CHARACTERISTICS OF THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF THE AGE.*

W

E are met to-night on the occasion of this Annual Meeting in support of one of the most useful institutions of the New Church. These

meetings coming, as they do, only once a year, are always looked upon by the friends of the cause with a very kindly eye. It is perhaps difficult to say which of all the various institutions of the New Church are most deserving public support. Some think the Auxiliary Some think the Auxiliary Society, others the Missionary and Tract Society, others again, and amongst them our Secretary, Mr. Elliott, the Swedenborg Society. And I have no doubt that in his opinion it has been very wisely ordained that the anniversary of the Swedenborg Society should take place a little later in the year, and after the annual meetings of our other institutions, so that the collective intelligence and wisdom of these might finally meet and flow into the proceedings of this.

Fully acknowledging, therefore, that this is a most, if not the most important of all our annual gatherings, it is only right and proper that those who address you should come prepared with something worthy the occasion. Now do not misunderstand me. I do not mean to insinuate that what I am going to say is worthy the occasion. To do so would be egotistical, besides, a speaker should of course always leave the value of the speeches to be decided by the good sense and judgment of his critical and discerning audience.

But what I do wish you to infer is, that on these rare and golden occasions the speaker should endeavour to be more than usually wise and happy, and to attain this very desirable end, the first thing necessary is to have some clear and definite subject on which he is going to speak. I have therefore selected as the topic of my address "Some Characteristics in the Religious Life of our Age," a theme closely connected with the resolution before and on which, I am sure, you must all feel you, deeply interested.

The subject is so wide that I scarcely know where to begin. Had we lived a century ago, when religious thought and life in England were cold and dead, one could perhaps have managed to have condensed in a brief address a comprehensive summary of the characteristics of the age. But in this age, this most extraordinary age of active thought and life in religion, one is really at a loss to know how to deal with his subject. There is no want of materials for a speech, but they are so varied and heterogeneous that the difficulty is to know how to put them together, and I think you must all admit that out of the chaos and confusion which at present reign in the various sections of the Christian Church it seems almost impossible to create harmony.

Well now, my friends, the first characteristic of our age with which we must all be struck, is the restless activity of the human mind on all the fundamental doctrines of religion. One writer describes it as "a revolution in theological habits of thought impossible to exaggerate." + Another describes it as "a conflict between a supernatural Christianity and a merely natural theology." A third authority informs us: "There is "There is no denying it, a change has begun, and may be advancing, a change of doctrinal views and modes of statement on

+

A speech delivered at the Annual Meeting of the Swedenborg Society held at 36 Bloomsbury Street, London, 18th June 1878. + Times, in its leading article on the Scotch heresy cases, 5th April 1878.

Rev. W. M. Statham, inChristian World, on Leicester Conference.

some points at least. Certain articles of our Creed are approached from a different side, viewed in a different light, tested and appraised by a new standard, and rejected and modified accordingly."*

This activity of religious thought is not confined to one denomination; it is to be found in all; in the Church of

England, the various Nonconformist bodies of England, and in the hard and bony Calvinism of Scotland; even the Church of Rome, which of all religious organizations has done most to fetter the human mind, and to gag and influence. That the opinions of these various writers are muzzle liberty of thought and speech, is not free from its well founded it would not be difficult to prove. We need not go far from our own doors to find corroboration of them.

In Scotland we have just had the edifying, and in some respects the amusing, spectacle of three Presbyterian divines arraigned on a charge of heresy, two of them for being too loose in their ideas of Biblical Inspiration, and the third for being unsound on no less than four of the doctrines of the Presbyterian faith. All three have been tried by their ecclesiastical superiors, and after a fashion

which I trust will be confined to the other side of the border. In the first case the prosecution has been withdrawn; in the second the accused has been suspended; and in the third, in the peculiar language of our Northern ecclesiastical Law Courts, "the libels have been found relevant," whatever that may mean, by varying majorities.+

Such is a little episode, full of meaning, from the religious life of Scotland, and if we come further south we shall find that things are even worse in England. The whole religious fabric is here violently shaken. Its walls are crumbling to pieces, its foundations sapped and undermined, this spirit of modern innovation threatening like a blind Samson to pull the edifice to the ground alike on the heads of friends and foes. There is scarcely a newspaper, book, or periodical, dealing with the subject of religion, but is more or less imbued with its influence. Heresy was at one time in the history of our Protestantism a thing to be dreaded and shunned, a plague-spot to be extirpated from the land by fine and imprisonment, and in extreme cases by the purifying fires of the stake.

