SWEDENBORG DOCUMENTS       SIGRID CYRIEL ODHNER       1927


NEW CHURCH LIFE
VOL. XLVII JANUARY, 1927          No. 1
     AN ACCOUNT OF MY WORK IN SWEDEN, FROM AUGUST, 1925, TO AUGUST, 1926.

     (The reader may consult the following articles by Miss Odhner which have appeared in New Church Life in recent years: "What are the New Documents?" (1924, p. 400) and "Where are the Swedenborg Documents?" (1915, p. 81)-EDITOR.)

     In summing up the results of my year's work on the Swedenborg Documents, it is necessary to keep in mind the purposes for which I was sent to Sweden. These were: First, to secure the original text of all those documents by and concerning Swedenborg of which the Academy did not Possess a copy, to the number of about 564 items (1907 pages); second, to look up and identify the numerous references to documents of which we possessed no certain knowledge; third, to take care of any new documents that might possibly turn up; and fourth, to secure books in which original texts are published.

     It was decided that I submit the material obtained in three typewritten sets, together with needed comments, in the form of monthly reports to the Rev. Alfred Acton, Chairman of the Document Committee, these being my actual, technical record of the work. I shall now go over some of the ground in detail to see what has been accomplished, dwelling a little on the more striking features, and afterwards examining what further steps are needed to fulfill the original purpose.

     It is a pleasure to relate that, thanks to the facilities extended to me by the Swedish librarians everywhere, we have secured between three and four thousand pages of manuscript, instead of the nineteen hundred pages of our original rough calculation. And much material bearing upon Swedenborg's life, hitherto unknown or inaccessible to us, has thus been added.

     I very much desire to avoid exaggerating the value of the new documents. They are not of a nature materially to alter our ideas of Swedenborg's life, but, to quote an early New Churchman, "What is not of value, when it comes to this wonderful man?" Often the question of where to draw the line is most difficult. Had time allowed, I would have been able to go much farther, and work under much less pressure. As it was, I should have had to return with my errand largely unfulfilled, had it not been for the solution of the photostating process by which 732 pages were added. For it is impossible to hurry in the matter of transcriptions whose value depends so largely upon absolute reliability.

     The only approach to systematic search was in the work on the Minutes of the College of Mines, some sixty volumes folio, which were gone through page by page for every reference they might contain to Swedenborg, who was a member of the College for over thirty years, that is, from his twenty-eighth to his fifty-ninth year, thus the greater part of his active life. Dr. R. L. Tafel, fifty years ago, secured from the roll-call a record of Swedenborg's daily attendance, but took no notice of the business transacted, nor Swedenborg's participation in it. In order to make this intelligible; I found it necessary to give, at the beginning of each discussion, some account of the case before the court-most frequently technical mining legislation-and enough introductory matter to give meaning to Swedenborg's statements, and finally the conclusion or decision arrived at. You may judge of the extent of the material by the fact that the typed extracts cover some 720 pages folio. This was my principal afternoon work for six months, and the only systematic investigation of new material. It is hard to say now what interest or definite importance these extracts will have for the public. The surprise, to my own mind, lay in the realization that Swedenborg's primary use in this world was in connection with law and justice. If it is true that man's natural use is what prepares him for his spiritual use, as well as being the means of his regeneration, then we may study in these records a unique and undoubtedly important phase of his development.

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When taken in their chronological order, the records will probably be found to shed light upon obscure passages in Swedenborg's learned letters. More than one, I think, shows up the admirable qualities of his personal character, and enlarges our knowledge of his range of interests.

     On several occasions we find Swedenborg on the Minutes as "referent"-(a member of a court of justice whose business it is to lay cases before the court). One of these cases came up first on May 15, 1741, when the fiscal advocate demanded that one of the clerks, Canslisten Duseen, be locked up in prison to prevent him from carrying out certain threats against the life of Assessor Porath. Swedenborg advised that they proceed with caution, as his trouble arose from mental anxiety, and that unless they were careful, his condition might become worse. Swedenborg had been appointed "referent" on the case, which is interesting as showing his human side,-his pity for the poor fellow, a victim of weakmindedness and intoxication, whom the majority were willing to condemn on short notice. It shows, also, I think, his skill as a lawyer. Some of it has an almost humorous effect, as when Swedenborg asks the College to find "whether Duseen's weakmindedness is caused by his intoxication, or his intoxication by his weakness of mind." It is curious to find Swedenborg actually engaged upon a practical pathological problem for which nowadays a psychiatric expert would be called in, and especially in view of the fact that at the very time (1741) he was studying the diseases of the fibre.

     On October 9th of the same year, Swedenborg is marked on the roll as "absent on account of removing," thus fixing perhaps the date of his taking up residence in his new house on Hornsgatan, (although the deed to the property is dated 1743)

     One of the later entries, April 29, 1747, shows Swedenborg proposing measures for government finance reforms thirteen years earlier than his well-known memorials to the Diet on that subject. It is one of the later occurrences of his name in the discussions of the College, and one of the most interesting. There was read an extract from the Treasury Deputation concerning the difficulties of meeting the financial requirements of the coming year, asking each of the members for suggestions as to how the deficit might be met.

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In his reply, Swedenborg declared that the two chief causes of the financial depression were the extremely unfavorable course of foreign exchange and the ruinous distillation of brandy.

     II.

     One of the particular commissions with which I was charged was to obtain certain original documents belonging to the Academy of the New Church which had been borrowed by Mr. A. H. Stroh in 1914. I regret to report that, in spite of a diligent search, no trace of these manuscripts was found. However, in Upsala University Library, I was shown a wooden box containing a great many important texts borrowed by Mr. Stroh from various institutions and for safekeeping deposited there by Mrs. Stroh after his death. I arranged the various collections of papers in bundles; practically every document was identified; and such as were necessary to complete our collections were transcribed. A great many numbers were the property of the Swedenborg Society of London, and through Dr. Grape, the head of the Manuscript Department of the University, steps were taken to have them returned to their original owners. Here were the "Tafel Transcripts," referred to by the Rev. J. G. Dufty in his article in the NEW-CHURCH MAGAZINE, January, 1924. It was also evident to me that the Rev. James Hyde had arranged into order all the new documents on which he could lay his hands, with the intention of publishing a supplementary volume to the Documents. Among other things, here was one of the important Nordenskiold copies of the Coronis. The only hew document which I came across at Upsala was a letter from Librarian C. G. Giorwell to Dr. J. H. Liden, dated Gothenburg, December 26, 1769, which states that "Swedenborg is here, setting fire to the Swedish Zion," etc.

     At the Academy of Sciences it was necessary to transcribe by hand the twenty-one needed documents, as there were no facilities there for the use of a typewriter. A few of Swedenborg's autographs and papers were ordered photostated. To ascertain what was lacking to complete the much discussed Codex 52, which contains some of the theological correspondence, it was necessary to examine and compare two boxes of photographic plates and films at the firm of Lagrelius and Westphal, left there from the time of Mr. Stroh's work, with the final result that I was at last able to assemble the few texts needed to complete our reproductions of this entire Codex.

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     In the museum department, I was shown two objects of interest,-Swedenborg's fossil whale, and his fossil tree-trunk. It is said that the Swedish Government owns the finest whale museum in the world. It was necessary to ascend into the garret for a glimpse of "Balaenae Swedenborgii," a huge heap of vertebrae awaiting reconstruction, only partially unpacked since its arrival from Upsala University. In the paleobotanical department is Swedenborg's fossil tree-trunk. The superintendent gave me a copy of the latest work on the subject, in which it is shown that the first classification was incorrect, owing to the mistake of a German scientist in identifying the species of wood.

     Some 300 pages of text were secured from the Royal Library of Stockholm, including various photostats. Only one new document containing a reference to Swedenborg's life was found,-a letter from Jesper Swedberg to Jacob Benzelius, dated February 2, 1720,- but a great many bearing on early New Church history, and first translations of the Writings, some apparently contemporary with Swedenborg, and a letter on doctrinal subjects from Dr. Beyer. There was also a new letter by Chr. Johansen, giving Ferelius' testimony concerning Swedenborg's last hours, speaking of his complaining to a friend of "meeting a cruel opposition in all his undertakings."

     A great number of references to Swedish and other books yielded some interesting articles, old and new, and led to the securing of a great many additions to our library shelves. The subject of new books and articles written during recent years is too large to take up at this time.

     A rather curious contemporary reference to Swedenborgianism was found in a novel written in 1769. It is one of the earliest and most popular, holding about the same position in Swedish literature that Robinson Crusoe holds in English. The title is: "My son upon the Galley, or an East Indian Journey, containing all kinds of inkbottle junk, collected on the ship Finland, which sailed from Gothenburg in December, 1769, and returned to the same port in June, 1771." The opening paragraph of Chapter I reads: "At the time when Swedenborgian spirits were revealing themselves in printed Protocols in Gothenburg; at the time when the dirt is thickest upon the streets of Stockholm, and when Women rattle the loudest in their Kitchens and Pantries; in a word:

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In the golden Sausage-time of the year 1769, I, who now am writing, received an order to present myself upon the Swedish East Indian Company's ship 'Finland,' which then lay ready to sail for Canton under the command of Captain C. G. Ekeberg."

     On my list were four items, connected with the history of Swedenborg's manuscripts, required from the archives of the Nordenskiold family, at Helsingfors, Finland. By a fortunate chance, the collections in question have now been brought to Sweden, and I was able to secure their deposit on loan at the Royal Library from Dr. Erik Nordenskiold, the present possessor. I found three of the items needed; but the Swedish translation of the Coronis, examined by Mr. Stroh in 1913, was not among them. Various of these documents were photostated, among them an interesting letter from Dr. Beyer to Nordenskiold concerning the nature of Swedenborg's revelations. In answer to a question on this point, he says: "Concerning Scripture from the Lord and from man, let me say, in general, that no Scripture is immediately Divine, except those books listed in Nova Hierosolyma and De Equo Albo. The writings of the Apostles and Paul are mediately Divine. The old gentleman says in a letter about them [here Dr. Beyer quotes Document No. 224]. . . . This [internal] Sense is the Word Itself, and the Holy in the Word: This has been dictated from Heaven to the Assessor, just as was the Word in the Letter to the Apostles, and, therefore, it produces immediate communication with Heaven. A new Divine Word, it is not, but a Revelation of the Word we have had, which is the crown of all Heavenly Revelations."

     In the possession of Dr. Erik Nordenskiold is also the seal of the first society of readers of Swedenborg's Writing; in the world,-the Exegetic Philanthropic Society. Another interesting relic was shown me by Mr. Olof Nordenskiold, who owns a badge said to have been that of the second society, called "Pro Fide et Charitate." The emblem represents two clasped hands.

     From the almost inexhaustible source of the State Archives, about 400 Pages of manuscript were copied and 159 pages were photostated, many of them being in Swedenborg's handwriting. Of the former group, 321 pages consisted of the Royal Council's Reports on the Gothenburg controversy. These, as they are the "repudiation and condemnation" of the Heavenly Doctrines by the official representatives of the secular and ecclesiastical powers of the Old Church, would, I should think, bear a somewhat analogous relation to the treatment of our Lord in His Second Coming to what the trial of Christ before the High Priest and Pilate held to His First.

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     I examined without practical results a great many ambassadorial papers, finding only among the papers of Baron Nolcken, Swedish Ambassador to England, a brief reference to Swedenborg's death, which he reports to the King as a matter of national importance.

     III.

     Among the things which lack of time prevented my securing were the numerous early reviews of the Writings in foreign periodicals, a subject which has hitherto commanded very little attention on the part of New Church scholars, but which may be looked upon with great interest at some future time. As these were often very long, I had to be content with getting the first page of a number of them, and the promise of future copies from one of the library assistants, should the Academy desire to order them.

     As an illustration of how necessary it is to collect scattered documents, I may note the case of the "Kempe letters." Mr. Stroh had come into the possession of incomplete texts of four letters by Swedenborg, the originals of which were owned by one Consul Kempe of Stockholm, long since deceased. After some effort on the part of Archivist Waern of the State Archives, it was found that the letters had been inherited by the Consul's daughter, Mrs. Hwass, who kindly allowed me to have them photographed for the Academy. Instead of four, there proved to be six!

     Another example of the way in which manuscripts change hands was the case of the documents relating to Swedenborg's lawsuit with his aunt, some of which were preserved in the Royal Library. These had been sent back to the archives of Swea Court of Appeals, where an examination brought to light a hitherto unnoticed bundle containing a great many new memorials by Swedenborg, photographs of which were taken, and are now in the possession of the Academy. It is desirable, also, that we secure the hundred or so pages of other memorials and discussion on the same case.

     In a former article I referred to Swedenborg's memorials on repairing and arranging certain mechanical models of Christopher Polhem for the museum of the College of Mines.

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There has been a question as to whether any of them are still in existence. I was agreeably surprised, therefore, to read last autumn of an exhibit of material relating to the history of mechanical science in Sweden, where these very models were on view. I learned that a still more complete collection is preserved in the Copper Mining Museum of Fahlun.

     During the first week of January I made a brief visit to Dalecarlia, stopping at the mining town of Fahlun, where I was shown through the extensive and most beautifully arranged museum by Dr. Alwar Snov, the energetic director. The records of the Copper Office have only recently been opened for the use of investigators, and a short examination brought to light twenty-six documents more or less directly associated with Swedenborg, many of them being duplicate
reports and discussions of the many commissions carried out by Swedenborg and one or two associates during the years 1725, 1726, 1729, 1730, 1731, 1735, an 1737. One was a draft letter to Swedenborg by Samuel Troilius, dated 1742, thanking him for assisting in the clearing of his bankrupt relative, Peter Swedberg, the bookkeeper.

     On my way back to Stockholm I made a detour to Stjernsund, a tiny, forgotten town hidden away in deep pine forests. It was founded by the great inventor, Polhem, for the development of the mechanical arts. Here I was shown the "Polhem house," still standing, where the energetic housewife not only raised two attractive daughters, but also bearded the students, among them young Swedenborg. Entertained by the Baroness de Geer, wife of the present owner of Stjernsund Manor, I inspected the famous relies, "Emerentia's Crutches," around which superstition has woven a strange spell.

     During the last week of my stay in Stockholm, F. G. Lindh, Esq., whose work on document collection and publication in NYA KYRKANS TIDNING is deserving of a wider notice, very kindly showed me over one hundred new documents which he has collected, most of them of a legal nature, relating to Swedenborg's property and ancestry. Lack of time prevented more than the malting of a brief list of them, from which I select a few of the more interesting:

     1. Mr. Lindh has discovered a new genealogy of Swedenborg, by which it appears that the one given in the Tafel Documents is wrong in deriving his ancestry from Isaac of Fremsbacka instead of Otto of Sundborn.

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     2. Documents relating to the house in Stockholm owned by Bishop Swedberg, and in which Swedenborg probably was born. Mr. Lindh has identified this house, and has promised me a photograph of it, though hardly any of the original walls are now standing.

     3. The marriage certificate of Jesper Swedberg and Sara Behm.

     4. The will of Sara Behm and the division of her estate.

     5. By going through all the account books of the College of Mines, Mr. Lindh has found many financial reports in Swedenborg's handwriting, some of them vouchers for his daily expenses when engaged on mining commissions.

     6. Copies of letters to Swedenborg from the Alstromers in London, and transactions concerned with the purchase of the first air pump introduced into Sweden from England through Swedenborg's agency, including a bill of lading for the instrument "shipped by the grace of God in good order, London, April 20, 1725."

     7. An official deed for Swedenborg's property in South Stockholm.

     8. Bankruptcy proceedings of Frederic Gyllenborg, Swedenborg being a creditor for 20,000 dalers, of which he received 10,000 dalers.

     9. A new letter by Swedenborg, dated August 2, 1724.

     10. Letters on the sale of Swedenborg's estate.
     
     IV.

     Towards spring, it became evident that all the new material could not be completed by the end of the year. However, it was thought that more would be gained by continuing along systematic lines than by trying to select the more important documents. The libraries south of Stockholm were visited on my way to Gothenburg, and all obtainable items secured in Linkoping, Skara, Jonkoping and Gothenburg. One hundred and forty-four pages of photostats were arranged for at Linkoping, comprising the Benzelius correspondence, and some fifty pages at Gothenburg, being material on the Beyer-Rosen Controversy.

     Before turning to the summing up of what remains to be done, I wish I could put into words my feeling of gratitude to Professor Acton for all the assistance he has given me during the past year, not only is the hundreds of pages of letters, which kept up a constant stream of encouragement and advice, but for the many pages of criticism and bibliographical comment which were a great aid towards the perfection of the work.

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In spite of the closest co-operation I have no doubt that a certain number of mistakes and duplications have occurred. But of invaluable assistance in this respect was the "List Of Depositories" which Mr. Acton sent me early in the fall, in which he grouped, under each of the archives, all the documents belonging together, with cross references to duplicates, a work for which Dr. Martin Lamm, at Present one of the foremost authorities on Swedenborg's life, expressed the greatest admiration when he saw it.

     To those not actually in touch with the undertaking, it would be impossible to explain how many complications and confusions encumber the work on the Swedenborg Documents. Thus the bibliographical phase,-the hardest, but least inspiring,-actually took up most of my time, involving the identification of texts and checking up of unlimited references. Although the work is not completed, owing to the abundance of material found, yet practically all of the texts on our original List have been obtained, and a great advance has been made. Another six months in Sweden would probably have enabled us to complete the task.

     It is hard for me to believe otherwise than that the will of Providence is intimately present in everything connected with so important an undertaking as the collection and preservation of all the testimony concerning Swedenborg-even with the delays and postponements incident to its carrying out. It may be that time and peculiar circumstances are required to bring to fruition the definite purpose of a work with which the entire New Church is concerned, namely, the publication of the collections. But I may be excused for voicing here the profound conviction that grows upon me that, when taken in chronological order, this mass of documentary material will have a powerful effect upon the study and understanding of Swedenborg's development.

     If a plan of co-operation could be devised for the publication of the original texts in both English and Swedish editions, a unique opportunity would present itself of gaining two distinct ends by a process of arrangement:

     1. A chronological arrangement of one edition would be of inestimable value to the biographical study.

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     2. An arrangement into topical groups, like those of Tafel's Documents, for the other edition, would divide the material logically and usefully under subject headings.

     But at this stage of the work it is of chief importance that the work be carried forward, and not allowed to lapse into its former quiescence while so much remains to be done before all the texts are collected.

     I take this opportunity to express my love and gratitude to the Academy for allowing me to assist in this work.
     SIGRID CYRIEL ODHNER.
          November 30, 1926.
TROUBLESOME THOUGHTS 1927

TROUBLESOME THOUGHTS              1927

     Spirits sometimes hold a man's reflection fixed upon certain objects of thought, as upon his own affairs, the future, etc., and thus create a troubled state of mind. As an example, Swedenborg states: "Whenever it has been granted me to think about my little garden, and about him who has charge of it; about my being called home; about money matters; about the state of mind of my acquaintances; about the persons who are in my house and their character; about the things which are to be written, as to how they will be received by men, and that they will not be understood; of the need of obtaining new garments; and many other such things;-when I have been kept long in such reflections, the spirits have at once injected uncomfortable, troublesome, and evil things, together with confirmations and cupidities. And I observed that when I had not been in thought about such things for months and years, I had no care about them, and still less did they introduce anything troublesome." (Spiritual Diary 3624)

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NEW SONG 1927

NEW SONG        W. F. PENDLETON       1927

     (On the Seventh Anniversary of the Dedication of the Cathedral.)

     "And they sung as it were a new song; . . . and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand bought from the earth." (Revelation 14:3.)

     The song was a new song. It had not been sung before, and it could not be sung now, except by those who stood with the Lamb upon mount Zion. And the number of those who stood with Him was one hundred and forty-four thousand bought from the earth. No others were able to sing that song. They were not able to learn it. Earlier in the Apocalypse the new song is sung by the four beasts and the four and twenty elders (Rev. 5:9); and later it is sung by "them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over the number of his name; (these were) standing on the sea of glass, having the harps of God." (Rev. 15:2, 3.) But the song is there called "the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb."

     In the text it is said that "they sung as it were anew song." The song was not really new, but it was as if it were new. It was a very old song,-the oldest song in the world,-but it had not been sung for a very long time, and men in the world had forgotten it. Hence it is called a "new song," when yet, in itself, it was not new. It was only as it were new.

     In the Psalms and Prophets, we are told of a time that would come when men would sing a new song; and from the Apocalypse we learn that the time had come. And since it is there called the "song of the Lamb," we know at once that it is a song of the Lord Jesus Christ,-a song glorifying Him as the God of heaven and earth, the Redeemer and Savior of the world.

     It was customary in the Ancient Church, long before the days of history, to sing songs and play on musical instruments in worship. The songs were all prophetic of the coming of the Lord.

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The Psalms of David were also such songs, as well as the songs in the Prophets and in the historical portions of the Word; such as the song of Deborah and Barak in the Book of Judges, and the song of the Sons of Israel on the banks of the Red Sea, where the song they sung was called the "Song of Moses." They were songs of gladness and thanksgiving, looking forward with hope and joy to the coming of the Lord into the world, and to the deliverance from the bondage of hell which He would then accomplish. The early Christian Church also had songs, which too were songs of rejoicing; but now they were songs of thanksgiving for the coming fulfilled and deliverance effected songs of glorification and redemption, sung to the risen Lord, because He had taken unto Himself His great power to reign forever in heaven and on earth. These were the "songs of the Lamb."

     The New Christian Church is also to have its songs of gladness and rejoicing, songs of confession, songs of glorification and deliverance. But in the New Church the song is called a "new song," because the first Christian Church had ceased to sing the song of the Lamb. It was sung by them at first, but they do not sing it now. In the Ancient Church, songs were sung to Jehovah, who was their God in a Human Form,-the Divine Human, the Divine Man, with them. These were called collectively the "song of Moses," which was essentially the same as the song of the Lamb. As a new song, the Jews refused to sing it. Christians sang the song of the Lamb, but they soon forgot to sing it, and instead sang songs to false gods. But the song of the Lamb is now to be sung again,-not new but as it were new; it has not been sung for a long time. "And they sung as it were a new song, before the throne, and before the four beasts, and the elders, and no one could learn that song but the hundred and forty-four thousand bought from the earth." The number who are able to sing that song is here restricted. We are told that only the hundred and forty-four thousand bought from the earth are able to learn that song and sing it. But we shall see that there are others also who can learn the new song.

     The chapter from which our text is taken opens with a wonderful picture. John says: "I looked, and, behold, a Lamb stood upon mount Zion, and with Him an hundred and forty-four thousand, having His Father's name written in their foreheads." We have heard of the hundred and forty-four thousand before.

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In the seventh chapter, John sees "another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God, and who cries with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea, saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads. And I heard the number of them that were sealed; and there were sealed an hundred and forty-four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel." Twelve thousand were sealed of every tribe; and here, in this seventh chapter, John says that, in addition to those who were sealed, "a great multitude which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and peoples, and tongues, who stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes and palms in their hands," were also singing "to our God which sitteth upon the throne and unto the Lamb." These also were singing the song of the Lamb, even though not included in the hundred and forty-four thousand sealed of all the tribes of Israel.

     Why is the number limited in the fourteenth chapter, but unlimited in the seventh? The spiritual sense only can tell us; for the light of the spiritual sense disperses the paradoxes of the letter. From this sense we learn that by the hundred and forty-four thousand in the fourteenth chapter are meant all those who are In the New Christian Heaven; and by the great multitude, mentioned in addition in the seventh chapter,-a multitude which no man could number, are meant all the rest not included in the New Christian Heaven; that is, all in gentile lands who did not know the Lord while they were in the world, but still who are in the life of charity, and worship God as a Man. These also can be saved by the Lord in His Second Coming, after the Last Judgment has been performed. "For the Lord's hand is not shortened, that He cannot save, nor His ear heavy, that He cannot hear. But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid His face from you, that He will not hear." (Isa. 59:1, 2.) And so man himself is in fault, if he is not saved.

     As has been shown, by the one hundred and forty-four thousand are meant those who are in the New Christian Heaven, including all Christians from the time of the Lord until the Last Judgment was performed,-all those who were able to receive the Lord in His Second Coming. These, we are told, occupied a special place in the Lord's kingdom,-a more interior position in the New Heaven,-by reason of the fact that the Lord was known to them while they were in the world, and who worshiped Him as the God of heaven and earth, never having lost faith in His Divinity, even in the midst of the thick darkness that overspread the Christian World.

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These constitute the internal of the New Heaven; and the great multitude, which no man could number, constitute the external of that heaven. All these sing the song of Moses and the Lamb. Or, to speak specifically, the gentiles, all children, and all the simple good who are in the external of the New Heaven, sing the song of Moses; and Christians in the internal of the New Heaven sing the song of the Lamb. But the text treats especially of the latter,-of those Christians who have been prepared for the New Christian Heaven by the worship of the Lord while on earth. Of these it is said that "they sung as it were a new song . . . and no man could learn that song but the one hundred and forty-four thousand bought from the earth."

     In order that these may qualify for the New Heaven, they must not only be enrolled among the number mentioned, but they must be "bought from the earth." In the next verse, it is said that they were "bought from among men." As has been shown, by the one hundred and forty-four thousand are meant all in the Christian Heaven who, while in the world, had acknowledged and worshiped the Lord Jesus Christ, and lived according to His commandments. But now they are said to be "bought from the earth," "bought from among men." The word "bought" means the same as the word "redeem," introducing the idea of a ransom by purchase of prisoners in the hands of an enemy. The spiritual idea of a purchase or ransom is that of a release or deliverance; that is, a redemption by the Lord of the good who were held in captivity by the evil. In this case, it is a deliverance or a redemption effected while man is still in the world, through the work of regeneration, which is the Lord's individual redemption. Every man who is regenerated by his life in the world is delivered, ransomed, redeemed by the Lord from the power of hell through the processes of regeneration. These are they who are said to be "bought from the earth," "bought from among men." These are they who are able to sing the new song,-the song in praise of the Lord God the Savior. Hence by the new song is meant all worship on earth, all praise and acknowledgment of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, as the only God of heaven and earth.

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In the supreme sense, the Lord Himself was the One who was "bought from the earth," "bought from among men," by the Divine work of glorification, by which He took unto Himself the power of redeeming from the earth all who love and worship Him alone.

     More than once in the Apocalypse mention is made of the song of Moses and the Lamb, and we have referred to the historical meaning of these words. But let us hear a word concerning their spiritual meaning. The song is one song,-the song of Moses and the Lamb-one song, but at the same time twofold; for by Moses is not meant the same as by the Lamb. The song of Moses is the praise and worship of the Lord God our Savior from the literal sense of the Word, and the song of the Lamb is the praise and worship of the same Lord God from the spiritual sense of the Word. In other words, the song of Moses is the praise and worship of the Lord in His First Coming, and the song of the Lamb is the praise and worship of the Lord in His Second Coming. For the Letter of the Word is the Lord in His First Coming, and the spiritual sense, now revealed, is the Lord in His Second Coming. But the song is one song; for the one Lord God speaks in both revelations. And to Him is sung the new song by angels in heaven, and by all good and true men on earth, wherever they may be, and by whatsoever name they may be called.

     Since the new song is to be sung, and must be sung for redemption and salvation, provision must be made for bringing into effect what is meant by the song, that men may know that the Lord God Jesus Christ is again in the world, seen, not by the natural eye, but by the spiritual eye. His presence, His Divinity, sole and absolute, must be proclaimed to the ends of the earth.

     The agencies for this Proclamation are many,-organization, the priesthood, preaching and public worship, printing and publishing the books of the new Revelation, and other modes of evangelization, that men may know that the Lord is here. This house in which we are assembled has been built and dedicated to be used as an agency for the singing of the new song, the song as it were new, but the oldest of all songs, which men had ceased to sing; but now to be sung again, the singing never to cease. And may the song be sung in this house for generations to come, as long as its stones shall last,-the song which angels sang, the song heard by the beloved disciple on the isle which is called Patmos.

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And may the Lord God grant unto us that no song in praise of a false god may ever make its entrance here! Amen.

     Lessons: EXODUS 15:1-22. Revelation 14. A. E. 857.
LOVE 1927

LOVE       PHILIP OYLER       1927

Love is gentle, love is kind,
Love sees all, ('tis we are blind);
Love is peaceful, love is calm,
Love is always pouring balm
     On our frequent mental trouble.

Love is soft, but love is strong,
Love soon senses any wrong;
Love is loyal, love is true,
Love can join me, dear, to you,
     Making single out of double.

Love forgives and love forgets,
Love keeps no account of debts;
Love is simple, love is wise,
Love has truth within its eyes,
     Where we all can feel or see it.

Love is humble, love is just,
Love says "do," but never " must,"
Love holds up the crown of life
To child, to youth, to man, to wife.
     So grant that we may have or be it.
PHILIP OYLER.

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ACADEMY'S CHARTER 1927

ACADEMY'S CHARTER       RANDOLPH W. CHILDS       1927

     (Speech at Charter Day Supper, November 5, 1926.)

     Almost fifty years ago there was signed a decree incorporating the Academy of the New Church. The event from a legal standpoint was without significance. It is not likely that any of the twelve founders was present in the court room when their attorney in a routine way answered the call of the motion calendar. Doubtless a weary clerk droned out the phrase, "Re Academy of the New Church," and the attorney for the incorporators stepped to the bar of the Court. The judge may have asked some perfunctory question as to whether the application for the charter had been advertised, and upon receiving an affirmative answer, and glancing over the charter, taken up his pen. The judge's face was expressionless as his pen moved over the paper. The lawyers, with their litigated causes, involving matters of money and of property, waited impatiently for this tedious bit of routine to be disposed of. What amazement would have seized the learned judge, the restive counsel and the listless tipstaves, had they known that this new charter was to have a greater influence upon the destinies of men than the Magna Charta which the English barons force a King John to sign at Runnymede!

     What clue, indeed, could these ministers of the law have had of any unusual significance in this passing episode save the name of the corporation, "'The Academy of the New Church," and the brief statement of the corporation's purpose: "The Academy of the New Church shall be for the purpose of propagating the Heavenly Doctrines of the New Jerusalem and establishing the New Church signified in the Apocalypse by the New Jerusalem, promoting Education in all its various forms, educating young men for the Ministry, publishing books, pamphlets and other printed matter, and establishing a Library."

     The name "New Church" could refer only to an insignificant ecclesiastical body having a widely scattered membership of less than ten thousand people.

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The man "Emanue1 Swedenborg" was known to few, and even to these he was only a Swedish mystic of the preceding century whose works had no popular appeal, and who was remembered only because of the encomiums of Ralph Waldo Emerson and a few other thinkers whose appraisal carried the weight of authority.

     The import of the granting of this charter obviously lay, not in the terms of the charter-comprehensive as was the statement of the corporate purpose-but in the vision which was ultimated in this charter. This vision had been glimpsed even in the days of Hindmarsh, and had become clearer with the passing years, until, on January 11th, 1874, four men had met and projected the Academy, and with eight other men had, on June 19, 1876, effected the organization of the Academy and resolved to apply for its incorporation. Thus did the doctrine of the "Divine Authority" find a foothold even in the world of civil affairs.

     The importance of the charter grant can be fully appreciated, however, not only by a consideration of the events preceding the grant, but also by giving weight to the events which followed the grant. Otherwise, the charter, like most charters of this world, would have passed into oblivion. This is no time to review the history of the early Academy, but much of that history will be found in the Words for the New Church and the volumes of New Church Life, which record the thoughts and deeds of that New Christian brotherhood which was the golden age of the Church, a golden age in which men's minds turned spontaneously to a study of the Heavenly Doctrines and their application to every least phase of life.

     That golden age has passed away, and even the memory of that age is dimmed. And yet in that age were implanted those hallowed remains which still deeply underlie our lives, like waters from the delectable mountains which, moving in underground channels, spring up in the far-off wilderness. These are days of achievement rather than of reflection, and such a period is necessary in the life of every church and of every man. And yet in these days of stirring deer's, of well-trained teachers, of better equipment, of splendid buildings, of a great cathedral, of efficient action, of well-functioning organization, of increased numbers, of comfortable living conditions, we may at times rest from our labors, and muse upon the blessed beginnings of the Academy.

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     For in that springtime of the Academy there is a parallel to the youth of each life passed within the halls and on the campus of the Academy. And each one of us can recall some incidents of those days, the expectancy with which we packed our clothes after the weary summer had passed, the impatience with which we sped past the telegraph posts, the thrill that seized us as we saw the red-roofed buildings across the autumn fields, the longing for the sight of old friends, the heartiness of the reunion, the excitement of the football field, the appetite for supper, the lively conversation, the first night when we whisperingly exchanged long deferred confidences, the clang of the rising bell, the tumultuous shower bath, the zest for breakfast, the laughter, the joy of meeting the teachers, the adventure of entering upon new courses, the quiet sphere of the chapel, the tremulous joy of putting on football togs and of trotting out on the field. With it all were friendships, so powerful that now, even in memory, they carry a certain pain; reveries and imaginations which touched the inmost purposes of human existence; and visions of the world of the spirit that deeply moved the heart. What, indeed, could be more natural than that the light of heaven should fall upon this Eden, and that we should accept its shining presence as a matter of course.

     The years which we have spent since we left the Academy Schools have not necessarily been empty years. We have had our work to do. We have failed in much; in some things we may have succeeded. But this much is plain,-that the vision which we had in our youth is dimmed. We have little leisure to dream. And yet we realize at times the power of those early states upon our mature lives. On such an occasion as this-the Jubilee of the organization of the Academy-we feel, stirring within us, the warmth of fires kindled long ago. Our faith in the mission of New Church education is renewed. For has New Church education any use more interior than to implant these remains in the mind of youth?

     We need to strengthen our confidence in the power of New Church education, because often we are depressed over appearances of indifference to the significance of this New Revelation, and of apathy towards the Writings. Such thought serves a use when applied to one's self, and also to the taking of measures in our schools and in our homes to counteract such influences. But in a larger sense we must realize that we cannot bind each rising generation to the manners and customs, or even to the interpretations, of the Academy fathers.

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Some of us are near enough to the lives of these Academy fathers to bear the impress of their thought, but we cannot transmit this impress from generation to generation. Our confidence is, not that our own ideas, or those of our fathers, will be perpetuated, but that each new generation will be trained in the clear light of the Writings, and, upon arriving at adult age, will make its own applications in the light of the Writings.

     Indeed, we may well inquire whether we are adequately performing our duty to make our own applications to the conditions of our day. The indictment which may be brought against this generation is, perhaps, not so much a lack of loyalty as a lack of originality. Lest this comment be deemed vague, let it be sharpened. It is not intended to intimate that our priests or educational leaders are neglectful of their duties. Laymen may not be capable of nice appraisement of the quality of the sermons and doctrinal classes of our day, but we are convinced that they are of a quality never before surpassed. Again, we are aware of the strides that have been made in our educational work. We behold an entire educational structure rising upon the old foundations. Our challenge is directed rather to the reaction of the membership of the Church to the teachings of our leaders. The state is hard to analyze, but some symptoms may be noted. We are perhaps too pacific, even although an earlier period may at times have been too militant. In ceasing to be heresy-hunters, have we become indifferent to important doctrinal distinctions? Ten years ago, the Church was agitated over a new view of the nature of the spiritual world. Every one had an opinion, pro and con, and discussed it at all times with all comers. Within recent years have been announced several theories-equally as new, and as comprehensive, and as challenging to accepted concepts-and yet the interest in and discussion of these theories have been negligible. Is it possible that we are too much absorbed in our problems of organization and ritual, of routine business, and extension work, and missionary work and the raising of funds, to be sensitive to the more interior development of New Church thought?

     Again, the Academy home was once a lyceum for the discussion of New Church topics, and no incident of home life was too trivial to be denied a spiritual significance. If such a state be considered too narrow to endure, and if our lives today are broadened by a wider outlook on life, is the outlook so broad that the main objective is lost sight of?

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If in the enthusiasm of a new movement and of a time of warfare, the Academy warriors sometimes diverted their energies from their vocations, are we finding in our vocations the spiritual opportunity they so amply afford? If so, why does the occasionally gentle, but always graceful, pen of the editor of the BULLETIN OF THE SONS OF THE ACADEMY invite "brief articles written by laymen, regarding the application of the Doctrines of the New Church to their own specific lay uses-a phase of 'higher education' not too well cultivated, and for which THE BULLETIN is especially designed"?

     The signs of the times do not, however, point wholly in one direction. There are encouraging conditions, such as the sustained enthusiasm for the support of New Church education, and the brotherly love, manifested in the little general assemblies of the Sons of the Academy. And again, if it be true, as Edmund Burke said, that "you cannot indict a nation," may it not also be said that you cannot indict a generation? Or perhaps you will say, with a philosopher, "All generalizations are false, including this one."

     Leaving the future in the Lord's hands, our duty is to work for the Academy's cause, and this duty is both external and internal. If we are indifferent to the external needs of the Academy, our support may be a matter of intellect rather than will. If we furnish the ultimate support, and yet ignore the higher uses of the Academy, our work will be dead. We shall not be true to the spirit of Charter Day, unless, with our mind and strength, we devote ourselves to carrying out the purpose set forth in the Charter. And if we so give of our strength, we shall serve the purposes of the Great Charter embodied in the Writings, the Charter derived from our Sovereign Lord, the Charter under which functions that New Church which is the "Crown of all the Churches which have hitherto been in the world."

23


SWEDENBORG-THE APOSTLE OF THE NEW CHURCH 1927

SWEDENBORG-THE APOSTLE OF THE NEW CHURCH       VICTOR COOPER       1927

     (At a celebration of Swedenborg's Birthday, Michael Church, London, 1926.)

     As soon as people hear the title of this paper, I can imagine several asking the following questions:-Why was Swedenborg the Apostle of the New Church? Why was it essential that Swedenborg should be born, and gradually led into revealing the Divine Truths that he did, at such a period in the world's history? To answer these questions satisfactorily is my aim and object in this paper. And although my ideas may be considered rather elementary amongst the stern critics now assembled, it must be understood that I have a long life of regeneration to live before I reach their age of wisdom and understanding.

     I cannot commence this paper without first thanking the Pastor for giving me the opportunity to Present it, which I regard as a great privilege. For the next few minutes, therefore, I hope you will listen patiently to me, and if there is any part of it that you strongly object to, you may use me as the object of your criticism, but concentrate your attacks on the Pastor, as he will be to blame for asking me!

     In every age, the Divine Providence has raised up instruments for the renewal and reformation of the Church,-men with intellectual light and spiritual insight sufficient to direct them in their conflict with the wickedness of the times. Wycliffe, Luther, Knox, and Wesley were instruments of Providence through whom the Lord worked for the spiritual uplifting of His people. These men were severally adapted to the work which it was their privilege and duty to do, and which was suited to the period in which they lived. Whether greater or lesser uses are required, the instruments of Providence are fitted to their task.

     Thus when the time came that the Christian Church would pass through a crisis of doubt, despair and darkness; when old conceptions of Christianity would begin to lose their power; when the Word of God would become the bootscraper of all critics, and be regarded by the man in the street as a fairy tale, from the first verse of Genesis to the last verse of Revelation; when the leaders of the Church would be in such a chaotic state of mind that they could not agree, one with another;-is it not sound common sense to expect a new messenger to interpret the Word of God correctly?

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     A state such as this was reached during the latter part of the seventeenth century, and, as on previous occasions when the Divine Providence deemed it necessary, so at this period it was absolutely essential, in order that the true Christian religion might be manifested, that some one should be born, and so prepared that he could be introduced into the spiritual world, and derive genuine truths of the Word from the Lord's own mouth. It was for this reason that the instrument, Swedenborg, was born, through whom the Lord made His Second Coming by revealing new truths and giving the Bible an ever living spiritual meaning. This came to Pass on January 29, 1688, when a second son was born to Jesper Swedberg. Being a pious and reverential man, with a liking for Scriptural names, which in those days were much more common than at the present time, he named him Emanuel. Thus, at Stockholm, was Emanuel Swedberg, afterwards Swedenborg, ushered into the world.

     The decadent state of the Christian world continues, and will continue until such time as the Lord can lead men to read the Bible from a spiritual standpoint, and to mold their lives and conduct, not from a worldly standpoint, with worldly and material aims in life, but from a purely spiritual understanding of this truth, that what we do in this world is only a preparation for our life hereafter, and that as we fashion our lives during this probationary period, so will be determined how and where we are to spend our lives in the great beyond.

     By my previous references to Luther, Wesley, and the others, it may appear to some of my listeners, and, indeed, is not an unnatural supposition, that Swedenborg's relation to the New Church is the same as, say that of Wesley to the Wesleyan Churches. This is altogether a mistaken notion, and to an interested outsider might easily give a misleading idea of what the New Church is and stands for. In order to rectify such a fallacy, it may be well to read an extract from a letter that Swedenborg wrote to his friend, the Rev. Thomas Hartley, describing what he considered the most important event of his life.

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After giving some personal particulars, for which the correspondent had asked, he proceeds:

     "All that I have thus far related, I consider of comparatively little importance; for it is far exceeded by the circumstance that I have been called to a holy office by the Lord Himself, who most mercifully appeared before me, His servant, in the year 1743, when he opened my sight into the spiritual world, and enabled me to converse with spirits and angels, in which state I have continued up to the present day. From that time I began to print and publish the various arcana that were seen by me, or revealed to me, concerning heaven and hell, the state of man after death, the true worship of God, and the spiritual sense of the Word, besides many other most important matters conducive to salvation and wisdom." (Documents I, p. 8, 9.)

     Thus the appearance of the Lord to Swedenborg, and the opening of his spiritual eyes into the spiritual world, stand at the very beginning of the theological period of his life. These events alone hold him above and apart from other teachers of theology. As a matter of fact, I do not think Swedenborg ever was a teacher of theology; rather was he the greatest pupil of theology that the world has ever seen, or ever will see.

     The ordinary man in the street, as soon as Swedenborg and the spiritual world are mentioned, is apt to say at once that he was a visionary, an imposter, a dreamer, or a spiritualistic medium. And he holds this view without any examination of the facts offered in support of Swedenborg's claim. A person who blindly gives his opinion in this way should first of all be persuaded to make a careful examination of the books in which Swedenborg deals with the spiritual world. Upon reading them for the first time the language may appear to be dry, plain, and too matter-of-fact, although, regarded in a spiritual light, the Writings are anything but that. If he is a conscientious and thoughtful reader, I am sure he will come to the conclusion that no visionary or imposter could ever hope to attain to such heights of revelation and understanding. In fact, these doctrines are such a revelation, and give such a dear explanation of even the most perplexing sentences in the Bible, that anybody who "reads, marks, and inwardly digests" them, comparing the natural sense of the Old and New Testaments with the spiritual explanation in the Writings, is bound to come to the only sane conclusion,-that they were revealed by the Lord out of heaven, acting through Swedenborg as an instrument.

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And if they were revealed by the Lord, they are quite as much the Word as the Old and New Testaments. Indeed, I think they must be more the Word, since without them the Bible is little more than an historical record.

     The relation of Swedenborg to the New Church is, that he was simply the human servant through which the Lord revealed spiritual and Divine truths for the establishment of a New Church upon earth, thus for the regeneration and salvation of mankind. From the day Swedenborg believed himself to have been called from a philosophy of thought to a philosophy of life, every page he wrote bore the mark of that lofty ideal. His religious aim was to substitute for a mere worship of the lips the true worship of a life of use, through a living sympathy with the needs of the human soul and a practical application of rational and spiritual truths to the conditions of human life. Every effort of his untiring energy was directed by the Lord to the realization of a regenerated social state among men, by the power of spiritual ends made clearer by the removal of false ideas, superstitions and selfish habits.

     Swedenborg was no "reformer." He was not even the founder of the New Church. He was, as he himself said, "simply the devout and humble" servant of the Lord Jesus Christ, who chose him as the means of giving that fuller revelation of Himself which, at the time of His First Coming, He was obliged to hold in reserve.

     And how do New Church people regard Swedenborg? They do not worship him as a god, and they do not accept what he wrote merely because he wrote it. We accept his writings, because we know that the Doctrines are not Swedenborg's, nor even "from any angel, but from the Lord alone." Let us be thankful to the Lord that He has allowed us to be disciples of that religion of which Swedenborg was the First Apostle.

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MORALITY AND TOLERANCE 1927

MORALITY AND TOLERANCE       Rev. HUGO LJ. ODHNER       1927

     Every age and every nation differs from every other in the concepts of morality. What is considered moral in one age is sometimes condemned as immoral in the next, while a third age may again reverse the verdict. Yet the essential of morality does not change. For essentially it is the same-involving a regard for others, a concern for the progress and stability of society as a whole,-a desire to co-operate with everything truly constructive in human endeavors; or, if a man disapprove of the accepted customs, a desire not to offend against them. Morality may be unselfish or interiorly selfish; it may contain a spiritual love of the neighbor or an interior and fretting hatred of the neighbor. But whatever it contains, it is, in itself or on its own plane, a necessary virtue. Without it there could be no peaceful human intercourse, no trade or commerce or learning or art,-no co-operation among men. For morality is that in man which causes him to adjust himself to others, that which makes him regard the mental life of those with whom he lives, and study their feelings and needs and rights. If a man refuse to do this, he eventually becomes to some extent an outcast, and places himself beyond the pale of society, divorced from many of the privileges of courtesy and consideration in community-life.

     Morality has much to do with the peace, prosperity and progress of a civilization or a country. But it is clear from history, and from the revealed Scriptures, that the laws of morality, or the accepted standards of a people, differ in kind and excellence according to the spiritual laws or spiritual truths which prevail; or, in other words, according to religious ideals; and, in the last analysis, they are derived from that idea of God which they cherish in their hearts.

     A people thus makes its own moral laws; for public opinion is the tribunal-the grand jury-of morality. A wise people, enlightened by spiritual ideas, makes wise morals, which take account, not only of those things which are to be condemned as immoral-such as laziness, obscenity, vanity, rudeness, drunkenness and gluttony, disobedience, immodesty, etc.,-but also of that precious thing which is called freedom and tolerance, which is the foundation of all moral life and progress.

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     The multiplication of moral precepts does not always indicate sound health in a nation or people; on the contrary, it frequently testifies to a root-bound condition, a moribund state, accompanied with hypocrisy and intolerance. Such was the state of the Jewish nation at the time of our Lord, and long before. The prophets of Israel had the particular moral function of breaking up the false conscience formed by an accumulation of traditions and customs that circumscribed moral life in their days, And when the Lord Himself came into the world, He was regarded as a teacher of revolutionary doctrines, as a winebibber, a Sabbath-breaker and a sinner, because He took issue with pharisaical standards of sanctity, and laid the emphasis on the greater things of the law,-mercy, judgment, and faith. He called the Pharisees "blind guides, who strained at a gnat, but swallowed camels."

     The Lord came to set men free. Freedom He gave to their spirits, in His subjugation of the bells, and in His ordering of the world of spirits and of the heavens. Freedom He granted to their moral sense, so that they were able to distinguish between the essentials of morality, which hold good for all ages and all men, and the forms of morality, which each age, each generation, each nation and each individual must to a great extent mould for itself or himself.

     And when the Lord came, according to the promise, a second time; when He, as the Son of Man, performed the last judgment in the spiritual world, and restored freedom to an interior plane of human life-to the rational thought of man-loosening by a revelation of interior truth the shackles of false dogmatism which for ages had held the understanding bound in subservience to a blind faith, He again stresses the dire need of freedom for man in the moral life, as a guarantee of spiritual freedom and spiritual progress, and shows that the love of dominating and the delight of supereminence are the gravest dangers to the Lord's Church, and the sharpest tools of hell.

     Where freedom is not, there the prophetic function ceases. This happened in the Jewish Church when the Jews had returned from Babylon, and, over the ruins of their former temple, raised a structure of iron-bound religious formalism. The spirit of prophecy departed.

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And so, in the Church of Christ, when the primitive enthusiasm waxed cold, and Christianity became the fashionable cult and the enforced State-religion, tolerance departed, the gentiles were converted by the sword, heretics were persecuted, free thought suppressed. And the Reformation, which might have re-established the freedom of spiritual and moral thought, miscarried, and became not a New Jerusalem, but a new prison for the mind of humanity, albeit it has now become a prison teeming with every kind of revolt against revealed truth and wise morality. And this because there was no real freedom, no sympathetic reception, for the Prophets of spiritual and moral life.

     The Lord is the supreme apostle of tolerance. He is Tolerance,-Mercy itself. He does in nowise condemn. He gives of His own substance for the creation of the universe and all its bounties, and equips men to use these gifts wisely. But He continually permits abuses. His government is not one of force or compulsion, although He gently and in unnoticed ways leads men towards the light of heaven, without ceasing. The striking fact, throughout creation, is that He permits imperfection and evil. He gives to man certain powers to use, and He never takes them away. He leaves man to use them freely and be blessed; or to abuse them and squander them until they are turned into utter impotence. He-the Giver-does not interfere. Men often exclaim impatiently at this. Wars and disasters, and disease and corruption, ravage mankind. Men say: "Where is God? Why does He not interfere! Why does He not send ten thousand angels to compel obedience to the highest good?" Because the highest good is there already-in the freedom of man's spirit-in man's voluntary choosing of what is the highest good to him. In the crucible of freedom, and not elsewhere, can the jewel of life, the end of creation,-heaven,-crystallize out. And the Lord, Creator, who impressed His own image upon man, and who Himself became Man to defend it, suffers man, as of himself, to seek for it; suffers mankind to go-sufficiently equipped always for each new step-upon the guest of its heaven.

     This infinite Tolerance-infinite Patience-which, when it assumed the form of man, permitted Itself to be crucified by men, (thus giving to men and angels a Sign by which He was recognized, and a symbol which each man must carry, through the baptism of temptation, into victory), is still as it were crucified in men's hearts whenever they harbor evil there,-evil which He passively permits, in order that He may finally conquer it.

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But men are not such as the Lord. Their thoughts are not as His thought, and their spirit not as the spirit of His words, which breathe the eternal breath of tolerance: "I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you; that ye may be the children of your Father who is in heaven; for He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust."

     This is the law of the celestial in the heavens, who alone have the wisdom and the strength to tolerate. For the greatest strength is needed to be patient, to await the harvest; to do what is right, and, despite scorn, despite provocation, to let the results be their own commendation: or, to speak the truth and to do the truth, yet not force others to believe or to do the same. And this, even though the power be in one's hand to compel the wills of others.

     Unless we seen the sublimity of this law, how can we recognize the Lord Jesus Christ as the One who, in the sphere of human life, disclosed and revealed the essence and soul of the Divine Being? Although the Lord was endowed with unlimited power, He refrained from any interference with the free will of men, refrained from any grand miracle which might compel faith in Him, or compel His; acceptance among men; and confined Himself to the sowing of the seeds of truth and the counteracting of the spell of unbelief induced by the hells. Even so, the Divine has always worked in silence and obscurity, giving life and light to all men, yet never compelling,-leaving man so free that he may even deny God and deny his own soul and-folly unsurpassed!-deny existence itself.

     It is well to remember that the law of tolerance, as framed by the Lord in His sermon on the mountain, is a celestial law. It is the law of the celestial, yet mirrored in earthly language. Its celestial spirit is clear to those who look for it; and these may also see that the letter of this law may not be taken as a law of conduct by itself, lest dire confusion follow. To carry out the heavenly spirit of tolerance, we must forsake hard and fast rules of behavior and seek a plastic application. For set rules of conduct are bound to contradict each other and to defeat their ends. But tolerance and charity need never on that account lack forms of expression. The law of heaven, of which the celestial angels are the guardians, is the law of freedom-the love of the freedom of others, the desire that others be not compelled, even to choose what is good, against their free consent.

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The celestial angels are in the love of ruling for the sake of the neighbor; they are the governors of heaven, and love their work. But in this government they are illustrated with interior light from the Lord, whose government they seek to carry out. And His rule is that of freedom. Therefore, they safeguard the freedom of angels and men, and, as far as possible, even of devils.

     Nowhere is more careful thinking demanded of us, as men and women, than in the questions of moral life. For while we live on earth, our characters are formed consciously on the plane of moral choice and moral duties. Here also is our real contact with other men and women. Constantly do we form moral judgments about this or that, or pronounce such judgments on others; constantly is our moral attitude influenced by those about us, and constantly we impose, whether deliberately or unconsciously, our code of morals upon others. And the moral laws which grow up interiorly within us are directly the offspring of our spiritual life, and display somewhat-at least to ourselves, if we are in the habit of self-examination-of our faults and our virtues. But the temptation is always present, not only to judge others by our own accepted moral conscience, but also to try to justify ourselves before others to the point of persuading them and compelling them to accept these, our standards, for theirs, and creating a sphere of condemnation around those who differ from us; and, at last, curtailing their liberty by various means.

     Now this last is sometimes a matter of routine in any well-ordered community. Evil-doers must have their liberty curtailed, as a deterrent to others and a punishment for crimes committed. Vigilance in this respect is the bulwark of society. But by the same law the good-the web disposed-must have their liberty safeguarded, lest punishment come to mean nothing at all, and society return to chaos. And this can be done only by our self-imposed respect for the moral freedom of those who differ from us. If we desire moral freedom for ourselves, we must grant it to others. This is the debt of every man to his brethren. This is the desire for the freedom of heaven, where progress is unceasing because the essentials of morality and charity, and not the mere forms, are attended to.

     If, within the Church of the Lord, the desire to dominate over others, to feel contempt of others, or to impose our opinions in moral matters upon them, be stifled and shunned, and that celestial love of the neighbor be cultivated which is called mutual love, and is akin to conjugial love, its chief offspring, then the government shall become that of the Lord, through the conscience of each individual.

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Illustration as to our diverse parts and duties and privileges in our common life on earth will then be given, and spiritual charity will prevail. We will learn how to gather the fruits of one another's thought, and the wisdom of life will be given free scope to increase.
SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON NOTES 1927

SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON NOTES              1927

     LESSON NO. 28.-FROM PEREA TO JERICHO AND JERUSALEM.

(Matt. 20:17-34; 21:1-17; Luke 19:1-10.)

Prophecy of the betrayal           Matt. 20:17-19
Honors in the Lord's kingdom      : 20-28
In Jericho; Zacchaeus           Luke 19:1-10
Leaving Jericho; the blind men      Matt. 20:29-34
Entry into Jerusalem               21:1-11
First day in the Temple          : 12-17

     The Lord had departed from Galilee even before the incidents discussed in the last Lesson. He had been traveling slowly toward Jerusalem, probably through the country east of the Jordan. At least, we know from Matt. 19:1 that He commenced the journey on the east side of Jordan. Some students have thought that He recrossed the Jordan, and passed down through Samaria. However, the Word does not mention any towns by name until He comes to Jericho, which is about five miles west of the Jordan, and several miles north of its entrance into the Dead Sea. The region southeast of the Sea of Galilee was at this time called by the Greek name Peree. Its ancient name was Gilead. The region was the early home of the Prophet Elijah. As the Lord journeyed southward, He taught and healed the people, but it is unknown just how long He was in that place, or how long the journey took. We known that He set out about the time of the Feast of Tabernacles, which is in the late autumn, and that He was in Jericho two weeks before the Passover, which is the time of our Easter.

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     As He began the journey, He told the Twelve privately what would happen at Jerusalem. For word had gone around that the time had come when He would openly proclaim His Messiahship, and stir up a revolt against Rome. Herod had heard of this, and was anxious to arrest Jesus. But when He was warned of the plot by some friendly Pharisees, He said, "Go ye, and tell that fox, Behold, I cast out devils, and I do cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I shall be perfected." (Luke 13:32.) Herod's power could not touch Him, for His time was not yet come.

     Since, then, some of His followers still thought that He was to become an earthly potentate, He told the Twelve in plain language what was to befall Him. The council of the chief priests, scribes and elders was the highest ecclesiastical court in the nation, and judged all important cases among the Jews according to the Law and the tradition. But the Romans did not permit them to carry out any penalty of death, keeping this power in their own hands as a means of controlling the court. The Romans are meant in verse 19, which foretells that the Jews were to "deliver Him to the Gentiles to mock." In this verse, also, the promise of the Resurrection is given in definite terms. But apparently it made little impression upon the disciples at that time.

     James and John were the "sons of Zebedee" mentioned in verse 20. They, together with Peter, formed the inner circle of the Lord's disciples. Yet even they still entertained earthly ideas concerning His kingdom, and were desirous of attaining certain honors in it. But they were willing to undergo the necessary suffering and labors; for what they really wished was to be of very great use in that kingdom. The "cup" that they were willing to drink was that of the very grievous temptation they were to endure, and by which they would be regenerated and purified. Their "baptism" meant the same, and also that they would be filled with the Spirit of Divine Truth-the Lord's Spirit-and would become teachers and leaders in the Church, following His example. And in the case of most of the disciples it even meant that they would suffer death for the sake of the Lord's spiritual kingdom. In His kingdom, the greatest and the wisest are those who serve. To love others as one's self is charity, and it is of heaven itself; but the highest love of heaven is to love others more than one's self.

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The Lord's love for the human race was of this celestial quality, though infinite, perfect, and Divine.

     The incident of Zacchaeus, recorded in Luke, should be introduced to complete the story. It happened at Jericho, which at that time was quite a flourishing city. Zacchaeus was the chief of the tax gatherers of that prosperous city, and he was very rich. He was a Jew, and because he gathered taxes for the Romans from his fellow countrymen, he was hated. Yet his actions on this occasion represent a great principle. He was little in stature, and if he had remained in the crowd he would never have seen the Lord; and so he climbed a tree. This represents what we all must do if we would gain a clear vision of our Lord. We must not expect to find Him unless we are willing to elevate our thoughts to a position where He can be seen. "Seek ye the Lord where He may be found!" When the Lord invited Himself to Zacchaeus' house, He raised another storm of protest against Himself; but He answered His assailants with the words: "The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost."

     Returning now to Matthew 20:29, the two blind men were just outside the city on the road that led to Jerusalem. That was a very interesting road, about fifteen or twenty miles in length, and rising continually through very rough country until it arrived at Jerusalem. As most of the travelers that used it were merchants, it became the rendezvous of brigands and bandits who fell unmercifully upon the unguarded traveler. This road was the scene of the story of the Good Samaritan. (Luke 10:33.) Spiritually, that road represents the trials of regeneration that must be passed through in applying the truths of the Church, represented by Jerusalem, to our external life, represented by Jericho. And here at the gate of the city, upon this same road, sat two blind men, begging from the wealthy travelers. They were told that Jesus of Nazareth was passing, but they called Him "Lord, the Son of David." That is, they hailed Him as the Messiah, and thus acknowledged His Divinity, and sought His aid and mercy. The Lord can always help those who acknowledge Him as Divine, who seek His mercy, and confess that they need His help. Those are spiritually blind who cannot see truth with their mind, and cannot see the Lord as God. It was to teach us of the Lord's power to heal such blindness that He now opened the eyes of these men. For if men really desire it, the Lord can open their minds to see the light of truth and then they become His disciples.

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     The Lord now commenced the journey to Jerusalem on foot, and it would take several days. Little is recorded of the journey itself, until He came to Bethany, where his friends, Mary, Martha and Lazarus dwelt. Bethany was situated on the eastern slope of the Mount of Olives, about two miles from Jerusalem. Here He lodged before entering the great city. The story of this visit is recorded in John 12:1-14.

     On the first day of the week, our Sunday, the day after the Jewish Sabbath, He left Bethany to make His triumphal entry into Jerusalem. This picture appeals strongly to the child in us. Perhaps it is because, with each one of us, there is a lingering of the desire to be acclaimed a worldly ruler. Perhaps we are to be numbered among the disciples who confidently expected a day when He would proclaim Himself an earthly king. We now call this day "Palm Sunday." It was five days before the Lord's crucifixion, six days before the Feast of the Passover, and one week before the Resurrection. What was done on that day represented that the Lord is really a King, especially of the Heavenly Israel and the Heavenly Jerusalem,-His Church.

     "Hosanna" means "Save now, we pray!" Jesus did according to the ancient custom with kings and judges, who rode upon mules. When kings rode triumphant into a city, it was also the custom for the people to scatter their garments before him, while the taking of branches from trees was a sign of rejoicing. And so, on this occasion, the Lord was greeted like the kings of old. Little wonder that the multitude thought the time was at hand when the yoke of Rome would be effectually broken!

     But the Lord went immediately into the court of the temple, and drove out the moneymakers, even as once before, in the beginning of His ministry, He had purified " His Father's house." He called them "thieves," because they loved money and cheated whenever they could, and because they had invaded the holy place with their earthly activities. The court of the temple had become the great business place of Jerusalem. All day long He preached to the people, and at nightfall retired to Bethany.

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     LESSON NO. 29.-IN THE TEMPLE. THE SECOND DAY.

(Matthew 21:18-46. 22:23)

The Fig Tree; Faith                     Ch. 21:18-22
Authority                         : 23-27

     Parables.
The Two Sons                     : 28-32
The Vineyard and the Husbandmen          : 33-41 The Corner Stone                     : 42-46
The Marriage of the King's Son           Ch. 22:1-14

     Questions.
The Herodians; Tribute                : 15-22
The Sadducees; Resurrection               : 23-33
The Pharisees; The Law                : 34-40
Jesus, The Christ                     :41-46

     The Sermon.
Discourse on Hypocrisy                Ch. 23:1-39
Departure from the Temple                Ch. 24:1-2

     This Lesson furnishes material for several weeks' instruction in the Sunday School. It has been included in one Lesson, because these chapters contain the record of one day's labors by our Lord in the Temple,-the second day of the final week of His earthly ministry. For the entire day, He was teaching and reasoning with people of all sorts.

     He had, as usual, spent the night in Bethany, and in the morning had come to Jerusalem, crossing the Brook Cedron, and entering the city probably by what is now called Stephen's Gate, a little to the north of the Temple. Somewhere on the way was the fig tree, upon which He found no fruit, but leaves only. This fig tree represents faith without charity, or the man who knows the truth, but is with but the good of life; thus it represents what is essentially false, because it is inwardly evil. In fact, it signified the state of the Jewish Church at that time; and because of this the Lord rejected it. Even as the fig tree had no fruit, so that old Religion, spiritually viewed, was barren, and consequently was rejected by the Lord, and in its place Christianity was reared up.

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The "mountain" (verse 21) signifies self-love, which will be removed and cast into hell by every faithful follower of the Lord. The things of heaven,-things good and true,-and deliverance from evils, are the only things worth praying for. We are reminded of the words of Solomon: "Give therefore Thy servant an understanding heart to judge Thy people, that I may discern between good and bad; for who is able to judge this Thy so great a people?" (I Kings 3:9.)

     The question of authority was always present with the Jews. On previous occasions they had demanded a sign, but the only sign that Jesus would give them was that of His death and resurrection: "As Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." (Ch. 12:40) And, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." But He always refused to Perform a miracle for the sole object of convincing His enemies, knowing that they would never believe. And now, when they asked Him by what authority He did these things, He replied by asking them their own conception of John the Baptist. They refused to answer, and so likewise He refused to tell them by what authority He ministered unto the people. The truth is, that unless one is open to Perceive the authority of the truth itself, no amount of external confirmation will avail. "If they hear not Moses and the Prophets, neither will they hearken though one rose from the dead."

     The record of the Lord's words in the temple this day divides naturally into three parts, as shown above, namely, Parables, Questions, and the Sermon. The Parables were called forth by the question in regard to authority, and they illustrate how those who abuse their powers and opportunities are shorn of all authority. Among the Jews, no one was supposed to teach except those who had been properly certified by the learned doctors and scribes, and had been authorized by the High Priest. But the Lord taught by the authority of His own Divinity, by the authority of Divine Truth, or the Sacred Scriptures. John the Baptist likewise had received no power from the "priests," but his authority was from heaven. The Lord's questioners were unwilling to admit this, and so they held their peace.

     In the Parable of the Two Sons, the father represents the Lord in heaven; the Jews were like the second son, always talking of the law, but never doing it; and the publicans and sinners, who repented because of the preaching of John, were like the first son.

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The Lord drew a sharp contrast between that formal religion which is in agreement with the Lord's will, but not put into the life itself, on the one hand, and the essential effort to become better men, even though the voice of God had not been heeded in the beginning, on the other.

     In the Parable of the Vineyard, the householder represents the Lord; the vineyard and the tower are the Church and the Word therein; the husbandmen are the Jews; the servants are the Prophets; while the son and heir represents the Lord Himself while on earth. This parable was spoken directly against the Jews and their treatment of Himself. And, to make it clearer, He adds the short parable about the stone which the builders rejected, which represented the Lord Himself and the acknowledgment of Him. "The stone which the builders rejected is become the head stone of the corner. This is the Lord's doing; it is marvellous in our eyes." (Psalm 118:22.)

     Concerning this stone we read in the work on Heaven and Hell as follows: "The way that leads to heaven, and the way that leads to hell, were once represented to me. There was a broad way tending to the left or north, and many spirits were seen going in it; but at a distance a large stone was seen where the roadway came to an end. From that stone two ways branched off, one to the left, and one in the opposite direction to the right. The way that went to the left was narrow or straightened, leading through the west to the south, and thus into the light of heaven; the way that went to the right was broad and spacious, leading obliquely downward to hell. All at first seemed to be going the same way until they came to the large stone at the head of the two ways. When they reached that point, they divided; the good turned to the left, and entered the straightened way that led to heaven, while the evil, not seeing the stone at the fork of the ways, fell upon it and were hurt; and when they rose up, they ran on in the broad way that led to hell. . . . The stone seen at the corner where the broad and common way terminated, and from which two ways were seen to appear leading in opposite directions, signified these words of the Lord, 'The stone which the builders rejected, etc.'" (N. H. 534)

     After this parable, the Jews perceived that He spake against them, and they desired to do away with Him, but they feared to lay hold on Him, for the people thought that He was a Prophet.

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     The Marriage of the King's Son represents, in general, the happiness of heaven, which the Lord offers to men by means of the Word and the Church, here called the King's "servants." Those who have the Word, and do not live according to it, "went their ways." In a limited, temporal sense, these were the Jews, as in the other parables, but in a wider sense they are all men who neglect the duties which the Word commands. There are those who have not the Word, but are willing to be instructed (verses 9-10); and there are those who are unwilling to have any truth, and are hypocritical. These are represented by the guest without a wedding garment. The wedding garment signifies the truth which is to be conjoined with good in the life; and the "friend" who had no wedding garment represents those who expect heaven to be granted to them without their making any effort to Procure the truth. They are the sentimentalists of all ages. The King is the Lord in heaven, and the King's Son is the Lord on earth. (See Rev. 19:7-9) In Conjugial Love, no. 14, we are told of the garments bestowed by the heavenly prince upon his guests before they came into the feast.

     The Jews were filled with such hatred by these parables that they sought to entangle Him in His speech, so that they might discredit Him before the multitude. They therefore withdrew, and prepared a series of questions for Him to answer.

     The first question was prepared by the Herodians, a political party supporting the claims of Herod. Under ordinary circumstances, they were bitterly opposed to the Pharisees and Sadducees, but like Herod, their master, they feared the Lord and His growing influence; and so they joined with the others to destroy Him. They sought by their question to involve the Lord in difficulties with the Roman officials. In asking Him whether He believed in giving tribute to Caesar, they hoped He would take one side or the other. If He said "Yes," then the Jewish populace, with all their national hatred for Rome, would cry out against Him; but if He said "No," the Romans would arrest Him for treason. However, the Lord's answer was: "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's!" Thus He frustrated their cruel aim, and at the same time taught men for all time the true relationship between temporal and spiritual matters.

     The Herodians being vanquished, the Sadducees, who denied the resurrection, next came forward. Their question involved two points.

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The Lord did not give a categorical answer to their question about marriage in the other life, for He knew that they would defile whatever He said. He obeyed His own injunction to the disciples, "Cast not your pearls before swine." (Matt. 7:6.) Conjugial love is the precious jewel of human life (C. L. 457), but the Jews knew nothing of it, and were incapable of appreciating it; wherefore it was concealed from them, although involved in His answer. On the other point,-the resurrection,-He told them plainly that there is a future life, that life does not end with the death of the body in this world. "God is not the God of the dead, but of the living." Since the Lord had said that He was the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob (Exodus 3:6), and these patriarchs had long since passed from the natural world, and He was their God, they must still be alive with Him in the spiritual world. "The Sadducees were completely overcome, and departed.

     Then came the Pharisees with the third question. Their idea was to raise a dispute about the relative importance of various laws. They themselves emphasized the ceremonial aspect of the laws, and taught that by this means men attained the rewards of heaven. The Sadducees, on the other hand, emphasized part of the code itself, for in this way men secured for themselves rewards here on earth. By drawing Him into such an argument, they hoped to find some ground of accusation in His answers. But His answer was so complete that they could not argue against it. He said, in effect, that the entire Scripture was one Law,-a Law of love,-love to the Lord and love to the neighbor. (See Deut. 6:5.) Thus, instead of dividing the Law, and taking sides with either party, He gave the law of love that makes of the entire Scriptures one Law.

     In return, He asked them a question: "What think ye of Christ? whose son is He?" And now they, in their turn, found themselves unable to answer correctly. Their spontaneous answer was: "David!" He then showed the impossibility of this according to the Jewish code; for it was impossible for a father of Israel to call his son?" Lord." It was against their entire patriarchal system. When, therefore, Jesus showed the Pharisees that David had himself called the Christ "Lord," how could the Christ be his son? This left His tormentors speechless, "neither durst any man from that day forth ask Him any more questions."

     In the Discourse on Hypocrisy, the instruction is contained in the first seven verses, namely, that the Scribes and Pharisees do their works to be seen of men.

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Still, He taught that they were to be obeyed, as long as they were the legal and civil authorities sitting "in Moses' seat." About forty years after this time, when the Christian Church was becoming strong through the work of the Apostles, Jerusalem was utterly destroyed by the Roman Emperor Titus, and all the civil and ecclesiastical power in the Jewish nation perished. The idea of authority runs like a thread through the record of this day,-the authority of God, and the authority of men which cunningly seeks to undermine the Divine Authority. In the Lord's kingdom, there will be one supreme Authority,-the Lord Himself. "Be ye not called Rabbi; for one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren. . . . Neither be ye called Master, for one is your Master, even Christ."

     The remainder of the discourse is a powerful denunciation of hypocrisy. The descriptions and representations are vivid and telling, and carry their own message.
HEAVENLY ASSOCIATIONS IN EARLY YEARS 1927

HEAVENLY ASSOCIATIONS IN EARLY YEARS              1927

     "Every man, from his first infancy to his first childhood, is introduced by the Lord into heaven, and indeed among the celestial angels, by whom he is kept in a state of innocence; in which state, as is well known, infants remain until the commencement of childhood. When the age of childhood begins, he then by degrees puts off the state of innocence, but still he is kept in a state of charity by the affection of mutual charity towards his like, which state in many instances lasts even to adolescence; he is then among the spiritual angels. At this time, as he now begins to think from himself, and to act accordingly, he cannot any longer be kept in charity as heretofore, for he calls forth the hereditary evils by which he suffers himself to be led. When this state arrives, the goods of innocence and charity, which he had before received, are as it were exterminated, according to the degree in which he thinks and confirms evils; yet they are not exterminated, but are withdrawn by the Lord towards the interiors, and there stored up for future use in the regenerate life." (A. C. 5342)

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WRITING ON THE TABLES 1927

WRITING ON THE TABLES              1927


NEW CHURCH LIFE
Office a Publication, Lancaster, Pa.
Published Monthly By
THE GENERAL CHURCH OF THE NEW JERUSALEM
BRYN ATHYN, PA.
Editor                    Rev. W. B. Caldwell, Bryn Athyn, Pa.
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     SOME OBSERVATIONS UPON THE MODE OF GIVING THE COMMANDMENTS.

     It is a general law that the revelation of Divine Truth or the Word in the natural world is effected by the Lord through the instrumentality of angels and men. This is graphically depicted in the opening words of the Apocalypse: "The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto Him . . . . And He sent and signified it by His angel unto His servant John . . . . And He said, What thou seest, write in a book." (Rev. 1:1-11) The mode of revelation here shown may be applied to the whole of the Scriptures, and to the Writings. It is the Lord alone who reveals the Word of Divine Truth, but "great is the host of them that have borne the tidings." Swedenborg himself speaks of the "books written by the Lord through me." (Eccl. Hist.) Nor is the Word of the Gospel, spoken in the world by the Lord Himself, an exception to the general law. He appeared before men as a Man, insomuch that many refused to believe in His Divinity. For one purpose of this Divine mode of revealing is to preserve the freedom of men to accept or reject the Word of Truth.

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     We are led to ask, however, whether there may not have been an exception to the usual mode of Divine operation in the giving of the Commandments upon Mount Sinai, which are said to have been written upon the tables of stone "with the finger of God." It is said with frequency and emphasis that Jehovah God Himself descended upon Mount Sinai, and that He Himself provided the first tables, and wrote upon them. There can be no doubt, of course, as to what is represented by the miraculous manner in which this revelation took place. Writing "with the finger of God " meant that the Divine Truth of the Word is from the Lord alone. (A. C. 10376.) It meant that the Lord alone inscribes the Divine Law upon human souls, hearts and minds. (Adversaria 3:3068, 3069.) Historically, it establishes the fact of Divine Revelation to the Israelitish Church. For the Commandments were the first or beginning of the Old Testament Revelation, the rest of what is recorded in the Books of Moses being written afterwards. (A. C. 9414e) Moreover, it was to make known that civil and moral laws are of Divine origin, thus inmostly holy, that "Jehovah Himself, the Lord, descended upon Mount Sinai in fire, accompanied by the angels, and promulgated the Commandments with a living voice, and that they were written with the finger of God upon two tables of stone." (T. C. R. 283; A. C. 8931e, 9416.)

     In such statements as these, are the Writings revealing a momentous fact as to a unique mode of giving the Commandments, by an immediate Divine influx into the ultimates of nature, or are they merely citing the declarations of Scripture to confirm the sanctity of the Decalogue? If the former, it establishes an exception to the general law as to the mode of revelation through angels to men, and also an exception to the teaching that when the Lord spoke face to face with Moses, He did so by means of an angel filled with His presence. (T. C. R. 135; A. C. 1925) Even to Swedenborg, as we shall note presently, it was an unsolved mystery.

     To bring the problem more concretely before us, let us quote the Scripture record:

     1. That the Lord provided the first tables, and wrote the Commandments upon them:

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     "And the Lord said unto Moses, Come up to me into the mount, and be there; and I will give thee tables of stone, and a law, and commandments which I have written, that thou mayest teach them." (Exodus 24:12.)

     "And He gave unto Moses, when He had made an end of communing with him upon Mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God." (Exodus 31:18. Deut. 9:9, 10.)

     "And the tables were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, graven upon the tables." (Exod. 32:16.)

     2. That the second tables were provided by Moses, but the writing upon them was the writing of God:

     "And when Moses saw the calf, and the dancing, his anger waxed hot, and he cast the tables out of his hands, and brake them beneath the mount." (Exodus 32:19.)

     "And the Lord said unto Moses, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first; and I will write upon these tables the words that were in the first tables, which thou brakest...And he hewed two tables of stone like unto the first; and Moses went up unto Mount Sinai, as the Lord had commanded him, and took in his hand the two tables of stone." (Exodus 34:1, 4)

     "And the Lord said unto Moses, Write thou these words; for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel. And he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights. . . . And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments." (Exod. 34:27, 28. Deut. 10:1-5.)

     From this Scripture record it would appear that the writing upon both the first and second tables was the "writing of God." Yet the words from Exodus 34:27, 28, would indicate that it was Moses who wrote by command upon the tables he himself had hewn. Students and commentators have labored to explain this, and Swedenborg treats of it in the Adversaria as follows:

     "It is here very difficult to know whether Jehovah wrote the ten words, or the precepts of the decalogue, anew upon the tables; for we read in verse 28 that 'he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten words'; thus whether Moses so wrote with his own hand. For it has very often happened so with me, that I wrote, and my hand was directed into the very words by a superior force, sensibly and sometimes quite manifestly.

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Wherefore, I then said that these things were not written by me, but by some one outside of me. Sometimes also it was given me to know by which angel of God Messiah those things were so written." (Adv. 3:3894, 3895)

     Later, commenting upon the same matter (verse 28), Swedenborg describes more in detail how his hand was sometimes directed in his writing, and concludes:

     "Hence it may be evident how these words of the covenant were written, namely, by Moses, an angel of God Messiah directing his hand, on which account they are said to have been written by Jehovah, as in verse I and elsewhere. But whether the former tables were so written has not been revealed to me." (Adv. 3:4104-4106.)

     The mode of the Divine writing upon the first tables is thus left as an unsolved mystery, and we are not aware of any statements by Swedenborg which solve it, unless we may gain light upon it from what is revealed concerning the reason for the breaking of the first tables by Moses.

     The writing of the Commandments upon the first tables represented the internal of the Word, revealed by God out of heaven, which the Israelites could not receive. During the forty days' absence of. Moses on the mount they fell into the idolatrous worship of the golden calf, and on his return he cast away the first tables, and broke them, and afterwards was commanded to hew out other tables, upon which the same words were to be written. "The signification of this was, that this people was not in any way willing to acknowledge any doctrinal from the internal sense of the Word, such as it is in heaven, but only a doctrinal from the external sense of the Word separate from the internal." (A. C. 9414) And this external sense, adapted to reception by them, was represented by the writing upon the second tables. For we read further:

     "That the tables, which were the work of God, were broken by Moses when he saw the calf and the dancing, and that at the command of Jehovah other tables were hewn out by Moses, and on them the same words were afterwards inscribed, and consequently that the tables were no longer the work of God, but the work of Moses, whereas the writing was still the writing of God, involves an arcanum hitherto unknown.

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The arcanum is this: That the sense of the letter of the Word would have been different, if the Word had been written among a different people, or if this people had not been of such a character. . . . Since, therefore, the sense of the letter of the Word took this form on account of that people, therefore those tables which were the work of God were broken, and at the command of Jehovah others were hewn out by Moses. But whereas the same Divine holiness was still within, therefore the same words which had been written on the former tables were inscribed by Jehovah on the latter, as is evident from these words: 'Jehovah said to Moses, Hew thee two tables of stones, like unto the first, that I may write upon the tables the words that were on the first tables, which thou brakest. And Jehovah wrote upon these tables the words of the covenant, the ten words.' Exodus 34:1, 4, 28." (A. C. 10453.)

     Now, while it is here definitely stated that Jehovah wrote upon the second tables, it may still have been done through the medium of an angel controlling the hand of Moses, as explained in the Adversaria; and it would still be proper to say that the writing was the "writing of God," in the same sense that Swedenborg spoke of the "books written by the Lord through me." In this respect, it is possible that the second tables differed from the first actually, as they did representatively. For the first tables represented the Divine Truth from the Lord as the internal of the Word, while the second represented that Divine Truth as accommodated in the Hebrew Scriptures, the beginnings of which were the Commandments and the Pentateuch, written by Moses under Divine inspiration.

     This representation, of course, is the important thing to us. The point we have been Considering forms an interesting subject of inquiry, and we should be glad to hear from others who have investigated it. At the same time, it is well to bear in mind that, in our study of the Word, we are not so much concerned with historical fact as with the spiritual truth involved in the history as recorded in the letter. The literal sense is not a repository of rigidly exact history. In general, the historicals of the Old Testament are true historicals, and happened as stated; but at times there is a variation from fact and sequence of events for the sake of the spiritual sense, and in order that the letter, as a servant, may embody the spiritual sense.

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However disturbing this may be to the higher critic, ignorant of the spiritual content of the Word, or unwilling to acknowledge it, the same is not disturbing to the New Churchman. Reading and understanding the Word in the light of Doctrine, "the things that are obscure and discordant he either does not see, and passes them by, or he sees them, and explains them so that they agree with the Doctrine." (T. C. R. 227.)
SWEDENBORG MONUMENT FOR LONDON. 1927

SWEDENBORG MONUMENT FOR LONDON.              1927

     THE MANCHESTER GUARDIAN of November 12, 1926, contains a photograph of the sketch made by Carl Milles, the Swedish sculptor, of his proposed monument to Emanuel Swedenborg. Before the towering figure of an angel with wings, Swedenborg is seen in a crouching attitude. THE GUARDIAN comments as follows:

     "It is hoped that the monument will be erected in bronze and stone on a suitable site in London, where Swedenborg lived for many years, and where he died. The design represents the great mystic in a moment of vision and ecstacy, and an angel messenger descending on an altar before him. Swedenborg is shown in his habit of life as he walked the streets of London, the angel as a half-draped male figure. On the surface of the platform on which the figures are placed are various symbols and inscriptions connecting Swedenborg with his great teacher, Newton, [!] and his great pupil, Blake. The design has been seen by representatives of the Swedenborgian societies, who are enthusiastic about the possibility of a monument to their leader by so distinguished a sculptor. There are about seventy Swedenborg communities in England, and more in America, and support for the project is expected to come from them, and from the many art lovers in London who hope to see the capital enriched by a Milles monument."

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INTRODUCTION TO THE DOCTRINES 1927

INTRODUCTION TO THE DOCTRINES       WILLIAM HYDE ALDEN       1927

AN OUTLINE OF NEW-CHURCH TEACHING. By William F. Wunsch, Professor of Theology in the New-Church Theological School, Cambridge, Mass. New York: New-Church Press, 1926. Cloth, pp. 260. Price, $1.50.

     Mr. Wunsch has here given us an unusual book. Partly a catechism, partly a digest, and having a large part of its pages occupied with excellently chosen passages from the Writings, it should serve a good use to the student and to the teacher. As stated in the Preface, it is "meant to serve as an introduction to the teaching of the New Church, especially in Young People's Reading Circles, and in other classes."

     Opening with a brief reference to the Second Coming, which is defined as "The Lord's Return to Men," the main portion of the work divides itself under three heads: The Spiritual Life, The Word, The Lord. In general, it may be said that these subjects are clearly dealt with, and in a somewhat original way; as, for instance, where the author speaks of Swedenborg's intromission into the spiritual world as his being "permitted to step into the spiritual world and live in it, as men and women are living in it who have entered it by the usual gate of death and resurrection." (Pp. 4, 5.) "One hears in the teaching, therefore," he goes on, "no speculation about the other world, but positive report on it, and matter-of-fact references to it. Nor does that world exist only for the teaching; it is perpetually thought with. It is reckoned with on any and every subject." (p. 5)

     The author of the Outline carefully avoids calling the Writings "The Word," although in defining the Word as "that whole body of truth which, in the other world and here, inspires and fashions the spiritual life," he must admit under this definition what he calls the "Theological Works." (P. 72) He speaks of the Bible as the culmination of a series of revelations, and quotes T. C. R. 11 as his authority for calling the Bible the "crown of revelation." (P. 71.)

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But he is unmindful that this term "crown" is not here applied to the Bible, but to "The Word"; and he is also neglectful of the emphatic statement of the Writings that "the spiritual sense of the Word, . . . disclosed by the Lord through me, which has never before been revealed since the Word was written with the Sons of Israel, . . . surpasses all revelations which have been hitherto since the creation of the world." (Invitation 43, 44) And he is also unmindful of the fact that the New Church, to which the Theological Works of Swedenborg have been given, and by which that Church is formed, is spoken of as the "crown of all the Churches which have hitherto been in the world." (T. C. R. 786.)

     Whether by intention or not, sundry of the expressions referring to God, and to the Lord Jesus Christ, are such as would easily be understood in a tripersonal sense. For instance, where faith is defined as "committing one's life to God's leading, . . . confidence of person in Person . . . and this confidence is at its full when rested in God as we know Him in Christ." And when he speaks of the Word as disclosing "God to us, Invisible, as the Ruler of nature, and as a factor in history; and Visible, the Heavenly Father of the Lord Jesus Christ." (P. 96.) "We shall proceed from the mere intimation of the thought of God . . . to the revelation of Him in the Lord Jesus Christ." (P. 105.) "Existing in three ways, He comes to show Himself in three ways, not only as the Infinite Father and Creator, but in the Lord on earth and risen as the Truth and the Son, and in the rich activity which becomes His in the Holy Spirit. We cannot with truth reduce our thought to any one aspect of the Divine nature and activity, or blur these profound distinctions in His Being. . . . We need the awe of the Infinite, and the sense of the incomprehensible being of the Absolute; we need the human challenge, and the sympathy in our experiences, of the Risen Lord; we need the inspiration of the Holy Spirit." (P. 146.) It is true that we also find the true statement that "the only personal manifestation of the Supreme Being is in the Person, Risen and glorified, of the Christ." (P. 147) It is true that he adds "that in the Divine Humanity is the center of the Divine Consciousness." (P. 147) But the quotations we have made, and others we might add, seem as if designed to satisfy the tripersonalist, and might indeed be used by the tripersonalist.

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And we wonder why there should be this apparent attempt to assimilate the phrasing of a false and dead idea of God to the true idea of the New Church!

     With great satisfaction, we turn to the "Standard Passages from the Theological Works of Emanuel Swedenborg," which fill the more than one hundred pages of the Second Part of the Book. They are well selected and ably translated, and will go far to correct the inaccuracies of expression in the work itself to which we have called attention.
     WILLIAM HYDE ALDEN.
UNUSUAL VIEW OF EVOLUTION 1927

UNUSUAL VIEW OF EVOLUTION       Rev. W. H. ALDEN       1927

     THE PHANTOM OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION. By George McCready Price, Professor of Geology, Union College, Nebraska. New York: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1924. Cloth, $1.50.

     It has been so common to take evolution for granted as the process by which the various forms of plant and animal have come into being, and the thesis of evolutionary development has been so universally used in nature textbooks, while the only plea against its acceptance has been the assumption by religious thinkers that "it was God's way of making the universe," that it is refreshing to find a work by a competent scientist which not only condemns the theory in tote, but gives abundant facts and figures to prove its case.

     The author of The Phantom of Organic Evolution affirms:

     1. That the generally accepted story of the rocks, under which it is asserted that the several strata declare a consecutive series of development running back millions of years, and that in this consecutive series of rocks are found fossil remains which show the gradual evolutionary development of animals and of men, has no just foundation in fact; that the supposed chronological series of the rocks is not chronological at all, and therefore the fossil remains contained in the rocks give us no account whatever of the development of living forms.

     2. That the loudly claimed parallel between the development of the embryo in man and the series of species developed one from another in the long ages is artificial and without actual basis in fact.

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     3. That the hypothesis of natural selection and the survival of the fittest, which has been so much relied upon as the supposed mode of the evolutionary process, cannot be relied upon to prove the proposition; and furthermore it is "so heartless, so full of all those qualities which we regard as wicked and detestable, that to attribute such a method of creating the world to an intelligent Creator necessarily changes completely the character of such a Creator. Darwinian evolution never properly proved that materialism is true; that is, it never properly proved that God could not have made the world by the process of organic evolution. Quite evidently a creative intelligence could make the world by such a process; . . . but, to say nothing of the record in the Bible, it is impossible for a rational mind to believe that an all-wise, all-powerful God of supreme kindliness and love would ever have produced the world by such a cruel, heartless process; least of all that He could have produced man, the crowning triumph of this work, by such a long-drawn out ordeal of cruelty, torture and villainy." (Pp. 179-80.)

     It is not surprising that Darwin, believing in Natural Selection, involving such "cruelty, torture and villainy," should have lost his idea of God. Rather should we be surprised that today there are those like the writer who gives the title to the book, I believe in God and in Evolution. For what can be their conception of God?

     The three propositions of the volume we are reviewing, as outlined above, are clearly confirmed by amply proved facts, and their confirmation sufficiently demonstrates the thesis of the writer. Some subordinate affirmations are of interest to the New Churchman. [Italics his.]

     1. "The concurrent testimony of the geological deposits throughout the world is, that some very profound and very enormous catastrophe must have happened to our world sometime in the long ago. The cumulative evidence on this point can no longer be ignored or denied. That some great world-convulsion must have taken place since man and the other living species of plants and animals were alive, is as well established an historical event as is the destruction of Carthage or the fall of Babylon. . . . But when we further remember that the long popular method of arranging the fossils in an alleged chronological order is now known to have been a big blunder, it is very evident that we have a most astonishing collection of fossils which must very generally have been killed off and buried by flowing water in some most extraordinary way, . . . surely we have a most complete vindication of the record of that most stupendous of physical events,-the Deluge of the Scriptures. 'The world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished.'" (Pp. 57-60)

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     2. That the great families of plants and of animals have each had a common origin. The Felidae, or cats, of which some forty or fifty species are known, the author doubts not "have all sprung from a common ancestry." (P. 97) So with the seven species of horses, the Equidae, so with the Suidae (pigs), the Canidae (dogs), the Ursidae (bears), and many others which might be named. And this common original, it is maintained, was a special creation. "For a Being who wished and who had the power to create the first speck of protoplasm (an act quite unknown to modern science, and thus a purely 'supernatural' act) must have been capable of creating any number of Kinds of distinct plants and animals. And the creation of this original stock of organic life is no more intrinsically improbable or unreasonable than is the creation of that first elementary form from which the Darwinists suppose all other subsequent forms have been derived." (P. 100.)

     3. Speaking of the "changes which have been produced in man and the animals by their transplantation from the world before the Deluge into the world as we now know it," he asks: "Has the general trend of these changes been upward or downward?" And he replies: "There can be but one answer, by any one acquainted with those superb, those giant, forms among the larger mammals which were man's brute companions before the world disaster, and which are still found living in various parts of the modern world. . . . We are constantly met with evidences that the fossil forms are larger and better shaped than their corresponding living representatives. . . . It is a uniform testimony of degeneration." (Pp. 107, 108.)

     Two things are notable in these quotations which are parallel with the teaching of the New Church. One is the degeneration just noted, which is parallel with the degeneration of man recorded in the account of the succession of the Churches. Man, of himself, has always degenerated; every step of uplift has been by the Divine interposition. The other is the fact of the Divine creation of new forms of life. This is definitely taught in the True Christian Religion, no. 78, where an angel is represented as stating: "I will now show you how all kinds of animals and vegetables were produced by God."

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He then pointed out different forms of created objects, both vegetable and animal, and continued: "These things have been shown to enable you to see in a special example the entire creation. For God is Love Itself and Wisdom Itself; the affections of His Love are infinite, and the perceptions of His Wisdom are infinite; and of these each thing and all things that appear on earth are correspondences. This is the origin of birds and beasts, forest trees, fruit trees, crops and harvests, herbs and grasses. For God is not extended, and yet He is present through all extension, thus throughout the universe, from its firsts to its lasts; and being thus omnipresent, there are these correspondences of the affections of His Love and Wisdom in the whole natural world; while in our world, which is called the spiritual world, there are like correspondences with those who are receiving affections and perceptions from God. The difference is, that in our world such things are created by God from moment to moment, in accordance with the affections of the angels. In your world they were created in like manner in: the beginning; but it was provided that they should be renewed unceasingly by propagation of one from another, and creation thus be continued in that manner." (T. C. R. 78.)

     We see no reason to doubt that this teaching regarding the creation may apply to man, as well as to the lower creation. And the author of the work under review finds the same tendency to degeneration with men as is told in the story of the Churches. He sees no reason whatever for arranging the few skulls and bones which the fossils contain, as has been done by the Evolutionists, and finds some of the finest specimens to be, in all probability, the oldest.

     In his summing up, he deals a mighty blow at the so-called "nebular theory" which should forever silence those who are fond of assuming that Swedenborg first devised that theory. He says:

     "In summing up the verdict which we are to bring in, it may be well to look briefly at the theory of evolution in its broader aspects, what is termed cosmic evolution, a theory which designs to explain the development of stellar mist or planetesimals into organic life and the mind of a Newton or a Kelvin. . . . On every point where science can come to grips with such a philosophy, the verdict of cold fact and reason is overwhelmingly against it. For example, let us take the nebular hypothesis of Kant and La Place. 'Probably no philosophic conception has ever received such universal acceptance by the modern world as the Laplacian theory.

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Yet it is not true. It has been conclusively shown by Professors Chamberlin and Moulton that the theory breaks down at every point where attacked by present-day physics and kinetics. The conception of an originally molten globe must also be discarded' (H. L. Fairchild, SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY, July, 1924; P. 95).") (P. 197.)

     "Harlow Shapley denies that we can recognize any signs of stellar evolution among the stars." He is quoted as follows: "We can, in effect, examine the process of stellar evolution throughout an interval of 2,000 centuries. We find no evidence of change in that interval of time." (P. 199.) "This is splendid testimony, and ought to silence all those noisy near-scientists who keep on telling us that astronomy shows us many other universes in actual process of stellar evolution."

     And the author weightily closes:

     "In the light of all our modern knowledge, it is evident that the theory of organic evolution has but a very slender support in biology. Without a strongly contributory geological background, nobody would ever dream of a scheme of organic evolution. If geology cannot prove in the most positive and conclusive manner that the 'Paleozoic animals and plants actually lived and died before the Mesozoic and the Tertiary ones came into existence, what is the use of talking about a theory of organic evolution? . . . Here we must rest our argument. If the geological series does not present a real chronology, but merely various contemporary faunas and floras; in other words, if the alleged chronology of the fossils is merely a big blunder, or at best an evolutionary assumption, the way is open for every intelligent person to believe in a literal creation of all the leading types of life, man included, as recorded in the first chapters of the Bible. This is the latest and most authoritative word of modern science regarding the oldest and most fundamental problem of religion." (Pp. 217-218.)
     WILLIAM HYDE ALDEN.

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HOW THE WRITINGS ARE THE WORD 1927

HOW THE WRITINGS ARE THE WORD       L. H. STADEN       1927

"The Internal Sense is the Word Itself." (A. C. 1540)

     The controversy concerning the Writings and the Scriptures, and the Rev. R. H. Teed's contribution to the discussion, which was published in your issue of September, 1926, p. 607, is highly interesting, and should become a matter of thorough investigation. It is, indeed, of the greatest importance, as it is the cause of many a layman's and even minister's wavering and tottering,-and finally backsliding into the Old Church, or, what is perhaps even worse of sliding into Spiritualism, Unitarianism and other dark and doubtful isms, simply because they did not believe, acknowledge and know what our headline teaches.

     In order to arrive at a Point which may serve as a basis of such an investigation, it is my opinion that it ought to be clearly understood how Swedenborg wrote the Writings. The Rev. Teed says: "Swedenborg wrote from 'things heard and seen' according to his own understanding." This is not conspicuously explained. As far as I can understand, Swedenborg wrote from "things heard and seen" according to the illustration and from the illustration of his spiritual rational, and that means from the dictation and under the auspices of the Lord Himself. Under no circumstances did he write from inspiration according to his own understanding, or, in other words, in agreement with his understanding, as, for instance, the Apostle Paul did. Swedenborg wrote purely and simply from dictation; not from a verbal dictation, word after word, but from a dictation of the idea, as it were by synthetic influx from the Lord alone, which influx he conceived, as it were, analytically in his natural rational, thus conjoining the two faculties,-the natural and spiritual rationals,-into one. After having conceived the idea fully by means of this harmonious conjunction, the Lord left it apparently to His servant to present the idea in fitting terms of human language, though incessantly under His control.

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For this reason, Swedenborg altered his terms quite often, canceled and corrected, till he perceived intuitively the final consent of the Lord that the idea was clearly and logically presented in human words. At the same time, the Lord made him use a certain plain style, which appears to be his own, but which, in its root origin, was of a Divine hue. This is similarly the case with the style of all truly great men.

     Let us now frankly ask: Who is the author of the Writings? Is he Swedenborg? If so, how then could the Lord make him say: "No spirit dared, and no angel wished, to instruct me, but the Lord alone has taught me," (D. P. 135), or, "The internal sense of the Word has been dictated to me out of heaven." (A. C. 6597); or "It (H. H.) is not my book, but the Lord's book," (S. D. 6101); or what the headline promulgates, etc.

     The Rev. Teed declares: "If the Writings are the Divine Word in supremest form, then they certainly stand above the Bible," and further: "Do those who think with (the General Church) seriously maintain that the Writings are the spiritual sense of the Word? If so, then, undoubtedly, they supplant the Word-in its literal sense." These questions lead to the real, true aim of this article.

     Let us state, first of all, that the Writings certainly are the Divine Word in supremest form as a foundation upon which each individual can build up his spirituality according to his intelligence from love for wisdom, or what means the same, according to the illustration that is capable of receiving from the Lord, and thus of progressing higher and higher to eternity, because the Writings or the Spiritual Word are not given to men on earth alone, but also to the inhabitants of the heavens.

     And secondly: Has it ever been a question whether the soul is more supreme than the body? or the internal more supreme than the external? And yet, are not the soul and the body, or the internal and the external, a one, if they are something? Are not the Writings intimately conjoined with every word and syllable of the inspired books of the Bible? If we read the external sense of the Word, have we not the internal sense constantly present in our mind; whether we know it little or more, do we not reflect upon it and try to find the spiritual idea? On the other hand, when reading the Writings, have we not constantly present in our mind the literal sense, and enjoy immensely every correspondential connection?

