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"Well, Mr. Romaine,” she answered, "you certainly should know."

"I believe there is nothing so pleasant," I continued ; “and I think you and Willie are of my opinion."

Hettie was exceedingly red.

"Now," I went on, "there is some one who loves you much better than Mr. Morse."

"Really"— she began.

"Not so fast," I said, interrupting her; "it is in His Presence that I have been amid the corn. Don't you remember that beautiful story told in the Gospels in which Jesus is represented as walking with His disciples through the corn-fields? The disciples, you know, plucked the ears, and, rubbing them in their hands, ate the kernels."

"Yes, I have read that."

"It is a beautiful little pastoral poem, full of sweetness and freshness. You may discern in it the clearness of the Judæan skies, the glowing landscape, the wonderful figures in the foreground filling the picture with life. You, with your great love of poetry, Hettie, should be able to appreciate this little living sketch."

"It is very beautiful in its suggestiveness, Mr. Romaine," she observed; "but how have you been there ?"

"Do you ask me how ?" I asked, looking at her very expressively.

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Ah, I see!" she suddenly exclaimed. "You have been going back in your mind all those years, and to that distant place, and you have been there, as you say, in spirit."

"Not quite so, Hettie. To be with Jesus we need not go back nearly two thousand years, nor need we mentally to wander to the Judæan hills and plains. Don't you know that He said, 'Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world""?

"Oh yes-of course, in that way."

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Well, then, He has been present with me in this room, and I have been with Him through the corn without stirring from my seat."

Hettie was now looking at me with awakened interest, and this was occasioned as much, perhaps, by my manner, which was as slightly tinged with solemnity as possible, as by the thoughts that I had presented to her.

"You have heard about eating the bread of life, have you not ?”

"Oh yes; but I don't understand it one bit."

"You know of course that you have been the subject of mental as well as bodily growth. There was a time when your mind was ever so small, and when your friends had to feed you with ever such little crumbs of knowledge."

"O Mr. Romaine, I understand you now; you are such a funny man!"

"Not at all, Hettie. I am a very serious, sober old file. You would be surprised to hear that the Bible is a large cupboard or storehouse filled with the bread of life, and that you may go to it and get from it the food on which your soul may grow."

"I have never thought of that."

"And I daresay you never thought that the Bible is a garden full of celestial blossoms which you may wear upon your heart, and far less that it is a corn-field where you may wander with Jesus and pluck the ears and rub them in your hands and eat?"

"Such an idea never entered my head," said Hettie, looking half amused and half serious. "I suppose, then, Mr. Romaine, you have been reading the Bible? Is that what you mean ?"

"Not exactly. I have been reviewing some of its

Divine laws. I have been in a meditative mood, and in this mood Jesus has been leading me from field to field, and at length I plucked an ear, and when you came in I was rubbing it in my hands and preparing to eat."

Hettie laughed a timid little laugh. She scarcely knew what to make of my remarks. Seeing, however, that she was interested, I went on.

"Now, Hettie, we have had two days of very innocent and very happy revelry. Do you know what we have been celebrating in this merry, jocund manner?"

"Yes, Mr. Romaine, of course-Christmas." "And at Christmas we commemorate the most solemn and momentous event that ever transpired in the history of the world. We commemorate the rescue of mankind from the jaws of death. We celebrate the reaching down of the Divine Hand from heaven to smite, as it were, Hell in its face, and drive it from the prey on which it was battening."

Hettie's eyes were now stretched to their utmost, and she was perfectly serious. Her mouth, however, had just been parted as if she were about to utter a protest. "Stop, Hettie," I said; "I know what you are going to say. You are going to say that I promised I would not give you a dreary sermon, and I shall keep my promise. I only want to ask you whether, now that we are snowed up in this out-of-the-way place, and considering that we are celebrating the birth of the 'Holy Thing' into the world, we might not devote a little of our time to the investigation of some subjects worthy of the wonderful occurrence heralded to mankind by angelic songs. Besides, you know, we may convert Willie, and would not that be a comfort?"

