CONTRIBUTORS 1909

ALDEN, WM. H.
BEEKMAN, LILIAN G.
BENHAM, CHAS. E.
BOWERS, J. E.
BROOKS, OSCAR M.
CALDWELL, WM. B.
DE CHARMS, RICHARD
GILL, WM.
GLADISH, W. L.
IUNGERICH, E. E.
ODHNER, HUGO L.
PENDLETON, N. D.
PENDLETON, W. F.
PRICE, E. S.
PRYKE, J. S.
STROH, ALFRED H.
SYNNESTVEDT, H.
TILSON, R. J.
WAELCHLI, F. E.
WHITEHEAD, WM.

CORRESPONDENTS.

Blair, E., (B. P. O. E.).
Bowers, J. E.
Cooper, F. R.
Craigie, E.
Elphick, F.
Gill, W. R.
Gladish, W. L.
Gyllenhaal, F., (F.)
Harris, T. S.
Iungerich, E. E.
Jubb, W. C.
La Fayette, L. C. de.
McQueen, Alec.
Mueller, Frau.
Pendleton, Ora (B. P. O. E.).
Rose, Donald.
Rosenqvist, J. E., (R.).
Smith, G. H., (G. S.).
Somerville, B.
Synnestvedt, H., (S; O. S.).
Waelchli, F. E.
Wallenberg, E. V.
Title Unspecified 1909

Title Unspecified 1909

NEW CHURCH LIFE.

VOL. XXIX. JANUARY, 1909 No. 1.
SCHOOL EXAMINATIONS 1909

SCHOOL EXAMINATIONS Rev. HOMER SYNNESTVEDT 1909

     From the beginning of our schools, some thirty years ago, until the present day, examinations or memory tests, as a gauge of proficiency and a controlling standard, have been dispensed with, either for gaining admission to the school, or for determining promotion or graduation. We ask new pupils what they have had or have not had, and then place them tentatively in the lowest (rather than the highest) grade, which they seem likely to fit. If they show themselves able to do higher work, in a few days or weeks, they are promoted, and provision made as far as possible for making good whatever gaps today appear. As to promotion or graduation, the consensus of opinion of all the teachers concerned, based upon their daily record of the pupil's work, and upon the teacher's opinion as to his ability and energy, determines this matter, much better, I believe, than any formal "examination" could.

     Now this total elimination of the memory test, or "examination," has had profound and far-reaching effects. It has totally eliminated "cramming," "cribbing" and certain other abuses involving the health and the honesty of the pupils, and the even development of each study for its own sake. The memory test has not dominated our school. Pupils are not driven by the fear of falling under this dread juggernaut. Memory work has not predominated, either in the mind of the pupil, or of the teacher, and all have been brought face to face with the subject matter itself, as the thing to be understood and enjoyed. This has left the teachers entirely free to discuss their subjects, and, in a measure, to digest their contents,--a phase of teaching which, as all agree, is greatly lacking in the high pressure memory work developed under the "examination" system. Thus we have been free to develop intelligence by means of our scientifics. In Heaven and Hell, 464, we are told that "as far as man through languages and sciences is made rational in the world, so far he is rational after death, and by no means according as he is merely acquainted with them." In view of such explicit teaching, can we afford to give over our efforts in this direction?

     But all this freedom from pressure due to the absence of quantitative and memory tests, has cost us something. To gain this, we have sacrificed much, and the time seems to have come for us to count the cost, and to strike some kind of a balance according to what we can afford.

     OBJECTIONS TO FORMAL EXAMINATIONS.

     Objection has been made to any utilizing of the love of fame or merit, as engendering the pride of self-intelligence, rather than the love of use or of knowledge for its own delight, and the normal delight of feeding a hungry mind. Work was not to be done under the lash of external pressure, but to wait for a self-active delight to be insinuated or developed into spontaneous activity, buttressed indeed by more or less unexpected rewards, and by penalty-pressure indirectly applied, i. e., applied to shutting out other activities during the time allotted to the study. But the idea was, not to let these motives become the sole or even the central impelling force, but rather to bend all efforts to developing or inspiring a self-active affection for the scientifics in hand. This is about the same as the modern doctrine of Interest. (See De Garmo's Interest in Education.) Thus, and thus only, it is claimed, can truths be livingly and permanently introduced. We might as well learn to labor and to wait for such a development of interest or affection, it is claimed, for without it knowledge is of no real advantage. Learning is a dead load upon the outer memory, like an undigested dinner in the stomach, until there is awakened some love of it for its use. This doctrine indeed contains the central truth which all great educational masters have pointed out, which all great educational revivals have restored; it is only love received and affecting the will or heart which can open the inner gate to perception. "A man can receive nothing, unless it be given him from heaven, and the truth of good, or living perceptive truth, is only obtained by patient wooing, not by storming the heights.

Love is the one great opener of the mind--the source of mental health and appetite. The mind, like the body, is little advantaged by food taken without an aroused appetite The laws of the physiology of the mind, (or psychology), are similar to those of the body--the difference being only as to the kind of substances infilling the organism, and the consequent kind of nutrition needed; and right in this connection we run against the same question on the plane of physical nutrition, as that which claims our attention with respect to mental nutrition. What shall we do when the health is poor, and the appetite Perverted or lacking? Shall we let the patient starve, or force him to eat something? Mr. Benade's idea seemed to be that unless a spontaneous affection for learning could be aroused, it was an indication to allow the pupil to fall out, and find his level among the uneducated masses, lather than to add to the number of imitation scholars, men with a little superficial learning, of whom the world is all too full. An out-turning of such men does indeed make education seem to promote discontent, conceit and inefficiency, by spoiling good mechanics to make poor scholars,--but, while I recognize this danger. I feel that we ought not to drop pupils out of school without giving them all the teaching which they can and will take, and thus letting Providence, and not the teacher, judge of their future lot.

But if they are to be retained, stimuli must be applied which will make them bestir themselves, and as it were come to meet the teacher's efforts. This means appealing to pride, to fear, to hope, or what not; in other words, it means appealing to any love which will reach them at the time. Thus there are mediate laws, quite selfish at first, which must he used temporarily, or there will be no self-compulsion on the part of the child, and the teacher will have to furnish all the stimulus. This latter necessity on the part of the teacher is just what is demanded where the developmental system is carried to its extreme, and experience shows that it makes nervous wrecks of the teachers, and vitiates the pupil's power of self-compulsion.

     THE ERROR IN THESE OBJECTIONS.

     The system developed without the usual stimuli of fear and hope, or pride and love of approbation has failed in several important respects, and we think we detect the reason in a lack of discrimination. The contentions of the reformers are true, all of them, and must not be lost sight of as the end to be attained. But in application to the various stages of childhood and youth, we find that other truths must enter in,--other mediate loves be made use of, and the teaching given be, not a cut down replica of adult teaching, but an accommodation of interior truths to the appearances of various lower planes. The "children of this generation" are oftentimes wiser than the sons of light," and abstract, or interior truths, require much modification to adapt the theory to successful practice.

     In the first place, few are endowed at this day with much natural love of wisdom. It is an acquired taste, and as all have agreed, there is no royal road to learning. Since the fall, man must win his bread by the sweat of his brow. Physical hunger will drive him to make whatever effort is necessary to sustain his natural life, for the Lord Himself operates immediately into the lowest corporeal plane. But the only natural appetite which a child possesses in the direction of spiritual life, is a mere thirst for knowing,--the blind instinctive hunger of his mental organism, urging it to perform its proper functions. Here, however, is where, since the fall, the defect lies, for we are not born, as most creatures are, into the order of life, and we cannot and do not spontaneously distinguish between what knowledge is good for us, and what is bad, any more than a human infant distinguishes wholesome from unwholesome food. The mere hunger for knowledge,--this we have; but the discriminations, we must learn,--at first through others, and especially through the means provided of the Lord Himself for making good the deficiency in our own perceptions, namely, the truths of His Word. For this purpose is all education, and thus we see that fundamentally it is at this day, a work of difficult--of re-formation, and of re-construction of that which has been previously de-formed, and through inherited bent tends of itself even to "go upon its belly, and eat the dust of the earth all the day of its life."

The philosophy of many leading educators today, being a reaction from the extreme of the total depravity dogma is laboring under the delusion that man's fundamental instincts must be right, if unspoiled, and thus it is supposed that a normal appetite can be awakened for any and all knowledge which the mind really needs. But while such appetite can be inserted or insinuated, as remains, during the early ages, before the contrary-twisted proprium is allowed full activity and sway, it will certainly not exist unless it be both planted and cultivated; and this means not a little husbandry. In other words, while it is most true that nothing remains which does not enter the mind with some delight, it is also true that there are degrees of delights, and that man must progress by steps from one to another. The first delights, mere curiosity, for instance, can only serve as introductory to the next, and so on up the ladder. Various mediate goods or delights are supplied at various stages, each of which must serve its turn, and then be left below, if progress is to be made.

These mediate delights are all more or less selfish; an unselfish or genuine love of truth for its own sake, is attained only with adult regenerate or angelic life. Thus the destined order, wherein man does spontaneously desire and seek for the real truths which he needs for his eternal life, is finally given to man, as the Divine Providence intends, but not without his own co-operation, and indeed, not without self-compulsion at every step. It is all acquired nature, and thus an acquired freedom very far from being natural at first, except by infusion or induction. The conclusion from all this is very clear, namely, that just as men must at first compel themselves to receive spiritual love and thus to acquire a taste for spiritual things, so children must be compelled and imbued as far as possible with knowledges and habits that will fit them for receiving such life later if they choose, and this training is not to be accomplished without labor and pain. There are found with every child loves which resist the acquisition of goods and truths, side by side with those good remains which are the ground of an opposite appetite. The teacher must, therefore, be prepared to co-operate with the Lord and the angels in seizing upon and strengthening the good remains, and in resisting and overcoming the inclinations and tendencies of the proprium.

We are here between heaven and hell, and our methods must be not only developmental, but also, upon the other side, be repressive and decidedly disciplinary. Two natures are placed side by side in every child, and the work of education must take account of both. We must endeavor in every way and with all our power to reach and lead forth the good remains, to instill and elicit the real love of truth; but we must also, when necessary, compel the children to apply themselves to study,--compel them, both by hope of rewards, appealing to their lore of approbation, and by fear of penalties, arousing the shame of failure. This, of course, so far as it is done by mere compulsion, can introduce truths only into the outer court of the mind, or the memory. But this is just the part that has to be done by us, before pupils can be in freedom to receive some further interest in truths, or can make further use of them.

     The process of human nutrition proceeds normally by alternations, first acquiring a stomach full, and then digesting it. It is a curious fact that the outer memory of man is compared to a ruminating stomach. It is also compared to a storehouse, whence the interior mind selects at will the things which suits its purposes, and feeds its delights, neglecting all else there. It is also compared to a garden or field, which is to be filled with plants suitable for food, from the abundance of which, selection will be made when man is reflecting or meditating.

     The fault with the traditional pedagogue,--him of the ferule and the book of rules,--was not that he used compulsion and required hard memory work,--doubtless many a fine character has come out of such a school, just because of the severe discipline:--but the fault was that he used only the grossest pain as his stimulus, and thus the labor and the pains were applied unprofitably; and that his book of rules was not adapted to the successive unfolding of the childish mind. Also, he stopped when he had beaten a few things into the memory of his pupil, without evolving them, i. e., without leading the pupil to compare, apply and thus use them. The well drilled memory, plus this use of the things learned, would have been ideal, if obtainable.

     Our shortcomings, under the system of non-compulsion which has grown up because of the absence of memory tests, have, as might be expected, not been shortcomings in the way of rational development.

Our pupils have indeed learned to think, and weigh, and discuss. But they have lacked certainly, the visible control of certain memory tools. The weakness has always been most marked in the elementary subjects, such as spelling, figuring, geography and dates in history. These are mere memory knowledges, yet they are basic to all thinking, and a rational habit of thought which essays to compare and conclude as to data, when the latter are not clearly apprehended, is hound to be loose and faulty. Some of our ex-pupils, feeling keenly their deficiencies in these points, would have us go wholly and frankly over to the system of those who make examinations the main thing, and who by much severe drill, do succeed in giving their pupils a pretty good hold upon the tools of thought. But I am not yet ready to do this, for I believe that it would be only rushing back again to the other extreme, only to find in the end that the lacks upon the side of thought development, would be worse than the present ills. I, therefore, submit a proposition looking to a better balancing of these two necessary phases of education, which is designed to furnish the stimulus of a test or judgment, (because our subject everything of the year's work to that test.

I propose that every year, in May, or about the time when final reviews should begin, a thorough examination be given, to be called preliminary. At this preliminary examination there should be no extraordinary features in the way of marks, etc.; in fact, it should be carried on after the manner of the ordinary reviews, but, at the same time it should be searching enough to reveal weaknesses, so that the children may make good their deficiencies before the final examinations. These latter, if counted at all toward graduation, should count no more than one month's work, as indeed they would be. The main remedy, however, is to be found not only in the fear of such a test, but in frequent reviews throughout the year, insuring a thorough grasp of each period or phase of a subject before passing out to the next. I favor keeping the element of a test,--usually made up of a question here and a question there, just to find out whether they are familiar with the subjects--subordinated to the element of review, or summing up, comparing and digesting the data already acquired.

Here and there a certain amount of mere repetition is desirable; but, as a rule, as seen, for example, in practicing scales with the hand for muscular facility, one hour of exercise with the mind will do more than many hours of thoughtless drumming. Ultimating through the hands also helps. In short, I would reintroduce the spur of pride, but would try not to let it dominate all else. In extreme cases pupils should be "plucked" relentlessly. It is a proper incentive for the young, but the adult mind should be able to rise above it in making final judgment. If you do not apply a stimulus to what already exists in the child, the burden of supplying enthusiasm becomes too hard upon the teacher; this indeed has always been one of the serious objections to the modern non-disciplinary or developmental system of teaching. If self-compulsion, and the shunning of evils must precede freedom and the delight of good in the regenerate life, then something analogous must lie at the foundation of school work. The old-fashioned idea, according to the letter of the Word in Hebrew, where the word meaning "to instruct" or "teach" also means "to goad" or "whip," is correct in principle, though capable of most serious abuse by resting in it as an end instead of making it a means to the real ends, which are the influx of good and the love of truth for its own sake. The lower mind or animus is like a shell, which must be softened or broken through, that the inner may have a chance to flower forth and bear fruit.

CITY OF THE SUN 1909

CITY OF THE SUN Rev. N. D. PENDLETON 1909

     "In that day there shall be five cities in the land of Egypt that speak with the lip of Canaan, and that swear to Jehovah of hosts, one of them shall be called Ir cheres. In that day there shall be an altar to Jehovah in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar to Jehovah in the border thereof." Isaiah xix, 18, 19.

     Of the many prophecies in the Old Testament, a number have received historical fulfillment. Of these a few have been fulfilled to the letter, the others only as to the general import of the prophetic utterance; yet in many of these latter cases the reference is sufficiently clear. Again there are some which are open to doubt, and have in consequence led to endless discussion. Finally there are those for the historical fulfillment of which no basis can be found in history; and it appears that they were not intended as actual historical predictions, at least not with regard to the life history of the race in this world.

     But all the sacred prophecies are of equal value as to their spiritual signification. One and all they are and have been fulfilled as to this their essential meaning. This fulfillment however, has been on the plane of the internal history of the Church, and of the life of the regenerating man. From this standpoint it can be seed that not one of the Divine predictions has failed fail of fulfillment in the fullest and truest sense of the word.

     With regard to those prophecies which have received literal historical fulfillment, we are cautioned to lift the thought above the event as a mere happening in this world, in order that the spiritual meaning and application of the truth involved may not be overshadowed. For, as is said in the Writings, when the mind is held bound in the things of external history little light from heaven can inflow. Before the true elevation of thought can be attained, the idea must be dissociated from the historical image, or--at least freed from its limitations and dominance.

     Yet, when a prophecy clearly refers to a well known and perhaps a crucial event in history, a careful study of that event in its bearings upon general history, may prove of value in broadening the natural idea, and thus lead to a deeper comprehension of the spiritual meaning involved. Of this there can be little doubt, for every spiritual thought must rest on some natural idea, and indeed the spiritual thought receives its determination from the natural idea. In the other life each one is, as it were, limited by or to those spiritual things which have been implanted and have taken root in the natural. It is clear therefore that the more perfect the natural idea the more full may be the spiritual perception based thereon. Yet when this is seen and fully recognized, the warning given in the Writings must also be heeded:--this that the natural idea, important as it may be as a basis, must not be allowed to possess the mind to the exclusion of the spiritual sense, nor yet to its hindrance, but must be held subordinate, made to yield; in fact, it must as it were die, in order that the spiritual may be born.

     If this truth of spiritual evolution be clearly recognized and encouraged then may one enter into an examination of the historicals of the Word, not only with the hope of discovering a broader basis for a natural understanding of Scripture, but also he may happily find a larger measure of facts confirming the spiritual sense.

     Whether our text, which, in the literal sense, deals with the final reconciliation of Israel and Egypt, was intended in any degree as a historical prediction is not altogether clear. Certainly no such reconciliation as is pictured was ever in and general way brought about between the two nations.
Yet there are those who see at least a partial fulfillment of the prophecy in the fact that the Jewish refugees in Egypt built a temple with an altar for sacrifice in the city of Leontopolis in the days of the Asmonian princes. The prophecy of Isaiah runs thus: "In that day there shall be an altar to Jehovah in the midst of the land of Egypt." It is quite possible that the refugees took this verse of ancient prophecy as a warrant for their undertaking. However, it appears that the building of the Egyptian Temple for the worship of Jehovah was opposed by the priests of the temple at Jerusalem, and this all the more violently because the rich gifts and offerings which for years had been sent by the wealthy Egyptian Jews to Jerusalem were diverted to Leontopolis.

     It is claimed by modern scholars that the priests of the Temple at Jerusalem, in order to strike at the Egyptian undertaking, altered the text of the passage of Scripture in question. By the ready change of the letter [heth] into a [hey] they made the reading to be "the city of destruction" instead of the "city of the sun." This Palestinian version has come down to us as the received text. And thus we find the following translation given in the Authorized Version: "in that day shall five cities in the land of Egypt speak the language of Canaan, and swear to the Lord of Hosts; one shall be called, the city of destruction."

     This appears to be a manifest incongruity on the face of it. The context plainly shows that the five cities were to be regarded as blessings-and no one of them a curse, as the term "city of destruction" would indicate.

     This obvious incongruity has led to the detection of what is called a palpable fraud.

     We turn to Swedenborg with interest in order to see if he throws any light on the question of correct reading. Three times he quotes the text, but does not translate the phrase in question. He simply transcribes the Hebrew words-"Ir Cheres." However he leaves us in no doubt as to the real meaning, and this not only by his mode of spelling the word, but by what he says of its spiritual significance.

     In Apocalypse Explained, n. 391, he says. "Ir Cheres signifies doctrine flowing from spiritual truths in the natural, for "Ir" means a city signifies doctrine. "Cheres" mean a glowing like that of the Sun."

     Again in the same work, n. 651, he says that "Cheres," which, in the Hebrew, means the sun and its beams, signifies "the good of charity and faith therefrom."

     A translation therefore of the text as corrected by criticism and supported by Swedenborg would be "In that day there shall be five cities in the land of Egypt that speak with the lip of Canaan.... One of them shall be called the city of the Sun,"-not the "City of destruction," as is given by the Authorized Version.

     This rendering is in agreement with the internal sense, nay, more, it is demanded by it.

In that sense the whole chapter, and especially the portion before us, treats of the last day when the Lord is to come and build a true Church which will bring all things in subjection to itself as a spiritual power. With reference to the individual it treats of that last state when regeneration is accomplished-when the natural plane of the mind becomes subject to the spiritual; and when the things of the spiritual mind only descend into the natural and effect a lodgment there. Such a lodgment of the things of the spiritual mind in the natural is represented by the five cities in Egypt speaking with the lip of Canaan, i.e. cities composed of Jewish refugees. Canaan stands for the spiritual mind and Egypt for the natural. That one of the cities, representing the presence of the spiritual in the natural with the regenerating man, should be called a "city of destruction," is not only incongruous but clearly impossible. But that such settlement should be characterized as a "city of the sun," i.e. as doctrine in the natural glowing from spiritual truth, is both harmonious and beautifully significant. For when doctrine in the natural mind is illumined by influx from the spiritual with the regenerating man, such illumination is also accompanied by a "glowing;" that is, in such a case there is not only spiritual light but also spiritual heat.

Prior to regeneration the natural mind may be receptive of spiritual light, but it is only after regeneration that this light is accompanied by heat, which produces the glow and happiness of spiritual light. Such a "glowing" is the characteristic of the state described in our text, i.e., of that state in which the spiritual has descended into the natural and effected a settlement there-even as the children of Judah had in process of time settled in Egypt and gradually acquired sufficient power to rule over five cities, and finally to build and altar there for the worship of Jehovah; according to the words of the text, "In that day there shall be five cities in the land of Egypt that speak with the lip of Canaan and that swear to Jehovah of Hosts. One of them shall be called the City of the Sun. In that day there shall be an altar to Jehovah in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar to Jehovah in the border thereof."

     That the Advent of the Lord, or, what is the same, the regenerate state is treated of in this chapter and verse is clear from the closing verse which contains that beautiful prophecy concerning the final reconciliation, not only between the spiritual and the natural mind by regeneration, but also between the natural and the rational, and of the spiritual with each. In this prophecy Israel stands for the spiritual mind. Assyria for the rational and Egypt for the natural. This reconciliation is thus expressed:

     "In that day there shall be a highway out of Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian shall come into Egypt, and the Egyptian into Assyria, and the Egyptians shall serve with the Assyrians. In that day Israel shall be a third with Egypt and with Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the land, whom the Lord of Hosts shall bless, saying, Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel mine inheritance."

     All this will be the result of a prior condition treated earlier in the same chapter-a condition depicted by our text:

     "In that day there shall be five cities in the land of Egypt that speak with the lip of Canaan.... In that day there shall be an altar to Jehovah in the midst of the land of Egypt."

     A city is doctrine; and a city speaking with the lip of Canaan is genuine doctrine from a spiritual origin. A city called Ir Cheres, or a City of the Sun, is genuine doctrine from a spiritual origin glowing with spiritual warmth; that is, doctrine infilled with the light and heat of heaven, which is given only to those who have become regenerate-who have subdued the evil lusts of the natural man, and thereby rendered that man entirely subject and under obedience to the spiritual.

     However, before evil can be fully removed from the natural there must be a reserve of good in the internal or spiritual, and this good must flow down into the natural, into the doctrine of truth established there, which doctrine or doctrines serve as so many strongholds from whence may issue the necessary power for the removal of evil.

     These strongholds or planes for the reception and extension of spiritual good and its power are signified by the five cities in Egypt speaking with the lip of Canaan, and especially by the one called the "City of the Sun." That this power is sufficient for the expulsion of evils from the natural is clear from the following words of the chapter before us:

     "They shall cry unto the Lord because of the oppressors (i. e., evils) and He shall send them a Savior, and a great one, and He shall deliver them. . . . And the Lord shall smite Egypt: He shall smite it and heal it: And they shall return to the Lord, and He shall be entreated of them, and shall heal them."

     This depicts the process of healing after temptations--a healing by the extension of the sphere of good roundabout from the five cities as centers for the reception of influx. After this follows the prophecy concerning the reconciliation of all the planes of the human mind represented by Israel, Assyria and Egypt, which we have quoted above.

     The chapter as a whole is a manifest unit. It is composed with beautiful imagery, and superb diction, whereby the Divine Truths contained are mirrored with wonderful clearness. So manifest are its spiritual contents that to expound seems superfluous. They may be stated in a general way, as follows: Evils are removed from man by good from the spiritual mind operating through truth or doctrine established in the natural. The good descends from the spiritual into the doctrine in the natural and thence extends itself around on all sides, pressing out or excluding the evils which it finds there and filling their place. This good is the Savior or the Great One sent to deliver---it is the same as the Lord Himself. It is the Lord in man.

     The warning of revelation is that man must shun evils in order that he may he saved. But by shunning evils man does not in reality remove them. By his effort in this direction he only prepares the way--opens the possibility--of their removal by inviting an influx of good from the Lord through the spiritual man. This good, which is the Lord, removes the evils.

     The appearance is that evils are removed by man's own effort, and owing to the need of this effort the appearance is allowed. Yet it should he known that any effort on the part of man implies some reserve of power from whence the effort arises. This power may originate in certain native forces which look for their origin to self love as a primal animal instinct. Effort arising from this source can not remove evil. It may indeed displace a given evil, but such displacement only opens the way for the inletting of another, perhaps a more refined and deeper evil.

     On the other hand, effort may arise from the love of good or the affection of truth--effort in the direction of shunning evil, and in this case the evils may be removed,--but it should be understood that evils are in reality and actuality removed, not by the effort per se, but by the good descending on invitation and operating through truths acknowledged, believed, and loved.

     This good descending is the enabling power, and more, it is a positive force, which when it comes is irresistible. For this reason we say that it is the Lord alone who removes the evils, and that man can never do it by any effort or power proper to himself.

     Man must begin by shunning evils as of himself, he must even begin by shunning them from and because of himself. In this case the enabling power is some form of self love. His effort is supported by certain natural affections.

     Power from this origin can not, as shown above, remove evils, or bring about a descent of good from the spiritual mind, it can only effect a displacement, or perhaps suppress the more obvious and superficial forms of evil. This however is a useful preparation. But the true enabling power whereby evils may be actually removed, and goods implanted in their place, is given only after man has cultivated an affection for spiritual truth. This affection is the potential thing in regeneration; wherefore it is said in the Writings, that during the process of regeneration man is held in the affection of truth. This affection looks upwards to the truth it loves, thus away from self and the world. It receives into itself the truth which it loves and the truth in itself is Divine. And the affection is purified and regenerated by the truth which has become its soul, so that what at first was a natural affection for truth becomes a spiritual consort; and then the cities in Egypt begin to speak with the lip of Canaan,--then there inflows into the plane of the primal natural affection through the doctrine of truth, genuine spiritual good--that good which in the beginning gave birth to the truth--that good which is the Lord in man, the Great One who is sent, the Redeemer. When He comes evils are removed forever, and a lasting reconciliation is effected between Egypt and Israel. The man becomes regenerate.

     Two things then are necessary to regeneration: First, man should be in the effort to shun evils.

Second, he should cultivate the love of truth. One without the other does not avail.

     The mere shunning of certain evils without the love of truth does not open the way, nor call down the real good from heaven. It only aids in the refining of the natural affections. And after all leaves a man a prey to his own self love.

     The love of truth, especially the love of the truths of the Church which are spiritual in their origin, without any effort to shun evils as sins, induces at first a state of mere intellectualism and this, if persisted in without amendment of life, looks, and leads to profanation. Hence it is of Providence that man is rarely if ever allowed to maintain himself in the love of spiritual truth unless he can he, that is, is willing to be regenerated. It is therefore provided that those who can be regenerated are inspired with an endeavor to shun their evils, and besides are gifted with a love of truth.

     The first, the effort to shun evils, is an individual matter, and must be so held for the sake of freedom. With regard to it no inquisition should be made by others. The man must be left in freedom to compel himself, and his state in this respect is disturbed if he is under scrutiny. Therefore this part of a man's life is, of Providence, largely hidden from the view of others.

     The love of truth is also an individual matter; still it is visible, it manifests itself openly. It pertains to what is mutual among men. There is in it an element of give and take. One encourages another, and many join together. The cultivation of this love is the great work of the Church--even as it is the great object of Revelation, since by it alone can human efforts he turned to the accomplishment of Divine ends

     Hence the saying "as long as the love of truth is kept alive all is well," which means that as long as a man loves the truth, there is hope of his regeneration, and this, whatever his evils may appear to be.

     This affection is indeed the very "door of hope" for us all, and we well know that should this affection entirely fail, the "door" would be closed, the light would go out, and all would be over.

     The work of the Church is to cultivate this affection, by feeding it, by supplying the needed truths, and by adapting them.

This latter is the special function of the Church, and its priesthood. The Truth itself is given by Revelation. But the Church adapts the truth thus given from time to time, from age to age, according to its spiritual needs. By this means the truth of revelation undergoes periodic renewals, whereby the affection of truth is repeatedly stirred--whereby the interest in spiritual things is kept alive, and the members of the Church are stimulated to new and higher endeavors.

This affection of truth is a sacred burning in the hearts of men--a flame kindled for the supreme sacrifice--whereby the natural is transmuted into the spiritual. And this is the secret of life, a secret revealed by God to His Church for the sake of the salvation of men--a secret revealed, and also a work commissioned by Him. The work is for the Church. It is the work of nourishing this affection-of feeding this flame with the truths of religion and--a concordant science.

NEW CHURCH, ITS DIFFICULT RECEPTION AND SLOW GROWTH 1909

NEW CHURCH, ITS DIFFICULT RECEPTION AND SLOW GROWTH WILLIAM GILL 1909

     The New Church is based on the confession, acknowledgment and belief that the Lord is the God of heaven and earth, and that every truth of the Church and every good of religion is from Him.

     From these central truths depend, as a chain of pearls, an infinitude of other truths, connected and making one with it.

     The whole forms a system of doctrine equally agreeable to enlightened reason and Sacred Scripture, and it might be thought that in an age which delights in being thought rational, and by a Church which calls itself Christian, such a system of doctrine would be most gladly received.

     But the man through whom it was given to the world says:

     "Now while in the street and talking with spirits, it was given to perceive that there are five kinds of reception.

     First, those who wholly reject, who are in another persuasion, and are enemies of the faith: it cannot he received by them, since it cannot penetrate their mind.

     "Another class who receive these things as scientifics, and as such are delighted with them as curious things.

     "A third class, which receives, intellectually, so that they receive with sufficient alacrity, but still remain with respect to life as before.

     "A fourth class receives persuasively, so that it penetrates to the improvement of their lives; they recur to these in certain states and make use of them.

     "A fifth class who receive with joy and the confirmed."

     That those who constitute the latter class are relatively few is now a commonplace with us. But revelation and experience agree in informing us that this apparent paradox is so far-reaching in its nature, and crops up in so many unexpected ways, its understanding is so vital to the life of the Church, both in ourselves and the world, that reflection upon it can hardly fail of profit.

     How difficult it is even with such teaching as I have just read fresh in our minds to get rid of the cognate ideas that because the world needs genuine truth as "the one thing needful," it, therefore, wants it, and that if a truth is plainly stated it necessarily instructs the hearer.

     It is not only that men can be distinguished into classes differing from each other as heaven from hell, but that the same man may at one time speak and act like an angel, and under different circumstances think and act like a mere animal or even a devil.

     Who would believe that one who is privileged to walk about Zion, to see her towers, to mark her bulwarks, and consider her palaces, and who looks to the Lord as his God and Guide. Who would believe that such a one, even as to his external, could ever be found in the streets of that city, which, spiritually, is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified?

     Who would believe that one who knows the freedom of the servants of the Lord, the happiness which comes from thinking well of God and his neighbor, who knows that his life, as to its minutest particular, is governed by infinite love and wisdom, could ever think in opposition to God and the neighbor, indulge in uncharitable thoughts and words about his fellows and become a prey to anxiety and discontent, especially about worldly and corporeal things?

     So strange and terrible a paradox is man!

     The towers and palaces are forever glowing in the light of the Sun of Heaven, and its foundations are firm upon the mountain of Zion, but all are invisible to us in natural and evil states, and to man when totally immersed in worldly and natural loves.

     For man can only see that which he desires and longs for, or what he thinks good.

     Love and light cannot be separated, and man from his love sees only the things which belong to it and make one with it, except in appearance and temporarily.

     Many illustrations of this fact might be adduced from the Memorabilia and elsewhere, but one or two must suffice.

     Swedenborg relates that on one occasion he heard a sound as of the sweetest singing; it seemed to him so melodious that he was, as it were, carried out of himself with delight.

But while to some of the spirits who were with him the song also sounded sweet, to others it was inharmonious and melancholy, and to some discordant and harsh.

     The theme of the song was, "The chaste love of the sex," one of the sweetest and purest affections with which the Lord has gifted his creatures. But there are many to whom the mere mention of such a love appeared to involve a contradiction in terms, a paradox beyond acceptance, and their opposition and disbelief were expressed to them in the discordance and harshness of the song.

     Another striking illustration of the same spiritual law is found in the story of the paper brought down by an angel out of heaven. On it were written in golden letters, which shone brilliantly in the light from the Sun, the words, "The marriage of good and truth." A splendor encompassed the paper, which appeared like the dawn in spring--time. But the angel still with the paper in his hand descended towards the mists which hung over the earth, and the writing changed from a golden to a silver color, then into an iron color, and next into the color of iron and copper rust. Finally, as the angel entered into the dark mist and stood upon the earth, the paper became totally invisible.

     The bystanders were then asked whether they saw him or anything in his hand; the great number, who, in the world, had been accounted wise, all said that they saw nothing at all nor did those who believed in and followed them, except a few who had been in some simple faith from charity. These, when the others had gone away, saw a beautifully dressed man with a paper, and on looking closely were able to read the words written thereon. It was further given to them, and them alone, to receive instruction from the angel as to the meaning of the words.

     That the two essential doctrines of the Church, the acknowledgment of the Lord and the life of charity can only be received by those who are actually in them, and thus from the good of love from the Lord, is made beautifully clear in the Arcana, n.1368:

     The affection of truth derives its origin from no other source than from good; the affection itself is from that source, for truth in itself has not life but receives life from good; wherefore, when man is affected with truth it is not from truth but from the good which flows into the truth and makes the affection again.

There are several who read the Word, and are affected by it, but few who have as their end a desire for truth.

     These appear to be in the affection of truth but are not; those only are in the affection of truth who love to be instructed concerning truths, i. e., to know what is true, and to this end search the Scriptures. No one is in this affection unless he is in good, i. e., in charity towards his neighbor, and more so, he who is in love to the Lord; with such persons love itself flows into truth, and constitutes the affections, for the Lord is present in that good.

     "For example, when such persons hear that charity constitutes the Church, and that faith separate, they receive this truth with joy, whereas they who are in the affection of truth from the love of self and the world do not receive it.

     "Also, when they hear that love to the neighbor is from the Lord, they rejoice, but those in the contrary affection simply insist that love commences from self, hence they do not know what it is to love their neighbor as themselves.

     'When they who are in the affection of genuine truth from the good of heavenly charity hear that heavenly blessedness consists in doing good to others from goodwill without a selfish end they rejoice, and so on.

     "Thus it is shown that the truths of faith cannot be conjoined to anyone unless in good, so only to good; also that all genuine affection of truth is from that good."

     It so long as in the world of spirits there were those who were in faith alone and approached the Father directly, the essential truth though manifested could not be received even by the good.

     It is not, therefore, surprising that on earth where the dragon, the scarlet woman and the false prophet still have power, where, in whatever doctrines the sects of Christendom disagree, they are united in a denial of the Lord and the life of charity, that there should be a difficult reception, a slow and often sadly perverted growth of the Church of the New Jerusalem.

     In the Apocalypse Revealed, n. 496, we read that "Those who reject these two essentials cannot receive any truth from heaven." In n. 500:

     "Those in the internals of faith alone will reject the two essentials in themselves, and, so far as they can, in others.

All who have the opposite dogma strongly impressed on their minds in schools and universities do not afterwards recede from them for three reasons:

     "1. Consociation with their like in the spiritual world.

     "2. Belief in salvation by faith alone, confirmed by reasonings and life.

     "3. Internal recipients of that faith do not think about God and heaven, but about themselves and the world."

     In n. 675 we read: "In the Christian world there is no longer any church nor any religion;" and in n. 923. "The Church is called a Church from doctrine, and religion from a life according to doctrine; where there is doctrine and not life it cannot be said that there is either Church or religion." Again in n. 716:

     "Everyone at the end of the Church desires to live for himself, for the world and for his own natural senses, few for the Lord, for heaven, and for life eternal."

     Referring again briefly to a perverted or partial reception of the truths of the Church, it may be noted that though the law of reception on which we have dwelt operates in the mercy of the Lord to hinder reception and consequent profanation by those not in good, nevertheless, as shown in what Swedenborg says about the five classes of receivers, prepossessions, imperfect knowledge and spurious charity have operated together or singly towards perversions and more or less serious adulterations of the truth.

     To show how such a thing may come about. Oliver Wendell Holmes makes use of an illustration, which, because of some agreement with the laws of correspondence, is very interesting in this connection. He says:

     "When we are as yet small children there comes to us an angel holding in his right hand cubes like dice, and in his left spheres like marbles. The cubes are of stainless ivory, and on each is written in golden letters Truth. The spheres are veined and streaked and spotted beneath, with a dark crimson flush above where the light falls on them, and in a certain aspect the three letters can be seen in every one of them: L. i. e., The child very probably clutches at both.

     "The spheres are the most convenient things in the world. They roll with the least possible impulse just where the child would have them.

The cubes will not roll at all, they have a great talent for standing still and always keep right side up. "But then comes Timidity, and after her Good nature, and last roll so easily are very apt to roll into the wrong places, and he learns to drop the speckled globes of falsehood and hold fast the angular blocks of truth.

     "But then comes Timidity, and after her Goodness, and last of all Polite Behavior, all insisting the Truth must roll or no one can do anything with it. And the first with her rasp, and the second with her file, and the third with her silken sleeve, do so round off and smooth and polish the snow white cubes of Truth, that, when a little dingy by use, it becomes hard to tell them from the rolling sphere of falsehood."

     It is not surprising that there should be a difficult reception and but a slow and sadder will to say, an often perverted growth, of the Church of the New Jerusalem.

     It is not merely that the declared essential doctrines of the Old Church are contrary to the genuine truths of the New, and are held only intellectually and by force of example and habit. They are favored by all the natural and hereditary evil loves of man.

     Another reason, which, however, makes one with those already stated for the slow growth of the Church, is found in the teaching that it is dependent not only on the removal of the falsities of the former Church, but on the formation of a new heaven, to be formed first, and, which will act as one with the Church on earth.

     Considering this subject as it relates to the reception and growth of the Church in us as individuals, it is clear that all the teaching quoted applies, for it is equally true that societies, great or small, act and appear as individuals, and that individuals are but churches, heavens or hells, in least forms. We, therefore, may expect to find and do actually find in ourselves all the evils and falsities or tendencies to evils that we see about us in the vastated Christian Church from which we are but partly separated.

     This is no place for an enumeration, either of our own or other's evils. They are all too often forced upon our notice, and, it is our bounden duty to search out, expose and reject them.

     If this is done in the power of divine truth, if we will but acknowledge in heart and life that all evil is from hell and belongs there, that of ourselves we are nothing but evil, and only kept and withdrawn from hell by the almighty love and power of the Lord; if we can by His grace make the acknowledgment that He, even as to his human, is the one God of heaven and earth, and the only source of good, we may well "be glad and rejoice and give honor to Him." We may then with confidence believe that "a little one shall become a thousand, and a small one a strong city."

     What the Lord has begun, whether in the world or in us, will grow and increase to eternity, and sooner or later all hindrances will be swept away, evil and falsity perish, and "the earth be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.

     We have the divine promise that at the end of the previous Church, while the New Church is in its beginning and progress, these two essentials of the New Church will be vivified by the Lord with those who receive them. This is signified by the words, "After three days and a half the spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet."

     Three days and a half signify to an end and a beginning, thus from the end of the present Church to the beginning of the New, here with those among whom the New Church takes its rise and makes progress. The spirit of life means spiritual life, and to stand upon the feet signifies natural life in accordance with spiritual life, and thus to be vivified by the Lord. This is signified because the spirit of life means the internal man, which, considered in itself, is spiritual, for the spirit of man thinks and wills, and to think and will are in themselves spiritual.

     To stand upon their feet signifies the external of man, which in itself is natural; for the body speaks and acts what its spirit thinks and wills, and to speak and to act are natural. The feet signify things natural.

     We are further taught that as a new heaven must be formed before a new church, so the man must first be reformed as to his internal, and afterwards as to his external, but that, nevertheless, as heaven cannot exist or subsist apart from an ultimate, which is the Church upon earth, so neither can a man be reformed or regenerated till reformed as to his external.

     The internal man is reformed, not merely by knowing and understanding the truths and goods by which man is saved, but by willing and loving them, but the external man by speaking and doing what the internal man wills and loves, and so far as this takes place just so far man is regenerated.

     He is not regenerated before this because previous to this his internal is not in the effect, but only in the cause, and unless the cause be in the effect it is dissipated.

     It is like a house built upon the ice, which sinks to the bottom when the ice is melted by the sun, or like a man without feet on which to stand and walk.

     This is what is meant in many other places as in John: "Peter said, Wash not my feet only, but also my hand and my head. Jesus saith to him, He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet and is clean every whit."

     We are not to be discouraged if it appears to us that in speaking and acting we are not acting from affection, or in freedom. Man only comes into heavenly freedom and its delights by degrees or correspondingly to the slow growth of the Church with him.

     Meanwhile, and in the course of regeneration, he has constantly to compel himself and to act more from a sense of duty than from the freedom of love, or as we are taught: "Act precedes, and is succeeded by man's willing, for what man acts from the understanding he at length acts from the will, and finally from habit puts it on, and then it is insinuated into the internal man. And when it is insinuated into the internal man he no longer performs good from truth, but from good, for he then begins to perceive somewhat of blessedness, and, as it were, of heaven therein. This remains with him after death, and by it he is elevated into heaven by the Lord." (A. C. 4353.)

CORRESPONDENCES OF CANAAN 1909

CORRESPONDENCES OF CANAAN Rev. C. TH. ODHNER 1909

     CHAPTER VI.

     THE RIVERS OF CANAAN.

     50. The Rivers of the Garden of Eden were not only representative of the state of wisdom enjoyed by the men of the Golden Age, but were also, in the literal sense of the Word, the actual boundaries of the land of Canaan, regarded in its widest extent. (A. C. 567.) As a whole, the four rivers proceeding out of Eden, signify the leading principles of the most ancient faith, and thus the Doctrines of the Celestial Church, (Cor. 27), and since it is doctrine that distinguishes the Church from that which is not the Church, doctrine, therefore, is the ultimate intellectual boundary of the Church.

     A river went out of Eden, to water the garden, and from thence it was parted, and was parted into four heads. (Gen. 2:10.) A "river out of Eden" signifies wisdom from love, for "Eden" is love; "to water the garden," is to bestow intelligence; to be "thence parted into four heads" is a description of intelligence by means of the four rivers. (A. C. 107.)

     51. Pishon, said to "encompass the whole land of Havilah," signifies "the intelligence of the faith which is from love." (A. C. 110.) It is not known, either from Revelation or from science, what natural river is meant by Pishon. Josephus supposed that it is identical with the Ganges, but it seems to us more likely to be either the Orontes or the Leontes, in Syria, since we know that it was one of the boundaries of Canaan, and since there is no doubt as to the identity of the other three rivers.

     52. Gihon, said to "encompass the whole land of Cush," signifies "the cognition of all things of good and truth, or of love and faith. (A. C. 116) By "Cush" everywhere is meant Ethiopia, and Ethiopia signifies cognition, even as Egypt, lower down in the Nile valley, signifies the science of the natural man. (A. C. 117.) There can be no doubt, therefore, that Gihon was the most ancient name of the Nile, which "encompasses" or runs through Ethiopia as well as Egypt.

     The river of Egypt, or the Nile, signifies a boundary, for the great rivers, viz., the Euphrates, the Sordan, and the Nile, were the ultimate boundaries of the land of Canaan. (A. C. 5196.) The river of Egypt, or the Nile, as one of the boundaries of Canaan, and as being outside of Canaan, signified such things as are of the natural man. It signifies a determination of the Church, and also introduction into the Church. Moreover the cognitions and scientifics which are signified by the river of Egypt, serve to introduce. (A. E. 569:6.)

     53. Hiddekel, (= swift), said to "go eastward toward Asshur," is clearly identical with the Tie-ris. The name of this river, in the Assyrian language, is Idiklat or Dikklt, Arabic Diglat, Zend Tegel and Teger, whence the modern name Tigris. In Assyrian the name means "an arrow," and, in the spiritual sense, it signifies "the clearsightedness of reason. (A. C. 118.) The Tigris, at the present, as in ancient times, is an exceedingly clear stream, flowing swiftly from the mountains of Armenia, between steep and narrow banks, until it joins its larger sister-stream, the Euphrates.

     54. Phrath, (= the fruitful one), is the regular Hebrew name for the Euphrates; (the Greek Euphrates; means simply "the well-abounding" river). This is the largest, longest, and most important river in western Asia, and is usually referred to in the Word as Hannahar, the River, as in Exodus 23:31, where "from the desert to the river" means the desert to the Euphrates. (A. C. 9341.) Rising near the source of the Tigris in the Armenian mountains, it carries down with it a rich burden of alluvial deposits which, in its annual inundations, it spreads over Mesopotamia and Chaldea, thus bestowing not only moisture but actual fruitfulness, as the Nile does for Egypt. It is, in all, 1,780 miles long, and navigable for 1,200 miles. After uniting with the Tigris at Koorma, it is known as Shat-el-Arab, and forms at its mouth an ever-increasing delta in the Persian Gulf. Like the Nile it is a sluggish and very muddy stream, and, on this account, as also on account of its situation, it represents the science or scientifics of the natural-sensual man. (A. C. 120.) "For the Euphrates was the boundary towards Assyria, up to which was the dominion of Israel, as the scientific of the memory is the boundary of the intelligence and wisdom of the spiritual and celestial man. (ibid.) When, however, the Euphrates is regarded as the boundary of Assyria, or as an Assyrian river, it signifies the good and truth of the rational."

     But something else is signified by the Euphrates, when it is regarded from the middle of the land of Canaan as its extremity on the one side, or as that which closes it on the one part; then by this river is signified that which is the ultimate of the Lord's Kingdom, i.e., That which is the ultimate of Heaven and the Church as to rational good and truth. Therefore the Euphrates signifies such truths and such goods as are of the sensual, and which correspond to the truths and goods of the rational. But as the sensual acknowledges nothing as good but that which delights the body, and nothing as truth but that which favors this delight, by the river Euphrates in this sense is signified pleasures originating from the loves of self and of the world, and the falsity which confirms it through reasonings from the fallacies of the senses." (A. C. 9341.)

     In general we conclude that as the Tigris represents the rational faculty of the natural man, and as the Nile represents the sensual or lowest degree of the natural, so the Euphrates, which is between the two, represents the interior sensual, the intermediate between the sensual and the rational,-- that is, the imaginative plane and faculty,--in complete harmony with the correspondence of Chaldea and Babylonia, as will be shown more fully later on.

     THE RIVERS OF SYRIA.

     55. The Rivers of Syria. While these rivers, or most of them, are not directly mentioned in the Word, our knowledge of the rivers of Canaan would be incomplete without a brief account of the system of rivers which rise from the Lebanon mountains, to the north of Canaan. They are:

     56. The Orontes, (Nahr-el-Asi), the largest, longest, and most northern river in Syria, which rises near Baalbec, in Coeli-Syria, runs northward for a long distance, and then turns sharply westward, flowing into the Mediterranean, not far from the site of ancient Seleukia. On its banks were the ancient and populous cities of Hamath and Antioch.

     57. The Adonis, (Nahr Ibrahim), a small mountain stream, flowing westward from the Lebanon to the sea, which it joins just south of Byblos. This stream is famous in mythology as the scene of the death of Adonis and the mourning of Aphrodite, which here was celebrated by annual festivals and orgies.

In this stream, it is said, some Phoenician king planted stolen roots of the Egyptian papyrus, which thrived so well that Byblos rivaled Egypt in the manufacture of paper. Hence "a book" came to be known as "byblion," whence we have our own word "Bible."

     58. The Lycus, (Nahr-el-Kelb, or "Dog River"), another small mountain stream running from the Lebanon to the sea, and famous for the tablets, near its mouth, on which successive Egyptian and Assyrian conquerors inscribed their records, as they marched by.

     59. The Leontes, (the Litani or Kasimiyeh), a river second only to the Orontes in size and importance. Rising only a few hundred yards from the source of the Orontes, it flows outward through Coeli-Syria, until it bends sharply westward, and terminates in the Mediterranean, five miles north of Tyre. All these rivers would seem to represent things of doctrine and intelligence, originating in the love of acquiring cognitions, that is, doctrinal knowledges of good and truth,-Syria in general signifying such cognitions.

     60. The Alnana, (Abana or Barada), the ancient Chrysorrhoas or "Golden Stream" of Damascus, rises in the Anti-Lebanon, and flows eastward through the beautiful plain of Damascus, which it makes into one of the richest and most favored spots on the earth. Its waters are afterwards swallowed up in the marshes and sands of the desert.

     THE RIVERS OF CANAAN PROPER.

     61. The Belus, (Nahr Naman), a small stream rising near the hills of Nazareth and flowing into the Mediterranean through the rich plain of Acre. This stream in ancient times abounded in the murex or shell-fish from which the Phoeicians manufactured the famous Tyrian dye, and it was from the vitrous sand of this river that Phoenician sailors are said to have made the first kind of glass,-an unlikely story, as the Egyptians manufactured glass ages before Tyre and Sidon had come into existence.

     62. The Kishon, "that ancient river, the river Kishon," (Judges 5:21), which swept away the Syrian hosts of Sisera in the great battle of Megiddo, celebrated in the song of Deborah and Barak.

This river, which in the dry season is but a small brook, but in winter a raging torrent, rises on Mount Tabor, drains the plain of Esdraelon, and flows north westward along the northern slope of Mount Carmel, terminating in the Mediterranean Sea, south of Acre. The modern Arabic name of the river is Nahr Mukutta, or "river of slaughter," in commemoration of Elijah's slaughter of the discomfitted priests of Baal, "And Elijah brought them down to the brook Kishon, and slow them there." (I Kings 18:40)

     63. The Yarmuk, (the ancient Hieromax), is the chief tributary of the river Jordan. It is a rapid, perennial torrent, rising among the hills of Cashan, and flowing westward to the Jordan, which it joins four miles south of the Sea of Galilee. It is not mentioned by name in the Word.

     64. The Jabbok, a small brook rising in the hills of Bashan, and draining the land of Gilead. It joins the Jordan midway between the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea. Its modern name is Wady Zerka. It was on the banks of this river that Jacob wrestled with the angel, (Gen. 32:22), and "it was the Jabbok that Jacob first passed over, when he entered into the land of Canaan, from [Aram], by which is signified the first insinuation of the affection of truth." (A. C. 4301) "The reason Jabbok signifies this first insinuation, is that it was a boundary of the land of Canaan, [between Israel and the land of Ammon]. Thus also the ford or passage of Jabbok, which, relatively to the land of Canaan, was beyond the Jordan, was the boundary of the inheritance of the sons of Reuben and of Gad. The reason it fell to them as an inheritance, was that by 'Reuben' was represented faith in the understanding, or doctrine, which is the first of regeneration, and by Gad were represented the works of faith. These two things are those through which the man who is being regenerated, is insinuated or introduced into good. Hence it is that by the passage of Jabbok is signified the first insinuation." (A. C. 4270.)

     65. The Kidron, a small brook which in ancient times flowed in the valley of Jehoshaphat, between Mount Moriah and the Mount of Olives, but it is now choked up with debris. In the New Testament it is mentioned as "the brook Cedron," over which Jesus passed when entering Gethsemane. (John 18:1.)

     66. The Amen, the northern boundary of the land of Moab, still known by the Arabs as "Wady Mojib." This is a small but rapid stream, rushing through a dark gorge in the mountains of Moab, at a depth of 2,000 feet, and casting itself headlong into the Dead Sea,--a striking picture of the course of merely natural good (= Moab) in its progress to Hell. Arnon is a name of great antiquity, as may be seen from the fact that it is mentioned in the part of the Ancient Word (the "Prophetical Enunciations"), which is quoted by Moses in Numbers 21:28: "There is a fire gone out of Heshbon, a flame from the city of Sihon; it has consumed AR or Moab, and the lords of the high places of Amen."

     67. The Jordan. (Hayardan = the descending one.) In the geography and history of the Word there is no river which plays so important a part as the river Jordan. It is, by eminence, the river of the land,--forever sacred to the people of Israel as the gate which afforded them the entrance to their land of Promise, and which, after the captivity, separated them from the Gentile world without. Nor has it been less sacred to the people of the Christian Church, as the scene where the Savior first appeared in His public ministry,--the waters by which John the Baptist preached repentance, and into which the Lord Himself descended, as the First of His Church, to receive the Baptism of water.

     As a river, the Jordan is neither very long nor deep nor broad, and yet it is certainly one of the most remarkable dreams in the world, being without a rival as to swiftness, steepness and tortuous windings. The distance from its sources on Mount Hermon to its termination in the Dead Sea is only 120 miles in a straight line, yet the total length of the river, in all its serpentine crookedness, is exactly twice that distance. And during this comparatively brief course it manages to fall not less than 2,300 feet, or nearly ten feet per mile,--and this without any water falls or unusually steep rapids. It may thus be seen why it is called "the Jordan," the descending one.

     The channel of the Jordan occupies a very remarkable depression which at one time, in the Tertiary period, connected the Mediterranean with the Red Sea. The river itself is formed by the confluence of three small mountain streams, arising respectively at Caesarea Philippi, at Dan, and at the foot of Mount Hermon.

After the juncture of these it flows at first in numerous cascades through a jungle of thickets, canebrakes, and papyrus swamps, until it enters the Waters of Merom,--after a descent of 1,000 feet in 12 miles. Thence, after a further descent of 682 feet in ten miles, it enters the Sea of Galilee, which is twelve miles long. The channel has now reached a depth of 690 feet below the surface of the Mediterranean, and in its subsequent course it falls 660 feet, flowing on with ever-increasing rapidity and force, until its restless waters are finally lost in the all-absorbing abyss of the Dead Sea.

     The Jordan valley varies from 4 to 14 miles in width, but the river itself is not much more than 30 to 40 yards broad, and is hemmed in on both sides by steep banks of white marl, some 40 to 50 feet high. It is in no place navigable, except by a small canoe, being everywhere too rapid and full of rocks. The surrounding scenery is wild and lonely, the banks being covered with a dense jungle of willows, canes and tamarisks, with a mass of oleander trees which are native to this region. Once a year,-in the month of February,-the melting snows of Mount Hermon cause the river to overflow. The raging torrent cannot then be forded in any place, though at other seasons there are a number of fords, the most celebrated of which is at Uethabara, (now Hajlah), to the east of Jericho, where the Israelites are supposed to have passed over, and where John is said to have preached and baptized. In the last few miles of its course, just above the Dead Sea, the river becomes sluggish and shallow, running through a muddy and desolate flat.

     In all its natural features the river Jordan entirely agrees with the spiritual correspondence and representation which it bears in the Word, and this with the miraculous consistency which is the evidence of Divine Doctrine.

     Thus, in its most general aspect, this river signifies the boundary between that which is of the Church and that which is not of the Church, or, what is the same, the boundary between the spiritual man and the natural man. What was beyond the Jordan represented the natural, the external, the gentile, the unregenerate, or the only partly regenerate state. What was to the west of the Jordan represented the spiritual, the internal, the regenerate state,--the Church itself.

The Israelites, while on the eastern side of the Jordan, while approaching the Promised Land, represented the man who is becoming a Church, but who is still in a preparatory or introductory state: while after their passage over the river, they represented the man who has become a Church, or the man in whom the true internal Church has become established. (A. C. 4255)

     Being thus the boundary line, the Jordan represents also the medium, (A. E. 434), between the internal and the external; and being the medium, its representation must partake of the signification of the two things between which it is the intermediate. It has, therefore, a twofold signification; a good and, an evil meaning.

     Now, in a good sense, what is it that most definitely separates or distinguishes the man of the Church from the man who is not yet of the Church? What but Repentance, the repentance which is the very first step in the regenerating life? Yet repentance is an act in the life of man, and is not, in itself, an influx, or a spiritual stream. The repentance itself was represented by the passing over of the Jordan, and by the baptism in the Jordan. The river itself was that which was passed over, and that in which the baptism took place, and the river must therefore signify, first, that of which a man repents; and secondly, the means of repentance.

     When viewed from within Canaan, the Jordan represents that which is outside of the Church, that which is merely external, and which therefore in itself is low and distant from what is heavenly, (A. C. 1585; A. E. 514), "and as the external man is continually attacking the internal, and affects dominion, it became a prophetic formula to speak of 'the pride' or 'elation' of the Jordan, (as in Jer. 12:5). The elation of the Jordan [i. e. its swelling up and destructive inundations in the rainy season], signifies those things which are of the external man, which want to rise up and domineer over the internal man." (A. C. 1585:4, 5.)

     The waters of the Jordan, therefore, in this connection, signify the falsities and evils of the external man, which inflow from hell, and bring on infestations and temptations, and because the regenerating man must pass through these temptations and overcome these evils and falsities, in order to enter into the spiritual life of the Church, therefore the Jordan represents repentance and introduction. (A. C. 901.)

And since man can repent of his evils and he introduced into spiritual life only by means of instruction in the knowledges of good and truth, the waters of the Jordan, in the good sense, signify these knowledges or cognitions. And these cognitions, being initiatory, must necessarily be such as are accommodated to the comprehension of the external man, and the waters of the Jordan therefore signify most especially the cognitions of good and truth such as are revealed in the letter of the Word. (A. E. 395, 375, 700.)

The miracle of the Jordan dividing itself to allow the Israelites to pass over, signifies the introduction of the faithful into the Church and through the Church into Heaven. For by the Jordan is signified the first entrance into the Church; and by the waters of the Jordan are signified the truths which introduce, which truths are such as are those of the literal sense of the Word. But here by Jordan and its waters are signified the falsities of evil which were from Hell, because the land of Canaan was then full of idolatrous nations. And as the waters of the Jordan then signified the falsities of evil, therefore they were divided and removed in order to afford a passage to the sons of Israel. But after the people had passed over, the waters returned, and then those same waters signified the truths which introduce. . . . and therefore it was also commanded that they should take twelve stolles out of the midst of it, etc.

"As by the waters of Jordan are signified the truths which introduce into the Church, which are the cognitions of truth and good from the Word; and by washing therein was signified purification from falsities, and the consequent reformation and regeneration by the Lord, . . . therefore Naaman was commanded to wash himself seven times in the water of Jordan, (2 Kings 5:10), and therefore baptizing was instituted, which was first done in the Jordan by John, by which was signified that they were being: initiated into cognitions from the Word concerning the Word. His Advent, and Salvation by Him." (A. E. 475:18, 19)

Editorial Department 1909

Editorial Department Editor 1909

     NOTES AND REVIEWS.

     The new use, for which appeal was made last month, has met with a response which permits a beginning to be made. THIS PRINCIPLES OF THE ACADEMY, delivered as an address at the Assembly meeting in Berlin in 1899, will first be re-published, and will be followed shortly by another pamphlet, and by others as means are at hand. Contributions for the carrying on of this important work should be sent to the Rev. William H. Alden, Bryn Athyn, Pa.

     The membership of the Council of the Clergy of the General Church has lately been increased by the addition of the Rev. Thomas S. Harris, of Abington, Mass. Mr. Harris was received by the Bishop as a member of the Council during his visit to the Philadelphia District Assembly held in Bryn Athyn last November. His contributions to the discussions at this Assembly and his evident earnestness in the work of the Church have insured him a warm welcome from his fellow members of the Council.

     The three editorials in the Life for January, March and June, 1902, an the Biblical use of the term "the Word," and on the fact that the Writings not only contain an internal sense, but the celestial sense itself, of the Word, have been translated into Swedish by the Baroness Alma von Gedda, and published in Nya Kyrkans Tidning for August and September, 1908.

     Mr. Gilbert H. Smith strikes a key-note when stating in the New Church League Journal for November, that "If instead of impressing our young people with their freedom to disregard in the Writings what seems against their reason, the Church and the Theological School [of the Convention] would stand strongly upon the platform of divinity in the Writings, perchance the incentive for young men to enter the ministry would be greater." Surely, there can be but small incentive for any earnest young man to devote his life to the propagation of a Doctrine which he is systematically taught to look upon as being not--the Word of God!

On October 13th Mr. Alfred H. Stroh delivered an address before the Upsala Psychological Society, on Swedenborg as a Physiological Psychologist. The paper was followed by a lively discussion on the part of professors of Upsala University, as to the evidence on which Swedenborg based his theory of brain localizations, the prevailing opinion being that Swedenborg used pathological, rather than experimental, evidence.

A somewhat earlier manifestation of the activity in the Swedish learned world, on the subject of Swedenborg, is afforded in the lecture given by Professor Gustaf Retzius before the Royal Society last May. Dr. Retzius' subject was "The Principles of the Minute Structure of the Nervous System as revealed by recent Investigators. He notes the ignorance and obscurity that prevail in respect to the histology and physiology of the central nervous system, and in this connection quotes Swedenborg's words from the Economy of the Animal Kingdom: "It is a matter of time and experience to investigate what gyre . . . in the brain regards this or that muscle as its correspondent in the body." "This cannot be done except by experience in living animals, by the puncture, cutting and pressure of many parts, and by the resulting effects in the muscles of the body." "As we see (says Dr. Retzius) this is nothing short of a full program in the experimental physiology of the brain which this marvelous man here lays before us. And we are again amazed to read his clearly worded statement, that the muscles of the lower extremities have their center at the top of the cerebral cortex, the muscles of the abdomen and thorax in the central portions of the cerebrum, those of the head and face at the bottom." These theses, so well confirmed by modern investigation, are drawn up, continues Dr. Retzius, "with such precision by Swedenborg that they cannot possibly be based on divination only, but must rely on a real grasp of natural phenomena as well as on actual experience and dissecting work.

     Still another manifestation of the interest in Swedenborg, now so active in his native land, occurred at the centennary celebration of the Swedish Medical Society, held in the Academy of Music on October 25th, in the presence of the king and the royal family, Prof. Lennmahn, the chief orator of the occasion, referred to Swedenborg as "one of the greatest geniuses that our country has produced, whose views, especially in respect to the brain, were nothing less than pure intuition, the lightning flash of the Seer, in which he had foreseen things which modern science only recently has been able to confirm."

     A somewhat striking instance of the liberties taken by translators of the Writings, even in relatively external matters, occurs in the English edition of Apocalypse Revealed, n. 434. In this passage Swedenborg says (literally translated), "on which subject, [see] in Angelic Wisdom concerning marriage;" but the translator, knowing better, refers the reader simply to Conjugial Love.

     It is a singular fact that while New Church societies have existed in Sweden ever since the year 1787, yet in the neighboring country of Norway the Church has always been confined to a few individual receivers. In all our reading of New Church history we do not remember Swedenborg ever having received any attention in a Norwegian publication. Pastor Manby relates that a Norwegian clergyman once said of Swedenborg: "Him we will have to kill by silence, for we shall not be able to refute him." It is pleasant to notice that the "policy of silence" has been broken at last by the appearance of an intelligent and sympathetic account of "Emanuel Swedenborg, the Seer, Thinker, and Scientist," in the October number of the journal For Kirke og Kultur, (for Church and Culture), a religious magazine of established reputation in Norway. The writer, Mr. Christian Claussen, though treating his subject from the point of view of "the New Theology," and thus unable to grasp the essential doctrines of the New Church, is very respectful to Swedenborg, and emphatic in acknowledging Swedenborg's absolute sincerity.

The Medical Times, of New York, in its December issue publishes a very appreciative account of "Swedenborg's Contributions to Science," attributing to him the fatherhood of "the atomic theory, [!] the solar origin of the earth and her sister planets, the undulatory theory of light, the nebular hypothesis, [!] the doctrine that heat is a form of motion, the averment that magnetism and electricity are closely connected; the definition of electricity as a form of ethereal motion, and the theory that molecular forces are due to the action of an ethereal medium." . . . "Herbert Spencer is usually credited with the conception that the motions of the ether have much to do with the production of the sense of sight. Swedenborg clearly propounded this theory: 'The ether seems to have formed in the eye a mechanism of its own by which its vibrations can be received.' Still more noteworthy is his statement regarding the ear: 'The undulating air flows into the ear and occasions in its tympanum a motion imitative of itself, so that it seems to have found a mechanism of its own.' And in another place: Man is made after the motion of the elements, a saying that seems to sum up the Spencerian theory. Among the important physiological principles of Swedenborg is the influence of the respiratory movements on and their propagation to the viscera and the whole body. He was the propounder of the law that the body in general and in particular respires with the lungs and that the perpetuation of all the functions, and in a word, of corporeal life, depends on the universality of this action. Another principle seemingly discovered by Swedenborg was the permeability of membranes, and the circulation of fluids through them in determinate channels--the endosmosis and exosmosis which are supposed to be discoveries of our generation. Much in advance of his age as Swedenborg was in this field, his physiological studies were only undertaken as a basis for his psychological speculations."

Advance sheets of the forthcoming census report contain some illuminating figures as to the alarming growth of the "divorce evil." During the twenty years between 1887 and 1906 there have been in the United States nearly twelve million marriages, and nearly one million divorces; that is, of every twelve marriages one has ended in the divorce court, the average duration of the marriage, prior to the divorce, being ten years.

That adulterous love is the cause of the greater part of these divorces, whatever their legal grounds, there can be no doubt; and as bearing upon the external state of this "Christian" and "enlightened" country, the figures of the census report need no comment. But it is only from the doctrines that we can know that this evil external condition is the actual and necessary outgrowth of the state of men with respect to the things of religion. "The correspondence of the spiritual marriage, which is the marriage of good and truth, (says Swedenborg in his Index to the work on Marriage), is with the actual marriage of a husband and a wife. Therefore, the violation of the spiritual marriage corresponds to the violation of the marriages of men. Hence it follows that to violate the truths of the Word or the Church by falsifying them, is to spiritually commit whoredom: and that to violate the goods of the world or the Church by perverting them is to spiritually commit adultery. Those, therefore, who are in spiritual whoredom and adultery are also in actual natural whoredom and adultery.

Morning Light of November 14th contains a brief editorial review of the New Liturgy issued by the General Church. 'The reviewer notes that Bishop Pendleton and his assistants "claim for it that it marks a long step in advance of any previous liturgy, whether in or out of the Church." Without informing the reader as to where he finds this "claim,"--he then continues, "we can at least appreciate the pleasing evidence afforded by the book itself of the high ideals, enterprise and confidence of its publishers." The work is characterized as a "monument of industry and devotion . . . unquestionably a work of art in the best sense, and a model, in many respects, of what such a work should be." The obvious objection to the thinness of the paper, does not escape the reviewer's notice, but he hastens to suggest the comforting thought, that, "as the use of the Liturgy will, no doubt, be confined to those who are able to appreciate its value, the objection may not be a very serious one." The Prayers are described as being "beautifully worded." In the Services "every approach to tediousness has been studiously avoided. . . . The congregation is kept busy throughout." This feature, however, leads the reviewer to wonder "whether, after all, there are not too many items; whether fewer changes would not tend to greater restfulness in worship; whether it is altogether well to ask so much from the congregation; whether there is not too much of the 'millinery' of ritual in evidence; whether, in short, our own more restrained, less ornate, and, perhaps, heavier Order of Service is not more in accord with our ideals of a sustained dignity."

     In connection with the above review, it may interest our readers to learn that the North of England New Church Ministers' Association has addressed a letter to the Academy Book Room speaking of the "highly appreciative opinions on the work expressed by members who had seen and read it," and asking for information looking to the purchase of the book by ministers of the Conference.

     The President of the General Convention, in his recent address before the Illinois Association, apparently tries to outdo the Academy in the emphatic pronouncement of the Authority of the Writings of the New Church; but in his new zeal he is carried away so far as to defeat the very end he apparently had in view. It would seem that none could go further in the recognition of the Divinity of these Writings: Swedenborg was "the amanuensis, the scribe," but was "not the originator or even the discoverer" of the Heavenly Doctrines. The Writings "are not the writings of Swedenborg, but of the Lord through him." "They are the truths by means of which the Lord makes His Second Coming into the world. They are 'the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.' They are the Holy City, New Jerusalem, which John saw coming down from God out of heaven. They are not Swedenborg's writings, nor is the Church
Swedenborg's Church," etc.

     It was with amazement we read this confession of faith from one who, but a few years ago, expressed his shocked surprise at the statement that "faith in the saving power of the Lord means, to Newchurchmen, faith in the Heavenly Doctrine of the New Jerusalem," and who regarded as "a somewhat mystical saying" the teaching that "the Divine Truth, as now revealed, is the Lord in His Second Coming."

     Repentance, of course, is always in order, and we would be happy, indeed, if the General Convention as a whole were able to take as advanced a view of the Writings as is here put forth by its President.

There is something essential lacking even in this view, however, for it is noticeable that Mr. Seward nowhere makes the frank and the only consistent admission that these Writings are THE WORD OF THE LORD in His Second Coming. Without this acknowledgment the most extreme ascriptions of Divinity to Swedenborg's Writings are inconsistent and irrational, for what right have we to ascribe Divinity and Divine Authority to something which--if not the Word of God-is and must be the word of man?

     In his anxiety to remove the impression that the Writings are Swedenborg's and not the Lord's Writings, Mr. Seward makes a suggestion, nay, an insistent demand, that "the name 'Swedenborg' should be seldom or never used, or, if used, it should always be done in such a manner, by the insertion of some qualifying term or terms, as to make a false impression impossible. We might use the expression 'The Lord says' in such and such a place or 'The Revelation given by the Lord for the New Church; or we might quote the books themselves by their titles without mentioning Swedenborg's name at all." "Even in writings intended exclusively for the members of the New Church the use of the name Swedenborg should be discarded as far as possible," etc.

     Here the extremes meet and become one. The most extreme Barrettite, non-separatist, no-authority man, could ask for nothing better than the total suppression of the name Swedenborg in order to destroy the distinctiveness of the New Church. The Ecclesiastical thieves the world over, who are continually stealing jewels from the Writings to adorn their tattered theological garments, would heave a sigh of relief, and the powers of the world below would he most delighted if the messenger could be obliterated, for without him the Message could not be delivered.

     Mr. Sewrard's proposition was well meant, of course, but it is hasty and ill-considered; for if the Writings fire what he says they are, there can be no more objection to referring to Swedenborg than to Moses or Luke or John. As a matter of fact, the President has small cause for anxiety, for in the pulpits of the General Convention, the name of Swedenborg, or of the New Church, or any distinctive doctrine of the New Church, is referred to raro si usquam.

In spite of all the talk about the Writings being a Divine Revelation, the distinctiveness of the New Church is being more and more lost sight of, even as the President of the Convention has lost sight of it in the sermon on the Unity of the Church which he preached to the Illinois Association (published, like the address, in the Messenger for November 18th), where, by "the church" and "all the denominations of the Church," he everywhere means-the Old Church.

Writing in the current number of the New Church Review, the eminent pedagogical authority, Professor John T. Prince, points out the necessity of the "study of Education," as a part of the preparation for the work of the ministry. He says: "That (ministers) should he able to begin their work with children and help to prepare them for the instruction of adult life, seems, indeed, self-evident: and yet how seldom do we find this in life? As a rule, clergymen give over this most difficult and important part of the children's education to laymen, who are frequently compelled to put groups of children in charge of young women of limited experience and sympathy with children, and of no professional training as teachers. Thus in a portion of one brief hour a week, with interruptions more or less diverting in their nature, the spiritual interests of the children are disposed of. The fathers and mothers, supposing this to be sufficient, make no attempt to do more; and, as a consequence, the foundations, so far as they depend upon human means, are neglected. And yet we wonder why men and women are so wanting in interest in spiritual affairs. As well may we wonder why the body, which is given no exercise, does not grow in strength, or why the plant which is uncared for in its small beginning, dwindles and dies.

Dr. Prince offers as a remedy for this lamentable defect in the education of children. 1. That the minister "should himself assume the direct spiritual guidance. . . the younger no less than the older members of his flock, by organizing in good ways the means of instruction and training according to the needs and capacity of each individual." 2. That "classes of fathers and mothers should be instructed by him as to their duty in training their children, and as to proper ways of performing that duty."

3. "He should have similar classes . . . for the preparation of teachers in Bible instruction and religious training." 4. "The systematic study of education" should be taken up in the New Church Theological School.

     These suggestions, the result of long and successful experience in the work of education, are valuable, and if they were carried out in the light of the Doctrines regarded as a Divine Revelation, would go far, very far, to preventing the growing loss to the Church of her young people.

     Dr. Prince evidently contemplates New Church education only in the subject of religion, or, as confined to the Sunday School. If done properly, this would, as we have observed, be of great value. But if the end and purpose be to confine the work to this there can be no establishment in the Church of a true sphere of education, by which we mean a united sphere of thought and love going forth from those who are devoting themselves to New Church Education and from those who sympathetically support them. At its very best the Sunday School, when used as the sole means of forensic education by the Church is but a makeshift. It occupies but a small, a very small portion of the child's time and attention; and while, indeed, it aims to implant basic and interior truths in his mind, yet it leaves that mind to be formed and trained almost entirely in an alien sphere and one that is interiorly hostile to the New Church. Often this is the best and, indeed, the only thing that can be done: but it should not be regarded as the end.

     Education, as may be evident, is not a piecemeal affair. It contemplates the formation and training of the whole mind and not a part thereof. Indeed, Dr. Prince's suggestions, if logically followed out, involve the establishment of New Church education in its entirety,--secular (so-called), as well as religious. He asks for "the systematic study of education" by the theological schools of the Church, and the first thing that such a study, if carried on in the light of the doctrines, will reveal, is that education is not the were imparting of instruction, but the training of the whole mind internal and external, that it may be prepared to receive spiritual affections and spiritual intelligence.

Such a study involves, as Dr. Prince indicates, the instruction by the minister, of parents and Sunday School teachers; but it involves far more than this. It involves a perception of the need of New Church education for the whole child and not for a part of him, and, since the minister cannot himself do all this world this further involves that teachers shall be trained by the Church to prosecute the work in the light of the doctrines, and that New Church Schools shall be looked to as an end, and established whenever possible.

Such has been the process which has led to the present firm and solid establishment of New Church Education in the Academy. First, in the general sphere of the Church, was seen the duty of training the children for the Church and heaven, and this duty was ultimated in the Sunday School, and, with some, in the instruction of parents. The studies of Richard De Charms and W. H. Benade led to the conviction that New Church education cannot stop short of the entire training of the mind. The conviction carried with it the perception of the need of New Church Schools. The schools themselves soon followed,--schools in which the large part of the actual work was done at first by the ministers. Then came the establishment of a normal school for the training of New Church teachers. It is to such a school, from men and women enlightened by the study of the doctrines and by actual experience in the work of training the mind of the young, that we can look for the fostering and growth of the sphere of New Church Education, and for a growing perception of the means needed to continually perfect it.

STRINDBERG'S "BLUE BOOKS" 1909

     In the Life for February of last year, under the heading of "A Literary Phenomenon," we gave an account, at second hand, of August Strindberg's Blue Book which at the time created a great stir in Swedish literary circles, not only because of the extraordinary views of the author, but also and especially because he quotes or refers to Swedenborg on almost every page.

     Since then we have received not only the volume first noticed, but two subsequent volumes with the same title, the whole constituting a great work of more than a thousand two-column pages, published in excellent style by the firm of Bjorck and Borjeson, of Stockholm, the senior of the firm being the Rev. Albert Bjorck, the New Church minister. The test is accompanied by hundreds of illustrations.

     As was stated in our first notice, the author is known as the foremost living literary man of Sweden, a poet, dramatist and essayist of first quality, combining some of the characteristics of Zola, Bernhard Shaw, Chesterton, and several other gifted but eccentric spirits.

     Having been for many years the standard-hearer of the school of decadent realism in Swedish literature, he has finally forsaken his idols of clay and, has found the way back to Idealism and Religion through the study of Swedenborg's writings. Unfortunately, his repentance has come very late in life, and the form of his mind therefore remains the same as before-passionate, licentious, cynical and unreliable,--even though the whole effort of his brilliant and versatile genius now seems to be to atone for the sins of his youth. The result, in the great production before us, is a very mixed affair, which we have read with alternating feelings of pleasure and disgust, with a final impression of astonishment that he has learned so much of the truth of Heaven, and of pity that he had not sooner found this Light which could have saved him from so many doubts and bitter experiences.

     It is no easy task to review these three volumes which deal with every subject under the sun and above the sun, all jumbled together and without any Index or Table of Contents, for such would have been inartistic and unbecoming a true Bohemian.

On the whole, the books must be regarded as an autobiography, the confessions of a long and not altogether well-spent life,-very spicy confessions, indeed, but absolutely fearless and honest. The style is everywhere fragmentary and go-as-you-please. Heaps of brilliant ideas, brilliantly expressed, lie scattered at every turn, ideas which everywhere are surprising and often shocking, quickly passing from the sublime to the ridiculous or disgusting, and thence back again to the sublime. In one paragraph he is as shameless as the mudslinger of the gutter, and in the next he is soaring heavenward on the wings of most tender and beautiful spiritual thought. Not infrequently, it must be confessed, he seems to be positively crazy.

     The whole work is a terrific onslaught on the hypocrisy and shams of modern society, modern pseudo-religion, pseudo-ethics, and pseudo-science. His insight into "human nature," though cynical and pessimistic, is fearfully correct, and his delineations of the character of himself and contemporaries often read like pages from Swedenborg's Spiritual Diary. It is quite evident, indeed, that the author has read the Diary, (in the original), quite closely and to some purpose.

     Swedenborg, in fact, has become his one great master, next to the Bible. To him he dedicates the whole work, and to him he owes his most valuable ideas. But though he has studied Swedenborg more extensively and deeply than any other great author in the history of modern literature, and with evident sympathy and reverence, it has been a superficial and unsystematic study, after all. It is the man, Swedenborg, that he follows, not the inspired servant of the Lord who ascribes everything to Divine inspiration. Strindberg never speaks as a Newchurchman would speak, but is always the worldly critic who chuckles with delight in finding in Swedenborg so killing a club with which to beat modern Society on the head!

     Of Swedenborg the Revelator he seems to have no conception, nor has he grasped any of the essential and central doctrines of the New Church. While devotedly and even fiercely proclaiming the divinity of Christ, he does not seem to understand the sole Divinity of Him in whom dwelleth the fulness of the Godhead bodily.

Strindberg seems to have caught only odds and ends of the Doctrines, important prices it is true, and many of them, but he has mixed upon even these with a woeful mass of his own notions and with superstitions derived from occultism and theosophy, which cannot but give the public a wrong impression of Swedenborg and the Doctrines of the New Church.

     Nevertheless, broadly speaking, he seems to be sincerely religious, a devout convert still clothed in the rags of skepticism, a pessimistic Christian who hates the world for the way it has served him, and himself for the way he has served the world. Christ and the Bible have become his two great anchors against the tempests of human life, with Swedenborg as pilot of the craft,--and in this company we may hope that the storm-tossed spirit may find at last a harbor of refuge and peace.

     Having come to a firm conviction of the literal inspiration of the Word, he abominates the "higher criticism" and all its fancied discoveries. He has no use whatever for- the "critics" who, in examining the glorious disk of the spiritual Sun, can observe nothing but cracks and spots. In order to disprove their findings he has entered quite deeply into the study of Assyriology and Egyptology which are the mainstay of the modern contention that the Bible is nothing but a conglomeration of Jewish misconceptions and adulterations of older documents such as the Elamitic laws of Hammurabi, etc.

     His treatment of Assyriology, with its thousands of cuneiform combinations, each of which may stand for almost anything, is hugely amusing, for he pretends to prove that the are nothing but the impressions of crowfeet upon the soft clay of the tablets. But suddenly he becomes quite scientific and proves Prof. Delitzsch, out of his own mouth, to be a king of liars enthroned upon archeological "dunghills" of his own invention.

     The solution of the whole problem, about which the higher critics have raised such an ado, he finds in Swedenborg's wonderful revelations about the "Ancient Word,"---the Bible which existed before our Bible,--the Bible that was revealed to the Ancient Church, (represented by Noah and his sons), which has become lost but which is still preserved somewhere in China or Thibet.

This is the Bible from which Moses copied the earlier chapters of Genesis,-verbatim ac literatim,-and of which the Chaldean and Egyptian documents are but distorted fragments. This discovery, together with the revelation of a purely spiritual or allegorical sense within and throughout the literal sense, Strindberg realizes as a complete refutal of the claims of the "asinine critics." The fact that there is a symbolic sense in the Bible would be self-evident, Strindberg says, if the names of persons and places in the sacred text had been literally translated from the Hebrew. It is, he observes, as if some one had translated Pilgrims' Progress into Swedish, leaving the names in English, which might lead some ignorant Swedish reader to hunt for the "City of Perdition" and the "Pool of Despair"--on the map of England! Chapter after chapter of the Blue Books are occupied with disquisitions on this wonderful internal sense and Swedenborg's "Science of Correspondence" which is the key to its opening.

     The greater part of the work is an arraignment of the pet hobbies and theories of modern Science. In order to refute the stupidities of the learned world Strindberg seems to have dug into every shaft of Science. Nothing seems to have escaped him, Chemistry, Physics, Biology, Astronomy, Geology, Philology--he has probed them all and found them all broken reeds, to be cast aside as utterly useless to human happiness. Far better the simple life, he says "the Arcady that Swedenborg describes existing upon other tablets, where happy nations by a moderate effort grain a sufficient livelihood, with plenty of time left to enjoy a sound existence spent in meditation and innocent pleasure."

     Everywhere he is the relentless iconoclast, a raging bull let loose in the china-shop of modern science, art, literature, philosophy and ethics, charging with a roar on every pet hypothesis, smashing false ideals on every side, until nothing is left except the Bible and Swedenborg.

     Here are some samples of his compliments to the learned world:

     "Christ never speaks of science except as the insanity of the Scribes and the Pharisees." "Swedenborg calls the scientists magicians and charlatans who are able to distort the sight and conjure the understanding. They are the tyrants of a God-less humanity, and their yoke can be thrown off only by faith in God." "These ignorant lazy-dogs, these black magicians who nowadays are called professors!

Behind their love of research, (curiosity), there lies concealed the lust of fame, the lust of mastering, to become authorities, tyrannize, be advanced, receive distinctions, etc., etc. The Darwinian theory of evolution is his special bete noir which he belabors unmercifully with every shaft of ridicule and in the choicest selection of Swedish Billingsgate. Though it is evident that he has not read Swedenborg's scientific works very extensively, he nevertheless has great faith in them as the ultimate solvent of all scientific problems.

Not only the sciences, but also the arts, come in for his scathing criticism, and wherever so-called "Realism" shows its head, whack!--and woe unto its shallow pate! In Music, Wagner is special aversion: "his music is not only ugly; it is evil, and that is the reason it is loved and adored, and if you will not burn incense to the idol you are persecuted with a kind of anti-religious fanaticism." And as for modern philosophy and all its cob-webs, --but we must reserve his killing indictment for some other occasion.

Dearest of all his enemies, however, is womankind. Here he speaks from long and varied and most unhappy experience which has filled his poet's soul with such bitterness that he has every appearance of being a woman hater of the worst kind. In the first volume he rails like a madman and barks like a dog as soon as the subject of woman comes to his mind, and he outrageously misrepresents Swedenborg in order to make him appear a woman hater also. He says, for instance, that "in Swedenborg's symbolism the man represents the rational and woman the love of self," (vol. I, p. 101). This is simply unpardonable! The perverted woman, indeed, "represents" the love of self, but so also does the perverted man. No wonder his marital experiences were unhappy if he treated his successive wives from this point of view! And yet, in other places it seems that it is only the decadent woman that he rails at, the new and emancipated woman, the lady with free-love notions in her head, the heroines of Ibsen and Bernhard Shaw. For, intermingled with his revolting pictures of such creatures, and in spite of most awful blasphemies against the fair sex in general, there are in the last volume most beautiful panegyrics and prose poems of tenderest praise and adoration of the pure woman and the pure marriage. We hope, in a future issue, to present some specimens of Strindberg at his best.

"MIXED MARRIAGES." A RETROSPECT 1909

In the Most Ancient Church the very idea of "mixed marriages" would have been inconceivable, for to the men of the Celestial Age Marriage man, an inmost union of two human souls in the bonds of the one and only true Religion. It would have been impossible, for in those golden days the love of the Lord was the only Religion, and this Religion was shared by all then living upon the earth. But when, after thousands of years, this celestial love began to grow dim, and evil and falsity made their appearance, love truly conjugial was likewise thrown down from Heaven to earth, and there finally came a time when "the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took themselves wives of all which they chose." (Gen. 6:2). Here, then, we have the first "mixed marriages" recorded in the most ancient document of human history, for while this conjunction of the "sons of God" with the "daughters of men" in the internal sense of the Word refers to the profane immersion of the Divine truths of the Church into the lusts of the flesh,-perverting these truths in order to excuse and confirm evils of life,-yet the internal sense of the sacred record is based upon the general foundation of the actual history in a broad internal sense. For the offspring of these profane conjunctions, "the giants who were in the earth in those days," was an actual race of spiritual monsters; and it cannot be doubted, therefore, that as Religion ceased to be the inmost motive in marriage as in all other things of life, and as different religions arose, "mixed marriages" actually began to take place in the direful days preceding the Flood.

In the Ancient Church, Religion, and with it love truly conjugial, was in some measure restored, but it was now spiritual faith rather than celestial Religion that conjoined the minds of two married partners. Different faiths now became embodied in different nations, and hence there arose that aversion to international marriages which is so strikingly illustrated in Abraham's injunction to his servant when sending him to find a wife for Isaac: "Put, I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh. And I will make thee swear by Jehovah, the God of Heaven and the god of the earth, that thou shalt not take a wife unto my son from the daughters of the Canaanites among whom I dwell.

But thou shalt go unto my own country, and to my own kindred, and take a wife unto my son, Isaac." (Gen. 24:2-4.) Hence, also, we may understand the grief of mind which Isaac and Rebeccah experienced when their son Esau contracted marriages with women of the Hittites.

     In the Israelitish Church the ancient law of pure, unmixed marriage was renewed in order to represent that purity of conjugial love that had existed in the Golden and Silver Ages, and to pre-figure, also, the pure conjugial--spiritual and celestial--that was to be restored in the fulness of time in the New and everlasting Church, the Church of the New Jerusalem. On this account an Israelite was forbidden to sell his (laughter as a maidservant to a strange people, (Exodus 21:8), or to make any covenant with the Canaanitish inhabitants of the Promised Land, lest "thou take of their daughters unto thy sons, and their daughters go a whoring after their gods, and make thy sons go a whoring after their gods." (Exodus 34:16.)

     The same injunction was thus repeated in the Book of the Second Law:

     "Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son. For they will turn away thy soul from following Me, that they may serve other gods; so will the anger of the Lord be kindled against you: and destroy thee suddenly." (Deut. 7:3-4)

     And with increasing intensity this law is finally repeated by Joshua:

     "If ye do in anywise go back, and cleave unto the remnant of these nations, those that remain among you, and small make marriages with them, and go in unto them and they to you; Know ye for a certainty that Jehovah your God will not drive out these nations from before you, but they shall be snares and traps unto you, and scourges in your sides, and thorns in your eyes, until ye perish from off this good land, which Jehovah your God hath given you." (Joshua 23:12, 13.)

     In spite of these solemn and oft repeated commands and injunctions, the Israelites again and again made "covenants" with the nations and contracted marriages with them, and in a very literal sense "went a whoring after their gods." Even King Solomon took wives from among all his foreign neighbors in order to strengthen his diplomatic alliances, with the result that "when Solomon was old, his wives turned away his heart after their gods; and his heart was not perfect with Jehovah his God, as was the heart of David his father." (I Kings 11:14.)

     So strong, indeed, was the inclination among the Israelites towards mixed marriages that even the severe lesson of the Captivity in Babylon did not prevent the returning Jews from marrying the Canaanitish "daughters of the land,"--marriages which finally were forcibly dissolved by Ezra, armed as he was with supreme authority from the Persian king. Ever memorable is the summing up of the ancient law by Ezra in his address to the assembled Jews within the ruined walls of Jerusalem:

     "For they have taken of their daughters for themselves and for their sons: so that the holy seed have mingled themselves with the people of the lands, yea, the hand of the princes and rulers hath been chief in this trespass." "Now, therefore, give not your daughters unto their sons, neither take their daughters unto your sons, nor seek their peace or their wealth for ever: that ye may be strong, and eat the good of the land, and have it for an inheritance to your children for ever." (Ezra 9:2, 10:12.)

     This law was now vigorously enforced by Ezra: the Jews generally divorced their alien wives, and the practice of mixed marriage was henceforth strictly avoided. Though scattered among all nations of the earth, the Jews have for nearly two thousand years married only within their own race and religion, and while their possession of the Old Testament in the Hebrew has been the chief spiritual reason for their continued cohesion, their practice of unmixed marriages has been the main natural cause of their existence to this day as a distinct people. At present, indeed, after the Second Coming of the Lord has taken place, Jews are beginning to marry Gentiles, and this growing practice will undoubtedly result in the gradual disappearance of the distinctly Jewish Jew.

     The early Christians quickly realized that the whole Jewish law was a type or representative of the true heavenly order of the Lord's genuine Church, and hence from the earliest times of the Christian Church the practice of mixed marriages was regarded as disorderly and most injurious. This is manifestly involved in Paul's teaching to the Corinthians:

     "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers; for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? And what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For ye are the temple of the Living God: as God hath said: I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore, come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty." (II. Cor. 6:14, 15.)

     While in the case of married partners, one of whom had received the Christian faith and the other one not, the believer was counseled to remain faithfully with the unbeliever. (I. Cor. 7:12, 13), yet in the case of an unmarried woman Paul's teaching was: "She is at liberty to be married to whom she will: only in the Lord." (I. Cor. 7:79.)

     "Only in the Lord!"--this now became the keynote of the Christian marriage, the marriage of one man with one wife, in the bonds of the one faith and the one religion. There could be no true marriage "in the Lord" unless both husband and wife believed in the Lore and lived in Him. The Christian marriage now became the sacred repository of the Christian Religion, its altar of refuge and tower of strength in the midst of the persecution and suffering. And though the "Christian conjugial" after a few hundred years became a name only, still the law and the practice of unmixed marriages have remained a source of immense power to the Christian Church, especially to the Roman Catholic Church. In all Christian denominations and sects. Protestant as well as Catholic, mixed marriages are, in fact, denounced and discouraged. The very impulse of self-preservation demands that each denomination preach the doctrine of marriage within the faith and within the Church.

It is only in these latter days, and in countries such as England and America, where so many sects exist side by side, separated from each other in non-essential points, that the practice of mixed marriages has become more or less general. What matter, indeed, if a Methodist marry a Baptist, or a Presbyterian marry an Episcopalian, especially when neither of the parties cares very much for religion in any shape or form? Hence the growing practice of interdenominational marriages in this country, and--the equally increasing business of the Divorce Courts--for it is the lack of Religion that lies at the bottom of all conjugial infelicity, and most especially the lack of the true Religion. (The enormous development of this evil of Divorce in our own country is shown in a startling light by an article in the Philadelphia Ledger of November 27th, on "Marriage and Divorce." A summary is there given of the forthcoming Census Bulletin upon marriage and divorce in the United States during the twenty years from 1887 to 1906, just completed, and according to this Census, "divorces are increasing about three times as fast as the population." AND ONE OUT OF EVERY TWELVE MARRIAGES ENDS IN DIVORCE!)

Among the earliest receivers of the Heavenly Doctrine there were some who, with quick perception, recognized the truth of this Doctrine in its teaching concerning marriage between persons of differing faiths and religions. These, of course, were the same as those who championed the cause of the distinctive establishment of the New Church, separate from the organizations of the Old. But, more numerous and influential than these, there was that other class of receivers, who most strenuously opposed the distinctive establishment of the New Church, being firmly persuaded that the Heavenly Doctrine would gradually permeate the so-called Old Church, (which, since the year of the Last Judgment, was the Old Church no longer, but really, though unconsciously, the universal New Church.) Among those who labored under this persuasion there could he no objection to the marriage of a Swedenborgian with any other "good" Christian. On the contrary, there would be distinct advantages resulting from such unions.

Not only would the Swedenborgian partner thus be able to introduce the Writings to the party of the other part, but-as expressed by a writer in the Messenger: "The Newchurchman turns to the mind which lacks what he has, and to the heart which has what he too often lacks!"

To "broad-minded" people, such as these, the DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH on the subject of mixed marriages was of course unacceptable, and those who preached this doctrine were accordingly branded as "narrow minded fanatics," "heartless dogmatists," "exclusive sectarians," etc. It has generally happened in the New in the days of Ezra, that those who contracted Church, even as rulers" of the societies, who sought their "peace" and their "wealth" among daughters of the aliens. To preach the true doctrine to such influential members might be construed by them as a personal attack or criticism, and has been so construed and resented; and thus, for fear of these, the preachers and the journals of the Church have, with very few exceptions, been utterly silent-for nearly a century,-on the subject of this evil which at the present day is finally threatening to overwhelm and extinguish the organized New Church.

For years and years the practice of mixed marriages has been growing. There is not a society in the Convention that is free from it, and in many societies it is the rule rather than the exception. Nay, there are some societies in which not a single member can be found who has the partner in the Church. Is it not timely, then, to bring out, once again, the Teaching of the Lord on this most important subject?

Church News 1909

Church News Various 1909

     FROM OUR CORRESPONDENTS

     PHILADELPHIA, PA. Mr. Knud Knudsn with wife and son have safely returned from their trip to Denmark; we are as happy to have them back with us as they are to be home again.

     Our services continue to be well attended, and we are slowly becoming familiar with the new Liturgy, which can be really appreciated only when its contents has been used in worship.

     Our monthly socials are now held in the homes of members of the society instead of in the hall of worship.

     BERLIN, CANADA. During the first week of November the Carmel church enjoyed a visit from the former headmaster of its school, the Rev. E. J. Stebbing, of Washington, D. C. That the

     most possible was made of this opportunity of renewing the acquaintance is evident from the fact that into the one week there was crowded a general social, a men's meeting, a ladies' meeting, a school party, and also the celebration of the fourteenth anniversary of the wedding of Mr. and Mrs. John Schnarr.

     Thanksgiving services were held on Sunday, November 8th. The use of the new liturgy, and especially of the antiphon on Thanksgiving, added much to the beauty of the service. On the following Monday evening, Thanksgiving Day, a social was held in the school-room, which was tastefully decorated with grains and fruits. The program also was appropriate to the day.

     The Philosophy Class has resumed its meetings, which are held every other week. At present Miss Beekman's work on "Cosmology" is being read.

     REPORT OF THE LONDON SOCIETY.
                                   28, 11, '08
LONDON, ENGLAND. The report of the British Assembly contained the last news published of this society. One Sunday evening shortly after that important event we had the pleasure of meeting Miss Falk, Miss Grant, Miss Hogan and Miss Agnes Pitcairn, and spent a very enjoyable evening in their company.

     At our Friday doctrinal classes we are still engaged in the study of the True Christian Religion. On alternate Thursdays we have meetings to read together "The Economy of the Animal Kingdom," and most interesting and enjoyable these meetings have proved, although the attendance is not large. Be it noted, moreover, that more ladies than gentlemen are present. Socials are held once a month, different members of the society taking it in turns to act as hosts. The "Conjugial Love" class for the younger members has resumed its monthly Sunday evening meetings at Mr. Howard's house.

     The society wants to find a more suitable place of worship than the present one, but though strenuous efforts have been made by some of our members, no generally acceptable place has yet been found. W. R. G.

     On November 19th was held a social unique in the annals of the Colchester Society. The first intimation came after the usual doctrinal class, when Mr. F. J. Cooper announced on behalf of the "young folks" that they desired the "old folks" upon this occasion to be their guests. The "old folks" having recovered from the temporary shock caused by such an announcement, looked forward with much pleasure to the event. We were also very much pleased to have with us Mr. W. Howard, of London. Upon our arrival a surprise for all was in store. Several of the ladies had quietly and cunningly contrived by wig, gown and other accessories to become veritable "old folks," and had added anything from a quarter to half a century to their respective ages. After dancing and supper we reached the more solid part of the program, i. e., the toast list, Mr. F. J. Cooper making an efficient toastmaster. The subject of the evening was "The progress of a Newchurchman from birth to manhood." Toasts to The home, The school, Love of uses as a preparation for our eternal home, and Social life as a means to conjugial love, were responded to by our young men. The concluding toast was to the General Church. Mr. Gill responding expressed the pleasure and delight it had given us to hear the speeches of the young men, filled as they were with so strong an affection for the Church and its uses.

He then spoke of the General Church; probably no where in the world, outside its borders, would we find young men discussing such subjects as we had listened to. Mr. Appleton also spoke to similar purport. Other toasts followed with responses evincing a strong sphere of affection for the uses of the Church, and inspiring our confidence for its future growth and stability.     F. R. C.

     FROM OUR CONTEMPORARIES.

     UNITED STATES. Mr. R. S. Fischer, the father-in-law of the Rev. Louis G. Hoeck, was ordained into the New Church ministry at Chicago, on November 7th, by the Rev. S. S. Seward. Mr. Fischer has officiated as a lay preacher in the New Church pulpit, and he is the joint compiler, with his son-in-law, of the excellent Commentaries on the Gospels, published by the Rotch Trustees; but his ordination into the ministry has not been preceded by any other, or special preparation.

     Mr. Charles E. Ritter, of Milverton, Ont., who is a recent graduate of the Theological School of the General Convention, was ordained into the New Church ministry by the Rev. James Reed, at SPRINGFIELD, Mass., on November 8th. Mr. Ritter has accepted the pastorate of the Springfield Society.

     Mr. L. S. Smyth who for the past six years has been engaged as manager of the AMERICAN SWEDENBORG SOCIETY, has resigned from that position to accept an engagement as one of the editors of a Richmond, Va., magazine. Mr. John B. McGeorge has been appointed in Mr. Smythe's place.

     The Rev. Arthur Mercer writes to the Messenger of November 18th announcing the withdrawal of his resignation from the pastorate of the BALTIMORE (English) Society. He states that the resignation had been offered "under a misapprehension as to the sentiments of my people," and was prompted by a feeling of discouragement at apparent listlessness. The resignation itself, however, it appears, revealed that the "discouragement" was quite unjustified. Before this withdrawal had been made public steps had been taken by the Illinois Association to procure Mr. Mercer's services for the Springfield, Ill., Society.

Our readers may remember an item some two years ago giving news of the organization in Baltimore, Md., of "St. Luke's Church of the New Dispensation. The minister, the Rev. Alfred P. Kurtz, had been ordained by his father, a Lutheran bishop, who commissioned him to preach the doctrines of Swedenborg. St. Luke's church uses, or did use in 1906,--the Order of Services, authorized by the General Convention; the Faith of the New Church was also recited during the services, and the Rev. Messrs. L. H. Tafel and L. G. Allbutt have both preached to the congregation. (See N. C. Life, 1906, p. 253, and 1907, p. 190.) Since our last letter nothing about the new Baltimore movement has appeared in the New Church periodicals, but our attention was recently called to it by a despatch to a Philadelphia newspaper of December 12th, to the effect that "the Rev. Alfred P. Kurtz, pastor of the Lutheran Church of the New Dispensation, has taken more than 100 saloon keepers within the fold of his church, and announces that he is to fight the Anti-Saloon League, in which other clergymen are prominent. The Rev. Mr. Kurtz believes that a man should have a drink, if he wants it." Mr. Kurtz also headed a delegation to oppose local option before the State Legislature. He has enrolled 109 saloon keepers into "St. Luke's Brotherhood, an organization identified with his church. A majority of these saloon keepers are members of the congregation of the church of the New Dispensation, having joined this fall and winter." The despatch concludes that the gratitude of the new members will probably take the form of building a new place of worship for the congregation.

The fifty-sixth annual meeting of the OHIO ASSOCIATION was held at Louisville, Ky., October 16th-18th, with an attendance of sixteen delegates, (including four ministers), and twenty-eight visitors. The Association reports a list of eight ministers; but if the policy of the Cleveland Society, noted below, were adopted, this list would be reduced to five, since the Rev. Messrs. Grant, Knobel and Morgan are all engaged wholly in secular work. The Rev. Dr. Gustafson, of Denver, Col., was retained on the list at his request, made to this meeting, in view of there being no association in Colorado. The Association authorized its officers to take steps necessary for incorporation under the laws of Ohio.

     Among the reports submitted to the meeting was one from the pastor of the CLEVELAND and LAKEWOOD Societies asking for the sum of $500 as a contribution from the Association, to go towards the employment of an assistant minister. Mr. King calls attention to the fact that five years ago the societies at Cleveland and Lakewood were "practically dead," while now they have "two beautiful new churches with earnest congregations and growing interest in the teaching and life of the Church." The matter was considered favorably by the Association, but no means were available from which to give the required contribution.

     The Lakewood Society reports a membership of 97, and an average attendance of 100 at the services and 75 at the Communion. The society at Cleveland reports a much smaller membership, namely, 54, as against 91 last year. But the decrease is more apparent than real, being due to the inauguration of the laudable practice of dropping from the list all persons "who have not identified themselves with the church life or worship," their names being placed on a "passive list." Other names have been dropped because of removal or other cause. This society, which announces itself as "primarily a missionary church," reports the number of "non-New Church people attending the services. These have been seven, while those at the lectures have numbered five. In view of these figures there appears to be something incongruous in a society of fifty-one presumably active members, existing "primarily" as a missionary church.

     The disastrous fire at Collingwood, (a suburb of Cleveland), last spring, at which 162 children lost their lives, led members of the society to undertake an extensive missionary propaganda. Over 800 books dealing with the other life were distributed and redistributed. These books included 764 copies of Giles's "Our Children in the Other Life," and ten copies of Heaven and Hell. Of the 500 families who were visited a second time, over 200 were pleased with Giles's book. The net result of the whole work, from March to October, is that "two of the families have come to our services, and intend to come again." It is somewhat a matter of surprise that so few copies of Heaven and Hell have been used in this propaganda, as that work has had great influence in bringing people into the New Church.

     The Rev. John R. Hunter has been elected pastor of the LOUISVILLE, Ky., Society.

Mr. Hunter had been previously acting as a leader at the evening services established by the Ohio Association as a missionary undertaking. These services were held in a public hall and latterly at the church building. The morning services were conducted by the pastor, the Rev. Mr. Knobel, at his own home. Last May Mr. Knobel resigned in order to devote himself exclusively to business, and Mr. Hunter was elected in his place.

     In view of the fact that the RICHMOND, O., Society has gone out of existence, legal steps have been taken to secure the property of the late society to the Ohio Association. This property consists of a legacy in the will of William F. Gardiner, of $5,000 and an interest in the residue of the estate, estimated at about $15,000, not payable, however, until the death of certain persons.

     The COLUMBUS, O., Society, to which the Rev. Dr. Gustafson has been ministering for the past year, is now under the care of the Rev. Russell Eaten, pastor of the society at Urbana. Dr. Gustafson having accepted a call from the DENVER, Col., Society.

     The Rev. Joseph Collom, who preached his farewell sermon to the Los ANGELES, (Cal.). Society on Sunday, November 1st, has commenced an evangelistic effort in another part of Los Angeles, for which he has chosen the name, The New Jerusalem Christian Church. Morning and evening services and also a Sunday School are maintained. This movement is the result of a secession of a considerable minority of the Los Angeles Society.

     CANADA. The Rev. E. D. Daniels, who for the past fifteen years has been the pastor of the LA PORTE, Ind., Society, has resigned that position and accepted a call to the BERLIN, Ont. Society. Mr. Daniels has long been a prominent figure in public life in La Porte, and his resignation, which takes effect next February, is much regretted.

     GREAT BRITAIN. The English Conference has lost one of its younger ministers, in the death, on September 16th, of the Rev. Albert J. Wright. Mr. Wright was ordained about 1900, and served successively as minister of the societies at Wigan, Hull and St. Heliers, Jersey.

     The Rev. Arthur Rylands has accepted a year's call to the pastorate of the ST. HELIER'S, Jersey Society; and the Rev. Thos. Moss, B. A., is to become the minister of the society at Brightlingsea.

     SWEDEN. The new quarters of the New Church Book Rooms in STOCKHOLM (Kammakare-gatan 50), were inaugurated by a festivity on October 22d, in the presence of a numerous gathering of New Church friends. After introductory greetings and remarks by Pastor Manby and Commodore Sundstrom, Mr. Alfred Stroh described the recent awakening of interest in Swedenborg's scientific works, and suggested a more active co-operation on the part of the New Church in Sweden in the important work now going on. He also suggested active participation of the Church in the solemnities which are to take place at Upsala, in 1910, when the proposed grand sarcophagus of Swedenborg is to be unveiled in the Cathedral of Upsala in the presence of representative men from various parts of the world. The drawings for the proposed sarcophagus have not yet been finished, but there has been a lively discussion as to symbolic decorations most worthily representing the great seer. On one of the walls of the vault it has been proposed to represent "Theology," symbolized by the angel, (in Conjugial Love, no. 1), blowing in a trumpet to call together the companies of the wise men to discuss heavenly joy and eternal felicity; on another wall it has been proposed to represent "Science," symbolized by the various branches covered in Swedenborg's scientific works.

     NORWAY. Offers have been made to the Norwegian clergy of Danish translations of the Doctrine of the Lord, and the Doctrine of the Sacred Scripture. The comparatively large number of replies to these offers prompted the English and American Swedenborg societies to over the applicants a Danish translation of Divine Providence.

MAN THINKS NOTHING FROM HIMSELF 1909

MAN THINKS NOTHING FROM HIMSELF LILLIAN BEEKMAN 1909

ANNOUNCEMENTS.

     NEW CHURCH LIFE.

     VOL. XXIX. FEBRUARY, 1909     No. 2.
     "A man thinks nothing from himself; if he thinks what is good it is through heaven from the Lord: if what is evil, it is from hell." (A. C. 5511.)

     This is like saying that the eye does not sense any light, nor any of the objects of vision, apart from the inflowing operation of the undulatory pressures of the ether. For thought also is only a sensation, the sensation of a finer organic structure; it is like a sensation of an interior eye. Now even the outer eye cannot see, (that is, be affected to its sensitive perception and life), save by means of the undulatory motions and pressure of the ether falling upon it. To be explicit it cannot see anything, whether ugly or lovely, save by means of undulatory motions or pressures of the ether as received by, modified in and radiantly reflected toward it, from ugly natural forms, when it perceives ugly forms, and from lovely forms, when it perceives lovely forms.

     For light itself,--naked luminousness or undulation, as it exists in the aura and the ether, as sent out from the sun without variation or shadow in its light,--does not come to a distinct sensation in the eye, save as a sort of general background of luminous sense, serviceable for ratio to those larger modifications [as of patterns of shadow on its stream] which are impressed by and reflected from the constitution of the intimate molecular units of ultimate objects.

     Moreover, the external eye as set in the living body is environed by a whole world and circle of ultimate objects of all classes and kinds. Lovely and ugly alike, both are about it; both perpetually are actively radiating toward it the image of their form; their constitutional inner pattern, or shadow, imposing new systems of modified wave forms upon the ether, rippling with the even solar light.

     But as the outer eye, set in the living body, possesses organic potency to turn away from the quarter when one class of objects has been found to affect it, and to address its attention to, and lend and dispose its sensitive receptive organism toward the special line and direction, where by experience or experiment it finds another class of objects to lie, so here also is it with these finer sensitive organic reagents of the interior sight, thought and imagery. These also have a power of self-determination, an intrinsic inalienable organic potency, of turning, of self-determinate intra structural constrictive withdrawals, or of impulsive projects towards; and amoebic tensions and bendings.

     They can turn toward the ether waves and pressures, as received and modified in, and reflected toward them from hell-objects--or from heaven-objects!

     Both kinds are brought abundantly within the circuit of the inner view, the inner eye, by means of the ultimate objects or idea-forms and images gathered and stored in the world of the organic natural memory. And the inner eye like the outer eye has a full, of-itself-governed, power of self-direction, self-compulsion, turning. Hither or yon it may flex itself; turn to or turn from.

     But, unlike the outer eye, what this inner eye chooses to look long upon, standing at gaze of pleasure and love, it begins itself, in time, to take permanent color and line of. It becomes an image and effigy of it, in structural form, infilled, staying. It is almost as if, (could one imagine it of the outer eye), one should figure that the image of the ultimate thing looked at as it is seen momentarily reflected in the pupil, could and would become a permanent standard image therein,--if the eye turned long and repeatedly, and with inner satisfaction, toward that special thing among all the range and circle of objects possibly addressing themselves to the sense of the eye.

     So that what one often enough has turned to look at, with warmth of delight, ardent and yearning in the gaze,--one is obliged afterward to behold forever in one's inner world, and see all things as through it, the eye itself being stamped at length with the permanent form and image of that one sweet affection, coveted perpetually to have repeated!

Verily thus, not in poetic similitude but actual substance and form, does each human creature by such its delighted and repeated inner gaze acquire electively to itself,--finite and determine for itself, lastingly, forever, for the after death life and environment-what sort and class of thing it shall forever behold, having on earth made itself by repeated habitual interior tension of gaze or thought and idea, image, as the body, the structural organ, and ultimate reflexive-percipient thereof. And this for eternity long.
GAD-GOOD WORKS 1909

GAD-GOOD WORKS Rev. C. TH. ODHNER 1909

     "And Leah saw that she stood still from bearing, and she took Zilpah, her handmaid, and gave her to Jacob for a woman. And Zilpah, Leah's handmaid, bare a son unto Jacob. And Leah said, A troop cometh; and she called his name, Gad." (Gen. 30:9-11.)

     The first four sons of Jacob represent the four general states through which a regenerating man must successively pass In order to become a true church of the Lord in individual form. Beginning with the REUBEN-state of external faith, he must advance to the SIMEON-state of Obedience. Progressing thence to the LEVI-state of spiritual charity, he finally ascends to the celestial love of the Lord which is represented by JUDAH. The other eight sons represent the more particular means by which natural truth is gradually more and more conjoined with spiritual good, and this in the order in which such conjunction is successively effected in every man who is being regenerated. (A. C. 3902.)

     The first of these means was DAN, the acknowledgment or affirmation of the Lord's Divine Truth. Immediately upon the establishment of such affirmation in the mind, the man is permitted to enter the experience of temptation combats, which are the second means of regeneration and are represented by NAPHTALI. The latter, however, does not only stand for temptations but also for victory in temptations and for the new light which follows upon successful combats,-the light or perception of uses.

     From this new perception the man can now enter into the third means or medium of regeneration, that is, the performance of these uses themselves, the good works which are represented by GAD.

     These works are manifold; a host of them appears on every side to the perception; they are as many as are the neighbors to whom good is to be done. Hence Leah said, "A troop cometh, and she called his name, God." In the Hebrew tongue "Gad" means "a troop."

     In the external sense Gad stands for the works themselves; in the internal sense he stands for the "good of faith," that is, the rational charity from which alone genuine good works can be exercised; and in the supreme sense he stands for the omnipotent Power and omnipresent Wisdom of the Lord, the supreme and only source of living charity and useful works.

     These three must exist one within the other. In order to be genuine, good works must spring not from faith, merely, or from a knowledge and sense of duty, or "from pride, from lust of fame, from mere munificence, from friendship, from natural inclination, or from hypocrisy" (T. C. R. 425), but springing from a living affection, the fire of charity towards the neighbor. And in order to be genuine this charity must be rational and discriminating. And it can become rational only when born from the spiritual truth of the Lord's Word, in which alone He is present with His Divine Omnipotence and Omniscience, teaching what good works are, and how and to whom they are to be done.

     According to the presence or absence of these interior things, there are three different kinds of works. There is the kind of works that springs from neither a natural nor spiritual love of the neighbor, but directly from the love of self and the world, works which indeed appear like good works, yet are nothing but marble monuments of "philanthropy," covering a hell of hypocrisy, cunning, and conceit of goodness. There is also the kind of good works which every man performs while he is yet in the earlier stages of regeneration, works proceeding from "charity," indeed, but a charity not yet rendered fully rational and spiritual, works done from mixed motives, from affections not yet purified from the idea of self-merit, nor completely guided by a single- hearted devotion to the doctrine of spiritual Truth.

And, finally, there are the genuine good works which spring spontaneously from the good of faith, i. e., from a rational charity; a love of the neighbor that is free from self-consciousness or thought of reward either on earth or in heaven; a wise, discriminating love that is no less ardent because enlightened by Divine Spiritual Truth. In the letter of the Word, GAD stands for either of these three kinds of works.

     In Isaiah we read: "Ye are they that desert Jehovah, who forget the mountain of My holiness, who arrange a table for Gad, and who fill a drink-offering to Meni." (65:11.) Gad and Meni are here the names of two gods of the idolatrous Babylonians, and to "arrange a table for Gad" means to worship external works alone, as is done in the Roman Catholic Church, without any rational faith from the Word. (A. C. 6405)

     Again, in Jeremiah we read: "Against the sons of Ammon, thus saith Jehovah to Israel, Hath he no heir? wherefore doth his king inherit Gad, and his people dwell in his cities." (49:1.) The sons of Ammon are those who are in natural good, yet despise, reject and spurn all interior truths. The Christian world, especially the Protestant part, is full of these Ammonites who have inherited Gad, people who have openly rejected the Lord and His Word, but who pride themselves on their good works. Unitarians and Atheists believe in nothing but "doing good," but their works are dead; there is nothing spiritual within them, for they have rejected the Lord who alone is Good.

     The second kind of good works is described under the name of GAD in the blessings of Israel upon his sons: "Gad, a troop shall ravage him, and he shall ravage the heel."* (Gen. 49:19.) Gad here represents the imperfect works done by man at the beginning of his regenerating life, "works done from truth and not yet from good," (A. C. 6404),--in other words "works without judgment, for they who do works from truth and not yet from good, have an obscure understanding, whereas they who do works from good have the understanding enlightened, because good enlightens; for the light of truth from the Lord flows into the intellectual through good, and thus into truth, but not into truth immediately." (A. C. 6405)
     * In the A. V. this is wrongly translated thus: "Gad, a troop, shall overcome him, but he shall overcome at the last,"--a rendering which does not represent the original text, nor convey the true idea of the internal sense.

     Concerning those who are here represented by GAD we have the following vivid instruction in the Writings:

     They are such as fall into illusion with respect to truth, and yet do work from this; thus work not of truth, still less of good. By such works they are driven away from truth, for as soon as a man who is in truth and not yet in good, brings anything into art from his religiosity, he afterwards defends it as if it were the veriest truth, and abides in it, nor does he admit any amendment of it, except so far as he comes into good; for by acting he imbues himself with it, and loves it. These works drive him away from truth. . . . Let this be illustrated by examples. When one who counts every one equally his neighbors and thus benefits the evil equally with the good, and by thus conferring benefits on the evil does harm to others,--when he has committed such acts repeatedly, he afterwards defends them, saying that every one is his neighbor, and that it is not his concern what the quality of the neighbor may be, but only to confer benefits upon him; thus he performs works without judgment, and also contrary to the truth itself; for the truth is that all are the neighbor, but in a different degree, and that those who are in good are the neighbor more than others. By GAD are also signified those who make all salvation to consist in works alone, like the Pharisee [who thanked God he was not as other men: "I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess," etc.], thus holding external things as the veriest truths. They who are such are also in the Lord's kingdom, but or the threshold, and therefore the Lord says: "I say unto you, the publican went down to his house justified more than the Pharisee;" thus that the Pharisee also went down justified, because he had done works from obedience to command. In a word, by GAD are represented those who call that truth which is not truth, and from this non-truth do works. . . . THAT WHICH SAVES THESE PERSONS IS THE INTENTION TO DO WHAT IS GOOD, AND SOMETHING OF INNOCENCE IN THEIR IGNORANCE." (A. C. 6405.)

     It is not difficult to recognize the state and the people described in the above teaching:--well- meaning, energetic, enthusiastic persons who, immediately upon learning some new truths, feel impelled to "do something" for the spreading of the new light. Do we not find this state prevailing generally in the New Church, in its present state of infancy, especially with new converts or newly awakened young people, who in their early zeal are going to do something great for the beloved cause,--convert the world, perhaps, or at least bring new and effective methods and life into the old-fashioned work of the Church? Having learned a few, initiatory, general truths, such persons have been known to declare that they now have enough of truth, more than they can live up to for some time to come, and they are now going to set out to do good.

To such it seems selfish to devote so much study and patience to the regeneration of oneself and the education of his family and the interior upbuilding of the Church. They burn to do good to the thirsting and hungering multitudes without, and so they are apt to rush on into hasty, ill-considered, indiscriminate work which, once ultimated in action, they adore as their work and are unwilling to improve by further study of the Heavenly Doctrine.

     These busy, unwise spirits of GAD exist all about us, but they also exist in great abundance within the heart of each one of us, immature affections and impulses looking towards immediate outward action instead of interior study and mature deliberation, for they belong to initiatory states which all regenerating men must necessarily pass through, nay, must pass through again and again as they successively enter into new and higher planes of thought and life, for each plane has its own gate and initiatory state.

     In itself, this state is not an evil one, but a state of good, initiatory good, youthful good, in which there is something of good intention and of innocence in the midst of ignorance and conceit. In itself it is a salvable state, a state of the Lord's true Church, but of the external Church, and hence the tribe of GAD, when entering the land of Canaan, chose for its inheritance a portion of the land on the other side of Jordan, the outer side, bordering upon Reuben in the south, and Manasseh in the north. The land occupied by them was the land of Gilead, famous for its beauty and fertility and balsamic spices, all of which signified "the first good, which is that of the sensuous things of the body, for it is the good or pleasure of these things into which the regenerating man is first of all initiated. (A. C. 4117.)

     The land of Gilead was the first possession of the Israelites when entering into the Promised Land after their long wanderings and privations in the wilderness, and hence this region ever afterwards represented the first state of the Covenant, the first state of the conjunction of the Lord with His Church, the honeymoon state, with its new and intense delights and prophecies of greater blessings yet to come.

     As REUBEN stands for the first state of rational understanding and faith with the new convert to the Lord's Church, so GAD, who dwelt in the land of Gilead, stands for the first delights of the new state, the first good of the new truth, the first charity of the new faith, the delight of doing something for the Lord's glorious Church.

     There is holiness and there is healing in this state, the holiness and innocence of childhood; there is in its youthful enthusiasm something to look back to for comfort and consolation in the weary struggles and temptations of more interior states of regeneration, even as there is a fountain of help to the conjugial life in the memory of the bliss of the honey moon state with the youthful husband and wife. Thus there is ever "Balm in Gilead" for the healing of the Lord's people.

     There is, therefore, nothing radically wrong with the state of GAD, unless a man chooses to remain in that initiatory state and refuses to go forward in the life of regeneration. But if he does refuse to cross the Jordan, then it is that "a troop shall ravage GAD, and he shall ravage the heel." For a troop of the Ammonites, who originally dwelt in the land of Gilead, then return and take possession of the cities of Gad;-malignant falsities then invade and pervert the very truths by which the man was first introduced into the Church. The truths of the early states, if not continually refreshed and improved by the influx of new and higher truths, are bound to turn stale and foul like the Manna of yesterday. They actually become falsities with the man, instead of truths, and then the perverted GAD Will inevitably in his turn "ravage the heel,"--that is, bring disorder and ruin into the ultimate natural with himself and with the Church in general and with the world at large. For all falsities were once truths, and all evils were once goods. All the fads and 'isms which are disturbing the social order of the world today, originally sprang from some good and were founded upon some truth. Each movement was meant to be a good work for the improvement of a suffering world and was based on principles and buttressed with arguments that had something of truth and reason in them, in appearance at least. The reason these movements became fads and 'isms and destructive social heresies, was that their originators isolated these truths from their proper connections, refused to consider higher and wider and more universal truths, and then, having put their notion into practice, and thus conjoined it with their very lives,--behold in the former truth a falsity, and in the former good an evil, threatening to bring anarchy upon the world!

     On a more interior plane these evil works of GAD may be seen operating within the organized New Church. Most of the disorders now infesting the Church have been brought upon her "heel,"--her ultimate organization,--by persistent Gadites. Take lay-preaching, for instance. This was undoubtedly intended as a good work of charity, under some conditions considered an imperative necessity. But where societies have confirmed themselves in this practice, not only excusing it but also defending it as in itself orderly, contempt for a regular, well-instructed priesthood has always followed, and all kinds of heresies and disorders have been the result.

     So also with "missionary work,"--in itself undoubtedly a useful and necessary work, a good work of charity. But in those organizations where external proselytism has been made the sole end and purpose of the Church; where it is declared that "the New Church is nothing if not a missionary Church," all interior development has been checked, and the organization, after a time, has turned out to be neither missionary nor a church. There is the same danger in our educational work,--a most essential good work of charity, the importance of which we need not emphasize here. Suppose we were to elevate this heavenly use into the only use of the Church, declaring salvation impossible without New Church education, elevating the school above the temple, and the schoolmaster above the priest,--GAD would then inevitably begin to "ravage the heel" that is, bring disorder upon the ultimate of the Church, and if this were persisted in, the good work of Education would in time prove a curse instead of a blessing to the Church.

     The Total-abstinence movement in the New Church may serve for another striking illustration. Originally founded by well-meaning people whose hearts were moved within them at the sight of the untold miseries caused by the evil of drunkenness, this movement was conceived as a most evident good work of charity.

Seizing upon the obvious but superficial truth that it is the drink that causes drunkenness, they directed their crusade against the wine instead of preaching against the corporeal lust that is the real natural cause, and the inclination to faith-alone, which is the spiritual and universal cause, of the prevalence of drunkenness, especially in the Protestant world. Thanking God that they were not like the publicans and sinners, wine bibbers, with whom the Lord associated, the reformers now began to pervert one truth after another in their effort to defend their "good work;" wine no longer corresponded to Divine Truth; evil was not to be shunned in freedom according to reason, but by prohibitory legislation against temperate use; and finally the profane hands were lifted against the most Holy Sacrament of the Church. The troops of GAD had turned into ravaging falsities, desecrating even the inmost of the Temple.

"All religion has relation to life, and the life of religion is to do good." There is no truth of New Church doctrine more true than this, nor one more often quoted. Hundreds of professed members of the Church know nothing of the Doctrines but this one sentence. Refusing to proceed one step beyond this first threshold, they turn this very truth into a monstrous falsity, making the study of interior truth of no account, and losing sight of what is meant by religion and what is meant by life. Ammonites then troop into the cities of GAD, ravaging the beauties and delights of Gilead. The doctrine of rational charity is no longer heard preached in their streets and temples, but instead there is heard on all sides much talk about "altruism," "helpfulness," "universal brotherhood," "exchange of pulpits," etc. The temple is then forsaken for the "settlement house," and the doctrinal class for work in the slums, and soon the very name of the New Church must no longer he whispered. Truth lies dead at the bottom of the well, but indiscriminate Charity smiles lovingly upon all the world except upon those who still maintain the "unfeeling" doctrine that there is no genuine charity without Faith, nor good works without rational judgment.

There is delight in Gilead; but there is danger, also, in remaining there forever, grave danger involving the destruction of the Church with the man and the loss of the soul in spite of all the "good works" of GAD.

The dweller there must pass on and cross the Jordan, for in no other way can he reach Jerusalem and tarry there. He must perform the act of Repentance, for in no other way can he learn to act, not from truth alone, but from good. He may learn the introductory truths of the New Church and thus take possession of the inheritance of Reuben. He may rejoice in the new truths and delight in them with the delight of Gilead, and he may be most active in the good works of GAD, perform the uses of his business most zealously and successfully, work for the Church with money, hands, tongue and pen, and do all manner of "good works," but what real good is there in them all for the salvation of his own soul as long as he allows to burn unchecked within him the fires of envy and hatred and revenge, and the lust of suspecting and slandering innocent brethren?

     "All things that a man does before evils have been removed,--although they be works of chastity, works of sincerity, works of charity, works of truths and of justice, still are not good, because they are from man." (A. E. 802.)

     "He who does not regard Evils as sins, . . . . whatever he does, is not a good work, because all his work partakes of the evil that is within him." (Doct. Life, 72.)

     But, "when a man abstains from hatred, then for the first time the works he does are works of love and charity; while the works he did before were all works of the love of self and the world."
(A. E. 1017.)

     He must repent, for without the shunning of evil he cannot produce one single good work, any more than a corrupt tree can bring forth good fruit. He must cease doing evil with the one hand while doing good with the other, or else the good works that he has done follow with him into the other world and there condemn him as a hypocrite, and his eternal lot will be--not the New Heaven but the New Hell. But he can repent, if he will. All he has to do is to cease doing these things, and especially cease thinking them and willing them.

     This latter may seem difficult but he can accomplish even this, if he will. Evil thoughts will arise and plague a man like a swarm of pestiferous insects on a summer's day, but it is within his power to turn away from them and also to chase them away, and keep on chasing them away, if he wants to.

And evil affections will boil up within his blood, but even these can be controlled by a man, if he is willing to exercise the will-power that God has given him. And the best way, in fact, the only permanently successful way of cooling these tempests of the blood, is for a man to run away from himself and flee for salvation to the Lord, to the Lord in His Second Coming, to the Lord in His Heavenly Doctrine. Go TO THE WORD AND THE WRITINGS, and these will enfold you in their calm and rational and heavenly sphere, a sphere that will cool the evil fires, a sphere where the evil spirits will not feel at home.

Here, for New Church people, will be experienced to the full "the saving power of the Lord." For the Word of the Lord, in His Second as well as in His First Coming, communicates not only the Divine Truth but also and especially the Divine Good. Truth is not a mere statement or sentence of so many written or spoken words, but it is the Divine form of the Lord's own Divine Substance, and it is this Divine Substance, the Lord's own Body, the Bread of Life, that is given unto us to cat and to become our substance, as the Lord's sacramental gift, when we read and hear His Word with affection, that is, when we permit ourselves to be affected by it. What is it that affects us in worship and in the study of the Divine Truth? Is it merely its beauty and grandeur and logic? It is well if these things do affect us even externally, but if we seek deeper we shall find that the real reason why we see a thing to be true is because we more or less unconsciously perceive the good of that truth, the use to which that truth may be put for the good of our soul, and inmostly the perception of the Lord's own Love and Mercy in His striving to deliver us from our sins and draw us unto Himself in eternal salvation. This, then, is the good of the truth, which creates in us the affection of the truth. It is just as when we are affected by a beautiful painting: we do not think it beautiful from its technique alone but from its motif, from the end and purpose of the painter, from the affection and love and soul which he threw into the canvas, in a word, from the good that he tried to express and communicate by his painting. If, therefore, we are affected by it, it is because his affection has been transferred to us; and so also it is when we are affected by the Lord's Divine Truth.

The Lord's affection then becomes our affection, (in our own finite and imperfect degree of receptibility), and it is on this account that we are bidden to "Search the Scriptures, far in them, ye think ye have eternal life." In the heavenly star-strewn mysteries of the Old Testament,--in the half-veiled dawning glories of the New,--in the noonday sunlight of the Writings, revealing the contents of both the Old and the New,--here we have eternal life, if only we stay with them, and in them, and cling closely to them, as the only thing on earth worth having. Outside of them there is but darkness and death,--nothing but self and the world and the miseries of hell,--but in the Words of the Lord there is the Church, and Heaven, and God Himself and eternal life.

It was for the same reason that the disciples were bidden to "tarry in Jerusalem, until endowed with the Holy Spirit from on high,"--a command which to Newchurchmen means to tarry in the Doctrine of the New Jerusalem until so affected with its spirit as to be filled with nothing else. Then, whenever called upon by the Lord to do His work abroad, they will not leave the New Jerusalem but carry it with them wherever they go, and then the works of GAD will be no longer the works of truth alone, but the works of good, the works of the good of faith, the works of rational charity.

We come, then, to the consideration of the tribe of GAD in its third, and genuine representation,--the GAD of the New Jerusalem,--the twelve thousand of GAD, having the seal of God in their foreheads. Here he occupies a position of high degree, being mentioned next after Judah and Reuben as signifying, together with them, "those things which fully constitute celestial good," (A. E. 435). Or "those who are in the third or inmost heaven." (A. E. 443) Judah, who stands first in the list, signifies celestial love itself, that is, love of the Lord; Reuben, celestial wisdom thence, and GAD "the uses of life which are of wisdom, from celestial level with those who will be of the Lord's New Heaven and New Church." (A. R. 352.) GAD, therefore, in the New Jerusalem, is no longer one of the least of the princes of Israel, but one of the most important.

He no longer represents an introductory state, feeble and uncertain, but the ultimate state in which all interior things terminate in their fulness, their holiness and their power. The good works of GAD are no longer the good of a merely spiritual-natural origin,--the good works born from the knowledge of a few, general truths, obscurely understood, the impulsive, indiscriminate works of inexperience, fallacy and conceit, (with something of good intention and innocence in them). But they are now the ripe, sweet fruit of the regenerated man, good from a celestial origin. They are the works of Judah, descending from his mountain-heights, gathering his forces in Reuben, and setting them to work in GAD, in the beautiful and fertile land of Gilead.

In these works, then, the Divine GAD, GAD in the supreme sense, the Lord Himself in His Divine Omnipotence and Omniscience, is inmostly present and operative, and the works then performed are actually His works, done from His Divine will, according to His Divine Wisdom, and by His Divine Power, through the instrumentality of His willing, able, and obedient servants. And these works alone are truly effective of salvation. For they alone are "blessed" who die in the Lord,--who have given up their own life for the Lord's Life, their own desires for the Lord's intentions, their own intelligence for the Lord's teaching. And their works alone "do follow with them." Amen.

CORRESPONDENCES OF CANAAN 1909

CORRESPONDENCES OF CANAAN Rev. C. TH. ODHNER 1909

     CHAPTER VII.

     THE ABORIGINES OF THE LAND.

     63. The Nephilim. "There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare unto them; the same became mighty men, which were of old, men of renown." (Gen. vi:4.)

     Both in the letter of the Word and in the Writings of the New Church we are taught that the Garden of Eden was in the land of Canaan. Here, therefore, was the cradle of mankind, and here, in the unnumbered days of the Golden Age, lived the celestial men of the Most Ancient Church. Here, also, took place the fall of mankind, and the degeneration and perversion of the celestial race which culminated in the profane conjunctions of the "sons of God" with "the daughters of men," that is, the intermingling of the holy truths of the Church with the persuasive lusts of the flesh. The truths of the Church were so twisted and perverted as to excuse and confirm the evils of the will, and when this practice had become general in the Church, the fallen celestial race became a race of monstrous profaners, giants in their own conceit and in the fearful power of their persuasive reasonings and lust of dominating over all others. These, in the Authorized Version, are described by the "giants" which were in the land in those days of old, but the term used in the original Hebrew is "Nephilim."

     The meaning of this name is somewhat uncertain. Some derive it from a root, Palah or Pala, "to be marvelous," but most probably it is a form of the verb, naphal, "to fall," meaning either fallen ones, or those who fall upon others, or "abortions," untimely and monstrous births. In either case, the etymology of the name is in correspondence with the spiritual and natural characteristics of the man of this race, "the wickedness of whom was great in the earth, and every imagination of the thoughts of whose heart was only evil continually." (Gen. 6:5.)

     This people, it should be remembered, were of the race of celestial men, with whom the will and the understanding acted as one,-men who, the instant they recognized a truth, immediately assented to it in their heart and acted upon it in their life. Consequently, when perverted, their understanding recognized nothing but falsity, and their evil will immediately assent to this falsity and carried it out in life, nor were they able to control themselves or compel themselves to shun what was evil. They were hopelessly fallen, and were in such evil and falsity as "had never been before nor ever shall be again." (A. C. 7686.)

     The Nephilim signify those who through a persuasion of their own loftiness and pre-eminence made light of all things holy and true.... That race, which lived before the flood, is such that they so kill and suffocate all spirits by their most direful phantasies, (which are poured forth by them as a poisonous and suffocating sphere), that the spirits are entirely deprived of the power of thinking, and feel half dead; and unless the Lord by His Coming into the world had freed the world of spirits from that poisonous race, no one could have existed there, and consequently the human race, (which is ruled by the Lord through the spirits), would have perished. They are, therefore, now kept in a hell, as it were under a misty and dense rock, under the heel of the left foot. (A. C. 581, 607, 805, 1120).

     This direful race at last perished from the earth in the universal deluge of evils and falsities which overtook the fallen Church in the time of Noah. Filled with an insane love of dominating over others, they waged internecine warfare in the land of Canaan, tribe against tribe, family against family, and brother against brother. The decimated people finally choked to death, as in the waters of a flood,-their evil lusts and practices clogging and stopping up the channels of their internal respiration. "With some, however, external respiration then began." (A. C. 1120.)

     As a nation, the antediluvian Nephilim perished, but a remnant escaped extinction,-or, rather, we should say, two distinct sets of remnants. Of these there was one generation, signified by Noah, which had preserved remains of uprightness and rationality, and which therefore could serve as the nucleus of a new Church or dispensation. These, having received a new revelation or doctrine from the Lord, not only separated themselves from their evil associates as to doctrine and life, but also, probably, after bitter persecutions, fled from the land, perhaps to Ararat among the mountains of Armenia, where they could in security develop the doctrine, worship, and life of their new Church, the Church of the Silver Age, and also spread its light among the neighboring gentile nations who are represented by the sons of Noah and their descendants.

The other remnant, continuing in the evil ways of their forefathers, remained in the land of Canaan, and became the progenitors of the seven profane tribes which are known as the Avim, the Anakim, the Horim, the Emim, the Auzim, the Zamzummim, and the Rephaim.

     These seven tribes, or nations, which in the Word are still included under the general designation of Nephilm, are all described as men of gigantic stature and fearsome habits, a savage and vicious race of robbers and murderers, living in the caves of the mountains like wild beasts, yet preserving some sort of tribal organization, by which, for a time, they could resist the successive invasions of Hittites, Canaanites, and Hebrews.

     We touch here upon a chapter in the history of the Ancient Church in the land of Canaan, which, as yet, is involved in great obscurity. The ethnology of Canaan is much like one of the ancient cities in that land, in which modern excavations have brought to light layer upon layer of cities,-cities beneath cities. Beneath a modern Arabic village we find the ruins of a town of the Saracenes; beneath this a Greek or Roman city; beneath this a fastness of Jewish origin; beneath this a town of Canaanitish, Phoenician or Philistine character; beneath this, perhaps a Hittite city, and beneath this, finally, the caves and dwelling places of the aboriginal, troglodyte Nephilim.

     From the records of the Old Empire in Egypt, especially from the mountains of the conquering heroes of the twelfth dynasty, we find that Canaan, at that time, was inhabited by a race known as the "Sati," who seem to correspond to the aboriginal Nephilim. From the names recorded, both in the Egyptian monuments and in the Word, these appear to have spoken a language cognate to the Hebrew, but they certainly were neither Semites nor Canaanites, but of a far more ancient stock, cordially hated and abhorred by Hittites, Canaanites, and Hebrews alike.

At one time they undoubtedly possessed the whole of the land, since they left their names to places in the interior of Canaan, (as, for instance, the Valley of Rephaim, near Jerusalem, and the town of Avim, in the district of Benjamin). It is also certain that they were driven away from the interior by the invasion of the Hittites, who, according to the Writings of the New Church, were a gentle and upright nation of the Ancient Church, directly descended from the good remnant of the Most Ancient Church. Who could these original Hittites have been but the descendants of the Church of Noah, having returned from their exile among the Armenian mountains in order to take possession of the land of their fathers? This, we think, will be proved in our chapter on the Hittite nation, but for the present we suggest it only as a working hypothesis. At any rate, in the time of Ramses II., we find the interior of Canaan in the possession of the Hittites, (by the Egyptians known as the Chatti or Cheta), while the remnants of the Nephilim are found on the southern and eastern borders of the land. It is here, also, that we find them when Chedorlaomer, the Elamite conqueror of Chaldea, made the victorious expedition against them, which is recorded in the fourteenth chapter of Genesis. "And in the fourteenth year came Chedorlaomer, and the kings that were with him, and smote the Rephaim in Ashteroth Karnaim, and the Zuzim in Ham, and the Emim in Shaveh Kiriathaim, and the Horim in their Mount Seir, unto El-Paran, which is by the wilderness." (Gen. 14:5, 6) Only four of the seven tribes are here mentioned, but we will now consider each of them according to their position in the land of Canaan as recorded in the Word.

69. The Avim, ("dwellers among ruins," or "ruined ones," from Azzah, "destruction, ruin"). Concerning this tribe we read in Deuteronomy, chapter 2, v. 23: "And the Avim which dwelt in Hazerim, even unto Azzah, the Caphtorim, which came forth out of Caphtor, destroyed them, and dwelt in their stead." This people undoubtedly belonged to the remnant of the Nephilim, as they are mentioned in connection with the Emim, the Horim, and the Zamzumim who are spoken of in the same chapter. They are, moreover, reckoned as among the aborigines of Palestine by all commentators of the Bible.

They are said to have dwelt in Hazerim, even to "Azzah," which means that they occupied the most southern portion of the coastland which afterwards was occupied by the Philistines. "Azzah," in the Hebrew, is the same as Gaza, the most southern city of the Philistines. The Caphtorim is only the most ancient name of the Philistines. The Avim are afterwards, (in Joshua 13:3), mentioned among the various tribes of the Philistines, from which it would appear that while the majority of the tribe was destroyed, a portion was adopted and incorporated in the Philistine confederation. The character of this people may be inferred from the meaning of their name as being either "ruined ones" or "dwellers among ruins,"--probably both!

70. The Anakim ("long-necked ones," from Anaq, "to be long, stretched out, and over-towering"). This tribe is first mentioned in the book of Numbers, (13:22, 32, 33), in the report which the spies brought to Moses: "And they ascended by the south, and came unto Hebron, where were Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the children of Anak. (Now Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt)." And the spies added: "The land through which we have gone to search it, is a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof; and all the people that we saw in it are men of a great stature. And there we saw the giants, [Nephilim], the sons of Anak, of the giants, [Nephilim]; and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight." And in Deuteronomy 9:2, they are further described as "a people great and tall, the children of the Anakim, whom thou knowest, and of whom thou hast heard (the saving) 'Who can stand before the children of Anak?"

Commentators have supposed that this Anak was an individual, the son of a certain Arba who built Hebron seven years before Zoan in Egypt, but the whole content shows that a race of people is referred to, rather than any individual person. The ancient name of Hebron was Kiriath Arba, a name which means "the city of four," or "the city which lieth four-square,"--like the New Jerusalem. Now, such a city signifies "a church in which there is justice, . . . because to look equally to the four quarters is to regard all things from what is just." (A. R. 905.) Hence we have the common expression "a square man," and "a square deal," meaning a just man and a just transaction.

This, therefore, was an eminently proper name for the city which was the capital of Canaan in the time of the Ancient Church, before Jerusalem became the capital and the special representative of the Church. (A. C. 29092.) But "that every Church in process of time decreases until it has nothing of faith and charity left, and that it is then destroyed, was represented by Kiriath Arba, which is Hebron, being possessed by the Anakim, by whom are represented direful persuasions of falsity." (A. C. 29093.)

It is to be noted that Kiriath Arba or Hebron, in the time of Abraham was in the possession of the Hitittes, a gentle, courteous and generous race, and not a word is said in the book of Genesis as to the presence of any Anakim there, while in the time of Moses and Joshua the city was occupied by the Anakim, and nothing is said about the former Hittite inhabitants. We judge from this that the original possessors had been driven out by an invasion of the Anakim, who may have been a remnant of refugees from the Horim who had been smitten by Chedorlaomer in Mount Seir. At any rate, their were like the Horim a gigantic race of fear-inspiring aspect and habits of life, who, in the time of Joshua, possessed not only Hebron, but also a number of other towns among the southern mountains of Palestine, divided into three tribes named after the three sons of Anak; Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai. At the time of the Israelitish invasion Joshua came "and cut off the Anakim from the mountains, from Hebron, from Debir, from Anab, and from all the mountains of Judah, and from all the mountains of Israel; Joshua destroyed them utterly with their cities. There were none of the Anakim left in the land of the children of Israel; only in Gaza, in Gath, and in Ashdod there was a remnant." (Josh. 9:21, 22.)

In these cities of the Philistines some families of the gigantic Anakim remained for hundreds of years, even until the time of David, for of this monstrous stock came the giant Goliath of Gath, whose height was six cubits and one span, (about ten feet and a half). The stripling David slew the boasting monster, but many years afterwards the aged king was met in battle by four other giants of the same accursed race: Ishbi-benob, "who was of the sons of the giant, the weight of whose spear weighed three hundred shekels of brass," and Saph, who was also of the sons of the giant, and Lakmi, the brother of Goliath, "whose spear was like a weaver's beam," and an unnamed monster, "a man of great stature, that had an every hand six fingers, and on every foot six toes, four and twenty in number; and he also was born to the giant.

These four were born to the giant in Gath, and fell by the hand of David and by the hand of his servants." (II. Sam. 21:10-22; I. Chron. 20:4.). And that is the last that we hear of the descendants of the Anakim in the land of Canaan.

     71. The Horim ("troglodytes, or cave-dwellers" from Her, "a cave"). Of this aboriginal race in Canaan we read first that Chedorlaomer smote "the Horites in their Mount Seir, unto El-Paran, which is by the wilderness,' (Gen. 14:6), and later on that "the Horim also dwelt in Mount Seir beforetime: but the children of Esau succeeded them, when they had destroyed them from before them, and dwelt in their stead." (Deut. 2:12), from which we learn that these cave-dwellers were not utterly destroyed by Chedorlaomer, but remained in their mountain-fastnesses between the Dead Sea and the Red Sea until they were finally exterminated by the Edolrmites, the Hebrew descendants of Esau.

     Lenormant, in his Ancient History of the East, states that in northern Arabia, bordering on the Chaldean desert, there is found on the best maps a mountainous district called Thamud. "It is in this region that a tradition, even now believed among the Arabs, places the ancient nation of the Thamud, who made their dwellings in caves of the rocks. They were, it is said, an impious nation, and they were destroyed by a certain 'Codar-el-Ahmar.' It is almost impossible to avoid recognizing in them the Horites or Troglodytes of the book of Genesis" (p. 146). In the neighborhood of Belt Djibrin, the Eleutheropolis of the Romans, and especially at Petra, their rock-hewn dwellings and excavated caves are still found by the hundreds in the sandstone cliffs and mountains of that wild and deserted region.

     By the Horim, we are informed, in general, "are signified the persuasions of falsity which are from the love of self, such as are most foul," (more foul than the persuasions from the love of the world), "for they are opposite to the celestial things of love, involving the desire to command over others," (A. C. 1675),--all of which is in keeping with the character of this people as descendants of the antediluvian Nephilim.

     72. The Emim ("terrible ones," from 'Aim, "to terrorize"). Of this people, with such an ominous name, we know nothing except the fact that Chedorlaomer smote them in Shaveh Kiriathaim, which was in the land afterwards occupied by the Moabites, the Hebrew descendants of the elder son of Lot. In that land, we are further told, "the Emim dwelt in times past, a people great, and many, and tall, as the Anakim, which were also accounted giants, as the Anakim, but the Moabites called them Emim." (Deut. 2:11.) The word here rendered "tall," may also be translated "haughty," or great in their own estimation. The passage is suggestive of the awe-inspiring character of these Nephilim, who, although they were dispossessed and probably exterminated by the more numerous descendants of Moab, yet produced such an impression upon the conquerors that they could record them by no other names than "the terrible ones." Concerning them we are told in the Writings that they "were of a similar kind to the Nephilim," and "signified persuasions of what is false, or the hells of such, which the Lord conquered." (A. C. 1673)

     73. The Zuzim, an aboriginal people which is mentioned but once in the Word, viz., in Genesis xiv, where it is said that Chedorlaomer "smote the Zuzim in Ham." From the context it appears that these Zuzim lived somewhere to the east of the Jordan, anywhere between the river Jabbok and Amen, thus in the country afterwards occupied by the Hebrew tribe of Ammonites. Some have identified their stronghold, "Ham," with the ancient Rabbah, now called Amman. Others have suggested the modern Humeimath, one mile above Rabbah, the ancient Ar-moab, on the Roman road.

     74. The Zamzummim, a people described in Deuteronomy2:20, 21, where we are told that the land of Ammon "was also accounted a land of giants, giants dwelt therein in old time; and the Ammonites called them Zamzummim; a people great, and many, and tall, as the Anakim, but the Lord destroyed them."

It is quite possible that these Zamzummim were the same people as the Zuzim of Genesis xiv; at any rate they must have been closely related to each other, and both lived in the land of Ammon. The names of both seem to suggest that they spoke in a language not understood by the surrounding Canaanites and Hebrews, to whom their speech sounded like a buzzing or humming noise. The roots, Zamaam, signify to murmur, to hum; also to meditate and to plan evil.

     The Zuzim, we are taught in the Writings, "were similar to the Nephilim," (A. C. 1673) but signify in particular "a kind of persuasion of falsity." (A. C. 1654) Hence it was from correspondence that their territory was afterwards occupied by the Ammonites, by whom is signified the adulteration of truth. (S. S. 18.)

     75. The Rephaim (of uncertain etymology; some derive it from rapha', "to heal," but cannot establish any connection of ideas; others from raphah, "to throw down, to sink down, to be unstrung with fear").

     The word "Rephaim," in a wide sense, seems to be a general term for all the remnants of the Nephilim in the land of Canaan, and is, like the word "Nephilim," very often translated by "giants" in the Authorized Version; but in a distinctive sense it is the name of a gigantic race of troglodytes living in Bashan and the northern region of the land of Gilead. Here we first hear of them in the record of the invasion of Chedorlaomer, who "smote the Rephaim in Ashteroth Karnaim, and the Zuzim in Ham, and the Emim in Shaveh Kiriathaim" (Gen. 14:5) In Deuteronomy the Emim and the Zamzummin are included under the title of Rephaim, (Deut. 2:11, 20), but Cashan in particular is described as "the land of the Rephaim," (Deut. 3:13), where, in the time of Abraham, they possessed sixty strong cities or town. After their defeat by Chedorlaomer the tribe rapidly declined and were supplanted by the Ammonites: and in the time of Moses "only Og, king of Rashan, remained of the remnant of the Rephaim; behold, his bedstead was a bedstead of iron; is it not in Rabbath of the children of Ammon? Nine cubits was the length thereof, and four cubits the breadth of it, after the cubit of a man." (Deut. 3:11.)

It was this gigantic king who, with all his people, came out to give battle to the invading Israelites at the city of Edrei, and here the sons of Israel "smote him until there was none left to him remaining." (Deut. 3:1-3.)

     Before occupying the land of Bashan it seems that the Rephaim had dwelt in the interior of Canaan, as they left their name to "the Valley of Rephaim,"--a valley to the southwest of Jerusalem, on the right hand of the road which leads from Jerusalem to Bethlehem. It is a continuation of the ill-famed "Valley of the son of Hinnom," which in later times became known as "Gehenna," and like the latter it is full of caves, the prehistoric dwellings of the troglodyte Rephaim.

     Herodotus, Strabo, and Aristotle have given accounts of various troglodyte tribes in Africa, who may have been related to the Horim, Emim, Rephaim, etc. 'The best known of these African cave-dwellers were the inhabitants of the 'Troglodyte country,' on the coast of the Red Sea, who reached as far north as the Greek port of Berenice, and of whose strange and savage customs an interesting account has been preserved by Diodorus and Photius from Agatherchides. They were a pastoral people, living entirely on the flesh of their herds, or, in the season of fresh pasture, on mingled milk and blood. But they killed only old or sick cattle, (as, indeed, they killed old men who could no longer follow the flock), and the butchers were called 'unclean:' nay, they gave the name of parent to no man, but only to the cattle of which they had their subsistence. They went almost naked; the women wore necklaces of shells as amulets. Marriage was unknown except among the chiefs. They practiced circumcision, or a mutilation of a more serious kind. The whole account, much of which must Be here passed by, is one of the most curious pictures of savage life in ancient times. The Biblical Horim, who inhabited Mount Seir before the Edomites, bore a name which means 'cave-dwellers,' and may probably have been a kindred people to the Troglodytes on the other side of the Red Sea." (Encyc. Brit., vol. 23. p. 583)

     Concerning the appearance of the Nephilim, who were the ancestors of the seven tribes described above, the Writings of the New Church state that "they could no longer express visibly any idea of thought, but what was most deformed." (A. C. 607)

"With their married partners they lived in a certain delight, yet their marriages were merely a kind or adultery and lasciviousness." (S. D. 4076.) "The men, as they grew up, became deformed, shaggy, and hairy, the hair hanging loose about their face. . . . They prided themselves on a multitude of children, whom they had with them wherever they went, walking before them in a curved line." Their love of offspring was, however, only another form of their self-love and love of domineering. (A. C. 1272; S. D. 3589.)

     The houses erected by the giant Rephaim in the volcanic districts of Bashan are still the wonder of the traveler. The walls are formed of large blocks of basalt, very hard and difficult to work, yet carefully dressed and fitted together without cement. Roofs, doors, stairs, and windows, are all of stone. "This, of course, imparts to the buildings great massiveness of appearance and great solidity, and in multitude of cases the houses, though 'without inhabitant;' are as perfect as when first reared. Since buildings so strong are apparently capable of enduring for any length of time, and since some of these are known, from the inscriptions upon them to date from before the commencement of the Christian era, it is not unnatural to regard them as, in fact, the work of the earliest known inhabitants of the land, the Amorites or the Rephaim;. . . some of these inscriptions are in an unknown character, resembling the Himyaritic." (Encyc. Brit., vol. 3, p. 411.)

     It is, perhaps, from the profane and horrible character of the Rephaim, and from the recollection of the direful struggles between them and the first Canaanitisn invaders who dispossessed them, that the Phoenicians always use the term "Rephaim" as an expression of horror and execration, the term being used in the sense of "manes" or haunting ghosts of infernal spirits. In the Old Testament the name Rephaim is often synonymous with "the dead," and is most often so translated in the Authorized Version, as in the following passages:

     "Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.

But he knoweth not that the dead (Rephaim) are there; and that her guests are in the depths of hell." (Prov. 9:18.)

     "Wilt thou show wonders to the dead? Shall the dead (Rephaim) arise and praise Thee?" (Ps. 88:10.)

     "Hell from beneath is moved for Thee to meet at Thy Coming; it stirreth up the dead (Rephaim), for Thee; even all the chief ones of the earth." (Is. 14:9.)

     "The dead shall not live; the deceased (Rephaim), shall not arise; because Thou hast visited and destroyed them, and hast made all their memory to perish." (Is. 26:14.) By this is signified the combats of the Lord in His Human against the hells of the Antediluvians, and His victories over them. (A. C. 581.)
WILLIAM HENRY BENADE 1909

WILLIAM HENRY BENADE OSCAR MIACDONALD BROOKS 1909

Expounder, builder, leader, brave and wise,
     Whose vision hath aligned the bulwarks true
     Of our beloved Jerusalem the New:
A champion valiant in his high emprise,
He flung aloft before astonished eyes
     The ensign of the Word revealed anew;
     And rendered to that Law the homage due
Without reserve, or doubt, or compromise.
     Heroic leader in the storm and strife,
Of dauntless heart and spirit undismayed,
     He nobly wrought,--and passed into that life
Where broader uses wait to be essayed.
     Oh, may the holy truths which he maintained
     Be aye with loyalty and love proclaimed!
                    OSCAR MIACDONALD BROOKS,
Cashmere, Wn.

Editorial Department 1909

Editorial Department Editor 1909

     NOTES AND REVIEWS.

     The Swedenborg Printing and Publishing Society of New York has just printed the work on Heaven and Hell in German, like the paper edition in English, for the price of fifteen cents a copy. This is said to be the first cheap edition of the work in German.

     The Rev. John Whitehead, now of Boston, has issued as a tract his paper in the New Church Review for January, entitled "A Study of Swedenborg's Treatise on Conjugial or Marriage Love." He here presents the well known "Convention" view of the doctrine of "Permissions," but manages to make the confusion yet worse confounded.

     In connection with the recent "centenary celebration" held by the Kearsley (England) Society, Mrs. Cooke, the oldest daughter of a former pastor of the society, the Rev. Woodville Woodman, has written a History of the New Jerusalem Church, Kearsley. The work contains a number of illustrations, and includes an account of the labors of the Rev. John Clowes.

     A Boston printing firm is experimenting with a plan of advertising and extending the circulation of New Church periodicals. The originator of this plan, we learn, is not affiliated with the New Church, but has selected it because of its being among the smaller churches. In pursuance of the plan a circular has been prepared, headed "Get Acquainted with the New Church Periodicals," offering, for the sum of twenty-five cents to send a sample copy of New Church Review, New Church Messenger, New Church Life, New Philosophy, New Church League Journal, The Secular Church, and The Helper, and to make special subscription rates on any or all of these publications which may be desired.

     Our readers will be deeply interested in the appreciative review of the new Liturgy of the General Church, which, under the title of "A Twentieth Century Missal," appeared in the English New Church Magazine for January, 1909, and which we reproduce in the present issue of the Life, (omitting some portions of the somewhat irrelevant preface).

The writer, the Rev. Arthur E. Beilby, is the pastor of the South Manchester society, and has always been known as a determined opponent of the Academy; his review, therefore, cannot be accused of any partisan bias. One sad evidence of the ignorance of the real spirit of the Academy is his statement that "Our friends of the Academy are not usually credited with poetic sympathies." How cruel!

     The editor of the New Church Review, writing in the January issue on the subject of "the morality of Swedenborg in the work on 'Conjugial Love,'" remarks that "there are infractions of the laws of purity" that are "not to be condoned, they are not to be singled out as allowable, but on the other hand they do not necessarily destroy that jewel of all true and heavenly life, known as the conjugial principle. In other words, those who have been led into these milder evils may not thereby be wholly unfitted to enter into the enjoyment of the pure marriage love of heaven." Now, Mr. Editor, is that really the way Swedenborg himself puts it?

     Cyrus R. Teed, founder and head of the Koreshan cult, editor of The Flaming Sword, etc., died on December 22d, in Florida, where he had established a colony of his deluded followers. He was at one time connected with the New Church in Chicago, but conceived the notion that he was the re-incarnation of Swedenborg, who was the re-incarnation of Jesus Christ, who, again, was the re-incarnation of Cyrus, (Heb. Koresh), king of Persia, "who represents the Lord as to the Human." (A. C. 8989.) He also believed that we live inside the earth instead of the outer surface. These insanities having at least the appearance of originality, Teed attracted quite a following, among them some ci-devant New Church people.

     Mr. Sewall states in the Messenger, "From a letter received from Mr. Stroh we learn of the interesting discoveries he has just made in the records of the University of Upsala concerning Swedenborg's life and studies while in the university.

It appears that he entered in the year 1699, and was listed as a boy of 'excellent disposition,' and remained until his graduation thesis in 1709. Mr. Stroh will give later an account of his course of studies, his professors, his graduation thesis and other matters. One of the most interesting of the recent discoveries in Upsala in looking up the history of Swedenborg is that of the burial place of Swedenborg's mother, Sara Behm, and of his brother Albert, who died within ten days of each other. The burial took place in July, 1696, and the vault is directly under the crossing of the nave and the transept of the cathedral."

The Federation of Churches has been holding immense meetings in Philadelphia, and has excited hopes in the minds of some of the New Church that the much to be desired millennium is near. But one's enthusiasm is somewhat cooled when he realizes that all the denominations which have thus been called together belong to the one creed of "salvation through the atonement." In vain Mr. Sewall, in the Messenger for December 16, deplores that "there was no New Church man there to call a halt on this fatal blunder." But the New Church was not invited. The acceptance of this basis declares the faith-alone church to be faith alone still and this Federation of the Churches to be simply a gathering under the Dragon's wings.

