Circula exhibit a vast amount of silent but active life. tion, respiration, sensation, reproduction, growth in height and in thickness, sleep and vigil, are all exhibited by the forms of the vegetable kingdom: are we then, like a writer in a recent periodical, to discuss the question of "Mind in Plants"? To what inference that writer came I know not, but it seems to me there can be but one right conclusion, viz. that which attributes all the apparent phenomena of mind in plants to the one Divine Mind, from whose infinity of ideas each herb that grows has been intended to embody some one Divine conception; and thus, because dimly or distantly it typified its Maker, was included in the first Divine judgment, "God saw all that He had made, and behold it was very good." Let us ask, then, for a moment what there is of plantlife in ourselves, whose minds are created to image the Divine mind; for we shall be surprised to mark how often we compare ourselves in conversation, and are compared in Scripture, to flowers and trees; and we may learn much from such comparisons. The Scripture declaration, "First the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear," teaches us that the sequence is first faith, then hope, and then charity; while the admonition, "Be ye rooted and grounded in love," shows that love is the root whence faith itself must spring. We speak of our affections having taken "deep root" when our love is strong; and we talk of a "radical" change in any one's character when he begins to love in his heart what before he hated. Again, as to the trunk, we compare a man to a dwarfed plant when we say, "His mind is stunted," or to a twisted bough when we assert that "his character is warped." We have "nothing but leaves" like the fig-tree, when we only think about religion and do not practise it, while "a green old age" is one in which the thoughts are still vigorous. Then come the flowers. Our hopes we say are "nipped in the bud" when some chilling influence kills them; or again, people tell us "that so-and-so opened out wonderfully" (comparing him to a flower) when genial influences encompassed him. Our early training "bears fruit" when we perform the duties for which we were fitted; or our lives are "barren" when no good comes of them. Our ideas sometimes require "pruning," like fruit-trees, when the thought is too "luxuriant," and we all need to be "grafted" on the true Vine. Some evil by which we are injured is our "thorn in the flesh," or we are "stung" by the falsity of some accusation which acts upon us like a nettle. The upas-tree of selfishness poisons the whole atmosphere of some unhappy minds, while others flourish like a palm-tree, and grow like the cedar of Lebanon. But enough; we need quote no further examples, for the above will abundantly show that thus, and thus most readily, we can look through Nature up to Nature's God, and so become filled with adoration for the infinitely wise Creator. But, after all, how do plants live? What is the force which converts the mineral into the vegetable kingdom? It is spiritual force, and has a spiritual origin. All material forces are derived from the natural sun, which is pure fire; all spiritual forces are from the spiritual sun, which is Divine Love. We place a portion of earth within the rays of the natural sun: what happens?—the earth grows warm. Place a portion of earth within the rays of the spiritual sun, what happens then?—the earth lives! The dark and foetid mire of the ditch feels the force when a seed germinates in it and rises up unresistingly, glorified into graceful leaf, slender stalk, and lovely flower. What power is it here present which pushes, urges, compels dead matter to assume such varied forms, and thrusts aside with unconquerable might all the material forces that would oppose it? The power is Divine; it cannot be other than Divine, but it reaches earth through a long descent, changing in character as it flows. First it passes from the spiritual sun through the three spiritual atmospheres thence derived; the atmosphere of love in which the celestial angels dwell, the atmosphere of truth in which the spiritual angels dwell, and the atmosphere of use in which the spiritual-natural angels abide. Descending still lower, the spiritual sunlight forms the three atmospheres of human thought, the atmosphere of rational thought, of natural thought, and of sensuous thought, and having now reached the ultimate confines of what is spiritual, the spiritual sunlight seizes upon what is terrestrial to convert it into vegetable forms, i.e. into forms of use, which shall depict, though feebly and imperfectly, something of those regions through which it has flowed; and here at last solar heat and light, which have usually the credit of the whole work, come in as implements ready to the hand of the spiritual force,-heat to expand and light to modify and arrange the material substances, so as to receive the inflowing Divine force in a manner suitable to the end designed. Thus the plant rises up from the seed, and thus it lives; but after all it has only an appearance of life. Love alone lives, and as plants cannot love, their life is but a semblance in which the reality is dimly brought before the mental view. T. W. BOGG. THE SEA AND LIGHT, AND THEIR SYMBOLISM.