"O Mr. Romaine," she exclaimed in a frightened tone, "let us have no horrid arguments, Willie is so hot!"

"We will have no horrid arguments, my dear, only a little pleasant reasoning and some wise reflection. While the others are abroad, let you and me begin."

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"Well, then, the ears of corn are the Divine facts, laws, principles, with which the Word is stored.” "Yes; I understand so much," said Hettie, now very serious and attentive.

"Do you think you could stretch forth your hand and pluck one of the ears?" "Oh dear no!" said Hettie, looking down at her taper fingers, and smiling.

"I don't mean that hand, Hettie," I replied, laughing. "I have no other."

"Why, yes," I answered; "you have grasped the fact that the fields through which Jesus leads us are the books of the Divine Word, and that its laws and principles are the ears of corn standing in it, have you not?" "Yes."

"You have got hold of those ideas?" "I think I have."

"Well, then, how do you suppose you could grasp anything and keep hold of it, if you had not a hand to do it with? You see you have one hand more than you thought, and that it is larger and will hold more than you expected?"

Hettie was now quite interested, and so she laughed

a good-humoured laugh, and said she was a very stupid little thing not to have understood before.

"You are not at all stupid, Hettie, but very intelligent. Let the ear that we pluck be this one which we have been so long looking at: 'And it came to pass on the second Sabbath after the first, that He went through the corn-fields; and His disciples plucked the ears of corn, and did eat, rubbing them in their hands.'* Have you got it?"

"I believe so."

"Now let us rub it in our hands, so as to get the kernel from the husk. Our Sabbath-days, Hettie, are not merely our Sundays, but all occasions when we are in a quiet, peaceful, meditative mood. Then Jesus is with us. Then He can lead us into spiritual conditions in which we can discern around us abundance of Divine food for the nourishment of our immortal nature. Then we must exercise that power with which we grasp any fact to rub off its external covering and arrive at its inner substance. The Historic Fact that Jesus walked with His disciples in Judæa, and that they ate the corn as they rubbed it in their hands, is the outward husk; but the Spiritual Fact that Jesus walks with us now, and that we may inwardly eat of the Divine food, is the corn. 'What is the chaff to the wheat, saith the Lord?' We must peel the orange, you know, to luxuriate in its sweet juice. We must break the shell to reach the nut. We must rub off the husk to find the grain. We must draw aside the veil to discern the inner glory. So, in relation to the Word, we must cast aside the outward form that we may rejoice in the inward reality."

I paused, for I feared Hettie would think I was preaching her the sermon she so much dreaded. She was, however, so seriously attentive that I proceeded. 'Hettie," I said, "my old friend, your father, was what is called a Bibliolater, and I know he taught you to read your Bible."

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A tear glistened in Hettie's eye.

"I fear you have not thought so much of it since he left us; but you know there is in it much about tabernacles, altars, lamps, sacrifices, incenses. These, my dear, are only the chaff. Christ, whose birth the Church now celebrates, and whose mighty work for us we have been commemorating only with frivolity,-Christ, the Tabernacle of God, the Altar of our worship, the Lamp of our souls, Christ, the great Sacrifice, the Spirit that burns and makes the incense of the heart to fume upwards, Christ, who is the Substance of all laws, all forms, all ceremonies, all customs, all observances,—is the Wheat, the True Bread, of which, if a man eat, he shall live for ever."

Hettie was deeply affected, partly, I believe, by my reference to her father, whom she had lost when she was about twelve years of age, and partly by the serious facts I had put before her.

"It was only yesterday you were talking to me of the mystical meaning of some portions of the 'Holy Grail.' I have been speaking of the Great Poem written by the Author of this glorious universe. When you told me that you thought there was some deep meaning in Tennyson's verse, and asked me to help you to understand about Merlin's chair and Percivale's adventures, in which all things beautiful and solid fell into dust as he approached them, you asked me to rub off the chaff and offer you the grain."