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How, then, do the Writings "supplant the Word-in its literal sense"? Can we speak to the soul without speaking to the body? or to the body without speaking to the soul? The body is subservient to the soul, which is the supremest man; and so is the literal sense of the Word subservient to the spiritual sense, which is the supremest Word. The body is a temple of holiness for the soul; so is the external sense a temple of holiness for the internal sense; but let us not forget, as the Writings say: "But he is greatly mistaken who separates appearances of truth from genuine truths, and calls the appearances holy by themselves and of themselves, and not the sense of the letter holy by these and from these, and together with these." (A. E. 1088:5.) So we arrive finally at this conclusion: Can the soul be the soul without being an organism, presented by the spirit and fixed by the limbus? If not, then the internal sense can only be the internal sense, being art organized form, presented by the Writings, and fixed by the literal sense.

     After our death we have no more need of the body; neither have we need of the literal Word; but we need the spirit, and likewise we need the Writings.

     Lastly, I will quote from Rev. Teed: "If the Writings were the Divine Word in its spiritual sense, we should be only able to receive it by a violation of the order of influx-from the books up into our mind. But the spiritual sense, being the speech of the Lord Himself to the individual man, flows down by the orderly course of influx from within outwards." While the latter assertion is correct, the former is wrong. We have two kinds of order, one an influx from firsts to lasts, and the other an afflux or reflux from lasts to firsts. The man of the spiritual church begins with the second or inverted order, and follows with the first order of influx, and thus continuously to eternity, when searching after truths for the sake of doing good. To him there is no influx given without previous afflux. Both orders meet in the rational, from whence the first order descends further down to lasts, and the second order further up to firsts, which process of order we can see symbolized by Jacob's ladder, upon which the angels ascended first, and descended afterwards. Consequently, the internal sense flows down from firsts into our spiritual rational in the form of the Writings; for this sense must necessarily have a form, though they [the Writings] are not an external form like the body of man, but an internal form like the spirit of man.

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Therefore, the internal sense has its abode in the spiritual rational as a special form or a middle form, namely, the Writings. And for this reason, the internal sense, when proceeding further down into the natural understanding, needs a protection in a more external form, which is the literal sense of the Word. Now Mr. Teed says correctly that the internal sense, consequently the Writings, are the speech of the Lord, consequently the Divine Word itself. How, then, should it become a violation of the order of influx if this sense has been deliberately revealed by the Lord to be the life and soul of our spiritual rational, where we can conceive its Divine truths by means of the order of afflux conjoined with the order of influx?

     There is no other way given to the man of the spiritual church to become spiritual; and, therefore, it is simply impossible to him to violate the order of influx, because no such influx is ever given to him unless he has become illustrated in fulness; that is, spiritually upon a celestial basis. And no man becomes thus illustrated unless the Lord knows that he will not violate the internal sense, and thus the order of influx. There is, as it were, a double security provided by the Lord. All those who do not acknowledge the internal sense as the Divine Word itself are not fully illustrated. Rev. Teed seems to have the celestial man in mind, in whom the Lord operates by direct influx from firsts to lasts without reforming the natural rational, as was the case with the man of the Most Ancient Church, who could violate this order of influx, and did so; and as will be the case with the man of the New Jerusalem who corresponds to the genius of the angels in the celestial kingdom. Neither will he be able to violate the order of influx, because he will have the celestial sense of the Word in his heart, and thence the spiritual sense in his understanding. This influx, alas! will never become the inheritance of the so-called Christian nations and peoples of the present day.

     Let us now recapitulate the whole in a few words, and arrive at a final settlement:

     1. The internal Sense is the soul of the Word.

     2. The Writings are the spirit of the Word, or the internal form, consequently the Word itself.

     3. Hence it is clear as crystal that the Writings "are" the Word itself in both worlds, though they cannot be "called" the Word in the natural world, because in this world the Word in its literal or external sense is in its fulness, power, and holiness.

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     Whether we call the internal sense "the Writings" or "the Revelation of the Second Advent" it amounts to the same, provided the Divine Authorship alone is acknowledged, and not the authorship of Swedenborg.

     In the natural world we do not call the Writings the "Word" in the some sense as we call the literal sense the Word, because in the literal sense the Word on earth is in its fulness, holiness and power. Analogously, we do not call the spirit of man in the natural world "man" in the same sense as we call the physical body the man, because in this body man on earth is in his fulness, activity and usefulness.

     All this does not for one moment alter the undeniable truth that the Writings are the Spiritual Word, consequently the Word Itself. And whether we say the Writings, or the Revelations, or the Internal Sense, or the Second Advent, it remains one and the same thing; exactly as it does not alter the fact one particle, that whether the spirit of man in the natural world is called man, or human being, or individual, or body, it remains the same thing. Therefore, the Writings are the Word Itself, just as the spirit of man is the man himself.
     L. H. STADEN.

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Church News 1927

Church News       Various       1927

     BRITISH ASSEMBLY.

     A Report of the Twentieth British Assembly, held at Colchester from July 31st to August 2d, 1926, has been received too late for inclusion in the present issue. It will be published in the February number.

     STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN.

     During the month of June, the Rev. Albert Bjorck paid the Society a visit, giving us an interesting lecture on "The Visible God of the New Church," and preaching at the service on one Sunday. The members of the Society had the opportunity of greeting Mr. Bjorck at the home of Mr. Torsten Sigstedt, Appelviken, and greatly enjoyed the social meeting with this venerable, patriarchal worker in the Church.

     The Nineteenth of June was celebrated at the new home of the Rev. and Mrs. Gustaf Baeckstrom, who had recently moved into a house of their own in the suburb of Appelviken, where several New Church families now reside. In the absence of Mr. Baeckstrom, who was attending the General Assembly at Kitchener, Canada, one of our new members, Mr. Smart, gave a brief talk on the meaning of the Day.

     In July, the Rev. Homer Synnestvedt, of Pittsburgh, visited us, and later on we also had the pleasure of seeing Mrs. Ahlberg and Miss Ruth Rosenqvist, of Bryn Athyn, and Miss Cornelia Stroh, of Sewickley, Pa. Mr. Baeckstrom has recently held a series of missionary services on Wednesday evenings, and these were very well attended by strangers, who took part in the worship with reverence, and seemed to listen with the greatest interest to the sermons, which were simple and instructive, well adapted to the circumstances. In recent article in Nova Ecclesia, Mr. Baeckstrom emphasizes our duty to those who need the Truth. He speaks of having given lectures which appealed to the intellect alone; in the sphere of worship he is able to appeal to affection and devotion also. If people are to be brought into our Church, they need to be touched in both ways.
     S. C.

     REPORT OF THE VISITING PASTOR.

     An evening doctrinal class was held November 18th at the home of Mr. and Mrs. W. H. Wiley, COLUMBUS, OHIO. Among those present were two ladies who, at my last visit, six months ago, heard the Doctrines of the New Church for the first time. One of them has in the meantime been reading Divine. Love and Wisdom, and at the opening of our class said she found it difficult to understand the teaching that the Divine, apart from space, fills all spaces of the universe (69). So this was taken as our subject, and from it we passed to other teachings. It was near midnight when the class dosed. On the following evening we had services, including the Holy Supper. The visitors of the previous evening were again with us; also another whom they brought. After the services, about two hours were spent answering many questions. On the following morning instruction was given the children.

     On Sunday, November 21st, services were held at MIDDLEPORT, OHIO. There was an attendance of twenty-two, including children. At the Holy Supper there were fifteen communicants. After services the entire congregation went to the home of Mr. and Mrs. Julius Schmoll for a Thanksgiving dinner, for which the ladies most splendidly provided, and of which due appreciation was shown.

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We had a delightful social afternoon, all the company being in excellent spirits. Then, from four to five o'clock we had doctrinal class. Classes were also held on Monday and Tuesday evenings, with an attendance of twelve and fourteen respectively. Several strangers were present. At all the meetings we had with us two visiting New Church friends,-Mrs. E. E. Gatewood, of Seattle, Washington, and Miss Emme McGuigg, of Columbus, Ohio. On two afternoons instruction was given to eight children.
     F. E. WAELCHLI.

     COLCHESTER, ENG.

     After a lapse of over twenty years, a New Church Day School has been opened in Colchester. To be sure it is only a Kindergarten as yet, and very small, but it is a beginning, and we hope that it will grow steadily. Miss Muriel Gill, after three years' study at Bryn Athyn, is the teacher, and we have implicit confidence in her capabilities, and consider ourselves fortunate indeed that she is undertaking this important work. The opening ceremonies took place on Wednesday afternoon, September 8th, 1926, our Pastor conducting a brief opening service, and giving an address in which he dwelt upon the fact that education is for both worlds. After the service, tea was served, and a special social hour was spent.

     So far the school boasts an enrollment of only eight pupils, and some criticism has been leveled at us because we admitted four "outside" children. This was done with the idea of having a better working number, until more of our own little ones are ready to attend, of which there are quite a few in prospect. We are hoping to prove that we have made no mistake in taking this step, but, of course, time will tell.

     October 10th was another starred day for our Society. On that day a Harvest Thanksgiving Service was held for the first time in the history of the General Church Society in Colchester. The Chapel was splendidly decorated with flowers, fruit and vegetables by some of our lady members. During the service, the Pastor gave an appropriate address to the children, who afterwards came forward with their gifts. The attendance at this service was sixty-three, of whom thirteen were strangers. It is interesting to note that some of the parents of the "outside" children of the school attended this service, and all of the pupils of the school. The offerings were presented to the local hospital, the gifts being conveyed by the pupils next day in the company of their teacher and the Pastor.
      J. F. C.

     TORONTO, CANADA

     Much water has flowed under the bridges of time since our last appearance in the news columns of the Life. Withal it has been a smoothly flowing stream bearing us along the course of our customary activities. While there is little that calls for special mention, there have been changes in the personnel of our officers which deserve mention as matters of record. Miss Rhoda Ebert resigned as teacher of our Day School after three years of painstaking and conscientious work in that office. On leaving for her summer vacation she was presented with a beautiful mantel clock as a token of the Society's appreciation of her work in this department, and also of bet valued contribution to the musical side of our activities in her capacity as organist and leader of the Choral Club. Miss Ebert has established a studio for instruction in pianoforte and theory, and we wish her abundant success in her new venture.

     Mr. R. S. Anderson, who for the past eight years has filled the position of Secretary of the Olivet Church with credit to himself and advantage to the Society, has resigned from that office. Our appreciation of his valued services prompted us to elect him as a member of the Finance Board, of which he was later appointed Chairman.

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Mr. Anderson has also been elected to preside over the destinies of the Forward Club, and we feel that he will fill both offices with distinction and success. Mr. Alec. Sargeant is the new Secretary of the Society.

     Miss Dora Brown is the new appointee to the position of teacher of the Day School, thus achieving the distinction of being the first one of the pupils educated in our local school to fill that position. We trust that knowledge of local conditions and traditions will be an aid to her in the work she has undertaken.

     The Ladies Circle were so well pleased with the manner in which Mrs. Ed. Craigie filled the position of President that she was re-elected for another year, as was Mrs. Frank Wilson to the office of Vice President.

     An item of local interest, and perhaps of wider interest also, is that on September 15th we made the final payment on the mortgage on our premises. This mortgage grew out of the building extension carried out five years ago, and we have thus consummated a work undertaken with some degree of trepidation, yet withal in a spirit of confidence which has been fully justified.

     We spoke of the smoothly flowing stream in our society activities. For individual members, however, there have been shadows, cast by bereavement, as announced in the death notices in the December issue of the Life. Mrs. Stanley Jesseman leaves a husband and four children, three of whom are being cared for by Miss Edina Carswell, Mr. and Mrs. Alec Sargeant, and Mr. and Mrs. P. J. Barber, respectively. The two older boys, William and Leonard, have also entered the Day School. Mrs. Norman G. Bellinger, who passed away in Buffalo on October 29th, was for a time regularly identified with our Society, until business called Mr. Bellinger to Buffalo, where they had resided for a number of years past. The third bereavement was that sustained by Mr. Frank S. Raymond, formerly of Toronto, but now living in the New Liskeard district of Northern Ontario. Mrs. Raymond had been visiting with her sister, Mrs. Fred E. Longstaff in Toronto. Our sympathies are with our friends in the trials that have come to them, and we trust they will find comfort in the sustaining power of a beneficent Providence.

     In the Doctrinal Classes this season, our Pastor continued the series on the Principles of the Academy which began as a preparation for the General Assembly, and since concluding that series has been giving enlightening and instructive classes on the doctrinal basis and significance of the ritual followed in our church services.

     We are looking forward with pleasurable anticipation to the perennial joys of Christmas, and to the celebration we are planning, about which we hope to have something to write at a later date. We wish to our readers all happiness in the coming year, and venture to express the hope that it may be a year of distinct progress with all the societies of the Church.
     F. W.

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FEBRUARY MEETINGS 1927

FEBRUARY MEETINGS       GEORGE DE CHARMS       1927




     Announcements.



     On the next page will be found a Program of the Annual Council Meetings of the General Church, and of the Philadelphia District Assembly, to be held at Bryn Athyn, Pa., from January 31st to February 6th, 1927.

     Visitors.

     Those who expect to come to Bryn Athyn to attend these meetings are requested to notify Mrs. C. E. Doering, Bryn Athyn, Pa., in order that provision may be made for their entertainment.     
     GEORGE DE CHARMS,
          Secretary.

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ANNUAL COUNCIL MEETINGS 1927

ANNUAL COUNCIL MEETINGS              1927

     BRYN ATHYN, PA., JANUARY 31 TO FEBRUARY 6, 1927.

Monday, January 31.
3:00 p.m. Consistory.

Tuesday, February 1.
10:00 a.m. Council of the Clergy.
3:00 p.m. Council of the Clergy and General Faculty.
Address: Rev. W. L. Gladish. Subject: "Everything Divided is More Manifold because Nearer to the Infinite."

Wednesday, February 2.
10:00 a.m. Council of the Clergy.
3:00 p.m. Council of the Clergy and General Faculty. Address: Miss Alice E. Grant. Subject: "The Academy University of the Future."

Thursday, February 3.
10:00 a.m. Council of the Clergy.
3:00 p.m. Council of the Clergy and General Faculty. Address: Rev. K. R. Alden. Subject: "The Ishmael Rational."
8:00 p.m. Public Session of the Council of the Clergy. Address: Bishop N. D. Pendleton.

Friday, February 4.
10:00 a.m. Council of the Clergy.
7:00 p.m. Philadelphia District Assembly Banquet.

Saturday, February 5.
10:00 a.m. Joint Council.
3:00 p.m. Joint Council.
8:00 p.m. Entertainment: Civic and Social Club.

Sunday, February 6.
11:00 a.m. Divine Worship-Sermon by Rev. H. L. Odhner.
8:00 p.m. Service of Praise-Sermon by Rev. Alan Gill.

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ANCIENT RITUALS AND MODERN FAITH 1927

ANCIENT RITUALS AND MODERN FAITH        N. D. PENDLETON       1927


NEW CHURCH LIFE
VOL. XLVII FEBRUARY, 1927          No. 2
     A ritual is an attitude, a gesture, a thing done to express or encourage a spiritual state of mind or a natural mood. If the state or mood be positive, the ritual becomes an embodiment of it, but if passive, then the performance of the ritual may excite the state to activity, and this especially if there be a sufficient repetition of the ritual. The iterated performance of a ritual enlivens the state of mind, because of the power that lies in such representations, because of the power derived from the influx of life into such fitting vessels of correspondence when these are offered. Ritualistic representations are such vessels devised and disposed to the reception of influx; and when given by a living performance of them, the influx takes place, the life inflows, and the state or mood becomes an active or a positive force.

     Every ritual is produced either by a spiritual state or a natural mood, and is afterwards sustained thereby. A recurrent state of mind, or a persistent mood, cannot but make for itself some concordant ritual, not only as a satisfying mode of its expression, but also as a sustaining embodiment of its life. This is the origin of every natural representation of spiritual states; and because of this origin, there is said to be, and there is, a correspondence between the state and its ritual. The correspondence is perfect in the degree that the ritual is expressive; and in the degree that the ritual is expressive it is also an adequate containant, and, when exercised, is a means of recalling and of renewing the state which in the beginning called the ritual into being.

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     Ritualistic forms are being continually composed by men, and also they are as constantly falling into disuse, as dominant moods wax and wane. There are, for instance, the rituals of war, employed more or less consciously for the purpose of begetting, sustaining, and increasing the war mood. These, with the advent of peace, fall into disuse, and this because with a change of mood such rituals begin to weary, and at length can with difficulty be filled with purpose and life. Yet, under favorable circumstances, as with the singing of the old war songs, one after the other, an assembly may be roused to a high pitch of martial fervor, and this against the related temper which has begun to prevail with the continuance of peace.

     Thus, in the lives of men, rituals come and go. Those belonging to the past begin to lose their force, and at length their original meaning may be forgotten. However, it sometimes happens that a ritual hangs over long after its original meaning is forgotten. By some peculiar force, by some mystic adequacy, it endures, and men continue to employ it, perhaps because of a certain subconscious efficacy. But in such case, new meanings are apt to be put into it, and new emotions implied, according to the play of fancy to meet the shifting changes of mood, of later and different times. This has happened to many rituals of a religious nature, having their origin in the long past and under conditions of life which at this day cannot be recalled.

     Our Scripture is in a degree composed of such remnants of ancient and forgotten customs, which have to us no meaning, at least as to their natural bearing. Who can tell us why it was forbidden to seethe a kid in its mother's milk? Intensive study has indeed revealed the practical significance of many of these ancient observances, but as many more remain in doubt, and some are quite incomprehensible, because of the lapse of time, and changes in the modes of human life. Few things are more interesting than these survivals. More readily may we comprehend their general spiritual import, which is all but invariably some form of covenant between man and God. This obviously is the fundamental meaning of all strictly religious rituals, as, for instance, the ancient ritual of blood, the blood of the sacrificial victim, called the blood of atonement for sins, which was a ceremonial of purification, whereby man consecrated himself to his God by a symbolic joining of his life with that of his God by a community of blood between them, as when Moses took one half of the blood of the sacrificial victim, and sprinkled it upon the people, and said," Behold the blood of the covenant!"

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     This ceremonial was a Divine representation, and it was an early forerunner, a foreshadowing, of the "blood of the Lamb," or the sacrifice on the cross, and as well of the Holy Supper, which was given Christians, not only as a memorial of their Lord, His death and His resurrection, but also as a substitute for the paschal lamb, the eating of which was in the nature of a Divine communion and a memorial of redemption from Egyptian bondage, but is also significative of release from any evil bondage.

     II.

     There has been on the part of man an immemorial looking to God for redemption, and an increasing effort to find and confirm salvation; and as certainly this redemption has been given, again and again, as men have been lifted above themselves into exalted states of spiritual life, by their faith and their religious emotions, based on some significant Divine ritual in which they have confidence. This is the story of man's religious life from its beginning. And it is marvelously impressive.

     Redemption is of mercy on God's part; but on the part of man it is a matter of purification, a cleansing in preparation for union with God, with the life of God, even the life of the God that is in the sacrificial offering; the sacrifice itself representing the Divinity to be seized upon and appropriated, to be eaten ceremonially, as significant of the union of life with life, or man with God, simply perceived and felt as redeeming, as vivifying and uplifting. The Holy Supper is none other than this. All its implications are foreshadowed by the customs of the paschal lamb. And the heart of the meaning of the one and the other is the same, that is, union with God,-a ceremonial union, indeed, which may or may not have a deep and sincere meaning with an individual, which may or may not be accompanied by a purification from sin and a devotion of heart, but which may also be thus accompanied, and so filled with genuine spiritual life.

     When Moses sprinkled the blood of the sacrifice upon the people, their redemption was represented and they were purified by that blood as by an atonement for their sins.

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In their own way they understood the ritual as a covenant binding them to Jehovah their God; their tribal God, indeed, but none the less their God, powerful to save them from their oppressors.

     Every man has his God, to whom he looks for redemption. This may not be the God of ancient revelations. It may be the god of modern science. It may be a god more cruel than Baal. It may be a god inbound in man's pride and selfishness. Yet it is his god, for he has made it so; and he can so make it because it has made him. In this sense there are many evil gods, even as the ancients fancied. And yet, as the prophets demonstrated, there is the only true God, who has made all things in image and likeness of Himself. This only true God may be seen as in some part reflected in every sacred ritual, and may in some part be attained through such ritual, if only there be a sincere mind and a pure heart,-a heart cleansed by that which the blood of Moses' sprinkling betokened, cleansed by that of which the blood of the lamb was a symbol.

     There has been a marvelous growth in these ritualistic forms of the blood covenant, with a like progressive development in their interpretations, with the passing of ecclesiastical ages. Yet the fundamental observance has stood fast, and the primitive meaning still holds. The blood which Moses sprinkled on the people for their redemption, in later days, when Aaron and his sons were set apart for the priesthood, was put upon the high priest when he entered the holy of holies in atonement for the sins of the people. The sacrifice,-the sacred victim, in part eaten as in communion,-in later times, when Israel was being delivered from bondage, became paschal. And both the blood and the flesh of the offering were in imagery transferred to the cross, with Christ as the Lamb of God, and Himself before His suffering instituted the Supper, calling the bread His body, and the wine His blood, with the command that men should eat and drink of it, and this in order that they might be redeemed by partaking of His life.

     This Christian communion is thus clearly founded on the old, the immemorial, blood covenant wherein the victim was a Divine representation, wherein the sacrifice was an offering to God on the part of man, and itself an emblem of Divinity. This dual significance of the victim was that which provided a bond of connection and a medium of conjunction between man and God.

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Herein is involved the underlying necessity which, at all times and under every aspect, conditions man's relation to God, and of the finite with the Infinite. A medium of conjunction must be given, and the medium, in order to serve, must Partake of the nature of the two that are conjoined. This is the law. Hence the offering was at once a gift of man to God and a representative of the God to whom this gift was offered. This idea of a conjoining medium was given its fulfilment in the Christ sacrificed on the cross, the true Lamb of God, both Human and Divine, and as such a Mediator.

     The same conception also gives special point to the doctrine that the Divine can be conjoined with man only through that which is of the Divine in man. The Divine to be so conjoined is the Infinite inflowing. The Divine in man receptive of this influx is the Divine accommodated, as by the humanized forms of Divine Revelation, the Word. The Word implanted in the minds of men is therefore that Divine in man which is capable of receiving the vivifying influx from the Divine above. It is also that medium of conjunction which is both Divine and human, both Infinite and finite. This Word is even as the sacrificial victim, and is the same as the Lamb of God who taketh away the sins of the world.

     III.

     This brings us to the realization of the human necessity of seeing the Divinity under a human aspect, and to the acknowledgment of the fact that the moment this human aspect is withdrawn, in that same moment the Divinity vanishes. On the other hand, a like consideration will enable us to see that, through a Divinely chosen human aspect, it is provided that the Infinite may become visible, and an object of worship. This is the heart of the Christ idea, and this the soul of the ancient sacrifices,-those offerings which were gifts to God, and yet themselves filled with Divinity. The God received the gift, and the Divinity therein was imparted to men.

     These offerings made by fire were animals,-goats, sheep, and oxen. Students tell us that these animals were actually the gods of the people, but they also grant that it was understood that the God only dwelt in the animal, it may be, for a time, as at the time of the sacrifice.

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The ancient and primitive peoples so thought, and while the fact was not actual as they conceived it, yet it was a virtual truth, in that the Divinity did dwell in the idea, in the thought and in the affections of the people, by which they were exalted, lifted up by a spiritual emotion, when performing their ceremonial rituals. That such performance had this effect is the testimony of the most thorough students of the subject. Primitive peoples themselves assert with all earnestness that the performance of their rites makes them better men, more kindly and more loving.

     Certainly, in this connection, we encounter savage cruelties; but the like have not been absent from the so-called higher religions. Communion with God has stood for that which is both highest and lowest in men; its effects have at times led in the one and then in the other direction, depending upon the heart of the worshiper, whether by such communion it was purified or not. But such purification was the prime, the original, intent of the ceremonial; and there never was a time when this intent did not, in some degree and with some persons, produce the desired spiritual effect. Otherwise there would be no such thing as the mercy of God in human history. It is a familiar thought that men are cleansed from sin by faith, as by faith in the atonement on the cross. It should be understood, however, that salvation is never effected by an abstract belief apart from a concordant life; such concordance, for instance, as is implied by a repugnance to evil and an earnest endeavor to overcome especially those evils seen to be in one's self.

     Because of the seeming persistence of evil tendencies in man, because of their recurrence after much resistance, men have thought that a miraculous element must enter before the victory can be attained. This miraculous element is at this day supposed to be given by or through faith, as by faith in the atonement, and this is in so far true that men struggle against evil and for spiritual life in vain, unless they at the same time believe in the Lord and call upon His name. A miraculous help does come by way of faith, or through belief, but it is powerless to effect salvation unless confirmed by life,-a life of active resistance to evil in the name of the Lord.

     It is true that sins are as if washed away, or that man is purified by the "blood of the Lamb." This blood, however, is not in fact the physical blood of the cross, but its mystic correspondent, or that which was represented by the actual blood, that which was represented by the wine of the Supper.

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And this same is that which in ancient days was signified by the blood of the sacrifice which Moses sprinkled upon the people, and which was put upon the high priest in sign of atonement, and was sprinkled upon the foundations of the altar, upon the vail over the ark, upon the mercy seat, and upon the priest's garments. It is also the same as that signified by the blood of the Passover which was put upon the posts and the lintels of the houses, lest the plague should enter,-namely, the Divine Truth. For this Truth is the very blood of the universe, which is called the Divine Proceeding, or the Divine Outgoing, by which all things are and were made. It is even that Word which, in its highest interpretation as the Logos, was that which in the beginning was with, and was God,-the creative Truth; the Law of the universe, understood as Divine; the vital principle of all things; the hand of God everywhere,-a Divine sphere emanating and penetrating all things inmostly, giving them life and being, the universal operation of the Holy Spirit, a Divine Inspiration, a continual and everlasting Divine procession, comparable with the heat and light of the sun, entering nature and forming inmostly every blood and every sap in which there is a living principle. This of which we speak,-this Divine Truth,-is Life, even Life that is God.

     What better representation of it in nature could be given than blood, the blood of the grape, the blood of the sacrificial animal, the blood of man, and above all the blood of the Divine Man? His blood glorified was in fact that Divine Truth, and as such the cause of all creation, and especially all re-creation or re-generation. Therefore it was and is redeeming. Above all things it is purifying when received by man with open heart and full acknowledgment, that is, in a living faith.

     IV.

     No man is ever saved by the repetition of a formula of faith, however true. A life of action is necessary, else man's faith has no confirmation. The Divine Life inflowing takes root in man only in the degree of his resistance to evil. This is man's part,-to resist evil and do goad, according to his measure, to the extent of his ability.

     The Divine inflows with the mercy of salvation, with life-giving Truth, into all men; but the effect of this influx differs with each man.

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That which thus inflows must find lodgment, if it is to be effective; and the lodgment will be according to the state and quality of the receiving vessels in the mind. And these vessels are determined by two things,-by the sacred truth of Revelation implanted in the mind, and by the kind and degree of man's resistance to evil. If these be given, then the Divine Truth, the Spirit of God, the inmost Life Blood of creation, will find definite lodgment in the intellectual mind of man, and so make effective with him individually that universal redemption which was indeed provided by the life, the death, and the resurrection of our Lord. But it stands as a binding requirement that man must coact with God, and not hang his hands in expectation of a miracle uplifting. The miracle will be given, indeed, but only on the basis of man's voluntary action. The waters will divide for the crossing, but the man must go through. Let him stand still, indeed, to behold the Lord's salvation; yet he must go through, in order that it may in fact be accomplished.

     Without reaction on man's part, nothing can be done for and in him individually. Faith apart from life is a powerless idea. And here lies the difficulty,-a difficulty which man has ever been disposed to avoid. The combat with evil in one's self is the severest kind of conflict; it calls for a peculiar and often lacking energy. Man would prefer to remain Passive in expectation of a miracle in his favor,-the miracle of salvation, coming either by way of a ritualistic ceremony or by the confession of a formula of faith. In ancient days, men relieved themselves of the necessity of an internal contest by looking for salvation in and by a ceremonial, a sacred ritual, by the performance of which a Divine control was to be given. In later times they avoided the conflict of temptations by turning to a formula of faith. The one offered his sacrifice in due form and order, and the other made his oral confession of faith, but neither was saved thereby, unless the sacrifice, on the one hand, or the confession on the other, was preceded and followed by repentance and an earnest combat against life's degrading devils. But when such combat was given with victory, the confirmatory sacrifice was well pleasing to God and effective, Then the confession of faith was potent in opening the way to a spiritual life.

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     V.

     As we look back upon the ancient religious rites, nothing seems more barbaric than the well-nigh universal custom of animal sacrifices, and nothing appears more diabolical than the human sacrifices which were at times indulged in to mollify the wrath of an angry God. We cannot believe that such things, in themselves, were pleasing to God; certainly not to a merciful and loving God. No more can we believe that the Father found satisfaction in the suffering of the Son on the cross. We cannot believe that in the beginning such sacrifices were called for. The sacred record shows them to be of later development, and as something fitting to a state of life that was fallen away from a true perception of the nature of Divinity. And yet we can understand why the covenant of blood should be given after the fall, as a memorial of salvation to those who stood in the need of redemption. The fact stands out that in the Jewish Church the blood of the sacrifice was regarded as the most holy of all representatives, so holy that in after times our Lord was called the Lamb of God, and His blood redeeming. And in the Book of Revelation, after the sealing of the tribes of Israel, who represent the spiritually redeemed, it is recorded of those who came out of great tribulation that they had "washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb."

     To the ancients, blood was not a mere chemical product. To them, the soul was in the blood. The blood was a living thing,-the most living of all things, sacred and holy with spirit and life. Can we wonder that primitive man should stand over his dead, and sprinkle his own living blood upon the corpse? This became in time a funeral rite, a burial ceremony, but it was at the first an act of love, and a sign and effort at life renewal. The significance of blood was that of life, natural life, and even of spiritual life. The soul, the spirit, the life, and the blood were all one, and therefore the blood was a life covenant, given in death; and by and in this covenant there was union with God.

     Blood was regarded as the purest of all things, and also the most purifying. In this it was even as truth, its spiritual correspondent. Truth is the blood of the mind. Every mind is formed by this, its spiritual blood. Truth is given to every man in some grade or degree, according to the state and quality of his mind; given, and even constantly regiven, in a certain transcendental circulation, purifying and becoming impure according to the states of the affections, as these are exalted or degraded.

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Truth is in itself purifying, but it becomes impure as falsities and evils are engendered. Herein there is an increasing conflict in the mind, even as in the body the blood contests for soundness and health against impurities. So it is with truth in the mind; as perversions and falsities invade, a poison element enters which vitiates. The contest is continual, and the progressive triumph of truth in this contest brings on regeneration. This occurs in the mind of man; and the mind is the spirit, which is regenerated. In the mind, the truth prevails to life eternal, while in the body morbidities in the end prevail unto death. With death, the mind, the spirit, must be separated from the body. The body must die, in order that the mind may continue to live.

     Certainly the mind is an entity, an organization, quite distinct and different from the body, and a definite grade or degree above the body. It is of another form and quite another substance, else it could not be. The question is, whether this form and substance of the mind is such that it can maintain itself, or be maintained, after the dissolution of the body. We know that the body may in part fail, with no apparent corresponding failure of the mind. We know also that the mind may fail, with seeming good health of the body continuing. Again, we know that there is a sympathetic relation between the two, and that an affection of one is often felt as a failing of the other. On neither side of this question is there definite external proof. Nor have those who essay to converse with the spirits of the departed provided any signal proving of their belief.

     It is of order, and in the way of Providence, that men should believe or not according to their inclination. It is of order, and in the way of Providence, that men, in the matter of their religious faith, should be free from the compulsion of an external sense certainty. True faith is an internal conviction, a high perception, a seeing beyond. It is the noblest of all the human faculties, comparable in its working, though far superior in its nature, to that amazing instinct in animals which guides them homeward through unknown ways. Faith is a spiritual thing. It is a state of mind, a qualify of the spirit, when uncorrupted by evils and unconfused by falsities.

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It is a pure state and sincere, in which truth is received and loved,-the truth of Revelation, God-given for a man's salvation.

     This truth is, and comes ever more to be, the blood of the undefiled mind. And it is that which is signified by the blood of the ancient sacrifice, the blood of the grape in the Holy Supper, and the blood of the Lamb in which those who have "come through tribulations" wash their robes and make them white. But this is the condition of their purification, that they have engaged in spiritual conflict, shunned evil, and sustained temptations. These are the tribulations which they must undergo, in order that their faith may be confirmed in life, in conscious reaction to the influent Divine. If this reaction be not given, the influent Divine passes through and on as if it were not, so far as the conscious reactive mind is concerned. The unconscious life-processes are, of course, receptive of life inflowing, else man would not live. It is the conscious mind which must experience salvation, lest man become a subject of evil and a degraded being.

     Man, therefore, has his part to do, his side of the covenant of life, his table of commandments to obey, his sacrifice to make, his faith to confess, his life to live, in favor of all that is good and true, and against all that is evil and false. This has ever been, and always will be, the way of spiritual life, revealed in light as the true and only way, and represented correspondentially in all rituals, and declared to rational apprehension by the formulas of faith.

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MORALITY WITHOUT RELIGION 1927

MORALITY WITHOUT RELIGION       Rev. HOMER SYNNESTVEDT       1927

     "Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Thy sight." (Psalm 51:4)

     "Heal my soul; for I have sinned against Thee." (Psalm 41:4)

     "Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees; ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 5:20. Lessons: Ezekiel 29:1-16. Matthew 5:17-20; 43-48. A. C. 4988.)

     In the lessons read this morning we are taught by various symbols the necessity of something more than merely natural affection and goodness, if we would be perfect in the sense of emulating our Heavenly Father, Who "maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust." Who cannot see that the whole context in Matthew is a protest against merely natural good, showing it to be nothing more than selfishness? For is it not true that to love those who love you is only another form of loving yourself? But the Lord wishes us also to love others, and to serve them; for this is the truly Christian love, which is another way of saying that it is the kind of love that makes heaven. No amount of the other kind of love, such as the publicans are said to have, can bring a man to heaven, or build a church or kingdom of God on earth. And it is of the two kinds of good which are here described that we wish to speak.

     "If ye salute your brethren only, what reward have ye? Do not even the publicans so?" (Matthew 5:47) It is use that we must learn to have,-use for its own sake; for it is this love of use that makes heaven, that is heaven essentially, and that brings all true happiness and reward. This alone is in line with the Divine Love itself, and brings the influx of what is Divine into our own hearts. But you will ask, Cannot a man who rejects all creeds love his use? How about men who seem to be among the noblest and most self-sacrificing, who have done more good in the world than many others, and who yet have lost their faith in religion, or at least their belief in God and heaven and the Word, as these have been taught to them?

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The recent death of a great wizard of plant life has brought this subject into very active discussion. Some say that in all these cases a plane of religious truth was formed in early life, and that this has moulded their basic character, and carried them through. Others say that the holding power of the religious atmosphere which still surrounds such men is powerful enough to keep them straight. It is claimed, however, that in a century or two, unless this religious atmosphere is renewed and renovated, it fails; and we have the familiar history of a nation or race that becomes decadent. That all religious obligation is primarily an obligation towards God is nowhere more clearly taught than in these words of David, "Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned, and have done this evil in Thy sight."

     While the modern agnostic denies that the successive decline of each age or each era has been caused by the failure of the religious faith or life of that age, it is nevertheless a singular coincidence that the said decline has in each case proceeded step by step along lines parallel to the religious decline. The argument against this is that there can be a great accession of religious zeal, amounting to fanaticism, together with the most savage and cruel political and moral practices. Religious zeal and charity have by no means marched hand in hand. The persecution of the Quakers in early New England is a case in point, as also earlier persecutions of the Inquisition and the treatment of the Huguenots in France. So you see, when we say with the Writings that the decline of religion is always the primary cause of political and moral decline, we must take this to mean true religion, and not some emotional perversion, such as is common in enthusiastic or hysterical developments of religion. These are what bring religion into ill-repute with the judicious student of history.

     The truth about this matter of accounting for such good and fine characters outside the fold of any definite creed or church is to be found in the teaching that all human beings have an inmost plane or faculty that makes them at least seek for religious belief and expression. The Lord created us in His own image, and primarily to the end that He might love us and be loved intelligently, freely and responsibly in return. So we all have a certain religious instinct.

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This is why no race has been found that was so low in the scale that it had not some kind of religiosity-some wonder sense-some fear of the supernatural-even if only a taboo or a totem pole. But the point for a New Churchman to remember is that such religious emotion is, by itself, not saving. To make a religion really such as to "bind us back" to good, it must use both of man's faculties conjointly, namely, his emotion and his intelligence. It is the conjunction of the will and the understanding which alone makes a sentence, and produces a full and binding state that is man's own. Religion that consists of mere feeling is as futile as that which consists solely of creeds and theories, which only tell about religion. The two must go together.

     As it is written in A. C. 3310: "Without doctrine, there is indeed good of life, but not as yet of the church, except only in the capacity of becoming so." Further, note this teaching in A. C. 8856: "The charity that is implanted through faith is a very different kind from that which some have by nature, which is apparent charity." (And there is also the very full description of the difference in the lesson read this morning: A. C. 4988.)

     There are at this day an increasing number of prominent and useful men who frankly deny that there is any life outside of nature, and who assert that there is no God, except in the sense that one may so call the inmost driving force of nature. Such men come under the designation of materialists in the Writings. They are back at the same place as the old pagans of Greece and Rome. But how is it that some men of this type have apparently been so rational and moral, even more so in general than the average of religious enthusiasts? Here we are back again at our first question, and the Writings leave us in no doubt. Hear what is written in the True Christian Religion:

     "The works of charity performed by a Christian and those done by a heathen appear alike in outward form; for one, like the other, does the good deeds of civility and morality toward his fellow, which in part are similar to those of love toward the neighbor; yea, both may give to the poor and the needy, and listen to the preaching in temples. But who can decide whether or not these external goods are alike in their internal form, or whether the natural are spiritual also?

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Concerning this there can be no conclusion except from the faith, for faith gives them quality; it causes God to be in them, and conjoins them with itself in the internal man. Thereby natural good works become interiorly spiritual." (T. C. R. 654)

     There are two kinds of good: (a) Good natural, not spiritual; and (b) good natural-spiritual. Or (a) instinctive good, and (b) religious good. Or (a) blind good, and (b) intelligent or clear-sighted good. Or (a) heathen good, and (b) Christian good.

     Natural good, even the hereditary kind, is indeed a good thing; for one who has this is in a position to convert it by vastations and temptations into good that is natural-spiritual. Meanwhile, it serves many good external uses in this world. But the man who is gifted by birth with much natural good is in danger of being misled by it into a false security. He fancies himself a good fellow, and perhaps fails to see his need of castigation and correction.

     Such persons are liked and accepted everywhere, and are apt to succeed in certain lines of business, because they can secure the good-will of customers. They can also obtain what they want, and get their own way more than is good for them. Especially is this so in respect to the opposite sex. But, from the same cause, they are apt to be less reliable. They become easy-going and Self-indulgent, headstrong, and restive of the restraint of self-control. Your easy-going, good natured people, unless they have learned to subject themselves to the reins of judgment and rational truth, are apt upon occasion to become the most mulish and stubborn of all. They are easily seduced by designing persons, who play upon their natural feelings, arousing them to anger against the good, who, in the pursuit of order and sound judgment, are obliged to appear harsh and stern. Such naturally good persons can be induced to pity criminals, and to help them escape their just and needed punishments. Many of the ill-judged "reforms" of the present day are inspired by this sort of spurious "charity" or pity. Such also give to undeserving beggars and even obvious malefactors, simply because they cannot bear to see them want, although it is better in many cases that they should want, until they are driven to honest labor. Discrimination and self-control are especially needed in matters of this kind: for the natural instincts, unless castigated and held in leash by judgment and conscience, are certain to do more harm than good. (See A. C. 3470)

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     Natural good not spiritual is compared in the Writings to must or unfermented wine. It is very apt to sour or curdle when subjected to the strain of life's long-enduring hardships. Those who are in it are very amiable and sweet of disposition as long as things go well with them, and as long as they succeed according to their desires. But when the hour of trial comes, with disappointment and disapproval, then see how they take it! Many such become most cynical and complaining. They have, moreover, little patience with thrift or the self-denying prudence that looks ahead and is willing to forego the present pleasure for the sake of assuring a provision for the future need. In the end they fall back upon others for help, and fail in the support of their uses and their family, perhaps at the most critical times.

     The case is worse if the men of the Church try to rely upon that kind of good or charity for the upbuilding of a society. If the success of the Church and its organized uses depends solely upon this kind of good or charity, it is bound to fail. This kind of natural good, with the appearances that teach it as the highest ideal, is what is meant by "Egypt" in the bad sense. When subjected by training and temptation to the truths of religion in man's rational mind, it becomes exceedingly useful. But until so subjected and controlled, it is a staff of reed which bows and bends before every wind that blows. "And all the inhabitants of Egypt shall know that I am the Lord, because they have been a staff of reed to the house of Israel." (Ezekiel 29:6, 7.) Such persons give to the support of the church and its uses, but only when they feel like it, and not from principle.

     But the indictment is far worse than that; for it is further said: "When they took hold of thee by the hand, thou didst break, and rend all their shoulder; and when they leaned upon thee, thou breakest, and made all their loins to be at a stand." "To take hold of thee by the hand" is to seize upon strongly as a means of support. Oh, the heartbreaking disappointments of those who have to rely upon such good-will as this for the carrying on of their own uses, as well as those common or organized uses upon which the progress of society depends! It is as if every use, even those of the church, had to depend upon tips! Civil society provides by force that it shall not be so dependent, and with a graving tool of iron writes the word duty upon the good and the evil, the willing and the unwilling, alike.

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But with the church's uses it is not so; for if they are to be of any use at all, they must be done from the heart. It is indeed written in the Writings that taxes for the support of the church are to be levied by the State, and paid willingly by the loyal Christian, but this cannot be done in freedom in a land of many diverse religions.

     The support of such a good or love not only breaks down, but it "rends all thy shoulder." Now "shoulder" is the power of understanding and doing interior truths. And this is "rent," or badly sprained, when a person of a church relies upon this staff of reed-this natural good that is not spiritual-this that glitters, but is not gold-this impetuous wave of mere feeling that passes, and is as if it had never been-that falls down and quits when it is most needed. While it lasts, it may indeed accomplish some natural effects, but it is destructive of the power of doing or carrying into effect any internal truths. It "Tends the shoulder" of Israel,-the spiritual church. This is why it is harmful to the best development of Christian character to be always appealing to these merely natural instincts to get important uses done. It must in the end "injure the shoulder," or the power of doing these things as a matter of interior will or conscience.

     As in all matters of the gravest significance, it is in its effect upon married life, or the conjugial itself, that the reliance upon such a treacherous good or love is finally made evident to us. For it is added: "And when they leaned upon thee, thou breakest, and made all their loins to be at a stand." The "loins" here as elsewhere represent the conjugial. Here, of all places, is the unreliability, the utter treachery, of this bind of natural love brought home to us. As long as the love of the sex is only a matter of blind instinct, it is by no means to be trusted. The modern Egyptians do indeed exalt the elemental passions, and teach that the man and woman who follow the impulses of their natural instincts are true to their best nature, and the only ones who live the life which nature intended. But this is a most unhappy delusion, as the outcome will usually show. For while such a love or passion indeed has its place, yet, if it is not made subject to conscience and the revealed laws of order, it carries man only to animal uses; and in the perverted state in which we are, alone of all the animal kingdom, it is wont to be succeeded by an equal degree of cold, which will "make all Israel's loins to stand," or will check completely all growth and development into the most truly human of all loves, the love that is truly human, and which becomes eternal, surviving even decrepitude and the final dissolution of the body,-the love that is truly conjugial, the Lord's crowning gift to the New Church.

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     But we must not leave this subject until we have said one thing more. All love, even the highest and holiest and best, comes first as a natural and instinctive thing, entirely spontaneous. It is not unnatural love that the Writings are advocating. The contrast is not between a concrete natural love and an abstract spiritual love, but between two kinds of natural love. Love that is natural, and not at the same time spiritual, is what fails. What is needed is that this natural love, when it manifests itself, should be subjected to control and direction; should be bent, not destroyed; should be made serviceable to the ends for which the Lord gave it in the first place. Only thus can it be brought back into its true order, and redeemed from the corrupt twist that was given to it by the fall of man.

     Conjugial love and married life cannot prosper unless blest with delights, both internal and external. Hence we are taught that "natural good is the delight flowing forth from charity and faith," and that "the good of the natural is the delight which is perceived from charity or from the friendship which is of charity; from which delight comes forth pleasure which is properly of the body." (A. C. 2781, 2184.) In the church, therefore, as in the home, delights must not be wanting, nor the pleasures of the body. These, if indulged from no end but the gratification of the moment, are ignoble and fleeting; they are but a broken reed; but if directed, and subjected to the control and service of the Lord through a conscience formed of truths from Him, they are ennobled, chastened, and exalted, even until we shall feel that there are no delights comparable to those which the Lord gives in the sphere of His kingdom. Amen.

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HOW I WAS BROUGHT TO THE LIGHT 1927

HOW I WAS BROUGHT TO THE LIGHT       RICHARD ROSCHMAN       1927

     (The writer of this account was moved to send it to Mr. Walter C. Childs after reading the latter's communication entitled "How were you Brought to the Light)" in our October, 1926, issue. Mr. Childs has kindly sent it to us for publication, having obtained Mr. Roschman's permission to do so.-EDITOR.)

     During the recent General Assembly at Kitchener, the conversation of a small circle of friends at my home turned to the subject of Evangelization and Missionary Work,-how, in the Providence of the Lord, a man is led to see and acknowledge the Doctrine of the New Jerusalem, and how wonderful and varied are the Lord's ways and means. Naturally I spoke of my own case, and of how I gradually came to see the Heavenly Doctrine of our beloved Church. And it was the opinion of those present that it should be recorded. Reluctantly, I will attempt to show how the Divine Providence led me.

     Brought up in the Lutheran Faith, and having been baptized and confirmed, I yet could not understand its doctrine; in fact; I was too young to evince any interest in religion, although I knew that my mother was more religiously inclined than any of the rest of the family, and I liked ii. At the age of sixteen I left the family hearth to see something of the world, and traveled in Switzerland, Italy and France, working at my trade in the different places I visited. I stayed in Paris for about two years, and in the fall of 1870, when the Franco-Prussian War broke out, I had to return to my native land, and was enrolled in the German Army. At the conclusion of the War I grew tired of European life, and decided to try a foreign country.

     On September 10, 1871, I landed in Quebec, Canada, and was advised by the immigration officer to go to Berlin, Ontario, where I would be amongst my countrymen and feel at home. Before I left Quebec he gave me a letter of introduction to the Mayor of Berlin, and this I presented on my arrival there. Berlin was then a town of about 3000 inhabitants, and the Mayor was a doctor of medicine, a very pleasant fellow.

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He said to me that he would be at liberty in about half an hour, and would then go up town with me to hunt up some work. I was so impressed with his kindness that I felt that I was going to like this new country. We walked up town together, and landed in a button factory. The proprietor engaged me, to start the following Monday morning.

     On the Sunday intervening I took a walk toward the neighboring town of Waterloo with a young man of the boarding house, and on our return to Berlin we stood at the corner of King and Water Streets, in front of the Swedenborgian Church. My companion asked me if I would care to go in there. I told him that I did not believe much in any creed. "But," he said, "they have a brand new organ, and you will hear good music." The new organ and the good music decided my steps, and we went in. The Rev. F. W. Tuerk was preaching to his flock, and his text brought him dose to the life hereafter and its state and conditions. "Well," I thought to myself, "what do you know about the life after death? Who ever came back from there and related it to you?" I was quite aroused, and felt like leaving the place. In the afternoon I took a walk all by myself, seeing the town and neighboring country, which was all so new and interesting to me, and in the course of the walk I occasionally reflected upon the sermon which I had heard in the morning, rebelling in my mind at the presumption of the preacher.

     On Monday morning, as arranged, I presented myself to the proprietor of the button factory. He said: "Were you not in that church over there yesterday?" I acknowledged that I was. "How did you like it?" he asked. I told him that the minister had talked about things of the life hereafter of which he had no positive knowledge, as I was sure nobody ever came back from there and told him. My employer smiled at me, and went on to speak of a few things which did not appear so unreasonable. Among others, he said that man is made up of will and understanding, and that he thinks and acts from these two faculties. I could not say much to that, and acknowledged that I could see it. We talked for an hour and a half before he assigned me to my work. A few remarks on my part must have encouraged him to ask me if I would care to call upon the minister in the evening, but I did not relish talking again about these spiritual subjects, as my mind could not stand the strain. "Would you care if I went with you?" he said. Well, I did not dare refuse that offer, and so I accepted.

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We arranged to meet on a certain street corner at seven o'clock that evening.

     Sharp on time we met, and he was accompanied by his wife, who, by the way, was Mr. Tuerk's sister. Together we went to Mr. Tuerk's home, and after I had been introduced we talked of the recent war between France and Germany, and of conditions in Europe. Shortly my employer and his wife left the room, as they were evidently at home in the house, and I was left alone with Mr. Tuerk. We talked about the sermon of the day before, and I was frank enough to ask him where he got his information about that other world, as I was positive that no one ever came back from the grave. For a full hour I listened carefully to his remarks, and hardly said a word. Before parting he asked me if I would care to read a book treating of such subjects. I accepted the offer, and went to my boarding house tired out. It was my first strenuous day at work, and these conversations had made me restless.

     Being left to myself, without friends or relatives, only four or five days after my arrival in a strange country, I settled down the next evening to read that book,-Heaven and Hell. I kept on reading during the evenings of that week, and was interested in some of the statements. Sunday came along, and I made up my mind to find out what that religion really was. I went to the service, and took a seat on the last bench, in order that I might be free to leave after the benediction. I followed this method for three months, as I did not care to become acquainted with the people, fearing that their religion might not be true after all, and then no harm would be done on either side by my withdrawing for good. In the meantime I kept up my reading in the evenings, and got some other books.

     About a week before Christmas, two young ladies came to the factory to See Mr. Vogelsang, my employer. He happened to be out, and they hesitated to approach me. I recognized their faces, having seen them every Sunday. At last they mustered up courage to come over to my bench, and as they came near I flushed red as a turkey gobbler. They then stated their mission, which was to collect money for the children's Christmas tree. I did not know what to say, as it was the first speech I had had with these people. One of these young ladies afterwards became my good wife. I offered them a contribution of fifty cents, but they said they could not accept it unless I would come to the festival.

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So I promised to be there.

     I felt somewhat embarrassed at the festival, meeting all these people, although I knew them by sight, having seen their faces for the last three months. But the ice was broken, and I felt at home with them. And no doubt the reason was that I had commenced to see "a little dim light" from reading the books and attending the Sunday services regularly.

     Things went on into the summer months, when, at a Sunday service, Mr. Tuerk baptized the infant child of my friend, Mr. J. G. Stroh. Before he began the ceremony, he announced that if there was anybody in the congregation who wished to be baptized, he should please come forward. I walked forward to the altar, as I had in mind for some time belonging to this Church, although I had no idea it would come so suddenly and on the spur of the moment. It was the happiest day since my arrival in this country, and it seemed as if I was not the same person.

     I cannot close this story of how I was brought to the Light without stating that two years afterwards I married a New Church girl. We celebrated our Golden Wedding two years ago, and our happiness cannot cease with our departure into the other life. We feel thankful to the Divine Providence for the blessings it has bestowed upon us so bountifully.
     RICHARD ROSCHMAN.

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SPIRITISM AND THE HEAVENLY DOCTRINE 1927

SPIRITISM AND THE HEAVENLY DOCTRINE       JOA0 DE MENDONCA LIMA       1927

     (Translated from the Portuguese, with adaptations, by the Rev. E. E. Iungerich. Reprinted from A Nova Igreja, No. 17, 1926.)

     REINCARNATION.

     The corner stone of spiritistic doctrine is the belief in reincarnation, that is, in the periodic returns of the spirit to the material plane. According to this belief, our present life is but one of the innumerable acts in the drama of an existence which is to unroll itself alternatingly on the material and the spiritual planes until we attain a state of purification sufficient to liberate us finally from the necessity of living on earth. In each of his repeated sojourns in the spatial world, a man is to acquire a certain amount of experience from which to derive profitable lessons for his spiritual progress. His eventual purification is assured, even though the slight advance made in each reincarnation puts it a long way off. Though thus retarded, his regeneration is certain eventually, since in every sojourn on the material plane the spirit acquires knowledges and experiences that will advance it in the path of spiritual progress, even though he has made no conscious stride in that direction.

     This is truly a seductive and alluring doctrine, with little to prevent its making many proselytes, so pleasant are the prospects it offers the worldly and sensual man, who fears to lose at natural death the opportunity to continue to enjoy life in the only way he believes it can be enjoyed. And since, by dint of future reincarnations, his eventual purification is assured, he is under no disquieting necessity of expending any great efforts towards it in his present existence, but may enjoy natural life without much spiritual preoccupation. What is not accomplished now is only postponed, and we have much time ahead of us. Before us lie centuries, and even millennia, in which to attain to the perfection that is inevitable. And why hurry in disentangling ourselves from our terrestrial bonds, if these are so attractive, and the pleasures they offer so grateful to our senses?

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     The inclinations to evil are so imperious, and exert such an influence over us, that only at the cost of great effort, much perseverance, and many sacrifices and sufferings, do we succeed in conquering them within the few years of our existence in the world. The spiritistic doctrine, on the other hand, spares us so much labor. All it demands is that in each one of the innumerable lives it assigns to us we should accomplish a portion of the task which is so heavy for a single life. If we overcome one bad habit in one incarnation, and conquer a single vice in another, proceeding in this way throughout the ages, we will end up by becoming pure without fatiguing exertions.

     For the man of today, dominated by all sorts of vices, delivered over, body and soul, to all the enjoyments the world offers its worshipers, such a doctrine is most agreeable. It raises no apprehensions as to his final lot, for this is guaranteed, as blessedness will come in time; it is merely a question of a longer or shorter duration, and this is a triviality, seeing that time is endless and our existence eternal. When we shall attain to the blessedness of the pure spirit, the ages expended in the preparation of our soul will seem as a droplet of water over against the ocean of eternity ahead of us in which to enjoy the transcendent pleasure of that state of unalloyed purity.

     THE RAPID SPREAD OF SPIRITISM.

     It is not remarkable, therefore, that spiritism has spread so rapidly. It is perfectly comprehensible and logical, and it would have been surprising if such a doctrine had encountered any difficulty in a medium as propitious as that of present-day Christianity. The progeny of the Old Christian Church constitute a ground admirably adapted to the development of so pleasant a doctrine, which comes to liberate them from the nightmare of hell, and to substitute a succession of existences, progressively improving, for the monotony of the heaven which the Church offers them as a reward for the sacrificing of worldly pleasures.

     Most Roman Catholics, on coming to adult age, are disillusioned by the mysteries of a faith which does not satisfy their reason, and little by little become indifferent in matters of belief, following without restraint the course of their passions.

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Many become atheists and materialists, trusting naught but the testimony of their senses. For those who are in such a state, spiritism has irresistible arguments. Mediumistic manifestations are tantamount to material proofs of the existence of spirit. Confronted with a rigorously controlled manifestation of a person at whose burial he was present, the materialist cannot escape the crushing evidence of his senses, which to him are infallible. He must surrender to the evidence of the demonstrations, and thereafter, to be consistent, he will no longer be able to deny the existence of the soul. In these cases, spiritism operates as a veritable antidote to materialism.

     When the first step has thus been taken in admitting the existence of the soul, it is relatively easy to come to a belief in God; and so spiritism contributes to the transforming of atheists into believers; and though they become believers in a false belief, still, in the state of darkness in which they are steeped, it is the only one they can admit. Between two evils, the lesser is always preferable. Better the weak flicker of candlelight than complete obscurity. It is preferable to believe in an inaccessible, vague, indefinite God than in none at all. Whosoever has taken a single step in the direction of the light has more likelihood of attaining to the splendor of the sun than those who stay immovable in the midnight.

     EVERY EVIL IS OVERRULED FOR GOOD.

     The fundamental tenet of spiritism is false and dangerous, as we shall see in the light of the Writings of the New Church; but as there is no evil from which the Divine Providence cannot draw some good, the rapid spread of spiritism is explicable if we consider the goods that may result thence. Under the viewpoint of Providence, all false beliefs have had a mission to fulfill in the spiritual progress of humanity, notwithstanding the great number of evils with which they were surcharged. In the final balancing, there was always a preponderance in favor of good. Evils from which evils alone can result cannot be manifested, inasmuch as the laws of universal order are opposed thereto.

     Let us present a single example to make clearer the idea that from evil good can result, absurd as this may seem at first glance.

     When a perverse assassin treacherously slays the head of a family, exposing his wife and children to misery, this initial evil seems to beget nothing but a series of other ills.

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Yet the light of a spiritual critique may show that the Divine Providence is able to draw inestimable goods out of such an evil, although it was deliberately committed with the end of causing irreparable harm. The widow who had previously lived in ease, wasting in the pursuit of unneeded luxuries the resources which the husband acquired by his hard toil, on seeing herself destitute of all means, is obliged to apply herself to work, so as not to die of hunger. The grievances and sufferings resulting from her new experiences lead her to reflect upon the transitory state of worldly pleasures and the need of concerning herself about her subsequent life, the moment this no longer wore a smiling face. She who was formerly indolent and carefree thus becomes diligent, and what is better, an ardent believer on the candid path of regeneration. Thus all the evil she underwent was being transformed into the supreme good of her life, since it was leading her on to the way to heaven, whence she had strayed.

     If we look also into the conditions of life with her orphaned children, we shall see how the Divine Providence diverted the evil they suffered so as to draw from it precious spiritual teachings which had a decided influence on bringing out goods in their life, and saving them from an imminent perdition. Even the assassin, undergoing in prison the hard consequences of his evils, can be led to change his sentiments, and perhaps even to be regenerated. Thus the Divine Providence, in permitting the practice of evil, had yet in view its extirpation, impossible in any other way.

     THE MISSION OF SPIRITISM.

     Passing from the important point illustrated by this example, let us now ascertain what is the mission which the Divine plans reserve for spiritism. We have already seen that this doctrine lends itself admirably to combating materialism, because it can present tangible proofs of the existence of the soul, the only possible way to convince those who trust solely in the testimony of their senses. A man who has fallen into the sad condition of trusting more to his senses than to his reason can only be raised up from this miserable state by means which descend-to the depth of the abyss where he is,-means sufficiently gross and brutal to stir his besotted mental sensibility, the only approach to which is by the blunt avenue of his corporeal senses.

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Spiritism disposes of such means; and undoubtedly one of its providential missions will be to destroy the materialism produced by the irrational dogmas of the Old Christian Church.

     A second mission, quite as important as this, seems to be allotted to spiritism. Since the Last Judgment in 1757, the majestic edifice of the Old Christian Church has crumbled to the condition of the colossal temples of antiquity, whose ruins time is slowly consuming. The building still rises, imposing and grandiose, but the influx of spiritual life which animated it has been extinguished forever. Since that date, this First Christian Church has entered into a decadence which will necessarily attend its disappearance, as in the case of all the former religions upon which the Lord executed a last judgment. For many ages to come, its imposing structure will dazzle by its exterior elegance the superficial onlooker who does not perceive the work of interior disintegration that will finally shatter the colossus-indifferent as he seems to the passage of the years.

     To destroy utterly an edifice so grandiose and potent by the mere action of time would be too slow, in the economy of Providence, especially as it encroaches upon a considerable extent of the ground where is to be established the imperishable temple of the New Church, which, as the crown of all Churches, must be extended to all the earth, and so to all present-day Christian peoples. But the foundations of a new edifice cannot be built on soil occupied by an old one; and so there is need of hastening the destruction of the latter.

     This is the second mission of spiritism. Attacking, like the teredo, the woodwork of the Old Christian Church, it will shortly bring it to pass that the pierced and weakened beams of the edifice shall no longer be able to sustain the weight of its masonry, and then that magnificent palace, which has hitherto defied the action of time, will crash to earth.

     Everything makes it credible that to spiritism is assigned the two-fold mission we indicate,-to destroy materialism, and to hasten the collapse of the Old Church. This double mission has but a single end,-to accelerate the advent of the New Church, which cannot take its seat in places still occupied by the spiritually vastate Church, nor where a materialistic atheism rules.

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     SPIRITISM HAS NO DIVINE ORIGIN.

     Let us not, however, lose sight of the fact that, though the Divine Providence may use spiritism to prepare the ground for the New Church, still this does not signify that such a doctrine has a Divine origin. Quite the contrary. For it is profoundly false, and surcharged with all the evils corresponding to its errors. All that the Divine Providence does with it is to control its effects, so as to draw out of them all possible benefit for humanity; just as Providence made use of the insistence and obstinacy of the Jews to Preserve intact the Old Testament, and ages later availed itself of the fanaticism of Protestants to spread through all the world the letter of the Word, the knowledge of which is indispensable as a basis for the reception of the spiritual truths of the New Church.

     THE MAIN ERRORS OF SPIRITISM.

     Let us now consider the main errors of spiritism, and the dangers to which it exposes its adherents.

     The chief error of this doctrine is in the denial of the Divinity of the Lord. To spiritists, the Christ is only a pure spirit who presides over the destinies of the earth,-a man who went through innumerable reincarnations and the successive degrees of spiritual progress until such purity was attained that he could perform the lofty function of a guiding spirit to an entire humanity. They admit without repugnance that there may be other spirits more elevated than the Christ; for as He was only the moderator of the most backward planet in the hierarchy of worlds, it is natural that the governors of more advanced planets should be more elevated than He!

     Now, as the corner stone upon which rests the entire doctrine of the New Church is the belief in the supreme and sole Divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ, there is a fundamental divergence between it and spiritism which forbids the members of the New Church to have the least tolerance of the principles of that doctrine. We know from the Writings that the Lord's Divinity is acknowledged in all the heavens; as well in those coming from mankind in the other worlds as in that from our earth. (E. U. 7.) It is in hell that there is complete denial of the Divinity of Christ, and so we may conclude as to whence emanates the vivifying influx of that spiritistic doctrine, which is, therefore, as to its origin, infernal.

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     THE DANGERS OF A BELIEF IN REINCARNATION.

     Because of its baleful influence upon our spiritual activity, a belief in reincarnation is the second main error of spiritism. Such a belief is a sort of spiritual narcotic which deprives those who adopt it of the energy needed for the combats of regeneration. Assured that he will have other opportunities to free himself from his evils, the reincarnationist feels no imperative need of combating his evil tendencies with every effort, and so he loiters placidly in his pitiful state, intoxicated with the prospect that he can later make the effort which today he has not sufficient ardor to begin, if he is to subdue vices in which he finds so much pleasure. He is like a dope addict who is in need of work to gain his daily pittance, but who, prostrated by the terrible drug he has absorbed, meets the difficulty by saying, "I wont work till tomorrow." So the reincarnationist postpones to another incarnation what he does not want to do in this one, benumbed by the illusory hope that he will be able to begin life all over again a second time.

     THE MISCONCEPTION THAT IS THE PROBABLE ORIGIN OF THIS BELIEF.

     The Writings teach us that our spirit is ever in communication with some definite society of the world of spirits, and by it receives the influx of life which comes from heaven. (A. C. 4067.) When we die, that is, leave our mortal body, we are immediately introduced into that society. But the society of spirits with which we are in connection while in this world is not always the same. As we change our spiritual conditions, so our spirit passes from one society to another that is in closer harmony with its newest state. (T. C. R. 476) Thus a regenerating man, in the course of his earthly existence, will traverse a great number of spiritual societies, in each of which he will have made his abode for a period of time. In ancient times, this verity, now restored to our knowledge by the Writings, was well recognized by their wise men. Is it not likely that in being transmitted down the ages by esoteric media it became distorted by successive interpretations until finally it was wholly adulterated? And so the different stages of the life of our spirit, as it passes from one society of the spiritual world to another, have been grossly materialized to mean so many earthly incarnations.

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     MEDIUMISTIC COMMUNICATIONS.

     Let us analyze the very baleful error of mediumistic communications. It is according to certain laws of universal order, called "laws of permission," that these are allowed to occur. Those laws permit the occurrence of all evils from which some good can be drawn; thus respecting the free agency of the evil without harming the vital interests of the good. In the case of spiritistic manifestations, they permit evil spirits to exercise their pernicious influence on the men who resort to them, inasmuch as from the evil effects of this influence profitable spiritual lessons may result that will benefit a great number of persons who might perhaps never initiate their regeneration without them.

     A TYPICAL INSTANCE.

     A materialistic father, crazed with grief from the loss of a beloved son, goes to a spiritistic seance, borne by the hope which a friend has kindled in him that he can communicate with the dear one whom he judged to be lost forever. The evil spirits who surround the medium, knowing by his intermediation the sad state of that distressed soul, now exposed to all their influences, immediately endeavor to take advantage of the weakness engendered by his grief; and applying the wiles in which they are keenly versed, they simulate the voice of the son, in a way to impress more easily the father who had the imprudence to resort to them. The latter receives each of these words, coming from beyond the tomb, as an alleviation of his grief. From then on he is a fervent believer in spiritistic doctrine, which he sets himself to study with ardor.

     The sole interest of those evil spirits had been to enslave to their caprices this man who had blindly consigned himself to their hands. Yet the Divine Providence, diverting the effect of their perverse action, gathered as a first fruit thence the transformation of an atheist into a believer. Later, it will take advantage of a new opportunity to make him issue from the tortuous path of spiritism into the straight path of truth.

     This father, continuing his studies and experiences, will finally reach the conclusion that it is not possible to identify the spirit communicated with; for as he takes possession of our memory he can easily evoke facts associated with the person he purports to be, without being that person.

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Thus the proof, which at first seemed all conclusive, no longer has any value. The sound of the voice, the mode of expression, the peculiarities of his character, and the secrets of any one of our deceased friends, can all be imitated and reproduced by the spirit who communicates with us; for he can read our memory as an open book. And such a reproduction has the stamp of exactitude, since it is not a portraying of the individual himself, but of what we know about him.

     From the moment this studious father has acquired this veracious estimate of the mechanism of communications, he begins to comprehend that he was in all probability the victim of an artifice, when he supposed that he heard the voice of his son; and thenceforth the communications lose all interest for him.

     It is in this propitious state of his mind that the Divine Providence intervenes anew to make him comprehend the perils to which he is exposed in opening up a communication with beings whose sentiments are unknown to him, and who have every facility of instilling false ideas and evil sentiments. Arrived at this point, there is nothing to prevent his receiving with profit the seeds of spiritual truths, if, in the leading of Providence, he has come into contact with the genuine source of these truths.

     This example shows us clearly how the Divine Providence transforms the action of the evil in a way to benefit the good; and it also makes us see how spiritism, in spite of its being a false doctrine, can yet be of service in leading many men to the truth.

     THE USELESSNESS OF SPIRITISTIC COMMUNICATIONS.

     Among the innumerable laws of spiritual order revealed to us in the Writings, there is one which we may term "the law of affinities," and which rules spiritual associations. According to this law, spirits in the other world are consociated when they have similar thoughts and feelings, but are far separated the more pronounced their divergences in these respects. In their relations with men, they obey the same law. When a medium puts himself into communication with the spiritual world, the spirits who manifest themselves are always similar to him in their mode of feeling and thinking, but chiefly in their mode of feeling, since it is affections which truly consociate us on the spiritual plane.

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Now under these conditions, in what way can communications advance or benefit us? If the spirit with whom I can communicate has the same moral and intellectual level as I, it would be better for me to counsel with acquaintances here who seem to be sincere and well-intentioned than to expose myself to the mockery of spirits whose character I know not, except that it cannot be superior to mine. In this world, I can choose a counselor whom I esteem as best fitted, from his preparation, his conduct, and his position among his fellows, but in that hidden world I shall only meet unknown beings, who can furnish no guarantee of their sincerity and moral elevation, any more than they can reveal their identity.

     It is a general rule, besides, that these communications take place by mediums of whose true sentiments we are unaware, and who may be beings inferior to ourselves. In this case, the communications become very hazardous, since we risk coming into contact with spiritual spheres inferior to our own, and from which we may expect nothing beneficial.

     THE DANGERS OF THESE COMMUNICATIONS.

     Not only are spiritistic communications of no benefit, but they are also dangerous, as we shall see.

     Quite providentially, social conventionalities, the laws of politeness, and our personal interests, cause us to appear to others, as to our feelings and thoughts, better than would be the case without these restraints, which render living in a society with men of such divergent character feasible. But in the mental world within us, where our free-will has uncontrolled sway, our feelings and thoughts make one with our ruling love, which is generally far worse than it appears. If we enter into a conscious, open communication with the spirits who surround us, are come into relation with beings whose sentiments have not the veneer that society imposes, but are those which form our inmost character, and which, as we have said, are baser than those we hope to profess. This is equivalent to our leaving the salon of a polished society for company where good manners are non-existent. Though worldly society may be interiorly evil, it is quite evident that contact with it entrains dangers far milder than those to which we are exposed in a milieu where there are no external bonds to which we may appeal.

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     These spirits are the instigators of our evil feelings, the inspirers of our false thoughts. It is they who purvey the infernal influences to which we are prone through our evils. If we hold conscious communication with them, their influences, hitherto exercised unconsciously, acquire a determinate objective, and so will redouble is virulence, compromising our spiritual freedom. This freedom is derived from the equilibrium between the heavenly and infernal influxes that are poised upon us. Now it is societies of good and of evil spirits who are the intermediaries in the operations of these influxes, each group having personally near us a special representative or subject-spirit. These transmit to us the influx of their respective groups, unconsciously, and according to laws that so regulate their influence as to Preserve unimpaired our spiritual freedom, that is, our free agency. But if we abuse this freedom, in order to enter into communication with the world of spirits, and the influence of the evil spirits is thus made a conscious matter, the equilibrium in which we live will be broken, to the advantage of those who wish to dominate over our mind, and who will enthrall us little by little until we come into a state of complete spiritual slavery.

     Now why should a breaking of this equilibrium favor the evil spiritual attendants, and not bring a closer bond with our good guardian spirits, which would be a great gain to us? This is a question which quite naturally arises.

     In the first place, we should realize that the rupture of the spiritual equilibrium in which we live, with the consequent loss of our free agency, transforming us from men into mere automata, is in no sense advantageous. If it were broken to link us more closely to good guardian spirits, these would no doubt bear us along in the path of good, but in that case our evil feelings would be covered over intact, and not being freely combated and conquered, would break out anew as soon as our lost freedom was regained. Regeneration, that is, victory over our evils, is only possible in a state of freedom.

     But the rupture of the equilibrium in the direction of good spirits is never possible, because, according to the law of affinities to which we have referred, it is always with the evil one that we enter into communication, seeing that we are not yet regenerate, and that the real internal feelings which emanate from our ruling love are but evil continually.

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     The predominance of any good spirits over us by open communications would thus paralyze the work of regeneration, leaving us with the evil feelings we possess; whereas the predominance of evil spirits, besides paralyzing the work of regeneration, would also entrain a superexcitation of our evils, when they thus received a more virulent, because a more directly objectivized, influx than before. With the process of regeneration blocked, and our evils inordinately vivified, it is clear what would happen. These would be more deeply imbedded in our disposition, and so lead us to spiritual death or hell.

     SPIRITISTIC COMMUNICATION MAY LEAD TO MADNESS.

     Besides this spiritual peril, which is the most weighty, because it definitely compromises our lot, we run a further physical risk. Evil spirits have the lust to dominate us. Becoming conscious of their existence in us, they try to dominate over our will, though only little by little, so as not to awaken our distrust. When they have succeeded in this diabolical design, which unfortunately is only too frequent, we lose entirely our freedom of action and personal consciousness, and become obsessed utterly by the society of spirits with which we made our imprudent liaison. Our body and our mental faculties thenceforth are the sport of those spirits who, acting discontentedly, make us pass for madmen. Insane asylums are full of pseudo-madmen of this ilk.

     Here we may rest our analysis of the main errors and terrible consequences of spiritism.

     CONCLUSION.

     It is incumbent upon us, in conclusion, to call the attention of the members of Our society to the dangers they run in their contact with this doctrine.

     Spiritism is a sort of spiritually rodent teredo which has attacked the woodwork of the old and devastated structures of the First Christian Church. We know, however, that this corroding insect not only attacks old edifices, but that the new also are not immune from its actions. The societies of the New Church may be attacked and even destroyed by spiritism, if their members allow themselves to be influenced by its harmful practices.

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In order that the New Church may be established in all the world, it will have to sustain a long and bitter struggle with its enemies, which are evils and falsities of every sort. We know from the revelation given to it, that in the end it will be completely victorious, but the final victory does not imply that there will not be partial reverses. Many members of its societies, and even whole societies, may succumb in the struggle. That this may not happen with ourselves and our own society, we must follow the counsel given by the Lord in Mark 13: 37, in its final word, "Watch!" Yes, we must be ever vigilant, so as to discover in time the approach of our spiritual foes. Above all do we need to watch constantly over the spiritual building of the society of the New Church, which we are now bending our efforts to raise in Brazil, to keep her immune from the insidious and destructive action of spiritism, and to Prevent its false tenets from creeping into our midst to imperil our very spiritual life. "And what I say unto you, I say unto all, Watch!"
READING THE WORD IN HEAVEN 1927

READING THE WORD IN HEAVEN              1927

     "There are four kinds of men there, just as in the world. The first kind attend to the uses in the Word; they indeed see the other things, but pay no attention to them, since they serve only as a plane. Thus is the Word read by the celestial. The second are those who take out doctrinal things from the Word; thus do the spiritual understand it. The third are those who are delighted merely with its holy external, without intelligence; these are they who are in the ultimate heaven. And the fourth are they who attend solely to the literal sense, and they who attend only to the words; as the critics, and those who write various things about it; the former of these are at the threshold of heaven, and the latter are in the very extremes." (Spiritual Diary 5606.)

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PROVIDENCE AND SPIRITISM 1927

PROVIDENCE AND SPIRITISM              1927


NEW CHURCH LIFE
Office a Publication, Lancaster, Pa.
Published Monthly By
THE GENERAL CHURCH OF THE NEW JERUSALEM
BRYN ATHYN, PA.
Editor                    Rev. W. B. Caldwell, Bryn Athyn, Pa.
Business Manager          Mr. H. Hyatt, Bryn Athyn, Pa.

     All literary contributions should be sent to the Editor. Subscriptions, change of address and business communications should be sent to the Business Manager.

     TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION
In the United States, $3.00 per year; Elsewhere, $3.25 or 14 shillings; payable in advance
Single Copy          30 cents
NOTES AND REVIEWS.

     PROVIDENCE AND SPIRITISM.

     In the article on "Spiritism and the Heavenly Doctrine," which appears in our present issue, the Rev. Joao de Mendonca Lima, of Rio de Janeiro, is vigorous and unsparing in his denunciation of spiritistic practices as a violation of Divine order, but he also holds that spirit manifestations may be the means, under an overruling Providence, of delivering some persons from a state of atheism and materialism, and of leading them back to a faith in the teachings of Divine Revelation concerning God and eternal life. This he deduces from the experience of persons known to him who have finally reached a blessed haven in the Lord's New Church. And he goes further, and suggests the possibility that Providence may thus bring many Christians to the Light. We believe that our readers will be interested in Senhor Lima's suggestion as to the possible uses of spiritism in the Christian World, and that some may wish to contribute to a discussion of the problem.

     We may readily conceive that, in isolated cases, a temporary indulgence in spiritistic Practices may, by the eventual disgust it produces, drive a man back to the Church and the Word, reviving remains of an early faith with one who has drifted away from the moorings of his childhood's instruction in the truths of the Christian religion, and bringing him to an adult acknowledgment.

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On the rebound from a low state of naturalism into which he has fallen, he is caught up and delivered by the faith of early remains. For such a rescue we rightly give credit to the overruling Providence and Mercy of God, and not to the evil from which the man was delivered.

     There is a reasonable question, however, as to whether Christians, in any considerable numbers, will be so affected by an excursion into the realms of the disorderly and forbidden practice of seeking after familiar spirits. Christians, for the most part, have heeded the Gospel injunction, "If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead." It is true that many are still held bound by the thraldom of the Catholic miracles, and that many among Protestants today are dabbling in spiritism, among whom there are those who claim that the stance may engender or confirm a belief in survival after death. Is it not rather a sign that men are demanding sensual and scientific proof, either because they are of a low order mentally, or because they have turned their backs upon Divine Revelation, and have thus closed the way of internal faith,-the way of that common perception concerning the life after death which is the property of all unperverted minds?

     However we may speculate as to the ways of Providence in this matter, the law for New Churchmen is clear enough, as Senhor Lima shows. It is summed up in this statement of our Doctrine: "No one is reformed by visions and by speech with the dead, because they compel." (D. P. 134.) An internal, enlightened faith in the Lord and His spiritual kingdom cannot be implanted by such external means as spiritistic manifestations. It is for this cause that Divine miracles are not performed at this day. They would be harmful to those in whom faith can be implanted by an internal way, that is, by the reception of revealed truth in rational understanding and spiritual acknowledgment. Such a faith, once implanted in the conviction of mind and heart, asks no miraculous confirmation, but is content with the miracles recorded in Scripture, the miracles recorded in the Writings, the miracle of regeneration itself, and the daily testimonies of the wonders of nature. Nor can we doubt that the Lord's Providence, operating centrally to the end of establishing the New Church, has made such a spiritual faith possible of attainment by all Christian men, even through restored liberty of thought in matters of faith, and the revealing of heavenly mysteries in rational light.

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NEW VOLUME FROM HOLLAND. 1927

NEW VOLUME FROM HOLLAND.              1927

     The Rev. Ernst Pfeiffer has kindly sent us a copy of his Dutch translation of The Book Sealed with Seven Seals, the missionary booklet by the Rev. Theodore Pitcairn which was published by him at Durban, Natal, in 1925, and reviewed in our issue of June, 1926. Many copies of the work have been sold at the Bryn Athyn Cathedral during the last six months, and the supply is almost exhausted.

     The Dutch edition is published by The Swedenborg Society at the Hague in a neat octave volume of 96 pages with paper cover, the typography being of the best. On the front page of the cover is the seated figure of a maiden with uplifted face, and the frontispiece is a portrait of the author of the book reproduced from the painting by Philippe Smit.
DOOR TO THE NEW CHURCH. 1927

DOOR TO THE NEW CHURCH.              1927

     We have received the first two numbers of THE NEW CHRISTIAN LIFE, it monthly periodical edited by the Rev. Wm. R. Reece, of Portland, Oregon, and succeeding his mimeographed weekly, THE NEW CHRISTIAN MINISTER. NO. 1 of the new monthly is for November, 1926, and contains four pages, while the issue for December comprises twelve pages, a size the Editor hopes to maintain. It perpetuates his frank and breezy style, and is avowedly missionary in its intent. We confess disappointment, however, at the motto he has chosen for a subtitle of the magazine: "Advocating, not a creed for acceptance, but a program for life." He thus invites men to the New Church with a slogan which implies that " it does not matter what a man believes, so long as he lives a good life," in the popular phrasing of the day. The motto strikes a false note, in catering to the disgruntled among Christians who have turned away from creeds, and who, in their revolt against faith alone, are advocating good alone.

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     Where, we ask, is a New Churchman to obtain his "program for life" but in the Heavenly Doctrine, which is first to be received in faith and understanding,-to be received as his Creed, if you please? The Writings do not condemn creeds. At the opening of The True Christian Religion, we find "The Faith of the New Heaven and the New Church," and we are told that "this Faith is premised that it may be a face before the work which follows, and is a gate through which there is entrance into a temple, and as a summary in which the particulars that follow are contained. . . . Let it be known that, in the New Heaven which is being established by the Lord at this day, this Faith is its face, gate and summary." (T. C. R. 1.) The Faith or Creed that follows embodies what is to be believed and done by a Christian man who would enter the New Church and the New Heaven. It presents in summary form the only way to a "program for life" in the New Jerusalem, the entrance to which is through an acceptance of the Lord in the Heavenly Doctrine in which He has made His Second Coming. Life in the New Church, and in the New Heaven, is the end and purpose, but faith is the means. Faith is the door of entrance to the Temple of the New Church, and not life without faith. And a missionary message which deliberately places a "program for life" before a "creed for acceptance" asks men to enter by some other way than the proper door to the sheepfold of the New Church.

     We wish THE NEW CHRISTIAN LIFE a career of usefulness in promoting an acceptance of the Doctrines of the New Church, for the sake of the new spiritual life to which they point and lead. But the motto of the new periodical gives a false impression, and Mr. Reece himself rises above it in the numbers before us, where, more than once, he outlines the cardinal principles of the Heavenly Doctrine.

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ANOTHER MISSIONARY BOOKLET 1927

ANOTHER MISSIONARY BOOKLET       Rev. GEORGE DE CHARMS       1927

     A BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO THE THEOLOGICAL WRITINGS OF EMANUEL SWEDENBORG, SERVANT OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST.

     By a Layman. London: New-Church Press, Limited, 1916. Buckram, 133 pages. Price, 2/6 net.

     We find this anonymous publication notable for the fact that the author not only withholds his name, but also seeks in his mode of presentation to minimize the human and personal element, to the end that Swedenborg may stand forth and plead his own cause in the actual language of the Writings. The impression given by many missionary tracts is that they contain the essence of Swedenborg's teachings reduced to tabloid form for the convenience of the busy man of the world, relieving him of the necessity of plodding through the works themselves, with their alleged medieval verbosity. The casual inquirer reads them and is satisfied, congratulating himself that he has now become familiar with the gist of Swedenborgian doctrine. But in this well-written and attractive little volume, with its abundant quotations from the Writings, we are given a foretaste that whets the appetite. The avowed purpose of the book is to induce its reader "to pass on to a more complete study of Swedenborg's works, fully assured that in them he will find an inexhaustible store of heavenly wisdom." (P. 133) And with this in view it presents just enough to demonstrate how "unfathomably profound, yet simple" are the Writings of Swedenborg, and how worthy they are of study.

     The book is interestingly written, its style is simple and direct, the material it contains is well selected and arranged, and the general plan of the books is rather original and attractive. The author makes no sentimental appeal to the emotions, nor does he attempt the studied argumentation of the apologist. For the most part, he states the central teaching of the Writings in language that is clear, affirmative, and dispassionate, illustrating his brief analysis by a series of apt quotations from the works themselves.

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A four-page introduction is followed by a short biographical account of Swedenborg, using his own words very effectively, as written in a letter to the Rev. Thomas Hartley. Nine successive chapters are then devoted to the presentation of the fundamental teachings of the Writings. The subjects treated are: Degrees and Correspondences; the Holy Bible or Word of God; the Triune God; Heaven and Hell and the Intermediate State; Creation and the Natural and Spiritual Suns; The Divine Providence; Man's Spiritual History; the Sacraments; the Christian Life, Free Will, Repentance, Reformation, and Regeneration.

     There is, however, a sense in which the author has failed to make a strong missionary appeal. He avoids all reference to the Church as an external organization. That there is an organized body of the New Church, having its own worship and life based upon the teachings of Swedenborg, is no more than implied in the Introduction; and its existence, while admitted, is apologetically passed over as rapidly as possible, lest the charge of narrowness, sectarianism and bigotry be laid at the door of these disciples of a new dispensation. The very first care of the author is to assure his reader that he is pleading for "nothing narrow or sectarian," but for a spiritual rebirth of religion in the heart. His selected passages here would imply that this is not a new organization, but a revival of religious spirit and life within the many and divergent sects of Christianity, restoring them to something of internal unity, through love and charity, regardless of their varieties of doctrinal belief. To emphasize this, he spells "New Church" without capitals, and likewise "Writings." So obsequious a concession to the widespread prejudice against sectarianism is regrettable, in that it makes no distinction between a new sect, seeking to jostle its way into public recognition through a crowd of mutually antagonistic "isms," and a New Church, which is entirely outside of the old Christianity, and presenting for acceptance a new Doctrine and a new life, to be embodied in a Holy City, with walls, and streets, and gates of entrance.

     In the booklet before us, the teaching of the Writings is presented as a diffused light that shines upon the wilderness of confused religious notions in which the world has become lost, revealing something of the spiritual poverty and ruin that prevails in Christendom.

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But that light is not focused upon any path that gives promise of a practical restoration, when yet it is only as this light can draw men together in a common loyalty, and bind them into a spiritual brotherhood which finds expression in a common worship and religious life, that it can slowly gain in power and impetus. Only as the Church becomes organic can it "plant the old wastes," and build a new life, culture, and civilization, rooted in the acknowledgment and worship of the Lord in His Second Coming. A mere intellectual delight in the Heavenly Doctrine, as a profoundly interesting and beautiful philosophy of life, is not enough to change the order of the world. There must be a, call to discipleship, a call to the active building of a New Church, a call that will lift men out of themselves, welding them together by mutual sacrifice, and labor, and a common warfare in the name and under the leadership of the Lord in His Glorified Human, as revealed in the Writings. It is this essential that is lacking in the book before us, and the deficiency unfortunately detracts from its usefulness as a missionary appeal.

     A just appraisal of the work compels us to note one or two other defects of a less serious nature. The Doctrine of Degrees and Correspondences, while dearly presented in the chapter devoted to that subject, is given, we think, an undue prominence. Correspondences are indeed important, but they are here made the one essential for the true interpretation of the Sacred Scripture, whereas we are definitely taught that without the "Doctrine of Divine Truth" and "illustration from the Lord," the knowledge of correspondences cannot open the spiritual sense of the Word. (De Verbo XXI.) This teaching should be carefully presented to the novitiate, lest he be carried away into error.

     Again, we find it stated: "All that is necessary for the establishment of true doctrine for the Church, for the needs of the Christian life, and for the salvation of men, is to be found in the literal sense." This can hardly be taken as an unqualified truth. The literal sense does indeed contain all things, but what is necessary for doctrine, life, and salvation, cannot at this day be found in the Letter of the Word without a resort to the internal sense, as revealed in the Heavenly Doctrine. It is the realization of this that will lead to the formation of a new Church.

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     We may note further that from the list of the Books of the Word, given on page 25, the Prophet Joel has been omitted, presumably by a printer's error.

     The explanation of the Trinity, with its selected confirmations from the Letter of the Word, is particularly convincing. The fact that the term "Person," as applied to the Godhead, is not found in Scripture, but is an invention of men, might be added as a powerful argument. We would question, however, the teaching that the Lord on earth possessed a "double consciousness," but its implications would possibly be too philosophical to confuse the average reader.

     In treating of the Sacraments, the book reveals the weakness to which we have referred, of avoiding reference to a distinctive New Church. Baptism and the Holy Supper are spoken of as Christian rites, the true use of which cannot be appreciated without a knowledge of correspondences. Yet all that is offered in the Writings, according to this booklet, is a "completely satisfactory explanation" of these Christian ceremonies, and of their uses and benefits. There is no hint of a new Baptism, as the gate of entrance into the New Church, nor of a new Holy Supper, as a communion of the soul with the Lord in His Glorified Human, and as separate and distinct from the sacrament that ends in the vision of the crucified Christ. But, of course, these would imply an organized body of the Church, which might be mistaken for another narrow and bigoted sect!

     Many pages are devoted to quotations from the Writings, and this method of presenting the Doctrines, by allowing them to speak in their own behalf, is one that commends itself to us very highly. And if a definite "Invitation to the New Church" were added, as the Divinely appointed means of calling men back to that vital spiritual religion which has departed from traditional Christianity, the combination would make a powerful appeal to all whose minds can be opened and prepared by the Lord for a reception of the Heavenly Doctrine. In its present form, the book will perform the use for which the author intended it, and should serve to awaken interest in the teaching of the Writings, whereby the reader may be drawn into the visible New Church by Providential means, although the author extends no helping hand in that direction.

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TWENTIETH BRITISH ASSEMBLY 1927

TWENTIETH BRITISH ASSEMBLY       Various       1927

     HELD AT COLCHESTER, JULY 3I-AUGUST 2, 1926.

     The program of the Twentieth British Assembly included two Divine services, four sessions and a social, all of which were held in the building of the Colchester Society. Tea on Saturday, and dinner and tea on Sunday and Monday, were served in a marquee on the church grounds, the charge for the five meals being nine shillings.

     First Session.

     1. The opening worship was conducted by the Rev. F. E. Gyllenhaal, Pastor of the Colchester Society.

     2. The Rev. R. J. Tilson, taking the chair, announced that the Bishop had appointed him President of the Assembly and Celebrant of the Holy Supper, which would be administered on Sunday afternoon. He then read the following:

     LETTER FROM THE BISHOP.

Dear Mr. Tilson:
     I have just returned from the Kitchener Assembly, where the forces of our General Church were strongly concentrated for several days. As you might anticipate, the leading theme of most of the papers had reference to the Academy's Jubilee. These papers were all on a high plane, and were well worked out with a view to the occasion, and with intent to registering our reverence for the great past of the Academy. Messages came to us from friends in various parts of the world, and were received by the Assembly with marked rejoicing. It is not too much to say that this twelfth Assembly has proven itself one of the greatest we have held, both as to attendance, and as to the spirit of love for the Church which dominated it.

     We enter upon the second fifty-year period of our life as a Church confident in the Lord's leading, and yet not unmindful of those adverse forces which, in the future, perhaps more than in the past, will work for the disintegration of the Academy as a life-saving movement within the Church, and this, it may be, even while the Academy as an institution succeeds in building itself up to a larger and more commanding external status.

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I refer, of course, to those gradual accretions which inevitably act as conventionalizing influences and spiritually deadening weights upon every reforming movement which has not within itself a sufficiently regenerating power to cast them loose and readjust them to its high spiritual purpose. This will be the test of the Academy, and, as I have said, we advance to meet this test with confidence in the Lord, that He will save us, if we be worthy.

     That He will save His Church, we know. But His Church, as represented by us, and by our present institutions, is a matter that will depend in very large degree upon our own spiritual devotion to the internal standards that have been set before us, and, as well, upon our spiritual energies in working through the issues that will come upon us, with a single view to the great principles which our fathers have drawn from the Writings, and which we have rationally confirmed as being the true basis for the establishment of the New Church.

     Absolute confidence in the Lord is a supreme virtue, but over-confidence in ourselves is not a good sign. This last ever leads to a fall, and for our good, since it is our weakness to match our conceits against the leading of Providence. This much, however, is beyond a reasonable doubt, that the Academy has functioned in the past, and must do so for a providential period in the future, as the central organ for the establishment of the Church on earth. And it will continue to be such an organ as long as it holds in faithfulness the life-giving truths that have animated it from the beginning, and at the same time keeps its spirit sufficiently expansive to embrace and solve the issues that Providence brings upon it.

     If I seemingly raise a doubt as to the future of the Academy, it is done lest we become spiritually slothful and proprially over-confident; for it is inevitable that, if this should come to pass, so surely will a new orientation become necessary. An internal church is the intent of Providence, and this intent must be achieved at any and every sacrifice. With a view to this, I addressed the Assembly in Kitchener, and with like purpose I would send through you a word to the British Assembly soon to be held in Colchester.

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We can hardly over-estimate the responsibilities which have rested upon the Academy in the past, and which, perhaps in greater degree, will fall upon it in the future. These responsibilities involve the full sweep of the Church's work, and they look to the establishment of the Church wheresoever in Providence a feasible opportunity offers on the basis of a complete reception of the Writings as a doctrinal Revelation from God out of heaven, even that Divine Doctrine which is signified by the Holy City, and which stands as one with the internal sense of the Word, proclaimed as the specific means of the Lord's Second Advent.

     The General Assembly at Kitchener voiced its desire to send greetings to the British Assembly. Permit me to join affectionately in that message. Above all, it is needful that we of the Academy should draw ever more closely together in spiritual union as the burden of our responsibilities increases. This union should be a union of minds in doctrine, and of hearts in worship, to the end that the Lord may be received both in faith and life. And so let our prayer be that the Lord may be with us, as He was with our fathers, and that we, even as they, may prove worthy of His presence.
     As ever yours, (signed)
          N. D. PENDLETON.

     3. Mr. Tilson then continued as follows:

     PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS.

     The letter which I have just read is an affectionate and weighty pronouncement inciting to a careful retrospect of the past, a grateful recognition of the present, and most hopeful outlook for the future.

     Fifty years ago!-The formation of the Academy of the New Church I Twelve men, good and true, were the favored instruments in that formation, and of them all there stands out in marvelous prominence the great founder and leader of the institution, the ever-beloved Father Benade. Great in learning, courageous in presentation, and sagacious and tenacious as a leader, it was said of him by one of his most devoted followers-the only John Pitcairn-that in comparison with him the others were as pigmies in the presence of a giant.

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     To these twelve men the fact was brought home with irresistible force that the organization of the New Church had fallen away from the truth, and had succumbed to the influences of the world, being entangled in the slough of permeation, pseudo-celestialism, teetotalism, universal restorationism, spiritism and other fanaticisms. They gripped tightly the fact that the Church needed a more carefully prepared, and more soundly equipped, Priesthood, and to this end they urged the more thorough study of the Doctrine concerning the place, power, and responsibility of the Holy Office. They keenly felt the need of stronger and straighter instruction concerning the sanctity of the Conjugial; for the whole theme, as to fundamentals, lay enshrouded by the fogs and mists of mere sentiment, gush, or worse. They felt the thick and devastating darkness which had fallen upon the Church, as to the real state of the so-called Christian World. They anticipated the coming of a godless education for the young, and set themselves to the task of providing New Church schools. And finally, as embracing the whole, they realized the paramount importance of the need of seeing the Lord, and the Lord alone, in the Revelation by which, and in which, He had made His Second Advent.

     All this was realized in the soul-stirring call to the formation of the Lord's own Academy, and which is "Our own Academy" because it is His. What a family they were! Some of us remember the beginning days, though not the actual foundation days. Old England heard the call; and gladly did several fall into the ranks and become faithful followers of the standard, "No compromise," "No equivocation!" Tafel's classic Authority in the New Church had been published, and was doing its mighty work by smiting hip and thigh and ugly head the Goliath of proprial preference, intellectual and ecclesiastical. It was a glorious time! How much we owe to those days! But, with the passing of time, numbers increased by "gradual accretions," as the Bishop has phrased it, and naturally they came to "act as conventionalizing influences and spiritually deadening weights." For each one of us, on entering this immortal institution, brings, even with most sincere desire and intelligent conceptions, the added incubus of proprial inclinations, idiosyncracies, notions and prejudices. This must needs be. But the Lord is stronger than man.

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His Spirit, His Truth, is more than equal to the weakling proprium of humanity, with all its twistings and ratiocinations.

     The Bishop urges: "That the Lord will save His Church, we know. But His Church, as represented by us, and by our present institutions, is a matter that will depend in a very large degree upon our own spiritual devotion to the internal standards that have been set before us, and, as well, upon our spiritual energies in working through the issues that will come upon us, with a single view to the great principles which our fathers have drawn from the Writings, and which we have rationally confirmed as being the true basis for the establishment of the New Church."

     This present year has witnessed a, great Assembly in Kitchener. We affectionately reciprocate the Greetings sent to us through the Bishop. A little prior to that Jubilee Assembly, two beloved and honored Academicians passed beyond mortal bonds; and as Miss Maria Hogan and Mr. Hugh L. Burnham, of ever-cherished memory, are asked upon their arrival there, "What news from earth?" we may rest assured that they will give such answers as will gladden the hearts of the angels of the Lord's New Heaven. We, brethren, remain on this lower plane. Ours it is to labor and to wait, and, what is of utmost importance, to be true and staunch in our day and generation, as were all the loved ones who have passed from Academy circles to the beyond.

     Some of us, growing old in the work, may turn with almost longing gaze to the days which were; and sometimes the thought comes that we see threatening clouds which suggest a predominance of policy over principle, that the sacred name of freedom is used to camouflage that which in reality borders on licence, intellectual and voluntary; and that the oft intrusion of "new concepts," ill-digested and explosive, may rob us of much needed quietitude and rest upon the bed of true Doctrine.

     The present calls with loudest voice, and it calls with a spirit well expressed by Oliver Wendell Holmes, who wrote:

Yet in opinions, look not always back;
     Your wake is nothing; mind the coming track;
Leave what you've done for what you have to do;
     Don't be consistent, but simply be true.

     Yes, the present calls.

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This British Assembly, the twentieth, with its significant numeration, calls for renewed devotion, for stronger efforts towards an interior and God-given unity. It calls for patience, forbearance, genuine charity, a shunning of supercilious criticism, non-constructive and injurious; it calls for mellowness of spirit, a wider outlook, and a more successful endeavor to rise above that which is of person, place and time, and for a determination to respect more zealously the freedom of the neighbor. It calls for a nearer approach to the Lord, a greater and more realistic confidence that He is, and that we may feel the Divine touch in handling, with solid knowledge of their priceless contents, the Sacred Books upon which was written "Hic liber est adventus Domini, that we may thereby lean upon the bosom of the Lord with ever-increasing charity.

     As at the beginning, so at the end of this foreword by your President, hear the words of the Bishop, when he said on a memorable occasion: "And now may the Lord lead us and guide us, may He open our minds to thoughts of His heaven! May He instill into our hearts a deepening love of Himself and for His Church! May He fill our souls with devotion to His Revelation, and also grant that we may have love for one another. Amen." (NEW CHURCH LIFE, June, 1926, p. 367.)

