Charity, is to be evinced, is his school, and that only there can he contribute his part to the common good.

And what is true of the teacher can easily be seen to be true of all other workers upon the minds of men. All public instructors, the editor, the author, the artist, the actor,-all these are to show their Christian Charity in their various professions, and thus contribute their especial portion to the intellectual and æsthetic good of the community.

It now remains for us to witness the application of the same principle to the promotion of the world's spiritual good, taking, in illustration, the single use or calling which has this exclusively and directly in view, that of the minister.

Upon him is devolved the duty of carefully studying and investigating spiritual truth, that he may learn how the spiritual interests of men may be best promoted and subserved. He is to seek to have the Divine Word opened to his spiritual understanding, that he may bring forth therefrom "things new and old" for the enrichment of the lives of those to whom he ministers. He is set apart by solemn ordination to lead the people in their public worship of the Lord, and to perform for and with them those other holy offices by which the Lord is acknowledged and heavenly good sought.

Now, when he accepts the call of a society to become their minister, he assumes the duties that belong to an especial place, the care of a particular society. His love to the neighbour, if he be in the exercise of that love, receives a special direction. That society becomes to him the neighbour, and his Christian Charity must be evinced in his relations to that society. His affections, his thoughts, and his energies, must all direct themselves to the good of that society.

And thus doing, the common good is subserved, as well as that of the individual society to which he ministers. For by working faithfully with his society, the minister fills one place, the particular place, too, which he ought to fill. Every place thus filled leaves one less to fill. The places unoccupied, other labourers will be raised up to fill. The minister who is doing his duty faithfully in his place need not be anxious and troubled with respect to these. The burden of the world's spiritual instruction and salvation rests not with him, but with the Lord. The growth of the Church is not necessarily measured by the numbers who enter into it. It has been truthfully, as well as tersely, said that it is less important to get people into the Church than to get the Church into the people. Accomplish the latter and the former will accomplish itself. Let the ministry live this life of Christian Charity, and the Church can hardly fail to grow strong, although, to human view, it may not rapidly extend its borders. It will be lifted up in the eyes of all the nations until it become a city set on a hill which cannot be hid; a city into which men shall repair to buy gold tried in the fire, and white raiment that they may be clothed.

We have thus sought to enlarge upon and to plainly illustrate the remarkable definition of Christian Charity given us by Swedenborg. That such is the true nature of Christian Charity may be also evident from this consideration were all men living this life of love to the neighbour, what is now popularly termed "charity" would have no existence. There would be no poor to be provided for, and "institutions of charity" would cease to be a necessity. It is due to the world's disorder that the poor we have always with us.

It is true that their needs must be met, their sufferings for the common necessaries and comforts of life must be

recognised and judiciously alleviated. But we are never to lose sight of the truth that the relief of such is not included in the genuine works of charity, but rather under its benefactions or gifts. And it is proper that these duties of mercy should be largely devolved upon those who are not engaged in definite uses or employments. Men who, from age, infirmity, or inability to obtain suitable occupation, have unemployed time; women without families, and but partially occupied in domestic or other uses, may largely assume these gifts of charity. Thus it may be provided that the works of charity be but little interfered with.

In this view all may live a life of Christian Charity. None need say, "If I had wealth I would do this or that good. Were I able I would be very charitable." Wealth or poverty has nothing to do with a life of charity. "Christian Charity with every one consists in faithfully doing the duties of his calling." If, from love of the neighbour's good, one do this, his life is full of the works of charity. And if one do not this, although, in the words of Paul, he give all his goods to feed the poor, and though he give his body to be burned, he hath not charity, and these things profit him nothing.

To those who are thus living a life of daily charity, the Lord's commendation is ever given, and His promise constantly fulfilled: "Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." The joy of thy Lord! That Divine joy which the Lord feels in providing for the good of His children, of that joy shall His servants partake by doing faithfully the duties of their calling.

W. H. MAYHEW.

FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE.
"Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas."
CHAPTER IV.