But it is so no longer. Heresy is now becoming quite fashionable. She proudly lifts her head in our colleges and stately cathedrals, in our sober-minded, democratic, Scotch kirk, and in the highest and humblest of our Dissenting chapels. It may very truly be said of her what the poet once said of Vice

"Heresy is a monster of so frightful mien,
As to be hated needs but to be seen;
But seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace."

Our religious teachers are now becoming quite familiar with her face, and the consequence is she is being embraced on all sides. As a leading Nonconformist divine, himself neither blind nor averse to her charms, very happily says: "The tables are turned. A man is none the worse nowadays for the reputation of being a little free and broad, having just a little soupçon of heterodoxy to flavour his sentiments and make them piquant; while an orthodox brother, one strictly orthodox I mean, is regarded with less respect than curiosity, as an interesting specimen of a rapidly-vanishing race, which by the laws of development, and the survival of the fittest, must

* Address to Congregational Union, 1875, by the Rev. Alex. Thomson, M.A.

+ The three cases here referred to are those of the Rev. Dr. Dods and Professor Smith, both of the Free Church of Scotland, and the Rev. Fergus Ferguson of the United Presbyterian Church.

retire and make way for a higher type of theological humanity."*

And one of the types of theological humanity which is now rapidly disappearing from our midst is what we may call the Hell-Fire type, those who believe in a material hellfire punishment, with God as the Being who consigns them to its torments. This doctrine, at one time so universally taught and believed in the Christian Church, is now virtually abandoned. It lingers perhaps here and there in a few minds who cling with a stubborn tenacity to the old ideas, and who, ostrich-like, close their eyes and plunge their heads into their theological thickets in the hope of thus escaping their dreaded enemy. But in the minds of our leading religious thinkers, both in the Church of England and in the great Nonconformist bodies, this doctrine is now to all intents and purposes a teaching of the past.

Another type of theological humanity which is fast becoming extinct is the Graveyard type, and of whom you cannot have a finer specimen than Dr. Young, the author of "Night Thoughts." The ideas of this class on the subjects of the Resurrection and the Future Life are grossly carnal and materialistic. They haunt the sepulchre in the hope of finding the living amongst the dead; indeed, we are informed on very good authority that Dr. Young's favourite musing-ground was the parish churchyard, and that his library was adorned with a human skull, once perhaps the property of some mute inglorious Milton, or of a Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood. In all soberness he wrote

"This severed head and trunk shall join once more Though realms now rise between and oceans roar. Again

"No spot on earth but has supplied a grave,
And human skulls the spacious ocean pave,
All's full of man (!), and at this dreadful turn
The swarm shall issue, and the hive shall burn.”
Again-

"Now monuments prove faithful to their trust,
And render back their long-committed dust;
Now charnels rattle; scattered limbs, and all
The various bones obsequious to the call,
Self-moved, advance; the neck, perhaps to meet
The distant head; the distant legs, the feet ;
Dreadful to view, see through the dusky sky
Fragments of bodies in confusion fly,

To distant regions journeying, there to claim
Deserted members, and complete the frame." +

Such were the prevailing ideas on the subject of the Resurrection up to a very recent date, even amongst our more educated and intelligent religious classes; and if you will turn to the pure and undefiled theological literature of the Graveyard School, and compare their materialistic notions with modern ideas, you will be surprised to find how far this generation has departed from the ancient faith of the fathers. The flock have leaped the graveyard fences and gone off in search of pastures new. commend this fact to the attention of the Congregational Union, for whilst the shepherds are about it, they may just as well be consistent, and endeavour to lead back the black and wandering sheep of the Leicester Conference into the graveyard fold once more.