     In the name of the Bishop, and by His authority, I welcome you, one and all, to the Twentieth British Assembly, and declare that that Assembly is now in session.
     ROBT. J. TILSON,
          President.

     4. The reading of the Minutes of the Nineteenth British Assembly was dispensed with, as they had been published in NEW CHURCH LIFE for September, 1925.

     5. The President extended a hearty welcome to the Rev. W. H. Claxton, of the General Conference, and to other visitors present, and invited them to take part in the deliberations of the Assembly.

     6. The Rev. Homer Synnestvedt, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, then delivered an address on "New Church Education," which was appreciatively discussed by the Revs. Tilson, Bjorck, Claxton, and Elphick, Miss R. M. Dowling, and Messrs. J. Potter, J. S. Pryke, A. H. Appleton, F. R. Cooper, Philip Oyler and A. Bowie.

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     Sunday, August 1st.

     The Morning Service was conducted by the Rev. F. E. Gyllenhaal, the Rev. R. J. Tilson read the Lessons, and the Rev. Homer Synnestvedt delivered the sermon on the subject of "Morality Without Religion." [See NEW CHURCH LIFE, present issue, p. 76.]

     In the afternoon at 4:30 o'clock, the Rev. R. J. Tilson administered the Sacrament of the Holy Supper to upwards of seventy communicants. He was assisted by the Revs. Elphick and Gyllenhaal.

     Second Session.

     7. The Assembly met at 7 o'clock on Sunday evening, when the Rev. F. W. Elphick delivered an address on "New Church Education: Its Present Outlook and Hope for the Future." [See NEW CHURCH LIFE, November, 1926, p. 723.] The paper was preceded by excellent introductory remarks by the President, and followed by a fine, well sustained discussion in which the following took part: Revs. Tilson, Synnestvedt, Bjorck and Gyllenhaal; Mrs. Wm. Gill, Miss Celia Bellinger and Miss K. M. Dowling; and Messrs. E. G. T. Boozer, Horace Howard, A. S. Wainscot, A. H. Appleton, S. E. Parker, C. Howard, J. S. Pryke and Eric Briscoe; to which Mr. Elphick suitably replied; and was closed finally by the very fitting remarks of the President.

     Third Session.

     8. The next meeting of the Assembly was held on Monday morning at 11 o'clock, when the Rev. Albert Bjorck read a paper on "The Visible God of the New Church." [See NEW CHURCH LIFE, December, 1926, p. 753.] The Subject was well discussed by the Revs. Tilson, Synnestvedt, Claxton, and Gyllenhaal, and Messrs. F. R. Cooper, H. Howard, J. S. Pryke, A. Godfrey, R. W. Anderson and A. Bowie.

     Fourth Session.

     9. At the session held on Monday afternoon at 3 o'clock, Reports and Letters were read. Miss Celia Bellinger, of Pittsburgh, Pa., then presented the subject of "Teaching" in an address that was truly delightful in substance and form, and the Rev. F. W. Elphick gave a very interesting account of the Native Missions of the General Church in South Africa.

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Both speakers replied to questions.

     10. The Assembly then closed with the Benediction, pronounced by the President.

     Social.

     The Assembly Social Committee had provided an excellent entertainment. After the guests had sung "The King" and "The Assembly Song," a varied program of vocal and instrumental numbers was given, including selections by the Glee Singers, consisting of Colchester members under the leadership of Mr. Potter; a String Quartet, whose members are Mrs. John Cooper and Messrs. Wainscot, Cooper and Boozer; besides vocal solos, duets, trios and quartets and instrumental numbers contributed by other members. At an interval in the program, and again at the end, toasts were proposed by the toastmaster, Mr. Gyllenhaal, with suitable responses by the Revs. Synnestvedt, Bjorck, Tilson and Elphick, and Messrs. R. W. Anderson, J. S. Pryke and A. Bowie.

     While no record was kept of the attendance at the various meetings of the Assembly, 80 members and 16 visitors signed the roll book. Among the visitors from abroad were the following: Rev. Homer Synnestvedt, Mrs. Theodore Bellinger, Miss Celia Bellinger, and Mr. Samuel Lindsay, Jr., of Pittsburgh, Pa.; Miss Bertha Farrington, of Chicago, Ill.; Rev. and Mrs. Albert Bjorck, from Mallorca, Spain; Mrs. and Miss Pemberton, of Durban, Natal; Mrs. Gerrit Barger, of the Hague, Holland; the Rev. and Mrs. Elphick and children, en route from Bryn Athyn to Basutoland; Messrs. A. Bowie and E. Bowie, from Scotland; and Mr. Wynne Acton, of Bryn Athyn.

     Preceding the Assembly, a meeting of the New Church Club was held at Ye Olde London Restaurant, Ludgate Hill, London, at which the Rev. Homer Synnestvedt read a paper on "Too Much Doctrine." Forty men sat down to the dinner which preceded the meeting, and it was one of the best of the sixty-five meetings which the Club has held.

     The Assembly was one of the best, and possibly the best, of the twenty we have had.

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This was due primarily to the high standard of the addresses, but also to the excellent introductory remarks and summing up at the close of each session by the President; the general, well sustained and clear discussions; the many genial visitors; the fine weather; and the splendid arrangements. The various committees and individuals did their work so well that everything went smoothly. It was the first Assembly in the new building of the Colchester Society, which proved adequate to all demands.
     Respectfully submitted,
          F. E. GYLLENHAAL, Secretary.
MISSIONARY TRIP TO NORWAY 1927

MISSIONARY TRIP TO NORWAY       Rev. GUSTAF BAEKSTROM       1927

     Last summer, during my absence in America, two New Church ladies of Oslo (Christiania), Norway, visited our society in Stockholm, and while there expressed the wish that I might sometime go to Oslo and try to awaken public interest in the New Church. In that city there is a small circle of interested persons, consisting of the two Boyesen brothers, the wife of one of the brothers, their two sisters, and a Swedish lady, Mrs. Hartman.

     So I went. But knowing that the previous lectures there had only been given at a heavy financial loss, and realizing that we had little money available, I thought it would be best to attempt only one lecture. I would see our interested friends, and discuss the prospects with them.

     A very fine banqueting hall in the center of the city was rented-too fine and expensive, I thought, reflecting upon the few banknotes in my pocket-but something must be done, and he who does not take risks will gain nothing. The hall would seat four hundred persons,-the maximum number we dared to dream might attend. But it proved to be altogether too small! The people began to arrive two hours before the time announced for the lecture, and half an hour before the appointed time the room was filled. Happily an adjoining room, seating two hundred, was available. But even that was not big enough. It was soon filled, and people were still coming.

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This was a Friday evening, and I told them that the lecture would be repeated on the following Sunday at noon, and asked them to come back then. But many pushed past the attendants at the door, and the rooms became so crowded that it was with difficulty that I made my way to the platform, and even this was already occupied by some ladies. Finally I was able to begin, speaking in Swedish, which the audience understood very well.

     The subject of the lecture had been advertized in this way: "After Death? Will friends meet again? Will parents and children, husband and wife, be reunited? What Swedenborg has to say on this subject." The very nature of the subject is probably what attracted so many.

     After the lecture, books were sold. I have never seen so much interest manifested on an occasion of this kind. The people crowded around me wanting to buy. "Give me copies of all your books," one said. "Give the same to me," said another. And so books to the value of $40.00 were sold that evening.

     On Sunday at noon the lecture was repeated, although they never have lectures at such a time in Oslo. The interval between Friday and Sunday left little time to advertize the meeting, but there was an attendance of 190 persons, and books were sold to the value of $20.00.

     The newspapers were unusually friendly. Miss Anna Boyesen, who helped me to arrange for the lecture, had asked the newspapers to make some mention of the lecture, in addition to the advertisements. They agreed to do so, and asked her for a picture of the lecturer. She happened to have a small photograph of the Rev. Fred Gyllenhaal and myself, taken at the General Assembly in Kitchener, which I had sent to her as a means of identification upon my arrival at the Oslo railway station. This she gave to the Press, and it was reproduced (leaving out Mr. Gyllenhaal, I am sorry to say) by the largest newspaper in Oslo.

     Another thing that helped was the fact that the same lecture had been delivered ten times in Stockholm, and I saw no reason why this should not be made known to the public in Oslo. So one newspaper, after the lecture had been given on Friday evening, said: "If this lecture has been delivered ten times in Stockholm, it ought to be given at least twice in Oslo, and it ought to be repeated in a larger hall."

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     On Sunday, after the lecture, the group of New Church friends met privately for worship, and the Holy Supper was administered. We were seven persons-the same number that met in Stockholm at the very beginning of our society there. Two other ladies in Oslo would have attended if they had been able.

     After the service, we organized the Norsk Swedenborg Selskap (Norwegian Swedenborgian Association), the object being to awaken an interest in the Heavenly Doctrines, and later to found a New Church Society in Norway. A lending library was established, to be in charge of Miss Anna Boyesen, who was also appointed Treasurer of the Association. Doctor A. T. Boyesen became President, and Mrs. Hartman was chosen Secretary. And it was decided that meetings are to be held at which the Doctrines will be read, as was done in Stockholm when the little circle began there. Persons who borrow books from the library will be invited to these meetings. It was also agreed that I should visit Oslo again as soon as possible, and also take up the work in other parts of Norway, so far as time, strength and means permit. There are some isolated receivers in Norway, and it is the idea to get in touch with them, and eventually to visit them.

     In the course of my journey to Oslo, I also visited isolated receivers in some towns in the northern part of Sweden, and delivered lectures four times, with an average attendance of 155 persons. On the whole journey, books were sold to the value of about $120.00, and since my return I have received orders for books from Norway, including one from a bookstore for fifty copies of my Swedenborg's Uppenbarelser (The Revelations of Swedenborg), to be sold on commission. I have also seized this opportunity to advertize the book in the chief newspaper of Oslo, stating that it can be obtained at that bookstore. And in each copy I have placed a catalogue of the Writings and of our missionary books.

     On this trip I was absent from home thirteen days, four of which were spent on railroad trains. Although I stayed mainly at hotels, paid the rent of six halls, and did a great deal of advertizing, the whole undertaking did not cost us a penny, but left a balance of about $24.00, which was devoted to the purchase of books for the lending library in Oslo, and for one we established in the Swedish town of Karlstad. All the expenses were paid by the admission fees charged at the lectures.

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     Quite a new field has thus opened up, and one which at present looks rather promising. Even if the interest should in many cases prove to be mere curiosity, yet something more may come of it, and eventually the establishment of a New Church society in Norway. Why Not? The field seems to be no more difficult than in Sweden. As the ice has now been broken, it may soon be time for a more general presentation of the Doctrines in Oslo, perhaps in my next lectures there. Though the attendance will doubtless be smaller, leaving plenty of room in the hall, and involving a sacrifice of money, those who are really seekers after truth, and are willing to receive it, may come out and join us, and thus enable us to found a society there.
RESTRAINT FROM ACTUAL EVIL 1927

RESTRAINT FROM ACTUAL EVIL              1927

     "It was communicated to me that actual evil is not only that which a man has acquired to himself by acts, but also what he has acquired by thoughts without act; for if external bonds had not prevented, he would, from cupidity confirmed by reasonings, and in reasoning from cupidity, have rushed voluntarily and without conscience into evil. A man has an interior bond if he, reflects that actual evil destroys the felicity of eternal life, to which he looks forward. The desire to be the highest in heaven is also a bond which restrains him from actual evil; but this bond is not to be confused with conscience, which, when it is a true conscience, is not possible apart from a love of the neighbor, so that he prefers the neighbor to himself; nor is this love given apart from faith, in the Lord. Genuine conscience is given by the Lord through the knowledges of a true faith, thus from genuine faith." (Spiritual Diary 3615.)

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Church News 1927

Church News       Various       1927

     NEW YORK.

     Our autumn activities began in September with the Sunday services conducted by our Pastor at 149 East 61st Street. There was a very good attendance, for usually a number of our members are still vacationing at that time. In October the various classes started, with some quite interesting innovations. The previous year the Doctrinal Classes were held fortnightly at our place of worship precluding, however, anything social, as there are no facilities there for supper. It was suggested by our Pastor that classes be held both in Jersey and New York, as there are members on either side of the Hudson River who would be quite willing to lend their homes for class and a social supper, as was the case when Mr. and Mrs. Joy were with us, and when Mr. and Mrs. Geoffrey Childs were living in Brooklyn. So now we have two a month, one on the second Friday at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Larson in Arlington, N. J., or that of Mr. and Mrs. Curtis Hicks at Westfield, N. J., and the other on the first Saturday at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Childs in Bayside, Long Island. Under this plan the average attendance is much higher on the whole than when two classes a month were held in New York.

     In addition to the regular Sunday School, Mr. Gill conducts a weekday afternoon class for children. This is held twice a week at parents' homes, ten children receiving religious instruction thereby, some of these living at too great a distance from unbroken regular attendance each Sunday.

     The men's class meets as usual on the third Thursday of each month at the home of Mr. A. A. Sellner.

     On October 27th, Mr. R. H. Keep passed into the spiritual world, and the funeral service was conducted by our Pastor at Woodlawn Cemetery. Flowers were sent by the New York Society, at whose services he had been a regular attendant for a number of years.

     The Theta Alpha Chapter has met regularly at the homes of the members, the activities including all the social duties of the Society, Sunday School arrangements, Christmas celebrations, etc. On Saturday evening, November 11th, a social evening under the auspices of the Chapter was given my Mrs. Geoffrey S. Childs at her home. With a good attendance, a bountiful supper, music, dancing, singing, games, and the unexpected presence of Mr. Childs, who had returned from abroad earlier than scheduled, the affair was voted one of the best ever, with many thanks to our host and hostess.

     The Children's Christmas Festival was held on Sunday, December 19th, with appropriate service and hymns, the Sunday School rendering some selections in Hebrew. The Pastor's address was most suitable, for children and parents alike. There was a special offering for the Orphanage, and Christmas gifts were distributed to the children, each receiving one fitting its age and understanding. The Festival concluded with lantern views of the Nativity, the Sunday School scholars being asked to describe each scene as it appeared. The Christmas Representation this year was made by the children, under the direction of Mrs. Anton Sellner, who is responsible for all detail in this annual celebration. Immediately after the Festival our Pastor and Mrs. Gill were presented with a handsome Christmas gift from the Society.

     The Christmas party for the children on the Monday after was given at Mrs. Sellner's, the youngsters thoroughly enjoying themselves, assisted by their hostess and Mr. Gill. Several of the parents who brought their children remained during the afternoon, and it was agreed that all had had a very good time.

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     The Sacrament of the Holy Supper was administered on the first Sunday of the New Year. We all felt refreshed and strengthened thereby, and greatly encouraged to go forward in our work of "establishing the Lord's Church among men."
     FLORENCE A. WILDE.

     WASHINGTON, D. C.

     Since my last report, the activities of the Washington Society have pursued the even tenor of their way. Our first social took place on Hallowe'en at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Schott. We were both instructed and amused at sight of many of those present, including our dignified pastor, bobbing for apples. The taffy, which some of us took home willingly, and others unknowingly, would have been good if left to itself; We regret the absence of Mr. and Mrs. Fred Grant, who will not return to Washington until next March. The reduction of our numbers by one-sixth is very noticeable. However, we are pleased to chronicle the return of Mrs. Coe, who, with the Captain, has been absent for a long time.

     Dr. Acton made his usual visit to us on New Year's Day. The doctrinal class this season consists of lectures on the Divine Love and Wisdom, the subjects being chosen from the headings in that work. After the class, and before dinner, Mr. Schott announced the engagement of his daughter, Chara, to Mr. Rowland Trimble, of Laurel, Maryland. This is our first engagement, and we are thrilled. And to think, it wasn't one of those engagements of which everyone knows before the principals do! After dinner, the annual meeting of the Society was held. Mr. E. J. Stebbing was elected Secretary, and Miss Chara Schott was reelected Treasurer, a position she has held for a number of years, having completely mastered the difficult art of collecting.

     The externals of our worship have been improved by the gift of an altar-cloth from the Theta Alpha Chapter. Our Pastor continues to give us wonderful expositions of the Word in his sermons, but as they are extemporaneous we cannot report them as we would wish. The subject of the discourse on the first Sunday in the New Year was the statement in the Writings giving the three reasons for the slow growth of the New Church. (A. E. 732.) And an application of these reasons was made to the regeneration of man.     
     M. M. STEBBING.

     BRYN ATHYN.

     Christmas is past, but its bells and carols and joyous laughter wakened your correspondent, and stirred him to break his six month's silence in the news columns of the Life. It was only by a sustained effort of will that he restrained his naturally loquacious disposition, in the interests of other renters of the Church which have crowded their way into the news department of the Life. There is so much demand for secrecy before Christmas, so much hiding of packages, so many whispered consultations, so many mysterious happenings, that when at last the floodgates are opened, it is all that your poor correspondent can do to keep from flooding your pages.

     Not that there is very much that is new or startling to tell. But the Christmas celebration is always new. Repetition does not pall at Christmas time. The old familiar customs are those that give the greatest delight, and innovations are less welcome. The great problem is how to keep these friends of other days, and adapt them to the rapidly changing conditions of our society life. For with growth changes must come.

     The Christmas Festival this year was held on December 23d, with the Auditorium crowded to capacity. Under the direction of Mr. F. A. Finkeldey, there were four simple tableaux,-The Annunciation, The Inn, The Shepherd Watch and The Nativity. The settings were extremely simple, but effective. The representation of the scene at the Inn was new, and introduced more prominently the element of action.

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In the Annunciation scene, the address of the angel and the answer of Mary were spoken in the Greek with pleasing effect. Singing by the Choir accompanied the tableaux, and made an added appeal to the affections. The children's singing between the scenes helped to maintain the sphere, and proved as ever one of the most enjoyable elements in the celebration.

     The tableaux over, the floor was cleared, and a lighted Christmas tree was set in the middle, round which the children danced, under the direction of Miss Florence Roehner and Miss Dorothy Cooper, while the Bryn Athyn Orchestra Provided the musical accompaniment. The dancing ended in a grand march, and as the long line was miraculously unwound, the children received their gifts of fruit and candies and other surprises.

     The following day, the Children's Service was held in the Cathedral. The long procession of the children, accompanied by the Choir in white vestments, and bearing candles, the recitation of the Ten Commandments in Hebrew, a violin solo rendition of Christmas music during the interlude,-these were the characteristic features. The address by the Rev. George de Charms was on the City of Bethlehem, its place in the story of the Word and its spiritual significance. At the dose of the service, the children marched past a beautiful representation placed this year in the tower room of the Council Hall. It was designed by Miss Margaret Bostock with very artistic result. Framed in Gothic arches were three scenes, separate and yet united, the central one representing the Nativity, and the other two the Shepherds and the Wise Men respectively. Miss Bostock had secured a set of remarkable figures, and had dressed them very appropriately to represent the several characters. She had also made her own camels with complete success. There was a host of angels after the manner of an earlier day, and a star that was unusually natural. The power of such representations with the little children cannot be overestimated.

     On the evening of the 24th the Tableaux were repeated for the benefit of all who could not be invited to the Children's Festival. The Auditorium was again well filled, and the opportunity for one more rehearsal made possible a somewhat more finished presentation which was very effective, lacking only the sphere of the children and the contagion of their enthusiasm. The caroling which had been planned for this evening had to be abandoned because of inclement weather, but a group of young people who refused to be so easily turned aside from their purpose defied the elements and made the rounds of the settlement, neither their voices nor their spirits in the least affected by the drizzling sleet.

     On Christmas morning a most delightful service was held in the Cathedral, where the address by Bishop Emeritus W. F. Pendleton, on the Lord's Redemption by means of Divine Truth, was deeply affecting in its simplicity and its spiritual appeal. And the delightful sphere of the occasion was enhanced by special Christmas music for congregation and choir.

     Home and family celebrations occupied the remainder of the day. And the season of rejoicing because of the Lord's Advent was brought to a fitting dose by the celebration of the Holy Supper on Sunday morning, the 26th, with a very impressive service in which five ministers officiated.

     The two weeks of holiday that followed were literally alive with social activity, the central feature of which was the Civic and Social Club dance held on New Year's night. It was the most spirited and delightful dance that has been held for a long time.

     And so, while the old year passed out in a blaze of glory that set a difficult standard for his successor in the procession of time, 1921 seemed to face his responsibility with a spirit of optimism, and gave a sample of his ability that promised well for his later and more seasoned performances. Judging from his initial appearance on the social calendar, he is something of an infant prodigy from whom we may expect great things.
     G. DE C.

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     GLENVIEW, ILL.

     The Immanuel Church has passed through another happy Christmas season. The pupils of the School were prepared for the Advent Festival by the weekly Children's Services in which the Pastor gave talks on the theme of the Nativity. Preparation in the Society was made through the efforts of our new Choirmaster, Mr. Jesse Stevens. Our former Choirmaster, Mr. Seymour G. Nelson, resigned recently, after a long period of faithful and much appreciated service.

     In the Musical Festival given on Sunday evening, December 19th, Mr. Stevens brought to a successful conclusion his training of the larger choir, called the Chorus, and the Little Symphony Orchestra. The orchestral numbers were: "Faithful Pine," "O Santissima," Haydn's "Hymn with Variations," "Allegretto," by Luigini, and the first movement of Schubert's " Unfinished Symphony." The Chorus sang: "Sanctus in E flat," Gounod; The Forty-fifth Psalm, Whittington; "Break Forth, O Beauteous Heavenly Light," Each; "Unfold Ye Portals," Gounod; "Sing unto the Lord," Dunham. The audience greatly enjoyed singing with the Chorus and Orchestra such Christmas favorites as "Joy to the World," " Hark the Herald Angels Sing," "Holy Night," and "Come, All Ye Faithful." As a final number on the program, it was delightful to hear the Chorus and Orchestra in the "Hallelujah Chorus." In the course of the evening, the Pastor expressed delight in the very fact of so worthy a musical program, also appreciation of the faithful work which had been necessary to produce it, and the hope that some day the best we have in musical performance and talent will become a regular part of the Sabbath Day worship.

     The Christmas Festival on Christmas Day was designed for children, and was held in the Assembly Hall. Extra chairs had to be provided to accommodate the large gathering of over 200 people. Each year our Committee appointed for that purpose strives to add improvements and refreshments to the perennial Representation of the story of the Nativity, which occupied the whole space of the stage. The effect of early morning light, the star, and the groups of Wise Men, Shepherds, and those at the Manger, was very delightful this year. The Pastor's remarks were altogether in explanation of the Representation. There was the usual Christmas offering, and the singing of the usual Christmas hymns, the presentation of gifts to the children, and the usual Christmas joy. At the end of the service, the grown folks retired to the school rooms, and the children gathered more closely around the Representation, in order to delight themselves a little longer with the impressive scene.

     This year a departure was made from our custom of holding a Children's Christmas Party, and the Theta Alpha Chapter presented instead a much enjoyed production of Dickens' Christmas Carol.

     On New Years' Eve, a committee of the Woman's Guild provided a delightful evening of entertainment, with cards, dancing, speeches in review of the past year, to the accompaniment of chicken salad and candlelight. This came before the midnight hour, when all assembled in the Church for a brief service and New Year's Address. Then followed a gay, early morning carnival, enhanced by colored caps, horns, and baubles, as twenty couples or more of the young people danced to the fiddle, the piano, the guitar, and the big bass drum.

     A large open space has been created in our Society by the voluntary withdrawal of our two Nelson families or households to warmer climates for the rest of the winter,-all except Miss Dorothy Nelson, who is studying at Northwestern University. The S. G. Nelsons have gone to Florida, and the A. E. Nelsons to Egypt and other points east. All the rest of us can do is to wish them all a happy sojourn, and look forward to their safe return.

     Mr. Benjamin McQueen has taken up residence in Phoenix, Arizona, where Mrs. McQueen expects to join him soon, taking with her a little son recently arrived. And Mr. Winfred Junge alas, our only regular and efficient usher, has gone to Phoenix too.

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     Work is going on at comparatively low temperatures in the beautification of the Park grounds, and by next summer we hope to see the trees very much trimmed up, and the long talked of tennis courts.

     Glenview, because of its proximity to Chicago, soon to be the largest city in the world, and already famous as a summer resort, offers unusual advantages to men of business, and to all those who wish to pursue studies of higher learning. Art and culture flourish here as in few other American cities. We are ideally situated. Write to the Glenview Chamber of Commerce and learn all about it.
     G. H. S.

     ACADEMY SCHOOLS.

     Founder's Day-January 12th-was celebrated this year by the General Faculty and Board of Directors of the Academy in a unique and interesting manner. The entertainment of the evening was in charge of the women members of the Faculty, who presented "The Pageant of the Years," symbolical portrayal of the conflict of good and evil forces in the establishment of the Academy The words and general design of the Pageant were the work of Miss Buell, principal of the Girl's Seminary, who was assisted in the production by Mr. Finkeldey and other members of the Faculty.

     As the guests arrived at Benade Hall, they were received by the President and President Emeritus of the Academy in their rooms, and then took seats in the hallway in front of the stairs leading to the Chapel. Here the plaque of Swedenborg was illuminated, and pictures of Bishop Benade, Bishop W. F. Pendleton, Bishop N. D. Pendleton and Mr. John Pitcairn were thrown upon a screen, while a quartet sang appropriate songs. Immediately beneath the plaque, an altar had been placed, and figures representing Light and Darkness during each decade of the Academy's life appeared in succession from the Chapel door. Light bore a symbolic gift, which was placed upon the altar. A conflict then ensued between Light and Darkness of 1926, ending in the triumph of Light.

     At the conclusion of this scene, all the actors in the drama then marched in procession to the Faculty Room, followed by the audience. Here other seats had been placed before a dais, upon which was another altar with a veiled casket containing the Gifts of the Future. There was then a dialogue between Light and Darkness of 1926, the one expressing hope, confidence and trust in the Lord for the ultimate success of the Academy movement, while the other tempted to discouragement and despair. The dialogue took on the nature of a contest to determine which should receive the Gifts of the Future, and at last the prize was awarded to Light, while Darkness fell at her feet as if dead. The effect of the scenes was highly dramatic and effective, and they came to a fitting dose with the d singing of "Our Own Academy" by all present.

     Chairs were then cleared away, tables set up, and delicious refreshments served. The President then introduced Dr. Acton, who delivered an extemporaneous address, in which he dwelt upon the fact that the acknowledgment of the Writings as the Word was the soul of the Academy movement. In his recent researches he had found testimony to prove conclusively that this acknowledgment had existed with the men of the New Church from the very beginning. The preservation and prosperity of the Academy movement will depend upon continued loyalty to this cardinal principle, and upon an ever-renewed perception of its truth. The meeting broke up after the singing of a number of school songs.
     G. de C.

     HOLLAND.

     De Ware Christelijke Godsdienst, the monthly periodical of the General Church Society at The Hague, announces in the December, 1926, issue that the Royal approval has been granted the statutes of the Swedenborg Genootschap (Society), thus giving the Society a legal status in Holland.

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This organization, it will be recalled, has a membership of eighty persons who are interested in the reading and publication of Swedenborg's works. The public lectures given under its auspices have been the means of leading a number to enter the New Church and become members of the Society of the Church at The Hague. The Swedenborg Genootschap has recently brought out the first volume of the Arcana Celestia in the Dutch language, a fuller notice of which will shortly appear in the pages of New Church Life.

     The same issue of our Dutch contemporary contains interesting biographical information concerning one Rijklof Michael van Goens, who was among the earliest readers of the Writings in Holland. The account is based upon papers of Van Goens preserved in the Royal Library, transcripts of which are now in the Library of the Swedenborg Society. The following particulars have been translated for us by Mr. Hendrik Boef:

     Rijklof Michael van Goens was born at Utrecht in 1148, and died at Wernigerode in 1810. He was the great-grandson of Rijklof van Goens, the renowned Governor General of Dutch East India. Owing to his outstanding abilities as a student, he became a marvel of learning at the age of eighteen, and professor extraordinary at the University of Utrecht in the subjects of history, oratory, antiquities and the Greek language. From an essay dated 1785, we learn that he read Conjugial Love superficially, gaining the impression that Swedenborg was a perfectly honorable and sincere man, but one who had unfortunately been seduced by fantasy, which he tried to impose upon a sincere world from sincere motives. Then he met a Mr. P., who was Secretary of the British Consulate, and who gave him a copy of Heaven and Hell which Van Goens reads, after making the following resolutions:

     "1. Not to dose my eyes intentionally to the Truth, no matter how new and strange it may seem at first sight, but to give up all the hindrances of prejudice which may block the way.

     "2. But also not to allow myself to be seduced by a false appearance of Truth, however beautiful and attractive it may be.

     "3. To test the statements and doctrines of Swedenborg by the infallible standard of Scripture, especially in regard to the exceptional experiences which he claimed to have undergone."

     In this spirit he begins to read, and becomes deeply interested and curious. The very title of the work-Heaven and Hell-and the subjects of the chapters drive him with irresistible force to read and read, and make him exclaim, first, "How strange!" and soon, "How admirable!" At length, against his will, but with sincerity, he declares: "This is interesting, interesting! How could this man arrive at all these things!" Then he writes to Mr. P., thanking him for the loan of the book, and is asked to accept it as a present, along with other works of Swedenborg. On receipt of these, he replies: "Whether your system is true or not, you are beyond doubt a noble spirit, and your principles and purpose are as pure as the light of heaven. I shall read Swedenborg from beginning to end, even to the least word."

     He reads the Apocalypse Revealed, and is especially delighted with the Relations in nos. 531 and 566. "Absolutely true and to the point," he writes. "Verily, I must admit that this has wholly conquered me for Swedenborg. Whoever the spirit may be who came to teach this, in truth he came from God! And I am willing to die for it."

     One of his notes is dated Monday, March 31st, 1785, at 3:30 a. m. He has been reading Heaven and Hell since 9 o'clock Sunday evening, and is feeling oppressed by the immensity and abundance of new, inexorably logical and most important thoughts. Never before had he seen or heard anything to be compared with it. He cannot conceive how human imagination could reach so far and remain t consistent. He writes:

     "Either this is a Divine Revelation from on High, and it is the Truth, or it is a masterpiece of deception, coming from the deepest spirit of falsehood. When I perceive that the best of my own thinking is as nothing compared with this, I feel bound to cry out to God, as in the greatest temptation.

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And yet the least of what I have read confirms all that has ever been good in my thinking. Great God in the heavens, loving and merciful Savior, Thou Spirit of God, wilt Thou enlighten my spirit through Thy Mercy! I turn myself to Thee in the anguish of my soul. Deliver me from temptation, I pray Thee. Take away my fear, and confirm this as the Truth, or grant me a dear perception that it is falsity, if it is not the Truth! Either I am lost, or I am in an infinitely better state, through this immense addition of knowledge!"

     SWEDEN.

     First New Church Temple.

     On Sunday, November 14, 1926, the Rev. David Rundstrom, Pastor of the Stockholm Convention Society, officiated at the ceremony of laying the cornerstone of the imposing structure to be erected by that Society as the first New Church Temple in Swedenborg's native land. About seventy persons were gathered in the crypt to witness the ceremony. The Pastor's dedicatory address was on the text, "Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it," and a number of musical selections were sung by a choir. A sealed box was sunk into the bedrock of the cornerstone, at the base of one of the concrete pillars, and in this box were placed a Bible, a copy of the True Christian Religion, a Liturgy, copies of New Church periodicals, and some coins.

     A reproduction of the architect's drawing of the building appears in the Society's periodical, Forsamlingsblad, for Nov.-Dec., 1926. It is of pleasing design, apparently of six stories, the ecclesiastical touch being supplied by such details as the small spire, several minarets, and a little tower. In addition to the church proper, there will be apartments, public rooms and offices, and a monument to Swedenborg will eventually be erected in the churchyard. The site of the new Temple is on the south side of Tegner's Grove. The estimated cost of the building is 530,000 kroner, and the lot is assessed at 83,000 kroner,-a total of about $165,000.00. Of this amount, 125,000 kroner ($33,500) came to the Society as a bequest from the late Mrs. Georgine Nordenskjold.

     SOUTH AFRICA.

     The latest issue of The South African New Church Open Letter-that for October, 1926-is an eight-page number, double the usual size, and for the first time prints a sermon,-a discourse of the Rev. Elmo C. Acton in which he reviews the spiritual meaning of the Twelve Sons of Jacob, as the conclusion of a series of sermons on the subject. An article on L. Loyalty" by the Editor, Mr. J. H. Ridgway, commends the members of the General Church in South Africa for their 100 per cent faithfulness in the support of the general body, and points out the value of maintaining the larger uses of the Church as well as those of local character. In retrospect, he recalls the "development and progress which has been made, especially in the largest center, Durban, since the seed of distinctive education was planted by the Rev. F. E. Gyllenhaal about ten years ago, coupled with other basic teachings of the General Church, which teachings have been consistently upheld by Mr. Gyllenhaal's successors,-the Revs. Hugo Lj. Odhner, Theodore Pitcairn, and Elmo C. Acton." This number of the Open Letter features other doctrinal articles and a review of the news from April to October.

     The Rev. and Mrs. Frederick W. Elphick, and their family, after a stay of some weeks in England, arrived in South Africa during September, and are once more established at Alpha. He writes of the novel sensation of celebrating Christmas there with the thermometer registering 88 degrees Fahrenheit!

     We hear that the new Hall adjoining the church at Durban has been completed, dedicated, and initiated into its uses, and we shall hope to receive before long an account of the opening ceremonies.

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     AUSTRALIA.

     Recent issues of The New Age, now edited by the Rev. R. H. Teed, of Melbourne, contain a greater volume and variety of matter than heretofore, and grant liberal space to communications in which the readers discuss topics of general interest to New Churchmen. In the October number appears a sermon by the Rev. Richard Morse on "Pleasures for Evermore" (Psalm 16:11); in the editorial comment we find the evils of gambling and betting dealt with in cogent terms; and there are letters dealing with such subjects as "Single Tax," "Bigoted Teetotallers," and "The Value of the Sacraments." In the last mentioned, Mr. Alex E. Pett holds it as his confirmed opinion that the Lord's Supper "should be taken spiritually-not externally," and that "to eat bread and drink wine is trying to make internal goods and truths into external-an impossibility." An answer to this view is made by Mr. Morse in the November number, showing that " the observance of that Sacrament is not only made an essential of external worship in the Church that is truly Christian, but it is made the chief essential. . . . We must have externals of worship which shall truly correspond with and represent heavenly things"

     BRAZIL.

     In the form of a Christmas number, A Nova Igreja for Oct.-Dec., 1926, comes to hand with twenty-four pages of sermons and articles, most of which treat of subjects connected with the Advent of the Lord. Senhor Xafredo and Senhor J. M. Lima contribute timely papers, and there are translations from English and French, among which we find a sermon and a Christmas Address to Children by the Rev. William Whitehead, and an article on "The Nativity" by the Rev. Gilbert H. Smith, originally appearing in New Church Sermons. The Rev. Ernst Deltenre's review of the Anniversary Record of the Academy is translated from the French by M. O. Leonardos.

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CORRECTED ADDRESS 1927

CORRECTED ADDRESS              1927




     Announcements.


     New Church friends going to England, who may be able to avail themselves of the kind invitation extended by Mr. Philip T. Oyler to land at Southampton and visit his home, which invitation appeared in New Church Life for December, 1926, p. 815, are requested to address him as follows:
     MR. PHILIP T. OYLER, Woodgreen, Near Salisbury, England.

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ADVERSARIA. 1927

ADVERSARIA.       EMANUEL SWEDENBORG       1927


[Frontispiece: Photographs of the interior and exterior of the Olivet Church, Toronto, Canada, Rev. Hugo Lj. Odhner, pastor.]

NEW CHURCH LIFE
VOL. XLVII      MARCH, 1927           No. 3
     AN EXTRACT FROM, VOL. I, TREATING OF THE TWO BETHELS. (GENESIS 28:9.)

     TRANSLATED BY THE REV. ALFRED ACTON.

     533. Jacob therefore names this Place from the Stone which he had under his head like a cushion: And he called the name of that place Beth-el; but in former time the name of the city was Luz (vs. 19). Bethel signifies the house of God, and consequently the place where the Messiah had spoken with him, the Messiah being therefore called the God of Bethel: "I am the God of Bethel, where thou anointedst the pillar" (chap. 31:13). And there also Jacob was afterwards commanded to dwell: "Arise, go up to Beth-el and dwell there; and make there an altar unto God, who appeared unto thee" (chap. 35:1). The same place was called Bethel in Abraham's time, when Abraham sojourned between Bethel and Ai (chaps. 12: 8; 13: 3). It was situated in the tribe of Benjamin (Josh. 18: 11, 13) eastward from Jerusalem; and it was there that Joshua pitched his camp (ibid. 88). That the mountain there was itself called Bethel, see Joshua 16: 1, 2. Jacob afterwards called the place El-Bethel and this because Elohim appeared to him there; according to the words: "Jacob came to Luz, which is in the land of Canaan, that is, Beth-el, he and all the people that were with him; there he built an altar, and called the place El-Bethel, because there Elohim were revealed unto him when he fled before his brother (chap. 35:6,7). But he gave it this name from his own presumption; while before he had called it Bethel from the God of Bethel or the Messiah.

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And, therefore, being admonished, as it appears, he afterwards again named it from the Messiah, the God of Bethel. This may be evident from the chapter just cited: "And Jacob again called the name of the place where God spake with him Beth-el" (chap. 35: 14, 16) Moreover, the Messiah is called the God of Bethel, or the God of the house or temple of God, in Samuel's time, as may appear from I Samuel 10, where these words are said to Saul by Samuel when choosing a king: "When thou shalt go on from thence, and shalt come to the plain of Tabor, there shall meet thee three men going up unto the God, Beth-el, one carrying three kids, and one carrying three leaves of bread, and one carrying a bottle of wine. And they will ask thee concerning peace, and will give thee two leaves, which thou shalt receive from their hand" (I Sam. 10: 3, 4). That these were insignia and symbols, both of the old church and of the new, is clear; for kids and leaves were symbols of the old church, while wine and bread were symbols of the new; which things these three men carried to the God, Bethel, and they asked concerning peace. Hence it comes out still more clearly that it was the Messiah alone who is called Jehovah and the God of Bethel, and who was signified by Bethel or the house of God.

     534. In addition to this Bethel, there was also a city called Bethel in the tribe of Ephraim, where was Shechem; and consequently, in Samaria not far from the metropolis of the Israelites.*

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Here Jerobeam built an altar on which he sacrificed things unlawful, respecting which we read, "Behold, there came a man of God out of Judah with the word of Jehovah to Beth-el; and Jeroboam was standing by the altar to burn incense. And he cried against the altar [by the word of Jehovah] and said, O altar, altar, thus saith Jehovah, Behold a Son shall be born unto the house of David, Joschijah (or Jesus) is his name, who shall sacrifice upon thee the priests of the high places that burn incense upon thee; and shall burn upon thee the bones of man " (I Kings 13: 1, 3). But because that ancient serpent, the devil, willed to establish his kingdom everywhere in the land of Canaan, and this just as the Messiah willed to establish His heavenly kingdom, therefore he was about to aspire after the same thing in this matter also; to wit, that by Jeroboam he might invade that place, which also was called Bethel or the house of God, but in Samaria; and at the same time might be invoked, just as God or the Messiah was invoked in Bethel of the tribe of Benjamin. Hence, because of the nefarious endeavors of the devil, the Prophet cried against that altar in Bethel of Samaria, as we read in the text just cited; and therefore that altar was rent, and the ashes were poured out from the altar; see I Kings 13: 3, 5.
     * Shechem was the metropolis of the Israelites for the first fifty years after the separation from Judah. Samaria was then made the metropolis, and remained such for the whole duration of the kingdom of Israel. But before the building of Samaria, the whole kingdom of Israel was known as Samaria (I Kings 1352) Bethel is about twenty miles south of Shechem and twenty-five miles south of Samaria.
     Swedenborg speaks of two Bethels, one in Ephraim, and the other in Benjamin (confer Josh. 162 and 1813 with 1832). But Relandus, in his Palaestina (a copy of which was in Swedenborg's library), and all modern students, recognize only one. This is sometimes put within the borders of Benjamin, but Relandus and the best modern maps, guided by Joshua 16:2 compared with 18:22, place it on the border between Ephraim and Benjamin. Whether Swedenborg is supported by any maps of his own day we do not know; but that in his biblical studies he did consult more than one map, is evident from n. 1549 of the present work.
     In a sense, there undoubtedly were two Bethels: One, the Bethel in the tribe of Benjamin, which was regarded as a holy place where the ark was kept for many years (Judg. 26-27; in the Authorized Version, Bethel is here rendered house of God), and where the people came to ask counsel of God (ibid. 20:18) and to worship (I Sam. 10: 3); the other, that same Bethel after the separation of the tribes, when it was made by Jeroboam the southern and chief seat of the worship of the golden calves, in opposition to and in imitation of the worship in Jerusalem (I Kings 12: 28, 32, 33). After this time, Bethel became thoroughly identified with idolatry, and was never more regarded as a place holy to Jehovah. It is possible that these two aspects of the one place were what Swedenborg had in mind when he spoke of two Bethels-the holy place in Benjamin, and the city attached to the metropolis of Israel, where the devil sought to establish his worship. See A. C. 1453:4; A. E. 391:29, 30; compare also the "two Londons" (C. J. 42-43) and the "two Jerusalems" (ibid. 79), seen by Swedenborg in the spiritual world.

     535. But the place of the Messiah's birth was not where Jacob now is, that is, in Bethel in the tribe of Benjamin, but in Bethlehem in the tribe of Judah, or in Judea, not far from Jerusalem to the south. For Jacob journeyed from Bethel and came to this place; and because Rachel was buried there, he called it Bethlehem; as we read: " And after that, they journeyed from Bethel; and there was still a space of land in coming to Ephrath.

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And Rachel died, and was buried in the way of Ephrath, which is Bethlehem (chap. 35: 1, 19). Hence that city was called Bethlehem-Ephratah That the Messiah would be born there, is told by the Prophet Micah in these words: "But thou, O Bethlehem Ephratah, it is little that thou art among the thousands of Judah; out of thee shall He come forth unto me that is a ruler in Israel, and whose goings forth are from of old, from the days of eternity " (chap. 5: 2) This same place was called the city or village of David [Luke 21; John 7: 42].
SWEAR NOT 1927

SWEAR NOT       Rev. WILLIS L. GLADISH       1927

     "But I say unto you, Swear not at all. . . . But let your discourse be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay; for whatsoever is more than these is of evil." (Matthew 5:34, 37.)

     These words involve that Divine Truths are to be confirmed from the Lord and not from man, which is done when men are internal and not external; for external men confirm the truth by oaths, but internal men by reasons. They who are still more internal men do not confirm the truths, but only say that it is so.     

     The Lord came to establish an internal church. To this end He opened the internal truths of the Word, and later abolished the external representatives of the Jewish Church. And He taught His disciples that these truths are not to be established by oaths and external confirmations, as had been done among the Israelites and Jews, but by internal proofs. With the spiritual man these internal proofs are reasons,-rational considerations; but with one who, by regeneration, has attained to a degree of perception, even reasons are unnecessary. He knows at the first hearing whether a statement of doctrine is true or false. This is because the law of His God is so written into the structure of his mind that he recognizes truth as truth and falsity as falsity, even as do the angels. This state of perception is found in its purity only in the celestial heavens.

     The Israelites and Jews were allowed to confirm the truth by oaths, because they were external men. They had no perception of truth because no love of truth. To swear by God or by some holy thing is the strongest possible affirmation that a thing is true.

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Therefore with them a strong affirmation of truth took the form of an oath. Even when the Lord Himself made a solemn assertion, it took the form of an oath in the mind of their prophets, as in the following places:

     "Jehovah hath sworn by His right hand, and by the arm of His strength."

     "Jehovah of hosts hath sworn by His soul."

     "The Lord Jehovih hath sworn by His holiness."

     "Behold, I have sworn by my great Name."

     "Jehovah hath sworn, and will not repent."

     It cannot be thought that the Lord really attests what He says by any oath. It is enough for Him to teach. What He says is an expression of the Divine Love according to the Divine Wisdom. It is irrevocable, unchangeable. He is the same yesterday, today and forever. But the Jews thought He was altogether like themselves. And because they were in representatives and correspondences, Divine teachings took these correspondential forms with them. And they were also allowed,-nay, according to the letter of the Word, were commanded,-to swear. "He that blesseth himself in the earth, let him bless himself in the God of truth, and he that sweareth in the earth, let him swear in the God of truth." (Isa. 65:16.) In Moses: "Thou shalt fear Jehovah thy God, Him shalt thou serve, and shalt swear by His name." (Deut. 6:13.)

     But internal or spiritual men do not desire any such attestations under oath. They turn away from them with distaste, and shudder at oaths made by the holy things of heaven and the church. It is enough for them that one says what he believes to be the truth. An honest man's word is as good as his oath. And those who are thoroughly sincere and honest neither ask nor give oaths among those they trust; though they may, on the civil plane, conform to the customs of the courts of the land in which they dwell.

     Oaths were like miracles, in that they were allowed among a people having no internal perception of truth. But both were abolished, so far as the things of the church were concerned, when the Lord came and opened internals. Even the most external men can now have a perception of spiritual truths, at least of such as will be serviceable to them in their own life.

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     In teaching His disciples not to confirm their statements by oaths, the Lord said: "Swear not at all; neither by heaven, for it is God's throne; nor by the earth, for it is the footstool of His feet: neither by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black. But let your discourse be, Yea, yea; nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these is of evil."

     By "heaven" is meant the angelic heaven, and it is called "God's throne," because heaven is heaven solely from the Lord. It is the Divine of the Lord that makes heaven, and nothing proper to the angels: It is the Divine Truth there, as received by them. By the "earth" is meant the church. It is the church on earth that is the "footstool of His feet," and this because of the Divine Truths of the letter of the Word in the church which provide a support for the angelic heavens. No, are these truths of or from men, but solely of the Lord's revealing. And the life of the church is not men's life, but the Lord's life as received by men.

     By "Jerusalem, the city of the great King," is meant the doctrine of the church; for at that time all the doctrine of the church went forth from Jerusalem. In a true internal church, this doctrine is not to be from men,-from the traditions of the elders or the edicts of councils,-but solely from the mouth of the Lord, that is, from His Word.

     The man of the church is not to swear by any of these holy things; nor is he to call on them in attestation of his statements. Neither, it is added, is he to "swear by his head," because he cannot "make one hair white or black." By man's "head" is meant his understanding of the doctrine of the church. By "a hair "is meant the smallest possible truth, or the most external truth. To "make it white" is to say that it is truth; to "make it black" is to say that it is false. Man cannot do this of himself. Truth is from God, and is unchangeable. Nor can man, of himself, know what is true and what is false. This is wholly the gift of God. Of himself, man would call the false and the true false, for he "loves darkness rather than light, because his deeds are evil."

     All truth is of the Lord, and is the Lord's, wherever it may be found. And He is the only Teacher. No man can teach another the truth, unless at the same time the Lord teaches it.

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For unless the man loves it, or can learn to love it, it soon ceases to be truth to him even though he has assented to it. An internal man would shrink from convincing any one of the truth by means of his strong affirmations and attestations. That would be putting himself in the place of God. In so far as anyone believes on a man's authority, to the same extent he lacks the Divine confirmation and authority. He who instructs men, and brings them into the church on any kind of human authority, turns them away from the Lord, Who is the only source of light and life. This is the meaning of the Lord's saying: "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves." (Matt. 23:15.) For the purpose of all teaching of the truth should be to make men better, to make them more just and upright, to bring them to the Lord, that they may live from Him, according to the commandments of His Word.

     It is the Divine of the Lord that makes heaven, and nothing proper to the angels. The Lord is All in all there. The angels have no life apart from Him. It is to be the same with the church on earth. The tree of life in the midst of her garden is the knowledge and acknowledgment that the Lord alone has life of Himself, and that man must turn to Him as the flower to the sun. Apart from Him we can learn no truth and can do no good. Turned from the Lord, our highest wisdom is foolishness, nay, insanity; and all our delights derive their joys from the foolish love of self and love of ruling over others.

     What the earth would be without the sun, man is without God. All possibility of life upon the earth depends upon the light and heat of the sun. So all possibility of spiritual life in mad, all true usefulness to others, depends on our receiving in just proportion the light and life of the Sun of heaven, which is the Lord.

     The common thought of man is that he is as God; that his knowledge, his intelligence, his wisdom, are his own; that he has at birth a certain store of life that will last as long as he lives upon earth; that his thought is within himself, self-derived; that, consequently, he can by his own power gain knowledge, grow in intelligence, and gain wisdom. It is not so. Man is born with no knowledge and no love.

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He is more ignorant than a worm, which knows from birth all things proper to its life,-how to get its food, weave its cocoon, provide for posterity. Nor can man, untaught, learn anything. Infants growing up in the wilderness, without contact with human beings, remain more ignorant than the beasts. Yet these same infants, properly taught and nurtured, might have attained the wisdom of the greatest philosophers. Does not this show that there is no inherent wisdom in man, but that he must gain knowledge and wisdom from others, and these also from others, and all finally from the Lord?

     It is true that man appears to live of himself, to gain knowledge, to think, to grow wise of himself. But this is the image and likeness of God in him. How else could he be anything more than an automaton? Man's humanity, his very possibility of believing in God and loving God, and so of being conjoined with God, lies in his feeling as if he thinks, loves and is wise of himself. This constitutes his human principle, his individuality. This the Lord guards in man as man guards the apple of his eye. Nevertheless, the first thing of human wisdom is to know that all man's wisdom is derived from Wisdom Itself, and all his love from Love Itself; and this, in order that in spirit he may turn himself to the Source of Love and Wisdom, and not away from that Source to himself as a fountain of wisdom; for then how great becomes his folly!

     The angels of the highest heaven have at times a distinct perception that all their life inflows from the Lord; and they have at all times the desire to be led solely by Him. They shudder with horror at the thought of leading themselves, as a sane man shudders at the thought of losing his reason. And yet, although they have this clear perception of dependence upon the Lord, they, more than all others, seem to themselves to think, to love, to will, to do of themselves and freely whatever they wish. This is because their love, their affections, and their will are in entire harmony with the Divine will, so that the more fully and freely they act, and think, and judge as of themselves, the more fully and freely in reality they act from the Lord. His life flows into them unimpeded, into their inmost soul, above the plane of their consciousness; and flowing down into the rational mind, where man is given power to co-operate with the Lord, it meets there no resistance or opposition.

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     The celestial angel, therefore, needs no one to tell him that this or that is true, that he must believe or "have faith," as it is called. Still less does he require that the truth be confirmed by oaths of man's devising. He needs no reasons and arguments, laboriously drawn from analogy, probability, or incontrovertible logic. His word is "yea or nay." He sees that truth is true, that falsity is false, as clearly as a man in the world sees the tree or the house before his eyes.

     But we are not as they. Our wills are not regenerate. Our understandings are not crystal clear abodes of genuine truths. Even our facts are not always facts. How can we hope to know the truth, or be delivered from the pains of error?

     In the first place, we must approach the Lord alone. The Lord the Savior, Jesus Christ, is the only Source of wisdom and of love to angels and to men. And we must approach Him only in and by His Word. The Word, in its bosom, rightly understood, is so fully the record of all His Divine-Human thoughts and loves toward us that it is Himself Divinely accommodated to us. In its pages alone can we find Him as He is. In the Word He speaks to us; by the Word He turns us to Himself; here He enlightens us; and by His Word He delivers us from evil affections which obscure our sight.

     Nor does He withhold reasons for belief from those who need them. In the Word of His Second Advent, where the very mind of God is revealed, the deepest truths of the Word are so fully explained, demonstrated, and proven by the facts of nature and of life, that the natural man may see, if he wants to see. In all Divine Revelation the Lord says to man, "Come, and let us reason together!" But especially does He offer to reason with man in that Crowning Revelation given to establish His Church of the New Jerusalem. For it is by this Revelation that He wills to form man fully into His image and likeness, that he may no longer be as a child, but a wise man, ripe in wisdom and great in power.

     Nor is it forbidden man to learn from science, history, and his own investigations, or to develop his mind in any way within his power, provided that what he learns is real and not spurious wisdom, in harmony with the truth of the Word. But let man always remember that there are not two kinds of wisdom, one from man, and one from God, but only one kind, as there is only one source of light. It indeed appears as if the moon shines of itself, yet its light is all from the sun.

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So all human science gives back but the reflected light of the Word. If not, the light of science is but a fatuous light like that which shines in the eyes of beasts and birds of prey at night,-a light which vanishes when the true light of day arises.

     Therefore all man's wisdom, all his enlightenment, all his power to get wisdom, must be from the Word, or from those who derive their enlightenment from that only Source of light. Having that light in his mind, he can see the same light, even the light which is God, in all human art and science and development whatsoever, even as in nature herself; for it is from God and in God that both nature and man live and move and have their being.

     Just a word, in conclusion, as to the place of the words of our text in the series. It is treating here of man's dependence upon the Lord for all truth, immediately after the teaching that he must put away all ill-will, and must shun all lust and impurity, and just before giving the doctrine of non-resistance to evil. Why is this? It is because man must shun evil before he can shun self-intelligence. When man has learned to shun ill will and impurity, even in thought and intention and as sin against God, he can then be taught that all his truth, all his enlightenment, all his perception, must be from the Lord through His Word.

     "But I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by heaven, for it is God's throne; nor by the earth, for it is the footstool of His feet: neither by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King.

     "Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black.

     "But let your discourse be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay; for whatsoever is more than these is of evil." Amen.

     Lessons: Deuteronomy 20:12-22. Matthew 5:33-48. A. C. 9166.

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SLAIN LAMB 1927

SLAIN LAMB        N. D. PENDLETON       1927

     The Lamb of God is the Lord who was born into the world and who suffered death on the cross. Both His birth and His death took place in time, in the last days of the Jewish Church, and neither the one nor the other could have been from the beginning of time. Yet He is spoken of in Revelation 13:8 as being "slain from the foundation of the world,"-apparently from the beginning of creation, in the age when time first began. However, the "world" spoken of is not the world of nature, but of the spirit. The history involved has reference to states of life. In this sense the "world" is the church, or a manifestation of the Divine and its reception on the part of men; for this is that which makes heaven and constitutes the church.

     When the Lord was on earth, He established a new spiritual kingdom in both worlds. His kingdom in the spiritual world is called heaven; and at the time a new heaven was in process of formation; and in correspondence therewith a new church was being established on earth. This new church was indeed a new world, a new human world, unlike that which preceded it.

     If we interpret the term "world" as having reference to the new states of life then coming into existence, we may say of the Lamb "slain from the foundation of the world" that it refers to the Lord's sacrifice at the beginning of the church. This meets with the needs of historic accuracy. But if we follow this line of interpretation, we shall perceive that the meaning of the words "slain from the foundation of the world "go deeper than the circumstance of the Lord's passion as an external event. Crucifixion is spiritual as well as natural, having reference to a state of mind as well as to an outward act. In this sense, the Savior of mankind is crucified whenever His true nature is denied, or whenever the truth concerning His Divinity is perverted, whether from ignorance or any other cause.

     There is a spiritual fulfilment, if we understand that the slaying of the Lamb has reference to those doctrines which, from the beginning of the church, denied or distorted the truth concerning the Lord's Divinity and the purpose of His advent.

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From the first there were those who quite denied His Divinity in any other than a complimentary sense, and maintained His strict and limited humanity. Others granted Him a place beside the Father, with some acknowledgment of His Divinity; yet they insisted on His personal separateness from the Father, which in effect turned the thought to Him as a second derivative God, or as in part Divine,-Divine on one side, and finitely human on the other. Few if any perceived the truth concerning His glorification and its effect in making His Human entirely Divine and one with the Father.

     The occasional flights of theological thought in this direction led to no permanent system of doctrinal truth. All such casual interpretations were in time submerged in a sea of impermanent fancies which gradually subsided, and which were at length dispersed by the systematic advance of the tripersonal theory adopted as the true faith by the Church fathers. This theory, while it seemed to embrace in a single idea many statements of Scripture, and brought about an apparent explanation of the relation of the Father to the Son, was in itself a doctrine which offended the rational mind. While in words it maintained, yet in effect it sacrificed, the unity of God; and, as a last defense, the holders of this theory called to their aid a blind faith in an unreasonable, an incomprehensible, idea which could not satisfy sincere thought or permanently hold the confidence of men.

     Whenever a false theory is set up, the truth is sacrificed, and if the theory is a misrepresentation of the Divine mysteries, especially those concerning the Lord, His Advent into the world, and the purpose thereof, the result is a spiritual crucifixion. A false idea clouds the mind. A wrong conception prevents a thing from being seen in its true light, and causes it to be as if it were not; or, if it be not seen in its true form, its quality is not recognized, and its true effect is lost. This applies to the leading idea that enters into the formation of creeds as well as to explanatory theories of any kind.

     Truth is not only enlightening, but is also purifying; and while truth alone is not saving apart from resistance to evil, yet the truth by its own virtue clarifies the thought and points the way to a good life. Apart from this cleansing property of truth, the will to good is but a confused emotion.

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The importance and influence of man's creed in this respect is known, but its superlative value depends upon its truth. By this value is meant its regenerative power, but the power of regenerating truth is exercised only when man is prompted by his own initiative to follow where the light of the truth leads.

     There are those who say that it matters little what one believes, so long as he lives a good life. If this means that men of all creeds and of every faith are saved, if they live conscientiously according to the light they have, and with charitable intent, the saying is true. But if it means that the kind or quality of faith is a matter of indifference, and that it is only required of a man that he should conform to existing standards of apparent civil and religious morality, then the saying is essentially false, for such an attitude not only disregards the value of truth, not only denies the virtue of definite revelation, but it places a premium upon superficial conformity, whereas the true essence of spiritual life is that the inside of the cup or platter should be cleansed. And the especial value of the truth of Divine Revelation is, that by it inward uncleanness is exposed, and the need of a regenerative cleansing is made manifest, as well as the way in which that cleansing may be brought about. "Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings before mine eyes." This is the doctrine of repentance and self-compulsion away from evils, not only evil deeds, but evil in thought and will. And under such evils are to be classed all those affections of self-importance which magnify a man in his own estimation, and give to self the place of first, if not the sole, consideration. Truth corrects this attitude, and revealed truth substitutes another and higher aim in life.

     We speak of revealed truth as if it were absolute, and defined for all time by the edicts of Revelation. This is the fact with regard to that truth as it comes forth from God. But man's understanding of it is variable, as his mind is progressively opened to its reception, as the state of his life, and especially of his spiritual life, advances to new and higher perceptions of its intent and quality. The requirement is that revealed truth, in its appropriate degrees and quality, should be given to man to meet the needs of his individual states, and that in its giving it should e received and acknowledged with sincere mind and full intent. Certainly such truth must be regarded as absolute, and this though it be veiled with accommodating appearance.

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Yet the absolute is within these appearances, and it more and more nearly unveils itself.

     Such truth is the Scripture. It is Divine and also human. As this truth the Lord came into the world, and such He there was. But by the process of glorification the absolute Divine within Him, from which He was conceived, more and more manifested Itself, until He, even as to His assumed Human, became Divine. In this respect, all that is said of His Human,-the way of its coming and going,-may also be said of the Scripture, which was His Human in the world before He in Person came and fulfilled it, even glorified it, along with His body of flesh.

     It is thus we understand the Divine process, with reference both to His body of flesh and His body of Scripture. And this being so, it becomes manifest that this truth is the absolute, in the midst of the variable; the constant clothed with the inconstant; the Divine veiled by the human, and by process making the Human Divine, which process is the exemplar of man's regeneration, and indeed the cause and warrant of the mode whereby man from natural becomes spiritual, and the brute an angel.

     If we grasp the underlying factor here involved, we shall be prepared to understand with some clearness that great creed revealed to the New Church,-revealed on the many pages of the Writings, but nowhere in more conclusive words than in the statement of it given in the Apocalypse Explained, no. 806. The dignity of the words, and the measured tread of their advancing ideas, fittingly voice the grandeur of the theme and convey a sense of the Divinity of their inspiration.

     This faith qualifies and distinguishes the New Church from every other. It is above all things Christian, and yet it is not drawn from the traditionary theology of the Christian Church. Its giving constitutes the Second Coming, which must of need be, not a personal coming, but a spiritual manifestation; yet having the signal effect of bringing with it a new salvation, a new heaven, and a new church. Let us consider this creed in some detail.

     The Lord came into the world to save the human race, which, having fallen from its first integrity, could be redeemed only by a nearer presence of the Divine, even a personal presence, as of a Man among men,-a Divine Man, in form and aspect like unto a mortal, who could bring in His Person the gift of life, and impart that gift to the members of a dying race, all of whom, if the gift had not been made in its way and time, would have perished in eternal death.

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     This death was the penalty of the first fall,-that fatal turning of man away from God to a life of self and proprial pleasures, which at the time were substituted for the delights of celestial love and its perceptions, with which Adam was first endowed. The fall of man was thus a spiritual degeneracy, which consisted in an affectional aversion from heavenly perceptions, and a turning to, and confirmation of, outer sense-impressions, whence came the knowledge of good and evil.

     The cause of this aversion lies deeply hidden in human freedom, which is a condition of life inbred in the very constitution of man, giving to him of native right the determination of the way of his life, and this even at the possible cost of his entrance upon an evil way. True to this grant of freedom, and to this adverse possibility, the race entered upon an evil way of its own choosing the consequences of which were inevitably determined by the fundamental law of God, which allowed of no escape from the immediate penalty of the fall, which at the time appeared as a final doom. Yet it was of order and Providence that a way should be found whereby the effect of the fall,-the curse of God,-should not only be mitigated, but in time removed.

     In the fulness of time and completion of state, this way of escape was provided by a personal coming of the Lord into the world, with a view to renewed spiritual life, whereby a counter turning was effected in man. In this case, it was a turning away from the self-life and its proprial pleasures to the Lord, who had made that turning possible by bringing Himself as the Savior within the purview of men, thereby enabling them to find a new contact with the Divine in and through His Person.

     Yet the gift of life then imparted was not a magic talisman, or a miraculous aid of such a nature as to remove from man the necessity of a life-struggle against evil. On the contrary, the need of combat remained; and it must always be, else man would lose his freedom, and with it his humanity. The gift of life which the Lord imparted to man by virtue of His coming in Person was indeed an inpowering influx of life, but this influx was, as always, conditioned by man's reception of it in faith and life, thereby making man responsible for his part, his reactive endeavor, aside from which the Lord's redemption can never become man's salvation.

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     The Divine Man, when in the world, thus redeemed the human race from impending damnation, and this He did by restoring the normal balance between good and evil, upon which balance man's free will was dependent. With this restoral accomplished, man could, as if by his own effort, secure salvation, and thus fulfill the destined order of his life, in the appointed way.

     In the life of man, the balance between good and evil is ever changing, ever wavering from the one side to the other. The pressure of evil comes on the one hand, and of good on the other. The mind of man lies between, and is in part a subject of both. Resistance to evil on the part of man throws the balance on the side of good. So long as man is able to resist evil, the possibility of salvation lies before him, but if he is lacking in this internal initiative, if he cannot rouse himself to spiritual endeavor, then there is an end. If his mind be so encompassed by evil influences that he can neither see the way nor find the strength to walk therein, his case is hopeless.

     This was the condition rapidly becoming, prior to the Lord's First Advent. At that time, the power of hell prevailed over heaven, evil exceeded good, and the mind of man became a victim of infernal spirits; obsession was a common affliction; the light of heaven was shut off, and there came upon man an utter spiritual debility. The supreme need was for a Man, for One to do a man's work in resistance to evil and conquest over hell, whereby the balance might be restored. But there was found no man. Not even the angels of heaven were equal to this. They were no longer equal to it; for they were cut off from men by the intervening power of hell, which had risen to such a height that heaven itself was overcast, and the way to heaven so hidden that to find and reopen that way was a hopeless task for mortal man.

     From birth to death, men were compelled to travel through an endless wilderness without the guiding light. They had lost their faith, and of spiritual strength there was none. There were only the inborn forces of the natural man, unguided and unimproved. It could not be otherwise, and it could never have become otherwise, unless the Lord had come into the world as a Man, and Himself had done the work of resistance to evil which men had failed to do. While the failure of men was gradual, through successive generations, yet in time it was entire.

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So much so that "the hells infested every man coming into the world and going out of the world." Thus the bond of evil was inclusive of the span of human life on earth, and that bond could only be broken by the Divine power exercised through a Human instrumentality. To this end the Divine descended and assumed the form and body of man.

     But what of this event? The Man in question was not a mere man. He was a Child of Divine conception and virgin birth, having a mortal body and a Divine Soul, a maternal inheritance and a Divine status from the Father. This was called for to meet the need and do the work. Through the Lord's maternal inheritance, holding in itself the history of the race, there was that which gave imitation to all the bells of evil human formation, derived from the past,-the fallen side of the human race. Invitation was given and entrance allowed to these, even as though He were subject to every evil. But, unlike any man, He not once did fail in the contest which followed, and which endured throughout His life on earth, with increasing violence to the end, when He suffered death on the cross, by which event He in seeming lost all, but in truth gained everything. For after His death He rose from the tomb with the fulness of Divine power,-a power which, owing to the limiting conditions of His maternal body, could be but partially and intermittently exercised during His life on earth.

     The Lord came into the world to make up for the failure of man, and to do a man's work in resisting evil. This was not necessary in the beginning. Then the heavens were sufficient aid, and a sufficient means of accommodating the Divine to human needs; for apart from an effective accommodation the Divine loses contact with men. For this purpose the heavens were at first sufficient; and this sufficiency always appertained to the celestial, who, because of their instant reception of influx, were ever powerful to hold and to communicate the Divine. But in later times, and owing to the gradual fall of man, there arose other angels and spirits, of lower orders and of lessened -spiritual vitality. Thus it came to pass that the Divine Influx received by the celestial, who were first in heaven, passed down through a long series of inferior spirits, until it finally came to men on earth. So long as the chain of connection held, all was well and the way of life was open; but at length the chain was broken, and influx from the Divine through heaven ceased.

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     Then it was that the Lord Himself must needs come to bind up the breach, lest there should be an end to the race on earth. He must come and bind this breach, even in Himself as a man on earth; and if bound in Himself, it would be bound for all others, and so the way of ascent would be opened; and it was opened to all who followed Him, who followed Him in their finite part and way. For no one could ascend in other than the fold of His garment. In this He was unlike any man, in that He ascended by His own power to unity with the Father,-unity with His own Soul, which was the Father. But even so, by His Divine resistance to evil in His mortal body of infirm flesh, He gave example of the way by which alone human salvation could be effected.

     But not only this. By His Divine resistance, moderated to the need and the occasion, He overcame all inffuent evil, from first to last; and by this means He fully subdued the bells, so that the infernal power was no longer overweaning in its strength; and in consequence, the evil influx into man was reduced to its norm. Thus was the balance restored; and because of this, the mind of man, which is ever acted upon by evil, on the one hand, and by good on the other, could in freedom turn to either side. And this restoral of freedom, by an established equilibrium between heaven and hell, enabled man both to see and to choose his way. This was that definite accomplishment by which redemption was effected.

     But there was a double effect of the Lord's resistance to evil,-the effect out of Himself, directed to the hells, and the effect in Himself, and upon His own Person.

     When man resists evil, the effect in and upon himself is a regeneration, whereby from natural he becomes spiritual. When the Lord resisted evil by an exercise of His Divine power, the effect upon Himself, in His human born of woman, was not unlike regeneration,-a becoming from natural spiritual,-but it was more than this. With Him, regeneration was a glorification. Instead of being made spiritual, He became Divine. Always He was Divine as to that which was of the Father; but by His resistance to and entire conquest of evil, He became Divine even as to that human which before was from the mother, and which was a body of flesh and blood which carried the racial marks and inheritances of all mankind. This in Him was glorified or made Divine, as the power of the Almighty descended from His Soul into His Body, as by impulsive and compelling Life-waves.

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It was because of this that the body remnant,-the maternal part on the cross,-when laid in the tomb, was after three days dissipated, and His own Divine Body arose and manifested Itself.

     But what was the secret economy involved in this process of glorification? This making Divine His Human Body? It could not be that there was any need of change in the Divine Itself, or of any alteration in the modes of its existence. It is revealed that, when the Lord resisted evil inflowing into His human, He not only overcame the bells, but at the same time glorified His Human; and that the especial virtue of this glorification was that He, by His Human made Divine, could hold the hells in subjection and under His dominion to eternity. In other words, the subjection of the bells would not have been permanent unless He had at the time glorified His Human. Thus the Divine Human which arose from the tomb and ascended to the Father stands as the everlasting means of evil subjugation and control of the bells.

     This, therefore, was the Divine economy involved in the glorification. And it is clear that the need of it arose from no self-necessity in the Divine, but from the human need of man for salvation, which need called not only for victorious resistance to evil, but also for the holding of the hells in permanent subjection thereafter. This permanence of subjection was also the grant of the Second Coming, which was to be a later spiritual Advent, whereby the truth and virtue of the First Coming should become manifest and effective with men.

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SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON NOTES 1927

SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON NOTES              1927

     LESSON NO. 30-IN BETHANY. THE CONSPIRACY.

     (Matthew 26:3-16. John 11 and 12.)

Jesus foretells His Betrayal and Crucifixion          Matt. 26:1-2
Friends in Bethany                          6-13
                                                  John 12:1-9
The Raising of Lazarus                     John 11:1-46
The Conspiracy                          Matthew 26:3-5; 14-16 John 12:10-11

     At the village of Bethany, about two miles east of Jerusalem and beyond the Mount of Olives, dwelt Lazarus and his sisters, Mary and Martha, and also Simon the leper, with whom Jesus made His residence when He had come up from Jericho. (Lesson No. 28.) This was His final visit to Jerusalem, and thither He would go after spending the night in Bethany. The hatred of the Jews, and especially of the rulers of the Church, now took definite form in a plot to capture Jesus and put Him to death, and the Lord knew their determination to carry it out speedily.

     But among the people there were some, like Lazarus and his sisters, who were His friends, believing in His Messiahship. It was Mary who anointed His head and His feet with the precious oil of spikenard, while Judas Iscariot, the traitor, protested that the precious ointment was thus wasted, and that it should have been sold, and the proceeds given to the poor. When we recall that a penny was a day's wages at that time, we can see that three hundred pence was a large sum of money, representing almost a year's earnings. But to the remonstrance of Judas the Lord answered: "The poor always ye have with you, but me ye have not always."

     Children should be taught to make their offerings to the Lord in the spirit in which Mary performed this act. No gift is too costly to give unto Him. Yet, most of all, He loved the spirit of devotion and self-sacrifice which Mary's act represented. It was a service of love to the Lord on her part, and the last she would be able to render before His death and burial.

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But her act was more profound than she realized; and so the Lord said, "Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached in the whole world, there shall also this, that this woman hath done, be told for a memorial of her." In the spiritual sense, Mary represented the church, and the oil of anointing represents the pure love of the church for the Lord. When the church cherishes this kind of love to the Lord, it is a genuine church, and pleasing in His sight.

     This is an appropriate time to tell the story of the raising of Lazarus. (John 11:1-46.) It had happened some time previously, and the Lord had made a special journey from Jericho to Bethany to perform that miracle. It was partly in grateful remembrance of this that the people there were now so friendly. Tell, also, the story of Mary and Martha, recorded in Luke 10:38-42. The Lord raised Lazarus to show that He had power over death, and that He is the Giver of life. It represented the resurrection of every man into the spiritual world after the death of the body. It also represents the raising up of a new church among the simple in heart, when the old church has perished.

     And this miracle of raising Lazarus serves as a proof that it was by His own determination that the Lord underwent and suffered the cross; for at no time did the Jews or Romans ever have any real power over His life; it only seemed so to them. Compare what happened on other occasions when "His time had not yet come." In John 10:17, 18, we read: "Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again." We recall the time in Nazareth when the people "rose up and thrust Him out of the city, and led Him to the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast Him down headlong. But He, passing through the midst of them, went His way." (Luke 4:29, 30) On another occasion, in Jerusalem, men sought to lay hold upon Him, but He quietly passed through them and escaped.

     As to the conspiracy of the Jews, add to what is given in Matthew the account given in John 11:47-53, where the actual arguments used in the council are given. Fear of the Romans was their excuse, but hatred of the Lord, and of His merciful work, was the real motive.

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They wished also to kill Lazarus, because he was a living evidence of the Lord's Divine power, and thus a testification of His Divinity. The part played by Judas is told in these words: "Then one of the twelve, called Judas Iscariot, went unto the chief priests, and said unto them, What will ye give me, and I will deliver Him unto you? And they covenanted with him for thirty pieces of silver. And from that time he sought opportunity to betray Him." (Matt. 26:14-16) And from Luke, "Then entered Satan into Judas surnamed Iscariot, being of the number of the twelve. And he went his way, and communed with the chief priests and captains, how he might betray Him unto them. And they were glad, and covenanted to give him money. And he promised, and sought opportunity to betray Him unto them in the absence of the multitude." (12:3-6) Judas represents the Jewish Church and the self love in every age which rejects the Lord and is willing to deliver Him up to His enemies,-the devils of hell.

     LESSON NO. 31-THE LAST SUPPER. GETHSEMANE.

     (Matt. 26:17-46.)

Preparation for the Passover                Matt. 26:17-20
The betrayer disclosed               : 21-25
The Supper                          : 26-29
The discourse by the way               : 30-3 5
Prayer in Gethsemane               : 36-46

     The last week of the Lord's life on earth was of so great importance that it occupies one third of the Gospel story. Every day of that week is mentioned definitely, except Wednesday, and the inference is that He spent this day quietly with His friends in Bethany.

     Concerning the preparation of the Passover we read more fully in Luke: "Then came the day of unleavened bread, when the passover must be killed. And He sent Peter and John, saying, Go and prepare us the passover, that we may eat. And they said unto Him, Where wilt Thou that we prepare? And He said unto them, Behold, when ye are entered into the city, there shall a man meet you bearing a pitcher of water; follow him into the house where he entereth in. And ye shall say unto the good man of the house, The Master saith unto thee, Where is the guestchamber, where I shall eat the passover with my disciples?

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And he shall shew you a large upper room furnished; there make ready. And they went, and found as He had said unto them." (Luke 22:7-13.)

     The institution of the Passover will be found in Exodus it. As the Israelites were about to be delivered from Egypt, every household was commanded to take a lamb and kill it, and then to dip hyssop into the blood and sprinkle it upon the lintels and doorposts of their houses. And when the angel of death passed through Egypt to destroy all the firstborn of the Egyptians, he would "pass over" every door on which the sign of the pascal lamb appeared. This was the tenth and last Plague upon Pharaoh, and it signified the great deliverance of the Church from hell. And so it was commanded that the Passover should be kept as an everlasting memorial of the Lord's redemption and salvation. Through all the 1500 years of Judaism it remained the greatest festival of the year. It was also called the "feast of unleavened bread," because with the lamb they were commanded to eat nothing but herbs and unleavened bread. It was this ordinance, therefore, which the Lord was now keeping with His disciples, saying, "With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer." (Luke 22:15.)

     In place of the lamb, which had represented the Lord Himself, He gave His disciples bread and wine, which Christians were to take in remembrance of His redemption by victories in temptation combats even to death upon the cross. As the Children of Israel were delivered from slavery in Egypt, and from the death of their own firstborn, by the blood of the lamb on their doorposts, so the whole human race was delivered by the Lord as the Lamb of God. Therefore we read in John: "The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." And in Isaiah we read, "Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows; yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions; He was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon Him;-and with His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth; He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so He openeth not His mouth.

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He was taken from prison and from judgment; and who shall declare His generation? For He was cut off out of the land of the living; for the transgression of my people was He Sicken. And He made His grave with the wicked, and with the rich in His death; because He had done no violence, neither was any deceit in His mouth." (Isaiah 53:4-9)

     Thus the Lord, by becoming Himself the Pascal Lamb, abolished the old Passover, because its representation was now fulfilled; and instead He commanded His followers to commemorate the redemption wrought by Him by observing a new feast,-the sacrament of the Holy Supper.

     In connection with the institution of the Holy Supper, some incidents should be noted, especially those recorded in John. The washing of the disciples' feet teaches humility and service by the Lord's own example, showing that even the lowliest work is worthy and honorable. (John 13:4-7.) He also taught that men should forgive one another their trespasses, signified by the ancient custom of washing the feet of another.

     At the table of the Last Supper, the Lord indicated the betrayer, and Judas departed from their company. The Lord then comforted and taught the remaining disciples, so that they might be prepared for what was about to take place. (John 13:31-37.) At the conclusion of the Supper, they sang a hymn, and then went out into the Mount of Olives, where He told the disciples that they would be scattered from Him, but that He would appear to them in Galilee after His resurrection.

     The Holy Supper and Baptism are the two Sacraments which the Lord gave to the Christian Church, and has commanded anew for the New Church. The ceremony of Baptism was to replace the rite of circumcision and the washings commanded the Jews, and the Holy Supper took the place of the Passover and the sacrifices. The bread of the Holy Supper 'S the correspondential representative of the Lord's Divine Good, and the wine of His Divine Truth. When man partakes of this Sacrament worthily, his states of regeneration are actually quickened by the reception of good and truth from the Lord.

     The garden of Gethsemane was situated on the lower slope of the Mount of Olives, just beyond the Brook Cedron, which ran down the valley to the east of the city.

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It was probably nearly midnight when the Lord and His disciples came to this place. And while the Lord prayed in deep agony, so that great drops of sweat like blood dropped to the ground, His disciples slept; for they had no realization of the combat which the Lord was then waging against evil. It also showed that vigilance is from the Lord, and not at all from man by himself. Yet it is man's duty to become watchful, as if from himself, at the same time realizing that without the Lord he can do nothing. This occurs when he takes to heart the truths revealed by the Lord.

     The evil spirits from hell were still trying to turn the Lord aside from the purpose of His Divine will and love, which was to redeem the human race. It was from the weakness of the human nature that He was tempted to draw back from the final conflict and the cross, when He said in Gethsemane: "O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me!" But His Divine will and love gained the victory; for He said: "Nevertheless, not my will, but Thine, be done."

     LESSON NO. 32-THE BETRAYAL. PETER'S DENIAL.

     (Matthew 26: 41-75)

Betrayal and arrest                Matt. 26: 47-66
Trial by the Jewish authorities      : 57-68
Peter's denial                     : 69-75

     Of this memorable week, this is the story of part of the sixth day, Friday, which we know as Good Friday. There are very many incidents, but let us strive now for a picture of the whole series. The preceding lesson dealt at its close with the Lord's prayer in Gethsemane, at the conclusion of which the sound of voices and the tramp of martial feet aroused the disciples from their quiet seclusion.

     The band that Judas brought with him consisted of two or three companies of soldiers with their sergeants and captains; the staves they carried were light spears. Many of the Roman soldiers were the basest of men, drawn from the dregs of the Empire, and serving in the army because of their love of plunder and gain. Malchus, the servant of the High Priest, was presumably their leader, sent to arrest the Lord in the name of the Sanhedrin. (See John 18:3, 10, 12.)

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The Lord healed the ear of Malchus, which Peter had cut off, a living example of His own doctrine, "Love your enemies!" A vivid picture of the Lord's reception of this band is given in John as follows: "Jesus therefore, knowing all things that should come upon Him, went forth, and said unto them, Whom seek ye? They answered Him, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus saith unto them. I am He. And Judas also, which betrayed Him, stood with them. As soon then as He had said unto them, I am He, they went backward, and fell to the ground." (John 18:4-6)

     That it was the Jewish Church which had rejected the Lord, is pictured in Judas' betrayal, especially in the fact that he pretended friendship and greeted the Lord with a kiss! These things were done that the Scriptures might be fulfilled, and that the Jews might ultimate their hatred of Him. Yet His power over the entire multitude was complete, as was shown by the way the soldiers fell backward at His holy words. The truth was that He gave His life of His own accord, so that redemption might be accomplished.

     The trial itself was illegal, because it was held at night, contrary to the Jewish law. The councillors had been assembled beforehand, so as to hasten the matter to a speedy conclusion. What we are now relating took place before Caiaphas the High Priest, and thus was an ecclesiastical trial. First they inquired about His teaching. (John 18:19-23.) Then they brought in witnesses who perverted His words, and when He declared Himself plainly, they condemned
Him as guilty of blasphemy.

     When the soldiers seized Jesus, the disciples fled and were scattered, but Peter and one or two others presently turned and followed at a distance, and finally came to the place of the trial. There Peter was recognized by one of the servants of the household; but being utterly disappointed, perhaps angry, and certainly afraid, he denied his Lord three times, as had been foretold. This will show how men become spiritually weak when they allow themselves to be deceived by feelings of ambition and power and glory, and by outward appearances, especially the appearance that the Lord has little power, and that men have great power. When so deceived, men will yield to any temptation. Peter afterwards realized more fully in an internal way what the Lord had been doing.

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He became a great preacher of the Gospel, and was a very brave man in the early persecutions of the Christian Church.

     "Immediately the cock crew." These were the words that recalled Peter to his senses, and reminded him of the Lord's prophecy of his denial, and "he went out and wept bitterly." Peter stands for our faith, which, when it is in the sphere of the teaching of the Church, seems strong indeed, as was Peter in the presence of the Lord. But when the scene is shifted, and we are in the sphere of the Old Church, as Peter was in the palace of Caiaphas, then it becomes a difficult matter to maintain a strong faith.

     How often some little incident of life is like the "cock crow," recalling us to our faith and our duty as disciples of the Lord in His Second Coming! At its beginning, every Church requires brave hearts, and strong and true. We are the disciples of this day who must stand at the trial of the Lord, in the darkness of the Christian night, and have the courage to Proclaim the faith that is in us, even when our Lord seems about to perish at the hand of a denying world!
MIRACLES IN APOSTOLIC TIMES 1927

MIRACLES IN APOSTOLIC TIMES              1927

     "Why miracles were done in the time of the apostles, in order that the church might be raised up. I spoke with the angels about the miracles in the time of the apostles, as that they spoke with other tongues, and that they manifestly perceived the influx of the spirit. This was because it was entirely unknown everywhere that the Lord, who would save souls, had come into the world; and because it would never be received by anyone without miracles, thus not by those who worship idols or saints; in which case, idolatry would have been the worship. For these reasons, miracles were performed; but now, when doctrine has been received, they are no longer done. The inrooting of good and truth with the gentiles is effected by external means, but in another manner with Christians, who are in the knowledge of internal things." (Spiritual Diary 4724m.)

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PROBLEMS OF THE ISOLATED 1927

PROBLEMS OF THE ISOLATED       DIRK DIEPHUIS       1927


NEW CHURCH LIFE
Office a Publication, Lancaster, Pa.
Published Monthly By
THE GENERAL CHURCH OF THE NEW JERUSALEM
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Editor                    Rev. W. B. Caldwell, Bryn Athyn, Pa.
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     NOTES AND REVIEWS.

     PROBLEMS OF THE ISOLATED.

     Dealing in an interesting way with the subject of "Isolation," in THE NEW-CHURCH MESSENGER of January 12, 1927, the Rev. Dirk Diephuis addresses himself in part to the question which confronts many isolated New Churchmen: "Shall I attend services in the Old Church? " And he holds that "generally speaking, it is better to go to an orthodox Christian church than to no church at all,"-a view which is in strange contrast with the severity of his attitude toward any actual joining of an orthodox body of the Old Church. The internal grounds for the distinctiveness of the New Church would seem applicable in both cases. The doctrine and worship of the New and the Old cannot be commingled without a harmful collision of spheres. The two are not together in the spiritual world. For the New Churchman, in his faith and worship, looks to the true God,-the Lord in His Divine Human,-which no other Church in Christendom does. A New Churchman cannot "worship in spirit and truth" in a temple of the former Church. If, for other reasons, he occasionally attend services there, it is not to worship. He cannot address his prayer to the God who is there addressed, nor can he listen with an open heart and mind, and without mental reservation, to the instruction there given. Swedenborg once entered a temple in the world of spirits, but was obliged to avert his face lest the preacher be disturbed. (Diary 4938)

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And such a mental attitude is not compatible with a state of worship.

     While, therefore, we can agree with Mr. Diephuis in his views on membership in the Old Church, we would give a different answer to the question confronting the isolated New Churchman, and say: "It is better to worship alone than to go to an orthodox Christian church."

     Our readers will be interested in Mr. Diephuis' presentation of this problem of the isolated, which we herewith quote in full from his article:

     GOING TO CHURCH.

     A real problem, and one of many aspects, confronts the isolated New-Church member when it comes to churchgoing.

     It is extremely difficult to suggest any definite line of conduct in this matter, because conditions vary greatly with different individuals in different localities. Generally speaking, it is better to go to an orthodox Christian Church than to no church at all. Although it is true that the orthodox churches are in grave error as to doctrine, it is also true that quite often doctrine does not come to view at the hour of worship sufficiently to disturb the New Christian. The reading of the Word, even of the uninspired Bible books, is profitable to anyone, if both reader and hearer are in earnest; and the fact that the reader has no idea of the deeper meaning of the letter need not disturb anyone greatly. In churches where a creed or other doctrinal matter is recited, the New Churchman need not share in the recitation, but can easily concentrate for a few seconds on the real work of the Lord, instead of on the few salient points in His life, as creeds contain them. Of course, it requires a vast amount of concentration to sing:

. . . God in three persons,
Blessed Trinity,

and at the same time think of a totally different trinity, but then, one need not sing! And most hymns contain little or no doctrine, but are songs of praise in which anyone can gladly join.

     The sermons of modern and well-educated ministers of most denominational churches contain little that will be objectionable to the New Churchman. Their main shortcoming is that they are in consequential, and too often shallow.

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But there is a growing attempt to make them spiritual, a tendency to lay stress on motives, a commendable desire to get at the really valuable things in life, and we can often leave an orthodox church with the feeling that we have been strengthened internally by what we have heard. We might add that the large number of ministers and theological students who have availed themselves of the "gift books" and other New-Church literature undoubtedly indicates that sermons are undergoing a desirable change.

     SHOULD ONE JOIN ANOTHER CHURCH?

     This leads us to the next and most momentous question: Should an isolated New Churchman join another church?

     There are instances where this course has seemed to be, if not the wisest, then at least the easiest, the one that would produce the least friction. Social or business considerations have induced some of our isolated to identify themselves with another religious body.

     Those who have done so do not, and never did, belong to the Lord's New Church. It is one thing to associate and even to worship with people who either have no well-defined doctrine or hold fast to grave errors of doctrine and subsequent errors of life. They may at any time see their errors; indeed, who knows but the Divine Providence has caused our path to cross theirs for the very purpose of our being instrumental in their acquiring the higher things? But it is quite another matter to subscribe, voluntarily, to what we know to be erroneous or evil. There is no valid excuse for such a descent. To those who contemplate taking this step, we would repeat Hamlet's words to his mother:

     Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed,
     And batten on this moor?

     Whoever has exchanged the exalted, beautiful, rational conception of the Lord, His Word, and His Divine Economy, which is the precious possession of His New Church, for the materialistic ideas of the "fundamentalists" or the high-sounding clap-trap of the "modernists" has come as close to mixing good and evil as any human being ever can come without actually committing the unpardonable sin. His only salvation lies in the fact that his New Christianity was undoubtedly less than skin deep.

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     There can be no necessity for joining an orthodox church. If we are approached with a request to that effect, as is often the case with the isolated, it is quite sufficient to state one's position. This can be done in an inoffensive but decisive manner; laymen coming with a request of this kind seldom argue the case, and clergymen-be it said to their credit-soon realize the impossibility of such a change, even if they should at first try to make a proselyte.

     BENEFITS OF INDEPENDENCE.

     As has been stated in the beginning of this article, the loss of his religious identity is the thing every New-Church member should guard against. This identity makes him a better man, a more charitable neighbor, a more useful citizen. His good, once acquired and appropriated, is a higher good than he can obtain through the ministration of any other church-it is genuine good, the Lord's good. And he will surely suffer a spiritual loss if he joins any other religious body.

     Of marriages to persons of an orthodox church little need be said here, as this matter confronts all New-Church people anywhere. There is a grave doubt whether married partners can live together in spiritual marriage, if their convictions differ fundamentally. The "New Churchman" who becomes an Episcopalian "by marriage" is in the same class with his confrater who becomes a Lutheran by moving to another town. Both are anomalies, to say the least.
     DIRK DIEPHUIS.
NO HEAVEN OR HELL AS YET. 1927

NO HEAVEN OR HELL AS YET.              1927

     "No man has ever yet gone to heaven. No man, it would seem, has ever yet gone to hell. No man has ever yet been finally judged. No man has ever yet been finally damned. Thank God for that at any rate. The Bible teaches that all who have ever left this earth are waiting yet; from King Alfred to King Edward; from St. Paul to Bishop Westcott; from the poor struggler of the ancient days in the morning of history to the other poor struggler who died last night."-Archdeacon Paterson Smyth in The Gospel of the Hereafter, quoted in NEW CHURCH HERALD.

     Meanwhile, presumably, they tarry in Pu, Ubi or Limbo, according to the orthodox notions of Swedenborg's time, which apparently are not as dead as some would have us believe. (T. C. R. 292, 769, etc.)

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RAFFLES AT CHURCH BAZAARS. 1927

RAFFLES AT CHURCH BAZAARS.       RICHARD H. TEED       1927

     An editorial by the Rev. R. H. Teed, in THE NEW AGE (AUSTRALIA) for October, 1926, discusses the practice of raising money for charitable purposes by means of raffles, and goes on to speak in condemnatory terms of the introduction of such things into church bazaars. In the New Church, for the most part, there has been a revolt against the not uncommon practice in Christian churches of meeting the annual deficit by methods which include the lottery, the roulette table, and other devices which convert the Lord's temple into a "house of merchandise,"-surely a lamentable sign of spiritual decadence, when a genuine love cannot be depended upon to maintain the spiritual uses of the Church. It would appear that Mr. Teed's objection is not to bazaars, properly conducted, but rather to their abuse. He says:

     "We ourselves have-unsuccessfully-been appealed to, aye, persuaded, by prominent Church officials to allow a raffle at a Church bazaar. No, we say; no! Is the House of the Lord, and its sacred uses, going to be maintained by such methods as that? Oh, it is urged, none of us really wants the article that is being raffled for; we all do it for the sake of the Church. Very well, we say, if that be so, leave the article out of it altogether, and all give your sixpences and threepences to the Church. But, no; folk don't do that. The element of excitement has been removed; which, of course, goes to show that the claim that they did not really do it for the sake of the article was not wholly true.

     "All gambling and betting are wrong, and those who indulge-even though in half-pennies only, or for the sake of the finest charity, or even the Church itself-do wrong. The evil that lies hidden in all forms of this thing is the lust of gain, wholly divorced from the good of rendering service in return. The principle of all true business-though it may be lacking in much that is called business-is mutual service. Money is the convenient symbol, and is most useful for that purpose.

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But the underlying idea is service, goods for goods-the giving to another or to the community what one is capable of or fitted to give, and the receiving in return what one requires for the necessities of one's life. All 'business' that has lost that underlying idea has really ceased to be business, but is a form of this evil of gambling, and should be shunned by all worthy men as a sin against God.

     "We, therefore, confidently affirm that to indulge in any form of betting or gambling-being contrary to the heavenly principle of 'use'-is a thing that no consistent New Churchman can do. And we would further urge that, instead of letting the thin end of the wedge slip into our communal life under all sorts of specious pleas, we should stand firm against the evil in every form, even though it come in sheep's clothing, with the word 'charity' much on its lips, though little in its heart. Remember, that every time the respectable and cultured indulge in this thing daintily and delicately, they are giving terrific impetus to the evil in its grosser and more horrible forms, among those less able to discriminate between what is only bad and what is inextricably rotten. The New Churchman can know no such discrimination. In relation to this, as all similar matters, our only motto is: Shun evil as sin against God-even though it be 'the sport of kings'!"
     RICHARD H. TEED.
DUTCH VERSION OF THE ARCANA CAELESTIA. 1927

DUTCH VERSION OF THE ARCANA CAELESTIA.       HENDRIK W. BOEF       1927

     HEMELSCHE VERBORGENHEDEN (Arcana Coelestia). By Emanuel Swedenborg. Volume I. The Hague: Swedenborg Genootschap (Society), 1926. Cloth, 627 pages. Price, 6.50 florins.

     We take great pleasure in felicitating the Swedenborg Society upon this latest fruit of its efforts to make the Heavenly Doctrines available to readers of the Dutch language. The translation from the Latin is the work of Mr. Anton Zelling, and, as far as we are able to judge, this has been done in a very scholarly way, for which he is to be congratulated, especially when we consider that he undertook to learn the Latin language for the purpose. The style is Dutch, though very close to the original Latin, and makes flexible and agreeable reading. It is true that some of the words are distinctively New Church, and not much used at present in Holland, but this is the case with other translations of the Writings.

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Italics are employed where they occur in the original, but the usual Dutch punctuation is used where necessary. We would offer the suggestion that, in the remaining volumes, the long numbers be furnished with numbered subdivisions, as this is of great value in reference work.

     We understand that the translation and study of this first volume of the Arcana has been a great inspiration to the members of the Society, who have taken it up very enthusiastically. And so we may see the use that this volume of the Lord's Word is already performing among those who have heretofore been limited in their reading of the Writings, owing to the lack of Dutch translations of such important works as the Arcana Celestia.
     HENDRIK W. BOEF.
"THE MYTH OF APE-ANCESTRY." 1927

"THE MYTH OF APE-ANCESTRY."       LOUIS PENDLETON       1927

     As bearing upon subjects recently touched upon in our pages, and citing some of the latest scientific theories, we reprint the following by Louis Pendleton which appeared in a number of newspapers:

     "THE MYTH OF APE-ANCESTRY."

     What is "the motivative force that causes the planets to move, causes life on earth, and causes humans to live after birth?" Answering his own question, a recent scientific writer undertakes to reveal the secret in two words-"universal pressure." But what is universal pressure, what causes it, what is behind it? Apparently it does not occur to this ready expounder that his adopted premise is shrouded in mystery, or to reflect that he has pinned his faith to a mere phrase. In like manner, the great part of the public that accepts every word of science as gospel seems to be serenely unaware that the views of the anthropologists are ever changing and conflicting. A proudly "up to date" section of the public supposes that the theory of man's "ape descent" is buttressed by incontrovertible facts and settled beyond question. Yet here is Prof. Henry Fairfield Osborne, of Columbia University and the American Museum of Natural History, declaring the theory originated by Lamarck and expounded in Darwin's Descent of man to be a delusion.

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     He says that man, instead of coming into existence about a million years ago, as the son of the pithecanthropus erectus (the supposed link between the tailless apes and men), has recently been shown to have actually existed in the ancient Age of Mammals, about six million years ago, and that, even in that almost inconceivably remote past, "man was a relatively superior being, walking erect, with very capable tool-making hands directed by a very superior order of brain"-this ancient eonanthropus or "dawn man," of whom remains have been discovered in England, being millions of years older than the "ape man" formerly supposed to be the ancestor of the human race, and having "a distinctively human brain, very close indeed to the lower types of the now existing human brain."

     According to Prof. Osborne, this important discovery "removes the bar Sinister of ape descent." Writing in the New York Times of January 9, he says: "The myth of ape-ancestry lingers on the stage, in the movies, in caricatures of our pedigree, even in certain scientific parlance, but the ape-ancestry hypothesis is entirely out of date. We are descended from 'dawn-men' ('distinctively human'), not from 'ape-men.'. . . The 'dawn-man' walked erect, thought as man, probably spoke as man, although his vocabulary was limited. Among his greatly inferior contemporaries were the man-apes who lived chiefly in trees, (the ancestors) of the superapes living today. The 'dawn-man' was the potency of modern civilization. A welcome gift from anthropology to humanity is this banishment of the myth of our ape-ancestry."

     If science holds to this view without wavering, a public long persuaded of man's descent from the lower animals, and regarding evolution and "ape-descent" as virtually synonymous, may lean toward the conclusion that it has been "sold" and in future be disposed to accept the announcements of the anthropologists with somewhat of a saving reservation.
     LOUIS PENDLETON.

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SPONTANEOUS CREATIONS IN THE BEGINNING 1927

SPONTANEOUS CREATIONS IN THE BEGINNING       Rev. E. E. IUNGERICH       1927

Editor of NEW CHURCH LIFE:
     It was a pleasure to the undersigned, as undoubtedly to many others, to read in your January issue the Rev. W. H. Alden's review of Professor McCready's The Phantom of Organic Evolution, and to note the cool logic with which that author dispels many a finespun theory that has rested upon insignificant observations of the earth's crust or of stellar mist. The writer of the review maintains the standpoint of those New Churchmen who have never been inclined to take off their hats to a theory which merely tries to account for some experimental data, or to fall upon their knees before the great universities and their titled dens, whenever some new vogue of intellectual thought starts up under their sanction. Preferring to remain on the higher rational plane, these New Churchmen have striven to let doctrinal knowledges lead them to judge of such studies by their fruits, and to guard against sinking to a level where "sight from the eye closes the understanding." They have felt that no renown would come by trailing after the leaders of the blind, and though encouraging a judicial survey of all fields of investigation, they would say, to quote the words of one of their company: "It is orthodox to spoil the Egyptian, but beware the Assyrian, my son!"