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"O Mr. Romaine," said Hettic enthusiastically, you are so clever!"

"Not at all. If Tennyson's word has a figurative or kind of inner meaning, what shall we say of the Word of * Luke vi. I.

Him who made the earth and framed the marvellous soul of man?"

Before Hettie could answer me, we heard the tumultuous barking of Mr Freeheart's dog; and presently he came dashing past the window, and was followed by three figures so thickly encrusted with snow that they looked more like the hideous effigies which boys form for pastime than human beings. Hettie and I ran to the door in response to Mr Freeheart's lusty shouts, and in a minute we were all engaged in freeing the adventurous skaters from their icy covering preparatory to ushering them into the warm and glowing room.

ITEMS OF INTEREST.

Mr. Gunton has returned from a missionary tour in Scotland in which he has visited nine towns and delivered thirty-one lectures. There were not only good audiences for the most part, but fair reports in many of the public papers, and sufficient interest in Cupar-Fife to call forth a lecture in reply. The Dundee Advertiser was also good enough to publish three-quarters of a column of extracts from Emerson's essay on Swedenborg, also one or two apt cuttings from the biography by Dr. Garth Wilkinson. There are several theological embroglios going on in Scotland at present, and among noted men in connection with them the Rev. G. Gilfillan and the Rev. F. Ferguson are prominent. Mr. Gunton met both gentlemen, and had some pleasant and instructive conversation with them. Both are well acquainted with much of our literature, which no doubt has helped to form that liberalism of mind that is so vigorously attacking the grim defences of Calvinism.

It will be pleasant news to the members of the Church generally to learn that the Rev. C. H. Wilkins has received, and has accepted, a call to Manchester. Thus, at last, a successor has been found for the pulpit occupied by the Rev. J. Hyde, and one who will ably maintain the reputation which Peter Street had under him for pulpit oratory.

The Rev. J. Presland, of Argyle Square Church, has been giving a series of discourses on the "Friends and Foes of Israel," in which correspondentially he treated. of the spiritual principles which help or hinder the Christian in his journey towards heaven, the spiritual Canaan.

Our items of information are cut very short this week in consequence of press of other articles; but the deficiency will be made up in our next number.

BEGINNINGS.

A NEW YEAR'S ADDRESS TO THE CHILDREN.

N beginning the new year, I think you will be interested to hear a few words on beginnings in general, and to receive a few hints about some beginnings which it is quite as desirable for you to make as it is for the year to make a fresh one. Is it not very good of the year to make a fresh beginning, thus promising us another cheerful spring, and pleasant summer, and ever-enjoyable autumn, with its fruits and holidays? Now, in many things, which may be very useful to ourselves or to others by and by, the beginnings are, like those of the year, by no means pleasant or easy; and if we wish to find out what they will lead to, we must look a very long way ahead to see the good they will do and the pleasure they will bring.

All good beginnings are hard: they seem always to make their appearance in winter. You have often been told that we all are much more inclined to please ourselves rather than to please others, to be selfish rather than to be generous, and to gratify ourselves, even though in doing so we were to pain and injure others. Now, if you try to make a fresh beginning,-if you try to wish your brothers and sisters to share with you, or even to have the whole of the first pleasure from any new toy or any new book you may get,—such a beginning you will find to be almost as unpleasant as the beginning which the year has. You will find that a number of storms are sure to attend such a beginning; and if they do not injure you, they, at anyrate, will make you uncomfortable and unhappy. They are, however, like the year in so far as they lead to happier times, to seasons when the sun shines brightly, when the air is warm and pleasant, and the flowers and the trees look their loveliest, and the birds are warbling sweetly. And the after-enjoyment, the after-happiness, must be ever kept in mind to enable us to bear up, because it will lead us to pleasanter times, though it is very unpleasant for the passing moment.

the

But it is by no means the year only which has a beginning; everything has, and each of us has several after the grand one which we generally call our birthday. Some beginnings have special names, and beginning of the life of every little child as a human being is called its birth. But although the year begins in such a cold part of the year, the real beginning of the life of the year-its birth, in fact-is in the spring. Spring, then, is the best name for the beginning or birth of the year. In it, you know, all the plants and trees put forth leaves and begin to grow. The seeds we have set, and from which the finest flowers of the year will blossom by and by, rise above the ground, and everything looks fresh and bright, tender and infantile. These all make their beginnings at this time.