We

But this restless activity of the human mind has done, and is still doing, a useful and indispensable work in the great cause of Religious Progress. As it has enabled men to get rid of their carnal and materialistic notions of hellfire, and to see that hell and its miseries are, like heaven * Alexander Thomson, M. A., in "Doctrine Old and New." Memoir of Dr. Young prefixed to Kendrick's edition of his works. See poem of the Last Day.

and its joys, spiritual in their nature, so is it gradually preparing the ground of the human mind for the reception of the still higher and sublimer truth as taught in the New Church, that man is essentially a spiritual being, clothed for the time whilst living in this material world with a garment of flesh, and when at death that is laid aside, the spirit, the real man, rises into the eternal world, there to be judged and rewarded for the life he has loved and lived on earth.

Besides the changes on religious doctrine here indicated, there is another and still more important one impending, that on the subject of the Atonement. There is no denying the fact that this doctrine as once popularly understood is not now preached as it used to be. The substitution and vicarious elements are being eliminated, and in some quarters more rational and spiritual, and at the same time more scriptural, ideas are taking their place, whilst in other quarters the tendency is towards Unitarianism.

This falling away from the old faith has naturally excited great attention and uneasiness in the Congregationalist body; and to counteract the tendency of the Leicester Conference in this direction, several of the more orthodox of that denomination have drawn up a set of resolutions setting forth the distinctive doctrines of their Church. By this means they hope no doubt to be able to arrest the change that has begun, and so preserve doctrinal unity.

Now this appears to me one of the most significant signs of our times. It is significant, because of all religious bodies the Congregationalists have hitherto been the most unfettered by creeds and catechisms; they possess amongst them some of the most thoughtful and intelligent, liberal and progressive minds, and no religious body has done more for the great cause of civil and religious liberty than has been done by them.

It is therefore a singular fact, and characteristic of our age, that they should have now, in this nineteenth century, to resort to resolutions to make known to their own ministers and congregations what they believe, and what it is their duty to teach.

These resolutions have been carried by a large majority, but to this no great importance need be attached. The decisions of majorities have before now proved to be fallacious; and I have no doubt that you would get to-morrow from another section of the Church an overwhelming majority to affirm that the Athanasian Creed is pure and simple Gospel truth notwithstanding its gross tripersonalism and damnatory clause. But these resolutions will fail to prevent changes in their creed or preserve doctrinal unity.

In the first place, the moral and spiritual forces at present at work in the human mind are far too deep and powerful to be successfully met by mere cut and dried resolutions, which may mean anything or nothing, and may have just as many different interpretations as there are people to read them.

In the next place, these resolutions can never produce doctrinal unity, for the simple reason that the cause of the present disunion lies at the very root of their theology, and you can only cure this evil as you can cure any other evil, by removing its cause.

Now the cause, or at least one of the causes, most prolific of disunion in the Christian Church, is to be found in the doctrine of the three separate and distinct Divine Persons, each by himself God and Lord, and all three presented to the mind as one God.

This division of the Godhead, as many of you are doubtless aware, was introduced into the Christian Church at a very unhappy period of her history, being adopted

by the Council of Nice, held about 350 years after Christ; and from it has sprung the disunion and discord, confusion and anarchy, which have since afflicted and desolated Christendom, and the baneful and blighting influence of which has extended to all the subordinate doctrines of the Church, and notably to the doctrine of the Atonement.

But, my friends, if the Council of Nice has destroyed the union of the Church, the remedy proposed by the Leicester Conference is not likely to restore it.

Their idea seems to be that so long as you pray to and worship something or somebody, it does not so much matter whom you worship, whether a Divine being or an abstraction, whether Jehovah, Jesus, Jove, Allah, or the Great and Good Spirit of all.