     But what I wish especially to comment upon is the suggestion by the writer of the review that Swedenborg endorses the idea of an instantaneous, full-grown creation of all things on earth in the beginning. For when he presents the New Church doctrine on the subject, he rests his whole case upon T. C. R. 78, italicizing in it a phrase, " In your world they were created in like manner in the beginning," to which he gives that implication, inasmuch as he then adds: "We see no reason to doubt that this teaching regarding the creation may apply to man, as well as to the lower creation."

     Now Swedenborg, throughout his scientific and philosophical period, consistently held that God was the Author of all the beginnings of creation, and that all these were seeds at first. The History of Creation and the Adversaria also affirm this, and the Divine Love and Wisdom is quite specific:

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"The first production from these earths, when they were still recent and in their simplicity, was the production of seeds. The first conatus in them could be to nothing else." (D. L. W. 312.) The True Christian Religion also resists the idea that objects could have sprung up full-grown, as the following passage, which I present for comparison with the one upon which the reviewer has placed such a construction, indicates:

     T. C. R. 37

     "They who deduce creation from another source than the Divine Love by the Divine Wisdom ...descend from the sight of the reason to the sight of the eye, and kiss nature as the creatrix of the universe, and thence conceive chimeras and bring forth ghosts . . . Such cannot be called minds, but eyes and ears without understanding . . . They speak of colors as if they stood forth without light, and of the existence of trees as if apart from seed."

     T. C. R. 78.

     "The difference is [said the angels] that in our world such things are created by God instantaneously, in accordance with the affections of the angels. In your world they were created in like manner in the beginning; but it was provided that they should be renewed unceasingly by the propagation of one from another, and creation be continued in that manner."

     To take T. C. R. 78 as endorsing the "hen and then egg" theory in respect to the beginnings of creation would lead to prodigious conclusions, involving not only the three kingdoms on our earth, but also the sun, moon, and stars. For in heaven these also appear instantaneously according to the affections of angels, and so come into the same category with the other objects that spring at once into view before them. Nor would it do to assume that the condemnation of the idea of "the existence of trees as if apart from seed" (T. C. R. 37) refers, not to the original creation, but to the time since then, or when continuance of the creative effort is by propagations. For who has ever questioned the constantly observed fact that trees spring from seeds? No, the only construction to be placed upon T. C. R. 78 is one that will reconcile it with the teaching of Genesis and Swedenborg's constant doctrine on the subject, and thus prevent it from coming under the condemnation expressed in T. C. R. 37.

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     I may here note that T. C. R. 78 is plainly heralded as an instruction from the viewpoint of angels, and may therefore be regarded as presenting the subject from a purely spiritual aspect. On the other hand, the constant doctrine on the subject, couched in the direct forms of thought of the enlightened seer, who was himself the instructor of angels on many occasions, sets the matter forth in natural light derived from the spiritual. The former viewpoint, according to A. E. 1171, though furnishing light on spiritual things, is not alone sufficient to give it on a natural subject like that in question.

     The real purport of the teaching of T. C. R. 78 is to show the constant presence of spiritual influx as a factor in creation. And this at once aligns this passage with the doctrine of spontaneous generation given in the Divine Love and Wisdom, and there actually illustrated by an experience of which Swedenborg was an eyewitness in both worlds. I refer to D. L. W. 341: "Once in my garden I noticed that, in the space of an ell, almost all the dust was turned into minute flying creatures; for on being stirred with a stick they rose up as clouds."

     Now it is obvious that such creations by spontaneous generation did not produce their fully grown products at once. There was only a little egg-like form as a receptacle for the germ of life. Note here the expression "in its leasts," in the instruction given to Sir Hans Sloan about the spiritual bird created by angelic affection which he was given to hold: "He said that if that bird, in its leasts, should be infilled with corresponding matters on earth, and so fixated, it would be a lasting bird, as are birds on earth." (D. L. W. 344) So far as earthly experience testifies, there is no evidence extant of any new creations appearing other than in tiny egg-like forms at first. Then why assume a different operation of the law of spontaneous generation at the beginning of things, when it was undoubtedly of almost universal application, seeing that the creative processes by propagations had only begun to arise?

     Note, as an obvious corollary to Swedenborg's experience of seeing insects arise from dust, that the spiritual influx did not create the dust.

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It has always seemed surprising to me to hear New Churchmen who defend this doctrine of spontaneous generation insist that it means the creation of a natural substrate as well. Yet the influx did not create the dust, nor could the Sir Hans Sloan bird have produced its egg-like form on earth by a pure condensation of spiritual substance. For reference is made to an infilling with "corresponding matters on earth."

     The doctrine of spontaneous generation means that there is a spiritual influx that will give the spark of life to meet receptacular forms when these are available. These receptive forms are of two kinds: either one that had not been prepared by a previous fertilization, in which case there is spontaneous generation; or else a paternally fertilized form which opens to receive the vivifying life, in which case there is generation by propagation. The difference between the two is well illustrated by drones and worker-bees. The former spring from unfertilized, the latter, from fertilized eggs.

     It is plain from the teaching about the origin of evil animals subsequent to man, that these must have arisen according to the law of spontaneous generation, or as stated in T. C. R. 78, according to human affections. But there were many animals created prior to man, thus when there were as yet no human affections to promote them. Nevertheless, after man had been created, the quality of his affections was a vital factor in causing a given species to continue its propagations, and others to Stop perpetuating and become extinct.

     It is along this line of thought, I am convinced, that we shall arrive at the real gist of the teaching the angels gave, in T. C. R. 78:

     "The difference is, that in our world such things are created by God instantaneously, in accordance with the affections of the angels. In your world they were created in like manner in the beginning."
     E. E. IUNGERICH.

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ANNUAL COUNCIL MEETINGS 1927

ANNUAL COUNCIL MEETINGS       GEORGE DE CHARMS       1927

     BRYN ATHYN, PA., JANUARY 31 TO FEBRUARY 6, 1927.

     COUNCIL OF THE CLERGY.

     The 31st Annual Meeting of the Council of the Clergy was held in The Council Hall of the Cathedral, and included four morning sessions and one special session on Sunday evening. There were 22 Ministers in attendance. Three papers were read, each being followed by an interesting discussion of the doctrinal questions involved. "The Age of the World and Evolution," by the Rev. G. H. Smith, presented the evidence of scientific investigation in its relation to the implied teaching of the Writings that the age of the world is not more than six thousand years. A large part of the discussion centered about the attitude of the New Churchman toward the scientific world, and toward the Divine Truth of Revelation. The same question was continued and carried to a higher plane by the paper of the Rev. E. E. Iungerich,-"An Estimate of Philosophy from the Light of Heaven." Here the references in the Writings to the philosophers known to Swedenborg were brought together, and very interesting conclusions deduced with regard to the value and also the danger of human philosophy. Of a more practical nature, as being applicable to the development of our ritual, was a paper by the Rev. T. S. Harris, asking the question, "Should We Intone the Liturgy?" Mr. Harris presented the results of a somewhat extended study of the subject of intoning. He had been impressed with its artistic beauty and harmony, as compared with our present mode, and gave an illustration of how it is done. The Rev. H. L. Odhner, while having no written paper, introduced a very interesting consideration with reference to the Resurrection of the Lord, and there followed a most delightful and valuable discussion of the subject.

     The regular Public Session of the Council was held in the Auditorium of De Charms Hall on Thursday evening, February 3d, when a large audience listened to a profound and deeply impressive address by Bishop N. D. Pendleton, on "The Ministry of Blessing."

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It has been many years since we have had such direct instruction on the Doctrine of the Priesthood, and on the efficacy and power of the Rites and Sacraments of the Church. The act of Blessing was shown by the Bishop to be a distinct part of the priestly function, and at the same time a kind of universal which expresses the essential use of the Priesthood in every function,-the use of providing that "the Divine shall be with the people." For all blessing is the Divine with men,-the presence and reception of the Lord. The address is one that will be read by New Churchmen everywhere with delight and a feeling of new illustration on this important subject.


     COUNCIL OF THE CLERGY AND GENERAL FACULTY.

     At the joint meetings of the Council of the Clergy and the General Faculty, held on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday afternoons, there were addresses of mutual interest to ministers and teachers. In addition to the Faculty of the Schools in Bryn Athyn, one teacher was present from Pittsburgh and one from Glenview. The average attendance at the meetings was 52.

     The first address, by Rev. W. L. Gladish, expounding from the Writings the proposition that "Everything Divided is More Manifold because Nearer to the Infinite," proved a real inspiration. While deeply philosophical in content, the subject was given an educational turn by the speaker. It was spoken of as a boy's question, and as one which was actually considered in a boy's school in the spiritual world. (C. L. 329.) In developing it, Mr. Gladish presented graphically the spiritual idea of the created universe as being the embodiment of the Divine, so that to enter into its secrets is to draw nearer to the Lord, in whom all things are infinitely one. A sense of the wonders which lie concealed behind the veil of matter, and of the delights in store for those who can lift that veil, were depicted as the inspiration and the reward of education, as it is conceived in the New Church.

     Miss Alice E. Grant, in her address on "The Academy University of the Future," gave a very touching account of her impressions of the recent General Assembly in Kitchener. The numerical growth of the Church, the earnestness and devotion of the present leaders, the enthusiastic support of the third generation, now beginning to take an active part in the work of the Church;-all these were reasons for encouragement.

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Miss Grant spoke especially of Bishop N. D. Pendleton's banquet speech, in which he outlined a vision of the University of the future. She had long looked forward to the eventual production of such a university. Her reflection upon the Bishop's words had brought a realization of the fact that we already have the seed and the vital center of such a university,-not, indeed, a large collection of technical schools, but an educational institution where universals of truth are taught. In the discussion of the paper, there was an affectionate recognition of Miss Grant's long years of faithful and devoted service, and a hearty response to her appeal for a continuance of that zeal for the spiritual treasures of the Writings which has been the soul of the Academy movement, and which can alone insure its perpetuation.

     At the last of these joint sessions, the Rev. K. R. Alden spoke on "The Ishmael Rational." Outlining the Scriptural story of Abraham, and the spiritual interpretation of it given in the Arcana Celestia, Mr. Alden showed its application to the education of youth from the age of 13, approximately, to the age of 21. He educed from the Writings the leading characteristics of this period, the psychology that marks it, and its place in the general development of the mind and character. He then stated a series of very practical educational principles applicable to the training of the schools. His paper was the result of careful study from the Writings, in the light of the actual and personal experience of one to whom has been entrusted the responsibility of directing and developing the education of boys during the secondary school period.

     At the close of the formal meetings, a most delightful hour of social enjoyment was provided. A committee of ladies, with the assistance of several young girls, served coffee and light refreshments, and this successfully broke down all barriers of formality, and brought the members together in intimate groups to discuss special phases of their work, and to exchange personal impressions.


     PHILADELPHIA DISTRICT ASSEMBLY.

     The Philadelphia District Assembly met at a Banquet in The Auditorium on Friday evening, February 4th, with an attendance of about 350.

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Mr. O. W. Heilman, as the caterer in charge, provided an ample supper, well prepared and efficiently served, which, however, will be famous for its chicken patties; these were sufficiently original in shape and unusual in size to make up in humor for anything they may have lacked in grace or symmetry!

     The Rev. Wm. Whitehead, as toastmaster, conducted the ceremonies with his well-known tact and brilliance. The general subject was that of "Development," the toastmaster himself speaking of the growth in numbers and in organization during the thirty years that have elapsed since the beginning of the General Church in 1897. This introduction was followed by an address on the "Development of our Societies," by Mr. C. G. Merrell, of Cincinnati, who made a simple and affectionate appeal for a continued spirit of charity and fellowship on the basis of a common love of the Heavenly Doctrine, as the central requirement of society growth. The Rev. H. L. Odhner spoke on "The Development of Doctrine," showing that by intelligent loyalty to the Divine Doctrine, which itself cannot undergo development, there can be a sure and never-ending progression into that more perfect human interpretation of that Doctrine which will mark the internal growth of the Church. The final address, by the Rev. George de Charms, emphasized the importance of worship as the medium of receiving heavenly affections by influx, and a thing as essential to the Church as Doctrine. Our forms of worship are to be based upon the teaching of the Writings, and drawn from them in as great a spirit of united loyalty as has become characteristic of the General Church in doctrinal matters.

     Several made interesting contributions to the discussion from the floor. The Rev. G. H. Smith, after taking careful notes, and preparing to favor us with his best thought on the important questions before the meeting, disqualified himself for making a serious speech by exercising his wit on the unsuspecting patties! Much as we missed what he might have said, we all enjoyed his humor.

     On Saturday evening, February 6th, a delightful entertainment with a varied program was provided by the Civic and Social Club. The first number was a moving picture of Bryn Athyn scenes, taken by Mr. Donald F. Rose. The subjects had neither rhyme nor reason in their arrangement, but gave an interesting glimpse of our community life, in all its various aspects, from the solemn procession of the Faculty on Charter Day to the peculiar antics of the family cat!

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There followed an instrumental trio, a vocal solo by Miss Katherine Riefstahl, and an Irish play, notable for its stage setting and its characteristic humor, effectively produced by local talent. An hour of dancing for the young people brought the evening to a close.


     THE SUNDAY WORSHIP.

     Three services were held on Sunday, the first being a Children's Service at 9:30 o'clock. The Rev. T. S. Harris delivered the address, speaking on the subject of "The Body, the Spirit, the Soul, and the Lord," showing how the one is within the other as in its dwelling place, and the Lord is present everywhere from inmosts to outmosts.

     At 11 o'clock, the regular service, followed by the monthly administration of the Holy Supper, was conducted by Bishop N. D. Pendleton, the Revs. Hugo Lj. Odhner and George de Charms assisting. Mr. Odhner delivered a profoundly interesting and eminently practical sermon on the text, "Thou Shalt not Steal," illustrating the many applications of that Divine Law to the civil, moral, and especially the spiritual life of men.

     In the evening at 8 o'clock, a musical service was conducted by the Rev. Alan Gill, who preached a delightful sermon on the subject of the encampment of the Sons of Israel at "Etham in the edge of the wilderness " (Exodus 13:20, 21). His treatment of the subject was based particularly upon the statement made in Arcana Celestia 8108, that the Lord is present with man in every state of life. The singing of the choir, and string music played as an interlude and postlude, were very enjoyable special features of the service.
     GEORGE DE CHARMS,
          Secretary.

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JOINT COUNCIL. 1927

JOINT COUNCIL.       GEORGE DE CHARMS       1927

     BRYN ATHYN, PA., FEBRUARY 5, 1927.

     First Session-10:00 a.m.

     1. The meeting was opened with worship conducted by the Bishop.

     2. There were present:

     OF THE COUNCIL OF THE CLERGY:

     Bishop N. D. Pendleton, presiding; Bishop Emeritus W. F. Pendleton; Revs. Alfred Acton, K. R. Alden, W. H. Alden, R. W. Brown, W. B. Caldwell, R. G. Cranch, L. W. T. David, George de Charms, C. E. Doering, Alan Gill, W. L. Gladish, H. L. Odhner, E. E. Iungerich, Theodore Pitcairn, Enoch S. Price, G. H. Smith, Homer Synnestvedt, and F. E. Waelchli. Total, 20.

     OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE:

     Dr. F. A. Boericke; Messrs. E. C. Bostock, R. W. Childs, G. S. Childs, Hubert Hyatt, A. P. Lindsay, S. S. Lindsay, C. G. Merrell, H. F. Pitcairn, Raymond Pitcairn. Total, 10.

     3. The Secretary read the minutes of the 33d Meeting, which, on motion, were approved as read.

     4. The Bishop announced that, instead of a report, he would make a statement later in the meeting.

     5. Rev. W. B. Caldwell read the Report of the Secretary of the General Church (see p. 182), which, on motion, was received and filed.

     6. The Secretary of the Council of the Clergy then presented the annual report of that body, which was received and filed. (See p. 175.)

     7. Bishop N. D. Pendleton announced that the Rev. R. J. Tilson, of the Michael Church, London, had been appointed a member of his Consistory.

     8. Mr. G. S. Childs read the Report of the Executive Committee, which, on motion, was received and filed.

     9. Mr. Hubert Hyatt, Treasurer of the General Church, made a verbal report, which was discussed at considerable length, and, on motion, accepted by the meeting.

     10. Rev. Alfred Acton presented a report on behalf of Mr. W. C. Childs, Treasurer of the Orphanage Fund, which was received and filed. (See p. 184.)

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     11. The Committee on Organization reported that a meeting or the Corporation of the General Church had been called to meet in the City of Chicago, to remove any doubt as to the legal validity of the resolutions passed at the meeting in Kitchener, Ontario, last June.

     12. The Bishop placed before the Council the question of the next General Assembly. He said that two invitations had been received, one from the Olivet Church, of Toronto, and the other from the Michael Church, London. He stated the reasons why an Assembly in London would seem to be of the greatest use to the Church at this time. There followed a lengthy discussion of the subject, at the close of which the following resolutions were passed unanimously:

     13. Resolved: That the invitation of the Michael Church, London, to hold the next General Assembly there be accepted.

     14. Resolved: That this body deeply appreciates the invitation from the Olivet Church, Toronto, and looks forward with pleasure to an Assembly there in the future.

     15. The meeting adjourned at 12:30 o'clock.

     Second Session-3 p.m.

     16. The Rev. William Whitehead and Mr. Paul Synnestvedt were present at this session, bringing the total attendance to 32.

     17. The question of "The Standard of Admission into our New Church Schools" was taken from the Docket, and presented by Bishop N. D. Pendleton. He stated briefly the history of the question, and outlined the steps recently taken in Bryn Athyn in connection with it. The present position is, that the schools of the Church are for New Church children. Any children who have been baptized are considered New Church children, and by virtue of their baptism are eligible for entrance into the schools, though they need not be accepted if other requirements are not met. The responsibility for baptism is placed upon the Pastor. The subject was discussed at length.

     18. On motion, it was voted unanimously that the Secretary be instructed to convey an expression of our sincere appreciation to the Ladies who had so kindly provided the delightful collation.

     19. On motion, the meeting adjourned at 4:30 o'clock.
     GEORGE DE CHARMS,
          Secretary.

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REPORT OF THE COUNCIL OF THE CLERGY. 1927

REPORT OF THE COUNCIL OF THE CLERGY.       GEORGE DE CHARMS       1927

     Since our last Annual Report there has been no change in the total number of names appearing on the Roll of Ministers. Two ministers have, however, been ordained into the Second Degree of the Priesthood, and one Authorized Candidate has been ordained into the First and Second Degrees. The list now includes 2 Bishops, 34 Pastors, 2 Ministers, and a Pastors pending Ordination.

     The Statistical Reports received from 35 Ministers show the administration of the Sacraments and Rites of the Church as follows: Baptisms 122 (17 Native South Africans in addition), Confirmations 27, Betrothals 10, Marriages 23, Funerals 33, Ordinations 4, House Dedications 5, the Holy Supper, public administrations 141, private administrations 23.

     The following facts of general interest have been culled from the reports: Bishop N. D. Pendleton presided at the General Assembly held in Kitchener, Ont., June 14-20, this being the outstanding event in the general life of the Church during the year. He presided also at District Assemblies held in Bryn Athyn, February 1-8, Pittsburgh, October 8-11, and Glenview, October 15-20; and at Local Assemblies in New York, May 8 and 9, Baltimore-Washington, May 15 and 16, Cincinnati, October 12-14, and Chicago, October 21-25. He ordained Mr. F. W. Elphick into the First Degree of the Priesthood on February 7, and Messrs. F. W. Elphick, Alan Gill, William Whitehead into the Second Degree on June 19. He dedicated the Council Hall at Bryn Athyn on February 2, and in November a private home. He preached in Bryn Athyn 16 times, and once each in New York, Arbutus, Pittsburgh, Glenview, and Chicago, conducting services regularly in Bryn Athyn, except when absent from home.

     Bishop W. F. Pendleton has continued his work as teacher in the Theological School. In addition, be has preached three times in Bryn Athyn, addressed the Schools on Founder's Day, conducted a Friday Class on March 5, and dedicated a private house.

     Dr. Alfred Acton reports that the affairs of the Washington Society have been progressing very satisfactorily. The Society meets twice a month, and on each occasion has a social supper after the Doctrinal Class. He has continued his work as Dean of the Theological School. Up to the dose of last summer, he has been very fully occupied as Chairman of the Manuscript Committee appointed by the Academy. Under the auspices of this committee, Miss Odhner was sent to Sweden to copy documents by and concerning Swedenborg. The Academy now has photographic reproductions of all Swedenborg's theological correspondence, so far as its whereabouts is known, and of all his theological works, with the exception of a small index of the Apocalypse Revealed. When the work of the Manuscript Committee came to an end, he concentrated his efforts on the translation of Swedenborg's Old Testament Explained, commonly known as the Adversaria. It is confidently expected that the first volume of this translation will be in the printer's hands before summer.

     Rev. Elmo C. Acton, Minister of the Society in Durban, Natal, reports that a hall to be used for educational and social purposes has been completed, and was dedicated on November 17.

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Shortly after the dedication, a society supper was held in this hall, after which there was a spirited discussion of the uses to which it will be put. The school, he says, is running smoothly, and there is an increasing appreciation of New Church Education. Of necessity, it has to meet the demands made by the established educational system of the country, according to which examinations for entrance into higher departments are made of paramount importance. A note of peculiar interest to us, just at this moment, is to the effect that Mr. Acton is debating whether it would not be well to suspend the Doctrinal Class during January and February, because of the excessive heat! The Zulu Mission is going forward quietly with its work, gaining a member here and there. More rapid progress might be made if a greater amount of time could be given to it. This, however, his many duties will not permit. He sends his regrets to the Council that he is unable to attend the meetings, but expresses the feeling of security which comes to him at the thought of them,-security in the support of the organized Church.

     Rev. K. R. Alden, Principal of the Boy's Academy and Housemaster of Stuart Hall, reports that, in addition to the regular duties of his position, he has preached three missionary sermons in the Cathedral.

     Rev. W. H. Alden, Manager of the Academy Book Room, and Teacher of Latin and English in the Academy Schools, reports that he has preached twice in the Cathedral.

     Rev. Gustaf Baeckstrom, Pastor of the Society in Stockholm, Sweden, besides conducting the work of his own Society, has delivered 6 lectures outside of Stockholm, with an average attendance of 249 persons. He has extended his efforts for the first time into Norway, visiting by invitation a little circle of interested people in Oslo, for whom he preached and administered the Holy Supper. It was here that he had the most notable success also with his public lecture. He thinks there are prospects of establishing a Society there, and is planning a second visit to be made in February. This is made somewhat uncertain, however, because of the "Spanish Sickness" which is raging severely there. In the Western part of the country all public meetings have been forbidden. Up to the time of his writing, the epidemic has not spread to Stockholm.

     Rev. W. E. Brickman preached in Pittsburgh 8 times during the temporary absence of the Rev. Homer Synnestvedt. He speaks of his delight at the opportunity to be of service to the Church in his capacity as a Minister.

     Rev. W. B. Caldwell, Editor of New Church Life, Secretary of the General Church, and Professor in the Academy Schools, reports that he has preached 3 times during the year, once each in New York, Bryn Athyn, and Shepherdstown, W. Va. He has continued his part in publication of the New Church Sermons.

     Rev. L. W. T. David, Pastor of Carmel Church, Kitchener, Ont., says there is a slight increase in the number of pupils in the school, which represents the beginning of a rising tide. The children of another generation are just attaining school age, and there is prospect of a steady growth in the future. The interest of the Society in the Doctrinal Classes has increased.

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The subject of "The Doctrine of Spheres" is being presented. The great undertaking of the Society for the year was the General Assembly, and to its success the people contributed a capable and devoted service.

     Rev. George de Charms has continued his service as Assistant Pastor of the Bryn Athyn Church. Weekly Doctrinal Classes have been conducted throughout the Winter season. There were two series of Children's Services, one covering 5 Sundays in the Spring, and the other 6 Sundays in the Autumn. These services are now held in the Cathedral. He is conducting two separate classes for young people on Tuesday evenings, the two classes meeting on alternate weeks. He has continued to teach Religion in the 7th and 8th Grades, and has supervised Religious Instruction in the Elementary School. The assistance of the Rev. Theodore Pitcairn has made it possible to conduct afternoon services during the "open" season of the year, that is, from Easter until Thanksgiving. There were no services in June on account of the General Assembly. During this time, Mr. Pitcairn has preached 17 Sundays, the Rev. William Whitehead and the Rev. K. R. Alden 3 Sundays each, and the Rev. George de Charms 3 Sundays. The attendance during July and August was less than half that recorded for the previous Summer, and on one very bad day there was only one stranger present. The average attendance was, however, sufficiently high to make the effort well worthwhile. Rev. C. E. Doering has continued his work as Dean of Faculties in the Academy Schools. By request of the President of the Academy, he visited, during the Spring, the Elementary Schools in Pittsburgh, Glenview, Kitchener, and Toronto, delivering lectures on New Church Education. He also preached once in Pittsburgh, and once in Glenview.

     Rev. F. W. Elphick served from January 1 to May 31 as Minister of the Advent Society of Philadelphia. On May 12th, he was appointed Superintendent of the General Church Mission in South Africa, where he took up his work on September 15. There has been a net gain of 46 members since the last report, bringing the present total to 582. There were 12 deaths during the year. One leader has been dropped, and the services at Qopo discontinued in consequence. But a new mission has sprung up in Quthing, Basutoland, and another in Tongaat, Natal, there being now 16 leaders as against 14 last year. There are 8 teachers engaged in school work in the Mission, with 6 assistant teachers, working in 7 day schools and 4 night schools.

     Rev. Alan Gill, Pastor of the New York Society, reports encouraging progress. Since October, Doctrinal Classes have been held regularly in New Jersey as well as in New York, which arrangement, together with other changes, has resulted in nearly three times as many persons receiving regular doctrinal instruction as formerly. Suppers have been resumed in connection with the New York Doctrinal Classes. Also a recent arrangement has made it possible for the Pastor to give religious instruction weekly to 8 children in 4 families, in addition td that given in the Sunday School. Men's meetings, at which a layman presides, have supplanted the men's classes. The Society has lost a very faithful member in the passing into the spiritual world of Mr. Richard H. Keep, on October 26.

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     Rev. W. L. Gladish: reports that, in spite of losing three families to Glenview, Sharon Church has had a happy and prosperous year. Since the first of September, Mr. Gladish has devoted his full time to the Church, instead of part time, as for the past several years, accepting the free-will offering of the congregation for his support. This has proven adequate and satisfactory, and in addition the Church is making its usual annual payment of $500.00 on the mortgage, reducing it to $4,500, while the ladies have added $200.00 to their building fund. The attendance at services and suppers has increased, running as high as 75 and go on two special occasions.

     Rev. F. E. Gyllenhaal, Pastor of the Colchester Society, England, reports that on September 8 they opened a New Church Day School. Miss Muriel Gill has been engaged as Teacher. There are 8 pupils in the School, 4 of these being from Old Church homes. The pupils are between the ages of 5 and 6, and, with the exception of 2 New Church children, have not been to school before. The children of Old Church parents have been accepted without first requiring consent to baptism. The school work for the first term has been entirely satisfactory. The Old Church parents of the children have attended all the School parties, but have given no indication of a desire to learn the teachings of the Church. Their children, however, have been very affirmative, and it is hoped that they may be the means of interesting a few in the Church. Classes in Education have been conducted during 8 months of the year, the subjects considered including history, literature, science, philosophy, education, and Hebrew. The classes were at first designed for young people, but the regular attendants have been older members of the Society. Strangers, to the number of 82, have attended the services from time to time, but none show any distinct interest in the Doctrines.

     Rev. T. S. Harris, Pastor of the Baltimore Society and the New England Circles, reports that quarterly visits were made to the 3 Circles, and services were held in Abington each Sunday during July and August. An invitation was received and accepted to address a Camp of Girl Scouts at Gordon Rest, Mass., where over 200 listened to a New Church presentation of the Lord Jesus Christ as the only God of heaven and earth. A Circle of New Church people is being formed in Paxton, Mass., under the auspices of Mrs. F. K. Hyde, who is a member of the General Church, and Mr. Harris has been invited to call at this place on his next trip North. According to information received from Mrs. Stockham, of Dallas, Texas, there are 5 candidates for baptism in that city,-4 children and I adult.

     Rev. Henry Heinrichs, Pastor of the Denver Society, speaks of visiting the General Assembly in Kitchener, and subsequently spending the greater part of the Summer in that place. He preached 4 times for Mr. David, assisting him once, and preaching also twice for Mr. Odhner in Toronto. On his return trip, he preached in Glenview for Mr. Smith. The outstanding event of the year in the Denver Society was the visit of Rev. E. E. Iungerich. Mr. Heinrichs regrets his inability to attend these meetings, and sends his very best wishes for their success.

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     Rev. E. E. Iungerich, Dean of the College, and Professor of Theology in the Academy Schools, reports a trip during the Summer months to the Western part of Canada and the United States. He visited 16 groups of New Church people. In Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta, circles were visited in 7 places, and in the States of Oregon and Washington, 5 places. On his return, Mr. Iungerich made a brief stay with the Societies in Denver and Glenview, and with the Circle in Detroit. Excluding societies and visitors, he ministered to 39 adults and 38 miners in Canada, and to 59 adults and 21 miners in the United States. He also preached once in Pittsburgh.

     Rev. Richard Morse, of Hurstville, Australia, reports a total attendance at worship for the year of 833, with an average of 16. There was a total attendance at the Sunday School of 1,043, with an average of to. He gives an encouraging account of the work there, stating that the interest in the Church seems to be spreading. On two special occasions he has had an attendance of more than 40. Two new families have become deeply interested in the Doctrines, and are spreading the knowledge of them among their acquaintances. There is some talk of attempting to establish a Day School, a project in which Mr. Morse is greatly interested, and there is prospect that a teacher may be obtained.

     Rev. H. L. Odhner, Pastor of the Olivet Church, Toronto, Ont., reports that the Day School, which of necessity is confined to the first 6 grades, shows prospects of growth next year, when a large primary class is expected to enroll. As a preparation for this Miss Dora Brown, who succeeded as Teacher when Miss Ebert's resignation took effect last September, is giving Kindergarten work to this group once a week. The Day School has It pupils on the roll. The Sunday School, which no longer has the valued assistance of Mr. A. Thompson as lay superintendent, has 26 pupils, with an average attendance of 22. There are 5 assistant teachers. The "Principles of the Academy" has formed the subject of an extended series of classes on Wednesday evenings. The Society enjoyed bearing sermons from visiting Ministers 6 times during the year, two being occasioned by the regular exchanges of pulpit with the Carmel Church, Kitchener. The visit of the Rev. C. E. Doering, as a representative of the Academy, last Spring, was of especial interest and lasting use, and the Society hopes for a continuance of the policy of facilitating such visits, which tend to unify and improve the educational work of the General Church. The refusal of the Provincial Secretary's Department of the Ontario Government to issue to ministers of the General Church any further licenses to perform marriages led to repeated overtures with the Department, resulting finally in the recognition, last Tune, of the legal standing of our body in Ontario, for the purposes of the Marriage Act of the Province, as recently amended. During 1926, Mr. Odhner gave 9 missionary lectures, seven of which were advertized by leaflets.

     Rev. Ernst Pfeiffer, Pastor of the Society at The Hague, Holland, reports a total membership of 48, with an average attendance at public worship of 33. He conducts a Children's Service on Mondays with an average attendance of 1 children and 6 adults. In December, the first Dutch translation of the first volume of the Arcana Celestia was published. The translating was admirably done by Mr. Anton Zelling.

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     Rev. G. H. Smith pastor of the Immanuel Church, Glenview, Ill., in addition to his regular duties, visited the circles in Detroit and Windsor twice, administering the Holy Supper once in Windsor. He has instituted a Woman's Arcana Class, meeting every week, with an attendance of from 10 to 15. A Children's Service is conducted each Wednesday, and a Doctrinal Class is held on Friday evenings, following a Society Supper.

     Rev. G. G. Starkey conducted 4 services at Glenview, in the absence of the Pastor, and he preached once for the Sharon Church, Chicago, using the New Church Sermons.

     Rev. Homer Synnestvedt states that there have been interesting developments in the Pittsburgh Society, of which he is the Pastor. The Philosophy Club has received an increase in membership from the younger men, and now has a total of 34. A more ambitious program for the year has been proposed, according to which 4 lecturers from elsewhere will be invited to address the club, three being Professors, and one a Pastor. Mr. Wilfred Howard opened this series recently by addressing both the Club and the Ladies' Society. The study of the first part of the Animal Kingdom has been completed, and a program of addresses by local members has been prepared, so that each meeting will be provided for. Another development is the appointment of a Committee to study the subject of Church Government, and to submit a report at the next meeting, with suggestions for the improvement of the society organization. The final report has not yet been made, but the discussions have brought the members into agreement in principle, although action may be delayed by practical considerations. The school continues to be well supported, although there are only 16 pupils. The families are widely scattered, and this proves a serious handicap, not only to the school, but to all meetings of the Church. There is at present active discussion between those who desire to hold more suppers and other social affairs apart from any idea of profit, and those who feel the need for a more continuous work toward raising funds. The High School class, held on Sunday afternoons, numbers 8 members, 5 of whom are boys and 3 are girls. The Pastor's health necessitated a leave of absence during the months of June, July, and August. During this time he traveled in Europe, participating in the British Assembly, and visiting the following New Church Ministers: Rev. Gustaf Baeckstrom at Stockholm; Rev. J. E. Rosenqvist in Gothenburg; Rev. Ch. Bronniche at Copenhagen; Revs. R. J. Tilson, F. E. Gyllenhaal, Albert Bjorck, and F. W. Elphick, in England; Rev. Ernst Deltenre at Brussels; Rev. Ernst Pfeiffer at The Hague; Rev. Theodore Pitcairn at Laren, Holland and Thoury, France; and Rev. F. Hussenet in Paris. Mr. Synnestvedt has not visited the group in Youngstown, Ohio, as often as heretofore, but the members manage to come to Pittsburgh occasionally.

     Rev. R. J. Tilson, Pastor of the Michael Church, London, presided, by appointment of the Bishop, over the 20th British Assembly at Colchester, held July 31 to August 2d, and acted as Celebrant of the Holy Supper. On 3 Sundays he preached at Colchester during the absence of the Pastor, administering the Holy Supper on one occasion to 24 communicants. He also visited the Circle at Kilburn, York, administering the Holy Supper there.

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He, together with Rev. F. E. Gyllenhaal, continues to manage the New Church Club, and is a member of the Committee in charge of the Theological and Philosophical Society, which meets once a month in the Swedenborg Hall of the Swedenborg Society's premises in London.

     Rev. F. E. Waelchli, Visiting Pastor, and Pastor of the Circle in Cincinnati, reports that he has visited Middleport 4 times, Windsor, Detroit, Erie, and Columbus each twice, and Youngstown once. In his stead, Rev. Homer Synnestvedt made 2 trips to Erie, and the Rev. Gilbert H. Smith 2 trips to Windsor and Detroit, in order to enable Mr. Waelchli to visit the South. Four weeks during February and March were spent in the South, the places visited being Knoxville, Tenn., Atlanta, Ga., and Jacksonville, Oak Hill, Miami, and St. Petersburg, Fla. Ten weeks of the Summer were spent at Los Angeles. The average attendance at services here was 26, including children, at Sunday School 10, and at Doctrinal Class, held twice a week, 16. A young men's and a young ladies' class were held in alternate weeks, at which the doctrine of Conjugial Love was presented. Three socials were held, and there was a wedding of a General Church couple. From Los Angeles, Mr. Waelchli visited Ontario, Cal., twice, conducting services and classes. After concluding the work at Los Angeles, he was for 2 weeks at Burlingame, near San Francisco, where also services and classes were held. At Cincinnati, he officiated at 23 Sunday services, and conducted doctrinal classes. During his absence services were held by members of the circle. In October, the Circle began its Church life in a new home, at Wyoming, a town near Cincinnati, where nearly all the members reside. As a result of this change, there has been an increased attendance at services and classes. They are now also having monthly suppers, followed by a social evening, and there is considerable social life besides. The name "Cincinnati Circle" is being retained.

     Rev. William Whitehead, Professor of History and Political Science in the Academy Schools, reports that he preached once in Bryn Athyn at the morning service, and twice at the afternoon services in August.

     Rev. R. G. Cranch conducted worship at Rosthern, Saskatchewan, once, held a lecture there on "The Word and the Writings, and their Relation," and also a doctrinal class for young people. The attendance at these meetings ranged from 18 to 22. There was a strong sphere of affection for the things of the Church. He also visited Mrs. Sweet, Mrs. Rehwalt, and Mr. Putnam in Oregon. While in Oregon he was entertained by Rev. W. R. Reece and Mr. and Mrs. Lorenz, of the Portland Convention Society. On his return journey, he called to see Mr. and Mrs. Unruh in Los Angeles, Mr. Manning in Riverside, Cal., and Mr. and Mrs. Jordan at Oakland. This Fall he visited Allentown with the hope of instituting monthly services there, but so far this has not been found practicable. He performed a marriage ceremony by special authorization. In June he preached for Rev. Diephuis, in Kitchener, Ont.
     GEORGE DE CHARMS,
          Secretary.

182


REPORT OF THE SECRETARY OF THE GENERAL CHURCH. 1927

REPORT OF THE SECRETARY OF THE GENERAL CHURCH.       W. B. CALDWELL       1927

     During the seven months which have elapsed since my report to the Twelfth General Assembly, we have received 37 new members. In the same period, 15 members have passed into the spiritual world. Our total membership, therefore, has been increased by 22, or from 1843 on May 31, 1926, to 1865 on December 31, 1926.

     The 37 new members were distributed geographically as follows:

United States           21
South America          2
Australia                2
South Africa           4
Belgium                1
Holland                    7

     During the whole year 1926, 69 new members were received, and 21 members died, leaving a net increase of 48 for the year.

     These figures do not include the membership of the South African Native Missions. According to the report of the Missions to December 31, 1926, there is a total of approximately 582 native members in various parts of South Africa.

     NEW MEMBERS.

     June 1, 1926 to December 31, 1926

     A. IN THE UNITED STATES.

     Inglewood, California.
Mr. Edgar Charles Kemp

     St. Petersburg, Florida.
Miss Martha Winchester Hubbard
Miss Elizabeth C. Ross

     Chicago, Illinois.
Mr. Harold Edwin Young
Miss Violet Emma Young

     Peoria, Illinois.
Mrs. Elisha Morgan

     Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Miss Marjorie Wayne Field

     Detroit, Michigan.
Miss Dorothy Eloise Walker

     North Arlington, New Jersey.
Mrs. Mauritz Larson

     Brooklyn, New York.
Mrs. Sydney Benade Childs

     Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania.
Mr. Carl Hjalmar Asplundh
Mr. Eugene Chauncey Glebe
Miss Lynda Hamm
Mr. Harald Klein
Miss Ruth Ellen Powell
Mr. Norman Harold Reuter
Mr. Viktor Rosenqvist

     Erie, Pennsylvania.
Miss Ruby D. Evans

     Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Mr. Samuel Stewart Lindsay, Jr.

     Chester, Virginia.
Miss Harriette Annette Johnson

     Spokane, Washington.
Mrs. Harry McMiller

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     B. IN SOUTH AFRICA.

     Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Snr. Jose de Lima Coutinho
Snr. Adalberto Caire de Roure

     C. IN AUSTRALIA.

     Sydney, N. S. W.
Mr. Edwin Freeman
Mr. George Washington Guthrie

     D. IN SOUTH AFRICA.

     Nevada, Orange Free State.
Mr. Walter Wellesley Richards
Mrs. Walter Wellesley Richards

     Saran, Cape Province.
Mr. Edward Lewis Rogers
Mrs. Edward Lewis Rogers

     E. IN BELGIUM.

     Brussels.
Mrs. Adrienne Schmidt

     F. IN HOLLAND.

     The Hague.
Mr. Harrie Dirk Gijsbert Groeneveld
Mrs. Harrie Dirk Gijsbert Groeneveld
Mi. Dirk van der Loos
Mrs. Dirk van der Loos
Mr. Charles Hendrik van Os
Mrs. Charles Hendrik van Os

     Rijswijk.
Mr. Wubbo Schoonboom

     DEATHS.

     June 1, 1926 to December 31, 1926.

Madame Marie Strutz, Paris, France, May 1, 1926.
Mrs. Carl R. Roschman, Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, June 1, 1926.
Mrs. Helen Gardner Meisel, Altoona, Pa., June 13, 1926.
Mrs. Henry S. Maynard, Glenview, Ill., June 23, 1926.
Mr. Theobald S. Kuhl, Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, August 2, 1926.
Mrs. William Evens, Penetang, Ontario, Canada, August 2, 1926.
Miss Laura Vickroy, Bryn Athyn, Pa., August 8, 1926.
Mr. James Drinkwater, Denver, Colorado, August 13, 1926.
Mrs, Frank S. Raymond, Toronto, Canada, October 25, 1926.
Mr. Richard Hamilton Keep, New York, N. Y., October 26, 1926.
Mrs. Byron H. Whittemore, North Chelmsford, Mass., October 30, 1926.
Mrs. Isaac Steen, Detroit, Michigan, November 3, 1926.
Mrs. James P. Cole, Glenview, Ill., November 16, 1926.
Miss Wilhelmina Doering, Bryn Athyn, Pa., November 26, 1926.
Miss Ellen Sherman, Sandoval, Ill., December 23, 1926.

          Respectfully submitted,
          W. B. CALDWELL,
               Secretary.

184


ORPHANAGE FUND. 1927

ORPHANAGE FUND.       WALTER C. CHILDS       1927

     Statement from January 1 to December 31, 1926

     RECEIPTS.

Cash Balance, December 31, 1925                $681.29
Interest on Investments                     183.51     
Treasury of the General Church-Loans           525.00
Treasury of the General Church-Adjustment      1.57
Interest on Bank Credits                     4.06
                                                  $1,395.43

     CONTRIBUTIONS.

Bryn Athyn Cathedral Offering Boxes, 1926               $477.09
Denver Society, Children's Christmas Offering           3.00
Glenview-Immanuel Church                     5.00
Kitchener-Carmel Church                          19.00
Middleport Society                               7.35
New York Society, Christmas Offering               35.81
Pittsburgh Society, Children's Christmas Festival          50.00
Toronto-Olivet Church                          25.05
Orphanage Boxes Bryn Athyn                     118.97
Orphanage Boxes Toronto                         36.00
Orphanage Boxes Cincinnati                         9.39
Orphanage Boxes Sundry                          46.25
Mr. Harold F. Pitcairn                         420.00
Dr. Alfred Acton and Family                     18.98
Mrs. A. C. V. Schott                               5.00
Mr. and Mrs. Raymond Pitcairn and Family           35.00
Mrs. Raymond Pitcairn                          200.00
Mrs. W. S. Howland                              12.00
Miss Helene Iungerich                          5.00
Mr. Colley Pryke                               7.29
Miss Josephine Sellner                          15.00          
Mrs. F. O. Breitstein                              10.00
Mr. Louis B. Pendleton                         15.00
Mr. Joachim Fritz                               15.00
Mrs. L. B. Bishop                               5.00
Mr. Walter C. Childs                               25.00
Mrs. Herbert H. Sharp                         20.00
Mr. Guernsey A. Hallowell                          15.00
Mrs. Cara S. Glenn                               25.00
Mr. W. H. Junge and Family                          13.00
Mrs. J. F. Shurtz                               5.00

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Miss Beryl G. Briscoe                         5.00
Mrs. Regina Iungerich                          10.00
Mr. Jacob Schoenberger and Family                     14.00
                                                                  $1,788.24
Total Receipts                                        $3,183.67

     DISBURSEMENTS.

Assistance to Sundry Persons                     $2,708.90
Cost of Orphanage Boxes                         65.96          2,773.96
Cash Balance, December 31, 1926                              $ 409.71

          WALTER C. CHILDS,
          Treasurer.

     ADDENDUM TO ORPHANAGE REPORT.

     An outstanding feature of the past year in regard to the Orphanage Fund was the development of a new source of revenue from contribution boxes sent to the homes of the members of the General Church. This idea was conceived and put in operation by Dr. Acton, and there is good reason for thinking that it will prove an increasing success.

     In addition to the excellent rise of initiating the children into the habit of giving, it is believed that the boxes will also be the means of procuring new and regular adult contributors, which is highly desirable, in view of the fact that the Orphanage Fund is not yet in a position to meet its obligations.
      WALTER C. CHILDS,
          Treasurer.

186


Church News 1927

Church News              1927

     THE SOUTH AFRICAN MISSION.

     It is more than a year since a record of the General Church Mission appeared in these columns, but in looking over our Diary for 1926, there is evidence of much activity.

     The first month of the year witnessed the visit of the Rev. and Mrs. Elmo C. Acton from Durban. During his stay at Alpha, Mr. Acton conducted the classes for the Leaders, and presided over their Annual Meeting. In company with Mr. and Mrs. Frazee, he also paid visits to several centers in Basutoland, where the Sacraments of Baptism and the Holy Supper were administered.

     During July and August, the Rev. and Mrs. E. J. Pulsford and family, from Johannesburg, were the guests of the Rev. Theodore Pitcairn, while Mr. and Mrs. Frazee acted as host and hostess. Mr. Pulsford, who is the Superintendent of the New Church Native Mission which is maintained under the direction of the English Conference, conducted services at the Alpha Mission Church and addressed the members of a bi-weekly doctrinal class on subjects of New Church interest. Sunday evening services were also provided for the members and visitors at the Homestead, over which Mr. Pulsford kindly presided.

     The year has been fruitful in the development of a Native brass band. Mr. Frazee inaugurated this venture, and several evening practices a week were held in a specially built room on the Mission Grounds, known as the "Band Hall." At present there are eleven brass instruments and two drums. The project has undoubtedly been good in encouraging industry and a healthy recreation. Considering that the start was at a practically noisy zero, the progression to a degree of music in a few months was remarkable.

     Further developments have also been made in the direction of installing trade departments, so that at the present time there is a nucleus for carpentry, black smithing and leather industries.

     The Alpha Day School, commenced in 1922, is still sustaining its use of providing suitable education for the children in the district. There are about 80 pupils on the list, and four Native teachers, including Mr. George Mokoena, who is the Headmaster, are kept busy in providing for the many different grades in this group. A proper roster has been drawn up, and of late more concentrated attention has been given to the school necessities of punctuality, discipline and hygiene. Emphasis has also been laid on the daily repetition of texts from the Word, so that a fuller knowledge of it may be implanted during the years of native school life.

     The Mission centres in Basutoland, Transvaal and the Cape Province have also developed school work, in addition to that of Sunday services and doctrinal classes. These groups, for the most part, await a visit from the Superintendent.

     Mr. John Jiyana, who returned to Natal from Bryn Athyn in the summer of 1925, and is stationed at Lusitania, near Ladysmith, has gathered around him a number of his people who are interested in the teachings of the New Church. On January 3d, 1926, the Rev. Elmo Acton visited this center and baptized forty-three candidates. Mr. Acton also visited the Zulu centers of Tongaat and Esididini, which centers shared eighteen baptisms between them.

     Mr. Jonas Motsi, who left Bryn Athyn in June, 1926, is stationed at his home in Quthing, Basutoland. He has settled down and married, and is inaugurating a society of the Mission at that place. The next move will be the application for a site for a church building, and the commencement of building operations when the site has been legally granted by the Chief of the district.

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     Translation work and printing operations are progressing steadily at the Alpha Headquarters. Heaven and Hell is being translated into Sesuto, while a Zulu translation of The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrine is going through the press. The Rev. Theodore Pitcairn's recent work, The Book Sealed with Seven Seals, will be the next collateral publication in Sesuto and Zulu.

     During the Rev. Theodore Pitcairn's absence from Alpha, regular Sunday Evening Readings were instituted at the Homestead, under the direction of Mr. Frazee. When visiting Alpha, the Rev. Elmo Acton was invited to officiate; and in September the writer of this report was asked to take over that use. It has, therefore, become an established custom to have regular and formal services every Sunday evening. The Offices in the Liturgy are used, but in contracted form. Sermons are sometimes read from the New Church Sermons, published at Bryn Athyn, or from the New Church Life, in order that the circle may keep in touch with the best thought of the Church. Short discourses on the essential doctrines of the New Church have also been given, since a number of the members of the congregation have only recently come to a knowledge of the Writings. The average attendance is seven.

     Although "Alpha" is an isolated veldt settlement, there have been many comings and goings which keep it in touch with the other centers of the Church-and this, not only in Africa, but with America, Canada and England. Several of the Durban people have visited this center at the invitation of Mr. Pitcairn; while the overseas' connections have been: Mr. Norman Ridgway, who returned from his six-months' visit to Bryn Athyn in March; Mr. John Parker, who left Alpha in the same month, and after visiting England and his home at Deal, journeyed to Canada, and is now identified with the Toronto Society; then there was the quartet namely, Messrs. Philip Odhner, Alden Simons, Carl Doering and Emerson Good, who made the direct sea passage from New York to Capetown, and visited Alpha and the Durban Society during August. In September, the Rev. and Mrs. F. W. Elphick and family arrived from Bryn Athyn via London.

     In November, Mr. and Mrs. Frazee and family left Alpha, and at the moment of writing are taking active part in the life of the Durban Society.

     In addition to Mission work, the Alpha Farm and Estate are making great progress. This year promises a good wheat return, while the veldt under irrigation from the Caledon River is as green as the hills of Maryland. The developments of nearly five years industry and growth reflect great credit upon Messrs. Norman Ridgway and Fred Parker, and upon all those who are devoting their whole time and energy to the agricultural, live stock, and fruit culture sections at Alpha. December 28th, 1926.
     F. W. ELPHICK.

     SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA.

     It is with much pleasure that I report the baptisms of Mr. George Washington Guthrie, his little daughter Irma, and Mr. Edwin Freeman, the ceremony being performed on Sunday, November 14th. The chancel of our church was beautifully decorated with flowers, and the occasion was very impressive.

     Our society is very happy in receiving these two gentlemen as new members. Mr. Guthrie has been a diligent student of the Writings for the past two years, and has accepted them fully. Your readers will recall his paper entitled "Reflections of a Prospective New Churchman," which appeared in New Church Life, October, 1925. Mr. Freeman has been a receiver of the Doctrines for many years, having attended the Church in Kensington, London, England, where Dr. Bailey was Minister. As he had never received New Church baptism, he decided to do so now, believing it to be the outward sign of entrance into this Church.

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     The celebration of Christmas this year began with the service on December 19th, the subject of the sermon being "The Mystery of the Incarnation," in which it was shown that what was totally hidden to human reason was revealed by the Lord in His Second Advent, but that the subject of the Incarnation was so vast that we should never cease to learn more concerning it by a study of our Doctrines while we live upon earth, and also continue to learn in heaven to eternity. At Sunday School in the afternoon, the lessons and hymns were a preparation for the tableaux to be presented in the evening, which were six in number, the subjects being as follows:

     1. A Representation of the State of the World prior to the Lord's Coming. This pictured people in darkness and despair, but also some who were in expectation of deliverance.

     2. The Annunciation of the Angel Gabriel to Mary.

     3. Mary and Joseph journeying to Bethlehem to be taxed.

     4. The Shepherds in the Field.

     5. The Wise Men before Herod.

     The children, aided by one adult, took all the parts, and did so very reverently. Christmas hymns suitable to each tableau were sung by the congregation before and after each one, while our Pastor explained the meaning of each scene before its presentation.

     On the evening of Christmas Day, the usual Christmas tree function was held by the children, and for the first time Father Christmas himself dispensed the gifts, much to the delight of the little ones. On behalf of the parents of the children, the teachers were also presented with gifts. With the singing of Christmas hymns, and a talk on "Unselfishness" by the Pastor, a delightful evening ended.

     The news that Mr. and Mrs. F. C. Frazee intended coming to Sydney from South Africa was a very pleasant surprise to us. But the disappointment followed when Mr. Morse received a letter telling of a change of their plans which may postpone their visit indefinitely, as Mr. Frazee has undertaken other duties in South Africa. It would appear to be a great thing for us to have resident amongst us some who have been in the heart of the Church's activities, but Providence has not yet granted us this benefit.

     Some of the newcomers attending our Sunday evening class, whom we mentioned in a previous report, are making progress, and one gentleman has shown special interest in the Writings, expressing great delight that the Lord has revealed all these things.
     M. M. W.

     REPORT OF THE VISITING PASTOR.

     When planning my January trip, I found that a visit to Windsor, Ont. and Detroit would not be possible, on account of illness in several of the homes. I was about to go directly to Erie, when I was called to WINDSOR for the funeral of Doris, oldest child of Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Bellinger. The service was held on the 13th. New Church relatives and friends from Kitchener, Ont. and Detroit were present. Several of these were at the home in the evening, and an hour or more was given to conversation on the life upon which the child, aged twelve years, has entered; and we dwelt especially on the preparation under the parents' care and education for similar work now to be done by the angels.

     I arrived at ERIE on Friday, the 14th. In the afternoon of the following day, instruction was given to two children, and in the evening there was a doctrinal class. On Sunday, a service including the Holy Supper was held, and in the evening there was another doctrinal class. Owing to exceedingly cold weather, there was small attendance at all meetings.

     Two days were then spent at NILES, OHIO, with the Williamson family. A doctrinal class was held the second evening, but, again because of very bad weather, the Youngstown friends were unable to come, and so the attendance consisted of the family circle only.
     F. E. WAELCHLI.

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     SWEDENBORG'S BIRTHDAY.

     Academy Schools.

     A vivid word-picture of Swedenborg's forensic life, showing its influence upon his work as philosopher and revelator, proved both instructive and entertaining to the students of the Academy assembled in the chapel on the morning of January 28th. It was Miss Sigrid Odhner who spoke in a delightfully informal way upon "Assessor Swedenborg," taking us back to his student days at Upsala, his sojourn as a youth in London, and then his apprenticeship under Polhem, all of which led up to his appointment to the responsible position of Assessor in the College of Mines, which he filled with diligence and distinction for thirty years. His duties entailed much traveling and inspection in the mining regions of Sweden, and we marvel that he could find time during this period for his scientific investigations and philosophical writings. The assessor ship brought him into association with many kinds of men, and this doubtless contributed a knowledge of human nature that was of great value later. For we find many records in the Spiritual Diary of Swedenborg's meeting these mining associates in the spiritual world, where their interiors were disclosed. Such were Cederholm, Cederstedt, and many others. During her recent stay in Sweden, Miss Odhner had access to the records of the College of Mines, and made a beginning of the work of examining them for data bearing upon Swedenborg's activities as Assessor. While the labor of going through these volumes,-at least a hundred of them,-will be great, we may find things of decided interest and value in our study of Swedenborg's life and character.

     At noon, members of the Faculty and students sat down to a delicious luncheon served by Miss Jean Horigan in the dining hall. Mr. Victor Gladish had charge of the program of speeches, which were made by representatives of the different departments in the Schools. It was quite evident that the students had done some "digging" in the realm of the world's opinion of Swedenborg's attainments; for they brought to us much interesting information in regard to the estimates of prominent men of learning, what they thought of Swedenborg as metallurgist, anatomist, chemist, theologian, and so on. Interspersed with appropriate songs, the series of papers occupied a very instructive and enjoyable hour.

     Society Celebration.

     The usual Friday Supper of the Bryn Athyn Society afforded a suitable occasion on January 28th for the observance of Swedenborg's Birthday anniversary, and the more than two hundred present entered with enthusiasm into the proceedings. With the Rev. George de Charms as toastmaster, the program, beginning and ending with suitable songs, embraced the following numbers:

     1. A Swedish Dance on the stage, by three young ladies in native costume.

     2. A Vocal Solo, by Mr. Victor Rosenqvist.

     3. The Reading of Edwin Markham's Poem, "Swedenborg," written for the unveiling of the statue in Chicago.

     4. Speeches on the following subjects: "Significance of Swedenborg's Time," by Mr. Donald F. Rose; "Meaning of His Nationality," by Loyal D. Odhner; "Influence of His Parentage and Family," by Mr. Otho W. Heilman; "The Effect of his Service as Assessor upon His Mission," by Mr. Kesniel C. Acton; and "How the Last Judgment was Effected by Means of the Heavenly Doctrine," by the Rev. Theodore Pitcairn.

     Among the visitors attending the Council Meetings were two teachers: Miss Anita Doering, of Pittsburgh, and Miss Volita Wells, of Glenview. Accompanying members who came from a distance were Mrs. W. L. Gladish, Mrs. F. E. Waelchli, Mrs. Alan Gill, Mrs. Charles G. Merrell and Mrs. Geoffrey Childs.

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     CHICAGO, ILL.

     It is sometimes said that a small society is a better field for a good, friendly time than a large one. However this may be, our meeting on Swedenborg's Birthday, with forty-seven present, was a lively and enjoyable occasion. The speeches were interspersed with songs, one of which was entitled "Sharon Church," set to catchy music by Mrs. David Gladish. This engendered so much enthusiasm that we sang it over and over again. "The Historical Setting of Swedenborg's Time" was the subject of the paper by Mr. David Gladish, who pointed out that the wars which have been waged since the Last Judgment have resulted in an increase of freedom for the middle and lower classes, whereas formerly they were the means of unjust territorial aggrandizement. Dr. Harvey Farrington spoke on "The Genius of Swedenborg," of his marvelous accomplishments in science and philosophy, as well as in his use in the giving of the Writings. Mr. Neville T. Wright spoke of "Swedenborg's Contribution to the World," and dwelt feelingly upon his wonderful industry in the mere writing of such a huge library as his philosophical and theological works are. His lofty genius and unremitting labor have excited the admiration and astonishment of scholars everywhere.

     A Swedenborg Philosophy Club has now been organized among us. Our Pastor invited us to come together for this purpose on January 30th, and the Club will study the Philosophy of Swedenborg, meeting on the fourth Sunday of each month. The officers chosen as a committee in charge were: Mr. David Gladish, President; Mr. Neville T. Wright, Secretary-Treasurer; and Dr. Harvey Farrington.
     E. V. W.

     DURBAN, SOUTH AFRICA.

     The Dedication of our new Hall took place on Wednesday evening, November 24th, the Rev. Elmo C. Acton conducting a most beautiful service. Following his address, in which he spoke of the School as the Hall's first use, the Architect, the Builder, and the Secretary of the Society came forward, the Architect formally giving over his care of the building to the Durban Society, and presenting a golden key to the Minister. Mr. R. M. Ridgway, as Secretary, then presented the building to the Bishop of the General Church, for the use of the Durban Society, and the Minister received it in the Bishop's name. A vocal quartet then sang, "Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it," a feature of the singing being Mrs. Garth Pemberton's beautiful voice.

     The School moved in during the same week. The following Monday a Woman's Bridge-tea was given in the Hall in honor of Mrs. and Miss Pemberton who had recently returned from England and Bryn Athyn. On the Wednesday following, a Buffet Supper was given to the Society by the Women's Guild. Mr. R. M. Ridgway was a most successful toastmaster. There were five speeches, the first dealing with the subject of Education in connection with the new Hall, Mr. Kenneth H. Ridgway taking the attitude that the spiritual value of New Church education is self-evident, and that even what few objections there are on the natural plane can easily be overcome, if parents continually keep in mind that life on earth is short, while life in the other world is eternal. "Surely, if we educate our children for life in heaven, it will not be to the detriment of life on earth!"

     The second speech was on the use of the Doctrinal Class (which will be held in the new Hall), and the Rev. Elmo C. Acton gave this speech with sincerity and conviction. He said that no society would progress unless its members knew and loved doctrine, and applied it to their lives. Our responsibility is indeed great, when we realize that ours is the only Church in the world that has a sound doctrine!

     The third speaker was Mr. Forfar, who gave us some humorous reminiscences of the old days in Bayley Hall.

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He told us how Mr. J. D'A. Cockerell, Mr. George Pemberton and he had been splendid actors in their day, and hinted that they might again be persuaded to give the society a treat by their talent! In fact, he gave us to understand that the "old fellows" had done some pretty fine things, and he only hoped that the coming generation would do as well, and even better, if possible, than they had!

     Mr. J. H. Ridgway, the next speaker, gave us a paper on "Criticism." He spoke with his usual clearness of thought, and dealt in a most tactful and interesting way with a difficult subject. Difficult-well, I need hardly explain why! He gave us a slogan to apply to everything we undertake in our new surroundings: "Let this be a hall of just judgment."

     The fast speaker was Mr. Scott Forfar, who gave us a rousing address on "Social Life in the New Hall." He pleaded for more shouldering of responsibility by the young men, for more action, and a determination to work hard, that we may have a distinctive social life that all will enjoy. "If We have only half-hearted social events, no one will want to come, and one of the great purposes of the Hall will be defeated." Some musical numbers followed the speeches, and we all joined in the singing of Academy songs.

     An Old English Fair was held on December 3d. The new Hall, and the abundance of pretty and useful things contributed by the women, made it the best sale ever held by the Durban Society. The proceeds amounted to nearly ?80, and of this amount the Octette stall was responsible for ?15. The Fair opened in the afternoon, and continued in the evening. The Hall looked very festive-the decorating committee felt well rewarded for their work-and it is a pleasure to decorate such a Hall! A special feature was the tea garden. Two white pillars at the entrance supported wires from which hung festoons of paper flowers, and five young women, dressed in Old English costumes, presided over the refreshments. Miss Jessie Attersoll was responsible for the smooth way in which everything ran in the tea garden, as she had given it much thought and careful planning. The Octette (a Club whose members are the young girls of the Society from twelve years up, most of whom want to go to B. A. and become Theta Alpha members) had a stall of their own. The amount of work they had to sell was unbelievable! They should be congratulated, for they had both quantity and quality. At the dose of the afternoon, Mrs. Forfar provided a pleasant surprise by giving prizes to the Octette for the best work done for the Fair. Neatness, quality and ingenuity were taken into consideration. The prizes were in the form of money to be spent at the Fair. In the evening there was a dance in costume by Mr. and Mrs. K. H. Ridgway, and other features on the spur of the moment, and general dancing by the young people concluded the program.
     V. H. R.

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TEACHER WANTED 1927

TEACHER WANTED              1927




     Announcements.


     The Carmel Church, Kitchener, Ontario, is open to receive applications for the position of teacher in its elementary school, for the school term beginning September, 1927. Please communicate with
     MR. FRED E. STROH,
     50 John St., West,
     Waterloo, Ont., Canada.
SECRETARY WANTED 1927

SECRETARY WANTED              1927

     Lady qualified to do general office work, including stenography, typewriting, filing, etc. Apply to
     REV. C. E. DOERING,
          Dean of Faculties,
               Bryn Athyn, Pa.

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ACADEMY UNIVERSITY OF THE FUTURE 1927

ACADEMY UNIVERSITY OF THE FUTURE       ALICE E. Grant       1927


NEW CHURCH LIFE
VOL. XLVII APRIL, 1927           No. 4
     (An Address at the Joint Meeting of the Council of the Clergy and General Faculty of the Academy Schools, February 2, 1927.)

     I rise to address this familiar audience with perhaps greater timidity than ever before, because of the fact that I see before me the faces of those who in the past have been known to sigh and settle down in their seats with patient resignation when one arose who, they felt sure, was going to speak once again upon "those sacred traditions of the Academy." All who have had any part in the forming of those traditions love to dwell upon them; but one who has merely heard of them, and has never been truly a part of them, nor entered into their sphere, can have no perception of their power and value. I give notice, therefore, that, for my first reminiscence, I shall go no farther back than to the General Assembly in Kitchener last June.

     Most of you were there, and I am sure that each of you brought back to his work a new stimulus, some from one source, some from another. And I would like to tell you of some of the things that I found I had gained when I reached home and settled down for the summer months in Bryn Athyn. Have you spent a summer in Bryn Athyn during the last ten years? If you have, you will understand me when I say that I have never had a better chance for reflection after an Assembly than during the past summer. And with what result?

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     My first recalled impression of the opening meeting of the Assembly was of the growth of the Church in numbers in the forty-two and more years since I came to Philadelphia. That impression, in itself, might have given me a great thrill, but immediately came the second thought,-the cause of that growth. This was ably set forth later by many speakers who dealt with the Academy's fiftieth anniversary.

     During the first few days I missed a subtle something, and yet I must say that my heart rejoiced as one after another of those whom I had known as boys and students in the early Academy arose and gave us papers of such scholarly merit that nowhere in any university of this country had I heard better, from an external point of view, and certainly not with such an inward shining light.

     Then the discussions from the floor, unprepared, but so stimulating to the mind that the thought of the speaker shone in clearer light, because of a new angle of presentation All at once I began to realize that it was the third generation that was speaking, that the Church Fathers to whom I had listened for many years were no longer with us, but that those upon whom their mantles had fallen were listening, as I was listening, to the third generation speaking, and with deep interest and enthusiasm. The elders were indeed there, and ready with wise counsel and suggestion, to which the younger men listened with affectionate interest, and also with humble pleasure when approbation was expressed for what they had given. There were new thoughts, and also old thoughts in new garb and with new applications; a looking forward, but always with gratitude for the leaders of the past and their invaluable guidance.

     I ran over the names of those on the program. Where had these men-both the leaders and the younger men-received their training?

     Then at the business sessions-for I did not miss any of the open meetings-the middle-aged and young men again were handling the executive work, always paying deference to those who voiced the uses of the Church and looked to the means for their support and development; active minds, trained in the world of business, giving their best services that the Church might not suffer. Again, at the tent where meals were being served, Young men and boys, and capable young women,-all giving courteous service on that plane. What was it we felt?-A spirit of fellowship, a unity of purpose, a "choiring," as dear Father Benade sometimes expressed it.

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     Then at the two services of Divine Worship,-the ordination of three men, all of whom had come from afar to dedicate themselves to the service of the Church, perhaps giving up honor, fame and wealth, that the Church might not lack workers. At the Communion, did any of us feel the lack of a church building? Did we not feel that the Lord was "in the temple of His Holiness"? Had not the minds of those present been brought into a state of humility by the previous gatherings, making it possible for the Lord to grant His full presence and blessing?

     I have not yet reached my real and best reflections. With little effort I can recall the reluctance with which I arrayed myself in my "spandangulous gown" (as dear Miss Plummer used to speak of her famous Paris gown, which she had brought with her upon her return to her native land, and which was always donned on great occasions ever afterwards; for she never had money enough to replace it with another), and then I went to the Nineteenth of June Banquet. Could anyone gain any enthusiasm when the blood was congealed with cold? I was doubtful. But I recall the thrill (not chill) when we arose for the first toast. I was at a table that faced the whole gathering,-four hundred faces. And of what did those faces speak to me?-Youth! A few old people were there, but few in comparison with that third and fourth generation which arose and sang the response to the toast to "Our Glorious Church." Here was what I had wanted to complete the sphere of the Assembly. Twelve founders of the Academy movement! And here, in fifty years, a concrete result. Nor were there just these four hundred; there were as many more elsewhere, wishing they were there.

     Friends, by what means had this been brought to pass? I need not answer the question. But I have something that I wish to say about that result,-something that cannot be expressed by numbers. The toastmaster and I had been talking on the previous afternoon, and I had asked him if he had considered that the outstanding teachers in our Church at this time were the product of the educational work of the Academy. They had not been trained in the colleges and universities of the world. With what the Academy gave them, they were stimulated to study and think for themselves.

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Their work has been original, brilliant, constructive, progressive. Such men would be outstanding figures in any college or university. The Church body is so close to them, so familiar with them and their everyday life, that it has no perspective. We still look back to the great men of the past-and they were great men-but are we not allowing them to overshadow the men we have with us now? And also, have we not young men of great ability who are coming along and getting ready to take up the uses of those who are now in the ranks! And they have been trained by these men, as these were trained by the first Fathers.

     This thought I carried with me to the banquet,-a thought of appreciation. And with this thought active in my mind I followed the different speeches and songs. And then Bishop Pendleton arose, and made his inspiring speech in which he spoke of the New Church University of the future. You will recall what he said about the time it took to build universities,-not a century, nor two, nor three. All universities had had humble beginnings externally. It was not money that established them. It was men,-men who were fired with a vision, with zeal and purpose, by which they were able to inspire others, their co-workers and their followers; a zeal for something genuine, real, of value. They led others to see and feel its value, and these gave their support, mentally, morally and financially. The vision widened, the enthusiasm followed, and the work grew. A background of strong traditions developed as the years went on.

     The Bishop then pictured for us what our foundations must be,-new foundations, new inspirations, which bring new enthusiasms as they open up the wonders of a new theology, a new science, a new culture, a new life. Remember, I am only giving you what I got. Perhaps the Bishop did not say these things as I am saying them, but this is how the vision opened up to me as he spoke. Never have I been so thrilled, nor so sure of the New Church University that is to come. As the speech was finished and the applause abated, I turned to the Dean of the College, and said: "We need not trouble about the future of our College. It is established now on a sure foundation."

     Well, the Academy Schools opened this fall with the largest registration we have ever had.

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Again we are in the harness; Faculty meetings are being held regularly, and the daily dozen of lessons are being given by the teachers; and we hope they are taken in and appropriated by the pupils. But that vision of the New Church University has stayed with me, and somehow I am already restless for fear we are not doing enough in our daily dozen to insure the firmness of its foundations. Are we sure that we are laying new stones in its foundations each day? Or are we satisfied to use the old ones which have served the universities of the past?

     Remember-this University is to be new. It is to be a great, new University. But it will not stand for centuries as a great, new thing, unless its foundations are new stones, well cut and fitted, so that they will bear the weight of that great superstructure-the greatest that has ever been-which is to be raised upon it. There must be no faulty stones; but where can we find the proper ones? We all know. Let not the routine of the daily dozen deaden us to the real exercise that must be taken. Those daily dozens only keep us in training to see whether we have power to use our mental muscles in the tasks of digging for the precious stones that must be cut and polished, and fitted into the minds we have under our guidance for building. And this is to be done in such a way that they-these minds-will be serviceable to find and prepare other stones to place on the foundation, raising little by little the walls of the University of the future.

     This daily dozen business is not very inspiring, even with a victrola accompaniment. The real thrill comes when, in our search for material, we have found some real gem of truth-something new that will vivify our thought, renew our zeal, and send us to our classes, not as to a mechanical drill, but as to the great game where we urge our students over the top with cheers.

     It may not be a daily experience, but we all know what a thrill goes through the Church, and through the School, when one among us finds a new truth or a new application of an old truth. It is the same with a really new idea or thought we take to the class room. And when I say a new idea I mean a truth we have found that we can apply to our work, that gives it power and strength as a basis for growth in things of the Church. Our work will thus grow more stimulating to us.

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It will not be work, but recreation; for our minds will be refreshed as by a draught of the very water of life itself.

     Another reflection. Perhaps there might be a closer organization of those who are striving to develop the University, especially in perpetuation of what in the past was work of real university value. Shall we not acknowledge that such work has been done, when we view the list of those great minds that have been trained and developed under its influence? The proving of a university is the worth of its products,-the effect of the minds it has trained upon the world. Have we not narrowed our vision, so as to accommodate our work to the preparation of those who desire to go to the universities of the world? And have we not thereby neglected the preparation-the full preparation-of those who are to carry on the work of our own New Church University? Those other universities cannot prepare o,, workers as those we now have with us have been prepared. There must be years of university work done here, if we are to accomplish that. Consider how many years some of our ministers and teachers spent here in preparation before going out to serve, some working their way by teaching while they studied; and such close contact with the master minds for several years gave opportunity for a ripening.

     My pleas is, that those who are to teach should be encouraged to stay here for their full four years' training, perhaps teaching or preaching under the guidance of those who have been so trained before them. Let the educational side of our work be brought back to its former standing, with one who particularly loves that work at its head. The heads of other departments have not that special love. But any university that desires to perpetuate itself and its work must develop such a department, not allowing it to drop into desuetude. Those who love the use of training students to teach should be released from other work, and be permitted to devote their energies to such work. We could then have a Department of Education, closely connected and allied with our Theological School. Some professors might then lecture in both departments.

     May I say that pupils here, and also pupils coming from teachers elsewhere who have had such a full training, have a different atmosphere about them? Such teachers had the power to open the minds of their pupils to see and to love the things of the Church.

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Such pupils wish to go on studying here; and if they go out to other universities, they desire to return, because there is something of living interest to them here. From our kindergarten through the high school to the college they have carried with them the impressions of our teachers' work, and they remember their teachers with deep affection, because they have been fed with spiritual as well as natural food. Students of this type will go on and perpetuate the work of the Academy, not from the worldly knowledges they have received, but from the affection for the Church that has been aroused in them while gaining such knowledges. Teachers must be trained to do such: work before they learn their daily dozen duties. In fact, there will be no daily dozens.

     Before closing, I wish to refer again to the state of appreciation I was in when I went to the Nineteenth of June Banquet. I have not lost it. I fear sometimes that we do not make enough of the fact that we have prophets-great prophets-amongst us,-ministers, teachers, scholars, lawyers, artists, musicians, physicians, writers, good citizens. Then, in the realm of women's work, outside of teaching,-first and foremost, fine mothers; social workers in our own community and elsewhere, women showing great executive ability and leadership, nurses, writers, artists, musicians.

     Shall we let all these pass,-prophets without honor or appreciation in their own country and among their own people? Let us appreciate at its real value work that has been done, and is being done, in our Church by its members, nor let them stand lower in value in our estimation than those elsewhere, who have and are receiving the acclamation of the world for work of no greater value. Let not familiarity breed in us any spirit of contempt.

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DELIVERANCE FROM MENTAL OBSESSION 1927

DELIVERANCE FROM MENTAL OBSESSION       Rev. HOMER SYNNESTVEDT       1927

     "Then went the devils out of the man, and entered into the swine; and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the lake, and were choked. When they that fed them saw what was done, they fled, and went and told it in the city and ha the country. Then they went out to see what was done, and came to Jesus, and found the man, out of whom the devils were departed, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind; and they were afraid." (Luke 8:33-35)

     The Christian doctrine concerning the power of spirits over men is alluded to in many parts of the Gospel, but is nowhere more clearly pictured than in this account of the casting out of the legion of devils. And now, in the Revelation of the Second Coming, we are most definitely and particularly instructed as to the fact of our connection with spirits at all times, and we are explicitly told how it operates.

     The law is, that every man is governed by the Lord through spirits. This influence is twofold; namely, by cupidities, and by fantasies. As to the former, man has no control. His cupidities come to him unbidden. But his power, his protection, is through the control he has over his ideas and thoughts. These he can choose.

     The man who was found "sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed, and in his right mind," had been delivered from a physical obsession. But in our day there is only mental obsession. (A. C. 4193, 5990) We are creatures of fantasy. Opinion has more to do with our lives than fact. Advantage is taken of this by unscrupulous salesmen, politicians and fakers of all kinds, religious and otherwise. The Writings tell us why, when delight in self-interest leads, it is very easy for a person to induce upon himself (or herself) any belief that is called for, and this to the point of not being consciously insincere. The psychology of this phenomenon is given only in the Heavenly Doctrines, as follows:

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"When a person fastens his attention upon a certain idea, to the exclusion of other ideas that are against it, there draw near to him spirits who correspond, or whose life and whose sphere agree with that idea, and they enter in and dwell in his mind as if it were their own house, like the seven spirits who found it empty, swept and garnished."

     Now these spirits are not like men on earth; they cannot test their own persuasions by something outside themselves,-some rule or experience recalled from their memories; for they no longer have the use of this faculty of the exterior memory. Hence the persuasion of the man with whom they are conjoined is utterly and unchangeably real to them, and they in turn so persuade him. For the same reasons it is unwise-not to say dangerous-for a man to place himself in a position not really his own, and then argue from that standpoint. For he thus invites to himself the spirits who rest in those doctrines, and who are unalterably confirmed in them. Once surrounded by this company, it is very difficult for him to escape from the power of their persuasion. Those who can get hold of a person's loves or cupidities, and get him to entertain ideas or notions that favor or excuse these, can lead him whithersoever they will, unless stopped by outside checks, such as the Lord provides in this world of fixed things.

     We read in the Arcana that "they who have once conceived opinions, even the most false, often cling to them so obstinately that they are not willing to hear anything contrary to them; so that they never suffer themselves to be instructed, even if the truth be set before their eyes. This is still more the case with those who worship a false opinion from a kind of sanctity." (A. C. 806.)

     Many terms are used in the world to describe this state, such as fanaticism, invalidism, obsession, hypnotism, idee fixe, and fantasy. Some of these are used in the Writings, and they also speak of "enthusiastic spirits," "confirmers," and of "persuasions." In the Writings, the terms most used to cover all forms of mental aberration due to the influence of spirits acting through man's imagination, and quite apart from facts, are persuasion and fantasy.

     But the word "fanaticism," as we use it ordinarily, has come to mean, not so much a high degree of religious frenzy, as a degree of unbalanced devotion to a single hobby, which leads men and women to override or resent every other consideration, and to warp all their thinking to a narrow and inelastic mental obsession.

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The word connotes especially intolerance and bigotry. According to the Writings, to believe in what is not seen is persuasive faith. In the world, this is called fanaticism. And because the world does not see God, or the spiritual world, therefore it has come to pass that, not only blind faith, but also all belief in God as Man,-God visible and apprehensible, as well as a definite belief in a resurrection,-is called "fanatical."

     When doctrines or theories, and even Divine Truths themselves, are believed merely because of persuasion, or from arguments and confirmations of an external sort, or from being sphered by friends, there is no elasticity in them. They are brittle, rigid, and lack all adaptability to varying circumstances. It is only through a perception of that higher end of good which lies within every doctrine that men can exercise real judgment and justice in applying them. Hence the young are usually more intolerant and exacting than those of greater experience. For one thing, they have not so well ascertained their own limitations, and are less patient with others. It is observable that some who have been converted to the New Church, and who are most severe in their condemnation of the Old Church, and of the world and all its works, may break away later on, and go to the other extreme. The arrogancy of their first persuasive faith is well described in the Gospel by the proselyte whom the Pharisees made "twofold more the child of hell" than themselves. This persuasive faith has self in it, and therefore has only one use for its creed, and that is to bind it upon others, in order to promote its own ends by adding to its own party or society for the sake of influence or gain of some kind. Such persons, in the other world, when they find that their orthodoxy and soundness in the approved doctrine does not get them anywhere, repudiate the Lord and are angry with Him.

     That our race falls an easy victim to all kinds of spirits and men who can infuse persuasion or arouse cupidities ought to be ample proof, even to the most materialistic, that we are subject to the influence of spirits, and not like the beasts, who are in the order of their lives by nature, and thus exempt from the dominion of spirits. (H. H. 296. D. 2318.) The great art of salesmanship, upon which modern business is so largely dependent, is founded upon the perception of this fact, even though the source of it be unknown.

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But this much is known-from the mere fact that it works-that you can sell anything if you only influence another's cupidity, and through power of imagination implant ideas and persuasions, thus opening the door to the inrush of favoring spirits.

     Whenever we read the Easter story, we are impressed with the fanatical spirit of the rulers and of the mob, which, in the face of every consideration of justice and evidence, only cried out the more vehemently: "Crucify Him! Crucify Him!" And we witness something similar today in times of political excitement, when a partisan spirit is abroad in the land, except that we are not always as serious as we seem to be. At times, however, issues are injected which are not so innocuous, such as those of race hatred, religious prejudice, or some quasi-moral fanaticism. When any issue is placed upon a basis of religious conscience, it at once becomes a serious matter; and if, in fact, it is not a question of true religion and charity, but of some spurious matter or scruple of conscience, it may yet threaten our peace and sanity. Of this nature is one of the major issues before the country today. It is fortunate indeed for our peace and unity that the number of those who really make an internal principle of religion out of certain sumptuary questions are by no means so numerous and influential as they would have it appear.

     We are taught in our Doctrine, however, that the Lord Himself protects our civil freedom; and when there is real danger of insurrection and the violent overthrow of law and order, He eventually intervenes, and restores sanity by scattering those in the other world who are inducing and inspiring these movements. We often wonder what becomes of these threatening storms, when they subside suddenly, or lose their destructive force. This is the answer known only to the New Church: The Lord Himself smites them; as "the vessels of a potter," He shatters the figments of their imagination. To disperse them, it only needs that their inward hatred of each other, and their love of self, be let loose, and this is much more quickly accomplished since the Last Judgment in 1757 than was possible before. Printing, and marvelous facilities for communicating news and ideas, are the chief means; but the cause lies in the restored equilibrium in the spiritual world, which means the ability to get light, and thus to prick the bubbles of persuasion, in a measure never enjoyed before.

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     In olden times, it was possible to build up so powerful a dominion, and to enthrone it so strongly in the minds and consciences of men and women, that there was nothing outside of itself that could shake it. Thus ancient Babylon and the Roman Empire of the Caesars could last for many centuries, because of the enslavement of men's minds in both worlds, and especially because of the idolatrous and turbid state existing in the spiritual world. But when our Lord had come, He said: "Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." And His disciples marvelled at His power to quell storms, saying: "What manner of man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey Him!" Little did they realize what lay behind these miracles, in the vast reaches of the spiritual world, where lay rank upon rank, extending back into all the past of the human race,-the embattled hosts of the infernals who were stirring up that storm, and seeking to destroy Him Whom, above all else in the universe, they feared and hated.

     Now there is a good form of persuasion,-a state of confirmed faith which is rational, and full of charity and tolerance. Strangers who come among us may regard our professions as fanatical, or as narrow and bigoted, simply because of our undivided loyalty to the Heavenly Doctrine. It seems incredible to them in these days that persons who are otherwise intelligent and well-informed should be so simple and undoubting in their faith. They do not realize that these men and women actually see God in their minds, and have a perfectly clear rational idea of Him; also that their faith in the hereafter is no mere traditional faith, but likewise clear, consistent and understandable.

     Here is the general law: Anyone who has carried his beliefs to the point of full persuasion and confirmation in the life of the body has a power after death which is impossible with those not so confirmed here. He is such that he cannot be changed, but powerfully influences all others with whom he comes in contact; for his thought rests back upon something fixed in ultimates. This applies equally to those who have confirmed false persuasions. In order to deliver men on earth from the overwhelming power of such, it was necessary for the Lord Himself to come and reduce them into such subjection to Himself that they are kept from inflowing with man, except when the man himself seeks them out and joins himself to them.

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Because of what our Lord did when He glorified His Human, and when He finally cleared away the imaginary heavens at the Last Judgment, we in this world now have the power of choosing and selecting the spirits with whom we will associate. This is the hidden ground and basis of all our freedom, and alone makes it possible henceforth to break away from an old persuasion, if we will, no matter how overwhelmingly established, and to enter into the New Church of the Lord. This is involved in the Gospel of the Second Coming, and in the motto, "Nunc Licet."

     It is supposed by keen observers that men cannot rise above the persuasions that surround them. An eminent student of history and of people has said: "Men's loyalties, the sides they take in political things, are not innate; they are educational results. For most men, their education in these matters is the silent, continuous education of things about them. Men find themselves a part of Merry England or Holy Russia; they grow up to these devotions; they accept them as part of their nature." (H. G. Wells.)

     Let us study, therefore, how to avoid extremes, how to be consistently loyal to our Lord and Savior, keeping our minds open to uses, and to the suggestions of our neighbors, but above all to the teachings of the Word, diligently read and compared, that light may reach us from all sides and from within. So shall we be found "sitting at the feet of Jesus," clothed in becoming truths of order, and "in our right minds." Amen.

     Lessons: Isaiah 34. Luke 8:22-40. A. C. 5096.

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SHOULD WE INTONE OUR LITURGY? 1927

SHOULD WE INTONE OUR LITURGY?       Rev. T. S. HARRIS       1927

     (A paper read before the Council of the Clergy, February, 1927.)

     By intoning we mean reading a liturgical service in a musical manner. The General Church of the New Jerusalem has a Liturgy formed somewhat after the one used by the Protestant Episcopal Church of America; but the great majority of the congregations of that denomination intone their Liturgy, whereas, for some mysterious reason, no congregation of the General Church attempts to do so. We recognize the orderly sequence of the prescribed form contained in the Episcopal Liturgy, but we have failed, as yet, to realize the benefits derived from reading a liturgical service in a musical manner. We are somewhat like the young man who, when his dancing partner called his attention to the fact that he was not keeping step with the music, exclaimed, "O, I never pay any attention to the music while I am dancing!"

     Intoning of the Liturgy is always accompanied by organ music, and to be off the key while reading the office is a more serious defect than to be out of step while dancing. Intoning is an art that requires to be mastered by giving attention to the rules by which it is performed. It differs from ordinary reading in having fewer inflections of the voice, and these only at stated parts of the prayers and the selections which are recited. It is not as difficult to intone as some suppose. It is not as difficult for a congregation to learn to intone the parts of the service which are usually read as it is to learn to sing the chants and hymns. But traditions, inherited tendencies, and acquired habits, may be difficulties which stand in the way of our intoning the Liturgy.

     Intoning, if it be rightly done, adds to the impressiveness of the service. This is acknowledged by all who have become accustomed to it, and such are always disappointed when a liturgical service is rendered in any other manner. When an Episcopalian attends New Church service, he is at once impressed with the similarity of our prescribed forms of worship to those of his own Liturgy, but the manner in which we read our service fails to impress him favorably.

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It is true that the New Church service is very impressive to our own people; but is it not possible that it would be more so, if rendered in a more impressive manner? Not until New Church people become accustomed to intoning will they be able to appreciate its value. There must be some effort made in this direction before its usefulness can be discovered.

     As a substitute for intoning, and as an improvement upon our present method of reading the Liturgy, it has been suggested that we might read in unison on the dominant note of the music preceding the part to be recited. But there are valid objections to this method. Even if the Minister and the congregation succeed in the effort to read in unison, such a rendition of the passages sounds rather monotonous to musical ears, on account of the lack of rhythm and variation in tone. This objection is at once removed, if the Liturgy be read in a musical manner. Musical rhythm and harmony produce a psychological effect upon the individuals in a congregation of worshipers, and they are brought into a state of concord thereby. It is quite observable that those who make no attempt to read in unison do come into tune with the harmony as soon as a musical element is introduced into the reading. The singing of our chants and anthems is nothing more or less than intoning. In using them we are reading selections from the Word in a musical manner. Why not read the whole of the Liturgy in a similar way? For, with few exceptions, it consists of selections from the Word.

     Harmonious sounds awaken concordant affections, and this is the important use performed by reading the Liturgy in a musical manner. Of course, the emotional element associated with external worship may be unduly emphasized, and clear thinking become impossible; yet, without some emotional activity, the truths read and the doctrines unfolded do not remain in the mind. Through the externals of worship, affections are awakened towards things holy and Divine; but if those externals do not appeal to the emotions of the worshipers, they fail to accomplish their purpose. The very architectural design of chapel, church or cathedral, as well as the furniture of the chancel and the vestments of the priest, tend to awaken affections for holy things in the worshiper.

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That which appeals to true artistic taste affects the emotions pleasantly. And this is applicable to the reading of the Liturgy in a musical manner. It affects the sense of hearing much more agreeably than the discordant murmurings of our present method. It is true that the ear may become accustomed to discordant sounds, and thus fail to sense the inharmonious tones which are produced by individuals of a congregation reading on different notes; but such insensibility to discordant tones is a defect which should be removed, if possible.

     It is a well-known fact that the rhythmical flowing of harmonious sounds affects the mind pleasantly, and opens the affections. They who are skilled in music are aware of the effect produced by harmonious sounds; and if they desire to awaken joy and gladness in the hearts of their auditors, they avoid the introduction of discordant elements. Affections express themselves in tones, and to suppress these tones restrains the affections to which they correspond. This is true of all the affections that are struggling for expression, whether they be good or bad.

     Whenever holy themes are to be expressed, then fulness of tone, as contained in the vowels u, o and a, are most suitable, because they correspond to the affections of good, while the sounds e and i are less exalted, and correspond to affections of truth. (H. H. 241.) Thus, by means of the musical art, we are able to express affections of various kinds, and it seems apparent that this may be done more effectually, if the Liturgy be read in a musical manner. As soon as the idea of music is introduced into the reading of the Liturgy, then rhythm, concord and harmony follow as a consequence. This never can be the case when a number of people read together in the ordinary manner.

     The reading of a liturgical service in a musical manner is somewhat similar to the speech of angels and good spirits, when several speak at the same time. We are told that their speech, when they are discoursing in choirs, flows with a sort of rhythmical cadence, because they think and speak in societies, and the form of discourse has a cadence according to the connection and unanimity of the society. Speech having the rhythmical or harmonic cadence of song is natural to angels and good spirits; when several speak at the same time, it is always in this manner. (A. C. 1648, 1649) Good people come into this manner of speaking immediately after death, without having to learn the art.

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Then why should we hesitate to imitate this flowing and agreeable style of speech while engaged in acts of Divine worship? Perhaps we hesitate because we fear that it is too much like the manner in which societies of the Old Church conduct their worship. Or it may be that we have not given special attention to this phase of ritual, and, therefore, do not realize what benefit is derived from intoning a Liturgical service.

     The larger the audience and the building, the more evident is the use of intoning the Liturgy. When the priest intones the Scripture passages and the prayers, no one in the congregation is subjected to a strain in his endeavor to follow the meaning of what is being said in the chancel. The intoning voice is distinguished from the speaking voice which is used in simple elocution. It demands a more accurate manipulation of the vocal organs than the speaking voice, although it is but the speaking voice brought to a better resonance and carrying power through a greater supply and surer control of the breath.

     Let me quote what an authority has to say regarding the kind of voice to be used while intoning; "The proper voice to be used is the result of that tone production which has its inception and resonance in the front and upper part of the mouth, and which vibrates especially into the nasal cavities. This insures the greatest resonance and carrying power possible." As to the pitch, the recitation note should be on G, A or B of the tenor staff, for a note lower than G would sound too somber, and have little carrying power. " The so-called chest voice is by all means to be avoided, for its timbre is hollow, although apparently voluminous. Many of the clergy who use chest tones seem to be under the impression that they have satisfied the faculty of hearing on the part of the congregation, when, in fact, they have satisfied merely their own; for such tones have little carrying power, and do not extend to the remotest parts of the building. Attention must be given to the tempo in which words are intoned; otherwise the result will be an unintelligible jumble of sounds. A passage or prayer should not be intoned as fast as a piece of oratory might be rendered. The larger the audience and the building, the slower should be the tempo of the intoning, as this gives time for the words of the officiating minister to reach everybody in the congregation."

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     It is evident that the reading of the Liturgy in a musical manner introduces into external worship two very important elements: (1) Concordant, rhythmic harmony, when several speak at the same time; and (a) it adds carrying power to the voice of the minister when he speaks alone. If we remember that sounds which affect the ear pleasantly awaken corresponding affections, then the benefits to be derived from reading the Liturgy in a musical manner become very evident.

     To intone our Liturgy, it is not necessary that we adopt the elaborate style of the Catholic Church, nor even the less ornate one of the Anglican. By using as a basis the few Gregorian chants contained in our Liturgy, we could develop a very simple method that would be in agreement with all the rules which govern the most elaborate style of intoning. It is interesting to note that all modern methods of intoning are evolved from the Gregorian chants.

     Perhaps you will pardon an attempt to demonstrate how this may be done in the several Offices which we use in Divine worship.

     The Prayers and Creed which the Minister and People say together may be intoned in harmony. This can be done to the music of any Gregorian chant, if attention be given to the following rules: (1) The lengthening of the last note or notes before any punctuation mark. (2) The softening of the same. (3) A short rest or pause at the most important divisions.*
     * Mr. Harris here illustrated the rules by intoning the Creed, using the chant on page 86 of the Liturgy.

     To those who appreciate harmonious sounds and musical rhythm, the "Pater Noster," as intoned in a Protestant Episcopal service, is very impressive. The Minister alone recites the first clause of the Prayer in monotones, thus, "Our Father, who art in heaven"; then the Minister and the People chant in harmonic monotones until the cadence is reached: "For Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever and ever, Amen." If we should render the Prayer in this manner, it would be necessary to intone also the Recitative and Response:

     Minister: O Lord, forgive us our trespasses.

     People: As we forgive those who trespass against us.

     When the Minister intones the Commandments, it is more impressive if the people chant the Response at the end of each precept, thus:

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     Minister: Thou shalt not steal.

     Response: Lord have mercy upon us, and write Thy law in our hearts.

     The Psalter, which is now read in alternate lines by the Minister and People, may be rendered as an Antiphon, the first line being intoned by the Minister, and the second chanted by the People, thus:

     Minister: I will extol Thee, my God, O King.

     People: And I will bless Thy name for ever and ever.

     Such a rendition of the Psalter would be a real Antiphon, and would perform the use of those Responsive Services which we designate as Antiphons. For an Antiphon is just what the word means,-a "voice against voice," an echo, a harmonious response to the voice which has gone forth. To secure the best results, the Recitative, or Sentence for the Minister, should be short. In the Antiphons of our Liturgy, that is often not the case.

     "Worship of the lips is truly worship when there is worship of the life; otherwise it is nothing but idolatry," no matter how elaborate and imposing the ceremonial forms may be. But where there is an abundance of Life, too much attention cannot be given to them; for they are ultimates by which spiritual affections derive power of expression. A living church need have no fear of falling into formalism through the use of externals in worship. Architectural symmetry, the artistic blending of colors, and the rhythmic harmony of sounds, please the senses, and open the affections for things heavenly and Divine in those with whom such affections exist. And it is very evident that the crown of all the Churches will evolve a ritual more powerful in its appeal to spiritual affections than that of any former age.

     Reason enlightened and genius inspired by the revealed truth of the Heavenly Doctrines must produce externals of worship far surpassing in usefulness and beauty those which came into existence during the former Christian dispensation. And if "the good of use" be the guiding principle in the development of New Church ritual, then prejudice against externals which may appear somewhat similar to those existing in other Churches will not prevent their being utilized by people of the true Christian Church.

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The fact that the Greek, Latin, and Anglican branches of the old Christian Church intone their Liturgy is not sufficient reason why we should refuse to read ours in a musical manner. We need not imitate them, but we may derive valuable suggestions as to the best method of using our Liturgy, as was the case in the making of our Liturgy.

     A Liturgical service, with as Versicles and Responses, its Prayers and Psalters, its Chants, Glorias and Sanctus, the Creed and Commandments, the Ascriptions and Benedictions, is intended to be rendered musically. The early Christians, with whom such a service originated, recited it in that manner, and modern Christians who adhere to liturgical forms do likewise. It is asserted by some who are not in sympathy with intoning that tradition alone accounts for the continuance of the custom at the present day, but we are assured by those who practice it that such is not the case. They maintain that there are practical and artistic reasons why a liturgical service should be intoned throughout. The use of the singing voice is more effective in awakening the emotions than that of the speaking voice, and if parts of the Liturgy are said, and other parts sung, then its unity is impaired by the placing of undue emphasis upon the portions in which music is employed. A prominent, modern authority on this subject says: "Looked at musically, a liturgical service should be regarded as a complete whole, just as it is from a literary standpoint."

     Basil, a Greek Churchman of the fourth century, who did much to encourage the people of his time in the use of Liturgy, wrote this sentence, which is applicable to the subject: "Whereas the Holy Spirit saw that mankind is unto virtue hardly drawn, and that righteousness is the less accounted of by reason of the proneness of our affections to that which delighteth, it pleased the wisdom of that same Spirit to borrow from Melody that pleasure which, mingled with Heavenly Mysteries, causeth the smoothness and softness of that which toucheth the ear, to convey, as it were by stealth, the treasures of good things into man's mind."

     And, through him whose ears were opened to hear the symphonies of heaven, it has been revealed that, when a society of angels speak at the same time, their speech has the rhythmical or harmonic cadence of song; and that the harmonies of sounds belong to spiritual harmony; and the gladness arising therefrom is spiritual gladness. (A. C. 1648, 1649, 7191.)

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     "Musical harmony is delicious to the angels, when the thoughts of men are in accord with their ideas." (S. D. 491.)
LEVITICAL CITIES 1927

LEVITICAL CITIES              1927

     "The inheritances in the Land of Canaan were distributed among the tribes by lot, which signified that it was done by the Divine Providence of God Messiah. Lastly, the Levites are numbered, and the genealogy of Moses and Aaron is given. (Numbers 26:57-62.) The reason why the Levites are numbered now, and not previously with the rest of the tribes, is because there was no inheritance for them among the sons of Israel. The name Levi (adhere) signifies conjunction, consequently love, to which no inheritance could be given by lot such as was given to the others; for the priesthood, or the worship of God Messiah, must be among all, just as love must be among all, because it conjoins all. On this account the Levites dwelt in the midst of the tribes, and had cities given them among all the tribes, so that there was no tribe without Levites, or without the worship of God Messiah, by which all were conjoined. And since God Messiah is Love, thus conjunction, and consequently the Priesthood, because He is the One Only Priest, therefore the genealogy of Moses and Aaron is now immediately described. This also represents that in the true Church of God Messiah the Priesthood must be in the middle of all; for all who are internal men, and by faith have the kingdom of God in themselves, are priests, and perform the function of the priesthood continually." (Adversaria IV:7605)

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SUBSTANCES DIVIDED ARE MULTIPLIED 1927

SUBSTANCES DIVIDED ARE MULTIPLIED       Rev. W. L. GLADISH       1927

     "Everything divided is more and more multiple, and not more and more simple, because it approaches nearer and nearer to the Infinite, in which are all things infinitely." (C. L. 329.)