THE Indo-Germanic languages are built up on fundamental words called roots or bases, and

in all probability the primitive language of mankind was so far exactly their antetype. In the polished languages of literature, and in all very composite modern tongues, this fact is somewhat obscured, except to the scholar, the vocabularies having usually been derived from two or three older languages, and the words having often undergone considerable change in form. The determination of their root-words is thus frequently difficult, and always requires an extensive knowledge of comparative philology. The English language, for instance, though mainly a modification of the Anglo-Saxon, contains a large number of words derived from the old Norman French; others imported, more or less directly, from the Greek and Latin, with others which in origin are oriental or Scandinavian. To get at the roots of our everyday speech we thus have to search in many different directions. It remains true that the various words in daily employ do most certainly rest upon roots; and the less elaborated and the less composite a language is, the more obvious this be

comes.

Take, for example, the English words witty, wise, wisdom, a wizard, a witch, a witling, a witness, the wits. All these have been developed in course of time from the radical Anglo-Saxon verb witan, to know, still preserved in the abbreviated form employed in legal writings, "to wit." It occurs also in the fine old Scrip

tural phrase, “Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" The variation, in some of the derivatives, from the of the original witan, to s or z, does not invalidate or in the least degree affect the fact of the common origin; changes of this nature, called by etymologists the "permutation" of sounds or letters, being, as will presently be shown, one of the oldest accustomed phenomena of language. The old Greek name for the honey-bee was indifferently melissa and melitta. A familiar parallel case is found in the abbreviation of the name Elizabeth, which is either Bessie or Betty. Take again the English words mission, missionary, missive, missile, and the numerous compounds made by prefixing a preposition to mit, such as omit, permit, remit, commit, intermit, submit, with their own respective offspring, omission, permission, remittance, committal, etc. etc. These are all referable to the Latin verb mitto, I send, and have similarly grown up, like a man's family of children-in course of time. Brought together in this manner, words show themselves to be by no means solitary and independent creations, but, as a rule, enlargements and variations of primary genetic words, derived originally perhaps from some older language, perhaps immediately from some tone of nature. a highly-developed language the words, taken in the mass, are like the foliage of a beautiful wood. Looked at as a whole, the various shapes and colours of the innumerable leaves blend and intermingle indistinguishably. We are conscious only of a rich aggregate of living charm, and the sources whence they derive their being are invisible. But when individualized, carefully traced from twig to branch, from branch to bough, and from the boughs to the stem, the parent trees are found to be comparatively few, and the botanist will show that the distinct genera and species are still fewer. To call the primitive or fundamental words of language its roots, is thus to employ a metaphor eminently and instinctively true to the perennial analogies of nature. "How," says the poet, "can a tree live without its root?"

In

Re

In an ancient and uncompounded language, not much indebted to previous languages, the number of root-words, or primitives, would of course be much less than in a highly-compounded modern one. The presumption that there would be fewer is borne out by what is observable in, for example, both the Greek and the Hebrew. markable as the language of Homer is for plenteousness of vocabulary, all the words contained in it are referable to a few hundred parental ones. Contemplating this obvious fact, namely, that words exist not so much as individuals, as members of groups of words, which groups rest upon roots; considering, also, how few root-words would be required to furnish a vocabulary sufficient for the purposes of the early members of mankind, it becomes evident that to satisfy our minds as to the possibility of language being a human achievement, we have merely to inquire whether an adequate collection of root-words could readily be formed by man, by virtue of his own intellectual powers and vocal aptitudes. If he could fashion a sufficiency of roots, all the rest would follow as a matter of natural sequence. It seems tolerably plain that such a collection could be formed, and most easily, and that it would be the inevitable result of the contact of the senses and the mind of man with objective nature-in other words, of his imitating and adapting to his own purposes the sounds of nature above adverted to. What were these sounds specifically? Even without reckoning the infinite capacity for modulation of the human voice (which, as regards the inarticulate and untutored expression of the feelings, is of course to be regarded as one of

the prime fountains of "natural sounds"), those which are associated simply with the inanimate part of creation, and with the lower forms of life, are themselves as numerous and suggestive as they are beautiful. Hence they form one of the most charming attributes of the country, filling it with melody at all seasons, and giving vitality and cheerfulness to the remotest and loneliest wilds. Doubtless to thousands of the dwellers in towns and cities the sounds in question are nearly or quite unknown. The possessions of such are of another order altogether. But the lover of nature in her freedom knows full well the changing intonations of the sea, the gentle rustle of the leaves when the wind visits the dells, and the heavy rushing when it moves the tall and sturdy pines. He is acquainted with the "courteous echo;" with the dash of the waterfall; with the purl, the ripple, the gush, the gurgle of the "unreposing brooks." He needs not to be told of the song of the various kinds of birds, or of the hum of insects in the sultry air of summer. They are sounds, every one of them, which fall upon his ear as tones of true music, and with the sweetness and familiarity of a sister's sunny laugh.