Now herein lurks a very specious and dangerous fallacy, for it is just as necessary to know whom you are praying to, as to know what you are praying for. The human mind cannot pray to mere myths and abstractions, and if it does, myths and abstractions are not likely to answer its petitions. The mind requires an object of worship on which to rest, a living, personal being who can both hear and answer prayer, and it was for this very reason that our Lord taught His disciples to pray to our "Father who art in heaven." And as the truth gradually dawned upon their minds, and they came to know and understand His true and Divine character, He then permitted them, as in the case of Thomas, to direct their worship and prayer immediately to Himself, because He and the Father are one and the same Divine Being.

What, therefore, is now required is, not the abolition of creeds and dogmas, for these are but the external garb of truth, and truth, religious or scientific, requires human language to give it outward expression, just as much as the soul requires a body, or the body requires a dress.

But what is wanted is, that as the human mind grows and develops, and receives from above new light, and fresh and more glorious ideas and conceptions of things both natural and spiritual, so human creeds and dogmas should be made to grow and expand also. The garments fitted for the child would not be becoming the full-grown man, and the creeds that suited the human mind centuries ago, are not quite suitable for the human mind of to-day. The great want, therefore, of the religious life of our age is the restoration to the creeds and minds of men of the grand central truth of all religion, that God is One, that Jesus Christ is that God, that in Him, as the Apostle declares, "dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily," a truth proclaimed by the prophets, confirmed by our Lord Himself, preached by the apostles, and which is the burden of the Divine Word from Genesis to Revelation.

To unfold and restore to mankind this grand idea, this pure and genuine truth from the Divine Word in all its fulness and beauty, is one of the primary objects of the Swedenborg Society. It is for this that your books are published and circulated far and wide. The work of your Society has become a necessity as well as a characteristic of the age. And it is our unfailing hope and trust that by the Divine blessing on its labours there may yet arise, nay, rather let me say, there is even now arising, in the midst of the religious chaos and confusion at present surrounding us, that glorious city of spiritual and divine truth, clear in her faith, golden in her charity, compact and harmonious in all her parts and proportions, and by whose heavenly light men are enabled to see eye to eye;" for in her, as predicted by the prophet of old, there is one Lord, and His name one. ROBERT JOBSON.

66

WHOLESOME RETROGRESSION.

T the Annual Meeting of the American Unitarian Association held at Boston, United States, May 29th, the annual address was given by the Rev. Brooke Herford of Chicago, his subject being "Some Hopeful Signs of Retrogression." He said: "There was such a thing as good and wholesome retrogression. The human mind often wants to go ahead too fast. Sometimes, therefore, the way of real progress is by frank retrogression. Theologians have done too much dead reckoning, as captains do when they get adrift at sea, and have to trust to their own calculations, unaided by facts. Old Calvinism was a conspicuous piece of dead reckoning. In its origin it was a revolt against priestly haggling over the salvation of human souls, and fell back on the supreme power of God, the Father, over Pope and priest.

"But it went on with its logic and reasoned itself into Predestination, Election, Perfection, Infant Damnation, and the rest. That course of logic landed men on the rock. They were compelled to take new bearings by the Everlasting Fatherhood of God and go back.

66

Another retrogression was going on now, from the doctrine of the Trinity, which had also been evolved by dead reckoning. Theologians had reasoned this out thus: God the Father must be God-no way out of that; Christ was God-no way out of that; the Holy Spirit was God -no way out of that. So they reached at last the doctrine of distinctions in the Divine Being, and the sublime absurdities of the Athanasian Creed. To-day men were gradually retrograding to the safe refuge of the simple

words, 'Our Father.'"

We quite agree with Mr. Herford's remarks upon the subject of Calvinism.

In regard to the Trinity, however, the wholesome retrogression that is required is quite in harmony with a belief that the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God. Theologians should "go back" to the declarations of the Lord, "I and My Father are one," "He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father," and to the teaching of the Apostle concerning Him, "In Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily."

The Lord Jesus Christ is "Our Father," and to Him must the world look as the "Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty."

THE ASSOCIATION OF LIBERAL THINKERS.