Two new biographies of Swedenborg were published in Sweden during the past year. One of these is by Mr. Alfred H. Stroh, which we have not yet seen. The other, by Lieut. Ernest Liljedahl. (Stockholm, Hugo Geber, 1908), is a very handsome little book of seventy-two pages, and is published as No. 9 of a series on "the greatest men of mark" in the history of the world. It is the most appreciative, well written and yet "critical" tribute to Swedenborg, that we have ever seen from an outside source. The author is evidently a Unitarian, and he compares the "mistakes" of Swedenborg with those of Jesus. In consequence he has no conception of the fundamental Theology of the New Church, but deals chiefly with Swedenborg as a scientist, patriot, and moralist.

In view of "New Church" depreciation and denial it is refreshing to have this writer speak of the work on Conjugial Love as "the most sublime work in the world's literature on the subject of love between the sexes,--adorned as it is with the romance of all eternity;" nor is his appreciation confined only to the first part of the work. We wish the whole of the biography could be translated into English, if only as a document of outside evidence for the refutation of Swedenborg's detractors within and without the nominal New Church.

     We have received a circular from Mr. Charles Higham appealing for subscription to "A General Index of New Church Periodical Literature, 1790-1881."

     This Index has been for some time completed, and ready for the printer. Subscriptions for two hundred and fifty copies are necessary to secure its publication.

     The Index covers all the important magazines of the New Church in England during the period named. It unlocks a vast store of the intellectual work and the history of the first century of the New Church. It comprises between twenty-three and twenty-four thousand items, and will make a volume of about four hundred and fifty pages, large octave.

     The work will not only be invaluable in every New Church Library which contains the volumes indexed, but to every minister of the New Church. We are glad to set before our readers this praiseworthy attempt to rescue from oblivion, and to the uses of, this great mass of New Church literature.

     Subscriptions will be received by the Librarian or Book Room. The price is one guinea, net, or, including postage, about $5.50.

     Describing his recent discoveries of new "Swedenborgiana in England," Mr. A. W. Stroh, writing in the December New Church Magazine, quotes the following, thitherto not generally known), anecdote concerning Swedenborg, as originally reported in the Report of the Manchester Printing Society for 1813:

     "It may perhaps be interesting to some of the readers to be informed, that in June last there was living in London an old gentleman, who was intimately acquainted with Baron Swedenborg, concerning whom a correspondent thus writes:

'There is a gentleman who visits the family where I now reside, a Dr. Wilkinson, a man of great genius and a profound scholar. He is now, I am told, in the 95th year of his age, with both mental and corporeal faculties in astonishing vigor. Conversing a few evenings since with this wonderful man, he told me that he was perfectly well acquainted with Baron Swedenborg, when he resided in London, and frequently used to walk in the Park with him and one or two more. But the Baron never spoke, but always seemed in deep meditation. He describes the Baron as plain, simple, charitable, humble, and unassuming. He would take a quire of paper and sit down to write, without any apparent study or preparation, a dissertation in most elegant Latin, without ever stopping to think how he should express himself, and would fill his paper as if something was dictating to him, regardless who was present, or what was doing about him."

The Neukirchenblatt in its January issue replies to our comments on its review of the new Liturgy of the General Church. We stated, in December last, that "when, in the Providence of the Lord, there shall have been produced a new version of the entire Word, in which the Church as a whole shall have some degree of confidence, then, and not before, will the worship be ready to adapt itself to the new translation. In the meantime it will be better for the Church in its public worship to adhere to that version which, with all its faults, possesses some unrivalled virtues, and which has served for centuries as the means of communication between God and the English-speaking race." This conclusion the Neukirchenblatt characterizes as a "Philistine argument," and retorts that "with a few little verbal changes it would sound something like this: 'In the meantime it would be better if the New Church would adhere to the old Doctrine, which, with all its faults, possesses some unrivalled virtues, and which has served for centuries as the means of communication between God and the Teutonic race.'"

It is with grief we learn that our German contemporary has come to the conclusion that the Doctrine of the Old Church "possesses some unrivalled virtues." The Writings of the New Church declare that not one truth remains unperverted in the old Theology, and that it has served to interrupt and finally destroy the communication between God and man.

The editor of the
Neukirchenblatt does not hesitate to raise the old Doctrine to the level of the English version of the Word, which, "with all its faults," still presents the Lord's own and infinite body of Divine Truth.

     The Messenger in its leading editorial for December 16, declares confidently "that the world has entered upon a new state in its attitude towards the revelation for the New Church." It declares this to be "evident on all sides,"--and yet the reasons, and the evidence presented are not altogether convincing. That there is "growth of knowledge and intelligence," is true, but the knowledge is material, and not spiritual, and the intelligence that which glories in its ability to judge of truth from its own power rather than in the light of any Divine Revelation. "The dogmas of the church once accepted in blind faith have been rejected by thinking people," it is true, but are these thinking people any more ready to accept the truth of the New Church?

     It may be that "the issue of cheap editions of the Writings has given them wider circulation," that "they are more than ever read and talked about in current literature," but it is rare indeed to see any reference to them which intimates anything approaching accurate knowledge of them. "The prejudice against the New Church" may have "passed away," men may be "freer to read," but it does not appear to us that this greater freedom is accompanied with any increased acceptance of the fundamental doctrine of the New Jerusalem.

     "And then there is a smaller degree of the sectarian spirit among New Church people themselves. They are more anxious to have others profit by the truth than to become members of the Church organization before the world."

     This is a sort of blind faith which may be of comfort to those who are willing to see with the imagination. The falling off in church membership is tangible; it must be reckoned with. It cannot be questioned that the Convention's "ecclesiasticism" is not growing.

The filtering of the truths of the New Church into the which can make a showing currents of the mind of men cannot easily be measured; and the active imagination can claim large things for this, without much danger of contradiction. It is easy to say and the dictum has an appearance of conclusiveness, "These things demonstrate that the New Jerusalem is indeed descending to earth, though, perhaps, not assuming the outward form among men, that . . . imagined it would," but where is the-demonstration in all this assertion?

     In the Messenger for December 16, B. W. quotes from a recent pamphlet by the Rev. A. H. Francisco, who said, speaking of the New Church:

     Its only enemy is the old church with its false doctrines and evils of life which it has inculcated in the minds of men, together with the deductions drawn from them, leading to doubt, agnosticism, infidelity, self-worship, mammonism, and every variety of falsity, which evil seeks to hide behind, the multiplicity of which constitutes the consummation of the church in man; wherein concordant unity of spiritual thought is destroyed among men except the unity which is the result of loss of freedom through compulsion, and the loss of rationality through persuasion, leading to numerous sects, presided over by pope, bishop, president, or leader.

     Whereupon B. W. indignantly asks:

     Is it not time to stop this insulting talk about "the old church." More than fifty years ago in our good old New Jerusalem Magazine we declined to use the expression. . . . The Christian Church of today is not the church of the 16th and 18th centuries. It is receiving day by day new light from the New Heaven, and if not yet in the full light of the Lord's Second Coming, it is at least in the penumbra of that light. . . . Everywhere, professors, teachers and ministers are preparing the way in practical teaching for the new reception of the Son of Man. Shall we rebuke them because they follow not us?

     Two weeks later, Mr. Francisco manfully replies:

     "I am accused . . . of insulting the old church. I have no intention of insulting any body or thing. I intended only to state facts, and if stating facts be insulting talk, who is it that B. W. will have stop me? Has not B. W. come into a state in which he confuses the old church with the New, [so], that one cannot tell whether he is a 'new' old churchman or an 'old' Newchurchman?

. . . . How old must the old church become in order to be the New Church? I would say about as old as a wolf would have to become in order to be called a sheep. I received my judgment of the old church from the revelation made by the Lord, in order to show that the old church is dead, and hence the necessity for a New. Must I spew out this revelation, retrace my steps, and again re-enter the old church,--of course after due apologies for insulting her,--then to ask to be received on the grounds that I had been deceived in reading the Lord's revelation, into being led into a New Church, (only 'so-called')?"

     To which B. W. calmly replies:

     "If by 'old church' we mean that first stage of the Christian Church, that came to its end at the last judgment, it might be better for distinctness to call it the former church. There is no old church now. The present Christian Church is being emancipated from former misconceptions of doctrines under the auspices of the new heaven, and is becoming of the New Church."

     In the Messenger of December 23, Mr. Edmund Congar Brown comes to the defence of Mr. Seward's expression. "The Lord says," in relation to Swedenborg's writings. He writes:

     "I think that many readers of the Messenger will share my surprise upon reading the statement of Mr. Benj. Worcester, that he has never in the course of a long life heard the words "The Lord says" applied to any quotation from the Writings. While I cannot claim either the years or the wisdom of your honored contributor, I must bear witness that I have frequently heard the expression used in the way mentioned, and I use it myself when occasion permits."

     But this view finds scanty courtesy among the correspondents to the Messenger. Mr. Seward, while indeed expressing his gratification at the attention which his previous paper had attracted, and wishing that the question "might he threshed out to a practical conclusion," thinks Mr. Worcester's objection to the expression "The Lord says," is right. "What I meant was," he explains, "'The Lord teaches, and the putting it the other way was a slip. If I had stopped to think, I should not have used the word 'says,' for fear it would be understood as it is understood when used of the Word.". . .

But why should Mr. Seward find occasion to retract, when he can add, as he does:

     "I am sure it is right to say, 'The Lord teaches,' for if it is not He that teaches in the New Church, 1 am sure I don't know who it is . . . . What I am aiming at, and what I am sure the whole Church will approve of, is such a use of terms as will convey the idea to even the ordinary mind that we are, under the Lord, heralding a New Dispensation of Divine truth, founded upon the Revelation by the Lord Himself of the spiritual sense of the Holy Word, and of the doctrines and memorabilia that necessary to understand it."

     But Mr. Worcester, in the same number of the Messenger, January 6, becomes more emphatic.

     "The question is as to the right to quote from Swedenborg under the caption, 'The Lord says.' . . . Mr. Brown has frequently heard it. . . . I hope never to be present on such an occasion. I could not remain in the room." "The thought is preposterous." "What a fearful error to say, 'The Lord says,' in quoting these words." "The very form of his explication precludes the possibility." These notions are "absurd," "impossible."

     Another champion who is concerned lest the Writings should be unduly exalted, is the Rev. Hiram Vrooman, who offers a criticism of a recent Helper sermon by the Rev. Thomas A. King. The latter, indeed, declares that the Writings are not the Word, but this does not satisfy Mr. Vrooman, who declares that "Swedenborg wrote nothing but what his own mind comprehended. This being true, it follows as a logical conclusion that if what he wrote was Divine, his finite mind comprehended the infinite, which would be a manifest absurdity." (Does not Mr. Vrooman know that the Infinite is also Omnipotent, and that His Omnipotence includes the ability to finite Himself, and thus render Himself comprehensible to finite minds?) "Mr. King takes occasion to say that the church Writings are not the Word. And yet he says that both the Word and the Writings are Divine. Does he mean that there is more than one Divine? If he is willing to be logical, he must either retract what is here stated or go further and declare that there is more than one God, because if the Word and the Writings are both Divine, and yet not one and the same thing, it follows that they are two Divines, hence two Gods."

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This last is certainly well argued, but it strikes beyond Mr. King and his sermon. It is in the mouth of all the leaders of the Convention that the Writings are a Divine Revelation. If, then, they are not one with the Word, there must be two Divines, consequently two Gods.
SWEDENBORG AND FREEMASONRY 1909

SWEDENBORG AND FREEMASONRY 1909

An article in The New England Craftsman, (a Masonic journal), on Swedenborg and Masonry, is peculiarly interesting not only because of its subject matter, but also because its statements respecting Swedenborg and the New Church, while numerous, are yet exact. The author, Mr. Edwin S. Crandon, financial editor of the Boston Transcript, is a prominent member of the Boston Society.

The paper is an investigation into the claim frequently appearing in Masonic history, that Swedenborg was a Mason. This claim formed the subject of an elaborate work by the Rev. Samuel Beswick, The Swedenborg Rite. The book is briefly but caustically alluded to as being "purely fanciful," and then dismissed. Tafel's Documents and the researches of the learned Masonic author, Dr. Mackay, are frequently cited, the writer being in entire agreement with both authors. "A New Church Doctor of Divinity, (he says), not a Mason, and a great Masonic student and cyclopaedist, not a Newchurchman, patiently, and at great expenditure of time; and earnest devotion in research, as a result of their separate studies, the one in Europe, the other in America, came to the like conclusion: Swedenborg was not a Mason." But that there was a Masonic "Rite of Swedenborg" and that Swedenborg exercised an influence on Masonry is freely admitted. But the influence was due, not to Swedenborg, but to certain high Masons who saw a fancied resemblance between the "correspondences" of Swedenborg and the ritualism of Masonry, and exploited this resemblance to the establishment of "Swedenborgian" ritual. To quote Mr. Crandon: "Our own Mackay's conclusions shall be my own. . . . It was Freemasons of the high degrees who borrowed from Swedenborg, and not Swedenborg from them.

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And so, we cannot deny that he, (Swedenborg), has unwittingly exercised a powerful influence on Masonry."

     Among these Masons "of high degrees" Pernety and Chastanier receive particular notice. A Masonic history is quoted, which mentions the institution, at Avignon, by the Benedictine monk, "Dom Pernetti," and a Pole named Grabianca, of the Rite of Swedenborg; but the true facts of this case are cited from Mackay.

     "Pernetti, (says the latter), was a theosophist, an Hermetic philosopher, a disciple to some extent of Jacob Bohme, the prince of mystics. To such a man the visions and . . . speculations of Swedenborg were peculiarly attractive. He accepted them as an addition to his theosophic views. About the year 1760 he established at Avignon his Rite of the Illuminati in which the reveries of both Bohme and Swedenborg were introduced. In 1783, this system was reformed by the Marquis de Theme, another Swedenborgian, and out of that reform arose 'The Rite of Swedenborg,--so-called, not because Swedenborg had established it,. . . but because its symbolism was borrowed from the ideas he had advanced." "The Pole named Grabianca" who was the joint establisher with Pernetti of the "Rite of the Illuminati," is the same as that Myterious "Sutkowski" whose "real name was Grabianka," mentioned by Hindmarsh in his Rise and Progress, (p. 41 seq). This enthusiast was warmly welcomed by the early receivers in London, as a valuable addition to their ranks. He seemed "to be well acquainted with the Doctrines," says Hindmarsh, but he had some "grand secret" which excited the curiosity, and also, to some extent, the suspicions of the straightforward London printer. When the "secret" finally turned out to be the abominable notion that the Virgin Mary, deified, is a fourth person in the Godhead, there was a quick end to Grabianka's welcome.

     So far as is known, the Abbe Pernetty never gave up his Mystical Masonic perversions of Swedenborg. But of Benedict Chastanier a different story is told. That eminent but unfortunate Frenchman, whose work in the early days of the Church breathes so much of the spirit of devotion and enthusiasm, is represented in one of Mr. Crandon's quotations from Mackay as "one of the founders of the Avignon Society," who "carried these views into England and founded at London a similar Rite, which afterwards was changed into a purely religious association under the name of The Theosophical Society, instituted for the purpose of promoting the Heavenly Doctrines of the New Jerusalem."

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This statement is not wholly correct, for there is absolutely no evidence that Chastanier was "one of the founders of the Avignon Society." That he had some association with it is clear, but when he learned of its worship of Mary, and its claim to Divine Revelation, he grew suspicious of it.

     As to Chastanier's founding a Rite in London, the facts are set forth by the Rev. James Hyde in his scholarly article on Chastanier in the New Church Review (1907, p. 191). Mr. Hyde shows that Chastanier did found in France a society of Illumines Theosophes, "a kind of Masonic lodge in the spirit of the New Jerusalem." Later he "introduced the new order into England and called upon Masons to make common cause with Swedenborg." This order, according to one authority, "was a modification of the rites of the Illuminati of Avignon." However, this may be, so far as Chastanier was concerned, its spirit must have been wholly different. Unlike the not over scrupulous Pernety, Chastanier was an eager searcher after the truth, and when it came to him in the Writings of Swedenborg, his whole tendency was to throw off everything that did not make one with those Writings. He did, at first, as Mr. Crandon shows, hope to bring the Masons over, but the spirit of his effort was that Swedenborg and not Masonry should rule. To quote Mr. Crandon: "He first issued an appeal to Freemasons to avail themselves of the riches . . of Swedenborg's works and thus be the means of spreading the same, but afterwards abandoned the idea of making the Masonic Order the agent of their dissemination, and became a full and hearty receiver of the doctrines of the New Jerusalem."

     As a sample of the disregard for facts which characterizes those who are so ready to claim Swedenborg as a Freemason. Mr. Crandon quotes the following choice passage from the writings of Reghellini, a French Mason. The quotation is accompanied with judicious and remedial comments, but to our readers no comment is required:

     "Swedenborg made very many learned researches on the subject of the Masonic mysteries.

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He thought that their doctrines were of the highest antiquity; having emanated from the Egyptians, the Persians, the Magi, the Jews and the Greeks. He also became the head of a new religion in his efforts to reform that of Rome. For the purpose he wrote his 'Celestial Jerusalem, or Spiritual World.' He mingled with his reform ideas which were purely Masonic. In his 'Celestial Jerusalem' the Word, formerly communicated by God to Moses, is found; this Word, lost on earth, he invites us to find in Great Tartary."
"A TWENTIETH-CENTURY MISSAL."* 1909

"A TWENTIETH-CENTURY MISSAL."* 1909

     * Reproduced from the English New Church Magazine for January, 1909.

     "The word 'worship,' if not the thing itself, seems to have suffered a 'sea change' into something the reverse of 'rich and strange.' It has grown poorer, and looks as limp and flaccid as a collapsed balloon. Such is the case unhappily with many parts of our speech, which at one time were loaded with meaning, vessels filled up to the neck and overflowing, but have apparently emptied themselves or been emptied by a process of evaporation. . . . "Some words still keep their thrill; they are as magnetic as when first minted. It will hardly be contended that 'worship'--or worth-ship--is one of these: it rings flat, suggesting the obligations of religion far more than its transports, man's formal approach to his Maker--thus ritual rather than righteousness. One is reminded of the Public Worship Regulation Act.

. . ."Speaking locally, our Anglican Prayer Book, with its cold symmetricalities and teasing iterations, is no doubt partly responsible. And the pity of it! Nothing could well be more unfortunate. Worship! The word-or the idea--must be to the angels the most rapturous in their whole vocabulary. They have their hours of joyful relaxation--they play as well as work; but nothing in the whole range of their experiences can move them to ecstasy so deep as the bell that calls them to worship. Never, we may be sure, are they so entirely spontaneous and inspired as when they gather within sacred walls for praise and prayer.

     . . . "All this may seem a rather florid way of introducing a new book to the reader's notice.

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Such, however, is what it amounts to. It is bat the preliminary flourish of the orchestra before the curtain rises and the play begins. I not only wish to announce the appearance of another Order of Service within the New Church, but most earnestly to call sympathetic attention thereto. The new publication is simply entitled. A Liturgy for the General Church of the New Jerusalem, and is issued from the Academy Book Room at Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania. I understand it is the work of the Rev. W. F. Pendleton, the recognized bishop of the body known at; the Academy; though, considering its magnitude, one can hardly believe it the product of one mind without collaboration. This Liturgy runs to 813 pages. It is a very mammoth amongst mice. 'What,' the reader will exclaim--if he has any breath to exclaim with--'a missal, or book of devotion, spread over 800 pages! This to be sympathetically recommended to me after a lengthy homily on the blessedness of spontaneity in worship!' Alas, it is even so. I hope no one is going to be so exacting as to expect me to be consistent. I should refuse on principle. Yes, I am so erratic as to rejoice, and to call on others to rejoice, in the advent of a new book of praise and prayer covering more cubic feet of stationery than ever before in the Church's history! To such helpless dependence on forms and ordinances are we reduced that we actually--I and others--welcome this devotional phenomenon as a prop we are glad to lean on. 'It should be added, however, that the work is not only neatly bound and well printed, but is quite within reasonable compass, being less than an inch thick. Indeed, I would it were otherwise. I plead that 400 leaves of tissue paper, or its equivalent, are exceedingly irritating to manipulate, and not at all conducive to devotion. Double the bulk had been preferable. But that is by the way. On the other hand. I consider this twentieth-century New Church missal a full discrete degree ahead of our Conference Liturgy, and of every other similar compilation that has ever fallen into my hands. It is as a light carriage with a springs compared to a lumbering wain. It is unique. It is more than a monument of industry. One might almost appropriate the ornate language of Shakespeare's fifty-fifth sonnet, and say,

Not marble, nor the gilded monuments
Of princes, shall outlive--

this Book of Praise.

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     "What, then, is its distinctive merit? Well, to my mind, a simplicity and directness of diction that hardly ever fail--that mainly and in the first place. Here, with few exceptions, are no labored elaborations of the obvious, nothing turgid or tedious, none of those immature aimings at 'foine' language which so miss their mark, and only advertise their writers' scant acquaintance with the 'well of English undefiled.' Unhappily, our devotional literature makes us fatally familiar with such faults. Let us recognize, moreover, that this kind of simplicity is not attained but by prayer and fasting. It is a product. It is the last result of complexity and the highest form of art. A truly simple literary style, like the truly 'simple life,' is as complete as a crystal and as clear. Too often we have pebbles palmed off upon us. The simple is the nearest blood relation to the sublime. Any dunce can write majestically.

     "It must be confessed, however, that the book in question, at first sight, does not suggest simplicity. Its extent and all-embracing aims rather frightens one of the outset. There are no less than twelve Services, besides numerous special provisions, including of course the necessary rites and sacraments, together with psalms, chants, and even hymns, music, moreover, is arranged throughout, which largely explains the diffuse area. But, of course, the twelve regular Offices, and other special forms, are to give variety and to leave plenty of margin for selection. The plan therefore is in no sense a puzzle.

     "The short prayers scattered through the Services, as likewise many in the collection of 207 printed apart, appeal to me in their brevity and their unadorned directness. Here are a few examples:

     O Lord, we have wandered from Thy way;. . . we have yielded to the cares and anxieties of the world; we are not content with our lot; our heart is cold and our faith is weak.

     O Lord, we confess our sins before Thee; our hearts incline to every evil way; we have nothing of our own that is good. we think nothing from ourselves that is true.

     O Lord, we have fallen away from Thee;. . . we have loved the ways of the world; we have indulged the desires of the flesh; we have coveted that which is not our own: we have thought in of our neighbor; we have been impatient with the ways of the Lord.

     Lord, be with us all the day long of this troublesome life, until the shadows lengthen and the evening comes, until the busy world is hushed, and the fever of life is over and our work is done.

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Then in Thy mercy grant a safe lodging, and a holy rest, and peace with Thee at the last.

     "These are taken almost at random. It would be hard to find their rival. They, especially the last, combine the rare dualities of simpleness of phrase, intimacy of approach, and that touch of imaginativeness without which not even prayer can live. Some may think these little petitions lacking in dignity even to curtness, but they do not so impress me. Considering the end in view--remembering that spontaneity is the ideal--I think that the more colloquial written prayers are, the better they fulfill their purpose.

     "A collection of antiphons, twenty in number, is a unique feature of the book. An antiphon may be freely defined as a duet between the parson and the people. or, possibly, only between the minister and the choir. Each embodies some particular doctrine of our faith, such as 'Advent,' 'Repentance, "The Word,' 'The New Church, 'Eternal Life,' etc. These should be very useful amongst our congregations, and can be easily quarried from without superseding the ordinary rubric.

     "My friend Mr. John Holgate--to whom, being also my organist. I am accustomed to bow with abject submission in all things pertaining to his art--has glanced through the music of the antiphons, and other departments of the volume, and is satisfied that the work has been in thoroughly competent hands. He considers the pointing of the psalms and chants very well done. One thing he does not like is the frequent use of verses of three lines (as in chants 16, 18, 30, etc.), the odd number of the lines seeming to upset the rhythm.

     "The hymns, numbering 165, are mostly familiar, even when adapted, but are selected with an evident feeling for the lyrical, as distinguished from the didactic. I am glad to notice this. Our friends of the Academy are not usually credited with poetic sympathies. Even they, by the way, are compelled to draw water from that broken cistern, the Old Church.

     "Some of the hymns-I refer especially to the libretto--are quite new to me, and as charming as they are novel.

     "Glancing for a moment at the ancient and familiar examples, which are many, a delicate sense of propriety will feel slightly outraged to find the fine hymn, 'Daughter of Zion,' set to a tune universally wedded in this country to the words, 'Hark, hark, my soul.'

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Moreover, the latter beautiful thing, being thus bereft of its conjugial partner, is forced into nuptials against its will with an arrangement of Himmel's 'Incline thine ear.' Such violent putting asunder of what eternal fitness has joined together is surely immoral.

     "An interesting section of the book, entitled 'The Law,' includes a considerable number of passages from the Word, all of them pointed and picturesque variations of the Decalogue. They suggest a good idea. There can be no sufficient reason why the Commandments should always be read from the Exodus version.

     "Under the heading, 'The Doctrine,' are many selections from Swedenborg, extending to forty-six pages--a new departure in liturgies, but surely an excellent one.

     "The Baptismal, Marriage, and Burial Services in our Conference Liturgy have long been to me as the old man of the sea was to Sinbad. But ages of oppression have not entirely crushed my spirit, and hope sprang up afresh in me as I turned over the pages of the new missal. I gratefully confess that here is something more sweetly reasonable. The Marriage Office is very brief, and on the whole perhaps the least satisfactory; it might have struck a more idyllic note. But, at any rate, it does not refer to the bride and bridegroom as the 'two parties,' nor define with rigid exactness what the 'primary agent' of each is, nor find it necessary at so early a stage to present the young people with an inventory of the 'duties' that are 'proper' to the one, and the 'duties' that are 'proper' to the other.

     "The Burial Service provides, in place of the usual lengthy harangue, an abundant selection of readings from Swedenborg. Being an account of things actually heard and seen, they come with a first-hand force particularly welcome in time of bereavement. But my eye falls on one of the prayers. In view of future reprints let me, on bended knee, beseech the compiler to mercifully expunge the passage, 'which in every act of apparent destruction does but further the progress of an eternal creation.'

     "Enough. More faults, I dare say, might be found; but the new Liturgy calls for an anthem of praise, and the top note must and shall he gratitude, though it drown every other sound." ARTHUR E. BEILBY.

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EIGHTH CHICAGO DISTRICT ASSEMBLY 1909

     The eighth meeting of the Chicago District Assembly was held in Glenview, on November 6th, 7th and 8th, 1908, and was well attended by the members of the Immanuel and Sharon Churches.

     THE FIRST SESSION was opened on Friday evening, November 6th, by Bishop Pendleton. After a brief service, the Bishop delivered an address on the subject of "Freedom." which was followed by an interesting discussion. (The substance of the address will be found in New Church Life for 1901, p. 210.)

     At the close of the session an informal reception was held, during which several toasts were honored:--to the Church, to the episcopal office, to Mr. and Mrs. Klein, and to the Bishop and his wife.

     THE SECOND SESSION Opened on Saturday afternoon at 3 o'clock.

     The Bishop announced the resignation of Rev. D. H. Klein as secretary of the District Assembly, and Rev. W. B. Caldwell was elected to fill the office.

     Dr. J. B. S. King delivered an address on the subject of "IONIZATION," in which he showed how modern scientific investigation had exploded the doctrine of the indivisibility of the atom, and how the discovery of radium and other radio-active substances had brought us confirmation of Swedenborg's teachings concerning the interiors of nature.

     The Bishop.--You have heard the interesting remarks of Dr. King in which he has brought before us more strongly and vividly than we have heard it before, the evolution in science that has taken place in our own time and during the past thirteen years. It is a most remarkable thing. I well remember that thirty-eight years ago there was nothing the men of science seemed to be more sure of as lasting and permanent than the atomic theory. Now we see that that theory is exploded by the discoveries of late years, although the essential thing of the theory remains as regards chemical properties.

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It seems to illustrate at any rate the doctrine of the spheres which Swedenborg teaches throughout his works and the Writings. It seems that science has, to some extent, come to see this doctrine of spheres, and it is another illustration of the statement so many Newchurchmen are fond of making, viz., that Swedenborg has been able to forecast in his works a number of things that have been discovered since his time. Everyone who has studied his system thoroughly may see that the things which he teaches? which are not known, are not a few. The fact is he was so led by Providence to explore nature throughout from its beginnings in the Spiritual Sun to the ultimates of nature, leaving nothing untouched. This seems to be an amazing thing to say, but it is true. The whole of nature was, as it were, laid open to his view and it follows, of course, that there is nothing essential to be discovered that has not been forecast in his works,--not in particulars necessarily, but in essentials. So in this case, science is compelled to admit that the doctrine of atoms is broken up.

The subject was further discussed by Messrs. Starkey, Forrest, Dr. King and Swain Nelson, after which the Bishop read the following paper on "THE ORIGIN OF BEAUTY IN THE FEMALE SEX."

In Heaven and Hell, 382, we are told that conjugial love is represented in the other life by a virgin of inexpressible beauty encompassed by a bright cloud, so lovely that she might be said to be beauty itself in essence and in form. This love, we are told, in addition, is always represented in the other life by most beautiful things,--things far more beautiful than are seen by the natural eye or conceived of by the natural mind. We are told also that all beauty in the other life is derived from the conjugial, and, as are is beauty, and relates to beauty, we may conclude from this that all are has the same origin, i. e., from that fundamental principle in the other life,--the marriage of good and truth, or the affection of truth, or, we might say, truth. Truth is nothing without its own affection, which is the life that is in it. So it may be said that truth is the origin of are for truth is the origin of all form. Truth proceeding from the Lord is Form Itself. When the Writings speak of Truth it menus spiritual truth, the truth preceding from the Lord in the spiritual world. He is the Sun of that world and thus Truth is form and all other forms are from this. It descends into man and woman according to the form of each and causes in them conjugial love, and that love, becoming active in angels who are men and women, is the origin of all beauty,--the beauty of human being especially of the female sex. Then the beauty outside of them in the Heavens can descend into all the forms of beauty on the earth, all having its origin in the Sun of the spiritual world. This is the origin of conjugial love and of all beauty.

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     When it is said that beauty has its origin in conjugial love, there is assumed all that is prior to it, or that is the cause of it. We are told in the Writings that "Truths themselves constitute the face of good and that face is beauty itself, a beauty that cannot be looked upon by the purely natural man, That which affects is good so that what we know as the beauty of the female sex,--that which affects,--is the life that is within the beauty. The affection of spiritual truth was represented to the Apostle John on the Isle of Patmos by a woman clothed with the sun, by which is represented the affection of spiritual truth which is to be the inmost of the life of the New Church on the earth. Because angels are in the affection of spiritual truth, when that is their very life and soul they are of ineffable beauty, for they are loves and charities in form.

     The affection of spiritual truth is, first, love to the Lord; second, love to the neighbor or charity. Where they appear in their beauty they affect the beholder to the inmosts. The beauty of the angels of Heaven is from the truths which are of faith, and the life of beauty with them is from the good of charity that is in them. Such as is the affection which shines forth from the face, such is the beauty. Sometimes a woman may be called beautiful although the mere outline of the face may not be so beautiful,--it comes of the affection which shines forth from the face. This is especially true of the angels in the other life.

     This is because Heaven itself is in the Human form from the Divine of the Lord who is a Man. That is the reason of it all. There is nothing so beautiful as the Divine Human of the Lord. Divine Human simply means the same as Divine Man. This Divine Man is beauty itself and the presence of this Divine Man with the angels of Heaven is there what is called the Gorand Man or Greatest Man and is the Divine Form which is Form Itself. He, therefore, who is in the good of love and the truth of faith, consequently, he is in the beauty in which Heaven is.

     The angels from this cause are in brightness and beauty inexpressible, that is, unspeakable. On the other hand, the infernals, because they are not in this heavenly form and not present with the Divine Man, are in blackness and deformity inexpressible. Then we are told that the more perfectly the angels receive the Divine Truth, the more perfectly they receive the Lord, the more perfect human forms they are, and at last so per feet that their beauty exceeds all belief. "He who has seen them, as I have," says the Revelator, "is astonished, for they are love and charity in form which is the form truly human." Their forms are of such beauty. it is said, that "it cannot be described." Now the angels of the interior heavens are in the most beautiful and perfect human form, the angels of the lower heavens in a form less perfect and beautiful, for all perfection increases towards interiors.

     External beauty in the world is from parents and from formation in the womb, and is afterwards preserved from the general influx from the world, (it is exiled afflux in the Writings), first from the food we receive and from the atmosphere.

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Thus it is preserved in the beauty it has inherited. This beauty cannot be permanent unless there rises up a spiritual body as the result of regeneration. That which flows in from the spiritual world is that which lasts for ever. It is stated that with some who had been beautiful of face in the natural world, the spirit, soon after death, was deformed, black and monstrous in the other world; whereas some who had not been beautiful of face in the natural world became beautiful in body, and angelic.

     Dr. King thanked the Bishop for his presentation of the subject. It frequently is seen in the world that a person with only external beauty sometimes will grow old quicker than others. Mere age will not account for it.

     Mr. Starkey was impressed by what was said of women, that they are in the perception of the life of love; that man is truth, and woman is the love of it. To the man his truth is a thing of form and science, and his ability to perceive and delight in the truth is something given him by woman.

     The Bishop:--The question of physical health has to be considered in this subject as a whole.

     Lack of physical health may affect appearance in the body when there may be within much of spirituality, so that we cannot draw conclusions from appearance. It is proper to cultivate both origins of beauty, but we must consider one as primary and the other secondary. One is the orderly observation of natural laws and the other the orderly observation of spiritual laws. It is necessary to observe natural laws as they exist in nature and in the human body, but the keeping of natural laws is not the primary thing. When we violate spiritual laws it brings on a condition of suffering that will endure for ever if that state is not receded from and banished.
REPORT OF THE IMMANUEL CHURCH 1909

REPORT OF THE IMMANUEL CHURCH JOHN B. SYNNESTVEDT 1909

On Saturday evening a supper was served, during which the following toasts were proposed by Dr. King:--"Friendship in the Church," responded to by Mr. Burnham: "Friendship out of the Church," Mr. Scalbom; the "Ladies," Mr. G. A. McQueen; "Temperance," Mr. Caldwell.

After the supper the THIRD SESSION opened with the reading of reports from Immanuel and Sharon Churches

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     REPORT OF THE IMMANUEL CHURCH.

     As secretary of the Society I would report that we are now without the services of a pastor. Mr. Klein having departed for North Carolina, for the sake of his health. Since his departure the Rev. W. B. Caldwell has conducted two services on Sunday evenings. The Society has 57 members, with an average attendance at services of 63.

     Except during the summer, the Friday Classes have been conducted by Mr. Klein, with increased attendance and interest, and there has been a reviving interest in the singing. During the past year we have had the pleasure of hearing sermons from a number of visiting ministers, including the Revs. N. D. Pendleton, Wm. Whitehead, F. E. Gyllenhaal, Alfred Acton, and W. R. Caldwell.

     As his council, Mr. Klein had appointed and was assisted by most of the heads of families residing in the Park. The school has grown and flourished under Mr. Klein's direction, with 28 pupils in attendance: the lady teachers are Misses Elsie Junge, Dorothy Burnham, Helen Maynard, assisted by Miss Agnes Gyllenhaal and Miss Vivian King.

     The monthly business meeting and steinfest has been kept up, and has proved very useful as a general clearing house, both of romances and ideas. Social life has not been neglected: besides the celebrations of the Church, national days have been observed. Outdoor sports have flourished as never before.
               JOHN B. SYNNESTVEDT.
                    Secretary.
REPORT OF THE SHARON CHURCH 1909

REPORT OF THE SHARON CHURCH W. B. CALDWELL 1909

     Mr. Caldwell reported that the total number of persons, old and young, affiliated with Sharon Church, was about 80, of which 50 were adults and 30 young people and children. The average attendance at services is 30, and at classes 20. The attendance at Sunday School is about 10. Our members live at great distances from the Church, which explains, in part, the proportionately low average attendance, and we have not yet found it advisable to locate the Church elsewhere.

     Recently we have made the experiment of holding a dinner at the Church once a month after Sunday service; the afternoon being devoted to ladies' and Council meetings, the children being cared for in a separate room. The first dinner was attended by 45, and this occasion may prove to be one on which our families can assemble in fullest number for social and spiritual consociation

     The Bishop read a letter he had received from Rev. D. H. Klein, containing his resignation as secretary of the Assembly, and as pastor of Immanuel Church.

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     Mr. Burnham offered a resolution expressing our gratitude to Mr. Klein for his able work as secretary of this Assembly, and as pastor of one of our societies; and also our regret that he had been compelled to abandon his use for a time to seek restoration of health.

     The motion was seconded and carried by a rising vote.

     Mr. John Forrest delivered an address on the "Uses of History," in part, as follows:

     NOTES ON HISTORY.

     We are told in the Writings that History is one of the useful sciences. (D. 770, 4575, 4657.) The understanding of History, called the philosophy of History, is that is chiefly of use, not the mere knowledge of historical facts. History understood is one of the means of becoming rational, especially ecclesiastical history.

     What we commonly know as History is hilt superficial. The heavens have their history, which no one angel can ever exhaust. There is celestial history, spiritual history, and natural history. The last mentioned is the history of effects, proceeding from the causes and ends, which are spiritual and celestial.

     History map he called the memory of the universe, where everything that has taken place is recorded, and remains forever.

     The record of every science is the history of its evolution or development among men. History of nations is but one form of history.

     It is of great importance for us to know the past and contemporaneous history of the Church, for in this especially we see the operation of the Lord's Providence working in all things for the salvation of men

     Mr. Caldwell. History, in a broad sense, is the memory of the whole universe, where every activity of angel and man is recorded. When we go into the other world we can make up for what; we do not know here if we desire to. The spirits of Mercury go to and fro throughout the universe gathering up knowledges, which they share with one another. There is no limit to the knowledge we can attain there to eternity. Everything that has happened or been done by anyone on any earth, from the beginning until now is on record, and also will be recorded from now on forever. It shows what wonderful possibilities there are where there is an accumulation of knowledge and record.

     Mr. Burnham. All of us in the performance of our use need to look back into the history of the use we are performing. So far as we do that, we may become scholarly in the use of our calling.

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It has occurred to me that it would be interesting if all the men of our Church societies would look back into the history of their particular uses, and give us the benefit of their researches.

The Bishop. The use of history is to open the rational. It performs that use with the young, and for that reason it becomes an important and essential part of education to read and be told the doings of men. We have to know what the rational is in order to understand what is meant. The essential thing of the rational is the affection of truth. That is what is meant by Isaac, whose name means "laughter." By laughter is signified the affection of truth,-by humor in the good sense,--that human which one writer says "laughs with, rather than at another." The essential thing in humor in a good sense is the affection of truth. Thus we know the affirmative state towards things Divine, towards one's country, the neighbor and uses in general, is affected when they read History,--in favor of things that are done when just and right and true, and against things when they are evil and false. Especially are they affected by the things they see of the Lord's Providence in history,--for that is History itself. Patriotism has been cultivated in many a boy by means of the reading of History. This is the reason that History is placed in the letter of the Word, that it may perform this use to children. How many children have been affected by the study of Joseph and his unjust treatment! How indignant they have felt at the injustice done him. Thus man is affected by the Truth. When man is affected that way, it is the beginning of the opening of the rational. This seems to me the chief use of History.

The Bishop said further: Read closely the history of any battle, and you may see something over which the general had no direction whatever, that brought about the victory, or in the other case, defeat. Victor Hugo saw that in the battle of Waterloo. Providence gained the victory, Men get the praise; generals become great,--by what Providence has done. When a general gains in one battle alter another it shows that Providence is with him. The man in whom there is no rational does not see this, and so does not acknowledge it, but gives the praise to men.

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     Mr. Caldwell afterwards read a paper on the subject of "CORPORAL PUNISHMENT," which, we hope, will soon appear in the Life.

     On Sunday morning, November 8th, services were held in the Immanuel Church, the Bishop preaching on the text, "If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them."

     In the afternoon the Sacrament of the Holy Supper was administered.

     On the Wednesday evening following a Men's Meeting was held in the Class Room of the Sharon Church, Chicago, at which a paper by Rev. Alfred Acton on the "SECOND PART OF THE WORK ON CONJUGIAL LOVE" was read and discussed.
          W. B. CALDWELL,
               Secretary.
FIFTH PHILADELPHIA DISTRICT ASSEMBLY 1909

FIFTH PHILADELPHIA DISTRICT ASSEMBLY HOMER SYNNESTVEDT 1909

     Held at Bryn Athyn, Pa., November 26 to 29, 1909.

     The meetings were inaugurated by a social reception on Thursday evening, November 26th, although the regular Thanksgiving service in the morning, with its address upon "Gratitude," might also be considered as a prelude.

     Except for the Sunday worship, the meetings were all held in the evenings.

     On Friday evening a banquet was held, at which the state of the Church was the chief topic discussed. On Saturday a paper by Prof. C. T. Odhner on "Mixed Marriages" was read, and discussed at length. On Sunday we listened to a sermon by the Rev. N. D. Pendleton in the morning, (see N. C. Life for January), and one by Rev. T. S. Harris in the evening.

     The Holy Supper was administered in the afternoon to 121 communicants.

     On Monday a meeting was held of the full Consistory.

     Let us go back, now, and briefly review the different events, beginning with the banquet.

     The address of welcome, in response to the toast to the General Church, was made by Mr. Raymond Pitcairn.

     Bishop Pendleton, in an address on the subject of "OPPORTUNITY," spoke in substance as follows:

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     The Lord in His Providence presents opportunities to every man that is born. Swedenborg saw Nunc Licet written over the door of a temple in the spiritual world, by which was signified that now opportunity is given to men to enter interiorly into the mysteries of faith, that is into the spiritual truths of the Word. This opportunity is given to every man in the world, and for a time after death. The Lord gives the opportunity, but man is not compelled to enter. Free choice is given him. It is so with all opportunity. Two ways present themselves and man is to choose the one or the other. Every truth is an opportunity which man may accept or reject. The Lord now in His Second Coming in the spiritual truths of His Word presents an opportunity to every man; and in the New Church itself opportunity is continually given to enter more interiorly into the truths of the Word. Bodies of the Church, and individuals, will rise or fall as they seize upon or reject this opportunity. The Lord from His Divine Love cannot do otherwise than present the opportunity of salvation to every man,

     The Rev. N. N. Pendleton responded to the "Priesthood of the General Church," but as to this and other speeches, both thoughtful and inspiring, we must be satisfied with the bare mention, as it seems desirable at this time to give the space to introduce to our readers a new member of the Council of the Clergy, and a new field. We refer to the Rev. T. S. Harris and his Society in

     Abington, Mass. Mr. Harris, who was with us for the first time, and who won the hearts of all his hearers, spoke as follows:

     My cup of happiness would overflow, but for one thing, and that is that the little band in New England, who have separated from the Convention, are not here to enjoy this Assembly with me. Coming from the conditions which now exist in New England, it is very difficult for me to adjust myself to my present surroundings

     I come from a little flock which is huddled together, frightened almost to death, because of the howling of the wolves. And coming into the midst of you here, I am somewhat shocked by the apparent levity which surrounds me, although this is just the contrast I required. If you could understand fully the experiences through which we have been passing in Abington, you would appreciate this condition. I almost hesitate to introduce into your peaceful sphere the things which I have to tell you,--the tidings of battle on the outskirts.

     I am pleased to present to you tonight the greeting of our little circle in Abington. If circumstances had permitted, some of them would have been here tonight to enjoy this Assembly, but they are glad that I was able to come, and bring to you their fraternal greeting and assure you of their loyalty to the Doctrines of the New Church and to the principles of the Academy.

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And as the days and the months pass by, we grow more and more confident that the step which we have taken was the only one; the only one to save the Church in that particular locality in which we live. It was for this cause that we came out, feeling the necessity for a real Church that would stand for the doctrines and the life of the Lord's New Church. And so we stand; having done all we could, we stand and await results.

     The history of the movement might be of interest to you.

     Some eight years ago, I came into the society at Abington as minister. The society was dying, as are most of the societies of the General Convention in New England. Abington was dying because of the lack of new forces from the young people. The old folks were passing away and our young people were not interested in the Church and its doctrines. What was to be done? It was thought that a man who would take an interest in the young people would save the Church. And I was persuaded to take up the work in Abington with this object in view,--to gather together the young people, to bring them into the Church if possible by some means. As I had spent a considerable number of years as minister in the Methodist Church in Canada, it was thought that perhaps I could apply methods used in the Old Church in winning the young people. I must confess that I was somewhat ambitious to draw crowds, and I conceived the idea that if we could make an entertaining church, a popular church, a place where the young people could have a good time, the old people would appreciate the good time that their young people and children were having. It was thought this might awaken an interest in the society in the minds of the public.

     With this hope in view, (not forgetting that it was the New Church and that perhaps when we had interested the people in the Church we might afterwards interest them in the doctrines of the Church,--but never for a moment considering that there is no Church without doctrine), I went blindly forward, and our plans proved successful. We organized as an "institutional church;" we established a gymnasium, furnished a hall. We gathered in the younger people. I had class upon class of young people and children, and also of middle-aged men and women who came for physical culture and gymnasium exercises. Church attendance was good; our socials were well attended; and our children in the Sunday School were well supplied with all the entertainments they could utilize, and we became a popular center in the town. They said. "These people are interested in our children; they give them a good time, and we will go to that Church and attend their social gatherings." Thus the peoples' attention was gained and we were popular and progressive. We organized a choir of young people, and everything was "booming."

     But it was not based upon anything solid. It would flourish for a while, but any social disturbance that came among us was like a whirlwind which scattered everything to the east and to the west.

     We were after the young people. How could we save them for the Church?

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Was there no help under heaven? Was there no power in the Church to gather those young people into our center and save them from the world without? We tried again and again. Like Bruce, we watched failure after failure; until one day in my study I reached out my hand and lifted from a shelf a dust-covered pamphlet. It was the New Church Life. From it I found that there existed a Church which had solved the problem of taking care of the young people without neglecting the Doctrines.

     I wrote to the friend, (Mr. Gladish), who had sent me that copy of the Life four years before, asking him about you; how and by what means you were succeeding in this great work of saving the young people for the Church. He placed me in communication with the people here. I received a copy of the Principles of the Academy. I saw there how that principle of educating the young in the Church was the very keynote of your success, and I saw that with this every other principle linked itself inseparably. And so, one by one. the Principles of the Academy loomed up before me as the true solution of this vexed question, which has broken the heart of many an honest man who is working for the good of the Church.

     Then the way cleared. The cloud lifted, and I began to work and to preach on these lines. But alas! My former success was at an end. My society as a whole could not see the truth, though the Church Committee stood with me. We labored earnestly and faithfully. I preached the Doctrines as I found them in the Lord's Word in the Heavenly Doctrines. But the mixed multitude could not endure it; the socials could not hold them; the dancing parties could not attract them. The light of heaven was too strong; consequently the congregation dwindled down, and the few who loved the doctrines remained. And then the hue and cry: "The society is going to pieces, and we must get rid of this man who is driving away the people by preaching doctrines they do not want. We want practical sermons; popular sermons, and not these dry doctrinal things." And thus the great test came. The few who were loyal to the Doctrines rallied and said, "We must stand for the Lord." And they stood.

     And thus after due consideration, knowing what we were doing, knowing the consequences of it all, we took our stand and applied for membership in the General Church of the New Jerusalem, and you gave us a place in your midst, and we have been happy ever since because of the blessed thought that we are standing for the Lord.

     And yet the fight goes on I do not like to throw into your midst tonight, some of the things I have to tell you, but I know that it will be helpful to us, because I am trying to state to you the facts which have to do with the subject before you: the state of the Church.

     Attempts are being made to draw our people away from the stand they have taken. I want to read to you some of the statements which have come from people of the Convention to our faithful few. They write us things that,--if we had not the Doctrines of the Church to rest upon; if we were looking for suggestions and opinions from this or that man as to what we ought to do,--alas for us!

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But we are looking to the Lord for help, and you will get a general idea of the state of the Church, through the things I will read to you tonight. Listen to the following extracts:

     "The entire General Convention, containing the finest minds in the New Church are against it, saying it is a misrepresentation of Swedenborg's teaching."

     Appealing to the bright master minds of the New Church as authority and not to the Writings themselves!

     "Some among them may lead upright lives, but how can they keep the marriage vows and Christ's teachings, if the Academy views are adopted."

     "It seems to me that any minister who believes it must be mentally unbalanced."

     You wonder why I wore a serious face!

     "No doubt many of the Academy people are fine, but I think, like others, that they will eventually withdraw."

     "I believe firmly the day will come, when you will regret the step."

     "I hope ere long you will leave it, and come back to those in our division that need you."

     "Why did you not talk with our Presiding Minister, such a lovely character, before you decided it."

     These are serious things, coming from intelligent members of the Convention to those who are members of our circle. I did not receive any communications from my brethren in the ministry. They have not said one word to me; not one line has come to me, but these "insinuations" from private individuals, and they quite represent the state of the Church.

     "How could men like Mr. Alden and Mr. Harris say much in criticism of such men as Rev. Chauncey Giles, Abel Silver, James Reed, Clinton Hay, Julian Smyth, William Worcester, Theodore Wright and many others?"

     As though anything in criticism of these men had been uttered by anyone; failing to understand the position we have taken. Here is something else, supposed to be sufficient to cause us to come shivering back into the Convention:

     "Rev. Mr. [John] Whitehead said that going into the Academy injured him very much."

     "What right has the Academy to call themselves by such a misleading title as the 'General Church?' when there is already a General Church or Convention."

     "They are certainly aiming to break up societies, by inducing people to leave."

     You see it is for the sake of the societies, for the sake of holding together people in their clubs, not for the sake of the Doctrines. Again:

     "This sect has always been criticized by the original and properly organized division of the New Church, for teaching one thing."

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     Not specifying the "one thing." This shows how ignorant the average person in the Convention is of the book under criticism.

     "The book which is quoted so much by the Academy, Swedenborg has said. I hear, that it was not written during his illumination."

     (The speaker was frequently interrupted by laughter and applause.)

     Now I am glad that you feel so merry over these things. I can tell you, if you were in our places, you would not feel so funny over them. They came to us as things that had to be considered seriously at the time, and answered, and our scribes have been kept busy, until those who attacked have called a halt, and "do not wish to discuss doctrine." Discuss scandal, if you will! Wet have appeals like this which was made to one who has recently lost a dear mother who was a very earnest member of the Church in the town:

     "Would our noble, pure mother have thought it right for a man to have more than one wife, under any circumstances?"

     "I do not think the doctrines of the Academy can grow. I thought they had died out long ago. I was startled when I heard they had started up again."

     "The Academy is dangerous and you will suffer through being in it."

     "I think I would have gone with the majority rather than secede and break up a society."

     "Consider carefully and get people's opinions, the public is right this time."

     "I abhor free love."

     "Broaden out, my dear, don't narrow yourself down to Bryn Athyn."

     We have met these statements as best we could; but you see what we have to contend with. You see where we are, on the frontiers, right out in the open, with skirmishing going on all the time, and I have to bring you these tidings of battle. We are called upon to go out and fight the battles of the Church. We want to carry our weapons ever ready to defend the Church against the assaults of hell.

     We have learned this lesson, that these dear people are not attacking us, and that they are not the source from which this attack comes. Looking into the regions of the infernals, and up into the realms of Heaven, we see that the conflict is raging not between men, but between falsities and truths, and goods and evils. We are willing to stand and endure to the end. [Prolonged, enthusiastic applause.]

     Mr. Franklin Jackson, a visitor from Atlanta, Ga., (the leader of the Convention's circle in that city), responded for "The New Church in the South," and the song "Dixie" was sung with much spirit.

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     The "Society in Baltimore" was spoken for by Mr. Rowland Tribune, a young man who was also with us for the first time.

     Mr. Arthur C. V. Schott spoke anent "The Circle in Washington," and the Rev. J. E. Rosenqvist, after speaking briefly about the work in the Advent Church in Philadelphia, gave an eloquent address on The Sources of Strength in the Church.

     "To the Academy in the Metropolis," (New York--not Chicago, was meant), was vigorously, albeit, humorously dealt with by Mr. Walter C. Childs.

     Songs, toasts and speeches followed with great zest, and also an impromptu march around the tables by over a hundred pupils and ex-pupils of the Academy, to the rousing song of the Alma Mater and the Academia march.

     The keynote of the later discussion was the one introduced by Mr. Harris: "The hope of the Church with its young," though the Bishop's words, as to the need of the opposite being always presented, and the consequent difficulties which, while they hold us back, yet serve for castigation, for discrimination, and for strengthening, was present throughout as a sort of undercurrent.

     Mr. Odhner's paper on Saturday evening, upon "Mixed Marriages," although nearly an hour and a half long, was listened to with eager attention by a large audience, some of whom had never heard the teachings upon this most vital subject systematically presented. The hope was expressed that Mr. Odhner would give to the Church the results of his studies through the columns of the Life.

     The discussion which followed was extremely animated, and participated in by may, both young and old, although for a while it was switched off upon the cognate subject of the freedom of the Priesthood in solemnizing mixed marriages. The whole discussion, while intensely interesting, cannot be given here, for lack of space. We shall try, however, to summarize a few of the points.

     Rev. A. Acton presented the thought that the "heinousness" of mixed marriages, arises from the incongruity of an external relation which is the outward form and correspondent expression of unity itself, and an internal which is disunion.

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Such a marriage contains the elements of profanation, as if one should use any holy external to clothe an opposite internal.

     He also explained why the Lord permits even in the Church marriages which have to be disrupted after death. He held that an externally orderly marriage may be the means of becoming spiritual. But if the parties are not interiorly united, even in wedlock, the wife is not a wife in the eyes of the angels, nor a husband a husband. Nevertheless, even such a marriage is of external order and may be the means of regeneration, provided it is not from anti-conjugial ends.

     Mr. Synnestvedt emphasized the need for the completest freedom for the individuals concerned while teaching the Doctrine in its own light without fear or favor.

     The question was asked, "How can any minister solemnize a marriage which he is taught is heinous in the eyes of the angels?" The answer was, "We cannot judge of internals." The priest must be in freedom to officiate or not, as he can best judge of each case when it comes before him, as to whether any real use can be performed to the contracting parties. All rites and sacraments are administered by him with a sole view to the spiritual welfare of the recipients. Thus he will baptize a person into the New Church, whom he might not admit into membership in our (human) organization.

     Rev. N. D. Pendleton recalled Bishop Benade's position--which aimed to preserve to each minister the right and freedom of private judgment upon such matters. Some of us might be very loathe to officiate at what appears to be a mixed marriage, while others might take other ground. The fact is, we cannot prejudge. Besides, such a law would involve an inquisition. If this law were bound upon us, it would not stop there;--other such laws might follow.

     Mr. John Pitcairn spoke in the same line, recalling an old controversy upon this subject.

     Mr. Walter Childs spoke feelingly of the blessings already visible, owing to the acceptance of this doctrine and practice in our midst.
          HOMER SYNNESTVEDT.
               Secretary.

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Church News 1909

Church News Various 1909

     FROM OUR CORRESPONDENTS

     ABINGTON, MASS. On Christmas day the members and friends of the General Church in Abington enjoyed a most delightful time at the home of Miss Ida McKenney. At noon worship in the chapel was held, after which dinner was served in our new hall. The Hall is a basement apartment, which has been renovated and furnished, as a place for social gatherings. The walls and windows were decorated with white and red crepe paper and red bells hung from the ceiling. A banner of red with a circle of twelve white seven-pointer' stars in the center, modeled after Bryn Athyn's, was displayed on the wall and its significance explained by the pastor.

     Toasts were drunk to "Our Church, "Our Colors," "Bryn Athyn," the lady who renovated our hall. Miss Ellen Taylor, and the lady who gives the use of her basement apartment and parlor, Miss Ida McKenney.

     Wine was used by the adults and grape juice by the children and young people.

     The feast, which consisted of the turkeys, plum puddings and all the other Christmas dishes, lasted nearly two hours, after which we gathered around the Christmas tree in Mr. Freeman's parlor, where everyone enjoyed the distribution of the presents. The phonograph was then called into service and an hour or so was spent in dancing in the hall.

     Thus ended the first Christmas festival of the General Church in Abington. Let us hope that it was as to some degree a real feast of charity, partaken of by those who were in mutual love and in the same faith. T. S. H.

     BALTIMORE, MD. The Christmas celebration was held at the Hall on Sunday, December 27.

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Services were held in the morning at the usual hour, followed by the Sacrament of the Holy Supper, administered by Rev. Homer Synnestvedt. At five o'clock in the afternoon the Sunday School festival was held, consisting largely of stereopticon scenes of the Lord's life, with appropriate verses and songs. Then followed the distribution of gifts.

     It warms the heart to see so many children in the little circle,--and the Sunday School is zealously cared for by Mr. Knapp, Mr. Reynolds, and Mrs. Coffin. Later in the evening several of our members dropped in at the German Church, to hear a cantata. Here, as it happened, all the pastors in town met for the first time. There are four of them--each with a small following and insufficient support. As ever, Baltimore epitomizes the history of the New Church.

     On Monday evening the Circle met at the home of Mrs. Emil Gunther, and after the meeting there was some discussion of the Kramph case.

     There is a happy, buoyant feeling among the members here, and, although the external advantages are few, there is a sturdiness of purpose and an appreciation of our blessings, which augurs well for the future.     S.

     BRYN ATHYN, PA. The flavor of our District Assembly still lingers. It was for the first time a thorough success and enabled our people to realize that there is a use in these lesser meetings not covered by the big Assemblies. There were in all thirty-five visitors. We are hoping that next year, having a whole year in which to plan, still more of our members and friends will be able to "make it." We want to lead folks to expect these meetings and look forward to them from year to year at Thanksgiving time, except, perhaps, in General Assembly years. It is thus that uses such as this grow into the life of a Church, and produce lasting benefits.

     By next year we hope to have our new Local School building ready. This building is to have a large Auditorium in the upper Boor, equipped with stage at one end, and a kitchen, for Friday suppers, etc., at the other.

     Our Christmas exercises this year were distributed as follows:

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     On Thursday afternoon, at four o'clock, a brief children's service, with a little address from the Bishop about the Virgin Mary. This was followed by a set of five living pictures representing the four previous churches and the New Church.

     The Most Ancient Church, represented by two little children with garlands, and the Ancient Church, represented by a dove, and Noah holding up an offering were effectively posed; but the next one, Moses standing with the two tables of stone under his hands, was so simple, yet withal so striking, and so compelling in its impression of power and dignity, that all were strangely moved by it. In the next scene was shown the virgin mother, with her face glorified by the Light shining forth from behind the veil with which, though hiding the Babe from the audience, she set free its radiance upon the adoring Shepherds and Wise Men. The New Church, as a radiant Bride, stepping forth like a winged Victory, with flowers upspringing beside her, closed the series. These scenes owe their great value to two elements--viz., the reverent earnestness of those who partook in them, and the artistic genius of the young lady who posed them. Appropriate songs from a hidden choir, also added to the effect. After it was over, the children were given their presents, and the Christmas representation on the other side was shown to the wee ones.

     On Friday morning a Christmas service was held in the Chapel, using the Antiphon of the Advent of the Lord, and three new Christmas hymns from the new Liturgy. Pupils of the schools took the place of the regular choir, and sang, among other things, a beautiful anthem by our organist, Mr. Walter Van Horn. Two adults were baptized, after which the Bishop gave a discourse. The Holy Supper was administered the following Sunday.

     On Monday evening, January 4, a reunion was held of the present Young Men's Doctrinal Class, at Stuart Hall.

     The experiences of our young men, as they go forth into business, or to prepare for professional life, certainly tend to confirm their faith in the Heavenly Doctrines, and increase their appreciation of the Church.

     On Saturday evening, December 27, a men's meeting was called, at which we listened to an account of the latest arguments in the Kramph case.

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     The New Year's Party, under the auspices of the Club, was this year taken in hand by the veteran entertainers, Mr. and Mrs. Hicks, and seldom has it been more enjoyed. At 11 p. m. lunch was served, and later all repaired upstairs to the Chapel, where a brief service, culminating in the Lord's Prayer at midnight, was held. The happy, though serious thoughts and mutual affections stirred by the turning of another year, found expression in the dear old songs, as the loving cup passed from hand to hand.

     "Founders' Day," January 14th, was celebrated, as usual, by the working force of the Academy, at a most delightful banquet at Cairnwood. Among the many interesting incidents at the banquet was the announcement, by the secretary of the General Church, that exactly one thousand members had now been received since the organization of the body in 1897. Another important announcement was the one made by our untiring and inexhaustible friend, Mr. Pitcairn, that the Academy was now prepared to proceed with the building of a new house for the Library and the Museum. O. S.

     WASHINGTON, D. C. The little circle of General Church people in the nation's capital was again visited by the Rev. C. Th. Odhner, on January 9-10. A meeting of the gentlemen was held on Saturday evening, and services were held at the house of Mr. E. J. Stebbing, at Congress Heights, on Sunday evening. Twelve persons were present, including two children. On Monday, at noon, Mr. Odhner secured an interview with President Roosevelt. "Race-suicide" was the subject of the conversation, and the President expressed his determination to take up again the campaign against this devastating evil, when released from present cares.

     FROM OUR CONTEMPORARIES.

     UNITED STATES. The Rev. Arthur Mercer has resigned his pastorate at Baltimore, in order to accept a call to the BROOKLYN Society, where he will begin his ministry the first of February.

     Dr. Charles S. Mack, the new pastor of the TOLEDO, O., Society, was ordained, December 20, by the Rev. S. S. Seward.

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     The betrothal of the Rev. William De Ronden-Pos, pastor of the First Society, SAN FRANCISCO, and Miss Lillian Boyle, a member of his society, was solemnized November 22. In Mr. De Ronden-Pos' society there is a Wednesday evening class, conducted by a lay member, for the study of Swedenborg's scientific works. Mr. David, after a recent visit, reports: "I found Mr. De Ronden-Pos a very busy man. Himself a diligent student of the doctrines, he insists upon a thorough training of the children in the distinctive truths of the New Church. Already a goodly number of fine minds have come into the New Church through his ministrations."

     The Rev. Russel Eaten, of Urbana, O., is ministering regularly to the Society in Columbus, where several members of the General Church now reside.

     The Rev. Warren Goddard, Jr., who, for a year past, has been the minister at Contoocook, N. H., has accepted a unanimous call to become the minister of the FALL RIVER Society, commencing his duties there in January.

     Mr. Franklin Jackson leads the Reading circle meeting of the Convention New Church people in ATLANTA, every Sunday. Mr. Jackson's missionary zeal has resulted in several new readers. He keeps a supply of New Church literature at his drug store, and proposes to establish a regular lending library, using his store window for the display of books.

     The Rev. James B. Parmalee passed into the spiritual world from Eldora, Ia., November 28, in the eightieth year of his age. Mr. Parmalee was born in Ontario, Can., July 3, 1829. His parents moved to Ohio in his childhood and he was brought up under pioneer conditions, which did not, however, prevent his studying, by fire-light and candle, and becoming a teacher at the age of eighteen. Two years later he entered Oberlin University, and at the age of twenty-six became minister of the United Brethren Church and became a presiding elder in that denomination. Later he preached in the Congregational and the Presbyterian Churches. In 1875 a lecture of the Rev. E. A. Beaman led to his acceptance of the doctrines of the New Church, and in the following year he was excluded from the Presbyterian Church on the charge of heresy, and preached independently until in 1879 he became the pastor of the New Church in Wilmington, Del., where he remained for several years, later serving as missionary in New York State and in the West.

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SWEDEN. During the summer missionary tour of the Rev. C. J. N. Manby, of Sweden, which occupied the time from June 20 to September 1, of last year, he visited and preached or lectured at twenty-one different places, having audiences varying from under twenty at Falkenberg to fully two hundred and fifty at Nybro and Carlskrona. At five other places the hearers were between one and two hundred. On Sunday, August 2, Mr. Manby was in Denmark and preached at Copenhagen to a congregation of about forty. Mr. Manby says that sometimes it is very apparent that interest in Swedenborg has been stimulated by the reception accorded to his remains by his university city of Upsala, on May 19, last. Not only were the hearers numerous in many places, but more books were sold. The number of copies of Heaven and Hell sold in 1907 was one hundred, which seemed large; but during the tour this year the number was one hundred and sixty-six.
MIXED MARRIAGES 1909

MIXED MARRIAGES Rev. C. TH. ODHNER 1909

Announcements.

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     NEW CHURCH LIFE.

     VOL. XXIX. MARCH, 1909.          No. 3.
     In view of the general indifference in the New Church at large towards "marriage in the Church," it might be inferred by an outsider or a neophyte that the New Church has been left without definite instruction on this subject in the inspired Books which constitute its code of Doctrine. It will, therefore, be proper to listen once more to these words of the Lord in His Second Coming:

     "Those who are born within the Church, and who from childhood have imbibed the principles of the truth of the Church, ought not to contract marriages with those who are outside the Church, and thus imbibe such things as are not of the Church. The reason is that there is no conjunction between them in the spiritual world, for in that world each one is consociated according to good and thence truth; and because there is no conjunction between such in the spiritual world, neither ought there to be any conjunction on earth. For marriages, in themselves regarded, are conjunctions of animi and minds, the spiritual life of which is from the truths and goods of faith and charity; and therefore, also, marriages on the earth between those who are of different religion are in heaven regarded as heinous, (pro nefandis habentur); and, still more, marriages between those of the Church, with those who are outside the Church. This, also, was the reason why the Jewish and Israelitish nation was forbidden to contract matrimonies with the Gentiles, (Deut. 7:3, 4), and that it was altogether heinous to commit whoredom with them, (Numb. 25:1-9). This is still more evident from the origin of conjugial love, that it is from the marriage of good and truth; conjugial love, when it descends thence, is heaven itself in man; this is destroyed when two married partners are of a dissimilar heart from a dissimilar faith, . . . for thus the things which are of the Church are profaned." (A. C. 8998.)

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     "Conjugial love is not given between two who are of diverse religion, since the truth of the one does not agree with the good of the other; and two dissimilar and discordant things cannot make one mind out of two. Therefore, the origin of their love does not derive anything from what is spiritual; and if they dwell together and agree, it is solely from natural causes." (H. H. 378.)

     And in a footnote to the above passage in Heaven and Hell, we find this summary of the teaching in A. C. 8998:

     "Marriages between two who are of diverse religion are unlawful, (illicita), because of the non-conjunction of similar good and truth in the interiors."

     To this should be added the following from Swedenborg's experience:

     "Once, in a great city, I wandered through the streets with the purpose of inquiring for an habitation; and I entered a house where consorts of different religion were living; then the angels, having accosted me, who was ignorant of that fact, said: 'We cannot abide with you in that house, because the consorts there are in discordant religions.' This they perceived from the internal disunion of their souls." (C. L. 242.)

     From the Doctrine adduced above, it will be seen that the state of marriage depends essentially and inmostly upon the state of religion and thus upon the state of the Church with man. For marriage is a Divine and, therefore, a religious institution. It was God who made man male and female. It was He who brought them together in the beginning and blessed their union. And it was the Lord Himself who said: "What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder."

     Having created man, even as to his body, into the image and according to the likeness of God, who is the Union of Divine Love and Divine Wisdom, the Divine Mercy ever strives to create anew within each man an interior likeness and image of this Divine Union, by effecting within him the conjunction of his will with his understanding, so that these two faculties of life shall no more be two but "one flesh," as they were originally.

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This restoration of the broken image, this binding-together-again of will and understanding, of good and truth, of charity and faith, is what is called RE-LIGION, (from re-again, and ligare, to bind).

     This internal conjunction of will and understanding is represented outwardly in a larger and fuller image by the marriage of one man with one woman, the life of the man being chiefly the life of the understanding, and the life of the woman being the life of the will. The binding together of these two lives, into one larger unit of human life, is therefore in itself nothing but a RE-LIGION. Out Of the society of all these married units there is formed at last one largest human unit--the Maximus Homo of Heaven,--and the conjunction of this Greatest Man with the Divine Man, the internal marriage or binding together of these two, is RE-LIGION in its inmost and also most universal sense.

     Marriage, therefore, in every way and in every sense, is nothing but Religion; it is Religion in the Divine sense; it is Religion in the heavenly sense; it is religion in the internal sense, and it is religion even in the natural and sexual sense.

     Religion being the marriage of the Lord and the Church, is the initiament and engrafting of conjugial love. (C. L. 531.)

     The human conjugial and religion go together in every step. Every step from religion and into religion, is also a step from the conjugial and into the conjugial, which is peculiar and proper to a Christian man. (C. L. 80.)

     Where there is no religion there is no conjugial love. (C. L. 239)

     With those who reject religion there is an intrinsic hatred against love truly conjugial, and an intrinsic favor towards adultery. (C. L. 240).

     Since, therefore, religion and marriage are essentially one and the same thing, it is manifestly impossible to speak of marriage apart from religion. Where religion does not bless the association of one man with one woman,--where religion does not bind together two minds and souls into one, there is not a genuine marriage but merely a cohabitation. Religion alone makes marriage worthy of its name.

     It is not enough, however, that both consorts have religion, for religion is nothing but life according to one's faith, and since faith varies according to doctrines, so also does religion.

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It is manifestly essential, therefore, that both consorts be in the same religion, for otherwise there cannot be formed one life out of two lives and one mind out of two minds. But the result will be one mind grating against another mind, one soul struggling against the influence of another soul, one religion in life-long combat against another religion, and therefore the marriage of two of different religions cannot but be heinous in the sight of Heaven.

     Nor is it sufficient that the two consorts be merely of the same religion, for, as was said before, religion is a life according to doctrine, and as there are false doctrines so there are false religions. Falsity never leads to good, nor does a false religion lead to the good of conjugial love. While it is better for two consorts to be in false religion than in no religion at all, it is still better for their peace of mind that they be in the same false religion. But if throughout life and after death, they persist in their false religion, they will finally end, not in Heaven, but in Hell. A true marriage, therefore, means not only a mutual possession of religion, and a mutual possession of the same religion, but also the mutual possession of the TRUE Christian Religion, in which alone the Lord is present with love truly conjugial.

     True religion can exist only within that Church which possesses the true Christian Doctrine. We are taught that "the Church is one thing, and religion another. The Church is so called from Doctrine, and Religion is so called from a life according to Doctrine." (A. R. 923.) Hence, if marriages between those of a different religion are regarded as heinous in the sight of Heaven, because in such cases there is no conjunction of life, the marriages of those who are of the Church with those who are not of the Church, are regarded as "still more" heinous, because in such cases there is neither conjunction of life nor of doctrine,--no interior conjunction at all.

     Conjugial Love, therefore, is not only dependent upon the state of Religion, but also, and more definitely, upon the state of the Church with man. For

     The genuine conjugial is never possible except with those with whom are the Church and the Lord's Kingdom. (A. C. 4837.)

     It is evident that they are not in conjugial love who are in falsities, and not at all they who are in falsities from evil. (H. H. 377.)

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     Those are in conjugial love who, from Divine truth, are in Divine good, and conjugial love is genuine in proportion as the truths which are conjoined with good, are genuine. (H. H. 376)

     Hence it follows that such as is the faith, such is the love of marriage. (S. D. 4076)

     The supreme and, in fact, only reason for the importance of truth and faith, is that the Lord is present only in His Truth and according to the reception of this Truth. The supreme of all truths is the Doctrine of the Lord. Where the Lord is not acknowledged, there the Lord is not admitted, and where the Lord is not admitted, conjugial love cannot be received,--no more, indeed, than there can be a marriage without a husband.

     "Mohammedans, therefore, cannot receive love truly conjugial, because they do not acknowledge the Lord Jesus Christ as the God of Heaven and earth." (C. L. 341.)

     And Roman Catholics cannot receive love truly conjugial, because if, in place of the Lord, "living and defunct men are approached and invoked, there is not a state of the Church with which conjugial love can act as one. (C. L. 375.)

     Nor can anyone in the Christian world. Protestant or Catholic, receive conjugial love, who does not acknowledge "the Lord alone, that is, the Trine in Him. He who approaches the Father as a person by himself, or the Holy Spirit as a person by himself, and these not in the Lord, has not conjugial love." (A. E. 995).

     Where, then, is the man and the woman of the Lord's New Church to seek a consort for life everlasting? Is it in those Churches which have denied the Lord, or else have so divided the Lord that they have lost sight of His supreme and sole Divinity?

     Although there is religion, (nowadays), still there are no truths of religion; and what is religion without truths? (C. L. 239.)

      It is no longer a Church, but a religiosity which counterfeits the Church. (A. E. 786.)

     There has hitherto been Christianity in name only, and with some persons a shadow of it. (T. C. R. 700)

     With the extinction of faith in the Lord alone, religion became extinct in the Christian world, and with the extinction of religion conjugial love was lost. But a glorious prophecy has been given:

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     Conjugial love, such as it was with the ancients, will be resuscitated by the Lord after His advent, because this love is from the Lord alone, and is with those who are made spiritual by Him, through the Word. (C. L. 81.)

     Love truly conjugial, with its delights, is solely from the Lord, and is given to those who live according to His precepts; thus it is given to those who are received into the Lord's New Church. (C. L. 534.)

     I predict that no others will appropriate to themselves that love, except those who are received by the Lord into the New Church. (C. L. 43)

     It is self-evident that good cannot be conjoined with falsity, nor truth with evil. And it is equally evident that "good cannot love any other truth than its own, neither can truth return love to any other good than its own." (C. L. 76.) For good is substance, and truth is form, and every substance must have its own form, and every form its own substance. Hence it is, that

     Conjugial love is not possible between two who are of diverse religions, because the truth of the one does not agree with the good of the other; and two dissimilar and discordant things cannot make one mind out of two. (H. H. 378)

     One of the internal causes of cold is that the one consort has one religion and the other another religion. The reason is that with these good cannot be conjoined with its correspondent truth, for the wife is the good of the husband's truth, and the husband is the truth of the wife's good; hence, from two souls there cannot become one soul. (C. L. 242.)

     Again, "love truly conjugial is the union of two as to their interiors, which are of thought and will, thus which are of truth and good, for he who is in love truly conjugial loves what the other thinks and what the other wills; thus he also loves to think as does the other, and he loves to will as does the other." (A. C. 10169.)

     "Conjunction as to celestial good and spiritual truth, is that the one believes as does the other, and that the one is affected with the good by which the other is affected." (A. C. 4145)

     But if the husband thinks what is false on the most important things of life, the New Church wife cannot be affected by his thought nor will to think as he does. And if the ruling love of the wife is not a spiritual love, the New Church husband cannot be affected by this love of hers, nor love to will as she does. A woman who is an affection of spiritual truth cannot, therefore, be the love of the "wisdom" of a man who has no spiritual wisdom but only natural intelligence and worldly prudence.

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And a man who is in the wisdom of spiritual truth cannot expect to find the love of his wisdom in a woman who has no spiritual affections.

     This is still further evident from the origin of conjugial love, as being from the marriage of good and truth; conjugial love, when it descends thence, is heaven itself with man; this is destroyed when two married partners are of a dissimilar heart from a dissimilar faith,. . . for thus the things which are of the Church are profaned. (A. C. 8998.)

     Marriage itself is an internal conjunction of minds and an eternal conjunction of spirits and souls. "With those who do not think from religion about marriages and their holiness, there is a marriage of the body, but none of the spirit." (C. L. 304) There may be, indeed, a marriage of the external minds, from a similarity of the natural tastes and dispositions, but where there is discord as to the things of religion, there, from this discordance, conjugial love, which is of good and truth, and the derivative Heaven and Church with man, completely perish; for where the interior conjunction, which is of the mind, is null, then the marriage is dissolved. (A. E. 71027.)

     The reason is that there is no conjunction between them in the spiritual world, for in that world each one is consociated according to good and thence truth; and because there is no conjunction between such in the spiritual world, neither ought there to be any conjunction on earth. (A. C. 8998.)

     In mixed marriages there can be no conjunction of minds and souls in the spiritual world, and therefore such marriages are for this world only, for the earth only, for time only, partaking of the nature of a TEMPORARY MARRIAGE,--and therefore profane and heinous in the sight of heaven. There can be no marriage for eternity between two who do not both of them look for or wish for a continuation of the marriage relation after the end of this earthly life. In the old Christian Church the idea of the eternity of marriage has become so completely lost, that the denial thereof is often incorporated in the very wedding formula, which ends with an exhortation to faithfulness in this life:

     "Until death you do part!" When this destructive idea crept "UNTIL DEATH YOU DO PART."

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     into the Christian Church,--when to the lack of knowledge there was added the solemn negation, before the very altar, of the eternity of marriage, then love truly conjugial was openly banished from the temples and from the homes of this Church of death.

     Unless what is eternal, or an eternal conjunction, is thought of, the woman is not a wife, but a concubine. From the idea of what is not eternal, conjugial love perishes. (S. D. 611016.)

     How, then, can one who knows of the eternity of marriage, and believes in it, deliberately marry one who does not or will not believe in it?

     In Heaven, indeed, there is but one faith and one religion,--the faith and the religion of the New Jerusalem,--and therefore mixed marriages are there an impossibility. But not only are marriages there founded upon a universal harmony in religious faith and life, but they are contracted only between those who are within the same heavenly society, because such only are in complete similarity of good and truth. (H. H. 378)

     We cannot wonder, then, that the angels are not able to abide in a house where consorts of different religions are dwelling, for in such a house there cannot be that sphere of good united to truth, and of the same good united to the same truth, which is the very atmosphere of heaven.
SPIRITUALLY POOR 1909

SPIRITUALLY POOR Jr. Rev. RICHARD DE CHARMS 1909

"Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased in goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked." Rev. iii, 17.

Our text treats of the spiritually poor. But first a word as to natural poverty. The naturally poor labor under many inconveniences, and are called upon to endure many discomforts, deprivations and hardships, and when the poverty is extreme, to suffer miserably in body and mind. It is, therefore, not desirable from a merely natural point of view.

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From a spiritual point of view it is to be borne as cheerfully as may be, for the sake of the natural and spiritual virtues which may flow from it. Chief among these are to be noted content with one's lot, the maintenance under all conditions of a constant and implicit trust in the Lord, and the clinging to the knowledge and belief that to those who so trust in the Lord, all things succeed for a happy state to eternity. Then there is the thought that the Lord permits natural poverty and withholds riches not only to promote these high spiritual graces, but to protect and guard the spiritual life, and to facilitate the great work of regeneration. Many necessary spiritual temptations would not be otherwise possible. Doubtless certain natural evils and excesses common to the wealthy, the poor are restrained from because without the power to gratify them. While poverty, therefore, is not devoid of spiritual blessings and uses of a high order, and is often a spur to natural manliness and virtue, as history and experience prove, it is not without its dangers to the natural and spiritual life, as well as riches and wealth. We have found that material wealth does not necessarily bar the way to heaven, and that natural poverty and misery does not in itself weigh in the balance of Divine judgment, or affect the heavenly possession. In other words, the poor do not come into heaven on account of their poverty, but on account of their life; and the rich are not kept out of heaven on account of their riches, but are kept out or enter in the same way as the poor on account of their life. For we are taught, that there is no respect of persons in the other life, but the rich are saved equally with the poor. The reason it is believed that the poor come into heaven easily, and the rich with difficulty is, that the Word has not been understood. The simple truth in this matter is, as must be obvious to every rational mind, that heaven is for all who live a life of faith and love, whether rich or poor. The rich, when this is the case with them, enter heaven as easily as the poor. There are both rich and poor there, because such a life, which is the real and only requisite, is possible to both. It is life which decides the question of entrance into heaven, and not at all the state as to natural wealth or poverty.

But what is not so commonly thought of and taken into account is, that poverty seduces and leads man away from heaven equally as opulence.

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It has its spiritual dangers equally as riches. Among the poor are very many who are not content with their lot,--what a common state this is--who seek many things, and believe riches to be blessings; and, therefore, when they do not receive them they are angry and think evilly about the Divine Providence. How very common this state is also! They also envy others their goods, and equally defraud others when there is an opportunity; and they also live equally in filthy pleasures. Of course, it is otherwise with the poor who are content with their lot, sober, industrious and diligent in their work, and who love use and labor better than idleness; who act sincerely, justly, and faithfully, and at the same time live a Christian life. We see from this teaching, that discontent with one's lot, envy, and evil thinking about the Divine Providence, not to mention other evils more commonly classed as such, are to be regarded as things which seduce and lead a man away from heaven, and are, therefore, to be shunned as sins against the Lord. I am inclined to think that we do not always place the former evils in this category as we should. We might easily fall into their commission, while resolutely setting our faces against any desire to defraud others, or to indulge in filthy pleasures. In fact, while measurably free from any temptation to commit the latter sins, I would earnestly press the point, that the former are here classed as seductions peculiar to the poor, and to be avoided and shunned as sins against the Lord, because they lead away from heaven. They are a menace to a man's spiritual life, and tend to weaken and debilitate the Christian virtues of contentment and abiding trust in the Divine Providence. The poor, too, harbor many evils equally common to the rich, and gratify them in their way, but simply lack the same or as full opportunities to indulge them. All of which only makes it more plain that it is the life and not the condition as to riches or poverty which is the important quantity in this problem of wealth or poverty.

But let us turn now to what is spiritual poverty and see if it does not involve in its relation to the life which really tells for heaven, comparatively more vital considerations than those growing out of our state as to natural poverty or wealth. What then is spiritual poverty? Who are to be seen and accounted as being spiritually poor, and wretched and miserable?

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There are two kinds of such poor. Those who are spiritually poor and do not know it, and those who are aware of the fact. The text refers to the former, and we will try to introduce you also to the latter. Those of this Church of the Laodiceans, who are in faith alone and in the profane state spoken of in the Writings, think themselves spiritually rich and in need of nothing, and know not that they are spiritually wretched, and miserable and poor; and this because they have many knowledges from the Word, and because they esteem and value doctrines which they ingeniously present as truths and of Divine efficacy and power, which they learnedly quote the Word to prove, and which they reason about acutely, and so become learned, and influential, and mount up to eminence, opulence, and power, both mental, spiritual and material. They are nevertheless spiritually wretched, miserable and poor, because they are in evil; and their knowledges, doctrines and so-called truths are falsities. They do not see in spiritual but in natural light, yea in the light of falsity which infatuates them and sinks them in utter spiritual darkness and ignorance. Still their conceit and the light of their own intelligence cause them to see these things as true and good, and blind them to the real fact that they are the offspring of evil and falsity, and, therefore, the children of spiritual wretchedness, misery and poverty. For you have doubtless learned that spiritual riches are made up of true knowledges, and of what is genuinely true and good from the Lord out of His Word, and that these alone can make a man truly intelligent, wise, and good, and so spiritually rich. So you see, judged by this standard, these men of the Laodiceans, are, in fact, spiritually poor, although accounting themselves rich. They are in verity miserably poor, but do not know it. Now it is worthy of note in this connection that the quality of the light of falsity from evil is persuasive, causing what is really false to appear as true; and so strangely does it hold its deluded and infatuated victim in the toils of this false and persuasive light, that he cannot see, and so cannot know how spiritually wretched and miserable and poor he really and truly is. Is it sufficiently clear to you now how it is possible for a man to be spiritually poor and yet not know it? If not, perhaps it will become more clear by a fuller knowledge of those who are spiritually poor and do know it.

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Let us then look now at this latter class as described in the Heavenly Doctrines of the New Church, and try and perceive by contrast and comparison the quality of the other kind of the spiritually poor referred to more particularly in the text. The broadest: and most general distinction between the two kinds will be that the former are internally in evil and the latter internally in good. This you will observe will account for all that is said about them, and throw light on the variant states of both.

Now we are taught that he is spiritually poor and needy who believes from the heart that of himself he possesses nothing, knows nothing, is not wise, and has no power. Of course, this acknowledgment that man from and of himself is spiritually poor and needy, because possessed of nothing but evil and falsity, and having nothing good and true except from the Lord, thus not from himself, is what enables the Lord to gift him with spiritual riches and so to be poor and needy in this sense is really to be and become rich in heaven, and to abound in spiritual wealth. But what can be more opposite to this state of spiritual poverty than the looking to self, and self-intelligence, the conceit, human prudence, self-confidence and arrogance of those in the other state of spiritual poverty, who are poor and know it not? By the poor and needy are to be understood spiritually those who are in defect and ignorance of good and truth, and yet long for good and truth. It is thus the knowledge, perception, and acknowledgment that we are deficient in and ignorant of good and truth, accompanied by a longing for the good and truth we sec we do not possess, that is true poverty of spirit. Does any one doubt that such poverty can only dwell in a sincere, truly humble, and honest heart? Here is a spiritually poor man who knows he is poor, and whose desire to become spiritually rich, can and will be gratified because he knows it. He knows he is ignorant and yet longs for and seeks to become intelligent and wise: he is poor but can become truly rich. Not so the man who knows it all, and in his self-conceit thinks he has need of nothing. He is poor and knows it not because rich only in his own conceits and in the falsities and fallacies which they breed, which are as dress in the light of heaven. How strongly contrasted here are the two kinds of spiritually poor and needy!

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The one in need but knowing his needs and in the capacity to have them supplied, and the other spiritually in need of all things, but in his self-sufficiency blind to the fact, and incapable of being anything else but poor and miserable, since he does not and cannot see how spiritually wretched he is and how greatly in need of the things which alone can make him spiritually rich.

They are called the poor who have not the Word and thus know nothing of the Lord, and yet long to be instructed. These are the poor of whom the Lord speaks in Luke vi, 22, and of whom He says that to the poor the Gospel is preached. This desire to learn and be instructed, a teachable state, is another sign of true spiritual poverty, and is the direct outgrowth of a heartfelt perception and acknowledgment of such poverty. This state is manifestly the effect of one's knowing he is poor, and in need, and, as manifestly, is a state which must lead to the acquisition of spiritual wealth. The other state is clearly the opposite of this one, for who is so little able to learn or willing to be taught and instructed as he who knows it all? The essence of self-conceit is to display our own fancied wisdom and superior knowledge, to make it plain to others how much we know, to teach and not to learn, to impart and not to receive. It is plainly then not a teachable state, and so it is opposed to that state. It manifests its quality in a desire to shine before others in its own light, and being born of self, is full of the pride and greatness of men, and void of true wisdom which is always marked by humility and poverty of spirit, with its innocence of wisdom, desire to learn, distrust of self and self-intelligence, and constant looking to the Lord and His Divine Truth, with a loving heart and teachable ear. This latter state is and must be teachable, and so we note it as characteristic of the spiritually pear who are in good and are able to know that they are poor and needy.

Outside the Church, these include all who are in ignorance of truth because they have not the Word, who yet long to be instructed, and who by that which they know, are in some good. Within the Church they include those who from various causes are ignorant of the truth but still from some good, long for it. All in such states are to be numbered among the spiritually poor, and are to be recognized and respected as such. This the internal sense of the Word now reveals to us.

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Now contrast this kind with those evil minded ones of the other kind who have the Word, quote it volubly to enforce and confirm their false dogmas, argue acutely and learnedly from it and persuade others to look to them as the possessors of spiritual wealth and power, and yet are but as the Pharisees of old, blind leaders of the blind, of whom the Lord says that they will both fall into the ditch of their self-contrived falsity. Poor and miserable in the midst of this spiritual wealth they possess! Poor and miserable in the midst of the spiritual abundance of the Word, feeding and giving for food the husks which the swine do eat, and knowing it not, and seeing not the rich and wholesome corn of spiritual truth and good concealed within! Here is poverty of the saddest kind, before which the other kind is to be accounted riches indeed!

Again we are taught that a poor man is one who is in few truths and also in falsities, from ignorance; but if he is in good he wants to be instructed in truth. He, however, who is in evil, does not want to be instructed. This definition of a poor man follows from the spiritual idea that a spiritually rich man is one who has many truths, so that one who has few truths is comparatively poor. Here too we notice the elements of ignorance, of falsities, and of the desire to be instructed as entering into the state of spiritual poverty. The element of good and evil is also prominent as causing, on the one hand, the perception of the need of instruction and the desire to learn and acquire truths, and on the other hand, the state of not wanting to be instructed. Spiritual riches are in the form of knowledges of truth and good. Not to possess such knowledges, therefore, is to be spiritually poor, for we are taught that spiritual misery and poverty are nothing else than a defect of the knowledges of truth and good, since the spirit is then miserable and poor. Those who are in evil have falsities instead of these knowledges, and are poor because of these falsities, and especially because they do not want, and are averse to and reject genuine truths and goods, and so make themselves poor by depriving themselves of these things of spiritual wealth. Those in good, although poor because not in possession of these knowledges, still can become rich since in longing for and seeking for them, they finally come to possess them and are made rich by them.

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     There is another species of spiritual poverty which deserves our notice, and is found exemplified in those who are in little good and are being infested by evils and falsities, injected by evil and false spirits. All such are made spiritually miserable; and they come to realize their spiritual poverty, as, by persecutions from their evils and falsities and by the temptations they endure, they see and feel keenly how little they know that is good and true from the Lord, how weak is their love for spiritual things, how powerful is self and the world, and yet how precious is that little good and truth they have, how full of promise of heavenly riches is that longing for genuine good and truth from the Lord out of His Word, which He has implanted in them, and by means of which, though poor and miserable, their poverty and misery may be turned into heavenly joy, and they be led by the Lord into the true intelligence and wisdom which belongs to the spiritually rich man.

     To be spiritually poor and yet to be rich, then, we must acknowledge in our heart, that we know, understand, and are wise, not at all from self; but that we know, understand, and are wise, is all from the Lord. This acknowledgment is the first and absolute requisite of our spiritual poverty being turned into spiritual riches. He who in heart is in this acknowledgment, let him be ever so poor and miserable, by the mercy of the Lord and his co-operation with Him as of himself in doing the things needful, may cease to be poor and attain to spiritual riches. The first thing that will make the poor man, even in the midst of his poverty, rich will be the priceless gift from the Lord of the spiritual affection of truth. With this spiritual affection for truth and all that it promises in the increased life and growth of our spiritual nature, active in us, we may well bear with becoming cheerfulness and Christian contentment and fortitude whatever of natural poverty may fall to our lot. If we are Poor in the things of this world we may still cultivate that poverty of spirit the teaching this morning displays to us, which will render us fit for those heavenly possessions the Lord holds in store for the spiritually poor who are yet rich. For the promise to such is, "Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

     Let us remember, and try to profit by the remembrance, that natural poverty with all its discomforts, inconveniences, deprivations and hardships, is, to the good, a permission of the Lord, to teach them to be content with their lot, and to lead them into such states of trust in the Lord and His provident care as they could not otherwise attain to.

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Think, too, of the evils that poverty affords us an opportunity to see, meet, fight against and over-come; of the spiritual value of the trials and temptations it may be the means of bringing upon us. But above all think of the importance and value of the teaching you have heard about spiritual poverty, and try to use and apply it in a sincere and earnest effort to attain to the poverty of spirit here so clearly and plainly brought to your notice. Try to believe and realize that great truth so full of spiritual comfort, that, to those who trust in the Lord, all things succeed for a happy state to eternity. All things, even one's natural poverty, together with his doubts, trials, anxieties, temptations, discouragements, disappointments, pains of body and mind, failures in the things of the natural life he may have set his heart upon, all things which may have made him naturally and spiritually miserable and unhappy, will be turned into a happy state to eternity. What then is our natural poverty and these other things weighed in the balance of this promise of the Lord? But this promise is manifestly conditioned on the avoidance of the evils of natural poverty, and the cultivation of and measurable attainment of its Christian graces, and especially on our coming into something of that state of spiritual poverty so plainly laid down in the teaching, while shunning the evil states of that class of the spiritual poor who think they are rich and in need of nothing, but are really wretched, miserable and poor.

May the Lord help us all to remember this teaching from Him out of His Word to do it, so that whatever may be our state as to poverty or wealth in this world, we may seek that which is alone worthy of our efforts, and may find therein that poverty of spirit that will turn the life here, whether it be set in the Paths of poverty or riches, into the channels of heavenly thinking, loving and living, and will lead us at last into the haven of true and lasting and everlasting states of intelligence, wisdom and useful activity in the Lord's kingdom hereafter. So shall we become rich, even by becoming poor, be our earthly condition what it may. Amen.

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PLANCHETTE 1909

PLANCHETTE Rev. W. H. ALDEN 1909

     The planchette is defined by the Century Dictionary as "a small heart-shaped or triangular board, mounted on three supports, of which two, placed at the angles of the base, are easily moving castors, and the third, placed at the apex, is a pencil point. If the tips of the fingers of one person, or of two, are placed lightly upon it, the board will often, after a time, move without conscious effort on the part of the operator, and the pencil point will trace lines, words and even sentences. It was invented about 1855, and was for a time the object of not a little superstition."

     The American Encyclopedia says of it: "When used by some persons, it seems to begin to move of its own accord after a little space of time; and if the person wishes for instance to have an answer to a certain question, writings may be formed on the sheet of paper upon which the instrument is placed, containing something more or less pertinent to the matter; but probably never anything that is not more or less consciously in the person's mind. It has figured much in spiritualistic exhibitions."

     The present purpose is to set forth some considerations which seem to show that the movements of the planchette are due to the conscious thought and will of spirits present with the person or persons who make use of the instrument. This is evidently enough the belief and claim of those who make use of this means for the avowed purpose of obtaining communications with the spiritual world. Others deny the possibility of communicating with the spiritual world by means of the planchette,--most of all, of course, those who deny the very existence of the spiritual world.

     The New Church knows of the existence of the spiritual world. The New Church is taught that communication with the spiritual world is possible, but is at the same time warned that such communication, especially the seeking it, is in the highest degree dangerous to the soul. We cannot therefore deny that the writings of the planchette may be from spirits.

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     The planchette offers a means typical of all the methods employed by mediums to obtain communication with the spiritual world. The trance of the medium is simply a reduction of the person to a physically passive state, upon which and through which spiritual intelligences other than that of the subject may play. In the case of the medium, the spirits make use of the physical organism which is for the time surrendered up for them to use, to speak through or to act through. The spirit for the time acts in the medium, imperfectly, of course, by reason of the conditions of the case; but nevertheless actually.

     The writing medium does not yield up consciousness entirely as does the trance medium, but he does hold the hand passive through which the spirit sends the message by means of actuating the hand.

     This simply illustrates the essential of all means by which spiritualistic communications are sought. One and all, the subject abdicates his own control of his physical or possibly outward mental powers, and becomes passive to powers actuating from within.

     That the planchette is a most effective instrument which might be used with such intent can hardly be questioned. It is so made that it will move with the lightest impulse in any direction. The placing of the fingers lightly upon it is an act lending itself to the passivity of the subject, far more readily than does the holding the pen directly in the hand, while the trance state is possible to but few.

     But the planchette is often used as merely a toy with no intent of holding communication with the spiritual world by means of it, but simply as a fascinating means for passing an idle hour. It answers questions, foretells the future, etc. "No one believes it, (we are told); it is only the gratifying of an idle curiosity for the mysterious. Its users do not understand why it acts as it does. The states of mind which find gratification in it, come and pass away. Is it for a moment to be asserted that in such cases the answers and the communications which it gives are from spirits in the spiritual world? That were to think too seriously of it! Those who use it have no such notion, no such intention," etc.

     But stop a moment! The form in the use of the instrument is the same as where communication with spirits is sought.

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We must admit that communication may be had in this way. Why not, then, even when there is no thought of such a thing or even denial of it?

     If these mysterious utterances of the planchette do not come from the spiritual world, where do they come from? They are rational in form. They intimate a will to their utterances and an intelligence which puts them into more or less of intelligible form, into more or less relation to the question which is asked. The very movement of the planchette to form the letters or the words or whatever else may be formed is due to no voluntary or intelligent act of the person using it. Indeed the formation of words by the planchette through its direction by the intent of the person whose fingers rest upon it will be found difficult, certainly not to be attained without much practice. And even more difficult would it be to have such forms traced in which two could consciously combine in the direction of the instrument.

     If we are directed to the sub-conscious mind as the seat of this intelligence, we should remember that this mind, so far as it acts independently of the immediate attention, acts from habit, which is the result of long training to the doing of a specific thing. Not to this can be traced the direction of the movement of the planchette.

     The acts of the body or words of the mouth in orderly fashion are produced in obedience to the volition, in accordance with the intelligence of the man. The mind is stored with ideas gained in experience; the words spoken, the acts done, are selected and variously combined from these stored ideas, but selected and variously combined by the will and rationality of him who speaks or acts. The movements of the planchette do not come under this category. Its words are not the rational utterance of the person who uses it. Nevertheless they are the words of a rational intelligence. Whose?

     Shall we say the rational intelligence of one of those participating? It might be, indeed, and if so would be a form of hypnotism. But this explanation will not serve, for results are obtained in companies where hypnotism would not be thought of, if indeed there were skill to use it.

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     What is left? I see no other explanation than that by reason of the passivity induced upon the mind and hand by means of the planchette, the spirits who are with man are enabled to come forth into the ultimate plane and give expression to their own thoughts by their own volition.

     The life in the thoughts and affections of man is not from himself, but is from the thought and the will of the spirits who are with him. Take these spirits away and in a moment the man would fall down without sense or motion, without consciousness or Fewer to act. These spirits enter into all things of the thought and the loves of the man and use them as their own thoughts and loves. The two, the man and the spirits who are with him, are in one life so far as these thoughts and affections are concerned. They are each necessary to the other, each supplying what the other lacks. Spirits supply to the partnership the inflow of life; the man supplies the stuff out of which articulate thought is made. Man is in ultimates, spirits in the interiors, the two together making a perfect whole. But withal, in orderly relation, each lives in his own world; neither being conscious of the other. When the Lord permits, the spiritual sight of man may indeed be opened so that he may see the things which are in the spiritual world. Spirits on their part may, through the organism of a man under certain conditions, not usually orderly, see the things of the natural world, or even project their activities through men into the natural world, sometimes indeed producing effects which the man himself would be utterly unable to accomplish. But as to outward consciousness of life, in the order of life, as has been observed, spirits live in this world and man in his, neither conscious of the other.

     But let there be given conditions of passivity greater or less on the part of the man, and this order is broken through. The man, in deep meditation, withdrawn from the affairs of the world, may even appear visibly in the spiritual world; or the conscious mental activity of the spirits may act through the organic faculties of the man. This, whatever the outward form it may take, is the communication of spirits with man which is disorderly and dangerous. It is dangerous because, first of all, another will and another intelligence than that of the man himself is suffered by him to guide and control his thought and conduct, and, even if this were done by an angel of heaven, it would bar that sacred oracle, the man's own choice, and so check that means of regeneration which lies in man's own freedom and rationality.

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But to this danger is added the fact that the spirits who will answer such a call are, as McDonald has well said, the "canaille" of the spiritual world. When the planchette, as was noted by one observer, in answer to the question "Who are you?" said "the devil," for once he answered truly.

If there were needed additional confirmation as to the real character of the planchette oracle, it might be found in the character of the questions which those who employ it are disposed to ask. In common with all fortune telling,--for it is to this that it is allied,-the questions asked are not those the answers to which might be obtained in lawful ways. It is sought to know the future in ways other than by one's own rational predications concerning it; it is sought to know what is in the minds of others which they do not choose of themselves to make known. These are disorderly things, and while much may be excused to thoughtlessness or ignorance, it is not safe nor well even in pretense to daily with such things. The very fascination of such play is but evidence of the strength of that unregenerate natural affection which in deadly earnest seeks after forbidden things.

"While he lives in the body the evil of man's spirit is restrained by the bonds in which every man is held by the law, by his regard for gain, for honor, and for his character and by his fear of losing them. . . . Besides, the evils of man's character then lie veiled over and wrapped up in external affection for truth and goodness, of which the man makes a verbal profession, and puts on an appearance of for the sake of the world: under the mask of which his evil lies so much concealed, and so buried in obscurity, that he himself is scarcely aware that so much profound cunning and wickedness exist in his spirit. . . . I can testify that unless man were protected by the Lord it would be utterly impossible for him to be saved from hell: for there are present with man both spirits from hell and angels from heaven, and the Lord cannot protect a man, unless he acknowledges the Divine Being and lives the life of faith and charity; for otherwise he averts himself from the Lord and turns toward infernal spirits, by whom he is imbued, as to his spirit, with profound wickedness, similar to their own.

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Nevertheless man is continually withdrawn by the Lord from evils, which by being connected in society with spirits, he applies, and as it were draws to himself; and if he cannot be withdrawn from them by internal bonds, which are those of conscience, . . . still he is restrained by external ones." (Heaven and Hell, 577.)

Such is the natural unregenerate character of man. Such are the things to which he would tend if left to himself, without instruction, without the guards of conscience within, or the compulsions of law and of society from without. The fact that a thing is delighted in is not sufficient reason for its indulgence. Rational investigation of its quality and effects is incumbent that evil may be known to be shunned. The above considerations are offered with a plea for the candid hearing of them. Do they not appear to show beyond reasonable doubt that the use of the planchette is of the nature of that communication with spirits, which is declared in the Heavenly Doctrines to be fraught with peril to the spiritual life? While ignorance and thoughtlessness might be excused in the use of it; when its real quality is made known, is it not an evil thing which should be shunned from conscience before the Lord?

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"CALLED," "CHOSEN," AND "FAITHFUL." 1909

"CALLED," "CHOSEN," AND "FAITHFUL." ELDRED E. IUNGERICH 1909

     The seventeenth chapter of the Apocalypse treats of the woman sitting on the scarlet beast which had seven heads and ten horns. Of the ten horns it is stated that "they are ten kings who receive power one hour with the beast," (v. 12), "that they give their power and strength unto the beast," (v. 13), and lastly that

     "These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them; for He is Lord of lords, and King of kings; and they that are with him are called, chosen, and faithful." (vocati, electi et fideles). (v. 14.)

     The verse is expounded at length in the Apocalypse Revealed, 742-744, and the Apocalypse Explained, 1072-1074, and is cited in fourteen other places in the Writings.

     In a communication to the "Life" I called attention to the existence of an apparent contradiction between the teachings in regard to the "called, chosen, and faithful." According to A. E. 1074 the "called" are the angels of the supreme heaven; the "chosen," the angels of the middle heaven; and the "faithful," the angels of the ultimate heaven; whereas in A. R. 744 the exact reverse is said to be the case, the "faithful" being assigned the supreme place and the "called" the lowest.

     As no one has as yet come forward with a solution to the apparent contradiction, I would now, in view of an urgent request from an English correspondent to the Life, offer the following tentative answer to my own inquiry. This solution depends upon the recognition of the two following propositions:

     First, that the words "called," "chosen," and "faithful," according to the usage of the Word have two or more senses which are to be carefully discriminated according to the requirements of context and series. The idea that A. E. 1074 and A. R. 744 are in conflict with one another is due to a probably unnoticed assumption that these words have only a single, fixed, unalterable meaning.

     Second, that A. E. 1074 and A. R. 744 treat of the "called, chosen and faithful" from distinct viewpoints; each of which requires a distinct senses in the terms used.

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In general, A. E. 1074 treats of the internal qualities characteristic of the heavens; and where it treats of those who are in the church on earth, it is with regard to the internal quality of the heaven to which they will go after death. A. R. 744 does not treat of an absolute state or quality, but of the progressive stages through which men must pass to enter heaven and approach the Lord. This difference necessitates that in the former case "called, chosen, and faithful" should denote a descending series of the heavens; but in the latter case, an ascending series.

A. E. 1074 "AND THEY WHO ARE WITH HIM ARE CALLED AND CHOSEN AND FAITHFUL." That it signifies that those who are in love to the Lord, in love towards the neighbor and in the faith of charity, are in the truth concerning the Lord's Divine power and the Divine sanctity of the Word, is evident from the signification of "called," when by the Lord, that it is those who are in love to the Lord, from the signification of "chosen," that it is those who are in love towards the neighbor, and from the signification of "faithful," that it is those who are in the faith of charity: that such are meant by the "called," "chosen," and "faithful," is evident from the Word where they are termed "called," "chosen," and "faithful;" and from the fact that the angels of the third heaven, who are in love to the Lord, are termed "called," that the angels of the second heaven, who are in love to the neighbor, are termed "chosen:" and that the angels of the first heaven who are in the faith of charity, are termed "faithful:" now because they who are in the Lord's church on earth are of the third, of the second and of the first heaven, (sunt qui ex tertio, ex secundo et ex primo caelo sunt), and will therefore after death become angels of those heavens, therefore by the "called," "chosen," and "faithful," are meant all in the kingdoms under the pope's dominion, who ascribe the power of saving men to the Lord, and attribute Divine sanctity and inspiration to the Word alone, and in these two matters recede from the vicarship of the pope.

A. R. 744. "AND THEY WHO ARE WITH HIM, ARE CALLED, CHOSEN, AND FAITHFUL," signifies that they who approach and worship the Lord Alone, are those who come into Heaven as well those who are in the externals of the church, as those who are in its internals and inmosts. "They who are with Him," signifies they who approach the Lord, for they are with Him: by "called, chosen, and faithful," are signified those who are in the externals, internals and inmosts of the Church; mho, because they are in the Lord, come into Heaven. By the "called" are indeed meant all, for all are called; but by the "called who are with the Lord" are meant all who are in Heaven with the Lord, as all are called who are at the marriage feast with the Bridegroom; by the "chosen" are not meant any who are elect by predestination, but those who are with the Lord are so called; by the "faithful" are meant those who have faith in the Lord. That they are those who are in the externals, internals and inmosts of the Church, is because the Lord's Church, like Heaven, is distinguished into three degrees. In the ultimate degree are they who are in its externals, in the second degree are they who are in its internals, and in the third degree are they who are in its inmosts. Those who are in the externals of the Church when they are with the Lord, are termed "called;" they who are in its internals, are termed "chosen;" and they who are in the inmosts are termed "faithful;" for thus they are called in the Word, where Jacob is termed "called," and Israel "chosen" since by Jacob there is meant they who are in the externals of the Church, and by Israel, they who are in its internals.

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That it is here said "they who are with Him are called, chosen and faithful," is because what precedes is "that they shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them;" so that they may know that they whom the Lord will overcome (vincet), that is, will convince (convincet) by the Word will be with Him in Heaven, some in the ultimate Heaven, some in the second, and some in the third, each according to reception.

A. E. 1074 treats of the internal qualities characteristic of the heavens. It begins, in fact, with an examination of their qualities, viz., "love to the Lord," "love to the neighbor," and "the faith of charity." Where it treats of those who are on earth, it is with regard to the internal quality of the heaven to which they will go after death, for on this point we read, "Now because they who are in the Lord's Church on earth are of the third, of the second, and of the first heaven, and will therefore after death become angels of those heavens." Since it treats of internal state or quality it treats of those who are in truths from goods or in truths which give qualify to goods. We accordingly read, "Those who are in love to the Lord, in love toward the neighbor, and in the faith of charity, ARE IN THE TRUTH concerning the Lord's Divine power," etc. It seems clear therefore that A. E. 1074 treats of the three heavens with reference to their characteristic qualities of good, according to which their truths are disposed. (cf. A. C. 9167) This treatment naturally determines the sense in which "called," "chosen," "faithful" are to be taken.

"Called" occurs in the Word with the meaning of "being summoned" and also of "being called by name." It is this meaning of the "called" that is required by the treatment of the text in A. E. 1074 They are termed "called" to express the recognition of their internal quality.

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     But why should "called" even if expressive of internal quality apply in this instance rather to the internal quality of the highest heaven, than to that of the lowest! Two distinct lines of reasonings bring this out.

     The first depends on the series, and on the fact that one term of the series, "faithful," is defined in A. E. 1074 in a manner that leaves no doubt as to which heaven it is applicable, viz., "from the signification of "faithful" that it is those who are in the faith of charity. . .and that the angels of the first heaven who are in the faith of charity are termed 'faithful.'" Those in the ultimate heaven have a few general truths of faith, but are not in the love of acquiring interior truths. Nevertheless they are in the "faith of charity." Since "faithful," thus defined can qualify only the ultimate heaven, "chosen" and "called," though not here defined, must from their positions in the series qualify the middle and highest heavens respectively.

     The second reasoning depends on the context, on the fact that "called" denotes interior quality, and on the following teaching from A. C. 3421 as to what is meant by calling by name when the name by which they are called is not stated directly:

     "'And he called their names,. . .signifies quality,. . .and since calling names or name is quality, therefore to call when name is not mentioned, signifies in the internal sense of the Word, to be such as in Isaiah 48:42, 'Hear ye this, O house of Jacob, which are called by the name of Israel, and they have come forth out of the waters of Judah, because they are called from the city of holiness, and they stay themselves upon the God of Israel,' where to be called from the city of holiness means to be such."

     'In the verse under consideration, Apoc 17:14, the term called occurs without the mention of any name by which they are called. Therefore, according to A. C. 3427, by "called" must be signified they who are such, namely, they who are such as is the Lamb whom they are with. These are the celestial, who, as to quality, are 'primarily "His own sheep whom He calleth by name." "Called" in this context when it denotes internal quality is therefore quite properly the highest term in the series.

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     In the passage from the Apocalypse Revealed, "called," "chosen," and "faithful" are used with the more usual meanings attached to these words, as appears from the definitions given there. "Called" there means "summoned," and "chosen" means "selected," as in "Many are called, but few chosen." "Faithful" is there used in the sense of perseverance or "faithfulness till death," and therefore the supreme heaven is assigned to those who are faithful in that sense. The words are used in these senses because A. R. 744 treats of man's approach to the Lord and worship of Him. This treatment causes "called," "chosen," "faithful" to denote the several ascending stages of man's approach to the Lord.

     The three ascending stages of man's approach to the Lord are entered in order by the reception of the three universals of the Church, God, Charity, and Faith. Thus we read in T. C. R. 722: "God, Charity and Faith are the three universals of the Church, because the universal means of salvation. . . . God is to be acknowledged in order that one may have religion and something of the church . . after the acknowledgment of God, Charity is the second means, which causes man to approach worthily. Faith in the Lord is the third means of worthy fruition of the Holy Supper." Approach to the Holy Supper is approach to the Lord, and in both the "faithful" have the highest place. "Called," "Chosen" and "Faithful" in the sense of approaching the Lord mean therefore, respectively, those who avail themselves of the successive means of salvation, viz., the acknowledgment of God, Charity and Faith.

     The foregoing therefore bring us to the following brief conclusion: A. E. 1074 uses "Called?" "Chosen," "Faithful" to denote the quality of the good that is in each of the heavens, according to which quality their several truths are disposed. This usage causes the terms to denote a descending series, like that of "love to the Lord," "love to the neighbor," and "the faith of charity." But A. R. 744 uses these words to denote the successive means or successive stages of man's approach to the Lord, and refers to those who are availing themselves of those means. This usage causes the terms to denote an ascending series like that of the means of salvation. God, Charity, Faith.

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A. E. 1074 may be said to treat of the regenerated in the heavens; and A. R. 744, of the regenerating as they enter successive stages under the Lord's guidance.

The two orders are distinct, and yet are conjoined by the fact that the regenerated serve the Lord as instruments in the leading of the regenerating. What is especially worthy of note is that those who are inmost among the regenerated or the "called" are of prime use in introducing the regenerating into the first stage of their summons by the Lord. The celestial angels who are the first to summon the dying to resurrection, are also the first to surround the babe, and by their ministrations to implant the first and inmost remains, by virtue of which the child may avail itself of the first means of salvation, the acknowledgment of God; and thus become one of the "called." Thus those who are "called" on account of their inmost degree of regeneration are instrumental in the work of bringing the Lord's first summons to those who when they receive it are denominated "called." That a similar meeting between degree of regeneration and stage of approach is to be found in each of the two other classes "chosen" and "faithful" seems not improbable.

The celestial angels who are termed "called from the standpoint of quality, were also originally termed "called" from the standpoint of approach. For in the beginning all men were of the celestial genius, and there was only one heaven. The "acknowledgment of God" was then synonymous with "love to the Lord." But the gap between them successively widened after the fall and the separation with men of faith and charity.

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DOCUMENTS OF NEW CHURCH HISTORY 1909

DOCUMENTS OF NEW CHURCH HISTORY WM. SCHLATTER 1909

     LETTERS OF MR. WILLIAM SCWLATTER* TO THE HON. JOHN YOUNG.**

     I.

     Philadelphia, January 13th, 1823.

My Dear Sir:
     I duly received your much esteemed favor, and Genl. Cadwalader was informed of your having paid the Taxes, and has paid Mr. Graham the amount on your account. I am just preparing for a visit to Washington City on some business, and shall also connect it with endeavoring to prevail on Congress to lay a duty on Sales of Auction. I send you a pamphlet on that subject that will explain the evils resulting to merchants, manufacturers, and citizens generally.

     I have not time to say more, or to notice those remarks you made on the Boston young men and their ordination. All I can say is that I think their false notions*** would be as great an evil to the New Church, as the auction system is to the community.

     I shall be in Washington about two or three weeks. If you reply to this soon, address me there.
     Your Friend and Brother,
          WM. SCHLATTER.

     * WILLIAM SCHLATTER, one of the founders of the New Church in Philadelphia, a merchant of considerable wealth and great liberality. He published a number of the Writings for free distribution and sent them broadcast over the country in boxes of merchandise. Many persons thereby received the Heavenly Doctrines. In 1816 he built, at his own cost, the first New Church Temple in Philadelphia, but lost his fortune in 1824 and was compelled to sell the temple. The originals of his letters are preserved in the Academy Archives.--ED.
     ** JOHN YOUNG, one of the earliest receivers of the Doctrines of the New Church in the United States; he procured the publication of the first American edition of the True Christian. Religion in 1789, removed to Greensburg, Pa., in 1795, was appointed Judge in Western Pennsylvania in 1806, and died in 1837. He was one of the fore-runners of the Academy movement.--ED.
     *** The notion of a "conjugial" relation between a pastor and his society.

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     II.

     Philadelphia, June 2d, 1824.

My Dear Sir:
     My absence at Washington for five months has prevented my answering your letters; after the Convention I hope to have leisure to write to you. Tomorrow we hold the first meeting. Mr. Hargrove,* Dr. Mann,** Dr. Beers*** and Mr. Woodworth**** are here Mr. Carll***** has returned in fine health; he arrived the day before yesterday. No time for more. Your friend, Wm. SCHLATTER.

     Mr. Worcester****** and Mr. Hayward******* are here from Boston.

     * REV. JOHN HARGROVE, the first minister of the New Church in America, pastor of the Baltimore Society; died 1839.
     ** Dr. JAMES MANN, of Boston, received the Doctrines through Rev. Wm. Hill, in 1794. The Boston Society was founded at his house, in 1817.
     *** DR. LEWIS BEERS, Of Danby, N. Y., founder and pastor of societies in Danby, Spencer, Ithaca, and other places. He was ordained by Mr. Hargrove in 1818, and died in 1849.
     **** SAMUEL WOODWORTH, the poet, author of "The Old Oaken Bucket." He was one of the earliest and most zealous members of the New Church in America, published The Halcyon Luminary in 1812, and the New Jerusalem Missionary, in 1823, was the leader of the New York Society for many years, and died in 1842.
     ***** REV. MASKELL M. CARLL, the first minister of the New Church in Philadelphia, ordained by Mr. Hargrove in 1816. Being in ill health, he visited England, in 1823, became pastor of the Cincinnati Society in 1839, and died in 1856.
     ****** REV. THOMAS WORCESTER, the founder of the New Church in Boston, was ordained in 1828 by Mr. Carll, pastor of the Boston Society 1818-1867, and president of the General Convention, 1832, 1839-1873. He died in 1878.
     ******* REV. T. B. HAYWARD, Ordained by Mr. Carll in 1850; he was a scholarly man of great ability as translator of the Writings; was secretary of the General Convention for many years, and died in 1878.

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     III.

     Philadelphia, June 25th, 1824.

My Dear Sir:
     I know my last letter was written in haste, and if I make any repetitions you will excuse them, for I know you must be anxious to hear the result of the last Convention. In the first place, as usual we were annoyed with Tom Worcester and one of his satellites. I say "Tom and his satellite," because you will see the reason as I go on, and when you hear that you were the cause of drawing their vengeance on me, you will, I think, wish you had been here to help to defend your only champion. Yes, my dear Sir, your letter was going to receive the same fate as the one addressed to Mr. Hargrove, last year, as president of the Convention, and I was censured for introducing it at this [meeting], but I was determined that, as you had entrusted your letter to me, and in two parts of it most earnestly requested that it should come before the society,--more particularly if Mr. Worcester was there,-that I would take the responsibility. And I therefore did not leave it in the hands of the Committee, well knowing they would smother it up as they did last year. I was not appointed on any important committee, well knowing that I would act with energy--in the future. I will never agree to give the appointments of Committees to a president of the society;--let the congregation or Convention appoint. We have too many persons in the Church who have not firmness, and those must be kept in leading strings.

     To come to the point. When your letter was read, and the Resolutions from the Steubenville society, Tom W. got mad and came out with denying all the charges I had made from their own letters to Mr. Lammot,* Mr. Arbouin,** Carll, Hargrove, and others, asserting that the whole was a base misrepresentation of their views, and that they never had such sentiments, etc., etc.

     In answer I addressed the chair and assured him that what I had written to Mr. Grant*** I was fully prepared to prove by documents in my possession, and by the witness of respectable members then present. Mr. Worcester again rose and added further insult, by greater declarations, and Mr. Hayward, his companion, joined him.

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I then informed them that Gentlemen must be on their guard how they talk of misrepresentation after a Gentleman has assured them he has the documents within his reach, and that I would not submit to such language,--and I then called on Mr. Lammot to give his testimony. It was sometime before he could get an opportunity; in fact, they wished to put him off, but I called and demanded from the chair that Mr. Lammot should be heard.

The silence of death then prevailed, and Mr. L. assured the Convention that he had carefully read my letter, and that he had the correspondence in his possession, from which a great part of it was taken, and that he believed what I had written was strictly true. This silenced them, and I had no more trouble with them, and I think they will end in a sect of Worcesterites or Cowardites;--they are no more New Church men than the most common sanctimonious sectarians. In fact, their sphere is cold and horrible; it divides and does not unite,--except with those who are subject to flattery,--and they only flatter for a time to entrap the young and ignorant; after that they take all homage to themselves. Mr. Rrbouin's account of them, though short, is a volume; you have it. Good-by to them, I say. I wish they may never trouble us again until they become real New Church men, and then we shall not call it trouble.

I am sorry to say Mr. Roche**** is not as firm and steadfast in the real old-fashioned N. C. Doctrines as we could wish, (Mr. Condy, Mr. Lammot, and myself). Some new-light Quakers from the East came here to preach, and, not being admitted in the regular Quaker meeting, they preached in another place. Mr. Roche waited on them and prayed with them;-he then invited them to his Church, where two women and one man of those new lights held forth, and a Unitarian Universalist preacher of the name of Plummer sat in the pulpit with Mr. Roche. This Mr. Lammot witnessed.

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I was at Washington, or you would have heard of it sooner. We called him to a gentle account for it, and he defended himself. If I mistake not, he will take his own way, and we shall not have much cause to rejoice in his accession to the Church, (this to yourself), but it is well that you should know how matters are going.

     Friend Woodworth is firm, and was at the Convention, but I am sorry to say he was so unfortunate as to lose his trunk on his way home, and it contained all his best clothes and one hundred dollars. Mr. Carll has returned in good health from England and gives a good account of the country and our New Church friends. This is almost a miracle.

     Wake up, my friend, and let us not make ministers too suddenly, "Lay hands suddenly on no man,"--but I need not caution you on that score, for I know you are averse to it.
     Your Friend and Brother,
          Wm. SCHLATTER.

     * DANIEL LAMMOT, one of the earliest members of the New Church in Philadelphia; president of the Central Convention, 1842-1849.
     ** JAMES ARROUIN, a London merchant of great talents and culture, author of Dissertations on the Regenerate Life and other New Church works. He died in 1821.
     *** WILLIAM Grant, founder of the Society at Steubenville, O., in 1795.
     **** REV. MANNING B. ROCHE, an Episcopal clergyman in Philadelphia who came over to the New Church in 1822, was ordained by Mr. Hargrove in 1823 and founded the Philadelphia Second or "Southwark" Society in the same year; withdrew from the ministry in 1841, and returned to the Old Church.

     IV.

     Philadelphia, August 16th, 1824.

My dear Sir and Brother:
     I am glad you approve of my insisting on your letters being read before the Convention, (for I had to insist), and it has caused a coldness between Mr. Roche and me, for he as secretary refused to read it, and I insisted he should; he then read it, but all the Clergy opposed its being read. This to yourself, for we are sufficiently divided not to do any more. I must confess I never saw the Church generally in the U. S. in such a lukewarm uncharitable state,--and I solemnly aver and believe it is all owing to the Boston notions which were so determinedly enforced on us, that we were compelled to a reaction, and a want of charity has, I fear, crept into the Church on all sides. As to our falling into their errors and falses, I trust we shall be preserved from them, but in defending the Church from them we shall risque much;--may the Lord preserve us.

     They have hurt my state more than my losses. I felt it my duty to defend the Church from their false notions and doctrines, and in so doing had to descend, and the spirit of finding fault is not agreeable.

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They should have been expelled at once; then all would have gone well. Let them become a sect, as I think they will, and be called Worcesterites,--but enough of them.

     The last accounts from England are favorable; the Church is increasing. Mr. Clowes is yet alive and writing, and so is Mr. Hindmarsh. Mr. Carll continues well since his return and improves his preaching. I see nothing of Mr. Roche, but he continues to preach, but does not read much, if any, of Emanuel Swedenborg's Writings. I am sorry for it, as no man can teach the doctrines of the New Church, who does not read E. S.,--it will soon resolve into improved Old Church teaching. Mr. Woodworth informed Mr. Lammot and me that Mr. Roche said he had not read much of E. S., and was not sorry for it. He could preach the Doctrine of Correspondence from Influx, from what he knew. This also to yourself. We must hope he will read more and he will find out his error. Now, you know this will not do for the New Church.

     The Journal of the Convention will come out next month. We hear nothing from Boston. At New York they are going on as well as usual. I never knew our Society in Philadelphia quite so well. We may hope and look for better times.
     I remain your Friend and Brother,
          WM. SCHLATTER.

     (To be continued.)

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Editorial Department 1909

Editorial Department Editor 1909

     NOTES AND REVIEWS.

     The Rev. Dr. H. K. Carroll, writing in the Christian Advocate for January 4th, on a Statistical Report of the religious progress in the United States, notes the formation of "six new denominations" during the past year. One of these, we are informed, was "the General Conference of the New Jerusalem Church, separated from the Church of the New Jerusalem." It is to be hoped that the rest of the "Statistical Report" is distinguished by considerably greater accuracy than is exhibited in the item quoted. In this case, at least, there is no excuse for inaccuracy, inasmuch as Dr. Carroll applied to us for detailed information as to the General Church of the New Jerusalem, and was furnished with all the facts.

     "There is no Old Church now. The present Christian Church is being emancipated from former misconceptions of doctrine under the auspices of the new heaven, and is becoming of the New Church." Thus Mr. Benjamin Worcester in the New Church Messenger. But not so Swedenborg in the writings of the New Church. There we are taught concerning the evils and falses of the "Old Church" ten years after the Last Judgment (Brief Exposition, nos. 103, 104); and we are further informed that "At the end of the Old Church they will not receive anything whatever of the good of love and the truth of doctrine." (Apocalypse Explained, n. 636.) Mr. Worcester may think it unkind to thus "insult the former Church," as he puts it, but,--this is Revelation.

     As the ever memorable "Kramph Case" is now being ventilated in the daily press of Sweden, (with the usual amount of misunderstanding and inaccurate statements), Mr. Manby in Nya Kyrkans Tidings for January takes occasion to defend the Doctrines of the New Church from the charge of "immorality."

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His defence, as was expected, is straightforward and able. Speaking of the case itself, he observes, with a good deal of intuition, that "the verdict would perhaps have been different, had not several New Church groups come forward to claim the bequest, instead of permitting that branch of the Church, the 'General Church' and the 'Academy,' with whose principles the testator is said to have been in sympathy, to settle the case with the heirs. But the thing is done now, and an American court has declared 'certain of Swedenborg's doctrines' to be 'immoral.' This is manifestly a most serious thing, even if a higher court should reverse the judgment."

We have received a communication from Mr. Chas. H. Morgan, of Alexandria, N. S. W., calling attention to the editorial in the October Life, "A Greeting from Australia," and also to our news notes, in the same issue. Mr. Morgan informs us that the statement or implication in these two articles, that Mr. Hellberg was the "leader of the New Society" at Sydney, is not correct. To quote from his letter: "Mr. Hellberg, in fact, refused time after time to accept the position, always favoring the co-operation of others with him in this direction, and during Mr. Billings' stay here [in Sydney] (prior to his leaving for America) he, Mr. Billings, suggested the appointment of a council of three to carry out these duties, which was eventually adopted, so that, truly speaking, Mr. Hellberg has never at any time been leader, and the writer knows that he was averse to taking the position." We are always glad to accept corrections from our readers, when a misstatement has appeared in our pages. In the present case, however, the misstatement appears to be more technical than real. For though, as Mr. Morgan now informs us, Mr. Hellberg was not officially the leader of the Society, yet the very fact that he "refused time after time to accept the position" confirms what was in our mind at the time of writing the articles in question, namely, that he was the leading spirit of the movement after the separation from Mr. Morse.

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     As the beginning of what is hoped to be a series of tracts dealing with important doctrinal principles of the New Church, the Book Room at Bryn Athyn has just published a reprint, slightly revised, of the address delivered by Bishop Pendleton before the General Assembly at Berlin, Canada, in 1899 on THE PRINCIPLES of THE ACADEMY. The Address is prefaced by a short statement respecting the Academy and The General Church and what these institutions stand for in the world, and is followed by a short descriptive advertisement of New Church Life, and of The Academy Schools. The whole makes an attractive looking pamphlet of 19 pages, and is well adapted for the use for which it is specifically intended, namely, to place before enquiring Newchurchmen, in succinct form, the principles which underlie what is known as the Academy movement. These principles are laid down in twelve propositions which are first enumerated and then briefly commented upon and explained. The principles themselves are not put forward as anything new; for the Bishop, in delivering them in the present form, merely puts before the New Church public doctrines which have become established by long study and discussion, and the truth of which has been confirmed from day to day. These principles are fundamental to the thought and life of the General Church and of the Academy, and if any of our readers wishes to bring them to the attention of their friends in the New Church, they can hardly do better than to send them a copy of the present publication. Copies may be procured at the Academy Book Room, Bryn Athyn, Pa.

     The following extract from a paper in The American Hebrew contains some interesting reflections on Marriage in the Church. The author is a Jewish rabbi, but his words are well worthy of the attention of Newchurchmen:

     "The prohibition against intermarriage has only and exclusively a religious motive. This can not be too strongly emphasized or made too clear. I am not interested in the purity of the Jewish race. I recognize for myself no other nationality than that of the American people. I do believe, however, in my right to perpetuate the life and integrity of my religion.

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"We feel that two considerations compel our insistence upon the conversion to our faith of those who wish to enter upon marriage with sons and daughters of Israel. We must maintain the unity of the home, which is the unit of the social organism, and we must protect the integrity of Judaism as a religion of a very small minority as compared with the population of the world. We hold that we can not worship the God of Israel with divided homes. We feel that the proper moral and religious education of children necessitates spiritual unity of the household. If two parties, Jew and Christian, who ask a rabbi to solemnize their marriage, are indifferent to religion altogether, it is better for them to go to the civil magistrate and be married. If, on the other hand, they have religious convictions, they are laying up a great deal of heartache for themselves for the future. When they are confronted with the problem of rearing their offspring, they will find that their religious beliefs were deeper seated in their hearts than they imagined in the heyday of their courting. A religiously divided home has sown the seed of unhappiness. Judaism, therefore, refuses to consecrate a step toward domestic disunion."

Every now and again the press in various parts of the Christian world brings forth some facts and figures with regard to the decline of the birth rate,--facts and figures which are almost invariably accompanied with a note of warning or lamentation. The latest of such notices that has come to our attention is an interview printed in a Sydney, N. S. W., paper, with Mr. O. C. Beale, one of the Royal Commissioners on the Decline of the Birth Rate. In a somewhat guarded statement, Mr. Beale said among other things: "I have had an opportunity of studying the literature of racial decline in France, and it is of the utmost value. I have also been investigating the same matter in England and Germany, and I map say at once that some of the facts and figures are appalling. Demographers (writers on population) throughout the world are agreed that a nation must progress or decline, it cannot stand still and they have come to the conclusion that some of the Anglo-Saxon races are losing ground, while other white races are continuing to add to their numbers.

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Believe me, the low birth rates of Australia and New Zealand are considered by demographers to be matters of the gravest concern to those countries, and it is of great importance to remember that the leaders of Japanese and Chinese thought and education are keenly watchful of the progress of population in this vast territory." And in this strain Mr. Beale continues to comment on the danger thus threatening. His comments suggest the thought that it is not so much the fear that "other white races" will outstrip the Angle Saxon by reason of more rapid increase in numbers. Indeed, the decrease in the birth rate threatens to become a conspicuous feature in all white countries. It is not the whites that are really feared, but the various colored races. For outside of prosperous Christendom the crime against offspring is practically unknown. It is the fear of the heathen that prompts much of the outcry against race-suicide; yet, even so, the warnings and the bewailings seem to have little effect in checking the evil.

     One would imagine that on so vital a question as the status of the Writings--a question which concerns the very foundations of the New Church,--the members of the New Church would have clear and well defined opinions. But that the opposite is the case in the General Convention is becoming more and more manifest the longer the subject is discussed in the Messenger. Not only are the writers at odds with each other, but most of them are at odds with themselves as well engaged, as it were, in a vain endeavor to square the circle,--to reconcile the "Divinity" of the Writings, with the notion that they are "less Divine than the Word," The looseness and incoherency of thought is lamentable.

     A lady opens the discussion in the Messenger of February 3d, by showing that Mr. Seward, who claims that the Writings are Divine, and Mr. B. Worcester, who claims that they are not, are both right. All "we who know in our lives this truth" have to do is "not to hesitate to declare it as from the Lord first, and afterwards those who desire can be enlightened as to the channel"!

     The Rev. Robert L. Fischer contributes a letter affirming the entire Divinity of the Writings. "Swedenborg gave them their outward garb, the body, but the indwelling soul was given by the Lord Himself."

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"A possible distinction between what Swedenborg saw and heard, or what may be termed philosophical discussion, or what are explanations of the internal sense of the Word, does not affect the Divine authority of all his theological writings." Mr. Fischer here represents the best thought of the Convention, and, to the unitiated, his words may sound like a claim of absolute Divinity for the Writings. But, no! They are of "Divine Authority," their "indwelling soul is given by the Lord," but still they are less Divine than the Word!

The President of the Convention again takes up his pen in defence of his own position. But it would have been better for the strength of that position if he had remained satisfied with his first effort. Then he came out emphatically for the "Divine Authority"--as understood in the Convention,--but now the Writings are only "in some way authoritative." "Either the Writings are Divine and of Divine Authority," he says, "or they are human and of human authority. To me they are Divine," they are an "immediate revelation," and "are meant by the Second coming of the Lord." But when Mr. Seward comes to discuss the Memorable Relations and the "philosophical discussions" recounted by Swedenborg, he confesses he "cannot tell exactly" how they are connected with the expository portions. "Somehow these things are all related, and all taken together, they constitute to my mind a Divine Revelation necessary to the understanding of the Word." And the President of the General Convention concludes his letter in the same tone. "At heart, we all believe that the revelations made by the Lord through the human instrumentality are in some way Divine and of Divine Authority, though we may not know how to state it, and may not agree when it comes to precise terms." Yet, surely, it is the chief business of the priesthood not only to proclaim that the Writings are Divine, but also to show wherein lies their Divinity.

The Rev. John Goddard enters into the discussion in the Messenger for the following week, though without adding any very definite ideas on the matter. In the course of his letter he tells of a "former teacher" (presumably of the Theological School) who "spoke of the illustrations used in T. C. R. as evidences of Swedenborg's old age" while "another regrets Swedenborg's lack of making certain matters more clear."

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And finally Mr. Benjamin Worcester returns to a restatement of his original position, ending with the words: "In his language Swedenborg has given us most valuable information in regard to the heavenly and Divine contents of the Word, though only a fraction of what he could see to be contained. But to call his statement Divine, borders, to my mind, on blasphemy"!!!
"THE REMINDER." 1909

"THE REMINDER." 1909

     Our energetic English friend, the Rev. W. T. Lardge, is making a determined effort to stem the current of loose thought, so far removed from the teachings of the Writings, which prevails in the New Church in England. It may be remembered that some months ago, Mr. Lardge sent to Morning Light a spirited letter in which he deplored the lack of distinctiveness in New Church thought and practice and called attention to the necessity of the acknowledgment of the truth that the New Church is new in more than name, and that it is to be kept absolutely distinct in every way from the consummated Church which it has succeeded. And now for the continuance of this propaganda he has inaugurated a small four page publication "The Reminder. An occasional New Church Paper." Judging from the excellence of the first number, we hope the appearance of this paper will not be too "occasional;" at any rate, that it will be published not less than the four times a year promised by the editor.

     The first number consists almost entirely of quotations from the Writings, but quotations so striking that they preach their own application.

     "'The Church which is called Christian, (so reads the opening passage), has at this day come to its end,' A. C. 670." This is followed by the teaching, under the heading "Lest we Forget," that the Newchurchman is to entirely separate himself from this former Church.

     "The New Church will be established distinct from the Old; the latter remaining in its external worship, just as the Jews did in theirs." (A. C. 1850.)

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But most interesting of the passages cited are those under the heading "Concerning the Word and the Church." Whether the editor acknowledges the Writings as being in truth a Divine Revelation which is the Word, we do not fully know; but the passages, which he prints, and the words therein that he emphasizes, are significant. Witness, for instance, the following series: "'The Advent of the Lord is the REVELATION Of Truth Divine at the end of the Church' (A. C. 9807). 'The Lord is essential Doctrine, that is, the Word, not only as to the Supreme sense therein, but also as to the internal sense, and also as to the literal sense.' (A. C. 3393.) The nature of the Divine Providence in revealing Divine Truths is evident from the churches which have been successively established. INMOST Divine Truths were revealed to the Most Ancient Church. But EXTERIOR Divine Truths were revealed to the Ancient Church, and MOST EXTERNAL OR ULTIMATE Divine Truths to the Hebrew Church. But after the end of that Church (the Israelitish) there were revealed by the Lord INTERIOR Divine Truths for the Christian Church, AND NOW TRUTHS STILL MORE INTERIOR for the coming Church; these interior truths are those which are in the internal or spiritual sense of the Word.' (A. E. 948.) 'The coming of the Lord in the clouds of Heaven signifies His presence in the WORD and REVELATION. That at this day such a DIRECT REVELATION is made is because this is what is meant by the Coming of the Lord' (H. H. 1)."

To the Newchurchman such passages should speak for themselves.
BREAK-DOWN OF RELIGION 1909

BREAK-DOWN OF RELIGION 1909

In more than one place in the Writings we read of spirits who have been among the learned in the Christian Church, but who at heart were atheists, maintaining that though they themselves denied all religion, yet the preaching of religion was necessary to hold the common people in order and obedience.

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This sentiment is called to our mind by a notice, in the New York Nation, of a recent work, "No Refuge but in Truth," by Goldwin Smith. Mr. Smith recognizes the seriousness of the situation which would be created if the present tendency of "learned" thought should reach its logical fruition in the destruction of even external belief in God and the future life. "We are confronted with the vital question (he says) what the world would be without religion, without trust in Providence, without hope or fear of a hereafter. Social order is threatened. Classes which have hitherto acquiesced in their lot, believing that it was a divine ordinance, and that there would be redress and recompense in a future state, are now demanding that conditions shall be leveled here." True to the title of his book, Mr. Smith follows his sad surmisings by adding that, whatever trouble or disorder a change in belief may bring about, yet "there is nothing for it but to seek and embrace the truth. Superstition can be of no use morally; even politically it can be of little use, and not for long." The latter part of this phrase may be open to some question, for even "superstition" may be of use in preserving remains of truth whereby men are externally, if not internally, held in order. Still the only ultimate refuge is, indeed, Truth. But then arises the century-old question

"What is truth?" To most men in the learned world truth is little more than the facts of experience together with the inferences deduced from them by the thought proximate to the senses. That God is truth, or that truth is revealed in His Word, is denied, and the Word itself rejected. Partly contributory to this rejection are the falsities and absurdities of the perverted Church, and some who now, because of these falses, deny the Word, may be better instructed in the other life. But even the falses of the Old Church are no excuse for atheism, still less for confirmed atheism. Atheism is not only contrary to spiritual thought; it is also contrary to sound natural reason. The contemplation of the universe with its law and order, and its evident design for the use of man, should and does lead sound reason to acknowledge God, and to acknowledge Him not as a cold impersonal force, but as a God of Love and Wisdom; for it is easier to confirm that God is and that He is one, than to confirm the denial of this verity.

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     We must therefore look deeper than to the falses of the Old Church, for the causes of the universal spread of atheism with its concomitant denial of all spiritual truth. The falses of the Old Church are but an effect; and the cause that lies behind them,--a cause that is now bearing its full fruit in a materialism but thinly guised in the garb of agnosticism,--that cause is, that men are absorbed solely in sensual things; that they care for nothing that is above the sensual pleasures of the body, the honor and fame of the world. This state could be but dimly, if at all, known to us without revelation. But by the opening of the spiritual world, we have revealed to us that many, and indeed most of the learned,--men who had seemed devoted solely to the search for truth,--were in no love of truth; that they were at heart sensualists, and in the love of fame and power. Nor is there the slightest reason to suppose the state has changed in this respect since Swedenborg's day.

     It is this turning of the will and thought to sensual things that closes man's mind to the sight of Truth. Truth is absolute. It is all that which is revealed by God; and the faculty of seeing and recognizing truth is implanted in the soul of every man. But whether this faculty becomes an actuality, whether the man can see and acknowledge truth when presented, depends wholly on his own state. So far as he lifts himself above sensual things, so far is there with him some abiding place for the light of heaven in which the soul is. Such a man has an apperception of truth when it is presented. The truth presented may be mingled with many fallacies, still there is some perception of the truth within, some ground for the future perception of genuine truths either in this world or the other.

     It is not truth that is lacking in the world. Divine Truth is abundantly revealed, not only in the Word, but also in the Universe. What is lacking is the perception of truth when presented. And it is men who have destroyed this perception with themselves, that would now break down all religion and take refuge in--the truth! or--to quote one of the leading scientists of the past generation--seeing that the religion of Christianity has been destroyed, they would erect a religion of science for the worship of men.

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Even in the orthodox Church itself there is a growing disbelief in revealed truth, and this from the same cause as in the learned world. There are many signs of this, but perhaps the most striking for some time past, is the recent utterance of the Anglican Bishop of Tasmania, who, writing in a recent number of the Hibbert Journal, declared that the Old Testament is not a suitable basis for moral instruction. "How can we (he asks) worship such a God" as is depicted in parts of that Testament? Such an utterance, even by a bishop of the conservative Episcopal Church, is in itself significant, but even more significant is the fact that the utterance was followed by no protest.

If the Lord should become utterly denied, if Christianity, even such as it is, were to be utterly destroyed without a true religion to take its place, we may well fear as to the result on the moral and political conduct of men. Those results are sufficiently foreshadowed in present day happenings. But it is of the Lord's Providence that truth should be preserved in the world. Therefore the Word is preserved wherein something of truth may be seen by the simple. Therefore also a new light has been given for the center and enlightenment of the world.
MOST IMPORTANT DOCTRINE OF THE NEW CHURCH 1909

MOST IMPORTANT DOCTRINE OF THE NEW CHURCH 1909

What is the most important doctrine of the New Church? One will of course answer, The doctrine of the Lord. But this doctrine was also the principle doctrine of the First Christian Church, and of the churches preceding it; and therefore the simple answer, The doctrine of the Lord, without some further understanding or explanation, is hardly sufficient to the enquiring mind. The complete answer would be, The doctrine concerning the Lord as He reveals Himself to the New Church. In the pre-Christian Churches the supreme doctrine was that concerning the Lord about to come; and the wisdom of those churches consisted in seeing and acknowledging Him in the prophecies of the Word. In the Christian Church the supreme doctrine was that concerning the Lord as a Divine Natural Man; and the wisdom of that Church consisted in seeing that the Lord as a Man was one with the Infinite, in acknowledging His Divinity in the doctrine which He delivered by His mouth, and in the understanding of that doctrine.

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In the New Church, likewise, the doctrine of the Lord is the supreme doctrine,--a doctrine by which the whole quality of the Church is determined. But in the New Church the doctrine of the Lord is the doctrine concerning His revelation of Himself to that Church, as a Divine Rational Man. The Lord's revelation of Himself to the New Church is not the same as the revelation to the Christian Church; and therefore the doctrine concerning Him is not the same. Indeed, were the revelation, and consequently the doctrine, the same, the New Church could lay no claim to being essentially New. It would be merely a restoration of the First Christian Church, with no prospect of further growth than was possible to that Church.

The New Church is New because to that Church the Lord has revealed Himself in a new Form, i. e., in a Form in which He never before has been seen by man,--He has revealed Himself not merely as a MAN in Human shape whose Divinity was testified to by His wonderful works and His teachings, as in the Christian Church; but as a Divine Man whose Human Form can be seen, not only with the natural eyes and the natural understanding, as revealed in the Gospels, but also with the eyes of the rational and spiritual man. The Lord who revealed Himself as a Man before the natural eyes of man, is now revealed as a Divine Glorified Man before the rational sight.

The wisdom of the New Church, therefore, consists in seeing the Lord in His Divine Human as now revealed. And where else is the Lord thus revealed? Where else does He thus appear? Where else can He be thus seen? Where, but in the Divine Revelation to the New Church? To separate the doctrine of the Lord from the doctrine concerning His appearance in this revelation, is to retard if not to destroy the New Church; it is to place the New Church on a par with the First Christian Church, with possibly a little more intelligent comprehension of the Lord's words concerning Himself. For of what advantage, for the establishment of a spiritual Church, is it, to know the things taught in the Writings concerning the Glorification, if such teachings do nothing more than to confirm us in the belief that the Lord who appeared to the Jews is indeed one with the Father?

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Such confirmation may indeed revive a state similar to the state of the Christian Church in its purity, but it will not establish a NEW Church. The teachings of the Revelation to the New Church are given us that we may first know and understand that the Lord Jesus Christ is indeed God and that He glorified His Human; and then that we may see that He who teaches is the Lord in this Glorified Human,--that the Truth now revealed is Himself appearing, opening the eyes of the blind that they may see Him as the Divine Mediator by whom alone is approach to the Father.

Unless the Lord Himself is seen as appearing in His revelation to the New Church, the teachings given in that revelation concerning Him can hardly be understood. We read of the Divine Human, the Glorified Lord, the Divine Rational, but what but obscure ideas do these terms bring to us unless we see Him who IS the Divine Glorified and Rational Man? And where does He thus appear except in the Revelation to the New Church? The Glorified Human is but obscurely revealed in the New Testament. The Lord is indeed there seen as a Man,--but a Man whose Divinity, whose Divine Rational, whose Glorified Human could hardly be seen. And His words, "I have many things to tell you, but ye cannot bear them now," were a promise that the Divine Man would reveal Himself in His Glorified Form.

This revelation is now given. The Lord now appears. And in His appearance He strives to open the blind eyes that they may see Him. The supreme doctrine of the New Church is the doctrine concerning this His appearance. This is the doctrine of the New Church concerning the Lord, concerning the Divine Human; and the wisdom of the Church consists in seeing and acknowledging the Lord as He is now revealed. Those who would confine the sight of the Church to the Old and New Testaments as the sole appearance of the Lord, are interiorly opposing the establishment of the NEW CHURCH. At the best their sight; does not extend much beyond the state of the First Christian Church in its purity. It is not surprising, therefore, that many of them act and speak as though the New Church were a sect of the Christian Church; that they fraternize with that Church, as it is at this day, and see in its spiritual darkness the signs of permeating spiritual light.

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MR. STROH'S BIOGRAPHY OF SWEDENBORG 1909

     In our last issue we referred to a new Biography of Swedenborg, written in Swedish by Mr. Alfrecl H. Stroh. The volume has now been received; it is a very neat little book of 175 pages entitled GRUNDDRAGEN OF SWEDENRORG'S LIF, (the Chief Features of Swedenborg's Life), published by the "Nykyrkliga Bokforlaget" (New Church Publishing Society), of Stockholm, and furnished with fifteen full-page portraits and illustrations.

     As was expected, Mr. Stroh incorporates in this volume many of the new facts which he has brought to light during his successive visits to Sweden during recent years. While most of these data may not in themselves be of momentous importance, yet they are all of interest and value as helping to fill out the picture and setting of Swedenborg's life.

     Among these new things there is an interesting account of Swedenborg's mother, Sarah Behm, and of his elder brother, Albertus, (or "Albrecht," according to Tafel's Documents). "From a very rare print," says Mr. Stroh, "an invitation to the burial, published in July, 1696, by Professor Schwede, the rector of Upsala University, it appears that she [Madame Swedberg] died of a sudden fever in Upsala, June 17th, 1696. Her mild and amiable character and her generosity to the poor are especially mentioned, and it is stated that she had planned an institution of charity for the poor shortly before her death. Having been left an orphan at an early age, she was educated by Jesper Swedberg's brother, Petrus, (ennobled Schonstrom), who had married her elder sister, Anna Margareta Behm. Married at the age of eighteen years, Swedenborg's mother was an exemplary wife, and her early death, when Swedenborg was but eight years old, must have made one of the strongest impressions of his childhood. His elder brother, Albertus, born in 1684, died of a fever ten days after the mother, on June 27th.

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The burial took place on July 19th, in the cathedral where the arch-dean, [Swedberg], had built a funeral vault in the midst of the nave, near the grave of Olof Rudbeck, the elder. The brother, Albertus, is mentioned by Professor Schwede as an especially gifted student. He had entered the university three years before, and had exhibited unusual talents in his studies, and much was expected from him. It thus appears that Swedberg's two elder sons were unusually advanced, for in the "Album studiosorum" of the university for 1699, Emanuel Swedberg is mentioned as possessing 'the best talents' (optinae indoles)."

     Mr. Stroh then presents a valuable sketch of Swedenborg's life at the university,--a chapter which was virtually unknown until the author commenced his investigations at Upsala. It appears that Emanuel entered the university on June 15th, 1699, at the tender age of eleven years; we might infer from this fact that he was a veritable infant prodigy, but it is probable that the earlier part of his course included what would now be termed a Gymnasium or Elementary school course. That, nevertheless, he was advanced beyond his years, is manifest from the verses which he wrote and published at the age of twelve years. To Mr. Stroh's previous discovery of the "Marriage Ode," of 1700, he now adds another verse, dated the same year, in which the youthful poet refers to the recent attack of Russia upon the Swedish possessions in the Baltic provinces.

     We learn also, for the first time, that Swedenborg, after his return to Sweden in 1715, made an effort to obtain a situation as secretary in his Alma Mater, but without success; and that his MS. work on "A new Method of Computation," (written in 1718), was discovered a few years ago, and was bought for the Royal Library in Stockholm through means presented by the famous Swedish-American inventor, John Ericsson.

     Many interesting facts are presented concerning the early "Literary Society," (or rather "Collegium Curiosorum") of Upsala,--the first learned Society in Sweden,--of which Swedenborg was a very active corresponding member. The great pestilence of 1710 had driven the students from the university, leaving the professors without an occupation.

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In order to infuse cheerfulness into the prevailing gloom, Eric Benzelius persuaded some of the professors to assemble once or twice a week at the university library in order to converse on scientific and literary subjects, and to correspond with Christopher Polhem and Emanuel Swedberg. No records of the meetings have been preserved, but it is now claimed "that the Daedalus Hyperborcus, published by Herr Swedberg in 1716-1718, was One of the fruits of their labors, and is thus to be regarded as the very first Transactions of the Royal Academy of Sciences." The Society was reorganized in 1719, and again in 1729, on which occasion Swedenborg was again elected a member. His letter of acceptance is one of the newly discovered documents, and he here refers for the first time to his proposed great works on Iron and Copper and the Principia, which did not appear until 1734 Another new document is his letter accepting the invitation to become a member of the Royal Academy of Sciences, which was the final outcome of the early Literary Society in Upsala.

Swedenborg's scientific career occupies by far the greater portion of the Biography, and many new things are here brought together. It is to be regretted, however, that the author did not here use his opportunity to present something of a systematic and well-digested summary of Swedenborg's grand universal principles and doctrines,--the doctrines of Influx, Degrees, Form, Motion, and Correspondence, together with an outline of his Cosmology, Physiology and Psychology, as seen from the point of view of a Newchurchman who alone is able to appreciate and expound these truths. Mr. Stroh, of course, gives some notice of these things, here and there, but in a rather disconnected and fragmentary manner. The space that might have been devoted to such a study is occupied instead by copious quotations from the recent laudatory pronouncements of great modern scientists, such as Nathorst, Arrhenius, Neuburger, Santeson and Retzius, all of whom, (with the exception of Retzius), exhibit a decidedly superficial knowledge and understanding of Swedenborg's general scientific and philosophical systems. In spite of all their exclamations of wonder at Swedenborg's "anticipations," they nevertheless assume quite a "superior" attitude of patronizing toleration towards the "primitive conceptions," the "naivite," the "theorizing and speculative tendencies," the "deficiencies, the faults, the incomplete proofs" of Swedenborg who, after all, "was but a child of his age, and who still believed in the existence of animal spirits!"

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Expressions such as these are to be expected, of course, from outsiders who really do not know what they are talking about; but to incorporate them, to such an extent, and without protest or correction, in a New Church biography of Swedenborg, may lead the reader to suppose that the author accepts these criticisms, which will fall upon willing ears among the general public.

Indeed, it is difficult to avoid the impression that the author is to some slight extent affected by the sphere of the aforesaid "friendly critics," for he himself repeatedly points out Swedenborg's limitations and the errors into which he is supposed to have fallen during the preparatory period. Those who believe in the special preparation, protection, and Divine guidance which Swedenborg enjoyed even during his scientific career will be slow in proclaiming the errors of Swedenborg, not only because of this special preparation, but also because they have so often found the supposed "errors" dissolve into thin air when the light of the later Writings has been thrown upon them. Nor will they be ready to accept the absolute divorce of the earlier works from the later ones which is pronounced by the author, who in this judgment simply follows the conventional view hitherto prevailing among the majority of New Church people. That "Swedenborg did not discover the soul by the path in which he sought it," is an assertion which has often been made but never proved.

The same applies to the author's further statement that Swedenborg "in the earlier period, regarded the whole of creation as one single series, and that both the soul and heaven were in the degree of the highest atmosphere." He realizes that "Swedenborg really meant" this, at the time, but believes that the idea was afterwards rejected. And yet the theological Writings are as emphatic as the scientific works in teaching that the whole of Creation, universally regarded, consists of but one single series, the whole being finite Nature which, throughout its many discrete degrees, is similar to itself from firsts to lasts, and as in greatests so in leasts.

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In the author's very brief treatment of the cosmological system of the Principia, we notice with pleasure that he recognizes the identity of the "First Natural Point" with the "Nexus" between the Infinite and the finite, and thus with the "Only-begotten" Son of God. The readers of the Life will remember that there has been considerable obscurity as to this in times past. We are therefore the more surprised to find that the author has not followed up this most important clue to the correlation of the Principia system with the Doctrine of Creation in the Writings, and that he has come; to the conclusion that our sun was formed before the first elementaries or supreme aura. We are told that "as soon as the first particles or finites are created, there arise certain spaces where great central sun-fires are formed, consisting of first 'actives.' These incipient suns come into a whirling motion and exercise a strong pressure upon the surrounding sphere of finites; thus are formed the first elementaries and certain high degrees of substances. The sun is finally covered with a crust of fourth finites." All this is rather bewildering to those students of the Principia who have formed the impression that at least the passive or material parts of the incipient suns were formed after the creation of the first elementaries and by a compression of its particles. As has been shown repeatedly in the Life, by unmistakeable quotations from the scientific works themselves, this first atmosphere is a spiritual aura, from which it follows that the centre of first "actives" is the same as the spiritual sun. A natural sun could never have produced a spiritual aura.

We must take exception, also, to Mr. Stroh's assertion that "Swedenborg was not acquainted with the [doctrine of] cells, for the later development of the microscope was necessary to the establishment of the cell-doctrine; but he nevertheless supposed that there must exist corporeal unities, which he called fibres, though I must express my difference from the opinion that Swedenborg's 'most simple fibres' should be identical with the cells of the modern age." Now, whether these are "identical" or not, we do not know, nor does it matter; but Swedenborg did not need the microscope to establish the "simple cortex" within each cortical gland as the most simple cell conceivable, a cell which the microscope will never reach.

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And what are the simple fibers but elongated cells, composing the entire vascular system, called the body, of which the Writings so often speak?

As a general rule we have always found it safe to dwell upon that which we know that Swedenborg knew, rather than upon that which we are not quite certain that Swedenborg did not know. How can we know that he did not know,--gifted as he was with a faculty of scientific intuition and philosophical perception which in each succeeding age compels a more and more astonished admiration even from the outside world of learning?

In his treatment of Swedenborg as a Theologian the author is treading on safer and more settled ground, and he presents Swedenborg without equivocation as the revelator, writing not from himself but by direct inspiration from the Lord alone. We could only wish that Mr. Stroh had made this aspect of Swedenborg the main portion of his biography, since it is certainly the most important. As it is, the general inquirer can gain from this work but a fleeting glimpse of the New Jerusalem. It must be remembered, however, that the evident design of the author has not been to produce a complete and lasting account of Swedenborg's life and work, but simply to bring "a wreath to his memory" on the occasion of the removal of Swedenborg's earthly remains from London and their re-interment in Upsala.

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MR. BENADE'S FIRST NEW CHURCH SCHOOL 1909

MR. BENADE'S FIRST NEW CHURCH SCHOOL THOMAS J. BEWLEY 1909

EDITOR New Church Life:-
     In your very interesting biography of the Rev. William Henry Benade you state that "Mr. Benade at this time (from 1848 to 1854) also conducted a private day school, concerning which, however, we possess but little information." (New Church Life, Oct., 1905, p. 606.)

     This statement having been called to my attention, I send herewith some reminiscences of this school of my childhood, in order that some records, however dim, should be preserved of this the very earliest effort of Mr. Benade in the grand work of New Church education. It is to be noted that this school was prior to the one opened by Mr. Benade in Cherry street, in 1856. While it was a private school, (for boys only), the pupils were all children of members connected with the Philadelphia First Society, of which Mr. Benade was then the pastor.

     Though I was then but five or six years old, I still remember being taken by my mother's sister to the meeting place of that Society in Simmon's Hall, on Locust street above Eighth street, where I was shortly afterwards baptized by the Rev. Richard DeCharms on November 20th, 1845

     Mr. Benade became the pastor in 1846, and the writer was present when he delivered his first discourse, and also when he delivered his resignation sermon in 1854. The school was opened some time between 1848 and 1850. Perhaps in 1849, and was conducted for some years in a house on Chant street,* (in the rear of St. Stephen's church on Tenth street, between Market and Chestnut streets).
     * The old house is still standing, on Delhi St., between Ludlow St. and De Gray Pl.--ED.

     I enclose a ground-plan of the school and its surroundings, with the stair-case, fuel room, desks, stove, wash-basin, preceptor's table, chair and easel.

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The school was on the second floor, the first floor being occupied by a warehouse. The sessions were from 9 a. m. to 2 p. m. on Saturdays until 12 noon.

     As to the studies I remember but little, but they included Reading and Writing, and some German, which some of the boys could prattle very well as it was used in their homes. Sometimes our preceptor read to us a little Hebrew, sometimes also Greek. Being quite an artist, Mr. Benade often made crayon drawings and landscapes on the easel. As to the text books I do not now recollect any except one entitled "Half Hours with the Best Authors,"--a compilation of pieces of poetry and prose. The poetry we had to re-write into prose. Some of the verses are still echoing in my mind, as for instance:

     A little nonsense now and then
     Is relished by the best of men.

