AMID THE CORN.

By the Author of "The Evening and the Morning."

II. THE WHITSUNTIDE VISIT.

CHAPTER IX.

"He shall come down like rain on the mown grass."

WAS scarcely awake the next morning when I heard a familiar voice calling out lustily in the hall below, amid the expostulations of other voices which were not unknown to me, and which were vainly trying to silence the stentorian shouts of their companion.

'Come, Hettie! What! still in bed? Here's Lilian been up these two hours, and we are all famished for want of our breakfast. Then come, my sister, come 'What's the rest of it, you idle little lie-a-bed?"

I heard the door of Hettie's room open and her voice calling down the stairs, "Why, uncle, who would have thought you would have been here so early? I shall be down directly."

"What's the rest of it, you idle little puss ?"

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Why, uncle, how absurd! I suppose you mean

'Then come, my sister, come, I pray,

With speed put on your woodland dress;
And bring no book; for this one day
We'll give to idleness.'

I thought you did not like to give an hour to idleness, uncle."

"Ah, but is it not Whit Tuesday? Who would think of working or reading at such a time?"

The light step of Lilian was on the stairs, and in a moment the girls were kissing one another with great affection.

"Don't hurry, Hettie," said another voice, "but after two hours' ride we're precious hungry, and that's flat!"

I now understood that our jovial host of the previous Christmas had determined to make us a surprise visit, and when I got downstairs I found the whole party in the merriest possible mood, and arranging with Hettie an excursion to the seaside. I at once fell in with their views, and after breakfast we started on a seven miles' ride through roads and lanes, now embowered with noble trees, now bounded by hedgerows fragrant with the hawthorn, and now cheered by miles of open country, where fields of wheat and barley, with their living green, stretched as far as the eye could reach on either side. On arriving at our destination we left the horses at the one small inn near the coast, and in a short time we were all on the hills and cliffs overhanging the sea, and rejoicing in the fresh breezes that danced daintily around us. Willie and Hettie and Mr. Thomson and Lilian were soon strolling on the beach in search of seaweed, shells, and cornelians, while Mr. Freeheart and I sat on the highest point on the hills and watched their movements on the sands below. Our pleasure, however, was only shortlived. A cloud which had gathered up over the sea spread rapidly over the land, and we had scarcely time to reach our inn before the rain began to descend in torrents.

"Well," said Mr. Freeheart, after we had settled down and began to feel our discomfort in the little roomwhich, however, was the best the place could afford, and commanded a view of the ocean-"it's an ill wind that blows nobody good,' and while the breeze that brought these clouds has spoiled our day's pleasure, it has brought fatness for the earth, and the hay will be all the richer for it. Though we cannot roam among the pebbles, we can have a little excursion Amid the Corn, eh, Hettie?"

"Certainly, uncle," she replied, "for the last two days Willie and Mr. Romaine and I have been scarcely anywhere else."

"Then lead on," said Mr. Freeheart, "and we'll follow."

We then formed a half-circle around the little window, while the rain came smartly down, and the waves rolled up heavily and broke in foam upon the beach.

"Our misfortune suggests a subject," said Willie. "Your crops would not grow and your trees would not flourish and bear fruit without rain, eh, Mr. Freeheart?"

"Every shower of rain," said Mr. Freeheart, "is worth to England alone tens of thousands of pounds, and throughout the world untold millions."

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Now," said Willie, "Mr. Romaine tells us that gardens, vineyards, and fields in the Bible signify the Human Mind, and the useful and beautiful things planted in the ground the useful and beautiful affections and thoughts planted in our hearts."

"Very good," said Mr. Freeheart musingly, "very good. I don't quite see it, though."

"Their soul shall be as a watered garden,' uncle," said Hettie suggestively, "don't you remember ?"

"Very good, very good," said Mr. Freeheart again; "I know some whose souls are as dry as dust, and just about as barren, eh, Harry?"

"I should think so," said Mr. Thomson, "nothing in 'em but wayside weeds, that's flat."

"Every plant that My heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted up,'" said Hettie.

