heavenly things, no means of spiritual living. For in every one from birth, and by inheritance from his natural parents and ancestors, there is "evil so accumulated, that as to himself, he is nothing but evil." In every one there is a humanity created to receive good and truth, but ruined as to understanding and will; as now procreated, he wills no good, but only evil, and thinks no truth, but only falsity. Such a nature there is in all men from inheritance, and from this nature every infant born into the world grows naturally "to love himself better than others, to will better for himself than for others, to desire the things which are another's, to be regardful of himself alone, and not of others except for the sake of himself"

     "Because he desires these things for himself he calls them goods and likewise truths; and, further, if any one injures, or tries to injure, him as to these goods and truths as he calls them, he hates him, he also from his mind burns with revenge and desires his destruction, and likewise seeks it, and perceives a delight in this; and this the more that he has actually confirmed himself in those things; that is to say, the more frequently he has actually exercised them. Such a person, when he comes into the other life, has like cupidities, the same nature remains that he had contracted in the world by actual life, and that very delight is manifestly perceived; wherefore be cannot be in any heavenly society, in which every one wills better to others than to himself; but [he comes] into some infernal society, which is in a similar delight. This is the nature which is to be extirpated while he lives in the world, which cannot be effected except by regeneration from the LORD; that is to say, thereby that he receives another will altogether, and thence another understanding; in other words, that he is made new as to those two faculties."- A. C. 3701.

     And because man's inherited nature, such as has been described, cannot be extirpated, cannot be torn up trunk and root, except by a gradual return of his own volition and rationality to a state of infancy, in which he receive truths from the LORD, his Divine Father, these truths have to be presented to him in a form and mode accommodated to his capacity-i. e., to the ideas and forms of thought existing with him. Truth cannot be introduced as it were suddenly, any more than an eye, long accustomed to darkness, can at once see and distinguish objects when brought into the light. As we have seen, there can be no reception and application of truth without a preceding accommodation, effected by the form of its clothing and the mode of its presentation. Both, the clothing and presentation of truth at first partake in a great measure of the things belonging to' the previous natural life and its fallacies, and have apparently little of the Divine. The Divine can only be introduced by slow degrees, little by little, as man's own thought recedes, and is led to look away from self and the world to the LORD and Heaven. What man learns in this way is the' truth contained in the vessels by which it is introduced, and which come into contact and connection with what exists in the external mind, from the old state. Those truths themselves penetrate more deeply; and since they are of a quality to admit into themselves something of the new life and its affections, because they are less remote from the Divine, they serve for the formation of the new will in the understanding. It is well to be noted, however, that the man who is regenerating does not learn these things of truth barely as sciences, but as life, for he does these truths from the new will which the LORD is insinuating, whilst he is in utter ignorance; and in proportion as he receives of that new will, in the same proportion he also receives of those cognitions, and brings them into act. But in proportion as he does not receive of the new will, in that proportion he may, indeed, learn such things, but he does not bring them into act, because they have respect only to science, and not to life.
LITERATURE 1889

LITERATURE              1889

     THE orderly, harmonious, and therefore beautiful and pleasing expression of thought, which constitutes Literature, and is the object of the study of Literature, is of so great general importance that it is assigned a place in the Word, where the setting in order of the truths of faith, and of the goods of love in the natural, is treated of in general, in the ultimate state in which all things are together. Where Jacob is recorded as calling his sons together, before his death, and indicating to them what would happen to them in the postremity of days, he says of one of them:
     "Naphthali is a hind set free, giving words of elegance?"
     Of his saying it is written in the Arcana Coelestia:
     "'Naphthali' signifies the state after temptations; "a hind set free' signifies the freedom of the natural affection; giving words of elegance signifies gladness of mind.

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     "'Naphthali,' that this signifies the state after temptations, appears from the representation of Naphthali, that it is temptation, and also the state after temptations (n. 3927, 3928); Naphthali was also named from strugglings, which, in the spiritual sense, are temptations.
     "'A hind set free,' that this signifies the freedom of the natural affection, appears from the signification of 'hind,' that it is the natural affection, and from the signification of being 'set free,' that it is freedom, for when a captive mind is set free, then it has liberty; the liberation from a state of temptations is compared to a hind set free, because a hind is a forest animal, loving liberty above all else, like unto which, also, is the natural, for this loves to be in the delight of its affections, and hence in freedom, for freedom is what is of the affection.
     "'Giving words of elegance,' that this signifies the gladness of the mind, appears from the signification of 'words of elegance,' that it is gladness of the mind, for all speech proceeds from the mind, and when the mind is glad and cheerful, it speaks elegance; that after temptations there is gladness and jocundity, may be seen at n. 1992, 3696, 4572, 5628" (A. C. 6411-6414).
     In these words of the Divine Revelation is set forth the governing principle of true Literature. In order that this may be elegant, it is necessary that the mind should first have passed through the struggles of temptation in which the Internal fights for the mastery with the External, the Spiritual with the Natural, the Heavenly with the Worldly, Good with Evil, Truth with Falsity. When the victory has been won, ends can be clearly seen, means become facile, and the effect comes into existence in the form of a powerful and elegant composition. I say "powerful," because "Naphthali" signifies, in the highest sense, the LORD'S own Power and with this Divine Power which the LORD acquired to Himself in His Divine Human, He is present with the author of any composition who engages in his work from a love for the good, and for the true which is the beautiful. Those who have given the subject some thought, in the world, agree that effective writing must possess the elements of clearness, fullness, and power. But no man can write with real clearness, fullness, and power unless he recognize the principle announced in the saying concerning Naphthali, and unless he not only recognize but adopt it, and make it actually his own. For, whence is clearness but from the LORD'S Light of Wisdom? Whence is fullness, but from His Infinity? And whence is Power, but from the Proper Power of the Divine Human?
     If, as Newchurchmen, we acknowledge this origin of the three essentials of style, then it is our bounden duty in our function as writers, and as lovers of literature, to open our minds to their reception from their Divine Origin, and this can be done only by the temptations signified by Naphthahi.
     The Power which the LORD acquired was by continual victories. From earliest infancy He receded more and more from the corporeal and mundane. His very first animadvertence when an infant, was that He must recede from exterior bodily and worldly things, and from interior bodily and worldly things (A. C. 1407). The literature of the day is, in principle, Corporeal, and the study of rhetoric is but the study of the mere body, disconnected from the soul. The only soul acknowledged is that which proximately adheres to the words-their proximately interior sense-but "what words contain proximately is the mere corporeal, and hence it is manifest, that they who place elegance only in equivocal expressions, and in eloquence and poesy, are only corporeal" (S. D. 1224). They study effects, and strive for effect, and lose sight entirely of ends. They seek the bubble, reputation, and concentrated all in self, are totally devoid of the consciousness that there exists a neighbor to whom their efforts should be directed; even Good itself, which is the End and Origin, the First and Last of all that men can study and strive and live for. And to warn Newchurchmen, lest they should, in ignorance, pursue the same course, which leads away from the LORD into the phantasy of darkness, He has caused this to be written for their guidance:
     "Concerning the efficacy from Diversity of Style.
     "It has been shown me to the life, how some, who study only grace of style, and continually keep their mind on the brilliancy, and hence, applausibility of style, but not on the matter, only that hence he who writes may be celebrated, because he treats of sublime things, thus that he continually then reflects upon his own praise, and pre-eminence from style; that such a style effects nothing with those who are more interior, and that such contemn others, and such a style in which the thing is explained fully to the comprehension, whose style is such that the words or expressions follow from the goodness of the heart, which is the emendation of the neighbor, and his information; then the matters form the style,-[the style] of every one according to his gift; but with those in whom the style forms the matter, so that from the style the matter is referred to, it has no efficacy, and the matter does not govern the style" (S. D. 2993).
     The grand aim of every writer, then, should be the "emendation of the neighbor and his information." If he will set this aim distinctly before him, and follow it in his writing, the means for accomplishing it-the style will be formed, not of itself, but by the creating and forming Divine Truth which inflows through this love into his natural affection of writing.
     The first thing that ought to engage the attention of the author is the object that is to underlie any one of his literary efforts.
     In regard to fiction, the principal forms of which, at the present day, are "tales, novels, romances, and dialogues," the principle that they should be for the "emendation of the neighbor, and his information" is recognized in the world of letters-although, of course, only on the moral and civil, and not on the spiritual and celestial planes. Thus, a well-known writer on Rhetoric says:
     "In the hand of judicious writers, who feel the responsibility of their position, fiction becomes an important instrument of good. It furnishes one of the best channels for conveying instruction, for showing the errors into which we are betrayed by our passions, for rendering virtue attractive and vice odious. Accordingly, we find that the wisest of men, in all ages, have used fables and parables as vehicles of moral instruction. It must be observed, however, that, while fiction as shown above, may be an effective instrument of good, it is no less powerful an agent of evil, when diverted from its proper use, and made to teach a false moral or pander to the baser passions. No ordinary responsibility, therefore, rests on the writer in this department of composition."
     The story is the earliest form of composition; it is the form in which the first revelation of God to man has been preserved throughout the ages and handed down to us.

56


Of this we have the teaching that "As to the style of the most Ancient Church, their manner of expression was such that when they named earthly and worldly things, they thought of spiritual and celestial things, which represented, wherefore they not only expressed them by representatives, but also reduced them into a certain series, as it were historical, that they might be the more living, which was most delectable to them. This style was meant when Channa prophesied, saying, 'Speak ye high, high, let the ancient come forth from your mouth' (I Sam. ii, 3). Those representatives are called in David, 'Enigmas from antiquity' (Psalm lxxviii, 2-4)." (A. C. 66.)
     Elsewhere we are taught that at the time of the Noahtic Church that style was most grateful to them, which involved all things with types, which they arrayed in an historical, form; "and the better they cohered in an historic sense, by so much the more did they agree with their genius; for in those ancient days they did not indulge so much in the sciences as at the present day, but in profound thoughts, from which were such offspring: this was the wisdom of the ancients" (A. C. 605).
     And more particularly are we taught concerning them as follows:
     "The most Ancient manner of writing was representative of things by persons and by expressions, by which they understood altogether other things; profane writers then arranged their historicals in this way, even things which were of civil and moral life; and indeed, in such a way, that nothing at all was such as it was written, as to the letter, but something else was understood by them even to such an extent, that they presented any affections whatever as gods and goddesses, for whom the heathen afterward instituted Divine worship; as may be known to every literary man, for such ancient books still exist; this manner of writing they derived from the Most Ancients who lived before the flood, who represented to themselves heavenly and Divine things by such as were conspicuous on the earth and in the world, and thus they filled the mind and the animus with enjoyable and delightful things when they hooked at the objects of the universe, especially those which were beautiful from form and order," etc. (A. C. 1756).
     In Arcana Coelestia, n. 9942, the Arabs, Syrians, and Greeks are instanced as nations without the Church with whom there was this manner of writing, and it is said, "that such a style with those who were out of the Church was at that time most in use, and almost the only [style], is seen from the fables of those writers who were without the Church, in which they involved morals or such things as are of the affections and of life."
     In the ancient manner of writing, there enter the elements both of the tale and of the poem, for poetry is not necessarily metrical composition, it is "that form of speech, written or oral, in which the imagination largely enters, and which abounds in metaphors, similes, personifications, and other figures"-in short, which is representative. True poetry requires a knowledge of correspondences.
     In a tale, or in any other composition, we must set clearly before us a definite object that shall make for the emendation of the neighbor and his information. This requires first of all, an intelligent and earnest study of those Divine Writings in which alone the true aims and objects of life have been made known to us from the LORD. It is a mistake to imagine that to become a good and useful writer the study of the world's literature is of paramount importance. Let us not lose sight of the axiom that the "matter is to form the style." We cannot obtain the real substance from profane writers. For this we have the Only Source. Herein do we meet Naphthali face to face for the first time. The dominion of the Writings over the world's literature must first be acknowledged fully, freely, unequivocally. When this is acknowledged, then the object of any one composition will be derived from the Writings, and will have a spiritual and celestial soul in it from the Divine. Then will be learned the orderly grouping of the goods and truths of which the composition is to consist, and then will they fall into expressions of grace and power, for "Naphthali is a hind set free, discoursing words of, elegance."
     As a necessary consequence of this first relation, it follows that the object which we must have in view must be a spiritual, not a natural one. To describe things as they are and appear in the world, even if this be done in a beautiful style, is of the world worldly; it is truly low, not high. It is like the life of a man who indulges merely in the business and society life of this world without an ulterior aspiration. As the world and what is in it was created to invest the spiritual world, so the writer, when describing things of the world, can do so legitimately only to invest spiritual truths and goods. Here Naphthahi re-appears. But the conflict must be waged if we wish to secure the prize. It may not be an easy matter: the conflict may be long and arduous, but we must enter it with a stout heart, confident that ours is a just cause and that the LORD, the Divine Naphthali, will carry us through it successfully.
     The subtle serpent that found its way into the garden of Eden is abroad in the New Church writer's paradise as well. But it is of a more refined subtlety, and, therefore, its dangerous blandishments are the more readily yielded to. It here appears in the form of the Imagination. It may well startle us to make the discovery, and happy we, if, being startled, we awaken fully to the realization.
     The cherished idol of Old Church literature is but a sensual thing, an interior sensual thing, useful indeed when acknowledging its subordinate position, but destructive when it assumes the dominion. We readily fall a prey to the pleasures of the imagination, and permit them to overmaster us, and carry us along as the rapid stream carries the boat over its course-now through green pastures decked with smiling flowers, where children disport themselves with the gamboling lambs and kids, anon through majestic forests the chosen cloisters of beasts and birds, and, again, by cultivated fields of grain with their sea of golden waves,-by the haunt of hermit, and the busy mart of human life. Yet, wherefore the journey? To abandon one's self to the caprice of the current will subject us to a thousand perils: to run aground here, to be forced upon a rock there, or to be drawn into a vortex elsewhere. And, even if possibly the current bring us safely through its entire course, it goes not on forever, it empties into the wide ocean, and there destruction is sure to overtake the frail bark. But, with an object in view, with hand on helm, and reliance on the breath of the LORD to fill our sail, we shall steer clear of lurking dangers, and carry with us to our appointed goal the rich stores which we take in on our way.
     When we allow Fancy to have its way, it carries us often to things that partake of passion, vice, and folly-away from what is pure, innocent, and pacific; and the more so because the former manifest a greater power than the latter. But we must be mindful that the Divine Truth and the Divine Good in the highest planes are pacific and altogether of no disturbance, but that when they are let down toward lower planes, they by degrees become impacific and at last tumultuous; this is described as follows by the LORD to Elias, when he was in Horeb: "Go forth and stand in the mountain, before JEHOVAH; behold JEHOVAH is passing by; thus like a wind great and strong, tearing asunder the mountains, and breaking in pieces the rocks before JEHOVAH.

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Not in the wind is JEHOVAH; then after the wind an earthquake, yet not in the earthquake is JEHOVAH; after the earthquake a fire, not in the fire is JEHOVAH; at last, after the fire, a voice of silence, thin" (I Kings xix, 11, 12.) (A. C. 8823).
     As, then, the LORD is not in the lower tumultuous regions, but in those that are higher, serene, quiet, and peaceful-and as the endeavor in all literary efforts should be to be as near the LORD as possible, therefore did the ancient writers "represent to themselves heavenly and Divine things by such things as were conspicuous on the earth and in the world; and thus they filled the mind and the animus with enjoyable and delightful things, when they looked at the objects of the universe, especially those which are beautiful from form and order"; therefore, also, is elegance of writing said to come after the conflicts of temptations, when the LORD has conquered and reigns in the soul, "when the mind is glad and cheerful."
     This, then, should be the object of the New Church writer: to portray the good and the beautiful which is the true. He must, indeed, be cognizant of the evil and the false that exists on earth, but this should be set forth as what is to be avoided, detested, and shunned, and as something which will the more clearly show forth by contrast what is good and true.
Notes and Reviews 1889

Notes and Reviews              1889

     Copies of the bust of Swedenborg executed by the Danish New Church sculptor, N. N. Alling, are now on sale. Some of these copies are made of plaster and some of fine terra-cotta. The price ranges from $6.00 to $12.00.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     THE New Church Reading Circle of the Western New Church Union, and the Parish Register of the Chicago (Van Buren Street) Society have been consolidated, and are published monthly at fifty cents a year.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     AN "extra" has been published with the March Tidings, containing a defense of the Doctrines of the New Church, by Mr. Allbutt against the Rev. Dr. Parsons, of Toronto, and the Rev. T. De Witt Talmage, of Brooklyn.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     THE Massachusetts New Church Union has published Part II of Songs, Hymns, and Carols, selected and arranged O. B. Brown. The selection has evidently been made with care, but it may be questioned whether it is proper for men to add to the imagery of events narrated in the Scriptures, as is done abundantly in this little collection.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     THE "Reprint of the Early Journals of the General Convention of the New Jerusalem" furnishes the Church with an invaluable history of the early infancy of the New Church in America. It is proposed to reprint the first seventeen Journals in three parts. The first part contains Journals one to eight, covering the period of 1817 to 1826.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     THE Sixteenth Annual Report of the Board of Managers of the Swedenborg Publishing Association gives an interesting account of last year's work. They have circulated about 216,000 copies of their organ, The New Christianity, and at the time of the report had 1,366 paying subscribers. They sold 6,171 volumes, an increase of forty per cent. over the previous year.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     IN the New Church Reading Circle and Parish Register for March, the attempt is made to show that the three rows of seats draped in different colors, upon which the clergy were seated in the Council (described in T. C. R. 188, A. R. 962 and B. E. 120) have no bearing on the degrees in the ministry, but that they "show at best what the clergymen had been used to" in the natural world. It would be interesting and valuable to know what clergymen in the Old Church "have been used to" sit on three rows of seats draped respectively red, blue, and white, when convened in Council. As the N. C. R. C. and P. R. seems to know, it is naturally looked to for the desired information.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     THE Rev. Howard C. Dunham has contributed to the Magazine a sketch of the life of Oliver Gerrish who passed away lately. The hand of the Divine Providence is very manifest in the leading of men to the New Church, and narratives of this nature therefore tend to confirm the doctrine concerning the Divine Providence. Of the manner in which Mr. Gerrish came to the Church, Mr. Dunham writes as follows:
     "His marriage was a means of introducing Mr. Gerrish to the New Church. On coming to Portland he attended the First parish and apparently was well satisfied. But a few months after his marriage, his brother-in-law, Dr. Little, came across the little work entitled Doctrine of the Sacred Scripture, by Emanuel Swedenborg, which Mr. John L. Megguier, a lawyer, had brought from New Gloucester. To Dr. Little this work was indeed a revelation. . . . He at once sent to Boston for additional New Church literature and soon became a confirmed receiver of the clear, rational Doctrines. . . . As he passed the jewelry store, the doctor would often drop in and unfold to Mr. Gerrish the new truths which were such a delight to himself. But Mr. Gerrish was not to be easily captured. The late William Senter once told me that these conversations were very warm and earnest, and often not a little amusing to Mr. Gerrish's apprentices, including the late Abner Lowell and himself. But Dr. Little and the Doctrines of the New Church were destined to be victorious. Messrs. Gerrish, Lowell, and Senter all became members of the New Church, as well as others who were at work with Mr. Gerrish.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     AN excellent sermon by the Rev. C. Griffiths, on "The Separation of the Wheat from the Tares, and the Formation of a New Church," was published in Morning Light for February 9th.
     The sermon is well worth the careful perusal of every Newchurchman, and ought, for that purpose, be reprinted in tract form. The following paragraphs will show the trend of the sermon:
     "What, then, is the proper attitude for the New Church to assume toward the Old? And does the organized New Church fully and exclusively represent the Church of the New Jerusalem? The organized New Church does fully and exclusively represent the Church of the New Jerusalem. The simple good in the Christian Church are members of that body. They are called in the Word and in the Writings wheat, but are never regarded as members of the New Jerusalem. The invisible Church of the New Jerusalem is the New Church in the New Heavens, and these simple good spirits are certainly not members of that. As to their spirits, they are conjoined with spirits in the other life belonging to the old communions, and not to spirits inhabiting the New Heavens. The 'wheat' will belong to the New Church when it is separated from the 'tares.' The simple good spirits in the Old Church will become members of the New Jerusalem when they believe that the LORD is the only God, that He has affected His Second Coming by the revelation of the Spiritual Sense of the Word, and when they come through the gateway of enlightened conviction into the fold of the New Jerusalem.

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     "As to those few persons who accept the Doctrines of the New Church, and still remain in connection with the Christian Church, they of course are of the New, so far as they intelligently receive the essential Doctrines of the New Church. At best, however, in all such cases their reception of the Heavenly Doctrines is only partial, for a full reception of the new wine of holy truth would necessitate new vessels or bottles. The proper attitude for all to assume who receive the distinctive truths of a distinctively New Age is plainly stated in the letter of the Word, viz.: 'Come out of her, My people, that ye be not partaker of her sins, and receive not of her plagues.' (Rev. xviii, 4). There is no middle course. The new and old doctrines cannot co-exist in the same mind (T. C. R. 647; B. E. 103).
     "The LORD either has, or He has not come, He is the only God, or there are other gods beside Him. The Holy City New Jerusalem is now in the act of descending, or the First Christian Church is still the true Church of the LORD."
SUNDAY IN THE IMMANUEL CHURCH 1889

SUNDAY IN THE IMMANUEL CHURCH       EDWARD C. BOSTOCK       1889

     Communicated.

     [Inasmuch as in this Department Correspondents have an opportunity to express their individual opinions, be they in favor of the principles on which New Church Life is conducted or, adverse to them, the Editor does not hold himself responsible for the views that are published therein.]


     "AT the last meeting of the General Church of Pennsylvania, the subject of support of the priestly office was freely discussed, and the conclusion seemed well-nigh unanimous that it was most proper to make this an act of Divine worship. The Bishop spoke of the usefulness of making it the first act on entering the church.     
     The discussion is now bearing fruit in the Immanuel Church of Chicago. In the month of February the Pastor addressed the following letter to his parishioners:

     "SUPPORT OF THE PRIESTLY OFFICE AS AN ACT OF DIVINE WORSHIP.

     "External Worship in General: Man is prone to love the things of this world above the things of heaven, and to immerse his thoughts and affections in them. As a means of withdrawing the mind of man from self, and the world, and of elevating his affections and thoughts to the Loan, and to eternal life the LORD has prescribed daily external worship, and has set aside one day in seven, as a day of rest from labor, and for instruction in the truths of the WORD, together with worship of the LORD. Man ought to compel himself to engage in external worship, for by it he is Prepared to resist the evils of the love of self and of the world. In order to derive the full benefit of the Sunday worship, we ought to lay aside thoughts of the world; and as far as possible be present at the beginning of the worship, or a little before.
     "One of the acts of Divine worship is the support of the Office of the Priesthood, which is the LORD'S Office in the Church, as an acknowledgment that all we receive is from the LORD.
     "It is the especial purpose of this paper to advise the Church of a change in the manner of the support of the Priestly Office, and of the reasons for the change.
     "Beginning with the first Sunday in March, the collection-box will not be passed at any of the services of the Church. Nor will the pastor, as heretofore, receive a stated salary. Instead of these, there will be a box placed in the front of the church, into which young and old may put their offerings. At the close of service this offering will be brought forward and placed in the chancel with appropriate words, as an offering from the people to the LORD in acknowledgment that all that we receive is from Him. This offering will be used for the support of the Priestly Office.
     "The other uses of the Church will be supported, as before, by monthly subscription.
     "This change is made that every one may make a freewill offering from his means, as an act of Divine worship entering the church.
     "It is to be done on entering the church so that the first act may be an ultimate acknowledgment that what has been received during the week is from the LORD and is the LORD'S. The Priestly Office is to be thus supported, that all may make a distinction between this use and the support of those other uses of the Church which are necessary but more external. This office represents the work of the LORD in the salvation of the human race.
     "Offerings ought to be systematic and regular. It is well for each one to set aside a percentage of his income for this purpose, and to offer it regularly as one of the acts of his worship. Then as his income increased his offering would increase, and as his income decreased his offering would decrease.
     "In the Jewish Church they were required to give one-tenth of their increase for this purpose; and this represented remains, and that all is from the LORD. In our day each one ought to decide for himself what percentage to give, from rational judgment according to his means and circumstances. If circumstances change, and there seems good reason for increasing or decreasing the proportion, let him do so. But let him carefully, set aside some proportion in a regular way for this most important use.
     "When upon entering the church he has set aside the state of the week, and has made acknowledgment that all that he has, be it spiritual or natural good, is from the LORD, then let him endeavor to keep his affections and thoughts engaged upon worship of the LORD till the close of worship. Thought and conversation concerning the things of the world are not appropriate from the beginning to the end of worship.
     "Hoping that every member of the Church will give this subject earnest thought, and that this change will promote the spiritual welfare of the Church, I am, affectionately,
     "Your Pastor,
          "EDWARD C. BOSTOCK."

     On the LORD'S Day, March 3d, the practice was begun. The box is made of red-wood, and is a cube, six inches each way. It rests on a pedestal thirty inches high, in the middle of the aisle, near the front of the church, and presents a very nice appearance. Each person, on entering (and they all came before the organist began the voluntary), deposited his offering, and then took his seat in perfect silence. The little ones were held up by their parents to put in their offerings. After the opening voluntary, the organ tones were again heard, but soft, and our Pastor entered the chancel from the robing-room, drew back the curtains in front of the tabernacle, opened the doors of the ark, and as he came forward with the Word, the people arose and softly sang an introit, while he placed the Word opened upon the altar, and then, returning, brought forward The True Christian Religion, and then Conjugial Love in Latin, and placed them open upon the altar with the Sacred Scripture, and when the introit was finished, read the opening sentence of the service.
     At the close of the service he repeated the words, "Give unto the LORD, O ye families of the people, give unto the LORD glory and strength, give unto the LORD the glory of His Name. Bring an offering and come into His courts." Then, while the people softly sang the eighteenth selection, a member of the Church Council went slowly to the box and brought it reverently forward to the Pastor, who received it, and turning toward the altar said. "The eyes of all wait upon Thee, and Thou givest them their meat in its season: Thou openest Thine hand, and satisfiest every living thing." He then placed it upon a pedestal behind the altar (a duplicate of the one in the aisle). The prayer and benediction followed, and while all remained standing the Priest put away the sacred Books, one at a time, the organ being played softly in the meantime.
     The sphere was a very affecting one, and seemed to be undeniably a confirmation of the truth in regard to this new act of worship, which our beloved Bishop so clearly brought before us at the late meeting of the General Church of Pennsylvania.
     E. H.

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LETTER FROM GREAT BRITAIN 1889

LETTER FROM GREAT BRITAIN       JAMES CALDWELL       1889

     AN article in Morning Light for February 2d contains some very common fallacies, which keep cropping out pretty regularly. The subject is "Reason and Reasoning." Reason, or the rational principle, is defined as the "power of seeing interior truth as it is exhibited in the phenomena of personal experience." "The understanding applied to the arrangement and development of acquired knowledge." From the fuller explanation of the writer's meaning, it appears that no other "personal experience" or "acquired knowledge" is meant than that obtainable in ordinary life, and at the schools. But the rational principle is not formed from such scientifics. "Man, like the earth, can produce nothing good unless the knowledges of faith are first sown in him, whereby he may know what is to be believed and done. It is the office of the understanding to hear the Word, and of the will to do it" (A. C. 44). "Knowledge of faith from the Word"-these are the "facts" which alone avail a man who is regenerating. A "personal experience" of these makes all the difference between a spiritual man and a man who is merely, civil and moral (H. H. 530). This is the kind of knowledge which has to be acquired and by the "arrangement and development" of which time rational principle is formed.
     Again, the, writer says, the New Church is distinguished from the "dispensation . . . which has just closed," in that it appeals to "human reason for evidence (?) of the truth of its teachings, instead of neglecting or silencing it as was formerly [why "formerly?"] the practice." Further, "It presents its treasures of information concerning spiritual mysteries with the calm conviction that their intrinsic value is a sufficient recommendation." Doubtless a good many New Church writers and teachers address their arguments to such human reason as the writer describes, but surely not for evidence of the truth of the Doctrines. The fatuous practice of presenting the "treasures" to such human reason on their merits is certainly very widespread, but let us hope on. There are at least a few teachers who present the Doctrines as they were intended to be presented, namely, as the LORD'S Own Divine information, and as the very Truth, whether they commend themselves for their intrinsic worth or not.
     One more extract. "Truth nowhere exists as a mere, abstraction." This is an ancient sophism. It dies hard. It is like telling a thirsty man that there is no such thing as water unless he drinks it. How would this gem of wisdom strike the aforesaid human reason?


     The Society at Bristol, it is encouraging to see, is awakening to the "necessity of true teaching in doctrine, and the great advantage to be derived from a careful study of the New Church Writings."

     At the annual meeting of the Leeds society, a "proposal that only unfermented wine should be used at the sacramental service was withdrawn, because though it would not exclude any of the present communicants, it might prove a bar to members in future." The fact emphasied by italics is to be regretted. As to the withdrawal of the resolution, this looks like a generous proceeding; but it might just as well have been passed. For if ever the order should be reversed at Leeds, the resolution could be rescinded; and in no other circumstances could conceive of a Newchurchman who believes that genuine wine is the proper element to use in this holiest act of worship, participating in the celebration.

     A Canon of the church which, according to some liberal Newchurchmen, is rapidly becoming "New Church," according to others, is already a branch of the New Church, has been giving his views on the subject of evil. He says, "Malicious evil is Satanic" (with a capital S). He thinks there are few devils amongst us. The great bulk of the sins committed to-day are sins of ignorance or weakness.-The Church making apologies for sin is, a sight for the gods. Surely the day is come when he that killeth a man thinks he does God a service. What doctrine could more effectually kill all aspirations for eternal life in the breasts of sinful men? As children we were wont to plead, when caught in mischief, that we "didn't know," or we "couldn't help it;" but our wise mothers didn't spare us on that account. But Mother Church is going to accept the plea from her children. The canon must have studied morality at the same school as Gilbert's barrister, who asked the jury to deal tenderly with the young man whose weakness it was to-

     "Love this young lady to-day,
     And love that young lady to-morrow."

     LIVERPOOL, February, 1889.
     JAMES CALDWELL.
HUMAN BRAIN 1889

HUMAN BRAIN              1889

     IT has been said by an anatomist that "the human mind which has carried its investigations even into the Heavens has not yet been able to comprehend the nature of the instrument by which its own operations are performed, and its powers seem to abandon it as soon as it turns its attention to the organ in which it resides." We cannot be surprised at these words, for the scientists of to-day, as we are taught, are in merely natural lumen; and the human brain, being the interior of the highest form of creation, can be viewed from the internal alone. So long as natural men remain in facts they can proceed, but by their servile belief in matter alone they have altogether closed the internal, from which only can causes and principles be seen. Therefore they cannot understand the operations and functions of the human brain. It is from the internal we must commence an investigation of that wonderful masterpiece of nature.
     Man lives by continual influx from the LORD. This influx, which is spiritual, can be directly received only by the finest substances of man's body, which thus act as an intermediate between the LORD and Heaven, and man; and, being recipient of the soul, are the proximate causes of all things in the body. What is this finest substance? What is this receptacle of soul? All facts, all reason, all nature, point to the brain, and in that to its inmosts. From the brain, and then from its inmosts is the whole body formed. That this is the case is evident from several things. First, because man when he thinks perceives that his thoughts are in the brain. Second, because in the region of the brain are the noblest senses, as the sight, hearing, etc. Third, because the brain is above, and it is the law of order that the higher is interior to the lower. Fourth, because, as Anatomy proves, the brain in the foetus is the first formed. Malpighi, in his observations concerning the chick in the egg, says that after twelve hours of incubation the chick came in sight with a "large head and two rows of vertebrae."
     We are taught in the Writings that fibres proceed from their first, forms in the brain until at last they become tendons, also fibres with vessels proceed from their first forms in the brain until they become cartilages and bones; upon these they may rest and become permanent.

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Thus is the whole body formed from the brain. The body is, therefore, a mere effect.
     Effects are causes clothed so as to be operative in a lower sphere, therefore a cause must be in its effect continually; for if it is not, how can there be effect? As a consequence, all things that exist must do so from the Esse of Life-the LORD. How influx from the LORD continually flows into the brain and how the brain continually flows into the body shall now be shown.
     The brain consists of two substances: medullary fibres and cortical glands. In the latter do all the former have their origin, each fibrilla from its own cortical gland. Therefore the receptacle of the soul must be within the cortical substance. Anatomists have discovered by the microscope that within the cortical glands is a pure medullary and cortical substance. Within this, again, we may know from general principles, is another still purer little brain. The cortex of this, which we may call the inmost brain, is probably the organic receptacle of the soul. I say probably, because I have met no authority for the statement in the Writings* There may indeed be a still more interior cortex to that which I suppose to be the inmost; but it seems to me more probable that there are but three degrees of each cortical gland, corresponding to the celestial, spiritual, and natural, respectively-to the trine which exists in all things. For we are taught that three in successive order are necessary to the existence of one. However it may be as to the number of degrees contained in the cortical substance of the brain, of one thing we are certain-that time inmost cortex is the organic receptacle of the soul. This receptacle is called by Swedenborg, in his work on The Brain, the Intellectorium, "Since," he says, "it is in the highest apex of nature, and cannot be indicated by the same,-terms employed in describing inferior substances; it may not be named a sensory, for it feels not but understands, wherefore I shall call it the intellectorium."
     * See The Divine Love and Wisdom, n. 432.-EDITOR.
     To many who have not thought on the subject, it may appear strange to talk of an organic receptacle of soul. But why strange? Because we cannot see it and its operation? The smallest insects are too small to be seen, even by the most powerful microscope, and yet they have organs by which they receive life, and soul in order that it may vivify matter, must be received by the latter, and that in some organic form. What so reasonable as that it is received in the finest substances of matter? Would any-would the most irrational man affirm that the purest cortex, which is but matter, has life in itself without any priors? The plain answer is that that substance still exists after life has fled.
     Life from the LORD flowing in through the cortex of the brain, forms the latter, as to both generals and particulars, after the pattern of Heaven. Therefore the, brain is most representative of spiritual things. The course, the operation of this influx of life is represented by the spiral and vortical forms which the brain takes. By influx into the intellectorium was man formed "in the image of God, after His likeness." The operation of this influx acting upon the finest particles which the brain inhales from the aura, manufactures in, the cortical, glands a most pure substance, called the spirituous fluid., This is the most subtle thing of nature, by it the soul is universally present in the body, for it courses through all the fibres, of which alone, as was said before, the body is made up.
     That this spirituous fluid may be sent throughout the body, there must be a constant and powerful motion with the intellectories, for it is as impossible for that fluid to be sent off without there being a motion at its fountains as it is for the blood to flow through the body without any motion of the heart. That there is constant motion in the intellectorium is moreover manifest from these considerations:-All life from the LORD produces in its recipient a reaction. Thus, there is a constant flux and reflux, and therefore motion. This is shown in the Heavens, in which there is a constant motion or respiration represented by the motion of the brain and of the heart and lungs with men. By life from the LORD flowing into the intellectorum, man continually subsists-that is to say, man is continually vivified. All vivification causes motion, therefore the intellectorium with man is in continual motion. The higher the influx of life, the higher-the more manifest-the motion in the recipient. In the mineral kingdom is the lowest form of motion. From that kingdom to man, the highest form of the animal kingdom, motion becomes more and more manifest. With man himself it can be seen with the senses, as in the case of the heart and lungs and of the brain. The absolute necessity of a knowledge of the motion of the intellectories and thus of the whole brain, in order to understand the functions of the latter, will be seen when we come to treat of the cerebrum and cerebellum in particular.
     Of the innumerable intellectories which are in the human brain, no two are altogether alike. For, because of the Infinitude of the LORD, it follows that no two receptacles of influx from Him are exactly alike. Each intellectorium has its special and distinctive influx; and altogether, they form one whole complete-the human brain-the human race. The greatest distinction is between the intellectories of the cerebrum and those of the cerebellum. Although this distinction cannot be seen, for the intellectorium is invisible to the most powerful miscroscope yet invented, it may be rationally inferred from the marked distinction which exists between the cortical glands (inmost of which are the intellectories), of the cerebrum and those of the cerebellum, and if effects-causes clothed-are distinctly different, how much greater must be the distinction between the causes themselves. From the difference between the receptacles of influx in those organs, it follows that there is an essential difference in the manifestation of influx into the cerebrum and cerebellum respectively. The former, as we are taught, forms and governs all the voluntary and conscious, while the latter forms and rules supreme over all the involuntary parts of the body. That this is the case may be confirmed from anatomical science. We read in a standard text-book on physiology the following: "After the removal of both the cerebral hemispheres in animals, every voluntary motion, and every conscious impression and sensory perception entirely ceases. A pigeon without its cerebral hemispheres when undisturbed sits continuously as if in sleep, but when stimulated it shows complete harmony of all its movements. It can walk, fly, perch, and balance its body. The sensory nerves conduct impulses to, the brain, but they do not excite conscious impressions. Hence the bird starts when a pistol is fired close to its ear, it closes its eyes when it is brought near a flame, and the pupils, contract; it turns away its head when the vapor of ammonia is applied to its nostrils. It never takes food spontaneously, but if food be placed at the back part of its throat it is swallowed, and in this manner the animal may be maintained for months.

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Mammals treated the same way behave similarly."
     We will now examine the cerebrum and cerebellum separately.
     At the present day anatomists have divided the cerebrum into three lobes lying horizontally from back to front. But this division is based merely on external landmarks, without respect to use or function-without respect to the general laws which govern the whole of nature. The New Church must exclude all that is artificial. The New Church is a real Church; and everything in it is real. That there are three cerebral lobes is evident, because the brain is a representative of Heaven, and thus in all its parts has that which corresponds to the celestial, that which corresponds to the spiritual, and that which corresponds to the natural Heavens. As all superiors are above inferiors, as the head is above the body, as the celestial is above the spiritual, so is the highest lobe of the cerebrum at its vertex. Motion depends for its type on influx, therefore those cortical glands which are most free and distinct and thus have greater motion, constitute the first-the highest lobe of the cerebrum. These cortical glands are at the vertex of the cerebrum, for there the pia mater by its enfractuosities and sulci almost altogether invests them individually, and thus leaves them more free and unconfined. The second lobe of the cerebrum is below the first and above the third, which latter is at the base of the cortex. Of course the division between these lobes cannot be seen with the natural eye-for the more we approach the interiors of nature the less available will be the material senses and the more necessary will be the senses belonging to the rationality.
     Time spirituous fluid manufactured in the cortical glands forms to itself fibrilli, into which it may flow and perform its uses. The case is similar with the blood, which forms all the vessels through which it courses. Part of the fibrilli of the cerebrum, bundled together and with a pure lymph extracted by the brain from the arterial blood, in the interstices, extend themselves all over the body as nerves. But what becomes of the rest of the fibrilli of the cerebrum? They must have some use, and that use must be connected with the proximate supplying of the body with life. The spirituous fluid does not only go directly to the body, as in the case of the nerves, but also indirectly by the blood which it vivifies, and thus renders able to perform its uses. As this fluid is when in its fibrilli it cannot enter into the blood, for so pure is it that it would immediately dissolve and exhale itself. Therefore there is provided an intermediate, by which the spirituous fluid is fixed and thus ready for conjumm4ion with the blood. This intermediate is the finest lymph extracted from the arterial blood. Where the spirituous fluid meets and is conjoined to this purest lymph, will be known by following; up those fibrilli of the cerebrum which do not enter into the composition of the nerves. These all converge in and form the corpus callosum, a innard body situated in the middle of the cerebrum. That this is the case is acknowledged by most anatomists, who say that "the corpus callosum is constituted of fibres which emanate from the convolutions"-i. e., the cortical glands. The corpus callosum is thickest posteriorly. This follows from the general rule, that the nerve fibres are from the anterior cerebrum, while the fibres which convey the spirituous fluid to the blood and thus by way of the corpus callosum, are from the posterior cerebrum. But the fibres of the corpus callosum do not end in that body. Most of the older anatomists agree in saying that the corpus callosum itself is continued into and forms the fornix, which latter is indeed called its fimbriated appendage.
     Respecting the further progress of the fibrilli after entering the fornix from the corpus callosum, we read in Swedenborg's work on The Brain: "There are indeed thin, very soft and moist fimbrim and roots, which extend from the body of the fornix, and are affixed to the highest coasts of the choroid plexuses; these pour out the pure spirit, which, by numerous fibres of the corpus callosum, is conveyed to the body of the fornix." As to how the purest lymph of the arterial blood contained in the choroid plexuses, is wedded, as it were, to the spirituous fluid, Swedenborg says: "The whole fabric of the choroid plexuses is glandular, the blood circulates in it, as through anfractuous little gyres, and it instills its serum into every least cavity, into every least place where the fibre also instills its spirit." That this is the case will appear more evidently from the fact which is affirmed by the best modern authority on the brain, that the fimbrim of the fornix are continued directly into the membranous tissue of the choroid plexus. From the marriage union of the spirituous fluid with the purest lymph of the blood is born that fluid which is emptied into the blood. This fluid is called the seminal spirit. It is discharged through numerous little ducts of this meninx of the plexus and by them is poured into the lateral ventricles. From here by the systoltic and diastaltic motion of the brain it is forced through the posterior foramen into the third or middle ventricle. The only outlet afforded from that ventricle is the infundibulum. Through the infundibulum the animal spirit reaches the pituitary body or gland. This gland is the storehouse of the animal spirit destined for the blood. Swedenborg calls it the "last, the crown of the chemical apparatus of the brain." From it, by means of the cavernous sinuses, the animal spirit is poured into the arterial jugular vein, and by it reaches the heart, from which again it is sent off through all the arteries, thus vivifying the whole blood. The pituitary gland is thus the gland where the body meets the brain. It is therefore an intermediate; and thus not only in use and function, but also in substance and formation. Qunin, in his Anatomy, describes it as consisting in the meeting and combination of two outgrowths from very different fundamental points. The one cerebral, from above, and the other corneus, from below. Thus it is made by the body on the one hand, and by the cerebrum on the other.
     We will now examine the functions of the cerebellum. The cerebellum is divided into three lobes, right, left, and middle. By means of its processes or peduncles it sends off nerves to all parts of the body over which it rules. As it has no laboratory, it does not instill animal spirit into the blood, nor does it directly contribute to this work in the cerebrum. The nerves of the cerebellum are formed by fibrilli just as are the nerves of the cerebrum.
     All these various functions of the brain, which we have just described, cannot be performed without motion. Motion most strong, powerful, and constant. By the motion of the cortical glands is the spirituous fluid sent through the fibrilli of the nerves, and also to its marriage with the lymph of the blood. By the consequent motion of the medullary fibres is the purest lymph contained between the fibrilli of the nerves, extracted from the arterial blood of the brain. By the motion of the corpora striata and optic thalami are the choroid plexuses, milked, as it were, of their purest essence that it may be united in marriage bonds to the spirit nuns fluid. By the general motion of the brain is the offspring of this marriage sent forth by way of the infundibulum and pituitary gland into the blood.

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In short, without motion the brain is to us a dead-letter. How without motion can the brain vivify the body? The question is unanswerable.
     We have thus far followed the spirituous fluid and animal spirit into the nerves and blood. The question now is, What then becomes of those fluids? In Swedenborg's Economy of the Animal Kingdom we read:
     "The fibres are in a state of Perpetual exercise, and, with a view to supply the muscles with their proper forces; in a state of perpetual exhaltation. Were the animal spirits to fly off, the body would soon, be deprived of life, nor would the brain be capable of conceiving and excluding a fresh and adequate supply. Instead of being lost, nature has rather intended that not the least of it shall be dissipated or perish." How is this purpose of nature's accomplished? The answer is evident. In the same manner in which the blood (between which and the animal spirit there is a correspondence and, analogy) is kept from perishing-by circulation. As the blood is sent forth from the heart and then returns to be cleansed and vivified preparatory to being again sent off, so the animal spirit, after performing its uses, returns to its fountain to be revivified by the soul and again perform its uses. The fibres of even nerves continually associate themselves with some blood-vessel. In the large organs of the body, as, for instance, the heart, this fact has been proved by the microscope. And in general as it is with one nerve, so it is with the rest all over the body. The little nervelets into which the nerves break up while accompanying and embracing their blood-vessels insinuate into those latter their animal spirit, and thus by them this animal spirit is conveyed through the, arteries into the brain. The arteries of the brain, the internal carotid and the vertebral, by which this conveyance is effected, when they enter `the brain leave behind the grosser blood, and thus passes from the control of the heart to that of the brain, for the brain requires for its sustenance the purest blood of the body, and cannot be supplied by the heart with its gross red blood. We are taught in the Writings of, the Church that each organ in the human body attracts only the blood it requires, and rejects all else. That the brain may make its choice in the greatest freedom, its arteries take a most circuitous and tortuous course before they reach it, so that the swift current of the blood may be broken. When the blood finally reaches the cortex of the brain it has been so, purified that only the most pure part remains. This purest of the blood is received by the cortical glands, and after being renovated by the influx of the soul, is again sent off to the body. Thus does the circulation of the animal spirit-a circulation at once wonderful and simple, mysterious and evident, a circulation which the greatest of all physiologists has justly called the circle of life-take place, giving life to the whole body and continually forming it anew.
     Thus, we have briefly viewed the human brain; starting first from the idea that it was a medium between life from the LORD-the soul and the body-we have been able to examine its function's, and see in it the fountain of life to the body. But how is the brain tested by those who have no knowledge or acknowledgment of the LORD, of influx; of the presence of spirit in matter? We turn to the Old Church anatomists. Nothing is believed by them but that which is visible to the corporeal senses. All reason is perverted and destroyed. In examining their works we are, as it were, in a dreary waterless desert. Nothing we see, nothing we meet with but hard, dry facts, facts which are lifeless, facts which are given to us when we thirst for principles. In vain we turn here and there, it is all the same, one dreary wilderness. The brain in the Old Church is a motionless, lifeless mass, inclosed within its box and connected with the body, for what reason is known not. In the Old Church treatment of the brain it is rather viewed as an appendage to the body than as its head, its fountain. It's interiors are viewed as exteriors, and its exteriors as interiors; And why all this confusion? Why all this darkness? Because matter is put before spirit, Hell before Heaven, man before the LORD. Because no God is acknowledged. If the LORD and His, universal influx is not, acknowledged, surely there cannot be a knowledge of the infinite itself. Truly, the earth is covered with darkness. But now the clouds are parting, and the LORD has come with light. We now Have light, the light of Divine Revelation. From this light must all things be viewed; by it will be a new Heaven and a new earth; by it will all things be made new." ALFRED ACTON.
PRUDENCE IN THE MINISTER 1889

PRUDENCE IN THE MINISTER       G. N. SMITH       1889

     EDITOR NEW CHURCH LIFE:-If my effort does nothing more, it is sufficiently repaid by the very excellent treatment of the subject in answer to my "Correction Notes," published in the Life for February. And even where you undertake to correct me regarding my closing paragraph, abstractly you are not far from right. And as it is more satisfying to me to be loyal than to be infallible, I could stand corrected by the Doctrine and not wince. And yet there were in my thoughts considerations not so much embracing the abstract or doctrinal side of the question, showing things as they ought to be, as practical facts as they are, or as I have found them, which you have not, so far as I can see, put out of the way; so permit me to bring them out a little further.
     There is in the New Church, as it now exists, so much derived from hereditary descent from the Old, mixed with what we are seeking to attain from the New, and therefore so little that is clearly and purely New; that there is much of the genuine faith and life of the New, that is, at present unattainable. The LORD cannot bring us to it by all the clearness of His wonderful Revelations to the Church, except by degrees as He can bring us to an entire loyalty to those Revelations, and abandonment of our own conceits. He works with us by little and little," as He can bring us to see and receive. Thus far there seems actually more that He cannot get us to receive than that. He can; But He does not, therefore; force upon us things that we are not ready to receive at the risk of our turning way and rejecting everything, but gives us as much as we will receive, meanwhile preparing us thereby to receive more.
     The ministry with His Doctrines in their hands and their "minds formed by doctrines" (T. C. R. 155) are His most effective means of reaching men. He must surely work through them according to His own patient and adaptive methods. One of the elements of a state of mind formed by doctrinals "must be a judgment of adaptation to the hearers of such truths as they can understand, and in a measure receive, otherwise the discourse falls like rain upon the sand "(T. C. R. 621). The Missionary is continually called upon to use this judgment. Is the Pastor exempt from the same necessity? Is he not perpetually called upon to lead his people by things that they do understand toward, and finally into those that they do not, but may, by wisdom and prudence, be brought at length to understand?

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And with their minds full of their hereditary tendencies to look upon things "sensually-i. e., according to appearances, and not spiritually-i. e., according to essences" (A. E. 759), does he not find this a long and gradual process, which, by no precipitate haste, he can force forward by an instant. And would not the attempt to do this break the delicate cords of his leadership?
     I see this illustrated in our efforts at presenting on popular truths in our journals. We try in some of our journals, only to be shut out at the first advance. There we can never be heard on those truths. Yet on others we may. But we may find audience in some other journal for these same truths. Theme, then, is our opportunity. We work patiently there, and after awhile we gain a hearing where we were at first shut out.
     The case is similar with Societies and their pastors. In some a class of interior truth cannot be spoken. They would not be heard, nor if they were, would this be received or even understood. And yet these are truths that can be spoken, and understood and received and that if we inculcate may lead the way to others more interior after awhile. Is not the pastor's duty with what we can do now, and from that to lead on to others as fast as he can, but never to precipitate the impossible?
     A single example will show what I mean. I think all will agree with me when I say that in nine-tenths of the Societies of the land no pastor could at once assume to carry out the teachings concerning priesthood government of the Church without unseating himself quickly, nor without a long preparation of careful, prudent teaching. Shall he therefore abruptly assume it, simply because he sees that it is the truth? Must he not wait for a reciprocal state of receptivity, which would not make his efforts appear as a manifest attempt of a love of rule from the love of self? His whole official relations are full of similar cases. Among them most prominently are those pertaining to the subject now in hand. There is no subject in the whole range of the teachings of the Church which is so little understood, and so little disposition or capacity to understand as this; none in which there is so great an inclination to regard the whole matter in the 0ld Church light-i. e., "sensually, according to appearances," rather than in that of the New Church, according to the "essence or reality." The cases are exceedingly rare in the New Church, when there is a willingness to accept the teachings of the Conjugial Love in their entirety at all. They are far too common in which that "volume" is feared and would not be tolerated in our houses. I have sometimes found it indeed, but with the last part cut out of the cover. Here seems to me another case, and a most important one for careful, patient, prudent handling. It is indeed far more vital than the other, as it concerns the central love of life and the "Repository of the Christian religion." And now to the point, which I cannot see even in view of what you have said-that is, why should not the same prudence that is necessary in teaching be necessary in the practice of the teaching? I therefore said very guardedly, "as the public mind now stands;" what it may be some day is another matter. But as it is now, either I have seen the most unenlightened elements in the Church, or even the teaching, to say nothing more of the doctrine of the Church in its entirety, would greatly "scandalize" the majority of professed New-Church people, and not a few even of the ministers. To them it would be manifestly "wicked" or, as you more appropriately translate it, "criminal." And what seems "manifestly" so to them, affects them the same as if it were really so. In fact, it is as far as they can go in the case; for, of course, of the interior life they can know nothing and have no business with it. It is what is manifest to them and that alone that affects them. So that in my thought when I wrote there was an element which indeed is not removed yet-of regard to something more than one's own "conviction" of the truth to be considered in all these matters-and that is whether the states of those with whom it has to do can or cannot be brought to understand, receive, and reciprocate it; and whether that relation is by precipitation to be broken, or by patient, prudent leading by what reciprocative elements can be found, to be strengthened and held for higher, better things. At least a failure to see this principle on the part of many a conscientious but impetuous pastor, or a like majority, or even minority, in a Society to permit their pastor who did see it, to early it out, has, in may humble judgment caused untimely disruption and death of a good work.
     (Errata: page 28, second column, twentieth line from bottom, for "does" read "dares;" page 29, first column, nineteenth line, for "resting," read "rising")
     G. N. SMITH.



     ANSWER.

     IT is necessary to discriminate between a society's action as proposed by the minister, and his acts in his individual life. Not only is it imprudent-it may safely be said that it is wrong-for a minister to lead his society to adopt a practice before they know, understand, and adopt a practice before they know, understand, and adopt the truths on which it rests. But the     Doctrines pronounce the judgment on a Pastor who teaches his people truths until they see, acknowledge, and believe in them, and yet fails to lead them thereby to the good of life. On the other hand, their want of preparation to receive a truth cannot deter him from carrying it into effect for himself. In his individual life he is not to adopt a practice before he sees the truths underlying it, but if he does see them, and recognizes that they apply to hi conditions, it is his duty to live them.
     The correctness of the position that "what seems manifestly criminal to people affects them the same as if it were really so," may be seriously doubted. It would exclude the operation of spiritual spheres. The will and understanding entering in to an act really affect the Church for good or evil, not so the external appearance of the act. Were Newchurchmen to be governed in their actions by appearances; they would never progress.
     The thing is to be right, not to appear right. When man does right according to his conscience, the LORD disposes of the appearances; or, as a warm-hearted Newchurchmen once wrote "Action is becoming to man, results to GOD."-EDITOR]
Dr. Burnham's book Discrete Degrees 1889

Dr. Burnham's book Discrete Degrees              1889

     THE colorists on Dr. Burnham's book Discrete Degrees, failed to keep their agreement, and it has been impossible to complete more than a small number of volumes. The book is therefore not on sale at present. The publishers intend, if, it is possible, to complete the edition at a later date.

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NEWS GLEANINGS 1889

NEWS GLEANINGS       Various       1889


NEW CHURCH LIFE.
A MONTHLY JOURNAL

TERMS:-One Dollar per annum, payable in advance.

Six months on trial for twenty-five cents.

     All communications must be addressed to Publishers New Church Life, No. 759 Corinthian Avenue, Philadelphia, Pa.

     In Great Britain subscriptions may be sent to
     MR. S. WARREN POTTS, Book Steward, 61 Cathedral Street, Glasgow, Scotland.
     REV. R. J. TILSON, "Oakley," County Grave, Camberwell, London, S. E.
     MR. G. A. MCQUEEN, Crowhurst Road, Colchester.
     MR. JAS. CALDWELL, 59 County Road, N., Liverpool.
     MR. C. E. SCHROEDER, 13     Ashfield Terrace, Newcastle-on-Tyne.
     MISS FLORENCE G. GIBBS, 8 Camden Square, London, N.

     PHILADELPHIA. APRIL, 1889=119.

     CONTENTS.

     Editorial Notes, p. 49.-The Fourteenth Chapter of Genesis, p. 50.-Conversations on Education, p. 53.- Literature, p. 54.
     Notes and Reviews, p. 57.
     A Sunday in the Immanuel Church, p. 58. Letter from Great Britain, p. 59.-The Human Brain, p. 59.-Prudence In the Minister, p. 62.
     News Gleanings, p. 64.-Births, Marriages, and Deaths, p. 64.
     AT HOME.

     Washington, D. C.-That General Convention will hold its next meeting in the Universalist Church of Washington, beginning on May 25th.
     Pennsylvania.-THE address of the Rev. John Whitehead is changed to 5508 Walnut Street, Pittsburgh; and that of the Rev. Andrew Czerny to 5506 Walnut Street, Pittsburgh.
     Massachusetts.-A PLAN long cherished by those who conduct Convention a Theological School is about to be consummated. It Is to be removed to Cambridge. The following items in connection with this movement are from letters addressed to the Messenger: A very valuable plot of ground just opposite Memorial Hall, and therefore contiguous to the college buildings of Harvard, has been bought for $34,850. By removing the Theological School thither, it is hoped to attract to the service of the Church some who otherwise might remain ignorant of her truths, and also to save to her service some of her own children who attend the University." Again, by making use "of the opportunities for general education now so liberally provided in Cambridge, the school may be relieved of much of the preparatory work which it is now obliged to do, and may be free to carry much further than has heretofore been possible, the study of spiritual truths." "The intellectual atmosphere attending a great university, the oldest in America, will be only a stimulus to wide and persistent study." "The connection between our little institution and that great one will be friendly and we shall be regarded with just as much respect as we deserve by our intelligent earnestness. We shall be located on its border." The Rev. T. F. Wright has been appointed resident professor, and at the end of the twenty-first year of his pastorate with the Bridgewater Society, this relation will be terminated.
     That Boston Highlands Society is a very active one. Societies have been formed within it that perform religious, charitable and social uses. They are: "The Helping Hand Society," the "King's Daughters," "The Fraternity" and the "Philodemian." A New Church kindergarten is in operation, and the beginning of an orphanage has been made.
     0hio.-MUCH interest is awakened in Toledo, where the Rev. B. D. Daniels preaches twice on Sunday once a month, and holds several week-day parlor meetings.
     Indiana.-AT Kokomo "considerable enthusiasm prevails," Mr. Daniels preaching on two or three successive week-day evenings, once a month.
     Illinois.-IN the Van Duren Street Society the Lenten season is made an occasion for the cultivation of certain necessary acts of external worship which shall promote internal worship.
     THE Olney Society feel very much at home in their new and beautiful house of worship; the congregations have increased largely, and New Church books are read more in the community.
     New Church furniture has been presented to the Peoria Church, which also possesses a new pipe organ.
     Michigan.-ACCORDING to the New Church Reading Circle, Mr. Dole has now been called by the Gorand Rapids people to be their minister, and when he is ordained to be installed as their pastor."
     Minnesota.-THE young people of the New Church in Minneapolis, have organized under the name of the "Junior Society, of the New Jerusalem Church of Minneapolis, Minn.," and will hold meetings on the second and fourth Wednesday evenings of each month from September to April inclusive.
     California.-THE Rev. John Doughty recently made a trip to the southern portion of this State, and visited the Societies, at Los Angeles, Ontario, San Diego, and Riverside. The Riverside Society has thirty-five members. The congregations at Mr. Doughty's lectures numbered from one hundred and fifty to three hundred and fifty. The San Diego Society has thirteen members.
     Canada.-UNTIL the new house of worship of the Parkdale Society is erected, the large parlor in the minister's House is used as a place of worship. It was inaugurated into this use on the first Sunday after New Year.
     THAT Reformed Episcopal clergyman of Hamilton, who was forced to resign his pastoral charge because of his New Church teachings, has been since recalled by a portion of his society and established worship in a public hall of that city.

     ABROAD

     Great Britain.-MR. W. Heald, a Conference Student, has been engaged as minister of the Anerley Society, his duties to begin next September.
     THE memorial stone of the new meeting house of the Willesden (London) Society was laid on February 6th.
     THE quarterly meeting of the Wigan District Sunday-school Union was held on February 2d.
     MR. A. E. Beilby late minister of the Lowestoft Society, has been invited to minister to the Melbourne (Derbyshire) Society.
     Norway.-IN this country there are several persons who are earnestly interested in the Doctrines of the New Church, but they are so scattered that they are not formed into a Society under a pastor. In Hallingdal, a valley in one of the mountainous regions, a small Society has been formed through the efforts of Captain E. Boyesen. It consists of twenty to thirty persons, who come together once a month to worship and to read the Doctrines.
     THERE is a prospect of a New Church Society being formed in Chiristiania.
EDITORIAL NOTES 1889

EDITORIAL NOTES       Editor       1889



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     Vol. IX.     PHILADELPHIA, MAY, 1889=119.     No. 5.
     THE Convention's Theological School is about to remove to Cambridge, in close proximity to Harvard University. One of the advantages to be gained is that by making use "of the opportunity for general education now so liberally offered in Cambridge, the school may be relieved of much of the preparatory work which it is now obliged to do, and may be free to carry much further than has heretofore been possible the study of spiritual truths."
     This statement suggests the question: Does the general education given in such a university as Harvard prepare the mind so as to further the development of spiritual truth? Does the University of Harvard teach, as an internal of the education given in her halls, the acknowledgment of the LORD JESUS CHRIST as the God of Heaven and Earth, or does she rather teach that CHRIST was a mere man, or does she fail to teach anything whatever upon this subject? Does she teach that all natural things are correspondents of things in the spiritual world, and are derived thence, or does she teach that all things in nature are the result of an evolution, the governing activity of which is a power inherent in nature?
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     UNLESS the University of Harvard teach the acknowledgment of the LORD JESUS CHRIST as the One God, all her culture and education do but close the mind to the entrance of spiritual truths; for "The first and primary thought which opens heaven to man"-that is, admits spiritual light,-"is thought concerning God; the reason is, that God is the all of heaven, so munch so that whether we speak of heaven or of God it is the same thing" (A. E. 1096). "Thought concerning God as Man, in whom is the Divine Trinity, namely, what is called Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, opens heaven; . . . for God is Man, as the universal angelic heaven in its complex is a man, and every angel and spirit is thence a man. Therefore, it is that thought concerning the LORD, as being the God of the Universe, opens heaven" (A. E. 1097).
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     IN order that natural scientifics may subserve their use in regard to the study of spiritual truths, they must he true and suitable, and they are true and suitable only when their true origin is acknowledged and they are properly classified. Scientifics are properly classified when each is referred to its own general, when the generals again are referred to their respective more generals, and these, again, to the "Universal Most General, from which all things are held together, the LORD Himself" (A. C. 6115). "A scientific is said to be true and suitable when fallacies do not darken it, which so long as they cannot be dispersed, render the scientific unsuitable; and also a scientific that is not perverted by applications to falses and evils, by others' or by one's self; for these [falses and evils] once impressed upon any scientific, remain; the scientific, therefore, which does not labor with those blemishes, is a scientific true and suitable" (A. C. 6112).
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     THE most remarkable argument that has appeared in favor of removing the Convention's Theological School to Cambridge is that an old and honored minister of the Church has contributed largely to that end. In The New Church Messenger, for April 10th, the resident professor of the proposed Cambridge New Church theological school, after noticing the contribution, writes: "This . . . is said to call attention to the fact that one of our oldest ministers has testified his deep interest in the school, and his confidence that the proposed move is a wise one. If there were objections, is ac would remove them."
     In forming his judgment upon a given subject, shall the Newchurchman be governed by the interest shown by any individual (however respected) and by the expressed view of others concerning it? Is he not rather to examine the question according to its merits, and then to judge in freedom according to reason? The former method savors of that authority of men which is so strongly condemned by the LORD. By the latter method the members of the Church will be more likely to appeal to the authority of the LORD'S Doctrines.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     "BUT," adds the writer just referred to, "there are no objections."
     It is not safe to make hasty conclusions as to the cause of silence. Almost simultaneously with the appearance of this positive announcement, objections were expressed in The New Church Reading Circle, objections which are well worth the earnest consideration of the School authorities, even at this late day. The following one, for instance, is sufficiently suggestive:
     "Shall we be able to fulfill the spiritual responsibility thus assumed? Is there in the Church a sufficiently clear understanding of the position and mission of the New Church in the world, and a sufficiently loyal acceptance of our calling and commission to found and keep distinctive and unseduced a school of the prophets in the very glare and glitter of all 'the learning of the Egyptians.' We confess grave forebodings."
     The metaphor is pregnant with meaning, for it is based upon the correspondences of the LORD'S Word, where "Egypt," when used in this sense, signifies the science which is not in the light of heaven. In many passages the LORD teaches that the New Church ought by no means to trust the science of the day-least of all, with the task of preparing the minds of young or old for the reception of spiritual things: and His warnings are couched in terms that unmistakably point to just such movements as the one proposed by the authorities of Convention's Theological School, as when He says:
     "Woe to the refractory sons, who go away to go down into Egypt-but My mouth they have not questioned-to strengthen themselves with the strength of Pharaoh, and to trust in the shadow of Egypt; and the strength of Pharaoh shall be to you for shame, and the trust in the shadow of Egypt for ignominy". (Isa. xxx, 1-3. See A. C. 2588; A. E. 654 [j]).

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STORY OF NOACH 1889

STORY OF NOACH       Rev. C. T. ODHNER       1889

     Text: Genesis viii, 1-14.

     Tan history of Noach and his preservation from the flood represents, in the internal historical sense, the establishment of the Ancient Church after the destruction of the Most Ancient Church.
     It, like the narrative in the first chapter of Genesis, is a history of an internal creation, but with this difference, that it treats of the establishment of a spiritual Church from men, in whom the will and the understanding were separated, and who, therefore, had to be regenerated in a manner different from that of the men of the celestial Church, with whom the will and the understanding were one.
     Since these two faculties have been and always will be distinct from each other with all men after the flood this history treats, also, of the establishment of all spiritual Churches, and of the regeneration of men of a spiritual genius. It has reference, therefore, in particular to the establishment of the New Church in the Christian world. For this Church is a spiritual Church, and is thus established by the same laws of order, and under very similar circumstances as those of the Ancient Church.
     The Ancient Church was first established amongst the remains of the posterity of the Most Ancient Church, with the generation called "Noach," similarly as the New Church is now being established from the, remains of the Christian Church. The Ancient Church itself as a whole, was, however, afterward established amongst the Gentiles, signified by "Shem, Chain, and Japhet," similarly as the New Church in its perfection will principally be amongst those who now are out of the Christian world.
     Every man of the Church Noach was of the posterity of the Most Ancient Church, and in a similar state as to hereditary evil with the Antediluvians who perished. So also are the men of the New Church as to hereditary evil in a similar state as those of the Christian Church, which is now perishing. Hence, Christians who become Newchurchmen, like Jews who become Christians, are continually fluctuating between the new and the old, as were also the men of the Church Noach, whose temptations are, therefore, described by the fluctuations of the waters of the flood.
     The Church Noach was represented to Swedenborg by a tall and slender man, which was to signify that its members were few in number. This is also to be the state of the New Church for a long time to come, as is predicted in the Apocalypse Revealed.
     It is said that a species of rational truth and natural good remained with those who were of the Church Noach, and that this made them capable of regeneration. So with those who, by the Divine mercy of the LORD, are called out of the Old into the New Christian Church, there must be certain remains of rational thought and natural good disposition, in order that the Divine Truth may find any entrance into their minds.
     Again, the Church Noach is said to have been of such a quality that it believed in simplicity what had been handed down of revelation from the Most Ancient Church, which was a collection of Doctrinal Truths, reduced into a written form by the Church Enoch. This simplicity of belief in the Divinity of the Word is also at this day the only kind of faith which, by the Divine Truth of the LORD in His Second Coming, is capable of being elevated into spiritual faith. Without this simplicity to begin with, there can be with Newchurchmen no simple faith in the Divinity of the New Revelation, which is the very first condition of further progress in regeneration. The establishment of the Church Noach is described in three general states: the first state is that of preparation to receive faith, and by faith charity. This is represented in the Letter of the Word by the LORD commanding Noach to build an ark, and to embark therein with his family, and with a pair of every kind of beast. By the "ark" is, in general, signified the man of the Church Noach, but as a man is a man of the Church only by virtue of his having received the Word of the Lord, therefore, in the Internal Sense, by the "ark" is meant the Word of that Church, which were the doctrinal truths derived from the perceptions of the Most Ancient Church. By obeying the LORD'S command in building the ark, by the reception of these doctrinals as the Divine Truth, and by a simple belief in them, the Church Noach was prepared to receive internal truths and goods of faith, and thereby to undergo the next state, which was a state of temptations.
     So, also, the New Church is first established with man, by his receiving the Doctrines in an humble mind, thirsting for truth and longing for salvation out of the general state of corruption and violence that exists within him and around him. At first this reception is, indeed, most general and obscure, but if he believes in the Divinity and saving power of the Doctrines-if he receives them with obedience-then he is in a state of preparation to receive the internal truths and goods of faith, to begin the combats of spiritual temptations, to enter into the ark and be saved by it.
     The second state, represented by the coming of the flood, the destruction of mankind, and the preservation of Noach by the ark, is the state of temptations and of combats, which the spiritual man must undergo, and the miraculous protection by the LORD from his succumbing to the evils and falses inflowing from the hells into the external man.
     In application to the New Church in general, the flood represents the utterly perverted and devastated state of the old Christian Church, which has brought upon it the Last Judgment and a final destruction by its own satanic falsities and diabolical evils, by "the cataracts of the heavens and the fountains of the deep being opened upon it" By this deluge the men of the LORD'S New Church are infested from all sides, and from it they can never be saved, except by remaining closed in the ark, by steadfastly following the commands given for their salvation in the Heavenly Doctrines.
     The third state, represented in our text by the passing away of the flood even until Noach's going out of the ark, is the state of the spiritual man after temptations; this is described in our text as to two general states of regeneration.
     V. 1. "And God remembered Noach, and every wild beast and every beast which was with him in the ark; and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters assuaged."
     V. 2. "And the fountains of the abyss were stopped, and the cataracts of heaven, and the rain from heaven was restrained."
     By these verses is described the general state of the spiritual man, subsequently after temptations. By the "waters being assuaged and the fountains of the abyss and the cataracts of heaven being stopped and the rain restrained," is signified a general cessation of the temptations formerly, infesting the man of the Church, both as to the evils of the will and as to the falsities of the understanding.

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By "God remembering," is signified the Divine Mercy, which has upheld man during the temptation, but which now first is seen and acknowledged by the man. This acknowledgment of the LORD commences a new state in man, a state of renovation of all affections and thoughts with him, "the wild beasts and the beasts." "The wind that passed over the earth and assuaged the waters" signifies new influx from the angels of heaven, who have fought and subdued the hells infesting man, and who afterward dispose all things into their order with him.
     By the state of temptations having ceased is not meant that man was no more tempted, or that evils and falses no longer infested. But the external and more general temptations must first abate to some degree, in order to allow more internal development. So with the New Church in general, the infestations from the Old Church at first are comparatively external. But these in time cease, and then more internal temptations, infestations from the old within the Church; will begin.
     V. 3. "And the waters receded from upon the earth, in going and returning; and the waters were abated from the end of the hundred and fifty days."
     In this verse the state of the Church after temptations is further described, which is, at first, a state of fluctuation between the true and the false, represented by the waters going and returning. For the temptations do not cease all at once, and the first state is always one of doubt and of lingering affection for the old. So also in the New Church, the men of the Church have always held firmly together in their ark, as long as under the pressure of external infestations from the Old Church. But when these cease and the Old begins to have a friendly and patronizing aspect, a commingling with the. Old, and a fluctuation between the true and the false generally take place. Still the Church is progressing internally, a further and deeper study of the Divine Truth can take place in this state of comparative peace, and "the waters are abating."
     V. 4. "And the ark rested in the seventh month, in the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat."
     This describes the first beginning of a second state in the regeneration of the spiritual, man, a first state of peace, signified by "the ark resting." "Mountains "signify the good of love, and "Ararat" signifies, in its root meaning, light (Hebrew from Hebrew). "The mountains of Ararat" signify, therefore, a state of new light from the good of charity. The love of performing uses of charity becomes more developed with the Church in this second state after the more general temptations have ceased, and this love brings with it new light and perception, though this, in the beginning, always is very general and obscure.
     V. 5. "And the waters were in going and decreasing until the tenth month; in the tenth, on the first of the month, the heads of the mountains were seen."
     Here is further described the morning of this new state in the regeneration, when the former fluctuations between the true and the false gradually begin to decrease; when the remains or the affections of good and truth-signified by "the tenth month"-begin to operate upon the external through the internal from the LORD. When man is in this new state-"in the first of the month"-the "mountain tops" will begin to appear to him: he then begins to have a clearer perception of the general principles of faith, as having reference to life or to the good of charity. This new opening of the intellectual is further described by the opening of the window of the ark in the verse following.
     V. 6. "And it was from the end of the forty days, and Noach opened the window of the ark which he made."
     This new opening of the intellectual, signified by the window, performs a most vital use in the regenerating process of the spiritual man. By it is, also, signified the conscience which is implanted by the LORD in his understanding, and from which he may think and act from the LORD as from himself, whilst his own will and his own understanding would still lead him only to what is evil and false.
     V. 7. "And he sent out a raven, and it went out in going out and returning, until the drying up of the waters from upon the earth."
     The second state of the regenerating man is here further described: when the truths of faith, like the first dawning of light, begin to appear. Such is the nature of this state, that falsities are continually occasioning disturbances, so that it resembles the morning twilight, whilst somewhat of the obscurity of night-here signified by the raven-still remains.
     As the spiritual man still is acquainted only with general truths, and has his conscience formed from them, and as these general truths are accommodated to the fallacies of the senses, it is evident that innumerable falsities will still adjoin and insinuate themselves. Hence the man of the Church comes into the fallacious appearance that the former evils and falses are now altogether removed from him, which state is signified by "the flying about of the raven even until the drying up of the waters."
     V. 8. "And he sent out a dove from with him, to see if the waters were diminished from upon the faces of the ground."
     The sending out of the dove indicates the beginning of the state of regeneration properly so-called, when man, is in the endeavor of conjoining the external with the internal. While in this state man passes through three successive periods, signified by the sending out of the dove three times.
     The first of these is a state of exploration and self-examination by the internal man, in order to see if the waters are diminished from upon the faces of the ground; to see if there is as yet any ultimation in the life in the natural world of the good and truth of faith of the internal man.
     V. 9. "And the dove did not find any resting-place for the sole of her foot, and she returned to him to the ark, because the waters were upon the faces of the whole earth; and he put out his hand, and took her, and brought her in to himself to the ark."
     In this first state of regeneration "the waters are still upon the faces of the whole earth." Falsities and evils still oppose the ultimation of spiritual life, for the man is there still acting from a conscience formed from appearances of Truth, but not from a new, regenerate will and understanding. Hence he is still in the appearance that whatever he does and thinks proceeds from his own will and his own understanding, while, in fact, it is the LORD alone who produces the good and truth of faith immediately through the conscience, implanted by Him in the intellectual of the spiritual man. The natural man, therefore, is still unsubdued, and overflowing with all kinds of evils and falses, in consequence of which the good and truth of faith cannot yet find any resting-place, any receiving ground, into which to strike root and bear fruit. Hence the good and truth that man does and thinks of himself returns profitless to him.

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It comes from self, and returns to self; as long as there is with man a belief in his own intelligence and his own proper power of doing good. This proper power is represented by "the hand of Noach, which he put out."
     V. 10. "And he waited yet seven other days, and he added to send the dove from the ark."
     V. 11. "And the dove came to him at the time of the evening, and behold a leaf of the olive plucked in her mouth, and Noach knew that the waters were diminished from upon the earth."
     In these verses the second state of the regeneration is described, which is a state when the goods and truths of faith begin to appear in a very slight degree. These now begin to be manifested, because they have now begun to strike root, and they do strike root, when man recognizes that he can do no good and think no truth from his own proprium; when he sees how utterly vain and profitless are all such productions from self. The former fallacies then begin to clear away, and the seed of truth can then begin to strike roots of affection for good. A conjunction of the internal with the external can then begin, and the first sign of this conjunction is here what is represented by "the leaf of the olive," some slight truth from the good of charity. This is a sign of life and of spring and progress, as are the leaves that precede the fruit.
     V. 12. "And he waited yet seven other days, and he sent out the dove and she did not add to return to him anymore."
     The third state of the regeneration of the spiritual man is here described. By "the dove returning no more to him" is signified the state of freedom, into which the internal man now comes.
     The external man is now subdued and rendered willing to subserve the internal, and the goods and truths of faith are now in freedom to take possession of the ground. The regenerating man need now no longer to be kept a prisoner in his ark, or in the state of truth alone. He is now free and ready to apply this Doctrine to all things of life; he can now walk upon the ground, cultivate it and bring forth fruits of a life of usefulness to the neighbor and to the LORD. With this comes also a state of understanding of genuine, spiritual truth, freed from the former appearances. This removal of appearances is signified in the next verses by Noach's removing the covering of the ark.
     The ultimate terminus of the former states of regeneration and the beginning of the spiritual life of the regenerate but ever regenerating man of the Church is finally described in the two following verses:
     V. 13. "And it was in the six hundredth and first year, in the beginning, in the first of the month, the waters were dried up from upon the earth; and Noach removed the covering of the ark, and saw, and behold, the faces of the ground were
     V. 14. "And in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the earth teas dry."
     The incident described by the dove, which went out, but found no resting-place for the sole of her foot, has, in the Internal Sense a most important application to the present state of the New Church in the Christian world. Like as in that state of the Church Noach, so' does the good and truth of faith of the New Church in this age find no resting-place, no ground for reception, but returns to the Church for the most part profitless.
     We are taught from the text that there are two general reasons for the existence of this state.
     The first-reason lies in the present quality of the good and truth with the men of the Church, in t at these are not yet the good and truth of faith from charity, but to a great extent the apparent good and truth of self. In this age there is, almost universally, a tendency to act from human prudence, intelligence, and power. The false principles, methods, and systems of the Old Church are imitated by the men of the Church in their corporate as well as individual life, and this because these seem most, convenient to the natural intelligence of man. There is a general unwillingness and antipathy to learn and to ultimate in life the principles, methods, and systems as taught in the Heavenly Doctrines, and as ultimated in Heaven. The power and intelligence of self are trusted in, instead of the power and Divine Wisdom of the LORD in His revealed Truth. As long as this state lasts spiritual progress and effective carrying out of the Divine uses given by the LORD to the Church, will be rendered impossible. For this evil there is but one remedy: the renunciation of belief in self-intelligence and man's own power, and a humble and complete acceptation of the LORD in His Second Coming in the Writings of the New Church. By studying and accepting the Divine Laws of Order and Use as there revealed and by a willing endeavor of carrying these into effect, genuine good and truth of faith will be formed with the men of the Church, which will then strike roots into the wills, and in time bring back leaves of olive, signs of progress and regeneration.
     The second reason of the uneffective work of the Church has its origin in the first. The dove found no resting-place because there was no ultimate ground for the sole of her foot. The good and truth of the Church has found no willing and receiving ground, into which to strike root, because the Church has not followed the directions of the LORD in choosing the right ground for the work intrusted to it in saving souls. The plain teaching of the Doctrines is that the Church can be established only among the simple, into whom no seeds of evil and falsity have as yet been sown. Instead of following this direction, the Church has been spending its energies in accommodating, or rather perverting the truth to suit those whose minds are already filled with and formed by the evils and falses of the old. Hence the vain results of this work. The simple in the Old Church are preserved by the Divine Providence. The Church need have no anxiety on their account, for they will be called out into the New Church in the LORD'S own time. But before our doors lies the most abundant, the most simple, and therefore the most suitable material from which to build up the LORD'S New Church, the children and young people whom the LORD, in His mercy, has given to the Church to be educated in it for Heaven, his is the very first duty, and most necessary work of charity of the Church, and this has, of all, been the most neglected. The children are the ultimate of the Church; the children are the simple, unsown ground, from which, alone, the Church can be established. These were, every one born for Heaven and the Church. To protect these children from all evil, to implant into their minds those remains of good and truth, which make for salvation, to instruct them in the Heavenly Doctrines, and to educate their affections and their lives for a life of love to the LORD and to the neighbor, and thus for a life of heaven, this is the primary, the most important, the most internal, the most sacred and blessed use that the Church can possibly perform for the sake of their own salvation, for the sake of the salvation of their children, and for the sake of the salvation of the human race by means of the establishment of the New Church.
     This work can be done only by entirely removing the children from the contaminating sphere of the Old Church, its life and its education, which, like Pharaoh, seeks the death of the spiritual life of the children of the true Israelites.

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It can be done, therefore, only in New Church schools, and by a New Church education; by instructing them in a true religion, and a true science, which shall be an ultimate of order instead of disorder. Outside of the New Jerusalem are "dogs and sorcerers, and adulterers, and murderers, and idolators, and every one loving and making a lie." Send the innocent children among these, and they are sent into the sphere of hell. But within the city is peace and prosperity and the glory of God and the Tree of Life. Lead the footsteps of the young to this city, and they are led to Heaven. This is the Word of the LORD to the men of His New Church. "Blessed are they that do His commands, that their power may be in the Tree of Life, and they may go in by the gates into the City" (Rev. xxii, 14). Amen.
CONVERSATIONS ON EDUCATION 1889

CONVERSATIONS ON EDUCATION              1889

     CONJUNCTION.

     [Continued.]

     THERE is a perfect parallelism between the infancy of every man born into the natural world and the infancy of the regenerating man. In the one as in the other, there is an inheritance of evil and its false, and in the hereditary tendencies and dispositions are ruined forms of will and understanding which are to be extirpated. An important difference between the two cases, however, is in the fact that the natural infant has not appropriated these ruined forms by any actual life of his own. Nevertheless, being utterly without truth and good, he needs to be instructed by a like accommodation of the truth as the regenerating man, and also from a like end; the end, namely, that he is "to learn truth not merely as sciences, but as life;" that is to say, as things to be applied to life.
     To what has before been said on this subject, we may add from Doctrine, that the Divine things which are introduced into the mind by means of human modes and forms of conception and expression, are channels which the LORD keeps open for Himself, and into which He insinuates a disposition toward good toward something new and foreign to the inherited nature of the child, but necessary to enable the child to learn, and to do what he has learnt. If things be taught and learnt as bare sciences, without any leading to what lies beyond them as ends, they will enter into the memory indeed, but not into the life, and the disposition toward good will not be insinuated into them from the LORD. They are like barren seeds, without a terminating and fructifying quality, which do not effect a healthy formation and growth of the mind. They have within them no future, because no attachment to the life. They are dead memories which do not form planes for the reception of the light of truth from above, by which the mind can ascend to meet the LORD at His Coming. And, further, such sciences are not confirmed by other sciences, because, in the first place, there is in them no interior life; and hence no delight furnishing a motive to the child to seek for confirmations: and, in the same place, they hold the mind in the merest appearances, which are fallacies and falsities.
     On the other hand, in proportion as something of life can be introduced into the things learned, it becomes possible to effect a separation between them and the ignorance of the hereditary state, and after separation to insinuate an affection from the Divine. This affection will impart vitality to science, and an adaptability to good ends, by means of which conjunctions or marriages can take place, and a final lifting up of the mind into conjunction with the Divine.
     In Arcana 3701, it is written, concerning this state of looking to ends, that it is a state of infancy and childhood, as to the new life, which is to succeed and take the place of the former life, whilst the state of its youth and adolescence is that they do not look to any person, such as he appears in external form, but such as he is in respect to good, at first in civil life, then in moral life, and finally in spiritual life. In this state, man begins to put good in the first place, to love it, and from good the person. Afterward, when he is more perfected, he studies how to do good to those who are in good, and this according to the quality of the good with them, and at length he apperceives a delight in doing good to them, and because he apperceives a delight in that good, he also apperceives a pleasantness in whatever confirms them. These confirming things he acknowledges as truths, and they are also the truths of his new understanding, which flow from the goods of the new will. In the degree of his apperception of delight in this good, and of pleasantness in these truths, man also feels undelight in the evils of the former life, and unpleasantness in its falses; and thus there takes place a separation of the things of the former will and of the former understanding from those of the new understanding, and this not according to the affection of knowing these things, but according to the affection of doing them. In consequence, he then sees that the truths of his infancy were respectively inverted, and that they have by degrees been reduced into another order, an order, namely, in which they are mutually subordinate to each other, so that those which at first had been in a prior place are now in a posterior place. Thus it is that by the truths which are of man's infancy and childhood, the angels of God ascend as by steps from earth to heaven, and afterward, by the truths of adult age, the angels of God descend, as by steps from heaven to earth.
     The nature of the ruin wrought in human wills and understandings may appear from the fact that, whereas man was created to be a conjoining medium between the LORD and the ultimates of nature, the accomplishment of this end of his creation has for a long time been impossible. All the means necessary for the construction of the ladder of ascent and descent were reposited in man from creation, but they have been separated from each other, disjointed and, as it were, scattered about like the parts of a ruined building, in heaps of rubbish. What the end of man's creation was may be manifest from the remains of his original structure. It is known that, as to his body, man is a little-world, into which are collated the substances, forms, and matters of the larger world of nature, as the things of the three kingdoms, into his muscle, fibre, and bone; into his vital fluids bloods; the things of the ether into the eye, of the air into the ear, of the contents of the air into the organ of smell, of the waters and fluids into the taste, and of the changes of all these into the touch. And now, also, that the constitution of the spirit or mind of man has been laid open by revelation, it may appear that into it have been collated the things of the spiritual world, so as to make this a small spiritual world, by means of which man is able to live with spirits and angels, even as he lives with his fellow-men, and with the things of nature within and around him. From this his constitution, it is plain that the natural and spiritual worlds meet, and are together in man. And inasmuch as the LORD is the inmost and first from Whom are all things, He also dwells in man-that is, in his inmost, and if man were, internally in the order of Heaven, and externally in a correspondence of his natural life with the life of heaven, it is further evident that the Divine Influx would pass from the Lord through his internals to the ultimates of nature, on which rests the foot of the ladder of ascent and descent.

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     Such an order would actually exist if man in his heart acknowledged the LORD to be the First and the Last, the only Life and Existence. In this case, whatever entered into his mind through the senses would be to him a means of thinking of the LORD and His heavenly kingdom, and not of himself and the world, and from these would he derive the very essence of all the pleasantness and delight experienced in the world and the things of nature. Nature, indeed, would be alive to him, because the very life from which all nature has existence would be present in the light of perception of his understanding, and constitute the life of his thought, and the objects of nature would be but ideas or images of that life; and, although inanimate in. themselves, they would in him be instinct with life, full of activity and motion. Dead things would be no more, for death itself would be no more.
     Such a perception of nature have they who in Heaven are in celestial states; and because infants are consociated with them, they, too, have a like perception derived from the angelic sphere. Like the angels infants have no idea or image of death in their minds, unless, this be introduced by a sort of violence from without and unless it be maintained there by persistent confirmation;
     By reflection on the states of the angels, and of infants as there revealed, we may form some conception of the manner in which the communication and conjunction of man with heaven is to be reconstructed, and of the means by which true and living ideas are to be formed in human minds. Such ideas are the very steps of the ladder on which the angels of God ascend and descend; and these ideas and steps consist of the acknowledgment of the LORD in the heart, and of the innocence formed by that acknowledgment. (See A. C. 8702.)
FIFTEENTH CHAPTER OF GENESIS 1889

FIFTEENTH CHAPTER OF GENESIS              1889

     IN the Internal Sense of the fifteenth chapter of Genesis, the LORD continues to be treated of, after having, in Boyhood, sustained the most grievous of temptations and these directed against the love which He cherished toward the universal human race, especially toward the Church. Being, therefore, anxious concerning its future state, a promise was made to Him; and it was shown at the same time what the state of the Church would be toward its end, when it would begin to expire, but, nevertheless, that a new Church would be restored to life, which should take the place of the former one, and the heavenly Kingdom would be increased immensely.

     THE chapter begins with a reference to the combats of temptations described in the preceding chapter, and teaches that they were followed by consolation. All temptation has with it a species of desperation, otherwise it is not a temptation, therefore consolation follows. He who is tempted is brought into anxiety, which induces a state of despair concerning the end. The combat of temptation is nothing else; he who is certain of victory is not in anxiety, and therefore neither is he in temptation. Because the LORD sustained the most dire and cruel temptations of all, He could not but be in despair, which He dispelled and overcame by His own power. So, after the events described in the preceding chapter ("After these words"), there followed a revelation from the Internal Man to the Interior ("the Word of JEHOVAH came to Abram in the vision"), consoling Him that He was His protection against evils and falses, in which He should trust ("Fear not, Abram, I am a shield to thee"), and that He should attain the end of victories, the salvation of the universal human race ("thine exceeding great reward").
     That the LORD'S temptations were most frightful, that He was in anguish from His inmosts, even to drops of blood, and that He was then in a state of despair concerning the end and event, and that He was then consoled, is very evident from His temptation in Gethsemane. "When JESUS was in the place He said to the disciples, 'Pray ye that ye enter not into temptation;' but He was withdrawn from them about a stone's throw, and kneeling, He prayed, saying, 'Father, if Thou wilt that this cup may pass from me, nevertheless not my will, but Thine be done.' But an angel was seen by Him comforting Him. And when He was in anguish He prayed more earnestly; but His sweat became like drops of blood, going down upon the ground" (Luke xxii, 40-45).
     Although the angel comforted Him, yet did His temptations not cease, but a more grievous one followed, for from earliest childhood until His passion on the cross, He underwent continual temptations. The consolation at the end of one prepared Him for the next.
     The regenerating man can, therefore, not expect to attain a lasting peace in this world; whatever states of rest and consolation and peace may be given to him are simply to prepare him for the next ensuing conflict.

     So in the chapter before us. Although He received the consolation which confidence in the protection against evils and falses brings with it; although He saw that by means of His own power He would attain the end of His victories over these evils and falses, which end was the salvation of the universal human race, yet did a new temptation ensue. The salvation of the human race depends especially upon the Church, but the LORD perceived ("And Abram said, O LORD JEHOVAH") that there was no Internal Church ("what wilt Thou give me, and I am walking childless"), while the External Church ("and the son the steward of my house") was merely external ("is this Damascene Eliezer"). Thus did He in a manner despair. And He perceived, further ("And Abram said"), that there was no Internal of the Church ("Lo, to me thou hast given no seed"), and that there would be only an external in His kingdom ("and behold a son of mine house is inheriting me"). Love and faith are His "seed," nor is any other faith meant, which is the internal of the Church, than that which is of love or charity. In the general sense faith is every doctrinal of the Church; but a doctrinal separated from love or charity never makes the Internal of the Church, for the doctrinal is only knowledge, which is of the memory, which even the worst can have, yea; even the infernals. But the doctrinal, which is from charity, or which is of charity, constitutes the Internal, for this is of life. Life itself is the internal of all worship, and. thus every doctrinal which flows from the life of charity is a doctrinal which is of the faith that is meant here. Love to the LORD and charity toward the neighbor, therefore, is the Internal of the Church. They who are in this love, who have this Internal, therefore have life; and are the LORD'S heirs, and are in His Kingdom.

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There are in the LORD'S Kingdom those who are External, those who are Interior, and those who are Internal. Good Spirits, who are in the First Heaven, are External; Angelic Spirits, who are in the Second Heaven, are Interior Angels, who are in the Third, are Internal. Those who are External are not so near the LORD as the Interior ones, nor are these as near as the Internal. From the Divine Love, or Mercy, the LORD wants to have all near Him, and that they should not stand without-that is, in the First Heaven, but He wants them to be in the Third, and if He could, not only with Him, but in Himself. Such is the Divine, or the LORD'S Love. And because at that time the Church was only in Externals, He complained, saying, "Behold, a son of mine house is inheriting me," by which is signified that so only the External would be in His Kingdom.
     But the consolation followed and the promise concerning Internals. For He received the answer ("and behold the Word of JEHOVAH to him") that the External should not be the heir of His Kingdom ("saying, he shall not inherit thee"), but they who are in love to Him, and in love toward the neighbor ("but he that goeth forth out of thy bowels"), they should become His heirs ("he shall inherit thee").
     And this Internal Church waste multiply immensely. Regarding internals from externals, the Interior Man beheld ("and leading him forth out of doors") the representation of the LORD'S Kingdom in heaven and on earth, in the universal and in particular in a view of the universe ("and he said, look, I pray, toward heaven"), and the representation of goods an truths in a view of the stars ("and number the stars"), and the fructification of love, and the multiplication of faith ("if thou art able to number them") with the heirs of the LORD'S Kingdom ("and He said to him, so shall be thy seed"). Thus the LORD, Who in infancy had been instructed in the science of correspondences, and had been gifted with an exquisite perception of things internal, beheld in the universe and its stars the representation of His heavenly kingdom, that it was to be so vast and numerous that no one could ever believe it, so that it cannot be expressed but by the word IMMENSE, while at the same time and in the same representations He saw the innumerable goods and truths which are of wisdom and intelligence, with their faith, that every single angel would have.
     And in this view He had faith ("and he believed in JEHOVAH"). From the inmost confidence and faith continually, that, because He fought for the salvation of the universal human race, from pure love, He could not do otherwise than conquer. This is "believing in JEHOVAH." From the love from which one fights, the faith may be known. Hence an idea may be had of the LORD'S faith. He alone fought from Divine Love, namely from Love toward the universal human race, whose, salvation He solely desired and burned for in His combats, and in the faith from this Love was He first made Justice ("and He imputed it to him for justice"). The LORD was not born Justice as to the Human Essence, but He became Justice by the combats of temptations and victories, and this from His own power: and as often as He fought and conquered, this was imputed to Him for justice-that is, it was continually added to the Justice, which He: should become, as an increase, until He became pure Justice.
     As to Internals, the LORD was JEHOVAH: but because the External, which the LORD received from the mother, was to be united to the Divine or JEHOVAH, and this by temptations and victories, it could not be otherwise than that in the states, when He spoke with JEHOVAH, it should appear to Him as if it were with some one else, when yet He spoke with Himself-that is to say, in so far as He was conjoined. The most perfect perception which the LORD had above all who have been born, was from His Internal-that is, from JEHOVAH Himself ("and He said unto him, 'I am JEHOVAH'"), and this Internal, JEHOVAH, brought Him forth out of the maternal, or the hereditary from the mother, whenever He overcame evils and falses that is, the hells ("who led thee forth out of Ur of the Chaldeans"), and as He, JEHOVAH, was the Possessor of the universe, hence of the heavenly Kingdom, from eternity, so did His Human Essence become its sole Possessor ("to give thee this land to inherit it"). Thus the Kingdom in the heavens and in all lands is His alone.

     THE Interior Man next spoke with the Internal ("And he said, 'O LORD JEHOVAH'") in a state of temptation directed against the LORD'S Love, which desired to be certain that the human race would be saved ("whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it"). The doubt in the words of the literal sense show that a temptation is involved, for he who is in temptation is in doubt concerning the end, the end is the love against which the evil spirits and evil genii fight, and thus they place the end in doubt, and all the more in doubt, the more he loves it. As the LORD'S Love was the most ardent love for the salvation of the human race, and was, therefore, every affection of good and every affection of truth in the highest degree, all the hells fought against it with the most malignant deceits and venom. Still the LORD overcame them all of His own power. As, then, He was in doubt, and wished to become certain that the human race would be saved; it was shown Him how the Church is circumstanced in general, specifically, and in particular.

     THE LORD perceived ("And He said to him") the things which are representative of the celestial things of the Church ("Take to thee a heifer three years old, and a she-goat three years old, and a ram three years old") and the things which are representative of the spiritual things of the Church ("and a turtle dove and a young dove"). The celestial itself is love to the LORD, and love toward the neighbor. This celestial inflows from the LORD, and, indeed, by means of the Internal man into the External: in the Interior man it is called celestial interior (the representatives of which are signified by the "she-goat"), in the Exterior man it is called celestial exterior (the representatives of which are signified by the "heifer"). The celestial exteriors every affection of good, yea, it is also every pleasure which is from the affection of good; in so far as in the affection of good, and the pleasure thence, is the good of love and charity, in so far it is celestial and happy. From the celestials is the celestial spiritual (the representatives of which are signified by the "ram"), and this is every affection of truth in which is the affection of good, or the affection of truth, which is generated from the affection of good; thus it is faith in which is charity, or faith which is generated from charity. It was commanded that the "heifer," the "she-goat," and the "ram" should each be "three years old," that thereby might be represented that the LORD perceived every state of the Church from its beginning down to its end, in regard to the celestial interiors, celestial exteriors, and celestial spirituals. The celestial spirituals are intermediate between the celestials and the spirituals, which were represented by the birds ("and a turtle dove and a young dove").

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Spirituals are the things which are of faith or of truth, hence intellectuals and rationals, and of these there are also two kinds: spiritual exteriors (the representatives of which are signified by the "turtle dove"); and spiritual interiors (the representatives of which are signified by the "young dove").
     It was so done ("and he took to himself all these"), and between the Church on the one side and the LORD on the other ("and he parted them in the midst"), there was a parallelism and correspondence as to the celestials ("and he gave each its part opposite the other"); but as to the spirituals, there was not such a parallelism and correspondence ("and the fowl he parted not"). Celestials are all those things which are of love to the LORD, and of love toward the neighbor; the LORD gives love and charity, the Church receives; conscience unites, in which is implanted love and charity-therefore, the space between the parts signifies that with man, which is called perception, internal dictate, and conscience. The things which are above perception, dictate, and conscience are the LORD'S; those which are below are with man. Because they thus regard each other mutually, there is said to be a parallelism, and because they correspond one to the other, like the active and the passive, they are said to correspond. But between spiritual things, which are all things of faith, and the LORD, there is no such parallelism and correspondence, for they are such things as do not inflow by an internal dictate and conscience like those which are of love and charity, but the inflow by means of instruction, and thus by means of hearing, thus not from the interior, but from the exterior, and thus they form with man recipient vessels. The greatest part of them appear like truths and are not true; like those which are of the literal sense of the Word, and representatives of truth and significatives of truth, thus in themselves not true; some of them even are false, which, nevertheless, are able to serve as vessels and recipients; but with the LORD there are none but those essentially true, wherefore, there is no parallelism and correspondence of them, still they can be adapted so as to serve celestials, which are of love and charity, as vessels.
     When a Church is raised up by the LORD, it is at first guiltless, and then one loves the other like a brother, but in course of time charity grows less and vanishes, and when this vanishes evils succeed, and with evils falses also insinuate themselves, whence come schisms and heresies, which would never be if charity reigned and lived. Such evils and the falses from them, which wish to destroy the Church, are signified by the words, "and the flying thing came down upon the bodies," but the LORD puts them to flight ("and Abram drove them away"). For when the Church begins to recede from charity, evils and the falses thence are more readily puts to flight; but, later, evils and falses thence increase, and are confirmed and strengthened. The LORD puts evils and falses to flight by means of man's conscience, but when this is relaxed there is no medium by which the LORD can inflow, and then a new medium succeeds and is formed, which is external and is not of conscience, such as the fear of the law, the fear of the loss of life, honor, riches, and fame.
     But, although the LORD dissipates the evils and falses, yet falses infest the Church. At the time and in the state before the consummation ("and it was, the sun was about to set"), the Church was in darkness ("and a deep sleep fell upon Abram"), and the darknesses or falsities were terrible, so that the LORD had a horror of them ("and behold a terror of great darknesses falling upon him"). And the LORD perceived (" and He said to Abram") that it was certain ("knowing thou shalt know"); that charity and faith would be rare ("that thy seed shall be a stranger"), where the Church would, as it were, not be theirs who are in charity and faith ("in a land not theirs"). At the present day the Church is so-called from the mere doctrinals of faith, and according to them do men distinguish the LORD'S Churches, not caring what they are like as to life, whether they cherish intestine hatreds, and, like wild beasts, tear one another to pieces, despoil them, deprive them of fame, honor, riches, and from the heart deny whatever is holy; when, nevertheless, the Church is never with such, but with those who love the LORD and the neighbor as themselves, have conscience, and are averse to such hatreds.
     Such persons are among the former like strangers, and, as far as possible, are injured and persecuted by means of scoffing remarks, or else are looked upon as simpletons, worthless, and good for nothing. "Thy seed shall be a stranger in a land not theirs." And their oppression ("and they shall serve them"), and their grievous temptations ("and shall afflict them") will endure its full time ("four hundred years").
     But the evil who oppress ("and also the nation whom they shall serve") will be visited and judged ("I shall judge"), and the "seed" will be liberated and will have celestial and spiritual goods ("and after this, they shall go forth with rent acquisition").
     Thus the LORD was consoled that nothing of the goods and truths would be injured ("and thou shalt come to thy fathers in peace"), but that all who are the LORD'S should enjoy all goods ("thou shalt be buried in a good old age"). "To come to the fathers" is to pass from the life of the body into the life of the spirit, or from the world into the other life, and this is to be "in peace"-that is, nothing is to be lost, nothing to be injured. They who die and are buried do not die but pass from an obscure life into one that is clear, for the death of the body is only a continuation and also perfection of life, and then do they, who are the LORD'S, for the first time come into the fruition of all goods.
     But it was shown the LORD that evils would occupy the Church. At the end of the temptation will come the time and the state of restitution ("and in the fourth generation then shall return hither"), which last time takes place when there is no longer any good ("for the iniquity of the Amorites is not consummated until here").
     And, finally, nothing but falses and cupidities will reign. For at the extreme time when is the consummation ("and it was when the sun set") hatred takes the place of charity ("and there was thick darkness"). When hatred is in place of charity, there is such thick darkness that mail does altogether not know that there is evil, still less that evil is such that in the other life it plunges him into hell; for they who are in hatred apperceive a something delightful, and, as it were, something vital in it; this very delight-that is, this vital, causes them hardly to know otherwise than that it is good; whatever favors man's pleasure and cupidity,-because his love, he feels as if it were good, even to such an extent that when he is told that it is infernal he can hardly believe it; still less when he is told that such delight and vital is turned in the other-life into what is fetid, excrementitious and cadaverous and still less does' he believe that he himself will become a devil and a horrible image of hell, for hell consists of nothing but hatreds and such diabolic forms; Hence, at the consummation, when hatred is in place of charity there is also the densest false ("and behold-a furnace of smoke"), and the heat of lusts ("and a torch of fire"), which divides those who are of the Church from the LORD ("which passed between those pieces").

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When hatreds succeed in the place of charity, and evils and falses in place of goods and truths, then there is no conscience of good and truth, but this middle or intersticial space appears as if it were filled with a furnace of smoke and the torch of fire-that is, filled with persuasions of the false and hatreds, which altogether separate the LORD from the Church.     