     And this:

     All alone by the side of a pool
     A fisherman sat on a three-legged stool,
     Putting in order his line and his rod,
     And kicking his heels on the dewy sod.

     Among my fellow-pupils, (all young boys from ten to twelve years of age), I remember the following names:

     Henry Iungerich and John Iungerich, sons of Louis C. Iungerich, the merchant and banker.

     Frederick Pehrson, son of Dr. Pehrson.

     James Alden Arthur, and William Arthur, sons of T. S. Arthur, the publisher and author.

     George Frost, son of John Frost, LL. D., principal of the Central High School.

     Frederick Keffer, son of Mr. Keffer, the merchant.

     Louis Geisse, son of Louis Geisse, furrier.

     Francis Siddall, son of Mr. Siddall, conveyancer.

     George DeCharms, son of Rev. Richard DeCharms.

     I remember well one Saturday, when a few of the boys, (Alden Arthur, George Frost, and the writer), were detained after school for some misdemeanor. Mr. Benade went out and locked us up in the room, but we broke the lock with a pair of scissors, and scampered out, homeward bound, angry but scared.

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The following Monday morning we returned to school with much trepidation in our little hearts, but were much gratified as well as surprised that the ever ready rod had not been in the pickle for us; our preceptor was a firm believer in the proverb: "save the rod, and spoil the boy," as some of us knew from painful experience.

     Another day, when a relative of Fred Keffer had met with an accident on the ice, (being out skating on the Schuylkill), a small boy broke into the school room screaming: "O, Keffer, Reffer, German is drownded, and he is home now getting on dry clothes." Which caused great glee to Mr. Benade and the boys!

     I cannot tell when the school was moved from this room, but some of us continued for a while with Mr. Benade in his own residence, on the north side of Wistar street, west of Tenth street, and north of Spring Garden street. The house was owned by Mr. Benj. Davis, the father of Mr. Benade's first wife. If I remember correctly, the inchoate collegians were too much for Mrs. Benade, and so the school dissolved, sometime in 1852 or 1853.

     All this took place now nearly sixty years ago, and it has been something of a task for the writer to "cudgel his dull brain," like the gravedigger in Hamlet, but I think that this brief account is on the whole substantially correct.
     THOMAS J. BEWLEY.

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Church News 1909

Church News Various 1909

     FROM OUR CORRESPONDENTS.

     BRYN ATHYN, PA. The mid-winter months are among the busiest in an educational center, and consequently the least eventful from a news-gatherer's point of view. Nevertheless there are certain anniversaries which are utilized as bases of teaching, historical and otherwise, and at these points the intellectual interest usually descends and clothes itself with social occasions, which add much to the impression made by the teaching. Of such a nature especially is Swedenborg's Birthday, and this year the Lincoln Centenary (February 12th) rather displaced the Washington's Birthday, (February 22d), in interest.

     January 29th falling upon a Friday it was decided to unite the school celebration with the Friday Supper of the local Church. A new toastmaster, Mr. E. E. Iungerich, marshaled for our delectation an entirely new set of speakers and songs. Even the decorations and the supper were new and original, inspired largely by those who visited Swedenborg's fatherland last summer. A new Swedish flag was unveiled by two fair-haired daughters of that far-famed land, dressed in the quaint old national costumes, and a patriotic speech was delivered by a Junior student of Swedish birth, Mr. Hugo Ljungberg Odhner. The song, "Swedenborg the Norseman," set to the tune of a very old Swedish folk-song, and a Swedish national song, were very striking. The other speakers were all members of the Senior class of the College. Mr. Madefrey Alethes Odhner spoke on "The Gifts of Sweden to Swedenborg and his Mission." Mr. John Colley on the "Gifts of England," and Mr. Sidney B. Childs on the "Gifts of Holland" to the revelator and his work. The Rev. J. E. Rosenqvist later on presented an outline of the history of the New Church in Sweden, and Prof. Odhner read some extremely interesting communications just received from our friend, Mr. Gerrit Barger, of the Hague, describing recent developments in Holland and Belgium, which may lead to the organization of a "Swedenborg Society" in the Netherlands.

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     The Local School celebration was held the following evening, utilizing the beautiful blue and yellow table decorations. Sixty children participated, and interesting speeches were made by the boys of the oldest class.

     The Lincoln Centenary was marked in the Seminary by an address from Rev. Wm. H. Alden. The Local School held a public session of their "Literary Society," with many classic recitations and other exercises, terminating in a spirited debate upon the ever vexing Race Problem.

     The School Social upon the following evening was lacking in nothing but the attendance of certain undergraduates, who had pressing engagements in their rooms, owing to an untimely decision to help themselves to a holiday on the twelfth.

     Prof. Odhner, on Friday evenings, is delivering a series of lectures to the older pupils upon the leading and distinctive Principles of the Academy.

     Mrs. Bessie E. Colley is delivering a series of weekly lectures upon the history of the Opera. The Bishop's doctrinal class on Friday evenings, and his educational class on Tuesday afternoons, have been resumed. Besides these there are a number of private classes studying Swedenborg's "Science" in the evenings. H. S.

     PHILADELPHIA, PA. On Christmas Day the Sunday School festival was the most prominent part of the services, which were introduced by the baptism of an infant. The Hall of Worship was prettily decorated, and the usual representation of the Shepherds coming to offer homage to the Lord was enjoyed by young and old. The pastor, in the course of the celebration, addressed the children particularly, explaining to them the reason of the Lord's Coming into the world, and showing them how they could show their appreciation of this the greatest sign of the Lord's love.

     The Society had provided gifts for all the children, and, at the close of the services a substantial Christmas offering was presented to the pastor.

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     On December 13th the pulpit was filled by the Rev. Wm. Whitehead, of Bryn Athyn.

     The Wednesday evening Doctrinal class, which, last Fall, met in Frau Muller's Studio, has since New Year been held in the hospitable home of Mr. and Mrs. Fr. Pflueger.

     On January 1st Mr. and Mrs. Roehner gave a children's party in their home, at which also several adults were present. After spending the early evening in games and singing all present partook of a most enjoyable supper.

     Since last December the Sunday School has enjoyed the services of Mrs. Hilldale, who efficiently teaches the youngest class.

     Swedenborg's Birthday was celebrated with a banquet in the Hall of Worship on Sunday, January 31st. Sixty-six persons, including some ten or twelve guests from Bryn Athyn, were present.

     The pastor's new address is Joseph E. Rosenqvist, 2611 Folsom St., Philadelphia, Pa.

     CHICAGO, ILL. Our Christmas celebration was held on Christmas eve. We had a short service in the church after which we all adjourned to the class-room, where a pretty tree delighted the children.

     Our pastor and his wife attended the Canada Assembly so that we had no services until January tenth, when the regular monthly Sunday dinner was enjoyed by forty or more of the congregation.

     Our pastor gave us some of the spirit and proceedings of the Berlin Assembly in a short, but interesting speech. We were all especially interested in what he told us of Mr. Acton's report of the proceedings of the Kramph Case.

     After dinner and a pleasant social time we cleared the tables and prepared for the Ladies' meeting in the church-room while the men adjourned to one of the smaller rooms for their business meeting.

     These monthly dinners call forth a larger attendance and greater interest than any meetings we have had previously in the Sharon church. E. V. W.

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      BERLIN, ONT. The Ontario Assembly, held here from December 31st to January 3d, was in every respect a most successful gathering. The attendance was very large, and an earnest spirit prevailed throughout. A full report will doubtless appear in the Life.

     Since January the Friday class has been studying the subject of The Angels and Spirits Associated with Man, and much interest is manifested.

     Swedenborg's Birthday was celebrated by the School on January 28th with a social during the afternoon and evening, including a supper prepared by the oldest class. A delightful time was spent. The Society's celebration of the day was held in the evening of the 29th, after the regular Friday supper. There were a number of toasts, and the theme running through them all was the title by which Swedenborg calls himself,--"The Servant of the Lord." It was brought out that as Swedenborg was the servant of the Lord for the establishment of the New Church, so should we all, though in a far humbler sphere, also be such servants for the same great end, acknowledging that all we do is not our work, but the Lord's through us. After the toasts followed a social.

     On Saturday evening, February 13th, the married couples were invited to the house of Mr. and Mrs. Richard Roschman, and spent an enjoyable time celebrating the birthday of the hostess. W.

     TORONTO, ONT. The children's Christmas service was held on the evening of Wednesday the 23d--the offering being for the Scholarship Fund. After the service the doors of the school-room were opened, displaying a pretty Christmas tree which held a present for each child in the Society. Judging by the spirit of fun which prevailed, the grown-ups enjoyed it equally with the little folks. The evening concluded with the children's singing a number of their regular school-songs.

     The Seventh Ontario Assembly began on December 31st. Throughout the meetings a strong desire to enter more deeply into the understanding of spiritual things, was evinced.

     The interesting papers and discussions, with the proverbial hospitality of our Berlin friends, made us feel that the last was the best Assembly yet.

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It seemed to renew our love for the Church in an unusual degree.

     After our return home we could not get out of the Assembly sphere. At the first Wednesday supper of the New Year an account of the Assembly was given; and Mr. Shierholtz, of Berlin, who happened to be with us, provoked a good deal of merriment by way, presumably, of aiding digestion. Those gentlemen of the Society who could meet together at noon, took their luncheons down town, at which the Assembly discussions were continued. Then Mr. Carswell generously provided an excellent supper at a men's meeting at the church to which the ladies were invited. This idea was an innovation and, in consequence, the courtesy of the gentlemen deprived them of considerable of the hazy atmosphere (natural not mental) that prevails on such occasions. But the ladies thoroughly enjoyed the speeches--the subject considered being "The Uses of Assemblies."

     So earnest and delightful a sphere prevailed at this meeting that it seemed like a second Assembly. The gentlemen are considering inviting the ladies to other of their meetings during the winter.

     What was, perhaps, the most ambitious effort our young people have yet made, was crowned with success when they presented on the 21st and 22d of January, Oliver Goldsmith's delightful comedy, "She Stoops to Conquer." It was produced under the management of our actor-manager, Dr. Richardson. The audience certainly enjoyed every minute of the entertainment. Each member of the company was excellent, but Miss Edina Carswell, in her character-study of Mrs. Hardcastle and Mr. Norman Bellinger as a laughter-provoking Tony made the hits of the performance. A photograph of one of the scenes of this production was published in the Sunday Toronto Would, of February 14th.

     The children's celebration of Swedenborg's birthday was held on the afternoon of the 28th of January, the Society's celebration held on the evening of the 29th. Mr. Cronlund's paper was on Swedenborg's most prominent Characteristics. He dealt particularly on Swedenborg's courage.

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The paper showed that Swedenborg passed through spiritual experiences which no other man ever had and this in preparation for the revelation which the Lord made through him. The evil spirits were permitted to assail him so grievously that it seemed as though he must be annihilated yet he never doubted the Lord was protecting him.

     Two of the Berlin young people-Miss Edith Roschman and Miss Alma Roschman have been visiting us since the New Year. B. S.

     LONDON, ENGLAND. A new feature of the doings of a section of this Society, well worthy of chronicling, is the institution of socials for the younger members, held at the home of one of their number. Two have now been held and have been most successful. Papers are read and discussed, toasts honored, etc., etc. Already a noticeable increase of good fellowship amongst the younger people seems to have been prompted by this means, and we have been able to realize more than ever that we are one family in the Lord's New Church.

     We have had the great pleasure of a visit from Miss Venita Pendleton, and in the course of her brief stay in London a social was held to enable us to make her acquainted more fully; and a most enjoyable meeting it proved to be.

     Our celebration of Swedenborg's birthday this year again took the form of a sumptuous banquet, provided by the ladies.

     Our pastor read us a most interesting paper on the nature of Swedenborg's preparation for his great use; and seven gentlemen compiled papers, from references given them by our pastor, on various dualities of the revelation given us through Swedenborg, and also concerning the characteristics of the New Church and of those who will constitute it. Mr. Anderson also favored us with a most apposite paper, dealing with feasts and their origin and use. Needless to say all present spent a most useful and happy evening. W. R. G.

     FROM OUR CONTEMPORARIES.

     UNITED STATES. The Rev. Arthur Mercer, pastor of the Baltimore Society, has accepted a call to the BROOKLYN Society.

     The small circle of German New Church people in BROOKLYN, presided over by Mr. Muhlert, has united with the Rev. Mr. Diehl's Society.

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CANADA. The BERLIN Society celebrated Swedenborg's birthday by a supper, which was followed by a meeting at which subjects suitable to the occasion were discussed. The Rev. E. D. Daniels, who is now the pastor of the Society, was present as a guest.

MAURITIUS. In the month of September last, the first wedding ceremony celebrated by a New Church minister in this island, took place. The bridegroom was Rivaltz de Chazal, son of Auguste de Chazal, formerly President of the New Church Society there, and grandson of the late Edmond de Chazal, who may be said to have been the principal agent under Providence in founding the New Church in Mauritius. The bride was Jeanne d'Unienville, daughter of the late Arthur d'Unienville, a foundation member of the society. It was, besides, the first marriage ceremony performed in the church lately erected in Curepipe, the second town of the island. The building was very elegantly decorated with flowers, and there was a very large attendance of friends and relatives. The Sunday morning services held in the church at Curepipe are attended by from 55 to 65 persons, which is about three times more than the numbers formerly attending the services in a private house, before the arrival of Dr. Fercken, in December, 1909. In Port Louis, the capital of Mauritius, regular services are held on Sunday afternoons, the congregations ranging from fifteen to twenty, about twice the number formerly attending the usual monthly morning services. Before Dr. Fercken's arrival the members of the society came from all parts of the island at Christmas and Easter, and then about one hundred persons attended, sometimes more; whereas the present congregations are nearly, if not entirely, drawn from Port Louis itself. The increase in church attendance is, therefore, the more marked.

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PIETY.* 1909

PIETY.* Rev. F. E. WAELCHLI 1909

ANNOUNCEMENTS.

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     NEW CHURCH LIFE.

     Vol. XXIX. APRIL, 1909.          No. 4.
     * Read the Ontario Assembly, Saturday, January 2, 1909.

     The general doctrine concerning piety is given in the Arcana Coelestia, as follows:

     "With the man of the Church there must be the life of piety and there must be the life of charity. They must be conjoined. The life of piety without the life of charity is conducive to nothing; but the former with the latter to all things. The life of piety is to think piously and to speak piously, to pray much to behave humbly then, to frequent temples, and then to hearken devoutly to the preachings, and to approach the sacrament of the Supper frequently every year, and so with all the other things of worship according to the ordinance of the Church. But the life of charity is to will well and to do well to the neighbor, to act in every employment from justice and equity, and from good and truth, in like manner in every function; in a word, the life of charity consists in performing uses. The verimost worship of the Lord consists in the life of charity, but not in the life of piety without it; the life of piety without the life of charity is to want to consult for oneself alone, not for the neighbor: but the life of piety with the life of charity is to want to consult for oneself for the sake of the neighbor; the former life is from love to self, but the latter is from love towards the neighbor. Man also is such as is the duality of his life of charity, but not such as is the quality of his life of piety without the former: hence the life of charity remains with man to eternity, but not the life of piety, only so far as the latter is in concord with the former." (8252-6.)

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     The teaching here given concerning the relation of charity and piety is given again and again, in various forms, in the Writings. In many places, the life of charity is called internal worship and the life of piety external worship.

     Piety without charity is hypocrisy, mockery, profanation; it is infernal and dead. This teaching may cause something of anxious concern with the truly humble man; for such a man believes himself to be not in charity, but rather in its opposite. But let it be borne in mind that charity exists whatever there is the shunning of evil as sin. No one can know the state of his internal man,--can know to what extent charity is there established; but he can know whether he is in the endeavor to come into charity by the shunning of evil as sin against God. We are taught that "the first of charity is to look to the Lord, and shun evils because they are sins; which is done by repentance" (D. Char. I); also that "unless a man shuns evils, his acts of worship and likewise all his works are not good." (D. Life 30.)

     The teaching of the doctrines is not, therefore, that a state must be established wherein charity rules in all intentions, thoughts and acts, in order that worship may be acceptable to the Lord. For while it is true that such a state must exist in order that worship, may be perfect, since it is only then that worship is fully corresponding ultimate and sign of that which is within,--a body corresponding with its soul; and while no other worship than that which flows from such an internal exists in heaven: nevertheless the Lord provides that man during his life in the world, while from natural he is being made spiritual, may be in a worship relatively imperfect, in order that by it he may be led to that which is perfect. Concerning the two kinds of worship we read:

     "Man, before he is regenerated, is in worship from truth, but when he is regenerated, he is in worship from good; for before man is regenerated, he is led by truth to good, that is, by faith to charity, but when he is regenerated, he is in good and thence in truth, that is, he is in charity and thence in faith." (A. C. 8935)

     "They are of the external Church who do good to the neighbor and worship the Lord solely from the obedience of faith; but they are of the internal Church who do these things from love." (A. C. 8762)

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     Who are of the internal Church and who of the external is variously defined in the Writings. In certain passages there are included among those of the external Church some who are in a state that is relatively very external; as in the following:

     "Here it shall be briefly said, what the internal of the Word, of the Church and of worship, is; what their external in which is an internal; and what the external without the internal. In the internal of the Word, of the Church and of worship are they who love to do truth for the sake of truth from internal affection, thus from spiritual affection. In the external, in which is an internal, are they who love truth for the sake of truth, but from external affection, thus from natural affection; these latter are men of the external Church, but the former of the internal, for in every Church there are internal men and there are external. But they who are in external worship without internal, love truth not for the sake of truth, but for the sake of gains in the world, thus they do not love to do truths except for the sake of themselves, or that they may be seen I these are not within the Church, but out of it. They who love to do truth for the sake of truth from internal or spiritual affection, when they hear truths, rejoice, and think about a life according to them; but they who love truth for the sake of truth from external or natural affection, when they hear truth, also rejoice, but do not think about a life according to it, nevertheless it flows in from the internal whilst they are ignorant of it. But they who love truth for the sake of gains in the world, think nothing about life, neither does anything inflow from the internal, for they only make truths to be things of the memory, to the end that they may speak about them." (A. C. 10683.)

     We are here taught that those are of the external church, and thus in the external of worship, who love truth from natural affection, and rejoice when they hear it, although they to not think about a life according to it. Nevertheless, in this external there is an internal, established by a good and upright moral life in accordance with the precepts of the Decalogue in its natural sense. Interior truths do not appeal to them as things of life, yet they rejoice in them, and the truths become unconsciously vessels of the good inflowing from the internal.

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In such a state are well-disposed young people and many of the simple-good among adults. With these the affection active in worship is external, and yet there is that within it which makes it acceptable to the Lord.

     Concerning the difference between worship when man is regenerated, or in a heavenly state, and worship when he is being regenerated, or is being led to heaven, we have this further teaching:

     "By worship in the internal sense is understood all conjunction by love and charity; external worship is only an effect; the angels are in such worship, wherefore with them there is a perpetual Sabbath, whence also the Sabbath in the internal sense signifies the kingdom of the Lord. But man when he is in the world, ought not otherwise than be also in external worship, for by external worship internal things are excited, and by external worship externals are held in sanctity so that internal things may inflow; besides, man is thus imbued with cognitions, and prepared for receiving heavenly things, as also he is gifted with states of sanctity, which he does not know, which states of sanctity are conserved for him by the Lord for use in eternal life; for all man's states of life return in the other life." (A. C. 1618.)

     We are here told that the angels are in internal worship, "but that man, when he is in the world, ought not otherwise than be also in external worship." This does not mean that external worship is only for this world, and does not exist in heaven; for we are taught that "angels, as well as men, have doctrines, preaching, and temples or churches" (H. H. 222), and that Divine worship with them, as to externals, is not unlike that which is on earth. (ibid.) What is meant is that man, while on earth, ought, for the sake of being led into the heavenly state, to engage in external worship, even though this may not he in full harmony and correspondence with his internal worship. Such external worship does not exist in heaven, for there the external is the effect of the internal, and is always in full harmony and correspondence with it, since everything tending to destroy this perfect agreement is quiescent.

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But not so with man in the world, all that is unregenerate with him is still in a state of activity, constantly disturbing the Sabbath or peace of internal worship, and interfering with its spontaneous ultimation in external worship. Nevertheless, "man, when he is in the world, ought not otherwise than be also in external worship," and this to the end that what is internal and heavenly may be established in him. That this end can be accomplished by external worship is shown to be for the following reasons: first, because by external worship internal things are excited; second, because by external worship, externals are held in sanctity so that internal things may inflow; third, because man is thus imbued with cognitions, and prepared for receiving heavenly things; fourth, because he is gifted with states of sanctity, which he does not know, and which are conserved for him by the Lord for use in eternal life. Let us briefly consider each of these reasons.

     First. By external worship internal things are excited. The internal things which are excited are the remains which have been implanted by the Lord. These are brought into activity by external worship, and a desire is awakened to cease to do evil and learn to do well.

     Second. By external worship externals are held in sanctity so that internals may inflow. External worship, effects in the external man of him who has anything internal, states of piety, and this even in spite of the evil conditions which may prevail there at other times. These states of piety, occurring from time to time, are of great use, for by them the natural with man is so disposed that influx from heaven may ultimate itself therein, and, as it were, gain a foot-hold there, which could not otherwise be obtained.

     Third. By external worship man is imbued with cognitions, and prepared for receiving heavenly things. In other words, he can thus be led, in accordance with Divine order, by truth to good. And this imbuing with cognitions during worship is a deeper imbuing than that which takes place when truths are studied in a more intellectual manner, because of the activity of the affections at the time.

     Fourth. By external worship man is gifted with states of sanctity, which he does not know, and which are conserved for him by the Lord for use in eternal life.

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These states are those of holy veneration of the Lord and of deep humility before Him. During man's life on earth, these states, evident during worship, are to a great extent obscured in daily life by the doings of the world, which constantly draw the thoughts away from the Divine; nevertheless, with the good, they are stored up within, and thence operate secretly upon the external life; and when man enters the other world they will flow forth freely into all things of his angelic life.

     The law pertaining to the establishment of true worship with man is that which pertains to the establishment of all things of the Church with him, which law is given us in the following words:

     "Man, before he becomes a Church, that is, before he is regenerated, is in externals: and whilst being regenerated, he is led from externals, yea, by means of externals, to internals; and afterwards, when he is regenerated, all things which are of the internal man are terminated in externals." (A. C. 1083.)

     In accordance with this law it is also said:

     "All worship is natural in its beginning, and afterwards becomes spiritual through truths from the Word and a life according to them." (A. R. 161.)

     The relation of external worship to internal, or of piety to charity, and their conjunction, is the same as the relation of faith to charity and their conjunction. External worship or piety is faith active in the affections. As counterfeited faith, which is faith alone, is death, so is counterfeited piety, or piety alone. As faith leads to charity, with those who heed the call to repentance, so does piety lead to charity. As faith is first in time, but charity first in end, so piety is first in time and charity first in end. And as charity, when established, ultimates and clothes itself in faith, so it also ultimates and clothes itself in piety.

     While the verimost essential in the worship of the Lord is the life of charity, yet external worship or the life of piety is also an essential,--an essential so important that there cannot be a Church without it. It is the external in which the internal, or charity, must terminate, in order that it may endure and not be dissipated.

     "There cannot be a Church, unless it be internal and external.

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The internal without the external would be something indeterminate, unless terminated in something external; for man is such, and indeed for the verimost part, that he does not know what the internal man is, and what is of the internal man I wherefore unless there should be external worship, he would not at all know what is holy." (A. C. 1083)

     Thus external worship or piety is that which brings to man's consciousness the holiness of that which is in the internal from the Lord, causing it to be seen and felt. It is the indication or memorial of that holiness, or, as it is called in the Writings, its sign. Indeed, it is the very body in which charity may dwell, and without which it could not live and endure; for we read:

     "Spiritual life and prayer constitute a one like the soul and the body." (A. E. 325:7).

     Piety is an external, a habitation of that which is internal. Yet because it is such, it is in no wise to be esteemed lightly: for, like the internal which it contains, it is holy. In fact, it is, as we have seen, the plane on which the holiness of that which is internal comes to the sense of man. Because it is such, the affections and principles which pertain to it are deeply implanted in the interiors of man's life, so deeply, that when man enters the other world, whatever is not genuine in his worship cannot be removed and eradicated except very gradually. (A. C. 9872.) Piety, therefore, although an external, is a thing of man's interior life.

     Worship is holy, because it is the ultimate from which man looks to the Lord for purification from evil and the reception of spiritual life, thus for salvation. In it man speaks to the Lord and is answered by Him. In it is made that confession and supplication which are the door of entrance to repentance and newness of life. In it are expressed that thankfulness, praise and adoration which are offered to the Lord for all His mercies.

     The chief thing in the worship of every regenerating man is supplication,--not only the supplication expressed in prayer, but also that which is active in the mind when the Word is read and meditated upon. He who desires to be delivered from evil and led into good,-to be saved from hell and brought into heaven,--must supplicate the Lord for these mercies. He cannot obtain them without supplication.

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This is the case, not because the Lord desires supplication for His own sake, but because man needs to become a supplicant in order that he may he in a state in which he can be freed from evil and be led into good. Without supplication there is no humiliation, and without humiliation there is no recognition of one's evil state and weakness, and no looking to the Lord as the One who is Good Itself and from Whom is all good. And he who does not recognize that he is evil and unable of himself to be in good, and does not look to the Lord for deliverance and for the reception of good, cannot be freed from evil add be led into good.

     Since supplication is essential to salvation, the Lord has ordained it as one of the principal things of worship. This is evident both from the letter of the Word and from the Writings of the Church. In the letter of the Word supplication is taught in very many passages; but the chief of all these is the Lord's Prayer, which consists principally of supplications. Among the teachings given in the Writings on the subject, are the following:

     "There are two duties incumbent on man to be done after exploration; these are Supplication and Confession." (T. C. R. 539).

     "He who lives the life of faith, daily does the work of repentance; for he reflects upon the evils appertaining to himself, acknowledges them, bewares of them, and supplicates the Lord for aid. (A. C. 8391.)

     From this it is evident that supplication is a daily duty of worship. As, however, the Lord has ordained that one day of every seven should be devoted particularly to worship and instruction in Divine things, therefore that day should more than others be a day for supplication. Such being the case, supplication should constitute a most important part in the ritual of worship. In the new liturgy of the General Church this essential of worship is everywhere evident.

     The importance of supplication is evident from the fact that it, more than any other thing of worship, is active with the regenerating man not only when he is formally engaged in worship, but also on many occasions in his daily active life, when he lifts up his heart in a silent supplication for aid,--in a cry to the Lord for mercy, a cry which does not come from the lips, but which vibrates in the recesses of his spirit and is heard in heaven. (A. C. 9202.)

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Such a silent cry will come again and again from him who is struggling with his evils.

     No, however, only supplication, but all worship has for its end man's regeneration. For we are taught:

     "All worship has for its end that man may be purified from evils and falses, consequently that goods and truths from the Lord may be implanted in him, and that thus he may be regenerated." (A. C. 10022.)

     That glorification of the Lord, as well as supplication, conduces to salvation, provided there be humility in it, is taught in the following:

     "The man who glorifies the Lord, does it from holy veneration for Him as being the Supreme, and from humiliation of himself as being respectively nothing, and whereas in glorification of the Lord by man there is thus holy veneration and humiliation, man is then in a state of receiving the influx of good from the Lord, and thus love to Him." (A. C. 8263.)

     "Divine love is to will worship and to will glory not for the sake of itself. But for the sake of man and his salvation; for he who worships the Lord, and gives glory to the Lord is in humiliation, and from him who is in humiliation, the proprium recedes, and in proportion as the proprium recedes, in the same proportion the Divine is received, for the proprium of man is what alone opposes the Divine, since the proprium of man is evil and false. This is the glory of the Lord, and worship of Him is for the sake of that end." (A. C. 10646.)

     These teachings clearly manifest the importance of glorification in worship, and show the need of ritual for that purpose,--a need which is well supplied in our new liturgy.

     What has been said of the use which worship serves, indicates, without the need of further demonstration, how necessary it is that the Church have proper forms of worship. Such forms the General Church has not been able to find, except to a limited extent, in the liturgies of the Church hitherto published. The reason why it has not been able to find them is obvious from the teaching that "worship is prescribed in doctrine, and performed according to it." (H. D. 6).

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The General Church has its own or peculiar doctrine, the first and last of which is that the Lord in His Divine Human as He reveals Himself in His Word of His Second Advent is the god who is to be loved, obeyed and worshiped. This doctrine prescribes the worship of the General Church, and in accordance with it is the ritual which has now been provided. There is now possible, as never before, for the men of this church a piety which expresses the truths of their faith.

     In the number from the Arcana, quoted at the beginning of this paper, the things which constitute piety are enumerated. A similar enumeration, but more complete, is given in the doctrine of Charity, as follows:

     "All things of worship are externals of the body and of the mind. The externals of the body are performed by acts and by words; and the externals of the mind are those that are performed by the will and the understanding, which have connection with the externals of the body.

     "The externals of the body which pertain to worship are:-1. Going to church. 2. Listening to sermons. 3. Devoutly singing, and praying on the knees. 4. Partaking of the Supper. And at home -1. Prayer morning and evening, and at meals. 2. Conversing with others about charity and faith, and about God, heaven, eternal life, and salvation. 3. And in the case of priests, preaching and also private instruction. 4. And with every one, the instruction of children and servants in such matters. 5. Reading the Word, and books of instruction and of piety.

     "The externals of the mind which pertain to worship are:-1. Though and meditation concerning God, and concerning heaven, eternal life, and salvation. 2. Reflection upon one's thoughts and intentions, as to whether they are evil or good, and that the evil are from the devil, and the good from God. 3. Aversion of one's mind from impious, obscene, and filthy language. 4. Besides thoughts, there are also affections which come to the sight and sense of a man." (114-116.)

     Each of the things here enumerated might usefully be considered at length. But we can now do no more than speak briefly concerning certain ones of them.

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     Listening to sermons.-In the number in the Arcana it is said, "Devoutly listening to sermons." This is an act of worship, of piety, and therefore holy. This fact should be recognized in man's mental and bodily attitude.

     Partaking of the Supper.-In the Arcana it is said, "To approach the sacrament of the Supper frequently every year." The word "frequently" no doubt indicates that this act of worship should take place oftener in the year than is our custom. The Church hesitates to do this, for the probably valid reason that this holiest act of worship might not be sufficiently venerated, or might be regarded as common. It is probably wise to wait for the day when the life of piety is more strongly established in the Church, which day will come.

     Prayer morning and evening, and at meals.-In the Arcana it is said, "To pray much." The Lord during His life on earth prayed much. Whatever interpretation may be put on this expression, it do doubt means that most men of the Church should pray more than they do. At least, there should be the prayers morning and evening, and at meals, and these should be devout, and not a mere saying of empty words.

     The instruction of children and servants in spiritual things.--This is a duty at home, a duty altogether too little performed. It is something different from the reading which the children hear in family worship. It is not necessarily formal instruction, but rather instruction given in conversation as opportunity arises. The school cannot supply what is lost if this is not done in the home. And we may add, the child who is deprived of such instruction is deprived of a treasure of life the value of which is inestimable.

     Reading the Word, and books of instruction and piety.-Much is said, and often said, in our Church concerning the importance of reading the Word and the Writings. But has the exhortation not perhaps been too much that this should be done in order that a knowledge of many truths may be acquired? Would not reading become more universal if the exhortation were more to read as an act of piety, that is, with the end of seeing that which applies to life? All who are well-disposed might, perhaps, be led to read for this end; while comparatively few are of a disposition to devote themselves to the more intellectual doctrinal study, although this is, indeed, very important, for, as we are taught, by it faith is perfected.

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     Thought and meditation concerning God, and concerning heaven, eternal life, and salvation.-Without meditation truth cannot be clearly seen, and faith can be but little perfected. In this busy world of ours there seems to be but little time for meditation. However, there is one day on which it can be done,-the Sabbath. One of the uses for which this day is set apart is that of meditation, and it should be the rule of every man of the Church to fulfill this use. If there were more meditation, we would not find it so difficult to observe another of the things of piety, namely, "Conversing with others about charity and faith, and about God, heaven, eternal life, and salvation."     Thoughts to be expressed in such conversation would not be lacking, neither would the affection of expressing them.

     Initiation into the life of piety should begin in childhood. It is a part of the work of education, and an important part. By instruction in the truths of the Word, reverence for the Divine is implanted, and by worship this reverence is confirmed. It is already in childhood, we are taught, that there begins that in rooting of worship in the interiors of man's life, of which we have already spoken. (A. C. 1992) But more than this takes place: for by means of worship are implanted in the interiors the most important of all remains, upon which will brood the Spirit of God when the time comes for the creation of Heaven and the Church on entrance into adult life.

     Piety enters largely into the education of children, and also of those somewhat older, in the other world. We read concerning the education of infants;

     "They read the Lord's Prayer, and learn prayers from their nurses, by means of influx out of heaven. There are preachers for them." (S. D. 5668.)

     And concerning the education of maidens:

     "They have the written Word and hymn-books; and with these they go to preachings. Preachers sometimes visit and examine them." (S. D. 5660-67.)

     It is a question worthy of consideration whether piety has entered sufficiently into our work of education both in home and school.

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It is likely that it has not, since our Church has until lately not recognized as it should the importance of the life of piety, and no doubt has yet much to learn in regard to it. It is something that needs to be cultivated, and, indeed, cultivated first as a duty, until in time it becomes an affection. Concerning piety from duty we read in the Diary:

"I perceived in a spiritual idea, that prayers to the Lord, if made from conscience, as a duty, are then good, but that if thereby something is obtained or merited, it is not good, yea it is evil" (3126).

But in the cultivation of piety let us ever be on our guard that what we cultivate be not a mere empty, dead form. Let us heed the warning given in the doctrines: "To imitate heavenly affections in worship, when man is in evils from the love of self, is infernal." (A. C. 10309.)

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LEAVING THE FIRST LOVE 1909

LEAVING THE FIRST LOVE Rev. W. F. PENDLETON 1909

     "Nevertheless I have against thee, that thou hast left thy first love. Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent. (Rev. ii. 4, 5.)

     Two things mark the opening of the Apocalypse, first, the appearing of the Lord to John as the Son of Man, walking in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks, and second, the message to the seven churches; and John is told that by the seven golden candlesticks are meant the seven churches. Said the Son of Man unto him, "Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter; the mystery of the seven stars, which thou sawest in my right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches; and the seven candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven churches." (i, 19, 20) And the seven churches are named Ephesus, Smyma, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea. The words we have just quoted close the first chapter of the Apocalypse, and the second chapter opens with the message to the angel of the church in Ephesus, in which message the words of the text occur.

     Like all things in the Word of God the message to the seven churches is of wonderful spiritual significance, and the words that are said have in them an infinity of meaning that does not appear, or hardly appears, upon the surface or in the literal statement of what was written. Let us endeavor to catch as we go along, something of the spirit of what is said in this Divine message, especially in that part of the message which was sent to the angel of the church in Ephesus, and more especially in that portion of the message which has been chosen for our consideration this morning.

     We are taught that the words of the message to the churches have a spiritual sense, which is for the angels of heaven, and also for men on earth, who are able to receive and understand it; and we are informed in respect to this message, that by the seven stars which are the angels of the seven churches, is signified the New Church in the heavens, which is the New Heaven; and that by the seven candlesticks which are the seven churches, is signified the New Church on the earth, which is the New Jerusalem coming down from the Lord out of the New Heaven. (A. R. 65, 66.)

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     There is a church in the heavens, and there is a church on earth, and the church, whether in the heavens or on earth, is in itself one; though in the church there is variety according to reception. The church in itself is one, because the Lord is one; but in proceeding from the Lord the church takes on variety because of the various states of reception with men. But because the church in itself is one, there is harmony in the variety; and we are told that these varieties may be compared to the various jewels in a king's crown; and they may also be compared to the various members and organs in a perfect body, which still make one. The perfection of every form exists from various things suitably arranged in their order." (A. R. 66.)

     Since the "perfection of every form exists from various things suitably arranged in their order," the perfection of the New Church, therefore, will be of this character, that is, its perfection will consist in the fact that there is variety in its states of reception, but at the same time there will be harmony, or perfection, on account of the principle of unity which is at the core or center of the church.

     Sometimes it is said in the Writings that the message is to all the churches in the Christian world, or to the whole Christian world; and again it is said that the message is to the New Church. This variety of statement is explained by the fact, that sometimes the simple good in the Christian world are in mind, the remnant of the churches, out of which the New Church is to be formed; and then at other times the New Church is placed in view as already formed, or in actual existence as a church. But the principle is the same whether the thought is directed to the remnant in the Christian world at large, or to the New Church as already formed out of them. The variety exists in either case, whether it is with those who are to come to the New Church, or whether it is in the church as an actual or existent institution among men.

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It may be assumed, however, that we are especially interested in the latter, or in the New Church as already formed, consisting of variety, of a variety in which there is harmony, because in it there is unity of spirit.

     The variety signified by Ephesus is first addressed. "I know thy works, and thy labor, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil; and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars; and hast borne, and hast patience, and for my name's sake hast labored, and hast not fainted. Nevertheless I have against thee, that thou hast left thy first love. Remember, therefore, from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of its place, except thou repent."

     Let us first endeavor to set forth to view in a summary form the spiritual significance of the words of the text; after which we propose to address ourselves to the vital idea, the essential doctrine, contained in the words as a whole.

     We are instructed in general that by Ephesus is signified those in the church who primarily regard truths of doctrine, and not the goods of life and it is to those that the entire message in its spiritual sense is addressed--to those who primarily regard truths of doctrine, and not goods of life.

     The text opens with these words, "Nevertheless I have against thee, that thou hast left thy first love," by which is signified that those who are of the church of Ephesus do not hold the good of life in the first place, when yet this is done at the beginning of every church. To this state they are exhorted to return, that is, to the state signified by the first love, when truth of doctrine was not in the first place, but in the second, and good of life was in the first. They are exhorted to return to this state, and this return is effected by repentance of life; hence it is added, "Remember, therefore, from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works." They are first told that they have left their first love, which was a state of charity to the neighbor; they are then told to call this to mind, that they might see that they have fallen; and they are exhorted to repent, or the fallen state will continue, or become worse, they are, however, not only to repent, but they are to do the first works, which were works of charity or use.

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They are next told what the result will be if they do not repent and do the first works,-"or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent;" by this is signified that if they do not repent and return, all illustration or enlightenment in spiritual things will be taken away from them, and they will not be able to see truths any longer; this is what is meant by "removing thy candlestick out of his place," for a candlestick gives light, and when the light is gone the eye cannot see for the darkness. Concerning this state we read: "For to see truths from their own light is to see them from man's interior mind, which is called the spiritual mind; and this mind is opened by charity; and when it is opened, there flows in light, and the affection of understanding truths, out of heaven from the Lord. Thence is illustration. The man who is in this illustration acknowledges truths as soon as he reads or hears them; but not he whose spiritual mind is not opened, who is one who is not in the good of charity, however much he may be in truths of doctrine." (A. R. 85.)

The essential idea of the text then is, that the church at its first, at its commencement, is in a state of charity, but afterwards in its progress or in the course of its development it departs from this first state, and enters into another, which is a state of faith or doctrine without life. With some the state of doctrine without life continues until the church is completely consummated with them, or comes to an end. Their candlestick is removed out of its place, and never again will they see anything in the light of heaven, but will dwell forever in the thick dense darkness of hell. But opportunity is given them to repent, the power to repent is afforded them, the truth concerning repentance is given them, in this world and also at first in the other--in this world by the teaching of the truth of the church from the Word, and in the other also so long as there remains any hope or possibility of repentance.

Such is the result with those who leave their first love, who cease to do the first works, who do not repent; they come into a state of doctrine without life, of faith without charity, of truth without good, and persisting in it to the end of life, refusing to take heed to the Divine exhortation to repentance, they cannot be saved.

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But others repent and return to the first love, and do the first works; of these the church is built on earth, and, in the other world, a heaven of angels.

Now as to the first state of the church being one of charity. Every first state is of this character. The first state of man in this world, his state as an infant and little child, is a state in which innocence predominates; and this innocence, although it is the innocence of ignorance and not of wisdom--this innocence is also a state of love and charity, or good will, in which there is not as yet any premeditated or deliberate evil. But when man grows up, and reaches adult age he has departed from this state, and has come into one of faith or doctrine; and he will either go on, and as he advances in life, become more and more confirmed against a life of charity, until he reaches a state when he will be neither in faith nor in charity, nor in any good whatsoever; or he will repent, that is, he will begin the practice of actual repentance, which is to continue through life, to continue until he returns again to the innocence, the good, the charity, of childhood and infancy; but now his innocence, while it will be like that which he had before, yet will not be like it, for now it is conjoined with wisdom, while before it was conjoined with ignorance.

It is similar with marriage. Its first state is one of conjugial love, innocence, good will, and of happiness. The first love of consorts is an image of that love which angelic consorts have for each other. The married partner is loved and preferred to all others in the world. But later in married life this love with many, yea, with most in the Christian world, begins to subside, and coldness gradually takes the place of love; there is internal aversion instead of internal love, each toward the other; they have left their first love; they remain perhaps in the faith of marriage; but not in its charity; that is to say, they are in the outward profession and practice of marriage, but their heart is far away from love truly conjugial, which is a love of one only of the sex. To these the words of the text apply, "Nevertheless I have against thee, that thou hast left thy first love. Remember, therefore, whence thou art fallen, and repent and do the first works." But for the most Dart they do not remember, or if they remember they do not repent, and are wholly averse to doing the first works, me work of the first early days of marriage.

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If this were true of all, there would be no bond of society left, there would be no basis for heaven with man, and the human race would become extinct upon the earth. But some repent, and do the first works; some still remember that which they had before held dear, and which had once inspired their hearts, and fight to preserve it as the apple of the eye; and persisting in this to the end of life, their conjugial will become like that of the angels of heaven, they will return to their pristine state of innocence and peace in loving one another; but now the state will become a permanent one, no more to be jarred, or disturbed, or placed in jeopardy, by the hostile breath of hell; for the innocence is to be conjoined with wisdom, and wisdom will ever guard and protect it from all harm.

The states of the church are like those of man from infancy to old age, or like those of married partners from their first love and afterwards. The church in its first state is full of love, charity and zeal; but this state departs or grows cold, that is, the state of charity grows cold. In the first state men loved each other as brethren, and loved to be together and meet together; but afterward dissensions and heresies arise, personalities become active, the evils of others are seen and looked for rather than their good, men are judged from their weaknesses and faults rather than from their use, the evils of others are seen more clearly than the evils in oneself, there is more energy displayed in the accusation of the neighbor than in the practice of good will, men wish to be apart rather than together, the love of consociation which existed at first begins to disappear; and not only the history of the old church, but the history of the New Church shows, that men under the influence of personality, resentment and in will separate from those whom they were regarded as brethren. They are angry with their brother without a cause, they are acting deliberately from personal feeling and not from any principle or doctrine or of spiritual life, they are governed by a spirit of accusation with no regard to the good of the neighbor, and perhaps they go away, and are seen no more. Possibly all come into this state in greater or less degree and are influenced by it, and this is the state that is addressed by the Lord in the words of the text, and there is no one who does not need the Divine admonition, "Remember whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works."

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Remember the first state of the church when charity was active, when there was good will, when men loved to consociate together, and act together with zeal for the common good, when the good of the whole, or the common good of the church, was preferred to that of the individual, to that of self, when personal resentment was not a factor in the uses of the church--remember this first state, and repent and do the first works; return to this first love and conjoin yourself with it, or the church will come to an end, and nothing will be left of spiritual life in the world.

We come now to the vital point, to the living principle that applies to this stage of the church's development and progress, which is the Divine permission that evils should become active and infest the church, and the Divine reason why this should be so. The permission of evil is for the sake of the end that there may be salvation, as we are told in the Heavenly Doctrine: and the permission of evil at this stage of the church's development is for the end that the church may be saved, as paradoxical as this may appear. It is that the church may renew itself, grow, flourish, and prosper, and so reach its appointed station of permanent existence, as the Lord's spiritual kingdom on the earth; or at least that some remnants of it may be preserved. And so it is that offences must come, the Lord permits offences to come, but nevertheless it is woe to them by whom they come. The Divine permission of evil is not a provision; the Lord does not will that offences should come, but He permits them because they cannot be prevented according to order; and though He cannot prevent them by the laws of order, which recognize human freedom, still He can overrule them for the ultimate good of the church, and for the salvation of those who can be saved. But though the Lord permits evil, man is not to permit it in himself; he is to permit evils in others, but not in himself. Offences must needs come, and they are to be permitted to come, but woe unto him by whom they come; woe unto him who opens a hell in himself, and permits it to continue open. The Lord will overrule this opening for the good of others, but woe unto him if he does not close his own hell by the means which the Lord so abundantly furnishes.

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Hells will be opened in this may from time to time in the church, but the Divine purpose in the permission is that the church may come forth renewed by being tried in the fire.

     The first state of the church, though it was a state of charity, yet it was a state like the first state of man in infancy or childhood, or like the first state of married life, a state of love without wisdom, a state of zeal or enthusiasm not yet tempered by discretion and judgment, a state that will become fanaticism or persuasive faith, If it is not finally broken and changed, and a renewal take place. This accounts for the consummation of churches, which were in charity in the beginning. The time came when the renewal should take place, and they went under. The opportunity was given them to rise to a higher and spiritual plane of life, but they did not seize upon their opportunity and make use of it: and that which followed was a necessary result, the church had to be transferred and implanted elsewhere.

     The first state of the church is no more a state of heaven, than an infant is an angel, than partners in the early states of marriage are an angelic couple of the supreme heaven. It is the beginning of the church but it is not the church itself; for evils are still there, nor have they been seen and removed; they are covered up and quiescent, the Lord has not yet permitted them to become active, and they must become active before they can be seen and removed. For evils cannot be put away until they are seen and known. It is not necessary that they become so active that they disturb the church, though even this is at times permitted. They must come forth and be seen, they must be fought against, restricted and removed by each one for himself and in himself, lest he disturb the church.

     The fact that evils which were quiescent in the beginning of the church now come forth into activity, and are seen and known, is a sign that the church is no longer an infant, but has now reached, as it were, the adult stage of its life, in which its own evil must be revealed and made known, in order that it may be put away and removed, and this in order that the church from natural may become spiritual; for neither the adult, nor the married couple, nor the church, San become spiritual and celestial, except by the knowledge of evil and the removal of it.

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This removal must take place when the adult state of the church is reached, or there will be no spiritual church in the world. And as it is with the young man or young woman, on arriving at adult age, the church now comes into a critical period, in which it is to be saved or lost, in which it is to yield in the temptations which come by the revelation of evil, or conquer in them. The former church yielded and went out into the night; and though some portion of the New Church may yield in like manner, the New Church itself is not to yield; you or I may fall in the battle, but the victory of the church itself is sure, for the Lord Himself has so said, and the victory will be His.

The early charity is gone, the innocence of infancy has departed, and the church is now in faith, in doctrine, in the knowledge of truth, and it will soon become faith alone without any vestige of charity unless the battle, the battle for life, begins. Every step that is now gained must be fought for, all the advancement now made must be the product of self compulsion, of resistance to evil and we are told that we must remember our first love, our first charity; this is because in all temptation, in all spiritual conflict, man fights from the memory of former spiritual delight; were there no memory of this, did he not remember his first love, he would not fight at all, he would realize no motive in the resistance to evil. And it is to the progressive man of the church, to the spiritually regenerating man of the church, to the man of the church who is fighting against the evils which assail him, who is making a supreme effort--and a supreme effort must be made--against the infernal foes of his spiritual life; it is to this man in the midst of his temptation the Lord says, "Remember! "Remember whence thou art fallen." He has fallen, and he is fighting that he may rise again. "And repent." He has fallen? and he is fighting the battle of repentance! "And do the first works." For this he is striving, but evils must first be overcome; and they must be overcome, in order that the first works may be done. And in the midst of his temptations he realizes that if he yield, if he fall, his candlestick will be removed out of its place; he will no longer have any light in spiritual things, no longer any light from the sun of heaven; his last state will be worse than his first; and he will, like the former church, fall to rise no more. But hope is held out, for the Lord says in this same message to the Ephesian church, "To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God." (Rev. ii. 7.)

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CORPORAL PUNISHMENT 1909

CORPORAL PUNISHMENT Rev. WM. R. CALDWELL 1909

     It is the purpose of this paper to bring forward from the Word and the Writings some teachings that have a bearing upon the use of corporal punishment in the education of children, and to draw some deductions from those teachings.

     In the Letter of the Word the Lord Himself is sometimes represented as chastising men with the rod, as in the following passages:--

     The Word of the Lord to Nathan concerning David: I will be his father, and he shall be my self. If he commit iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the children of men. (II. Samuel 7:14.)

     I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins. (Leviticus 26:28.)

     Thou shalt also consider in thine heart, that, as a man chasteneth his son, so the Lord thy God chasteneth thee. (Deuteronomy 8:5)

     If they break my statutes, and keep my commandments; then will I visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes. (Psalm 89:31, 32.)

     As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten; be zealous therefore and repent. (Revelation 3:19.)

     In the letter of these passages it states that the Lord chastises, but in the spiritual sense it means that in the presence of the Divine Truth from the Lord the evil are punished and the good come into temptation. See A. E. 246.

     That it was of the wisdom of the ancients to amend the young by the chastisement of the rod is evident from the following:--

     My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord; neither be weary of his correction: For whom the Lord loveth he correcteth; given as a father the son in whom he delighteth. (Proverbs 3:11, 12.)

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     Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth; therefore despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty: For he maketh sore, and bindeth up; he woundeth, and his hands make whole. (Job 5:17, 18.)

     He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes. (Proverbs 13:24.)

     Chasten thy son while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his crying. (Proverbs 19:18)

     Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him. (Proverbs 22:15.)

     A whip for the horse, a bridle for the ass, and a rod for the fool's back. (Proverbs 26:3.)

     If ye endure chastening, God dealth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? (Hebrews 12:7. See verses 2 to 13.)

     There is much in the Writings upon the subject of punishments in general, from which we adduce the following passages, bearing upon corporal punishment in particular:--

     THAT IT IS TRUE CHARITY TO CHASTISE CHILDREN.

     To love the neighbor is not only to will and do good to a neighbor, a friend, and a good man, but also to a stranger, an enemy, and an evil man. True charity is exercised toward the latter and the former in different ways; toward a neighbor and a friend by direct benefits, but toward an enemy and an evil man by indirect benefits, which are done by exhortations, disciplines, and punishments, thus by emendations. This may be illustrated thus: A judge who from the law and justice punishes an evil-doer, loves the neighbor, for thus he amends him, and consults for--the citizens, that he may not do evil to them; everyone knows that a father who chastises his children when they do evil, loves them, and on the other hand that he who does not for that cause chastise them loves their evils, and charity cannot be predicated of him. (T. C. R. 407)

     The spiritual of charity is that man in the exercise of charity sees clearly whether he acts from justice, and this he sees from judgment; for a man by benefits may do evil, and also by such things as appear evil he may benefit;. . . for who does not know that it yields good to servants if they are chastised by their masters, and to children when they are chastised by their parents on account of their evil deeds. (T. C. R. 45915. See also A. C. 4730, Doct. Charity 163.)

     THAT IT IS OF MERCY TO PUNISH.

     I spoke with some spirits who thought that punishment was contrary to mercy, but it was said to them that it is of mercy, and that it is unmerciful not to punish. They were convinced by an example. If a father does not chastise a son or daughter who is unmannerly or doing evil, but indulges him, he then is unmerciful, for he then leads his son to all those evils; thus he is unmerciful against his children, and against others; from this also it is evident that to punish is not contrary to love. (S. D. 4421.)

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     THAT IT IS ACCORDING TO THE LAW OF RETALIATION.

     It often happens in the other life that the evil, when they will to bring evil upon the good, are grievously punished, and that the evil which they intend to others relapses upon themselves; this appears then as if it were vengeance from the good; but it is not vengeance, neither is it from the good, but from the evil, to whom then from the law of order opportunity is given; yea, neither do the good will evil to them, but they cannot take away from the evil of punishment, for they are then held in a good intention, just as a judge who sees an evil-doer punished, or as a father when his son is punished by a magistrate; the evil who punish do it from the cupidity of doing evil, but the good from the affection of doing good. (A. C. 8223.)

     THE STATE OF THE PARENT WHEN PUNISHING.

     As regards the duties of parents towards children, they are intrinsically different with those who are in charity from what they are with those who are not in charity, but outwardly they appear alike. With those who are in charity that love (storge) is conjoined with love towards the neighbor and love to God; by these, children are loved according to their manners, virtues, studies, and gifts for serving the public; but with those who are not in charity there is not a conjunction of charity with the love called storge; wherefore many of these love even children who are evil, unmannerly and cunning, more than good, well-mannered and prudent children; thus they love those who are useless to the public more than the useful. (T. C. R. 431.)

     Spiritual fathers and mothers love their children from their spiritual intelligence and moral life, thus from their fear of God and actual piety, or piety of life, and at the same time from their affection and application to uses serviceable to society, thus from the virtues and good manners with them; wherefore if they do not see such things in them, they alienate their minds from them, and only from duty do anything for them. But natural fathers and mothers. . . close their eyes to the vices of their children, excusing them and favoring them. (C. L. 405. See 407.)

     It is evident from the passages above quoted that a parent who is in true charity, and thus in a genuine love for his child's welfare, is inmostly ruled by charity when from justice according to judgment he administers punishment; and that punishment is a mercy toward his children and toward others.

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Such a parent is zealous for the good of the child and for the good of the neighbor. This zeal at the time of punishing will have the same appearance externally as anger, though internally it is different. This appearance for the most part is inseparable from punishment, especially corporal punishment.

     That a parent may act from zeal and not from anger he must shun the delight or cupidity of punishing for its own sake. He must shun punishing from anger, hatred, revenge, cruelty, and other evils. And this he does when he is guided by justice and judgment, thus by true spiritual charity, and a love for the child's highest good.

     What the delight of punishing from cupidity is may appear from evil spirits, who would not desist to eternity unless stopped by moderating angels. (A. C. 5185) it may also appear from punishing spirits who are not evil, whose use is to examine and castigate those who are being prepared in the world of spirits for heaven. Some of them we are told, "had been judges in the world, and had rejoiced at heart when they found out what they believed to be just cause for fining, chastising, and punishing." (A. C. 5182, 3.)

     The delight of cruelty is very common at this day, and in reacting from this, many, especially in schools, have gone to the other extreme, discarding all corporal punishment. What this delight of cruelty is, in the Christian world at this day, is described in the Writings; see A. C. 2125, 2126, 2309. From these descriptions is the evident that this delight is to be shunned by parents who would cultivate the spirit of true charity, mercy, and love, with its justice and judgment, in the treatment of their children.

     In considering the state of the present, it is also important to note that his treatment of the child after punishment may promote or injure the end and use he has in view. From an end of charity he desires only the amendment of his child, and he will be quick to recognize a better state, while he will be careful at the same time not to minimize the good effects of punishment by undue comfort.

     A time of punishment with a child is like a period of temptation with the adult. After a man has undergone the trials of temptation he is comforted and instructed by the Lord.

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But if he comes out of temptation with a sense of merit on account of the victory, the trial has not benefitted him spiritually, and he must be tempted anew. From this we may derive a principle of conduct in dealing with children after punishment,-comfort will not be amiss if it is accompanied with instruction and admonition.

     VARIETIES OF CORPORAL PUNISHMENT.

     The commonest form is whipping with a rod or with the hand. As a punishment for telling untruths, or using filthy and obscene language, parents have been known to wash the mouth out with soap and water. Hunger and imprisonment may be classed as corporal punishment. Nature punishes the human body swiftly and surely for any abuse of her laws, and children learn early that sickness is a result of the abuse of the laws of health as taught them by their parents; also that fire burns, and that the law of gravity is universal. By sundry and divers punishments nature teaches the young, and also the old, to observe her laws.

     We will not attempt a detailed treatment of the various forms that physical punishment may take. Those are most effective which accomplish the end with the least of physical injury. There are dangers in some forms. Boxing the ears may injure the hearing, and severe whipping may have grate results, as is known to physicians. We shall speak later of the ill effect of too frequent and severe punishment.

     In this connection it will be useful to note some of the forms of physical punishment for adults in the other life, many of which are described in the Writings. In general it is evident that many spirits cannot be reduced to order, and prepared for heaven or hell, without terrible punishments, which they perceive as physical pain and torture. They are twisted and wrenched, with every sensation of being torn to pieces; they fall from horses, striking violently upon the ground; not to mention many other forms. In every case the form fits and corresponds to the evil they are in, and is administered for the most part by evil spirits, whose delight is to punish. Thus evil actually punishes itself there. (See A. C. 957, 959, etc., etc.)

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     Corporeal loves and appetites with adult spirits, as with men in the world, cannot be overcome and reduced to quiescence without physical affliction. In the spiritual world vastation requires the sensation of physical distress and torment; in the natural world physical afflictions are forms of natural temptation, which may or may not involve spiritual temptation. By such afflictions the corporeal-sensual, and thence the natural mind, with its lusts and cupidities, is subdued. Who, in this age, is spared these punishments?

     Furthermore, we are told, that "spiritual temptations are most grievous when they are conjoined with sufferings inflicted on the body." (N. J. H. D. 196); thus there are evils that cannot be overcome by the regenerating man, without spiritual temptations ultimated in the physical body. The glorification of our Lord was not complete until He underwent the last and most grievous temptation, the passion of the cross. (See A. C. 8664)

     GENERAL OBSERVATIONS.

     The time and occasion for corporal punishment, and the offenses of children that call for such punishment, must be a matter for individual parental judgment. It is possible to begin too early in infancy, and it is possible to begin too late. It is possible to punish the wrong offense, it is possible to neglect to use corporal punishment when it would be just and necessary. There are children that require it often, others that need it little. No doubt there are cases when a child can be brought up without resort to it. To some children the shame and humiliation of such a penalty is great, and therefore most effective; it is also possible to ruin the spirit of a sensitive child by excessive punishment. The variety is without end, and the treatment of each case must be left to the rational judgment of parents. As in all other things extremes are to be avoided.

     In general, however, some principles and rules may be laid down. One is that punishment should fit the offense. According to the law of retaliation, as it operates in the spiritual world, an evil spirit suffers the harm and injury he would bring upon another, and thus is punished according to his intended offense.

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Applying the same law to education in the world it may be said that a child who would strike his parents or companions in anger justly deserves bodily punishment. If he be punished by incarceration only, he is apt to reflect that the one he has injured "got the worst of it." And so no fear of repeating the offence is instilled by the punishment. But if he were given to feel the unpleasantness of bodily pain himself, he would be more apt to control himself the next time his anger is aroused. It is well known, also, that children are apt to know when they have been too lightly or too severely punished.

     Another truth of importance is that corporal punishment is an extreme penalty, and if employed too often loses its effect. As this form of punishment usually involves physical contact, and thus the sense of touch, it is the most ultimate form of punishment, and hence may be regarded as an extreme penalty or last resort. When not actually called for by the offence, a reserve on the part of the parent often makes a milder penalty effective.

     Punishment inflicted upon the body, being the most ultimate, affects the feelings more directly and thus appeals to the will of the child. Other forms, as when time for reflection is given by imprisonment, appeal to the understanding, thus to a kind of conscience with the child. There are certain offences of wilfulness, both in speech and act, which hardly can be corrected without an appeal through bodily punishment. There are cases in which no other means will bring a child to a realization of the enormity of its offence, and to a fear of repeating it. And there are certain spirits infesting the child that cannot otherwise be driven off. Moreover, there are some characters that can only be subdued by a demonstration of the parent's superior physical power. Unfortunate it is when a boy has grown physically stronger than his father before he has learned filial respect and obedience.

     Lastly, we would observe that the education of children in the other life presents the ideal. It is only necessary there to bring the child to a knowledge of the hereditary evils that are with it. From its previous education by the angels it then will have an aversion to those evils, and shun them. On this point we have the following teachings:-

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     No one in the other life suffers punishment on account of hereditary evil, because it is not his own, but on account of actual evil which is his own, thus so far as he has appropriated hereditary evil to himself by actual life. (H. 312)

     Infants who have been educated in heaven and have become adult are remitted into the state of their hereditary evil, but not that they may suffer punishment, but that they may know that from themselves they are nothing but evil, and that it is of the mercy of the Lord that they are taken out of the hell that is with them, into heaven. (H. 342)

     It has been made certain to me in the spiritual world from infants who have died that they only incline to evils, thus that they will them, but still do not do them. For they are educated under the auspices of the Lord and are saved. (T. C. R. 521.)

     From all that is taught concerning the education of infants in heaven it is clear that corporal punishment is not necessary for them. (See H. 345) Whether the same may be said of children and youths who have died and are educated there, would seem to depend upon the extent to which they had made hereditary evil actual during their life in the world, thus the extent to which their worldly and terrestrial loves had been developed before their passing into the other world.

     In the ideal education it is possible to lead a child to a kind of repentance as of itself, to an aversion for the evils called to its attention. It is thus that it can be prepared for actual repentance in adult age. And this can be accomplished more by appeal and exhortation than by punishments. But when this fails it is of charity and mercy on the parent's part to shun evils for the child, and even to manifest to it the penalty that is attached to its evils. We venture the opinion that the time will come when, from good inheritance and remains early implanted, it will be possible to lead children to an affectionate obedience, and to a kind of conscience, which will make them sensitive to wrong doing, and easily corrected by word of mouth or mild punishment. It is doubtful in this age, when hereditary evils are so great, whether many children can be brought up without resort to corporal punishment.

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GENEALOGIES OF THE LORD 1909

GENEALOGIES OF THE LORD Rev. ALFRED ACTON 1909

     In an essay on the Genealogies of Jesus Christ, included in THE STAR OF THE EAST, a work by the Rev. J. F. Buss, which is reviewed on another page of this issue, some remarkable statements are made which call for more than passing notice. We refer particularly to the historical treatment of the subject. But we might suggest in passing, that the genealogies of Matthew and Luke represent not, as Mr. Buss has it, the infirm human and the Divine heredity of the Lord, but rather the Lord's presence in the world before the Incarnation as Divine Good and Divine Truth, or Prophetic Truth, the latter being the signification of the table as given in Matthew, which begins with Abraham, and the former, the Divine Good, the significance of the table in Luke. Both of these were united in the Divine Human of the Lord.

     In the historical treatment of the tables Mr. Buss takes it for granted that they cannot be reconciled. After pointing out their supposed contradictions, he summarily concludes, "One or both lists must be wrong. There is nothing more to be said. . . the absolute impossibility of any reconciliation is a fact there is no getting away from; it is certain." And with these words he finally dismisses the subject, and proceeds to a study of the spiritual sense of the genealogies. But, for the consolation of the student who may be distressed the blank prospect offered him in the discussion of their natural meaning, the author adds that in the New Church "there is no necessity to determine the point." By emphasizing the italicized words, we presume that the author did not wish to decry the usefulness of "determining the point," but only that it was not necessary. Yet the whole treatment of this part of his subject suggests an idea, which is often heard in the New Church, and still oftener implied, namely, that the understanding of the literal sense of Scripture is of small importance, and that It matters little whether the things there recorded be true or not.

     We would earnestly deprecate any such careless attitude to the Letter of the Word. Its logical tendency is to weaken the foundations of our faith.

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For our belief in the Word must, surely, rest upon a firm, natural foundation. And how can it rest on such a foundation, if, when we fail to understand the events recorded in the Letter, we lightly dismiss the matter, as being probably wrong, and in any case, of no concern to us? The Writings frequently inform us that such and such event actually happened, and this information is given us, we take it, that we may have a firm foundation for our faith in the integrity, the holiness, and the truth of the Word. Even the parts from the Ancient Word are historically true, in the sense that it was an historical fact that the men of that Church did write in such a style. But the Israelitish and Christian Word was written by men of another genius; and, though they were inspired, yet the Divine Truth did not clothe Itself through them with historical falsities. And we might note, in this connection, that Swedenborg's Adversaria is largely concerned with showing the historical accuracy of the Old Testament, as being the true history, both inner and outer, of the peoples with which it deals.

To decry or make of no account the historical accuracy of the Letter pf the Word is a position involving the danger of a false idealism,--that sort of idealism of which Tulkism is a fruit. And, yet, as we have said, such a position is often taken by New Churchmen when in the face of difficulties in the literal sense, and still oftener implied. Not that we would imply that the Church is rushing into Tulkism; but, certainly, the tendency of the position held is to so spiritualize the Word as to make it rest on the foundations of a mere allegory, with no regard to historical truth. The tendency of modern archaeology, on the other hand, is to confirm the historical accuracy of the facts related in the Word which were formerly regarded as fables.

Especially is it important to see and acknowledge the literal truth of all the events which are related concerning the Lord. Against these is directed the main attack of those who would destroy the Word; and on their integrity rest the very foundations of our faith in the Lord. And so with regard to the genealogical tables. These tables were the ultimate proof to the Jews--and, indeed, are such to all men of all times--that He who was come was in truth the promised Messiah.

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They are the opening words of the New Revelation, setting forth its authority. And how remarkable would it be, if Matthew and Luke, writing at the very beginning of the Church, should give tables "one or both" of which were utterly false! The thing is inconceivable. Mr. Buss himself supplies the most cogent arguments against it. "There is no reason to believe (he says) that the writer of the Gospel supposed himself . . . to be doing anything else than chronicling the facts known to him, as accurately as the most scrupulous care enabled him to do it." And in another place he speaks of the "official genealogical records" of the Jews at that period. That there were such official records of many families has been satisfactorily proved by indisputable historical evidence. And how much more certain must it be that the genealogy of the family of David was preserved. Matthew and Luke, writing "as accurately as the most scrupulous care enabled them to do" would certainly consult such records. That they did so, and that their tables are correct, would seem to be proved at first glance, when it is known, that in all the early attacks on Christianity, by Jew and Gentile, attacks made when the accuracy of the Tables might have been investigated from the records,--we hear of no single case, nor even a tradition, that their accuracy was called into question. Certainly for us at this day, knowing their ultimate use, knowing the characters of the Evangelists, there is no other course open than to accept as literally and exactly accurate, both of these Tables. The words of the learned commentator, Dr. Adam Clarke, may well be quoted in this connection: "If the lineal descent of Jesus from David . . . were even questionable, it is impossible to suppose that the Jews would have withheld an allegation which must fully vindicate them in denying His Messiahship, and in putting Him to death as an impostor. We may confidentially assert, therefore, that His regular lineal descent from David could not be disproved, since it was not even disputed at a time when it could have been done successfully and by those persons who were so deeply interested in the event." (Commentaries Luke III.)

The fact that we may not be able to reconcile the two genealogies with each other is seen to be a small matter, when we consider how much of what we now believe, we formerly failed entirely to comprehend; and how much of what the New Church rationally sees, is held by the world as impossible of credence.

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      But Mr. Buss wholly exaggerates the difficulties presented by the two tables. The fact is that in the main, the tables have been reconciled, in, what seems to us, a most satisfactory manner, in fact in the only manner consonant with the belief in the accuracy of both.

     In the genealogy by Luke neither the word "begat" nor "son" occurs; instead of which we read simply, that one person was "of" another, e. g. "Adam was of God." In Matthew, on the other hand, the word "begat" is used in every part of the table. The omission of the word "Son" by Luke, inserted in italics in the authorized version, is noted by Swedenborg in one of his answers to Hartley's Nine Questions, and it undoubtedly has a profound significance. But has it not also a natural and historical significance? Did not Luke adopt the language which he uses, because of a definite natural idea in his mind? Certainly there is nothing repugnant to such a supposition, and, granting it, we are much nearer to a reconciliation of the two genealogies.

     In considering the question, what was the natural reason for Luke's usage, it must be borne in mind that a woman's name was never suffered to appear in the Jewish genealogies; if she was an only child, then the name of her husband was entered in the table as the sole of him who was in reality his father-in-law. Supposing then that Mary was the only child of Heli it would follow that Joseph, her husband, would be entered as descended from Heli, of whom in reality he was only the putative or legal son. Again there is nothing against the supposition, while it has this in its favor, that it goes to confirm the faithfulness and accuracy of both Matthew and Luke, and to explain the omission of the word "son" by the former. Luke's words are: "And Jesus . . . being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph, which was of Heli, which was of Matthew," etc. Here, the word "son" is used in the first case, but it is qualified by the words "as was supposed"--words which expressed an historical fact. Joseph, however, is not the "son" of Heli, because--as was doubtless well known at the time--his father was Jacob; and therefore he is entered simply as being 'of Heli,' i. e., as being reckoned as of the family of Heli.

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And in the table in Luke, being an ascending one, this manner of expression is retained throughout, even to the last words, "Adam, which was of God." Matthew, however, gives a descending table, and throughout he uses the word 'begat,' as expressing actual paternity. "Abraham begat Isaac Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary. Joseph therefore had two fathers, one, of whom he was "begotten," and the other, a legal or putative father; consequently he had two genealogies, one, strictly his own, and the other, the genealogy of Mary's family.

The discrepancies between the two tables are now seen to be almost wholly removed. Mary and Joseph were both descended from David, but Joseph traces his descent through Solomon, while Mary's is through Solomon's older brother, Nathan. Thus the objection that Mr. Buss deems so insuperable that "it is needless to labor the point," namely, that the Lord "could not have descended from two brothers," i. e., Solomon and Nathan, at once disappears.

What we have written as to the two genealogies, seems to be confirmed by the spiritual sense. Of this, however, we cannot speak positively, for nothing in the Writings that bears directly on the spiritual signification of the genealogies, has come to our notice. From the similarity of the names, it seems probable, indeed, certain, that Joseph, the husband of Mary, has a similar signification to that other Joseph who became lord over Egypt. The latter represents Divine Truth proceeding from the Divine Human. The former also would represent Divine Truth, but, in view of his descent from Abraham, this Divine Truth is the Truth Divine by which the Lord was present in the world before the Advent--or, in general, prophetic or representative truth. As the husband of Mary, by whom is represented the affection of truth, or the good still preserved in the Church which alone could receive the Lord, Joseph is descended from Abraham. For by Abraham and his descendants is represented the descent and glorification of the Lord as the Divine Truth, and Joseph was the last in the representatives, when Truth Divine in its representative form, though lowly and despised, was yet, with a few, "espoused" to something of good, but in a marriage that was fruitless until the Lord Himself was come as the Truth itself.

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But as the father "as was supposed," of the Lord, Joseph is descended "of God." For it is the Divine Truth revealed by God to the nest Ancients, and preserved throughout the ages, and this alone, that gave men the light to see the Divinity of Jesus. He was "supposed" to be the Messiah, because He fulfilled the prophecies, and in the light of those prophecies He could be recognized: but afterwards He was seen as Divine from the teaching of His mouth, the truth of His Glorified Human.

The signification of Joseph as Truth Divine, or Divine Truth as revealed before the Advent, is further confirmed by the noteworthy fact that after the return from Egypt Joseph entirely disappears from the Gospel narrative. For the journey to Egypt signifies the Lord's instruction from the Word, whereby He took to Himself Truth Divine and made it Divine Truth. He thus Himself became the Prophet, the Messiah who had been foretold, the Savior who had been promised and the Lord whose presence in the natural had previously been represented.

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Editorial Department 1909

Editorial Department Editor 1909

     NOTES AND REVIEWS.

     From a news note in Morning Light we learn that go lantern slides illustrating the removal of Swedenborg's remains, have been made from photographs taken by various photographers. The views cover the entire progress of the removal, from the service in the London Church to the reception in Upsala; they are being used in some of the Conference societies.

     Mr. Benjamin Worcester continues his effort to prevent the "almost blasphemy" of calling the Writings the Word, by the advance of a new argument against their Divinity. Swedenborg put his own name on those Writings! "And would Swedenborg have suffered works written and published (BY EMANUEL SWEDENBORG) to be called Divine? The statement of the question should be its final answer."

     Of course this is entirely beside the real question, which is, not what Swedenborg world do, but what his writings actually teach. But Mr. Worcester's statement with its "final" answer, does bring to mind questions as to the Book of JOSHUA, The Psalms of DAVID, The Gospel according to MATTHEW, the Revelation of JOHN, etc. Are these no longer in the New Church canon of the Word?

     The Junior Members' Committee of the English New Church Conference, having recommended the setting apart of the last Sunday in January as being the nearest to the anniversary of Swedenborg's Birthday, many of the English Societies held special services for their young people on that day. Does this mean that Swedenborg's birthday is to become a feast day of the Church? It would seem that Mr. Eadie's warning letter in Morning Light, anent the danger of following the man Swedenborg, is a timely one. There seems, at any rate, to be an appearance of this danger,--not a danger of worshiping Swedenborg, but of looking to him as the founder of the New Church, as Wesley and others were the founders of their sects.

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Indeed this is the logical effect of denying the Divinity of the Writings.

Every now and then modern archaeologists announce the startling "discovery" of some fact which Newchurchmen have known all along from the Writings. We now learn from Prof. Clay's excellent volume, Light on the Old Testament from Babel that "Prof. W. Max Muller has recently ascertained that the Egyptians circumcised at least 2500 B. C." Swedenborg in the Arcana Coelestia n. 4462 states that "they who were of the Most Ancient Church knew nothing of circumcision, but only they who were of the Ancient Church. From this Church circumcision spread to many nations; and it was not enjoined upon Abraham and his descendants as anything new, but merely as a discontinued rite that was to be restored." And he quotes Jeremiah 9:25, 26, to show "that many other nations were circumcised, for it is said there: 'I will visit upon every one that is circumcised in the foreskin, upon Egypt, and upon Judah, and upon Edom,'" etc.

The New Philosophy for January is at length at hand. The present issue contains a further installment of Dr. Sewall's essay on "Being and Existence," two reports from Mr. A. H. Stroh, recounting a number of things which long ago ceased to be news, and twelve pages of Prof. Price's translation of Swedenborg's work "On the Senses." It seems a pity that more of the very limited space of the magazine is not devoted to translations from Swedenborg's unpublished works. The chief purpose for which the Scientific Association was founded, now eleven years ago, was the publication of Swedenborg's scientific and philosophical works. Why are not the pages of The New Philosophy utilized more diligently for this main and much-to-be desired purpose? Why are not the scholars of the Church set to work on translations? or, if their services cannot be secured, why are not the old and now inaccessible translations reprinted in this journal, if they cannot be reproduced through other means?

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"At this day," observes a writer if the Messenger, "when we look back and follow the history of the New Church as an ecclesiasticism to the present time, we can find hardly anything which can be called a grain or improvement over anything which was in the first place incorporated into it. On the other hand, when we look at the condition of the world at the present time, and see how much that has been improved," etc., etc.--but we will not fatigue our readers with the rest. The heart bleeds at the delusions which have taken possession of the Church through the permeation phantasy. It is a marsh which swamps and drowns all rational thought and every effort to work organically for the upbuilding of the Church. Of course there can be no "gain or improvement" in an ecclesiasticism where permeation is regarded as the very palladium of doctrine. It is a persuasion that can be dissipated only when that ecclesiasticism finally ends its lingering existence. This end is inevitable, and the leaders of the Convention are zealously speeding the day, upbuilding of the Church.

Another contributor takes for his test the well-known dogma of the Messenger that "we actually constitute the heart and lungs of the religious body [of the old Christianity], and as such OUR supremacy must be sustained and finally acknowledged by the whole world." To which the writer adds: "If this be true, then every organ and member of the religious body must receive a quickening impulse from the circulation of the life current distributed from the great centers which are claimed for the New Church." Just how "the spirit of truth" is communicated from the living heart to the dead body is not stated, but it certainly does not take place by means of any "theological statement," for such "never fully unfolded a heavenly truth to the understanding." We are therefore exhorted to "cease to dwell too fondly upon a name," (Swedenborg), but if, instead we "begin to watch and rejoice over the heavenly truths that are flashing like auroral lights over the whole world today, we shall feel our faith strengthened an hundred fold in the revelation that is being fulfilled before it is fairly recognized." But to what purpose is this strengthening of faith in the new Revelation, when said Revelation is practically useless and unnecessary.

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"The New Church is the Church of the New Jerusalem not so much by virtue of the Writings on which it is founded, as by the force of laws which the Writings record." Having emancipated itself from its foundation, the New Jerusalem is now spreading itself in the atmosphere all over the Old Church by virtue of this higher "force of laws." "Everywhere we discern the spirit of the New brooding over the Old,"-filling the old bottles with the new wine, imparting to the latter the favor of the decaying skins and permitting it to "permeate" freely through every crack into the thirsty desert sand.
STAR OF THE EAST, AND OTHER STUDIES 1909

STAR OF THE EAST, AND OTHER STUDIES 1909

     THE STAR OF THE EAST, AND OTHER STUDIES. . . by James F. Buss. London, 1909, pp. 178.

     This book is a gathering together, in one volume, of various exegetical and doctrinal studies, some of which have already appeared in the form of magazine articles, and are now more or less revised and extended, while others are entirely new.

     The exegetical studies comprise "The Star in the East," "The Genealogies of Jesus Christ," and "The Signification of the Scape-goat." The fourth essay is somewhat intermediate in character, being a doctrinal study of the true signification of Gehenna and Hades in the Sacred Scripture. "The Doctrine of Degrees," and "The Doctrine of Influx" are purely doctrinal studies, while the last two essays of the volume, "The Inspiration of Swedenborg," and "The Canonicity of 'Conjugial Love,'" are controversial writings for the upholding of the authority of the Revelation of the New Church. The former essay will be familiar to our readers, as it was published in the Life a short time ago; the latter is a paper--now very considerably enlarged--which was read before the New Church Educational Institute in 1892, about the time of the attack on Conjugial Love in the Conference and was published in the New Church Standard.

     It would be impossible in the limits of this review to give any adequate description of these valuable studies. They are the productions of a scholarly mind showing not only familiarity with the teachings of the Writings, but also the ability to set forth ideas in clear and well ordered language. There is nothing of the missionary spirit in any of the essays. They have the flavor of the study, not of the platform.

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Nor is it necessary, to the value of this book, to agree with all the conclusions of its author; indeed we find ourselves at some variance with him on more than one point, Particularly in the essay on the Genealogies. But the essays are such candid discussions of their subjects, and so thoroughly in the spirit of the Writings that they cannot fail to be instructive and suggestive.

     The closing essay, on the canonicity of "Conjugial Love," should be specially useful at the present time, when so much is being said to differentiate this book from the rest of the Writings. The various objections that have been advanced against the world are taken up one by one and answered in a judicial spirit and with a convincing logic. The greatest space is devoted to dealing with the objection that the work is a book of "morals" and not of theology. Were Mr. Buss shows that the real reason of this objection, as of all the others, is that the book contains certain statements which some New Churchmen will not accept, and therefore will not acknowledge as Divine Revelation. Without this idea first in mind none of the objections to Conjugial Love would ever have been thought of.

     The essay on degrees is an excellent presentation giving a sweeping view of the doctrine as a whole. But that which follows it will be, probably, of greater interest to the student. It deals largely with the question of the actuality of the outside world, and in this connection Tulkism comes in for some examination, and, of course, for complete condemnation.

     The exegetical essays are of great interest, dealing as they do with the important events narrated in the first and second chapters of Matthew. The first of the essays, "The Star in the East opens with an exposition of the spiritual natural truths involved in the story of the wise men of the east. This exposition is an illustration of a use which, as yet, has received but little attention in the New Church, namely, the writing of a commentary on the Letter of the Word, expository of its "historical" and natural sense. Some excellent work of this kind has been done by writers in the Old Church, but the excellence is merely fragmentary. In the light of the Writings a commentary could be written that would impart a new delight and a new interest to the letter of the Scriptures.

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And while its main use would be for the simple and for children, it would by no means be confined to them, but would be of the utmost value to all as establishing the foundations of our faith, and as strengthening our admiration of the Divine Wisdom in governing the affairs of man.

The spiritual exposition of the visit of the wise men receives a timely and practical application to the needs of the New Church. Referring to the warning given to the wise men to return by another way, the author asks, "When will the members of the New Church of today approve themselves 'wise men from the east' by 'departing to their own country by another way?' " i. e., by "complete severance and separation from the Old [Church] even as if it were non-existent."

It is unnecessary to dwell further upon the work before us. The New Church reader may be assured that be will not peruse it without both interest and profit.
KRAMPH WILL CASE 1909

KRAMPH WILL CASE 1909

Judge Smith, of the Lancaster Co. Orphans' Court, on March 7th, filed his final "Opinion in re Exceptions to Adjudication" of the Kramph Will Case. As printed, the Opinion constitutes a document of twenty-three pages in double columns. The exceptions of the attorneys for the two contesting New Church claimants, (which were presented on December 31st), are dismissed after extended arguments? and the first decree confirmed in favor of the heirs.

The Court finds that "the Academy of the General Church with its university buildings at Bryn Athyn exactly meets the requirements imposed by the testator upon the beneficiary intended by him," and that "only such as is The Academy would be entitled to receive it. Nor can it be said that the trustees would have attempted to transfer it to any other," inasmuch as the trustees "would be obliged to properly execute the trust committed to them." As to the work on Conjugial Love, the Court finds that "the testator intended to have it taught, and to have it taught as the Academy teaches it, for its teaching seems to logically conserve the doctrine as laid down by Swedenborg."

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Having reached this conclusion, the Court nevertheless refuses to grant the legacy to the Academy on the ground that the testator himself did not have "the right to devise as he did," inasmuch as the doctrines of Swedenborg in the latter part of Conjugial Love is regarded as attacking "the main foundation of our national existence," etc., etc.
ECHO OF THE KRAMPH CASE 1909

ECHO OF THE KRAMPH CASE 1909

     By the will of Miss Lavinia A. Engard a residuary estate, amounting to about $10,000, was left, in part, to the First New Jerusalem Society, of Philadelphia, and in part, to the New Church Book Association, which is located in the buildings of the Society. As an immediate result of the Kramph contest, the heirs disputed this clause of the will, on the ground that the teachings advocated by the Society were contrary to the law of the State, and that the books sold by the Association contained such teachings.

     The hearing was held in the Orphans' Court of Philadelphia on March 2d, 1909. The examination of witnesses centered around one point, viz., the endeavor on the part of the heirs to prove that the Theological Writings of Swedenborg were the supreme authority in the New Church, and that the interpretation of those Writings is a matter of individual freedom.

     This was fully brought out in the examination of the three witnesses who had been summoned from Bryn Athyn (Messrs. W. F. Pendleton, C. E. Doering and W. H. Alden), but the heirs were not so successful in their examination of the Rev. Mr. L. Worcester, which was the most prominent feature of the hearing. Mr. Worcester testified in effect that while the Writings of Swedenborg were of Supreme Authority, second only to the Bible, yet the interpretations put upon them by the Council of Ministers of the General Convention, as being the expression of a consensus of opinion in the Church, had the effect of a binding interpretation. The most important part of Mr. Worcester's testimony was that portion which dealt particularly with the status of Conjugial Love. In answer to the question whether the book was taught in his Society, Mr. Worcester said "The First Part sets forth the principles of true marriage. Those principles we teach.

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The Second Part is a discussion of the Social evil. That we do not teach as having no application to Christian People." The same idea was expressed by Mr. Worcester in his answers to other questions, as when in answer to a question as to whether the holding of an interpretation of the Second Part of Conjugial Love differing from the "Consensus of Opinion" would be sufficient to "oust a member from membership in your Church," he said, "If he undertook to think that these things applied to himself, I think it would oust him." And to another question, he answered, "The acceptance of those things (the teaching of the Second Part of Conjugial Love) as applying to himself as a Christian man would (disqualify from membership in the Church), as also would their acceptance as true for Christian people.

     Mr. Worcester's assistant, the Rev. Harold S. Conant, who is the Manager of the Book Association, testified that the Association did not sell the work on Conjugial Love, nor could it be purchased at the library; and that though the book was kept in its reading room, access to it can he had, only "if, in the librarian's judgment, the applicant is competent to inspect the book," asked to further explain his meaning, Mr. Conant continued, "I mean the book is a book for experts, and none but experts need consult it."

     Later, testimony was produced from another witness showing the purchase of a copy of Conjugial Love "at the rooms of the First New Jerusalem Society and New Church Book-store."

     In the brief for the heirs copious extracts were made from Judge Smith's final adjudication in the Kramph case. Decision is pending, but it may be withheld until the Kramph contest has been passed upon by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

     After the above was printed, our attention was called to a letter addressed by the Rev. W. L. Worcester to the Rev. W. H. Alden, dated Philadelphia, March 19, 1909, in which Mr. Worcester, after stating Mr. Conant's testimony "that the book C. L. could not be bought at the rooms of the Church Library, or of the Book Ass'n.," continues, "He should not have said that without explaining that it could be bought at the same place from the Tract Society. He did not mean to deceive, but his answer was misleading."

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THOMAS LAKE HARRIS 1909

THOMAS LAKE HARRIS W. H. A 1909

     To those of the present generation, Thomas Lake Harris represents but little more than a name. Fifty years ago his career crossed for a little space the atmosphere of the New Church. "There suddenly rose upon the horizon the seemingly gigantic figure of a 'pivotal' man, a young Universalist preacher, Thomas Lake Harris by name, a man of extraordinary talents, eloquence, brilliancy, and magnetic power of persuasion. . . .     Deeply versed in all the arts of Spiritism, he became acquainted with the Writings of the New Church. As the cobra sips the dew of heaven and distills it into poison, so Harris absorbed the Doctrines of the New Jerusalem, arrayed himself without in heavenly light, and now began a comet-like wandering across the intellectual firmament of America and Europe, a glittering course of nearly fifty years, which has but lately ended in disgrace and nameless scandal on the Pacific Coast." (C. Th. Odhner, in James John Garth Wilkinson, A Biography.)

     Now has come into our hands the story of this man prepared by one of his followers, a handsome volume of more than four hundred pages octave. We confess to having looked through the pages of the work with some curiosity to find how by friendly hands this life would be dealt with. We rise from the reading and know little more than before. There is the faintest biographic outline:

     Thomas Lake Harris was born in England, in 1823, but came to the United States with his parents at the age of five. He was twice married; and became Pastor of the Independent Christian Congregation of New York in 1848.

     After a time spent in England, where he gathered immense audiences, he established a Community first in New York State and later in California, with which he was thenceforth identified for the remainder of his long life, which came to a close in March, 1906.

     Harris gathered a following which was evidently held by the powerful personal fascination of the man. He was professedly in communication with the spiritual world he writes and speaks and acts from dictates and control; he claims the power of perceiving in himself the states of other men, of suffering temptations for and with his followers.

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He claims acceptance of Swedenborg, but that he himself was a prophet far in advance of Swedenborg. Swedenborg indeed, delivered a dogmatic theology to men, established a Church ruled by fixed written doctrines; but Harris was to establish a Church which was to be the very Divine life with men, not taught by words, but inbreathed as it were. Swedenborg gave men the spiritual sense of the Word; but Harris was to give the celestial sense. Swedenborg taught of the Lord and how men might come into conjunction with Him; Harris claimed that conjunction itself as to very sense, and, in his later years, he claimed to be the very incarnation of the Divine. And not he only; for, with strange perversion of the idea of the Divine marriage of love and wisdom in the Lord, Harris makes of God not one Divine Person, but "He--She," the twain-in-one, of which himself and a mysterious being, referred to as the ultimation of his spiritual counterpart, became the incarnation upon the earth!

It is with some surprise that we find iii recent numbers of the Morning Light favorable comment upon Harris and his work, but we note with relief the protests of Messrs. Rowe and Rose. Mr. Rowe says, "I knew some of the women he drew away from their allegiance to the New Church. One of these ladies persuaded my mother to accompany her to the place of worship and I well remember her describing the event. The hall was in semi-darkness, the prophet walked slowly up and down the platform, thus concentrating all thought on him silently and magnetically. At last as if addressing some unseen power, in a voice of tragic intensity, he demanded, 'Speak! Speak! Speak!' and commenced one of those powerful orations with which he was wont to electrify his audience. . . . Harris was no friend of the New Church. He was superior to any church, a law unto himself; his powers were great, his presumption greater. In the light of the Writings he was undoubtedly possessed by some enthusiastic spirit, and hearing the subtle suggestion of old time, 'Ye are gods,' sought material immortality to prove it. W. H. A.

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BENJAMIN FRANKLIN AND SWEDENBORG 1909

EDITORS New Church Life:--

     It is always a matter of interest to know to what extent, if any, the great men in our country's history, have read the Writings or been influenced by them. In our history as a nation we are fortunate in having had men of sterling integrity or character on the civil and moral plane who, to all appearance were imbued with a sincere love of country. Accustomed from childhood to respect them, and love them with patriotic ardor, we, in our later years gladly welcome any evidence which tends to show that their thoughts and affections were not alien to the spiritual things of heaven.

     A recent paragraph in the Life concerning George Washington recalled to the mind of the writer a certain letter of Benjamin Franklin's in which the latter gives evidence of some acquaintance with Swedenborg's scientific works. After some search the letter has been found in the files of the Century magazine for June, 1586. It is from a collection made by the Hon. John Bigelow, from original manuscripts preserved at Washington, and is worthy of being recorded as a matter of interest in the columns of the Life.

     FRANKLIN, TO BENJ. CHAMBERS AND THE OTHER GENTLEMEN OF CHAMBERSBURG.
ON THE WATER-BLAST FOR FURNACES 1909

ON THE WATER-BLAST FOR FURNACES DAVID H. KLEIN 1909

Philada., Sept. 20, 1788.

"GENTLEMEN: I received the letter you did me the honor of writing to me, respecting what was supposed a new invention, the blowing of furnaces by a fall of water. When Mr. Zantzinger delivered me your letter, I told him I had several books in my Library which described the same contrivance, and I have since shown them to him. They are the French Encyclopedia or Dictionary of Art and Sciences; Swedenborg's Latin treatise of Iron Works; and the French work Des Arts et des Metiers, in the article of forges.

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Those descriptions are all accompanied with figures in copper plate, which demonstrate the invention to be the same precisely in all its essential parts. . . . This being the case, you see, gentlemen, that Mr. McClintock cannot properly be recommended to the Assembly as the discoverer of something new. It is however not an uncommon thing for ingenious men in different ayes as well as in different Countries to hit upon the same contrivances without knowing or having heard what has been done by others; and Mr. McClintock has at least the merit of having introduced the knowledge of this useful invention into this part of America, and of demonstrating by his own example its practicability. "I am, Gentlemen." &c.

     The information given in this letter as to the extent of Franklin's acquaintance with Swedenborg's scientific and philosophical works is most meagre, but it at least establishes such acquaintance. Franklin amidst his many labors found time to acquire a reading knowledge, at least, of several languages, including Latin, so that the works of Swedenborg were open to him. It would be most interesting to know whether the man whose experiments with electricity made such a sensation in the world had ever read Swedenborg's theory of the various atmospheres.

     There is some evidence that Franklin's interest in Swedenborg, the scientist and philosopher, however much or little this may have been, extended to Swedenborg the theologian. In an eighteenth century volume preserved in the Academy Library the writer has seen the name "Benjamin Franklin" printed in a list of subscribers to a then forthcoming production of one of the Writings, to be printed in English.* Whether Franklin eventually received this volume or whether he had before read any of the Doctrines, the writer has at hand no means of determining. The fact, however, that Franklin, with his previous knowledge of Swedenborg, subscribed to the volume, would make it appear that his interest in the great philosopher and theologian was more than casual. DAVID H. KLEIN.
     * The True Christian Religion, Philadelphia, 1790 and 1902. It was the Hon. John Young who secured a subscription from Benjamin Franklin.--ED.

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SEVENTH ONTARIO ASSEMBLY 1909

SEVENTH ONTARIO ASSEMBLY E. R. CRONLUND 1909

     The Seventh Ontario Assembly of the General Church of the New Jerusalem was held in Berlin from December 31, 1908, to January 3, 1909.

     The total attendance was 161, comprising 108 members of the General Church and 53 visitors and young people. Arranged according to localities the attendance was as follows: Ontario, Berlin, 87; Toronto, 34; Clinton, 4; Cross Hill, 4; Wellesley, 3; Milverton, 3; Randolph, 3; Guelph, 2; Brantford, 2; Constance, 1; Brandon, 1; Stratford, 1; Galt, 1; Clifford, 1; Lion's Head, 1; New Hamburg, 1; Penna., Bryn Athyn, 5; Illinois, Chicago, 2; Glenview, 1. Missouri, St. Louis, 1.

     THE BANQUET.

     The Assembly opened with a banquet on Thursday evening, December 31st, the Rev. F. E. Waelchli acting as toastmaster. The following toasts were responded to:

     "The Acknowledgment of the Lord in His Second Advent," Rev. E. R. Cronlund. "The Distinctiveness of the New Church," Rev. J. E. Bowers, "Conjugial Love, the Love of Loves," Rev. A. Acton. "New Church Education for Young and Old," Mr. T. Kuhl. "The New Liturgy," Rev. C. E. Doering.

     After the speeches the tables were cleared away and a social followed, during which a choir from the Olivet church, under the leadership of Dr. E. E. Richardson, rendered several selections, which were much appreciated.

     When the hour of midnight drew near all gathered in the hall of worship, where a brief but impressive and earnest midnight service was conducted by the pastor of the Carmel church. After the service all went down stairs again, and the mutual good wishes for a "Happy New Year" followed.

     First Session.

     The first session of die Assembly -was held on January 1, 1909, at 2:30 p. m. The meeting was opened with religious services conducted by Bishop Pendleton.

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     The minutes of the previous meeting were read and approved.

     The Bishop then delivered an address on "The Uses of Ignorance.

     Rev. A. ACTON: I was especially impressed by the statement that men always recognize truth by the truth that they already have in their minds. No revelation rests upon itself. Each rests on a previous one. For this reason a new Divine revelation does not openly proclaim itself as the Word, but first establishes its authority from a previous revelation. It is impossible for man to receive truth except on the basis of truth already known. Therefore, the Lord expounded to His disciples in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself. In the Writings also the letter of the Word is always referred to.

     Mr. Acton also referred to a use of ignorance as being the preservation of something spiritual. He illustrated this by the Lord's teaching concerning marriage in heaven. Ignorance on this subject was permitted, in order that something of a spiritual idea of heaven might be preserved with a few. The idea would have wholly perished from the Christian church had the truth about marriage in heaven been openly revealed, for it would have been defiled. Yet even here the truth was not wholly veiled from those who had some spiritual idea of heaven; for in the Lord's words: "What God hath joined together let no man put asunder," is contained the idea that there is marriage in heaven.

     REV. F. E. WAELCHLI: The address suggests the familiar teaching in the Invitation to the New Church concerning the ignorance prevailing in the world. (Mr. Waelchli then read a portion of the second chapter of the work.) We can see from this how great is the prevailing darkness of ignorance. We have genuine doctrine in the Writings, given us by the Lord. It is for us to realize what a wonderful treasure this doctrine is. There is no earthly treasure that can in any wise compare with it. What a wonderful treasure is the knowledge that there is marriage in heaven! Would we be willing to part with this treasure for all the treasures in the world? And yet this is but one. But we dare not claim anything that is in the Writings to ourselves.

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We must be careful to guard against the conceit of these knowledges, for this state is a lamentable one. We are but in the beginning of the knowledge of these truths. We know but very little about them, and as we realize this we will be guarded against the conceit of knowledge which prevails in the world. The principle that the Writings are the Word, that they are from the Lord, leads to the ignorance in which the angels of heaven are.

     REV. J. E. BOWERS: I believe it was Seneca who said, "There are many who might have attained to wisdom bad they not believed that they possessed it already." Man does not begin to learn until he realizes that he knows nothing. I was reminded of two instances of men becoming wise, and thinking that they knew nothing. Sir Isaac Newton, a wise and good man, in his old age said, "How other people regard me I know not, but to myself I appear as a boy on the sea shore, picking up a pebble now and then, but with the whole ocean of truth unexplored before me. The other was Swedenborg, from whom all knowledge and intelligence from self were banished before he could be the revelator. He declared that what we know is as nothing compared with what we have to learn.

     MR. RUDOLPH ROSCHAN: New Church education exists in order that children may be led out of the ignorance of infancy into the ignorance of intelligence. Children receive the things taught them as mere knowledges. It is the duty of parents to excite in their children the affection of truth that their knowledges may become truths. Affection for the externals of the Church should first be excited, for then affection for its internal things can afterwards be received. While much can be done in the school to arouse love and affection for the things of the Church, probably more can be done in the home.

     MR. C. BROWN referred to the early age at which children manifest their delight in learning of the Lord and the things of heaven as being a great encouragement to parents in the work of education.

     REV. E. CRONLUND: The Lord permits man to be in ignorance in order that profanation may be prevented. The Lord, however, is not the cause of ignorance, but man himself, because he loves darkness rather than light. There must be in the heart a love of truth in order that there may be an understanding of it.

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Man understands with the heart, and therefore it is written, "This people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them." And, therefore, also when the Lord appeared to Solomon, and said, "Ask what I shall give thee." Solomon asked for an understanding heart.

     MR. ACTON: The reason why we are not in greater intelligence is that there is not enough of a desire to learn the truth. This is well to remember in considering the slow growth of the Church.

     REV. W. B. CALDWELL: There are those in the world who are providentially unable to see the truths in the Writings. Those only who receive the influx of truth from the other world are able to see truth.

     MR. F. WILSON Said that it is only when we are in the state for receiving the truth that it is revealed to us. He also spoke of the value of New Church education.

     MR. R. B. CALDWELL: The paper stated that a man only acquires truth by means of the truth that is in him, and I have been puzzled to know how he is to get any truth, for man is nothing but evil. Where is the starting point for knowing truth? Is it the remains?

     BISHOP PENDLETON: One truth recognizes another. Any new truth that is to be given must be accommodated to what is already known. Those only receive truth who are in good, and if they are in simple good they are in simple truth. Truth can be seen only in the light of truth. "In Thy light shall we see light." An infant at birth knows nothing. The first truth is received by him from the mother. The child is surrounded by those who know,--those in this world who know and those in the other. The first truths are those of the letter of the Word. The light from which truth is to be seen is kindled by the first instruction received. The Lord Himself is present ready to flow in wherever there is a plane made. This is made when the child is brought into order by the parents. Children are tender vessels formed by the Lord to receive light.

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The light is enkindled and continues to grow and burn, or it should, until adult age is reached; and it goes on forever where there is obedience to the laws of order given in the Word.

     Men's Meeting and Ladies' Meeting.

     On Friday evening, January 1st, a men's meeting was held at the church. This meeting was of unusual interest, as the Rev. A. Acton gave a very full and vivid account of the rehearing of the Kramph will case, held in December, 1908, at Lancaster, Pa.

     The ladies met at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Rudolph Roschman, where a delightful evening was spent.

     SECOND SESSION.

     The second session was held Saturday, January 2d, at 10:30 a. m. The meeting was opened with religious services conducted by the Bishop.

     Rev. J. E. Bowers read a report of the missionary work done by him in Ontario, Canada.

     Rev. F. E. Waelchli also read a report of his work in the Carmel church, and Rev. E. R. Cronlund read a report of his work in the Olivet church.

     A paper was then read by Mr. R. Carswell on "The Word."

     MR. W. B. CALDWELL expressed great enjoyment of the paper, especially that part of it which dealt with the Lord's tenderness as shown in the Word.

     MR. R. B. CALDWELL asked whether Mr. Carswell's interpretation of the question, "Why callest thou me good," was correct. His understanding was that it was to suggest to the young Jew some reason for calling the Lord good. He thought the accent should be on the "why."

     THE BISHOP Stated that the Lord was then in a state of humiliation.

     MR. J. PITCAIRN: Mr. Carswell said that every work of Divine revelation is a clothing of the Divine. I would like to have this further illustrated.

     MR. R. CARSWELL: A Single word, as long as it is a part of the Word, embodies the Lord's presence with us, just as a ray of sunshine embodies the Sun. In this connection Mr. Carswell noted the importance of having correct translations of the Word.

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If anything is changed it may destroy the sense and thus the basis upon which the Spiritual sense rests.

     BISHOP PENDLETON: Revelation is the re-veiling of the Lord in order that He may descend to man.

     MR. WAELCHLI: The paper stated that the New Church cannot be established unless there be the acknowledgment that the revelation to the New Church is the Word of the Lord. This is essential to the very life of the Church. The Writings are of no spiritual value unless they are thus acknowledged, unless it is recognized that this revelation is the Lord Himself speaking to man. We cannot but be astonished that the men of the Church will not acknowledge this. We are taught that this revelation is the crown of all former revelations. The Lord has given this crown of revelations that there may be fulness of light in the world. The influx from the Spiritual world is also more full and complete now than ever before, for now the Heavens are complete.

     MR. ACTON spoke of the importance of laymen, as well as ministers studying the doctrines, writing pagers, and entering into discussions. Far from such things being against order, they were signs of activity and growth in the Church. Disorder comes in when laymen wish to become the teachers and leaders of the Church.

     The Writings teach that the book is not the Word, but becomes the Word when it enters the mind of man. The Word is the Divine truth proceeding from the Lord. The world was created by the Word. The whole of nature is the Divine proceeding clothed. To the Most Ancients nature was the Word in which they beheld the Divine. When men departed from the order in which they were created they began to lose the ability to see nature as the Word, hence the necessity for a written Word. The written Word of the Scriptures is the clothing of the Divine. The Word is clothed also in the Writings. But for man to receive the Lord thus appearing, he must be in a state in which the Lord can enter--a state of charity, and of humility. This is the reason why it is essential to approach the Word as Divine; and this also is the reason why we are told to read it holily.

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It is more important to read the Word holily than understandingly, because if man reads it holily, i. e., in humble acknowledgment of the Lord, the vessels of his mind are molded to a form and a state receptive of the Lord, and it is only from the Lord's presence with man that true understanding comes. This teaching concerning reading the Word holily applies to the Writings as well as to the letter of the Word.

     THIRD SESSION.

     The third session was held Saturday, January 2d, at 3 p. m.

     A paper on Piety was ready by Rev. F. E. Waelchli.*
     * This paper is printed on p. 193 of the present issue of the Life.

     MR. R. B. CALDWELL: In a church such as ours where each one has the utmost freedom of action, it is well that instruction should be given on the subject of piety in order that freedom may not become license. We have our serious times and our playful times. 'The principle that should guide us in the latter should be the endeavor to preserve innocence. This is why it is hard to find associates outside of the Church; for we find very objectionable things in their playfulness. We are taught in the Writings that certain jestings are permissible, but the jestings allowed in the world are objectionable.

     MR. ACTON: History seems to indicate that sometimes it is necessary to discard an abused external in order to find out its use; and this, perhaps, is the reason why piety and ritualism have not been very characteristic externals in the New Church. Every one who is in charity will come into states of piety. But the essential idea to be kept in mind is that piety must be spontaneous. It should not be forced; nor should we be concerned if we do not, at any given time, come into such states. Many people think with regard to the Holy Supper that it should not be taken very frequently because they think they should come into a specially holy state. We should not try to induce upon ourselves a state of piety, but should partake of the Holy Supper devoutly and sincerely, and endeavor in our daily lives to become worthy partakers. The external state during communion is not to be made a matter of anxiety.

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     BISHOP PENDLETON: The Holy Supper should be observed more frequently; at least several times a year, but we should not push the matter, but let it come spontaneously. A member of the Church should take the Holy Supper whenever it is offered. If the Holy Supper has been partaken just before an assembly, still one should not hesitate to take it again at the assembly. The early Christians made a meal of it and had it weekly; but it is not necessary to make a meal of it in order to have the full representation. So it was a wise change when it ceased to be a hearty meal but became a representative meal. In the Church of England they are supposed to take it every Sunday. We should look forward to having it at least once a month. The use of it is conjunction with the Lord. I think the time is coming when there will be a strong general desire to have the Holy Supper more frequently.

     MR. RUDOLPH ROSCHMAN: Sunday is set apart for instruction and meditation on spiritual things. Here we observe the Sabbath differently from the way it is observed in the Old Church. We indulge in pleasures on that day, and some even do work. Some change might be made in this respect. I do not wish to suggest a continual reading and meditation; but we might visit each other and converse on spiritual things. It is a matter of charity to talk about spiritual things. Piety, while only an external thing, is still very important, so important that without it internal piety cannot exist and grow. We should reflect and try to learn how to spend our Sundays most profitably.

     MR. ACTON: We do not do very much of meditating on spiritual things as various external things lake a very large share of our time. Still it would be a mistake to make a violent effort to do this. It should be spontaneous, and not forced. We can force ourselves to read the Word, the Writings, and books of the Church. This gives us something to think of. But the essential of "meditation on spiritual things" is that a man think spiritually of his own deeds. It will not then be difficult for him to enjoy conversation on spiritual things and to enjoy reading the Writings. As to Sunday observance, we do not want our children to feel that Sunday is an unpleasant day; and yet, on the other hand, it might be an injury to them to make no difference between Sunday and other days.

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Both these things have to be considered. It is a matter of balance and judgment.

     DR. E. K. RICHARDSON: The reading of the Writings and the Word will be more helpful to us if it is done systematically. The element of spontaneity in reading and searching out teachings for ourselves on subjects of interest, if we are making some effort to improve ourselves, will be of greater use to us than the following of any rigid plan. We should form a regularity and order of spiritual life as fully as we can.

     MR. WAELCHLI in answer to a question put by the last speaker, said, The question with regard to states of life returning was answered yesterday by the statement that "we are the sum total of all our experiences." When we come into the other life the states through which we go there are really the return of the states through which we have passed in this world. It is the opening up of the Book of Life.

     MR. ACTON: The specific entrance into past states is solely for the recognition of their quality. The quality of the past state is shown in the light of Heaven. If a man refuses to acknowledge his evil states, he is actually returned into them to his utter confusion. If we acknowledge our evils in this world there is no necessity for us to return to past states of evil; but if a man will not examine himself in this world he is examined in the next.

     DR. RICHARDSON: Are man's states of life in the other world limited to the states passed through in this world? I think he will pass into higher states of love to the neighbor and love to the
Lord continually.

     MR. WAELCHLI: Life in this world is an involution, life after death is an evolution.

     MR. J. STEEN: I read somewhere that when children read the Word the angels are more affected than when it is read by adults. Would it not, therefore, be well for children to learn passages from the Lord?

     MR. WAELCHLI: Children are taught the letter of the Word in New Church schools. Children should be taught to read the Word daily.

     MR. R. B. CALDWELL: Piety should be spontaneous. We should be careful not to force a life of piety. Avoid extremes. We should not go too far in forcing piety on ourselves.

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     DR. R. SCHNARR: Unless parents love spiritual things they cannot implant this love in their children.

     MR. WAELCHLI: It may he well for a man to force himself to acts of piety.

     Mr. R. B. Caldwell moved a vote of thanks to the Berlin Society for their hearty entertainment and hospitality, which was seconded by Mr. J. Pitcairn.

     On motion, the meeting adjourned.

     WORSHIP.

     On Sunday morning services were conducted by Rev. A. Acton, assisted by Rev. F. E. Waelchli. Mr. Acton's subject was "The Sign of the New Church." Mark 8:11-12.

     On Sunday afternoon, at 3:30 o'clock, the Holy Supper was administered by Bishop Pendleton, assisted by Rev. Messrs. W. B. Caldwell and E. R. Cronlund.

     On Sunday evening a Song Service was held at the Church. The Rev. W. B. Caldwell also gave some valuable instruction with regard to the rendering of the music in the New Liturgy.
     E. R. CRONLUND.
          Secretary.

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Church News 1909

Church News Various 1909

     FROM OUR CORRESPONDENTS.

     BRYN ATHYN, PA. Confusion has come at last upon Bryn Athyn--at least one would think so, when he overhears such jargon as this: "Direct-indirect, plenum, chamber, aspirating coils, thermostatic control." No, we are not holding a hospital nurses convention--but only discussing the details of our new local School and fireproof Library buildings. Just wait until you see them nest fall, or when you come to the big Assembly which every one hopes will take place in June, 1910.

     Socially, aside from the well planned and thoroughly enjoyable social upon Washington's Birthday, and a few private parties, there has been little but rehearsing and preparation for the coming events.

     Our visitors have been our chief pleasure the past month. Glenview has been well represented, Dr. H. Maynard, Mr. Alvin E. Nelson, and Mr. and Mrs. Wm. N. Junge, having spent some days with us. Mr. Chas. F. Browne, of Chicago, also stopped off here, and gave us a "chalk talk" about the current Art Exhibit in Philadelphia. Mr. Junge gave the school a talk upon the uses of clay.

     Dr. Davis, of Middleport, made us a flying visit, and his daughter, Miss Eva Davis, is spending several weeks among her many friends here.

     The Rev. R. H. Keep, of Atlanta, Ga., also stopped off here on his way to New York. We should be glad to have more visitors from his vicinity.

     The use of these visits in the extension of our own sympathies, and of a knowledge and appreciation of the uses which center here, deserves much thought.

     Mrs. Colley's Lecture-Recitals upon the Operas of various countries and periods, has been transferred to Wednesday evening, and it is hoped hereafter to have Wednesday evening regularly set aside for such intellectual uses as are given under the auspices of the Civic and Social Club.

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     The Bishop has taken up, in his Friday evening doctrinal class, the study of the Human Body, in connection with the Gorand Man of Heaven. H. S.

     MIDDLEPORT, O. We have been negligent in reporting our news and now must go far back to the holidays and record that we had on Christmas eve a service for the children, followed by a tree. On Christmas morning there was a short praise service at the church. On New Year's eve we had a pleasant social and watch meeting with a short devotional service at midnight. Swedenborg's Birthday was observed by a banquet. Interspersed with songs and toasts several extracts were read from Swedenborg's scientific works showing his love of truth, his humility, the principles which guided him and the motives which moved him in his life's work.

     At our regular monthly supper on February 26th, the evening was given to Lincoln and our hearts were stirred anew with the greatness and goodness of that wonderful man. His unselfish love of his country may well quicken the patriotism of us all.

     The sympathy of the whole Society went out to Mr. and Mrs. Laughead, when they brought the body of their only son here for burial on February 20th. Carl had united with the Church when here a year and a half ago and was firm in the faith of the New Jerusalem. He was a photographer and had a studio at Tulsa, Okla. Owing to the fact that the wires were down, his parents who live in Jasper, Mo., knew nothing of his sickness until after his death; but he had left a request to be buried at Middleport. Before returning Mr. Laughead was baptized and united with the church. W. L. G.

     DENVER, COLO. Our Eastern friends must not suppose that the West is slow, even though in this report we speak of events' that happened long ago. We believe in saving and then bunching our news in order to make a larger display.

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And so to begin, let us tell you that we celebrated Christmas by showing the children scenes taken from incidents in the Lord's life while on earth, at the same time telling them that wonderful Divine Story. We also met together to see old 1908 out and 1909 in, and on that occasion had the pleasure of listening to brief, but pointed remarks on the various virtues, such as sincerity, hope, courage, and others. Then, again, on Swedenborg's Birthday, we met together and after a serious program, relaxed and grew frivolous even to the limit of dancing a reel,-and dancing is very unusual with us, although far be it from us to condemn it. The trouble with most of us here is, that we are not all as young as we used to be. And I must not forget to tell you that we had a children's party somewhere and sometime, but where and when I have forgotten. However, the children had a good time, which was the object of the party.

     Your Middleport correspondent, sometime ago, stated that their's was the most isolated Society of the General Church. To this our people take exception, for we are only some 800 miles more isolated than they; and while the Bishop visits them occasionally he has only been out here once, and in thirty years, I think, the members here have not met more than six Academy ministers.

     Mr. Louis King and his brother, Cedric, were with us for a while, and we thought they might remain with us. But now they are down in New Mexico at Albuquerque, much to our disappointment. F.

     COLCHESTER, ENGLAND, On January 7th, the Society met at Mr. Gill's Studio for a New Year's Social. We were pleased to have with us on this occasion Miss Venita Pendleton, of Bryn Athyn. It was a great pleasure for us all to meet her and to hear from her personally of the friends and the uses at the center of our beloved Church.

     On February 7th, by invitation of Mr. and Mrs. Motum, the Society met to celebrate Swedenborg's Birthday, 34 being present, including 6 visitors from London and Carshalton. A bounteous supper was provided and from start to finish the sphere was a delightful one.

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Our Pastor, by way of introduction, read an excellent paper upon "The Preparation of Swedenborg," followed; by speeches by various members. The usual toasts were honored, besides many unusual ones. Perhaps the most satisfactory, or satisfying, feature, was the speeches by our young men, revealing a strong affection for the realities of our Church. The privilege of attending such a meeting is, indeed, a joy for ever! F. R. C.

     FROM OUR CONTEMPORARIES.

     UNITED STATES. A young men's club has been formed in WASHINGTON, D. C., for the study of Swedenborg's Principia, especially with regard to the nature of electricity and the magnetic currents. The club is under the leadership of Dr. John R. Swanton, of the Smithsonian Institute, while Mr. Robert Tafel, of the Magnetic Laboratory of the Carnegie Institute, is secretary. The Summary of the Principia is used as text book, reference being also made to the Principia itself and the Chemistry. The attendance numbers twelve.

     The Supreme Court of Indiana has rendered a decision in the Defenbaugh will case, sustaining the lower court which awarded the money to the heirs as against the General Convention to which body it had been bequeathed. Some account of this case was given in full in the Life for 1907, p. 252, in a notice of the first hearing. Property valued at over $7,000 had been left by Mr. Defenbaugh, of KOKOMO, Ind., to the General Convention, for the maintenance in that town of a New Church Library and occasional services. The argument of the heirs, who disputed this bequest, was based largely on the claim that the deviser was insane because be believed in the "insane doctrines of Swedenborg." In its final decree the Supreme Court allowed the plea of insanity, though, apparently on other than religious grounds, and decided, moreover, that the will was a virtual disinheritance of one daughter.

     The LOS ANGELES, Cal., Society, has extended a unanimous call to the Rev. Howard Dunham. Mr. Burnham had visited the Society soon alter "the little rupture caused by Mr. Collom's attempt to form a new society," and prior to his call had already served the Society for two months.

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     GREAT BRITAIN. The minister of the New Church Society in BIRMINGHAM, the Rev. Harry Deans, has joined with the other churches in the city in carrying out a plan for the general exchange of pulpits. On the last Sunday in January, Mr. Deans occupied an Old Church pulpit, while his own pulpit was filled by Wesleyan minister! On which circumstance the Messenger remarks, editorially, "An exchange of this kind has its uses doubtless to both congregations." Yes! but what uses?

     HUNGARY. Swedenborg's Birthday was celebrated this year by the society in BUDAPEST. The president, Mr. K. Albrecht, opened the program by dwelling upon the significance of the day, stating that we do not worship Swedenborg, but look up to our Creator with gratitude for His Love and Mercy in sending this, His servant, to the earth to show us poor mortals the way to eternal life. The secretary of the Society, Mr. A. Mousson, dwelt on the occurrences during the past year, which had witnessed the return of Swedenborg's earthly remains to his northern home. After these addresses there was a musical entertainment, and a poem entitled "Swedenborg" was read. The picture of Swedenborg, as also the altar, was decorated with a wealth of living flowers.

     The work on Heaven and Hell, in Hungarian translation, is now in print and nearly completed. The friends in Budapest are looking forward eagerly to this, the first Magyar version of one of Swedenborg's Writings.

     AUSTRALIA. The SYDNEY correspondent of the New Age reports that at the last annual meeting of the Sydney Society, the membership was increased by the admission of two ladies who "were former members, but had been away from us for a season." The item bears some significance since the two ladies referred to originally resigned from the Society, together with Mr. Morse and others, at the time of the conflict over the Authority of the Writings. Subsequently they were identified with Mr. Helberg and others in the separation from Mr. Morse, and now have returned to the original Society.

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A small society has been recently inaugurated at Lithgow, N. S. W., about 90 miles from Sydney. The membership consists of five persons who meet every week at the home of one of their number, where a room has been set apart for the purpose of worship. The first service was held last August, but the Society was not formed until November, when the attendance numbered fifteen persons.
CORRESPONDENCES OF CANAAN 1909

CORRESPONDENCES OF CANAAN Rev. C. TH. ODHNER 1909

Announcements.

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     NEW CHURCH LIFE.

     VOL. XXIX. MAY, 1909.          No. 5.
     CHAPTER VIII.

     THE HITTITES AND THE HIVITES.

     76. The good remnant of the Most Ancient Church. Besides the direful tribes generally known as "Nephilim," there was in the land of Canaan another and very different class of aborigines,--the two more or less scattered nations known as "Hittites" and: "Hivites." While these, in the letter of the Word, are generally classed as "Canaanites," as in the oft-repeated lists of "the Jebusites, and the Perizzites, and the Hittites, and the Hivites, and the Kenites, and the Girgashites," etc., the Hittites and the Hivites must be considered separately from the rest because of their distinct origin, history, character, and spiritual representation.

     The meaning of the names of these two nations is still wrapped in obscurity. The HITTITES, (Chitti, or more usually, Chittim), are also known as B'ni Cheth, sons of Cheth, but the root-meaning of "Cheth" is not known. The name "HIVITES," (Chevvi), is of equally obscure etymology; it may possibly be connected with the root, Chava, "to live,"--this tribe being among the last "living" remnants of the Most Ancient Church, in the midst of their spiritually dead neighbors,--the Nephilim.

     Both the Hittites and the Hivites are said in the tenth chapter of Genesis to be of the sons of Canaan, and according to the letter of this genealogical table they must therefore be considered of Hamitic origin, like the rest of the nations of Canaan. But it is to be remembered that the family-trees of Genesis X, refer to the spiritual rather than the natural descent of nations and races.

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Shem, Ham, and Japheth were not actually the sons of Noah, but were Gentile nations converted by the Church Noah to the doctrines of the Ancient Church. Asshur, or Assyria, which in Gen. X:22 is described as a son of Shem, in verse 11 of the same chapter is mentioned as if of Hamitic origin, and this because,--as is known to history,--the original Semitic Assyrians, after their conquest of Babylon, accepted the corrupt Hamitic religion of the conquered Chaldeans. And so also the Hittites and the Hivites are classed among the descendants of Canaan,--although from the Divine Revelation to the New Church we know them to be direct remnants of the Most Ancient Church,--because after the Hamitic conquest of Canaan they gradually accepted the idolatrous religion of the Canaanites.

Thus in the light of the New Church alone can a solution be found of the question which is still puzzling the archaeologists: the question as to the origin of the Hittites and the Hivites. "The Hittites seem to have been included among the Canaanites by a mistake," says the Rev. T. K. Cheyne in the Encyclopedia Britannica; and nearly all the modern authorities admit that these nations were neither of a Semitic, nor Hamitic, nor Indo-European, i. e., Japhetic stock. Whence, then, did they come? The Writings of the new Church answer: from a stock far more ancient than all these!

77. The Southern Hittites and Hivites. Most certainly they were of a race quite foreign to the Hebrews. Abraham tells them that he is a stranger in their land; and Isaac and Rebekah view with displeasure the marriage of their son Esau with the Hittite women "Adah, the daughter of Elon the Hittite, and Aholibama, the daughter of Anah, the daughter of Zibeon, the Hivite," (Gen. 36:2),--and this in spite of the very friendly relations maintained between these people and the early Hebrew patriarch. While the Hittite names mentioned above, and all other Hittite and Hivite names occurring in the Bible, (--Zohar, Ephron, Judith, Eeeri, Eashemath, Hamor, Shechem, Abimelech, Uriah--), are all Hebrew names, yet this does not prove that the Hittites and Hivites were of Semitic stock.

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For the names of the Nephilim, and the names of all the other races inhabiting Canaan, are all capable of an Hebrew interpretation, and this because the foreign invaders who successively conquered Canaan all in their turn accepted the vernacular of the land, a Hebrew far more ancient than the tongue of Eber or Abraham,--an original Semitic which was the language of the Most Ancient Church in the land of Canaan.

     The Hittites as well as the Hivites, at the time they appear in the Scriptures, were each divided into a southern and a northern branch, inhabiting widely distant territories. The southern Hittites in the time of Abraham inhabited the mountainous country which in later times belonged to the tribe of Judah, making their headquarters at Kiriath-Arba, whence they had driven out the Anakim and re-named the city, Hebron. In this region they also possessed another town known by the significant name of Kiriath-Sepher, (city of Books), which was another name for Kiriath, Sannah, (city of Instruction),--names suggesting the existence of some most ancient university where the sacred books of the Ancient Word were once preserved and studied. In the times of Joshua these southern Mittites had been crowded out of Hebron by the Anakim, and had withdrawn to the more mountainous country further north. In Numbers 13:29, we learn that "the Hittites dwell in the mountains," while the Amalekites dwelt in the south, and the Canaanites dwelt "by the sea."

     The northern Hittites, on the other hand, constituted a great empire of confederated states, occupying the whole of northern Syria, between the Mediterranean Sea and the Euphrates, extending also, as we shall see, over the whole of Asia Minor, from Amlenia to the Aegean Sea. But of them later.

     The Hivites were likewise divided into two great branches, the southern and smaller division inhabiting the towns of Shechem and Gibeon and the territory afterwards occupied by the tribe of Ephraim. But the main body of the Hivites dwelt in the north, "under Hermon in the land of Mizpeh," (Josh. 9:3), and in "Mount Lebanon, from Mount Baal-Hermon to the entering in of Hamath," (Judges 3:3), that is, the ranges of Lebanon and the intervening valley of Coeli-Syria. Here, according to some ethnologists, their descendants still dwell under the modern name of Druses.

260

     Prior to the Revelation given through Swedenborg nothing was known in the Christian world concerning these two nations, beyond the meager details given in the letter of the Word. But in the Writings of the New Church a new and unexpected light was shed upon the ancient Hittites and Hivites, as a part of the grand new revelation concerning the Ancient and the Most Ancient Church. In these Writings we are first of all told that

     The Hittites were among the better ones in the land of Canaan, as is evident from this that Abraham dwelt among them, and afterwards Isaac and Jacob, and that they had their graves with them; also that the Hittites behaved courteously towards Abraham, as is manifest from the things recorded in Genesis XXIII. (A. C. 2913.)

     The Hittites were among the more upright of the nations in Canaan, and by them is represented a spiritual church among the Gentiles. (A. C. 3470.)

     The Hittites were of the Church of the Gentiles in Canaan, and were not so much in falsity and evil as the other nations there. (A. C. 3686.)

     78. Their gentle disposition. The twenty-third chapter of Genesis presents a truly pleasing record of the courtesy and kindliness prevailing among gentlemen of antiquity, before the charity of the Ancient Church had yet passed into oblivion. Sarah had died in Hebron, and Abraham came unto the sons of Heth to buy from them the cave of Machpelah as a burying place for his beloved dead. And the children of Heth answered him, saying: "Hear us, my lord; thou art a mighty prince among us: in the choice of our sepulchres bury thy dead; none of us shall withhold from thee his sepulchre, but that thou mightest bury thy dead." And when Abraham offered them money, Ephron the Hittite answered him, saying: "Nay, my lord, hear me; the field I give thee, and the cave that is therein I give thee; in the presence of the sons of my people I give it to thee; bury thy dead." Finally, however, Ephron was prevailed upon to accept the price: "four hundred shekels of silver, current money with the merchants."

     And the Hivites under their princes Hamor and Shechem, in their treatment of Jacob, rivalled the courtesy and generosity of the Hittites: "Ye shall dwell with us, and the land shall be before you; dwell and trade ye therein, and get you possessions therein."

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A simple-minded, warm-hearted, credulous people, these Hivites were no match for the cruel craftiness of the sons of Jacob, who persuaded them to accept the rite of circumcision as a pledge of their alliance; and then, while the Hivites were still sick on account of the operation, the treacherous Hebrews fell upon them and slew all the males, and despoiled the city, to avenge the honor of Dinah.

     79. The "Church with the Ancients," Treating of this incident Swedenborg reveals a distinction, thitherto but little noticed), between "the Church with the Ancients," on the one hand, and "the Ancient Church" on the other.

     By the Church with the Ancients is meant a Church derived from the Most Ancient Church which was before the Flood; and by the Ancient Church is meant the Church which was after the Flood. . . . The former was celestial, the latter spiritual. (A. C. 4447.) And the same number thus continues:

     The remains of the Most Ancient Church, which was celestial, were still in the land of Canaan, especially with those who were called Hittites and Hivites. . . . Hamor, the father of Shechem, represented the remains of the nest Ancient Church, and hence by him is signified the good of the Church with the Ancients, and thence the origin of interior truth from a Divine stock.

     The spiritual reason for the destruction of the Hivites is found in their willingness to accept the rite of circumcision at the demands of the sons of Jacob: "Their words were good in the eyes of Hamor and Shechem."(Gen. 34:18). Concerning this we are told that

     The goods and truths of the Most Ancient Church, which still remained in part with Hamor and Shechem and their families, agreed with the goods and truths which from the Ancient Church were among the posterity of Jacob. . . . But Hamor and Shechem sinned enormously in receiving circumcision, for they were of a genius and nature altogether different from the men of the Ancient Church. Hence they could not draw near to external things and accept those which were among the sons of Jacob, without closing their internals; and if these had been closed they would have perished to eternity. This is the hidden reason why they were slain. (A. C. 4489, 4493)

     80. Their signification.

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Being thus the direct descendants of the celestial men of the Most Ancient Church, we may see the reason why by the Hittites are signified "the exterior cognitions of celestial things, that is, such as have reference to love, thus life," (A. C. 1203). For while, in the course of time, they became gentilized through their contact with the idolatrous Canaanites, yet there lingered amongst them remains and traditions of the most ancient doctrine, the celestial doctrine of life, as is evident, indeed, from their charitable treatment of the Hebrew patriarchs. These exterior, more or less obscured traditions and cognitions of celestial things, agreed with the goods and truths which were represented, though not cherished, by the Hebrew patriarchs, and it was on account of this agreement and correspondence that the latter were buried amongst the Hittites and Hivites. In "the field of Machpelah which is before Mamre" they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife; there they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife and there they buried Leah and long afterwards Jacob, (Gen. 49:31), and, finally, the Israelites buried the bones of Joseph, which they had brought with them out of Egypt, in Shechem, in a parcel of ground which Jacob had bought of the sons of Hamor (Joshua 24:32).

But though the Hittites and the Hivites were and therefore signified the celestial remains of the Most Ancient Church, they nevertheless at last became "sons of Canaan" and partakers of the idolatrous and polytheistic religion of the other Canaanites, (see Deut. 20:17), and they then came to represent the falsities opposite to the cognitions of celestial things: "the Hivites signify falsity from lighter evils; the Canaanites falsity from more grievous evils; and the Hittites, falsity from the most grievous evil." (A. C. 9332.) It is in this evil sense that the Hittites are mentioned in the reproach which the prophet Ezekiel raised against the Old Jerusalem: "Thy birth and thy nativity is of the land of Canaan; thy father was an Ammorite, and thy mother an Hittite," (Ezech. 16:3, 45),--signifying that the perverted Church, (Christian as well as Jewish), originated from the conjunction of the evil represented by the Ammorites, with the falsity represented by the Hittites. (A. C. 289, 2913.)

81. Their extermination by the Israelites.

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Being idolators, the Hittites and the Hivites were included in the general command given to the Israelites to utterly destroy all the pagan nations in Canaan, "that they teach you not to do after all their abominations which they have done unto their gods" (Deut. 20:17.) The Hittites, indeed, now exhibited some of the military spirit which had always animated their kinsmen in the north of Syria, and joined with the other Canaanitish tribes in their unsuccessful effort to check the victorious approach of Joshua: and his invading hosts. They were overwhelmed, indeed, on that memorable day when Joshua commanded the sun to stand still upon Gibeon, and the moon in the valley of Ajalon. (Josh. 10:12.) The great majority of the southern Hittites were exterminated in this and subsequent battles, but some submitted and were spared, on condition of tributary service in the Tabernacle, as "hewers of wood and drawers of water" in the service of Jehovah.

82. The Hivites dwelling in Gibeon saved themselves by a memorable and decidedly humorous trick. Sending ambassadors to Joshua, they fixed them up with "old sacks upon their asses, and wine bottles, old and rent, and bound up; and shoes old and clouted upon their feet, and old garments upon them, and bread dry and moldy." (Josh. 9:3-5) Pretending that they had come from "a very far country," so away dilapidated old things had been new when they first set out on their journey, they completely deceived Joshua and induced him to make peace with them by a solemn oath. Three days afterwards the trick was found out; the Gibeonites were found to be near neighbors and as such intended for extermination; but because of Joshua's oath they were permitted to live, but conditioned to servitude as the hewers of wood and drawers of water. The real reason for their preservation was the fact that "Hivites from ancient time signified interior truth, and because they mere among the more upright nations, in whom iniquity was not so much consummated,--i. e. the truth of the Church not so much extinguished; and therefore the Hivita Gibeonites were preserved by the Providence of the Lord." (A. C. 4431.)

83. The last remnants. They were thus absorbed by the Israelitish nation and became members of their Church, but still for ages they remained a distinct race in the land. That some of them, attained places of trust and hotter is evident from the fact that Ahimelech the Hittite was one of David's most trusted companions, while Uriah the Hittite, the husband of Bath-Sheba, was one of the king's body-guard.

264

In his unsuspecting loyalty and bravery he is a worthy representative of the Hittite character,--a simple-hearted, honorable descendant of the most ancient celestial race.

     Under Solomon the remnant of the Hittites were subjected to the same tribute of bond-service as the other remains of the Canaanites, (I. Kings 9:20). Solomon also formed an alliance with the "kings of the Hittites," (I. Kings 9:29), but these were evidently chieftains of the northern Hittites, from whose families, also, he took some of his numerous wives. (I. Kings 9:1.) Even after the Jews had returned from the Babylonish captivity, there were still Hittites in Palestine, existing as a distinct people, and they are named among those alien tribes with whom the returning Israelites contracted those marriages which Ezra forbade and Nehemiah dissolved. (Ezra 9:1; Nehemiah 13:23-28.) The last of the southern Hittites were probably absorbed by the Samaritans. Unlike their greater northern kinsmen they left no monuments or inscriptions wherewith to puzzle modern archaeologists.

     84. The Northern Hittites. Modern scholars are doubting whether the great Syrian nation known as Kittites really were of the same general stock as the southern Hittites so frequently mentioned in the Bible, and this because the names of the latter are all of Semitic origin, while those of the northern Hittites, as preserved in the Egyptian and Assyrian records, are on the whole strikingly non-Semitic. This, however, proves nothing, for on the one hand, the Assyrians and Egyptians were as careless about foreign names as were afterwards the Greeks and in modern times the English. And on the other hand, the northern Hittites, while of the same general race and stock as the southern, were undoubtedly of a different branch, with a different historic development. In the Word, certainly, the northern branch is called Hittites, just as the southern, and no apparent distinction is observed.

     The "ships from the coast of the Hittites," mentioned in Numbers 24:24, clearly refers to the northern Hittites dwelling by the Syrian coast, for the southern Hittites had no sea-ports or ships.

265

The Writings of the New Church tell us that by these "ships of the Hittites" are signified "the cognitions of truth and good which had been possessed by those of the Ancient Church." (A. E. 514.) Thus the northern Hittites, like the southern, signify "cognitions." In Joshua 1:4 we read of a land extending "from the wilderness and this Lebanon even unto the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites." This describes exactly the boundaries of the great northern empire which the Assyrians called the land of the "Khatti," and the Egyptians the land of the "Cheta." And in the second book of Kings, 7:6, it is said that the great siege of Samaria was raised when the Syrians of Hamath heard a supernatural noise "as if the king of Israel had hired the kings of the Hittites and the kings of Egypt, to come upon us,"-thus associating the Hittites as allies of the Egyptians, just as the Cheta sometimes actually were.

There is no reasonable cause, therefore, to doubt the identity of the northern Hittites with the Cheta or Khatti of the Egyptian and Assyrian monuments,--that great, war-like, well organized, highly civilized nation, which in most recent times has, as if by a miracle, risen out of their forgotten graves to reveal the existence of an ancient Empire which for thousands of years has remained totally unknown, but which for ages rivaled Egypt and Assyria in power, influence, and civilization.

85. Their historic resurrection. From time to time travelers have brought home from Syria and Asia Minor copies of hieroglyphic inscriptions, of a character very different from those of Egypt. The first of these were found in 1736 and the collection has since been steadily augmented. Some were found as far west as Smyrna and Sardis, some in the depth of Asia Minor, some in Armenia, and some in Coeli-Syria. They have been found even among the ruins of Nineveh and Babylon,--covering thus a vast extent of territory, and dating, apparently, from untold antiquity down to about 500 B. C. Within the last few years, especially, whole libraries of these inscriptions have been discovered, and ruined palaces covered with bas-reliefs and intaglios representing a race of people who, in features and garments, were totally different from any of the other nations of antiquity.

266

For years the learned were totally unable to "place" these people, until, as late as 1878, the two great archeologists, Wright and Sayce, identified them with the Cheta of the Egyptians, the Khaitti of the Asssyrians, and the Hittites of the Bible. Then, quickly, the brand-new science of "Hittitology" sprang into existence.

     One learned work after another appeared, reproducing the inscriptions and the bas-reliefs, and attempting to decipher the strange hieroglyphics. Theories and systems of interpretation rapidly replaced one another, but thus far no system has been generally accepted as correct and proven.*
     * Among the more important works we may mention the following:
     The Empire of the Hittites, by Dr. W. Wright. (London. 2d Edition, 1886.)
     Old Heroes. The Hittites of the Bible, by Rev. J. N. Fradenburgh. (New York. Hunt and Eaten, 1889.)
     The Hittites. Their Inscriptions and their History, by John Campbell. (Toronto, 1891.)
     Corpus Inscriptionum Hittiticorum, by Dr. L. Messerschmidt, (Berlin, 1900), whose interesting and richly illustrated article on The Ancient Hittites, (in the annual Report of the Smithsonian Institute, for 1903, pp. 681-703), should also be consulted.
     The so-called Hittites and their Inscriptions, by Prof. P. Jensen. An extended article in Hilprecht's Recant Explorations in Bible Lands, (Philadelphia, 1903).
     There are also many interesting and valuable articles on the Hittites in various magazines, among which we may mention one by A. H. Sayce in Fraser's Magazine, (republished in Little's Living Age for Sept., 1880, p. 736), and various articles illustrating the most recent discoveries, in the Records of the Past for 1903 and 1907.

     86. Their writing and language. The writing of these Hittites is a kind of picture-writing, hieroglyphics which to some small extent resemble those of Egypt, but the figures are more rounded, free, and unconventional. Sometimes the pictures are fully drawn, and at other times only suggested. There are all kinds of animal heads, hands with swords, feet with shoes turned up at the tips, crowns, tiaras, pointed caps, thrones, serpents, beside various abbreviated figures and signs. More than two-hundred of these have already been listed and their number is constantly increasing. Most of them are of the same rounded type, reminding us of the curved writing of the most ancient people of which Swedenborg speaks.

267

Following the direction in which the faces are turned, it has been established that the writing runs from right to left in the first line of the inscription, then, from left to right in the second line, from right to left in the third line, and so on,--quite different from the Hebrew which always runs from right to left, or the Assyrian which always runs from left to right, or the Old Babylonian and Egyptian, which runs from top to bottom. This alone shows that the Hittites were of a genius very distinct from that of any of their ancient neighbors. As to their language, something may be known from the Hittite names mentioned in the Egyptian and Assyrian inscriptions, and also from the Hittite inscriptions in cuneiform character which have been found in Armenia. Thus far, however, there is no consensus whatever among the learned as to the nature of the Hittite language: some claim it is akin to the modern Armenian tongue, which is supposed to be of Indo-Germanic origin, but all the theories appear like guess-work.

     87. Their personal characteristics and national costume are as distinctive as their mode of writing. In general their heads are strikingly short, their eyes and hair dark, and their noses remarkably large and curved. On the Egyptian monuments the Cheta are represented with long, slender Moses, slightly curved, decidedly receding foreheads, prominent cheek bones, short, round, beardless chins, and fair complexion. On the Hittite monuments, however, many of the men are bearded. The hair is long and thick and falls on the shoulder in a braided queue.

     The national dress consists chiefly of a short coat with half-sleeves, a long, pointed, sugar-loaf hat, with the lower rim turned upwards. This hat is especially characteristic of the Hittites, as is also the shoe which is always turned upward at the toes. The turned-up tips are accounted for by the fact that the Hittites lived in mountainous districts; it is found among many other mountain-tribes because it protects the toe better than the straight shoe or sandal.

     88. As to their Religion but little is definitely known. Originally, of course, they were monotheists, but in course of time, like the southern Hittites, they became idolators and polytheists.

268

If, as has been surmised, the ancient Hyksos or Shepherd-kings, who at one time overran Egypt, were Hittites, then the latter at that time were probably worshipers of one only God, whom they named Sutekh, for it is known that Apepi, the last of the Shepherd-kings in Egypt, (who is supposed to have been the Pharaoh of Joseph's time), "chose the good Sutekh as his Lord, and did not serve any other god in the whole land." (Lenormant, Ancient History of the East. Vol. I., p. 223.)

According to the monuments and inscriptions of the Hittites themselves, (and according to Prof. Jensen who claims to have deciphered them), this people placed at the head of their Pantheon "the Lord of the heavens, the god of the sky, the dispenser of the blessings of the fields; he is called 'the Lord,' or 'the supreme one,' 'the great Papa or baba,' i. e., of course, 'father,'--compare the Phrygian ZEUS Papar,--also the 'lord of Khate-Hati,' etc. His consort is 'the great Ma'a,' that is, of course, 'mother,' also called 'the great goddess.' " (Explor. in Bible Lands, p. 788) The worship of this "great mother," who is always adorned with the mural crown, spread from the Hittites throughout Asia Minor, to Phrygia, and thence into Greece, where she became known as Cybele. The great Papa,--the Zeus pater or Jupiter,--was variously represented; sometimes armed with the forked lightning and the battle ax; at other times depicted as the god of fertility, holding in one hand a great vine with many clusters of grapes, and in the other a cornucopia whence streams of water are issuing.

The subjects of the Hittite sculptors are chiefly religious. Great processions of gods and goddesses are represented, also winged, human headed, or double headed sphinxes, and other emblems, among these the "double eagle" which is never seen in Egypt or Assyria. It is said that the early Turks adopted this emblem from the Hittite monuments, and then, in turn, passed it on to the Austrian and German Empires! Their art, though possessing many features in common with that of Egypt on the one hand, and of Assyria on the other, is nevertheless very original and distinctive on the whole. Though somewhat rude, stiff, and childish, lacking in the elements of proportion and perspective, it still has a certain grace and dignity of its own, and the conviction seems to be growing that it had a very important influence upon early Greek art through the mediating hands of Phrygians and Lydians.

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While the Greeks undoubtedly received the alphabet and writing from the Phoenicians, they certainly did not learn their art from this source, for the Phoenicians simply had no art, except the art of money-making. Hellenic art, no less than Hellenic Religion, had its cradle in Asia Minor.

89. The Hittite Empire. The chief seats of the Hittites, in historic times, were the city of Kadesh on the Orontes, and the city of Carchemish on the northern Euphrates. The former, known to the Egyptians as "Ketesh, on the river Arunata," was situated not far from Hamath or Baalbek, where many Hittite inscriptions have been found. The name is a Hebrew one, and indicates that the place was considered a "holy" city. The latter, known at present as Jerabis or Jereblis, (from the Greek Heropolis), was also a "sacred city" and for more than a thousand years was the real capital of the Hittite Empire. Here, at Carchemish, important ruins have been uncovered and great masses of inscriptions found by Prof. Winkler, of the German Exploration Expedition, within the last two years, but as yet these literary treasures have refused to yield up their real secrets. Nor is it known how far to the north and west the Hittite Empire actually extended. It seems to have been a great federation of allied states, bound together by the bonds of common blood, religion, and civilization, each with its own king, rather than one great monarchy under a central head, (except, perhaps, in times of great national danger). Hittite inscriptions and monuments have been found throughout Asia Minor. The proto-Armenians were certainly this stock, as were also, perhaps, the original inhabitants of Pontus, Cappodocia, Cilicia, Phrygia, Lydia, and the Tread. The "liberty-cap" of the ancient Phrygians is now regarded as a survival of the conical hat of the Hittites; Gyges, the fabled founder of the Lydian kingdom, is now supposed to have been an
Hittite adventurer; and the great Trojan War is regarded as a contest between the degenerated Hittite descendants of the Ancient Church and the rising youthful power of the Ionians, [-Hebrew Javan, Assyrian Javnanu, Latin juvenes, English young ones.]

Whether the Hittites were at all connected with the Hyksos or Shepherd Kings is, at least, questionable.

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Some believe the Hyksos were Hebrews; others maintain they were Philistines. Who knows? According to the Egyptian monuments the Hittites first appear in history in the time of Thothmes III., (about 1450 B. C.), who in a great battle at Megiddo defeated the confederated Cheta and laid them under tribute. Whence they had cone, or how long they had possessed Syria and Mesopotamia, is not known for certain. Archeologists surmise that they had advanced from the highlands of Armenia sometime between 3-4000 B. C.

     In the time of Ramses I., (after the expulsion of the Hyksos from Egypt), the Hittites had again become dangerous rivals of Egypt and united under a single monarch. Ramses I, therefore led his army into Canaan and Coeli-Syria, the war finally ending by a treaty between the Egyptian king and Sephal, the king of the Hittites. Seti I., the son of Ramses, renewed the war, and after long and desperate struggles captured Kadesh, the key to the whole of Coeli-Syria. The reserve power of the Hittites was so great, however, that Seti soon afterwards restored his conquests to the Hittite king, Mautnur, and a new treaty was drawn up, which the Hittites, at least, faithfully observed.

     Peace was again broken by Ramses II., the son of Seti, "le grand monarch," the Louis XIV of Egypt. Invading Canaan in the fifth year of his reign, he met with but indifferent success, but is represented as having won the day at Kadesh more through his own personal bravery (and divine intercessions) than through the greater prowess of his army. No material advantages accrued to Egypt through the war, but a new treaty of peace was drawn up. Khetsera, the king of the Hittites, arrived in Thebes with a splendid retinue. The articles of peace were drawn up on a great tablet of silver. Everything was left in statu quo ante, and the peace was celebrated by the marriage of the Egyptian monarch with a daughter of the Hittite king. The campaign and the treaty form the subject of the great Egyptian national epic by the poet Pentaur,--the first epic in the history of Literature,--which to this day is to be read in magnificent hieroglyphics on the temple walls of Karnak.

     In the Assyrian inscriptions the Hittites are mentioned quite as frequently as in those of Egypt.

271

From the line of Tiglath Pileser I., (about 1100 B. C.), to that of Sargon, (722-705 B. C.), there was almost constant warfare between the Khatti and the Assyrians who contested with them the possession of Mesopotamia, Sargon finally put an end to the Hittite rule over the country east of the Taurus, and they remained subject to Assyria until the fall of Mineveh, after which the eastern Hittites fell first under the dominion of Media and then of Persia, and gradually pass out of history. In Asia Minor, however, they remained independent for a long time, especially in the kingdom of Cilicia, and later on in Armenia, but in the former they gradually adopted the civilization of Greece, and in Armenia they seem to have amalgamated with various mountain tribes of uncertain race. Some of the learned think that the Georgians of Caucasus are direct descendants of the Hittites.

90. The Hittites, direct descendants of Noah. Now, as to the origin of these Hittites and Hivites, who were of neither Semitic, Hamitic, or Japhetic stock, but direct descendants of the Most Ancient Church, I would venture to offer an hypothesis, which, though not yet proved either from Revelation or Science, still suggests itself from the Writings of the New Church. At the time of the Great Flood,--i. e., at the time of the destruction of the Most Ancient Church, the inhabitants of the land of Canaan were divided into two general and very different classes of people, The first, who constituted the vast majority, were the antediluvians, the monstrous Nephilim, the perverted celestial men who had become the worst people this earth has ever seen. Most of these perished through the clogging up of their channels of internal respiration, but some survived,--the horrible tribes known as Rhephaim, Anakim, Horim, Avim, Emim, Zuzim, and Zamzummin.

The other class, a small nucleus, was the remnant of simple good people, collectively called Noah, who were saved from destruction by a new Divine Revelation, (the Ancient Word, the seed of a new church. Between these and the Nephilim there could be no friendship, no modus vivendi; there must have been direful persecutions and wars of extermination, and the Noachites, as a whole undoubtedly had to flee for their lives. Is it not significant that Noah found refuge on Mt. Ararat, in Armenia?

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Why is Ararat mentioned,--a mountain so far from the center of Canaan,--unless there is some substratum of historical truth in the Biblical account of the Flood? To me it seems evident that the people called Noah actually fled from Canaan and "planted a vineyard" in Ararat, in other words, founded a colony in the highlands of Armenia. From this region, as a basis, they sent forth missionaries preaching the spiritual truths of the Ancient Church to various gentile nations who thus became "the sons," the converts, of Noah, and in time became the ancestors of the Semitic, Hamitic, and Japhetic races. The Church and nation called Noah in the meantime remained in their mountainous homes in Armenia, until, after many ages, they became a strong nation which finally pressed forward and took possession of Asia Minor and Syria. These, then, were the "northern Hittites," known in History only after the Ancient Church had become corrupted amongst them.

     But who were the southern Hittites and Hivites, the celestial remnants in the mountains of Canaan itself? May not they have descended from families of Noachites who did not emigrate with the rest, but found refuge in the mountains nearer home? We are informed in the Arcana Coelestia n. 640 that "besides the Church Noah there were also others at that time, [i. e., other salvable remnants of the Most Ancient Church], such as that which is called 'Enoch,' and others also, of whom no such mention and description are extant." From some of these, or from remaining Noachites, the southern Hittites and Hivites must have come, known by the same national names as that of their northern, more numerous and warlike brethren.

     It is to be added that the modern Armenians, (who are supposed to be descendants of the Hittites), claim to be the most ancient people in the world, and their language the original speech of mankind. The same claim was made by the ancient Phrygians, who were clearly an Hittite nation, (see Encyclop. Brit., vol. 18, p. 849).

     One more consideration Why is it that Syria everywhere in the Word signifies cognitions, that is, knowledges of spiritual things? The "wise men from the East" who came to worship the newborn Lord, were "Syrians," we are told in the Writings, "for in Syria were the last remains of the Ancient Church, and therefore in that land the cognitions of good and truth were still preserved, as is evident from Balaam," who knew Jehovah and quoted directly from the Ancient Word, (A. C. 3249).

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Was it not because Syria was occupied mainly by the Hittites, who, as the immediate descendants of Noah, preserved among themselves the traditions of the Ancient and Most Ancient Churches, in greater fulness than could be found with other nations?
NO WORSHIP WITHOUT REPENTANCE 1909

NO WORSHIP WITHOUT REPENTANCE Rev. W. F. PENDLETON 1909

     "Or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent." Rev. II, 5.

     In the message to the seven churches it is important to recognize that the idea of the Last Judgment runs through the message from beginning to end, or through the two chapters which are occupied with the message to the churches.

     Indeed the idea of the Last Judgment runs through the entire Book of Revelation. In the first chapter the Lord appears as the Son of Man, or as the Judge; then follows the preparation for the Judgment; after which the Judgment itself is treated of in a number of chapters; finally, or in the last two chapters, the twenty-first and twenty-second, the effects which: follow the Judgment are the main subjects under consideration, namely, the formation of a New Heaven and a New Church.

     The message to the seven churches treats in general of the preparation for the Judgment; and as in every judgment which takes place in the spiritual world, there are two states, the state of the good and the state of the evil, the state of those who will be saved and the state of those who cannot be saved because of confirmed evil, or the state of those who will receive the truth when it is revealed to them, and the state of those who will reject the truth with hatred and contempt; or again, the state of those who will be elevated into heaven by virtue of receiving the truth, which is always revealed in the Judgment, and the state of those who by rejecting the truth when revealed, are cast into hell.

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These two states in the Judgment are constantly in view in the message to the seven churches.

     The message is delivered to each one of the churches in their order; to Ephesus, to Smyma, to Pergamos, to Thyatira, to Sardis, to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea. Although the message is one in the universal sense, still there are in particular as many messages as there are churches, and the first message is to the church in Ephesus.

     As the first state of the church itself is one of faith or of doctrine, the message to the church in Ephesus is addressed to this faith state. Reuben the first born of the sons of Jacob signifies, the same in general, namely, faith or doctrine; and Peter, who is sometimes treated as the first of the Apostles, also signifies or represents this first thing of the church, the first in order of time, namely, faith or doctrine.

     The first state of the church itself is one of faith or doctrine, because it is necessary that the true doctrine of the church be first established; for without a true doctrine, without a sound theology, the states of the church, which are to follow in the series of the development and progress of the church, cannot possibly take place; for all worship and all life are according to doctrine, and these cannot at all be developed and established, except from true doctrine and in the light of it. Hence it is that the church of Ephesus is first mentioned, first treated of, and first addressed in the series of the churches; just as Reuben was the first born of Jacob, and Peter the first of the Apostles. It should be remarked, however, that the church Ephesus is not the first in importance, neither was Reuben the first in this sense, nor Peter. Philadelphia is of more importance than Ephesus, Judah is of more importance than Reuben, and John is of more importance than Peter, or they represent that which is more important, more essential to the church; they represent that which is the end for the sake of which the church is.

     As in the entire message to the churches, so in the message to the church Ephesus, there are two states in view or two classes of persons addressed; in general the evil and the good, but in particular, or the message as addressed and applied to those represented by the church in Ephesus, the two classes meant are first those who are in the faith and doctrine of the church, but who are in evil as to life, and who will remain in their own evils; and second, those who are also in evils but who will be gradually delivered from their evils by the practice of repentance.

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At first these two classes are together, that is, they hold the doctrine of the church in common, and on this account cannot be distinguished apart; but in the Judgment they are distinguished and separated, those who remain in their own evils are cast into hell, on their rejection of the faith and doctrine which they had held in common with the good; and the good who being separated from the evil are elevated into heaven. This is what is meant by these words of the Lord in Luke (XVII., 34), "I tell you, in that night there shall be two men in one bed; the one shall be taken, and the other left."

True doctrine is that which forms the understanding of the man of the church, and in the light of doctrine the understanding is able to see clearly the evils and falsities which, are present and invade the church. This is the case with those who are meant by the church Ephesus; from the light of doctrine in which they are, they detect and expose the evils and falsities which are present and become active even in the beginning of the church, and they severely condemn these evils and falsities which they so clearly see. This is what is meant by these words in the message to the church Ephesus, "I know thy works and thy labor, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them that are evil; and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars." By the evil are meant in the abstract the evils which become active even in the beginning of the church; and the falsities which become active at the time are meant by "them that say they are apostles and are found to be liars."

Since, however, it is necessary, in order that the church may be established, that those who are in the beginning of the church and are in true doctrine,--since it is necessary that they should not only detect, expose, and condemn evils and falsities as they appear in the activities of the church, but also should do the same in themselves, and thus enter upon a life of actual repentance, and by repentance establish in themselves, and is the church, a state of genuine illustration in spiritual things--since this is necessary for the permanent establishment of the church, and for the regeneration of the individual man of the church, these words are added, "Nevertheless I have against thee, that thou hast left thy first love. Remember therefore whence thou art fallen, and repent and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent."

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These words bring into view the important fact that, though doctrine is the first thing of the church in the order of time, the first thing of the church itself, considered as a church, the first thing in the order of the development of the church cannot properly be called a church until it has true doctrine, and though the stage of doctrine is the beginning of the church as a church, still there is a state prior to this, a state of simple good like that of infancy, which is meant by the first love, and the first works, to which they are commanded to return, and to which they can only return, by repentance of life. They are to return to this first state of good or charity, and conjoin their doctrine with it, which is done solely by repentance; and when this is done, the marriage of good and truth will take place, and will establish a new state of the church such as did not exist before,--that did not exist even in the beginning, neither in the state of simple good without doctrine which is meant by the first love, nor in the state afterward of doctrine without the simple good of charity, These two must be married to make the church itself.

We have here brought into view an important law of life and development, and an essential law of all progress; or what might be called an essential fact in every series. This law or this fact is, that there is a beginning, and there is a commencement, and the commencement is prior to the beginning. (A. C. 1560.) If we look at the beginning of any series, at that which looks to us like a beginning, and which is a beginning even as it appears; and then if we look further back, we shall find a prior beginning, or what is called in the Writings a commencement, without which the beginning could never take place.

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We have not space in this discourse to illustrate at large this fact or law, but shall apply it at once to the serial development of the church. The beginning of the church takes place, when true doctrine is established as its law and guide, but the commencement of the church is found in the state of simple good which existed prior to the church itself or its beginning, and which is the commencement of the church. The church is thus in its commencement with the simple good wherever they may be, whether in Gentile lands, whether with the simple in the Christian world, or whether with infants and children. With these the church is in its commencement, but it is not in its beginning, until these Gentiles, these simple, these children, are instructed in the genuine doctrine of the church. With these the church actually begins with instruction in doctrine; but it actually grows and develops afterward by repentance of life. This state of the commencement of the church, this state of simple good, this state of remains, must be interiorly present in the beginning of the church, and by repentance the doctrine of the beginning is conjoined with the simple good of the commencement of the church; and thus the church itself is established.

We have said that the message to the seven churches treats in general of the preparation for the Last Judgment. But there is also this interesting and important feature of the message, namely, that it treats of the establishment of the church in a series from beginning to end, thus it views the end from the beginning, and is complete in itself. And as it treats of the development of the church in a series from beginning to end, so in like manner it treats of the regeneration of the man of the church in a successive series. The seven names of the seven churches are but representative of the seven distinct stages through which the church passes, and through which the regenerating man passes, in the course of spiritual development. Ephesus marks the first stage, the stage of doctrine. Smyrna the next when doctrine begins to be applied to life, and so on to the end; but we have not time for the consideration of this phase of the message to the churches, and we merely speak of it here because it points to the fact that there are some who pass on through the various stages of development indicated by the names of the churches, as mentioned in successive order, and that the church itself passes through these stages, and will pass through them in the course of time; but that there are both societies and individuals, who stop by the way; and, by virtue of non-repentance, whose candlestick is removed out of his place.

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The language of the text shows that this is imminent with all, that it is an ever present and threatening danger--"or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent." The urgency of the case, the urgent need of repentance, is clearly indicated by these words. When the stage of doctrine is reached, and instruction in doctrine, not a single step further in the progress of the church is made without actual repentance!

     Now while the stage of doctrine is called the beginning of the church, and indeed is the beginning, a beginning that is most essential; yet the beginning of the church is not the church itself. It is indeed but a preparation for the church itself which is yet to come; for the church itself comes by repentance of life, and all who do not pass on to the stage of actual repentance, recede even from the stage of doctrine. "Or else I will come unto thee quickly and remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent."

     On this subject we read in the True Christian Religion (no. 510) as follows: "There are many things which prepare man for the church, as he advances in the first stages of life, and which introduce him to the church; but the things which bring the church into effect with him, are acts of repentance. Acts of repentance are such as cause man not to will, and thence not to do, the evils that are sins against God; for until this is done man stands outside of regeneration."

     It is plain that he who stands outside of regeneration, also stands outside of the church; for the church as a spiritual institution in the world is made up of those who are regenerate or are regenerating. Doctrine brings man to regeneration, to the regenerate life, to the church, but not a step is made into it without repentance.

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     It is for this reason that it is said, "Or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent. Not a step is made in regeneration except by repentance; not a step is made in the interior or spiritual development of the church except by repentance; every step towards heaven is made by repentance. On account of the exceeding great importance, on account of the supreme importance of repentance, the command to repent is the burden of the message of the Lord to the churches.