"If every worthless thing was rooted up out o' some minds there'd be precious little left, eh, Harry?” said Mr. Freeheart again.

"Not so much as would feed a sparrow," said Mr. Thomson.

"But now," said Willie smiling, "the clouds and the rain that make the garden beautiful, the vineyard fruitful, and the fields laden with corn-what shall we say of them, Mr. Romaine?"

"My doctrine shall drop as the rain, My speech shall distil as the dew; as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass,' "" said Hettie.

"There, Willie," I said, "she has gathered an ear of wheat; now see whether you cannot rub it in your hands."

"Why," said Mr. Freeheart, "the thing is plain enough. The rain is 'doctrine,' and the dew is 'speech.' The verse says so."

"Yes," said Hettie, "but there is something else. Moses adds, 'Because I will publish the name of the Lord.' Publishing the things of God is dropping rain and distilling dew into the spirit and making the soul like a watered garden."

"And to make it complete," said Willie, "I suppose we may say that the things of the Lord are the truths of heaven which, dropped into the mind, make it beauti ful and fruitful. But what I am thinking about is the cloud that dispenses the rain. What is that?"

"Ah," said Mr. Freeheart, "what is it, Hettie? "'I bring fresh showers '- what is the rest of it?" "So beautiful," said Hettie, "that I will gladly oblige you this time, uncle—

I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers
From the seas and the streams,

I bear light shade for the leaves when laid
In their noonday dreams.

From my wings are shaken the dews that waken
The sweet buds every one,

When rocked to rest on their mother's breast
As she dances about the sun.

* Deut. xxxii. 2.

"Why," said Willie, "the cloud brings showers for the flowers from the seas and the streams. It therefore corresponds with that which brings the showers of truth into the garden of the soul to freshen and beautify whatever is blooming there."

"It corresponds," said Hettie, "with that which brings to us the 'doctrine' and 'speech' of Moses, with that which publishes to us the name of the Lord.”

"Ah, I see where you are again," said Willie smiling; "everything verges in that direction. That which publishes to us the name of the Lord is the Bible."

"And the cloud whence the showers descend and the dew distils is the Word of God, whence truth comes into the spirit like rain to fertilize the good ground of the heart," added Hettie.

"But I have a difficulty," said Willie; "please resolve it. You say the Word is from God, while the cloud, as your lines state, is from the seas and the streams! Now the seas and streams are part of the sphere, and that corresponds with Man."

Hettie blushed slightly, and was for a moment in a state of perplexity.

"Come, my fair philosopher," said Willie again, "how is that?"

"Well," said Hettie, after looking a moment at me as if she wished me to relieve her, "what gathers up the cloud from the seas and the streams?"

"Why, the sun," said Mr. Thomson; "I have seen it times and often."

"Yes," said Hettie, "and it is the Divine Sun which has gathered as it were into the Word certain things out of man's state and experience "

She paused and looked at me again perplexed and timid.

"Why," I said, "the cloud denotes the literal sense of the Word, and that sense is connected with men's state and experience, which it describes, and which God has gathered into a dim medium to conceal and yet reveal His own brightness."

"Ah," said Hettie, "the cloud not only brings showers for the thirsting flowers, but 'light shade for the leaves.' The literal sense of the Word, which is drawn up from man's state and experience, is also as 'light shade' to temper the glory of the Divine Sun, the full blaze of whose perfections our weak minds could not endure."

"I see now," said Willie; "the literal sense of the Word is formed of human things. The language is that of man, the actions described are those of men, and the history is throughout that of the race of men. My problem is solved. The cloud is from the 'seas and the streams,' which are part of the sphere, and the literal sense of the Word is from those human states with which the seas and the streams correspond."

Mr. Freeheart, Mr. Thomson, and Lilian were in much perplexity, as it could not be expected that they would at once be able to gather up the subject into the perception of which Willie and Hettie had gradually advanced, so I thought I would try to relieve them a little.

"Jesus is to be seen coming in the clouds with power and great glory, Mr. Freeheart."