* M ISS Kirkbright and I sat quite still for minutes after we had spread our shawls and cushions and nestled down together. I do not know how she felt about it, but it did not seem to me that I cared to say any common kind of words to her. I felt as if something real were waiting, hovering; and I would not speak for fear of losing its alighting. There is one thing you can never have seen, or dreamed, Rose; for you have never been in a great ship in mid-ocean. You cannot guess what it is like-that radiant water that rolls its heaps together after you in the cool, pure masses of clear, beryl-green! Away down, down, you see it, and far back; as if the urgent-moving vessel, with its whirling screw, were an angel troubling the deep into strange life and glory. From the pearl-white, scattered particles just settling from the first foam-flash to the grand, rich, gathered colour where they bank themselves as it were on either hand in the aqua-marine splendour from which the jewel borrows name, it was a moving, shifting, voluminous effulgence, that told how the whole vast Sea is a jewel of God which He wears upon His finger, and which from stormdarkness to the dazzle of white waves in the sun-in all changes of amber and rosy and emerald and azure and violet-spells out the hidden syllables of his mystical phrase of colour, according to its instant pulsing, and the shining or shading of His Face of Light. "What makes it so, I wonder?" I said at last; seemed as if I must ask something. for it "To know that," said Miss Euphrasia, in a sweet, *We extract this interesting piece from a work called "Sights and Insights," by Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney, the well-known author of "Faith Gartney's Girlhood," "The Gayworthys," etc. The book is full of many remarkable "insights" into correspondences; and were the source known from which they were drawn, it might be highly instrumental in promoting the reading of New Church litera ture. quiet, thinking voice, "one must know what the light and the water are; one must go back of mere mechanical reasons into the representativeness.” "Ah, yes!" I said, remembering "Thoughts in my Garden," and the meaning of the birds that came to me also, just the same, because they were. "I do not mean," she went on, "that we must look out an arbitrary dictionary signification. People do try to interpret so; and perhaps they cannot go so far amiss as if they did not recognise or use the keys of things at all. But the sign octaves multiply and change their harmonies, as the octaves of music do. Just running up and down the scales is not entering even over the threshold into the hidden chords of symphonies. The Word is written in signs, but not in a secret cipher. It is put in the most direct of languages-the showing of things; which men have only feebly and incompletely organized into syllables. What does water give you a feeling of? That is the question." "It feels of many things, as it has many forms," I said. "Of life, of truth, and the eternal refreshing; of cleansing and satisfying, of surrounding and inflowing, of answering and likeness, of pureness, of gladness; of might, that is fluid-gentle and awful as great floods; of everlastingness." "And the light that pours down into the water with whatever moves and stirs it; that touches life and reveals it; that makes truth glorious to sight; that manifests the cleansing and the pureness; that makes the surrounding shine and take a colour; that interfuses the might with tender presence; that saves eternalness from being a blank, and fills it with live joy and glory; what can it be or signify but the God-showing that quickens through all, and makes what we call truth the language and recognition between us and the Lord; the joy of His very thought which becomes in us the joy of our understanding ?" We did not say any more for a little while; one does not speak out things like these as one recites a printed page. Miss Kirkbright spoke slowly, as it came to her, by degrees, to speak; and then, though we had scarcely approached what we had set in search of, we waited and rested. And continually, before our eyes, the wonderful green light, born of the sun and flood, was playing, rolling, speaking: yes, "chanting aloud," had we the ears to hear. "One little track-one motion breaking a line through the great Deep. It is like a human living" "And how beautiful," I said, "the things behind us grow as the water parts away and drifts backward! How lovely and dear every particle as we leave it!" "And how alive!" "But only for such a little way," I answered sadly. "Away back it is all over; all as if it had not been. It makes me afraid almost of the meanings." "Why? Because we cannot look back all the way? What is all the way? Back