A

Sa protest against the sects, another sect has been formed, reminding us of those who, "vowing they would ne'er dissent, dissented." Amongst those present at the preliminary meeting were Mr. Moncure Conway, Dr. Wild, Revs. C. Voysey, Binns, and Street, Mr. J. G. Holyoake, and several "advanced" Americans. Dr. Martineau declined to attend on the ground that "negation supplies no bond;" and at the second meeting a letter from the Rev. C. Voysey announced that he felt that the Conference was no place for him, and he would therefore withdraw from it.

The objects of the Association were declared to be: "The scientific study of religious phenomena; the collec tion and diffusion of information concerning world-wide religious developments; the emancipation of mankind from the spirit of superstition; the establishment of fellowship among liberal thinkers of all races; and the promotion of the culture, progress, and moral welfare of mankind, and of whatever in any religion tends to that end."

engaged in the work of the ministry for twelve years in a Society or Societies in connection with and recognised by the Conference, such period to date from the year when the names of the said licentiates or leaders first appeared as such in the Minutes of the Conference. In awarding such grants, the Conference shall be guided by the number of years during which the applicant shall have been so engaged in the work of the ministry.

THE ENGLISH CHURCH UNION.

HE Annual Meeting of the English Church Union was held on June 18th. The Union comprises a membership of some 17,000, including 2570 of the clergy. It is undoubtedly the mainstay of the conspiracy against the Protestant doctrine and ritual of the Church of England, and is particularly demonstrative in its support of those clergy who come under the censure of the Courts for excessive ritualism. The general tone of the Annual Meeting was that of determined opposition to the decisions of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, or of Courts bound by the decisions of that Committee. While refusing to admit the right of the State to interfere with the doctrine and practices of the clergy, there was a disposition to refrain from carrying their position to its legitimate issue by advocating Disestablishment (as is done by Mr. Mackonochie and many others). One of the speakers, while admitting that there were a great many grievances and wrongs connected with the Establishment, warned them to have a care lest in pressing the matter on too rapidly and too far they pulled down their house about their ears. Disestablishment, he said, was as yet "an undiscovered country," and it was a "bourn" from which, once reached, they could not return. He feared that it meant a good deal more than a simple redress of present grievances, and therefore he begged them to approach the question with caution and with very reverent hands, because it meant not only the redress of the present grievances, but the wholesale robbery of the Church-it meant the entire surrender of their glorious cathedrals— which would in the future be nothing more perhaps than mere showhouses. He trusted that it would not be so; but there was sufficient danger for him to be perfectly justified in giving them a warning that they should approach the whole question slowly, gently, reverently, discreetly, soberly, advisedly, and in the fear of God.

The Church Times laments that the editors of the daily papers are such poor judges of what interests the community as to have almost entirely ignored the important anniversary. The Rock is in poor spirits over the affair, viewing it as an indication that we are on the verge of a government by priests, who would trample our Protestant inheritance under their feet.

THE

THE GENERAL CONFERENCE.

HE seventy-first Annual Meeting of the General Conference is appointed to be held in the New Jerusalem temple, Bolton Street, Salford, and to commence its sittings on Monday, the 12th of August next, at seven o'clock in the evening.

The Society at Besses-o'-th-Barn, near Manchester, applies to be received into connection with the Conference.

The Societies at Bolton and Worsley apply for the ordination of Mr. Thomas Mackereth. The Society at Bradford applies for the ordination of Mr. J. Robson Rendell. The Society at Blackburn applies for the ordination of Mr. Henry Cameron. The Society at Preston applies for the ordination of Mr. John Martin. The Society at Bath applies for the ordination of the Rev. Thomas Child. The only alteration of rules of which notice is given is that proposed by the Council in relation to the Pension Fund. The following are the main points of alteration :

A minister who has been actively engaged in the work of the ministry with a Society or Societies in connection with and recognised by the Conference for ten years, and who has become wholly or partially incapacitated, shall be entitled to a pension of twenty pounds per annum, and an additional one pound per annum for every year above ten years during which he shall have been engaged in such active service. The term of years shall be calculated from the date of his recognition by the Conference as an ordained minister. The widow of a minister shall be entitled to a pension provided that her husband shall have been actively engaged in the work of the ministry with a Society or Societies in connection with and recognised by the Conference for ten or more years. Such pension shall not exceed two-thirds of the pension to which her husband, if living and incapacitated, would have been entitled.