     AFTER it had been shown to the LORD in this manner how the Church is circumstanced in general, specifically, and in particular, His Interior man was conjoined more interiorly with the Internal or JEHOVAH ("in that day JEHOVAH made a covenant with Abram"), and after those temptations and horrors-after the LORD had put evils and falses to flight, and yet dense falses infused themselves for which he had a horror, and, nevertheless, finally mere falses and evils occupied the human race-He could not do otherwise than be in straitness and grief, wherefore He received the consolation that they who are in charity and faith to Him would be His heirs ("saying, to thy seed I shall give this land"), and their spirituals and celestials would be extended ("from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Phrath"). Thus, then, would come the LORD'S Kingdom, and a New Church whose extension is thus described while there would be expelled from His Kingdom falses ("the Kenite, and the Kenizzite, and the Kadmonite"), the persuasions of the false ("and the Chittite, and the Perizite, and the Rephraim"), evils ("and the Amorite and the Canaanite"), and from evils, falses ("and the Girgashite, and the Jebusite"); and thus the end of His Incarnation would be attained. For the salvation of the human race was His only consolation, for He was in Divine and Celestial Love, and He became, even as to His Human Essence, the Very Divine and Celestial Love in which solely the love of nil is regarded and is upon the heart. His Love is such that He loves all as a father does his children, and He wishes to make all His heirs, and He looks out for the inheritance for all who are to be born, as also for those who have been born.
     "As a father hath mercy upon his sons, so the LORD hath mercy upon those that fear Him; for He knoweth our formation, He remembereth that we are dust. Man, like grass are his days, like the flower of the field, so he flourisheth; when the wind passeth over it, it is not, and the place thereof knoweth it no more. But the mercy of the LORD is from eternity even to eternity over those that fear Him; and His justice unto the sons of sons; to those that keep His covenant, and remember His precepts to do them."-Amen.
MEETING TO ORGANIZE THE PENNSYLVANIA ASSOCIATION OF THE NEW CHURCH 1889

MEETING TO ORGANIZE THE PENNSYLVANIA ASSOCIATION OF THE NEW CHURCH              1889

     ON the fourth day of April, the First New Jerusalem Society of Philadelphia (the Rev. Chauncey Giles, Pastor) issued a call for a meeting to organize an Association of Societies and individual members of the New Church. A re-issue of the call, on April 18th, was signed by the following Societies and individuals:
     First New Jerusalem Society of Philadelphia.-Rev. Messrs. Giles, Worcester, and Alden, and Messrs. Burnham, McGeorge, Lewis, Shoemaker, Weston, Valleau, Stuard, Acker, Sehoff, Wilson, Smith, White, Fleck (Germantown), Kent (Clifton), Elder (Johnstown), Stotz (Bethlehem).
     The Philadelphia Union of the New Jerusalem.-Rev. L. H. Tafel, and Messrs. Campbell, A. J. Tafel, Parker, Steiger, S. C. Smith, Daiber, Denovan, E. P. Anshntz and Pflueger.
     Franford Society.-Rev. J. W. MacPherson, and Messrs. Crankshaw, Oram, Smith, William Lever, Brand, Stearne, Hallowell, Holt, Swope, Jos. M. Lever, Watmough, Baxindine.
     Allentown Society.-Messrs Diehl, Frederick C. Bohlen, Giering, F. W. Bohlen, C. H. Bohlen, Herzog, Greasemer, Strasser.
     Vineland Society, N. J.-Rev. A. Roeder, Dr. Tuller.
     Egg Harbow City, N. J.-Mr. and Mrs. Reiman, Mr. and Mrs. Dietz, Mr. Freitag, Mrs. Roeder, Miss Haar, Mrs. Rothholz.
     Allegheny.-Messrs. Very, Grassel and Weckesser, Mr. and Mrs. Curtis, Mr. and Mrs. Gilliland, Mrs. Very.
     Mrs. Ballou (Pittsburgh), Mr. Jones (Nanticoke), Mr. Hoffer (Mount Joy).

     Pursuant to this call, a meeting was held, on April 25th, at the church corner of Twenty-second and Chestnut Streets, Philadelphia.

     MORNING SESSION.

     THE meeting was called to order by the Rev. Chauncey Giles at 10.30 o'clock A. M., and was opened with religious exercises. The Chairman delivered an address, presenting the advantages of union and organization, and emphasizing the importance of love. "Love of the neighbor organizes many into one."
     The Rev. Chauncey Giles being nominated to the Chair by the Rev. Louis H. Tafel, with the remark that the nomination was self-evident, was unanimously elected.
     It was moved and carried that the chair appoint a minister and a layman from each Society for the purpose of drawing up a Constitution.
     The Chairman said that he would leave it to the minister of each Society to appoint the layman from his own Society. Rev. William L. Worcester appointed Mr. William McGeorge from the First New Jerusalem Society.
     The Rev. L. H. Tafel; pastor of the Philadelphia Union of the New Jerusalem, appointed Edw. S. Campbell, Esq. The Rev. J. W. MacPherson, pastor of the Frankford Society, appointed John Crankahaw. The Rev. Adolph Roeder pastor of the Vineland Society, appointed Dr. E. R. Tuller. For Allentown, the Rev. Mr. Roeder appointed Mr. J. C. Diehl.
     Rev. B. F. Barrett: "Is the Society of the Advent represented at this meeting? Was it invited? I merely ask for information."
     The chairman: "It was not invited."
     Mr. Barrett: "May not the question arise as to the propriety of having two Associations in the same State. If I were in the State of Massachusetts, and I and a good many others did not approve of the policy, we would call a meeting with the intention of joining the General Convention. Would they authorize that? I have not the slightest objection to the proceedings here, but would it not be better to appoint a delegation here to wait upon the Advent Society, and present reasons why they should unite with us in this movement? For the policy in the General Church has been protested against everywhere in Pennsylvania. I think if a delegation were to wait upon Mr. Benade (he, I understand, is at present the head of the Society of the Advent), and say to him in a kindly way: 'We ask you, for the sake of the New Church in the whole country, to give in and surrender your position and the policy which has received the protest of the whole country, to urge him now, for the good of the Church, if you regard the union of the Church, and especially the heavenly Doctrines-if you regard them as supreme to your policy, you are now in a position where you can help the Church as few men can.' What a service is rendered to the Church when a Bishop, finding his policy given up by all the country and by the better element in his own congregation, says: 'Now I surrender.'

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I do not want to disturb the meeting, nor to throw the slightest jar upon it, but would it not be better to appoint a delegation friendly to Mr. Benade? As a friend of Mr. Benade's, I would nominate myself as chairman of such a delegation (you, Mr. President, could appoint some of your own friends), that we may proceed in a kindly way, and, if Mr. Benade will not listen to reason, then we will have done the best we could. We cannot then help having two Associations in the same State."
     The Chairman: "We must abide by their desire, whatever that may be. It might be very courteous and kind, and might serve the purpose which Mr. Barrett has nominated himself to perform. It seems to me that it would be as well for it to be done by private persons as for this body to do it. We are merely a congregation that has not yet organized. I should be very glad to have every man and woman in this State unite with us, but it seems to me, from the history of the Church, that it would be quite impossible to bring about such a union. We do not form this Association in hostility to any one. That is not my purpose, at any rate. I have no wish to antagonize any man or woman. My desire is that those who can unite on a ground of entire freedom to form an Association to perform a larger use than they could do in an isolated way should have the opportunity. I have no desire to bring any one in, unless they desire to come; nor to oppose. There is a feeling that this Association has been got up in hostility to the General Church. It is not so. I have felt the want, and there are reasons why we cannot unite with the General Church of Pennsylvania; we therefore concluded to work in our own way. That has been the motive and the cause. The motive of our action, I hope, will be affirmative, not negative. I believe there is room, and there is work, for us to do, by uniting in this way."
     Rev. J. B. Parmelee: "These Societies that are represented here I believe do not belong to any Association. They saw reasons for uniting with you. I suppose the Advent Society is in the same condition as it was before. They now belong to an Association. Our Society belongs to the Maryland Association, and thus we are not invited to join this body. I do not think you can send a request to a Church that belongs to some other Association, unless they have first separated themselves from their own Association. You do not send us an invitation as you send others. I am here to see what you are going to do. If we find it more useful, we may leave the Maryland Association and join you."
     The Chairman: "We have asked the Vineland Society to unite with us. It is nearer, and we can come into union with it. A letter was written to the president of the New York Association, saying that we thought the Vineland Society would be more useful by uniting with us, than by its organization still remaining in the New York Association. I received a note from the president, saying that he thought so, too. He hoped the arrangement would be made. That is the only exception in which a Society already belonging to an Association has been asked to join us. Of course, it would be courteous to ask the Association for leave to do so. Could we ask the General Church of Pennsylvania to give up its organization and come into our Association?"
     Mr. Parmelee: "I think not."
     The Chairman: "I sympathize with Mr. Barrett, but perhaps we will have more harmony with two organizations than with one."
     Mr. Barrett: "I do not like the appearance of seeing two Associations in one State, any more than I like the appearance of seeing two or three Societies in one city. You are probably quite right, Mr. President; but the thought just occurred to me."
     Rev. C. H. Mann, after referring to the letter written by the Chairman to the New York Association in regard to Vineland, said: "It would be impertinence for you to say anything to the General Church of Pennsylvania on this subject. That Church extends its organization over the whole world. There are Societies in Illinois which are members of it. It is not for us to invite according to geographical bounds, but according to sympathy. The General Church-is not in sympathy, ad it would be a mere formality to ask him to join us. They have formed an organization in accordance with their ideas of order. It would be impertinence-I use a strong word-it would be impertinent for us to ask them to come away from their own ideas of order, and to join us. I do not think it is necessary to say to any one: 'Come, join us!' unless they are in sympathy. I do not regret to see many organizations, except that I regret that we are not one in sympathy; but to make ourselves one, when we are not one, is working from the wrong end. True unanimity does not consist in bulk."
     Mr. Richard A. Lewis: "I am pretty well posted on the affairs of the Advent Society. There is a feeling of harmony in letting them work at their own methods of establishing the Church on such peculiar principles as they think are the best. We wish them the very best success."
     Mr. William Denovan: "Any one would be welcome here, would they not?"
     The Chairman: "Yes, they who would like to come to us. We are willing to have any person who feels he can be useful to us. There are no bars set up to keep any one out."
     Mr. Barrett withdrew his proposition to appoint a delegation to wait on Mr. Benade.
     Mr. Parmelee: "I received a copy of your 'call.' I like it so much. The very first sentence embodies the right thing: 'Love to the LORD and to the neighbor.' If this organization is based on that, it will live to be a mighty power, to transfuse life to every body round about. Without that the Church cannot prosper. Perhaps that is the reason why the New Church is so small at the present day. Truth alone cannot accomplish much; if it is truth warmed up by love, that does something. If a thing has been a blessing to us, pass it on, so that we may receive mutual assistance. We want to be helped by each other. That is the principle. I want to be helped, and that by somebody else. Let love to the LORD be seen! That is what we want. If this be the principle, then is this Association a foregone success. I like another term in the 'call' (reads): 'Brotherhood of Societies.' I believe in the brotherhood of men. (Reads.) 'We have no wish to rule over others, nor to be ruled by them.' That is as long as it is broad. The love of dominion is the moat terrible curse that can be known in any Newchurchman. (Reads) "We have no wish . . . . to establish an ecclesiastical government in the common meaning of the words.' There is no harm in the true meaning of the term; but people have read and acted into what does not apply to it. What we understand by it is odious, to men     . . . .
     "There is no limitation to the good sphere that may go out to the world. For a proper thought with its proper affection there is no end; it goes into the general atmosphere, which is provided by other Associations. It is most beautiful! Ecclesiastical government would be entirely unobjectionable in the true sense of the word.

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Its meaning is far from absolute dominion. Worcester defines 'ecclesiastical' as 'relating to or appropriated to the Church. Ecclesiastical courts, courts in which causes relating to the matters of the Church are determined according to the canon laws. Ecclesiastical state, a state under the temporal jurisdiction of the Pope.' An 'Ecclesiastic' is defined as 'a person dedicated to the services of the Church and the ministry of religion; the priest or clergyman or religious teacher connected with an episcopacy.' If the term 'Bishop,' as used in the Bible meaning, were presented to us there would be no objection to it. The shepherd is a bishop; he is over his flock, wishing to defend them-to lead them by still waters and in green pastures. Then, Christians would welcome a Bishop. The LORD says to Peter: 'Feed my lambs.' This is the principle to be kept in view in this Association. If it be so it will be a blessing to Pennsylvania, the United States, and to the world."
     A gentleman rose and advocated the sending out of a missionary to discover where ministers are wanted. He should have not only knowledge, but also "warmness of love, and capacity to travel over the United States," "to explain to the children with child-like simplicity and becoming modesty."
     The Chairman said that this is a work which we are trying to do, but the difficulty is to get the men. That he himself had received several applications for ministers, and the President of the Boston Theological School had received applications for seventeen ministers that could be employed. People were not aware of this. It was easy to send men out, but the difficulty was to find the men. He continued:
     "I was thinking of a little custom when I was a boy and I lived in the country. People were scattered then. Matches were not invented. My friend, Mr. Parmelee, remembers that time; he has been there. The only way of preserving the fire was to cover up the ashes at night. This had to be done very carefully, so that the fire would not smother. Sometimes it would go out, and in the morning there was no fire or matches. We used to try to make fire with a steel and flint, but I never succeeded. I was often told by my parents: 'Chauncey, go to so-and-so and borrow some fire.' When I had borrowed the fire from some neighbor, the question was to get home before it went out. Often I have had to turn back. It seems to me that this is something that we ought to do now. We ought to borrow fire, if our fire is gone out. If our fire is gone out, we ought to go to some neighbor who is more fortunate, and borrow and bring home, and feed it and kindle it up to warm ourselves, and in our turn to help others. Let us go and borrow fire of one another. I hope we shall do so. But you cannot keep one stick burning all the time. Some sticks perhaps, will, but I think it is very difficult. I don't know of any. We want a lot of sticks. Let us borrow fire if we have not enough. If we would do it, I am just as sure as I am here to day, that if this Association will put love to God and man first, we must have the truth, but if we will put that first, that we shall accomplish a work that has never been done in the New Church, and shall set an example that others will be delighted to follow. I might propose a question to you which you might discuss for a week, and you would know no more about it than you do now. You can discuss these little things, but there is one thing that you have not learned, and that is that ten thousand little questions settle themselves when we move on. When we are still they may come up and torment us; but love is a power that protects itself, especially if it has the truth. When we move on with the burning desire to do good, the questions will settle themselves. Those who are acquainted with the history of the Church will find that the questions which have excited a great deal of doubt are of no importance. You cannot steer a ship unless it is in motion. At anchor or floating in the stream you cannot steer it. But give it power, then you can run it in any way you want to. We are like a ship at anchor. There are a great many dangers which will disappear as we go on. But we cannot give directions to the ship before we move. Some one has said that infinity itself is helpless against imbecility. What I hope for is this, that we come together, and that we reject and put away all the things that hinder us from coming together; then as we borrow fire from each other our own hearts may be kindled by it and bent to the LORD and to the neighbor by it; then there will be no difficulty. While we sit still, we are useless. Little things set going, little seeds in good soil will grow, and when they have life in them they will accomplish a great deal. The truths of the New Church have life in them, and if we can get them into our minds and in connection with the Divine life, and the life of our brethren, they will have a power of which we have no conception. I have no wish to build up an organization. I have no other interest than grows from the hope that we may come into such relations of open intercourse that shall have the life that will enable us to accomplish great good for the people that are around us. Here within the limits of an hour's ride there are millions of people to whom the truths of the New Church have never been stated. I wish that you shall go forth and lift here the standard of the New Church. If we do this in a proper spirit we shall accomplish much. If love organizes we shall be successful.
     I pray that that love may be kept foremost, that it may be a seal to our lips when we are going to say anything that is not of love; that it may strengthen our hands. This is my whole prayer; I have no other."

     AFTERNOON SESSION.

     MR. TAFEL stated that the following draft of the Constitution had received the entire approval of all the members of the Committee:

     CONSTITUTION.

     ARTICLE FIRST.

     The name of this body shall be, The Pennsylvania Association of the New Church.

     ARTICLE SECOND.

     This Association shall consist of societies in the State of Pennsylvania and vicinity, and of individuals living within the limits of the Association who are not members of any society in connection with this body, that signify their desire to unite with us in performing the uses of an Association, and who acknowledge their belief in the doctrines of the New Jerusalem as revealed by the LORD from His Word in the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg, the essentials of which are: 1. The acknowledgment of the LORD'S Divinity. 2. The holiness of the Word. 3. The life which is called charity.

     ARTICLE THIRD.

     This Association is organized for the following purposes:
     1.     To form a brotherhood of societies and individuals, and to bring all members of the common body into a closer, more vital and helpful union in performing the uses and living the life which a knowledge of the truths of the New Church enables us to do.
     2.     By the combined strength of the common body to assist one another in the more efficient propagation of our common faith in every possible way, including distribution of books and tracts, missionary work, and correspondence with and help to those who are beginning to read and study the writings; in maintaining public worship; providing for the administration of the sacraments of Baptism and the Holy Supper; and a systematic and frequent interchange of thought and affection between the general body and its members.

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     ARTICLE FOURTH.

     The officers of this Association shall he a President, Vice-President, Secretary, and Treasurer, and an Executive Council of twelve members, of which the four above-named officers shall be ex-officio members. All of said officers shall be elected annually by ballot, at a regular meeting of the Association; but vacancies may be filled by the Executive Council.

     ARTICLE FIFTH.

     All the ministers of the Association shall constitute a Council of Ministers, to whom all matters relating to the order and work of the ministry shall be referred, to report to the Association for its information and final action.

     ARTICLE SIXTH.

     A Committee consisting of one lay member from each society, and such isolated members of the Association as it may from time to time be deemed useful, shall be appointed by the President, whose duty it shall be to keep him informed of the condition and wants of the societies and isolated members, and to suggest means by which the whole body can be helpful to them, or uses which they can perform to the Association. These communications should be made quarterly, or, if possible, monthly, that every society and every member of the Association may be drawn into closer and conscious minion with the whole body, and that the whole body may be strengthened by the love end power of each member.

     ARTICLE SEVENTH.

     This Association shall meet annually at such time and place as may be determined by a vote thereof. Special meetings of the Association may be called by the Executive Council or by the President at the request of not less than three societies.

     ARTICLE EIGHTH.

     Every society shall be entitled to three delegates and one additional for every twenty-five members.

     ARTICLE NINTH.

     This Constitution may be changed at any regular meeting of the Association, three-fourths of all the members present assenting, provided that such amendment shall first have been submitted to the action of the Executive Council.

     The Constitution was read article by article, and adopted.
     In response to a query, the Chairman defined that a Society or an individual in the "vicinity" meant, according to his understanding, one who would find it more convenient to associate with this Association than with another.
     Mr. Alden asked whether the term would cover any one who was connected with any other body. The Chairman answered affirmatively.
     The Chairman appointed the members of the Committee on drafting the Constitution as a committee of nominations: Mr. Rodman and Mr. Alden, tellers. During the interval after the Committee had retired to make the nominations, the Chairman made the following remarks:
     "I want the ladies of this Association to take hold of it. If they do so it will go; and if they do not it cannot succeed. I do not want it to be a dry, intellectual affair. Everything depends upon motion. A ship will rot if it is high and dry without being used. We must begin to do something, and then we will hope to do more. When the way seems dark and you see no further than one step, when you take that step you see how to take another. And I want to say to you all-the ladies in particular-to take this new Association in hand and see that it does something. I want you to talk about it with your friends who are not here. Awaken their interest in it, and let it go from hand to band and mouth to mouth. Let, there be a circulation of any thought and affection that has been awakened here. Let it be communicated to the whole body; and, when the whole body moves without interruption, there is always power. You well know how little a matter will hinder our usefulness. The united action and getting together of as many persons as can will awaken interest in it; and if you do this you will be amazed to find how much good will grow out of it."
     After referring playfully to what he was about to say as being a secret which he did not wish his congregation to hear, the speaker continued:
     "The secret is this: I have made it a rule in all my work in the ministry to try to find something for the people to do. Whenever I see any one going to sleep I say: 'What is there to do?' 'I don't know.' 'Let us talk it over and see,' I say. One time we had a meeting of the Church Committee. We were getting behind. 'Let us do something,' I said; 'what shall it be?' 'I do not know.' 'Let us talk it over.' When some people get together there is always some suggestion. We are not left alone. When we are trying to do any good, the LORD and the angels are with us. They will always give some suggestion of what to do and how to do it. One man said: 'Suppose we try publishing one of your discourses.' We did publish two, and I thought at the time that we might publish three. It was done that week, and the work is going on to this day. We have published half a million of discourses; three hundred thousand were published last year; not only mine; somebody has gone and borrowed our fire. I mention this as a result of that suggestion. We have kept on doing the work and shall do so. It has helped us, and has awakened the interest of our people in the discourses. It has grown on them. I don't know of any better illustration than that. In every Society, however small, if they sit down and say: 'We cannot do anything, there is no use trying,' they will sit so forever. Forever is along time. However, they will never do anything until they do do something.
     "You can all see that. When they begin to do, there is an influx from the LORD and the angels into the minds of the people who are doing the work, to help them to do it; and it will help them to see that there is more to do. I know all phases of the New Church." The speaker here mentioned some of the small beginnings in which he had taken part, and further cited the case of the Israelites, when they were hemmed in on both sides; on the one side by the army of Pharaoh, and on the other side by the Red Sea; the LORD said; when Moses cried to Him, "Speak to the people that they go forward!" but when they went forward the sea opened before them. So will every difficulty go. Keep this thing going in your own hearts and communicate the life to others, and you will find that your Society will grow. Life makes things grow! Death never does. There is no Society of the New Church that can help growing if it does its duty."
     Mr. Barrett: "Do all the Societies feel free to elect women as delegates, and do we propose to join the Convention? If you propose to have women delegates, it will follow out your idea."
     The Chairman: "I do not propose anything. Our motto is freedom. Let the Societies do as they please. If they propose to have all women delegates, let them do it. I wish every Society to be in perfect freedom to do as it pleases. If the Association does not think it is right to have women delegates, I want them to be in freedom, and also the Convention to be in freedom. Let us have freedom in the largest sense. That consists in each one acting according to his knowledge, and when he acts with others, That he go on with the work."
     Mr. Barrett: "That is just my idea. But I think a word from you in the way of suggestion might do good.

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The custom has been to have only male members. Without some suggestion from gentlemen, like yourself, high in the Church, Societies may be doubtful about sending female delegates. I think that it would be in agreement with the freedom which you love that every Society should be in freedom to elect some woman as well as man. Not all women nor all men. Let them be assured that women delegates would be received just as gladly as if they were all male. There are those who would say that it is very wrong to elect women as delegates. I think that in all Church gatherings women have a right to have their voices heard."
     Mr. Mann: "A week or two ago I received a communication from you, Mr. President, stating to me privately that there was a prospect that there would be formed a new Association. This did our hearts great good. This year has been a very remarkable tear, and very interesting in the history of the Church in this country." The speaker, who is the editor of The New Church Messenger, then related that the finances of that paper are improving greatly. He also referred to the Boston Theological School.
     "There are other things which I need not mention. This movement has come about in the same way. It is a great step, and has marked this year as an active year in our history. This has done a great deal of good. As a Newchurchman, I feel delighted in it; as a member of the New York Association, and as a member of the General Convention, I congratulate you."
     The Committee on Nominations entered. Mr. Tafel said that their report was a rather peculiar one. "The member of the Committee did not nominate himself but the Committee had nominated him. Nomination, however, is one thing; election is another." He then read the nominations made by the Committee, as follows:
     For President, Rev. Chauncey Giles; Vice-President, Rev. L. H. Tafel; Secretary, Richard A. Lewis; Treasurer, John Crankshaw; Council: The above members ex-officio and --- Berry, Wm. McGeorge, Jr., J. C. Diehl, Rev. William Worcester, Edw. S. Campbell, Rev. J. W. MacPherson, E. R. Tuller, Julien Shoemaker.
     The Chairman suggested that the nominees be voted for by separate ballots, but on motion it was unanimously decided to instruct the Secretary to cast the vote for the meeting, in the affirmative. The nominees were accordingly declared elected.
     Mr. McGeorge moved that "this Association make application for admission to the General Convention at its next meeting," and the motion was carried.
     Mr. McGeorge made a moving appeal for monetary support, and as a result of the subsequent collection, reported a sum of $134.41.
     The meeting then adjourned.
Notes and Reviews 1889

Notes and Reviews              1889

     A NEW edition of Earths in Our Solar System has lately been issued by The New Church Board of Publication.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     AN English translation of the Rev. Bussman's German Catechism for New Church children is being prepared by the pastor of the English New Church Society of St. Louis, Mo.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     THE Rev. J. E. Bowers' Missionary Talks on Subjects of New Church Doctrine, which, for some years have appeared as articles in the Messenger and Morning Light, have been collected and published in book form by Mr. James Speirs, of London.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     THE Dawn is agitated over the unexpected stand taken by the Australian New Church Conference against further inroads of the so-called "Temperance" movement. In dealing summarily with this question, our Australian brethren have shown a courage which puts to shame the Churches in England and America.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     DIE Lehre des Neuen Jerusalem Vom Herrn (The Doctrine of the LORD), has been published by the German Synod. Whether this is a new translation or not we do not as yet know, but we wish to call attention to the fact that the former edition of this little work is still to be had at the office of the German "Missions-Verein," and that it has not, as stated in the Messenger, "been, out of print for some time."
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     DEN Sanna Kristna Religionen (the True Christian Religion) has at last appeared in Sweden, after the Church there had waited for it for some ten years. The principal translator is the Rev. A. Th. Boyesen, and it is published at the expense of Dr. John Ellis of New York, who will distribute also this work to all Swedish Lutheran clergymen who apply. To the public, also, the work will be more accessible than formerly, the price being but three "kronor" and fifty "ore" (=$1.00), or half of the former price. This is the third translation of the True Christian Religion into Swedish.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     A SIXTH edition of Dr. Holcombe's condensed thoughts about Christian Science has been issued by the Purdy Publishing Co., of Chicago. By the same office has been published Truths that I have Treasured, or Studies of Health on a Psychic basis, by Susan Wood Burnham. This is an olla podrida of New Church truths mixed with ideas culled from various Old Church writers, the whole strongly flavored with "Christian Science."
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     Heaven revised is the startling title of "a narrative of personal experience after the change called death," by Mrs. E. B. Duffy (Chicago: Religio-Philosophical Pub. House). It ought to be explained that the authoress does not mean that she has effected any considerable changes in the existing state of the spiritual world, but that she wishes to revise people's ideas about heaven. She offers the usual information vouchsafed by mediums and mutterings of spirits.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     THE Twenty-third Annual Report of the officers and managers of the American New Church Tract and Publication Society has been issued. The Report is occupied mostly with an account of the work of the Helper, which now has a weekly circulation of 3,700 copies. We learn, also, that by the munificence of a Newchurchman, the Divine Love and Wisdom is to be distributed gratis to clergymen, college professors, and scientific men. This is a good move. A carefully compiled Catalogue of New Church books, for sale by the New Church Association, accompanied the Report.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     SWEDENBORG Bifrons, or Swedenborg, the New Church sect and the Theosophical Society is the title of a "critique by a T. T. P." and published this year by the Theosophical Publishing Society in London.
     The pamphlet is in reality only a supplement of Swedenborg the Buddhist by Philangi Dasa. Like this, and in a similar angry, senseless tone, it inveighs against the Heavenly Doctrines and those who accept these as their only authority. Though the reading of this outpouring is not to be recommended, at still serves a use in showing to what a depth of madness and blasphemy the denial of the Divine Authority of the Writings may head.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     THE Colchester New Church Monthly is a bright lantern of sound Doctrine in England, even though it be the smallest of all New Church papers ever published. Some, indeed, might call it "one-sided," but the side which it bravely presents to the public, is that of genuine truth. In its issue of "April 1889=119" it contains an excellent, concise article by Mr. A. H. Appleton, showing seven reasons why Newchurchmen should separate themselves from Old Church organizations. The paper, which is sent gratis to any address, is well worthy of encouragement by all lovers of sound Doctrine, and the most practical way of giving this is to send it twenty-five cents per annum to cover the postage. This may be handed to Mr. Alfred Acton, agent, 1821 Wallace St.

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Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     THE report of the New Church Society of Bath, England, for the year 1888, contains a history of the New Church in that city, from its earliest days down to the, year 1838. It is proposed to continue the narrative at some other time. It appears that Mr. Wm. McGeorge, Sr., was one of the original fourteen members of the Bath Society, which was organized in the year 1829.
     The writer of the history, Mr. David Chivers, who is at present Treasurer of the Society, gives the following account of the way that he was led to the Church:
     "In the year 1842, Mr. Young called at the shop where I was employed, with some books which he wished to have bound. One of these contained some of the experiences of Swedenborg in the spiritual world, the first perusal of which highly diverted both myself and companions. When Mr. Young called for the books he asked if we had read any of them. I laughingly replied that we had, and though that Swedenborg has been a most wonderful traveler. Mr. Young smiled, and said that he was not surprised at our being merry, as such relations must seem very strange to us at first. The time, however, might come when we should desire to know more about the subject, and if so, he would gladly lend us any books in his possession. When Mr. Young left us, I, at any rate, became a little more serious, and upon further reflection felt ashamed of myself for having laughed at that which he evidently believed to be true." He then went out of curiosity to the New Church services, and became attracted by the first article in the Confession of Faith, treating of the Divine Trinity. He called on Mr. Young the next day, and from that time on became more and more interested in the Church.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     APROPOS of the "temperance agitation," here are two highly pertinent numbers from the Spiritual Diary, culled from the rich harvest of the latest number of the Concordance, under the heading "drunk." As the extracts in the Concordance are rather elliptical, we give the numbers in their full form:
     "What concerns the faults of the body, which are not from the animus or mind, the case is different [than with acquired evils], as if a man takes a nausea to wine or intoxicating drink, from any cause in the body, or takes anything such from sickness, such things are with the brutes also: the evils of the body are almost as one who cannot walk, and because of this does not desire to, because his foot is broken or wounded" (S. D. 2458).
     Hence, we ought to regard with charity the rejection of wine by one whom unable to take it, because of sickness. But this excuse does not cover those who "from their animus or mind" reject as a poison the representative of the LORD'S Truth.
     The other number is even more directly applicable to "teetotalism:"
     "That all things of my preceding life have been governed by the LORD, was evident to me from my [own] life-but still more manifestly from him, concerning whom, above. . . The governing of his life was examined, which, unless it had, to such an extent, more than others been held in a similar degree in external bonds, for the sake of the fame and pre-eminent glory of his name, he would have been excrementitious, more than all others. . . . I perceived that unless he had been thus withheld from love of woman and also from intoxicating drink, so that he drank simply water, he would have fallen so, that he would have come forth utterly excrementitious" (S. D. 3177)
     The person here referred to is evidently Charles XII, a royal teetotaler. His nature was such, that only by totally abstaining from love of woman and from wine could he be saved from the most direful profanation, but as at last he became one of the worst of devils we see that abstinence effected in him nothing of spiritual good, and, possibly barely saved him from becoming an "it."
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     A "Class for Inquirers" meets with the Rev. Chauncey Giles every Sunday morning. The reading circle in connection with the Philadelphia First Society meets on Monday evenings.
WINE QUESTION 1889

WINE QUESTION       J.A.L       1889

     Communicated.

     [Inasmuch as in this Department Correspondents have an opportunity to express their individual opinions, be they in favor of the principles on which New Church Life is conducted or adverse to them, the Editor does not hold himself responsible for the views that are published therein.]


     MUCH has been written of late on the wine proper to be used at the Holy Supper.
     If bread must be unleavened to be a pure correspondent of the LORD'S Body, why should not wine be unfermented to be a pure correspondent of the Lord Blood?
     It seems to us that the wine of the Holy Supper is intended to cover the ideas of Combat and Victory. It does not do this unless it has passed through the process of fermentation.
     The LORD'S glorification is announced in His revelation to us as the result of a warfare, a combat. The Humanity in which our LORD has shown Himself to His children was made perfect through temptation and suffering. He overcame in every temptation, was victorious in every battle with the hosts of hell, and thus made our regeneration possible.
     Combat and Victory constitute the prominent essentials in the LORD'S Glorification. The same may be said concerning man a regeneration.
     Fermented wine corresponds to this Combat and Victory, when used at the Holy Supper.
     Unfermented wine has no such correspondence. In the Divine language of correspondence, fermented wine is the LORD'S Blood. Unfermented wine is not. Its correspondence is not purely internal and spiritual, but external and natural.
     The aspects of the LORD are various and infinite as to number. In the Holy Supper they are all included under two general aspects. These are represented by flesh and blood-bread and wine. The internal sense of these terms is the Divine Human. The Internal Divine should be represented by unleavened bread, because this degree of the LORD was never tempted.
     The Human, which was assumed, became Divine by a process of temptation, and fermented wine, is the only wine which corresponds to this grand result.
     Strictly speaking, unfermented grape juice is not wine. It is called wine only by anticipation of what it soon will become unless prevented by man.
     Fermented wine is called "noble, generous, good" in the Word and the Writings. It never intoxicates unless an improper quantity be taken. I have, never heard of the use of an improper quantity of wine at the LORD'S Supper except in the case of the Corinthians, as recorded by Paul.
     In The True Christian Religion, n. 404, we are taught that there is great variety in the qualities of self-love-that it is more pernicious in proportion as it inclines to avarice, for, when immersed therein, the love of heaven becomes bleak; the like consequence attends it when it inclines to pride or self-conceit, and an assumption of preeminence over others . . . for the quality of every love is determined by the end which it principally regards. This love may be compared to crystal of a blackish hue which suffocates the light, and variegates it only into dark and faint colors. It is also like mist or a cloud which intercepts the rays of the sun; or like new wine before it has undergone fermentation, which is pleasant to the taste but prejudicial to the stomach.

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In the foregoing extract from The True Christian Religion the quality of unfermented wine is clearly indicated, and its representative use is established. Surely it is unfit to represent the Holy Truth of the LORD'S Glorified Humanity or man's regeneration at the Sacrament of the Holy Supper.
     The good of charity cannot possibly exist except as the product of leavening (A. C. 7906).
     It is the leavened or fermented wine that corresponds to this good. (See D. P. 284.)
     Clear, fermented, wine corresponds to pure truth. Unfermented wine must, therefore, correspond to impure truth, or truth falsified. And it is because it has this specific correspondence that it is used to represent the nature and effects of self-love where it inclines to self-conceit and an assumption of preeminence over others (T. C. R. 404) and why unfermented wine is called turbid and foul (D. P. 284).
     The doctrine of the reformers of the New Church briefly stated seems to be this:
     In the degree dust wine is fermented, it becomes evil, and its use is to be shunned as a sin against God.
     Are the reformers of the New Church, who are the zealous advocates of this doctrine, inspired by enthusiastic spirits or by the LORD from heaven?
     In Divine Providence, n. 257, we are shown the reasons why the Catholics give bread only to the laity, and wine only to the clergy; and the effect of this separation.
     "For wine in the Holy Supper signifies holy truth and bread holy good. But, when they are divided, the wine signifies truth profaned and the bread good adulterated."
     We can thus see that the same wine may signify good or evil from its use. To separate it from bread is an abuse. To use it in connection with bread it becomes a good and useful article of refreshment for the body, and is one of the highest blessings which the LORD has granted to His children.
     These ideas are in harmony with Divine Revelation. Both the Word and the Writings are full of confirmations of their truth.
     We can see, therefore, that the proposition from the reformers logically drawn from all they have set before their readers is a glaring absurdity, and a fair example of the Reductio ad absurdum.
     The reformers have produced an extensive literature on the wine question, but it rests solely upon an assumption of their own imaginations, which finds no adequate support from Divine Revelation or common sense.
     J.A.L.
LETTER FROM CANADA 1889

LETTER FROM CANADA       X       1889

     AT the regular business meeting of the Parkdale Society of the New Church, held last night, the present financial condition and future prospects were carefully inquired into. It was found that the Society would need to raise $1,200 to cover the general expenses of the year, also, that to complete the place of worship, there were required a carpet, a platform, two reading-desks, a communion table, a mantel, a furnace, a linen cloth to cover the carpet when socials were to be held; also a carpet for the platform, two suitable covers for the desks, and a repository for the Word.
     For a moment after this array of wants was placed before the meeting, a silence supervened, betokening serious consideration as to whether the infant Society would survive the shock, but this suspense lasted but a moment, for offers were quickly made by different ones to increase their contributions to an amount sufficient to makeup the $1,200, and from others requests to be allowed to furnish the various needful articles to adorn and make comfortable the new place of abode and worship. When these are provided, the Society will have a property, a pastor's residence, and place of worship, worth $7,000, against which there will be no indebtedness, except the mortgage (we do not regard a mortgage a debt, but rather an evidence that money has been borrowed to carry out some desired object); this business completed, we listened with great delight to an elaborate and instructive report from the pastor, Rev. E. S. Hyatt, at the conclusion of which he thanked the members for the kind and hospitable manner in which they had received him.
     He said that he had come among us without much experience, but, relying upon entire loyalty to the LORD'S Doctrines, and to them alone, he looked forward to our advancing together in the understanding of the Word, and in the application of its teaching both to our own lives and to the life of the Society.
     After the address, a motion was made by Mr. Caldwell, seconded by Mr. Carswell, that we thank Mr. Hyatt, our pastor, for his very excellent address, and that we most heartily reciprocate all the kindly feelings he has expressed with regard to his relations with the Society and it members. We think now that the New Church has a permanent home in Parkdale, where we hope it may abide to do good not only in all time but to eternity. As expressed by one of our members, when reference was made to the term of Mr. Hyatt's engagement for three months having elapsed, "We call our pastor for the term of his life on earth." X.
     TORONTO, April 4th, 1889.
Colchester New Church Monthly 1889

Colchester New Church Monthly              1889

     The Colchester New Church Monthly publishes the following choice commentary on the New Church "Permeation theory:
     "One evening two Newchurchmen attended a lending theatre. The play had not proceeded far before it came to the part of one actor to exclaim, 'Ah! my friends, we shall not be forever in this place; another day, then what a change may be!' 'Why, that's a New Church truth;' whispered one of the friends. The other agreed; and was just saying how clearly it proved that the new truths were permeating the minds of men everywhere, when he stopped short through hearing the performer add, 'What are we but mere creatures of circumstance; and what the soul, but a mere invention of the clergy, whose profession it is to save it.' Curtain!"
Convention Theological School 1889

Convention Theological School              1889

     THE Convention Theological School will hold its annual meeting in the rooms of the Massachusetts New-Church Union, May 11th.

     THE sum of $8,266.12 has been already raised toward building a house of the Theological School at Cambridge.

     THE Second Annual Conference of the Young People's League will be held during the coming meeting of Convention.

     THE Rev. E. D. Daniels, missionary of the Ohio Association, preaches at Indianapolis, on the first two Sundays of each month.

     THERE seems to be a growing desire among Newchurchmen on the Pacific coast to form the separate Societies into an Association.

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NEWS GLEANINGS 1889

NEWS GLEANINGS       Various       1889


NEW CHURCH LIFE.
A MONTHLY JOURNAL

TERMS:-One Dollar per annum, payable in advance.

Six months on trial for twenty-five cents.

     All communications must be addressed to Publishers New Church Life, No. 759 Corinthian Avenue, Philadelphia, Pa.

     In Great Britain subscriptions may be sent to
     MR. S. WARREN POTTS, Book Steward, 61 Cathedral Street, Glasgow, Scotland.
     REV. R. J. TILSON, 2 Inglis, Camberwell, London, S. E.
     MR. G. A. MCQUEEN, Crowhurst Road, Colchester.
     MR. JAS. CALDWELL, 59 County Road, N., Liverpool.
     MR. C. E. SCHROEDER, 13     Ashfield Terrace, Newcastle-on-Tyne.
     MISS FLORENCE G. GIBBS, 8 Camden Square, London, N.

     PHILADELPHIA, MAY, 1889=119.

     CONTENTS.

     Editorial Notes, p. 65.-Sermon: "The Story of Noach," p. 66.-Conversations on Education, p. 69.-The Fifteenth Chapter of Genesis, p. 70.
     Organization of the Pennsylvania Associations of the New Church, p. 73.
     Notes and Reviews, p. 77.
     The Wine Question, p. 78.
     News Gleanings, p. 50.-Births, Marriages, and Deaths, p. 50.
     AT HOME.

     Pennsylvania.-A VERY pleasant concert was given by the Philadelphia Schools of the Academy, on April 13th. After the concert the gathering resolved itself into an impromptu social. The various rooms of the building on Wallace Street are now tastefully decorated with pictures and portraits of prominent Newchurchmen and philosophers and contemporaries of Swedenborg. One of the recent additions is a water-color painting of Swedenborg's summer-house and garden painted by a Swedish New Church artist, Miss Virginia Lasso.
     Bishop Benade has removed to 1935 Fairmount Avenue, Philadelphia.
     Rhode Island.-THE Rev. Warren Goddard, Jr., has resigned his pastorate at Providence, in order to devote himself entirely to the legal profession.
     Massachusetts.-THE annual meeting of the Massachusetts Sunday-school Conference was held in the house of worship of the Boston Society. The reports of the various schools seem to show that systematic work has been done. The German New-Church Sabbath-school, Manchester, was welcomed into the Conference.
     THE semi-annual meeting of the Massachusetts Association was held at Boston April 4th. Reports seem to show that considerable and effective missionary work has been accomplished. There are now 1,712 members, being an increase of 20. The removal of the Convention school to Cambridge met with the hearty approval of the meeting.
     Ohio.-AT Pomeroy and Middleport the work seems encouraging. Mr. Daniels preaches at stated times. The sojourn of an Academy student during last summer had a marked effect in awakening and stimulating the interest of the young.
     AT Napoleon the New Church is losing ground.
     THE remainder of the Gardiner legacy, amounting in all to $1,700, has been paid to the Urbana Society.
     Illinois.-The Van Buren Street Society, Chicago, now has a week night class of young men which meets for the study of the Writings. The Divine Providence is read. Mrs. Dr Burnham, in connection with Rev. L. F. Mercer has a class for young ladies.
     Colorado.-A SITE has been purchased by the Denver Society for a house of worship residence for the Pastor. Two hundred dollars has been raised toward the building fund.
     California.-A NEW-CHURCH Sunday-school has been organized at San Jose, and temporary arrangements wade for the services of the Rev. D. A. Dryden. Mr. Dryden was formerly a Methodist Episcopal minister. About twenty years ago he began reading the Writings and endeavored to infuse the New Church doctrine into the Methodists. He now sees this to have been a mistake, and is desirous of openly uniting himself with the New Church as one of her ministers.
     THE Riverside Society shows signs of increased activity. Only evening services are held, with an average attendance of 45. Arrangements have now been made to enable the Rev. B. Edmiston to devote more of his time to this charge. The Rev. J. T. V. Croy is temporarily engaged in secular work here.
     Texas.-THE Rev. S. Wood, during his recent missionary labors, baptized 21 individuals, and confirmed and introduced others into the Church. The Holy Supper was administered at Galveston, Milano, Pearsal, Sequin, Gordan's Ranch, Itaska, to 61 members in all.
     Maryland.-THE Maryland Association held its annual meeting at Washington, February 22d, in the rooms of the Wesley Chapel. The Sunday-school Union met in St. Paul's (Lutheran) Church. Six ministers, twelve delegates, and five individual members, besides visitors were present. There are now three hundred and twenty-one members. The Association has been actively engaged in missionary work, and with so much success that a special committee has been appointed to further this use. An unsuccessful effort was made to lengthen the time of the annual meeting by beginning a half-day earlier. Mr. Wm. M. McIntosh was introduced into the ministry by the General Pastor at the request of the Easton Society. The next annual meeting will be held at Baltimore. The Association invited the General Convention to hold its annual meeting at Washington.
     WRITING to the Messenger of his missionary tour through Southwest Virginia, East Tennessee, West Georgia, and Middle Florida, the Rev. J. Fox says:-"This is a field which the Board of Missions should continue to cultivate. At Abingdon the seeds sown during former years are ready to germinate and spring up into harvest. Graveston, Fort Valley, Columbus, and Tallahassee are also hopeful grounds for missionary work."
     Georgia.-THE Rev. J. E. Smith has been officiating in Savannah. The Society is now building a house of worship, and intends afterward to secure the services of a permanent minister.
     Florida.-THE Rev. J. E. Smith recently visited Merrimack, where he preached and lectured in the Congregational Church and Sunday-school. He also visited Longwood.

     ABROAD.

     Great Britain.-THE Annual Conference will her held at the New Jerusalem Church, Strand Lane Radcliff, near Manchester, Monday, August 12th.
     FREE popular concerts are held in the Church it Liverpool. The Rev. I. Tansley takes advantage of the occasion to make a short address to the audience.
     Missionary work has been begun at Hamilton near Glasgow, under the direction of the Scottish Association.
     THE address of the Rev. Robert J. Tilson, agent for the Life, has been changed to 2 Inglis street, Camberwell, London S. E., England.
     AFTER many repulses, the New-Church Sunday-school at Blackburn has at length succeeded in gaining admission into the, local Old Church "Sunday-school Union," to enable the New Church to take its place with other Churches "in general Christian work." On February 24th, the Rev. Mark Rowse exchanged pulpits with a prominent Congregationalist minister. Both gave great satisfaction to their respective congregations.
     The Rev. C. H. Wilkins has been delivering a course of lectures on "Robert Elsmere's Problems," at Altringham.
EDITORIAL NOTES 1889

EDITORIAL NOTES       Editor       1889




     BIRTHS, MARRIAGES, AND DEATHS.





81




     Vol. IX.     PHILADELPHIA, JUNE, 1889=119-120.     No. 6.
     "THE first of charity is to look to the LORD, and shun evils as sins" (D. C. 1). Many of the advocates of the use of must in the most holy Sacrament of the LORD'S Supper do not seem to recognize this doctrine; for, while they claim that wine is a poison and its use an evil, still hold it to be a requirement of charity to partake of the LORD'S Supper where both must and wine are being used in the same service, thus countenancing the "evil of the drinking of wine." If the advocates of the use of must, believe that it is the only true element to represent the LORD'S blood in the Holy Supper, why do they not demand that must only be given in that Sacrament, and shun, by discountenancing, the "evil" of wine-drinking as a sin? Truly, consistency is a jewel rarely found in these days!
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     THE Doctrines of the New Church teach at great length that the LORD going forth-that is to say, coming to men-is what is meant by the Holy Spirit (A. C. 9818), and that, since the Divine cannot be divided, what proceeds from the Divine is the LORD Himself; they also teach that the LORD is Doctrine (A. C. 2516); yea, Swedenborg declares that he was commanded in the Spiritual or to write upon one of the Works, which were Doctrine given by the LORD through Swedenborg, "This Book is the Coming of the LORD."
     Notwithstanding the above plain teaching, a man high in the Church, not long since gave utterance to the following statement: "The Doctrines are not the LORD. They are the means of coming to the LORD-are the way to the LORD." This does not seem to accord with what the LORD says in John: "I am the way, the truth, and the life; no man cometh unto the Father but by me." (Ch. xiv, 6), and "He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. I am the door." (Ch. x, 9.)
     The LORD comes to men Himself, is Himself the means and way for men to come to Him, and there is not some other way. The Divine Truth leads men to heaven, and Divine Truth is what the inspired Writings of the New Church claim to be.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     THESE are unquestionably the days of "permeation;" but the Doctrines of the New Church are not permeating the sects of the Old, as many at the present day hold. The fact is, the world is becoming Arian and rationalistic-the two terms mean much the same thing. This is also the age of theological dishonesty, as witness the following from a secular paper: "In a recent letter to the Unitarian Club of Boston, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes says: 'We have seen large bodies of those whom we have been accustomed to regard as our theological opponents silently wheeling to our side, without breaking ranks or changing colors.'"
     Is Dr. Holmes correct? Let those who doubt it investigate for themselves.
     "What else is the damnable heresy of Arius"-to whose standard "large bodies" are flocking-"than that he denied the Divinity of the LORD'S Human?"
(T. C. R. 137). That these bodies should wheel to the Arian side, "without breaking ranks or changing colors," is quite consistent with the character of their leader; for, "Arius lifted up his head, and when he died, he rose again, and ruled clandestinely, even to the end" (T. C. R. 638).
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     NOT all in the Old-Church world are so blinded by the so-called "liberal spirit" of the age as to forget the principles of common honesty. The New York Observer, commenting upon Dr. Holmes's metaphor quoted in the above note, characterizes the action therein described as "an evolution that is certainly disgraceful directly in proportion to its reality," and says, further, that "such a movement surpasses all ordinary treason known in history, being much more infamous than desertion on the field, because it includes desertion under the cover of faithful adherence to old ranks and colors."
     As to the liberalism of the present day, the Observer says: "This state of mind, pervading all spheres and classes, gives to every one the largest possible liberty. There are few spheres in which this liberty is not abused. . . . It is evident that this modern liberalism either confuses or blunts the moral sense in such a way that otherwise honorable men are able, without scruple or shame, to desert the standards under which their fathers have always fought, and 'silently wheel to the aide of their opponents without breaking ranks or changing colors.'"
     This is the observation of the clearer thinkers in the Old Church, and why should Newchurchmen wish to be deceived? True charity toward the neighbor is love for what is good, and good can be known only from the truth of doctrine, and not, as many Newchurchmen seem to think, from the appearances of natural charity.
     It is taught that, as a result of the clearance of the evil spirits from the World of Spirits in the Last Judgment, effected by the LORD in the year 1757 (L. J. 45): "Henceforth the man of the Church will be in a freer state of thinking concerning the things of faith." It follows, as a just conclusion from this, that man will be in greater freedom also to pervert or reject Divine Truth, and it takes no very keen observation to see that what is called liberality in theological affairs is, for the most part, either indifference to spiritual things or a denial of them.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     No man can keep a general law. Laws must be general that they may cover all cases, and the laws of Divine Order are infinitely such: but that man may keep a law he must perceive in what manner the law applies to him, and to do this requires that he study the particulars which compose the general. It is silly and useless for a man to talk of shunning evils if he never examines himself to find what particulars of the law he has a tendency to break.

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ALMS GIVING 1889

ALMS GIVING       Rev. W. F. PENDLETON       1889

     "Take heed that ye do all your alms before seen to be seen by them; for otherwise ye have no reward with your Father who is in the heavens. When thou doest alms do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be glorified by men. Amen, I say to you, they have their reward. But thou, when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth; That thine alms may be in the hidden, and thy Father, who seeth in the hidden, will return to thee in the open."- Matt. vi, 1-4. (A. E. 1151, 1152. Luke vi, 20-49.)

     IN the fifth, sixth, and seventh chapters of Matthew, from their beginning to their end, the LORD teaches concerning charity in act, what its quality is, and that from and by charity in act, which is use, flows all heavenly happiness, the delight and joy of eternal life. The things which obstruct the outflow of charity into act, which oppose and suffocate it, destroying heavenly happiness, the means and process of the removal of those things which oppose, and would drag man away from heaven to hell, are all exposed to view in the internal sense, showing the way by which the Divine Mercy leads in the midst and through the dangers which surround, infest, and threaten, in the path of regeneration.
     A most dangerous enemy to spiritual life, its peace and happiness, is set forth in the opening verses of the sixth chapter-namely, the insinuation into the thought by evil spirits that in charity in act, or good works, in uses performed, or good which is done, there is merit. So great is the danger, so insidious the evil, so easily is the understanding deceived by it, that the very opening word of the chapter is one of caution, an exhortation to constant guard, watchfulness, circumspection, self-examination-Take heed! Beware!
     The danger, however, is not so great that it may not be successfully passed by; the evil is not so insidious that it may not be seen and known; the hypocritical spirits are not so cunning that they may not be unmasked, exposed, and removed; thus the falsity of this evil is not so implanted in the life that it may not be rooted out, and cast into the fire; for the way is pointed out by the LORD, and the power to walk in it given by Him.
     It is the way in which He Himself walked. He came into conflict with this very class of hypocritical spirits, and men who were their subjects. They assaulted the very life of His Human by endeavoring to implant in Him the Idea of merit in the work of the salvation of the human race. He resisted and conquered them.
     The words of warning and instruction came forth from the Divine Life of Him who was then in combat with the hells of self-merit. By this combat He acquired to His Human the knowledge, the understanding, the wisdom, and the power to lead every man in the way in which He walked, and by the dangers through which He passed. Man may therefore see, because the LORD sees; he may have power, because the LORD has power; he may overcome, because the LORD overcame; he may walk in the way to heavens because the LORD walked in it, and walks in it with him.
     It will be noticed here, as in Divine Revelation everywhere, especially in that Divine Summary of all Revelation, the Ten Commandments, that the prohibition from evil is what is put forward in the first place, and as of the first importance. Doing good is indeed first in end, but it is not reached first in time.
     it is not said, do good that evil may be removed, but remove evil that good may be done. The good that is done before evil is removed is hypocritical and meritorious, and is seen to be such in the light of heaven, though it may not so appear in the light of the world. The first thing, therefore, in the Divine Instruction is, not to point out the good that may be done, but the evil that must be shunned. Thou shalt not is ever the first principle of duty on the part of man.
     The end in the teaching under consideration is that the good which is meritorious, the first good with every regenerating man, may be changed as to its quality and become genuine. So he is not to be concerned about the good he is to do, but about shunning the evil of merit-all the evils that enter into and make the state of merit and self-glorification. The LORD does not say, "take heed that ye are to do alms"-that is, do good, do uses-but, "When ye do alms, take heed that ye do these not to be seen by men; When ye do alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee as the hypocrites do. When ye do alms let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth."
     Remove the idea of merit, and so the idea of self in uses, and there is nothing to prevent the inflow of the life and peace of heaven; for when self is removed the LORD Himself enters, and the uses, from being merely external and apparent, become internal and genuine.
     The very nature of love, especially of the Divine Love, is to give of its own to others; and the ardor of the Divine Love in giving is so great that it flows in without any effort on the part of man, when obstructions are removed, and order takes the place of disorder.
     It is like the life of the spiritual world, and of the natural world, which flows into plants, and makes them grow. This life flows in continually without stint or measure; and all the farmer's work is directed to the removal of the things which obstruct and hinder; when this is done a vigorous growth is assured.
     It is the same in the human body in a state of disease. It is fallacy to suppose that medicine is the cause of the restoration of health to the body; medicine serves simply as a vehicle or means in the removal of obstructions to the body's health, which caused what is called disease; the medicine loosens the hold of those things which binder and oppose, and the forces of the spiritual world by its atmospheres flows in from within, and the forces of the natural world by its atmospheres flow in from without, removing obstructions and restoring health.
     The Divine Ardor of giving is like the ardor of the sun in giving its heat and light. There is nothing to prevent its flowing in, where the conditions are made ready, by the removal of the opposites which obstruct, obscure, or absorb, thus where order and correspondence has been introduced.
     Hence the law of the Divine Providence, given in the Doctrines of the Church, that man is to compel himself from evil, but is not to compel himself to good; for if he compels himself to good, and has not compelled himself from evil, his good is not good, for the man himself is in it, or the world, or reward, but not good itself thus not the LORD (A. E. 1152).
     When the idea of one's own merit is removed in the good that is done, a complete change takes place-a change not so much in the outward form as the inward, for the text is treating of those who are already living outwardly good, pious, and moral lives, and are' in the performance of uses. The change is not so much in the things done as in the quality of the things done. It is especially a change in the ends from which and to which man works. The end was self, the world, glory, fame, gain, reward, but this has been removed, and the end now is the LORD, His kingdom, the neighbor, good itself, use; the outward works remaining the same; and yet they are not the same, for a new quality in the works makes the works themselves new, and the angels see them as altogether new.

83


The end qualifies the actions.
     This new quality in works, from a new end, making a complete change in the spirit of man, is what is presented to view in the words: "Do not your alms before men to be seen of them. Sound not a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be glorified by men. Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth".
     Uses are not to be done with the end that others may know and applaud. This is a looking outward and downward, and not a looking upward and inward; and if a man does not look upward and inward in all that he does, the way to that which is within, or the way to heaven, is closed, like a path up a mountain that b obliterated for want of use. The habit of thought from affection, in use and for use, opens a beaten way to heaven, and in the other world the way is shown, and man walks in it. But the habit and thought of merit closes this, way, and opens a broad way outward and down ward which is also presented to view in the other world. In that world no other way can possibly be seen, except that in which wan has walked while here.
     The mind must not be concerned about what others may think, or say, or do, either in approval or disapproval, but by what the truth says; the mind must not be moved by the thought of appearing right, but by the thought of being right, nor by the thought of being misrepresented and misunderstood; no internal man or angel is ever affected by such a consideration; if he is, the thought of merit at once enters and closes the way to interior things, and opens it to the world alone.
     If one thing is certain, to a mind instructed by Divine Revelation, this is-that the standard of thought and action in a consummated Church is a false standard; it is a standard in which self-merit is in the end, and falsified truths the means. In the New Church such a standard is to be put away, as a man would avoid the foul vapors and poisonous gases of a damp and dark cave in the earth, where the dead bodies of animals and men have been thrown; and no other standard of thought and life is to be sought than that which is now revealed in the Divine Truth given from Heaven. In other words, the man of the New Church is not to be led by the world, but by Heaven; he is not to lead himself, but he is to be led the LORD.-"Take heed that ye do not your alms before men to be seen by them; for otherwise ye have no reward with your Father who is in the Heavens."
     The state of meritorious good is a state of no charity and no faith, though there is an outward profession of them; a state of no mutual love, though it appears like it; there is no illustration, though there is thought from the memory, which appears like illustration; a state in which there is nothing angelic, though the appearance is like the appearance of an angel; a state in which the LORD not present, though the constant effort is to have it so appear. The internal is thus closed, and as there is of necessity in the thought a constant looking to the world alone, a constant effort to proclaim one's own good to the world, though this is often done with much caution and cunning that the real end may not appear. There are a great variety of ways by which this may be done, either direct or indirect. Good speaks for itself, and needs no trumpet to proclaim its quality-that is, it speaks for itself to those who are able to receive it, exciting a recognition and a reciprocation; it even speaks for itself to those who are not able to receive it, but it excites no recognition no reciprocation, but opposition and rejection. What is said of good may also be said of use, for they are one. The celestial angels do not talk about their uses, but do them; the uses themselves appear and speak for themselves. They fear that if they should talk about what they are doing, or what they propose to do, the idea of their own merit would enter, in which case the LORD could not be present in their uses. For no one has merit but the LORD alone, and if any other merit is acknowledged the LORD is not there, but man; and the use is not the LORD'S use but man's; and what man does is a thing not done, for the LORD is the only Doer. "When thou doest alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues, and in the streets, that they may be glorified by men. Amen, I say to you they have their reward. But thou, when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth; that thine alms may be in the hidden, and thy Father, who seeth in the hidden, will reward thee in the open."
     Meritorious good not only proclaims its own good in a great variety of ways, but is in continual meditation on the merit of its works, in the providing the ways and means for that merit to appear to the world. But this is also forbidden in the words, "Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth."
     The right hand does the good, but this the left hand must not know. In the WORD doing and also the right side is predicated of the will, but knowing and also the left side is predicated of the understanding. The understanding has its own work, and must not concern itself about the good that is done in the will. Just as the external man is not to speak about his use, but to his use. In the former case it is the man who speaks, and he is speaking about himself; in the latter case it is the use itself that speaks. So the understanding is not to think about the good of the will, but is to think from that good. The understanding is not to think about its own interior life, for that involves a separation; for it can only think about that which is without, or separate from itself. The eye cannot look back into the brain and see what is there, nor the cerebrum into the cerebellum. The understanding, however, thinks about evil, for it then thinks about something separated from itself, which is to become more and more separated until it disappears. The understanding must think about evil as something not its own, or evil can never be removed. The understanding, therefore, when in order, thinks about what is out of itself, but from what is in itself; thus it thinks from good to use. The understanding cannot think about good and from it at the same time; it thinks either from good or from evil, and thinks either about good or about evil. When it thinks about evil it thinks from good; on the other hand, when it thinks about good it thinks from evil, and merit enters, and good gradually disappears. Let it be repeated that the mind can think only about that which is not within itself.
     This will help to a better understanding of a teaching given in Arcana Coelestia, n. 2380: "But still it is to be known, that some think they are not in good when they are, and some think they are in good when they are not; the reason some think they are not in good when they are is because when they reflect upon the good in themselves it is instantly insinuated by the angels, in whose society they are, that they are not in good, lest they should attribute good to themselves, and the thought be bent to their own merit, and thus to the preference of themselves above others; if otherwise [i. e., if this were not done by the angels] they would fall into temptations. But the reason that some think they are in good when they are not, is because when they reflect upon that good it is instantly infused by the evil genii and spirits, in whose company the fare, that they are in good, for they believe the delight of evil to be good, yea it is suggested [to them] that whatever of good they have done to others, from the causes of the love of self and of the world, is a good to be recompensed even in the other life, thus that they merit more than others; whom they despise, yea, esteem as nothing in comparison with themselves; and what is wonderful, if they thought otherwise they would fall into temptations, in which they would succumb."

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     When the state is reached that good, or use, is done, from good itself in the will, without thought of merit in the understanding, when there is no longer thought about good, but thought from good, against evil, to use, then is fulfilled the words, "But thou, when thou doest, alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth; that thine alms may be in the hidden, and thy Father who seeth in the hidden will return to thee in the open."
     "In the hidden" signifies, in general, in the spiritual world; for the good done while in the body is really done in the spiritual world, for man is in that world, though not conscious of it; hence it is said "That thine alms may be in the hidden."
     "In the open" also signifies, in general, in the spiritual world; for after death man is there, and enters openly and fully into the good of use done while in the body, all that man has done being made manifest; hence it is said, "Thy Father will return to thee in the open."
     When good is done for the sake of Heaven, or for the sake of good itself, without thought of merit, so without thought of the world, as to what it may think or do, then it is done "in the hidden," it is concealed from the view of the world, and the world will know nothing of it, for it is done in the spiritual world, or, what is the same, in the interiors of man's spirit, where only all good that is really good is done. Man may try to proclaim his own good to the world, but what he proclaims as good is not good, for it is at once defiled by an idea of his own merit, and he is thinking and talking about that which is not his own. If his good come forth into the open while in the body-that is, into his understanding and work, establishing a state of content with his own lot corresponding to the happiness in which the angels are, it will still be hidden to the world, for the world knows it not; if a celestial angel were to appear upon the earth the world would not see anything in him different from other men. When the Divine Good itself appeared upon the earth in Person, the world knew Him not, and even His own received Him not; nor does the world know Him now. He has even appeared a second time, is here now, and the world remains in ignorance of His presence; and the man of the New Church,-supposing that the Divine Presence be with him, as it will be in the time to come will not be known by the world from other men. The servant is not above his Lord.
     When good is done for the sake of good itself, and no longer for the sake of the world, man then comes to see what a wide breach is between him and the world, and he ceases the attempt to bridge it over. The reward of the world, its glory, fame, or gain, is no longer regarded,-but the reward of Heaven, which is spoken of as "the reward with your Father in the Heavens," and which "your Father will give to you in the open."
     Heaven is given of the LORD'S mercy to those who keep His Commandments, and not as a reward for the good they have done. The reward is in the good itself, yea, is the good itself. In other words, the delight, satisfaction, blessedness in doing uses for the sake of use, without regard to self or one's own merit, is heavenly reward. The reason is because the LORD is in uses so done; He is present, giving from His Divine Love. He gives without regard to recompense; and whenever His love is received, as by the angels, such is the state. The angels abhor the idea of reward or of meriting by what they do; the very thought of it makes them sad, and sorrowful; to them there is no reward but the joy of heart they feel in doing uses to the neighbor, and all they desire of the LORD is that they may be able to do uses; they have no other prayer. But the evil do not love, use for the sake of use, or for the sake of the neighbor: if they love use it is for the sake of themselves, or for the sake of the glory and praise of the world. The delight of glory and fame, or gain, is to them reward, in which there is no delight of use for its own sake; hence it is said that they have their reward. This reward appears to them as heaven, and they believe in no other; but after death this heaven is turned into hell, and their reward, instead of being the reward of good, becomes the punishment of evil, which inevitably follows every one who thinks to merit by the good he does, not having known and acknowledged that he merits nothing, that the LORD alone merits, and that all the glory and the praise must be ascribed to Him whose mercy is everlasting and everlasting.
CONVERSATIONS ON EDUCATION 1889

CONVERSATIONS ON EDUCATION              1889

     CONJUNCTION.

     [Continued.]

     IT is a mere appearance that ideas are formed in the interiors of the mind by the entrance of impressions from nature through the senses. The objects of the world are in the ultimates of order, and cannot be introduced to the things that are within, so as to affect them, because what is inferior does not inflow into a superior. Heaven and Spirit inflow into the world of nature, and there affect from themselves whatever form of ultimate existence they may enter. Under this affection whatever in the rational and natural mind of man corresponds to the things of Heaven and the Spirit is opened to receive them. The Angels descend to man, and ascend from man on earth on the steps of his affection and thought, to the LORD, from Whom they have come down, and Who is above. This is the way of life, which is first opened by the LORD'S inflowing into the inmost of man, and by His disposing thence whatever is in correspondence in his interiors, by which life from Him can descend into externals. The preparation for this opening of the way of life is to be made by instruction and education in man's infancy and childhood (A. C. 3721).
     Life terminates in what is formed from life. Life makes its own terminations or boundaries; and this in, all the degrees of its proceeding from the LORD, who is Life itself. Life, which is Love, is in its own form in Wisdom, or, what is the same, Good in its own form in Truth.
     By means of its own form, love, or life, which is substance itself, produces its successive containing terminations, until it reaches the last in which it rests its proceeding, and begins to return or to react.
     The last of Truth is expressed in word, manifested in act, and embodied in matter, which is Rock or Stone. The Rock or Stone re-presents in matter the idea of', thought formed by the truth of good or of use, and this idea, so formed, consists of the spiritual substances of the mind. Our LORD asked His disciples: "But whom do ye say that I am?

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And Simon Peter answering said: Thou art the CHRIST, the Son of the living GOD, and JESUS answering said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon, son of Joan, because flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my FATHER, who is in the Heavens. And I say also unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this Rock will I build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it" (Matthew xvi, 16-18). Peter, that is Petra, a rock or stone, represents Faith formed by Truths from the LORD, and Peter's confession of the LORD as "the CHRIST, the Son of the living GOD" is a confession of the Divine Truth concerning the LORD, of that Truth which is the very foundation on which the Church rests.
     In Arcana Coelestia we are taught that:

     "The Truth, which is the ultimate of order, is what is called a holy boundary (or termination),and that this was represented by the stone which Jacob took and placed as a statue, and that good cannot terminate in good, but in truth, because truth is the recipient of good. . . . Good without truth, or without conjunction with truth, is good, of a quality such as is the good of infants with whom there is, as yet, nothing of wisdom, because nothing of intelligence; but in proportion as an infant with advancing age receives truth from good, or in the degree in which truth with him is conjoined with good, he becomes a man. Thence it is evident that good is the first of order and Truth the lost. Thence, also, man ought to begin with scientifics, which are truths of the natural man, and afterward with doctrinals, which are truths of the Spiritual men in the natural, so that he may be initiated into the intelligence of wisdom-that is to say, in order that he may enter into Spiritual life, from which man becomes a man (A. C. 3504). As, for example, to the end that man, as a Spiritual man, may love his neighbor, he ought first to learn what Spiritual love or charity is and who the neighbor is; before he knows this he may, indeed, love the neighbor, but as a natural and not as a Spiritual man-that is, from natural good, and not from Spiritual good (see A. C. 3470, 3471); but after he knows it, then Spiritual good from the LORD can be implanted in the cognitions of that thing. The case is the same with all the rest, which are cognitions, whether they be called doctrinals or truths in general.
     "It is said that good from the LORD can be implanted in cognitions, also that truth is the recipient of good; they who have no other idea concerning cognitions, and also concerning truths, than that they are abstract things, which idea most persons have, also concerning thoughts, cannot at all understand what is meant by good being implanted in cognitions, and by truth being a recipient of good; but it is to be known that cognitions and truths are by no means things abstract from the purest substances, which are of the Interior of Man, or of his Spirit, any more than sight is abstract from its organ, the eye, or hearing from its organ, the ear. There are purer substances, which are real, from which they exist, where variations of form animated and modified by the influx of Life from the LORD present them; and their suitableness and harmonies successively, or together, are the things which affect and produce what is called beautiful, pleasant, and delightful.
     "Spirits themselves are forms-that is to say, they consist of continuous forms equally as men do, but of purer form; which are not visible to the corporeal sight, or the sight of the eye. But because those forms or substances are not visible to the corporeal eye, man at this day does not understand otherwise than that cognitions and thoughts are abstract things; thence, also, is the insanity of our age, that men do not believe that they have within themselves a Spirit which is to live after the death of the body, when, nevertheless, that is a substance much more real than the substance of his material body, yea, if you will believe it, the Spirit, after separation from the body, is that very purified body which so many say they are to have at the time of the last, Judgment, when, as they believe, they shall rise again" (A. C. 3726).

     He, therefore, who keeps the commandments of the LORD, which are divine truths, loves the LORD; and he who loves the LORD lives a life of good in doing those truths, and thus has the Church founded in him on the Rock. He is in the order of Life from the Divine; good is first and truth is last, the first and last are conjoined. His land is married. (Sec also A. C. 3727 and 3730.)
REMOVING THE OUTWORKS 1889

REMOVING THE OUTWORKS              1889

     IN these days much is said about the attitude of the Old Church to the New. A news-note from Blackburn, England, in Morning Light for March 23d, 1889, contains the following: "We can well remember the time when most people in Blackburn regarded the New Church as something to be avoided, New Church people as unbelievers, unchristian, etc."
     Is not the position indicated in the above quotation a consistent one for those to hold "who make God three and the LORD two, and who separate charity from faith and make the latter, and not at the same time the former, to be saving?" (A. R. 537).
     There is no other position for them to hold so long as they are faithful to their written creeds, and the men of the New Church are not false to theirs. But this the Blackburn correspondent does not seem to see, for farther on he says: "Even so lately as ten years ago we were not considered to be sufficiently Christian as to be admitted into the Sunday-School Union. During the Rev. R. Cameron's ministry we applied for admission, but were refused. We, however, persevered, and eventually succeeded."
     A sad day is it for the New Church when her members so far forget their sacred trust as to make a covenant of peace with the dragon that is endeavoring to devour the Man-Child-when they become so careless of her weal as to solicit a place among the very ranks of the dragonists. Truly, it is no wonder that, from time to Lime, one reads sighing reports to the effect that there is scarcely any perceptible growth in the external New Church; that the young, born within the Church, do not remain, but wander off into the Old Church, or into infidelity. The only safety for Israel is that he "make no covenant with the nations."
     The Blackburn correspondent is "convinced" that it is "the right thing for the New Church to take its place, along with other Churches, in general Christian work." The New Church cannot "take its place along with other Churches," for there are no "other Churches." The Church is where the Word is, and where the LORD is known. The Old Church has the Word, indeed, but does not know the LORD, and is, therefore, a Church in name only; it has not the truths of doctrine, and without these the Word cannot be understood, but is a sealed book. It may even be said that the so-called Christian Churches have not the Word, for "the Word is the Word according to the understanding of it with man; or as it is understood. If not understood, it is indeed called the Word; but it is not with the man." (S. S. 77.)
     In regard to the Old Church, which has not the Word and knows not the LORD, the LORD Himself speaks to the men who will be of His New Church, thus: "Come out of her, say people, that ye be not partakers of her sin, and that ye receive not her plagues" (Rev. xviii, 4).
     The writer of the Blackburn note is sure that "We are but doing our duty in so doing (i. e., taking place with other Churches), and the good we may do to the New Church by removing prejudices, etc., is incalculable."
     Are not the strenuous efforts made in certain quarters of the New Church to remove "prejudices" from the minds of the men of the Old Church doing incalculable harm rather than good? Are not such efforts really breaking down the very walls which the Divine Architect of the New Jerusalem has raised for her protection? Can prejudices concerning the LORD'S New Church be removed from the minds of the men of the Old Vastated Church short of the expense of hiding or withholding the distinctive teaching of the New?

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If not, can the New Church afford this? Thus saith the LORD: "Surround ye Zion and encompass her, number her towers, set your heart to her outwork, distinguish her palaces, that ye may tell it to the generation following" (Ps. xlviii, 12, 14). "To set the heart to the outwork signifies to love the exterior truths protecting that Church against falses" (A. E. 453 [b]).
TWO WORKS ON CORRESPONDENCES 1889

TWO WORKS ON CORRESPONDENCES              1889




     Reviews
CORRESPONDENCES OF THE BIBLE. PART II. The Plants, the Minerals, and the Atmospheres. By John Worcester. Boston, Massachusetts New Church Union, 1888, pp. 880.

SWEDENBORG'S DOCTRINE OF CORRESPONDENCE. A Key to the Intercourse between the Soul and the Body. By Rev. L. P. Mercer, Chicago: Western New Church Union, 1889, pp. 190.

     Correspondences of the Bible is a sequel to the same author's work on Animals of the Bible, which was reviewed in the Life of December, 1884.
     Written in the same polished, serene, and interesting style as the former work, it has the same merits and the same fundamental faults-the latter, unfortunately predominating. The work itself seems rather misnamed, for it is a treatise on the correspondences of Plants in general, not only on those mentioned in the "Bible" (which Old Church title for the Word is adopted throughout). It includes even, the supposed correspondences of such "unbiblical" plants as tobacco and the potato.
     When treating of any subject, it is orderly to introduce the reader to it by a presentation of its general laws, nature and origin.
     To understand anything at all about the Vegetable Kingdom and its correspondences, it is necessary to have some knowledge of the "vegetative soul," the influx into it from the spiritual world through natural heat and light, the reactive "Conatus" in plants, as also of the mutual relations of the Vegetable Kingdom and the Mineral, etc., on all of which important subjects the Writings give us so many, so new, so beautiful and so useful spiritual and scientific truths. But of these not a word is mentioned either in the preface or in the book itself, and the reader knows as much of laws of the Vegetable Kingdom after he has read the book as he knew before.
     He can draw from it many nice moralities, but very little truth. In the preface all that is taught of general correspondences is that animals correspond to affection, and plants to "wisdom." It would have been more consistent to say "thoughts," for evil plants cannot correspond to wisdom.
     A general attempt has been made to follow the classification of plants as given in the Writings, placing the fruit trees first, with the olive, vine, and fig as representative trees, then nut trees, cone-bearing trees, the Shittah tree, willows, and poplars. After these follow shrubs, flowers, and aromatics, then the Cereals, the Solanum family, the Pulse, Cucumbers, Melons, Onions, Grasses, Reeds and Rushes, Flax and Cotton, the treatise on the Vegetable Kingdom ending with a short chapter on the Tree of Life.
     The part on the Mineral Kingdom treats of Water; Salt, the Sea, the Clouds, Streams, Ice, Dew, Snow, Hail, Steam, Rocks, Roads, Soil, Precious Stones, Metals, Carbon, Sulphur, Phosphorus, Colors, the Atmospheres, etc.
     The work, like that on the Animals of the Bible, fails to express a clear conception of the nature of Correspondence. The knowledge of a given correspondence is not derived directly from Divine Revelation, as, according to the laws of Order should have been done, and then confirmed by external scientifics, but the whole tendency seems to be the very inverse of this, vis, to derive the Correspondences from external appearances, and then to confirm the conclusions by the Doctrine. In consequence of this disorderly and dangerous procedure, the "Correspondences" given are generally but vague comparisons or metaphors.
     So, after a description of some of the uses of the olive, it is said that these soothing, healing, etc., properties "indicate, as the spiritual correlative (!) of olive-oil, a knowledge of some merciful goodness."
     The truth is that oil always corresponds to the good of love, never to the knowledge of this love. The above quoted statement of this correspondence is as confused as the method of arriving at it; and soon after (p. 12) we find it contradicted, where oil is compared to love, in connection with the following remarkable passage: "The goodness which men in penitent states feel in their hearts when they humble them before the LORD, is Mercy itself; it is absolutely unselfish love."
     The meaning of this sentence is difficult to understand. Can any one but the LORD alone feel "absolutely unselfish love"?
     The same vagueness and uncertainty pervades, the whole book. The very plainest truths are often made useless by language dubious and obscure, as, on page 29, where it is said that "the process of fermentation seems to correspond to the freeing of truth from that which is of self, which is in it from the process of thinking."
     But the Doctrines teach, in language unequivocal and clear, that fermentation corresponds to reformation. In the chapter on the Fig-Tree is another display of that imaginative sentimentality which, at this day, is so prevalent in the Church. Explaining the LORD'S parable, "Behold the fig-tree and all the trees; when they now shoot forth, ye see and know of yourselves that the summer is nigh" (Luke xxi, 29, 30), it is said: "This was a sign of is Coming, because the first effect of this Coming would be an active interest in practical philanthropy and in all useful knowledges. Is not this spiritual sign now visible in the immense increase of benevolent feeling and work in our day? in the associations for the relief of the poor, the sick and insane, the imprisoned, and the unfortunate of every class? In the fact that the pulpits of all the Churches are inculcating the precepts of a good moral life, instead of the arbitrary dogmas of the last century?"-etc., etc.
     According to this interpretation, therefore, the fig signifies the old church, the leaves which should shoot forth when summer was nigh, signify the fruits of natural good grown on the stem of "Faith Alone!" How great a perversion of the spiritual sense of this passage is such an interpretation may be seen, from the LORD'S own explanation thereof in Apocalypse Explained, n. 403 [c]: "that a New Church will then begin, which in the beginning will be external, is signified by 'Behold the Fig-tree and all the trees, when they shoot forth': this is called a 'parable' or 'similitude;' because a 'fig' signifies the external Church, and 'trees' cognitions of truth and good.'" From this may be seen that it is the New not the Old Church which is treated of in this passage. While the former as yet is so very external, knows and cares so little for the Divine Revelation given to it, there is, of course, a difficulty in distinguishing between the Old and the New, especially on account of the efforts that are made to cover up all distinctions.

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Hence the confusion displayed in this work.
     The book is, unfortunately, marred throughout by such loose doctrines and careless or irreverent treatment of the Divine Science of Correspondences, the most exact of all sciences. The Writings are, indeed, referred to in some instances, mainly, it seems, to confirm the correctness of previous conclusions. Where "no instruction from Swedenborg has been found" (the search seems not to have been very thorough), correspondences have been freely evolved from some external observations. Thus we learn that the beech represents a principle of purity (indeed, the duty of singleness in marriages), because of the cleanliness of the tree; pines correspond to principles of personal independence and the right of seclusion-and so forth in amazing variety; all of which is very interesting but not at all certain, and hence not only useless but also dangerous to many readers, as serving to introduce a doubt as to the exactness of all, other correspondences. Occasionally this imaginativeness is reduced to the absurd, and hence self-refuted. Witness the following: "the whisky made from rye seems to answer well to an intoxicating pride of wisdom; and the malt liquor made from barley to the mild intoxication of pride in good nature" (p. 173).
     In the treatise on mandrakes we are informed that "Swedenborg speaks of it as used in Genesis to represent the things of conjugial love' (A. C. 3942; A. E. 434)." This is an error. In the Arcana Coelestia n. 3942, in speaking of "Dudaim," it is said: "Interpreters do not know what Dudaim are; they are supposed to have been fruits or flowers, which are named according to the opinion of every one; but of what kind they were, it is not necessary to know." Nor does Swedenborg ever translate "Dudaim" into the Latin. How, then, does the author know that mandrakes are meant by them, and how does he know that "no very elevated wisdom can be represented by such ground fruit."'
     The New Church is greatly in need of good textbooks of Science, and among others of a Botany based on the new, rational, and Divine Science revealed in the Writings; but this work on the Plants of the Bible has, unquestionably, not been based on this science which has been given to be a shield for our children, a sure foundation for the Church on earth: the rod of iron, with which the New Church one day will feed all nations.



     OF a character greatly differing from the work reviewed above is Mr. Mercer's latest production, Swedenborg's Doctrine of Correspondence. The one point of resemblance between these two works on Correspondence is, perhaps, that the title of the latter also is misleading. The Doctrine of Correspondence is not, indeed, Swedenborg's Doctrine, but it is the LORD'S own revealed Doctrine. It is somewhat surprising that such a title should have been chosen for the book, when the author so emphatically and repeatedly disclaims the human origin of the Writings. Otherwise, the work seems to be sound, orderly, and useful. It is doctrinal, written in a clear, argumentative style; its aim is to set forth the falsity of the so-called "Christian Science," as propounded by some professed Newchurchmen, and it does this ably by an orderly deduction of natural laws from first spiritual causes.
     The general Doctrine of Correspondence is introduced by four preparatory chapters on Swedenborg, the Second Coming of the LORD; the History of Opinion, and Seership.
     It is a genuine pleasure to notice in this part of the book a frank, honest acknowledgment of the Divine origin of the Revelation given to the New Church.
     "A new thing has happened in the world. A rational revelation concerning God and man and the spiritual world has been given by means of a man prepared to receive it and publish it; and the Divine truths involved aforetime in the Word of God are now evolved by means of the principles and doctrines so revealed." . . . "The antecedent effect of the revelation in the spiritual world is felt in a new freedom of willing and thinking." . . . "In the nature of things, this new freedom of willing and thinking lets loose the opposing evil and the false. The new truths are met by falsities which are agreeable to man's selfish and sensual life, which masquerade as truths and blind reason by sophistries, and seek to defeat the LORD'S ends by feeding man's vanity and self-sufficiency in the name of spiritual Christianity." . . . "The only remedy is instruction in genuine truths. The fountain of the needed truths is the revelation which the LORD has made for His New Church in the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg" (pages 5 to 7). This distinct acknowledgment of the Divine Authority of the Writings is further re-affirmed by a recognition of Swedenborg's claim of being "under the call, guidance, and inspiration of the LORD JESUS CHRIST," and that "the revelations and Doctrines are the LORD'S, not his" (Swedenborg's).
     Starting from this, the only sound basis of New-Church thought, the author proceeds to a thorough; philosophical treatment of the universal laws of the Doctrine of Correspondence. First among these is presented the Doctrine on the Discrete Degrees, on the two worlds and on the two bodies, the natural and the spiritual. This leads up to an interesting and doctrinal explanation of mental phenomena, such as dreams, the various forms of insanity, mediumship, mesmerism, mind-reading, coincidences, premonitions, etc. Then follow in their order chapters treating of the Source of Influx, Correspondences and Influx, the Written Word, the Incarnate Word, and the Laws of Providence.
     Appended to the work is an essay by the same author, exposing the perversion of the Doctrines of the New Church in Dr. Holcombe's Thoughts about Christian Science.
     Altogether this work appears not only the best that has come from Mr. Mercer's pen, but also the best work of its kind that has of late been published in the Church. It can safely be recommended as a useful and interesting addition to the library of any Newchurchman.
Communications to the Editor 1889

Communications to the Editor              1889

     DURING the summer months communications to the Editor of New Church Life should be addressed to 1638 Green Street, Philadelphia, Pa.
Berlin schools 1889

Berlin schools              1889

     THE Berlin schools under the charge of the Rev. F. E. Waelchli, are reported as being in a very healthy condition. There are now thirty-eight children in attendance, and more teachers are needed. Social gatherings of the scholars are held every other week, which now have begun to take the form of very enjoyable picnics.
     The Rev. E. S. Hyatt, besides preaching to his Society at Parkdale on Sunday mornings, also conducts services in the evening at Hamilton, about forty miles distant from Parkdale.

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Communicated 1889

Communicated              1889

      [Inasmuch as in this Department Correspondents have an opportunity to express their individual opinions, be they in favor of the principles on which New Church Life is conducted or adverse to them, the Editor does not hold himself responsible for the views that are published therein.]
SIXTY-NINTH ANNUAL SESSION OF THE GENERAL CONVENTION 1889

SIXTY-NINTH ANNUAL SESSION OF THE GENERAL CONVENTION              1889

     HELD IN THE CITY OF WASHINGTON, D. C., FROM SATURDAY, MAY 25TH, TO TUESDAY 28th, 1889.


     THE FIRST DAY.

Saturday Morning, May 25th.

     The Convention met at two o'clock P.M., in the Universalist church. The meeting was called to order by the President, the Rev. Chauncey Giles who conducted the usual religious services.

     RECEIVING THE ACCREDITED MESSAGE OF THE ENGLISH CONFERENCE.

     Mr. Warren, of Massachusetts, stated that there was present a friend of the New Church from England, Mr. Richard Gunton, Treasurer and General Missionary of the General Conference. He came as the official representative of the Conference, and bearing the annual message of that body to the Convention.
     Mr. Warren moved "that Mr. Gunton be requested to take his seat with us and to participate in our deliberations."
     Mr. Seward, of New York city, called attention of the Convention to the fact that Mr. Gunton is the first accredited messenger of the English Conference to the Convention, although we have had messengers who have been invited to sit with us. He hoped that we may see more of the English as genial as Mr. Gunton.
     Mr. Dewson, of Massachusetts, spoke of his pleasure in having been an accredited messenger of this body to the English Conference, and in finding that they have sent a messenger to us. He was glad that Mr. Gunton has the privilege of standing before a representative audience, as he himself did at Accrington, where he experienced the most tremendous reception he ever dreamed of receiving' from the New Church. Mutual representatives should be sent to every meeting of the Conference and Convention. He never saw any assembly in America where there began to be the direct freedom of speech there is in England. They criticise one another's opinions in the frankest possible manlier. Their business operations merit the commendation of a man who has spent his life in business.
     Mr. Scammon, of Illinois: "The British Conference in action is a most sensible body. I was much affected by the kind manner in which I was treated as accredited messenger from Convention. It is of the greatest use to send delegates and representative men to Conference. We ought also to invite them to send representative men to us. Some things are done here better than they do them and some they do better than we. No other man could be sent to the American Convention who so fully represents the great mass of people in the English Conference as Mr. Gunton. He is from the people, of the people and for the people."
     Mr. Warren's motion was adopted by a rising vote.
     Mr. Gunton responded at some length. He expressed great pleasure at being present. He had many friends present both old and new. He was the first receiver of the Doctrines in Cambridge. He believed in preaching and teaching the Doctrines at all times when there was an opportunity. He spoke of the cheap publications by the Conference of Noble's Appeal (which work he considered the best presentation of the New Church Doctrines that had been written), and also of Dr. Bailey's Divine Word Opened, and two of Mr. Giles's works. He thought that the Convention was better off as to ministers than the Conference. He believed the Convention's ministers were excellent scholars. The New Church Messenger he thought the first New Church paper in the world. The Doctrines of the New Church are a new religion which the world needs.
     Mr. William McGeorge, Jr., of Philadelphia, remarked that not in his own name, but in the name of his dear old father, who was an old member of the Church; and a co-worker with Rendell, Bailey, Bruce, and Noble, he welcomed his brother from England.
     The President called the Vice-President (the Rev. John Worcester) to the chair.

     READING OF REPORTS.

     Reports of officers and constituent bodies of Convention were read.
     The General Council, among other things, reported that the newly-formed Pennsylvania Association of the New Church had applied for admission to the General Convention.
     Mr. Reed, of Massachusetts, moved that the new Association be received into this body.
     Mr. Schreck, of the General Church of Pennsylvania, while favoring the admission of the new Association, objected to its admission under its present name, because that had been held by another Association in the Church, and would lead to confusion in the history of the Church.
     Mr. Reed's motion was adopted by a large majority, and the delegates of the Pennsylvania Association were then received into the Convention, and welcomed by its Chairman, all members of Convention rising.
     When the report of the Maryland Association had been read, General Mussey, of Washington, expressed the great thankfulness of the Washington Society to the Universalists for their great kindness in offering their building for the use not only of the meeting of the Maryland Association, but also of the General Convention.
     In regard to the amendment to the Constitution proposed by Mr. Hugh L. Burnham, that the term "member," "person," "minister," "pastor," or "delegate," whenever occurring in the Constitution and By-Laws shall be understood to refer to the male sex only, the Council of Ministers reported that this would take woman out of the membership of the Convention, which had not been contemplated. Moreover, the Constitution ought to be interpreted by the Doctrines. These teach the duties of men and women, the duties of men being forensic, and the duties in the business meetings of Convention are of this nature, while the duties of women are domestic;-in them the affection takes the lead, and hence women lead in the social meetings and the like. The Council recommended that the proposed amendment be not adopted.
     Mrs. Spencer, of Washington, asked whether all women who had been elected as delegates could take their seats, and whether the Church; which is the mother, could deny them that privilege. She further asked, in an indignant, manner: "Is it possible that the Council of Ministers could deny to the mothers of men a place in this Convention?

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Swedenborg teaches," she continued, "that men, indeed, represent the understanding, but he nowhere teaches that men are understanding."
     Mrs. Spencer was informed that this matter would come up afterward in the consideration of the report of the Council of Ministers.
     Mr. William McGeorge, Jr.: "I would like to move that the report of the General Church of Pennsylvania be referred to the Council of Ministers to report on this portion of it: That since the last meeting of the General Convention the Rev. Louis H. Tafel was enjoined from exercising the functions of his office within the limits of the General Church of Pennsylvania;-to know what was meant by that, and what is meant by the limits of the General Church of Pennsylvania, and whether this removal is in accordance with the law of the General Convention."
     Bishop Benade, of Pennsylvania: "The injunction, as an injunction, was given under the law of the General Convention, and it is therefore not a subject for reference."
     The speaker referred to section 5, article V, of the Constitution. The Chair stated that the matter could be referred. Bishop Benade appealed from the decision of the Chair.
     Here a motion of adjournment was made and carried.
Saturday Evening 1889

Saturday Evening              1889

     AT eight o'clock opening services were held, and the President delivered his annual address. The subject of the address was, "The Condition and Wants of the Convention."


     THE SECOND DAY.

Sunday Morning, May 26th.

     THE greater part of those attending Convention joined with the Universalists in worship, conducted by their Pastor, the Rev. Alexander Kent. He was assisted by the Rev. Chauncey Giles and the Rev. J. K. Smyth, Mr. Smyth preaching the sermon. The order of services used was that of the Universalists.
There was thus an avowed and intentional mixture of two kinds of worship, one directed to the LORD JESUS CHRIST as the one and only God, and the other the opposite of this.
     Some members of the Convention believe it their duty to be guided by the doctrine that "if the faith of the former Church and the faith of the New Church were together, there arises such a collision and conflict that everything of the Church would perish-that is, that man in spiritual things would fall into either delirium or swoon, so that he would hardly know what the Church is, or whether the Church is" (B. E. 103). A number of these members requested Bishop Benade, of the General Church of Pennsylvania, to conduct services for them, his position in regard to this doctrine being well known. He accordingly conducted worship of the LORD in one of the parlors of the hotel, being assisted by three ministers of the New Church.
     The Rev. J. B. Parmelee preached in the Lutheran Church.
Sunday Afternoon 1889

Sunday Afternoon              1889

     THE Communion was celebrated in the afternoon by 160 communicants.     Although it was not publicly announced, it had become known that both wine and unfermented grape-juice would be used. This excluded from participation a number of Newchurchmen who have hitherto joined with their brethren in this most holy act of worship whenever the two fluids have not been used. They conscientiously hold that to use the unfermented juice is a desecration of the Holy Supper, and that by the very act of using the two different substances to represent the one thing-the LORD'S Divine Truth-one of the objects of this sacrament, consociation into one, is defeated.
     The use of both these substances, from a mistaken conception of charity, seems in entire correspondence with the general state of Convention, which, as a member expressed it, "exercised charity to everything-Old Church and no Church-excepting to their, brethren in the New Church."
Sunday Evening 1889

Sunday Evening              1889

     THE Rev. S. E. Eby preached in the Universalist Church.
THIRD DAY 1889

THIRD DAY              1889

Monday Morning, May 27th.

     THE Convention was called to order by the Vice-President, and religious services were conducted by the. Rev. H. C. Dunham, of Portland, Maine.

     ON A MOTION TO REFER THE REPORT OF AN INJUNCTION.

     Ties Chairman: "It was moved that a certain portion of the report of the General Church of Pennsylvania be referred to the Council of Ministers; Mr. Benade objected that it was not referable. The Chair ruled that any report can be referred by the Convention to a Committee, with out regard to the contents. The question now is upon sustaining the ruling of the Chair. It is simply a point of parliamentary order."
     Bishop Benade: "I am not clear as to the statement of the case by the Chair, and would ask that the Secretary again read the minutes respecting the matter."
     The Secretary read that portion of the minutes, from which it appeared that all of Mr. McGeorge's motion had not been recorded.
     Bishop Benade: "In connection with the reference, the Council of Ministers was asked to define what was meant by the limits of the General Church of Pennsylvania."
     The chairman: "As the Chair understood it, it was on the reference to that Council of that portion of the report of the General Church of Pennsylvania. The ruling of the Chair was on the right to refer without respect to what was referred."
     Bishop Benade: "The ruling was on my point of order. There can be no reference of a subject which is not a matter of reference."
     Chairman: "Without regard to the contents. The ruling of the Chair was that it may be referred."
     Bishop Benade: "I did not so understand it."'
     Chairman: "That is the only ruling intended and the only one made."
     Bishop Benade: "I must confess, sir, that I did not so understand, and I doubt whether many others understood it so. I made my point of order on the very matter that the Chair now rules out."
     Chairman: "I should have ruled it out before if there had been any occasion for so doing."
     Bishop Benade: "I shall continue to hold that the ruling is not correct with respect to every report. If this report is concerning something that is not under the jurisdiction of this body, it cannot he referred."
     Chairman: "The ruling of the Chair remains as it was; Mr. Benade appeals.

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The question now is on the sustaining of the ruling of the Chair."
     Bishop Benade: "I think the appeal is debatable."
     Chairman: "Only on the parliamentary right."
     Bishop Benade: "On the subject of the appeal itself"
     Chairman: "Not in regard to the subject-matter, but the parliamentary right to refer is the point."
     Bishop Benade: "Does the Chair rule that a reference can be made to a committee without statement of the purpose of the reference? The purpose of the reference is a matter of discussion, and, according to parliamentary rule, an appeal from the ruling of the Chair is debatable. I call for a division."
     A division was taken, and Mr. Benade's appeal was lost by a vote of fifty-five to sixteen.
     Chairman: "The question now is upon Mr. McGeorge's motion to refer to the Council of Ministers."
     Mr. McGeorge: "My motion was made as the briefest way to effect what the organic law of this body requires should have been done in the first place. It was made that it may be done in the simplest manner. The Constitution requires that (reading) 'when a minister is suspended from the exercise of the functions of his office by authority of an Association or of A General Body of the Church, such suspension shall be reported to the Council of Ministers, and by them reported to the General Convention with their recommendations as to the final disposal of the case.'     Now-" [cries of "read the whole section"]
     Mr. McGeorge: "Well, I will read the whole section: "The General Council of the Convention may suspend any minister not within the bounds-'"
     The Chairman: "Just read the last sentence, Mr. McGeorge."
     Mr. McGeorge (reading): "This Section shall not be so construed as to prevent an Association from enjoining a minister from the exercise of his functions within its own limits.'" (Section 5, Article V, Constitution.) Mr. McGeorge was proceeding to speak on the subject when the point of order was raised and sustained by the Chair, that a motion to refer during the reading of reports was not debatable.
     Mr. Ager: "The question now is simply whether it is advisable or desirable under the provisions of the Constitution to refer that portion of the report of the General Church of Pennsylvania to the Council of Ministers. It seems to me, sir, that the latter part of that section which Mr. McGeorge has just read touches the question of reference. It seems to me that that last sentence read by Mr. McGeorge covers this case, and leaves it with the General Church of Pennsylvania to suspend any minister; to enjoin him from the exercise of the functions of the ministry within its own borders. It is in order for it to do so. We must seek some action in which the Association has violated the order of this General Body. Mr. McGeorge, to support his motion, must show that the General Church of Pennsylvania has in some way or other violated the order of this General Body. He has failed to do to. He has shown that the General Church of Pennsylvania has acted within the limits of the clause which he has just read, and there is no need of bringing the question before this General Body."
     Mr. McGeorge: "The General Church has a right to suspend, but they have no right to make a report of that action, such as to state that this minister has been 'removed' from his office. If they withdraw that, I will withdraw my resolution, and they can suspend every one of their ministers, and I shall not say them nay."
     Bishop Benade: That was the point I was going to make. Upon that ground I objected to the reference; and on that ground I still object. The act of injunction is excluded from revision by this body. This point I have been making all along. The proceeding is against the Constitution on which the action of this Body rests. If this is not the meaning of the article I should like to understand what meaning there is in it. If you will go back to the origin of this article you will see that this was the idea in it. It was intended, when introduced, to give the Association this right. It cannot be referred, as by the Constitution it was excluded from any jurisdiction.
     Chairman "Not from reference."
     Mr. Ager: "Mr. McGeorge is taking the wrong course to obtain the object he had in view. If the report contains things which it ought not, to refer it to the Council of Ministers is not in order. They have no right to revise it. The thing for the Convention to do is to refer the report back to the General Church of Pennsylvania for alteration"
     Mr. Hinkley: "I agree with Mr. Benade and Mr. Ager. It is unfortunate that the motion was made. It had better come to the Convention in another way. We do not gain anything. I hope Mr. McGeorge will withdraw his motion."
     Mr. McGeorge: "I did not want to have a stigma cast upon a man whom we trust and love. But I will substitute for my motion the following: 'That the report of the General Church of Pennsylvania be referred back for amendment.'"
     Mr. Scammon: "The motion was seconded. I object to its being withdrawn. I do not agree with the construction which Mr. Ager has put upon this Section of Article V. I think if I read it again the Convention will see this. (Mr. Scammon here read the Section in question.) The whole section is to be read together. Every lawyer knows that an injunction is a suspension. It may be temporary or permanent. This Convention ought not to stultify itself by any artfully put words. That last article means the same as the first. It means suspension. When you enjoin a man from the functions of his office, he is suspended. It was not intended that an Association could put down its officers without inquiry. There is no Church in the world that does that, not even the Roman Catholic. If an Association suspends a minister, he has a right of appeal to this Convention. All the ministers are officers of that body, and we, as the Supreme Court, have a right to review their action. I express no opinion upon the propriety of the action of the General Church of Pennsylvania in this injunction, but this is exactly the case where it should be referred to the Council of Ministers. It was the duty of the Pennsylvania Association, in doing this, to report their action to the Council of Ministers. I insist that we should not take any action here which will allow any one to say that we have allowed any one of our ministers to be suspended without the right of appeal."
     Mr. Reed: "This reference will be altogether useless."
     Mr. Dewson: "I wish to express the same opinion. It could not possibly be useful. I do not believe with Mr. McGeorge that the standing of Mr. Tafel will be affected one way or another by an action which is provided for under our Constitution for some purpose, and which simply gives an association a right to say that they do not wish the services of a minister, just as a Society has a right to do the same thing. I move that this matter be laid on the table."'
     Mr. Dewson's motion was put to vote and carried. The reading of reports was continued.

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     REMOVAL OF CONVENTION'S SCHOOL TO CAMBRIDGE.