as far as we seem to have moved in this infinite-as far as we can trace ourselves -it is all alight with the shine and stir; it is full of presence of new being; it takes in every particle the colour of hope, of livingness, of lasting." "It does not stay. Thousands of ships have tracked over the same spaces; and there is not any mark. And ours is vanishing while we are talking about it." If I had been speaking with some one else some one less than I, as Miss Kirkbright is greater-I should have insisted on the hope which I believe in; I might have said, after my gift and way, just what she said; but I The well-known and generally esteemed work by Mrs. Mary G. Ware. wanted her, now, to say it to me. I put forward my own questions, and let my own answers lie forgotten. I have felt so sharply, in these days of change and leaving behind, how my dear days are gone, and how the days that are to come, though they must live on from them, must be so different! In new, strange places, even; the breaking away from the very outward has begun; who can tell what it will go on to? "No," said Miss Kirkbright, in that still, sure tone of hers; "it does not stay-the sign does not. The mere sign never stays; in our lives, even. That, also, is where the likeness is the meaning that you are afraid of. It is only in the spiritual world that we truly live now; or are truly anything to each other. The heaven and earth of the outward pass away continually; it is what they were made for; if they did not, we should be in prison. We only make one little sign at a time in the outward word— the sign of the present moment. That is nothing in itself, let it be what it may, or between whomsoever; a moment of greatest joy or greatest pain; it is nothing except for the past which has been, and the future which shall be, and which are both for ever alive, like these live waters. our to-come. "What is our love and intercourse, as we grow older and the circumstance of life changes, but a mutual re-entering into what has been, to join it with the word and circumstance of now; perhaps also to the word we wait and hope for. Our past is—in the spiritual—as much as Blessed are the poor-of now-in the spirit which holds then-and then! Why should the bygone be tangible when the next moment cannot be? It is a great deal more real because we cannot touch nor see, but can only hold it-hallow it-as we do the Name of the Invisible! It is there-where our future is; where we are, since we cannot rest in any instant; and once that sweet word which brings all to the blessed focus and point of promise-once, we shall find them together!" We let the silence fall between us. I did not ask any more; I could not then have taken any more. "Miss Kirkbright!" I said, ten minutes afterward, as we began to think of moving to rejoin our companions, "just one thing. Don't you think it possible, among all these parables, to make a wrong one?" 66 Can you make a parable at all? Can you even be misled with one-for I suppose that, rather, is what you may mean-looking at it leisurely all through? For a parable is a thing that must fit. We do not makewe find it. It is there. Christ did not say,-'Listen,—I make a parable;' but-' Behold the parable of the figConsider the lilies.' You may force and distort argument; you may turn reason into sophistry; but you cannot put into the creation-types that which is not." tree. SWEDENBORG AND THE SO-CALLED SEX OF PLANTS. F Swedenborg was infallible, of course his doctrine must be true; but as his doctrine is not true, his having delivered it proves that he was liable to err." So says the editor of the Repository (p. 390). But what is this doctrine of Swedenborg which the editor says is not true? It is his doctrine that all plants are males, and that the earth is their common mother (T. C. R. 585). And why does the editor think this doctrine is not true? Because scientific botanists affirm what is called the sexuality of plants. But surely this is a very insufficient ground on which S. T., who appears to be a botanist, and who agrees with the editor that Swedenborg has in this instance made a mistake, advocates this idea of the sex of plants in the same number of the Repository as that from which the quotation which stands at the head of this article is taken. I will take him as a representative of the scientific botanists' theory about plant sex, and we will see what he makes it come to. He instances (p. 396) leguminous plants, and I adopt his instance. Now although I am not a scientific botanist, I am somewhat of a gardener, and I have been accustomed in happy days gone by to "raise" some leguminous plants in my garden; in plain English, peas and beans. S. T. tells me that these peas and beans were "plant mothers" (p. 396), and that the agreeable produce of them was "new beings (id.), i.e. their offspring or children. Well, that I can understand so far, but what I want to know is, where were the plant fathers. All my plants were plant mothers," every plant of them. I should have regarded any other