     To the church in Ephesus He says--let us repeat the words,--"Remember therefore whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent." To the church in Pergamos He says, "Repent; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth." (Rev. II., 16.) To the church in Thyatira He says, "And I gave her space to repent of her fornication, and she repented not. Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds." (Rev. II., 21, 22.) To the church in Sardis He says, "Remember therefore how thou hast received, and heard, and hold fast, and repent." (Rev. III., 3.) To the church in Laodicea He says, "As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten; be zealous therefore, and repent." (Rev. III., 19.) In all the messages the spirit of repentance is everywhere; and it is the burden of the messages to the churches, because it is the burden of the Word of God. The Lord reveals Himself in His Word and commands man to repent, or else he will perish in eternal death. We see it everywhere; we see it in the Apocalypse; we see it in the teaching of the Lord when He was on the earth; we see it in the message of John the Baptist, as he cried to the multitude, and the unbelieving Pharisees; we see it in the Ten Commandments, that Divine Summary of the Word of God; yea, there is joy in the universal heaven over one sinner that repenteth.

     "If thou repent not I will come unto thee quickly." There is nothing more certain than this, that the Lord will come and execute judgment; He will execute judgment upon every church, upon every society, and upon every man.

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This is one of the things of the future that is certain to come upon every one; it will come in the other world after death, upon every man, and there is no possibility of escape from it. Every man will then be adjudged to heaven or to hell, according to his life of repentance or non-repentance. If he has repented, if he has lived a life or repentance on earth, heaven will be his portion forever; but if he has lived a life of non-repentance, he will be separated from heaven, and his infernal abode will be among the lost, his place will be forever among the dead; or, as it is said, his candlestick will be removed out of his place; there will no longer be any light to shine upon his pathway, he will no longer have any illustration in spiritual things, he will be in the most dense black darkness of ignorance, he will forget that he ever lived in the world, he will not even know that there is a life after death. Such is the supreme importance of repentance, the repentance of the heart and thought, of the mind and the life; and such is the ignorance, the final state of ignorance of those who do not repent.

Why is so much said about repentance? Why is it the burden of the Word of God? Why does it appear everywhere in the Doctrine of the church? Because in no other way can evils be removed, in no other way can hell be separated from man, in no other way can man be taken out of hell, and rescued from the dominion of evil spirits, in no other way can he be brought to the threshold of heaven, and be prepared for introduction into heaven; and also because repentance is the worship of God in the life.

No man can be conjoined to God unless he worship Him. Worship is external and internal. He who knows only external worship cannot be conjoined with God, cannot be saved. External worship, necessary as it is, important as it is, to the complete development of spiritual life, to the complete development of the church, is not worship itself. It is the recreation of worship. External worship is worship in the same sense that certain external pleasures are the recreations of use. They are important and necessary to use, but they are not use itself.

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External worship bears the same relation to real worship, which is called internal worship, the worship of the life, the worship that there is in a daily life of repentance, the relation that recreation bears to use. He who is not in this worship is not really in the other, he is not really in external worship, even though he may appear to be. He may go to church, listen to preaching, kneel down and pray to God, sing praises to His name, and yet he will not be in the real worship of God, because he is not in the real life of repentance from sin, because he is not in the real worship of God in his daily life. His external worship will be as a form without an essence, a body without a soul, a carcass without life.

     But why is it that there is no real worship of God except in a life of daily repentance? Why is it that external worship is not alive except internal worship be in it? Why is it that it becomes for the first time alive, when man goes to church with a humble and repenting heart? Because no man can worship God with evil rampant in his heart, or predominant in his thought. This is what separates him from God, this is what causes him to hate God, this is what causes him to hate mankind; and with the man who hates God and hates the neighbor--and the two hatreds always go together--with such a man the worship of God with mouth and lip is a mockery.

     The real worship of God then Is in the practice of actual repentance, in the daily practice of actual repentance, which is the confession of sin before God, and the active resistance to every evil as soon as it appears in the thought, in the will, in the desire.

     Repentance begins with the confession of sin before God, and it ends in the active resistance to evil, which is continued and is to be continued, as long as it is necessary for it to continue, which is as long as evil holds up its head and threatens assault. Confession is not merely the general confession that one is a sinner. These may be merely words that spend their force upon the air, and do not penetrate the heart. Confession involves just this, namely, in seeing evil in oneself, evil tendencies, evil thoughts, evil delights, in acknowledging them as evil, and confessing them before God.

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Another step is necessary before there can be real resistance. Man cannot resist evil from himself, evil cannot resist evil, an evil heart cannot cast out its own evil. The Lord alone can do this, and He cannot do it unless He be present in man, and He cannot be present in man, cannot enter into him, unless man supplicates Him for help and power to resist the evil which he sees in himself threatening his soul.

First, there is confession of all evil that one sees in himself, and acknowledges to be a sin against God: second, there is supplication to the Lord for help, carrying with it the acknowledgment of our own helplessness; third, there is active resistance to the evil which is seen and confessed, from the power and help for which there has been supplication, and which always and at once flows into the humble and repentant heart, the heart which supplicates and prays for power to meet that which no human help can overcome. No man has ever prayed in vain who thus prays to God, and for this end and purpose; this is the prayer that is always answered; this is the prayer that is answered without any delay or waiting. This is the internal worship of which the Writings speak; this cry to God for help in the presence of active evil in the thought and heart, this daily cry to God for help to resist the active power of hell that is entering by some evil delight in our hearts, this continuous cry to God is internal worship, the worship that conjoins man to God, that makes external worship alive, that establishes the church on earth, and makes a heaven from the human race. Amen.

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SULPHUR, IRON FILINGS, AND WATER 1909

SULPHUR, IRON FILINGS, AND WATER E. E. IUNGERICH 1909

     In a memorable relation in the Apocalypse Revealed, n. 839, Swedenborg describes an army riding on red and black horses. The riders, who looked like apes, lay an their backs, facing the horses' tails, while around the necks of the riders hung the horses' bridles. This was a representation of some who fight against the members of the Lord's New Church. "Let us fight against the riders on the white horses, they cried, grasping with eagerness at the bridles which lay around their necks and thus pulling their horses back out of the fight."

     In the subsequent interpretation of this vision given by the angels these riders are declared to be such as speak about the church and religion, but yet have nothing of the church within themselves. In youth they learned many things of doctrine, but as this was only for the sake of advancement in office, their thoughts were turned away from God and Heaven to self and the world. They accordingly expelled the doctrines from the interiors of the rational mind which communicate with heaven and are in its light, to the exteriors of that mind and finally into the natural sensual, making them things not of thought from reason, and still less of affection from love, but of the mouth and speech alone.

     "Because they are such," said the angels--"they will admit no genuine truth which is of the church, nor any genuine good which is of religion. The interiors of their minds have become like bags filled with iron filings mixed with powder of sulphur, from which when water is poured in, there is first a development of heat, and finally a name by which the bags are burst. So with them. When they hear anything about living water, or the genuine truth of the Word, and this enters by their ears, they are greatly heated and inflamed, and reject it as a thing which would burst their heads." This aversion for the truth and good of the church was represented by their facing the tails of the horses, while their pulling the horses back signified a fear of combat lest the truths of the Word should come to many and thus to the light.

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     The same relation is repeated in the True Christian Religion, n. 113, the angels making use of the same simile of the bags filled with iron filings and powdered sulphur on which water is poured. In T. C. R. 116, Swedenborg himself makes use of this simile to describe those who have impressed on their hearts beyond power of eradication the faith of a trinity of persons from eternity and of the Passion of the Cross as being redemption itself.

     A further use of this simile is made in T. C. R. 110 which describes the ejection from heaven of an evil spirit who had confirmed himself in the belief that the Father and the Son were separate Divine persons. He was seen to descend as an ignis fatuus or meteor, and the spot in which he fell was found to consist of a "mixture of sulphur, iron filings, and miry clay." On the following day there appeared in this spot "two statues in the likeness of men, made of the dust of the earth, which was a mixture of sulphur, iron and clay." These statues were representatives of the faith and charity of the dragonists. "But suddenly a shower of rain fell from heaven and penetrated both statues. Then, because they were made of sulphur, iron and clay, they went into ebullition, as is usual when water is added to a mixture of those powders; and burning with intestinal fire, they flowed apart and became heaps which afterwards projected above the earth like burial mounds."

     This chemical phenomenon, illustrative of the rejection of genuine truth by those confirmed in a false faith, was one well known to Swedenborg, as shown by the following quotation from his work On Iron, published in 1734:

     "Maitre Lemmery made an experiment, mixing sulphur, iron filings and water, as well in small pots as in large and deeper ones, whereupon the material grew hot, and expanding endeavored to betake itself outside of the pot. He filled a large pot in summer time with 5 pounds of the same material, and covered the pot with a linen cloth, and buried it in the earth heaping dirt over it to the depth of a half cubit. After a lapse of 8 or 9 hours the ground began to swell up and grow hot, and there came forth not only sulphurous vapors, but also fiery flames which dilated the cracks first made." pp. 360.

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     The influx of angels and spirits who talk with a man is into the things of his memory. Swedenborg during the period of his scientific activity was led by the Lord to furnish his memory with scientifics which could be suitable receptacles for the spiritual truths that were afterwards revealed. Experimental facts, like the one here cited, were not revealed to him, but had been known to him before. But from revelation he was made to see their relations of exact correspondence to spiritual phenomena. What these scientifics were to Swedenborg in enabling his mind to receive and express rationally the truths of revelation, this his Scientific Works, an epitome of his carefully prepared mind, are to a rational understanding of the Writings.

     Man's mind, because of its gross, natural, setting, cannot easily remain long on a plane of pure spiritual truths, and only with difficulty may it discern there a few particulars among its generals. But when the exact natural correspondents are given, he has material that can be dissected into particulars, from which conclusions can be made as to the corresponding spiritual particulars. From a knowledge of the causes of the phenomena described by Lemmery, it would be possible to come to an exact, rational understanding of the forces in the spiritual world that produced the phenomena noted by Swedenborg.

     This knowledge is to be sought for in the Scientific Works. Sulphur, iron, and water, occupy peculiar positions in their cosmogony, having distinct relations in regard to formation and subsistence to the four auras of the elementary kingdom. As these auras are also associated with the various degrees of the universe and the various planes of the human mind, they are the links between the phenomena of the kingdom of nature and those in the kingdom of man's spirit. Until such knowledge is obtained we have hardly a rational understanding of this particular correspondence, nor can we explain the mechanics that are at the basis of the spiritual phenomena cited above.

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"SPONTANEOUS" GENERATION 1909

"SPONTANEOUS" GENERATION CHARLES E. BENHAM 1909

     A correspondent of Nature calls attention to a very remarkable passage in Chamber's Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, in which it is definitely narrated that insects had been produced apparently by the action of electricity on certain chemicals. The correspondent asks for information as to these experiments, which appear to have been forgotten or ignored by men of science, few of whom are willing even to consider the possibility of life manifesting itself except ab ovo.

     The extract is, however, so remarkable and, apparently, so circumstantial that it is worth quoting. It refers to some experiments made by a Mr. Andrew Crosse in 1837. The writer says:-

     "Mr. Crosse was pursuing some experiments in crystallization, causing a powerful voltaic battery to operate upon a saturated solution of silicate of potash, when the insects unexpectedly made their appearance. He afterwards tried nitrate of copper, which is a deadly poison, and from that fluid also did live insects emerge. Discouraged by the reception of his experiments, Mr. Crosse soon discontinued them, but they were some years after pursued by Mr. Weeks, of Sandwich, with precisely the same results. This gentleman, besides trying the first of the above substances, employed ferro-cyanuret (now called ferrocyanide) of potassium, on account of its containing a large proportion of carbon, the principal element of organic bodies, and from this substance the insects were produced in increased numbers. A few weeks sufficed for this experiment with the powerful battery of Mr. Crosse, but the first attempts of Mr. Weeks required about eleven months, a ground of presumption in itself that the electricity was chiefly concerned in the phenomena. The changes undergone by the fluid operated upon were in both cases remarkable and nearly alike. In Mr. Weeks's apparatus the silicate of potash became first turbid, then of a milky appearance; round the negative wire of the battery dipped into the fluid there gathered a quantity of gelatinous matter, a part of the process which is very striking, when we remember that gelatine is one of the proximate principles or first compounds, out of which animal bodies are formed, though of course we should require further proof to satisfy us that the matter here concerned was actually gelatine.

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From the matter, whatever was its nature, Mr. Weeks observed one of the insects in the very act of emerging, immediately after which it ascended to the surface of the fluid and sought concealment in an obscure corner of the apparatus. The insects produced by both experimentalists seem to have been the same, a species of acarus minute and semi-transparent, and furnished with long bristles, which can only be seen by the aid of the microscope. It is worthy of remark that some of these insects, soon after their existence had commenced, were found to be likely to extend their species. They were sometimes observed to go back to the fluid to feed, and occasionally they devoured each other."

     It is, of course, the tendency with the "high priests of science" nowadays to smile contemptuously at any such accounts as these, and it is quite possible that there was some mistake and that the conclusions as to the origin of these insects were erroneous, but at the same time the onus of proof must rest upon those who deny the validity of the experiments, which should not be regarded as necessarily valueless until it is actually demonstrated that the experiments were in some way misled or were wilfully deceiving the public.

     In Mr. Weeks's experiments every care was taken to exclude the possibility of the development of the insect from the ova. The wood of the frame-work was baked in a powerful heat; a bell-glass covered the apparatus, and from this the atmosphere was excluded by the fumes constantly rising from the liquid, for the emission of which there was an aperture at the top arranged so that only these fumes could pass. The water was distilled and the silicate had been subjected to white heat. Another fact worth adding is that the acari were found to breed readily after leaving the solution and their eggs were large enough to be seen, get none of these eggs were found in the liquid.

     The National Dictionary of Biography contains a good account of Andrew Crosse and his wonderful discovery of the Acarus Crossii, the announcement of which was received with such virulence and abuse that the discoverer said it seemed as if he had committed a crime.

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He communicated all his observations to a Dr. Noad, but offered no suggestions of his own as to the explanation of the phenomena, merely giving facts. The unfavorable reception of his experiments, however, appears to have preyed upon his mind, for he shortly after retired to Broomfield in Somersetshire, and entirely abandoned all his research work.

It is remarkable that Dr. Bastian does not seem to allude to Crosse's experiments in any of his works. It would be a useful service, especially in view of D. L. W. 341-2, to repeat the experiments, which it would be easy to do in these days of the development of electric science.

Dr. D. F. Harris, writing in Knowledge for February in praise of the Dutch microscopist, Leeuwenhoek, from whom Swedenborg took some of his anatomical facts, describes the famous: Dutchman as "the first bacteriologist," stating that he was the first human being to see a bacterium and a micrococcus. The interesting account given by Dr. Harris shows that Leeuwenhoek: was an extraordinarily keen observer, and a marvelous pioneer in research and discovery, so that it may be well understood that the appreciation of his work shown by Swedenborg was justified. He described the circulation of the blood, as testified by the testimony of the visible movement of the corpuscles in the capillaries under the microscope. With regard to his account of the red blood corpuscles, Dr. Harris makes no suggestion that Leeuwenhoek was incorrect in his estimate of their form and says no word about his taking them to be globular. On the other hand, he declares that the Dutchman was "certainly the first to describe them correctly as circular in man and oval in the vertebrata below man." It is a little remarkable that Leeuwenhoek was severely condemnatory of all theories of "spontaneous generation," and it is noteworthy that Swedenborg does not confirm his views of this subject. Leeuwenhoek cynically contended that it would be equally impossible for a small shell fish to be produced without generation as for a whale to have its origin in the mud.

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DOCUMENTS OF NEW CHURCH HISTORY 1909

     LETTERS FROM MR. WM. SCHLATTER TO THE HON. JOHN YOUNG.

                         Philadelphia, 17, June, 1823.
My Dear Brother:-

     Although you will receive a journal of the proceedings of the last Convention held at Baltimore, yet there are some circumstances which were not deemed proper to be brought before the public but with which I think every honest and true member of the Lord's New Church should be acquainted. You have heard long since of the awful heresy which originated with Mr. T. Worcester of Boston some three or four years ago. When it first made its appearance and for a long time after, we treated those who cherished it with a charity worthy the New Church. That is, we used all the means in our power to convince them they were wrong. We wrote letter upon letter. We possessed ourselves of every information on the subject of their "views"--being also at great pains to procure the opinions of the most prominent members beyond the Atlantic. But whichever way
we turned, whether to the Word, the works of Emanuel Swedenborg, our common reason, or the judgment of the most worthy and enlightened in the church, we met with irresistible and uniform protestation against it. All condemned it as a direful heresy, calculated, if embraced, to spread devastation in the New church, far and wide. But notwithstanding this, the supporters; of this principle were either so obstinate and self-opinionated, or so strong in their self-derived intelligence that they not only abused our charity towards them, treating with marked scorn and animosity every mild dissuasion we urged, every argument we advanced against them, but spoke and have still continued to speak in terms of contempt of all that could not embrace their notions. Still we deem it most to the interest of the church not to proceed to extremities with them and separate; thinking that as they were young men who had not been long in the church and might be somewhat enthusiastic, they would come right in time, listen to reason, see the absurdity of their notions, and like bona fide Newchurchmen, honorably renounce their error; they have been, by industrious correspondence to all quarters, and by every other means in their power, striving to poison the stream of pure doctrine in the minds of all they could.

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In this it grieves me to say they have succeeded but too well. After splitting the church in Boston,--excommunicating one or two of the best and most exemplary members, truly for no earthly reason but determined opposition to their views--they brought over two or three members of the New York society amongst whom was their pastor, the Rev. Mr. Doughty. "The serpent beguiled them and they did eat." The effects of the heresy in New York were characteristic. It produced discord where once reigned harmony,--it sowed the tares of distrust and enmity where once were confidence and love,--and if we may presume to judge from effects, it destroyed the sphere of usefulness and prevented the spread of the true doctrine. Although these effects were produced before May, 1822, in which month the Convention was held in Philadelphia, still we were disposed to regard the supporters of this growing evil with consistent lenity, believing it to be impossible that they could long persist in their extraordinary fallacies. But no: without conceding a single error in principle, but consenting to waive the practice for the sake of accommodation,--Mr. W. said, "Suffer it to be so now"--Mr. Worcester attempted to get ordination in May last year. In this attempt fortunately for the sake of truth he did not succeed. Their determined obstinacy opened our eyes to view the evil in its true light, and their arrogance and impudence in setting their opinions against the united church, were not calculated to render the evil less striking. But at the last Convention held in Baltimore they shewed "the cloven foot." The veil was removed and I was thoroughly convinced there was a great gulf between us;" that we had become to each other "as heathen men and publicans;" that we both could not be in true New Church principles; finally that our relation was such that there could be "nothing in common, between us." Myself for one will do all in my power to produce a separation from the Boston society and leave them "to work out their own salvation" in their own way. I am no Newchurchman if theirs be New Church principles, nor do I wish to be, in forming this determination.

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I have not, I trust, disregarded the injunction of our blessed Lord. For have we not forgiven them "seven times" yea, "seventy times seven," and would now receive them joyfully if they would but renounce principles that I cannot look upon to be either good or true or useful. It is against those falses and their end effects that we are warring. "There was war in heaven, Michael and his angels fought." But never can the New Jerusalem prosper, never can her armies conquer "the Dragon and his angels" whilst "this accursed thing is "in the midst" of her camp; never can she be recognized as "the Bride the Lamb's wife," while "mystery, Babylon the great, the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth" is "written in her forehead." There never has been and these never will be a Babel without "a confusion of tongues" and as a proof, they have erected a tower of self-derived intelligence. Listen to a plain statement of the notions that the members of the Boston society have at different times as well by letters as by conversation avowed:--

     1st. That the Pastor of a congregation represents the Lord, all influx of truth flowing from the Lord through him to the minds of his congregation; and that a society not so organized is not according to order.

     2d. That the affection or relation between a Pastor and his congregation is--or should be--a conjugial relation or affection, the same as that existing between a Man and his conjugial partner. That whenever such congregation, (of course collectively and individually), listened in love or affection to the Pastor of another New Church congregation, such congregation or individual so listening, was guilty of spiritual adultery; and that when preaching or ministering truth--to a society or individual of a society other than his own, the Pastor committed in like manner spiritual adultery.

     3d. That all persons who advocate second marriages under any circumstances or for any consideration, were and are not conjugialists but polygamists at heart, being restrained from indulging in polygamy only by civil law and popular opinion.

     4th. That all persons who are not united to their true conjugial partners, or who are married to persons not in the church are living in adultery.

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     5th. That they have perceptions (of what kind the omniscient mind only knows), whereby they are enabled to discern whether an individual be or be not united to his conjugial partner. As a proof that they profess this, they told Mrs. Prescott she was not united to hers and was living in adultery. Of course they are fully regenerated and in the celestial principle, inasmuch as Swedenborg says none are in perception but angels of the celestial heaven.

     6th. That they do not attempt to teach or confirm the doctrine of the Lord by the letter of the Word like the members of the church generally, but that they instruct their hearers to lead a good life, and then they will see it and know it. (Here we cannot help noticing a plain contradiction to their doctrine of the influx of truth through the Pastor as stated above, number 1).

     7th. That the Lord appears as two to all unregenerate minds.

     8th. That the members of the New Church in this quarter do not understand the Doctrine of the Lord; but that they believe it in blind faith, the same as that in which the members of the Old Church believe any doctrine.

     9th. That they do not read the Writings of Swedenborg for Authority, but merely for instruction; that there are several instances where he has contradicted in one place what he has advanced in another; that he merely wrote according to his state and that others in the church may arrive at as high a state of perception as he and know as much as he did.

     10th. That the Pastoral relation is a confirmed truth with them; that they do not talk about it now, but are going on to higher principles.

     With respect to the first of these principles, viz., the Pastoral relation, it is so truly at variance with the Word, the works of Swedenborg and common sense, so directly opposed to what should be the end of all our operations, namely, use, that it would be almost like insulting your understanding to prove its absurdity. A Newchurchman should be "free indeed," but this conjugial relation would go to make slaves of us.

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Must we not listen to truth, love it and imbibe it, whether we hear it from Paul or Apollos? And because we love the illustrations of the Doctrines from one minister, are we to be denounced as spiritual adulterers because we listen with delight to the elucidations of another? Is this principle one' grade higher in use or freedom than refined popery? But I fear the practice of some of the members in Boston too fatally confirms an abject state of slavery to their Pastor. It was confidently reported, a year ago, that some thought it useless to read Swedenborg any longer but went to Mr. Worcester for instruction in spiritual concerns. Is not this setting a man up in the place of the Lord, and thus by a blind confidence in his understanding making him infallible? Swedenborg tells us that the influx of goodness and truth flows from the Lord direct into the interiors of every individual, who prepares himself for its reception by reading the Word and leading a life according to the commandments. But the best evidence that these conjugialists are in false principles, is their conduct,--"actions speak louder than words"--and "by their fruits shall ye know them," and they proved at the last Convention that they waived the practice of their Pastoral relation, only so far as suited their selfish ends. At the Convention held in New York they asserted in their official statement that "all missionary preaching was spiritual knight errantry," and they demonstrated that this was their sentiment in Baltimore. Mr. Worcester said that the Boston society must beg to be excused from contributing to defray the expenses of a missionary tour, (recommended to be performed by Rev. Messrs. Carll and Roche through the western part of this State and Ohio); that they had objects at home that would require all their funds; thus showing that their charity begins and ends at home. Should Newchurchmen come to a general Convention with such narrow sectarian views? Are not all interested in the spread of truth? Are we not called upon to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the sick, and in prison? "Freely ye have received, freely give." Must we "hide our talent in a napkin" or "place our candle under a bushel?" No! We must let it shine that men may see it and "glorify our Father who is in Heaven." The Boston gentlemen say that the end of the Philadelphia society appears to be to gain numbers, but that they in Boston look to their own regeneration.

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That it may do for us who are in a low and external state to go about preaching and making converts, but that their concerns are of more importance. The President of the Convention proposed to recommend our worthy brother, Woodworth, as New Church missionary to the patronage of the members in the United States, and to my astonishment Messrs. Worcester and Doughty opposed it! Mr. Worcester stated his reasons to be "an attack on his principles, in the Missionary;"* and I am sorry to say he had sufficient influence to work upon some of the members so as to carry his vote of opposition. Thus did they refuse to encourage the only public medium in the United States for the spread of the New Church. Surely they "are not for us"; they "are against us." Mr. Worcester wished the convention to muzzle Mr. Woodworth as editor of the Missionary from stating anything against their false notions even in the abstract. But in this he did not succeed; and were long it may be a useful medium to point out and correct their errors. Mr. Woodworth and some of his friends look upon this opposition to the Missionary as calculated to injure him in a temporal view. But we will obviate such an effect by signing a paper recommending the New Jerusalem Missionary to all Newchurchmen throughout the United States, as it is calculated to do great good. The attack, alluded to, in a note to correspondents, (1st no. page 32) is not in the least degree personal, and accords with true doctrine, though possibly it may militate against the principles of Mr. Worcester. I hope you will do all you can to promote its circulation. Though I cannot conceive it possible that their notions as stated above in article 2nd, 3rd and 4th can be true, or that the doctrine of conjugial love as given by Swedenborg will fairly admit of any such distorted conclusions, yet admitting them for a moment to be true, the fair and inevitable deduction, from them is this: that as the conjugial principle will not sanction reiterated marriages, and as the Pastor is, or should be, according to order, the conjugial husband of his congregation,--in case the Pastor dies--the congregation should not take another Pastor or it would be committing spiritual adultery.

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When we are forced to build so extravagant and fantastical a superstructure, we cannot think the foundation thereof solid. But the originators of this heresy are possessed of such subtlety and can give so smooth and whitewashed, though false, an appearance to their "views," that they are well calculated to deceive those who do not investigate. They are like person throwing a handful of glass beads in the air and as they sparkle in the sunbeams, some weak-eyed people are so dazzled as to mistake them for diamonds; but let them be but examined one by one and they will be found spurious useless trash. Dr. Mann wrote a protest of twelve pages against this heresy and sent it to the last Convention; but it was not read as Mr. Worcester did not apply for ordination. To this letter was attached a declaration of Mrs. Cowell and her daughter, on their solemn oath before a magistrate, that they heard Mr. Thomas Worcester assert that he had more right or power over Mrs. Prescott than her husband,--that he had a right over her conscience!
* The New Jerusalem Missionary, a monthly magazine published at New York by Samuel Woodworth from May, 1823, to April, 1824.

But of all the evils in this delusive system, I look upon what they say respecting the doctrine of the Lord as the most awful. It is indeed a solemn business to tamper with so important a principle,--that stone, upon which "whoever falls" will be broken, "but upon whomsoever it falls it will grind him to powder." If the doctrine of the Lord is not to be confirmed by the pewter of the Word, why did Swedenborg assert so positively that it must? that all doctrine must be drawn from the letter of the Word and confirmed thereby. And why did he set us the example by writing a volume,--for the express purpose--in which he has incontestably proved that doctrine, if it were not to convince first the understandings of men? This circumstance alone completely refutes their idea that the Lord must appear as two to unregenerate minds; for it is the same thing as declaring that our understandings may be convinced of a truth even though we are in an unregenerate state; a belief in the doctrine of the Lord does not therefore imply regeneration; yet the principle of the Boston gentlemen leads to an opposite conclusion, as to their stating that the Lord appears as two when they are in bad states. I do not understand it. I have not, thank the Lord, ever looked upon Him for the last ten years in any other light than as One in His Divine Humanity.

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Of course I must not have been in any "bad state during that time,--which would be presumptuous in me to say. But they misuse terms. I deny that those trials and changes of state should be called bad states. They are for our good, and are good states, and without them we cannot advance in the regeneration.

What they say, No. 8, needs but little comment. Their vanity and arrogance in imagining themselves better instructed than all; the rest of their brethren, proves anything but the influences of a celestial feeling. That they are willing to abide by their principle of reading Swedenborg for instruction merely, is proved from their notions, particularly about conjugial love and influx, being so diametrically opposite to his. Respecting contradictions in his writings I look upon this attempt to weaken his authority, in the same light I do upon Socinians in attempting "to render of none effect" the Divine Word. No real member of the Lord's New Church can entertain, far less promulgate such ideas. For from the long, the accurate and close investigation of the works of Emanuel Swedenborg by men, compared to whom the conjugialists are but "the little maids in Israel," together with the strong facts of evidence they bear upon them, I am convinced that it is impossible their assertions can be true. Though they have for the last two years been called upon to point out an error, yet they have given but one solitary instance of contradiction, and that they are obliged to misconstrue in order to make it appear as such. (See A. C. 931, Which they say conveys the idea that the world will be destroyed.) It is useless to tell us now they look upon the Pastoral relation as a fixed truth. The whole tenor of their conduct both at home and abroad sufficiently proves they are governed by it. They say they are going on to higher principles and we have good reason to believe their notions respecting the doctrine of the Lord to be one of them. They are needless of comment except that I object to making the doctrine of the New Church a system of mere speculations, and therefore by Divine assistance, "the webs" of these conjugialists "shall not become garments." (Isaiah. lix. 6.) No: the Doctrines when promulgated as laid down by Emanuel Swedenborg are so plain and powerful, so comprehensive and edifying that "he who runs may read;" and it requires no such flights of fancy, no such refined absurdities, no such wiredrawn schemes to exhibit their solid beauties to minds truly rational.

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The Boston gentlemen would introduce heavenly order in the externals of the church on earth, thus cleansing first "the outside of the platter." Well might our blessed Lord say, "Ye hypocrites! cleanse first that which is within the platter, that the outside may be clean also." But this attempt respecting order can never succeed while it is plain how woefully short they have fallen from the practice of that precept which Swedenborg says is a perpetual law of heaven; "Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you do ye also unto them." Let every member of the church, laity and clergy, do as much good as they can to their needy brethren without the pale of the Church, as well as in it, by spreading the Heavenly Doctrines. Let them shun their evils as sins against God and love one another. These are the legitimate courses for promoting heavenly order, even in externals. Mr. T. Worcester has established the tything system in Boston, telling me I ought to like it as it is good correspondence; on the same principle we ought to be saddled with the whole Jewish ceremony. This would indeed be bringing correspondence down on all forms. What is rather surprising, Mr. Worcester quotes the letter of the Word to prove tything was correct, though he would not confirm the Doctrine of the Lord in the same manner. But enough of this. I have now stated clearly and fairly the principles avowed and defended by these young men, without exaggeration, and have endeavored to show the only, the inevitable consequences of such Doctrines when practiced; and in doing this, I have, if I know myself, been influenced solely by a sacred regard for eternal truth, by a devout wish to preserve through the assistance of our blessed Savior, His last best church from the Philistines; to keep undimmed the luster of the Heavenly Doctrines; to show in their true colors and thereby to prevent the dissemination of principles, which, if practiced, would profane the sanctuary of the Holy City, deform every truth of the new dispensation, and render nugatory the Writings of our illumined Swedenborg.

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If such be the Doctrines of the New Church, well might its Herald be called insane by the members of the old. If these be articles of the New Jerusalem creed, Calvinism and Trinitarianism with all their brood of theological monsters,--idolatry, election to grace, and unconditional damnation--will no longer boast pre-eminence in absurdity. No more would "the gates" of the New Jerusalem be "of pearl" nor "the foundations of her walls garnished with all manner of precious stones." No! "Her house would be left unto her desolate." "The wild beast of the island would cry in her desolate houses, and dragons in her pleasant palaces." Hear what that good man, Mr. Arbouin, expressed of their Pastoral relation not six months before he died, "Surely," said he, "the devil himself must have insinuated this sort of insane polygamy; and in the height of practical delusion, have dressed up so egregious a phantom in the form of marriage. Its tendency instead of promoting the conjugial principle which is perfect harmony, would be to create discordance, disunion, and every uncharitable proceeding; would make a Pope of the New Church minister to enslave the minds of his congregation and turn them most adulterously and most idolatrously to himself instead of Lord." This may convince you that my epistle is not dictated by any mere personal or party consideration. The testimony and experience of such a Brother is alone a sufficient apology for my decided opposition to such a heresy. Could you see the letters from Mr. Hindmarsh and Mr. Clowes on this subject, you would have still stronger reasons to convince you that my zeal does not exceed discretion; and also of the necessity, not only for my opposition but for that of every true member of the church. The gentlemen in Boston answered the arguments of Mr. Clowes and Mr. Hindmarsh, by saying, that Mr. Hindmarsh was a mere external man, Mr. Clowes in a low state and his sermons poor. They also have said that Mr. Arbouin was a ranter; that Mr. Hargrove has too many old notions to comprehend them. As for Mr. Roche, they can hear such sermons as his in a dozen Unitarian churches in Boston. In fact they have asserted to our faces that the reason we could not embrace their notions, is because we are in so low and external a state. Your reply and opinion on the subject of this letter, together with your views what course ought to be pursued at the next Convention, respecting those who have embraced this heresy, will
Oblige your Brother in the Lord,
(Signed.) WILLIAM SCHLATTER.

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     Since writing the above letter which I have felt it my duty to send as my regular protest against the Boston heresy, which is fast increasing, I received your letter by Mr. Barclay, who will tell you many particulars not stated. I regret you were not at the Convention. Your letter was not read, nor did I get to see it. I should like a copy of it. Dr. Mann wrote a protest of twelve pages which was not read; and Mrs. Cowell and daughter solemnly deposed that Tom Worcester said he had more authority over Mrs. Prescott than her husband. This will show you that Mr. Arbouin and ourselves have not miscalled their new fangled notions Popery--,as you will see further and more fully stated in my circular. Mr. Hargrove was requested to get the recommendation of his Society for Mr. Woodworth's Missionary, which was to be also recommended by our Society, but only himself and Mr. Higson were willing to sign it. Such is the influence of those Boston Boys; when this is the case what do you think of New Church Men, who allow themselves to be led by children. It is time to put a stop to them. I remain your,
     Friend and Brother,
          WM. SCHLATTER.

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Editorial Department 1909

Editorial Department Editor 1909

     NOTES AND REVIEWS.

     We learn from Morning Light, of March 27, "that the Swedish Parliament has voted the sum of 10,000 kronor (about $2,700) towards the erection of a sarcophagus in the Cathedral of Upsala over the remains of Emanuel Swedenborg."

     Among the new books that have been recently published are "The Spiritual World, as described in the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg," by J. Howard Spalding (Fred'k Warne & Co.), and "Degrees," three Lectures delivered at the New Church College, London, by the Rev. H. G. Drummond (Jas. Spiers).

     The most recent contribution to the long controversy against Conjugial Love comes in the shape of three open letters, entitled "An Academy Assumption," by Col. Rudolph Williams, of Chicago. The doughty colonel, who some years ago distinguished himself by a furious but ungrammatical onslaught upon the Academy in his "History of the New Church in Chicago," now again runs full tilt against his pet aversion, but unfortunately entangles himself at each step in the difficulties of the English language.

     A short time ago the Pittsburgh Despatch, doubtless in an access of zeal for "news," favored its readers with the information that Swedenborg had set the year 1757 as the time when the world would come to an end. The Rev. John Stephenson wrote a letter correcting the item, but some difficulty was experienced in inducing the editor to publish his letter, and, even when published, it was accompanied by an editorial note to the effect that all authorities agree that Swedenborg announced that "the Second Coming of the Lord occurred in 1757." Q. E. D.

     In a pamphlet recently issued, Mr. W. S. Rossiter, of the United States Census Bureau, gives a striking illustration of the growing decrease of the birth rate among the white population of this country.

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After showing that from 1790 to 1900, the American family--including parents--has shrunk from an average of 5.8 persons to 4.6, Mr. Rossiter points out that if the average of the former year had been continued the population of this country would now be increased by 20,000,000 persons! It cannot be denied, that, as Mr. Rossiter observes "the people of the United States have concluded that they are only about half as well able to rear children, at any rate without personal sacrifice, under the conditions which prevailed in 1900, as their predecessors proved themselves to be under the conditions prevailing in 1790."

With the issue of the tenth number of the first volume, The Secular Church makes its farewell bow to the New Church (and other) public. The purpose of its establishment had been the teaching, especially in application to economic and moral reforms, of New Church truths outside any ecclesiasticism, and quite largely, as expounded in the writings and preachings of men not in the Church. At its inauguration the paper received unfavorable notice in the New Church press which had little sympathy with its aims. The reasons for its discontinuance are given as being that the editor, the Rev. Chas. H. Mann, "for personal reasons has moved to California" (Los Angeles); and that "the local uses (i. e., in Elkhart, Ind.) for which there was a call for this publication, have largely ceased."

The New Church Messenger for April 7, is an illustrated number largely devoted to the interests of Urbana University. The principal article dealing with the "University" and "Its New Church Educational Ideals" is written by the Rev. Louis F. Hite. It opens with the remarkable claim that, "Among all the educational institutions of the Church, it (Urbana) has most concretely and most definitely represented the complete system which the doctrines of the New Church point to!"

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After this proclamation of high ideals and their faithful carrying out, it is sad to note that the balance of Mr. Hite's article is a recital of the continual decrease of the University's usefulness from the time of its establishment under the Rev. J. P. Stuart in 1853, when it had 100 students, to the present day, when, with the addition of a Girls' School, a Primary Department and a Kindergarten, the total attendance is 23!

     Morning Light announces the death of Mr. Theodore Compton, the English New Church writer, on March 19th, at the age of 92 years. Mr. Compton is well known in the literature of the Church as the author of biographies of William Cookworthy, John Clowes, George Harrison, Pastor Oberlin, and other worthies of the early days, as well as of many essays in the English New Church papers. With him passes the last representative leader of the old party of "Non-separatist" Newchurchmen who, for some seventy years or more, used to assemble annually at "Hawkstone Park," first under the leadership of Mr. Clowes, and then under Mr. George Harrison, the "Anglo-Saxon" translator of the Arcana. Mr. Compton, who always remained externally connected with the Quakers, was himself the son-in-law of Mr. Harrison, who was the grandson of William Cookworthy, the Quaker preacher who became the first Newchurchman in England.

     "When a narrow little judge down in New Jersey decided that 'Progress and Poverty' is an immoral book, Henry George characterized him in an editorial head line as 'an immortal ass,' and the highest court of the State affirmed George's judgment. But George was in error on the point of immortality, as it now appears--for the narrow little judge has been forgotten. This episode of twenty years ago is recalled by the recent decision of a narrow little judge down in Philadelphia, that Swedenborg's 'Conjugial Love' is immoral. There seems to be a species of insanity which confuses the unfamiliar and the immoral as if they were the same; but its victims pass away and advancing society forgets them."--The Public, March 26, 1909.

     In his recent "Adjudication" of the Kramph Will Case, Judge Smith, of the Lancaster Co. Orphans' Court, quotes the following estimate of Swedenborg, which we cite as a specimen of a literary species long supposed to be extinct:

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     "In his 'Diseases of Society,' Dr. G. Frank Lydston, Professor of Genito-Urinary Surgery, State University of Illinois, and Professor of Criminal Anthropology, Chicago-Kent College of Law, says: 'Nowhere in the range of psychology can the egotism, self-sufficiency, and exaltation of the imaginative faculties characteristic of mental disease be better studied than in the life and works of Emanuel Swedenborg. This man's claim to theologic authority rests entirely upon his arrogant and egotistic assumption of supernatural knowledge and communion with the illustrious dead. * * * He was profoundly versed in mathematics and astronomy, and even studied anatomy. He wrote several books on the latter subject by way of diversion. It is certainly peculiar that on such a foundation he eventually built a superstructure of superstition and visionary theology which has been handed down to the present generation as the product of Divine inspiration. Insanity is the only explanation.'"

     Can any of our readers furnish us with the date and publishers of Prof. Lydston's work?

     In the same erudite dissertation Judge Smith surmises that "Swedenborg probably appropriated the idea of eternal marriage from Publius Syrus, one of Caesar's contemporaries, who taught that the soul, not the body, makes marriage eternal! He very likely adopted the Roman's thought and elaborated it in the first part of 'Conjugial Love,' but by adding the chapters on fornication and concubinage he stultified the whole cause." The teaching of Publius Syrus here referred must be the single line reading, "Perenne conjugium animus, non corpus, facit," (the soul, not the body, makes marriage perpetual); for this is the only statement of the kind to be found among the "Sentences" of this author. Curiously enough, it is not quoted by Swedenborg in his "Select Sentences of L. Annaeus Seneca and Publ. Syrus Minor," which was published in 1709; but as early as 1700 in a little wedding poem written when Swedenborg was but twelve years of age, he refers to the eternity of marriages.

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It seems probable, therefore, that he "appropriated" the idea from the New Testament, and from the teaching of his earnest Christian father, rather than from the Roman comedian.

     The second number of The Reminder, the "occasional New Church Paper" published by the Ref. W. T. Lardge (see N. C. Life for March, p. 169) has lately come to hand. It fully sustains the spirit which was evident in the first issue, namely, the spirit of loyalty to the Writings and to the distinctiveness of the New Church. The leading subject of this issue is the necessity of complete separation of the New Church from the Old. Some sound advice is given by the editor, to those who are so situated that they cannot attend New Church services. "Far better (he concludes) for adults so circumstanced, to stay at home [rather than attend the Old Church] and prayerfully read the Liturgy, the letter of the Word, and the Writings, with their families gathered around them."

     The doctrine of the Authority also claims much of the editor's attention. Many striking quotations fare given, among which we note: "The internal sense of the Word has been dictated to me out of heaven." (A. C. 6597) "The internal sense is the Word of the Lord in the heavens." (A. C. 1887) The passages are left, for the most part, to speak for themselves; but they give strong testimony to the soundness of the position held by the editor. And this testimony is further strengthened by his answer to a question as to the Church specific: "The New Church in its specific form is with those who acknowledge the Lord in His Second Advent, which consists of the spiritual sense of the Word, which has now been revealed. To be even more emphatic, this spiritual sense is the Lord Himself come again according to promise."

     In our last issue, (p. 255), we called attention to an exchange of pulpits which had been effected in Birmingham, England, between the New Church minister, and a Wesleyan, in furtherance of a "general plan" adopted by the churches of the town. We also noted by the Messenger, to wit, that it "has its uses doubtless to both congregations."

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     The case we gave, however, is but an instance; for among the ministers of the English Conference there is a growing disposition to cultivate "uses" of this kind. Such exchanges are going on all the time. We even hear, (in Morning Light of January 20), of a "united communion service," in which the New Church minister was assisted by three ministers of the Old Church! On this item, a correspondent in the same issue exclaims, "A service such as that emphasizes the great things the Churches have in common."

     It is not often that we hear protests against this fraternization with the Old Church, but the exclamation just noted, prompts our old friend, Mr. Claude Toby to take up his pen for the defense of the New Church. "It would be interesting (he writes in a recent number of Morning Light) to know what these 'great things' are." He then goes on to answer the correspondent, (and incidentally also the Messenger) by quoting from the Writings as to the "collision and conflict" which will follow the mingling of the Faith of the New Church with that of the Old, so that "everything of the Church with the man will perish" and he will "scarcely know what the Church is, or whether there be any Church at all." (B. E. 102-103.) "Will not such a policy (the exchange of pulpits) lead rather to the extinction of the Church than its establishment (he continues)? What an object lesson for the younger members of the Church! What conclusion can they draw other than that the New Church is but one of -the numerous Christian sects, and that it is a matter of no consequence to which they belong? . . . It is to be feared that many members of the New Church have such an obscure idea of the Church that they 'scarcely know what the Church is or whether there be any Church at all.'"

     The new editor of The Helper, (the Rev. G. H. Dole), has revealed the exact sense in which the theologians of the Convention use the term "Divine truth" as applied to the Writings. "We have reason to believe," he states in the issue for March 17th, "that there is practical unanimity-of opinion in the church as to the Divine character of Swedenborg's theological writings,"--but, with a difference! "In the sense of Divine truth itself, the doctrines of the Church are not Divine, nor is the spiritual sense of the Word such as the angels are in."

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And therefore these doctrines "may be designated as 'Divine truth,' using a small t. Many of our writers have naturally fallen into the nomenclature calling truth in the Lord 'Divine Truth,' truth from the Lord such as is in heaven and in the church from Divine Revelation, 'Divine truth,' and truth like that in nature and science and that has not immediately back of it the certainty of Divine revelation, 'divine truth,' designating the order by the use of capital' or small letters." (Italics ours.)

     Here we have, then, Divine Truth, Divine truth, and divine truth! Shall we laugh, or shall we cry at these distinctions between what is Divine and what is divine? Our readers might suppose that the whole thing is meant as a joke--about sacred things,--but the context shows it is meant in sober earnest. It is intended as a gentle let-down to the editor's conclusion that "the Writings are appearances of truth from the Word, and are, like all truth in which angels are or ever will be, finite." Finite Divine! Finite Infinite!

     It would seem that even the universals of Doctrine are becoming unknown in the Convention. But it ought to be known that: Divine Truth is not in the Lord, but from the Lord, even as Light is not in the sun but from the sun. In the Lord there is nothing but Divine Love, even as in the sun there is nothing but pure fire. But the Divine Truth which is from the Lord is as Divine in lasts as it is in firsts, even as the Light from the sun is Light just as much at the ends of the universe as it is in the neighborhood of the corona. The difference is caused not by any difference in the Divinity of the revelation of Light, but by the sphere of the recipient angel or man. The reception is finite, the Light, is infinite. Where universals such as these are unknown or ignored, theology is dead!

     Writing in the Messenger some weeks ago on the subject of the Kramph Case, the Rev. W. L. Worcester suggested that the various societies of the General Convention adopt some statement, such as would be understood by the public, setting forth the attitude of the Church to the teachings respecting conjugial love.

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The Pennsylvania Association, of which Mr. Worcester is the president, is the first body to take up this suggestion, which it has followed out by the adoption, at its recent annual meeting, the writings of Swedenborg in the courts, when certain testamentary gifts to the New Church were contested upon the ground that the book entitled "Conjugial Love" contained teachings that were immoral and a violation of the Seventh Commandment." The action was taken, to quote the same authority, "with the object of placing the Church and its founder in a correct light before the public and emphasizing the true attitude of the Swedenborgian doctrine in relation to purity of life.

     The preambles and resolution are as follows:

     "Whereas, Certain testamentary gifts to New Church organizations have been attacked in the courts of Pennsylvania upon the ground that the writings of Swedenborg, as contained in the second part of the book 'Conjugial Love' are immoral and in violation of the Commandment, 'Thou shalt not commit adultery,' and are against the law of the land.

     "And, whereas, By reason of the above charge, and the circumstances arising therefrom, this association considers it highly desirable at this time formally to set forth the position which it has always held.

     "Now, therefore, It is hereby resolved as the sense of the Pennsylvania Association of the New Church that our position as Newchurchmen is that we stand on the Divine Commandment, 'Thou shalt not commit adultery, and that all sexual intercourse with any one other than one's lawful husband or wife is a violation of the Commandment and a sin against God; that the true interpretation of the writings of Swedenborg is in strict accord with the above position, and that we repudiate and condemn as false and pernicious every interpretation of any of Swedenborg's writings which asserts or admits that under any circumstances sexual intercourse with any one other than one's own lawful husband or wife is anything but evil and to be condemned and shunned as sin."

     It must have caused some surprise to the good people of Philadelphia to be thus solemnly assured by the Pennsylvania Association "that we stand on the Divine Commandment," and that the Association does not believe in--adultery!

     The following extracts from an article on Errors in the Teaching of Science, which appeared in the Chicago Daily News of March 4th, gives the views of an Old Churchman as to the materializing tendency of our modern education:

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     While I was talking to a little group of high school boys very recently, it developed that they were enthusiasts over chemistry and biology and had met to exchange ideas upon these favorite studies. They had reached the stage when some connection between chemistry and biology seemed vital to them.

     Just as perpetual motion is the dream of a young machinist, each newly arrived chemist wants to make an egg that will hatch. To the inquiry: "Is there not some impassable gap between the chemical constituents of the mechanism of life and life itself?" the answer was prompt, "No; if the chemicals forming an egg can be put together in the same proportions and subjected to the proper heat for twenty-one days there is no reason why it should not hatch."

     "Except that it does not hatch," was ventured tentatively.

     "It never has been done carefully enough," was the reply.

     It was admitted that this question never had come up in just this form in school.

     "You believe, then, that there is nothing in the universe that cannot be reduced to its chemical constituents and expressed in chemical formula?" was asked.

     They unanimously agreed that they could not imagine anything which could not be so expressed.

     "What is your chemical formula for God?" was asked.

     Quick as a flash one of them replied, "Superheated HO4 will express: that fairly well, I think," and in the eyes of the other boys he; was a hero. Now, what is the trouble? These boys were never exactly taught that in school and yet practically all of them learn it and believe it. Not only boys, but girls.

     In teaching the material processes and working of natural laws everything back of these processes is ignored. The teacher in chemistry teaches: how certain elements act upon one another to produce certain combinations and infatuates his boys and girls with laboratory experiments. He does not directly say there is nothing in the universe that cannot be analyzed and explained by the laws of chemical attraction and combination. He says nothing about it. In everything he does take up he finds chemistry, nothing but chemistry. By indirection the child learns to exclude from his mind what the teacher excludes from his teaching. Finally, he agrees with the earlier teaching of Tyndall, that "in matter we have the promise and the potency of all life."

     In the biological laboratory, in the history class, everywhere causes and finalities are ignored and only methods and processes are studied and these in such a manner as to produce the impression that they constitute the whole not only of knowledge but of fact.

     Only the mechanism of facts, only the organism of life, are studied or taught, and yet, consciously or unconsciously, these are so taught as to make the children believe they constitute all. . .

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     It is natural enough for the machinist to get so interested in the mechanism of the locomotive that he forgets that without steam the piston and cylinder are but so much impotent iron. It is possible for him to get so lost in the blue-print drawing of the various parts that he forgets the locomotive as a whole, and the draftsmen behind the blue print, and the purpose behind it all.

     Teachers of children should not forget that the things which they ignore in teaching, the child's mind is likely to deny as nonexistent. . . .

     It is all well enough to say that materialistic atheism is a sweat the boy must go through, and like the measles, the younger he has it the quicker he will recover and the less harm it will do him. Some of us doubt this.

     The remedy lies solely with the teachers as individuals. It is not necessary to put "the Bible in the public schools," nor to teach creeds or sectarianism or cults to remedy this trouble. Teachers need but impress upon each mind that the schools are teaching only the how, and not the why, that the how is not the whole of the problem; that biology teaches only how organisms have developed, the path of evolution, not the why of volution; that chemistry is not concerned with the reason one substance has "an affinity" for another, but only with the fact, and that back of all chemistry there is a problem so big we have not yet even estimated its circumference.

     Will not the high school teachers of Chicago agree among themselves to do something to stop this nightmare of materialistic atheism to which they are subjecting our boys and girls?

     The New Church Review, for April, contains two articles which should be of more than usual interest to New Church students. The first, "The Development of the Lord's Human Mind," by the Rev. T. K. Payton, is a discussion as to how and where the human mind is formed. "An infant when it first comes into the world is not endowed with anything except a soul derived from its father and a body derived from its mother. It has no mind in the sense of possessing affections, thoughts, and desires." Mr. Payton answers the question, "How is the mind formed," very briefly, and in a very general way. It is formed through the senses by which are given the "first materials of thought" and the "first objects of affection." What these "materials" and "objects" are is not discussed. To investigate these,--to show that they are actually forms and substances entering into man through the gateway of the senses,--this would be an interesting and valuable work. But Mr. Payton confines his paper largely to discussing the "where" of the mind, i. e., whether it is formed in the soul of an infant, which is an organized form of spiritual substance, or in its body which is an organized form of natural and material substance."

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The writer's answer is, that the mind "is formed in the brain by what flows from the soul into what has been acquired from external objects by means of the bodily organs of sense." In support of this conclusion many remarkable and particularly instructive passages are adduced from the Writings; these, we might add, would have been confirmed and illustrated, by quotations from The Rational Psychology and The Economy of the Animal Kingdom where the conclusion arrived at by Mr. Payton is abundantly and clearly taught.

The conclusion thus reached is but a first step in the comprehension of the human mind. But it is a most important step, as removing the thought from what is vague and indefinite. For further advance in this study it is necessary to understand what spiritual substance is, what "natural substance" as distinguished from material substances; and especially is it necessary to understand the doctrine of infilling. For it is by the "infilling" of the forces of the soul by the "natural substances" arising from the body and the world, and thus the fixing of the states into which man voluntarily brings himself,--it is by this that the mind is formed as it will remain to eternity.

The second of the articles to which we alluded above, is written by the Rev. H. Clinton Hay, and is on the subject of "The Immortality of the Soul Before Birth." Mr. Hay's conclusion is that the offspring becomes an individual and immortal soul at the moment of conception. We cannot but admire the frank manner in which the subject is discussed. Both sides of the question are presented, and the writer, gives a very full and extremely interesting series of such quotations from the Writings as bear directly on the subject. Still we cannot see that Mr. Hay has at all established his conclusion, and after reading his article we find ourselves at complete variance with him.

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     The whole teaching of the Writings is that every angel and spirit has been born on earth, and to say that mere conception is included in the term "born on earth" is an interpretation so forced and unnatural, that, before it can be accepted, it must be supported by the most explicit testimony from the Writings; such testimony is conspicuously absent. On the other hand the Writings do teach that birth consists in the opening of the lungs and thus the reception of sensation from the outer world. The very passages adduced by Mr. Hay do not support his conclusion. Those from the Divine Wisdom, on which he seems to rely most strongly, are indeed all strongly confirmative of an opposite conclusion. Their constant theme is the formation in the womb of the "future" man, i. e., of him who, by birth is to become a man. The man in the womb is spoken of as "conceived and being born, (Divine Wisdom II. I.). It is true that "the Lord conjoins Himself to man in the womb of the mother from his first conception and forms man" (ibid. III. I.), for without the continued presence of the Lord, and indeed His continued conjunction with the primitive forms of life which are in the seed, there could be no formation. But this presence and conjunction are for the purpose of forming man, and man is not man before he is formed.

     The theme of the treatise is the formation of the "future man (ibid III. 5.); and it teaches us that "the will and understanding [of this "future man"] "then for the first time become receptacles [of love and wisdom] when the lungs are opened" (ibid). The same passage concludes: "From this the first quality of the life in the foetus in the womb may be concluded,. . .[namely] that its sole life from the Lord, from which the man will afterwards live, is actuating the formation." (See also ibid: VI., fin.). The following number shows that "in the embryo and before birth. . . there is life, but it is not his but is the Lord's alone (ibid. III., 6).

     There is but one explicit teaching to which Mr. Hay refers for confirmation of his position. In this case the confirmation is only an apparent one, being based on what we cannot but regard as a mistranslation. The teaching referred to is in Swedenborg's Index to the Spiritual Diary, where, in a reference to nos. 1022 and 1035 he says "Quod faetus et infantus. . . ad coelum auferantur" (Index s. v. Infans).

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This Mr. Hay translates "That faetuses and infants . . . are borne away into heaven;" and, in a note, he adds "Swedenborg's full, scientific knowledge of foetal life would make it appear impossible for him to use the word foetus in the obscure sense of ancient classical Latin." The "obscure sense," thus slightingly referred to, is, as a matter of fact, the only sense in which the word faetus is used in classical Latin. In Andrews' Lexicon its definition is given as "young ones, offspring, progeny, brood." In fact the difference, in the classics, between faetus and infans is that the former refers to the offspring of animals as well as of men, whereas the latter is rarely used of animals, and never without some explaining word. Moreover, an examination of the Concordance, s. v. "Offspring, faetus," will show that Swedenborg uses the word faetus in the sense of an infant born, more often than he uses it in the sense of an unborn child. His differentiation between faetus and infans, when he uses both, is that the former refers to the new born babe, while the latter refers to the babe at a later age. This is shown by the passages in the Diary to which the entry quoted above refers. In n. 1022 instead of "faetus et infantes," we read "infantes et parvuli" (infants and little children); and in n. 1035 merely the word "infantes" is used.

To fairly weigh Mr. Hay's reasons for the conclusion at which he arrives, it is of course necessary to read his article, and this we would recommend to all who are interested in the subject.
NEW LITURGY REVIEWED 1909

NEW LITURGY REVIEWED 1909

     The following Review of the new Liturgy for the General Church appeared in The New Church Review for April:

     A NEW LITURGY."

     "A Liturgy for the General Church of the New Jerusalem, Bryn Athyn, Pa. Academy Book Room. 1908, 81 pp. 12 mo. Price, cloth, $2; full morocco, $3.50.

     "As we turn the thin but tenacious leaves of this new book of worship, we are at once impressed with its completeness. Everything that a worshiper is presumed to need is here brought together in a single light volume printed in a type suited to all eyes.

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General Offices in large variety, antiphons or responsive services suited to all occasions, prayers in very considerable number, what would, perhaps, be generally regarded as a sufficient portion of the Psalter,--the selections having been made with excellent judgment,--a full collection of chants and hymns, an ample presentation of the teachings of the New Church mainly in the words of Swedenborg, together with the special offices to be used at baptisms, marriages, funerals, etc., which have usually had a place in our liturgies--all these are included in its pages, the whole being carefully and thoroughly indexed.

     "This comprehensive feature of the book may be regarded as a somewhat external matter but it cannot be justly viewed as an unimportant one. It is not merely a convenience to have everything combined in a single consecutively-paged volume instead of being scattered through two or three, but it adds dignity and emphasis to the contents. Such a volume stands by itself. It comes to have a kind of representative character that closely links it with the church and with the life of piety which the church inculcates and for which it thus provides. In this respect, certainly, the book before us marks a distinct step in advance in the work of liturgy-making.

     "Coming now to a brief examination of its varied contents we are helped to a clearer understanding of its several features than we could otherwise gain by an explanatory article which the author, Bishop Pendleton, published in the New Church Life soon after the volume appeared. From this we are glad to quote the following lucid statement of the spirit in which the work was prepared and the modest aim which it has in view:--

     "'Great variety and latitude has been allowed in the Rubric, and much is left to the discretion of the Minister, providing for freedom of choice in adaptation to conditions. The Minister while avoiding the love of innovation, or yielding too much to individual preference, idiosyncrasy or prejudice, should use his judgment freely in accommodation to the actual needs of his congregation. The forms of worship should be pliable and adaptable to conditions as they exist; and by variety in application, provision is made and the way is opened to progress and advancement in the future as the result of experience.

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The Church is as yet far away from forms that may be considered as fixed and final. At present we cannot expect to make more than a beginning, or do better than provide some materials that may be of use in the future.'

     "These judicious words cannot but commend themselves to thoughtful, progressive minds. Moreover they forestall much of the criticism that would be in place were the contents of the volume to be regarded as in any sense fixed and final. For example: If the general offices were designed to be used in rotation we should say that there were too many of them. One of the most manifest advantages of the ritual service lies in the familiarity gained with its leading features through very frequent repetition. Hence this advantage is to a large degree lost if there be a wide gap between the recurrences of the same office. But if the twelve general offices with which the work opens, are simply material from which are to be selected a smaller number for somewhat regular use, no objection can be raised.

     "Without attempting any critical examination of the details of these offices, there is a single point upon which we are moved to comment. We notice that the ten commandments, which in the offices always appear in abbreviated form, are to be read by the minister while the people are kneeling. This, we are led to infer in the explanatory paper quoted, above, 'is based upon the teaching concerning the Law of the Decalogue that it is the most holy thing of the Word and of worship.' It does not seem to us to follow from this teaching that kneeling is the most fitting attitude to assume during the reading of the commandments. 'Worship,' when used in its broader sense, as it plainly is in the statement cited, includes all that enters into the religious service. And while it is palpably true that humility is a prime essential to any profitable participation in the several features of the worship, none would claim that the posture which is so generally regarded as suitable during prayer is to be maintained throughout the entire service.

     "When the commandments enter the service of worship, standing seems the more suitable attitude for the worshippers to take because it implies a readiness to do what these precepts enjoin, to obey their requirements.

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'All that the Lord hath spoken we will do and hear,' is the response which the Divine Word puts into our mouth. Even in what are termed 'Offices of Humiliation,' the introduction of the commandments would seem to imply that ready activity to do the Lord's will that would properly succeed the thoughtful utterance upon the knees of such penitential prayers as 'Have mercy upon me, O God,' and 'Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.'

     "We are far from making over-much of these more external features of the service of worship, and we are not unmindful that the many who are deterred by physical infirmities from taking these bodily attitudes may yet gain all the good that others realize through them; still, if postures of the body are to be enjoined we feel that they should be such as may fittingly represent the interior states which they are presumed to stimulate.

     "Viewing these offices as a whole there is one further criticism which we are disposed to make. As we go through them they at once impress us as overweighted with detail. They lack in the important element of simplicity. It seems to us that fewer details would increase the emphasis of each, and add not a little to the general impressiveness of the entire service.

     "The volume is not without its many excellencies, however, and we are especially glad to commend it to the careful study of all who are immediately interested in the revision and improvement of the books of worship now in use."

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Church News 1909

Church News Various 1909

     FROM OUR CORRESPONDENTS.

     BRYN ATHYN, PA. Easter was celebrated this year more adequately, perhaps, than ever before,--the new Liturgy being responsible for the perfection and ease of preparation of the services. First, there was the service of the redemption, on Palm Sunday with a sermon upon the New Church doctrine of redemption by means of uses. On Friday evening, after the supper, there was a service in the Chapel using some materials concerning the Lord's Humiliation, and the Passion of the Cross. On Sunday morning at nine-thirty, a service was held in the Assembly Room for the children. This had the double merit of providing something suitable for the little ones, and also of relieving the congestion in the Chapel, as most of them could then be sent home. We are as yet unprovided with a suitable song book, but there is a prospect, we understand, that a school hymnal of some sort will be provided by those who have labored so long and so successfully upon the Liturgy.

     The Chapel was decorated as Usual with palms and flowers, and extra sittings provided. There were present 195 worshipers of whom some twenty-four were visitors. Among these were Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Stroh, Mr. and Mrs. Rudolph Potts, and Mr. Ray Brown, from Canada; Mr. Ray Gill, from Colchester, England; six from New York and quite a number from the city.

     The Holy Supper was administered in the afternoon to 140 communicants

     The "Yraretil Star" had a supper on Friday evening. They say the girls can produce as fine a program of songs and speeches as the boys can.

     The Children's Dancing Class, conducted this year by Miss Phebe Bostock, assisted by Miss Ersa Smith and Miss Eleanor Lindrooth (pianist), was brought to a close shortly before the holidays with the usual "Soiree."

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The youngest class was put through its paces the week before. This is one of the most pleasing sights of the year--to a connoisseur of babies--for all the mothers come, and bring all the little darlings. There are 25 not yet in the Kindergarten.

     Miss Alice Grant took a party of fifteen, including the graduating class of the Seminary, to Washington during the holidays.

     The trip was successful from every point of view-except that they did not see the President. There were over 3,000 other students there at the same time, from all parts of the Atlantic States.

     Mrs. Colley finished her course of lecture-recitals upon the opera, the last one being upon the subject of "Tendencies of Modern Opera." Mrs. Colley, while warning us not to reject new developments in art too hastily, as was done at first with Wagner--admitted frankly that she failed as yet to appreciate the superiority of such works as Dubossy's "Pelleas et Mellisande," or Straus's "Salome."

     Musically, the most pretentious undertaking of the year was the Mikado, presented with full chorus, to an enthusiastic audience on Friday evening, April 2. The children were accommodated at the dress rehearsal on Thursday evening.

     Mrs. Colley taught the chorus their songs, but Mr. and Mrs. Heath did the rest with most pleasing results. Mr. Heath, as Koko, was very funny and Mrs. Heath, as "Katisha," was superb. Mr. Reginald Brown played an engaging "Nanki Poe" to Miss Gwladys Hicks's bewitching Yum Yum. Miss Madeline Glenn, as Pitti Sing was a "cheering sight to see," while Miss Winnie Boericke, as the third "little maid," greatly strengthened the sopranos. Mr. Otho Heilman, as the imperturbable Pooh Bah, was duly impressive. Mr. Eldred Iungerich, as the Mikado, was irresistible, while his umbrella bearer, long and lanky, and solemnly trying to keep the royal umbrella over the head of his strenuous monarch, made an unexpected hit. Madefrey Odhner sang "Pish Tush."

     Picnicking, canoeing, base ball and gardening have all been regarded by unexpected cold weather, but are all coming on now with the leaves. H. S.

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     BALTIMORE, MD. Instead of Easter Sunday, the Sacrament of the ford's Supper was administered on Palm Sunday, to sixteen communicants The Sunday School here is a very important feature, as there are already twenty-six children, (mostly under twelve), and a goodly number at home, to swell the ranks each year. The school is graded, and the teachers are evidently zealous to make it both instructive and interesting to the children. It is difficult to secure a lady teacher for the youngest class, when Mrs. Coffin is ill, all the women being mothers and very busy with their own little flocks. H. S.

     FROM OUR CONTEMPORARIES.

     UNITED STATES. The reception of the Rev. Arthur Mercer as the new pastor of the BROOKLYN (N. Y.) Society, which was held on March 9, was participated in by the pastor of the New York Society (New Church), the Brooklyn German Society (New Church), of the Plymouth Church, two Presbyterian Churches, the Dutch Reformed Church, and the Church of the Messiah!

     By the will of the late Wm. Donaldson, of PROVIDENCE, R. I., the General Convention and the Providence Society, each receive about $2,500.

     The Rev. W. de Ronden Pos has resigned the pastorate of the SAN FRANCISCO, Cal., Society.

     GREAT BRITAIN. The London Swedenborg Society has issued a circular calling for suggestions to promote the usefulness of a proposed celebration of the Centenary of the Society by an International Swedenborg Congress to be held in July, 1910. The plan as thus far formulated, contemplates that this Congress shall consist of "representatives elected by recognized bodies whether belonging to the New Church or otherwise, who take an interest in the dissemination of the writings of Swedenborg" and of other persons to be invited by the Society. The Congress is to remain in session four days, during which there will be lectures, addresses and religious and social meetings.

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ANNUAL MEETINGS 1909

     ANNOUNCEMENTS.

     Special Notice.

     The Council of the Clergy of the General Church of the New Jerusalem will meet at Toronto, Ont., Canada, from Tuesday, June 22d, to Saturday, June 26th, 1909.

     The Twelfth Annual Meeting of the SWEDENBORG SCIENTIFIC ASSOCIATION Will be held in Philadelphia, on Saturday, May 8th, 1999, at Odd Fellows' Temple, Room B, Floor 5, Corner of Broad and Arch Streets.

     9:30 A. M. Meeting of Board of Directors.

     10:00 A. M. First Session of Association.

     12:00 P. M. President's Address.

     2:30 P. M. Election of Officers. In addition to the President's Address, papers, and the usual reports, the subject of how best to cooperate with and further the proposed International Swedenborg Congress in London in the year 1910 will be discussed and suitable measures taken.

     Persons wishing to present papers or other communications at the meeting, will kindly communicate with the Secretary. REGINALD W. BROWN, Secretary.
INCREASE BY POWER AND LIGHT.* 1909

INCREASE BY POWER AND LIGHT.* Rev. W. F. PENDLETON 1909

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NEW CHURCH LIFE.

     VOL. XXIX.          JUNE, 1909.          No. 6.
     * An address delivered at Bryn Athyn, June 19, 1908.

     We have assembled today in celebration of a great event in the spiritual world, which took place, as recorded in the True Christian Religion, n. 791, on the nineteenth day of June, 1770, one hundred and thirty-eight years ago. The Lord on that day called together His twelve apostles, and commanded them to preach the Gospel anew, which was to be done throughout the spiritual world. On this same day, one hundred and six years afterward, thirty-two years ago today, another event took place, but this time in the natural world, the meeting together of twelve men under the leadings of the Divine Providence, in the City of Philadelphia, June 19th, 1876, to take steps to proclaim to the men of the New Church the true Gospel of the Second Advent of the Lord.

     The new Gospel, proclaimed in both worlds, had two ends in view. First, the announcing of a true idea of God; and Second, the gathering together of those who are able to see God in a spiritual idea of Him, and the formation out of them of a New Heaven and a New Church. For we are taught that none can enter heaven, or enter interiorly into the things of the Word, without a spiritual idea of God, a spiritual idea of God as a Man, of God in His Human, of God our Savior Jesus Christ. And there is no increase of heaven and the Church either in state or in numbers, until God is seen under this spiritual idea, and at the same time acknowledged in heart and life. Not only must God be seen under a spiritual idea, but His Word also, and at the same time all things of Doctrine and all things of the Church. A spiritual understanding of these things is the beginning of wisdom, thus the beginning of all spiritual increase; and there is no increase, or increase in numbers, until this spiritual increase is present as the life and motive power of the Church.

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In heaven all increase in numbers is according to increase in wisdom; for increase in wisdom involves also increase in uses, and this means the increase in the number of those who are to perform the uses. This is true of all work in the world, of every natural operation. As the intelligence of any use multiplies, so does the use extend itself, and more laborers are required to perform the work and reap the harvest. Herein lies the secret of all success, of all increase. It is in the increase of the intelligence of the work. More men are needed to do the new things that are seen; and when they are required and needed, they are furnished; the supply is according to the need. Thus it is that even in natural operations, the increase in numbers follows growth in intelligence. This is the reason that the spiritual increase of the church will involve natural increase. As new light is given, new uses appear, and the uses already existing expand and multiply. This explains the growth of a heavenly society. It is according to the increase of the uses of the society, and this according to the increase of spiritual intelligence and wisdom. In consequence greater numbers are needed to perform the uses, and greater numbers are added. Every society in heaven is continually increasing in this way. No heavenly society is closed, not even those of the Most Ancient Church; for this would argue a limit put upon the increase and extension of the sphere of its uses; and we read that there is joy in heaven, in every heavenly society, over such increase,--increase in the uses, and in the numbers of those who love the uses, and ardently long to do them.

No work, no use, in the spiritual world, or in the natural world, lives without such increase or expansion in the sphere of its use--without increase in the intelligence of the use, and increase in the numbers of those who are to co-operate in the performance of it. To stand still and run in a groove from year to year, to be satisfied with a successful routine, is to stagnate and die. Increase of intelligence needs and requires, yea, demands an extension of the sphere of a use, and thus a multiplying of the numbers of those who are to perform it. It is so with every heavenly society, it is so with every natural use, it is so with the church on earth.

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The church, therefore, must receive its spiritual increase, before it can enter into the reward of natural increase; and its spiritual increase is by the spiritual truth of Revelation, received, understood and loved. All aggregation of numbers without increase in intelligence and wisdom is pregnant with disaster to the church, and is prophetic of its ruin.

     But after all, the real source of increase is not intelligence of wisdom, but love. Spiritual intelligence, the wisdom that is spiritual wisdom, is not the cause of itself, or of its product which is use; the cause is spiritual love, and spiritual love is love to the Lord--love to the Lord derived not from man's self or proprium, but which is derived from the Lord. This is the source and cause of all power and light, the active center of all increase in heaven and in the church.

     Since all increase is from love, the negative side or aspect of this proposition also appears, namely that all decrease is a decline in the love which makes the church. This appears manifestly in the twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew, wherein the words which the Lord spoke to His disciples treat in their spiritual sense of the decline and consummation of the first Christian Church. That this decline was by a decrease in love and charity, and the consequent increase of evil, is taught in distinct terms in verses eleven and twelve. "Many false prophets shall arise, and deceive many; and because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall grow cold." False prophets are false doctrines, and in a general sense the teachers of false doctrine. These and their doctrines shall appear and shall deceive many, the result of which will be the increase of evils, causing a decline of love to the Lord and charity towards the neighbor; and since there is no spiritual light where there is no spiritual love, no spiritual understanding of truth is left in the church, no spiritual intelligence, no spiritual idea of God, except with a few who are known to the Lord alone. It is, therefore, said in verse twenty-two, "Except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved; but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened."

     The state of the decline of the church, the state of the church in its spiritual desolation, when there is no longer any love or faith, nor even any knowledge of spiritual good and truth, is still further described in verse twenty-nine.

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"Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moor, shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken." Then follows the Lord's own prediction concerning His coming, His Second Coming into the world, in verses thirty and thirty-one. "And then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven; and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other."

It is in this manner that the Lord describes His Second Coming to establish a New Church in the world, which is to endure forever. "Then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven" signifies that the Lord shall appear in His Word as the Divine Truth. "Then shall the tribes of the earth mourn" signifies that all those who see the Lord as the Divine Truth in His Word will be in spiritual temptations. "They shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory" signifies that then the Word as to its internal sense will be revealed, in which the Lord is present; "the clouds of heaven" signifies the literal sense of the Word, which will appear luminous by virtue of the internal sense which will then shine through it; "power" is predicted of the good which is in the internal sense of the Word and "glory" of its truth. Then follow the words, "He shall send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet," by which is signified evangelization, or the proclamation of the truth of the new Gospel, in both worlds by those whose function it is to teach and preach the Word. The effect of his proclamation then follows, as described in these words: "And they shall gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other." By this gathering together of the elect is signified the formation of a New Heaven and a New Church of those who receive the new revelation in heart and life.

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     Our purpose on the present occasion, however, is not to follow out the signification of all these words in detail, but to consider what is meant by the power and glory of the Word in which the Lord now appears, the power and glory of the Word as to its internal sense, more especially to consider what is meant by the power of the internal sense of the Word, the power that is in that sense, that is to say, the power that is in the Writings, and thus the power that is in the church in and from the Writings; for in the Writings the internal sense of the Word is revealed to the church, and when there is in the church a spiritual understanding of the Writings the power of the Writings is then power of the church; and the church is in power and glory from the Lord.

     The spiritual understanding of the Writings, or illustration from their spiritual light, is what is meant by the glory of the Lord in which the Lord is and in which He shall appear. Primarily, glory is the Divine Light, or light of Divine Truth, in heaven, in the internal sense of the Word, in the Writings; but when this light is received it becomes Divine Light in the church, in the men of the church. In this light is power, and from the power in the light is all the increase of the church.

     We read that the coming and presence of the Lord, the coming and the presence of the Lord in the power and glory of His Word is with those who, whilst they read the Word, look to Him and their neighbor, which is to look to the good of their fellow-citizens, of their country, of the church, and of heaven. They who thus look to the Lord and the neighbor, and look to the Lord by acknowledging that all truth and good are from Him, and none at all from themselves,--these are illustrated or enlightened when they read the Word. They enter into the glory of the Word, and receive of its power, and the Lord comes to them, reveals Himself to them, is present with them. (A. C. 9405.) And let us remember here that this looking to the Lord and the neighbor, while the Word is being read is not only a habit of life before a man come to the New Church, in his reading then of the letter of the Word; that his habit of looking to the Lord and the neighbor, when he reads the Word, is not only with him when he comes to the New Church--being the very thing itself that brings him to the church; but that this habit of mind and life continues with him after he comes, and is that which builds and establishes the church with him, being to him a perennial source of light and power.

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The habit of looking to the Lord and the neighbor in the reading of the Writings is indeed that which builds the church, the source of its illustration, the constant spring of its enlightenment and power, the ever acting cause--and there is no other cause-of its spiritual and natural increase.

The power is the Lord's power and the light is His light. His power is omnipotence, which we are told is given unto Him in His glorified Human, Divine power by His Word in heaven and on earth, power over hell and against evils and falsities which rise up from hell. This power is applied and imparted to the men of the church, power over evils and falsities, when the Word is read, when the Writings are read, in a state of illustration. For in a state of illustration, in a state of heavenly light in the mind from the Word, man loves the truth, has delight in the truth, wills it and does it. Truths, then, have power, or the power in them becomes active power, which is power over evils and falsities, power against evil spirits who assault and endeavor to destroy spiritual life. Hence we read that all the power which angels and men have from the Lord, is from the good of love by truths. (A. E. 209.) Love is thus the source of all power, but this power is exercised by truth. In the truth is the power to execute, to perform, to do, when man is inspired by love, which takes place when he looks to the Lord and the neighbor in his reading of the Word. The Fewer is not his power any more than the truth is his truth, than the light is his light. If he thinks of the power as his power, then he thinks of the truth merely as an instrumentality by which he exercises his power, not knowing or acknowledging that it is the Lord's power, which is imparted to him when he sees the truth in its own light, and takes delight in it, is inspired by the love of it, by the love that is the soul of the truth. The Lord then imparts power unto him, which appears to him as if it were his own power; but woe unto him, woe unto the church, when his appearance is confirmed; for it is the confirmation of this appearance that closes heaven and opens hell, destroying all hope of spiritual increase. But the church lives and grows; and has increase, when hell is closed and heaven is opened, when the Word of the Writings is read and understood, when light is imparted and power inspired in such reading, when love to the Lord and love to the neighbor become active in the light of the truth that is seen.

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This is the cause of spiritual increase; and will be the cause of natural increase. More men will be needed to perform the new activities of use that are seen; and when more men are needed to perform the ever increasing uses of the church, more men will be provided by the Lord of the harvest, who provides increase in numbers according to the increase of uses, from the increase of power and light in heaven and in the church forever.
LIGHT OF THE BODY IS THE EYE 1909

LIGHT OF THE BODY IS THE EYE Rev. F. E. WAELCHLI 1909

     The lamp of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness. (Matt. vi. 22, 23.)

     The external senses, which are five, viz.: the touch, the taste, the smell, the hearing, and the sight, have each a correspondence with the internal senses: the sense of touch in general corresponds to the affection of good; the sense of taste to the affection of knowing; the sense of smell to the affection of receiving; the sense of hearing to the affection of learning, also to obedience; and the sense of seeing to the affection of understanding and of growing wise.

     The reason why the sense of seeing corresponds to the affection of understanding and of growing wise, is, because the sight of the body altogether corresponds of the sight of the spirit, thus to the understanding For there are two lights: one, which is of the world, from the sun the other, which is of heaven, from the Lord; in the light of the world there is nothing of intelligence, but in the light of heaven there is intelligence; hence, so far as with man the things which are of the light of the world are illuminated by those of the light of heaven, so far the man understands and is wise; thus so far as they correspond.

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     As the sight of the eye corresponds to the understanding, therefore also sight is attributed to the understanding, and is called intellectual sight, those things also which man perceives are called the objects of that sight; and also in common discourse it is usual to say that objects are seen when they are understood; light and illumination likewise, and consequent clearness, are predicated of the understanding; and, on the other hand, shade and darkness, and consequent obscurity.

     It is therefore evident what is meant in our text when it is said that "the lamp of the body is the eye." By the eye is meant the understanding, and by the body is meant man as a spiritual being. The understanding is the lamp of the whole man, furnishing him with light.

     We are told that the eye must be single, in order that the whole body may be full of light. The word translated single can also be rendered sincere, upright, entire. These dualities the understanding must have that it may be a lamp to the whole man, and it has them when the truths of the Word are the objects which it sees.

     If the eye is not single, but evil, then the whole body will be full of darkness. By the evil eye is meant the understanding which sees falsities; and by the darkness which then fills the body is also meant falsity.

     Every man who would lay up for himself treasures in heaven, and so attain unto heaven and eternal life, must have a single eye or understanding. In the words which immediately precede our text, the Lord admonishes man to lay up treasures in heaven, by which are meant the truths of the Word and the good of life in accordance with those truths. These treasures can be obtained only by means of the understanding; for he who does not exercise his understanding can not acquire the truths of the Word nor know how to live in accordance with the Lord's Will. The man who has a single eye, or understanding, will obtain these blessings, and become an angel of light; but he who has an evil eye, will not obtain them, and will become a spirit of darkness.

     The truth that if there is a good, sincere and upright understanding there will be light in everything that pertains to man can be illustrated by what is similar on the bodily plane.

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     In order that man may see well, he must have a sound, healthy eye,--an eye that is single, that is, sees things in their true form, and not distorted and confusedly, as is often the case in certain disorders of the eye, one object appearing two or more, or else in a different situation and of a different color from what it really is. As the image of an object is received by the eye, so it is carried by the nerve to the brain, and there impresses itself upon that substance of the brain which is called the cortical substance This substance consists of innumerable glands, from which fibers, both sensory and motory, go forth into the entire body; thus from these glands there is the beginning of all action on the part of the body. Consequently, when these glands receive an impression coming from the eye, it is as it were communicated to the body, that is, the action or life of the body is influenced by that which Is seen. For example, if a man be walking, the eye sees the way and the object in it: the things seen are impressed on the cortical substance, and from this same substance goes forth the action of the body, so that while walking the steps go aright and dangers are avoided. This is, however, but a crude example. The image carried from the eye to the cortical glands, does not impress itself on one or on certain ones of those glands, but on all of them together; consequently, also the influence of that impression will be in the entire body of man; in every fiber, vessel and organ.

     If, then, the eye be sound or single, the whole body will, as it were, be filled with light from the eye. But if the eye be evil, that is, disordered, there will be darkness instead of light in the body.

     So it is with the understanding. If it be single, healthy, perfect, sincere, and upright, then the things which it sees will be interiorly impressed upon man, and thence light will fill his entire being, causing him to be wise in all his will, thought, action and speech. But if the understanding be evil, then only distorted impressions are received, which are falsities, and there will be darkness in the entire man.

     The state which exists when the whole man is filled with heavenly light is the heavenly state. And since this state depends upon a single or sound understanding, therefore every man who desires to attain unto heaven must have such an understanding.

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     Every man has an understanding, but not every one an understanding that is single, or sound, in the heavenly sense. It is, therefore, evident that there must be some quality interiorly within the understanding in order that it may be sound, and this interior quality is a good will. By a good will is meant a will that is influenced by love to the Lord and love to the neighbor. Where there is such a will, there is the desire that there be in the understanding a clear and full comprehension of the character of those two good loves, and also a full knowledge of the means whereby they may be carried out into daily life; at the same time, also, where there is such a will, the mind is open above, so as to receive influx from heaven, or, rather, from the Lord out of heaven, and thereby the understanding is so ordered and disposed that it may be a single eye, or a true lamp, to enlighten the entire man. The things which it sees are the truths of the Word, which it receives into itself (as the brain receives images reflected upon the eye), and these truths constitute in it a genuine faith.

     But it is otherwise if the eye is evil. There is then no good will, but an evil one, in which dwell the loves of self and the world. All that such a will desires of the understanding is that it may, as an eye, see for it those things by which it can carry out its evil loves, that is, that it may see for it those false reasonings, deceits and contrivances, which it needs. The things which the evil eye sees are, therefore, not truths, but falsities, not beautiful images, but distorted ones, by which the whole man is filled with darkness.

     When we say that the eye or understanding which is evil sees nothing but falsities, and is constituted of falsities received into itself, we are speaking of man's interior understanding, which makes a one with his life, and not of his exterior understanding. Man's interior understanding is that which makes a one with his will, and is active especially when he is alone, or in meditation;
in it dwell those thoughts which man secretly entertains within himself, and which he seldom imparts to others. But his exterior understanding is that which does not make a one with his will, and which he manifests to others; in it dwell his thoughts as to what is good, just and upright in civil and moral life, and also in spiritual life; therefore in it also dwell his knowledges of the truths of the Word.

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It is of the Divine Providence that man should have such an external understanding, for without it he would never be reformed and regenerated; without it his evil eye would never be healed. The eye of every man is evil from birth, being formed only of falsities. But if he will heed the truths which dwell externally in his understanding, or in his memory, and seek to live according to them, he will receive from the Lord a single eye instead of the evil one. But if he does not heed these things of the external understanding, he will in time lose them, if not in this world, then in the other. For whatever is in the mind of man and is not a one with his real life and character, cannot remain with him forever.

The single eye begins to be formed in man as soon as he enters upon regeneration, that is, as soon as he enters upon the earnest endeavor to come into love to the Lord and to the neighbor; for then he begins to long to see the truth for the sake of a good life, and his understanding, under heavenly influences, is so ordered and disposed that it may see the truth. As this understanding is formed, there comes to man a desire to make use of it. He wishes to use his eye, this eye which the Lord has given him, and the desire to do this is as strong, yea, even stronger than is the desire of every man to make use of his bodily eye. Every man desires constantly to use his bodily eye; he wishes to see his surroundings, so that he may act in accordance with them; he finds delight in resting his eye upon scenes and objects that are beautiful and harmonious, and directs it to them; while he avoids its resting upon things which are distasteful to him, and turns it away from them. Even so it is with the man whose understanding is single. He wishes to see the truths which show him the path of life; and he is inmostly affected with delight as he contemplates the beauty of the truth and of the heavenly and divine things which it reveals; while he turns away with a shudder from the darts and gloomy falsities of hell.

Every man who has the single eye desires to use it, and finds delight in using it. The truths of the Word are not to him dull, dry and uninteresting; they are not to him a desert in which he must at times perforce spend some time; but they are a beautiful paradise, in which he loves to walk and behold the wonderful things which, on every hand, surround him.

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Since such is the state with him who has the single eye, every one can judge for himself whether or not he possesses it.

     But the man whose eye is evil, as well as he whose eye is single, desires to use his eye and finds delight in doing so. And to him also the objects which ire sees appear beautiful, though in reality they are monstrous and deformed. With respect to this eye also, every one can judge whether or not it exists with him and is being used. To determine this he needs but attend to his meditations, or private and secret thoughts. If those thoughts are occupied with plans for the attainment of honor, fame or wealth, merely for the sake of honor, fame and wealth, and not for the sake of use; if they are busy with devices by which he may revenge himself upon those who have injured him, or harm those who do not honor and favor him; if they are active in the development of schemes by which he may make illegitimate gain in his dealings with his fellow-men; or if they are the phantasies which picture situations in which he might enjoy the indulgence of all manner of evil and sensual lusts: if such be the nature of the thoughts on which his understanding loves to dwell, then he can know that there is with him the eye that is evil.

     In order that the natural or bodily eye may see, there must be light. If there is no light there is no sight. The rays of light fall upon the object towards which the eye is turned, and from the object these rays are reflected to the eye, forming there an image of the object. It is even so with the understanding There must be light that it may see, not, however, natural light, but spiritual light which comes from the sun of the spiritual world.

     If the eye of man is single, then this spiritual light, coming from the sun of heaven, which is the Lord, shines in glory and splendor upon the truths to which his eye is directed, and it is the reflection of the rays of that light which, as it were, transfers those truths to his understanding and impresses them there, thus perfecting the faith which constitutes the understanding. It is the great privilege of the man whose eye is single to see in such light; he is indeed not conscious of this light, so long as he is in this world, but he will be when he enters the other world, for there is no other light than that of the sun of the spiritual world.

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     But with the man whose understanding is evil there is no such light. He is like a man whose eye is diseased and cannot endure the light, in consequence of which he must remain in a darkened room, in which he sees but obscurely. It is so with the evil in hell and also with the evil men on earth. This light with them has its origin in the sun of the spiritual world, but it undergoes such a change, when it falls into their wild notions, that is, into falsities and lusts. The Lord is everywhere present with light, even in the hells, otherwise the inhabitants would not have any faculty of thinking and thence of speaking; but it is made light according to reception. This infernal light is what is called darkness in our text. With the devils of hell this light is also turned into darkness, when they approach the light of heaven.

     The splendor of heavenly light and the gloom of infernal light are both fully described in the Writings of the Church, for it was granted Swedenborg to learn the quality of each.

     Concerning heavenly light we read: "That the light of heaven has in it intelligence and wisdom, and that it is the intelligence of truth and the wisdom of good from the Lord, which appears as the light before the eyes of the angels, it has been given me to know by living experience; I have been elevated into that light, which glittered like the light radiating from diamonds, and whilst I was kept in it I was led into spiritual ideas, and thus into those things which are of the intelligence of good and truth." (A. C. 4413.)

     Concerning infernal light we read: "They who are in evil and thence in falsities, appear in a gloomy light as of a fire of coals, which becomes altogether dusky at the light of heaven." (4416).

     And again: "Intelligence grounded in the proprium was shown by a light which appeared like a will-o'-the-wisp, around which was a dark border, and moreover it extended itself to a very small distance from the focus; it was further shown, that society, just as a will-o'-the-wisp is extinguished at the light of day of the sun. The quality of intelligence from the Divine was next shown, and this also by a light, which was more bright and luminous that that of the sun at noon-day, extending to all distance, and terminating like the light of the sun in the universe; and it was said that intelligence and wisdom enter from all sides into the sphere of that light, and cause truth and good to be perceived by an intuition almost boundless, but this according to the quality of truth from good" (4419)

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     From these teachings we see how blessed is the state of those who, having a single eye, see in the light of heaven; and how miserable that of those, who, having an evil eye, see in the light of hell. Every man, even while on earth, sees in the one light or the other, according to the duality of his eye; for the light coming from the Lord is adapted to every one according to his state.

     When the bodily eye sees an object, or, what is the same, when it is affected by the rays of light reflected from the object towards which it is directed, a change of state takes place in the substance of the eye, and also a change of state in the cortical substance of the brain to which the impression is communicated. And from the change of state there effected, comes a corresponding change of state in the entire body.

     It is similar with the understanding. When the eye which is single is directed towards a truth, then the heavenly light, which, as it were, conveys that truth to other understandings, induces a change of state in the understanding, and thence in the whole man. He becomes in a measure different from what he was before; he is in a measure perfected. It may seem to the man of the Church as a small thing to learn a new truth, and yet, if his eye be single, it is a most wonderful thing, and has its effect upon his whole being. He is not the same man after learning it as he was before; a change has taken place which has rendered him more perfect in every least particular, from inmosts to outermosts. Should not this thought make the true man of the Church all the more zealous in his application to the truth!

     We have presented today some of the arcana concerning the understanding of man and its correspondence with the eye. There are others that we might dwell upon, should time permit. As, for example, we might consider that wonderful spiritual atmosphere by means of which the light of heaven is conveyed to the spiritual eye, and to which that degree of the earthly atmosphere which is called the ether corresponds, and reflect upon the wonderful providence of the Lord in adapting that atmosphere to the state of every man's understanding.

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We might also consider the marvelous manner in which the understanding disposes itself to receive the truth, similar to the manner in which the eye disposes itself to receive the rays of light conveyed by the ether. In fact, the longer we would dwell on the subject, the more would we see important things to consider. But what has been today presented should be sufficient to serve the use of awakening with every one the desire to see with an eye that is single, to see with an eye that can receive the truth in the light of heaven, to see with an eye that finds its happiness in the beauties and harmonies of the goods and truths which proceed from the Lord and fill the spiritual universe; and, on the other hand, to shun as a sin against God and as damnable to the soul everything which pertains to the eye which is evil, and which finds its delight in the fantastic phantoms which float in the lurid light of hell.

There is, however, yet one teaching of our text on which we must dwell, for it is most important. It is that which is contained in the closing words: "If the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness." Light becomes darkness in man if he has once seen the light, seen it interiorly and truly, and then turns away from it, neglecting, despising and contemning it. This is the sin of profanation, the most grievous of all sins. Let everyone, therefore, be on his guard against it. If the light has dawned upon him, if there has been with him the beginning of the state of love to the Lord and to the neighbor, and if, then, seduced by the selfish worldly loves of his proprium, he immerses that heaven-given light in the blackness of hell then grievous indeed will be his lot. He will be cast into the outermost darkness of hell, the darkness of which it is said in our text: "How great is that darkness!"

He who would have the eye that is single must look to the Lord steadfastly and constantly, and not permit the false insinuations of the eye that is evil to draw him away. No one can have the eye that is single and the eye that is evil at the same time; no one can interiorly receive the truth and find delight in it and at the same time entertain all manner of selfish and worldly meditations and secret thoughts; no one can serve two masters.

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There is but one Master to serve, if we would attain eternal life: the Lord Jesus Christ; and Him we will serve if we look to Him in His Word, eager to learn and to do the truth which He there reveals. If we will do this, then will He bestow upon us the treasures of heaven,--those wondrous treasures, which will abide forever, and bring to us the joy and peace of eternal life. Amen.
PROCEEDING OF THE HOLY SPIRIT 1909

PROCEEDING OF THE HOLY SPIRIT Rev. W. H. BENADE 1909

     AN APPARENT CONFLICT RECONCILED.

     IS THERE ANY REAL CONFLICT BETWEEN WHAT SWEDENBORG SAYS OF THE DIVINE ACTING THROUGH THE HUMAN,--AND WHAT HE SAYS OF THE HUMAN ACTING OUT OF ITSELF FROM THE DIVINE?

     The statements, which have been supposed by some to be of an opposite or contradictory nature, are these:

     In A. R. 962. "Sanctum Divinum, quod intelligitur per Spiritum Sanctum, procedat ex Divine in Domino per Ipsius Humanum glorificatum, quod est Divinum Humanum, comparative sicut omne activum procedat ex anima per corpus apud hominem."

     "The Holy Divine, which is understood by the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Divine in the Lord by His Glorified Human, which is the Divine Human, comparatively as all activity proceeds from the soul by the body with man."

     In T. C. R. 188: "Sanctum Divinum, quod intelligitur per Spiritum Sanctum, non procedat ex Patre per Dominum, sed ex Domino a Patre, comparative sicut apud hominem, ejus activum non procedit ab anima per corpus, sed ex corpore ab anima."

     "The Divine, which is understood by the Holy Spirit, does not proceed from the Father by the Lord, but out of the Lord from the Father, comparatively as with man, his activity does not proceed from the soul out of the body, but out of the body from the soul."

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     In both cases, the statement is contained in Memorable Relations, which appeared to record the deliberations of a certain council in the Spiritual World. It cannot be doubted that these Relations refer to the same council. The statements before us are given as the conclusion reached by the council, and confirmed by an angel from heaven, after deliberation on the question, which is stated in A. R. 962--thus:

     "From whom does the Divine which is called the Holy Spirit proceed; from the Divine which is called the Father, or from the Divine Humanity which is called the Son?"

     And in T. C. R. 188, thus:

     "From whom proceeds the Divine which is signified by the Holy Spirit, from the Father, or from the Lord?"

     The question is evidently one. Is the answer one? In both cases the answer seems to exceed the question; it states not only from whom, but also by whom the Holy Spirit proceeds:

     1. In A. R.-From whom? Answer. From the Divine in the Lord.

     In T. C. R. From whom? Answer. From the Father.

     The Divine in the Lord is the Father. Therefore the answer is one.

     2. In A. R.-By whom? Answer. By His Glorified Human which is the Divine Human.

     2. In T. C. R. By whom? Answer. Out of the Lord from the Father.

     The Divine Human is the Lord, and the Lord is the Divine Human.

     Therefore this answer is one also.

     An apparent difficulty arises from the negative statement in T. C. R. 188, "non procedat ex Patre per Dominum," which seems to contradict the affirmation in A. R. 962, "procedat ex Divino in Domino per Ipsius Humanum glorificatum,-" when in reality it only contradicts the idea of its proceeding from the one without the other. In A. R. it is said that it proceeds from the Divine in the Lord by the Divine Human, and in T. C. R. it is said that it proceeds out of the Lord, i. e., the Divine Human from the Father, i. e., from the Divine in the Lord.

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Thus, in both cases is it said, only in different terms, that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Divine in the Lord from the Father. The Truth in the two statements is essentially one, and both statements give essentially one and the same Truth. And this appears also clearly from the comparison employed in illustration of both statements. The proceeding of the Holy Spirit out of the Divine in the Lord by the Divine Human, is likened in A. R. to the proceeding of all activity, with man, out of the soul by the body; and in T. C. R. to the activity proceeding out of the body from the soul; but not from the soul by the body, as from something without and not within the body. The end and purpose of the whole discussion was to establish the doctrine of the Divine Unity, and the point of special consideration in the portion of the Relation before us, was the doctrine concerning the Holy Spirit,--which is contained in John 15:26, and 16:14, 15. When the Holy Spirit shall come, whom I will send unto you from the Father;--"He shall glorify me, for he shall take of mine, and shall show it unto you. All things that the Father hath are mine; wherefore I said, that he shall take of mine, and shall show it unto you." The Lord, the Divine Human, sends the Holy Spirit from the Father, that is, from the Divine in Himself. And this idea, as the meaning of the whole discussion, is expanded and embodied in the decree passed at the conclusion of the deliberation: "From what has been deliberated in this council, we see clearly, and of consequence acknowledge as holy truth, that in the Lord God, the Savior Jesus Christ, there is a Divine Trinity, consisting of the originating Divinity,-(Divinum A QUO), which is called the Father, the Divine Human, which is called the Son, and the Divine Proceeding which is called the Holy Spirit." Then they lifted up their voices together, exclaiming, "In Jesus Christ dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." (Coloss. 2:9.) Thus there is one God in the Church.

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ACCOMMODATIONS OF CONJUGIAL LOVE TO THE STATES OF MEN 1909

ACCOMMODATIONS OF CONJUGIAL LOVE TO THE STATES OF MEN Rev. WILLIAM HYDE ALDEN 1909

     The origin of conjugial love is in the Lord Himself, in whom love and wisdom are united in an eternal marriage, the fruits of which are all things of the creation. This union of the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom in the Lord is imaged throughout the creation, in the conjunction of the Lord with the Church and Heaven, in action and reaction in the mineral world, in the conjunction of plant life with mother earth, in male and female among animals, and, in the highest form, in the marriage union of one man with one woman, who together look to the Lord and together seek to obey Him and together look forward to ever closer and closer union to eternity.

     Into such a union the Lord seeks to bring all men and all women. For such a union they were created, that in it they might co-operate with the Lord in His infinite love of creating other beings whom He may bless with eternal happiness. Upon such unions He has bestowed the gift of Conjugial Love, the fundamental of all loves of heaven and earth, into which are gathered all delights from firsts to lasts.

     The ideal marriage, that in which conjugial love exists, is that in which there is the union of souls and minds within the union of the flesh. This union of souls can exist only with those who look to the Lord and seek to do His will, who are regenerating men.

     As men have departed from the true knowledge of the Lord, as churches have decayed and come to an end, so true marriage has been lost to men, and outside the bounds of the New Church conjugial love is, even intellectually, unknown. Nevertheless, in Christian countries there has been preserved the representative of true marriage, in the general provision by law that there shall be marriage of one with one only. Very generally also the necessity of the sanction of marriage by the Church is recognized; and, somewhat less generally, the importance of marriage within the lines of the Church.

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To the New Church are made known the reasons why there should be marriage of one with one only, why wedlock should be sanctioned by the Church, why marriage should be contracted only between those who are at one in the things of religion. But, while marriage of one with one only has been taken for granted in the New Church, in common with the Christian world, together with the sanction of the marriage vows by the Church, distinctive instruction with regard to the importance of marriages within the Church, has been less given with successive generations, with the result that with many who bear the New Church name, marriage within the Church so far as it exists, exists as a waning custom rather than as the result of a conviction that it is necessary. To this cause more than to any other may be ascribed the disintegration which is to be observed--in certain organizations of the New Church. This neglect of marriages within the Church is a striking symptom of decline in the vital teaching of the doctrine, a decline from which the titular New Church has suffered for many years,--a sad and central symptom of decay.

     It might seem that Newchurchmen need only to know of the happiness of that marriage which is blessed with conjugial love to seek for it as the precious pearl whose value is above every other treasure. There is abundant teaching about it in the Heavenly Doctrines. Why is it that it is not sought by every one who bears the New Church name?

     First, because it is not taught; or if taught, it is as if the teaching were not. Outward spheres are active; love of the world is strong. External allurements first attract toward marriage. Internal states at the time of marriage but little appear, if at all. Social life is based on external considerations; and such as is the social life, such are the marriages contracted. Because many yield themselves unthinking to the subtle, yet potent allurements of external spheres, marriages of those within with those without the Church, multiply; children drift away; the Church disintegrates.

     Where such marriages are entered into in the despite of distinctly understood teaching of the Heavenly Doctrines, they are unhesitatingly to be condemned. The teaching is unmistakable:

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     They who are born within the Church, and from infancy have imbibed the truth of the Church, ought not to enter into marriages with those who are out of the Church, and thus have imbued such things as are not of the Church. * * * Marriages on earth between those who are of a different religion are also accounted in heaven as heinous; and especially of these who are of the Church with those who are out of the Church."

     "Those who are born within the Church and from infancy have imbibed the truth of the Church,"--for such to deliberately contract marriage with those who are out of the Church, is to sin against the light; the Writings condemn such marriages in the strongest terms.

     But when we have said this, we have not said all. There are marriages which in form are such as are declared,--when internally viewed by the angels,--to be heinous, which exist under circumstances which mitigate the state or even exonerate the parties from any wrong doing in them. These deserve consideration and definition.

     Where marriage of one within the Church with one without is the result of the prevalence of external spheres, against which there has been given no adequate protection by instruction "in the truth of the Church," it cannot fairly be said that the parties would, to the same extent as if this instruction had been given, come under condemnation. Neglect to give such instruction is a grievous fault on the part of parents or the Church; but, as a matter of simple fact, when youths and maidens are suffered to grow up with no instruction or with the slightest instruction on the subject; when they are suffered to come to manhood and womanhood with but a vague notion of the Church, of the distinctiveness of the New Church or of the relation of marriage to the Church,--it is not be wondered at, and the young people are hardly to be blamed, if they go in the way in which their education leads them. They have not the truth which is needed to guard them; they are nominally of the Church, but the Church is but little in them. The same observation may be made, where these marry out of the Church, of those with whom they marry. The ties of the Church in the case of the outsider may hold but lightly. They are by name of another church, but may be only slightly of that church, and may not because of their membership by name in another church be deeply or even at all actively opposed to the New Church.

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Two, thus nominally attached to different religions, may be, nevertheless, at one in the things of religion, so far as religion means anything to them at all. I say, may be; it is quite true that they may not be, and the experiment referred to is not one to be encouraged. But conditions for which the parties themselves are not responsible, offer a certain degree of excuse and extenuation.

     Many marry before they come to the knowledge of the New Church, and after marriage one of the parties comes to the knowledge of and reception of the Doctrines of the New Church while the other remains unreceptive of them. Whatever may have been their situation before, they are now in two different religions, the one in the true religion, the other in a false religion or with no religion. This reception of the true religion by one may come to pass without external disagreement, or it may be accompanied with most grievous external dissension and open stress.

     What shall be our attitude toward these marriages between one who is to appearance of the true religion and one in a false faith, or in no faith? How shall the partners themselves act toward each other, who have come, through ignorance, or even wilfully, (if they have repented), into such a condition? Looking upon such unions from within the angels declare them to be heinous. Can we say that for the parties concerned they are heinous? that it is for them a heinous relation to abide in?

     Looking upon these marriages from without, we must admit at once that we cannot judge of the internal state of anyone in such marriages, nor of the actual state of the marriage itself.

     "There are marriages in which conjugial love does not appear, and yet nevertheless is; and there are marriages in which there appears to be conjugial love, and yet it is not * * * but the appearances in the external determine nothing concerning imputation. The only thing which determines is the conjugial, which has its seat in the will of every one, and is guarded, in whatsoever state of marriage the man be. That conjugial is as the scales in which that love is weighed; for the conjugial of one man with one wife is the precious pearl of human life and the inner sanctuary of the Christian religion; and because this is so, that love can be given with one partner, and not at the same time with the other; and that love can be so deeply hidden that the man himself does not think anything concerning it; and it also can be inscribed in the course of life.

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The reason is, that that love, in its steps accompanies religion, and religion, because it is the marriage of the Lord and the Church is the initiament and ingrafting of that love; wherefore conjugial love is imputed to every one after death according to his spiritual, rational life and for those to whom conjugial love is imputed, marriage in heaven is provided after death whatsoever marriage they had had in the world. From what has been said may now be derived this conclusion that not from the appearances of marriage, nor from the appearances of scortations, can it be concluded that he has conjugial love or has it not; wherefore, 'Judge not that ye be not condemned.'" (Conjugial Love, No. 531.)

It is important to remember that marriages in the world have a distinct use, whether they are true marriages, with conjugial love at the heart of them, or not. The number of true internal marriages in the world is by necessity exceeding small, as compared with the total number of external marriages contracted. And this not wholly for the reason that nothing is generally known of the true nature of marriage, but in part from the fact that with those who do know, external allurements and external conditions have large influence in determining the choice in marriage. Internal affections but little appear at the time when marriages are contracted. The most that can be done at that time is to make sure that the conditions exist, which will make possible, when the internal affections do appear, as they will in the course of the married life, that two can be conjoined. This is matter of no light consequence. The providing of the essential conditions means not merely provision of conditions at the time when marriage is determined; it involves previous instruction and environment from childhood up; for this, Church and parents are responsible.

The external use of marriage is that it be a representative of true marriage among men. This it can and ought to be whatever may be the internal character of the union. This representative of true marriage exists in the fact of the marriage of one with one only, and in the fact of the sanction of marriage by the Church, both of which persist in the Christian world, in form, although the knowledge of real marriage is lost, and despite the fact that the bonds of marriage are with increasing numbers lightly regarded, lightly assumed and lightly cast off or changed.

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The fact that a true representative of marriage persists in the State, makes possible the entering into true marriage of those who desire and seek for it: for without this representative of marriage, hedged about with all the safeguards of the civil law, men and women would be openly worse than beasts, and society would be destroyed.

     There has arisen in these last times a perversion of the true doctrine that the essential of true marriage is the union of minds and souls. This perverted doctrine holds that marriage in the world is justified only by the existence of this internal union. If, then, two partners, who are united in the external bond of marriage, find, whether one or both, that the heart and mind union does not exist with them, or, having once existed, that it ceases to exist, this new doctrine holds that in consequence the external marriage with them is no longer lawful, that it is no longer right for them to dwell together, that they should therefore separate, and at the same time be free to contract another marriage in which this union of heart and mind appears to exist.

     This cult in gross form is the doctrine of free love; in more refined terms it is the doctrine of "affinities." It found expression not long since in a volume from the pen of one who has a kind of affiliation with the New Church, which volume was editorially commended by the organ of the General Convention.*
     * See "Ethical Principles of Marriage and Divorce," by Louis F. Post, p. 64: "If he finds that marriage is in reality constituted * * * only by marriage love, and that marriage love * * * may die, he realizes that the ideal relationship is not indissoluble. Thereupon he considers that when the natural force of marriage love, which alone makes a marriage, is dissipated by natural law, the marriage itself is dissolved by natural law."
     Upon this work, of which the paragraph cited fairly presents the keynote, the New Church Messenger commented as follows: "Mr. Post has illustrated * * * the way in which the philosophy of the New Church will more and more find an entrance into the columns of opinion-making periodicals, and so make them able ministers to the descent of the heavenly light." (Vol. 88, p. 2.)

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     In its practical outcome, this dire perversion of a heavenly truth has led to multiplied appeals to the divorce courts, the condonement of unions subsequent to divorce, and even the approval of unions, sanctioned neither by previous divorce nor by marriage.*
     * See Gragson letter reprinted in New Church Messenger of January 27th, last, from the Philadelphia Public Ledger, in which the relation of George Eliot and George Lewes is referred to as an illustration of the practical application of the philosophy of the New Church. The Messenger, in an earlier issue, (January 13), editorially declared that this letter showed "an affirmative and intelligent acquaintance with Swedenborg's teachings."

     It is well to set it down in emphatic language, that this doctrine of "free love," even though it masquerade under the name of "soul affinity" or "marriage love," is not the doctrine of the New Church. Marriage is indeed, if it be true marriage, an internal spiritual relation of mind and soul; viewed from within, marriages which have not the spiritual within them are heinous in the sight of heaven: but all marriages of one man with one woman, having the form of true marriage outwardly, represent true marriage and are to be guarded and held inviolate to the end of life in the world, both by the laws of the State and by the sanctions of the Church.

     The fact of internal dissimilitude is not valid ground for separation, far less for divorce; no difference as to religion is to be taken as excuse to dissolve a marriage already formed. Marriages once contracted in the world, are to continue to the end of life in the world.

     "That matrimonies contracted are to continue even to the end of life in the world, is from Divine law and, because of this, it is also from rational law, and thence from civil law. From Divine law it is that it is not lawful to put away a wife and marry another except for whoredom; from rational law, because it is founded upon spiritual, for Divine law and rational law are one law; from the latter and former at once, or through the latter from the former, may be seen to a great number the enormities, the destructions of societies, and dissolutions of marriages, or the putting away of wives at the good pleasure of the husbands before death." (Conjugial Love, No. 276)

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     "Hence the necessary, utility and truth, that conjugial love, where it is not genuine, nevertheless is to be affected, so that it may appear as if it were." (ibid.)

     "That in matrimonies, in which internal affections do not conjoin, there exist external affections matrimonies, in which simulate internal and consociate. There is a certain communion implanted in each from the first covenant of marriage, which although the minds do disagree, yet remains infixed; as the community of possessions, and with many, the community of uses and of the various necessities of the house, and thence also of thoughts and of the care of infants; besides many other things, which, because they belong to the conjugial covenant, are all inscribed upon their minds. From these things especially are external affections which resemble internal." (Conjugial Love, No. 277.)

     "Apparent love, friendship and favor between the married partners follow as a consequence from the marriage covenant even to the end of life." (No.278) These appearances are conjugial simulations, which are laudable, because useful and necessary. They are to be entirely distinguished from hypocritical simulations, for by them are provided all those good things which are enumerated below (No. 279): "They are for the sake of amendments and for the sake of accommodations" (No. 282); "for the sake of preserving order in things domestic, and for the sake of mutual aid" (No. 283); "for the sake of the harmonious care of infants and children" (No. 284); "for the sake of peace at home" (No. 285); "for the sake of reputation abroad" (No. 286); "for the sake of reconciliations" (No. 289)

     These considerations, sketched only in part from the heads of pregnant paragraphs in Conjugial Love, will bear serious thought.

     To sum up, then, this portion of our theme:

     Marriages are to continue in all cases, save that of infidelity, to the end of life in the world, whether there be in them the union of souls and minds, or not whether there be internal agreement or disagreement, even though the partners be in colds internal or colds external the one toward the other. If conjugial love be not felt, it is to be simulated, and such simulation is useful and necessary. If the marriage be not a true marriage, that is, a marriage which may endure for eternity, it is the duty of both partners to act as if it were, and by all possible means to make it appear to be such a marriage. To this end all possible means of conjunction are to be cultivated. Differences, if they may not be overcome, are to be ignored, means for sympathizing one with the other and for acting as one are to be sought for and diligently used.

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Such an attitude towards the marriage tie, if it be conscientiously taken, guards from profanation the external marriage upon earth as a representative of the heavenly marriage. The usefulness of such an attitude in marriage to the children which are born, is incalculable, for the first of birthrights is that parents shall be united in the care and training of their children. There can hardly be conceived for children a loss more grievous than is sustained by those whose parents pull in different ways in this care and training.

     It must not be thought that there will be no need of care to look for and to cultivate means for union, even with those married pairs, with whom exists the most confident assurance of the possibility of conjugial love and conjugial union. There is a notion in the minds of some that since "conjugial pairs are born," the two who rightly choose each other, are immediately fully united when they begin the life of marriage. This is a serious mistake, and the results which may follow from it are sad indeed. For it sometimes begets an unreasonable hesitation and uncertainty in entering into marriage, sometimes prevents marriage altogether in the natural world, from fear lest the wrong partner may be chosen. Perhaps, more often, it induces a state of doubt after marriage, possibly a turning of the thought and affection to another than the married partner as the real conjugial mate. Such doubts may not go forth into wrongful act, but will, if permitted at all, breed much unhappiness.

     It cannot be too strongly urged that conjugial unions are not entered into ready made in the natural world any more than man is born directly into heaven. Such unions go hand in hand with regeneration and regeneration is matter of growth. Pairs which regeneration, and regeneration is a matter of growth. Pairs which in them, have nevertheless to grow little by little into the fulness of that love; the partners have to shun in hard discipline the evils which oppose that love, and must make use of all possible means which shall invite conjugial love to come and make its blessed abode with them.

     For conjugial love does not appear in its own form at first. Common experience confirms this teaching of the Heavenly Doctrines:

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     "For example, conjugial Love: The good which precedes and initiates is beauty, or agreement of manners, of the external application of one toward the other or equal rank on both sides or desired rank. These goods the first mediate goods of conjugial love; afterwards there comes the conjunction of lower minds, in that the one wills as the other, and perceives delight in doing what pleases the other. This state is the second, and then the former things, although present, are not regarded. Finally, there succeeds union as to celestial good and spiritual truth, namely, in that the one believes as does the other, and that the one is affected with the food with which the other is affected. When this state exists, both are simultaneously in the heavenly marriage, which is that of good and truth; thus in conjugial love; for conjugial love is nothing else, and then the Lord inflows into the affections of both as into one affection. This good is what inflows directly; whereas the former goods, which inflowed directly, served as means to introduce this good." (Arcana Coelestia 4145)

     We are taught in the work on Conjugial Love that a married pair after death, if they can remain together, do so (No. 49). This teaching has in it the conclusion that if the Lord can bring into the conjugial union those who are married partners on earth, He does so. It is most heartily to be believed that it is of His providence to do this, and that He will do it, if it be at all possible, even under the most untoward, or seemingly untoward circumstances. External incompatibility may be overcome by yielding one toward the other. The very fact of having common uses, and those of the most precious sort, tends powerfully to conjoin the two.

     Most powerful of all uniting forces is that of religion. This alone, indeed, truly unites in the eternal bonds of conjugial love. Where there exists union in the exercise of the religious life, there the most potent agencies are at work, ever at work, for the molding of the two hearts and minds into one.

     But even where there is no apparent union in the things of religion, there may be the hope that such union will be, if the two earnestly desire to group together, and have etch a conscience from religion. For in such case, each will seek to know the truth, and the truth, when found, is one.

     If one is outwardly in true religion and the other is not, yet is not actively opposed, there may be hope of conjugial union, since the faith of the one may from love, awaken faith in the other.

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If both be in different religions, and the religion be held by each in that loose fashion which is common enough among men with whom religion is matter of heredity, custom or environment, growth together into a surer faith may be growth into a common faith in the welding fires of the united discipline of

     The variety of relationships possible between married pairs is greater than can be set down. One may be in conjugial love and act from it, and the other not; there may be something of conjugial love even in the exercise of false faith, if only that false faith be not the falsity of evil or confirmed by an evil life, and be tempered with something of genuine truth from which there is the good of life.

     "With these there man be goods with which falsities may be conjoined, through applications by the Lord; for these falsities are like various discordant tones which by skillful arrangements and combinations are brought into harmony, from which there is even a delightfulness of harmony. With these there can be some conjugial love, but with those who have falsified genuine truths of the Church it cannot be." (Conjugial Love, No. 243.)

     Conjugial love has been lost to men with the decline of the Church. But it is to be restored again through the revelation of the true religion and the reception of that religion in the life of men. Let no one who is in any degree of life from that true religion despair of the hope of attaining to conjugial love. But it is to be attained, even as regeneration by the true religion is to be attained, only by the discipline of temptation trial. It is to be restored, and will be restored with every one who will use the means revealed for attaining it. The ideal means for attaining to it is the reception and life of the truth of the New Church. For those who have through ignorance, or through the thoughtlessness of youth entered into marriages which are in appearance not such as will admit of the existence of genuine conjugial love, the hope lies in making use of every means for approach and conjunction which offers, or which may be found, with the desire, if it be possible, that there may eventuate the union of conjugial love; and with the intention, if that be not possible, that there shall be an external union which shall, by faithfulness and the performance of marriage uses in it, represent true marriage upon the earth.

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The means for the conjoining of similitudes is thus stated in Conjugial Love:

     "The varieties of similitudes are very numerous, and are more, and less distant. And yet those that are distant can in time be conjoined by various uses; especially by accommodations to strong desires, by mutual kindnesses, by civilities, by abstinence from things unchaste, and by the common love of infants and care of children, and above all by harmony in the things of the Church; for through the things of the Church conjunction is effected of similitudes inwardly distant; through other things only those that are outwardly distant." (No. 228.)

     With dissimilitudes conjunction is not possible because they are antipathies. Nevertheless, such are to remain together; nevertheless, such may join in common uses; nevertheless, those who, under such conditions, sincerely seek the truth and life of religion, will receive conjugial love, and will be prepared for a conjugial union, with the partner in this life if it be possible, and if not with the partner of this life, yet with one who has been prepared by this life's discipline for the eternal union.

     In the sight of the angels it is said that marriages between those of different religions are heinous. We have endeavored to show the application of this teaching to the case of those who, through ignorance, thoughtlessness, or, let us go so far as to say, deliberate disregard of the teaching of the Church on the subject,--of which error they afterwards repent,--to all, who from whatever cause, finding themselves in marriage with one of different religion, with one of false religion, or with one of no religion, desire nevertheless to live the life which will bring them conjugial love within, and if not in this world, the conjugial union hereafter.

     Marriages between those of different religions are heinous in the sight of the angels; but they are not therefore to be dissolved upon the earth. It is not heinous for those who are in them to abide by them as a duty before God. It is the duty before God for those who are in them to hold them inviolate to the end of life in the world, and by all possible means of accommodation, of mutual aid, even of simulation of conjugial love, to render them not alone tolerable, but, so far as may be, satisfactory and happy.

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To those who, in obedience to the principles of true religion, are faithful in them, the Lord will give conjugial love, and if not before, in heaven a suitable partner to eternity.
PROMETHEUS AND PANDORA 1909

PROMETHEUS AND PANDORA C. TH. ODHNER 1909

     In response to an inquiry we offer the following tentative interpretation of the curious Greek legend of Prometheus and Pandora. The whole appears to us a tradition of the fall of mankind, hidden under the representative fiction of the ancients.

     Prometheus, whose name means "fore-thought," seems to represent the man of the Golden Age in its first decline, when he began to "incline to a proprium," i. e., began to desire to be guided by his own intelligence and worldly fore-thought, no longer content to be led by the Lord alone. (See A. C. 131-141.)

     Prometheus committed his first sin by his effort to deceive Zeus in a matter of sacrifice. He slew an ox and put the flesh inside the hide but wrapped up the bones in the fat, and asked Zeus which part of the sacrifice he preferred. The god, though aware of the deceit, selected the fat and the bones, but as a punishment he took away the blessing of fire from the man whom Prometheus had created. This, we would suggest, signifies the first separation of internal worship from external,--the offering of worship which was dead within, (the bones), but clothed externally in natural good, (the fat). From this separation the fire of celestial love perished in the Most Ancient Church.

     To his first sin Prometheus now added the crime of stealing fire from heaven, concealed in a hollow staff. Fire stolen means love perverted,--the forbidden love which is the love of self. And the hollow staff suggests apparent truth confirming and excusing the evil love. And now the gods in their wrath sent Pandora--beautiful, curious woman--to hapless Epimetheus, whose name means "after-thought." The proprium was conjoined with the now perverted human understanding.

     The inevitable curse now fell upon mankind:

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Whilom on earth the sons of men abode
Free from diseases that with racking rage,
From evil free, and labor's galling load;
Precipitate the pale decline of age.

Now swift the days of manhood haste away,
And misery's pressure turns the temples gray.
The woman's hands an ample casket bear,--
She lifts the lid,--she scatters ills in air.

Hope sole remained within, nor took her flight,
Beneath the casket's verge, concealed from sight.
Th' unbroken cell with closing lid, the maid
Sealed, and th' cloud-assembler's voice obeyed.

Issued the rest, in quick dispersion hurled,
And woes innumerous roamed the breathing world:
With ills the land is rife, with ills the sea;
Diseases haunt our frail humanity.

Self-wandering through the noon, the night they glide,
Voiceless,--a voice the power all-wise denied.
Know then this awful truth: it is not given
To elude the wisdom of omniscient Heaven.
     (Hesiod, Works and Days, 125-144)

     The setting of this myth is indeed different from that of the story of the fall in Genesis, but the jewel of spiritual truth remains the same. In both accounts the woman, or the desire for a proprium, is the immediate cause of the fall. In both it is the passion of curiosity,--the desire to know, from self-intelligence,--that leads to the fatal step. The curse of labor, the labor of temptations, is the result in both stories, and in both, finally, Hope still remains the one consolation in the midst of all the evils which henceforth infest humanity.

     The nature of this Hope is further described in the story of Prometheus, who, as a punishment for his rebellion, is chained to a craggy rock where an eagle is daily devouring his ever renewed liver. Henceforth the human understanding was to be chained to sensual conceptions of truth, and its vital good the prey of falsity; but the day would finally come when the shackles of Prometheus would be broken by the promised Hercules: one day the fettered intelligence of mankind would be set free by the coming of the Redeemer, the omnipotent Truth of the Word incarnate.

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This Coming was the Hope that remained, for in the very hour of the fall and the curse Jehovah God promised that the Seed of the woman should bruise the head of the serpent.
ASCRIBING SORROW TO SWEDENBORG 1909

ASCRIBING SORROW TO SWEDENBORG ELDRED E. IUNGERICH 1909

     The ascription of sorrow to Swedenborg, could he but look down upon earth and see what some of his followers believe, is a bit of rhetoric fast becoming classical, to judge from its frequent occurrence. It must be supposed to carry weight and come with a ring of eloquence to the particular public to whom it is addressed. Of course, it is never the beliefs of the writers that would grieve the benignant Swedenborg, but the belief of their opponents.

     Where the mere logic of the argument, or the absence of it, leaves the reader cold, an elegant apostrophe of this sort fires the imagination and bends it to favor the writer's views. What can kindle the imagination of a Swedenborgian more than the picture of the grief of the saintly Swedenborg? What stir his indignation more than the thought of its being fellow mortals, and Newchurchmen, at that, who are its cause?

     If is not my purpose just to signalize and render homage to this elegant apostrophe, typical as it is of the literary and imaginative side of New Church writing, but to pass on to the pertinent question it raises. What are the beliefs that would grieve Swedenborg? He would be filled with sorrow, we are told, were he to learn that some of his followers exalt his writings to a position of equality with the Holy Word; he would be saddened, were he to learn that some consider the work on Conjugial Love to be Divinely true throughout! If such beliefs are wrong and false, then Swedenborg's grief upon learning of them may be due, perhaps, to remorse at not having expunged from Conjugial Love the parts that are inferior in point of Divinity to the rest, and at not having written prefaces to all his works to warn men from the error of regarding them as the Word or as in any sense Divine.

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And the keenness of this remorse must he the greater when to it is added the knowledge that there is no channel by which he can now officially explain, interpret, or retract such parts of his works as seem to have been injudiciously written and to contain mistakes.

     I pass by, of course, all beliefs endorsed by the Old Church. I wish to know what beliefs concerning Swedenborg's writings could grieve Swedenborg. So practical is this desire that I decline to be satisfied with any supposition however eloquently put that is not based on an explicit statement made by Swedenborg himself.

     One passage that bears on this subject is C. L. 533: "But the angels perceived sadness in me, and asked 'Whence is thy sadness?' I said it was because the arcana revealed at this day by the Lord, although they surpass in excellence and worth all knowledge hitherto published are yet reputed on earth as of no value. At this the angels marveled and besought the Lord to be allowed to look down into the world."

     Still more pertinent is the following passage, S. D. 5540: "I was in a sad state, but did not know the cause. I then heard that a vast number was being let down out of heaven towards the lower places. The reason having been sought out, it was said that they were those who rejoiced that they possess the heavenly doctrine, saying that they wished to embrace it also because they believe all things which are in it. Many, also, perceived that those things were truths. But, as soon as they heard that that doctrine was not only a doctrine of faith, thus that the things which were therein were not merely to be known and acknowledged, but that it was a doctrine of life, and the things in it were to be willed and clone,--also that doctrine effects nothing with those who merely know and affirm, but only with those who at the same time do it; for these, from the heart love it and embrace it,--then, they become sorrowful, and all rejected it, not wanting it. Hence was my sadness."

     Additional explanatory particulars supplied by subsequent passages are these: Those who were let down inquired of me how much must be done, WHETHER ALL THE THINGS WHICH ARE IN THAT DOCTRINE; adding that they could by no means do this.

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It was granted me to tell them that it is not grievous and difficult; since it only intends that a man should live sincerely, both in his calling and outside his calling, with everyone, and in every matter, because if he does otherwise it is sin, that is, against God and the neighbor" (5541). "Among these, also, are they who are in false doctrine, solely from the sense of the letter of the Word. These care nothing for the real truths themselves, however plainly they stand forth in the Word. . . . Because they did not wish to embrace anything of genuine truth, they were cast down out of heaven. That the dragons are opposed to heavenly doctrine; for heavenly doctrine does not appear in the sense of the letter, save only to the enlightened" (5542).

One more citation will suffice: "I have spoken [with Spirits] about those in the world who [in respect to my Writings] will be content with saying they have the Word; and there is no need of a revelation: thus rejecting these things which come from Heaven; when yet the GENUINE SENSE AND UNDERSTANDING of the Word is here treated of, and the nature of faith: and besides many things are said specifically concerning the state of those who are in the other life; for the Word, in its literal sense, simply mentions that there is a Heaven and a Hell." (S. D. 1464).

The ascription of sorrow to Swedenborg because of any belief held by this or that one of his followers is now out of place. Were he still on earth, or were he to descend from his heavenly state and fix his attention upon the views of' men in the world, we can know from his own statement the nature of the beliefs that would cause him sorrow. It would not be the belief that the Writings are the essential Word that would grieve him, for he says: "The arcana revealed at this day by the Lord. . .surpass in excellence and worth all knowledge hitherto published," and "the genuine surpass in sense and understanding of the Word is here treated of." Nor would the belief that the Writings, inclusive of Conjugial Love, are Divine throughout, grieve him, for to those who asked "how much must be done, whether all the things which are in that doctrine," it "was granted" him "to tell them that it is not grievous and difficult."

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Whatever grief Swedenborg would experience during a descent upon earth would not be from these sources; and any grief he might have from other sources would, upon his return to heaven, be displaced by the love of leaving men in freedom to accept or reject the heavenly doctrine as they please, and to go freely to heaven or to hell according to the delights they choose to make their own.

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Editorial Department 1909

Editorial Department Editor 1909

     NOTES AND REVIEWS.

     The Kramph Will Case came up before the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, sitting in Philadelphia, on May 19th, and was argued by the Honorable W. U. Hensel representing the Academy of the New Church, and Chas. G. Baker representing the heirs, who are the appellees. John G. Johnson, Esq., represented the "McGeorge Trustees."

     From the study of the skull found in Swedenborg's coffin, and which, although it is the subject of a strange story of theft and restoration, seems indisputably proved as genuine, Professor Hultkrantz, of Upsala, has modeled a new bust of Swedenborg, which, it is reported, is more accurate than any bust hitherto made.

     A colored reproduction of the interior of the Swedish Church in London has been placed on sale at the rooms of the London Swedenborg Society. It is reproduced from a water-color painting by the late Samuel J. Hodson, showing the altar, and also the wall tablet erected to the memory of Swedenborg. The picture is of special interest, as it is probable that the Swedish Church will be pulled down.

     At the gigantic Scandinavian-American banquet in New York City, on February 16th, the Swedish minister to Washington, Mr. Herman Lagercrantz, speaking of the influence of Swedish scientists, stated among other things: "Swedenborg's gift of seership has unveiled many problems of the visible and the invisible world, centuries before we have understood the significance of his words."

     The death of Mr. George Trobridge, at Belfast, Ireland, on March 25th, 1909, removes from this world the most popular New Church writer of the present generation, an author for whose many works the Life has had nothing but words of praise.

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While he never entered very deeply into the interior Theology of the Church, and carefully steered clear of controversial subjects, his doctrinal attitude was on the whole affirmative and sound, and his style of expression clear, simple, and elegant. The best of his works was probably the volume on The Letter and the Spirit, (1892), which the Life characterized as "a New Church Classic." Among his other works were Swedenborg and Modern Thought, The Foundations of philosophy, A Book of Consolations, The New Light of Asia, and his two New Church novels, By a Way They Knew Not, and The Light That Is Darkness. In response to recent inquiries as to the best popular biography of Swedenborg, we take pleasure in recommending once more the work by Mr. Trobridge, published at London by F. Warne & Co. 1907. (See New Church Life, 1907, p. 299).

We have just received from Sweden a folio pamphlet of fourteen pages, double columns, entitled Nagra Vittnesbord om Vetenskapsmannen Swedenborg, (Testimonials respecting Swedenborg, the scientist), collected by Mr. Alfred H. Stroh, who also furnishes an introduction and comments on the quotations respecting Swedenborg's scientific worth and anticipations, from the eulogistic remarks of men such as Berzelius, Nordenskjold, Nathorst, Nyren, Arrhenius, Klaason, Anders Retzius, Loven, Neuburger, Gustaf Retzius, Santeson, and Ramstrom. Most of these quotations are now well known, but some are new and very striking. While conservative members of the New Church will not overestimate utterances of patriotic savants who have but little knowledge of Swedenborg's real system of scientific and philosophical doctrines, they will not, on the other hand, underestimate their use in creating an affirmative atmosphere of public respect for the scientist who became the revelator of the Lord in His Second Advent.

We have received a small pamphlet of 26 pages, entitled, Emanuel Swedenborg. It is the second edition of the missionary lecture delivered from time to time by the Rev. L. G. Landenberger. Judging from a cursory perusal the lecture seems well adapted for the purpose for which it was written.

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Opening with quotations from great men concerning Swedenborg, Mr. Landenberger proceeds to outline the general doctrines of the New Church, using the excellent method of first showing the falsities of the Christian Church, and then showing that Swedenborg in exposing these falsities revealed the truths of which they were perversions. The concluding pages are given to a brief analysis of the larger of the theological writings. Attention is called to the Second Coming of the Lord, but,-what we must consider a defect--no reason is given why that Coming should have been made. In other words, there is no mention of the death of the Old Church and the necessity of a New Church.

     From the report of Mr. Alfred H. Stroh to the recent meeting of the Swedenborg Scientific Association, we learn that the matters to be included in Vol. III., of the Opera Cosmologica, now being published by the Swedish Royal Academy, have been so added to that it has been found necessary to divide the volume, or, rather, to issue a new Volume IV. Vol. III will include the Daedalus Hyperborezrs, and the Chemistry, and Vol. IV., The Infinite, as their main contents.

     The Daedalus--a journal conducted by Swedenborg, from 1716-1718, and mainly written by him,--is an exceedingly rare volume and its republication will be of marked value. It constitutes, in effect, the first numbers of the "Proceedings" of the Scientific Society of Upsala. The republication in Vol. III will be a facsimile of the original edition, and the stone plates to be used in the printing will be placed at the disposal of the Scientific Society for an edition de luxe of 850 copies, on the occasion of the Society's centenary in 1910.

     A curious and amusing application of Swedenborg's teaching respecting other earths, is made by a correspondent to the New York Sun of May 5. After noting that Swedenborg describes the inhabitants of Mars as being "of superior intelligence," he goes on to suggest a means by which this "intelligence" might be made use of in establishing communication with that earth.

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     "Have published throughout the world (he recommends) the date and hour when the experiment is to be made, with the request that at that particular time as many as possible of the inhabitants of this earth direct their thoughts to the inhabitants of Mars, with the purpose of urging them to give attention to what is going on here. This telepathic impulse from the millions of minds on this earth would, perhaps, have the desired effect.

     "Swedenborg clearly stated what is now generally accepted as being extremely probable: that there are inhabitants on Mars; that they are intelligent beings, of much the same nature as ourselves; that they are superior to us in psychic development, and that they are susceptible to the same physical influences. There would thus seem to be good grounds for the idea that, granting the possibility of producing a signalling apparatus of sufficiently great dimensions to be made use of in connection with the telepathic scheme above outlined, communication could ultimately be established."

     "Urbana University," says the Rev. Willard G. Day, its first graduate, writing in the Messenger for April 21, "is practically a monument to the zeal and enterprise of the Rev. James Park Stuart. He had not been long in the New Church before he began to plan an institution of learning. In the spring of 1849 he visited Urbana as a New Church missionary, where he met, among the unorganized body of 'receivers,' Colonel John H. James, a prominent lawyer and banker, who had married Abby Bailey, the youngest daughter of the pioneer New Church American printer, Francis Bailey, of Philadelphia.

     "To Colonel James Mr. Stuart unfolded his desires and plans for a university, and Colonel James immediately offered ten acres of his beautiful grove adjoining the town of Urbana. He also assisted in raising: money for the first building, which was ready for use two years before there was a faculty to occupy it. Colonel James, who was prominent in Ohio politics, also succeeded in getting for the University a most liberal charter from the Ohio Legislature in I8501 bearing date of March 7.

     "In the autumn of 1849 several persons friendly to the idea of a New Church educational institution met in Urbana, at Mr. Stuart's invitation, and organized a New Church Association, which accepted the proffered gifts, appointed a provisional board of trustees, and authorized the application for the act of incorporation, already alluded to.

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All the board of trustees have passed into the other world."

     Mr. Day notes the present falling off in the attendance at the University and in interest in its work, but he is silent as to its falling away from the ideals of its founder,-who afterwards became the vice-chancellor of the Academy.

     The following able letter by Mr. W. J. Albright, which we reprint from Morning Light of April 10, was called forth by the severe, but just and necessary criticism which was passed by Mr. Claude Toby, (as noted in our last issue), on the practice of holding union services with ministers of the Old Church:

     "A pronouncement on the views Mr. Toby expresses by ministers of the Church would be welcomed, I am confident, by all sincere and thoughtful Newchurchmen, and would also tend to stem the tide of loose thinking and slovenly opinions regarding the true position of the New Jerusalem, which is undoubtedly at the present very marked.

     "The position, fundamentally, is, in my judgment, a simple one. If the New Church is an absolutely New Dispensation--as discretely distinct from the Christian Dispensation as the Jewish one was and is; if its worship is based on truths of a different and higher order than those of the Old Church; if it is, in short, on a different plane altogether, surely the conclusion that its services of worship must be distinct is obvious. The presence of Old Church ministers as "assistants" at such worship is surely in the very nature of the case an incongruity and a tacit denial of the distinctness of the New Church Dispensation? Superficially viewed, this conclusion may sound egoistical and uncharitable, a sort of exclusiveness foreign to modern broad views, and an example of the oft-quoted Calvinistic hymn:--

     "A little garden walled around. . . .

     "The conception, however, is really neither egotistical nor uncharitable any more than such terms can be applied to the fact that the domestic life of an English family has, strictly speaking, no room for the outsider.

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He can be welcomed as a friend at functions where the purposes and principles in operation are common, but there is always a phase of the family life where his presence would be quite incongruous.

     "I am firmly convinced, sir, that true thinking on this question is of vital importance if we wish to obtain a true conception of the real meaning of our Church."

     We have received from Mr. Charles E. Benham, of Colchester, England, two excerpts from Dodsley's Annual Register, which of interest because of their bearing on the history of the New Church.

     The first is from the Register for 1759 and relates to the great fire in Stockholm, which, according to Kant, was perceived by Swedenborg in Gottenburg, a distance of three hundred miles away. (Documents II., p. 628.) The excerpt reads as follows:

     "About the same time [the latter half of July] a great fire broke out in Stockholm, by which they reckon that 250 houses have been reduced to ashes. The loss is computed at two million crowns."

     The interest attaching to this excerpt lies in the fact that it is the first English contemporary record of the great fire, that has been brought to the notice of the Church. The only records of the event mentioned in the Documents, are, a letter from Wretman to Swedenborg, and four contemporary German publications. The latter definitely fix the date of the fire as commencing on July 19, 1759, at 3 P. M. They differ from the English record in two details, one of them giving the number of houses consumed as 310; and another stating that "the damage is calculated to amount to nine million dalers." (Documents II., pp. 616-617.)

     The second of the excerpts from Dodsley's Register is of great importance as throwing light on an hitherto almost unknown period of the life of Robert Hindmarsh. It is from the Register for 1798, in the list of patents granted during that year:

     Nov. 27, 1798 Robert Hindmarsh, of Walworth, in the County of Surrey, printer; for a method of applying an elementary or physical power to blast furnaces, and for all other works where power is required.

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     It was in the year 1798 that Mr. Hindmarsh closed out his business as a printer, and apparently dropped out of the life of the Church. For we hear almost nothing more of him until 1810, when he again resumed his labors as a translator and writer. Still his name appears twice on publications of the Church, namely, in 1799. When the Arcana Coelestia, vol. viii, was "printed under the inspection of R. Hindmarsh, late printer to His Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales;" and again in 1809, When the Prophets and Psalms was published with the same imprint. The words "late printer" show that Hindmarsh had retired from business, and it is very probable that he superintended the printing of the above mentioned books as an act of friendship, and interest in the Church, or in pursuance of a previous agreement.

     In 1905 it was brought out by the Rev. Jas Hyde (N. C. Mag., 1909, p. 114 seq.) that from 1802-1810, Mr. Hindmarsh was a fully accredited member of the London Stock Exchange, where he appears to have conducted his business in a highly honorable manner, though one disastrous to his own financial interests. This leaves the period between 1798 and 1802 unaccounted for, except so far as it is involved in the indefinite statement made by the Rev. Manoah Sibley in a funeral sermon, where we read: "Being out of business Mr. Hindmarsh engaged in a speculative occupation not at all suited to his still and quiet genius; and being inexperienced in the artifices practiced by those who are usually engaged in the line he was then pursuing, he found himself, after a time, to be a loser . . . but to the honor of the Church it may be mentioned, that, although the losses were not legally binding on him, yet he paid the whole" (Int. Repos., 1835, p. 413) To this the editors of the Repository note "The circumstances here alluded to, we understand, are, that after relinquishing the profession of printing, Mr. Hindmarsh, for some time engaged in business as a stock broker." (ib.)

     The meager details thus afforded of these twelve years of Hindmarsh's life, are now slightly added to by the note from Dodsley's Register. From this additional information it would appear that in the early part of 1798, or, perhaps, previously, Mr. Hindmarsh became interested in an invention for the application of a new motor power. It was, perhaps, because of this invention that he Save up the printing business.

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This, however, is not clear. Nor is it any more clear whether the invention was his own, or whether he had acquired it by purchase. Enquiry at the British Patent Office should throw light on the latter question; and such enquiry tonight also give an answer to a question suggested to our mind by the wording of the patent, namely, whether Hindmarsh owed the idea of his invention to suggestions received from Swedenborg's scientific works, particularly the Miscellaneous Observations and the work on Fire.

It also appears that when Mr. Hindmarsh gave up printing he removed from his old residence, 32 Clerkenwell Close, and took up his abode in Walworth, Surrey.

The patent seems to have failed as a financial undertaking, yet it was probably this undertaking that led Mr. Hindmarsh to enter the stock market; for the search for capital to finance his patent, would naturally lead him to association with this line of business.
PROF. LYDSTON ON SWEDENBORG 1909

PROF. LYDSTON ON SWEDENBORG 1909

In response to the editorial enquiry in our last issue, Mr. Rowland Trimble, Baltimore, Md., has sent us a lengthy extract whom the work by G. Frank Lydston, M. D., (The Diseases of Society, Phila. and London, J. E. Liapincott Co., 1904), which was used by Judge Smith in his final adjudication of the Kramph Will case. The extract includes the passage quoted by Judge Smith for the purpose of presenting Swedenborg as a man of deranged mind. The book from which it is taken is a work on criminology, and, from the title page, it appears that its author is professor of genito-urinary surgery in the State University of Illinois, and of criminal anthropology in the Chicago-Kent College of Law.

The extract sent us by Mr. Trimble, and which we print below, is taken from a chapter on "Genius and Degeneracy." It has interest for us not only because of its use by Judge Smith, but also and more particularly, because it contributes to the formation of a true and balanced judgment concerning the attitude of the modern scientific mind towards Swedenborg.

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It is undoubtedly true that, with the growth of knowledge, external prejudice against Swedenborg has been more or less removed with some;--we speak only of Swedenborg's position as a natural philosopher, for, as to his position as a revelator, the knowledge of this by the world, serves only to bring into greater relief the incredulous and skeptical attitude that prevails. But while external prejudice may have been removed with some, there is no justification for the hysterical claims of the permeationist who would have us see in the fragmentary utterances of a few men a universal recognition of Swedenborg as Genius, Scientist and Philosopher. And now for the effusions of Lydston:

     The history of theology is illumined with visionary geniuses endowed with the gift of prophecy and facilities for close communication with God. These prophets and seers have left an impression that shall last so long as theology itself endures, yet the visions of epileptic Mahomet, of Bunyan, and Martin Luther were the flickerings of insanity, albeit called the sacred fire of holy inspiration. In this respect they resemble their forbears of more ancient times.

     Nowhere in the range of psychology can the egotism, self-sufficiency, and exaltation of the imaginative faculties characteristic of mental disease be better studied than in the life and works of Emanuel Swedenborg. This man's claim to theologic authority rests entirely upon his arrogant and egotistic assumption of supernatural knowledge and communion with the illustrious dead. Strange to say, his career was contemporaneous with that of the great apostle of intellectual freedom, the immortal Voltaire. There is no literary balder-dash or evasion of the issue in Swedenborg's career. He was plain in expression, matter-of-fact, and very circumstantial in his accounts of his marvelous experiences. Unlike some expounders of a creed, he believed implicitly in his own fantastic doctrines. It is but human to believe the evidence of the senses. Swedenborg saw, felt, and heard all that he claims, but, unlike the intelligent victim of hallucinations who wrote his own history for a scientific society, he did not recognize the phenomena his senses brought before him as illusions and hallucinations. To him they were the very embodiment and soul of realism.

     Swedenborg's father was a noted bishop, of some literary pretentions, the author of a Swedish grammar and dictionary. Strange as it may seem, old Jesper Swedenborg alternated between his dry compilation of grammar and lexicon, and communion with spirits. The old bishop had a guardian angel, who used to guide him in his studies. While he was studying theology, this angel appeared and asked him what he had read. The student enumerated some religious works, including the Bible.

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His angelic monitor then suggested other works pertaining to theology as likely to be valuable in his education. Bishop Swedenborg also claimed to cure the sick after the manner of Christ.

     With such a paternity, Emanuel Swedenborg was certainly entitled to all the attributes of prophets and seers. He received a good education, with quite a smattering of science, but this did not save him from the workings of a diseased imagination. His mental make-up was a queer one. He was profoundly versed in mathematics and astronomy, and even studied anatomy. He wrote several books on the latter subject by way of diversion. It is certainly peculiar that on such a foundation he eventually built a superstructure of superstition and visionary theology which has been handed down to the present generation as the product of Divine inspiration. Insanity is the only explanation.

     We can imagine the modern anatomist dissecting away the corporeal parts of the body in the endeavor to isolate the soul, which, according to Swedenborg, would retain the shape of the body, but was composed of what he termed "finer and more subtle elements."

     Swedenborg believed in dreams, as many another has done. Some are not so skeptical as Virgil, who, in his description of the gates of Tartarus, said:

"Full in the midst of the infernal road,
An elm displays her dusky arms abroad;
The god sleep there hides his heavy head;
And empty dreams on every leaf are spread."

     The following extract from Swedenborg's diary effectually demonstrates his mental condition.

     "During the whole time I slept extremely well at night, which is more than favorable to my ecstasies, both before and after sleep. My thoughts about matters and things were very clear. I resisted the power of the Holy Spirit, and I saw hideous specters, but without life. They were terrible, and, though bound, they kept moving their hands They were in company with an animal, by which I was attacked. It seemed as if I were on a mountain, below which there was an abyss with knots in it. I was trying to help myself by clinging to a knot. I was standing in my dream by a machine moved by a wheel. I was caught in its spokes and carried up."

     And this from the founder of a creed! (Diseases of Society, pp. 471-473)

     The passage in the above which purports to be an "extract from Swedenborg's diary," is a curious jumble, and is a fitting conclusion to this chapter of inaccuracies. It represents as a single dream what, in Swedenborg's Dream Book is given as a summary of several together with some brief reflections.

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All but one of these dreams occurred in December, 1743 [December, 1743 to March, 1744], the exception being dated March 24, 1744. As translated in Tafel's Documents, the portion of the Dream Book which has been used in making this "extract" is as follows:

     December. . .

     How during the whole time I slept extremely well at night; which was more than favorable.

     About my ecstasies before and after sleep.

     My clear thoughts about matters and things.


How I resisted the power of the Holy Spirit; and what took place afterwards. About the hideous spectres which I saw, without life; they were terrible; although bound they kept moving in their bands. They were in company with an animal by which I and not the child, was attacked.

     It seemed to me as if I were lying on a mountain, below which was an abyss; knots were on it. I was lying there trying to help myself up, holding on to a knot; without foothold, and an abyss underneath.

     This signifies that I desire to rescue myself from the abyss, which yet is not possible.....

     March 24x25 [1744] I was standing [in my dream] beside a machine which was set in motion by a wheel; I became more and more involved in its spokes (stangar) and was carried up, so that I could not escape. When I awoke. This means either that I ought to be kept longer in straits, or it describes the state of the lungs [with the embryo] in the womb, on which subject I wrote immediately afterwards. It had reference to both. [See Dec. II., pp. 148-149.]
SWEDENBORG IN THE SWEDISH DIET 1909

SWEDENBORG IN THE SWEDISH DIET 1909

Our readers have already been informed of the grant of 10,000 kronor by the Swedish Parliament for a sarcophagus in honor of Swedenborg, to be placed in the Cathedral of Upsala. We now copy from the English New Church Magazine for May the following synopsis, by Mr. A. H. Stroh, of the Proceedings of the "Riksdag" in connection with the vote on this subject:

"When Parliament began its sessions last January, Lector J. F. Nystrom, a Conservative member in the First Chamber, introduced a motion that 10,000 kronor be appropriated for a sarcophagus, and the motion was received and referred to the Committee on Finance.

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The motion, being 'No. 2. By Herr Nystrom, John Fredrik, on a grant for a sarcophagus for Emanuel Swedenborg's grave in the Cathedral of Upsala,' is printed in an appendix to the Minutes of Parliament for 1909, and rendered into English, it reads:

     "As is known, the remains of Emanuel Swedenborg, which had for a long time rested in English soil, were borne hither during the past year on a Swedish vessel, and it was decided that they should find their resting place in the Cathedral of Upsala, which as regards the scientists of the olden time may be considered to be a Swedish Pantheon. But no means have been granted for a sepulcher worthy of Swedenborg To erect one by public subscription would quite certainly not meet with any difficulties. Many letters from England and America have already arrived, in which Swedenborgians there have offered to pay for, or to share in paying for, such a monument, and there can be no doubt that, if a public subscription were begun the contributions would be chiefly English and American. But it would on the one hand not be compatible with the reputation of Sweden that a monument to a Swedish scientist should be mostly paid for by foreigners, and on the other hand the monument would thereby be chiefly a homage to the founder of a religion, not to the scientist. It therefore seems to me to be suitable that the monument be Paid for by the State. No dangerous precedent can thereby arise, since scientists of Swedenborg's rank do not often appear.

     "A design for a sarcophagus has been prepared, and estimates for the same have been asked for. The documents, which accompany this motion, show that the expenses aggregate about 10,000 kronor.

     "I venture, for the reasons which have been advanced, to move that the Parliament grant an appropriation of at the utmost 10,000 kronor to provide a sarcophagus for Emanuel Swedenborg's grave in the Cathedral of Upsala.
          "J. F. NYSTROM.

     "Stockholm, January 20th, 1909.

     "The motion was reported from the Committee on Finance in their ninth report, which referred to 102 motions, the Swedenborg sarcophagus motion being no. 189.

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The report, dated March 16th, and signed by the chairman of the committee, Bishop G. Billing, refers to Lector Nrystrom's motion as follows:

     "(I89) In a motion (no. 2.) made in the First Chamber, Herr J. F. Nystrom has moved that Parliament grant an appropriation of at the utmost 10,000 kronor to provide a sarcophagus for Emanuel Swedenborg's grave in the Cathedral of Upsala.

     "In regard to the support for the reasons advanced by the mover in presenting the motion, the committee permit themselves to refer to the motion.

     "The committee certainly do not contest Emanuel Swedenborg's great scientific significance, but, on the other hand, are unable to judge whether it is one of those exceptional cases in which it would appear to be proper to take measures for the establishment of the memory of a deceased private citizen at the expense of the State. They do not consider themselves able to recommend that Parliament grant means for such a purpose in the form proposed by the mover of the motion; and the committee find that they have so much the less reason for such a recommendation since, according to the motion, there seems to be a good prospect of carrying out the mover's Proposal by contributions of the necessary sum by private persons.

     "The committee must therefore advise, That Herr Nystrom's present motion be not approved by Parliament."

     "It has been reported to me on good authority that Bishop Billing influenced the sub-committee of the Committee of Finance, of which he is chairman, to report on the motion unfavorably. But the committee was by no means unanimous, since four members presented a minority report, as follows:

     "As to Point 189 (in regard to the motion concerning a grant for a sarcophagus for Emanuel Swedenborg's grave in the Cathedral of Upsala); Messrs. Count F. C.: son Wachtmeister, I. Wijk, Count C. O. Taube, and H. G. Wrangel, consider that the committee should have advised.

     "That Parliament, approving the motion in question, grant, in order to provide for a sarcophagus for Emanuel Swedenborg's grave in the Cathedral of Upsala, an appropriation of 10,000 kronor, to be added to the extra budget for the year 1910.

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"Count Wachtmeister, who is the Chancellor of the State Universities of Sweden, opened the debate in the First Chamber on March 20th. Speeches were also made by Messrs. J. F. Nystrom and Wijkander, and again by J. F. Nystrom. Then followed speeches by the vice-chairman, Bishop filling, and by Rector Save. The motion was eloquently attacked by Herr Wijkander and Bishop Billing, but more eloquently defended by the other speakers. The speeches fill eight pages of the large octave official minutes. The debate in the First Chamber occurred early in the afternoon, and Bishop Billing warned the members that although they had escaped voting on the preceding 188 points they would have to vote now. However, when the Ayes and Noes were called for at the close of the debate, only one or two Noes could be heard, so the Chamber escaped voting after all, to the evident amusement of all present.

"In the Second Chamber, however, although the motion was eloquently defended by Messrs. Bystrom, Palme, Eden (the member from Upsala), Karlsson, and Baron Palmstierna, it was lost when put to a vote on Sunday morning, after a debate of the same length as in the First Chamber. The Socialist member Ryden opposed the motion on the ground that such a proposal should have come from the Government. Several speakers vigorously opposed such a policy, and it is unlikely that the motion would have been lost had not the Minister for Ecclesiastical Affairs, Hammarskjold, made a highly inaccurate and misleading speech. Although he had himself laid all the documents in the case before various meetings of the Royal Council, including the arguments of the Academy of Sciences as to the reasons why the memory of Swedenborg should be honored, the Academy having also proposed that the 'Fylgia' should convey the remains from England to Sweden: in spite of these circumstances, Minister Hammarskjold, who, it must be remembered, is the State Church Minister, reported the history of the case in so unhistorical a manner that he made the whole series of events appear to be the result of private intervention only. The speech was made at a crucial point near the close of the debate, and accomplished the defeat of the motion. As the Chambers had disagreed, a joint vote after Easter became necessary.

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     "The motion had been introduced on the ground that Swedenborg was one of the greatest of Swedish scientists. One speaker, Rector Save, contended that they need by no means be ashamed of Swedenborg, the mystic and religious leader, for all his work had been in an idealistic direction, and this in a period of gross materialism.

     "No doubt the question of Swedenborg's claims to spiritual revelations, and the fear of countenancing the New Church in a country where the Lutheran State Church is making a desperate fight to keep control of the powers vested in it, contributed to the final result as formulated in the joint vote taken after Easter, on April 15th. But the public discussion centered upon Swedenborg's scientific standing. Before the joint vote was taken there appeared in a Stockholm newspaper, Dagens Nyheter, an attack upon Swedenborg's scientific originality in respect to the nebular hypothesis as presented in his Principia. The attack was repeated on the morning of the April 15th, the joint vote being taken at two o'clock in the afternoon. The previous Sunday, on the advice of some friends of the motion at Stockholm and Upsala, I printed in a Stockholm newspaper, Svenska Dagbladet, a long series of quotations from the works of the most eminent Swedish scientists who have discussed Swedenborg's works on geology, cosmology, anatomy, and physiology. These quotations, together with supplementary matter, were also printed as a pamphlet and sent to all the members of Parliament on April 10th. The pamphlet was also published at large after the joint vote had been taken.

     "According to the custom of Parliament, no speeches are permitted before a joint vote on a motion which involves an appropriation. When the vote was being taken it was therefore impossible to foresee the result, 202 votes for and 158 against the motion, which had thus been carried by a majority of 44, considered by the Conservative Stockholms Dagblad to be unexpectedly large. The evening before the vote the Liberal journal, Aftonbladet, had considered the result to be uncertain.

     "The vote in the First Chamber was 105 for and 36 against, and in the Second Chamber 97 for and 122 against. The motion was thus, as in the first vote, carried in the First Chamber, and lost in the Second, but carried by a majority of 43 in the joint vote.

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     "The significance of this vote is clear. In spite of the opposition of the representatives of the State Church in Parliament; (Minister Hammarskjold was severely criticized by "Philalethes" in Aftolzbladet), in spite of an adverse majority report from the Committee on Finance and of negative criticism in the powerful Liberal Dagens Nylzeter (the First Chamber being Conservative, but the much larger Second Chamber being strongly Liberal and even Socialistic); in spite of all these adverse conditions, the memory of Swedenborg was greatly honored by the most representative body of the Swedish people.

     "We shall close this account of a cause celebre by quoting a favorable editorial which appeared in the non-partizan Svenska Dagbladet on the morning before the vote, reflecting as it does the general public opinion.

     "As to the question of Swedenborg's sarcophagus, the demand that the motion be defeated was voiced with great zeal by two very different representatives of the two Chambers-Bishop Billing in the first and Herr Ryden in the second. Bishop Billing's argument, when the least is said of it, was a dissatisfying attempt to deny a national expression of honor to one of Sweden's most remarkable sons, and it has no success in the First Chamber. And the success which his Socialistic companion had in the Second Chamber, in his argument for defeating the motion aroused a warm rejoinder in the Social Democrat, which in an excellent little editorial article bewailed the indifference exhibited towards a national man of mark.

     "Public opinion concerning Swedenborg in Sweden has for a long time been represented by a famous and unjust line by Kellgren. ['No one is a genius because he is crazy.'] Now, however, it is clear that Swedenborg is not only at the side of Birgitta, Sweden's world-famed religious leader, but is also one of the most notable scientific geniuses which our nation has produced. There, where he now rests, by the side of Rudbeck and Linne he is well worthy of being honored not only by his companions in faith, and by admirers, but by the Swedish people through its representative body."

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IN MEMORIAM. 1909

     REUBEN WALLER.

     The death of Mr. Reuben Walker was sudden and unexpected. He had been ill for a week or two, and the week preceding his death had stayed away from business. Still it was hardly supposed that his illness would be fatal. He seemed to be recovering, and less than two hours before his death, he had arranged to go driving with his son early the following morning. At the supper table, and in the midst of the meal, he suddenly threw up his hands, and dropped backwards,--dead.

     Reuben Walker was born in Derby, England, of New Church parents. He was one of eighteen children by the same parents, but of those who survive him, few, if any, take an interest in the Church. In 1861 he came over to this country, where his uncle, Mr. Abraham Walker, was already established in the haberdashery business, at 1732 Market street. He was married in 1864 to Miss Annie M. Ewing, who came into the Church a year later. On the death of this uncle, about 1880, Mr. Walker succeeded to; the business, which he kept up until the year 1891. In that year he retired, and for some time thereafter was not engaged in any active employment. He then became an assistant to Mr. Asplundh, in the work of the Academy Book Room--a position which he undertook, not from any necessity, but from a keen desire to participate in the work of the Church. In 1898, however, owing to considerable losses, caused by the dishonest delinquency of one of his tenants, it became necessary for him to again enter business. At the age of 53 he took the first opening that offered which was that of night watchman in one of the important city banks. Soon after his appointment to this position he was promoted to the position of bank messenger, and he had not been long in this office before he was offered by the president--an old business friend of both himself and his uncle--still further promotion. But this he declined, as he preferred work which would permit of his being much in the open air,--and so he remained messenger to the day of his death.

     Such are the general external details of Mr. Walker's earthly life.