     At eleven o'clock the report of the Managers of the Theological School was considered at some length.
     The President took the chair.
     Mr. Worcester: "When the matter of the removal was first spoken of among the managers, all sorts of difficulties were brought up. We were confident that at some time it would be right to take the school to Cambridge, but we were not sure that the time was ripe. The former President of the school thought it should go there, but that we must be sure of a good, strong New Church support for it. That kind of support seems provided now, but shall we be able, under the surroundings of Cambridge, to keep the teachings of the school as clearly of the New' Church as the Convention would desire? There is, of course, a great deal of intelligence in Cambridge. Religious questions are freely discussed, as well as questions of philosophy and science. In regard to the general religious attitude in the school about these questions, there is a great deal of scientific theology which consists in critical study of the texts of Scripture, and of the agreement of the Doctrines of the Church at large with the truths of science and philosophy as to their understanding. Everything is subjected to examination. The general attitude is something like this: That in the Bible we have the most valuable collection of books and writings in the world, over which the Divine Providence has been exercised.
     "How the Divine Spirit operates in this collection of books is very obscure. There is no belief in a verbal inspiration, but that in some way or other spiritual life is embodied there is generally believed. The LORD JESUS CHRIST is recognized as a perfect man. Dr. Peabody is the best loved man in Cambridge. He is Professor of Christian morals and a very fine preacher. In a recent sermon he said something like this: 'The Chinese have their Confucius, the Hindus their Buddha, the Persians have their Zoroaster, the Mohammedans have Mohammed, and the world has the LORD JESUS CHRIST, who is the ideal of humanity to every nation and every race upon the earth.' That sentiment would be indorsed by the religious men of every sort in Cambridge: that the LORD JESUS CHRIST is the model of men, and in some way the embodiment of the Divine Life; but as to His being God, the more religious ones would repeat what the late Dr. Peabody has said to my father; 'Mr. Worcester,' he said, 'I believe it in my heart, but there are logical difficulties in teaching it, yet I never say anything contrary.' And from that expression down there are all sorts of grades. Now, if we take our New Church School there, what will be our attitude? Shall we enter into their critical discussions of the letter of the Word'-or of the science that they love so much-shall we stand on their ground? Mr. President, we take our ground with us. We take the revelation with us. We shall stand there, and they shall see that we do believe in an expressed revelation from the LORD. 'We believe,' we shall say, we believe we have this revelation in the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg; we believe that he was a servant of the LORD JESUS, whom you reverence but do not understand; we believe that the LORD sent him to explain Himself to us; we believe we have the LORD'S own interpretation of that Word which you reverence but do not understand, in a form you desire. Come and see!' 'We can take no other ground than that. We can stand there on it, or if we cannot,-we cannot stand at all."     
     The Vice-President resumed the Chair.
     Dr. Dike:- "This is one of the most important steps, if not the most important, the institution has ever taken. You all well know it began with the feeblest beginning. I think it the proper time for the very step it is about to take. But we want the whole Church with us. This School is the Church's School, the most important institution the Church has in its hands. We want your regard, your correction, your suggestions and help, and your money."
     Mr. Reed: "Some may ask 'What are the advantages to be expected from planting the school in Cambridge?' A good many might instantly say: 'the advantages of the University itself of its learning and libraries.' They are placed at our disposal upon the most liberal terms. But a more important thing is the fact that we come into the immediate neighborhood of one of the largest collections of those who are engaged in the pursuit of knowledge, and who, by the presence of the school among them, may be led to enter into its life. But the New Church is not going to take the University by storm. Its work will be done in a quiet, modest way, without endeavoring to proselytize or influence opinion, but it will be there doing its work, and exerting influence in the effort to advance without diverging from its standard, in teaching the Doctrines of the New Church. Now a great deal is said which is unfavorable to Harvard University. It is a large collection of young men, and, necessarily a certain number are of immoral life, and there is more or less of agnosticism or unbelief. Both these are to be found in every university. The orderly life of the college is never spoken of by the papers, although I believe from personal acquaintance with the University that there is as much of good order of religious feeling of open manners, as is to be found in any similar institution in this country. There is no university in the country more ready to receive the truth, when presented in a clear and rational manner. There is a more Gentile state, of which state Swedenborg speaks in the Writings, a searching for positive truth. It is manifested in Cambridge to a surprising degree.
     "When our removal was made known to the professors of Harvard Theological School one of the remarks was 'Why not establish a Professorship of New Church Theology in the heart of the schools?' This would not answer the purpose, because it is better to have a school fully equipped in all its branches; but it shows the readiness which there will be to examine-to consider-and in some instances, without the slightest doubt,-to receive, the teachings which we have to offer. There are two courses which may be pursued with regard to this matter. Either our institution must draw within itself, or it must place itself so that the relation of itself to the world shall be clearly understood, and the test shall be applied whether the world is stronger than the Church, or the Church than the world. We believe the latter is the wiser course. We believe the young men should be brought into contact with the things they have to meet, so that they shall understand that it is the world which is their field; and they must obtain a just view of society, in order that when the time comes for them to put on their armor they may do their work intelligently and readily. The step which has been taken is one of the most important that has been taken in the New Church."
     Mr. Pettee, of Massachusetts stated that on his recommendation a lady had made a liberal gift to the School and lately made other provisions for it by will. There is a prepration in the public mind for the School to go to Cambridge. The professors, by lectures and books, maintain a religious spirit.

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The New Church will be a wonderful power there. There is a preparation there for the Doctrines hardly to be found elsewhere in the country.
     Mr. Giles, of Pennsylvania, offered a resolution that "the Convention heartily approves of the decision of the managers of the Theological School to establish it on a permanent basis at Cambridge.
     "I listened to the remarks with regard to this matter, and I did not quite understand why our friends use such modest terms with regard to it, and why they try to make us think that Cambridge is on the high road to the New Church, and is almost there now."
     Mr. Giles related an anecdote of Theophilus Parsons who called the people at Cambridge "magnificent heathens." They may have advanced, but what a missionary field! "New Church ministers need to come into contact with men and be able to adapt themselves to the status of the people. They will get this and a knowledge of true science which they need at this place. There are some advantages in the proposed removal that I have not heard mentioned; that is, the intellectual stimulus it will give to the study of the Doctrine. I think we need that. There is a great University, there are learned men, there is a great body of young minds who are pursuing the study of scientific and literary subjects. There is a power there, and that is one of the things that the minister of the New Church needs. They have all the means of supplying themselves with the genuine truths that are necessary, but they need to come into contact with men. They are to go into the world, and let their light shine. But they must have the ability, not only to say that the Doctrines of the New Church say so and so, but they must go with the power of adapting themselves to the state of the people, and they cannot do that unless they know something of the intellectual status of the world, unless their minds are imbued somewhat with the intellect of the age. There is no man in the Church that needs so much a knowledge of the various philosophies as the minister of the New Church. Science-true science-is the very weapon which he is to use. Men may go on in the knowledge of this world, but they have no light from above. Now let the man who is versed in the science of natural and spiritual things, and who touches the very centre of the life of the scientific man go out, and of what use will he be? It is one of the complaints of scientific men that ministers do not know much about science. I do not know much about it myself. But the more ministers understand science, the better it is, for natural science is the very material that we are to use to explain and collect spiritual principles. Swedenborg states that it was impossible for the New Church to come into the world until there was a true scientific basis. So it seems to me that this is just the place for our young men to go to, that they may receive, and give more than they receive. I have no doubt but, that their influence will be felt for a power."
     Mr. Giles told of the marked attention paid to New Church boys at Harvard-at a commencement when Mr. James Reed graduated. An old gentlemen said, "I don't know how it is, but those Swedenborger boys beat them all.". He thought that the "Swedenborger boys" that would go to Cambridge New Church Theological School would "beat them all."
     Mr. McGeorge seconded Mr. Giles's motion. He said: "The first question to be asked is 'Is there a necessity for this, or for any other changes in the matter of the Theological School?'" He observed that the successful Societies all have good pastors. "Self-preservation demands that we train and provide them. Now there may be two opinions, and I know there are, as to whether this is the best course. It is our view that it is. We have thought over, this matter, we have prayed over this matter, and we see it to be one of use. Let no discouraging circumstances interfere with you! I would ask, 'If you do not agree with us, if you do not believe we are doing the wisest thing, if you think something else is better, cannot you agree to leave us in freedom, to do the best we can? Do not climb on our backs and hold us down, and prevent those who are willing to work from doing all they can?"
     Mr. McGeorge then gave a history of the movement, and appealed for aid.
     Mr. Giles's resolution was adopted.
     The Rev. J. E. Smith preached a sermon on Mark xvi, 15.           
Monday Afternoon 1889

Monday Afternoon              1889

     The Report of the Board of Home and Foreign Missions was taken up.

     HOME AND FOREIGN MISSIONS.

     Mr. Hinkley: "The work has been as large and perhaps larger than last year's, but substantially the same as in the last two or three years. The policy has been to establish centres from which our missionaries may go forth, and that they may be near to those centres, rather than wandering in a solitary way, and so making the work scattered and not so effective. There are four or five points to which our men have been directed, as the places where our efforts may be useful. In Nova Scotia the only centre we have is New Annan. It has been visited by Mr. Dike and other ministers. Mr. Higgins went to Topeka, there to operate in Kansas and Missouri,-but afterward received a call to the St. Louis Society, which he accepted. Mr. Reiche has since become the missionary, with Topeka as a centre. The Rev. Stephen Wood has been doing very satisfactory work in Texas. He is full of the idea that the Church is the instructor, and that the people should connect themselves with it by the Sacraments. Florida and Georgia have been mainly under the care of the Rev. J. E. Smith. His services have been very satisfactory to all the people in Florida, and the Savannah people will be able with some assistance, which the Board will give, if it can, to erect a house of worship in a beautiful situation. In Florida, the people are anxious to have a New Church missionary. We cannot find men with the right qualification of experience to fill these positions of missionary. I do not doubt but that we could get money enough, if we could find the right men to put right to work. In four or five years I hope to see men going out from the Theological School fully equipped for this work. Our missionaries should have the strength and confidence that comes from the love of the truth of the Church, and especially from love of the work of the Ministry. There is no use for a man to enter the ministry unless he have love for the work. We have worked also in Maryland and other places. We work anywhere where there is a field."
     Mr. Mercer: "As one who has sometimes objected to the work that has been done, I would say the Board ought to have the courage to employ the best men they are able, and to trust the Church for the means. This work has attained most satisfactory results. According to the interest for the ministers and missionaries will the ministry respond. The Board of Missions will have money if it has the deep interest of the Church in the particulars of its work.

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The Evangelistic work of the New Church has two effects, salvation and judgment and separation. The latter is pleasant only when we remember that it is the LORD'S judgment which is effected. In the eleventh chapter of the Apocalypse is an account of the two witnesses. They witness and prophesy that whoever shall not receive the LORD as the only God of Heaven and earth cannot be received into Heaven. Until all in the great world shall have heard the two universals of the New Church, and receive or reject them, we must preach. The remnant will give glory to God. We have heard of the preparation of the world for the reception of the Church. People are held in the bondage of their old institutions. They do not see, and cannot understand. The object of the ministry must be to teach the truth without regard to results. Results are in the LORD'S hands. We must merely teach the Truth. Woe be to us if we preach not! The Church will sympathize with the work of the Board of Missions, and will give it year by year more and more for its uses."
     Mr. Scammon: "Have the Board of Missions considered the propriety of helping clergymen of the Old Church who want to preach the Doctrines, but have a wife and baby to look after? There are many cases where men cannot live were they to begin preaching the Doctrines, because they need some assistance, and thus the work stops."
     Mr. Hinkley: "It has never come before the Board." Rev. J. E. Smith: "We have been going on with the work in the South. It is quite evident that the Doctrines of the New Church have a mission far beyond the little circle which speaks of the New Church. We cannot calculate the New Church by the number of people who sit in New Churches." The speaker then gave an interesting account of his work in Maryland and further South.
     He thought the Board of Missions had a true idea of the requirements of a missionary of the New Church.
     "We must take men as we find them. It should be the earnest study of the missionary to understand the people to whom he goes, to take his place on the plane of their thought, and to open to them the truths of the New Church. But we must preach the distinct Doctrines of the New Church, and for this reason I think you will find very few people in the New Church, except those who have been raised there, who have not been brought into the New Church by Doctrines. Anything else may be offered by all the Churches. They have social influences perhaps better than we, but there is no Church that has the Doctrine of salvation which the people need, as the New Church. The New Jerusalem is a new dispensation, and we need these truths. Unless the missionary of the New Church makes it a principle that he represents a new system of thought, they will say all we have is in these other faiths. It is a necessary qualification of the missionary to be able to talk ex tempore." He hoped the Theological School would take that into consideration. He had told the Savannah Society that he would try to get the New Church to give an addition of five hundred dollars for their new Chapel.
     A resolution, offered by Mr. Giles, urging the establishment of a permanent Endowment Fund for the use of the Board of Missions was carried.
     Mr. Hayden read a "Memorial of the Building Committee of the Washington Society," in which the idea was embodied that the New Church all over the country should erect a national house of worship in Washington. The Rev. Frank Sewall has accepted a call to the Washington Society. Mr. Hayden then presented the claim that Washington, as the nation's capital, was the best missionary field for the New Church. It was a focus of New Church influences people came with open minds for New Church truth-one hundred thousand people came to Washington every year from all parts of the country.
     It was voted that a committee of fifteen, two each from Boston, New York, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, and Chicago, and three from Washington be authorized to take charge of the building of a new house of worship in the City of Washington, to raise funds for the object, and to act as Trustees for the property in the name of the Convention.
     Mr. Dewson, who had proposed the resolution, spoke in favor of endowments of churches. He favored giving tithes to the Church, tithes not merely of one's income, but of one's expenditure on one's family. He was ready to say that if in giving of his goods in this way he would eventually be led to the poor-house, it was not because he gave, but because something in him needed such a discipline.
     Others spoke to the resolution, some in favor of having all the Trustees from Washington, others desiring to utilize men's "selfish passions" by drawing trustees from time whole country, as many would give more if they felt that they were part owners In the property to which they were contributing. The proposed Church building should belong to the Church in the whole country, whither currents flow from the whole country.

     A PETITION FROM FORMER MEMBERS OF THE ADVENT SOCIETY.

     The following petition was then read to Convention:
     "To the General Convention of the New Jerusalem in the United States of Americas:
     "The petition of the undersigned respectfully
     "That we were members in good standing of the New Jerusalem Society of the Advent at the time the Rev. L. H. Tafel was removed from its pastorate by the Bishop of the General Church of Pennsylvania.
     "That a formal protest against that removal was duly presented to that Bishop at the time of the delivery of his sentence of removal, but which he refused to receive.
     "We, therefore, believing it to be contrary to Divine Order for the Pastor of a New Church Society to be arbitrarily removed without the consent of its members, present this protest to you against that act, do appeal to your honorable body to reverse that removal, and ask that you take such further action in the matter as you may deem wise and just."

     This petition was signed by E. S. Campbell, Esq., and sixty-two others.
     Mr. Reed moved that this petition be referred to the General Council.
     Bishop Benade: "I should question very much whether this matter concerns the General Council. It ought to be referred to the Council of Ministers and not to the General Council."
     General Mussey: "The General Council is not composed entirely of ministers. There is in my own mind, as a layman, a question of considerable importance and interest in this matter which is brought out by this memorial and protest. To put it in one word it is 'What is the Ecclesiastical Function of this Convention?' It seems to me proper that the views of the laymen on that point should be heard as well as the views of the ministers. I think they are both interested and both are represented in the General Council."
     Mr. Reed: "The reason why I moved the reference was because it seemed to be a matter in which the interests, both of the clergy and of the laity, were concerned equally. It is not a petition of a minister nor on behalf of one. It is from sixty-three members of a Society. There are eight ministers and seven laymen on the General Council.

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The rules of the Convention provide that a certain number of ministers and laymen compose that Council, and there are now more ministers on it than laymen. As a minister of the New Church, it seems to me it would be a more just and suitable reference than to a Council of Ministers."
     Mr. Jordan, of Oakland, Cal., read the following from the Constitution: "'The General Council shall have superintendence of the business of the Convention, and shall exercise the powers of the Convention in The interim of its meetings. The Council of Ministers shall have charge of all matters pertaining to the ministry, subject to the provisions of this Constitution.' What is the substance of this petition? It is that the Bishop of the General Church of Pennsylvania or the General Pastor of that Church has exercised an authority with reference to a minister whom he has removed. Has he done anything to the laymen? He has simply exercised privileges which are accorded under the Constitution. It seems to me that clearly the subject-matter comes within the provision of things referable only to the Council of Ministers. It is a matter concerning the ministry, and it is for the Council of Ministers to take charge of any such matter that may be brought up here."
     Bishop Benade: "The reference of the petition is so contrary to what is right and orderly that I shall not consent to appear before a Council composed of ministers and laymen which is not under the Constitution empowered to take cognizance of what belongs to the Ecclesiastical Order."
     Mr. Schreck moved that the words "Council of Ministers" be substituted for the words "General Council" in the motion.
     Upon the request of one-fifth of the members present, the yeas and nays were called on Mr. Schreck's amendment. The results were as follows:

     YEAS:-Waelchli, Hyatt, Trask, J. Goddard, Cabell, Mayhew, Browne, Benade, Pendleton, Whitehead, Bostock, Czerny, Schreck, Price, Odhner, G. O. Starkey, Macbeth, A. H. Child, J. A. Wells, Schoenberger, Cowley, Burgess, Warren, Dewson, Jordan, Dunham.-25.
     NAYS:-Higgins, Scammon, F. Goddard, Parmelee, Smith, Barnard, Massey, Spencer, Spamer, Pettee, Reed, Worcester, Hinkley, Wright, Hawley, Lowe, Leonard, Kimball, Shaw, Cushman, Darling. C. J. Taft, C. H. Taft, Mann, Seward, Diehl, Bodine, J. B. McGeorge, Sayden, Adams, White, Gooddell, Beaman, Giles, Roeder, W. L. Worcester, W. McGeorge, Lewis, A. J. Tafel, Hay, Thompson.-41.
     The original motion was carried by a vote of forty-four to twenty-five.

     PHOTO-LITHOGRAPHING OF THE MANUSCRIPTS.

     Bishop Benade read and presented the Report of the Committee on Photo-Lithographing the Manuscripts of Swedenborg. It had not been submitted to the whole Committee, but he supposed there would be no difficulty on that score. In answer to a question by Mr. Wright, he stated that, roughly considered, the estimated cost was from one dollar and fifty cents to two dollars a page. "Mr. Jaeger will photograph volume by volume, without requiring us to enter into a contract for the whole work. Some of the philosophical works in the library of the Academy which have not been printed seem to me of more value than others that have been published."
      (In answer to further questions:) "I include the ten additional copies in the estimate of one dollar and cents to two dollars a page. There are about twenty-two thousand pages of manuscript matter. This number will be reduced by the fact that many pages are not full, and that others are written in double columns, and so paged. There seemed to be a willingness on the part of the printers to drop what is called the printers' 'fat.'"
     The Report of the Committee to collect funds was given, after which, on motion of Mr. Scammon, the meeting adjourned.
Monday Evening 1889

Monday Evening              1889

     A VERY pleasant reception was held at the Hamilton House, where most of the ministers and delegates were staying. The Rev. and Mrs. Chauncey Giles, the Rev. and Mrs. W. B. Hayden, the Rev. Joseph Pettee, Mr. Richard Gunton and his niece, and several ladies of the Washington Society, received the guests. Miss Clara Barton, President of the Red Cross Society, who is said to be interested in the Doctrines, was also present.
FOURTH DAY 1889

FOURTH DAY              1889

     Tuesday Morning, May 28th.

     Mr. Dewson stated that last year Convention had helped the Rev. J. F. Potts, compiler of the Swedenborg Concordance. They had paid fifty dollars a month to the Rev. A. Faraday, who was assisting him in his work. He (Mr. Dewson) hoped that the Convention would continue the work. He moved that the treasurer be authorized to apply the legacy of one hundred dollars received from Mrs. Towne to the work of publishing the Concordance, by paying it to Mr. Faraday or some other assistant, and the motion was adopted.
     On motion of Mr. Dewson, the following resolution was adopted:

     "Resolved, That this Convention recognizes the paramount importance to the Church of providing proper material for the instruction of our children in its Doctrine; requests the Board of Publication to provide for the publication of such manuals as are recommended by the American New Church Sabbath-School Association, believing that such work is one of the most important uses for which that Board was established, and for which it may claim and will receive abundant support from the members of the Convention."

     Mr. Gunton read the address of the English Conference.
     Mr. Goddard read the address of the American Convention to the English Conference. The address was adopted, and the Rev. Jabez Fox was appointed messenger to the English conference.
     The Council of Ministers requested to be discharged from further consideration of the rite of confirmation; and the request was granted. On recommendation of the same Council, the number of members of the Board of Missions was increased to ten. On recommendation of the Council, it was decided to publish a small missionary liturgy for use by the missionaries.
     At the election of officers seventy votes were cast for President; fifty-eight for the Rev. Chauncey Giles, one each for Messrs. Ager and Benade, and ten blanks. For Vice-President, the Rev. John Worcester received fifty-eight votes, and the Rev. Messrs. Ager and Seward each one. The tellers did not count the ten blank votes that had been cast for Vice-President.
Tuesday Noon 1889

Tuesday Noon              1889

     A LARGE number of New Church ladies and gentlemen visited the Executive Mansion, and were tendered a special reception by President Harrison.
Tuesday Afternoon 1889

Tuesday Afternoon              1889

     THE Committee appointed to nominate the elective members of the General Council had nominated the same gentlemen who were serving on this Council with the exception of one who had passed into the other world since the last annual meeting.

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Their election was now in order.

     ELECTION OF THE GENERAL COUNCIL.

     Mr. McGeorge had been privately informed of the nature of the report which the General Council intended to return on the Tafel matter, and as it did not agree with his present feelings and wishes he arose and said: "It is a well-known fact that when there is too severe a strain and pressure the process can be carried to such an extent that something must give way, and I think some such process is taking place in my mind at this moment, in a very mild and gentle way I rise to protest against what seems to me a gross slight to one whom we love and respect. We have tried to do justice to Mr. Tafel, and we are told he needs nothing; it makes no difference, if he is suspended from his office, that it is reported to every Newchurchman in the world, who may not know the circumstances, and be led to believe that it signified wrong done on his part."
     Bishop Benade: "Upon what question is this?"
     Chairman: "I understand Mr. McGeorge to give the reasons for another nomination."
     Bishop Benade: "He has made no nomination. Mr. McGeorge is out of order in introducing this matter."
     Mr. McGeorge: "I mean to nominate."
     Chairman: "It is in order."
     Mr. McGeorge: "I propose to nominate, instead of the Rev. John Whitehead, the name of the Rev. Louis H. Tafel, as a member of the General Council. I do this in order that this Convention may say, in the strongest and most emphatic way in which it can say that in our eyes our brother Tafel is in thorough and complete standing."
     Mr. Schreck: "I see no reason why Mr. McGeorge should have made the remark he did; the matter has not been brought before Convention in such a manner that it can understand it or act upon it. If the Convention is to do a fancied justice, then it must know the facts, so that it may form a judgment. Some facts in the case have been made known to Convention, but not-"
     Mr. Scammon objected, and called Mr. Schreck to order. The Chairman sustained Mr. Scammon in not permitting an answer to Mr. McGeorge, but granted Mr. Schreck the right to speak in favor of Mr. Whitehead's nomination.
     Mr. Schreck: "I wish to present to the sense of fairness of the Convention this fact, that according to the Convention's Constitution, the General Council, which is about to be elected, has the superintendence of the business of the Convention, and exercises the powers of the Convention in the interim of its meetings-that is, during the whole year, excepting the few days when Convention holds its meeting. It is well known that Mr. Whitehead represents the views of a number of the members of the Convention, views that are quite distinct from those of the other members, but held none the less honestly. They believe them to be founded upon the Writings of our LORD, and advocate them, because they believe that in this way they will further the establishment and the true prosperity of the Church, and therefore of Convention. The number of these members is not so small that it ought to be disregarded. I find, on a rough estimate, that Mr. Whitehead would represent from one-eighth to one-ninth of the constituency of the Convention. In the spirit of common fairness, those men ought to be accorded at least one representative in the General Council."
     Mr. Scammon: "I wish to ask Mr. McGeorge to withdraw the nomination. However much I respect Mr. Tafel, I think it would be unjust to him and to those who sympathize with the views of Mr. McGeorge, to place Mr. Tafel in a position where he might, and probably would, be defeated. Let Mr. McGeorge wait for justice to be done in the good time coming."
     Mr. McGeorge: "When a man is very deeply interested he is unable to form a judgment. I am intensely interested in this subject. I do not believe that we are doing quite fairly by our brother, but those in whose judgment I have trust have asked me to do this, and as I am in a state of so much personal excitement, I grant that my judgment may be wrong, and I do withdraw my nomination, but it is in the hope that the good time will come soon for Mr. Tafel."

     THE GENERAL PASTORATE.

     The Council of Ministers recommended that section 4, article V, of the Constitution be amended by inserting the sentence: "But an Association may, with the sanction of the General Convention, temporarily vest the powers of General Pastor in its Presiding Minister or superintendent, during his continuance in that office."
     The section would then read as follows:

     "A Pastor, after a suitable time in the Pastoral office, may by request of an Association, and with the sanction of the General Convention, be invested with the office of General Pastor, with power to authorize candidates, ordain ministers, and preside over a general body of the Church while acting as Presiding Minister of any Association, or of the General Convention; or an Association may, with the sanction of the General Convention, temporarily vest the powers of General Pastor in its Presiding Minister or Superintendent during his continuance in that office," etc.

     Mr. Goddard, of Ohio: "It has seamed well to the Sub-Committee that prepared this report that the Convention should know the principle involved, and to assist in the understanding of this I have prepared a short statement. I present this by request:
     "There are several views in regard to the ministry. In the first place, there is the extreme view that there is no separate order of the Priesthood-that the function of preaching is an inward gift, like all other functions and that there should be no formal setting apart for that office; no ordination. It is believed by those who hold this view that the function of preaching should not be separated from the ordinary vocations of life, but that the minister should be a man in practical life.
     "Another view of the ministry is that there is one ordination. All ministers are alike in rank. The higher functions of the ministry, such as are commonly exercised by the Bishop, should be exercised, if at all, by the General Body, either of an advisory or authoritative character, as in the Congregational and Presbyterian bodies respectively, or, if these general powers be exercised by an individual, that he should hold them simply as the representative of the people who had elected him, and that he should exercise not his own authority in any sense, but the authority of the general body whose mouthpiece he is. This is a purely Republican form of government, and such officers lay down the rank with the office.
     "A third view of the ministry is the Episcopal order, in which the general or associated functions are exercised by individuals who possess various degrees of independence of the body which created them, and whose office is clearly defined, by giving them a separate rank in the ministry, which adheres to them during life. The authority of the orders of the ministry does not rest in the person who fills these offices, but in the Church, and in the Divine Head of the Church, to whom all are subject.

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     "There are few or none connected with the General Convention, or likely to be, who take the view that there is no priestly order or ordination. The only difference of opinion is as to the second and third views, whether there is more than one ordination, and thus a difference in rank between the various orders of ministers, existing in them or through them from the LORD as individuals, aside from the exercise of the outward functions of their office. The Associations who are contending for a modification of our present rules believe in the function of the General Pastor, and in its being permanent wherever suitable individuals can be found to fill the office with permanent usefulness. But they do not believe that the office should be settled on the man, apart from his function, but that, when his administration of the function ceases, his title of General Pastor should also cease; that as his office was bestowed by the will or consent of the people, therefore, when by the will of the people he no longer exercises the function, his title should be taken away, and, since all the functions of the ministry are implied in the one ordination, therefore the Constitution of the Convention should not compel a second ordination or consecration, and thus the recognition of a second grade of the ministry.
     "On the other hand, there is a feeling, which does not seem to have found a very intelligent or open expression-that there is a benefit or use in recognizing orders of the ministry in some sense in a personal way, apart from the exercise of their special function, and an illustration of this is in the growing belief that the President of the United States should not be compelled to labor at the expiration of his term of office for his daily bread. There is a feeling that, although he lays down the function, something remains. What is it? The feeling is not that the setting apart of the higher grades of the ministry is an exaltation of men. Nobody claims that. But it is, that it is an exaltation of the Church through men, and thus of the LORD, Who is present through men. It is claimed by some, but not by all, that this graded order of the ministry is expressed, or at least implied, in the New Church Writings. Those who believe in this separate order or function of the ministry are not agreed on the question of their authority. Some would make it an ultimate authority of law; others an office mainly of counsel or advice.
     "These two opinions are distinct. Can they dwell together in unity? Can the same roof cover both? Some think not. The question has been raised whether the Convention had not better be divided into two separate bodies. I protest against this. Some think these two opinions cannot dwell together, but, as an individual and as a representative of the Council of Ministers, I think I am authorized to say that in their view the experiment is well worth trying.
     "The question before us is really one of freedom. The present Constitution, with its order of the ministry, had been intended to meet the views of both sides. It had been intended to be so worded that each party could carry out its ideas. The words with the sanction of the General Convention, in the Constitution, may mean a second ordination or a consecration, or a simple yea or nay vote. It had been worded so on purpose, that the Associations might be free to choose between the ideas of one or of two, or more ordinations. It might mean either. But now it seems, after all this understanding and coming to complete unity, after all this trouble and all their satisfaction at reaching a point where we could all agree; there comes eminent legal authority and declared that the order of the ministry adopted by and taken as a whole, and not separating one article from the rest-that that order of the ministry would hardly allow the idea of the opponents of two ordinations to be carried out. In other words, according to eminent legal authority (Judge Mason), the idea of the Illinois and New York Associations can not be carried out. A mistake, then, has been made. A mistake, pure and simple. The freedom of the brethren has not been preserved. The, amendment proposed will rectify the error. It will enable each party to carry out its own ideas. It requires the sanction of the General Convention before an Association can make its Presiding Minister a General Pastor, with power to ordain, and thus makes him an officer of the Convention. It would not compel such a temporary General Pastor to have his name inserted in the list of General Pastors against his will, certainly not beyond the time during which he served, which would be decided by the Convention. It seems to me that the discussion ought, as far as possible, to be restricted to the real question before the meeting, which is a question freedom. Whether the New York and Illinois Associations shall be left free, whether the two ideas of the ministry shall be recognized for all time in the Constitution of the General Convention.
     "Would it not be a happy solution of this question if we could settle the matter in the same unanimous spirit in which the original Constitution was adopted, in the supposition (now seen to be probably erroneous) that all parties were thus left free to carry out their own ideas? It was not the New York and Illinois Associations alone who wanted it; he had understood from Mr. Roeder that, the German Synod were separate from the body of the Convention for that reason only. If that error can be rectified we should have that body of the New Church brethren along with us, and should really become a Convention of the New Jerusalem in the United States of America.
     Bishop Benade: "Will you state whether, in the opinion of the Council, this applies to all the Associations of the body, or only to those who have asked."
     Mr. Goddard: "To all so far as they want to avail themselves of it. The Ohio Association, for instance if it chose to go back on its record, could act under its provisions."
     Bishop Benade: "What I want to know is, whether this is a general law or a special rule."
     Mr. Goddard: "A special rule, as is implied in the word 'but.' That is the idea of the Council."
     Mr. Jordan: "The general spirit of the Constitution seems to be to retain the ordination of ministers in the Convention and to make it a unit. It seems to me desirable not to give to the Association authority to invest one with the power of a General Pastor, but to retain such investiture in the Convention. This could be done in these words, but the powers of General Pastor conferred upon the Presiding Minister or Superintendent of an Association shall cease at the end of his incumbency in such office of Presiding Minister or Superintendent, if the Association shall so elect. That makes only one new point. I move this as a substitute."
     Mr. Goddard: "This amendment has been very carefully worded. It has been through the hands of three or four lawyers, besides many ministers. The point contained in the words 'Associations may' is the very point involved, or one of them. One of the points is the want of freedom, the other is the idea of authority as granted by the people. It is a Democratic idea, the rest is the Episcopal idea, that the power comes from the higher to the lower.

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The rest of the Constitution puts the power in the General Pastor, but in this amendment the power passes through the people by an Association. An Association may create a General Pastor."
     Mr. Wright defended the report of the Council. It had been in the Council for more than a year, and fully considered. This form of words had been drawn up with great care. He was unwilling to throw aside the deliberations of the Council for something he had heard only at the last moment or two. When the Council has done its work he felt as if it were insulting them to put it aside.
     Mr. Seward: "I agree with Mr. Wright. Such an amendment as this ought to have been proposed in the Council of Ministers when the matter was under consideration there. It is simply calculated to throw the whole matter into confusion."
     Mr. Jordan's substitute was put and lost.
     Mr. Ager said he knew nothing of this form of amendment until yesterday afternoon. "There is one word that would be hurtful, if the Convention wished to act in the spirit of Mr. Goddard's remarks. The principle some of us have been fighting for in the Convention-the principle of freedom-has been granted in this amendment. But there is another word which is equally precious-equality. This amendment as it stands would not add equality. It grants a privilege to a certain number of Associations, as a clear departure from the true order of the Church, to give freedom to those Associations who are in error on that point. That is the exact spirit and meaning of this amendment produced by that little word 'but.' It is about the hardest butt I have heard of [laughter]. Will you not simply change that word 'but' to the still smaller word 'or,' so that instead of making exception and permitting some to depart from order, be willing to tolerate their opinion? That would make the roof broad enough to cover all. It is simply a question of the size of the roof. I move that the word 'or' be substituted for 'but.'"
     Mr. Tafel: "In voting for this proposition at the Council of Ministers, I had in my mind that it would be what Mr. Ager said. Therefore, I am in favor of his amendment. I have studied the subject in the Writings considerably, and especially during the past year, and I have not found any passage in the Doctrines which militates against the view that Mr. Ager holds. I have yet to find a passage in which the position of the New York Association is shown to be not in agreement with the Writings. I understand that they do not want to have a prelate in their Church. I understand that they have pastors, and I have no doubt that they will have assistant pastors when the time comes. But, as to the matter of ordination, I have yet to find any passages which demands that the different orders of the ministry required each a separate ordination."
     The proposed amendment to the Constitution, after having been amended, as moved by Mr. Ager, was carried by a majority vote, probably one-sixth voting against it.

     WOMEN AND THE CONVENTION.

     The report of the Council of Ministers in regard to the proposed amendment concerning women in the Convention was brought up for consideration. See the second column of this report.
     Mrs. Spencer asked permission to speak.
     Mr. Scammon: "The question she wants to speak on is not involved, and we have only a little time. I hope she will not speak."
     Chairman: "That is correct. The Council recommend that this amendment be not adopted."
     Mrs. Spencer: "If Mr. Scammon knows what I have to say I shall willingly delegate the speaking to him, but I have not yet found the man who knew what I wanted to say, and thus I have asked the Convention to give me an opportunity to say a word as to the reason why it should not adopt the resolution submitted to it. If it is in order, I should he glad to move that so much of the report of the Council of Ministers as relates to the relative duties of man and woman be stricken out."
     Chairman: "You cannot propose that. That matter is not before us."
     Mrs. Spencer: "The reason why I am glad that the Convention is about to consider the propriety of understanding these several terms to mean men or women whenever occurring is because this New Church on earth, if it means anything at all to the human race here, means freedom and equality to men and women, as well as to men among themselves, because women could speak to women, and because God had given her lips to utter her thoughts, no man has a right to withhold it from her. Our friend has said that they needed young men for the Ministry, and New Church ministers have expressed their indebtedness to the Methodist Church for ministers; and these ministers are born of women in the freedom of that Church. I was reared in the Methodist Church, reared to believe that it is just as much the privilege of a woman to raise her voice in prayer to God as to raise it in the choir-to believe that women may instruct men-that there is no reason why they may not listen to the voice of woman. Swedenborg and Wesley have long since met. John Wesley was the John the Baptist who has gone before, who has prepared the way for the New Church. May the New Church learn its lesson. You exclude woman because she is a form of love. Would you exclude God, who is Love itself? Love is life, and love and life are one. Our English friend and poet remarked that in all the languages the words love and life are one; with an inspiration upon him, he said:

     "'The night has a thousand eyes,
          And the day but one;
     Yet the light of the whole world dies,
          When day is done.

     "'The mind has a thousand eyes,
          And the heart but one,
     Yet the life of the whole world dies,
          When love is done.'

     "How, under the sun, can the New Church touch the hearts of men and women when woman's lips are bid to be silent! I know there is a meaning in this. It is stated that the duties of men and women are widely divergent. The duties of man and woman represent the love and the understanding. They are each alive when together, but dead apart. They are created with two hands for one work, two lips for one speech, two eyes for one sight, and two feet for one progress. Husband and wife, father and mother, son and daughter, brother and sister of the Church must work together for the establishment of this New Church."
     Mr. Scammon: "I wish to disabuse Mrs. Spencer of any idea that I was unwilling that she should speak, for I believe what Swedenborg says, that the angel told him that when they regarded their wives they were in wisdom, but when they turned from them they were in no wisdom."
     Mrs. Spencer: "When I stated there was a meaning not expressed in words, I meant to say that the names of women who are elected as delegates do not reach the Secretary's books.

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What is the justice, the right, the freedom that women have not? Why are not the husband and wife, the mothers and sons, the brothers and sisters, sitting together in these seats? That is the reason for the Churches being so small and weak, and that alone. When James A. Garfield was a student, a fellow-student had been reading with him Conjugial Love, and they were much struck with the Memorable Relation, in which Swedenborg says that be saw a shining angel approaching to illustrate the subject of marriage. When the angel approached, he saw that this angel was two-husband and wife. The two were one. Does not this foreshadow that men and women must work together or fail?"
     The Committee of Credentials explained, in answer to Mrs. Spencer, that no credentials had been received which had not been reported.
     Mr. King, of Baltimore, Md., remarked that while Mrs. Spencer had been speaking he could not help thinking of the disadvantage men are under in publicly discussing affairs with women. If a man differ from you, you can deal hard blows and knock him down, but that treatment is out of place with a woman. The profound reverence of men for women would upset the freedom of the men when both participate in public councils. Her affectional sphere would influence him more than the strength of her position. The LORD had committed the stronger management to man, who represents the understanding. The Church comes with truth; good comes afterward. The woman should be within the man, or the affection should be within the truth.
     The recommendation of the Council of Ministers was adopted.

     COMMUNICATIONS FROM OTHER BODIES.

     An address of the German Synod to the Convention was read.
     Mr. Tafel, Vice-President of the German Missionary Union, stated that there were over one thousand German New Church people in America, but that none of the large Societies are connected with the Synod at all, because they do not approve of their disorderly ordination of ministers. He wished it to be understood that there was a difference between the German Missionary Union, which includes the larger Societies, though not all, and the Synod. The Missionary Union has not co-operated with, nor was it in sympathy with the Synod.
     Mr. Roeder, of Vineland, N. J., Secretary and Treasurer of the German Synod, explained that they had found a large amount of work which was not being done, and they decided to do it. So far the experiment has been successful. They had brought together New Church people who had not been able to come together. The organization should be given a chance to grow, and let it show what it can do. The Church did not consist in numbers.
     A communication from the Rev. F. Gorwitz, President of the Union of the New Church in Switzerland, was read.
     Mr. Scammon called attention to the great use Mr. Goerwitz is performing as the only man in Germany who opposes the heresy of Mr. Artope.
     A communication from the Rev. C. J. N. Manby, of Stockholm, was read.
     Mr. Ager read a petition from the New York Association, asking for the ordination of their Presiding Minister, under the newly-amended Constitution.
A similar request on behalf of the Illinois Association.
     Both requests were referred to the Council of Ministers.

     THE PETITION OF E. S. CAMPBELL AND OTHERS.

     The General Council reported, regarding the petition of E. S. Campbell and others, former members of the Advent Society, that a thorough investigation was hardly practicable, and not likely to lead to any results; that Mr. Tafel was a minister of the Pennsylvania Association, which is a member of Convention, and that he is in good standing.
     It was moved that the report of the General Council be accepted and adopted as the reply of the General Convention to the petitioners.
     Bishop Benade, as a matter of privilege, desired to say a few words. "So far as I am concerned I am quite well satisfied with the report of the General Council. I should be unwilling to appear before it, but I think that the report is about as right and as just as it could be made under the circumstances of the case. We objected to the injunction being considered by the General Council, but because we did not desire an investigation, but because the manner of the proposed investigation is unconstitutional. It was our desire that there might be the fullest possible investigation of this subject, and we proposed in the Council of Ministers that a tribunal of General Pastors should be formed by which such cases could be tried. I think it is right to the General Church that this should be stated here. Our action was taken under the law of our Church and of the Convention. We wish to be in order and to proceed according to order. The act was not an act of the Bishop of that Church alone, but of the General Church of Pennsylvania by its constituted authorities, and it is not right to fasten it upon the one official. It must be understood that the action was the action of the law of the Church, to which the General Pastor, or Bishop, is subject just as much as any other member. There is no distinction in what is called the prelatical order of the Church between the subjection of the ministers and that of laymen to the law of the Church. They look to that which they believe to be the Lord Revelation, whether they hold this, that, or the other position. I think it is due to the General Church of Pennsylvania to state this. On the other hand, I wish to state that we accept no responsibility whatever, not the least, for anything that has been said, or that may be said or bruited about in the Church concerning the ideas, views, principles, and actions of those who have been engaged in this matter. That responsibility rests with those who have spoken without knowledge, or with knowledge but without consideration for the truth. Nor do we assume responsibility for what may be believed. This rests with those who believe. We hold ourselves responsible to the LORD for what we think, for what we do, and for what we say, not for what others may think or say or do. We believe what the LORD has taught in regard to Divine order in the Church, and to His teaching we are responsible to His Truth as revealed we hold ourselves accountable. And thus we stand before you, willing to have that which we have done searched out to the heart and core, if it be done in the spirit of reverence for the Divine Law and for that which is true before God.
     "On the other hand, I wish to say that the law of the Church makes a clear distinction among those to whom charity is to be shown. There is the charity of one degree, which is to be shown to the individual; of another degree, to the community; of another, to the State; of still another to the Church and to the Heavens, and to the LORD in the highest degree.

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In this matter, as the General Church of Pennsylvania has taken action as a body, I claim that the law of charity to be applied to it is higher than if applied to an individual.
     "I present this for the consideration of those who have the idea of charity in their minds and have expressed themselves in respect to it. Let them reflect and remember that the first thing of charity, and also the very last of charity, for many years to come, is that man shuns evils as sins against God, and in such matters as the one before us that they shun the evil of not first inquiring of their brethren who are charged with wrongdoing, before they make up their minds as to the truth of the accusation."
     During the delivery of these remarks the speaker was applauded by the ministers and delegates of the General Church of Pennsylvania, but were promptly checked by the Vice-President, although both before and after this speech other speakers were applauded with his tacit approval.
     Mr. McGeorge: "I am sorry that this thing came to us in such shape that we do not know how to act upon it. No one doubts the justice of what has been said in regard to the right of the General Church of Pennsylvania to do just as they see to be according to the laws of the Church, but the civil law requires that what we do be so done that we do not injure others. So use your own that others may not be injured is the free translation of the Latin motto that underlies all law."
     Mr. McGeorge proceeded to read from the report of the General Church of Pennsylvania, when he was interrupted on the point of order that that report was not before the meeting.

     IGNORING THE GENERAL COUNCIL.

     Mr. McGeorge: "In order that the Convention may be able to act properly upon this matter, I offer as a substitute to the report of the Committee the following preamble and resolution:

     "WHEREAS, In the report of the General Church of Pennsylvania it is stated that since the last meeting of the Convention the Rev. Louis H. Tafel has been enjoined from the functions of his office within the limits of the General Church of Pennsylvania, and removed from the Pastorate of the Society of the Advent; and, whereas no reasons are given for this action, wherefore injustice may he unwittingly done to our brother, the Rev. L. H. Tafel, in the minds of those unacquainted with the real causes of difference between him and his Bishop; therefore,
     "Resolved, That this Convention, for the purpose of preventing any misconstruction of these circumstances, emphatically declares and places on record the statement that nothing in the differences above referred to affects in the slightest degree the standing of our brother, the Rev. L. H. Tafel, as a minister, or diminishes the love and respect in which he is held by his brethren.'

     "This report here refers to a man filling the calling of a Pastor, and the report is made that he has been deprived of the functions of his office. Why? For licentiousness? For evil life? Has he been drunk? Or for running off with some other man's wife? What reason has induced this action? We are left free to imagine any deed. In making a report, the reason of this action should have been stated in such a way as to enable the world to judge. We cannot make a proper report except we do that. For that reason shall we fail to do justice. We may adopt this resolution without any fear."
     Mr. Ager here raised a point of order. The report of the General Council was in reference to one subject, and the substitute is in reference to another.
     The Chairman decided that the point of order was not well taken.
     Mr. Ager appealed from the decision of the Chair. "We have before us a memorial of sixty-three former members of the Society of the Advent; that was referred to the General Council. The report of the General Council in regard to it is before us. Mr. McGeorge comes in with a matter pertaining to the report of the General Church of Pennsylvania. Although it does cover the same subject, it cannot be made a substitute for this report, which is a report in regard to a wholly different subject. The substitute does not answer the petition."
     Chairman: "As I understand it, Mr. McGeorge offers his resolution as a substitute for the report, and as such it is in order."
     Mr. Mercer: "Does Mr. McGeorge's substitute read that this is the answer of the Convention to the memorial?"
     Chairman: "It was a substitute and so goes in as recommended as the answer."
     Mr. Mercer: "So it goes upon the record in that shape."
     Mr. Roeder: "Are these resolutions going to appear in our journal or will they merely be sent to the memorialists?"
     Chairman: "In the journal."
     Mr. McGeorge's substitute was put and decided carried. A division being called, forty-three affirmative and thirty-nine negative votes were counted by the Secretaries.
     Mr. Ager: "I hope the Convention will not make itself ridiculous by going on record with this substitute. It is not an answer to the memorialists. It is not written as an answer. It ought to be put in proper shape. I move that somebody be appointed to put it in form as an answer." But Mr. Ager's proposition was not put to vote.

     NOTICES OF AMENDMENTS.

     Mr. Cabell gave notice that another year he would move to amend section 5, article V, of the Constitution, by inserting the words "or enjoin," and "or injunction," after the words "suspension" or "injunction," and that the last sentence of that section be stricken out. He desired thereby to make every injunction subject to review by the General Convention, which it is not at present.
     Mr. Hinkley gave notice of a motion to strike out the whole of Section 6, Article V.
     Mr. Whitehead: "I give notice of an amendment covering the same subject. Our order, as it stands, is far from being a true one. In the General Church of Pennsylvania we have tried to have an order according to the Doctrines of the Church."
     Mr. Giles: "As you understand them."
     Mr. Whitehead: "Certainly. Not as others understand them. The Convention can bear testimony that we have labored in the Convention itself to form a Constitution according to the Doctrines of the Church. It is the clear Doctrine of the Church that in matters of dispute or doubt the subject be referred from the lower to the higher, and eventually to the highest, which should decide the question finally. We have endeavored to mold our Constitution according to our understanding of that doctrine. We do not think that there is anything the matter with the Constitution of the General Church of Pennsylvania. I regard it as being according to true order, to give the final appeal to the highest bodies of the Church in cases of suspension and injunction of ministers. I give notice that next year I shall propose this amendment of the Constitution for adoption:

     "Article V, Section 5.-The General Pastors shall have charge of matters pertaining to the relation of the General Convention to the Associated bodies, and they shall also constitute a tribunal which shall hear and decide all appeals from the lower bodies, and they may meet at any time.

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A minister may be suspended from the exercise of the functions of his office by authority of an Association, or other General Body of the Church. Such suspended minister shall have the right of appeal to the tribunal of General Pastors, whose decision shall be final. An Association may also enjoin a minister from exercising the functions of his office within its bounds; but such enjoined minister shall have the right of appeal to the tribunal of General Pastors, provided that the General Pastors shall form their decision according to the laws of the Association or General Body where the injunction originated."

     Mr. Goddard proposed an amendment to the By-Laws making the duty of the Committee on Credentials to assign seats to the various delegations at their first report, which seats the delegates shall be expected to occupy throughout the session.
     Mr. Scammon playfully asserted that another year he would move the abolition of the whole Constitution, and then gave notice that next year he would move to amend the Constitution so as to debar any minister from "assuming" any other title or designation as an officer of this Convention, than those named in the Constitution.
     Bishop Benade: "I know of no Association in which any person has assumed a title unless it be in the Association which the gentleman represents. This resolution as it now stands, has no meaning."
     A vote of thanks was tendered the members of the Unitarian Church for the use of their church building and to the Washington Society for their very many attentions.
Tuesday Evening 1889

Tuesday Evening              1889

     THE Council of Ministers reported in regard to the request of the New York and Illinois Associations to have their Presiding Officers invested with the office of General Pastor that, as the Rev. S. S. Seward was Presiding Minister of the New York Association and the Rev. L. P. Mercer was Superintendent of the Illinois Association when the applications were made in definite forms, it is recommended to Convention to sanction their Investiture whenever application is made in due form.
     Mr. Hinkley: "The application cannot be made until Convention meets."
     Chairman: "The application may be made to the President or the Secretary of the Convention. That, no doubt, would be all that would be required."
     Mr. Scammon: "Would it not be better to report to the President of the Convention? I move to insert that."
     Mr. Scammon's amendment was carried.

     THE NEW AMENDMENT GIVES TROUBLE.

     Mr. Seward: "It seems to me it would be a great deal better to strike out the names. Whatever action is taken it will have to be revised by the Association. The New York Association should be left in freedom to choose any other person they may name. It almost seems as if it was limited to that name. I dislike to raise any question that delays this matter, but I would like this considered."
     Mr. Scammon: "This application can be made at any time to the General Council, although the Convention be not in session. We can ask the General Council to grant our request. It is like the Protestants, who elect a bishop, but it goes for nothing, unless the majority in the diocese pray for it. It seems to me as the Convention wanted to limit us, so that the Convention should have some say over the person elected as General Pastor just as the Episcopal Church does in the person of the bishop. It would be better to strike out the names. The Committee should not say 'who is it that you want?' It seems to me it is not necessary to name any one, but to leave it to the Presiding Officers and President and Superintendent."
     Chairman: "It was understood that if the authority was given to the New York Association to choose any one it pleases it would be given forever. The name was put in because it was understood that Mr. Seward is the Presiding Minister of the New York Association: The Council was of opinion that it stood as Mr. Scammon stated."
     Mr. Scammon: "Does it follow that any other person may be President?"
     Chairman: "No. But if another person be elected he can call for a meeting of the General Council, and that Council can approve or decline to sanction. The Convention reserves the right to say whether in its judgment the election is a good one. The question is upon the adoption of the recommendation as it stands."
     Mr. Hinkley: "If it be understood that there be no final action upon the application without a reference to some Committee or Council of this Convention, I am willing to vote for it. But I will not vote blindly nor uncertainly upon such a matter as this. It is a new departure. I have fought against it from the beginning, and I will yield gracefully for I never kick against the fates, but I do not like it. However, I want the Convention to act with a proper degree of prudence. The President and Secretary should have no power. But with the understanding that the discretionary power is lodged in this Convention, as to whether a person is a proper person to be in vested, I shall vote for it."
     Chairman: "The Convention thus gives its sanction to the Superintendent and Minister, but if any one else be elected a new application must be made to the President and through him to the General Council or the Convention. They are at present the Presiding Officers."
     The recommendation of the Council of Ministers was adopted.

     FINAL PROCEEDINGS.

     Mr. Hinkley read a paper on the relation of the Convention to foreign bodies of the New Church.
     On motion of Mr. Wright it was voted that the Convention recognizes its duty to give aid to the organization of the New Church on the Continent of Europe in their work of promulgating the views of the New Church, and requests its Board of Missions to do all they can to perform this use.
     Mr. Nussbaum, of Paris, described the condition of the Church in that city and gave a lengthy account of its prospects.
     Mr. Hinkley: "The action of the Convention has been completed. The members of the Board have been enlarged to ten. We cannot do much, without the laymen, without the New Church people in the country. We are not many, and we must act together in order to advance the interests of the Church. And in order to do that all the men and women must become interested in the work of the Church, and they can take these steps with these men."
     Mr. Tafel: "I am sorry to have to bring up an unpleasant subject. I have a motion of reference. I was in hopes that the Convention would have investigated the matter before it this afternoon, which concerned me, more fully. I was particularly anxious to have this done when the suspension by the General Pastor was up.

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In that case I wanted to have some matters brought before the investigation of this body; but, since the investigation has been cut short, there is a matter which I feel it my duty to bring before the Convention. I will read the motion:

     "Resolved, That the Council of Ministers be requested to consider and to report to this Convention what action should be taken with respect to the induction of the Rev. W. F. Pendleton into the third degree of the ministry by the Rev. W. H. Benade on the 9th of May, 1888, and his declaration that with him should be established a priesthood that should be the priesthood of the Academy."

     Mr. Ager: "Can any individual in this Convention bring in a statement and ask reference of it to a committee for investigation?"
     Chairman: "Yes, they can."
     Mr. Tafel: "If any information is desired I will be ready to furnish it-"
     Mr. Ager: "It seems to me that this is a very remarkable action proposed for the Convention. I have attended the Convention for years and have never heard of such an action before. It strikes me with such astonishment that I do not know what to think about it. I hope the Convention will hesitate before taking such unprecedented action. We simply have a resolution stating a fact, and asking a reference of it to a committee of this Convention. It has not come before Convention through any of the channels through which we receive our intelligence in regard to such matters. The information is entirely new to me, and probably to nine-tenths of the Convention. It seems to me we ought to hesitate a little."
     Mr. Scammon: "If we will look at the proceedings, we will see it in this light: That without anybody in this body knowing anything of it, one of the ministers has undertaken to introduce another man into what he calls the third degree of the ministry, which is understood to be the highest position in the Church. He has taken that in his own hands. This merely refers to the Council of Ministers, to inquire into the conflicts, and to say what ought to be done by it. I read in the Chicago Tribune that a report was to be investigated by the Tribune, of the same nature. If this statement be true it is certainly much more remarkable, and the subject should be brought before the Convention."
     The Chairman decided that the reference was in order. The motion was carried by a slight vote, many members being too astonished to vote. Others were absent. Some of the leading members of the Convention had departed for their homes, believing that the most important matters had been passed upon by Convention. Among them were the gentlemen named in the motion.

     NEW CHURCH EDUCATION.

     On behalf of Mr. Lewis F. Hite, of Urbana University, Mr. Mayhew offered the following resolutions:

     "WHEREAS, New Church education is the necessary mode of preparation for receiving in the fullest measure the life which the LORD is now seeking to put into the activities of men and
     "WHEREAS, The General Convention is in a position of peculiar advantage with respect to the encouragement and establishment of such education,
     "Resolved, That this Convention hereby appoint a Committee on Education, whose duty it shall be to report regularly on the state of education within and without the New Church, to formulate the principles of New Church education, and to suggest ways and means of carrying their principles into effect; and
     "Resolved, That it shall also be the duty of this Committee to form from its own members, and from the Church at large, sub-Committees as follows:
     "1. Committee on the History of Education in General.
     "2. Committee on the Hi story of New Church Education.
     "3. Committee on the present state of Education outside of the New Church.
     "4. Committee on the present state of New Church Education."

     On motion of Mr. Mercer, the resolutions were referred to a committee of five to inquire into the whole of the subject, and to present such considerations as may in their judgment help to the illustration of the subject of education and the impression of its importance on the minds of the people of the New Church.
     A collection was taken up for the janitor.
     Mr. Gunton expressed his great appreciation and thanks for the great kindness and attention which the New Church people have shown him since his arrival in America. He had been delighted with the proceedings of the Ministers' Conference and the Convention. He thought the Convention made greater progress than they did in the English Conference. Convention had more ministers, and they were most promising ones. He then bid the friends adieu.
     Mr. Scammon, on the part of the Chicago Society, invited Convention to meet at Chicago next year, and the invitation was accepted.
     Mr. Worcester read a paper on the revision of the "Book of Worship."
     A chant was sung, and the President pronounced the benediction.
AFFIRMATION AND NEGATION 1889

AFFIRMATION AND NEGATION       JOSEPH E. ROSENQVIST       1889

     THERE was a time, so the Writings tell us, when all men were in a state of affirmation; when the mind was open to whatever was said and taught by parents and teachers, and when, consequently, the state of negation was far from men. Man in his early years is held by the LORD in such a state of affirmation.
     As time passes, as the child begins to think for itself, and as it were, from itself, the state of affirmation is confirmed by scientifics and knowledges, for whatever is learned which has any connection with this affirmative principle insinuates itself therein and strengthens it, and this more and more, even to affection. But this is not the case with all. It is so only with those who become spiritual men according to the essence of truth in which they believe, and who conquer in temptations.
     Those who are not capable of becoming spiritual men, although they also have been held in a state of affirmation during their childhood, still admit doubts as they advance in age, and thus they destroy the state of affirmation of goods and truths.
     And as they continue to doubt as they grow wiser and more intelligent in their own eyes, day by day, they admit negation as to everything of good and truth, even until it becomes an affection-a love for what is evil and false. Well may it be asked, why these men are not let into temptations in order to be able to conquer, and thus become spiritual. The answer is, that the LORD in His Divine Mercy does not allow this, because He knows that they would surely fall, and thus come into a state still worse. The LORD'S Mercy and Loving-kindness are ever the same to all His children, but the real cause why such persons admit doubts and afterward negations originates solely in the life of evil; for those who are in the life of evil cannot do otherwise (A. C. 2689).
     Thus, in a general way, the states of affirmation and negation have been presented, but in order to get a better understanding of this subject, it is expedient to consider it in the following manner:
1.     What the states of affirmation and negation are:
2.     Their origin and nature.

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3.     How to come out of a state of negation and into the affirmative state, and how to remain there.
     1. In the Writings the following definitions of states negative and affirmative are given
     "There are two principles, one which leads to all folly and madness; another which leads to all intelligence and wisdom. The former is to deny all things, as when a man says in his heart that he cannot believe such things until he is convinced of their truth, by what he can comprehend or be sensible of. This principle is what leads to all folly and madness, and may be called the negative principle. The other is to confirm the things appertaining to doctrine, derived from the Word, and when man thinks and believes with himself that they are true because the LORD has said so, and may be called the affirmative principle" (A. C. 2568).
     "The affirmative of truth and good is the first of all at the commencement of faith and charity in man and is the last when man is in charity and thence in faith," to which is added this explanation: "Affirmation and acknowledgment is the first general with the man who is in the process of regeneration, but it is the last with the man who is regenerated, . . . because the man about to be regenerated commences his process from the affirmation that it is-namely, the holy principle of faith and the good of life, whereas the regenerated man, who is spiritual is in spiritual good itself, and then regards such, affirmation as the last, for the holy things of faith and the good of love are established in him" (A. C. 3923).
     From these passages, it is evident that the negative state is a state of denial of all things, and that it leads to all folly and madness; but the affirmative state is a state in which man believes all and everything that the LORD has said, because the LORD has said so; and how can this state lead to anything else, but to all intelligence and wisdom? These two states are as opposite to each other as heaven is opposite to hell. But this will be clearly shown in what now follows, concerning the origin of these two states. We read:
     "They who incline to a life of evil, fall into the negative; but they who incline to a life of good are led into the affirmative" (A. C. 2588).
     "The affirmatives of childhood are either confirmed by one thing after another, even to adult age, and the person is regenerated, or they decrease, and become, by slow degrees, doubting affirmatives" (S. D. 4536).
     "The good which is from love and charity inflows from the LORD, and indeed through angels who are with man and not into anything else with man, but into the knowledges which are with him; and because good is there fixed, the thought is kept in truths, which are of knowledges, and thence many things are excited, which are in relationship and agreement, and this until the man thinks that the thing is so. When this is the case the good conjoins itself with truths, and truths apply themselves in freedom, for all affection causes freedom. But when this is the case, doubts and sometimes negatives are excited, even by the spirits who are with man, but so far as affection prevails, so far he is led to the affirmative, and then by this he is at the same time confirmed in truths" (A. C. 4096).
     2. Here it is plainly taught that the LORD alone is the Originator of the affirmative state, and that He keeps man in this state by means of the knowledges which are with him; and this the LORD does, in that He causes the good which is of love and charity to inflow through angels into the knowledges which are with man, and there this good causes affection for the truth, and then, when doubts and negations arise, man is led into and confirmed in the affirmative in the same degree in which this affection prevails; and thus the very doubts and negations, overcome by the affection of truth, have also served as a means to confirm man in the affirmative state. Yea, we read that "Temptations also confirm goods and truths, for then man fights against evils and falses, and by conquering he comes into a stronger affirmative" (A. C. 5356).
     In the following it is still better illustrated how the states of affirmation and negation are effected:
     "Temptations have with themselves doubt concerning the LORD'S Presence and Mercy; evil spirits who are then with man, and induce temptations, strongly inspire denial, but good spirits and angels from the Lord by every method disperse this doubt and hold [the mind] in continual hope and at length confirm it in the affirmative; hence man, who is in temptation, remains for the time suspended between the negative and the affirmative. He who is overcome remains in doubts and falls into the negative; but he who conquers is indeed in doubts, but, still, if he suffers himself to be raised up by hope, he persists in the affirmative" (A. C. 2338). Man is strengthened and confirmed in truth also by this, that he meditates on things spiritual and celestial. This the Writings teach thus: "They who suffer themselves to be bent by the LORD, affirm the truth of things spiritual and celestial in proportion as they think about them" (A. C. 2568).
     It has here been shown that the origin of the negative state is-
     (1) Man's inclination to an evil life, his love of evil, and thus the man himself.
     (2) The decrease of the affirmative state of childhood as man allows doubts and afterward negations to arise.
     (3) That this is done by evil spirits.
     We learn likewise that the origin of the affirmative state is-
     (1) Man's inclination from the LORD to a good life, thus the LORD Himself.
     (2) The confirmation of the affirmative state of childhood.
     (3) That this is effected by good spirits and angels from the LORD.
     Indeed, the source of the negative state is hell, and that of the affirmative state is heaven.
     As to the nature of these two states, it may be said, in one word, that the nature of the affirmative state is heaven, and that of the negative state is hell.
     The destructive nature of the negative state is thus described in the Arcana: "They who reason concerning truth from a principle not affirmative or from a negative principle destroy all things of faith" (A. C. 3923).      
     The negative state is an obstacle to man's becoming intelligent and wise; but the affirmative state is the only state in which man can make use of such things as are given to him, to serve as confirmatory means of things spiritual and celestial. This the LORD teaches in the following passage:
     "No one can from things inferior comprehend things superior-that is, things spiritual and celestial-still less things Divine, inasmuch as they transcend all understanding, and, moreover, in such case, by reason of the prevalence of the negative, all things are involved in the negative workings of that principle; but, on the contrary, they who think from the affirmative may confirm themselves in things spiritual and celestial by things rational, of whatever kind they be, and by things scientific, yea, by things philosophical, as far as lies in their power, all such things being given them for confirmation, and affording them fuller and more extensive ideas" (A. C. 2568).

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     The state of negation is such that it does not cease to exist, even if the man who is in it is convinced by sight and hearing that a thing is true, but, instead, at length it turns man's rationality into darkness; for we read:
     "They who are in negation concerning the truth of what is written in the Word, and who say in their hearts that they will then believe when they are persuaded by things rational and scientific, are in such a state of mind that they never believe; no, not even when convinced by the bodily senses, as by the sight, the hearing, and the touch, for they always frame new reasonings against such convictions, whereby at length they totally extinguish all faith, and at the same time turn the rational into darkness, because into falses" (A. C. 2588).
     The very opposite nature of the affirmative state is thus described:
     "They who are in the affirmative-that is, who believe what is contained in the Word to be true because the LORD has declared it-are in such a state of mind that by things rational and scientific, yea, by things of sense, their faith may be continually confirmed and their ideas illustrated and corroborated. This is the case with every one who is in the affirmative" (A. C. 2588).
     "They who are in the affirmative respecting this doctrine [that the first and principal point of doctrine is love to the LORD and love toward the neighbor or charity] may enter at pleasure into things rational and scientific, yea, into things sensual for the confirmation of it, and the more they enter into such things the more they are confirmed, for universal nature is full of confirming proofs; but they who deny this first and principal point of doctrine, and wish first to be convinced of it by things scientific and rational, never stiffer themselves to be convinced, because they deny it in heart, and are continually insisting on some other principle, which they believe essential; at length, by affirmation of their own favorite principle, they so blind themselves that they do not even know what love to the LORD is, or what is neighborly love; and, inasmuch as they confirm themselves in things contrary thereto, they also finally confirm themselves in this, that there cannot be any other love with delight but self-love and the love of the world, and their confirmation herein is such that, if not in doctrine, yet in life, they embrace infernal love instead of heavenly love" (A. C. 2588).
     Further illustration on the nature of these two states is given in these words:
     "They who are in the affirmative respecting this point of doctrine [that all good is from the LORD and all evil from man or from self] may confirm themselves therein by many considerations, both rational and scientific. . . . But they who are in the negative confirm themselves in whatever is contrary to this doctrine, by all things which come under their consideration, insomuch that at length they do not know what good is. . . . They who are in the affirmative respecting the Word, that it is so written as to contain an Internal Sense, may confirm themselves herein from rational considerations, . . . but they who are in the negative do not believe it, and they persuade themselves that the Word is such as it is in the letter, to appearance indeed of a worldly nature, yet still that it is spiritual, but wherein its Spirituality consists is of no concern to them, though for manifold reasons they are willing to assert it. And this they can confirm by many arguments" (A. C. 2588).
     This may be sufficient to show the nature of these two states.
     3. The question: "How to come out of a state of negation and into a state of affirmation and how to remain there?" is now to be answered.
     Every one is in freedom to choose between good and evil, between the truth and the false. Every one finding himself in a negative state can come out of it if he wishes to, by acknowledging the LORD JESUS CHRIST as the God of heaven and earth and by shunning evils as sins against them, and thus he can be inclined to a good life. If this is done, he comes gradually into the state of affirmation, wherein man acknowledges everything that the LORD has said to be true, because the LORD has said so. He becomes more and more confirmed in this affirmative state by acquiring truths, knowledges, and scientifics, and by continually doing this, he, by the Divine Mercy of the LORD, is held in this state, and thus remains there. But, as to the only true way of acquiring knowledges and scientifics, in order that they may become means of confirmation in the truth, we read:
     "Truths are initiated and collated when scientifics are ruled by truths, which takes place when truth is acknowledged, because the LORD has said so in the Word, and afterward the affirming scientifics are accepted, and the scientifics which assault the truth are removed; thus Truth rules in its affirmatives, the non-affirinatives being rejected. When this is the case, man, in thinking from scientifics, is not led astray to falses, as is the case when truths are not in scientifics" (A. C. 6023).
     "Things rational and scientific serve those who are in the affirmative as means for becoming wise" (A. C. 2588).
     "In the other life they [who remain in the negative] are readily distinguished from other spirits by this, that on every subject relating to faith they reason whether it be true or not true, and, though it is shown to them a thousand and thousand times to be true, still they raise arguments of a doubting negative nature in opposition to every confirming prod; and this to eternity; they are in consequence blinded to such a degree that they are bereft of common sense-that is, they cannot comprehend what is good and true" (A. C. 2588).
     "Spirits not so well disposed who were for some time with me, continually injected doubts from the fallacies of the senses against the possibility of all things flowing in from one fountain, and thus from the LORD; but they were told that so many doubts could not be removed within a short time, owing to the fallacies of the senses, which must first be dissipated, and the numberless unknown things which must first be known; yea, that with those who are in a negative principle-that is, with whom the negative universally reigns-doubts cannot in any wise be removed, for with them one scruple avails more than a thousand confirmations; for one scruple is as a grain of sand placed close before the pupil of the eye, which, although it is single and small, nevertheless takes away all the sight. But they who are in the affirmative-that is, with whom the affirmative universally reigns-reject the scruples of falses which are contrary to truths; and if there are any which they do not comprehend, they reject them to the sides, and say, that they do not as yet understand them, and still they remain in the faith of Truth. But these spirits attended but little to these things, because they were in the negative" (A. C. 6479).
     JOSEPH E. ROSENQVIST.

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Information respecting the Schools of the Academy of the New Church 1889

Information respecting the Schools of the Academy of the New Church              1889


NEW CHURCH LIFE.
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     All communications must be addressed to Publishers New Church Life, No. 759 Corinthian Avenue, Philadelphia, Pa.

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     MR. S. WARREN POTTS, Book Steward, 61 Cathedral Street, Glasgow, Scotland.
     REV. R. J. TILSON, 2 Inglis, Camberwell, London, S. E.
     MR. G. A. MCQUEEN, Crowhurst Road, Colchester.
     MR. JAS. CALDWELL, 59 County Road, N., Liverpool.
     MR. C. E. SCHROEDER, 13     Ashfield Terrace, Newcastle-on-Tyne.
     MISS FLORENCE G. GIBBS, 8 Camden Square, London, N.

     PHILADELPHIA. JUNE, 1889=119-120.

     CONTENTS.

     Editorial Notes, p. 81.-Alms Giving (a sermon), p. 82.-Conversations on Education, p. 84.-Removing the Outworks, p. 85.
     Two Reviews, p. 86.
     Sixty-ninth Annual Session of the General Convention, p. 88.-Affirmation and Negation, p. 101.
     News Gleanings, p. 103.-Births, Marriages, and Deaths, p. 104.
     Information respecting the Schools of the Academy of the New Church may be obtained by applying to the Dean, the Rev. E. J. E. Schreck 1821 Wallace St., Philada.
NEWS GLEANINGS 1889

NEWS GLEANINGS       Various       1889

     AT HOME.

     THE Rev. J. L. Jordan, of Oakland, California, preached for the Society of the Advent, Philadelphia, on May 12th and 19th.
     THE Rev. E. A. Beaman, of Cincinnati, preached for the Chestnut Street Society, Philadelphia, on May 19th.
     New York.-THE First German Society, of Brooklyn, has severed its connection with the General Church of Pennsylvania owing to disagreement among the members. One part of the Society now holds its services at 18 South Eighth Street; the other members meet at the house of Mr. Klein, 172 Broadway, Brooklyn, and are connected with the General Church of Pennsylvania.
     Massachusetts.-A CHAPEL has been fitted up in the building of the Theological School, Cambridge, capable of holding over one hundred persons. The first services were held on May 12th, conducted by the Rev. J. Reed. They will be held every Sunday afternoon till the end of the present month. The Rev. T. F. Wright will enter upon his professional and pastoral duties in the autumn.
     Rhode Island.-THE Rev. H. C. Hay, of Avondale, Cincinnati, has accepted a unanimous call to the pastorate of the Society in Providence. In consequence of this change he has resigned his office as President of the Young People's League.
     Washington, D. C.-THE Rev. Frank Sewell has accepted a unanimous call from the Society here.
     Florida.-THE visits and lectures of the Rev. J. E. Smith, at Jacksonville, seem to have aroused considerable interest in the Doctrines. A desire for a permanent minister has been expressed.
     Illinois.-THE young folks of the St. Louis Society have organized as "The Young People's Society of the New Church."
     Wisconsin.-THE Rev. Henry H. Grant has formed a Doctrinal class at Jamesville, and during a temporary stay at this city has held meetings at the houses of the various Newchurchmen here.
     Iowa.-THE Rev. Stephen Wood recently baptized the Rev. J. B. Pearshall into the New Church. The latter gentleman was formerly a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He is now preaching and lecturing in the neighborhood of Mapleton, and asks for further assistance.
     California.-AN effort is being made at Riverside to have regular evening services in the hall of the "Young Men's Christian Association," in addition to the usual morning services in the church out-of-town.
     THE Toronto Society held its semi-jubilee on April 2d. The very impressive special thanksgiving service was conducted by the Pastor, the Rev. G. L. Allbutt, assisted by the Rev. E. S. Hyatt.

     ABROAD.

     Great Britain.-THE Rev. C. H. Wilkins, late of the Peter Street Society, Manchester, has accepted a call to the pastorate of the Bristol Society.
     A SMALL Society has been recently formed at Great Yarmouth. It meets fortnightly.
     AT the meeting of the New-Church Sunday-School Union, held at Bolton, April 19th, eighteen schools were represented.
     THE Society at Preston intends increasing accommodations of its church.
     THE Willesden Society, London, having obtained assistance from the Conference Building Fund, has erected a house of worship on land purchased by the Society. On February 8th, Mr. Gunton laid the cornerstone, and on March 29th, the new building was dedicated by the Rev. John Presland assisted by the leader of the Society, Mr. H. W. Freeman. It will hold about one hundred and twenty persons.
     THE annual meeting of the local Missionary Society of Liverpool was held on April 24th. The Society has distributed about five thousand tracts in the city by means of house-to-house visitors, ladies and Sunday-school children assisting in the work.
     Sweden.-THE Rev. A. Th. Boyesen, of Stockholm, is doing missionary work in the various places to which he is occasionally called by those interested in the Doctrines of the New Church. He lately visited Karlstad, where he delivered two lectures before very interested audiences. After the lectures copies of Mr. Boyesen's paper, Harolden, together with some tracts, were freely distributed, and many expressed gratification with what they had heard. In result, a small New-Church Society has been formed in Karlstad, as a branch of Mr. Boyesen's Society in Stockholm. In Sweden, for many years, the demand for New-Church ministers has been a strong one, and it is to be hoped that that country, which offers a more receptive field for New-Church teaching than is generally supposed, may in time be supplied as to its wants in this important respect.
     Australia.-THE fourth Annual Conference of "The New Church in Australia" was held in Melbourne on January 20th to 23d. Only two clergymen were present, the Rev. J. J. Thornton of Melbourne and the Rev. Bates of Brisbane. On the occasion of election of officers; Mr. Thornton expressed himself as against the principle of rotation In office. "The idea of passing offices around for the sake of conferring honors was distinctly bad. The Church wanted uses." There are two hundred and ninety-nine registered members in the four Societies. Four hundred copies of The New Age are printed every month. There is a movement on foot to allow leaders to become members of Conference by virtue of their offices lit is proposed to adopt at some future Conference n. 311-319 of the New Jerusalem; "as a preamble to whatever regulations may hereafter be adopted on this subject, calling attention to its use in Article V of the Constitution of the American Convention. It was unanimously resolved, "That the Rev. J. J. Thornton, having been solemnly admitted to the office of an Ordained Minister in London, October 2d, 1877, he is hereby appointed Ordaining Minister to this Conference." Mr. and Mrs. Bucknall presented to this body a stone building and an acre of land at Rodborough. The wine question received a due share of attention. Mr. Arthur Day described the torn condition of the Church in the home land, and the melancholy effects of the pressure that the teetotalers had put upon the English Conference." Mr. Thornton stated "that his feelings of mercy had been appealed to apart from a full judgment, and he consented to the use of grape-juice instead of wine previous to having inquire minutely into the Doctrines of the Church bearing upon the subject. He was bound to any that more mature judgment had shown him that it was an error, and he regretted it." After a free discussion, the full meeting unanimously carried a resolution in which the Conference expressed "its deep regret at the effort made (elsewhere) to erect teetotallam into an apparent dogma of the Church, and to intrude it as a practice over the holy Supper of the LORD."
EDITORIAL NOTES 1889

EDITORIAL NOTES       Editor       1889




     BIRTHS, MARRIAGES, AND DEATHS.





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Vol. IX.     PHILADELPHIA, JULY, 1889=120.     No. 7.
     IN The Doctrine of Charity for the New Jerusalem it is said that "whoever does not distinguish the neighbor according to the kind of good and truth in him may he deceived a thousand times, and his charity become confused and at length no charity. A man devil may exclaim, 'I am the neighbor; do good to me.' And if you do good to him he may kill you or others. You are placing a knife or a sword in his hand" (n. 29). "Charity really genuine is prudent and wise" (n. 30).
     And strong confirmation of the above doctrine appeared in the Philadelphia Press for June 9th, 1889, in a letter from Judge Duffy, of New York.
     Judge Duffy says, "There are many ominous signs to a public-spirited man in the army of unfortunates who are daily brought before the bar of a police court. The first of these is the tramp, who, to a very great extent, is the product of misapplied and foolish charity. [The italics are ours.] The proportions which this evil has attained are something frightful. In my youth there was no such word as tramp, and no such person. Today his name is legion. There are at least two hundred thousand in the United States."
     This is hardly a good sign of the permeation of the Christian world (in the United States, at least) by those doctrines which teach a "charity really genuine which is prudent and wise."
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     THERE are many Newchurchmen who, instead of forming all their ideas of the state of the world from the light of the Doctrines of the Church, and thereby obtaining true and correct ideas, permit themselves to be constantly deceived by appearances; this is because they "think from the eye which closes the understanding," instead of" thinking from the understanding which opens the eye" (D. L. W. 46). Among these are those who imagine that men would be made better if all temptations could be removed from them, thus, for instance, that drunkenness would be cured by the abolition of intoxicating drinks. The above-mentioned Judge Duffy, although presumably not a Newchurchman, sees the matter in an altogether different and clearer light; in fact, he charges the great increase in the use of drug-stimulants, such as opium, etc., directly to the account of the prohibitionists; for, after stating that there has been a very great decrease in drunkenness within his own memory, he continues as follows:
     "But there is another side to this improvement, if improvement there be. The opprobrium cast by zealots has caused thousands to forsake alcoholic for other and more dangerous stimulants. The police magistrate is now confronted with opium-smokers, laudanum-drinkers, hasheesh-eaters, and the slaves of bromides, chloralhydrate, chloroform, ether, cocaine, and other deadly drugs. If the word intoxication were used in its etymological sense, 'being poisoned,' instead of being restricted to the alcoholic phase, I am certain that its ratio to the population would be the same, if not greater, than it was when the desire for physical excitement was confined to the use of spirituous liquors."
     This is a direct confirmation of the doctrine that man cannot be reformed and regenerated except in a state of freedom. If the ability to ultimate evils in one form be taken away from evil men, they will find other, and, perhaps, worse outlets for their lusts.
     Men are to be reformed and regenerated by shunning evils as sins against God, as of themselves, not by having temptations removed from them by others. The LORD, in His prayer to the Father for those who have faith in Him, asks not that temptations may be taken away but that strength may be given to resist and overcome them. "I pray not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that Thou shouldest keep them from the evil." John xvii, 16).
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     IN an article on the removal of the Convention Theological School to Cambridge, in New Church Messenger for May 1st, 1889, Mr. Lewis F. Hite says: "It is time to affirm that the New Church is the rightful spiritual mother of her children; that the New Church is the best medium of life from the LORD to men; that the New-Church family, under the influence and instruction of the Church, is the best educator under the Divine Providence for New-Church children; that schools of all grades distinctively New Church in substance, form, and operation are necessary for the proper education of the children of the Church. In my opinion it is wrong, unless unavoidable, for New-Church people to send their children to outside school, high or low, public or private, just as it is wrong for a parent to expose deliberately his children to the contaminating influences of the world for the sake of the worldly knowledge and experience to be gained. The Divine call is 'Come out of her, my people.'"
     These are true, clear and forcible words, and the ideas contained in them ought to be patent to every one who reads the Writings of the New Church where so much is said of the state of childhood and youth as the time when true and suitable scientifics are to be acquired, which shall serve as planes for the reception of the spiritual truth with which man may be imbued after arriving at the age of rationality.
     It is to be regretted, however, that this otherwise excellent article is greatly weakened by closing with the following sentence: "I believe the school will enter upon a career of increasing usefulness, not owing to the presence of Harvard University, but from an increased influx of New-Church life." It is hard for the Divine light to enter through the shadow of Egypt.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     IN Arcana Coelestia, n. 2125, it is related that "there appeared boys who were being combed by their mothers so cruelly, that blood flowed about; by which was represented, that such is the education of infants at this day."
     Enamored by the apparent progress of the Nineteenth Century, there are Newchurch teachers who would deny the present applicability of the above Representation.

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The systems of "Pestalozzi, Freobel, and other eminent men of strong and intelligent sympathy with youth" (see the Rev. John Worcester's reply to Mr. Hite in the New Church Messenger for May 8th, 1889), are pointed to as examples of what the Old Church has done for the advancement of education in this new age. But, though the external forms and methods of Old Church education may have greatly changed and improved in appearance, the same cruel and murderous spirit which was represented to Swedenborg in 1749 is still present and active, as will appear when the tendencies of modern education are judged in the light of the spiritual meaning of representation.
     "To comb the hair, signifies to accommodate natural things so that they may have a becoming appearance" (A. C. 6570).
     To comb the child at the expense of his very life-blood; to cram the memory with dead knowledges, to drive the mind, by hot-house culture, into an appearance of learning, brightness and self-possession, while the sweet affections of childish innocence, obedience, and humility are being displaced by self-consciousness, precociousness, and conceit, these are the manifest and universal tendencies of all Old Church education, Froebel's much-praised system included. It all rests upon the damnable Doctrine of Faith alone, that cruel Doctrine concerning an unjust God! What can be more cruel than to rob a child of its innocence, or to prevent the storing up of remains from the LORD in tender little minds?
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     OWING to the preparation and careful revision of our report of Convention, and the pressure of other work, the June Life was unusually late. The present number also is unfortunate, all the corrected proof having been lost in the mail, in transit to Philadelphia.
ERRATUM 1889

ERRATUM              1889

     ERRATUM: In the Life for May, 1889, page 66, first column, second line from the top, for Jer. read Isa. [Corrected in the NewSearch text.]
PEACE FROM THE LORD 1889

PEACE FROM THE LORD       Rev. WM. H. BENADE       1889

     "These things have I spoken unto you, that in me ye may have peace; in the world ye have affliction, but have confidence, I have overcome the world."-John xvi, 33.

     IN the promise made to Abram, after that Lot was separated from him, "the whole land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed even to eternity," we have seen the Doctrine of the Church, that the LORD came into the world in order to take to Himself all authority in the Heavens and in the Earths and over the. Hells, to the end that He might redeem and save mankind.
     And we have seen that the LORD gives this His authority over their evils and falses "to His seed to eternity"-that is, to those who come to Him to be saved from their sins, who believe in His teachings, and who follow Him in the regeneration.
     In the Gospel word for to-day, the LORD tells us that He came from God; that His teaching is the very Divine Truth itself, and that all who believe in this Truth shall have peace, although the evil loves which have rule in the world of their natural lives may and will bring to them much affliction of temptation He who believes in the Truth because it has come forth from God is admonished to confide in it as in the LORD Himself, Who as that Truth itself, and by His own power in that Truth, overcame the bells when they assaulted His Human. By His temptations, and by victories in them, He established. His authority over all evil loves in their origins; and this authority is given to those who believe. It is the inheritance which the LORD has provided for
His seed to eternity.
     Temptations are the spiritual or internal afflictions that come to man in the natural world in which his reformation and regeneration are to take place. They are assaults made by evil spirits on man's beliefs and loves; on the things that are true to him, and on whatever he loves and cherishes as good. Evil spirits are all forms of hatred of what is true and good. This hatred is their life, because it is their very love. In man with whom they are associated, they hate his belief of a truth and his love of a good; and, more than the Truth, they hate his belief of a Truth because it comes from the LORD, and his love of a good because it is the LORD'S. The LORD says (John xv, 18): "If the world hate you, you know that it hated me before you. If ye were of the world, the world would love its own; but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, FOR THIS THE WORLD HATETH you." Concerning this word we are taught: "That the LORD'S disciples are hated by all those who do not think of His Divine at the same time that they think of His Human, cannot be known from those who are in the world, but from the same in the other life, where they burn with such a hatred against those who approach the LORD alone as cannot be described in a few words, desiring nothing more than to slay them and to murder them; the reason is, because all who are in the hells are against the LORD, and all who are in the heavens are with the LORD; and they who are of the Church and do not acknowledge the Divine of the" LORD in his Human, act in unity with the hells, whence they derive so great a hatred" (A. E. 137). The Truth is hated by evil spirits and attacked in man's belief and what is of it; and Good, man's love of good, the neighbor, the Church, his use, and his love of doing uses are hated intensely, and assailed with all malice, because they are of the LORD, and because He lives in them with man. Every thought of obedience, every desire of obedience, every act of obedience to the Truth is contemptuously hated, because it is an acknowledgment of the LORD, of the "authority given to Him in heaven and earth;" and from these hatreds come the afflictions endured by man in the world, the infestations and assaults upon his mind and life, which are the more severe, trying and enduring as his obedience to the Truth is more of the LORD in the life than in thinking the Truth and in desiring the truth; and which are the more malignant and deadly as that obedience is an actual shunning of some evil love, some worldly desire and hope as a sin, not against man, but against God. But, although there are these afflictions in the world, and although man must suffer them if he would be freed and purified from evil loves, yet, even in the world, there is also peace, and the LORD has "spoken to men" in order that they may have peace in Him. The afflictions are in the hatreds and from the hatreds of the hells inflowing with men in the world; and the peace is in the love of the neighbor, in the love of all good uses in which man is in the LORD, and the LORD is in him.
     He who is in charity is secure against hatred in himself, and against the disturbance of his internal quiet by the violence of the emotions of hatred, and the tumult of their excitation. Or, as it is written in Apocalypse Revealed, n. 640, "When man is in the LORD, (and he is in the LORD who loves the Truth, and all its obediences and doings,) he is in peace with the neighbor who is in charity and in protection against the Hells, which is spiritual security, and when he is in peace with the neighbor and in protection against the Hells he is in internal quietude from evils and falses."

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     And this state of peace is possible, and has been provided for man by the LORD'S "overcoming the world." In His Human He was assailed by all the hells inflowing into the evil hereditary loves of that human, and exciting them into intense activity. He admitted all hell, all the fierce and fiery lusts of devils, and all the foul cupidities of satans into the human in which the Word was made flesh, so that they might there be met, conquered, overthrown, and cast down again by the divine power of that Word, He overcame them by His Word, which is the Divine Truth, the very divine proceeding of His infinite love of man, His infinite love of saving man, His infinite desire of giving to man the peace that passeth our understanding, because it comes by the conjunction of God with man.
     Here is the very Divine ground of the confidence which a man may have to his lifting up in the midst of all the afflictions of the world; which he may have in the deepest agonies and despairs of the combat waged for his life by the evil lusts and falsities of the hells. These lusts and falsities are seeking to pervert truth in man's thought and belief into falsehood, to adulterate into evil, like themselves, into self-love and love of the world, his love of the neighbor, his love of a true and useful life, his love of obeying what the LORD has revealed. They once tempted the LORD in this way. Their will was to turn the Truth itself into falsity, and thus to put the Divine under their feet; to stay the Divine Life by changing infinite love of others into infinite love of self or infinite hatred. But "the LORD took unto Himself His great power, by overcoming hell and death, and by reigning, and in His Truth He gives this power to His seed to eternity. To His seed He says: 'Have confidence, I have overcome the world; the hells cannot prevail against you, for they are under my feet and you are in my hand, in the palms of my hands do I bear you and carry you into the bosom of my Love.' As we have read, "the LORD, when He was in the world, was in continual combats of temptations, and in continual victories; from inmost confidence and faith continually, that, because he fought for the salvation of the universal human race from pure love, He could not otherwise than conquer. This is to believe in Jehovah (A. C. 1812), and in this was His Human like unto the human that may be in us, if our faith will be like unto His faith. And our faith is like unto His, a conquering and saving faith, if it be inrooted in charity, in genuine love of the neighbor, in the love of good or of all good uses because they are good, and because the LORD'S will is in them. Let the mind but turn from the truth as something to be thought and accepted as distinct teaching, to what it teaches in regard to the way of doing and of living, the way in which we are to fulfill the will of the LORD, in shunning our evils as sins against Him, and in performing our duties sincerely, honestly, faithfully, and justly, with all endurance of trouble and labor; because of this following of Him in the regeneration, and the faith from which we combat, will become the love in which and from which the LORD combats for us. He will be in the way with us. Himself our conquering Truth, Himself our prevailing Love. In this we may have confidence that we shall not fall in temptations and that the gates of hell shall not prevail against us not because we have the Truth, even the LORD'S Infinite, Truth, but because we are willing that His will shall be done in our Earth as it is done in His Heavens, and that His Good shall be done by the death and in the death of every selfish desire and every worldly hope in us. It is of this faith so inrooted in charity, so willing that the LORD shall have His way of love in the regeneration of human life at any and every cost to the natural man, that "a great voice was heard saying in Heaven, Now is expected the salvation, and the authority, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ, for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, who accuseth them before our God day and night. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the Word of their testimony; and they loved not their soul even unto death."
     Hence it is that we have these divine teachings: "All confidence derives its own esse from the end of life, and genuine confidence does not exist except in good" (A. C. 4683)-i. e. in love of the neighbor and in hove to the LORD; and this good in the will with its faith is given only to those who are in the good of charity, even as genuine hope is given to none but those who are in the good of faith (A. C. 6578), to none but to those whose charity is faith and whose faith is charity. And, "according to the perception of the LORD'S presence, men have tranquillity; for they who are in a perception of the LORD'S presence are in the perception that all and single things that happen to them tend to their good, and that evils do not reach them; hence, they are in tranquillity: without such a faith or confidence in the LORD, none can ever come into the tranquillity of peace, thus neither to happiness in joy, because that happiness dwells in the tranquillity of peace" (A. C. 6963).
     These are the in which the LORD has spoken to us, that in Him we may have peace, the pence of heavenly charity and faith, joined in a blessed marriage, derived from the infinite union of the Divine. Essence with the Human Essence, and of the Human Essence with the Divine Essence, a union effected by the LORD'S combats and victories in temptations admitted into the Human, by which He overcame the world, and by which He gives to us confidence in His perpetual presence with those who have a living Faith in Him.
     He had confidence in His work of redemption that it would be the salvation of the human race, because this was the end of the Love from which He sent Himself into the world of man. We may confide in all simplicity in that same work, if we believe in His Truth as omnipotent to save us, and if the end of our Faith and Hope be liberation from the bondage of the sin and death of our selfish and worldly loves.
CONVERSATIONS ON EDUCATION 1889

CONVERSATIONS ON EDUCATION              1889

     CONJUNCTION.

     INFANTS and children are not in the order of life from the Divine. They are to be prepared to come into this order by instruction in scientifics-at first sensual and natural scientifics, and afterward rational and spiritual scientifics. When these have been introduced there exist in the mind substances into which the inflowing good of the LORD may be implanted, and by means of which it can take to itself forms and appear in the corresponding ultimates of word and deed. Truths of whatever degree and appearance are not mere abstractions; they are forms of pure spiritual substance, and can no more be separated from this substance than sight can be abstracted from the eye, conceived of apart from its organ, or hearing apart from its organ, the ear. Love is substance itself, and this is life itself.

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From this substance itself exist and subsist all celestial and spiritual substances which are animated and modified by the influx of Life and Light; and the forms in which they appear affect angels and men, and produce in them the sensations expressed by the terms delightful, pleasant, beautiful, etc. Spirits, angels, and men are such forms, or, in other words, such substances organized and presented in forms. Spirits are invisible to the natural eye of man because they are formed of substances so much purer than are the substances constituting the human organ of sight that they cannot be brought within the sphere of its activity. But, even as an affection or a thought is none the less real because they cannot be seen or heard in their own forms by the natural eye and ear, so are the forms of Spirits none the less real, although beyond the vision of the natural man and out of the region of the sounds that affect the natural substances of the ear. It is one of the insanities of our age that men do not believe that they have within themselves a spirit which is to live after the death of the body; when, nevertheless, that (Spirit) is a substance much more real than is the substance of the material body, and a spirit is more really a man than is the merely natural man. The LORD is Spirit itself, the only man, the only real and the only substantial (A. C. 3726).
     The natural man is created with a clothing of material substance, to the end that there may be with him forms by which the inflowing life may be fixed in what is ultimate or lowest, and by degrees form for itself successively higher abiding places, consisting of purer and more real substances. Man, when he dies, puts off the material envelope of his life and appears in a spiritual form composed of the spiritual substances which had been invisibly present in the material body during his existence in this world. It is this Spiritual part of man, composed of Spiritual substances, that receives the good, or the life that inflows from the LORD by the internal man, and that transmits it to the corresponding natural substances of the mind, in which it appears to his consciousness in the form of thought from affection, or in the form of a thought by which he is affected according to the quality of his love. By means of those natural substances the thought then clothes itself in substances and matters such as are in the body and its world, and presents itself to the ear in speech and to the eye and feeling in movement and act. These ultimate forms are, in fact, nothing but truths from good, or falses from evil, appearing in their own images, in which they rest and are fixed; for words and acts are the last boundaries or limits of human thought and affection, being conjoined in them and in the completeness of their existence. They are as the stone which Jacob took and set as a boundary (A. C. 3727). "Where truth is together with good in the ultimate of order, then there is no recession or disjunction, but accession or conjunction" (A. C. 3730).
     All human ideas of thought are, therefore, formed from within, and this according to man's reception of light and life from the LORD. Their external presentation in natural and material clothing is their appearance to others, which will be more or less real in the degree of its transparence. To spirits and angels a; word is the real appearance of a thought, an act the' real appearance of an affection, with its purpose and intent. In their world the outward life of man is his real life; is the appearance of what he is before the LORD. What is covered here is uncovered there; what is hidden here is known there (Matt. x, 26).
     The human of man, that which makes man to be, man, is constituted of his Rational, which is the same as the Internal man, of his natural, which is the same as the External man, and also of his body, which serves the natural as the means or outermost organ of living in the world. The body also serves the Rational, furnishing it with the ultimate agencies for the fulfillment of its life, and for the perfection of its growth and existence; and in this manner the body likewise serves the Divine by aiding in the accomplishment of the end of man's creation, and in his preparation for eternal life by conjunction with the LORD (A. C. 3737).
SIXTEENTH CHAPTER OF GENESIS 1889

SIXTEENTH CHAPTER OF GENESIS              1889

     IN the sixteenth chapter of Genesis, the LORD'S first Rational is treated of, that it was conceived by the influx of the Internal Man into the affection of sciences of the External. The Internal Man is "Abram;" the affection of sciences of the External is the "Egyptian handmaid Hagar ;" the Rational thence begotten is." Ishmael," the quality of which is described in this and also in the twenty-first chapter, it being expelled from the house after the LORD'S Divine Rational, represented by "Isaac" was born.

     THE chapters considered hitherto, described first the LORD'S instruction in scientifics and His progress to celestial truths; next, the External man, or the Human Essence, which was to be conjoined with His Internal Man, or the Divine Essence; then the temptation-combats by which this conjunction was effected; and, finally, the LORD'S anxiety concerning the future state, in consequence of which a promise was given to Him, and the state of the Church was shown to Him, such as it would be at its end, but that a New Church should live again in place of the former one, and that the heavenly kingdom should be increased immensely.
     Up to this period in the LORD'S life on earth there was no Rational man in Him ("and Sarai"-truth adjoined to good-"the wife of Abram"-the LORD'S Internal Man which was JEHOVAH-"did not bear to him"). For the rational man is not connate with man, but only the faculty of becoming rational. In order, however, that the Rational might be born, the affection of sciences had been implanted in His External Man, which affection served intellectual truth ("and she had a hand-maid, an Egyptian"). And this affection was the life of the exterior or natural man ("and her name was Hagar").
     The rational is born of the Internal man as a father, and of the Exterior or Natural as a mother. Without the conjunction of both no rational ever comes into existence. The rational is not born of sciences and cognitions, but of the affection of sciences and cognitions. This affection is the very maternal life, and the celestial and spiritual in the affection is the paternal life; hence, according to the quantity of the affection and the quality of the affection is the quantity and quality of man's rationality. Unless, then, scientifics and cognitions, which in themselves are nothing but dead things and instrumental causes, are vivified by the life of affection, the rational cannot be born.
     Now, in the case of the LORD, truth adjoined to good, which was of the Internal Man, perceived ("and Sarai said to Abram") the state before the Interior or Divine Rational, Man was born ("behold, I pray, JEHOVAH hath shut me up from bearing"). But it desired that the Internal Man should be conjoined with the exterior ("Go in, I pray, to my handmaid"), inasmuch as thus the rational could be born ("perchance I shall be built up from her"), into which and through which rational, Truth Intellectual, which is with the Inmost, could then inflow.

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For, owing to hereditary evil, the Rational could not be otherwise formed than by sciences and cognitions insinuated through the senses in the manner just described; and, because the LORD could become rational, and the Internal could be conjoined with the Exterior in no other manner, therefore, "Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarai."
     As the LORD, differently from any other man, thought from the affection of intellectual truth, He, from this, desired the Rational that was to be born from the life of the exterior man and the affection of sciences ("and Sarai, the wife of Abram, took Hagar the Egyptian, her hand-maid"). While it was to be born from the life of the exterior man, as from a mother, it was to be conceived as from a father, from the Divine remains of good and truth which the LORD had acquired to Himself: Sarai took Hagar "at the end of ten years from Abram's dwelling in the land of Canaan," "ten years" signifying remains acquired by the LORD to Himself, by which He united the Human Essence to the Divine. The Rational was thus to result from the conjunction of the Internal man with the life and affection of the Exterior, under the incitement of the affection of truth ("and she," Sarai, "gave her to Abram, her man, to him for a woman").

     FROM the conjunction of the Internal Man with the life which is of the affection of sciences, or, what is the same thing, from the influx of the life of the Internal man into the life which is of the affection of sciences ("and he went in to Hagar"), the Rational received its first life ("and she conceived"); for the life of cognitions and sciences gives a body to, or clothes the life of the Internal Man. But this Rational in its conception despised truth itself adjoined to good ("and she saw that she had conceived, and her mistress was worthless in her eyes"), for the Rational that is first conceived cannot acknowledge intellectual or spiritual Truth to be true, because there adhere to it fallacies from sciences received from the world and nature, and appearances from cognitions received from the literal sense of the Word, which are not true.
     In order that it may come more clearly before the thought, how the Rational despises intellectual truth, it is necessary to understand what intellectual truth is. It is an intellectual truth that all life is from the LORD.
     The first-conceived Rational does not grasp this, it thinks that if it should not live of itself it would have no life, yea, it is indignant if anything else is said. It is an intellectual truth that every good and truth is from the LORD. The first-conceived Rational does not grasp this, because it feels that it is, as it were, from itself; then it thinks that if good and truth were not of itself, it could not think anything good and true, and still less do it; and that if it is from another it would let itself go, and continually expect influx. And so on. The more the Rational thinks from scientifics arising from the senses and from philosophy, so much the less does it grasp these and other intellectual truths, for fallacies thence are involved in so much grosser shadows. Hence it is that the learned believe less than others. When the first-conceived Rational is such, it is evident that it considers its mistress worthless-that is, it despises truth intellectual.
     Truth intellectual does not appear-that is, it is not acknowledged before fallacies and appearances are scattered, and these are never scattered so long as man ratiocinates concerning truths themselves from sensuals and scientifics; but they are dissipated as soon as man believes with a simple heart that it is true because it has been so said by the LORD; then the shades of fallacies are scattered, and then it matters nothing to him that he does not grasp them.
      But with the LORD there were no fallacies, but with His first-conceived Rational there were appearances of truth which were not true in themselves. Hence, also, His Rational in its first conception despised truth intellectual, but, successively, as the Rational was made Divine, the clouds of appearances were scattered, and Intellectual Truths became manifest to Him in their light, which is represented and signified by Ishmael's being expelled from the house when Isaac grew up.
     That the LORD did not despise Truth intellectual, but that He perceived and saw that His new Rational despised it, will be seen from what follows:

     BUT first it is necessary to know that, when the LORD was in the world, He thought from intellectual Truth differently from men and angels, whose highest thought never rises above the rational, although it results from the influx of Intellectual Truth. The Intellectual Truth from which the LORD thought was represented by "Sarai," and, being above the rational, it could perceive and see the quality of the rational. The affection of truth thus perceived ("and Sarai said to Abram"), and did not wish to take the blame to itself ("my injury be upon thee, I gave my hand-maid into thy bosom") that the first life of the rational ("and she saw that she conceived") in its conception despised truth itself adjoined to good ("and I am worthless in her eyes").
     This constituted another temptation-combat, one in which, as is their wont, the diabolic spirits induced a falsity from themselves, and accused the LORD of it. Hence His great indignation ("JEHOVAH judge between me and between thee"); for in His first Rational there was nothing false, but only the appearances of truth which, indeed, were not in themselves true.
     The LORD perceived from Divine Good ("and Abram said to Sarai") that this Rational was conceived under the authority of the affection of truth adjoined to good ("Sarai") ("Behold thy hand-maid is in thy hand"), and ought to be under its sovereignty ("do unto her what is good in thine eyes"); wherefore this Rational, in its conception, was subjugated ("and Sarai humbled her"), in consequence of which the first-conceived rational was seized with indignation ("and she fled from her face"). The Rational was indignant at truth intellectual, because truth intellectual, or the LORD wanted to humble or subjugate it. Where the Rational rises up against the Intellectual, there exists an intestine combat, and indignation on the part of him who is being subjugated, as comes to pass in temptations, which are nothing else than intestine combats and disputes and contentions concerning authority and sovereignty, evils being on one side, and goods on the other.
     Thus the LORD, of His own power, overcame, subjugated, and expelled the evil which, from the hereditary, insinuated itself also into this first Rational; for it had been conceived of the Internal Man as a father, and born of the Exterior as a mother, and whatever was of the Exterior brought with it a hereditary, and thus, also, evil.
     Every temptation and victory united the LORD'S thought more closely to the Internal or JEHOVAH, and made it more interior, and united Intellectual Truth to Divine Good. So, after this temptation and victory, His thought was more interior than before; it was of the Interior Man from the Internal ("and an angel of JEHOVAH found her"). The Interior Man is above the Rational but below the Internal.

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The thought of this Interior Man was now concerned about the cause why the Rational was in such a state, and it perceived that it was because natural truth had not yet obtained life ("at a well of waters in the desert"), this natural truth having arisen from the things which proceed from scientifics ("at the well in the way of Shur").
     Truths from scientifics are said to obtain life when they, adjoin or associate themselves to truths into which inflows the celestial of love. The very life of truth is thence. For truths are conjoined to one another as-are the societies in heaven, to which, indeed, they correspond; and things or truths which are not conjoined according to the form of the heavenly societies have not yet obtained life;, for, before this, the celestial of love from the LORD cannot inflow in a suitable manner. Seeking information concerning the state ("and he said, Hagar, hand-maid of Sarai, whence comest thou, and whither goest thou"), the LORD perceived the response and the indignation (" and she said, from the face of Sarai my mistress I am fleeing").
     But the LORD'S Interior Man responded ("and the angel of JEHOVAH said to her") that the Rational should have considered that it ought not to trust itself but that it ought to trust interior truth and its affection ("return to thy mistress"), and that it ought to force itself to be under the authority of intellectual truth ("and humble thyself under her hands").
     In this manner the LORD thought of the appearances which held back the first Rational. They were not to be trusted, but Divine Truths themselves were to be trusted, however incredible they might appear to that Rational. If the Rational be consulted concerning any or all Divine Truths, they will not be believed, for they are above its every comprehension. Divine Truths must be believed simply because, they are true; and they are true because the LORD has spoken them. They ought not to be rejected on any such grounds as that the reason is not able to see them. It is, therefore, the Ishmael-Rational, which objects to receiving the truths given in the LORD'S Revelations simply on the ground that they are there.
     Since the LORD'S first conceived Rational, like every man's first rational, was of such a nature as to despise intellectual truth, the LORD thought, in the manner here described, of subjugating it.