arrangement with displeasure. I should have regarded any pea or bean plant that was not fitted to become a "plant mother" as a most intolerable interloper. I never saw or heard of any other pea or bean plants in my garden but "plant mothers." If any miserable specimen of a pea or bean plant was too weak to have children, I knew that that was not because it belonged to the stronger sex, but because it was not doing its duty. If it wasn't a "plant mother," it ought to have been one. What, then, becomes of this "scientific" theory of the "sex of plants"? My horticultural experience convinces me that, on the showing of the scientific botanists themselves, all pea and bean plants are females. But my experience goes further. I was also accustomed to preserve some of the children of these plants of mine in a dry state. Next year I sowed these "new beings" at the appropriate time, and then, marvellous to relate, they all became "plant mothers" too. I didn't pick out the female children, leaving all the males to be boiled, but took some "promiscuously," and they all invariably turned out to be of the feminine gender. And what is more, they presented me with large families without ever entering into matrimony at all. They got no plant husbands, for there were none for them to get. So much for the scientific botanists' theory of the sex of plants. I don't deny it, or question its truth, but I confess it seems to me a very inconvenient way of talking. If, But here our scientific friends may turn upon us and say that by plant mothers and female plants they don't mean that the plants are female, but that only a little bit of them is female, and another little bit is male. however, they do that, they cannot prevent me from feeling that I have been taken in. They have talked to me about the "sex of plants" and "plant mothers," and so on, when all they mean is that plants have a little bit of male and a little bit of female in each of them. They have thus abused language and the confidence of the uninitiated. What they mean to affirm isn't the sex of plants at all, but the sex of parts of plants, which is a very different thing, and isn't what Swedenborg is speaking of Swedenborg has never denied that. He has never alluded to the subject. But now let us open the "True Christian Religion," and see what it is that Swedenborg does actually say. "It is maintained by many of the learned that the vegetation, not only of trees, but also of all shrubs, corre sponds with human prolification; therefore, by way of appendix to what has been said, I will add a few observations on this subject." Is Swedenborg here going to "deny" what the learned maintain, as the editor of the Repository supposes? Not at all. He is going to adopt the idea and explain it. "In trees," he proceeds, "and all the other subjects of the vegetable kingdom, there are not two sexes, male and female, but each particular subject is male, the earth alone, or the ground, being their common mother, and thus as it were female." Here we see quite plainly what it is that Swedenborg intends to deny. "In trees, etc., there are not two sexes.' This is what modern science has proved. That is to say, this tree is not male and that female. "But each particular subject is male." This is where Swedenborg differs from the scientists. He means what he says. He doesn't mean that a little bit of a plant is male, but that the plant as a whole is male. It may have parts analogous to female functions and yet as a whole be essentially male. That is, regarded relatively, it may be male. If any one desires to do Swedenborg justice in this matter let him examine the connection in which he speaks as he does about the sex of plants. We will then find that Swedenborg is speaking in connection with, and on the ground of, the law of correspondence. All plants correspond relatively to truth, and therefore they are all relatively male. The animal kingdom as a whole corresponds to affection, the vegetable kingdom as a whole corresponds to thoughts, affection is relatively female, thought is relatively male. This is the ground of Swedenborg's assertion that all plants are male. We cannot overturn it without overturning the science of correspondences. Both But then there is nothing in this that contradicts the scientists' theory of what they call the sex of plants. Swedenborg, as I have shown, uses the term "male" in quite a different sense from that in which they use it; and as to the correlative expression "female," why, he applies it to the ground. The very fact that he attributes sex to the ground proves that he is using the idea of sex in a sense peculiar to himself, and not in the grossly literal sense that the scientists appear to use it. Let the scientists go on talking about "plant mothers" and “new beings," and so on, if they like. beings," and so on, if they like. Let them, I say, enjoy their freedom in this matter to the fullest extent. But let them also try to understand that there may exist another point of view besides their own, and not