Licentiates or leaders who have become wholly or partially incapacitated, and are in necessitous circumstances, shall be eligible to receive grants from Fund B provided they have been actively

Previously pensions have been granted entirely at the discretion of Conference.

THE

CHURCH.

QUARTERLY MEETING.

THE Quarterly Meeting of this Association was held at Palace Gardens Church, Kensington, on the evening of Monday, June 24th. Tea having been partaken of by the delegates from the various Societies, the chair was taken by Mr. E. Austin, the President for the year, at seven o'clock.

The Rev. Dr. Bayley having offered a short prayer, the minutes of the last meeting were read and confirmed. The President, in his capacity as editor of the Almanac issued by the Association, reported that the edition for 1878 would produce a profit of 255. to 30s., and that the MS. of the edition for 1879 was all but ready for the printer. Mr. Richard Gunton, from experience, spoke very highly of the value of the Almanac as a missionary agent; he considered the money laid out by the Missionary and Tract Society in the purchase of copies was well spent ; and he wished that every New Church Society would undertake the purchase of a certain number of copies for sale among their members, with the understanding that unsold copies would be used for missionary purposes. Other friends present offered suggestions for rendering the Almanac more useful and for increasing its sale.

A letter from the London Sunday-School Union-an offshoot from the "Association"-as to the delivery of addresses at the various Sunday-schools was read, and it was announced that a second series of such addresses had been arranged.

Mr. Tarelli, Secretary of a sub-committee formed for the promotion of meetings at the houses of New Churchmen for the reading of the Writings, reported that he had corresponded on the subject with all the London Societies, and that his offer of assistance had been accepted by those at Devonshire Street and Argyle Square.

The Secretary having at a previous meeting presented a list of the regular nights on which meetings of various kinds are held by the various London Societies, it was stated that by means of slight modifications the second and fourth Thursday evenings in each month could be rendered perfectly open evenings to all the New Churchmen of the metropolis. It was accordingly unanimously resolved that the various Societies interested be invited to make the suggested modifications in order that the two evenings in question may be in future available for such meetings as demand the support of the united New Church in London.

The despatch of the above and other business having already prolonged the proceedings to a late hour, a proposed address from the President upon “our Association work for the forthcoming winter” was postponed until the next meeting.

The New Jerusalem Messenger having mentioned that the Rev. Chauncey Giles is expecting shortly to visit France and England, and it having been further reported that that gentleman, with Rev. C. A. Dunham and Rev. W. H. Benade, would probably attend the forthcoming Conference at Salford, it was resolved that the President, the Secretary, and the Rev. Dr. Bayley be a sub-committee to arrange a meeting of the London Societies to welcome these American brethren, such meeting to be held on the second Thursday in August or other convenient evening.

The meeting was then closed by Mr. Bateman's repeating the benediction.

ITEMS OF INTEREST.

"Those who hold that men can be saved by thinking rightly instead of doing rightly, by word instead of act, and wish instead of work, these are the true fog-children; clouds, these, without water; bodies, these, of putrescent vapour and skin, without blood or flesh; blown bagpipes for the fiends to pipe with-corrupt and corrupting -swollen with wind and the rank mist they draw!" This is Mr. Ruskin's comment on some lines from Milton's "Lycidas.'

The Rev. Dr. Bayley is at present delivering an interesting course of Sunday-evening lectures at his church in The Mall, Kensington, on the nature of the resurrection body, the continuity of a man's life herewith, his life hereafter, the nature of heaven and hell, and the preparation a man requires to undergo to fit him for either angelic or infernal life. A full report of the second appears in the present

number.