"So I have heard Lilian say, and I have read it," said Mr. Freeheart, looking up at the dark masses of cloud that hung over the sea, "but I never could understand

it."

"He is to be seen coming in His Word by those who have the eye to discern truth," I suggested.

"Ah, He is to be seen there, sure enough," responded Mr. Freeheart.

"The literal sense of the Word is the cloud, and when the beauty of Jesus breaks through it into our under

standing He is to be seen coming in the cloud with power and great glory."

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Any man with a head on his shoulders could understand that," said Mr. Freeheart.

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Lilian ventured to say that she thought Jesus would come in the clouds above our heads. Behold, He cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see Him."

"But, my dear," said Hettie, "if He were to come in the clouds over our heads at this moment, every eye in Norfolk even would not be able to see Him, much less every eye in the whole world."

Lilian thought the subject was above our comprehension.

"We can only understand any subject according to our state, Lilian,” I remarked. "Now we read in Isaiah xix. 1, 'Behold the Lord rideth upon a swift cloud.' In Psalm civ. 3 we read that He 'maketh the clouds His chariot,' and in Psalm xviii. it is said that His pavilion is 'thick clouds of the skies.' Do you think that literally God rides on clouds, that He makes them His chariot, and dwells in them as in His pavilion ?"

"Not literally, of course," said Lilian.

"No. When it is said that the Lord rideth upon a swift cloud, it means that the Divine Life and Power are borne into our souls by the letter of the Word. That letter is His chariot, for it conveys Him into the human understanding; and it is His pavilion, for He dwells in it. It is even said (Psalm lxviii. 34) that 'His strength is in the clouds,' because His strength is in the Word."

Mr. Freeheart's admiration was excessive, and so also was that of Mr. Thomson, while Lilian gave a silent acquiescence.

"Then," said Hettie, "the rain from the clouds corresponds with the truth which falls into our minds from the literal sense of the Sacred Scriptures."

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"But I should have thought," said Willie, as the truth which you say fertilizes us comes direct from God, the rain should also come direct from God as a new creation."

"No," I replied; "the rain is the water drawn from the seas and the streams by the sun, and it has therefore an affinity with the earth which it is to fertilize. In just the same way the truth which descends into our hearts is that which has been drawn by God from our state and experience, and it has therefore an affinity with the soul which it is to quicken. The doctrine which drops as the rain, and the speech which distils as the dew, is not absolute but relative truth, truth related to our affections and thoughts; to our fears and hopes; to our repulsions and aspirations."

"The answer," said Willie, "is more satisfactory than I anticipated."

"Is it not said somewhere," said Hettie, " that upon those who do not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, even upon them shall be no rain?"

Certainly. It is in Zechariah xiv. 17. The meaning is obvious. Upon those who do not seek God no Divine freshening influences descend from His Word."

"Well," said Willie, "your passages as usual chime well in with the interpretation. There is certainly a grand harmony all through these correspondences. Man is the sphere; the special places of the sphere, such as gardens, etc., are the special states of man; the things growing in the special places are the principles rooted in the particular states of the mind; and the rain which helps the things to grow is the truth which quickens our affections and makes them vigorous. If this be only fancy, it certainly has a strong resemblance to fact."

"The references to rain in the prophets alone are so striking and so numerous that every thoughtful person

may at once see that the principles you have now arrived at are not fancy but fact," I remarked. "Take Isaiah alone. Here are a few expressions evidently illustrative. of this correspondence: 'Drop down, ye heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness' (xlv. 8) : righteousness is there said to be rain from heaven. 'Until the Spirit be poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness be a fruitful field' (xxxii. 15): the Spirit is there likened to rain fertilizing the wilderness. 'I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground: I will pour My Spirit upon thy seed, and My blessing upon thine offspring' (xliv. 3): here again spiritual blessings are likened unto water poured out, or rain. 'For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, . . . so shall My Word be that goeth forth out of My mouth' (lv. 10): here the Word is absolutely said to be like rain and snow."

"Whew!" said Willie; "grant that the cloud pours down fatness in the shape of rain, what does it do when it sends down heavy falls of snow like that we had last Christmas? Your correspondence fails there."