condemn Swedenborg because he doesn't always look at nature through their spectacles. It is all a question of relativity and of analogy. The analogy which Swedenborg draws doesn't contradict that drawn by the scientists. may be right. Modern science is perpetually shifting its ground and finding itself mistaken. I will not undertake to say whether its analogy is a good one or not, let the scientists settle it among themselves. They will do so in course of time I have no doubt. In the meantime I can see that Swedenborg's doctrine that all plants are males, and that they fertilize the earth with their seed, which then becomes the common mother of their offspring, presents a simple and beautiful analogy, and is complete in some respects where the other analogy breaks down. The scientists say, for instance, that the seeds of plants are not seeds at all, but eggs. If this be the case, why don't their "mothers" hatch them? According to this "scientific" analogy, "plant mothers" are very unnatural mothers. The mother hen cherishes her eggs into life with the warmth of her bosom. The mother plant dries up and throws all her children out of the window. There they fall into the bosom of a more tender mother. It is mother earth, or something analogous to her, that hatches the eggs of these wretched "plant mothers." The conduct of these "females" goes a long way to prove that they are not mothers at all. This summary ejection of their seeds indicates a hard masculine nature in them. Regarded, as Swedenborg regards them, that is to say, as plants, and not as parts of plants, there are good grounds for a shrewd suspicion that they are, as he says, all males. I don't say that they present no analogies to female functions in themselves. Every male does that, yet is still as a whole a male. In thus defending the teaching of Swedenborg, I do not do so because I believe him to have been absolutely infallible, but simply because I think he ought not to be charged with making mistakes that he hasn't made; or with denying things that he never dreamed of denying. A mere lapse of memory is what may happen to anybody, but to say that in any particular case Swedenborg's" doctrine is not true" is to say what cannot be proved, and has never yet been proved. It is saying, in my opinion, a great deal too much. It is because this has been said by a high "authority" in our Church that I have thought it well to do what I can to remove such an impression from the mind of that respected authority, especially as I know that any successful attempt to do so will please no one better than it will please himself. J. F. P. LOSELY analogous to st, both in origin and function, is the sound produced by the complete closure of the lips, as when we say hum, and hence symbolically represented in the letter m. The progeny to which this sound has given birth is also very considerable, and among the metaphors which rest upon it are some of the most charming known to language. Among the early derivatives are found the Hebrew D (damam), "to be silent," and the Greek μów, "to close the lips." In Latin it appears as mutus, whence mute, and in English also in the expressive word dumb, which cannot be pronounced without completely closing the mouth. "Mum," and to "mumble," are other forms of the same onomatopoeia. Silence being naturally identified with concealment, becomes figuratively its designation. From μvw, accordingly, came μvorpiov, a mystery, μvorikos, mystic, and μvoos, a fable or parable, whence myth, literally a something in which the reality is disguised. Hence, again, μivew, to initiate, and μvorns, a priest, literally (in the Greek) one who unfolds arcana, the function pre-eminently of the preacher. The Hebrew word is constantly used in the Old Testament to denote silence, quiet, cessation, and their collaterals. In Lev. x. 3, for example, "And Aaron held his peace;" and in Job xxix. 21, "They kept silence at my counsel," meaning they listened to it in silence. "Damam" is the word employed again in the command given by Joshua to the sun and moon, in the Valley of Ajalon, to stand still. In Ps. cvii. 29 it is used to denote tranquillity, "He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still." In 1 Sam. ii. 9 it signifies to die, "The wicked shall be silent in darkness." In Jeremiah it is used variously to denote laying waste and desolation. Quite easy is it thus to perceive the metaphorical idea involved in daμaw and domo, to subdue or break in; in domitus, vanquished, and in the English "tame" and "indomitable." Total overthrow is implied in the derivatives damno and damnum, literally to consign to silence and darkness, as when, in bygone ages, unhappy prisoners were cast into hidden dungeons. So with "doom," the condition of one who is condemned. To indemnify is literally to supersede or make null certain damage that has been done. The indemnity is the reparation. "Damage" is of course from the same root. Domitare signified with the Romans to overpower through the medium of terror. Hence, through