     His Interior Man thought further ("and the angel of JEHOVAH said to her"), that when the Rational man would submit itself under the authority of the Interior Man, or of Intellectual Truth, it would be fructified ("multiplying I shall multiply thy seed"), and multiplied immensely ("and it shall not be numbered for multitude").For, when the Rational does not submit itself to the goods and truths of the LORD, when it rejects the authority of the LORD'S Revelation, and prides itself on its own "manhood,"-which bows to no authority but that of its own reason-then it either suffocates, or rejects, or perverts the goods and truths inflowing from the Internal Man. The seed of Divine Truth either falls on the way, or upon stony ground, or among thorns.
     And the Interior Man thought still further ("and the angel of JEHOVAH said to her"), concerning the life of the Rational man ("behold thou art pregnant"), and concerning the truth of this Rational ("and shalt bear a son") concerning its state of life ("and thou shalt call his name Ishmael") when it should submit itself ("because JEHOVAH hath heard to thine affliction").
     The Rational receives life, is in the womb and is born, when man begins to think that the evil and the false) with him contradicts and is averse to truth and good. When man is regenerated, from the freedom with which he is gifted by- the LORD, he compels himself, humiliates, yea, afflicts the Rational that it should submit itself; and, in consequence, he receives a heavenly proprium, which is then perfected by the LORD by degrees, and becomes more and more free, so that it becomes the, affection of good and truth, and he has delight and happiness in it such as the angels have: "The Truth maketh you free; if the Son maketh you free, then are ye truly free" (John viii, 32, 36).

     WERE this Rational not subjugated, it would partake of the quality of rational truth without good ("and be shall be a wild-ass man"), fighting against the things that are not true ("his hand against all"), and being fought against by falses ("and the hand of all against him"), so that there would be continual contentions in the things which are of faith, but still it would always be victor ("and against the faces of all his brethren shall he dwell"). For, the Rational, deriving its nature from the life of the affection of sciences, which is of the External man, hereditary from the mother, which was to be fought against and expelled, was without rational good, and rational truth without good is morose, patient with nothing, against all, beholding every one as being in the false, chiding instantly, chastising, punishing, unmerciful; it does not apply itself and study to bend the minds of others, for it regards everything from truth and not from good. But after the LORD humiliated that hereditary, by temptation-combats and victories, or, after He afflicted and subjugated it, and verified His Rational with Divine Good, then it became Isaac or is represented by Isaac, and Ishmael, together with Hagar his mother, were cast out of the house.

     But before this could be accomplished, the state of the first Rational had to be seen. Accordingly, the state of the LORD'S Interior Man when He thought these things ("and she called the name of JEHOVAH. Who was speaking unto her,") was that of an influx ("Thou GOD seest me"). For the Interior Man looked upon the things of the Exterior, and this intuition is called an influx because it is effected by influx. It was an influx into the life of the Exterior man without a rational medium ("because she said, have I also here seen after the One seeing me?"). "Hagar" speaks here, who represents the life of sciences which is of the Exterior man; and because the first Rational arose from that life, the LORD beheld the cause why it was so done-beheld it from His Interior Man in the exterior, and this without a rational medium. And the state of truth from and below the Rational ("therefore he called the well [Hebrew] not [Hebrew] the LORD saw most clearly ("the well to the Living One that seeth me"); He saw most clearly that this Rational truth was not good. The LORD'S Interior Man, from which He saw, is called "the Living One seeing" because it was conjoined to the Internal, Who is JEHOVAH, Who Alone Liveth, and Alone Seeth. And He therefore saw also the quality to this Truth (" behold it is between Kadesh and Bared"), thus the quality of the Rational, that it partook of truth alone, and of contentions concerning truths ("Kadesh"), and of what is below that truth, truth scientific ("Bared"), from which also is the Rational.

     THE Rational, or the truth of this Rational, was, then, born from the conjunction of the LORD'S Internal Man with the life of the affection of sciences of the Exterior man, and from the conception thence resulting ("and Hagar bear to Abram a son"), and its quality was such as has been described ("and Abram called the name of his son, whom Hagar bare, Jishmael").

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And the LORD'S state was one of celestial goods, acquired by temptation-combats ("and Abram was a son of eighty years and six years;" "eighty" signifying temptation during which remains were stored up, and "six" signifying combat), when the life of the affection of sciences bare the Rational ("in Hagar's bearing Jishmael to Abram").

     THIS chapter is of great importance because it describes what man's Rational is when only truths constitute it, and what it is when goods, and from goods, truths, constitute it. The Rational cannot be conceived and born, or formed, without scientifics and cognitions; but the scientifics and cognitions must have use for their end, and when they have use for their end they also have life for their end, for all life is of uses because it is of ends. Unless they be learned for the sake of the life of uses they are of no moment, because of no use. From scientifics and cognitions alone, without a life of uses, the Rational becomes, as described in this chapter, like a wild ass, morose, pugnacious, having a hot and dry life, from some liking for truth defiled with the love of self. But when it has use for its end, then it receives life from uses, but such a life as is the use.
     Brethren, let it be our constant aim when we learn knowledges of any kind, that it be done in order that we may be perfected in the faith of love, for the true and very faith is love to the LORD and toward the neighbor; then shall we be in the use of all uses, and we shall receive spiritual and celestial life from the LORD; and when we are in that life we shall be in the faculty of perceiving all things that are of the LORD'S Kingdom. The Angels are in this life, and, being in that life, they are in intelligence and wisdom. And, as charity requires that we do not do good first, but first shun evils, let us ever remind ourselves that to prepare ourselves to receive this love we must shun the evils of moroseness, of impatience, of being against all, of regarding every one as being in the wrong, of being ready to chide, to chastise and to punish, of being unmerciful. Let us apply ourselves and study to bend the minds of others, that they and we may come to see that we must submit ourselves, our reason, our desires, to the Divine Truth revealed in the Writings; that we must force ourselves and afflict ourselves to be under its authority. "The Truth maketh you free. If the Son maketh you free, ye are truly free." Amen.
Notes and Reviews 1889

Notes and Reviews              1889

     UNCONSCIOUS Education and Woman; or, the Affection of Truth, are the titles of two recent tracts by the Rev. Adolph Roeder, of Vineland, N. J.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     Two sermons by the Rev. Chauncey Giles, on Death, the Gate of Life, and The Blessedness of Labor, have been published in the Italian language by Signor Scocia.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     THE New Church Philosophy of the Origin of Evil is a small pamphlet by Samuel Smith of Bath, Me., reprinted from the author's articles in the New Church Independent.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     JAMES SPEIRS London has published, in tract form, two lectures by the Rev. R. L. Tafel A. M. Ph. D., entitled respectively Is Christianity a Failure? and When is Marriage a Failure?
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     FROM the same publishing house have also been issued a work on Order in the New Church, by the Rev. R. L. Tafel, and the first number of a work by Mr. H. S. Sutton on Outlines of the Doctrine of the Mind, according to Emanuel Swedenborg.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     A PAMPHLET of thirty-seven pages, by the Rev. William Bevan, Incumbent of Christ Church, West Flamboro', bearing the title Swedenborg on the Spiritual Sense of the Holy Scriptures, has been published by William Briggs, of Toronto. It is an ignorant attack on the Spiritual Sense of the Word.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     MR. Glendower C. Ottley's excellent articles in the New Church Magazine in answer to the important question Is Marriage Lawful, and Conjugial Love possible between people of different Faiths have been published in the form of a pamphlet of thirty-two pages. The price of it is fifteen cents, and it can be had through the Academy Book-room.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     PHYSIOLOGICAL Correspondences is the title of the third volume of the series of works on Correspondences by the Rev. John Worcester. The first volume treated of the Correspondences of the Animals of the Bible, the second volume of Plants and Minerals, and the present is an extensive study of the Correspondences of the Organs of the Human Body.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     THE new "Pennsylvania Association of the New Church" has begun the publication of a monthly Manual in the same form as the Helper. The May number contains the Invitation to the Formation of the Association, the Minutes of the First Meeting, the Constitution then adopted, and the Address of Mr. Giles. The June number contains a complete Directory of the Societies composing the Association and a Calendar of their services. The membership of the Association is at present 579.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     DURING the past ecclesiastical year the American Swedenborg Printing and Publication Society has sold not less than 5,074 volumes of the Writings in English or Latin, while 605 volumes have been given away to libraries and individuals. A tenth volume of the Latin Reprints has been issued containing the Quatuor Doctrines and De Ultimo Judicio The eleventh volume, which is nearly finished, will contain De Amore Conjugiali, and the twelfth will be De Coelo et Inferno, on which also some work has been done. Printing has also begun of a new translation and edition of Apocalypse Explained, which will be issued with alternating Latin and English pages.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     THE Helper for January 9th, 1889, contains a sermon on "Marriage," by the Rev. Julian K. Smyth, which is a fair exponent of the very generally prevailing tendency in the Church to look away from the spiritual to the natural, away from the Glorified, Divine Human of the LORD as revealed in His Second Advent to the mere Human of the LORD in its historical aspect, away from the Internal Sense of the Word and Its Spiritual Doctrines to the merely Literal Sense and its natural applications. How, indeed, could the LORD'S Ministry upon earth have been Divine and He Himself God, if, as is here stated, "the whole spirit of the ministry [of Jesus] that followed, depended far more than we think upon this life in the home of Mary"-i. e., under the influences of that mother who gave Him that alone which He put off!
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     THE action of the late meeting of the Australian New Church Conference in Melbourne, in reference to the Wine question, has stirred up considerable indignation among the teetotalers of the Church in Australia. In an article in the Dawn of June 6th, 1889, a number of these give vent to their feelings. Presumably for the sake of the contrast, the editor also publishes a letter by Mr. T. B. Gibbes, of Melbourne, with the introduction that he writes "in true Academy style." As a voice that is seldom heard in the pages of the Dawn, Mr. Gibbes' letter is here quoted: "While an admirer of, and practicer of temperance in all things, I am a decided opponent of teetotalism, and I am strong in condemnation of the unwarrantable attempts of the teetotalers to thrust the vile stuff they do on the Communion Service in lieu of pure wine.

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And now allow me to observe that it appears to me as a member of Conference, a rather presumptuous thing for any one outside it to call in question 'what good it thought it could do by interfering in this matter.' When the conference of members from all the colonies requires advice as to its proceedings, it will be time for outsiders to offer it."
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     THE New Church Magazine for May, 1889, contains a very useful article on The Church of the LORD and its Ministers, by Mr. T. K. Payton, which deserves to be read and taken to heart by every member of the Church. After exhibiting the uses of the Church as the heart and lungs of the LORD'S Kingdom upon earth, the article proceeds to show the utterly perverted, dead, and consummated state of the Christian Church still existing as an external institution by the side of the new, living and only Church. "In no other Church but in the one to which we belong is the LORD alone acknowledged to be the God of heaven and earth, even as to His human; and this is the reason why we confidently affirm that it is the LORD'S visible New Church on earth."
     In treating of the subject of the Ministry, the author says: "Hence the Ministers of the LORD'S New Church must speak from the LORD, and not from themselves. In order to do so, they must humbly, in a receptive state of mind, go to the Word and also to the Writings to hear the word at the LORD'S mouth. We say 'also to the Writings,' because these are from the LORD and therefore of Divine authority, and were given expressly for the use of the New Church. Indeed, the Writings are the Divine Word opened as to its internal sense, and it is only in their height that the genuine Doctrines of the Word can be seen and understood; for it was by them and through them the LORD made His Second Advent in the power and glory of His opened Word.
     "In order, therefore to be the LORD'S faithful ministers in His New Church, they must unhesitatingly accept the Divine authority of the Writings as well as that of the Word, and acknowledge no other to be their Master but the LORD. The Church is in no sense whatever their master. It is not over them; but they are over it. They have not to teach to please it, but to instruct it, to point out its errors and evils, to counsel and reprove it from the LORD, and thus to build it up in the truth and the fear and love of the LORD, and for the Church to become more perfect, it must be willing to receive instruction, counsel, and reproof from them."
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     THE New Church Board of Publication has lately issued a reprint of a work which came out in London some fifteen years ago under the title Claims of Swedenborg; Three Orations by John Mills, M. D. It is easier to find out from this work what the author thinks that Swedenborg does not claim than what he does claim. The general purpose seems to be to prove that Swedenborg "claims nothing which has not been awarded to others," whilst not a word is mentioned as to the important "claim" that the "Second Coming of the LORD takes place by means of a man [Swedenborg] before whom He has manifested Himself in Person, and whom He has filled with His Spirit, to teach the Doctrines of the New Church through the Word from Him" (T. C. R. 779).
     This is the sum and substance of Swedenborg's claims, and it is difficult to see how the Board of Publication can be justified in publishing, for the general use of the Church, a work which does not claim this for Swedenborg. The author, furthermore, is evidently not a Newchurchman even in name, and appears to have a very superficial knowledge of the Doctrines. The work itself is written in a rather flippant, irreverent style, which cannot impress new receivers with much reverence for the holy subjects of which the orations treat. The Orations are not complimentary to the organized New Church, of which it is said at the outset, "as far as their church-making is concerned, they are mere spiritual costermongers, doing that in a wheel-barrow which the Methodist Conference does in a sally shop, and the Archbishop of Canterbury in a splendid bazaar." But the Old Church fares even worse in the following sentences, to which the numerous adherents of the "permeation theory" will object: "I do not regard Swedenborg as a Church Reformer. . . Providence never reforms Churches but buries them, when dead, in the common grave of all things human. I do not recollect that I ever saw a passage in Swedenborg's Writings that indicates anything about reforming the Churches; there is much about a New Church that shall be, but there is nothing about reforming those that are; their utter annihilation is taken for granted." What and where this future New Church will be is not, however, indicated in the Orations. It is, therefore, to be feared that the publication of this work will be acceptable neither to those who regard Swedenborg as the Inspired Servant of the LORD in His Second Coming for the sake of the establishment of a new, distinct Church upon earth, nor to those who claim that Swedenborg was simply a reformer of the Old Churches, which are now rapidly being "permeated" by the "influx" of the "new age."
SUN OF HEAVEN 1889

SUN OF HEAVEN              1889

     O Heavenly Sun!
Though tempests wild prevail, though darkness fall
Athwart the land and shut from me Thy light,
Though shadows thick beset my forward path,
Still do I see-Thy face-within my soul I see Thy face.

     O Mighty Sun!
What, though fell spirits hot from depths of hell,
With poisoned words essay to tempt my soul;
What, though I tremble 'neath the howling storm,
I know Thou dost forever ride serene
Above the clouds.

     Yea, if I fall,
If genii drown the earth in deathly shade,
Thou still art there-Thy heat and light unchanged;
Thy loving heart of fire still warms toward me,
Still seeks to save, if I but turn to Thee
Of my free will.

     O Sun of light and love,
     I lift my soul to Thee!
TWO TEMPLES 1889

TWO TEMPLES              1889



     Fiction.
     A Fable of the Ancients.

     By the author of "Ismi-Dagon,""The Dreamer of Dreams," etc.

     IN far-gone days, when the world was young, in a long-forgotten kingdom of Asia, there lived a people who worshiped with pure and reverent hearts a single God, whom they called Rodesh, meaning the Holy One. In the midst of their city, which was called Shalome, or Peace, and which was built of tents, there was a temple of pure gold. When and how that temple was built the people of Shalome knew not, nor did they inquire, for they were simple in heart and faith. But they knew that it was the temple of their God, and that the name written upon it was the name of His love. For across the face of that resplendent temple of gold the words; "The Divine Love," were written in letters of living flame, and no man knew what fed that flame, so that it subsisted from day to day, and year to year, and age to age: only was it known that the finger of the Holy One had so written those words.
     No evil thing was allowed to enter the city of Shalome. Its people cared only for what was good. Each man lived in the tenderest love with a single wife, and every one delighted to serve his neighbor, to give honor to the king, to hearken to the priests, and, above all, to give glory and reverent worship to the Holy One.

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And the God of the City of Peace was well pleased with these His people, and poured out upon them abundant blessings. He had gave them to see, by visual signs, that He delighted in their works. For, when the people had done well, and the sphere of love and charity was at its full among them, the flaming words across the face of the temple would brighten and glow with an increase most wonderful to behold. And there were times when a light shone from the east to the west of the heavens, beautifully coloring the tents of the city of Shalome, and glorifying all the world for its happy people.
     But this was in the golden era of that city. In the ages following there came about a gradual and certain change. The men of Shalome, by slow degrees, receded from their first state of innocence, beginning to give less honor to the Holy One, and more to themselves. Therefore, upon a time the once magnificent sign in the skies became less beautiful in their eyes, and the flaming word across the face of the temple ceased to warm its glow, because love and charity had waned among them. But there was no diminution in the prosperity of the people; their blessings were abundantly renewed with the returning seasons; only, as their love grew colder, the glorious manifestations of the Divine pleasure gradually faded from the skies, and there arose a generation which had never known them.
     The years went on, and the people of Shalome cared less and still less for the Holy One, His temple and His laws, and more for themselves and the evil thoughts and practices which came to life among them. Nevertheless, for many, many years the flaming words still burned uninterruptedly across the face of the golden temple, for the mercy of the Holy One was undying. Not until the people of Shalome turned away altogether, and cared no more for their God, did the faithful flame fade quietly from their view. And when men looked toward the place where the light had been, lo, the temple itself was no more.
     Now, when the people saw this, though they loved not the temple, yet were they angry, and accused the Holy One; and Kalel-Ahven, their king, stood forth and spake to them:
     "Hear me, O ye people without a god-ye people whose god is dead (for hath not his light gone out?)-lo, I who have been your king, I, Kalel-Ahven, will be your god."
     And the people shouted in answer: "Ay, ay, be our god!"
     So Kalel-Ahven, the king, brought together the cunning of all the skilled workmen of his kingdom, and built a new temple-a temple proud and tall and handsome to the view. And he consulted with certain magicians how to procure the flame with which to write the temple's name across its face, for he had given it a name which meant in that ancient tongue both Self-Worship and Human Intelligence. But, by the arts of all of them combined, the magicians were not able to write the word in living flame, and succeeded only in devising an appearance of fire, which could not be seen afar, and shone only with a false, artificial glitter near at hand. Nevertheless, the people were more than satisfied, rejoicing in their new temple, and in this god of their election. At stated times they went in, bearing offerings, and bowed themselves in worship before Kalel-Ahven on his temple throne.
     But anon discontent arose. When their loved ones died, some of the people remembered that the Holy One in his law had promised the faithful life and happiness I after death, and they complained among each other:
     "What boots it that we have a god and king in one who gives us prosperity while we live, if he let us rot like dogs when we die? Verily, this is but the half of a god."
     And when the report of these things came to the king, his mind was a prey to uneasy thoughts: how should he answer this hard question? So he called the magicians together and earnestly strove to devise means for restoring and prolonging the natural life; but all in vain. They took the body of a man just dead into a chamber of the king's palace, and there, one after another till the sun went down, the magicians stripped themselves naked and lay upon the dead man, striving to breathe breath again into his nostrils and to put warmth into his flesh. They also burnt fires, and called up evil spirits, and practiced diabolical enchantments; but the dead man awoke not.
     Then the king bethought him of a cunning device, and proclaimed to the people through his herald:
     "Hear me, O people of Shalome. Give ear to the word of your god and king. I have heard your complaint, and ye shall be satisfied. Be not anxious about your fate after death, for when death comes all existence ends. Ye have heard the idle tale that Kodesh in the old time promised a second life; believe it not. Immortal life I cannot give you, but I will make a heaven upon earth wherein shall be admitted all who may become worthy."
     Such was the king's proclamation, and the people hearkened and were once more mightily pleased. So Kalel-Ahven called together the cunning workmen as before, and planted a beautiful garden covering an exceeding great country; and when at last it was finished, upon a time he proclaimed that this was the heaven upon earth which he had promised, and into it he would admit all whom he might deem worthy because of their devotion to him.
     Now, there was in the city of Shalome a small remnant who still remembered the Holy One, looking upon the insanely arrogant pretensions of Kalel-Ahven and the wanton folly of the Shalomites with horror and aversion. These people were small and weak in numbers and worldly goods, but they were strong in their devotion to the laws of the Holy One, which came down to them through the traditions of their fathers. The leader among them was Omen-Ahav, a priest, and when at last the time was ripe he stood forth and boldly spake for his God and his people. With a sharp sword in his hand, he went in and stood before Kalel-Ahven the king, and proclaimed the forgotten laws of the Holy One. And the voice with which he spake was strong and piercing and smote upon the ear of the king, and his words were sharp and cut like the sword in his hand, till Kalel-Ahven writhed in pain and wrath upon his throne and cried aloud:
     "Seize on this loud-mouthed madman!"
     But the bold priest, Omen-Ahav, feared not. When the servants of the king sprang forward, he stood his ground firmly, with full confidence in his sword; for it was a sword of wondrous power. The guards fell upon him with fury, right and left, before and behind, but-wonderful to tell-at whatsoever point they came near to him, his sword was there and slew them, until they lay in heaps about him on the ground.
     And when Kalel-Ahven beheld it, he foamed at the mouth and called for vengeance; but there was none to avenge him. For no man could explain the miracle, and all the people were afraid. Then the king called together his magicians and wise ones and took counsel how to slay Omen-Ahav, the priest of the Holy One, and anon they strove to throw about him a vast net and entangle him, but with his mighty sword he cut his way clear.

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     Then was Kalel-Ahven's soul afraid, and he cried to Omen-Ahay: "Get thee out from me, thou prince of sorcerers, for the sight of thee is anguish to my soul."
     And the priest made answer: "I am no sorcerer, O blind king of Shalome. I am a priest of the Holy One who comes but to show thee how thou hast profaned His truth."
     But Kalel-Ahven answered: "Get thee out, I pray thee, for I do hate thee."
     With such words, the king turned his face away, and Omen-Ahav went out from before him to return no more.
     And lo, the fame of Omen-Ahav and his sharp sword went throughout the kingdom of Shalome, and all men knew that with him and his people were the forgotten laws of the Holy One. Nevertheless none came to inquire about those laws, and with the remnant there was no increase save through their children only. For the wickedness of Shalome had waxed great and its people cared not. They were become like blind men, no longer seeing between light and darkness, and like men bereft of reason, for they outraged all law and groveled like swine in their evil delights. So at last Omen-Ahav the priest proclaimed to the followers of the Holy One: "We must go forth and build a new city, for the wickedness of Shalome smells even to the heavens like the stench of a monstrous carcass. Let us not abide here till it suffocate us."
     Now, among all the youths who sat at the feet of the priest of Kodesh there was none so goodly and fair to look upon as Eden-Amoon, and well did Omen-Ahav love him. But upon a time this youth beheld Amuna, a maid most beautiful, whose father was of the wicked Shalomites, and from that day his soul was knit unto her soul. Now Amuna hearkened to his words right speedily, and spake him fair, so that he straightway counted her among the followers of the Holy One. But Omen-Ahav's people shook their heads in grief, and doubted.
     So, when the word was given that they should go forth, Eden-Amoon went in haste to seek his love. The murmurs of the doubting people sounded in his ears, and, his heart trembled as he went to her on winged feet. In bright apparel, among the trees of her father's garden, sat the beauteous Shalomite maiden, when Eden-Amoon anxiously drew near.
     "All hail, my love!" she cried with gladness, and ran to him.
     "All hail," was his reply. Then solemnly, though with great eagerness and haste: "Heardat thou, O my sweet love, the word of the man of God?"
     "Nay now, what word?"
     "But seven days more, and we who love the laws of Kodesh shall go forth to build a new city beyond the wilderness."
     And the daughter of the Shalomites was afraid, and her heart was weighed down with sorrow. "What would at thou, O my love?" she cried, with bitter tears. "Hast thou forgot how thou hast worn me in thy heart?-how thou didst swear to keep with me through good and ill? And now thou wilt leave me desolate!"
     "Nay my Amuna, thou shalt come with us."
     But Amuna only grieved the more: "O Eden-Amoon, hearken to my speech," she prayed him earnestly My soul misgives me; I cannot go. And-oh! why should we? Here we rest in comfort and security, and shall we go out where wild beasts lay in wait to slay us? Hear me, hear me: let us not go forth."
      "We must go forth," urged Eden-Amoon. "If we rest here, we die. Even so hath said the priest of Kodesh."
      "Who is this priest of Kodesh!" cried she aloud, rebellion in her heart. "He shall not lead us to our death."
     "Nay, my Amuna, we shall not die. The mighty arm of Kodesh will protect us. Come-get thee ready to go forth."
     She stopped her ears; she turned her face from him, whereat his heart grew faint and the words died on his lips. She knew that he was weak, and earnestly did she persuade with tenderness and tears. She put her hands on him and kissed his face. She flung her long dark hair about his neck and held him fast; so did she bind him. So stood she and wept upon him; till he-all drunk with love of her, became at last a willing captive and forgot his faith. "Fear not, my love," quoth he; "fear not."     
     So the sun went down, and the day was gone.
     Another and another day went by, and Ed en-Amoon had not yet returned. The priest of Kodesh was walking in his garden, when at last he came. He came with downcast face and troubled look, and Omen-Ahav saw the change when yet he was afar.
     "It is the Shalomite woman," was his thought, as the youth drew nigh.
     "Hath aught gone ill with thee, my son?" he asked, most gently. "Why art thou changed?"
     "I am not changed," was Eden-Amoon's quick denial. 'Tis only that my eyes have now been opened to thy rashness; 'tis only that I now can see it is the voice of madness which calls us to go forth. Hear me, O my father!" cried the youth in pain, seeing that the face of the priest was become most bitter sorrowful.
     "'Tis as I feared, my son," quoth Omen-Ahav, solemnly. "Most assuredly thou art changed. Thou wast not so when last I saw thee."
     "If so I did but dream, my father. Now I am awake and see by the light of day."
     "Nay, it doth not so appear. I fear thou canst no longer see by the light of day at all, but only by the light of the evening, as the owl seeth."
     But Eden-Amoon, heeding not his voice: "Hear me, I pray thee. How know we that the arm of Kodesh can protect us in the wilderness?"
     "Thou ungrateful one!" Then Omen-Ahav answered, with the stern voice which men feared. "How know we? Is he not the great God-man, the Lord of all? Hath He not fashioned us with His hands and gifted us with life? Doth He not guide the sun and stars? Hath He not formed the sea and land, and built the heaven-touching firmament?"
     "Yea, so men say," quoth Eden-Amoon, with knit brows; "but who can testify that it is other than a simple legend? I did believe it once, but now-I do not know. If Kalel-Arven, the mighty, seek to slay me to-morrow, will Kodesh raise His arm to save me? Verily, I wot not. What sayest thou, my father?"
     "I say thou art unworthy to be saved."
     "Thou dost not answer. Thou sharest this doubt with me."
     "I share naught with thee, blind youth."
     But Eden-Amoon, beading not at all: "Come, let us confess that it is true, as men say; that Kodesh is dim and far away, and Kalel-Ahven is strong and close at hand. Therefore let us be wise. Let us remain and worship here, and make the king our friend. I come to warn thee, Omen-Ahav, for I do love thee well."

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     "Nay, verily thou lovest me no more at all."
     "Yea, but I do love thee. Let me persuade thee, O my father!"
     "Get thee gone," quoth Omen-Ahav then, with face averted, "for thou wouldst have me profane the holy laws of Kodesh."
     "Nay, I would preserve thee from thy fate," cried Eden-Amoon, pressing upon him. But suddenly the form of the priest receded from the youth as if by magic, and stood a far off.
     "O blind! O fool!" his sorrowful voice returned faintly. "I knew thou wert sorely tempted, but I did not believe thee lost. Go then, from me; my way and thine are no more together."
     And Eden-Amoon was wroth at this separation, and ran crying after him. But anon the form of Omen-Ahav faded wholly from his view, and then the youth staggered about blindly, although the light of the garden was as the light of the full noon. Only when the gate was closed behind him, and he stood in the streets shaded by the lofty houses of the Shalomites could he see his way.
     "We have done well to part," quoth he within himself, at last. " Once I did truly love this man, but now my eyes are opened, and I see him as he is. His words are sharper than his sword, and he is hard and cold, enamoured of far-away, unfruitful things, and wanting in sympathy for the living, breathing world; I'll have no more of him."
     So when Omen-Ahav and his people went forth from the city of Shalome the youth Eden-Amoon and his beloved remained behind, and cast their lot with those who remembered not the Holy One. "The good things that lie before us are better than the good things that are far away," quoth the youth, with exultation. "Come, my Amuna; let us please the king and make merry while we may."
     So Eden-Amoon sought the presence of Kalel-Ahven and became his courtier. Not many days were passed before he found favor with the king, who loved him for his beauty, his knowledge, and his wit, and soon adjudged him worthy to become a dweller of his earthly paradise. Then the heart of the youth was glad, and he said within himself: "Yea, verily, I did well not to go forth with Omen-Ahav and his people, for they, I doubt not, are now harassed by many dangers and untold hardships, while I am to dwell with Amuna in the king's great garden, where all is comfort and security, and whence my fame will sound throughout Shalome. Verily, they were foolish while I was wise."
     Thus, fondly hearkening to the deceptive voice of self-applause, young Eden-Amoon entered proudly into his new estate.
     The paradise which the king had planted was of vast extent and wonderful beauty, although there were no birds and no running water there. For every feathered creature had long since deserted the kingdom of Shalome, and the river and several smaller streams, originally found in the territory covered by the paradise, had soon run dry; so that now there was naught but artificial lakes wherein the water stood stagnant and dark, and appeared clear and beautiful only when thrown up by means of fountains. But there were smiling groves and fields, fruits and flowers of innumerable kinds, and the novitiates, when admitted through the gates, were filled with gladness by what lay before them.
     Among these happy novitiates were Eden-Amoon and his beloved. The king's great garden seemed to them a paradise indeed, and their senses reveled in the delights of sight and sound which greeted them on every hand. There were no birds to sing, but the king's musicians made melody with sackbuts, harps, and dulcimers till their ears were drunk with its sweetness. Light of heart, they wandered through the groves, plucked the fruit, danced and laughed with the merry men and maidens whom they met, and gratified every passing whim.
     But when the night came on and the dwellers of the great garden forgot their pleasures in sleep, Eden-Amoon lay awake, oppressed with uneasy thought. For the night, while it blotted out the beauties of the garden, brought to view the gleaming lights which strewed the wide sky-dome, and which in some strange way awakened in his mind a disturbing memory of Omen-Ahav and his people. So while he lay upon the ground, Eden-Amoon looked toward the stars and was sad.
     But on the morrow he again took pleasure in his surroundings, ate the fruit with renewed appetite, and with Amuna joined in the jollities of the merry men and maidens. When, however, the garish light of day had faded he was more troubled than before, being again haunted by the stars which so strangely and persistently seemed to recall the calm face of the priest of Kodesh. On the third morning he arose much troubled in mind, ate the fruit without relish, and soon wandered away from the merry people, being anxious to explore the garden further. He went alone, for fair Amuna's heart was set upon the merry men and maidens, and she would not follow him.
     "Let me rest here," she cried, with anger, when he urged her. "Go forward and leave me if thou wilt. I care little, for truly I am aweary of thy discontented heart."
     "Go I must and will," quoth Eden-Amoon, sadly; "but by to-morrow at the going down of the sun I shall return for thee."
     So he departed and left her. Toward noon, as he went on his way, he encountered a company of men resting in the shade of a grove, who, when they heard his footfall, sprang up and accosted him with eagerness.
     "What is the news from Shalome?" they demanded. "Do the people talk much of us? Do they not call us wise and marvel at our works? Surely thou hast heard of us, for we are the greatest of all who have lived in Shalome. Speak quickly! and tell us with what radiance our mighty names shine before men."
     "Tell me your names and I will answer," Eden-Amoon made reply.
     "My name is Shemuah," cried the foremost.
     "I have heard men speak of thee. When thou wast first admitted to this place thy name was heard throughout Shalome."
     "Well-well-" cried Shemuah, greedily.
     "But after a space of days thy name was heard no more. The city forgot thee as completely as though thou hadst been a dead dog."
     At this the eager Shemuab threw up his hands with
a shriek and staggered away, tearing his hair and growling in mad fury.
     "But how was it with my name?" inquired another, with unshaken confidence.
     "And with mine?"
     "And mine?"
     "So was it with the names of you all," answered Eden-Amoon, simply.
     "It is false I" cried some, with threatening looks. "This fool would make sport of us. We were too great to be so soon forgotten. Let us inquire again."
     But the disconsolate ones loudly complained.

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"This is paradise in very truth!" they shrieked. "What boots it that we dwell here, if our fame shine not in Shalome! Come, let us find our way back to the city and have done with the king's accursed garden."
     Thus they complained among themselves like snarling beasts; then all at once turned wildly upon Eden-Amoon and would have beaten him, but he escaped from them among the trees.
     "I, too, yearned for fame when I sought entrance to, this garden," the youth reflected, as he wandered on. "And shall I, too, be so soon forgotten?" The thought was pain.
     With heart bowed down he went on listlessly. Then, all at once, he saw how he was grieving, and said within himself: "But let me not repine. Oh, let me not become such as those wretched men are. There are worthier things to love than fame."
     That night when he lay down the stars seemed to shine with broader radiance than heretofore, and more than ever stirred his memory with thoughts of Omen-Ahav and the laws of Kodesh.
     Upon the day following he explored the garden still farther, and encountered a company of men and women who were bewailing the death of several of their number. They inquired eagerly if he brought any word from Kalel-Ahven, describing how they had sent a messenger to say to him: "Hear us, O king. Thou west pleased to call us worthy, and didst bring us into this paradise, and we did thank thee; but now, lo, three of us are dead and thy fair garden is but a hollow mockery to us in our woe; therefore give us back our dead, we pray thee, and take thy paradise again."
     But no word came from the king, and when Eden-Amoon drew nigh, the friends of the dead were spilling dust upon their heads and cursing in their despair.
     "Blame not Kalel-Ahven," Eden-Amoon sail to them, "he did not promise you a second life. Only Kodesh, the Holy One, promised that."
     "Who is Kodesh?" they demanded, listlessly.
     "He is the God who, some say, is dead. As for me, I wot not; but I pray that He still lives."
     "Hear him!" cried the mourners, in derision. "Verily the fools be abroad to-day."
     So Eden-Amoon departed from them, and wandered on, viewing successive scenes which filled him more and more with discontent, until he loathed the king's great paradise as well as the recollection of Shalome.
     "'Tis but a vain and human conceit," quoth he within himself. "What man is happy here, or can be? Ah, me! I fear 'twas Omen-Ahav that was wise, and I that was the fool."
     He turned his steps backward toward Amuna's resting place, and found her on her way to search for him.
     "Why wast thou gone so long?" quoth she. "Come back with me to the place of the merry men and maidens."
      "Never will I return to them," was his reply. "I came but to fetch thee away. To-morrow we must leave this garden."
     "And wherefore?"
     "That we may inquire the way and follow after Omen-Ahav and his people."
     But Amuna straightway revolted, striving, first with angry speech and then with tenderness and tears, to bend his will. But he was firm, although his heart was sorely tried. For days they rested in that place, she looking back with tearful eyes toward the merry men and maidens, but he, with face ever turned toward the outlet of the garden; so rested they for days, many unhappy days.
     At last he said to her: "I will no longer stay. Seest thou that rock upon the crest of the hill yonder? Thither am I bound, and there shall I await thee, my dear love. I pray that thou mayest not be long. If thou art long, my spirit will droop with sadness, but never will I return. Only will I await thee, O my love!"
     And Amuna fell upon the ground and wept, but he shut his eyes, and so departed from her.
     Slowly up the hill went sorrowful Eden-Amoon-slowly but surely-until he had passed beyond the rock. There sat he down to wait as the day began to wane. With heavy heart he watched the day light surely fade before the crowding shadows of the hurrying night. It was a night most black, and full of horrors. The darkness lay in pools upon the ground, and there was neither moon nor star to guide his feet. His thoughts ran backward to Amuna, and his soul was broken hourly with anxious fear. What did she? How fared she? Was he not hard and unyielding in a doubtful cause? He called her name aloud, and would fain have gone in. search of her, but something held him.
     At last the morning broke. By slow degrees the cast became a glory of light and color, and the dusky clouds swam backward into space. And, lo, Amuna's moving form was now outlined! She came with slow but certain step up the long hillside, and, as she neared the rock, in swift and anxious search, her eyes traveled widely over the ground. At last she stood upon the brow of the hill and faced the glory in the east.
     "Where art thou, O my love!" she cried, in agony of fear. "My eyes are blind; I cannot see thee."
     And Eden-Amoon leaped and came to her, and their thirsty lips long rested together.
     "O my husband, leave me not again;" she prayed. "I care no more for the merry men and maidens; I love only thee."
     Then they joined their hands and went out from that garden to return no more. Anon they found themselves in the city of Shalome. They doubted that they were there until men told them; for the place was marvelously changed-to them. The very stones in the streets had melted into mud, and the people walked with their feet in the mire and knew it not.
     "Tell me, which way went Omen-Ahav and his people?" asked Eden-Amoon, anxiously, but the Shalomites only jeered at them.
     "What seek ye?" cried they, with laughter. "We know it not."
     They turned away and journeyed from that city. They set their faces toward the rising sun. But their progress was painful and slow, and sometimes Amuna lost heart, and looked back with longing eyes. For the black, clinging mud of the streets of Shalome was heavy upon their feet, and held them back. And, wonderful to tell, sometimes they saw the mud with loathing, and endeavored to free themselves from it; but again they saw it not, yea, forgot it was there. And, what was yet more wonderful, only while they knew that the mud still weighed upon their feet did they move forward; for when they awoke from their forgetfulness, they always found that they had been wandering back in the direction of Shalome.
     So, through varying days of hope and despair, of endeavor and apathy, they gradually advanced until at last they arrived at the banks of a flowing stream, the waters of which were clear and beautiful. Here they sat down, and allowed the water to flow over them until it had washed away all the clinging mud of Shalome. They came out feeling strong and light of heart-yea, Eden-Amoon leaped and ran with the joy of a captive hind let loose.

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And fair Amuna saw it with exultant gladness, for she looked backward now no more.
     As they journeyed on, upon a time they saw afar off the mountain whereon they now knew would be found Omen-Ahav and his people. Their hearts failed them never again; the pathway was clear, and their feet strayed not. So went they swiftly forward. But a space of days, and they were there; then, hand in hand, they followed the upward path before them.
     High up on that mountain, they turned and looked toward the far-off city of Shalome, and, as they looked, lo, a great black cloud arose out of the west, where the earth touched the arching sky, and rolled forward with a hideous, thundering sound. And whether it was a cloud of smoke and flame, on desert sand, or whether it was a flood of waters from the unknown waste places of the world, they knew not. But they knew that it was terrible in its roar, and when it had crossed the plain and gone on its way, they saw no more the city of Shalome, but only a barren waste where serpents crawled.
     Trembling, but not afraid, they went on up the mountain to the place where Oinen-Ahav's people dwelt. And when they drew nigh, lo, they beheld a temple of silver, all glorious in the rays of the sun! Across its face ran radiant precious stones of every color, tracing out the letters of a holy name-the name of the "Divine Wisdom." And as they were led through the assembled worshipers to the priest of Kodesh, the heavens above that temple suddenly became all glorious with rainbow glories; and the hearts of the people, as they saw it, leaped in their breasts with rapture, and, one and all, they fell upon the ground crying:
     "Glory!-glory to the Holy One who, in the fullness of His mercy, hath descended and built His temple again among men!"
Communicated 1889

Communicated              1889

      [Inasmuch as in this Department Correspondents have an opportunity to express their individual opinions, be they in favor of the principles on which New Church Life is conducted or adverse to them, the Editor does not hold himself responsible for the views that are published therein.]
CORRECTION NOTES 1889

CORRECTION NOTES       G N. SMITH       1889

     Now that we are having some plain talks on one of the most important but most shunned of all subjects, I have something to say on a most vital point of it. And in doing it I must needs say some very plain things that few have the courage in the face of that very thin veneer of an unchaste age, prudery, either to see or to say.
     When the popular preachers, that all the world goes mad over, denounce the Word as not pure enough to be read in families,* it is time for the New Church to look to her safety, and strike out the whole hypocritical sham, and fearlessly and faithfully teach and learn truths that must be known and obeyed if the "precious pearl" is to be saved from being "trampled under foot."
     *See R. Heber Newton's recent utterances, also those of Swing and Thompson, proposing an "expurgative" Bible. Yet these men are supposed to be almost Newchurchmen.
     Here is an instance of what I mean. Some time ago heard a prominent Newchurchman speak of the ultimate of human love as an animal passion, and permissible only as with the animals for the perpetuation of the race.
     This remark is an evidence of how the "merely natural" (C. L. 460) state of the world concerning the "precious pearl of human life" (n. 467) is assaulting the New Church with its popular so-called "scientific" idea of patterning the human after the animal, and so animalizing all the human out of us. And this is the reason that it seems necessary to call attention to the matter in order that a check may be put to a dangerous overflow from the "merely natural" state of the world around us of a sphere that seeks to reduce the human to the level of the beast. For surely, if we wish to go down to the animals, the above is the very train of thought to take us there in the quickest possible time (C. L. 230). If we wish to rise to that state to which conjugial love has power to raise us, that of becoming "more and more men" (C. L. 433), we must exactly reverse that train of thought, and think of the "faculty and ability which is called virile," that "accompanies wisdom according as the latter is animated from the spiritual things of the Church," as so fully and exactly opposite to the animal as to be the only purely human function of all our outer life. It is the ultimate of human love (C. L. 448, camp. 48).
     All this is so plainly a fact that I wonder that we should need to have it shown. In common with the animals we have the functions of eating, drinking, sleeping, and all the functions of the ultimates of life; all of them except that so truly called "the duty of marriage," or, as the Doctrines translate it, "Conjugial Debt" (Ex. xxi, 10; camp. S. D. 3190; C. L. 62, 68, 194, 466, et al.). That no animal has, and man has it only in proportion as he becomes "more and more a man" in the "love of propagating the truths of wisdom and of doing uses" (n. 220, comp. 331), and as also with the wife, "that formation is effected by means of the reception of the propagations of the soul of the husband with the delight derived from this that she wills to be the love of the wisdom of her husband " (n. 198). How plain it is that no animal on earth has anything like this. None ever has any inclination to approach the other sex, nor the other to permit it, except I during the very brief state of preparedness for procreation, and for that alone. Human beings only, and they only in proportion as by the above-described means they become more truly human, have the "ultimate of love" in, a "perpetual" (C. L. 113, 355, 356)* "open vein" (C. L. 433) for the higher spiritual and therefore purely human uses of soul and body, which cannot be foregone without "detriment."
     * How perpetual in the heavens, see A. E. 992; and in the highest heavens, the little Work on Marriages.
     As The New Church Life is the only medium in the world that I know of to lay these needed truths before the people of the Church (though for that it has been called how and vulgar,-in good company, however, as the Conjugial Love has been similarly characterized), I could wish the Life had access to every home in the New Church, that this vital truth might be brought before all. For I find our homes flooded with books full of that most deadly falsity that would so very "scientifically" animalize all the "human love" out of them, by representing that the animals do so and so, and therefore so should men. And they are read, believed, and followed, as no doubt in the case with which we open our Notes. And why not? So many have not the Conjugial Love, nor know or believe its plain and much needed teachings, that would show them how they can become more and more human; "the husband more and more a husband, and the wife more and a wife" W. L. 200). Why should they not follow the falsities which they have instead of the truths which they have not?

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And with the usual disastrous result. But I need not prolong. "A word to the wise," etc. Learn and do the LORD'S teachings to the New Church and be blest by their fruits, and shun the old falsities as the infection of a deadly plague.
     "Truths come in bundles." Another in this bundle concerns our whole attitude toward the teachings of the Church on this subject, that of avoiding the instruction of our families in those teachings as not a fit subject to be talked about with them. The prevailing prudery of the day is infecting too many of our families to the extent that they lose the heavenly guidance of the truth altogether. They may be carefully instructed on every other subject, but on this they are permitted to grow up and even to enter upon the sacred relations of life more unguided and ignorant than the savages. I know of New Church families that are afraid to have such an indelicate book as the C. L. in the house lest their children might happen to get sight of its pages, and who shun, as they call it, letting sensual thoughts be put into their children's minds as the suggestions of a tempter. They want them kept, as they say, unsophisticated, innocent, and pure. As if this could be in any other way than by the guiding, purifying influence of the truth! Their policy is the most mistaken and disastrous one possible. If they would think they might know that their children would learn of these things under this policy, first, in the filthy sphere of "an evil and adulterous generation" among whom they live, instead of in their own homes surrounded by the true, pure and, protecting sphere of the Church; and thus, instead of the storing of remains of Conjugial Love to incline their future life toward it, they get the opposite lascivious and adulterous influence of the day. Instead of having all their first impressions full of its lovely, sacred, heavenly sweetness, they get only filthy ones. Or, even suppose it were possible to keep them in a spiritual band-box away from all these outer influences, there could be no greater mistake than to suppose, as many do, that their spontaneous development without any of those remains would be pure and innocent. No love with man is pure "consequently neither this love" (C. L. 71), "and because there is within by creation and thence by nativity an inclination to the sex, and when this is restrained and kept under it cannot be otherwise than that that inch nation should go forth into heat" (C. L. 155); and this is "filthy" (C. L. 459), in its natural, unregenerated state in which "he pants after the lowest hell, whence he must be withdrawn by the LORD, first to a milder one, then out of hell, and to Himself in heaven" (D. P. 183). In all this process there is no good that is not formed by truth" (A. R. 832). And "no one is reformed in a state of ignorance, because all reformation is made by truths, and by a life according to them; wherefore they who do not know truth cannot be reformed; but if they desire them from the affection of them, they can be reformed in the spiritual world after death" (D. P. 143). And as men are everywhere taught in the Doctrines, that implanted remains are the bases of all affection of truth from which man has the ability to be reformed and saved, either here or hereafter, it is plain that parents who expect their children to grow up in innocence and purity without anything implanted to give them the means of becoming so are in a fatal error that will surely disappoint them. Cases have been met with that have been allowed to "come up" after the native innocence plan, even up to marriage, in such dense ignorance of what marriage is as to resent the "duty of marriage" as an indignity, and yet that went straight "to the bad," while some have been rescued to an orderly life through the "intermedial method" of which many cannot speak except in "scathing' terms." On the other hand, many have avowed that only the early instruction of the sacredness of all those functions to the final heavenly end of marriage held them like an anchor through all the evils and temptations of life. All which should exhort us to ever think and speak of them, not as the most indelicate, but as the most sacred things of our life.
     I find my friends are sorry that I did not show in my Correction Notes for February that a minister would be committing sin by what in another would not be "an evil of sin." I, too, am sorry that I cannot please my friends had yet stand by the doctrine, as I must do at all hazards. When I find no special commandments of life for the minister, I can see no ground to claim such,-if we have always thought so,-that things that "do not injure the conscience" (C. L. 473) are an evil of sin in his or any other case. Other considerations of which I spoke are, however, not thereby affected.
     I have just read something that made it hardly possible to believe my eyes, as it came to me as an appearance of greedy eagerness of a Newchurchman to convict his own doctrines of self-contradiction on what has not even the slightest seeming of contradiction, but, on the contrary, is a most striking agreement of statements taken from the opposite ends of a course of twenty-seven years of history, viz.: Arcana Coelestia 3246, and Conjugial Love 740 (he says, but as there is no such number, some other must be meant). But there is not even an apparent contradiction between Arcana Coelestia 3246, and any number in Conjugial Love. Arcana Coelestia 3246 says: "It is not allowable for Christians, as for Jews, to take to themselves a concubine with a wife; this is adultery." C. L. says exactly the same thing, and makes it even stronger, because more particular. "It was permitted the Israelitish nation, because with that nation there was not a Christian Church" (ace n. 340). From these things it is evident that to adjoin a concubine to a wife, and to share the bed with both is "filthy polygamy," n. 465, and earlier in the number it is called "both" natural and spiritual adultery." And this is exactly what is called in Arcana Coelestia 3246 adultery- taking a concubine with a wife. And this is the clear consistent teaching all through. I defy the accuser of our Doctrines, or the world to produce a single passage any where in the Doctrines that is a shade out of consistency with this. And any one that is not eager to see contradictions can see without a second thought that neither of these statements have any applicability to a man that in fact has no wife,-is in fact in the state of an unmarried man; that the two cases are kept ever distinct and ever distinctly provided for. The Doctrine is clear and consistent, and I cannot conceive of the state of mind in a Newchurchman that cannot, or will not see it so. And the worst of all this business is that the charge of contradiction should be made against the Doctrines that are the "LORD'S Advent," in a paper that makes a specialty of spreading it before the Old Church world as widely as possible where there is no knowledge of those Doctrines, and no means of knowing that this stumbling block to their faith is a pure gratuitous fiction.
     G N. SMITH.
CONVENTION THEOLOGICAL SCHOOL 1889

CONVENTION THEOLOGICAL SCHOOL       N       1889

     A FRIEND writes to the Life as follows:

     EDITOR New-Church Life:
     DEAR SIR:-In what you say of the proposed transfer of the Convention School to Cambridge I most heartily concur.

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I only wish I could italicize that "heartily" strongly enough to express my feelings on I such a point. Has it come to this, that the representative body of the Church knows no difference between the Agnosticism of Unitarianism and the faith of the New Jerusalem? It looks so, and I suppose an enlightened "Christian charity" is to cover the incongruity. Some years since I spent some little time in Cambridge, and took the opportunity of being much-or as much as I could-with Harvard men, as well as with men of a certain school in matters of the New Church. This idea of intellectual and ecclesiastical freedom is mighty taking, as you know, and I fell into the current naturally enough, and I make my confession that I thought what a nice thing it would be to have a professor of Swedenborgian philosophy established at Harvard. I am ashamed of myself as I recall such a notion its ever, having been mine; but it was even so, and it is one of the things that I owe to that, under the LORD he it was who rescued me from such an absurd phase of faith and such spiritual idiocy. And the Convention wants to do just this thing, to draw a knowledge of thief Word from a school which does not recognize the sanctity of the Word and the doctrine concerning the LORD from those who deny His Divinity, if not, indeed, His very existence. May the LORD have mercy on His Church, and pardon this wounding of His body in the house of His friends!
     I am so truly glad that now, when this temptation has come, the LORD in His Providence has raised up a body which will, by His grace, maintain His Truth with reference to Himself, and not regard this spurious, "charity," which is but the old cloth on the new garment. If this be the work He has given us, may we be found worthy of the honor.
     N.
LETTER FROM GREAT BRITAIN 1889

LETTER FROM GREAT BRITAIN       JAS. CALDWELL       1889

     BY the kindness of a friend who gave me a perusal of the several reports, I am able to note a few of the more striking facts relating to the Societies at Bath, Birmingham, Camberwell, and Manchester. To take them in their order:
     Bath Society has for its minister the Rev. John Martin, formerly of Preston. The number of members is stated at one hundred and one, net gain eleven. I had the curiosity to look up the statistical table of the last Conference minutes, and I found that the membership at Bath was given as ninety-eight. One hundred and one is only an increase of three on ninety-eight. It occurs to me that probably the explanation is this: The return to Conference was made up to 31st July, whereas the report is for the year ending 31st December. If this be the explanation, and if the practice be a common one would it not be better if Societies agreed on a uniform system, and made all returns to Conference agree with the statistics of the last preceding annual reports? The average attendance at the Holy Supper is better at Bath than it is at many places, and the value of New Church Baptism seems to be recognized. The Sunday School is well attended. The preliminary chapters of a history of the Society form an interesting part of the "Report." From this it appears that the Society had its' origin in 1818.
     Birmingham Society is ministered to by Rev. R. H. Rodgers. There are two hundred and seventy-four members and sixty junior members. There are three small Societies in the neighborhood, off-shoots of the principal Society, and to a great extent sustained by it. The impression made by a cursory glance at the report with its record of work done by an imposing array of agencies and officials, is that the Society must be a prosperous and harmonious one. Turning, however, to the minister's report we find him talking about "cloud and sunshine, storm and calm,"-and rather more of cloud, storm, and decay than he enjoyed,-the Holy Supper "unaccountably neglected," and describing their work as the "day of small things." The deacons, also, complain of non-attendance of members at worship, and as many as thirty had been asked whether they wished their names to remain on the roll or not.
     Camberwell Society is one of the Metropolitan Societies, and its minister is the Rev. R. J. Tilson, Phi. B., formerly of Liverpool. Membership, one hundred and fifteen, and twenty-three juniors. The minister's report is cheerful. It is in marked contrast to that of Mr. Rodgers' in that it points members to "true doctrine as revealed by the LORD in the Word and the Writings" as the source of their strength and life, ad admonishes them to be "more diligent in reading the Divine Word and the Writings." From another report it appears that "some senior scholars [of the Sunday School] have passed into the ranks of Junior Members by the orderly method of Baptism."
     Manchester Society is in a transition state. It has vacated the place of worship in Petci- Street, and, until two places in course of construction are finished, is meeting for worship and other uses in temporary premises. The Rev. Chas. Wilkins was minister. Membership, two hundred and fifty-nine. Solemn and affecting meetings were held in the Peter Street premises before leaving. Reminiscences of old times were lovingly dwelt upon. A history of the Society is promised from the capable pen of Mr. E. J. Broadfield. The solemnity of the occasion did not prevent Mr. Wilkins and others from introducing controversial matters. Mr. Wilkins fell foul of the believers in ordination, and gave utterance to some platitudes about the Divine Hands having touched the heads of the "so-called unordained ministers." The same reverend gentleman, when speaking to the children of the Sunday School, about to be dispersed, advised those who were prevented by distance from attending either of the two new schools, to go to a school of "some other denomination rather than lose the benefits derived from such association."
     The Rev. Dr. Parker, of London, the Beecher of England, takes a pessimistic view of the religious situation. He does it with "pain and reluctance." Huxley and Bradlaugh are drawing away the young by the intrinsic attraction of their teachings. What is his remedy? What is to save Christianity? It is a question of men and tactics, he says. Simplify the gospel. Do not make it ridiculous, but do not necessarily eschew humor or irony. This is rough on the men and the humor. As a fact, if clever men, witty speech, and simplification of the gospel (as he understands it) could save the Church, it would have been saved long ago. This will be discouraging reading to those Newchurchmen who trust the evidence of their senses and observation rather than the Word of the LORD in the Writings. It needed not Dr. Parker's dirge to tell us of the true character of the dead Christian Church, but it will serve a use.
     JAS. CALDWELL.
59 COUNTRY ROAD, LIVERPOOL.


     P. S.-Since writing the above I learn that the Rev. C. Wilkins is going to Bristol, having declined a tardy invitation to be the minister of one of the new Manchester Societies. J. C.

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Information respecting the Schools of the Academy of the New Church 1889

Information respecting the Schools of the Academy of the New Church              1889


NEW CHURCH LIFE.
A MONTHLY JOURNAL

TERMS:-One Dollar per annum, payable in advance.

Six months on trial for twenty-five cents.

     All communications must be addressed to Publishers New Church Life, No. 759 Corinthian Avenue, Philadelphia, Pa.

     In Great Britain subscriptions may be sent to
     MR. S. WARREN POTTS, Book Steward, 61 Cathedral Street, Glasgow, Scotland.
     REV. R. J. TILSON, 2 Inglis, Camberwell, London, S. E.
     MR. G. A. MCQUEEN, Crowhurst Road, Colchester.
     MR. JAS. CALDWELL, 59 County Road, N., Liverpool.
     MR. C. E. SCHROEDER, 13     Ashfield Terrace, Newcastle-on-Tyne.
     MISS FLORENCE G. GIBBS, 8 Camden Square, London, N.

     PHILADELPHIA, JULY, 1889=120.

     CONTENTS.

     Editorial Notes, p. 1O5.-Peace from the LORD, (a sermon), p. 106-Conversatlons on Education, p. 107.-The Sixteenth Chapter of Genesis, p. 1
     Notes and Reviews, p. 111.
     The Sun of Heaven, p. 112.
     The Two Temples, p. 112.
     Correction Notes, p. 117-The Convention Theological School, p. 118.-Letter from Great Britain, p. 119.
     News Gleanings, p. 120.-Births, Marriages, and Deaths, p. 120.
     Information respecting the Schools of the Academy of the New Church may be obtained by applying to the Dean, the Rev. E. J. E. Schreck, 1821 Wallace St., Philada.
NEWS GLEANINGS 1889

NEWS GLEANINGS       Various       1889

     AT HOME.

     Pennsylvania.-THE Rev. L. G. Jordan, of Oakland, Cal., has received a unanimous "call" to the Pastorate of the Society of the Advent, Philadelphia. As provided by the Society's Constitution, the vacant pastorate has been temporarily filled by the Bishop of the General Church of Pennsylvania. The Messenger errs in saying that this "call has been accepted." The matter in being held under consideration.
     ON Sunday, June 16th, the Society of the Advent held special services, conducted by Bishop Benade, assisted by the Rev. Messrs. W. F. Pendleton and L. C. Jordan. After the service for Pentecost, or the celebration of the descent of the Holy Spirit (page 91 of the Liturgy), the ceremony of Confirmation of Baptism was performed for Messrs. John and Robert Stephenson and Alfred Acton, three young men who felt unsatisfied with their former baptism by an unordained minister, and wished to have it validated. After this ceremony, Messrs. N. Dandridge Pendleton and William H. Acton were introduced into the first degree of the Priesthood.
     THE closing and graduation exercises of the Schools of the Academy in Philadelphia were held on June 18th. A paper on the "Priesthood" was read by Mr. N. D. Pendleton, and the valedictory address by Mr. William H. Acton. Then followed the annual address to the schools by the Superintendent, the Rev. W. H. Benade, and the award of diplomas to the two graduates above named. The proceedings were varied by the singing of Hebrew and English anthems by the schools, under the leadership of Mr. Emil Gastel, the singing-master, who also sang two solos.
      A FULL report of a sermon on the evils of Prohibition by the Rev. John Whitehead appeared in several of the Pittsburgh papers.
     IN the Erie Herald of June 16th, appears two letters on Prohibition, by Dr. E. Cranch, exposing some of the fallacious arguments used by the advocates of suppression. How much confidence is to be placed in the so-called scientific facts of the teetotalers may be seen from the story Dr. Cranch tells concerning the much-used plates of Sewell, which give what purport to be illustrations of various organs of the human body, in different conditions of disease, induced by the use of alcohol. Dr. Cranch informs his readers that the plate professing to show a stomach in perfect health actually contained a quart of whisky when it was taken from the body of a woman by a medical student, afterward Dr. Cranch's professor, who for a joke palmed it off as being in a perfectly healthy condition.
     New York.-THE "Young People's League," of the German Society at Brooklyn; is a new Society which meets every third week for the cultivation and social entertainment of its members. On June 2d the Rev. L. H. Tafel preached and administered the Holy Supper, and baptized four children.
     New Jersey.-THE house of worship of the Vineland Society is being renovated.
     Michigan.-THE Rev. G. N. Smith is again active in the Evangelization work of the Michigan Association.
      Illinois.-DURING the ministry of the Rev. S. C. Eby in Peoria the Society gained in activity. An external evidence of this is the repainting of the house of worship. The next meeting of the Illinois Association will be held at Peoria
     Wisconsin.-The Rev. H. H. Grant has found a new field for missionary work in Janesville, where he has begun a course of lectures in All Souls' Church.
     California.-THE Rev. D. V. Bowen will now preach for the Los Angeles Society on Sunday mornings, and for the Ontario Society on Sunday evenings. The Society of Ontario, Cal., was originally formed of members from the Parkdale and Toronto Societies of Canada. The prospect for the building up of a strong and active Society here, is very encouraging. The Rev. D. V. Bowen became Pastor in 1887.
     THE second annual meeting of the "American League of New-Church Young People's Societies" was held at the Church of "Our Father," Washington, on May 25th. Twelve Societies were represented, and report were received from sixteen Societies. The League now comprises twenty-one Societies. The chief business done at the annual meeting was the adoption of a Constitution. Pastors of Societies were asked to encourage the formation of Young People's Societies, and the young people were advised not to confine themselves to the performance of merely social uses and self improvement, but to work for the Church, and for the improvement of others. Those Societies which have followed this course are said to be now the most flourishing.
     Canada.-MR. Richard Gunton, of England, lectured three times to the Elm St. Society, Toronto, and on Sunday, June 14th, he preached a discourse. The Rev. J. E. Bowers, the missionary of the Canadian Association, has returned from a missionary tour in Michigan and elsewhere.

      ABROAD.

     Great Britain.-THE dedication services of the new house of worship of the Society at Failsworth were held on May 8th. The Rev. B. Storry, President of the Conference, officiated, assisted by the Rev. W. Westall.
     A SERVICE commemorative of the Second Advent, was held at Colchester on June 19th.
     FROM the Essex Telegraph of May 28th we learn that the Rev. Charles Griffithes, Pastor of the Brightlingsea Society, gave an address in connection with the ordination of a Congregational minister.
EDITORIAL NOTES 1889

EDITORIAL NOTES       Editor       1889




     BIRTHS, MARRIAGES, AND DEATHS.





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Vol. IX.     PHILADELPHIA, AUGUST, 1889=120.     No. 8.
     THE subject of New Church education is beginning more and more to occupy the attention of the Church; its principles are more extensively studied and collected from the Writings and are being discussed in various New Church periodicals in a manner which shows that many are awaking to the importance of schools for the young, in which not only spiritual instruction, but also its natural corresponding forms-the sciences-shall be distinctively of the New Church.
     An instance of this new interest and resulting new light is a vigorous editorial in the New Church Reading Circle, for July, in which the writer says: "The education which the principles of the New Church require is one which uses the objects of sense and the natural sciences as the means of forming and disposing the will and understanding to receive divine truths and live according to them; and this involves a n of them to the training of children in the home, in the kindergarten, the school, and the college an education is possible which has not been, and is not, and never will be possible apart from them. This is the education which Mr. Hite is writing of, and which every Newchurchman ought to be helping forward, and not some denominational schools where a little New Church worship and instruction in the catechism is tacked on to the same kind of instruction in the sciences as is current elsewhere. And it is obvious that such education cannot beknowledge of the constitution and growth of the mind, of spiritual truths and divine ends, and of natural science as related to spiritual science. These things are revealed in the Doctrines of the New Church, and by the study of them and the application secured where the need of it is unrecognized, and the principles which make it possible are unknown."
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     IN the effort to develop and put into practice just such an education as the Reading Circle here describes, four schools have been established within the last ten years one in Philadelphia, one in Pittsburgh, one in Chicago, and one in Berlin, Ontario, Canada. In these schools the child is taught to regard all things of nature in the light of their use to things real-i. e., spiritual-and to refer all at last to Him, who is Use Itself. In the schools, also, the endeavor is made to collect and use the means Divinely provided for the establishment of natural truth in the New Church the Divine Science of Correspondences, the scientific truth so abundantly revealed in the Writings, and the scientific works published by Swedenborg during the time of his preparation by the LORD for his sacred mission. But recognizing that the implantation of truths or knowledge alone does not prepare them for a life in heaven, the especial efforts of these schools are directed to the education of the affections of good and truth, and the consequent graces and virtues which may serve as planes into which the LORD and His angels may flow with Divine and celestial gifts.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     COMMENTING on the late general meetings in Washington, the New Jerusalem Magazine for July, says:

     "Several important papers were presented. That on 'Communion wine,' by Rev John Worcester, pointing out the proper wine to be used, but proposing accommodation to those who prefer must, seemed to us to take the right ground. The discussion which followed showed that the unbending spirit which leads to divided Societies and ministers enjoined from preaching would refuse the communion to those who might not wish to take fermented wine. This Spirit, represented by a few sitting in the rear seats, and acting always in concert, did not permit them to be present at all on Sunday, and led to some unavoidable personal matters. On these we do not need to dwell because these brethren, taking no part in the active uses of the Convention for the benefit of mankind, seem to us not to be in the light with respect to these uses, and of these alone we and our readers wish to speak and hear."
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     A SPIRIT may he "unbending" in a good as well as in a bad sense. The spirit which is "unbending" from stubbornness, or from Pre-eminent love of one's own intelligence, is of self and of hell. The spirit which is "unbending" from an earnest conviction, or from conscience formed by loving obedience to the Truth, is of the LORD, and of heaven.
     In its strictures upon the brethren referred to, the Magazine plainly shows which "unbending spirit" it ascribes to them, and further passes judgment on them, by attributing to their actions, as animated by that spirit, the recent disturbances in a Society in Philadelphia.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     THE cause of the division of a Society may be a lack of charity in one or both parties concerned; or it may be a desire On either side to preserve charity, by preserving to each party the freedom of acting according to their consciences. The cause of a minister's being enjoined from preaching may be a despotic love of dominion, or it may be a love of preserving the order, integrity, and life of a Society or a general Church.
     As may be seen, the Magazine leaves no room for doubt as to which causes it holds to have been operative in the case alluded to. This is assuming both to accuse and to judge in this matter, without having established either the right or the qualification to do so.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     THE Magazine would have the Church believe that "this spirit would refuse the Communion to those who might not wish to take fermented wine."
     Again, what ground is there for such an assumption or for the condemnation that it implies?
     The total abstainers are in perfect freedom to administer to themselves and by themselves whatever they, according to their consciences, consider as the Communion. Would the Magazine refuse a similar freedom to those who administer wine? Or are these to be forced to sacrifice their convictions to the advocates of must-to administer a rite which they not only hold to be no Communion, but a sacrilegious perversion of that Divine Institution?

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Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     NON-PARTICIPATION in any given use of the Convention may result, on the one hand, from lukewarmness toward the general good of the Church; or, on the other, it may be based on principle, involved either in methods or in the use itself. Here, as before, the Magazine seems to exclude principle as an actuating motive in the attitude of these brethren toward the uses in which they may not actively co-operate. Here, again, in charity-in common justice-cause should have shown: for such an adverse judgment.               
      The reflection made upon these brethren because of their acting in unity merits no comment.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     IN all its thinly-disguised aspersions on these brethren in the Church, the magazine not only seems disposed to deprive them of the freedom of acting according to conscience, but it practically refuses to concede to them the possession of conscience as present in and guiding their actions.
CONSCIENCE 1889

CONSCIENCE              1889

     "CONSCIENCE is formed through the truths of faith, for that which a man has heard, acknowledged, and believed, makes conscience with him, and to act afterward against these, things is to him to act against conscience" (A. C. 1077).
     "He who is ruled through conscience acts freely; nothing is more opposing than to act against conscience; to act against conscience is hell to him, and to act according to conscience is Heaven" (A. C. 918).
SERVANTS OF THE LORD 1889

SERVANTS OF THE LORD       Rev. ENOCH S. PRICE       1889

     THE REVELATION of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto Him to indicate to His servants what things ought to be done quickly; and He signified it sending by His Angel to His servant John. (Rev. i, 1.)

     The teaching drawn from the internal sense of this text in general is that, inasmuch as in the Word of the LORD in its literal sense the first word of every series contains within it all that follows, therefore the word Revelation, which is the first word of this series, contains within it all the truths of the internal sense of the whole Apocalypse; yea, as this word is of Divine origin, and contains the Divine Truth, it has in it all Revelation of, Divine Truth, for the Divine cannot be divided. Whatever contains Divine Truth has in it all the Divine.
     The teaching, also, is that the Word is what the Divine has revealed to us and with us-is Revelation; that Revelation is necessary in order that man may know anything of the LORD, of Heaven and of hell, and of the life after death; that, as to time, Revelation is made when the Church is so vastated as no longer to have any knowledge of good and truth, and therefore no ability to profane them; that Revelation is from the LORD alone; that it is accomplished by means of the influx of Heaven into the minds of men especially prepared by the LORD to receive and promulgate it; that there are in general two kinds of Revelation: Immediate, by influx within man, and Mediate, from without, through books and teachers; that Revelation has been given in former times over the whole world inhabited by man; that at the present day, there is a Revelation in the Christian world through the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg, servant of the LORD JESUS CHRIST, and one to the Africans by immediate influx of the angels.
     A more particular teaching, drawn from the internal sense of the text, is that Revelation is for the servants of the LORD,-that is, for those who hear and obey the Word of the LORD In the Divine Revelation of the Second Coming of the LORD; contained in the Apocalypse Revealed, we are taught that "The expression, which [the Revelation] God gave unto Him to indicate to His servants, signifies that this Revelation is for those who are in faith derived from charity, or in the truths of wisdom derived from the good of love" (A. E. 3).
     These Revelations are given by God the Father, or the Divine Good, to His Son, the LORD JESUS CHRIST, or the Divine Truth; to be given by Him to the men who are His servants, or who will serve Him by first receiving truth into their understanding, and afterward bringing it out in their life in the form of the goods of charity; for what is a servant except one who serves-that is, hears and understands the commands of his Master, and afterward performs them? and what servant enters into the good-will of his master, but he who hears gladly and performs willingly? With those who are servants of the LORD, the understanding is at first very deficient. In the first states of regeneration man only hears and obeys, but does not understand, except very meagerly. He hears from natural good, or what is known as a good disposition, the commands of the LORD; so that he shall not steal, murder, commit adultery, etc., and obeys them from a perception, inflowing into the remains in his natural good, that they are from the LORD, and are, therefore, to be obeyed.
     To the willing servant the LORD manifests Himself by inflowing into his will of charity, and illustrating the remains there stored up. "'And He signified it, sending by His servant John,' signifies the things which are revealed from the LORD through Heaven to those who are in the good of life, derived from charity and its faith" (A. R. 5). The question might be asked: "If these Revelations be for those only who are in the good of life derived from charity and its faith, how can they be given at all, since both charity and faith are products of Revelation?" The answer would be that Revelation, as is the case with all other things which regard man and this world, has its degrees of altitude, the higher resting upon and influencing the lower, which had preceded it in time. Here, specifically, the Revelation to the New Church is treated of, which can be given to those only who read the Word with singleness of mind, and obey it in singleness of heart, thus who are servants of the LORD in this degree. These Revelations are, therefore, not for the skeptic and freethinker, who are such from opposition to religion; for these have neither charity nor faith. They have not the Word, nor do they know the LORD. Concerning John's mission to the Seven Churches, we read: "'John to the Seven Churches,' signifies to all who are in the Christian world where the Word is, and by it the LORD is known, and who accede to the Church. By seven Churches, are not meant seven Churches, but all who are in the Church in the Christian world. . . . . Now, since by seven are signified all things and all [men], it may appear that by seven Churches are meant all in-the Christian world, where the Word is, and where, consequently, the LORD is known; these, if they] ire according to the LORD'S precepts in the Word, constitute the true Church" (A. R. 10). Revelation, therefore, is not for those who merely happen to be within the territory where the Word is, but for those who are in the light of truth from the Word.
     By Revelation is meant illustration while one reads the Word, and perception thence for those who are in good and who desire the truth are thus taught from the Word; but they who are not in good cannot be taught from the Word, but are only confirmed in such things as they have been instructed in from infancy, whether they be truths or falses.

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The reason why those who are in good have revelation, and those who are in evil do not, is because all and the single things which are in the internal sense of the Word treat of the LORD and His Kingdom; and the angels, who are with man, perceive the Word according to the internal sense; this is communicated to the man who is in good, while he reads and from affection desires the truth; thence he has illustration and perception; for with those who are in good, and thence in the affection of truth, the intellectual of the mind is opened into heaven, and their soul-that is, their internal man-is in consort with the angels: but it is otherwise with those who are not in good; they do not thus from affection desire the truth; with them heaven is closed. But of what quality is the revelation with those who are in good, and thence in the affection of truth, cannot be described; it is not manifest nor is it altogether hidden; but it is a certain consent and favoring from the interior that the thing is true, and not favoring if it be not true. This is what is meant by "The Revelation which God gave unto Him to indicate to His servants."
     "Which God gave unto Him to indicate to His servants" signifies, for those who are in truths from good; this may appear from the signification of "gave unto Him to indicate revelation," that it is to indicate predictions, or, what is the same, stands for them [i. e., predictions]; and from the signification of "His servants" that they are those who are in truths from good; that they are meant by the "servants" of God, is because in the Word those are called the "servants of God" who hear and obey God. With those alone who are in truths from good is given and hearing and obedience, but not with those who are in truths alone, or in truths without good; for these have truths only in the memory, but not in the life. And those who have truths in the life do them from the heart-that is, from love" (A. E. 6).
     To those only who love and desire the truth does the LORD reveal Himself, for He wants no unwilling servants. The service of the LORD is not slavery but perfect freedom; yea, the only freedom. To him who desires to serve the LORD-that is, to do His commandments-him it is that the LORD loveth. This He Himself said while in the Human on earth; for He says, "He that hath My commandments and keepeth them he it is that loveth Me, and he that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him" (John xiv, 28). The LORD JESUS CHRIST will indicate to His servants the things He has received from God His Father-that is, from His own Internal Divine.
     The certainty of this promise is confirmed by the expression, "What things ought to be done quickly;" for this signifies What things are certainly to be, as may be evident from the signification of "What things ought to be done" that they are the things which are necessarily to be, and from the signification of "quickly" that it is what is certain and full. That quickly corresponds to certainty may be confirmed by much ac handicraft; while he is in ignorance of the correct methods of operation, his motions are at first slow and uncertain, but, as he becomes more and more fully acquainted with his work, his movements become quick and certain. The school-boy, learning to form letters with a pen, at first makes slow, painful, and uneven-that is, uncertain-strokes; but after he has acquired a `thorough control of the muscles of his fingers, and at the same time a correct knowledge of the forms of the letters he is to make, his strokes become rapid, graceful, and even-that is, certain, in their directions. Many more illustrations might be adduced, but let these suffice. Those who see all things in the Word according to the sense of the letter, do not know otherwise than that "quickly" means quickly; thus, here that the things which are predicted in the Apocalypse are to take place quickly; thence they wonder that so great a period of time passed before the last judgment took place. But those who know the internal sense of the Word do not understand quickly but something certain; the reason why in place of quickly they understand something certain, is because quickly involves time, and time is proper to nature, thus quickly is a natural and not a spiritual expression, and all natural expressions in the Word signify spiritual things which correspond to them, for the Word in its bosom is spiritual, but in the letter it is natural. Those predictions of the LORD to the New Church and for her shall surely come to pass; they are "the things that ought to be done quickly."
     When these predictions which are shown by the LORD to His servants, and which are surely to come to pass, have taken root in the life of man, then what was at first mere obedience gives rise to the truth of good with man, by being infilled with the Divine Truth. When, again, this truth of good with man is purified by temptation-combats, then arises another state in the regenerating man in which he acts according to the truth of good with him, from affection for the truth. The acts that he performs in this state constitute with him the good of love, when he ceases to be a common servant and becomes the "servant John," to whom the angels-i. e., all of heaven-come and communicate perception. "And He signified it sending by His angel to His servant John." This signifies the things which are revealed out of heaven to those who are in the good of love; this appears from the signification of "signified," that they are those things which are the contents in the sense of the letter [of the Word], thus those significant things which are in the internal sense. For it is said, "The Revelation which God gave to indicate . . . and He signified it;" and by the things which "He signified" are meant those things which are in the sense of the letter, since all those signify, and the things which are signified are those which are contained in the internal sense, for all things of the Word are significative of spiritual things, which are in the internal sense. The signification of sending by an angel is that the things of the internal sense of the Word are revealed out of heaven. To His servant John signifies that the LORD reveals the things of the internal sense to those who are in the good of love or in the life of charity and its faith; for these are those that are meant by John. This may easily be seen from the meaning of the name John, which is in the original of the text Joannes, which is for the Hebrew Jehochanan ([Hebrew]), which being interpreted signifies Jehovah is gracious. Those only who are in the good of love see the LORD as the gracious and loving Father. To all others He is stern and unrelenting, and even fierce and angry. The LORD appears fierce and angry to the evil that they may be restrained from further evil, and thence greater misery in the hells. This appearance to the evil is also a reflection of their own states; for they themselves are fierce, angry, and merciless with all who come with in their power. To those who are to be regenerated, in their first states, as also in states of obscurity, the LORD appears stern, but this is to restrain-them, so that they may have time to reflect upon their evils, and thereafter shun them.

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But to those who shun evils as sin against the LORD, and because they are of the devil and from him, comes "The Revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave to Him to indicate to His servants what things ought to be done quickly;" that is, they, because they are in obedience to the LORD; are given to know that there is an internal sense in the. Word, which will surely be fulfilled; and, as they proceed in regenerate life by combats against their evils in temptations, the Internal Sense itself is revealed to them from God out of heaven. The LORD "signifies it sending by His angel to His servant John."
     These are they who will be of the LORD'S New Church upon the earth, and of the New Heaven in the spiritual world. This Revelation is from the LORD alone, and it will be received by those who will be in His New Church, which is the New Jerusalem, and who will acknowledge the LORD as the God of Heaven and Earth. Here the LORD is also described as to the manner of His appearing among men, namely, as the Word.
     "These predictions are from the LORD, Concerning Himself, and concerning His Church, of what quality this will be at its end; and they are for those who are in Charity. These things must take place lest the Church perish. They are made by the LORD through Heaven, for those who are in the good of life from Charity and its Faith" (A. R., pref. 1).
     We are taught in the Divine Doctrines of the New Church that the Internal Sense of the Word, which is what these predictions are, will be hereafter revealed to none but those who are in genuine truths; and genuine truths are: that the LORD JESUS CHRIST is the God of Heaven and Earth; that there is an internal sense in the Word, concealed beneath the appearances of the letter; that there is a heaven and a hell, consequently that there is a life after death, and that those who live well will be saved in heaven, and that those who live wickedly will be last in hell.
     From the above summary, when it is known that the extant doctrines of the various sects of the so-called Christian Church deny, openly and unmistakably, the fundamental of all genuine truths, namely, the unity of the LORD and the Internal Sense of the Word, and thereby nullify With themselves all other genuine truths, it may be concluded how vain and illusory is the dream of many within the New Church,-that these revelations are cowing to all in the Christian world, and that it is only necessary to "popularize" the doctrines of the LORD'S New Church, in order to have them accepted by the masses of the people.
     It is useless to preach to the Old Church, except for the sake of reaching the simple-minded who are still in the body of the Old Church, but not of it; and for the sake of hastening the judgment upon the Old Church, thereby increasing the freedom of the New; for at every judgment there is made a clearance of the World of Spirits, which dispels the clouds there intervening between Heaven and the earth. "This is the judgment, that Light has come into the world, and the men loved darkness rather than the light, for their deeds were evil." Those who love darkness go away and dwell in darkness, and no longer, intercept and absorb the light inflowing into the LORD'S New Church out of Heaven.
     To the simple who form the remnant in the Old Church, and who are in obedience to the precepts of the LORD in their ultimate form, and with whom there is enough of the intellectual to comprehend interior-that is, genuine; truths, when presented, comes the Revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave to Him to indicate, for they are His servants; with these, and more to the children born to them, will these things be done quickly-that is, the truths of the Revelation will surely find root, grow, and increase. As these truths are earnestly and affectionately applied to the life of the Church and her individual members, both the Church and the members, will come into the state of the beloved disciple John, who lay in the LORD'S bosom, and the angels will come and continue with them.
     This is "The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave to Him to indicate to His servants what things ought to be done quickly; and He signified it sending by His Angel to His servant John." AMEN.
CONVERSATIONS ON EDUCATION 1889

CONVERSATIONS ON EDUCATION              1889

     CONJUNCTION.

     [Continued.]

     THE natural and corporeal of man are held in connection with the First or Highest by means of successive general images of it formed in the successive planes into which it inflows. In the inmost Heaven, which is nearest to the Supreme, or the LORD, the Divine appears in its own likeness as presented in the love, wisdom, innocence and peace of the Celestial man. In the Middle or Second Heaven, there is presented an image of this likeness, in the charity, intelligence, and rectitude of the Spiritual man. So, also, in the Third, or lowest Heaven, there appears an image of the preceding image of the LORD, by influx from Him, in the obedience of love and faith, which is the life of the celestial and spiritual natural angels. With, the man who is reformed according to this heavenly order, there are produced corresponding results, and when all the things that Constitute the internal planes are gathered in the ultimate or outermost, this' is in the form corresponding to the lowest Heaven. It is in consequence of the existence of such a relation to Heaven a man has subsistence, and that it is possible for him to be conjoined with Heaven.
     The reason of this is given in Arcana Coelestia, n. 3739, where we are taught that:

     "Superiors, when in the ultimate of order, are as in their own house. Such is the order instituted by the LORD, that superiors inflow into inferiors and there present their image in general; and, therefore, they are there together in a certain general form, and thus-in order from the Supreme-that is, from the LORD.
     "Hence it is that the proximate image of the LORD is the inmost Heaven, which is the Heaven of innocence and peace, where the celestials are. This Heaven, because it is nearest to the LORD, is called His Similitude. The Second Heaven, which succeeds, is an image of the LORD in an inferior degree, because in this Heaven are presented together as in a certain general form, the things, which are in the Superior Heaven. The last Heaven, which again succeeds this, is similarly circumstanced, because the particulars and singulars of the proximately superior Heaven inflow into this Heaven, and are there presented in general in a corresponding form.
     "The case is similar with man; he was created and formed to be an effigy of the three Heavens; what is inmost with him inflows in like manner into what is inferior, and this again into what is lowest or ultimate. From such an influx or concourse into the things which are beneath, and, finally, into those which are ultimate, is constituted the natural and corporeal; thence is there a connection of ultimates with the First, without which connection what is ultimate in order could not subsist or one least moment?"

     Upon reflection, we shall see from his teaching that good and truth can be conjoined and implanted in man only by the Divine influx into what is of the will, which causes it to be affected by the things of truth and good introduced from without.

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This affection, takes the substantial form of some general truth, from which the, mind has light or intelligence and which is implanted in the memory. What so enters is formed into an idea of thought by influx from the LORD, and is fixed in substances according to the quality and degree of the affection.
     But it is not to be supposed that truths and goods from the LORD can he implanted in man and conjoined by means of any affection whatsoever. The affections and delights which produce this effect have their origin in love to the neighbor and to the LORD; in the love of sincerity, honesty, justice, and use. Thus in the love of what is good and heavenly; for into such affections does the Divine Love inflow, and produce, on the planes of things introduced from without, successive images of that love with which the Heavens, and the LORD in the Heavens, can be conjoined. Evil affections originating in the loves of self and the world can be the means of forming only images of what is false and evil. If man only learns things good and true and is not affected by them, "they enter indeed into the memory, but adhere to it as lightly as a feather to a wall, which is blown away by the lightest breath of air." Or, again, the things which enter into the memory without affection, fall into the shade there, but those which enter with affection fall into the light; the latter are seen and appear clearly and livingly at every excitation of what is of a similar nature, but not so those which are hidden about in the shade." (See A. C. 4018.)
RENDERINGS AND READINGS 1889

RENDERINGS AND READINGS              1889

     IT is sometimes asked: "Why has not the LORD established a standard text of the Word in the exact form in which He at first gave it to man?" All the copies of the Bible of the False Prophet are identical in diction, even to the minutest points of Arabic etymology; why, then, has the Word of the LORD been left, as it were, to the uncertainty of variations of the text, and to countless discrepancies of translation? Believers in the Divine Providence of the LORD see in this simply a permission for some purpose (and, of course, a good purpose) to them unknown. The sound Newchurchman has, however, a means of determining whether there be any cause for doubt: believing that Swedenborg was inspired, not only as a revelator, but also as a translator, he would see if the word or passage were quoted in the New-Church Writings; and, if so, would at once accept the translation there given as authoritative. The question as to variations, real or supposed, in certain cases of Swedenborg's rendition of the Word is one upon which, though deeply interesting, we cannot now enter.
     And the New Church affords us the solution of many cases where conflict of text, or interpretation, or both would seem to involve only confusion. Her science of correspondence shows us the dualism pervading the world of matter and the greater world of spirit; how a correspondence may apply in a good or a bad sense; how it may relate to the LORD in His Infinite attributes, or to man in his finite sphere; and how it may bring out the close relation between this Infinite and this finite. Thus the Newchurchman learns how the one thing may include the many and a single word express a complex idea. We would illustrate this point by two examples- the one from the Old Testament in which the authorities differ in translation; the other from the New Testament where a variation is supposed to have occurred in the text itself.
     In Psalm cxxi, 1, we read: [Hebrew]. The Authorized (English) Version has: "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help." With this agree in general the Septuagint and the Vulgate; the latter, however, having "I have lifted" (levavi) instead of "I will lift." Turning now to the Writings, we find this passage twice quoted thus:

     "Tolle oculos ad montes unde venit auxilium" (A. R. 336). (Note here the imperative form "lift Thou" of the verb "tollo".) . . . . "Tollo oculos meos ad montes, unde venit auxilium" (A. E. 405 b). Or, in Apocalypse Revealed we have, "Lift Thou (my) eyes to the mountains, whence cometh help;" whilst Apocalypse Explained gives "I lift my eyes to the mountains, whence cometh my help." In passing, we may note a possible significance in the use of the two forms of the first verb, "Lift Thou" and "I lift." There is no contradiction here, for the prayer that the LORD Himself will lift up the eyes of the one seeking help is the preliminary to his doing it as of himself and man is joined with the LORD in the work of regeneration. But this is not the specific point we would make prominent in this connection. It will be seen that all of these renderings are declaratory; that is, they state a purpose or announce a fact. Yet that accurate and conscientious Hebraist, Dr. S. P. Tregelles, in his interlinear Psalter, translates the passage, "Shall I lift up my eyes unto the mountains? From whence shall come my help?"-thus making the text an interrogation, and not a simple declaration. Which, then, of these two interpretations is correct?
     There can be but one answer to such a question-if Swedenborg were commissioned of the LORD to tell us of things seen and heard then what He tells us of the Word, or as contained in the Word, must be true. In this case, then, we accept the renderings of the Apocalypse Revealed and of the Apocalypse Explained as the true interpretation in this particular case, and for the purpose for which these two passages in the Writings were given. It will be noted that in these instances reference is made to Psalms cxxi, 1, as illustrating the good sense of mountains and hills; for (in A. R. 336) we rend:
"Heaven and the Church, wherein is love to the LORD, and love to the neighbor, and hence, where the LORD [Himself] is, are signified by mountains and hills," then follows the citation in question, while farther on in the same number we read, "That mountains and hills signify these loves [i. e.: the love to the LORD and the neighbor] can more clearly appear from their opposite sense, in which they signify infernal loves, as may appear from these places, etc." (See particularly A. E. 405 b). . . . "By mountains here are to be understood the heavens; and since in the heavens are those who are in the goods of love and of charity, and the LORD is in those goods, therefore by lifting the eyes to the mountains is also understood to the LORD, from Whom is all good. When mountains are mentioned in the plural, both mountains and hills are to be understood; hence the good of love to the LORD as well as the good of hove to the neighbor." From the Summary Exposition of the Prophets and Psalms, we learn that Psalm cxxi represents the state of the LORD'S humiliation before the Father; and is a prayer to Him for help, hence fitly representing, not an inquiry but an attestation of the Humanity about to be glorified, of trust in the Essential Divine, and confirming the rendering in the Writings, by the internal sense.
     But, while recognizing in the fullest sense the ultimate authority in the case, we would ask whether we may not also adopt the rendering of Tregelles.

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This may seem paradoxical, yet here is no contradiction, for we are not opposing the testimony of the Writings. For, as already said a single phrase or even word may involve a complex idea-just as it is said (in A. E. 405, as cited above), in regard to the double signification of mountains. Let us then look at this passage as a matter of philology. Here the first verb in the sentence [Hebrew], is the first person, singular number, future tense of [Hebrew], to raise; hence would, unless otherwise indicated, be rendered, as in the Authorized Version, by "I will lift up." Yet such a translation is not imperative, and the clause may be rendered as a question, even though the prefixed [Hebrew] (He interrogative) be wanting. See Genesis xxvii, 24, [Hebrew], evidently a question, though literally it would read, "thou this my son Esau." And again, [Hebrew] I Kings, i, 24, which, except for the connection, might mean, "thou hast said Adonijahu shall reign alter me," while it is manifestly an inquiry on the part of Nathan whether David had so said. (For other examples, see Judges xi, 23, xiv, 16; Jonah iv, 11.) These examples show that in the Hebrew a question may be asked without the usual sign of interrogation, especially when, as in the case cited from I Kings, a negative answer is expected. Then in the second clause of the verse we are considering we have the word [Hebrew], which is properly an adverb of interrogation, and hence this clause also may be considered a question, and we may render it as does the Revised Version, "from whence shall come my help?"
     Thus, considering the subject as a matter of philology merely we might be justified in translating Psalm cxxi interrogatively. But we must never allow points of grammar precedence over a "Thus saith the LORD," and if conflict should arise between the two, no true New-churchman could hesitate as to which side he should' render allegiance. But there need be no conflict, while we admit fully the authority of the rendition of this passage in the citations. We must view them as made with special reference to the particular phrase or word under explanation. But-and here is the point we would make-we should not limit the applicability of the passage to the one instance which may have been given in the Writings, but may admit' that it may refer to other subjects; this latter reference, perhaps, requiring a modified rendition. To illustrate our meaning: A. R. 336 and A. E. 405 are both parts of the same clause ("and every mountain and island were moved from their places") or Apocalypse vi, 14, and the passage from Psalm cxxi, 1, is quoted in the explication of the word "mountain" and not of the act of raising the eyes; furthermore, this Psalm treats of the Human of the LORD in a state of humiliation before the Essential Divine, and is a prayer that the Former may be guarded by the Latter. In such a case the sense of the whole Psalm, and especially that of the whole verse, must be a positive declaration of trust and not a question as to whence the help should come. And in the same way it may (if we can compare things Infinite and finite) be applied to any man reposing his whole confidence in the LORD as the Source and Object of the love signified by "the mountains."
     But are we limited to such a reference? Take the case of one beset with temptations; a man conscious of his evils and of their burden, while the hells would fill his mind with suggestions of his own goodness and wisdom, which he knows all the while to be nothing and less than nothing; suppose this oft recurring state of trial and conflict, and see how well he could take up this Messianic Psalm, and say, shall I lift my eyes to the mountains? From whence will come my help? As though he say, "Should I, who know so well the weakness of my own love toward heavenly things, seek strength in the love of self and the world? Knowing-as I do the infinite love of the LORD, from whom but Him should come my help?" And, recalling past experiences of the power and the readiness of heavenly aid, how he, from a full heart, will say, "My help is from the LORD, the Maker of the heavens and the earth." Expressing a loving confidence in the LORD as it does, may we not use the text in this sense? Such an interpretation is, as we think, fully warranted by the grammatical construction, and still more, by many an experience; must we then refuse to admit it because the Writings, while not condemning the application we have given it, refer it, with a differing rendering, to a differing case? We should think not.
     Thus far we have spoken of varying interpretations; there is a question of much graver importance than this in the same connection-that is, the variations in the text. There is a great discrepancy in the manuscripts of the Word, particularly those of the New Testament, some of which radically affect the sense; and our only refuge is to refer, when possible, to the citations of the disputed passages as found in the Writings. We shall find here that Swedenborg almost always quoted from the version of the Greek New Testament known as the Textus Receptus, the one from which the English Authorized Version has been translated, and to which he has, in general, adhered with fidelity; thus putting the seal of authority and authenticity on the version which the LORD, in His Divine Providence, has preserved to us. This does not apply, of course, to the italics so often found in the Authorized Version, which, in many cases; are only attempts to make the Word intelligible. A striking in stance of this effort to supply what is deemed wanting is to be seen in John xix, 4, 6, where in the Authorized Version we read "Pilate therefore went forth again, and said unto them. . . Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of thorns, and the purple robe. And Pilate saith unto them, 'Behold the Man." Now the word "Pilate" is not found in the original in the fifth verse; the Greek reading [Greek]. The interpolation of the italicized word "Pilate" seems to us to change the whole sense of the passage, which should read, "Then came Jesus out, wearing the crown of thorns, and the purple robe, and saith to them, 'Behold the Man.'" It is to be regretted that King James's bishops, in their endeavor to provide a nominative, should have deprived us of this sublime attestation of the LORD to His true Humanity.
     As in regard to the different manner in which many passages of the Word have been rendered, so in the case of textual variations, we may sometimes see how the LORD' has permitted these discrepancies, as though He' would illustrate the grasp of the New Church Theosophy by showing us how one grand idea can be expressed by varying words. As an example, in Apocalypse xxi, 6, 7, we have, . . . . . "I am Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give unto him that is athirst of the water of life freely. He that overcometh shall inherit all things, and I will be his God, and he shall be My son." Here the Textus Receptus, in verse 7, has [Greek]. This final word [Greek], meaning "all things" is the one to which we would particularly refer. As will be seen, it is thus rendered in the Authorized Version which is confirmed by the Writings, in which (A. C. 2658, 9338; A. R. 890; A. E. 359) we find it "omnia," or "all things," as above.

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This assures us that the Authorized Version translates the original correctly.
     But here the manuscripts are all against the [Greek] of the Textus Receptus and the Writings. This word is found in this connection in but one manuscript (the Reuchlin), of unknown date, and of but little critical authority, while the two most important codices, the Alexandrine and the Sinaitic, with all the other cursive manuscripts, read [Greek], or "these things," in place of [Greek], or "all things." Thus, had we not the predominant authority of the Writings to guide us, we might suppose the Authorized Version in error in this place-as it is, we are sure it is right, and that, in despite of the authority of Griesbach, Lachmann, Schola, and Tischendorf, who all edit [Greek], thus making the clause read, "He that overcometh shall inherit these things."
     Yet, though we may not contravene the text as decided by the Writings, we may consider the two clauses as in fact one-that is, the "all things" and the "these things" may include each other, for these things, the reward of the one overcoming, are, firstly, the free gift of the fountain of the water of life-then the assurance that the LORD would be to the one thirsting for this living water, a God; and, lastly, as the crowning blessing, the privilege of sonship to this heavenly Father. What more could be asked than this? Are not, indeed, these things all things? This promise of the LORD to give the water which the LORD said shall be a well of water, springing up in the soul to everlasting life; this pledge that the LORD JESUS CHRIST, the Alpha and Omega, will be our God, this high honor of looking up to Him, the LORD our God, and saying, Our Father, Who art in the heavens; is not this enough? Is it not all?
     This subject is full of deep interest, and needs far more careful consideration than we have been able to give it. And it should be most reverently approached, and by no means in a spirit of pedantic criticism. For the Word of the LORD is holy, and we must beware how we read and study it, lest we share the fate of the men of Bethshemesh, while we look irreverently into the Ark of the LORD. But recognizing the Word as a holy thing, and studying it, not to exalt our own intelligence, but to learn more and more of Him Who is Himself the Word, we need not fear. And thus studying it, we shall see its fullness, its comprehensiveness; how in it the simple is found in the complex, and the many in the one. We shall find much which will seem obscure, and yet be sure that there is light behind the darkness; much which we cannot grasp, and yet know that the LORD, who is the Truth, has given us His Word as the embodiment of that Truth. Commentators may dispute, revisers may amend, authorities may insert or omit;-be it so. We know that the Word of the LORD is sure; that it is the heritage of His Church, abiding in its own Divine integrity, in spite of all proprium-derived renderings and readings.
Notes and Reviews 1889

Notes and Reviews              1889

     THE second part of the Reprint of the early journals of the General Convention has been issued. This volume contains Journals Nine to Thirteen.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     THE New Church Book Association has published another work by the Rev. Chauncey Giles, entitled The Forgiveness of Sin, a study of Luke vii, 36-50.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     IN the July number of the Reading Circle the "permeation" of "the new influx," supposed by so me to be taking place with the Old Church, is defined as "a sort of bodiless spirit and unformulated doctrine lying around loose, and working at random among the good in the Christian world."
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     THE Swedenborg Society, British and Foreign, reports that it has come into possession of the following translations of the Writings into Russian: Arcana Coelestia, from n. 4056 to the end, the first part of the MS. having, unfortunately, been lost, the Four Leading Doctrines, the Earths in the Universe, the White Horse, the Apocalypse Revealed, the Doctrine of Charity, and Conjugial Love. These translations have been prepared, in part, by one of the greatest linguistic scholars in Russia, who also translated into the Russian language the work on Heaven and Hell which translation appeared in Leipzig, in 1863.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     As a Philological contribution to the discussion on Corporeal punishment, the following may be of interest. The Hebrew verb Lamadh, in its simple form, means "to chastise" (in Arabic "to strike with a rod") whence is the name of the Hebrew letter [Hebrew] (Lamedh), which means "an ox-goad." In Piel, which is a conjugation of the verb expressing repeated or intensified action, the verb Lamadh signifies "to teach, instruct, train." Hence it would seem that the ancient idea of teaching and training was intimately connected with the idea of striking much and often with a rod.
     This idea, also, seems to have been in the mind of Solomon when he wrote these words of wisdom:
     "Foolishness is bound to the heart of the boy: the rod of discipline will remove it from him" (Prov. xxii, 15).
     "The rod and reproof give wisdom: but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame" (Prov. xxix, 15).
     "Chasten thy son while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his crying" (Prov. xix, 18).
     "He that spareth his rod hateth his son; but he that loveth him, chasteneth him betimes" (Prov. xiii, 24).
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     As "striking remarks," the New Jerusalem Magazine quotes the following excerpts from Dr. Tafel's recent work on Order in the New Church.
     "These with whom the Church begins from faith and not from charity disapprove of this doctrine [that some are saved from every religion], and would limit the LORD'S Church to those who are in what they describe as the true faith."
     "The LORD has not charged us with the organization of that genuine visible Church, which consists only of regenerate persons,"
     "It is perfectly useless for us to try to introduce into the New Church a representative priesthood of the kind that existed in the Jewish Church."

     It is difficult to determine what these "striking remarks" are striking at. Possibly at a man of straw, for certainly we know of no Newchurchmen who hold that there are not some who can be saved from every religion, or who have attempted to organize on earth the Church in Heaven, or to introduce the mere representatives of Jewish Church into the truly representative Church of the Second Advent.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     THE seventy-ninth anniversary of the Swedenborg Society, British and Foreign, was held in London on June 18th, the Rev. John Presland presiding. The addresses all dwelt upon the various aspects of the following resolution which had been proposed and finally was passed: "Resolved, That this meeting, recognizing in the doctrines of the New Church the Divinely provided and only satisfactory means by which the revealed truths of the Word are shown to be in harmony with the discoveries and sound deductions of science and philosophy, regard the work of the Swedenborg Society in publishing the Writings which contain these doctrines, as of supreme importance to the religious, moral, and intellectual progress of mankind, and commends them to the diligent investigation of all earnest seekers after the truth!

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     The Rev. Messrs. J. Presland and J. R. Rendell, in this connection, spoke of the devastated state of the Christian world, and the absolute need of the Writings. The Rev. Dr. Tafel spoke of the subject in relation to religion and science. The Rev. Jabez Fox, of the United States, gave some of his experiences among old-church ministers in the Southern States, who had the "Gift books" and from them were purloining more or less of the Truth. The Rev. Thomas Child addressed the meeting on the nature of the Writings as the only source of truth and progress, and the Rev. J. F. Potts spoke warmly of the need and use of a daily reading of the Writings.
     Mr. C. J Whittington was re-elected Treasurer and elected a Trustee of the Society.
     The principal work of the Society this year has consisted in the publication of the Swedenborg Concordance. Three thousand two hundred and ninety-four volumes of the Writings have been sold or presented, 2,939 volumes of these in English, one in Welsh, 94 in Latin, 61 in French, and 139 in the Russian language. One hundred sets of "Latin reprints" have been purchased from the American Swedenborg Society. Fifty copies of the True Christian Religion, and the same number of `Heaven and Hell have been presented to Mr. L. P. Ford, of Peoria, Transvaal Republic, for distribution in that country. Five thousand pounds have been received as a legacy from Miss Diana Clissold, and L1,400 from Mr. Toustanovaky, a Polish Newchurchman, for the' purpose of `publishing the Writings in the Polish language.
SOLEMNIZING MARRIAGES OF THE DIVORCED 1889

SOLEMNIZING MARRIAGES OF THE DIVORCED              1889

     Communicated.

     [Inasmuch as in this Department Correspondents have an opportunity to express their individual opinions, be they in favor of the principles on which New Church Life is conducted or adverse to them, the Editor does not hold himself responsible for the views that are published therein.]


     A PAPER READ BEFORE THE COUNCIL OF MINISTERS OF THE GENERAL CONVENTION BY the REV. E. J. E. SCHRECK.