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But they give no picture, nor the least idea of the man that was known and beloved by his fellow members of the Church, and, indeed, by all who came in contact with him. Kindly, genial, hospitable, generous, and withal--modest, he was universally loved. In the early days of the Academy Schools the store at "1732" was the Mecca of the students and many a student now far from Philadelphia will remember the happy hours at "the store,"--a place where they were always welcomed by "Father Walker" and where they received not only natural hospitality but also stimulation of thought in the things of the Church. The store was the meeting place where the ideas learned during the day or week came forth for discussion and expansion. For Mr. Walker had the faculty of drawing forth the young men,--and he had this faculty, because he himself was deeply interested in spiritual things.

With the removal from Market street the meetings with the students became less frequent, but there was no change in the affections and esteem in which Mr. Walker was held, still less was there any change in his affections for the Church. From the '70's when he attended the doctrinal classes of the Rev. W. F. Pendleton, then pastor of the Broad and Brandywine Streets Church, up to the day of his death, Mr. Walker maintained, and grew in interest for all things pertaining to the Church. He took delight in reading the Writings and in following the development of thought and doctrine, for which he had a quick perception. During the last eighteen months of his life he began to be greatly interested in the new developments connected with the study of Swedenborg's scientific works, and with a view to entering into the understanding of them more intelligently had, shortly before his death, completed the reading of the work On the Infinite.

We have dwelt on Mr. Walker's relations to the students, for we were one of them and this side of his life has many cherished memories for us. But we would sadly fail in this notice if we omitted to mention the estimation in which the man was held by his fellow members in the Church, and the uses which he performed to the Church. In the early 80's he was closely associated with Dr. Burnham, and wrote out from his dictation much of the manuscript of the work On Degrees.

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He served several offices in the Church, having been a member (and secretary) of the Council of the Laity of the General Church, and also secretary, and, for some years, treasurer of the Advent Society, and all that he undertook to do was done promptly, methodically and faithfully. He was essentially faithful whether we speak of the spiritual things of the Church, or of the external duties of life. His earthly presence will be missed by many, and most of all by his wife, of whom he was the inseparable companion and friend. He is now gone to join the growing band of loyal Newchurchmen in the other world, and there he will be welcomed by many old friends of his "loved Academy," and not the least, by Father Benade, with whom to the end Ire preserved a familiar friendship.

The funeral services were conducted by the Rev. Alfred Acton at the home in Philadelphia, on Sunday noon, May 16th. The house was packed with friends, many of them not of the New Church. And it is some testimony to Mr. Walker's sterling character and kindly nature that so many of the officers and employees of the bank, from and including the president downwards, were at pains to be present at this service, to which they contributed a magnificent floral blanket. The interment was at Bryn Athyn in the afternoon, and in the evening a Memorial Service was conducted in the Bryn Athyn chapel, by the Rev. Alfred Acton and Bishop Pendleton. After this service a few of the more intimate friends gathered together at the house of Mrs. Glenn for an old-fashioned memorial meeting. A.

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OF BIBLIOGRAPHICAL INTEREST 1909

OF BIBLIOGRAPHICAL INTEREST JAMES HYDE 1909

To the Editor of New Church Life.

Dear Sir.--In the March number of New Church Life you give your readers some account of Mr. Stroh's Swedish Biography of Swedenborg, and make some comments of a salutary character well worthy of the notice of those who desire to bring Swedenborg's name before the scientific world of today. In the course of your account you refer to Mr. Stroh's "discoveries" of certain documents relative to Swedenborg's earlier life. I have not seen the book you bring under notice, and, therefore, cannot say whether he has put forth the claim to these discoveries himself, or whether in ignorance of the facts you have inferred that they are his. But if there is any manner of honor or credit due to the discoverer of these documents, I believe you will wish to do no less than bestow it on the one to whom it belongs. In your February number also, you quoted from The New Church Messenger, wherein Mr. Stroh himself is made to lay claim to the same. The passage is, "From a letter received from Mr. Stroh we learn of the interesting discoveries he has just made in the records of the University of Upsala concerning Swedenborg's life and studies while in the university. It appears that he entered in the year 1699, and was listed as a boy of 'excellent disposition, and remained until his graduation thesis in 1709.' In your later article you mention among "the new facts which he [Mr. Stroh] has brought to light during his successive visits to Sweden during recent years," the entries in the University registers relating to Swedenborg's career--"a chapter which was virtually unknown until the author commenced his investigation at Upsala." I do not wish to obtrude a claim unnecessarily, nor have I any desire to glory in a simple thing, but will you permit me to state that these discoveries are not Mr. Stroh's, but mine. The first finding of these facts were the result of my researches at Upsala in August, 1902. I then had the documents copied.

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At the same time I did the same as to all the documents respecting Swedenborg's connection with the Society of Sciences at Upsala, together with the letter to Professor Celsius in which Swedenborg accepts membership of the said Society. These latter documents were used in the preparation of my Swedenborg Bibliography, and the letter, which you describe as "one of the newly discovered documents," is even quoted in it. You further call attention to "Mr. Stroh's previous discovery of the 'Marriage Ode' of 1700." May I remind you that I had translated that Ode into English, and published it in Morning Light (1902, p. 298), before Mr. Stroh even had any knowledge of its existence, and that Dr. Tafel had known the Piece in 1889.

Allow me to revert to the so-called "graduation thesis" by Swedenborg. A few years ago I wrote to Morning Light on this subject, where the full facts are given, but with Your permission, I wish to state the case briefly against the error which apparently is not yet dead. The thesis referred to is not a graduation thesis, but a disputation thesis. Swedenborg did not graduate. His duty was simply to maintain the thesis before the students and certain "opponents" whose names are written upon a copy of it in the Upsala Library (which copy I believe I was the first to unearth)--See Bibliography, no. 4. But the important fact to notice respecting this thesis, viz.: Senece Selectae Sententae, is that it is not by Swedenborg at all! Not a syllable of the text comes from his pen; the preliminary matter--the dedication and address to the reader is his, but no more. The whole of the text will be found in Opuscula Aliquot Erasmo Rotevodamo Casligore et Interprete, 1514--every word of it. Indeed, the thesis, by having a catch-word on its page, which answers to an entry not contained therein, shows that a printed copy of Erasmus's work was supplied to the printer from which to print the thesis. Finally I have to call attention to the fact that Swedenborg makes no claim to authorship in connection with the matter, as may be seen by a careful reading of the title page of the original--not that of Immanuel Tafel's reprint. I believe that no Newchurchman or other has hitherto noticed this fact. But it effectually disposes of the "graduation" delusion.

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     If I do not trespass too far on your space I should like to refer to an entry in your November number of last year. You therein quote another of Mr. Stroh's "discoveries," as he describes it in The New Church Magazine for September. It consists of some annotations on volumes of Arcana Coelestia, which had previously been under my hand for nearly nine years. Mr. Stroh declares these marginalia to have been made by Swedenborg, and to have 'been made at the printer's in London for his use in printing The Earths in the Universe. On this you quite naturally observe that the find is of "interest from a bibliographical point of view, and especially as throwing light on Swedenborg's method of work, to say nothing of the sentimental and laudable interest which attaches to the reading of and knowing the books that Swedenborg himself has used." Directly Mr. Stroh's article appeared I was asked how I came to overlook or leave unnoticed this set of the Arcana, in my Bibliography. My reply was that I had not overlooked it; but that I had left it unnoticed, because the annotations are not by Swedenborg at all. I immediately wrote a refutation of the article which the Editor of the Magazine accepted, but it has not yet appeared in his pages. Lest, however, the error should gain further currency I take this opportunity of doing a little towards checking it. When Mr. Stroh made his find, he communicated his idea to me, and I answered, making him aware of his mistake; but he had committed himself then to this remarkable hypothesis, and so, I suppose, it had to be committed to print. It will, however, I hope, be understood by the Church at large that we have here no addition to our knowledge of Swedenborg's method of work, neither have we anything like a revision of the text of the Writings--a proposition which the hypothesis challenged would imply. We have nothing more than a student of the Writings comparing the then-already-printed text of E. U. with A. C. His marginalia are not instructions to the printer, but notes of what the printer had already done. Please pardon the seeming excess of self-obtrusion.
     Yours sincerely,
          JAMES HYDE.

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Church News 1909

Church News Various 1909

     FROM OUR CORRESPONDENTS.

     BRYN ATHYN, PA. The Junior fall on May 15 was the most ambitious social of the year, and was a huge success from start to finish. The decorations were the most strikingly beautiful that have ever transformed the college gymnasium.

     The main feature was a representation of the Junior "class flower," the Black-eyed Susan, suspended from the ceiling, its petals spreading over the whole dancing space. The center of the flower was lit by electric light, and showed the figures "1910" in orange.

     A most charming feature of the evening was a surprise prepared by the Junior girls who all came arrayed in Pretty dresses of orange and black.

     Practically every dance was followed by some original song or "stunt," the most striking of which was the song "Hail to Thee, Black-Eyed Susan. The Juniors sang this, arranged in the figure of the flower, the boys forming the center and the girls in their orange dresses carrying out the idea of the petals.

     There were many original Junior songs, and the Seniors and Freshmen also contributed while the Sophomore girls earned applause by writing a song on the spot. A fitting finale was a song to the school colors, sung by a mixed quartet. This deserves to become one of the regular school songs.

     As a dance, the social was generally considered the "greatest ever." Dancing to the moving music of the orchestra, in the prevailing soft orange light from the flower above, is beyond description.

     Altogether, the Ball was the greatest social function which Bryn Athyn has seen for a long time, and it justified the high opinion which the Juniors have of their own class. D. R.

     The Local School, on May 14th, presented a Cantata called "May Day Revels." It was truly a fairy-like scene,--only the green sward was lit by the declining sun, instead of the traditional moon-beams.

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     The children were all costumed, some as flowers, some as Jacks, some as milkmaids, and some as Robin Hood and his band There were songs and dances in bewildering profusion, and all moved as gracefully and tunefully along as a well-trained comic opera.

     The scenes portrayed were all typical of the English May Day of tradition.

     The dirt has begun to fly for the new buildings.

     The music room at Cairnwood was once more the fitting setting for some pulse-moving music. This time it was Mr. Donald Edmonds and Miss Gwladys Hicks who sang and Mrs. Colley and her daughter, Helen, who played. Master Kenneth Hicks played the violin, and Miss Vera Pitcairn recited lullaby tales. H.

     GLENVIEW, ILL. Since our last report the Rev. W. B. Caldwell has become our Pastor, he and his wife taking up their residence in the "Manse" about April 1st.

     In addition to the usual meetings and social gatherings, we have had several "Nickel Readings," as they are called, the programs including not only serious and humorous readings but also musical selections. These latter also are serious or humorous, according to the point of view. Entertainments of this kind have delighted the audiences, afforded an outlet for many and varied talents, and produced results at the box office. Mr. Lewis K. Blackman recently favored us with a violin recital at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Seymour Nelson.

     Thinking it desirable that our pastor and his wife should be formally initiated into the mysteries of the country life, on a recent evening about fifty of us descended unexpectedly upon the Manse, armed with a supply of farm implements and rural necessities. The "shower" included large quantities of friendly advice,--whose lawn mower to borrow, how to catch a cow, etc.

     Among the recent visitors from a distance were Miss Eleora Pendleton, Dr. Felix Eoericke, and Mr. R. B. Caldwell, of Coshocton, Ohio. A. M.

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     PHILADELPHIA, PA. The Rev. C. Th. Odhner; on May 9th, by invitation delivered a lecture on Emanuel Swedenborg to the Danish-American Society, of Philadelphia. Faster Rosenqvist and several members of his society attended the lecture. On April 29th, Prof. Odhner, by invitation, gave an address on the spiritual signification of "the ancient gods of the Northmen" at the banquet given in honor of the Swedish minister to Washington, Herman Lagercrantz, by the Scandinavian American Club and the Philadelphia Art Club.

     The annual meeting of the SWEDENBORG SCIENTIFIC ASSOCIATION was held in Philadelphia on Saturday, May 8, with a total attendance of 23. The morning session was devoted to the hearing of reports, and the transaction of necessary business. At noon the president, Dr. Frank Sewall, read his annual address, which was an enquiry as to what is meant by "the purest things of nature," which man takes with him to the other world. Dr. Sewall's conclusion, in general, was that while we must admit that these "purest things" are real in every sense, yet we can have no tangible or physical conception of them, the dearest conception of them being as sense impressions and things of the memory. The paper was listened to with the greatest interest, and some time in the afternoon was devoted to its discussion.

     The afternoon session opened with the election of the following officers: President, Dr. F. Sewall. Directors, Messrs. F. A. Boericke, C. E. Doering, R. W. Brown, Horace B. Chandler, H. C. Hay, and Alfred Acton. There was some interesting discussion on the policy to be pursued in the conduct of the New Philosophy, the general sentiment of the meeting being in favor of devoting the magazine almost exclusively to the publication of translations from Swedenborg. It was also suggested that these translations be reprinted in successive pamphlets of 16 pages, each. A paper by Mr. Alfred H. Stroh, read by the Secretary, followed this discussion, and the meeting was concluded with the discussion of the President's Address referred to above.

     At the meeting of the Board of Directors held immediately after the meeting of the Association, the following officers were elected: Vice President, F. A. Boericke, M. .D.; Treasurer, Emil F. Stroh; Editor of the New Philosophy, Alfred Acton, A. B.

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BERLIN, ONT. The Carmel Church has recently had the pleasure of celebrating several wedding anniversaries. At the regular monthly social on March 20th the gathering learned that this day was the eighteenth anniversary of the wedding of Mr. and Mrs. Rudolph Roschman, and that a few days before was the twenty-seventh for Mr. and Mrs. George Deppisch; also that this day was the sixty-first birthday of Mr. Richard Roschman. It was decided that these events ought to be celebrated, which was accordingly done, and a delightful evening was spent. Refreshments were served and toasts to the various events were proposed and responded to.

The 25th of April was the twentieth anniversary of the wedding- of the Rev. and Mrs. F. E. Waelchli, and the Society arranged for a celebration on the following evening. After some time spent in social pleasures, there was a shower of no end of gifts. for the pastor and his wife from the members of the Society, Then the wedding-cake being cut and bountiful refreshments served, toasts followed, and Mr. Jacob Stroh, as toastmaster, spoke affectionately of the part the pastor and his wife had taken in the work of the Society from the time of its institution; he said that though the pastorate has been an unusually long one, yet we hear nothing of any desire for a change, but, rather, the hope that the happy relationship may long continue. The pastor, in responding, thanked the Society for their kindness in providing the celebration, and spoke of the delight which he and his wife had throughout these years found in the life of the Church here. Becoming somewhat reminiscent, he spoke of events in the Church twenty years ago and of the wonderful changes which have taken place since then.. He said that he and his wife also hoped that the present relationship might long continue; nevertheless, in this, as in all things, we cannot know the future. The Lord provides the ministrations which are best for a society, and when a change in the pastorate is necessary He, in some way, gives the indication; and when this is given, it is for us to act according to it. Men come and go, but the Church endures forever, A toast was also proposed to Mr. and Mrs. George Kuhl, who, on this day, had the fifteenth anniversary of their wedding. Then, as should be the case at a wedding celebration, dancing followed for the remainder of the evening.

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     On the 11th April the Society held its annual bazaar, which netted about eighty dollars. As usual, the occasion was much enjoyed.

     On the 11th of May the school celebrated Arbor Day but this year, instead of trees, a bed of wild flowers was planted. After the planting, the children picnicked on the grounds. W.

     FROM OUR CONTEMPORARIES.

     UN1TED STATES. At the Easter Sunday Vesper Service of the BOSTON Society over 1,000 people were present, 150 of whom stood throughout the service.

     The Rev. Thos. A. King has resigned the Pastorate of the CLEVELAND Society and will devote his whole time to the Society Lakewood. His resignation takes effect in September. In announcing his resignation to the Messenger, Mr. King writes concerning the members in Cleveland: "The Church members receive the New Church doctrine as a Divine revelation and therefore of Divine authority. They are used to hearing the New Church set forth as a distinctively new dispensation, resulting from the Last Judgment and the Second Coming of the Lord in the new revelation of Divine truth contained in the writings of the church. These things are believed in all their fulness."

     The North Side parish of the CHICAGO Society celebrated the silver wedding of the Pastor, the Rev. E. J. E. Shreck, and his wife, by a surprise banquet at the Church, on Saturday, April 24, at which Mr. and Mrs. Schreck were presented with a beautiful solid silver plate. On the following morning the Englewood parish also celebrated the silver wedding of their pastor and his wife by the presentation of a basket of flowers, at the bottom of which were twenty-five silver dollars.

     Mr. Schreck, we learn, is planning to establish a New Church Summer School at OLNEY, Ill., during the summer. Presumably it will be conducted along the lines which were followed in the establishment of the Almont Summer School several years ago.

     The Rev. J. S. David, pastor of the SAN DIEGO, Cal., Society, has accepted a call to the O'Farrell Street Society in SAN FRANCISCO, of which the Rev. Wm. de Ronden-Pos was, until lately, the pastor.

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GREAT BRITAIN. Although the English are proverbially an ultra-conservative people, their conservatism does not seem to extend very seriously to the English New Church Societies,--at any rate as regards the duration of their pastorates. An outsider is lost in trying to follow all the bewildering changes that are reported, and we content ourselves with simply chronicling the more recent ones. The Rev. VI'. T. Stonestreet has removed to the pastorate of the Derby Society. The Rev. H. G. Drummend has left Willesden Green to become pastor of the N. Manchester Society. Mr. Thomas Moss has taken charge of the Society at Brightlingsea, and is succeeded in his old Society, at Newcastle, by the Rev. Arthur Stones, until then the pastor at Northampton.
ANNUAL MEETING 1909

ANNUAL MEETING 1909

     Announcements.

     The Council of the Clergy of the General Church of the New Jerusalem will meet at the Olivet Church, Toronto, Ont., from Tuesday, June 22d to Friday, June 25th, 1909.

     The Executive Committee of the General Church will meet in Toronto on June 25th, at 10 A. M. A Joint Meeting of the two Councils will be held on Saturday, June 26th, at 10 A. M.
CORRESPONDENCES OF CANAAN 1909

CORRESPONDENCES OF CANAAN Rev. C. TH. ODHNER 1909

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NEW CHURCH LIFE.

     VOL. XXIX.      JULY, 1909.           No. 7.
     CHAPTER 1X.

     THE CANAANITES.

     91. The Hamitic invasion. We have treated thus far of the Aborigines of Canaan as represented on the one hand by the Nephilim and on the other hand by the Hittites and Hivites. We come now to a new race of people who took possession of the land towards the end of the Ancient Church, almost within historic times. The Nephilim were the monstrous remnant of the Antediluvians, who never accepted the Ancient Church. The Hittites and Hivites were the good remains of the Most Ancient Church, who, in the time of Noah, received the Doctrines of the Ancient Church and after untold ages became a strong nation. In the course of time the Ancient Church declined with them, as with other nations, and a race of foreign origin was permitted to take possession of the land.

     Ham, like Shem and Japheth, was originally a race of gentiles who had been converted to the Ancient Church by the evangelistic zeal of the Church called Noah. Unlike his "brothers," however, Ham received the new doctrines more by the intellect than by the heart, making faith rather than charity the principal thing of the Church. Gradually his faith became faith alone, cloaking a life of arrogance, contempt of others, love of dominion and lusts of the flesh.

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     Such in the Ancient Church as were called "Ham,"--because, they lived a life of all cupidities, merely parting that they could be saved by faith no matter how they lived,--appeared black to the ancients account of the heat of their cupidities; hence they were called "Ham." (Heb. Cham, = burned or black). (A. C. 1063)

     All archeological as well as Biblical evidence points to the banks of the lower Euphrates as the original home of the Hamitic race. It is here, in Chaldea and Babylonia, that we find the descendants of Cush, (the elder son of Ham), and his son, Nimrod, "the beginning of whose kingdom was Babel, and Ezech. And Akkad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar." (Gen. 10:10.) Here, also, the tower of Babel was erected, and here the confusion of tongues took place, leading to the dispersion of the Hamitic race into various regions of the earth. Hence Cush went forth to settle Ethopia, and Mizraim, the second son of Ham, to take possession of Egypt. Phut, the third son, became the ancestor of the Libyan race in northern Africa: and finally Canaan, the fourth and last son, left his ancestral home to emigrate into the land of Canaan,-which, however, was not named from him.

     According to Herodotus, the Phoenicians, (who were preeminently Canaanites), "as they themselves say, formerly dwelt on the Erythraen Sean, [the Persian Gulf]. From thence they passed transversely across Syria, and now dwell there on the seashore." (Book VII.) Modern discoveries have thoroughly confirmed this statement by the "father of History." It appears that the original Canaanites were driven from their first homes on the northern shore of the Persian Gulf by the Semitic conquerors of Babylonia and Chalden. Migrating across the Arabian Desert they settled first in the fertile lowlands to the south of what is now called the Dead Sea, where they founded the once prosperous cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, and at the northern end of the Sea the city of Jericho. Gradually they separated into various tribes. Under the name of Jebusites and Perizzites they took possession of the interior of the land, and under the name of Amorites they conquered the Jordan valley and the land of Bashan. Others, retaining the original name of Canaanites, spread along the plains of Esdraelon. Megiddo and Acre, and finally settled the whole sea-board of Syria, where they founded (or took possession of) the cities of Sidon and Tyre, and became ancestors of the powerful Phoenician nation.

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The aborigines were either exterminated by the Canaanitish conquerors or were assimilated with them; the Rephaim. were exterminated, while the southern Hittites and Hivites, were assimilated, and in consequence are mentioned as "sons of Canaan" in Gen. 10:15-17, although ethnologically they were a far more ancient stock.

Authorities differ as to the time when the Canaanites became masters of the land. According to the Egyptian records they did not exist there at the time of Amenemhat I. of the 12th dynasty, but when Abraham entered Palestine we are told that "the Canaanite dwelled then in the land." (Gen. 13:7). The Phoenicians themselves claimed a history of no less than 30,000 years, but the founding of Tyre is now generally accepted as having taken place about 2750 B. C. Justin, in his extracts from the lost world of Pompeius Trogus, says that the people of the Tyrians are descended from Phoenicians who, disquieted by an earthquake, left their first homes on the Dead Sea, and soon afterwards, settling on the nearest sea-coast, there built a town which they called Sidon, on account of the abundance of fish, for fish is called 'sidon' by the Phoenicians." It is now becoming apparent that the Phoenicians were not the actual founders of Siclon and Tyre, but simply took possession of these cities, in which, in earlier times, a much higher development of civilization had once flourished. (See Historians' History, Vol. II., p. 264.) This would explain the fact that Sidon and Tyre were once of the ancient Church itself, whereas the Canaanitish conquerors, as far as known, were always a corrupt and degraded people.

92. General characteristics of the Canaanites. In the Writings of the New Church we are taught that Canaan, the son of Ham, signifies the worship which inevitably resulted from faith alone, a worship in externals without the internal charity and faith. (A. C. 1063, 1091.) The curse of Noah fell upon Canaan, and not upon his father, Ham, who was the original sinner, for the reason that faith, (Ham), even though it he faith alone, still "may become adjoined to charity," whereas the worship and life, (Canaan), resulting from faith alone, is necessarily corrupt, hypocritical, and damnable, because it is nothing but evil, having altogether turned itself away from the Lord. (A. C, 1093)

388

     Hence the Hamitic Canaanites, who to the full practiced such corrupt worship and life, came to signify "all kinds of evils. (A. C. 1444), a signification that is abundantly confirmed by everything that is known about them.

     The Canaanites were literally as well as spiritually an accursed race. Doomed to inevitable destruction by their cherished evils, they have gone down into history as one of the most degraded races of mankind, who well deserved the name of "low ones," by which they were stigmatized by the rest of the Ancient Church. (A. C. 2913) For, as has been observed before, this people was named from a root signifying "to be low," whereas the land of Canaan was named from a root signifying "merchandise."

     Cultivating the things of faith alone, without regard to charity, and placing the whole life of religion in mere rituals, the Canaanites never possessed the essential elements of national cohesion. "So far from showing the slightest tendency towards unity or concentration," says Maspero, "they were more hopelessly divided than any of the surrounding nations. Their mountains contained nearly as many states as there were valleys, while in the plains each town represented a separate government." (History of Egypt, Vol. IV., p. 183.) Each little district or settlement had its own special idol, and also its own "king" or sheik, and they were always at war with one another. No permanent bond existed between them, and such were their mutual jealousies that even the common danger from foreign invaders but seldom forced them into even temporary alliances. No wonder, then, that they were so easily conquered by the smaller but united forces of Israel!

     Churches of our modern world present a very similar picture. Born of Ham, or faith alone, they have been destitute of mutual charity and cohesion ever since the days of Luther, Zwingli, and Henry VIII. Even the common danger from the Catholic Church could not induce them to subordinate their minor differences as to matters of dogma and ritual, but, dividing and sub-dividing on the smallest disputes, they became a sandy rope of almost innumerable sects, each anathematizing all the others, and all of them powerless at this day to resist the assaults of the Egypt of modern science, or the Assyria of modern philosophy.

389

But the very fact of their hopeless division renders more easy the general victory of the new Israelite, the Newchurchman, over the Canaanites within himself.

     Though condemned to utter extermination, remnants of the Canaanites were allowed to survive in various parts of the land for more than a thousand years, to continue as a source of infestation and seduction to the disobedient Israelites who were ever prone to "make covenants with the nations," marrying amongst them and "going a whoring" after their gods. The Philistines were never subdued, and the powerful Phoenicians were not even attacked, but the former again and again enslaved the Israelites, and the latter supplied to them queens such as Jezebel and her daughter, Athaliah, who led the people into idolatry. And besides these, remnants of Canaanitish tribes survived throughout the history of Israel in various parts of the land even after the final dispersion of the Jewish nation. Nay, traces of them are to be found to this day among the thieving and murderous fellahin in the remoter districts of the Holy Land.

     On the Egyptian monuments the Canaanites are generally depicted as a tall and thin people, with high cheek bones, a brutal lower jaw, receding chins, thick lips, long noses slightly curved, slanting eyes, and foreheads artificially flattened in childhood as among the Flat-head Indians of North America. (Maspero, Vol. IV., p. 218.)

     93. Their Religion. As known to history, the Religion of the Canaanites is one of the lowest and most revolting forms of idolatry, without a single redeeming feature of artistic beauty or symbolic imagery. All their divinities are importations from Babylon and Egypt, but horribly debased and caricatured, divested alike of the majestic strength of the Chaldean, and of the delicate grace and calm dignity of the Egyptian forms. Horrible monsters, gross, ugly, lascivious and blood-thirsty, were worshiped as gods.

390

The Trinity was represented as a being with one body and three heads,-quite in the style of orthodox Christianity. At the head of the Pantheon stood BAAL, (Lord), with his female consort, BAALTIS. The former was a sun-god who re-appears in glorified form in the Greek Apollo, (Hapaal). Baaltis was the goddess of the moon, and is depicted as a gaping pregnant she-wolf, with flaccid breasts hanging from all around her body. She, also, re-appears in nobler form in the Diana of the Ephesians.

Baal himself is represented under various repulsive types, which were known generally as BAALIM, each tribe and each town having its own special Baal. As BAAL-PEOR, (lord of the phallus), he was worshipped by the lascivious Moabites, while the faith-alone Philistines at Ekron adored him under the name of BEELZEBUB, (literally, the "the lord of flies"), or Belzebul, (the "lord of the dunghill"), though these were probably names of derision bestowed upon him by the Jews. Concerning him we learn that "the doctrine of Faith alone, which deprives man of all power in spiritual things, is like a man saying 'I have no more power than Beelzebub, the god of Ekron.' who, according to the signification of his name, can only drive away flies." (T. C. R. 630) And, again, "the reason Beelzebub is called 'Satan,' in Matthew 12:24, and not the 'Devil,' is that by Beelzebub, who was the god of Ekron, is meant the god of all falsities: for if you translate the word Beelzebub, it is 'the lord of flies,' and flies signify falsities of the sensual man, thus falsities of every kind." (A. E. 740.)

As MOLOCH, (the "king"), Baal was figured with a human body and the head of a bull: in his outstretched arms he received the little children who rolled thence into a fiery furnace within his brazen statue. In general, he corresponds to "worship from the love of self and the love of the world," (A. E. 760), and to "cupidities and falsities of every kind." (A. R. 132.) ASHTORETH. (plural Ashtaroth), was the goddess of love and fecundity and is represented sometimes as a woman holding a dove, sometimes an having the head of a cow, (Ashtaroth Karnaim, the lady with the two horns). She is the Ishtar of Babylonia, the Hathor of Egypt, the Astarte of Greece.

391

Her priests were eunuchs, and her priestess were licensed harlots known as Kadeshoth or "holy ones" who supported her temples by their infamy!

     DAGON, the god of the Philistines at Ashdod, "was like a man above and like a fish beneath, and this image was devised because a man signifies intelligence, and a fish, knowledge, which make one. (S. S. 23) He is typical of the national worship, of the whole Philistine nation.--a worship, from faith alone, "which religion, from faith, was as it were spiritual. But from having no charity was merely natural, (n. F. 52); for the statue of Dagon, "being like a man from the head to the navel, represented the understanding from truths: and its being like a fish from the navel downward, represented the natural destitute of the good of love." (A. E. 81716)

     Such were the gods for whose worship the Israelites so often forsook Jehovah,-a worship which is vividly described in the First Book of the Kings, the Canaanitish priests "calling on the name of Baal from morning even until noon, saying, O Baal hear us! But here was no voice, nor any that answered. And they leaped upon the altar which they had made.... And they cried aloud, and cut themselves after their manner with knives and lancets, till the blood gushed out upon them." (18:26, 28).

     94.     Their human sacrifices. The most fearful blot upon the religion of the Canaanites was their systematic offering of human victims, especially infants, upon the altar of their gods. They had fallen into this horrible rite from a perversion of the more ancient custom of sanctifying the first-born to the service or priesthood of the Lord, "but by sanctification they began to mean
sacrification. The descendants of Jacob inclined to do the like, but to prevent their doing so, the Levites were set aside in place of the first-born." (A. C. 8080.) This monstrous custom arose quite naturally from a notion of a vicarious atonement. "It had been known from the most ancient times that the Lord was to come into the world, and that He would suffer death: this may be manifestly known from the fact that a custom of sacrificing their sons existed among the heathen, who believed that thus they would be expiated, and God propitiated.

392

They could not have placed the supreme of their religion in this abominable practice, unless they had received from the ancients the knowledge that the Son of God was to come, who, as they believed, would become a sacrifice. To this abomination also the sons of Jacob inclined, and Abraham, too, for no one is tempted except by that to which he inclines; but lest the son of Israel should rush into that abomination, it was permitted to institute burnt offerings and sacrifices." (A. C. 2818.)

But though the Canaanites also practiced animal sacrifice, they would not relinquish their favorite rite of human sacrifice. "The Baalim thirsted after blood, nor would they be satisfied with any common blood such as generally contented their brethren in Chaldea or Egypt: they imperatively demanded human as well as animal sacrifices. Among several of the Syrian nations they had a prescriptive right to the first-born male of each family; this right was generally commuted, either by a money payment or by subjecting the infant to circumcision. At important junctures, however, this pretense of bloodshed would fail to appease them, and the death of the child alone availed. Indeed, in times of national danger, the king and nobles would furnish, not merely a single victim, but as many as the priests chose to demand. While they were being burnt alive on the knees of the statue, or before the sacred emblem, their cries of pain were drowned by the piping of flutes or the blare of trumpets, the parents standing near the altar, without a sign of pity, and dressed as for a festival: the ruler of the world could refuse nothing to prayers backed by so precious an offering, and by a purpose so determined to move him." (Maspero, Vol. IV., pp. 233, 234)

Such was the worship which at one time, through the power of the Canaanitish Empire of Carthage, threatened the civilized world with universal dominion. Carthage was especially famed or notorious through its sacrifice of infants to the ever-glowing image of Moloch, and so deeply rooted was the practice in this city that it was not stamped out until the time of Tiberius. But nations who have persisted in the indulgence of such abominations have not been permitted to survive.

393

In the Divine Providence of the Lord. Hannibal was not allowed to enter Rome. Carthage had to be destroyed,--but the essence of the Canaanitish abomination was engrafted upon the Christian Religion, through the unwitting influence of Christian Fathers such as Tertullian of Carthage and Augustine of Hippo, in the spiritualized but still more baneful form of the doctrines of the vicarious Atonement, the bloody sacrifice of Christ, Salvation by Faith alone, and Predestination.

     95. The original Canaanites. In the enumeration of the tribes inhabiting Palestine, we find the term "Canaanite" employed in three different senses.

     1. In its most generic sense it includes all the gentile nations and tribes within the widest borders of the land,-not only the real, i.e., Hamitic Canaanites, such as the Amorites, Jebusites, Perizzites, Girgashites, Phoenicians and Philistines, etc., but also the pre-Hamitic Hittites and Hivites, and such Hebrew nations as had accepted the Canaanitish idolatries, such as the Ammonites and Moabites.

     2. In a more restricted sense the term refers to the group of tribes actually descended from ham, and 3., in a most specific sense it means those Canaanites which "dwelt by sea, and by the coast of Jordan." (Numb. 13:29.) As these especially retained the name of "Canaanites," it is probable that they were the more direct descendants of the original Canaanites. These seem to have been the worst of all, for we read that "those who cultivated the doctrinals of faith alone were called Canaanites, and were separated from the rest of the inhabitants of Canaan." (A. C. 2913.)

     In general, the original "border" of these particular Canaanites "was from Sidon, as thou comest to Gerar, unto Gaza; as thou goest unto Sodom, and Gomorrah, and Admah, and Zeboim, even unto Lasha," (Gen. 10:19),-a region which signifies, as a whole, "the extension of cognitions with those who have external worship without internal." (A. C. 1211.)

     The first settlements of the Canaanites, upon reaching Palestine from their original home in lower Chaldea, were formed in the rich plains to the south of the Dead Sea, the once magnificent country which, when Abraham first arrived in the land, "was well watered everywhere, before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the Garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, as thou comest unto Zoar." (Gen. 13:10.)

394

     Here was the city of Sodom, famed for its wealth, and infamous for its wickedness,--a wickedness which has given name to the most unnatural of all sexual perversions. The very name of this ill-fated city is said to mean, literally, "a burning," and signifies spiritually "those who are in the highest degree of exercising command from the love of self, and not for the sake of use." (S. D. 6096.) Hence the association, in the Writings, of Sodom with Babylon and the Church of Rome.

     Here, also, was its sister-town of Gomorrah, (or Amorrah), so named, it is said, from a root meaning "enmity, rancor, malice." Nothing special is known of this city, historically, but even as Sodom signifies cupidities of evil, so Gomorrah stands for "persuasions of falsity." (A. C. 1587) Of the other "cities of the plain," such as Gerar, Admah, Zeboim, and Lasha, we know nothing further, except that they were all subdued by Chedorlaomer, but it is probable that they were destroyed by that seismic cataclysm which took place in the day when "the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven. And He overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and all that which grew upon the ground, . . . and, lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace," (Gen. 19:24-28),--all of which signifies the consummation of the Ancient Church among the Canaanites, and the last judgment upon them. (Cor. 41).

     Jericho, (the "city of the moon," also called "the city of palm trees"), was another ancient and prosperous city of the Canaanites, situated at the northern end of the Dead Sea. In the time of the Ancient Church itself this city signified "instruction in the cognitions of good and truth, by which man is introduced into the Church; for it was not far from the Jordan, which river signifies introduction into the Church. And as Jericho signifies instruction, it also signifies the good of life, because no one can be instructed in the truths of doctrine except him who is in the good of life.

395

But when the land of Canaan was possessed by idolatrous nations, the signification of the places and cities in that land was changed into the contrary, and consequently Jericho then signified the profanation of good and truth. From these things it follows that the city itself signified the doctrine of falsity and evil, which had perverted the truths and goods of the Church, and had profaned them; that its 'wall' signified the falsities of evil protecting that doctrine; and that its inhabitants signified things profane; and as all that is profane is from infernal love after the acknowledgment of truth and good, that city was burnt with fire, its inhabitants were given to the curse, and its wall fell." (A. E. 700.)

96. The Phoenicians, inhabiting the narrow strip of coast land at the foot of the Lebanon range, were as thoroughly Canaanitish as any of the other Hamitic tribes of the land. Whether of Sidon or Tyre or Carthage, they always called themselves simply "Canaanites," the term "Phoenicians" having been bestowed upon them by the Greeks on account of their dusky complexion, (from "phoinos" = dark red). These were the only ones of the original Canaanites who played a prominent part in universal history, not, indeed, on account of greater moral or intellectual characteristics, or of greater national cohesion, (for the Phoenician cities were ever fighting one against another), but on account of an extraordinary lust for money, which caused them to develop and master--for two thousand years--the trade of the entire civilized world. They were fully as depraved, and certainly more besotted with avarice than the rest of the Canaanites, and yet Sidon and Tyre signify the "cognitions" of good and truth. The reason for this paradoxical signification is to be sought in the fact that these ancient cities were centers of civilization and commerce long before the Canaanites took possession of them in the waning days of the Ancient Church, and that the conquerors mingled with the conquered, (Hittites and other pre-Hamitic people), learning from them these "cognitions," or knowledges of the spiritual things of the Church, which lingered with some in Syria even until the time of the Coming of the Lord.

396

     Sidon being the first-born of Canaan, signifies that "merely external worship begat the exterior cognitions of spiritual things, which are the first things of such external worship," (A. C. 1199), while Tyre, which afterwards arose to supremacy in the Phoenician confederation, signifies the "interior cognitions" of such worship. (A. C. 1201.) A third class of cogitions,--those which apply more directly to life,--are represented by the Syrian Hittites and Hivites. Aside from the organic historical reason mentioned just above, Sidon and Tyre represented these cognitions because of their situation by the Great Sea, (A. R. 238); because of their being neighbors of the Philistines, (A. C. 1201); because of their great knowledge of natural arts and sciences, (such as alphabetic writing, manufacture of glass and dye-stuffs, arithmetic, navigation, geography, etc.), which correspond to interior cognitions; and, finally, because of their enormous wealth in silver and gold, which made them the bankers of the ancient world, and which corresponds to spiritual wealth. Originally, from a great zeal for the dissemination of their doctrinal cognitions and rituals, they were excellent missionaries to the gentile world, carrying with them, at the same time, the rudiments of letters and civilization. This is the inner meaning of the legend of Jupiter carrying off the Phoenician princess, Europa, to Greece, (= the first planting of a colony of the Ancient Church in Europe), and of the tradition of her brother, Cadmus,* who is said to have brought the knowledge of letters to Greece. Later on, as the Ancient Church declined, the missionary zeal became corrupted by the love of natural gain, and trade flourished at the expense of the gentile converts, as has been the case also among Christian missionaries. First the evangelist and the Bible; then the trader and the fire-water; finally the gun, the "concessions," and the "hinterland!" But the gentiles of Greece and Italy, having appropriated the cognitions and scientifics of their Phoenician mentors, one day turned on their oppressive teachers, and behold, Tyre and Carthage were no more!
     * From the Hebrew and Phoenician Ha-Kedena, the East, whence Plato took the name for his School in Athens, the Academy, Ha-Kedem becoming "A-cademe," for the Greeks slurred the p.

     (To be continued.)

397

SERMON.* 1909

SERMON.* Rev. R. J. TILSON 1909

     * A sermon immediately following an Evangelistic effort, and immediately preceding the removal of Swedenborg's remains from, London to Stockholm. Preached at Burton Road, Brixton, London, on Sunday, April 5th, 1908 = 138.

     "But blessed are your eyes, for they see; and your ears, for they hear. Matthew XIII., 16.

     To those who delight in the study of Spiritual things as revealed by the Lord in the Heavenly Doctrines of the New Jerusalem, the question must often suggest itself, Why is it that men generally do not see the beauty and simplicity of the Divine Truths as revealed in the Writings of the New Church, and thus readily and even eagerly accept them? The Science of Correspondences therein revealed is so interesting, so simple and yet so profound; the doctrines therein revealed are so enlightening, so practical, so exact, and so rational that they seem to compel belief to the really intelligent and rationally minded student. And yet the world, as to the vast majority of professing Christians, is deaf to the words of the Lord at His Second Coming, and its eye is turned away from the perusal of the Books in which that coming has been made. Enthusiastic evangelistic efforts are made, missionary appeals are strenuously urged, and earnest endeavors are put forth to attract the attention of the thoughtful, and yet the results are so small: the many heed not;--the very, very few, have their attention arrested for a brief period, only to pass by unmoved by the new tidings. Why is this? The feeling which gives rise to this enquiry is by no means new. It existed in the mind of the human instrument of the Lord's Second Advent, and, under Divine inspiration, was expressed by him. It was also felt in the Angelic Heaven. In the preface to the short treatise on The Athanasian Creed, as appended to the Apocalypse Explained, it is thus written in immediate reference to the work on Heaven and Hell:-

398

     "That that (revelation) is the Advent of the Lord, and that thence it is that the Lord has opened arcana concerning Heaven a Hell, concerning the life of man after death, concerning the Word, concerning the Last Judgment,--this is the doctrine of the Church. All these things have been written out in the Latin language, and sent to the archbishops and bishops, and chief men of this kingdom [Great Britain], and still not a voice has been heard;--a sign that these things which are of heaven and the Church do not interiorly affect (the minds of men) and that the very end of the Church is at hand, indeed that there is no longer any Church, for the Church is where the Lord is worshiped, and the Word is read with illustration."

     And in another little work, De Domino, written doubtless in the same year (1759),--and, be it noted, after the Arcana Coelestia had been published, and also the five treatises of 1758, it is written:

     "A revelation has been made by the Lord concerning Heaven and Hell, concerning the Last Judgment which has been accomplished, concerning the Spiritual Sense of the Word; thus has been revealed the way of salvation, and concerning the state of man after death; and this has been done fully and manifestly so that anyone who understands the Latin language can know. All this was done a year ago, and was communicated. But still the Church does not care for it. In Heaven they wonder very greatly that the Church is in such a state that the things which are its very essentials are not even looked into, but are left as things of no moment:--a sign that heavenly things do not occupy their minds at all, nor are they seen when revealed."

     And, still further,--in the Spiritual Diary the following is revealed, under this striking heading:

     "In what manner that will be received by many which has been written through me." The paragraph continues:

     "I received letters informing me that not more than four copies had been sold in two months, and this was made known to the Angels. They wondered indeed, but said it must be left to the Providence of the Lord, and that it was such that no one should be compelled, though it might be done, but that it was not fitting that (others) should read first before those who are in faith; and that such might be known from (what happened) at the coming of the Lord into the world, who was also able to compel men to receive His Words and Himself, but Me compelled no one, as was also the case afterwards with the Apostles; but still there were found those who received, because they were those who were in the faith, to whom also the Apostles were sent." (S. D. 4422.)

399

Here, then, in the Divine Revelation itself, the question already propounded is asked, and the answer to it is most clearly suggested, and a most salutary warning is uttered. The indifference of the world to matters of spiritual Truth, which in themselves are so attractively beautiful to the spiritual mind, is a sign that men do not interiorly care for Heaven and Divine things, and also it is the sign that the end of the age has come, that the consummation of the First Christian Church is being experienced, indeed that there is now no true Church left, but that self and the world occupy the chief places in the minds of men. In short, to repeat the words of Revelation, "Heavenly things do not occupy their minds at all, and are not seen when revealed." To the least observant it must be apparent that spiritual things have no longer the hold over the minds of men that once they had. The world is now the greater attraction, and self and self-interests are far more attractive than are the principles of revealed truth, and the things of Heaven. Divine revelation has predicted this, and such a condition of mankind ought to be expected by the thoughtful and unprejudiced member of the Lord's New Church. But is it objected that men are today much moved by religious questions, and the stir made by the "New Theology" is instanced as proving that fact? That may be granted, but it does not necessarily follow that because men's minds are agitated on religious subjects, they are either seeking after truth or deeply concerned about spiritual things. It may be rather a question of "our doxy versus your doxy,"--of "our Church versus your Church," and an effort to prevail in argument, and to defeat the one who opposes. It is written in the Arcana Coelestia:-

"It is known that there are many within the Church who are affected by the Word of the Lord, and spend much time in reading it; but still there are few who have this for their end that they may be instructed in the truth, for they mostly abide in their own dogma which alone they study to confirm from the Word.

400

They appear as if they were in the affection of truth, but they are not." (A. C. 4368.)

Few, indeed, are those who anxiously desire to know the truth as revealed, being perfectly willing to give up any preconceived idea or cherished thought, when that idea or thought is seen to be opposed to Revelation. To confirm old ideas, rather than to receive new truths, is much more pleasant to the average mind. This, then, is the cause of the general indifference to spiritual truth. The loves of self and the world are increasingly strong in the hold upon the human mind, and the age of the consummated Church grows darker. But Divine Revelation asserts of the First Advent:-

"Still there were found those who received, because they were those who were in the faith, to whom the Apostles were sent." (S. D. 4422.) So will it be at the time of the Second Advent. There have been and there are those who receive, because they are in the faith, loving and desiring truth because it is true, and unto these are the apostles of the Second Advent sent. Where they are the Lord alone knows, and He will be ever mindful of His own, bringing them out into the clear light just as soon as they are ready to receive it. But Divine Revelation urges a serious warning to those who are tempted to worry and to be impatient as to the general state of indifference of the many to the beauty and force of revealed truth. The Angels urged, as is recorded of them in the Spiritual Diary, that the matter of the reception of Divine Truth "must be left to the Providence of the Lord" and they asserted that "It was such that no one should be compelled though it might be done" and, further, they instanced that although at His First Coming the Lord was able, of course, to compel men to receive His words and Himself, still "He compelled no one, neither did the Apostles after Him." This is one of the greatest lessons which all would-be reformers, yea, which all men need to learn, viz.:--to be willing to leave all results to the Divine Providence of the Lord, and to shun all anxiety as to effects as a sin against God.

401

Man's whole care should be expended upon doing faithfully and well his duty, as it is given him day by day to see what his duty is. To keep his mind alert and active to every legitimate opportunity of performing his use in life, and then to contentedly and willingly leave all the outcome to the all-wise disposal of the All-Loving Father in the Heavens. This is the attitude to be assumed by every genuine and loyal disciple of the Lord, as to the reception of the Lord's Truth by the world, and, indeed, in all matters of life.

"The Lord is good to all and His tender mercies are over all His works." And this attitude, when honestly and sincerely assumed and cultivated, necessitates the most careful and studious respect for the freedom of the fellow man. It forbids at all times any undue persuasion, any pressure other than that which is perfectly legitimate, rational and fair, in the effort to make a man see. The Lord. who is all-wise, with whom there cannot possibly be any error or mistake, is willing to leave all free to accept or to reject His truth, for He knows that man only really receives as part of himself that which he accepts in freedom, and that that which is forced upon him is really foreign and extraneous to His character and true being. Therefore, in all efforts to induce the fellow man to receive the Truth, there must be the greatest care to leave him free or to reject; for without freedom he cannot so act as to incorporate into his being that which he accepts or proposes to receive, even to the extent of persuading himself that he believes, when in reality he is not interiorly convinced. And, alter all, no man is responsible for the decisions and conclusions of his fellow men. This is too often forgotten by men in every department of life. Men live as if they were responsible for the condition in eternity of their fellow men, for thus do the hells seek to attract the attention of men from the first duty of self-examination, and of individual reformation and regeneration. They insinuate the catching thought that it is selfish to think of one's self even as to those primal duties which, being faithfully followed, can alone fit one to serve honestly and well the fellow man. And so an attractive though sickly sentiment is aroused which with so many is accepted as being the true virtue of disinterestedness.

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In the words of the text, however, the Lord recalled the attention of His disciples to their favored condition with all its involved duties and responsibilities.

     "But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear."

     And, in like manner does the Lord speak to His disciples at this, the time of His Second Coming. Again, in these very days is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, But hearing ye shall hear and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see and shall not perceive: For this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes have they closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted and I should heal them." (Matt. XIII., 14 and 15.)

     Truly the world is dark in spiritual things. There is little, yea, there is no appetite for the bread of Heaven, and the Word of Eternal Life. The world, the flesh and the devil are the great attractions today, and the Lord turns to the disciples of His Second Advent, those who truly receive Him in His open Word of Truth,--those who acknowledge Him in the new and immediate revelation in which He has effected His Second Coming, and to them He says, "But blessed are your eyes for they see; and your ears, for the hear." But who are these? What entitles one to be in this category of those so blessed? Not the mere appearance of one's name upon the roll book of membership in some outward organization calling itself the New Church. Not the denomination of a Swedenborgian. These things are not sufficient. Clearly, according to the Divine words of the text, those alone are truly blessed whose eyes see, and whose ears hear, and this according to the true spiritual idea of seeing and hearing. As the spiritual sense of these inspiring words of the text, it is revealed in the Apocalypse Explained:--

     "Here, too, the eyes signify the understanding of truth, and belief in it; so 'to see' signifies to understand and believe, and the ears signify obedience, thus a life according to the truths of faith, and 'to hear' signifies to obey and live. For one is blessed not because he sees and hears, but because he understands and believes, obeys and lives." (A. E. 1081.)

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     Now, this covers a wide field of true discipleship. It removes it from mere organic limitations and verbal profession. It makes discipleship to be a matter of serious thought, of diligent reflection, and of thorough conviction; and, in addition to these, and as a result of them, of honest, honorable living, involving the continual shunning of evils as sins against God. Let it never be forgotten that there are many ways in which even the Writings of the Church may be received by man. This is clearly seen by a remarkable passage in the Spiritual Diary, under the heading: "In what manner the Writings are seen to be received by men." It is written:-

     "I spoke with spirits (as to) in what manner the writings concerning these things, when they come into public, are seer, to be received; for evil spirits sometimes infuse that no one would receive them. Now while in the street talking with spirits, it was given to perceive that there are five kinds of reception: First (those) who wholly reject, who are in another persuasion and who are enemies of the faith. They reject, for it cannot be received by them, because it cannot penetrate into the minds.

     Another kind, they who receive these things as scientific, and as scientific are delighted with them as curiosities. A third kind, those who receive intellectually, so that they receive them with sufficient alacrity, but still remain as to life the same as before. The fourth kind (receives) persuasively, so that it penetrates to the emendation of their lives; they come back to them in certain states, and make use of them. The fifth class, (are) those who receive with joy and are confirmed (in them). 1748, 27th Aug." (S. D. 2955.)

     These are weighty words, indeed, and should be read, and reread, and pondered and reflected upon most carefully. Fortunate are those who reach unto the position of the fourth class-those who "'receive persuasively, so that it penetrates to the improvement of their lives." But only those are truly blessed, in the sense in which the words of the text are used, who are of the fifth kind, viz.:-those "who receive with joy" the Writings of the Church, and confirm them in their lives.

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Of these, and of these only, can it be said, "But blessed are your eyes for they see; and your ears, for they hear."

In conclusion, two matters needing reflection are urged upon the mind in the light of the teaching now given. First, relating to the recent past. This Society has been engaged in an Evangelistic effort. We have been "fishing." Thinking of external results, it is a temptation to take up the inspired words, used by Simon of old, and to say "Master, we have toiled all night and have taken nothing." (Luke V., 5.) Strangers have not been attracted, the world has been indifferent to the message given. And yet it is not for man to measure the results of even so small an effort as that just made. Of far greater consequence is it that every member of the congregation should seriously ask, "What use has this effort been to me? Are my convictions stronger, my principles more intellectually and rationally held? Am I more desirous to read and to read diligently, and to reflect more thoroughly upon the Heavenly Doctrines of the Church? Above all, do I find myself determined more than ever to fashion my conduct, and to mold my character according to their holy teaching? In short, do I receive Heaven's latest Revelation with joy, and confirm its God-giving truth in my daily life?" This is the use the Lord expects to be made of the effort which has been put forth, and to those who have thus used it He says, "Blessed are your eyes, for they see I and your ears, for they hear."

Secondly, in relation to the very near future. Within fifty hours, all being well, some members of this congregation will be taking part in a memorial service, to be held in the Swedish Church, Princes' Square, in connection with the removal of the remains of Emanuel Swedenborg from London to Stockholm. Much stir has been made in the literary world over this event. But let it be distinctly known and remembered that this movement has not originated in the New Church; neither is it in the interests of the New Church that it is being carried out. The New Church has no intrinsic interest in the ashes of Swedenborg. His mission is the all-in-all of the Church, and for his unique use she honors most tenderly his memory.

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The removal of his remains to the capital of his native land has been called for, and the expenses defrayed by Scientists who claim Swedenborg as scientifically one of the greatest of Sweden's many great men.

Well, indeed, and justly may they thus honor him. But let not the vain hope be encouraged that by worldly science men will be led to spiritual Truth. That is not the Lord's way into the fold of the New Jerusalem. The only genuine and true way to Heaven and the Church is by the Word, for still the Lord says "If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead." (Luke XVI., 31.) But just what the Lord in His Divine Providence has for the world and for His Church, in this remarkable present day awakening to the merits, as a scientist, of the human instrument of the Lord at His Second Coming, we know not, and cannot tell. The Lord knows, and He will provide all things for the best. Again, results are in His hands. His Church holds dear the memory of Emanuel Swedenborg only because he was the "Servant of the Lord Jesus Christ" and, as such, was the human instrument through whom the Divine Doctrines were given by the Lord to the world, and in the giving of which the Lord made His Second Advent. Sweden! Take thou thy dead, treasure his memory as that of one of thy noblest and greatest sons! Thou Church of the Living God,--His New Jerusalem--look from the honored dead, to the only Living One, living in and of His own right, and as ye look unto Him, be ye saved by His Truth, known, loved, and lived, in order that of each individual member He may say,

"Blessed are your eyes, for they see; and your ears, for they hear." Amen.

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Editorial Department 1909

Editorial Department Editor 1909

     NOTES AND REVIEWS.

     A new and very handsome pocket edition of The New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine has just been issued by the J. B. Lippincott Co., of Philadelphia. Price, 40 cents.

     We learn that The Sower, the little New Church Sunday School journal, of Chicago, has suspended publication on account of a small deficit. This is to be regretted, as of late the new editor, the Rev. E. J. E. Schreck, made earnest efforts to give it a more distinctively New Church character.

     From the recent report of the American Swedenborg Society we learn that the new revision of "Conjugial Love" is now completed, and the volume will soon be issued as one of the "Library Edition." The "Apocalypse Explained" is also being revised. A new edition of "Heaven and Hell" has been published in the German language. During the past year the Society has sold 1108 English octave volumes, 198 smaller English books, 14 Latin and Latin-English volumes, and 1849 copies of "Heaven and Hell" in German. Inquiries for the Writings have come from many parts of the world,-from Siberia and the Philippines, from Alaska, Porto Rico, and other distant places.

     At the annual meeting of the Society, on May 11th, "a new departure was taken by the election of Judge Worcester as counsel to the Society, to act in conjunction with the Law Committee, which consists of Messrs. Edmond Congar Brown and Marston Niles. In view of the considerable amount of legal business relating to mortgage investments, and the not improbable prospect of the Society's being in some way drawn into litigation as a result of the legal situation in Pennsylvania, it was thought best to appoint counsel, who should be charged with the duty of protecting the Society's rights in all such matters."

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     The forthcoming volume of Swedenborg's "COSMOLOGICA," to be published by the Swedish Academy of Sciences, will be furnished with an Introduction by Professor Peter Klason. From this Introduction, we translate the following study of the First Natural Point, as showing a more thorough appreciation of this most essential part of the Principia system, than we have ever before met with in the learned world.

     "What was Swedenborg's method," asks Prof. Klason, "in accounting for the construction of the world with motion alone as his principle? He did exactly as Descartes did in the geometrical determination of his curves and surfaces, that is, he started from an origin which he called the punctum naturale. The natural point is thus the whole world in conatu. Metaphysically it is thus the most perfect indivisible existere, it is a simplex, which by its fluxion, in Newton's sense, generates the whole sensible world. The motion of the natural point was infinitely great and yet not an actual motion in time, not a motion which could be conceived geometrically, but it was a conatus ad motum, an effort towards motion; it was what now would be called potential or bound energy. Swedenborg was undoubtedly the first person who so completely and clearly perceived the distinction between potential and actual energy that he gave them their separate names: conatus ad motum and conatus in motu. 'Because conatus may be considered in a similar manner as motion, for that is present in the conatus which is in the motion, and nothing is in the motion that had not been previously in the conatus and one with it.' The natural point was thus the same as conatus ad motum, or as he also calls it pure motion in the universal infinite.' In this natural point there lies latent, therefore, everything that exists. 'In it there is everything which is finite and which stands forth by a long series of finites.'

     "We will not follow his presentation further than to the origination of that primeval element which, according to Swedenborg is considerably finer than the modern electrons. For he regarded electricity as something material of molecular structure, as, indeed, it has come to be regarded in most recent times. And light, moreover, was to him a phenomenon of vibration in the ether, as was shown later by Fresnal.

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As is known, these views led him to the conception of the planets as originally parts of the sun, from which they were sundered by the centrifugal force, a conception which in modern times bears the name of Kant-Laplace."

     Mr. William McGeorge, of Philadelphia, in the Messenger for June 2d, reverts once more to his dearest aversion and favorite theme,--the Academy--in an article on "The Study of Doctrine from the Word the Corrective of Philistinism." Though this gentleman thoroughly "stamped out" the Academy years and years' ago, and quite recently dealt that institution its last it, but not final "death blow," yet the Academic ghost is still haunting him; he cannot leave not even in the pages of the Messenger, which for his benefit lifts the embargo of its Continental and Napoleonic "policy of silence."

     Indulging in same personal reminiscences, in his own chatty and intimate style, he tells of a wonderfully bright idea which once dawned upon him, many years ago, "in the little old stone church on Cherry street above Twentieth,"-the idea that "not only could all doctrine be learned from the Word, but that moreover it was there given in the Divine Order."

     "BUT," he continues, "for many years my closest friends and associates were among those who afterwards joined the Academy, and from these I have learned to revere and look up to the Writings of the Church. But while always, now more clearly than ever, I have realized the absolute necessity of going to the Writings in order to understand the Word and to draw true doctrine from it; yet I have also been much perplexed by observing that those who studied the doctrines most profoundly, especially when they got together for the express purpose of reading and studying them alone, putting them on a par with or above the Word, seemed to develop strange eccentricities and to derive from their studies conclusions fundamentally opposed to the vital teachings of the Church. Some of the best and most earnest men I have known have been thus carried away by this kind of study for longer or shorter periods, so that at times I have almost dreaded the consequences of people's banding together merely for the purpose of studying Swedenborg.

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The "corrective" proposed by Mr. McGeorge is such a mixture of confused ideas as no sane man could make head or tail of. The Word cannot be understood without the doctrines, yet "too great study of these seems to lead to evil consequences." What, then, is to be done? Go to the Word, without the doctrine, or at least without "too great" a study of it, and draw your own doctrine out of it? Mr. McGeorge alone is able to tell where the doctrinal study is to stop without becoming "too great."
SUPREME COURT ON THE KRAMPH CASE 1909

SUPREME COURT ON THE KRAMPH CASE 1909

     On June 22d the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania handed down the following opinion in re the Kramph will case:

     "The judges who heard this case are unanimously of the opinion that the decree [of the Lancaster Orphans' Court] must be reversed. It cannot be sustained on any ground whatever. But we are not entirely agreed as to which of the parties claiming as legatees come most clearly within the expressed intent of the testator. This question is, therefore, ordered to be reargued on behalf of these claimants, at Pittsburgh, in the first week of October."

     The "decree" which is so absolutely reversed in the above opinion, is summed up in the following syllabus, prepared by Judge Smith himself, of the decision which the decree confirmed:

     "A devise to endow an educational institution that should teach the doctrines of the New Jerusalem as laid down in the writings of the Honorable Emanuel Swedenborg, is void as against public policy.

     "Among such writings is a work on Conjugial Love, which teaches doctrines as to sexual relations unsanctioned by matrimony, which are repugnant to the law of the land and to accepted public policy."

     With these two points thus definitely settled by the Supreme Court, the contest next October will be a legal one between the Academy and the McGeorge trustees, as to which of them "come most clearly within the expressed intent of the testator."

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Church News 1909

Church News Various 1909

     FROM OUR CORRESPONDENTS.

     BRYN ATHYN, PA. The closing exercises of the Schools has grown into quite a formidable program. Just look at the list: Thursday, June 10th, morning, Kindergarten closing; afternoon Seminary exercises and exhibition of work. Friday evening Senior Ball. Saturday (morning and afternoon), Joint Meeting (Corporation, Faculty and Graduates); afternoon, base ball, "Has-beens," 6; "A. A. C.," 6. Evening, "Larger Academy' banquet in the Dining Hall. Sunday morning, Confession of Faith (four of the graduates of the Seminary), Ordination of Mr. E. E. Iungerich into the first degree of the Priesthood. Evening, address of the Superintendent on "Delight." Valedictory of Mr. Iungerich, and address by the Bishop on the need of cultivating the habit of reflecting with delight upon the things of heaven and eternal life. Monday, nine-thirty A. M., closing exercises of the Local School. Eight new accessions from the Kindergarten, and eight graduates into the Academy. Eleven A. M., closing exercises of the Academy Schools. Granting of Degrees, three diplomas and nine gold medallions. One P. M., Drill and Flag Presentation on the campus, followed by the giving of the school letters to the members of the athletic teams. Three P. M., Annual Meeting in Philadelphia of the Corporation. Presentation of a check for $100,000.00 to the Academy for increasing its endowment. Evening, Theta Alpha Banquet and Alumni Meeting Tuesday (afternoon and evening), Theta Alpha meeting; evening, the "Sons of the Academy" adopt a Constitution, elect officers, and take in new members. There were also two session of the Teachers' Institute the week before, making a total of nineteen separate and distinct sessions in all! Some of the teachers are tired, but all are very happy.

     A detailed account of all these meetings is, of course, out of the question. A specimen or two must suffice.

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     At the Joint Meeting on Saturday, after listening to reports upon all the work of the schools, the subject of Religious Instruction was taken up, and Mr. Acton presented a view of the whole course, giving his reasons for each phase of it. A brief resume of the same subject in the Local School was also presented, to give a fuller view of what is done. There followed a full discussion, developing the fact that this work is central to all the Academy's teaching, in spite of the rapid expansion of her courses in other directions. It was shown also that Higher Education involves the opening of the higher regions of the human mind, by means of truths concerning God and life eternal, which alone are adequate to that use. However, a mere recital of these generals sounds very trite. Suffice it to say that the subject began to really open up just as we had to pass on to something else. At the banquet in the evening a most happy feeling prevailed--that indefinable sense of being fed in spirit and hope as well as in the flesh. The main topic upon this occasion was the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Seminary.

     Perhaps the most inspiring scene, from the spectacular side, was in connection with the closing exercises on Monday. After the audience had assembled in the chapel, the pupils marched in and sang a stirring hymn, while the members of the Corporation and the teachers entered in solemn procession, taking their seats at either side of the platform. After the worship and the reading of the essays of the graduates--with words of weighty import, the Bishop gave out the gold medals to the nine graduates of the Seminary, who were then crowned with chaplets of wild roses by their younger companions. Nothing could be more beautiful.

     The graduates from the Seminary were Carena Glen, Margaret Gyllenhaal, Eleanor Lindrooth, Ora Pendleton, Wertha Pendleton, Ethtle Price, Eudora Sellner, Ora Stroh, and Marjorie Wells. The graduates from the College were Sydney B. Childs, John E. Colley, and Madefrey A. Odhner. The latter delivered the valedictory address.

     After the granting of the Degree of B. Th. to Mr. Eldred Iungerich, and of diplomas to three graduates of the College, all marched out in order to the campus, where, after some preliminary maneuvers, the two Senior classes entered, bearing a new national flag. This was saluted by three volleys from the boys and then all passed in review.

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     As they all swung into a single line at the farther side of the field, and swept forward in perfect line and step with the flag in the center, it was indeed a moving sight.

     It was at the Corporation meeting which followed these exercises that the princely gift, mentioned above, was received, quite unexpectedly, from "Uncle" John. Surely the Lord is pouring out His blessings upon this use--it is for us only to come forward to meet Him. H. S.

     The farewell social of this year's graduating class took the form of a ball given on June 11th, to which all the members of the society were invited. An occasion such as this called for a somewhat serious programme, and several toasts were proposed and speeches made. Miss Alice Grant responded to the toast to the Seminary, and in response to-a toast to the Alma Mater Miss Carina Glenn gave the valedictory for the graduating girls. Mr. Karl Alden's speech on behalf of the future Seniors was deservedly appreciated. Prof. Odhner responded to our "Spiritual Ancestors," and Mr. Raymond Pitcairn answered to the "Academy Organizations." The dances were interspersed with many entertaining features. The most charming was the song to the "class flower," (the Lily of the Valley), during which four little girls carried out a pretty dance. During the singing of the class song the graduates presented a beautiful banner to the Academy. Light entertainment was given in such features as the chant of "Graduation Requirements," with its mournful refrain: "There's no rest for the Seniors," and Miss Majory Wells's interesting Class Prophecy. The distribution of a booklet, entitled "Iewcoms," containing much wit and wisdom about the Seniors, provided an interesting memento of the class of 1909 and a souvenir of a most successful finale to the year's social life.

     GLENVIEW, ILL. Our last two Friday suppers this season were followed by lectures instead of by the usual classes. One of these lectures was by Mr. Charles Francis Browne, who gave a most interesting description of the Chateau Gaillard, a fortress built near Rouen by Richard Coeur-de-Lion, King of England. During his recent stay in France, Mr. Browne made a special study of this chateau, and the historical and artistic points in his lecture were illustrated with blackboard sketches.

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On the following Friday evening Mr. H. L. Burnham favored us with a lecture dealing with the history of the early English kings, and with the Magna Charta in particular. Mr. Burnham called attention to the interesting coincidence that this document was ratified and signed on the Nineteenth of June, 1215.

     On May 31st we celebrated Decoration Day, and a literary and musical program was given at Mr. Maynard's house in the evening. At this affair Dr. King told of Gettysburg, and read Lincoln's address, taking several seconds less in its delivery than did the author, who spoke it very slowly. We were also regaled with musical items, and stories and readings, including specimens of the dialects of a Wild West character, a Japanese school boy, and a French-Canadian "habitant farmer," the charm of the latter being greatly appreciated. The program closed with the singing of "My Country, 'Tis of Thee."

     Nobody can say that there's nothing doing socially in the park. We're as busy as ever; something happens every day. A couple of weeks ago Louis and Cedric King came home, after a protracted tour in Colorado and New Mexico, and on May 26th the young men formally welcomed them at the club house. Then, again, we are engaged in preparation of all kinds--for a June 19th dance, for a July 5th play, for important base ball and tennis games,--and, by no means least, for the girls who are coming from B. A.
     A. M.

     HALIFAX, YORKSHIRE, ENGLAND. On Tuesday, April 27th, the Rev. R. J. Tilson paid a pastoral visit to Mr. and Mrs. E. Craigie and family at their home in Halifax, Yorkshire. In the evening the Sacrament was administered in a brief and enjoyable service, only the family being present. Afterwards several friends joined in a Reading Meeting, when the subject of distinctive New Church worship was considered. E. C.

     FROM OUR CONTEMPORARIES

     UNITED STATES. The Rev. J. E. Werren, of CAMBRIDGE, Mass., has been granted a year's leave of absence from the Convention's Theological School, after twenty-six Years of continuous service.

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The year will be spent in study and travel, the journey extending to Egypt and Palestine.

     At ELMWOOD, Mass., "there is but one church,--that of the New Church Society. There are residents of the other faiths, but there is a spirit of unity, and all help to support the church in their midst. This is, therefore, the only New Church [?] village in the world." And the Society at BROCKTON, Mass., rejoices in the fact that "we are welcomed in all Protestant circles. In public meetings we are invited to take our part. Being now regarded as Evangelical, all barriers are removed. We have our representatives in the work of the Young Men's Christian Association," "Eighty years have accomplished much. What will the next four score bring forth?" (Messenger, June 2.) It is not difficult to guess, now that "all barriers are removed"--between the New Jerusalem and the Old.

     NORWAY. A course of three lectures on the doctrines of the New Church was delivered in the Noble Institute at Christiania on Saturday, Monday and Tuesday, April 17th, 19th and 20th, by Rev. S. C. Bronniche, of Copenhagen. The subject of the lectures were "Swedenborg, His Life and Teachings," "The Interpretation of the Scriptures," and "The Doctrine of the Incarnation." There was an average attendance of sixty. Some tracts were distributed and books sold; the remaining stock of books was left with a bookseller on commission. The first lecture was noticed in one of the leading papers.

     Mr. Bronniche, during his stay in the Norwegian capital, visited all persons known to be interested in Swedenborg. Among those thus visited was Mr. Christian Clausen, the writer of a sympathetic article on Swedenborg that appeared last year in the Norwegian journal, Church and Culture." He accepted a copy of a little book, "Swedenborg's Dreams." Other friends who were interested through the lectures, sought out Mr. Bronniche and made his acquaintance. Mr. Bronniche was satisfied with the result of his visit, and hopes to be able to deliver a further course in Christiania in the near future.

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     HOLLAND. From Mr. G. Barger, of Voorburg, Holland, comes the welcome news contained in the following letter:--"Some weeks ago I had the great delight to make the acquaintance of Mr. Emest Delterne, LL. D., at Antwerpen, the only Newchurchman in Belgium at present. About the middle of the former century there lived some earnest lovers of the Writings in that country. Our new friend, Mr. Delterne, was originally a Roman Catholic, but from his youth read the Bible in Latin. This made him critical about the Roman Catholic religion, and when, four or five years ago, the Lord's Providence sent him a French translation of the Doctrine of S. S., he at once recognized its truth, and since that time he has already read the writings through without exception. The great devotion and zeal of Mr. D. or this New Divine Revelation, which is to bring happiness to the world, opens a new center of great activity for New Church work on the Continent.

     "It was the proposal of Mr. D. that our isolated efforts in Holland and Belgium should be united in a public effort by the institution of a Society, and this was done on Easter Sunday, when we had a gathering all told of 12 people at our house in Voorburg, and instituted a 'Swedenborg Society for Holland and Belgium,' of which I was made president and Mr. Delterne secretary (140 Avenue Plantin, Antwerp).

     "This is a small beginning, and our small number and means will not enable us to do much but a beginning is made, and this, we trust, will grow in size and use."--(Morning Light, May 29.)

     SWEDEN. During the past year the sales of the Writings and collateral literature by the New Church Book Room of Stockholm have, at least, doubled. The attendance at service has also increased. This is owing, without doubt, to the increased interest caused by the removal of Swedenborg's remains, and the subsequent discussions and developments.

     AUSTRALIA. The foundation stone of the new place of worship of the BRISBANE Society was laid on February to by the pastor, the Rev. W. A. Bates. This Society was established about 1865, when meetings were held at the chambers of the late Hon. B. Backhouse.

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The leader was Mr. S. Diggles, licensed by the Rev. R. Story to administer the sacraments. In 1882 the present pastor, who was then in Scotland, was called to the Society, and he is now the only New Church minister in Australia. It would be more literally correct, however, to say "he was," for on March 20, Mr. Bates, owing to ill health, sailed for England on a twelve months' leave of absence granted by the Brisbane Society.
Wanted 1909

Wanted 1909

Announcements.

A woman as working housekeeper, or, a girl for general housework. Family of three adults. A good home and good wages. Apply to Mrs. B. E. Colley, Bryn Athyn, Pa.
LAYING ON OF HANDS IN ORDINATION 1909

LAYING ON OF HANDS IN ORDINATION Rev. WILLIAM H. BENADE 1909

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     NEW CHURCH LIFE

     VOL. XXIX AUGUST, 1909          No. 8
     The question appears to be fully and explicitly answered in the Writings which contain the doctrines of the Church, thus:

     In A. C. 10323, we are taught: "When the Levites were purified, and the ministry of the priesthood under Aaron was ascribed to them, it was commanded that two bullocks should be brought with a meat-offering, and that Aaron should bring the Levites before Jehovah, and the sons of Israel should lay their hands upon the Levites; and the Levites should lay their hands upon the head of the bullocks, one of which was to be offered for a sacrifice, the other for a burnt offering; and thus they were separate the Levites from the midst of the Sons of Israel, and they were to be Jehovah's. Numb. 8:7-14 By the sons of Israel laying their hands upon the Levites was signified the transference of the power of ministering for them, and reception of it by the Levites, thus separation. And by the Levites, laying their hands upon the head of the bullocks was signified a transferring of that power to Jehovah, that is, the Lord, therefore it is said that thus they should be separated from the midst of the sons of Israel, and should be Jehovah's.

     From this we learn that the laying on of hands upon those to whom the ministry of the priesthood was ascribed, signified the transference to them from the people, of the power of ministering for them, and their reception of it; and that the effect of this act was their separation from the people, and their becoming the Lord's.

     This ceremonial act was performed in the Israelitish church by divine command, as an outward sign of an internal reality.

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It meant and actually effected what it represented. The power of ministering for the people, was thenceforth with those upon whom hands had been laid; it was received and exercised by them; and having been thus transferred it could no longer be exercised by any of the people, but only by them. Thus set apart to do the Lord's work of ministering for the people, they were also actually separated from the people in their inheritance in the land, in their civil conditions and relations, and in their very living and habitations.

The act of laying on of hands in ordination, in the true Church, is derived from the divinely commanded ceremonial of that Church, which was established as the representative of the true Church of the Lord. So derived, and so existing it is in this true Church the external sign and evidence of an internally true and real thing, which is the ascription of the ministry of the priesthood to him who is ordained. The act, when performed in the true Church, means this true and real thing, that the power of ministering for the people is thereby transferred to the subject of it, that receiving it he is empowered to fill an office which the people cannot perform for themselves, to perform certain functions and duties, which the people cannot perform for themselves, and that thus he is officially separated from the people, to be the Lord's, in the sense of his official instrumentality in doing the Lord's work among men.

If the outward act of ordination do not carry with it these real things, if it do not effect these actual conditions, then it has no significance either in the literal teachings of the Word, or in the doctrines of the Church, which reveal the spiritual sense of those teachings. In T. C. R. 146 we are instructed: That the Divine virtue and operation, which is signified by the Mission of the Holy Spirit, consists with the clergy, in particular, in Illustration and Instruction. The operations of the Lord enumerated in the foregoing article, viz., reformation, regeneration, renovation, vivification, sanctification, justification, purification, the remission of sins, and finally salvation, are effected by influx from the Lord both amongst clergy and laity, and are received by all those who are in the Lord, and who have the Lord in them (John 6:56; 14:20; 15:4,5); but the reasons why the clergy are particularly gifted with the graces of illustration and instruction are, because those graces have particular relation to their ministerial office, and their ordination with the ministry conveys those graces; and they believe also that whilst they are preaching in the heat of zeal, they are inspired like the disciples of the Lord, on whom he breathed, saying, "Receive ye the Holy Spirit," (John 20:22; Mark 13:11), etc., etc.

419

     In T. C. R. 155 we are taught: "It was shown above, in the Third Article, that that divine virtue, which is meant by the operation of the Holy Spirit amongst the clergy, is, in particular, illustration and instruction; but to these may be added two intermediate virtues, which are perception and disposition; there are therefore four successive operations amongst the clergy, following each other in their order, illustration, perception, disposition, instruction. Illustration is from the Lord alone. Perception has place in man, according to the state of his mind, as formed by doctrines; and where these doctrines are true, the perception is rendered clear by the light of illustration; but where they are false, the perception is rendered obscure, yet so as to have the appearance of clearness arising from the reasonings and arguments which have been used for their confirmation; such apparent clearness is, however, only a consequence of that false and delusive light, which in the eye of the merely natural man, appears like the light of truth. Disposition arises from the affection of the love principle in the will, and it is the delight springing from that love which affects it. If his delight spring from the love of evil, and of its attendant false, it gives birth to a zeal, which is outwardly sharp, harsh, furious, fiery, and inwardly full of anger, rage, and unmercifulness; but if that delight spring from the love of good, and its attendant truth, it then gives birth to a zeal which is outwardly soft and smooth, yet loud and burning, and inwardly full of charity, kindness and mercy.

     "Instruction follows as an effect produced by the former. This illustration, which is from the Lord, is changed into various lights and colors in every individual, according to the state of his mind."

     From these teachings we learn: That the clergy are subjects of a particular divine virtue and operation, called the mission of the Holy Spirit, which consists in Illustration, Perception, Disposition, and Instruction.

420

That these gifts are not general, or common to all men, but that they are conferred upon the clergy in particular, being graces which have particular relation to their ministerial office, and being conveyed to them by their ordination into the ministry.

     This particular divine virtue and operation, of which men are made the subjects by their ordination into the ministry, is a real thing, an internal, a spiritual, a divine thing; and the sacerdotal gifts and graces which are conveyed to them by the channel of their ordination into the ministry, and which have particular relation to their ministerial office, are actual things in which exists the power of ministering for the people, accompanying and effected by their official separation from the people.

     In Canons, Ch. 4:7--we read: "That the clergy, because they are to teach the doctrine from the Word, concerning the Lord, and concerning Redemption and Salvation from Him, are to be inaugurated by the Covenant (sponsionem) of the Holy Spirit, and by the representation of its translation; but that it is received by the clergy according to the faith of their life."

     This teaches that the good of virtue and operation, signified by the Mission of the Holy Spirit, from which is derived the power of ministering for the people, transferred to the clergy by the laying on of hands, and which consists in those gifts of Illustration, Instruction, etc., which enable them to teach doctrine from the Word, or the Divine Truth in its particular forms, concerning the Lord, and concerning Redemption and Salvation from Him, is not given without inauguration by the Holy Spirit, and by the representation of its translation, i. e., by the act of ordination. Whatever gifts and graces may be newly or generally received from the Lord by all men, and thus equally with others, by those who are at the same time of the clergy there are certain particular gifts and graces which are received from the Lord only by those who are in the office, and who have to perform the duties of the Priesthood. As this office is adjoined to them, so are those gifts and added to their other gifts and graces, for the sake and use of the office, and to the end that the Lord may by them through this office which is His,--and in which sense, they who are in it, are His, teach truth and by truth lead to good.

421

And this adjunction and addition are not effected without inauguration by the Covenant of the Holy Spirit, and by the representation of its translation, i. e., by the act of laying on of hands in ordination, whereby the power of ministering for the people is transferred and received.

     In A. C. 878. . . "By hand is signified ability, power, and confidence; and when referred to the Lord, omnipotence. Hand, thence in the Jewish Church, represented power. Because of this representation, the people laid their hands on the Levites, to consecrate them, (Numb. 8:9-12), and Moses, when he appointed Joshua to be his successor (Numb. 27:18, 23), to represent that this ability was conferred. Hence the ceremonies at the present day of inauguration and benediction by the laying on of hands."

     In A. C. 6292. The circumstance of putting the hand on the head, when blessing was given, was derived from a ritual received from the ancients; for in the head is the very intellectual principle and will principle of man, but in the body are the acts according to those principles, and compliance; thus to put the hand on the head was representative that blessing was communicated to the intellectual principle, and to the will principle, thus to the man himself. From that ancient time the same ritual remains even at this day, and is in use in inaugurations, and also in benedictions.

     A. C. 10,023. The reason why the laying on of hands signifies communication and reception, is, because by the hands power is signified, and since this is the active principle of life, by hand is also signified whatsoever appertains to the man, thus the whole man, so far as he is an agent, (10,019), and by laying on is signified communication in reference to him who lays on, and reception in respect to him or to it on which it is laid. Thence it is evident what was signified by the imposition of the hand amongst the ancients, namely, the communication and transference of that which is treated of, and also its reception by another, whether that be power, or obedience, or benediction, or testification. That by the imposition of the hand is signified power, is manifest from the following passages in Moses: see Numb. 27:18-20, etc., etc.

422

     In Div. L. and W., 220: "I have often wondered that the angels had such knowledge from the mere action of the body by the hands, but nevertheless it has occasionally been made manifest by lively experience; and it has been told me that this is the reason why inauguration with the ministry is performed by the imposition of hands, and why touching with the hands signifies communication, besides other things of a similar nature."

     Again, A. C. 10,023: "The signification of touching, which is effected by the hands, originates in representatives in the other life, where those who are in a dissimilar state of life, appear removed at a distance, but those who are in a similar state, appear consociated, and those in that life, who mutually touch each other, communicate the state of their life with each other; if this is done by the hands, the all of life is communicated, because by the hands, as was said above, from correspondence is signified power, which is the active principle of life, thus whatsoever appertains to any one; such representatives exist in the World of Spirits, but they are effected by influx from heaven, where alone are perceived consociations as to the affections of goodness and truth."

     From these teachings we learn: That ordination into the ministry, by the laying on of hands, does inaugurate, by the Covenant of the Holy Spirit, or introduce, a man into the state in which he becomes a subject of that Divine Virtue and Operation, which is signified by the Mission of the Holy Spirit, and which consists in particular, in Illustration and Instruction, etc., because of its representative character. Like the sign of Baptism, the sign of the imposition of hands, has the power which lies in all true and orderly, and especially in all divinely instituted representations. It consociates and conjoins men on Earth with those in the Spiritual World, with spirits and angels, and with spiritual and angelic societies, whose uses and functions consist in these priestly and teaching mediations, by which truth divine proceeding from the Lord, is brought down to men, and carried on its way to do the work of Salvation in the several degrees and planes of human existence. Men are not only separated, by the act of ordination from other men on this earth, for the performance of a particular use, but they are also set apart thereby, and placed in such relations to spirits and angels in the Spiritual World, and thence to the Lord, by the representative, official character, which is adjoined to them, and which is as active and operative principle in their ministry, that the chain of communication of truth divine from the Lord, by the successive degrees of its descent, may be preserved, at least, representatively, intact.

423

And on this representative, official character of the priesthood, confessedly the representation of the translation of the Holy Spirit, and of separating also, rests the possibility of that divine virtue and operation with the clergy, which is signified by the Mission of the Holy Spirit, and which consists in particular in the gifts and graces of illustration, perception, disposition, and instruction. These gifts and graces are internal, spiritual, and, therefore, real things; their divine virtue and operation with the clergy is a real thing; the power which they exercise through their actual employment in the uses of the clerical or ministerial office, is a real thing; the use--which results therefrom,--that, namely, of teaching truth from the Lord, and by truth leading- men to the good of life; and thus promoting the salvation of human souls,--is a real thing, a most real thing, seeing that it is the very work in which the Lord Himself is continually engaged.
GOOD OF LOVE 1909

GOOD OF LOVE Rev. E. S. PRICE 1909

     Why should ye be stricken any more? Will ye revolt more and more? The whole head is sick and the whole heart faint.

     From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wound and scar and fresh stripe; they have not been pressed out, neither bound up, neither mollified with oil. Is. 15:16

     The "ye" to whom the question in the opening of our text is addressed, represents historically the Israelitish people at a time when they had so far departed from their traditional ceremonial religion that there was almost nothing of it left. This people had never had any real religion, but while they observed the ceremonials and commands of the law in an external way, they represented a church in which there might be religion.

424

They never had a real religion because all religion has relation to life, and a life of religion is to do good, that is, to do uses from love, and this they never did. But still there was kept up a communication with heaven by means of their reading of the letter of the Word and their ceremonial, which letter of the Word and ceremonial, represented all these things of religion.

     The question is asked as by a father pleading with wayward sons to turn from their evil ways and reform their life. Why should ye be stricken any more? Will ye revolt more and more? And then follows a catalogue of the things to be reformed, described as diseases that are to be cured. The picture the loving father holds up to his children is a gloomy one indeed. And this picture is not only of the Israelitish nation in its departure from its established course, but is also a delineation of the spiritual condition of every man on earth, before he is regenerated. But the Lord is the true physician and healer. Both at the beginning and end of the diagnosis is suggested, or, even better, is prescribed, the treatment; for in the question, Why should ye be stricken any more? will ye revolt more and more? is involved the assurance that, if ye cease to revolt, ye need not be stricken any more.

     This is the first of regeneration, that is to say, the reformation of man's life on the natural plane. Man must first cease to do evil before he can learn to do well. This is the first step; but how shall a man, a nation, a church, escape from the consequences of past life? The answer to this is again involved in the negative words, "they have not been pressed out nor bound up nor mollified with oil." Therefore let these sores be cleansed or pressed out and bound up and mollified with oil. It is quite safe to say that there is not one passage in the Word throughout which to the eye enlightened by the doctrine of the Church is hopeless the Lord is eternally merciful and curses no one, but again, like a true physician, he does not deceive the patient as to his condition, but neither does he ever leave him who asks treatment without it. Even the hells themselves may be considered asylums for incurable cases, where the lot of the inmates is made as tolerable as may be.

     Let us examine a little more minutely into the character of the diseases that afflict the unregenerate man.

425

It is said that "the whole head is side and the whole heart faint," that is, both understanding and will are corrupt, the understanding is full of falses or falsities, and the will full of evils or impure and selfish desires. The heart or will is faint that has no strength to resist evils because not led by an understanding furnished with truths. It is further said "from the sole of the foot even to the head there is no soundness in him"--there is no well spot, he is sick throughout, on both the natural and spiritual plane of his life. And this is not merely figurative, mystical or what not, but actual, for instead of soundness there are "wounds and scars and fresh stripes, which have not, been pressed out nor bound up nor mollified with oil." Whit man lives who has not upon him the wounds and scars and fresh stripes of the falses and evils of thought, word or deed. We find in general that when a wound is mentioned, in the internal sense the devastation or deprivation of truth is signified; that is what wounds the spiritual life of man; and a scar signifies evils of the will derived from the falsities of the thought. Furthermore, evils of the will do actually leave scars upon the life of man, and these scars can never be removed; they are indelibly engraved upon the natural degree of his mind, but if he becomes a regenerate man that degree, while it remains with man, still is relegated to the circumference, becomes quiescent and the scars no longer appear. But so long as man is not regenerating, there will continually be fresh marks or stripes made upon his life. Before regeneration these wounds, diseased spots, ulcers, scars or stripes, are not pressed out or cleansed with the genuine truths of doctrine nor bound up with the protecting bands of more interior truth in the understanding, nor mollified with the oil or ointment of the good of love in the will. But here is implied the prescription for the cure of these spiritual ills. Let them be cleansed or pressed out, bound up and mollified with oil, and they will be cured.

Man, as exemplified in the Israelitish nation it the time of the prophecy of Israel, and as he is now, and as he has been ever since the fall or end of the Most Ancient and Ancient Churches, is born into the tendency to all evils and falses. And if we take the adult or adolescent man, who is not regenerated, his is by no means an empty vessel; his whole mind is occupied if not by actual falses then at least by fallacies of the senses, and his whole will, if not by actual evils, then at least by the evil tendencies of heredity.

426

A mental or spiritual vacuum does not exist, except perhaps with natural idiots. And this spiritual state constitutes a sickness that cannot be cured by expectant treatment. The patient, if he wishes to be cured, must go to the Great Physician for treatment, and take a long course; for his case is chronic. In fact, man's whole life on this earth may he said to be passed in a sanitarium, where he must undergo drastic or mild treatment according to the nature of his case.

The first of regeneration is a process of emptying out. For a man cannot accept a truth until the falsity that occupies the place of the truth is given up and expelled. His wounded intellect must be pressed out and cleansed by truth enlightening the darkness and exposing the false, and after cleansing, his still infirm or at best only convalescing mind must be fortified and protected by the bands of additional, yea, continually added new truths, and at the same time, lest the humors pi his life dry up and he become a mere intellectual doctrinaire, these wounds, scars and stripes must be mollified with the oil of the good of love in the will. This last is after all the essential, while all else is formative or formal. Let us then for a short time examine into and try to understand what is meant by good or the good of love.

It is said in number 1 of the Divine Love and Wisdom "that love is the life of man;" further, "that man knows that love is, but he does not know what love is." Then after several examples and some discussion, in number 3 we read: "Some idea of love, namely, that it is the life of man, can be had from the heat of the sun in the world. That that heat is as it were the common life of all the vegetation of the earth, is known, for from that heat, as it increases as in the time of Spring, plants of all kinds spring from ground, are adorned with leaves, afterwards with flowers, and finally with fruits, and as it were live; but when that heat recedes, as happens in the time of Autumn and Winter, plants are denuded of their signs of life and wither. It is similar with love with man, for love and heat mutually correspond; wherefore also love is warm."

427

     Whether we say love, good, charity or use it is the same; use is the ultimate of all the rest in the series, and contains them, if it be a genuine use. They are in it and give it warmth or life. Without them use is meritorious and of no avail to man's salvation. When man has been cleansed of his evils and falsities and protected by the truths of faith, then, or rather at the same time, the Lord flows in with all of this love and gives life and health and comeliness instead of the death and sickness and wounds of the former state. Then man begins to heed the pleading call "why will ye be stricken any more," and he will cease to revolt more and more and begin to come into the good of love to the Lord and charity towards the neighbor, and if he persist his salvation is assured,--he is conjoined with the Lord in the good of love to the Lord from the Lord.

     Man is conjoined to the Lord by the good of love not by any sentimental thought or feeling of love such as is expressed by enthusiasts in a state of hypnosis or persuasion, in which they say, and really imagine within themselves that they can feel the influx of what they call the Holy Spirit into them. This is a species of madness, and if persisted in leads to the dire persuasion that one is God or the Holy Spirit.

     Conjunction by love is accomplished in the performance of uses. Man can see and perceive truths, but good or love he does not see, but feels as warmth or delight, and he has delight in what he loves and that he calls good. What man calls good is good or evil according as he turns to the Lord in the Word or as he turns to himself and the world. If man's thought is formed from truths and he loves them because they are truths, and from the Lord, then he loves nothing better than to bring those truths into ultimation in his life, by applying them to uses and by measuring and trying all that he does by the precepts of truth. While he is thus in the performance of uses, he seems to himself as though he were doing them of his own proper power, but he knows when he reflects that he would do nothing at all were it not for the constant influx of the heat of the Divine Sun into the seeds of truth implanted in his mind which vivifies those deeds, causing them to spring up, grow, blossom and bear fruit.

428

This influx of love into his will is the oil by which the wounds in his spiritual body are to be healed and mollified.

     Oil is many times mentioned in the Word and in every case it signifies love, or the good of love, or love in uses.

     When the priest in the Israelitish Church was consecrated he was anointed with oil, which signified the good of love or the uses into which he was then initiated, namely, to teach and lead by truth to the good of life. So when the king was consecrated he also was anointed with oil, which signified the good of love or the uses he was thereafter to perform, namely, to rule wisely and justly, to keep order in his kingdom, to further civil uses and thereby form a basis and firmament for spiritual uses. When oil was poured on a statue the oil stood for the celestial of love of good, that is, that love of good such as it is in heaven and especially in the celestial heaven, and the rite signified that truth was not to be without good, but was from good. The oil in lamps signifies the good of love and of charity in the truths of faith. In the parable of the virgins, those who took lamps but no oil for them, signify those who hear and read the Word, and say that they believe it, but still do nothing of good, that is, do not perform uses according to the precepts of the Word. Or if they do, it is not from the love of good or truth, but from the love of self or the world. Such are all ascetics and all others who wish to escape the responsibility of the performance of uses, and who deceive themselves into thinking that they can escape doing evil by doing nothing at all. Such also are all those who append good works to faith, not as something intrinsically and essentially in faith as its very life, but as a sort of tail which trails behind. For the only logical conclusion of the doctrine of faith alone, and the one actually held in the world, is that since a man is saved by faith alone, good works may or may not be done, and in either case, they do not conduce to salvation, nor derogate against it. The wounds, scars and stripes of those who hold such doctrine have surely not been mollified with oil.

     What then is the good of love signified by oil everywhere in the Word? or, to ask the question in another form, who is in the good of love? He is in the good of love who, being indoctrinated, makes himself so active a recipient of the inflowing love of the Lord that he delights in the performance of uses; for in the performance of uses alone is love of any kind perceived.

429

     The very joy and blessedness of heaven arises from the performance of uses. There they are in the continual worship or service of the Lord and to serve the Lord is to perform uses. True worship consists in the performance of uses and this is to be in the exercise of charity. True use in this life which a man performs because he is in the good of love or which he performs from the good of love from the Lord in him, is not any thing mysterious or hidden, but is simply to do one's duty, to discharge his function in his own station. Thus uses with man consist in his being of service to his country, in the performance of his duties as a citizen, to societies, in assisting in the work of such societies as he may be connected with, and to the neighbor, by loving the neighbor as himself, that is, seeing to it that whatever he does shall be fair to the neighbor and in nowise to his injury, and all this must be from his heart, in that he loves the precepts that teach him so to act. Besides doing his simple duty he must also perform offices of kindness, not from mere sentiment or impulse, but prudently, taking into account the quality of each person to whom such kind offices are rendered.

     These uses, according to the Doctrines, are chiefly the exercises of charity, and are those through which the Lord is chiefly worshiped. To go to church, to take part in formal worship is also necessary, but without the uses mentioned, attendance at formal worship is of no avail, for it is not of the life, but it teaches what the life should be. The angels in heaven have all their happiness from uses, insomuch that uses are to them heaven.

     One may see, if he look, even in the natural plane that happiness is from order, yea, Divine order, according to uses, by examining the things pertaining to man, or, in other words, by noticing the order and economy of human anatomy, all things of which correspond to things in the Gorand Man. Take for instance the external senses,--sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. These senses have delights altogether according to the uses they perform. The most delightful is the sense devoted to conjugial love because of its greatest use, which is the propagation of the human race, and from the human race heaven; the delight of taste next follows which has such delight: because it serves for nourishment and thereby for the health of the body, according to which health the mind is sane in its operations; the delight of smell is less delightful because it serves only for recreation, and thus for health; the delight of hearing and the delight of sight are in the last place, because they are the only means of introducing those things which are to serve for uses, and to administer to the intellectual part, but not to the voluntary part.

430

To sum up then let us ask how does a man who is reforming by means of the truths of faith come into the good of Love, or into love to the Lord and charity towards the neighbor? Simply by doing those things that the Lord wills, as revealed in His Word, because the Lord wills them, and by shunning the things that the Lord forbids, because He forbids them,--doing these things until they become a second nature, until he feels delight in doing them and would feel grief and pain if he should fail to do them. In this way he becomes conjoined with the Lord in love to Him from Him. So with charity towards the neighbor, man becomes conjoined to the neighbor in mutual love by doing the things that the neighbor loves, and that the neighbor commands so far as he is in a position that he may rightly command, as in performing the functions of an office of governing. It ought to be plain to every one that a man cannot be conjoined in mutual love with a man who is an officer of the state by refusing to obey the commands of such officer. So on the part of the officer he cannot be conjoined in mutual love or the good of charity with those over whom he is placed if he be a tyrant and unjust in his demands, but he can be and is so conjoined if he so conduct his government that it is evident that he wishes the best good of those over whom he is placed. So also in married life--the partners are conjoined more and more, not by mere sentiment or the feeling of affection, but by active love going forth into deeds, and a mutual interest in the uses of the house and family.

When man shuns evils as sins and does all these things, then his wounds are pressed out and cleansed and bound up and mollified with oil,--he is regenerate and is in heaven even while in this world, and becomes actively and consciously into heaven after death.

431

If ye love me Keep my commandments, and I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another comforter, that he may abide in you forever; even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him; but ye know him; for he dwelleth in you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you. Amen.
DISTINCTIVENESS OF THE NEW CHURCH.* 1909

DISTINCTIVENESS OF THE NEW CHURCH.* Rev. J. E. BOWERS 1909

     * A speech delivered at the banquet of the Ontario Assembly, January 1, 1909.

     The New Church, signified by the New Jerusalem, in the Apocalypse, represents all things of Divine truth and good, which have ever been known since the creation of the world and the beginning of the Church. In the New Church is possible the realization of all the best and most desirable things, which the Lord, our heavenly Father, can bestow upon His children. Unspeakable joys, delights, and beatitudes, will be the portion of all the faithful. The Lord's good and perfect gifts are for the men of the Church on earth, as well as for the angels of heaven.

     The New Church, as to its doctrines and principles, its spirit and life, its motives and methods, is entirely different from any other system of Religion, which exists now, or ever has existed, with mankind. It is, therefore, in the absolute sense of the word, a NEW Church. The fundamental of its faith,--the idea of God, namely, that the Lord Jesus Christ is the one only God,--is different from that of any other faith. It is this idea, which enters into and is present in every least thing of its doctrine, which makes the New Church distinct from every other religious belief, be it Christian, so-called, or Mohammedan, Gentile or Pagan.

     Thus it is in the very nature of things that the New Church is distinctive. The import and spirit of the Writings, from beginning to end, bear testimony to the great, universal truth, of the distinctiveness of the crown of all Churches, the Church of the New Jerusalem.

432

And, verily, no man who believes in the Lord in His Second Advent, and reads the glorious Revelation in which the Lord has effected this Advent, can for a moment doubt or deny that testimony.

     There are those, however, even ministers, who profess to be of the New Church, and yet at the same time practically ignore the distinctiveness of the New Church. We occasionally read accounts of such ministers exchanging pulpits with Old Church preachers. But how absurd is such a proceeding, in the light of our Heavenly Doctrines!

     The fallacious, anti-New Church notion of permeation,-the Old Church generally becoming tinctured by infusions of New Church doctrine and principles,-has its origin in the evident denial of the distinctiveness of the New Church. The Old Church is changing. Yes, we know that it is. It is being more and more vastated of truth and goad, of faith and charity. Naturalism and agnosticism are going on gradually but surely, to complete its spiritual desolation. But only a very few of the Old Church are becoming believe in the doctrines of the New Church. Just as the Jews rejected our Lord in His coming into the world in the fresh, so do "Christians" reject Him in His Second Advent, in the spirit and power and great glory of the Word.

     When we acquire intelligence from the reading and study of the Writings, we can very easily recognize the fact, that without distinctiveness the New Church cannot live or exist at all. Especially must the New Church be separate and distinct from the Old Church. The faith of the Old and of the New cannot be together in the same mind. This is most forcibly taught, and strikingly illustrated, in the True Christian Religion, n. 647-649.

     New Church distinctiveness does not mean, does not at all involve, contempt against our fellow men, who are not of our faith. Contempt of others is from the influence of evil spirits, and not from the sphere of angels; it is from hell, and not from heaven. It is the spirit of bigotry, and involves hatred against the neighbor. It is by an active life among men in the world, by a life of uses for the good and the happiness of others, that men are regenerated, and so prepared for the life of heaven.

433

A Newchurchman can be active in the affairs of the world, among men of any faith, or of no faith at all in religion; and yet he can be firm and steadfast in his own faith, and perfectly loyal to his Church.

     This is the kind of men that the world stands in need of today. Men who believe in the Divine Truth. Men who believe in the Lord, the God of heaven, and will live and act like men. Men who have convictions, and who fear net to have the courage of their convictions, as to the things of the Church. As such men increase in number, the Church will become a power for good in the world. The Church will be founded upon the Rock of eternal Truth; and the "gates of hell shall not prevail against it."

     There is one New Church Body which believes in the principle of distinctiveness, and is in the endeavor to apply the principle in all its work and uses, according to the spirit of the Writings. That Body is THE GENERAL CHURCH OF THE NEW JERUSALEM. Of this Body it is our great privilege to be members. We know that it is yet the day of small things in our Body. But we are assured that, in the Divine Providence of the Lord, a good beginning has been made, to build the Church. It is a good beginning, because made in the name of the Lord; according to the Divine Doctrine revealed by the Lord. And thus we can confidently expect, that this Body of the Church will continue to grow; that there will be an increase in its membership from year to year; and that the sphere of its usefulness will be ever more widely extended.

     It is a principle of the distinctiveness of our Church, to regard all the teachings and all the things in the world, that are contrary to the Writings, as falsities and evils; as disorderly and injurious to man's spiritual well-being; and therefore to be shunned. The Writings are the Lord in His Second Coming; because in them the Lord has come as the Word. Thus the Writings are the Word, which is the Divine Truth. Whatever, therefore, is contrary or opposed: to the spirit of the teaching in the Writings, is contrary to the Word, and is evil which is to be shunned as sin against God.

     All the records concerning the General Church, from the first of its organization and establishment, go to show that it is founded on the idea of distinctiveness, strictly according to Lord teaches in the Writings.

434

The Church is distinctive,--as it must be in order to be worthy of the name of a New Church,--respecting all things that constitute the same. It is distinctive as to its Divine Worship, its ministry, its form of organization, social life, marriage and education.

     This distinctiveness, however, has not been, and is not now, regarded favorably by some who are, professedly, of the New Church. Some years ago I received a letter from a minister, in which he said that it seemed to him that the spirit of the men of the Academy was "the spirit of intolerance, faith alone and contempt of others." And he expressed the hope that I was not in sympathy with those who manifested such a spirit. Nevertheless, my sympathy was with the men of the Academy, and has remained so ever since.

     Why is it that so many who are, professedly, of the New Church, object so strenuously to the distinctiveness of the Church? And what, and whence, is the influence that animates and moves them, in their denunciations against those who are in the effort, according to the conscience formed in them, to follow the Lord, in the Heavenly Doctrines? Does it ever occur to them to stop, and to consider seriously such questions, in relation to their conduct, and their utterances towards those whom they ought to regard as brethren in the Church, though they are stronger in the faith than themselves? And do they search in the Writings for doctrine, according to which they would be enabled t, form a rational judgment, as to and matters which concern the Lord's new Church, and of its establishment among men on the earth?

     There are many all the Christian world at this time, who are not able to see, in the clear and bright daylight of spiritual and Divine truth, which is the light of the Sun of Heaven, the light of the world. Having a perverted understanding, they are like the owls, which have an inverted sight. And what they do see, is in fatuous light, in mere natural rational form, and therefore is seen upside down. A consequence of this perversity is, that they ascribe their own state to others, to whose views they are opposed, and against whom they pronounce their judgments of condemnation.

435

But, as we wish well towards everyone; as we desire the final happiness of all who are willing to approach the Lord, and to receive the genuine truth; so we hope for the conversion of such persons as have just been referred to. We hope that their understanding will some time be opened by the Truths of the Heavenly Doctrines, to see, in the light of the Lord, the ineffable beauties and glories of the New Jerusalem. For, thus will they come to a full realization, of the absolute necessity of the distinctiveness of the New Church.
DEBATE IN THE SWEDISH PARLIAMENT 1909

DEBATE IN THE SWEDISH PARLIAMENT 1909

     In our June issue we reprinted from our English contemporary, the New Church Magazine, a synopsis, by Mr. Alfred H. Stroh, of the proceedings in the Swedish Parliament which led to the grant of 10,000 kronor for a sarcophagus in honor of Swedenborg. The synopsis gave no account of the debate in the "Riksdag," but this has been now supplied in part by Mr. Stroh in the Magazine for June, and from his report we give the following summary.

     It may be remembered that the motion to grant was introduced into the First (the Upper) Chamber by Lector J. F. Nystrom, together with appended plans and estimates. It was then referred to the Finance Committee. The majority report of this committee was adverse to the grant, on the ground that, while they did not wish to contest Swedenborg's scientific significance, they were unable to judge whether the case was so exceptional as to justify public measures "for the establishment of the memory of a deceased private citizen." Moreover, they added, there seemed to be a good prospect of contributions for the purpose from private persons.

     A minority report, signed by five members of the committee, recommended the proposed grant.

     On the presentation of these reports to the First Chamber, on March 20, the debate was opened by COUNT WACHTMEISTER, Chancellor for the State Universities, and one of the signers of the minority report.

436

Count Wachtmeister noted that all agreed that a "worthy monument" must be erected over Swedenborg's grave, and that the only question was as to necessary funds. Usually, when State appropriations were asked, it was because the money could not be obtained in any other way, but in the present case Swedenborgians in England and America would readily provide the necessary money; "The authorities in Upsala have delayed the matter and given evasive answers, for the reason that they do not consider it worthy of Sweden that a monument to the great Swedish scientist, Emanuel Swedenborg, should be erected in the Cathedral of Upsala with money which had been contributed by his religious followers in England and America." It was for this reason principally that the speaker had recommended the appropriation, and also because he was "but little attracted by the thought that it should be the religious leader Swedenborg who would be honored. . .and not the renowned, the great scientist, Emanuel Swedenborg."

HERR NYSTROM, who had offered the original motion, was the nest speaker. He addressed himself particularly to the statement in the report that the committee was unable to judge whether Swedenborg was so exceptional as to justify a public grant for the establishment of his memory. If the committee were unable to judge, he said, they should have taken steps to obtain an opinion. But seeing they had not done this, he begged to say something about Swedenborg's scientific reputation. He then pointed out that for some time after Swedenborg's death he had been regarded, almost exclusively, as the founder of a religion "and that conception (he added) I believe lies at the bottom of the opinion: expressed; by the Committee on Finance." He then quoted Anders Retzius, who, in one of his works, refers to Swedenborg's Animal Kingdom as a marvel wherein "are found ideas belonging to the most recent times, a compass, induction; and tendency which can be compared only to that of Aristotle." Bur the study of Swedenborg's scientific works really began to make headway after 1880, when "a learned American scholar, Rudolf Tafel," showed how far in advance of his time was Swedenborg's knowledge of the brain, The speaker then referred to the enquiries of Dr. Max Neuberger, of Vienna, and the visit of Mr. Alfred Stroh, of America.

437

These intimations from outside had induced the Academy of Sciences, in 1902, to examine Swedenborg's manuscripts with a view to their publication. "Gentlemen (the speaker continued), this is a mark of honor which has not been accorded any other Swedish scientist, with the exception of Linne,--that his works should, after a lapse of more than 150 years, be printed at the public expense because the scientific world wishes to study them." He then pointed out that the Academy was now engaged in publishing these works, and he quoted from Professor Nathorst's Introduction to the first volume of this publication showing Swedenborg's pre-eminence as a geologist, a pre-eminence which seems to be predicable of the whole of his scientific work. "He was clearly (continued Herr Nystrom) one of the greatest scientists which our country has produced, and he was, moreover, a man of such importance that the Swedish Parliament certainly does not need to assist in establishing his memory, as the committee put it. There are not more than three persons in our whole history, with the exception of a couple of our great Kings, who possess a fame so world-renowned as that of Swedenborg. The others are St. Bergitta, Linne and Berzelius." Was the Parliament willing to say, We cannot afford to offer 10,000 kronor in memory of this great man? His religious sympathizers in America and England, would then do the honoring, and if the Cathedral of Upsala would not receive a sarcophagus from them, "let the simple wooden casket in which Swedenborg's body now rests, stand there, so that strangers may see how Sweden guards the memory of her great men." What reason was there to have conveyed his body home in a man-of-war, if it were not to be treated in a worthy manner? Better would it have been to have left it in England. Herr Nystrom concluded with the statement that during the worst financial difficulties of Charles XII. that King had always found means to help Swedenborg. To refuse this grant now, in these better times, would be unworthy of Parliament.

HERR WYKANDER, who followed Herr Nystrom, thought it wholly unnecessary for the last speaker to instruct the Chamber in the matter of Swedenborg's importance. There had been no doubt on that point in the minds of the committee. The committee had no wish to contest Swedenborg's great scientific importance.

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But they were unable to judge whether that importance was "of such a nature that the erection of such a sarcophagus over Swedenborg would be more suitable than any other memorial." They did not wish to enter upon a comparison of the various eminent Swedes for whom the erection of a monument might be discussed. If such a monument were to be erected it should be done only after a thorough and exhaustive consideration of its propriety. Parliament was not the place for such a consideration, and it would take more time and work than the Finance Committee could give to it. Moreover, the proposer of such a motion as had been before that committee should have furnished full explanation of the matter, making it clear that what was proposed would be the most suitable memorial. If that were shown, the committee would not hesitate to recommend the grant. But it was not enough to speak about a man's great scientific importance &c. after the matter had been considered. The matter was one of too much importance to be settled off-hand. It would be, to him, deplorable if Swedish money could not be obtained for this purpose, and the Upsala authorities should receive English or American money without giving an explanation before parliament. If detailed explanation had been given there had been no indication as to how it would have been treated by the committee, but, as the matter was, the committee had good reasons for not recommending the grant.

HERR NYSTROM immediately rose to reply to the assertion that the committee's action had not been inspired by any doubt as to Swedenborg s greatness. The speaker answered by reading from the committee's report, as given at the beginning of this article. As to the statement by the last speaker that Parliament was not the place to decide "as to whether a person shall be buried simply or in a sarcophagus," he noted that in other countries it was usual to inter famous men at the expense of the State and the decisions were always made by the Parliaments. But that was not the question here; for if Sweden has brought Swedenborg's body here, it should also preserve it in a worthy manner. As to the motion which had been offered, the speaker contended that it had been accompanied with all that was necessary.

BISHOP G. BILLING, the vice-chairman, who is also the chairman of the Finance Committee, was the nest speaker.

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After some bitter remarks as to the antagonistic attitude of the First Chamber to the Finance Committee, the Bishop stated that he had the impression that there were "very many in the Chamber who have not altogether permitted themselves to be influenced by the authority with which it has here been urged that the recommendation of the Committee of Finance be rejected." It had been said in the debate that underneath the committee's report lay the attitude to Swedenborg as the founder of a religion. This was wrong, for "no such virus" was hidden in the report. So far as the committee was concerned, opposition between Swedenborg, the founder of a religion, and Swedenborg, the Scientist, did not exist. That opposition had been pointed out by others. Still, however much it might be emphasized that the Scientist alone is here in question, it was a fact that the great public knows Swedenborg principally as the founder of a religion and "the erection of a sarcophagus over him will naturally be thought of as a sarcophagus over him as founder of a religion. Still I repeat (the Bishop continued) it was not this point of view that decided us in the committee. Absolutely not!" The speaker knew that Swedenborg had given expression to scientific ideas, which, after having lain buried a hundred years, have been shown forth and aroused attention. In this connection one has wondered at the, so to speak, divinatory view Swedenborg had in scientific matters. During Swedenborg's life his scientific influence was not great. The remarkable thing is that now, after certain questions have been investigated in other ways, there have been found in his writings gleams of light pointing to the same results which have now been arrived at." The Bishop then reiterated that the committee had had no intention to under-value Swedenborg's scientific importance. They acknowledged that he was wonderfully gifted. But neither the mover of the resolution, nor others who had praised Swedenborg, had shown why an honor such as had never been shown any Swedish scientist should be paid to Swedenborg. And even if he were thus honored--to which the speaker was certainly not opposed--it was doubted whether "there really is reason for honoring his memory by providing such a stately, almost boastful, sarcophagus in the Cathedral of Upsala."

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     The Finance Committee, without religious bias, with no special ignorance concerning Swedenborg, and without any scientific valuation of him, had had good reasons for its actions.

     REKTOR SAVE spoke in favor of the original motion. Its rejection by the committee would cause great disappointment in Swedish circles, "where reverence for our great memories still exists, and where the nil admirari of scepticism has not yet succeeded in penetrating." The cjueslion concerned not only a "great memory," but "one of our very greatest memories." The speaker then recalled a precedent for the action contemplated by the motion, namely, when an American vessel bore the remains of the Swede, John Ericsson, to Sweden, the whole nation welcomed them, and, private Swedish subscriptions being insufficient, the Parliament voted 20,000 kronor as a contribution to erect a suitable mausoleum over the famous man. The speaker then drew a comparison between Swedenborg and Ericsson, showing also their essential differences, the one being an idealist, the other a genuine realist. Of course, he continued, there was no desire to make the grant to Swedenborg as the founder of a religion. But it was to be remembered that Swedenborg was in all things an idealist, and this, when philosophy was quite materialistic and theology neologistic. Swedenborg's position as the founder of a religion should not, therefore, cause prejudice against the grant. In any case, his importance as a mystic and religious founder should not be disregarded, for as such is he best known. So Swedes did not endorse all that was written by St. Bergitta, yet they were proud to count her among their greatest.

     This closed the debate, after which followed the vote rejecting the committee's proposal and adopting the minority report. The discussion in the Second Chamber was against the grant, but it was agreed to in joint session. Mr. Stroh States in the Magazine that he will soon contribute to its pages a translation of the discussion in the Second Chamber.

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Editorial Department 1909

Editorial Department Editor 1909

     NOTES AND REVIEWS.

     Bishop and Mrs. Pendleton sailed for England, via Montreal, on Friday, July 9th. This is the second episcopal visit made by the Bishop to the members of the General Church in England, and, like the former visit, will include attendance at the British District Assembly.

     A London second-hand book-seller offers for sale a copy of William White's larger biography of Swedenborg as being "from Herbert Spencer's library."

     Volume ten of the Library Edition of the Arcana, which has just been issued, carries the work to n. 9111.

     Our friend, Mr. Gerrit Barger, of The Hague, writes to Morning Light that one of his correspondents, Mr. Karl Haftmann, Loewelstrasse 14, Wien I., desires to be brought into contact with New Church friends able to correspond in Esperanto.

     "The Young New Church Man" is the title of a new quarterly of 24 pages, the first number of which appeared in April. It is the official organ of the British Federation of Young People's Societies, and is edited by the Rev. E, J. Pulsford.

     Mr. W. J. Spencer, the leader of the Sydney Society, has been appointed editor of the Australian New Church monthly, The New Age, in place of the Rev. W. A. Bates, who is now in England. Owing to this change the office of publication in now changed from Brisbane to Sydney.

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     Among the attendants at the English Conference last June was an old gentleman who is the only living link between the early days of the Church and the present. We refer to Mr. William Pickstone, one of the Conference trustees, who was baptized by the first minister of the New Church, Robert Hindmarsh.

     The commemoration of the hundredth anniversary of the founding of the London Swedenborg Society, which will be celebrated in the summer of 1910, will include the issue of a memorial volume dealing with the life and work of Swedenborg, and including an account of the removal of his remains. It is expected also to employ special lecturers, in order to bring the Society before the notice of the various churches.

     We have received a handsome little pamphlet of eight pages, with the title "Emanuel Swedenborg--January 29, 1688. March 29, 1772-Brockton, Mass., 1909." The text consists of Swedenborg's Rules of Life, and his autobiography as given in the letter to Hartley. There are three illustrations,--a portrait of Swedenborg, a scene in the removal of his remains from London, and an outside view of Upsala Cathedral, where they now rest. The imprint indicates that the pamphlet was published by the Brockton Society for use during the Convention meetings.

     The New York Evening Post, in commenting upon the Nineteenth Century Club of Chicago and the International Kindergarten Association entering the war against the iniquitous influences of the 'comic' supplements of newspapers, with true discernment says, 'Children will imitate the ridiculous, improper pranks pictured of a Sunday-deliberately, if they may, and unconsciously, if they are restrained. They have neither the power nor the inclination to divorce what they see from what they do.

     "We have italicized the last sentence to emphasize a principle well known not only to the church, but to all psychologists and educated instructors. The mind at birth is like soil in which no good thing will grow unless good seeds are planted. Childhood is pre-eminently the period of impressions, and the impressions are the seed, the vessels that shall and must determine how life flowing from within shall be received, bent, and appropriated.

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The entire doctrine of remains is violated by the execrable 'comic' issues. The beautiful, the orderly, the true, the Divine are distorted and perverted in their beginnings. Our church should be foremost of all, because it most deeply understands the hideous deformity that such publications work in the tender and plastic spirit of the child. We each have a power, and we should use it. We can thoroughly discourage and discountenance the papers that contain the colored supplement, and close our houses against them." (New Church Messenger, May 26.)

     We heartily sympathize with these remarks by our contemporary.

     In answer to a question why Swedenborg stated that the planet Saturn was "most distant from the sun, when yet Uranus and Neptune are now known to be still more distant," an anonymous correspondent to Morning Light writes as follows:

     "Dear Sir:--The questions asked by Mr. H. J. Keene, Jr., in your last issue have probably been in the mind of every reader of Swedenborg, and will no doubt occur 'until there is no moon.'

     "(i) Swedenborg's statement is that Saturn has an additional source of illumination 'quin longissime a sole distat.' Longissime may mean either 'farthest' or 'very far,' and to find out which is required we must consider whether it is more logical to say that Saturn has 'a great lunar girdle' because it is the planet 'farthest' distant from the sun, or, because it is 'very far' distant. The latter is the more logical statement, and, I think, we may give Swedenborg the benefit of the doubt, and translate longissime as 'very far,' and yet have the question unanswered as to whether he knew there were other planets. Who can tell?

     "(ii.) In the Second Book of Kings, Chap. iv., verses 1-8, it is related that a widow's vessel of oil became by the intervention of the Holy Prophet many vessels of oil, but the vessels, limited in number, were obtained by the widow herself. So Swedenborg acquired by study and observation limited and imperfect scientific knowledges; these were not from a Divine origin, nor were they revealed.

     "An astronomer reading 'Earths of the Universe' will ask why the undiscovered planets were not catalogued for him.

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A chemist, reading another work, may ask why all the undiscovered elements were not named and described. A physician, why the ailments of humanity were not scheduled and the cures given, and so on, until all scientists would with one voice exclaim that as Swedenborg did not reveal all scientific knowledges therefore he revealed-nothing!

     "It is the criterion of revelation which is at fault."

     The New Philosophy for July is devoted largely to the Transactions of the Swedenborg Scientific Association, which include a report on the Work in Sweden, by Mr. Alfred H. Stroh, and an interesting presidential address on The Purer Parts of Nature. In this address Dr. Sewall discusses Swedenborg's teachings concerning the atmospheres, and his doctrine of what is called "the limbus."

     The "Foreword by the Editor" announces the resignation of the former editor, Dr. E. A. Farrington, and the appointment of the Rev. Alfred Acton as his successor. From the same Foreword we learn that the New Philosophy will in future be devoted almost exclusively to translations of Swedenborg's scientific works, and it is intimated that the issue for October will contain, besides a continuation of The Senses, the first installment of a translation of The Fibre. This work, despite its great importance, has never been translated from the Latin. And yet a study of its teachings is absolutely necessary to any comprehensive grasp of Swedenborg's work on The Brain and on Rational Psychology, to which it was intended as an introduction. We rejoice at the prospect of this work being laid open to the English reader.

     But perhaps the most interesting portion of the Foreword is, the announcement of the offer made by the vice-president of the Association Dr. F. A. Boericke, that "if the editor of the New Philosophy will secure one hundred subscribers at three dollars each he would publish the work on Generation." This is an important offer and we earnestly commend it to the attention of our readers. The work on Generation is, to all intents and purposes, out of the market, and there should be no trouble in securing at least the required hundred subscribers.

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Subscriptions should be sent to the editor of the New Philosophy at Bryn Athyn, Pa.
HINDMARSH'S INVENTION 1909

HINDMARSH'S INVENTION 1909

     Acting on the suggestion offered in the Life for June, p. 364, our esteemed correspondent, Mr. Charles E. Benham, of Colchester, England, has procured a copy of the blue book giving the specification of the invention for which Robert Hindmarsh obtained a patent in 1798. This pamphlet has been presented by Mr. Benham to the Academy Library.

     From the specification, it appears that Hindmarsh's invention consisted in a mechanical application of the hydrostatic paradox to the working of machinery. Briefly told, it consisted in the leading of water from a hillside or other elevated position, by means of a pipe communicating with the top and bottom of a cylinder wherein is contained a movable piston. By means of cocks or valves, the water is to be ultimately directed to the upper and lower parts of the cylinder, thus working the piston up and down, provision, of course, being made for the discharge of the water replaced by the moving piston.

     Thus far the invention contemplates a continuous force supplied by some natural fall of water. But the Specification then goes further, and describes a contrivance whereby, it is asserted, the same continuous power can be had where there is no natural fall of water. This contrivance consists in the placing of a weight in such a position that it will be raised and lowered by the pressure of the water discharged by the action of the piston,--the weight thus moved being in its turn the source of the pressure power whereby the piston itself is to be actuated. The specification does indeed mention an alternative method whereby the weight is to be moved by man-or horse-power, but without this extraneous supply of power, which is mentioned merely as an alternative and not as an essential, the contrivance is simply an effort to realize the impossible dream of perpetual motion.

     Lastly, the specification describes a method whereby a piston may work in a cylinder without friction. This invention is quite feasible, but whether it has practical merits or not, we cannot say.

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     In sending us the Blue Book, Mr. Benham points out that the specification evidently shows that Hindmarsh was ignorant of the fact that the hydrostatic paradox had been already applied to the working of machinery in patents dated 1796 and 1797.

     "There is no suggestion in the specification (continues Mr. Benham) that Hindmarsh took his idea from Swedenborg's scientific works, but this is a point worth enquiring into."

     Mr. Benham is certainly justified in his statement; for the principle underlying the whole invention is the pressure property of fluids, and this, certainly, was known long prior to Swedenborg. The scheme for perpetual motion is, of course, totally repugnant to Swedenborg's philosophy, and it is most remarkable that a man of Mr. Hindmarsh's great intellectual power should possibly put forth such a scheme. It is possible that the "Robert Hindmarsh, of Walworth in the County of Surrey, printer," was after all, not the same as the Robert Hindmarsh of the New Church?
SWEDENBORG REVIEWED 1909

SWEDENBORG REVIEWED 1909

The Rotch Trustees have issued a booklet of forty pages, entitled "A Great Thinker; being a Reprint of the Articles published in the New York Sun, September 6 and 13, 1908, by M. W. Haseltine, on Emanuel Swedenborg and His Works." The articles here reprinted in the interests of missionary work, were written by the principal reviewer of the New York Sun in review of the Rotch Edition of the Writings in thirty-two volumes, published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

The reviewer does not appear to be aware that there are other English editions of Swedenborg's Writings besides that under review, for he says "But for the judicious expenditure of the Rotch Fund, this exhaustive exposition of the Swedenborgian philosophy could never have seen the light;" and he speaks of the completion of this edition as "an event in the history of literature and religion." Nevertheless, he shows good general acquaintance with the theological doctrines of Swedenborg and presents them in a way that commends them to the favorable notice of the reader.

447

     The first of the two articles, occupying a little more than half the publication, is devoted to some account of Swedenborg's life, for the details of which the reviewer acknowledges indebtedness to the recent Biography by Mr. Trobridge. Swedenborg's Dalecarlian ancestry is briefly sketched, and mention is made of the offices held by him, of his travels, and of some of the inventions whereby he anticipated modern discoveries. Swedenborg's personal appearance, his courtliness, his chivalry and his love of children, are all pleasingly presented in anecdote and contemporary testimony.

     Of his writings but a few are mentioned. The Principia is described as "a curious mechanical and geometrical theory of the origin of things,"--a comment which is the only indication in either of the two articles of anything bet the most sympathetic attitude to Swedenborg's teachings.

     The writing of The Infinite in 1735 is described as "a turning point" in Swedenborg's life, his after studies being devoted to a search for the soul by an investigation of the human body.

     In the Economy and Animal Kingdom, the results of these studies, the reviewer observes that Swedenborg failed "to read; and grasp the infinite and the spiritual . . . though he had caught glimpses of facts and processes which, in his opinion, required only confirmation and development." The Worship and Love of God (1745) is referred to as a writing of the "transitional period" of Swedenborg's life, following "the manifestation of the Lord to him in person."

     It is described as an "essay which gathers up many of the ideas found in his earlier works, and reaches forward to the higher truths which he was thenceforward to expound." Four years later came the Arcana Coelestia. The poetic diction of the preceding book (says Mr. Haseltine) has here been discarded for unrhetorical prose; philosophical speculation has given place to confident assertion . . . though the assertion is unaccompanied by a trace of egotism; theological orthodoxy is superseded by the widely different system of doctrine usually associated with the author's name.

448

In the preceding work the story of the creation is accepted as literal history, though interpreted somewhat freely in accordance with the writer's speculative idea; in the new book it is regarded as a divine allegory, the only consistent interpretation of which he declared to be spiritual."

     The reviewer gives some attention to Swedenborg's claim to an opened spiritual sight. After speaking of the "visions often accompanied by violent tremors" which attended this opening, he continues, "what is unique in Swedenborg's case, far from being a victim of religious excitement, he watched and studied himself with the eye of a scientific observer. He was well aware that people are sometimes led away by emotion to imagine all kinds of things, and was careful to guard himself against such extravagances. For a man living an active life in the world, a mathematician and logician and a devotee of natural science, to succumb to mental illusions is a most unlikely phenomenon. Neither do we hear of any 'sudden conversion' to account for the change that came over Swedenborg after 1744 and 1745. He continued to write and publish for nearly thirty years other works which are thoroughly sane and consistent, and which, to those who have examined them, most carefully, bear evidence of great wisdom." And later on, returning again to the question of Swedenborg's mental state, the reviewer says "There is no evidence of bodily or mental decadence until within a few weeks of his heath. . . . Incompatible with the theory of senile decay is the fact that he constantly traveled alone and did so even on his last journey, which he began in his 83d year."

     The writer appears to accept without hesitation Swedenborg's claims to spiritual sight, as he certainly does his "intellectual capacity and attainments." He gives at length the three anecdotes--the Queen's secret, the Gothenburg fire, and the lost receipt--which give evidence of the truth of this claim, preceding them by a very excellent paragraph wherein he points out that "Swedenborg never availed himself of any such signs" for the Purpose of justifying his claim. "On the contrary (he continues) he seldom referred to the proof of his extraordinary powers, and refused to confirm his mission by such means."

     In his second article Mr. Haseltine undertakes to present some conception of Swedenborg's teachings.

449

He commences by quoting the five articles of the Faith of the New Church on man's part, as given in the Brief Exposition, which is followed by a clear explanation of the Doctrine of the Lord's Divinity, and, somewhat abruptly, by an exposition of the doctrine of spiritual freedom, "as summed up in the statement that 'no one is reformed in states that are not of rationality and liberty.'"

     The doctrine of the spiritual world, the Last Judgment and the Second Coming are then briefly noticed. Of the latter, he observes, Swedenborg declared himself to be the herald. "That Second Coming consisted in a revelation of the spiritual sense of the Divine Word, shining through and illuminating the letter."

     The remainder of the doctrinal essay is occupied with an exposition of Swedenborg's teaching with regard to the spiritual sense of the Word, the explanation being illustrated with a brief but very clear exposition of the first chapter of Genesis.

     Altogether the articles are quite remarkable, as the product of one who is not a Newchurchman, both in the correctness of their details and the fair and sympathetic presentation of Swedenborg's theological teachings. Indeed the only misstatement we note in this latter respect is where the reviewer, speaking of the Last Judgment, credits Swedenborg with pointing "to the remarkable spiritual progress of the world since that time, when faith seemed everywhere torpid, as a direct outcome of this judgment." Of course, Swedenborg never made any such statement, nay, rather the reverse; but some of his followers have "improved" upon him in this respect.

     The little booklet which we have been noticing may be commended as a missionary document, especially adapted to those in whom ignorance or credulous prejudice are the only obstacles to an examination of the teachings of the New Church.

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"DECLARATION" OF THE GENERAL CONVENTION 1909

     NUNC LICET.

     At its recent meeting in Brockton, Mass., the General Convention adopted an official "Declaration" respecting the second part of Conjugial Love This "Declaration," therefore, now stands as the Convention's Creed on Doctrine on the subjects involved. Yet, despite the importance of this document, not only was it adopted without any discussion whatever, but there was a manifest determination on the part of the leaders to prevent discussion. The Convention's "understanding" of the teachings of the second part of Conjugial Love was adopted a few minutes after it had been read for the first and only time,--adopted without consideration, without reflection. An "understanding" without reasoning. It would be interesting, and perhaps surprising, to know how many of those who voted to adopt this Declaration had read the second part of Conjugial Love, and how many of those who had read it were familiar with its teachings.

     The manner in which the Convention has taken its action is altogether without precedent in that New Church, whose Divine watchword is "Now it is allowed to enter intellectually into the mysteries of faith." But that some such action would be taken was not a matter of surprise.

     PRELIMINARY ACTION.

     The Convention's action had been foreshadowed many months before in its official organ, the New Church Messenger. In one of its issues for September, 1908, the Messenger, dealing with the Kramph Will Case, declares editorially: "We have received several communications, containing facts, that should be made public, and eventually must be, but we have withheld them because the subject is of more vital import and broader concern than the Messenger or any less than the Convention can properly dispose of. The Messenger may best serve the Church by postponing for the present further reference to the subject, after suggesting to the Convention the advisability of formulating a course of proceeding whereby the subject may be disposed of in a way that is wise, charitable, salutary and final, and that in the future will protect the Church from reproach."

451

     Following this editorial the General Council of the Convention held a protracted meeting in December at which a committee of six was appointed to draw up a document which should finally settle the mind of the Convention on the vexed question of the second part of Conjugial Love. It appears also that this document was to include a final and complete repudiation of the Academy and its teachings. The members of the Committee were the Rev. Messrs. W. L. Worcester, S. S. Seward, and John C. Ager, the Hen. Job Barnard, William McGeorge, Jr., Esq., and Warren Goddard.

     Nothing was made known as to the work of this committee until last May. In the middle of that month, just two or three days prior to the hearing, by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, of the Kramph Appeal, there appeared as an appendix to the Brief for the alleged trustees under the Kramph Will a pamphlet of seventy-six pages, entitled "Marriage and its Perversions. A Statement of the Doctrine of Swedenborg and the New Church. Prepared and respectfully submitted by a Committee of the General Council of the General Convention. . . . Not made public pending action of the General Council and of the Council of Ministers." The report which thus made its appearance for the first time, was, in the main, the work of the Rev. W. L. Worcester. It is divided into five parts, the first four parts being a setting forth of the position held by the Committee, and the fifth an hostile attack, with specifications, on the moral teachings of the Academy.

     THE MEETING AT BROCKTON.

     Some time before the meeting of the Convention it became known that the Brockton Society was insistently desirous that the subject of Conjugial Love and the Academy should not be brought up in the Convention, to disturb its peace, and, perhaps, give rise in the papers to unpleasant reports. Th is desire was also shared in by many members of the Convention elsewhere, both clerical and lay. The Brockton Society, we believe, understood that the matter would not be discussed.

452

It was indeed whispered that the General Council would do all in its power to prevent such discussion.

     Yet as the time of the meeting drew near, it appeared to the outsider problematical whether the discussion could be avoided. Colonel Williams, of Chicago, was issuing in rapid succession his four pamphlets fulminating against the Academy, and declaring that all Academy sympathizers must be rooted out of Convention. Of these "sympathizers" who were "openly and avowedly in favor of Academy principles" he declared, there were sixteen among the ministers of the Convention, not counting those who had formerly been ministers of the General Church; and he insisted that purification from the Academy views must begin at home, and with these sixteen. The last of his pamphlets, issued shortly before the time for Convention, was filled with letters from more or less prominent members of that body endorsing his purpose and his efforts. But Colonel Williams was not present at Brockton, and his sympathizers carefully avoided any public endorsement of his views. And so the public meeting passed off with scarcely a flutter.

     But not so the private meeting of the Council of Ministers. The announcement had been made that the meetings of this Council would be opened to the public after 11 o'clock each morning. The public was admitted on the afternoon of Tuesday, the first day. But all day Wednesday and far into the afternoon of Thursday, they waited in vain for the doors to open. The pamphlet "Marriage and its Perversions" was under discussion, and the meetings were strictly private.

     The details of the discussion are, of course, not known; but from what was said during the Convention, both on the floor and in conversation, it is evident that it was characterized by the utmost conflict of opinion, both in regard to the doctrinal portion of the pamphlet and in regard to its attack upon the Academy.

     The result of the days of discussion, was, as stated on the floor of the Convention, a conclusion "not unanimously adopted," though what the "conclusion" itself is has not been made known. But anyone who is acquainted with the conflicting opinions of the ministers of the Convention, speaking on this subject in the tongues of Babel, might readily have foretold that it could not be unanimous.

453

     What was to be done? There was a "crisis" in the history of the Church,-the President of Convention said so in his Annual Address, and the expression was repeated on the floor of the Convention.

     The Council of Ministers had evidently been impotent to deaf with this crisis, and still more, to deal with it in that "Final" way so confidently anticipated by the Messenger. Was it possible that nothing would be done? that the desired object of removing from the Convention any suspicion of "Academy taint" would not be attained? Not so! The General Council devised the means, and the device soon became the accomplished fact.

     On the morning of Tuesday, the fourth day of the meeting of the General Convention, the General Council presented the following as a part of its report:

     "The Council appointed Messrs. Worcester, Seward, Ager, Barnard, McGeorge, and Warren Goddard as a Committee to draft a thorough and careful presentation of the doctrine upon the subject of 'Marriage and its Perversions,' and report the same to the Council. The Committee carefully prepared and submitted such a statement, which was unanimously adopted by the Council at its meeting on Saturday last, and the Committee authorized to publish the report with such changes as to them seemed necessary.

     "In connection therewith the Council has adopted the following Declaration, and recommends the adoption of the same by the Convention:

     DECLARATION.

     "The necessity has arisen for the New Church to make clear its stand for the sanctity of marriage and purity of life, at this time, because of the teaching put forth in the name of the New Church by the body commonly known as the 'Academy,' with headquarters at Bryn Athyn, Pa., that under certain conditions sexual relations outside of marriage are not evil nor a violation of the commandment, 'Thou shalt not commit adultery.' The body holding these views has organized under the name, 'The General Church of the New Jerusalem,' which so resembles the name, The General Convention of the New Jerusalem in the United States of America' that the unadvised may mistake one for the other.

454

They have also insisted before the public and in a court of law, and in their periodical and other writings, that their teaching is the teaching of Swedenborg and is the doctrine of the New Church.

"The General Convention of the New Jerusalem in the United States of America, assembled in its eighty-ninth annual session, being its first session since the hearing in the court of law above referred to, hereby denies and repudiates this teaching, and affirms that the writings of Swedenborg condemn as evil all sexual relations outside of marriage, as well as all conduct, thought or intention that does not accord therewith in letter and in spirit; and further, that the only law of purity for men is that declared by our Lord Jesus Christ in Matthew v. 28: 'But I say unto you, that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.'

"The revelations made by the Lord through the instrumentality of Emanuel Swedenborg, for the establishment of the New Church, spoken of in Revelation xxi. 2, contain many new and wonderful statements regarding the Divine origin, the holiness, the purity, and the spiritual use of marriage. They teach that marriage is the highest, the holiest, the most intimate, and the most enduring relation into which finite beings can enter; that it derives its origin from the Lord, not only because He instituted it in the beginning, but because it is from Him, being derived from the union or marriage of love and wisdom in Him; and that it also represents the union of the Lord and the church, the Lord being called in Scripture the husband, and the church the bride or wife. The sacred use of marriage is also shown not only in the continuance and increase of the human race, but also in the salvation of human souls and the perfecting of character; for the true husband no longer loves himself for his own sake, but for the sake of his wife; and the wife no longer loves her womanly qualities and abilities for her own sake, but for the sake of her husband, the power of self-love being thereby broken, so that a pure and unselfish love can take its place."

455

     THE STIFLING OF DISCUSSION.

     Immediately after the reading of this Declaration the Rev. W. L. Worcester rose to his feet and moved that the Declaration "be adopted as the action of the Convention. I venture personally to express the request (he added) that the Convention will feel moved to express its vote without discussion."

     This amazing "request" by one of the principal leaders of Convention, at once called forth the vigorous protest of Mr. Schreck. "I have the utmost respect for Mr. Worcester (he said) and for his desires, but this is too important a matter for us to adopt without consideration. I for one am not ready to vote for a declaration of this kind. It comes before us after the [General] Council has deliberated a long time upon it. I have not been permitted to deliberate upon it five minutes, and yet I am asked to assent to it. I am not ready to do so. The question was up in the Council of Ministers. We discussed it for days, and when we tame to a conclusion, the conclusion was not unanimously adopted; and it seems to me that it is not the right thing for us to say that this shall be adopted at the present moment.

     "For one thing, I am very much in sympathy with the statement of one of the most prominent ministers of the Convention that we seem to be in a fever of fear, and that the Lord, being in similar circumstances, held His peace. The Lord is Head of His Church. The Lord takes care of it. The only safe thing for us to do, if we are assailed from any quarter, if the truth appears to be assailed, is to plant our feet directly and without intervention upon the Lord's Divine Revelation.

     "In the past history of the Church, the greatest mistakes have always been made by men, well-meaning men, who introduced something human between man and the Lord. If we are to have any declaration,"---

     The speaker was here interrupted on a point of order, and it quickly became evident that the large majority of the members present were determined to prevent all discussion of the Declaration, which was to be adopted.

     The presiding officer, the Hon. Job. Barnard, did not sustain the point of order, but at his suggestion, Mr. Shaw, of Brooklyn, immediately moved the previous question.

456

     Mr. Schreck at once offered a substitute motion to lay on the table, and the ayes and noes were called for on this substitute.

     At this point the chair, presumably in apology for the remarkable "request" to adopt without discussion, explained that "As the question had been discussed in Council it was hoped that it need not be discussed here."

     This led Mr. Schliffer to ask whether the Declaration that had been read was proposed by the Council of Ministers. To this the Chair, replying in the negative, said: "The General Council thought it wise that some declaration of this kind should be made at this time on business grounds. That Council is composed of ministers and laymen, and after consideration of all the matter, and threshing it out for days in discussion, the Council came to the conclusion that it was wise and necessary that some declaration should be made by the General Convention itself, from a business standpoint, as well as from other standpoints." In answer to a further question he explained that by "business grounds" and "business standpoint" he meant "legal grounds."

     The Chair further explained that if the matter was laid on the table it could come up again, and that, if it went on to discussion, the discussion could be controlled by the previous question.

     The vote to lay on the table was then put, each member voting as his name was called. The motion was overwhelmingly negatived, the only ones voting in the affirmative being the Rev. Messrs. Percy Billings, Potts, Schliffer, Schreck, Small, and Sperry, and three or four lay delegates, Mr. Sperry subsequently explained that he was in entire agreement with the Declaration, and that his vote had been inspired solely by the policy, which he had consistently followed during the last three months, of keeping the whole subject out of the Convention. The Rev. Messrs. Arthur Mercer, Vrooman, and Werren declined to vote. Dr. Sewall in voting against laying on the table, endeavored to give some explanation of his vote, but he was summarily ruled out of order.

     The Convention then, by an almost unanimous vote, adopted the Declaration, which now stands as its official utterance. The adoption was greeted with loud and hearty applause.

457

     THE MESSENGER'S COMMENTS.

     On the result thus successfully attained "without discussion," the Messenger in a congratulatory editorial of June 23d says.

     "The most important event of the recent session of the General Convention was the declaration that the writings of Swedenborg teach absolute purity of life, and hold as evil sexual relations under every condition outside of marriage. The unanimity with which the final action was taken is deeply gratifying The spontaneous outburst of hearty and prolonged applause showed that the General Council made no mistake in perceiving what was wanted, and in complying with the demands of the Church. [Italics ours.]

     The effect of Convention's action was immediately to release the tension of anxiety lest some error should occur or proper action be deferred. It clarifies the atmosphere by separating from the Convention the faith so mistakenly imputed to it. It brings liberty by placing the opposite teaching into the same relation to the Church as any other sect or cult not of our Church; for now there is no more need of referring to the subject than there is of discussing any other foreign tenet. The people of our Church now have in Convention's action a defense and shield as strong and effective as the General Council could make it, and Convention has, as fully and as unmistakably as it could, fulfilled the law of justice, not only to itself, but to others."

     Comment is unnecessary.
"THOU SHALT NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS." 1909

"THOU SHALT NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS." 1909

The Declaration adopted by the General Convention, which we have printed above, commences with the statement that the Academy teaches that certain sexual relations outside of marriage are "not evil;" and this alleged teaching is solemnly declared to be the cause and inspiration of the Declaration itself, making it necessary for the General Convention styling itself "the New Church" to uphold the "sanctity of marriage" and "purity of life." "The necessity has arisen (so commences the Declaration) for the New Church to make clear its stand for the sanctity of marriage and purity of life, at this time, because of the teaching put forth in the name of the New Church by the body commonly known as the 'Academy,' with headquarters at Bryn Athyn, Pa., that under certain conditions sexual relations outside of marriage are not evil. . . . "

458

Further on the Declaration states, as though in opposition to the Academy, that the Writings condemn "all . . . thought or intention that does not accord" with marriage.

     We do not wish at this time to enter into any discussion of the Declaration and shall content ourselves with the recital of some facts bearing upon the above statements.

     The Writings of the New Church everywhere teach that "all thought or intention that does not accord with marriage," or, better, with Conjugial Love, is "condemned" and is to be shunned as sin against God. The Academy in all its utterances, public and private, has put forward this teaching as the teaching of Divine Revelation, and has shown, also from Revelation, that despite all appearances, the Christian world is filled with all manner of extra-conjugial "thought and intention." These matters are so well known that citation is unnecessary.

     The Writings directly teach that fornication is an evil, lighter or more grievous. The Academy has put forth this teaching and has drawn from it the further teaching that concubinage is also an evil, lighter or more grievous. This is also so well known that citation is unnecessary. But we shall nevertheless quote a single passage from Laws of Order:

     "That in themselves, as non-conjugial relations, they [the practices in question] are evil, because necessitated by the existence of evil, is to be admitted without any hesitation. The Heavenly Doctrine teaches that the desire which impels some men to pellicacy, as the lightest form of fornication 'is evil because it is lust, and a lust of the natural man not yet purified.' (C. L. 452.) And though the same is not stated of concubinage, still it cannot be doubted that this also is necessitated by the lust of the natural man, and therefore comes under the general head of evil. If man had not fallen, if natural love had not become perverted, the evil of adultery would never have arisen, and consequently there never would have been any necessity for the lighter evils of pellicacy and concubinage as means of rescue from the more grievous evils." (p. 153.)

459

     The Writings teach, and the Academy has emphasized the teaching that Fornication and Concubinage are lighter or more grievous evils just in the degree that the thought and intention within them looks to Conjugial Love or to Scortatory love.

     That these are the teachings of the Academy is well known to the leaders of Convention and to all its members who have read the Academy's teachings. And when these men declare that the Academy does not uphold the "sanctity of marriage" and "purity of life," nor condemn "all thought or intention that does not accord with" marriage, they are declaring and implying what is
wickedly false.

     It is probable that among those who voted for this Declaration there were some who have not read what the Academy has written, and are not acquainted with its teachings except from vague hearsay. Ignorance is truly a sorry apology for slander; but, even if, with such men, ignorance may mitigate their offence, it does not excuse the stupidity and folly of adopting a Declaration of so grave import without enquiry and without discussion.

     The General Convention of the New Jerusalem Church in the United States of America has made a solemn Declaration which opens with false witness and it is the adoption of such a Declaration, that the Messenger characterizes as the Convention's fulfillment of "the law of justice, not only to itself, but to others."

460

WORD "CONJUGIAL." 1909

EDITORS New Church Life:-
     There is an expression in the Economy of the Animal Kingdom, 649, that, to me, seems to bear eloquent testimony that the Church has done well to use the new term "Conjugial Love" instead of the well-known "conjugal love." Swedenborg is there giving illustrations of discrete degrees under the heading: "For in proportion as nature ascends by her degrees, so she raises herself from the sphere of particular and common expressions to that of universal and eminent ones."

     He gives many illustrations of such degrees and how the higher are more eminent and universal than the lower to which they correspond; and among them is this: To sexual intercourse corresponds love considered as an enticement and animal desire: to this a purer love which wants a proper name, conjoined with the representation of another person in one's self and one's self in another, or of a certain most intimate connection; and to this, in the supreme degree, the representation of ones self in the preservation of one's own kind for the sake of more universal ends."

     There can be no doubt that that purer love which wants a proper name and which is conjoined with the representation of another in one's self and one's self in another is what he afterwards called "Conjugial Love." And his saying that no name was known for that love would surely justify us in thinking that he sought for a new term to express an unknown love; and that the New Church in using that new name is preserving a distinctive truth which would be obscured if not lost by a return to the name and thought of "conjugal love." W. L. GLADISH.

     [It would be interesting, in connection with the above communication, to ascertain, whether Swedenborg uses the term "conjugial" in any writing prior to this passage in the Economy of the Animal Kingdom.--EDITORS.]

461

ORPHANAGE FUND OF THE GENERAL CHURCH OF THE NEW JERUSALEM 1909

     Statement from June 12th, 1908, to June 21st, 1909.

Cash balance, June 12th, 1908                         $466.52
1908.
June     21. New York Circle, June 19th, Contribution           15.75
July     13. Mrs. Margaret McKallip                          20.00
Dec.     18. Parkdale Society                              4.65
     31. Pittsburgh Society, Children's Christmas Festival     9.93
     31. Baltimore Society, Christmas Offering           5.00
1909
     2. Middleport, Children's Christmas Offering           2.45
     4. Mrs. Margaret J. McKallip                         20.00
     19. Mrs. Janet Pitcairn                              10.00
     19. Miss Agnes Pitcairn                          5.00
1908.
Feb.     24. Berlin Society, Christmas Offering               2.45
     24. Mr. Richard Roschman                          2.00
     24. Mr. Rudolph Roschman                         1.00
     24. Mr. George Deppisch                              .25
     24. Mr. George Scott                              .25
May     18. Parkdale Society                              12.70
June     19. Mr. Walter C. Childs and Family                10.00
                                                  $590.95

     Collections for fiscal year by Rev. Charles E. Doering, Bryn Athyn, Pa.
1908.

June      R. B. Caldwell                                   1.50
"     Miss A. E. Grant                                    .75
August Miss H. S. Ashley                               1.05
September Miss H. S. Ashley                              .35
"     Mrs. M. E. Bostock                              1.50
"     Miss M. Thomas                                    1.00
October Miss A. E. Grant                               .50

462

November Miss H. S. Ashley                              .70
"     Miss A. E. Grant                                   .25
"     Glenn Family                                   5.00
"     G. G. Starkey                                    1.00
"     Chas. Brown                                        5.00
December Mrs. W. S. Howland                               13.00
"     Miss H. S. Ashley                               .35
"     Miss A. E. Grant                                   .25
"     Bryn Athyn Church, Christmas Offering                55.82

     1909
January     Wm. Evans                                   1.00
"     Miss H. S. Ashley                                   .35
"     Miss A. E. Grant                                   .25
"     Mrs. M. E. Bostock                              .50
February Miss A. E. Grant                              .25
"     G. G. Starkey                                    1.00
"     Miss H. S. Ashley                                   .35
"     Mrs. M. E. Bostock                              .50
March
"     Miss H. S. Ashley                                   .35
"     Miss A. E. Grant                                   .25
April
"     Miss A. E. Grant                                   .25
"     Miss H. S. Ashley                                   .70
"     Mrs. M. E. Bostock                              .50
May
"     Glenn Family                                   5.00
"     Miss A. E. Grant                                   .25
June
"     G. G. Starkey                                    1.00
"     Miss A. E. Grant                                    .25
"     Miss H. S. Ashley                                   .35
"     Mrs. W. S. Howland                              13.00
                                                       $114.12
Total                                                       $705.07

     DISBURSEMENTS.
1908
Sept. 26. Mrs. Mary Hyatt                               $75.00
Dec. 5. Mrs. Mary Hyatt                               81.00
1909.
April 6. Mrs. Mary Hyatt                               75.00
June 8. Mrs. Mary Hyatt                                   81.00
                                                       $312.00
Balance in bank, June 21st, 1909                              $393.07

462

Church News 1909

Church News Various 1909

     FROM OUR CORRESPONDENTS.

     BRYN ATHYN, PA. The season of repose is once mere upon us, but thus far it has proven to be anything but dull.

     On both sides of the college building the clang of the mason's hammer and the snarl of the saws tell of the fine new library and local school which are being erected for our use.

     On the third of June, Doctor and Mrs. Cooper dedicate" their new and beautiful home, which is henceforth to be known as "Stoneleight." The spiritual uses of a house were spoken of by the Bishop and Mr. C. E. Doering. The evening was perfect, everybody was there, and the spacious verandahs and prettily lighted greensward relieved the pressure upon the hospitable wails. Fine music, soft voices, glowing eyes, fair gowns and fairer faces, all helped to body forth the subtle spirit of aroused affection and neighbor love--all the charms and graces that should focus about a New Church home.

     At this season come our two great festivals, June Nineteenth and Liberty Day.

June the nineteenth, day of days,
     We'll forget thee, never;
While we live we'll sing thy praise,
     June Nineteenth, forever.

     How true! Year after year passes by and it would seem that the spring of enthusiasm and of inspiration for speech-making would surely be exhausted; and yet each year June Nineteenth has become more hallowed, more inspiring. The Lord's Revelation is inexhaustible and so long as the individuals of the Church are true to this Revelation. June Nineteenth will be, in an ever greater degree, a day for praise and thanksgiving.

     At five o'clock a communion service was held in the chapel. There were 134 communicants.

464

     At seven o'clock all repaired to the gymnasium where a banquet was spread. The attendance was unexpectedly large--in fact, the largest we have ever had outside of our Assembly.

     There were but four set speeches, all upon the general topic of Michael, or the ever raging conflict for the preservation of the Doctrine of the Divine Human. Prof. Price opened with a scholarly and thorough, though brief, presentation of the doctrine involved in the word Mi-cha-el, "Who is like God," and quoted the familiar teaching that the New Church is to be in conjunction with the angels of the heavenly society or function, signified by this name.

     Prof. Odhner's account of the partial fulfilment of the prophecy and of the thin but almost continuous line of heroes and martyrs who had stood up for the sole Divinity of Christ, from John even up to the Reformation, was a stirring one--and to many it threw a new and brighter light upon some of the so-called "heretics" or reformers of the Old Church. It is to be hoped that this, as well as the other papers, may appear in the "Life."

     Mr. Iungerich's paper traced the same conflict--the fight for the same great Cornerstone of revealed religion, down through the history of the New Church, showing especially what Swedenborg himself says about the attacks made upon it in his own way.

     By this time there was a spirit of battle in the air, and Mr. John Pitcairn, in no uncertain terms, denounced the attack now being made from within the nominal New Church upon the same Man Child--the Doctrine of the Divine Human of the Lord, as He presents Himself to us,--the Word again revealed.

     A very touching and fitting conclusion to the regular program was given in Mr. Raymond Pitcairn's speech on Peace--the Peace that lights at times upon the souls of those who are surrounded by conflict. In his paper he introduced an account of the first Nineteenth celebration, held at Dr. Boericke's summer home at Edge Hill in 1878.

     Then followed spontaneous toasts and songs in rapid succession, until the meeting was brought to a happy close in time for the city friends to take the train for home.

465

     Liberty Day was celebrated this year with field sports on the Academy campus in the morning, and with aquatic sports in "Lake Cairnwood" in the afternoon. The day concluded with a picnic supper on the lawn at "Cairnwood." After the supper, the people gathered together and listened to the reading of the Declaration of Independence by Mr. Doering. This was followed by an address on Liberty by Mr. Raymond Pitcairn.

     Among our recent visitors are Mrs. N. D. Pendleton, Miss Evelyn Gilmore and Mr. Edmund Blair, of Pittsburgh, Pa.; Mr. Edmund Pendleton and Miss Philo Pendleton, of Macon, Ga.; Dr. Rena Heilman, of Leechburg, Pa.; Mr. Eugene Roschman, of Berlin, Canada, and Mr. Ray Gill, of Colchester, England. Eleven of our Bryn Athynites, including Bishop and Mrs. Pendleton, have gone, or are going to Europe. S. G.

     PHILADELPHIA, PA. The Advent Church held its annual meeting after the regular services on Sunday, June 6th. All reports were of an encouraging nature, and were favorably received. At the last service of the season, June 13th, the Holy Supper was administered to 26 communicants. Services will be resumed on September 5th.

     The Nineteenth of June was celebrated with a picnic in Fairmount Park on Sunday, June 20th, at which some 50 persons, including children, were present. A short service was held in commemoration of the sending out of the Twelve Apostles.

     During the month of July and August the regular Doctrinal Class is held Thursday evenings, at the house of the Misses Doering. All other church activity is, as usual, suspended during these months.     R.

     PITTSBURGH, PA On account of the exodus of many of our members there is little activity during the summer months. Notwithstanding we celebrated the Nineteenth with a picnic for the children which was thoroughly enjoyed. Special 19th of June services were held in our church on the following Sunday.

     Dr. and Mrs. Heilman entertained the young people at a house party over the fourth and fifth of July. Sunday was spent in various ways, each one to his own taste; and Monday was celebrated in a way befitting the birthday of our country. Everyone had a "glorious" time, and voted the affair a "great success," as is everything held under the hospitable roof of Dr. and Mrs. Heilman.

466

     During the past month we have enjoyed having with us at various times Miss Luelle Pendleton, Miss Phoebe Bostock, Miss Dorothy Davis, Miss Nellie Smith, Miss Eleanor Lindrooth, Rev. Richard de Charms, Dr. J. B. S. King, Dr. Harvey Farrington, and Mr. Eugene L. Roschman.     B. P. O. E.

     GLENVIEW, ILL. The closing exercises of our school were held on June 16th, nine pupils graduating; in the evening the members of the Society met to discuss future school plans.

     Our celebration of the Nineteenth began with the administration of the Holy Supper on Friday evening, the 18th. The members of Sharon Church joined with us for this service, and also for the other meetings during our festival. On Saturday, the Nineteenth, there was a service for the children in the morning, followed at noon by a picnic dinner under the trees, enjoyed by I50 persons. In the afternoon there was a base ball game, and in the evening a general social and dance, with a well-varied program of music, readings, etc. After the service on Sunday came a banquet which we shall long remember. The weather was very kind to us,--"warm and zephyry and free from skeeters," as one gentleman expressed it.

     Our program for July Fourth included a dance on the evening of the 3d, and a park parade and flag-raising on the 5th, not to mention two base ball games. On the evening of the 5th two plays were produced at the club-house: "The Sleeping Beauty," prettily performed by the children, and "The Teeth of the Gift Horse," presented by some of their younger elders. These plays were enjoyed by audience and performers alike. A mouth-organ trio with accordion accompaniment was a feature of the evening's entertainment; we never heard a younger orchestra, and its patriotic music was fine.

     On Friday evening, July 9th, we met at the club-house, where our pastor gave an interesting account of the meeting held at Toronto.

     We are enjoying the presence of many visitors, Bryn Athyn being well represented. A. M.

467

     MIDDLEPORT, O. We had a very pleasant celebration of June Nineteenth. Our banquet was on Sunday evening, the twentieth, at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Barrows, so that "Aunt Esther" Grant could be with us. We had also the pleasure of having Mrs. Grant's sister, Mrs. Sherman, of Sandoval, Ill., who, with her daughter, Miss Alice, her granddaughter, Miss Jean Grant, and her niece, Miss Moreh Grant, arrived on the Friday before. Miss Pearl Evans came from Columbus, Mr. and Mrs. A. H. Eblin and daughter Blanche, and Mrs. Ada Stevens, from Rutland; Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Boatman, Mr. John Boatman and Miss Bobo, of Kyger, were also present.

     The speeches were the best we have had. They were on Faith as beginning the Church, by Mr. F. G. Davis; Charity as establishing the Church, by Dr. S. E. Hanlin, and Good Works the fruit of faith and charity, by Dr. W. A. Hanlin. Mr. A. H. Eblin gave a statement of his reasons for embracing the doctrines of the New Church.

     With the hot weather of June together with the interruption caused by the ministers' meeting in Toronto all classes were discontinued. Even the Ladies' Principia Class, after two lessons on the Natural Point, were willing to wait until cooler weather. Morning service will be continued until the first Sunday in August, and the church will then be closed till the first of September.

     Our very latest good news is the birth of a second son to Mr. and Mrs. De Maine. W. L. G.

     ERIE, PA. The history of the New Church in Erie goes back to the days of the redoubtable Brickman-since which time it has had many vicissitudes. During the time that Dr. Edmund Cranch has been the leader, Erie has been visited almost, if not entirely, by ministers from the General Church. The Rev. Messrs. E. S. Hyatt, E. J. E. Schreck, William H. Acton, Alfred Acton, R. W. Brown, David H. Klein, and F. E. Gyllenhaal, have made extended stays. Mr. Bowers, on his annual tours, has seldom missed a call at Erie, while the Rev. John Whitehead, from Pittsburgh, and Rev. E. C. Bostock, from Chicago, have in their time, made quarterly visits there. So there has been no lack of ministerial attention, of an intermittent sort.