"Not at all," I answered. "Which is best for your crops, Mr. Freeheart, in winter-the snow or the rain ?" Snow, snow," said Mr. Freeheart; "it keeps the young plants from the cutting winds and deadly frosts, while the rains would rot them."

"Thank you, Mr. Freeheart," I answered, "that is precisely what I wanted. The influences of the Word to those who are in the spring and summer of their souls come like rain upon the grass; but to those who are in a winterly state those influences are like snow preserving the seeds which may develop into virtues, and the incipient plants of the Spirit, from being utterly destroyed by the sharp frosts of selfishness."

"But the hail?" said Willie again.

Inundating and destroying rain and devastating hail correspond with truth perverted by human states. A superabundance of rain injures and sweeps away the crops. So a larger amount of truth than our states can receive and wisely appropriate injures us. Pour out upon a simple person torrents of truth and he would be perplexed and bewildered, and the good things in him. would be injured, and possibly destroyed. Hail is rain from the cloud passing through a stratum of cold air. In the same way truth from the Word passing through the cold stratum of human selfishness is hardened and perverted, and instead of fertilizing smites and destroys."

"We may as well exhaust the subject now we are about it," said Willie; "there are other things beside rain, snow, and hail from the clouds. Thunder and lightning, for instance."

"Yes," I replied. "Nothing comes out of the letter of the Word but Truth. Thunder and lightning from the cloud, therefore, denote the sound and the brightness of truth from the Word."

"Why, it seems to be all truth," said Mr. Freeheart; "one might fancy that truth was everything."

"And so it is," I replied. "The day is all light, and everywhere light. The green and blue and yellow and crimson and scarlet are all light in different aspects. The world is everywhere life. The mineral, vegetable, animal, and man are all life in various forms and degrees of reception."

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And the rain, snow, hail, and the thunder and lightning are all correspondences of truth in different aspects?" asked Willie.

They all correspond with Truth in its various uses and appearances to man. Rain is truth as it fertilizes, snow is truth as it preserves, thunder is truth rousing and alarming the conscience, lightning is truth suddenly

darting into the understanding and suffusing it with its vivid force."

"Why, the Lord likens His Second Coming to the lightning," said Hettie; "For as the lightning cometh out of the east and shineth even unto the west, so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be.'"

"That, Mr. Freeheart," I remarked, "illustrates what I said about the Son of Man coming in the clouds with power and glory. He said, you observe, that it should be like the shining of lightning out of the cloud. Does not that refer to the revelation of His brightness from the letter of the Word?"

"At any rate, that fact seems to flash like lightning all through my mind," said Mr. Freeheart.

"And so it does through mine," said Mr. Thomson. "And when the Truth broadens from one end of society to the other, and Jesus is seen to be life and light streaming from the letter of the Word, He will have come like the lightning from the cloud shining from the east even to the west."

"But," persisted Willie, "the thunder and lightning are terrible and often destructive."

"And, as I have hinted, so is Truth. The truth is not very tender to the evil and perverse. If we are enemies of God, His voice out of the cloud is thunderous and the glare of His light bewildering and blinding. Always bear in mind, my dear Willie, that truth has an opposite effect upon those who are in opposite states. To the evil, truth is not a fertilizing, but an inundating rain which sweeps them away as at the time of the Flood. To the spiritual Egyptians, everything from the cloud is changed, as it is written, 'He gave them hail for rain, and flaming fire in their land.' You know Jesus teaches us that the very light is a curse to the wicked: 'This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.' The Gospel is condemnation, hail, thunder, and lightning to the wicked."

And still the rain came down, and the wind, which was increasing, brought the rising tide in magnificent waves up on the beach and nearer to the window at which we were sitting. As a larger wave rolled up and broke we arose simultaneously and silently watched the grand sweep of the heaving waters.