the French dompter, the English "daunt," and with the negative prefix, "undaunted." With the Romans also to bear rule or sway was dominor, i.e. to possess power to subjugate, and if needful, to annihilate. Indirectly we have from this the second syllable of kingdom, serfdom, Christendom, dukedom, etc. Freedom is the realm which is under the control or command of the free; wisdom is the country possessed by those who have "wits." by those who have "wits." Hence, again, dominion, dominate, predominate, domain, domineer, with the personal titles dominus, domina, which in Spanish and Italian became Don and Donna. Domina, through the French, has given us dame and madam, and through the Italian dominicella, first the French demoiselle, then our own damsel." Beldame is an abbreviation of belle dame, literally "fair lady," in which sense it occurs in Chaucer. Afterwards it came to signify "grandmother," as in Shakspere "Shakes the old beldame earth, and topples down To-day, in strange contrast to the sense of 500 years ago, we use it only in the sense of a noisy hag. Another curious application of a word having its ancestor in domina is seen in Belladonna, the name of a celebrated poisonous plant, invaluable in medicine, and so called because of the use made of it by the Italian ladies of the Middle Ages. In ecclesiastical Latin, beginning, it would appear, with Tertullian, Sunday, or "the Lord's day," is looking word applied to Sunday by the French-dimanche. Dominica dies,whence, through the Italian domenica, the odd"Muse" is another descendant of the primitive m, signifying literally "to be silent." Musing is the retired and quiet action of the mind when abstaining from converse with society. By prefixing the negative av (which is the same as in and un), shortened into a, the word amuse is procured, literally that which is the opposite of silent thoughtfulness. A mind given to musing implies preference for the things of intellect over those of the external senses. It is a philosophical mind. Hence the Greeks gave to the εννέα θυγατέρας γλαυκώπιδας ἄνθεσιουργους, "Nine azure-eyed flower-producing daughters," to whom they assigned the presidency over literature and philosophy, the name of Muses. Philosophy, in turn, is, according to Plato, the highest and sweetest music, being that which causes our intellectual powers to move harmoniously. Music is its audible emblem. Hence from the name of the Muses comes that of music, literally that which resembles the operation of philosophy in bringing our intellectual powers into amity and concord. This is why Milton said for all time, "How charming is Divine Philosophy! Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose, Museum, the name for a collection of curiosities, comes from Movσatov, the academy at Alexandria, set apart for the cultivation of science and philosophy. From the same onomatopoetic root has come the verb to "deem." meaning to conclude or judge finally, finishing what we have to say; the epithet "dim," as in dimsighted, literally silent-eyed; and "a-damant," literally that which cannot be broken or subdued, wherefore Pliny calls this mineral "infragilis adamas." Adamant, by another change, has supplied us with diamant, diamond. LEO H. GRINDON. THE ANCIENT MARINER. A PARABLE FOR OLD AND YOUNG. SMALL bark with her sails full set sped gaily onward before a fresh breeze. Her sole occupant was a youth, who sat at the helm. "Change your course, young man," shouted an ancient mariner in a kindly voice from another boat, "or you will soon be in rough water." "Never fear," cried the younger; "pray keep your counsel for those that need it." Still the old man desisted not, but followed the youth in his boat with anxious entreaties, which the latter for a long time persistently repelled. At last the increasing turbulence of the waters, threatening at every instant to capsize his frail boat, convinced the young man of his own temerity and folly; and he then implored his ancient companion, in an agony of fear, to come to his assistance. "Help, save me," cried he, "or this high wind will soon drive my skiff into the open sea, and we shall be swamped." "It is not the fault of the wind," replied the old man. "First alter your course, and if you only trim your sails aright you will not find the wind unfavourable." And so it turned out. Under the guidance of the wise old mariner they were enabled, by judicious tacking before the friendly breeze, to reach smooth water again, and were soon riding in a harbour of safety where they both found rest. So is it on the ocean of life. Men drift in opposite directions, under the same external circumstances, as their individuality may determine. The sweet influences of God's wisdom and loving-kindness are sent to waft us towards the haven of peace; but foolish man, if he wills it, can so divert them from their true purpose as to accelerate his own ruin. J. C. B. THE YOUNG IN HEAVEN. R. BOARDMAN, speaking upon the death and future life of the young, seems to have caught the spirit of