Respecting salvation in every age the Rev. E. White has the following beautiful and beautifully-expressed thought in his "Life in Christ:" "Wherever there have been men whose souls moved towards the all-pervading light of God, feeling after and finding Him' under whatever shades of heathenish darkness, there we must believe has been the action of the regenerating Spirit, and there has been salvation. Men may have described the Great Reality in erroneous phrases, and may have called themselves by erroneous names; but wherever the principle of true goodness has existed it is because God has been in them of a truth,' and good men are wonderfully alike under all dispensations. The benefits of the system of nature can be enjoyed in great measure apart from a right understanding of the theory of nature. The sun has shone upon the earth and ripened the crops of former generations, even while men thought with Ptolemy that the earth was the centre and the sun a satellite. In the same manner the benefits of Redemption may be enjoyed apart from a right understanding of the relation of the facts on which it is founded. An erroneous theology may be as the Ptolemaic system in comparison with the Copernican, but the Spiritual Sun does not altogether restrict His shining to the men who hold a correct theory concerning Him. God is the God of the innocently blind men, and their compassionate Judge, as well as the God of those who look up and see all things clearly."

The Ragged School Union held its thirty-fourth annual meeting and distribution of prizes recently at Exeter Hall; the Earl of Shaftesbury presided. The report which was presented showed that they had 160 school buildings, of which eight were School Board premises, in which were conducted 183 Sunday schools, with an average attendance of 29,531 scholars. There were 54 day schools with 4669, and 175 night schools with an average attendance of 5148. Fifty-one of the night schools were wholly conducted by voluntary teachers. The total number of voluntary teachers employed during the year amounted to 2608. The lending libraries in connection with 78 schools had a total of 18,968. In 74 schools penny banks had been conducted, the number of depositors was 32, 155, and the total amount deposited 11,741. Mothers' meetings had been conducted in 83 schools, at which 3865 had been present. Out of 42 schools, in which 128,720 dinners had been given by the Destitute Children's Dinner Society, 20 were ragged schools. The Bands of Hope had increased from 61 to 68, and the members from 5589 to 5694.

The Liverpool Protestant Standard of June 22nd has an account of a visit to the Liverpool New Church, when Mr. Martin of Preston delivered a lecture on "The Bible: its Nature and Interpretation." We give a few extracts from it: "On Sunday morning we visited the New Jerusalem Church, Bedford Street. The congregation who meet together for worship in this church are known by the name of Swedenborgians. They are an exceedingly amiable, kind, and tender-hearted people, holding a very large portion of truth, but not altogether clear on the subject of the Atonement; believing, as they do, that in order to obtain salvation man must repent of sin, have faith in his Saviour, and from love live a life of righteousness according to the Lord's commandments. Thus, in some measure, it would appear to us they ignore the completeness' of the work effected by the 'shed blood," the being sprinkled by which cleanseth away every stain of guilt.

"However, we have no desire to judge our Swedenborgian friends hastily or harshly, for we know assuredly that they have deep and sincere love for the Lord Jesus, and that they are deep students of the Word of God, although they endeavour to solve its mysteries in a manner quite foreign' to its teachings, and in no small measure bordering on the domains of romance."

Then follows an account of Swedenborg written by a Rev. John Riles, which gives a fair outline of his teaching: "We found the mode of conducting the service at the New Jerusalem Church, Bedford Street, exceedingly plain and simple. Not a vestige or sign of priestcraft in any shape or form. Indeed, we may say, holy reverence and delightful decorum characterized the service throughout. "The hymns sang on the occasion were exceedingly beautiful, and rendered in a most sweet and harmonious manner.

"We feel quite sure that our Heavenly Father will meet these most amiable, earnest, true-hearted searchers after Him in His own good time, and that He will show them clearly that Christ's work is a 'finished work' as an offering for sin, and that Christ also saves His people from their sins; and that the Holy Spirit is the only correspondence whereby we can learn of the Father and the Son and become acquainted with spiritual things."

A report of the discourse on the Word and its Spiritual Sense concluded a very interesting account.

We understand that the recent Bazaar of the Kersley New Church Society's Building Fund has realized the handsome sum of £950.