"Deinde satis fluvium inducit, rivosque sequentes;
Et, cum exustus ager morientibus æstuat herbis,
Ecce, supercilio clivosi tramitis undam
Elicit. Illa cadens raucum per levia murmur
Saxa ciet, scatebrisque arentia temperat arva."
"He lay along

Under an oak, whose antique root peeps out
Above the stream that brawls along this wood."
"As one whose drought

Yet scarce allayed, still eyes the current stream,
Whose liquid murmur heard, new thirst excites."

"Bubbling from the base

Of the cleft statue, with a gentle leap

The rill runs o'er, and round, fern, flowers, and ivy creep."

"Yet as if grieving to efface

All vestige of the human race,

On that lone shore loud moans the sea.”

Thus, before a single vocable was constructed, the entire substance of language lay latent in nature. The woods, the sea, the mountains, birds, animals, every created object, both animate and inanimate, was ready to supply its quota so soon as the world's lord and chief ornament should be introduced and assert his claim. Everything lay ready, biding the time when, in the order of Divine Providence, man should want it. Animals told him what to call them in their cries: if it were an inanimate object, such as the sea, or the wind, or a fountain, that he wished to designate, then he would take the sound it produced at the time being; if it were an object always and altogether silent and mute, then he would name it by virtue of some resemblance to a vocal one. These various sounds, including his own ejaculations, would furnish materials, as above implied, for the root-words. Having got these, he would be provided, under the law of the natural harmonies between things material and things spiritual, with the means of adverting to the emotions of his own being-hope, love, joy, sorrow, fear, etc., and the roots would give rise, just as witan and mitto have done in modern times, to constantly multiplying groups of articulate and expressive vocables. The words thus framed would be immediately accepted by the individual to whom they were addressed. The very same principles, relations, and circumstances which opened an easy way to the speaker, would contribute to make him perfectly intelligible to the listener. Considered in reference to language-especially that portion of it which is required to denote emotions, thoughts, and sentiments—the world

would thus continually prove itself to the fathers of human speech, a repertory of picturesque and delightful symbols, adapted to render audible and pleasing what would otherwise have been no more than mystery. How beautiful and benevolent an institution! Worthy indeed, of God, such pupils as mankind, and a school for them so glorious as the world of nature.

What particular sounds would be first made use of as the elements of words it is manifestly impossible to say. Indeed it may safely be concluded that no one class of sounds would be selected to commence with, and that when these had been employed, another set would be taken, and so on with the various kinds in succession; for this would imply not only an exact and complete foreknowledge, on the part of the framers of language, of the entire work that had to be accomplished, but also an intimate familiarity with the whole of the sounds which nature yields. So far from this being the case, the only idea of language possible to the framers of its rudiments would be the one which they would form from their individual and existing necessities. The several kinds of sounds would be adopted indiscriminately. They would be taken from one source at this moment, from another source at the next, according to their suitability or adaptedness to meet the specific desire or necessity of the would-be speaker, his object being of course to make himself understood, and not to provide materials for the language of future generations, though all the while he was unconsciously doing so. It is very well for modern philologists to classify sounds, and to observe their relation to language as developed; but man, when constructing language, would recognise nothing more than their individual values, and these he would at once apply to his immediate purposes.

Employing the sounds of nature in the way indicated, man would utilize every department of it almost at once. There was no period when language consisted simply of interjections, or of the names of brute creatures. Nothing can be more inconsistent and unreasonable than to suppose that man the animal which has always manifested the largest amount of intellectual capacity, should in the beginning have possessed the very least; for this is necessarily involved in the idea that there was a period when dogs could bark, and monkeys chatter, and man at the same time be unable to do anything but mock them.

The various tongues of which philology takes cognizance abound with words which were evidently framed exactly in this way. Whether they were transmitted from the first framers of language to the nations in whose speech we now find them, coming down from the primitive times to the later, and to the existing ones, in the way that ideas, manners, and customs have done; or whether they have been constructed during what may be called, for distinction-sake, the historical times, of course it is impossible to decide. Probably there are among them both primeval words and relatively modern ones. Finding them, as we do, in the most ancient of all known languages, as well as in those of later date, the fact is indubitably established that such a mode of framing words was in use in the earliest times of which there is authentic knowledge; and if in these, there can be no objection to assuming that the usage was by inheritance from the times up to which secular history does not reach. In the languages which appear to illustrate in the best manner the processes of the universal human mind when enlarging and expounding its vehicle of communication, it is clear also that these words have served, very extensively, the purpose of roots or bases. LEO H. GRINDON.