A MAN'S KNOWLEDGE THE BASIS OF HIS

FAITH.*

HERE are persons who seem to think that they give great evidence of wisdom when they say that they do not believe this or that. The impression is not necessarily correct. It is one of the easiest things in the world not to believe. It requires neither genius, intelligence, nor investigation. An infant does not believe anything, neither does a fool. No man believes until he is taught to believe. Faith is grounded upon knowledge. The things which a man knows lead him to believe other things which as yet he does not know. The man who knows nothing believes nothing; the man who knows more believes more. He who has the most knowledge has the most faith: imperfect knowledge produces erroneous faith.

The main reason why men do not believe any truth is, they do not know enough to believe it. Their imperfect knowledge furnishes them no sound basis for faith. A century ago men did not believe in railroads, in steam* This remarkable article is taken from an American weekly religious journal called the Christian. It is reprinted verbatim, with the exception of a single sentence which we have omitted.

boats, in electric telegraphs, phonographs, and telephones. Why did they not believe in them? Simply because they did not know enough to believe in them. Every power, every natural force, developed now was latent then. Nothing has been added to the world, but men have learned more, and so have been prepared to receive more. Every invention and discovery, save those which are accidental, is due to faith. Columbus believed in a new world before he ever sailed to discover it; Fulton believed in a steamboat before he built it; Stephenson believed in a railroad before he constructed it; Morse believed in a telegraph before he invented it. The faith that a thing can be done gives a man courage to undertake it and do it. The men who believe nothing can do nothing.

The man who did not believe in a sewing-machine, a mowing-machine, or a threshing-machine, never invented one; he had "no faith in such things." To him it was "all nonsense." But other men had faith; they believed that such machines could be invented, and acting upon that faith they proceeded to study, and plan, and invent them. All progress is the result of believing something which is not yet known to be true, and the more men know of the powers of nature and the wonders of mechanical art, the more ready they are to believe that great things can be done, and hence the more ready they are to undertake and accomplish them. The man who will believe nothing except what he knows might about as well crawl into a hole and die. For him there is no progress, no outlook, no hope: ignorant, conceited, self-opinionated, what he does not know he thinks cannot be worth knowing.

Faith is based upon evidence; without evidence there can be no true faith. "I do not believe in Christ, nor in the Bible, nor in Christianity," says one. Quite likely; why should you believe in these things? You do not study the Bible, you do not understand Christianity, and you do not know Christ. You do not know enough about any of these things to have any intelligent faith concerning them. How shall a blind man have faith in a picture, or a deaf man have faith in music? How shall a man who has no sense of smell have any faith in perfumes or odours? Men do not believe in these things, for the same reason that their grandfathers did not believe in telegraphs, railroads, and steamboats. They do not know enough to believe them. They are too ignorant of the facts in the case to have a ground or a basis on which faith can rest. Hence unbelief, instead of being a glory, is a shame; and when sustained by a persistent refusal to search and know the truth, it is not only a shame but a sin. You "do not believe in Christianity!" Pray tell us what you do believe in, or what evidence you have for your belief. I do not ask you what you know, be it much or little; but I ask you, What do you believe? You may find it much easier to tell what you do not believe than what you do believe. I can save you the trouble of doing that. What you do not believe includes almost everything in heaven above and earth beneath, for it includes everything you know nothing of; and the book which contains everything which you do not know must be a very large book, much larger than would be necessary to contain what you do know. Now, so far as your ignorance extends, so far far your belief extends. That of which you know nothing you necessarily believe nothing; but when you come to know something concerning things, the knowledge which you have obtained affords a ground for further faith.

If you knew Jesus Christ as the Apostles knew Him, the Healer, the Comforter, the Teacher, the Wonder

worker, you would believe in Him as they believed in Him, as the Image of the invisible God. If you knew Him as they knew Him, crucified, dead, buried, risen, and ascended, then you could believe as they believed in Him. It is because you do not know the past that you cannot believe the present and the future. It is because you do not take the trouble to investigate and understand the past that you cannot assure yourselves concerning things to come.