the New Truths of the New Age concerning the quality of life in the spiritual world. He says, "How perfect must be discipline among the blest! Work is play. Activity is bliss. Every wheel moves without friction. Life is at once swift action and perfect rest. There is no haste, no delay, no indolence, no imperfection. The boy or girl elaborately trained, that sings, or plays an instrument, or recites a lesson best, in this world, does not so well as the least do there. Bright faces, happy hearts, perfect performances, adorn heaven. The great majority of human beings as yet in heaven are, as we have reason to believe, such as have entered it in infancy and early childhood. Their discipline of mind, heart, manners, employments, has been chiefly celestial. What a beautiful throng! They never sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression. . . . A skilled florist knows at what precise stage of development each blossom will yield its richest perfume, and gathers it for the delight of its owner at that hour. Does not God gather souls into His kingdom with a similar discernment? May there not be caught and perpetuated a delicate flavour of character, an exquisite fragrance, when the young die, which further development in this ungenial atmosphere would have marred? There is, beyond question, endless growth for all in the heavenly world. Children do not remain immature because transferred to a better clime. The departed doubtless advance more rapidly than their comrades whom they have left behind to grow up on earth. . . . Most of heaven's human inhabitants have been educated in celestial schools. They have been formed on celestial models. They have attained athletic strength and skill, eating angels' food, and breathing heaven's invigorating air." THE REUNION OF CHRISTENDOM. MEETING was recently held in the Westminster Palace Hotel to support the Reunion of Christendom, under the presidency of the Bishop of Fredericton. The following resolutions were agreed to : I. "That the advance of the infidel movement throughout Europe, and the actual or threatened dissolution of the relations of Church and State, constitute a fresh call on all sincere believers, to pray and labour earnestly for the reunion of Christians, in one faith and one fold." 2. "That the accession of Pope Leo XIII., and the re-awakening life of Eastern Christianity, afford at the present moment special grounds for renewed energy and hope." 3. "That the serious obstacles to mission work at home and abroad, caused by the division of Christians, render it incumbent on all persons to labour as well as pray for the restoration of visible unity.' The proposer of the second resolution said that if "reunion was to be considered at all, the question of the sovereignty of the Pope must be maintained as a fact that never could be altered. If they wished to have reunion they must have a centre of unity-a sovereignty such as existed in every country. He did not mean a royalty, but a sovereignty. At present a sovereignty existed in France, in the United States, and elsewhere without royalty. The causes that led to the separation of England from the Holy See were due to acts of sovereignty. There were very few of the Anglican party who would not acknowledge the Pope as the first bishop in Christendom. He was looking forward to a reunion of the Churches, and he would assert that the disestablishment of the Church of England was rapidly coming on, and then there would be a total split in the Establishment as it at present existed. When that disestablishment occurred there was no reason why such a reunion should not take place.' ,, If this is a true description of the feelings and sentiments of the Anglican party, we can scarcely wonder at the alarm manifested by English Protestants, lest the doctrines of Romanism should again become universal in the Church, which is supposed to be our greatest bulwark against Popery. The reunion of Christendom will be brought about when professing Christians think more highly of the Lord and pay less attention to the claims of popes and priests. PUBLIC RECEPTION OF THE REV. SPECIAL MEETING OF THE LONDON ASSOCIATION OF THE MEETING, with the above object, was held in Argyle Square Church on the 8th of August, which was attended by members of all the various metropolitan churches. Mr. Austin, the President of the London Association of the New Church, occupied the chair, and was supported by the Rev. Dr. Bayley, the Rev. J. Presland, Mr. Bateman, Mr. Gunton, and Mr. Dicks. After an opening prayer by Dr. Bayley the Chairman made a few remarks, in which he referred to the statistics of travellers from one part of England to another, and to the tendency of Americans to visit the old country. He said there were actually three ordained ministers of the New Church in America at present visiting England, which had suggested the idea of a public meeting and welcome. Although the Rev. C. A. Dunham had been unable to come a second time to London in order to take part in it, and the Rev. W. |