THE REV. J. J. THORNTON.

and

HE Rev. J. J. Thornton and family arrived safely and in good health in Melbourne, Australia, on the 8th of February. Mr. Thornton's first letter has just reached this country, giving some details of the voyage, and very briefly also of their reception there. On the Sunday following his arrival the ordination of Mr. E. J. Day, who has been for very many years the leader of the New Church Society in Adelaide, was to take place. The reception which Mr. Thornton and his family had from the Melbourne friends was most kind, but the formal meeting of the Society to receive him as their minister was only to be held on the Wednesday succeeding the despatch of the letter. The voyage, which began badly, included, as most long voyages must, a great variety of phases, both of temperature and weather, of enjoyment and discomfort; but was on the whole very pleasant. Mr. Thornton conducted the Sunday services while the weather was such that the captain was unable to leave his duties, but not afterwards; as the captain would not tolerate any deviation from the order of the Book of Common Prayer, not even the introduction of the reading of the Ten Commandments. Among the passengers and crew he seems to have found greater openness and more inquiring dispositions, as the following interesting extract from his journal will show: "During the voyage I have had very many conversations on the Church and Swedenborg, etc., with passengers crew. By far the most interesting hearer is Mr. a Melbourne gentleman. He was startled on hearing some of my statements to other passengers. So intensely has he given his mind to the study of the writings, that he is every day almost wholly devoted to reading New Church works, and is evidently of so honest and sincere a spirit that he looks upon them as a revelation of the Lord. After he had been reading the Apocalypse Revealed,' I found the following prayer written faintly on the blank flyleaf at the end, Almighty Father, I am about to search the following pages with a view of enlightening my mind as to the hidden meaning of the Revelation of John; and knowing that of my own unassisted intellect I cannot arrive at a just interpretation and understanding of Swedenborg's writings, grant me, as a sign, that, if he has really derived his knowledge direct from Thee, I may find my intellect cleared and prepared to receive and hold fast the truth as interpreted by him. 27/12/77. He says he is attached to no Church, but he will come to ours. There is also a Mr. —, a learned Canadian, a lawyer, with whom I have conversed freely, and who has shown great interest, though his Presbyterian principles hinder. While he was confined to his bed several days I gave him written statements of New Church truths, which he considered very favourably. On Sunday afternoons I have gone among the sailors and third-class passengers, to converse with them, and to give away tracts. The tracts have been very useful. If I had pushed our religious opinions more, I might have gained greater attention for them for a time, but there would have been a reaction against them. I have tried to improve our opportunities on the ship, and trust that at any rate we have done nothing to prejudice, but something enduring to help forward, the good work. Whenever truth has entered any mind from our Lord, we are sure it will remain and bear fruit. There are many passengers who have had foolish and absurd prejudices against 'Swedenborgians' removed from their minds. I hope to give away many more tracts before leaving the ship."

CAMDEN ROAD (LONDON) NEW CHURCH

SOCIETY.

ANNUAL MEETING.

HE Annual Meeting of this Society was held on Monday, the 18th March, H. R. Williams, Esq., in the chair.

Mr. Williams said that it was a pleasure to him to see so many faces present that he had known for so many years, and he had also to thank his Heavenly Father that his health had been sufficient to enable him to keep in office so long. He felt, as he always did at this annual period, that they met to become more closely united to each other with the sincere desire to make themselves useful in this life, and one of the uses was certainly the visible organization of the New Church in order that the doctrines might be preached and might be made known as widely as possible by means of the pulpit. The report of the Committee was then read by the Secretary. The number of sittings taken is 181. The present number of members is 100, which exactly corresponds with last year's report, as five new members have been received, and four have been lost by death and one by removal to the country. The average attendance during the year was 132 in the morning and 100 in the evening. The attendance at the Lord's Supper averaged 44 in the morning and 26 in the evening. There were 10 baptisms, 2 being of adults and 8 of infants. Four marriages were celebrated.