But though everything then looks so nice, things do not seem useful. It seems as if everything were pretty, and as though everything were enjoying itself; but most of the things of the spring-time seem to be in the baby stage; and although babies are not very useful themselves, they are very interesting and pretty. They are always useful to us by making us love them, and they do us good when they make us do good to them; for to try and amuse them, and to keep them laughing and smiling and crowing by laughing and smiling and crowing ourselves, is very good for us. But this only shows us that in being kind to others we are always being made by that very action better and happier ourselves.

Now, in the spring-time the world seems to be to a great extent in the baby state; thus the trees have new branches and fresh leaves, and some few in late spring have blossoms, but you don't see any fruit. In the fields thin little blades are springing up, but you cannot find any grain. In other fields, in early spring, you find the farmer busy turning over the ground in long lines with the plough; you may perhaps see him laying down. much chemical manure, which has been brought a long way, and for which he has paid a large sum of money, and by and by he goes over the ground very carefully and scatters his seed, and finally he turns the earth back upon it.

Now, if you can imagine any one seeing this work done for the first time, can you not tell at once what he would say? He would say that the farmer was a foolish fellow to turn up the ground in that absurd manner,—that there must be something wrong with his intellect to bring other earth from a long distance and actually to pay money for it, in order to spread it over the ground.

But the worst comes last, for this man takes good grain -ay, the best which can be had, he throws it away and after that puts himself to the trouble of covering it up. Why, it is downright waste to use the good grain so; it might have been ground into flour and baked into bread and cakes; but, instead of making it useful so, this madman, whom people call a farmer, actually puts himself to great pains to bury it. And not only that, but not content to bury it all in a heap with the least possible trouble to himself, he gives himself seemingly the greatest possible trouble to spread it as widely and as evenly as he can over quite a number of fields before he covers it over.

Now, if one saw this early operation of spring-time for the first time, such remarks would be perfectly natural. Well, but even the youngest of you, if you heard some one say so, would be able to tell him that it only seemed to be foolish because he did not know anything about autumn; and you would go on to tell him that the farmer was planting his seed in order that it might grow, and that it might bring forth more and be multiplied perhaps a hundred-fold; that everything he did was to make it grow up as favourably as possible; that all the things he did for it were the most sensible things he could do, although to one not knowing the laws of growth, and ignorant of their being only a preparation for a gathering afterwards, in a long time, they seemed to be the maddest. His tearing the earth open in order to bury his seed was a perfectly sober act, because the very one which best suited the ends he had in view.

Now what do we learn from all this? Can you tell? We all have, a spring-time as well as the year. In fact our lives and the lives of all men are like a year with its four seasons, beginning with spring when everything becomes living, and ending with winter when everything seems to die, just as we ourselves seem to do at the end of our life on earth; but, like the flowers, we make another beginning in another spring; unlike the flowers, however, our second spring-time-our fresh beginning, our new birth-is into the spiritual world, where for ever after summer and autumn seem to be blended with a neverceasing spring.