True faith is no mere whim or fancy, or acceptance of vague and unfounded traditions. A true faith in things to come rests on a sure knowledge of things past. Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. And that Word of God is the record of God's wondrous works which He hath done to the children of men. When this is studied, investigated, and believed, there is laid a foundation for faith so broad and deep that the cavillings of those who do not believe, because they do not know, affect it only as an idle wind affects an everlasting rock.

THE NEW HYMN-BOOK.

T the late meeting of Conference Dr. Bayley, in supporting the motion to revise the Hymn-Book, suggested that the new one should contain from fifteen hundred to two thousand hymns. He stated that there were now upwards of fifty thousand hymns, and he thought the compilers could easily select from them a sufficient number of suitable hymns to make up our new collection to about two thousand. Dr. Bayley at the time seemed to be quite in earnest, but now, I think, he must have been in joke. What possible use could there be for two thousand hymns?

Our present collection, leaving out the Supplement, contains six hundred hymns. There are, say, fifty Sundays in each year, hence we have already twelve hymns for every Sunday in the year. But Dr. Bayley, in the largeness of his heart, is not satisfied with this allowance. He proposes that the new book should have fifteen hundred or two thousand hymns in it, thus giving an average of thirty to forty hymns for each Sunday in the year. Surely this is getting too much of a good thing.

There is a plan sometimes tried to prevent children eating too much sugar. When they will have sugar, we just give them as much as they can eat. They make themselves sick and never ask any more. Can Dr. Bayley have been thinking of this? Can he have been saying to himself, You want new hymns; you are determined to revise and add to the good old book. Well, I'll give you hymns. I'll give you such a dose of them that you'll never want another." If such an idea were really in his mind, I would entreat him to have some mercy on us. The punishment is greater than the offence. Six hundred hymns are quite enough to supply all our wants; two thousand would only make us ill, and would be almost useless. Probably not more than a third of them would ever be used. It is a mistake to suppose that congregations like a great variety of hymns. The hymns which are most enjoyed are those which are best known. When the people know the words and tune by heart, then it is that they can sing with heart and soul and voice. But if we have two thousand to choose from, and they are really used, it will take a lifetime to learn them. They will never become familiar, but will always remain strange and cold. We may have fine displays of choir-singing, but we shall miss that hearty soul-inspiring congregational singing for which the Scotch Covenanters were so famous.

tu

In all seriousness, therefore, I appeal to Dr. Bayley and the Committee not to inundate the Church with such a flood of poetry. Let the Committee reject those hymns which are unfit to remain in the book, and supply their places with really good New Church hymns, but do not let them think of burdening the Church with a collection of two thousand. Apart altogether from the question of price, and that is of some importance in a large Society, such a book will be most unhandy. In size it will be about as large as an ordinary Family Bible, and most inconvenient to hold while standing. If we are to have such a weighty volume we shall be forced to return to the old and unnatural way of sitting while singing and standing at prayers. A. E.

THE CREATION IN SIX DAYS.

HE Scottish Association of the New Church are already acting upon the resolution which they came to at their annual meeting last month, and have begun to deliver in Greenock a weekly lecture of a missionary character. The first lecture has been noticed at length both in the Greenock Advertiser and the Greenock Telegraph, and as an example of a pithy and readable notice we give the one contained in the latter. "In the lesser hall of the Temperance Institute last night (Nov. 12), Rev. J. F. Potts, B.A., Glasgow, delivered the first of a course of lectures in connection with the establishment of a Swedenborgian mission in Greenock, the subject being 'The Creation in Six Days.' The place of meeting was quite filled. To begin with, Mr. Potts read the 4th chapter of Jeremiah's prophecy, and afterwards turned the attention of the meeting to the description of the creation as given in the 1st chapter of Genesis. If, he said, they took the letter of that passage it would kill them; it would destroy them as Christians; because it would destroy their faith in the Bible as being the pure and infallible Word of God. Why would it do this? Because, regarded in the mere matter, it was palpably and manifestly untrue. It isn't true that God made the world in six days. It isn't true that He ever rested or that He ever needed any rest. It isn't true that the earth existed before the sun, moon, or stars. It isn't true that there was light before there were luminaries. It isn't true that the earth is flat as it is there represented to be. It isn't true that there is a great reservoir of water above the firmament from which rain is supplied, although that was the Jewish idea about the source of rain, and is the idea that is embodied there. It isn't true that the evening and the morning make a day. It isn't true that it never rained until all the plants and trees had grown. It isn't true that knowledge ever grew on a tree. It isn't true that all the beasts and birds ever came to Adam to receive their names. It isn't true that a woman was ever made out of a bone taken out of a man's body. It isn't true that a serpent ever talked; and, in fact, the whole story was a tissue of the greatest nonsense from the one end to the other. Now, that was the result of their keeping to the letter. The mere letter kills you, and it also kills the Word of God. It turns it into the greatest falsehoods that ever were written on the subject. 'The words that I speak unto you they are spirit and they are life;' that is what the Lord of heaven and earth says. Emanuel Swedenborg said the same thing as the Lord and as the inspired Apostle Paul. It might be said that Swedenborg was an enthusiast, a mystic, a madman-a victim of hallucinations. If that were the case, it was very strange that they could not answer his arguments. Swedenborg declared 120 years ago that the first eleven