The Treasurer then read his report, showing a deficit of £58, of which however only £21 was on the ordinary account. To meet this over £70 was immediately made up by a special subscription, and announced to the meeting.

The report of the Benevolent Fund, managed by a committee of ladies, was read and received with marks of approval.

This was followed by the reports of the Superintendent of the Sunday School and the Librarian.

It was then resolved that these various reports be adopted and printed.

Dr. Tafel, after adverting in his report to the year's work in the pulpit, and to the doctrinal class and Sunday School, said he desired in conclusion to inform the members of this Society of the departure into the other world of the wife of their dear friend the Rev. Mr. Warren. Mrs. Warren had endeared herself to all the members of this Society during her husband's connection with it as its minister, and he thought it would be the desire of every one to express their sympathy with Mr. Warren in his great bereavement.

The Chairman, acting upon Dr. Tafel's suggestion, then moved the following resolution, which was carried-That "the Camden Road Society of the New Church wishes to express their sincere sympathy with their former minister, the Rev. Samuel M. Warren, under his great bereavement, and their deep regret for the loss he has sustained of the removal of a wife so justly esteemed of all who knew her."

Mr. Williams was appointed Treasurer for the ensuing year.

The Scrutineers then handed in the names of the members elected upon the Committee for the ensuing year. These are Messrs. C. A. Faraday, F. R. Mosley, F. L. Coster, J. Speirs, A. W. Mosley, A. T. Lyne, W. Gibbs, C. J. Whittington, S. Teed, S. J. Hodson, T. Plummer, I. W. Boyle.

It was resolved that Mr. H. N. Banes, Mr. A. J. Johnson, and Mr. F. Flowers be the representatives of this Society to the London Association of the New Church.

A vote of thanks to Mr. Whittington and the ladies and gentlemen of the choir for their valuable aid in conducting the musical portion of the services, was put and carried by acclamation.

The Chairman said that before concluding there was another matter to attend to, and that was with respect to the hymn-book. The Church Committee had thought this subject of so much importance that it had appointed a sub-committee to consider the whole question. The report prepared by it was read and adopted as the reply of the Society to the circular of the Conference Committee. It admitted the desirability of improving the hymn-book, but thought hymns of poetic merit by New Church writers should accumulate first, and deprecated hasty action at the present time. The usual vote of thanks to the Chairman was then made, and the meeting terminated.

ITEMS OF INTEREST.

We observe from a paragraph in The Daily News that the remains of thirty-five of the victims of the colliery explosion at Kersley were interred there on Saturday, March 16th. Sermons in memoriam were preached at St. Stephen's, Kersley; St. Saviour's, Bingley ; New Jerusalem Church, Kersley; and at the Irwell Bank Sunday School on the day following, the 17th. The subscriptions in aid of the bereaved amounted on Saturday to £336, 10s. od. We hope that the sermons were in all cases a prelude to a substantial subscription on behalf of the widows and orphans of the unfortunate

men; and are pleased to see that the New Church at Kersley has not been behind in expressing its sympathy.

The South London Press of March 16th contains the following notice of the cheap edition of "The Apocalypse Revealed:' A new edition of this world-famous volume has been published by the Swedenborg Society, and those who are interested in the Seer's writings may purchase the volume at a reasonable price and in a convenient form. We cannot pretend to give any criticism on Swedenborg's elucidation of the mysteries of the Apocalypse; indeed, the mere task of reading the volume is too much in these busy times, and we can only envy those who have sufficient leisure to do so. Whether rightly or wrongly, the followers of Swedenborg are not few, and, apart from mysticism, there are many worse creeds. Νο doubt, like other prophets, Swedenborg has suffered through misrepresentation, and those who have any curiosity respecting the views he held, cannot do better than purchase The Apocalypse Revealed.""

The Committee of the Swedenborg Society, in conjunction with the Missionary and Tract Society of the New Church and Mr. Speirs, has issued a 16-page catalogue, which contains an account of the birth and parentage of Swedenborg, his rules of life, the different classes of the readers of his writings, the institution and objects of the Swedenborg Society, Swedenborg's summary of the doctrines of the New Church, and opinions of the press and of some eminent authors respecting his writings. To the principal works are appended illustrative and explanatory notes, which are intended to convey to the reader an outline of the doctrines contained in them, and, taken together, to present a general view of the theology and philosophy of Swedenborg. The publications of the Missionary and Tract Society are prefaced by a brief but complete account of "The New Church signified by the New Jerusalem in the Book of Revelation" from the pen of Dr. Tafel; and prominence is given to such works as Noble's "Appeal," the "Brighton Lectures," etc., by suitable notes. A list of recent New Church works completes what is intended to be a useful tract to place in the hands of inquirers to lead them to an acquaintance with doctrines which the state of the religious world renders every day more and more important.