     Swedenborg had visited a boys' school in the spiritual world where the subject discussed had been the soul and its nature. Later he had demonstrated to the headmaster the difference between the spiritual and the natural; that it is not like the difference between the purer and the less pure, but like that between prior and posterior, or cause and effect.

     It was repeatedly shown to the headmaster and those with him that no word or sound of spiritual language can by any means be uttered in the realm of nature, nor any sound or word of this world pass into the spiritual realm. Neither can the thoughts or ideas of the one world be expressed in the language of the other. The only relation was shown to be that of influx and correspondence. The spiritual inflows into the natural, and there produces what corresponds to it.

     When Swedenborg returned home, some of the boys followed him; and while he was writing, they saw a small insect run over his paper, and asked in surprise, "What is this so swift little animal?" He told them it is called a mite, and added that, although it was so tiny, yet it had as many members and viscera as a camel. "There are brains, heart, pulmonary organs, organs of sense, of motion, of generation, a stomach, intestines, and many other things; and each one of these is a contexture of fibres, nerves, blood-vessels, muscles, tendons, membranes; and each of these a contexture of still purer things which lie deeply hidden beyond the reach of every eye." The boys said, "Yet the little living thing appears to us only as a simple substance."

     Swedenborg replied: "Nevertheless there are innumerable things within it. I tell you this to the end that you may know that it is so with every object that appears before you as one simple and least thing.

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So it is in your actions, and in your affections and thoughts; I can assure you that every grain of thought and every drop of your affection is divisible ad infinitum, and that in so far as your ideas are divisible, you are wise. Know, that every thing divided is more and more multiple, and not more and more simple; because what is divided and divided approaches nearer and nearer to the Infinite, in which all things are infinitely. This is a new thing that I relate to you, before unheard of."

     "Having listened to these things," Swedenborg continues, "the boys went from me to the headmaster and requested of him that he would sometime propose in the gymnasium something new and unheard of as a problem. He asked, What? They said, That everything divided is more and more multiple, and not more and more simple, because it approaches nearer and nearer to the Infinite, in which are all things infinitely." He promised to propose it, and said: "I see this, because I have perceived that one natural idea is the containant of innumerable spiritual ideas; yea, that one spiritual idea is the containant of innumerable celestial ideas. Hence the difference between celestial wisdom, in which the angels of the third heaven are, and spiritual wisdom, in which the angels of the second heaven are; and also between natural wisdom in which the angels of the ultimate heaven are, and the wisdom of men." (C. L. 329)

     This is a boy's problem, put by one who knew and loved boys, and who also loved wisdom. It is expressed in such a way as to excite wonder and curiosity. It is just the kind of problem that appeals to a boy's mind. Yet it involves all philosophy and all wisdom. It seems impossible, and yet an open mind sees that it must be true.

     I have spoken of it as a boy's problem, proposed by a lover of boys; and it was that, but it was more than that. Since Swedenborg was the Lord's servant, filled with His Spirit, to the end that through him He might accomplish His Second Advent, this was the Lord's own question, proposed to the eternal spirit of youth, which is the love of knowing, of understanding, and of being wise.

     II.

     The subject is the same as that of Discrete Degrees,-a subject treated here and there throughout the Writings, but thoroughly expounded in Part III of the Divine Love and Wisdom.

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In no. 188 of that work he says:

     "I am not aware that anything has hitherto been known of discrete degrees, or those of altitude, but only of continuous degrees, or those of latitude. And yet nothing of cause can be truly known without a knowledge of degrees of both kinds. Wherefore, these degrees must be treated of in the whole of this Part. For the end of this little work is that causes may be revealed, and that effects may be seen from them, and thus that the darkness in which the man of the church is concerning God and concerning the Lord, and in general concerning Divine Things which are called spiritual, may be dispelled. This I can affirm, that the angels are in sorrow on account of the darkness on earth. They say that they see light hardly anywhere, and that men seize upon fallacies, and confirm them, and thereby multiply falsities upon falsities; and to confirm these by reasonings from falsities, and from truths falsified, they hunt after things which cannot be dispelled, on account of the darkness concerning causes and the ignorance concerning truths."

     On the importance of a knowledge of discrete degrees we are instructed as follows:

     "Without a knowledge of these degrees, nothing can be known of the distinctions between the three heavens; nor of the distinctions of the love and wisdom of the angels there; nor of the distinctions in the heat and light in which they are nor of the distinctions in the atmospheres which environ and contain. Also, without a knowledge of these degrees, nothing can be known of the distinctions in the interior faculties which are of the mind in men; and so nothing of their state as to reformation and regeneration; nor of the distinctions in their exterior faculties, which are of the body, both with angels and men; and nothing whatever of the distinctions between spiritual and natural, and therefore nothing of correspondence. Nay, nothing can be known of the distinction between men and beasts, and between the more perfect and the less perfect animals; nor of the distinctions among the forms of the vegetable kingdom, and among the materials of the mineral kingdom. From which things it may be evident that they who are ignorant of these degrees cannot see causes from any judgment. They see effects only, and judge of causes from them, which is done, for the most part, by an induction on the same plane with effects; when yet causes do hot produce effects continuously, but discretely; for the cause is one thing, and the effect is another; the distinction is as between prior and posterior, or as between the thing that forms and the thing that is formed." (D. L. W. 185.)

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     And it is added, in no. 187:

     "From these few things it may be manifest that he who does not know anything of discrete degrees, or degrees of altitude, cannot know anything of the state of man as to his reformation and regeneration-which are effected through the reception of love and wisdom from the Lord, and then through the opening of the interior degrees of his mind in their order. Nor can he know anything of the influx through the heavens from the Lord, nor anything of the order into which he has been created. For if anyone thinks of these things, not from discrete degrees or those of altitude, but from continuous degrees or those of latitude, he cannot see anything about them except from effects; he can see nothing from causes. And to see from effects alone is to see from fallacies, whence come errors, one after another; which may be so multiplied by inductions that at length enormous falsities are called truths." (D. L. W. 187.)

     III.

     The Heavenly Doctrine derives the origin of discrete degrees from God Himself. There are in Him three infinite and uncreate degrees of altitude,-Divine Love; Divine Wisdom and Divine Use. These are related like end, cause and effect. Yet they are distinctly one; that is, they can be distinguished in thought, but not actually, for one is of the other, mutually and reciprocally. Hence there are in the Divine, and from the Divine in angels and men, three degrees of love, wisdom and use. There is the love of ends, or purposes, and the wisdom of that love, and its uses. There is the love of causes, or of means, and the wisdom of that love, and its uses. There is the love of deeds, works, or uses, and the wisdom of that love, and its uses. And therefore the mind of man is constituted of three degrees, and there are three heavens, called the celestial, the spiritual, and the natural.

     Not only does the mind of man mirror this trine which is in God, but every created thing reflects it.

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In both the spiritual and the natural world there are three atmospheres, the second being compounded from the first, and the third from the second, by conglobations; many units of a prior atmosphere uniting to make one unit of a lower atmosphere. Every muscle consists of fibers compounded in a threefold series. First, there are the simple fibers, then compoundings of these in bundles, called muscular fibers, and again compoundings of these to produce each muscle. In the vegetable kingdom, and even in the mineral kingdom, there is a threefold grouping of parts.

     The angels assert that there is not any created thing but has this threefold composition; and from this a similarity, with perpetual variety-for there never are two things exactly alike, nor can there be to eternity-arises the perfection of all things; each created thing finding in every other some similarity to itself. Hence the possibility of conjunction and unity. There is no simple substance incapable of further division; for there is nothing so simple but it has in it degrees of both kinds, both of altitude, or composition, and of latitude, or extension. It must have degrees of both kinds to be anything, to stand forth and exist as an entity, to be able to receive from the Divine that influx which constitutes and sustains it.

     The reason why there are degrees of both kinds in every least thing of creation is that the Divine in greatests and leasts is the same; and the thing created must bear a resemblance to that from which it is created. But since a knowledge of these things can come only from a knowledge of universals, and thence of particulars, let us hear the teaching of the Heavenly Doctrine on this point:

     "The declarations of the angels on this matter are these: That there is nothing so small that there are not in it degrees of both kinds; thus nothing so small in any animal, nor in any plant, nor in any mineral, nor in the ether and the air; and because the ether and the air are receptacles of heat and light, that there is no least thing of heat and light; and because spiritual heat and spiritual light are the receptacles of love and wisdom, that there is no least thing of these in which there are not degrees of both kinds.

     "The angels also declare that the least thing of an affection and the least thing of a thought, nay, that the least of an idea of thought, consists of degrees of both kinds, and that a least thing which does not consist of them is nothing; for it has no form, and therefore no quality, and no state which can be changed and varied, and by this means exist.

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     "The angels confirm this by the truth that the infinities in God the Creator, Who is the Lord from eternity, are distinctly one; and that there are infinite things in His infinities; and that in things infinitely infinite there are degrees of both kinds, which also in Him are distinctly one; and because these things are in Him, and all things are created by Him, and the things which are created resemble in some image those things which are in Him, it follows that there is not the least finite thing in which there are not such degrees.

     "That these degrees are equally in the least and in the greatest things, is because the Divine in the greatest and in the least things is the same." (D. L. W. 223.)

     Having seen from the wisdom of the angels that there is nothing so minute but has in it the three degrees of altitude, or of successive composition, as well as degrees of breadth, let us also have well in mind that these degrees exist universally in greatest things also. In the universe as a whole, ends or purposes are in God, or in the Spiritual Sun, which is the first emanation from God; causes are in the spiritual world; and effects are in the natural world. Taking the spiritual world as a whole, ends are in the celestial heaven, causes are in the spiritual heaven, and effects in the natural heaven. In both worlds, ends are in the atmospheres, causes in the waters, and effects in the earths. In man, ends are in the will, from love; causes are in the understanding, by means of truths; and effects in the body and in the deeds of the body.

     In every case, the end forms the cause from itself, and then, by means of the cause, produces the effect, which is its ultimate end, where it rests, having achieved its purpose. Yet this ultimate end becomes again a first end, from which new uses go forth. For example, a seed is a beginning or first-end; it produces a plant or tree, which is a middle end, or means; the plant in turn produces new seed, which is the ultimate end; which in its turn, when sown in the earth, becomes a new beginning.

     Thus all things in the universe, in the whole and in all its parts, progress from ends through ends to further ends; and all ends are uses. There are, therefore, primary uses, mediate uses, and ultimate uses.

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     The universal end for which all things exist, and to which all uses look, is a heaven of angels from the human race, in which the Lord can find rest from His labors, and satisfaction for His love in bestowing an abundant measure of eternal blessings upon the children of His care.

     IV.

     Two more universal truths must be borne in mind, that we may understand discrete degrees. First, these degrees must be homogeneous; and second, they must be terminated in each degree.

     And still another point must be mentioned here: There are no abstract degrees. Degrees are indeed spoken of abstractly, and they can be thought of abstractly; yet there are no abstract degrees, for they would be mere entities of reason, and thus nothing. Degrees exist only in substances, and are the forms of those substances. And where forces exist, and proceed by discrete degrees as in the case of light, heat, sound, etc., they do so only in substances, and according to their forms.

     Discrete degrees must be homogeneous, of one nature, because the second degree is produced from the first by its own self-substance, and the third from the second; and the only substance and active principle in the series is the substance and the force of the first degree. If there is anything heterogeneous, therefore, it does not belong in the series, but is a part of some other series. For example, the three atmospheres of the spiritual world are homogeneous; one substance rules in them all, and one purpose; the lower and lowest are but further accommodations to less active states of love and wisdom. The three atmospheres of the natural world are homogeneous; they are but compoundings and further compoundings of the substances in the first natural atmosphere, finally adapted in activity and form to the breathing of animals and of man. Will, understanding, and life or deed in man are homogeneous; his understanding and deed being such in quality as is his will or love; for his love forms his understanding, and gives its own quality to it; and his deed, truly regarded, is of the same quality as the love from which he acts.

     As to the terminations or boundaries of discrete degrees, some knowledge of these, and thought from them, is of the greatest importance, both in material and in spiritual things.

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Take, for example, the threefold composition of a muscle. Each smallest fibre is surrounded by a skin, which separates it clearly from every other fibre; each bundle of fibers is, in turn, surrounded by its skin, separating it from all other bundles; and, finally, the muscle is surrounded by a skin. Thus the three degrees of composition form a unit, in which the only substance is that of the first degree,-the corporeal fibre. It is the grouping and the terminations which make the degrees, and the efficient instrument of uses. Without the terminations, there would be, instead of a muscle, but a jellylike mass of fibers.

     Or, for another example, take an atmosphere. The first natural atmosphere is composed of bullular forms; a number of these bullae are gathered up by a circular motion among themselves, forming a larger sphere; and these in turn, by a similar circulatory motion, are formed into the comparatively large and slow-moving units of the air we breathe. The first atmosphere, forming the sun's vortex, consists of discreted forms, and is capable of existing alone as an atmosphere, above the ether and-the air. But when compounded into larger forms it surrounds the earth, forming the luminiferous ether. Still further compounded, it forms the air. The relative imperfection of the air as compared with the ether is indicated by the speed of sound, which travels through the air at the rate of 1092 feet per second, while light travels through the ether about 187,000 miles in the same time.

     Yet the whole difference in the nature of the three atmospheres consists in these groupings; but one substance forms the three. Without the terminations and the groupings thus formed, there would be but the one atmosphere, the highest; the two lower ones would never come into existence.

     The mind of man likewise is of three degrees. It must have its boundaries or terminations in each degree, that it may receive and retain the inflowing good and truth from the Lord through heaven. These terminations are formed by conscience. He who forms for his love, for his thought, and for his deeds, fixed boundaries according to the truths of the Word, has the planes of his mind so terminated that the inflowing good from heaven can be retained. Without these terminations, it flows through and is dissipated.

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The fowls of the air eat the bread out of the baskets on the head of Pharoah's baker. And the baker must be condemned.

     From these few things it is perhaps sufficiently evident that the created universe consists of six discrete degrees; three of which are degrees of life, degrees of love and wisdom; and three of substances and forces not in themselves living, but capable of reacting to and serving the living forces of the spiritual world.

     Also, it appears manifestly that in the highest degree of the spiritual world, called the celestial, life exists in a superlative degree. The angels of this heaven live consciously in the Lord, and He in them. They think and act from ends, from Divine ends. Their wisdom exceeds a thousandfold that of the angels of the lower heavens. All things about them are living. There are myriads upon myriads of Divine beauties and perfections which appear to their minds, and hence can be represented in living forms about them, which can by no means appear to angels of lower heavens.

     The activities of the Divine Love and Wisdom are further accommodated to the reception of angels and spirits, by degrees both discrete and continuous, even to the ultimate boundaries of the spiritual world; and after that are still further covered over by the dead matters of the natural world, which finally come to rest in the inert things of the mineral kingdom.

     It is also of angelic wisdom to know that, although the higher degrees are discrete from the lower, yet they rest upon the lower, and are in their fulness and power in the ultimate degree. The lowest or natural degree therefore becomes a new end, in which, through man, the return current arises by which the universe is bound back to God.

     Just above the finite universe is another, an infinite, universe, even the Infinite Itself, which is the Divine Itself; above, and yet also within and below; for the created universe floats, as it were, within the vast ocean of the Infinite. And in this Infinite, which is Love Itself and Wisdom Itself, Substance Itself and Form Itself, yea, Man Himself, there are infinite things which are but faintly shadowed forth in the relatively few and imperfect things of the created universe.

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     How evident it is that, as Ezekiel says, the "breadth of the house is upward." (Ez. 41:7.) And how different from the universe as the sensual man sees it! To him, there is but one plane with any real, tangible objects in it. And God is a Being without body, parts or passions.

     VI.

     The New Churchman has not only this knowledge of God as the only Living One, and the only Source of life to angels and to men, who are but forms to be animated every moment by Him, but he also knows that in the threefold Word the Lord has gathered up and revealed all the wisdom possible to angels and to men. Not only are there in the Word the three degrees of love and wisdom proper to the natural world and the natural mind of man, and also the three degrees of angelic wisdom as contained in the three heavens; but there is more than that; for it was dictated by the Lord Himself. So that, while it is outwardly human and angelic, it is inwardly Divine. Thus it is Divine on every plane, even the lowest, that of the letter. Indeed, its fullness, holiness and power are there.

     All that has been said of the universe can be understood of the Word, with this exception, that the Word is not a creation, but is the Divine Proceeding. Its forms, therefore, are not dead, like created forms, but are living forms, capable of carrying over the Divine Life to human minds. In its spiritual and celestial senses, where it approaches the Divine, there the myriads of myriads of glories and beauties, delights and satisfactions, that do not appear in the letter.

     It is further revealed, as a part of the wisdom belonging to degrees, that in the Lord from eternity the Celestial and Spiritual Degrees existed actually, but the Natural Degree only in potency. (D. L. W. 233) Before the incarnation, the Divine proceeded to the ultimates of nature only mediately, through the angelic heavens, but now immediately from Himself. For the natural, which He took on through the virgin mother, He glorified and made uncreate and Divine, so that the invisible Divine now stands forth to view before the spiritual sight of men and angels in His own Divine Human.

     It sounds strange to the natural mind of man to say that the Divine could put on a new degree in time and space.

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The natural reason is apt to say, "Impossible! the Divine cannot grow!" But perhaps enlightened reason, enlightened by the Word, may see that the natural degree, which is in time and space, could not but be assumed by the Divine in time and space, and yet could be made, by the processes of glorification, wholly Divine and uncreate.

     VII.

     "In so far as your ideas are divisible, you are wise," said Swedenborg to the boys.

     As New Church teachers, it is our blessed privilege to present before the eyes of both youth and age a conception of the universe, of man, of the Word, and of the Lord, that is divisible ad infinitum. And everywhere, in all the myriad forms before the eye of either body or mind, we see naught but images and likenesses of the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom. And as the mind rises to the higher steps of the ladder of wisdom, we Prostrate ourselves in ever more profound wonder and veneration before the Divine Man Who created, redeemed, and sustains them all.
FRIENDSHIP WITH THE EVIL 1927

FRIENDSHIP WITH THE EVIL              1927

     "Any man who has not openly connected himself with evil doers and committed robberies, but has led a civil moral life for the sake of various uses as ends, and yet has not curbed the lust residing in his internal man, may suppose that his friendship for others is not interiorly hatred of them. But every man who has rejected the things of religion from his heart is of this character. The internal man of such is in hell; but being ignorant of this, because of their pretended morality in externals, they acknowledge no one as neighbor except themselves and their own children. They regard others either with contempt-and then they are like cats lying in wait for birds in their nests-or with hatred, and then they are like wolves when they see dogs that they may devour." (T. C. R. 455.)

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ASSESSOR SWEDENBORG 1927

ASSESSOR SWEDENBORG       CYRIEL ODHNER SIGRID       1927

     HIS ASSOCIATION WITH THE COLLEGE OF MINES.

     (An Address to the Students of the Academy of the New Church, January 20, 1927.)

     You have heard of Swedenborg the Scientist, the Philosopher, the Revelator. May I introduce to you this morning plain "assessor Swedenborg," for the purpose of our reflecting together a little, especially on his practical life in the College of Mines, and its relation to his later work?

     Let us first consider the picture that most readily rises to our minds in answer to the idea of the man Swedenborg. Is it that of the kindly "uncle" of Hornsgatan, pottering in his flowerbeds, or of the much respected "old gentleman" of Gothenburg, in whose presence, as in that of an angel, maligners held their peace? Or do we see before us the "New Jerusalem Gentleman" of London, locked in his chamber, writing, continually writing, scarcely stopping to eat his frugal meal of bread and milk? Or, as his Amsterdam friends knew him, walking in the parks with pockets full of sweets for the children who loved him better than their own parents? These have a way of sticking in the mind. Swedenborg the Dreamer!-as far removed from our workaday, hustling world as that spiritual realm which he so wonderfully describes.

     But this is not true, if taken by itself. And it is my purpose today to show you another, less familiar, picture of this man, as he was in the days of his prime, to supplement that of the elderly man, better known to us.

     Swedenborg was anything but a recluse. He loved the society of his fellow men to a marked degree, and was never too old to make new friends. A great part of his life was eminently practical, filled with business activities that only grudgingly granted him time to put down the thoughts that formulated themselves in the rich cauldron of his mind and for utterance surged line by line through his voluminous manuscripts.

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     Let us glance at the student days at Upsala. Among the learned curricula, setting forth in scholarly Latin the many subjects given, is a printed notice from the Rector to the effect that "if those youths who have been climbing the wall into the castle gardens and injuring the trees in the governor's orchard" are caught at it again, there will be dire results. We are not assuming that Dr.
Swedberg's son was among the miscreants, but human nature was the same then as now!

     At the age of sixteen, Swedenborg was a member of the college debating club at which such subjects as God's Providence, the Duties of Parents and Children, etc., were earnestly discussed. In 1706, while still a Junior, ambition led him to offer to preside at a debate on the Laws of Nature, although it was customary for Seniors only to be president. His offer was rejected, as being unfair to the older members.

     It has been asserted, but without sufficient proof, I think, that Swedenborg inherited his father's leanings toward superstition. It is easier to find confirmation of the surmise that he reacted strongly against just this, and sought at every turn for first-hand experience in the healthy lap of Nature. The collecting habit was strong in him always,-a true token of the scientist. Credulity, or the ability to believe in something new or extraordinary, is, on the other hand, an inclination highly to be esteemed as the very basis of affirmative belief.

     After his graduation there is evidence of restlessness over his confinement at Brunsbo bishopric, in spite of the fact that he tramped the country widely, making observations of the stones and mud, bones, fossils and other curious objects, and, among many other things, learning to Play the organ, and frequently writing letters to his learned brother-in-law. The term of waiting ended in his first journey to London. Here was excitement enough for any young man, with three narrow escapes from death, the ship sticking in a sand-bank and being afterwards mistaken for a pirate and fired upon by the coast-guards Worst of all, exasperated at the prospect of a long quarantine, he escaped in a row-boat with some other young men, and landed in the arms of the London police. Travel was habitually risky in those days. We may here add that, many years afterwards, his life was again endangered in the Alps, where the snow was so deep that it almost covered the horses.

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Later, on the way to Milan, he was abandoned by his Italian guide, and was obliged to travel in the company of another untrustworthy guide who often drew his stiletto. But Swedenborg was on his guard, and led the man to believe that he hadn't a stiver about him.

     We pass over his thoroughly active life among London watchmakers and artisans of all kinds; and the useful collections of astronomical and mathematical instruments he made there, including quadrants, globes, microscopes, telescopes, and air-pumps. We see him finally settled in his native land, engaged in the construction of industrial machines with Christopher Polhem, and we may reflect a moment upon the quality of the training he received under this master-mechanic.

     Anyone who has browsed a little among Swedenborg's philosophical theories-the Principia especially-has noticed how much demand is made upon one's ability to picture various complicated forms of motion-intra-corpuscular, axillary, progressive, etc., upon which are based elaborate propositions, apparently quite simple to the mind of the writer, dealing with the construction of matter and the universe. Swedenborg learned this from Polhem while apprenticed at Stjernsund. Now it is an interesting fact that Polhem's own models and instruction materials have only recently been exhibited in Stockholm, being included in a collection illustrating the history and development of mechanics in Sweden. And among them is Polhem's "mechanical alphabet," which you would find very interesting. It consisted of small wooden slabs showing different ways of changing a rotary into a rectangular movement, and vice versa; various kinds of cog-wheel constructions, universal couplings, centrifugal movements, etc. All these had been used by the great teacher in the instruction of his pupils.

     The great value attached by Polhem to a detailed study of simple mechanical movements appears from a quotation in a work describing his methods. He says: "Just as it is necessary for a bookman to have in mind all the words required for the composition of a written sentence, so is it necessary for a mechanician to know all the simple movements, and have them ready in his mind. For if a writer, in the composition of a word, should be obliged to look up and combine the scattered letters here and there in hidden and remote places, the writing would be like crows' feet, and would be filled with much unnecessary waste.

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And so would it be with a mechanician in the composition of machines and inventions, unless he knew all the simple movements like a mechanical alphabet. We see, therefore, how necessary it is to have this alphabet, as it were, at one's finger tips." Can a better training be imagined for the future writer of the Principia?

There are innumerable evidences of Swedenborg's applying his mechanical knowledge to industrial developments, and in at least one instance to the defence of his native land. I refer to his transporting of several war vessels to Idefjord by land whereby the enemy forces were surprised and defeated by King Charles XII. But when the war was over, and Sweden was struggling upwards out of the ashes of ruin to its greatest period of freedom, enlightenment and industrial growth, Swedenborg was settled in the business that was to be his active life's work-as an Assessor in the College of Mines, a position which he held for over thirty years. Let us pause for a moment to see what this means.

     A great portion of the wealth of Sweden was, and still is, involved in its iron mines, and formerly also in its copper mines. From early times, therefore, the mining interests have been under the special control of the Crown. In Swedenborg's day, the country was divided into four mining districts,-Great Copper Mountain, Nerike, Wermland, and Westmanland,-and these were subject to the control of the Bergskollegium or Board of Mines, appointed by the King and directly responsible to Royal Majesty. In some respects it resembled a cabinet bureau, like those of the Secretary of Commerce, Labor, etc., in the United States, if we might think of these as possessing every power short of actual ownership. The functions of the Board of Mines were administrative, and also judicial. It appointed mining officers for the various districts, received reports from them, and acted as a court of appeals in settling industrial law-suits in which owners and workers were involved. The presiding officer was entitled President, two senior members were Councillors, and there were four Assessors. Each of these had a seat and vote on the Board, being ranged in the order of seniority by the dates of their commissions, so that the oldest Assessor was entitled to a Councillorship when one became vacant.

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Various other officers were more or less closely associated with the College of Mines, and are frequently referred to in the reports, such as: a secretarial bureau, a fiscal advocate's bureau, a bureau of accounts and of protocol, the archives, a bureau of metal testing and of charts and measurements, a chemical laboratory and a mineralogical cabinet.

     During the years of Swedenborg's attendance, the sessions of the College usually commenced in September, and were continued uninterruptedly until the middle of July. During the summer months, some of the Assessors were frequently engaged on a tour of inspection among the mines, and there was usually a recess of from one to two weeks at Christmas. The College met every weekday, and commenced its proceedings by calling the roll. If any member was absent, the reason was noted. By examining the roll during the whole time that Swedenborg was connected with it, an exact knowledge of his movements is to be obtained.

     The building in which this department was housed (Nr. 2 Mynttorget) is still standing, and we may mount the porticoed steps and imagine Swedenborg's arrival at about nine o'clock every morning, seeing him, as it were, in his working clothes, and as he was known to his business associates-agents, diplomats, and mine workers, proprietors, wood-cutters, iron and copper forgers-men who knew little, if anything, of his theories of cosmological vortices and brain localizations, but a great deal about his reports on forest conservation, hoisting machines, blast furnaces, the market value of sulphur, etc. In short, Swedenborg taking his part in the burden and heat of the day, toiling in the routine of his country's service.

     What, then, were the particular duties in which he participated, and what his share? As careful Minutes of every session were kept, it is possible, by a study of the records, to reconstruct Swedenborg's part in the history of the time, and to bring him a little nearer to our own lives, for our profit and enjoyment. But it is necessary to examine over a hundred volumes of hand-written records, page by page, and most of the information appears exceedingly dry, technical and unprofitable at first.

     This Board of seven men regulated prices, and controlled the taxes on mining which brought a large income to the Crown. It had to give permission for the opening of new mines and the establishment of new forges.

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Every additional building, even of a shack, was passed upon by this Board, and the introduction of new machines was under its supervision. The College decided where charcoal was to be taken from, who was to be permitted the coaling of a certain district, and who forbidden. Tax-free enterprises were often in dispute with government interests, and all such cases required voluminous discussion, and often ran on for many years. The slightest disturbance affecting a miner was under the jurisdiction of the Board and its officers. If the servant of a smelter quarreled with someone, the case was not tried by a civil court, but by a mining court. Swedenborg participated in such matters, and in one instance a suit of his own came up for settlement.

     A very careful eye was kept on the quality of iron produced, and particularly on that exported to other countries. Thus the testing of iron bars, to see whether they were red-short or cold-short (brittle because of too high a sulphur or Phosphorous content, and therefore unacceptable) was a "side job" often relegated to our Assessor.

     But his most valuable contribution was undoubtedly the carrying out of commissions to the various Mining Districts during the Summer. Seven such commissions are recorded, his reports often covering several hundreds of pages. Minute statements of receipts and expenditures were handed in, and many of these statements are extant. We can follow him in imagination day by day, driving miles and miles through interminable forests, on horse or in carriage, stopping at inns and farms for food, examining charcoal burners in their lonely huts, or holding meetings with the local agents and owners in a country school house, settling small difficulties, making recommendations as to new appointments, explaining mining statutes to the people, even taking an interest in the establishment of orphanages for the children of miners; often risking his life in steep descents into the gloomy subterranean caverns where imperfect shafts and rude ladders made it very dangerous for one not daily accustomed to them.

     At some future day, when learned men have been inspired to study these apparently dry documents, much may be brought to light concerning Swedenborg's breadth of vision and large human sympathy, as well as the evidences of his humility. But we may well ask: Was all this a good training for one who was to be introduced into the subtlest laws of the world and of human nature, for one who was to understand the heart of humanity, its evil and its good impulses, its strength and its weaknesses?

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I believe it was an unequaled school.

     The uses Swedenborg performed as Assessor were not the sole product of his business activity. A man's forensic occupation is but a preparation for his real internal use to humanity-his spiritual use. How manifestly was this the case with Swedenborg,-that Servant of the Lord, called by angelic spirits "The Marvel!" It was only a drill, a practice. And, among the qualities of natural efficiency gained, we may note these, for example: The ability to collect information, to get the essential facts of a given situation; the faculty of truthful observation, so necessary to the reporter of the Memorabilia; to say nothing of the practice in travel and printing that was afforded him.

     We have referred to his knowledge of human nature, and his ability to meet and work with other people. The Spiritual Diary contains many accounts of the very men with whom he sat in daily council in the College of Mines and travelled with on summer excursions, and whom he met in the spiritual world after their decease. He knew the natural lives of these business companions exceedingly well, and their reputation before the world,-Swab, Schonstrom, Cederstedt, and others, whose names mean very little to us until we know of Swedenborg's associations with them while they lived in this world.

     Gustaf Benzelstierna, he notes, "poured forth venomous sarcasms from habit," and was surrounded by a peculiar papery sphere. Cederhjelm believed himself wisest of all men, and deprived others of the delight of use. In the other world he appeared to be striking a white stone with iron. But Lagerberg had such a powerful sphere of truth that he could, like Aeneas, travel through hell. Others there were who could be lifted into the heaven of innocence, and the faces of some shone resplendently in the other life.

     In reflecting upon Swedenborg's practical life we become aware of the fact that his books were largely the by-products of his leisure. Even the great Opera Philosophica et Mineralia was largely collected during his working days, although he was given leave of absence to travel for its completion and printing. Industry stands out as a shining example.

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But more interesting than all else, to my mind, is the seeing of Swedenborg as a worker in law, and in the field of justice, because it must have been the weighing and balancing of facts and opinions that developed that wonderful instrument,-his rational mind,-until it became the matrix in which the Lord brought together and re-organized the rational thoughts of men in accordance with His Own Divine Pattern, and thus built up a Key, by means of which He Himself could unlock the sealed doors of His Word, and give to the human race a Revelation of Himself on the plane of the Divine Rational.

     Not by dreamings and musings, not by mystical reasonings, but by a practical life among the problems of human beings, and by justice and judgment, was built up in the school of actuality a servant who had first loved to do his duty to an earthly king-an everyday worker. When the facts of his life shall finally have been set forth and published in their true chronological order, there will be found a sequence and progression in his experience and thought-life so wonderful and so powerful as to convince even the most indifferent of the presence of a Divine guidance therein, utterly beyond natural explanation.

     As a concluding thought it may be asked: If Swedenborg was so practical a man, how could he undertake to make people believe in so apparently an impractical thing as the golden city of the "New Jerusalem?" At the end of his long and useful life, seeing his books forbidden circulation, the teachers of his doctrines condemned and persecuted, and himself regarded at best as a visionary, was he not worried at the outcome of it all? There are evidences that he was, at times, but that the Lord kept him from reflecting upon it. At other times, maybe, he was not despondent. Perhaps it appeared to him as not impractical, but highly practical-in fact, as the only practical solution of the whole tangled problem of human existence. And it is possible that this great worker relied on the will to work in after generations-to dream, but also to work.

     He lived in an age when every turn of the spade might reveal new marvels of the earth's crust, every gaze at the heavens bring out new universes, every look through the microscope new marvels within marvels. He stood with the first few users of the scientific method, with Newton and Linnaeus at the threshold of a new era-the collecting age.

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We live in a very different era; the former is passing. The collections have now been made; science is swamped with facts; bottles upon bottles, reams upon reams, and science itself is tired, almost exhausted, in the maze of its own framing. Around us are piled the accumulations of centuries, and yet the need for the solution of the riddle is as crying as ever, because the application of spiritual laws is still to be made. This work has hardly begun. It is the open door, before whose threshold you of the new generation stand. To dream-but also to work. These two things combined are what will make a practical reality of the descent of the Heavenly City.
WAYSIDE NOTES 1927

WAYSIDE NOTES       G. A. MCQUEEN       1927

     (I have always felt that the points of criticism which have been introduced into these "Wayside Notes" should be considered entirely apart from anything local or personal, and this is why I have thought it best to conceal my name hitherto. But after several requests from the editor I have agreed to drop anonymity. And perhaps it is just as well. For one reader of the Life asked me recently whether I knew who "that Mr. A. Layman" was.-G. A. MCQUEEN.)

     VI.

     DESTROYING INNOCENCE.

     A letter appeared recently in a daily paper, written by a mother who was perplexed because of the injury being done to the minds of children by the growing custom of parodying the stories which have been the delight of young children for many generations. She had taken her little girl to a movie, where a song had been sung, "How could Red Riding Hood, etc." She describes the song as "an atrocity." At home, during the evening, the little girl indicated her state of mind by saying, "Mother, Little Red Riding Hood was a good girl, wasn't she?" Here was the beginning of the destruction of innocence in the little girl's mind, because of the perverted use of a simple nursery story.

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     INJURING IDEALS.

     The above incident brings to mind other things in which injury may be done, as by the growing practice of using words and music of classical and sacred compositions in association with ideas not intended by their authors. Not long ago, a cleverly written article appeared in a Radio journal, describing in humorous form the opera story of Faust. It was amusing, but in some parts quite objectionable. After reading this perversion of the story, it would seem to be impossible for one to follow the genuine version with the same delight as before. The real appreciation of romantic poems must be marred by the recollection of such versions.

     INCONGRUITIES

     A few months ago, there came on the air that beautiful music of the Lullaby by Godard, from the Opera Jocelyn. All the radio stations in the country seemed to be engaged in making this beautiful aria known and enjoyed by thousands who had never heard it before. Recently I heard the same music splendidly rendered by a church choir. I could not quite understand how it could be used in Divine worship, but later discovered that other words than the original song has been substituted, and that they were none other than the words of the hymn "Lead Kindly Light." My mind be came disturbed as to the wisdom of clothing that well-known hymn in a new garb. It became more disturbed when, a few days later, I heard the same music played to a Jazz dance-tune.

     It may be asked: "What of it?" My answer would be that because of the association of ideas which exist in the minds of all men and women, nothing but confusion of thought and affection can result from such changes in the use of words and music. Suppose a person was acquainted with the fact that "Lead Kindly Light" was written by a pious man of the Christian Church while he was passing through states of doubt and despair. Suppose he also knew that thousands of people, in years gone by, had found in that hymn a source of consolation when cast down in spirit. Further, suppose he knew from his own individual experience that the words and music of that hymn had helped him in times of temptation and trial as few other hymns had done, how could he help feeling mentally disturbed when hearing the words he loved set to music which had been used in other and diverse connections?

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     THE DECLINE OF REVERENCE.

     Other signs of the materialistic trend of the times are the increasing disregard of the sanctity of Holy Writ and the profane references to the Lord Himself. His words and actions are being made use of to prove to the business man the value of "service" and "efficiency" as understood by the advertising experts. It is pleasant to notice, however, that there are some in the world who have not been led away by the modern tendency to confuse the distinction between natural and spiritual things. The CHRISTIAN CENTURY says that Bruce Barton's appreciation of "Jesus as an Efficiency Expert" is "an attempt to claim the authority of Jesus for the pseudo-morality which underlies modern business enterprise."

     He asks us to trace the lives of men like George W. Perkins, Theodore. Vail, Henry Ford and the Morgan partners, and see what they accomplished by obeying His precepts! The review continues:

     "It is at this point, perhaps, that the moral obfuscation of the modern business world is most clearly revealed in Mr. Barton's book. There is something almost pathetic in the naive delight of the author in his discovery of a certain kinship between Jesus' ideals of service and the sadly diluted idealism of modern business enterprise. The great discovery of the modern business man is that a certain measure of service pays. It pays to treat a customer with consideration because he will come again. It pays to deal with workingmen with some generosity, for that increases their working capacity. It pays to do a good turn to a fellow business man, for he will send business your way. That is what all the business-men's noonday clubs mean by 'mutual helpfulness.' But where is the business man who is willing to listen to the Gospel of Jesus when it makes demands upon him which will decrease his dividends and imperil his obvious success?

     "Not by a word does he reveal a suspicion of the sincerity and integrity of modern business morality. It is this moral blindness, so typical of the whole business world, which makes the task of preaching the Gospel difficult in our day.

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The frank scorn of the nineteenth century business man for religious Principles and Christian ethics is preferable to the unconscious insincerity (for it is only rarely conscious) of the modern captain of the industry who veils the most predatory practices of industrial and commercial life with phrases of moral idealism. In the task of Christianizing business we have still to take the first step, as Mr. Barton's book proves. We have not yet come to a consciousness of guilt. Without the experience, every profession of moral idealism smacks of insincerity and sentimentality, and is bound to produce those reactions of cynicism which are so characteristic of labor opinion throughout the world."

     I have quoted the above at length, because it appears to me to be a very suggestive and clear statement of the difference between natural and spiritual principles of action. The writer may not have defined his ideas of spiritual motives, but he has made plain, what is so clearly taught in the Writings of the New Church, that the external success of the world does not necessarily result from an increase of genuine charity. Many Newchurchmen have been saying this in times past, but perhaps there are more who have not yet Seen it as dearly as the writer quoted above.
UNTIL THE MORNING 1927

UNTIL THE MORNING              1927

     At the institution of the Feast of the Passover, the Israelites were commanded to keep none of the paschal lamb until the morning (Exodus 12:10), and by this was signified that the sacrifices would cease when the Lord came into the world, whose advent was meant by "the morning." (A. C. 2405:6.) The sacrifices were, of necessity, discontinued when the Romans, in 70 A. D., destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple, where alone they might offer burnt offerings. Orthodox Jews still keep the annual Feast of the Passover by the eating of unleavened bread and other observances, but without the slaying of the paschal lamb.

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SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON NOTES 1927

SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON NOTES              1927

     LESSON NO. 33-THE TRIAL AND CRUCIFIXION.

     (Matthew 27:1-56.)

The passing of the sentence                Matt. 27:1-2
Judas repents                     :3-10
The Lord before Pilate                : 11-26
The soldiers' mockery                : 27-31
The Lord before Herod                Luke 23:6-12
Again before Pilate                     : 13-25
The Crucifixion                     Matt. 27:31-56

     We have seen how the Lord was borne away in the darkness to the palace of Caiaphas the High Priest, and tried in the night. The trial of the Lord can only be in the night-time of sin and the darkness of falsity. But now, as the dawn was breaking, the Council confirmed the sentence of death, which had already been determined upon, so as to give a legal aspect to His condemnation, and then they hurried Him to Pilate, the Roman governor, without whose sanction they could not execute the sentence of death.

     When things had gone thus far, Judas realized that his Lord would not employ miraculous power to escape, and that he had been the means of delivering Jesus to His enemies. In a wild passion of useless remorse, he brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests, saying, "I have sinned in betraying innocent blood." But their cold answer was: "What is that to us? see thou to that!" They were not interested in His innocence or guilt; it was the Lord's death they sought to accomplish, and Judas had played his part. The priests hastened to the temple, Judas following, entreating; and when they would not hearken, he cast the silver at their feet, and went and hanged himself. And the priests unwittingly fulfilled the words of the Prophet, when they took the money and bought the potter's field to bury strangers in. (Zechariah 11:12, 13.)

     When Pilate heard that Jesus was a Nazarene, he sought to shift his responsibility to the shoulders of Herod Antipas, who ruled over Galilee, and who was then in Jerusalem.

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He therefore sent Jesus to Herod, who welcomed the opportunity to see one of whom he had heard so much, and hoped that Jesus might perform a miracle in his presence. But the Lord was silent before him. This exasperated Herod, and giving vent to his cruel nature, he mocked Jesus by
putting a purple robe upon Him, and sent Him back to Pilate.

     This time Pilate sought by every device to deliver Jesus from the Jews, and offered to release Him as the criminal who was customarily set free at the Passover. But the Jews cried out: "If thou let this man go, thou art not Caesar's friend. Away with this man, and release unto us Barabbas!" Barabbas was a robber. Finally Pilate was warned by a note from his wife, which said that she had suffered many things in a dream because of Jesus, and she urged her husband to have no part in the tragedy. But he, "willing to content the people, and seeing that he could prevail nothing, took water, and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person." Then the people answered, "His blood be upon us, and on our children."

     The common soldiers then shamefully mocked Jesus, and led Him away to Calvary, or Golgotha,-the "place of a skull,"-to be crucified. As it was customary in those days to write the charge of the condemned upon his cross, Pilate had written: "Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews." The chief priests asked him to change this to "He said I am King of the Jews," but Pilate answered, "What I have written I have written." And so the glorious truth was proclaimed that all the world might read. And in this declaration, inscribed in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, the New Church finds a prophetical image of the threefold Revelation proclaiming the Lord as king,-the Hebrew of the Old Testament, the Greek of the New Testament, and the Latin of the Writings.

     On the way, the cross was transferred to the shoulders of Simon, a Cyrenian. And a great company of people, and of women, followed, bewailing and lamenting Him, to whom Jesus turned and spake: "Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but for yourselves, and for your children." And so they came to the place where they crucified Him, along with the two malefactors. At the foot of the cross, the Roman soldiers parted His garments and cast lots upon His inner vesture, while at a little distance stood Mary the mother, and the other Marys, and John, the beloved disciple.

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     To the New Churchman the death upon the cross stands as the last and most grievous of the temptation combats endured by the Lord in the world, whereby He overcame the hells and glorified His Human, for the redemption and salvation of the human race.

     LESSON NO. 34-THE RESURRECTION.

     (Matthew 28:1-15.)

The angel at the tomb                    Matt. 28:1-4
He announces that Jesus has risen           :5-7
The Lord Himself appears               :8-10
The guards bear false witness          :11-15
(See also Mark 16, Luke 24, and John 20.)

     An account of the burial of Jesus by Joseph of Arimathea, who placed the body in his own new tomb, is given in Matthew 27:57-61, and in the other Gospels. We are also told how the Pharisees asked of Pilate that he should place a guard at the tomb, and seal it up, "lest His disciples come by night, and steal Him away, and say unto the people, He is risen from the dead." By command of Pilate, this was done (Matt. 27:62-66), but in spite of the seal and the guard, "there was a great earthquake, and the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it; and for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men." This was one of the proofs that the Lord had risen as He had foretold. And it also made it possible for the Lord's followers to go to the tomb safely.

     At the dawn following the Jewish Sabbath, the women who loved Jesus came to anoint His body. (Luke 23:55, 56, 24:1, 2.) But the angel told them that He had risen from the dead, and as they departed from the sepulchre, Jesus Himself appeared to them, and told them that He would meet the disciples in Galilee, as He had promised. (Matt. 26:32) Mary Magdalene then ran to tell Peter and John, who came quickly to the sepulchre, John outrunning Peter, (even as love outruns faith), but Peter being the first to enter in and find all things as the women had said. (John 20:1-10.) They then departed and went to tell the rest of the eleven, but "Mary stood without at the sepulchre weeping," and said to the two angels who appeared to her, "They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid Him."

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Jesus then appeared to her, and she at first thought He was the gardener; but He comforted her, and she went to tell the disciples that she had seen the Lord, and that He had spoken unto her. (John 20:11-18.)

     But some of the guards had gone to tell the chief priests what had occurred, and the Jews, perceiving that they had failed to prevent the fulfilment of the Lord's prophecy of His resurrection, gave bribes to the soldiers to bear false witness, and to say that His disciples came by night, and stole Him away while they slept. And this tale is believed even to this day by those who deny the resurrection of our Lord.

     In the Easter Story there is the general lesson concerning the resurrection of man. The Lord confirmed that He had risen from the dead by His appearing and other proofs, in order that a belief in the life after death might be implanted with Christians, and taught to every rising generation. For He said, "I am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die." (John 11:25.) And He also said: "And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me." (John 12:32.) But the Lord rose by His own power, and left nothing in the sepulcher, whereas men rise only as to the spirit. In the Heavenly Doctrines we are now given full information concerning the way in which the Lord raises man after death. (See Heaven and Hell 445-452) We are also told how the angels "represented the Lord rising from the sepulcher, and at the same time the union of His Human with the Divine," and thus instructed little children in heaven. (H. H. 335)

     LESSON NO. 35-LATER APPEARANCES AND THE ASCENSION.

On the road to Emmaus               Luke 24:13-32
To the disciples at Jerusalem           :33-48
                                             John 20: 19-24
To the eleven after eight days           :24-29
At the Sea of Tiberias in Galilee          John 21:1-14
In a mountain of Galilee               Matt. 28:16-20
Ascension at Bethany                    Luke 24:50, 51

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     The disciples were not as yet confirmed as to the fact of the Lord's resurrection, and the testimony of the women to whom He had appeared seemed as "idle tales" to them. (Luke 24:11.) But He was to manifest Himself to them on a number of occasions, and thus to convince them. This He did by opening their spiritual eyes. (T. C. R. 777)

     On the afternoon of Easter Day, Cleopas and another disciple walked into the country toward the village of Emmaus, which was about six miles west of Jerusalem. Cleopas was not one of the twelve, but belonged to the band of followers who were also called "disciples." Perhaps the other disciple with him was Peter, for it is said in Luke 24:34 that the Lord had already appeared to Simon. But these two, like Mary, did not know the Lord at first, for when they saw Him "their eyes were holden." The words of the Lord's instruction to them that day are not recorded, but "beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself." This was prophetic of the day of His Second Coming, when He has opened the internal sense of the Word, and revealed the glory of His Divine Human. But the two disciples now began to understand the real purpose of the Lord's coming into the world, which was to establish His heavenly kingdom in a true church on earth. "Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into His glory?" He said to them. They were delighted with the teachings of One who seemed to be a stranger, and they constrained Him to stay with them at Emmaus. Then, in the breaking of bread, He was suddenly made known to them. The breaking of bread, as in the Holy Supper, means to receive good from the Lord; and when man receives this, he knows the Lord, and sees Him in the truth of His Word.

     Cleopas and the other disciple then returned to Jerusalem to find the other disciples, and to tell them what they had seen and beard. These they found all together, except Thomas; and as they talked, the Lord appeared in their midst, and said, "Peace be unto you!" And as they supposed they had seen a spirit, He showed them that He was fully Man, saying, "A spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have." He then instructed them, and "opened their understanding, that they might understand the Scriptures."

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     The things we have described took place on the day of the Lord's resurrection, and they are the Easter events which have always made Christian children glad when they heard them. One week later, the disciples were again gathered together, and this time Thomas was with them. He had been told of what had occurred, but his mind was filled with doubt. He had said that he would not believe unless he touched the Lord. So now again the Lord, entering the room through closed doors, stood in their midst, and said to Thomas, "Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side; and be not faithless, but believing. And Thomas answered, and said unto Him, My Lord and my God!"

     The disciples now returned to their homes in Galilee, and to their former occupations, not realizing that they had another mission to perform. Seven of them went out in a boat upon the Sea of Tiberias, and fished all night without catching anything. In the morning, the Lord appeared on the shore, and called to them to cast the net on the right side of the ship, and they did so. Now
they were not able to draw in the net for the multitude of fishes. By this was meant that they were to gather multitudes of men into the Lord's Church by preaching His Gospel from love; for He had said that they were to be "fishers of men." (Matt. 4:19.) Among the disciples in the ship were Peter and John, and when John saw Jesus upon the shore, he cried out, "It is the Lord!" Whereupon, Peter cast himself into the sea to swim to shore, while the other disciples followed in a small boat. When they reached the shore, they found a meal cooked for them, and "Jesus saith to them, Come and dine. And none of the disciples durst ask Him, Who art Thou? knowing that it was the Lord." Be also appeared t, them in a mountain of Galilee. (Matt. 28:16-20.)

     Lastly, when the disciples had returned to Jerusalem, Jesus again manifested Himself to them, and told them to remain in that city until His Holy Spirit should descend upon them, giving them power to evangelize the Gospel and do miracles in His name, for which work He had ordained them on the day of His resurrection. (John 20:22, 23.) And this descent of the Holy Spirit took Place fifty days after the resurrection, on the Day of Pentecost. (Acts 2.) It was now forty days after Jesus had risen, and leading them out I far as Bethany (see Lesson 30), "He lifted up His hands, and blessed them, and was parted from them, and carried up into Heaven." (Luke 24:50, 51.)

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LEARNING TO WALK 1927

LEARNING TO WALK       PHILIP OYLER       1927

How many times I use to fall
     When I was learning how to walk!
What funny names I used to call
     Each thing, when learning how to talk!

How many times my knees have bled!
     How many times my hands were scratched!
How often I was put to bed
     (For mischief done) but kindly watched!

How many times I still do bleed,
     Because so many times I fall
(In thought, if not in word or deed)
     And wait my selfhood's funeral!

How many scars that angels see
     Are written deeply on my hands
By lust or pride or enmity
     He understands; He understands

And knows that I repent them all,
     And knows that I should like to walk
The way He shows-without a fall-
     And knows that I should like to talk

His truth or nothing. Hence I pray
     For help to walk upright with ease,
And when I fail in any way,
     Seek His forgiveness on my knees.
PHILIP OYLER.

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SEEING GOD 1927

SEEING GOD              1927


NEW CHURCH LIFE
Office a Publication, Lancaster, Pa.
Published Monthly By
THE GENERAL CHURCH OF THE NEW JERUSALEM
BRYN ATHYN, PA.
Editor                    Rev. W. B. Caldwell, Bryn Athyn, Pa.
Business Manager          Mr. H. Hyatt, Bryn Athyn, Pa.

     All literary contributions should be sent to the Editor. Subscriptions, change of address and business communications should be sent to the Business Manager.

     TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION
In the United States, $3.00 per year; Elsewhere, $3.25 or 14 shillings; payable in advance
Single Copy          30 cents
     NOTES AND REVIEWS.

     SEEING GOD.

     The question and answer reprinted below from a New York daily newspaper bring into bold relief the fact that the present-day Christian theologian is far from accepting the Lord in His Divine Human as the visible God. The answer is written by the President of the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America, and to the Newchurchman it is a plain enunciation of the Arian and Unitarian idea "that God the Father, because He is invisible, is to be approached and worshiped, and not His Son born into the world, because He is a man and visible." (T. C. R. 154) To quote:

     "WHAT IS YOUR MENTAL PICTURE WHEN YOU PRONOUNCE THE NAME OF GOD?

     "I have no such picture, nor do I desire any. Even if I did, I could not have it. God is a spirit. He has no form, and that which has no form cannot be visualized. Herein lies the difference between matter and spirit. Matter has both location and dimensions. It can be weighed and measured. Hence it can be visualized. Spirit, on the other hand, does not occupy space. One can neither locate, weigh nor measure it.

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In the nature of the case, a mental picture of the Deity is impossible.

     "How, then, can we define His being? Solely in terms of its activity. None ever saw a human consciousness. Yet none rejects the consciousness whose activity he or she experiences daily, or desires to be separated from the consequences of that activity in others. Who questions the existence of the benefits of human consciousness in the psalmists, the prophets and the saints?

     "'No man,' says the Bible, 'hath seen God at any time.' But we believe in Him because we experience His activity, and through its results in our grace and blessedness we define His being. This is a perfectly legitimate method. It applies to many things besides the mystery of God. We do not demand a mental picture of electricity before we use it. We know it as an omnipresent force harnessed to our service, illuminating our homes and furnishing power for our transit facilities. We also know God through Christ as an infinite and benevolent Father, the radiant emissions of whose nature vindicate our Lord's teachings and also our faith in His omnipotent love." (Dr. S. Parkes Cadman in NEW YORK HERALD TRIBUNE, Feb. 16, 1927.)

     The writer of the answer forbears to complete the Gospel verse, "No man hath seen God at any time; the Only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him." (John 1:18.) Instead, as a kind of afterthought, he adds: "We also know God through Christ, . . . " Surely this must be eminently unsatisfying to his questioner, if he happen to know the familiar words found later in John: "If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also and from henceforth ye know Him, and have seen Him. Philip saith unto Him, Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us. Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?" (John 14:7-9.)

     It is the naturalism and materialism which have invaded theological thought today that would seek to satisfy the modern Philip by asking him to think of God as invisible "activity." But this error is clearly pictured in the words of our Doctrine:

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"Unless God be approached in thought as Man, all idea concerning God perishes; it falls like the sight into the universe, thus into empty nothing, or into nature, or into what is met (obvia) within nature." (T. C. R. 538.) In other words, in the degree that men would make God an invisible Spirit without form, an abstract activity, in that degree their thought falls into nature, because separated from those Divinely Human qualities which alone the human mind can ascribe to God, and picture as God in the Human Form. It is true that the Infinite, in Itself, is invisible; but the Infinite became visible in the Lord Jesus Christi-to the spiritual thought of men in the Divine Truths of the Heavenly Doctrine, and to the natural thought of men in the Lord as He appeared in the world, as He appeared to His disciples after He arose, and as His image is preserved in the Gospel.

     "The ideas of thought can be fixed and determined to the invisible God, when they are determined to the Lord, who is the visible God; and thus man can be conjoined to the invisible God in thought and affection, consequently in faith and love, when he is conjoined to the Lord; but not otherwise." (A. C. 9972.)
PROTESTANT CONFESSIONAL PROPOSED. 1927

PROTESTANT CONFESSIONAL PROPOSED.              1927

     In a recent address, the Rev. Harry Emerson Fosdick, of the Park Avenue Baptist Church, New York, advocated the establishment of confessionals in Protestant churches, such as he says he has maintained in his own church for six years, in order that "sick souls" may receive advice and comfort. When Protestantism threw this institution of the Catholic Church "out of the back door," he said, much of the personal touch that went with it was lost. In consequence, great numbers of people in trouble, instead of unburdening their minds to their pastors, who might influence them for good, now seek the more than doubtful gain of confession in the office of a psychoanalyst. "The physician and the lawyer have their offices," said Mr. Fosdick, "and why should not the clergyman have his office for ministering to sick souls?"

     In reacting against the Catholic abuses, it would seem that Protestants, in this as in other matters, threw away both the abuse and the use.

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Still, it has never been entirely out of fashion to "tell one's troubles" to the pastor. But it is to be feared that many today prefer to "betake themselves to familiar spirits," and to go to the psychoanalyst, the fortune-teller, and other quackeries. In the New Church, a rational doctrine encourages individual communing with God-with "the Father in secret"-and the practice of going to Him in Divine Revelation for spiritual light upon the way of life, to be followed by self-examination, acknowledgment and confession of sin before the Lord, and supplication for His aid in repentance. This the Writings denote as a "spiritual" mode of confession. And we may see that, with the rational adult, it begets more of self-reliance-or reliance upon the Lord Himself-in time of trouble, and less of dependence upon human aids. Yet what New Churchman has not benefited by the "personal touch" with his pastor, and by counselling with his fellow New Churchmen?

     The Heavenly Doctrine, while teaching the way of a spiritual confession, and pointing out the futility of "enumerating one's sins," as in the old Confessional, adds this: "Still it does no harm for one burdened in conscience to enumerate his sins before a minister of the church, in order to lighten his burden and obtain absolution; because he is thereby initiated into a, habit of examining him- self and reflecting upon each day's evils. But this kind of confession is natural, while that described above is spiritual." (T. C. R. 539.)
ARE THE WRITINGS HARD TO READ? 1927

ARE THE WRITINGS HARD TO READ?       GEORGE H. DICKS       1927

     That the way to heaven is not as difficult as some believe, is one of the comforting assurances of the Heavenly Doctrine. (H. H. 528.) So, too, repentance is said to be easy for those who practice it, and hard for those who do not. (T. C. R. 561.) It would seem to be similar with the pleasant and profitable habit of reading the Writings of the New Church. Once started, the supposed difficulty gives place to a delight which makes it one of the chief joys of life. "The newspapers put me to sleep, but the Writings keep me awake," one said to us recently. Like testimony is given in the following:

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     A READING CHURCH A STRONG CHURCH.

     Editor of NEW-CHURCH HERALD:
     I have always entertained the idea that the Writings were too difficult to read in the way one would read other books, such as our collateral literature, and this idea would seem to be very prevalent among New Church people. Having need to find references to a certain subject, I commenced, as usual, to use the Index to the Arcana Celestia. However, it ended in my reading the first volume of A. C., and this has proved such an interesting experience that I have now gone on with the wonderful story there revealed, having reached the eighth volume with ever-increasing delight. And now I am wondering where the idea of 'difficulty' in reading the Writings arose. I am sure that a reading Church would not only be strong, but also very happy. I heartily commend the Arcana Celestia to all. Once commenced, it will prove its own attraction. . . .

          GEORGE H. DICKS.
          New-Church Herald, 1927, P. 74]
CORRECTION 1927

CORRECTION              1927

     In our February issue (p. 102) appeared a notice of the Dutch translation of the Rev. Theodore Pitcairn's volume, The Book Sealed with Seven Seals, but we are informed by the Rev. Ernst Pfeiffer that he was not the translator, as we stated, but that it was the work of Mr. Anton Zelling. As recorded in our last number, Mr. Zelling is also engaged upon a translation of the Arcana Celestia into Dutch, the first volume of which has been published by The Swedenborg Society at The Hague.

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FURTHER CONCERNING ORGANIC EVOLUTION 1927

FURTHER CONCERNING ORGANIC EVOLUTION       ARTHUR B. WELLS       1927

Editor of NEW CHURCH LIFE:
     The Rev. W. H. Alden's review of Prof. George McCready Price's book, The Phantom of Organic Evolution, in your January issue, brought to my mind some statements concerning the author of that work which were published in the Magazine SCIENCE (June 30, 1922, and February 19, 1926, pp. 196-199), showing that he is not in good standing with scientists generally. What Prof. Price has to say about the "Deluge of the Scriptures" calls to mind what is said in A. C. 662: "No deluge is here meant, still less a universal deluge, but the expiring or suffocation of those who were there, when they were separated from remains, and thus from heaven."

     In regard to the universal evidence of degeneration since man first appeared, it is well to consider that the horse appears to have developed from smaller ancestors, and that there appears to have been a rise and fall in development and numbers of all the great groups of plants and animals, starting with the less highly organized plants and animals, and ending with those most highly organized. The history of mankind shows a similar rise and fall of Churches and nations.

     Mr. Alden's quotation from T. C. R. 78-"In your world they were created in like manner in the beginning"-according to the angel who spoke with Swedenborg about creation, would give the casual reader the idea of an instantaneous creation from the atmosphere; but unless this means the instantaneous creation of new souls in matrices fitted for their reception, and analogous to the
conception of our Lord, the teaching seems contrary to order and sound reason.
     Sincerely yours,
          ARTHUR B. WELLS.
               ALICIA, MICH., Feb. 13, 1927.

250


Church News 1927

Church News       Various       1927

     STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN.

     Swedenborg's Birthday was celebrated with a social held in the reception rooms of the Self-supporting Women's Association. Our Society had secured this attractive place for the evening, and Miss Nordenskiold, who resides there, acted as hostess; After the arrival of the guests, Miss Hakansson sang several songs in her usual charming way. Refreshments were served, and then Mr. Baeckstrom introduced the first speaker of the evening, Miss Nordenskiold, who gave a view of Swedenborg's mission based largely upon Mr. Victor Cooper's article, "Swedenborg-the Apostle of the New Church," which appeared in the January Life. Mr. Baeckstrom himself then traced Swedenborg's development from scientist and philosopher to prophet and seer, which was of special interest to us because he expected to repeat the talk by radio at Oslo, Norway, the first time in this part of the world that a New Churchman would have the opportunity to address thousands and thousands of listeners. It is due to the success of his recent visit to Oslo (New Church Life, February, 1921, p. l16) that this opportunity to use the radio is afforded him. In this talk to us, Mr. Baeckstrom gave a brief and impartial account of Swedenborg's general development, and finished by setting forth the chief points of his theology.

     Then Mr. Torsten Sigstedt, with the aid of an elaborate chart, outlined his interesting and original ideas on the subject of the Breastplate of Aaron. And finally, Mr. Smart spoke of the New Churchman's duty to make known the truths he has accepted, and not to hide them for fear of the opinions of others. Especially should he defend the doctrine of the Divinity of the Lord,-a doctrine to which the ministers of the State Church are opposed.

     Mr. Bertram Liden concluded the speeches by reminding the members of their obligations to the Church-subscriptions and contributions-and offered as usual to forward contributions to the General Church. He then warmly thanked Mr. Baeckstrom for his wonderful work in the Lord's service, and asked everyone present to join in a loud cheer, which was promptly and clamorously done. The participants in this simple but dignified celebration of Swedenborg's Birthday congratulated themselves upon the pleasure it had been to meet on this memorable day.
      S. C.

     DURBAN, SOUTH AFRICA.

     On Christmas Eve, at 4 o'clock, a children's service was held in the church, which looked lovely with its decorations of green boughs and flowers. In the evening, Theta Alpha gave the Christmas Festival to the children in our new Hall. Four tableaux were presented. The first was a Prophecy from Isaiah, "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings!"

     This was represented by an angel. The second was the Meeting of Mary Elizabeth, while a hidden voice sang the "Magnificat." The third was the Angel Appearing to the Shepherds. The fourth was the always wonderful Nativity, with the Wise Men bringing gifts. The hidden quartet sang music from "The Christ Child" throughout the tableaux. Some fine lighting effects were achieved, and these will grow even better from year to year as we gather more equipment. After the tableaux, and the singing of Christmas songs, came the giving of fruit and nuts to the children. We had no Representation this year, but are hoping to do great things next year. On Saturday morning at 9 o'clock, the usual Christmas service was held, and on Sunday the Holy Supper was administered.

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     And now the January holidays are here. As many as can, have gone away to the seaside or elsewhere. All church activities will be resumed in February.
     V. H. R.

     REPORT OF THE VISITING PASTOR.

     On my way home from the annual meeting at Bryn Athyn, I visited MIDDLEPORT, OHIO, arriving on Wednesday, February 9th. Preceding Sunday, two evening doctrinal classes were held, and instruction was given the children on two afternoons. On Sunday, notwithstanding rain and bad country roads, there was an attendance of seventeen at services, of whom eleven partook of the Holy Supper. Afterwards all went to the home of Mr. and Mrs. P. A. Thomas for a social dinner. This delightful event seems to have become an established custom. In the latter part of the afternoon we had a doctrinal class. At the three classes the subjects were: 1st, the living sun and the dead sun, and their relation; 2d, that the external man is essentially such as is the internal, even when the internal is evil and the external apparently good; 3d,-the relation of the sense of the letter of the Word to the internal senses. As always at Middleport, there was a live and affectionate interest in the teachings of the Heavenly Doctrines.     
     F. E. WAELCHLI.

     TORONTO, CANADA.

     We wish to correct an error in our notes as published in the January issue of the Life. The late Mrs. S. Jesseman left three children, not four, as stated therein.

     Our Christmas celebrations this year were particularly enjoyable, not so much because of any new features, but rather because of the endeavor that is made each year to progress in the understanding of what Christmas means. The children's festival, on the evening of December 23d, followed pretty much the usual lines, but the Representation of the Nativity was improved by the addition of certain structural features which we had not had previously. This Representation is always a source of wonder and delight, especially to the younger children, and there are always a few who see it for the first time.

     We had two tableaux this year: "No Room in the Inn," and "The Nativity." Both were given "still" and "in action," but without any spoken word on the part of the participants. "No Room in the Inn" presented a somewhat smug and satisfied innkeeper, obviously pleased with the fact that there was "no room," the merchant preoccupied with the sale of his jewels, and the pedlar of his wares, whilst an argumentative lawyer was seeking to convince an unbelieving Pharisee of the justice of his client's case, the while Joseph and Mary were supplicating the innkeeper for the "room" they so much needed, whilst a little boy, representative of the state of innocence, accompanying a maid carrying her water pitcher, looked on in awe and wonder, and, when Mary turned to leave the inn, ran after her, clutching her dress, as if he alone, sensing her dire need; would have her stay. The "Nativity, as to personnel, followed the usual lines, with the exception that this year the Shepherds were depicted as arriving at the stable of the inn, in their search for the Child that was to be born in Bethlehem of Judea, and, finding the object of their search, prostrated themselves at the manger in humble adoration and worship. These tableaux, with the scenario written and read by our Pastor, and accompanied by suitable music, were very beautiful and impressive.

     The finale came with the Christmas tree all beautifully decorated with multicolored lights and jewels, and loaded with its gifts for 55 children, who danced and sang about it in the joyous abandon of their age. Miss Dora Brown told them a delightful story appropriate to the occasion, and it was sufficiently entrancing to hold them even from the Christmas Tree.

     Our Pastor gave us sermons and addresses suited to the Advent season, beginning on December 19th with a preparatory sermon on "Benjamin and David, a Spiritual Parallel."

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On Christmas Day, at a carol service, his subject was, "Bethlehem," based on the invitation, "Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us." On Sunday, December 26, the subject of his sermon was "The Saving Idea." (John 6:33.) Timely, fitting and appropriate, was the instruction in all these discourses on the purpose end significance of the Lord's Advent, with their exhortation and appeal to the things of the spirit.

     The sphere of Christmas was added to by several visitors this year. We had Mr. and Mrs. Percy Brown and family from Pittsburgh, and Miss Vera Craigie, and Mr. A. F. Lyman, from Bryn Athyn. We were glad to see them all, and to hear from them about the doings in their respective centers.

     On New Year's Eve, we gathered at the church for the purpose of bidding adieu to the Old Year and welcoming the New Year. A delightful supper, of which hot roast beef was the chef-d'oeuvre, was provided by the committee in charge, the speeches being by the Rev. H. L. Odhner, "Survey of Events of the Sear in the World at Large and in the Church"; by Miss Sigrid C. Odhner, "Swedenborg, the Man," which gave the speaker an opportunity to relate an interesting account of her recent visit to Sweden, and which was much enjoyed; Mr. E. Craigie, "The Promise of the New Year"; and Mr. D. McMaster, "Young People's Activities." A short dance, including a spirited demonstration of a couple of old-time dances by some of our "old-timers," carol singing and conversation, occupied the rest of the evening, until adjournment was made to the chapel for a brief period of worship at which the Pastor addressed us on the text, "We spend our years as a tale that is told " (Psalm 90:9), closing his New Year Message with these words: "Our duty and our opportunity, now and always, lies in the present; and our prayer should be that of Moses, the man of God, who, with a sense of humility, asked for power wisely to dispose of heeling time, to order his days for true spiritual uses, which last beyond the grave, that the natural periods of life may come to represent spiritual slates of life."

     Swedenborg's Birthday celebration this year took the form of the time-honored banquet or supper. Mr. F. Wilson was toastmaster, and Mr. Alec Craigie the speaker. His subject was "Swedenborg." He (the speaker) appeared before us with a voluminous sheaf of notes which betokened a speech of some length, in addition to which several of the gentlemen at the tables had ominous looking volumes in front of them predicating the possibilities of much speechifying. The toastmaster, in opening the proceedings, took occasion to congratulate the large audience present on the sustained interest displayed each year at this celebration of Our honored subject. It was a jovial good-humored crowd, and the toastmaster saw nothing to indicate that anything of an untoward nature was brewing. Mr. Craigie proceeded to dispose of the voluminous sheets of his speech at the rate of something like one every half-minute or so, and was doing very nicely, when an ill-timed interruption came in the form of a request to voice an objection, which was promptly squelched by the chairman, only to have it repeated two or three minutes later. This time the chairman gave the objector an opportunity to air his grievance, which he proceeded to do, stating that he had been hearing this "old stuff" ever since his first year in school, something like thirty years ago now, and thought it time we had something new! As there were other interjections of a like nature, the chair intimated that opportunity would be given later for all and sundry to have their innings, and Mr. Craigie then proceeded with his speech, which, despite the fact of its being "old stuff," was put very interestingly, and delivered with remarkable celerity, considering the volume of his notes. He occupied not more than ten minutes.

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At this point a series of fifty-two questions on Swedenborg and his times were distributed, the meeting resolved into a class, the Pastor was appointed schoolmaster, and immediately proceeded to catechize the class on the questions. Not all were able to answer the particular question they happened to have drawn, and in certain cases the merriment caused was loud and long at the inability of "old-timers" to answer, even though it was so-called "old stuff." So well did the ruse work that a little explaining had to be done afterwards. The balance of the evening was spent in progressive bridge and euchre.

     Mr. John Parker, who recently came to us from England, and who was with the General Church Mission in South Africa for some time, has packed his bag and moved to St. Catherines, Ont. "John," as he had come to be known amongst us, entered most cordially into all our activities. We miss Ms cheery presence from our midst, and hope he will be back again before long.

     It is our pleasure to record the announcement, on December 24 last, of the engagement of Miss Pearl Hickman, of Toronto, to Mr. Wilfred Schnarr, of Kitchener.

     CHICAGO, ILL.

     On Friday, February 25th, instead of the usual doctrinal class, our pastor gave us a full account of the recent Council Meetings in Bryn Athyn, and a description of the additions to the Cathedral now in course of erection. We were enthused to bear of the proposed meeting of the General Assembly in London, and have begun to save our pennies for the journey across the ocean. Mr. and Mrs. Gladish spent a very delightful two weeks in Bryn Athyn. On the Sunday of the pastor's absence, Dr. Farrington read the service and an excellent sermon.

     Mrs. Theodore Bellinger and her daughter, Celia, have been visiting at the home of Dr. and Mrs. Farrington, where a reception was given for them, affording us an opportunity to hear very interesting accounts of their recent stay among the New Church friends in England.

     On Lincoln's Birthday, Mrs. John Headsten and some of the other New Church ladies in her home gave a successful Five Hundred Party. There were fifty present, and the mode of serving the refreshments occasioned much merriment, as we were told to order by guesswork from a menu. The "Extra Special" was the last item, and proved to be the real luncheon. Miss Eugenie Headsten was the moving spirit of the party.
     E. V. W.

     REV. THOMAS A. KING.

     The New-Church Messenger for February 23, 1927, is a memorial number to the Rev. Thomas Allibone King, who died in Jacksonville, Florida, on January 12th, after a prolonged illness following a stroke of paralysis in 1925. Born in 1856, he first learned of the Doctrines of the New Church while a student for the Methodist ministry, in which he served for a time after his graduation, but was later baptized into the New Church by the Rev. Jabez Fox. His first pastorate was with the Baltimore Society, from 1881 to 1893, when he went to Chicago and preached for the various parishes connected with the Chicago Society, more especially at Englewood. It was while here that he went into the Episcopal Church, "being persuaded to attempt a larger appeal," but afterwards returned to the New Church, and shortly went to Cleveland, accepting a call to the pastorate at Lakewood in 1903. The Society then had seventeen members, including children, but under his ministrations it grew to its present membership of 171. During this period, he was instrumental in the building of churches both at Lakewood and Cleveland.

     Dr. King was noted for his eloquent expositions of the Word in the light of the spiritual sense. As said by his biographer in this number of the Messenger, he was "always a missionary and a builder. Having a clear doctrinal knowledge, a delightful pulpit appeal, and an amiable and entertaining personality, he made an easy approach to all classes."

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     TORONTO, CANADA.

     The Day School is progressing nicely, the pupils this year ranging from "first to senior third"-or, as will be better understood by our New Church friends to the South-from first to sixth grades. A distinctly encouraging feature this year is that a kindergarten class has recently been started, into which has come a group of "eight perfect darlings, bright as dollars," as the teacher describes them. This class is only for one afternoon a week, and has been made possible by Mrs. C. R. Brown's taking the school in Literature and Dramatics, and Mrs. F. R. Longstaff in Physical Culture for that afternoon. This group of eight children will, it is expected, come into the primary grade of the school next September, and it was felt desirable to get them used to the sphere of group activity and school disciple before that time. Hence a half-day kindergarten class, small, 'tis true, but eminently worthwhile.

     The outstanding social event of the season so far was that staged under the auspices of the Theta Alpha Chapter on Friday evening, February 25th, when the scene from David Cooperfield portraying David's running away from his "kind and indulgent Uncle, Mr. Murdstone," and his equally "kind and gentle sister," to his somewhat irascible but withal kind-hearted aunt " Betsy Trotwood,"-whose pet aversion seems to have been "donkey's trampling over her lawn,"-was "put on" with much aplomb and histrionic ability. Not less successful was the presentation of selections from The Mikado,-that ever fresh and delightful production of Gilbert and Sullivan's; the characters imbibing and giving something of the verve and spirit of its catchy, lilting music; the Mikado and Ko-ko making good use of their encores to get across some capital topical stuff.

     It is difficult and perhaps unnecessary to name any particular individuals contributing to this most successful entertainment, where all concerned gave of their best. They are amply rewarded by the encomiums showered upon them by the audience, many of whom declared it to be the best amateur performance they had ever seen. The Toronto Chapter of Theta Alpha are certainly to be congratulated on their "nerve" and resourcefulness in putting on a show of this caliber within six weeks of its inception, and with the limited material at command. We trust their coffers were well replenished thereby, to enable them to continue the excellent use they are performing for and amongst the young girls of the Society along educational lines.

     Our Pastor reported successful and inspiring annual meetings of the Councils and Faculty in Bryn Athyn, and that the next General Assembly will be held in London, England, by invitation of the Michael Church, to whom we extend our hearty congratulations and best wishes for a successful fruition of their courageous and spirited undertaking.
     F. W.

     HOLLAND.

     The leading newspaper at The Hague recently printed the following favorable notice:

     "The Swedenborg Society of The Hague has just published a Dutch translation of a book by the American priest, the Rev. Theodore Pitcairn, bearing the title, The Book Sealed with Seven Seals. The writer says in the book: 'Swedenborg was universally honored for his works of philosophy and science, and particularly on account of his masterful works on cosmology and anatomy. He was a venerable man, well beyond fifty years of age, when he first declared to the world that he had been called to his holy mission as revelator. He sought for no personal following, nor did he attempt to organize a church, although he foretold that a church would be established on the basis of what was written by him.'"

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     The notice then continues: "In this book, Mr. Pitcairn will prove that what Swedenborg says about his mission is a real fact, and that the evidence is more than sufficient to all who are thirsting for the truth which the Lord has revealed in his Writings,-the ultimate truths of Religion for which men so long have sought. After treating of the work entitled The Apocalypse Revealed, and of Swedenborg's communication with angels and spirits, a description of heaven and hell, and of the resurrection, is quoted from the book, Heaven and Hell. A reproduction of a drawing of the Rev. Theodore Pitcairn by Philippe Smit is printed as the frontispiece of this little book, which we believe will awaken the interest of the public in the evidence of the occult it presents."

     THE ADVERSARIA IN ENGLISH.

     Our readers will rejoice to hear that the first volume of the Rev. Alfred Acton's English version of the Adversaria is now ready to be sent to the printer, and should be on sale before many months have passed. This edition, however, will discard the title "Adversaria," and will adopt the title given to the work by Swedenborg himself,-"The Word of the Old Testament Explained. The excerpts from the new translation which have been printed from time to time in New Church Life have furnished our readers with a foretaste of the interesting and valuable contents of this important work, which heretofore has been inaccessible to any but readers of the original Latin. The English edition will, it is expected, comprise seven volumes, and these will be published by The Academy of the New Church, appearing one at a time until completed. By this arrangement, those who wish to read the whole work should be able to do so without interruption.

     SUNDRY NEWS ITEMS.

     The Methodist View.

     In an article entitled "The Passion and the Cross," published in the Methodist Review for March, 1927, Mr. Frederick M. Billings, a New Churchman residing in New York City, sets forth the true idea of the Lord's Incarnation and Redemption according to our Doctrine, and closes with a quotation from the Canons (chapter x) treating of the unity of Father and Son, or of the Divine and the Human, in the Person of Jesus Christ. An editorial note is appended in which the Editor of the Review says in part: "This article will perhaps interest many of our readers as a Swedenborgian view of the Person of Christ. There have been a few prominent Methodists who have also held this view of the absolute personal unity of the Eternal God with Jesus Christ, but not many, and perhaps none at present."

     DEATH OF DR. DELTENRE.

     We learn by cablegram that the Rev. Ernst Deltenre, Pastor of the General Church Society at Brussels, Belgium, passed into the spiritual world on March 15th, after a long illness. Besides maintaining Sunday services in Brussels, Dr. Deltenre has devoted himself in recent years to the editing and publication of the magazine, La Nouvelle Jerusalem, which has performed a worldwide use among New Churchmen who read the French language. A biographical account of Dr. Deltenre will appear in an early issue of New Church Life.

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HOUSEKEEPER WANTED 1927

HOUSEKEEPER WANTED              1927




     Announcements.


     The position of Housekeeper for the Dining Hall of the Academy of the New Church will be open September 1st, 1927. The work requires the planning and supervising of the preparation of meals for 70 to 100 students and teachers. Apply to L. E. GYLLENHAAL, Treasurer, Bryn Athyn, Pa.
NEW CHURCH SERMONS 1927

NEW CHURCH SERMONS              1927

     Expounding the Scriptures in the Light of the Heavenly Doctrine of the New Jerusalem.

     Selected Discourses by Ministers of the General Church. Suitable for individual reading, and for use in family worship and other services, as well as for missionary purposes.
PAMPHLET ISSUED MONTHLY FROM OCTOBER TO JUNE INCLUSIVE 1927

PAMPHLET ISSUED MONTHLY FROM OCTOBER TO JUNE INCLUSIVE              1927

     Sent free of charge to any address on application to Mr. H. Hyatt, Bryn Athyn, Pa.

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FACING OF THE TABERNACLE AND TEMPLE 1927

FACING OF THE TABERNACLE AND TEMPLE       Rev. THEODORE PITCAIRN       1927


NEW CHURCH LIFE
VOL. XLVII          MAY, 1927           No. 4
     New Churchmen are familiar with the teaching that the Lord appears in the east of the spiritual world, and that those who are in an inmost love of Him, being nearest to Him, have their homes in the eastern quarter of heaven. We are also familiar with the teaching that all the angels of heaven turn their faces to the east, because the Lord is there. In the work on Heaven and Hell, Swedenborg describes a temple in heaven where he attended worship, and both the door and the pulpit were in the east. (H. H. 223.) Because of the teaching that the Lord is in the east, the New Church has followed the Christian practice of placing the high altar in the direction of the rising sun.

     It is rather surprising, therefore, to find that the Holy of Holies in the tabernacle of the Children of Israel was in the west, and the entrance in the east, and also that the sanctuary of the temple at Jerusalem was in the west, and the great gate of the temple in the east. It is also surprising to find that in Egypt, where there was a knowledge of correspondences, and especially a knowledge of the spiritual sun, that the inmost shrine of a temple was sometime; in the west, while the doorway faced toward the east.

     New Churchmen, from the earliest times, have noted that there was a reversal of direction in the Jewish temple, and it was usually explained that, before the advent of the Lord, the representative Churches could not face the Lord in His glorified Human,-the East Itself,-but that they faced the west, which was, as it were, the shadow of the Lord to come. This explanation, however, is not wholly satisfactory, as it does not account for the fact that, in the Nunc Licet temple in heaven, which represented the New Church, the Word lay on a pulpit at the south toward the west. (T. C. R. 508)

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Nor does it take into consideration that the Gate of the Jewish temple was open toward the east, in order that the glory of the Lord might enter and fill the temple, as is said by the prophet Ezekiel; "He brought me to the gate of the temple, that looketh toward the east. And, behold, the glory of the God of Israel came from the way of the east. . . . And the glory of the Lord came into the house by the way of the gate whose prospect was toward the east."(Ch. 43:1-5.)

     In explanation of this passage in Ezekiel, we read in the Apocalypse Explained: "It is here treating of the construction of a new temple, by which is signified a new church to be raised up by the Lord; and because introduction is effected by means of the good of love to the Lord and truth from that good, there was seen a 'gate which looked toward the east, and the God of Israel coming from the way of the east.' By the 'gate' is signified introduction and entrance, and by the 'God of Israel' is meant the Lord. The 'east' is the good of love from Him to Him, and by 'glory' truth from that good. For the Lord enters into heaven, and thence into the church, from His Divine Love, which in the heavens appears as a sun." (A. E. 422:8) It is Clear from this statement that the orientation of the Jewish temple toward the east was for the sake of the entrance of the Lord, although the inmost shrine was on the other side of the building. The same was true of the Egyptian temple we have mentioned; for it was so designed that on a special day in the year the beams of the rising sun shone through the temple even to its inmost shrine, lighting it with its glory.

     Now the tabernacle and temple were representative of the human form. In this connection, let us note that the cerebellum, or the celestial part of the brain, is in the back of the head. In heaven, the face is toward the east, and the back of the head would be toward the west. Yet we cannot say that the cerebellum faces the west, because influx into this brain is through the front brain, the cerebrum, which receives its impressions primarily from the face, and thus looks toward the east.

     The question arises, If it is according to the human form upon which the tabernacle was based that the Holy of Holies was placed in the west, have we of the New Church made a mistake in placing our chancels in the east of our places of worship?

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The temple described in Heaven and Hell 223 seems to dispel any doubt in this matter; for if the angels face the east in their worship, the men of the New Church should do likewise. What, then, is the explanation of the reversal in position between the ancient temple and that of the New Church?

     In the first place, it should be noticed that the function of the ancient temple was quite different from that of the modern church building. The ancient temple was representative of the Lord's Divine Human, and it was not a place for a congregation to worship in. When the Lord glorified His Human, He Himself became present in the world in ultimates, and it was therefore unnecessary for Him to have the same kind of representative presence, according to the words of John in Revelation: "And I saw no temple therein; for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it."

     Secondly, let us note that the Divine influx enters man by two ways-directly into the soul, and from without through the Word. The way of interior influx is especially into the cerebellum, the small hinder brain, through which the Lord operates unconsciously to the man. According to the appearance in the spiritual world, and according to the conscious perception of the angels, the Lord is in the east, and teaches them from the east: but, inmostly regarded, the Lord is not in the east, but is everywhere present. He does not inflow from the east through the soul into the cerebellum, but from His universal presence,-a presence which is unconscious to man.

     Now the Israelitish tabernacle was made according to the pattern of one in use in the Most Ancient Church, which was celestial, and in truth it marvelously represented that Church. (C. L. 75:8) The most ancient people did not learn the Ten Commandments as we do, but they were "written in their hearts." And by "heart" in the Word is meant the same as by the cerebellum. (A. C. 96702.) The presence of the Lord with the most ancient people was primarily through the cerebellum, and not as teaching from the east, which fact is beautifully represented in the tabernacle by the placing of the ark in the darkness of its inner recesses.

     After the fall, the inner way of the Divine influx into man was partly closed, and the Lord now enters to regenerate man by the outer way through the Word.

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He does not manifest Himself to us by means of perceptions, as in most ancient times, but enters the mind from without. This is graphically depicted in the vision of Ezekiel, which, as before shown, represented the New Church: "And the glory of the Lord came into the house by the gate whose prospect was toward the east; and, behold, the glory of the Lord filled the house." When we, from love, open our minds to receive the Lord in His Second Coming, then He enters "by the east gate," and fills the Church with the glory of His Word.

     The Word with us represents the Lord's coming to us by means of revelation,-a coming to us from the east. On this account, we place the Word in the east of our temples to represent the Lord manifesting Himself to us in the sun of heaven. This is the Lord of the New Church. "And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it; for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof." (Rev. 21:23.) The Lord, as revealed in His Second Coming in the Word and the Writings, is the East of the New Church, and is the Sun which is represented by the volume of the Word upon the high altar.

     We are taught in the Heavenly Doctrine that the Lord sees the angels in the forehead, but the angels see the Lord through the eyes. (H. H. 145) This might appear to teach that the Divine influx is primarily into the cerebrum, and this is true, so far as the conscious relationship of man with God is concerned, especially since the fall. But we believe, nevertheless, that the inmost influx of God through man's human internal is primarily into the cerebellum. The representation of this inmost form of influx, as in the tabernacle, is not necessary in the New Church. For the Lord Himself is now present in His Divine Human, and is the Temple of the New Church. The church building with us is not primarily a representative, but a house of worship in which the congregation looks to their Lord and Saviour. It seems unlikely that a congregation, either in ancient or modern times, could properly face the west in its worship. For we read: "Because the Lord is the East, it was a holy observance in the representative Jewish Church, before the temple was built, to turn the face toward the east when they prayed." (A. C. 101.) And further: "The ancients, with whom the church was representative, turned the face to the sun in the east when they were in Divine worship; and it is from this that they gave their temples an aspect toward the east." (H. H. 119e. See A. C. 4288:8.)

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     Turning now to the Memorable Relation in the True Christian Religion, no. 508, which describes the temple over whose entrance the words "Nunc Licet" were written, and in which a copy of the Word was placed upon a pulpit in the south towards the west, we note that this temple, like the one of ancient times, is said to be a representation; in this case, a representation of the New Church. It is not spoken of as a house of worship, and there is no indication of a congregation facing the southwest, where the Word was placed. That the Word was in the south of this temple represents that the New Church will be in the light of spiritual intelligence. As to why the Word was in the south towards the west, we would suggest a twofold signification: First, that it signifies the presence of the Lord in the Natural, and that men will first see Him from His ultimate presence in the Divine Natural. Secondly, the Word toward the west may represent the final celestial state of man, when the Word will again be "written on the heart," that is, inscribed upon the cerebellum, or revealed to perception by the inner way of Divine influx.

     In every description given of a temple or house of worship in heaven, the entrance is in the east, as was the case with the tabernacle and temple. This seems to be one of the prime representatives, the reason being that all entrance of the Lord into man from without is from the east, and also because entrance into the church by man must be from the good of love. The fact that a person entering a temple by an east entrance is facing the west does not seem to enter into the representation. In the spiritual world, quarters are not fixed by space as in the natural world. Two angels may be facing each other, and each be facing the Lord. It is mentioned in the Writings that the wise men from the east who came to the birthplace of the Lord were spiritually traveling toward the east.

     Let men, therefore, keep their eyes looking toward the east, that they may see the glory of the Lord there. Let them keep the eastern gates of their temples open, that "the glory of the God of Israel may come from the way of the east, and that the glory of the Lord may come into the house by the way of the gate whose prospect is towards the east."

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NECESSITY OF THE SPIRITUAL IDEA 1927

NECESSITY OF THE SPIRITUAL IDEA       Rev. R. J. TILSON       1927

     "Open Thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of Thy law." (Psalm 119:18.)

     Every church is to be estimated according to its understanding of the Divine Word; and every member of the church is to be valued according to his fidelity in life to his understanding of the Word. Thus every man is expected by the Lord to live up to the Word which makes the church of which he is a professed member, and this both intellectually and practically. In other words, the members of the Lord's church should form all their principles, mold all their idea, and regulate all the actions of their lives, by the Doctrines of the Church which have been revealed by the Lord.

     Now, to His New Church the Lord has revealed the spiritual or internal sense of His Word. This, so far as it can be revealed to the rational mind of man, is given in the Writings of the Church. The duty, therefore, of every New Churchman is to endeavor, both in thought and in life, to rise to the plane of the understanding of the Word which has been made possible to the New Church. But what does this involve? Surely nothing less than this-that every idea of the mind, every wish of the heart, and every act of the life, should be in conformity with the spiritual or internal sense of the Word, which has been revealed especially for the New Church as her standard of belief and life, being drawn out of, and eternally based upon, the Letter of the Divine Word.

     And in connection with this thought it is most important that the teaching should be known and carefully reflected upon, that "the internal sense of the Word is especially for the angels, and thus is adapted to their perceptions and thoughts." (A. C. 2551.) Also, that "the internal sense is principally for angels, and for men who are angelic minds." (A. C. 3017. See also A. C. 5648.)

     The Doctrines of the New Church are "Heavenly Doctrines," because they are from heaven, and because they make one with those in heaven.

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The end for which the Lord has revealed so much concerning the life and doings of the angels is, that the man of the church might realize his associate ship with the angels, might think with them, speak interiorly with them, and live interiorly with them, even while dwelling exteriorly and physically with fellow men in this natural world. Now, is it adequately realized by those receiving the Doctrines of the New Jerusalem that it is their glorious privilege to think with the angels, and thus to speak interiorly with them, and this as the result of the fact that the Word to the New Church is its spiritual or internal sense?

     The men of the First Christian Church have been wont to appeal to men-to the early Christian Fathers-but the man of the New Church may appeal to the angels, learn their beliefs, become acquainted with their habits and customs, and share their ideas and joys. This is the New Churchman's delightful privilege, and it should be his constant effort to take advantage of it.

     But the angels are in spiritual ideas, and not in merely natural ideas. They think spiritually, will spiritually, act spiritually, and the New Churchman can, yea should, do likewise, even though he has to bring down the spiritual into the natural, as a soul into a body, or as a body into a garment. Living in a natural world, man must continually act in the natural; yet the New Churchman should not act from the natural, but should act in the natural from the spiritual. Indeed, it may be said that the proper and normal domain of the member of the Lord's New Church is the spiritual, and not the natural. And this is so, because to the man of that Church the knowledge is given that man is a spiritual being, a denizen of the spiritual world now and here, as to his real man,-his spirit. But how grossly and corporeally is this fact understood by professed members of the New Church! With many it is but a scientific,-a bare knowledge,-not spiritually understood. It is not rationally grasped that, being chiefly and really a spiritual being, man ought to see in spiritual light; in other words, ought to think spiritually; or, again, ought to be in the spiritual idea,-a phrase used very frequently in the Writings.

     Is it not common to find that even the very essential Doctrines of the Church are held only in a natural idea, conceived very naturally, understood but naturally, yea, even sensually? The Lord is thought of as merely a Person; the Word is conceived of as being a certain Book or Books; and the life of charity as being merely outward acts or deeds.

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All this is but natural thought, and is not really spiritual. And it is because this so widely obtains in the organization calling itself the New Church, that its extension is so limited, and its influence so doubtful for good.

     The New Churchman's one constant end and aim should be to attain unto "the spiritual idea," and this with no intention of being a mere idealist, an unpractical theorist, or a bigoted dreamer. On the contrary, reaching unto the spiritual idea for his principles and for his convictions, he should ultimate that idea in natural acts, in practical works, and in disinterested deeds of use.

     What, then, is the spiritual idea? And first, what is an idea, spiritually understood?

     An idea is not a mere notion, thought, or opinion. Many have notions in abundance, and opinions most numerous, and yet are devoid of any true, solid ideas. They are so abundant in opinions that they offer them most freely on every subject, and distribute them readily on every hand; but the paucity of ideas is manifested most glaringly when rational thought is brought to bear upon their opinions. How many professed New Churchmen are equal to giving a solid, spiritual idea concerning the faith which is supposed to be in them?

     The Writings thus define an idea: "The idea which is formed concerning a thing is the understanding of it; if there be not an understanding of it, there is merely a knowing, and they are mere empty words which are thought of." (Ath. Cr. 58.) An idea, therefore, is that which is understood,-not merely known, or remembered, but understood and held as an intelligent conviction. A natural idea is that which is naturally understood; a rational idea is that which is rationally understood; and a spiritual idea is that which is spiritually understood.

     Ideas philosophically described are declared to be "nothing else than the changes and variations in the interior substances of which the internal man is composed." (S. D. 4609.) These interior substances are knowledges and truths, and their changes and variations produce ideas.

     Ideas, therefore, truly speaking, are knowledges and truths so arranged and so ordered as to produce an understanding of, and a conviction upon, that concerning which an idea has been formed and is held.

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To have an idea upon a subject, correctly speaking, is much more than having an opinion upon it or a notion about it; for it is to have an understanding of it.

     What, then, is a spiritual idea? Manifestly, from what has already been said, the spiritual idea is and must be the spiritual understanding of a thing; and if it be asked what especially characterizes the spiritual idea, the reply is furnished by the Writing; in these words: "This idea is abstract from matter, space and time; especially is it abstract from persons." (Doc. Charity 42; see also D. P. 317; A. C. 5258.) Thus a spiritual idea is apart from and above space, time and person. And so it is on the same plane as the spiritual sense of the Word; for of the Word it is written: "There are three things in general which drop out of the literal sense of the Word, while it is becoming the spiritual sense, namely, what is of time, what is of space, and what is of person." (A. C. 5253.)

     Thus the spiritual idea derives nothing from that which is merely natural, physical, or material. It does not concern itself mainly with persons or external surroundings. It is neither bound by matter nor limited by space. It knows nothing of earthly relationships or personal prejudices, and it recognizes nothing of financial or pecuniary considerations. It is not perverted by policy, nor accursed by unholy accommodation. It deals with principles, and is governed entirely by Revelation,-by a Revelation on the spiritual plane. It concerns itself with love, life, wisdom, affection, joy,-all on the spiritual plane, the plane of state. (D. L. W. 7-9) It is nurtured and sustained entirely by spiritual affection,-the affection of truth for its own sake; and it is destroyed by merely natural affection,-the affection for truth from worldly and selfish motives, from love of reputation and of gain.

     The spiritual idea can only be supported by spiritual affection, because it alone is on the same plane, and because "love is like a fire, lighting up the things that favor it, while other things are either passed by, as if not seen, or are pulled to pieces by perverse explanation, and are thus falsified." (A. E. 122.) All angels are in the spiritual idea, and the spiritually minded man is interiorly in the spiritual idea. (Doc. Charity 42.) And of man, generally speaking, it may be said that, "as far as he is removed from corporeal and worldly things, so far he is in a spiritual idea, and is elevated toward heaven." (A. C. 2411.)

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     Be it repeated, and with all earnestness: It is the New Churchman's privilege, and it is his sacred duty, to enter into, and to maintain and cultivate, upon all questions of life, a spiritual idea. To this end he should constantly offer to the Lord the petition of the text: "Open Thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of Thy Law."

     By the Law is meant the Divine Word as to all its particulars. By Commandments are meant the internal things of the Word; by Statutes are meant the external things of the Word; but by the Law all the particular things of the Word.

     The Divine Word, being infinite, is limitless as to its particulars. Neither angels nor men can exhaust its wisdom. But to see increasingly the depths and beauties of its teachings, men need ever to pray, "Open Thou mine eyes!" And this is so, even as concerning the three essential and most general teachings of the Lord's New Church namely, the acknowledgment of the Divinity of the Lord; the holiness of the Word; and the life which is called charity. (D. P. 259.) For New Churchmen have very shallow views, even upon these essential themes,-mere opinions and natural notions, not spiritual ideas, as the plane for celestial perceptions.

     Concerning the Lord, it is but a natural, yea, a material, idea of Him which thinks of Him merely as to His Person (H. H. 15), even though the idea be limited to one Divine Person. A spiritual idea of the Lord realizes that He is Divine Love and Wisdom, that He is Life Itself, perpetually flowing into all creation, sustaining it in existence; for He alone lives. That He is the Conjugial,-the Divine One of Good and Truth, parting all things in the universe "into him and her," as the ultimate of His infinite unity in duality, thus making marriage the holiest and most perfect of all states and conditions of life. That He is the only Priest and the only King in His own right; yea, that He is All in all, manifested in His Divine Human as the one and only Man. Such is a spiritual idea concerning the Lord, and it is capable of infinite extension. And the idea concerning God "is the chief of all ideas; for such as this idea is, such is man's communication with heaven and his conjunction with the Lord; and such is his enlightenment, his affection for truth and good, his perception, intelligence, and wisdom." (A. E. 957 See also A. C. 10736.)

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     Concerning the Word, it is but a natural and material idea to regard it merely as a Book or Books containing a hidden meaning, a "key" to which has been given, and which is to be used by man according to his genius and capacity, to explain or expound the Word. A spiritual idea concerning the Word is that it is all Divine Truth, that it is, in itself, nothing less than the Lord Himself; that every manifestation of His will,-every revelation of his Truth,-is the Word, His Divine Word, to those to whom it is given. Thus that all Revelation, and every Revelation, is the Lord's Word (A. C. 2894), and that that Word cannot be limited to any one Book, to any one time, nor to any one place. In short, that all Revealed Truth is the Word (A. C. 5075, 5272, 3704), there being many Words (A. E. 1080, 1074, 1073, 593),-all finding their basis and their ultimate in the Letter of the Divine Word as found in the words of the Old and New Testaments.