chapters of Genesis were unhistorical. He also told us that the Word of God had an internal as well as an external sense, and that it was in the internal sense that the divinity of the Word existed. Swedenborg said, what the Lord said, that it has spirit as well as body, and that this spirit is life. The soul filled the whole body from the head to the foot. There was not the smallest part of the body where there was not life; that is, where there is a soul. Now, it was exactly the same with the Word of God. It was spirit that dwelt universally in this flesh; and there was not a syllable of the letter which was not wholly an account of Divine truth in the spiritual sense that dwelt within it. Every syllable of the early chapters of the Genesis was therefore wholly Divine, not by virtue of anything said there about the creation of the physical universe, but by virtue of the Divine spiritual sense that dwells in every syllable of it. One hundred and twenty years ago, when the theology of Swedenborg was new, everybody believed that the world was created in six literal days. Now nobody believed it. Smith in his Dictionary of the Bible said that the theory of the six periods could not be pronounced satisfactory, and he (the speaker) said No, nor ever would be. One of the most elaborate attempts to prove that the six days were six geological epochs was that of Hugh Miller in his Testimony of the Rocks.' No man had a better right to be heard, both as a profound geologist and as a sincere Christian; and it was impossible not to admire the eloquence and ingenuity with which he attempted to reconcile the story of Genesis with the story of the rocks, and it was equally impossible to fail to see that his argument was a complete failure. There was nothing sadder than the spectacle of that good and noble-hearted man struggling despairingly to reconcile two things that were irreconcilable, both of which he firmly believed to be true, neither of which he could give up, and breaking down in the hopeless attempt, his intellect shattered and his reason gone, the victim of theological ignorance. The truth was, to say that the six days mentioned in Genesis were six periods was only to increase the difficulty. There was no evidence in geological science of such epochs at all: it all went to show that the growth and development of the earth had been continuous and had been steadily progressing. The lecturer proceeded to give instances of words which had (as he had described it) an external and internal sense, and quoted the passage at Genesis 29th chapter, in which is narrated the story of Jacob removing the stone from the well to allow his flocks to drink, as furnishing cases in point. The story was nothing in the world but one of those little stories with a double meaning. What were the spiritual things to which the story of the creation related? They were successive steps or stages of regeneration. The word created had a double meaning. They all knew what its natural meaning was; its spiritual meaning was to regenerate. The reason why these words had those spiritual meanings was that there were two worlds. There was a spiritual as well as a natural world, and there was therefore in every word in the human language a meaning for the natural world which was natural and a meaning for the spiritual world which was spiritual. 'Let there be light' was the first Divine command. This meant 'Let there be knowledge'-let there be abundant and perfect knowledge of the truth-let there be clear light on spiritual things. So it was with every other word. There was no exception to this law. Mr. Potts proceeded to give reasons for applying the meaning that he had given to the word create. He was very attentively listened to throughout."

Mr. Potts delivered another lecture in the same place