The Rev. J. Brierley, B. A., of Leytonstone, has given expression to the following pregnant remarks on the relation of Christianity to philanthropy. He writes: A political movement was in a sense a

philanthropic movement, but they had seen by the example of the first French Revolution that the crying of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,' the pulling down of the churches, the extinction of the aristocracy, the emptying of the throne, and all the horrors and miseries of that Revolution, that any social movement, however high its aim, could not succeed without the spiritual element. It was no use saying give this, that, and the other advantage to the working man; for those advantages of themselves would not go very far. Was it not a fact that some of the most successful and inveterate scoundrels of the present day had been among the class who possessed all the advantages, and more, that they were told ought to be given to the working man? These were such men as could do as much evil and harm in the world in five minutes, and by a few strokes of their pen, as all the thieves of London could do in twelve months. All this tended to show that without the spiritual element no movement could be considered as being the method of philanthropy by which the human race would be most benefited. It was incumbent upon them as Christian workers to join largely for philanthropic movements, for such movements tended to elevate and benefit all who were connected with them."

SUNDAY-SCHOOL LESSONS.

JESUS AND OTHERS' FEELINGS.

July 14th, Morning.-John vi. 53-65. The soul requires to be fed by the Divine Good, and to be stimulated by the Divine Truth. These are repugnant to the natural man; he prefers the delights of the sensual life, the flesh-pots of Egypt; his taste fails to appreciate the heavenly manna, the bread of life; he does not hunger and thirst after righteousness; the Lord's teaching (vers. 53-58) is to him a hard saying, and it offends him. This the Lord knows, and again warns them (ver. 63). The reason of their being offended is plain to Him (ver. 64); their affections were not on the things of the spirit, therefore His words were not welcome. All men are by nature enemies to the Lord's "words;" they do not believe in them, they prefer their own opinions, they prefer their own mode of love, they are disposed to be traitors to the truth. There is only one remedy for this (ver. 65); the Father is the Divine Love which is always seeking to bring man to the spirit and life of the Divine Wisdom. It is written, "Come unto Me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you " and again, "Whosoever cometh unto Me I will in no wise cast out. This coming is dependent upon a change of feeling in us, secured by our reception of the Divine Love. Coming to the Lord is not intellectual but affectional, and we have no power to effect it of ourselves; only the Lord can create in us a clean heart and renew a right spirit within us. Illustrative passages, Isa. lv. 1-3, 6-9; Ephes. ii. 1-5.

rest;

SAMSON'S LATTER DAYS.

July 14th, Afternoon.-Judges xvi. 21-31. The Philistines take Samson when we join truth to hypocritical profession (Delilah); the eyes are put out when the letter of the Word is perverted for the purpose of giving license to the natural heart. Gaza means literally strong, fortified. In the days of his strength Samson carried away

the gates of Gaza despite the ambush laid for him (vers. 1-3), now he is carried there a helpless prisoner. To be brought down to Gaza is to become joined to idolatry and vice, to descend from the liberty and strength of truth joined to good, to become the slaves of naturalism, "bound with fetters of brass.' The regrowth of Samson's hair represents that repentance which brings man to again remember the Lord; this brings spiritual strength; "they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.' The call for Samson to make sport for the Philistines signifies the profanation of truth; the profanation of truth is the sin against the Holy Ghost, it is a defiance of the teaching of the Word, it brings about spiritual destruction. "Samson slew more at his death than in his life;" the profanation of truth brings utter destruction of all spiritual life and feeling.

Note: we are not to imitate the career of Samson; he is a representative character; we are to do the spiritual deeds represented by his feats of strength, to be strong in the Lord, to combat the enemy, who, like a roaring lion, seeks whom he may devour, to resist and oppose the principles that would separate religion from life, to guard against the hypocrisy of sensualism, and to be willing to sacrifice all for the truth's sake. Jesus Christ Himself is our only Example; even the best of the Old Testament heroes and New Testament saints were men of like passions with ourselves.

DEATH.

On Saturday, June 29th, at 5 Grove Terrace, Great Horton Road, Bradford, the Rev. David George Goyder, aged 82, passed peacefully into the spiritual world at seven o'clock A. M. Friends will please accept this intimation.

Printed by MUIR AND PATERSON, 14 Clyde Street, Edinburgh, and published by JAMES SPEIRS, 36 Bloomsbury Street, London, W.C.