The first number of Social Notes, edited by Mr. S. C. Hall, F.S.A., contains some capitally-written articles on various interesting social questions, including Strikes, Intemperance, the Vice of Dress, Industrial Schools, Vivisection, etc. Published for the purpose of bringing into a focus the opinions of writers who command public attention and obtain public confidence upon questions of social reform, social requirements, and social progress. Social Notes is calculated, under judicious management, to fill up a gap in the literature of the day, and to procure an extensive circulation.

We would draw special attention to a letter by the editor on The Cost of Funerals, in which Mr. Hall presents a very graphic penand-ink sketch of a modern funeral, and protests against the absurd "" to manner in which steps are taken at the behests of "custom 'Mimic sorrow when the heart's not sad."

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

New Church Writers on the Eternity of Hell.-A READER (Penge). -The sentence quoted from Parsons' "Outlines of the Philosophy of the New Church" (p. 149) is not at variance with the views put forth in Sedan's review of Canon Farrar's Sermons. When Dr. Parsons says, "He cannot have created any of His children for a doom which would be worse than non-existence, for such a doom could never be the gift of perfect love," he is arguing against the idea that GOD condemns man to hell. The view of the New Church is that all men are created for heaven, but that by virtue of their own free choice of evil they may refuse heaven and prefer hell. Hence Dr. Parsons says (pp. 82, 83), "This work of establishing a permanent character is done by all who live; they cannot help doing it; but they may do it as they choose. They cannot help becoming here that which they will continue to be hereafter. they may become whatever they may choose to become."

66

66

But

In reference to the position put forward by Mrs. Rothery in the pamphlet on Anti-Mourning," we suppose "A Reader" refers to the following passage (2d edition, p. 8): We know that the Lord removes none from earth whom a longer stay on earth could serve or save; we know that His love for the most debased of His creatures is incalculably, because infinitely tenderer, more longsuffering, wiser than our love, and that if an evil man be withdrawn from earth, it is in order to save him from plunging into and confirming in himself yet deeper evils, and to place him in some sphere where he will prove less hurtful to others, and be himself more adequately restrained and sooner reformed." These sentiments, with the exception of the idea of reformation after death contained in

the words we have italicized, are in strict accord with the views of the writer in Morning Light; but the idea of reformation after death as expressed by Mrs. Rothery cannot be reconciled with Sedan's article. This is not because "opinions on this subject differ even amongst members of the New Church,' but because Mrs. Hume-Rothery is on this subject at issue with the New Church. This is clearly acknowledged in a letter published in the Intellectual Repository for April 1866, where Mrs. Rothery, writing on this subject, says, "The reason I have not on this point, as on others, appealed to the testimony of Swedenborg is, that I consider him here to be at issue with Scripture."

"It repented Jehovah that He had made man.". A. H. (Holloway) would like to see this text, lately preached upon by Dr. Vaughan, Master of the Temple, explained according to the doctrines of the New Church. The statements respecting the anger, jealousy, and revenge ascribed to God have been frequently explained, and their real harmony with the Divine Love established. The stand-point of fallen human nature, however, which misrepresents and questions His love is one which also misrepresents and questions His infinite wisdom, and to this class the text referred to belongs. Swedenborg's own words are (A. C. 588): "It is said of the Lord that He repents and grieves, because it so appears in all human mercy; and the declaration is made here, as in very many other places in the Word, according to the appearance. What the mercy of the Lord is none can know, because it infinitely transcends all human understanding ; but as to the mercy of man, man knows that it is to repent and grieve; and unless man were to form an idea of mercy from another affection, the quality of which he knows, he could have no conception of it, and thus could not be instructed. This is the reason why human properties are so often predicated of the attributes of Jehovah, or the Lord; as that Jehovah, or the Lord, punishes, leads into temptation, destroys, is angry; when, nevertheless, He never punishes any one, never leads any into temptation, never destroys any, and is never angry. Since therefore such things are predicated of the Lord, it follows that repentance also and grief must be predicated of Him."