     THE Council of Ministers has been asked the question:
     "Should the New Church minister solemnize marriages between parties where one or both of them have been divorced for reasons deemed sufficient by the civil law, but not sanctioned by the teachings of the Word and the Doctrines of the Church?"
     By the Doctrine of the New Church and by the Constitution of the General Convention the ministers of that body are bound to teach men according to the Doctrine of the New Church, and to lead them to live according to it. (Article I and Article, V. Preamble of Const.) The question, therefore, answers itself. The New Church minister ought not to solemnize a marriage between persons, one or both of whom have been divorced, if the reasons for the divorce have been solely such as are deemed sufficient by the civil law, but not sanctioned by the teachings of the Word and the Doctrines of the Church.
     While marriage, interiorly considered, is spiritual and hence holy, because it descends from the heavenly marriage of good and truth, and things conjugial correspond to the Divine marriage of the LORD and the Church, and hence are from the LORD Himself (C. L. 308), in an external view, such as is taken, of it by the civil law, marriage is a moral and civil contract. To the civil authorities is granted by the LORD the right to enact laws regulating marriages, determining the qualifications of the contracting parties, and the impediments to the contract; and, while the law recognizes the propriety of the priesthood's ministering a& the solemnization of the contract, and therefore extends its civil authority to clergymen, yet it does not make it obligatory on them to perform the ceremony.
     The reason given in the Doctrines why marriage should be consecrated by a priest is, "that marriages, viewed in themselves, are spiritual, and hence holy, for they descend from the heavenly marriage of good and truth, and things conjugial correspond to the Divine marriage of the LORD and the Church; and hence they are from the LORD Himself, and according to the state of the Church with the contracting parties. Now, because the, ecclesiastical order on earth minister the things which are of the priesthood with the LORD-that is, which are of His Love, thus also the things which are of benediction-it is proper that marriages should be consecrated by His ministers; and because then they are also the heads of witnesses, that consent to the covenant be also heard, accepted, strengthened, and thus established" (C. L. 808).
     For the same reason-that is, because marriages, viewed in themselves, are holy-is adultery the cause of divorce, for adulteries are profane, and thus marriages and adulteries are diametrically opposite to each other; and when opposite acts upon an opposite; one destroys the other, even to the last spark of its life; thus it becomes with conjugial love, while a married man from what is confirmed and thus from purpose, commits adulteries. These things, with those who know anything concerning heaven and hell, come more into the perspicuous light of reason; for these know that marriages are in heaven and from heaven, and that adulteries are in hell and from hell, and that those two cannot be conjoined, as heaven cannot with hell, and that if they are conjoined with man, heaven instantly recedes and hell enters. "Hence then it is that adultery is the cause of divorce; therefore the LORD says, that "whosoever shall put away a wife, except for scortation, and shall marry another, committeth adultery." (Matt. xix; 9). He says, "If he shall put away and marry another, except or scortation, he commits adultery, because the putting away for this cause is a plenary separation of minds, which is called divorce; but the rest of the putting "away, from their causes, are separation; after these, if another wife be married, adultery is committed, but not after divorce". (C. L. 255). "To the same cause [for divorce] also refer themselves the manifest obscenities, which banish modesty, and fill and infest the house with flagitious bawdries, from which exists scortatory impurity, into which the whole mind is dissolved. To these is added malicious desertion, which involves scortation, and makes the wife to commit adultery, and thus to be put away (Matt. v. 32). These three. . . are legitimate causes of divorce, the first and third before a public judge and the middle one before the man himself as judge." (C. L. 468)     
     The reasons for which divorces are granted vary in the different States. In South Carolina, divorce is granted for no cause, not even for adultery; New York stands alone among the States in granting divorce for the sole cause of adultery. In Pennsylvania four causes are recognized, adultery, desertion, cruel treatment, and imprisonment.

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In Illinois the causes recognized are, impotence at time of marriage, adultery, willful desertion, habitual drunkenness, attempt to murder, extreme and repeated cruelty, bigamy, imprisonment for felony or other penitentiary offense. Most of the States have nearly an equal number of grounds for divorce-prescribed by their respective statutes. Some States make non-support on the part of the husband, he being an able-bodied man, a ground for divorce.
     Any one of the causes allowed by the State may, indeed, be used by a Newchurchman in court of law, as the ostensible cause of divorce, in the case when the real cause is another, but one of which the man is the sole judge, according to the Doctrine; and in such a case, if the divorce be granted, the New Church minister may, with propriety, solemnize a marriage with another. He does so on the ground that the abolition of the conjugial, covenant, and hence plenary separation, and. after this the entire liberty of marrying another wife, has been adjudged by the man himself in accordance with the doctrine in Conjugial Love n. 468. In the supposed case, he must have grounds for believing that the, conditions, are satisfied, and, since the involved cause for divorce is judged of by the man alone, the minister will have to rely upon the man's word that this condition is fulfilled.
     As the Civil official is under obligation to the civil law in the performance of the functions of his office, so the minister of the New Church has placed himself under obligations to the Divine and the rational law, and he ought to observe that his administration of the rites and ordinances is "according to order." He needs to exercise great care that he go not beyond his province. His responsibility ends when he has taught the truth. He ought to prevent a violation of the laws of external order, but he cannot judge from external appearances whether men have complied with the Divine Law: that judgment rests with the individuals affected. Were he to arrogate that to himself, he would infringe upon their freedom and reason, and interfere with the LORD'S operation in their interiors.
     In all his official acts, the New Church minister must be actuated by a love for the spiritual and eternal welfare of men, and proceed according to a judgment formed of the truths of this love. He must teach the truth, and by it lead to the good of life. A powerful mode of teaching the truth and leading by it to good is to embody it in a rite in which the ultimate actions of, priests and people show forth the truth (A. C. 5402). The marriage ceremony, as a holy rite of the Church, loses all its value and significance, it becomes worthless and even an evil if its features have not regard for the spirituality and holiness of marriage, as descending from the heavenly marriage of good and truth-even from the LORD Himself-if, therefore, they do not regard the union of souls, the conjunction of minds, and from this, the conjunction of bodies of those who are being wedded one to the other.
     It may be objected that marriages are generally contracted in the world from external affections, because the internal affections are not, and even cannot always be consulted; and that, if the internal affections which I conjoin minds are not in them, it is not a true marriage (C. L. 274, 275), since internal-conjunction, which is the conjunction of souls, makes marriage itself (C. L. 49). That, therefore, should a case arise where there is no internal union, and the law severs the external bond for any cause whatever, no tie remains between the two, and nothing can possibly stand in the way of either of them marrying again, especially it in the meantime, one of them has been growing in appreciation of the happiness of a marriage with, a similitude. This reasoning is valid in case of manifest obscenities, as already shown, but where it is applied to any other case it is invalid, for the doctrine is clear and unmistakable.
     "Matrimonies in the world are to continue to the end of life."
     "This is adduced in order that there may be more evidently presented before the reason the necessity, utility, and verity that conjugial love, where it is not genuine, is still to be affected, so that it may appear as if it was; it would be otherwise if marriages entered into were not contracted for the term of life, but were dissolvable at will, as they were with the Israelitish nation, which arrogated to itself the liberty of putting away wives for any cause whatever; as is manifest from these words in Matthew: 'The Pharisees came, saying to Jesus, "Is it lawful for man to put away a wife from every cause?" And when Jesus answered that "It is not lawful to put away a wife, and marry another, except for whoredom," they replied, that "Still Moses commanded to give a bill of repudiation, and to put away;" and the disciples said, "If the case of man with a wife is thus, it is not expedient to contract matrimony"' (Ch. xix, 3-10). Since, therefore, the covenant of marriage is a covenant of life, it follows that appearances of love and friendship between consorts are necessities. That matrimonies are to continue even to the end of life in the world is from Divine Law, and because from this, it is also from rational law, and hence from civil law; from Divine Law, in that it is not lawful to put away a wife and marry another, except for scortation, as above; from rational law, because it is founded upon spiritual, for Divine Law and rational law are one law; from the latter and the former at once, or through the latter from the former, may be seen to a great number the enormities and destructions of societies and dissolutions of marriages, or the putting away of wives at the good pleasure of the husbands, be fore death; those enormities and destructions of societies may be seen in some abundance in the Relation concerning the origin of conjugial love, canvassed by those who were assembled from the nine kingdoms (C.L. 103-115), to which it is not needful to superadd more reasons." (C. L. 276).
     It is evident, then, that the New-churchman who is to love the LORD above all things, ought to obey the Divine Law above all other laws, and as it is according to the Divine Law that adultery is the sole cause of divorce (C. L. 255, 468), he will not seek a divorce, even if the civil law permit one, on grounds of intoxication, cruel and abusive treatment, neglect to provide, imprisonment, physical disability, and similar causes, and of course the New Church minister will still less abet a marriage that might follow such a divorce. Though it be a divorce in name, and one decreed by civil law, yet it is not a divorce unless there enter into the causes enumerated the element of adultery, in the manner explained in the Doctrines. But if this do not enter, then such a divorce is in reality merely a separation, and, "if another wife be married after separations. . . adultery is committed" (C. L. 255).
     But, it may be asked, are not such civil laws just? Can one live in wedlock with one who is habitually intoxicated, cruel, neglectful, or criminal? The answer to this question is, that such cases are provided for by the same Divine Law-that enjoins that matrimonies in the world shall endure unto the end of life, for, at the conclusion of this Law, it is written: "But these causes do not prevent but that separations may be permitted for their own causes, concerning which above, n. 252, 253, 254, and also concubinages, concerning which in the Second Part."

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     The numbers referred to are as follows:
     That the First Cause of legitimate separation is a vitiated state of the mind, is because conjugial love is a conjunction of minds, wherefore if the mind of one goes away from that of the other into what is diverse, that conjunction is dissolved, and with this love takes its leave; what vitiated states separate may be evident from a recital of them; they are, therefore, as to the greater part these: mania, frenzy, raving, actual stupidity and foolishness, loss of memory, severe hysteric disease, extreme simplicity, so that there is no perception of good and truth, the highest stubbornness in not obeying what is just and equal, the highest pleasure in prating and talking upon nothing but insignificant things and trifles, unbridled eagerness for publishing the secrets of the house, also for wrangling, striking, revenging, doing evil, stealing, lying, deceiving, blaspheming; neglect of infants, intemperance, luxury, too great prodigality, drunkenness, uncleanness, shamelessness, application to magic and tricks, impiety, besides more. By legitimate causes are not here meant judicial, but those which are legitimate for the other consort, separations from the house are also seldom made by a judge.
     "That the Second Cause of legitimate separation is a vitiated state of the body. By vitiated states of body are not meant accidental diseases, which happen to one or the other consort within the time of marriage and pass off, but inherent diseases are meant, which do not pass off; these pathology teaches; they are multifarious, as, diseases from which the whole body is infected to such degree that what is deadly may be brought on from contagion; such are malignant and pestilential fevers, leprosies, venereal diseases, gangrenes, cancers, and other like ones. Also diseases from which the whole body is so far weighed down that there is no consociability, and from which detrimental effiuvia and noxious vapors are exhaled, whether from the surface of the body, or from its interiors, in particular from the stomach and lungs. From the surface of the body are malignant pocks, warts, pustules, scorbutic phthisis, virulent scab, especially if the face is defiled by them. From the stomach are foul, stinking, rank, crude eructations. From the lungs, corrupt and putrid breath, exhaled from imposthumes, ulcers, abscesses, either from vitiated blood, or from vitiated lymph therein. Beside these, there are also other diseases of various names, as lipothamia, which is a total languidness of body and defect of strength; palsy, which is a loosening and relaxing of the membranes and ligaments subservient to motion: certain chronic diseases, arising from the loss of the tensibility and elasticity of the nerves, or from too great spissitude, tenacity, and acrimony of the humors; epilepsy; permanent infirmity from apoplexies; certain consumptions by which the body is destroyed; the iliac passion, coeliac affection, hernia, and other like diseases.
     "That the Third Cause of legitimate separation is impotence before marriage. That this is a cause of separation is because an end of marriage is the procreation of offspring, and this from such persons cannot be given; and because they know this beforehand, they purposely deprive their consorts of the hope of it, which hope, nevertheless; suckles and strengthens their conjugial love" (C. L. 252-254).
     "After these separations, if another wife is married, adultery is committed; but not after divorce" (C. L. 255). Still "the just causes of separation from the bed. . . are just causes of. . . concubinage" (C. L. 470), since the causes of separation coincide with the causes of concubinage" (C. L. 251). And the principle upon which it is not lawful to marry again, unless the divorce has been for the cause of scortation, also underlies the doctrine concerning concubinage, being this, that the idea of a spiritual or conjugial union with the concubine must not be suffered to enter into such a relation.
     Moses, on account of the hardness of their hearts, permitted the Israelites and Jews to put away the wife for any cause, because they were natural and not spiritual, and they who are merely natural are also hard of heart, because in no conjugial love, but in lasciviousness, such as that of adultery (A. E. 710). Inasmuch as "Christians at this day are worse than the Jews were" (S. D. 5978), it is undoubtedly on account of the hardness of heart of the Christian world that the LORD permits such monstrous laws to be in force as we have in the States, in one instance not even granting a divorce for adultery, while in others granting divorces for so many reasons besides scortation, the result of which, it has been stated, is that "in many States the ratio of divorces to marriages is one to fifty-a poor enough showing-but in others it is one in thirty, while in single counties in Western States one divorce is granted to every ten marriages." Thus do statistics confirm the teaching of the New Church, that the state of the Christian world is worse than that of the Jewish world. And the further showing of statistics that the proportion of divorces granted is steadily on the increase, also shows that the spiritual freedom restored to men by the Last Judgment has not made the Christian world better.
     While, then, the laxity in the civil laws exists in accommodation to the merely natural state of "Christians," it is not for the members of the New Church, which is heavenly in its origin, to avail themselves of it, except .in the one case specified, and therefore the New Church minister should likewise not avail himself of it. The priest must obey the Divine Law, and, teaching men the spirituality and holiness of the marriage relation, he must lead them by the truths revealed for his guidance in the Church's code, to the good of conjugial life.
     Too little attention is paid to these truths; yet, if the New Church ministers would truly consult the eternal happiness of those over whom they are set as spiritual shepherds, they would zealously teach the truths concerning conjugial love and its delights. If they did this, and would lead the people to live according to those truths, there would be no occasion for them to inquire, "Whether a New Church minister should solemnize marriages between parties where one or both of them have been divorced for reasons deemed sufficient by the civil law, but not sanctioned by the teachings of the Word and the Doctrine of the Church?"
     In no relation of life is it so necessary that men should know the Truth, and understand the Truth, and live the Truth as in the marriage relation. No relation is so intimate; in none are there much constant occasions to observe the law that evils must be shunned-not from fear of the law, or from fear of the loss of honor, or gain, or fame-but because they are sins against God. In no other relation can man be so closely united to the LORD. And if the truths concerning the mutual obligation of both consorts to each other, and concerning their common duty to the LORD and toward their neighbor, are not brought home to, them and made households words, bound "as a sign upon their hands, and as a memorial between their eyes how can we look for happy marriages? How can we stem the terrible tide of profanation of the marriage relation which has inundated the Christian world, and also threatens the New Church?

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Unhappy marriages are met with on every hand in the Church, and it is our duty as "servants of the LORD, who by night stand in the house of the LORD, in the sanctuary to lift up our hands and bless the LORD," so that, in very deed, "The LORD who made heaven and earth may less us out of Zion" (Ps. cxxxiv, 1-3). We lift up our hands and bless the LORD when we labor for the establishment of the truths of conjugial love, and these, among others, are the truths by the inculcation of which we shall "bless the LORD."
     "That an internal or spiritual cause of conjugial love and friendship is the true religion.
     "Then that both have the same religion.
     "Conjugial love is according to religion.
     "An internal or spiritual cause of conjugial love and friendship is also from religion to shun adulteries.
     "An internal and spiritual cause of conjugial love is a similitude of souls and minds, and an external or natural cause of it is a likeness of manners, and of a state and condition in society," etc.
     (Index to Marriage, "Friendship," "Adultery," and "Religion.")
     If these truths will be taught and followed, then happy marriages will be assured. As it is, marriages are exceedingly rare at the present day. What is called marriage is not marriage, but legalized concubinage, for we are taught in the Writings that "unless eternity is thought of, she is not a wife, but a concubine" (S. D. Part III, 2, p. 213, n. 16). Unless, therefore, husband and wife know, and knowing acknowledge, and acknowledging believe that there is another life, and that this earthly life is only the preparation for it, and unless the other world and in that world their future married life of heavenly usefulness become living realities to them, the idea of eternity does not enter into their marriage relation on earth, and it is not a conjugial union.
     A grave responsibility has been laid upon the priesthood of the New Church in regard to marriage. One of their obligations is to preach and teach how in a marriage that threatens to be a failure there must be mutual accommodations and apparent love and friendship, but this is not the only one they must above all teach wherein the holiness of marriage consists, and that marriage is indeed an eternal union of souls and conjunction of minds-a union and a conjunction that cannot take place unless the souls and minds of both be turned to the LORD their Father in the Heavens, and they both covenant together from heart and soul to be guided in every step of their common life in this world and forever in the other by the words of truth revealed by Him from His Infinite Fatherly Love for the guidance of His children who will be of His New Heaven and His New Church. And in the evangelization of these glad tidings the promise will go before the New Church minister as a bright star of a confident hope, urging him on to the faithful performance of his duty in this direction; the promise contained in these words, "Conjugial love, as it was with the ancients, will be raised up again by the LORD after His Coming, because this love is from the LORD alone, and is with those who from Himself by the Word become spiritual" (C. L. 81).
PRIESTHOOD 1889

PRIESTHOOD       N. D. PENDLETON       1889

     GRADUATING ADDRESS.

     THERE is but one end or purpose in the creation of this world, and that end is the salvation of the human race. To this end, the LORD establishes a Church upon earth by means of a revelation of Divine Truth from Himself, in which revelation He gives Divine laws of order, which are to be for the government of the Church, so that it may stand in a just order before Him, and that the men of the Church may thereby be saved. For salvation is nothing but coming into order before God, and this is effected by obeying the Divine laws of order, which are from God.
     These laws of Divine order, which the LORD gives in this Revelation, proceed from His Divine Love of saving souls, and they are, therefore, the Divine means of salvation, which are the only means, because they are from the LORD alone, and it is the LORD alone who saves. Therefore, they alone are to be obeyed by the man who would be saved. To this end the LORD reveals Himself; to this end He establishes a Church from His Revelation and for the purpose of carrying this end into effect He places with His own Divine Hand, according to His own Divine order, in the midst of the Church, an office, which is to govern the Church from Him; nay more, which is to form the Church from Him. This office is the LORD'S alone, and is called the Priesthood.
     Thus, the Priesthood, as the LORD'S office, is given from Him for the sake of salvation; for it is given to govern the Church according to the Divine law, whereby comes salvation to the Church at large, and to the individual man of the Church. For from the LORD'S office in the Church cornea government; from government, order; from order, subordination; and from subordination to the LORD, in His office of Priest, comes salvation, which is the end; for the LORD as Divine Priest saves. Thus from the LORD'S Divine office of the Priesthood the Church is to be formed, established, and governed, and the precious boon of salvation given; for in the Writings it is stated that the Clergy, or Priesthood, provide for things Divine amongst the people, which things constitute the Church and effect salvation.
     Now, it may be plain to all that the Church can not be established but by the LORD through His office of the Priesthood, and this cannot be done until men acknowledge and receive the LORD in this His office, since from it the Church is to be established with them.
     Therefore, the LORD must be acknowledged in this His office amongst men, and that acknowledgment is this-that the office is the LORD'S alone and in no wise of man or from him; that it is distinct, and above all men, but within the Church from the LORD; that it must not be mingled with the person whom the LORD ordains to perform the functions of that office, but that it is merely adjoined to him; and, lastly, that it must in no wise be considered as derived from the people, and thereby subject to the will and caprice of the people; for this subjugates God under man.
     Therefore, it is of first and primal importance that the LORD should be acknowledged in this His office, upon which and from which the Church is to be established.
     But, Mr. Chancellor, the Church at the present day is not prepared to make this acknowledgment; for many within its bounds doubt and oppose this office as the LORD'S, and thereby they doubt and oppose the very Divine Itself in Its effort to save men, and where this is true, Woe be unto the Church there! This state of doubt and opposition in the Church is one that will bring most serious consequences; for it is infesting the very Priesthood itself, and if allowed to continue it will banish the LORD and destroy the Church; for it will place a vain and man-made office in the midst of the Church to govern in His stead.

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     It is, then, time for those who are Priests in the Name of the LORD to stand together, and in the Name of Him from whom their power comes, repel that fearful flood that belches forth from the Gates of Hell out of the mouth of the Dragon, and that bids fair to destroy the Church; for, sir, it is the duty of the Priesthood to protect the Church, even as the shepherds of old would guard their flocks by night from ravening wolves round about; yea, even as the LORD whom they represent is the Divine Protector.
     It is, sir, time for those who are Priests to God to do their duty by this office to the Church; and their first duty is to guard and protect that sacred office-which they have in trust-from their own vain conceits and evil loves, and to honor and respect it as of the LORD and from the LORD, with them, and then to teach men to do likewise.
     And, lastly, sir, it is their duty to guard that office from any man or body of men who fain would thrust profaning hands within its sacred shrine; for this office is derived from no man or body of men, nor is it responsible to them. Nay, it is not even derived from the Church, but the Church is derived from it, and it is from the LORD within the Church. It is, then, plain that the salvation of the Church depends upon the protection of this sacred office of the LORD. But here let us remember that this office is the LORD'S and that He will protect it.     N. D. PENDLETON.
"ON WHAT DOES THE SUCCESS OF NEW CHURCH SOCIETIES DEPEND?" 1889

"ON WHAT DOES THE SUCCESS OF NEW CHURCH SOCIETIES DEPEND?"       GLENDOWER C. OTTLEY       1889

     IT has been recently stated in an English New Church Journal that "important questions are once more being raised respecting the nature of the New Church, the manner in which its Doctrines are likely to be received, and the distinctiveness of the New and the Old."
     We hail the fact, because it is impossible not to see that, while great efforts have been made in the past-efforts involving much self-sacrifice on the part of both, clergy and laity-to build up the visible New Church; in England and in America, but little success has attended such efforts. Indeed, a writer in Morning Light* plainly declares that "it would be possible to make a table which would show how long a time it would take for some of our Societies to become extinct, and that such a list, sad to say, would include Societies now regarded as among the leading and prominent ones."
     * See Morning Light, January 5th, 1889-the "Decay in the New Church," page 8.
     If this be so, it obviously becomes a pressing duty to ascertain why. in the past the results attained have been of so deplorable and depressing a nature, and, also, - on what conditions alone the evil complained of can be remedied. We propose, therefore, to discuss the important question, "on -what does, the success of New Church Societies depend?"
     But before this important question can be satisfactorily answered, it becomes necessary for us to have, first, a definite idea, based not upon fancy and vague sentiment nor upon ingenious assumptions which a well-informed mind can easily explode, but upon hard, demonstrable facts of what is the relation of the Church of the New Jerusalem, as a New Dispensation, to this so-called "new age,"-of the position it occupies in reality toward this "new age" either as a friend or as an uncompromising antagonist? Unless this is first ascertained, it will be impossible for us to have an intelligent conception of the character of the work that has to be done, and of the amount of success that can be reasonably expected by any Society of the New Church.
     But how can we obtain a clear idea on this important subject? We reply, only in-one-way, and that is by ascertaining what is the spirit of the age in which we live.
     But where is the "spirit" characteristic of our time, especially set forth, and an opportunity given us of forming a fair and legitimate conclusion as to its quality and trend? We reply, again, only in the literature of our age-both scientific and philosophic-that literature which is daily and hourly molding the character and influencing the lives of millions, and which is, in a sense, the perfect embodiment of their ends and aims-of their hopes and aspirations. For, as Mr. Lecky so well says, "the general intellectual tendencies pervading the literature of a century profoundly modify the character of the public mind. They form a new tone and habit of thought. They alter the measure of probability. They create new attractions and new sympathies, and they eventually cause as absolute a rejection of certain old opinions as could be produced by the most cogent and definite argument."
     Exactly so; the "general intellectual tendencies pervading the literature of a century" do "form a new tone and habit of thought," as every educated and observant mind knows.
     But the point that interests us, and which we have to ascertain now as Newchurchmen engaged in disseminating the holiest truths that Heaven can dispense, is, what is the "tone and habit of thought" of this, so-called, "new age?" Is it friendly to the New Dispensation or is it hopelessly arrayed against it?
     In endeavoring to answer this question, we shall confront the reader at once with the opinion of one of the most distinguished writers, if not scholars, of the age-Mr. John Morley. This is what he said on the 26th of February, 1887, when delivering his address, "On the study of Literature to the students of the London Society for the extension of University teaching:" "Modern culture," exclaimed Mr. Morley, "is scientific in method, rationalistic in spirit, and utilitarian in purpose."
     Here, then, is a satisfactory, because distinct reply to our question: What is the "spirit" of the age with which we are called upon to deal? It is, in the incisive language of a high and competent authority on such subjects, essentially "rationalistic"-in other words, intensely skeptical and averse to all that humanity has, so far, labeled "the supernatural." It must not be supposed that this is, as it were, only the opinion of one man-although a very competent man; it is the opinion of every "advanced" thinker of the day, and notably that of Mr. Lecky himself, whose estimate of such points no one would dream of seriously impugning. And yet this is what he says:
     "The general bias of the intellect of the age is in the direction of Rationalism," and this is so thoroughly and unmistakable the case, continues Mr. Lecky, that while there are "degrees in which different nations and Churches have participated in the [rationalistic movement]. . . there is no part of Europe which has been uninfluenced by its progress. . . In all countries, in all Churches,-in all parties among men of every variety of character and opinion we have found the tendency [to rationalism] existing. In each nation, its development has been a measure of intellectual activity and has passed in regular course through the different strata. So much so, indeed," continues Mr. Lecky, "that during the last century it has advanced with a vastly accelerated rapidity; the old lines of demarcation have been everywhere obscured, and the spirit of rationalism has become the great centre to which the intellect of Europe is manifestly tending."

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     And let it be borne in mind that this "tendency to rationalism" is not a merely temporary, and, as it were, paroxysmal phase of the European intellect. This would be a serious misconception, for, as Mr. Lecky further says, "During the last three centuries the sense of the miraculous has been steadily declining in Europe, and the movement has been so universal that no Church or class of miracles has escaped its influence, and its causes are to be sought much less in special arguments hearing directly upon the question, than in the general intellectual condition of society. . . . Wherever [the spirit of rationalism] appears," adds our author, "it represents and interprets the prevailing disinclination to accept miraculous narratives, and will resort to every artifice of interpretation in order to evade their force. Its prevalence therefore clearly indicates the extent to which this aversion to the miraculous exists in Protestant countries, and the rapidity with which it has of late years increased."
     But if this be a fact-and no educated man can doubt for an instant that this is really the state or attitude of the European intellect-does it net follow, in the language of Divine Revelation, that "man has become altogether worldly and corporeal, and even to such a degree that when [anything] spiritual and celestial is mentioned, he feels a repugnance [toward it], and sometimes a contempt, yea, a loathing"? (A. C. 2763). Does it not further follow that it is because the European intellect is of this rationalistic, skeptical stamp that men, in these days, "believe nothing, and, moreover, . . . that nothing with them appears more wise than to attribute all and everything to nature"? (A. C. 2832). "We may summarily reject," exclaims the great German thinker, Strauss, "all miracles, prophesies, narratives of angels and demons, and the like, as simply impossible and irreconcilable with the known and universal laws which govern the course of events." And this is logical, even from the standpoint of our Holy Doctrines; for they inform us," Whosoever reasons from sensuals and scientifics concerning the truths of faith, sticks fast in the lowest principles of nature" (A. C. 2761). This is exactly where the whole of "modern thought" is immersed-"in the lowest principles of nature;" and all development of the human mind on the lines of "modern thought" must accentuate this, and render the condition of the world, morally and intellectually, more desperate and hopeless. "Almost the entire world of the supernatural fades away of itself," exclaims Mr. Laing in his highly suggestive and instructive work, Modern Science and Modern Thought," with an extension of our knowledge of the laws of nature, as surely as the mists melt from the valley before the rays of the morning sun.
     The last remnant of supernaturalism . . . has sunk into the doubtful and shady border-land of ghosts, spiritualism, and mesmerism, where vision and fact, partly real and partly imaginary effects of abnormal nervous conditions (?) are mixed up in a nebulous haze with a large dose of imposture and credulity. . . . Former ages saw miracles everywhere; the age in which see live sees them nowhere."     
     But why does this highly-cultivated age, in which there a marvelous blending of the aesthetic and scientific spirits, and which some New-Church writers assure us in our journals is being more and more "permeated" by the spirit of the Doctrines of our Church, and taught by what one writer felicitously calls "internal avenues"-why does this age "see miracles nowhere"? Because, exclaims Mr. Laing, "spirit may be matter-matter may be spirit," and as long as there is this doubt hanging over the subject, it is absurd to speak to a bright nineteenth century man, fresh from a University, and teeming with scientific knowledge of the supernatural, and even of God; for, after all, "the conclusions of science are irresistible," says Mr. Laing, and "old forms of faith, however venerable and however endeared by a thousand associations, have no more chance in a collision with science than George Stephenson's cow had if it stood on the rails and tried to stop the progress of a locomotive."
     But the harm and mischief springing from such a spirit-one which is said to be "scientific in its methods"-would not, after all, be so great if one could localize it-that is keep it strictly within the bounds of phenomena, and thus of the natural, pure and simple. But this is not possible. For, as Mr. Lecky so well says, "The discoveries of physical science, trenching upon the domain of the anomalous and the incomprehensible, form a habit of mind which is carried far beyond the limit of physics." And it is for this reason, also, that Mr. Lecky elsewhere adds, "the rationalistic movement since the seventeenth century has been on all sides encroaching on theology." In other words, the spirit to which we have been referring, in the extent to which it has developed-and "during the last century it has advanced with a vastly accelerated rapidity"-has not hesitated to carry its methods and modes of reasoning even into the domain of the holiest, because purely Divine, Truths. The following significant words, from Mr. Laing, will clearly establish this view:
     "That the son of a Jewish mechanic," says this writer, "born in a small town of an obscure province, without any special aid from position, education, or other outward circumstances, succeeded, by the sheer force of the purity and loveliness of His life and teaching, in captivating all hearts, and founding a religion; . . . this fact, I say, is of itself so admirable and wonderful as not to require the aid of vulgar miracles and metaphysical puzzles in order to be recognized as worthy of the highest reverence. But the teaching, beauty, and force of example of the life of Jesus are almost lost, if He is evaporated into a sort of supernatural Being, totally unlike any conceivable member of the human family."
     In presenting the reader with this brief apercu of what spirit of the age in which we live, and its attitude toward theological, and hence Divine subjects, our sole wish has been to make it quite clear that so far from the conditions of thought by which we are surrounded, and in the midst of which men live and breathe daily, being in the smallest degree favorable to the growth or development of the New Church, they are, on the contrary-for the time being, at least-formidable barriers to any real progress of the New Church.
     But if this be so, it is manifest that, as New Churchmen, believing in the Heavenly Doctrines-taking our stand on them and them alone-we cannot assimilate anything from the outer world of thought on such subjects as we have referred to; that we cannot, without imperilling our spiritual welfare, and making a hopeless wreck of our very reason and other God-given faculties-proceed on the lines on which the world of "Modern Science and Modern Thought" is moving; and, hence, that our safety lies-in what? We reply, in" Distinctiveness" alone.
     Between the Doctrines of the New Church and "Modern Thought" there is an everlasting gulf, and no ingenuity-except perverted ingenuity-can bridge it over.

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Whether we like it or not; there is no escaping the fact that if we wish to preserve our Holy Principles, inviolate, and our individuality as New Churchmen unimpaired, we must take up a strong and immovable attitude of "Distinctiveness." In this lies our hope and ultimate success-if the facts we have referred to have any meaning. But it is not merely toward "Modern Science and Modern Thought" that it is imperatively necessary for us to assume so uncompromising an attitude of "distinctiveness." Our intellectual and moral foes are, unhappily, not limited to the section to which we have been alluding. Would to God that it were so!
     A new and living Church or dispensation implies, of course, an effete and dead Church or dispensation. And when does a Church become dead? The Writings reply "When there is no longer any charity or faith; because the Church then turns itself altogether away from the LORD, and is no longer in any good, but in evil" (A. C. 10,622). Or, as the LORD has caused it elsewhere to be expressed in His Final Revelation, a Church dies when "There is no knowledge of God, except one which is erroneous and false, and which altogether amounts to no knowledge;" when there is "no knowledge of the LORD;" "no knowledge of the Divine Humanity except a merely historical one; no knowledge of the Holy Spirit; hence no knowledge of the Divine Trinity; no knowledge of the Holiness of the Word; no knowledge of Redemption, except one which is false; no knowledge of faith, except knowledge of such a quality as exists before a blind person; no knowledge of repentance, except a merely moral one, which is no repentance; no knowledge of Baptism and the Holy Supper, which are [regarded as] scarcely anything more than ceremonies; no knowledge of the Gospel, except an erroneous one; no Doctrine of Theology, . . . . because not a single truth remaining; the whole Word, consequently, is not anything. It follows, hence, that there is no RELIGION-NO CHURCH-NO WORSHIP-NO MINISTRY" (see The Abomination of Desolation, the Consummation of the Age, and the Fulness of Time, pp. 34-35).
     Now, if, on the one hand, we have rationalistic foes-and their "name is legion"-and it can only be at the peril of our lives if we attempt to imbibe anything from that source-we would ask whether it is not incumbent on every loyal member of the Church to carefully avoid all contact with a dead system of Religion, such as the LORD Himself at His Second Coming has described through His servant, Emanuel Swedenborg, in such direct and emphatic language; although, of course, the Old "Church knows absolutely nothing about its own desolation and consummation, and that it is not possible to know anything about it until the Divine Truths which are from the LORD In the work entitled The True Christian Religion are seen and acknowledged"? (Summary of Coronis).
     We ask, again, whether by inviting the ministers and preachers of a dead form of Christianity to officiate in our pulpits we are doing what is right in the sight of the LORD, when it is distinctly said in Heaven's Final Revelation "that the faith of the former Church is a faith of the night-that of the New Church a faith of Light," and that these "two can no more be together than an owl and a dove in one nest;" and whether, if any attempt be made on our part to make these diametrically and eternally opposite systems-one from Heaven, the other from Hell-live together in our minds-"there must not" "be such a collision and conflict that everything of the Church must perish-in other words whether "man must not either fall into delirium or into a state of swoon as to spiritual things, until at length he can scarcely know what the Church is or whether there be any Church at all?" (B. E. 103; see also T. C. R. 648). And the early pioneers of the New Church-Hindmarsh and scores of others-were fully alive to this important fact, and hence on a memorable occasion they were able to exclaim, "We are firmly persuaded by certain experience of the truth of Emanuel Swedenborg's assertion that the forms of worship in the Old Church have a pernicious tendency, inasmuch     as they lead the mind to conceive three gods, and teach a justification by faith in the merits of one who suffered death to appease the wrath of the other! The danger resulting from such erroneous sentiments to the rising generation is too evident to escape notice; but rather awakens us to a sense of the duty we owe to our families and offspring in guarding them, as much as possible, against receiving and being confirmed in principles that cannot fail hereafter to prove highly prejudicial to their eternal life" (see Rise and Progress of the New Jerusalem Church, p. 77).
     It will be seen on referring to the above work that these views were subscribed to by the two Hindmarshes and seventy-seven other members of the New Church. But what would these honest, consistent-because thorough-going-New Churchmen, have said if they could have seen, a hundred years later, one New Church pulpit in Lancashire (England) occupied by a Unitarian minister, and another New Church pulpit filled by a tritheistic Congregational minister at Annerley?
     But it maybe urged here, as it is being continually although falsely urged in our journals, that if the "distinctiveness" here advocated is considered as the only means of success in a New Church Society; as proved-by the fate of forty-five Societies which have already ceased to exist-what is the Church to do for increasing its members, if the lines of demarcation between the new and the old-the living and the dead-Heaven and Hell-are to be drawn in this hard and fast fashion? We reply, the New Church has so far been looking in the wrong direction for her increase. She has been wasting, and worse than wasting, her efforts on those who, as a whole, are incapable of receiving her truths, because deeply imbued with the falsities of a dead system of theology. As Dr. Garth Wilkinson well and vigorously expresses it, "There is no reason to expect that truth, however great, will prevail with large classes of men bred and born in the opposite falsity. They are iron-clad against it. Their wills are self-made and self-set in opposition to it. . . and cannot be reached by instruction." But true as this undoubtedly is from the stand-point of mere human observation, we have it on the authority of the LORD Himself that this is a fact. "Those who are born in any heresies," we read, "and have confirmed themselves in its falsities to such a degree as to be altogether persuaded of them, can, with difficulty, if ever, be brought to receive truths which are opposed to their falsities. . . . This was the reason that the Church of the LORD could not be reestablished among the Jews but among Gentiles who had no knowledge of faith" (A. C. 1366). Moreover, in Arcana Coelestia, n. 3898, by way of showing us how fruitless and bootless the undertaking must ever be to try and teach those who are in Dr. Wilkinson's language, "organic and iron-clad against the truth" of a new dispensation, we meet with the following instruction: "The interiors of the Word are now opened, because the Church at this day is vastated to such a degree-that is, is so void of faith and love-that although men know and understand still they do not acknowledge and still less believe, except the few called the 'Elect', who may now be instructed, and among whom [the few] a New Church is about to be established; but where these are the LORD alone knows; there will be few within the [old] Church."

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And why necessarily "few"? Because, the Writings reply, "New Churches established in former times were established among Gentiles," and in Arcana Coelestia, n. 2986, Swedenborg adds, "So it will be with this Church-which is called Christian." Now, if this be the Divine Teaching on this subject, it is clear that the sooner we utterly repudiate the false idea which has so far haunted the minds of Newchurchmen like a spectre or a vampire-viz.: That the truths of the New Dispensation are to "permeate or "leaven" the old, the better for us.
     "But whence, then, is our increase to be derived," it will be asked, "if the distinctiveness now being advocated is to be looked upon as the sole means of success in New Church Societies?" We answer unhesitatingly from within the Church itself. This increase which we legitimately pray for and work for is to come mainly from within her own borders-from her own children. Au it is here that a cruel wrong has been done to the New Church by the highly reprehensible way in which the education of the young has been neglected. Does the reader know that the Church is at present losing fifty per cent, of its young? Is he aware that at Accrington, England, one of the largest of New Church Societies and which has about four or five hundred Sunday-school scholars, there is a gradual, but no less certain, falling away of the "young people" once they emerge from the Sunday-school?
     Who can suppose that our members would be limited a few thousand after one hundred years of hard and unremitting work, if all, or nearly all those children born in the New Church, had remained in it? Should we find it necessary to appeal, only too often, alas! to a spiritually deaf and dumb public* for an increase in our numbers, if we had conscientiously educated and trained our children in "distinctive" New Church principles? We ask whether it is possible to answer this question in any way but one? No; the Church has been largely faithless to her true mission. By adopting a false, because sickly, standard of charity nowhere countenanced in the Writings, she has deliberately scattered her opportunities and brought herself to the verge of stagnation, if not of gradual extinction.
     *That this is no exaggeration is proved by the following quotation from an article which appeared in Morning Light, July 28th, 1888, with the following heading: "Toleration and Spread of the New Church." The writer (Dr. Goyder) says: "Our most strenuous efforts to strike outsiders scarce attract more than a few atoms from the mass of life which surges around us."
     Now it is with a view of stirring the earnest and intelligent workers in the Church to a sense of their responsibility before the LORD that we have ventured to make the foregoing remarks. But if the various opinions set forth in this article be true, then indeed does it follow that we have no means of insuring lasting success except by acting on the lines of the Divine Teachings of our Church-viz.: by avoiding all mixture of hopelessly heterogeneous elements; by not attempting to "put a piece of new cloth into an old garment," which the LORD our God, Himself, declares in His Word, can only make "the rent worse" (Matthew ix, 16), but by being in everything concerning our Societies as "distinctive" as possible-a "distinctiveness" so clearly implied and set forth in the following passage of the Writings: "The Church is in both worlds, and revelation takes place in both, and through that [revelation] separation" (A. P. 641).
     GLENDOWER C. OTTLEY.
NEW CHURCH IDEALISM 1889

NEW CHURCH IDEALISM       B.E.A       1889

To THE EDITOR OF NEW CHURCH LIFE:-You have of course seen the series of articles of E. A. B. in the Messenger. They are simply a condensation of his "Swedenborg, and the New Age." It is probable that few persons have read them and tried to find out what they mean; but yet, with some persons they may be harmful. I wonder that they were published without editorial comment. If anything definite is meant in the articles, is it not that there is no personal and visible God; that there is no design in the Divine Providence, that everything comes to pass-evolutes-even the LORD'S Advent, without predetermination, according to recipient conditions [and yet, these conditions are provided, whether good or bad, orderly or disorderly!] That the Holy Scripture is not the Word of God; but it also is an evolution! that Swedenborg did not give the Internal Sense [although he repeatedly says he did], but only some explanations of it! that the Writings are are not the LORD'S own, but those of Swedenborg, who is himself, the author of them, just as any other man is the author of what he writes, that his condition as the LORD'S "instrument" is the same in kind as that of any other "author," depending upon his states of regeneration for the degree of his illustration ; that we are not to take as the LORD'S Truth what Swedenborg says, but what he means, which, according to E. A. B., is often very different from what he says; and is made up of "great cardinal principles" by which time esoteric sense of what he says is to be evolved; and, therefore, so far as I can see, it is to E. A. B. we are to go for these principles!
     I do not believe in accepting the truths revealed by the LORD through Emanuel Swedenborg blindly; but, having accepted them and his mission rationally, so far as I can understand them, they come to me with Divine Authority even where I understand them not; and to me they always mean just what they say, or they mean nothing: as, for example, where they say that the LORD is a personal and visible God in His Divine Humanity.
     B.E.A.
AUSTRALIAN CONFERENCE RESOLUTION 1889

AUSTRALIAN CONFERENCE RESOLUTION              1889

     AT the annual meeting of the Brisbane, Australia, New Church Society, on April 30th, a resolution was introduced censuring the last Australian New Church Conference, held in Melbourne, for its adverse attitude toward teetotalism. After an animated discussion, in which many members took part, all supporting the Conference resolution, the motion was lost, no one voting for it but the mover and seconder.
Australian "Swedenborg Literature Society" 1889

Australian "Swedenborg Literature Society"              1889

     THE question of instituting an Australian "Swedenborg Literature Society," on the plan of the British and the American Swedenborg Societies, is being agitated among the New Church people in Australia.
CANADA ASSOCIATION 1889

CANADA ASSOCIATION              1889

     New Church Tidings publishes its issue for August and September in one sixteen-page number devoted to the minutes and reports of the Canada Association.
WANTED 1889

WANTED              1889

     A New Church Teacher, lady or gentleman, is desired for a family of boys, the oldest just twelve. Board and lodging and a moderate salary offered, and prompt correspondence solicited.
     Address Dn. E. CRANCH, P. O. Box 603, Erie, Pa.

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Information respecting the Schools of the Academy of the New Church 1889

Information respecting the Schools of the Academy of the New Church              1889


NEW CHURCH LIFE.
A MONTHLY JOURNAL

TERMS:-One Dollar per annum, payable in advance.

Six months on trial for twenty-five cents.

     All communications must be addressed to Publishers New Church Life, No. 759 Corinthian Avenue, Philadelphia, Pa.

     In Great Britain subscriptions may be sent to
     MR. S. WARREN POTTS, Book Steward, 61 Cathedral Street, Glasgow, Scotland.
     REV. R. J. TILSON, 2 Inglis, Camberwell, London, S. E.
     MR. G. A. MCQUEEN, Crowhurst Road, Colchester.
     MR. JAS. CALDWELL, 59 County Road, N., Liverpool.
     MR. C. E. SCHROEDER, 13     Ashfield Terrace, Newcastle-on-Tyne.
     MISS FLORENCE G. GIBBS, 8 Camden Square, London, N.

     PHILADELPHIA, AUGUST, 1889=120

     CONTENTS.     

     Editorial Notes, p. 121.-The Servants of the LORD, (a sermon). p. 122.-Conversations on Education, p. 124.-Renderings and Readings, p. 125.
     Notes and Reviews, p. 127.
     Solemnizing Marriages of the Divorced, p. 128.-The Priesthood. p. 131.-On what Does the Success of New Church Societies Depend, p. 132.-New Church Idealism, p. 135.-Australlan Conference Resolution, p. 135.-The Canada Association, p. 135.-Wanted, p. 135.
     News Gleanings. p. 136.-Bishop Benade's Illness, p. 136.-Births, Marriages, and Deaths, p. 136.
     Information respecting the Schools of the Academy of the New Church may be obtained by applying to the Dean, the Rev. E. J. E. Schreck, 1821 Wallace St., Philada.
NEWS GLEANINGS 1889

NEWS GLEANINGS       Various       1889

     According to a cablegram from London, received in Philadelphia July 19th, the Rt. Rev. W. H. Benade, who is now in England, was attacked by a stroke of paralysis, and regarded as in a dangerous condition. A second cablegram, received July 28d, speaks more hopefully.

     AT HOME.

     Pennsylvania.-THE Philadelphia First Society raised about $400 for the relief of the sufferers at Johnstown. On the advice of Mr. Cyrus Elder, a Newchurchman of Johnstown, the money will be applied to the uses of the Homoeopathic Dispensary in that city.
     Mrs. Ansgarius Boren, one of the senior Theological students of the Academy, on July 1st, was struck by a car on the Wilkesbarry & Western R.R., and received injuries so serious that he died the following day, in Watsontown, where he was spending the summer. Mr. Boren was a native of Sweden, and is well known as a poet and writer among the Swedish-American population. While yet a boy he took part in the Danish-Prussian war, and was for thirteen years in U. S. service, taking part in numerous historical encounters with the Indians.
     The Rev. E. J. E. Schreck, with wife, is spending the summer vacation in Switzerland, in company with Mr. and Mrs. John Pitcairn.
     A COMPANY of Newchurchmen, consisting of the Rev. N. D. Pendleton, Messrs. H. Synnestvedt, and Henry Schill, of Philadelphia, Jessie Burt and Alvin Nelson, of Chicago, and David Klein of Brooklyn, started on June 20th, for a bicycle tour through England and on the Continent.
     THE Rev. L H. Tafel preached lately in an old Methodist Church in Pittsburgh, and afterward, in the house of Mr. Very in the service of the Holy Supper administered unfermented grape-juice to a number of members of the new Pennsylvania Association.
     Canada.-The Rev. E. S. Hyatt, Pastor of the Parkdale, Ont., Society, was ordained into the Second Degree of the Priesthood on June 30th, during the meeting of the Canada association, which this year was held at Toronto, the Rt. Rev. W. F. Tuerk performing the ordination. On Sunday, July l4th, Mr. Hyatt, for the first time, administered the Communion to his Society at Parkdale.
     AT the Divine services of the Berlin, Ont., Society on Sunday, July 14th six infants were baptism into the Church. A rite administered to so many innocents at one time could hardly fail to bring a most delightful sphere, the influence of which was strongly felt during the subsequent administration of the Holy Supper.
     California.-THE Oakland Society maintain their services during the absence of their Pastor, the Rev. L. G. Jordan, and also their regular Sunday evening reading-meetings, under the leadership of Mr. Lucien Putman.
     Georgia.-THE foundation of the New-church temple, in Savannah, has been laid. It is expected that the building will be completed in the beginning of December.
     Indiana.-THE third annual encampment of the "New Church Assembly," at Stone Lake, La Porte, Ind., was formally opened with services on the 7th of July. The Assembly is attended by a number of New-Church ministers. The pursuits of pleasure are varied by Doctrinal studies, in which Dr. Burnham's work on Degrees, and the Rev. W. H. Benade's Conversations on Education are made use of.
     Massachusetts.-THE closing exercises of the Convention's Theological School were held on May 14th. Two of the students, Mr. L. G. Landerberger and Mr. L. A. Rich, received certificates of completed studies.
     New York.-The Rev. J. B. Parmelee, Pastor of the Wilmington, Del., Society, has accepted an invitation to become the missionary of the New York Association. He will enter upon his new field of work about the 1st of October.
     Ohio.-THE Urbana University held its closing exercises on June 19th. During the coming year President Moses will devote his time to a general canvass in the Church, for the purpose of soliciting funds for the college.

     ABROAD.

     Great Britain.-The Rev. W. A. Presland has resigned the Pastorate of the Accrington Society, to accept that of the Queen's Park Church, Glasgow.
     THE Rev. R. Goldsack is about to leave his ministerial charge in Snodland, in consequence of the Society's financial inability.
     A FAREWELL meeting in honor of the Rev. C. H. Wilkins, prior to his removal to Bristol was held on June 20th, by the Peter Street Society of Manchester. Mr. Wilkins was presented by the Society with a handsomely bound copy of the Encyclopedia Britannica, a purse containing L72, and a policy of insurance on his life, for L500.
     THE Fiftieth Annual Conference of the British New Church Sunday-School Union, was held at Preston, on June 24th.
     THE Argyle Square Society, of which the Rev John Presland is Pastor, in 1885 introduced the custom of observing the Sun day nearest to the 19th of June as a special New Church Thanksgiving Day. This custom has been observed every subsequent years and the celebration this year was held on June 10th.
     Finland.-ONE of the very few receivers of the Heavenly Doctrines in Finland, Professor Nils Carl Nordenskiold, died on May 22d of this year. The departed, who was Director of the "Meteorological Institute," was a member of a family well known in the annals of the Church, since its very beginning, and he was, himself, for many years an active member of the New Church in Sweden.
     Africa.-THE New Church Society in Mauritius celebrated Easter Sunday at its place of meeting in Port Louis. The congregation on this occasion numbered more than one hundred. Fifty-one persons partook of the Holy Communion.
EDITORIAL NOTES 1889

EDITORIAL NOTES       Editor       1889




     BIRTHS, MARRIAGES, AND DEATHS.





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     Vol. IX.     PHILADELPHIA, SEPTEMBER, 1889=120.     No. 9.
     THE Word is not understood without doctrine; but how prone are the men of the New Church to ignore this plain teaching, and to interpret the Divine commands according to "the letter that killeth," instead of according to "the spirit that maketh alive."
     A remarkable instance of this kind of interpretation is to be found in an editorial in the New Church Messenger for August 7th, 1889, under the heading, "The Brotherhood of Evil." The article treats of the words of the LORD to the accusers of the woman taken in adultery-"Let him that is without sin among you first cast a stone at her."
     "Practically," the editorial says, "these words affirm that no one is without sin, and that, therefore, every one is estopped from judgment."
     It is true that no one is without evil, but he who shuns and combats his evils is without sin; it does not follow, however, that every one is estopped from judgment, but that judgment is not to be wade from evil. To judge, in the internal sense, is to arrange truths, and with the individual, where there is just judgment, it is to form and arrange correct ideas concerning the good or evil of actions, and the truth or falsity of doctrines, and if necessary to give expression to those ideas. "The LORD saith, 'Judge not that ye be not condemned' (Matt. vii, 1), by which can by no means be meant judgment concerning the moral and civil life of any one in the world; but concerning the spiritual and celestial life of any one: Who does not see that, if it were not allowed to judge respecting the moral and civil life of those dwelling together in the world, society would fall. What would society be if there were no public judgments, and if every one did not exercise his judgment respecting another? But to judge what is the quality of the interior mind or soul, thus what is the quality of any one's spiritual state, and thence what his lot is after death-respecting these things, because they are known to the LORD alone, it is not allowed to judge. . . . A general judgment, such as this-'If you are in internals such as you appear in externals, you will be saved or condemned,' is allowed, but a particular judgment such as this,-'You are such in internals, therefore you will be saved or condemned,' is not allowed" (C. L. 523).
     "By his sinfulness," continues the Messenger, "each is connected with all who are evil. . . . The criminal is our brother, not only because the divine image has been impressed upon him, but because that image has been perverted by us as well as by him." (The italics are ours).
     There is no brotherhood in hell, or, what is the same thing, in evil. Good and truth alone conjoin; evil and the false disjoin, separate, and disperse. Good is the neighbor or brother whom man is to love. Evil is the enemy who is to be cast down and vanquished. All who' are in evils in hell are together, the Devil and Satan.
     Every one, as well he who is in evils as he who is in goods, is neighbor and brother to the man of the Church just in the degree that there is something good thus salvable in him.
     Brotherhood derives its quality from the quality of the fatherhood, and since the LORD is the Father of all, if there be a "brotherhood of evil"-but who dare carry this to its legitimate, logical conclusion?
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     STILL further on, the Messenger says, "If we are capable of sinning at all it is only a question of the degree of temptation that will determine the greatness of the crime we are liable to commit."
     Here, again, as above, the Messenger seems to overlook the distinction clearly made in the Writing between sin and evil. Whatever is contrary to Divine Order is evil, but only that evil which is loved by man and confirmed in his life is a sin with him. So far as man shuns evils his will is influenced with good (T. C. R. 330). Let us discriminate between these things lest of diverse evils we make one pottage, and of diverse goods one paste (C. L. 444*).
     Another doctrine that seems to have been overlooked is that the LORD permits no man to be tempted beyond the power to resist which the LORD continually gives to him. With the man who looks to the LORD and who desires to be rid of his evils, the LORD is more than ever present (A. C. 840).
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     THE Messenger says: "The LORD says to us, 'Let him that is without sin'-that is, no one of us-'first cast a stone at her'-that is, pass judgment against evil."
     This is not the correct interpretation. The interpretation given by the LORD Himself may be found in the Apocalypse Revealed, n. 304, at the end of the number, as follows:
     "When the Scribes and Pharisees tempted the LORD concerning the woman taken in adultery, He stooped down, and with His finger wrote on the ground, signifying that the Church was full of adulteries-that is, full of the adulteration of good and the falsification of truth; wherefore, He said to them: 'He that is without sin among you let him first cast a stone at her, and they went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last.'"
     The LORD was here addressing the Scribes and Pharisees, whom He calls an "evil and adulterous generation," who are not to judge and who cannot judge of evil. Neither may individuals pass condemnation upon others from motives of self-love, as vengeance, the desire to supersede, and the like; but while the individual may not pass judgment from self; the "men of the city"-that is, the truths of the Church-are to "stone" certain ones "to death"-that is, pass judgment upon evils and falses-and separate them from society, from the Church, and from the individual.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     "AGAIN," says the Messenger, "when we criticise another because his actions do not meet with our approval, we are thereby spiritually casting a stone at him. Let him who is above criticism be the critic. As only he who is without sin could cast a stone at this woman, so only he whose thoughts and affections and actions and life have always been beyond all reproach can criticise another; . . . so only he upon whose life no adverse judgment can be passed, can judge of others".

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     Here let it be said that there is criticism and criticism. There may be, and no doubt often is criticism from a desire merely to and fault and "accuse the brethren;" but there is also a criticism that is absolutely necessary, to enable the man of the Church to discriminate between good and evil. He who criticises the actions; utterances, or writings of another because they appear to be evil, false, or erroneous, and in order that men may not be misled thereby, does not in any bad sense "cast a stone" at him.
     There is also another error inculcated in the editorial referred to, namely, that only the one who has never erred is fitted to criticise. This would make all criticism in all planes of life impossible. If this should be the standard, what would become of literary, scientific, or other criticism-that is, discrimination between the true and the false, the good and the evil?
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     THE following is an extract from the letter of a young lady who is a teacher in a New Church Sunday-school, in a city in one of the Western States:

     "A family has recently moved here from England, that formerly belonged to the --- Society. One of the children, a bright little girl of twelve years, is in my Sunday-school class. She was much surprised to hear me say that the LORD JESUS CHRIST is the only God of heaven and earth. She said she had not been told so in Mr. ---`s Sunday-school, and quoted several verses from the Word to prove that He was the Son of God. Is it not terrible to think of? The external circumstances had been that she had not attended Sunday-school very regularly, and had, probably gained most of her ideas from Old Church associates; but she belongs to a so-called New Church family!"

     It may well be asked, "Is it not terrible to think of?" when it becomes evident that a child of twelve years, reared in a New Church family, within the bosom of the Church, has been so neglected that it knows not the very fundamental doctrine upon which all things of the Church depend. "Upon a just idea of God is founded the whole heaven and the whole Church) and all things of religion, because thereby is conjunction with. God, and by conjunction heaven and eternal life. And as the LORD Himself is the God of heaven and earth, if He is not acknowledged, no one is admitted into heaven" (A. R. Pref. & n. 469).
     The above-mentioned case is another confirmation of the growing belief in the necessity of an absolutely distinctive New Church education.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     A GLEAM of consistency is still to be seen here and there in the consummated Church, as may appear from the following from the Herold und Zeitschrift, "a Lutheran weekly paper for Church, School, and Rome," for June 29th, 1889:

     "Objectionable Practice-The Swedenborgian Conference met in Washington, D.C., in the early part of June [should have said latter part of May,] and on Sunday two of their ministers preached in the English Lutheran St. Paul's Church. The pastor of the Lutheran society, who permitted such an offensive thing, is Dr. ---, a member of the General Synod! Swedenborgians notoriously reject the greater part of the Evangelical doctrine of Salvation, the Trinity, and the Divinity of Christ, the Atonement, etc. This is the pretty fruit of the much-praised liberality in the circle of the General Synod!".

     It is not necessary to say anything about the falsity of the above statement concerning the rejection of true evangelical doctrines by the "Swedenborgians," but it ought to be said that the action of the ministers of the New Church who are so anxious to affiliate with the old "is the pretty fruit of the much-praised, liberality" of a certain class of Newchurchmen, who apparently forget that the LORD'S command to His true followers-that is, those who alone of all others acknowledge His Divinity-is, "Cast not your pearls before swine, LEST THEY TRAMPLE THEM UNDER THEIR FEET, AND TURNING REND YOU" (Matt. vii, 6). "By swine are meant those who love only worldly wealth, and not spiritual wealth, which are knowledges of good and truth from the Word" (T. C. R. 727). The Old Church does not love spiritual wealth, for she does not acknowledge the truths and goods of the Word, but she does love worldly wealth for she loves-man-made doctrines alone.
LOVE OF DOCTRINE 1889

LOVE OF DOCTRINE       Rev. ROBERT J. TILSON       1889

     "Walk about Zion, go round about her; number her towers, set your heart to her bulwarks, observe distinctly her palases, that ye may tell it to the generation following." Ps. xlviii, 12, 13.

     IN the spiritual sense of the Word, as revealed in the Writings of our Church, we are taught that wherever the terms Zion and Jerusalem are used in the Scriptures, they refer to the Church either in Heaven or upon the earth. Directly we admit this fact into our minds, we see how forcible and how valuable are the many references to Zion and Jerusalem in the Word, which, in the sense of the letter, are unintelligible. But at the outset of our meditations, as we remember the spiritual meaning of these terms as they occur in our text, we are met with the important question, What is a Church? A building dedicated to worship and instruction in Divine things? No, not in itself: A constitution or agreement, drawn up, and subscribed to, by men? No, not in itself. These certainly cannot be called the kingdom of God on earth, by anything inherent in themselves. They may be creations-ultimate forms of the Church, but they are not in themselves, severally or collectively, a Church. What then is a Church? The question is not as simple as to some it may appear.
     By giving a too hasty reply many have been led into real bigotry, into license, and into serious error.
     As it exists within man the Church is the knowledge of truth wedded to the love of it; and thus truth manifested in a righteous, honest, and unselfish life.
     As it exists without man, an external visible fact, the Church is doctrine revealed by the I LORD. "The Church is called a Church from doctrine" (A. R. 923). And what is called a Church by men, is not a Church without doctrine (97). Nothing that belongs, to us can make a real true Church of God, even as nothing which inherently belongs to an angel can make Heaven. Whatever belongs to men or angels in itself is not good, not pure, and therefore can neither make nor be part of the Church or Heaven. The Divine of the LORD, as manifested in Divine Truth, alone makes both Heaven and the Church.
     Not even the possession of the Divine Word, in itself makes the Church. To read it, to hear it or even to know something of the literal sense of the Word, does not make the Church, for it is the true understanding of the Word which makes the Church. Yea, not even doctrine, in itself makes the true Church; but "soundness and purity of doctrine, consequently the understanding of the Word," this, and only this makes the true Church of the LORD, as an external visible fact.

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Hence the external Church consists of Doctrine, and every Church, so-called, is of the same quality "as is the Understanding of the Word in it; excellent and precious if the understanding be from genuine truths of the Word, but destroyed, yea, filthy, if from those that are falsified" (T. C. R. 247).
     How important, then, it is that we should see that the Church we join-i. e., the doctrine to which we subscribe, is the true Church of the living God; or, in other words, how careful we should be to see that our understanding of the Divine Word is excellent, pure, and sound, that we many be citizens of the true Zion of God here, and passing hence at death, may enter eternally the true Jerusalem in Heaven.
     This duty, the importance of which we are now endeavoring to urge, is the duty which is taught us in the words of our text. For, as we have before seen, Zion represents the Church of the LORD, the celestial Church, which is doctrine drawn from time Divine Word, based upon love, imbued with it, and lending to it-to love to the LORD.
     We are commanded to "walk about Zion and go round about her," to "number her towers," to "set our heart to her bulwarks," and to "observe distinctly her palaces, that" we "may tell it to the generation following."
     Now we spiritually "walk about Zion, and go round about her" when we embrace, from ardent love to the LORD, the principles which belong to the Church, the virtues and graces which are taught, and which are led up to by a rational understanding of the Divine Word, for this makes the Church. When our desires, our loves, are earnestly fixed upon those things which Divine Revelation makes known to us, fixed so earnestly that it is our dear delight to meditate upon them, our great pleasure to converse about them, and our wholehearted purpose to live them, then do we "walk about Zion and go round about her," feeling her to be our chief joy, our comfort, and our hope, yea, the dwelling-place of our Heavenly King. And when in the strength of Heaven we are enabled to do this, embracing from genuine love to the LORD the things of the Church, we shall be led to obey the further injunction that we should "number the towers of Zion;" for by towers are meant the interior and superior truths of the Church as revealed in her doctrine. For things which are interior in the mind are represented in the Divine Word by those things in nature which are elevated and high, such as mountains, hills, towers, housetops, and the like. Mountains are predicated of love, and towers of truth, and by to number in the Word is meant to examine the quality, that the true character of a thing may be seen. Hence by to number the towers of Zion, we are instructed to ponder well, to meditate earnestly upon those interior truths of the Church which preserve and defend in us the Divine virtues and graces of love to the LORD as our Heavenly Father. How great a need there is for us, as professing Christians to take this lesson seriously to heart! The whole inherent nature of man rebels against this numbering of the towers of Zion. Everything worldly in us, all our natural man, endeavors to persuade us to do without, to avoid pondering over the interior truths of Divine revelation, those truths which can be obtained only by close thought, by diligent study, by calm and earnest reflection.
     Our lower nature tells us that these things are dry, irksome, and uninteresting; that they are not essential to salvation; that they are better left to Ministers; and that they had better keep them for the library, or permit them only to enjoy the publicity of a doctrinal class ending meeting. Yea, brethren, our lower nature is so successful at times in hindering us from pondering over the interior things of the Church, from numbering the towers of Zion, that it even persuades us that our neglect of this duty is an outcome of our charity and our liberality; for so forcibly and fully can a demon of falsity assume the guise of an angel of light.
     Can any of the truths revealed from Heaven be nonessential? Interior truths, the expression of a Father's Divine Love, be dry, be irksome, be unwelcome from the Pulpit? If we think them such, where lies the fault, think ye? In the interior truths revealed from Heaven? That cannot be. In our states? Yes, that's it. The fault is in us, in our worldly-mindedness, our want of real spirituality, our superficiality, our laziness; in these things lies the cause. And, as men and women, looking to an All-wise Father, trying to hear His voice, it is for us to compel ourselves, to force ourselves, despite inclinations, to read the interior things of Divine Revelation, to ponder and to meditate upon them, that we may obey the Divine Command, given in love for our truest good, that we should "number the towers of Zion" should ponder over interior truths revealed by the LORD from His Word, which truths we find in the heavenly Doctrines of our Church, contained in those Writings given to the world by the LORD, through the instrumentality of Emmanuel Swedenborg.
     If we bring ourselves to the faithful obedience of the first portion of our text, compelling ourselves to delight in the interior things of the Church, and to meditate upon them, we shall find it comparatively easy to obey the further command concerning Zion, "set your hearts to the bulwarks," for by bulwarks, or outworks, are meant the exterior truths of revelation, which protect the Church against falsities, even as bulwarks serve for the defense of the city.
     It is our duty to love these snore external truths, to use them as means for the end of destroying the pernicious falsities which abound on every hand, and which are urged under the name of religion and theology. And as we love these truths, it will be our blest privilege to see and to recognize time good to which they lead, the useful, disinterested, and honorable lives they produce when truly loved; for this perception of the good produced by truth, of the use resulting from knowing and living the teaching of the Word, is represented in our text by the further command, "observe distinctly her palaces," for by palaces are signified the good-produced by truth, and realized by those who have conquered in temptation.
     And in all our efforts to comply with the great teaching of our text there must be the underlying desire that our love for things good and true, and our desires loyally to abide by the truths in mind and life, shall be permanent and eternal. We must seek truth interior and exterior, and the goodness which springs therefrom, from no tinge-serving ends, from no mere memory delight, from no mere love of argument or reason, but from a sincere, a deep-seated desire that the truth, and the good resulting from obedience to the truth, may be always in us, with us here, with us hereafter, always and ever in us as our life, our hope, and trust; for this is taught in the words, "that we may tell it to the generation following." For the great end and purpose for which all truth is revealed, and all doctrine given, is goodness of soul and disinterestedness of life. This great end, however, can only follow when the love of the heart is elevated and purified in the same proportion as the mind is raised by the acceptance, the rational understanding of truth.

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We are taught by the LORD in the Writings, that "If the love which is of the will be not raised at the same time, the wisdom which is of the understanding, however it may have ascended, still falls back again, down, to its love." Here we have teaching of the utmost importance. We can only be led to good by truth, but we may be induced to rest satisfied with truth in the mind, and not go on to goodness in the heart. And into this deplorable state we are sure to fall, if we do not acknowledge the Divine authority of the truth we receive, and if we cease not to love the truth: merely because it pleases our reason, and cause ourselves to love it because it is the revealed will of our Father expressing His Divine Love.
     Such, then, is the teaching of our text. It exhorts us to embrace, from feelings of earnest love to the LORD, the things pertaining to the Church as consisting of doctrine revealed from Heaven. We are to "walk about Zion and go round about her." It instructs us to ponder upon - the interior truths of the Church, to make them the delight of our study and the standard of our conduct. We are to "number the towers of Zion." It further tells us to love the exterior doctrines of the Church, to delight in those general truths which are I ever requisite to be known to escape the many falsities so, eagerly asserted as the outcome of Divine Truth. We are to "set our hearts to the bulwarks of Zion." Again, it teaches us to perceive and to recognize the good virtues and graces of life to which the truths lead.
     We are to "observe distinctly the palaces of Zion." And all this we are to do with a fervent desire to make permanent in our characters those graces and those virtues which truths loved and lived produce; for we are to "tell it to the generation following."
     My brethren, what importance should these lessons assume in our minds. By the Divine Providence of the LORD we have been led into connection with the Church of the New Jerusalem, which is to be the Crown of all Churches. Our privilege it is to realize in some measure the Divine promise: "Behold, I make all things new;" and by these words we are instructed: " Nothing else. is meant than that in the Church now to be established by the LORD there will be new doctrine which did not exist in the former Church" (Doc. LORD 65). Thus is the Church now being established upon the earth, a New Church, because its doctrine is new; for doctrine makes the Church. Indeed, we are taught that the reason why the Spiritual Sense of the Word is at this day made known by the LORD is because the doctrine of genuine truth is now revealed, and this doctrine skid no other agrees with the spiritual sense of the Word" (S. S. 25).
     This New Church then brings to us a new message, of deeper and inner import, exceeding all the Revelations ever made to the Church before, or "its doctrinals are truths continuous from the LORD, laid open by the Word" (T. C. R. 508).
     Shall we not rise to the blessings offered us in the Church we profess to love? There is a power, a comfort unknown to the world in the knowledge and life of truth.
     Truth is the form of good, and every new truth received into man's mind is another vessel, waiting for the reception of increased goodness from the LORD. And it waits nothing, for our Father's continual care is to pour into the souls of His children all the blessing, comfort, and power they are able to receive. But, the vessels receptive of celestial graces and blessings, are truths, and only truths, as made known by doctrine revealed from heaven. Without truths no spirituality, of character can be obtained. In the Writings the LORD teaches us: "A man may, indeed, live like a Christian without truths, yet, only before men, and, not in the sight of the angels" (A. R. 706). Let us then continually strive to fight against the inclination arising perpetually from our unregenerate nature urging us to the neglect and depreciation of doctrine derived from the Word, and revealed from Heaven. Let us ever shear in mind the teaching that the LORD Himself is doctrine (A. C. 2633); and this being so, it follows that to despise doctrine is to despise the LORD, and to neglect doctrine is to neglect the LORD.
     Lot us compel ourselves duly and reverently to repair to the LORD in His Truth in His Word, as He waits to meet us in the Letter of that Word as we have it, and in the Spirit of that Word in the Writings; so will He refresh us from His streams of living water; life will become to us a nobler thing; earth's commonest duties will yield a bliss never dreamt of before, and death will be anticipated with no fear or gloom, but will be looked forward to as a glorious change from that which is narrow and gross to that which is extensive and pure. Thus, loving the doctrine revealed from. Heaven, and thus living it, we shall fulfill the loving command of our text "Walk about Zion and go round about her, number her towers. Set your heart to her bulwarks, observe distinctly her palaces, that ye may tell it to the generation following." And continually seeing in the doctrine we love, the head of the Church, accepting it as we find it in the Writings, as coming with a "Thus saith the LORD," we shall join in the exclamation following the words of, our text, and shall gladly say: "For this God is our God forever and ever: He will be our guide even unto death." Amen.
CONVERSATIONS ON EDUCATION 1889

CONVERSATIONS ON EDUCATION              1889

     CONJUNCTION.

     [Continued.]

     MAN in general is constituted of an internal or rational and an external or natural, to which there is adjoined a material body; or, reversing the order of the series, of a corporeal, a natural, and a spiritual or rational. And it may be said of him that he is one or the other of these as to quality, according as one or the other of them predominates. These constituent parts of man are in communication, and he is perfected in the degree in which this communication takes place by the influx of the higher into the lower, and, by the orderly subjection of the lower to the higher. The body, or corporeal part of man, by means of the senses which belong to it-takes in the things of the natural world from without, and, by means of these communicates with the natural part, within which are the understanding and will. This communication is distinctly two-fold. Some of the things received from without affect the understanding, some affect the will, and others affect both understanding and will at the same time. What enters by the sight affects the understanding, what by the hearing effects the will and also the understanding. The things that enter through the other senses affect, especially, the will. In this way two images may be produced in man by means of the things which are introduced from the world without him. The one image is their appearance to the understanding, and the other is their appearance to the will. The former image comes, for the most part to the consciousness of man, the latter affects him unconsciously.
     In the natural part of man is the memory, which is internal and also external, and is composed of spiritual and of natural substances.

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Whatever enters by the corporeal, and is communicated to the natural by the formation of an image in it, is reposited in the memory, together with the pleasures, delights, and lusts which it has excited in the will, and with the scientifics which it has given to the understanding. These scientifics are called natural truths, and those delights, etc., are called natural goods. As soon as there are such things in the memory, the natural part of man is' supplied with the means of communicating with the rational, and when this communication takes place there is effected an elevation of natural truths and goods to the plane of the rational, where they can become reasons of truth and good, and can be placed in the internal memory, which is connected with the rational or thinking part of man. The good and happy things, so elevated, belong to the will, and constitute man's rational good, whilst the intuitions and perceptions derived from them belong the understanding, and constitute man's rational truths. Thus we have, in general, all that constitutes man, as well as a communication and intercourse between the corporeal and natural by means of the internal senses belonging to the former, and between the rational and the natural by means of the interior sensual images formed in the latter. Between these constituent parts of man, as must be evident, are other things which partake of their several qualities, and form what are called mediate truths and goods. The parts of a whole cannot co-exist without intermediations, and these must needs partake of the forms of the parts between which they mediate. (See A. C. 4038.)
     Man, as we learn, is born merely corporeal, a man-animal, capable of receiving life, but not a form of life itself. He becomes a form of life from the LORD by the divine influx into his receptacles of willing and thinking, which influx renders it possible for him to be affected, delighted, and pleased. On this subject we are thus instructed in Arcana Coelestia, n. 4063:
     "It is known that man has one state in infancy, another in childhood, another in youth, another in adult age, and another in old age. It is also known that man puts off the state of infancy with its playthings when he passes into the state of childhood, and that he puts off the state of boyhood when he passes into the state of youth, and, again, this when he passes into the state of adult age, and, finally, this when he passes into the state of old age. And, if he reflects, it may also be known to him that each age has its delights, and that by means of these he is successively introduced into those of the following age, and that these delights have served him in reaching that state, and finally, in attaining to the delight of intelligence and wisdom in old age, whence it is evident that prior things are always relinquished when new states of life are put on. But this comparison can only serve to show that delights are means, and that they are relinquished when man enters into a succeeding state; when he is regenerating this state becomes entirely another than the former to which he is not led in a natural way, but by a supernatural way by the LORD, nor does any one reach this state except by the means of regeneration which are provided by the LORD alone, and thus by a middle or mediate good of which we have spoken. And when he has been led to the state that he no longer has as ends things mundane, terrestrial, and corporeal, but those which are of heaven, then that middle good is separated. To have as an end is to love one more than another."
     Again, in Arcana Coelestia, n. 4067, we read: "The regeneration of man, and the middle delights and goods by which he is led from the state of the old man to the state of the new man by the LORD,-this is effected by means of angelic societies, and by means of their mutations. Middle goods and delights are nothing else than such societies, which are applied to man by the LORD in order that by them he may be introduced to spiritual and celestial goods and truths. When he has been led to these, then those societies are separated, and more interior and more perfect societies are adjoined."
MYTHOLOGY IN the LIGHT OF THE NEW CHURCH 1889

MYTHOLOGY IN the LIGHT OF THE NEW CHURCH              1889

     I.

     MYTHOLOGY, in its most proximate sense, means the science of the collected religious myths, or legends, handed down to us from the gentile nations of antiquity. It is that part of the history of mankind which treats of the various conceptions of the Divine with the Human Race in ancient times. It is, therefore, the study of ancient Theology-and from this, of ancient History, and as such affords one of the most interesting as well as noble and useful studies of human life. Man is a man solely prom the reception of the LORD and according to that reception; for the LORD is the One Man. The study of the life of mankind is, therefore, simply the study of the various degrees and qualities of the reception of the LORD by mankind during its successive ages. Mythology especially affords such a study, for it treats of nothing else than of the Religion of the Ancients, veiled in numerous diverse forms, all of which are so many different paths in which we may wander from the East or the West, the North or the South, to the wonderful, beauteous temple of the Ancient Church. Many before us have entered upon this study, have wandered in these paths, but, because these are dark and mysterious and labyrinthine, and because the wanderers had no other guide for their footsteps than their own intelligence, they have never yet found that temple of wisdom. But the men of the New Church who are blessed with the Divine Truth of the LORD in His Second Coming, have not only learned that such a temple exists, but are gifted, also, with an unerring guide toward it; with a lamp for their feet and a light on their path.
     Well, therefore, may we enter upon this our pilgrimage to the Temple of the LORD'S Ancient Church. Our wandering will carry us through distant lands and hoary ages, full of wonders and mysteries; through scenes of shadow and of light; through dark and ancient forests, in which strange and hideous animals roam; and through pleasant fields filled with lofty temples, pyramids and cities; through regions peopled with demons, and through tracts inhabited by gods. Without a heavenly guide no man can, unharmed, pass through these forests and deserts and fields; but, as Swedenborg on his visit to the ancient heavens and hells, was accompanied, protected and guided by an angel sent from the LORD, so also may we, unharmed and unbewildered, pass through all that is false and evil in the ancient world, and at last reach our goal; for our guide and protector is the LORD Himself in His Heavenly Doctrines. And we will there find the doors of the temple of the Ancient Church wide open to us; we will be able to enter in, and be instructed in the wisdom of the ancients; we will find the LORD alone worshiped there in His Word, before which we may prostrate ourselves together with the men of the LORD'S Ancient Churches. When pursued in this course and with this guide, the study of the ancient mythologies will prove of wonderful benefit.

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     It will illustrate, as if by magic pictures, the operations of the LORD'S Divine Providence in the universal history of mankind, revealed in the Word. It will shed a great and new light over the ancient nations, their worship and customs, mentioned so often in the Letter of the Word. It will confirm and illuminate in our minds the important Doctrines revealed in the Writings concerning the development of mankind, and make more rational and complete our understanding of the many references to the ancient mythologies, which are found so abundantly in the Writings, as illustrations of the Doctrines.
     This study will further widen the intelligence in general, by preparing planes in the mind, into which the angels of the Ancient Churches may inflow, and bring new illustration and a stronger sphere of those loves in which they were the Love to the LORD and the Love to the neighbor. It will serve to humble the pride of us of the nineteenth century, in showing us that the worldly wisdom of this age is but as darkness to the light of the ancient wisdom. It will show us also the origin of those falsities and evils which have destroyed the first Christian Church. We will hence be able to see more objectively those hells from which they have sprung, and that the same idols and false gods which destroyed the Ancient Churches are, even at this day, ruling in the Christian world, and are therein worshiped. Thus we will be able to shun the false and the evil of the ancients, and to collect and use those treasures of good and truth which lie buried in the ruins.
     And, finally, it will beautifully confirm this Doctrine; that the New Church is to be the Crown of all Churches that have been, because the Revelation, given to it by the LORD; is the Crown of all previous Revelations. In the New Church decay and Idolatry will be impossible, for there one visible God is acknowledged and worshiped in the Glorified Human of the LORD JESUS CHRIST.

     ORIGIN OF MYTHOLOGY AND IDOLATRY.

     Before entering upon this study, it will be necessary first to learn from the Doctrines the origin of Idolatry and Mythology, for otherwise we will ever be groping in darkness, like those of the Old Church who have studied this subject. They have looked at the legends of the ancients from themselves, from their own point of view, and with their self-intelligence. Hence they have regarded this subject objectively and from without, and hence their failure in finding in the Mythologies anything but an utterly confused and confusing mass of names, stories, and superstitions which have proved of but little genuine value. But in the New Church all things may be seen from within, because from Divine Revelation. Hence Newchurchmen are better able to place themselves in the states of the ancients, and to regard their religious ideas from a relatively subjective point of view; as, for example, a man of the Ancient Church, grounded in the Sciences of Correspondences, would have looked upon the various representative images around him.
     In order to fully understand the origin of Polytheism and Idolatry, we will first briefly review the history of mankind from its earliest ages, with respect to its conceptions of the Divine.

     THE MOST ANCIENT CHURCH.

     A Revelation of the LORD to mankind has existed in all ages for without Revelation from Him the human race could have no conjunction with Him; and without this conjunction with Him, who is the only Esse and Life, man could not receive being, and life thus could not exist.
     The very first idea that was possible for man to receive concerning God, from Revelation from Him, was that He was and that He was a Man. For in the Human form He first appeared to these first men, teaching them that they and everything were from Him and that He was Life, Love and Esse itself. These Eternal Verities were all expressed in that wonderful name by which the LORD was known to the Most Ancient People: the name of JEHOVAH. That this "name of the LORD is very most ancient of all Divine names we find distinctly taught in numerous places in the Writings, as in Arcana Coelestia, n. 1343, 1507; Apocalypse Explained, n. 1116, and True Christian Religion n. 19. It is, indeed, stated in Genesis iv, 26, that, in the time of Enos "men began to call upon the name of Jehovah," but concerning this we learn in Arcana Coelestia, n. 440, 441, that "the invocation of the name Jehovah did not actually commence at this time, as has been sufficiently proved by what was said above in reference to the Most Ancient Church, which more than any other adored and worshiped the LORD. Here, then, by calling upon the name of Jehovah, nothing else is signified than the worship of a New Church, after the foremost Church had been extinguished by those who are denominated Cain and Lamech."
     This worship of the LORD in a Human form under the name of Jehovah constitutes, therefore, the primary of the worship of the Most Ancient Church, which must be borne in mind in order to understand the subsequent origin of Polytheism.
     Another universal characteristic of the men of the Most Ancient Church was that peculiar faculty of Perception, with which they were endowed. This Perception was with them a sort of internal sensation of delights and undelights, from which they knew whether a thing was good and true, or the opposite. By means of this faculty, which only those have who are in the celestial love to the LORD, the Most Ancient Church had, also, open communication with heaven, and hence the internal sight and perception of this people was such that it made even inanimate things appear living, so that they saw in all things the images of the life of heaven (A. C. 3702, 8887). Hence the Most Ancients saw something representative of, or representing, the Kingdom of the LORD, in natural forms, in all and singular things of the universe; but they never clung to the natural objects themselves with their eyes, and, still less, with their minds, but these things were to them only the means for thinking concerning the spiritual and celestial things of the Kingdom of the LORD (A. C. 2722).
     This open communication with the spiritual world, and this perception with the most ancients, of the spiritual and celestial representatives and correspondences in the natural world, are also most important principles to bear in mind when studying the origin of Idolatry.
     When, in subsequent ages, the Most Ancient Church declined and fell, in consequence of an arising and increasing love of self, the will and the understanding, which formerly were one, were, with its descendants, separated into two faculties; hence the former faculty of Perception perished, and men-were instead gifted with a Conscience, formed from a reception of the LORD'S Commandments into the understanding.

     THE ANCIENT CHURCH

     Thus arose a New Church, represented in the Word by Noach and his sons. This Church was in possession of a written Revelation, consisting of Doctrinals handed down from the Most Ancient Church, and also of Historical and Prophetical Books, like our Word.

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From this Revelation the men of the Noatic or Ancient Church knew that God was One, that He was a Divine Man; and by this Church also He was called by His most ancient name of Jehovah. As to this it is stated in Arcana Coelestia, n. 4692, "All those who were of the Ancient Church, and did not separate Charity from Faith, believed that the God of the Universe was a Divine Man, and that He was the Divine Esse. Hence, also, they named Him Jehovah. They knew this from the most-ancients, and also because He appeared to many of their brethren as a Man." Many of them knew, also, that the LORD was to come into the world in an ultimate Human, to conquer the Hells, and make the Human in Himself Divine. This, then, was the primary of the Divine Worship in the Ancient Church.
     It was said that the men of this Church, instead of Perception had Conscience-that is, instead of an internal sight and sensation by interior immediate influx from the LORD, they had to be taught mediately, or by external scientifics what was good and true, and then do this by self-compulsion, contrary to the affections of their unregenerate will. Hence, also, they did not any more immediately perceive the representatives and correspondences in the natural world of the internal things of the Kingdom of the LORD, but had to receive instruction as to these things from their fathers, who, again, knew them from the traditions of the Most Ancient Church. Thus they knew that all things of the Universe represented and signified spiritual things, and hence, and because they highly venerated what was from the Most Ancient Church, they held representatives and significatives, holy and Divine. "Still, they did not worship the external objects themselves, but by external things they were reminded of internal things, and hence, when they were in their representatives and significatives, they were in the holy of worship" (A. C. 2722). These were, therefore, to them the means of worship, and hence the science of Correspondences was in the Ancient Church the Science of Sciences. This Church was, therefore, pre-eminently a representative Church, and the more simple among them were highly delighted in forming to themselves sculptures and images of various things by which they were constantly being reminded of the celestial and spiritual things which they represented.
     Knowing that the LORD was a Divine MAN, they thus delighted in being reminded of this Universal Truth by forming Human images, representatives of the various Divine Attributes and Qualities of the LORD. So they also expressed these various Attributes and Qualities of the LORD by various names and epithets, correspondingly as we speak of the Divine Providence, the Divine Omniscience, Omnipotence, the Divine Esse, Existere, etc.
     It was also customary among the Ancients to add something to the name of Jehovah, and thence to record some of His benefits or attributes. Examples of this custom we find very frequently in the Old Testament, such as Jehovah Zebaoth, Jehovah Jireh, Jehovah Nissi, Jehovah Shalom. Under all these various names and representative forms, only one God, the LORD Jehovah, was worshiped and venerated.
     Not only did the men of the Ancient Church love thus to represent Divine qualities, but also all spiritual and celestial things flowing from the Divine. Thus they made various images of old men, virgins, and boys to represent wisdom, the affection of truth, innocence, etc.; further, horses, oxen, calves, lambs, yea birds, fishes, and serpents to represent the various affections and qualities of the spiritual and of the natural man. These they furthermore placed in groves and gardens, and on mountains and hill-tops, besides in their temples, courts, and houses, and this because of the various states and faculties of the internal man to which these places correspond.
     Thus their worship, and even their daily life, was throughout representative, and this to such an extent that the very mode of their writing was of this character, as abundantly appears in the hieroglyphics of Egypt.
     Knowing, then, these fundamentals of the worship of the Ancient Church, we will be able to explain the historical origin of the Polytheism and Idolatry which subsequently arose in all those kingdoms in which the; Ancient Church had flourished, viz.: in Canaan, Syria, Assyria, Egypt, and hence in most countries in Asia, Africa, Europe, and probably also in America.
     This will explain, however, only the external origin of Idolatry. The internal origin is to be sought in the spiritual states of men. Spiritually considered, idolatry is in general the worship of external things instead of internal things, and such a state always arises in a Church when charity is separated from faith.
     Idolatry is, therefore, twofold: interior and exterior, the one prior to the other and the other consequent upon the prior. Interior idolatry is of three kinds: love of self, loge of the world, and love of pleasures. The idols are the conceits and cupidities of man.
     When the former love of the Ancient Church, which was love of the neighbor, began to be turned into these three idolatrous loves, external idolatry soon followed. A general descent into externalism universally took place which can be traced by various channels into the various phases of idolatry of which we now have a knowledge.
     In general, then, we must make a distinction between Polytheism, or worship of many gods, and idolatry, or worship of images. These are generally found together, but instances are also found where many gods are `worshiped without external images. Such a Polytheism is, for example, Protestant Christianity, which worships three gods, while professing not to worship idols as do the Roman Catholics. Another instance is that of the Persian worship of the sun and of fire, and, with many American Indians, the worship of spirits.

     POLYTHEISM.

     Polytheism arises in every case from separating the Divine Attributes into different Divine Persons, as has been done by the First Christian Church. In the Ancient Church, as was said, the Divine Attributes had their various names and representations, but still only one God was worshiped. But as the Church grew more external this was forgotten, and their posterity began to consider each Divine name as the name of a separate Divine Person.
     Concerning this we read in Arcana Coelestia 3667:
     "From ancient times they designated the Supreme God, or the LORD, by various names, and this according to the Attributes, or according to the goods that were from Him, and also according to the truths, which are manifold. Those who were of the Ancient Church by all these denominations understood but one God, namely, the LORD, whom they called Jehovah, but after the Church had descended from Good and Truth, and at the same time from that wisdom, then they began to worship so many gods as there were denominations of the ore God, even to such a degree that every nation and at last every family acknowledged as their god one of these.

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     Another cause of Polytheism was the custom of adding something to the name of Jehovah, as may be seen from Arcana Coelestia, n. 2724:
     "Thence it came that those who placed worship in the name alone, acknowledged so many gods,. . . hence, also, the nations began to be distinguished by the name of the god whom they worshiped."
     Again, it will be found that the worship of many gods arose from a perversion of the habit of personating spiritual and intellectual things, "as it were, conversing together, such as Wisdom, Intelligence, Sciences, etc., and also to give names to these, which signified such things; the gods and demigods were nothing else" (A. C. 4442).
     Another cause may be seen in the universal custom of venerating kings, saints, or living men, who were thought to incorporate and represent in themselves Divine qualities and attributes.
     It was, also, the habit to give the names of historical persons to these spiritual things, in order that sacred narratives might thus be composed in an historical form (A. C. 4442).
     "That they distributed the Divine into so many persons, was because, from what was insown, they saw God as a man, and they, therefore, regarded as persons all the attributes and qualities of God, and thence also virtues, affections, inclinations and sciences" (A. E. 1118).
     "Many gods of the Gentiles were no other than men, such as Baal, Astaroth, Chemosh, Milcom, Beelzebub, and at Athens, Saturn, Jupiter, Neptune, Pluto, Apollo, alias, and others; some of whom they worshiped first saints, afterward as Divinities, and lastly as gods. That they also worshiped living men as gods is evident from the Edict of Darius, the Mede, in Daniel vi" (T. C. R. 292; A. E. 955, 1118).
     As to the adoration of kings, see Arcana Coelestia, n. 5323.
     An example of the gradual rise of Polytheism from hose causes is found in the worship of Shaddai, as described in Arcana Coelestia, n. 1992:
     "The interpreters render Shaddai 'the Omnipotent' or 'the Thunderer,' but it properly signifies 'Tempter' after temptations, 'benefactor.' The word Shaddai itself signifies 'vastation.' . . . The origin of this worship was from the nations in Syria; hence he is not called Elohim Shaddai, but El Shaddai, and in Job only Shaddai. The worship of Shaddai had this origin, that with those who were of the Ancient Church spirits were very often heard, who terrified, and afterward also [other spirits] who consoled. The spirits who terrified were perceived to the left side under the arm; angels then approached from the head, who ruled these spirits, and moderated the intrepidation; and because they [the men] did not think anything that was said to them by these spirits to be Divine, therefore they named that terrifying spirit 'Shaddai' and because consolation, also, was afterward given, they called him 'God Shaddai.'"
     This God Shaddai was the family god of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He was worshiped also in Assyria under the name "Sedu," and, perhaps, the Egyptian Seti is derived from the same source.
     Another example is the name Adonai, "my Lord," Whom, it is stated in Coronis, n. 51, the ancients worshiped as the LORD who was to come. This god was worshiped throughout Syria and Phenicia as Adon, and from this source comes the Greek fable of Adonis. It may be, also, that the name Odin, the supreme God of the Scandinavians, is to be traced hence. Another name of the LORD was Baal, which means simply master. From this comes the god Bel of Babylonia, the various Baalim of Phenicia, Apollo of Greece, and Baldr of Scandinavia.
     From the changes of the name Jehovah, further, many names of heathen gods arose. Thus we know distinctly from the Doctrines that the name Jove is derived from Jehovah (T. C. R. 275; De Verbo 4). From this name probably arose, also, the names Ea or Hea of Babylonia, Iao of Phenecia, Iacchus and Io in Greece, Janus and Juno in Rome; the Egyptian moon-god, who is known under the various names of Aah, Ioh, Hoh, Hih; the Sanskrit Yah, and Yagernout, the Japanese Jakusi, the Finnish Ju-mala, the Scandinavian Jafur and Jalkr, the Keltic Hu, the Sclavonian Jaga-Baba, Jutrbog, and Iawinna, and-if we are liberal-the Caraibean Houjou, the Polynesian Jamao; and the American and Mexican gods Jawas, Jeouinnou, and Jukateuctli.
     Other examples as to this origin of Polytheism we find enumerated in the Writings in the cases of the Cherubim and Theraphim and Dagon.
     From these Cherubim, or winged angels, were derived the winged bulls and lions which stand as guards at the doors of the Assyrian royal palaces, and also the Egyptian sphinxes and winged animals, many of whom closely correspond to the description in Ezechiel i, of the four winged beasts who had the likeness of a man. As to the correspondence of these we learn, in Arcana Coelestia 9391 and 4162, that "the Cherubim are the custody of the Divine Providence lest man from himself should enter into the mysteries of faith, or lest any one should approach the LORD, except by good." Hence, then, was derived the custom of placing these bulls and other animals at-the entrances of courts and temples.
     The Theraphim were household and family gods or oracles; which were set in various places in the homes, corresponding to the many little images of Osiris in Egypt and to the Lares and Penates in Rome. These gods Rachel stole from her father, Laban, and, it is said in Arcana Coelestia, n. 4162, that "the ancients called the Divine Truths, which brought revelations by responses, (oracles) Theraphim: other Divine Attributes, also, they called by particular names."
     The god Dagon, of the Philistines, at Ashdod, is often mentioned in the Word, and his image serves as a beautiful illustration of the correspondences according to which the ancients formed their representative images. Of this idol a complete explanation is given in the Writings. In Sacred Scriptures, n. 23, it is stated that "The god of the Philistines, at Ashdod, was flagon, who was like a man above and a fish beneath, which image was devised because a man signifies intelligence and a fish, knowledge, which make one." When the Ancient Church fell into idolatry these images received an opposite representation, and hence Dagon represented the worship of faith alone, "which religion, from faith, was, as it were, spiritual, but from having no charity was merely natural" (D. F. 52), or as stated in Apocalypse Explained, n. 817:10, "its being like a man from the head to the navel, represented the understanding from truths, and its being like a fish from the navel downward reps resented the natural, destitute of the good of love; for the lower part of the body down to the knees, corresponds to celestial love; and a fish to the natural man which is destitute of spiritual good."

     IDOLATRY.

     This, then, leads us to the consideration of Idolatry; or the worship of images, which, as we will see, arose from the following causes:

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     I. From the habit of representing in external objects the various things of the Church; thus not only Divine Qualities and Attributes, but also the various affections, faculties, virtues, and sciences of man.
     II. From the open communication with the Spiritual World which many of the Ancient Church still retained. When the love of the Ancient Church turned from love of the neighbor to love of self and the world, communication was given with evil spirits, who inflowed into the minds of the men. Hence arose first a perversion of the Doctrine of Correspondences and Representatives-that is, the magi or wise of the Ancient Church perverted the correspondences and turned them, for the sake of selfish ends, into such magic arts as to gain power over the minds of men. From this perversion arose, also, a gradual obliteration or forgetting of the true science of Correspondences, while, on account of the great reverence which the ancients had for everything which was old or from their fathers, the representative images and rituals still were considered holy, and at last were worshiped as in themselves Divine. Hence, "those whose mental sight depended upon the senses of the body, and who still wished to see God, formed for themselves, as idols, images of gold, silver, stone, and wood, that under these, as objects of sight, they might worship God, while others, who rejected artificial images from their religion, formed for themselves ideal images of God in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and in various things upon the earth" (T. C. R. 11).
     Hence then came the worship of the planetary bodies, which we find in all the Ancient Mythologies, as well as the grosser forms of idolatry, such as the worship of images of beasts, birds, fishes, serpents, and trees.
     A very complete historical view of this gradual rise of worship of idols and statues is found in Arcana Coelestia, n. 4580.
     "The statues that were erected in ancient times were either for a sign or for a witness or for worship; those which were for worship were anointed, and thence they were considered holy, and by them also they had their worship. Thus, in temples, in groves, in woods, under trees, and in other places. This ritual derived its representation from this, that in most ancient times stones were erected in the boundaries between the families of the nations, so that no one should pass over them to do any evil. And because stones were there in the boundaries, the most ancients, who in the singular things which were in this earth saw corresponding spiritual and celestial things, when they saw these stones in the boundaries, thought concerning the truths which are the ultimates of order; but their posterity, who beheld less of the spiritual and celestial and more of the worldly, began to think in a holy manner concerning these only from the veneration from the ancient time, and at last the posterity of the most-ancients, who lived immediately before the flood, and who did not any more see anything spiritual and celestial in terrestrial and mundane things, as in objects, began to sanctify these stones, by pouring libations upon them, and to anoint them with oil; and then they were called statues and retained for worship. This remained after the flood in the Ancient Church, which was representative, but with this difference, that the statues served them as means for reaching internal worship; for infants and children were instructed by their parents what these things represented, and thus were led to know holy things, and to be affected by those things which they represented. Thence it was that the statues with the ancients, in their temples, groves, and woods, and upon hills and mountains, were for worship. But when internal things altogether perished, together with the Ancient Church, and when they began to hold external things holy and Divine, and thus to worship them idolatrously, then they erected statues for their separate gods."
     Thus far, then, as to Polytheism and Idolatry. But Mythology includes also the knowledge of the various theological doctrinals which were held by the ancient gentile nations, and these also ought to be included in the study of mythology, for without a knowledge of them the Pantheon of the ancients will be found lifeless and unmeaning. And to these doctrinals the New Church alone possesses the key in the knowledge that is given it concerning the Ancient Word, from which the ancient theology was derived; and, further, in the knowledge of the Correspondences, according to which the Ancient Word was written.
RENDERINGS AND READINGS 1889

RENDERINGS AND READINGS              1889

     IT has already been observed that in the Word many passages may be found which are susceptible of a dual interpretation not by any means that the Word can ever be self-contradictory, but that words or clauses occur, which can be used in different applications. The fact that correspondents may be understood in opposite senses would imply that what is written by this very system of correspondence should have the same peculiarity. This applies to differing texts as found in the various manuscripts of the Word, and also to the difference in the accounts of the same transaction as recorded in the different books, as well as to the various rendering which philologists may give in special cases. We would call attention to some of the first-mentioned "discrepancies," as some would call them.
     I.-What were the exact words of the inscription that Pilate wrote and placed upon the cross of the LORD? The four Evangelists each speak of it, and give what we would suppose, did we refer to one particular gospel to the exclusion of the others, to be its very words. But how do we find it recorded? In four different forms, thus:
     Matthew xxvii, 37, [Greek] This is Jesus the King of the Jews.
     Mark xv 26, [Greek] The King of the Jews.
     Luke xxiii, 38, [Greek] This is the King of the Jews.
     John xix, 19, [Greek] Jesus the Nazarine, the King of the Jews.
     This variance in the inscription on the cross must be a source of great perplexity to those who are in the letter of the Word only. For it is written in Hebrew, and Greek, and Latin; and as the Gospels have come down to us in the second of these languages, we should have supposed that on the theory of an inspiration residing in the risers Orthography, the title written by Pilate would have been accurately copied; all the writing, word for word, and letter for letter, would have been given, and not the general sense of the inscription. Yet mark the wide (literal) discrepancy here. And how can we account for it except upon the fact that under the letter there is an internal sense which alone is the lamp to our feet and the light to our path, and to which, and not to a Kabbala akin to that of the Talmud, we must refer for a rational solution of our doubts? "For the Word, regarded in its internal, is like a diamond, whose surface is cut into many facets, each reflecting its own ray of light, while they all unite in sending out a common glory.

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     In the Writings, reference is made to this inscription (in A. C. 9144, A. E. 31, 433, and De Domino 12, also A. E. 684); but in none of these cases is there a direct quotation-the passages seemingly being cited as illustrating the Name, "King of the Jews," as applied to the LORD. Thus, in Apocalypse Explained, n. 684 a, we read:

     "Dominus dictus sit 'Rex Israelis' et 'Rex Judaeorum,' quod etiam fassus est coram Pilato; unde inscriptum cruci fuit, 'Rex Judacorum.'"

     In Arcana Coelestia, n. 9144, we read:

     "Inde patet, quid significatum sit per Spineam Coronam, tum per salutationem, Rex Judaeorum, ut et quid per Ecce Homo, et quoque quid per inscriptionem super cruce 'Jesus Nazarenus Rex Judaeorum,' nempe quod Divinum Verum seu Verbum in tali aspectu et ita tractatum fuerit a Judaeis, apud quos Ecclesia."

     This does not explain the non-literal agreement between the Evangelists, yet we may be sure that there is no conflict here. It is not our province to supply that which the Writings do not tell us; but the coming New-churchman will undoubtedly learn, in the full light of the New Jerusalem, to see plainly what we can see but darkly; meanwhile, we know that the key of the house of David is in the hand of One who in His own good time will open up this and many other hidden things which now we cannot understand.
     II. In reply to the cavils of the Pharisees in regard to a supposed violation of the Sabbatical law (see xii, 1-8; Mark ii, 23-28; Luke vi, 1-5), the LORD stated, in unmistakable words, the relation between Himself, in His Divine Human, and the Sabbath. Thus we read (Matt. xii, 8): [Greek].
     For the Son of Man is LORD also of the Sabbath. (We may note here that the conjunction [Greek], which we have rendered "also," is found only in a few cursive manuscripts, and hence is said to be an interpolation, for which reason it is omitted in the revised version, to the great detriment of the force of the LORD'S declaration: that it is nevertheless a part of the sacred text is proved clearly by the "etiam" in Vera Christiana Religio, n. 301.)
     This passage from Matthew, together with the parallel passages from Mark and Luke, are mentioned or quoted in the New Church Writings as follows:
". . . . ex significatione Sabbathi, quod in supremo sensu sit unio Divini, quod Pater vocatur, ac Divini Humani, quo Filius; ita Divinum Humanum in Quo illa unio. . . . Ideo etiam DOMINUS cum in mundo fuit, Se vocat Dominum Sabbathi (A. C. 10,360). . . . Ex his et illis patet, cur DOMINUS dixit, quod etiam sit Dominus Sabbathi (Matt. xii, 8; Marc. ii, 28; Luc: vi, 5); et quia hoc dixit, sequitur, quod dies ille fuerit repraesentativus Ipsius (V. C. R. 301). DOMINUS Se vocavit Dominum Sabbathi (C. et 1287). Quod sit Dominus Sabbathi, quia est Filius Hominis. (De Domino 27)."
     It should be observed here, as said above, that all these citations have expressed reference to each of the three parallel passages, which thus occur in the original:
     Mark ii, 28,[Greek] With this agrees Luke vi, 5, except that the latter has [Greek], a word of similar meaning, instead of [Greek].
     The original in Mark and Luke may be rendered in two wags, thus, it may be translated as in Matthew xii, 8, "For the Son of man is LORD also of the Sabbath," and this would be confirmed by the citations from the Writings. Yet this, though linguistically correct or allowable, does not seem the natural way of construing the sentence. As usually rendered, the word [Greek] is taken as a descriptive title, similar to "master," "sir," "lord," etc.; this is shown by the "of" in the English, and the genitive "Sabbathi" of the Latin. Thus "DOMIUS Sabbathi," or Ruler of the Sabbath, is a proper expression in the case. But [Greek] may also be considered a personal Name of the LORD JESUS CHRIST: we mean that we can and do apply this Name, LORD, to Him: in the same way-with reverence be it spoken-that we use the name John as designating a particular individual. Then, translating the Greek in the order here given, it would read, "Therefore the LORD is the Son of man and (also) of the Sabbath." We would not depend on the mere philology of the passage as our authority for this construction; in Arcana Coelestia, n. 85, we have:
     "Quad septimum diem attinet, et quod coelestis homo sit septimus dies seu Sabbathum, constat ex eo, quod DOMINUS Ipse sit Sabbathum; quare etiam dicit, Dominus est Filius hominis et Sabbathi (Mare. ii, 27); quae involvunt, quod DOMINUS sit Ipse Homo, et Ipsum Sabbathum."
     This distinct assertion that the LORD is both Man and the Sabbath, must be taken in connection with His saying that He is the Son of each-that is, that He is the all of humanity, and the embodiment of that peace which makes up the blessedness of the Sabbath. Thus these variations in the Evangelists, as well as that of the Latin of Arcana Coelestia, n. 85, and of the other passages cited in the Writings, only point out the more clearly the Oneness of the LORD in the dualism of His life and work; the unity of the Divine Human of the Son of man, and the Prince of Peace filling the heavens with a never-ending Sabbath rest.
     We would refer to but one more example. In the explanation of the parable of the Sower, as given in the first three Gospels, we read:
     Matt. xiii, 19, [Greek]-cometh the wicked one.
     Mark iv, 15, [Greek]-cometh Satan.
     Luke viii, 12, [Greek]-cometh the devil.
     (See A. C. 1288, 9987; A. E. 48, 746 b, especially the latter, where the distinction between Satan and the devil is made.) How clearly the use of a different word in each of these cases shows us what is that evil which takes away the seed sown by the wayside; that this is done by falses of faith, or by evils of life, or by that wicked one, the false and the evil acting as a one.
     What has been said on this subject may to some seem mere hyper-criticism; but whatever may be thought of the manner in which it has been presented, is not the subject itself worthy of serious consideration? For variations in the letter of the Word have always been made a basis for sneer and scoff, and should not New-churchmen, who, believing that the Word is of the LORD, and the revealing of its Internal Sense the ADVENTUS DOMINI, think it holy as He is holy, be ready to meet the assaults of the hells, even as He did, by the Word itself? And this cannot be done by points of philology nor rabbinical fancies, nor authority of manuscripts, but by earnest and humble study in the light of the Writings, and with profound reliance on the authority of the LORD therein. What a call there is to the man of the New Church thus to come up the help of the LORD against the mighty, against the wicked one, whose name is Satan and Devil And this must be done by the Word, and by it in its Internal Sense.