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But through it all, it has been Doctor Cranch, with the cordial support of several others, that has gathered occasional converts and kept up the regular meetings. And then there is the work done by Mrs. Cranch, who, for many years, has been the mainstay of the Sunday School and of the social efforts of the Circle, besides providing a central place for many of its organized activities, under her own roof. She also, in order to keep the children of her own numerous family in a sphere conducive to the preservation of the Church, perfected herself as a kindergartner, and for many years conducted a regular New Church day school and Sunday School in her own house. But ill health is threatening to interfere seriously with these good works, and it is sincerely to be hoped that the General Church may, in the near future, find itself in a position to do some continuous and effective work here.

     About the time of my arrival in Erie, in the beginning of July last, Miss Helen Hunt, a sister of Mrs. Cranch, returned from a trip around the world, and among other things she brought encouraging news of Mr. Morse and the faithful few in Sydney, N. S. W.

     A reception was held for us on Friday evening, at the house of Mrs. Edward Cranch. (I can no longer say "the Doctor's house," since there is now also Dr. Girard Cranch, who has a house of his own.) The attendance was very gratifying, over thirty persons being present. Very evident interest was shown in an account which I gave concerning the state of the Church.

     Among other things they told me that Mr. and Mrs. McGeorge had visited them, and expressed the hope that they would not continue to "isolate themselves from their brethren of the New Church."

     The services on Sunday morning, July 4th, were attended by thirty-eight persons, of whom twenty-six partook of the communion. A very pleasant feature of the exercises was the baptism of one adult and one infant. H. S.

     MERIDEN, CONN. The four members of the General Church in this town--Mrs. Schwenck, Fraulein Schneider, and Frau Mueller and daughter--all former members of the Advent Society, were visited by the Rev. J. E. Rosenqvist on Sunday, June 27, when Mrs. L. Dexter and her son, Carlos, a boy of fourteen years, were baptized into the New Church.

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The baptism was followed by the administration of the Holy Supper.

     In the afternoon the home of Mrs. Schwenk was dedicated, after which the small party adjourned to the garden for a picnic supper, the evening being concluded with conversation and singing.

     The number gathered together at these meetings was small, but our correspondent writes, the sphere was strong and beautiful, bringing a greater realization of the Lord's presence and his Providence, and a hope that despite the present smallness of numbers, the Church may yet grow in Meriden.

     YORK, ENGLAND. On Sunday, April 2d, the Rev. R. J. Tilson, of the Burton Rd. Society, Brixton, London, ministered to the small handful of friends in this ancient city, administering the Sacrament of the Holy Supper to Mr. Kilvington, a venerable octogenarian member of the former Conference Society, and two of his daughters, at their home; afterwards, fulfilling the same sacred office to five others at the residence of Mr. W. Copley Jubb. In the "Caf? Royal" adjoining Mr. Jubb's residence, Mr. Tilson conducted publicly, Divine Service in the evening, when a congregation of eighteen joined reverently in the service, and attentively heard a most eloquent sermon on "The New Church--an entirely distinct and new Revelation of Divine Truth;"

     On the following Monday, at the same place, and to a smaller number (varied, however, as to individual hearers), Pastor Tilson delivered a splendid lecture on "The Second Coming of the Lord--an already accomplished fact."

     Mr. Tilson's periodic visit in his pastoral capacity are highly appreciated by the few receivers here. W. C. J.

     BRAZIL. Senor L. C. de La Fayette writes us that his absence in Chili on business--an absence which has lasted for nearly two years, has resulted in some retardation in the work of propagating the New Church in Brazil. The Portugese paper, A Nova Jerusalem, which was written almost exclusively by Senor de La Fayette, has not been published for two years. Nevertheless, the New Church in Brazil is not at a standstill, but rather increasing owing to the activity of Newchurchmen in Rio de Janeiro, Belem and Recife.

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The Society in the former city now numbers almost 200 members, including some prominent Brazilians. This is an increase over 1906, when the membership was reported as 150. The Society possesses a library of about 800 volumes.

     From the fact that our correspondent mentions only three societies as constituting the Church in Brazil, it would appear that the society at Blumenau (Santa Catharina) of which Mr. Fisher, a Brazilian-German, was reported pastor in 1907, is no longer in existence, or that its members are now included among isolated receivers, of whom there are several in Brazil.

     Senor de La Fayette further informs us that one of the best Brazilian poets, Luis Murat, now a deputy, "has heartily received our doctrines, and has written some articles on religious subjects in the most important newspaper of Rio de Janeiro, O Journal de Commerce. These articles have caused, in the intellectual class of Rio, a deep impression. Mr. Murat is a very good acquisition for our Church and has a great influence among the intellectual part of Brazil."

     FROM OUR CONTEMPORARIES.

     UNITED STATES. The closing exercises of the THEOLOGICAL SCHOOL of the General Convention were held on June 27, when the two graduates of the School, Messrs. William F. Wunsch and J. Paul Dressler, were each presented with certificates of graduation. Graduation essays were read by Mr. Dressier on The Bible and Its Claim, and by Mr. Wunsch on The Antiquity of the Book of Job. In the latter paper, the contention of modern critics, that the Book of Job dates no further back than the time of Solomon, was accepted by the writer apparently with out question, and the whole effort of his Taper was to reconcile the teaching of the Writings that Job is a book of the Ancient Church, with this modern contention. The "reconciliation" was that Swedenborg's statement referred rather to the manner of composition than to its date; the style was that of the Ancient Church, but the date was much later. Mr. Wunsch further asserted "some of Swedenborg's statements indicate that Job was written in a late period, but when they still knew correspondence."

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No reference is given for this assertion, which savors of pure assumption.

     Later in the day, Mr. Dressier was ordained at Abington, Mass., by the Rev. James Reed.

     The ALUMNI ASSOCIATION of the Theological School held its second annual meeting in Brockton, Mass., on June 9th. The meeting was opened with a banquet, after which followed the business session, and speeches on the needs of the Theological School. The committee appointed to raise funds for the building of a fire-proof library reported no progress. The Rev. Messrs. Ager, Whitehead and Hite spoke in favor of the work, and the matter was then put in the hands of the Board of Directors. Dr. Prince spoke of various possible improvements in the School and advocated that it be opened to all who desired to study theology whether for the ministry or not. Mr. Ager made some remarks on topical studies as being the best method of teaching the doctrine in the School.

     The MASSACHUSETTS Association reports the receipt of legacies aggregating about $18,000.

     The Rev. Herbert C. Small, after having served as pastor of the BRIDGEWATER (Mass.) Society for six years, has tendered his resignation to take effect September 1. In his letter Mr. Small, after stating that he had "proclaimed without fear or favor the truths which the Lord has given me to discern," adds "But the present unrest gives little hope of further usefulness among you."

     A meeting of New Church Esperantists was held under the auspices of the local New Church Esperanto Society, in BROCKTON, Mass., during Convention week. The meeting was opened with an Esperanto reading from the Word by the Rev. Paul Sperry. After this followed speeches, also in Esperanto, by Messrs. F. R. French, Thomas French, Jr., and the Rev. A. B. Francisco. The program also included Esperanto singing. Those present then organized themselves into a "National New Church Esperanto Society." The officers are Mr. F. R. French, president; the Rev. J. B. Spiers, vice president; and the Misses Sproat and Field, secretary-treasurer and corresponding secretary, respectively. It is intended that the new Society shall be one of the bodies affiliated with the General Convention.

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     The BATH Society has invited Mr. William F. Wunsch to become its pastor. Mr. Wunsch has just completed his theological studies in Cambridge.

     The BALTIMORE (Md.) Mission celebrated New Church Day with appropriate exercises on Sunday, June 20th. The platform was decorated with the motto "Now it is allowable to enter intellectually into the mysteries of faith." This also was the subject of an address by the Rev. G. L. Allbutt. The Rev. L. H. Tafel spoke on the Second Coming; and the meeting concluded with a paper by Mr. Willard G. Day on Some Pioneers in the New Church.

     It is announced that in the Summer School to be conducted by the Rev. E. J. E Schreck, at OLNEY, Ill., from August 1 to 15th "the morning hours will be devoted to the religious instruction of children, and the afternoon hours to a normal class of Sunday School teachers, and to instruction in the doctrines for all who may be interested." Some New Church people in Vincennes, Ind., have signified their intention of attending.

     The teaching force of URBANA University has been increased by the employment of Professor Carroll H. May for Latin and Greek, and Miss Jane Eaten for German and French. The faculty will, therefore, now include five members. An assistant teacher has also been engaged for the primary school. During the past year the university has received from the Ropes' Estate an endowment of about $50,000.

     A useful extension of the work of the Sunday School has been inaugurated by the pastor of the CINCINNATI Society, and his example is one that is worthy of imitation. After the public schools of the city were closed, the Sunday School children of the society were invited to come to a morning class with the pastor, for the week beginning Monday, June 28, and ending Friday, July 2. Six children attended and were instructed in the doctrines for an hour and a half each day. They enjoyed the class so much that they desired to have it continued. The method of instruction is indicated in the following passage: "The experiment has proved the possibility of teaching the facts of revelation to children, and the necessity for doing more of this work. The children cannot comprehend the spiritual sense of the Word, but they grasp quickly the facts about the spiritual world, and our spiritual being.

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This is proved by their eagerness to ask questions, and the sensibleness of their questions. . . . Our pastors will need to do more of this work to build up our
distinctive work.

     The Society at INDIANAPOLIS is rejoicing at a victory recently won over "two speculators who have been trying to dispossess us." The Church property of this Society has been held for the past 35 years under a lease which requires no other consideration from the Society than that they shall use it for the purpose of worship. The property was, however, sold by the owner to one of these "speculators with the understanding that the purchaser would have to clear the title. For the purpose of profiting by his speculation the purchaser then brought suit to dispossess the Society. In the first decision he Was upheld by the Court. The case was appealed by the Society, which, in its defense, produced a deposition by Mr. Allen Fletcher, of New York City, narrating his remembrance of his father's intention "to give the Church this property as long as we needed it." The decision, on appeal, which was handed down June 30, reversed the lower Court, and granted the Church the absolute right to the property "as long as it uses it for a place of worship"

     The DENVER (COL.) Society celebrated June Nineteenth by a picnic in the city park. The Rev. Dr Gustafson, the pastor, gave an address on the significance of the day.

     Besides his duties as pastor, Dr. Gustafson holds the chair of Principle and Practice of Homoeopathic Medicine in the Denver College of physicians and Surgeons. He is also under engagement for three or four weeks summer lecture work for the Central Lyceum Bureau.

     The Second Annual Meeting of the CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION was held in Los Angeles, April 16th-8th. Representatives were present from the Societies in Los Angeles, Riverside, San Diego, and San Francisco (O'Farrell St.). "The reports indicated unsettled conditions within the organization, but a healthy and active life in general." A letter we received from the general pastor, the Rev. J. F. Potts, and a response by the President, the Rev. J. S. David was endorsed by the Association.

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     The organization of this Association was effected quite unexpectedly in April, 1908, when the first meeting was presided over by Mr. Potts. Most of the organizers were drawn from the moribund Pacific Coast Association. It appears, however, that this latter Association still retains, at any rate, a formal existence, and at the recent meeting of the new body "a resolution was adopted looking toward the union of the California Association with the older 'Pacific Coast Association,' and a committee was appointed to consider the matter and report next year."

     A new movement has been started in SAN BERNARDINO, Cal., under the leadership of Mr. John C. Ferry. Meetings are held at a private house once a month.

     GREAT BRITAIN. The annual meeting of the Manchester PRINTING AND TRACT SOCIETY was held on Tuesday, May 11. The report presented to this meeting stated that the advertisement of the minor works for day and Sunday School teachers had met with very small response. Selections of literature had been placed in the cabin libraries of ten passenger steamers running to Scandinavian ports, and were appreciated. The publication of the Esperanto tracts was being continued, and had elicited considerable correspondence from various parts of the world. The meeting instructed the committee to endeavor to extend the circulation of the minor works among native missionaries in Africa, India and elsewhere.

     The YOUNG PEOPLE'S FEDERATION held its annual meeting at Birmingham in May, with an attendance of 20 ministers, 4 "leaders" and 20 delegates, representing 13 of the federated societies.

     The annual report of the ACCRINGTON Society, the largest society of the New Church in England, shows a membership of 532, of which 76 are non-residents; this is a decrease from last when the membership was 543, including 89 non-residents. Sunday School reports a roll of 616 scholars, 38 teachers and 17 officers; this is again a decrease, as last year there were 707 scholars. On the occasion of the preaching of the "Charity Sermons"--an annual event-1,115 persons were present in the school room in the afternoon, while in the evening the church was literally overflowing. But the quality of the sermons is not mentioned.

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     "New Church Thanksgiving Day" (June 19th) was observed by the Argyle Square (LONDON) Society, on Sunday, June 20th. The observance consisted of suitable decorations in the Church and appropriate sermons by the pastor, the Rev. A. Wilde.

     New Church Day was observed on Saturday, June 19, by the Society at SOUTHENDON-SEA, in a somewhat novel way. "The leader of the Society, Mr. Hermann Naylor, attended at the church and received the free will offerings and gifts of the members between four and six P. M." The money offerings on this occasion amounted to about $90; one of the offerings consisted in improvements to the chancel. After those assembled had partaken of "tea," came an address on Work, Recreation, and Sleep in the Church. The address was listened to by about thirty persons and resulted in some discussion. June 2oth was celebrated by a combined Flower and Anniversary services.

     It may be remembered that the Society at Southend-on-Sea was formerly an unattached Anglican Church. In 1909 practically the whole Society, led by its minister, the Rev. A. White, came into the New Church. Two years later Mr. White left the New Church and joined the Roman Catholics. The Society, however, remained faithful and still continues as a New Church Society.

     New Church Day was celebrated at PRESTON on June 20th, when the subjects of the day were chosen by the pastor, the Rev. W. T. Lodge, in reference to the Lord's Second Advent.

     THE ENGLISH CONFERENCE.

     The one hundred and second annual meeting of the English Conference was held at Kearsley from Monday, June 14 to Saturday, June 19. As usual, not the slightest attention seems to have been paid to the significance of the latter date. The attendance was a very large one, consisting of 37 ministers, 4 trustees, and 79 representatives, a total of 120.

     Among the visitors present were Mr. Alfred H. Stroh, the Rev. W. A. fates, of Australia, and Mr. George Plummer, of New Zealand, who were formally invited to take part in the proceedings. Each of these gentlemen subsequently addressed the Conference, Mr. Stroh's subject being The Process of the Work in Sweden.

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     What is becoming an established feature of Conference meetings, namely, a welcome from the Free Church Council of the town where Conference meets, took place in an early part of the sessions. An official delegation from this Council visited the Conference on Tuesday, and read an Address of Welcome, "Dear and Honored Brethren (it commenced). We, the representatives of the Farnworth and District Free Church Council, desire to express the pleasure we feel at your presence in our District, and to give you a hearty welcome to our midst. Under liberty we differ in our views of doctrine and of Church polity; but grave as these differences may seem they do not prevent us from aiming at that unity of heart which our Lord Jesus Christ expects all His followers to manifest. This unity of heart is to us of greater importance than any corporate union could be, for we recognize that the sheep of the Good Shepherd are scattered in many fields and may for a while shelter in many folds, Still they form 'one flock' and belong to the one Lamb."

     After much more to the same effect the Address then gives; the Free Council's stamp of approval to the New Church. "We welcome your Conference (it says), and recognize the New Church and its services. Although you may not be, as compared with some other sections of the Church, a large Church, you have had among you ministers of large mind and heart. You have had scholars who have been recognized far beyond your denominational bounds. Your father and founder, Emanuel Swedenborg, stands in the gallery of mystics in a niche all his own."

     And finally it concludes with the prayer "that the presence of the Holy Spirit may abide with you throughout the Conference. The reading of this Address "deeply moved the Conference," and the President, the Rev. Mark Rowse, seems to have expressed the general sentiment when, addressing the delegation, he said "that the New Church was with them in endorsing the importance of the spirit of charity as being the essence of religion. No doubt the doctrinal differences between us were serious, yet we had common ground in Christian charity." As the deputation retired the members of Conference rose and applauded.

     In such ways as this does the larger body confirm the actions inaugurated by several of its individual societies,--actions which will inevitably lead to the breaking down of all external distinction between the New Church and the Old.

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The internal distinction seems to be largely lost sight of already, the general body of the Church in England declaring that the only difference between the New Church and the Old is in the matter of doctrine, and that they are one in "the essence of religion,"-"the spirit of Charity." But the teaching of the Writings is that the former Church was consummated because there is in it "No knowledge of God; no knowledge of the Lord; no knowledge of the Holy Spirit;. . . no knowledge of Charity." (Consummation of the Age, 31.) If the truth of this teaching is not seen how can there ever arise in the New Church a genuine knowledge of God, and a genuine knowledge of Charity? But to return to the meeting of Conference.

     The New Church College was discussed as usual, and the suggestion was made that some change in the education of the students is necessary for the securing of a "broad general culture." This, however, was opposed by most of the speakers, who defined the present method of resident pupils and a distinctive college. In this connection Mr. Tansley pointed to the younger ministers of the Conference as creditable examples of the training given by the College.

     The Committee on Translation of the Word reported the completion of Genesis, and added that the translation of this book would be put in the hands of Conference by next year.

     A large part of the attention of the meeting was given to an animated discussion of the "Sustentation" and "Augmentation" funds. No conclusion was reached, the only thing that seemed clearly evident throughout the uninteresting discussion as to "funds" and "schemes," etc., being that there was a general desire that the small societies receive financial assistance from the General Body, especially by the support of a minister at some minimum salary.

     The question of women delegates was also touched upon. This question had been dramatically introduced into last year's Conference by the presence of a woman delegate from the Liverpool Society, who, however, was not allowed to sit. This year the Council, which had been ordered to obtain a legal opinion on this subject, reported that the terms of the Constitution of Conference "did not permit of women sitting in the Conference as representatives."

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In connection with this report a letter from the Rev. S. S. Seward, president of the American Convention, "where women are received as delegates," was presented to the Conference, and both Mr. Seward and the Rev. James Reed were adduced as being "from their experience" of the opinion "that it would be a mistake for the English Conference to change its constitution so as to admit women." There was no discussion of the report.

     There was, as in every Conference for some time back, some animated discussion of the conduct of the New Church Magazine, the official organ of Conference. The most diverse opinions were expressed. Some wanted a quarterly more distinctively New Church in tone, while others characterized the present policy as excellent. Some held that the Magazine appealed only to a select few, while others thought it was doing excellent missionary work. The final result, however, was the usual one, that the whole matter was left in the hands of the editor.

     The report of the Committee on Statistics, we learn, "proved very clearly that, taking all things into consideration there had been a steady increase in membership for a series of years, although that was not apparent, perhaps, in any one year." The statistics themselves are not reported.

     One of the last actions of the Conference was the passage of a motion recommending the greatest possible use of Esperanto in spreading a knowledge of the doctrines.

     NORWAY. The Rev. S. C. Bronniche, of Copenhagen, delivered a course of three lectures in the Nobel Institute at Christiania on April 17, 19 and 20, the subjects being Swedenborg, The Word and The Incarnation. The average attendance was sixty and several tracts and books were distributed and sold. Mr. Bronniche visited all persons in the city who were known to be interested in Swedenborg. These included Mr. Christian Clausen, the writer of a sympathetic article on Swedenborg for the Norwegian journal, Church and Culture, last year. Mr. Clausen accepted a copy of a little book, Swedenborg's Dreams. Mr. Bronniche hopes to continue the work in Christiania in the near future.

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     ICELAND. Our Danish contemporary announces the death, on October 15, 1908, of Mr. J. A. Hjaltalin, who was the principal of a School in Akursyri. Mr. Hjaltalin has translated several of the Writings into Icelandic, and is, we believe, the only translator into that language that has worked for the New Church.

     DENMARK. The Rev. S. C. Bronniche reports an increase of two members in the Copenhagen Society. In the administration of the Holy Supper he has adopted the practice of using individual cups. This was done "in order to suit the different opinions of the members. Mr. Bronniche himself does not regard the matter as essential to the sacrament, but it is insisted on by some of the members.

     HOLLAND. A meeting of New Church friends was held at the home of Mr. Gerrit Barger, Voorburg, near The Hague, on Easter Sunday, April 11th. There were only a few present, including the Rev. G. C. Ottley, Mr. and Mrs. Barger, and Mr. and Mrs. Ernest Delterne, the latter being an advocate resident in Antwerp, who has recently come into the Church. It was decided to form a "Swedenborgian Society for Holland and Belgium." Mr. Barger was appointed president of the Society and Mr. Deiterne secretary.

     NEW ZEALAND. The Society in AUCKLAND, which is the only New Church Society in this country, is looking forward before long to having the services of a minister. The Society is now under the leadership of Mr. George Plummer. Mr. Plummer was present at the English Conference last June, and took the opportunity of addressing that body on the condition and prospects of the Society. As a consequence the Council of Conference was requested to consider the question of assistance to the Auckland Society. The Society has also made an appeal for help to the General Convention, where the matter was referred to the Board of Missions.

     The Auckland Society, it may be added, was started about 35 years ago by a number of people who emigrated from Lancashire.

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Engagement. 1909

ANNOUNCEMENTS.

Frau Anna A. Mueller wishes to announce the engagement of her daughter, Elsa, to Robert Hilldale.
Wanted 1909

Wanted 1909

Announcement
Wanted a woman as working housekeeper or a girl for general housework. Family of three adults. A good home and good wages. MRS. B. E. COLLEY, Bryn Athyn, Pa.
MORAL TRUTH AND ITS USE 1909

MORAL TRUTH AND ITS USE Rev. W. F. PENDLETON 1909

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     NEW CHURCH LIFE

     VOL. XXIX SEPTEMBER, 1909           No 9.
     For many years we have felt the need in our school work of a treatise on Morals, or a systematic gathering together of what is taught in the Writings on this subject, reinforced by such material as may be collected from other sources. The necessity for such a work is seen as grounded in the fact that a moral plane must first be formed with the young before they can be properly introduced to the spiritual things of the Word. The religious teaching we have always given has indeed been to a large extent moral teaching, but the text books have been either the letter of the Word, especially the Ten Commandments, or some books of the Writings; and while this teaching of the Word and Doctrine should continue, and never lose the place which they hold in our work, this same teaching would be much strengthened, illustrated and confirmed, if there were such a gathering of material on the subject of morals, to which we have referred. But in addition to this it seems clear that there would be a decided gain if we were to give to the subject of morals a distinct place in our curriculum similar to that which we are now giving to religion, language, mathematics, civics, and the physical truth of nature. It seems well therefore to bring the matter forward at the present time that we may consider the important and essential place which morals hold in the life and education of the young; looking to a more systematic preparation and formulation of the abundant materials in existence on this subject, for the use of our teachers in the Schools of the Academy and of the General Church. Let us therefore proceed to examine the teaching of the Heavenly Doctrine on the importance and use of moral truth; we shall find that there is much said upon the subject.

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     We learn that there are four degrees or grades of truth to be used for the instruction of the young, namely, physical truth, civil truth, moral truth, and spiritual truth. All of these are degrees of truth in the Word, and they exist from the Word in the books and writings of men. Each makes a kingdom by itself, distinct from others; and each is divided, or may be divided, into a number of branches or departments. Each may be entered more interiorly, or beyond the realm of what is visible, but this belongs rather to what may be called our higher education, to follow after the collegiate courses are completed. We are concerned now with the years previous to the full opening of the rational or mature mind of the child or youth.

     Physical truth is the truth of visible nature, as manifested in her three kingdoms, mineral, vegetable, and animal--including some things also of the elementary kingdom. The studies coming under this head are easily enumerated and need not be mentioned here.

     Civil truth is the truth of the civil state, formulated as the civil law, and also as modes of administration in all the departments of the government. Civil truth includes also the laws of the business world and the methods of operation by which every work or use in the world is conducted. Every natural function has its civil form, even the functions of the church itself. It will thus be seen that the sphere of civil truth is most extensive, including all human functional activities in the works of the world--much more than is ordinarily brought together in treatises on civics which are prepared for the uses of schools. The civil truth of any natural use might be taught the young so far as there is time and space for it in the curriculum.

     Moral truth is closely related with civil truth, and, in fact, is contained within it, and should never be separated from it in human practice. There is a moral kingdom within the civil kingdom as a soul within the body. The truth of these two kingdoms is the truth by which human society has been formed from its simple primitive conditions to the present complex conditions of civilized life. Without civil and moral truth there could be no human society, and human existence would be impossible; since men cannot live and work together without the mutual observance of certain civil and moral principles of cooperative action.

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But we shall return to the subject of moral truth a little later.

     Religious truth is the last in the order of consideration, but the first in importance. It is the first because it relates to the life after death and preparation for it. Wherever men are found there is some form of religion, which is seen to contain an idea of God and of a life after death. Religion is given and constituted by revelation alone, and the burden of revelation is religion. Revelation may contain moral, civil, and physical truth, and does contain them; but it is merely that religion may have a form and body, and thus apply itself to the thought and understanding of men--to serve as a means of introduction to religion; but the soul of revelation or the Word of God is religion; hence the soul of moral, civil, and physical truth is religion; and the soul of all education is religion. A man may be in civil truth and the practice of it without morality; and he may be in the practice of both civil and moral truth without religion. He will thus be a citizen of the world, but he will not become a citizen of heaven. But since physical, civil and moral truth are a means of introduction to spiritual or religious truth, they must form a large part of the instruction of the child and the youth, especially since it has also in view his preparation to become a citizen of the world. But as the object of this paper is to consider the part moral truth is to play in the education of the young, let us return to an examination of that subject.

     There are three general modes or instrumentalities by which the laws of moral life are taught or may be taught in an educational system, namely, by history, directly by moral precept, or by religion. Hence there is no school, or college, or university where morality is not taught; for history at least is taught everywhere.

     The histories recorded in the Word of the Old and New Testaments contain throughout moral truth, more or less covered or concealed in the form of a story; still it is there as the natural internal of the history. What is called in the Writings the internal historical sense of the Word is also called its moral sense, being intermediate between the letter and the spiritual sense. It is the same with all history, whether sacred or profane; and it is the same with all made history or fiction.

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Every story that is written has in it a moral sense, and conveys moral teaching. It is so with all human writing. Take away the moral element from it, the opposite enters and tends to the destruction of moral practice among men, to say nothing of the destruction of religion.

In history actual or made the characters are acting a part in relation to each other. They are in fact acting some moral truth or against it, and the interest of the reader is excited for or against, as the case may be. The mind of the child instinctively takes the side of the right and is indignant at the wrong, and thus a moral truth is insinuated by the delight of affection, by the interest in the historical narration. Children are interested in persons. They cannot as yet abstract their thought from the persons they see and know, or about whom they read. History therefore, feigned or real, has been given in the Providence of the Lord, that by means of it moral and religious truth may be insinuated through the affection excited by the stories which are read or heard. Children sit as little judges and are unconsciously deciding, as the story goes along, the moral questions of right and wrong; and it is by this means that a way is prepared for the opening of the rational mind.

The reason why history and fiction teach moral truth is because men cannot come together, cannot be in contact with each other, so as to work with one another, without the observance of certain moral laws; and since history and story treat of men and women acting in relation with each other,--for each other or against each other, thus acting according to moral laws or in violation of them,--there can therefore be nothing in the form of history that does not involve some moral principle of life, its observance or its violation. It will be understood that what is here said of moral truth, may be said also of civil and religious truth; for these are also involved in all the forms of history, though not always appearing upon the surface. The use of history, and along with history all the forms of literature, in teaching or insinuating moral truth into the minds of the young, is therefore exceeding great, and the mere story itself is but a vehicle or instrument of the moral principle contained within, and the persons or characters mentioned are but embodied representations of essential moral virtues or their opposites.

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     The second general mode of imparting moral truth is by moral precept, or by the direct teaching of the laws and principles of morals, to call attention to the importance of this is as we have said the purpose in view in this paper. We cannot do much more at this time than to call attention to it. More than a single discourse would be required to set forth fully the importance of it. We would, however, say a few words concerning the sources of moral precept, and finally present some further considerations why the subject is an important one in our work of education.

     There are in general three sources of direct supply for the teacher of morals: the letter of the Word, the Writings of the church, and the books and writings of men.

     The Word in the letter may be called a book of spiritual moral truth. We have already seen that the histories of the Word contain in their bosom throughout the principles of moral life. But there is much of direct moral teaching. The Ten Commandments are a divine summary of the spiritual moral truth of the Word; and the Lord in the Gospels throughout unfolds the internal historical of the Old Testament, or the spiritual moral truth contained in the history of the Jews.

     Let us for a moment consider the force and meaning of the expression spiritual moral truth--a phrase occurring in the Writings. We read in the Heavenly Doctrine of the wonderful events occurring at Mount Sinai, culminating in the giving of the Ten Commandments, written upon two tables of stone by the finger of God, and the significance of it. Why were the Commandments given in so miraculous a manner, as a revelation from heaven, when yet their moral precepts were already known, known wherever men are found, known from the beginning, known to the Jews themselves? The reason we are told is that men might know that those laws are not only laws of moral life but laws of spiritual life: not only laws for the formation of human society on earth, bat of angelic society in heaven; not only means for the peace and safety of men as citizens of the world, but the Divine means for the salvation of their souls. This is the reason why the Commandments were given as they were given. This is the reason why moral truth is a fundamental element in all revelation,--in the Old Testament, in the New Testament, and in the Writings.

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This is, in fact, an essential reason why the Lord came into the world, namely, that moral truth might be made spiritual moral, and thus become an efficient instrument in the salvation of men. For what is spiritual always has relation to God and the life after death, and when this is joined to what is moral in any man, he becomes by means of it an angel of heaven; and the Church becomes by means of it the Lord's heaven on earth.

The Ten Commandments themselves are spiritual moral: one table for God and the other for man; one table teaching what is spiritual and the other what is moral. But the two tables were joined together into one, the Commandments thus becoming the type of all revelation-spiritual moral. We see this everywhere in the Old Testament--God and a life of charity, which is a moral life. We see it in the New Testament--the Lord revealing Himself to men, and teaching salvation to all those who live from Him a life of charity, or a genuine moral life, a spiritual moral life. In the revelations of the Second Coming, we are taught more clearly than ever before that men are saved by a moral life, when there is a spiritual life from God within it. The Writings are in a most marked degree spiritual moral,--wherein the spiritual and the moral are joined together into one as in the two tables of the Decalogue. On every page we find some idea of God and the life after death, coupled with the necessity pointed out of shunning evils as sins against Him in order to be conjoined with Him and live after death. To shun evils as sins against God is the sum of the spiritual moral law, the sum of all revelation, reaching its climax in the Heavenly Doctrine of the New Jerusalem; and in that Doctrine we find the most abundant and fruitful source of material for the teacher of spiritual moral truth.

The third source of material to be drawn upon for the principles of moral truth are the books and writings of men. The literature on this subject is most extensive, beginning in ancient times and coming down to the present day. In the Proverbs of Solomon, in the Apostolic Epistles, in the teachings of the philosophers of Greece and Rome, in the writings of the early Christian fathers, in the multitude of books of every kind written since the Reformation, the store of moral truth is so abundant that it is hardly in the power of any one man to compass or measure it, or gather it together.

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It lies indeed amidst heaps of rubbish, but like gold in the earth it must be mined and sifted and brought to the service of the Church. Who is ready to do the work?

     We have spoken of the three general modes by which moral truth is taught or insinuated into the minds of the young, by history, by direct moral precept, and by religious teaching. We have considered the first and second; let us now say a word about religious teaching, as a mode of teaching morals.

     The teaching of religious truths carries with it the teaching of moral truth. In fact religious truth is spiritual moral truth, and we cannot teach religion without teaching morals. A moral life from a spiritual origin is religion. When any one lives a moral life for the sake of God and eternal life, he lives the life of religion; and his moral truth is then spiritual moral-essential to salvation. Such a moral life is nothing else than a life of charity in the natural, by which men are prepared far heaven. Therefore when the instructor of the young is teaching religion he is teaching a spiritual morality. This is what he is doing when he is teaching New Church Doctrine, as accommodated to the minds of the young; he is teaching religious truth, spiritual moral truth, a spiritual morality. We have been doing this in our Schools from the beginning of our educational work; and this teaching of the Writings as spiritual moral truth should continue, and there can be no possible substitute for it; nor is the direct teaching of morals as such proposed as a substitute for the teaching of the spiritual doctrine of the church, but as an efficient means of introduction to that doctrine.

     We are, from year to year, perfecting our instrumentalities for educating the young, not only to become citizens of the world, but that they may be prepared to enter the spiritual things of the church. The most important instrumentality of all is that which we are now considering, the direct teaching of the principles of moral life. With these established in the mind, the final step is taken toward the opening of the rational mind, and the letting in of the spiritual light of heaven. It is the perfecting of this instrumentality that I would now call to your attention, and invite the active consideration of it.

     Why, then, is the subject important?

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We have already presented reasons which show the importance of it, but there is another which is fundamental concerning which we are now to speak. The fact is, that in respect to children and youths, and the simple generally, moral truth connected with religion is the food of their life, and this is so because they are associated in their spirits with the simple in the other life, who are in the natural heaven. This heaven, the natural heaven, is the heaven of the simple, the heaven of those who have not cultivated their understandings while in the world with the abstract spiritual doctrine of the Word, whose minds, therefore, could not be elevated to the spiritual light of the higher heavens, but who lived according to the principles of moral truth in simplicity of heart. Those who are in moral good, but in little spiritual good, are associated with the natural heaven, and are introduced into it after death. Children and youth are in this state, being associated with the simple in the natural heaven. Now every man is introduced or receives truth according to his environment in the spiritual world, according to the state of the spirits with whom he is associated. He cannot receive any truth that is beyond the state of his associate spirits. This is the reason therefore why moral truth taught as religious truth to the young, and to the simple generally, is the food of their life, the true nourishment of their souls in that state. This is the reason why the Writings should be presented as spiritual moral truth in our missionary work to the simple in the outer world, and that the same should be done in our teaching of the simple in the New Church,--the children and youth of the Church. And this would seem to justify us, not only in continuing our work of adapting the Doctrine of the Church to the minds of the young as spiritual moral truth, but in preparing material from all the sources we have mentioned for the more systematic and direct teaching of moral truth as such to the young in our work of New Church education.

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LORD AS THE WORD 1909

LORD AS THE WORD Rev. W. L. GLADISH 1909

     In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.

     All things were made by Him and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life and the life was the light of men.

     And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. John 1:1, 3, 4, 14.

     The doctrine of the Word is one of the primary doctrines of the New Church. An understanding of this doctrine is vital to intellectual or rational Newchurchmanship. For we are taught that the Lord's second coming was as the Word. His coming in the clouds of heaven was His coming in the letter of the Word. Therefore unless we know what is meant in the Heavenly Doctrine by the Word, what is the scope of meaning involved in the term, we cannot see how the opening of the Word given in the Writings constitutes a Divine Advent.

     It is well known that the Divine Human is the God of the Church, the only object of worship; that it was the Divine Human, or God as Man, whom the Most Ancient Church worshiped and the Ancient Church and the Jewish under the name of Jehovah; that the Divine Human is one with the infinite and invisible Divine; that the Divine Human is equally infinite omnipotent, omnipresent and Divine with the Divine in Itself, being naught but that very Divine Itself presented to human comprehension and sight.

     It is my wish to show that the term "Word" as used in the New Church is synonymous with the Divine Human and that therefore everything predicated of the Divine Human can, with equal propriety, be predicated of the Word.

     As the Divine Human is from God and is God, so the Word is from God and is God. As the Divine Human is the only medium of approach of God to man and of man to God, so is the Word. As the Divine Human is infinite, omnipotent, of one essence and substance with the Infinite Divine, so is the Word. It is therefore evident that by the Word we mean more than a book.

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And yet no more is meant than is involved in any and every written revelation. And while-the Word is infinite and cannot be circumscribed by what is found written in a book, yet the fulness of the Divine Word and of the Divine Human is contained in every Divine Revelation; and nothing whatever of that Word by which all things were made can be found by man outside of the truths of the written Word.

     The infinite Divine fills all the spaces of the universe, yet without space, for extension cannot be predicated of Him. In fact we can predicate nothing of Him, as He is in Himself, that our poor finite minds can comprehend. The Divine Human is equally present everywhere; yet of Him we can think, for He is the Divine formed and accommodated to our reception. Without the Divine Human we can know nothing Of the Divine: for we can in no manner approach the infinite Divine Itself. And as the Divine Human is our only medium of approach to the Divine, so the written Word is also our only medium of approach to Him. Nowhere else but in the Word or in truths from the Word do we find one ward, one idea, that enables us to know the nature of God.

     Is not the Word, therefore, God made visible? Do we not know Him, approach Him, see Him, as we know, approach and see the truths of the Word? Is not His presence with us solely in and by those truths? And are we not conjoined with Him by love of those truths?

     Then, evidently, the Word is to us the presence of God.

     But let us go a little further and see more fully, if possible, the essential unity of the Word with God.

     "In the beginning was the Word," we read, "and the Word was with God and the Word was God. All things were made by Him. . . .     In Him was life and the life was the light of men."

     By the Word or Logos here which was in the beginning with God and was God; who made all things, in whom was life and the light of men, it is evident that the Divine Human must be meant. For it is the son or the Divine Human that hath life in Himself even as the Father hath life in Himself. It is the Son or the Divine Human from whom is the light that enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world. It is the Divine Human that is with God and is God.

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     Then why is the term Logos or Word introduced if the Divine Human is meant? For Him we already have the names Son of God, Son of Man, the Only Begotten, the Redeemer, the Savior, besides other names.

     It is to make known to us new attributes of the Divine Human that we should not otherwise know. It is to make known to angels and men that the Divine Human which came into the world in time existed from eternity. It is to make it known that not only redemption and salvation are by the Divine Human, but that creation was also by Him. He Who redeemed and saves and perpetually preserves is He Who in the beginning created. God is one in essence and in person: and that one God is the Lord God the Savior Jesus Christ: the visible God Who is at the same time the Son and the Father.

     The teaching of our text is plain that the Word was the Creator and that this same Word, thus the Creator, was made flesh and dwelt among us as bur Lord Jesus Christ. Moreover, our Lord is here called the Word in order to identify the Divine Human with the revealed and written Word; to show that in spiritual thought they are one; identically and personally one.

     What is a word?

     It is the form of an idea; and at the same time it is the form and expression of an affection. Both thought and affection are manifested in every word uttered. Not only are thought and affection manifested by words but the whole man is in his Word Man's speech reveals to the wiser angels the state of his life, both as to understanding and will: his whole past life and his whole present life are revealed in a single sentence. So does the Word contain and manifest the fulness of the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom: for it was spoken by God Himself whose Divine flowed down through the heavens, as man's life does through his body, and spoke through spirit or man as a subject. The Word, therefore, contains within its finite expressions the fulness of the Divine Love and of the Divine Wisdom.

     And if the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom are in it the fulness of God Himself is there, And, further, in the original language "word" means not merely a word, but a thing. Any thing is called a word. The term is, therefore, applied with especial fitness to that first manifestation of the Divine which is substance itself and form itself; from which all created substances and forms are made.

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     This is that simple substance from which is the Sun of the spiritual world; which is the Nexus between the vast Infinite on the one side and the vast created universe on the other.

     This substance is one with the Divine Substance: yet by a circling motion it begins to be finited and separated into parts. It thus looks forward toward creation without being separated from the Divine, which is the sole substance and life of it. Thus this "first substance" while Divine yet looks toward the finite. It causes the infinite and invisible Divine to stand forth in a form that the finite mind can gain some conception of.

     This substance that is Substance Itself, from which and by which all substances, both spiritual and natural, were made, this is, in supreme sense, meant by the Word which in the beginning was with God and was God, by Whom all things were made, in Whom was life and Whose life was the light of men.

     This is that pure Divine Human which is with God and is God: which has as yet nothing added to it that is finite and created and yet can be seen in human thought as the Divine standing forth--yea, is seen by the angels as the Sun of heaven whence are light and heat and thus life to all.

     The activity of this first substance is the activity of the Divine Itself, so pure and ardent that it would dissolve and destroy any created form with which it came in immediate contact. Therefore it is tempered, accommodated and clothed to adapt it to the celestial angels and the inmost forms of human life. So tempered and clothed it flows into the heavens as the Soul of them, the only activity, the only formative force, the only love and wisdom in the angels, hence the only life in the heavens. This Divine Life, which is the only thing that lives in heaven and which is heaven and makes heaven, is called the Divine Human, because it is the Divine Life in human forms and because it may be seen by the angels as God Man; and because it was this Divine that assumed flesh and revealed itself as Man in the world.

     But this same life, which makes heaven, is also called the Word because it is the manifestation and revelation of the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom.

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And it is the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom which make heaven and flow down through heaven and are revealed, not only in human form thus as the Divine Human, but also in Divine Revelation, thus as the Word; therefore the two, the Word and the Divine Human, are one and the same.

     As in heaven the Divine Human manifests itself through the finite life of the angels so in the written Word the Divine Human clothes itself with forms taken from human life; with history, with parable, with prophecy of things to come or psalms of thanksgiving for benefits received. Yet because these things in the Word were not spoken by men themselves but under Divine inspiration and thus by the Lord through men, the only living principle in them is the Divine Human life which makes heaven. Thus the life of the Word is the Divine Human; and that Divine Human which is the sole life of the Word on all planes even down to the sense of its letter is naught but that Word which in the beginning was with God and was God.

     But now since the incarnation and the glorification of His Human there is added a further reason why the Lord is called the Word.

     The Word of the Old Testament, in its bosom, treats of nothing but Him Who was to come. Every rite and ceremony, every precept of the law, as well as every prophecy, pointed to Him Who was to come. Every thing there was, in its internal sense, a revelation of some process of the assumption of the finite human, of His conflicts with the hells and triumphs over them, of the union of His Human with the Divine and of the Divine with His Human. Every thought and feeling of the Human, the whole way over which He should pass in the work of redemption and salvation was prophetically involved in the representatives of the Word. When the Lord came into the world all these things were gradually opened up to the perception of His Human. He entered into them, He understood them, He loved them and lived them. Thus He fulfilled the Word and became the Word. Every thing written in the Book was also written in His very flesh and blood. He became the Word in ultimates as from the beginning He had been the Word in first principles above the heavens. The Word which in the beginning was with God and was God "was made flesh and dwelt among us."

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     Before His glorification all these finite forms clothing the Divine were borrowed from angels and men; but now in the world He made them His own. They are wholly Divine while at the same time they are human. He is present, therefore, in the very letter of the Word with the same Divine fulness and power as in its inmosts. He is present with men as immediately and as fully as with the angels of the celestial heaven. And since the New Testament is: about Him alone and is equally written by Divine inspiration, it is evident that what has just been said of the Old Testament is likewise true of the New. He in His Divine Human is present in every word of it and with every one who reads or hears it in a state of holiness.

     Can it be said that the Writings of the New Church are the Word in the same way? And that being the Word they are also the Lord? Even so.

     The Word in the letter presents the Lord in His Human: the Writings show that Human to be Divine. (Inv. 44.) In the letter He is seen in the finite human, fulfilling every jot and tittle of the Word, indeed, and living from a: Divine Life within; but it is not manifest, except dimly, that He made that Human Divine. But in the Writings this is manifest. Here He is seen in power and great glory, with the glory He had with the Father before the world was. In the letter we see Him in humiliation, as a man like ourselves; in the Writings we see Him to be Human indeed yet not finitely so, but Divinely Human. He was in the world as its God.

     His Human had life in Itself even as the infinite Divine has life in Itself. The finite human was a mere addition taken on for a time. But the Divine was brought down into the human all that was from Mary was put off and what was from the Divine within took its place. So that the Human was made altogether Divine. And now by the Divine Human together with the Word in its three Testaments, which is the very form of the Divine Human, the Lord is forever present in His world in full Divine power in ultimates as from the beginning He has had full Divine power in first principles.

     By the Word, and most manifestly by the Writings, the Lord, the supreme God, is present in a form accommodated to reception by human minds.

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He is present both in His Divine and in His Divine Human which are forever one as soul and body are one; and He is equally Divine in both. It was as the Word that the Lord first came into the world. He was the Word made flesh.

     Had not the Word been with the Jews He could never have come among them. It was the living Word with them which formed His very Body. When He glorified His Human He made the Word also fully Divine even in its letter.

     When, therefore, in His second coming He opened the Word and revealed in its very letter the full glory of His Divine Human it was manifestly a second coming of the Lord into the world. It was not indeed a coming in Person, but in Spirit and in Truth. It was a coming to the rational and spiritual minds of men as His first coming was to the senses of the body. Yet it was no less real than was His first advent.

     The body of truth in which He now shows Himself, truth contained from the beginning in the Word and yet hidden there until He Himself, through His servant whom He filled with His Spirit for that purpose, drew it out and revealed it; this Divine Truth of His Word drawn from His Word by Himself and by Him given to men and angels, is surely a Body as Divine as was that assumed through Mary.

     And in this Body of the Writings equally as in the Word in its letter every man who can be raised up into the mount of love to the Lord can see--as did Peter, James and John on the mount of Transfiguration-the Divine Glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Himself, who is our Heavenly Father and the only true and living God, shines forth through every truth of the Word and the Writings. By the Word alone--by the Word in human minds--is He present in the world: and in the Word He reveals Himself as the living God Man to every one who seeks Him. Amen.

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CORRESPONDENCES OF CANAAN 1909

     CHAPTER IX.

     THE CANAANITES. (Concluded.)

     97. The Amorites. Besides the specific Canaanites, directly descended from the original stock, a great number of other tribes are included under the general term of "Canaanites." They were probably side-lines, more or less mixed with remnants of the Aborigines. Of these tribes the most powerful were the Amorites, who first appeared on the western shore of the Dead Sea, in the neighborhood of Engeddi, but later on took possession of the eastern bank of the Jordan, founding there the kingdoms of Heshbon and Bashan, some centuries before the time of Moses.

     The name of this people was derived from the root amar, to show, declare, say, say, to boast, to be lofty, and it was given to them either on account of their proud and arrogant character, or because of their lofty stature,--perhaps for both reasons. The prophet Amos says of them that "their height was like the height of the cedars, and he was strong as the oak." (2:9) Very likely they derived this gigantic size, as well as their evil tendencies, from intermarriages with the remnant of the Rephaim who preceded them in the land of Gilead and Eashan.

     At any rate, when the Israelites were about to invade the land of Canaan, we find two giant kings, both of the stock of the Rephaim, reigning over the Amorites: Sihon, king of Heshbon, and Og, king of Bashan, and these two were the most formidable of all the chieftains who opposed the children of Israel. But Sihon was beaten at Jakaz, and Og at Edrei. Afterwards, when the remnant of the Amorites saw that the cities of Jericho and if had been taken by Israel, five of their "kings" united in a last stand to oppose the invaders with an army of three hundred thousand men, (probably purely representative figures). These, also, were overthrown by Israel, first at Gibeon, and finally at Merom. A remnant of the tribe survived in some mountain fastnesses near Jilt. Hermon, where they existed even in the time of Solomon.

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     In the Word the Amorites sometimes stand for the Canaanites in general, (as in Genesis 15:16, Joshua 24:18, Judges 6:10), and this agrees with the fact that Palestine is first mentioned in the Assyrian inscriptions under the name of Mat Amurru, the land of the Amorites. Hence this people signified "evil in general, because the land of Canaan was called the land of the Amorites signifying all the nations of the land of Canaan, by which are signified evils and falses specifically. Hence by the Amorites are signified all evils in general." (A. C. 1857.)

     More specifically the Amorites "signify evils originating not so much from falsities of doctrine as from the lusts of the loves of self and the world." (A. C. 6859) But the five kings of the Amorites, (because kings signify leading principles of truth or falsity), "represent those who are in the falses of evil, and who will destroy the truths of good in the Church; wherefore they were slain by hailstones from heaven; which signifies that they were destroyed and perished by their own falses of evil." (A. E. 503.) As they lived chiefly beyond the Jordan, the Amorites signify relatively external evil, opposed to the external good signified by the tribes of Gad and Manasseh, to whom the land of the Amorites was given after the conquest.

     98. The Jebusites were a tribe dwelling to the west of the Jordan, between the Hittites and the Amorites, where they had founded the city of Jebus. This is supposed to be identical with the city of Salem, of which Melchizedek was the king in the time of Abraham. The full name of this city is thought to have been "Jebusalem," (the peace of Jebus). Which after the Israelitish conquest was changed to "Jerusalem." (the vision of peace). However this may be, it is certain that Jerusalem was originally inhabited by Jebusites, who, in the time of Joshua, were governed by King Adonizedek. The latter united with the five kings of the Amorites in opposing the Israelites and was slain at Makkedah. After the death of Joshua the tribe of Judah captured Jerusalem and set it on fire, but the citadel itself remained in the hands of the Jebusites until it was taken by David, (II. Sam. 5:7). Some of the original inhabitants, however, remained unmolested in the city, and it was from one of these, Araunah, that David purchased the threshing floor upon which the temple of Jerusalem was afterwards raised. (II. Sam. 24:20-25)

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The courtesy and generosity of this Jebusite in the transaction present a very pleasing feature of ancient charity. The Jebusites were suffered to remain as tributaries in the city under the reign of Solomon, and continued there even until the return of the Jews from Babylon. (Ezra 9.) "That by the Jebusites are represented those who were in idolatry, but in which there is something of truth, is evident from the fact that they were long tolerated in Jerusalem, and were not driven out of it." (A. C. 6860.)

     99. The Perizzites were a scattered tribe of people dwelling in the forest hill-country of Judah and Ephraim. Their name is supposed to have been derived from a root, paraz, signifying to be scattered about, removed, separated. They are continually mentioned in the lists of Canaanitish tribes, (except in the original genealogy of the sons of Canaan in Genesis 10), but hardly any Particulars are recorded of them. The Writings inform us that the Perizzites signify falsity when the other Canaanites signify evils, A. C. 1868), and this falsity such as originates in the evil of the lusts of the loves of self and the world, (A. C. 6859).

     100. The genites were another somewhat obscure tribe of nomads. In the time of Abraham they possessed part of the land of Canaan itself, but in the time of Moses they pastured their flocks in the neighborhood of Mt. Sinai. Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses, was a Kenite, though he is also spoken of as a priest of the Hebrew Midianites. A portion of this tribe insisted upon joining the Israelites upon their wanderings in the wilderness, and they afterwards received dwellings on the southern border of Judah. (Judges 1:16.) Later on we find some of them in northern Palestine, in the region of Napthali, where Jael, wife of Heber, the Kenite, treacherously slew Sisera, the Syrian captain, in her tent. They always appear to have cultivated friendly relations with the Israelites.

     101. The Girgashites are mentioned together with the Jebusites, but their special territory is unknown. The Kenizzites, the Arkites, the Arvadites, the Kadmonites, the Sinites, and the Zemarites, were all of them small tribes inhabiting the Phoenician seaboard, at the foot of Mt. Lebanon, and represented in general "falsities which are to be expelled from the kingdom of the Lord." (A. C. 1867.) The Hamathites, are mentioned last among the descendants of Canaan.

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They had established quite a powerful kingdom in Caele-Syria with their capital at the city of Hamath on the Orontes.

     102. The Philistines. We come now to a small but important people which, though not Canaanites be direct descent, yet must be classed with them, hot only because of their location within Palestine, but more especially because of their religion, national character, and internal signification. Throughout the greater part of the history of Israel the Philistines figure as the most dangerous and the most persistent of all the enemies of the Church, and for this reason it is necessary to gain a very clear and definite idea of their representation in the Scriptures.

     The land of the Philistines included the whole of the southern coast of Canaan, extending from Joppa to the desert of Shurt a region noted in ancient times for the extreme richness of its soil. The standing corn of the Philistenes, their vineyards, olive groves and wealth, are frequently mentioned in the Word. And besides its natural products, the land was at the same time of great commericial and political importance, commanding as it did the only highway between Egypt and Canaan. Through this region the whole over-land trade between the two countries had to pass, as must also the armies of Egypt, Syria, Assyria and Babylonia in all their military expeditions.

     Their natural situation, as well as their ruling loves, thus made of the Philistines a nation of fighters as well as agriculturists and merchants, able to hold their own against apparently overwhelming odds. And this ability is all the more remarkable from the fact that they never constituted one consolidated monarchy, but always remained a confederation of in- dependent little states, each with its own capital and prince. There were five of these Philistine states, Gaza, Ashdod, Askelon, Gath and Ekron, of which Gaza was the most powerful. Besides agriculture and commerce the Philistines seemed to have attained a considerable degree of external civilization, deriving their arts and sciences from Egypt, while their religion was distinctly influenced by the Phoenicians.

     The Egyptian monuments, with their skillful and characteristic representations of all kinds of peoples and tribes, have preserved care fully drawn picture also of the Pulasatu or Philistines,-tall, formidable men, with fierce countenances, strongly curved noses and cruel eyes and mouths.

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On their head they wore a crown of feathers, almost like the head-dress of the American Indians. Cruelty, treacherous cunning, unrelenting hatred, and unbreakable obstinacy are portrayed in these pictures, and these qualities also stand forth as their chief national characteristics in the Old Testament history.

     The origin of the Philistines is regarded by modern archeologists as shrouded in impenetrable mystery. The genealogical table of Genesis Io tells us, indeed, that Ham begat Mizraim (or Egypt), and that "Mizraim begat Ludim and Anamim, and Lehabim and Naphtukim, and Pathrusim, and Cashluhim, out of whom came Philistim, and Caphtorim."

     It is the words "out of whom came" that have thrown doubt upon the Egyptian origin of the philistines and have opened the door for all kinds of learned conjectures and theories. Some have "proved" that they were Pelasgians, others that they were Cretans, or a remnant of the Hyksos, etc. The Writings of the New Church, however, inform us that all the sons of Mizraim were so many nations, and that the Philistim were "a nation which was thence," (gentem quae inde, A. C. 1196), and we need therefore have no doubt as to their actual Egyptian origin.

     The words "out of whom came" are, however, carefully noted and explained in: the Writings as an unusual expression. "They are not said to have been begotten by those who were from Egypt, but that they came forth because they were not such as reason from natural sciences concerning spiritual and celestial things, and thus make doctrinals for themselves, as did those concerning whom above, but they, [the Philistines], learn the cognitions of faith from another source. . . . Thus the science of the cognitions of faith is distinct from the science of natural things, so that they hardly communicate, wherefore they are not said to have been begotten of them, but that they came forth." (A. C. 1198).     This "other source," from which the Philistines learned the cognitions of faith was Phoenicia, which most especially signifies such cognitions. Because of their Egyptian blood they signify science, but because of their Canaanitish teachers in religion they signify the science of cognitions. The reason for their divergence from the purely Egyptian genius may be found in the fact that they intermingled with remnants of the Nephilim, such as the Avim who preceded them in thk land, and the Anakim who were driven out of Hebron, and from whom came Goliath of Gath and his fearsome relations.

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The name "Philistim" means literally "wanderers," "immigrants," pointing at once to their foreign origin and to their erroneous tenets in the things of religion.

But little is known of the history of the Philistines outside of the references in the Old Testament. They were settled in the land even in the time of Abraham and Isaac, both of whom sojourned among them for many days. At the time of the Exodus they were a strong and formidable people, too powerful to be permanently dislodged by Joshua at the time of the Conquest. During the entire period of the Judges they remained a constant thorn in the side of Israel, the helpless pastoral people being continually infested by the guerilla warfare of the Philistines, who again and again overwhelmed and cruelly oppressed them. Great deliverers, such as Shamgar and Samson, were raised up to save the people, but renewed disobedience to the will of Jehovah continually brought upon them renewed oppression and even the ark was captured. Saul himself was slain by the Philistines at Mt. Gilboa, and no permanent deliverance was effected until David effectually crushed the ancient enemy. After the division of the kingdom into Israel and Judah, the Philistines again raised their heads and began to infest the weakened monarchies, but not as in the time of the Judges, for they now had to fight against the incoming tide of Assyrians, Persians, and finally the Greeks. Gaza held out until the time of Alexander the Great, when, after an obstinate defense of two months, the city was taken and destroyed in the year 332 B. C. Henceforth the Philistines appear no more in history.

The religion of the Philistines was of distinctly Phoenician or Canaanitish character, defiled by the same horrible idols and monstrous practices, such as human sacrifice, etc. Their chief god, Dagon, was only a modification of the old Babylonian fish-god, Dagan or Nin. His female counterpart, the mermaid, Atergatis or Derceto, was the Philistine form of Ashteroth or Ishtar. Beelzebub or Baalzebul was simply a local Baal. Magical practices were greatly in vogue, and ridiculous amulets such as golden mice and "emerods" were venerated.

502

It was a religion degenerated and devastated to the last degree.

     103. The Science of Cognitions. Originally, however, the religion of the Philistines had its proper place in the Theology of the Ancient Church, as did the religions of Egypt and Phoenicia. It was shown above, (n. 46), that in the spiritual economy of the Silver Age Egypt represented and filled the place of Science, the knowledge of natural: things, while Phoenicia and Syria represented cognitions or the knowledge of spiritual things And so, also, Philistia, intermediate between the two, represented the science of cognitions* "the science of the cognitions of faith and charity" (A. C. 1197), "the science of doctrinal things" (A. C. 3365), "the science of the interior things of faith," (A. C. 9340),--in other words, the knowledge of the doctrinals of the Church, reduced to a systematic science, and regarded from a purely scientific point of view,--in short, systematic Theology.
     * In various English versions of the Arcana Coelestia this term has been rendered "the science of knowledges," "the knowledge of knowledges," "the memory-knowledge of "knowledges," etc.,--all of them thoroughly confusing and unintelligible, completely obliterating the distinction between Egypt, Phoenicia and Philistia in the spiritual sense. This distinction can be retained by no other term than that of the original,-scientia cognitioum,--the science of cognitions--"For the sake of those scientifics which are of the spiritual state and life are called cognitions, which are chiefly doctrinal things." (N. J. 51)

     Now, there is nothing essentially wrong in the love of the science of cognitions, or systematic Theology. On the contrary, it is of the utmost importance, inasmuch as there is no way of entering into the Church from the Egypt of Science, or from the Sea of literal conceptions, except by the land of the Philistines, (where Joppa affords the only harbor on the coast), that is, except by systematically studying the coherent doctrines of the Church. Originally, the Philistines were a respectable and necessary people of the Ancient Church. (A. C. 1238, 9340). It is absolutely necessary for one who is to become an interior member of the Church to "sojourn" for a time in the land of the Philistines, to acquire a systematic knowledge of the Heavenly Doctrine, as an exact and coherent science, in the natural memory. It was on this account that Abraham, "who represented the celestial things of faith, sojourned there, and made a covenant with them; similarly Isaac, by whom were represented the spiritual things of faith; but not Jacob, for by him were represented the external things of the Church," (A. C. 1197).

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And David, also, in his days of trouble, found a refuge among the Philistines, in order to represent, prophetically, the supreme fact that the Lord, Himself, in His process of glorification, "adjoined to the doctrine of faith very many things from the science of human cognitions." (A. C. 2726). The Philistines, therefore, had a good representation as well as an evil one, and in the good sense they signify those "who are solely in the doctrinals of faith, and as to life are in good, but in the good of truth." (A. C. 3463.) That is, those who are in the affection of truth for the sake of knowing it, but not yet equally interested in the application of this knowledge to the good of life. Such an affection is unavoidable in the first states of regeneration.

     But in the process of time, as the Philistines confirmed themselves in this love, and refused to conjoin the good of charity to their faith, they became a scandal to their brethren in the Ancient Church, and the name of "Philistine" now began to be applied" to "all those who studied life but little, and doctrine much, and who spoke much about faith, and that salvation is in faith, and yet had no life of faith." (A. C. 1197). Thus Philistinism came to be the generic term for FAITH ALONE, for the state of those "who believe that the mere interior sight of the natural man is the same as faith, and that men are saved by this sight, denying that the good of charity effects anything," (A. E. 386).

     The inevitable result of such a persuasion was the cessation of all spiritual life and growth, the Philistines remaining merely natural men, excusing their filthy lusts and evil life as mere "weakness of the flesh," which would not condemn a true and orthodox believer. And thus they became known as "uncircumcised" Philistines, because the foreskin of self-love was never removed. In correspondence with this internal state they actually rejected the rite of circumcision which was practiced by their Egyptian ancestors.

     Having separated charity from their faith, the tatter now became the opposite of faith, perverting all their truths of doctrine into malignant and monstrous falsities.

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They now set themselves to the work of hatching out a Theology of false doctrines, (still systematic), by which to defend their Persuasion of Faith alone, exactly in the manner in which the Protestant theologians hatched out the doctrines of the Unfree Will, the Vicarious Atonement, the Imputation of the Merit of Christ, and finally predestination, in defending their primary proposition of Salvation by Faith alone. This is what is meant by the words of Isaiah: "Rejoice not thou whole Philistia, because the rod of him that smote thee is broken; for out of the serpent's root shall come forth a cockatrice, and his fruit shall be a fiery flying serpent." (Is. 14:29.)

Thus, by a gradual Process of degeneration, the Philistines became the open, persistent and implacable enemies of genuine religion. They did not want to know the interior truths which demanded the shunning of evils and the works of charity, and therefore they "could not but deny that there is an internal sense of the Word." (A. C. 3427) They loved to "fill up the wells of Abraham with dust," by choking up all interior understanding of the Word by merely literal and scientific interpretations, even as they put out the eyes of Samson, (the truth of the Sense of the Latter). But they took up kindly with the "giants of the race of Anak," the remnant of the direful race of Antediluvians who, like the giants of modern science, believed that Man is the only god in existence and that God is the "noblest production of man." We find a similar alliance at this day between false Theology and monstrous scientific persuasions.

As the Philistenes remained for ages the most Persistent oppressors of Israel, so the corresponding spirits of faith alone are most persistently infesting every regenerating man of the Church. The very Possession of interior truth is continually used by them to suggest the idea of salvation by faith alone, and generally the fight against them is no better than the struggles of Israel against the Philistines. The combat is the fight of a life-time, and no mere man can conquer them. But the Divine Truth, in the letter and in the spirit, will be too strong for them in the end. They may cut off the hair of Samson, put out his eyes, and compel him to grind in their prison house, bound in unbreakable chains. They may pervert the true meaning of the literal sense, destroy its genuine understanding, and make it confirm their false dogmas.

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But the day of Judgment has come upon them. The hair of Samson has begun to grow again, and his power to return to his mighty arms. The truth of the letter has been restored, and by this very letter even the simple can now overthrow the two main pillars of the temple of the Philistines,--the doctrines of Faith alone and the Vicarious Atonement. For the Divine David, the Lord in His Second Coming, has now come to deliver His people, and though the Giants may laugh at the very idea of an internal sense in the Word, they are ultimately doomed to destruction by a sling-shot in their forehead from a smooth stone out of the Brook of the new Divine Revelation.

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Council of the Clergy And The Joint Councils 1909

Council of the Clergy And The Joint Councils F. E. WAELCHLI 1909

     Of The

     General Church of the New Jerusalem

     The Council of the Clergy AND THE Joint Councils OF THE General Church of the New Jerusalem The Council of the Clergy held its thirteenth annual meeting at Toronto, Ont., from Tuesday, June 22d, to Saturday, June 26th, in the building of the Olivet Church. The members of the Olivet Church continued the custom inaugurated at Glenview last year, of arranging that the ministers each day have dinner together. This is a feature of the meetings that is much enjoyed.

     There were present Bishop Pendleton; Pastors, Bowers, Alden, Price, Odhner, Waelchli, Synnestvedt, Acton, Gladish, Doering, Cronlund, Caldwell; Minister, Iungerich.

     On Tuesday morning the reports of the ministers were read. They indicated growth and progress in the work of the Church. No reports were received from the Messrs. Boyesen, Stebbing, Brown, Stroh, C. R. Pendleton and Wm. Whitehead.

     The Rev. David Klein reported that, owing to ill health, he had been obliged to discontinue his work at Glenview, and is at present living at Hendersonville, N. C. A letter from him to the Bishop was also read, and, on motion, it was RESOLVED, that the Bishop be requested to express to Mr. Klein the sympathy of the members of the Council and the hope that he may soon be restored to health and resume his work.

     On motion, it was RESOLVED, that the name of the Rev. J. E. Boyesen be dropped from the list of ministers of the General Church.

     THE FRIENDSHIP OF LOVE.

     On Tuesday afternoon the Council took up for consideration the question on the docket: WHAT IS THE CORRECT INTERPRETATION OF THE PASSAGE CONCERNING THE FRIENDSHIP OF LOVE? (T. C. R. 446.)

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     Mr. Price: The heading of the section reads: "The friendship of love contracted with a person, whatsoever he be as to his spirit, is detrimental after death." This strongly has the appearance that the friendship of love is not a good thing under any circumstances.

     Bishop Pendleton: The teaching of the section shows what the heading means, namely, friendship of love contracted without regard to the quality of: the person. The simple good and young people enter into such friendship of love, and are often deceived. A kind of reformation then takes place, in the course of which their eyes are opened. Illustrations of such reformation of the simple good in the other world are given in the Writings. But friendship of love which regards the spiritual quality of another is a different thing, for it is good. All the angels of heaven are consociated by it. Without it conjugial love and mutual love would come to an end.

     Mr. Gladish: I have understood the teaching somewhat differently. In no other place in the Writings is the term "friendship of love" used. It seems to apply to those who take an external friendship and exalt it above its place and make an internal thing of it, which is always forbidden. The term seems to be a technical one, designating an evil thing, which is condemned. We are to love others for their qualities, and thence love their persons; then, should we be deceived, a separation can easily be effected.

     Mr. Odhner: I doubt whether we can say that Swedenborg invented a special term for this thing, and that friendship of love is always evil The Writings speak of the friendship of conjugial love. What would friendship be without love, or love without friendship?

     Mr. Acton: We find no terms in the Writings used in a purely technical and limited sense. Every term has a general force and application.

     Bp. Pendleton: The number teaches discrimination. It is by the friendship of love without discrimination that the simple good are dragged down. Those in rational good are not deceived, and the Church is to come into rational good. The term qualiscumque in the heading has the force of our colloquial expression "any one who comes along,"--the friendship of love contracted with any one who comes along is detrimental after death.

     At the close of this session Mr. Alden gave a brief account of the meetings of the General Convention and its Council of Ministers, at which he was present.

     THE THIRD DEGREE OF THE PRIESTHOOD.

     On Tuesday evening the subject THE INTRODUCTION OF ANOTHER MINISTER INTO THE THIRD DEGREE OF THE PRIESTHOOD was taken up for consideration.

     Mr. Waelchli read a series of resolutions proposing action in this matter and the method of procedure.

508

He then offered the first of these resolutions, seconded by Mr. Cronlund, as follows:

     Resolved, That this Council endeavor at its present meeting to choose a man to be recommended by it to the Bishop for introduction into the third degree of the priesthood

     Mr. Waelchli: This subject has been before us on several occasions. Three years ago a vote was taken and a man was chosen by a vote that was nearly unanimous. He declined, and the matter was left to the Consistory, which reported next gear that it was not advisable to proceed at that time. Last year at Glenview it was thought inadvisable to do anything on account of the small number in attendance; but it was said that something should soon be done.

     Mr. Caldwell: What are the reasons for taking action?

     Mr. Waelchli: There is work for a man in this office. Besides, we should make provision to have a Bishop in our body in case our present Bishop should be unexpectedly called away from us. If left without a Bishop, we should be in a predicament. It would be better that provision be made in a distinctly orderly way.

     Mr. Iungerich: Would the introduction of a man into the third degree take him out of his present use?

     Mr. Waelchli: Not necessarily.

     Bp. Pendleton: A man might be introduced into the third degree without being recognized as a Bishop in the General Church.

     Mr. Odhner: Such a man might be the one chosen to be the Bishop of the General Church or he might not. He might perform the service of consecration for the one who is chosen to be Bishop. On former occasions the wish was expressed by many, myself included, that the continuity in the third degree be preserved by the unbroken descent, by means of ordination, from one in that degree to the one who comes after him. Many considerations, mostly of an academic nature, were advanced in favor of this. If the Church were larger I could see the desirability of there being in the highest degree not only one, but a number of men. But the discussion of this question from time to time has shown that there ought to be actual functions connected with the office, or it would be more or less an empty title. If there were such functions, I would be very earnestly in favor of choosing one or more for introduction into that degree. It has been for some time insisted that the Bishop needs assistance in his episcopal work; but lately we have seen that there is not anything special calling for assistance. It has been supposed that the Bishop could be assisted by appointing a substitute to attend the district assemblies. This would be a great disappointment to the district assemblies, and possibly also to the Bishop.

     Mr. Caldwell: When Mr. Bostock was proposed he felt objection to the title without the function. He did not have much episcopal work to perform.

     Mr. Waelchli: No doubt work would have developed, had Mr. Bostock remained with us.

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     Mr. Acton: He performed episcopal uses in England.

     Mr. Doering: I feel rather strongly in this matter. Our Bishop's function should be largely that of counsel and advice. I have frequently been unable to obtain the counsel I wished, because the Bishop was so overworked with details that someone else could attend to. We should save the Bishop's strength for the highest and most essential work, which is that of counsel and guidance, and leave a lot of practical details for someone else.

     Mr. Odhner: What episcopal work could be turned over to another?

     Mr. Doering: Correspondence with the various centers. If the Bishop had more time, that work might be developed much more than it is. Another thing is the tax upon the Bishop's strength by his attending district assemblies, especially in the winter time.

     Bp. Pendleton: At present the most exacting thing is the pastoral work in Bryn Athyn.

     Mr. Odhner: If the Bishop had assistance in the pastoral work in Bryn Athyn, he would have more time for episcopal work

     Mr. Gladish: The Bishop remarked in Glenview that, because of failing strength, he felt that we ought soon to provide a man in the third degree.

     Bp. Pendleton: I still feel so about it, and the matter should not be put off too long, if we desire to preserve the succession.

     Mr. Gladish: I should very much like to see it done for the sake of preserving the succession. We can hardly afford to risk that.

     Mr. Bowers: The introduction of a man into the episcopal degree for the sake of the succession, is important. We hope our present Bishop may be with us for many years. But we can never be sure. Changes sometimes take place very unexpectedly.

     Bp. Pendleton: It might be well to consider what should be done in case there were a vacancy without provision having been made. It is well to have some foresight as to the best procedure. It ought not to be considered so great a calamity that there could be no remedy.

     Mr. Waelchli: Two ways were suggested when this point was considered on a former occasion:

     1. That a man be introduced into the office by one or more of the pastors of the General Church.

     2. That some General Pastor of the Convention be invited to perform the function.

     Mr. Gladish: Why not go ahead while we are able, and so guard against danger?

     Mr. Odhner: If we are to have the third degree represented by more than our present Bishop, there should be the introduction of not only one man, but of a number of men, so that a choice could be made when the time arrives to choose a Bishop. To choose but one man would practically be to appoint an assistant Bishop, rather than the introduction of a man into the third degree for the sake of preserving the succession.

     Mr. Waelchli: It is well to go slowly in a matter of this kind.

510

Let us choose but one man now, and if at the end of a year we think it well to choose another, we can do so then.

     Mr. Acton: Is the one proposed to be recommended to be considered as an assistant to the Bishop?

     Mr. Waelchli: The resolution does not contemplate that. It proposes nothing more than the introduction of a man into the third degree. The choice of an assistant to the Bishop would not rest with the Church. That question is not before us. The situation is the same as when a man is introduced into the first degree. After the ordination comes the question as to what work he will do.

     Mr. Acton: Is it not under the Bishop's jurisdiction to select a man for introduction into the third degree?

     Mr. Waelchli: The resolution proposes to choose a man to be recommended by the Bishop.

     Mr. Gladish: By selecting a man for recommendation we will simply be doing what the Bishop has asked us to do.

     Mr. Acton: The introduction of a man into the third degree is fully in the Bishop's jurisdiction, and if he wishes to consult the Council he can do so. I suppose there is no objection to the Council proffering advice, though it is not at all necessary. But when it comes to the appointing of an assistant Bishop, the order of the Church is that the nomination should proceed from this body. Such is the case with the appointment of a Bishop, and I presume it would be the same in the case of an assistant Bishop. Ordination lies with the Bishop alone, the recognition of one ordained lies with the Bishop in consultation with the Council.

     Bp. Pendleton: When Mr. Bostock was ordained he was at the same time recognized as a Bishop of the General Church.

     Mr. Acton: I would suggest that Mr. Waelchli's resolution read "to be introduced into the third degree, and recognized as a Bishop in the General Church." If mere ordination is desired, I do not see that we need to take any concerted action. The Bishop knows the sentiments of the members pretty well.

     Mr. Waelchli: The Bishop has placed the matter before this Council. At the time when Mr. Bostock was chosen, the Bishop made nominations, and the Council balloted on the nominations. On a later occasion the Bishop indicated that he would like to have a recommendation from this Council as to the man. A man was chosen, but the Bishop did not act upon the recommendation, because it was not unanimous.

     Bp. Pendleton: The Consistory at that time advised that nothing be done in the matter. The Bishop ordains according to his own judgment, and he could exercise his own judgment in this case; but it is a very important matter, and he prefers to consult the Council with regard to it, even though only introduction into the third degree is contemplated, without reference to the General Church.

     Mr. Caldwell: The only reason for such action would be to provide for the succession. Still, such a man might be called open at any time to perform episcopal functions.

511

It would be quite proper for the presiding Bishop to call upon him to perform any function.

     Mr. Doering: If one were introduced into the third degree, such functions would be in the nature of preparation, and the Church would have an opportunity to see how good a Bishop he was likely to be.

     Mr. Acton: I should like to ask the Bishop if he thinks it desirable that the recommendation of a man for introduction into the third degree be accompanied by recommendation that he be recognized as a Bishop in the General Church.

     Bp. Pendleton: I think it would be wise to take one step at a time.

     Mr. Odhner: If my mind were clear as to the undoubted qualifications of some one man above any one else, I might favor action. But Providence has not indicated this to my mind. In the meantime, the Consistory has been established, looking towards adding members to it from time to time, and this has allayed my anxiety in this matter. In case of the demise of our head, the Consistory could meet and call the Council of the Clergy together and consider measures to be taken. The Consistory is a small body, close to the center, which could consult immediately as an ideal condition, I believe in having quite a number of Bishops, especially the oldest and wisest men in the Church, who would constitute the third degree in the priesthood. I believe that this may come some time. But to appoint only one is somewhat like appointing a successor. I do not know that we are prepared for that. I hope the present Bishop will live for many years, and in the meantime other ministers are growing up. I think the question as to who is the next man for the office is becoming clearer, but perhaps it is not yet clear enough.

     Mr. Cronlund: If a man were ordained into the third degree, would he not wear the red stole?

     Bp. Pendleton: Yes; but that would simply mean his recognition in that degree, but not his recognition in our body as of that degree. The case is somewhat like that of baptism. A man is introduced into the Church by baptism, but not into the General Church. So a man is ordained as a minister of the New Church, and the next step is to recognize him as a minister of the General Church.

     At this point the discussion was interrupted by the arrival of a telegram announcing the decision of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania in the Kramph Appeal. The subject of the Third Degree was then laid on the table, and the rest of the evening was devoted to a consideration of the decision.

     THE NEW LITURGY.

     The session on Wednesday morning was devoted to the reading of a manuscript REVIEW by Dr. FRANK SEWALL, OF THE NEW LITURGY OF THE GENERAL CHURCH.

512

At Mr. Acton's request, Dr. Sewall had presented it to this Council for perusal. As this review may be published in the Life, we present herewith the comments made on certain points by the ministers.

     The omission of the doctrine concerning conjugial love under the General Doctrine. The reason for this is that this doctrine is given in the ritual on Marriage.

     In the General Doctrine references are not given to the Writings showing the source of the doctrine. This is because in most cases the doctrine is collected from various parts of the Writings, and the wording is in many cases somewhat altered.

     The prayers are not classified. They are classified in the index at the end of the book. By means of this index prayers; suitable for an occasion can be found. This arrangement has the advantage that the same prayer can appear under different: headings. If a prayer has a heading, its use is apt to be limited. For example, there is a prayer for the New Year, which might well be used also on other occasions. Should it bear the heading "The New Year," it would probably be used at that time only.

     The people may not know when the close of a prayer has been reached so as to respond "Amen." The Bishop stated that Dr. Sewall is right in this, so far as concerns a number of the prayers which do not have a suitable close. There should be something in the wording of a prayer which indicates that the close has been reached, so that there may be a prompt response of "Amen." It would be well for the ministers to prepare such a close where it is lacking. If anyone wishes to study the subject of prayers, he can find two large commentaries on the Book of Common Prayers of the Episcopal Church. These should be carefully over by anyone studying the subject in the future.

     The use of "in the name" instead of "into the name" in the administration of baptism. Some of the ministers inclined to Dr. Sewall's view, and in support of it reference was made to the passage in T. C. R. which says that a man by baptism "takes upon himself the name of Christ," which idea is better expressed by the word "into." Others held that the idea to be expressed is that the minister performs the rite in the name of the Lord.

     No prayer for the absent at the close of the Holy Supper service. The Bishop said that there is something in what Dr. Sewall says on this point.

513

Herein we have another indication that a man who prepares a complete liturgy should give his whole life to it. Dr. Sewall has done this, and his suggestions are valuable. Mr. Acton suggested that the ministers could add such a prayer for the whole Church to the Holy Supper service.

     The Lord's Prayer not in the Holy Supper service. It probably escaped the reviewer's notice that the rubric calls for the Lord's Prayer after the closing prayer at the end of the service. The reason why it was not put into the service itself was to avoid the too frequent occurrence of the Prayer at the same services. It was mentioned that at one of our General Assemblies the Lord's Prayer was used four times: first, at the opening; second, during a baptism; third, at confirmation; fourth, at the Holy Supper. This seems to be too frequent a use of it.

     The minister's communion apart from the people. Customs in this matter differ. In some societies of Convention the minister partakes first, especially when more than one officiates; in another he partakes with the last table; or, when the bread is distributed to the congregation in their seats, together with the people. Our custom is that the people come to the altar for the Holy Supper, and we have come to prefer having the minister partake after the people. Mr. Odhner remarked that the service as it is in our liturgy appeals to him strongly. While the minister is partaking, the people have an opportunity to pray for the priesthood and for the prosperity of its work in the Church.

     The antiphons are on a doctrinal basis instead of on the history of Lord's life on earth. The Bishop said that the idea of the Christian Year is in the antiphons, and they can be used with reference to it. By experience we shall in time find out whether this is the best way or not. He had studied the subject of the Christian Year, and found that he could not satisfactorily use it as a basis for the services. He did not feel at all inclined to use the terms epiphany, lent, and the like, as they bring with them too much of an Old Church sphere. He agreed that there is something in the idea of the Christian year, but the difficulty is to properly introduce it into the worship of the New Church. As said, it is involved in the order of the antiphons, and it is worth while to give this plan a trial. He was not sure that it would be permanent. It is true we are inclined to be too didactic, and it is difficult to get away from this.

514

     No collection of introits. This is because if there were one, these selections would not be used for other purposes.

     Too high pitch of much of the music. Most of the ministers agreed with this criticism.

     Liberties taken with classical music. Mr. Caldwell contended that this is no unusual thing. In the last Episcopal Hymnal by Parker it is done to a far greater extent than in our liturgy. There must be room for growth, by adapting and revising things already existing.

     In the antiphons it is often difficult to trace the connection between the minister's part and the people's response. The Bishop said that this was the most difficult part of the work on the liturgy. He often had to seek for hours for a suitable passage. It is a work to be perfected in the course of time.

     On motion of the Messrs. Synnestvedt and Doering, the following resolutions were unanimously adopted:

     Whereas, Dr. Frank Sewall has presented to the Council for its perusal his Review of the Liturgy for the General Church, and

     Whereas, the Council has listened to this critical and valuable review with both interest and profit,

     Resolved, that the Council hereby expresses its great appreciation of Dr. Sewall's courtesy, and

     Resolved, that the Council hereby expresses its earnest desire to see Dr. Sewall's review put in permanent form in the pages of New Church Life.

     Resolved, that Mr. Acton be and is hereby authorized to transmit a copy of this preamble and resolutions to Dr. Sewall.

     The Bishop remarked that these resolutions, if published, will show that we are willing to work with the men of the Convention and of the English Conference whenever we can.

     THE THIRD DEGREE OF THE PRIESTHOOD.

     On Wednesday afternoon the resolution concerning THE INTRODUCTION OF A MINISTER INTO THE THIRD DEGREE OF THE PRIESTHOOD was taken from the table.

     Mr. Waelchli: I believe there would be episcopal work far a man introduced into the third degree.

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Not only could he enter into some of the work the Bishop is now performing, but new uses would develop. New uses are developed according to the genius of the man who fills an office. Another man introduced into the third degree would develop new episcopal uses which would be of benefit to the General Church. Besides, I am disposed to give more weight to the matter of the succession than some others are. It is important that the succession be preserved. If in the coming year we should be suddenly and unexpectedly deprived of our Bishop, we would regret at our next meeting that we had not taken action. If we should be confronted with such a situation, not only would we then regret it, but all coming generations of the Church would regret that the orderly succession had not been preserved at the time when there was full opportunity to do it, there is no valid reason why it should not be done. However, I am not disposed to push the matter, if the resolution before us is not passed by a well-nigh unanimous vote; for this would indicate that it would not be wise to take action at this meeting. In such case I should introduce the same resolution next year.

     Mr. Alden: We need to spare our Bishop for those uses of counsel to which Mr. Doering referred yesterday, which are of the utmost value to the Church, and which the Bishop alone can perform. I believe that another should be introduced into the third degree, to relieve the Bishop so far as it may at all be possible.

     Mr. Synnestvedt: I agree with Mr. Alden, but, at the present time, the things which most interfere with our getting the maximum benefit from the Bishop are not episcopal duties. They are the pastoral and less than pastoral duties is Bryn Athyn which require the services of a young assistant, who can stand beside him and relieve him of the strain. But another point needs to be considered. The Bishop has developed through his lifetime of study and use and experience a sort of body of principles and maxims, an insight into the workings of the human mind, especially in connection with the New Church. It seems to me a wise policy that someone be chosen who may stand near enough to him to take a hand in the work he is doing, so that he may take over the increments of his wisdom more fully than could otherwise be done. The Bishop had that benefit from Bishop Benade, when he was chosen a Bishop. I believe that on any interior point, Bishop Benade was always ready with wise counsel, even to very near the end. I am in favor of placing someone in a position to get the benefit of apprenticeship in episcopal work, so that in the sphere of the use there may be preparation for the actual performance of the use. But the real difficulty lies in the matter of making a choice. We all know that the choice lies between two men. For my part, I am not yet able to decide between them. Each has certain excellent qualities fitting him for the position; and each also has qualities which cause something of doubt. Time must be given that the indications may become stronger. I could not at this time cast a vote that would mean anything.

     Mr. Caldwell: There should be strong reasons for taking action at present.

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If it can be shown that the necessity of providing for the succession and of the performance of certain uses is urgent, and that there are one or two men who measure up to the standard, it would clear the matter and enable me to vote intelligently. As to having one or two in preparation, who can gather the accumulated wisdom of the Bishop, it seems to me that the Consistory answers that purpose.

     Mr. Odhner: If there were the necessity of choosing a new Bishop, the same difficulties would appear; but that necessity does not now exist. The only principles involved are those of succession and of training. As to succession, we must remember that there would be succession even if it should fall back upon a pastor to ordain a Bishop. All the ministers have been ordained into the priesthood of the New Church by the laying on of hands. If the episcopal office should lapse, by the death of an incumbent, then the powers of this office would fall back to the next degree; and if the whole second degree should die, then the powers would fall back to the first degree; and if the whole first degree should die, then the power would fall back upon the people, and a new priesthood would be raised up. The potency is there. The Writings warn us against the "Apostolic Succession" claimed by the Roman and Anglican Churches. When the New Church was first organized there was no "Apostolic succession," but a new succession was inaugurated through the laying on of hands, derived from the Lord alone, indeed, but through the people There was in the Church the love of the salvation of souls which is the priestly love, before there was a distinctive priesthood, and this love still resides with the people, even though it has been expressed and set apart into a distinct office. I do not believe that we would go to any minister of the Convention to ordain a Bishop for us; for it would be much more orderly that the spirit pass through the pastors of our own Church. Training for the episcopal office involves intimate association with our present Bishop. This all the ministers in Bryn Athyn enjoy. To set apart one and say, "You are in training for the office," would virtually be choosing him as successor. But this would not be the case if more than one were chosen.

     Mr. Iungerich: If there were uses for Mr. Bostock, the same uses must exist now.

     Mr. Doering: I have talked about this matter with a number of laymen, not only in Bryn Athyn, but elsewhere, and found them quite anxious about it.

     Mr. Caldwell: People have asked me why something is not done.

     Mr. Alden: I would suggest that two persons be voted for.

     Mr. Doering: Such action might leave the Church in a freer state.

     Mr. Cronlund: Something should be done. The Bishop said last year that he thought it would be well if he could be relieved of certain of his duties. Even if there were not many duties for another in the third degree, it would not matter. It does not seem to me that there would be any irregularity in introducing another into the third degree at the present time. It would be a worse irregularity if a man had to be ordained by other means.

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     Mr. Waelchli: It is evident that we are not prepared to make a choice at this meeting. Still, we would advance a step towards a choice if a ballot were taken, indicating, Bs far as possible, who are the men whom the members of this Council have in view as most desirable for introduction into the third degree. Those desiring to put the names of two men on their ballot could do so, and when the result of the vote is announced it can be stated that a certain number of ballots had two names, and these names be given.

     Mr. Acton: This matter has come up year after year, and I have been consistently opposed to taking any action. I felt that the strong underlying ground influencing those who advocated action was the succession, and while I am not blind to the force of arguments advanced, it still seems to me that we can well leave this matter in the hands of the Divine Providence. So long as there was only that indication, I felt that we had better wait. Mr. Benade used to say that the meaning of the Divine words that a thing was not to be established at the mouth of one witness, but at the mouth of two or three, is that there should be more than one indication for doing a thing. So there should be more than the indications of the possible loss of succession. There should be practical indication that a man is needed for a use. Even the thought that our Bishop might be taken away, may be turned to use in advancing our knowledge of the doctrine; we need not consider contingencies, but do what is wisest or seems wisest at this time. But last year at Glenview there seemed to be more indication of a use, and this year I am beginning to feel that there really is a use to be performed, a practical use, in relieving the Bishop in such ways as he may deem best. My objections to action are, therefore, removed. I put it in this negative way, for this best expresses my state of thought in the matter.

     Bp. Pendleton: The principal relief needed is in the pastoral work, and there is the prospect of some relief in this direction. There is not a great deal that could be done in the way of relief from episcopal work. I am somewhat troubled about England. I have been there only once since the General Church started. I would be very glad if one of the ministers could go there this year, or every year. Of course, if one or two men mere introduced into the third degree, they could go; but it would not be necessary for them to be introduced in order to do so. I would greatly rejoice if the General Church could see any way by which one of our ministers could be sent over. As for uses in this country, there would be use in association with one or two in that degree. I see no objection to it. But we should consider conditions as they really are. I agree with Mr. Odhner that we ought not to consider the succession as the prime reason. There ought to be reasons of actual use as the prime thing. There is an anxiety in the Church as to one being taken away and leaving the office vacant. But that does not appear to me as a prime reason for action. I do not wish my remarks to convey the idea that I am averse to action. I would be glad, especially if there should be a unanimous expression in regard to one or more men, to act according to it.

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If action were not unanimous, I should be in doubt as to whether I should do anything.

     Mr. Acton: It is very evident that unanimity is not now possible, and I would therefore move that I would therefore move that the matter be laid upon the table. Seconded.

     Mr. Doering: I think an expression by vote, such as Mr. Waelchli proposed, would be valuable.

     Mr. Odhner: The ministers would be left in greater freedom if no action is taken, since unanimity is not possible. Both the men who have been spoken of are growing men, and the indication as to which is the one will become more and more clear in time.

     The motion to lay on the table was lost.

     Mr. Alden offered the following substitute for the resolution before the meeting: Resolved, that the sense of this body be determined by ballot as to one or more persons who might be considered by the Council as suitable for introduction into the third degree of the priesthood. Seconded and carried.

     A ballot was taken with the result that one of the ministers received three votes; another, one vote; both of these ministers on the same ballot, five votes; while three ballots were blank.

     The question of sending a minister to England, brought up by the Bishop, was further considered.

     Bp. Pendleton: It would be a great relief to me if the Joint Meeting of this Council and the Executive Committee could decide to send some man to England this summer.

     Mr. Odhner: If a minister cannot be sent this year, then it should by all means be done next year; for we have been invited to send a representative to the centenary of the London Swedenborg Society. We ought to send a representative to the unveiling of the sarcophagus for Swedenborg, in Upsala, which will take place soon afterwards. At the same time and place there will be a celebration of the two hundredth anniversary of the Literary Society of Upsala, of which Swedenborg was a member. Our Church and Academy ought to be represented on these occasions.

     On motion of the Messrs. Price and Cronlund, it was Resolved, that it is the sense of this meeting that the Bishop or some representative be sent to England each year to attend the British Assembly.

     THE ANNUAL ADDRESS.

     On Wednesday evening a public session was held, opened with worship conducted by Bishop Pendleton.

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     The Rev. Alfred Acton then delivered the Annual Address. Mr. Acton, in opening, said that he had not been able to prepare a written address, but instead he would present to the meeting an account of some work that has been done on the Writings, namely, 1. A work of reference that is being prepared. 2. A reconstruction of the missing work on Marriage.

     The former work, the speaker explained, consisted of a collection of every reference made by Swedenborg, whether in indexes or in text, to any passage of the Writings The work had been commenced by the speaker, and continued for a short time by the late Mr. Reuben Walker, but the great bulk of it had been done by Mr. Ernst F. Robinson, who had nearly completed it. The special value of this work was dwelt upon and illustrated, as giving Swedenborg's own interpretation of the passages of the Writings. Steps are to be taken to have the work published if possible.

     The second work consisted of a reconstruction in numerical or paragraphal order of the missing work on Marriage, of which we have only the two Indexes prepared by Swedenborg. One of these indexes covers the whole work from no. 1 to 2054, but gives only brief references, covering mainly chapters, the subheadings of chapters, experiences in the spiritual world, and the Memorable Relations. The other index covers only nos. 1-83, but it is very full and complete.

     A study of these two indexes had led the speaker to the following conclusions:

     1. That Swedenborg had sketched at some length a work on Marriage, indicating in general terms the subject to be treated in each of 2006 paragraphs. The speaker illustrated this by reference to the Canons, which in brief paragraphs indicates what was to be further developed in the True Christian Religion. A comparison of the Canons with this latter work had led him to the conclusion that the relation between these two works was a good illustration of the relation between the Missing Work on Marriage and our Conjugial Love.

     2. After finishing the first sketch, Swedenborg added a sketch sometimes merely a title, of seven supplementary chapters which were to be incorporated in suitable places when the work came to be written out.

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     3. Swedenborg then proceeded to write out the work on the basis of this sketch to which he strictly adhered. But he proceeded no further than no. 83, after which the work, or at any rate, its indexing, was abandoned.

     4. He then sketched a new Table of Contents, which is identical with the Table of Contents of the Work on Conjugial Love; and on the basis of this Table he proceeded to write and complete the published work. In writing it he makes extensive use of the sketches already prepared, as indicated by his marginal references written on the Table of Contents. In this connection, the speaker suggested that where quotation-marks are used in the published work, they perhaps indicate verbatim citations from the preceding sketches. While the Published work and its predecessors have much in common, yet there is the most marked variation between them, especially in this, that the preceding work dwells in detail on subjects only briefly treated of in the published work. It was quite evident that a study of the missing work, even if only as reconstructed from the indexes, would throw much light on the teachings of the published work; and still more would this be the case, when we discover the works themselves to which these indexes refer. The fact that those works were written was sufficient justification for the hope that they would be found when they were needed for the growth of the Church.

     Bp. Pendleton: Mr. Acton has placed before us a most remarkable and very valuable study on the missing work. I hope it can be printed. The work of reference also will be very valuable to students of the Writings, and sheds much light on the Writings. This kind of scholarly work is what the Academy is organized for. Efforts have been made to prove that no such work on Conjugial Love ever existed, but Mr. Acton has, I think, proved that it was written. Whether it has been preserved in this world, we do not know; but it is preserved in the other world and is in use there.

     Me. Price thought that the strongest argument in favor of the work having been written was the fact that the index is alphabetical and not a mere outline of subjects.

     Mr. Caldwell asked whether the reference in the Arcana to the Worship and Love of God had been verified.

     Mr. Acton answered that Swedenborg had made no such reference; it had been inserted by the English translator of the Index to the Arcana, where it occurs under the word Cause.

     Bishop Pendleton commented on the size of the missing work as compared to the published work which contains only about five hundred paragraphs.

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     Mr. Iungerich suggested that the missing work as reconstructed by Mr. Acton could be published in installments in one of the New Church magazines. He also testified to the value of the reference work done by Mr. Robinson. He had had the use of this work and had copied the references to each number into the margin at that number in his copies of the Writings.

     Mr. Carswell: There should be with us a feeling of gratitude that there is an institution where men have the time and the spirit to do such work. The meeting closed with the singing of a hymn and the benediction.

     THE ACADEMY SCHOOLS.

     On Thursday morning the subject considered was the Rule adopted by the Academy that pupils cannot graduate from the College or the Seminary unless they have been in attendance for two years.

     Mr. Waelchli: I should like to understand fully the reasons for the adoption of this rule. Would it apply to a pupil who is so far advanced in studies as to be able to cover the necessary ground for graduation in one year? I believe one of the chief reasons for the rule is that it is found that two years are necessary for a pupil to be Initiated fully into the sphere of the school. But are there not pupils, coming from the New Church homes and trained in our local schools, and afterwards, although attending High School, having their life in the sphere of a Church society, who readily enter into the school sphere at Bryn Athyn?

     Bp. Pendleton: The rule applies especially to those who have not been in a New Church sphere.

     Mr. Doering: The faculty has put on record what has been recognized as a fact that it is the policy of the school not to give diplomas unless there has been a two years' residence. Although a pupil may have had a good course in the sciences, and in some respects be even better prepared than our own students, yet he will be far behind in many things that are distinctively of our work, as in history and archeology, which are taught in a way that is peculiar to us, and is not to be found elsewhere I doubt whether a pupil could do this work in one year. Then there is the teaching of Swedenborg's science. A pupil cannot get all that is required in this line in one year. The same can be said of the systematic instruction in religion. There is also the school sphere. It is the exceptional pupil mat gets into the gyre of the school-life in one year. Parents should not look to the graduation of their children per se, but to the education which is given, for this is the important thing. If a pupil attending only one year should show that he is fully initiated into the sphere of the school, and has satisfactorily covered the course, we would consider the case. But we make no promises as to this, and desire that this fact should be clearly understood.

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     Mr. Synnestvedt: We have also found cases such as Mr. Waelchli mentions, of Pupils coming from New Church homes and who have attended our local schools, who have had certain states super-induced by their attendance at High School, which it was not easy to remove. The role has been made for the school's self-protection. Our diploma or medallion must mean something. Somewhat similar to the step we have taken is the tendency on the part of the universities to arrange for longer courses. They realize that it takes a number of yea's for a student to come into the scholarly sphere of a university.

     Bp. Pendleton: It is a generally recognized principle that there is no rule without exceptions. This applies also in the present case.

     Mr. Caldwell: Those away from the center will appreciate the desire of the Academy in this matter.

     Mr. Doering: I might add that Miss Venita Pendleton went over the course of study of one of the high schools from which we receive pupils, and found that a pupil, after completing it, would need two years to do, our Seminary work, even though well advanced in certain subjects.

     THE TEACHING OF CORRESPONDENCES.

     The next subject considered was WHEN AND HOW TO TEACH CORRESPONDENCES TO THE YOUNG.

     Mr. Caldwell: We first teach the letter of the Word thoroughly. After the age of thirteen or fourteen it seems that children should get something of the internal sense and of correspondences. But we should not take them directly from the letter to doctrine; there must be a transition. For this purpose something might be developed from the Adversaria; as, for example, concerning the personality of the patriarchs and the prophets. I tried something of the kind and found it useful. There should also be something of correspondences given at this time, such as the correspondence of a horse, a garden, and the like.

     Mr. Iungerich: In Bryn Athyn the Memorabilia are used during that period. They are the key which opens the door to the study of doctrine, for they open the other world to the children. In the highest grade of the local school, when teaching the New Testament, we also teach concerning the disciple, and Paul in the other world. As to correspondences, instead of teaching these abstractly, we tell them about the things in the other world, as about forests and gardens there and the state of the people living in them. In the next class above we teach the history of the early Christian Church. In the following year the same more fully, and continued up to the Last Judgment, teaching of the lives of historical characters in the other world. After this comes instruction in morals, from the Doctrine of Charity.

     Mr. Odhner: The proper instruction for the transition period is the internal historical sense. Connected with this are scenes of the other world. In my work in the college I find a remarkable state of preparation to receive more interior instruction on the part of the pupils who have received the teaching spoken of by Mr. Iungerich.

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     Mr. Caldwell: The Bishop once said that comparison must precede correspondence.

     Mr. Price: It is best to begin with the easiest things of correspondence, such as fire and water. It is very easy to teach these; every child can grasp that water cleanses.

     Mr. Cronlund: The Writings tell us that people often speak according to correspondences, without knowing it. This can be made use of in teaching children.

     Bp. Pendleton: The keynote in the study of this subject is to be found in a number in De Verbo. There we are taught that there are three things necessary for entrance into the interiors of the Word: first, correspondences; second, the doctrine of genuine truth; third, illustration. As to correspondences, children cannot enter into them abstractly. There must be preparation for this by comparisons. The doctrine of genuine truth consists of general doctrine as given in the letter of the Word; Church history and the Memorabilia belong to it. The third thing, illustration, is most essential. There must be illustration in the mind of the teacher; for with it there will be affection,--warmth, which affects the child.

     Mr. Odhner: The interior sensual, or the imagination, which is next above the sensual, is what needs to be cultivated as a preparation for the cultivation of the rational. But in this work we must be careful lest instead of imagination there be mere phantasy.

     Mr. Acton: The three things mentioned in De Verbo are not only successive, but also simultaneous. A child that does not feel something of the teacher's affection of truth is not being instructed. When the letter of the Word is taught with affection, the child is receiving its first instruction in correspondences. The affection of the teacher imparts to it the first illustration as his words impart the first knowledges. Mr. Acton also noted the use to be made of the comparisons in the True Christian Religion, and this not only in religious instruction, but in all the teacher's work

     Bp. Pendleton: We need an index to the comparisons in the True Christian Religion.

     Mr. Synnestvedt: We must teach neither comparisons nor correspondences abstractly; and that this may be avoided, we must correlate our religious instruction with other instruction; as, church history with other history, doctrine with science, nature with things that are spiritual. All along, there must be comparisons with things spiritual.

     Mr. Odhner: To understand the doctrine of correspondences, Swedenborg's sketch, the "Fragment on the Soul" should be read, which shows that things corresponding are the spiritual things on the natural plane.

     Mr. Acton: Can any one give any light on the subject of representatives? Abraham and others represented the Lord. What causes a man to represent? Is it the influence of simple spirits that cause him to do and say certain things.

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     Bp. Pendleton: In representation we have the beginning of the drama Abraham was told to do certain things and did them. What he did was a drama, a re-presentation of something internal

     THE TEACHING OF SEXOLOGY.

     On Thursday afternoon one of the subjects considered was WHEN AND HOW TO TEACH CHILDREN CONCERNING SEX MATTERS.

     In the discussion it was brought out that from the beginning of our educational work we have held that children should be instructed concerning these matters. It is also being more and more recognized in the world that this should be done, and many books have been written on the subject. In the Ladies' Home Journal there recently appeared a series of articles upon it, in which the order of instruction advocated was that the teaching begin with the vegetable kingdom and lead up through the lower and higher order of animals and finally to man. In all teaching of this subject the greatest prudence must be exercised; we must not teach things prematurely, nor must we delay beyond the proper time; we must not tell too much, and not too little. Let circumstances and conditions, which we must carefully observe and truly understand, indicate what is to be taught. Each case must be treated individually. While we can learn much that is useful in regard to such instruction from books published on the subject, still in this, as in all work of education, we have in the Church something that is distinctive, something higher and more interior. Let the child be taught first of all, and as soon as it is able to comprehend, concerning marriage in heaven and its happiness and beauty, and how it must avoid everything that would prevent its reaching it; also concerning marriage in the Golden Age. Afterwards can come particulars, as is seen to be necessary. A doctrine we need to apply in this work is that which teaches us to shun anxiety. We must shun anxiety for our children. We must indeed train them up with reverence for holy things; but, nevertheless, they have their struggles to face and go through, and we must not forget the power of the Lord and of heaven, which is ever with them. In order that instruction in this subject may be properly given, it is important that there be confidence between parents and children.

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That father will be successful in guiding his boys through critical periods of their life, who spends much time with them, takes walks with them, and is their intimate companion and friend.

     On Thursday evening there was a social reception, at which the members of the Council had an opportunity to meet and become acquainted with the members of the Olivet Church. In the course of the evening refreshments were served, and a number of toasts were proposed and responded to. These toasts centered in the doctrine concerning "Michael," and the responses were given by the Rev. Messrs. Price, Odhner and Iungerich. Other social pleasures followed.

     THE POSSIBILITY OF PROFANATION.

     On Friday morning the subject of PROFANATION was considered. The proposer of the subject read portions of the chapter in Divine Providence teaching "that a man is not admitted interiorly into the truths of faith and the goods of charity, except so far as he can be kept in them to the end of life, . . . and that this is done lest he should fall into the most grievous kind of profanation of things holy." (221 to 233.) He said that it is here stated that man is not allowed to come into the most grievous kind of profanation; yet we know that profanation exists, for the hells of profaners are described. What is the harmony of these teachings? It is said in the chapter that "a man may be admitted into the wisdom of spiritual things, and also into a love of them, and yet not be reformed; but if a man afterwards recedes from them, and runs counter to them, he profanes what is holy." When a man enters into spiritual truth and accepts it with affection, his love is either from the Lord or from himself. If it is from the Lord, there is an opening of the spiritual mind, and this state is never permitted unless man can be kept in it to the end of life; for to fall from this state would be the most grievous kind of profanation. But if it be from self, then there is no opening of the spiritual mind, and if he afterwards recedes he indeed profanes, but not in the most grievous degree. The harmony of the teachings would therefore seem to be that while men may profane in the lesser degrees, they are restrained from the most grievous kind.

     With this interpretation the other members of the Council who spoke did not agree, and the following points were raised against it:

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     It is stated in the Doctrines that some cannot be prevented entering into the worst form of profanation.

     Every law has its exceptions.

     Those are admitted interiorly into truths and goods who can be kept from the worst profanation; their state is such that they cart be kept from it: yet their freedom to cast themselves into it, if they will, is not taken from them.

     A man could not be regenerated to the highest degree, if he were not permitted to fall to the lowest.

     In A. C. 3102, it is taught that "no one is allowed to accede to good and truth with affection and faith, unless he be such that he can continue steadfast therein to the end of his life; but they who profane cannot possibly be withheld thence."

     Also in A. E. 1047 to 1051 it is clearly shown that the worst form of profanation, although it is rare, nevertheless does exist. (In connection with the reading of these numbers, the interesting and remarkable fact was stated by one of the members that the phantasies of profaners here described are exactly the symptoms produced by hashish.)

     MEETING OF THE JOINT COUNCILS.

     On Friday afternoon a session of the Joint Councils was held. The members of the Executive Committee present were the Messrs. Pitcairn, Boericke, Roschman, Carswell, Nelson and Doering.

     REPORT ON THE LITURGY.

     The Bishop gave an oral Report on the Liturgy, supplementary to that given last year. The report spoke of the favorable reception with which the liturgy had met. Nevertheless, it cannot be otherwise than far from perfect, and future revision will be necessary. The prayers, and also the sacraments and rites, are not complete. The next edition should contain further rubric notes. In the last report the names of many who assisted in the work, besides the Rev. Mr. Caldwell and Mr. George Blackman, were not given, and they should be mentioned now. The Rev. E. C. Bostock and the Rev. George Starkey rendered valuable services in the preparation of the hymns.

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The Rev. Richard de Charms did much clerical work. Mr. S. G. Nelson assisted in the revision of the chants. The Rev. C. T. Odhner prepared the chronological list of the Writings and the introduction to it, given on page 324. Miss Evelyn Plummer contributed a number of hymns. The Rev. J. E. Bowers also supplied a hymn. Mr. W. A. Farrington and Miss Korene Pendleton, now Mrs. W. B. Caldwell, did much of the proof reading. The Convention Board of Publication granted the use of music. Mrs. Bessie Colley contributed the music of two hymns. Music was also supplied by Mr. C. J. Whittington and Mr. W. W. Gilchrist. The Rev. Frank Sewall contributed a hymn, and useful suggestions were derived from his Prayer Book and Hymnal. We are also indebted to him for a review of the Liturgy, which was read at a meeting of the Council of the Clergy the other day. Mr. Clifford Smyth supplied a hymn, and the Rev. Julian K. Smyth the music of a hymn. There are also hymns by other New Church authors, Anderson Brothers, of Chicago, should be mentioned for their efficient work in making the plates. Mr. Louis Blackman aided in the revision of the music. The Rev. F. S. Price reviewed the English of the prayers. There was valuable work in the way of suggestions and criticisms by the special committee acting with me, consisting of the Rev. Messrs. Acton, Odhner, Doering and Synnestvedt. Mr. Paul Carpenter gave assistance in obtaining copyrights.

     The Secretary of the General Church read his report.

     The report of the Treasurer of the Orphanage was read.

     The Secretary of the Council of the Clergy reported the action of the Council in dropping the name of the Rev. J. E. Boyesen from the list of ministers; also the resolutions passed in regard to Dr. Frank Sewall's review of the Liturgy, and the resolution in regard to a minister going to England once a year.

     The Chairman of the Executive Committee reported that the Committee had had two meetings during the year, one in Berlin, at New Year, and one this morning. The finances and needs of the Church were considered. There is a balance of $374.00 in the treasury, but as the contributions generally fall off during the summer, this will be needed. During the coming year Mr. Bowers will continue to receive the same compensation, and Mr. Gladish will continue to receive fifty dollars for traveling expenses in his work in his vicinity.

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The committee hopes that there may be increased subscriptions, so that more uses may be undertaken. In its meeting this morning the committee heard of the action of the Council of the Clergy in regard to the Bishop as a representative going to England regularly, and is in sympathy with the idea. The means can be provided for someone to go this year. This will be a new use, for which the Church will need to be asked for additional contributions.

     Mr. Doering presented the Report of the Treasurer.

     The question of the Bishop or a representative visiting England was considered, and, on motion it was Resolved, that the Joint Council has heard with pleasure the report of the Executive Committee that it will provide the means for the sending of some minister of the General Church to the British Assembly this summer; and further, that it express its agreement with the sentiment of the Council of the Clergy that the Bishop or some representative be sent to the British Assembly every year.

     The Orphanage and its uses were considered. It was decided to continue the aid given to Mrs. Hyatt. Another case, which may soon call for assistance by the Orphanage, was discussed.

     In the evening a Men's Meeting was held, at which Mr. Alden gave an account of the recent meeting of the General Convention, which he attended. The discussion was principally on the state of the Church with regard to the work on Conjugial Love.

     AID TO SMALL SOCIETIES.

     At the meeting on Saturday morning, Mr. Pitcairn submitted for consideration by the Council a question contained in a letter from Dr. Cranch, of Erie, to the Executive Committee, namely, the advisability of sending ministers to small societies so equipped that they may earn their own living and be pastors in the hours not devoted to secular work.

     Mr. Synnestvedt: This question brings before us a larger one, namely, providing for the small societies. More work should be done in Erie; also in Renovo; and especially at Baltimore, where there are a number of families, zealous and loyal members, many children, and a thriving Sunday School. We cannot go on with a grand institution for training ministers unless we have a field in which they can labor.

529

The General Church needs to place men in promising fields. This is a use before us, and the question is whether there is in the Church the affection to contribute to it. We have the fields now, but the longer we delay the less there will be to cultivate. The district assemblies, which are attended by members from these small societies, perform a very great use; but men are wanted in the fields.

     Mr. Bowers: Conditions are very hopeful in Erie, but there should be more frequent visits by a minister. It would be an excellent field in which to place a man.

     Mr. Carswell: I doubt whether Dr. Cranch's plan is a desirable one. A man who would do his daily work properly, has all that he can attend to. It would be a mistake to ask a young man, qualified to do good work as a minister, to go and earn a living while doing pastoral work.

     Mr. Odhner: If there is a man willing to do such work, he would, of course, be free to do it. But we should not make this a rule.

     Mr. Pitcairn: Like Mr. Carswell, I do not think such a plan an orderly one. A man in secular work must have his mind on that work and seek to make it successful. A minister should not need to go into secular work in order to be sustained. Some indeed do it, and the spirit is commendable; yet the condition is not a desirable one. Perhaps there are among the members of the Church those who would be willing to aid in assisting these societies, which certainly should be taken care of. Mr. Benade once divided his time between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, giving six weeks at a time to each place, and something similar might perhaps be arranged now. Yet care must be taken that societies are not aided too much. The life of a society is strengthened when sacrifices are made.
It is well that we should consider whether we cannot find places for our young ministers.

     Mr. Nelson: A number of years ago the Immanuel Church was given aid by the Academy, and this was gradually withdrawn until finally we were prepared to continue without assistance. This seems to be the true plan of giving aid.

     Mr. Price: Bishop Benade always held that a society, consisting of a number of families, could keep a single man among them, if they would, as he would have no living expenses.

     Bp. Pendleton: McCarthy, in his "History of Our Own Times," says that it is important for a statesman to see the difference between what can be done and what ought to be done. It is well to consider what ought to be done; but we need especially to consider what can be done. Baltimore, more than any other place, seems to call for consideration. What ought to be done is to give them a pastor. But what can be done is that they have a man once a month. The next step would be that they have a man twice a month. I would ask the Executive Committee to consider whether it can be arranged to send a man there twice a month. As to Erie, we can consider at some future time what can be done there.

     Mr. Rud. Roschman: The same thing was done by the Academy in Berlin as in Chicago, namely, giving aid and gradually withdrawing it, until finally we became self-sustaining.

530

The desire to become self-sustaining has to grow, and a minister among the people will cause that desire to grow. The interest in the Church will grow after you have a minister in a place, and it is not likely to grow without this.

     The remainder of the session was devoted to the consideration of NEW CHURCH LIFE.

     At the dinner on this day the following resolution was unanimously passed: RESOLVED, that the Council of the Clergy and the Executive Committee of the General Church of the New Jerusalem hereby express their warm appreciation of the hospitality and the sphere of New Church friendship extended to them by the Parkdale Society, and of the excellent care of Mrs. A. K. Roy and her assistants in the entertainment of the Councils at dinner each day.

     In the afternoon the Council of the Clergy again met.

     The Rev. W. L. Gladish was appointed to deliver the Annual Address next year.

     The question was considered whether a person who has been baptized into the Church by one not regularly ordained should be re-baptized. The conclusion was that in such a case there might be a service confirming the baptism which had taken place.

     The subject of a School Hymnal was considered. The Bishop said that there is an urgent need of such a book in our schools and stated that he had the material on hand for it, namely, about one hundred hymns. Besides the hymns there are a number of religious poems. All our Hebrew music should go into it. What work is yet to be done can soon be completed, and the book will then be ready for publication. It would not have much of a sale, and would need to be published as an investment in our use. One of the ministers suggested that the book contain a short liturgical service. Another thought that it would be a very useful book in family worship, and might therefore have quite a sale.

     It was thought desirable that there be a new Social Song Book, which should be ready, if possible, by the next General Assembly. It was decided that the Messrs. Caldwell, Junge and Nelson be a committee on the same, and that they invite others to co-operate. The docket was revised, and the following subjects were retained:

     1. Is the support of a pastor by offerings at worship desirable?

     2. The age of puberty.

531

     The Bishop announced that matters had been so arranged that he could go to England this summer.

     In the evening a public session was held at which the Bishop delivered an address on Moral Truth and Its Uses.

     Mr. Synnestvedt: The New Church must present its doctrines as spiritual-moral truths, if it would reach the simple. The world needs spiritual-moral truth. It is because of the loss of it, that the sense of honor is disappearing. It is this truth also that needs to be presented to the young, and it is remarkable how they respond to it in the world the Bible is no longer regarded as the standard of morals. They are now seeking to establish a moral code on the basis of science, as evidenced in the well-known work, "Foundations of Ethics." It is claimed that morality should be developed in accordance with the instinct for the preservation of the race. But morality taught from such a basis can have no power, There must be what is spiritual in it.

     Mr. Acton: The New Church teaches a new morality, which is different from that of the Old in that it introduces to spiritual rationality. We should not teach children abstract truths which they cannot grasp. Moral truths are adapted to their state, for these are the truths in which simple good spirits, with which the children are associated delight. The Writings, and especially the Adversaria, open up a new moral world. We must also bear in mind the influence of our conduct upon the morals of the young.

     At the close of the meeting the Bishop read a letter from the Rev. N. D. Pendleton and a telegram from Mr. Walter Childs.

     The meeting closed with the singing of a hymn and the benediction.

     On Sunday the Councils worshipped with the Olivet Church at the services, morning and evening. In the morning a sermon was delivered by the Rev. W. L. Gladish on the Lord as the Word, and in the evening the Rev. E. E. Waelchli preached on The Eagle Stirring Up Her Nest. (Deut. 23:9-12)
     F. E. WAELCHLI,
Secretary of the Council of the Clergy.

532

REPORT OF THE SECRETARY 1909

REPORT OF THE SECRETARY Various 1909

     1. The membership of the General Church of the New Jerusalem numbers at present 994 persons, showing a net increase of 45 members over the membership reported in June, 1908. Altogether, 57 members have been received since the last report, while, on the other hand, 12 members have been removed to the spiritual world.

     2. The following members have died:

Mrs. Mary M. Carpenter, Chicago, Ill., Aug. 12, 1908.
Prof. L. C. Brickenstein, Bryn Athyn, Pa., Sept. 12, 1908.
Miss Susanna Rothermel, Berlin, Ont., Sept. 22, 1908.
Mrs. Jane Clendennon, Philadelphia, Oct. 9, 1908.
Mr. Alexander K. Roy, Toronto, Ont., Oct. 25, 1908.
Mr. John D. McKenney, Abington, Mass., Nov. 22, 1908.
Mrs. Martha Moir, Bryn Athyn, Pa., Jan. 13, 1909.
Mr. Carl C. Laughead, Tulsa, Okla., Feb. 15, 1909.
Mrs. Amanda Johnson, Chicago, Ill., March 26, 1909.
Mrs. Camilla W. Peters, Brooklyn, N. Y., April 5, 1909.
Mr. Reuben Walker, Philadelphia, April 13, 1909.
Mr. Franklin P. Burkhardt, Hoosick Falls, N. Y., May 30, 1909.

     3. The following new members have been received since the last report:

     Abington, Mass.
Mrs. Irene Shaw Hollis
Mrs. Abbie Ann McKenney

     Atlanta, Ga.
Mr. Kurt Mueller

     Berlin, Ont., Canada
Mr. Ivan W. Northgraves
Mr. Carl R. Roschman
Miss Venita Roschman

     Bryn Athyn, Pa.
Miss Carina Glenn
Mr. J. Edward Hill
Miss Solange N. Iungerich
Miss Wertha Pendleton
Miss Ethne Price
Mr. W. H. Richardson
Mrs. W. H. Richardson
Miss Ethel M. Schwindt
Mr. Gilbert H. Smith
Miss Cornelia Stroh
Miss Marjorie Wells

     Chicago, Ill,
Mr. Jesse V. Stevens

     Clinton, Ont., Canada
Mr. Albert E. Izzard
Miss Eliza A. Izzard

533

Mr. Ernest W. R. Izzard
Mr. Joseph Izzard
Mrs. Joseph Izzard
Mr. H. Percy Izzard

     Denver, Col.
Mr. J. E. Bergstrom
Mrs. Charlotte Drinkwater
Mrs. Catherine Gillespie
Mrs. Adah B. Reilly

     East Liverpool, Ohio
Mrs. Lyman G. Loomis

     Glenview, Ill.
Miss Agnes Gyllenhaal
Mr. Wm. F. Junge

     Hoosick Falls, N. Y.
Mrs. F. P. Burkhardt
Miss Margaret Burkhardt

     Jasper, Mo.
Mr. A. H. Laughead

     Kansas City, Mo.
Mrs. W. T. Grant

     Kingston, Mass.
Miss Flora L. Brewster

     London, England
Mr. Conrad Arthur Howard

     Middleport, Ohio
Miss Lucy Boggess

     Milverton, Ont.
Mr. David F. Doering
Miss Lizzie C. Doering
Miss Vera M. Doering

     New York City
Mr. S. Warren Potts

     Ontario, Cal.
Mr. Charles Frankish, Sr.
Mrs. Charles Frankish

     Philadelphia, Pa.
Mr. John Hilldale
Mr. C. Lewis Munkel
Mr. Bernhard Rosenqvist
Miss Marie L. Smith
Mr. Sobieski Smith

     Pittsburgh, Pa.
Mrs. August J. Trautman

     Randolph, Ont.
Miss Elsie Evens
Mrs. Ida McKague
Mr. Nelson Evens

     Sandoval, Ill.
Mr. A. H. Sherman
Mrs. A. H. Sherman
Miss Jean Sherman

     Tilsbury, Ont.
Mr. Arthur Bond

     4. The Clergy of the General Church numbers at present 23 ministers and 3 authorized candidates.

     The Rev. T. S. Harris, of Abington, Mass., was recognized as a minister of the pastoral degree on Nov. 29th, 1908.

534

     Mr. Eldred E. Iungerich was ordained into the first degree of the priesthood on June 13th, 1909.

     Mr. William Whitehead was authorized as a candidate on June 19th, 1908.

     C. Th. Odhner,
          Secretary,
Bryn Athyn, Pa., June 20, 1909.

535

     FINANCIAL STATEMENT, GENERAL CHURCH OF THE NEW JERUSALEM AND "NEW CHURCH LIFE."
     May 31, 1909.

     RECEIPTS.

     Contributions to the General Church.

California                    $50.00
Colorado, Denver               43.90
District of Columbia          19.00
Georgia                     28.00
Illinois-General               29.00
     Chicago                23.50
     Glenview               152.01
Indiana                    23.50
Kentucky                    10.00
Louisiana                    10.00
Maryland-General               12.50
     Baltimore               20.75
Michigan                    14.00
Missouri                    5.00
Montana                    7.00
Nebraska                    3.00
New York                    50.50
Ohio-General               245.50
     Middleport               23.08
Pennsylvania-General          93.50
     Allentown               38.00
     Bryn Athyn               1817.44
     Erie Circle               66.15
     Philadelphia          105.00
     Pittsburgh               434.50
West Virginia               95.50
Wisconsin                    6.25
Canada-General               60.60
     Berlin and Waterloo     176.64
     Toronto               158.75
Great Britain               41.79
                              $3863.36

     NEW CHURCH LIFE.

Subscriptions and contributions     934.34
Amount drawn from General Fund     797.01
                                   $1731.35

536

     EXPENDITURES.

     General.

Bishop's salary                                   $2000.00
Bishop's traveling expenses                         150.87
Traveling expenses Treasurer and Sec'y of Clergy     70.00
J. E. Bowers, salary                              499.45
J. E. Bowers, traveling expenses                    130.45
Special missionary services                         50.00
Printing and mailing Quarterly Reports               58.88
Copyright New Liturgy                              7.66
Missionary books                                   3.46
Exchanging typewriter, Bishop's Secretary               22.50
Postage, stationery, etc.                         37.67
                                                  $3021.94

     "New Church Life."

Salaries to editors                              $700.00
Printing 12 issues                              837.57
Paper for "Life"                                   127.75
Envelopes for mailing "Life"                         15.40
Addressing envelopes, 12 issues                    12.00
Postage, stationery, etc.                         38.63
                                                  $1731.35

     Recapitulation.

     RECEIPTS.

Balance on hand June 1, 1908                    $322.07
Interest on bank account               7.81
Contributions, as per list               3863.36
New Church Life receipts               934.34     4805.51
                                                       $5127.58

     EXPENDITURES.

General Church as per list               $3021.94
New Church Life as per list               1731.35               $4753.29

     Balance on hand                                        $374.29
Audited and found correct as of May 31, '09, this nineteenth day of June, 1909.
     S. H. Hicks,
     F. A. Boericke,
          Auditors.

537

     Statistics "New Church Life."

     June 15, 1908.

Total paying subscribers               521
New subscribers                         42
                                   563
Subscribers discontinued               45
June 15, 1909. Total paying subscribers (of whom about 314 are members of the General Church)                         518
41 free
14 libraries
6 missionary uses
19 to agents
25 to Academy Book Room                    105
Exchanges                              27
Approximate mailing list               650
                                   650

     C. E. Doering, Treasurer

537

     THE CLERGY OF THE GENERAL CHURCH.

     1909.

     BISHOP.

The Rt. Rev. WILLIAM FREDERICK PENDLETON.
Ordained, Sept. 3, 1873 Consecrated, May 9, 1888. President of the Academy of the New Church. Pastor of the Bryn Athyn Church. Address: Bryn Athyn, Pa.

     PASTORS.

The Rev. JOHN E. BOWERS.
Ordained, May 11, 1873. General Missionary. Address: 37 Lowther Ave., Toronto, Ont., Canada.

The Rev. RICHARD DE CHARMS.
Ordained, Jan. 21, 1877. Secretary to the Bishop. Address: Bryn Athyn, Pa.

The Rev. ANDREW CZERNY.
Ordained, June Jo, 1883. Second degree. March 21, 1886. Pastor of London and Colchester Societies. Address: 99 Holland Road, Brixton, London, England.

The Rev. WILLIAM HYDE ALDEN.
Ordained, May 30, 1886. Manager of the Academy Book Room. Instructor in the Schools of the Academy. Address: Bryn Athyn, Pa.

The Rev. ENOCH S. PRICE.
Ordained, June 10, 1888. Second degree, June 19, 1891. Pastor of the Allentown Circle. Professor of Hebrew and Latin, Academy of the New Church. Address: Bryn Athyn, Pa.

The Rev. CARL THEOPHILUS ODHNER.
Ordained, June 10, 1888. Second degree, June 19, 1891. Secretary of the General Church. Editor of New Church Life. Professor of Theology and History, Academy of the New Church. Member of the Bishop's Consistory. Address: Bryn Athyn, Pa.

539

The Rev. FRED. E. WAELCHLI.
Ordained, June to, 1888. Second degree, June 19, 1891. Secretary of the Council of the Clergy. Pastor of the Carmel Church, Berlin, Ont., Canada.

The Rev. NATHANIEL DANDRIDGE PENDLETON.
Ordained, June 16, 1889. Second degree, March 2, 1891. Member of the Consistory. Pastor of the Pittsburgh Society. Address: 706 Ivy St., E. E. Pittsburgh, Pa.

The Rev. HOMER SYNNESTVEDT.
Ordained, June 19 1891. Second degree, Jan. 13, 1895. Member of the Consistory. Principal of the Normal School, Academy of the New Church, Bryn Athyn, Pa.

The Rev. JOSEPH E. ROSENQVIST.
Ordained, June 19, 1891. Second degree, Jan. 23, 1895. Pastor of the Advent Society. Address: 2611 Folsom St., Philadelphia, Pa.

The Rev. ALFRED ACTON.
Ordained, June 4, 1893. Second degree, Jan. 10, 1897. Pastor of the New York Circle. Member of the Consistory. Assistant editor of New Church Life. Secretary of the General Council. Professor of Theology, Academy of the New Church, Bryn Athyn, Pa.

The Rev. WILLIS L. GLADISH.
Ordained, June 3 1894. Pastor of the Society in Middleport, Ohio.

The Rev. CHARLES E. DOERING.
Ordained, June 71 1896 Second degree, Jan. 29, 1899 Treasurer of the General Church. Superintendent of the Schools of the Academy. Professor of Mathematics and Swedenborg's Philosophy Academy of the New Church, Bryn Athyn, Pa.

The Rev. THOMAS STARK HARRIS.
Ordained, April 8, 1897. Pastor of the Abington Society. Address: 106 Brockton Ave., Abington, Mass.

The Rev. RICHARD HAMILTON KEEP.
Ordained, June 27, 1897. Second degree, May 22, 1898. Pastor of the Circle in Atlanta. Address: 513, The Gorand, Atlanta, Ga.

540

The Rev. DAVID H. KLEIN.
Ordained, June 26, 1898. Second degree, Oct. 27, 1902. At present engaged in secular work. Address: Hendersonville, N. C.

The Rev. EMIL R. CRONLUND.
Ordained, Dec. 31, 1899. Second degree, May 18, 1902. Pastor of the Olivet Church. Address: 61 Springhurst Ave., Toronto, Ont., Canada.

The Rev. WILLIAM B. CALDWELL.
Ordained. Oct. 19, 1902. Second degree, Oct. 23, 1904. Pastor of the Immanuel Church, Glenview, and of the Sharon Church, Chicago. Address: Glenview, Ill.

MINISTERS.

The Rev. ERNEST J. STEBBING.
Ordained, June 26, 1898. At present engaged in secular work. Address: Congress Heights, Washington, D. C

The Rev. REGINALD W. BROWN.
Ordained, Oct. 21, 1900. Professor of Natural Science, Academy of the New Church, Bryn Athyn, Pa.

The Rev. FREDERICK E. GYLLENHAAL.
Ordained, June 23, 1907. Minister of the Denver Society. Address: 543 South 13th St., Denver, Col.

The Rev. ELDRED E. IUNGERICH.
Ordained, June 13, 1909. Minister of the Baltimore Society. Address: Bryn Athyn, Pa.

CANDIDATES.

Mr. ALFRED HENRY STROH.
Authorized, June 7, 1900. Editor of the Scientific works of Swedenborg. Address: 54 B. iv. Odinsgatan, Stockholm, Sweden.

Mr. CHARLES RITTENHOUSE PENDLETON.
Authorized, June 4, 1905. Instructor in the Schools of the Academy. Address: Bryn Athyn, Pa.

Mr. WILLIAM WHITEHEAD.
Authorized, June 19, 1908. Address: Bryn Athyn, Pa.

541

[Statistical Chart]

542

     Editorial Department.

     NOTES AND REVIEWS.

     "Can there be a church where a Trine is adored, one separated from the other, or, what is the same thing, where Three are worshiped equally? For although they call the three one, still the thought distinguishes and makes three, and only the speech of the mouth says one." (A. C. 4766.)

     Contrast with the above the following comment made by a prominent Methodist minister on the so-called "New Religion," which, by the way, is neither new nor interesting: "The new religion will be thoroughly monotheistic" (says Dr. Eliot); certainly so it has been since God revealed the truth to His ancient people. But what is meant is that Jesus Christ will be no longer regarded as divine, and the Holy Spirit will be denied His place as the third Person in the adorable Trinity.
Title Unspecified 1909

Title Unspecified 1909

The Milwaukee Free Press has published an article giving Swedenborg's teachings as to the in habitability of the planets, as presented in extended Quotations from The Earths in the Universe. Most of these quotations relate to the inhabitants of Mars and involve phrases strange indeed to newspaperdom, such, for instance, as "Most Ancient Church," "greatest Man," "to the left in front in the plane of the breast," etc. The quotations are introduced by the statement that "Swedenborg's followers generally credit him with divine inspiration Some of the church authorities, however, do not call it divine inspiration, but say that the wonderful man was 'illumined by the Lord.' " With a careful limitation of the "illumned," this about correctly represents the position of the General Convention.

The New Church Missionary Society of Wales, a body inaugurated at Swansea in June, 1908, and finally formed at Ynysmendwy in the following month, has given evidence of its activity, by the publication of a periodical, as its official organ. The first number of this journal, entitled "Y Dyn-Cyf. I., Rhif I." (The Man, Vol. II, No. I.), is briefly reviewed in the pages of Morning Light, from which we learn that it is printed partly in English and partly in Welsh.

543

It is illustrated with pictures of Swedenborg as Scientist and as Theologian, and its opening article is an English translation of Swedenborg's autobiography as given in the letter to Hartley.

     The fact that the national language of Wales has been preserved throughout the country, and that a great many of the inhabitants have little or no knowledge of the English tongue, is sufficient evidence that this the second of Welsh New Church journals has a distinctive use to perform in bringing the truths of the Second Coming to the notice of the Welsh people. The Life extends its congratulations to the new publication and its wishes that it may prosper in this use.

     It is with pleasure that we quote the following passage from an article in Morning Light by Mr.. A. E. Friend. Mr. Friend's subject is "The Church: Universal and Specific," and the quotation given below win sufficiently indicate both the rational treatment of the subject and the clear manner in which it is set forth.

     "Make no error in considering this relation [of the Church specific, as the heart and lungs, to the Church Universal] by identifying the denominations of the Old Church with the Universal Church. The Specific Church is not the heart and lungs of an old and dead Church. That the latter is still present in the world witness the diabolical falsities still taught in Christian pulpits, and the crying evils of life in the civilized world today. Falsities which, a generation ago, would have been whispered among the wise-in-their-own-conceit, are now blatantly preached from the pulpit; and will anyone say that evils of life are more repudiated today than they were in the year 1757? Publicly, may be, but beneath, what a revelation could be made in our modern cities! It is indeed true doctrine which has revealed to us that "falsities and evils have a continual growth in: the Church once perverted and extinct." (A. C. 4503.) It is not of this dead body, which is still evident to the eye of him who derives light from the Heavenly Doctrines of the New Jerusalem, that the
New Church is the heart and lungs. Rather, is she the life of those good and simple souls, the Universal Church, who, by their presence in the Old Church, act as a mollifying and assuaging influence (see A. C. 4754, A. E. 786, 787).

544

Note further that her relation even with the Universal Church is not direct, for the propagation of light and intelligence is effected in heaven. (A. E. 313.)"

The new editor of The New Age, our Australian contemporary, may have a keen sense of humor, but a keen sense of sound theology would be a more useful faculty. The attitude of the Life, and its present editor, towards the authority of the Writings of the New Church is not, we presume, unknown within the borders of the organized Church. We were, therefore, not a little surprised and amused in finding ourselves extensively quoted, in a most friendly and appreciative manner, by our brother in the antipodes, in the June issue of his magazine,--in support of the position that the Writings are not the Word of the Lord. The quotations are from some remarks made at the "Concordance meeting"( of the year 1901, (not "two or three years ago"), the sum and substance of which was that "Swedenborg wrote the Writings, not 'from' himself, nor 'of' himself, but still 'as' of himself." This fact is taken by Mr. Spencer as proof positive that the Writings are merely human productions. But why jump so hastily at this conclusion? The evangelists of the New Testament certainly wrote in greater external freedom, and more "as" of themselves, than did the prophets of the Old Testament who often did not understand even the literal sense of the dark sayings that were dictated to them. But does this greater freedom of the evangelists throw any doubt upon the Gospels as the veritable Word of God? And in these very Gospels we read that the Lord told His disciples that He had yet to tell them many things which they could not then bear, but that the time would come when He would show them plainly of the Father. In the Writings of the New Church the Lord has fulfilled this His prophecy, but does the "plainness" of His new Word detract from its Divinity? Is it not still the Lord Himself who speaks through His free and rational servant? Swedenborg enjoyed the greatest possible human freedom in delivering the revelation of the Second Coming, because this revelation is the most "perfect" of all revelations, for perfection of freedom increases according to the nearer and more immediate approach to the Lord in His Divine Human, who is Freedom itself.
* See New Church Life, 1901, pp. 144.

545

The chief obstacle in the mind of our Australian friend seems to be the notion that "the Writings are not written by correspondences, but convey their inestimably valuable truths directly to the rational faculty." The Writings appeal directly to the rational faculty,--therefore, they cannot be the Word of the Lord! This is exactly the reasoning of Abimelech, the Philistine, respecting Rebekah: "How saidst thou, 'She is my sister' "which signifies that such persons are in no other perception than that if truth were rational it could not be Divine, thus that if it were Divine it would have nothing in common with what is rational." (A. C. 3394) But the Writings have no internal sense, because they are not written in correspondences, reasons Mr. Spencer, and he quotes A. C. 6933 to the effect that "'spiritual things which are of heaven cannot possibly be otherwise presented to man' than by correspondences." Ergo, the Writings do not even present spiritual things! "In human writings we may have true and accurate statements about spiritual things. But in the Word the spiritual things themselves are presented." This is to make distinctions without a difference. As well may we say that the teachings of the Lord in the Gospels are not the Word, because He there tells us about the Father. The question at issue is not "about" prepositions, but about the Truth itself which He tells us in the spiritual as well as the literal sense of the Word.
CATALOGUE OF THE SCHOOLS OF THE ACADEMY 1909

CATALOGUE OF THE SCHOOLS OF THE ACADEMY W. H. A 1909

CATALOGUE OF THE SCHOOLS OF THE ACADEMY, BRYN ATHYN, PA., 1909; pp. 54. This handsome pamphlet of fifty-five pages is now ready for distribution, and will be sent to any address on application

The Academy Schools, which began very modestly, with a college for young men and a theological school, in 1877, have grown to an institution which employs twenty-five instructors in its various departments, has already four buildings admirably equipped for school and library and dormitory uses, and has under construction a new library building (fire proof) which will furnish shelf room for a hundred thousand books.

546

There is also under construction in close association with the Academy buildings, a large building to be used for the Bryn Athyn Local School.

The courses of study now offered, cover Theological and Normal schools, a College for the education of young men and boys, a Seminary for the education of young women and girls, and an Intermediate Department preparatory to the College and Seminary. A library of eight thousand volumes is at the service of students. All this is supported by an endowment of something over six hundred thousand dollars. The Academy buildings are erected upon a campus of about eighteen acres close by the New Church settlement at Bryn Athyn.

More than three hundred pupils have received their education in the various schools of the Academy. "The external instrumentalities for the work have greatly increased. From the beginning there has dwelt with the institution the spirit which characterized it at the beginning; the spirit of determination to abide loyally in the heavenly Doctrines of the New Jerusalem, and to adhere to the ideal of distinctive New Church Education which is revealed in those Doctrines." At the Academy Schools alone in the whole world can the boy and girl be educated up to the college age, in fact, to cover the first year of university work, and this, in the sphere of the New Church, not only in school but also in social life. W. H. A.
VOLUME OF CLIPPINGS 1909

VOLUME OF CLIPPINGS 1909

Under the authority of the English Conference, a Memorial Volume has been prepared, for preservation in the archives, containing all available newspaper clippings bearing on the removal of Swedenborg's remains from London to Sweden This volume is the subject of an article in the New Church Magazine for July, where Mr. E. C. Stewart writes interestingly of the many press clippings that are thus preserved. The object of the volume, Mr. Stewart informs us, is not only to preserve accurate descriptions by eye witnesses of the ceremonies attending the removal but also to preserve for future generations, the estimate in which Swedenborg was held one hundred and thirty-six years after his death.

547

     The volume, which is a bulky one, includes, of course, many hundreds of clippings. It appears, however, that had the need for such a volume been foreseen from the beginning, it would have been increased to twice its present size, for many notices have escaped the attention of the compilers.

     The greatest number of clippings are, naturally, from the English papers, including dailies, the sixpenny weeklies, the illustrated papers, and the reviews. The scientific and literary journals are silent, and in the religious publications only "grudging references" are made. On the other hand, references have appeared in the most unexpected quarters, such as The Referee, John Bull, and The Undertaker's Journal. Scotland is very poorly represented, and Ireland contributes but two or three brief paragraphs.

     The foreign section is made up mainly of notices from Swedish and Danish papers, there being but few clippings from the papers of other countries. There are cuttings from Montreal, Manitoba, Vancouver, Calcutta and Madras. As to America, we learn that "only a fraction of what appeared in America has been collected," and the writer adds "surely, it is not yet too late to get more."

     But more interesting than the text, are the many illustrations that are included in this volume. These comprise cuttings from the illustrated London journals, and a great number of photographs, the latter including nearly one hundred views of the journey from the sea to the city, besides many views of Swedish scenery, procured through the activity of Mr. Alfred H. Stroh.

     The volume closes with a set of photographs, especially taken for the purpose, of all the pastors who have officiated at the Swedish Church in Princes' Square, London. These, of course, include Pastor Ferelius, Swedenborg's contemporary.

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TWO NEW TRANSLATIONS 1909

     HEAVEN AND HELL. J. M. Dent & Co., London. This edition of Heaven and Hell is included in the popular Every man's Library series, where it is listed under the head of Theology and Philosophy. Our readers are probably familiar with this series, and we need say nothing as to the attractive appearance and excellent make-up of the volume before us. We understand that the edition is one of 10,000, and a wide sale is assured, though we can hardly expect it to equal the phenomenal sale of the Warne & Co.'s sixpenny edition, of which, since its publication in 1905, over 19,000 copies have been actually sold.

     The work includes an Introduction by Mr. J. Howard Spaulding, a prominent member of the English Conference, which is excellently adapted to the purpose intended. Mr. Spaulding shows that the volume is one of Divine Revelation, in which Swedenborg "disclaims any share except that of a supernaturally, but nonetheless rationally, enlightened penman." He dwells upon the unique fact of a truly learned man claiming consistently for twenty-six years to have intercourse with the other world, and he forcibly appeals to the reader to divest his mind of preconceived prejudices.

     The translation consists of a revision by Mr. F. Bayley, M. A., "made with the special view of removing--so far as is consistent with fidelity to the text the difficulties arising from the use of terms by Swedenborg in a more or less technical sense, and of modernizing the language." Ideas differ as to what is involved in "fidelity to the text," and our idea certainly widely differs from the present reviser's. His work is an extreme example of the modernizing school of translators. It is true he has introduced some happy effects in the way of smoother diction, but he has accompanied this with such a flagrant disregard of Swedenborg's specific and meaningful terms, and even of his plain language, that we hesitate to call the product a translation. A few examples will suffice.

     Instead of "The Lord's proprium" we read "The Lord's Divine nature" and "the Lord's Divine sphere." "Esse" is rendered "being," "essence" and "cause. "The Divine" becomes "Divine Being" and "Divine Sphere."

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"Conjunction" becomes "union" and "connection;" while "connection," on the other hand, becomes "conjunction," and also "dependence." We have "Vastation is the disclosure of the internal life or selfish nature" for "is nothing else than being let into one's internals, thus into the proprium;" and "constant dependence on the first cause of life" for "connection with the first esse of life." For "influx" "influence" is usually substituted, though "influx" occurs in a few places. Thus we read "The Lord exerts (in another place it is "exercises") a direct influence upon man's will," for "The Lord inflows immediately into." "To proceed from the Lord means to be derived from His essence," is the revision of "Esse from existere is what is meant by procedere;" "all his thoughts and resolutions" for "all that he thinks and wills;" "a properly trained intellect" for "an understanding not opened."

We do not criticize the desire to accommodate the teachings of Swedenborg. Such accommodation is indeed involved in all sermons, lectures, etc.; it may be done even by paraphrases of the Writings, provided they are professedly such. But when Swedenborg himself is presented as presumably speaking he should be allowed so far as possible to speak in his own way, even though notes may explain some of his terms. To present Swedenborg's ideas in such a way as to make them appear familiar to human thought, is to misrepresent them. For the truth is the ideas are not familiar. To say, for example, that "the Lord exercises a direct influence upon man's will" is to express a thought familiar to the Christian world, and indeed, in a phrase that is apt to embody a totally false idea. What Swedenborg expressed was a completely new idea, namely, that "the Lord inflows immediately into man's will;" an idea conveyed in an expression that by its very newness arrests attention. To radically change his expressions, as is done in this revision, is to insult the intelligence of the reader,--the assumption being, that the latter, who will come into the New Church--and he surely should be the main object in our translations--is so devoid of intelligence as to be unable to understand the plain, and, after all, simple language of Divine Revelation.

Every translation, however faulty, cannot but present the general thought of the author translated, but the present revision has certainly done much to deprive that thought of its striking newness; It is a fit expression of that growing element in the New Church which seeks to break down its distinctiveness.

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     THE TRUE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. Fred'k Warne & Co. This is the third of the popular sixpenny editions of the Writings issued with the co-operation of the London Swedenborg Society, the other works being Heaven and Hell, and Divine Love and Wisdom. These works, including also Trowbridge's Life of Swedenborg, since the publication of the first in 1909, have reached an aggregate and actual sale of over 56,000 copies. Certainly the most "popular" edition of the Writings that has ever appeared.

     The exigencies of space have necessitated some considerable abbreviation in the True Christian Religion. The editor, the Rev. Joseph Deans, frankly states the fact in his Prefatory Note where he explains that the omissions consist of the Tables of Contents, a large number of Scripture passages and illustrative comparisons and the whole of the Memorable Relations; the latter, however, he assures the reader, are an integral part of the work, and he concludes by referring him to public libraries for complete editions.

     To this explanation it may be added that the Scripture quotations omitted are mainly confined to those that occur in a body; when they occur in the running text they are usually retained, though in only a few cases is it indicated where they may be found. In the numerous cases where Swedenborg illustrates the doctrine by comparisons, the first of these comparisons is retained.

     For the rest, the translation appears to be very little altered from the Swedenborg Society's edition, and we note with pleasure the retention of various well established New Church terms, particularly the term Conjugial. On the whole, also, the editor has been very happy in his abbreviations, which have been so made as not to impair the flow in the presentation of the author's ideas.

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Church News 1909

Church News Various 1909

     FROM OUR CORRESPONDENTS.

     BRYN ATHYN, PA. It seems difficult to realize that over one hundred of our regular residents have left us this summer to seek rest and change elsewhere during the vacation. And yet, in spite of the prolonged drought which has seriously affected our gardens, the country-side has remained a very attractive place, as is testified by the many city folks who have resorted hither. The church services have been quite well attended, nearly all the ministers here having taken turns in preaching. We have also had the pleasure of listening to the Rev. N. D. Pendleton, of Pittsburgh, who with his whole family is spending the month of August here to assist Miss Beekman in editing some very important studies.

     The first to leave us were a party of eight ministers and two lay councillors, to attend the meeting in Toronto. Three ladies accompanied this party. For the first time in our local history there was not a single minister left in Bryn Athyn to fill the pulpit during the last two weeks in June, but Mr. Gilbert Smith, who is to enter the Theological School, conducted the services very acceptably. Mr. De Charms was visiting relatives in Cincinnati, Mr. Iungerich is spending the summer in Baltimore, and Mr. William Whitehead is stationed at Renovo, Pa. Nine of our folks have been visiting Glenview, Ill., and Covert, Mich. Five others have been visiting the Rev. David H. Klein, at Hendersonville, N. C., and three, besides the Potts family, have gone to Dorset, Vermont. Miss Hogan, Miss Falk, and Thee. Pitcairn left for Seattle and the Pacific Coast. A party of fifteen went to Europe; these included the Bishop and his wife, with two daughters, Miss Freda and Miss Amena, Mr. Pitcairn with Miss Vera and Raymond Pitcairn, Mrs. Glenn with Miss Carina, Madame Vinet with her son, Pierre, Mile. Rosalba de Anchoret, and Mrs. Iungerich with her two daughters, Miss Helene and Miss Solange. Miss Cyriel Odhner has returned to her home in Sweden, and Mr. Temperli and daughter to Switzerland.

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     Three of our teachers have been attending university summer courses; Prof. Brown at the Chicago University, and Miss Ashby and Miss Buell at Harvard. Mrs. Sanner has been visiting Middleport, Mrs. Hobart and Miss Hobart went to Indiana. Miss Venita Pendleton is at the Delaware Water Gap, and Mr. Charles R. Pendleton is at Macon, Ga. The family camp of Prof. Price, on the mountain near Allentown, was visited by quite a party of our young people. Quite a number have paid little visits to the seashore, as usual. The Ladies' Aid Society holds a social reunion each week at one or another of the houses, and the meetings are much enjoyed by the busy matrons whose work is not lessened by any vacation. The new buildings are progressing, but rather slowly. If our students were not so distinguished for concentration, there would be danger of their being disturbed this fan by all the hammering and the litter.

     Among those who have been visiting Bryn Athyn recently we may mention Mr. Robert B. Caldwell, with family, of Coshocton, Ohio; Miss Luelle Pendleton, of Macon, Ga.; Mr. Arthur Carter, of Toronto, Ont.; Mr. Walter C. Childs, Mr. Randolph Childs, Miss Sullivan and Mr. Anton Sellner, of New York; Mrs. Theyken, of Allentown, and Mr. Paul Synnestvedt and Mr. Alex. P. Lindsay, of Pittsburgh.
     H. O.

     BALTIMORE, MD. This summer marks an epoch in the history of this society of the General Church. After careful consideration of ways and means the male members of the society organized themselves into a building and loan association for the purpose of negotiating a loan in order to purchase a site for a New Church settlement and to facilitate the moving and establishment of the various families there. Four sites were considered, and the one selected is at Arbutus, a station on the main line of the Pennsylvania R. R. to Washington, a few miles to the west of Baltimore. The purchase of a tract of fourteen acres there has been virtually completed, and one family will be able to move out and settle there this summer.

     The reasons that precipitated this action were the usual ones, the difficulty of regular church and doctrinal class attendance by families who are widely scattered, and the danger of losing the children to the church.

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These children now-number forty-one; and the need of developing social life among them and of counter-acting the friendships with Old Church children of their several environments has been a problem, of, increasing gravity. The movement to Arbutus comes; therefore, as a great boon. The tract is on rolling ground, and is 100 feet above the railroad and 200 above sea level. Handsome, views of tree-covered ridges may be had from several points. One of these ridges flanks the back of the property, about two acres of which are in wood. There is a double house and outbuildings, and more than half the property is tilled and cultivated land. It will take very little to enhance the natural beauties of the place considerably. The future of the society in this beautiful place looks promising.

It is interesting to reflect upon the growth of this society. With two exceptions, every one of the adult members, who now number over a score, were ten years ago members of the General Convention, but each came to see that the doctrines held by the Academy are in agreement with the Writings of Swedenborg and are means of illustrating them; while the doctrinal views of the Convention depart from the teachings of the Writings to the extent that they take issue with the Academy. One member first heard of the Academy through a Convention minister's putting into his hands a copy of New Church Life. This goes to show how necessary it is becoming to the Convention to prevent its members from hearing about the Academy; or from receiving first-hand reports about it, uncolored by sectarian prejudice and dislike. But this policy of oblivion is becoming more difficult to maintain, especially so in view of the publicity of the collateral attacks made upon the Academy by accredited leaders of the Convention in the hearings of the Kramph Will case.

The society, which has been receiving monthly pastoral visits, has enjoyed the services of the Rev. E. E. Iungerich, who visited in the various homes during July and August. Weekly services were held in a hall, and progress made in the use of the New Liturgy. A series of sermons was delivered on the Doctrine of Life, using the successive main heads as texts. A weekly doctrinal class on the Conversations on Education was held in connection with the circle meetings of the male members; an effort being made to associate with: Mr. Benade's work what the Arcana teaches about the successive steps of the Lord's education, and the teaching of the Worship and Love of God about the education of the first pair and their preparation for the life of marriage and heaven.

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     There is at present under consideration an annual outing and picnic at Arbutus, at which it is hoped all the members of the Washington circle will be present. One feature of the entertainment will be a plantation scene, the details of which are at present shrouded in necessary secrecy. E. E. I.

     PITTSBURGH, PA. August for this town means a long drawn out "dry" spell, otherwise called a vacation, during which period all activities cease, and we are allowed a short time to cogitate on what we have done during the past year and what we haven't. There is not much to report in the wav of news outside of the fact that the young people had an enjoyable picnic in the latter part of July. We have never been victims of "too much social life," and when an opportunity to go picnicking Presents itself we never fail to enjoy ourselves, as w, did on this occasion. B. P. O. B.

     GLENVIEW, ILL. Vacation time is taking a number of out people across Lake Michigan, but the Park is by no means empty, and attendance at church is very good. We are a happy lot of people. At the last steinfest we discussed the question of "Contentment," and went home reflecting upon Dr. King's dictum that we should be contented not with our own efforts, but with such rewards as Providence may grant us.

     Among the social events of the months July-August was a social evening at Mr. Seymour Nelson's house, during which we were favored with songs by Miss Miriam Smith, of Bryn Athyn, and instrumental music by home talent. Then there was an enjoyable barn dance at the home of Mrs. J. P. Cole, and a Sunday evening at Mrs. Gyllenhaal's when we listened to the delightful singing of Miss Gwladys Hicks, who visited here for a few days. A. M.

     THE MISSIONARY FIELD. My annual visit has recently been made to Mr. and Mrs. William Evens and family, who are members of the General Church.

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On August 5th, Mr. Evens met me at Penetanguishene, about 100 miles north of Toronto, and conveyed me to the farm, five miles west. The family consists of the parents and nine children, five of whom are adults, and all are now at home except one son.

     In this home are the Writings, the New Church Life, and also the Messenger, and the contrast in the tone of these two representative periodicals is appreciated. Here also is the country post office, Randolph, Ontario, Can.

     On Sunday morning, August 8th, divine worship was held, and a sermon on Isaiah 41:10 was delivered. In the afternoon we were together for an hour in the shade on the lawn; had a reading from The True Christian Religion, and considered the subject of the Second Advent of the Lord.

     The week seemed to pass quickly, as it was a busy time for all of us.

     On Sunday, August 15th, we again had services, the text of the sermon being Matth. 19:24. The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper was administered. In the afternoon everyone of the family was present at a doctrinal class, at which the readings were from the work on Conjugial Love.

     This missionary visit seemed to be useful to all concerned. Besides the Evens family, there is no other person in Simcoe county known to have a knowledge of the New Church. But their isolation makes these friends all the firmer in the faith, and they manifest a genuine appreciation of the growth, increase and spiritual prosperity of the General Church of the New Jerusalem.
     J. E. BOWERS.

     HONEY HARBOR, ONTARIO, CANADA. A New Church camping party, of somewhat international composition, spent three glorious weeks in July at beautiful Honey Harbor, in the midst of the thirty thousand islands of the Georgian Bay. There were thirty persons in the party, all of them connected with the General Church of the New Jerusalem. Berlin was represented by Mr. and Mrs. Emil Schierholtz, with two sons, and Mr. Fred. Roschman; Gait, Ont., by Mr. and Mrs. Rudolph Potts; Toronto, by the Rev. Emil Cronlund, the two large families of Ernest and Peter Bellinger, and their sister, Mrs. John Rothaermel, Mr. and Mrs. Ray Brown and Mr. and Mrs. Fred. Longstaff; Macon, Ga., by Miss Philo Pendleton; Renovo, Pa., by Miss Dorothy Kendig; New York, by Mr. Sidney Childs; and Bryn Athyn, Pa., by the Rev. C. Th. Odhner.

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     As might be expected from this personnel, the party was a genial one, verging almost to joviality, making the rocks and islands resound with "Academy" songs, old and new. Services were conducted in simple fashion each Sunday morning, and the clergy present held a Protracted conference, when they were not too busy converting the denizens of the deep. The fishing was superb, "the best ever yet" according to the unbiased testimony of an experienced reporter. Honey Harbor would be an ideal place for a permanent New Church camp. E. L.

     FROM OUR CONTEMPORARIES.

     UNITED STATES. Mr. J. Paul Dressier, one of the two students of the Convention's Theological School last June, has accepted the ministry of the Convention Society in ABINGTON, Mass.

     The Rev. George S. Wheeler has succeeded the Rev. Herbert C. Small as pastor of the BRIDGEWATER (Mass.) Society.

     The Exposition at SEATTLE, Wash., has been made the occasion of a vigorous New Church missionary propaganda under the general direction of the missionary Pastor of the Illinois Association, the Rev. L. G. Landenberger. The "New Church exhibit was opened in the temporary charge of the Rev. J. R. Petshall, who was assisted by the Rev. Gustave Reiche and others. This exhibit "is on the second floor of the Manufacturers Building, next to the Theosophist, Christian Science and Esperanto booths, and opposite the Methodist." No other denominations are represented in the Exposition. The work conducted by Mr. Landenberger, who took charge on July 10, consists in distributing the great amount of literature contributed by various bodies of the Church, and, of course, answering questions, etc. The propaganda has also included lectures by Dr. Sewall, who visited the Exposition during the latter part of July, and lectured in the Exposition auditorium July 21, 23 and 25. On the latter date the lecture was given under the auspices of the New Thought Society, at whose invitation Dr. Sewall took as his subject "Swedenborg the Seer."

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     GREAT BRITAIN. In connection with the recent Conference meetings, the JUNIOR MEMBERS' LEAGUE held a "Mass Meeting" of young people, which was addressed, amongst other speakers, by Mr. A. H. Stroh, who gave some account of the work now under way in Sweden. As is usually the case in these "mass" meetings, the "mass" and the "junior members" were more evident in the words than in the fact; for "the capacious church of the Keardey Society looked rather empty," and the meeting was "characterized more by gray hairs than youthful faces." However towards the second half of the proceedings the audience amounted to over 180.

     In connection with their celebration of Swedenborg's birthday on Saturday, January 30th, the Junior members of the KEARSLEY Society issued a specially printed hymn sheet to be used for the occasion. The young people of this society, of which the Rev. W. H. Claxton has been the minister since 1903, have for a number of years made it a practice to observe Swedenborg's birthday.

     The Society at PAISLEY has been suffering some curtailment of its activities during the past year, owing to the impaired health of its minister, the Rev. Charles A. Hall. Mr. Hall, who has distinguished himself by his activity in general "Christian" work in conjunction with ministers of the Old Church, has now suspended everything except morning services, Sunday School and Bible Class. The annual meeting of the Society held last July showed eleven new members added to the roll, which now numbers 173, a slight decrease over last year, due to removals. The average attendance, on the other hand, has increased to 98.

     On Saturday, June 26th, the New Church building of the Society at Esher (LONDON) was dedicated by the Rev. Joseph Deans, assisted by the Revs. Messrs. W. A. Presland, I. Tansley, and A. Wilde.

     The Society at Esher commenced some tell years ago, holding its first meeting in a blacksmith shop. The members early set to work improving the place, until at last there was very little left of the shop but the chimney. The building now dedicated was erected at a cost of about $4,000 by money loaned from the Jeggins trust. The society is to pay a low rate of interest on this money, and to return the capital in annual installments according to its ability.

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The architect of the new building, Mr. Ernest Trobridge, who is a Newchurchman, states that his plan "results from the application of some of the principles of the New Church philosophy of the order of creation, particularly the relation of truth (mathematically) to form. Thus in the porch may be seen the expression or symbol of the truths of gravity and thrust, the former being wrought in mosaic and the latter in fine brickwork. Also the spiritual correspondence of the entrance to a New Church is manifest by the open Bible being wrought in mosaic over the natural entrance, and under it the words:-'The Word opened,' below this in large gold letters is the name 'The New Church,' while the distinctive title, 'Swedenborgian,' is wrought in flashed ruby in the fanlight. By such methods the architect has endeavored to make the building be the shape of and correspond to its uses, both natural and spiritual."

     SWEDEN. "New Church Day" was celebrated very pleasantly on June 20th by Pastor Manby's congregation in STOCKHOLM. The pastor delivered a discourse on "The activity of the Apostles in the spiritual world."