     Thus, to use the very words of the Writings, "they who are in Divine ideas never regard the Word of the Lord from the Letter. . . . With them the literal sense is only an instrumental medium" (A. C. 1807): for "the Word stands for all truth in the heavens and on earth which is from the Divine." (A. C. 3704.)

     Such is the spiritual idea concerning the Word.

     Concerning the life which is called charity, it is but a natural and sensual idea to regard it as merely doing good, being philanthropic, externally generous, and outwardly self-sacrificing and kind. The spiritual idea concerning the life which is called charity is, that it is the doing of uses for the sake of uses,-from the love of use, and as the result of shunning all evils as sins against God. It is love to the neighbor, and the spiritual idea of the neighbor is not a person, a relative or a friend, but a use; for the sake of uses,-from the spiritual idea, good is the neighbor that is to be loved, or a man according to his good." (Doc. Charity 72.) Such is a spiritual idea concerning the life which is called charity.

     And what has been said concerning the Lord, the Word, and the life of charity, may also be said of all spiritual things. There is the greatest need in all things of the regenerate life to cultivate the spiritual idea in contradistinction to the natural idea.

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And of no subject is this more true than of the church. The natural idea is that the church is a body of men, an organization, a sect, a company, not always limited either in its liability or conceit. But the spiritual idea is, that the church is the life of good and truth,-the ultimation in the lives of regenerating men and women of the truths which the Lord has revealed. For it is Divinely written: "Churches are not churches because they are so-called, and because they profess the name of the Lord, but because they are in the good and truth of faith." (A. C. 3379.)

     Brethren, how great the need for cultivating the spiritual ideal For man's life is the outcome of his real and honest idea; it is his genuine ideal ultimated. It is so easy for man to imagine himself spiritual in will, in idea and in life, even though he is, in reality, merely natural, yea, even sensual and corporeal. It is so easy to have natural and sensual ideas concerning the Lord, His Word, and all the verities of religion: so easy to imagine and to label as "New Church" ideas which are intrinsically "Old Church."

     Hence the need of seeking to become spiritually-minded, of having the mind well furnished with spiritual Principles by diligent study and careful reflection, and the heart cleansed by an increasing affection of truth for its own sake, that the life may become dominated by the will of the Lord, that it may be done on earth as it is done in heaven. But this is the Lord's work in man. Man cannot do it of himself.

     May the Lord strengthen our love for His Truth, increase our desire and effort to enter intellectually into the mysteries of His Faith, and augment our will to do those things which we see to be right and true! So shall we truly pray: "Open Thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of Thy Law." Amen.

     Lessons: Malachi 3. Revelation 15. A. E. 948.

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DEBATING 1927

DEBATING       Rev. ALFRED ACTON       1927

     HAS IT A PLACE IN NEW CHURCH EDUCATION?

     The New Church is founded upon the Lord in His Second Coming. That coming is the coming of the Lord Himself as the Divine Truth. It was necessary, because the Christian world had sunk into such darkness that not one truth of theology remained; all had been perverted. This perversion, however, was not from men's ignorance, but from evil loves, and especially from the love of self intelligence which, more than all other loves, blinds the eyes to truth and eagerly embraces falsities.

     It should not be surprising that a perverted and falsified theology has borne its fruit on the planes below theology. A false idea of God, of the Word, of the life of regeneration, and of the spiritual world, inferiorly molds the thought of today on every plane. To the New Church is given a new revelation of spiritual truth, and this revelation likewise is to mold every plane of our thought and action. It was this conviction that inspired the founding of the Academy. They realized that, in itself, a new doctrine of theology was nothing; that it became real, that its end was accomplished, only as it took on a living form, not only in the life of the individual, but also in the life of society. Hence they taught the necessity of a new education, a new social life, a new charity, new standards of thought. And by these terms they did not mean mere separation from the Old Church school or Old Church social life, but a separation for the sake of developing something new in a real sense, that is, new from within. They realized that at first our education, our social life, our church organization must necessarily be very similar to those of the Old Church, but they insisted on separation because only thus could the truths of the New Church gradually mold our thoughts so that all things might be made new. The end of our education is heaven, and not the world; the end of our social life is the cultivation of charity, and not amusement; and these ends are to lead to new thoughts, new conceptions, new practices.

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     In no way is the difference between the standards of the New Church and those of the world better illustrated than in the conception of wisdom. I do not speak of the mere dictionary definition of that word, but of the conception of its meaning as it obtains in the average mind. In the world, wisdom consists in learning, and the ability to marshal that learning in a close reasoning from facts. To the New Church, wisdom consists in the ability "to perceive truths without reasoning." (A. C. 5556.) To see the truth because it is true, and not because it is proved, is the mark of a wise man; to confirm it then by reasoning is the mark of an intelligent man. This ability to see truths is a matter of the cultivation of the understanding, just as the ability to see is a matter of the state of the eye. And it should be the end in all education so to mold the mind of the young that they have this ability to see truth because it is true. Still, the best of education will not of itself accomplish this, but only the life of regeneration. Hence the Writings teach us that the good always preserve something of the ability to see truths, especially universal truths, even though they be ignorant and unable to reason intellectually.

     To the world this is not wisdom; nay, it is rather a mark of simplicity. For the general thought of the world-a thought that molds all higher education-is, that a man is wise according as be knows many facts and can reason from and according to them. The ability to see truths because they are true, modern learned thought would regard as more or less chimerical. "Prove it to me, and I will believe." is the dominant cry; and by that is meant to prove it to the sensual and natural mind.

     II.

     The ability to reason is indeed a human gift, but it is distinctly lower than the ability to see truths. This may be evident from the fact that the ability to see truth is the faculty of the regenerate only, whereas the ability to reason may be possessed equally by the evil as by the good. The true office of this ability is to confirm truths after they have been seen. When the ability to see truths is conjoined with the ability to confirm them, then man is truly intellectual. Let me quote a few statements from the Writings:

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     "The intellectual consists in perceiving and seeing whether a dogma is true or not before confirming it, and then in confirming it." (A. C. 6222.) "Intelligence is to see and perceive truth as to whether it is such, before it is confirmed. It is not the ability to confirm anything. The light of confirmation without previous Perception of the truth is natural light." (N. J. H. D. 35.)

     In the light of this definition of intelligence, the primary end of our education of the young should be, not the cultivation of the art of reasoning, by which I mean the power of confirming, but the cultivation of the ability to see truth in its own light,-to see it because it is true. And the human mind is such by creation that truths adapted to the years of the hearer can always be so seen unless the mind has been perverted by bad methods of education or by evils of life. With this primary end goes also the secondary end, which is to teach the young to use their reason and their science to confirm truth.

     It may be objected that there are many truths which cannot be seen until we have reasoned concerning them. This, of course, is true, owing mainly to the obscurity induced on human minds by evil loves and false persuasions. But though it is often necessary to cogitate reasons before seeing truths, yet reason should be used only to ascertain truths in the light of truths, that is, of truths already seen. And confirmation should not be added by the reason until the higher faculty of the mind has given its assent. Human conceit rebels against this line of conduct, and to follow it needs humility.

     As already said, the ability to reason is a distinctly lower faculty of the human mind. It is a faculty which is more highly prized and cultivated by the evil than by the good. The good regard this faculty as the means of confirming what is seen, but the evil regard it as the means of strengthening themselves in whatever opinion or course of conduct promises them the attainment of their end. The sensual man, as we read often in the Writings, is more skillful than others in reasoning. "The love of self is like a fire which kindles natural lumen into a kind of splendescence. Hence such men can think and reason cleverly against the Divine." (A. E. 650.) In the other world it is clearly seen how greatly, and with what injury to the spiritual life, men have used their faculty of reasoning, or rather of ratiocinating.

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     And here let me digress a moment, to show that the Writings distinguish between reasoning to confirm the truth and mere ratiocination. We read: "Reasoners are of two kinds, (1) those who do not know whether a thing is true and good, and who thus reason concerning every truth and good, and the more they reason the less they know; (2) those who reason against truth and good, and so endeavor to destroy them. But they who defend truths by speech are not reasoners but confirmers by means of reasons." (S. D. 3706.) Again: "Genuine reasoning about spiritual things is from the influx of heaven, whereby the spiritual man confirms himself. But by ratiocination is meant thought and argumentation from fallacies and falsities, and by the rational is meant thought and argumentation from knowledges and truths; for every rational is cultivated by sciences and formed by truths." (A. E. 569.) Again: "The rational is born by means of scientifics; for in these man sees his conclusions as in a mirror, and confirms himself by them, but yet from the spiritual. Without the spiritual, man has no rational, nor scientific truth; but instead of the rational he has reasoning, and instead of scientific truth, scientific falsity." (A. E. 654:12.)

     To return now to the spiritual world, as manifesting the present state of the world which values the ability to ratiocinate as the very mark of wisdom, or at any rate of an admired cleverness. We read in the Writings: Spirits in the other world can reason more fully and acutely than men, especially about goods and truths." (H. H. 320.) Again: "Whatever spirits think and speak they can confirm by so many reasons or reasonings that no man could believe it; for they bring up so many and such various confirmations that I have often wondered at it. I was instructed that these confirmations were from a life of persuasions. (S. D. 4114a.) The world of spirits is full of such wranglings, disputes and reasonings, which are there heard as the gnashing of teeth. The classical examples are the relations which describe the disputes of the companies which were hailed by multitudes of spirits with the cries: "Oh how learned! Oh how wise!" The former were those who could see no truth until they had reasoned about it as to whether it was so or not; and the latter were able with the greatest cleverness to prove any proposition,-that black was black, or that black was white; that they themselves were wise men, and that they were fools-though they had some reluctance in proving the latter. (C. L. 232-233.)

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But whatever the proposition, it was the ability to reason that was used to confirm it,-an ability which can as easily prove falsity as truth, and which can be used more acutely by the evil than by the good, since with the evil it is enkindled by the fire of the love of self, and urged on by the desire of fame.

     It is not without significance that there were multitudes from the Christian World who called these men learned and wise; for wisdom has so far fallen from its mountain top to its valley "that at this day the learned, the erudite, and even those who have mere science are called wise." (C. L. 130.) "He is now esteemed wise who can reason cleverly as to whether a thing is or is not." (A. C. 3833.) Such men are said to constitute the scales or almost lifeless parts of the skin. We read that "they have no comprehension of what is true or not true; and the more they reason the less they grasp. Still, they seem to themselves to be wiser than others; for they place wisdom in the faculty of reasoning. They are entirely unaware of the truth that the principal office of wisdom is to perceive that a thing is so, and this without reasoning." (A. C. 5556.) As we read elsewhere, this is known also to men, namely, "that when one reasons for whole hours, and through an entire volume, those who are intelligent and wise know in a moment what is true and good, and pay no attention to their reasonings, which they laugh at and regard as of no account. Nothing is more common than this." And the passage adds that those who practice this kind of reasoning have less common sense-if they have any-than the most unlearned. (S. D. 3703.)

     The ability to confirm by reasoning is so far from being a sign of wisdom that it is, as we read, "anything but wisdom. Anyone can do this who is possessed of some ingenuity, and the evil more skillfully than the upright. To do this does not belong to the rational man; for the rational man can see as from above whether that which is confirmed is true or false; and he makes the things that confirm falsities as nothing, and holds them as ludicrous and win, howsoever the confirmer may believe them to be taken from the very camp of wisdom. In a word, nothing is less the part of a wise man, and nothing is less rational, than to be able to confirm falses; for it is the part of a wise man, and it is rational, first to see truth, and then to confirm it." (A. C. 4741.)

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     III.

     We have dwelt at length on this difference between wisdom and the ability to reason, because we believe it represents the most essential difference between the spirit of an education inspired by heaven and one that is inspired by the world.

     In heaven,-and it must also be so in the Church,-the end of education is to implant the love of truth for the sake of truth,-the spirit that regards the ability to reason merely as a servant to the truth. In the world, the whole spirit of education is opposed to this, and men are urged on to immerse themselves in the sciences, to make the ability to prove truth by argumentation the test of truth itself, and to applaud as wise and learned those who possess and cultivate this ability. Science, with its royal edicts,-"We have not as yet found any evidence of the presence of the soul in the body," or "of man's immortality," or "of the existence of God," etc.,-science, with its "we royal," has assumed to itself to dictate what truth is. And it proudly nurses this assumption, and gives it as an inheritance to its younger disciples.

     The love of truth for the sake of truth is almost unknown in the world. Some of the learned do indeed profess it; but, examined in the light of heaven, their love is for the most part merely natural, which seeks only to see what is before the senses, and which thereby has closed the eyes of the spirit.

     The love of truth for the sake of truth is the ideal to which we in the New Church are to look. This also was the love that inspired Swedenborg in his earlier works. He does indeed speak of the faculty of reasoning as the most important element in the attainment of truth; but by this faculty he does not mean the faculty of reasoning in the sense in which we have been using this term, but the faculty of seeing the truth. That this is his meaning is abundantly evidenced in his writings. Again and again he deliberately refuses to refute the opinions of those who are opposed to him, and this lest he seem to desire merely to substitute his own opinions in place of those of others. "Let each one stand by his own opinion," he says, "but let him see for himself whether that opinion be consistent, and in agreement with the laws of nature. Since, however, my intention is to draw conclusions from the connection of things, and from rational considerations supported by experience, I wish merely to make passing mention of opposing doctrines, but not to pave the way for the opinions that follow by any invalidation of other opinions.

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The very connection and the naked truth is sufficient; for truth will defend its own cause. Opinions are sufficiently refuted, and fall to the ground by the bare setting forth of a truer opinion." (De Gen. 236.) Again he says: "There are many opinions different from mine, but these I do not desire even to recite, lest I seem by their destruction and refutation to pave the way for my own,-a course of proceeding which I deem unworthy. For the searching out of truer things, experience alone is surely not sufficient; but this experience must be associated with principles." (De Gen. 328.) Again: "Many of the above inductions, where I have not always been able to adjoin experience as a comrade, inasmuch as minute and delicate parts escape the sight and betake themselves to the experience of phenomena, and thus to rational intuition, will perhaps for this reason be classed as among conjectures. This I cannot escape. But what then? Let it seem so! And yet, for the most part, truth is searched out from just such forerunners. For the desire of searching out truth is aroused by the desire of refuting conjectures. Let him who will take the upper place in the sciences, and even in conjectures, and aspire to behold others as inferior to himself. For myself, I desire to remain lowly, if only truth shall obtain the supreme place." (De Cerebro 673.)

     It was not Swedenborg's aim to debate the truth, but to see it and present it; for truth cannot be seen from reasonings, but from heaven and by the rational or spiritual man. It is because of this that, to the learned world of today, Swedenborg's writings seem simple, and most of all his theological writings. They are not distinguished by the clever argument which is now so much admired, but rest mainly on the assumption that the truth will defend its own cause, and needs but to be confirmed by reasonings. These reasonings, however, are designed, not to compel belief, but to strengthen spiritual sight.

     The spirit of ratiocination demands that all things be proved; the Spirit of the love of truth is content to see the truth, and gradually more and more to confirm it. The spirit of ratiocination is intolerant; it strives to overwhelm the opinions of others by arguments, and rejoices in their discomfiture; the spirit of the love of truth is content to present the truth, and to leave others free to see it or not.

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As bearing on this point, we note the teaching as to the reason why, in the Israelitish Church, a creditor was not allowed to enter the house of his debtor to receive his pledge, but must stand without. "In the other world, those who enter the house of another so communicate their thoughts that those in the house know no otherwise than that these thoughts are their own; but if they stand without, the thoughts are perceived, but as thoughts from another person. Therefore, not entering the house to receive the pledge signifies not to bind or incite another to confirm one's own truths, but instead to listen and comprehend the answers as they are in the man himself; for he who binds and incites another to confirm his own truths causes the other not to speak or think from himself but from him; and then truths are disturbed, and yet the man is not amended." (A. C. 9213.)               

     It is this spirit that inspired Swedenborg. It is this that must inspire our education of the young, as it inspires their education in heaven. Contrast the wranglings and disputes, of which we have spoken, with the discussions of angelic spirits in the gymnasia so frequently described in the Writings. In these there is no argumentation, no clever reasoning, but simply the presentation of one's views and the listening to instruction. It is in this way that the young in the other world are initiated into the love of truth. In the early days of the Academy, there was, under Bishop Benade, a strong effort to imitate the spirit of these gymnasia in our own schools, and for a long time the effort was successful, though for reasons into which I need not enter these meetings were discontinued. Yet they were powerful means of implanting in the students an enthusiastic affection for New Church education, and showing them the great and vital distinction between the ends and purposes of New Church education and those of education in the world. Nor am I without hopes that in time there will come a revival of such meetings, or, at any rate, the introduction into our schools of something of the sort, inspired by our study of the education of youths in heaven, and calculated to implant or introduce the love of truth for its own sake.

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     IV.

     What has been thus far said may seem to be somewhat remote from the subject of debating in our schools. For the objection may occur to the mind that what is so severely condemned in the Writings is not reasoning or debating, but the use of reasoning for the confirmation of falses. I think, however, that this does not justly express the spirit or intent of the condemnation given by the Writings. Indeed, this would seem evident from the mere fact that no sensible man would defend the confirmation of falses by arguments. In the world, this is called quibbling and juggling with words, and is condemned by the intelligent. It is not this that is the object of the Writings' condemnation. What is condemned is that spirit, so widely cultivated in the world, which makes reasoning the test of truth; which substitutes reasoning and argument for the seeing of truth; which admires and believes what is best argued, and is inclined to reject or think little of what is presented mainly with an appeal to the rational perception. It is this spirit that leads to the light estimation in which Swedenborg's truly rational presentations are held, both in his theological and in his philosophical works; and it is against the entrance of this spirit into our work of education that we must guard.

     That the Writings condemn, not merely the confirmation of falsities by reasonings, but the establishment of any position primarily by reasoning, may be seen from the fact that in the other life, as we read, truth does not admit of reasonings, for these favor one's delights. (A. C. 2733.) Again and again we are taught that reasonings can prove truth, as well as falsity, and yet they are none the less to be condemned, since truths ought first to be seen before being confirmed by the reason. "Anything can be confirmed by reasonings; moreover, by the arts of speech and of making conclusions they can be presented to the simple as truths." (A. C. 7127.) The outstanding example which shows the real object of the condemnation passed by the Writings is the Relation in Divine Providence no. 197, which describes the dispute between two priests and an ambassador. Swedenborg heard these men hotly disputing for a long time concerning human prudence, the priests holding that this was nothing and Divine Providence everything, and the ambassador maintaining the opposite opinion.

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It was then said to the ambassador, "Put on the garments of a priest, and believe yourself to be such, and then speak." He did this, and then he argued that nothing of wisdom and prudence is ever possible in man except from God; and he defended this truth or proposition with his accustomed eloquence, and with rational arguments. But though this ambassador was now defending the truth, and indeed doing this more skillfully than the priests, yet his spirit was equally to be condemned; for he did not see the truth in itself, but merely in the light of reasonings.

     It may be further objected, in application of what we have said to the subject of debating, that in all the teachings we have cited it is spiritual truth that is contemplated, whereas our school debating has in view only political and economic truth. I would answer that the subject of the debate is not in itself the essential point. The spirit of the love of truth for its own sake is the same whether the subject be political, cosmological and anatomical, as in Swedenborg's early works, or theological; and so likewise is the spirit of the love of reasoning or of establishing truths by reasonings. It is not the subject that counts so much as the affection that is insinuated, the habit of thought that is formed, the ideal that is established. The ideal we should strive to establish is the simple love of truth; and while we know that this love does not exist in the young, that they are rather in the love of reasoning about all things, yet this should not deter us from so conducting our education as to make a constant resistance to this love, thus gradually establishing true rational standards of judgment, and insinuating heavenly affections. Certainly we ought not to do anything to foster and encourage the love of reasoning.

     In the early days of the Academy, debating in the sense that it is now understood was condemned. As already stated, the inspiring motive in this as in other aspects of our educational work was to endeavor to see where the truths of the New Church, and especially what we are taught concerning education in heaven, may mold our practices. Some twenty years ago or more there was a strong desire to have debating. With much hesitation this was allowed, but with the very careful provision that no boy should defend what he did not believe. At that time there was no thought of joining debates with students of Old Church schools; indeed, I have no hesitation in saying that any proposition of the sort would at once have been rejected.

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Since those days there have been great changes; we have entered into debating contests with other schools; and these contests have been the occasion of great study on the part of those of our students who contested, and of great enthusiasm on the part of the students who listened to them.

     It is contended in favor of these debates that they are a good educational training in the way of careful study and of systematic arrangement of the thought. This I do not care to deny. Indeed, there are advantages to be gained from many things which yet we would condemn, because, while not denying the advantages, we yet see their spiritual harm. The world is careless as to the spiritual effects of its educational methods upon the minds of the young, but it is keenly alive to the natural advantages. At present there is a strong sentiment in the world in favor of debates; but the stronger this sentiment, and the more widespread, the more we should view it with suspicion. For, as stated in the introduction of this paper, our ends in education are diametrically opposed to those of the world. What we should regard in any practice we adopt is not merely or mainly the natural advantages to be gained, but its influence in the development of our young and in its trend for the cultivation, in the Church of the future, of a spiritual thought, of a new standard of thought, of a state of mind which will be more ready and more open to the perception of truth because it is true.

     It has been thought that any possible injury to spiritual development,-that is, injury by fostering the love of confirmation instead of the love of truth,-is obviated by our practice of requiring students not to defend a proposition which they do not believe. I think, however, that reflection will show that this requirement does not in reality introduce any difference-certainly no essential difference. The love that is excited is the love of winning, and not the desire to know the truth. What is insinuated, all unbeknown it may be, is the affection of reasoning; and this moulds the mind in secret ways, and most certainly does not develop it to accept the new and heavenly statement of the Heavenly Doctrine that truth should first be seen before one reasons concerning it.

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     Let me now illustrate. Some years ago, one boy was asked if he believed in a certain proposition which was to be debated on, as in that case he would be eligible to be one of the debaters. To his own regret he found that he did not believe it-that is, I suppose, his father did not. Consequently, he was not chosen. A friend of his was chosen in his place, who (that is, whose father) did believe in the preposition. The first boy, however, though repudiating the proposition to be defended, spent many hours in looking up facts to assist the second, and devoted much time to thinking up and giving him points of argument; in other words, he did his best to prove by deputy a proposition which he himself refused to defend. He did this for the honor and glory of the school; for it was very present in his mind that the school and its authorities wished our boys to win. The establishing of the proposition itself was an entirely secondary matter. Does this tend to insinuate the love of truth, or the love of reasoning and confusing?

     Again, a proposition is set before our boys, and they are asked which side they favor. How can they judge, when these propositions have many of them exercised the minds of men of wide knowledge and experience? yet we not only ask them their opinion, but then set them to work to confirm and defend it. This is far from the practice in heaven, where it is said, even to adult spirits, that they cannot speak on a subject whose principles they do not understand. (A. C. 3748)

     The student then goes to work to study his subject and collect his data, and especially to anticipate what may be brought forward against him. But he enters upon this work, not mainly with the desire of learning the truth, but with the desire of confirming himself in the opinion he has espoused. The glory of the school is concerned in this; and even if doubts as to the truth of his position enter his mind during his studies, these doubts are quickly dismissed, and every effort is made by study and by consultation to find points against them, however strong they may be. For, as I have said, the glory of the school rests on the boy's winning, and with this is mingled his own love of fame, his native self-conceit, and if he has the gift of arguing, his confidence in his own powers. Does this serve to insinuate the spirit of the New Church,-the love of truth for its own sake?

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Or does it confirm and strengthen the love of confirming by reasonings?

     He then comes to the debate itself. And he comes, not with the abject of learning by the debate what is the truth, or what is best for the country-if the question be an economic one,-but solely to defend his own opinion. And if, in the course of the debate, his opponent should advance really good reasons, his mind is closed to them in advance. And even if it were not so, even if he were really impressed with the truth of the other side, yet, in the very nature of things, and indeed for the glory of his school,-his New Church school, he must at once set his mind to work to think up answering arguments. At all costs he must win, and his own self-love and the desire for fame inspire him to the cleverest argument of which he is capable, Does this tend to establish in the minds of our young that ideal of the love of truth which is all obscured in the Christian World, but is now revealed to the New Church?

     Take now the listeners,-our own students, young boys and girls whose minds are in the most plastic period of their formation. Their sole desire is to see our school win. If a good point is made by their side, they rejoice; if a stronger point is made by the opponents, they hope it will be well met. The truth itself of the proposition is apt to be a secondary matter in their affections. Instance the fact that boys from our school have simultaneously debated opposite sides of the same question, and that our students rejoice if both have won. Again, I have more than once heard students say with exultation: "We won!" But never have I heard them say at the same time what proposition was established. No, their whole affection is engaged in the winning, not in the truth, or in the good of the country.

     And the judgment. It is clearly understood that this has nothing whatever to do with the merits of the question. It is purely a judgment as to the ability to marshal facts, to make reasonings, to argue, irrespective of what the argument is directed to establishing. And in this very fact there is insinuated the thought that the main object of our attention and exultation is the cleverness of the reasoner, and not the truth of the proposition. And yet the evil can argue lust as well as the good, and even better, since they are enkindled by the love of fame. Can you imagine such judgments being given in heaven?

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     I might say a word also as to the direct effect upon a boy's mind of a debate in which he has engaged in public, especially if he has won. It is well known that what we discover or defend we are inclined to make our own, and that our eyes are blinded to all other considerations. It was for this reason that Swedenborg laid aside the scalpel; for, said he, what I discovered tended to loom bigger in my eyes than all the discoveries of others. So when a boy has engaged in a debate, the tendency is to confirm his mind, and to close it to other considerations. And yet our boys are not yet old enough to form established, and still less considered, opinions. Indeed, they are under our care, that their minds may be formed, that they may be formed by truths, and be confirmed in habits of approaching truths, whether spiritual or economic, in the light of truth, and not in the light of reasonings and confirmations.

     As already stated, I do not care to deny that in debates there may be advantages in the way of natural training. But the object of our education, the sole purpose for which we have established a New Church school, with all its entailed problems and cares, anxieties, and expense; the object for which we have separated from the Old Church; is the life of regeneration,-the training of a spiritual mind, the establishment of life on earth as it is in heaven. Prone, as we naturally are, to be enamored by the learning of the world, to seek its approval, and to follow its methods, we should have this end actively in our mind,-so to mold our thought and practice that we may become a truly New Church school, and not merely a school with New Church religious instruction. If this desire animates us in all our work, and on every plane of that work, our students cannot fail to feel its effects, and to receive something of that apostolic spirit which has been the inspiration of the Academy in the past, and the continuation of which is its hope for the future.

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MODERN OUTLOOK 1927

MODERN OUTLOOK       Rev. RICHARD H. TEED       1927

     (An Editorial in The New Age (Australia), February, 1927.)

     There is a vast difference in significance between the two little words "need" and "want." This is a distinction which is not generally recognized to the extent that it should be. In our outlook on the world we New Church people are, I notice, very fond of saying: "The world is wanting a rational religion." It would appear from all the evidence that this should read: "The world is needing a rational religion." If the world were wanting, our task as missionaries of the new Gospel would be comparatively simple. What could be more delightful and spiritually invigorating than to be the means of feeding hundreds and thousands of hungering and thirsting souls? As it is, well, there is no need to remind the New Church reader that our standing in the community is insignificant and the people pass us by.

     The New Church critic-and he is by no means a merely mythical figure-is very often heard to adopt the attitude that this state of affairs is really our own fault; that we are to blame because the people will not heed us. It is urged that we should do this and that and the other thing, and then the miracle would be worked and the folk would flock. Now supposing we were to do one of the thing; that is often named-speak in the open, at the street corners or in the parks-would our churches quickly fill to overflowing? Is it the fact that the people just want to know about us and then will come in their thousands? The answer is easily forthcoming, for this thing has from time to time been tried, is being tried now in Hyde Park, London. True, a crowd can usually be got around the speaker, and a good deal of interest is seemingly aroused, but beyond this nothing happens. Our Churches and their services are still as neglected its ever they were. A crowd can be gathered around a speaker in the open, no matter what the theme may be. The atheist and reviler will draw a crowd, but let us hope that such is no evidence that the people are wanting that kind of thing he has to offer them.

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     It would appear that we have not gone sufficiently deeply into the problem of what it is that people want. We have looked at the subject too much from a one-sided point of view. We are well satisfied that the New Church is what we want, and therefore we have concluded it must be that everybody else wants it too. That is the argument of the fanatic, but not of the reasonable man. It is true the fanatic often accomplishes much by the sheer force of his own enthusiasm, but that surely is not the way in which Divine Providence is going to allow the New Church to grow. There were guards set to protect the way of the Garden of Eden, and there are walls all around the Holy City, New Jerusalem, and these walls not only protect those within, but they also keep out those without. It is not intended that entrance should be made into the City by any other way than by one of the gates. There are three of these gates looking every way, and they are never shut, but there can be no hustling of folk through against their will. And "there can in no wise enter into it any that defileth."

     When one looks around on the world and sees the kind of thing that interests and amuses seemingly a great majority, one is led to be in no way surprised that as yet the world has no use for the New Church. What does the public like to read? Look at your newspaper and see the kind of thing that receives prominence there. A tragedy, a horrible murder, revolting particulars of a divorce scandal, are the type of news that receives big headlines and pictures in the papers. Go to any lending library, and you find that the books that receive overwhelmingly the greatest attention are the light novels. So, too, in the realm of amusement, it is the light and frivolous that has the best hearing. It has to be musical comedy in the theater, and what can only be termed trash in the cinema. It is with the utmost difficulty that an audience can in these days be gathered to listen to a lecture, no matter what the subject may be. One might continue an enumeration of the characteristics of this age at some length, all of which would testify to a superficiality of thought and a delight in the gratification of sense. And then the conclusion is borne in upon one that it is by no means so remarkable that the New Church makes no appeal to our generation.

     When one ventures to speak in such terms of the modern outlook, one is in danger of being howled down by the optimists!

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Yet the writer would repudiate the title of pessimist. He is anxious, however, that we New Church people should face the present situation more seriously, and not be content to imitate the ostrich by refusing to see the conditions as they are. To speak of this as the day of small things is taken to be proof of cowardice; to speak of "the little flock" is interpreted as a form of self-righteousness and indifference to the masses outside.

     Too many are anxious to attach blame where no blame is necessary. The Church in our day is small, and we believe is destined to be so during the possible span of our life-time. But no blame need be attached, either to those who love the Church or to those who do not. If we love the Church, we shall certainly do what we can to make it known; and those who have not learnt to love it "know not what they do." The discontent many feel with the smallness of our present numbers is not, we believe, wholly a "Divine discontent." It induces dissatisfaction with our present work and usefulness, and inclines towards despair. A Sunday or two ago, a friend remarked to the writer after the Sunday evening service: Did he not feel he was wasting his life and effort in preaching to a few within that little church? The remark was meant kindly and to be in the nature of a compliment, but such suggestions are really not good. The only logical conclusion of such is: Give it all up and close the doors-disintegration, dismemberment and lack of all organized work for the Church. That is all destructive, and offers no alternative scheme of construction.

     We New Church people would do well to recall that after the first 150 years of its existence the first Christian Church would be no larger or more successful than is the New Church today; and we should remember further that when the first Christian Church did meet with success in the fourth century, and received all the support of the Empire, then began her determination, and she was never thereafter throughout her history the force for the service of the Lord's Kingdom that she was in the days when she was small and despised. Numbers may be a positive danger. What matters is that the Church should do her allotted work. The heavens rest upon the Church on earth; it is the point of contact. So then, even the tiny organization of the New Church must be serving a very inward and esoteric use in its relation to the new heaven established by the Lord at His Second Coming.

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     It appears that the modern mind, in so far as it is attracted to religion, looks for and delights in sense appeal, and not rational appeal. The very love of a crowd, the desire to go with the crowd, indicates this dependence upon the outside of things. The service without beautiful music makes little appeal today; churches are therefore concentrating increasingly upon this. There is a growing love of an ornate ritual in the church services-again, the sense appeal. The preacher who ventures upon a long sermon or long prayers is unmercifully upbraided, unless he be a man of commanding force; and even so, this interest in the great preacher is indicative, not of interest in what the Church stands for, but is because of the delight one feels in the work of art-the ability of the man. Belief in the Word of God has forsaken the people. They go to hear what this or that man has to say, and even then they judge of his utterance almost wholly from the standpoint of how he has said it, rather than what he has said.

     It would appear that this last point tells more against the success of the New Church than anything else. With the loss of faith in the Word of God has gone faith in the possibility of the Lord's making a revelation. What men hear from New Church pulpits they judge of just as they do of what they hear elsewhere, and they go away maybe somewhat impressed-with the ingenuity of the preacher's ideas! Now, we submit that the only hope for the growth of the New Church is in the realization of its being a revelation. Even though a man is somewhat impressed with a certain idea-believing it to be the outcome of human ingenuity, he will almost at once come up against something further that cannot be so explained, and which he will therefore reject; and quickly then will the earlier impression fade also from his mind. There is no room for the New Church in the world unless it comes as a Divine Revelation, the Second Coming of the Lord. If it comes not so, it almost at once gets lost in the welter of all the other comparative religions and ideas; it at once loses force, and men neglect it for other more exciting and seemingly more practical systems.

     Now it is this claim of being a Divine Revelation which is just the thing that the modern mind is not willing to tolerate. Swedenborg the mystic is worthy of a little consideration, but he soon tires when he is read from that point of view; indeed, it is not too much to say that he is unintelligible after a very little reading.

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Men will not grant him any other and more unique position, and so after a very little dabbling in him they tire and leave him alone.

     It is just here, then, that the greatest of all stumbling blocks comes to the growth of the New Church. Is it of God or of man? If we preach it as though it were of man, by just basing ourselves on the pure rational appeal, we may seem to make a certain headway for awhile. But we are hiding the essential thing; we are hardly honest. And even then our sprat does not catch the mackerel, because if our would-be convert makes any headway at all, he is bound to meet something that conflicts with the illumined human rational; and then he rejects, and he rejects totally, the whole thing. We have surely done him more harm than good.

     Of course, we fully recognize that the truth of the New Church should never be accepted unless it is rationally seen. Ours is the age of "Nunc Licit," and the criterion of man's acceptance of truth must only be his ability to see it. But let us be quite clear as to the vital distinction between the two viewpoints. The one sets up the human reason as the final arbiter of all matters of truth and falsity, which attitude says, in effect, that truth is but an attribute of the mind, and what the mind has no use for is false. The other viewpoint regards truth as Divine in origin, and Divinely given, and that in His loving mercy the Lord has so made us that we can receive that truth in our rational mind-not all at once, but by a gradual process of growth and the desire to be fed.

     Men cannot believe in these days that God has ever spoken, still less that in any book today we have the untouched record of what He has declared. There is doubt today even that Jesus Christ is correctly reported. How then can a world which so reasons believe that God has spoken in these latter days, and is speaking in His Divine Word now! Men are sick and tired of "new revelations," which so many have been ready to claim that they have in their particular nostrums. To grasp the New Church, therefore, there will have to be a willingness to examine patiently what is presented, and, in comparing with what has gone before, a discernment of how the genuine revelation will have to maintain and confirm in rational light what the Church has held precious down the Christian era, and also it must show itself to be in agreement with the Old Book, when understood aright.

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     The modern outlook cannot be described as rosy, and it will undoubtedly demand from the apostle of the New Church great patience and resource and faith. Let him, however, get a fair measure of what he is up against, and not be buoyed up by hopes that will not stand the hard, cold pressure of fact. What we want is not a feverish onslaught, but a quiet persistence, a constant pressure.
SOME THOUGHTS ON SLEEP 1927

SOME THOUGHTS ON SLEEP       J. S. PRYKE       1927

     When you come to think of it, the phenomenon of sleep is accepted with a great deal of complacency. Even to the average man of the church, that mysterious half-world, that "no man's land," as it might be called, remains largely unexplored and unfamiliar. The rhythmic recurrence of sleep is acquiesced in as one of the great decrees of nature, just as we accept the rising and setting of the sun, the ebb and flow of the tides, or any other of the cosmic alternations.

     But is this mental attitude quite sufficient? Or ought we not, as beings anxious to further our own development, to investigate so important a factor in our lives, lest either by inadvertence or in ignorance we transgress some law to our detriment?

     We are not left without adequate teaching to enable us to form some rational concept upon the subject.

     It is pleasing to note that the word "sleep" itself comes down to us almost unchanged from the Anglo-Saxon slaep. The state is defined as being the natural and healthy, but temporary and periodical suspension of the functions of the organs of sense, as well as those of the voluntary and rational soul; attended by relaxation of the muscles and the absence of voluntary activity for any rational object or purpose. To sleep is to take rest by a suspension of the voluntary exercises of the powers of the body and mind and an apathy of the organs of sense; it is to become unconscious. These definitions, admirable as they are, so far as they go, fall far short, as we shall see, of marking the real significance of sleep.

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     Some writers, misled by the state of external unconsciousness, have confounded sleep with death, while others, with greater reason, as we think, have regarded them as being akin. In one of his poems, Shakespeare exclaims, "O sleep, thou ape of death!" and Shelly, as will be recalled, in more graceful phrases says-

"How wonderful is death-
Death, and his brother sleep!
One, pale as yonder waning moon
With lips of lurid blue:
The other, rosy as the morn
When, throned on ocean's wave,
It blushes o'er the world.
Yet both so passing wonderful!"

     So far as my personal reading goes, there is not much said, either in Swedenborg's philosophical works or in the Writings themselves, as to the physical changes which occur during sleep, although what is said will doubtless be found abundant to furnish a foundation for the spiritual teaching which is so generously given.

     It may be well to keep in mind that sleep is voluntarily induced by the individual voluntarily, that is to say, within the limits of human endurance. In other words, although the need for sleep is with every living creature, just as is the need of breathing itself, yet the time, the manner and the duration of it is left to individual choice. It cannot be forced by another, the law being expressed by the phrase, "I will lay me down and sleep." I am not here concerned with the so-called sleep brought about by the aid of drugs or other disorderly methods, nor with hypnotic sleep, or with the state of trance, which is not properly sleep at all, and is outside the present scope.

     II.

     Regarding the physiology of sleep, there are in particular, four passages in the work on The Animal Kingdom. Three of them collated teach that the soul is exquisitely conscious of the conditions and emotions of the stomach and other viscera, and that if they be disordered she immediately takes the field, and by the instrumentality of the cerebellum, particularly during sleep, when the mind is bereft of the will, re-establishes all their tides and harmonies; that all the voluntary motions are actions different from natural action, exceeding, extending, twisting or straining natural limits in various ways, and that nature restores those limits, especially during the time of sleep; also, that the voluntary principle has a continual tendency to strain whatever is natural beyond its situation, relations and state, and that it is imperative that nature should be as continually restoring the latter conditions-which is the reason of the alternate rests provided by means of sleep.

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     The fourth, and perhaps the most valuable of the passages, shows that the cerebrum collapses or falls down during sleep, and opens out during waking states. A free but partial transcription is as follows: It will be seen, when we come to treat of the kingdom of the cerebrum, that its substances, and particularly the cortical substances, are divided by perpetual interstices and fissures, and that during sleep these interstitial apertures are closed, almost obliterated; hence the cerebrum collapses or falls down. But when we awake, when sleep is shaken off, these foldings reopen and their spaces are increased. The consequence is that during complete wakefulness the cerebrum is expanded to a certain height which is determined by the degree of wakefulness and attention; so likewise the whole body, which assumes exactly the state, as well as the tone, of the cerebrum.

     In the Psychological Tracts we are told that the fibre of the cerebrum, or the motor-voluntary fibre, does not enter into any muscle singly, but is mostly associated with the fibers of the cerebellum, as may be judged from the very actions of the limbs and muscles of the body. In wakefulness, all the voluntary muscles stand in utmost readiness at the nod of the cerebrum, while in sleep they live under the auspices of the cerebellum. "Sleep," says the work on The Fibre, "occurs when the cerebrum relapses into its natural state, such as it had maintained in the mother's womb, and rests from the emotions and affections of its animus." And then, in the Divine Love and Wisdom (219) we are told that in sleep and states of rest the determinations of effects and forces are directed into the general motor organs of the body, which are the heart and the lungs.

     These passages are in themselves sufficient to show the universality of the need for human sleep. They indicate the natural processes which go on during that time, and they invite us to pause for the purpose of contemplating the wonderful construction of the human frame, the harmony established between its various organs, the beauty of its mechanism, the symmetry of its laws and the desirability of endeavoring to avoid any trespass upon them.

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All these things work together for good when a spiritually refined mind is in charge; friction is lessened, and the body is able to continue in the exercise of its functions much longer than would otherwise be the case. These facts, taken in conjunction with a natural world more readily responsive to spiritual impulses, will conduce to a more intelligent conception of patriarchal longevity. The spiritual counterpart of this teaching is, that unless man were able to sleep, and sleep in safety, the human race would perish.

     III

     We have seen that man enters the state of sleep by his own volition, and that while in it his cerebrum-the part of the brain which is more directly associated with his voluntary faculties-subsides, and there takes place the renewal of life which is essential to its continuance

     It would seem, then, that there is a general correspondence of deep to that quiescent state of the human proprium in which the Divine Providence can operate regeneratively. We are told that the deep sleep which came upon Adam represents the state into which man is let so that he may appear to himself to Possess a proprium, which state resembles sleep because whilst in it he knows no other but that he lives, thus speaks and acts, from himself. When he begins to realize that this is false he is raised, as it were, out of sleep, and becomes awake. (A. C. 147.) Further, the explanation of the rib being taken out of Adam while a deep sleep was upon him, and its being built into a woman, is that man is in an entire state of ignorance as to how his wife is formed, and as it were created, from him by reason of her assumption of the affections of his life and the transcription of his wisdom to herself. This, from an innate prudence implanted in her from creation, is effected by the wife without the husband's knowledge, to the end that conjugial blessings may be secured.

     IV

     It might possibly be asked why it was necessary for man so to be created that he could not always be in the full exercise of all his faculties?

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Why was he so formed that he is condemned to pass one-third of his natural life in oblivion? Could he not have been so fashioned that he might have engaged without cessation in all the activities of his being, and yet escape bodily fatigue or mental satiety? Granted that nature herself obeys the law of perpetual alternation,-as in day and night, summer and winter, heat and cold, storm and calm,-might not man, designed to be the noblest piece of work of them all, have been gifted with the power to employ all the hours?

     We suggest that the omnipotent Creator might have formed man's bodily frame, and indeed the whole natural universe, upon these lines but for one objection-namely, the spiritual interests of the case. All natural things, from the greatest to the least, are the servants of the spirit, and designed to that end; the human body, above all, so. But man, the essentially spiritual being, having perverted the gifts of reason and freedom, must be held in check. This was foreseen by the Creator, who also foreknew that the only way to detach man from his depravity and teach him once more the true order of life would be to impose upon him recurrent states of quiescence and unconsciousness during which human rebellion against Divine purposes might be lessened, when opposition might be tempered, when spiritual protection against the excitements of evil could be given, and calming and restorative influences be allowed to operate. In other words, sleep is not only intended to repair physical waste, but is infinitely more needed to restore the soul. In sleep, thought and ideas conjoin themselves with affection, and therefore, during states of sleep-the interior uses of which are concerned with matters which hold no relation to time-time does not appear.

     Man, then, must sleep, there being only One of whom it may be said that He never sleeps. God is love; and love, we read, sleeps not. "He, watching over Israel, slumbers not nor sleeps." The eye of His fatherly love never closes, and we may in all confidence enter that state of tranquillity and security which is implied by the phrase to "lie down and sleep." What cause for gratitude is here! Man, returning from his labor in the evening, may seek his Heavenly Father's arms, and become once again as a little child, sleeping peacefully within the protecting sphere of his parents. The Lord alone watches over all, even His enemies, and does them good.

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     V

     So necessary is sleep to humanity that even spirits and angels sleep, their states ranging from deepest sleep to highest waking. Over and over again this teaching is given, and is quite explicable when the relation between sleep and regeneration is remembered. We may recall also (C. L. 19) that the ten visitors who were investigating the conditions of heavenly existence were each given a bedroom and slept till morning. What a delightful and intimate touch this gives, and how near and how similar to this life is the life beyond the grave seen to be! Far be it from me to suggest how another's life should be planned, but do not these facts raise the question as to how far we can ignore the claims of sleep, or interrupt or curtail its duration, and not suffer in body and soul? What have we to do with "Midnight Follies" and all the modern practices which invert night and day, robbing their devotees of much of the beneficence of sleep-and inevitably sending in the bill at the end?

     The prime importance of sleep to human welfare is evidenced, on the one hand, by the fact that evil spirits strive by every artifice to attack man while he slumbers, and, on the other hand, by a special providence guarding man at that time, together with the imposition of severe penalties upon those who offend. The Writings tell us that sirens try to ensnare man while he is sleeping; that evil spirits burn to attack him; that adulterers infest him. Upon one occasion, Swedenborg was assailed most desperately by one who desired to kill him, while upon another occasion the desire to kill those who entered his chamber was insinuated into him. But the Lord's protection is such that He guards man most of all while he sleeps, good spirits and angels being appointed to watch over him. Swedenborg says that once, before going to sleep, he was told that many were conspiring against him; yet, being under the Lord's protection, he fell asleep without apprehension.

     Those evil ones who assault man during sleep are miserably punished, and punishing spirits are suddenly present for that purpose. The punishments themselves vary in intensity with the degree of the crime, but all proclaim its abominable nature. Now the wicked ones are as it were clothed with visible bodies, having bodily senses, and are tortured by violent collisions of the parts backwards and forwards, the chastising spirits even desiring to kill; now they are cast into a disgusting hell; now they are scattered in a moment by a vehement wind.

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We are told, too, that restlessness comes from lusts and falsities, while love to the neighbor and confidence in the Lord induce peaceful sleep.

     The law of retaliation operates against those who interfere with sleep. Certain who desired to deprive Swedenborg of all sleep were troubled by others, while he himself slept. A deduction from this fact would seem to be that those who habitually ignore the claims of rightful sleep find themselves victims of insomnia in the end.

     Many other things, interesting and instructive, are recorded of sleep; as that they who are appointed to involuntary respiration are present with man while he sleeps, which accords with what has been said about the cessation of voluntary cerebration during that period; that evil spirits attendant upon a man are compelled to sleep when he does, in order that he may rest well, even if surrounded by them; that some souls who long to see the glory of the Lard are lulled into a kind of sweet sleep, when their interior senses and faculties are aroused; also that one-but this was disorderly-had assumed the persuasion that in the other life he would have a sweet sleep until the Day of Judgment, and he could thence induce on anyone a sweet sleep. This, being an artifice, was not permissible.

     From all the preceding it seems clear that it would be erroneous to identify sleep with death, or to regard them as differing in degree only. As is so often the case, they are, it is true, very similar in external appearance, but so are many other things which have little inward relation to each other. Indeed, the Writings tell us four most interesting things on this point: First, that in sleep man more nearly approaches the condition of a dead man; second, that the first days after death are passed like a sleep; third, in some few cases men can be tempted and regenerated also during sleep; and fourth, that on the planet Jupiter those who have lived in conjugial love and been good parents do not die by diseases, but pass from this world into heaven as in a peaceful sleep. Happy people whose passing hence is unattended by pain or conflict!

     There is also the middle state between sleeping and waking. Swedenborg frequently had special visions and revelations during this state, and it will be recalled that those belonging to the Sixth Earth in the starry heaven receive their revelation in the morning in such a state, when they are in interior light not yet interrupted by the senses of the body and by worldly matters.

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     In homelier strain-who has not at some time fallen asleep with a difficulty in his mind, and found its solution during a half-awakened state next morning? Does this not serve to remind us that there are those across the border who are ever willing to help, but that in consequence of disorder they must wait for a lull in our opposition-for semi-quiescence?

     VI

     So, then, we would say that sleep serves for the restoration of body and soul, to the end that their work together may continue, While death marks the definite laying aside of the body at the termination of its services to the soul. The one looks to more life upon both planes; the other is the entrance to the untrammeled life of the spirit.

     So much has now been said upon the subject that it would not be surprising if some have been exploring the state for themselves; and perhaps it might be allowable to point out that the theme of the paper is not really connected with those surreptitious forty fleeting winks which occasionally overtake us during sermon or doctrinal class!

     But little time is now left for a consideration of the abuse of deep, or for reflections; as, for instance, what is involved in the state of drowsiness and torpor, the child of laziness, or the connection between the Lord's state of awful temptation and the overpowering slumber of the disciples who were told to watch. The related subject of dreams, though too vast to be included here, should not be lost sight of. It is plain that they are one agency to human regeneration, and that much teaching and discipline comes to the individual by their means. Bearing in mind what is taught as to the attacks of malevolent spirits and the angelic protection, man ought to take care how he appropriates to himself either the good or the ill which appears to be his while he dreams.

     Sleep is a period of temporary withdrawal from temptation, a cessation of evil attacks, a blessed quiescence during which we gather strength to meet future trials. Yet in sleep the soul is still alert, although there is as it were a failure of reaction in the natural.

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As the heavenly societies find their ultimation in man-in his bodily organs as well as in his mind,-does it follow that those which correspond to him sleep when he sleeps? It would seem that those connected with his cerebrum do. If so, what a sublime picture is presented of associates, spiritual and natural, calmly resting together under the guardianship of one Heavenly Father and His ministers. Thus sleep is also employed to remind us of the nearness of the two worlds, of the continuity of life on both planes, of their interactions and mutual aid, of the essential unity of all created life.

     Perhaps, in a consideration of this subject, nothing is more really striking than to see how a description of the composition and function of some bodily organ is immediately paralleled by some particular statement or doctrine. Much of what has been quoted already will make this point plain, and it is one well worth closer study. Compare what is said about voluntary effort being against the laws of natural order, and that its ravages can only be repaired by the medium of sleep, with the teaching that man, left to himself, incessantly tends to spiritual death, which can only be remedied by the Lord's continually drawing him away-always bending, yet never breaking.

     Finally, there has been discovered running through the teaching much real and native poetry; the beauty of contemplating a piece of work perfectly designed for intelligent use on all planes; a perception or the wonderful felicity of many passages in the Writings has indeed brought delight.

     In one sense, if we progress along the path of regeneration, all previous states are to our present one as sleep is to waking, just as the whole of natural life is as sleep compared with the glorious alertness of life eternal. So would we say "I will both lay me down and sleep; for Thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in safety."

     The preparation of this paper has more than once suggested the idea that, after all, the real lesson of sleep is to remind us of life in the spiritual. In dreams, natural reaction ceases, albeit in some few cases of advanced regeneration there can be temptation and the resistance to evil in temptation. This, in general, seems to be the case after death. Then the natural is as it were remote from the individual, and the quality of the unfettered proprium, whether turning to the Lord or to self, is the tremendously important thing.

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     In conclusion, then, we would ask: Beyond its work of physical renewal, and the throwing of a tempering screen around waning self-love, is not the use of sleep,-in glorious substitution of the memento mori at the festive board of the ancients,-a daily reminder to us of the impending crossing of the passage from this world to the next, and with perfect propriety link to the verse just quoted: "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for Thou art with me."
ERNST DELTENRE-IN MEMORIAM 1927

ERNST DELTENRE-IN MEMORIAM       ELDRED E. IUNGERICH       1927

     On the fifteenth of March a cablegram from Brussels brought news of the decease of the Rev. Ernst Deltenre, Pastor of the General Church Society in Brussels, and Editor of the bimonthly, La Nouvelle Jerusalem. At home with him were his wife and two of his three daughters, the youngest of whom, a pupil in the Girls' Seminary of the Academy of the New Church in Bryn Athyn, had returned a week before, just in time to see her father before his departure.

     Writing on March 19th, Mrs. Deltenre says in part: "My husband had a long illness, but I had not anticipated such a sudden death, although it was gentle and peaceful, and without the least suffering. During his last days he spoke only of the spiritual world and of Bryn Athyn. On Sunday night, March 19th, I was still helping him correct the proofs of the magazine, and on the following day he was called by the Lord."

     Born and educated at Malines in an intense Jesuitical environment, the subject of this memoir had at one time thought of entering the priesthood of the Catholic Church. He was acquainted with Cardinal Mercier whose lectures on theology he had at one period attended. But he finally decided in favor of the law, and after a university course at Louvain was admitted to the bar and began to practice in the neighborhood of Malines, between which place and Antwerp he frequently traveled.

     At the time he became interested in the New Church he was connected with a bank in Antwerp,-Le Credit Anversois.

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A young Jesuit friend of his said to him one day: "Ernst, I have been reading a Latin pamphlet on theology by Swedenborg, which is well reasoned out. You might be interested in it." Mr. Deltenre took it from him with curiosity, but read it to such purpose that in a few months he and his wife and two children were baptized by the Rev. G. C. Ottley. About this time, also, he undertook a trip to The Hague to meet Mr. Barger, with whom he had been in correspondence.

     He had planned to name his third child, if a boy, Emanuel. But though the baby was a girl, whom he named Marie, he still gave her Emanuel as the second name. His Catholic friends and connections had not taken very seriously the baptism of the family into the New Church; according to them, this did not invalidate the Catholic baptism, which alone they regard as valid. But when he refused to have the baby baptized in the Catholic Church, and invited the Rev. Mr. Harte, of the Camberwell Society in London, to perform the ceremony, the break with his environment was sensational, and to Catholics it was in the nature of a scandal. This at once entailed the usual persecution, which followed him into his business and obliged him to resign from the position he then held. With the encouragement of Mr. John Pitcairn, he then made application to enter the ministry, and was received as a theological student in Bryn Athyn.

     He attended the Theological School for two years, being in Bryn Athyn with his family from August, 1910, to July, 1921. A competent student in Latin and Greek, his progress in the School was brilliant. The undersigned had the pleasure of teaching him Hebrew for two years, and also of being ordained into the second degree of the priesthood at the same service in which Mr. Deltenre was ordained into both first and second degrees, Bishop W. F. Pendleton officiating. His graduation thesis on receiving his B. Th. drew an interesting Parallel between the women who sought for the Lord in the sepulcher and those in the New Church who look for Him in the forms of the Old Church.

     In the summer of 1912, he opened a missionary station in rue Gachard, Brussels, conducting weekly services, and advertising the fact that copies of the Writings in French could be borrowed from his library.

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During the German occupation of Brussels, Mr. J. J. Gailliard, whom he had brought into the Church, executed a series of remarkable symbolic tapestries, which made of the chapel a noteworthy center of modernistic art that was visited by many celebrated personages and received a wide publicity. In 1922, the lease having expired, he moved to the country at La Hulpe, though coming up once a week to receive callers in rue Royale, where his library was kept. Two years later he returned to rue Cavell, Brussels, and by his enterprise succeeded in having a room allotted to the New Church library in the noteworthy museum called the Ravenstein.

     During the course of his fifteen years' labors, about a dozen people were brought into the New Church, among whom we note Mr. Balcaen, Miss Jeanmonod, Mr. Gailliard, Miss Winska, Mrs. Schmidt, and Mr. and Mrs. Denys of La Hulpe with their four children. Besides these, a Protestant pastor in Malines has expressed his acceptance of the Doctrines, as also a father and son, the present printers of La Nouvelle Jerusalem, of which, I understand, two more numbers will appear posthumously. In 1926, the group in Brussels were received by the Bishop as a Society of the General Church.

     The following is an excerpt from a copy he sent me of a letter he wrote to a young friend in the New Church on November 26, 1926: "As to the spiritistic movement with Thomistic base (St. Thomas Aquinas) which is current at Present in France, I think it is much more superficial than you supposed and that it will not last. I knew, twenty-five years ago, of quite a similar movement led by Huysmans, Mazel, Mithouard, Peladan, Barres, etc., and it was quite ephemeral. It is true, however, that it was not on a Thomistic base. But note well that the public at large and the great army of the simple are not affected by any such movement. It is especially the literary and artistic circles which are caught. Now these centers are very versatile, and I am quite convinced that it is not among them that the New Church will make any serious disciples. I am afraid you will run into the same blind alley I did when I wished to evangelize intellectual circles. Now, my dear fellow, here is my experience. They listen to you; they find Swedenborg very interesting, nay, marvellous; . . . and then they pass on to other exercises. Our fellow ministers, Pfeiffer in Holland, and Baeckstrom in Sweden, direct themselves to the simple, and you see what success they have."

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     In 1920, Mr. Deltenre began the publication of La Nouvelle Jerusalem, of the same title as the magazine of Mr. Le Boys des Guays. It was at first a quarterly, but later a bimonthly. Here the editor's fine literary style, critical acumen, and keen, enlightened grasp of the Doctrines, were brilliantly in evidence. It is not too early to say that this magazine has been a powerful advocate of the principles of the Academy among the French-speaking New Church people. The arrival of the first number among the New Church people in Rio de Janeiro at a critical period of their growth was an important factor in leading them to the General Church.

     During the closing years of his life, he was deeply interested in the doctrine of the glorification of the Lord's Human. Following Le Boys des Guays, he inclined to the position of John Clowes rather than that of Samuel Noble. I remember well his sending me passages to show that the Lord assumed a Human He had not had before, and that He glorified it by its unition with the Divine within. He was opposed to the thought that the Human was glorified by a process of substitution. It is a matter of deep regret with me that he has been taken before he could leave a formal book or article on this subject.
     ELDRED E. IUNGERICH.

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CHINESE 1927

CHINESE       Editor       1927


NEW CHURCH LIFE
Office a Publication, Lancaster, Pa.
Published Monthly By
THE GENERAL CHURCH OF THE NEW JERUSALEM
BRYN ATHYN, PA.
Editor                    Rev. W. B. Caldwell, Bryn Athyn, Pa.
Business Manager          Mr. H. Hyatt, Bryn Athyn, Pa.

     All literary contributions should be sent to the Editor. Subscriptions, change of address and business communications should be sent to the Business Manager.

     TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION
In the United States, $3.00 per year; Elsewhere, $3.25 or 14 shillings; payable in advance
Single Copy          30 cents
     Whatever the present disturbances in China may portend, so far as civil and national issues are concerned, the New Churchman is safe in assuming that the spiritual interests of that numerous people are interiorly involved, as is the case with all warfare and civil disorder. The ends of Providence, though they work out slowly, are concerned with the preparation of the human race for the descent of the Lord's spiritual kingdom, requiring the vastation of hindering conditions, and thus a liberation from them. In the light of this universal view, all liberating movements today are to be regarded as continuations of the Last Judgment, the effects of which we see in the emancipation of backward races from bonds which have prevented their reception of the truth of Diirine Revelation. The evangelizing of the gentiles continues apace in the spiritual world, making the Lord known even to those of other earths, as we know from many accounts in the Writings. It is reasonable to suppose that the same will take place on this earth also. Some primitive peoples, it is true, are protected from Christian missionaries, and some in the interior of Africa are receiving the Heavenly Doctrine by a revelation among them (C. L. J. 16, S. D. 4777), but others will undoubtedly receive the genuine truth of Christianity from missionaries, and thus be prepared for an eventual reception of the Doctrines of the New Church.

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Swedenborg saw many of this type in the spiritual world. We read:

     "Many in that middle celestial kingdom were gentiles from Asiatic regions, and very many of them, had been converted to the Christian religion by missionaries. When they acknowledge the Lord, and thus receive faith, they believe in the Lord; neither do they care for those intricate questions and disputes about faith, as to whether faith or charity saves, nor for the Pope, as to whether he is head of the Church; but they live as Christians, and most of them enjoy a blessedness and wisdom which cannot be described, and which is so superior that it is beyond belief." (S. D. 4676.)

     Christian denominations have conducted missionary enterprises among the Chinese for many years, and have converted many to the various types of Christianity. It is not without significance, however, that converted Chinese are themselves resenting the importation of Christian dissensions, and especially the imposition of Modernism upon them, as destructive of the simple verities of the Gospel. This repugnance is not only in keeping with their pacific nature, but it confirms what is revealed in the Writings concerning their attitude in the other life. It will be recalled that certain Chinese spirits felt an objection when Swedenborg use the word "Christ" in speaking of the Lord, because they had learned in the world that Christians do not live according to their doctrine of love and charity. When he called him simply "Lord," they were interiorly affected. And further Swedenborg states that "in the other life they are more afraid than others of receiving the truths of faith, but when instructed by angels they do receive them, and worship the Lord, though they advance to this state slowly." (H. H. 325.) The passage reads:

     "One morning there was a choir at a distance from me, and from the representations made by them it was given to know that they were Chinese, for they presented a kind of woolly goat, a cake of millet, and an ebony spoon, and also the idea of a floating city. They desired to come nearer to me, and when they applied themselves, they said they wanted to be alone with me, that they might open their thoughts.

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But they were told that they were not alone, and that there were others who were indignant at their wanting to be alone, when they were guests. Having perceived their indignation, they fell to thinking whether they had trespassed against the neighbor, and whether they had claimed anything for themselves which belonged to others. I was given to Perceive their agitation; it was that of an acknowledgment that perhaps they had injured others, also of shame on that account, and of other good affections at the same time; hence it was known that they were possessed of charity. Presently I spoke with them, and at last about the Lord. When I called Him Christ, a certain repugnance was perceived in them; but the reason was disclosed, that they had brought it from the world, from their having known Christians to live worse than they did themselves, and in no charity. But when I simply mentioned the Lord, they were inwardly moved." (A. C. 2596. See H. H. 325; S. D. 3066.)

     Evidence has come to hand which indicates that a like feeling now exists in China toward the prevailing type of Christian teaching by missionaries, the Modernism which is undermining and destroying a simple faith in the Gospel. We have seen a letter from the Rev. H. G. C. Hallock, Ph. D., Dean of the Bible School, University of China, Inc., Shanghai,-an institution recently established to combat Modernist views. He writes:

     "There has recently been established in China a University for the training of young men for the ministry, and emphasizing the fundamentals of Christianity. This University would not be a necessity were all other schools and colleges in China teaching the pure religion of Jesus Christ; but, sad to state, many of the schools in China are tainted with Modernism, and most of the Universities and Theological Schools, if not all, teach doctrines that logically dethrone Christ, cast doubt upon the inspiration of the Bible, virtually deny Christ's virgin birth, His Divinity and His Miracles, scoff at the efficacy of His shed blood, and cast doubt upon His resurrection. These facts made the establishment of the 'University of China' most imperative." He continues:

     "Many missionaries cast doubt upon the great doctrines of the Bible. The reliable Chinese preachers sadly say, in substance:

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"If what many modern missionaries teach is true, Christianity has no message for China. If Christ is only a Super-man, Confucius was that. If Christ taught only a System of Ethics, so did Confucius. If there is doubt about parts of the Bible, there is doubt about it all. If Christ, as only man, died for others, He is no better than men we have had in China. If Christ did not rise from the dead, then is our preaching vain. China has practically everything Christianity has, except a Divine-human Savior from sin, sin's power and sin's wages; and if the teaching of Modernists is true-however spiritual, however moral, and however good they may be-we have no message. Either assure us that the Bible is the very Word of God, and Jesus is the Virgin-born, Divine, crucified, risen, returning Savior, or go back to your land, and take your fallible Bible with you. We need an infallible Guide-Book and a Living Savior. We do not want your doubts and supposings. Our most ignorant have these. We want to be saved."

     Our readers may find interest at this time in consulting the other statements in the Writings concerning the Chinese in the spiritual world:-On the Indian Chinese, Spiritual Diary 6067, Last Judgment (Posthumous) 132; On the inhabitants of Tartary near to China, S. D. 6077, L. J. (Post.) 133. In regard to the Ancient Word, we are told: " Seek for it in China, and you may perhaps find it there among the Tartars." (A. R. 11, T. C. R. 279, Coronis 39.)
"THE WORD OF THE OLD TESTAMENT EXPLAINED." 1927

"THE WORD OF THE OLD TESTAMENT EXPLAINED."       ALFRED ACTON       1927

     NOTES AND REVIEWS.

     "THE WORD OF THE OLD TESTAMENT EXPLAINED."

     The last issue of NEW CHURCH LIFE contained a brief note (p. 255) announcing the forthcoming publication of Vol. I of The Word of the Old Testament Explained, and we believe it will be of general interest to give some account of the publication of the Latin text of this work under the editorship of Doctor Immanuel Tafel, who gave it the title Adversaria.

     Written by Swedenborg during the years 1745-1747, the original MS of the work is contained in four volumes, which, on Swedenborg's death, were handed over to the Royal Academy of Sciences, Stockholm, for safekeeping.

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No catalog of this MS was published until about the year 1899, when a Swedish catalog appeared, and also a catalog in French which was printed in the French edition of the work on Heaven and Hell. In these catalogs, the volumes in question are described in a few words, but with great correctness. They seem to have attracted no attention in England until the year 1835, when a translation of the Swedish catalog was printed in the INTELLECTUAL REPOSITORY. Even so, the volumes containing this Exposition of the Books of the Old Testament seem to have attracted no marked attention. Curiously enough, in fact, attention was called to the existence of this work by an outsider, Dr. Achatius Rahl, Dean of Lund Cathedral.

     Toward the end of the year 1839, Dr. Immanuel Tafel, who was then publishing his reprint of the Arcana Coelesta'a at Tübingen, received a letter from Dr. Kahl, who introduced himself as an ardent admirer of Swedenborg. It seems that Dr. Kahl, during a visit to Stockholm, had made an investigation of Swedenborg's manuscripts, and, being attracted by the Exposition of the Historical Word, had made a manuscript copy of the Exposition of Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. He offered to send copies of these transcripts to Dr. Tafel, provided they could be printed. After some correspondence, the publication was arranged, by the generosity of English friends, and Dr. Kahl's transcripts were duly received.

     Meanwhile, information in regard to this new work appeared from time to time in the INTELLECTUAL REPOSITORY, and considerable interest was aroused as to its contents. It seems to have been generally supposed that it was somewhat in the nature of a first attempt at the Arcana Coelestia, and that Swedenborg had originally intended to carry the latter work on to the explanation of the remaining Books of the Word. It was hoped, therefore, that in this new MS, to which attention was now called, would be found the first sketch of what had been intended to be a continuation of the Arcana Coelestia.

     Dr. Tafel first received the transcript of Leviticus, which he at once published in pamphlet form as "Adversaria, Fasciculus Primus" (1840). The Latin word "Adversaria" means Notes, and is used in about the same way as its English equivalent. Judging from the transcript of Leviticus, which was all that Dr. Tafel had before him when he gave that title to the work, the name might perhaps be defended; far the Exposition of Leviticus consists largely of brief notes which evidently were to be filled in when the time came for printing.

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The title "Adversaria," or Notes, is by no means a suitable one for the whole work, which is far from being "notes" or even a "commentary," since both of these terms indicate merely sundry comments explaining the sense of the letter of the Word, whereas Swedenborg's exposition extended far beyond the letter. He saw with the greatest clearness that within the Word were internal senses, four in number, one within the other; and his purpose was to "explain" or "unfold" the Word, so that these senses might be seen within it. This he declared early in the work, where he treats of "The Senses in the Divine Word." (Vol. I, no. 505; translated in NEW CHURCH LIFE, January, 1926.) And whenever he himself refers to any part of the work, he refers to it as "Explicatio Geneseos," "Explicatio Exodi," etc. But we shall speak again of Swedenborg's title presently.

     After Dr. Tafel had sent the transcript of Leviticus to the printer, he received the continuation of the transcripts containing the Exposition of Numbers and Deuteronomy, and these he at once published in fascicles which appeared in 1840 and 1841. Still later, he received the transcript of Joshua and some other Books, Swedenborg's notes on which occupy comparatively few pages. Dr. Tafel appears to have published these fascicles without any definite design as to their place in the work to which they belonged. In 1842, however, after he had received the transcript of Joshua, he noted that this Exposition commenced with no 4451, and, assuming that the whole work was numbered consecutively, and that the preceding paragraphs contained the Exposition of Genesis and Exodus, and that those 4450 Paragraphs would not occupy more than one volume, he published the fascicles he had already printed, giving them the title, "Adversaria, Part 2 (containing Joshua, etc.), and Part 3 (containing Leviticus, etc.)." In the following year, he published the Exposition of Isaiah and Jeremiah as Part 4.

     Some years later, in 1846, The Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences, in grateful acknowledgment of the honorable conduct of the London Swedenborg Society in restoring to the Academy the lost volume of the Spiritual Diary, which had come into the possession of the Society, loaned Dr. Tafel the whole of the four volumes containing the autograph of the Adversaria.

307


Examining these volumes. Dr. Tafel at once noted that on the back of the first three volumes was the printed title, "Explicatio in Verbum Histmicum Vet. Test.," and on Volume IV, in Swedenborg's handwriting, the title, "Esaias et Jeremias Expllicat" Clearly, as we have already noted, this was the title which Swedenborg intended to give the work, and justifies the title now given to the English translation,-The Word of the Old Testament Explained. But Dr. Tafel, when, in 1847, he resumed the printing of this work by publishing Part I, seems to have deemed it inadvisable to change the title under which he had already published Parts 2 to 4,-that is, Adversaria. This title had become well known, owing largely to the fact that the Exposition of the Book of Numbers had been translated by the Rev. J. H. Smithson, and printed in many of the journals of the New Church. Part I, therefore, which consists of six small volumes, was published under the old title of Adversaria. In his preface, however, Dr. Tafel mentioned Swedenborg's title, and, indeed, printed it in a very prominent style.

     Another difficulty confronted Dr. Tafel. This was the discovery that the whole work was not numbered consecutively, but that each of the four volumes commenced with a new set of paragraph numbers; also, that the Exposition of Genesis and Exodus, instead of occupying 4450 paragraphs, filled two whole volumes and a large part of a third. Parts 2 and 4 of the Adversaria had already been published, and together occupied about 60 pages; and here was Part I, which would fill over 1500 pages! Dr. Tafel met the difficulty by publishing the Exposition of Genesis and Exodus,-that is to say, the unpublished remainder of the Adversaria,-as "Volumes 1 to 6 of Part I. This is the reason why the Latin edition of the Adversaria appears as Part I, volumes 1-6 (being the first three volumes of the Latin edition as it is ordinarily bound) and Parts 2 to 4 (being the fourth volume). We may here remark that the English edition will be numbered consecutively from beginning to end, and at the same time indicate the numbering of the original.

     The work has never before been translated, except in parts. The Exposition of the Book of Numbers, which was translated by Mr. Elihu Rich, was published in 1849, in four numbers which are now exceedingly rare. German translations of some five hundred selected passages were published by Dr. Tafel in the NEUEN KIRCHENBLATT, and scattered passages in English are to be found in the Potts Concordance.

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But beyond these, the work has been little known in the Church, except to Latin students. The publication of a complete English translation, now under way, will be a signal contribution to the literature of the Church, and should furnish much new material for the study of the learned and the edification of all.
     ALFRED ACTON.
LA NOUVELLE JERUSALEM 1927

LA NOUVELLE JERUSALEM              1927

     The second number for 1926 of this journal in the French language edited by the Rev. Ernst Deltenre was received in America shortly after his death. Its contents are: A sermon by the Rev. K. R. Alden entitled "God in One Person"; an article by Henry G. de Geymuller on "The New Church and the New Spirit, or "What do you Think of Modernism?" and an illustrated treatment of the subject of "Modern Architecture in the New Church," by J. J. Gailliard. There are also two editorials, one on "The Lot of Suicides," and the other on "Swedenborg's Counsel in regard to Finance."

     Mr. de Geymuller considers that the tendency towards Modernism in some New Church quarters arose from extending the idea of a New Church to embrace everything new that has arisen in the world. Converts drawn to the New Church under such an illusion of its liberality are not filled with the proper spirit of humbling themselves before the Heavenly Doctrine, but with the hope of a wider scope for their individuality. The Modernism of the Protestant Churches is not due to any infiltration of New Church doctrine, though they may have accepted some of its phases, but comes from Germaoic, nay, Jewish sources. It denies ultimate fact and reality in favor of vague generalizations. To quote:

     "There is but one step from this to considering dogma as a negligible quantity and as an obstacle to the union of hearts by charity. This step has long since been taken by the Protestant Churches, notoriously in the United States, where they even have so-called 'union services' at which Jewish Rabbis sometimes preach about the Messiah-principle, the Messiah-progress, the Messiah-liberty, the Messiah-kingdom of heaven!

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And, what is especially grave, the most numerous branch of the New Church in America has applied for membership in the national federation of Christian Churches, well aware that this was a case of life or death. . . . Thus excellent men have at one stroke plunged themselves into an immediately realizable but illusory unity, rather than resign themselves to a long and arduous struggle that is to be crowned with eventual victory. Plato, in his Republic, says that all evil arises from men's preferring a lesser, but immediately realizable, pleasure to a greater one that is slower to attain."

     Thus Modernism, according to the writer, is an effort to leave realities of being for vague gropings after what one anticipates Frill come. It has cast off firm moorings in a beatific optimism that the new and unknown will be more agreeable. It is a revival of the mediaeval nombalism, or rather of an ancient doctrine that was held by Parmenides, and which has come out Prominently in Rant, Hegel and Bergson, whereas the true philosophy is that of realism held by Heraclitus, St. Thomas Aquinas, and Swedenborg. We trust, however, that the writer will be led to qualify his verdict somewhat by the teaching in De Verbo, concerning the celestial who are said to be striving perpetually for what is really beyond human grasp. The article is an excellent and timely one, even if its conclusion, though carefully qualified, as to the propriety of Catholics forbidding the reading of the Word, is unfortunate.

     Mr. Gailliard makes a strong and convincing case in favor of not using bygone styles of architecture in New Church temples. The Gothic style, with its narrow slits for windows and its sombre tortuosities, is really correspondential of a blind dogma into which the light of heaven cannot enter. Why should not the New Church, like the Israelitish, have its own Peculiar temple on earth, modeled after the pattern seen in heaven,-that of the Nunc Licet temple described in the True Christian Religion? He shows that it would be feasible according to present-day technique to make walls that are a continuous window, and in which everyone would see the Word and the celebrant, and no one be behind the minister when he preaches. The tower with crowned summit should be over the chancel, in order to represent influx into the supreme region, and not over the place where the nave meets the transept, for in that case it would correspond to influx merely into human reasoning and concepts.

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In the two sketches that accompany the article, he has given an ingenious and potentially beautiful plan of a church which he recommends for general adoption, to the end that the distinctive origin of the New Church may be potent in its outward form. For the New Church has been given a pattern seen in heaven, and its main feature is that it is a temple of light.

     The two editorials are typical of the editor's fine appreciation of the rational values of the Heavenly Doctrine. They are his last words to the Church on this earthly plane, and show that he did his part in contributing to the growth of the Church with faithfulness to the end.
     E. E. I.
REFUSING SPIRITUAL FREEDOM 1927

REFUSING SPIRITUAL FREEDOM              1927

     The Hebrew manservant was granted his freedom after serving six years; but if he was unwilling to accept this freedom, his master was to "bore his ear through with an awl," and he was to serve him forever. (Exodus 21:1-6.) This punishment-perforating the ear with an awl-involved that "he was of an asinine disposition, denoted by the ear," thus that he was unwilling to hearken to the command to go forth free, and to live like a man of sound reason, who wishes to be free. (Adversaria 3:798) A man is like this servant, if he prefer to remain in servitude to the love of self and the world, which is the perpetual slavery of hell. Or he may be compared to such a manservant, if he prefer to live the truth from the mere obedience of faith, and does not follow the Lord in the light of rational intelligence, which is spiritual freedom. (A. C. 8990.)

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Church News 1927

Church News       Various       1927

     COLCHESTER, ENGLAND.

     A review of the special happenings in our Society since the last news report takes me back to Sunday, October 31st, when a party of General Church friends from America paid us a visit,-Mr. and Mrs. Harold F. Pitcairn, Mrs. Lena M. Davis, and Mr. Geoffrey S. Childs. A social gathering held in the afternoon at the home of Mrs. Rey Gill afforded us the opportunity of meeting them.

     The Christmas service was once more a most enjoyable and inspiring one. During the service, offerings were received by our Pastor for the school funds. The time-honored social made a fitting close of the year. The Social Committee had provided a splendid festive board at which shout thirty-five were present. After supper a program of games, songs and competitions was ably carried through by the Master of Ceremonies, Mr. N. H. Motum. A special feature of the evening was the fact that nearly all attended in fancy costume. At 11:30 p. m., Mr. J. F. Cooper, as toastmaster, introduced a number of toasts, which were duly honored, and a few seconds after midnight the final toast to the New Year brought the social to an end.

     Our Swedenborg Birthday celebration was another interesting and enjoyable event. As visitors from London we were fortunate in having present with us Mr. and Mrs. A. Stebbing, Miss J. Stebbing, Miss G. Hart, and Mr. R. Anderson. Our Pastor had arranged a program of readings treating of various incidents in the life of Swedenborg, and these were read by Messrs. C. Pryke, N. H. Motum, J. F. Cooper, E. J. Waters, W. S. Appleton, P. Motum and A. J. Appleton. The readings were interspersed with toasts, all of which were musically honored. The 19th Psalm was sung, and many songs from the Social Song Book.

     For the first adult social of the year the committee organized a Military Whist drive, and this was rewarded with a very good attendance. At the conclusion a presentation was made to our Pastor and Mrs. Gyllenhaal as a small token of our appreciation of his services to the Society during the last six years.
     J. F. COOPER.

     GLENVIEW, ILLINOIS.

     From the first of February to the middle of March we have experienced the mildest and most sunshiny weather we have ever had for a like period, and we have looked with pity upon the exiles from the Park now in Florida.

     During the past winter the Friday classes have been continued as successfully as at any time during the last fifty years. Our Pastor has adopted a new system. In the old way, the doctrinal classes were held after the supper tables had been cleared. The result, however, was discouraging, because about half the people drifted away after supper. Under the new order, Mr. Smith gives his paper or lecture immediately after supper while we are still at table. He has taken up on successive evenings the Ten Commandments, the Divine Trinity, and other subjects. The thorough-going preparation of these talks has met with enthusiastic response.

     The local chapter of the Sons of the Academy is very active, especially in preparing for the grand conclave to be held here next summer. They have just given a dinner dance, which was a very classy affair to which the Sons invited their ladies. The few men who are eligible for membership, but who are not yet members, could only look through the windows at the bountiful repast and drool.

     Active work has started in the cleaning up of the Park, and a new system is being inaugurated, to be financed by a $5.00 tax upon each automobile using the road in the Park, this tax to be supplemented by a special assessment on all the abutting property.

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This should result in a liberal income that will show important results in the care of the Park.

     Prof. Jesse Stevens is very active with the church music. He is giving long and regular instruction to the choir, has inaugurated a general chorus of mixed voices, and is drilling our amateur orchestra, which is of pretentious size and is doing very well. Mrs. Ralph Synnestvedt, nee Katherine Burnham, is presiding at the organ, and also plays for the choir and chorus rehearsals. Miss Edith Goerwitz plays the piano with the orchestra.

     On Saturday March 26th, the Society gave a large card party with a stiff admission for the purpose of raising funds for our social activities. Miss Jennie Cole, who is to be married to Mr. Trumbull Scalbom on the evening of Palm Sunday, was recently the recipient of a kitchen shower. Dr. Schierholtz, of Toronto, was a visitor in Glenview on Sunday, March 20th.     
     R. S.

     SOUTH AFRICA.

     The Rev. E. J. Pulsford is making an extended stay in South Africa as representative of the English Conference with the Native Missions conducted by that body. Reports of his activities appear from time to time in The New-Church Herald, from which we quote the following account of his visits to Ladybrand and Durban, where he was a welcome visitor among the members of the General Church:

     "I have already told in The Herald about the mid-winter sojourn of my family and myself in Pretoria. This was followed by a month's stay in the Orange Free State, when we learned by experience how cold the winter can be in the interior of South Africa. My family spent nearly the whole of July as the guests of Mr. and Mrs. F. C. Frazee at Alpha near Ladybrand. Again I shared the same kind hospitality between visits to Mission stations in the Free State and Basutoland. During the last week-end in July I made an expedition to Liphiring, Basutoland, in real wintry conditions, the lowest temperature on record being registered in the district. I left Bloemfontein by train, with icicles hanging from the coach. Late in the evening I reached my destination, after four-and-a-half hours on horseback. I was entertained from Saturday night until Tuesday morning in a native cottage that had no fireplace; on the night of my arrival a wood fire was kindled in the middle of the mud-floor; there was no outlet for the smoke save through the open door and window. This was the only fire I had during my stay. A strong and piercing wind blew most of the time; clouds obscured the sun; the mountains around were snow-clad.

     "August brought us transition to sub-tropical conditions. It was our holiday month, and we spent it at Durban. The contrast was great and agreeable. The weather was like that of an English summer; the atmosphere was moist; the luxuriant vegetation was delightfully fresh and green, beautiful to look upon after the parched, straw-colored wintry interior; and flowers and blossoming trees, many of them quite new to us, were in great abundance. For the first time we saw growing on a large scale sugar-cane, bananas and pawpaws, also pineapples and mango trees, though it was not the fruiting season of the two last-named. It was hard to realize that we were little more than 200 miles in a straight line from Alpha, which we had just left in the grip of winter, and were actually further from the tropics than we had been while there! Monkeys in the wild state were a feature whose acquaintance we made for the first time.

     "It was delightful to come into the sphere of a well-organized and live white New-Church Society. The Durban Society is affiliated with the General Church of the New Jerusalem. The minister, the Rev. Elmo C. Acton, is a nephew of the Rev. W. H. Acton, well-known in the Church in London.

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We much enjoyed the services conducted by him in the church, which, though small, is one of the most beautiful I have been in. Mr. and Mrs. Acton and the members of their flock, many of whose homes we visited, gave us a kind welcome. At Mr. Acton's invitation I conducted the service on Sunday morning, the 15th, and a children's service on the following Sunday. Among the friends whose homes we visited were Mr. and Mrs, A. Cyril Braby-another well-known New-Church name in the homeland!-and Mr. and Mrs. Wilham Ridgway, whom we had known some years before in Bristol." (New-Church Herald, March 12, 1927, p. 164.)

     REPORT OF THE VISITING PASTOR.

     The annual southern trip began on Wednesday, March 2d, on which day I arrived at KNOXVILLE, TENN. Here, in the family circle consisting of Mr. and Mrs. Hutchinson and their daughter, Ethel Rae, an Academy ex-pupil, we had a doctrinal class that evening, and services, including the Holy Supper, the following evening. Both occasions were delightful. I also called on a member, Mrs. Remington, who was not able to attend the meetings.

     On Sunday morning, the 6th, services were held at JACKSONVILLE, FLA., in the private school building of the Misses Warriner, and in the evening there was a doctrinal class in their home. At the services the attendance was fifteen, and at the class eight. The Jacksonville circle is constituted of an earnest group of New Church people under the pastoral care of the Rev. J. B. Spiers, Southern Missionary of the General Convention, who visits several times a year, and had been with them on the Sunday preceding my visit. It was my privilege to spend the entire day in the Warriner home, and to enjoy not only its hospitality, but also its affectionate New Church spirit.

     Next (for several days, I was at OAK HILL, FLA., where reside Mrs. John Hilldale and Mr. and Mrs. J. Harry Hilldale. Services, including the Holy Supper, were held one evening. We were not able to have any classes on account of the illness of Mrs. J. H. Hilldale. There was, however, opportunity to instruct the children on three afternoons.

     On Friday, the 11th, I arrived at MIAMI, where I was met by my good friends, Mr. Fritz and Mr. Fraser, from whom I received a hearty welcome, and with whom, from then on until the following Wednesday, I was almost constantly. The church and the doctrines were our topic of conversation all day long and often well into the night. Mr. Fraser, formerly of Atlanta, now resides at Miami, and may make this his future home. On Sunday morning we had services at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Fritz, with an attendance of six. Probably for the first time in this city, there was a New Church administration of the Holy Supper. There were two communicants. On Sunday evening, also at the Fritz home, a missionary lecture on "The Word" was given to an interested audience of eighteen. On Monday evening, at the same place, a doctrinal class, also of a missionary character, was held. One morning I called on Mrs. L. Brackett Bishop, who, because of illness in her family, was unable to attend our meetings.

     The last place visited was ST. PETERSBURG, Where I arrived on Thursday morning, the 17th. After a few hours in the home of Mr. and Mrs. Seymour Nelson, I went to Tampa to visit Mr. and Mrs. Morris Spamer until the following day. They showed me that interesting city, and gave me a good time. We also had an enjoyable conversation on various doctrinal subjects. On Friday afternoon they brought me back to the Nelson home, where we had a doctrinal class, with an attendance of eighteen, and afterwards a social supper.

     Here I may relate what will be of interest to all readers. That evening, Mr. and Mrs. Nelson and Miss Sophie Falk went to a Galli Curci concert. At its close, they, with many others of the audience, went forward to greet the great singer, and, in shaking hands, told her they were New Church.

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She immediately called her husband, and he joined her in inviting our friends to call at the hotel the next forenoon. The call was made, and an hour was spent in conversation entirely upon the Doctrines and how wonderful they are. Our friends were intensely delighted.

     On Sunday morning, services were held, at which there was an attendance of twenty-two, of whom seventeen partook of the Holy Supper. The St. Petersburg circle, several of whom, like the Nelson family, reside there only during the northern winter, consists of members of both the General Church and the General Convention. The Rev. Mr. Spiers visits at times, and was there shortly before I came. During the months that the Nelsons are there, the circle gathers every Sunday at their home for a short service and the reading of a sermon. And so we would most heartily recommend St. Petersburg to any New Church people desiring to go south during the winter.     
     F. E. WAELCHLI.

     LONDON, ENGLAND.

     A great blank has been caused in the congregation of Michael Church by the departure from this life, on February 16th last, of Mr. E. W. Misson, familiarly known as "Friend Will." His death came as somewhat of a shock. Although his greatly failing health had been apparent to all for some time, it had not been anticipated that he would leave us so soon. He was at business the
day before his passing.

     Mr. Misson was the son of New Church parents, and was quite a youth when our Pastor, the Rev. R. J. Tilson, came to London. He was an exceedingly good "elder brother" to the rest of the family, all of whom were under age when his father died. He was soon appointed by Mr. Tilson to the office of Vestry Deacon, and carried out all the duties appertaining to it with conspicuous success for a period of nearly forty years. Possessed of a beautiful and well-trained tenor voice, he was always ready to use it in the service of the church, both at Divine Worship, and on social occasions. Indeed, no program seemed complete without a song from "Friend Will." Of great artistic taste, he expended a considerable sum on the appointments and furniture of the chancel of Michael Church, thereby adding much to its use and beauty. He was an avowed ritualist, and a great believer in the benefit of beautiful externals as aids to internal worship. He became a member of the General Church of the New Jerusalem when our Pastor joined that body, and always remained true and loyal to the traditions of the "Old Academy."

     His love for the Church and loyalty to its Pastor, added to his varied social qualities, which included a keen sense of humor and a gift of quick and good-tempered repartee, will cause him to be missed more and more as time goes on.

     A day or two before his death, he remarked to an old friend that what he needed most was "a thorough change." The "thorough change" soon came, and those who knew him best realized that it came, as it does with all of us, at the best possible time. "Vale et salve, Friend Will."
     H. M. D.

     THE SOUTH AFRICAN MISSION.

     The first month of the New Year proved to be a very busy one for the Mission. The Leaders and Teachers of this institution were called to the Headquarters at Alpha for the 11th of January, and they remained till the end of the month. Between the 11th and 14th, the majority of Leaders had arrived, and the formal classes in the mornings and afternoons commenced on the 14th and continued until the 25th. The Rev. Elmo C. Acton conducted a morning class on the Doctrine of Faith and Charity, which was followed by a class in which the Rev. F. W. Elphick outlined the chief characteristics of the Ancient and Most Ancient Churches. In the afternoons, an outline was given of the features of the Early Christian Church.

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These classes were open to the Leaders and Teachers of the Mission, and the discussions and questions which arose from the subjects presented were of a very encouraging nature.

     In addition to these classes, and throughout the stay of the Leaders at Alpha, the usual Monday and Thursday Doctrinal Class from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. was continued. Mr. Acton kindly gave a class an the nature of the Second Coming and the prophecies relating thereto; while Jonas Motsi, John Jiyana, Berry Maqelepo, Moffat Mcanyana and George Mokoena, each in turn, delivered addresses on a subject connected with the Doctrines of the New Church. The whole of the series was conducted in English. In this way the members of the Trade Department, who are not members of the Mission, were enabled to hear from their own people what the New Church teaches.

     On the 26th, 27th and 28th of January the Annual Meeting of the Leaders and Teachers was held. The Leaders met in the mornings, and the Leaders and Teachers together in the afternoons. At the morning meetings, the Superintendent, the Secretary (Rev. Elmo C. Acton), and eleven Leaders signed the Roll.

     Mr. Acton delivered the Annual Address, which dealt with the subject of "Ritual." Being a very useful presentation, it was proposed and carried that the address be published in English, Sesuto and Zulu, in the Mission Journal,-The Tlhahiso. A most interesting discussion followed, which dwelt, for the most part, on the subject of the Offering as the first part of the ritual in church worship, as also its relationship to the financial support of the Church. The support of the Church also occupied a part of the Second Session, as an outcome of the reading of the Financial Statement for the year 1926. It was pointed out that all should look to, and work for, self-support, so that in time each centre of the Mission may support its respective Leader. The other subjects taken from the Agenda were those of "Translations" and "Polygamy." The Meeting decided that for the present year the work on Heaven and Hell be translated into Zulu and The Doctrine of the Lord into Sesuto.

     The discussion of the subject of Polygamy occupied an entire Session. From the data given it was evident that it is a subject that will need continued attention, for it is only by education and the raising of womankind that the customs of a race can be changed. In the meantime the process of transition is beset with many difficulties, "hard cases," and judgments requiring the wisdom of a Solomon. In the face of all this, the New Church has to insist on the Christian marriage, for unless this principle is upheld-especially by the Leaders themselves-a true conception of what the New Church means will never come to the African.

     As already noted, the afternoon sessions were open to the Leaders and Teachers. This was the first meeting of its kind, and, owing to the growing conditions of the school work in the Mission, is analogous to the Teachers' Meetings in Bryn Athyn at the time of the Annual Council Meetings in February. At the two sessions, eighteen members signed the Roll. The proceedings were marked by brisk discussions, and the Agenda, entirely made up of contributions from the Teachers themselves, testified to the growing educational developments among the Africans. Since the subject matter has an educational bearing, we have contributed a fuller account of these meetings to The Bulletin.

     On Sunday, January 23d, Divine Service was held in the Alpha Church, at which all the Leaders and Teachers attended, in addition to the usual congregation. The Communion was administered, and the Rev. Elmo C. Acton gave a discourse on the subject of "Natural and Spiritual Treasures," basing it upon the text, "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth."

     During January, two trips were made into Basutoland. On Sunday, the 16th, the Communion was held in the large Church at Luka's Village, and Mr. Acton gave a discourse on "The Sower."

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On the 30th, the group at Khopane-a village seven miles from Maseru-was visited, and the church building dedicated. On both occasions some of the Durban visitors, who were staying at the Alpha Homestead at the time, took the opportunity to visit these Basutoland centers.

     In addition to the meetings mentioned, the Mission Committee appointed by the Bishop met for the first time. The Committee,-Revs. F. W. Elphick and E. C. Acton, and Messrs. J. H. and N. A. Ridgway,-held three afternoon sessions and one evening session, at which the matters of the entire Mission in South Africa were considered, and a Report formulated and dispatched to the Bishop.

     It was a great privilege to those living at the Alpha Homestead to have Mr. Acton conduct the usual Evening Services. During the five Sundays Mr. Acton was with us, he conducted three services, which were thoroughly enjoyed. With several visitors adding to the usual Alpha Staff, the congregation averaged eleven.

     Those who have recently visited Alpha have been: The Rev. and Mrs. Elmo C. Acton, with their daughter Sharon; Mrs. Aubyn Margary, of Sweetwaters, Natal; Mr. George Keys, of Johannesburg; Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth Ridgway and Miss Elsie Champion, from Durban. Mr. J. H. Ridgway spent a few days while attending the Mission Committee, and just recently Mr. P. D. Ridgway and his son Rex paid a short business visit, only staying two days. Mr. Norman Ridgway and Miss Caroll Cockerell have recently spent a few weeks at their respective homes in Durban for the summer vacation.

     At the time of writing, the normal and routine work of the Mission Headquarters has been the order of the day since the beginning of February. The Alpha Day School has a hundred pupils, and there are promises of more before the first half of the term is over. The school is divided into five sections, according to grades; and five teachers are kept busy from nine till one each day. A proper Roster has been drawn up, and is faithfully followed. In the afternoons, the teaching staff is kept busy with translation work, correspondence and records.

     As is the case in all institutions devoted to education work, duties are increased by the unexpected things of life. In December, the eldest son of Mrs. Letele, the Kindergarten Teacher at Alpha, fell ill with enteric fever, but after four weeks of the closest attention in nursing he passed away on the 11th of January. Just after school commenced in February, another pupil fell ill with apparently the same trouble, and is still on the danger list. Fortunately both these cases were contracted while traveling to Alpha, and are therefore not due to contagion at the Mission itself. With two cases of illness, together with disciplinary troubles in the school and necessary expulsion; and with adjustments respecting the Native Band Club and Football Club, all in addition to the activities we have outlined, it can hardly be said that the General Church Mission lacks vitality!

     In our next account we hope to give some idea of the work being done at the other stations of the Mission in Natal, Cape Province and the Transvaal.     
     F. W. E.

     REPORT OF THE VISITING PASTOR.

     Services were held at MIDDLEPORT, OHIO, on Sunday morning, April 10th, with an attendance of seventeen, of whom eleven partook of the Holy Supper. All the congregation then went to the home of Mr. and Mrs. de Main for a social dinner. As ever, this was an enjoyable event. During the afternoon, at the same place, Sunday School was held. There were seven children, all of New Church families. Parents and friends were also present. The lesson was on the Lord's Resurrection, in anticipation of Easter a week later. There were doctrinal classes on Monday and Tuesday evenings.

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At the first, the subject was the fulness, holiness, and power of the Word in the Sense of the Letter; and at the second, the need of the removal of evils in the external man, in order that the internal may be purified. It was decided that the Sunday School, which had been suspended during the bad winter weather, would begin again on the following Sunday.
     F. E. WAELCHLI.

     DURBAN, NATAL.

     Our Society activities are always greatly curtailed during the hot summer months of January and February. We had Sunday services during February, but very little else.

     Kainon School opened on February 6th, with twenty-five pupils and a change of teachers. Miss Enid Cockerell has joined the teaching staff of Kainon School. We are indeed fortunate in securing two fully qualified teachers for our school,-Miss Champion and Miss Cockerell,-but it is only through great financial sacrifice on their part that we can do it. They have the good will and appreciation of us all. Deep gratitude is due Miss Doris Ridgway for the good and faithful services she has given the school. She became a member of the teaching staff when the school first opened in November, 1923, and retired in December, 1926. She is leaving in July to study teaching in Bryn Athyn. The gratitude and good wishes of the Durban Society go with her. "Miss Melville" (Joyce Ridgway) has also retired; she lent a helping hand during Miss Pemberton's absence, and deserves many thanks. The return of Miss Pemberton, who had a few months' rest from teaching during her trip to England and Bryn Athyn, was the source of much pleasure to the school. Another important event in connection with the school is the opening of a kindergarten, Mrs. Acton has undertaken this work, and although handicapped by lack of a proper room and appurtenances is making a real success of it. Her seven little pupils are most enthusiastic, and only rebel at the short hours, 8:30 to 10:30 a.m. We certainly are blessed with willing helpers in our Society!

     Theta Alpha has a new member Mrs. Olive Bostock Frazee. That makes eight members in South Africa I They gave their first banquet in the New Hall to the Octette Club on Friday evening, February 25th. There were twenty young women present. Mrs. Ione Odhner Acton was the toast mistress. Her husband must have been coaching her. That may account for her great success. The subject of the evening was "Good Will." I am sure the spirit that pervaded the whole evening was not only due to the competent and effective speeches but also to the "pep" and spirit of the toast mistress. The first speech was given by Miss Enid Cockerell: "The Church is the first thing in our lives, and the school a means to the establishment of the Church on earth. There should be good-will among those who go to our school, as well as among those who are not so fortunate." The other subjects were all presented as absolute hindrances to the spirit of good-will: "Tale-bearing," Viola Heath Ridgway; "Jealousy," Doris Ridgway; "Snobbishness," Elsie Champion; "Conceit," Sylvia Pemberton. The whole spirit of the evening and the purpose in laying bare these evils was summed up in a most clear and understanding way by Mrs. Frazee. The President of the Octette, Joyce Ridgway, made a few remarks of gratitude and appreciation for all Theta Alpha has done for the Octette. After the speeches, the Misses Beryl Cockerell and Beatrice Forfar sang a pretty duet. The evening dosed with the singing of Academy songs.

     Three Bridge evenings were held during the month of February, the first two at the home of Mrs. Forfar, and the last at the home of Mrs. J. D'A. Cockerell. These were given to augment the teacher's salary fund.

     On the 2d of March, at the home of Mrs. P. D. Ridgway, the Women's Guild held a shower for Alma Cockerell, who is leaving for Bryn Athyn in June. She received many beautiful and useful additions to her "going away" wardrobe. Her sister Carol from Alpha was present. It was good to have her back among us, and we are glad to hear that she is remaining in Durban.