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Not only toward, or rather for, others must we thus use the Word: we must make it our own guide and teacher, and not fear carping criticism, nor depend on mere human interpretation; but believing that what we know not now we shall know hereafter, and hold as our supreme arbiter in doubt, whether of the letter or the spirit, a "Thus saith the LORD."
Notes and Reviews 1889

Notes and Reviews              1889

     THE work on Heaven and Hell translated anew into the Swedish language by the Rev. C. J. N. Manby and printed at the expense of Dr. John Ellis, has now left the press and can be had at an unusually low price. This fundamental work is for the first time presented entire in the Swedish, the former edition having excluded the many notes and references to the Arcana Coelestia. Together with a new Swedish translation of the New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrine, Heaven and Hell will be offered gratis to the Clergy of the Swedish Lutheran Church.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     THE Christian Age, a London religious paper, in its issue for August 7th, contains a large portrait of the Rev. Joseph Deans, the incumbent President of the English Newchurch Conference. Mr. Deans is the Pastor of the Newchurch Society at Leeds, but is especially prominent as a leader in the total-abstinence movement, being Marshal of the Gorand Lodge of the Good Templars in England.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     THE Influence of Fear in Disease is the title of another psychological pamphlet by Dr. W. H. Holcombe, lately published by the Purdy Publishing Company in Chicago.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     THE Journal of the Twenty-second Annual Meeting of the American New Church Sabbath-School Association, held in Washington, D. C., on May 24th, has been published. The various speeches have been reported at fuller length than usual. The usefulness of this plan will, naturally, depend upon the value of the matter contained in the speeches, certain of which, as reported, might have been summarized without loss to the readers of the report.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     THE Sabbath-School Association is, however, doing some useful work, results of which may be found in a neat little pamphlet, entitled A Book-list for the Help of children, Parents, and leaders in Choosing Books from New Church Sunday-school Libraries; prepared by the Committee on Libraries. This little catalogue contains a list of publishing houses with their addresses, and a carefully classified list of books suitable for the young. The full title and a brief description of each book is given, with the price and the name of the publisher, while accompanying letters indicate the age of readers for which the book is suited. The compiler, the Rev. W. L. Worcester, announces that the Book-list is to receive a yearly supplement, and solicits the criticism and co-operation of all teachers to make the work as complete and useful as possible. It certainly supplies a "long-felt want," and ought to be in the hand of every New Church teacher, whether of Day-schools or Sunday-schools. The price is 15 cents for single copy or $1.25 for ten copies, and can be had from any New Church book-room.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     TWO rare and interesting old books by Bishop Swedberg are advertised in the Catalogue for 1889 of Klemming's old book store in Stockholm. The first is Ungdornsregel och a'kierdomspegel, forestelt i ene viso med thess forklaring (Rule of Youth and Mirror of Old Age, Represented in a Song, with its Interpretation). Skara, 1709. This little work is of special interest, as it was the occasion of Emanuel Swedenborg's (then Swedberg) second youthful attempt in print, which was a Latin poem, entitled, Jesperi Swedbergii Doct. Et Episcopi Scarensis, Parentis Optimi, Canticum Suecicum "Ungdomsregel och Alderdomspegel," latino Carmine exhibitum ab Emanuele Swedergio, filio. Skara, 1709.
     The second is called Gudetige dodstanckari Thessa dodelige Krigs-och Pestilens-tider (Pious Thoughts of Death in these Deadly Times of War and Pestilence). It was published in Skara, 1711, thus during the wars of Charles II and very appropriately named in those times of indescribable poverty, depopulation, and misery in Swedberg's fatherland.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     A SERVICE for the Introduction of the Young into Junior Memberships with Societies of the New Church, has lately been published in London for the General Conference of the New Church in Great Britain. It recommends that children of the Church be encouraged to join Societies as Junior members upon their reaching the age of fourteen.
     How nondescript is the character of Junior membership may appear from the Service, in which the minister is to address the candidates among other things as follows:
     "Hitherto you have been but children among us, without recognized position and responsibility in the affairs of the Church. You are now entering the period at which you will be able to understand more clearly the meaning of the Doctrines of the Church, and to take a responsible part in its work."
     The institution of Junior membership is founded neither on Divine Revelation nor on common sense, but simply on the expediency of interesting the young in an external way without due regard to the order or the usefulness of the means to be employed.
     The Divine Revelation given to the New Church plainly teaches that "the Second State of man (from the fifth to the twentieth year) is not yet a state of intelligence, because the boy then does not conclude anything from himself, nor discerns between truths and truths, nor even between truths and falses from himself, but from others. . . But the third state (from twenty to sixty) is called the state of intelligence, because man then thinks from himself and discerns and concludes. . . . In this time faith begins, for faith is not the faith of the man himself before he, from the ideas of his own thought, confirms what he believes" (A. C. 10.225).
     How, then, can a child of fourteen become a responsible member of the Church, or an kind of a member of the Church before he even has faith, which is the beginning of the Church? or before he is rational and can begin to shun evils as of himself? The Old Church, from remains of common sense, recognizes that a man is not responsible in civil affairs until he is twenty-one. Are, then, maturity and responsibility less important in the spiritual "affairs of the Church?"
     This Junior membership is, in itself, a means of deceiving the young into the vain conceit that they are other than children. Its mischievous results have already shown themselves in various New Church Societies in England, as in the Argyle Square Society, where the "Junior members," led by sentiment and by temperance agitators, attempted to force upon the Church the administration of grape-juice in the Sacrament.
THERE PUBLICATIONS BY THE NEW CHURCH EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTE 1889

THERE PUBLICATIONS BY THE NEW CHURCH EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTE              1889

     REPORT of the Board of Management, presented to the Sixth Annual General Meeting, June 21st, 1889, with the President's and other addresses.
     NEWCHURCHMEN leaving their First Love and the present state of the Christian world as the cause of it, by the Rev. J. T. Potts, B. A., London, 1889.
     Is Marriage Lawful and Conjugial Love possible between People of different Faiths, by Glendower C. Ottley, London, 1889.
     THE above pamphlets are the first fruits of the publication work of the New Church Educational Institute of Great Britain. Judging from these productions, and on the ground that first states qualify the succeeding states, there are great reasons for the hope that the Institute will become a powerful means for the reformation of the present state of the New Church, and for the orderly establishment of the Church in Great Britain and elsewhere.

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     The Report of the Board of Management contains three addresses. The first by the President, the Rev. R. L. Tafel is a discourse on the conjunction of good and truth as the only basis on which the Church can be built up, and as the principal aim in the work of the-Institute. The second address is by the Vice-President, the Rev. J. T. Potts, B. A., and treats of the present state of the New Church in the, widespread aversion to Doctrine; and the general tendency of looking to natural good as the essential of the Church. This tendency is described as a reaction from the old state, when it was taught that faith was everything. Now men believe it to be nothing. The following quotations illustrate the forcible and wholesome character of the address:

     "Doctrine of faith is one of the essentials of salvation; charity or life being the other. They are both essential and both equally essential. There is no Church where either of them is absent. To abolish doctrine, therefore, is to abolish the Church. This is what is now denied, not explicitly but tacitly. Everybody admits that to abolish life is to abolish the Church; almost everybody, overflowing with gushing sentiment, which he mistakes for charity, denies that to abolish doctrine is to abolish the Church. Therefore he at once proceeds to abolish doctrine, and that in the most practical manner. Doctrine is easily abolished. There is one powerful agent that at once effects the purpose- ignorance. In order to abolish doctrine all you have to do is never to read the Writings of the New Church. If you are a minister, excogitate something out of your own head, and feed the people with that. Read the newspapers, there is pabulum there; read the magazines, there is pabulum there; reed novels, go to political meetings, teetotal meetings, revival meetings, they are all full of pabulum; so is nature; so is science. Go to all these things and get your inspiration there. Then pour out for the edification of your flocks. Occasionally take up your Bible and meditate on it in the light of your inspiration, and call that going to the fountain-heed of truth. This is all that is necessary. Dense ignorance is as sure to follow as darkness is sure to follow the setting of the sun. Doctrine and faith are thus abolished, and that as what you aim at.
     "If, however, you are not a minister, you can play your part equally well. Your minister is dependent on your pocket, and you can force him to preach as you like. If he will not do so you can dismiss him, and get somebody else that will. As your object is to abolish doctrine and faith, tell him you do not want doctrinal sermons, but life sermons. Tell him he is not to preach so as to offend any of your old-church friends, whom you may happen to have brought to church with you. Tell him not to make his sermons too sectarian-that is, too distinctively New Church; and that to mention the name of Swedenborg, or quote from the Writings by name in his sermons will be the unpardonable sin itself. You need not say so in so many words, there are other ways of letting him know your pleasure. He may, indeed, refer to Swedenborg as an 'eminent writer.' He may say in the pulpit that 'all religion has relation to life,' without mentioning the source of that hackneyed and but little understood quotation. Then, in furtherance of the same object, be sure never to reach the Writings yourself; and do not bring up your children to read them, and in a comparatively short time the required amount of ignorance will as assuredly be yours as blindness will be if you put your eyes out."

     These are strong words, but they do but too truly depict the general state of the New Church. Heroic treatment is needed in these times, when the Church is being devastated by subtle foes from within, lulling its members to sleep by the continual sing-song of "peace, peace," when there is no peace; "charity, good," when there is no truth.
     The third address is by the Rev. R. J. Tilson, on Our position-i.e., of the Institute. This is shown to be a position of a faith in the Divine Authority of the Writings of the New Church, and is ably confirmed by numerous and pertinent quotations from the Writings. Comparison is made between the zealous, internal faith of the early New Church, and the lukewarmness of the present day. To bring the Church back in some degree to its early love, and to build up a true, eternal Church is the avowed aim of the New Church Educational Institute.
     The following ought to be taken to heart, by all professing faith in the Divine authority of the Doctrines:

     "Our worst foes are within the household of the common acknowledgment of what I have called 'Our Position.' Against these we should be most on our guard. It may mean nothing though a man may say, 'I accept the Writings of the Church as coming from the LORD.'
     "The proof of the sincerity of the statement will come out when the man who makes it finds the teachings of the Writings in conflict with some cherished thought or desire, or course of action of his own. If he takes the rebuke given him in the principles taught in the Writings in good part, bowing down before them, then his acknowledgment of their Divine Authority is genuine and sincere, but if he does not, then his acknowledgment is a sham and a farce."

     In intimate connection with these subjects is Mr. Potts' tract on Newchurchmen leaving their first love, and the present state of the Christian World as the cause of it. The state of the Christian world at this day and the corresponding state of the New Church, is here strikingly described. "The great god of the age is the world" "The great Bible of the age is the newspaper, which tells the people about the god they worship-the world." "The great means of salvation at the present day is money, which is the all-powerful agent that rescues us from the fate we most dread, the loss of the world and its delights."
     The tract proceeds to describe the quality of the much-lauded "good" in the world, showing that while Divine Truth is at a discount, there is very little genuine charity, but that the great religiosity of the age is worship of external good-nature, This kind of good is felicitously compared to a huge mass of jelly, formless, powerless. "It has no doctrine, and, therefore, it has no spiritual form. It is indifferent to Divine Truth, and, therefore it has no spiritual power. But it is sweet, soft, and yielding." Into this "great gelatinous vortex" of natural good the New Church is being sucked, and will be smothered there, unless a clear distinction is drawn between "this formless mass of good-nature and the Holy City, all bright and peerless in her magnificent construction."
     A sad picture is then drawn of the "broken-down Newchurchmen" with which our large cities are besprinkled. "I remember that when I was a boy, it was a common saying among us that whoever once became a Newchurchman never ceased to be one. I never hear that said now. Of course, the people who break down do not go back to the old religiosities. What they go back or fall to is the world. Very likely, if you ask them they will say that they have never given up the New Church doctrines. No more they have, formally. But it does not take five minutes of New Church conversation with them to show that they have lost all their spiritual intelligence."
     The writer does not make it quite clear what is the real cause of these sad circumstances. That the New Church is being on all sides infested by the state of the world is unquestionably true, but, the world could not affect the Church one whit if there were not causes of decay, operating from within the Church in the world. The Priesthood is the internal of the Church; and such as the Priesthood is, such is the Church. Where the Priesthood itself is worldly-minded, ignorant of the Doctrines, or weak and cowardly in their proclamation, there a strong, sound, spiritually intelligent laity can hardly be expected to exist.

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The men of the Church are generally quite willing to be instructed, until their minds are closed by some insidious collateral work or some ignorant or faithless minister throwing doubt upon the reliability of the Writings or upon the whereabouts of the LORD'S New Church. But given a sound Clergy a sound Laity will soon follow.
     The third work under notice, published under the auspices of the Educational Institute, is Mr. Glendower C. Ottley's answer to the important question, Is Marriage Lawful and Conjugial Love Possible between People of Different Faiths? In this pamphlet of thirty-one pages the subject receives a more complete treatment than ever before. The first chapter treats of Conjugial Love, its origin and conditions, showing "first, that this love is essentially a holy love, derived from the conjunction of good and truth in the LORD;" secondly, that being so derived, it implies "a union of minds" between married partners "by virtue of good united with truth from the LORD" (A. C. 2728); thirdly, that "it is according to the state of the Church, because it is according to the state of wisdom with man" (C. L. 130), and, finally, that in a "ruined," because vastated Church, there can be no conjugial love, since conjugial love is the "conjunction of good and truth," and in a Church "once extinct" there can be neither the one nor the other (see A. C. 1850). The second chapter deals with the question, "Who are true Christians?" and a complete answer is given from the Doctrines, exposing the fallacy of those who try to explain away the force of, the teaching in Arcana Coelestia, n. 8998, "that marriages on earth between those who are of a different religion are, in heaven, accounted as heinous," by asserting that by such marriages are meant the conjunctions between Christians and Gentiles, but not between a Newchurchman and an old-church "Christian." The hideous state of the Christian world at the present day is exhibited entirely by quotations from the Writings, and confirmed from the works of prominent authors of the world.
     In the third chapter, the writer endeavors to solve certain difficulties attending the ultimation of the principles of the Doctrine concerning Conjugial Love. Here the arguments are not quite as clear and conclusive' as in the first parts of the work. As a whole, the pamphlet will be of great use as a resume of the entire controversy on the subject, and as a very complete collection of passages from the Writings, giving instruction in regard to it.
Communicated 1889

Communicated              1889

      [Inasmuch as in this Department Correspondents have an opportunity to express their individual opinions, be they in favor of the principles on which New Church Life is conducted or adverse to them, the Editor does not hold himself responsible for the views that are published therein.]
LETTER FROM ENGLAND 1889

LETTER FROM ENGLAND              1889

     MY DEAR "LIFE":-When, on the 22d day of June last, my wife and I set sail from New York, it was with the intention of enjoying an uninterrupted rest among the mountains and lakes of Switzerland in the companionship of our good friend Mr. John Pitcairn and his family. Hardly had two weeks of our mountain sojourn elapsed, when the news was flashed to us that Benade lay seriously ill in London. Mr. Pitcairn and took the first through train to London, and found that on the 17th day of July, the day on which we had received the dispatch, our revered friend; who had arrived a day or two before, had been prostrated with a stroke of apoplexy. He was lying at the house of Mr. Gibbs, a devoted New Churchman. The Rev. R. J. Tilson was at his bedside, sharing the vigils with the nurse. One of the foremost homeopathic physicians was called in, and another nurse engaged. Two weeks have since elapsed, and I am happy to say that, under the Divine Providence, 4e physician's skill and the assiduous care of the nurses have brought him out of danger of another stroke. His mental faculties are unimpaired, -but he is very weak. Should he continue to improve as he has up to this time, he will probably be able to return to America in the fall.
     Sad as were our hearts when we arrived in this city and saw our friend's condition, they have been greatly gladdened by the very cordial reception which we received at the hands of our New-Church brethren, the first evidence of which we received on the day after our arrival in the form of an official communication from the Camberwell Society, expressing sympathy with the Bishop.
     It happened that on the day of our arrival a party of bicyclists, consisting of Mr. Henry Schill, of the Advent Society, and five other young men, present and former students and pupils of the Academy, who had been making a tour in Scotland and England on their "wheels" also came to London. We all had the great pleasure, of worshiping with the Camberwell Society on the following Sunday. Camberwell, it may be necessary to state, is a town in the southern portion of and constituting a part of that immense aggregation of houses called London.) The sermon which the Pastor, Mr. Tilson, preached on the occasion he kindly sends to you, at my request. You will, I feel sure, enjoy it as much as we did, although in reading it you will not have the advantage of the reverent sphere in which it was delivered. The services here differ in some respects from those at home, but one special feature-the solemn opening of the Word on the altar, at the beginning of services and the closing of it after the benediction, while the people remain standing, they have in common with us. The custom of having a reader assist the minister in the services still obtains here. Each wears a surplice over his citizen's dress.
     The presence of so many Americans led Mr. Tilson to invite all of the members of his Society and ourselves to an "At Home" which he gave in the Sunday-school room, Mrs. Tilson being at the time in Liverpool on a visit. The invitations were issued on the evening before the day set for the reception; but, short as was the time, the invitation was responded to by nearly all the members.
     The room was tastefully decorated by a number of the ladies. Of the special decorations I may mention a small bust of Swedenborg, a portrait of Bishop Benade, and two American flags, one on either side of the British flag.
     Mr. Tilson, in addressing his guests, spoke of the unprecedented event of as many as eight Americans being present with an English New Church Society. He had hoped to see Bishop Benade with them, and regretted that this could not be. But he gave us a none the less hearty welcome to England and to the Camberwell Society.
     The hearty and characteristically British applause that greeted this introduction by the Pastor, assured us that he was speaking also for his Society.
     On behalf of the Americans, I thanked them for this generous welcome, and as Mr. Tilson had referred to two bodies with which we are connected, I spoke of the distinction between the one, the Academy of the New Church, an educational society organized for the performance of the used of a distinctively New Church charity, and the other, the General Church of Pennsylvania, which is a constituent part of Convention, and is organized for the performance of uses of piety.

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The raison d'etre of the Academy and of its Theological and other Schools is to be found in the fact that the existing schools do not recognize that the Divine and authoritative Books written through Emanuel Swedenborg are the Second Coming of the LORD. I read from the Apocalypse Revealed the explanation of the concluding words of Revelation, wherein we are taught that in the Writings, as in the Sacred Scripture, the Lord comes to His Church in His Divine Human, and that the Church must acknowledge this, in order that the marriage between her and the LORD may take place; from which it also follows that such an acknowledgment lays the foundation for conjugial love.
     Mr. Pitcairn, who had been introduced as Chairman of the Council of the Laity of the General Church of Pennsylvania, spoke of the priesthood from a layman's point of view. He referred to the distinctive uses assigned to the priests on the one hand, and to the laymen on the other, in the Pennsylvania Church; the one order having charge of the ecclesiastical affairs, the other of the civil affairs and finances, of the Church. He spoke of the great freedom that existed in the General Church, and which was fostered by its form of government. A fear of the priesthood seemed childish to him. What was there to fear? Since the Last Judgment it is no longer possible for any priesthood to spiritually hold captive and enslave men, as had been the case before the Judgment It does not seem to be at all understood in the New Church in general how free the laity are in the Pennsylvania Church. "Nunc licet" over the portal of the temple representative of the New Church (T. C. R. 508), was inscribed there for laymen as well as priests-all are to enter intellectually into the mysteries of faith, but that Faith is in the Divinity and Authority of the Writings, and to that Authority all must bow. The priest's government, while acknowledged by the laity, is and must be subject to the Writings-the Divine Law-and every layman can hold the priest amenable to that Law. We must have leaders. This is illustrated in all cases where men organize, for any purpose whatsoever. Where the priests are not acknowledged to be the leaders, by virtue of their position, the personality of some man will make him leader. A layman often takes this place. . . . a condition of things very disorderly. Wherever the minister by force of his personality makes himself the leader, the person governs, and not the priest.
     The Rev. N. Dandridge Pendleton, a brother of the Rev. W. F. Pendleton, and a recent graduate from the Academy's schools, was introduced next. He spoke very earnestly of the priesthood as the LORD'S office of saving souls-an office belonging not to man, but to the LORD, and only adjoined to man. Where the man ascribes to himself anything appertaining to this office, he is a thief. The LORD is the High Priest; He is the priest who efforts the salvation of men; the man to whom the office is adjoined is a mere instrument for carrying out, the Divine Purpose.
     Mr. Synnestvedt, the present senior student of the Academy, spoke of the kindness which the cycling party has met with Mr. Higham had shown them: many things in London which they would never have seen unaided; among them being places which, though obscure in themselves, were yet of great, interest to them, being associated with events in they history of the New Church. The trip had more than exceeded their expectations, both as a matter of education and of recreation. Mr. Synnestvedt gave a description of the schools of the Academy and of the very great esteem and affection in which they are held by students and pupils.
     Mr. Schill gave a short account of his experience in receiving the Doctrines. At first he looked upon them as Swedenborg's; but when he came to see that they were the LORD'S he saw everything in a different light. How could they be approached as Swedenborg's, when the LORD has told us to come to Him?
     Messrs. Burt and Alvin Nelson, of Chicago, and Mr. David Klein, of Brooklyn, also addressed a few words to the assembled friends.
     Mr. Higham, the Secretary of the Society, in moving a "vote of thanks," wished to disabuse our minds in case we should have conceived the idea that all the members of the Society agreed with the Academy. He and others did not, although they all considered themselves loyal to the Doctrines. He expressed his pleasure at having heard about the Academy and the General Church of Pennsylvania from a direct source. It had removed misconceptions of these two bodies, and his respect for the Academy had increased. He felt that he was much nearer to the Academy than he had believed. He wishes that every Newchurchman in England could have been present to hear what had been said.
     Mr. Denney, with whom, although under an assumed name, you, my dear "Life," are not unacquainted, seconded Mr. Higham's motion. He seemed to be one of those who agree with the Academy more fully, and referred to Philadelphia as the centre of New-Church light. He wished that he could accept the invitation made by Mr. Burt, and take the Camberwell Society with him on a visit to Philadelphia and Chicago.
     The motion was then put and carried. In reality the "thanks", were as evidently due from us to the generous Camberwell people, and we so expressed ourselves, and assured them that if they should ever come to Philadelphia, We should endeavor to give them as cordial a welcome as they had given us.
     The speeches did not follow immediately upon one another, but were interspersed with songs by ladies of the Camberwell and the Camden Road Societies. Refreshments, also, were served.
     On the following Sunday, by invitation, I enjoyed the honor of preaching at the Camberwell Church, Mr. Tilson conducting the greater part of the service. After worship was ever, every American visitor was presented by the Society with a photograph of the church and the autograph signatures of the Pastor and officers of the Society-a valued memento of happy days in London.
     Since our sojourn in England has depended entirely on Bishop Benade's condition, and as he is now pronounced out of danger, Mr. Pitcairn and I shall return to our wives, who are awaiting our return in the vicinity of Lake Lucerne. The young men of the cycling party left in the early part of this week for Paris, where they intend visiting the International Exhibition. Mr. Schill remains in London, where he is helping to take care of the Bishop, and will continue with him until he is strong enough to do without assistance.
     And now, wishing you all prosperity, I remain,"
     Affectionately yours,
          E. J. E. S.

      [On August 23d, the doctor attending Mr. Benade said that if all continued to go well, the patient might go to Hague, by easy stages, in about three weeks. ED.]

151


LETTER FROM GREAT BRITAIN 1889

LETTER FROM GREAT BRITAIN       JAS. CALDWELL       1889

     MEMBERS of the Church who have not fully realized hat membership involves an implicit acknowledgment that in spiritual things "One is our Master, even Christ," and that the latest and grandest Revelation is from Him, and constitutes His Second Coming, are liable to receive occasional shocks as they mingle with their New Church brethren and hear them discuss the wonderful things revealed from heaven for their salvation. Members whose "moral sense" is formed from the world's code must inevitably be startled when first confronted with many statements in the Writings relating to the constitution of man not known to their own philosophy. Well for them if, when such circumstances arise, they "stand still and see the salvation of Jehovah," rather than, like certain disciples, go back and walk no more with Jesus.
     I am led to make these observations by an occurrence of which I was a passive witness. In the course of a discussion at the last meeting of the Wigan District Sunday-school Union, held at Liverpool in April, a minister stated, and, in spite of some dissent, maintained that children were "born in hell," or were "in hell when born." A gentleman present was very much pained to hear the remark, and at a subsequent stage of the proceedings made an effort to give expression to his feelings, but was ruled out of order, and had to lock his protest in his breast. There are many, no doubt, who sympathize with the gentleman. The artlessness and innocence of children appear to be a standing contradiction of such teaching; but let such remember that they cannot tell the LORD anything that He does not know about children. Those who desire will find a most enchanting description of childhood in heaven and Hell, n. 329-345. Nevertheless, the clergyman's statement is most true, as appears from the following numbers of the Arcana Coelestia: "Man at his birth has not the smallest portion of good from himself, being totally and entirely defiled with hereditary evil" (n. 1906). "Man. . . . as to his proprium is the most vile and filthy excrement, and when left to himself breathes nothing but hatred, revenge, cruelty, and the most filthy adulteries, these things constituting his proprium and his will. . . . Man, when first born, is more vile than any living creature among all the wild beasts and beasts. . . . Such is the nature of every man" (n. 987). "Man, when he is born, as to hereditary evils, is a hell in the least form" (n. 9336). It may well be asked, indeed, as the clergy-man referred to asked, "From what are we saved, if not from hell?" and must we not first be in hell before we can be rescued from it? This is, no doubt, the true doctrine which by corruption in the Old Church has been changed into that monstrous doctrine which makes children actual participators in the "guilt of Adam's first sin," and "lost and miserable sinners," the recital of which humiliating confession seems to tickle the sinners immensely.
     The essayist, on the occasion above alluded to, said, among other things, that he would, if he could have his way, abolish the reading of the Word in the classes by the scholars, verse by verse. Surely he forgot the fact that the historicals were given "in order that the Word might be read with delight even by children, and that when they are in holy delight from the historical sense the Angels who are with them are in the holiness of the internal sense" (A. C. 3982). Of course, it does not follows that the reading should be at Sunday-school, and possibly Mr. Freeth has his doubts about the "holy delight. In that case his plans of reading the sacred narratives to the scholars or of giving the story in his own words may be the better way.
     Morning Light for May 11th "has pleasure in transferring to its pages an article originally appearing in a Birmingham periodical. This is a popular descriptive article about the Birmingham Church and its history, interlarded by some "popular" and patronizing accounts of the New Church Doctrines, or "Swedenborgianism." The conclusion of the writer, after a sojourn at the Wrethanm Road Church, was that "There is very little dogmatism in the Swedenborgian faith." Shade of Swedenborg! what is there, then?
     It is perfectly distressing to learn from a recent news item that the plenary "enjoyment" of an anniversary service of worship held at a church not a hundred miles from London was marred by the absence of certain wealthy members. I trust the LORD was there. On the other hand, I think the proceedings in connection with the opening of the new place of worship at Failsworth, Lancashire, must have been seriously shorn of their delight by the presence and participation of a Unitarian minister and a Congregationalist layman. The occasion was one for rejoicing at the "great things God had done for them," but New Church speakers would have to be very circumspect to avoid offending their guests.
     "New Church Paper-Sunlight." Such is the startling announcement that American visitors may possibly see placarded on the walls on landing at Liverpool. If they make haste to buy a copy, in the belief that some enterprising New Church publisher has stolen a march on The Pawn and Morning Light, they, will discover their mistake, and be sadly disappointed. The paper is a "Church" paper, as distinguished from a "Dissent" paper, and it is "New" because just started. Newchurchmen will not find its "Sunlight" very exhilarating.      JAS. CALDWELL.
     59 COUNTY ROAD, LIVERPOOL, ENG.
MEETING OF THE MAINE ASSOCIATION 1889

MEETING OF THE MAINE ASSOCIATION              1889

     THE Fifty-fourth Annual Meeting of the Maine Association of the New Church was held at Fryeburgh, Maine, 4 Saturday and Sunday, August 24th and 25th. The Rev. Dr. S. F. Dike presided.
     The attention of the meeting was chiefly occupied by listening to reports of the Missionary Committee and of the Societies in Portland, Fryeburgh, and Bath.
     The Association purposes completing its printed record meetings, by publishing the substance of all past journals not already printed in full.
     On Saturday evening addresses were made by the Rev. Messrs. Dike, W. B. Hayden, H. C. Dunham, and C. H. Mann and Mr. A. L. Simpson, on the general topic, "The Mission of the New Church," treating of its mission to the Christian World, toward Modern Reforms, and to the Heathen World.
     On Sunday morning the Rev. C. H. Mann preached. In the afternoon Communion was administered to over eighty persons, by the Rev. Dr. Dike, assisted by the Rev. Messrs. Stone and Dunham.
     In the evening the Rev. H. C. Dunhan preached.
"THE GERMAN NEW CHURCH SOCIETY." 1889

"THE GERMAN NEW CHURCH SOCIETY."              1889

     THE "German New Church Society," having failed of realizing its original aims, as a general New Church organization, now proposes to confine its work to the publication of the Writings.

152


NEWS GLEANINGS 1889

NEWS GLEANINGS       Various       1889


NEW CHURCH LIFE.
A MONTHLY JOURNAL

TERMS:-One Dollar per annum, payable in advance.

Six months on trial for twenty-five cents.

     All communications must be addressed to Publishers New Church Life, No. 759 Corinthian Avenue, Philadelphia, Pa.

     In Great Britain subscriptions may be sent to
     MR. S. WARREN POTTS, Book Steward, 61 Cathedral Street, Glasgow, Scotland.
     REV. R. J. TILSON, 2 Inglis, Camberwell, London, S. E.
     MR. G. A. MCQUEEN, Crowhurst Road, Colchester.
     MR. JAS. CALDWELL, 59 County Road, N., Liverpool.
     MR. C. E. SCHROEDER, 13     Ashfield Terrace, Newcastle-on-Tyne.
     MISS FLORENCE G. GIBBS, 8 Camden Square, London, N.

     PHILADELPHIA, SEPTEMBER, 1889=120.

     CONTENTS.

     Editorial Notes, p. 137.-The Love of Doctrine (a sermon), p. 138.-Conversations on Education, 140.-Mythology in the Light of the New Church, p. 141.-Renderings and Readings II, p. 145.
     Notes and Reviews, p. 147.-Three Publications, etc., p. 147.
     Letter from England, p. 149.-Letter from Great Britain. p. 151.
     News Gleanings, p. 152.-Births, Marriages, and Deaths, p. 152.
     AT HOME

     Pennsylvania.-THE Rev. L. G. Jordan has now definitely accepted the call to the pastorate of the Society or the Advent in Philadelphia, and his family has already removed to this city from Oakland, Cal. His present address is 2538 Continental Avenue, Philadelphia.
     Services will be resumed by the Advent Society, on September 15th, at Glenn's Hall, Seventeenth and Brandywine Streets.
     The schools of the Academy of the New Church will begin on Tuesday October 1st.
     Information respecting the schools of the Academy of the New Church may be obtained by applying to the Dean, the Rev. E. J. E. Schreck, 182l Wallace St., Philada.
     California.-DEFINITE steps toward the proposed Pacific Coast New Church Association have now finally been taken, the two Societies in San Francisco having united on a Declaration of Principles, on the basis of which it is intended to make a call to the other Pacific Coast Societies.
     Canada.-THE Rev. S. F. Dike, of Maine, recently made a missionary tour through New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.
     THE Canada Association met in Toronto, on June 27th to 30th, five ministers, nineteen delegates, and about fifty visitors being present. The points of principal interest were the granting of "licentiate" powers to Mr. T. M. Martin, and a resolution passed in condemnation of the influence of the Jesuits in Canada. From the reports it appears that the Church in Canada has progressed in many directions during the past year. Several social meetings were held, the one at the house of Mr. and Mrs. A. K. Roy; on Saturday evening, being especially enjoyed. On Sunday morning, June 30th, the Rev E. S. Hyatt conducted Divine worship and was afterward ordained by the Rev. F. W. Tuerk into the second-degree of the Priesthood. At three p. m., the Rev. L. G. Allbutt baptized six children and three adults, and the Rev. F. W. Tuerk assisted by the Rev. Messrs. Bowers and Hyatt, administered the Holy Supper. At seven P. M., Mr. Allbutt again conducted Divine worship, after which the President the Rev. F. W. Tuerk, delivered his annual address, which entirely consisted of a powerful plea for distinctive New Church Education. Some interesting discussions were held during the meetings. The arguments of the Rev. Messrs. Hyatt and Waelchli, in opposing the introduction of a lay-ministry and of the resolution respecting the Jesuits, are especially noteworthy.
     Indiana.-THE Rev. H. H. Grant, some time ago pastor of the La Porte, Ind., Society, has accepted a unanimous call to the pastorate of the Richmond (Ind.) Society.
     Iowa.-THE two New Church ministers in Iowa the Rev. Messrs. Stephen Wood and J. J. Lehnen, have issued a call for a general meeting of the New Church people in Iowa to be held at Norway, Benton Co., Ia., on August 10th, for the purpose of organizing a general New Church Association in Iowa, auxiliary to the Illinois Association.
     Maine.-NEW Church services are being held during the summer in the Universalist Church in Gardiner, the Rev. Messrs. J. K. Smyth and H. Clinton Hay officiating. Considerable opposition has been manifested by Old Church members.
     New York.-The Pastor of the New York German Society, the Rev. W. H. Schliffer, has given up his monthly visits to Allentown, in order to devote himself exclusively to the increasing work of his Society, which is reported as being in a very prosperous condition.
     Ohio.-AT the closing services in this New Church Temple in Cincinnati, on July 7th one hundred and forty persons partook of the Holy Communion. Summer services have been kept up by Mr. C. B. Chase, during the absence or the Pastor. The publication of the Society's paper, the League, will be resumed.

     ARROAD.

     Great Britain.-WHILE on their stay in England, during the illness of the Rev. W. H. Benade the Rev. E. J. E. Schreck and Mr. John Pitcairn made a visit to the little New Church Society at Colchester. Mr. Schreck, on invitation, preached to the Society.
     During the vacation of the Rev. R. L. Tafel, the pulpit of the Camden Bond, London, Society, is occupied by the Rev. Jabez Fox of Washington, D.C., U. S. A.
     THE "New Church Educational Institute" held its sixth annual meeting in London on June 21st, about fifty members and friends being present. Addresses were delivered by the Rev. Messrs. R. L. Tafel, J. F. Potts, and B. J. Tilson. One student for the Priesthood has been pursuing his studies in the Institute during the past year. The Rev. R. L. Tafel is the Principal and the Theological Professor Mr. Glendower C. Ottley is the Instructor in Natural Sciences.
     THE "Band of Hope," formerly in connection with the Argle Square Society, is now being kept up wider the auspices of the Presbyterian Church. The former president and vice-president of the "Band" have resigned.
     THE first New Church Society in Wales, in connection with the General Conference, was recently formed at Ynysmeudwy (pronounced Inismedo). The Rev. R. R. Rodgers organised the Society, and Rev. W. Rees, an Old Church minister, who professes to preach "total abstinence and New Church doctrine together," baptized a number of the members.
     THE twenty-fifth annual meeting of the New Church College was held at Islinglon, London, on July 26th. A strong address was delivered by the Chairman, John Clowes Bailey, Esq., on the important uses of a well instructed New Church ministry, and exhibiting the absurdities of that so-called-"liberlism" which would do away with all Ministry, and with the external Church itself.
     The New Church College is now a kind of circulating institution, various ministers and laymen at different centres superintending the studies of the students. It does not, therefore, pretend to be a real school. There are at present, twenty one students under the direction of the Institution-seven in London and fourteen in the provinces; most of them however, are tact studying for the Ministry.
EDITORIAL NOTES 1889

EDITORIAL NOTES       Editor       1889




     BIRTHS, MARRIAGES, AND DEATHS.





153




Vol. IX.
     PHILADELPHIA, OCTOBER, 1889=120.     No. 10.
     UNDER the heading "Unity of the Spirit" in the New Jerusalem Magazine for September, 1889, is an editorial article, which appears to be a judgment upon a component part of the General Convention, and upon New Church Life.
     That which, taken in connection with the general tone and trend of the article, seems to be aimed at the Life is as follows: "Any publication which seems to uphold evil may and ought to be put aside from our reading-rooms."
     It is to be regretted that the Magazine did not frankly say what it most probably intends shall be understood, namely, "New Church Life seems to uphold evil, therefore it may and ought to be put aside from our reading-rooms." In that case New Church Life would have replied: "The Life is not aware that it has been charged with seeming to uphold evil in any respect, except as to the matter of concubinage. Now, the Life has never published anything editorially concerning concubinage which was not either from the Doctrines of the New Church, or in strict accord with them. If, therefore, New Church Life seems to uphold evil, and if what it says is from the Doctrines, and in accord with them then those Doctrines must also seem to uphold evil."
     But the Doctrines of the New Church do not even seem to uphold evil, except to those who think from self-derived intelligence, and not from the Doctrines; for they contain nothing from any spirit or angel, but what is from the LORD alone.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     OCCASIONALLY the proposition that "What is truth to one may not be truth to another," is urged as an excuse for withholding the distinctive Doctrines of the New Church. The proposition is true, but in what way? The Truth is eternally and unchangeably the same, no matter what man's comprehension of it may be, and when it is said that the Truth is not truth to a certain one, it must mean that that one lacks either the ability or the willingness to see it. In either case it would be no excuse for the instructor in the Divinely-inspired Doctrines to withhold any truth he is capable of uttering. The real case of the truth not being the truth is this:

     "Truth with man is altogether according to good with him. Where there is little of good there is little of truth. They are in a like ratio, and in a like degree; or, as it is said, they keep pace with each other, which may appear as a paradox; but still, such is the case. Good is the very essence of troth; truth without its essence is not truth, although it appears as if it were. It is only a sounding something, and as an empty vessel. In order that any one may have truth with himself, he not only ought to know it, but also to acknowledge it. When he does this, he then first has truth, because then it affects him, and remains. It is otherwise when he only knows truth, and does not acknowledge and have faith in it; then he has not truth in himself. As happens with many who are in evil, they can know truth, and sometimes even better than others; but still they do not have truth yea, they have it much the less, because in heart they deny it. It is provided by the LORD that no one shall have-that is to say, shall acknowledge and believe, more of truth that he receives of good."- A. C. 2429.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     THE New-Jerusalem Magazine for July, 1889, under the heading, "Not to be Published," (in Swedenborg Studies) opens with this sentence: "The thoroughness with which every line of Swedenborg's private diary has been brought before the public, and the eagerness with which friends and foes alike pore over every detail, as if these accounts were the Doctrines of the New Church, have never seemed to us likely to do any good, unless by showing the malignity of evil spirits."
     Are not these accounts, namely, those contained in the Spiritual Diary, the Doctrines of the New Church? Let evidence from the Diary itself give the answer. In Spiritual Diary, n. 1647, is the following heading:
     Quod ea quae didici in repraesentationibus, visionibus et ex loquelis cum spiritibus et angelis, solum a Domino sint."
     This may be translated: "That these things which I have learned in representations, visions, and from conversations with spirits and angels, are from the LORD alone." What does "these things which I have learned" (ea quae didici) refer to if not to the "accounts" written in the Diary? Let the Diary speak still further. The paragraph above referred to, n. 1647, continues as follows:

     "Whensoever there was any representation, vision, and speech, I was held interiorly and inmostly in reflection upon these things, as to what thence was useful and good, thus what I should learn, which reflection was not thus attended to by those who presented the representations and visions, and who spoke; indeed they were sometimes indignant when they perceived that I reflected. Thus was I instructed, wherefore by no spirit, nor yet by an angel, but by the LORD alone, from whom is every truth and good." (See also S. D. 900.)

     What are the Doctrines of the New Church if not revelations from the LORD? and are not the "accounts" written in the Spiritual Diary proven on their own evidence to be nothing else than Revelations "from the LORD alone, from Whom is every Truth and Good"?
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     Further on in the above-mentioned article are quoted the following two passages, by which the Magazine tries to sustain its heading, "Not to be Published."

     "What has happened to me I can never express, for it would exceed all belief. That my temptations for a long time have been of this kind I do not doubt. They are now for the first time made plain. But because they are so terrible, I would rather forget them than publish them."-Adv. III, 4512.
     "These things it is not thus proper [ought to be allowed] to speak in public, lest they come into men's thought."-S. D. 2711.

     The Magazine says: "It seems to us that such a statement as that in Adv. III, 4512, might well appear on the title-page of a book like the Spiritual Diary, which is now issuing without anything to show conspicuously that it is what every Newchurchman knows it to be, a record hastily written, and never put into publishable form."
     Is it not sufficient for historical purposes that it should be said upon the title-page, "from his (Swedenborg's) manuscript preserved in the library of the Royal University of Upsala, now first published," as is found on the title-page of the first volume of the Spiritual Diary, or the like remarks that are found on the title-pages of the other three volumes?

154


Why should any Newchurchman wish to set upon the title-page of the Diary a sentence that, taken entirely out of its connection, would appear to cast a doubt upon the usefulness of publishing revelations "from the LORD alone"?
     "The Divine, from Love toward the Human Race, has revealed such things as lead to that [eternal] life, and conduce to his [man's] salvation. What the Divine has revealed, it with us the WORD" (A. C. 10,320. See also 5576 and 5915).
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     IN New Church Messenger for September 18th, 1889, a writer, who signs himself "WM. McG., JR.," makes an implied charge against New Church Life of misstating the facts as to the commingling of Old and New Church worship in the Universalist house of worship in Washington on Convention Sunday, last spring. It is not intended in this note to discuss the merits of the case, but the facts. The position of the Life as to the merits of the case is well known to its readers, but as, to the facts, it appears that "some one has blundered"
     "WM. McG., Jn." says:
     "The only things that he [the Uni. min.] did in the morning was to come on the platform, accompanied by the Rev. Messrs. Giles and Smyth, and to announce that the services would be conducted by the President of the Convention and Mr. Smyth, and then, as he stood on his feet to further announce that the joint congregation [the italics are ours] would unite in the singing of what? some terrible old hymn, full of the false doctrine of a consummated Church? No, but a familiar selection from the Word of the Loan. Having done this, he and his brethren successfully performed that feat which the French pronounce the perfection of politeness-they utterly effaced themselves. . . . This is all there was to hang the accusation of mingling true and false worship upon."
     The Messenger for June 5th, 1889, in its report of Convention Sunday, contains the following words:

     "In the morning the Rev. J. K. Smyth preached at the Universalist Church, on 'Fishers of Men.' The services were conducted by the Rev. Alexander Kent, Pastor of the Universalist Society, assisted by Mr. Giles and Mr. Smyth. The services were from the Universalist book of worship. At the close of the sermon the collection of the Universalist Society was taken up." [The above italics are ours.]

     The programme for Convention Sunday, printed in the Messenger for May 22d, 1889, is, so far as concerns the question at issue, as follows:

     "SUNDAY, MAY 26TH.

     "11 A. M. Sermon by the Rev. Julian K. Smyth. Subject: 'Fishers of Men.'
     "NOTE.-The Rev. Alex. Kent, Pastor of the society which has so kindly given the use of its house of worship for the meetings of the Convention, has invited Mr. Smyth to occupy his pulpit on Sunday morning. His congregation will have their own order of worship and music. . . ." [The italics are ours.]

     From the above three quotations it would appear that there is a collision somewhere. Who is it that misstates the case, New Church Life, the Messenger, in its Convention programme and report, or "WM. McG., Jn."?
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     THE Angels say that if man knew that the Word has an internal sense, and should think from some knowledge of it when reading the Word, he would come into interior wisdom, and would be conjoined more closely with heaven, since he would, by this, enter into ideas, similar to those of the Angels. (H. H. 310.) How important then that the man of the New Church, when reading the Psalms and Prophets, should avail himself of the Summary Exposition of the Internal Sense of the Prophets and Psalms.
CIRCUMCISION 1889

CIRCUMCISION       Rev. L. G. JORDAN       1889

     "And the uncircumcised man-child whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that should shall be out off from his people; he hah broken my covenant."-Gen. xvii, 14.

     THERE can be little doubt that the rite of circumcision, like others of the Jewish Church, had a foundation in natural use for the times and conditions of the people. In Asia and in Africa the custom is now known and valued, partly on sanitary and in part on religious grounds. Indeed, in some African tribes both men and women are circumcised.
     In the case of Abraham and his descendants, we have an instance of the adoption by the LORD of a practice desired by those whom He was to lead and teach, as the means of getting firm and distinctive hold on them, and to represent by a natural act, to which they inclined, affairs spiritual and higher not then understood by them.
     For these natural and spiritual reasons circumcision was made as imperative as any ritual or ceremony of the Church. During the wilderness journey it was neglected, partly from obstinacy and partly, perhaps, because the people felt themselves so far under the LORD'S displeasure that they were not worthy of this token of His covenant and assurance of His good-will. But when they were about to enter upon the promised land they were all circumcised by command of the LORD through Joshua. The covenant was renewed and the people again turned in apparent faith to Him who had brought them up from Egypt. After that time circumcision was carefully observed. It was one of the customs which survived in full vigor at the time of John the Baptist and of the LORD, both of whom were circumcised in their infancy according to the law.
     But we are not to suppose that the natural desire of the Jews, or any natural use, `was the principal reason for the adoption of the rite by the LORD. Certainly in the Ancient Church its spiritual signification would have been the essential. Something of utmost value to the heart and mind would have made it ever memorable, and for this alone the outward custom must have been regarded by all who were truly of the Church. To a large degree the knowledge of the natural and much more of the spiritual uses was wanting among Jews. Nevertheless even they had some statement by lawgivers and prophets of the real significance of the rite. Thus we read in Deuteronomy x, 16, "Circumcise, therefore, the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiff-necked." And in chapter xxx, 6, "Jehovah thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love Jehovah thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live." In Jeremiah iv, 4, "Circumcise yourselves to Jehovah, and take away the fore-skins of your heart, ye men of Judah, and inhabitants of Jerusalem: lest my fury come forth like fire, and burn that none can quench it, because of the evil of your doings." In these passages the natural suggestion is of a tough integument covering up all true tenderness add holiness of feeling, hardening the heart and making the people indifferent to the good the LORD would do. When we consider, these expressions in the light for the New Church they wonderfully display, even in the letter, the spirit of the rite.
     Unfortunately this spiritual-significance of the law of circumcision made little impression on the minds of the Jews. It was mainly to them in their arrogance a mere sign of the separation of themselves from all others, a distinctive mark of the especial favor of God to them.

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Among them no epithet could be more contemptuous than that of "uncircumcised dog of a stranger." To them it was only natural delight to think of the reconstructed Jerusalem as admitting within its walls literally no one uncircumcised and thus unclean.
     But when the LORD began to teach, it was plain that circumcision as an outward ceremony was to become of little moment. As we shall see, all that was included in its spiritual signification was supplied by the simpler and more obviously spiritual sacrament of baptism, both that and circumcision being signs of purification.
     In the early history of the Apostolic Church, for a time circumcision was tolerated among the Jews who professed faith in the LORD as the Messiah, lest otherwise they should not he able readily to connect Him with the prophecies of the past. Hence we read that Paul circumcised Timothy for the sake of the Jews among whom he was called to work in the LORD'S name, and to this day circumcision is practiced among the Christians of Abyssinia. A little later Paul expressly declares that he did not require Titus to be circumcised, because of his fear that too much would be made of the law of ceremonial and not enough of the spirit of the Gospel of JESUS CHRIST. So in His First Epistle to the Corinthians (vii, 19), Paul says: "Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God;" in that to the Phillipians (iii, 3): "For we are of the circumcision which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in CHRIST JESUS, and have no confidence in the flesh;" and in that to the Romans (ii, 29): "Circumcision is that of the heart in the spirit, and not in the letter."
     But it is only by means of the Writings for the New Church explaining the literal Word of the LORD that the real significance and beauty of the ceremonial come fully forth. Here we have the true spiritual meaning from which the natural act arose. Here we have a picture of it as understood by the angels. The teaching on the subject is too particular and beautiful for any attempt at statement in other than the words of the Writings themselves. The portions to be quoted are in explanation of the text and associated passages in the Arcana Coelestia.
     First, as to the pure and holy estate intended for man and signified by it:
     "'Every male among you shall be circumcised.' That this signifies purity, appears from the representation and consequent signification of circumcising in the internal sense. Circumcision, or the cutting off of the foreskin, signified nothing else but the removing and wiping away of those things which obstructed and defiled heavenly love, which are the evils originating in lusts, particularly in the lusts of self-love, and the falsities thence derived. The reason of this significance is because the genitals of both sexes represent heavenly love. There are three kinds of love which constitute the celestial [that is the very highest and purest and best] things of the LORD'S Kingdom, viz.: conjugial love, love toward infants, and the love of society, or mutual love. Of all these conjugial love is the principal, for it has for its end the greatest use, viz.: the propagation of the human race, and thereby of the LORD'S Kingdom, of which the human race is the seminary. Love toward infants follows next in order of preference, being derived from conjugial love. Afterward succeeds the love of society, or mutual love. Whatsoever covers, obstructs, and defiles these loves is signified by the foreskin; the cutting off of which, or circumcision, was, therefore, made representative, for in proportion as the evils originating in lusts, and the falsities thence derived, are removed, man is purified, and heavenly love is enabled to appear. Hence it is plain that circumcision, in the internal sense, signifies purity" (A. C. 2039).
     Secondly, we have a statement of the causes and nature of defilement of the affections and of the thoughts from them.
     "There are two loves, so called, [namely, of self and the world] and their lusts, which obstruct the influx of heavenly love from the LORD, for those loves; whilst they have rule in the interior and external man, and take possession of it, either reject or suffocate the heavenly love in its influx, and also pervert and defile it, being altogether contrary to such heavenly love. . . . But in proportion as those loves are removed, heavenly love, entering by influx from the LORD begins to appear, yea, to shine bright in the interior man, and in the same proportion man begins to see that he is in evil and falsity, yea, afterward that he is in uncleanness and defilement and, lastly, that this was his proprium; these are they who are regenerate, with whom those loves are removed. . . . There is a continual influx of heavenly love from the LORD present with man, and nothing opposes, obstructs, and incapacitates man for its reception, but the lusts originating in the above loves, and the falsities thence derived" (A. C. 2041).
     But it is remarkable that one who is fully controlled by selfish and worldly affections is blind to evil and falsity, and is not in his own eyes unclean, as the noxious vapors and odors from a filthy person are scarcely perceived by himself, or, at least, are not offensive to him. Hence, "They who are under the influence of self-love and the love of the world cannot by any means believe that they are in such filthiness and uncleanness as they really are, for there is a certain pleasureableness and delight which soothes, favors, and flatters them, and causes them to love that life, and to prefer it to every other; the consequence of which is, that they think there is no evil in it. For whatever favors any one's love and consequent life is believed to be good. Hence, also, the rational principle consents and suggests falsities which confirm that conclusion and which cause such a degree of blindness that the nature of heavenly love is not at all seen, or if it be seen, they in heart say that it is something miserable or a thing of nought, or a mere imaginary existence, which keeps the mind in a state like that of sickness or disease. But that the life of self-love and the love of the world with its pleasures and delights, is filthy and unclean, may appear to every one who will be at the pains to think according to the rational faculty with which he is endowed. It is from self-love that all evils-come which destroy civil society; all kinds of hatred, all kinds of revenge, all kinds of cruelty, yea, all adulteries flow thence as so many several streams from a filthy pit. For, whosoever loves himself either despises or abuses or hates all others who are not subservient to him or who do not pay him respect or act in his favor, and where there is hatred there must of necessity be revenge and cruelty; all in proportion to the degree of self-love. Thus that love is destructive of society and of the human race.
Hence, it appears that self-love and the love of the world are represented and signified by the foreskin which was to be cut off" (A. C. 2045).
     Then follows the revelation of the means by which defilement of cherished beliefs and desires is exposed, and by which it may be removed.
     "The reason why the male is mentioned (by which is signified the truth of faith) is because no one can be purified from the above filthy loves unless he be in truth. It is by virtue of truth that he knows what is pure-and impure, and what is holy and profane.

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Before this is known there, are no mediums to receive and transmit the operations of the heavenly love which continually flows from the LORD, and which cannot be received except in truths; wherefore man is reformed and regenerated by means of the knowledges of truth which cannot be effected till he is initiated into them. Conscience itself is formed by the truths of faith, for conscience, with which the regenerated man is gifted, is a conscience of what is true and right. This is the reason also why knives of stone or swords of flint, as they are called, were made use of in circumcision, by which are signified truths" (A. C. 2046).
     Thus are we led to see that by the application of truths revealed by the LORD to the shunning of the evils of selfishness and worldliness, purification of the heart and mind are effected. That, in particular, by circumcision is meant shunning the evils of contempt for others, moroseness, and all unwillingness to work with them in noble uses, from mere self-love: of dread of the troubles imposed by the physical nurture, education, and training of children, to love heaven and the LORD, as well as the evil of a love of children merely as our own: and of every condition that lowers and lessens or renders impure the thought of the other sex and a holy, chaste, and eternal marriage.
     But by purity in these cases let us not understand puritanism; by spiritual circumcision not the utter rejection of every natural delight. The purity of heart induced by love and application of the truths of faith, is a cleanness of thought and desire by which natural pleasures are made brightly subservient to spiritual and heavenly good. The nature of the three loves described to be clue of celestial life indicates the true form of the purity of heart signified.
     Within the loves of true marriage, of little children and of society, or desire to engage in uses in company with others, there is abundant room for the exercise of every good natural delight. Let us but seek and apply the truths of the Church to the opening and guarding of these loves and there will be little danger of excesses of sensuality or worldliness or selfishness. But these affections are expansive. They do not restrain and imprison the heart. They lead us forth into the world to find there full scope for living human feelings, both internal and, external. Yet they demand close scrutiny of inward purpose at all times lest merely natural desire overwhelm the spirit and suffocate it, and lest falsities overthrow reason.     
     In the New Church all this purification of the heart, and mind are represented by the sacrament of Baptism. But as Circumcision alone was nothing, so is Baptism fruitless unless that which is meant by it be understood and realized.
     It is remarkable that this law of circumcision is laid down for Abraham just at the time of his change of name. Just when the spirit of eternal, or the highest heavenly life is made evident to him (for this is signified by the introduction of the letter "H" from the LORD'S name "Jehovah" into his and Sarai's names), cleanness of the outer habits; purity of thought and sweetness of affection, are demanded as the means of its perpetuation in the whole life of the man.
     So in the LORD, it was never so evident that He must lay aside the merely bodily enticements and the outward ambitions of the world and con all selfish will to rule for His own sake, and from external power, as when it was made clear to Him that He was to be wholly Divine, and one with the Father. Happily for man, as for Him, it is the exceeding sweetness and holiness and beauty of genuine-that is; spiritual-purity that renders so plain the uncleanness of the unrestrained and unguided natural feelings, and of ideas thence derived. The law of purity thus becomes, indeed, no iron statute, nor freezing restraint of the loves of the heart, but a holy and blessed substitution of the infinitely pure for the gross and carnal alone.
     Shall we not seek for that opening of the internal man signified by the change of our spiritual name, for the admission of eternity, to all our affections and thoughts, that we may, realize in ourselves the celestial loves which make all common, worldly, physical, selfish gratifications by themselves horrid and unclean? What delight thus to enter the New Jerusalem by the truths of faith for the Church, to find there nothing that defileth or worketh abomination, but only the circumcised of heart, who know and love the law of the LORD. Amen.
CONVERSATIONS ON EDUCATION 1889

CONVERSATIONS ON EDUCATION              1889

     CONJUNCTION.

     [Continued.]

     MAN is prepared for regeneration by instruction and by education. And now, that mediations and the middle delights of goods, together with the angelic ministrations in them, been spoken of, we can return to what was noted in our previous conversations concerning the instrumentality of the angels in the education of man.
     The middle delights and goods, like all other goods with their delights, appear in the heavens in the substantial forms of angels and angelic societies. Such angelic forms approach man, and are applied to him by affections rendered active, and by delights excited in him, which are in correspondence with their affections and delights.
     When they are so applied, there is brought about a communication of a plane of angelic life with a lower plane of human life, or there is an influx of the former into the latter. If by this communication there be effected an elevation of man's interiors, then there takes place a separation from the former affections, and also from the corresponding angelic societies, and an introduction into more interior and more perfect delights and goods, to which are adjoined more interior angelic societies. New affections thus made active, constitute new states of good, to which are applied new societies of angels, and by teem are given new communications of heavenly light and life. The states of a man are always manifested in the heavens by the societies into which he is introduced, and with which he is consociated. What man interiorly wills and thinks appears in the willing and thinking of the angels. But let it be well noted, that there is a wide divergence between the changes of state and their appearances in the other world, when a man leads himself, and adjoins societies of spirits to himself, and those which exist when the LORD leads him and effects that conjunction. In the former case the man is in evil, in the latter he is in good; and when he is in good those societies are mediations of an influx that effects his reformation; and as, the angels perceive what is presented to the life from the state of the man by the character of the societies of spirits with which he is associated, they inflow into this, and by their presence fill the mind with a light or intelligence which is composed of truths as they, see them, although but very obscurely seen by the man. In the light so received, the man is led onward by the LORD, with such conscious reception of truth as he may have, to new applications and new conjunctions.

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     In respect to infants and children, the divergence of state referred to above arises when parents and teachers make use of their corporeal and merely natural inclinations, delights, and pleasures, and do not restrain and control them into accord with such inclinations, delights, and pleasures as will afford planes for the reception of inflowing thoughts and feelings of a less selfish and worldly nature, by which they may be so affected as to be brought into communication with societies of spirits, which shall be the mediations of a good that can be stored up for future use.
     The constant presence of societies of spirits of a quality corresponding to the states of human affection and thought, if ignored in the work of the teacher, can but result in a great loss to the child, and to the teacher it means the absence of a prime factor of his work. And as the adjunction of such societies is brought about either by the man himself or by the Lord, or, in the case of a child, by his natural selfish affections, or by the wise judgment of the parent or teacher, we may know that they become agencies for evil or good, as parent or teacher follows his own notions, and the appearances of things, or as he is led to teach and educate according to the truth revealed by the LORD. (See A. C. 4073 and 4075.)
     In Arcana Coelestia, n. 4077, we read that "Societies do not readily recede from him with whom they have been, and when he with whom they are recedes, they are indignant, and conduct themselves in a manner like that of Laban to Jacob (Genesis xxxi, 1-3). Yea, if they perceive that any good has come to him by them, they say that it has come from them, for in their indignation they speak-from evil. The case is similar with every man who is regenerating; namely, that societies are applied to him by the LORD, which serve for the introduction of genuine goods and truths, not from them but by them; and when he who is regenerating is transferred to another society, then are they who were there before indignant. But these things do not appear to man, because he does not believe that he is in the society of spirits and angels; but they appear manifestly to the angels, and also to those to whom, by the Divine mercy of the LORD, it is given to speak with them, and to be among them as one of them; thence it has been given me to know that the case is so. Spirits complain exceedingly that man does not know this; not even that they are with man, and, still more, that many not only deny their presence, but also that there is a hell and a heaven. But this they ascribe to the stupidity of man, when, nevertheless, man has not the least of thoughts nor the least of will, except by influx through them from the LORD, and that it is by them that the LORD rules mediately the human race, and in every man in particular." (See further A. C. 4088, 4096 to 4099, 4104.)
     From what is said concerning the conduct of spirits, and their indignation when man recedes from them, suggests a cause of the displeasure manifested by children, uttered often in complaints and reproaches, when changes are made in their instruction or in their amusements.
     The indignation manifested and expressed is from evil-i. e., from the natural selfishness of the children, which desires a continuance of its ultimation in pleasures and delights. The LORD, in His leading of man on the way of reformation, does not heed this indignation. He says to Jacob, "Return to the land of thy fathers, and to thy nativity, and I will be with thee." Let parent and teacher follow the LORD, and act according to His Word, in Genesis xxxi, 1-2. "And he heard the words of the sons of Laban, saying, Jacob hath taken all things which our father had; and from the things which our father had, he hath made all this abundance. And Jacob saw the faces of Laban, and behold he was in no wise with him as yesterday or the day before. And the LORD said to Jacob, return to the land of thy fathers and to thy nativity, and I will be with thee.
MYTHOLOGY IN THE LIGHT OF THE NEW CHURCH 1889

MYTHOLOGY IN THE LIGHT OF THE NEW CHURCH              1889

     II.

     THE MYTHOLOGY OF CANAAN.

     IN a course of study of ancient religions it is orderly and profitable to begin with the religions of the inhabitants of the land of Canaan. This is not usual, but in the New Church the beginning should ever be from the centre, which is the only true beginning. The Word is the centre of all religions, and that religion, or mythology with which the Word in the Letter is most concerned, is, therefore, the proper centre from which to start. No other idolatry is so completely described and no other deities are so often mentioned in the Letter of the Word as those of the inhabitants of the land of Canaan, while in the Internal Sense the spiritual signification of most of these idols is explained, and it will be found that these significations can be applied to most of the deities of all other mythologies.
     In beginning our study with the idolatries of this land not only will we learn important scientifics concerning mythology, but by the truths of the internal sense contained in the literal narratives of the Word, our eyes will be more widely opened to the evils of those loves which are represented by the various Canaanitish idols.
     Historically, also, it is proper to begin with this land and its religions. For all idolatries have arisen from the perversion of the goods and truths of some Church, and the land of Canaan is that land where the Church of the LORD has been from its beginning and where it first fell, establishing in its fall the first idolatries. Here the Most Ancient Church fell, and here flourished the idolatries of the Antidiluvians; here, too, the Ancient Church was established in its most internal form, and here it fell into the most direful forms of its perversion; here the Hebrew Church arose, and in time gave rise to new forma of idolatry; here the Israelitish Church developed in freedom its representative forms until these were abolished at the Coming of the LORD, and its members fell, externally as well as internally, into idolatry. Here, at last, was the scene of the LORD'S life in the Human; on these mountains and in these valleys He preached that Word upon which the Christian Church was first established. And now again the whole people are in a Gentile state, worshiping Allah and Muhammad instead of the LORD Jehovih, its first God.     
     The externals of the Israelitish Church are so well known from the Word that it needs not to dwell upon them here. The subject for consideration here will be the worship of the surrounding nations with whom the Israelites were in constant warfare, although ever prone to fall into their idolatries.
     The religions of these nations were similar in externals to the worship of the Jews. They had temples, altars, stated festivals, sacrifices, purgings, and drink-offerings very similar to those of the Jews, and, indeed, the most vital difference was, that the Jews called their God JEHOVAH, while the nations invoked their gods by other names (A. C. 1094, 2177, 1241; A. E. 1029a).
     In order to understand the spiritual signification and character of these religiosities of Canaan it will be useful first to study the general signification and character of the land itself and its inhabitants.

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     THE LAND OF CANAAN.

     It is stated in Coronis, n. 52, that the land of Canaan is "in the central part of the whole of our world, having Europe in front, Africa on the left, hand, and Asia behind it and on the right hand."
     In a most general sense, its boundaries are described by the rivers going forth from Eden (A. C. 567), of these Hiddikel is Tigris and Phrat, Euphrates. On the north the land is terminated by the Orontes, and on the south by the Nile. It is stated also in Apocalypse Explained, n. 518, that its boundaries were two seas; the Sea of Egypt and the Sea of the Philistines, and two rivers, the Euphrates and the Jordan.
     It may be seen, therefore, that the land of Canaan may be regarded either in a wide sense or in a limited sense.
     According to the former, it is bounded on the north by Syria, on the east by Assyria and Babylonia, from which it is separated by the Euphrates, and on the south by Egypt, from which it is separated by the Nile.
     In a limited sense it was bounded on the north by Dan, on the east by Jordan, and on the south by Beersheba, inclosed on the north by the Phoenicians and, Hittites, on the east by the Aramites, Ammonites, and Moabites; on the south by the Edomites, Ishmaelites, and Amalekites, and on the west by the Philistines and, Phoenicians. All these things are representative and, significative of spiritual things, because the land of Canaan represented and signified the LORD'S Kingdom in Heaven and on earth (A. C. 1025). The reason that this country, more than any other, had this signification "was because of its central situation in the world, representing the Church, which is the Heart and Lungs of, the Gorand Man, and because the Most Ancient Church, and after it the representative Ancient Church, and at, last the Israelitish Representative of a Church had all been established here. From most ancient times, when men in all things of this world saw but types of things, in the spiritual world, all the places in the land of, Canaan received a representation of states of the internal man, of the Church, of Heaven, yea, of the LORD; Himself, and this as to all particular boundaries, districts, provinces; mountains, rivers, seas, valleys, cities, and inhabitants. The LORD'S end in giving such a representative character to all and each thing of this land was, that the Word in the Letter might be written here, containing in a perfect order all things of the Glorification of the Human of the LORD and the establishment of His New Church among men.
     Hence, the borders of the Land of Canaan signify the ultimates of Heaven and the Church. Syria signifies the knowledges of good and truth in the memory; Assyria and the Euphrates the Rational mind with its good and truth; Egypt the scientific mind. In a limited sense, Canaan represents the Internal Church, separated from the External Church by Jordan, or Regeneration. The extension of Canaan from Dan to Beersheba signifies the extension of the goods and truths of the Church from ultimates to inmosts. Thus, also, its divisions signify degrees in the mind of man; Judea the Spiritual, Samaria the Rational, and Gallilee the Natural. Each nation, also, had its particular signification, as will be seen, and similarly all the tribes and cities, the names of which often date from the time of the Most Ancient Church; and, were retained from the Ancient Word. The name of the land of Canaan itself is not from the name of the son of Shem, as some have supposed, but from the most ancient times, according to its representation. In Arcana Coelestia n. 4453, it is taught that the name "Canaan" is derived from the Hebrew word [Hebrew] (cana), to trade, and this because the Church was there, from which all other nations derive their good and truth. The learned in the Old Church have decided that the name comes from another [Hebrew]=to be low, but this is absurd, inasmuch as Canaan is a highland.

     HISTORY AND INHABITANTS.

     In the Most Ancient Church.

     It is distinctly taught in the Writings that the Most Ancient Church, or The Paradise, was in the land of Canaan, taken in its wider sense. Of this fact many confirmations may be found from a knowledge of the languages and peoples inhabiting these regions. The Most Ancient people were nomadic that is, they lived in separate families, governed by patriarchs, who at the same time were priests, and they occupied themselves mostly with the care of herds and flocks. From recent discoveries in Assyria and Babylonia we find this confirmed. Thus the earliest kings of the Sumero-Akkadian nations were shepherd-kings and priest-kings, and the very name of a city in the Assyrian-alu-is the same as the Hebrew [Hebrew] (ohel), which means a tent.
     When the Most Ancient Church fell; its descendants became immersed in the most direful persuasions and phantasies, in their supreme arrogance counting themselves gods, from which they were named Nephilim, or giants-giants in their own conceit and in the fearful depth of their evil loves. This race of giants was destroyed by the Flood; their own evils and falses drowned them, mentally and physically, for their evils caused a loss of their internal respiration, and as they never had an external respiration, they were actually choked to death. Some, however, seemed to have escaped the general destruction, as may appear from the race of giants known in the time of the Judges and Kings of Israel under the general name of Nephilim. This word means in general, the "fallen ones," from [Hebrew] (naphal), to fall. Of these Nephilim in the time of the Judges only some remnants were left, divided into certain tribes, called the Anakim, the Rhsplzaim, the Susim, the Emim, and the Zamzummim, by all of which are signified the direful persuasions of the false, such as the Nephilim imbibed (A. C. 1673). The spies sent out by Joshua relate in Numbers xiii, 33, "And we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, of the Nephilim, and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers; and so were we in their sight." And in Deuteronomy ii, 11, "The Emim dwelt therein in times past, a people great, and many, and tall, as the Anakim; which also were accounted giants, like the Anakim, but the Moabites call them Emim."
     These Anakim are said to be descendants of a certain Arba. They dwelt in Southern Pales in the vicinity of Hebron, which also was called Kiriath Arba, or the city of Arba. From this place they were driven out by Joshua, but a small remnant of them found a refuge amongst the Philistines in Gaza, Gath, and Ashdod. From this stock perhaps came the giants who went out to fight David, such as Goliath and Ishbibenob, whose spear alone weighed three hundred shekels. Og, the king of Bashan, was also "of the remnant of the giants, behold, his bedstead was a bedstead of iron; is it not in Rabbath of the children of Ammon? nine cubits were the length thereof, and four cubits the breadth" (Deut. iii, 11).

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     The Rhephaim were another branch of this aboriginal, fearful race or giants; they first appear in the Word in Genesis xiv, 5, when Chedorlaomer, king of Elam, smote the Rephaim in Ashteroth-Karnaim, the Zuzim in Ham, and the Emim in Shaveh-Kiriathaim. It appears from Joshua xviii, 16, that the valley of the son of Hinnom, outside of Jerusalem-afterward so opprobriously known as Gehenna-originally belonged to the Rhephaim, from whom, probably, the valley ever afterward retained a bad name. Modern archaeologists suppose these Rephaim to have been Troglydites or Cave-dwellers, a fearful people of wild and vicious habits, robbers and murderers. Their name is generally used in Phoenician inscriptions as a word of horror and execration applied to evil spirits.
     There was, however, another general family of nations descended from the Most Ancient Church, and long inhabiting the land of Canaan, who seemed to have retained some of the good characteristics of the Most Ancient people: the nations of the Hittites and the Hivites. Of these interesting nations we learn in the Doctrines that "the remains of the Most Ancient Church were still existing in Canaan in the time of Jacob, and especially with the Hittites and the Hivites" (A. C. 4429, 4447); that they were among the better class of the inhabitants of Canaan; that they represent those who are capable of receiving the good and truth of the Church, and with whom a New Church can be raised up (A. C. 2940); and represent also the idolatrous state, in which there is somewhat of good (A. C. 6860). In the opposite sense, and because of the evil hereditary from the Antidiluvians, "the Hivites signify falses comparatively light; the Canaanites falses from graver evils, the Hittites false from evils of the gravest kind, and the nations of Canaan all falses and evils in the complex" (A. C. 9332). From the remains of good and truth with them, the Gibeonites, who belonged to this nation, were providentially preserved by a covenant with Joshua, and they seem afterward to have been incorporated with the Israelites, serving in the temple as hewers of wood and drawers of water for the sacrifices.
     The Hittites were descendants from Heth, the second son of Canaan, and are mentioned as far back as the time of Abraham, who bought from them the field and cave of Macpelah. From what we may gather of their character, they seem to have been a mild, peaceful, confident, and warmhearted people, given to commerce rather than to military pursuits. The money current with the merchants was familiar to them. "The peaceful assembly in the gate of the city was their manner of receiving strangers, as is shown in the graceful courtesy extended to Abraham. Of these Hittites there appear to have been two branches, one in southern Palestine, with Hebron as their principal seat, and another, greater and mightier, in Syria, with the city Karkemish as capital. In the time of Rameses II (B. C. 1300), this branch was the most feared of all the enemies of Egypt, by `whom, in the inscriptions, they are called the Cheta. Rameses II defeated them near Ketesh, in the fifth year of his reign, which event is loudly celebrated in the Papyri. From this we learn that they were a great confederation, extending over they whole of Syria, having a regular army, strong in chariots. In the twenty-first year of Rameses II, Ketetsera, King of the Cheti, came to Egypt to make a treaty. In this the Hittite divinities are mentioned, the principal of whom were Sutekh and Anterath (Ashtoreth). Sutekh, or Set, was also the chief god among the Hyksos. The Assyrians, also, had frequent wars with this nation, whom they called the Khatti. Recent excavations in Karkemish have brought to light numerous remains of the Hittites. From their reliefs they appear to have had a great similarity in features with the Assyrians and other Semitic peoples, though bearing strong individual characteristics. Their names, also; indicate a Semitic language, but their writing was hieroglyphics, of a very peculiar character, which hitherto have not been deciphered. The Hivites appear to have been of the same general character, as may appear from the narrative of Shechem and the sons of Jacob. Part of them afterward embraced the Jewish religion. The main body of the Hivites were settled in the northwest of Palestine, on the slopes of Lebanon. The modern Druses are said to have descended from them.
Notes and Reviews 1889

Notes and Reviews              1889

     A NEW enterprise in New Church journalism is the Walworth New Church Monitor, a four-page monthly, edited by the Rev. Arthur Potter and devoted to mission work, total abstinence, and the Walworth (London) New Church Society.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     AMONG recent Reports and Journals the following have just been received from England.
     Minutes of the Eighty-second Session of the General Conference of the New Church.
     Twenty-fifth Report of the New' Church College, Devonshire Street, Islington, London.
     Annual Report of the Paisley Society of the Church of the New Jerusalem.
     Report of the Anerley Society of the New Church.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     THE Rev. A. J. Bartels, of Chicago, who of late has devoted himself to "Christian Science," has recently published a work entitled, Swedenborg's Lehren und die metaphysiache oder geistige Heilungs-Philosophie (Swedenborg a Doctrines and the metaphysical or spiritual philosophy of Healing).
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     THE third installment of the Reprint of the early Journals of the General Convention have just been issued, containing Journals Nos. 14-17 (1882-1885).
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     THE New Church Almanack for 1889 has met with small encouragement in the form of sales, in spite of its usefulness, interesting contents, and attractive form. According to announcement from Professor F. Harris, of Cambridge, Mass., who is the careful and disinterested compiler, the Almanack for 1890 will be published by the New Church Book Association, of Philadelphia.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     THE first series of the Biblioteca della Nuova Epoca, published at Florence by Signor Scocia, has now been completed with No. 11, La Morte Porta della Vera Vita, and No. 12, La Felicita nel Lavoro, being translations of the Rev. Chauncey Giles' lectures on "Death, the Entrance into Life," and "Happiness in Work."
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     A COMMITTEE has been appointed by the President of the General Convention to take into consideration the series of Resolutions on New Church Education prepared by Mr. Hite, of Urbana, and introduced at the late Convention by Rev. W. H. Mayhew. The Committee consists of the Rev. S. F. Dike D. D., as chairman; the Rev. W. F. Pendleton, Professor T. F. Moses, the Hon. J. Y. Scammon, and Judge Albert Mason.

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Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     A FRENCH Compendium of the Doctrines of the New Church, together with an account of the Progress of the New Church in the world, has recently been published in Paris by M. Charles Humann, advocate, and leader of the New Church Society in Paris.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     THE late Dr. Achatius Kahl's interesting New Church library was sold by auction at Lund, in Sweden, on September 28th. The library, which represents more than half a century's work of collecting, contains about seven hundred different New Church works, among theme a great number of exceedingly rare original editions of Swedenborg's Scientific and Theological works, and completed collections of the Swedish New Church literature, sacred as well collateral. Of particular interest are two manuscript translations into Swedish of Conjugial Love and the Divine Providence, made by Swedenborg's intimate friend, Dr. G. A. Beyer, of Gottenburg. Another curious book is a religious work by the Countess Elisabeth Gyllenborg, whom Swedenborg is reported to have mentioned as his conjugial partner waiting for him in the spiritual world (see Documents I, p. 699).
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     A FOOLSCAP sheet, bearing as title THE WRITINGS, and containing forty-three extracts from the Writings as to their Divine and authoritative character, has been published In London by the Rev. Robert Tilson, for the use of the Camberwell Society. The Writings here speak altogether for themselves, and in a manner inimitable by human style. Those who characterize the doctrine of the "Authority" as man's interpretation of the Writings are here answered by the Writings. Unless they contain actual and persistent falsifications, they must be what they are here shown to proclaim themselves: The LORD JESUS CHRIST Himself in His Glorified Human, revealed in His Second Advent as the Spiritual Sense of the Word, contained in the Divine, Authoritative, Infallible Writings given through Swedenborg.
     The evidence here collected is simply overwhelming, and ought to be put into the hand of every New-Church man and woman in the world. It is to be hoped that this collection of passages will be republished in this country, and in a form somewhat more convenient, than, the rather too large sheet here noted.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     THE New Church Pacific has come to the conclusion that "after all, the fact remains that the Writings contain Divine truth in its more exact form," and that "the strong, and intelligent, and faithful Church is the one in which the Writings are most carefully and conscientiously studied. . . . Given a Society of the Church which depends altogether for its food on preaching or collateral books, and that Society will, in the end, die out. Given a Society which has a large centre of members who intelligently study the Writings, and that Society will live, however great the outward obstacles to its success may be, and it will prosper in the end. This all experience proves."
     This Is good counsel to the New Church on the Pacific Coast. It is to be hoped that the day will come when the brethren there will see that the Writings are the Divine Truth in its most exact form, inasmuch as "This exceeds all the revelations that have been made hitherto since the creation of the world" (Invit. 44).
TULKISM 1889

TULKISM              1889

     THE SCIENCE OF CORRESPONDENCY, and other Spiritual Doctrines of Holy Scripture; with illustrative Spiritual Exposition, by the late Charles Augustus Tulk. Edited by Charles Pooley. James Speirs, 36 Bloomsbury Street, London. 1889.
     THIS reprint is issued by the publishing house of the New Church in Great Britain, and also has been approved and recommended by New Church periodicals in England and America. Hence one would be led to suppose that it is a New Church work. It is not; however, for it denies in unmistakable terms, the fundamental Doctrine of the New Church: the Doctrine of the LORD.
     It denies that the LORD Jehovah has clothed Himself with a Human.
     It denies that the LORD, when in states of temptations, spake with Jehovah as with another.
     It denies that the LORD could be tempted to sin, could suffer, be crucified and die.
     In proof that such an abominable heresy is actually taught in this work of Charles Augustus Tulk, the following may be quoted from p. 104. (The italics are our own.)

     "They [who mingle-and confound the truth of the spiritual sense with the appearances of truth that-belong to the Letter'] have been driven to the necessity of supposing the Lord Jehovah to have clothed Himself with a humanity, and that, when in this humanity, He was in every respect similar to a man in nature, having lost both His omniscience and his omnipresence; so that, whenever He, Jehovah, the Infinite and eternal God, thought in that humanity, He had a consciousness distinct from the Divinity that ism from Himself; He could be tempted to sin, could suffer, be crucified and die; and all these with an impression to Himself that He was not the I AM who is before Abraham was; and that, though the Divinity and Humanity actually were one, being like soul and body, they did not appear to be one to the Humanity or Body in its sufferings. The mysterious tenet, to which is happily to the full as unintelligible as it as erroneous, has sprung from the same source as the attempt to explain the creation of the universe from the space and time of the representative sense. But all such attempts must ever prove abortive."

     The truth with which the author has mingled these falsities, as well here as in the rest of the book, makes it somewhat likely that the cursory reader may fail to discover the heresy in all its nakedness. Neither the Doctrines of the - New Church, nor those who, preach from them, teach that JEHOVAH in the Human was "similar to a man in nature, having lost both His omniscience and omnipresence," nor do they teach that JEHOVAH, or the Divine Itself, ever was tempted, suffered, was crucified and died. But they do teach that the Lord JEHOVAH actually did clothe Himself with a Human, which in all respects was similar to that of another man, possessing, in itself, neither omniscience nor omnipresence. They do teach that this Human, before it was glorified or made Divine, actually did suffer, was tempted, crucified and died, and that, when the LORD, in this Human was in such states of exinanition, He actually spoke with JEHOVAH as with another, thus had a consciousness distinct from the Divine.
     Witness the following brief statements:

     "The LORD, when born. . . . was as another man, except that He was conceived by JEHOVAH, but still He was borne by a virgin woman, and by the birth from that virgin woman He derived infirmities, such as man in general has."- A. C. 1414.

     "As much as the LORD was in the Human, which He had taken from the mother by heredity, so much He appeared distinct from JEHOVAH, and worshiped JEHOVAH as one other than Himself [a Se]; but as much as He put off this Human, so much the LORD was not distinct from JEHOVAH, but one with Him. The former state was the LORD'S state of humiliation, but the latter the state of His Glorification."- A. C. 1999, 2265, 2288, 2580.

     Apparently ignorant of the real gist of Tulk's doctrines, and careless in the examination of the present work, some of the organs of the Church have now been deceived into a defense of Antichrist himself in the shape of resuscitated Gnosticism. In order that others, however, may not be similarly deceived, it may be well briefly to restate the leading principles of Tulkism as contained in the Spiritual Christianity and other abstruse works by Charles Augustus Tulk.

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The quotations subjoined are from a compendium of Tulkism, entitled Life and Teachings of the Late Charles Augustus Tulk, published in Boston, 1850, and compiled by one of Tulk's most intimate friends and disciples.
     The whole system of Tulkism is stated "to rest on a branch of the law of Correspondence, undiscovered or unacknowledged by previous readers of Swedenborg," which is applied as follows:

     1. "As all the objects of the senses in heaven are merely outbirths and representative effects of the states of the angelic minds, which perceive them; and as the world of the senses, with its objects, in hell, is equally an outbirth of the infernal mind collectively; so also this natural world, with its space and time, its objects of the senses, is no less an outbirth and representative effect of the states of will and intellect of natural human minds collectively."
     2. "The existence, therefore, of any external world of matter extraneous to and independent of the mind of man, he [Tulk] absolutely rejects. This world, like the world of angels, spirits, and devils, he asserts to exist in the sentient faculties of the mind, in the very act of being perceived; its perception by means of sensations being the proof of its real and actual existence."
     3. "That object of the senses, which we call a man or a woman, a house or a bird, is, whenever seen, an outbirth or representative effect, in the natural world, of such a form of truth or affection in the mind or spiritual world." Yea, "this natural world, with its space and time, is an outbirth and representative effect of, is, in fact, the natural mind of man collectively, brought out to his perceptions, in the plane of the senses."

     In this "ideal" philosophy it will be seen that the LORD has no place as Creator and centre. Man, or the mind of man, is made the creator of both the spiritual and the natural worlds. Talk's doctrine is absurd, because self-refuted. Matter could not have been created by man, inasmuch as man was created in matter. This is self-evident.
     Upon the above fallacies is based Tulk's doctrine of the "Divine Humanity," which is argued in the following method:
     1. The Divine Esse, or JEHOVAH, can undergo no change.
     2. An assumption of a Human and glorification of it by JEHOVAH Himself, would involve a change in the Divine. Hence [it is asserted] JEHOVAH did not assume the Human.
     3. What did assume the Human was that form or image of the Divine, which, varying according to the state of each one, exists in the minds of all men. The Human of the LORD, tangible though it was, was still nothing but an outbirth, or representative effect of the idea of the Divine in the minds of the men of that age. Thus the first "celestial minds had a celestial idea of Him, and this idea or form became, according to the various states of those with whom it dwelt, successively spiritual and found a corresponding external development, as a celestial or spiritual angelic form or voice in the plane of their spiritual senses. [The Doctrines, however, teach that before the Incarnation the Human Divine was the actual human of an individual. angel infilled with the Divine.] But when the mind of man became utterly sensualized by the evils of self-love, that image became sensual also, and presented to the minds of men a God altogether like one of themselves, and this sensual-natural image then found its corresponding ultimate development in the plane of the natural senses-and thus is JEHOVAH, or the image of God with man, said to have assumed that Human, with which the degenerate sensual state of the human mind invested Him."
     "We perceive, in fine, that as a mirror disfigures and obscures, by spots and blemishes on its own surface, the image reflected in it, so did the mirror of the human mind cast the shadow of its own finite imperfections, its degeneration and regeneration upon JEHOVAH God, the Divine Image reflected therein."
     It will thus be seen, that, according to Tulk, the Human of the LORD on earth was a mere appearance, a sensual hallucination, a tangible apparition, not actually - but only representatively present and active. In this doctrine God was altogether inactive. Man was the sole agent. - He gave human nature to his imagined God. He glorified this image by glorifying himself. Thus, as Tulk mode man the creator of the universe, he now makes him the creator of God, and, in fact, makes the mind of man to be god. Thus the circle of the heresy is completed.
     Read in this light of previous knowledge of Tulk's doctrines as taught in his other works, it will be easy to discover under all the apparent truths taught in the Science of Correspondency by Tulk, its true inwardness, "des Pudel's Kern.
NOTES FROM THE ENGLISH CONFERENCE 1889

NOTES FROM THE ENGLISH CONFERENCE              1889

     Communicated.

     [Inasmuch as in this Department Correspondents have an opportunity to express their individual opinions, be they in favor of the principles on which New Church Life is conducted or adverse to them, the Editor does not hold himself responsible for the views that are published therein.]


     THE Eighty-second General Conference of the New Church in Great Britain was held in Radcliffe (near, Manchester) on August 12th-16th, thirty-one ministers and eighty delegates being present during the session.
     The President for the year, the Rev. Joseph Deans, of Leeds, in his address, expressed his appreciation of the honor conferred upon him, and dwelt upon the uses and dignity of the Conference. The Congregational system, pure and simple, he affirmed, was not capable of meeting the wants of the Christian Church. While he believed that now is the Second Coming of the LORD, he did not consider this the first Doctrine of the Church, either in point of time or in point of importance, but assigned that position to the Doctrine of the Unity of God.
     A declaration like this is, to say the least, illogical, inasmuch as the two Doctrines are inseparable. This may be seen from the following statement of the Faith of the New Heaven and the New Church in a singular form in the True Christian Religion, n. 3: "Without the Advent of the LORD into the world no one could have been saved. It is the same at this day; wherefore, unless the LORD comes again into the world, in the Divine Truth, which is the Word, not any one whatever cart be saved."
After the certificates of the ordination 1889

After the certificates of the ordination              1889

     After the certificates of the ordination of the Rev. Messrs. Mark Rowse and A. Potter had been received, the two American visitors present, the Rev. Jabez Fox and Mr. J. T. Prince, of Boston, were introduced and welcomed. The Address from the General Convention, prepared by the Rev. John Goddard, was presented and read by Mr. Fox.
Celebration of the Holy Supper 1889

Celebration of the Holy Supper              1889

     The Pastor of the Radcliffe Society then announced the arrangements for the coming celebration of the Holy Supper, as having been agreed upon with the concurrence of the Rev. Messrs, Tafel, Child; and J. Presland.

162


"The fermented friends" (i.e., the believers in the true wine) were to occupy the centre of the church, and the others the side pews. The bread would then be administered to all, and the whole service would go on until the wine came, that is, the fermented. Then a hymn was to be sung for the "fermented ones," during the singing of which "the other element" was to be brought in. Then another hymn was to be sung, and after that all would unite in one celebration.
     Those who had the arrangements in their hands evidently did not think it worth while to take into consideration the desires of those members of the Conference who still believe that fermented wine alone should be used at the Sacrament. The mere fact that the three above-named ministers had agreed to this compromise, seems to have been taken for a guarantee that all others would acquiesce. No opportunity was given to enter a protest against this flagrant violation of the decision arrived at last session; and so, in the evening of the same day, the service of the Sacrament was performed according to this program, which gave to the proceedings a semblance of unity, though it is evident that there was just as little unity as if the two liquids had been served simultaneously instead of successively. That believers in the true wine should take part in a service where some of the communicants perverted the entire Representation, and thereby the Holiness and Power of the act, certainly seems an inconsistency, which is paralleled only by the inconsistency of those who, believing that wine is a deadly, damnable poison, still permit themselves to participate in a service where brethren are actually "poisoning" themselves at this the holiest act of worship. In this act, where is the "charity" so loudly professed by the teetotalers?
     It ought to be stated that, several of the firmest adherents of order were not present at the Conference. So far as is known, but one minister absented himself from this service.
"Closure Rule" 1889

"Closure Rule"              1889


     The first business on Wednesday, August 14th, was the adoption of a "closure rule," according to which, "at any stage in the consideration of a question, any member may, by consent of the President, propose that the question be now put. This proposition, seconded, shall without discussion be immediately put to the vote, and if approved by not fewer than two-thirds of the members present, the vote on the question under consideration shall be taken without further discussion."
     This resolution, then, will summarily prohibit the discussion of any question unpleasant to the all-ruling majority. It will insure peace to the Conference, but what kind of peace!
President's Report 1889

President's Report              1889

     The President's Report having been reads the Rev. R. I. Storry moved a series of resolutions, arising out of it. The first of these was an instruction to the President to call the attention of the Church to the small attendance at public worship, and to urge the consideration of the means of improving the same. This resolution led to a general discussion on the means of increasing the interest in the various Societies. Some speakers recommended a more frequent visitation by the pastors; others desired an institution of deaconesses. One gentleman wanted the sermons shortened, and another wanted the ministers to be more open to suggestions from the laymen. Finally, the Rev. Thomas Mackereth, of Bolton, suggested a way of increasing the interest of the members which to some in the Conference may have appeared novel. "What we want is to teach the people to love to read not only the Word of God, but also the Writings of the Church. I am satisfied that where people love the Writings, they never neglect to worship the LORD."
     The Conference had hardly recovered from the effect of these remarks before they were followed up by a speech by Mr. Robert Carswell, of Toronto, Canada, who had been invited to speak. From him the Conference heard some too rarely uttered doctrines: "We cannot have genuine charity unless we have genuine faith; and we cannot have this unless we study the Writings, because we do not know what our evils are until they are revealed to us." He strongly disapproved of the recommendation of a previous speaker to join in Old Church worship where there was no New Church. He wished the laity to study the Doctrines more, and the ministers to be qualified to teach the Doctrines. These sentiments were worthily seconded in a very able speech by the Rev. Jabez Fox, who described the uses and delights of a systematic reading of the Writings. The resolution was finally adopted.
ministry in the light of the teachings of the Church 1889

ministry in the light of the teachings of the Church              1889

     On Thursday, August 15th, the Rev. J. Deans read a report, purporting to be the report of the Committee appointed to consider the whole subject of the ministry in the light of the teachings of the Church. This report reads as follows: "(1) The Writings of the Church give no specific directions upon the subject of grades in the ministry of the New Church. (2) True order in the ministry is such order as may be from time to time adapted to the needs of the Church. (3) It is not desirable that men should be ordained before they have given proof of their ability to do the work of ministers. (4) It is undesirable to alter our existing regulations respecting ordination at the present time. (6) Leaders ought not to be recognized without a vote of the Conference. (6) The Conference should annually appoint a Confidential Committee, with which Societies should consult before engaging a minister not already recognized by the Conference." Against this report the Rev. Dr. R. L. Tafel entered a protest, on the ground that three members of the Committee of nine had had no voice in this report, having been prevented from attending by the delay of their train from London. On behalf of the minority he desired to present another report, affirming the contrary of all the propositions,     one by one, contained in the one first presented. The Rev. Thomas Child explained that, the Committee, appointed last year, never once met until the Monday of Conference. There had been given only one hour, from three to four o'clock, in which to discuss the whole comprehensive subject of the ministry and its degrees. Mr. Child had been present, but declined to take any other part in the proceedings than to protest against them in toto, after which he had left the meeting. The now unanimous meeting proceeded to adopt the report as given above. The ground taken by those objecting was that actual meetings ought to have been held during the year, in order that the subject might receive the consideration to which its importance entitled it. The Rev. J. F. Buss expressed his opinion that the report ought to have been prefaced by this preamble: "Your Committee, not having given the subject committed to them any consideration whatever, are thereby enabled to report as follows," etc. And after a great deal of recrimination on both sides, the whole subject was referred back to the Committee for reconsideration.
discussion on the report of the Committee on the New Church Magazine 1889

discussion on the report of the Committee on the New Church Magazine              1889

     A discussion on the report of the Committee on the New Church Magazine showed a wide-spread dissatisfaction with this organ of the Conference.

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Some thought it too "Academical;" others considered it too heavy; others again thought that it should be a weekly, and contain stories, light articles, missionary matters, etc. Though the motion to give the Magazine a more "popular" tone was carried, it is understood that nothing is to be detracted from its present doctrinal, elevated, and useful character.
action of the Conference with regard to the report of the Committee on Applications for Ordination 1889

action of the Conference with regard to the report of the Committee on Applications for Ordination              1889

     An action of the Conference with regard to the report of the Committee on Applications for Ordination, furnished an illustration of the respect with which the Conference treats its own laws and the priestly office. The Committee had recommended that the application of one of the candidates "be renewed at some future time," inasmuch as it did not altogether conform to the rules of Conference, the candidate having proved greatly deficient in Doctrinal attainments, besides not having served the length of time required by the rule on that, point. It was then moved that the Conference suspend the rule preventing the ordination, and that the candidate be ordained in spite of his deficiency. As grounds for this extraordinary action, it was stated that the candidate's interest in the Church might be weakened by not granting him the ordination, and that his doctrinal deficiency might be supplied in the future, as he was assistant to an old and honored minister. The ordination was finally granted in spite of the valid objection that if the Conference was to suspend the rules every time a candidate failed to pass, it would be much better to abolish the examination altogether, and not profess to hold doctrinal attainments, as evidenced by examinations, to be necessary qualifications for the ministry of the Church.
"The interests of the Church would be well served if laymen were, from time to time, appointed to hold the office of President" 1889

"The interests of the Church would be well served if laymen were, from time to time, appointed to hold the office of President"              1889

     A motion, introduced by Mr. Lowe, of Birmingham, advocating that "the interests of the Church would be well served if laymen were, from time to time, appointed to hold the office of President," met with a conspicuous failure. It was supported by one minister only, on the ground that, as the Conference was only interested in matters of finance and business, and always manifested impatience when really Church questions were brought; forward, it was not an ecclesiastical body, and might, therefore, just as well have a lay President as a clerical one.
     A similar fate overtook a resolution recommending all New Church Societies to establish and heartily support "Bands of Hope" in connection with them, even pronounced teetotalers arguing against the motion as worse than useless.
     Another unsuccessful motion was one desiring the Conference to express an opinion "that the time has now come when capital punishment should be discontinued in England."
     After some formal business, a vote of thanks was tendered to the Radcliffe Society, and the Conference' adjourned.
LETTER FROM CANADA 1889

LETTER FROM CANADA       X       1889

     SOME impressions received during a recent stay of two weeks at a small country boarding-house may prove to be of interest to your readers. Our temporary home was four miles from the nearest railway station, and wash most beautifully situated in what might be called the hill-country of Canada. The drive from the station led up hill and down dale, some of the hills being so steep as to excite wonder that the fields along the way could be cultivated at all, but we were told that by the use of hillside plows and the old-fashioned cradle the hills could be managed very well and often produced larger increase than the prairie land, especially in a dry season. At this time (July) the harvest had begun, and the air was filled with the pleasant odor from newly-mown hay, the barley was slightly tinged with, a light yellow, the wheat was beginning to show a golden hue, while the oats and peas were as yet quite green. As we passed along over the hills and through the valleys the pictures thus presented by the fields in their varied stages of growth, and from different points of observation, were most restful, and to the Newchurchman, most suggestive of the striking descriptions given in the Writings of visits made by Swedenborg to the heavenly societies. Nor were the sheep and lambs wanting, for these were seen grazing on the hillsides, and, it is needless to add, gave additional charm to the beautiful surroundings. Our four miles drive through scenes like these was all too short, but we have reached our place of temporary abode, and find our first duty is to put things in order in our rooms that we may live comfortably during our stay. How true we find it that order is heaven's first law. What a mistake it would be to get the nail-brush where the tooth-brush should be, etc.
     Order is the first thing we find ourselves thinking about in any new undertaking. In fact, the first step in any enterprise is the establishing of an order by which all that follows is to be regulated. In view of the importance of this subject, and the prominent place it holds in the Divine Writings, I was greatly grieved to learn of the action of the Canada Association in granting priestly rights to one of its, lay members. It seems to me that we cannot do better than follow the example set down by the angels, of whom we read that in their places of worship the minister is not in illustration unless each one be in his proper seat. What is to be said of the state of confusion that would arise should a layman not only be not in his place, but in the priest's place. Besides this, the person to whom this privilege was granted by the Canada Association, at its last meeting, made application some years ago to the priests who were in attendance at the Association, then in session, who decided, after duly considering the matter, that as the person was fairly successful in the vocation he had been pursuing for years they could see no reason why it should be given up for one of a much more important character, for which he had not fitted himself in the usual way. If he insisted, however, he was then advised to take up a regular course of study in order to acquire fitness for the high and holy office; but we have never heard of his having acted upon this advice.
     An argument brought forth during the discussion of this motion was that order should bend to use, or, in other words, that our ideas of order should be moulded and formed by considerations of expediency. This seems to me to be a fallacious way of viewing the question, for I think it is yet to be seen wherein the introduction of a disorderly thing has ever been made to serve use in any way whatever.
     But I have digressed, and must return to our rooms, where things are being put in order; slippers in one place, boots in another, hats and other apparel placed in boxes or on hooks-not thrown on the bureaus and beds-for one of these must accommodate the toilet articles and the other ourselves, when we require sleep. Imagine one sleeping sweetly with hats, coats, shoes, and slippers in his bed! We find order positively essential in the small, every-day affairs; is it any wonder that we should grieve to find it so utterly ignored in the affairs which concern our happiness, not only in this world, but in the eternal world?