Now, the spring-time of our lives is the time when the sowing goes on in us. And the pains which the farmer takes to prepare his ground and to scatter his seeds, and to guard them carefully, and by and by to take up the weeds, all go on for us and in us. All that you are learning at school, and in your Sunday classes, and from your parents and elder brothers and sisters at home, and from your playmates, are seeds sown in your mind, which will by and by spring up and bear fruit after their kind. Now, particularly at school, you are often tempted to say, What is the use of my learning this? Why should my father wish me to learn this dry subject? Now, in saying so you do not foresee the harvest of good things which all the seeds which are being planted in you are intended to bring forth. Your whole life is only one year, you have not had an autumn yet, and, like the one who saw the farmer for the first time, you think much of the pains taken to sow the seed in you apparently without an object. Trust your parents, however, who have seen both seed-time and harvest, both spring and autumn. know much better than you, and in sowing every kind of seed give them the utmost help in your power. They know the seed they are sowing will be useful. A farmer does not sow one kind of seed only, but many kinds; but if his fields are suitable for a special kind, he sows most of that. So is it with us; we have often minds in which the seeds of a particular kind of knowledge will grow better than others, and that should be sown most

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plentifully, so that the fruits from it in a life of usefulness thereafter may be obtained. Seeds of truth of a special kind are sown in the soils of your minds every Sunday, in Sunday school. If these take root in you, they will spring up and bear never-withering leaves, and blossom and fruit like beautiful plants, because they are spiritual, and things spiritual, if we cherish them, never die in our spiritual gardens.

But spring is even more important than you yet suppose. For the year has only one spring. If we let it pass in our lifetime it never returns again. If we neglect to learn in our school-days, we cannot learn so easily afterwards; our spring-time for learning will not return again. So that it is not only important to plant good seed, but it is equally so to do so at the right time. We can only reap what we have sown; we can only gather good and useful grain when we have taken pains to sow good and useful seed; we cannot even get a different grain from what we have sown. A farmer does not expect to gather potatoes if he has planted turnips, nor wheat if he has planted rye. But the lazy man who has planted nothing does not reap nothing simply: he certainly gathers in nothing good; but he finds that the fields of his mind have produced a most abundant and most deep-rooted crop of weeds and tares.

You thus see it takes us some trouble to learn what is true, and to make it grow. It is certainly very beautiful and useful after it has grown, giving life and pleasure to all around us as well as ourselves: the happiness of

the farmer is in his crops of grain and vegetables and fruit. His greatest happiness is in their abundance and in the excellence of their quality. And in the same way so should ours. A crop of weeds tangled and overgrown even when they look pretty, which they generally do not, does not feed any one: weeds are unfit to support life, and many of them would, on the contrary. if they were eaten, cause death, or at least much pain and suffering.

So you see our spring-time,-our youth,-has much to do with the after-season of our life, and in this way illustrates a saying of which you will hear more as you grow older, that the beginning qualifies all that follows. How important it is, therefore, that all our beginnings should be well looked to. Within the grand beginning of the year, or of our life, there are perpetual new beginnings: every day in the year, and every state in our life is a fresh one. Let us therefore look narrowly at each beginning, that we begin rightly. The story of the man who began the day unpunctually, and who throughout the day found himself always just too late, and who ended the day as he had begun it, with much annoyance to himself because he had found it impossible to overtake the lost time with which he had begun it, is true also of our spiritual days. May we always begin each of our spiritual days punctually by seeking the Lord's Presence and counsel; His Presence in prayer, and His counsel by reading a portion of His Holy Word!

SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSONS FOR JANUARY.

Subject.

JAMES SPEIRS.

Lesson.

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Two plans of lessons are given to suit those Societies which have school both in the morning and afternoon. These have been prepared by the London New Church Sunday School Union, and will be used in Palace Gardens Church, Buttesland Street Society, and elsewhere. Teachers are invited to furnish any hints which may be useful in carrying out the plan of concerted lessons. That teachers may have ample time to prepare themselves on the basis of the notes we supply, we begin by furnishing them for two Sundays.

THE LEPER CLEANSED.

January 6, Morning.-The Lord's miraculous cures typified those He would do for us. We are all spiritually diseased. Some men may have the spiritual disease represented by leprosy, which is profanation. This is a terrible and generally incurable disease; but when the Lord is worshipped sincerely, and cried to with the whole heart, in the way this leper did, the Lord can, and He will, cure us. Of course no man who had been cured of any disease by a physician would continue to act the life which had produced it; so we must go to the priest, and offer the gift commanded by Moses. We must take special care of our life thereafter, and trust, not in ourselves, but in the teachings of the Divine Word.