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She will help to fill the gap made by Alma's absence.

     Doctrinal classes and Ladies' classes were resumed at the beginning of March.
     V. K. R.

     KITCHENER, ONT.

     During March, our Pastor exchanged pulpits with the Rev. Hugo Lj. Odhner, whose sermon was most inspiring, and turned the thoughts of each listener inward to a survey of his own thoughts and loves in a true light. The following evening, Mr. Odhner addressed the Men's Club, his subject being "The Awakening of China." He spoke of the general situation there in the light of what the Writings tell about the Chinese.

     In April, the Men's Club enjoyed another mental stimulation when the Rev. Wm. Whitehead, at their invitation, paid a visit to Kitchener. A dinner gathering of over thirty men (a goodly number for the Club to recruit) made him welcome, and presently listened to an interesting lecture on "Church Government." Precedents and customs were traced and compared as far back as the Council of Nicea. The able lecturer illustrated his remarks with lantern slides, exhibiting such pictures as scenes from the town of Nicea, the seal of the City of Colchester, St. Peter's Cathedral, and the new Council Hall of the Bryn Athyn Church.

     Mr. Whitehead also preached here on Sunday, April 3d, his text being taken from Zechariah: "Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts." The discourse moved us to look to the spiritual growth of the Church, and to consider, not the worldly power and size of the Church, but the growth of spiritual understanding, charity and use.

     The Kitchener Society almost in tote is proud to greet this eloquent lecturer as "Cousin Will," owing to Mrs. Whitehead's many relatives here. We also took great interest in the pictures of Betsy and Johanna which he passed around.

     During the past winter there has been a good deal of sickness among us. One of the unfortunate ones, Mr. Jacob Stroh, has now recovered, and is again in his accustomed place on Sunday mornings and at various other gatherings.

     "The Antiques" is the title of a new organization which meets every two weeks or thereabouts for a game of cards and friendly intercourse. In other words, it is a social club, which is proving itself useful in bringing together the younger married people and their friends. That name was chosen to make it plainly understood that we do not belong to the Young People's Club, which was getting to be "overrun" with married couples, and so we decided to make a cleavage.

     The Women's Guild began a new year of activity in January when Mrs. Ezra Niebergal was elected president. The monthly meetings are opened by a class with the Pastor. We are at present studying Bishop Benade's Conversations on Education.
     C. K. D.

     NORWAY.

     Our readers will recall the Rev. Gustaf Baeckstrom's account of "A Missionary Trip to Norway," which appeared in our issue for last February (p. 116). On his first visit to Oslo (Christiania), he lectured on the subject of the "Life after Death" before large audiences. He has recently paid a second visit to Oslo, and his lectures were again well attended, and many books were sold. In addition, he spoke by radio on the subject of Swedenborg, having possibly 60,000 listeners. In the course of this journey, he also visited parts of Sweden. We shall hope to publish a I more detailed report of this missionary journey in our next number.

     GLENVIEW, ILL.

     Palm Sunday and Easter were beautiful days meteorologically and the splendid services in the church were in keeping. On Palm Sunday the children took a prominent part in the singing and reciting, and the choir marched in procession bearing palms.

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Easter showed an equally enthusiastic spirit with crowded church. The service opened with a Sanctus sung by the choir before entering, and a double Hallelujah chorus on the opening of the Word. Following the sermon, which was appropriate to the day, the Handel Hallelujah Chorus was sung.

     On the evening of Palm Sunday, the marriage of Mr. Trumbull Scalbom and Miss Jennie Cole was solemnized, the Rev. Gilbert H. Smith officiating. Hosts of friends attended, filling the church and attending a reception in the Assembly Ball which gave a joyous send-off to this popular young couple. It is understood that the bride is to continue her teaching in the Immanuel Church School until the end of the present school-year. The school, by the way, has been devastated by chicken pox to the extent of half the scholars.

     The Rev. C. E. Doering, Dean of Faculties in the Academy Schools, has recently visited Glenview and given us the "once over." He spent three days in an intensive inspection and analysis of the school. On Thursday evening, April 7th, he delivered an address at a meeting of the Sons of the Academy, and at the Friday Class gave a very informative paper dealing with the difference between general education and New Church education.
     R. S.
ONTARIO DISTRICT ASSEMBLY 1927

ONTARIO DISTRICT ASSEMBLY       Various       1927

     Members and friends of the General Church are cordially invited to attend the Sixteenth Ontario District Assembly, to be held at the Olivet Church, 35 Elm Grove Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, May 21-24, 1927. The meetings will begin on Saturday evening, May 21st, at 7 p.m., and continue until Tuesday evening, May 24th.

     Accommodations will be arranged for all guests who signify their intention to be present. Kindly notify Mr. Theodore Bellinger, 122 Springhurst Ave., Toronto 3, Ont., Canada.
     N. D. PENDLETON, BISHOP.
     L. W. T. DAVID, SECRETARY.

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MINISTRY OF BLESSING 1927

MINISTRY OF BLESSING        N. D. PENDLETON       1927




     Announcements.





NEW CHURCH LIFE
VOL. XLVII          JUNE, 1927           No. 6
     We are familiar with the teaching that the priesthood represents the Lord in His work of saving souls, and that, because of this, priests are appointed as governors over those things which are of heaven with men, and this to the end that ecclesiastical affairs may be so regulated as to bring them into correspondential order, and so be receptive of Divine influx, whence may come that enlightenment in spiritual things which is indicative of the presence and guidance of the Holy Spirit.

     The need of order as an inducement to influx is a universal requirement. In all natural things the influent life is determined by the form and quality of the parts; and the nature of the life thence resulting in the whole is in like manner determined. For the parts, in their form and sequence, build the whole into a unity; and when this is accomplished, and an influx of life is given, the result is a living thing of a certain kind or character.

     It is not unlike this with social order and constitution, whether civil or ecclesiastical. Such order cannot be established and maintained apart from a social grouping of individuals in accordance with the laws of order. To this end, that guiding impulse is called for which is termed administration. Hence the statement in the Doctrine, that "priests are appointed to administer the things which belong to the Divine law and worship" (H. H. 318), these being the two ecclesiastical factors which are in correspondence with the two spiritual essentials to which all things refer, namely, truth and good. The law is mentioned first, because worship is dependent on it.

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However, the law is for the sake of the worship, even as truth is given with good as its end.

     There are many statements in the Writings defining the use of the priesthood, but this doctrine concerning the administration of the Divine law and worship is accepted as the covering formula. In addition to this we have adopted a trinal division of priestly functions, namely, the ministry of government, of worship, and of instruction. Upon these three, as distinct and discrete, the practical ordering of our priesthood is based.

     I hold with you that the first formula concerning administration, together with this trinal division into separate ministries, comprises in a general way the uses of the priesthood, but it is my purpose tonight to accent a minisrty which has not perhaps been so distinctly defined in our thought as it might be, although it has a unique feature peculiarly its own, which causes it to stand by itself. I refer to the ministry of blessing, when given as a Divine representation.

     Doubtless this ministry may be classed as pertaining to worship, and so be included in the general formularies mentioned above; but let us observe that a number of things go to make up the ritual of worship, as, for instance, prayer and praise, which, however, are not exclusively priestly functions, but are common to all worshipers. Prayer and praise ascend from man to God, while the benediction of blessing descends from God to man, by a representative transfer. That "blessing" is a unique Divine representation, I shall endeavor to show from the Scripture and the Writings; but before doing so, it may be of no little interest to note that this especial ministry was, in the early days of the Church, advanced and given place as one of the fundamentals of priestly service.

     The Eighth Conference of the New Church in Great Britain, held in Manchester in the year 1815, two years before the assembling of the first Convention in the United States of America, "determined that the ministry should consist of three degrees." It appears that this "determination" was more ideal than practical, more in the intent than in actual accomplishment; for it is recorded that the Twenty-third Conference, held in Salford in the year 1830, fifteen years later, gave "some consideration" to the "possibility of forming a third order of the ministry." Evidently little, if anything, had been accomplished in the interval.

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     It seems of Providence that a formative idea must be advanced many times, and perhaps through many years, before it receives ultimate embodiment and becomes permanently established as a recognized part of the body, civil or ecclesiastical. Certainly this appears to have been the case with the doctrine of a trinal priesthood in the New Church. In the early Conferences there was a frequent recurrence of this subject, with much discussion and no little approval by the leading minds of the Church, but without very definite results, so far as the actual organization of the ministry was concerned.

     However, we can readily account for the long delay in establishing a trinal ministry by recalling the fact that New Churchmen, in the beginning, were drawn very largely from that Christian element called non-conformists in England, and from a kindred source in this country. While the deeper students of the Writings were ever disposed to bring forward an ideal which they called "the true form of the ministry," yet their efforts were always countered by non-conformist prejudices, the result being a more or less conciliatory or tentative attitude on the part of the advocates of a trine. They feared to claim the full implication of the teaching of the Writings, lest their opponents should charge them with seeking dominion by providing an opening for the establishment of an episcopacy, which to the non-conformist mind was anathema. The consequence was that some of the leading advocates of a trine repudiated the thought of an episcopacy, "at least until New Churchmen had become far more regenerate than they were." For this reason, the trine at first advocated was not so much administrative as an ordering of the priesthood into more or less lifeless ritualistic degrees. The thought seems to have been that such a trine, because true in form and representative in character, would bring a corresponding influx, whereby the Church would receive enlightenment. It was not clearly seen that more was called for by the teaching of the Writings than the mere picture of a trine. The real need was for a living administration of the Divine law and worship, as well as an orderly trinal representation in the form and structure of the priesthood as a body.

     The opponents of a trine, not without cause, feared that such a representative order, if once established, would in time lead to an administrative trine. Moreover, conditions favored their negative attitude, in that the primitive state of the Church was such that the practical needs of the few scattered New Church people could not always wait upon an orderly mode of procedure.

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Hence we find the Twenty-fifth Conference entertaining, the proposal "to admit by some solemn service persons not regularly ordained ministers, to administer the sacraments." De Charms, in his work on the Trine, observes that this seems to have been a proposal "to make extemporaneous ordinations as a sort of substitute for regular ministers in certain societies, the probable intent of which was a kind of mongrel priesthood, half lay and half clerical, not strictly in order, but made necessary by circumstances, and having their irregular character cloaked by their being introduced in an orderly manner into an office not strictly in order, as if a disorderly thing could be made orderly by merely passing it through the formularies of order."

     After debating the question at length, it was submitted in a modified form to two special committees, with instructions to report to the next Conference. The modified form of the question was: "Whether it is in accord with the laws of Divine order to admit persons by some solemn service to administer the sacrament of Baptism only, and not the Holy Supper. Whether intended or not, this form of the question implied a complete reversal of its bearing; for its meaning in this form, if answered in the affirmative, was that it is according to Divine order that there should be a grade of ministers to which only Baptism was allowed, in which case a definite distinction of grades would be established. The two committees appear to have interpreted the question in this way, to the confusion of the original disputants. The secretary of the Conference was directed to obtain by circular the views of the ministers and leaders on this question, and submit them to the committees. The two committees reported to the Twenty-sixth Conference, held in Bath in 1833. One of these committees was known as the London, and the other as the Manchester Committee. Their reports as to intent were in substantial agreement. The London Committee, with Samuel Noble at its head, expressed regrets that the object of the question did not appear to have been well understood. Because of this the personal views of the communicants, with one or two exceptions, were put aside, and the subject approached from the teaching of the Writings, with the following general result:

     1. That there is to be an institution of ministers as a distinct order of persons who are to administer those things which belong to the "Divine law and worship," thus "the things belonging to the priesthood appertaining to the Lord," and thus also "those relating to benediction or blessing," and that there is a necessity of their ordination or solemn inauguration into the "ecclesiastical order" by prayer and the imposition of hands.

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     2. Admission is made that a true Church might exist admitting of no distinction among its ministers, but it is held that true order calls for a trine of distinct degrees.

     3. It was further held that true order calls for the assignment of distinct duties or functions to the ministers of the several degrees; the administration of Baptism to the lower degrees, and the Holy Supper to a higher.

     This last statement, as a positive recommendation concerning a trine of degrees and functions in the priesthood, was cautiously indefinite; but its deficiency was made up, in part at least, by the assertion that this is the order of the Church of England, wherein Baptism is the function of the lowest degree, the Holy Supper the function of the second, while ordination is performed only by the third or highest degree. It was also argued that such was the order in the Christian Church in its first three centuries, whereas the order of one-class ministers was first broached and adopted by Calvin and his followers in the sixteenth century. De Charms, while holding that the report was an exceedingly able one, objects seriously, and with emphasis, to the admission that a true Church might exist admitting of no distinctions of functions among the ministers. He holds that the one-grade ministry is "a dire corruption by the solifidian Church," and that it could therefore never be "the proper form of the New Jerusalem." And he laments that up to his day the Church in England had made little if any progress in this important matter.

     The Twenty-sixth Conference approved the London report, but again the approval was in principle. Subsequent developments show that the opponents of a trine in the ministry increased, if not in numbers, yet in influence sufficient to prevent any well defined development of an ordered priesthood.

     II.

     But our especial interest in this report is in the prominence it gives to the ministry of blessing as a leading function of the priesthood.

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The formula presented concerning this ministry was a virtual quotation from Conjugial Love 308, where the statement is made that the ecclesiastical order on earth administers the things pertaining to blessing.

     Blessing is there given as a sequence of the Lord's love, and His love is said to be of the priesthood with Him, that is, of the priestly in Him. The statement in Conjugial Love is as follows: "The ecclesiastical order on earth administers the things which are of the priesthood with the Lord, that is, which are of His love, and thus also those things which pertain to blessing." The cause of the statement in this form is found in the heading of the number, which reads that "Marriage is to be consecrated by a priest." Obviously this consecration is effected by a blessing; and moreover such consecration is demonstrated as necessary because marriage, in itself considered, is spiritual and holy, since it descends from the marriage of good and truth, and corresponds to the Divine marriage of the Lord and the Church. This is the source of that true marriage which is called conjugial. And though all marriages are not so derived, still they ought to be; that is, there should be in them the idea of what is sacred and eternal. At least, this should be represented as present in them; and, therefore, they should be consecrated by a priestly blessing which represents the presence and transfer of the Divine on the occasion. This phase of the subject is briefly discussed in a prior number (306), where a distinction is made between ceremonies which are essential and those which are not. The marriage ceremony is essential, since by it "consent is to be declared in the presence of witnesses," and the "marriage is to be consecrated by a priest."

     The Lord's love, when received by man, is a blessing. There is no other. The priest may bless, indeed, but in the Lord's name only. It is for this that the priest is appointed. When, therefore, he blesses in the name of the Lord, the act is most holy. It is, in fact, the height of Divine representation, and is not affected by the state of the priest as a man. At all times, the blessing is a sacred ritual; and it may, if the state be receptive, result in an actual transference of the Divine in holiness and power.

     Nothing is more ancient that the ritual of blessing, and nothing was more highly regarded in the ancient churches. Its efficacy was never questioned. He that was "blessed" had gained a priceless possession, even a gift of good to come, which once imparted could not be taken away, as in the case of Isaac's blessing given to Jacob, which by right of primogeniture belonged to Esau, but which the latter had claimed too late.

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     The custom of blessing is not only very ancient, but it is probably one of the most ancient and instinctive of all rituals; as, for instance, the father's laying his hand upon the head of his son, in the name of God, with the wish and will of good to come. Certainly this rite is in evidence everywhere in the Scripture. It is there first given as a blessing direct from God upon His creatures,-upon the "living things in the sea," and upon "the fowls that fly above the earth." This was a blessing of fertility. After the earth had brought forth its creatures, its cattle, and its beasts, and man and woman were created in the Divine likeness, it is recorded that God blessed them, and said, "Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth." When the work of creation was finished, according to the days thereof, God blessed the seventh day with a blessing of peace and rest, and the seventh day became a sabbath of rest, and a holy day wherein no man might work.

     In later times, when the first church had fallen, and the celestial age of innocence had passed in a flood of destroying waters, and when the need of man was imperative for a new means of redemption, it is recorded that "Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord," and he built an ark to surmount the waters; and when the waters assuaged, Noah went forth out of the ark, and sacrificed unto the Lord; and "God blessed him." This time also it was a blessing of fertility for the "replenishment of the earth." This blessing was significant of the "presence and grace" of the Lord in and with the Noahtic Church.

     In still later days, when the ancient spiritual church, like the first celestial, had run its course, the Lord called Abram out of Chaldea, and brought him into the Land of Canaan,-that land of most ancient Divine associations,-to found a third church with his descendants, which was to be neither celestial nor spiritual, but purely natural, yet capable of every Divine representation. To this end, God blessed Abram, saying, "In multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven, and as the sand upon the seashore."

     After the death of Abraham, it is recounted that "God blessed Isaac," in sign of the transfer of the Divine representation from Abraham to him. And again He blessed Isaac with a blessing of spiritual increase.

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In like manner God blessed Jacob, and on the occasion changed his name to Israel; for he could not as Jacob represent the Divine.

     We now read of the indirect or mediated blessings of the patriarchs, as that of Isaac upon Jacob and Esau, and of Jacob upon his sons. For, beginning with Abraham, the outstanding representation of the Divine was imposed upon individuals, as upon the patriarchs in the order of their succession, and later upon Moses, the Aaronic priesthood, the Judges and Kings of Israel.

     Such representations began with Abram, and therefore also began that which is called the representative church; this being signalized by the fact that, while Abram and Noah were churches, the patriarchs and their successors stand as representatives of the Lord under various aspects, and this with no conscious realization of the fact on their part. This kind of representation, as said, characterized all things of the church established with Abram's descendants; that is, it was representative, in that its forms and ceremonies represented that which the church in itself was not, and that which it knew not. The preceding Ancient Church, by contrast, is called significative, to imply that the spiritual meaning of its ceremonies was understood. In yet deeper contrast with Jewish representations were the original celestial ideas of the Most Ancient Church. The decline here indicated is marked in the Writings by the statement that from the perceptive arose the significative, and from the significative the representative. (A. C. 1411.) The celestial ideas perceived became significatives known, and these by a still further decline became idolatrous, by a total loss of their original meaning. With the founding of the Jewish Church, however, these idolatries were gathered together and of Providence organized under an arcane Divine idea, quite hidden from the ceremonial performers. Yet this Divine idea was revealed to angels and spirits, who perceived and transformed the mental picture produced in the minds of men. In this way, a connective touch with men in the world was provided through the intermediation of spirits of simple mind and unsuspecting faith. It should be understood, however, that the term "representative," in this sense, is strictly historical in its meaning, and limited in its application to those representations which may be described as a blind featuring of an unknown Divine idea.

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In a broader sense, representatives in some form characterize every church, even as they prevail everywhere in the spiritual world as the means whereby interior ideas may be presented on a lower plane, and this to such an extent that the world of spirits is called a representative world. (A. C. 167.)

     It was the unconscious and more or less artificial representatives of the Jewish Church which were abolished by the Lord when He was in person in the natural world, and which were not, and could not, be carried over into the Christian Church, because it was the intent of that Church that it should enter directly into interior things. Yet in form these representatives remain to this day as the body of the oldest Scripture with us, with, however, their inner meaning revealed.

     Both actual history and unconscious representations began with Abram. They were a common divider of time. In the person of this first of the patriarchs there was a looking both ways. Abram not only founded the representative church, but he was in touch with the former age of true significatives. This touch appears especially in that notable event which occurred when he returned from the recapture of Lot, on which occasion Melchizedek, King of Salem, brought forth bread and wine. "He was priest to God most High, and he blessed him, and said, 'Blessed be Abram, of God most High, possessor of heaven and earth, . . . which hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand.'" This Melchizedek was a priest of the ancient order, the pre-levitical order. In him the royalty and the priesthood were still united. His has been called the eternal priesthood, since it is said of the Lord Himself, "Thou are a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek." (Ps. 110:4.) The Writings state that, because of this, Melchizedek brought forth bread and wine as the holy things of the Church, even as they are the holy things of the sacrament of the Supper; and also, because of this, he could bless Abram; and therefore Abram "gave him tithes of all." (S. S. 1011) The ancient priesthood in this manner transferred its blessing to the patriarchs with whom the representative church began, and this because of the necessity that the Divine of the Ancient Church should pass over to the spiritual represented by the Jewish Church. (A. C. 1876.) And thus also the coming representative church did obeisance to that Ancient Church of Divine significatives which was passing away, and this in sign of that eternal sequence in Divine things which ever follows and guides the transitive affairs of men.
Nothing is more representative, or more strikingly illustrates the place and influence of blessings in the Scriptures, than the dramatic picture of Israel entering the Holy Land, and passing between the mountains,-Gerizim, on the one hand, and Ebal on the other,-where the tribes were divided, the one half on Gerizim for blessing, and the other half on Ebal for cursing, to signify the line of the racial movement through the ages, and the equal balance of good and evil in the life of man.

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     In so brief a sketch we cannot trace this subject even in a most general way through the many pages of Scripture. It should be noted, however, that the Lord Himself, when on earth, put His hands upon the little children and blessed them. We may also call to mind the ten blessings with which He began His Sermon on the Mount, and whereby in so many categories He blessed every salvable good. And that in preparing to sup for the last time with His disciples, He blessed the bread and the wine. This the Writings say signified "the communication of the Divine" (E. 34028), as if to the bread and wine, but in truth to all who should become conjoined with Him in life and faith. The point of interest is, that by the blessing the Divine was communicated, that such was the mode, and that such therefore is the significance of every Divine benediction.

     III.

     We have noted the fact that the London committee gave place to blessing as a principal ministry, advancing it along with the formula concerning the administration of the Divine law and worship, and indeed in a certain trinal sequence, namely, the "priesthood with the Lord:" "His Love," and "His blessing." But it should be observed that this sequence is not one to be separated into distinct functions of administration. For while the blessing here stands as third in sequence, it must of necessity pertain to all the ministerial grades. There is, for instance, a blessing upon baptism and confession, upon the Holy Supper and marriage, and upon ordination and dedication. We have quoted the statement in Conjugial Love to the effect that the function of the priesthood on earth is to "bless," and we have indicated from the Scripture the presence and significance of "blessing" everywhere in its pages.

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It now remains to discover on what Scriptural grounds the doctrine of the priestly blessing is based.

     Doubtless in most ancient times the priestly function was undifferentiated. It was in all men interiorly but informally, as it still is with many, occupying the highest region of the human mind. But as a result of increasing specialization, as the uses of men became more diversified with advancing civilization, so the priestly function became more and more confined to a special class. This first became manifest in the primitive law of primogeniture. The definition of this law was, that all that opened the womb was sacred to the Lord, and was to be dedicated to Him. Thus the first-born male became the first priest, as well as ruler and judge. In sign of this priority, the first-born inherited a double portion. With the development of nations, as with Israel during the Mosaic period, a further differentiation took place. We know that during this period the "first born" were "redeemed" by the substitution of a tribe. This redemption was given in sign of a change in state, or the passing from a celestial to a spiritual form, but it was also necessitated by a corruption of the original idea. Sanctification became sacrification; that is, the sanctification of the first-born gradually led to human sacrifice, to a literal giving to the Lord by way of death. To prevent this abomination, a double substitution was made. Not only was a tribe taken for the priesthood in place of the first-born, but animal sacrifice was specifically commanded in place of human sacrifice, to which there was an increasing proclivity. (A. C. 8080.) The tribe taken was that of Levi (Numb. 3:1 to end), to which Moses and Aaron belonged. Thus this tribe, instead of the first-born of each family, was separated and set apart to serve as the priesthood for all Israel. In consequence of this, the Levites received no inheritance of land, for the Lord God was their inheritance. Their dwelling was everywhere in the midst of the people, and this for the sake of their service. Their work in general was to have charge of the tabernacle and later the temple, and also to perform on all occasions the sacrificial rite, which was a continual requirement and the chief ceremonial of representative worship.

     Another phase of the Levitical service is given in Deut. 10:8, 9: "The Lord separated the tribe of Levi to bear the ark of the covenant of the Lord, to stand before the Lord to minister unto Him, and to bless in His name."

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Here, then, is the specific command to the priesthood to stand before the Lord and bless in His name. It is repeated with a further commission in Deut. 21:51: "The priests, the sons of Levi, shall come near; for them the Lord God hath chosen to minister unto Him, and to bless in the name of the Lord; and according to their mouth shall every controversy and every stroke be tried."

     Among the spiritual virtues represented by the several tribes of Israel, Levi stands for the affection of charity. You will recall the ancient controversy as to whether charity or faith is the first-born, and the teaching that while faith in appearance is prior, yet in reality the birthright belongs to charity. Hence, in the redemption of the first born by tribal substitution, the fundamental significance of the "first born" as charity was carried over to the Levites. And so the Writings, in explaining the above quotation concerning the priestly ministry and the adjudication of every stroke and controversy, state that it is "charity which ministers unto the Lord, which teaches the things which are of the Church, and discerns between falsities and truths, and between evils and good."

     We must dissociate from this priestly charity the ordinary sentimental idea connected with the word. The affection of charity here meant ultimates itself in the use of teaching truth. Hence charity in teaching truth is specifically given as that which is signified by the Levites blessing in the name of the Lord. (A. C. 351.) It may readily be perceived that it is this charity which adjudicates every controversy.

     Not only was Levi set apart to bless in the name of the Lord, but the very words of the Levitical blessing were prescribed: "And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto Aaron and his sons, saying, On this wise shall ye bless the sons of Israel, saying, The Lord bless thee and keep thee, the Lord make His face to shine upon thee and be gracious unto thee, the Lord lift up His countenance upon thee and give thee peace. So shall they put my name upon the sons of Israel." (Numb. 6:24-27) It is said in A. C. 358 that the significance of the "lifting up of the countenance" is, "May the Lord give charity to man." The meaning of the blessing in general is that "the Lord blesses, guards, enlightens, is pitiful, and gives peace." (A. C. 2009.) Every blessing signifies Divine influx, and this threefold blessing, the inflowing of the Lord with Divine Good and Divine Truth with those who receive; and that to this end man is protected from evils and falses lest the influx be taken away, to his eternal loss; for the inflowing Divine brings with it heaven and eternal happiness, and communication and conjunction between God and man. (See A. E. 340:11)

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     This most holy blessing, in ifs ritualistic significance, is a Divine benediction to be pronounced by the priest, and as such it is efficacious in communicating the Divine where there is reception. The communication is from God to man, and if it be received the man is moved to return a blessing of God, as in the words of the psalmist, "Sing to the Lord, bless His name, proclaim His salvation from day to day." (Ps. 94:2.) "To bless the Lord" means "to sing to Him and proclaim the good tidings of His salvation, to preach His wisdom and power, and thus to confess Him from the heart." "They who do this cannot but be blessed of the Lord, that is, be gifted with those things which belong to blessing, namely, with celestial, spiritual, natural, worldly and corporeal good. These, when they follow in this order, are the goods in which there is happiness." (A. C. 1422.)

     This teaching points to the effect of a Divine benediction, which is that of beatification or making happy. Both benediction and beatification may be and are translated by the term "blessing." When it is said in the True Christian Religion that the third essential of the Divine Love is to bless, the meaning is to make happy. (No. 43) This beatification is the effect of that blessing which is called a benediction.

     The threefold Levitical blessing mentioned above is a benediction, and as such, in a formal or ritualistic sense, it is a ministry of the priesthood, and when seen in its broad significance it implies all that specifically for which the priesthood stands, namely, the communication of the Divine, for which cause the priesthood is an accommodating medium for the transfer of that Divine to men which is called the Holy Spirit. Not that the priesthood is the only medium of this conveyance; but that it is a needed additional means, as evidenced from the fact of its authorization by revelation.

     It is of order that the Holy Spirit should pass to men both mediately and immediately,-mediately through angels and spirits, and through man to man, but never from man to man. Passing through implies a medium, passing from suggests original source and therefore what is proprial.

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The mediated passing of the Holy Spirit is the Paraclete. It is that "other" which the Lord sent to man after His glorification,-after He, as to His Human, became Divine Good, and so passed out of the world and out of the sight of men. In so passing, His personal, presence was lost to the world, and all that which He did as a Man in the world, namely, the teaching of the Divine Truth that was in Him. To make up for this apparent loss, He, after His glorification, sent that which is here called the Paraclete. This Paraclete is also that truth which was in Him when Be was in the world; but after His glorification it was no longer in Him, but was from Him, and could therefore be sent to take the place of His personal presence among men. Now because this Truth was in Him when He was in the world, but not as yet from Him, as a Divine Proceeding, it is said that "the Holy Spirit was not yet, because Jesus was not yet glorified." The Holy Spirit proceeding after the glorification is, strictly speaking, the Paraclete; and this was indeed His own Divine, and not another. And yet it is called "another," because it passes or is communicated by others, as needed means of its transfer, and this, as said, because the Lord in Person was no longer in the world. This is why the Paraclete could not be "sent" until the Lord had "gone away," but when He had departed He could and did send it, calling it "that other" who could draw near to man. The literal meaning of the word is "to call near," in the sense of a helper. The Lord could thus come near to man, and, as it is said, "abide with him" and "be in him." Because of this, the word Paraclete is translated Comforter, that is, One who by His near presence consoles and blesses. (See A. C. 3704, 6993, 9818, 9199.)

     This filling the lack of His personal presence in the world, after His departure into the invisible, makes very pointed the notable words of the Lord with which He closes His teaching concerning the Paraclete, "A little while, and ye shall not see me; and again, a little while, and ye shall see me, because I go to the Father." (John 16:16.) The sending of the Paraclete covers every Divine manifestation subsequent to the glorification, including that given in the Writings of the New Church.

     The mediated passing of the Holy Spirit through the priesthood, by virtue of its ordainment, its consecration, its power of representation, and its exercise of charity in teaching truth, is in keeping with the ancient significance of the priesthood as the spiritually first-born, or the ministry of charity.

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For this reason the Lord, in His own Divine priestly representation, goes back to the original type, and calls Himself, not a Levite, but the "First-born." As such, He is the High Priest of charity and the Teacher of all men. Indeed, He calls Himself "the First-born from the dead," by which is signified Himself passing through death and becoming Divine Good, Himself as the resurrection and the life, raised above and beyond all create things and conditions, and so in Himself be- come invisible, save for His remanifestation of Himself in the world by mediated representation,-His again drawing near to man by the sending of the Paraclete through the instrumentality of angels, spirits and appointed men.

     I take this to be the call and function of the priesthood in its highest form, its fullest significance, its most direct power and completest service. As such, and in so far, the priesthood is indeed a blessing in the land. Remember the words of Micah: "Now I know that the Lord kill do me good, seeing that I have a Levite to my priest." (Judges 17:13)

     IV.

     We may take for granted that our immediate theological fathers, who were instrumental in organizing the priesthood in its present form, were acquainted with the London report. Certainly they were familiar with the teaching in C. L. 308, concerning the need and importance of the priestly blessing. Doubtless it was because of this that, on authorizing a candidate to lead in public worship wherein no sacrament was administered, they advised him to conduct the ritual in all parts as an ordained minister would, save in the matter of the benediction, In regard to this, the candidate was instructed not to raise his hands, and not to use the phrase, "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you all," but instead to fold the hands and say, "May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with us all." Thus the raising of the hand and giving the blessing in its Scriptural form was regarded as a representation of the transfer of the Divine as by a medium, and therefore such a representation was considered sacramental, and as such fitting only to one who was ordained.

     But why was this difference insisted upon? The fact is, that to raise the hand is the same as placing the hand upon all who are present.

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It signifies that touch concerning which the Writings predicate communication and translation. (A. C. 10130.) And in the case of the benediction with the raised hand, the significance is that of the communication and translation of the Divine to the worshipers, and this as through an ordained medium, or by one who is duly authorized to perform this sanctity. For indeed such a blessing has much the same significance as the touching of the altar in the days of the representative church, concerning which it is said that "everyone that toucheth the altar shall be sanctified," by which is signified the reception of the Divine of the Lord. This alone is sanctification; this is what a blessing means; and this is why we have spoken of the blessing as sacramental. Besides, the minister in saying "you" assumes the attitude of a representative, of one speaking for or from the Lord, as bearing a gift from Him, whereas the word "us" changes the whole attitude, and makes of the phrase, not a benediction, but a petition.

     In sympathy with this request to the candidate not to raise his hand to give a blessing, but conversely thereto, after his ordination the priest in his family worship puts aside his power of representation and assumes his domestic prerogatives. He, therefore, folds his hands and asks for a Divine blessing upon himself and his family. Moreover, when he entertains a brother Levite, he asks him to bless his table, not merely as an act of courtesy, but because he believes that there is a virtue in such a blessing, as indeed there well may be, if his mind is disposed to convert an old and gracious custom into a living Divine representation.

     The priest, in blessing, imparts nothing from himself, save in so far as his faith gives sincerity to his act. What he does is to make a sign that is seen in heaven, if there be angels present; and in this case the sign is filled, and the way of influx is opened through heaven with all who have spiritual perception. The sign is of the passing of the Divine to others as by touch. It is important that men should have this sign, and that it should be livingly represented to the touch and before their eyes. To provide for this, there must of order be selection and training, instruction and ordination, and this not only that the sign may be given with deepest reverence, but also that it may be given by one who is known to be duly authorized to perform this rite, along with other sanctities confided to the priesthood.

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Especially is it important that the priests themselves should not only know the verity and virtue involved in this sign, but also that their representation of it should be filled with a realizing sense of its sanctity and power.

     In conclusion, I desire to say that, after writing this paper, Dr. Acton called my attention to an article on this subject by the Rev. Richard de Charms, which was published in THE NEW CHURCHMAN in the years 1841-42. If anyone desires to follow the subject further, I would advise him to read this able statement of the reason why the benediction-should be regarded as a priestly function. So far as I know, it is the only article on the subject in print.
DIVINE REVELATION AND SELF-INTELLIGENCE 1927

DIVINE REVELATION AND SELF-INTELLIGENCE              1927

     They who believe that they can, from their own intelligence, procure for themselves knowledges concerning God, heaven and hell, and the spiritual things of the church, do not know that the natural man, viewed in itself, is against the spiritual, and on that account wishes to extirpate the spiritual things which enter, or to involve them in fallacies which are like the worms that consume the roots of herbs and grain. They who so believe may be likened to those who dream that they are sitting upon eagles and are borne up on high, or are mounted on Pegasus and are flying over Mount Parnassus to Helicon; and they are actually like Lucifers in hell, where they still call themselves "sons of the morning." (Isaiah 14:12.) They are also like those in the valley of the Land of Shinar, who attempted to build a tower, the head of which should reach to heaven. (Genesis 11:2-4.) And, like Goliath, they have confidence in themselves, not foreseeing that they may, like him, be prostrated by a sling stone driven into the forehead. I will tell what lot awaits such after death. At first they become as if drunk, afterwards like fools, and at length stupid, sitting in darkness. Therefore, let men beware of such a delirium. (T. C. R. 276.)

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DANGERS OF A FALSE SECURITY AND TRUST 1927

DANGERS OF A FALSE SECURITY AND TRUST       Rev. F. E. GYLLENHAAL       1927

     "Woe to them that are at ease in Zion, and that trust in the mountain of Samaria!" (Amos. 6:1.)

     All who live in a false security and trust respecting that which has to do with spiritual and eternal life are in constant danger of damnation and the consequent eternal unhappiness. Such a state is common to every man, nation, race and church since the fall. It is increasingly so with the people of a consummated church, since it arises from false doctrines which are conceived by self-love and gestated in the womb of self-intelligence, as well as from a life according to such doctrines and at the same time of mere sensual and bodily pleasures. Even a church in the dawn of its existence is not exempt from this danger; that is, organizations of the church are not exempt, and may be destroyed by the evils and falsities secretly cherished in such a state.

     False doctrine alone will not destroy a church, nor condemn a man; but when a life of mere pleasure, of evil, hatred and selfishness, is conjoined with false doctrine, damnation of the man and consummation of the church surely follow. Such a life shows either careless indifference to all laws of retaliation or a false security and trust in one's self.

     To arouse men from states of false security and trust, the Lord has repeatedly exhorted them by the living voice of holy prophets, of chosen disciples, of appointed preachers, and by the written Word or Divine Revelation, to beware of the dangers besetting them in the spiritual and natural worlds and to press on steadfastly in the narrow road toward an eternal life of use in the kingdom of heaven. But men, sunk in the lethargy of a life of pleasures merely natural, and of all kinds of falsities and evils,-a life in which charity and faith have been divorced, and charity has been destroyed or so corrupted as to be unlike its genuine essence,-in such a state men are heedless of all warning and exhortation and deaf to all the alarms of spiritual watchmen on the walls and in the city,-deaf even to the thunderous voice of Divine Revelation.

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They are blind to the writing on the wall of their great pleasure house, indifferent to the dispensations of Providence, and even contemptuous of all threats of punishment awaiting them in a future life. There were not ten righteous men to be found in Sodom, and Jerusalem at a later period was worse than Sodom. Of all the nations and cities mentioned in Old Testament history, Nineveh alone repented at the preaching of the prophets of Jehovah; and Nineveh represented the gentiles. The Christian Church has been consummated, and cannot be revived.

     Organizations of the New Church may well consider the fate of past Churches, and beware of a, false security and trust.

     Amos prophesied in the days of Uzziah (also called Azariah), King of Judah, and of Jeroboam II, King of Israel, about sixty years before the destruction of Israel by Sargon, King of Assyria. His prophecies were against Damascus, the Philistines, the Syrians, the Edomites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, as well as against Judah and Israel. But they were principally against the kingdom of Israel, the end of which Amos plainly foretold, as witness the words, "The virgin of Israel is fallen; she shall no more rise; she is forsaken upon her land; there is none to raise her up. (5:2.) "The end is come upon my People Israel; I will dot pass by them any more." (8: 2.)

     The prophecies of Amos tell chiefly of the luxury, the injustice, and the oppression in Israel, but also in Judah and in the nations and peoples surrounding the two kingdoms. "Woe to them that are at ease in Zion, and that trust in the mountain of Samaria!"

     The text pictures the careless security and ease in Judah and Israel,-a condition arising out of success in war. This was at a time when wars were differently waged than they are today, being followed, in the case of the victors, by great prosperity, owing to the huge spoils shared by all the soldiers and many others, and the ensuing period of peace and prosperity. The two kingdoms were separate and independent, but Judah, to some extent at least, was subject to Jeroboam II, as his predecessor, Joash, had despoiled Jerusalem and taken Amaziah captive, together with many hostages and great spoil. Uzziah succeeded Amaziah as King of Judah, and reigned fifty-two years, but he was a leper. Jeroboam II carried Israel to greater glory by conquering in the north and east all the lands which had been made subject to David and Solomon.

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He further increased Israel's prosperity by encouraging commerce with the Phoenicians, who were great traders and sailors. But he restored, or permitted the restoration of, the idolatrous worship of Baal, and there followed a moral corruption, as well as a false security in its own power, which resulted finally in Israel's complete overthrow and destruction.

     Success and prosperity were not the cause of Israel's downfall, but the pride and false security of the people, particularly of the rulers; and the evils committed in the days of peace, prosperity and lease were especially the cause of its overthrow and destruction. It had always been so with the Israelites and Jews, because their hearts inclined continually to abominations, and they were only restrained by the severest punishments, and by the necessity of fighting and laboring under unusual difficulties. Since the fall it has been so with all men, peoples and nations. Success, peace and prosperity have afforded an opportunity for all manner of falsities and evils to pervert and corrupt them. And eternal salvation, as well as enduring success and prosperity, has been gained only by combat and labor.

     The kingdom of Judah represents the celestial or good of the church; the kingdom of Israel, the spiritual or truth of the church. In the opposite sense, the former kingdom represents the evil, and the latter the falsity of the church. (See A. C. 4842) The destruction of Israel represents the destruction of the church by falsities and the evils of falsity. In the internal sense, the prophecies of Amos tell about the state of the church, particularly of the spiritual church, at its end, and describe how falsities and the evils of falsity would destroy the church. The internal sense applies also to the first Christian Church, and to the New Church. And it applies to the individual. The two kingdoms represent the faculties of will and understanding. The prophecies concerning the destruction of the two kingdoms signify the manner in which the will and understanding are destroyed by falsities and the evils of falsity, likewise the manner in which the church in man is destroyed by similar means.

     Judah and Israel are not mentioned in the text, but Zion and Samaria are in their place. "Woe to them that are at ease in Zion, and that trust in the mountain of Samaria!" In the Sacred Scriptures, a city or particular place often is named when, in a general sense, the whole kingdom or country is meant.

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In the text, Zion is given in place of Jerusalem, because Jerusalem signifies the spiritual; yet it is the celestial, or the good of the church, or the good of love, that is treated of in the text. But Zion often is mentioned in the Old Testament when the city, Jerusalem, is meant in a natural sense, and it is even regarded as having been the poetical name for Jerusalem. However, there is a distinction between the two names in the spiritual sense, and this appears when Zion and Jerusalem are mentioned together, in all which instances the former signifies the celestial, and the latter the spiritual. Furthermore, Zion was the city of David and that part of Jerusalem on which the temple stood. In the text, therefore, by Zion is signified the doctrine of the Lord and love to the Lord, as also the church as to good, and man as to the will or love. Samaria was Israel's chief city and capital, and is not to be confused with the province of the same name.

     Although the chief cities signify the same as their kingdoms, the kingdom signifies the church and the chief city its doctrine. (A. E. 1088.) In the text, therefore, the church as to doctrine is signified; and by "Woe to-them in Zion, and in Samaria" is meant the destruction of the Church by false doctrines of love and faith, by false doctrines of love to the Lord and charity toward the neighbor, by false doctrines concerning the Lord and the church, and by a life according to such false doctrines. This appears from the exposition of the text in the Apocalypse Explained, where it is stated that "'Samaria'" is the perverted spiritual church," and those who "'trust in the mountain of Samaria' are those who trust in themselves, and from self-intelligence hatch out doctrines." (A. E. 1631.)

     Both Zion and Samaria were on mountains, but the word "mountain" is not used in the text in connection with Zion, because Zion signifies love; it is used, however, in connection with Samaria, in order to signify the love of falsity and of self-intelligence with those who are in faith alone, or in faith utterly divorced from charity.

     Samaria was built shortly after the division of the one kingdom into the kingdoms of Judah and Israel. Almost as soon as it was completed, an altar to Baal was set up, and a love for idolatrous worship was made. In other words, Samaria represented the perverted spiritual church,-a church in which charity is separated from faith and faith is declared to be the essential; a church in which there is no longer any truth, because there is no good, but in place of good evil of life, and in place of truth falsity of doctrine (A. E. 391:28); church in which there is no internal worship, but only external worship,-a worship arising from faith alone, consequently an idolatrous worship.

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     In Isaiah we find a passage the internal sense of which throws additional light upon the state of the church pictured in the text. We read: "Rise up, ye women that are at ease; hear my voice, ye careless daughters; give ear unto my speech. Many days and years shall ye be troubled, ye careless women; for the vintage shall fail, the gathering shall not come. Tremble, ye women that are at ease; be troubled, ye careless ones; strip you, and make you bare, and gird sackcloth upon your loins." (Isa. 32:9-11.) The general internal sense of this passage treats concerning those who have certain natural and spiritual affections, yet trust in their own reasonings, and do not suffer themselves to be turned away from such reasonings. They love their own reasonings, and suppose themselves most intelligent. Their natural affections cause them to lead a secure life, and not to fear or love truth and good. They are like the five foolish or secure virgins who had lamps, but no oil in their vessels. (Matthew 25:1-13.) The things of which they persuade themselves from the conceit of their own intelligence induce a kind of delightfulness, but are of no avail for salvation, and of no protection against evil and falsity. Their evil affections seduce them from the true faith, and their falsities of doctrine are like walls of sand. (See Schmid Marginalia.) A similar state is described in Ezekiel: "Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, satiety of bread, and security of ease was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy." (16:49)

     In the work on the Divine Providence it is written: "That a belief in instantaneous salvation out of pure mercy alone induces a security of life. Security of life arises either from the impious man's belief that there is no life after death, or from the belief of him who separates life from salvation. The latter, although believing in eternal life, still thinks: 'Whether I live well or ill, I can be saved, since salvation is pure mercy; and God's mercy is universal, because He desires not the death of any one.' And if perchance the thought occurs that mercy ought to be implored in the words of the accepted faith, he may think that this, if not done previously, Can be done just before death.

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Any man in such a state of security makes nothing of adulteries, frauds, injustice, violence, defamation and revenge, but lets his flesh and his spirit run riot in them all; nor does he know what spiritual evil and its lust are. If he listens to anything about this from the Word, it is comparatively like something striking against ebony and rebounding, or like what falls into a ditch and is swallowed up." (D. P. 340:4)

     Elsewhere in the Writings we are taught that the doctrine of justification by faith alone is both erroneous and absurd, and induces a false security and trust, also blindness, sleep and night in spiritual things, and thereby death to the soul; that the same is true of predestination; in fact, that all false doctrines effect the same with the evil. It is said of the Jews that their utter lack of knowledge concerning the Lord,-a lack due to evil and its falsity, and not to the absence of Divine Revelation,-led them to live securely in falsities from evil. And in the Spiritual Diary particularly we have Divine teaching given in a most striking and emphatic style concerning those who place worship in externals only, and so live in security, and are confirmed in their evil life. Everywhere throughout the Writings it is shown that a life of false security and trust in one's own intelligence, in the false doctrines hatched from one's own intelligence, is full of dangers to one's spiritual welfare,-dangers of damnation, and thus of hell. Men, therefore, are to beware of the conceit of their own intelligence. For, as stated in the text: "Woe to them that are at ease in Zion, and that trust in the mountain of Samaria!"

     We are plainly taught in the Writings that all the heresies and all the falsities in the Christian Church had their origin in the dogmas hatched out by those who were in the love of self and at the same time in the pride or conceit of their own intelligence. It is further stated that such men have hatched out such dogmas while studying the Word. Thus they have had Divine Revelation and apparently have accepted and acknowledged it. Yet they have perverted its truths, because they have not known, thought about and loved the one God, Jesus Christ, and have not been led and enlightened by Him. And such men have gathered numerous followers, who were content to trust in men and their intelligence, thus in false doctrine hatched by them, rather than in the Word of God itself. And it is obvious that if the followers themselves had studied the Word, they likewise would have hatched out false doctrines, because the general state of mankind was such that all men were guided principally by selfish loves and their own prudence, or else were slaves in action, speech, thought, and even in will, to the few who dominated the nations of Christendom.

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The truth is, that men "loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil." They loved to think from themselves, or from men, and to be guided by themselves or by men, rather than to be guided by God and to think from Him. It was altogether an idolatrous state, a Baal worship, and the result was the total destruction of the church, its utter consummation.

     The condemnation is not of natural ease, nor of trust in natural things. There was this condemnation with the Jews, but not with men today, not with New Churchmen. What is now condemned is that state of mind in which there is no progression and advancement in the understanding of that which is spiritual and Divine, and a trust in one's own intelligence merely. A simple trust in the Lord and in what is from Him is permissible with the simple, but it is not good for the intelligent. The latter require an understanding trust, which is possible only in an active state of the mind, only in the continual development of the mind in both natural and spiritual things. And such mental activity, when the end is use, will result in the separation of all that is evil and false, thus in the purification of man. Such a man will become ever more alert and ever more ready to meet and overcome difficulties. He will not look for ease in Zion, nor will he trust in the mountain of Samaria. But he will be among those of whom it is written, "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from henceforth. Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors; and their works do follow them." (Revelation 14:13.) Amen.

     Lessons: Amos 6. Matthew 24:29-51. A. C. 4818:3-6.

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CONSCIENCE 1927

CONSCIENCE       Rev. E. E. IUNGERICH       1927

     What conscience is can be known only to those who are being regenerated. (A. C. 977, 2515.) Only those who are given to "eat of the hidden manna" and to " receive the white stone,"-the reward of a new will and a new understanding promised to those of Pergamos who have invited the Lord to fight for them,-can know about the "new name" written in that stone. This "new name" is conscience. For "in that stone," says John, "a new name is written, which no one knoweth saving he that receiveth it." (Apoc. 2:17.)

     No matter how faithfully a writer may set forth the careful explanations of the Writings on the subject, still "to those who are not in faith and charity . . . conscience will remain as a mere word, . . . and they who are in anguish . . . will seem to them as weaklings,-a prey to things purely imaginary." (A. C. 7217.) In fact, "they laugh at those who name it " (A. C. 831), for "one who is in the loves of self and the world has no knowledge of what charity, faith, conscience, the spiritual, and the spiritual world, are, . . . and finally denies that there are such things." (A. C. 7490.) As instances of the lack of conscience with the evil, Swedenborg tells us of a poisoner who argued that his victims were bound to die some day, and it did not matter if they went sooner (S. D. 1282); and of Christian adulterers who were sure that the consent of their dupes absolved them of any sin against the conscience. (A. C. 5066.) As "the infernals have no conscience, but mere concupiscences of evil" (A. C. 5071), whose restraint is the only mental anguish they experience, the error of the Old Theology is patent which declares that "the torments of hell are the bites of conscience" (A. C. 965) and wonders whether the eternal fire of hell is purely a torment of the conscience inwardly or also the effect of an elemental fire from without. (A. C. 5071.)

     There is, to be sure, a sense in which conscience maybe predicated of the evil. For, as Swedenborg states in his introduction to the Index Biblicus, "each term has its own definite signification, or rather a definite sphere of signification, extending from what is positive to its privative.

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Since the sphere is thus between opposites, the sense sometimes appears various, on account of its adaptability to the nature of the subject treated of." (Codex 39.) So, when the sphere of the term "conscience" passes over to the evil, it becomes with them a resistance to acting against their own natures. Swedenborg accordingly says about certain deceitful spirits: "It was given me to tell them that they are moved (ferantur) by conscience if they cannot perpetrate evil, for the devil is such that he is moved (feratur), as it were, by a conscience, because by an anxiety, if he cannot think, speak, and do evil; as also are certain men." (S. D. 3847) So, in his Rational Psychology, he writes: "The devil acts against his conscience if he does not do evil, although he knows it is against spiritual truths. Conscience very manifestly declares that our rational mind is midway between superior loves and inferior ones. . . . Conscience depends on our principles, which we regard as so many truths. Thus, for the same cause, the conscience of one may be good, and that of another evil; or that of a criminal may be good, and that of honorable people evil." (No. 328) A good conscience in this sense means a consistent resistance to acting contrary to one's nature. Even the deceitful (S. D. 3847), in their lust to do evil, have an ingrained aversion to appearing to be acting according to their real nature. This overlaid nature is a species of conscience to them.

     Nevertheless, all who have no real inkling of what conscience is make use of the term to define certain symptoms or emotions that have come to their attention. Some can also inspire such emotions in others at times, and take advantage of them while they are under their spell. So we are told that "men today, even if the combats of their spiritual attendants were brought to their sensation through conscience, internal dictate or perception, would yet call them phantasies or a sickliness of the animus" (A. C. 227); that "many call anxieties from fears under the loves of self and the world,-such as fears of the loss of various advantages,"-the pangs of conscience (A. C. 847; H. H. 299aa); and " that some ascribe these pains to the stomach, when there are undigested things there " (H. H. 299), not knowing that "the melancholy is due to the presence of spirits" who have fastened themselves on this protracted diseased condition. (ibid.)

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Again, we are told that sensual scientists recognize under the term "conscience" an imaginary something that is useful in keeping the common people under bond" (A. C. 206), and ascribe it to a morbid religiosity. (H. H. 299aa.) Others, like the Pharisees whom the Lord accused of binding heavy burdens upon the people, "are declared to lay burdens on the consciences of the simple, though they themselves have no knowledge of what a true conscience is." (A. C. 5386.). History furnishes examples of such in recent Puritanic crusades. They are said "to lack extension of thought, and to have a tenacity in their own opinion which prevents their attending to reason." (Ibid.)

     II.

     Once, in the spiritual world, four groups of learned Christians were asked to set forth their views on the subject of conscience and its pangs. Some, who were politicians, declared that the word means to know in one's self what has been done, this that it means consciousness. The anxiety felt, they said, arose either from a fear of the loss of honor, or else from a melancholic humor produced by undigested food. The former anxiety could be banished by "feastings where there is wine and conversation about Venus and her boy," and the latter could be cured by drugs. A group of learned scientists next declared it to be not only in the gastric region, but due especially to a sharp, pungent humor which pricked the fibers in the brain, thus compressing the sphere of thought until no pleasure could be found in variations, but only in sticking to a single idea. Rigidity of the fibers led to an irregularity in the motion of the animal spirits, and to an eventual ataxia or stoppage of their function. The original cause, they said, had been an assault upon the man's ruling love, which had checked the free excursion of his mind and its ability to be benefited from relaxing pleasures. Thence had arisen phantasies, deliriums, and those cerebrosities in religious matters which are called the "bites of conscience." A group of learned physicians declared the pain of conscience to be in the hypochondriac region, and to be primarily an affection of the spleen. The disorder spread when minute capillaries were filled with bile, the blood that went to the brain being of an acrid character. Its gnawing of the brain medullae and cortex then caused the pangs of conscience.

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The final group, composed of clergymen, said that conscience is the contrition that precedes election, and is due, with most, to anxiety about hell-fire, and, with a few, to a fear of the just wrath of God. But they had alleviated such mental sufferings by assuring people that damnation had been removed through the Passion of the Cross.

     Angels who had heard this discussion concluded that no one in Christendom knew what conscience was. A messenger sent down by them then declared that "conscience, viewed in itself, is not any pain, but is the spiritual willingness to act according to the things of religion and faith. Hence it is that those who enjoy conscience are in tranquillity of peace and eternal blessedness when they act according to conscience, but in an intranquillity when they act against it." "The pain of mind," he said, "which you believed to be conscience, is not conscience but temptation, which is a combat of the spirit with the flesh. Yet this, if it be spiritual, draws its current from conscience, but if it is only natural, it derives its origin from the diseases which the physicians have just mentioned." A priest has a conscience, if he have a spiritual willingness to teach truths for no other end than that his flock be saved; a judge, if he looks to abstract justice, and not personal favors, when he renders judgment; and so has every man who, when free to do the opposite, yet loves to be faithful in what concerns his neighbor, and to submerge his private ambitions for the good of society. "Those who are in the truths of faith can have a more perfect conscience than others; and those who are in a clear perception may possess a better one than those who are less enlightened and in obscure perception. In a true conscience lies the very life of the spiritual man; for his faith is there conjoined to charity. With such, to act from conscience is to act from their spiritual life; whereas to act against conscience is to act against their spiritual life." (T. C. R. 665-666.)

     From this angelic instruction we conclude, first of all, that conscience is a spiritual attitude of the will; and then, that its existence and operation are in the principles or truths that are in the understanding. For a temptation or combat between the spirit and the flesh, if it be spiritual, that is, for the sake of defending spiritual principles or truths,-was declared to derive its current from conscience. "The few who undergo temptations today," we are told in A. C. 751, "suppose it to be something inherently in them which suffers." (See A. C. 5121.)

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But, besides the distinct regions of the mental organism that are obviously involved in the struggle, we must also recognize that immediate influx or current from the higher ground which produces man's sensation of conscience, internal dictate, and perception, as well as that mediate influx which comes into the same regions from a man's spiritual attendants, as previously noted. (A. C. 221.) Conditions in the understanding, where the conscience operates or has existence, decidedly qualify the conscience; for those who are in truths of faith have a more perfect conscience than those not in them, and among the former those who are in a clear perception have a better one than those less enlightened. There can, therefore, be a growth and development in conscience by means of the imbuing of the truths of faith and coming into a clearer perception of them. But obviously the source of the influx that animates this region, where principles and truths are at stake in the conflict which rages, is the paramount concern. For if the current comes from a spiritual willingness to act according to religion and faith, then what transpires there is of the operation of conscience. Otherwise, the current comes from inferior loves of the body and the world, and whatever sensation the man then has of these regions which constitute the rational mind is due to some natural and physical cause, and has nothing to do with conscience per se. (Rational Psychology 328.)

     III.

     Our further study must begin, therefore, with a consideration of the rational mind and its brain organism, and of the two sets of loves, superior and inferior, between which it is balanced, together with their respective cerebral bases, and then proceed to consider the relations of angels and spirits to man's mental activities. In the course of this study we must consider the relation of conscience to other mental and spiritual functions which have existed in the life history of the race. Then, in conclusion, we may consider obvious practical applications of our study, as, for instance, how man may best co-operate in improving and perfecting his conscience.

     The general teaching that all angels had first to be born on some earth comes under the law that there can be no activity or function apart from a basic organism derived from the plane of ultimates. One depends upon the other.

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As the Old Theology postulates the direct creation of angels in the hereafter, it followed as a logical consequence that the philosophies derived thence spoke of mental activities as fluent entia rationis, unconnected with distinct changes of state and variations of form in organic brain substance. But a New Churchman can have no part in such a notion. Though he may use various terms, such as corporeal, material, sensual, natural, substantial, spiritual, celestial, to describe the organics involved and their operations, still, by none of these does he mean to weaken the idea that the organics themselves came from the plane of ultimates by virtue of the fact that the men were born on some earth. Man is a recipient of life, and to be so, his receptacular forms which respond or react to inffuent good and truth are all derived from the plane of ultimates.*
     * In this plane of ultimates, whence receptacular forms of use are derived (see D. L. W. 310), there are both spiritual and natural substances. The natural ones are molded, and the spiritual ones are the Lord's guiding hand there to do the molding and maintain it. In a paper on "Evolution and Heredity" (Journal of Education, February, 1927), I presented the view that a similar state existed in the humus of the earth, where the spiritual atmospheric substances led matters through the vegetable seeds to come into forms corresponding to their uses.-E. E. I.

     Organically speaking, the mind is in three degrees, as many as are the heavens that the mind or spirit will enter into; and its understanding and will are respectively variations of the form and changes of the state of subtle organic forms in the brain. (D. L. W. 432; D. Wis. V; D. P. 319.) And when it is seen that the Rational Psychology Psychologica, and other works of Swedenborg's philosophical period are in agreement with the general statements of the Writings, their sporadic references to the cortical glands can be infilled with particular truths, and the men of the Church then acquire a lucid comprehension of the nature of his mental organism in these subtle organic forms of the brain.

     Generally speaking, in regard to the bases of the three degrees of the mind which the angels compare to three concentric globules, one within the other (D. L. W. 432), the outermost basis of what Swedenborg calls the external or natural man is between the pia mater, which envelopes the gray substance of the brain, and the cortical glands, with their investing piissima mater. It is here that all hereditary malformation exists. The next higher basis is the range inside the cortical glands, acting as co-operant but freely determinant unities, and extending all the way in to the simple cortical forms that constitute what is called the simple cortex or pure intellectory of each of them.

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This is the plane of the rational or interior man, and is active with those who go to the spiritual heaven. The inmost plane is constituted of the totality of the simple cortical forms of all the simple cortexes, when these simple corticals are liberated from a mass law coming from some external conditionment and act as freely determinant but co-operant integers or unities. Here, then, is the basis for what is called under various aspects the inmost man, the human internal, the celestial degree, etc.

     Now each of these ranges may be considered, either from the standpoint of its surface thrills or tremulations, in which case we have those purely intellectual phenomena which are called variations of form, or from the aspect of its actual physical alternations in contraction and expansion,-its systole and diastole. The latter are those changes of state which are the human will. But will is intimately connected with use by means of actions which descend to lower grounds. When there is diastole or expansion of the simple corticals, or when they open to receive from the Lord, they take in the bread of heaven, or nutriment from the universal spiritual of creation. When they contract, this uncompounded spirituous fluid or soul makes its circuit throughout the body. When the cortical glands expand, their alembics receive droplets of spirituous fluid from the simple cortexes above, and a pure ethereal chyle from below. These two ingredients are mingled to make animal spirit, which, in the ensuing contraction or systole, is expressed downwards into motive muscle fibres and elsewhere. When the brain's gray substance expands as a whole, animal spirit runs into the brain ventricles from above, and fluid by means of the choroid plexuses from below. These are commingled there to make a white blood or lymph, which is to become the superior of the two constituents out of which the red blood is to be made.

     The very briefness of this summary, I realize, strips it of those protective buttresses which a minute study of the subject would provide, and so lays it open to the casual challenge of anyone who has not been able to condense Swedenborg's explanations into a system compactly seen. It will serve, however, to show that, in regard to intellect or understanding, only one function is involved, namely, that of surface tremulation, called variation of form; whereas, in regard to will, two elements are involved, viz., an effort to receive sustenance from above, and a contractile spasm which produces an effect below.

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For a realization of these matters is necessary to our further study of the psychology of conscience.

     IV.

     The two functions of the will,-the opening to receive from the Lord, and the concluding contraction to act from oneself,-are closely correspondent, or enjoy a close parallelism. This relation is that of heaven to hell, when both are regarded from the standpoint of the orderly uses they perform. Prior to the fall of Lucifer with men, the contractile spasms of the will were in heavenly order, and were a carrying of heaven's mandates down to earth and body. The mind was one, and there was no differentiated intellectual to act as a balance fulcrum between these two scales. But since the fall and the separation of the understanding from the will, there is now fixed between these two functions of the will, represented by Lazarus and the rich man, the great gulf of which Father Abraham made mention in the words: "Between us and you there is a great gulf fixed; so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us that would come from thence." (Luke 16:26.) In other words, the intellect, or the surface tremulations or variations of form, now act as a bar between the two sets of determinations of the will; or they are as the world-of-spirits' state which interposes between heaven and hell regarded as uses, and without which as a medium neither can operate responsibly on the lower ground of earth and body.

     Let this assertion cause no amazement. For, in the sense that the kingdom of God is within man (Luke 17:21), so all the demarcations of the spiritual world rest on particular differentiations in the organic mind. The mediate or particular influxes from a man's spiritual attendants, after passing through the two sets of determinations of his will, abut in this middle gulf of the intellect; and in it are those truths and goods over which they wage that battle which is felt as the anxieties of temptations. The range of this intellectual midspace is graphically described in a Memorable Relation as "a lucidity seen to extend from that first sight which is of perception down to the ultimate sight which is of the eye."

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With a good spirit, a mild flame was seen to how down from heaven, and to illumine his reason which is above the memory, and also that below it down to the eye; and the lumen from that flame sparkled more and more, as from the love of good he perceived and thought of truth. But with an evil spirit the part above the memory was seen to be darkened by a smoke from hell, which, bursting into a dame, lit up the region of the mind below the memory, and moved him to excogitate enormous falsities from the evils of the love of self. (T. C. R. 564.) In this case, "the midspace is filled with persuasions of the false and hatreds, . . . and separates the Lord and the church " with man. (A. C. 1862.)

     As evidence that the intellect or understanding is the world-of-spirits' plane in the human mind, I would adduce the general teachings of True Christian Religion 4761 as to the changing location of a man's spirit in the world of spirits, as he is instructed and educated on earth. As an infant, he is held in the eastern quarter towards the north; as a child acquiring the rudiments of religion, he progresses towards the south; but as an adolescent assuming responsibility for his own decisions, he either progresses eastward or westward, as he favors God and loves the neighbor, or turns instead to evil and the false.

     That the world of spirits is a sort of sensory keyboard which registers in types of intellectual representations whatever movements occur in heaven or hell, is indicated in the following citations: "Many representations appear in heaven to those who stand below which yet do not exist there actually; for they are only forms representative of such things as the angels there think from the influx of the Lord." (A. E. 492) "Before spirits there appear fields full of wheat and barley when the conversation among angels in a superior heaven is about those who are in good; and vineyards full of grapes, together with a winepress, make their appearance when the discussion is about those who are in the truth of good." (A. C. 9139) "The reason they appear in such forms is from the order of creation, which is, that the things which are of wisdom and of love with the angels-when they descend into the inferior sphere in which the angels are as to their bodies, and as to their sensations are set forth in such forms." (A. E. 926:3.)

     Thus we may regard the intellect or world-of-spirits' plane as a sort of spiritual harp or keyboard by which the individual life's love puts forth active resonances.

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And as the world of spirits has three successive states,-one of exteriors, one of interiors, and one of a finished education,-so we may say that the intellect is a structure which, with angels, will transmit heavenly vibrations along one-third, two-thirds, or the entire three-thirds of its range, whereas with a devil the resonant lengths in use are a distorted instrument which is nevertheless controlled to send out messages of value. While the man still lives on earth, his intellect is a basis to send messages to those in the beyond, furnishing particulars and singulars to infill the ideas of those in settled states there, or else to act as a purifidatory inhalation that will dispel incongruous notions from which they had not been able to extricate themselves while living on earth. (A. C. 2242, 2249, 2574; A. E. 1179.) But with those in the beyond whose nature is that of the ruling love, and can no longer be changed (S. D. 4038-39) by an implantation of truth in this intellectual midspace, its use is merely to transmit free or controlled expressions of the ruling love.

     V.

     It is a fact of considerable interest that Father Abraham, whose posthumous speech as recorded in Luke concerns this great gulf or midspace between Lazarus and Dives, should, while on earth, have represented the same subject in the ritual representation recorded in the fifteenth chapter of Genesis, when he dave in twain three sacrificial animals, a ram, a goat, and a heifer, and then, holding a turtle dove and a young pigeon which he was not allowed to divide, took his stand in the midspace between the halves as a protector to drive away the fowls that would settle on the carcasses. The mystical reason for not dividing the birds was because they typify what comes from without audibly by instruction for the purpose of forming vessels with the man. (A. C. 1831-32.) Thus, as said above in regard to intellect or understanding, only one function is involved, namely, that of surface tremulations called variations of form. These are here represented as the happing of the birds' wings held in Abram's hand. There were two birds, to signify the doctrines of faith and of charity, or the cognitions of truth and of good. But the three animals were divided, and their respective parts placed over against each other on opposite sides of the middle space, to signify that distinction we have already presented between the two functions of the will, between which there is a parallelism.

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On the one side is represented the expansile state of the will, in the three sets of brain receptacles which we have described, or the influent loves and nutriments from the Lord; on the other side is represented its constrictive function, and those reciprocal affections of the man of the church without which he cannot co-operate and be conjoined with the Lord. Of Abram standing in the midspace, it is significantly recorded: "And when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and lo, an horror of great darkness fell upon him. . . . And it came to pass that, when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace and burning lamp that passed between those pieces." (Gen. 15:12, 17.) Here is nothing else than a description of what the intellectual midspace, or world-of-spirits' plane, is with the evil; or, as stated in the description from the True Christian
Religion cited above, with an evil spirit the part above the memory was seen to be darkened by a smoke from hell which, bursting into a flame, lit up the region of the mind below the memory, and moved him to excogitate enormous falsities from the evils of the love of self.

     Sweepingly conclusive on these points is the following declaration of the Arcana: "The middle space between the parts signify that with a man which is called perception, internal dictate, and con- science. The things above are the Lord's, those below are with man." (A. C. 1831) In other words, one set of pieces represents that function of the will when there is diastole or expansion of brain organics to receive His gifts; and the other set represents that self-determinant function of the will when there is systole or constriction of the brain organics. The midspace is here definitely identified with intellectual function, and is divided into three degrees, each of which may be correlated with a corresponding state of the world of spirits; namely, perception with the state of finished education, internal dictate with the state of interiors, and conscience (here the conscience of what is just and fair), with its state of exteriors.

     Before the fall and the need of segregating an intellectual midspace to separate what comes from the Lord from what proceeds from man, the perception that was inscribed on the love imparted to man a joyful awareness of God-Man, and a sensation of the currents of His movement in the cosmos, whenever the man's own use brought him into the common pool of uses. For the Divine Human was then a transflux through the heavens when God spake the Word.

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But with the placing of happiness in feeling things as his own, there arose, as the product of a concentering inclination towards proprium, a differentiated intellectual tremulation whose very nature bespeaks the new law, that unless love and wisdom are perceived and sensed as the man's own they can have no seat with him, but will transflow as if he were an inanimate stock. (D. L. W. 115) This intellectual midspace may be likened to a triple set of gears, which are to be set in either forward or reverse position to clutch the running engine, or else the latter will run along without avail. Such a concept of the intellect as the teeth of the clutch, involves a recognition of a motive power from loves influent from a superior source, and also an adaptation of these by a self-enforced control acting as a transformer. The teeth of the clutch are then in the intellect, but the motive power that does the clenching comes through a proper concentration upon it of the influx and reflux streams of life. Therefore, though conscience in its essence is "the spiritual willingness of acting according to the things of religion and faith" (T. C. R. 665-66), yet in its existence or operation it involves the resulting clutch of such a motive power by means of firmly set teeth which are in the intellectual midspace.

     This whole matter is beautifully illustrated in the story of Pharaoh's baker, who dreamed he had three perforated bread baskets upon his head. This, says the Arcana, signifies "the state of the interiors of man's voluntaries when without terminations in the middle." (A. C. 5145) For influx then flows undirected, and falls into the disorderly sensual, where it produces noisome effects like those from the sun)s heat when it falls into foul swamps. There are, however, four distinct sets of affections which may make terminations or close these perforations, and so present a bar to the insanities which would result if there were no clutch, and the transflux went through into the sensual unchecked. Note here that it is the higher or influent set of affections that run through in this way, and that it is the reactive of man's set that is to be aroused to make a clutch in the intellectual midspace. Now if the only affections the man has are those of evil and the false, still, under the goad of the fear of punishment or the love of reward, these can be made to act as a sphincter to terminate what is called the fourth or lowest degree with man,-the plane of the exterior natural which is called the sensual. (A. C. 5145.)

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Therefore, with the unregenerated after death, that part of their intellect which is said to extend from the memory down to the sight of the eye (T. C. R. 564)-that is, below the level of the earth in the world of spirits-can still be made to clutch on the stream of life in a way to perform some uses of service. For by vastations they are said to be able to serve some use. (S. D. 4281-82, 4900, 5071.)

     If the affections that make the clutching determination are those of what is just and fair, then the lowest range of the intellectual midspace is sealed in the order of the natural heaven, where reigns the exterior conscience,-the conscience of what is just and fair. If it is the affection of truth, and good that acts as bond, then the middle is brought into order, as well as the lowest range. This is the plane of the exterior rational, or of the interior conscience, called internal dictate. Finally, if it is the self-evidencing reason of love, with its innate perceptions of good and truth, that makes the bond, then the inmost range of the intellectual midspace, called the interior rational, has, in addition to the degrees below it, the terminating seal of heaven's order. (A. C. 5145.) The man is then a celestial angel.

     VI.

     In a paper on "Remains" (NEW CHURCH LIFE, November, 1926), I stated that these are states of sensitiveness to truths and their application which are implanted from without on the fabric of the human intellect. I compared them to an inscription on a tablet. I may liken them further to indentations cut by a sharp instrument in stone. Conscience, internal dictate, and perception may then be likened to the same teeth or indentations when made to clutch on the stream of life by the power resulting from the self-control of man's reactive affections.

     In regard to the formation or growth of conscience, three stages are to be noted. (A. C. 1555, 1616.) A first plane of residues for it is laid in infancy and childhood, and even to adolescence, by the insinuation of celestial states of innocence and charity towards parents, nurses, and infant companions. This is called a state of the formation of the will. It is, in fact, a focusing or directing of the individual mental contrictions, so that these may be initiated to clutch on the stream of life. In this stage, the individual is living the early racial history of those who took truths directly into the life without a previous intellectual scrutiny.

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There is then a formation of the will, or a form is being placed on the will,-a structure of tender or celestial self-evidencing truths as a limitizing zone to the will's love. The educator co-operates in the storing of such celestial truths: (1) By personal self-restraint in not intruding his human desires when the infant should be left to the tranquil state of its heavenly environment; (2) by lavishing on it suitable expressions of love and affection; (3) by protecting it from adverse influences; and (4) by instilling obedience, and training it to say "No" to things that are wrong. (H. H. 343.)

     The second state is when a second plane is superimposed over this first limitizing zone. This is by means of an adjoined intellectual instruction in scientifics and cognitions. Here, of course, we need New Church educators who value knowledges that prepare vessels for eternal use above those that are merely temporal and utilitarian. As yet, however, conscience is only potential or being prepared for. It becomes actual when the third plane is being laid. But this is only with the regenerating, with whom truths and goods are implanted in the celestial things the Lord had given from infancy. (A. C. 1555.) When intellectual things thus make one with celestial things, he is gifted with a charity from which he begins to act the things which are of conscience, and then he receives for the first time and by degrees a new life whose light is called wisdom. A man who follows its lead is continually perfected hereafter.

     Infants in the other life pass through the same three stages, but more rapidly, seeing that they have no third or natural plane, such as that of the corporeal memory, but in lieu of it, a spiritual natural one which is a social inheritance from their angelic environment. (S. D. 4038-39) Still, their dependence upon this renders them less capable for leadership in uses than those who have emerged out of a life-long struggle on earth.

     It follows, of course, from the imperfections of earthly life that fallacies and falses may be intermingled among the anointed boundary stones that have been placed in the intellectual midspace. To such an extent the terminating bite or clutch of his will on these teeth suffers a species of deformation. And so people may have spurious or false consciences, as do gentiles and those in falsity of religion. But better a good clenching bite of the will on something in the intellect that is sincerely believed to be genuine than none at all; for a purging of the inseminated tares can still take place in the hereafter.

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     If the conscience is to be spiritual, there must be a spiritual matter that is of active concern to the man. Then a fear of its loss is the sign or pang of a spiritual or true conscience. For about every spiritual principle that is being established in the intellectual midspace is waged a combat between the angels and evil spirits, like that of Abram and the rapacious fowls which he drove off from settling upon the pieces. The evil spirits endeavor to numb the man's interest in acquiring such principles, and make him feel that he has them already and need have no further concern, or they impugn the motive for which he holds them. In each of such assaults the angels draw out these principles to defend the man. It is when he is in the threes of such a spiritual struggle about the anointed boundary stones in his intellectual midspace that he feels the pangs of conscience.

     If he should cease to feel such pangs, it would no longer be well with him. For as deeper particulars of spiritual doctrine are implanted, the combat becomes sharper and the pangs deeper. (A. C. 857, 1668.) But with the regenerating, these bitternesses become in time a sweetness; and we hear of no sufferings among them in the hereafter, saving when the spiritual, in their evening, are longing to return to the daytime of their uses of glorification, and the celestial to their services of humiliation.
ASIATIC SPIRITS 1927

ASIATIC SPIRITS              1927

     "I was among spirits who were from the regions of the northern part of Asia, and it was perceived that they were of such a genius, from their life in the world, that they can receive the Heavenly Doctrine. Afterwards I was led to the region of those who are in the knowledges of human learning, and it was apperceived that they could not grasp the truth that the Lord is the one only God, thus that they, least of all, can receive the Heavenly Doctrine. But in the region further to the right, downwards, were those who were in the faculty of receiving that Doctrine, who had not extinguished by knowledges the gift of perceiving that it is so." (Spiritual Diary 4779.)

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CHILD AND THE CHURCH 1927

CHILD AND THE CHURCH       Rev. RICHARD H. TEED       1927

     (In our last issue we reprinted from The New Age an editorial on "The Modern Outlook," in which Mr. Teed views very frankly the indifference in the Christian World which prevents reception of the teachings of the New Church. In a succeeding issue of The New Age (March, 1927) he passes logically to a consideration of the means of evangelizing the children of the New Church, and we believe our readers will be interested in his presentation of the subject. Mr. Teed, it will be recalled, is minister of the Melbourne, Australia, Society.-EDITOR.)

     It would appear that in the title stated above we have one of the greatest problems with which the Church is at present faced. We are told by some that the Church should be, first and last, a missionary institution. This is all right so long as we do not forget that charity begins at home, and our first call as missionaries, therefore, is to our own children-the children born within the sphere of the organized Church. Unfortunately, it is only too true that in our zeal to reach the outsider-who is supposed to be hungering and thirsting for what we can give him-we have neglected the children of the Church. It may be, of course, that we expect too much when we hope that every child born of New Church parents will remain in the Church. Certain it is, that ideal has not been attained, or even approximated. One of the saddest reflections for the New Church worker is to consider how few of the children of New Church homes and New Church Sunday Schools are today members of the Church. The proportion is appalling, and strikes fear-yes, fear-into the heart of him who is working for the Church. Whole families, brought up in the New Church, are to-day outside it. Why is this? Is it, as one critic suggests in THE NEW CHURCH HERALD, that, after all, the New Church teachings are not what we thought them, and cannot stand the test of cold criticism? I have in my mind now instances of family after family that have thus drifted from the Church. A very tangible instance is my own case. The name of my grandfather stands out in the history of the New Church of his generation as one who worked zealously and faithfully in her interests. My grandfather had six children. Of these, only my father remained in the New Church; and now, of my father's family, I am the sole representative who proudly claims membership of the New Church.

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This personal illustration is by no means exceptional.

     What is wrong? For, even allowing for the fact that, as with adult converts, one of a family receives the teachings with joy, the others are unmoved or scornful, surely our proportion of loss should not be so great. Then there is the far greater handicap for an adult to grasp the truths of the New Church than for a child, whose plastic mind has been under our care from the beginning. It is my confirmed opinion that the main fault lies in our manner and method of instruction.

     First and foremost in this is the unfortunate fact that we do not take this matter seriously enough. The training of New Church children goes right back to the time before their own birth. If two marry of whom one is of the New Church and the other is definitely connected with some other religious body, or rise, maybe, is wholly indifferent to these matters, then from that moment almost certain failure awaits the prospect of the rearing of a New Church family. Yet we let our young people enter into such marriages without a word of remonstrance or advice. It is not my contention that we should be too rigid in the matter, for rigidity is not life. I would not declare it to be inadvisable to marry outside the range of our organized body, but this I would say-that, where such an attachment springs up, the young people should be strongly urged to come to a real understanding upon religious matters. The truths of the New Church should be carefully and sympathetically presented to the young lover, perhaps by the father of the New Church partner-to-be. "Great is Truth, and it will prevail." But we, as instruments in the hands of Truth, must do all we can to let Truth get to work. The very fact that the young couple are thus drawn to one another will pave the way wondrously to a preliminary understanding, and later acceptance of the Heavenly Doctrines.

     But do our New Church parents look at the matter in this light? I fear it is far more true to say that the parents are often more interested in the bank-book of the swain, or in the educational accomplishments of the maid, than in this far deeper and more vital concern!

     It is not too much to say that, where there is no real common understanding on matters of religion, the real "conjugial" can never properly develop.

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Religious matters, thoughts of God and eternal life, lie innermost. If, then, there is divergence and disjunction at the center, even a seeming union in things more external can never be genuine. Marriage, for instance, between a New Church youth or maid and a confirmed Roman Catholic is doomed to failure. The New Church youth will be torn between his religion and his married partner, and he will ultimately drift away from one or the other-quite possibly from both. Just as fatal in reality is any manage where one of the parties is confirmed in the religious tenets of some Church other than the New Church. The offspring of such a marriage is children, we hope, but also indifference, increasing worldliness and externalism, both in the married partners and in their children, because there is nothing to hold on to at the center of things, just where it matters most.

     Yet we seemingly contemplate this prospect with complete equanimity, and hustle the two young folk to a certain disappointment, and maybe a later estrangement. We have not a true concept of the doctrine of freedom, and in its name we allow our young people to make this great mistake. I once heard a mother-herself one of a mixed marriage-say that she did not want to teach her children any definite doctrine, as she wanted to leave them quite free to choose for themselves! Yet, in all material goods, she would unhesitatingly put before her precious ones the best she knew, and would train them in the way she believed best. She would not leave a babe "free" to choose between wholesome food and poison, or even food less nourishing but more pleasing to the palate. No, she would unhesitatingly set before her child what she believed to be best, and insist that childish fancies were not indulged in any direction too freely. Yet in spiritual food-the food for the life eternal-she would starve her child in order to leave him free!

     It is in our mixed marriages that one of the chief causes of the loss of our children for the Church lies. Can we believe, therefore, that our continued indifference in regard to this matter is pleasing in the sight of the Lord? Of course, ultimately the young people must please themselves; there can be no forcing; but, so long as we show the indifference we do in regard to the matter, are we doing our part to help to guide our young people in the way that is of order, and leads to their own truest happiness?

     Then, let us look further. When the children have come, what reception do we as a Church give them?

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We baptize them when their parents bring them for the purpose. This is, no doubt, a good use we perform; but are we not too disposed to believe that our responsibility ends, rather than begins, with that religious act? Legally the parents have absolute control as to the upbringing of the child, and rightly so; but the parents should receive more forceful direction and guidance in this sacred duty. We regard the matter too much as though it were a case of individual likes and dislikes instead of an approach to the way that is orderly and right.

     These little ones entrusted to our charge must be taught the truth of the Word and gently led in the way of the Lord. If this is done consistently from infancy upwards, we may have "the strongest ground of hope" that the man or woman of later years will be a power in the New Church. There is a tendency for the Church to leave the responsibility wholly with the parents, and for the parents to shirk this, and feel that they have done the needful by sending the children to Sunday School for one hour a week when the children are of the age to go. Children are conveniently out of the way on a Sunday afternoon, if sent to school, and the house is kept quiet for a parental nap!

     Obviously, even the majority of those who send their children to our Sunday Schools do not take seriously the spiritual education of their children. The Sunday School should be working alongside with the parents in the training of the young; otherwise really but little can be accomplished. Even a youth at college, who only attends the lectures, but never puts in time at personal study, will not make much headway. In how many homes is it the case that, through a false modesty or shyness, religion is never mentioned, the Word is never real aloud, and prayers are not encouraged! And so we have the sure fruit that, in later years, people come to the minister and say, "I cannot explain what the New Church is; can you give me a book I could lend to an inquiring friend?" The New Church mad or woman, trained by the Church, is only too frequently unable to give a reason for the faith he nominally adheres to, and often the only use, even then, he has for New Church books is to lend them!

     Of course, we might easily be critical of our organizational methods, and of the quality of the teaching we are able to give in our schools, but the main thing we need is change of attitude towards the whole subject-a keener interest in the training of the young in the faith we and our fathers have loved.

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If there be greater desire for the fuller and better religious education of our children, ways and means will soon show themselves. If we took even the same interest in the religious equipment of our children that we take in their preparation to take a place in the world, we should have some far more satisfactory results.

     New Church day schools may come in the future, though we need to remember that they have been tried unsuccessfully in the past. More is needed for a satisfactory day school than just the will to attain an ideal. Then, too, there is the almost inevitable disadvantage associated with such a school that the scholars would have to be boarders, away from home. This is bad both for children and he it noted-for parents, too. It is good that parents and children live together, until, if possible, early maturity. There is undoubtedly mutual good in the association, and parents ought not to be relieved of their responsibility by handing the entire care of their children over even to New Church teachers.

     We must meanwhile make more satisfactory use of the organization we have. Again I say it is my confirmed opinion that what we want is the will for our children's spiritual training. Father and mother must feel they have a responsibility before the Lord to train their young to serve the Lord in His New Church here on earth, and hereafter in heaven. To this end religion will not be banished from the home, but will come into the ordinary conversation at meals and other times; and the sight and sound of the written Word will be a familiar thing in the lives of the little people. Their questions will be always answered to the utmost of our capacity to explain, and their capacity to grasp the Truth, and nothing but the truth. The fact that the children ask will be the sure sign to the wise parent that now is the very time and the God-given opportunity to tell. Let the children of New Church parents have the immense privilege which is their right, that in after years they have nothing to unlearn, and all they later acquire will be but the common sense outcome of what they previously learned.

     Then, too, let the parents cooperate with the teaches at the Sunday School and the minister in the great work. Take it seriously, and consult together from time to time as to how the young people are progressing, where the difficulties seem most to lie, and in what manner emphasis should unitedly be laid upon the difficulties that seem to present themselves.

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I say it with confidence that, if even half the interest and care we devote to our children's secular education were directed towards their learning in "the knowledge of the Lord," we should not have so many to lament who drift away into the world in later years.

     Above all, let love dominate the whole. Children are quick to perceive what is the real state of one's feelings. Whereas secular training can be moderately successful, even where love and delight are largely absent, in the acquiring of spiritual truth, love, it would seem, is an absolute essential. Children can be taught to love these things, if that is the prevailing attitude in the parents. Church-going, going to Sunday School, reading and talking about the Word, should stand out in the child-mind as being some of the happiest experiences in life. Children who are sent to Sunday School by parents who stay at home on Sundays will not be thereby best helped
to become lovers of the Church. The word "Go," in relation to Church and Sunday School, is not half as sweet as the word "Come." Parents should lead the way, and children will gladly follow. Everything in the week should be made to lead up to and find climax in the pilgrimage to Church on Sunday. It should, and can, be associated with much pleasure and fun, too. Opportunity should be carefully sought to make clear and helpful and interesting the lessons of the day. Spiritual learning can be, and should be, so sweetly interwoven with the ordinary, the best and happiest doings of everyday life, that through memory it exerts a hold over the young people which time cannot break.

     The Church needs the children. She is languishing for lack of them. The children need the Church. They are drifting aimlessly through life, from one worldly ambition to the next, because they know not the why and the wherefore. We must bring them together. This is our greatest missionary enterprise.

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TWOFOLD DIVINE 1927

TWOFOLD DIVINE       Rev. WILLAM F. PENDLETON       1927

     There is a twofold Divine,-the Divine in itself, and the Divine from itself. "The Divine in itself is in the Lord, but the Divine from itself is the Divine from the Lord in created things." (D. P. 52.) The Divine in itself is infinite, invisible, unapproachable. We know that it is, but we do not know that it is. But the Divine from itself is the Divine in heaven with the angels, in the church with men, and in all things of creation. It is the Divine Man, the Divine Human, visible, approachable, accommodated to all finite things, It is the Lord God Jesus Christ our Savior. It is Immanuel, God with us, called also our Father in the heavens, the God we worship when we repeat the Lord's Prayer. In a word, the Divine from itself is the Lord present in the universe which He created.

     The twofold Divine may be seen, as in an image, in what heaven is in itself, and in what heaven is from itself, in all its uses to angels and men. The Divine from itself is seen by the good, but it cannot be seen by the evil; it cannot be approached by them, or ever become visible to them. The Divine from itself is the Divine Word, which was God, and is God,-the Word that was made flesh and dwelt among us, forever unknown and unseen by all the nations that forget God. This Divine is present in hell and around hell, but it is never seen in hell itself, because unknown and unacknowledged.

     The twofold Divine may be illustrated by what the natural sun is in itself, and by what it is from itself in all nature. This image of the twofold Divine may in some measure be seen in every created thing. For the universe, in its whole and in its every part, is in the image of the Divine. It may be seen in man himself, in his soul, in his body, and its works. The soul itself is invisible, the body visible and approachable by others. There is no end to the created forms in which we may not see what the Divine is in itself, and what it is from itself.
     W. F. P.

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SECOND VISIT TO NORWAY 1927

SECOND VISIT TO NORWAY       Rev. GUSTAF BAECKSTROM       1927

     During the month of February I was able to undertake another trip to Norway, calling upon the New Church friends and also giving missionary lectures. An account of my first visit appeared in NEW CHURCH LIFE for February, 1927, P. 116. On this second journey I visited Oslo (Christiania), Bergen and Stavanger. I first gave a lecture in Oslo,-a general introductory presentation of the Doctrines and a statement in regard to Swedenborg. The attendance was only forty persons, but there were many distinguished people there, I was told, and they bought books to the value of about $9.00, which showed their interest. And the lecture was reported very favorably the following day in one of the two leading daily newspapers in Oslo,-AFTENPOSTEN. On my previous visit, the newspapers had done very little for me, but the account of this lecture was fine. Let me quote from it:

     "If it is true that we are now standing on the threshold of a new and more spiritualistic age, then the writings of Swedenborg will have a great influence in the future. The life and development of Swedenborg is in some way fit for the crisis in culture through which we are now passing. The steadily increasing knowledge in the field of natural science brings on a conflict with religious tradition, and people are seeking for a philosophy or a religion that is consistent with the knowledge of our time. Such a solution Swedenborg gave 200 years ago. The great stress which Swedenborg lays on tolerance and forbearance, his close contact with natural science, and his optimistic view of the progress of humanity, are as if they were made for our time."

     This fine report led me to call upon its author, who proved to be a lady, and she received me very favorably. And when I invited her to my next lecture, to be given on the following day, she said that she would surely come, but added: "You must provide a seat for me, for at your lectures the room is always overcrowded." I thought on the forty persons in the big hall with all the empty chairs the day before, and understood that she had never attended the lecture about which she had written!

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It was a good thing under the circumstances that the account did not go in the other direction! I had sent a copy of my book, Swedenborg's Revelations, to all the big newspapers in Oslo to prepare for the lecture, and I now found that what she had written was more a review of that book than a report of my lecture!

     But our New Church friends were enthusiastic over what had appeared in the papers, and decided that the lecture should be repeated. And as I had a free day in Oslo, the lecture was repeated "on request," and this time the attendance was 152 persons. Another lecture in Oslo was on the subject of the Spiritual World, and was attended by 270 persons.

     With the aid of Mrs. Hartman I succeeded in getting permission to speak by radio in Oslo. The subject of the lecture broadcasted was "The Development of Swedenborg from a Man of Science and Philosopher to a Seer," and contained a brief presentation of the general Doctrines of the Church as well. I was allowed to speak for half an hour, and was told that from 60,000 to 100,000 persons were likely listening to it, as it was sent further to several minor stations in Norway. In delivering the lecture I felt somewhat as I did when flying with Mr. Harold Pitcairn the first time. I was left alone in a small room with padded walls, like the room' set apart for dangerous fools in a lunatic asylum, and had to speak to that little apparatus which brought me in contact with so many thousands of people, knowing that every least sound T made was heard all over the country! A funny situation. But it turned out all right, and every word was distinctly heard, as they told me afterwards. Talking over the radio is a thing they have not yet permitted me to do in Sweden. But in Oslo they asked me to come again.

     Near Oslo lives a popular Norwegian author, Gabriel Scott, whose books are much read in Norway. He has become interested in the New Church, has borrowed books from our library in Oslo, and has also spoken of joining the Norsk Swedenborg Selskap there,-the Society we organized on my first visit. In Oslo I met Mr. Prince, of the Swedenborg Society, London. He wrote me afterwards, telling me that on his way home he met the Dutch Ambassador and the Polish charge d'affaires in Oslo, and traveled with them. And they told him that they had become interested in Swedenborg.

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     From Oslo I went by railroad through beautiful scenery to Bergen, and continued the same evening by steamer to Stavanger. Here Mr. Eckhoff had helped me to arrange everything. He had succeeded in getting the newspapers to take large pictures of me, and to publish a good article on Swedenborg. Mr. Eckhoff has been interested in the New Church for a long time, and was baptized by Mr. Bronniche. He had been the means of interesting a Miss Svand in the Doctrines, and she had done the same work for me in Bergen as Mr. Eckhoff did in Stavanger. Their help and advice were very valuable indeed. As it rains almost every day in Bergen, Miss Svand advised me to sell tickets in advance there, as the rain could be dreadful, and people might not come if they had not bought their tickets beforehand. I followed her advice, and all the tickets were sold in advance,-300 each day for two lectures. And in the evening there was quite a crowd with a policeman, waiting in the hope that some might not make use of their tickets. And some did not, with the result that some tickets were sold twice.

     In Bergen the interest was really great. In the two days I was there I sold more than $60.00 worth of books (in Swedish, not their own language), and could have sold more if I had had more copies of certain books with me.

     During this second visit to Norway, books were sold to the value of about $150.00, and others were given away to newspapers, libraries and individuals to the value of about $3,000,-a total of about $180.00.

     A great deal has been said in the newspapers about these lectures, in Bergen and Stavanger as well as in Oslo, and mostly in favorable terms. I have already spoken of one of the two leading papers in Oslo,-AFTENPOSTEN. The other,-TIDENS TEGN,-is still more in sympathy, and I was even interviewed by a lady of the editorial staff. She had received many books, and become interested, to some extent at least.

     In Norway, it is something new, startling and interesting. Others are also busy there, especially the Theosophists. One of them is a Doctor of Philosophy who goes about the country lecturing, and is said to be a very good speaker. She puts forth a great deal of propaganda, and many are attracted. The Anthroposophists also use a great deal of propaganda. I spoke with several people in Norway who had attended my lectures, but had also gone to the Anthroposophistic lectures, and were attracted by both, and wanted to believe both.

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     When I left Bergen, a business man of that city introduced himself to me on the train, saying that he recognized me from my pictures in the papers. He had not been able to secure a ticket to the lectures, but wished to speak with me on the subjects I had presented. He seemed to be a very earnest, fine man. We talked for hours. Several times he had tears in his eyes, and when we parted he pressed my hand with a firm grasp, saying: "God bless you for coming to Bergen. There we shall see each other again, I hope."

     Shortly afterwards I visited Jonkoping, where I was very cordially received by our little group at that place. At the close of my first lecture there, an elderly lady who belongs to the group said feelingly to me: "Praised be the Lord, who has been so good as to let me hear the New Church being proclaimed at Jonkoping!"

     Things like these have given me very serious thoughts, as to the demands of the missionary field. While thus reflecting and hesitating one evening at Jonkoping, I felt a strong impulse to open a Bible to see what verse my eyes would first fall upon. I have heard of people doing so in times of distress, and receiving wonderful answers. Though I could not possibly imagine what verse could throw any light upon just my situation, I obeyed the impulse, and the first verse upon which my eyes happened to fall was Matthew 24:31: "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.

     When I thought on what is said about this verse in connection with the 19th of June, in T. C. R. 791, the answer I received was as clear to me as if I had heard the Lord in Person speak to me. And now all hesitation was gone. And when I returned to Stockholm, and placed the matter before the Society, it was unanimously agreed that I should in the future undertake more missionary trips. All were willing to sacrifice something to the end that the New Gospel might be proclaimed throughout the land.
     GUSTAF BAECKSTROM.

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APOSTLES IN HEAVEN 1927

APOSTLES IN HEAVEN       Editor       1927


NEW CHURCH LIFE
Office a Publication, Lancaster, Pa.
Published Monthly By
THE GENERAL CHURCH OF THE NEW JERUSALEM
BRYN ATHYN, PA.
Editor                    Rev. W. B. Caldwell, Bryn Athyn, Pa.
Business Manager          Mr. H. Hyatt, Bryn Athyn, Pa.

     All literary contributions should be sent to the Editor. Subscriptions, change of address and business communications should be sent to the Business Manager.

     TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION
In the United States, $3.00 per year; Elsewhere, $3.25 or 14 shillings; payable in advance
Single Copy          30 cents
     HOW THEY WERE RECONCILED TO THEIR HEAVENLY ABODES.

     When angels and spirits first saw into the natural world through Swedenborg's eyes, they called it the "miracle of miracles." (A. C. 18305.) Never before, even from the beginning of creation, had the faculty of thus mediating between the two worlds been granted to anyone in just the way it was accorded to Swedenborg. (Inv. 43, 52.) In the fulness of time, however, it was of Providence that such a miracle should be performed for the sake of the Second Coming of the Lord, that He might tell men plainly of the Father and His spiritual kingdom, as promised at His First Advent, and this in the form of a written Revelation preserved in the world for the permanent use of the New Church.

     Now, while this was the chief and central function of Swedenborg's mission, there were certain collateral or incidental uses that he was able to perform,' especially to those dwelling in the spiritual world, by virtue of the unique faculty which be enjoyed at the Lord's hands. As examples of such uses we may mention the following:

     (a) He told the spirits of other planets that the Lord had been born upon this earth, and described how He appears to the angels of our heaven. (A. C. 10809, 6700, etc.)

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     (b) The spirits of other earths were given to see things upon our earth through his eyes, that they might make a comparison with their own earth. (A. C. 10813.)

     (c) He instructed a good spirit of the planet Mars on the subject of man's liberty or free-will, which is especially significant in view of the fact that the race on that planet had begun to decline from its celestial state. (S. D. 3892. A. C. 7743.)

     (d) He explained to the spirits of Jupiter why fisherman had been chosen as the Lord's disciples. (S. D. 1216.)

     (e) To the spirits of our own earth he frequently brought "news from the earth." (T. C. R. 692-694.) He instructed the angels of our heaven as to the true mode of the creation of the universe. (T. C. R. 78.)

     Many more examples similar to the above might be cited. Our present purpose is to speak of a certain use which Swedenborg was able to perform for the Twelve Disciples of our Lord. By virtue of his two-world consociation, and the faculty of mediation made possible in him, he was able to bring to spirits and angels a conscious reflection which they commonly lack. His many conversations with notable historical characters, long since settled in heaven or hell, was made possible by their return to the world of spirits, thus to a state akin to their life in the natural world, while Swedenborg was able to be with them in spirit, even though still living in the body. The many accounts of such experiences, as recorded in the Writings, serve their chief use as testimonies of the life after death, and are today in the place of miracles; but they also indicate how Swedenborg, in the Lord's Providence, could be instrumental in benefiting the persons he met in the other life. And what he says of an interview with the Apostles on a certain occasion in that world forms an interesting page from the record of his spiritual experiences, and one that is not so well known to readers of the Writings.

     We are familiar with the fact that, when Swedenborg was treating of faith in the Lord as the visible God, he states that "these things were written in the presence of the Twelve Apostles of the Lord, who were sent to me by the Lord while I was writing them." (T. C. R. 339e) Also, that when the True Christian Religion was finished, the Lord called together the Twelve who had followed Him in the world, but who are now angels, and sent them forth to teach the Gospel anew, each being assigned a region of the spiritual world, and fulfilling the command with all zeal and effort. (T. C. R. 108, 791.)