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     We find our new home filled with guests, and the pleasure of becoming acquainted is before us.
     "What Church do you attend Mr. when you are at home?"
     "I am a member of the New Jerusalem Church, most commonly-known as Swedenborgian."
     "Oh I and what is the difference between your belief and ours-the Baptists?"
     "Well, it would take me a long time to give you all the differences, but an important one is in our belief in God. We believe He is one person."
     "And we believe He is three persons."
     "And that belief leads to the belief in three gods, and in this belief you fully expect to enter heaven, but let me tell you, 'The Angels cannot open their mouths to utter the word "gods," for the heavenly aura in which they live is antagonistic to it.'"
     "What a strange notion; you are certainly queer believers."
     During our story I talked frequently with this person, but the subject of spiritual doctrine, I observed, became distasteful to her, and gradually it was dropped altogether. Another lady who, too, had been brought up a Baptist, continued during her entire stay to ask questions, and, after returning to her home, wrote for books that she might learn more of the new doctrines.
     One of the rules of the house was to drive any who desired it to church, the nearest being two miles away. Not having been in an old church for many years, and feeling that the drive after the service would enable me to get rid of its bad effects, I concluded, on one occasion, to go. The discourse was on reaping as we sow-text taken from one of the Epistles. That you may form some idea of the sermon, I will give you one or two of the illustrations. He told of "a man in the far west"-events of this kind generally occur in places where no means of communication are open-"who, in a bar-room, in a spirit of bravado, said that if --- of --- were there he would wring his neck for him, and the words were hardly uttered when the man's neck was wrung, and his eyes forced out of their sockets, by some unseen force." This man reaped as he sowed. God had brought this to pass in righteous retaliation.
     He also told of two tramps who saw the Bishop approaching, and one suggested that they rob him; the other said, "No, I will lie down and appear to be dead, and when the Bishop draws near, you cry to him for help to bury me." This was done, and the Bishop, being moved, gave the tramp money, but he, on going to his fellow tramp, found him dead. This, the minister said, 'was reaping what he had sown, righteous retaliation."
     The minister in his prayer, among other strange things, said: "As regards the sick and the dying, Thou knowest, O Lord, whom Thou hast singled out as the next victim."
     As we drove home, one of the ladies said: "What a beautiful sermon!" I recalled to her mind some of the most striking features of it, such as are given above, and asked which one she thought presented the most beautiful idea of God. She found it difficult to reply. I then took occasion to speak of the idea of God as being of great importance: "You will find upon looking around you most beautiful scenes: Here are hills and valleys, fields, flowers, and trees, birds; squirrels, and insects, and they all seem to vie with each other to make you happy. Can you think it possible that He who inspires the birds to sing, the flowers to bloom, and the insects to chirp-that the earth may be filled with beauty and melody, and that your eyes and-ears may feast-can at the same time feel righteous retaliation toward you? From your standpoint that may have been a beautiful sermon; but I find in this community that people cherish very little, if any, good will toward each, other. The ladies, I understand, take advantage of every quiet moment to exchange doubts and very knowing glances as to the character of some other lady member of society. I am told that from weariness they lie down at night to sleep, only to no through the same course of gossip when they rise, and that this has now been going on for years, and people wonder why it is so-not seeing the damning effect of having the Great Being set up before them from week to week as a monster of cruelty. Upon a just idea of God the salvation of the human race depends, but from sermons like the one we have been listening to, we may expect spiritual desolation, confusions, tale-bearing, and an entire absence of beauty and harmony in the lives of the people."
     I find I have already taken tiptoe much space. With your kind permission I shall continue these impressions in a future article.      X.
LETTER FROM GREAT BRITAIN 1889

LETTER FROM GREAT BRITAIN              1889

     "THE New Church is essentially a Missionary Church." This is the dictum that is asserted and reasserted at the annual meetings of the various "missionary" agencies recently held. Every year it is the same. If a thing be true that is oft repeated, then there should be no doubt of the truth of this assertion. Yet I doubt it. Probably the very frequency of the reiteration has given rise to a suspicion in my mind that the assertion is not well founded. I think the New Church is essentially a stay-at-home-and mind-your-own-business Church. If we argue by analogy, the Church is a vineyard, and the vineyard thrives best that is heat attended to by the vinedresser. It is a sheepfold, and the shepherd who cakes for the sheep is the antitype of the Good Shepherd.
     I was thinking that some teaching on the text, "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature," was needed, and on opening my Morning Light of 20th of July, I find that the Rev. C. H. Wilkins has been discoursing at Bristol on this text. But, alas! the sermon, as reported, conveys no light. From a New Church point of view it seems to have been a clever evasion of the issue. I turn to the Doctrines, which are not evasive or uncertain. It is clear from several numbers in Apocalypse Revealed-e. g., n. 290, 405, 478, 839, and 626-that to preach the gospel is to declare the Lord Advent (how much that involves!), and that "creatures" are the reformed, and, those capable of being reformed. The former are angels. The most likely place to find the latter is at a New Church place of worship. Their reformation will be slow, however, if their spiritual wants are neglected, while the shepherds go on a fishing expedition for new members. It would seem as if the LORD'S direction to "catch men" were being literally interpreted. Undoubtedly the New Church is to spread and to embrace large numbers, but if we are faithful in the spread of our several societies, this will be effected by the LORD in His own good time and way, and much-more effectually than it could possibly he done by any superficial methods of our devising.
Apropos, the Bolton New Church 1889

Apropos, the Bolton New Church              1889

     Apropos, the Bolton New Church people are not satisfied with the number of agencies already in existence and they have started another.

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The new claimant for funds, that could be much better employed at home, is the New Church International Leaflet Association. Its aim is to convert people every where by means of tracts. A committee sitting, say at Bolton, will determine what are the spiritual needs of, for example, the countrymen of our recent polygamist visitor, the Shah of Persia, and will circulate leaflets in Teheran adapted to those needs. Bolton is a large Lancashire manufacturing town, in which there is only one New Church Society of one hundred and seventeen members, two having been added last year; and yet they talk of converting the world. They should give better proof of the excellence of their doctrines at home.
lesson in spiritual honesty from Babylon 1889

lesson in spiritual honesty from Babylon              1889

     A lesson in spiritual honesty from Babylon: A priest of the Church which is not a Church, located at Bath, has seceded, and joined the Unitarians, because he could no longer conscientiously preach Roman Catholic doctrines. This is as it should be. It is sufficiently strange that an Old Church minister, with a knowledge of New Church doctrines, should justify himself in surreptitiously preaching those doctrines to his people, but that a New Church minister, with a fuller knowledge of those doctrines, should encourage him in his deception, is past comprehension.
Church in America 1889

Church in America       JAS. CALDWELL       1889

     The Church in America, as appears from the reports of Convention, is favorable impressed with the work done by the Evidence Society that we have in this country, and is desirous of instituting a similar society. It is open to question, I think, whether the Evidence Society does valuable service in the cause of the Church. You are aware, no doubt, that its work is principally to watch the utterances and writings of representative men and women, and to correct errors of statement or fact made by them, making delicate doctrinal advances where there seems to be any likelihood of reception. By these and other means they keep the Church in "evidence" before the "religious" world. Now, is there not a false assumption at the root of all this feverish anxiety to stand well in the eyes of the world? Nay, are there not two? It is assumed, first, that the opinions of men are a material factor in the Divine work of building up the Church; and, secondly, that the Writings, whereby the LORD intended this work to be accomplished, are unequal to the task. These are assumptions unworthy of those whose trust is in the LORD, that He will build up Zion. Literary people, or public men, who make slighting or erroneous allusions to the teachings of Swedenborg, doubtless belong to one or other of the classes of readers who, unhappily for themselves, do not take kindly to the Doctrines; generally to the second class who "receive them as knowledges or as objects of mere curiosity." What such people say or think of Divine things cannot possibly matter very much to the Church, and certainly cannot hinder the fulfillment of the LORD'S design, which is to reach "those who are, under the LORD'S appointment, to form the New Jerusalem, and who acknowledge Him to be the God of heaven and earth." (A. E. summary contents of chap. i.) Let us be, not faithless, but believing.
     JAS. CALDWELL.
          59 COUNTRY ROAD, LIVERPOOL.
CORRECTION NOTES 1889

CORRECTION NOTES       G. N. SMITH       1889

     ONE of the most perplexing features to me, of the present attitude of the New Church, is the greedy haste with which so many of our writers seem to seize every chance to find some flaw in, or some fault with, those doctrines without which there could be no New Church. That an Old Churchman who does not believe in the New Church at all should do this is but to be expected. But that any one who believes that the LORD has made His Church New by a revelation of new "genuine and pure doctrines" (A. R. 814), should be in such seeming haste, as often is manifested, to find "flaws," "contradictions," "defects," "incompleteness," and the like faults-that I have seen charged against those doctrines In so many words-is most unaccountable.
     Only a little while ago a friend asked me for relief from great trouble that had been brought upon him by having an alleged contradiction pointed out to him, with a challenge to reconcile it. The challenger was a teacher of the New Church truths. My friend could not meet him, and he came to me for help. I easily showed him that his trouble was a pure invention of his challenger. I have had several such cases. I would give a good deal to understand the state of mind of such a man as that. Men generally try to make things look, at least to themselves, logical and consistent. But how any professed Newchurchman can make such a position look other that self-nullifying to his own profession as a Newchurchman is more than I can understand. Here are doctrines claiming to come from the "LORD alone, everything pertaining to them" (T. C. R. 779) to be "genuine and pure" (A. R. 814); to be "continuous truths laid open by the LORD by means of the Word" (T. C. R. 508); to be, in short, "The True Christian Religion, containing the universal Theology of the New Heaven and the New Church" (ibid, title). Here are men that profess to believe these doctrines with these claims in them. And yet among them we find those that seem to be looking greedily for a chance to find an excuse to accuse them of falsity before the world. And I find those that are not even willing to have any attempt made to show that these are "not falsities unless taken in a sense that was never intended" (Swedenborg's letter to the King, Hobart's Life, p. 132), nor to let the world, before whom these accusations have been made, know that any such showing was ever attempted. What perplexes me is not so much that such things are done to our doctrines, by men that are confirmed in ideas that they show to be false, for such men, of course, will prefer their own to the LORD'S teachings; but that professed Newchurchmen should do them. In the name of all that is logical and consistent, how can they do it? to say nothing of the presumption of professing to accept a revelation of the LORD, and then claiming to know enough to correct it.
     If there is any explanation of this anomaly I would like very much to have some one give it. I cannot. I only know that I would not for my life knowingly carry to my study of the doctrines of the New Church an idea of my own, and then condemn them, because they did not agree with it, as I see to all appearance sometimes done; or, as I see done almost every day, turn and twist them till they do so agree. G. N. SMITH.
PRINCIPLES OF GOVERNMENT 1889

PRINCIPLES OF GOVERNMENT       W. H. ACTON       1889

     FROM Revelation we learn that the whole angelic Heaven and the Human race appear before the LORD as one Man-Maximize Homo-with all the members, organs, and viscera belonging to the human form. We are also instructed in the first chapter of Genesis that "God made man into The image."

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The word Adam, here translated "man," is the exact equivalent of the Latin Homo, and signifies, not an individual,-but the human race. Hence, the further statement that" male and female made He them "-i. e., Adam-and not him; and this because the whole race, male and female, is arranged into the human form, which is the form of Heaven, and the form of the Divine, which is the perfect form.
     What applies in this respect to the whole angelic heavens and the whole Universe, also applies to congregations of Societies, to single Societies, to communities, and, finally, to the individuals of which they all are composed, for the whole is as the parts composing it, and the parts are as the whole.
     Thus, then, we may learn that the human form, being in itself Divine, is the only form which really is, and that that form, whether recognized or not, underlies every other orderly form, even though apparently differing from it. Further, we may learn that the relations of the component parts of anything, be it a material object of any of the three kingdoms of Nature, be it a thought or an action, a single community, a kingdom, yea, the Universe, follow the same order-namely, that of the relations of the various parts of the human organism. If we do not easily perceive this to be the case it is because we look only to external form, and not to the function or use which that form embodies, and from which it exists.
     This is the fundamental principle which should underlie all government and administration. There must be a head, a body, and members in any society, if it is to have any real existence. This is, in fact, always so, though unfortunately the principle is not admitted, and hence more or less disorder prevails in all societies now existing: Domestic, Civil, and Ecclesiastical. Every one wants to be head, or body, or limbs, instead of each performing his own proper function. Hence the universal Democratic tendency prevailing, not only in civil Government, but in the Church, and in business. The people must govern themselves and the State; the Laity must regulate the concerns of the Church, a shop-keeper must se everything-in short, the body must govern itself, and be a body without a head, or be itself al head.
     Order demands that the head shall rule. For order proceeds from the highest to the lowest, from internal to external, and without order no existence is possible either of one or the other. We perceive that this is the case in man's body. There the Head is the highest and contains the brains-the source of the nerves and nerve fibres which constitute the interiors of every part of the body. All actions and sensations, voluntary or involuntary, are governed from the brains by means of these nerve fibres. The body is a servant, which is placed under the control of the head that uses may exist. As long as it performs its functions properly, there is experienced a tacit sort of satisfaction, such as is perceived by persons in sound health. But when some organ becomes diseased, it then begins to act, not for the sake of performing uses for the whole body, but for itself alone, and when this is the case it is, as it were, warned and punished by the pain thence arising until the evil is removed, and it again begins to work properly.
     Now, apply these merely general principles to a body or bodies of men-living and acting together for one common purpose. There, must be a leader, who shall direct and regulate the rest of the society, and see that the laws be observed. In the Body Politic, the Head is the Sovereign; President, or Prime Minister; in public meetings the head is the Chairman; in the army, the Commander-in-Chief; and these, generally, though in some ill-defined way, are recognized and called the heads. It is the duty of these heads to see that order is maintained and the laws obeyed in their respective bodies. This, also, is effected in a manner similar to that in which equilibrium and order are restored and preserved in the body and its parts, by the head-namely, by punishments and rewards-pains and health. For pain arises from the disturbance of equilibrium, and the endeavor to return to the same. Punishment is the infliction of pain, and ought to be regarded in like manner when applied. The culprit ought to be treated in a similar manner as the physician or surgeon treats a diseased part of the body, and not made a subject off revenge, which seems to be the present method.
     A part of the body which is diseased may be rendered sound by restraint and punishment, but if too far gone it must be cut off. So the criminal, if irreclaimable, must be cut off from the State-executed.
     Before leaving this part of the subject, we may here notice the general tendency toward the abolition of capital punishment in the State, and corporal punishment in schools and at home. Yet all public punishment-and the same is true in a modified form of any society-rests upon the acknowledgment that the State, or rather the head-that is, the Law as vested in the functional head of the State-has absolute control over the bodies of its subjects. Death is the ultimate or last degree of punishment upon which the efficiency of all other punishments depend (see A. C. 9349, Ex. xxi, 12). In schools, societies, and private communities the ultimate punishment corresponding to death is expulsion; for, when expelled, the offender is cut off from the rest of the body, and thus deprived of life. If this were known and enforced when it ought to be, there would be more order, and thus the actual necessity for the extreme treatment would become rare.
     It has already been shown how the Human Form is the form in which all societies of men exist, and we may carry this correspondence still further in its application to government: Every man is Internal and External-that is, he is a spiritual man and a natural man. By the former he lives in the Spiritual World, as by the latter he is an inhabitant of this world of nature. The case will be the same in societies of men, thus in kingdoms. Here we have the civil and ecclesiastical governments, the one relating to mundane affairs, the other to spiritual. Each will have its separate government, its own head, body, and members. Nor ought the one to interfere with, or attempt to fulfill the functions of the other. Their uses must be kept distinct, as are the Internal and External man. They are on entirely different and discrete planes, and therefore must act independently; just as the spirit and the body of man act, the one within the other, yet each apparently by itself.
     When the Ecclesiastical Office directly interferes with the Civil and controls it, such confusion results as that brought about when the Pope claimed dominion over both Church and State. So, too, if the State assumes the right to interfere with the Church great disorders arise. We need only look at the condition of England under Henry VIII, who had assumed that right, to see what disorders must inevitably ensue.
     True order requires that the Internal should flow into and dispose the External, thus that the Church should rule in the State, but not govern the State directly from itself. And the extent to which this is the case will be determined by the degree of enlightenment in which the State is concerning the Divine Laws of Order, which have been revealed to the Church by the LORD, and which flow thence into the State by instruction. This is the order by which the LORD rules His Universe. He does not compel any man, but teaches him what he ought to do, and leaves him to compel himself.

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So with the Spirit and Body of man. The body acts of itself, and in accordance with its own laws, or in obedience to them. The spirit directs the application of those laws, but cannot, itself, apply them in the external plane; this the body must do. This relation of the Internal with the External man may be illustrated by the action of the brain in the body. From the brain proceed the nerves by which it conveys its' commands to the various organs, viscera, and members. But the operation of each organ, viscus, and member is determined by its peculiar nature, each acting differently, according to its own quality. This must be so in the State, which must act of itself, from the principles which are taught by the Church, and which have been revealed by the LORD. Then Order is established from the highest to the lowest, and the LORD'S Will is done on earth as it is in heaven.
     W. H. ACTON.
SAMUEL S. CARPENTER 1889

SAMUEL S. CARPENTER              1889

     ON the 13th day of August Samuel Sangston Carpenter, Esq., passed into the spiritual world, suddenly, but painlessly and easily. After arising in the morning and sitting a few moments in his chair, beside his bed, as was his custom, he playfully balled up a newspaper and threw it to his little ten-year-old daughter, addressing a few words to her at the same time. It seems that this slight exertion ruptured a valve or partition of his heart; he became insensible and in a few minutes his heart ceased beating. Only about a week previous he had heard the news of Bishop Benade's illness, and in writing to a friend, spoke of his life-long attachment to the Bishop, and, anticipating his possible removal, stated that he should look with pleasure to his own departure as it would thus bring him close to his friend again. But in the Divine Providence he himself was the first to enter the other world.
     Mr. Carpenter was born at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, January 22d, 1823, and was a member of the numerous Carpenter family of Lancaster County. His great-great-great-grandfather, Heinrich Zimmermann, emigrated to America from the Canton of Berne, Switzerland, about the year 1700, and located in Lancaster County. Governor Penn, when issuing a patent to him in accordance with his custom, translated the German "Zimmermann" into "Carpenter," its English equivalent.
     Mr. Carpenter received his early education in his native city. During childhood he met with an accident which lamed him for the rest of his earthly life. He studied law and was admitted to the bar in the year 1843. In December, of that year, he removed to Cincinnati, and began the practice of law. In the year 1849 he was appointed United State Commissioner, by the United States Circuit Court. His experiences as Commissioner have a historical value, as indicating the spirit of the times in regard to slavery, but more than this, they proved the quality of the man. One year after his appointment the "Fugitive Slave" Act was passed by Congress, by which law the Commissioners were clothed with judicial powers.
     The cases that came before him led him to conclude that the law was in conflict with the Constitution of the United States in conferring judicial powers upon Commissioners, and he declined to try any more cases, publishing his reasons for the step in the Cincinnati Gazette, in the summer of the year 1854. He was the first Commissioner who declined executing the law.
     One result of his acting in accordance with his convictions was the loss of all his business as united States Commissioner, which then constituted a considerable portion of his professional income,-and the gain of a great deal of public odium and censure on the part of the pro-slavery portion of the community, then largely in the ascendancy. Nor were there wanting some who personally insulted him.
     Mr. Carpenter has been a member of the New Church for about forty years, and has held responsible positions in her service. He was a member of the Committee appointed by the General Convention to revise its Constitution, a Committee consisting of representative ministers and laymen of the Church, and he is reported to have contributed much to a clearer understanding of the principles underlying Church government. He has contributed from time to time to the journals of the Church.
     Loyalty to the Truth was one of the chief characteristics of Mr. Carpenter. It made him kind, affectionate, and just in his family relations, faithful in his friendships, fearless in his defense of true political principles, and uncompromising in the Church. For this reason he had bitter enemies on the civil plane, and in the Church his friends were few, but, in the Church, none that knew him could fail to respect him.
     Even those who believed him to be contrary to the majority from choice, had abundant proof, from the history of his whole life, in the Church, that his actions and counsels were at all times prompted by a constant love of the Church and a careful regard for her spiritual welfare, and it seemed to make no difference to him how bitterly personal his opponents might become, he was almost always able to treat the questions in an entirely impersonal manner, having long since realized that he who permits his passions to get the upper hand is not in a condition to be useful to the Church and is his own worst enemy and the only real sufferer. He was open, sincere, and upright, and always took the keenest interest in everything that was going in the Church in this country, in Europe, and in Australasia. He was very just, and always took all pains to become informed in the various controversies that have arisen within the Church, and he would rarely venture a decided opinion without being in possession of all the facts attainable. One of his peculiar traits was his system, when questions of doctrine were being discussed, perhaps this year in this country and next year in Europe and then again in this country; all the important articles were carefully collected and substantially kept together for convenient reference.
     Although at first inclined to oppose priestly government in the New Church, he became, in his own way, and step by step, convinced of its being founded on the Divine Order, and ended with becoming a faithful supporter of it.
     He possessed the qualities which are needed in the laity to complement and render truly effective the work of the priesthood:-activity, studiousness, intelligence, and loyalty.
MR. GORWITZ IN AUSTRIA 1889

MR. GORWITZ IN AUSTRIA              1889

     The Rev. F. Gorwitz visited Vienna June 6th to 16th. On his way he visited, in Lindau, the venerable Professor W. Pfirsch, who is now eighty-six years old, but still strong and active for the Church. The New Church Society in Vienna numbers thirty-two members, having separated itself some time ago from the former large Society, which had accepted Albert Artope's heresy, and which has left the New Church. Mr. Gorwitz preached six times in Vienna, confirmed one youth, married one couple, and administered communion to thirty-six persons.

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NEWS GLEANINGS 1889

NEWS GLEANINGS       Various       1889


NEW CHURCH LIFE.
A MONTHLY JOURNAL

TERMS:-One Dollar per annum, payable in advance.

Six months on trial for twenty-five cents.

     All communications must be addressed to Publishers New Church Life, No. 759 Corinthian Avenue, Philadelphia, Pa.

     In Great Britain subscriptions may be sent to
     MR. S. WARREN POTTS, Book Steward, 61 Cathedral Street, Glasgow, Scotland.
     REV. R. J. TILSON, 2 Inglis, Camberwell, London, S. E.
     MR. G. A. MCQUEEN, Crowhurst Road, Colchester.
     MR. JAS. CALDWELL, 59 County Road, N., Liverpool.
     MR. C. E. SCHROEDER, 13     Ashfield Terrace, Newcastle-on-Tyne.
     MISS FLORENCE G. GIBBS, 8 Camden Square, London, N.

     PHILADELPHIA. OCTOBER, 1889=120.

     CONTENTS,

     Editorial Notes. p. 155.-Circumcision (a sermon), p. 154.-Conversations on Education, p. 156.- Mythology In the Light of the New Church, p. 157.
     Notes and Reviews, p. 159.
     Notes from the English Conference, p. 161.- Letter from Canada, p. 163-Letter from Great Britain. p. 164.-Correction Notes, p. 166.-Principles of Government. p. 165.-Samuel S. Carpenter, p. 167.-Mr. Gorwitz In Austria. p. 167.
     News Gleanings, p. 168.-Births, Marriages, and Deaths, p. 168.
     AT HOME.

     Pennsylvania.-THE services of the Advent Society were resumed on Sunday, September 16th, the new Pastor, the Rev. L.G. Jordan, officiating.
     ON September 26th Bishop Benade arrival in New York from Havre, in the care of Mr. John Pitcairn and Rev. E. J. E. Schreck. The Bishop had been Improving, but on the 25th was taken quite ill, and landed in a rather exhausted condition. He is now at his home in Philadelphia and beginning to regain some of the lost ground.
     ON October 1st the Schools of the Academy of the New Church, in Philadelphia, opened. The names of forty-five students and pupils on the rolls.
     THE Pittsburgh Society held its first social meeting of the season in the church on September 12th. During the vacation its schoolrooms have been repaired and tastefully furnished.
     New Jersey.-THE little New Church Society in Elwood has sustained a heavy loss in the death of the Rev. B. Whittlesey, formerly a Congregational missionary to the Sandwich Islands, but since 1887 a devoted receiver of the Heavenly Doctrines.
     New York.-ON September 1st the Rev. Chauncey Giles lectured on the Doctrines of the New Church, at Lake George, in the morning to one hundred persons, and in the afternoon to an audience of three hundred.
     THE Rev. F. L. Higgins, of St. Louis, Mo., during his vacation, has performed one evangelization work in Wyoming Co., where he formerly was Pastor of Free-will Baptist congregation.
     Massachusetts.-THE fiftieth anniversary of the Rev. Warren Goddard's entry into the Pastorate of the Brockton (North Bridgewater) Society was commemorated on September 19th.
     Georgia.-Dr. Elisha Parsons, the President of the New Church Society in Savannah, departed to the spiritual world on August 21st. Dr. Parsons has been a receiver the Doctrines since 1882.
     Ohio.-THE Urbana University-College Hall, during the vacation, has undergone extensive repairs. A new matron has been engaged for the College Home.
     ON July 23d the Rev. B. D. Daniels lectured at Pomeroy on "Poe and his Raven," explaining to the audience the internal meaning [!] according to which this poem is supposed to have been written.
     Illinois.-THE Rev. Thos. F. Houts has resigned from the Pastorate of the Olney Society, to accept a unanimous call from the Society at La Porte, Ind.
     THE Rev. Louis G. Landenberger has been called to fill the place of Mr. Houts at Olney.
     Iowa.-A GENERAL meeting of New Church people, in Iowa, was held at Norway, Benton Co., on August 10th. The following ministers were present: The Rev. Messrs. Stephen Wood, J. J. Lehnen, Jacob Kimm, and John H. Sudbrack. An organization was formed, under the title of-"The General Society of the New Church in Iowa," and a simple constitution was adopted, and signed by twenty-three persons. There are about two hundred New Church people in Iowa.
     Kansas.-The Rev. Gustave Reiche, Pastor of the Topeka New Church Society, preached on the second and fourth Sundays In August to the two small German New Church Societies, in Barton and Reno Counties. These Societies are formed of converts from the Mennonites, who emigrated from Russia in 1875. The Doctrines were introduced among them by a former Mennonite schoolteacher, Mr. George Unruh. While on this evangelization tour, Mr. Reiche preached also in Hazleton, Barber Co., where he found quite a colony of New Church people from Ohio.
     Arkansas.-THE Rev. J. W. McSlarrow, the only New Church minister in Arkansas, has removed from Alvis to Batesville.
     Colorado.-THERE are at present two Societies of the New Church in Denver. One of these is under the pastoral care of the Rev. Richard de Charms. The other has extended a call to the Rev. H. C. Dunham, of Portland, Me.
     FEARING injustice from the general New Church public, the Rev. Richard de Charms wishes it to be distinctly understood that he is not a member of the Academy of the New Church, nor in sympathy with its spirit and movements.     

     ABROAD.

     Great Britain.-THE eighty-second session of the General Conference was held at Radcliffe August 12th to 17th. The Rev. Joseph Deans, of Leeds, presided. Three American Newchurchmen were present, viz., the Rev. Jabez Fox, and Mr. John T. Prince, of Massachusetts, and Mr. B. Carswell, of Toronto. The Conference now consists of seventy-five Societies, with an aggregate membership of six thousand one hundred and sixty-one persons. Five ordaining ministers, thirty-three ordained ministers, and eleven licentiates are in connection with this body. Mr. Arthur Faraday, the first student of the New Church Educational Institute, and at present assistant to Rev. J. T. Potts, Mr. H. W. Freeman, leader of the Willesden Society, and Mr. George Meek, B. A., assistant minister at Heywood, were ordained.
     THE Societies at Ramsbottom and Clayton-Moors are advertising for ministers.
     MR. Heald, formerly student of Conference, has accepted the charge of the Anorley Society.
EDITORIAL NOTES 1889

EDITORIAL NOTES       Editor       1889




     BIRTHS, MARRIAGES, AND DEATHS.





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     Vol. IX.     PHILADELPHIA, NOVEMBER, 1889=120.     No. 11.
     Doctrinal things or the knowledges of faith are in the highest degree necessary to form the life of charity, which cannot be formed without them.- A. C. 2049.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     THE innocence of infants is the receptacle of all things Heaven; it is the plane of all the affections of good and truth, by means of which, and from which, they are to be led to genuine innocence, which is "to will to be led by the LORD and not by one's self." This innocence is the end of all instruction and progress of infants in Heaven, and should, therefore, be the end of all instructions and progress of infants on earth. One of the principal means for the attainment of this end is the leading of infants and children to be obedient to their parents and teachers: to be governed by their desire and not by their own. A child ought never to be allowed to neglect a parent's command, especially on the plea that it does "not want" to do the thing commanded. To allow it to fail to obey, is to suffer it to depart from childish innocence, and from the way that leads to genuine innocence.
     Another means for the attainment of "the end of all instruction and progress" is to prevent the formation of the habit of forwardness and that of self-admiration. Parents and friends often thoughtlessly express their admiration of a child in its presence, extol its beauty, its cleverness, its goodness, and other qualities, and-worse still-even lead the child to make exhibition of them. In this manner the child is led to think of itself, and its latent self-conceit is called forth even at this tender age. This is destructive of the child's innocence and checks the development of "the plane of all the affections of good and truth-the receptacle of all things of Heaven."
     It should be the aim of parents, and of all who come in contact with children, to learn what is involved in innocence, how this state may be attained, and how infants and children may be protected from the sphere that would prematurely rob them of the state proper to their age and thus hinder the storing up of most important remains.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     Charity without faith is not genuine charity, and faith without charity is not faith. - A. C. 2839.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     IN the "Notes from the English Conference," communicated to the October issue of the Life, the explanation that the Doctrine of the Unity of God and the Doctrine of His Second Coming are inseparable, was not full enough to be quite clear.
     The True Christian Religion, containing the Universal Theology of the New Heaven and the New Church, has prefixed to it the Faith in a universal and in a particular form, "that it may be as a face before the Work which follows; and as a gate, through which entrance is made into the temple; and a summary, in which the particulars which follow are in their own measure contained."
     The Faith of the New Heaven and the New Church, in the universal form is stated to be this: "That the LORD from eternity, Who is JEHOVAH, came into the world, that He might subjugate the hells and glorify His Human; and that, without this, no mortal could have been saved; and that those are saved who believe in Him."
     It is further stated that "It is said, in the universal form, because this is the universal of faith; and the universal of faith is that which will be in the whole and every part. And then follows an enumeration of the universals that enter into the universal form of the Faith, beginning with these two: "It is a universal of faith, that God is one in essence and in person, in whom is a Divine Trinity, and that the LORD GOD the SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST is He. It is a universal of faith, that no mortal could have been saved, unless the LORD had come into the world."
     From n. 3, where "the Faith of the New Heaven and the New Church in the particular form" is given, it will be seen that by the universal of faith concerning the LORD'S coming into the world, is meant not only His First, but also His Second Coming; for the teaching how the LORD effected His First Coming, is followed by the statement: "It is similar at this day: wherefore unless the LORD should come again into the world, in Divine Truth, no one can be saved."
     This, then, makes one with the doctrine concerning the Unity of God, and this must be in the mind of the man of the New Church when thinking of the Faith in the universal form.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     Charity wants to be with faith, if faith does not become the chief thing, and be raised above charity.- A. C. 328.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     THE question has been asked: "Where in the Writings can be found the idea or teaching that boys should come under male instructors after seven years?"
     The principle that at about this age boys should be transferred from the care of their educatresses to that of masters is to be found in the descriptions of the education of infants in Heaven (H. H. 334, 514, 515, et seq., C. L. 410), and that it obtains on earth also, is involved in what is said of the duties of husband and wife (C. L. 174, 176). "The care of suckling and bringing up the infants of each sex, and also of the instruction of the girls even to the age of theirs, when they are devoted to and associated with men, is of the duty proper to the wife; but the care of the instruction of the boys from childhood [pueritia] to puberty [ephebatus] and after this until they become their own masters [suae poteatatis] is of the duty proper to the husband; but they conjoin themselves by means of counsels, and supports, and numerous other mutual aids."
     The reason for this is, of course, to be found in the difference between the male and the female, and it is at the close of the state of infancy that the distinctively masculine or feminine characteristics begin to be developed.

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(See what is said of the change of state from infancy to childhood in C. L. 185-490; A. C. 3183, 3254, 3603, 3665, 4378, 10,134, 4345; T. C. R. 366, 42 et al. See also Discrete Degrees, Chapters XIX, XX, and the collection of passages in the Journal of the General Church of Pennsylvania for 1887=118, page 35 and the following pages.)
At this day faith precedes 1889

At this day faith precedes              1889

     At this day faith precedes, and through faith charity is bestowed by the Lord, and then charity becomes the chief thing.-A. C. 337.
INTERNAL SENSE OF 1889

INTERNAL SENSE OF        Rev. C. T. ODHNER       1889

PSALM XLV     THE Word of the LORD, in its Literal Sense, is written in four different styles. The first is the most ancient style, in which spiritual things are described under representative types in the form of history. This style of writing is found in the first eleven chapters of Genesis. The second is the ancient style, really historical, but still representative, found in all the Historical books of the Word. The third style is the Prophetical, derived from the style of the Most Ancient Church, but externally unconnected in series. The fourth is the style of the Psalms, which is intermediate between the Prophetical style and common discourse.,
      The Psalms of David are songs, written in what may be called a poetical form, owing to a peculiar rhythm of words and ideas, which is from the rhythmical speech of spirits and angels. (A. C. 1648.)
     The Word, throughout, is the Divine Marriage of Good and Truth, and this is expressed in the Letter of the Word by two classes of words, the celestial and the spiritual. The rhythm in the Psalms of David consist especially in the arrangement of these classes of words and expressions in a marked form, either by placing them in an intense parallelism in the same line and, verse, or by grouping celestial and spiritual expressions in different verses. (Hence in this style of the Word there is a beauty in the expressions more apparent than in other parts of the Literal Sense.) From the marriage of good and truth all joy is derived; and because of this ultimate marriage of expressions of good and of truth in the Psalms of David, these were particularly adapted to be set to music and sung, inasmuch as "singing exalts, and causes the affection" or joy of heart "to break forth from the heart into sound, and show itself intensely in its life." (A. R. 279.)
     The Forty-fifth Psalm as a whole expresses the marriage of good and truth; for it treats of the Divine Marriage of the LORD and the Church, resulting from the Glorification of the LORD'S Human and the consequent Regeneration of the Church. (A. C. 3703.) It is, therefore, a song of glorification and confession from the heart by the Church, because of her exceeding joy, that the LORD has come in the Human to save Mankind and to conjoin the Church to Himself in a Divine and Eternal Marriage.
     This, general quality of the whole Psalm is indicated in the internal sense of the First verse.
     "To the Chief Musician upon Shoshannim, for the sons of Korach, Maskil, a song of "love."
     The internal sense of this verse, the index or face of the whole Psalm, is said to be in general, "a magnificent saying concerning the LORD and concerning conjunction with Him." (P. P.)
     This "magnificent saying" or glorification is addressed to the "Chief Musician" (Hebrew, menatzeach) , a word which in the Hebrew means also "Conqueror" or "Leader," and as such signifies the LORD as the Conqueror of the hells, the Redeemer of mankind, the Chief, who leads, and disposes all the affections of the men of His Church.
     The instruments upon which the singing of the Psalms was accompanied, correspond to the delight and sweetness of spiritual and celestial affections. The instrument of our Psalm was Shoshannim; which means "Lilies" of a white color, and like them corresponds to the delight of the spiritual affection of truth, the general affection from which the Church may approach the LORD in glorification. (A. C. 8337).
     It is said that the song is for "the sons of Korach" who were a family of singers among the Levites. The name comes from a root, meaning to "cut off," "separate," "make clean," and signifies the Church as to the spiritual affection of truth, which is what separates and purifies. The name of the song, finally, is Maskil, which means "Intelligence," and this is said to be "a song of love," by which is signified wisdom from the affection of truth, in which is good. Hence we may see, that the pervading affection in the whole of this Psalm or song of glorification of the LORD is the spiritual affection of truth from good, and this is still further expressed in the second verse. (A. C. 1288.)
     "My heart is meditating a good word; I am telling my doings to the King; my tongue is the pen of a ready writer."     
     By the "heart" is signified the will or love of man. To "meditate" is predicated of the thought from good. "A good word" is, truth from goods. "My heart is meditating a good word" signifies, therefore, the Church glorifying and confessing the LORD in Doctrine or thought from good out of the will.
     "I am telling my doings to the King" signifies the Church glorifying the LORD for His works, and confessing that all goods are of the LORD alone. "My tongue is the pen of a ready writers" signifies confession by the Church, that all Doctrine and truth in the Church is from the LORD'S Word, and thus from the LORD.
     These two verses are thus an introduction to the Psalm itself, which in the seven verses next following treats of the LORD'S Divine Human and the work of Redemption performed by Him in His Human. Of this Human it is said in the third verse: "Thou art far more beautiful than the sons of men; grace is poured on Thy lips; therefore hath God blessed Thee forever." As a whole this verse signifies, "that Divine truth belongs to the LORD alone." (P. P.)
     The LORD descended as the Divine Truth, and assumed a Human, in order that he might save men. Of this Human, therefore, in which dwelt the Divine Truth Itself, is predicated "beauty above the sons of man," for by "beauty" is here signified Divine Wisdom from Divine Love in the Human, infinitely above the intelligence of any other human. (A. E. 684.)
     "Grace" denotes the delight or affection of truth, and "lips" signify the genuine truths or doctrinals of the Word. By "grace is poured upon Thy lips" is, therefore, signified the Divine delight or affection of the genuine truths of the Word that the LORD has in His Human. To "bless" signifies the giving from the LORD, and reception of Divine Truth, and "therefore hath God blessed Thee forever," signifies that, the LORD in His Human, from His Divine affection of Truth; received the Divine Truth from His own, indwelling Divine, and that thus the LORD made His Human the Word or the Divine Truth Itself to eternity.

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     From this "blessing" or reception of Divine Truth results fructification or use, and the Divine use of the LORD in His Human as the Divine Truth Itself, is described in the three following verses, which treat of the LORD'S work of Redemption.
     "Gird Thy sword upon Thy thigh, O Mighty One, in Thy glory and Thine honor."
     By "sword" is signified Truth combating. By "thigh" is meant, in a general sense, Conjugial Love, hence the good of love, and, in the supreme sense, the Divine Good of the Divine Love. Hence, by "gird Thy sword upon Thy thigh," speaking of the LORD, is signified that the Divine Truth of the LORD'S Human, by which combat was to be waged against the hells, was from the Divine Good of Love. (A. C. 3021; A. R. 830.)
     For the LORD fought against the hells not from hatred or anger against the evil, but from His Infinite Mercy and Love for the salvation of the human race, for the sake of the preservation of the heavens; yea, for the sake of reducing the very hells into order, and thus preserving their existence. Hence the Human of the LORD, as the Divine Truth, received Omnipotence from good by truth, for all power of truth is from good. This is signified by "Mighty One, in Thy glory and in Thine honor." (T. C. R. 86; A. E. 288, 298; A. R. 249.) "And proceed in Thine honor; ride upon the word of truth and of mildness of justice; and Thy right hand shall teach Thee wonderful things."
     By these words are described the actions of the LORD in His Human in performing the work of Redemption. To "proceed in honor" signifies to act from Divine Good; to "ride upon the word of truth, and of mildness of justice" signifies to act from the Divine Truth by teaching the Doctrine of truth and good. For to "ride" is to instinct or to teach from the understanding of truth; "the word of truth" is the intelligence of truth, and "the mildness of justice" is wisdom of good.
     "And Thy right hand shall teach Thee wonderful things," signifies that the LORD in His Human, by the Divine Omnipotence and Omniscience in it of Truth from Good, performed the work of Redemption. The "Right hand," in reference to the LORD, signifies the Divine Omnipotence and Omniscience; "wonderful things" signify, proximately, the Miracles performed by Him in His Human, and spiritually, the work of Redemption itself, which is the most wonderful of all miracles. (A. E. 684; A. C. 1288, 2761.)
     In this verse, therefore, is described the LORD'S work of teaching mankind the Truth, which He Himself was in His Human. For by teaching the Divine Truth of His Word He established order in the Heavens, founded His Church on Earth and overcame the hells in the combats of temptation. This latter action is further described in the sixth verse:
     "Thine arrows are sharp; the peoples shall fall under Thee, in the heart, the enemies of the King."
     By the "sharp arrows" are meant the conquering power of the truths of Doctrine from the Word, by which alone the LORD combated and conquered the hells, tempting Him in the Human. By the "peoples" are here meant the hells of falsity from evil. By the "enemies of the King" are meant those who are against the Divine Truth, thus the Satanic hells. It is said that they "shall fall in the heart," because the LORD'S combats were directed against the love of self, which is the heart of all evil and falsity. Conquering in His Human this the supreme of all evil loves, the LORD conquered all the hells, and thus fully accomplished the work of Redemption. (A. E. 684.) The results of this Divine work are now described in the seventh, eighth, and ninth verses:
     "Thy throne, O God, is forever and to eternity; a sceptre of rectitude is the sceptre of Thy kingdom."
     By this is signified, in general, that hence "the Kingdom is His to eternity." (P. P.)
     The Human of the LORD is now first called "God," because as the Divine Truth it had been victorious, and had liberated the Universal Heavens and the Universal human race from the overpowering influence of the hells. Hence His Kingdom, or His Throne, is to eternity established and governed by no other sceptre than the "sceptre of rectitude," which is the Divine Truth, proceeding from the LORD'S Divine Human, and which alone has power and dominion.
     "Thou hast loved justice, and hast hated evil; therefore God, Thy God, hath anointed Thee with the oil of gladness above Thy companions."
     The internal sense of this and the following verse is, briefly, "That the LORD has thereby made His Human Divine."
     To "love justice" is to love those that are just, and, in reference to the LORD, to save those that are good. To "hate evil" is to shun evil, and, speaking of the LORD, to overcome and bind evil under His subjection. This expression, "Thou hast loved justice, and hast hated evil," implies the fulfillment of the whole work of Redemption, which consisted in "vindicating the good from damnation by destroying the evil." (A. E. 684.)
     It was in this Divine action or use, that the Divine Good united itself to the Divine Truth in the Human, or that the Divine Itself united Itself to the Human, and the Human thereby became the Divine Itself, for Love and Wisdom, or Good and Truth, become and are one in use or ultimate good. This is signified by, "Therefore hath God, Thy God, anointed Thee above Thy companions." To "anoint" is to unite, since oil signifies the Divine Good of the Divine Love; anointing thus signifies the influx of this into the Divine Truth, and the consequent union of both in the ultimate Human. It is said "God, Thy God," to express the reciprocal unition of the Human with the Divine. The "oil of gladness" is the Divine Delight and inmost Peace of the Divine Human, consequent upon the victories over the hells. "Above Thy comrades" is the complete glorification and elevation of the LORD'S Human above any other human in heaven or in the world, by being made the Divine Itself. This Glorification of the ultimate Human is further described in the ninth verse. (A. C. 10,252.) "With myrrh and aloes and cassia all Thy garments; out of the palaces of ivory from which they have made Thee glad."
     By the LORD'S garments are signified the Divine Truths of the LORD'S natural Human. These being "anointed" signifies that these were united with Divine Goods in the natural, thus that the Human was glorified and made Divine also in the natural. By "myrrh, aloes, and cassia," are signified the Divine Goods in the three degrees of the natural Human of the LORD.
     The Internal Sense of the Psalm now begins to treat of the establishment of the Church by the LORD, and the conjunction of the Church with the Divine Human. This is described in the expression "out of the palaces of ivory they have made Thee glad," by which is signified that "hence Heaven and the Church, which are in Divine Truths from Him are His." (P. P.)
     By "Palaces" are signified the Universal Church as to Doctrine; that these palaces are of ivory signifies the Church as to the rational degree, or as to rational truths of Doctrine; for the elephant signifies the natural in general and by "ivory, which is the teeth of the elephant, and because it is white, resisting, and strong is therefore signified truth of the rational degree, which is the highest truth of the natural man." (A. E. 1146.)

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By being made glad out of these signifies the delights or goods of these truths. This, therefore, describes the beginning of the establishment of the New Church, which in the Divine Order has taken place by a Revelation of Divine Truth, adapted to the Rational degree of the natural mind. Hence the Church may be regenerated and elevated to the spiritual degree, which is; described in the following verse:
     "The daughters of kings are among Thy precious ones; the Queen hath placed herself to Thy right in the fine gold of Ophir."
     By this is signified Heaven and the Church as to the affections of truth from good. The "daughters of kings" are the affections of truths. These are said to be "precious" because they are genuine and thus spiritual truths from the Word.
     By the "Queen" is signified Heaven and the Church, as the Bride or Wife of the LORD in His Divine Human, conjoined to Him and under His Protection because in love to Him from Him. This is signified by being at "the right hand in the fine gold of Ophir." (P. P.)
     "Hear, O Daughter and see, and incline thins ear; and forget thy people and the house of thy father."
     In this verse is described the regeneration of the Church, by the withdrawing from the affections and persuasions of the natural man: "Thy people and the house of thy father." And the Church can withdraw from these former unregenerate states only by learning, understanding, and doing the spiritual Commandments of the Divine Revelation given to her, and thus by growing wise from the LORD These things are signified by hearing; seeing, and inclining the ear. (A. E. 863.) Then will follow the blessed state of the Church, described in the rest of the Psalm:
     "And the King shall greatly desire thy beauty; for He is thy LORD and bow down thyself to Him."
     By this is signified that thus will the Church become a true Church of the LORD and be received by Him' into the Divine Marriage. "Beauty" is the spiritual affection of truth from good, and it is this affection which the LORD "greatly desires" in the Church, and by which He can conjoin Himself to her. It is by this affection, also, that the Church can reciprocally conjoin herself to the LORD, and by which she humbly worships Him Alone as the only God, the true and only object of her love and worship. (P. P.) When the Church is in this state of conjunction, then all other things will be' added unto her, as described in the following verses.
     "And the daughter of Tyre will be there with a gift, and the rich ones of the people will entreat thy faces."
     This signifies that to the affection of spiritual Truth in the Church will be added the affections of all knowledges of Truth and Good, which is the "Daughter of Tyre," and intelligence in these knowledges, which is "the rich ones of the people." It is said that these will "entreat thy faces," by which is signified that all things of knowledge and intelligence will be subservient to and dwell in the internal affection of spiritual truths from good.
     "All glorious is the daughter of the King within; from inweaving of gold is her garment."
     By this is signified the spiritual or internal state of the Church, that she will be in abundance of Divine Truths, wherein: is the Divine Good, and that from these she will possess spiritual intelligence and wisdom.
     "In needlework she shall be brought to the King; the virgins after her, her friends, shall be brought in unto Thee."
     The natural or external state of the Church is here described; that to the affection of spiritual truth will be added also intelligence in genuine scientific truth and subservient affections of spiritual-natural truth, by which the Church will be firmly established also in the natural mind of man     
     "They shall be brought in gladness and exultation; they shall come in to the Palace of the King."
     This signifies that thus the Church with all her affections and knowledges will, with celestial joy, be brought into conjunction with the LORD in Heaven, when all in the Church will have but one pleasure and delight to serve the LORD. (A. E. 863.)
     "Instead of thy father shall be thy sons; they shall be put for princes in all the earth."
     This describes the celestial state of the Church, when Divine Truths with her are regarded as Divine Goods, which rule supreme not only in the understanding, but in the will and love of the Church. For by "sons" are signified truths, and by "fathers," goods, and by "instead of thy fathers shall be thy sons," is signified that the Divine Truths shall be as Divine Goods. (A. C. 3703.) Thus as the Divine Truth was made the Divine Good in the Human of the LORD, so also it will be in the Church, formed from the Divine Human. And then, finally, it is said of the Church that "I shall cause thy name to be remembered in every generation and generation; therefore the peoples shall praise thee forever and to eternity."
     By this is signified that this quality of the Church will remain forever; that the New Church will be the Crown of all Churches and will become a Universal Church, uniting all nations and peoples and tongues in the worship of the Lamb, the DIVINE HUMAN, Amen.
So, long as faith want to have the dominion 1889

So, long as faith want to have the dominion              1889

     So, long as faith want to have the dominion, it is not faith; but when charity has the dominion then there is faith; for the principal of faith is charity.-A. C. 365. "PROGRESSIVE ILLUMINATION" 1889

"PROGRESSIVE ILLUMINATION"              1889

     A GREAT deal has been said of late years about Swedenborg's "progressive illumination," and comparisons have been made between utterances in his earlier and those in his later Theological Works, with the intention of showing that the statements in the latter are clearer and fuller, not to say more nearly true; than in the former.
     It is almost needless to remark that to a mind not committed to this view, these comparisons fail of their object. But it may be worth while to present to those who are inclined to this tenet, the consideration that the first Theological Works published by Swedenborg, the Arcana Coelestia, is the most profound of all the Theological Works, treating seriatim of that most interior and most resplendent of all subjects, the glorification of the LORD. No other work, treats so comprehensively of this subject as does the Arcana; no other enters so particularly into its details 4bao other, therefore, is clearer, fuller, or truer. All the other Works abound with references to the Arcana. The Apocalypse Explained, one of the latest Works, and, next to the Arcana, the largest, is so full of references to the Arcana, that a special paragraph (no. 3) is devoted to this explanation: "In the explication which follows, many things are cited from the Arcana Coelestia; therefore, be it known that they are from this Work."

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     The Writings begin in the Arcana Coelestia with a particular or "singular" explanation of the most interior Divine subject, and end with The True Christian Religion; Containing The Universal Theology of the New Church, which, as its title declares, is a "universal" (more general than "general") treatment of the same subject and of those that depend upon it. Both Works and all intermediate ones are of the Holy Spirit and are Divine.
     If Swedenborg's "illumination" had been progressive, would not the character of these Works have been the reverse? Would he not have proceeded from generals to particulars as is the case in all progress?
     This argument, addressed to the reason, is offered to the intelligent reader that it may do its share toward combating a fallacy which arises from the denial of Swedenborg's inspiration, and by first suggesting doubt as to the trustworthiness of all and everything of the earlier Works, and confirming the doubt-leads to a denial of the Holiness, Divinity, and consequent Authority, of the earlier Works, and eventually of all of them.
It was provided by the Lord that through faith 1889

It was provided by the Lord that through faith              1889

     It was provided by the Lord that through faith, or the knowledges of faith, men might receive charity from the Lord, so that knowledge or hearing should come first, and through knowledge or hearing, charity should be bestowed by the Lord, that is, love to the' neighbor and mercy; which charity would not only be not separated, from faith, but also constitute the principal of faith.-A. C. 393.
SEVENTEENTH CHAPTER OF GENESIS 1889

SEVENTEENTH CHAPTER OF GENESIS              1889

     THE seventeenth chapter of Genesis treats in the Internal Sense of the union of the LORD'S Divine Essence with the Human, and of the Human with the Divine; also of the LORD'S conjunction by the Human Essence with the human race.

     IN the state and at the time before the LORD fully conjoined the Internal Man with the Rational ("And Abram was a son of ninety years and nine years"), JEHOVAH was manifested to the LORD in His Human ("and JEHOVAH appeared to Abram"); and the LORD perceived ("and said to him") that the Truth in the Internal Man would reprove the external, and that He would thus undergo temptations ("I am GOD SHADDAI "), and that He would live according to the truth of faith ("walk for thyself before Me"), and do the good of charity ("and be thou upright").

     THE union was predicted of the Internal Man, who was JEHOVAH, with the Interior ("and I shall give My covenant between Me and between thee"), whence the affection of truth would be fructified to infinity ("and I shall multiply thee very, very much").
     There are two affections, the affection of good and the affection of truth: the one is to do good from the love of good, the other is to do good from the love of truth; the one is properly of will, the other of the understanding. When JEHOVAH united the Human Essence to the Divine He united the affection of truth to the affection of good; hence by "being multiplied very, very much" is signified fructification of truth from good to infinity.     
     In this state the LORD worshiped JEHOVAH ("And Abram fell upon his faces").
     That the LORD worshiped and prayed to JEHOVAH "His Father, is known from the Word in the Gospels, and He worshiped Him, as if He were other than Himself, although JEHOVAH was in Him. But the state in which the LORD was at such times, was a state of His humiliation. He was then in the infirm human, which was from the mother. But to the extent in which He put this off, and put on the Divine, He was in another state, which state is called the state of His Glorification. In the former state He worshiped JEHOVAH as another, although He was in Him, for His Internal was JEHOVAH. But in the state of glorification He spoke with JEHOVAH as with Himself, for He was JEHOVAH Himself.
     The LORD'S Internal was JEHOVAH because it was conceived by JEHOVAH, and it was, therefore, Life Itself. His Human Essence by unition likewise was made Life: "As the Father hath Life in Himself, so hath He given to the Son to have Life in Himself" (John v, 26). To the extent, therefore, in. which the LORD was in the Human, which He received hereditarily from the mother, He appeared distinct from JEHOVAH, and worshiped JEHOVAH as other than Himself, and to the extent in which He put off this human, the LORD was not distinct from JEHOVAH, but one with Him. The one was the state of the LORD'S humiliation, the other the state of His glorification.
     According to the degree of the humiliation or worship, He was more closely conjoined and united to JEHOVAH, and His perception was correspondingly more interior. The degree of His perception at this time was therefore proportionately interior: "And GOD spake with Him, saying"-"GOD," because truth is treated of, which was to be united to good.

     He perceived the union that was to be effected, the union of the Divine Essence with the Human ("I, behold My covenant with thee"); and the union of the Human Essence with the Divine ("and thou shalt be for a father of a multitude of nations"). "Father" signifies from Him, that is from the LORD; "multitude" signifies truth, and "nations" the good thence; and by these truths and goods the LORD united the Human Essence to the Divine; as the Divine Essence was united to the Divine. For the unition was reciprocal, even as in the case of man there is a reciprocal conjunction with what inflows into Him from the LORD, the reciprocity consisting in his meeting the LORD'S influx by sciences and cognitions. But it must be well noted that man's internal, through which comes the LORD'S influx, is a mere recipient of life, while the LORD'S Internal was JEHOVAH Himself and Life Itself; further, that there was a union of the LORD with JEHOVAH, but only a conjunction of man with the LORD; that the LORD of His own power united Himself to JEHOVAH, wherefore He also became Justice; but man never of his own power but of the LORD'S, so that the LORD conjoins man to Himself.
     Of this reciprocal union the LORD spoke,-when He said: "He that believeth in Me, believeth not in Me, but in him that sent Me. I, a light, am come into the world, that every one who believeth in Me, should not remain in darkness" (John, xii, 44-46). He was not another from the Father, although He spoke of the Father 'as of another, because of the reciprocal conjunction which was to come to pass, and was effected. For He said, "He that seeth Me, seeth Him that sent Me" (John xii, 45). "Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me." (John xiv, 10-11). "He that seeth Me, seeth the Father." (John xix, 7-10).

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"I and the Father are one" (John x, 30).
     To accomplish this reciprocal union He was to put off the human ("and it shall no longer be called by thy name Abram") and put on the Divine ("and thy name shall be Abraham").
     "The letter "H" inserted in the name "Abram" was taken from the name of "JEHOVAH." It is the only letter in that most holy name which involves the Divine; and it signifies "I Am" or "To Be" or "Esse." While therefore "Abram represented the LORD'S human before glorification, "Abraham" represents JEHOVAH or the LORD, the human made Divine.
     From the Human thus made Divine and JEHOVAH would be all truth, and hence good ("because I have given thee a father of a multitude of nations"), these truths and goods flowing reciprocally united, from the reciprocal union, of Truth with Good in the LORD, of the Human Essence with the Divine.

     THE LORD further perceived that the good of His Human Essence would be fructified to infinity ("and I shall fructify thee very, very much"). From Him would be all good ("And I shall give thee for nations") and from Him would be all truth ("and kings shall come forth from thee").
     This teaching is very important, for men as a rule think that the Divine good can come to man without the LORD'S Human united to the Divine. But this is impossible, since, by cupidities in which he has immersed himself, and by falsities by which he has blinded himself, man has removed himself so far from the Supreme Divine that no influx of the Divine into the rational of his mind could ever take place, excepting by the Human; which the LORD in Himself united to the Divine. By His Human, communication was established; for thus the Supreme Divine could come to man. This the LORD says in many places, namely, that He is the Way, and that the Father cannot be approached except through Him. Hence, then, it is that in this verse of the chapter; the Word teaches that from Him, that is from the Human united to the Divine, every good and every truth comes to man.

     THUS there would be a conjunction of the Divine with the human race through Him; For the Divine being united with the Human ("and I shall establish My covenant between Me and Between thee") there would result a conjunction with those who have faith in Him ("and between thy seed after thee") and with the things which are of faith ("into their generations"). With this "seed" there was to be a conjunction, as they are only recipients of life ("for an eternal covenant"): the "covenant between Me and thee" being the union of the Divine and the Human, of Life with Life.
     Thus the LORD'S Divine would be in Him ("to be to thee for a God") and hence the Divine would be with those who have faith in Him ("and to thy seed after thee"). The Divine, with those who have faith in Him, is love and charity. By Love is meant love to the LORD, by Charity, love toward the neighbor.

     THE LORD acquired life to Himself by cognitions, by temptation-combats and by victories in these; and this He did by His own strength. The Life thus acquired is signified in the literal sense by "the land of thy sojournings"-because "to sojourn" signifies to be instructed. Whatever is in the heavens and on the earths is His, the heavenly Kingdom is His and this He also gives eternally to those who will have faith in Him, the only God ("And I shall give to thee and to thy seed after thee the land of thy sojournings, all the land of Canaan for an eternal possession, and I shall be to them for a God").
     The perception of all these things was followed by a perception ("And GOD said to Abram") that the union would be closer still ("and thou shalt keep my covenant"). For the unition of the LORD'S Human Essence with His Divine Essence, was not effected at once, but throughout the whole course of his life from infancy to the last of His life in the world. Thus He ascended continually to the glorification that is to union: "Jesus said: 'Father glorify Thy Name there went forth a voice from Heaven, I have glorified, and l shall glorify again.'" John xii, 28.
     From the closer union again there would be from Him the conjunction of all who have faith in Him ("thou and thy seed after thee"), and of all the things which are of faith ("into thy generations").
     The Union of the Divine Essence with the Human Essence, and of the Human with the Divine is treated of in an earlier part of the chapter. Here the LORD'S conjunction with those is treated of who believe in Him. Hence the repetition of "Thou": "Thou shalt keep My covenant, Thou and thy seed." When the LORD speaks of His Union with the Father, He immediately, and always, speaks of His conjunction with the human race, because this was the cause of His union, as is evident from the Gospel by John. This conjunction was indeed the cause of the LORD'S coming into the world. For at the close of the Most Ancient times, after everything celestial had perished with man; that is all love to the LORD; so that the will of good was no longer, then the human race was separated from the Divine, for nothing conjoins but love, and when this became none, disjunction resulted, and when there is disjunction there follows destruction and extirpation. For this reason a promise was then made that the LORD would come into the world, Who would unite the Human to the Divine, and by this Union conjoin the human race in Himself by the faith of love and charity. From the time of the first promise (recorded in Genesis iii, 15) the faith of love or the coming LORD effected conjunction; but when no faith of love remained on the globe, then the LORD came, and united the Human Essence to the Divine, so that they would be altogether one, as He clearly saith; and at the same time He taught the way of truth, that every one who should believe in Him, that is, love Him and what is of Him, and who should be in His love which is toward the whole human race, thus toward the neighbor-should be conjoined and saved. When the Human was made Divine, and the Divine Human in the LORD, then the influx of the Infinite or Supreme Divine was effected with man, which otherwise could never exist. Hence also the dire persuasions of the false and dire cupidities of evil were dispersed, with which the world of spirits had been filled, and was being filled; by souls continually arriving from the world; and they who were in them were cast into hell and thus separated. Unless this had been done, the human race would have perished, for this is ruled through spirits by the LORD. Nor could they have been scattered in any other way, for there was no operation of the Divine through the rationals into the internal sensuals of man, for they are far below the Supreme Divine that is not thus united.

     THE token of the conjunction of all with the LORD ("This is My covenant"): of all who have faith in Him ("and between thy seed after thee"), is purity ("every male shall be circumcised").

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Those things which impede and defile heavenly love, which are the evils of cupidity, especially of the cupidities of self-love and the falses thence, are to be removed and wiped away, so that the celestial things of the LORD'S kingdom may appear, which consist in general of the three loves: conjugial love, love toward infants, and the love of society, or mutual love. Opposed to these three loves are the loves of self and the world. These are to be removed ("and ye shall circumcise the flesh of your fore-skin"), for celestial love continually inflows with man from the LORD, and nothing else stands in the way, impedes, and causes man to be unable to receive it, than the cupidities of the loves of self and the world, and the falses thence. This purification is what is represented and signified by circumcision ("and it shall be for a sign of the covenant between Me and between you").

     AT any time and thus always as from a new beginning ("and a son of eight days"), purification from evil loves is to take place ("shall be circumcised to you").
     The life of the love of self and of the world with its voluptuousness and pleasures is foul and unclean. From self-love come all the evils that destroy civil society. From it as from an unclean well gush forth all hatreds, all revenges, all cruelties, yea, all adulteries. These evil loves must be cut off. But it is from truth that one knows what is pure and impure, what is holy and profane. Before man knows this there are no means into which and by which the celestial love can operate, which continually inflows from the LORD, and which cannot be received except in truths. Those, therefore, who are in the true faith are to be purified ("every male" was to be circumcised") and also the things which are of faith ("into your generations"), all with in the Church: the celestial ("those born of the house") and the spiritual ("the purchase of silver"). Those without the Church would also be purified ("from every foreign-born son who is not of thy seed"). The heathen who are without the Church are not so in goods and truths as those who are within the Church, because they are not in their cognitions. But they can be in truths, though not the truths of faith. Their truths are like the precepts of the Decalogue: that parents are to be honored, that one ought not to kill, steal, commit adultery, lust after what belongs to others, and that one ought to worship the Deity. The truths of faith, such as all doctrinals concerning eternal life, concerning the LORD'S kingdom, and concerning the LORD, cannot be known to them because they have not the Word. These heathen are purified when they reject filthy loves and live among themselves in charity.

     PURIFICATION must needs precede, otherwise there is no conjunction, but damnation. Still the conjunction cannot exist except in the impure of man.
     The necessity of those within the Church removing themselves from the loves of self and the world, is expressed in the literal sense by the repetition: "Circumcising shall be circumcised the one born of the house, and the purchase of thy silver." The purification from those filthy loves is most necessary within the Church, because they who are within the Church can render impure holy things themselves, which they who are without the Church, or the heathen, cannot do. Hence the former are in greater danger of damnation. Moreover, those who are within the Church can form principles of the false, against the very truths of faith; and be imbued with them, which they who are without the Church cannot do, because they are ignorant of them. Thus the former can profane holy truths, but the latter cannot.
     Still the LORD'S conjunction with man is in his impurity ("and My covenant shall be in your flesh"). For within an there is not any pure intellectual truth, that is, any Divine truth, but the truths of faith, which are with man, are appearances of truth, to which fallacies of the senses adjoin themselves, and to these again, falses which are of the cupidities of the love of self and the world. Such are the truths with man, and so impure, are they. Still the LORD conjoins Himself with man in the very impurities, for He animates and vivifies them with innocence and charity, and thus forms a conscience in the intellectual part of man.
     Since it is so necessary for the men of the Church to be purified from their evil loves, and since the conjunction of the LORD is nearer with the Church than with those outside the Church, the word "covenant" is repeated in the literal sense ("for an everlasting covenant"). For it is through the Church that those outside of it have light from the LORD.
     He who is not in the truth of faith, thus in the false ("and the uncircumcised male"), who is in the love of self ("who is not circumcised as to the flesh of his foreskin"), will perish by an eternal death ("and that soul shall be cut off from his peoples"); he cannot be conjoined ("he hath made void My covenant").

     AGAIN the LORD perceived ("And GOD said to Abraham") that truth intellectual conjoined to good ("Sarai thy wife") would put off the human ("thou shalt not call by her name Sarai"), and put on the Divine ("since Sarah is her name").
     The letter "H" which was added to the name "Sarah," was taken from the name JEHOVAH, for the reason that "Sarah," like "Abraham," might represent the LORD'S Divine, namely, the Divine marriage of Good with Truth in the LORD, "Abraham" the Divine Good, and "Sarah" the Divine Truth, from which the Divine Rational, which is Isaac, should be born.
     This Truth of good or truth intellectual would be multiplied ("and I shall bless her"), and a new rational be born ("and I also shall give thee of her a son").
     The LORD'S first rational was represented and signified by Ishmael, born of the handmaid Hagar. (See chap. xvi.) The second rational is represented and signified by Isaac, who was to be born of Sarah. The first rational was afterward expelled from the house, but the rational represented by Isaac remained at home because it was Divine. This rational was to multiply, that is, be filled with good and truth ("and I shall bless him") and goods were to be derived from it ("and he shall be into nations").
     From the Divine Good represented by "Abraham" flows the celestial truth which is received by the celestial angels. This is involved in what is said in the sixth verse that "kings should come forth from Abraham." From the Divine Truth represented by "Sarah" flows forth spiritual truth, which is received by the spiritual angels. Hence it is stated here "kings of peoples shall be from her," by which are signified truths from conjoined truths and goods.
     The LORD worshiped JEHOVAH ("and Abraham fell upon his faces") from the affection of truth ("and he laughed"), and thought thus ("and he said in his heart"): that then the Rational of His Human Essence would be united to the Divine Essence ("shall it be born to a son of a hundred years"), and that truth conjoined to good would do this ("and shall Sarah, a daughter of ninety years, bring forth?").

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     As, thus, the union of the Human Essence with the Divine Essence, or of Truth with Good, was foretold, so in the following, the conjunction with those who are in the truths of faith was foretold, namely, as with those who are of the celestial Church, so with those who are of the spiritual Church.

     FROM love toward the whole human race which He willed to adjoin to Himself by the union of His Human Essence with the Divine, and thus save to eternity, from this love the LORD perceived ("and Abraham said to GOD") that others who are rational from truth, should not perish ("oh! That Jishmael may live before Thee"). Of the two kinds of men within the Church, the spiritual and the celestial, the former become rational from truth, but the latter from good: The former are meant by "Ishmael," and their salvation the LORD desired from Divine love.
      In any perception there is a proposition and an answer; so here the LORD perceived the response to the proposition of His perception ("And GOD said") that Divine truth conjoined to good ("truly Sarah thy wife "), from which a rational would be born ("shall bear thee a son"), which would be the Divine Rational ("and thou shalt call his name Isaac"), and which would be eternally united to the Divine Essence ("and I shall establish My covenant with him for an everlasting covenant"), and by it the celestial who have faith in Him would be eternally conjoined with Him ("with his seed after him"),

     THOSE who become rational from truth, were also to be saved ("and as for Jishmael, I have heard thee"); they were to be imbued and gifted with goods of faith and with the truths thence; immediately ("behold; I shall bless him, and I shall make him to be sanctified, and I shall make him to be multiplied") they would have the primary precepts of charity ("twelve princes shall he beget"), and their goods would be fruitful and increase ("and I shall give him for a great nation").
     The spiritual who are here treated of are such as are in the affection of good from truth, differing therefore from the celestial, who are in the affection of good from good. From the beginning all were celestial, because they were in love to the LORD; hence they received perception, by which they perceived good, not from truth, but from the affection of good; but afterwards, when love to the LORD was not such, the spiritual succeeded, and they were then called spiritual men when they were in love toward the neighbor or in charity. But love toward the neighbor, or charity, was implanted by truth, and thus they received conscience, according to which they acted, not from the affection of good, but from the action of truth. Charity with them appears like the affection of good, but it is the affection of truth; still, from the appearance, charity is also called good, but is the good of their faith.

     IN conclusion, the LORD perceived that all this would be from the union of the Human Essence with the Divine in Him, that is, from the union with the Divine Rational ("and I will establish my covenant with Isaac"), which exists from the Divine Truth conjoined with Divine Good ("whom Sarah shall bear to thee") at that state of union ("at this stated the in the following year").

     Thus ended this prediction, or this perception ("and He finished speaking with him"); and the LORD returned from this state of glorification, wherein He had such perception, into the former state of humiliation ("and GOD ascended from upon Abraham").

     THUS was it to be done, and thus did it come to pass. Those who are truly rational ("and Abraham took Ishmael") and those who are within the Church; both the celestial and the spiritual, with whom the truths of faith are conjoined with goods ("and all those born of his house, and all the purchase of his silver, every male among the men of Abraham's house") were purified and justified by the LORD ("and he circumcised the flesh of their fore-skin ) in the state spoken of ("in the selfsame day"), according to the perception ("as GOD had spoken with him")
     It was at the state and time before the union of the LORD'S Divine Essence with His Human Essence ("and Abraham was a son of ninety and nine years"), when He entirely expelled the evils of the External man, ("in his circumcising the flesh of his fore-skin"). And those who became rational from the truths of faith from the LORD ("and Ishmael, his son"), were by virtue of their holy remains ("a son of thirteen years"), purified by the LORD ("in his being circumcised in the flesh of his fore-skin"). So that at the time ("in the selfsame day"), when the LORD conjoined the Human Essence to his Divine Essence, He also conjoined to Himself others who became rational from truth, and saved them ("Abraham was circumcised, and Jishmael, his son").
     Then all those who are within the Church the celestial and the spiritual ("And all the men of his house, those born of the house, and the purchase of silver"), and all who were rational outside the Church ("from a foreign born son"), were justified by the LORD ("were circumcised by him").
Jehovah is in love and charity 1889

Jehovah is in love and charity              1889

     Jehovah is in love and charity, but not in faith, unless it is the faith of love or charity.-A. C. 709.
INTERNAL SENSE OF THE PROPHETS AND PSALMS 1889

INTERNAL SENSE OF THE PROPHETS AND PSALMS              1889

     IN the Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Concerning the LORD (n. 37), Swedenborg says that it had been given to him to go through all the Prophets and the Psalms of David, and to examine every verse and to see what it treats of. The result was that he saw that nothing else was treated of than the Church which had been established and is about to be established by the LORD; further the LORD'S Coming, His combats; glorification, redemption and salvation, and the Heaven which is from Him; and also at the same time the things opposite to these; "Inasmuch as all these are the LORD'S works it was evident that the whole Sacred Scripture is concerning the LORD, and hence that the LORD is the Word." "But" adds Swedenborg, "this cannot be seen except by those who are in illustration from the LORD, and who also know the spiritual sense of the Word."
     We are enabled to follow Swedenborg: in his examinations of the Prophets and Psalms and to see as he did, that they are of the LORD, and hence that the LORD is the Word by the Summary Exposition of The Internal Sense of the Prophets and of the Psalms of David, written by him under the LORD'S inspiration.
     To the devout Newchurchman who reads the Word in order that he may be nearer the LORD and His angels; and receive Divine light on his way of life, this little Work is indispensable.

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     Those who unite with a number of their fellow-New-churchmen in reading the Word according to the Plan published by the General Church of Pennsylvania, have recently been reading the Prophet Ezekiel, and are about to begin the Prophet Daniel. To impress upon their minds the transcendent value of the little Work referred to (Summary Exposition of the Internal Sense of the Prophets and Psalms), and of its effectiveness in bringing the reader into spiritual association with the angels of Heaven, their attention is called to the following:
     In The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem, Concerning the Sacred Scripture (n. 97 end) this statement occurs: "The Divine Truth in the Word, and its quality, are described by the Cherubs in Ezekiel, in Chapter i, and in Chapters ix and x. But because no one can know what is signified by the particulars of their description, excepting he to whom the spiritual sense has been opened, therefore, it has been revealed to me what, in a summary, is signified by all that is said of the Cherubs in the first chapter of Ezekiel. Then he gives the Internal Sense in language almost identical with that in the Summary Exposition, and closes with the significant and important statement: "These summaries have also been collated with the Word in Heaven, and conform with them."
     Why The Summary Exposition of the Internal Sense of the Prophets and of the Psalms of David is so unfamiliar to receivers and readers of the Doctrines is a cause for conjecture. It is not impossible that the unpalatable revelations concerning the corrupt state of the Old Church contained therein, and the force with which these revelations strike home when the Internal Sense here revealed illumines the letter of the prophecies, may have a great deal to do with it, and yet, sad as is the state depicted, it is intimately connected with the LORD'S work of redemption and salvation, and with the glories of the coming Church.
     Since Daniel treats of the LORD'S Coming and the state of the Church, but since this does not appear except from the Internal Sense, the reader is recommended, if he has not yet done so, to place himself in possession of the inestimable treasure: The Summary Exposition.
first off-spring of charity 1889

first off-spring of charity              1889

     The first off-spring of charity is nothing but faith, for this is the source of faith and there is no other.-A. C. 1228.
MYTHOLOGY IN THE LIGHT OF THE NEW CHURCH 1889

MYTHOLOGY IN THE LIGHT OF THE NEW CHURCH              1889

     III.

     MYTHOLOGY OF CANAAN.

     The Nation of Canaan.

     WHEN the Hebrew Church fell into idolatry, most of its rituals were retained in the Israelitish Church, and also among the surrounding Canaanitish nations. The principal ones of these numerous tribes are the following.
     In the South:
     The Amalekites, a powerful people, who dwelt in Arabia Petrea, and who, during hundreds of years, harrassed the Israelites, until they were finally exterminated by David. By them is signified, in brief, "those falsities of interior evil that continually infest the truths and goods of the Church" (A. E. 734).
     The Edomites, the descendants of Esau, living in the mountainous territory south, of the Dead Sea. They were by turns friendly and inimical to the Israelites, until David subjugated them. Under the Syrian kings, by compulsory circumcision, they were merged with the Jews. Herod was of an Idumman family. By Edom, in a good sense, is signified "the Divine Truth of the LORD'S Divine Natural" (A. C. 4261), or "the LORD'S Human, as to what is natural and corporeal" (A. C. 4642), and, in the opposite sense, "the pride of self-intelligence of the natural man, who is in falses from the love of self" (A. E. 410, 653).
     In the East:
     The Moabites, descendants from the eldest son of Lot. These live in the east of the Dead Sea, where they had a great kingdom, their principal seat being Rabbat-Moab. Their chief divinity was Chemosh, of whom more will be said below. By the Moabites are signified, in the good sense, "those who are in the ultimates of the Word, of the Church, and of Worship" (A. E. 417); and, in the opposite sense, "those who are in natural good only, who easily suffer themselves to be led astray by natural evil delights and selfish ends" (A. E. 417, 637, 811; A. C. 1364, 2468). North of the Moabites lived-
     The Ammonites, descendants of the younger son of Lot. Though always mentioned together with Moab, they were not, like the former, a commercial or cultivated nation, but fierce, warlike, and cruel. Their national idol was Molech, or Milcom, whose worship was introduced among the Israelites by the Ammonitish wives of Solomon.
     By the Ammonites is signified the falsified truth of the natural man, and those who are in the externals of worship and of Doctrine, but internally profaners of the celestial and spiritual things of faith (A. C. 576, 2313, 2467, 2468, 6405; A. E. 637).
     In the West:     
     The Philistines, a strong and ancient Semitic nation, from the family of Mizraim or Egypt, and inhabiting the lowland on the coast of the Mediterranean. Their wars with the Israelites are well known. They seem to have been a confederation of the five principal cities, Gaza, Ashdod, Ashkalon, Gath, and Ekron. They were fierce, cruel, treacherous, and superstitious. We learn concerning them in the Doctrines, that "in the Ancient Church all those were called Philistines, who talked much of faith and of salvation by faith, but had little of its life, for which reason, also, they especially were called the uncircumcised, that is, devoid of charity" (A. C. 1197). Hence by the Philistines are signified all those who make the knowledges of faith to consist in the things of the memory; abstractly the knowledges themselves, or the science of such knowledges, understood as distinct from the science of natural good." In an evil sense, therefore, the Philistines signify all those who are in Faith alone (A. C. 8093).
     The Phoenicians. This people are so well known from history as to make a description of them unnecessary.
     By the Phoenicians, or the inhabitants of Tyre and Sidon, are meant, in the Word, "those who possess spiritual and celestial riches, which are knowledges of good and truth" (A. C. 1156, 4453, 10,199). By Tyre is signified interior knowledges and by Sidon external knowledges (A. C. 1201).

     Canaanitish Idolatries.

     As the divinities worshiped by the nations recounted above are all very much of the same character they may be looked at together and as a whole.
     Peculiar difficulties meet the student of Canaanitish Mythology, the principal one being the scanty sources from which to draw his knowledge.

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Unlike all other forms of idoltry, we do not find among these nations any of those sacred codexes of antiquity, in which the theology and cosinogony are summed up, either in systematic order or in form of narrative. As we know, the Ancient Word was extant in this land, but here no remains of it have as yet been found. Literature does not seem to have been developed to any extent in Canaan; and even the monuments and inscriptions give us but little information. But then the work of excavating the ruins, which has been done so extensively in Assyria and Egypt, has hardly been begun in the land of Canaan, and future researches may bring to light more material. As it is, our greatest source of information is the Letter of the Word, which, indeed, gives quite vivid pictures of the idolatries in this land.
     One thing strikes the observer with astonishment: the small number of divinities worshiped in Canaan. While the mythologies of all other nations bewilder one with the multitude of deities, the Canaanitish, by contrast, puzzles one by the fewness of them. The highest estimate gives them some twenty-four divinities, who; on close inspection, resolve themselves into six or seven, and these again seem only to have been different names of three or four gods and goddesses. Some of these deities, also, seem to have been importations from Egypt and Assyria, while, on the other hand, it seems as if the few native to Canaan had been incorporated into the Pantheon of nearly all other gentile nations, and had been multiplied there, in a great many different forms. Another, and most prominent feature of Canannitish mythology is its grossness, ugliness, and materialism. Nothing of the sublimity, beauty, and spirituality of Assyrian, Egyptian, Greek, or Scandinavian beliefs can there be found, and the idea of a life after this seems almost totally wanting. In the forms in which we have this mythogy, it certainly seems one of the lowest, most devastated forms of idolatry.
     The most prominent of the Canaanitish gods are the following;
     1. Baal. (Hebrew). This name means, simply, a master, and is a generic term for god in many Syro-Arabian languages. Under the name Ha-baal (Hebrew), the Lord "par excellence," he was the chief male divinity of the Phoenicians, his principal seat being in Tyre, where he is also called "Melkart" (the king of the city) or "Harokel" (merchant), which word the Greeks corrupted to Herakles, and the hero-god so named wan greatly celebrated in classic times as the "Tyrian Hercules." The worship of Baal was universal throughout the Canaanitish tribes, each one of whom added some particular epithet to his name, or erected statues to him in various modified forms, which, when taken all together, are called Baalim. On the monuments he appears in various horrible forms: sometimes as the god of war, with four legs, and a shield and sword; at other times like a monstrous half-man, the head being that of a bull; again, under his most formidable aspect, as the devouring devil, to whom children were sacrificed. In Carthage he is said to have had an image of brass, which was hollow within and contained a furnace. His arms were extended in such a manner, that the children, laid upon them, rolled down into this furnace and were burned. In the Writings Baal is said to have originally been a man (T. C. R. 292), who afterward was worshiped as a god. If so, we may imagine that he was one of the Antediluvians. In general he and his images correspond to "falsities of evil" (A. E. 644), to "worship from the love of self and the love of the world" (A. E. 760), and to "the things which are of the natural man and are loved by him, namely cupidities and falsities of every kind" (A. R. 132). These cupidities and falses of the natural man are represented by the bull's head, haw in a similar representation with the golden calf, worshiped in the desert by the Israelites. Baal was frequently worshiped by the Israelites under the Judges, up to the time of Samuel. This worship again became established at the court of Ahab, king of Israel, and his Phoenician wife Jezebel, who made a systematic attempt to suppress the worship of Jehovah, and to supplant it with Baal-worship. It was never afterward effectually abolished in Israel. It also prevailed in Judah, especially under the kings Ahaziah, Ahaz, and Manasseh. A very vivid description of the worship of Baal is found in I Kings xviii, 17-41.
     The worship of Baal became very widespread. In Assyria, under the name of Bel, he was one of the principal divinities. In Greece and Rome he became known as Apollo, the sun god. In Carthage he was the chief god, whose name is found in the names of many historical personages, such as Asdru-bal, Hannibal, etc. "His worship seems to have extended to the north of Europe also. The principal divinity of heathen Ireland was named Bal, or Beal, and his symbols, the wheel and the sundial, are still frequently found. On the tops of many hills in Scotland there are heaps of stones called by the common people "Bel's cairns," where it is supposed that sacrifices were offered in early times. The Scandinavian god Baldur or Baldr is probably also connected with the Phoenician Baal, introduced, perhaps by the Phoenician merchants, who in early times visited the shores of the Baltic to obtain amber. His worship there was, and in many planes still is, accompanied with the rolling of wheels and the burning of fires, especially on midsummer nights.
     Besides Habaal, the Baal, there were numerous local deities of this name, to which was added the name of some place or attribute. The principal ones of these were:
     Baal-Berith, "the god of the Covenant," name of a divinity worshiped by the Hiittites in Shechem.
     Baal-Hamon, name of a place where Solomon had a vineyard. Hamon is probably the god Amon, of Egypt, introduced into Canaan by the Phoenicians.
     Baal-Peor, the name of a deity of the Moabites. The name would seem to indicate that lascivious rites were attached to his worship, which also would agree with the signification of Baal-Peor being that of "Adulteration of good" (A. E. 655).
     Baal-Zebub (Hebrew), Belzebub, or Belzebul, is an interesting figure, whose name in the Christian Church has generally stood for the personal devil. Like many of these divinities, he was originally a man, afterward worshiped principally by the Philistines at Ekron, where he had a famous oracle. The name means "lord of flies," and we learn concerning him in True Christian Religion, n. 630, "that the doctrine of Faith alone, which deprives man of all power in spiritual things; is like saying, 'I have no more power than Belzebub, the god of Ekron, who, according to the signification of his name, can only drive away flies," and in Apocalypse Explained, n. 740, "The reason Belzebub is called 'Satan' (Math. xii, 24) and not the Devil, is that by Belzebub, who was the god of Ekron, is meant the god of all falsities; for if you translate the word Beelzebub it is 'the lord of flies,' and 'flies' signify the falsities of the sensual man; thus falsities of every kind."

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NECESSITY OF KNOWING WHAT IS GOOD AND TRUE 1889

NECESSITY OF KNOWING WHAT IS GOOD AND TRUE              1889

     NOTHING is more necessary for man than that he know what is good and what is true, and how the one regards the other, and how the one is conjoined to the other. But most of all is it necessary for the man of the Church; for; as all things of Heaven relate to good and truth, so also do all things of the Church, because the good and truth of Heaven are also the good and truth of the Church. It is according to Divine order that good and truth be conjoined, and not separated, thus that they be one, and not two; for they proceed conjoined from the Divine, and are conjoined in Heaven, and therefore should be conjoined in the Church. The conjunction of good and truth in Heaven is called the heavenly marriage, for in this marriage are all who are there. Hence it is that in the Word Heaven is compared to a marriage, and that the LORD is called the Bridegroom and Husband; but Heaven the Bride and Wife; likewise the Church: Heaven and the Church are so called, because they who are there receive the Divine Good in truths.
     This teaching, taken from the Work on The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrine (n. 13, 12), makes evident how necessary it is that the man of the New Church should study the Divine Truth revealed in its pages. Truths are the vessels that receive the Divine Good. Unless these vessels exist in the mind the Divine Good has naught wherein to inflow. Because of the pressing need that the man of the New Church should know what good is and what truth is, and how they are conjoined, the LORD has mercifully revealed the Doctrine that teaches it. It is man's duty to receive what is thus mercifully given. By studying the truth and making it his own, he is performing a good. But his study must be animated by the end of applying the truths to life. Then will the truth be infilled with good and conjoined to it, and he will become intelligent and wise. For, "all intelligence and wisdom which the I angels have is from that marriage, and there is none from good separated from truth, nor from truth separated from good. It is similar with the men of the Church." (A. D. 14.)
     Because the conjunction of good and truth is like unto a marriage, it is manifest that good loves truth, and on the other hand that truth loves good, and that the one desires to be conjoined with the other. The man of the Church who has not such a love and such a desire, is not in the heavenly marriage; thus the Church is not yet in him, for the conjunction of good and truth makes the Church.
     Without a constant study of the Doctrine which teaches what is good and what is true, the man of the Church is continually subjected to the danger of mistaking evil for good and falsity for truth; of allowing impulses to come forth into words and deeds without the guidance of a judgment formed of truths; and thus retarding the real prosperity of the Church; for the Church grows only in the degree in which truth is conjoined with good. For while truth without good is not truth, good without truth is not good; "faith is not faith unless it be conjoined with charity, and charity is not charity unless it be conjoined with faith." (T C. R. 336.)
     In their fear of the faith-alone state Newchurchmen sometimes neglect faith, and are in danger of the charity-alone state, which is as bad. Condemning as uncharitable those who endeavor to regulate their lives according to the truth, they lose sight of the fact that the truth which may appear externally as hard and incisive, may contain a good that is soft and merciful; that, after all, it is truth when man wills it,-and willing does it, becomes good.
     From ignorance of the truth that it is truth which gives quality to good (A. C. 5342) Newchurchmen have sometimes looked with suspicion upon the study of truth and have rather discountenanced it, laying stress upon the "doing of good" alone. Yet "faith is perfected according to the abundance and coherence of truths," for they mutually strengthen and confirm one another. "Because faith in its essence is truth, it follows that it becomes, according to the abundance and coherence of truths, more and more perfectly spiritual, thus less and less sensual-natural; for it is exalted into a higher region of the mind, whence it sees under it numerous confirmations of itself in the nature of the world. True faith, by a copious store of truths cohering as it were in a bundle, also becomes more luminous, more perceptible, more evident, and more clear; it also becomes more capable of being conjoined with the goods of charity, and thence of being alienated from evils; and successively more removed from the allurements of the eye, and from the concupiscences of the flesh; consequently, more happy in itself, it becomes, especially, more powerful against evils and falses, and thence more and more living and saving." (T. C. R. 352.)
When a man is being regenerated charity meets faith 1889

When a man is being regenerated charity meets faith              1889

     When a man is being regenerated charity meets faith, or what is the same, good meets truth, and insinuates and fits itself into each particular of it, and causes faith to be faith.-A. C. 2435. SURROUNDINGS OF INFANTS 1889

SURROUNDINGS OF INFANTS              1889

     IN heaven, infants are instructed by representatives adapted to their disposition, which are so beautiful, and at the same time so full of interior wisdom, that it exceeds belief. Everything is insinuated by delightful and pleasant things, for thus "they are introduced into the goods of innocence and charity, which goods are continually insinuated into them by the LORD by means of things delightful and pleasant."
     On earth it is not always possible to keep infants from seeing things that are evil and unpleasant. But it should be the aim of parents to surround them with only such things as are representative of goods and truths, and to keep at a distance what is representative of evils and falses. Beautiful forms and colors, pictures of home and country scenes, of the good and gentle animals, are useful in this direction. Pictures may be used expressive of the most interior wisdom; for while the infant itself is delighted only with the external, its pleasure arises from the delight of the angels who perceive the interior things within the representation. Thus interior remains are stored up in the infant's mind.
     On the other hand, whatever is representative of evils and falses should be eschewed, such as forms of an offensive or disorderly character, pictures of evil animals and of disorder, contortions, uncouth actions of any kind, even those that may appear amusing. For everything of the kind is far from being "full of interior wisdom." It is neither truly delightful nor pleasant to the child and to its heavenly associates.
Faith 1889

Faith              1889

     Faith, when the spiritual man is regenerate, becomes charity, for then he acts from charity.-A. C. 3122.

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Unless faith is implanted in love 1889

Unless faith is implanted in love              1889

     Unless faith is implanted in love, that is, unless by means of the things of faith a man receives the life of faith, that is, charity, there never is conjunction with the Lord.-A. C. 1737 "FAMILIAR SPIRITS." 1889

"FAMILIAR SPIRITS."              1889

     IN his accounts of Swedenborg, Cuno relates that Swedenborg once spoke to him of the "familiar spirit" of the Queen of Sweden, and that on being asked "what is a familiar spirit?" he had given the following description.
     "Every man has his good or bad spirit, who is not only constantly near him, but sometimes also withdraws from him and appears in the spiritual world. But of this the man still living knows nothing; the spirit, however, knows everything. Such a familiar spirit has everything perfectly in common with his human companion; he has in the spiritual world visibly the same figure, the same countenance, the same tone of voice; wears also the same garments as the man on earth; in short, Swedenborg said, the familiar spirit of the Queen appeared exactly as he had so often seen the Queen herself in Stockholm and had heard her speak." (Documents, II, p. 485.)
     So far as the writer is aware, "familiar spirits" are nowhere named as such in the Heavenly Doctrines, but there seems to be no reason to doubt that Swedenborg used the term when speaking to Cuno, although in reporting Swedenborg's description of familiar spirits Cuno may have failed to report him quite accurately.
     Although the term "familiar spirit" does not occur in the Writings, Cuno's account affords a clue to a description in the Writings of the class of spirits of whom he was speaking; for he goes on to say:
     "In order to lesson my astonishment, he added, that Dr. Ernesti, of Leipzig, had appeared to him in a similar manner in the spiritual world, and that he had had a regular disputation with him."
     Dr. Ernesti, a leading theologian of his day, attacked Swedenborg in his Neue Theologische Bibliothek. Swedenborg published a short reply on a hand-bill, for circulation among those interested, and stated that "against this same Dr. Ernesti a Memorable Relation has been written and inserted in the Work, the True Christian Religion, n. 137."
     On consulting the relation here referred to, we find the "disputation" with Ernesti's familiar spirit, of whose connection with Ernesti Swedenborg thus speaks:
     "After these passages were read, I turned myself to the President [Ernesti's familiar spirit] and said,
     "'I know that all here are consociated with their like in the natural world; tell me, I pray, whether you know with whom you are consociated?
     "He replied in a grave tone,
     "'I do know; I am consociated with a famous man, a leader of illustrious bands from the army of the Church.'" This famous man he described, to Swedenborg's amusement; as living not far from Luther's tomb.
     In the course of the conversation Swedenborg told the spirit to inspire his learned man with whom he was consociated with what Swedenborg was saying.
     To which the spirits replied,
     "'I cannot do this, because I and he, as to this thing, make almost one mind, but what I say he does not understand but all that he [speaks] I understand clearly for the spiritual world enters into the natural world, and perceives the thoughts of men there; but not vice versa this is the state of the consociation of spirits and men.'"
     This is all that is said about his relation to Ernesti; but at the end of the council described in this memorable relation another spirit rose up and announced,
     "'I also am consociated with a man in your world, who is there placed in high honor: this I know, because I speak from him, as he does from me.'"
     And this spirit also was requested by Swedenborg to "tell," "if he could," the man with whom he was consociated that he should read two specified passages in the Word.
     In n. 380 of The True Christian Religion this relation between a spirit in the spiritual world and a man's in the natural world is again spoken of, and the spirit is cal led, in agreement with n. 137, a "consociate spirit."
     "There is a consociate spirit with every man, for without this a man cannot think analytically, rationally, and spiritually, thus he would not be a man, but a brute; and every man takes to himself a spirit like unto the affection of his will and hence the perception of his understanding; to him who leads himself into good affections by verities from the Word and by a life according to them, an angel from Heaven is adjoined, but to him who leads himself into evil affections by confirmations of falsities and by an evil life, a spirit from hell adjoins himself, and when he is adjoined, man enters more and more, as it were, into a fraternity with satans," etc.
     Cuno, although an honest man and tolerably familiar with Swedenborg and his Theological Works, was not a full believer in them. It is not at all unlikely that he confounded what Swedenborg said about "consociate Spirits" with what he said about the man's spirit sometimes appearing in the spiritual world while the man is still living in this world, concerning which phenomenon the following teaching is given:
     "Every man, as to his spirit, is consociated with those like himself in the Spiritual World, and is as one with them; and it has often been given me to see in societies the spirits of men still living, [the spirits] of some in angelic [societies], and of others in infernal ones, and it has also been given to speak with them for days, and I wondered that the man himself who was still living in his body knew almost nothing concerning this."
Man's regeneration 1889

Man's regeneration              1889

     Man's regeneration takes place through the knowledges and scientifics which are of truth, which are continually implanted in good, that is, in charity, in order that thus he may receive the life of charity.-A. C. 2189.
Notes and Reviews 1889

Notes and Reviews              1889

     According to the quality and quantity of truth, so is charity with man.-A. C. 2189.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     THE work on The Internal Sense of the Prophets and Psalms is being translated for the first time into the Swedish language, and published in monthly installments in the Rev. Mr. Manby a paper, Skandinavisk Nykyrktidning.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     ANOTHER work by Dr. R. L. Tafel has been published by James Speirs entitled Huxley and Swedenborg; the Claims of Agnosticism Examined.

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Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     EIGHT lectures on the Realities of Heaven, by the Rev. T. F. Wright, have been published in book form by the New Church Book Association of Philadelphia.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     A SERIES of twenty of the Rev. Chauncey Giles' sermons have been translated into Swedish, and published as separate tracts, at the expense of one of the members of Pastor Boyesen's Society in Stockholm.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     THE New Church Tidings for October publishes a plan for an "International Reading Circle," in which all English-speaking people all over the world may join. The reading will begin on January 1st, 1890, with No.1 of Heaven and Hell.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     THE Fifteenth Report of the New Church Evidence Society has been published. It contains information of work done to correct false impressions concerning the New Church in secular papers, novels, etc. The Secretary has lately come into communication with persons in Liberia, West Africa.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     THE publication of the monthly Manual of the Pennsylvania Association of the New Church has been resumed with the number for October. In it are contained the calendar of services of the Philadelphia First Society, the Philadelphia Union of the New Jerusalem, and the Societies in Frankfort and Allentown, Pa., and Vineland, N. J.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     Two new and very complete Catalogues of New Church works have been published by the New Church Board of Publication. One of them contains complete price lists of the Writings in Latin, English, French, German, Welsh, Swedish, Danish, Polish, Russian, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, and Icelandic, together with current collateral literature in various languages. The other is an extensive list of tracts, the various tract societies in America and England.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     Die Warte des Tempels (The Watch-tower of the Temple) is a religious weekly, edited in Jerusalem for the German Mennonite Colonists in Palestine. In its issues for August 22d and 29th, and September 5th 1889 are a series of articles, consisting of extracts from the Diary (for the year 1766) of the German Theologian Ph. Matth. Hahn, which contain first an account of the Prelate Oetinger's opinions on Swedenborg, written by Oetinger himself and then Hahn's own opinions, which seem to have been a complete acceptance of the Doctrines. The publication of these interesting Documents in a German Mennonite paper in Jerusalem seems a curious incident.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     RUMMAGING among old books and periodicals, the student of literature occasionally comes across productions of early and isolated receivers of the Doctrines which deserve to be rescued from the sea of oblivion. To this class may be referred a rather lengthy but quaint and interesting poem entitled Arcana Angelorum, by John Love Lawrie, published in nine numbers of the Magnolia, a pioneer literary magazine of the South, which was edited in Savannah in 1841, by P. C. Pendleton. In this poem, which is professedly based on the teachings of Swedenborg, the author sings in high-tuned iambics of the first celestial age of the world and the joys of the most ancient people.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     A NEW Tetzel, selling indulgences, this time in the name of the New Church, has developed in the person of the Rev. Adolph J. Bartels, "Preacher of the New Church and Doctor of the Metaphysical Science of Healing." Witness the following startling advertisement on the cover of Mr. Bartel's new pamphlet on Swedenborg's Lehren und die Metaphysische oder geistige Heilungs Philssophie: "Notice! Pastor Bartels offers his services to all sufferers, as Metaphysical Physician. He remembers, that the LORD commanded His Disciples to preach the Gospel, and to heal the sick. . . . He forgave sins and healed the body too, and then bade them 'Sin no more.' With the help of Divine Mercy and Omnipotence we also will do this. Our terms are moderate."
     Mr. Bartels is also the President and ordaining minister of the "German Synod."
doctrinal which is from charity 1889

doctrinal which is from charity              1889

     The doctrinal which is from charity or which is of charity, constitutes the internal of the Church, for this is life.-A. C. 1798.
Communicated 1889

Communicated              1889

     [Inasmuch as in this Department Correspondents have an opportunity to express their individual opinions, be they in favor of the principles on which New Church Life is conducted or adverse to them, the Editor does not hold himself responsible for the views that are published therein.]
REOPENING OF THE ACADEMY SCHOOLS IN PHILADELPHIA 1889

REOPENING OF THE ACADEMY SCHOOLS IN PHILADELPHIA       S. P. E       1889

     Notwithstanding there being so many varieties and differences of doctrinal things, they still form one Church, when all acknowledge charity as the essential of the Church, or, what is the same, when they regard life as the end of doctrine.-A. C. 3241.


     DEAR LIFE:-On the first day of October the Schools of the Academy of the New Church in Philadelphia were opened for the school year of 1889-90. Owing to the serious illness of the Superintendent, the Rt. Rev. Wm. H. Benade, the opening service was conducted by the Acting Superintendent, Rev. Wm. F. Pendleton. The order of the exercises was as follows:
     All standing with bowed heads, the curtains covering the repository of the Word were solemnly drawn aside by Mr. Pendleton, and the Sacred Scriptures and a Book of the Writings were opened. Then all kneeling and facing the repository, the Loan's Prayer was devoutly offered. After the prayer Mr. Pendleton read n. 113 of The True Christian Religion, wherein is contained the account of an incident in the education of some boys in the other world; then followed the reading of a chapter from the Word and the singing of a selection by the whole school. The following address was then delivered by Mr. Pendleton:
     "We are instructed in the Doctrines of the Church that the Divine end in the creation of the human race, and in its continual preservation on the earth, is the formation of a Heaven where man may live to eternity in a life of use, peace, and happiness. All the operations of the Divine Providence in the works of nature, in the natural activities of men and nations, in the establishment of the Church, look to this one universal end. In the Church the LORD makes manifest this Divine end to the rational mind of man by the truths of revelation, instructing him in those truths, and by them leading him, educating him for Heaven. It is thus seen, as our Chancellor called to our attention at the closing exercises of the last school year, that the education of man is the end of revelation, and the truths of revelation are the means by which it is carried into effect. The work of education is one with the work of saving human souls, and the formation of a Heaven from the human race; a work that begins with man in his infancy, continues through his natural life, and in the other world is carried on forever, on the basis that has been formed and established here.

182



     For the sake of co-operating with the LORD in His work of saving souls, for the sake of placing men in the proper attitude toward Him to be educated by, Him, the Church is established as an organized body among men, and uses are performed in it and by it. And in order that the Church may more thoroughly cooperate, and prepare the conditions among men for the Divine Operation schools are established, that man may be taken in his infancy and childhood when the human mind is more pliable and plastic to impressions from within and without and be properly, prepared by his school education for the true Divine work of education that is to be effected in adult life; in other words, for regeneration which is education for Heaven. Previous to adult age man is not regenerated, but he is prepared for it.     To this end we are working in our schools, to leave our children a heritage far more than the world can give; and for which the schools of the world can never provide, to enable them to take up the work of the Church where we leave it and carry it on in a more perfected and better way than is possible with us under the conditions in which we are in this day of small beginnings and feeble efforts.
     "The fact is thus brought before us, is continually before our minds, and we must never lose sight of it for a moment, that the inmost end of the school work is one with the end of the Church, the salvation of souls, the formation of a Heaven from men on the earth, and to this end the work is consecrated and all its efforts tend.
     "If we are asked, therefore, why do we have New Church schools, this is our answer: "We are convinced that we are doing a work that cannot be done elsewhere; yea, we are convinced that, New Church schools, having the thorough and hearty co-operation of New Church parents in their home life and in their interest and support of the work, provide the only means for the permanent establishment of the Church in the Christian world. All the other efforts of the Church, useful and necessary as they are in their place, without this will be but temporary in their effects, and will gradually fade away from the view of men. All Church work that excludes from its purpose the education of our children for the Church and for Heaven, will hardly be perpetuated beyond the third generation of the Newchurchmen; if such work is perpetuated longer it will not be with the posterity of those who are doing it now, but will be done by others who will take their place by accessions from without; and we thoroughly believe, believing because the Heavenly Doctrines so speak to us, that the number of those who accede to the Church from without will gradually though steadily diminish. This momentous fact, lamentable as it may appear to our natural view, furnishes us with the profound purpose and stimulus to the work of New Church education, gives the reason for the existence of our schools, and continually strengthens our resolution to work to this end with unflagging energy and zeal; and looking and praying for guidance in the truth, to work in it and according to it, walking by its light alone, heeding no other light, no other way, let us dedicate ourselves anew at the beginning of another school. Year to the use that is before us, trusting the results to Him Who never faileth, but doeth all things well."
     After the address another selection was sung, and again all standing with heads reverently bowed, the Word was closed and the veil to the repository wasp drawn; after which the assembly was dismissed.
     Nearly all the pupils and students had returned from their various summering places and were present at the opening; as were also several of the parents who send their children to the school. All were full of zeal for the work of the fall and winter; and as they gathered in groups about the assembly room after the dismissal, one could hear enthusiastic expressions of gladness at being privileged to return to the schools and classes that have grown so dear to them, and where even the younger ones believe is a place to receive a true, education; the one end of which is to fit them for the world, for the Church and for Heaven. S. P. E.
All truths have charity for their end 1889

All truths have charity for their end              1889

     All truths have charity for their end, and if this is not within, they are inwardly rejected.-A. C. 2049.
FROM A YOUNG STUDENT 1889

FROM A YOUNG STUDENT       H. F       1889

     To THE EDITOR of NEW CHURCH LIFE.-Dear Sir:-It may interest your readers to learn that during the vacation which has just passed, several of those connected with the Schools of the Academy of the New Church have spent considerable time in collecting specimens for the Museum, which, if it continues to grow as it has grown heretofore, will be a large one in a few years.
     There are at present a great many specimens in the museum, but the most of them have not as yet been classified, and many have not even been labeled. To further the setting in order and the classification of the specimens, so that they may with greater facility be employed in the various uses for which they have been collected, a number of the young ladies, girls and boys of the schools; offered their services and worked industriously all through last winter. The same work will continue this winter, and it will be the principal effort to obtain ethnological specimens, to comprise the costumes of the different nations, their tools, weapons, etc. Specimens of Natural History and Anatomy, such as the skins of animals which can be stuffed and mounted, skeletons, bones, and the living or dead animals will also be sought for.
     Before going away for the vacation, those of the scholars who wished to collect for the museum were supplied with pamphlets issued by the Smithsonian Institute, containing information which would help them in their work. Those who went to the seashore collected shells, crabs, fish and other curiosities from the sea. Among -the most notable of these are: a Portuguese man-of-war, a king-crab, and a young hammer-headed shark. Those who spent their vacation on the banks of the Ohio River, and others who spent theirs in the valley of the Gorand River, Canada, obtained various fossils, flint arrowheads and shells, a fine, living specimen of a homed owl, also a fine specimen of a woodpecker's nest. The section of the limb containing the nest is valuable also for the fungi growing on it.
     Several of the students made the past summer a tour in Europe on bicycles, and on their way collected a few specimens. They would have collected many more had they had the facilities for carrying them.
     I have told you all this in order to call your attention to the fact that, of late, the great interest which scholars and others take in the schools has taken this form of collecting specimens for the museum. H. F.
Lord meets the truths of faith by good 1889

Lord meets the truths of faith by good              1889

     The Lord meets the truths of faith by good, that is, by charity; and fits it into the knowledges of faith.-A. C. 2063.