Does Canon Farrar teach Universal Restitution ?-To J. de M. B.

(Manchester.) The author of " Amid the Corn" wishes to express his regret if he has unwittingly misrepresented Dr. Farrar.

It is perfectly true that Dr. Farrar, in his work "Eternal Hope" (p. 84), says, "I cannot preach the certainty of Universalism;" but it is equally true that in the five pages following this statement he argues for the doctrine with all the force in his power. Whether he holds and teaches that doctrine may be seen from the closing words of the sermon : "Yes, my brethren, 'Say ye to the righteous, that it shall be well with him; for they shall eat the fruit of their doings. Woe unto the wicked! it shall be ill with him: for the reward of his hands shall be given him:' but say also, as Christ's own Apostles said, that there shall be a restitution of all things;'-that God willeth not that any should perish ;—that Christ both died and rose and revived that He might be Lord both of the dead and the living;-that as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive ;-and that the day shall come when all things shall be subdued unto Him that God may be all in all-omnia in omnibus-all things in all men.'

The italics in the above extract are those of Dr. Farrar. The passage sufficiently proves where his feelings and opinions are.

New Church teaching as to Vegetarianism.-H. J. W. (Birkenhead.) In answer to your inquiry respecting a vegetarian diet the following passage occurs in the Arcana Calestia (No. 1002): "Eating the flesh of animals, considered in itself, is a something profanc. For in the most ancient times they never ate the flesh of any beast or bird; but only grain—especially bread made of wheat—the fruits of trees, vegetables, milk, and such things as were made from milk, as butter, etc. To kill animals and eat their flesh was to them unlawful, being regarded as that which pertains to wild beasts. They only took from them services and uses, as is evident from Gen. i. 29, 30. But in process of time, when men began to be cruel, like the wild beasts, yea, more cruel, they then first began to kill animals and eat their flesh; and because man had acquired such a nature, therefore the killing and eating of animals was permitted; and is also permitted at this day." As elements towards the formation of an opinion on this subject, we may also point to the Lord's command to the Israelites to kill and eat the paschal lamb, and to His own example in eating of broiled fish.

THE MIRACULOUS DRAUGHT OF FISHES.

April 7, Morning.-It was when acting according to the Lord's command that Simon Peter put forth into the deep and let the nets down which enclosed so great a draught of fishes that they began to break, although during the night he had caught nothing. This proves that unenlightened by Divine wisdom and unsupported by Divine power we are unable to acquire truth. The net breaking shows that man usually begins to teach from his understanding unlightened by heavenly knowledge, but has to call in his partners James and John, the principles of love and charity, to give it consistence and coherence. The ships beginning to sink, signifies the application of the instruction, and the affection of good resulting from it, to the discovery and removal of evil. Peter's exclamation, Depart from me," etc., signifies his humiliation at the exposure of his evils, and penitence. "Fear not; thou shalt catch men," signifies comfort and an advancement from the apprehension of truth in the way of science or knowledge, in the memory and understanding, represented by catching fish, to the apprehension of truth as a principle of the life in the will, leading to the rejection of evil and the practice of all that is wise and good.

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JOSEPH IN CANAAN.

April 7, Afternoon.-The entire history of Joseph presents many parallels with the history of Jesus, which shows that Joseph was a type of the Lord. His brethren were the sons of Leah and re

presented the principles of the Jewish Church; the offence which he occasioned to them by his predictions seems to have its analogy in the offence caused by our Lord's teachings. Joseph was hated and despised by his brethren, and the Lord was hated also by His brethren in the flesh, the Jewish nation. He was a shepherd, and our Lord is the Good Shepherd. We are told that "fine linen is the righteousness of saints," and Joseph had a special garment which typified not only his merit but also his father's love. Joseph finally was sold to the Egyptians by his brethren, and our Lord was betrayed by Judas.

BIRTH.

On March 20, at 26 North Villas, Camden Square, London, the wife of Mr. Robert Jobson, of a daughter-still-born.

On March 24, at 128 The Grove, Camberwell, London, S.E, the wife of Charles Higham, of a son.

DEATH.

On March 16, at Hillside, near Brookline, Mass., U. S. A., Sarah Ann, wife of the Rev. Samuel M. Warren, and daughter of the late Mr. John Broadfield, of Manchester.

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