     On June 29th the society celebrated Pastor Manby's seventieth birthday. A purse containing 1243 crowns (over $460) was presented to Mr. Manby in recognition of his long, faithful and invaluable services. The society in Gottenberg Presented a silver mounted crystal bowl, filled with red and white roses. Many telegrams and letters of congratulation were received from abroad. Pastor Bronniche, from Copenhagen, was present as a visitor. At the conclusion of the meeting it was announced that Mr. Manby had made the day still more memorable by presenting to the Book Association an edition of 1,000 copies of the Internal Sense of the Prophets and Psalms, translated by himself,--the first version in the Swedish language. The Life joins in most sincere congratulations, both to Pastor Manby and to the whole New Church in Sweden. His work will be remembered forever.

     AUSTRIA-HUNGARY The Rev. A. L. Goerwitz on April 29th Visited the Italian-speaking New Church society at TRIESTE, remaining there until May 6th. The circle here has read the Divine Love and Wisdom during the past year, and is now reviewing the work by discussions on the subjects of each chapter.

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The members are deeply concerned in the religious instruction of their children, and have collected a fund for the publication of an Italian translation of the Rev. Fedor Goerwitz's excellent "Religions-unterricht." There is also a growing fund for the support of a future resident minister.

     From Trieste Pastor Goerwitz traveled to GYORKONY in Hungary, where there is a small but earnest circle of German-speaking New Church people. The friends here, all of them farmers, find great difficulty in teaching the Doctrines to their children who are compelled to speak the Hungarian tongue at school. The government is systematically eradicating the use of the German language, and the children are unable to follow the religious instruction of their German parents. There seems to be need for an Hungarian as well as an Italian version of Fedor Goerwitz's work for the young.

     On May 12th Pastor Goerwitz arrived in BUDAPEST, where he administered the communion to eighteen persons, and officiated at the religious betrothal of a young couple, Miss Melanie Mousson and Professor Karl Hajak, both of them brought up in the New Church. The friends here are very musical people. They are now rejoicing in the possession of an Hungarian version of Heaven and Hell, published at the expense of the English Swedenborg Society,--the first of the Writings in the tongue of the Magyars.

     Mr. Goerwitz next visited VIENNA, Where he arrived on May 19th, and administered the Holy Supper to thirty-one communicants. Here, also, the members are anxious for their children, who are compelled by the government to attend the instruction of "recognized" churches, Roman Catholic or Protestant. The New Church children are often offending their Old Church instructors by "embarrassing" questions and contradictions, and there is unhappiness on both sides. The society has now established a Sunday School, with Mr. C. Pleschner as the leader, but the attendance is small as the children live far apart. There is also a regular doctrinal class, reading and discussing the True Christian Religion. The growing society now worships in a new and larger hall on "Gumpendorfer Strasse." On May 27th Mr. Goerwitz returned to his home in Zurich, after a very useful and encouraging annual circuit. The cry everywhere is for more frequent pastoral visits, but the means are not yet in sight.

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INTRODUCTION INTO HEAVEN 1909

INTRODUCTION INTO HEAVEN Rev. W. B. CALDWELL 1909

ANNOUNCEMENTS.

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     NEW CHURCH LIFE

     VOL. XXIX OCTOBER, 1909          No 10.
     We are taught in the Writings of the Church that introduction into heaven is effected by inauguration into gyres of heavenly life; that spirits are prepared for heaven in the world of spirits by being introduced into gyres, in which they will and think and act in harmony with other spirits as in a choir; that they are introduced into swifter and swifter gyres, into slow gyres at first, becoming quicker by degrees as they are elevated into heaven; and finally that when spirits become angels they are introduced into the gyre of the society of heaven in which they are to remain to eternity. What is meant by this "inauguration into gyres?"

     The word "gyre" is the Greek for circle, and involves also the idea of a globe or sphere. The created universe, in general and particular, is filled with globes, spheres, and gyres great and small, from the suns, auras, and earths in their immensity down to the elementary particles of air and water and the globules of blood. The gyre is universal in creation, and the inmost cause of this is that the first or simple substance of the created universe is in the form of a gyre. The first finiting of the Infinite is in the form of minute gyres or spheres, and from this first form the elementary kingdom derives its spherical or gyratory form in general and particular. Hence also it is that the Divine of the Lord proceeds and inflows into creation in the gyratory or spiral form. For we read that certain spirits, being led by the Lord, "performed a kind of circular spire," from which it was evident that "the influx of life from the Lord inflows through a form as it were perpetually spiral, which form no one can know except the Lord." (Diary 3495; See also 5202.)

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     Because the Divine Life inflows through such a form, therefore the organic forms in both worlds tend to a spiral or gyratory motion. The earth gyrates upon its axis, and it gyrates about the sun. Solar systems gyrate similarly. The atmospheres themselves, in their general volumes and in their particles, do not inflow in straight lines, but in circles and gyres,--as the air in cyclones, water spouts, and gusts of wind. Winds in the air, the electric flow in the ether, and the forces of the magnet in the aura,--all these tend to proceed in a gyratory motion, circling or spiral, and to form gyres and vortices. The motion of the air which is perceived as sound flows in gyres, and is received by the folds of the ear as concordant or discordant according to the perfection of the gyratory motions. Sweet music produces most perfect gyres; the striking of a hammer, or an explosion, produces straight lines of motion which shock the ear; but even these sudden or harsh sounds tend to flow in the gyratory motion, extending themselves more and more widely into the air, reverberating and echoing to a distance in every direction.

     And what is true of the outer world of nature, affecting the sense, is true of the inner world of nature, hidden from the view, where the chemical substances, the juices of vegetation and animal life, and the bloods or spirits of the human body, all tend to perform circles and gyres in their motions. Angular forms, from their very nature, tend to arrest motion, but spherical forms readily lend themselves to motion and life.

     As elementary nature is composed of gyres great and small, so the spiritual world must be filled with gyres,--still more intricate and wonderful gyres. Speaking of the angels of the celestial kingdom, Swedenborg states that he "saw and apperceived that although they remain above in their places, still they are transferred sensibly and successively from left to right, so that there is a certain inmost gyration that leads them around, although they themselves are wholly ignorant of it, thinking that they are always in one and the same place so long as they are in their mansions." (D. 4674.) We also read that "all the societies of heaven are arranged according to the heavenly form, and that there is a gyration according to the forms, which gyration the angels and spirits do not feel; this being like the flux of the earth on its axis daily, and around the sun yearly, which the inhabitants do not apperceive." (A. C. 4041.)

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Again, we read that "the spirits of Mercury go by companies and phalanxes, and when assembled together form, as it were, a globe; and that they are conjoined in this manner by the Lord in order that they may act as one, and that the knowledges of each may be communicated with all, and the knowledges of all with each." (A. C. 6926.) Again, speaking of the "form of heaven and the situation of the peoples and Gentiles there" at the time of the Last Judgment, Swedenborg says, "It is to be observed that, taken together, they are not spread out in a plane but in a globe, like the earth; and therefore, when I was led to the gentiles, after I had passed through the Mohammedans I descended obliquely." (D. 5244.)

We may gain a clearer understanding of the gyres of the spiritual world if we consider that the heavens correspond to the human form, the degrees of which answer to the degrees of the atmospheres. Viewed in their ascent from below these atmospheres are four in number,--the air and ether around every earth, the aura of every solar system, and the universal aura, the inmost of which is the spiritual sun. And so there is an external natural heaven founded in the air and ether of each planet, a spiritual heaven founded in the aura of each natural sun, and a celestial heaven, which is one throughout the universe, founded in the universal aura. (See T. C. R. 160; A. C. 2849, 7801. See also "Outlines of Swedenborg's Cosmology," by Miss Beekman, pp. 42-44.) And may we not consider that the heavens founded in these spheres are gyrating about their centers, though the angels be not conscious of these great gyres in which they circle, any more than men are conscious of the daily and yearly gyrations of their planet? We may conceive that the great general societies of heaven are so gyrating, unknown to the angelic inhabitants, whose individual gyration is according to the individual changes of state, which bring about the appearances of time and season in heaven.

The order and degrees of the heavens are also like those in the human form. The four degrees of ascent in the atmospheres have four corresponding planes in the body.

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In general, the lowest plane or region is the digestive tract, the nest that of the blood-vessels; the third plane is that of the nerves, and the fourth that of the fibers. The fluids in all these vessels have an ebb and flow in gyratory or circling motion. Indeed, all the natural motions in the body are gyratory, both the motions of the fluids and of the organs and vessels. The brain is marvelous in its convolutions and intricate gyres. The ear receives the sound and conveys it to the brain through a wonderful spiral. The eye is full of spirals. The lungs are constituted of spiral labyrinths. The stomach and intestines have a constant spiral motion by which their contents are rolled about. To say nothing of the gyres in the human body which are not visible to the eye of man. And this universal spiral gryratory motion is communicated to the body by the atmospheres, acting within and without upon the organic forms. Round about and within every organ, every blood-vessel, nerve, fibre, and cell in the body is the play of the air, the ether, and the auras in a gyratory circulation and flow.

     It is this motion that produces action and reaction in every part of the body, the animation of the brains, and of the heart and lungs, the motions of the stomach, liver and intestines. By it man has the faculty of sensation and motion. Because of it his senses are delighted with sweet sounds and sights, and his limbs with rhythmic dances.

     Moreover, by this motion of the atmospheres in the body foods, of every degree are received and digested, and impurities carried off. For man is fed not only by material foods through the mouth, but by more subtle foods through the atmospheres,--and these higher foods enter through the pores, through the lungs, and through the cells of the brain, and then, by a gyratory motion similar to that in the stomach, are prepared for their circulation in the body. (D. 1022, 1035) They are prepared by a process of rolling about and castigation, whereby grosser parts are removed and cast out, and whereby the finer essences are introduced into the gyres and circulations of the body, and thus into their final use.

     And this is a correspondence of what takes place with spirits; who are introduced into heaven.

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They are vexed and castigated in the world of spirits until the grosser things with them, which are veiled, are removed, and then they can be inaugurated into the heavenly gyres of the Gorand Man. Infant spirits are easily introduced, because they are like the purer foods that enter through the pores, and are carried away to the brain at once and led into the circulation of the spirits in the fibers. (D. 1022, 1035) Adult spirits are more apt to have grosser states acquired by evil acts in the world, and hence they require a longer preparation, like foods in the stomach and intestines; but still, with all who are good at heart the gross impurities can be vastated, and the spirits released therefrom and introduced into the gyres of the heavenly form.

     We see, then, that spirits are introduced into the gyres of heaven in a manner corresponding to the introduction of foods into the human body. They are introduced into that plane of the Gorand Man which agrees with their inmost quality, even as foods nourish the body according to their inmost essence and quality. And this is not merely a comparison; it is a correspondence. (See A. C. 5173-6; D. 1015-1038.)

     Now the quality of a spirit, according to which he is allotted his place in the gyres of heaven, is the quality of his mind, the quality of his affection and thought, or love and faith. When spirits are inaugurated into gyres they are consociated with others in a general agreement of affection and thought. The gyres of the individual mind must be in agreement with the general gyre. Let us now say a word about this mental gyre.

     The thoughts and affections of the mind or spirit of man operate in a gyratory form,--the form of heaven,--which, because it is interior, and above the consciousness of the angels,--is incomprehensible, and can be seen only by analogy in lower forms. Thought flows according to the forms of the mind, which are spiritual substances, and which outwardly appear like the forms in the brain, though inwardly they are invisible and incomprehensible. In the mind there is a gyration or animation of the substances in which are the affections and thoughts. And the gyration, animation, the action and reaction, in the forms of the mind, which is like the pulse and respiration of the heart and lungs, is perceived by man as thought and affection. (See D. 3399.)

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     In rational thought man begins from generals, proceeds to particulars, and returns to generals, thinking as it were in a circle or gyre. Moreover, it is common to say that a man revolves a subject in his mind, and as he revolves it he gathers the chief ideas into the center of the gyre, where his love is, and removes other ideas to the circumference, casting out worthless ideas altogether. In rational thinking there is always this process of selection and elimination by the gyres of the mind, to which purification in the brain and body corresponds The affection of truth is like appetite gathering unto itself all that agrees with its desire, rejecting all that disagrees. And so often as this affection is aroused the celestial forms of the mind are animated, and begin to perform, their wonderful gyres, to run their little courses, as the heavenly bodies in the firmament, and to fill the expanse of the mind with rays of light.

     It is the inmost of man's mental gyre which instinctively chooses for him an abiding place in heaven. And this inmost of the mind is his ruling love, the center of his individual gyre, which spontaneously seeks consociation with its like. For every gyre has its active center, and the active center with the individual man or spirit is his ruling love. This ruling love may be either natural or spiritual. With the regenerating man spiritual love is the inmost of his gyre, and the Lord Himself is in that inmost, leading him in the regenerate life, and afterwards to his place in heaven. Similarly is the Lord the inmost of that gyre which is called the Church, for in the Church as in heaven the Lord is the inmost fire and love, the center of every gyre, of every society of souls. And all who come into spiritual love on earth are brought into the gyre of the Church and are thereby prepared by the Lord and led to heaven.

     But those who remain natural, whose ruling love and center is natural, cannot be prepared for heaven either in this world or after death. And they seek an eternal abiding place in hell. Thither the gyres of the natural mind lead them. For the gyres of the human mind are of two kinds, one the gyre of spiritual love, the other the gyre of natural love; and these two gyres, before regeneration, are in an opposite fluxion and turning, acting one against the other.

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The gyres of the spiritual mind are art image of heaven, and when active in man elevate him to heaven; but the gyres of the natural mind are an image of the world, and when active in man apart from the heavenly gyres draw him down to hell. Unless the spiritual mind be opened in man by regeneration he cannot be introduced into heaven. Regeneration consists in the opening of the spiritual mind, the release of its gyres that they may be in their freedom and activity, and then the conforming of the gyres of the natural mind to act in agreement. The whole preparation of spirits for introduction into heaven, as we shall see presently, regards the conforming of the gyres of the natural mind to the gyres of the spiritual mind. Until this is accomplished they cannot be in heaven, for the forms of the spiritual mind are animated and gyrate only in the auras of heaven. (See D. L. W. 254, 263, 270; D. P. 319.)

In the Writings of the Church are given us many accounts of spirits who desired admittance to heaven, but who, on being elevated thither, were unable to remain. In some cases they cast themselves down headlong, in others they fell in a swoon, and had to be carried out and revived. The reason in general was that they were not yet prepared to respire or breathe in the atmospheres of heaven. If they were evil they never could be prepared to remain in heaven; if they were good they were obliged to undergo further preparation in the world of spirits before they could enter heaven. And that preparation consisted in the removal from their lives of all that was not in agreement with their ruling love of good. When that was effected it was as if sluggish impurities had been removed from their heart's blood, so that they could bear the respiration of a higher altitude. And then they could be elevated into the heaven of their heart's love. Hence we are told that the first inauguration into gyres is inauguration into respirations. (D. 3399.)

Even in the world a man breathes freely in a sphere that is agreeable to him, and with difficulty in a sphere that is not agreeable to him. An evil man is as it were suffocated in the presence of the good; the heart and respiration of a good man are in their freedom and comfort in the sphere of the good. But during regeneration a man is in a mixed state, a state in which good and evil are alternately active.

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And when he reaches the spiritual world he is kept for a time in the general state of his life in the world,--a mixed state,--until the evils in his natural are rendered quiescent. So long as those evils are active with him he cannot be elevated into heaven. He must undergo a preparation whereby his evils are reduced to quiescence and activity and good is given complete dominion. His natural mind must be brought into harmony and correspondence with his spiritual mind.

The evils that must be removed in this manner are all the lusts of self and the world which man by inheritance and actuality has acquired in the world and impressed upon the forms of his natural mind,--the perverse and contrary states of the substances of the natural mind, states that do not admit and respond to the influx of the life of heaven through the spiritual mind. These evils and their falsities are compared to "angular forms that impede the volubility of a gyre in the unanimous speech of many." (D. 2042. See D. 1995.) The evils of self love and the love of the world prevent man from entering into conjunction with the Lord and heaven; they prevent his entering into consociation with those who are in the interior sphere of charity and mutual love, who will and think, speak and act, in unanimity and concord.

So when man reaches the world of spirits he is able to be in company with those who are in mixed states, who are not yet vastated of evils, and who cannot yet be introduced into choirs of heavenly concord. But no one there can tarry long in that mixed state. It is of Divine order that the judgment should be quickly accomplished, and that the evils of good spirits should be fully and finally subjugated, to the end that they may come into heaven, and there remain forever. In the course of their vastations they are infested by evil spirits and as it were tempted anew, but from good they resist. That there may be no delay this is repeated continually, and even until the evils in the natural are completely subdued. During vastation they are let down into the lower earth, where they are afflicted, castigated, and vexed, like foods in the intestines. But after they have resisted evil even to despair they are elevated by the Lord to receive consolation and instruction, and are brought into a state of tranquillity and delight. It is then that they are to be the essences of the food introduced into the vessels of the chyle and their gyres. (A. C. 5173-5.)

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They are then able to enter into consociation with others who are preparing for heaven, and their introduction to this companionship is an essential part of their preparation for heaven. The evils of self love having been reduced to quiescence, love to the Lord and charity operate. They long to enter into the sphere of those loves, to be conjoined with those who are in a similar longing. From a genuine love they desire heaven. For the sphere of heaven is such that all there are in mutual love, in the love of performing uses to others, and of acting with others in the performance of uses. And hence the form of heaven is such that all are brought together into one society who are in a similar love, who can will, think, and act together in some great general use to the whole of heaven.

Man comes into this to some extent while he lives in the world by consociating with others in uses, and if he regenerates he comes into it spiritually as well as naturally. At this day, however, when hereditary evils are so great and regeneration so slow most who regenerate must undergo further preparation for heaven in the world of spirits. The first of this preparation is, as we have said, vastation; and the second is instruction. By vastation the evils that prevent consociation with the angels of heaven are removed; by instruction the spirit is led gradually into the way and life of heaven. He is taught new truths whereby his internals are opened and stored and his affection enkindled by delights. But especially is he introduced by experience,--experience in the company of others, whereby he is further purified, and his external brought into harmony with his internal by ultimations in act. Concerning the nature of this experience we will speak in conclusion.

Those who, during their final period of instruction in the world of spirits, are to be inaugurated into a choir, pass through four general states. Their first introduction into gyres his for its object that they may all be accommodated together; the second, that the thought and speech of each may agree; the third, that they may mutually accord together as to their thoughts and affections; the fourth is that they may accord as to truths and goods. (A. C. 5182.)

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     First they must get along together, which comes about naturally from the general desire of heart for the consociation, from the consent and willingness to remove external differences; next, the external of each one must be brought into agreement with his internal, and his speech must correspond with his thought. That this may be brought about he is compelled to speak more quickly, and his thought is forced to follow, which is not accomplished without pain because he is not accustomed to it. And thus is he brought to act with entire sincerity towards his companions. Then, as the spirits in the choir become better and better acquainted the internals of their minds manifest themselves, and by various experiences their thoughts and affections are brought into accord. Here also each is moved to put away from his thought and desire anything that is not in harmony with the general sphere. And thus are they all brought into closer internal agreement, and as they are at the same time elevated to higher and more interior planes they are introduced into swifter gyres. Gentiles, we are told, can be so introduced in a single night, but Christians with difficulty in thirty years. (A. C. 2595)

     We can understand this mode of introduction if we but consider that even a company of men on earth are consociated in a gyre or circle of thought and affection if they will and think alike on a given subject, and are acting together for a common object, each according to his nature and disposition in general agreement with the rest. And when this is cultivated by men during their natural life it will help them to enter into it after death. For in the spiritual world, where all are to be introduced into a final abode, this must of necessity be accomplished in fulness and perfection, first in the preparation for heaven, and afterwards in heaven more and more to eternity.

     This, then, is what is meant by introduction into heaven by inauguration into gyres. In the world of spirits similar loves, similar minds and dispositions, are brought together by the Lord into one gyre and thereby elevated into heaven, and through the heavens,--through the blood-stream of the heavens,--until each individual has found his place in the Gorand Man. Each must be in a society in which he can remain forever and increase in agreement with the others in that society. And the Lord foresees and provides such a place for every man born into the world.

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He foresees and provides for it from man's infancy, and throughout his regeneration, leading him by ways unknown to him, which ways may be called the gyres of his spiritual life. And when he finally reaches his eternal abiding place in heaven, he is in the gyre most conformable to his ruling love and delight, where he will be happiest to eternity. He is surrounded with angelic companions of love and mutual use, and the very auras will accord with his heart-beats His house will be filled with forms of surpassing beauty, the outward effigies of his inward joys. And his garden will be planted with trees and flowers in wonderful symmetry, in circles and gyres of perpetual spirals, wherein he may see images of that wisdom and intelligence with which he has been gifted by the Lord.

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BURNING BUSH 1909

BURNING BUSH Rev. N. D. PENDLETON 1909

     "And the angel of Jehovah appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bramble; and he saw, and lo, the bramble burned with fire, and the bramble was in no tense consumed. And Moses said, I will therefore go aside and see this great vision, why the bramble is not burnt. Exodus III, 23.

     Moses, the leader of Israel, represented the Lord as to the Divine Law, the Lord in the flesh making Himself Divine Justice. Wherefore every recorded event of his life, having reference to the redemption of Israel from the bondage of Egypt, was significative of the process of Glorification whereby the Human assumed became Justice, or Essential Divine Righteousness. Coincidentally the same events refer to the salvation of the Spiritual, their elevation from the earth of lower things on the occasion of the resurrection of the glorified body from the tomb.

     Moses turning aside to see the vision of the burning bush was, therefore, significative of an animadversion on the part of the Lord, a turning or opening of His mind to receive a Divine vision touching the nature, mode, and circumstance of that glorification which was even then taking place within Him.

     This Divine Vision, which came to Him in a moment of supreme Exaltation, caused His Human growing mind to marvel; and like Moses, He, as it were, turned aside to see, to enquire into the great mystery why the bramble burned with fire and was not consumed. What our Lord perceived in that moment of supreme insight was this, that He was to receive into Himself the Infinite ardency of the Divine Love,--that He alone of all men born of woman was capable, was empowered, to meet, receive and appropriate the descending Fire of Divine Love.

     Not even the angels of the highest heavens could so receive the inflowing Divine; they receive it, indeed, for it is Life, the only Life. All men also receive of it, and all things, even the lowest things of creation, for without such influx no thing can be or live. But from highest to lowest throughout the whole scale of created things the inflowing Divine is tempered and modified by successive and adequate veilings.

573

These veilings are so many spheres--atmospheres--put forth from the Divine through the instrumentality of the Spiritual Sun at the epoch of the first or original creation, to which have since been added many modifications, by reaction from ultimates, called "return Spheres," these latter infilling, or coating the former, imparting to them varying degrees of density, so that the inflowing Divine is successively tempered and thereby made receptible to each and every degree of life,--to each and every organism high and low, good and evil. Because of the differences of reception thus arising, the Divine is seen by the celestial angels as a Sun, by the spiritual angels as a moon, by the natural angels as light,--as when the Sun is veiled by clouds,--and by evil spirits a dense, black cloud. This "cloud" is nothing more than an ultimate atmosphere weighted with return spheres of a grossly natural or evil formation given off by those spirits of darkness, and which are of such a nature as to prevent the transflux of the Divine Light emanating from the spiritual Sun. Even the celestial angels are encompassed by a cloud of return spheres, given off by their finite but highly rectified organisms, which infill the primal aura of the spiritual Sun; this cloud is comparatively thin nebulous, yet it is of sufficient density to temper and modify the inflowing Light and Heat and thereby protect those angels from what, if unmodified, would be a consuming fire.

It was otherwise with our Lord. When He Glorified His Human, He not only broke through and dispersed the dark shroud of hell which encompassed the assumed human, but He also parted the nebulous veilings which invested the heavens, even to the highest of them, and received into His Human, untempered and unmodified, the very Divine solar fire itself, or, what is the same, the Infinite ardency of the Divine Love,--and this without destroying that Human.

This was the meaning of the vision which Moses turned aside to see, and the reason why the bramble, from the midst of which the angel of Jehovah spoke, burned with fire and was not consumed. The bramble was not consumed because it was of like substance with the flame,--the human assumed and glorified was not destroyed by the reception of the Ardency of Divine Love, because that Human was, by virtue of the process of Glorification, made Divine, and thus became of one substance with the Infinite Divine Love.

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     The human taken from Mary, the mortal flesh and blood, was in itself not of this nature. It was altogether as that of other men, i. e., mortal in all points, the subject of death and dissolution, the victim of hell. In process of time and by successive degrees it went the way of the bodies of all other men. Between it and the Glorified Human, the Divine Body of God Man, there was such a difference as exists between the Divine Substance and forms grossly finite.

     The teaching is that the Divine Body or Human was a result of Glorification. It was put on gradually and successively, as the Infinite soul descended into and infilled the parts, planes and members of the assumed human with the very Divine Substance whereby the Body became of one Substance with the Soul, and could therefore infinitely receive, and infinitely react to, the inner action of that Soul.

     The Body of the Lord thus made Divine was signified by the "bramble." It was so likened in the early Scriptural vision because of the nature of the original human assumed, because that human was taken from the most ultimate or lowest degree of life. Yet it was even this ultimate which was Glorified, and when Glorified the original likeness of a man, both as to form and figure, stood forth. It stood as a "bramble," indeed, but now burning with Divine Fire and not consumed because consubstantiate with that Fire. The fact represented in the vision of the burning bush was therefore literally true of the Body of the Lord. After Glorification it appeared as a Body,--the same as that known to the disciples,--yet it was encompassed by the Spiritual Sun, to the midst of which it penetrated, and thenceforth that Sun emanated FROM IT and, in consequence, shone with sevenfold glory.

     Our text presents four characteristic features, all Divine or representing Divine attributes, all playing a part in the great work of Glorification: i. e., Moses, the Angel of Jehovah, the bramble, and the encompassing flame of fire.

     Moses, as the leader and lawgiver of Israel, stands for the Lord in the world of man, making Himself Divine Justice.

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The Vision which he beheld at the foot of Sinai represented the mode and circumstance of the Glorifying process.

Three features pertain to the vision: i. e., the Angel of Jehovah, the bramble, and the encompassing flame of fire.

The Angel of Jehovah was also a representative of the Lord as to the Divine Human, in this case not the Human born in time and Glorified, but the Human from eternity. For before the Lord came into the world there was a Divine Human even from eternity, which, however, could only appear by means of an Angel, not yet as a man on earth. The doctrine is that before the coming of the Lord, Jehovah in appearing. Passed through the heavens and gut on thence an angelic human form. This He could do by virtue of the fact that heaven as to the whole and in all its parts is in form a man, formed after the likeness of God. It was thus that Jehovah appeared to the men of the Ancient Churches, their Spiritual Eyes being open. Thus He appeared also to the prophets of the Jewish Church, as the Angel of Jehovah. Thus He appeared to Moses out of the burning bush, i. e., as the Divine Human from eternity, and it is said that this is the "same" as that Divine Human born in time and known to men as the Lord Jesus Christ. The same Divine, indeed, for there is but one, and yet with a difference so great and of such a nature that the human mind can but dimly grasp it. A difference, not ideal or imaginary, but actual, for the whole relation of man to God, and of God to man was modified by it,--modified in this essential point that while the Human from eternity could be present with men in the world only mediately, the Divine Human born in time is present with them immediately. And this carries with it a vast difference not only as to the presence, but also as to the power, of the Divine in Creation. Nor will it answer to stop here and say that the difference so far noted has reference to the mode of human reception merely, for this difference arose from a cause superior to itself. A cause which we may denote as a change, an extension of the Divine within Its Cycle of Life as touching and including creation. And this Change demarked a difference so great that Swedenborg was led to speak of the Divine after Glorification,--the Divine Glorified Body,--as a "Second Essence," and this in the face of the oft repeated statement that God is one in Person and in Essence.

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But the matter comes more clearly to our rational apprehension by the statement of the Writings that the difference to be noted is comparable with that between an angel and a man in the world, the man having all the degrees of life possessed by the angel with one additional, i. e., the ultimate life in the world of nature. In other words, it is said that the Divine before the assumption and glorification possessed itself of the celestial and spiritual degrees of life, that is, the Angelic; and that after glorification it possessed Itself of the natural degree also. So that the Glorified Human is at once God, Angel and Man, and thereby is enabled to be actually and immediately present in all the planes of creation.

     Note, however, the fact as stated, that the Divine Human before glorification is one and the same Divine with that which was after. For it was the Human from eternity which descended in time and assumed the flesh and glorified it. Hence in the vision seen by Moses the Angel of Jehovah appeared to him and spoke with him out of the burning bush. This "Angel" also appeared in a "Flame of Fire" by which is signified the Divine Love or what is the same the Spiritual Sun. Divine Love is signified because love, in its first origin, is nothing but fire or flame from the Spiritual Sun, which imparts the esse of life to every man, and is the very vital fire which fills the interiors of man with heat.

     From the Divine Love, in the Spiritual Sun, therefore, the Human from eternity appeared, but on this occasion out of the midst of a "bramble," or what is the same, out of the midst of the flesh assumed and glorified. For the "bramble," according to the Adversaria, signifies "the body itself of the Messiah, as well because of its thorns as because of its fruits, for that His head was encircled with thorns from a thorny bramble is known, and His body was for eating, here signified by the fruit. Wherefore, it hence appears, that He willed to be seen in no other bush than a bramble." (Adv. 1646.)

     From the Arcana we learn that "the bramble denotes scientific truth, because all small shrubs of every kind signify scientifics, but the greater shrubs perceptions and knowledges.

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The bramble, inasmuch as it produces flowers and berries, signifies scientific truth (i. e., of the Church), which is the Word in the sense of the Letter, and also every representative and significative of the posterity of Jacob; these in their external form are called scientific truths, but in their internal form they are spiritual truths. But whereas truth in the internal form could not appear to the posterity of Jacob by reason that they were in mere externals, and were unwilling to be acquainted with internal things, therefore the Lord appeared (to them) in a bramble, for He always appears according to man's state of reception." (A. C. 6832.)

But that which represents the Letter of the Word, also, and in a supreme sense, represents the Human or Body of the Lord. In consequence the treatment of this text in the Arcana soon passes to the subject of the Glorification, especially where it explains the fact that the bramble was not consumed This remarkable fact, it is said, signifies the union of Divine Truth and Divine Good in the Natural, i. e., in either the natural of the Word or the natural of the Human, for interiorly viewed they are the same. The explanation is given in the following words: "In the present case, because the Lord is treated of, it denotes Divine Truth in the natural. . . not dissipated by the good of Divine Love. Thus their union is signified. The case herein is this: the Divine Good of the Divine Love is the very solar fire in the other life, which is of such heat that if it were to fall into any one, even an angel of the inmost heaven, without an intermediate tempering, he would be deprived of all sense, and would perish; of such heat is the Divine Love of the Lord. But the Lord, when He was in the world and united the Human essence to the Divine, received the fire of this love into His Human and united it to the Truth there, when He made Himself the Law Divine signified by Moses:" i. e., the bramble burned and was not consumed.

In the same connection we read "The Divine Himself is pure Love, and pure love is a fire, hotter than the fire of the sun of this world; wherefore if the Divine Love in its purity inflowed into any angel, spirit, or man, he would altogether perish; hence it is that Jehovah or the Lord in the Word is so often called a consuming fire; lest, therefore, the Angels in heaven should be hurt by the influx of heat from the Lord as a Sun they are each of them veiled by some thin and suitable cloud, whereby the heat flowing in from that Sun is tempered.

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That every one would perish at the Lord's presence without such security was known to the ancients, wherefore they were afraid to see God. How much danger may befall the angels from being looked at by the Divine may appear from this, that when even an angel looks upon any spirit that is in evil the latter appears to be turned into something inanimate; the reason is because by angelic light the light and heat of heaven falls into such a spirit and when they (the heat and light) penetrate, the wicked are almost deprived of life. And if this be the effect of a look from the angels, how much more a look by the Lord. From the consideration that the presence of the Divine is such that no angel can endure it, unless protected by a cloud which tempers and moderates, it may manifestly appear that the Lord's Human is Divine, for unless it was Divine it could never be so united to the Divine Itself called the Father as to be one with it. For that which receives the Divine in this way must needs be itself altogether Divine; what is not Divine would be absolutely dissipated by such union. What can be cast into the solar fire, and not perish unless it be similar to the Sun? In like manner, who can be let into the ardency of Infinite Love, except He who is in the ardency of a like love? Who, therefore, except the Lord alone'" (A. C. 6849.)

This, then, is the meaning of the vision which Moses turned aside to see: why the bramble burned with fire and yet was not consumed, i. e., the Human of the Lord, even the Human Body, received into itself the Fire of Divine Love, and was not dissipated thereby. And this is the same as to say that the Human Essence became one with the Divine--and Jesus, the Christ, the Man on earth, became God over all.

But we may still ask how this surpassing marvel could be accomplished? How could the lowly bramble be, or become, of one substance with the Flame of Fire:--the body of Man stand forth consubstantiate with the Divine Substance? By the process of Glorification. Yes! but what of that process? How do we understand the mode of its operation?

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     We know that before the dawn of time,--before even the morning stars sang together,--God willed to create: that "He gave of His own substance for the molding of a universe; that He finited His own Infinity by a primal brooding movement within His own bosom, a folding movement which descended by successive degrees of involution from first to last; that therefore the Infinite Divine is involved in all created things--even in the rocks and stones of the earth: And more, we know that if these successive foldings should be removed, (as in part they may), nought but the Infinite Divine would be the final resultant.

     Was this, then, the Path along which Glorification proceeded? In the case of our Lord and His Finite body of flesh, did a resolution such as this occur? In other words, as finition was a bounding and an enfolding of Infinite Substance, was the Glorification,--the making Divine,--an unfolding or definiting process?

     It does not so appear, at least not simply so, for in such a case with the last resolution we should have but the Infinite, per se, the primal Invisible Father, and the temporary appearance of God Man on earth would have been not unlike a dream that passeth. The Glorification was, therefore, not a mere definiting process,--not a simple resolution of the finite bodily forms into the original Infinite Substance. The point to be seen and never to be lost sight of is the fact that--the organic Human remained, remained organic, part for part, plane for plane and member for member. The bramble burned with fire, but it was not consumed, it remained a bramble even in the midst of the flame. This is the essential point of the text, the prime meaning of the vision which Moses turned aside to see.

     If, then, the finite bodily forms were not resolved into the original Divine Substance, what did happen?

     The finites which composed His body were from first to lasts given off, and this by successive degrees. Their place was infilled by Infinites descending from the Infinite Soul, and this also by degrees, until the entire Body stood forth Divine; part for part, plane for plane and member for member.

     Now this Glorified Human Body is Infinite in Substance.

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It is also in reality Infinite in Form. And yet it retains a certain derived power of appearing, actually appearing in an as it were finite form. Otherwise men and angels would have again been thrown back upon the necessity of endeavoring to worship the Infinite Invisible. The Divine took to itself this peculiar power by virtue of the assumption of the Human, and therewith also the power of being actually and ultimately present on all the planes of creation. It also granted a new and marvelous power in men not before possible, i. e., the power of direct approach to the Divine in thought and worship.

     Remember what is said of certain Angelic societies and the effect upon these of the Glorification. They, being, as it were, enfolded in the mind of our Lord, while He was making His human Divine, were moved to a certain Judgment. They were, on the occasion, instructed that unless they, as it were, finited the Divine by intellectual ideas, they could have no perception of Him, thus could not worship Him in His Divine Human. And it is to be noted that such power of finiting the Divine by intellectual ideas, by inmost perceptions, was given to all men and all angels after the assumption and glorification. This is the same as the power to see Him in His Glorified Human, not indeed the Infinite form of that Human, but its finite appearance in and above the heavens. This is now and forevermore visible.

     And therefore we say that the process of Glorification was not a simple definiting process, as a return by resolution to the original estate of the Invisible Infinite, but a fulfilling, or infilling process, whereby the Soul, the Human from Eternity, possessed Itself of the body of man, and took to Itself all the parts, planes and members thereof--so that in every truth and actuality God became Man in Ultimates, and by virtue of such an ultimate Divine Body He stands as the last as well as the first, and so grasps the whole of Creation, inwardly and outwardly, in an everlasting embrace.

     The disciples beholding Him after the resurrection noted that: He passed through, the door being closed, and this because--as stated in the Arcana, the Divine, be it ever so ultimate, yet "penetrates to the inmosts" even to the inmosts of the Spiritual Sun. It is fully present also in intermediates, that is, in the heavens.

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And it is no less present in ultimates, or the world of nature. In a word, the Divine Body of God Man is omnipresent essence it surrounds and infills all things. For His Body is an essence,--a flame--a Divine Fire, It is also organic,--an organic Human Body, a bramble invested with a flame of fire and not consumed

When Moses turned aside to see the vision of the burning bush, he beheld a likeness of the Great Passion when the thorny bramble was raised to the brow of God: when the lowly human was lifted to intimate union with the Divine: when man became God even a, God was become fully and forever man in lasts as in firsts, in organic activity as well as essential reality. It is this Divine Organic Man from whom the essence proceeds, whom we love and worship, with whom we may become conjoined in life eternal, and from whom it is given to derive the bread and wine, as Body and Blood "meat for our souls."

If we strive to see the essence without the organic,--lacking the perception of the Most Ancients,--we fall into Pantheism. If we recognize only the organic, the thought can not be lifted to the apprehension of the Divine. To see the two united in one is the characteristic of New Church thought, is the burden of the final revelation to man,--a revelation which tells of God becoming Man, and of the Man becoming God, which exposes to view all the mysteries of heaven and earth, and enables man to behold the Light of God flashing down and along the path Creation unveiling the way in which all must go who would follow after Him Who burned in the bush. Amen.

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SWEDENBORG'S FLYING MACHINE 1909

SWEDENBORG'S FLYING MACHINE C. TH. ODHNER 1909

     During the exciting week in August, when the contesting aviators at Rheims fully demonstrated man's "conquest of the air," the thought of Swedenborg's youthful attempt to construct a flying machine naturally recurred to our mind, and we take pleasure in presenting here an English translation, the first ever made, of the Swedish documents in which this invention is described.

     At the annual meeting of the American Institute of Mining Engineers, held in New York, 1907, the secretary, Dr. R. W, Raymond, referred to Swedenborg as one of the foremost, if not the very foremost, of all mining engineers and metallurgists who have ever lived," and he enumerated among Swedenborg's mechanical inventions the following which are mentioned in a letter to Eric Benzelius, in the year 1714: "A submarine boat 'which can do great damage to the ships of an enemy;' a portable siphon for raising great quantities of water; a machine 'driven by fire, which will put water in motion.' (a steam engine?); new pumps of various designs; new air-guns; a universal musical instrument, 'by means of which one who is quite unacquainted with music may execute all kinds of airs;' a water-clock, and a flying carriage, showing the possibility of remaining suspended in the air and of being conveyed through it."

     To judge from the flying machine, all these wonderful inventions were probably nothing but brilliant conceptions and suggestions, roughly worked out and then abandoned for more serious studies. The papers describing these inventions have all been lost with the one exception of the flying machine; of the latter, however, we have two separate accounts,--one in MS. dating, perhaps, from 1714 and reproduced in the first volume of Swedenborg's photo-lithographed MSS., where a rough drawing of the machine is also given;--the other, a printed account, without a drawing, published in his Daedalus Hyperboreus or "Northern Inventor," a scientific magazine edited by Swedenborg during the year 1716-1718. This was the very first scientific journal ever published in Sweden and in the Swedish tongue.

583

Swedenborg himself, and his distinguished friend and mentor, Christopher Polheim, were the chief contributors, and it was financed directly by King Charles XII., who was deeply interested in all things mathematical and mechanical. After six numbers had appeared the magazine was discontinued, owing to the utter ruin of the Swedish finances, resulting from the incessant wars of the "Madman of the North."

     The journal was printed in Upsala, under the supervision of Swedenborg's brother-in-law, Eric Benzelius, and other learned professors, who, in 1710, had organized the "Literary Society" which was the first scientific association in Sweden, and of which Swedenborg was the first corresponding member. This Society was the forerunner, by direct descent, of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and the Royal Academy has recently recognized the Daedalus Hyperboreus as being virtually its first published "Transactions. It is now preparing a facsimile memorial edition of the Daedalus, to be published in connection with the bi-centennial celebration of the "Literary Society," in 1910, which will be further signalized by the uncovering of a sarcophagus, erected by the Swedish nation in honor of Swedenborg.

     It will be noticed that the autograph MS. and the printed account are by no means identical, as has been supposed by R. L. Tafel in his Documents Concerning Swedenborg and by James Hyde in his Bibliography. Both accounts appear somewhat crude,--mere hasty sketches, but from the two in conjunction a better idea can be gained than from either one alone. As to the practical value of the whole we can pronounce no opinion, but whatever be the verdict of modern aviators, the fact remains that the idea of this monoplane anticipates by at least a century and a half the modern aeroplanes, and is another evidence of that wonderful prophetic perception of Swedenborg's, which is a cause of bewilderment to the scientific world of today.
     C. TH. ODHNER.

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PUBLISHED ACCOUNT. SUGGESTIONS FOR A MACHINE TO FLY IN THE AIR. 1909

     I.

          From the thought of Assessor Polheim, [in a preceding article on "Rational Duplicates in Perpendicular Falls"] we may figure out the power and resistance of the air to all objects, expanded as well as compact or compressed. From this, as also from the flight of birds, it would be easy to come to the conclusion that a machine might be invented which could carry and transmit us through the air, and that we are not to be excluded from the element overhead, even though no other wings be given us than those of the understanding. Those who before now have given thought to such a work of Daedalus or Mercury, have set before them an impracticable principle, and have founded their notions on things contrary to our atmosphere, viz., great balls which, by being emptied of air, acquire a sufficient lightness to raise up a machine and its Icarus as well.

     But if we follow living nature, examining the proportions that the wing of a bird holds to its body, a similar mechanism might be invented, which could give us hope to be able to follow the bird in the air. First, let a car or boat or some like object be made of light material such as cork or birch bark, with a room within for the operator. Second, in front as well as behind, or all around, set a widely stretched sail parallel to the machine, forming within a hollow or bend, which could be reefed like the sails of a ship. Third, place wings on the sides, to be worked up and down by a spiral spring, these wings also to be hollow below in order to increase the force and velocity, take in the air and make the resistance as great as may be required. These, too, should be made of light material and of sufficient size; they should be in the shape of bird's-wings, or the arms of a windmill or some such shape, and be tilted obliquely upwards and be made so as to collapse on the upward stroke and expand on the downward. Fourth, place a balance or beam [vectis] below, hanging down perpendicularly to some distance and with a small weight attached at the end, pendent exactly in line with the center of gravity,--the longer this beam is, the lighter it must be, for it must have the same proportion as the well known [Roman] vectis or steelyard.

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This would serve to restore the balance of the machine whenever it should lean over to any of the four sides. Fifth, the wings would perhaps have greater force, so as to increase the resistance and make the flight easier, if a hood or shield were placed above them, as is the case with certain insects. Sixth, when now the sails are expanded so as to occupy a great surface and much air, with a balance keeping them horizontal, only a small force would be needed to move the machine back and forth in a circle, and up and down. And after it has gained momentum to move slowly upwards, a slight movement and an even bearing would retain it in balance with the air and determine its direction at will.

It seems easier, however, to talk of such a machine than to put it into actuality and get it up into the air, for it requires greater force and less weight than exists in the human body. However, there are three or four requisites that would be of chief assistance: 1) a strong wind, which has a considerable effect on similar objects, for in calm weather it would be better to keep quietly and humbly by the ground; 2) the machine should be pushed off from a considerable elevation, for the primary difficulty will be to force oneself up from the level; much would be gained toward this end if the machine were lifted up some distance into the air by means of ropes; this would do as much as a strong puff of wind; 3) the size, and the width of the sails, ought to be in proportion to the weight, which, (as well as the force of the wings), must increase with the weight in the ratio of 3 to 2, as Assessor Polheim shows in the article below; 4) in order to acquire a downward force in the wings sufficient for middling calm weather, Mechanics might perhaps suggest a means, viz., a strong and stiff spiral spring, which, when set free, would have the power of three or four persons; and it could be bent upward, though somewhat more slowly, by a light and quick mechanism.

If these advantages and requisites are observed, perhaps in time to come some one might know how better to utilize our sketch and cause some addition to be made, so as to accomplish that which we can only suggest. Yet there are sufficient proofs and examples from Nature that such flight can take place without danger; such as birds, eagles and gleads, which, as it were, swim in the air and with all their weight rest on their wings without moving the least feather for several minutes.

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In the case of kites, made of paper and wood, we see a similar property, in that they keep themselves up in the air without sinking down in the least. It is also well known that a man in Strangnas accidentally fell down from a tower in a strong wind, and the cape he wore saved him to such an extent, that he came to the ground unharmed. And there are other cases which may be considered; although when the first trials are to be made, you may have to pay for the experience and not mind an arm or a leg.

The ingenious Fontenelle writes humorously about such a machine, saying: "The art of flying is as yet hardly born. It will be perfected and some day people will fly up to the moon. Do we pretend to have discovered everything, or to have brought our knowledge to a point where nothing can be added to it? Oh, for mercy's sake, let us agree that there is still something to do for the ages to come?" (Entret, sur la Pluralite des Mondes, pp. 51, 52.)

The learned Assessor Polheim pronounces a more doubtful opinion, as follows: "As to artificial flying it probably has the same difficulties as the artificial production of gold or perpetual motion, etc., although at first sight it seems no less practicable than desirable; but when we examine the matter more closely we meet something which Nature seems to deny us; as in the present case that all machines do not retain equal proportions in great dimensions as in small, even though all parts be made the same and in the same proportions, as, for instance, although a cane or a stick may be capable of carrying not only itself but also some weight in addition, yet this does not apply to all dimensions, even if length and thickness keep their same proportions, for whenever the weight increases in triplicate ratio, the force increases only in duplicate; it is the same as to surfaces. Whence it happens that great bodies cannot support their own weight. And since Nature itself demands of birds not only a very light and strong material for feathers, but also wholly different tendons and bones in the body itself, which tend to strength and lightness, and which do not exist in other bodies; therefore it is much more difficult to accomplish that effect in the air which is needed for the realization of this thing on account of the lack of necessary materials, in case a human body is to accompany the machine.

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But if it were possible for one person to move and direct all that pertains to a machine sufficiently large to be able to carry him, then the point would be gained. However, it would be well to take advantage of a wind, if the same were constant and invariable."

     But enough this time, about our Daedalus. (Translated from the Swedish by Hugo Ljungberg Odhner.)

     II.

     THE MANUSCRIPT.

     DESCRIPTION OF A DAEDALIAN OR FLYING MACHINE.

     1. Make a square box, or car, t t t t, of lightest possible material, such as leather, cork, or best of all, birch bark, with thin wooden splints, the whole, however, strong enough to hold a man without danger. The box should be 2 ells [yards] in length and 3 in width, for the wings are to be moved sideways and the box, therefore, should be greater in width than in length; the depth should be 1 ell, with space within for a Daedalus or flying man.

     2. A sail should be stretched as wide as possible and be bent into a hollow; examine it carefully to make sure there is no rift or crack in the sail for the air to pass through, for the pressure of the atmosphere will be so strong that if there be any rift, the air will be forced through with a whistling noise. The sail should be 150 square ells; for since an eagle or glead occupies about 2 square feet of surface when it lies still in the air, with tail, body, and all, therefore, as our flying machine with all its gear will be about 300 times heavier than an eagle, it must also occupy a space 300 times greater than an eagle in relation to its weight, that is to say, I50 cubic [square?] ells.

     The sail may be made in the form of a square, oblong, circle, just as you please; best, perhaps, would be an oval form, provided with a support.

588

[Hand drawn diagram of Swedenborg's flying machine.]

589

     3. The sail is fastened and bent as may be seen from the drawing, [Fig. 2], viz., there are 4 poles lengthwise and crosswise, CC, DD, EE, FF, all of which are bent at the ends, at yx, yx. Then make a thin wooden rim around it, D.C. m. n. F. bent into an oval shape. To this rim are fastened the splints, m.m, n.n., o.o., which are also bent, and underneath all this the sail is securely fastened.

4. The two wings, j.j., are placed between the sails, and they also should be bent into a hollow, in order to catch and keep the air better at the downward stroke than at the upward. It would do no harm if they were tilted obliquely backwards, like the arms of a wind mill. They may be made of splints covered with sail-cloth, so fastened to the splints above that it opens a little at the upward stroke, for the air to press through.

     5. L. L. is the true center of the machine, where it lies in a balance. The wings must also be balanced, so that B B on the one side is equal in weight with J J on its side. The wings should be as light as possible, but the most important thing in connection with them is a spiral spring, (sling-fjader), placed lengthwise beneath each, shaped as in Fig. I.

     This spring is fastened to the car in such a manner that A B runs lengthwise along the wing, while A is fastened to the car itself. Now when the wing moves upwards, A. B moves against the spiral in the spring, so that the spiral circle in A is rolled up, but at the downward stroke it recoils and carries the wing downward with force.

     6. H H H H are four poles proceeding downwards, i. e, four legs; it would do no harm if they were provided with rollers, for the machine to stand upon.

     G is a weight or beam [vectis], which is to keep the machine in a horizontal position, so that it may not tip over.

     Requisites for the building of the machine: 1) The position of the poles and the splints may be seen from the drawing. 2) The seat is within the basket, and beneath there ought to be a bar under which the weight should be fastened. 3) The center of gravity, or the balance, should be determined in the middle of the car,--the machine should be placed between two poles and hung on two axles, from which it may be seen where the wings and the weight are to be fastened.

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     Requisites as to the weight. The weight of the whole machine ought not to be more than 20 Lispund,* or I Skeppund, viz., the man or Daedalus, 8 Lp.; the sails 150 or 160 square ells,-2-1/2 Pp.; the car itself 1-1/2 Lp.; the framework 5 Lp.; the weight G, I Lp.; the wings, with the springs, 2 Lp.; the rest I Lp. Altogether, 21 Lp.
     * The old Swedish "Lispund" = 18 lb. 12 oz. The "Skeppund" = 374 lb., or 171 kilogr.

     Requisites as to the size. The sails may be expanded in whatever form you please, to the size of 150 or 160 square ells. If the form is circular, then a diameter of 14 ells would be sufficient; if oval, then the larger diameter might be 16 ells, and the shorter It; if square, then the side would be 12/1/2 ells. If oblong, the longer sides ought to be 15, the diagonal 10 ells; all these dimensions would occupy a space of 150 or 160 square ells. 2) The car should be 2 ells long, 3 broad, and I deep. 3) The wings 2-1/2 ells long, and 3/4 broad. 4) The weight or beam should be almost 4 ells from the bottom, when it would be able to keep in balance several Skeppund.

     Obs. The springs below the wings ought to be strong and weigh about 5 or 6 Lp. 2) Where the sails are fastened [?] they ought to be bent inward. 3) The Daedalus himself should determine the flight by his swaying, downwards, upwards, or to the side. 4) One must see if any [additional] sail be necessary to direct the course, downwards or perpendicularly.

     Proofs.

     1) From eagles or gleads, which are able to lie still on their wings or on their expanse, or sway in the air.

     2) From paper-kites, which often in calm weather are able to keep themselves in the air, and rise higher and higher up by only a slight motion, and yet not tip over, although surrounded by wood and other heavy materials.

     3) That Kirchberg, and others, tell about such things although nothing [---] is seen expanded.

     4) That the wind can lift up very heavy materials, so that when it blows against a gate with force, it can blow it open even though two men be pushing against it, when yet it is often 16 square ells in extent.

591

How, then, would it act on a surface of 1'50 square ells, with the wings helping along?

     5) A student with a side-cape fell unharmed down from Skara church tower in a strong wind.

     6) A kite, the higher it reaches, the less motion is needed to keep it in the air, as is apparent; while down by the ground it has to be lifted up by motion.

     Observata.

     A machine such as this one can be made to go when there is a strong wind; otherwise it will remain quiet.

     It may be drawn forward on the rollers, where the ground is even. Or it may be pushed down from a roof, after it has been weighted with ballast, to the weight of a man. (Translated from the photo lithographed MS. by C. Th. Odhner.)

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Editorial Department 1909

Editorial Department Editor 1909

     NOTES AND REVIEWS.

     Adverting to a note in the August Life, (p. 442), to the effect that Mr. William Pickstone, who was baptized by Robert Hindmarsh, is now "the only living link between the early days of the Church and the present," the Rev. J. B. Spiers writes informing us of still another living survivor of the early days. We refer to Mrs. Ruth Gledhill, a member of the Society in Jacksonville, Fla. Mrs. Gledhill, whose maiden name is Birchwood, was born in 1821, at Manchester, and was baptized in the same year by Robert Hindmarsh, then the pastor of the Salford (Manchester) Society, of which Mrs. Gledhill's parents were members.

     It was with much pleasure we read the first two issues of our new English contemporary, The Young New Church Man, a well printed and well illustrated quarterly magazine of 24 pages, edited by the Rev. E. J. Pulsford and published at Manchester by the "British Federation of New Church Young People's Societies." It is a very bright little paper, of a distinctly New Church character. Of special interest is a department headed "The New Church in far away places," in which have appeared, thus far, an account of the New Church in Durban, Natal, by Miss Muriel M.. Buss, and of the New Church in Sweden, by the Rev. C. J. N. Manby, both calculated to excite the affections for struggling brethren of our faith in distant lands. We wish The Young New Church Man every success in its important and delightful uses.

     In an editorial on "The Church of the Simple Good," which it characterizes as a "general movement," the Messenger says: "We seldom think of the simple good as organizing." Our thought generally is of their being organized by others. But we have merely to look around to see that it is so today." And then it authoritatively adds: "The Methodist Church, though Episcopal, is largely the church of the earnest lay worker, filling to a remarkable extent the definition of simple as used by Swedenborg."

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All of which would be very interesting,--if true. But one wonders where the Messenger gets its supernatural insight into the life of men that it can thus calmly determine who are the ones in "simple good." Revelation teaches us that they are known to the Lord alone; and it indicates that they are to be found more in the Roman Catholic Church than in the Protestant churches, but most of all among the gentiles.

The tendencies of the instruction which the Convention's Theological School provides for its students are strikingly illustrated by a communication in the Messenger from the pen of the Rev. J. P. Dresser, a graduate of the present year and now ministering to the Convention society in Abington, Mass. His letter is headed "The Importance of Original Thinking," and his suggestions, whether original or not, are certainly frank. The real trouble with the New Church, he maintains, is "the paralyzing, the almost fatal, habit of running to Swedenborg to find out what one thinks or believes! Why not use your own head? Go to Swedenborg for study, but don't let him come between you and the Bible. The heavenly doctrines of the New Jerusalem are the greatest help in the world to the right understanding of the Bible, but they are only a help," etc. "See that nothing stands between you on the one hand, and the Lord Jesus Christ, the Holy Bible, and your soul's need, on the other. Cut loose from the Swedenborgian dock, and sail for the open sea." Dresser only expresses in an extreme but honest fashion what he has been taught.

The second number of the Australian annual A 19th of June Souvenir, has been received. The distinctively New Church platform on which this publication stands is clearly indicated by the statement prominently printed on the outside of the front cover, "The Church which is called the Christian Church has at this day, come to its end; therefore the Arcana of Heaven and of the Church are now revealed by the Lord to serve as the doctrine of Life and Faith for the New Church, which is meant by the New Jerusalem in the Revelation."

594

     The two leading articles dealing with the question of the Divine Authority of the Writings, have both already appeared in print, the one, on The Inspiration of Swedenborg, by the Rev. J. F. Buss, in the authors book, The Star of the East, and the other, on "The Writings as the Word," by Bishop Pendleton, in New Church Life for March and April, 1900; but both articles are well worth reading many times. The Souvenir also reprints Mr. Beilby's review of the General Church Liturgy. Among its other contents, we note an appreciative review of The Star of the East, alluded to above, and two short articles by the editor, Mr. Richard Morse, on the Church in Australia. One of these articles deals with statistics and the other, entitled "Retrogression," comments adversely on the election of a layman, Mr. W. J. Spencer, as president of the Australian Conference the absence of any minister; "it is a sad reflection (says Mr. Morsel upon the spiritual vitality of the New Church that in the whole of Australia the very essential feature of Church government is absent."

     There are also a number of forcible extracts from the Writings, besides some pages devoted to local Church matters.

     The Souvenir's is the only voice raised in Australia--with its four New Church societies--in championship of the Divine Authority of the Writings and the distinctiveness of the New Church; and though it comes out but once a year, it yet performs an important use in holding up that standard without which there can be no genuine growth of the Church.

     We have received the following communication from the Rev. James Hyde:

     "Dear Sir,--I have just read your interesting notes on Robert Hindmarsh in the June issue. That relating to his patent for "obtaining and applying motive power" occasions this present communication. I have before me the specification for the patent; its number is 2272 for the year 1798 in the Patent Office. If you will permit, I will offer the following details. [Mr. Hyde here describes Hindmarsh's invention as presented in the Patent. But as this has already been put before our readers, we omit this portion of our correspondent's letter.]

595

     Another item of interest is a letter by Hindmarsh to G. J. Billberg, dated November 28, 1796, in which he gives an account of the history and then present state of the Church, and states that he has in hand a work which is to consist of a Bible with notes of the internal sense by way of comment.

     These are all the notes I have collected thus far in addition to those you have recorded, and I forward them in the hope that they may be of use in filling up some gaps in the biography of this early champion of a noble cause.

     Last summer a circular was issued by some members of the English Conference, looking to the establishment of a new English monthly for the exposition of the distinctive teachings of the Church in a distinctively New Church way. The call is signed by Messrs. W. J. Albright, S. B. Dicks, E. G. Dow, Alfred E. Friend, F. A. Gardiner, 5. B. Keene, Wm. A. Presland, J. Howard Spaulding, Claude Toby and David Wynter.

     The circular points out that the field of the proposed publication is occupied by neither of the two periodicals, the Magazine and Morning Light. The latter is the Church newspaper, while the former, since the change from its old name, The Intellectual Repository, has gradually ceased to be "a means of cultivating a distinctively New Church thought," and has become more and more of a missionary organ. Owing to systematic efforts, the Magazine is sent to 474 public reading rooms, and this has affected its policy. "It is intended (says the circular, which, however, disclaims any adverse criticism of the intention) to be read by people who are, in some cases, at least, entirely ignorant of. . .everything that differentiates the New Church from the Old. . . . Knowing this, the editor becomes shy of admitting articles of too 'New Church' a quality, and even of allowing some phrases which are well understood by, and are even very precious to, New Church people. . . . In short, it is now an acknowledged 'missionary organ,' and, of course, all that that implies, which necessarily means that the higher, more interior and most characteristic things of the New Church, and all controversial matters, must be kept out. Yet these are the very things that those already within the Church most urgently need, if the Church within them is not to stagnate and even recede."

596

In the proposed new journal, on the other hand, there is to be "a distinct and definite New Church culture in the departments of philosophy, theology and practice; in the pursuit of which, regard shall not be had to any outside consideration whatsoever--such as, for example, the effect of what is said, on the people of the Old Church denominations about us--but simply and solely to the exposition and discussion of the spiritual truths, given us by the Lord in the Writings of the Church."
NEUKIRCHENBLATT ON THE CONVENTION'S "DECLARATION." 1909

NEUKIRCHENBLATT ON THE CONVENTION'S "DECLARATION." 1909

The Rev. Louis H. Tafel, editor of our German-American contemporary, the Neukirckenblatt, in the September issue of his journal publishes in full a translation of the editorial in the Life for August, entitled "Thou shalt not bear false witness." And Mr. Tafel adds the following comments: "We have reproduced this Answer not only because [in the July issue] we printed the Declaration of the Convention, but also because we regard the Answer as entirely justified. All who are acquainted with the Academy and its blameless life, know also that it exalts Conjugial Love in its purity and the love of offspring, and other New Church people should only rejoice and thank the Lord that this branch of the New Church, as well as the other branch, leads a life that should be a cause of gladness to all. It may, indeed, be true that some persons belonging to the Academy now and then have made use of expressions which other persons, from their point of view, have considered doubtful. But this is no excuse for ascribing to the Academy things which, in its published organs, it has plainly repudiated."

We congratulate our contemporary on this manly insistence upon justice for a body of brethren in the New Church. But what pleases us even more is an article on "Conjugial Love" appearing in the same issue of the Neukirchenblatt, (continued, from June), which deals without gloves with the manner in which the Divinely revealed work On Conjugial Love has been treated not only by the Old Church but by professed members of the New Church itself.

597

This holy work is the real object of the past and present persecution,--the men who love and defend it, and the men who hate and pervert it, (knowing not Whom they hate and crucify), are but passing figures in this great spiritual drama, the Conflict of the Ages.
STATISTICS OF THE NEW CHURCH 1909

STATISTICS OF THE NEW CHURCH 1909

The Religious Census for 1906, just issued by the U. S. Bureau of the Census, by some peculiar misunderstanding represents both the "General Church of the New Jerusalem" and the "General Convention of the New Jerusalem"' as new denominations. It is stated that both of them have come into existence since 1899 by branching off from a parent organization known as the "Church of the New Jerusalem, (Swedenborgian),"-and that the latter body has "been completely reorganized." The secretary of the General Church, in his report to the Bureau of the Census, distinctly stated that this Church separated from the General Convention, in 1891, not from any body entitled "Church of the New Jerusalem (Swedenborgian)," for there has never been any general organization under that name.

The General Church of the New Jerusalem is reported as including, in 1906, 14 organizations, with 22 ministers and 635 members, (244 male and 391 female), 5 church edifices and 9 halls, with a seating capacity for 520 persons, the Church property, (not including that of the Academy of the New Church), being valued at $30,350, with a debt amounting to $7,250. There were 7 Sunday Schools, with 20 teachers and 110 scholars. The day schools are not reported. All these statistics, of course, exclude the societies and members in Canada, but the General Church of the New Jerusalem, much to our surprise, is credited with one hundred members--in the State of Texas! This error seems to have crept in by transferring the "Texas General Society," with its 100 members, from the column of the General Convention, (where it belongs), to that of the General Church. We have discovered no other errors, but it is difficult to reconcile the statistics of the Census Bureau with those published by the General Convention itself; the latter body in 1996 reported 99 societies, 87 ministers, and 6,245 members, (exclusive of Canada), while the Census reports 119 organizations, 108 ministers and 6,612 members.

598

The Journal of the General Convention for 1909 reports 95 societies, 80 ministers, and 6,253 members, a loss, since 1906, according to their own report, of 4 societies and 7 ministers, with a gain of 8 members.
PROPHECY 1909

PROPHECY 1909

     Our attention has been recently directed to a remarkable prophecy given in the Apocalypse Revealed in the explanation of the words "And there are seven kings; five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh he must remain a short time" (Apoc. xvii. 10):

     "This signifies that all Divine Truths of the Word are destroyed, except this one, namely, that to the Lord is given all authority in heaven and on earth; and except a second, which is not yet come into question, and when it does, will not remain, namely, that the Lord's Human is Divine. By 'the other who is not yet come, and when he cometh he must remain a short time,' is signified a Divine Truth which is not yet come into question, and when it does will not remain with them, namely, that the Lord's Human is Divine. That this truth has not yet come into question is because, after they had transferred to themselves all the Lord's authority, they could not acknowledge His Human as Divine because it would then be said by the laity and the common people, that they had transferred to themselves Divine Authority, and thus that the Pontiff himself was God, and his ministers gods. But that it will still come into question may be evident from the fact that it is here foretold in the Apocalypse." (A. R. 738.)

     The truth here referred to has already "come into question" throughout the whole Christian world, and with what disastrous results is well known. Nor are signs lacking that the questioning of this truth will soon find its way into the clergy the Roman Catholic Church. That it will in time "may be evident from the fact that it is foretold" in Divine Revelation; and the result also is foretold.

599

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE ON MARRIAGE AND OFFSPRING 1909

That Christian Science is inimical to Marriage and to the Procreation of the Human Race, is clearly proved, by quotations from Mrs. Eddy's Science on Health, in an open letter "to Unsatisfied Christian Scientists about the Sex Problem," by Mr. Waldo P. Warren, of New York. The root of her heresy in respect to marriage is to be found in the profane notion of a "Father-Mother God," in the image of which "each individual, whether now male or female, will, through spiritual growth, become at last both male and female in one person,"-in other words, the old heresy of a "unitization of the sexes," which results in the love of self instead of conjugial love. With such an idea of marriage Mrs. Eddy naturally discountenances the love of offspring, Children, we learn, are "the offspring of physical sense and not of the soul." (S. and H., p. 479.) "Human propagation has its suffering because it is a false belief" (p. 557). Proportionately as human generation ceases, the unbroken links of eternal, harmonious being will be spiritually discerned, and man, not of the earth earthly, but coexistent with God, will appear" (p. 69). Upon which Mr. Warren comments thus: "What manner of words are these, and whence came they? Herod slaughtered the infants of two years and under; but here is a doctrine, the avowed purpose of which is to strike down the generations yet unborn! Were it merely proposed that certain infants should be killed, the world would stand aghast. But more than that it is proposed to turn back the full tide of the generations that are to be!" We are not surprised, therefore, to learn that a supposed "exalted spirituality prevents normal child bearing among Christian Scientists," and that "so many Christian Science women are afraid to bear children, or even to let themselves think about it." The sooner such families die out, the better for the human race.

By the way of contrast with Mrs. Eddy's doctrine on these subjects, Mr. Warren presents a fairly correct summary of Swedenborg's doctrine on "Conjugial Love." He is an enthusiastic admirer of Swedenborg, but evidently not a New churchman. Like so many of the "Convention" people he refuses to "swallow Swedenborg whole."

600

He is also opposed to the idea of an organized New Church, and quite naively betrays his merely intellectual acceptance of Swedenborg's teachings: "The achievements of any sect aspiring to externalize either Swedenborg's ideal 'New Church' or Plato's "Ideal Republic,' do not necessarily indicate the value of the ideal. It is one thing to see the principles which would harmonize human society, and another thing to live them and induce humanity to adopt them." Quite so! Any attempt to live the truth seen is, of course, "sectarian."

Speaking of Swedenborg, the writer states that "no one person ever read all the books he has written." This is undoubtedly a fact, for quite a number of Swedenborg's earlier writings have never yet been published.
WAS JUDAS ISCARIOT SAVED? 1909

WAS JUDAS ISCARIOT SAVED? 1909

In a paper on "Judas and the Kingdom," in The Open Court for June, Mr. Dudley Wright comes forth as an apologist for Judas Iscariot, taking the position that Judas, in betraying the Lord, "acted not only with the full knowledge and approbation of Jesus, but even by his direct command." And he quotes the opinion of Dr. Stalker that "Judas hoped to become chancellor of the exchequer in the new kingdom," which he supposed Jesus would establish in this world by His miraculous Messianic power, the idea of Judas being to speed the day and force the long delayed issue.

In the course of his remarks Mr. Wright observes that "the name 'Judas,' as the Rev. William Bruce, Swedenborgian, has pointed out, has come to be regarded 'as a name to express the lowest depths of humanity; and his case affords, if not an example, at least a type, of the extremity of human degradation and depravity which rendered the Lord's death at once inevitable and necessary.' In the spirit of speculation dear to Swedenborgians, Mr. Bruce regards Judas as the type of the Jewish Church, which was about to betray and crucify Jesus, killing the Just One whom they professed to be longing and looking for as their deliverer."

601

     Mr. Wright, however, is not aware,--as also Mr. Bruce does not seem to have been aware,--of the existence of passages in the Writings of Swedenborg strongly indicating the probability that Judas Iscariot was finally saved. It is true, indeed, as Mr. Bruce states, that Judas in his representative character typifies the treacherous Jewish Church, (A. C. 4751; L. J. 16; T. C. R. 130; A. E. 433). But representation is one thing, and personal character is another thing. An evil king such as David, because of his royal office, could represent the Lord, and yet David went to hell; whereas a good man such as Peter, when tempting the Lord, could represent Satan, and actually was called "Satan" on this occasion; and yet Peter went to heaven.

     As to the ultimate fate of Judas Iscariot Swedenborg states in his Adversaria, (Vol. II., n. 1479), that "some are reformed more quickly and some even at the moment of death, but then they are such as have been prepared before in a wonderful way, which they themselves do not know; otherwise, if by the mercy alone of God Messiah, then they undergo infernal torments, as it was related to me about Judas the traitor, concerning whom however, there is said to be hope, because he was one of the chosen who were given by Jehovah the Father to God Messiah, as God Messiah himself said." (It is to be noted that Swedenborg refers to this passage in his Index to the Spiritual Diary.)

     This was written in 1746, and in the True Christian Religion, written in 1770, we find no less than three passages where Swedenborg speaks of a convocation of the twelve apostles in the spiritual world for the purpose of a new and universal mission. In T. C. R., no. 4, he speaks of them as "the twelve disciples, now angels;" in no. 108 as "the twelve Apostles who were sent forth into the universal spiritual world, as before into the natural world;" and in no. 791, as "the twelve disciples who had followed Him in the world." Now Judas Iscariot was certainly one of the twelve apostles or disciples who had followed the Lord in the world, and who had been sent forth by Him on their first apostolic journey. Matthew, who, after the Ascension, was chosen by the eleven to fill the vacant place of Judas, had not followed the Lord, or been sent forth by Him, as an Apostle. The logical inference from the statement in the Adversaria and the True Christian Religion is, therefore, that Judas, after sixteen centuries of torment, had become so vastated of the evils of his natural man, that the angels had hope of him,--a hope which was fulfilled in his final restoration to the Apostleship of the Lord's New Heaven.

602

Moreover, while Judas represented "the Lord's Church such as it was with the Jews," (A. E. 433), we are also taught that, as one of the twelve apostles, he represented "some truth from good." For "all who are in truths of doctrine from the good of love from the Lord, are in general signified by the twelve tribes of Israel, and also by the Lord's twelve apostles; but, specifically, some truth from good by each tribe and by each Apostle. Wherefore the twelve tribes of Israel represented the Church, and in like manner the twelve Apostles." (A. R. 348) We cannot, therefore, judge of the personal character of Judas merely from his representation, which, as may be seen, is twofold.

As to his real motives in betraying the Lord, we know nothing conclusively, but his bitter repentance and despair do not point to a state of hatred against the Lord or to a conscience destroyed by confirmed evil. If we have pity for Peter who wept bitterly after thrice denying his Master, why not also for the wretched Judas whose contrition was far more severe? We cannot but rejoice in the strong probability that Judas is saved, and conclude with the large-hearted Dr. Clark in his able apology for Judas: "Reader! learn from the Lord this lesson, Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy. The case is before the Judge, and the Judge of all the earth will do right." (Commentary to The Acts, Chapter I.)
TRANSLATING SWEDENBORG 1909

TRANSLATING SWEDENBORG 1909

When Swedenborg published his "Specimen of the Principia," commonly known by its subtitle "Chemistry," a writer in the Acta Literaria Lipsiae, in the course of a lengthy and non-committal review, notices the author's frequent use of "many new terms," and complains that owing to ignorance of some of these terms the theories contained in the work are more or less obscure; finally he excuses himself from going more particularly into a review of these theories because of "the abundance of new terms an explanation of which would to too lengthy." (Act. Lit. Lips., 1722, pp. 82-87.)

603

     Swedenborg was without doubt a reader of the Acta Literaria, for we find in his manuscripts many quotations from its pages, to say nothing of the fact that the journal for 1720-1723 is included in the catalogue of his library. But despite the criticism that his new terms made his meaning obscure, when he came to write the Principia; he still continued his use of these terms, his only possible reference to the criticism being in the opening words of his preface. "I fear (he says) lest at the very threshold and entrance to our Philosophy my readers will be at once deterred when they see the use of strange terms, as it were, alien to established opinion, such as the words Finite, Active and Elementary." Without any apology he then proceeds to give some general explanation of these terms.

     This practice of using new terms Swedenborg continued in his anatomical works, in his intermediate works, and finally in the Writings themselves. Indeed, one might almost say that the use of new or unusual words and expressions was peculiarly characteristic of him.

     There must have been some strong and impelling reason for these innovations, for otherwise they would be utterly unworthy of a great mind. Indeed Swedenborg himself warns us against unnecessary changes in words. He is suggesting that "Glandular Substance" and "Fibrillar Substance" would be more suitable as descriptive of the cortex and medulla of the brain, respectively, than the present terms, and he continues, "But we should not rashly depart from received usages of speech when the thing expressed is equally well understood by the ancients as by ourselves." (The Fibre, n. 58.) Yet the man who uttered this caution was the man who, in his scientific writings, and particularly in his theological, introduced so many new terms and phrases.

     The words of the caution give the reason and the law which guided him. It is "rash" and useless to introduce new terms when "the thing expressed is equally well understood" by the old terms,--to call the cortical substance by another name, when by the old name the same thing is perfectly understood.

604

But, on the contrary, when it is desired to express something new, and especially some new idea, then a new term, a new phrase, must be used. Novis rebus, (says Cicero), nova ponenda nomina, and Swedenborg's works everywhere illustrate the saying. It was because he presented new ideas, ideas distinctively new, that he used new terms. And, as a necessary corollary, so far as we see the newness of the idea, so far will we appreciate and retain the new clothing in which it is set out, and--vice versa.

The tendency among our New Church translators is, however, in the opposite direction, a tendency that will grow just in the ratio that the sense of the distinctiveness of the New Church and its Heavenly Doctrines declines. Appeal is made for modernized translations, translations in everyday language, and not what Emerson has called "Swedenborgese." The feeling, which is widespread, is well expressed in a recent article by a New Church minister writing in the pages of Morning Light. His article, it must be said, is witty, but there commendation ends. The foolishness of his contentions can be excused only on the ground that the writer knows little of the distinctiveness of the New Church and less of Swedenborg's Latin. Like others who make a similar appeal, he assumes that if Swedenborg wrote now and in English he would write in the everyday language. Such assumption shows such an ignorance of the facts as to cause wonder at its display. It indicates not only that the writer is unfamiliar with Swedenborg in the original, but also that he is ignorant of the fact that Swedenborg's Latin abounds with terms and expressions which were as new and unfamiliar to the Latin scholar of his own day as they are today. He who was capable of writing in the most elegant and polished Latin, adopted a style and a nomenclature which has been stigmatized by Latinists as uncouth, as it certainly is unciceronian. Yet it was works written in this style that Swedenborg himself circulated; that he sent to the University of Oxford, where they were left to gather dust on the shelves, and to the English Bishops who rejected them, perhaps because of the "uncouth" and "technical" language.

It was these works, also, be it remembered, that opened the eyes of the early fathers of the Church, who saw that the, as it were, new language brought to earth a revelation of things wholly unknown; who saw and rejoiced.

605

The Letter of the Word, we are told, appears rough and rude to those who see nothing beyond. And so it is with the Writings. The charge that they are technical and meaningless lies rather against those who make the charge. It is the spiritual ideas revealed that are meaningless,--because, unfamiliar, undesired, and unloved.

We would not for a moment have it understood that we decry or belittle any legitimate effort to render Swedenborg into smooth and readable English; nor that we are rising up in defence of the early English translations. The faults of these, are, perhaps, not to be wondered at when we consider the amount of work done by individual translators; but their virtues in the endeavor to preserve the distinctiveness of Swedenborg's ideas do indeed earn our gratitude. Swedenborg can be translated into good, smooth English,--as is evidenced in Mr. Potts' work, especially in the later volumes of the Arcana,--without the loss of his distinctiveness. But this is not what the modernists want. They talk of smooth and readable English, and to hear them talk one would imagine that the translations of Swedenborg are the most uncomprehensible jargon wholly beyond the grasp of ordinary men. But they would not be content with smooth English. What they are really desirous of is the total elimination of all distinctive words, of all words not familiar to ordinary, or, at any rate, established thought. They begin by the elimination of a term here and a term there, for example, "marriage love" for "conjugial love." But the logic of their position, to which indeed they are fast coming, is a translation,--to misuse the word for the nonce,--that will eliminate the distinctiveness of Swedenborg's ideas; a translation that will more or less merge those ideas into the current thought of the "better thinking" of the Christian world; a translation that will make the Heavenly Doctrine appear less new, less strange and distinctive than in fact it is. Doubtless with such a translation the works would be read and patronizingly praised; but--they would not build up a church which is New because its thought and life are new.

606

BRITISH ASSEMBLY 1909

BRITISH ASSEMBLY W. REY GILL 1909

     REPORT OF THE EIGHTH ANNUAL BRITISH ASSEMBLY OF THE GENERAL CHURCH OF THE NEW JERUSALEM.

     This Assembly met at Mr. Gill's studio, Colchester, on Saturday, July 31st, at 7 P. M. It was the largest Assembly we have yet had, there being about 36 visitors from London. We also had the very great pleasure of having with us the Bishop, Mrs. Pendleton and Miss Amena Pendleton. The Bishop took the chair and opened the Assembly by reading from the Word, and this was followed by the Lord's Prayer. The minutes of the last Assembly were read and then came the reports of the preceding year's doings of the London and Colchester societies. Letters of greeting were read from Mr. McQueen, of Glenview, Ill.; Mr. Wilfred Howard and Mr. Fred. Cooper, of Philadelphia, and Miss Clarice Howard, of London.

     The Bishop told us of the meetings of the Council of the Clergy and of the Executive Committee held in Toronto and conveyed from them a message to us of most hearty and affectionate greeting. He told us that it had been decided that in future a priest from America should be sent, if possible, every year to our Assembly. This statement of course gave the utmost pleasure to all present and was received with great applause.

     The Bishop then gave us an account of the course of the "Kramph Case" to date, and a sketch of the life of Mr. Kramph. He said the Church had gone through a more severe trial than ever before in the external world,--worse even than the trial in Gottenburg in 1769, which Swedenborg had characterized as "the most important and the most solemn" since the day when the Lord was tried before Pilate. The Bishop spoke of the Academy's decision to let the Writings speak for themselves as our defense in the case, and the putting in of the work on "Conjugial Love" as evidence, together with a statement of our faith and belief in the teachings contained therein; and he said that he was more and more convinced that we did right in thus coming out with the truth.

607

The Lord says "Give to him that asketh of thee," and we are told that this means we are to tell all things of our faith to all men. The Lord when in the world did not conceal that He was 'God, and although the Jews thought in putting Him to death that they were wiping out the movement He represented, yet in the passion of the cross the Hells were finally overcome.

     By the over-ruling of Judge Smith's decree we had gained a moral victory, and a moral victory is a victory in the spiritual world. What we did will be justified by those who will come after us.

     The Rev. Andrew Czerny said that the trial had brought out the difference between the Academy and the Convention. No regret for the position we had taken would have been felt even if we had lost the case. "Those on our side had been more than those an theirs,"--the Heavens had been on our side. The trial had established the fact that we stand on the Writings. Mr. Appleton spoke of the sympathy we had felt for those in Bryn Athyn during a very trying time, and said that although such scandals as had been circulated must be felt, there had been a trust in Providence that the truth would come out.

     Mr. Waters said we were grateful to the Bishop for the presentation he had given us of the history of the case, and especially for pointing out the ground we should stand upon in all conflicts of the Church. The Lord permits us to pass through such trials that we may come out of them better and stronger. When we allow the truth to speak for itself it will come forth triumphant.

     Mr. Gill said he would like to hear more in reference to what was involved in the Lord's words "Give to him that asketh of thee." It appears to us sometimes that if the truth be presented it must be accepted. He wondered if we had sufficiently done our duty in regard to dispelling the dense ignorance which prevails in the world concerning what the Writings teach?

     The Bishop said we are not to be ashamed of stating our views, but yet should follow indications as to when and how far to do so.

608

It is our duty to declare our belief in the Writings and in all crises to stand on their teachings. The text referred to is one of universal application.

     Mr. Cooper suggested that possibly the Kramph case had performed a use as a missionary work, and said it must have struck deeper than most work of this kind in forcing itself on the attention of many people.

     The Bishop referred to the account in the Apocalypse of the earth helping the woman, and said that the earth here represents the man of the world,--the man who cares nothing for spiritual things, but likes to see fair play. Such a man comes to the help of the woman or the Church. Some very remarkable instances of this have come to light during the present trial, and this may be expected to happen on similar occasions in the future also.

     Mr. Czerny said he did not think we should regret Judge Smith's adverse decision. It had confirmed us in our loyalty to the Church, and the victory in the end had emphasized this.

     After the adjournment of this session a social gathering took place. Refreshments were provided and a long impromptu toast list was honored. The uses of Assemblies were especially dwelt upon, and anyone seeing and hearing the social gathering would have been obliged to admit that, at least, Assemblies served the use of making all present happy and sociable.

     At the Service on Sunday morning there were present 73 persons, the children being obliged to stay away for lack of room. The Bishop preached from the text, "The Lord of Hosts Is His Name, the God of the whole earth shall He be called."

     The sacrament of the Holy Supper was administered to 49 communicants.

     In the afternoon visits were made between the various homes.

     In the evening we gathered together again, and before the second session of the Assembly took place we had the pleasure of listening to a sacred cantata, rendered by some of the younger members of the Colchester Society.

     A paper by the Bishop on "The World of Spirits" was unanimously called for. The paper dwelt especially on the fact that the World of Spirits is a state in which man's exteriors are forced to come into agreement with his interiors, and in which good must be conjoined to its own truth and evil to its own falsity.

609

Also that till the end of the second state in the World of Spirits life in that world and in this is merely a preparation of man for his eternal use in Heaven or, if he is not willing to go there, in Hell; for the eternal laws of order will not tolerate an idle hand. It was pointed out that spiritual truth is given in the Word that men may be prepared for use in Heaven. The paper went an to treat of the necessity of cultivating the love of use, and of a right preparation for use by means of truths, for to the extent man is in good and not at the same time in truth he is not prepared to perform use. It was said that inmostly considered loving use is loving the Lord, and we were asked to realize the necessity of co-operating with the Lord in preparing for use.

Mr. Gill said the paper was especially interesting because it was about the land we are rapidly going to. The part that all the states of man's life return after death had been brought up at a recent Assembly. To many this idea is repugnant, but we have the statement that with the good these states are tempered. We all have the idea that we would do better if we had the chance of living our lives over again. He asked if the teaching concerning the return of these states implied that we should have this opportunity in the World of Spirits.

The Bishop, in reply, said that the New churchman looks forward and not backward. A final opportunity is given in the World of Spirits to remove all states not in agreement with our ruling love. Most men carry with them states that must be removed, and to effect this it is necessary that these states be revived so that they may be seen. States return in this world as well as in the next. What is meant is that all states return that ought to have been removed and have not. A man who reaches the celestial state in this life does not have to go back to preceding states. It is in order, too, that good may be conjoined to its own truth that we are thus given a final opportunity. The same thing happens with the evil. It is necessary for them to remove everything of good and truth from their lives and, in order for this removal to take place, the goods and truths must be called up that they may be put away in freedom. In reply to a question the Bishop said that these states would return in an inverse order to that in which they occurred.

610

Replying to another question as to whether the uses the devils are compelled to perform are of a high degree, he said the uses evil spirits do are evil uses which are those of an external character: they are uses of slavery, and low as compared with those done by the angels. Whilst performing them they are taken out of Hell and are temporarily in the Lord's kingdom. The uses they perform are for man and his salvation, for all uses look to this end. Even evil spirits finally reach the condition in which they are externally willing to perform uses.

     Mr. Czerny said that all the uses enumerated have been of a mental character. It speaks, however, in the Writings of a class of spirits who derive delight from carrying logs. In Hell do they have, for instance, to make their own houses? In some of the Relations the Hells are spoken of as work-houses.

     The Bishop said there is a spiritual use going on within every natural use. Natural spirits only know of the natural uses they are performing, but the spiritual angels need these ultimates in order to be able to perform their more interior uses. Whilst we do our natural work the angels with us perform spiritual uses. Heaven, like man, must have its hands and feet.

     Mr. Czerny pointed out that, no doubt, there are many uses which cannot be described in natural language.

     Mr. Ball mentioned that angels progress in the degree in which they have the love of use; and asked what influence the performance of an evil use would have on an evil spirit,--would it make him sink lower?

     The Bishop replied that their evil uses would not be evil in their outward form. The Divine Sphere of the Lord is around even them and there is a degree of happiness given them in the use and this is their reward. We cannot conceive of Hell getting worse. Progress is only with the angels of Heaven. Mr. Gill said that externally the devils would get better.

     Mr. Appleton spoke with warm appreciation of the Bishop's expositions, and said that we have seen clearly that there is nothing arbitrary in the Lord's leading in this life or the next and that there is always given freedom of choice. If we have cherished affections for the good and true in this life, these will be the things brought up in the other life that we may make them our final choice. God in his love and mercy will save everyone so far as is possible.

611

     A paper by Mr. Potter on "New Church Science" was now chosen to be read and discussed. Mr. Potter prefaced his paper by saying it was an attempt to bring before the young people specially, the relation between the scientific and the theological writings of Swedenborg. In the course of the paper he stated that modern science was a negation and that, though we could use its facts, we must guard against its false deductions. He contended that Swedenborg's scientific writings are necessary for New Church education, and that both the scientific and the theological writings are authoritative, but the former are a mediate, and the latter an immediate, revelation.

     At the close of the paper the Bishop said the subject was one that had been actively before the General Church for some time. A general correlation had been needed of the scientific and theological writings, but still more was needed a perception from the acknowledgment of the truth of each. This had come to pass in a marvellous way--not by a priest, not by a man, but by a woman. "I can testify to you that there have been most amazing results." The true doctrine of God, the Creator has especially been brought out.

     Mr. Ball said there is certainly a great difference between the ways in which the scientific and theologic writings were revealed. In the Writings there was only what was given from the Lord alone, but in the scientific works Swedenborg took his material from all sources. The paper seemed to him to lay too much stress on the necessity for a scientific education. He thought it necessary for some men to study the scientific works, but not for all.

     The Bishop said: "There is enough given in the Writings to save any man, but to understand them it is necessary to have some natural truth. What we propose is that our young people shall have all they can get of Swedenborg's science. There is more in the preparatory works than Swedenborg himself knew, and we are not yet prepared to place the limitations of his knowledge. To call Swedenborg's earlier works scientific is misleading--they are philosophical, not scientific, and are to teach men the right way to think, and not to give mere facts. Science, philosophy and religion are like three steps, and it was necessary for Swedenborg to be led into the interior realm of nature that he might become a fit medium to perform his great use."

612

     It has previously been our custom on the Monday, (the last day of the Assembly), to have an outing, but this year the weather was so unpropitious that we decided instead to have a third session of the. Assembly on that morning, and no one regretted this decision.

     It was decided then that we hear a paper by Mr. Rose on "The Church Among the Gentiles." A very interesting discussion followed but space will not permit of a detailed account thereof. I will, therefore, only give a few of the remarks made by the Bishop on the subject. He said that by Gentiles, in the strict sense of the word, are meant those who have never been of the Church. Generally speaking, a nation that has once had the Church becomes extinct when that Church is consummated, but the more ignorant and simple of such a nation may survive and become gentilized. The native Egyptians, for instance, are descended from the Ancient Church, but they have become Mahomedans. A new church is raised up from both those who have had the Church amongst them and those who have not. There are three classes of people who may receive a new Church:--the children of those in the Church; the simple in the Old Church; and the Gentiles. Hell is now working in a more interior way than ever before for the extinction of the human race; as, for example, in the prevention of births. But in this state of vastation the Lord comes and opportunity is given for the simple and the Gentiles to receive Him.

     The singing of the hymn and the giving of the benediction now brought the sessions of the Assembly to a close.

     Our meetings concluded with a social gathering in the evening, at which a special feature was the charming rendering of a little play by some of the younger children of the Colchester Society. As is usual at our Assemblies, the unanimous opinion of those present was that this Assembly had proved the best we have ever held, and all left with a feeling of gratitude for the delightful time we had been permitted to have together in the sphere of the Lard's New Church.
     W. REY GILL,
          Secretary.

613

Church News 1909

Church News Various 1909

     FROM OUR CORRESPONDENTS.

     BRYN ATHYN, PA. The reopening of the Academy Schools was attended with little outward show--but never has the year's work begun more auspiciously. For the first time the students from elsewhere threaten to outnumber the local students, and the Academy outnumbers the Local School. Altogether there are enrolled in the one building, one hundred and fifty young souls. This, of course, includes the Kindergarten, with its twenty-two tots. In spite of the new chemical laboratory which has been opened up under the roof of one end, and the new biological laboratory at the other end, the halls are already in requisition for class rooms, and the new building, (now being roofed over), will hardly be ready too soon. Stuart Hall was never so nearly full, all the Seniors being moved upstairs into the Olympian silence where the Theologians and the Teachers dwell. (The incense, however, which pervades this aura, does not arise from admirers below.)

     A hum of contented industry pervades every corner of the hive, and all the machinery is moving with precision and a sense of eager, hopeful delight. The reception given by the Faculty on the opening night, was well prepared for by several of the older pupils, and did indeed, as Karl Alden said in his speech of welcome, seem to give a foretaste of the realization of the fair dream which Bishop Benade was wont to dream.

     Think of enough boys to make two teams, practicing every day, and trying their best to "make the team!"

     Glenn Hall has been greatly improved under Miss Alice Grant's able direction,--the first floor now furnishing not only her own quarters, but also a large reception or music room, a kitchen, laundry, pantry and breakfast suits for the use of the girls. Miss Ashby is acting as house mother, until Miss Freda Pendleton's return from Europe.

     The Bishop and his party are not expected back until the latter part of October. His pulpit meanwhile is being filled by the other ministers. H. S.

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     BALTIMORE, MD. The Society of the General Church in Baltimore held a religious and social gathering on Sunday, Aug, 29th, inaugurating at Arbutus a New Church settlement after the pattern of Bryn Athyn and Glenview. The spirit manifested was such as cannot fail to overcome pioneer difficulties and found a community valuable to the Church.

     In the morning the Rev. E. E. Iungerich conducted a service for the children. There were seventeen of them present, creating a sphere which, like their singing, was impressive to the older members. The idea was presented to the children that their parents, in striving to provide an education for them in the sphere of the Church, were like Joshua and Caleb, who brought back to Moses encouraging reports of the land of Canaan, in the face of evil reports brought back by the other ten men sent with them to spy out the land.

     Threatening rain made it necessary to spread the picnic tables indoors, and room was found in the commodious house which was included in the Society's land purchase and is now the home of Mr. and Mrs. Price Coffin. The program of toasts began with an able paper on Remains, by Mr. Trimble. Alternating with familiar Academy melodies, good papers followed: Mr. Knapp spoke on Spheres, Mr. Emil Gunther on Influx and Afflux, Mr. Iungerich on the Love of Marriage and Conjugial Love, and, later in the day, Mr. Reynolds read a paper on Cultivation of Spiritual Associations.

     There were forty-four at table, of whom about half were children. The Rev. E. J. Stebbing, of Washington; Mr. Leonard Tafel, of Baltimore, and Mr. Gilbert Smith, of Bryn Athyn, were guests.

     In preparation for the picnic Mr. Behlert and his son, Leonard, spent two days constructing tables and benches, which are now permanent properties of the Society. The good nature of Mr. Adolph Gunther also deserves mention. He and a helper toiled from midnight till nearly dawn in delivering provisions for the picnic, via wagon. The horse proved unequal to the hill on which the new settlement is to be situated, and it became necessary to arouse Mr. Iungerich, as far as possible, from his ministerial slumbers to assist in "toting" the precious supplies up the hill through showers of rain.

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     After the picnic a large party set out in Indian file to walk around the boundaries of the projected settlement. They found it a rather arduous tramp, there being a steep descent through a ravine from the highest point of the property, which is in shape like the letter L. The lowest point is just at the angle of the L. From here one arm extends up over a thickly wooded hill, and the other arm, at right angles to it, includes the cultivated land with a double mansion and a few trees at the extreme end.

     The country is far more rural than suburban in appearance, yet Baltimore is easily accessible either by train or trolley. It seems an ideal situation for those who have business in the city, and an excellent place for the children. G. H. S.

     BERLIN, ONT. As several months have passed since any news from the Carmel Church has been sent the Life, it is necessary to present some rather ancient items in order that the historical record may be complete.

     The Nineteenth of June was celebrated by a banquet on the 18th. The theme on the occasion was the words: "Behold, I make all things new." Mr. Jacob Stroh responded to the toast to "The New Doctrine;" Mr. John Schnarr to that to "The New Life of Charity;" and Mr. T. S. Kuhl to that to "The New Conjunction with the Lord." On the 19th we had, for the first time, a children's celebration of the day, which was enjoyable, and, we are sure, also useful. A picnic was held on the school grounds, and during the afternoon the pastor addressed the children on the meaning of this great day. On the 20th, Sunday, the Nineteenth was celebrated with worship, and the Holy Supper was administered.

     On the 30th of June a most interesting Men's Meeting was held, at which the Rev. Messrs. E. S. Price, Homer Synnestvedt and C. E. Doering were present, they having come here after the Ministers' Meeting in Toronto. Mr. Doering presented the recent history of the Kramph Will Case, including an account of the action of Convention. The three visitors then, in response to a request, spoke concerning the work of the Academy in the education of the young. Their addresses were most useful and highly appreciated, and helped all to realize more fully how great and important is the work which the Academy is doing.

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     During the months of July and August there has been very little Church activity, aside from the Sunday services. The period was, however, enlivened by the presence of several young people from other centers, which led to a number of outings and parties.

     School opened on the 6st of September with twenty-four pupils. At the opening exercises the pastor gave an address on Friendship.

     On the 6th of September, Labor Day, the Ladies' Meeting was held at the farm of Mr. and Mrs. Albert Doering. The gentlemen were also present. An enjoyable time was spent. W.

     CLINTON, HURON COUNTY, ONT. The New Church has existed in Huron County for fifty pears or more. The pioneers of the Church were Mr. Thomas Wigginton and Mr. Daniel McGregor; and, somewhat later, Mr. William Cole. The two first-named have passed to the other world. The Church here consists of the descendants of these pioneers,--their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Not all of these are in the Church; in fact, but a small part of them are now in the fold: if they were, there would be here a large, self-sustaining society. Thus we have another illustration of the result of unwise missionary work. If the Canada Association, in its day of zealous missionary activity, had, instead of working all over Ontario, reducing the support, there would now be something gratifying to show as the result of the effort. Some day the Church may learn the lesson that this is the only kind of missionary work that will yield results. However, there is nothing gained by lamenting what might have been; but instead we must think of what may be; and, fortunately, there is still in Huron county a remnant of what might have been to make us hopeful of what may be,--if proper work is done.

     The first ministerial work done in this county was by the Rev. John Parker, of Toronto, who visited and conducted services in 1870. Nothing more was done until 1878, when the Rev. J. E. Bowers conducted services, and he has since then, excepting for a few years, visited regularly on his missionary tours, first under the auspices of the Canada Association, and afterwards under those of the General Church.

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     In the summer of 1891, I spent two months here, conducting services every Sunday and holding doctrinal classes, at a farm house near Clinton. This steady work for so long a period was probably the means of saving the Church here from extinction with all of the third generation. Since then I have nearly every year visited once or twice, but always only for a few days.

     At the Ontario Assembly, last January, there were present from this county several young people from the families Izzard and Cole, and the meeting so strongly aroused in them the love of the Church, that ever since then the young people of these two families, seven in number, have met regularly every week for the study of the doctrines, reading the Arcana. The farms of the two families are four miles apart, and the meetings are held at these places alternately.

     In view of this hopeful condition, I arranged to spend two weeks here during August. Services were held at the house of Mr. and Mrs. Izzard on the 1st and the 8th. The average attendance was twenty-seven. On the 8th, the Holy Supper was administered, eleven persons partaking.

     During the two weeks, five doctrinal classes were held with the aforementioned young people. I found that they had advanced half through the first volume of the Arcana. At the first class, teaching was given concerning the Holy Supper, so that there might be preparation for this sacrament; at the second, there was a general review of the ground that had been covered in the Arcana; at the third and fourth, reading and explanation; at the fifth, a general presentation of what will be read in the course of the coming year. Besides the regular lesson, there were talks on various subjects. At one of the meetings the difference between the General Church and the General Convention was set forth. Each class was followed by social pleasures.

     The interest in these classes was strong. They were held not because of any urging on the part of the teacher, but because the members earnestly desired them. But this need hardly be said, in view of the fact that they have been regularly held for half a year without a teacher.

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     Fortunately, these two families live near together. Others of the Church, living in the county, would join them in their reading, but distance prevents. At the Sunday services, some of those who attended came long distances,--even as much as fourteen miles. There are in the county nine members of the General Church.

     Besides the services and classes, nine calls were made, at each of which places there is something of an interest in the Church,--in some cases much, in others less; in some a little.

     Mr. Bowers will visit this center in December and I hope to go again next summer. This is not enough to make sure of that which may be,--to realize the possibilities in this field. Past experiences indicate what will be the probable result if more is not done. In the interest of this center, and in the interest of quite a number like it in the General Church, in some of which the prospects are even brighter than in this of which I have written, I would appeal to the members of the General Church to read and reflect upon what is said in the September Life, in the report of the Joint Council meeting, concerning the support of small centers. It is shown there that we need to place men in these centers. And one of the speakers asks: "Is there in our Church the affection to contribute to this use?" "The harvest is plenteous, but the laborers are few; pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He will send forth laborers into His harvest." F. E. WAELCHLI.

     PITTSBURGH, PA. Services were resumed in our Church September 5th, after an interval of four weeks. During the month of August the carpenters were busy remodeling the interior of the building and the improvement is very pleasing to all of us.

     The local school was re-opened September 15th, and Miss Gilmore has again taken up her work with the children. This term opens with eleven pupils on the roll.

     The past month brought us a pleasant surprise. This was the engagement of Miss Eleanora Schoenberger to Mr. George Percy Brown. This scores two engagements for Pittsburgh within the last three months.

     On the evening of September 7th the young folks were entertained at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Daniel E. Horigan.

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This was given in honor of their guests, Miss Miriam Smith and Miss Wertha Pendleton, who visited here for two weeks. Other guests this month were Mrs. Ernest Stebbing, Miss Nellie Smith, Miss Erna Sellner, Mr. Leonard Gyllenhaal and Mr. Alan Pendleton.

     Pittsburgh is well represented this year in the College and Seminary at Bryn Athyn by Miss Jean Horigan, George Macbeth, Harold and Donald Lindsay and Marshall Fuller.     B. P. O. E.

     GLENVIEW, ILL. Vacations are closing, summer visitors are leaving, and there is a strong sphere of preparation for school. We are sending to Bryn Athyn four new pupils and three "old" ones. Besides this, our local school is growing, and our faithful teachers will be busier than ever.

     At our Steinfest on September 2d the subject of "The Deficiencies of New churchmen" was discussed, the speeches dealing mainly with the question of our attitude toward the deficiencies of others. The remarks were notable for their restraint and their avoidance of the personal.

     During the month we have had no less than three dances. The last of these, on the evening of Labor Day, was varied with songs and readings; the music was fine, and didn't cost us a cent, because it was strictly home talent. A number of our Chicago friends came out for this dance, and also for the afternoon base ball game on the same day.

     So many people have been visiting us that a list of their names would be long; it is enough to say that they were New Church visitors, and, therefore, of our own people.

     And now for our latest and best piece of news: Early this morning, September thirteenth, a baby girl came to Mr. and Mrs. Caldwell, and there is rejoicing in the Park. A. M.

     MIDDLEPORT, O. After four weeks' vacation the morning services and Sunday School were resumed on the first Sunday in September. The Sunday evening and mid-week classes will begin at various times between the middle of September and the first of October. Our two Bryn Athyn pupils, Miss Lucy Boggess and Edward Davis, started for that place September 13.

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     Middleport takes great pride in her two young daughters, the new circles in Columbus and Cincinnati, and hopes for a happy future for them both.

     COLUMBUS, O. On Sunday evening, August 1st, Mr. Gladish conducted worship and preached in the parlor of Mr. L. O. Cooper and Mr. and Mrs. Wiley, at 23 E. Stewart Ave. After the service it was announced that this was the beginning of regular monthly services, to be held under the auspices of the General Church and according to the doctrine that the Writings are the Word of the Lord to the Church of the New Jerusalem. Twelve were present at this first service and nine were at the doctrinal class the next night.

     The General Church has six members in Columbus, most of whom, for some time, have been regular attendants at the Convention services on Sunday afternoons, conducted by the Rev. Russell Eaton, of Urbana, and they have taken part in Sunday School and in all the social activities of the Society. They, therefore, felt that they could, in their turn, invite the Convention people to attend our services, especially as they were to be held during the week and would not interfere with their meetings. Accordingly they attended the first service after vacation, on Sunday, September 12, and invited al to attend our meetings on Monday and Tuesday nights, September 13 and 14. But it became apparent that vague, but none the less, terrible, rumors concerning our teachings and practices had been zealously circulated among those who had attended our August meetings. One person who had been delighted with what she heard there, would not come again because she could not believe in "time marriages,"--whatever they may be. Another who gladly accepted the teaching that the Writings are the Word, but believes in total abstinence, had been frightened by stories of our devotion to the bottle. One zealous member of the Convention wrote expressing the hope that our people would continue to attend their meetings, and added: "but my own convictions are so positive and totally opposed to the teachings of the Academy or the General Church of the New Jerusalem on certain most vital questions that I cannot conscientiously attend meetings held in the name of this Church."

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     We had but two members of the Convention the first evening, and two different ones the second. The attendance was twelve at the service, some of whom were strangers to the Church, and six at the doctrinal class. At the latter meeting we took up the controversy between the two bodies of the Church, beginning with the "Women's Petition" of 1902 down to the Kramph case, and then read and expounded the controverted teachings of Conjugial Love.

     So the campaign of enlightenment goes forward. If it does nothing more, the malicious hatred shown by the most zealous Convention workers towards that Body which proclaims the Divinity of the Heavenly Doctrine, will reveal the interior quality of their New Churchmanship and confirm the loyalty of our own people to the Church and the Writings. But we hope that there may be others who have enough love of the neighbor, and of fair dealing, to be led to investigate the work of our Church and ally themselves with us.

     CINCINNATI, O. From Columbus Mr. Gladish, on September 15, went to Cincinnati, where arrangements had been made to hold service at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Colon Schott.

     In Cincinnati there are but two members of the General Church, Mr. Schott and Miss Maud Semple. But there were present seven persons the first evening and nine the second. The indications are that the work will grow and increase. We have two men who are intelligent, loyal, and unafraid, and who realize how far Convention has turned away from the light of the New Jerusalem to the darkness of the Old Church. We believe that they will see that the little light now kindled shall not be suffered to go out. Regular services will be held in future once a month at Cincinnati, as at Columbus, two evenings each visit. W. L. G.

     FROM OUR CONTEMPORARIES.

     UNITED STATES. The Rev. Willard H. Hinkley died at his home in Dorset, Mass., an August 29.

     The Rev. John Ramsay Hunter has accepted a call to the pastorate of the Society in Cleveland, O. We learn that the members of the Church in Cleveland "have gained more than ever in their lives in the clearer understanding of the New Church truths by the lucid explanations of Dr. King, but we are willing to forego this personal gain in order to have the Church spread more widely among the Gentiles of our new neighborhood."

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     The Summer School instituted by the Rev. E. J. Schreck in OLNEY, Ill., from August 1st to the 15th, is reported as having been well attended despite the excessively hot weather. The sessions lasted from 8:30 to 11:30 for five mornings each week, and the instruction to children included the Letter of the Word, the Hebrew Alphabet leading up to the children's learning to sing Schema Yisrael, and a little talk on the Greek Alphabet. For the adults the instruction was in the doctrines of the Church.

     There was a strong desire, especially on the part of the children, for a continuation of the school.

     The 10th session of the ALMONT (Mich.) Summer School was held from August 15 to the 29. The teachers were the Rev. Messrs. Seward, King, Hoeck, Fischer and Mack, and Miss Dora Pfister. The instruction appears to have been confined to the Letter of the Word, the doctrines, singing, and kindergarten. No mention is made of Hebrew, nature studies and other subjects taken up in the earlier sessions of the school.

     AUSTRALIA. We learn from the Australian annual, A 19th of June Souvenir, that the "New Society" at Sydney continues to hold doctrinal classes and Sunday services, conducted alternately by Mr. Morse and Mr. Dupen. The General Church Liturgy is used in the services, and the sermons read are, for the most part, from the pages of New Church Life. The class on Sunday evenings is now reading the sixth volume of the Arcana, while the same class takes up True Christian Religion and Rational Psychology on alternate Wednesday evenings.

     For several months the Society has enjoyed the presence and active co-operation of Miss Ida Hunt, of Washington, D. C. Miss Hunt left for America last May, and is now visiting with her sister, Mrs. Dr. Cranch, of Erie, Pa.

     MAURITIUS. The Hon. and Mrs. Pierre Edmond de Chazal celebrated their golden wedding on June 27, when Dr. Fercken, the pastor of the Port-Louis Society, conducted a special service at the Church in Curepipe.

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The feature of this service was the benediction pronounced over the venerable couple, standing before the minister hand-in-hand. On the preceding evening Mr. and Mrs. de Chazal held a reception at their home, which was attended by about 300 persons, including the Governor of Mauritius, the Commander of the troops and many of the leading men in the community.

Both Mr. and Mrs. de Chazal have been lifelong members of the New Church, and were closely identified with its beginnings in Mauritius, where it was introduced by Mrs. de Chazal's father, the late Edmond de Chazal.
For rent with board 1909

For rent with board 1909

Announcements.

Suite of three rooms, with bath, hall and porch, private entrance Also single rooms. For particulars, apply to Mrs. J. M. COOPER, "The Inn." Bryn Athyn, Pa.
CHICAGO DISTRICT ASSEMBLY 1909

CHICAGO DISTRICT ASSEMBLY 1909

The Ninth Chicago District Assembly of the General Church will be held at Immanuel Church, Glenview, Ill., November 5th to 7th, inclusive.

Members and friends who expect to attend will please notify Mr. W. H. Junge, Glenview, Ill., who will provide for their entertainment. W. B. CALDWELL, Secretary.
CORRESPONDENCES OF CANAAN 1909

CORRESPONDENCES OF CANAAN Rev. C. TH. ODHNER 1909

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     NEW CHURCH LIFE

     Vol. XXIX NOVEMBER, 1909          No 11
     CHAPTER X.

     THE HEBREWS.

     109. The Semitic Race. A third race of people now makes its appearance on the soil of Canaan, different alike from the Aborigines and from the Hamitic Canaanites, a race which in seven branches completely encircled the land, with Israel enthroned in their midst. These seven branches, the Amalekites, the Ishmaelites, the Midianites, the Edomites, the Moabites, the Ammonites, and the Aramceans, were all of the race of SHEM, the eldest son of Noah, known as "oldest" because representing the most genuine part of the Ancient Church. By Shem is signified Charity, and he was called Shem (= "name"), because "name" stands for "quality," and Charity was the very essential quality of the Ancient or Spiritual Church. The Semites, also, longer than the rest of the Ancient Church, remained in the worship of the one true God, whom they knew under the name of Jehovah; and though this race also in the course of time fell into idolatry, yet there lingered with some of them an hereditary disposition towards Monotheism, which sprang into life again and again. This tendency re-appeared first in Eber and his descendants of the Hebrew Church and then in Israel and his posterity, culminating, finally, in Jesus Christ our Lord, who, through His Semitic mother, was "an Hebrew of the Hebrews." And when the Christian Church fell into the worship of three gods instead of the One, the Lord in His Mercy permitted the Arabs,--a Semitic and Hebrew nation--to establish far and wide on the ruins of the Ancient and the Christian Churches in the Orient, the worship of One, albeit invisible, God.

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Ages ago, perhaps four thousand years B. C., the race of Shem made its first appearance in History. Whence they came is not perfectly known, but it seems to us that they must have come from over the mountains of ELAM, since Elam is mentioned in the tenth chapter of Genesis as the "first born' son of Shem. From hence they descended upon the corrupt civilization of HAM in Chaldea, subduing or driving away the original inhabitants who, in successive streams of emigration, settled in various parts of the world. These are known as the "sons of Ham," of whom MIZRAIM took possession of Egypt, CUSH of Ethiopia and eastern asia, PHUT of Libya, and CANAAN of the Holy Land. The Semitic concluerors having firmly established their dominion in Babylonia, now sent forth colonizing expeditions which, as "sons of Shem," gave the name of ASSHUR to Assyria, ARPHAXAD to Mesopotamia, LUD to Lydia, and ARAM to Syria. But together with great worldly dominion, an internal decline now set in amongst the Semites. The corrupt priesthood of the ancient Chaldeans, having submitted to the conquerors, managed to seduce the latter into an acceptance of the magical and idolatrous practices of the older religion, even as the Roman Catholic priesthood converted the conquering Goths and Franks and Northmen in the beginning of the Dark Ages. Idolatry became universal in the Ancient Church, but the knowledge of the purer doctrines remained with Arphaxad in Mesopotamla, (A. C. 1329), and from this stock there arose in time a great reformer,--the first actual person mentioned in Genesis,--by the name of EBER.

105. Eber and the Hebrew Church. The name Eber literally means "passing over," and he was so named because he was to be the means by which the doctrines and worship of the Ancient Church passed over to the Israelitish Church. When the knowledge of Jehovah had been forgotten everywhere else, Eber revived His worship, and at the same time established a new and reformed cultus or Church, the chief ritual of which was the sacrifice of animals. This rite did not exist in the Ancient Church itself, but it was now permitted in order to divert the fallen Church from the horrible practice of human sacrifice.

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This new Church is known to us as the Hebrew or Second Ancient Church.

[627-630 are charts of the Ethnology of the Ancient Church.]

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     The rite of animal sacrifice was quickly adopted by all the nations descended from the Ancient Church; it spread all over the world even though the worship of Jehovah and the doctrines of the Hebrew Church were not generally accepted. The reformatory movement of Eber proved to be but a temporary check upon the downward rush of the Silver Age to its final consummation and Judgment. In this it was similar to the reformatory movement of Enoch before the Flood, of Ezra and Nehemiah before the dispersion of the Jews, and of Luther and Calvin before the Last Judgment.

     The historical and spiritual significance of Eber, as revealed in the Writings of the New Church, finds interesting confirmation from the traditions of the Jews. It is known to them that it is from him they are called "Hebrews," (Ebrim), and that he was so great a man as to reflect glory upon his ancestor, Shem, who is designated "the father of all the children of Eber," (Gen. 10:21). They know also that while there were many ether Hebrew nations in ancient times, the Jews are Hebrews par excellence, "because they regard themselves as the only ones of the descendants of Eber who have retained his faith," (see Ibn Ezra's Comment ad Jon. 1:9).

     106. The Hebrews. The reformatory movement instituted by Eber was not only of relatively small influence but also of short duration, lasting but four or five generations. Of his two sons the elder was named PELEG ("division"), "because in his days was the earth divided," i. e., the true worshipers in the Church were separated from the idolaters. (A. C. 1240.) By him, also, is represented "the internal worship" of the Hebrew Church, while by his younger brother, JOKTAN, ("little one"), is signified its external worship. The latter had thirteen sons, who became ancestors or chieftains of so many Syrian and Arabic tribes, and it is possible that some of these are identical with the mysterious Hyksos or "Shepherd Kings," who conquered and retained possession of Egypt for five hundred years, and who forced upon the Egyptians the rite of animal sacrifices. This fact seems to indicate that the Hyksos were Hebrews; they also introduced into Egypt the worship of the gods Set and Atea, which are the same as the Hebrew divinities Shaddai and Adonai.

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Even in the time of Peleg a decline seems to have commenced in the Hebrew Church, for while in the tenth chapter of Genesis Peleg signifies "internal worship," in the next chapter, after the account of the Tower of Babel, he is again mentioned and now he stands for external worship. (A. C. 1345.) His son, REU, represents "worship still more external;" Reu's son, SERUG, signifies "worship in externals;" Serug's son, NAHOR, "worship verging towards idolatry'" and Nahor's son, TERAB, signifies actual "idolatrous worship." (A. C. 1346-1353) This steady decline is consummated in the next generation: Terah dwelt in "Ur of the Chaldees," which stands for idolatry in general, and here he had three sons, of whom ABRAM signifies "idolatry from the love of self," NAHOR, "idolatry from the love of the world," and HARAN, "idolatry from the love of pleasures." (A. C. 1357.) The beginning of a new and better state, in preparation for a new Church, is indicated by the return of Terah with his family to the ancestral seats in Mesopotamia,-i. e., a return to the worship of their fathers and "the instruction of these idolaters in the celestial and spiritual things of faith, in order that a Representative Church might thence come into existence." (A. C. 1373.)

We need not dwell at length upon the well-known story of Abraham. Having been previously reduced to a complete state of gentilism, he and his family* were "better fitted to receive the seeds of truth than others in Syria, with whom the knowledge of Jehovah still remained." (even until the time of Balaam, the prophet, A. C. 1366). But though they were no longer in danger of profaning the new revelation about to be given to them, yet even to Abraham the name of Jehovah was concealed, for the Lord God introduced Himself to Abraham under the name of Shaddai, who was the special family God of Terah. The new Covenant as a matter of fact had but little influence upon the faith and life of Abraham and his immediate descendants.

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The "father of a multitude" had small regard for truthfulness and decency: he lied about Sarah being his sister; he committed adultery with Hagar, and his treatment of her and of his son Ishmael was inhuman. Nay, he still inclined to infant sacrifices, as is evident from his attempt to offer up the child Isaac upon the altar of his god, Shaddai. And all the nations which descended from him remained in idolatry, with the sole exception of the Israelites who, several hundred years afterwards for the first time heard the name Jehovah as revealed to Moses. The other Hebrew nations not only accepted the false persuasions and evil practices of the neighboring Canaanites, but were in general bitterly hostile to Jehovah and those who worshiped Him. As blood-relations of the Israelites these nations sometimes represent collateral goods and truths, the states of the "simple good" among the Gentiles, but as enemies of Jehovah and His chosen people they more generally stand for evils and falses of a more interior and deadly character than those represented by the Hamitic Canaanites. These Hebrew nations figure very largely in the sacred history, and it is therefore of great importance to gain a well defined idea of the character and significance of each and all.
     * According to Josephus, Abraham's father was a zealous worshiped of false gods.

     107. The Bmalekites, (so named from amalak, to "snatch away"), were an ancient and at one time powerful people of nomads, dwelling in the wilderness of Shur and the peninsula of Sinai. As to their purely Hebrew origin there is some doubt, yet they must be classed among the Hebrew nations not only because of the identity of their name with that of AMALEK, the grandson of Esau, but also because of their Hebraic language and tribal characteristics.

     In the Scriptures the Amalekites are first mentioned in Genesis 14:7, where it is stated that Chedorlaomer, the king of Elam, "smote all the country of the Amalekites,"--and this at least two centuries before the birth of the Hebrew amalek. These original Amalekites, according to Arabian historians, were descendants of Aram and Lud, thus of Semitic origin, but they seem to have been mixed also with aboriginal and Canaanitish elements. By them are signified falsities which give birth to evils, not falsities arising from evil, but

false or heretical doctrines which begin from an origin outside of the will, and such as man has imbibed from infancy and then confirmed in adult age.

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But because they are false they cannot but produce evils of life; as, for instance, a man who believes that he merits salvation by means of works and confirms himself in this belief, with him the merit, the self-justification and the self-confidence, are the evils which result thence. Or, on the other hand, a man who believes there can be no piety of life unless merit be placed in works, with him the evil thence resulting is that he extinguishes with himself all life of piety and gives himself up to lusts and pleasures. (A. C. 1679)

     Such, then, were the falsities represented by the earlier Amalekites. When they next appear in the sacred history they still heresies have now not only resulted in the inevitable evils of life, but these evils themselves have given birth to a new generation of falsities, falsities from evil, excusing and confirming evils, malignant falsities of the very worst kind, persistently and cunningly striving to destroy the truths and goods of the Church.

     In perfect correspondence with this their representation, the Amalekites themselves henceforth stand forth in the Word as a horde of fierce marauders, treacherous and murderous like the modern Tuaregs of Sahara, lying in wait for the travellers in the wilderness, or suddenly descending like devastating locusts upon the country districts of Canaan.

     These were the enemies against whom the weak and doubting children of Israel had to contend in the very first battle after their flight from Egypt. They had been murmuring against Jehovah because they could find no water to drink, but Moses had struck the rock in Horeb with his staff, and water had issued forth. Then Amalek came and fought with Israel in Rephidim, and "they smote the hindermost, all the infirm in thee, when thou wast tired and weary, nor feared he God." (Deut. 25:17) The battle waged to and from as long as Moses could hold his hands lifted up to God, Israel prevailed, but when from weariness he let his hands fall, Amalek prevailed. Finally Aaron and Hur came to support the hands of their brother, even until the setting of the sun, and then Joshua "weakened Amalek and his people at the mouth of the sword." And Moses "wrote
this memorial in a book: that blotting out I will blot out the memory of Amalek from under the heavens, and Jehovah shall have war against Amalek from generation to generation" (Exodus 17.)

635

     This memorable battle typically describes the temptation-combats of the nascent Church against those infernal genii who are represented by the Amalekites. "These never attack man openly, nor when he is in the vigor of resistance; but when it appears that the man is inclining to yield, then they are suddenly at hand and impel him to fall altogether." (A. C. 8593) That Israel "now prevailed, and now Amalek, represented that those who are of the Spiritual Church cannot be in the faith that continually looks to the Lord, but are alternately in a faith that regards self and the world, for they who are of that Church are in obscurity, and thence in weakness as to faith." (8607.) The enemies are of such cunning that "it would be all over with the man of the Church, for they would act most secretly upon the conscience, and would pervert it, and this by the exciting of depraved cupidities." (8593.) Victory over them can be gained only by a supreme combined effort of all that is best in the man in supporting his wavering faith; it is done with difficulty, but it can be done.

     As for the Amalekites, those who are in falsity from interior evil, they are doomed to utter destruction in time to come.

     Who, and of what quality, are those who are in falsity from interior evil, shall now be told: Interior evil is that which lies hidden interiorly with man concealed in his will and thence in his thoughts, nor does any trace of it appear in externals, as in the actions, in the speech, or in the face. Those who are in such evil are studying by every method and art to conceal and hide it under the appearance of honesty and justice, and under the appearance of love of the neighbor. And yet within themselves they think nothing else but how they may inflict evil, and how they may do it through others, taking care lest it appear that they themselves are the cause. They also color over the evil itself, so that it may not appear as evil. The most delightful thing of their life is to meditate such things and to attempt them in secret. This is called interior evil, and those who are in this evil are called evil genii, and in the other life these are altogether separated from those who are in exterior evil and are called spirits. (8593)

     Henceforth there was implacable hatred between the Israelites and the Amalekites. Not only did the latter prevent the chosen people from entering Canaan directly from the south; but even after the Conquest, and during the entire period of the Judges, they allied themselves with the enemies of Israel, joining variously the Ammonites and the Midianites in their descents upon the Holy Land.

636

     The Amalekites, indeed, represent "those falsities of evil which continually infest the truths and goods of the Church," (A. E. 734), and "hence it was that Amalek was not exterminated either by Joshua, or afterwards by the Judges and the Kings." (A. C. 8607.) Saul was commanded to blot out the hateful marauders, but in spite of a most decisive victory he disobeyed the commands of Samuel and spared Agag, their king. The Amalekites gradually recovered something of their former power, and though David afterwards put the whole nation to the sword, yet four hundred of them "rode upon camels and fled." (I. Sam. 30, 17.) It was not until the reign of Hezekiah, near the end of the kingdom of Judah, that a body of warriors from the tribe of Simeon went up to Mt. Seir, and "smote the rest of the Amalekites that had escaped" (I. Chron. 4:43.)

     108. The Ishmaelites. Of all the Hebrew kinsmen of Israel, none have played so important a role in the history of the world as the Ishmaelites, or, rather, their direct descendants, the Arabs. In Scripturai times, however, they were not yet a great nation, and they are but seldom mentioned in the Word.

     As there were amalelrites before Amalek, the grandson of Esau, so it seems there were Ishmaelites before the time of Ishmael, the son of Abraham by Hagar, for we read of Joseph being sold by his brethren to "a company of Ishmaelites coming from Gideon." (Gen. 37:25) NOW While Ishmael had many sons, they would scarcely in the very next generation have been a distinct people and mentioned, if they were utter strangers. The explanation, as in the case of Amalek, seems to be that Ishmael had attained the position of chieftain with some desert tribe which henceforth became known by his name. The Arabs, who all claim Ishmael as their common ancestor, have a legend that Hagar, having been expelled by Sarah, ran about in the desert, vainly seeking for water. Little Ishmael, being left alone, began to kick and cry; thus he struck the ground with his foot, and immediately spring of water appeared. Soon afterwards a wandering tribe found Hagar with the child by a fountain which had never before been known in the desert; being told of the miracle which had been wrought, the tribe adopted Ishmael who afterwards married the daughter of the chief and founded a royal line from which sprang the tribe of Koreish in Mecca, the tribe to which Mohammed belonged.

637

Ishmael himself lived as a prophet as well as a patriarch amongst them, died at the age of 130 years, and was buried with his mother in the Kaaba in Mecca.

     There may be some elements of historic truth in this legend, though it may be doubted if Ishmael ever went as far south as Mecca. From the story in Genesis we learn that he was circumcised by his father at the age of thirteen years, that he was caught "mocking" at the festivities when Isaac was weaned; on this account he and his mother were sent forth into the wilderness where, after the well of water had been discovered, "God was with the lad, and he grew, and dwelt in the wilderness of Paran, and became an archer, and his mother took him a wife out of the land of Egypt." (Gen. 21:10.) His relations with Abraham and Isaac seem to have been friendly, and he assisted in the burial of his father.

     It was prophesied of Ishmael that he should be "a wild-ass man; his hand shall be against all, and the hand of all against him; and he shall dwell over against the face of all his brethren." (Gen. 16:12.) The wild-ass of the Arabian desert is a peculiarly shy, fleet, pugnacious and untamable beast, and because of these qualities it has become the Biblical symbol for the first youthful degree of the rational with the regenerating man, a state when as yet he thinks from truth only, and not at the same time from good. This state is also signified by Ishmael, and therefore the spiritual Ishmaelite is described as

     A morose man, impatient of everything, he is against all, regarding everybody as in falsity, rebuking at once, punishing, has no pity, does not try to bend minds. (A. C. 1949.) Isaac, on the other hand, or rational good, never fights, howsoever it is assaulted, because it is meek and gentle, patient and pliable, its qualities being those of love and mercy; and although it does not fight, yet it conquers all, never thinking of combating or of boasting of victory. . . . But truth separate from good thinks and breathes scarcely anything but combat, its general delight or reigning affection being to conquer, and when it conquers it boasts of the victory. (A. C. 1950.) Like the wild-ass, it is morose, pugnacious, and possessed of a parched and dry life, from a certain lover of the truth, which is defiled by the love of self. (1964.)

638

Such truth, in the other life, is represented by what is strong and hard, insomuch that it cannot possibly be resisted. When spirits merely think of such truth, there arises something of terror, because its nature is such that it does not yield, thus neither does it recede. (1951)

     Such is the first state of every man who from natural is becoming spiritual. It is an inevitable temporary state, and also a most necessary state, because the spiritual can be born only in the rational. If the man persistently remains in this state of truth alone, he becomes a spiritual Bedouin, a fierce and unmerciful marauder of the desert, but if gradually he permits charity to temper his harsh judgment, he becomes a man of the Lord's Spiritual Church, and an Ishmaelite in the good sense. For Ishmael stands also for the Spiritual Church, and the Spiritual Kingdom in the Heavens, and this is what is meant by the prophecy that "I will put him for a great nation." (Gen. 21:18; A. C. 2699.) In a literal sense, also, this prophecy has been most remarkably fulfilled in the history of Arabia and of Islam.

     As a tribe, the Ishmaelites were idolaters; like the other Hebrew nations they adopted the gods of the neighboring Canaanites, but there is evidence in the Arabic traditions that remains of monotheism and true worship lingered amongst them even to the time of Mohammed who so quickly gained a great following. Prophets are said to have been raised up from time to time who rebuked the Arabs for their idolatry and reminded them of the purer worship of their fathers, Ibrahim and Ishmael. The Ancient Word also existed at one time in Arabia, and the science of correspondences was cultivated there. (S. S. 21, 102.) And that "wisdom flourished in Arabia appears from the coming of the Queen of Sheba to Solomon, and from the three wise men of the East." (Coronis 41.) Hence we may not be surprised that the twelve sons of Ishmael signify "all things which are of the Spiritual Church, especially with the Gentiles," (A. C. 3268), and that the Ishmaelites as a tribe represent "those who as to life are in simple good, and therefore as to doctrine in natural truth" (3263).

     The sons of Ishmael also stand for so many "lands or nations which are all named from the sons or grandsons of Abraham." (3268.)

639

The eldest son was named NEBAIOTH, (from a root meaning "to well" or "spring forth," evidently in commemoration of the miraculous springing forth of the well in the story of Ishmael and Hagar). His descendants were the NABATAEI, a tribe in the north of Arabia which became an important nation in the time of Alexander the Great, forming the independent kingdom of Nabatene to the south of the land of Edom which they afterward conquered. In the course of time they spread their dominion throughout the whole of Arabia.

     The second son, KEDAR, ("powerful"), gave his name to Arabia as a whole, in the Hebrew tongue. "Arabia was named from a son of Ishmael," (A. C. 3268), and Kedar was both powerful and wealthy, for we read frequently in the Word of "the tents of Kedar," "the villages and flocks of Kedar," and "the glory of Kedar." They long controlled the trans-Arabian trade between India and Phoenicia, but in time merged with the Nabatoeans.

     The Ishmaelites seem to have been closely connected with the Midianites, and sometimes the names of the two tribes appear to be used synonymously in the Word. Thus the Midianites who were slain by Gideon "had ear-rings of gold, because they were Ishmaelites," (Judges 8:24), the ear-rings of gold signifying "the things of simple good," (i. e., obedience, A. C. 3263). Again, in the story of the betrayal of Joseph by his brethren, the Ishmaelites are curiously associated with the Midianites, for it is first stated that the brethren "beheld a company of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead with their camels bearing spicery and balm and myrrh, going to carry it down to Egypt." (Gen. 37:25.) Judah then proposed to sell Joseph to these Ishmaelites, but in the meantime "there passed by Midianite merchantmen, and they drew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit; and sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver, and they brought Joseph into Egypt." The chapter concludes with the statement that "the Midianites sold him into Egypt unto Potiphar," (v. 36), but in the next verse, (the first of Chap. 38), it is stated that Potiphar "bought him of the hands of the Ishmaelites, which had brought him down thither."

     The apparent contradictions in this intricate story disappear in the internal sense.

640

Joseph here represents the Divine Truth, especially "this supreme or inmost truth that the Human of the Lord is Divine," (A. C. 4731), a truth which was especially betrayed by the Christian Church. The Ishmaelites represent those who are in simple good, and the Midianites those who are in the truth of that good, (4747); thus the former stand for the celestial and internal, and the latter for the spiritual and external man. Now, "those who are internal men cannot sell, that is, alienate the Divine Truth represented by Joseph, because they perceive truth from good; hence they are not led away by the fallacies of the senses, consequently neither by scientifics. But they who are external men can sell or alienate, because they do not perceive truth from good, but acquire the knowledge of it only from doctrines and teachers, and if they consult scientifics, they suffer themselves to be easily led away by fallacies, for they have no dictate within. It is for this reason that Joseph was not sold by the Ishmaelites, but by the Midianites." (A. C. 4788.) "Hence it is evident that it is so said for the sake of the internal sense. Nor are the historicals contradictory to one another; for it is said of the Midianites that they drew Joseph out of the pit; consequently he was by them delivered to the Ishmaelites, by whom he was brought down into Egypt. Thus the Midianites, as they delivered him to the Ishmaelites who were going to Egypt, did sell him to Egypt. (4968.)

641

JUDGMENT IN USE 1909

JUDGMENT IN USE Rev. WILLIAM WHITEHEAD 1909

     They ask of me the Judgments of Justice, they desire to draw near to God. Isaiah 58:2.

     In the natural sense of the Word the prophet Isaiah here reproves the Jewish nation. He rebukes them sharply for practicing and relying on external forms of religion without true repentance. "Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins" was the command which precedes the text. "Yet," the prophet went on, contrasting the appearance with the actual state, "they seek me daily, and delight to know my ways, as a nation that did righteousness, and forsook not the ordinance of their God: they ask of me the Judgments of Justice, they desire to draw near to God."

     The latter words denote a sensual state in which natural judgments proceeding from natural justice were confounded with the judgments of Justice given by the Lord. The self-deception so wrought was thereby regarded by the Jews as a genuine desire to draw near to God. The nation was governed by this state which had established itself in the iniquities of the people and confirmed itself by the prevailing forms of religion. Both those who governed, and those who were governed, were in this state. It was a state of dire persuasions and fallacies from the cupidities of self. Political events had engrossed the minds of both priesthood and people. There was great need for true and genuine judgments,--given from heaven. But the people were blind to spiritual things. And such was their blindness that the priests had persuaded them, and they had willingly persuaded themselves, that they loved the Divine justice for its own sake, and desired to form their judgments from it. Hence their judgments were travesties of Divine justice. Their solemn assemblies were mockeries of the Lord. "Behold," cried the prophet, "ye fast for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness; ye shall not fast as ye do this day, to make your voice to be heard on high. . .wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the Lord?"

642

     The faculty of judgment from what is seen to be just is what makes man human or not human. To grow in judgment from justice is to become more fully man. To grow in judgment from what is not justice is to become less and less man. Without true justice there can be no true judgment any more than there can be means without an end. Justice is the end. True judgment is the means to that end. When man suffers himself to be instructed in truths which lead to the exercise of good he has respect to the end which is Divine Justice,--which end is present in his judgments. The Lord flows in with the good, and in the exercise of this good, true justice,--heavenly justice--is done.

     All men of the Church who desire to become men of justice and judgment, desire to draw near to God, who is Divine Justice Itself or Mercy and Truth Itself. This desire to draw near to God makes holy the desire to become men of justice and judgment; for such an aspiration has within it that which has respect to God, and looks ever to Him. Unless men so look away from the justice of earth to the justice which is of heaven, just judgments are impossible, for that which makes just judgment has not then been seen. Heavenly use is thus turned into infernal use. For use is the very embodiment of Divine Justice, and when the form of charity which is judgment makes one with an internal which is not of the Divine and thence proceeds into use, that use is not of the Lord's kingdom. For the Lord's kingdom is a kingdom of uses and in that kingdom it is the Lord's Divine which makes the life of all in that kingdom, makes the church and the uses which the men of the Church perform. And it is only when man places himself according to the form of his mind and the indications of Providence in the order of his use that heavenly justice will then flow into that use and form judgments through it that the Divine Justice may be done on earth as it is done in heaven. Therefore he who trusts in the government of the Lord or in the Divine Justice and Judgment, will constantly seek after true justice and judgment especially for the sake of use, and not only for his own use, but also for the use of the neighbor, and not only for the neighbors' use but for all the uses of the Lord's heavenly kingdom.

     This desire or aspiration after the judgments of Divine Justice will be present constantly with those who are truly of the Church.

643

     But the state of the world at this day is such that few have respect to the uses of the Lord's heavenly kingdom, or seek after true justice and judgment for the sake of those uses. Yet, at the same time it is necessary to the existence of the human race that judgments from what is called justice be wrought for the sake of use. Hence the words of the text have respect to the quality of such judgments and to the quality of the uses for whose sake such judgments are made.

     It is necessary for all men--both good and evil--to form judgments concerning the neighbor for the sake of use. Men prosper in their use largely according to their ability to form such judgments. When men have not the ability to form such judgments they have not the ability to promote use, or the ability to preserve use from the invasion of others. Such men are soon put aside, especially at this day; for the world has little mercy for those who have not the ability to form such judgments. Such ability has become so necessary for the conservation of use and efficiency in use that unless a man is known to have developed the faculty of judgment in his use he is not permitted to perform it. Indeed the world is hardly able to show any mercy to such as are weak or deficient in judgment as to use; for as the uses of the world increase in variety and hence in perfection, so it is necessary that there should be an ever-increasing efficiency of use or perfection of the forms of use. The world will not suffer the efficiency or perfection of the forms of its uses to be injured at the cost of the ends involved in them. For efficiency or perfection of the forms of use make one with the efficiency or perfection of those loves which are within or behind the use, those loves which are ever impelling and driving it to greater accomplishments,-- every supplying it with further momentum for progress,--ever seeking to gain their ends through it.

     Further, with the increase of the activities of evil loves there is a greater need to put uses under stronger external bonds. Hence there is a greater anxiety to excuse those external bonds--to find palliatives for the cruelty of the world's judgments which are based not on Divine justice but on the necessity for those bonds. As the qualities of the loves, so are the forms.

     As an example, it is often said that the laws of nature in their operations have no mercy for men; and that because of those laws those who are weak must be thrust aside in the struggle for existence.

644

Yet this is a judgment formed from fallacy. It is a judgment formed from the things of nature, and made according to the appearance. For it ascribes to nature what is the result of man's own unwillingness to put himself into the stream of the Divine Providence and co-operate with it and be governed by it.

     Where injustice comes to men in use by the operation of natural laws the laws of nature are not to be blamed but those evil loves are to be blamed which have used the things of nature as means to gain their evil ends and in that endeavor have brought defeat and disaster to themselves and those dependent on the success of their designs.

     The judgments which men of the world form are from nature, not from the Lord. They are for the sake of the natural man, and not for the sake of heavenly use itself--for the love of use for its own sake is not with them. Use, in the world, to the man of the world, is for the sake of self. This is well known. For the world judges the efficiency of use as to the efficiency of the use toward itself; and not as to the services of that use to the Lord through the things of this world. Hence the judgments of the world as to use are more and more formed from the loves of self and the world. And being so formed, they are tyrannical, domineering judgments, judgments without mercy, or honor, or patience,--Judgments in which the virtues of true morality are lost. Hence great oppressions reign in the world at this day, though such oppressions frequently reign, as it were, by consent arising from necessity. For it is necessary that the civil and moral bonds to be drawn about the uses, administrations and functions of the world should grow more and more rigid. As the men of the world improve in the only plane of which they are conscious, viz., the plane of the sensual, they become conscious of the need for order there. They desire greater order and subordination for they fear the greater disorders of evil which are liable to multiply as the means to do evil are multiplied.

     For every fear, therefore, the men of the world must make due provision, must precipitate judgments from human prudence. Prudence is called upon to defend its possessions.

645

Thus judgments and more are being founded on human prudence. Hence, though it is well known that men are often oppressed, it is also true that men arise to take up their cause, not that true justice to be done, but that natural judgment be wrought and peace preserved. This desire to perform judgments from Justice proceeds not from heaven but from the loves of self and the world. The evil desire that natural justice be done to the neighbor, desire that civil good be performed, because at all costs external order must be preserved. They know that when the bonds of civil order are weakened or destroyed myriads of evils at once rush in to destroy the freedom of life and property and ravage society. Men are therefore compelled for security to subject themselves to more powerful and ultimate forms of subordination.

     Such judgments as are above spoken of have involved much that is unknown to the world. Those uses which exalt self, and bring to self the things which administer to it, viz.; luxury, honor and distinction, are esteemed above all others. Those uses which agree most with the prevailing loves meet with most favor, and, on the contrary, those highest forms of use which are performed more often for their own sakes, decline and are likely to perish.

     Because false human standards of judgment have prevailed, just judgments have been obscured and hidden away. Only in the Lord's New Church can just judgments from heavenly loves be known and thereby the quality of true justice, which is Divine Justice, be unveiled to men.

     It will be plain, therefore, that merely natural truths of judgment in themselves avail nothing, for they are formed only in the light of the world, and perish with this world. Nor by the exercise of such judgments can man find his way to God. Though he may seek the way diligently he will not find it. Nor by any way provided by the exercise of such judgments can God find his way to man. Though the Divine is ever willing that man may become a recipient, the Divine Justice cannot flow into man to make him the receptacle of that which is the life of just judgment until man is ready to receive it, i. e. Until he is able to receive it, until there is an actual organic waiting for it. And as no organic can grow or develop unless it be exercised in use, so, in order for the faculty of judgment to grow it must be exercised in use.

646

By this means man may become truly human,--by the exercise of the faculty of judgment in use for the sake of use looking to the Lord. The exercise of that faculty for the purpose for which it was Divinely given, results at once in a growth of judgment and a growth of use. Greater judgment and greater use result. And because of the increase of these two, true love of use may inflow from heaven. Heaven may flow into the form of that use, and thus the will of Heaven or the fulfilling of the Divine Justice be done. From this new life true judgments of justice may be wrought. The man is endowed by the Lord with a judgment which makes one with justice.

     The ability, therefore, to form judgments from the Divine Justice can only come to man by the exercise in freedom of those rational faculties which the Lord has given to him for the sake of performance of use in the stream of Providence. Such ability will never come to man, if man remain passive. He must acquire it as of himself. So far as he is willing to acquire such ability and exercise it as of himself, so far will it be given to him--a gift from the Lord, a blessing from the Lord's heavenly kingdom.

     Hence we are brought back to the truth that it is evil alone that prevents the exercise of heavenly standards of judgments. It is the old natural life which ever strives to defeat the Divine Justice in Judgment, ever seeks to limit the sphere of heavenly use or destroy it. When the heat of affection in the natural rational so clothes itself with forms of judgment in which there is nothing of genuine love to the Lord or to the neighbor, only the persuasions and fallacies of the natural man remain. In short, the judgments of the natural man are formed solely from the things of nature. They are formed from the most external of signs, and hence embody conclusions which are external and irrational, for they favor only the cupidities of self.

     An illustration of this may be seen in those early states of the man of the Church in which he attempts to make an analysis of the neighbor and come to judgments regarding him.

     In order to build up in the mind just judgments regarding men, two things are essential as foundations. First: There must be perception acquired from the truths of Revelation given by the Lord.

647

Second: There must be, as a basis and containant for the first, the proper knowledges of the natural man gathered from wide experience among men. To these two essentials must be added a third thing, without which the essentials of judgment cannot find form in use, viz.:--the proper ability and skill of application to the particular subject of the judgment.

     Yet, with little or no preparation in these elements of judgment, the natural man is ready at all times to undertake the most difficult of all human uses,--to analyze the complex and subtle elements of human character and pass judgments of a precipitate nature on it. And this though the wisest of men in all ages, in attempting to perform this use, have had to confess the frailty of human reason.

     This willingness of the natural man so to ignore the complexity of motives that go to make up the acts of men, to brush aside or over-ride the lessons of experience given by Providence for our instruction, is a mark of the Ishmael state. It results either in the harsh trenchant judgments of self-intelligence, or on the other hand it falls into the pliant and vacillating judgments of natural good. But, whether it is clothed in an external of elation or an external of false humility, it is the natural man who forms such judgments.

     Nay, the natural man is willing to arrogate to himself even more than the judgments necessary to the use immediately before him. He is ready to go beyond the bounds set for the expression of human judgments, and would censure or applaud the spiritual quality of the neighbor, and this regardless of the truth that the inmost spiritual quality of the neighbor may not be judged. For only the external quality of a man appears and may be judged. His internal quality may only be seen and judged by the Lord. Yet the instant impulse of the natural man when he hears or reads the truths given of the Lord, is instantly to turn them aside from himself and seek to apply them to the neighbor. Such judgments of faith alone, separate from charity, are similar to the judgments of the Jews, for in them man hypocritically asks of the Lord the judgments of justice; he desires to draw near to God.

     This desire of the natural man is, interiorly viewed, a desire to rule over or influence the actions or thoughts of others from the love of self.

648

It is a belief in the divine authority of the judgments which proceed from self, so that those who entertain such belief think themselves to be infallible and cannot persuade themselves that their judgments are not changeless.

Such a desire cannot bear that its judgments should be challenged, or that the range of its judgments should be limited to use. For the ambition or active desire of the love of self is to rule in its world, and when this desire is not instantly checked all evils result. Its evil affection increases for it is instantly fed by the spheres of evil which are attracted to it. It desires that its fame should spread throughout the world. It desires that its power should rule. It persuades itself that it knows everything, nay it imagines that it is God. And everything that is outside of self, everything that is not imaged or reflected in self, every thing that does not favor every nod of self,--is judged with contempt. The judgment of this world is visited upon it. This desire of self so to exalt itself and belittle all that is outside of self, is the exaltation of the natural man; and when the natural man so exalts himself he desires to pass judgments as if he were a king. This desire so to rule others from self, regardless of order in use, is to be resisted instantly whether it proceeds from oneself or from others, for it is opposed to the uses of Heaven and the Church and seeks to destroy them. It is to be resisted instantly because once it is admitted and gains a foothold, once the thoughts are directed to self and fixed on self--evil has gained the first of dominion. For the beginnings of evil lie in the entertaining of thoughts about self. It is in this way, and in no other, that all our attitudes and judgments of others become travesties of Divine Justice. For they regard the neighbor as to his person and not as to his use, and especially as to his attitude to ourselves and not as to his attitude to use.

Or, proceeding to the other extreme, such judgments may pretend to regard the neighbor as to use and yet be willing to put contempt and injury on his person, not reflecting that even judgment of externals should be of justice; and that he who injures the means will also injure the ends. He who shows contempt for the means will himself be judged also to possess a contempt for the ends. He who has a genuine regard to the ends will not despise the means.

649

Indeed, he will resist such things as would injure the neighbor both as to his quality and his use. He will even cultivate external loyalty for the sake of that which it protects and fosters in use. For to speak of internal loyalty to the truths of the Church and at the same time to show active disloyalty in externals, is like saying that the soul may have its own ends, but that the body may have respect to whatever it pleases. Indeed, it is ever to be kept in mind that the uses of charity have an organic relation, and that respect to this relation at all times is vital to the growth and perfection of the life of the man of the Church and the societies of men who make the Church.

     When it is necessary for the sake of use to express judgment on the evils of others, the severity of the judgment will depend only on the necessity which has arisen. When that necessity has departed, the evils are to be banished from the mind as if they had not been. Such judgments will have respect only to heavenly justice, that is, to the love of use which is the essence of the Divine Justice.

     It is true that the world ever seeks to persuade that such a standard of judgment is impossible, that it is contrary to human experience and reason and cannot be attained. And when the man of the Church reflects upon the enormity of hereditary evil and of his own will, he is tempted to turn aside in despair, to give up the warfare. Yet this temptation itself arises from the proprium of man and must be instantly combated. For it involves the secret assumption that the Lord is not able and willing at all times to help him, to lend him aid from heaven, and keep him in the warfare of regeneration till the end of his life. And unless this assumption be subdued, the loves of self and the world have triumphed and man has entered the way of disobedience to the will of Heaven.

     Finally, however, doubts may arise as to how man may know whether the judgments which he strives to form in use for the sake of use or for the sake of self. For man does not sensibly perceive whether the judgments which he forms are of self or for the sake of use, that is, whether the judgments have a spiritual origin, or are merely natural. Indeed, others may see this more clearly than he, especially from his actions.

650

Still, he can know it by this, whether or not he considers evils to be sins. If he regards them as sins, and for that reason abstains from doing them, the judgments which he forms are spiritual, and when one who does this shuns evils from a feeling of aversion to them, he then begins to have a sensible perception not only that he loves just and sincere dealing for its own sake, but also a sensible perception of the love of use for the sake of uses, and this from spiritual enjoyment in them.

Human limitations stand in the way of bringing to pass such judgments of justice. But though their execution will meet with many difficulties, yet whatever may lie in the path of use has been placed there by the Providence of the Lord. And if the use be performed to Him from whom the hope that lies in use came, then the difficulties that occur will be seen to be so many lessons to be learned of Providence. Thus he who aspires to learn the way of obedience to the Truth itself, has also learned to ask of the Lord the hope of heaven, for in such a state of obedience to the Truth he desires to draw near to God. Amen.

651

CALLED 1909

CALLED J. S. P 1909

We would not keep her, Lord,
     Thou knowest best,
Whate'er Thy love afford,
     We, too, are blest.

She never was our own,
     But lent to be
Trained in Thy fear and soon
     Given back to Thee.

Blossom of Paradise
     Too frail for earth
Our chastened thanks arise
     Lord, for her birth.

Her use with us is done,
     Freed from earth's strife
She finds her father's home,
     Her real life.

Beneath Thy loving eye
     In angel-care
No weakness, pain nor sigh,
     She grows more fair.

By angel-mothers taught
     To love thy ways;
With joy her life is fraught,
     She sings Thy praise.

From state to state she goes,
     Each one more bright;
Learning Thy law, she knows
     Her chief delight.

Not as a child shall we
     Her more behold,
The soul from clay made free
     Will now unfold.

652

And to full stature grow-
     With joy increase--
"Life's Jewel" she shall know,
     Innocence, Peace.
          J. S. P. July, 1909.
TRUTH WITH THE EVIL 1909

TRUTH WITH THE EVIL E. E. IUNGERICH 1909

     "Thou believest that there is one God," wrote the Apostle James, "thou doest well: the devils also believe and tremble. But with these know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead!. . . for as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also." (Chap. II., v. 19, 20, 26.)

     It appears as if faith were living, and as if a written or spoken statement of truth were genuine truth. Yet neither is living nor true unless it proceed from a genuine origin. "To those who desire truths from any spiritual use, the Lord will give all that are conducive to that use from Himself through the Word. . . . To the rest there is not given truth from the Word; they read, but every true doctrine therein they either do not see, or, if they see it, they turn it into falsity, not so much in speech when repeating it from the Word, as in the idea of their thought about it." A. R.889.

     The "devils also believe" and those in no spiritual use, such as evil men and devils, may yet express the truth in their speech. This appears to contradict the teaching that those in hell are vastated of all good and truth. "And whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that which he thinketh that he hath." (Luke VIII., 18.) Before they have completely vastated, the evil are still able to speak the truth consciously. But after a vastation so complete that even the knowledge of their own identity is removed, they can no longer speak the truth, even though they may believe they do.

653

Nevertheless when it pleases the Lord to make an example of them for the instruction of novitiate spirits, even the vastated can be brought into a state in which they see and acknowledge the truth.

     On a certain occasion there arose a debate among spirits as to whether anyone can see any true theological doctrine in the Word, except from the Lord. (A. R. 566.) To illustrate this point several evil spirits from the abyss were explored, and it was declared from heaven that they did not know one single true doctrine from the Word. On reporting this in the abyss, some of their companions prayed the Lord for permission to ascend in order to demonstrate that they knew many true doctrinals, being acquainted even with some known to the archangels. They thus addressed the assembly of spirits:

     "'Have we not this truth, That there is a Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, and that this Trinity is to be believed in? Have we not this truth, That Christ is our Redeemer and Savior? Have we not this truth, That Christ Alone is Justine, that Merit belongs to Him Alone, and that he is unjust and impious who ascribes to himself anything of His merit and justice? Have we not this truth, That no mortal can do any spiritual good of himself, but that all good ire itself is from God? Have we not this truth, That there is meritorious good and also hypocritical good, but that both goods are evils Have we not this truth, That man from his own efforts cannot effect the least thing towards his salvation? Have we not this truth, That there is faith, that man must believe, that every man has life according to his belief?. . . . Who of you can deny any of these, and yet you said that in our conventions we have not a single truth, not even one? Was it not mere dislike of us that made you cast up such things against us?'"

     They received then this reply: "All the things you have stated are in themselves truths, but you have falsified them by dint of applying them to confirm a false principle. Therefore both with you and in you they are falsified truths which derive from a false principle their falseness. That this is so we shall demonstrate to the sight."

     Keeping prominently in mind these teachings as to the source of genuine truth, and its absence with the evil even when their accuracy of speech has all the appearance of truth, we may now consider a statement made about Paul and his Epistles, (S. D. 4412), which without these teachings seems to involve a serious contradiction.

654

"Paul is among the worst of the apostles, which has been made known to me by ample experience. The love of self, by which he was ensnared before he preached the gospel, remained with him also afterwards, and because he was then, for the most part, in a like state, he was excited by that love and by his nature to wish to be in scenes of tumult. He did all things from the end of being greatest in heaven, and of judging the tribes of Israel. That he remained such afterwards appears from very much experience, for I have spoken with him more than with others; nay, he is such that the rest of the apostles in the other life have rejected him from their company, and no longer recognize him as one of themselves, (and this) also from the fact that he has associated himself with one of the worst devils, who would fain rule all things, and has pledged himself to this devil to obtain for him his end. There are many other reasons besides, which it would be too tedious to relate. If all the things which I know about Paul should be related, they would fill volumes. That he wrote epistles does not prove that he was such [as that would seem to imply], for even the impious can preach well and write epistles; it is one thing to be and another thing to speak and to write, as was also said to him. Moreover he has not mentioned in his epistles the least word about the Lord as to what He taught, (ne verbulum memoraverat de Domino quid docuit), nor does he cite one of His parables, so that he has not received anything from the life and discourse of the Lord, as was also said to him, when yet in the Evangelists is the very Gospel itself."

"Not . . . the least word about the Lord as to what He taught." Yet in I. Corinthians XI we find practically the same words that the Lord used at the Last Supper:--"That the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread: And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me.

655

After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood; this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me." v. 23-25.

     The charge against Paul is not as to his not quoting words the Lord uttered. Therefore in that respect this passage from Corinthians is not contradictory. The charge made is that he has not mentioned a word as to what the Lord taught. It is on this point that this passage appears contradictory, for the words in which the sacrament of the Holy Supper was instituted do, in a sense, constitute teaching. Nor is this the only passage that seems to militate against this charge, for the epistles of Paul are full of things that agree with the Lord's teachings, and that is, doubtless, why they, as well as the other epistles are said to be useful books for the church. (A. E. 81; and Dec. 224.) Take, for example, the following statements about the Lord Jesus Christ: "Who is the image of the invisible God"--Colossians 1:15, "For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." II:9, "Who is God over all blessed unto eternity. Romans IX:15, "The blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords." I. Timothy VI:15.

     The charge against Paul is reiterated with further particulars in S. D. 4824: "That the Epistles of Paul have not an internal sense, is known in the other life; but it has been permitted that they should be in the Church, lest those of the Church should do evil to the Word of the Lord, in which there is an internal sense; for if a man lives evilly and still believes the holy Word, he does evil to Heaven; therefore the Epistles of Paul have been permitted; and therefore Paul was not allowed to take a single parable, and not even a doctrine, from the Lord, and to expound and explain it, but he took all things from himself. The church indeed explains the Word of the Lord, but by the Epistles of Paul; wherefore, also it everywhere recedes from the good of charity, and accepts the truth of faith, which the Lord indeed taught, but so that the good of charity might be all."

     Paul did quote some of the Lord's words and he taught many things, which, viewed in themselves, are as true as the statements by the spirits from the abyss who were endeavoring to prove they knew some true doctrinals from the Word. As with them, so with Paul, these have been falsified by dint of applying them to confirm a false principle.

656

They are, therefore, falsified truths which derive from a false principle their falseness, for Paul took all things from himself. It was necessary in the beginning of the Christian Church that missionary propaganda should be performed by leaders full of zeal and fire; but there was no other zeal and fire save that of self love, D. P. 257 How much Paul's self appears in his epistles is shown by these excerpts: "I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show forth all long suffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him." (I. Timothy 1:16.) "Brethren, be followers of me." (Philippians III:17.) Brethren, I beseech you, be as I" (Galatians IV:12), "Wherefore I beseech you, be ye followers of me." (I. Corinthians IV:16.) "For I would that all men were even as I myself." (I. Corinthians VII:7.) '"Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ. Now I praise you, brethren, that ye remember me in all things, and keep the ordinances as I have delivered them to you. (I Corinthians XI:1, 2.) "When Peter was come to Anticoh, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed. . . . But when I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said unto Peter before them all, If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why compellest thou the Gentiles to be as the Jews? (Galatians II:11, 14.) "or I suppose I was not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles." (II. Corinthians XI:5.) "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day. (II. Timothy IV:7, 8.)

The true things which Paul wrote were not true with him and in him any more than the true statements made by the spirits from the abyss were with and in them. Viewed in themselves and as knowledges possessed by regenerating men they are nevertheless true. That is how his epistles can be useful books for the Church. And not the least useful thing about them is their illustration of the principle exemplified in their author's character and life after death, that it is not mere verbal accuracy which causes the truth to be with a man, but the love and use for which he acquires it.

657

"To those who desire truths from any spiritual use, the Lord will give all that are conducive to that use from Himself through the Word. . . . To the rest there is not given truth from the Word; they read, but every true doctrine therein they do not see, or, if they see it, they turn it into falsity, not so much in speech when repeating it from the Word, as in the idea of their thought about it.

658

MR. BENADE'S FIRST NEW CHURCH SCHOOL 1909

In connection with the communication of Mr. Thomas J. Bewly, in the March Life, respecting the New Church school conducted by Mr. Benade on Tenth street, below Market street, between the years 1849 and 1853, our readers will be interested in the following Prospectus which was recently found among Mr. Benade's papers in the Archives of the Academy. The document, which is well but closely printed on two quarto pages, unfortunately bears no date, but the References, as well as the address of the school-room, show clearly that it refers to the first school, and not to the school which was opened in Cherry street in 1856. Aside from its historic interest, the Prospectus is of importance as outlining many of those principles of genuine New Church education which were afterwards developed and applied in the schools of the Academy of the New Church. It is of interest, also, to note that Mr. Benade, at the time of issuing the Prospectus, was but thirty-two or thirty-three years of age.
PROSPECTUS OF A SCHOOL FOR BOYS 1909

PROSPECTUS OF A SCHOOL FOR BOYS 1909

Having lately opened a School for Boys, upon a plan of instruction, differing considerably from those usually adopted, it has been suggested to the undersigned, that it might serve a useful purpose to publish a brief statement of the principles upon which this plan is based, and of the methods by which he proposes to attain the ends designed. It is obvious, however, that such a statement must be very brief, in order to be brought within the limits of a prospectus. Mere indications of the principles and methods referred to, can of course only be given in so confined a space. Still, it is hoped, that they will be sufficiently clear and explicit, to afford a correct idea of the system pursued by the undersigned, in the education of those who are committed to his charge.

659

All schools are established for the education of the young. They are, therefore, the means employed for the attainment of a certain end; and it is obvious, that they will be more or less adequate to the attainment of this end, in proportion to its clear perception and due appreciation. When the object sought, is fully seen and known, and understood, the means necessary to reach it, will always be most readily discovered, and judiciously employed. Now, in the training of children, there are two things to be considered; their education and instruction. Their moral faculties are to be educated, and their mental faculties are to be instructed. The affection of the heart, as well as the powers of the mind, are to be cultivated, directed and developed. And, as the design of the Creator in placing man in this world, has been his preparation for a higher and better state, which is only attainable by a life of goodness and usefulness, it is evident, that all education and instruction must look to this end, and that only in so far as they have this tendency, will they be true and adequate means of training the young. In order to be good and useful, man must learn to know, to love, and to practice his duties to God and his fellow-man. And it is the part of a true education to lead the child to the knowledge, love and practice of these duties. As, however, these duties and their performance constitute true religion, it is plain that religion must be made the basis of all education. By means of it man is to be prepared to enter into that higher and better state for which he is designed, and in which he is to live eternally. This being the view of the undersigned, he makes it an object of primary importance, to inculcate into the minds of his scholars, the principles of the true Christian religion, as drawn from the Word of God, and to strive to lead them to practice these principles in their conduct. It is this endeavor to repress and restrain by every means in his power, any evil dispositions or propensities that may manifest themselves, and to cultivate all good and kind and charitable affections; to lead them to abhor and reject selfishness in all its forms, and to act from the principles of right and truth, because they are right and true, and in conformity with the Divine will.