183


PITTSBURGH 1889

PITTSBURGH       A       1889

     THE house of worship of the Pittsburgh Society was reopened on the first of September. During the vacation the building had been cleaned and the schoolrooms revarnished-not, as is stated in the Life last month, repaired and refurnished.
     A-new and interesting feature of the social life of the Society is the monthly meeting of the gentlemen for the purpose of discussing matters of interest to the Society, I and the application of the doctrines to the external affairs of the Church. The second meeting was held on September 12th, the third on October 10th, when the support of the priesthood was the subject of conversation.
     The Academy Day School at Pittsburgh was reopened on the 23d of September with an address from the Head Master, the Rev. J. Whitehead.
     The School is in a healthy and prosperous condition. This year twelve new scholars have been added, making a total of thirty-six children. The Head Master is assisted by the Rev. A. Czerny, the Rev. W. H. Acton, Dr. Cowley, and Miss C. Hobert. A sewing class for the girls has been formed under the direction of Mrs. W. B. Aitken, Jr., and Miss Maria C. Hogan.
     The Rev. A. Czerny, who has been `spending the summer in Greece and other parts of Europe, has oh- tamed for the use of the School a fine collection of large photographs of the remains of Grecian architecture and statuary, besides a number of casts of ancient works of art. A number of the photographs have been framed and hung in the various class rooms, and soon the casts will add additional adornment to the School.
     A.
If they would make love to the Lord 1889

If they would make love to the Lord              1889

     If they would make love to the Lord and charity toward the neighbor the principal of faith, all sects would be merely varieties of opinions about the mysteries of faith.-A. C. 1799. LETTER FROM GREAT BRITAIN 1889

LETTER FROM GREAT BRITAIN       JAS. CALDWELL       1889

     WHAT with a "Letter from England," a "Letter from Great Britain," a sermon by a London New Church minister, a review of three publications of an English New Church institution and three-quarters of a column of news notes relating to Great Britain the September Life must have been fully as interesting to readers in this country as to Americans. But it is not often, if ever, that Life is without some feature of special interest to English readers. In this respect it differs from New Church journals published in this country, which are, excepting very rarely, quite devoid of interest for the American reader. I mean, of course, local interest.
     The editor of the Juvenile Magazine, the Rev. Isaiah Tansley, B. A, seems to have observed this want, and he devotes a small space in that monthly periodical to American items.
     The "Letter from England" will go far toward disabusing the minds of many both here and in America of misconceptions respecting the Academy. It is valuable also for the cheering intelligence it contains of "the Bishop." I am glad to learn from later news that the improvement in Mr. Benade's health has been sustained. Had it not been for the Bishop's illness, I think that the friends in Liverpool would have had the felicity of meeting with him. Dr. Livsey (Secretary of the Liverpool Society), one of his sons, and I enjoyed a most delightful conversation with the bicycling party mentioned in the letter.
     Had a peripatetic scribe of a local journal dropped in at the Camberwell Church quite "promiscis like," carrying with him that commodity of modern Christian manufacture, an open mind, on the occasion of the Americans' visit, and heard the sermon then preached by the Rev. R. J. Tilson, as reported in your columns, would he have written to his journal next day to say that there is "very little dogmatizing" in the "Swedenborgian" faith? a statement which recently appeared in a Birmingham journal.
     With commendable zeal the President of Conference, the Rev. Joseph Deans, has already set about the carrying out of minute 39 of the Conference proceedings by visiting several small Societies in need of sympathy and counsel. At Conference the President expressed his belief that the congregational system of Church government was unsatisfactory. I do not suspect him of episcopal tendencies, but possibly he may come round to the view that a Bishop without the incumbrance of a particular Society would be a very useful officer in the Church.
     Minute 37 of the Conference proceedings recommends the placing, in "large towns where there are small Societies," of missionary ministers wherever possible. Liverpool is a large town. With contiguous townships, etc., there is a population not far short of a million people. The Liverpool Society numbers one hundred and seventy-four members all told, representing, let us say, four hundred persons. This state of things seems to "fill the bill," and I suppose we may look for some movement in the direction indicated by the resolution.
     JAS. CALDWELL.
     59 COUNTRY ROAD, LIVERPOOL, October 6th, 1889.
No faith ever exists except the faith of charity 1889

No faith ever exists except the faith of charity              1889

     No faith ever exists except the faith of charity; he who has no charity cannot have any faith; charity is the very ground in which it is implanted.-A. C. 1843.
BISHOP BENADE 1889

BISHOP BENADE              1889

     BISHOP BENADE is slowly, but steadily, improving in strength. He is still confined to his house.
next meeting of the General Church 1889

next meeting of the General Church              1889

     THE next meeting of the General Church of Pennsylvania will probably be held November 20th to 23d, at Philadelphia.
EVERY member of the cycling party 1889

EVERY member of the cycling party              1889

     EVERY member of the cycling party that spent the summer in Europe has returned, excepting Mr. Schell. They have been greatly benefited mentally and physically by their tour, which comprised Scotland, England, France, Italy, Switzerland, Germany and Holland.
MR. John McGowan 1889

MR. John McGowan              1889

     MR. John McGowan, 10 Love Lane Allahabad, East India, is anxious to purchase the original and collateral New Church books and tracts and to establish a Book Agency for their sale in India. Those wishing to sell them at cheaper than the missionary rates will please communicate with him.
MR. JOHN HARDY 1889

MR. JOHN HARDY              1889

     MR. JOHN HARDY, who for years, while occupying the position of care-taker of the New Church College in London, has carried on the business of buying and selling second-hand New Church books, has moved away from London to Mirfield, in Yorkshire, near his brother, who, to the sorrow of Mr. Hardy, has since died.

184


NEWS GLEANINGS 1889

NEWS GLEANINGS       Various       1889


NEW CHURCH LIFE.
A MONTHLY JOURNAL

TERMS:-One Dollar per annum, payable in advance.

Six months on trial for twenty-five cents.

     All communications must be addressed to Publishers New Church Life, No. 759 Corinthian Avenue, Philadelphia, Pa.

     In Great Britain subscriptions may be sent to
     MR. S. WARREN POTTS, Book Steward, 61 Cathedral Street, Glasgow, Scotland.
     REV. R. J. TILSON, 2 Inglis, Camberwell, London, S. E.
     MR. G. A. MCQUEEN, Crowhurst Road, Colchester.
     MR. JAS. CALDWELL, 59 County Road, N., Liverpool.
     MR. C. E. SCHROEDER, 13     Ashfield Terrace, Newcastle-on-Tyne.
     MISS FLORENCE G. GIBBS, 8 Camden Square, London, N.

PHILADELPHIA, NOVEMBER. 1889=120.

     CONTENTS.

     Editorial Notes, p. 169.-The Internal Sense of Psalm XLV(a sermon), p. 170.-"Progressive Illumination, p. 172.-The Seventeenth chapter of Genesis, p. 173.-The Internal Sense of the Prophets and Psalms p. 176.-Mythology In the Light of the New church, p. 177.-The Necessity of Knowing what Is Good and True. p. 179.-The Surroundings of Infants, p. 179.-"Familiar Spirits," p. 180.
     Notes and Reviews, p. 180.
     The Reopening of the Academy Schools In Philadelphia, p. 181.-From a Young Student, p. 182.-Pittsburgh, p. 183.-Letter from Great Britain, p. 183.
     News Gleanings, p. 184.-Births, Marriages, and Deaths, p. 184.
     AT HOME.

     Pennsylvania.-THE Advent Society is to have a series of Sunday evening doctrinal and social meetings under the charge of their new pastor, the Rev. L. G. Jordan.
     Massachusetts.-THE "New Church Club," of Boston, consists this year of some thirty members. Their programme for this year includes papers from the leading New-churchmen of that section.
     AT the meeting of the Massachusetts Association, held at Bridgewater on October 10th, a collection was taken up for the Massachusetts New Church Union and the newly formed Society at Lynn was received into membership. It was reported that the printing office is now at work upon the Botch edition of the Arcana and Heaven and Hell. It was decided to cease printing either a calendar or almanac, on account of the pecuniary loss involved.
     THE Convention Theological School opened on September 26th in its new quarters in Cambridge.
     THE first meetings of the reconstructed Board of Missions of the Convention were held in Boston on September 25th and 26th. Resolutions were passed setting forth the needs of the Board, and calling upon "the faithful" to take up a special collection for these uses.
     THE celebration of the semi-centennial of the Rev. Warren Goddard's service in the ministry was held in Brockton, Mass., on September 19th.
     New York.-SEVERAL courses of lectures have been arranged to be given at various places during the winter by the Rev. Messrs. Seward, Ager, Mann, and Parmelee, and by Mr. A. J. Auchterlonie, leader of the Elizabeth Reading Circle.
     Rhode Island.-THE Providence Society is at present flourishing under the ministrations of the Rev. H. O. Hay.
     Arkansas.-THE Rev. Wm. McSlarrow reports a new accession to the Church in the person of a colored man, Wiley by name, who has been a Methodist Episcopal preacher, but became a believer in the Divine doctrines through Noble's Appeal.
     California.-THE Rev. D. D. Bowen preached at Oakland on September 8th.
     Canada.-DURING the Pastor's vacation, the pulpit of the Toronto Society has been filled by the Rev. J. E. Bowers. On August 25th the Rev. W. H. Mayhew, of Urbana, preached to the Society.
     Texas.-THE Rev. Leonidas Lantz, a Methodist local preacher at Waco, was, with his consent, deposed from the ministry and membership of his Church, after he had declared his confession of faith from the pulpit and in his recent teachings. The seven articles of his confession of faith, which are printed in The Galveston News of October 11th, are evidently founded upon the Doctrines of the New Church, but there is, unfortunately, no acknowledgment of the Second Coming of the LORD, and the reader is left to conclude that he himself can derive these teachings from the Word.

     ARROAD.

     England.-THE ordination of Mr. H. W. Freeman, leader of the Willesden, London Society, took place on September 22d the Rev. J. Presland performing the ordination.
     A New Church guild social club has been instituted in connection with the New Church Society in Liverpool. It is composed of five sections: theological, missionary, literary and debating, social and athletic.
     A MUTUAL Improvement Society has been formed in connection with the Accrington Society. One of the purposes of the Society is to develop the members into able public speakers.
     THE chapel belonging to the Salford Society has been sold to a railway company. The Society as contemplating the erection of another temple.
     Scotland.-THE annual Conference of the Scottish Association was this year at Alloa.
     THE new temple at Queen's Drive, Cross hill, Glasgow, was dedicated on September 17th, the Pastor, the Rev. W. A. Presland, officiating. The building is of red sandstone.
     France.-THE New Church Society worshiping at 12 Rue Thouin, in Paris, has, by a majority vote, decided upon the ordination into the ministry of their leader, M. Charles Humann. Accordingly this was performed, the oldest lay member of the Society, M. Miclos, officiating. As a consequence of this step, some of the oldest members of the Society have withdrawn, believing the action to be contrary to order.
     Switzerland.-THE fourteenth general meeting of the Swiss Union of the New Church was held in Zurich on September 8th. Forty persons were present, among them the Rev. Loreto Scocia with wife, from Florence, who are now on a journey through the Continent. After services and an address by the President, Signor Scocia replied in French to the welcome extended to him on this his first attendance at a public meeting of the Church. Nine new members have been added to the Union during the year. An address from the President of the American Conference was received and read.
      Germany.-THE German New Church Society held its fifteenth meeting in Leonberg on September 15th. Twenty-three persons were present, among them Mr. Albert Artope, of Berlin. It was resolved to change the Constitution of the Society, so as to form it simply into a Publication Society. The President, Herr Th. Zahn, proposed to exclude Mr. Albert Artope and his partisans from the Society, but consented to withdraw the motion, after Mr. Artope had defended his cause in along speech.
     Sweden.-THE Society in charge of the Rev. A. Th Boyesen, in Stockholm, is reported to be in a very prosperous condition. It has now more than two hundred members and seventy communicants. The "Ladies' Benevolent Society" consists of one hundred members. At the last general meeting three hundred and forty-four crowns were collected for the building-fund. Twenty missionary tracts have lately been published at the expense of one of the members.
     OF the two thousand five hundred ministers of the Established Lutheran Church in Sweden, only two hundred have availed themselves of the offer of the True Christian Religion as a gift.
     DURING the summer months the Rev. C. J. N. Manby made a protracted and successful missionary journey in the southern provinces of Sweden.
EDITORIAL NOTES 1889

EDITORIAL NOTES       Editor       1889




     BIRTHS, MARRIAGES, AND DEATHS.





185




Vol. IX.     PHILADELPHIA, DECEMBER, 1889=120.     No. 12.
     To do the truths of doctrine is good.-A. R. 923.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     A SUBSCRIBER writes that he does not agree with some features of the Life, and he discontinues his subscription. At the same time he expresses his doubt whether he may not be in the wrong himself, and whether the dislike which he has may not be just what he should overcome. He ends his letter: "I cannot tell, so I have concluded to drop it for next year."
     The spirit in which the letter is written leaves nothing to be desired, but the reasoning is certainly very faulty. If one has conceived a dislike for the advocacy of certain principles, the true course of procedure is to test these principles by the Divine Truth revealed in the Writings. If this test show that the principles are wrong, they should be dropped, and their advocates should be convicted of their error. But if the test show that they are right, they should assuredly be cherished, and the dislike for them overcome. The Writings are given for all, wise and simple alike. Every one can go to them and judge for himself in their Divine Light.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     To do according to falses is not good.-A. R. 97.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     OF all the scientifics which children acquire, the most important are those of the Word, and their instruction in these scientifics ought to be most carefully attended to. This can best be done in New Church week-day school. The Sunday school cannot possibly do this work so well. In the week-day school trained teachers are engaged; the children receive religious instruction within the sphere in which they receive all their other systematic instruction, which is influenced thereby; the necessary time can be devoted to religion, and the lessons follow one upon another at intervals so short that the subject-matter remains fresh in the minds of the children.
     Sunday schools are by no means to be entirely discountenanced. For children who, for one reason or another, are prevented from attending the week-day school, and for children in localities where there is no such school, they afford the next best means of implanting the most necessary of all knowledges. But Sunday schools are a make-shift. The most devoted of teachers find them inadequate. As they have come into existence in the consummation of the Old Church so they are a feature of the first beginnings of the New Church, and should be regarded as something provisional that may lead to a more complete school in which the Word will be taught primarily, and everything else in its light.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     The good of worship is formed by truths, and all truth is formed from good.-A. R. 97.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     THERE is a tendency among students of the Scriptures, especially among those who teach the young, to devote much attention to the external things mentioned in the Word, such as the geography of Canaan, its ethnology, the buildings, temple, tabernacle, garments, manners, customs, rituals, etc., of the children of Israel and other nations. There is a danger in this tendency against which they need to be on their guard. For, such a study is apt to turn the mind to the consideration of things ultimate, and to divert it from the consideration of the interior things represented and signified by them. The Internal Sense of the Word is greatly obscured by the ideas which one gets from the representatives of the Jewish Church. For instance, "as often as a prophet is mentioned in the Word, there instantly occurs the idea of prophets such as they were at that time, which idea stands greatly in the way of apperceiving what is signified by them. But the wiser one is, the more easily the idea obtained from those representatives is removed. As, for example, where the temple is mentioned, they who think more wisely do not perceive the temple which was at Jerusalem, but the Temple of the LORD; where Mount Zion or Zion is mentioned, they do not perceive that which was at Jerusalem, but the LORD'S Kingdom; and where Jerusalem, not that which was in the tribe of Benjamin and of Judah, but the holy and heavenly Jerusalem." (A. C. 2534. See also the Life for July, 1887, on the study of the temple.)
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     Good without truth is not good; nor is truth without good, truth: in the external form they indeed appear as if they were, but they are not. -A. R. 97.

     AN inquirer desires to know what explanation, if any, there is of such passages as the following: "And He charged them that they should tell no man" (Mark vii, 36). There is no direct explanation in the Writings of the passages in which the LORD gave the injunction to "tell no man," but there are explanations of other passages of a similar import, which will help to an understanding of these. For instance, John heard a voice from heaven, saying, "Seal what the seven thunders have uttered and write it not," by which is signified that such things were to be manifested but would not be received. The LORD withholds nothing from man, but man cannot receive everything. It is noteworthy that the LORD generally gave the injunction "not to tell" after He had performed a miracle, and these words probably involve the principle that the performance of the miracle would bring them no nearer to receiving Him, inasmuch as miracles do not convince, but merely persuade.
In order that charity may exist there must be faith 1889

In order that charity may exist there must be faith              1889

     In order that charity may exist there must be faith, and in order that faith may exist there must be charity; but the very essential itself is charity, for the seed, which is faith, cannot be implanted in any other ground.-A. C. 2839.

186


EIGHTEENTH CHAPTER OF GENESIS 1889

EIGHTEENTH CHAPTER OF GENESIS              1889

     THREE distinct things are treated of in the eighteenth chapter of Genesis. The first is the LORD'S state of perception in the Human and the communication at that time with the Divine, before the Union of His Human Essence with the Divine and of the Divine with the Human was accomplished. The second is the LORD'S perception in that state concerning the Rational with Him, that it should put off the Human, and become Divine. The third is the LORD'S grief and anxiety over the human race which was imbued to such an extent with the love of self, for which He made intercession in that state, and obtained this: that those might be saved with whom there were goods and truths.

     IN the first place, the state of the LORD'S Perception in the Human is treated of, and the communication at that time with the Divine, before the Union of His Human Essence with the Divine was perfected. This is the state of which the LORD says: "No one hath seen God at any time, the Only-Begotten Son Who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath expounded Him." (John i, 18.)
     While the LORD lived in the world, all His thought was from Divine Perception, because He alone was a Divine and celestial Man, for in Him Alone was JEHOVAH Himself. His perceptions were more and interior, the nearer He came to union with JEHOVAH. So, at the time of which this chapter treats in its Internal Sense, the LORD'S perception ("And JEHOVAH appeared to him,") was more interior than before, but it was still human, and arising from the conjunction of interior things with the knowledges He had at the time, and from the first rationals thence derived, which nationals were inferior ("in the oak-groves of Mamre"). His perception was, thus, at the entrance to the holy ("and he was sitting at the door of the tent"), from love ("as the day was growing warm"), for what is holy is from love and charity.
     In this state He apperceived or saw within Himself ("and he lifted up his eyes") the Divine which manifested itself before His Human as the Trine which is One, namely the Divine Itself, the Divine Human, and the Holy proceeding ("and behold three men standing upon him"). When He thus apperceived that perception from the Divine was at hand ("and he saw"), He then, in thought, approached nearer to the things which were perceived ("and he ran toward them") from the holy which He their had ("from the door of the tent"); and from joy at apperceiving the perception from the Divine, He was in humiliation ("and he bowed himself toward the earth.")
     Thus rejoicing He thought ("and he said") that the Trine was in One, that the Divine Itself, the Human Divine, and the Holy proceeding were the same as JEHOVAH ("my Lord"), that His state had respect to it when He attended to that perception ("if, I pray, I have found grace in Thine eyes"), and that He earnestly desired that that which He began to perceive, should not pass away ("pass not, I pray, from upon thy servant"). The Human, with the LORD, before it was made Divine is called "Servant," nor was it anything but a servant before He put it off and made it Divine. It was from the mother, and therefore infirm, having a hereditary which He overcame by temptation-combats, and altogether expelled to such an extent that He no longer had anything remaining of the infirmity and hereditary from the mother; indeed, finally nothing at all from the mother. Thus He entirely put off the maternal, so that He was no longer her son: "They said to JESUS, 'Behold Thy mother, and Thy brethren; without they seek Thee;' and He answered them, saying, 'Who is my mother or my brethren?' and looking round about those who sat about Him, He said, 'Behold my mother and my brethren; for whosoever doeth the Will of God, he is My brother, and My sister, and My mother'" (Mark iii, 32-35 et al.). And when He had put off this Human, and had put on the Human Divine from which He called Himself "the Son of Man," then He was also "the Son of God." By "the Son of Man" He signified Truth Itself, and by "the Son of God," Good. Itself; which was of His Human Essence when it was made Divine; the former state was that of the LORD'S humiliation, but the latter was that of His Glorification; In the state of humiliation, when He still had the infirm I human, He adored JEHOVAH as other than Himself, and indeed as a servant, for the Human in respect to it is nothing else. The state treated of in this part of the chapter, being that of humiliation, He calls Himself "Servant."
     Having thus perceived and thought, the LORD wished that the Divine might approach nearer to His Human, that is, might approach from Divine things nearer to His intellectuals ("let, I pray, a little water be taken") by putting on something natural ("and, wash your feet"), so that He might perceive better in the state in which He then was; thus, that the Divine might approach to the perception of His state in which He was ("and lie down under the tree,"-the "tree" signifies perception).
     And He also wished that His Human might approach nearer to the Divine by putting on or having adjoined to it something celestial ("and I shall take a piece of bread"), as much as was meet ("and support ye your heart"); thus He would be content when He should have finished perceiving ("afterward ye may pass on"), since for this they had come ("because for what do ye pass over to your servant?"). And so it was to be done ("and they said, so do as thou hast spoken").
     The reason why the LORD'S perception is described, is that when He was in the Human, it was in this way made known to Him, how, in Him, the Divine Itself, the Human Divine, and the Holy proceeding would be united, and then how His Rational would become Divine; finally what the quality of the human race was which was to be saved by Him, that is by the union of the Human Essence with the Divine in Him.
     In accordance with the perception just described the LORD'S rational good, in which he was at that time, was conjoined with His truth, that is at present with rational truth ("and Abraham hastened toward the tent to Sarah"). In the literal sense it is said that "Abraham hastened toward the tent to Sarah," inasmuch as the "tent" signifies the holy of love, and it is by virtue of this that conjunction between good and truth takes place. And in the state in which He was at that time in respect [to the Divine] He perceived ("and he said") the celestial of love; which He put on in that state to effect the union with the Divine ("Hasten three measures of the meal of the finest flour, cook and make cakes"). The celestial was the holy ("three") spiritual and celestial rational which was then with the LORD ("meal of finest flour"), both conjoined one with the other (it was made into "cakes").
     He was also to put on natural good ("to the herd ran Abraham"), the celestial natural which' would be conformable and which the Rational took to itself that it might conjoin itself with the perception from the Divine ("and he took the son of an ox tender and good"), so this good was, by the ministration of the natural man (the "boy") conjoined with rational good ("and he gave to the boy, and he hastened to make it").

187


To understand this better, it is necessary to bear in mind that with every man there is an Internal, a Rational, which is the middle, and a Natural, and that these are distinct, one from the other. But they must be made to conform one with the other so that they may make one; thus, rational good must be conformed to natural good, and without such conformation and consequent conjunction the Divine Perception could not be given. The celestial natural (the "son of an ox") which the Rational took to itself, is the same as natural good, or as good in the natural. Man's natural, like his rational, has its good and its truth, for there is a marriage everywhere. The good of the natural is the enjoyment which is perceived from charity, or from the friendship which is of charity, from which enjoyment exists a pleasure which is properly of the body. The truth of the natural is the scientific which favors that enjoyment. Because the Rational of the LORD is here treated of, the "son of an ox," which signifies the natural good is called "tender," from the celestial spiritual or the truth of good, and it is called "good," from the celestial itself or good itself. In the genuine rational there is an' affection of truth and also an affection of good, but its primary is the affection of truth; therefore the word "tender" precedes. Both terms, "tender" and "good," are used on account of the ever-recurrent marriage of truth and good.
     In the verses which precede, the instruction of the LORD'S Rational with the celestial and the spiritual from the celestial was treated of, this being signified by the "meal of the finest flour made into a cake," and the celestial natural was signified by the "son of an ox." The same things are now expressed by different terms, namely, by "butter, milk, and the, son of an ox," by which are signified all those things con joined. Between the rational (if this be genuine) and the natural there exists a combat, until peace is effected by the conquest of the natural and by its consequent conformation to the Rational and their reciprocal conjunction. This conjunction, in the case of the LORD, concerned all these things that have been described. "And he took butter (the celestial of the rational) and milk (the spiritual from this celestial), and the son of an ox (the natural corresponding to them.)" The celestial spiritual, signified by "milk," is the same as the truth of good; or, what is the same, the faith of love or charity; or, what is also the same, the intellectual of the will of good; what is still the same, the affection of truth in which there is within the affection of good; and, what is still the same, the affection of cognitions and of sciences from the affection of charity toward the neighbor such as is, with those who love the neighbor, and confirm themselves in this from the cognitions of faith, and also from scientifics, and hence love these.
     By this conjunction the LORD prepared Himself to receive ("and he gave before them"); and had perception ("and he was standing before them under the tree"). For, as the Divine approached to the perception of that state in which the LORD then was (signified by the three men who came to Abraham, lying down under the tree), so the LORD approached to the Divine perception after He had prepared Himself (signified by Abraham's standing under the tree-the "tree" signifies perception). And thus there was communication of the Divine with the Human and of the Human with the Divine ("and they ate").

     IN the ascend place, the LORD'S Perception in that state is treated of, that the Rational with Him was to put off the Human and become Divine.
     The, primary of the Rational with man is truth, hence it is the affection of truth; for the cause that man may be reformed and thus regenerated, which is effected by cognitions and scientifics which are of Truth. These are continually implanted in good, that is in charity, that it may thus receive the life of charity; and according to the quality and quantity of Truth, is the charity with man. Still, in Truth there is not life, but in good; truth is only the recipient of life, that is, of good. Truth is like a clothing or garment of good. But when good constitutes Rational, then truth is separated, and becomes as it were good, good then shines through the truth. Similar was it in this state of the LORD'S glorification. Rational truth did not then appear, because it was in Rational good ("and they said to him, Where is Sarah thy wife?"). And every good is called holy, because it is of love and charity, which are solely from the LORD, hence as the rational truth was in good, it was also said to be in the holy ("and he said, In the tent"). But as goods are, so are things holy; goods are formed, that is they are born and grow up, by the truths of faith, and they are according to the quality and quantity of the truth of faith implanted in charity.
     The LORD perceived ("and He said") that in the conjunction of the Divine with the human ("Returning I shall return to thee according to this time of life") the Rational would be made Divine ("and behold a son to Sarah thy wife"). With every man the human begins in the inmost of his Rational, so also the LORD'S Human: that which was above it was JEHOVAH Himself, differently than with any other man. Because the human begins in the inmost of the Rational, and the LORD made all the Human in Him Divine, so He made the Rational Divine first from its inmost, which, when it was made Divine, was represented and signified by "Isaac."
     At that time rational truth was near the holy ("and Sarah was hearing at the door of the tent"), and near the good in which the rational then was, and separated from it to the extent in which there was something of the human appertaining to it ("and it was behind him"). What is meant by the statement that rational truth merely human, which was at that time with the LORD, was separated from Him when He conjoined Himself with the Divine, may appear more clearly from this explanation. Rational truth, which is human, does not grasp Divine things, because these are above the sphere of its understanding, for this truth communicates with the scientifics which am in the natural man, and to the extent in which from there it inspects the things which are above it, to this extent it does not acknowledge; for this truth is in appearances, which it cannot put off, and appearances, are those things which are born from sensuals, which induce the belief that Divine things themselves are also such, when, nevertheless, they are exempt from all appearances. When they are spoken of, this rational truth can never believe them, because it cannot grasp them. (For a list of Divine truths which the Rational does not grasp, on account of its appearances, see A. C. 2196.) Because the human Rational is of such a nature, it is said of such a one that it was separated when the LORD was united to the Divine in Divine perception, which is signified by that "Sarah," who here is such rational truth, "stood at the door of the, tent, and it was behind him."
     The human of the LORD ("And Abraham and Sarah"-"Abraham" represents rational good, and "Sarah" rational truth) was to be put off ("were old"); for time was at hand ("they were entering into days"), and the state of rational truth was such that it could no longer remain thus ("it ceased to be to Sarah the way as of women").

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      It has been stated that the human Rational as to truth was such that it could not understand what is Divine, because that truth is in appearances ("Sarah stood at the door of the tent, and it was behind Him"), hence it cannot understand, nor does it believe, and what it does not believe with this it is not affected. So in the case of the LORD the affection of the truth of that Rational concerning the doing of these things ("and Sarah laughed within herself"), was not that it might change the state ("saying, after I have grown old, shall I have pleasure?"). The appearances in which the Rational is; are such, that they affect, for in appearances themselves there is delectation; wherefore if it were deprived of appearances, it thinks that there would be nothing more of delectation, when, nevertheless, heavenly affection is not in appearances, but in good and truth itself. Because rational truth is such, it is excused, and it is permitted to be in appearances and to have delectation in them. Such truth, which was in appearances, is represented by Sarah, when the LORD conjoined Himself with the Divine; wherefore it is said, "she stood at the door," and that "she laughed and said, 'After I am grown old, shall I have pleasure?'" by which is signified that it was not its affection to change the state.
     The affection of truth also wondered that rational good to which truth is adjoined was also to put off the, human ("and my lord is old"). Human rational good is such as to have in itself, much from worldly enjoyments, for it is formed not only from truths, but also from the enjoyments of sensuals, and from many enjoyments which are in the world. When man is being reformed and regenerated, spiritual good is insinuated into these enjoyments by the LORD, and then the worldly is tempered by it, and thus it has its felicity in it. But the LORD altogether expelled everything worldly from the rational, and thus made it Divine. This is what rational truth, understood by "Sarah," wondered at.
     The LORD perceived from the Divine ("and JEHOVAH said to Abraham") that the thought of rational truth from its affection was still human ("Why did Sarah laugh at this?") and that it wondered and could not comprehend that the Rational should become Divine ("saying, shall I also truly bring forth?") after that it was no longer such, namely not Divine but human, and that this should be put off ("and I have grown old"). For, as was explained above, when the Rational things of Divine things, especially from its truths, it can never believe that they are such, because it does not grasp them, and also because appearances that have been born of the fallacies of the senses adhere to it, by which and from which it thinks. The Rational; does not even believe ordinary spiritual things, such as; the existence of the Internal Sense of the Word, that spirits and angels speak, etc., etc., for it cannot form any idea except from such things as it perceives by some external and internal sense; what then when it thinks of Divine celestial and spiritual things, which are still higher? For there would always be some appearances from the sensual things, on which the thought would rest, and were these appearances abstracted, the thoughts would perish.
     But it was confirmed that the LORD would put off this Rational, and in place of it put on Divine. Truth, for everything is possible for JEHOVAH ("shall anything he wonderful for JEHOVAH?") and therefore in a future state ("at the stated time I shall return to thee"). The LORD would put off the human rational and put on the Divine Rational according to this time of life, ("and to Sarah a son").
     The human rational truth wished to excuse itself, because He apperceived that it was not such as it ought to be ("and Sarah denied, saying, I laughed not"), but the LORD perceived from the Divine that nevertheless it was such, and that there was still something of the human which He was to expel ("and He said, No, that thou didst laugh").

     IF the third place, the LORD'S grief and anxiety over the human race is treated of, because it was so largely imbued with the love of self, and hence with the cupidity of ruling over others from evil and the false, for which He interceded in that state, and obtained that those should be saved with whom there were goods and truths; but who they are will be recounted in order.
     First it may be well to recall that by the coming of the three men, or of JEHOVAH, to Abraham, the LORD'S Divine Perception was represented. His perception from the Divine was first concerning the Divine Trine, which is the Divine Itself, the Human Divine and the Proceeding; afterward it was concerning His Human that it should put on the Divine. Now follows the Perception from the Divine concerning the quality of the human race. The chapter treats of these three things, and they follow one another in order, for the Divine assumed the Human and made it Divine in order to save the human race.
     The perception concerning the first two things was finished ("and the men arose from thence"); and now the state of the human race, steeped in every evil from the love of self ("and they looked forth to the faces of Sodom") was perceived, the LORD still remaining with them in the perception but concerning the human race ("and Abraham going with them") but He wished not to remain in that perception but to depart from it ("to send them away"). And the cause of this was that the perception from the Divine and the thought thence concerning the human race was such that it struck horror. For the LORD'S love toward the whole human race was so great that He wished to save all to eternity by the unition of the Human Essence with the Divine and of the Divine with the Human; wherefore, when He perceived that they were such, He wished to depart from the perception and from the thought thence derived.
     The LORD perceived ("And JEHOVAH said") that nothing ought to be hidden before Him ("shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing?"), because from Him would be all good, and all truth from good ("and Abraham being shall be a great and numerous nation"), and all who are in charity would be saved by Him ("and in him shall all the nations of the earth be blessed"), for it is the life which man has acquired to himself the cognitions of faith which saves him. In genera, there is a twofold life, one infernal, the other heavenly. Infernal life is contracted from all those ends, thoughts, and works, which flow from the love of self, consequently from hatred against the neighbor. Heavenly life is contracted from all the ends, thoughts, and works, which are of love toward the neighbor. This is the life to which look all the things which are called faith, and it is acquired by all things of faith. Hence it may appear what faith is namely, that it is charity, for to it lead all the things which are said to be of the doctrine of faith, in it are they all, and from it they are all derived.
     That through the LORD, and from Him; in all salvation, is true ("because I know him"), for from Him is all the doctrine of charity and faith ("for as much as he will command his sons, and his house after him, and they shall keep the way of JEHOVAH to do justice and judgment").

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     As the human race began to will evil, to hate the neighbor, and to exercise revenge and cruelty, even to such an extent that the will became altogether destroyed-they began to make a distinction between charity and faith, and to refer to faith all the doctrinals which were of their religion, and to call them, by one word, "faith." And finally they proceeded so far as to say that they could be saved by faith alone (by which faith they meant their doctrinals), if men would only believe them, no matter how they might live. Thus was charity separated from faith. By the LORD'S Coming their conjunction was again rendered possible. For He teaches those who will be in truths ("sons") and those who will be in good ("house") the doctrine ("way") concerning good ("justice") and concerning truth ("judgment"), so that in their understanding a new will may be formed, through His Doctrine, and will and understanding may again be united, all perception and thought, in the understanding, flowing from love to the LORD and charity toward the neighbor in the will.
     For this reason then, that by means of doctrine from the LORD, a true faith might be formed, and by a life according to the doctrine, charity might be implanted in faith and both be conjoined one with the other, and thus man might be saved-for this reason the Human Essence was to be adjoined to the Divine ("therefore that JEHOVAH may bring upon Abraham, what He spake upon him").
     But the salvation of the human race could not be effected without visiting them when they had reached the height of their malice, and this it was that was not to be hidden from the LORD.
     Hence the LORD further perceived ("and JEHOVAH said") that the false and the evil of the love of self had grown even to consummation ("the cry of Sodom and Amorah, that it has become great, and their sin that it has become very grievous"). He therefore visited the human race ("I shall go down, I pray, and shall see which had reached its profoundest evil ("whether according to its cry, which hath come to Me, they have made a consummation"). Visitation is nothing else than an exploration of the quality of the Church in general, or of man in particular, and precedes judgment. The evil state in which the human race was at this time is expressed in the literal sense by the word "cry," which signifies the false, and indeed the false which is from evil and the false which produces evil. Hence here signifies both kinds of evil. The false which is from evil is all that man thinks while he is in evil, namely what favors evil; as, for example, when he is in adultery, that he then thinks that adultery is allowable, that it is becoming, that it is the enjoyment of life, that the procreation of offspring is promoted thereby, and many other like things, which are all falses from evil. But the false which produces evil is when man assumes some principle from his religion, and then believes that it is good or holy, when yet it is evil in itself; as, for example, when he believes from his religion that some man can save, and therefore worships and adores him, he does evil from that false.
     Such evils and their falses had reached their highest point when the LORD came into the world, and this state is expressed in the literal sense by "consummation." The Church, or rather the representative of a Church, which existed at that time had gone off into evils and falses to such an extent that every rite had become idolatrous. The bond between the human race was broken to such an extent that the human race would have perished, because there was no Church by which is the connection and bonds. Then the LORD came into the world, and by the unition of the Divine Essence with the Human in Himself, conjoined heaven with the earth.

     Inasmuch as the LORD'S perception and His thought thence are being treated of, the reader must bear in mind that the LORD in His states of glorification thought from the Human conjoined to the Divine, but in the states of humiliation He thought from the Human not yet conjoined with the Divine. In this chapter also, the "men" are sometimes mentioned, and sometimes "JEHOVAH" is named instead of men." When the "men" are mentioned, the Trine is signified, namely, the Divine Itself, the Divine Human, and the Proceeding. It was from this Divine that the LORD thought of the human race; The thought was from the Human conjoined with the Divine, which conjunction was treated of in the beginning of this chapter, but the perception from which was the thought was from the Divine, and then the thought from the Human not yet conjoined is represented by "Abraham standing before JEHOVAH." When the Human was conjoined to the Divine, it was also together with the Proceeding. The LORD thought from the Divine ("and the men looked thence"), concerning the human race, which was in evil so great ("And they went toward Sodom"). (Concerning this evil see A. C. 2045, 2057, 2219.) The LORD also thought from the Human, which was adjoined only as described in the beginning of the chapter ("and Abraham he was still standing before JEHOVAH"). From this thought He interceded for the human race. The LORD thought from the Human which adjoined itself more closely to the Divine ("and Abraham approached, and said"), grieving from love toward the human race, and interceding for them ("wilt Thou also destroy the just with the wicked?"). The LORD'S intercession took place when He was in the state of humiliation, for He then spoke with JEHOVAH as with another. But in the state of Glorification, when the Human Essence was united to the Divine, and it was also JEHOVAH, He then does not intercede; but pities, and from His Divine, He brings aid, and saves. Mercy itself is intercession, for its essence is such.
     The LORD interceded first for those with whom there might be truths and these interiorly full of goods ("perchance there are fifty just in the midst of the city"), and His intercession was from love that then they should not perish ("wilt thou also destroy, and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty just, who are in its midst?"). It caused the LORD horror ("be it [far] from Thee to do according to this thing") to think that good might die with evil ("to make the just die with the wicked"). Good cannot die, but the evil is separated from it. So, when man comes into the other life, if he has lived in the goods of love and charity, then the LORD separates the evils and by the goods that are with him, elevates him with heaven. But if he has lived in evils, that is, in what is contrary to love and charity, then the LORD separates the goods from him, and the evils bear him into hell.
     And the LORD had a still greater degree of horror ("be [far] from Thee") at the thought that Divine good might do this according to truth separated from good ("will the Judge of the whole earth not do judgment?"). Divine good cannot do this according to truths separated from good. Good is the essential of order, everything of which is a verity. Divine Good adjudges all to heaven; but Divine Truth condemns all to hell.

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Wherefore, unless the LORD'S Mercy were eternal, which is of good, all men, as many as they are, would be condemned. This is what is signified by that Divine good cannot do this according to truth separated from good. That, nevertheless, the evil are condemned to hell is not from this, that Divine Good is separated from Divine Truth, but because man separates himself from Divine Good. The LORD never sends any one to hell, but man does it himself. Divine Good is also conjoined to Divine Truth in this, that unless the evil be separated from the good, the evil would do hurt to the good, and continually endeavor to destroy order. Thus, that the good be not injured is also of Mercy.
     The LORD perceived further, in answer to this thought ("and JEHOVAH said"), that if there be truths full of goods ("if I shall find in Sodom fifty just in the midst of the city") they should be saved ("and I shall spare the whole place for their sakes").
     And the LORD thought From the human ("and Abraham answered and said"), in humiliation and self-acknowledgment, that the human in respect to the Divine was but dust and ashes ("behold, I pray, I have undertaken to speak to my LORD, and I am dust and ashes"). By the human here is not meant the Divine' Human, but the human which He derived from the mother, which He totally expelled, and in place of which He put on the Human Divine.
     In this state of humiliation, the LORD made further intercession for those with whom there was less of good, but nevertheless such good as was conjoined with truth, for He thought that if there were something less ("perchance five may be wanting from the fifty just"), would many perish for the little that is wanting? ("wilt Thou destroy, for five, the whole city?") and He received for answer that he would not perish if they could be conjoined ("and He said, I shall not destroy, if I shall find there forty-five"). The more genuine and pure' that truth is, the better can good which is from the LORD be adapted into it as into a recipient vessel; but the less genuine and pure truth is, the less can good from the LORD be adapted into it. Thus, those with whom goods can be joined to truths would be saved. Hence, since the conjunction of good and truth is effected by temptations, the LORD, in His intercession, thought further ("and he added still to speak to Him") concerning those who had been in temptations ("and he said, perchance forty may be found there"), and received the reply that they would also be saved ("and He said, I shall not do it for the sake of forty"). Not that they are saved on account of the temptations, for some also undergo temptations, who succumb in them, with whom, therefore, goods are not conjoined; indeed, man is not saved on account of temptations, if he places merit in them. But those temptations are meant in which man conquers. For temptations exist for the end that man be confirmed in truths and also that truths may be more closely conjoined to goods, for he then fights for truths against falses. Temptations in which man conquers have the result that he believes all others to be more worthy than himself, and that he is rather infernal than heavenly.
     The LORD interceded also for those who have been in some combats against evils; for He was in anxiety concerning the state of the human race ("and he said, I pray, let not my LORD, I pray, be enraged"), and from this He thought of those who were in something of combat ("perchance thirty may be found there"), and again He received the answer that these would also be saved ("and He said, I shall not do if I find there thirty").
     He then interceded for those which whom there were from elsewhere states of the affection of good. In the humiliation of the human before the Divine, He thought ("and he said, behold, I pray, I have undertaken to speak to my LORD") if there were not something of combat, but nevertheless good ("perchance twenty may be found there")' and Be received the answer that These would be saved ("and He said, I shall not destroy for the sake of twenty").
     Finally, the LORD interceded for those with whom there was a state of the affection of truth. For, from the anxiety in which He still was for the state of the human race, He thought ("and he said, let my LORD not be enraged, I pray, and I shall speak only this time") if there were yet remains ("perchance ten may be found there"), and He again received the answer that these also would be saved ("and He said, I shall not destroy for the sake of ten").
     The state of perception in which the LORD was, then ceased to be such ("and JEHOVAH went, when He ceased to speak to Abraham"), and the LORD returned into the state in which He was before He perceived these things ("and Abraham returned to his place").
church is not a church without doctrine 1889

church is not a church without doctrine              1889

     The church is not a church without doctrine; and the doctrine is to teach how man is to think concerning God and from God, and how he is to do from God and with God.-A. R. 97.
DOCTRINE OF THE "AUTHORITY" AS TAUGHT IN THE WORD 1889

DOCTRINE OF THE "AUTHORITY" AS TAUGHT IN THE WORD              1889

     THE necessity of recognizing, that the Doctrines are Divine, and that this their quality establishes their claim upon the man of the Church to receive them believe them implicitly, and obey them, is taught very forcibly in the twentieth chapter of Genesis, where Abraham's sojourning in Gerar, where Abimelech was, is treated of. In the Internal Sense this part of Abraham's history represents the LORD'S instruction in the doctrinals of charity and faith.
     It would be necessary to treat of the whole chapter seriatim in order to show fully how in this narrative of the Sacred Scripture the particulars of what has been called "the Doctrine of the Authority" are explained. In this short article it is designed to call attention only to a few of these particulars.
     It is stated in the Arcana that this chapter "treats especially of the Doctrine of Charity and Faith; of what origin it is, namely that it is spiritual from a celestial origin, but not from rational origin." (A. C. 2496.)
     It was at that stage in the LORD'S glorification when He first instructed Himself in the doctrinals of charity and faith. At first He thought that the rational should be consulted (v. 2), but, as the sequel shows, it was not consulted.
     It is stated in the literal sense of verse 2 that "Abraham said to Sarah, his wife, 'My sister is she;' and Abimelech, king of Gerar, sent and took Sarah," by which words are signified that the LORD, in thinking of truth spiritual conjoined to celestial, thought that it was truth rational, and considered whether the doctrine of faith regarding rational things should not consult the rational. "Doctrine is said to regard rationals, when no other truth of doctrine is acknowledged than that which can be grasped with the reason, so that all things which are of doctrine are viewed from the rational; but that the doctrine of faith is not from a rational but from a celestial origin, is taught in the following     in the Internal Sense."

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      The LORD thought in the manner described in this verse, "because He progressed according to all Divine order, and whatever was human, in which He was born which He derived from the mother, He was to put off, that He might put on the Divine; thus also this human [notion] whether the rational should be consulted in the doctrinals of faith." (A. C. 2511.)
     In the following verse, where God came to Abimelech in a dream by night, and told him that he would die on account of the woman whom he had taken, and that she was married to a husband-the teaching of the Internal Sense is that from the LORD'S perception, concerning the doctrine of faith, which perception was, as yet, obscure, He thought that the doctrine of faith would be none, if the rational were consulted as to the things, which are there, for it is the doctrine of true faith, and the things in the doctrine,-that is the truths (for doctrine consists of truths) that are conjoined to the celestial or good.
     This is a very important teaching, a teaching, it will be noted, of the Word, a teaching of its Internal Sense. And "the cause why a doctrine of faith from the rational is none, is that the rational is in appearances of good and truth, which appearances are not true in themselves. Moreover, the rational has fallacies under it, which are from sensual external things confirmed by scientifics, which induce shade upon the appearances of truth themselves. The rational is for the most part merely human, as may also appear from its nativity. Hence then it is that no doctrinal of faith can begin from it, and still less be founded upon it. But it must be from the Divine Itself and the Divine Human of the LORD: hence is its origin, and indeed to such an extent, that the LORD is Doctrine Itself, wherefore in the Word He is named the Word, the Truth, the Light, the Way, the Door; and, what is an arcanum, every Doctrinal is from Divine Good and Divine Truth, and has in it the heavenly marriage; the doctrinal which has not this in itself Is not a genuine doctrinal of faith. Hence it is that in single the things of the Word, whence doctrine is, there is a likeness of a marriage. The Doctrine of faith appears, indeed, in the literal or external sense of the Word, to have many things from the rational, yea from the natural, but this is because the Word is for man, to whom it is thus accommodated, but nevertheless in itself it is spiritual from a celestial origin, that is, from Divine Truth conjoined with Divine Good. (A. C. 2516.)
     In the further explanation of the subject it is stated that "in regard to Doctrine the case is this: in the proportion as there is something human, that is, in proportion as there is something sensual, scientific, and rational from which it is believed that it is so, in this proportion doctrine is none. But in proportion as the sensual, scientific, and rational is removed, that is, as it is believed without them, in this proportion doctrine lives, for in this proportion the Divine inflows. The things proper to the human impede the influx and reception. But, it is one thing to believe from the rational, scientific, and sensual, or to consult them in order that it may be believed; and it is another thing to confirm and corroborate that which is believed, by rational, scientific, and sensual things. `What difference there is, will be manifest in the following, for these things are also treated of in the Internal Sense in this chapter." (A. C. 25-38.)
     It is clear from this that the alleged principle that the Doctrines should be received in proportion as they appear rational, is wrong. A Doctrine is to be received, not because it is seen to be reasonable, but because it is seen to be Divine; then, although it may contain man things which do not appear to be in accord with many things which do not appear to be in accord with man's reason, they will nevertheless be received as coming from the LORD, and then, the reason will gradually receive light, through this reception, and be conformed to the truths of the Doctrine.
     It cannot but be that in the church and in every man who is of the Church, there is a time when it is imagined that the rational should be consulted, that the Doctrines are the product of human reason and should be received only in so far as they commend themselves to the reader's reason. Such a state will necessarily obtain, for the LORD passed through it in His glorification. But, as is taught in the Word, this state must be put off. Its existence at any time need not be deplored, but confirmation in it must be condemned. If the Church is to progress she must follow the Divine example and put off the conceit that the Doctrine is to be received because it is reasonable, and because her reason sees it. She must receive the Heavenly Doctrine of the New Jerusalem because it is heavenly, because it is, "spiritual from a celestial origin, but not from a rational origin" (A. C. 2496), because it is "from the Divine Itself, and the Divine Human of the LORD, hence its origin, and indeed to such an extent that the LORD is Doctrine Itself, wherefore in the Word He is named the Word, the Truth, the Light, the Way, the Door. And, what is an arcanum, every Doctrinal is from Divine Good, and Divine Truth, and has in it the heavenly marriage; the doctrinal which has not this in it is not a genuine doctrinal of faith."
Doctrine must consist of truths 1889

Doctrine must consist of truths              1889

     Doctrine must consist of truths, to do according to which is what is called good.-A. R. 97.
MYTHOLOGY IN THE LIGHT OF THE NEW CHURCH 1889

MYTHOLOGY IN THE LIGHT OF THE NEW CHURCH              1889

     IV.

     MYTHOLOGY OF CANAAN.

     Canaanitish Idolatries.-(Continued.)

     2. By the side of Baal, as the chief male divinity, stands Ashtoreth, as the chief female divinity of the Canaanites. As Baal is most frequently found in the plural Baalim, so Ashtoreth (Hebrew) is generally found in the plural Ashtaroth (Hebrew).
     Ashtoreth was, in general, the goddess of the moon, as Baal was the god of the sun; that is, Ashtoreth represented love to the neighbor, or its opposite, as Baal represented love to the LORD, or its opposite. She is the goddess of fecundity, and, particularly, of love between the sexes. Her name is said to be untranslatable, but there is little doubt but that it is derived from Hebrew (Asher), to be rich, happy. If we take this into consideration, and also that Ashtoreth was the goddess of sexual love, we will find that originally by her was meant nothing else than Conjugial Love. It is stated in Arcana Coelestia, n. 54, that "Marriages were the highest felicities and delights in the Most Ancient Church, and whatever could be likened to, marriages, they thus likened, in order that thence they might perceive the felicity of marriage." What wonder, then, that they should call Conjugial Love, in which all the felicities of heaven is summed up, by the name of "happiness" itself, and represent it before them by a Divine woman, knowing that this blessed love is stored up especially in woman.

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That Conjugial Love was the highest of all felicities in the Most Ancient Church, and that men then loved to form representatives of it we find abundantly confirmed from all the ancient mythologies, all of which had some chief goddess representing this Heavenly Love. So in Assyria was Ishtar, in Egypt Isis and Athor, in Greece Astarte or Aphrodite, in Rome Venus, and in Scandinavia Freya or Nanna. This love was also represented by innumerable divers images, which were set up everywhere, and this to such an extent that many modern archaeologists assert that all mythologies were originally nothing but a worship of the emblems of the sexes. But not in the gross and profane manner which they suppose. It was a worship of the marriage of the LORD and the Church, of good and of truth, and this they represented chiefly by the form of a woman. In later times, when the Church turned away from the LORD-her only true Husband-Conjugial Love was turned into its opposite, and this opposite, in some of its worst external forms, is what is represented by Ashtoreth at the time of the mythology which we are now describing.
     Ashtoreth is frequently depicted on ancient coins, and in various forms. Sometimes she is found either with a cow's head, or with a pair of horns, and is then called Aehtaroth Karnaim, which also was an ancient city in Palestine. (With this form compare the myth of Io, who wandered around the world in the form of a cow.) As such Ashtoreth represents the merely natural love of the sex, which then-prevailed. On most representations she in accompanied by the dove, which, as we know, represents Conjugial Love. The crab, the lion, and the pomegranate were also sacred to her. No blood was shed on her altar, but kids were sacrificed to her. (Compare with this Arcana Coelestia, n. 4871.) She had numerous temples and altars in Canaan. Her priests were eunuchs, called Kadeshim, or "holy ones," and her priestesses Kadeshoth, women living in the temples, like the Hindoo Bayaderes. As in Babylon, so in Canaan, her worship was connected with fearful practices. The Jews were very prone to the worship of Ashtaroth; it was celebrated by Solomon himself, until finally put down by Joshiah. Ashtaroth is, probably, meant by "the queen of heaven," in Jeremiah vii, 18, where her worship is thus described: "The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger."
     With the worship of Baal and of Ashtaroth is connected the worship of a symbol, called Asherah (Hebrew), which is translated "groves." Of this it is stated in Arcana Coelestia, n. 2722, that in the Ancient Churches they worshiped in groves, because they signify doctrine, but that in later times, "instead of groves they made themselves carvings of a grove." In Assyria, and also in Canaan, we often find representations of a kind of elaborate, conventional tree, which, there are reasons to suppose, is identical with these carvings of a grove, set up near the altars of Baalim and Ashtaroth.
     The worship of Ashtoreth was very widespread. In Assyria and Babylonia she is worshiped under the name of Ishtar; in Greece her name is found in Astarte, or Aphrodite (Venus), and it is probable that the word "star" in most languages is from the same source. She was also called, in Tyre, Atar, and probably the name of the Egyptian goddess of love, Athor, is identical with her, in confirmation of which may be mentioned the horns and the cow, which are the symbols of Athor. As the feminine counterpart of Bad, she is, in classic writers, called Baaltis, and as such she is represented in a most repulsive manner with the emblems of fecundity. A more elaborate form of her image is found in the Ephesian Diana. In Babylonia she was also called Mylitta (from Hebrew Yalad, to bear), and in Arabia as Alitta. Another modification of Ashtaroth is Atergatis, a Syrian fish-goddess, whose temple at Ashtaroth Rarnaim was destroyed by Judas Maccabaeus. She is the same as the goddess Derceto, who was worshiped in Pheenicia and at Askalon, under the form of a woman with a fish's tail. Fishes were sacred to her, and at Askalon are still kept fountains containing sacred fish, which the inhabitants abstain from eating. She is, probably, a female counterpart of-3. Dagon, the national god of the Philistines. His name is derived from Hebrew (dag), fish, and his form is half fish and half man. In Assyria he is known as Dagan, and the idea seems to have been derived from Odakon, the successor of Oannes, whose story was told in the New Church Life for July, 1888.
     Dagon is frequently mentioned in the Word, particularly in the histories of Samson and David. The signification of this divinity was given in the Life for September, 1889, p. 144.
     4. Chenioeh was the national deity of the Moabites. His name Hebrew (Kamosh) means subduer, and he is, probably, another form of Moloch, children were sacrificed to him also. It is said that he was worshiped under the form of a black stone, and that his worshipers went bareheaded, and abstained from the use of garments sewed with the needle.
     5. We now come to that idol of ill-repute, known as Moloch, or Molech, or Milcom, all of which means simply "king." He was a fire-god, to whom human sacrifices were offered. The rites of his worship were in general similar to those of Baal, and it is probable that the two were identical.
     6. Another and more interesting divinity is Tammus, or Adonis, or Iao, as he is variously called. This was a distinctly Syrian deity, worshiped especially at Byblos. He is said to have been a beautiful young man, whom Ashtoreth vainly loved and who was ultimately killed by a bull or a boar. Hence the river Byblos was annually reddened by his blood, and once a year, at the time of summer solstice, the women of Phoenicia and Syria generally "wept for Tammuz." He is said to have arisen on the third day after his death, and this event was celebrated by wild rejoicings and unbridled license by his worshipers. It is hardly necessary to add that this myth gave rise to the Greek Fable of Venus and Adonis. By the classic writers generally he is supposed to have been identical with Dionysos, or Bacchus, and we may hence see the origin of the Bacchanalian orgies.
     Adonis comes from the Hebrew [Hebrew] (adonai), "My Lord," by which name the Ancients indicated the LORD who was to come (Cor. 52). This explains the mysterious name [Greek], by which the Phoenicians are said to have called on Tammuz, or Adonis, or Dionysos. The ancient name of Bacchus was Iacchus, and his birth was celebrated by the cry [Greek] or [Greek] ="hail!" which thus seems to have been derived from the name Jehovah.
     The Oracle of the Clarian Apollo says: "Iao is the Most High God of All-in winter Aides, and Zeus in commencing spring, and Hellos in summer and at the end of autumn, tender [Greek]."

193


That Jehovah was known in Syria long after the consummation of the Ancient Church in other countries we know from the doctrines, and it seems, therefore, probable that Iao-or Adonis-is identical with Jehovah, worshiped as the LORD who was to come, to suffer death and to rise on the third day.
     Other gods, such as Osir and Hammon are clearly of Egyptian origin. Eshmun, Shamas, and Zadyk are also supposed to have been Canaanitish deities, but they are probably only different names of Baal.

     Human Sacrifices.

     A fearful blot on the Canaanitish religion is the systematic offering of human victims as expiatory sacrifices. In Arcana Coelestia, n. 2818, it is said: "It had been known from the most ancient time that the LORD was to come into the world, and that He would suffer death; which may be manifestly known from this, that a custom of sacrificing their sons prevailed among the gentiles, who believed that they thus would be expiated, and that God would be propitiated; in which abominable practice they could not have placed the highest of their religion (religiosissimum) unless they had received from the Ancients that the Son of God was to come, who, as they believed, would become a sacrifice; to this abomination also the sons of Jacob inclined, and Abraham, too, for no one is tempted, except by that to which he inclines; but lest the sons of Israel should rush into that abomination, it was permitted to institute burnt offerings and sacrifices."
     This shows to what abomination the doctrine of "Faith Alone" may lead. The sensual idea that the Son of God would become a sacrifice to appease the wrath of the Father, was the cause of human sacrifices in ancient times. This cause still exists, and is active in the present faith of the Old Church, which once was Christian. Baal and Moloch, the loves of self and of the world, are still the ruling deities in this Old Church, and upon their altars the sons and daughters-goods and truths-are still being put to death. Yea, even literally this is done by thousands, who do not hesitate to prevent the conception or birth of their offspring, sacrificing them to a most hellish love of self. Through all the pages of history the activity of the loves of self and of the world maybe traced in evils of life and their inevitable outgrowth of perverted faith, of which Mythology treats; and studying these in the light of revealed truth, those primary evil loves-will the more clearly be seen to be active within ourselves, alluring or urging us toward evil in its countless varieties of form; and seeing we may know and reject them. To know ourselves from knowing others is one great lesson the Present may learn from the Past.
church is called the church from doctrine 1889

church is called the church from doctrine              1889

     The church is called the church from doctrine, and religion is called religion from a life according to doctrine.-A. R. 923.
Notes and Reviews 1889

Notes and Reviews              1889

     Everything of doctrine is called a truth, and its good is also truth, because it only teaches it; but everything of life according to the things which doctrine teaches is called a good.-A. R. 923.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     DURING the year one hundred and twenty-eight thousand copies of the Helper have been printed. Some four thousand copies are being distributed every week.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     THE Press Committee of the Cincinnati Society has succeeded in putting its periodical manual, the League, on a more permanent basis, and expresses hopes to make it self-supporting.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     THE Missionary Liturgy, proposed at the late Convention, is now ready and has been published. It consists of Selections from the Convention Book of Worship, and comprises ninety-six pages.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     BISHOP Benade's sermon on "spiritual food," which was preached on June 10th, 1888 at the ordination of four candidates; has been translated into Swedish, and appears in the October number of Pastor Boyesen's paper, Harolden.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     ANOTHER addition to the numerous journals, teaching, or professing to teach, the Doctrines of the New Church, is The New Forth. This eight-page monthly is published by "The Newchurchmen's Single Tax League" of New York, and is devoted "to the diffusion among New Church people of a knowledge of the new political economy which advocates the Single Tax."
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     A MINISTER of the German Mennonites in Kansas, the Rev. J. Holdemann, has written a pamphlet controverting the Doctrines of the New Church hoping thereby to check the further spread of these Doctrines among the people of his sect. The German Synod has appointed a committee to write a reply, which will be submitted to the Rev. Mark Seiler, formerly a Mennonite preacher, but now active in the cause of the New Church.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     MR. ALBERT ARTOPE'S heresy has caused a great commotion in the German New Church. A number of exposures of the false doctrines have been made in the various German New Church papers, but the most lengthy and the most representatively German of them all has been made by the Rev. P. i. Faber, of Baltimore. In a long series of letters from Mr. Faber, published in the Neukirchenblatt, Mr. Artope's heresy has been demolished in a thoroughly exhaustive, learned, systematic, and scientific manner.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     Kalender for die Neuc Kirche auf doe Jahr 1890 (133). This is the title of a German New Church Almanac (the first of its kind), published by the Rev. Adolph Roeder. It presents a short extract from the Letter of the Word for every day in the year, and contains also foot-notes on correspondences, etc., together with an appendix containing short essays poems and statistics of the New Church in America beside the date 1890, two other dates are given, viz.: 133 (counting from the Last Judgment) and 120-121 (counting from the sending out of the Apostles in the spiritual world).
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     THE principal discussion during the recent meeting of the Ohio Association was on the necessity of an endowment fund. It was shown that during the past thirty-five years some twenty-four New Church Societies in Ohio have been disbanded, principally, it is claimed, for the lack of capital. It is to be feared that the real cause of this decay was a lack of spiritual capital. The success of the Church depends essentially upon the soundness of the Doctrine with the members, and upon the true love for the Church generated thereby. Where this is wanting' the Church cannot grow, even though it had millions at its disposal.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     FROM being a small, one-page manual, the Colchester New Church Monthly has now developed into a quarto two-page periodical, bearing the name of the New Church Monthly. In its limited space it presents strong, fearless, and much-needed criticisms upon the general state and actions of the New Church in Great Britain.
     As a promising beginning of a sound New Church paper in England, the Monthly is deserving of the best sympathy and support. The subscription price to English subscribers is 1s. 1d. per annum, and may be sent to the Editor, at 12 St. John's Street, Colchester England. To American subscribers the price is 25 cents and may be sent to Mr. A. Acton, No. 1725 Poplar Street Philadelphia, Pa.

194


Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     A SUPPLEMENT to the Liturgy of the New Church in Sweden has lately been published by the Rev. C. J. N. Manby. Eighty hymns have hereby been added to the Book of Hymns, but with the exception of three all the hymns have, with a few changes, been taken bodily from the "Psalmbok" of the Established Lutheran Church. This latter is interesting from the fact that a great many of the songs have been written by Bishop Jesper Swedberg, and by a number of clergymen who were more or less affected by the Doctrines of the New Church. Among these may be mentioned the Dean Afzelius, who was a member of a New Church Society, and A. O. Wallin, Archbishop and one of the most prominent poets of the North.
Title Unspecified 1889

Title Unspecified              1889

     AFTER the usual suspension during the summer months, the publication of the Concordance to the Writings has been resumed with No. 31. Every one of these numbers is a bountiful feast spread before the reader, by which every degree and faculty of his mind may be fed and delighted. The purely spiritual mind will thus, in this number, find inexhaustible food for thought in the subjects of Essence, Eternity, Evil, etc.; while the scientific mind will be delighted with the new light shed upon Anatomy, History, and Physical Science by the interesting information contained in the articles on the Eustachian Tube, Euphrates, Europe, Ethiopia, Ether, etc.
     Persons who have not yet subscribed to the Concordance can do so through the Academy Book Room, receiving all the back numbers at the price of 16 cents per number.

     AN English New Church paper opens with the following flourish: "There was a time when salvation by faith alone was the all-prevailing doctrine in Christendom. It is not the prevailing doctrine now among the leading thinkers in the Old Church. I call this a sign of progress."
     How outsiders view this supposed change from "faith alone," as evidenced in the good of Life, may be clearly seen from a letter by Dr. Hibbard, recently published in the Messenger, presenting a number of quotations from Buddhist travelers in Europe, who with curious unanimity describe their horror at the selfishness, greed, corruption, animality, dishonesty, hatred, and irreligiosity which they everywhere found among the Christians. These recent, travelers apparently failed to discover any evidences of that imagined change in the Christian world, over which so many Newchurchmen are rejoicing.
There is no acknowledgment of the Lord 1889

There is no acknowledgment of the Lord              1889

     There is no acknowledgment of the Lord, or no faith, when there is no charity, for faith can never be given except with those who are in charity.-A. C. 3353.
LATIN REPRINTS OF THE WRITINGS 1889

LATIN REPRINTS OF THE WRITINGS              1889

QUATUOR DOCTRINAE: I, De Domino; II, De Scriptura Sacra; III, De Vita secundum Praecepta Decalogi,. IV, De Fide. DE ULTIMO JUDICIO ET DE BABYLONIA DESTRUCTA, ita quod omnia quae in Apocalypsi praedicta sunt, hodie impleta sint; ex auditis et visis. CONTINUATIO DE ULTIMO JUDICIO ET DE MUNDO SPIRITUALI.

APOOALYPSIS EXPLICATA SECUNDUM SENSUM SPIRITUALEM ubi revelantur Arcana quis ibi praedicta et hactenus recondita fuerunt. THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED ACCORDING TO THE SPIRITUAL SENSE, in which the Arcana there predicted, but heretofore concealed, are revealed. Latin-English Edition. New York: American Swedenborg Printing and Publishing Society, 20 Cooper Union. MDCCCLXXXIX.

     EDITING, translating, and publishing the Writings in which the LORD has made His Second Coming are among the very highest and holiest uses to which men can devote themselves. The two volumes before us betoken that the Rev. Samuel H. Worcester, the Editor and Translator, and the American Swedenborg Printing and Publishing Society are performing these uses in a thorough and conscientious manner: and evidently con amore.
     The Editor and Translator, by his critical and painstaking labor, provides that the matter shall be edited as nearly perfectly as this can be done by human agency, while the Publishing Society puts forth the matter in neat, tasty, and suitable dress.
     The first volume contains a reprint of the Four Doctrines and of the Lost Judgment, and the Continuation of the same. The same exhaustive acquaintance with what may, perhaps, be called the literature of the Writings, which has supplied the Indexes to the work on marriage with a title taken from the Writings, has found a general title for the four doctrines, in the Apocalypse Revealed, xi. 668. The four doctrines, as originally published, had no general title.
     Each of the six Works constituting this volume are supplied with a Table of Contents prepared by the Editor, with an Index of Scripture Passages, and with a table of emendations made by the Editor, slight printer's errors being corrected without notice.

     The first specimen of the Latin-English edition of the Writings was noticed in the Life for February, when attention was called to the usefulness of having the Latin text and English translation on opposite pages. The adjustment of the pages in this edition of The Apocalypse Explained, is nicer still than in The Creed of Athanasius, but the paper used is not as good, as it permits the print to show through. Besides possessing the advantage of having the original text by the side of the English, this new edition of The Apocalypse Explained meets the need long felt in the Church for a faithful translation. The only English translation of The Apocalypse Explained heretofore obtainable, that of the British Swedenborg Society, is notoriously bad, especially in regard to the Scripture passages, which are frequently not translated at all, the Authorized Version being quoted in their stead. In the New York edition the Scripture passages are or the most part translated literally, the diction of the Revised Version being apparently adopted wherever possible.
     It is to be regretted that the name "Patmos" is retained instead of "Parmos," which is the word Swedenborg uses throughout. We are aware that the plea is made that in the edition of Schmidius's translation in Swedenborg's possession, the "t" in "Patmos" was broken so as to look like an "r," and that Swedenborg was misled by this defect. But this plea does not seem a good one. An ordinary student of the Bible would know that the name of the island is given as "Patmos" in the extant editions of the Greek Testament, and would the inspired Revelator, Swedenborg, not know this? Is it not much more reasonable to conclude that there must have been a spiritual reason for his spelling the word unfailingly "Parmos"?
     There are a number of places where the translation might well have been more literal. For instance, on page 47, in the quotation from John, the translation, following the Revised Version, is, "and the Word was God," the Latin reads, "and God was the Word." In the same passage the translation has "and the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us "how much more significant is the Latin dwelt in us"1
     On page 46 the translation follows the Revised Version in saying "they shall see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven the Latin expresses the Internal Sense more clearly by having "in" for "on;" "in the clouds of heaven."

195



     We cannot conceive why, on page 162, "caelum se aperiens" -"heaven opening itself," has been translated "heaven lying open.
     Among the peculiarities of the translation is the omission of the propositional form of statements which is characteristic of the Writings. For instance, where the Writings say "'Even so, Amen.' That this signifies Divine confirmation . . . . appears from," etc., the translation says "'Even so, Amen,' signifies Divine confirmation . . . . This is evident from," etc.
     Another peculiarity is the uniform use of "outmosts" for "ultimates." "Ultimates," though not used in the New Church sense by writers out of our borders, has come to have a distinct meaning with us, which "outmosts" cannot express. The Writings teach that "in successive order" one follows the other from highest things, which are in heaven, to ultimates, which are in the world; and that the same things are in simultaneous order in the ultimate, one next to the other, from inmosts to outmosts" (S. S. 65). A distinction in terms is made here which is lost in the present translation of The Apocalypse Explained.
     But we do not wish to dwell on the defects, lest the many excellencies of the translation be overlooked.

     It remains to be noted that in this edition the divisions employed in Potts's Swedenborg Concordance are indicated in the translation by heavy faced figures, making reference very easy.
     The present volume comprises a little over one-third of the first volume of the sole Latin edition, and the whole work will therefore probably consist of from twelve to fifteen volumes. Every one, even if he have but a superficial knowledge of Latin, ought to procure these volumes as they appear, as it will help him to read the Writings in the original, and will also enable the New York Society to continue its laudable work of reprinting the Writings in the form in which they were originally given to the world.
     The Quatuor Doctrinae and De Ultimo Judicio is bound uniformly with the nine Latin volumes previously published: blue morocco back and olive cloth sides.
     The Apocalypse Explained is bound handsomely in maroon morocco back and cloth sides, gilt top.

     The Works can be ordered either directly from the Society or from the Academy Book Room, 1821 Wallace Street, Philadelphia.
Charity is 1889

Charity is              1889

     Charity is the affection of being of service to others without any end of recompense.-A. C. 3419.
M. HUMANN'S BOOK 1889

M. HUMANN'S BOOK              1889

LA NOUVELLE JERUSALEM d'apres les enseignements d'Emmanuel Swedenborg. See Progres dans le Monde, see Principes de Droit Divin et leurs applications sociales.- Par C. Humann, Avocat au Barreau de Paris, 1889.

     M. HUMANN, who has recently been ordained a New-Church minister by the majority of his Society in Paris, in this work of 330 pages proposes to present in a condensed form "The doctrines contained in the voluminous works of Swedenborg." The book consists of four parts, the first treating of the character of Swedenborg's mission, the successive dispensations, the Last Judgment, the principles of the organization of the New Church and its mission in the world. The second part treats of the History and Progress of the New Church in the world; the third part of the Principles of the "modern" Divine Law and its social applications, and the fourth part of the application of this law to Science, Art, and Literature.
     As a Compendium of the Doctrines in French, this work is a failure, for it does not present these Doctrines in a systematic form, but is rather an expression of the author's somewhat vaguely philosophical opinions on many different subjects. The Doctrine of the Second Coming, which is the most distinctive of all the Doctrines, is not clearly stated; the reader is not told where to look for the LORD in His Second Coming. The principal aim of the work seems to be to call the attention of the world to the Writings, by describing how much Swedenborg is in accord with l'esprit moderne, how Swedenborg "admits" so, and so "avec tout le monde moderne," etc.
     The chapter on the organization of the New Church seems to be a labored plea for lay-ordination. The "red cloth" of "ecclesiasticism" is waved again and again, and the democratic, popular form of government of the Church is greatly praised.
     To the members of the New Church in France the work will undoubtedly be of small benefit, while the great world of France will probably take no more notice of this than of many other similar works.
spiritual are initiated 1889

spiritual are initiated              1889

     The spiritual are initiated through truths into good; that is, through faith into charity.-A. C. 2928.
Communicated 1889

Communicated              1889

     [Inasmuch as in this Department Correspondents have an opportunity to express their individual opinions, be they in favor of the principles on which New Church Life is conducted or adverse to them, the Editor does not hold himself responsible for the views that are published therein.]
All in the universe are the neighbor 1889

All in the universe are the neighbor              1889

     All in the universe are the neighbor to whom charity is to be exercised, but every one with a difference.-A. C. 3419.
LORD'S SECOND COMING AND OUR SCHOOLS 1889

LORD'S SECOND COMING AND OUR SCHOOLS       THEODORE F. WRIGHT       1889

     MR. EDITOR:-In your September issue I noticed a statement which had been publicly made by E. J. E. S. while abroad, to the effect that the Academy is necessitated by the fact that other schools do not fully recognize the authoritative character of the works of Swedenborg. I sent a brief letter, which expressed my belief that such a declaration did injustice to such schools as those at Cambridge, Urbana, and Waltham. This was not published, but I was informed that "an avowal that Convention's Theological School acknowledges the Divinely authoritative character of Swedenborg's Theological Works" would be published. This is precisely what I meant to say at first, and I therefore gladly make such an avowal, which seems to be rendered necessary by the contrary statement made in a sweeping way in London. At the same time let me speak for the other schools first named, and also for the two London institutions. Indeed, I cannot conceive what object these schools would have if they held the merely respectful view of Swedenborg's mission, so common in the world, and invariably indicating an unwillingness openly to unite with the New Church.

196



     THEODORE F. WRIGHT.
          CAMBRIDGE, MASS., October 22d, 1889.


     REPLY.

     DURING the thirteen years of the existence of the Academy of the New Church it has been well known to all interested, that this body was called into existence because, in the New Church in general, and notably in its centres of learning; the doctrine was denied, that the Writings are Divine, authoritative, and infallible, and that they are the LORD'S Second Coming. In the public organs of New Church thought, in public meetings, and elsewhere, the-preponderating opinions were, at the time, decidedly opposed to the acknowledgment of Swedenborg's inspiration. When, to stem this tide of Arianism in the New Church, the Academy was formed, proclaiming in its organ, Words for the New Church, the gospel of the LORD'S Second Advent, made in and by the Theological Writings of Swedenborg, and founding a new Theological School avowedly upon the doctrine concerning the Divinely authoritative character of Swedenborg's Writings, other organs declared that the "claim for the Divine nature of Swedenborg's Writings" was "simply astounding."
     Now, all this is ignored by the resident professor of the Convention Theological School, and he disclaims that such distinction exists.
     There must be a reason for this.
     Can the reason be, that the evangelization of the Truth by the Academy, and by those teachers, organs, and bodies that now act in sympathy with it, has had such an effect upon public opinion, prejudiced as it has been, as to enforce the acknowledgment which was refused thirteen years ago?
     It would almost seem so, especially as another effort has lately been made elsewhere to hide the real issue.
     But, whatever may be the reason, the fact remains that the Cambridge professor sees fit to have the Convention School recognized as occupying the same platform as the Academy. If the two institutions were conducted on the same principle, none would rejoice more heartily than the Academy and the Faculty of its schools, for their greatest solicitude is that the entire nominal New Church should be united as to this fundamental doctrine. But do the two institutions occupy common ground?
     The Academy teaches that the Writings are Divine and authoritative because they are the Word: the Divine Human of the LORD, in Which He makes His Coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. This, as may he seen from the brief report in the September Life, was the burden of the remarks made in connection with the statement which is now criticised as unjust, but which should, rightly, have been viewed in their light. That this statement did not do injustice to the other schools, is proved by the communication which their advocate makes to the Life. If the other schools hold with the Academy that the Writings are Divine and authoritative because they are the Word, I because they are the LORD'S Divine Human, then this should have been stated. But to make an acknowledgment in general terms only, hides the real issue, and does not help any one to a clearer understanding of the relation of "our schools" to "the LORD'S Second Coming." The letter before us avers "that Convention's Theological School acknowledges the Divinely authoritative character of Swedenborg's Theological Works." But the explanation accompanying it gives this acknowledgment an interpretation far different from the principle claimed for the Academy in the Camberwell meeting. Says the professor:
     "Indeed, I cannot conceive what object these schools would have if they held the merely respectful view of Swedenborg's mission so common in the world, and invariably indicating an unwillingness openly to unite with the New Church."

     This explanation of what constitutes the non-acknowledgment of the Divine quality of the Writings, shows what the other alternative is supposed to be, and was evidently written in the same sphere of thought as a similar but more explicit statement made by the Magazine in the year 1877:

     "That Swedenborg is the Divinely commissioned teacher or the New Church, that without him there could have been no religious body of that name, admits of no doubt. That what he has published in his theological writings is fully believed, so far as it is rationally understood, by all who call themselves Newchurchmen, is also beyond question. But to place his authority above the rational acceptance of his teachings, and. to make his alleged infallibility the ground of belief in the principles which he unfolds . . . is, in our judgment, fatally opposed to the grand doctrine of spiritual freedom which he everywhere inculcates."

     Despite its wording, the acknowledgment made in the Cambridge letter on behalf of the five New-Church schools mentioned, betokens no nearer approach to the unquestioning belief in the Writings as the Word, than was expressed at the time that the Academy was formed and its Theological School established.
     EUGENE J. E. SCHRECK.

     PHILADELPHIA, November 13th, 1889=120.
Charity is without any respect of self 1889

Charity is without any respect of self              1889

     Charity is without any respect of self, and is averse to all that is on account of self.-A. C. 3419.
MUST NOT PERMISSIBLE AT THE HOLY SUPPER 1889

MUST NOT PERMISSIBLE AT THE HOLY SUPPER       WM. DONOVAN       1889

     "WINE AND NEW WINE," HOSEAH IV, 11.

     EDITOR NEW CHURCH LIFE:-In Apocalypse Revealed, n. 653, I read that, both in a good sense and an evil sense, "by must and wine similar things are signified;" no doubt the nourishing properties of the former and the healthful stimulus of the latter being from heaven, whilst the infestation to the stomach of the one and the inebriating influence of the other are from hell. Reference is then made to n. 316, implying that this truth has been already stated in that number. Upon turning to n. 316, I find the words to be "wine and new wine signify the same," distinctly implying that unfermented grape-juice must be considered as the "new wine," or, at least, included in this term. Indeed, the quotations from the Letter of the Word from which doctrine is to be drawn and by which it is to be confirmed (T. C. R. 229) plainly affirm this. The inference is, therefore, unavoidable that must equally with newly fermented wine, or when it is old, is lawful as a Communion wine, for the Holy Supper is alluded to. What, therefore, men have constantly termed "wine" in days when there was no preservation of must, or what from collateral sources of information is the obvious inference as to the character of "the product of the wine" in "the cup" at our LORD'S Last Supper on earth have nothing to do with, the question, unless it can be shown that the words from His own lips whilst in the world, or His teachings at His Second Coming by means of the pen of Swedenborg, imply limitation, and altogether exclude the idea of a different condition of the liquid in "the cup" being equally valid for Communion purposes amidst changing conditions in different times and places.

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That such exclusion is not warranted is manifest because He said: "I will not drink hence-forth of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom." Moreover it is possible even to be too dogmatic in asserting our LORD'S use of the wine representing the truth of the Old Testament when He said that it represented His "blood of the New Covenant," and the Writings teach us that when predicated of the Church new wine has the higher or more interior signification.
     As New Church Life differs from the writer in this matter, will it please state wherein it considers his reasoning or inferences fallacious in holding that must equally with fermented wine is included in "the product of the vine" as valid for the Holy Supper, as well as in fact the Word (including, of course, the Writings) to be alone taken as authoritative. What is the truth is of great consequence to the Church, who is individually correct is of none to it, but no one can evade the penalty of unwillingness to receive or to acknowledge the truth because it disagrees with his own preconceptions or expressed statements in regard to it.
     WM. DONOVAN.


     SOME OF THE "FALLACIOUS REASONING, INFERENCE" AND FACTS.     

     1.-THE heading which our correspondent has placed over his article conveys a fallacy. It is not a fact that in Hoseah iv, 11, "wine and new wine" are spoken of. It is "wine and must." (See the Latin text of A. C. 2466, A. E. 141 [b] et al.)
     2.-The first fallacy is repeated in the communication and a new one added, when it is stated that in n. 316 of the Apocalypse Revealed these words are found: "wine and new wine signify the same." This sentence does not occur. What our correspondent probably intended to refer to is this sentence, "'scortation' signifies the falsification of truth; similarly here 'wine and must.'" Wine and must do not signify the same thing, but similar or like things. In the passage from Hoseah iv, for instance, while "scortation, wine, and must" all signify "falsified truths," they are not the same, for "'scortation' is the falsification itself, 'wine' is the interior false, 'must' is the exterior false." (A. E. 141 [b].)
     3.-Hence, our correspondent's reasoning that "unfermented grape-juice must be considered as the 'new wine' or, at least, included in this term," being based on a fallacious premise, is itself fallacious.
     4.-For the same reason our correspondent's "inference that must, equally with wine newly fermented, or when it is old, is lawful as a Communion wine, for the Holy Supper is alluded to" is also fallacious. In that part of n. 316 where the Holy Supper is treated of, the term used is "vinum," wine; not "mustum," not even "vinum novum."
     Our correspondent's conclusion, that when the LORD said, "I shall not drink henceforth of this product of the vine, until that day when I drink it with you new in My Father's Kingdom," He meant to include unfermented grape-juice, is utterly fallacious, as would appear even from the literal sense. But the teaching of the Internal Sense will make this still clearer:

     "By the 'product of the vine' or 'wine,' which the LORD would drink, with them new 'in the Kingdom of His Father,' is meant that from His Divine Human there will then be all the Divine Truth in heaven and in the Church; wherefore He calls it 'new,' and also calls it 'the New Testament in His blood'; for the 'blood' of the LORD signifies the like as wine.' And since, after the LORD rose again, all the Divine proceeds from Him, therefore He saith that He will drink it with them when the Kingdom of God will come [see Luke xxii, 18], and it came when He reduced all things to order in the heavens and in the hells."-A. E. 276 [e.]

     The LORD made His Human Divine by combats, and by combats He "reduced all things to order in the heavens and in the hells." What would correspond to and represent the Divine Truth proceeding from this Human thus made Divine: the wine that has passed through its state of combat, of fermentation, wherein thus "all things have been reduced to order"? or unfermented must, in which this process has not taken place?

     6 and 7.-When our correspondent states that "it is possible to be too dogmatic in asserting our LORD'S use of the wine representing the truth of the Old Testament when He said that it represented His blood of the New Covenant," he again gives expression to fallacies. One can never be too dogmatic in teaching a true doctrine. Our correspondent makes a distinction between the truth of the Old Testament and that of the New Testament, as if they were not the same. But in the explanation of the very words which he uses to maintain this fallacy, the Writings say, "By 'the blood of the New Covenant' or 'Testament,' nothing else is signified than the Word, which is called 'Covenant' and 'Testament,' Old and New, thus the Divine Truth there." (T C. R. 706.) -EDITOR.]
Every one is the neighbor 1889

Every one is the neighbor              1889

     Every one is the neighbor according to the quality and quantity of the good with him, thus good itself is the neighbor, and in the highest sense the Lord Himself.-A. C. 3419.
LETTER FROM GREAT BRITAIN 1889

LETTER FROM GREAT BRITAIN       JAS. CALDWELL       1889

     Tit-Bits has not capitulated to the Evidence Society. That popular, because puerile, journal had the temerity to say in an article on "Persons who Profess to be Inspired," that Swedenborg was an impostor, or words to that effect, classing him with Joseph Smith and others of that cult. The article also said that the body which Swedenborg founded [sic] was decreasing in numbers. This was too much for the vigilants. The editor says he has been pelted with arguments and plied with theological books and essays. What good has all this artillery effected? It has extracted an apology from the editor, an admission that Swedenborg and his (the editor's) assailants are, no doubt, "good people," and a refusal (after all) to admit the inspiration theory as regards Swedenborg. Is it likely that any reader will be otherwise affected? The measure of the editor is the measure of the reader of such journals.
     The Dawn has been drawing attention to the prevalence of secular institutions in connection with the various Societies and fears danger. The Dawn does well' to raise a warning voice. Its fears are not without foundation. There is no warrant, so far as I have seen, in the sacred books of the Church for activity of a purely secular kind on the part of a Church Society. The doctrines, it is true, do not prohibit secular pursuits, amusements, or recreations. On the contrary, indulgence in all kinds of innocent and health giving pastimes, as well as intellectual exercises, is specifically countenanced. But it is one thing for the members of the Church to indulge in those pastimes; it is quite another thing to maid them a part of a church's work.

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     A church building is dedicated to the worship of the LORD JEHOVAH CHRIST. By what stretch of the imagination can boxing, for example, be construed into, an act of worship? Yet, boxing is the curriculum of Church-work in the case of at least one Society I wot of. I will be asked, "What harm is there in boxing?" That is another question into which I won't now enter. I am quite clear on the point that it is not worship, and there my concern ends or the present.
     Social meetings are another prominent feature of Church work. The news columns of the Church papers contain more reports of social meetings than of sermons.
     Social meetings are good and useful. They are classed among the "Diversions of charity "(Char. xi), and are, therefore, orderly when not indulged in to excess and when the "evident intention" is kept in view. But social meetings are generally attended, by "members and friends," as the reports say. The "friends" are, usually, friends only in a natural sense, and are of another and an antagonistic religious belief. How can there be any real social enjoyment in such an assembly? Wherever Newchurchmen meet, and especially when they meet for convivial intercourse under their own roof-tree and auspices, there it should be one of the chief delights to "converse on charity and faith, on God and heaven, life eternal and salvation" (Char. 101, Pocket Ed., 1876). If, instead of that, one has to be on his guard lest he offend the susceptibilities of his neighbor, then the meeting may be entertaining, but it is not social in the true sense, and the Church as an entertainment agency cannot hope to compete with the theatre or opera-house.
     A publication that has been favorably noticed in Life, viz.: the New Church Mornthly (Colchester) has recently come out in an enlarged form. This evident sign of prosperity has not escaped the notice of its older contemporary, The Dawn. Who is it that, in hitting off the foibles of women, speaks of one who, while "protesting she would not consent, consented?" I forget now, but in The Dawn of October 17th, a writer who thinks the above-named sheet unworthy of notice, notices it. Anonymous himself, he seems vexed that the editor of this "broadsheet" does not publish his name. Rancorous to a degree, he find a fault with the "broad sheet" article on account of the rancor of it. His denunciations of the statements in the said article are made on these several grounds: 1, they are made in bad English; 2, they are disrespectful to Conference; 3, they are in bad taste; 4, they are vulgar; 5, that there is concealed an attempt to get a footing for a foreign body in England. If all this were true, it is only a begging of the question. Here is a specimen from the letter of "Lucius Lud." Note how kindly this rancor-hater writes: "The Church existed before Mr. Tilson's advent, and it is suite possible that it may continue to exist without him. That gentleman is at liberty to hold such views as he pleases, even if they be such as to make the judicious grieve." I presume the effect of Mr. Tilson's views on the splenetic need not disturb the equanimity of that very successful minister either.
     Are doctrines "grounds" common or otherwise? The New Church Monthly for October has shown how erroneous is the idea promulgated at Conference that a certain New Church doctrine was "common ground" whereon Trinitarian and Unitarian alike could meet. But is any doctrine a ground? My impression is that Doctrine is a house to live in, and not merely the ground whereon to build a house. In this view there can be no question of Trinitarian and Unitarian dwelling together in unity.
     JAS. CALDWELL.
          59 COUNTY ROAD, LIVERPOOL, 3 November, 1889.
Those who are only in the doctrinals of faith 1889

Those who are only in the doctrinals of faith              1889

     Those who are only in the doctrinals of faith, but not in the good of life, cannot but be more stupid than others.-A. C. 3427.
HEATHEN HONESTY 1889

HEATHEN HONESTY       A. K. Roy       1889

EDITOR NEW CHURCH LIFE:
     DEAR SIR:-Yesterday in the September number of the English Bankers' Magazine, published by the celebrated firm of Messrs. Waterlow & Sons, Limited, of London, England, I met with the following statement:

     The British Consul-General in Shanghai reports on native banks in that port, and referring to the trustworthiness of the best native bankers and merchants, Mr. Hughes quotes the following observations from a foreign bank manager in Shanghai:
     "I know," said this gentleman, "of no people in the world I would sooner trust than the Chinese merchant or banker. Of course there are exceptions to every rule, but to show that I have good reason for making such a strong statement, I may mention that for the last twenty-five years the bank (i. e., the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation), has been doing a very large business with Chinese in Shanghai, amounting, I should say, to hundreds of millions of taels, and we have never met with a defaulting Chinaman."

     It is of so remarkable a character, and coming as it does spontaneously from a purely business source, is consequently impartial in the fullest sense, I think it worthy of record in New Church Life, as it confirms and illustrates the truth of the declarations in the Writings, concerning the spiritual state of the Christian world, that it is in a worse state, speaking generally, than is the so-called Heathen world.
     Where in any Christian country whatever could a bank manager of twenty-five years' standing and experience truthfully make such a statement as that of Dr. Hughes, quoted above, or one at all like it? I leave the answer for each of your readers to supply.
     Yours truly,
          A. K. Roy.
TORONTO, Sept, 29th, 1889.

     P. S. The italics in the copy are mine.
     P. S. 2. A Canada-Pacific Railway official since reading the above, informs me that on a recent occasion in Victoria, Vancouver Island, when a subscription for the family of an injured man was being generally taken up a Chinese banker there was not cal led upon, but he met one of the collectors, and on the express condition that his name should not be made known or the source disclosed, the Chinaman handed him twenty-five dollars.
To the extent in which one is in the good of life 1889

To the extent in which one is in the good of life              1889

     To the extent in which one is in the good of life, that is, in love to the Lord and charity toward the neighbor, he is in intelligence, that is in faith from the Lord.-A. C. 3427.
FROM A WANDERER'S NOTES 1889

FROM A WANDERER'S NOTES              1889

     . . . AT Lauterbrunnen we gentlemen took horses and ascended the Wengernalp. From its top what a magnificent spectacle! Imagine standing on a high mountain, so high that, although it is the month of August, you feel none too warm in your overcoat. On the other side of the ravine, and somewhat in the form of an amphitheatre, rise three immense mountains, the Jungfrau the Monch and the Eiger, rent and torn by the tempests of centuries, showing the rugged rock and little else: crowned with eternal ice and snow, of which some extends down sun-sheltered cliffs and ravines.

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In the presence of these mountains one is impressed with the sense of stern awe, and one can easily see why it is that the Swiss character, though steadfast, like the Swiss mountains, seems; nevertheless, to have something of sternness. When, after a few days, we returned to the lakes and sailed upon the placid waters of the Thuner See with its smiling shores covered with velvet turfs, happy, cultivated fields, vineyards, forests, pleasant villas,-and the stern mountains were in the distance where their. Influence seemed softened, we all remarked upon the great contrast, and upon the difference in our feelings when in different surroundings.
     Yet whence these varying emotions? Do these material objects of sense awaken them? Is it not that the scenes through which we passed formed planes receptive of the mind's affections, having this formative power by virtue of their correspondence?
     The mountains that are bare of vegetation, whose only life consists in the movement of unfriendly elements, that are kissed by icy winds, that embrace the arctic ice and snow, and surround themselves with blinding clouds, that re-echo with the sound of terrifying avalanches-they inspire awe: not the awe from love, but that from fear. And why? The rock is truth, the clouds, the ice, the snow-so many forms of water-also correspond to truth, and, indeed, in forms that repel the warmth of the sun. Nothing is here suggestive of good: it is truth alone; and this, though it be of a lofty kind, challenging the penetration of the keenest intellect, though it call forth a certain admiration, is stern, and, after all, unattractive: the things of life are far from it, it reflects no warm and pleasing coloring, it gives forth-no sounds of harmony, but only those of discord and destruction.
     But, on the other hand, the mountains and hills that teem with life, that treasure up the warmth and light of the sun and give it back in verdure grateful to the sight and useful in every way to man, that shelter creatures of every kind to offer up their praise to the LORD-they fill the breast with happiness; for here the rock united with the soil is truth conjoined with good, the surrounding air, the sphere, breathes forth conjugial delights in every feature of the landscape is represented the marriage of good with truth and their resultant progeny. In such surroundings, thoughts and affections are stirred up full of gratitude for the LORD'S gifts. They confirm the veneration for the Love that has thus manifested itself in Wisdom. And, whether at the time one be conscious of their effect or not, if the mind be interiorly open to the influences of Heaven, then in such surroundings remains of good and truth are implanted which will in due season strengthen the conjugial flowing from the Union of Divine Love and Wisdom-the precious pearl of human life, the repository of the Christian religion. . . .
charity which in the outward form appears as charity 1889

charity which in the outward form appears as charity              1889

     The charity which in the outward form appears as charity is not always charity in the internal form; from its end is known its quality and its source.-A. C. 3776.
RESULT 1889

RESULT              1889

To THE EDITOR OF NEW CHURCH LIFE.
     Dear Sir:-There have been not a few who have condemned the publication of the articles on pellicacy and concubinage in the Life as upholding evil and having an immoral tendency. That this should be, when you have adhered strictly to the Heavenly Doctrines, may justly be cause for surprise. If, in accordance with those Doctrines, you point out, how man may preserve conjugial love, your articles must certainly have the effect of making clearer what things are evil, and how they may be set aside and good be acquired. It has been my privilege to hear from a number of those who have read and heard of your articles, and while I have found misconceptions in some cases, in none has there been any resulting immorality, but the reverse. Let me instance a case:
     In a New Church family, residing a great distance from your city, the parents, while greatly delighted with the work on Conjugial Love, carefully kept it out of sight of their son from a fear similar to that which so many New Church people have. What was their surprise to learn from the youth that he had been reading New Church Life, and that the articles referred to, in connection with his Pastor's teaching, had led him to give up his intimate boy friend, who was not pure-minded, and himself to conceive a greater love for the pure and holy things relating to conjugial love.
     OBSERVER.
charity which has self or the world for its end 1889

charity which has self or the world for its end              1889

     The charity which has self or the world for its end is not charity in the internal form, nay, is not to be called charity.-A. C. 3776.
HARVEST Thanksgiving services 1889

HARVEST Thanksgiving services              1889

     HARVEST Thanksgiving services were held on the 29th of September at Camberwell.
     THE Allegheny Society holds meetings every Sunday evening, and was visited by a minister of the Pennsylvania Association.
     NEW CHURCH books, second-hand or new, can be obtained from Mr. John Hardy, West End, Mirfield, Yorkshire, England.
     AFTER the services on Sunday, the 17th of November, two persons were formally given the right hand of fellowship and received into the Advent Society.
     THE Academy Schools, of Philadelphia, have been having some very enjoyable socials of late, at which two of those who rode through Europe on bicycles this summer gave accounts of interesting scenes and episodes of their trip.
     THE First New Jerusalem Society of Allentown has been having regular Sunday evening services at Bohlen's Hall, the Rev. Wm. L. Worcester and Rev. Wm. H. Alden preaching alternately. Rev. Adolph Roeder also gave one lecture.
     WANTED, a New Church girl or woman to do all or part of house work in a family having three small children. Will pay railroad expenses to and from home once a year. For particulars address W. H. Junge. 394 Federal St., Boston, Mass.
     ON Sunday, the 10th day of November, the usual social meeting which follows the Doctrinal Class of the Advent Society was made the occasion of the celebration of the "silver wedding" of Mr. and Mrs. Walker. By a happy coincidence, it was the twenty-first anniversary of the marriage of the Pastor of the Society, Rev. L. G. Jordan and his wife. The occasion was one of festivity. Speeches were made upon the subject of conjugial love.
external of charity is faith 1889

external of charity is faith              1889

     The external of charity is faith, and the internal of faith is charity.-A. C. 3868.

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NEWS GLEANINGS 1889

NEWS GLEANINGS       Various       1889


NEW CHURCH LIFE.
A MONTHLY JOURNAL

TERMS:-One Dollar per annum, payable in advance.

Six months on trial for twenty-five cents.

     All communications must be addressed to Publishers New Church Life, No. 759 Corinthian Avenue, Philadelphia, Pa.

     In Great Britain subscriptions may be sent to
     MR. S. WARREN POTTS, Book Steward, 61 Cathedral Street, Glasgow, Scotland.
     REV. R. J. TILSON, 2 Inglis, Camberwell, London, S. E.
     MR. G. A. MCQUEEN, Crowhurst Road, Colchester.
     MR. JAS. CALDWELL, 59 County Road, N., Liverpool.
     MR. C. E. SCHROEDER, 13     Ashfield Terrace, Newcastle-on-Tyne.
     MISS FLORENCE G. GIBBS, 8 Camden Square, London, N.

PHILADELPHIA, DECEMBER, 1889=121.

     CONTENTS.

     Editorial Notes, p. 185.-The Eighteenth Chapter of Genesis, p. 185.-The Doctrine of the "Authority" as taught in the Word, p. 190.-Mythology in the Light of the New Church, p. 191.
     Notes and Reviews, p. 193.-Latin Reprints of the Writings, p. 194.-M. Humann's Book, p. 195.
     The LORD'S Second Coming and our Schools, p. 195.-Must not Permissible at the Holy supper, p. 196.-Letter from Great Britain, p. 197.-Heathen Honesty p. 198.-From a Wanderer's Notes, p. 198.-A Result, p. 199.-News Notes, p. 199.
     News Gleanings, p. 200.-Births, Marriages, and Deaths, p. 200.
     AT HOME.

     Pennsylvania.-THE meeting of the General Church of Pennsylvania, held in Philadelphia, November 21st to 24th, was well attended, and a happy sphere prevailed. Bishop Benade was present part of the time. The meeting was a very important one, the General Convention being the principal theme discussed.
     Maryland.-The new church building at Preston was dedicated by the Rev. Chauncey Giles.
     Washington, D. C.-MR. A. J. Cleare, a student of Convention's Theological School, has been preaching in Washington until the return of the Rev. Frank Sewall to this country last month, when the latter immediately assumed the direction of affairs in Washington. Mr. Sewall's address is now 1331 L Street, N. W., Washington, D. C.
     Indiana.-THE Presbyterian State Synod, in session at Richmond, Ind., excluded the Rev. H. H. Grant from a seat in its meetings, claiming that the New Jerusalem Church did not believe in the essential teachings of the Bible. This afforded Mr. Grant an opportunity of presenting the Doctrines in a distinctive way, which seems to have drawn considerable attention to them from both people and press.
     THE Thirty-sixth Annual Meeting of the Ohio Association was held in Indianapolis from October 16th to 20th inclusive.-The following question was discussed: "Is it useful to preach the interior sense of the WORD from texts where the sense seems obscure?"-The ministers present answered the question negatively, as a rule.-It was complained that some twenty-four of the Societies had gone out of existence in the last thirty-five years, and the cause was attributed to lack of funds.
     Illinois.-THE Immanuel Church rejoices in the acquisition of the Rev. N. Dandridge Pendleton, who relieves Pastor Bostock in many ways, especially in the week-day school and in the social life among the young people. Mr. Pendleton lectures every alternate Friday upon the correspondence of the human body with the Gorand Man of heaven, and alto preaches once a month.
     Michigan.-THE Michigan Association met in Gorand Rapids October 5th.-Mr. Geo. H. Dole was ordained into the Ministry by the Rev. John Goddard.-The Association engaged the services of Rev. G. N. Smith, as missionary during the coming year and provision was made for raising the funds necessary to carry out their increased missionary work.-A newly formed Society in Leland, consisting of fifteen members, applied for admission.
     Missouri.-The German Synod of the New Church opened its third annual session in St. Louis on October 8th.-The Society of Quincy, numbering twenty, and the German Society of St. Louis, numbering one hundred and thirty-two, and one at Wellsville, Mo., numbering twenty-two, were received into membership.-The Rev. A. J. Bartels was not re-elected President, but the Rev. Gerhard Bussmann was appointed his successor, being granted ordaining functions by the laying on of hands by a minister and a layman.
     A BEGINNING in the direction of a New Church Society has been made in Kansas City.
     Minnesota.-THE Minnesota Association held its fourteenth, annual meeting in St. Paul on October 11th. "Satisfactory growth" was reported.
     Colorado.-THE Rev. H. C. Dunham has taken charge of the Denver Society. His address is, 3401 Gilpin Street, Denver, Col.
     Texas.-A NEW association has been formed in this state upon a surprisingly "broad," "liberal" and "democratic" platform. The constitution condemns all sorts of rulers and officers, but the by-laws set forth the necessity of an Executive Committee to transact business. The report in the Messenger concludes with a paragraph beginning thus: "We urge you to note that the principles herein are the first clear and clean enunciation of undenominational, unsectarian theology ever published to the world."
     General.-IN accordance with a call from the Board of Missions of the General Conventions, many Societies have been holding missionary meetings and taking up collections for this work.

     ABROAD.

     England.-THE Rev. Jabez Fox intends to remain in England until October 1890.
     ON Sunday, the 6th day of October, Mr. G. Meek, B. A., was ordained into the ministry by the Rev. R. Storey at Heywood.
     PROF. Scocia, who is engaged in translating the Writings into the Italian language, is visiting England with his wife, and is everywhere meeting with a cordial reception.
     THE Rev. B. J. Tilson is delivering a series of lectures on "The Human Body in Spiritual Light." He has recently delivered a series of sermons on the consummation of the First Christian Church.
     A PUBLIC meeting was held at Anerley to welcome the new minister, Mr. Wm. Heald, to the neighborhood, in which several Old Church ministers took a prominent part, and two New Church ministers in consequence canceled their engagement to attend the meeting.
     MR. Arthur Faraday was ordained by the Rev. J. F. Potts, assisted by the Rev. John Presland, at Glasgow, on the 2d day of October. The ordination was followed by an address from Mr. Potts on "The Powers Conferred by Ordination."
     Holland.-THE Rev. Frank Sewall conducted services at Utrecht on his way to Rotterdam to embark for home. It was the second time that New Church services have been held in this country, the first being conducted by Bishop Benade in 1884. Mr. Sewall administered the rites of Baptism and the Holy Supper for the first time in Holland.