ADAM AND EVE IN EDEN.

January 6, Afternoon. -Their state represented the state of the most ancient people; the Garden of Eden, the high state of wisdom in which man was; the trees, the different qualities of perception of truth which he possessed. The river which parted into four represents the different degrees of intelligence which he then enjoyed. The tree of life in the midst of the Garden meant living the Lord's life; and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was the freedom to do what was wrong which man possessed, but from which he was to refrain. All the animals and birds, which

Adam named, typified the affections of goodness and truth he possessed. Everything was good, because man was: evil beasts and birds represent the evil affections and false thoughts of fallen man, and did not then exist.

THE CENTURION'S SERVANT HEALED. January 13, Morning.-The servant was cured by the Spirit of the Lord, which is independent of space and time. Palsy is a state in which the hands and feet cannot be used, and signifies spiritual powerlessness, which is cured by the Lord's Presence, and the Lord's Presence is always to be had by those who have faith in His Omnipotence.

THE FALL.

January 13, Afternoon.-The fall of man was caused through a temptation of the serpent, which typifies our senses. And when we trust what they tell us, we often go wrong. The senses tempted Eve, who, like all women, represents our affections, and only Adam through her. He represents, like all men, our understanding. We never do wrong first in what we believe, but generally through what we love. Anything pleasant which we know we ought not to do is the forbidden fruit which our senses tempt us by our love for it to do. We incline to think that it is right, though before doing it we had thought differently.

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The New Liturgy, Hymns, and Supplement. Bound in one volume. In calf antique, red edges, 8s. 6d. ; in morocco, gilt edges, 10s. 6d.

Sown in the Spring-time: Addresses delivered to the New Church Sunday School, Camden Road, London. Foolscap 8vo, handsomely bound in cloth, Is. 6d. Character: Its Elements and Development. By a BIBLE STUDENT. Second edition, crown 8vo, cloth, 4s. ; gilt edges, 4s. 6d. The Angels. By a BIBLE STUDENT. Second edition, crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d. ; or, with gilt edges, 4s.

Paul, Luther, and Wesley compared with Swedenborg. Three Lectures by the Rev. R. GOLDSACK, Liverpool. 8vo, 37 pages, price 4d. Talks to the Children: Addresses delivered to the New Church Sunday School, Camden Road, London. Now ready, foolscap 8vo, handsomely bound in cloth, Is. 6d. Good Tidings says:-"A delightful little volume. It is a book that should be in every New Church Family and Sunday School."

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The True Christian Religion; or, The Universal Theology of the New Church. Cloth, pp. 815, 2s. 6d. With Indexes of words, etc., etc., etc., 5s.

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"The Faith of the New Heaven and the New Church in its universal form is, that the Lord from eternity, who is Jehovah, came into the world that He might subdue the hells, and glorify His Humanity: that without Him no flesh could have been saved; and that all will be saved who believe in Him."

"It is a universal of faith, that God is One in essence and in person, in whom there is a Divine Trinity, and that the Lord God the Saviour Jesus Christ is that God... that no flesh could have been saved unless the Lord had come into the world . . . that He came into the world to remove hell from man. . . to glorify His Humanity, which He assumed in the world; that is, to unite it with the Divinity of which it was begotten. The universal of faith on man's part is, that he should believe on the Lord; for by believing on Him he has conjunction with Him, and by conjunction salvation.

CHAP. I., under the heading of God the Creator treats of His Unity; His Infinity or His Immensity and Eternity; His Essence, which is Divine Love and Wisdom: His Omnipotence, Omniscience and Omnipresence; and the Creation of the Universe.

CHAP. II. treats of the Lord the Redeemer, and Redemption; Redemption was a work purely Divine and could not possibly have been effected by God Incarnate. It is a fundamental error of the Church to believe the Passion of the Cross to be Redemption itself; and this error, together with that relating to three Divine Persons, from eternity, has perverted the whole Church, so that nothing spiritual remains in it.