660

In order to effect this end, great attention is Paid to the learning and right understanding of the truths contained in the Divine Word, its commandments and precepts; and of the manner in which they are to be applied to human life. In this way, it is believed, that the minds of the young will be imbued with fixed religious principles, their affections receive a direction towards that which is good, and their moral qualities be so educated as to enable them in after life to take their places as good and useful members of society, and to prepare themselves for a future existence of happiness, if they persevere in the road in which they have been guided.

As, however, men are to live in this present world for a season, and have a part to perform in this world, and as it depends upon the manner in which they make use of that season, and in which they perform that part, as to what their future will be, it is necessary, that their understandings should be instructed, as well as their affections cultivated. Their minds should be filled with such knowledge as will serve to make them most useful; and the faculties and powers of those minds, should be so drawn out and developed, as will enable them most judiciously to apply and employ the knowledge and learning which they receive.

By means of the instruction in the truths of religion, which forms an important and essential part of the course pursued by the undersigned, his scholars are introduced into a knowledge and acknowledgment of God. As God is the center and fountain of all truth, they will thus be in the acknowledgment of Him who is the source of all knowledge. By such acknowledgment, their minds will be directed towards that central point, from which ever flow the principles that are to enlighten mankind. With this as the foundation-stone of their instruction, a true and sure super-structure may be raised. Great stress is laid upon this matter, as it is essential that the first principles implanted in the heart, and the first forms imparted to the understanding of the young, should be good and true; for first principles always determine those which succeed; according to the homely adage, "as the twig is bent, so the tree is inclined.

661

As to the instruction of the understanding, now, we again take note of two things; first, that all children have a greater or less degree of love or fondness for acquiring knowledge; and secondly, that the understanding is formed by the knowledge which is acquired. From this we conclude that that is a true method of instruction, which cherishes, fosters, and develops the love of knowledge in the young, and which presents to their minds the subjects of learning and science in such mode, that true forms may be implanted in their understandings, or in other words, that their understandings may be rightly formed. It is a matter of comparatively little moment, that a youth should gather a large fund of mere knowledge, during the period of his attendance at school; but it is a matter of the greatest possible moment, that he should have acquired a habit of study and self-instruction. All learned and scientific men are self-taught; owing little or nothing to the schools which they have frequented, as regards the amount and scope of their intelligence; but everything to their own labors and investigations, in the period succeeding their school-years, which they have devoted to mental cultivation.

Convinced of the truth of these observations, the undersigned has adopted a mode of instruction which he deems eminently fitted to attain the end that he has in view. In saying this, he does not wish to be understood as arrogating to himself any merit or credit for the origination of the method,--as he has no such claim, having received it mainly from the published works and private correspondence of an eminent German Professor, Dr. Leonard Tafel, with whom it is the result of the experience of a lung life devoted to education. "The analytic method of instruction," the name by which Dr. Tafel designates his system, has for its object, to excite, cherish and develop what he calls the "self-activity" of the young; to lead them to independent and original examination and investigation of, and reflection upon every subject that is brought to their notice;--to institute a critical analysis of everything that they learn, and to fix all so firmly in the memory that it can never be lost. Great stress is laid by him upon the cultivation of the memory, and, contrary to the usual practice, he insists rigidly upon the most exact memorizing, as being the only means of receiving into the mind the full and clear idea of that which is to be learnt.

662

Another point in this system, to which especial attention is called, as being one of its distinguishing and most admirable features, is that the scholar is not first introduced into a knowledge of abstract principles, and then of their effects; does not first learn to know the analyzed parts and then the whole; but by a course, the very reverse of this, first learns to know the effect, and then by the abstractions which he is led to institute, comes to a knowledge of its principles; first becomes acquainted with the whole, and then proceeds to analyze it himself, and discover its parts and their relation to the whole. Thus, in the study of the languages, the Grammar is the last, and not the first object of his attention. It is only after he has acquired a sufficient knowledge of a foreign language, whether dead or living, to speak and read it with tolerable fluency, that he begins a grammatical and critical analysis of its forms and structure. He first acquires the material upon which he is to labor, before he begins to work it up. It is the simple course by which every child learns its own language. The immense waste of time, the weariness and disgust produced in the mind of the young learner, which are the consequence of the present and prevailing modes of teaching languages, by a preliminary course of grammatical study, is done away with. The scholar by learning to read at once, and to understand that which he reads by means of correct literal translations, placed before him, is encouraged and incited to proceed, he feels that he is advancing, that he can walk, and as the ground enlarges under his feet, that he can run. He proceeds gradually, from that which is easy, to that which is more difficult, just in proportion as his strength and powers are developed.

In the same manner, a knowledge of the sciences is attained, by beginning below and proceeding upwards. In Geometry, the scholars first become acquainted with the appearance of geometrical forms, by learning to delineate them correctly with pencil, then they proceed to their actual measurement, and finally to the investigation of their properties and principles. Thus, too, in the natural sciences, they make themselves acquainted with the natural objects, whose history, qualities, etc., they are to study, by actual observation of those objects themselves, or from drawings and paintings,-and so far as time will admit, by delineating them correctly, and thereupon advance to their further study, step by step.

663

In order to pursue such a course, every scholar is taught the art of drawing, which is not a mere accomplishment, but one of the most effective aids to instruction.

     In short, not to particularize too much it is the object of the system adopted by the undersigned, so to instruct the minds of the young,--that they may become thinking men, capable by the direction which has been given to their understandings, and by the manner in which their faculties have been cultivated and developed, of attaining any degree of knowledge, or pursuing any business or profession, through their own independent study and exertions. All the branches, as well of a common, as of a classical and scientific education, are taught not only for the sake of the necessary knowledge thereby imparted to the mind, but also to subserve this end. And it is believed, that if such a system be faithfully and consistently carried out, it will go very far towards preparing the children who have been educated according to it, to become good and useful members of society, real benefactors of their country, and to prepare them for that higher state for which they are destined.

     The school-room of the undersigned, is in the rear of St. Stephen's Church, in Tenth Street, between Market and Chestnut.

     TERMS.--FOR Session of ten months, fifty dollars; inclusive of Drawing and one Foreign Language.

     For each additional Foreign Language per Session, twenty dollars.

     Books, Stationery, &c., at the charge of the Scholars.

     The expense of Fuel, divided among the Scholars. W. H. BENADE.

     REFERENCES.

     John Frost, LL. D., L. C. Iungerich, S. Ustick, T. S. Arthur, Esq., Thos. F. Shewell, Dr. J. G. Pehrson, D. P. Brown, Esq., C. Chesebrough, Jos. H. Siddall, Esq.

664

Editorial Department 1909

Editorial Department Editor 1909

     NOTES AND REVIEWS.

     The Neukirchenblatt for October publishes a translation of a lengthy, and, on the whole, correct account of the New Church settlement and schools in Bryn Athyn, which appeared in the Baltimore American for Sept. 19th, 1909.

     Morning Light, speaking of an early portrait of Swedenborg, recently published in our Welsh contemporary, refers to it as "a poor portrait, probably not genuine." The original of the portrait in question is preserved in the Library of the Academy of the New Church, and was presented to the Academy by Mr. Alfred H. Stroh, who purchased it in Stockholm from the Rev. A. T. Boyesen. We have never before heard its genuiness called in question, and we will be glad to know the grounds for the adverse judgment of Morning Light.

     If there be any place on earth thoroughly saturated with the "permeating influx of the New Jerusalem," it must surely be Harvard University, right next door, as it is, to the Convention's Theological School. In evidence we need point only to Charles W. Eliot's "Religion of the Future," where we find the following "permeated" inspiration: "The fear of hell has not proved effective to deter men from wrongdoing, and heaven has never yet been described in terms very attractive to the average man or woman. Both are, indeed, unimaginable. The great geniuses, like Dante and Swedenborg, have produced only fantastic and incredible pictures of either state. The modern man would hardly feel any appreciable loss of motive power toward good or away from evil if heaven were burnt and hell quenched." (Harvard Theological Review, Oct., 1909, p. 407.)

     Mr. Claude Toby, of London, in contributing to a recent discussion in Morning Light on the question of quoting from the Writings in sermons, writes: "Mr. Friend refers to the Academy, but even there quotations from the Writings in sermons is falling into disfavor.

665

In New Church Life for 1904, p. 557, we find this:--'Formerly there was much quotation, but in recent years there has been little. This is because it is recognized that the truth within the statements of doctrine is what must be preserved. It is the duty of the minister to study rather than to quote. By large and varied study he can see the whole range of the doctrine bearing on his subject and give it in full light.'"
Mr. Toby, who himself is not in favor of much quoting, adds: "If, therefore, quotation from the Writings is the standard by which sermons are to be judged, the Academy is moving in the wrong direction, and the preachers mentioned adopted a wrong method."

It should be noted that the citation from the Life is from a summary of a discussion held at a meeting of the clergy. We quite agree with the conclusion as then presented, but it was by no means intended as a dogmatic statement. Quoting or not quoting is very largely a matter of personal taste, habit, and form of mind, and depends also upon the subject of the sermon. Quotations from the letter of the Word certainly add an ultimate Divine force and beauty to any sermon, and quotations from the Writings, which are nothing but the Word on the rational plane, perform a similar service to the higher faculties of the mind, especially when new conclusions stand in need of confirmation, or when the sermon brings out interior doctrines which may be unfamiliar to the average hearer. The essential thing, after all, is not the form of the discourse, but its harmony with the Doctrine itself.

Our Swedish contemporary. Nya Kyrkans Tidning, (probably in the absence of its experienced editor), joyfully announces the recent discovery of "a Swedish B. F. Barrett, . . . another New Church Minister who speaks Swedish." The gentleman thus discovered is Mr. Axel Lundeberg, of Chicago, formerly a Unitarian minister but now engaged in the service of the "Nunc Licet Press." Being, as such, a champion of the principles advocated by the late B. F. Barrett, Mr. Lundeberg now appears in our Swedish contemporary with a glowing panegyric of his great master, who, we are assured, occupies the same position in relation to Swedenborg, that Plate occupied in relation to Socrates, or Paul to primitive Christianity.

666

The comparison, though grandiloquent, is unfortunate, for both Plato and Paul were organizers and up builders, the former of a school of philosophy, the latter of distinctive Christian churches, whereas B. F. Barrett throughout his life labored with might and main to tear down the New Church as a distinct organization, denying the Writings of the New Church as a Divine Revelation, rejecting the priesthood and the sacraments of the Church, upholding pseudo-celestialism and filling the Church for more than half a century with all kinds of heresies and disorders, not to speak of endless personal brawls. In all this he was honest, no doubt, but Heaven save the New Church in Sweden from any "Swedish B. F. Barrett." The experience of our Swedish brethren with the Rev. Albert Bjorck should be a warning against those who sow the good seed with the one hand and tares and thistles with the other.

We have just received from Sweden a handsome pamphlet the title of which, rendered into English, reads: Emanuel Swedenborg as a Cerebral Anatomist and Physiological Psychologist, by Alfred H. Stroh, M. A. (Upsala, 1900, pp. 14) This is a paper read by Mr. Stroh before the Psychological Society of Upsala, October 13th, 1908, and afterwards Published in the Psyke for April, 1909, from which the Present pamphlet is printed.

Mr. Stroh here reviews the gradual awakening among modern men of science to some degree of realization of Swedenborg's true significance in the history of Physiology and Psychology, and he also presents a summary of those points in which Swedenborg, has anticipated modern discoveries in these branches of Science. The claims thus raised for Swedenborg are set forth in four propositions which are proved by the public admissions of modern savants, viz., First, that Swedenborg, as early as 1734, referred the seat of psychic phenomena to the cortical substance of the cerebrum; second, that he was the first to develop the theory that the various motor regions of the body are governed by distinct motor centers or regions in the cortical substance of the brain, (the "localization theory"); third, that the motion of the brain coincides with the respiration of the lungs; and, fourth, that there must exist a means of communication, (the "foramen Munroi"), between the lateral ventricles of the two hemispheres of the cerebrum; and that the cerebro-spinal fluid flows from the great ventricles through the fourth ventricle into the subarachnoidal chamber, and from the calamus scriptorius into the central canal of the medulla spinalis.

667

These claims are succinctly presented, and with many interesting particulars, and we believe an English version of Mr. Stroh's pamphlet might be of interest to many of the medical profession in England and America.
DREAMING THE DREAMS OF THE AGE 1909

DREAMING THE DREAMS OF THE AGE 1909

     "Are we being deceived? Are the pulpits of the New Church leading the pews astray concerning the religious state of Christendom? We call to mind the Lord's prophetic warning--concerning this very time, and this very thing:

     "Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name, saying I am Christ, and shall deceive many." (Matt. xxiv. 4, 5.)

     "They tell us that 'the old state of things' is passed; that 'the New Church' is in the air, and everywhere; as mark the 'stupendous' march of our century; all 'doctrines' as barriers are breaking down; the 'different churches' are in fellowship; 'more and more' we are of one mind; "universal brotherhood' is at hand. We hear little of 'wars and rumors of wars;' nor are 'nations rising against nation, kingdom against kingdom;' the 'days of tribulation' are no more.

     "Brother, be warned! It is not so set down in Matthew's Gospel; the twenty-fourth chapter; nor can we find it thus recorded in the new Divine revelation given to this age--but the reverse is found on ten thousand pages. Let one quotation suffice.

     "Speaking of the consummation of the elder Christian Church, the revelator says:

668

"'It--the consummation--will scarcely be apparent anywhere in the world, since the things which are of faith are not truths; and the things which are of charity are not goods; but are only the deeds of the love of self, which do not elevate themselves to heaven; but, as soon as they rise up, they are turned aside and fall down to the earth, as rotten fruit falls from the trees in winter. At this consummation, or end, of the church, it will be proclaimed from all the pulpits and the people will cry aloud in all the temples, Here is the habitation of God; here is the church of God; here is salvation; here is the light of the gospel--and they know not at all that they are in mere darkness, and that they are dreaming the dreams of the age. This night and this dream the Lord has predicted in Matthew xxiv. 37-39; and in Luke xvii, 26 to the end. (Five Memorable Rel. 13, 14.'") (The Rev. O. L. BARLER in the Messenger, Sept. 29, 1909.)
ANDREW JACKSON'S SWEDENBORGIANISM 1909

ANDREW JACKSON'S SWEDENBORGIANISM 1909

     The Rev. E. D. Daniels contributes to the Messenger for Sept. 29th, an interesting quotation from Dr. J. R. Irelan's "History of the Life and Times of the Presidents," describing the "Swedenborgian leanings" of good old Andrew Jackson, as reported by Henry A. Wise who visited the home of the general at Nashville, in 1828. The future President was engaged in conversation with the Rev. O. Jennings, a Presbyterian minister, and an old friend, Judge Overton, when Mrs. Jackson suddenly turned to Jennings, saying:

     "'Doctor, a short time ago I came near sending for you on a very important concern to me.'

     "'Indeed, madam,' said the Doctor, 'I should have been pleased to obey your call, and duty permitting, would have come with pleasure to serve you in any way I could. Pray, what was the occasion? Perhaps if permitted I may still render you a service.'

     "'Oh; Doctor! at a time lately, but for a moment, I feared the General was giving way to the Swedenborgian doctrines. I wished you to talk to him on the subject, and to counsel me.

     "This brought up the old hero, who never declined a combat on any field, who at once threw this bomb into the face of the startled preacher:

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     "'Pooh, pooh, Madam! your anxiety was in vain, I was in no danger of giving way to Swedenborgian doctrines; all I said was that Swedenborg's conceptions of the Deity were the most sublime;' (the General's schooling taught him to pronounce this elegant word soo-blime); that tapped the drum ecclesiastic.

     "At this the good preacher exclaimed:

     "'What! do you pretend to compare the crudities of Swedenborg with the Divine conceptions of David, or Job, or Isaiah?"

     "'Yes,' snapped the General, 'yes, sir; Swedenborg's conceptions, by being the most sublime, only prove that the Almighty Creator has at all times, among all nations, inspired the souls of men with images of Himself, and the original inspirations are in some instances as sublime as are the revelations of Divinity; both come from God.'

     "This was indeed too much. The spirit of New Orleans was up. The courageous parson stood forward to the conflict. Mr. Wise says that 'the discussion which ensued was rich and rare. It was the scimitar of Saladin against the battle axe of Coeur de Lion. The Doctor, exact, a fencer poised, quick, steady, skilled, with weapons keen enough to cut eiderdown; he would seem to run in the Damascus blade and turn the point coolly to feel for the vital point, but Richard did not fall nor faint, but thrashed about him with his massive axe as a harvest man would wield the flail. It was sharp science against a strong arm which wanted not natural "cunning."' The combat deepened. Jackson was on his mettle. Among all the spectators, toothless old Judge Overton was the most interested. He believed in Jackson. He thought his theology as good as his politics. His glory was to see his champion enter the lists. He knew beforehand what the result would be. In his vain attempt to throw in an occasional argument, he could do no more than to sanction the General in an undertone with 'By G--d' and 'By G-- Jupiter.' But the strange, doubtful conflict was brought to a ludicrous end, Mr. Wise says, by Mrs. Jackson (who could not remove religion so far from common and creature comforts as did Swedenborg) exclaiming: 'Mr. Baldwin, dear, you are sleepy.' Had the great Swedish philosopher and seer, who has been a thousandfold less understood and more misrepresented than has any mere politician, statesman, or reformer, looked upon this scene it would have started in him strange reflections.

670

From the schools and colleges he thought should come his expounders and defenders. But here was a man, commonly supposed to be one of the most worldly-minded, with the same vigor and success that distinguished him on other fields, not only defending his teachings, but also placing them on the high foundation which he quietly claimed for them himself."
MADAME ST. AMOUR 1909

MADAME ST. AMOUR 1909

Who was Madame St. Amour? This question, addressed by Morning Light "to the (New Church literary) police," is occasioned by a reference in a book entitled Fads and Facts, stating that: "the cures wrought by Madame St. Amour, a Swedenborgian lady of rank, . . . exhibit as great therapeutic power as was manifested by Jesus nearly nineteen centuries ago in Judea." In response to this inquiry, Mr. E. J. B(roadfield), of Manchester, communicates the following interesting reminiscences to the Morning Light for Sept. 18th:

"It was my good fortune to spend some months among New Church friends at St. Armand from November, 1848 until near the end of March, 1849, and I often heard my old friend, M. Le boys des Gaays, speak of this excellent lady. She was a thorough New Church woman, refined and well educated--but she had what I think was called the 'magnetic gift'--which had, of course, nothing to do with the manifestations of modern Spiritualism. It was the power of healing by the laying on of hands, and this she unquestionably possessect to a remarkable extent. She performed many wonderful cures indeed, and for a time her house was besieged by crowds of the afflicted. Mme. St. Armour lived at Nantes, a city I visited with two friends in the spring of 1849. M. Le boys had given us an introduction to M. de Zolenare (who also lived there)--a high-minded gentleman with the courtly manner of an older age, a real 'worthy' whose name would have a prominent place if the complete history of New Church movements in France were ever written--not only for his own sake, for his zeal as a 'Swedenborgian' and his good deeds--but for the gentle tenderness with which he soothed the last days of Edouard Rider, and the care with which he presents his inestimably valuable work.

671

I look back indeed to my visits to this fine old man as if to the Salon or Chateau of a Breton nobleman before the Revolution. But as I fear M. de Zolenare's very name will be unknown to nearly all your readers, the account of my visit to him and his kindness will be only of very faint interest. He told us, however, about the character and cures of Mme. St. Armour, and more than confirmed all that M. Le boys had said of her. One afternoon we went to call in her, but she was unfortunately suffering from a feverish attack which compelled her to keep her room, from which she sent us the kindest of messages. In one of her rooms we saw a multitude of evidences of her cures-grateful memorials of thankfulness for restoration to health, crutches, sticks, and other aids for the weak which had been left there by patients who no longer wanted them, and though some of these were afterwards persuaded to say that they might have been cured by other means, there could be no doubt of the healing power of Mme. St. Armour.

"Not long ago I was reading some notes of this visit to Nantes in a diary I kept at the time, and I also came across an amusing memorial of this visit in the shape of a daguerreotype with portraits of one of my friends and myself, taken by the daughter-in-law Mme. St. Armor. Her son, M. St. Armour, as then a sous prefet, but in which department his arrondisment was I forget. I need scarcely say that she and all her friends would have been immeasurably shocked could they have heard such comparisons as that made in Fads and Facts."

The printer has certainly treated Mr. Broadfield unkindly when setting up his communication. "St. Armand" should be St. Amand, the home of M. Le Boys des Guays, (not of M. "Le boys des Gaays"). Mme. "St. Armour," should be St. Amour; the name of her friend was de Tollenaire, not "de Zolenare," and Edouard Richer should be substituted for Edouard "Rider." With these few exceptions, the account presented above is substantially correct.

672

We may add that Madame St; Amour received the Heavenly Doctrine through Captain Jean Jacques Bernard, the first eminent apostle of the New Church in France, and that in 1829 she erected a little chapel for the use of the New Church in the city of Nantes, where there was a circle of about a dozen receivers, under the leadership of Edouard Richer, who was one of the most talented and voluminous writers known in the earlier history of the New Church. M. Richer was succeeded as leader by M. de Tollenaire, a man of wealth and position who for a time assisted M. le Boys des Guays in his work. He was a timid receiver, however, and during his last years he was forced by the fanaticism of his Roman Catholic family to withdraw from outward connection with the New Church. (See Intgl. Repository for 1829, P. 687; N. J. Mag., vol. 11, p. 93.)
BEHIND THE SCENES 1909

BEHIND THE SCENES 1909

     As the authorities of the General Convention have presented a copy of its recent "Declaration, etc., to all the members of the General Church of the New Jerusalem, the latter will be interested in the following editorial review of the late Convention and its action, published in the October issue of the New Church Reviewer, where something of the inside feelings and underground workings of the Convention are revealed with a rather unusual frankness.

     Having referred to the action of the Brockton Society in extending an invitation to the General Convention, "without any consultation with the Massachusetts Association," the editorial continues:

     "But one most unfortunate exigency arose. The 'Kramph Will Case,' in the courts of Pennsylvania, seemed to make it necessary for the Convention to define its teaching from Swedenborg's work on 'Marriage Love.' The Brockton Society believed it would be a great injury to the church in that locality to have the subject considered there, and asked permission meetings. Upon the assurance that it should not be discussed to withdraw its invitation if it was likely to come up in Convention in any public session, the invitation was not withdrawn. No graver mistake could have been made by those who gave this assurance, for it was practically tying the hands of the Convention in its most important matter of business.

673

The General Council found itself forced into a position where it must act for Convention while Convention was itself in session, and secure the consent of the superior body while cutting off debate--a most unsatisfactory kind of procedure. Some felt that they were deprived of freedom unjustly by the situation, and many who were in full accord with the intent of the declaration for which they were asked to vote, felt that they did so under constraint.

"The Council of Ministers, which under the Constitution has 'charge of all matters pertaining to the ministry,' and the interpretation and teaching of doctrines would seem to be such, was asked to consider a statement and explanation of doctrine that had been prepared by a sub-committee of the General Council, which, under the Constitution, has 'superintendence of the business of the Convention, and shall exercise the powers of the Convention in the interim of its meetings.' The Council of Ministers dutifully laid aside its docket containing the revision of the Constitution referred by Convention, the revision of the: books of Rites and Sacraments and of Worship, and other matters, and spent a large part of its three or four days' sessions in the consideration of this statement. Finally, a declaration was agreed upon, which was believed to meet the requirements of the General Council in reporting to Convention. But it failed, and a much longer and less simple statement, but no more positive and clear in its condemnation of all sexual relations outside of marriage, was presented instead. The statement agreed upon by the Council of Ministers follows:--

"Whereas, questions have arisen with respect to the teaching of the New Church, as contained in the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg, regarding marriage and its violation, the Council of Ministers of the General Convention of the New Jerusalem in the United States of America, hereby declare that the only rule of conduct which that teaching makes morally allowable is strict obedience to the commandment, 'Thou shalt not commit adultery,' in its letter and in its spirit; and that all forms of sexual intercourse outside of the marriage relation are forbidden thereby; and that we deny and repudiate any and all interpretations of Swedenborg's writings on the subject which are contrary thereto.

674

"If this had been accepted by the General Council in its report to Convention, it seems to us that it would have placed the responsibility for formulating doctrine where it belongs: with the Council of Ministers; and because it is simpler than the declaration substituted, and had already been debated at such length by the ministers, the restraint of debate in Convention would not have been felt so much. For it is doubtless true that a very large majority of those present were unwilling to have the subject discussed in public, and in a mixed assemblage; and it is also true that a very large majority were in hearty sympathy with the action, and glad to have the declaration made as strong as possible."
WORK OF THE SWEDENBORG SOCIETY 1909

WORK OF THE SWEDENBORG SOCIETY 1909

     From the last annual report of the London Swedenborg Society we copy the following items, which will be of interest to all lovers of Swedenborg's writings:

     "A knowledge of Swedenborg is undoubtedly spreading, but it is by no means exact information. In fact, to tell when he lived would be too hard a question for many, while others would be astonished to learn that he is dead! Two cases lately to hand illustrate this point."

     "A letter reached us from Ebute Metta, a station on the Lagos Railway, in Southern Nigeria, type-written and dictated, showing that the; latest facilities for correspondence had overtaken the facilities for locomotion. The letter showed at once strange ignorance and strange knowledge. It ordered two copies of the Society's edition of Heaven and Hell, and two copies each of certain numbers of the Foundation Truths of the Christian Religion. Knowledge of their existence was thus manifested, and the two copies ordered may be taken to show some appreciation of their contents. And yet the letter and envelope were addressed to Emanuel Swedenborg, Esq., while the three postal orders which it contained were made payable to Mr. Emanuel Swedenborg."

     "The Index to the Arcana Coelestia, which has been under revision for some considerable time, is now completed and issued.

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The Rev. J. Hyde, who has had the work in hand, has not only re-translated the whole of it from the original Latin text, but has re-arranged the items so as to make it more serviceable, and--a matter of vital importance--has verified the references in every instance."

     "The Principia, is making good progress at last, but a delay occurred when the question was raised of translating and adding to it the fragmenta from the Cosmologica. This was agreed upon, and later on a further extension was adopted, which includes the translation of The Lesser Principia, and its addition to the end of Vol. II., after a re-arrangement of the contents of the work to equalize, as far as possible, the size of the two volumes."


"In this way the whole of the Swedish issue, entitled Cosmologica, will be included with The Principia, instead of appearing as a distinct volume."

     "The other Stockholm issue which has as yet appeared, bears the title Geologica et Epistolae. The letters are on scientific subjects, but chiefly on geology. The Society has already undertaken to publish these volumes in an English dress; and the Committee have placed the translation of the Latin in the hands of the Rev. J. R. Rendell, B. A., and the Swedish portion of it in those of Mr. Stroh, with such assistance from Swedish scientists as he may deem advisable."

     "After much delay the Danish Doctrine of the Lord has been reprinted, and 250 copies forwarded to Mr. W. Spear, to enable him to complete his distribution to ministers and teachers on our behalf of copies of the tractates on the Lord and the Sacred Scriptures. The area in Norway for the acceptance of these is limited, but the results, compared with those of previous offers, have been encouraging."

     "The Hungarian version of the Heaven and Hell is about to issue from the press. It makes a handsome volume, and has a stirring introduction which has also been adopted as a prospectus of the work, and of which it is proposed to circulate a very large number (probably 10,000 copies) as soon as the work is ready for sale and circulation."

676

     "The photo typing of the Index Biblicus has made excellent progress this year, and, as a preliminary to any use of the Latin text either for publication or for translation, a fair copy is being made for the Society by Mr. A. H. Searle, who possesses excellent qualifications for the work."

     "The treatise on Heaven and Hell has now been translated into Japanese. The translator employed, Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki, was highly recommended to us by the Japanese Embassy, and when we came into correspondence with him we found that he was not quite unfamiliar with the book, for he had some years ago had Heaven and Hell brought under his attention by friends when resident in America. With Mr. G. Sale and Rev. I. Tansley, B. A., as Consultative Committee, the work was completed, all its difficulties having been faced, and most of them solved. Progress and change is going on also in Japan, and especially in connection with the terms by which they express Western ideas in philosophy and theology; and certain renderings were left to be determined after the translator's return to Japan. The work will be printed there under Mr. Suzuki's personal superintendence, and we have just received estimates, through Mr. Sale, for the purpose."

     "The acquisition of the Italian books in the hands of Professor Scocia's executors has at last become an accomplished fact. The number of volumes of Swedenborg's writings was 2,610 in number, but in the purchase there was included also a copious supply of Italian collateral literature. Dividing every item as nearly as possible into three equal lots, a third of the Writings of Swedenborg, and of the collateral literature, has been forwarded to Signor Gnocchi, at Pome, another third to Signor Risegari, at Trieste, and the remaining third has come to London. The gentlemen named will do their very best in handling this stock both on our behalf and that of the cause."

     "The Committee mentioned in the last Annual Report that to encourage the production of the scholarly issues arranged for by the Swedenborg Committee of the Royal Academy of Sciences they had ordered 25 sets. To ensure the inclusion of the Opera Philosophica et Mineralia, they undertook to increase it to 125 sets. In America they have, at our instigation, also greatly increased the number of copies taken. The distribution of a quantity of the first two volumes will take place when a select list of libraries, to which to offer the volumes, has been prepared; to be followed by the succeeding volumes on their publication."

677

"Mr. Stroh has been engaged in editing the volumes of this series and in superintending the Photo typing of the Index Biblicus for us; and so the Committee has undertaken to contribute a part of his salary--an arrangement which, in agreement with the American General Convention and the Swedenborg Scientific Association, we are willing to continue. Mr. Stroh has been engaged in preparing an exhaustive report of Swedenborg's letters, the documents, etc., respecting him, also of his MSS., including a plan for the continuance of the photo typing of everything of value, until the work of reproduction practically covers everything that he left behind in manuscript."

"Mr. Stroh has undertaken the preparation of a Swedenborg Memorial Volume, which will be very full of photographs concerning late events, and which the Committee now intend to issue, not as a memorial of the removal of Swedenborg's remains to Stockholm, but as a Memorial Volume in connection with the Centenary of this Society."
"LIMBUS?" IN ONE OR THREE DEGREES 1909

"LIMBUS?" IN ONE OR THREE DEGREES O. L. BARLER 1909

Editors New Church Life:
     My thought of the "Limbus,"--the Natural Memory--has been that it was a trine. Dr. Burnham so represents it; and the general teaching is:

     "It is known, that for anything to be perfect there must be a trine in just order, one under another and an intercedent communication, and that this trine must make a one." (Coronis 17.)

     "That nothing exists complete and perfect unless it is a trine, is taught also by geometry." (A. R. 875)

     But recently I had a letter from a scholar who writes: "Dr. Burnham is in error; there is but one degree in the Limbus,--the natural."

678

     But the natural man has three degrees; the cuticle of his body is a trine; and I would say, the correspondent natural memory is in three degrees, in accord with the general teaching that there
is nothing complete on any plane of life that is not a trine.

     If we assume that the Limbus has only one degree, how are we to think of it, and illustrate the teaching concerning its regeneration? For, certainly, the natural memory,--the maternal part,--needs to come into correspondence with the higher forms of life. O. L. BARLER.

     The subject presented by our correspondent is of great interest and importance, not to speak of its difficult nature. We would be delighted to see the subject discussed by our readers in the pages of the Life. Dr. Burnham in his Discrete Degrees teaches that "Each degree of the natural mind composed of spiritual substances must have a corresponding degree in the limbus which is the ultimate of the natural mind and is formed of natural substances; and as the spiritual mind rests at last on the limbus, there must be a degree in the limbus answering to each degree of the internal mind, otherwise the limbus would be abnormal and unadapted. The natural body and the spiritual body, the natural mind and the spiritual mind have each its three degrees. . . . The trinality of the limbus thus comports with the trinality of all else in man, and with the trinality of everything in the universe." (p. 80.)

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Church News 1909

Church News Various 1909

     FROM OUR CORRESPONDENTS.

     BRYN ATHYN, PA. The Friday Supper and Class was resumed on October first, and on the week following the Holy Supper was administered by Mr. Synnestvedt in the absence of the Bishop.

     At the Annual Meeting ways and means for meeting the increasing demands of our uses were discussed, and Mr. Gerald Glenn was added to the Board of Finance. A motion was passed unanimously inviting the District Assembly to meet here at Thanksgiving time. (See Announcement elsewhere.) By a rising vote, the Society formally put upon record its deep sense of gratitude to Mr. Pitcairn for the gift of twenty thousand dollars, the income of which is to be applied to the operating expenses of the new Local School building. This is entirely apart from the gift of the building itself, which we hope to occupy about the first of the year.

     On the following Friday, Mr. Odhner gave a lecture on the Hebrews, after first presenting a very clear and concise account of the various strata of civilizations which have in turn occupied the Holy Land. After this Mr. Pitcairn gave us an account of the adventures of his party in Europe this summer, especially of the important happenings in the little circles in Paris and in Belgium. Our hearts are with the brethren there, and we rejoice with them in the promise of growth before them.

     A new disease has broken out in the school which threatens to interfere more with the pleasure and freedom of the pupil than quarantine. Like the quarantine, also, its sign is a yellow card, only this one is sent down to the office every time a lesson falls below 75, or a disorder is let loose in class. What with these and a pesky examination every week or so, it will soon be necessary for some of the boys to study every day. So far, however, it has not done any serious damage to the foot ball team, which won its first game against Cheltenham High School by a score of 35-0, and its second against Ridley Park High School, by 16-6. The latter school gave up after the first half.
H. S.

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     GLENVIEW, ILL. On October 1st our Annual Meeting was held. The season of activity is now fairly started, with Friday Suppers, Doctrinal Classes and Singing Practices every week. On Monday evenings our pastor is conducting special classes for the young people, taking up the study of the History of the Churches. Our school is in full swing, having a roll of forty-seven pupils, which is the largest in its history.

     We have been favored with a visit of several days from the Rev. J. E. Bowers, who preached on Sunday, September 26th. Another visitor was Mr. Sydney E. Lee, of London, who is now living in Chicago.

     "Ambition" was discussed at our last steinfest, proving to be a very interesting topic. Most of the speakers quoted from the same passage in the Writings, all of them having referred to the Concordance and found only one number on the subject.

     One of the social features of the month was an evening "beef-roast," at which a bonfire served for kitchen, and fingers took the place of forks. The fare was varied by means of toasted marshmallows and baked potatoes. Between the bites there were frequent adjournments to the club house, for dancing.

     LONDON, ENGLAND. This being the first contribution of "news" since the Assembly, record should be made of the pleasure the Society had in welcoming Bishop and Mrs. Pendleton and Miss Amena. On the Sunday previous to the deliberations at Colchester, the Bishop conducted Service, and during the week a social evening gave opportunity of hearing, at first hand, the American news and of the Ministers' Meeting at Toronto.

     The hearty sphere of New Church friendship extended to the Society from their Colchester friends, together with a growing and universal realization of the joys, trials, and philosophic thought of the center of the General Church, the Assembly proved of great value on all planes. We hope it has given good omen for all future British Assemblies in which the heart of our Church is to be annually represented.

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     Another link in the chain of visits took form in the early part of September, when we had a pleasant call from Mrs. Glenn, Miss Carina, and Mr. Raymond Pitcairn.

     The 26th of September will be a happy date in the history of the circle of friends in London. It was the wedding day of Mr. Edward Waters and Miss Posthuma. A short, but impressive service was held at the church room, after which a reception was given at the home of Mr. and Mrs. J. Waters. During the festivities Mr. Czerny first sounded the note of "distinctiveness" by voicing in a few well chosen words, the reasons for rejoicing as founded upon New Church doctrine, and the beautiful account of a wedding given in "Conjugial Love," No. 20. After appreciative and responsive remarks from the bridegroom and words of encouragement from Mr. Waters, senior, the happy pair left for Cricath, North Wales, for their honeymoon. Following Mr. and Mrs. R. A. Stebbing, this makes the second wedding in the Society, in which both lady and gentleman have received "Academy" education at the same school, and same time.

     The autumn is now on us. Doctrinal Classes have commenced, and there is fair prospect for monthly socials. E.

     THE MISSIONARY FIELD. On September 4-6, a visit was made with Mr. Joseph Henderson, his brother-in-law and family, near Burford, Ontario, Can. My first call on the parents, who long since departed to the spiritual world, took place about thirty years ago. And on my annual visits a cordial welcome has always been given me by the people at the old homestead.

     In the city of London, Ont., at the home of Mrs. C. Gunn and family, on the evening of September 7, a meeting was held, and a paper was read on "The New Church in relation to Modern Progress." The subject was of interest to those present, and an animated conversation followed the reading.

     At Mull, Kent county, two days were passed with three families,--the Woofendens. All the available time was occupied in talks on the doctrines. Questions concerning the issue now before the Church, in consequence of the "Declaration" made by Convention, denouncing the Academy and General Church in terms contrary to truth and charity,--came up and were considered and answered.

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     A short, but enjoyable, visit with Mr. Joseph Harrison, at Leamington, Essex Co., Ont., of about 24 hours, came next. This venerable brother is in the 86th year of his age; has the use of his mind, and is a truly intelligent believer in the Heavenly Doctrines. His lot has been to live "isolated;" but for forty years or more he has read the Writings, and still reads them with delight, as the most excellent of all Revelations ever given to men. It is a rare thing, at this day, to meet one who has reached a state of "the innocence of wisdom."

     In Kalamazoo, Mich., over Sunday, September 12th, I was with the two receivers of the Doctrines,--the only ones we know of ill that city now,-Judge William Wallace Peck and Mr. Brant C. Henyan. Our semi-annual visits are always a mutual pleasure,--and have been so during the past fifteen years. These faithful friends now have no one in their community, nor in their families, that is decidedly in sympathy with them in religious belief. They do not attend old church services; and are not members of any New Church organization. But all these years they have regularly contributed to the support of distinctively New Church uses. My sermons are acceptable to them; and we have instructive talks. To know the Lord, and to trust in His Divine Providence, is evidently their sincere desire and endeavor. And these are essentials in the life of religion. J. E. BOWERS.

     PHILADELPHIA, PA. The Advent Church resumed its Sunday morning services the first Sunday in September. With the beginning of October the Sunday School and the two Doctrinal Classes, one for adults every Thursday evening and another for the young people on Sunday evenings, were also continued. A new feature of the Thursday evening class is the efficient instruction in singing, given by Mr. Fred. J. Cooper, who also plays at the services every second Sunday.

     On Sunday, October 10th, Mr. and Mrs. K. Knudsen gave a supper to the members and friends of the Advent Church in the Hall of worship. Several friends from Bryn Athyn added largely to the delightfulness and usefulness of this occasion. A number of toasts were proposed and responded to. Conjugial Love was the main and all-pervading subject of the evening, which turned out to be the tenth anniversary of the happy marriage of Mr. and Mrs. K. Knudsen. R.

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     PITTSBURGH, PA. Sunday School was resumed on October 3 under the supervision of the Rev. N. D. Pendleton, assisted by Miss Margaret Cowley and Miss Eleanora Schoenberger. Doctrinal classes opened on the same day. The subject under consideration at the present time is "Divine Love and Wisdom."

     The regular Annual Meeting of the Philosophy Club was held October 7th. At this meeting Mr. H. P. Fuller was elected President and Mr. August Trautman re-elected Secretary-Treasurer. During the coming- year the Principia will be read and discussed.

     The engagement of Miss Margruerite Uptegraf to Dr. B. H. Shoemaker, of Ebensburg, Pa., was announced last month. Mr. and Mrs. W. D. Uptegraf held a reception on October 9th in honor of the engaged couple.

     Pittsburgers are rejoicing over the return of Mr. and Mrs. R. B. Caldwell.

     October's visitors are Mr. and Mrs. A. G. Gilmore, Miss Lucy Grant, Miss Nellie Smith and Mr. Royden Smith. B. P. O. E.

     ROCKFORD, ILL. My eighth visit, since the year 1900, was made in this city in September. On my arrival at the home of the Gustafson family, on the 14th of the month, they gave me a cordial welcome and an invitation to stay as long as should be convenient for me. The members of the New Church Circle are all Swedes and the children of Swedish parents. In the summer of 1908 they were visited by the Rev. J. E. Rosenqvist, who remained some weeks, and held services in the Swedish language, which was especially acceptable to the older ones, and useful to all. My stay lasted nine days.

     There are nine members of the General Church in Rockford The illness of two or three during the past year, had caused some discouragement, and the weekly reading meetings were discontinued for a time. But they will, no doubt, be resumed. Although there have been some adverse influences, all have remained loyal to the General Church, and to the view of the Heavenly Doctrines held in our body.

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     It was a great pleasure to me to meet two men whom I had not seen before, who are thoroughly interested in the Doctrines. They were present at our services on September 19th, and one of them was baptized at his own request, and also applied for membership in the General Church. The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper was also administered. On three evenings we had meetings for reading and conversation, which were enjoyable, and no doubt spiritually useful to all.

     The evening and night of September 21st were spent in a visit with Mr. and Mrs. I. L. Ahlstrom, at Beloit; Wis. They are decidedly affirmative toward the General Church, although not yet members of it. They have three children, and have a strong desire to bring them up in the sphere of the Church. And with this end in view, they are planning to make their home in a center where there is a New Church School. J. E. B.

     FROM OUR CONTEMPORARIES.

     UNITED STATES. The 74th annual session of the Maine Association of the New Jerusalem Church was held at Center Lovell on September 4th and 5th, with 36 members and friends present. The growth of the Association seems to be in inverse ratio to its advancing years. Time was when hundreds--but why dwell on so painful a subject! This year the Association met in the "Christian Church," (Campbellite?), and the Sunday collection was given to it. "The situation was unique," writes the secretary, Mr. A. B. Steams; "a whole association of one religious belief the guests of another body, in the latter's house of worship, and communing together! I have heard of no other similar case." The writer forgets the General Convention of 1859, which met in the Universalist Church of Washington, D. C., and joined with the Universalists in their services. This was the year before the General Church separated from the Convention.

     The Rev. A. B. Francisco recently visited his old missionary field in Texas, and reports that there are in the State "some one hundred and fifty receivers, residing at about fifty or sixty different points, some of whom live a thousand miles from others.

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I visited twenty of these places, among the most important of which were Dallas, Ft. Worth, Hamilton, Lampasas, Milano, Hanover, Rockdale, Pearsall, San Antonio, Seguin, Wharton, Houston, Galveston, Beaumont, Call and Woodville.

     "GALVESTON has been the active center of Texas for a generation, but ever since the flood there in 1900 it has been losing ground, both in numbers and interest, until there are only about a dozen left, and the greater number of these have become affiliated with other churches, having lost all practical hope in keeping up the church there.

     "What Galveston has lost, SAN ANTONIO seems to be gaining, several of the Galveston people having gone there. There are now at San Antonio some twenty-five or thirty, who hold regular meetings and keep up an organization; besides, San Antonio is surrounded by several small circles, especially Seguin and Pearsall.

     "PEARSALL, only forty miles away, is where our Mr. Mason Maney lives and who is the most active member in Texas. It was through Mr. Maney's influence and labors that the Texas Society was organized and incorporated, with headquarters at San Antonio.

     "It is the general desire of all live and interested New Church people in Texas that San Antonio be made the center of action and propaganda. There may be a few exceptions, but if any, I do not know of them. The Galveston property, which is now deserted and falling to ruins, should be sold and the money turned over to the Texas Society for future use. I am sure that most of the Galveston friends are in favor of such a move and are only waiting for the Board of Missions, which has always nurtured them, to advise it. If this was done, then San Antonio would be ready for a minister to be located among them, who could make this the place of his constant effort and from there administer to other points as heretofore. Probably the next center to be formed would be Dallas."

     Mr. Francisco observes in characteristic style: "What a splendid thing it would be if the church would add a two years' stay in Texas to the theological course at Cambridge. I am quite sure that such would be invaluable to the graduate.

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By the time he was through answering all the questions that would be asked of him during such an experience, he would feel that the questions asked by the Cambridge teachers were mere child's play, to the real life questions of the sure-enough-people of Texas. He may [?] get the theory of the New Church at Cambridge, but he would get a chance to answer some of its life problems in Texas."

     GREAT BRITAIN. The Rev. W. A. Bates, who recently left the pastorate of the Erisbane, Australia, Society, has accepted a call to the Society in Willesden Green, LONDON.

     The Rev. Messrs. Arthur Ryiand, and W. T. Stonestreet have resigned from the pastorates, respectively, of the ST. HELIERS and DERBY Societies.

     AUSTRIA HUNGARY. The Italian New Church Society in TRIESTE on August 22d suffered a severe loss in the death of their faithful leader, Signor Vittorio Risegari. Born in 1867, the deceased at an early age lost faith in the Roman Catholic religion, and for a time investigated the phenomena and teachings of Spiritualism and Theosophy; these, however, failed to satisfy him, and when, through the late Prof. Loreto Scocia, he obtained some of the Italian translations of Swedenborg's Writings, he quickly and enthusiastically embraced the Heavenly Doctrine. Together with a small circle of friends he thoroughly renounced all connection with Spiritualism, and organized a circle for the reading of the New Church Writings. At their own request the Rev. Fedor Gcerwitz in 1904 visited this circle, baptizing the members and forming them into a regular and orderly society. "Signor Risegari's conviction and devotion to the cause of the New Church were open and complete. There was nothing half-hearted about him, within or without. As soon as he realized that the New Church is a complete Church externally and internally, he separated from the State Church. He was a clear and independent thinker, who ever possessed that interior freedom which will turn the consequences of conviction into deed. With a clear understanding of the heavenly truths and a love for the same, he was a mighty pillar for the little beginning of the Church in Trieste. . . Pastor Goerwitz, who had been called by telegram, conducted the funeral services in the Italian language, in the presence of the New Church friends and relatives.

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The deceased leaves a widow and three little sons, all of whom have received the baptism of the New Church." (Monatblaetter, Sept., 1909.)
Philadelphia District Assembly 1909

Philadelphia District Assembly N. D. PENDLETON 1909

     Announcements.

     The Fifth Philadelphia District Assembly of the General Church of the New Jerusalem will be held at Bryn Athyn, November 26-25, beginning with a Banquet at six o'clock on Friday evening. The Bryn Athyn Church extends a cordial invitation to all members and friends of the General Church; visitors from a distance are requested to send notice of their coming to the Secretary, in order that entertainment may be provided for them. HOMER SYNNESTVEDT, Secretary.

     Pittsburgh District Assembly.

     The Pittsburgh District Assembly of the General Church of the New Jerusalem will hold its annual session in Pittsburgh about the third week in November. Individual notices, giving the exact dates of meetings, will be mailed to all members in the district.

     Members and friends expecting to attend are requested to communicate with Mr. C. H. Ebert, 703 Filbert St., Pittsburgh, Pa., who will arrange for their entertainment.
     N. D. PENDLETON,
          Secretary.
OUTLINES OF SWEDENBORG'S EARLY LIFE 1909

OUTLINES OF SWEDENBORG'S EARLY LIFE ALFRED H. STROH 1909

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     NEW CHURCH LIFE

     VOL. XXIX DECEMBER, 1909          No. 12
     WITH A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF THE ORIGIN AND FIRST DEVELOPMENT OF HIS PHILOSOPHY.

     It is now some ten years ago since the development of Swedenborg's philosophy, especially the development prior to the publication of the "Principia" in 1734, was made the subject of special research, first on the basis of the photo lithographic reproductions of Swedenborg's earliest manuscripts, and later in the great archives and libraries of Sweden, Some of the results of these researches have been published in The New Philosophy and New Church Life, and last January there was published at Stockholm, in Swedish, a new biography of Swedenborg in which a synopsis of the results thus far obtained was presented. The presentation has been endorsed by specialists here as being in agreement with the history of Swedish literature and intellectual development. As it is uncertain when the biography will appear in English, a brief account of the results there recorded, covering the period 1699-1722, together with some new information lately come to hand, may be welcome at this time. It should he remembered that scarcely any attempts have hitherto been made to analyze Swedenborg's university period and the historical origins of those remarkable scientific and philosophical theories and doctrines upon which his philosophical system was based.

     * * * *

     In the first place, from what race or races did Swedenborg's ancestors spring' There are, in general, two kinds of Swedes, the light haired, blue eyed, fair skinned type, and the dark haired, black eyed, dark skinned type.

690

Anthropological science shows that the former type is the original stock and that the latter type has wandered in during later periods. The race has for several centuries become increasingly mixed. An abundance of evidence shows that Swedenborg was of the mixed type, for his father was very tall and dark and there are those who hold that she mother's family was of German origin. I refer to these questions because it is well known that the hereditary character and quality of the various races are exceedingly various. It should also be noted that the Swedenborg family came from Dalekarlia. The people of that province have been famous for their honesty, courage, patriotism and powerful love of freedom. They have saved the integrity of Sweden a number of times. The Swedberg family homestead, "Sweden," near Falun, was purchased by Daniel Isaacson, the father of Jesper Swedberg, about the middle of the seventeenth century, and some of the old buildings still stand. The room where Jesper Swedberg studied is still shown, and in the same building Carl von Linne was married in 1739.

We may take it for granted that Swedenborg's boyhood was not exempt from the traditional influences of a Dalekarlian family life, and when it is remembered that the country had been rescued from the Danes but a few generations before Swedenborg's birth,--rescued by the Dalekarlians under Gustavus Vasa, one of Swedenborg's ancestors on the maternal side, we can understand how profound must have been the family and patriotic influences which surrounded Swedenborg's childhood. It should further be noticed that the Reformation had been introduced into Sweden direct from Wittenberg by the Petri brothers with the consent of Gustavus Vasa. We still hear ringing the words of Olaus Petri, preaching in the Great Cathedral, (Storkyrkan), at Stockholm: "We Swedes also belong to God, and the purpose we have hath been given us by God." It meant a great awakening. Later on Gustavus Adolphus saved the Reformation in Germany by that heroic descent and magnificent series of victories which to this day fill the Swedes with patriotic inspiration and command the admiration of all students of history.

691

The inner history of Sweden after the Thirty Years' War exhibits a series of changes affecting in a fundamental manner the politics, social order, and intellectual standards of the whole people. Queen Christina, the gifted daughter of the great Gustavus Adolphus, adorned her court by inviting to it many learned and talented men from the Continent, among them the philosopher, Descartes. But for the premature death of Descartes, (caused by an attack of pneumonia acuta, an infectious disease, and not, as usually stated, by the cold of a Swedish winter), at Stockholm, on February 11th, 1650, after a visit of but four months, the Queen would have established an Academy of Sciences at Stockholm, which might have ameliorated the severity of the intellectual changes whose advent during the latter half of the seventeenth century was accompanied by so much controversy and animosity at the University of Upsala. The final outcome was the establishment of philosophical freedom and untrammeled scientific research. Strangely enough, Charles XI., whose political power was well nigh absolute,--a power built upon the ruins of the power and wealth of the nobles,--exercised a determining influence in the great controversy at Upsala in the direction of increased freedom of discussion and liberty of teaching. The occasion of the controversy was the entrance of Cartesianism into the Faculty of Medicine, but as the discussion proceeded its scope extended, involving the remaining Faculties of Philosophy, Law, and Theology in a general controversy concerning the limits and relationships of theology, philosophy, and the sciences. Since a paper giving a brief account of this controversy was read at the annual meeting of the Swedenborg Scientific Association two years ago, it will be unnecessary to go into details now. Suffice it to say, that the chief defenders of Cartesianism and freedom of research were Professors Rudbeck, Hoffvenius and Drossander, of the Medical Faculty, and the professor of mathematics, Billberg, of the Philosophic Faculty. In 1689 a royal commission declared in favor of freedom in philosophy, but the controversy went on for many years in a more quiet form. The theologians did all they could to stifle the growing spirit of free investigation, but many circumstances conspired to weaken their influence.

692

When the Scientific Society was established in 1710 by professors of the Faculties of Medicine and Philosophy, there were several Cartesians among the founders, who were invited by Eric Benzelius to meet at the Library once or twice a week to discuss literary matters. Benzelius, the chief founder of the Society, was at that time the university librarian. His influence upon Swedenborg will be discussed below.

Some of the interesting information illustrating the early history of the Society is summarized by one of its secretaries, the professor of astronomy, at Upsala, Erik Prosperin, in a "Speech concerning the Royal Scientific Society of Upsala," delivered before a meeting of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences at Stockholm on the occasion of his leaving the presidency of that body in 1789. Prosperin says: "The pest in 1710 had driven the youth from the seat of learning at Upsala, on account of which the customary lectures for a time ceased. In order to be able, in this idleness, to forget, at least for some moments, the lamentable objects which met the eyes and thoughts on all sides, Dr. Erik Benzelius, Junior, who was then Librarian of Upsala Academy, persuaded some of the most famous men in the place to meet once or twice a week in the Royal Academy's Library in order to discuss literary matters and to correspond with Christopher Polhem and Emanuel Swedberg, both of these being among the most renowned men our country has ever produced. All know that the former was without a rival in his subject. The latter was in younger years one of those who worked with the greatest diligence and the best success in spreading useful sciences. * * * The persons in Upsala who constituted this Society were especially the Professors Harold Wallerius, Johan Uppmarck, Pehr Elvius, Olof Rudbeck, junior, Lars Roberg, and the brothers, Johan and Goran Wallerius. They called their society Collegium Curiosorum. It is not known whether they had determined upon special activities or upon certain laws. No complete record has preserved to our time what was considered at their meetings. It is only known that the Daedalus Hyperboreus, which was published by Herr Swedberg during the years 1716, 1717, 1718, is a fruit of their labors, and should therefore be regarded as the Royal Scientific Society's first proceedings.

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From the subjects which are there found treated, and from other considerations, it may be concluded that mathematics, physics, economy, and astronomy were the main subjects of the investigations of this Society."

Swedenborg was a student at the University of Upsala from 1699 to 1709. He then spent a few months at the episcopal residence, Brunsbo, near Scara, with his father, Bishop Jesper Swedberg, afterwards visiting the great engineer, Christopher Polhem, at Stiernesund, for a few weeks in the spring of 1710, before leaving Sweden on a journey to England. After a four years' visit in England and on the Continent, Swedenborg arrived in Swedish Pomerania in 1714 and returned to Sweden in 1715. He seeks in vain a secretaryship at Upsala, but is introduced by Polhem to Charles XII., at Lund, and is appointed extraordinary assessor in the Royal College of Mines. Swedenborg is now fairly established; he discusses mathematical and scientific subjects with the King, assists Polhem in various engineering enterprises at Trollhettan and Carlskrono, and continues the scientific studies which had been begun before returning to Sweden. He began with mathematical, mechanical, and astronomical studies, proceeded with physics, chemistry, and geology, and then after writing and partly publishing a series of most remarkable works on those subjects, the last of which were the "Forerunner of the Principles of Natural Things," 1721, and the "Miscellaneous Observations," 1822, he devotes himself for twelve years to metallurgy and cosmology, printing in 1734, With the patronage of the Duke of Brunsuwick-Luneburg, the three magnificent volumes entitled "Opera Philosophica et Mineralia," whose great value is beginning to be realized in our days. An analysis of Swedenborg's later philosophical, psychological, physiological and anatomical studies, based upon a comparison of his works of the period 1734-1745, with the earlier series of the period 1716-1734, shows most clearly that the fundamental principles of his philosophy were worked out during the earlier period. The "Principia" is justly admired on account of the new cosmology it expounds, but many of the principles there laid down are found in the works published before 1722, although a close, comparative study shows that great modifications were made from time to time and that some positions were gradually left behind as the system developed.

694

     Let us now return and examine in greater detail the periods 1688-1709, covering Swedenborg's childhood and university studies, and 1710-1722, When his earlier philosophy was developed.

     Jesper Swedberg was appointed professor of theology at Upsala by King Charles XI. in 1692. Professor Swedberg had previously, as one of the court preachers at Stockholm, won the special confidence of the King and was very successful at Upsala, where he was much liked by the students. He was twice "Rector Magnificus" of the University, (during the spring term of 1693 and the fall term of 1697). He was also appointed dean of the Cathedral of Upsala, and in 1702 Bishop of Scara in Westgotham, whither he removed in 1703. Researches at Upsala have discovered some interesting evidence in the archives of the University, which throws a powerful light upon those early years in Upsala. Swedenborg's elder brother, Albertus, was entered in the University in 1693, Swedenborg in 1699, and his two younger brothers, Eliezer and Jesper, in 1703, all at a very early age, as was the custom in those days.

     Swedenborg's mother, Sara Behm, of whom we have hitherto known very little, was seized by a "fever" and passed away on the 17th of June, 1696. Ten days later, on the 27th, Swedenborg's elder brother, Albertus, also died of a "fever," and the double funeral occurred on July Igth in the cathedral where the father had made provision for a vault in the middle of the building near the grave of Olof Rudbeck, Senior. In a printed invitation to the funeral, issued by the Rector of the University, Professor Schwede, there is contained some new information concerning the mother and son. Her kind and friendly character and tender solicitude for the poor are especially praised, and it mentioned that she planned a charitable institution for the poor shortly before her death. There are many additional biographical facts in the printed invitation, and also in the ten printed poems which were published on the occasion of the funeral, and which throw some new light on the Swedberg family's history, especially during the period of their residence at Upsala.

695

One of the poems gives expression to the feelings of the many motherless children left behind, and it may have been written by Jesper Swedberg himself. Rector Schwede says that Albertus had been a specially gifted student and that much was expected of him. He had shown a great genius for study and it would therefore seem that Albertus and Emanuel were unusually gifted and precocious boys, for in the University's "Album Studiosorum" in which Swedenborg's name was entered on June 15th, 1699, when he was eleven years of age, it is mentioned that he was "of the best talent" (optimaee indolis).

We know from Swedenborg's own statements that he was, during his childhood, deeply interested in spiritual things, and often discussed theological subjects with priests, and that he was gifted with a peculiar tacit breathing when he prayed. From 1710 onwards during his scientific period he was, also, according to his own testimony, prepared by the natural sciences, and kept from reading works on dogmatic theology. The records of the Vestmanland-Dala "Nation" at Upsala also show that Swedenborg was a lively participator in the disputation on moral and religious subjects which in those days formed part of the nation's activities. It is recorded in the "Nation's" minutes of the 31st of October, 1706, that "His Magnificence related, that Herr Emanuel Swedberg had offered to preside at the next meeting at a disputation on Natural Law (Jure Naturae), which offer His Magnificence praised, but for the rest left the matter to the members of the nation for examination and approval, also enquiring whether it had been the custom heretofore that a member belonging to the Order of the Juniors had presided, to which it was replied that there had been one or two such cases. But as some contended that such a procedure would involve too near an approach to the Lord's Seniors, who according to the constitutions alone possess this privilege, and since some disorder might thereby be established, because many of the Juniors might wish to follow the example, nothing more was done in the matter, but Herr Petrus O. Aroselius was appointed President for the next disputation, Sr. Johannes Biorn, Respondent, and Sr. Nicolaus Retyher, Opponent."

This episode shows considerable initiative on the part of Swedenborg and a great interest in his subject.

696

The reference to Jus Naturae becomes plainer upon further examining the Nation's minutes, when it is found that the subjects of the disputations were in those days taken from the works of Samuel Puffendorf, a German professor of philosophy, who had a chair at Lund when Jesper Swedberg studied there. The "natural law" referred to concerned the peculiar theories of government which were in those days so prominent a feature of discussion. The discussions in the Nation were therefore concerning the legal religious, and moral theses contained in the works of Samuel Puffendorf, and the disputations were one of the features of a student's university training.

When the University constitution of 1655 was adopted, the formation of "nations," or clubs of students from the various provinces of the country, was strictly forbidden, but they were formed nevertheless some years later. The first inspector of the Vestmanland-Dala nation was the famous anatomist and author of Atlantica, Olof Rudbeck, Senior, professor in the Faculty of Medicine and a defender of the revolutionary Cartesian philosophy. He was succeeded in the inspectorship by Professor Jesper Swedberg, and when the latter removed to Scara the office was filled by Professor Johan Palmroot, the "Magnificence" referred to in the minutes quoted above, for he was at that time "Rector Magnificus."

As Olof Rudbeck lived until after the great fire at Upsala in 1702, and was a neighbor of Jesper Swedberg, it is possible that Swedenborg received some impressions from this great scientist and investigator. We know that Jesper Swedberg's inclinations were not in the scientific and philosophical direction, but he himself says that he permitted his children freely to choose their own occupations. In his graduating disputation Swedenborg addresses his parent in terms of loving filial respect, but they do not seem to have stood very near one another in the following years. Swedenborg's steps were not taken in the theological path, he was kept from reading works on dogmatic theology, and his work in the Faculty of Philosophy at Upsala no doubt, consisted for the most part of a thorough study of the classics and of some branches of mathematics and the natural sciences.

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Perhaps he also did some work in the Faculty of Medicine for the professorship of physics, which meant the major part of the natural sciences in those days, was in the Medical Faculty. More detailed information as to the professors, subjects, and text books of the period 1699-1709 is found in the large printed folio sheets which in those days constituted the University catalogue. These folio sheets were printed annually and I hope to furnish a detailed description of their contents in a special paper. It seems likely, if we may judge from certain expressions in Swedenborg's earliest letters, written soon after he left the University, that he studied under the following professors in the Faculty of Philosophy: the professor of mathematics, Harald Wallerius; the professor of astronomy, Pehr Elvius; and the Schyttean professor of elocution, etc., Johannes Uppmarck. He also praises the professor of theoretical and practical medicine, Lars Roberg. In passing it may be mentioned that there is an oil portrait of Professor Wallerius at Upsala in which one arm rests upon a volume of Descartes; and that the works of that philosopher were still studied during Swedenborg's stay at the University appears from the catalogue of 1708, which records that the professor of theoretical philosophy, Magister Fabianus Toerner, under whose presidency Swedenborg disputed the following year, lectured on Aristotle's Logic compared with that of Descartes.

It is certain that Swedenborg's interest in the natural sciences and philosophy had been powerfully excited before he left his Alma Mater, and that it was his brother-in-law, Eric Benzelius, who advised him to apply himself to those subjects is proved by Swedenborg's remarks in one of his early letters, in the little work on "The Motion and Rest of the Earth and Planets," and in the dedication of the work "On the Infinite."

We shall not, at present, concern ourselves with an analysis of Swedenborg's early poetical writings, nor with his contributions on a variety of mathematical and scientific subjects written and partly published before the year 1722, but, rather, attempt to further define with some precision, the sources and development of his general philosophy of nature, during this early period. An abundance of evidence shows that Swedenborg had great confidence in the work of Eric Benzelius and Christopher Polhem, and that he admired and studied the works of Descartes, Newton, Puffendorf and Rudbeck.

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In the earliest work published by Swedenborg after leaving Upsala,--a "Festive Applause," published at Greifswald in 1714 in commemoration of the return of Charles XII. from Turkey to Swedish Pomerania,--Swedenborg begins by referring to a doctrine of the Pythagoreans that all things proceed in cycles, proceeding and then returning to the point of departure. The student of Swedenborg's works will find this doctrine developed from time to time, especially in the "Principia" and "Worship and Love of God." Again, in a short paper on the "Causes of Things,"--whether it be by Swedenborg or Polhem we cannot be certain, perhaps it is the result of joint labor,--but in any case, the doctrines of a series of particles, differing in size and variously compounded, derived from the Infinite, and in vortices, may be traced quite clearly. These doctrines, greatly developed, reappear in the "Forerunner" of 1721 and in the "Miscellaneous Observations" of 1722, and the culmination of their development, the theory of motion becoming more and more prominent, is recorded in the Second or Lesser "Principia" and in the "Principia" of 1734. These examples by way of introduction.

Several questions will sooner or later present themselves to the mind of an inquiring student. Did Swedenborg discover outright these theories and doctrines? If not, from what source did he derive them, what are the origins of these teachings? Does Swedenborg ever discard one theory in favor of another? In what respects does his system agree with or differ from those existing before his time, during his time, and after his time? Finally, how do the teachings of Swedenborg's scientific and philosophical works agree with the later theological works? In replying to these questions no student of the works under consideration, who is also well trained in the history of philosophy and scientific research, would expect to find that Swedenborg discovered outright these theories and doctrines.

699

Examination shows that Swedenborg, on the one hand, derived certain doctrines and theories from ancient and modern philosophers, and on the other hand, undoubtedly, discovered some new principles; that he accepted various theories and interpretations from time to time, first accepting, for instance, the doctrine of a literal flood and that animals and man were created in the ground, later explaining the flood otherwise and formulating the doctrine that animals and human beings were created in vegetable matrices on grasses, shrubs, and trees; that he sometimes agrees with and at other times differs from the teachings of his predecessors, contemporaries and successors, as may be seen by a comparative study of his works on geology, cosmology and brain anatomy with those of other authors; and, finally, that the teachings of the scientific and philosophical works are in substantial agreement with those of the theological works, but that some remarkable differences exist, especially as regards the teachings concerning the soul and the degrees and relationships of the spiritual and natural worlds. An extended treatment of these questions would require many pages, so we shall here confine our attention to a particular analysis of a short period, merely stating that the material already collected in reply to the questions referred to above would fill several volumes.

Among the theories which Swedenborg began developing so early as during his first visit to London is that of finding the longitude at sea by means of lunar observations. His interest in this subject never waned, and we find him reprinting and circulating his early work on the subject long after his spiritual eyes were opened, as late as 1766, when he was 78 years old. At the time when Swedenborg was first developing this theory in London he was studying the works of Newton, and discussing astronomical subjects with Halley and Flamsteed. Now if Swedenborg had accepted Newton's results taken as a whole, he would have rejected the theory of vortices taught by Descartes, for Newton is opposed to the vortical theory and accepts a vacuum. Swedenborg, however, although he very early formulated a theory of round particles which differs from that of Descartes, never gave up the theory of various kinds of particles and vortices which Descartes had introduced into modern physics and cosmology, and which was in those days received everywhere, except in England, where the philosophy of Newton won the day long before it was accepted on the continent and in Sweden.

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The condition in Sweden is well illustrated by the following question in a letter, dated the 28th of July, 1711, written by the astronomer, Pehr Elvius, to his former student, Swedenborg, during his visit in England. Elvius inquires as to "what the learned mathematicians think about Newton's principles of the motions of the planets, since they appear to be pure abstraction and not physical, namely, how one planetary body can gravitate towards another, etc., which seems to be absurd." Of this question Swedenborg says in a contemporary letter to Benzelius: "P. S. Prof. Elvius asks what is the opinion of Englishmen with regard to Newton's 'Principia;' but in this matter no Englishman ought to be consulted, because he is blind about his own (quia caecutit in suis); and it would be a crime to call them into doubt."

     Swedenborg not only retained Descartes' theory of vortices, but also denied Newton's corpuscular theory of light and doctrine of the vacuum. Descartes also denied a vacuum, and it is well known that Swedenborg formulated a wonderful undulatory theory of light, very early ranking himself on the side of those who hold light to be a motion, namely, Huyghans, Hooke, and others. As every student of the subject knows, the mechanical explanation of the law of gravitation presents great difficulties even today. I think it likely that Swedenborg came to the doctrines of the natural point and first element as a result of these early studies during which he became thoroughly aware of the fundamental opposition between the philosophies of Descartes and Newton.

     Another stream of thought into which Swedenborg was led during the first decade of his researches, that of the subdivision of matter into particles of various sizes, was derived from the theories of the ancient atomists, Democritus, Leucippus and Epicurus, and introduced into modern chemistry and physics by Pierre Gassendi and Robert Boyle. But there are many proofs that Swedenborg also inherited much from the alchemists, and indeed chemistry was in his day far less advanced than were physics and astronomy.

     A new manuscript by Swedenborg on the decreasing rotatory motions of the planets, evidently a draft of the published work on that subject, has lately been found at Stockholm in private possession.

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There are, in fact, three works on this subject: First, the MS. reproduced in vol. I. of the Photolithographs, entitled "A New Theory of the Decreasing Rotatory Motion of the Earth;" secondly, the newly found manuscript entitled "A New Opinion Concerning the Motion and Rest of the Earth and Planets, or some proofs that the earth rotates more and more slowly; that Winter and Summer, the day and the diurnal rotation become as to time longer and longer, until the last time of the world, proved by Eman. Swedberg;" Thirdly, the work printed at Scara by the late A. Kielberg's widow, the dedication of which is dated December 16th, 1718, but which it is supposed did not come from the press until some time during 1719; it is entitled: "In the Lord's Name.--On the Motion and Rest of the Earth and Planets: that is, some reasons capable of proof that the earth decreases in its rotation and now goes more slowly than before; making winter and summer, days and nights longer in respect to time now than formerly."

A close comparison of the second and third forms of this work, both of which differ greatly from the first MS., but less from one another, reveals the following differences: the titles are similar but vary; in the printed work we find for the first time the quotation from Ovid's "Metamorphoses" which Swedenborg later on repeated in the second and third Principia; the second MS. was evidently written some months before the work was printed from a new MS. which he prepared with the: second MS. before him, changing the title, adding the quotation from Ovid and the dedication, greatly changing the Preface, partly changing the matter in Proofs 1-5, among other changes reducing the figures 120-140 in the third proof to 100-200, and adding Proofs 7 and 8 in the printed work. Proofs 7 and 8 of the second MS. correspond to proofs 9 and 10 of the printed work, but after that certain portions of the second MS. are entirely omitted and other matter added in the printed work. The matter omitted refers in detail to the signs and wonders which would precede the earth's destruction on the last day. One interesting difference between the two works is the introduction of some geological proofs in the printed work which are altogether absent in the MS. Turning to Swedenborg's letters we find that he was at that time in the regions where he made the geological observations.

702

His active mind having been fascinated by the wonders of geology, he prints the two editions of his "Height of Water," etc., in 1719. Comparing them we find significant differences, showing much progress in the second work. In revising the second edition for the press Swedenborg was much freer in making changes than in the case of the work on the "Earth and Planets." But the more detailed examination of these two groups of works, their relation to one another and to the succeeding works up to 1722 must be postponed for future treatment. Up to the present time our examination shows that Swedenborg during these early days drew his inspiration from God's Word, which he considered to be literally true in regard to the creation of living things, the flood, the ages of the patriarchs, and the destruction of the earth on the last day. He drew further inspiration from the reflected light of the Ancient Word in the classics of Greece and Rome, and from the work of philosophers both ancient and modern. With these guiding lights he set forth upon his journey and found in the heights of the heavens and the depths of the earth the precious truths which guided his future steps and prepared him for his mission.
EAGLE STIRRING UP HER NEST 1909

EAGLE STIRRING UP HER NEST Rev. F. E. WAELCHLI 1909

The Lord's portion is His people; Jacob is the lot of His inheritance. He found him in the land of the wilderness, and in wasteness, howling, and the desert; He led him about, Ha instructed him, He guarded him as the pupil of His eye. As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her, young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings: so the Lord alone did lead him, and there was no strange god tenth him. (Deut. xxxii. 9, 10, 11, 12)

By the Lord's people, Jacob, the lot of His inheritance, is here meant, not the Israelitish Church, but the Ancient Church which preceded it, and which was a true spiritual Church.

703

The patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, sometimes signify that Ancient Church, with which they were the connecting link for the Israelitish Church which followed. The good state of that preceding Church is described in this chapter under the similitude of the leading of Jacob, or the sons of Israel, through the wilderness and into the enjoyment of all manner of blessings. But the evil state of the Israelitish Church is described in what follows in the chapter, where it is said that they forsook God, provoked Him, sacrificed unto devils, and so on.

     Since a true spiritual Church is here treated of, what is said applies also to that Church which is at this day the Lord's spiritual Church, the New, or True Christian Church. The reformation of those who are to be of that Church is here described. These the Lord finds in the land of the wilderness, that is, in a state devoid of spiritual good and truth. He leads them about in their perilous journey, that is, in their temptations, and instructs them, and guards them in His tender love and mercy as the pupil of His eye, so that hell may not destroy their spiritual life.

     This Divine care and guidance, under which man is led out of a state merely worldly to one that is heavenly, is described as being like the eagle's stirring up of her nest, fluttering over her young, spreading abroad her wings, taking them, and bearing them on her wings. The eagle is desirous that her young shall leave their nest, and ascend to the skies; to this end she stirs up or disturbs the nest, flutters over them, encouraging them to exert themselves and at the same time protecting them, spreads abroad her wings, preparatory to the flight, and finally induces them to rest upon her, that she may bear them aloft. It is known that certain eagles do in this manner teach their young to fly.

     By the eagle is here signified the interior truth of the Word, by which man, when he receives it, is made rational. It is by this truth that the Lord stirs up man's nest, or his natural state; by it He guards and protects him; and by it He carries him up into heavenly intelligence and eternal happiness.

     Thus during the reformation of the man who is to be of the spiritual Church, "the Lord alone leads him, and there is no strange god with him."

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     The Lord finds the man who is to be reformed "in the land of the wilderness, and in wasteness, howling, and the desert," or in a state devoid of good and truth, and incapable of obtaining spiritual nourishment or of protecting himself against the dangers which on all sides threaten eternal destruction. Unless the Lord should "find him," unless the Lord should come to him and in His mercy protect and save him, he would perish.

     The Lord "finds" the man who is in the wilderness, when there begins to be on the man's part a response to the Lord's endeavor to awaken in him a desire to know and to live according to the truth by which alone salvation is possible. The Lord can then teach and lead him. But this entrance upon the reception of truth, and a life according to it, involves many trials of temptation for the man, in the wilderness in which he dwells; for the evil spirits seek to keep him in evils and falsities and to prevent him from receiving good and truth. These trials the Lord must needs permit, for without them would never be purified of evils, and goods and truths could not be established and confirmed in him. Yet through them all, the Lord is with him, protecting and guiding, and little by little leading towards a happier state. He "leads him about" through the wilderness. Most wonderful is this "leading about" of the Lord's,--permitting, tempering, bending, guarding in all man's various states; ever preserving man's freedom, and yet so directing his thoughts and affections that by the temptations spiritual life may be perfected.

     The Lord must thus lead the reforming man. Unless He led, Unless He were ever present, man would perish in the wilderness.

     "He led him about, He instructed him." It is only after man has entered upon temptations, only alter he has entered upon the life in which he endeavors to live according to the truth, that the Lord can truly instruct him; for only then is man willing to see truth to be what it really is,--a thing of life. It is in the endeavor to obey a truth that man learns to know what the quality of that truth is; before, he does not know it.

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Take, for example, the truth that enmity against the neighbor must be shunned; or the truth that man must live not for himself but for the neighbor: before man endeavors to live according to these truths he indeed may know them in a way, that is, they may rest in his mind as doctrinal propositions; but it is only when he begins to live according to them, and goes through the trials of combating the falsities which are opposed to them, that he comes to know what they truly are. They then begin to have a distinct form, in which they stand apart from other things he knows, so that he can discern and perceive them. In other words, he then begins to understand them. It is coming into an understanding of truth that is meant in our text by being instructed by the Lord. Wherefore also the Hebrew word here translated "instruct," more strictly rendered is "to make to understand." "He leads him about, He makes him to understand." It is into the understanding of truth that the regenerating man comes under the Lord's guidance. And it is only under that guidance that anyone can come into it. He who imagines that he can come into it of himself by the exercise of his own powers, greatly errs. The Lord alone can lead him into it,--lead him into it, when he seeks to live according to it. The Lord alone is man's Instructor.

"He led him about, He instructed him, He guarded him as the pupil of His eye." Before the Lord, every soul among the myriads of angels and men is precious,--precious as the pupil of His eye, an object of His love and mercy. The whole of His love, of His Divine Infinite Love goes forth to every single one. It is present with every poor wanderer in the wilderness. And in that love He guards and protects him every moment against the dangers which threaten his destruction, so that he may pass safely through all trials and attain unto happiness. But for this tender love of the Lord; far surpassing all power of finite beings to comprehend, no one could be saved from hell and be led to heaven.

The manner in which the Lord thus finds, leads about, instructs, and guards man, is described by the words which follow in our text. "As the eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings."

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     An eagle signifies man's rational. Birds, in general, signify man s intellectual things, and the eagle, which flies far higher than other birds, and is exceedingly sharp-sighted, and which consequently can take an extensive view of things beneath signifies the rational; for the rational is thus related to other intellectual things. It soars into the regions on high, into heaven, and thence, in heavenly light, views the things which are beneath.

     But in our text it is the Lord who is compared to an eagle, and therefore is signified His coming to the rational mind of man, which He does by the revelation of the interior truth of the Word, or the truth of the internal sense. It is this truth which enables man to see from the heavens above the things which are in the world beneath, and this in their true order and relation.

     Rational truth, the truth of heaven, coming to man, stirs up the nest. By stirring up the nest is signified to instruct. The effect of the coming of rational truth is a stirring up, so that man may be aroused from the state in which he is. It is a stirring up of the nest, that is, of the state in which man then is, which is a merely natural one. The reason why the eagle stirs up her nest is that the young may leave it and ascend to regions above; and the reason why rational truth from the Lord stirs up the nest is that man may leave his merely natural state and ascend to that which is spiritual.

     Rational truth stirs up man's nest; it points out to him that his state one entirely selfish and worldly, having in it nothing of heaven and heavenly life; and that, if he would attain unto salvation, he must shun and overcome his evils, which are made clearly manifest to him. Rational truth comes to the man in his nest with the divine admonition "Thou shalt not." Yet there will be no stirring up if the truth falls on deaf ears. It is only when its notes of warning lead to the endeavor to live the life according to the truth, that a stirring up really takes place. It is then that man's nest is disturbed in, the trials and combats of temptation. Great is often the distress of man at such a time. That which has been his home, can be his home no longer; he realizes that he must leave it; and yet his heart clings to it, for in it he finds the delight of his life. This clinging to the old home, or to the nest, is something that is infused into him by evil spirits, who would lead him to not permit his nest to be disturbed, but to re-arrange and preserve it, so that he can continue to dwell therein.

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On the other hand, the angels who are present continue the stirring up of the nest. It is thus that man suffers the trials of temptation.

     In the midst of these temptations man is guarded and protected by the Lord, and this by means of those very truths which occasion the stirring up. This is signified by "the eagle fluttering over her young." Rational truth, the truth of heaven revealed to the man of the Church, guards him against the falsities which the hells inject. The Lord is present in this truth and guards; by the power of that truth He fights against the hells for man, even as He Himself, in the glorification of His Human, fought against the hells by that power.

     The eagle "flutters over" her young. The word translated "flutters" means literally "moving itself." It is the same word as is used in the first chapter of Genesis where it is said that "the Spirit of God was moving itself upon the face of the waters" before the first day of creation, by which is signified the mercy of the Lord resting upon the man to be regenerated. The signification in our text is similar. It is the mercy of the Lord, present in the truth of the Word, which moves itself over the stirred up nest, guarding and protecting against the hells. Were not this mercy, or love, within the truth, the truth could afford man no protection. But being filled with it, it drives away and subdues the hells, so that man may grow more and more into the love of the truth and of the life it teaches.

     Man in the course of his reformation advances into ever clearer light of truth. For by repeated victories over the falsities injected by the hells, these at length are no longer able to disturb him, and hence he becomes firmly established and confirmed in the truth, and begins to see it in interior light. He is approaching the state when he can leave the nest and be raised up towards heaven. Wherefore we read that the eagle now "spreads abroad her wings."

     As by birds are signified intellectual things, so by their wings, by which they fly, are signified truths; for it is by truths that intellectual things are able to fly on high.

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By the wings of the eagle, therefore, are signified interior, or spiritual truths, by which the rational soars into heavenly light.

     These wings are now spread abroad over the man in his nest; they are extended ready for flight into the regions of heaven, and he is now quite willing, yea anxious, to leave his nest and to be borne on those wings into the realms of true intelligence and wisdom. Therefore there follow the words: "And taketh them, and beareth them on her wings."

     It is thus that the Lord leads man from his merely worldly state, which is one of evil and falsity, into the state of heaven and its blessedness. The Lord alone can so lead him,--little by little every step of the course. "So the Lord alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him."

     In order that the Lord may thus lead man, there must be co-operation on man's part. He must be willing that his nest be stirred up, willing to be instructed in the truth which stirs up and to apply it to life. He must not cling to his nest, to his own ideas and his self-will. He must be ever ready to heed the admonition "Thou shalt not." And further, he must at all times acknowledged the Divine mercy and love in the protection which is afforded him against the hells by the power of the truth. Let him not imagine that anything of that power is his own. It is of the Lord alone from mercy. Were it not for this he would be lost. If man will do this his part of co-operation, the time will come when the eagle's wings will be expanded, and he will be taken and borne on them into the regions of heaven. He will be led into the spiritual affection of truth, which is the affection of truth for its own sake, and therein will he find the happiness of eternal life.

     The whole of the co-operation which must come from man is contained in the closing words of our text: "So the Lord alone did lead him, and there was no false god with him." Man cooperates in his reformation when he disposes himself to be led by the Lord alone; when he allows His truth to guide him in all things of life, absolutely, completely, striving against all evil at its first suggestion. It is thus that he permits no strange god to be with him.

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     From the teachings which have been given it is evident that the eagle stirring up her nest and brooding over her young, is an emblem of that instruction which leads man out of his earthly state into that which is heavenly, and also of the Divine protection afforded when that instruction is applied to life.

     The Lord gives that instruction and that protection, yet in the doing of it He makes use of the instrumentality of angels of heaven and of men of the Church. There are societies of heaven which more than others are in the use of serving as such instrumentalities, and therefore with these more than with others is the eagle brooding over her young an emblem or ensign which appeals to their affections. We read in the Writings of at least one of these societies in which this is even the external ensign of the society, namely, the society described in the first Memorabilia in Conjugial Love, which had as its use the instruction of novitiates in the truth concerning the nature of heavenly life.

     As in the Church on earth instruction in the truth which leads from the earthly to the heavenly life and protection against falsities that would destroy the truth, is the foremost of the uses of the Church and enters into all its uses, therefore in the Church the eagle hovering over her young must ever be an ensign or emblem; not necessarily an external ensign, but one that is inscribed upon the heart. The Church must perform the use of giving that instruction which stirs up the nest, with the end that there may be ascent into heavenly intelligence; and also the use of guarding against the falsities which would destroy spiritual life.

     This must be the work of the Church, both in its internal and in its external evangelization, both in its proclamation of the truth to those within the Church and to those who are without.

     The work of the external evangelization is the teaching of the truth to those who are not of the Church, but whom it is hoped to bring into it. The most fruitful field for this work lies with the children born of parents who are of the Church.

     If we would cultivate this field aright, if we would in our labor in it act as instruments of the Lord, the chief and central thing in all our work must be the giving of that instruction which stirs up the nest, thus the teaching of those things which must not be done, those things of which the Lord says "Thou shalt not."

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And in the giving of this instruction the end must be that the child may be prepared to leave its nest, to leave the merely worldly life, with its selfishness and worldliness, and to ascend to that which is heavenly.

     As in the reformation of the adult there is no stirring up unless there be an effort to live according to the truth, so also it is with the child. The child does not indeed live according to the truth as an adult does; it does not pass through spiritual temptations. But it can have and should have an external obedience to truth, which involves something similar to spiritual temptation, namely, a struggle as to whether to obey that which is taught or to follow its own inclination. In its efforts to obey and in its struggles against the inclination not to do so, the child needs the guidance and protection of its parents and teachers, which calls for the use of various means, consisting, in general, of two kinds, those of love and affection and those of punishment. Many pages might be written in regard to this guidance of the child, and yet we would be in the mere beginning of all that is involved in the subject; for it involves far more than can ever be written,--it involves all the states to least particulars into which children may come. The watching and guarding over them in these states, so that they may be protected against evil, is the brooding of the eagle over her young.

     Two things, therefore, are involved in that education of the young which has for its end preparation for heaven: instruction in what must not be done and guarding that there may not be what is evil. These two things must enter into all things of a true education, both in home and in school; they must be the soul of all educational work. Where they are present there will be education for heaven; but where they are not present, the world alone is the end.

     We who are of the General Church recognize the importance of the education of our children within the Church for the Church and Heaven. Our Church looks upon the children as its field of evangelization; and there is associated with it an institution,--the Academy of the New Church,--which has the education of the young as its special use. This institution has as one of the emblems upon its seal the eagle brooding over its nest.

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It rests with all of us to be true to that emblem; and we can be true to it only if we remain firmly in the recognition of the principle that the great end in education must be that the young may rise from their nest and ascend to heaven. Everything in the education of the young in home and school must have that end. If it is present and enters into all things, then the use will prosper; for there will be fulfilled the words of Scripture: "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and its justice, and all these things will be added unto you." But if this end be not present, or if it be present merely in theory and not in practice, then the use cannot prosper. If we permit ourselves to fall into the error that the vital thing of education is provision that the nest be comfort able, and that the young may grow up to enjoy the good things of it, then the use will decline and in time disappear from among us. Whenever the danger of falling into such a state threatens us,--and this it will again and again,--let us pause and put to ourselves the words: "What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?"

     Let the Church, therefore, adhere to the true standards of education. Let its end ever be that the young may rise from the nest, rise from the love of the world and of self to the love of the neighbor and of God. If this end be faithfully followed, there can be the strongest hope of its fulfillment.

     The law to guide us in the following of this end is simple, so simple that all difficulties vanish before it. It is the law of doing the Lord's Will, and that alone. Let those of the Church parents and teachers do for their children what they believe to be the Lord's Will. If they do this, it will be the Lord, and not themselves, who leads the child; and thus there will be fulfilled with the child the closing words of our text: "So the Lord alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him." Let us guard that there be not with our children the strange gods of our own ambitions and self-will.

     Let the Church fulfill to old and young its mission of teaching the truth which leads to the leading from the nest, and of guarding against all that may harm that truth. Then will the future of the Church be assured. For there will certainly be those who will receive the benefits of this use, and these will be the Lord's New Church, and to them will apply the words: "The Lord's portion is His people; Jacob is the lot of His inheritance.

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He found him in the land of the wilderness, and in wasteness, howling, and the desert; He led him about, He instructed him, He guarded him as the pupil of His eye. As an eagle stirreth up her nest, broodeth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings: so the Lord alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him." Amen.
NAMES OF THE WORD 1909

NAMES OF THE WORD 1909

     Divine Revelation employs many different terms in order to designate itself, and each is used in a somewhat different sense. The following are the most familiar:

     I. THE WORD. This is by excellence the name of written Revelation in the New Church, as it was in the Ancient Churches. It was also the current term in the primitive Christian Church, but after the Council of Nicaea it came to be applied almost exclusively to the imaginary "second person of the Trinity" before the Incarnation, the "Son born from eternity," or the "hypostatic Word," as they called it, and the term is now seldom if ever, applied to the Scripture itself.

     The English word, like the Swedish ord, is derived from a root meaning "to speak," (compare the Latin orare, and the Greek rhetor). The same root idea is involved also in the Latin verbum: the Greek logos, and the Hebrew Dabar. In almost all languages a word is that which is spoken, and the Word is that which is spoken by God. Originally, all men spoke nothing but truths, i. e., real things, and therefore, "in the Hebrew tongue, words signify things, because they signify truths; and 'the Word,' the Divine Truth Itself." (A. C. 5075.)

     In the letter of the Word, as in the Writings of the New Church, the term "Word" is by no means confined to the written revelation, but is of universal applicability, designating every form and degree of Divine Truth. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (John 1:1); the Word here signifies the Divine Truth itself, above the heavens, infinite and eternal, the source of all creation.

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"And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us," (John 1:14); it here means the Lord Himself in person, when on the earth. "And they were astonished at His Doctrine, for His Word was with power," (Luke 4:32); here it openly signifies the Doctrine of truth, taught by the Lord. "And I saw Heaven opened, and behold, a White Horse, and He that sat upon Him was called faithful and true, and His name is called 'the Word of God,'" (Rev. 19:13); here the Word "signifies the spiritual sense of the Word revealed by the Lord, and by it the interior understanding of the Word disclosed, which is the Advent of the Lord." (A.R.820.)

     For further illustration of the Biblical use of the term "the Word," see the study of this subject in New Church Life for 1902, pp. 31-33.

     II. THE SACRED SCRIPTURE. This is the designation most frequently used in the Word itself, especially in the New Testament, and always refers to the written, revelation. "I will show thee that which is noted in the Scripture of Truth." (Dan.10:21). "And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself." (Luke 24:27.) "From a child thou hast known the holy Scriptures. . . . All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness." (II. Timothy 3:15, 16.)

     "To 'write the words of Jehovah' signifies to impress Divine Truths on the life." (A. C. 9386.)

     III. THE BIBLE. This term is derived from the Greek biblia, the plural of biblion, the diminutive of bibles, a book. The latter, again, is derived from the river Byblos in Syria, where thrived the papyrus plant, from which paper was made, long after it had ceased to grow in Egypt. The "Bible" thus originally meant a collection of little books, made of the paper from Byblos, just as "parchment" meant the vellum first prepared at Pergamos in Asia Minor.

     This designation of the Sacred Scripture is not used in the Writings of the New Church, except incidentally in three places in the Spiritual Diary,--a fact which is astonishing in view of its universal use throughout Christendom ever since the fifth century. In the New Church the name is used specifically to designate the volume in which he non-canonical books are bound up with the inspired books of the Word.

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     "The 'book written within and without,' (Rev. 5:1), signifies the Word in every particular and in every general." (A. R. 256.) "'He had in his hand a little book open,' (Rev. 10:2), signifies he Word as to the Doctrine therein that the Lord is the God of Heaven and earth, and that His Human is Divine." (A. R. 469.)

     IV. THE BOOK OF THE COVENANT, and THE BOOK OF LIFE, also refer to the written Word. The former "signifies the Word in the letter with which the Word in Heaven is conjoined." (A. C. 9396.) A Covenant always signifies conjunction, and as the Word in the letter is the means of conjunction between Heaven and earth, and between God and man, "the Book of the Covenant" is a most significative expression, referring also to the marriage of good and truth in every verse and sentence of the Scriptures.

     "The Book of Life," is a term used especially in the Apocalypse, and it there signifies "the Word of the Lord and al Doctrine concerning Him," (A. R. 588). From this Book alone man has spiritual life, because this Book is the Lord, and the Lord is the only Life.

     V. THE LAW. This term refers especially to the Old Testament, as distinct from the "Gospel" of the New, but it is also used to designate the Word as a whole. "The Law, in a wide sense, signifies the whole Word; in a sense less wide it signifies the historical Word; in a confined sense it signifies that which was written by Moses; and in the most restricted sense it means the Ten Precepts inscribed upon stone tables on Mt. Sinai. (A. C. 6752.)

     "The Book of the Law," (Deut. 31:24), and "the Law of Jehovah," (Ps. 1:2), signify the five books of Moses, "for the prophetical books, and the historical ones with the exception of Joshua and Judges, did not yet exist." (A. C. 6752.)

     "The Word of the Old Testament was formerly called 'the Law and the Prophets.' By the Law was meant all the historical books." (A. C. 2606.) "'The Law and the Prophets' signify the universal doctrine of faith, and the whole Word." (A. C. 36.)

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     VI. THE GOSPEL. This English term means literally "a good story," (good-spell), being the equivalent of the Greek "Evangelion," a glad announcement. It refers especially to the New

     Testament, but in a universal sense the whole Word is the Gospel, for "evangelization means all things which in the Word treat of the Lord, and all things which in worship represented Him; for Evangelization is the announcement concerning the Lord, concerning His Advent, and concerning the things which are from Him which are of salvation and eternal life. And because all things of the Word in its inmost sense treat of the Lord alone, and likewise all things of worship represented Him, therefore the whole Word is the Evangel." (A. C. 9925.)

     VII. THE TESTIMONY AND THE TESTAMENTS. In the Old Testament the Law is very frequently called "the Testimony," and in this connection we read of the "two tables of the testimony," "the ark of the testimony," and "the tabernacle of the Testimony." In the New Testament, also, John, the revelator, speaks of himself as one "who bare witness to the Word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ." (Rev. 1:2.) The reason this name is given to the Word is that "'testimony' signifies the Divine Truth which bears witness concerning the Lord, thus the Word, for this in the supreme sense treats of the Lord alone, and then in the internal sense bears witness concerning Him." (A. C. 9503) "The Law is called 'the Testimony' because it confirms the articles of the Covenant; for 'testimony' in the Word signifies the confirmation and witnessing of the articles of conjunction." (T. C. R. 285) "'Testimony' signifies that in the Word which teaches the good of life, while 'Law' signifies that which teaches truths of doctrine." (A. E. 392.)

     The term "Testament" is used in connection with the Word in the Hebrew and in Greek, but it is somewhat of a misnomer originating in an early mistranslation of the Greek word diatheke which means a covenant or dispensation rather than a last will or testament. Swedenborg, indeed, retains the term but observes that "it ought to be called Testimony." The passage reads: "The Word before the Advent of the Lord is called 'the Old Covenant,' and after His Advent 'the New Covenant;' it is also called the 'Testament,' Old and New, but it ought to be called Testimony," (sed dicendum est Testimonium, A. E. 392e).

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CORRESPONDENCES OF CANAAN 1909

CORRESPONDENCES OF CANAAN Rev. C. TH. ODHNER 1909

     CHAPTER XI.

     THE HEBREWS.

     109. The Midianites. After the death of Sarah, "Abraham added and took a woman, and her name was Keturah. And she bare him Zimran, and Joksham, and Medan, and Midian, and Ishbak, and Shuah." (Gen. 25:1, 2.) Abraham and Sarah signify in general the Lord as to the Divine Celestial, but Abraham with his second wife, Keturah, signify the Lord as to the Divine-Spiritual. The offspring of this second marriage consequently signify "common lots of the Lord's Spiritual Kingdom in the heavens and on the earths, with their derivations." (A. C. 3234, 3238) Of this generation springing from Keturah only the descendants of Midian reached any historical prominence the latter, however, are mentioned frequently in the Word, and by them are signified, in a good sense, those of the Spiritual Kingdom who are in the truth of simple good, just as their cousins, the Ishmaleites, signify those who are in simple good itself. (A. C. 4747.) Those who are in such truth have no internal perception, and therefore are easily persuaded by fallacies from the senses, and when they are thus persuaded, they no longer represent the truth of simple good, but the falsity of evil, and it is in this latter sense that the Midianites most generally figure in the Word. Whether in a good or evil sense, people of this purely intellectual and spiritual character are argumentative and contentious, and this is expressed in a word by the name MIDIAN, which means "strife" or "contention."

     We are told that Abraham "gave all that he had to Isaac," but unto the sons that he had by his concubines he "gave gifts, and sent them away from Isaac, his son, while he yet lived, east- ward, unto the east country." (Gen. 25:5, 8.) In the case of Midian this "east country" included the district to the south and east of Edom, Moab, and Ammon,--now a complete wilderness but in ancient times a fertile region, studded with villages and towns, the ruins of which may still be seen.

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One branch of the Midianites, known as "Kenites," dwelt in Sinai, near Mt. Horeb; it was among them Moses found refuge during his years of exile, and here he married Zipporah, the daughter of Jethro, the priest of Midian. As a distinct tribe the Midianites first appear, together with the Ishmaelites, in, the story of the betrayal of Joseph, and they are here introduced as "merchantmen" engaged in trade with Egypt, bringing thither from Gilead the balm, frankincense and myrrh, which the Egyptians required for the embalming of their dead. From this trade, and also from their teeming herds of cattle, together with some agriculture, the Midianites became a rich and powerful people, but, like the rest of the Hebrews round about Canaan, they were idolaters and steeped in the vices of the neighboring Canaanites.

For their Israelitish kinsmen they always entertained a whole-souled hatred. When Moses and the ten tribes wished to pass through the country of the Midianites, the latter opposed them by every means. At first they united with the Moabites in sending for Balaam, the Syrian prophet, to put the curse upon the dangerous invaders, but when the intended curse was turned into a blessing, the Midianites, on the advice of Balaam, (Numbers 31:16), tried to accomplish the destruction of Israel through a most foul method: the women of the Midianites enticed the men of Israel to the lascivious worship of Baal Peer, the lord of the phallus. This infamous fornication, practiced in the name of religion, resulted-in a "plague" which would have ruined the chosen people, had it not been checked by the drastic measures of Moses. Terrible was the vengeance visited upon Midian. Phineas, the grandson of Aaron, with a force of 12,000 men, penetrated into the heart of the land of Midian, burning their cities and castles, putting to death all the married men, women, and male children within reach, and making slaves of all the young women. The booty taken was enormous, but the figures given are probably fictitious, that is to say, representative.

After this crushing defeat nothing further is heard of the Midianites for some two or three hundred years; a remnant of the people must have escaped into the outlying districts and they gradually recovered something of their former power.

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In the sixth chapter of the Judges they reappear, now as the head of a great confederation of "all the children of the East." For seven years they oppressed the children of Israel, the latter taking refuge in "the dens which are in the mountains, and caves and strongholds." At last, in the spring of the seventh year, the Midianites and their Bedouin confederates came up with an enormous army to give the death-blow to Israel. "They came up with their cattle and their tents, and they came up as grasshoppers for multitude; both they and their camels were without number; and they entered into the land to destroy it." (Judg. 6:5.) And now occurred a most dramatic deliverance. Gideon was raised up by Jehovah, and of all the children of Israel who had assembled for a final stand, he chose only the three hundred who "lapped of the water with their tongues, even as a dog lappeth." To each of these he gave a trumpet, and an empty pitcher, and a lamp within the pitcher. And then in the night, having surrounded the hosts of Midian, at a given signal the three hundred blew their trumpets and break their pitchers, crying: "the Sword of the Lord and of Gideon." The "sword" was the light which now flashed forth from the surrounding heights of Esdraelon. Panic took possession of the Midianites and the Amalekites and the rest of the children of the East; the sword of every man was set against his fellow, and "all the host ran, and cried and fled." The main body of the Israelites now pursued and exterminated the retreating herd, and the Midianites "lifted up their heads no more." (Judg. 8:28.)

     "By Midian, here, are meant those who do not care for truth, because they are merely natural and external; and for this reason they were smitten by those who lapped of the water in their hands as a dog lappeth, for by the latter are meant those who have an appetite for truths, i. e., those who from a certain natural affection love to know truths." (A. E. 455.)

     After this defeat the Midianites no longer appear in history.

     110. The Edomites. The territory of the Edomites, the descendants of Esau, extended from the southern extremity of the Dead Sea to the eastern arm of the Red Sea, and included the mountain range of Seir together with the northern portion of Arabia Petraea.

719

To the west of them were the Amalekites, to the south the Ishmaelites, to the east the Midianites, and to the north the Moabites and the districts of Simeon and Judah. Their chief city was the famous city of Sela, (in Greek, Petra), the temples and palaces of which, carved out of the solid rock, are still the wonder of Northern Arabia. Bozrah was another important city. Mt. Seir, so frequently mentioned in the Word, in the supreme sense signifies "the celestial natural good" of the Lord's Divine Human. (A. C. 4240.) As a mountain it signifies what is celestial, and because of its rough and shaggy appearance, (Seir, "hairy"), it signifies the celestial natural, (3527). This correspondence is also in harmony with the country itself which is called EDOM, ("red"), from the red color of the sandstone which forms the greater part of the mountain chain. Though arid and rocky, the soil is by no means unfruitful, but produces rich herbage in the spring, and still supports numerous flocks of sheep. In ancient times there was much wealth in the country, gained from mining, commerce, sheep-raising, and agriculture. Such was the country occupied by Esau, whose name means "hairy," because at his birth he came forth "red all over like a hairy blanket;" and by Esau, as by Mt. Seir and the land of Edom, is signified in general "the Lord as to the Divine Good of the Divine Natural." (3322.)

That such is the correspondence of Edom is self-evident from the sublime words of Isaiah: "Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? This that is glorious in His apparel, traveling in the greatness of His strength? I that speak in justice, mighty to save. Wherefore are Thou red in Thine apparel, and Thy garments like Him that treadeth in the wine-press? I have trodden the wine-press alone, and of the peoples there was no man with Me. . . . I looked, but there was none to help, I was amazed that there was none to uphold; therefore Mine own arm brought salvation unto Me." (Is. 63:1-5.)

The story of the great Hebrew patriarchs is the story of the Glorification of the Lord in His Human. Abraham signifies the Divine Celestial, Ishmael and Isaac the Divine Spiritual, and Esau and Jacob the Divine Natural.

720

The brotherhood of Esau and Jacob signifies the brotherhood of good and truth in the Divine Natural of the Lord's Human, as in the natural of every regenerating man. Of the two, good is actually prior in the beginning even as it will be at the end, but for a time it is necessary that truth should appear to be prior, in order that the understanding of truth may be led in freedom to the final acknowledgment that good of the will is the greater of the two. Good cares nothing for the show of superiority, and therefore Esau sold his birthright to Jacob for a red pottage, ("therefore was his name called Edom"), but its ultimate victory was foretold in the blessing of Isaac upon Esau: "By thy sword thou shalt live, and shalt serve thy brother; and it shall come to pass when thou shalt have dominion, that thou shalt break his yoke from off thy neck." (Gen. 27:40.)

This prophecy was literally fulfilled in the life-time of Esau, (and also, as we shall see, in the history of the Edomites in their relations with the Jews). Esau, cheated and supplanted by the cunning deceit of his mother and brother, withdrew to Mt. Seir in the land of Edom, where he grew to be a man of great power and wealth. When Jacob was returning from Laban in Paddan Aram, he heard that Esau was approaching him with a troop of four hundred men. "Greatly afraid and distressed," Jacob now sent tribute and humbly submitted himself to Esau who, on this occasion, proved himself a vastly superior character, forgiving, affectionate, and generous. Running to meet his brother, he "embraced him, and fell on, his neck and kissed him, and they wept." He also showed keen interest in Jacob's wives and children, and graciously declined the "gifts," saying, "I have enough, my brother; keep that thou hast unto thyself." (Gen. 33:9.)

Esau was called Edom, and the two names have "almost the same signification," with this difference, however, that "Esau" signifies the good of the natural as at first conceived, before the doctrinal things of truth have been so fully conjoined with that good; while "Edom" signifies the good of the natural, to which are conjoined the doctrinal things of truth, (the latter being represented by the red pottage. A. C. 3320.)

721

Edom is also frequently mentioned, together with Moab, but in this connection, again, "Edom signifies the good of the natural to which the doctrinal things of truth are adjoined, while Moab signifies natural good, such as there is with those in whom they are not conjoined. In the opposite sense, however, (and this is the most frequent), Edom and the Edomites signify "those who turn aside from good by utterly despising, rejecting and vilifying truth, being unwilling that anything of the truth of faith should be adjoined," (ibid.).

That Esau did not give his name to the land of Edom is evident from the fact that the Egyptian papyri, five centuries before Esau, speak of Edom and Edomites. Esau, by his prowess as a man of the sword, managed to establish himself in Mt. Seir, married daughters of the land, raised an army of Bedouins by which he exterminated the aboriginal, cave-dwelling Horites, and thus gained supreme control of the land of Edom. Here he raised a large family, each son becoming an aluph or "duke" of a distinct clan of Edomites, the northern branches of whom long preserved the tribal or patriarchal organization, while a southern branch established a kingdom known in history as the kingdom of Gebalene. Like all the rest of their Hebrew cousins, the Edomites always treated the Israelites with persistent hostility and rancor. When the weary wanderers in the wilderness arrived at the borders Of Edom, Moses appealed to the memory of their common patriarchal ancestors, courteously asking permission to pass through the land, with promises to do no damage, and offering to pay even for the water they would drink. But the Edomites not only refused permission, but also assumed a threatening attitude, and so the Israelites were forced to take to the wilderness again, making a long detour to the south and then to the north, around the land of Edom (Num. 20:15-21; 21:4.) Edom here represents the evil of the love of self, refusing to admit the truths of faith. (A. C. 3322.)

After Israel had established itself in Canaan, the Edomites continued to manifest their hostility, until subdued by David who put garrisons throughout the land. (II Sam. 8:14.) Solomon successfully maintained his dominion over them, and utilized their harbors on the Red Sea for the first and only merchant fleet of Israel. (I. Kings 9:26.)

722

After the division of the kingdom, Edom continued as a dependency of Judah until the time of Joram, (B. C. 885), when the Edomites again secured their independence. Amaziah undertook a victorious expedition against them, and captured their capital, Sela, and Uzziah again reduced them to subjection; but during the reign of Ahaz the Edomites again broke away, and remained independent until forced to submit to the all-conquering power of Assyria and, subsequently, Babylonia. At the capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, Edom made common cause with all the other enemies of Israel, and is in consequence most severely denounced by the prophets, especially by Obadiah. Alter the return of the Jews from Babylon, and throughout the rule of the Graeco-Syrian Empire, Edom, or Idumxa, as it was now called, continued to manifest the ancient ill will, until in the reign of the Maccabaean king, John Hyrcanus, (B. C. 129), the Idumaeans were wholly subjugated, and by a compulsory circumcision were merged in the Jewish state.

Thus was fulfilled in the history of the two brother nations the first part of the prophecy of Isaac concerning Esau: "Thou shalt serve thy brother." Soon, however, there was to be fulfilled, in one way at least, the latter part of the prophecy: "And it shall come to pass when thou shalt have dominion, that thou shalt break his yoke from off thy neck. The Edomites, indeed, as a people, never again regained their independent national existence, but an Idumaean general, known by the Greek name Antipater, during the reign of the last Maccabaan kings, managed by ingratiating himself with the Romans to usurp supreme power over the Jews, and prepared the way for his son, Herod, who assumed the royal title. An Edomite, descended from Esau, reigned at last over the descendants of Jacob, and founded the last royal dynasty of the Jewish kingdom. But it was no longer a contest between good and truth; it was a kingdom of falsity ruled by evil.

(To be continued.)

723

PARABLE OF THE DEAD CHURCH 1909

PARABLE OF THE DEAD CHURCH Rev. WILLIAM HYDE ALDEN 1909

     May there be a modern morality play, which shall introduce the character of the Lord? I am inclined to answer that there may, for I have seen it, and was impressed with the power of it. The play "The Servant in the House" has the temerity to introduce as one of its characters one who is in appearance, action and speech evidently intended not only to suggest, but to be the very incarnate Lord Jesus Christ. And this drama is so trenchant a picture of the state of the dead church of Christendom, that I feel impelled to put down some notion of it for the New Church: for the New Church alone could weigh it at its just value.

     The actors are few. The Vicar and his wife in whose breakfast room the whole action takes place; their niece of fifteen years; the brother of the vicar; two servants, and the venerable Bishop of Lincolnshire. One of the servants is the typical English manservant; the other stands apart in contrast to all the remaining characters. His name is Mason; ostensibly he is the new butler just come from India, and is dressed in the flowing robes of the Indian costume. His figure is tall and commanding, the features those of the traditional Christ. But he is simply "the servant in the house," the butler, with due deference and self-effacement performing faithfully the duties of his office. Upon his relation to the remaining characters and his efforts upon them, the whole plot of the drama turns. The remaining characters are modern types, and the world they portray is the modern Christian world.

     In an early scene the child of fifteen becomes chattily acquainted with the butler, who, with sympathy and understanding, draws her out to speak freely of herself and of her surroundings. She tells how the family expects that morning the Bishop of Benares, a wonderful man, whose fame has gone round the world for the marvelous building up of the church which he has effected in India. She has but just learned that this expected visitor is brother to her uncle. The butler tells the child that he knows the Bishop of Benares well.

724

The butler guardedly insinuates that the Bishop looks somewhat like himself; but when the child asks him who he himself is, he evades an answer. The child prattles of her father of whom she has never heard, and is told that if she will but wish long and hard enough, whatever she wishes will come true. She tells of the condition of the church building, which has fallen sadly into decay, and no money can be obtained for its repairing. Asked as to the cause, she answers that she thinks it is the drains, for there is a smell, in the parsonage, in the Vicar's study, in the church, and worst of all in the pulpit itself, The butler assures her that when the Bishop of Benares comes, he will find the means and make all right.

The Vicar comes in from morning service heart weary. Asked by his wife how the service had gone, he answers, "As usual; no one there," and in a burst of frankness confesses the soul-emptiness of his work. He is a scholar in Hebrew and in Greek, an eloquent speaker, yet withal he feels that his whole work is a lie. He emphasizes this emptiness and falsity of his own spiritual state by the thought of his treatment of his brother, whom fifteen years before he had disowned, and taken his daughter from him, and brought up in entire ignorance of her father's character or even existence. This father, the Robert Smith of the play, was in the working class, and upon the death of his wife had taken to drink. It would appear, however, that his brother's repugnance to him was due as much to the fact that he was of the working class, and uneducated, as to the fact of his dissipated ways. The wife rallies her husband upon his scruples and points that his treatment of his brother had been necessitated for his own advancement, that it was impossible that he should have fellowship with him in his station in society; that it would prejudice his hope of preferment in the church.

Just at this juncture the brother appears; a rough, uneducated, coarse-spoken English working man, a cleaner of drains. A telegram had been sent him, not to come, which he had disregarded, and he presents himself, unwelcome, before the Vicar, who is at sore loss to know what he shall do with him, especially in view of the expected arrival of the Bishop of Benares.

725

But as he goes out to counsel with his wife, the rough brother is left with the butler, who, to his surprise, invites him to sit down to table, and draws him out to tell his story, with all its hardship, trial, and fall; encourages him to believe that he is not so bad as he had believed himself, and leads him on, little by little, to a sense of comradeship and brotherhood. As these two sit at the table in hearty fellowship there enters the Bishop of Lancashire, a doddering old man of eighty, grievously near-sighted and hard of hearing, who advances cautiously into the room, feeling his way and holding out his hand for the welcome which he confidently expects from his sister and the Vicar, her husband. He, with his near-sighted eyes, mistakes the brother for the Vicar, and with his hard hearing understands himself to be invited to breakfast, and garrulously talks with the supposed Vicar of Greek translations of the New Testament, to the intense boredom of the rough, uneducated, workman brother. The butler passing near him, he catches a near-sighted view of his robe, and then peering closely at him, he recognizes in him the Bishop of Benares, and eagerly discusses with him ways and means of raising money for the church, proposing to him that he should permit the use of his name and fame for the soliciting of money for the repairing of the church nominally, but in reality as he points out with a sly leer, to the end of increasing the emoluments of the clergy. Meanwhile the workman brother has left the room. But, before he goes, he asks through the ear trumpet of the Bishop if he ever heard of hell and as the dull ears of the Bishop fail at first to catch the words, "h-e-double l, 'ell." "Why, yes, I should think so," is the startled response. "Then go there" is the parting shot, at which the Bishop ascribing the remark to his host, "the Vicar," is naturally highly indignant. The butler, however, mollifies him in one way, while still more disturbing his mind in another; telling him that "the person who had so insulted him, was not the Vicar, as he had supposed, but a workman, a cleaner of drains, in fact." "Do you mean to say," then says the horrified Bishop, "that I have been sitting at breakfast with a common workman?" to which the butler calmly rejoins, "Is it possible that you have never done it before? I was once a workman myself." The Bishop in cant fashion having spoken of sacred obligations the butler urges the words upon him, declaring his belief that the duty of man was summed up in sacrifice.

726

"Of what," asks the Bishop, and is answered, in deep, firm tone, as of a Divine mandate, "Of all that you have." This, however, does not please the Bishop who asseverates that the poor should give all that they have, that the rich should give liberally out of their abundance, and (this with a sly look, as if to say, "We understand one another") that the clergy should graciously give their names. In irony, the butler proposes, as the proper attitude of the clergy inasmuch as just then God was not listening, was to give as little as possible, and to grab all they could. To which the Bishop, carefully looking about to see that no one was listening, assented,--but with the reservation that while he could quite agree with his brother in the sentiment, it would not do to say that before people.

     In the next act the child is alone when the workman brother comes in, with a coil of rope. She mistakes him for a burglar. He knows her to be his daughter, and a pathetic scene ensues in which he disarms her suspicion and betrays the strong yearning in him to make himself known. But he resists the temptation and when she asks him who he is, he goes away telling her be is only the "drain man."

     The Vicar and his wife come in, find the Bishop talking with the butler, and tell him that the supposed distinguished stranger is only their Indian butler, not the Bishop of Benares as he had supposed. Whereupon the Bishop takes the butler aside for a private interview and bribes him by giving him a five pound note to say nothing of their conversation. This note the butler, when alone, indignantly crumples up and throws in the fire, and then denounces Vicar and Bishop in a fine monologue, closing with the mighty words of the fifty-first Psalm:

     "Thou sittest and speakest against thy brother;

     "Thou slanderest thine own mother's son.

     "These things hast thou done and I kept silence;

     "Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself:

     "But I will reprove thee, and set them in order before thine eyes."

727

The Vicar and his wife again consider a plan which has been proposed by the Bishop of Lincoln for raising money for the repair of the church. The Vicar points out to her that the scheme is one which involves the use of the name of the popular Bishop of Benares, with the ultimate end of enriching the clergy. The wife protests that it takes money to pay for bricks and mortar, while her husband reminds her that there are things which may not be bought or sold for money. Going further he expresses the belief that her love for him is, in fact, idolatry, since it over-rules her sense of right doing and her duty to God. High words pass. He declares his intention to deal rightly by his brother, and by his daughter; to tell the child who her father is and to receive his brother as a brother. The wife, with clear-sighted, worldly wisdom, declares that this will only make them all unhappy and proposes to buy the brother off and send him to Australia where he will trouble them no more. This leads to recrimination upon recrimination between husband and wife. He declares one great wrong that they have done, is that they have no children; to which she answers that this was for his sake, for the sake of leaving him free to do the study and work of his priesthood, to which children would be an obstacle. Still he persists in his intention and when the child comes in full of a new secret, which she has learned, and with difficulty keeps to herself, a secret which is none other than that the supposed butler is the Bishop of Benares whom they had expected to honor,--the Vicar tells her that he has a duty to perform and tries to prepare her mind to be told who her father is and why she has been kept in ignorance of him. He asks her what she would think if she knew that the cause of her father's debasement was due to the unbrotherly conduct of one near to him years before, and that the one who was responsible was a priest of the Church. The child realizes so much as to believe that her father is in truth a wicked man and that her uncle is responsible for his fall. Her uncle's wife, in agony lest the revelation should turn the child's love from her husband, declares that she is to blame, that he had acted in accordance with her wish. So the poor child for the time seems to have lost all she had loved, together with the cherished hope of a father whom she might love. She leaves them in utter despair.

728

The butler enters and declares to the astonishment of the Vicar and wife, the things of which they have been speaking, and when the wife indignantly asks how he knew these things he says that it is by a kind of power of divination which he has. She tells him that he is presumptuous, that his place is that of servant in the house. He responds with an irresistible air of command, declaring that his office now is to command, and bids her sit while he tells her what she must do. The unbrotherly neglect and denial of the brother must cease; they must receive him as their own. If they will make him, Manson, master of the house for an hour, all will be done, and all will be well. The Vicar, sick at heart and already repentant, readily consents. The wife resists. She will not,--she cannot,--she dare not; but finally, subdued by a will stronger than her own, she asks, How can I? and the victory is won. The butler then says, "First we must rid the house of the disturbing element, that abomination," and calls in the Bishop, puts his ear trumpet to his ear and tells him that he is no longer useful in that house, that he is to leave. He does not understand at first, cannot comprehend that such a thing should be said to him; blows through his trumpet, nervously polishes it, but receives again the inexorable message "Leave this house." With garrulous indignation he protests, appeals to the Vicar and to his wife to no purpose, threatens them with his dire ill-will, but finally goes, the pitiable figure of a head of the dead church unmasked.

In the final scene the workman brother is announced, and enters, his clothing and arms thick with filth. He has been examining the drains to good purpose. He finds accumulation of nameless abominations. He follows the drain to its shameful source and finds in it an accumulation of dead men's bones and all corruption, beneath the very church itself. Beneath the church he found this festering mass of decay, while he could hear above him the organ playing "The Church's One Foundation." The situation is, literally, of course, an impossible one, but a more powerful parable of the spiritual state of the Church could hardly be conceived. The question came, what was to be done? The Drain man said the corruption must be cleansed and he would go and do it. The danger of disease and ever death is pointed out to him but he persists.

729

The Vicar says there is but one other way, and to the New churchman the proper conclusion would seem to have been that the church itself must be razed to the ground and another erected in its stead. But I am not clear that this was said. But the Vicar, inspired by the self-sacrificing intention of his workman brother, doffs his clerical coat, rolls up his sleeves and declares his intention of going with his brother to do the work. In this noble end, they are reconciled and the wife to them both; the child is made known to her father, in whom she now finds dualities to love. The butler enters, lays the table with bread and wine, as if for a sacrament, and announces, "The Bishop of Benares!"

All turn expectantly to the door, but as no one enters, the Vicar looks at the butler wonderingly,--who repeats, with a trifle of intense emphasis, "The Bishop of Benares is here." And at the last the Vicar comprehends that the "servant in the house," Manson, is indeed the famous visitor whom he had expected, and kneels for his blessing.

The story need not be taken too seriously in the letter of it; but the essential aim of it, to disclose the head state of the Christian Church, rings true. It is not a play for the crowd. The attendance was small. One woman in the audience said to her friend, "I do not see why it is they make so much of this play for." But for the intelligent and the thoughtful the play is a graphic revelation. It speaks with the voice of a prophet who cries aloud and spares not. Above the muck and mire of the problem plays it points the lesson, as to the causes of conditions which the ordinary problem play sensationally presents without lesson, and helps as to remedy. The Church is dead; this is the lesson. The seers of the world begin to see; The New Church is taught it by revelation. The old church is indeed out of repair, hopelessly out of repair and decayed. The Word of the Lord saith, "Raze it, raze it, even to the foundations thereof." And in place of it the Lord will establish a New Church, fit for His abiding.

730

Editorial Department 1909

Editorial Department Editor 1909

     NOTES AND REVIEWS.

     A serious misprint occurred in our October issue, p. 611, line 14, where Bishop Pendleton is represented as saying: "A general correction had been needed of the scientific and theological writings. For "correction" read correlation. [This correction has been made in the electronic text.]

     With the beginning of the new year, The New Church Review will come under the editorial management of the Rev. H. Clinton Hay. Mr. Mayhew, the former editor, will continue as a member of the editorial board.

     Many of our readers have doubtless read in their local newspaper an article on Swedenborg's revelation as to the inhabitants of the planet Mars. This notice, it appears, was prepared by the New Church Literary Bureau, of which Mr. B. A. Whittemore, of Boston, is the secretary. The manuscript was sent to the ministers of the General Convention with the request to secure its publication about September 18th. As a result it appeared in over twenty newspapers, several of which credited it to the minister from whom it had been received.

     In our editorial on the Declaration of the General Convention (see New Church Life for August last, page 456) we printed the names of six ministers as voting in support of Mr. Schreck's motion to lay the Declaration on the table. The list there given should be revised by the omission of the name of the Rev. W. H. Schliffer, and by the addition of the names of the Rev. Messrs. Sewall, Stephenson and Tafel. Three laymen also supported the motion, making the total vote 11 to 84.

     Dr. Eliot in his foreshadowing of the "New Religion" declares that it will be thoroughly monotheistic, its God being the one infinite force; and, with regard to the future life, he declares that Swedenborg has produced only fantastic and incredible pictures.

731

     And the Rev. H. Clinton Hay, the assistant pastor of the Boston Society, finds "satisfaction" in this declaration because, so he says, it is founded on "the fundamental principles of the New Church as set forth in the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg," namely, love of God and of men, and the religion of service.

     All of which goes to show that, if these be indeed the "fundamental principles" of the NEW CHURCH, very opposite structures can be raised upon them,-one denying the Lord and the other acknowledging Him as God.

     The Rev. Arthur E. Beilby, the English New Church minister and humorist, in the New Church Magazine for November reviews the recent volume of essays by the Rev. J. F. Buss, entitled The Star in the East. The essays on "The Inspiration of Swedenborg," and "The Canonicity of Conjugial Love" strike the reviewer "as being, at the best, works of supererogation, which might safely have been omitted without endangering anyone's salvation, and, at the worst, a mere form of diseased activity. We are all convinced that Swedenborg, in every sense that need concern us, is fully inspired. I fail to see how any technical proofs of the immaculateness of his message can ensure a more effectual faith. This will apply to the noble treatise, Conjugial Love. As for certain passages in the latter part thereof, I decline to get stuck in that bog,--as indeed does Mr. Buss. Perhaps, however, we shall some day have to re-define our attitude towards those passages. The ground we now occupy has never recommended itself to me as either logical or tenable." What a mixed metaphor! The admittedly illogical and untenable position is termed "ground," while the Divine Truth is termed a "bog." Some years ago it was termed the "skeleton in the New Church closet." What next?

     A correspondent to our "occasional" contemporary, The Reminder, for October, asks a question which has been, of late, much to the fore, and we take pleasure in reprinting the admirable answer given by the editor, the Rev. W. T. Lardge.

732

     The question is, "Because Conjugial Love is said to have been 'published by Swedenborg a Swede,' has one any right to suppose, in consequence, that the teachings therein are not the Lord's, but merely the man, Swedenborg's?" To which Mr. Lardge answers: "We think the word 'published' in the question is gratuitous. The fact that Swedenborg wrote, 'by Emanuel Swedenborg, a Swede,' on the title page of the work, Conjugial Love, is not a reason for regarding its teachings as Swedenborg's and not the Lord's. If it were, then the Brief Exposition must be in the same category, because it bore the same superscription. Yet it is of the Brief Exposition that it is said in Ecc. Hist. 7, 'When [it] was published the angelic heaven, from east to west, and from north to south, appeared purple, with most beautiful flowers.' On all the copies of this Work in the Spiritual World was written, 'The Advent of the Lord;' and the same was written 'by command' on two copies in Holland. No question of this work being the Lord's notwithstanding the superscription! Then, again, what of the T. C. R., which must also be ruled out, if Swedenborg's name on the title Page is a disqualification? There is overwhelming internal evidence in the Work, Conjugial Love, that it is as much the Lord's Work as any of the books written by Swedenborg. See especially Nos. 1, 26, 39, and 534. See also cross references to this work, in T. C. R., especially No. 313. Would readers of the T. C. R., the authenticity of which is undoubted, be referred to C. L. for further particulars, unless the Works were on an equal footing. Conjugial Love is the Holy of Holies; we should, therefore, approach it with almost breathless
reverence."

     In answer to a further question as to the religious instruction of children Mr. Lardge, in the same issue, after quoting some teaching of the Writings as to the formation of the mind, continues, "But the complete solution of this vexed question, as far as the Church is concerned, is for a few zealous individual New churchmen, in various centers, to unite together and establish small yet distinctive New Church day schools. This is the kind of missionary work which would 'pay' best."

     Mr. Lardge also publishes some extracts from letters to the Reminder. All are highly commendatory except the last, "Will look over Reminder. I hope I shall see the reason for its publication."

733

Another correspondent writes, "Your little publication brought tears of joy to my eyes when I read it. . . . The fact that such a paper is thought to be needed, however, is a sad reflection upon the state of existing New Church publications."

We can echo the last sentiment; but, on the other hand, it is cheering to know that a paper, which like The Reminder, upholds the Divine Authority of the Writings and the distinctiveness of the New Church, finds in England the sympathy and support indicated in the extracts.
NEW TRANSLATIONS OF THE SCIENTIFIC WORKS 1909

NEW TRANSLATIONS OF THE SCIENTIFIC WORKS 1909

     The New Philosophy for October is an evidence of the policy recently adopted by the Swedenborg Scientific Association, of devoting its official organ to translations of Swedenborg's works. The present issue contains an unusually long installment of THE SENSES, continuing the chapter on the Vision and Hearing of Insects. "The treatment," (to quote from a review by Dr. Sewall), "is fascinating even to the unscientific reader, so familiar and telling are the illustrations from insect life."

     Swedenborg speaks of the sight of insects as "their last and inmost sense in place of our understanding," by which they are "excited in spite of themselves." Therefore, they are furnished with so many eyes which occupy the whole surface and make one with their brains. In animals there is "a kind of imagination," but "in insects there is no imagination, but only an action of the rays which affect the brain immediately; wherefore the mass of the sensory of sight is so greatly enlarged and constitutes the external brain itself." The affections of insects, therefore, "spring from the eyes alone in order that they may be entirely subject to the influx of the whole world; this also is the reason for so many eyes."

     Besides the work ON THE SENSES, the journal also contains the first installment of Swedenborg's work ON THE FIBRE, a work which now first appears in English translation. The eighteen pages of this installment deal with the cortical and medullary substance of the brain, and with the determination and flux of the latter, and they fully confirm what is pointed out by the editor, namely, that the work was intended by Swedenborg as one of the volumes of his Economy of the Animal Kingdom.

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In the Editorial Notes announcement is made of the receipt of 81 subscriptions to the proposed republication of Swedenborg's work on Generation in revised translation. We would urge upon our readers the value of this work, and its importance for the fuller understanding of Swedenborg's theological writings. The number of subscriptions necessary to ensure publication is 100, and the price three dollars. Subscriptions should be sent to Alfred Acton, editor, New Philosophy, Bryn Athyn, Pa.
"DECLARATION" OF THE GENERAL CONVENTION 1909

"DECLARATION" OF THE GENERAL CONVENTION 1909

     In its publication of "A Declaration by the General Convention," the General Council of that body adds a recommendation "that it be adopted also by the General Associations and Societies of the Church."

     It now appears, however, that the matter was not to rest with a mere recommendation. The Council has evidently determined that the Declaration of False Witness, (not only against the General Church, but, what is of far deeper significance, against the doctrines of the New Church), shall be endorsed by the individual associations as well as by the general body. For it would seem that the communication to the Illinois Association, (and presumably to other associations as they meet), wherein the secretary of the General Convention calls attention to the recommendation of the General Council, was not made without the authority of the latter body. But, however this may be, it seems evident, from the report given in our news pages, that a systematic effort is being made to induce every association of the General Convention to endorse the Declaration which the latter body adopted after refusing to discuss.

     The associations that have met since the Convention at Brockton, are the Canada, Michigan, Ohio, and Illinois. Some account of the meetings of these Associations is given in our department of Church News; but our readers will probably join with us in regretting that the account is so meager.

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It is, however, unavoidably so, for though the adoption of this Declaration is confessedly a most important step, as it is certainly a notable historical one, yet the official organ of the General Convention pays little attention to the actions of the Associations with regard to it. Where the Declaration has been adopted, the bare fact is chronicled, but where it has failed of adoption, no mention whatever is made concerning it.

     Such is the "freedom of the Press" in the General Convention, that the readers of the organ of that body can get no other impression than that the Declaration is enthusiastically endorsed wherever it is submitted for endorsement. But the facts, which, though officially suppressed, have yet come to light, show otherwise. As may be seen from our account, the Ohio Association could not be prevailed upon to adopt the Declaration, although the president of the General Convention was present in person to advocate it. Presumably, in the absence of other information, the same applies to the Canada Association, for it took no action, despite the active "recommendation" of the General Council.

     The Declaration was adopted by the Michigan Association,--whose leading, and practically only society is that of which the president of the Convention is the pastor. It was also adopted by the Illinois Association, but in both cases it met with vigorous protest,--in Michigan from the treasurer of the Association, and in Illinois from Mr. Schreck and several others.

     The meeting of the Illinois Association conveys a note of sadness almost tragic; sadness that men, and New churchmen at that, should be so blind to the ordinary dictates of common sense and conscience as to pronounce judgment without inquiry. We do not have in mind the condemnation of the General Church,--though in this respect the action of the Michigan and Illinois Associations can excite nothing but sadness and pity.

     But the members of the General Church can readily pass by a condemnation of themselves as of comparative unimportance. The truly tragic note in the action of the Illinois and Michigan Associations is that they have laid down, or assumed to lay down, the doctrine of the New Church without examination and inquiry into the teachings of the Lord, who alone is the source of the Heavenly Doctrine.

736

     The Constitution of the General Convention declares that the Doctrines of the New Jerusalem are "revealed by the Lord from His Word in the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg." In view of these words, we might ask of every one who voted for the Declaration of the "Doctrine" on the subject involved, "Have you searched the Writings and inquired of them what they have to say on this subject, before casting your vote declaring this to be the Doctrine of the New Church?" And, we might add, "Have you now decided that Councils, and Conventions, and Associations of men are to lay down the Doctrine of the New Church?"

     Here is the tragedy: that men who may or may not be familiar with the teachings of Divine Revelation, have assumed to lay down by vote the doctrine of the Crown of all the Churches.

     But whatsoever the "Doctrine" of the Convention, or its Associations, the Heavenly Doctrine of Divine Revelation remains the same, and this is to be found solely in the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg.
DEAD CHURCH STILL DEAD 1909

DEAD CHURCH STILL DEAD 1909

     Morning Light for November 6th, exults editorially in the discovery of what is regarded as proof conclusive that the Old Christian Church is no longer "dead," doctrinally, as it used to be in Swedenborg's days. Our contemporary is aware of the existence of "two schools of thought" in the New Church. "One of these believes that orthodox churches are 'dead' churches, in which falsity and error will continue to increase. The other believes that the New Church will be established in nearly* all existing religious communities, and that truth will revivify and make new all the various sections of the Christian Church?"
     * Why "nearly?" Where is the exception?

     The "missing link" that has always been wanted to establish the "Evolution" of the Old Church, as taught by the second "school of thought," has now been found in a recent issue of the English Church Manual, this issue being entitled One God or Three and written by the Rev. Dawson Walker, D. D., theological tutor at the Durham University.

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"To our surprise and delight," says the Morning Light, "we found it in almost complete accord with New Church Doctrine. It teaches the unity of God, the absolute divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ, and it traces the progress and development of the doctrines of the Trinity."

     To judge from the passages quoted from this work, it would seem that our contemporary is rejoicing somewhat prematurely. Dr. Walker, indeed, upholds the Divinity of Christ, but only in the manner of all "orthodox" thinkers. Like many other theologians from the Council of Nice down to the present time, he denies the existence of three Divine individuals, and he enters into the etymology of the Greek term "hypostasis," and the Latin term "persona," in order to show that these expressions originally meant something different from the idea now conveyed by the term "person." "The Greek theologians would never have dreamed of saying that there are three 'persons' in the Godhead in the sense in which we employ 'person' to mean three separate self-conscious individuals. And there is no doubt whatever that if we speak of three 'persons' in the Trinity, in the sense of three 'individuals,' we are open to the charge of believing in three Gods. We have gone beyond the teaching of the New Testament, and we have departed a long way from the teaching of the Greek theologians who formulated the doctrine of the Trinity."

     As a "correction" the author suggests that "the three persons are neither three gods, nor three parts of God. Rather they are God Three-foldly, God Tri-personally. . . The personal distinction in the God-head is a distinction within, and of, unity not a distinction which qualifies unity, or usurps the place of it, or destroys it."

     Such, then, is the new Theology which the Morning Light thinks "might have been written by a Newchurchman." And, quite overcome with permeation-joy, the editor asks: "Are we to regard such teaching as the outcome of a Dead Church? Or shall we not rejoice that the true doctrine of the Divinity of the Lord is finding increasing acceptance in the world?"

     The "true doctrine," indeed! Does the true Doctrine of the New Jerusalem confine itself to the mere negation of three Gods?

738

There is not a minister or member of the Old Church who would not say and insist that the three Persons do not mean three individual Gods. Is the idea of "God Tri-personally" any "correction" of the idea of God in three persons? Does the true doctrine retain either the idea or the term of "persons" in the Godhead? Dr. Walker is simply trying to infuse a new but undefined meaning into a term that is entirely unbiblical, irrational, and utterly to be rejected in its application to the Godhead.

The old doctrines are undoubtedly breaking down, but neither Dr. Walker nor anyone else in the Old Church is introducing the true doctrine in its place. He offers no explanation of what is meant by Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and the perception of the fulness of the Godhead in the One Person of Jesus Christ is noticeably absent from his conception. His attempt to prop up the rotten structure of the Old Theology by new explanations, is as ineffective as the attempt of Morning Light and its "school of thought" to prove that the Old and Dead Church is the New and Living Church.

Dr. Walker is quite incorrect, historically, in his effort to excuse "the Greek theologians who formulated the doctrine of the Trinity." The Writings of the New Church tell us that Athanasius himself "believed the three names to be three gods, but one as to essence," (A. E. 343), and history shows that by "hypostasis" and "persona" the ancients meant an actual individual, a distinct being and character. Both "hypostasis" and "persona" are taken from the terminology of the ancient theaters, where all the actors appeared in masks. "Hypostasis" meant the individual actor subsisting or "standing under" the mask, (hypo = under, or behind; stasis = standing). And "persona" was the Latin term for the mask itself, "through" (per) which the voice of the actor "sounded" (sona). Both terms meant actual individuals,--"hypostasis," the person of the actor himself; and "persona," the individual character represented by the painted mask. The theologians of the Council of Nice were perfectly well aware of this meaning when they concocted their creed, separating the Godhead into three hypostases or persons, and dividing the Lord into two distinct natures, united in one hypostasis or person.

739

There are, indeed, two very different "schools of thought" in the visible New Church,--one which accepts in simplicity all that the Lord in His Second Coming has revealed concerning the past, present, and future state of the Dead Church; and the other school which ignores or rejects the Divine teaching, constantly looking for the risen Lord in the tomb which He has left. "Why seek ye the living among the dead?"
FUTURE FATE OF IDIOTS AND THE INSANE 1909

FUTURE FATE OF IDIOTS AND THE INSANE 1909

     A correspondent asks us for our view as to the ultimate fate of the persons mentioned in the following portion of Divine Providence, no. 98:

     "Liberty itself and rationality itself cannot be given to those that are born foolish, or to those who have become foolish, so long as they remain so. They cannot be given to those born stupid and gross, or to any that have become so from the torpor of idleness, or from any disease that has perverted or wholly closed the interiors of the mind, or from the love of a beastly life"

     The passage from which the above is taken opens with the teaching "that every man has the faculty of willing which is called Liberty, and the faculty of understanding which is called Rationality; these faculties are as it were implanted in man, for in them is the human itself." The passage then goes on to enumerate those with whom "Liberty itself and Rationality itself cannot be given." It will be noted that the words last quoted do not say that the faculty of liberty and the faculty of rationality cannot be given such persons. If this were the case it would be in direct contradiction the preceding part of the passages, and indeed of the doctrine of this whole chapter; for it would mean that some men are born without that in which "the human itself" resides.

     The statement is not that there are some who have not these faculties, but that there are some who have not "liberty itself and rationality itself," that is to say, who have not the exercise of these inalienable faculties. The faculties themselves are perpetual gifts to every man, be he angel or devil; they are inherent in the human soul and can never be destroyed or even weakened.

740

But they do not become Liberty and Rationality with a man except so far as he uses them, and by their means acquires to him-self vessels in the mind for their more perfect reception. It is comparatively like a seed of the vegetable kingdom. The acorn, for instance, has the faculty of becoming an oak; but the oak itself does not exist except by the provision of earth and sunshine.

     In general two classes of men are described as comprising those with whom "Liberty itself and Rationality itself cannot be given." First: Those who are "foolish" from birth or disease; and Second: Those who have become foolish from life. Of the latter class are those who have abused their human faculties by a beastly life, or by utter idleness; such men have no liberty and rationality, as is apparent even from external observation of their merely animal existence. To this class belong also Christians who have confirmed themselves in the denial of the Lord and of the Word, and in the ascription of all things to nature; but in their cases there may be an appearance of liberty and rationality, provided they live according to the laws of civil and moral order.

     It is the former class whom our correspondent has especially in mind, namely, those "who are born foolish," those "who have become foolish," and those who have become "stupid and gross from any disease that has perverted or wholly closed the interiors of the mind." The word here translated "disease" is misleading. The Latin is aegritudo, which signifies, more particularly, disorders of the mind and not diseases of the body,--such disorders, namely, as insanity, frenzy, intense morbidity, fantasies, etc.; and, in the present case, reference is made to those mental diseases only which pervert or close the interiors of the mind, i. e., which so pervert the inner vessels of the cerebrum that they are unable to serve as means whereby the faculties of the soul can be manifested.

     Such diseases, like stupidity and foolishness, by which is meant idiocy, are sometimes congenital, sometimes accidental, and sometimes induced by evils of the will. We are concerned here, however, only with those cases where no responsibility attaches to the sufferer. Such is especially the case in congenital "foolishness" or "stupidity," i. e., idiocy. When, therefore, we see the state of those who are born foolish, we can therefrom understand the state of those who have become foolish from causes for which their will is not responsible.

741

     In congenital idiocy, the idiot possesses the faculties of liberty and rationality equally with other human beings; but owing to some disorder of the brain he cannot exercise these faculties so as to acquire for himself "liberty itself and rationality itself." He is internally human, but externally the essential human does not appear and he is so far like an animal. It is clear that in this state he can form for himself no mind, no will and understanding,--either good or evil; and, as a consequence, that nothing can be imputed or appropriated to him. His state as to the mind is therefore like that of an infant who has not as yet had the opportunity of exercising the human faculties. His idiocy belongs to the body and not to the mind, and when he lays off the body by death, the mind then appears with all its faculties, as yet undeveloped but capable of development as he is instructed. In the other world he is just like an infant, except that while the infant entirely lacks the plane of memory, the idiot, according to his age and the degree of his disease, has more or less of memory, and also more or less of an external mind, with its desires and longings, and these must influence the nature of his future instruction.

     With death, the idiot and the insane, soon leave their externals and then they cast off their insanity and come into the state of the Spirit in which there is no insanity. But evil men when they die cast off the sanity of their body, and enter into the insanity which they have cultivated in their spirit. In a letter to Dr. Beyer Swedenborg gives some specific instruction on this point:

     "As there are no natural diseases among spirits in the spiritual world, so neither are there any hospitals. But instead of these there are spiritual madhouses, in some of which are those who theoretically denied God, and in others such as denied Him actually. Those who, in the world, were idiots, on their arrival in the other world are likewise foolish and idiotic; but when their externals are removed and their internals are opened, as is the case with all, then they are endowed with an understanding in accordance with their genius and their previous life. For real madness and insanity reside in the external or natural and are not in the internal or spiritual man." (2 Documents 279.)

742

ORPHANAGE FUND 1909

ORPHANAGE FUND WALTER C. CHILDS 1909

     We would call the especial attention of our readers to the following communication from the Treasurer of the Orphanage Fund. EDITORS.

To the Members of the General Church.

     Dear Friends:--It has become necessary, in order to carry on the uses that should be provided for out of the Orphanage Fund, to ask that the fund receive more support from our members. As matters now stand, the fund is just about sufficient to fulfill such obligations as have been undertaken, but it is very desirable that additional money be provided in order to enable us to support an orphan boy, Franklin Nahrgang, nine years of age, whose father and mother were earnest members of the General Church. It was the earnest wish of Mr. Nahrgang at the time of his death, several years ago, as also the chief wish of his wife, who died last month, that their only child should be brought up by the Academy, and not be left to the care of Old Church relatives.

     I feel confident that a knowledge of the above facts by our members is all that is necessary to secure the required means. Contributions may be made to the Treasurer direct, and will receive prompt acknowledgment, or they may be given to the society treasurers of the various church centers.
     Sincerely and fraternally yours,
          WALTER C. CHILDS, Treasurer.
New York City, November 12, 1909.

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Church News 1909

Church News Various 1909

     FROM OUR CORRESPONDENTS.

     BRYN ATHYN, PA. The chief activities of the past month have centered about the Bishop, who returned in good health and invigorated spirits. Nearly all the other European Pilgrims have now returned, with interesting news of the Church in France, Belgium, and England. Mr. Pendleton remained with us little more than a week, before starting out again upon his western circuit, and a very busy week it was for him, presiding almost continually at all sorts of meetings, among these four important meetings of the General Council.

     Socially, the Hallowe'en festivities were the most notable. The Academy Schools held a beautiful "dress-up" party, while the older folks were entertained at Stuart Hall, and the children at Glenn Hall.

     The new school building is now under roof, and the new library building is shooting up With gratifying rapidity. The football team has been covering itself with laurels. Inside and outside the school-there is unceasing activity, and it looks as if the Academy had not yet been quite "stamped out."

     NEW YORK CITY. After what, for the last two or three years, has come to be the usual difficulties of finding a suitable place of worship, our society has at last secured what we hope will be a permanent place until something still better can be procured.

     We refer to our rooms in Carnegie Hall, n. 839 The location is excellent, the rooms are in a public building, and in one that is readily identified but, above all, they are better suited to our needs than any we have hitherto had.

     Our entrance into these rooms also marked a modest development of our work, in the form of a Sunday School. Owing to a misunderstanding only one pupil was present on the first Sunday, November 7th but our expectations were more than fulfilled on November 21, when eight children attended the school!

744

This branch of our work is in charge of the Misses Bellinger and Bostock, who are now pursuing a course of studies at Columbia University. Their experience and their devotion to the work of education is a gift to our small society which is greatly appreciated.

     "Small society." Well, it is still a small society, but it is not so small as it used to be. Thus far, this year, there has been a marked increase in attendance at worship,--an increase, it must be noted, that is but a continuation of the slow but nevertheless positive increase that has attended the society since its removal to New York City. Last year our average attendance was 17. For the three services held this year the attendance each time has been over 22.

     We make merely passing mention of the unique distinction of this society, namely, that it possesses or is the home of a paper all its own. The New York Circle is doubtless known to most of the readers of the Life, and, without any doubt, it is fully competent to voice its own virtues and its claims to a larger circulation. Those who wish to subscribe to this local paper, which hopes in time to develop into a paper for the younger generation of the Church, should send their names (and 35c.) to the editor, Mr. Anton Sellner, Jr., 338 Sixth Avenue, New York City. A.

     PITTSBURGH, PA. Of late this "little town" has been outdoing itself in general activities and gives promise of holding its own as a leading center. The coming year bids fair to be the most spirited we have seen for some time past. The Philosophy Club is going on with its work with an energy and vim which will make its influence felt before many moons. The Pittsburgh chapter of the Theta Alpha, though small, is not to be ignored. A meeting held lately gave evidence of constantly increasing activity. Notice should also be taken of the Sons of the Academy. Although there is as yet no actual organization of this body in the "Smoky City," we have their president and also a member of their executive committee among us. In view of this, is it necessary to say more?

     The first banquet of the season was held at the church on October 15th. The greater part of the evening was taken up with local reports. Then followed a discussion as to the proper age at which a child should enter school, and the consensus of opinion was that the children starting at an average age of seven derive more benefit than those who start at an earlier age.

745

A short time was then given to the discussion of Church Extension, but as the evening was well advanced little was said and the subject was deferred.

     The gayer part of the social life has not been thrust aside nor entirely neglected. A charming dance was held at the Bellefield Club on October 29th, which was both sprightly and original. The Rev. and Mrs. N. D. Pendleton acted as host and hostess. The evening afforded entertainment for both young and old, as dancing was not the only form of amusement. A very unique song and dance was executed by a finished quartet of our own "vocalists." A serio-comic shadowgraph provided laughter for all. All in all a merry crowd greeted the end of the evening with regret.

     The crowning event of the month came as a surprise party for the Rev. and Mrs. N. D. Pendleton, in honor of their tenth anniversary. It was a surprise in the true sense of the word. They received many beautiful and useful presents. The good fellowship which prevailed gave an air of warmth and geniality to the evening.

     During the past month we have had as our guests Mrs. Henry Stroh, Miss M. Hogan and Mr. John Pitcairn. B. P. O. E.

     TORONTO, ONT. Although the Olivet Church of Toronto has not been heard from for some time, the work is actively progressing, with all the regular services, classes and school well attended.

     The most important event of the year with us was the Ministers' Meetings held here in June.

     We found them very beneficial, both from the instruction we received at the open meetings and from the presence of the ministers of the Church in our homes. We also felt that being able to have the meetings here marked a stage of progress in the history of our society.

     After the meetings Mr. Synnestvedt held a Teachers' Institute, which brought the teachers, who were present, in touch with the work done in Bryn Athyn.

746

     Last spring our pastor read us a paper showing that we ultimate our respect and reverence for the Lord and His Word in our church building, and especially in the repository where the Word rests; and that these should be in keeping with the necessities of worship as far as our means will allow. As a result, we obtained a new and more suitable repository which was opened for use in our services on Easter Sunday when Mr. Cronlund conducted a dedication service.

     Of social events the most interesting we have had for a long time was the "bachelors' supper" and social. We had not realized how many bachelors we had in our midst nor how capable they were until we found ourselves before the excellent supper they provided and which they served themselves. The social which followed was also very enjoyable; a remarkably cheerful sphere prevailed in spite of the "cheerless" conditions of our jovial hosts. Some of the speeches made in return for our vote of thanks hinted at the affair probably being repeated.

     During the summer a number of visitors from other New Church centers added very much to our social life.

     Mr. Cronlund has conducted two memorial services recently for two of our members, Miss Jane McColl and Mrs. Christopher Nahrgang, who have passed into the spiritual world. B. S.

     BERLIN, ONT. The new season of activity in the Carmel Church was opened on September 10th with an address by the pastor on The Promotion of the Use of the Salvation of Souls. It was shown that in all our church work this use must be uppermost and enter into all things. Unless it be active a church will decline, however promising its external life may seem to be. Earnest addresses were made by members of the society, and the spirit of the meeting was full of promise for the true life of the Church.

     The various classes and meetings have been resumed, namely, The Young People's Class on Tuesday evening, at which The Last Judgment and Cosmology are alternately considered; the Friday Supper and Class, at which the doctrine of Influx is studied; the Ladies' Meeting and the Men's Meeting, each once a month, at which some subject is considered in the light of the doctrines, and the monthly Social.

747

     On Sunday, October 24th, a Thanksgiving service was held, at which also took place the baptism of the infant of Dr. and Mrs. Robert Schnarr; and on the day following the Canadian Thanksgiving Day, a delightful social was held, to the success of which the beautiful decorations appropriate to the occasion no doubt largely contributed. In the course of the evening there were addresses on Thanksgiving.

     The first school party was held on the third of November, and took the form of an outing to the farm of Mr. and Mrs. Albert Doering. W.

     THE MISSIONARY FIELD. On my return eastward from Chicago, a visit was made with Mr. and Mrs. John D. Fogle, in Bourbon, Ind. A meeting was held at their home on Sunday evening, October 3d. In February, 1901, Mr. and Mrs. Fogle were baptized by me, and they have shown an earnest appreciation of the doctrines of the Church ever since.

     The following Sunday, October 10th, I was with the Burger family, near Gallon, O. Services were held in the afternoon and a sermon given.

     It was my privilege to be with the people of the new General Church Circle recently formed by the Rev. W. L. Gladish in Columbus, O., on Sunday, October 17th, and to preach for them. This interesting and important new beginning of distinctive New Church worship is described in the October issue of the Life. That the work will prosper and grow, and in the course of years lead to good results, there is no reason to doubt. There were nine persons at our service, but no member of the Convention came.

     Several days were devoted to a visit with Mr. S. A. Powell and family at Given, Pike county, O., including Sunday, October 24th, when we had a service and the reading of a sermon. Visits are always much appreciated by the steadfast friends at Given.

     On the evening of October 26th, a meeting was held in the parlor of the Hotel Athens, the home of Mr. and Mrs. A. M. Lewis, Athens, O. About a dozen persons were present, among them Mr. John M. Hibbard, (a cousin of the late Rev. John Hibbard), and two sons. My paper on "The New Church and Modern Progress," was read, and in connection with the subject extempore remarks were made, explaining points of doctrine. The last Sunday in the month I was in Zanesville, O. Had pleasant visits and useful talks with the Loomis families; Mr. Lyman S. Loomis and wife and baby having returned to the city.

748

There is an affection for the distinctive New Church in the minds of the people, and it is to be hoped that the time may come when services can be held in Zanesville. I called on two other families.

     On Sunday, November 7th, a meeting was held at the home of Mrs. E. A. Pollock and daughter, in Wheeling, W. Va. The number present was smaller than formerly--only six; but a sermon was delivered, and the sacrament of the Lord's Supper was administered.

     On account of limitations of time and space, it is necessary to omit, in this report, mention of a dozen other places, where I was with good New Church friends, who made me welcome, as usual, and with whom I had many good and useful conversations concerning the doctrines and matters which are of great interest to every live member of the Lord's New Church in this remarkable period of its history.     J. E. BOWERS.

     FRANCE. Important developments have taken place within the New Church circle in Paris during the past summer, chief of these being the ordination of M. Fernand Hussenet, and the establishment of a society directly connected with the General Church of the New Jerusalem.

     For some years the little group of French "Academy folks" have been worshiping together with the congregation meeting at the New Church "Temple" in Rue Thouin, near the Pantheon, under the leadership of M. Hussenet, who was acting under an authorization obtained from Bishop Pendleton. Services were held every other Sunday afternoon, the morning hours being occupied for three years by a Lutheran congregation, which had leased the Temple from the proprietress, Madame Humann, and they were succeeded by a congregation of Free Catholics connected with the movement inaugurated long ago by Pere Hyacinth.

     The sphere of Old Church worship thus established in a New Church temple was always distasteful to the New Church congregation, and, finally, became intolerable. Services were suspended during the months of August and September, the congregation having come to the conclusion that the time had arrived for the establishment of a society that should be independent of Rue Thouin.

749

During the summer the members were cheered and strengthened by the presence in Paris of a number of Academy friends from Bryn Athyn. The visitors included Bishop Pendleton and his wife, Mr. Pitcairn, Mrs. Glenn, Mrs. Iungerich, Madame Vinet, and others--in all, fifteen persons.

At a meeting of the French members it was resolved to form a new organization, and, by a unanimous vote, a sub-committee was appointed to wait on Bishop Pendleton, requesting him to ordain M. Hussenet into the priesthood of the New Church. The request met with a favorable answer, and the ordination took place on October the 10th, in the apartments of Mrs. Iungerich. The Bishop read, in English, the ordination service of the new Liturgy of the General Church, which was repeated in French, sentence by sentence, by Mr. Louis Lucas, the vice-president of the little French society. Twenty-nine persons were present, among them some of the friends from Bryn Athyn. To the regret of all, Mr. Pitcairn was not able to be present, as he had already sailed for America. After the ceremony a social reunion was held, and toasts were proposed and honored, to the newly ordained pastor, (who responded eloquently); to the Bishop, "notre cher eveque et frere, Monsieur Pendleton;" to Mr. Pitcairn; "Our friends in America: may we walk with them hand in hand!" and to the youngest friend present,--a baby one year old. The ordination ceremony, as well as the social gathering, made a profound impression upon all who were present, French and Americans, and there is now a hope that the New Church in France, after a century of unexampled vicissitudes, has at last entered upon an era of free and orderly development. Services are held, for the present, at the homes of the various members, but active efforts are being made to secure a suitable place of worship.

Since the return of Bishop Pendleton to America, six members of the Paris society have been received, by personal application, as members of the General Church of the New Jerusalem. These are, the Rev. Fernand Hussenet and his wife, Stephanie; M. G. Routier, M. R. Flon, M. Louis Lucas, and his wife, Berthe. Two of the younger children of M. and Mme. Hussenet accompanied Mrs. Iungerich to Bryn Athyn, and are now pursuing their studies in the schools of the Academy.

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     FROM OUR CONTEMPORARIES.

     UNITED STATES. The 29th annual session of the MICHIGAN ASSOCIATION was held in Detroit on October 2d and 3d. This association consists of two active societies, Detroit and Almont, (the latter having no resident pastor), and one society, "The Gorand Rapids New Church Association," which is practically defunct; but the trustees have some invested funds the proceeds of which are contributed to the support of the societies at Detroit and Almont. This year a contribution was reported sufficient "to place the Almont people on their feet and to take another $500 off the debt of the Detroit society" besides assisting in the running expenses of the latter.

     The meeting of the association does not appear to have transacted any business,--apart from routine matters--except the passing of "a resolution approving and endorsing" the Declaration of the General Convention.

     The report in the New Church Messenger gives no particulars as to the adoption of this resolution, but we learn from a private source that a protest against it was made by Mr. Henry Wunsch, the treasurer of the association, and that it was vigorously defended by Mr. Thayer, the vice-president, and, of course, by Mr. Seward.

     The 57th annual meeting of the OHIO ASSOCIATION was held in Cleveland, O., two weeks later, October 15th-17th. The meetings were devoted largely to the reading of reports, and to missionary addresses, the latter including an address by the Rev. S. S. Seward, who attended the sessions as a visitor.

     Pursuant to the recommendation of the General Council of the Convention an effort was made to have the Declaration brought before the association for adoption, but the effort met with opposition in the executive committee, and so did not come before the general body.

     The 69th annual meeting of the ILLINOIS ASSOCIATION was held in St. Louis, Mo., October 22d-24th, and was attended by the president of the General Convention, the Rev. S. S. Seward.

     After the reading of reports and the transaction of minor business, a communication from the secretary of the General Convention, Mr. C. A. E. Spamer, was taken up.

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In this communication attention was called to the recommendation by the General Council, that the Convention's Declaration "be adopted also by the several associations and societies of the Church."

     The "Declaration" was then read, and Mr. L. B. Bishop, seconded by Col. Rudolph Williams, moved its adoption "as the Declaration of this Association." Mr. Schreck made "an earnest plea" against the motion.

     At the conclusion of Mr. Schreck's protest, Mr. John Dabney, seconded by Mr. R. O. Barber, "moved that action on the subject be indefinitely postponed, it being argued that the matter was not understood."

     The motion to postpone "was discussed at some length and with earnestness," but before the chair could put it to vote, Mr. Copeland, seconded by the Rev. Mr. Stockwell, moved the previous question. This was carried by a two-thirds vote, and the Declaration was then adopted "by a large majority;" the actual vote, we are informed, was about 14 to 6.

     The Young Men's Club of the WASHINGTON, D. C., Society, opened its first meeting for the season with the reading and discussion of the chapter on the Vision and Hearing of Insects from Swedenborg's hitherto untranslated work on The Senses, which is now appearing in the New Philosophy.

     The Rev. Herbert C. Small, who recently resigned from the pastorate of the Brockton, (Mass.), Society, has become the missionary pastor of the Ohio Association with headquarters at INDIANAPOLIS. He succeeds the Rev. J. R. Hunter, now the pastor of the society at Lakewood, O.

     The Rev. Robert S. Fischer has been called to the pastorate of the LOUISVILLE, KY., Society.

     The Rev. F. A. Gustafson, of Denver, Col., has accepted a call to the pastorate of the LA FORTE, Ind., Society, recently vacated by the Rev. E. D. Daniels.

     CANADA. The annual meeting of the CANADA ASSOCIATION of the General Convention was held at Berlin, Ont., October 1st-3d. The Rev. E. D. Daniels, the new pastor of the Berlin Society, was elected president and the Rev. Percy Billings vice-president and corresponding secretary. Among the visitors were Mr. Paul Seymour, headmaster of Urbana University, who addressed the meeting on the work being done in Urbana.

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     MEXICO. The president of the New Church Esperanto Society, formed at Brockton last June, reports having established communication with an isolated receiver in Mexico, "a well educated Spaniard, a doctor by profession, and one enthusiastic in his love of the Heavenly Doctrine, and well versed in Esperanto."

     GREAT BRITAIN. Among the most recent of the ministerial changes here we note the removal of Mr. F. A. Schmidt from the society at Edinburgh to that at Middleton, Manchester. This brings the Edinburgh Society back to its chronic state of being without a minister; it will however continue to be under the general charge of the Rev. Mr. Thornton, of Glasgow.

     MAURITIUS. The Rev. G. J. Fercken, pastor of the New Church Society in Mauritius, presents in the Monatbletter a brief report of his activity during the two and a half years since his arrival in the island. During this time he has baptized fifteen persons,--seven children and eight adults. Seventeen new members have been received. "Our membership has not increased greatly in Mauritius, possibly because the majority of the Christian portion of our population belongs to the Roman Catholic Church. But the most essential thing at the present time is not the gaining of proselytes, but the strengthening of the things that already exist but which were on the point of dying out; to bring the scattered members together again, and keep them together; to instruct the youth and thus raise up a generation which shall have a strong foundation of knowledge and faith, and the strength to live the higher life of the coming age."