CHAP. III. The Holy Spirit and the Divine Operation. The Holy Spirit is the Divine Truth proceeding from the One God, in whom there is a Divine Trinity, thus from the Lord God the Saviour. A man's spirit is his mind and whatever proceeds from it. Divine Trinity... consisting of

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A MINISTER required for the

Nottingham New Church Society; duties to commence the first Sunday in April. Application, stating salary required, to be made to the Secretary, JOHN JOHNSON, Bentinck Road, Nottingham.

CONFERENCE BUILDING FUND. THE object of this Fund is to aid Societies

of the New Church in connection with the Conference, by means of Loans free of interest, in the building, purchase, or alteration of places of worship and school-houses, and in the paying of debts which may exist upon such buildings; the Society borrowing being required to secure the safety of the principal, and to repay the same at the rate of not less than 10 per cent. per annum.

By Minute 44 of last session, the Conference appointed the President and Treasurer, together with Messrs. W. H. Pilkington, Parkinson, and Braby, to appeal to Societies and Individuals in behalf of this Fund; and this Committee now earnestly and respectfully solicits the aid of the Church to carry on the important work contemplated by the objects of this Institution.

ALFRED BRABY, Secretary, Ennore House, Tulse Hill, Brixton, S. W.

make a One, like soul, body, and operation in a man. CHAP. IV. The Sacred Scripture, or the Word, is the Divine Truth itself in which is a spiritual sense hitherto unknown. . . . The literal sense is the basis, the continent, and the permanent of its spiritual and celestial senses. The doctrine of the Church ought to be drawn from the literal sense of the Word and to be confirmed thereby. . . . Without the Word no one would have any knowledge of God, of heaven, and hell, or of a life after death, and much less of the Lord. CHAP. V. The Decalogue explained as to its external and internal senses.

CHAP. VI. Faith. A Saving Faith is a Faith in the Lord God the Saviour Jesus Christ, and this because He is the visible God in whom is the invisible (John v. 37; i. 18; vi. 46; xiv. 6; xiv. 7-9).

CHAP. VII. Charity, or Love towards our neighbour, and Good Works. To love our neighbour, considered in itself, is not to love his person, but the good which is in it. Charity and Good Works are as distinct as willing what is good and doing what is good. CHAP. VIII. Free-determination. A man, during his abode in the world, is held in the midst between heaven and hell. and thus on a spiritual equilibrium, which constitutes Free-determination. If men were destitute of Free-determination on spiritual things, it would be possible for all men throughout the whole world, in a single day, to be induced to believe in the Lord; but this is impossible, because nothing remains with a man which is not freely received.

CHAP. IX. Repentance. Actual Repentance consists in a man's examining himself, knowing and acknowledging his sins, supplicating the Lord, and beginning a new life examining not only the actions of his life, but also the intentions of his will. CHAP. X. Reformation. Since all are redeemed, all have a capacity to be regenerated, every one according to his state.

CHAP. XI, Imputation. An imputation of the Merit and Righteousness of Christ is impossible. . . . Thought is imputed to no one, but will.

CHAP. XII. Baptism.. signifies spiritual washing, which is a purification from evils and falses, and thus Regeneration.

CHAP. XIII. The Holy Supper.. is to the worthy receivers as a signature and seal that they are the Sons of God.

CHAP. XIV. (1) The Consummation of the Age; (2) The Coming of the Lord and the New Heaven; and (3) The New Church.

(1) In the present day is the last time of the Christian Church which the Lord foretold and described in the Gospels, and in the Revelation. (2) Is a Coming not in Person, but in the Word, which is from Him, and is Himself. This is effected by the instrumentality of a man, before whom He has manifested Himself in person, and whom He has fitted with His Spirit, to teach from Him the doctrines of the New Church by means of the word.

Supplement. Memorable Relations.

SWEDENBORG SOCIETY, 36 Bloomsbury Street.

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