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As to the personal states of the Apostles in heaven we are given an account at length in the Spiritual Diary, nos. 1316-1332, to which we would now refer.

     The Twelve, like all angels, could be let back into the world of spirits by an opening of the natural memory which is quiescent with the inhabitants of heaven. When this is granted by the Lord for certain purposes, it is almost as if they were living in the natural world again; and unless reflection is then given them, they do not think of being away from their heavenly society, so distinct are the two states. But it was just that kind of reflection which could be given by means of Swedenborg, who, because of the miracle of his own condition, could reflect upon the relation of the different degrees and states in the spiritual world, as well as upon the relation of the two worlds, one to the other. Through him, as we shall see, an angel was able to bring about such a reflection with the Apostles, whereby they could contrast their final spiritual state with their life on earth, which proved useful in reconciling them to their heavenly abodes.

     We know from the Gospels the many personal weaknesses exhibited by the Disciples, notably in the cases of Peter and Judas, but also in the case of the others, as when they objected to the bringing of little children unto Jesus, and when James and John asked that they might sit on the right and left hand of their Lord in His glory. On one occasion, Peter said: "Behold, we have forsaken all, and followed Thee; what shall we have therefore?" (Matt. 19:27.) And it was because of this childlike simplicity, and its expectation of reward, that "Jesus said unto them, Verily I say unto you, that ye which have followed me in the regeneration, when the Son of Man shall sit in the throne of His glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel." (Matt. 19:28.) They could not at, that time elevate their thoughts to the spiritual significance of His promise, and in the other life still looked for its literal fulfilment. (A. C. 2553, 8705) After the Lord's ascension, too, when they and many others suffered martyrdom for the faith, there was undoubtedly a sense of merit in their sacrifice.

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Swedenborg saw many of the martyrs wearing the crowns of reward in heaven; but some of them, lest they should arrogate honor to themselves, and thus become proud, cast their crowns away. (A. R. 103; A. E. 358.) For so we read of the four and twenty elders who "cast their crowns before the throne, saying, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power." (Rev. 4:10, 11.)

     Let us now give a brief sketch of the account given in the Spiritual Diary, nos. 1321-1332.

     Swedenborg describes a tumult in the world of spirits, and a conflict of opinions as to whether the Apostles were to sit upon twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel, as promised in the literal sense of the Word. Some of the Apostles themselves, being let into the state of their life while in the world by descending from the heaven of angels into the world of spirits, spoke in defense of the literal fulfilment of that Scripture promise; for they had not believed otherwise during their life in the world. And they now showed a repugnance to the true meaning of the promise,-namely, that the Lord alone judges all after death, and this according to the goods and truths acquired by regeneration, which goods and truths are signified by the Twelve Apostles sitting on thrones, each Apostle representing some cardinal truth and good of the church. But it was now manifestly shown them, both by word of mouth and by a spiritual idea, that they are unable to judge a single spirit. This impossibility was so clearly shown them that they were indignant at having cherished such a notion, and confessed that they had erred in their opinions.

     It was further shown them, however, that the whole heaven seems to exercise a judgment like that of the various provinces of the human body, by being willing or unwilling to admit spirits into the angelic company; thus that a new spirit is either favorable or averse to this or that society, and so judges concerning it when he is either admitted or rejected. In like manner, the angels of the three heavens love to admit into their societies, or to reject, those who are of the faith, and in this way to pass judgment, when yet it is not they who judge, but the Lord alone, who so disposes all things in the Gorand Man. The Apostles perceived this truth, and unanimously confessed it.

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     Next the question arose as to whether any could be admitted into heaven but those who had suffered persecutions and miseries during their life in the world. And this idea also was defended quite vehemently by the Apostles as long as they were in the state of their former life, or that of the body, And they were unwilling to admit any but martyrs and those who had suffered persecutions and miseries, understanding the words of the Lord literally when He said, "Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you. Therefore, they wished to merit heaven, and to inherit it as a reward, at the same time wishing to exclude others until they had undergone punishments. In this manner, the Apostles, while in their earthly state, wished to pass judgments upon others, thinking that they themselves were to have preference, because they had borne such persecutions and had promulgated the Gospel in the world.

     But now again the Apostles were clearly shown that this is not the meaning of the Lord's words; for if it were, no one at this day could be admitted into heaven, since there are no such persecutions and martyrdoms at this day. And it was said to them that as long as they were in that state they had not suffered for the faith, thus for the Lord, but for themselves, to the end that they might sit on twelve thrones and judge the twelve tribes; thus it was not done for the kingdom of the Lord, but for their own kingdom, their own glory and salvation. This they could not deny.

     "Moreover, it was said to them that there are myriads in heaven who are more worthy than the Apostles, even though they have not suffered persecutions and like things. Nor could the Apostles deny this, because heaven is filled with angels, and the Apostles are only in the natural heaven." (S. D. 1330. See 1827, 1828, 680, and H. H. 5264.)

     And now the Apostles were afforded a still more enlightening experience, by which they were enabled to contrast their former earthly states with the blessedness of their life in heaven, this being accomplished by, an angel speaking through Swedenborg. As long as the Apostles were in the world of spirits they could not make such a comparison; for when an angel is let back into the state in which he was during his life on earth, and thus becomes a spirit, he does not know what he had done in heaven, because ht does not remember it, and so doubts that he is really in heaven, and that he is blest with heavenly life and joy.

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     "That the Apostles might know that they are in heaven," Swedenborg states, "an angel in me spoke with them when they had been restored to their heavenly life, so that they might at the same time apperceive it as spirits, and thence might know, not only that they are in heaven, but also how much happier that angelic life is, in comparison with the life of the spirit and the body. And while the angel was speaking with them, and they were affected with heavenly joy, they also said that they were so happy that there is no comparison with their former life in the world, as I also now perceive from them." (S. D. 1331.)

     It was in this interesting way that the angels, by means of Swedenborg, reconciled the Apostles to their heavenly abodes.


     EVANGELIZING THE UNIVERSE.

     With regard to the incident sketched above from the Spiritual Diary 1316-1332, let us note further that the account was dated by Swedenborg March 13, 1748, thus twenty-two years before the Twelve Apostles were commissioned anew by the Lord on June 19th, 1770. It would seem that we may rightly regard that experience of the Apostles, with its humbling and purifying effect, as a necessary part of their preparation to serve the Lord anew at His Second Coming.
Realizing that affections of the natural man had entered largely into the zeal with which they had promulgated the Gospel in the world, they could now enter upon a similar labor in the spiritual world from the zeal of a heavenly love.

     Another thought is suggested, in connection with the fact that they were "sent out into the universal spiritual world" to preach the Gospel anew,-namely, that the knowledge of the Lord in His Divine Human could not be promulgated throughout the spiritual universe until the Second Advent. Indeed, by the Lord's own declaration, a full revelation of His Glorified Human could not be given until the Spirit of Truth should come. "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when He, the Spirit of Truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth." (John 16:12, 13) This postponement was due, not only to the simplicity of the men of that time, but also to the errors into which the Christian Church later fell.

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Meanwhile, multitudes of gentiles in both worlds were permitted to remain in ignorance of the Lord until the Last Judgment upon the Christian Church and the giving of the Heavenly Doctrine. Nor could the evangelizing of the spirits of other earths be safely inaugurated until the Christian Heaven was formed and established.

     Then it was that the Twelve Apostles, and many others in that Heaven, could be sent forth to proclaim the Gospel that "the Lord God Jesus Christ reigneth,"-the Lord in His Glorified Human, to whom was given "all power in heaven and on earth." As this doctrine could not be revealed to Christians in the fulness of heavenly light until the Second Advent, so it could not be fully extended to the gentiles of this earth in the spiritual world, nor to those of other earths not until the Heavenly Doctrine had been revealed by the Lord and written down. The Christian Heaven itself was not formed and organized until the Judgment in the year 1757, when the Arcana Celestia had already been published. "The Christian Church, as it is in itself, is now for the first beginning; the former Church was Christian in name only, not in reality and essence." (T. C. R. 668.) "And because Christianity itself is now first arising, a New Church, which is meant by the New Jerusalem in the Apocalypse, is being raised up by the Lord, in which God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are acknowledged as one, because in one Person." (T. C. R. 700.) It is dear, therefore, that the evangelizing of the true Christian Doctrine is now to be performed by the Lord through the New Heaven and the New Church.

     That the bearing of the Glad Tidings to other earths began at the Second Advent, and was for the most part restrained during the Christian era, is evident from a number of statements in the Writings; as for example: "With regard to the Divine worship of the inhabitants of other earths, all there who are not idolaters acknowledge the Lord as the One only God. They do not indeed know, except a very few, that the Lord assumed the Human on this earth, and made it Divine." (A. C. 6700.) Of the spirits of the planet Jupiter, it is said: "They do not know that their only Lord was born a man on this earth." (A. C. 8543) But in this, as in other cases, Swedenborg informed them.

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     During the period intervening between the First and Second Advents, the Christian doctrine was but a "shadow" of the true doctrine, and was mingled with the fallacies and falsities which characterized the theology of the Church. For this reason, as we have observed, the knowledge of the Lord in His Glorified Human was not yet extended to all gentiles, nor to those of other earths. Yet this restriction was not absolute. The emissaries of the Church did carry false ideas of the Lord to the gentiles, and even to the spirits of other planets. We recall the case of the monks who had perverted the ideas of distant spirits, and had to be sent back to our earth. They had traveled much while they lived in the natural world, for the purpose of converting the gentiles, and after death continued to travel in the spiritual world, wandering to an earth beyond our solar system, where they disturbed the spirits by injecting the idea of three gods, of the Divine without the Human in God, and so on. And Swedenborg was witness of the judgment whereby that earth was
liberated from them. (A. C. 10785, 10812.)

     But now the universe can be evangelized, and "the Heavenly Doctrine is to be propagated to the spirits who are from the various regions of this earth, and afterwards to the spirits of other earths. For when the Heavenly Doctrine concerning the Lord is known in one earth, the rest can know it when they become angels and spirits." (S. D. 4780, 4781) And "when the spirits and angels of other earths hear from the spirits and angels of our earth that God is actually Man, they receive this Word, acknowledge it, and rejoice that it is so." (A. C. 9359.)
BOOKS RECEIVED FOR REVIEW 1927

BOOKS RECEIVED FOR REVIEW              1927

     The Philosophy of Ancient Britain. By Sir John Daniel. London: Williams and Norgate, Ltd., 1927.

     Man, Spirit, Angel. By the Rev G. A. Sexton. London: Arthur H. Stockwell, Ltd., 1926.

     Toleration. By John Bigelow. New York: The New-Church Press, 1927.

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Church News 1927

Church News       Various       1927

     GLENVIEW, ILL.

     Since our last report, the annual meeting of the Immanuel Church has been held. Mr. Alvin E. Nelson and Mr. Harold P. McQueen retired as Trustees, and Mr. George R. Fiske and Mr. E. Crebert Bumham were elected to fill the vacancies. Subsequently, Mr. Fiske was appointed Treasurer of the Society, and has entered upon his duties with enthusiasm. We trust that he will secure the cooperation of the members, as the Treasurer's job is not a bed of roses, at best. Mr. John B. Synnestvedt was re-elected Recording Secretary for the twenty-seventh time. The finances of the Society had been running somewhat behind, but the diligent efforts of the Finance Board remedied the situation, and the new year promises to be as successful in accomplishment as any heretofore.

     Mr. and Mrs. Alvin E. Nelson have recently returned from their trip abroad, during which they visited Europe, Egypt and Palestine. In several talks they have given us very instructive and interesting details of their journey.

     Mother's Day, May 8th, was observed by a Theta Alpha luncheon to the Mothers of the Society. This celebration is annual in the State of Illinois, and this year the Mothers were the recipients of particular attention on the part of all.

     Professor Stevens, in his work with the Orchestra, is rapidly bringing the horns to a degree of efficiency. He has some new sacred music which is to be rendered with orchestral accompaniment at the big concert on or about June 19th.

     Miss Eudora Sellner, of the New York Society, has been a recent welcome visitor in the Park.
     R. S.

     READERS INCREASING.

     Countering the assertion that "people don't and won't read Swedenborg," a writer in The New-Church League Journal for April cites the following examples, among others:

     "First: In the case of the Society of the New Church at Akron, Ohio, now represented at the Theological School by Mr. and Mrs. Kuenzli, their introduction to the Church came directly through the reading of Swedenborg, primarily Heaven and Hell. Moreover, these earnest people have sold through bookstores in Akron during the past year over seven hundred copies of that book. In the first eighteen months of their existence as a New-Church Society, they have sold, in addition to these copies of Heaven and Hell, over two hundred and fifty dollars' worth of Swedenborg's books.

     "Second: The Arcana Class, which the Rev. John Whitehead has been conducting for over six years, now has around 850 members. Quite a number of the members of this class have read through Swedenborg's Arcana Celestia and are now reading other volumes of his works. Within the last two months, fifty new members have been received by the class." (p. 80.)

     NEW YORK.

     From Christmas to June-how the time flies! And what have we done to justify our existence as a tiny particle of the Gorand Man? We would modestly mention a few things that might interest our friends in the General Church at large, and also to show that we are still "here."

     Men's meeting comes once a month without fail; doctrinal classes twice a month; a Sunday School class one week-day afternoon each week; Theta Alpha meetings through the season; besides, of course, the regular worship and Holy Supper celebrations.

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Add a luncheon and shower given by Mrs. Reichenbach at her home on April 15th for Mrs. Geoffrey S. Childs, when a number of us gathered to show our appreciation of the good work done by Mrs. Childs while with us. Also, on Easter Sunday, a presentation by our Pastor to Mr. and Mrs. Childs, on behalf of the Congregation, of a beautiful copy of The Word, as mark of esteem for their combined past efforts for the Society's good, the occasion being their leaving New York to live in Bryn Athyn. To this add, also, the fine feeling of warmth and enthusiasm which characterizes the doctrinal classes held in New Jersey (an innovation on the part of our Pastor) and the earnestness, gravity and good fellowship withal, that prevails in the classes held in Bayside, New York, together with the good average attendances at each, and we might perhaps be excused for thinking, or maybe feeling, there is anything to report!

     Our Local Assembly was held May 7th and 8th, beginning Saturday evening with a meeting of members and friends at our place of worship, Bishop N. D. Pendleton presiding and delivering a most instructive and valuable address on "The Ministry of Blessing." To say that we enjoyed it is scarcely sufficient. However, a fair amount of discussion and interchange of opinion followed, adding considerably to the interest kindled by the Bishop's paper. Divine Worship on Sunday the 8th was conducted by the Rev. Alan Gill, Bishop Pendleton preaching on the text: "And Jesus said unto them, Verily I say unto you, that ye which have followed me in the regeneration, when the Son of Man shall sit in the throne of His glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel." The sacrament of the Holy Supper was celebrated, the whole society partaking at the hands of the Bishop.

     After the service we assembled for a banquet at Hotel Emerson, where was good cheer for a fairly hungry crowd, along with the usual toasts,-"The Church," "Our Academy," "Our Visitors," of whom there were two besides the Bishop,-Mr. G. S. Childs and Mr. Fred Cooper. The inner man being quieted, the toastmaster, Mr. Robert Hilldale presiding, we listened with attention to the following papers: "The Scope and Possibilities of Missionary Effort," by Mr. Arthur Bumham; "New Aspects of Freedom," by Mr. C. K. Hicks; "Individualism and the Church," by Mr. Frank Wilde. A brief speech by the Rev. Alan Gill followed, in which he good-humoredly confessed that all his "thunder had been stolen,"-that all he was going to say had been anticipated in the previous papers, and that he would not take up the time in "forging new bolts!" Mr. G. S. Childs and Mr. Fred Cooper made interesting remarks, a few of which will doubtless bear fruit in the future. At the request of the toastmaster; the Bishop made a gracious summing up of the salient points of each paper, and this concluded the afternoon session. The Benediction is pronounced, and the Assembly is formally over.

     But not so the spirit of it; for there is much "visiting" among members and friends who perhaps do not meet each other as often as would be liked. And we all agree that Bishop Pendleton's presence is a benediction in itself, that we would like to have him oftener, if it were possible, that Mrs. Pendleton's absence was greatly regretted, as was also that of Mrs. G. S. Childs.
     FLORENCE A. WILDE.

     CONFERENCE AND CONVENTION.

     South Africa.

     The Rev. E. J. Pulsford, sojourning in South Africa in the interests of the English Conference Native Missions, has also sought to come into touch with isolated New Church people among the whites. To that end he has begun the issue of a quarterly News-Letter, giving news of the Church, extracts from letters, etc., and inviting correspondence. In the first number, which was mailed to sixty addresses, he offers a plan of doctrinal study to any who may wish to avail themselves of it.

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In the second issue, February, 1927, he says: "I have been sent to this country to promote the cause of the Lord's New Church in every practical way; I am assured of the sympathy and support of the General Conference in Great Britain in any effort that commends itself to my judgment as necessary or worthy to be undertaken; and I recognize that, especially in this country of great distances and great isolation, much of my work is likely to be concerned with individuals and isolated families, rather than with congregations. It is none the less worth doing on this account!"

     In the course of one road journey, he halted at a backveld farmhouse, and conversed with the farmer, a University graduate who had been trained for the ministry of one of the Nonconformist Churches, but had found himself unable to accept the orthodox creeds. Leaving some New Church literature with him, Mr. Pulsford later received a letter from which be quotes: "Swedenborg, without the slightest doubt, was chosen by God to reveal the true interpretation of the Scriptures. It seems to me that the human race in general and the professors of theology and heads of the various Christian Churches have been and are still sadly mistaken in the reading and teaching of the Holy Scriptures as regards God's purpose with the human race and the hereafter. If I were not so old, I would consider myself called upon to take up mission work to further the truth. I would like to see some more of Swedenborg's writings. I quite agree with your version of the Second Coming of our Lord."

     Convention at Chicago.

     The Messenger of May 11 prints the program of the General Convention which meets at Chicago June 14-21. "The Ten Commandments and Today" will be the general theme of the addresses. The Rev. E. J. E. Schreck comes from England as representative of the British Conference, and will also address the Convention on "The Significance of the Place, Time and Manner of the Giving of the Ten Commandments." The program includes a service on the morning of June 19th, when the Rev. Adolph Roeder will preach on the subject: "Jesus Christ Has Come Again"; and in the afternoon there will be an Ordination and Communion Service.

     KITCHENER, ONT.

     On Palm Sunday, the Children's Service was held in place of the regular Sunday School instruction. The children marched in singing, and as part of the service the pastor gave a talk on the significance of the day. The Children's Service affords an opportunity for the small children below Sunday School age to attend, and on Palm Sunday many were present, accompanied by their parents.

     At the adult service on that day the sermon was about the betrayal by Judas. It was shown that the story of the betrayal of David by Ahithophel was a direct prophecy of the betrayal of the Lord by Judas. In every particular the stories correspond or supplement each other. Absalom represents the literal sense of the Word, and by removing himself from David and plotting against him he represents the Word in the letter apart from Divine Truth. Just so, while the Lord was in the world, the Jewish priests had the Word in the letter, studied the rites and laws, and attempted to set them in opposition to the Lord's teaching.

     During the week preceding Easter we had the privilege of a visit from the Rev. C. E. Doering, who came in the interests of the school primarily, and we understand that the teachers appreciated the contact and stimulation of ideas which resulted from his stay. The greetings which he brought from other schools gave the children a feeling of relationship and friendliness with the children of the Church in other centers. The use of Mr. Doering's visit was not, however, confined to the school, but the whole society gathered one evening to hear a paper dealing with the purpose of New Church Education, which was a most instructive one, and those who have the care and upbringing of children were particularly grateful to the speaker.

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Quite a number of people commented, and expressed appreciation of the lecture. As it will doubtless be reviewed elsewhere, we shall not attempt to do more than express our enjoyment of it.

     Another interesting event took place the following evening, when Mr. Doering was entertained by the Men's Club. The subject of the evening was the Bryn Athyn Schools. He described the different schools and departments, and the organization of faculties, thus leading to a general discussion of organization and responsibility in the schools and other uses in the Church. On Good Friday evening, at a special service in commemoration of the Lord's Passion, Mr. Doering preached on the subject of Redemption.

     On Easter Monday, according to custom, a supper was served at the church. The room was festive with yellow and purple decorations, and the small dining tables had dainty nests of colored eggs for centerpieces. This, together with a very palatable supper, quickly put all present in an excellent humor. After the supper, a baking sale was held, and then followed an entertainment by the young ladies which included a playlet, a recitation, a vocal solo, and a human xylophone represented by eight young ladies and their leader with the mallet.
     G. R. D.

     BRYN ATHYN.

     The deeper significance of the Easter season, with its contrast of sorrow and joy, was brought home to us this year in a very human way by the death of Mr. Henry Hamm, a student in the College of the Academy. He had been seriously ill for several weeks, through which we waited and watched, anxiously hoping that his youthful strength might triumph. But on Thursday of Easter week we learned that the battle had been lost, and that he had been called to the spiritual world. All Bryn Athyn felt a very real sense of loss, and a profound sympathy for the bereaved family. Many remarked upon the spiritual effect of its coming at a time when the mind is turned to thoughts of the Lord's Passion and Resurrection. Funeral services were held on Easter afternoon, when the Rev. R. R. Alden delivered an inspiring address.

     Observance of the Easter Festival began with a Service of Preparation on Friday evening, April 15th, when the Rev. George de Charms delivered the sermon, which treated of the necessity of the Passion of the Cross as the final act of the Lord's Redemption, the text being taken from John 12:27, 28. The special musical features of the service included two instrumental offerings by the Bryn Athyn String Quartet. One of these was Lament expressive of the last agony upon the cross, especially composed for the Bryn Athyn players by Mr. H. Waldo Warner, of the London String Quartet; the other was a Beethoven Adagio from Opus 59, No. I. Both were beautifully rendered and universally enjoyed.

     On Easter Morning, at 9:30 o'clock, a large congregation filled the Cathedral for the Children's Service. The procession of children, carrying the usual offering of plants in gorgeous bloom, and led by a choir in white vestments, was so long as almost completely to encircle the nave of the church. There were about 160 of school age, and about 160 more came forward afterward with their parents,-a very concrete and encouraging sign of growth. The custom of making a floral offering of growing plants has been established with us for many years, and is a beautiful feature of our celebration that is made possible through the generosity of Mr. and Mrs. Raymond Pitcairn, and by the skillful and affectionate service of Mr. Joseph Coley, who grows the plants each year in the Cairnwood greenhouses. In addition to the Easter hymns, the children sang a Hebrew anthem, and they recited the Ten Blessings in Greek. The address by the Rev. George de Charms was on the Lord's Resurrection, and showed, that it was for all men at this day through His Second Coming in the spiritual opening of the Word.

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     This celebration brought to an appropriate dose the series of children's services for the year. Beginning on November 1st, they were held regularly every Sunday morning at 9:30,-an experiment which proved unexpectedly successful.

     At 11 o'clock on Easter Morning them was the Quarterly Administration of the Holy Supper, for which a special service had been prepared, with readings from the Writings conducted from the inner chancel. The Bishop was assisted in the administration by four ministers. The Cathedral was again crowded with a congregation of more than 400, of whom nearly all partook of the Communion. The total attendance at the three services, and including the funeral service in the afternoon, was just under 1,200 persons. The seating capacity of the church has been taxed beyond its limit; that is to say, every available pew has been assigned to some family of the Society, and there remain about lo people for whom seating cannot at present be provided. The Rev. Theodore Pitcairn has made a gift of cathedral chain, now in process of manufacture, to be placed in the aisles and the narthex, so that all the available space may be utilized. Such seating has been made feasible by the amplifiers recently installed by which the acoustic problem has been satisfactorily solved. These were the deeply appreciated gift of Messrs. Raymond and Harold Pitcairn.

     In view of our rapid growth in numbers, we are watching with added interest the progress of the new buildings now being erected on the north side of the Cathedral, and which may possibly be ready for use by the end of the year. They include a large room for choir practices, vesting rooms for the choir and chancel guild, a cloister forming the east side of what will eventually be an enclosed quadrangle, a tower which will balance that of the Council Hall, and beneath it an entrance-way to the church. It is planned to provide here a larger and more convenient Book Room for the sale of the Doctrines.

     On Sunday, April 24th, the series of afternoon services was resumed, under the direction of the Rev. Theodore Pitcairn. The attendance thus far has been around 80 or 90 persons, of whom about Jo were strangers. Alike number of strangers usually attend the morning service. Approximately 800 persons visit the Cathedral Book Room on Sunday afternoons, and about $20.00 worth of literature is sold each week.
     GEORGE DE CHARMS.

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BRITISH ASSEMBLY 1927

BRITISH ASSEMBLY       Various       1927




     Announcements.



     July 30-August 1, 1927.

     Members and friends of the General Church of the New Jerusalem are cordially invited to the Twenty-first British Assembly, which will be held at Colchester from Saturday to Monday, July 30th to August 1st, 1927. All expecting to be present, even though providing their own accommodations, are requested to communicate as early as possible with Mr. F. R. Cooper, 11 Hospital Road, or with the Secretary at 162 Maldon Road, Colchester.
     N. D. PENDLETON, Bishop.
     F. E. GYLLENHAAL, Secretary.
ACADEMY OF THE NEW CHURCH 1927

ACADEMY OF THE NEW CHURCH       WM. WHITEHEAD       1927

     Saturday, June 11, 1927.

     The Annual Joint Meeting of the Corporation and Faculty of the Academy of the New Church, Bryn Athyn, Pa., will be held in the Chapel, Benade Hall, on Saturday, June 11, 1927, from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., when the annual reports of the officers will be presented, and other business transacted.

     The public is cordially invited to attend.
          WM. WHITEHEAD,
               Secretary.
ONTARIO ASSEMBLY 1927

ONTARIO ASSEMBLY              1927

     Postponement.

     Owing to sickness and quarantine in Kitchener, the Ontario District Assembly, which was to have been held in Toronto, May 21-24, was postponed until October.

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WAYSIDE NOTES 1927

WAYSIDE NOTES       G. A. MCQUEEN       1927


NEW CHURCH LIFE
VOL. XLVII          JULY, 1927           No. 7
     VII.

     In looking for material for this contribution of "Wayside Notes," it occurred to me that reference to the doings of the weekly LIFE Reading Meeting, which has been held in Glenview for a number of years, might be worth while. When we look over the program of subjects which have come before the meeting during the past season, we cannot but be impressed with the vastness of the store of useful literature which has been provided for the benefit of the Church in the pages of NEW CHURCH LIFE.

     Commencing with Vol. I of the LIFE, all of the principal articles, sermons, news, reports, discussions and tales, covering a period of forty-seven years, have been read and conversed upon. Much of the history of the origin and progress of the Academy and the General Church has been made clearer to us, and in some instances the information has been entirely new to members who have joined the Church within the present generation. With all, there has been aroused a greater appreciation of the importance of the work done by the fathers of the Academy of the New Church.

     In recent years, the meeting has devoted a portion of its time to the reading of articles from other New Church publications, such as WORDS FOR THE NEW CHURCH, NEW CHURCH MONTHLY, NEW CHURCH STANDARD, NEW-CHURCH HERALD, NEW CHURCH QUARTERLY, THE REMINDER and NEW CHURCH SERMONS, as well as other works by New Church writers. This has helped to enlarge our vision of the New Church as a whole, as represented by its various organizations throughout the world.

     During the season just closed, about fifty articles were read. Some were of special interest, but space will not permit of a lengthy review.

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A few may be mentioned. In reading Bishop Benade's "Report on the Priesthood," reprinted in the LIFE for 1917-1918, there was brought to mind the thought that his masterly treatment of the subject was unanswerable, because it appeared to settle for a long time to come the controversy which had so long prevailed in the organizations of the Church. We know of no serious attempt that has since been made to controvert the teaching then given to the Convention as to the true form of Church Government by the Priesthood. The principles there set forth are the basis of government in the General Church today, and for a full understanding of them the report itself should be studied. It was no doubt the final cause of the separation of the General Church from the Convention.

     -----
     
     Much interest was manifested in the teaching given in a sermon by the Rev. Hugo Lj. Odhner, published in NEW CHURCH SERMONS for January, 1927. It was on the "Law of the Manservant." The internal sense, drawn forth from those strange external laws concerning the Hebrew manservant, was felt to be of serious import to New Churchmen. Such interior searching of motives, shown to be necessary for actual regeneration, seemed to be almost too much for us ordinary mortals. In fact, it made us feel very "ordinary." Yet, above it all there was the everlasting truth that it is of the Divine Mercy for man's salvation if he is content to remain a milling servant, that is, to have his "ear pierced at the doorpost."

     We cannot refrain from quoting as follows: "The Writings say that only the regenerate can truly differentiate between the good of obedience, which is natural and looks to rewards in many subtle forms, and the good of spiritual charity. Yet we may see the difference imaged in this fact, that those who are in truths, but not in anything of good except the love of obeying, have not a good in their hearts which prompts to continual remembrance. Children do good from obedience, when they remember. But obedience to good does not continually remember. Hence it is that those who are in the natural heaven-the entrance region of heaven-are willing and well-disposed, yet must be under the government of others, under supervision and instruction. Of mercy they are taken under the charge of heaven; for of themselves they perceive little difference between good and evil masters, and have little of the wisdom of life.

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They are then willing servants, and are in a delight so great that it fills their lives. Their measure, though small, is 'running over'; and they are continually perfected in obedience. But they can never progress into spiritual good itself. For as the tree falls, so it lies. They had not closed their spiritual mind here in the world; neither had they entered into it." Perhaps we have quoted enough to make our readers desire to read the sermon for themselves.

-----

     For the second time that beautiful tale, The Wedding Garment, by Louis Pendleton, published in the LIFE in the year 1892, has been read at our meetings. Some who had heard it before were again delighted by the author's treatment of the teachings concerning the future life, while those who had never read it were helped to a better understanding of the laws operating in the spiritual world. While this book must furnish a very attractive narrative to people outside the borders of the New Church, it must also be of great value to the young people of the Church itself. Where else, outside the Writings, are the teachings concerning conjugial love so clearly set forth? And what better exposure of the fallacies of the theory of evolution can be found than in the discussion which took place in the "college of the wise"?

-----

     New Church missionary work has been brought to our attention by the reading of those exceptionally interesting reports from the Rev. E. J, Pulsford, published in the NEW-CHURCH HERALD. The detailed descriptions of the daily life of this representative of the English Conference in Africa are full of interest. Mr. Pulsford seems to enter heart and soul into his work, and is blessed with the energy and courage demanded of those who would make known the truths of the New, Church in a foreign country. After three years' experience among the natives of Africa, he seems to be reaching the Conclusion that work similar to that already being done by the General Church will have to be undertaken by Conference, if real advance is to be made. He says: "Until the Mission has its own college, sending out trained ministers and teachers, qualified to give distinctive New Church instruction suited to the needs of the natives, money and effort are likely to be spent upon schools to very little purpose."

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     The experiences of New Church missionaries among the natives of Africa appear to confirm many of the statements made by the late Dr. Garth Wilkinson in his work The African and the True Christian Religion. This eminent New Church writer, in supporting the idea that the African has an important part to play in the New Church now descending from God out of heaven, after giving many extracts from the Writings concerning the celestial genius of that people, makes the following beautiful statement: "Here we may make a station in the train of these extracts from Swedenborg. The tale they tell on the one hand is a plain one. That among the Africans, living in certain tracts, there are those of a childlike, simple nature, capable especially of mental obedience and hence of receptivity to spiritual instruction, with an implanted tendency to human ideas about God, and therefore easily imbibing the communicated lessons from the Word,-that God came as Man, and as a Man to fight the battle against evil for His mankind, and thus to redeem men from themselves. Seeing this, and that the African race is unlike any other on the planet in its docility and ductility, Swedenborg was shown in it the remains of the celestial church, and the basis for the new spiritual-celestial church which is coming. 'Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of the heavens.' This applies in the words 'of such' to adult and full-grown children."

-----

     Subjects such as "The Eternity of the Hells" and "Punishment in the Other Life" received a good deal of attention and were widely discussed in our periodicals not many years ago, and there may still be many in the organizations of the New Church who are not quite clear as to the teaching of the Writings relating to the future state of the evil. In our meetings we read two articles from the NEW CHURCH MONTHLY, published as long ago as the year 1891, which were very helpful in clearing the mental atmosphere of the fallacy of the so-called "Larger Hope." Regarding the eternity of the bells, numerous quotations were given to show from the Writings that man's state cannot be changed after death, and that the chief feature in the heresy of the "Larger Hope" is found in the fact that time is always brought into consideration.

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The "For Ever" is continually referred to. But with the Lord there is no time; nor does He regulate anything in the other life according to time. That the Lord permitted evil and thus hell to exist for the smallest part of a moment is conclusive proof that it is not contrary to the Lord's Love and Wisdom that hell should endure to eternity, as He is infinite. As to the punishments of the hells, "they are administered according to the nature of the evil done. It is purely a matter of cause and effect. It is a calm working of the laws of Divine order, which, alike in permission and in ordination, are for the welfare of the whole of creation, and are so ordered and arranged as to meet the necessities of every case, and to produce the greatest possible good, and the least possible misery consistent with that greatest possible good."

-----

     And so we might go on quoting and commenting upon the numerous subjects viewed from the light of the New Church which have appeared in NEW CHURCH LIFE and other New Church publications, but the foregoing must suffice for the present. If a, complete index of the LIFE could be prepared and published, it would be of inestimable value to students in the New Church who desire to obtain a comprehensive view of the development of New Church thought during the past half-century.

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FIRST RESURRECTION 1927

FIRST RESURRECTION        N. D. PENDLETON       1927

     "Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection; on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, end shall reign with Him a thousand years." (Revelation 20:6.)

     Mention is here made of a "first resurrection" and "second death." There is no Scriptural statement of the converse of this. Nothing is said in the letter of the Word concerning a "first death" or a second resurrection." Some have held that Swedenborg at one time taught the doctrine of a second resurrection, as if it were based upon a Scriptural phrase, but later repudiated it because of non-support from the Word. Certainly he gave warning in the Apocalypse Revealed that we should not think there are two spiritual deaths or two spiritual resurrections, since there is in fact but one such death, which is damnation, and but one spiritual resurrection, which is conjunction with the Lord. Man is damned but once and for all. And no man can be twice conjoined with the Lord; this event can happen but once in the soul's experience, and when it happens it is everlasting.

     Yet there is a natural death which precedes the final spiritual death, and there is also a resurrection of the spirit of man which must be distinguished from his purely spiritual resurrection, which is conjunction with the Lord. Natural death is the demise of the body. Spiritual death is the loss of the soul. The resuscitation of the spirit of man is but the continuation of his life as an individual, whereas man's spiritual resurrection is his soul's salvation.

     As the "second death" of the text refers to the loss of the soul, so might we imagine that the "first resurrection" has reference to the raising of the spiritual body,-that resuscitation of the spirit at death which comes to pass with every man, whether he be good or evil. But this resurrection can hardly be the "first resurrection" spoken of in the text, since it is said, "Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection; on such the second death hath no power."

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Obviously this first resurrection is a blessed state, which, in its implications, involves something other and beyond the mere raising of the spirit out of the body.

     If, however, we should, from certain considerations, think of the soul's salvation as a, kind of second resurrection, following after the raising of the spirit, then might we conclude that it is by this second resurrection rather than the first that the soul is conjoined with the Lord. But this would again bring us into conflict with the text; for it is there clearly indicated that the first resurrection is the equal of salvation, and that it implies conjunction with the Lord in a very special sense and complete way. For those of this first resurrection are not only "blessed," but their life is so complete, their state so perfected, that the second death, or the evil of damnation, has no power over them.

     The truth is, that those who are of this "first resurrection" are highly distinguished by this, that they at once ascend into heaven; and in their case their spirit-resuscitation and their spiritual resurrection are as one; that is, even as they rise to life and full individuality into another world, so do they ascend into heaven as by a continuous upward movement. These persons are indeed "blessed" above all others. They suffer no delay in their spiritual advance, Never are they drawn aside in the world of spirits, and there held to await a final judgment. Never are they diverted into the false heavens, or into those spiritual pockets called the "lower earth," there to be bound over until the time of the great Assize. However, such retardation, such imprisoning by the way, does happen to certain others, who are not of the "first resurrection," not so "blessed," and over whom the "second death" has some power, but who none the less, if of good heart, are, after much suffering and long ages, raised into heaven as by a kind of second resurrection.

     While we affirm with the Apocalypse Revealed that there are not two spiritual resurrections, and this because no man may be twice conjoined with the Lord, yet we also affirm with the Apocalypse Explained that there are two kinds of spiritual resurrections, one for one sort of men, and another for another. One for those who, after death, advance without interruption to heaven; and the other for those who are drawn aside and held bound in the world of spirits to await a final judgment.

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The first sort are those who have part in the first resurrection, and the others are those who must needs undergo a second resurrection. The first are the celestial, the second are the spiritual. It is the celestial who pass through, while the spiritual are held up. All that the celestial need to forward them on their journey is a first resurrection, while the spiritual call for a second. If men had continued celestial, as at the beginning; if they had not, in consequence of the fall, and of their rebound from the fall, been converted into a lower spiritual form and type, there would never have been any delay in passing through the world of Spirits, for there would never have arisen any congestion in that intermediate world, and thus no necessity for a universal judgment and so of a second resurrection.

     This difference is first noted in the Spiritual Diary, no. 5203, where it is said that the "second resurrection is the resurrection of those who are in the latter days of the Church, while those are of the first resurrection who lived in earlier times." Whether we think of one or the other of the great Churches, or of them all in series, the same or a like distinction holds. In general, it is the distinction which we perceive between the celestial and the spiritual; between those who are purely good and those who are in relative evils; or between those who at death have achieved perfection of form and completeness of state, and so are enabled to pass without interruption through the world of spirits, and those, on the other hand, who carry over into the other life a mixed state of good and evil, and who, because of this, are held in an intermediate or as yet undetermined state, in which they await the final judgment and a second resurrection.

     While, therefore, the Apocalypse Revealed denies two spiritual resurrections, it is clear that this denial has reference to the individual, in that no man may be reborn a second time, or be twice conjoined with the Lord. yet this does not counter the fact that every salvable man may, and indeed must, undergo either that which in the Scripture is called the "first resurrection," or that other which, in the Diary and the Apocalypse Explained, is called the "second resurrection," which pertains to those upon whom the last judgment was performed, who, unless they had undergone that judgment in its severity, could never have found their way to heaven.

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     As said before, the fundamental distinction herein is that between the celestial and the spiritual, the perfected and the unperfected, the high and the low type of salvable men. This distinction is strikingly brought out in what is said in the Book of Revelation concerning the sealing of the hundred and forty-four thousand. (chap. vii.) It will be recalled that the angels of the four corners held back the winds of judgment, lest they should blow upon the earth and the trees, until the sealing of the twelve thousand out of each tribe, by which was signified that the judgment should not destructively fall upon these, because of the perfection of their state.

     It might be thought from the account of the judgment, given in the seventh chapter of the Boob of Revelation, that the "sealed" were those who were saved by and through that judgment; but there is here a marked difference that is worthy of note; for those of the enumeration were sealed beforehand. They were of the perfected, in all their varieties, classes, and distinctions. They were, in fact, angelic societies belonging indeed to the age, the church, which was being judged, and were affected by that filial judgment, in that by it they were updrawn and organized into a new-formed angelic heaven, and this as societies. Therefore were they sealed, that is, closed, before the winds of the judgment fell with destructive force upon those other societies of lower and mixed formation, breaking them into their individual parts, dividing between the good and the evil therein.

     That such was the fact, and the difference between the sealed and those other inferior groups, is evident from the account. For besides the sealed there were many others,-a vast multitude,-who were saved by and through that judgment. This is clear from the account of events which followed the sealing. John says: "After these things I saw, and behold a great multitude, which no one could number, out of every nation, and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and the Lamb, clothed in white robes, and palms in their hands, and crying with a great voice, saying, Salvation unto our God, who sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb. . . . And one of the elders answered, saying unto me, Those clothed in white, who are they, and whence came they? And I said unto him, Sir, Thou knowest. And he said unto me, These are they who came out of the great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb."

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     This "great multitude" was certainly not of the "sealed," but they were those " who came out of the great tribulation," who passed through the judgment, and in the process were separated from their former evil associations. This distinction between the sealed and the multitude is also shown by the curious but notable fact that, in this enumeration of the tribes for the sealing, Dan is omitted, and this because of the required perfection of the series of the sealed, and because of the high significance demanded of each of the tribes in that series. Dan was the most remote of the tribes of the ancient enumeration, as they found settlement in the Land of Canaan, and bore the lowest significance of them all, so low that he could have no part with those of the final sealing; could not, it is said, represent "anything in the Lord's New Heaven and New Church," nothing that was sealed therein. And yet this Dan was not altogether lost; that is, those represented by him were not in the end condemned, but were saved in and by the final judgment.

     It is noted in the Apocalypse Explained, no. 450, that, in the sealing, Manasseh the son of Joseph was taken as one of the twelve, while Dan, who was omitted, represented the great multitude standing before the throne, having come out of the great tribulation. Thus was represented those who had been arrested in their progress in the world of spirits, and who were there gathered into many societies where the good and the evil were together, and this because in them there were evils and falses, along with goods and falsified truths. In this connection, if is said of the multitude that it represented those who were of the "second resurrection," in that it was necessary for them to undergo the final judgment, in order that their evils and falses might be separated from them, and they in turn be removed from the evil with whom they had so long been associated.

     Something very striking is said concerning these Danites, these prisoners of Providence, who were more than could be numbered, and of every nation and tongue. It is said of them, by way of revealing their essential character, that they could not be tempted during their life in the world, but that they could be and were tempted in their life after death, and this because of the falsities of religion which prevailed with them. By temptation here are meant those interior trials by which alone evils may be separated and cast off.

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To endure these trials successfully two requirements are necessary,-there must be the will to good, and there must be in the mind adequate truths of faith. These last were lacking with the "multitude." They were good at heart, but owing to their prevailing falsities their good could not, while they were in the world, find expression in truths sufficient to sustain temptations. Wherefore, all such were prevented from interior temptations during their world-life. But in the after-life of the spirit they could be tempted, to their spiritual betterment; for they could there be instructed in truths sufficient for this purpose; and they were at the same time held in contact with evil, for this is also necessary to temptations. Thus do we perceive the inner reason and cause why the imperfect spiritual, that "great multitude," should, in the world of spirits, be diverted into spiritual bondage, to fulfill a labor which they could not accomplish while in the life of the body. Their temptations in the other life began gradually, and advanced successively to the final judgment; and with many of them this final judgment was delayed to the end of the church, when a general clearance of the world of spirits was called for, to prepare the way for a new Advent and a New Church.

     "Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection; on such the second death hath no power." These words clearly signify that those of the "first resurrection" escaped the final judgment, and this because the evil of damnation had no power over them. They escaped by their sealing, by their passing directly into heaven, or into the angelic societies above mentioned. These are the celestial of all ages and of every dispensation. They were, indeed, more numerous in early times, but always some were found worthy of the high title and its great privilege; and at all times they were represented by the children who die in innocence. We cannot conceive of little-children being caught in the entanglements of the false heavens, and there compelled to undergo strange sufferings and ages of illusion; before the light of a new Advent should dawn upon them. On the contrary, the way to heaven is always open to the innocent ones,-kept open by the Lord through their innocence, which is the one quality against which every evil machination, no matter how subtle, breaks in impotence.

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The child cannot be stopped on the way. Only the adult who is made fearful by his consciousness of evil and his conviction of guilt.

     All the celestial pass through. Over them "the second death hath no power." To them the second resurrection has no meaning. They are environed by a Divine blessing, and wherever they walk the way opens; for they are known as the servants of the Lord, having upon their foreheads the seal of the living God, in sign of their rebirth, in evidence of their having undergone the first resurrection, in full likeness to that resurrection which the Lord Himself underwent, and because of which He said, "I am the resurrection and the life."

     Truly there is but one resurrection, even the Lord and the way of His ascension. If it appears that there are more than one, it is only because all cannot follow him in like degree and with the same instant will. It is because many delay and are delayed, even to the last. And yet these last, when their judgment comes, are lifted into heaven by His resurrection. For the first resurrection is His, and also the second. The celestial are His Very own, and the spiritual His adopted. Stranger children these last, and of an alien heritage; yet are they also made welcome in the heavenly home, along with the sealed, the blessed of God; for their robes, once unclean, have now been made white in the blood of the Lamb. And this was their great need, that their unclean robes should be made white, that their falsified truths should be purified and become genuine. And until this was done, they could not undergo temptations as a means of their salvation, and so be resurrected from their spiritual graves,-those pits of the lower earth, where they were reserved to await the day of the final judgment, and out of which they came on the occasion of the Lord's resurrection, and were seen of many. A like thing happened on the occasion of the Last Judgment.

     This, then, is the second resurrection to which the Writings refer. And this the fact which gave birth to the popular notion concerning the last day, when the world should be destroyed and the bodies of the saints should arise from their graves to inhabit a new-made earth. This popular conception of the last day calls for a spiritual interpretation, a transfer of the events described from the natural to the spiritual world.

397


And when this is given, the whole matter is clarified, and the truth is revealed, concerning that second resurrection, which differs from the first by its long delay, and because of the sometime power of evil over good, which holds back the spirit of man from the immediate fulfilment of the will of God. Amen.

     Lessons: Revelation 7. Revelation 20. A. R. 851-853. (See A. E. 430 17. Rev. 2:11, 21:8.)
PERCEPTION 1927

PERCEPTION       Rev. E. E. IUNGERICH       1927

     By perception I mean the superlative intellectual function developed centuries ago (2 Adv. 2324) among a group of families occupying the territory between the Nile and Euphrates Rivers and termed the Most Ancient or Adamic Church. (A. C. 4454 e; see 3708, 4441, 6516, 10559.) "That was indeed a church among a few (I Adv. 569); for evidently only a few of the Preadamites had in their development reached the seventh day of creation on which the Lord rested. The remainder were withheld from it, in order to limit the numbers who would fall from that celestial height (A. C. 3399); and this by virtue of a safeguard that was being established, namely, the separation of the understanding or intellectual part of the mind from the will or voluntary part.

     Yet none of these myriads could have been reached by religion, had there not been this slender strain of mortals living without the safeguard, and so able, Prometheus-like, to bring down from heaven the sacred fire of heavenly doctrines to serve as a Word for the rest. (A. C. 1068, 1971) Even today it is through angels from this most ancient people, scattered throughout the heavens, that wisdom is transmitted to other angels. (S. D. 5187e.) Prometheus, however, was under no necessity of stealing the sacred fire, or flaming as his own what God had ever willed to give His beloved. (See Coronis 38.) The Most Ancient Church was in freedom, and might have willed to remain in its integrity, and so continue as a beacon light for the rest. In fact, "if the Most Ancient Church had remained in its integrity, the Lord would have had no need to be born a man." (A. C. 2661.)

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     It is difficult for the progeny of some two hundred generations of ancestors, who have had the highest region of their minds closed, to grasp the nature of that perception which was a sense-response to the Divine transflux through the heavens, a touch upon what inflowed from the source of life, and gave a concept of the human term of the heavens, and through this mirror an all-sufficient vision and acknowledgment of the Divine Humanity of God. Swedenborg, however, to those who treasure his Writings, gives more than a hope that this long-sealed degree of the mind may be reopened with men, albeit never as it was formerly, but in a manner adapted to modern conditions. "I was brought afterwards," he declares, "to the most ancients, who are in the acknowledgment of the Divine and of Divine things just as they have been revealed to me. They examined them, and they coincided." (S. D. 5810.)

     That he might understand the relationship of will to understanding in the present-day man of the spiritual church as changed from what it had been with the most ancients, two differently colored cloud-like columns were lowered from heaven, each having on its left side a typically annexed beam of light to represent the respective intellectual part. In order to show him that men today have the voluntary completely destroyed, and that regeneration with them takes place only in the intellectual part, in which the Lord builds up a new will entirely separated from men's own proper voluntary, they exhibited at first a black column with a snowiness on the left. Frequently the effect of regeneration caused no change to appear in the column, although the snowiness became lucid; while in other cases a smoke exhaled from the column presenting a pleasant coloration alongside the snowiness. This possibly denoted the celestial genius with them. In the case of the most ancients, the column first appeared of a dim azure, and the beam was of a solar flaminess. The effect of regeneration caused the azure of the column to pass over into a dim flaminess. He was thus taught that with the most ancients the two lives, or the will and understanding, acted as one, as they had a voluntary in which there was something good, so that they could be regenerated as to it also. "Thus was it, in general, with the man of the Most Ancient Church, and in like manner in every particular, and thus in the least parts of the organic form of the interiors, since these are but images of the general." (S. D. Minor 4711-3.)

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     It would seem that no hope is given that the paternally transmitted heredity will ever be eradicated among men, or that the corrupt voluntary is to be redressed. If man, therefore, is never again to be born into a state where the will is good, and so makes one with the understanding, he will not have the mentality peculiar to the most ancients. The characteristic of this was a direct touch on influx. In the highest region of their minds, this was a direct touch upon the Divine transflux. But with their gradual declension, and as successively lower regions in their minds received in turn the main accentuation in their lives, the direct touch became an open intercourse with beings in the spiritual world, then a tremulous awe before inspired seers on earth, and finally confined itself to sensing inanimate nature as a living pantomime of the Divine. "Man was so created by the Lord that, while living in the body, he could at the same time speak with spirits and angels, as also was done in most ancient times; for ha is one with them, because he is a spirit clothed with a body. But because, after the passage of time, men so immersed themselves in corporeal and mundane things that they almost care for nothing else, therefore the way has been closed." (A. C. 69) But as soon as the earthly garb is removed by death, the spirit enters into open communication with those in the beyond. This is what Swedenborg was treating of when he added to the above words the following as a conclusion: "As soon as the corporeal things in which he was immersed recede, the way is opened, and he is among spirits, and links his life with them." (A. C. 69.) Those therefore err who construe this into a promise that men will come into open communication while living here. Swedenborg was so intromitted in order to serve the Lord in bringing to men a Divine Revelation. But no such seership will ever be needed again.

     II.

     Allowing for this difference of genius which precludes men from ever enjoying the direct touch on influx, still one who regenerates to the third degree may enter fully into all the uses of the perceptions of good and truth that characterize the supreme region of the mind. These may be briefly listed as follows:

     1. To serve as imperceptible bonds that terminate the internal rational degree (A. C. 5145), holding it above the range where evils and falses assail, and giving to the man by virtue of their imperceptibility a full sense of freedom. (A. C. 81.)

400




     2. That a man may know (a) what truth and good are (A. C. 6222); (b) what is from the Lord and what is from self (A. C. 10336); (c) and the quality of a newcomer from a single idea of his. (A. C. 104, 4301-2, 4625-6, 5097)

     By a continual perception from the Lord, the most ancients at once perceived whether or not what they thought from the memory was true and good. They had a loathing and horror for falsity whenever it obtruded. (A. C. 125) The doctrinals of faith from their perception cannot be believed without such perception, for they are spiritual and celestial things which otherwise would infinitely transcend human comprehension, and especially so if there is a refusal to believe before one comprehends. (A. C. 1071.) Those who learn cognitions so as to be perfected in a faith of love are in the uses of all uses, and receive spiritual and celestial life from the Lord. When they are in such a life, they are in the faculty of perceiving all things which are in the Lord's kingdom, and come eventually into very intelligence and wisdom. (A. C. 1964.) the perception of truth within oneself is the result of influx and illustration (A. C. 10702) from the light of heaven. (A. R. 875) The simple perceive truths when they hear them, whereas the wise see them in themselves. (H. H. 351) The perception of a matter gives an internal or essence to the cognition of it (A. E. 5064), causes doctrinals from the Word to be truths, and prevents them from being falsified by ideas that are not just. (A. E. 5145, 5207)

     3. To give to realize how near the evils and falses which are opposed to the perception have approached, so that they can be warded off. (A. C. 221, 1397) Thus dubious reasonings are avoided, and men remain steadfast in their "Yea, yea; and nay, nay." (A. C. 1384) The disguises of those feigning themselves angels of light are penetrated. (S. D. 5640; A. C. 10756)

     4. To bring about orderly consociations and dissociations. (A. C. 1394, 1398)

     5. To impart to angels ineffable peace and felicity (A. C. 155, 2694, 5962; H. H. 288, 413); and notably so when in conjugial love. (C. L. 51.) For perception brings with it life from the Lord, and therewith a proprium with all felicity and delightsomeness. (A. C. 1387)

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     6. So that some idea may be formed about Good Divine; for if there is not celestial perception, only ideas about Truth Divine can be formed. (A. C. 2813.) Thus to see God visible under a human form (A. C. 10737); and to discern the nexus of the interiors of the Word, whose planes "have a mutual perception, one of the other," which is conjunctive. (A. C. 10554.)

     7. To maintain the circle of life. For when the perceptions of good and truth, after descending from the rational, enter as seeds into the soil of the natural, they engender fructifications and multiplications there, and a reascent into the rational which furthers its perfectionment. (A. C. 3671) So when the Lord is acknowledged as the ultimate and first ends in the heart's faith, and all things are then perceived as living, there is a descent of the Lord's Divine through man into ultimates, and a reascent thence to the Divine. (A. C. 3702.)

     III.

     To understand what took place in the epochal separation of the intellectual from the voluntary part, a brief sketch of the mind's organism in the brain is needed. As this was recently done in an article on "Conscience," the reader may refer to it. (NEW CHURCH LIFE, June, 1927.) "The things of wisdom and love which are called thoughts, perceptions and affections are substances and forms, and therefore not entities volatile and fluent out of nothing, or things abstracted from real and actual substance and form, which are subjects. For there are in the brain innumerable substances and forms, in which resides all the interior sense which relates to the understanding and the will. . . . All affections, perceptions, and thoughts there are not exhalations from these substances, but are actually and really the subjects, which emit nothing from themselves, but only undergo changes according to the things which flow against and affect them," (D. L. W. 42.) Note here the stoic realism of Divine Retrelation, comparable to its calling the sacramental bread and wine "body and blood!"

     For the present purpose it will be sufficient to state: (1) That the lowest or natural degree of the mind, whose typical function is the conscience of what is just and fair in dealings with human society, has its basis in the-movements of the gray matter of the brain tori.

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(2) That the middle or spiritual degree of the mind, characterized by an internal dictate (A. C. 5145) in regard to the laws of spiritual society, or the conscience of spiritual good and truth, has its basis in the brain's unities, or the cortical glands. (3) That the highest or celestial degree of the mind, fraught with its perceptions of good and truth, has as its seat the still more minute unities constituting the simple cortexes of the aforesaid glands. These I may call the simple corticals.*
     * In actuality, the mind, with its three degrees, is only in the middle base, the soul being in the highest, and the animus in the lowest. But as the highest degree of the mind strives to be as the soul, and the lowest stoops to regulate the animus, so they look to other bases than the middle one. (See W. L. C. 45)-E. E. I.

     This triplicate organism is sensory, motory, and secretory. Its surface tremblings or variations of form, in each of its three degrees, or throughout all three, are what is called its sensory or intellectual part. Its animations or changes of state, which are alternately either diastolic, expansile, inhalatory, or systolic, contractile, exhalatory, are the motor or voluntary part in each degree or in all. Both types of movement act upon the enclosed spirituous fluid, animal spirit, and white blood, which are then emitted into the animal economy from the simple corticals, cortical glands, and brain congeries, by respective ducts. It is to be noted that the two higher degrees always remain in the order of heaven, and that the hereditary taint since the Fall resides in the third or lowest degree. (D. L. W. 432)

     From a general standpoint the entire cerebrum may be called the kingdom of the intellectual part, in contradistinction to the cerebellum, which may be called the kingdom of the will or voluntary part. The Writings so refer to them, as in the teaching: "Divine influx out of heaven is into man's will, and by it into his understanding. The influx into the will is into the occipital region, because into the cerebellum, and it goes thence towards the anterior region into the cerebrum, where is the understanding. And when it has come by that way into the understanding, it then also comes into sight, for a man sees from the understanding." (A. E. 61.) Sometimes these two kingdoms have the left and right hemispheres of the cerebrum assigned to them as respective seats, and then the cerebellum is referred to as the involuntary.

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"With the most ancients, whose age was called golden, because they lived in a certain state of integrity, and in love to the Lord, and in mutual love like angels, the whole involuntary of the cerebellum was open in the face, and they did not at all know how to present in the countenance anything which was not in accordance with the influx of heaven into the involuntary endeavors, and thence into the will." (A. C. 4326)

     Now the man of the Most Ancient Church, in its state of integrity, received goods into his will immediately by internal influx from the Lord, and these became manifest as truths evidencing love by virtue of his intellectual "which was of the will, love being everything." (A. C. 398.) For the teaching is given "that there was a ground in his voluntary part, in which the Lord inseminated goods; hence from good he could know and perceive truth, or from love faith." (A. C. 895.)

     What was paramount with him, in general, was the open causeway between his cerebrum and the cerebellum which was his tree of life; and in particular, the expansile feature or diastole of his brain spherules, and most especially that of the inmost ones or simple corticals. His beatitude, and the center of his life's interest, was in stressing the opening movement of these little mouths to receive the bread of heaven. This was the organic accompaniment of ascribing all to God, and absolute insignificance to self. The alternate contractions of these corticals were then decidedly subordinate in his interest, being almost automatic carryings out of God's mandates down to earth and body. Still, they served the important use of instituting a sense of contrast between himself, the limited and finite reagent, and what was of the Divine Giver. I take it that this contrast, arising out of the contractions of these corticals as over against their expansions, was the intellectual of the man of the Most Ancient Church, which is said to have been of the will, or inscribed on the will.

     "He had revelations by which he was initiated from infancy into the perception of goods and truths; but as they were inseminated into his voluntary part, he perceived without new instruction innumerable things, so that from one general he knew from the Lord the particulars and the singulars, which men now have to learn." (A. C. 895.) His regeneration (A. C. 10124) lay in refusing to listen to any suggestions to depart from the order into which he had been born, and in enhancing the type of perception of his lineage. (A. C. 483, 2145, 5113)

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To further this, his race lived in tribal and family segregation, and the individual married one of his kindred.

     IV.

     The present-day distinction between man's involuntary and voluntary faculties was not the same with the celestial man. For the fibers of his cerebellum had also jurisdiction over the voluntary muscles, his own volitions gladly cooperating to enhance the order the cerebellum prescribed. Conversely, and as if in return for this surrender, his sensation may be said to have extended to those interior organs which are now under exclusive cerebellar control and removed from our sensation. I am not contending here for any such anatomical precision of sensation as Swedenborg enjoyed, and which enabled him to discover at once the situation in the Gorand Man of a given spirit or angel, by experiencing a sensation in the corresponding locality in his own body or brain. I mean merely that his sensation was not limited to certain regions and excluded from others, as is the case today, but that he had a sense in his own body of indefinite things concurring to its oneness. This was an ultimate correspondent of what his mental touch on the Divine transflux gave him, namely, the perception that infinite things make one in God-Man.

     Untold generations of Preadamites had contributed to the culmination of such characteristics in the men of the Most Ancient Church. And had they been satisfied "to dwell alone" (A. C. 139), as is said to be the case today with "the best of the angels" (H. H. 189); that is, to dwell exclusively in that supreme mental region which has the thought of God for its constant theme and inmost sense, and to prefer the beatitude from the expansile thrills of the simple corticals opening expectantly towards Him as flowers turn to the rising sun, they would not have lapsed from their integrity; and God, by an internal influx into the ground of an incorrupt voluntary, would still have been able to manifest His Divine Human to mankind.

     But they began instead to incline to proprium, much as a worshiper, in lieu of being absorbed in his devotions, becomes overly conscious of his own gestures and genutlexions. They found greater zest in feeling as their own that which came from the Lord than in rejoicing that it was His.

405


They were more a-tingle over their own contractile quiverings upon the stream of influx than in opening the simple corticals to receive it humbly. This was the beginning of the Fall. Still, in the Lord's mercy, it was arrested, and held to a slow and gradual declension, provision being made for repeated halts in the lower goods of the successively lower mental ranges, until a new order of mental equilibrium could be instituted.

     Through one posterity (Adam, Seth, Enos, etc.) this provision involved a diminution and generalizing of the perception (A. C. 501) by the successive transference of the center of life's interest from a higher region, where the contractile feature had become predominant, to a lower degree of the mind where the expansile aspect could be emphasized according to true order. There arose thus a series of perceptions which the Arcana significantly compares to an order
"in the brain, in whose inmosts are the subtle organics, called cortical substances, out of which and by means of which the soul's operations proceed. Following these in order are the purer envelopes, then the denser, at length the general ones called meninges, which are terminated in still more general ones, and finally in the most general which is the cranium." (A. C. 501)

     "Perfection consists in the faculty of perceiving distinctly, and is diminished when not so distinct but more general. Then, in place of the clearer perception, succeeds one that is more obscure, and so it begins to vanish." (A. C. 502.) Concomitant with the sinking of perception to lower planes of the mind was the increased importance of the affairs peculiar to these planes; as, for instance, open communication with the spiritual society when the perception on the second plane was paramount, and social interest in earthly society when the third plane of natural good was the one stressed. And since, in that age, the influx from the Lord was only immediate on the supreme plane, and their perceptive touch on lower planes was on mediating veils that hid Him from view, it is plain that the influence of their environments upon them was becoming more pronounced.

     And here is further evidence why open communication with spiritual society is against the genius of mankind now. For it would add an additional veil, and a disorderly one at that, to the presence of the Lord, who now has immediate entrance on every plane. An age-long disorder of a similar character has been sanctioned by Catholics who have interposed on the spiritual plane the worship of interceding saints, and on the earthly plane the theory of the vicarship of human prelates.

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     Conversing with what I infer was the Seth posterity of the Most Ancient Church, Swedenborg relates:

     "It has been granted me to speak with the sons of the Most Ancient Church concerning their perception. They said that they neither think, nor can think, anything from themselves, nor will anything from themselves, but that in each and all things which they think and speak they perceive what comes from the Lord, and what from other sources. And they perceive, not only how much is from the Lord, and how much is from themselves, but also, when it is as from themselves, they perceive whence it is, from what angels, and likewise the quality of the angels, and what their thoughts are, distinguishing every difference; thus they perceive what the influx is, and numberless other things." (A. C. 1384) Compare with this the experience of Swedenborg the seer:

     "The things which I have learned in representations, visions, and speech with spirits and angels are solely from the Lord. Whenever there has been any representation, vision, or speech, I have been held interiorly and inmostly in reflection upon it, as to what was useful or good from it, thus as to what I might learn; which reflection was not so much attended to by those who presented the representations, etc.; nay, sometimes they were indignant when they perceived that I was reflecting. Thus have I been instructed, consequently by no spirit or angel, but by the Lord alone, from whom is everything true and good. And when they wanted to instruct me about various things, there was scarcely anything but what was false; and therefore I was forbidden to believe anything they said; nor was I allowed to introduce anything which belonged to them. And further, when they have wanted to persuade me, I perceived an interior or more interior persuasion that it is not as they wanted, at which they have wondered. The perception was a manifest one, but cannot be easily described to the apprehension of men." (S. D. 1647)

     But through the other posterity (Adam, Cain, Enoch, etc.) the provision was to check the violence of the contractile spasms to which they had given the preference, and this by means of maintaining an externally instilled holy fear.

407


Variations of form, or tremulations induced on the surface of the brain spherules, were the means of arresting or moderating the paroxysms under the urge of self-gratification. This corrective came from what the Writings call the order of truth separated from good, and this it was which initiated the new order of an intellectual separated from the voluntary part. Whether we say truth or fear, it amounts to the same. In fact, the words "verity" and "fear" are from the same root. For men quake before the punitive menaces of a truth that comes apart from mercifulness. And so man, whose inclination towards proprium had made him heedless of the gentle admonitions of his former intellectual, which had been inscribed upon the will, and who had wanted to have these first corroborated by extrinsic testimony that would lead to empire of the lower over the higher (A. E. 617:15), was now unescapably confronted with the grim Frankenstein he had raised.

     Adam had felt that fear when he hid himself in the midst of the garden, and gave expression to it in the words, "I heard Thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself." Cain, his successor, whose offering from the less acceptable produce of the garden had been rejected, also expressed it, saying: "My punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, Thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth; and from Thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass, that everyone that findeth me shall slay me." Still more abject is the note of terror in the cry of Lamech four generations later: "Hear my voice, ye wives of Lamech, hearken unto my speech; for I have slain a man to my wounding, and a young man to my hurt. If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold." (Genesis iv.)

     This remedy at first seemed a corrective as bad as the disorder it was to arrest. For though the over stressing of the contractile phase of the brain spherules had led some, in fulfilment of the serpent's prediction, to fancy life was in themselves and their own, and that there was no other God than they, still the extremity of inhibition placed by the corrective of truth or faith on doing any works at all has led other men to fancy they were mere lifeless stocks in all spiritual matters concerning salvation.

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So right here began the age-long contest between faith and good works.

     The fact that those sectarians, in whom reliance on faith alone has led to the denial of all the efficacy of mental contractions to perform good works, themselves experience an insuperable fear and repugnance towards any analysis or confession of their deeds (T. C. R. 562, 567), is further evidenced as to how an externally instilled fear acts as inhibitor to voluntary action. It was with reference to those who had gone to this extreme that the Lord said: "The blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world,... from the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, which perished between the altar and the temple; verily I say unto you, it shall be required of this generation." (Luke 11:50, 51)

     In the posterity succeeding Cain, just as in those that followed Seth, there were still further lowerings of the mental range to which the corrective was applied. The two lines finally converged again in Methuselah and Lamech. The perceptive, from becoming general, had then virtually vanished, and so low had become the plane of mentality involved that little harm could come from inhibiting its motor impulses.

     On Noah, successor to Lamech, could then be established the compensatory benefits which had accrued from both lines. Lacking all perceptive of voluntary origin, the codex of doctrinals of faith accumulated by the ancestral line from Cain could no longer paralyze motor actions springing from Divine influx, since such no longer existed. Instead, it could instill the variations of form which constitute the separated intellectual part, a surface trembling that may reach all along the range of the mental organisms until even the simple corticals are set trembling. For man's intellect may be elevated even into the light of the highest heavens without affecting his will. From the other ancestral line, and by virtue of the mediate and environmental contacts which had been acquired, this faculty of a separated intellectuality could be maintained in an equilibrium through the particular influxes counteracting upon it, just as a mast is firmly braced by ropes fastened on all sides.

     By the judgment effected in the era of Noah, in which the gulf between the celestial heaven and the diabolic hell was made impassable, this new faculty of separated intellectuality was fully counterpoised in the supreme degree of the mind.

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Two further judgments, however, were needed, and therefore the Lord made two advents, in each of which the strands to fasten this mast were secured for all time in respectively lower degrees. It therefore stands forever as an absolute balance or regulator between the two alternate propensities of the will, a sacrosanct world-of-spirits' plane to border all three regions of the mind, celestial, spiritual, and natural. Thus hell may not encroach upon or inhibit the uses of the heavens which stress the aspect of opening to receive the Lord; and to the heavens may be secured the benefits of menial services from those who stress acting from self, when this is bound over to the performing of labors according to order.

     Man today is not born into perceptions of the laws of his mind. To acquire such he must establish a set of true doctrinal precepts on each plane, and then make these of his life. In this way is gained a recognition of the laws of nature, a conscience of what is just and fair in human society, the more internal conscience with regard to the laws of angelic society, and finally the perception of theological reality. For the direct touch of the most ancient people with men today would mean the stripping off of the protective intellectual border, and the exposure of the Divine influences on each plane to the destructiveness of the perverted voluntary and the evil heredity. From a presentiment of this arose the edict that man may not see God and live. The Scriptures and the Writings alike warn against resorting to familiar spirits or looking forward to having intercourse with the spiritual world. Social philosophy also urges a man to meditate often, apart from his fellows, lest he be dragged into the mob-vortex, and never develop gifts that would aid them. Finally, hygiene recommends us to be prudent in our contacts with the physical realm.

     For though the New Churchman may be regenerated as interiorly as the man of the Most Ancient Church, yet each is of a different genius, and each has a different function to perform in the same Gorand Man. The Man of the Most Ancient Church began from universals and entered into singulars, whereas the New Churchman, on regenerating, begins from generals, advances to particulars, and finally, though in a different way, penetrates to the same singulars. The distinction between the two is a vital one.

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It may not be bridged, and should not be confused. The difference is as great as that between the essences emitted by the cerebellum and those from the cerebrum.
GLEANINGS FROM NEW CHURCH HISTORY 1927

GLEANINGS FROM NEW CHURCH HISTORY       ROBERT HINDMARSH       1927

     INSTITUTION OF THE MINISTRY OF THE NEW CHURCH.

     FROM "RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE NEW JERUSALEM CHURCH"-AN ACCOUNT OF REMARKABLE INCIDENTS ATTENDING THE FIRST ORDINATION.

     As the Church advanced in number and in strength it was deemed advisable, for the sake of order, to take into consideration the propriety of instituting a regular Ministry for the administration of the sacraments and the authorized preaching of the Word. Meetings for this purpose were held at different times; and it being the wish of the Society to take no steps in this matter without full and mature deliberation, the following questions claimed their most serious attention: "How shall the regular and orderly Ministry of the New Church commence? How shall the Ordination be established therein? And who shall be the person to undertake so awful a solemnity? Is it necessary that the succession of Ministers should be continued from the Old Church to the New? And if necessary, or agreeable to order, can any reasonable hope be entertained that any Bishop or Ordaining Minister of the Old Church will lay hands upon a member of the New Church, who, if conscientious in his replies to the questions that would be put to him, must of necessity give such answers as would disqualify him for the office, in the estimation of such Bishop, and prove a certain bar to his admission therein? And as it is well known that a simple Minister or Priest of the Old Church has no authority whatever to ordain or introduce others into the Ministry, if such a one were even disposed to assume that office, in breach of the rules which he himself submitted to at the time of his own Ordination, to whom must the members of the New Church turn their eyes, and look for an answer to their prayers on so solemn, so weighty, an occasion as the Ordination of a Minister in the New and True Christian Church, called the New Jerusalem?"-

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To whom (it was repeated)-but to the Lord alone?

     These questions were most deliberately considered; and it was Unanimously Resolved by all the members of the Society that the Institution of a regular Ministry in the New Church could not be derived from any authority heretofore recognized in the Christian world. For as the New Jerusalem Church is altogether a New Church, distinct from the Old, and of which it is written in the Revelation, chap. xxii:5, "Behold, I make all things New," it was conceived that this declaration applies not only to the doctrines of the Church, but also to its institutions and ordinances of every kind, and among the rest to that of the Ordination of Ministers, whose authority to teach, and preach, and administer the Sacraments, must be derived from the Lord alone in His own Church, and not from any Priesthood of a fallen, consummated, and finished Church. This was precisely the situation of the Primitive Christian Church which derived no authority by succession from the regular Priesthood of the Jewish Church, but commenced its Ordination within itself, from the immediate presence and authority of the Lord. Besides, it was argued, how inconsistent would it have been, if not plainly impossible, to derive authority from the Old Church to oppose its own doctrines, and thus to undermine and subvert it from the very foundations! A kingdom, a city, a house, or a church, thus constituted, thus divided against itself, could not possibly stand. (Matt. xii: 25.)

     Among the male members present at the first Ordination, sixteen in number, besides the two who by experience were found qualified to officiate as Priests or Ministers of the New Church, no one entertained the most distant idea that he had, in his individual capacity, the smallest right or authority to send forth laborers into the Lord's vineyard; and hence it was plain to them that the Ordination could not commence in such a way, or by such individual authority. It was therefore suggested that twelve persons should be selected from all the male members present, to represent the whole body of the Church, and thus to put on a new character, which they did not before hold, but which the solemnity of the occasion and the necessity of the case now invested them with; that those twelve should be chosen by Lot, as the only mode left to them under present circumstances, whereby the Divine Will could be ascertained; that, when so chosen, they should all place their right hands upon the head of the person to be ordained; and that one of them should be requested by the rest to read and perform the ceremony.

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This proposal was acceded to, and adopted, for the following among other reasons:-

     First, Because no individual person, either in the Old Church or in the New, could be acknowledged by the Society as possessing in himself the smallest title to authority or preeminence over the others, in a case of such vital importance to the interests of the Church at large, until by solemn dedication to the Lord, and by a visible test of the Divine approbation, some person or persons should be marked out as duly authorized to assume the character of Representatives of their brethren at large, and in this new capacity to lay the foundation of an orderly and regular Priesthood or Ministry in the New Church.

     Secondly, Because the future prosperity and well-being of the Church required that no time should be lost in forming an Institution which should hereafter become a Divinely sanctioned and well regulated safeguard for the protection, due administration, and perpetual succession of the sanctities of the Ministerial function.

     Thirdly, Because, when the Apostles of the Lord found themselves in a somewhat similar situation, in consequence of the defection of one of their number, they, judging themselves incapable of determining who was most fit for the vacant office, from which Judas by transgression fell, had recourse to the drawing of Lots, "that the Lord, who knoweth the hearts of all men, might shew which of the two persons, (Barsabas or Matthias), proposed to fill up the place of Judas, he had chosen." (Acts 1:24.)

     Fourthly, Because again, on another occasion, the drawing of Lots was adopted as a decision of the Divine Providence, when there did not appear to be sufficient ground for the determination of human judgment. See the Treatise on Influx, or on the Intercourse between the Soul and the Body, n. 19, from which the following extract is taken: "Do not suppose that this Lot came to hand by mere chance; but know that it is by Divine Direction, that so you, who could not discover the truth because of the confusion of your minds, might have it thus presented to you in the way of your own choosing."

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     Such being the situation of the Church at this time, and such the reasons for proceeding in the way described, it may be proper here to annex an extract from the Minute Book of the Society in which the first Ordination took place. It is as follows:

     "Ordination of Ministers in the New Church.
"Sunday, June 1, 1788.
     "At a full Meeting of the Members of the New Church held this day, in Great East Cheap, after the morning service, it was unanimously agreed to Ordain James Hindmarsh and Samuel Smith, as Ministers and Priests in the New Church, in the manner following, viz: Twelve men to be chosen by Lot out of the Society, as Representatives of the New Church at large, and these to lay their right hands on the person ordained, agreeable to the form of Ordination.

     "The following persons drew Lots for that purpose:

"1. Robert Hindmarsh                9. Samuel Bucknall
2. Thomas Wright                    10. John Swaine
3. Thomas Willdon                11. Daniel Richardson
4. John Willdon                    12. George Robinson
5. John Rainsford Needham           13. John Augustus Tulk
6. Manoah Sibly                    14. Isaac Brand
7. Alexander Wilderspin           15. Isaac Hawkins
8. Richard Thompson                16. John Sudbury

     "And the lots fell on the twelve first mentioned, who unanimously appointed Robert Hindmarsh to read the service."

     Having stated these particulars of the proceedings of the Society, in respect to the Ordination of Ministers, I may here be permitted to relate a rather singular circumstance, which took place at the time of the first Ordination. Being Secretary to the Society, when it was determined that twelve men should be selected by Lot from the body of the Church to lay their hands on the heads of the persons to be ordained, it was my office to prepare the tickets. I accordingly made sixteen tickets, answering to the number of male persons present, members of the Church, and marked twelve of them with a cross.

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Being desirous, for my own private satisfaction, to ascertain which of the twelve to be selected by Lot it might please the Lord to appoint to read or perform the ceremony, I wrote, unknown to the rest of the Society, upon one of the twelve tickets thus marked with a cross, the word ORDAIN. I then put the sixteen tickets into a receiver, when a prayer went up from my heart that the Lord would shew whom he had chosen for the office of Ordination. The members being properly arranged, I went around to them all; and each one took a ticket out of the receiver, leaving me the last ticket, on which was written, as before stated, the word ORDAIN. Still the other members of the Society were not aware of what I had done; and when the twelve were separated from the rest, after consulting together a few moments, they unanimously requested that I would read and perform the ceremony of Ordination. Whereupon James Hindmarsh was first Ordained by me, and immediately afterwards Samuel Smith.

     This commencement of the Ordination of Ministers in the New Church has been approved of, and confirmed, by the Church in various of its subsequent General Meetings, particularly by the Sixth General Conference of its Ministers and other members, held in London in the year 1807; the Minutes of which, after describing the mode adopted as above, contain the following remark: "It is to be observed that this manner of Ordination by twelve members was used because hereby the Church in this respect commenced anew, which would not have been the cause, had she submitted to have had her Ministers ordained by those of the former Church; and twelve were chosen because that number signifies all the goods and truths from the Lord, whereof His Church is constituted."

     The same General Conference further expressed their sentiments on the subject, in the following Resolutions:

     "Resolved, That the origin of the Ordination of Ministers of the New Church now read, as adopted by the Society of East Cheap, on Sunday, the 1st of June, 1788, be considered as the most consistent, proper, and expedient, according to the then existing circumstances.

     "Resolved, That this Conference recommend a continuation of the Ordination of the Ministry from this origin, and recognize the following persons as having been so ordained. (The names of ten persons are then enumerated.)

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     "Resolved, That if there are any persons at present officiating as Ministers of the Lord's New Church, who have not been ordained according to this form, they be recommended to submit to the same as soon as possible, for the sake of order and that the Presidents of this Conference be requested to write to any such Ministers, of whom they may have the knowledge."

     Again, in the Minutes of the Seventh General Conference, held at Birmingham in the year 1808, a similar notice and recommendation are to be found in p. 5. "As the Ordination of Ministers at East Cheap, in 1788, was the first Order appointed and observed in the New Church, the Conference recommends that the same Order be recognized and continued.

     In the Minutes of the Eleventh General Conference, held at Derby in the year 1818, p. 19, the 37th Resolution is thus expressed. " Mr. Robert Hindmarsh (the President for that year), having been requested to leave the room, and the Rev. J. Proud called to the Chair, the subject respecting the Ordination of Mr. Robert Hindmarsh was then introduced, and underwent a very deliberate and able discussion; when it was

     "Resolved Unanimously,

     "That in consequence of Mr. Robert Hindmarsh having been called by Lot to ordain the first Minister in the New Church, this Conference consider it as the most orderly method which could then be adopted, and that Mr. Robert Hindmarsh was virtually Ordained by the Divine Auspices of Heaven; in consequence of which this Conference consider Mr. Robert Hindmarsh as one of the regular Ordaining Ministers." Accordingly, in all the subsequent Conferences, where Lists have been given of all the regularly Ordained Ministers of the New Church, the name of Robert Hindmarsh is inserted at the head of those who are recognized by the General Conference, and authorized to Ordain others into the Ministry, he himself being considered as the person appointed by Divine Providence to commence that Institution in the New Church, and therefore described as one Ordained by the Divine Auspices of the Lord, agreeably to the form and circumstances above related.

     And here it may be observed as somewhat remarkable that James Hindmarsh and Robert Hindmarsh, the father and the son, should have been separately appointed by Lot to act those prominent parts in the formation of the Visible Church which neither they nor any others of the Society would of themselves have had the assurance to undertake.

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On the first solemn occasion,-that of first bringing the New Church into a visible external form, by Baptizing a given number of persons desirous of entering the Church in a formal manner, as was done on the 31st of July, 1787,-Mr. James Hindmarsh was chosen by Lot to perform that ceremony; and the first person so Baptized was his son, Mr. Robert Hindmarsh. And on the next solemn occasion, when it was found expedient to commence the Institution of the Ordination of Ministers, Mr. Robert Hindmarsh, being himself the first that was ever admitted by Baptism into the New Church, was in like manner chosen by Lot, as well as by the unanimous voice of the members of the Society assembled for that purpose, to Ordain his father, Mr. James Hindmarsh, as a Minister of the said Church. Thus it appears that two individuals of the same family, having no pretensions beyond those of the humblest of their companions, and certainly with qualifications much inferior to those of several others who assisted at both the ceremonies above mentioned, were placed in situations which they could not have anticipated, and from which they could not conscientiously recede, after having once committed themselves to the Divine Disposal, by joining with the rest in prayer that the Lord would lead, direct, and guide them in all their proceedings. His primitive disciples were men of humble abilities, despised perhaps for their plainness of manners by the great men of their day, and deemed utterly unworthy of the distinction with which they were honored. So in the present day,-the day of the Lord's second advent among men in the true spirit of His Word,-equally obscure individuals, and insignificant in the eyes of the world, may be made choice of, as humble mediums, through whom the Divine Wisdom may bring forth great events from apparently trivial causes and small beginnings. For the Lord sees not as man sees; neither are His ways to be judged of by the light of mere human reason. The weakest instruments are often made subservient to the most important ends. This has been conspicuous in all ages of the world, and doubtless the same laws which tended in former times to the production of much eventual good, even to those who were ignorant of them, are still in operation for the benefit of the human race at large, and especially of the New and True Christian Church.

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     The foundation of the Ministry of the New Church, having been thus laid in the manner above described, with a provision for its succession and perpetuity, the benefit of such an Institution was soon perceived and very generally acknowledged by all who wished well to the prosperity of Jerusalem. Disorderly spirits were hereby kept in a state of subjection to true order; and the first ebullitions of an over-heated imagination, or fanatical zeal, which might have been injurious to the rising Church of the Lord, were thus wisely controlled and prevented from bringing discredit on its cause.

     (Rise and Progress of the New Jerusalem Church, pp. 68-73.)
MAN AND ANIMAL 1927

MAN AND ANIMAL              1927

     "That man is governed by the Lord by means of spirits, is because he is not in the order of heaven; for he is born into the evils which are of hell, thus into a state altogether contrary to Divine order. Wherefore he must be brought back into order, and he cannot be brought back into order except by means of spirits. It would be otherwise if man were born into good, which is according to the order of heaven; then he would not be governed by the Lord by means of spirits, but by order itself, thus by a general influx. By this influx man is governed in respect to those things which proceed from his thought and will into act, thus in respect to his speech and actions; for both the latter and the former how according to natural order; with these, therefore, the spirits who are adjoined to man have nothing in common. Animals are also governed by influx from the spiritual world, because they are in the order of their life; nor have they been able to pervert and destroy it, because they have not the rational faculty." "Neither have they any need for any spirit to be with them." (H. H. 296. S. D. 2318.)

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IN THREE LANGUAGES 1927

IN THREE LANGUAGES              1927


NEW CHURCH LIFE
Office a Publication, Lancaster, Pa.
Published Monthly By
THE GENERAL CHURCH OF THE NEW JERUSALEM
BRYN ATHYN, PA.
Editor                    Rev. W. B. Caldwell, Bryn Athyn, Pa.
Business Manager          Mr. H. Hyatt, Bryn Athyn, Pa.

     All literary contributions should be sent to the Editor. Subscriptions, change of address and business communications should be sent to the Business Manager.

     TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION
In the United States, $3.00 per year; Elsewhere, $3.25 or 14 shillings; payable in advance
Single Copy          30 cents

     NOTES AND REVIEWS.

     IN THREE LANGUAGES.

     We have received copies of the April, 1927, issue of the periodical published by the General Church Native Mission in South Africa,-TLHAHISO EA TS'ENOLO EA KEREKE E NCHA (The Expositor of the Revelation of the New Church), which is edited by the Rev. Fred W. Elphick and Mr. George Mokoena. With this twelve-page number, the magazine enters upon its third volume, and will here after contain matter in three languages,-Sesuto, Zulu and English. The subscription price is three shillings for six issues a year.
PROVIDING A REPOSITORY. 1927

PROVIDING A REPOSITORY.              1927

     A correspondent, who is desirous of promoting a more general use of the sacred repository for the Word in the homes of the members of the Church, recalls the article on this subject which appeared in our December, 1926, issue, and others a possible solution for the difficulties there spoken of. The whole article should be read, but we quote in part:

     "It is probable that a good many young people have neglected to provide a repository at the commencement of their married life, because they felt they could not afford it.

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They had in mind something very good and beautiful for such a high and holy use, and would wait until they could obtain the right thing. Such a desire to procure of the best is commendable, but in most cases has led to indefinite postponement, while the years have gone by and a family has grown up without the blessings which might have been received, if they had been content to provide a simply constructed and inexpensive repository. If the real spiritual use is seen, there should be no difficulty in obtaining a suitable repository." (P. 772.)

     The writer of the article goes on to say that such a repository might be portable, like the Ark of the Covenant with the Children of Israel, and thus be removable to another home in case of need, where it would still fulfill its dedicated use as representative of the Lord's presence in His Word, and as the place where the family kneels in worship.

     Our correspondent's practical suggestion is addressed to those among our members who are cabinet makers, believing that it would promote the wider use of repositories if one or more of these craftsmen should specialize in making them. Such, a specialization would involve not only making repositories to order, but also carrying in stock one of simple but dignified design and lower cost. We take pleasure in laying this idea before our readers as worthy of careful consideration.
THIRD TESTAMENT. 1927

THIRD TESTAMENT.              1927

     In an article entitled "The Apocalypse as a Third Testament" (NEW-CHURCH MESSENGER, April 13 and 20, 1927), the Rev. Herbert C. Small advances the idea that the long-established inclusion of the Book of Revelation in the New Testament may be subject to a revision that would make of the Apocalypse another Testament, separate from the four Gospels. It would appear that the idea has become established in the writer's mind, but the arguments he employs to confirm it leave us unconvinced, especially since they ignore the place which the Writings of the New Church assign to the Apocalypse, as one of the Books of the New Testament. (A. C. 10325.) If any signal use were to be served by making a separate Testament of that book, surely we should find some indication of it in the Heavenly Doctrines, wherein the Lord Himself has revealed the true place and meaning of the Apocalypse, but we know of no such indication.

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     A few comments will serve to show the nature of Mr. Small's reasoning. He announces it as the purpose of his article "to suggest, and in some measure to demonstrate, that a further classification of the New Testament Scripture is needed if we would understand its full significance for Biblical study. The essence of this further classification is the distinctiveness of the Book of Revelation. The Apocalypse, in reality, is a new and distinct phase of revealed truth, amounting in substance to a third or Newest Testament, as distinct from the four Gospels as these are distinct from the Law and the Prophets. Thus classified, the Book of Revelation stands in solitary grandeur and holiness as the Testament or Covenant of the Lord's Second Advent." (P. 240)

     While it is a fact that the Apocalypse throughout is internally a prophecy of the state of the Christian Church at its end, and of the Second Coming, Last Judgment, and a New Heaven and New Church, do we not find definite prophecies of these things in the Four Gospels as well. (Matthew 24, etc.)

     He continues: "This view of the supreme and isolated place of the Apocalypse has doubtless been eclipsed by the consideration that the Book was written in the same period and perhaps by the same hand that wrote other New Testament literature; and also by the prevalence of a mistaken and sensuous expectation of seeing the Lord return in, the flesh. Not discerning that the real Second Coming was to be a fresh outpouring of Divine truth, and so a new and advanced state of Christianity among men-a more interior covenant relation with the Lord-students of the Apocalypse have largely failed to catch the real message of the Seer of Patmos." (P. 240.)

     We might question that "perhaps" which raises a doubt as to whether John the Evangelist really wrote the Apocalypse, and thus failed to obey the injunction, "What thou seest, write in a book. . . Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter " (Rev. 1:11, 19). The Writings even describe the state in which John was "when he wrote the Apocalypse." (A. R. 36.)

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But we are moved to suggest that it would have been more to the purpose if the writer had undertaken to show that the "fresh outpouring of Divine truth" in the Revelation of the Second Coming is a New Covenant or Testament,-the Divine Truth revealing the spiritual sense of the Apocalypse, given as a New Witness or Testament to the New Heaven and the New Church,-the Holy City, New Jerusalem. But he would make the Apocalypse itself such a spiritual revelation. "The Book of Revelation is wholly a spiritual book, written in a spiritual style, addressed to a spiritual understanding, and to be interpreted by the spiritual key of Correspondences only. And the giving of the key waited on the coming of the event, for it was involved in it."

     If, then, the Book must be opened by the key of correspondences-or, more properly, by Doctrine with, the aid of correspondences- it clearly belongs upon the representative and significative plane of the letter of the Word-the natural sense-and not upon a plane above that of the Gospels. "All things in the Apocalypse were written in a style similar to that of the Old Testament prophecies; in general, in a style similar to that in which everything in the Word was written and the Word in the letter is natural, but in its bosom spiritual; and being such it contains within it a sense that is not at all apparent in the letter."

     Mr. Small then pertinently remarks: "It would be natural to ask why the Book of Revelation may not be satisfactorily explained by regarding it as the prophetical portion of the New Testament, just as the books of Isaiah and Ezekiel and Daniel and the rest are the prophetical portions of the Old Testament, thus removing the need of looking upon it as a distinct Testament." (P. 241.) To this question the Writings give a categorical answer: "The Apocalypse is the Word, similar to the prophetical Word of the Old Testament." (A. R. 9321. See above, A. E. 1.) Thus the Apocalypse bears a relation to the historical Word of the four Gospels like that of the Prophets to the historical of the Old Testament; like that of "The Enunciations" to the "Wars of Jehovah" in the Ancient Word. For in every form of the revealed Word there is history and prophecy, fact and foretelling, prose and poetry. And the New Testament is no exception. Moreover, the Babylonian prophecies of Ezekiel and Daniel are notably like the Apocalypse in style and imagery, especially in its depicting of the Babylon of the Christian Church.

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     Nor do we find, in any of Mr. Small's later arguments, anything that convincingly removes the Apocalypse from its rightful place as furnishing the chief prophetical element in the New Testament. But if he had been content with this obvious truth, there would have been no occasion for his article.

     In his later reasoning he has recourse to the "trinal form of the Word," and labors to prove that his "Three Testaments" are in some way like the natural, spiritual and celestial senses of the Word. "And how the very imagery of love, which is fire, lights up with its Divine glow or its infernal glare every page of that celestial covenant of the Word, the Book of Revelation!" (P. 256.) And so, according to the "Human Form of the Word, from which the trinal form has its origin," the Apocalypse becomes the head, the Gospels the chest, and the Old Testament the abdomen; and these again are like the three divisions of the Tabernacle. "For instance, the head of man differs from the other two divisions in being occupied by a single organ. In like manner the Apocalypse is complete in a single book, and the central feature of that book, the Holy City whose length and breadth and height are equal, is suggestive of the cubical form which the head so nearly approaches." Of the four Gospels, as answering to the chest or thorax, John and Luke are the heart and lungs, Mark and Matthew the right and left arms. "The analogy between the abdominal viscera and lower limbs and the books of the Old Testament is strikingly shown in a general way by the great number and miscellaneous character of the parts." (P. 257)

     We could wish that the ingenuity thus displayed in the effort to prove a mistaken idea had been exercised in the direction of demonstrating the true trine of the Word in its Letter,-the Hebrew, Greek and Latin forms in which the Divine Truth Itself-the Divine Human-has been accommodated to the natural mind of man,-its sensual, natural and rational thought,-in the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the Heavenly Doctrine, which latter is the real Third Testament, bringing to men the glory of which the Apocalypse was but the veil and the cloud. This trine of Revelations, given to distinct planes in the human mind, to distinct Churches, is in the Divinely Human Form, in the whole and in every part; and it can be shown that the Word, as thus revealed in literal form in the world, is also in that form; but we do not think this truth is to be perceived or demonstrated in any such artificial manner as that employed in the article before us.

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     Many different groupings and subdivisions of the parts of the Letter of the Word may be made, but they must stand the test of doctrinal warrant and use, and we feel that such a test will not justify the idea of placing the Apocalypse as a Testament separate from the New Testament. It very definitely belongs to the Greek Revelation of the New Testament, and, apart from the Doctrine of its spiritual sense, did not testify anything so new and distinct from the four Gospels as to set it apart as another Testament. But the Heavenly Doctrine in which the Lord made His Second Advent is such a Third or Newest Testament.

     In the Preface to the Apocalypse Revealed, Swedenborg declares:

     "Everyone can see that the Apocalypse can by no means be explained but by the Lord alone; for each word therein contains arcana which would never be known without a particular enlightenment and thus Revelation; on which account it has pleased the Lord to open the sight of my spirit, and to teach me. Do not believe, therefore, that I have taken anything herein from myself, or from any angel, but from the Lord alone. The Lord also said to John through the angel, 'Seal not the words of the prophecy of this Book' (chap. xxii, 10); by which is meant that they are to be made manifest."

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GROUNDS FOR TOLERANCE 1927

GROUNDS FOR TOLERANCE       WILLIAM HYDE ALDEN       1927

TOLERATION, AND OTHER ESSAYS AND STUDIES. (Posthumous.) By John Bigelow. With an Introduction by Glenn Frank. New York: The New-Church Press, 1927. Boards; 162 pages. Price, $1.50.

     About half of the volume before us is taken up with the treatment of the subject of Toleration, and the remainder is devoted to three briefer studies: The Unfailing Moral Standard; What is Charity? and Poverty and Riches. The book is neatly bound and well printed.

     One feels disposed to agree with Mr. Frank in his disavowal of agreement with the author as to his reasoning on the matter of Toleration, yet the writer of the Introduction gladly avails himself of the "opportunity to add whatever force he can to a volume that pleads for tolerance in this intolerant time." And truly it is easy to write a treatise on intolerance. Whether in the time of the Catholic Inquisition or the Protestant persecution, whether in ancient or modern times, there is no form of the Church, so-called, which has been or is free from intolerance. As Mr. Bigelow observes, however, "it would be a, grievous mistake to suppose that the propensity to constrain others to share our opinions, to go to our church, to vote with our party and 'run with our machine,' is an evil, and for evil only good. So far from such being the case, it is-humanly speaking-the mainspring of all human progress. . . . Every educational institution, every printing press, every sect and party in the world, owes its existence to this innate and universal ambition to make other people think and act as we do, or would like to do."

     But this very laudable ambition, "the mainspring of human progress," becomes a vice when it undertakes to coerce the will by bribes or by persecution; and history is full of the distressing results of this endeavor,-to compel other men's minds to see as we do, to compel them to conform to a certain rule, which we have framed.

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And so Mr. Bigelow easily finds a long list of the intolerant,-the Bishop of Meaux, John Locke, Louis XIV, Maria Theresa, "even the gentle Fenelon," who would burn Madame Guyon for the damnable heresy of Quietism. He absolves the Quakers alone from the universal condemnation." (p. 11.)

     But when our author undertakes to give a reason for toleration, his reasoning is not so clear. He begins, indeed, with the announcement of the perfectly true aphorism, that the Creator has made no two things exactly alike, whether in the physical or in the mental or spiritual realm. Therefore, no two men can think alike or will alike; therefore the variations of opinion among men. Moreover, absolute truth exists in the Divine mind alone, far above the power of man to conceive. Hence it further follows that to some extent the opinions of all men are imperfect and fallible. To quote:

     "Our notions of right and wrong, that is, our sense of duty, must vary in some degree with every variation in the sum of our knowledge and experience. Every act or incident in our lives is our answer, consciously or unconsciously, to the one vital and the only vital question, which is perpetually addressed to us by the external conditions of our lives: 'Will you do what you think is right, or What you think is wrong?'. . . . As no one stands in precisely the same relation to his environment for two consecutive moments, his answers must be liable to variations corresponding with the inevitable and perpetual variations of his spiritual state. . . Every incident in our lives is presumptively such an addition to our stock of truth, and such a diminution of "'Stock of ignorance and error, that me cannot be supposed to remain for any appreciable period of time upon the same spiritual plane, or to hold precisely the same views of our duty." (P. 17, 18.)

     Quoting "a gifted English writer who has recently found his way into the Latin communion," the argument goes on: "The only objection, then, that can be urged from without against intolerance is, that on religious matters there is no certainty attainable." Intolerance "can only be condemned on one or both of the two following grounds: That religious beliefs are either essentially uncertain, or that they are essentially unimportant. . . .

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This doctrine seems to assume, what persecution must always assume, that one view or belief only, quo ad the believer, can be right, and that every other belief inconsistent with that must be in conflict with the truth as it is in him. This is a mistake, as applied to human judgment. No two men have ever seen truth in precisely the same proportions for any considerable length of time. Among finite beings all truth is relative. Absolute truth is not attainable by the human intellect; nor could any human intellect comprehend it." (P. 19, 20.)

     We have quoted Mr. Bigelow's argument at some length, because it seems to us to embody an essential error. The conclusion reached is, in brief, that we should be tolerant of the opinions of others because we cannot be sure of our own. All opinion is imperfect and bound to be erroneous, because it is the opinion of a finite mind, and is therefore fallible. In the matter of religious belief, this reasoning is fallacious and the conclusion untenable to the New Churchman. For religious belief is more than a matter of opinion. To be of any efficacy, it must be a matter of belief which is as sure as the "rock" by which it is typified in the Word. As New Churchmen, therefore, we must find other grounds for toleration than the idea that our belief is but as the shifting sands, liable momently to change, and therefore no better or worse than the belief of another.

     The sane mind is the mind which is rationally consistent, which will be found the same, essentially, tomorrow as today. The very identity of the individual depends upon this consistency. The argument of the relativity of human belief, its uncertainty as compared with the absolute verity of the Divine Wisdom, is casuistical and beside the mark. It is to no practical purpose. Moreover, to the New Churchman, religious faith is not a matter of opinion, for it is not self-made or self-derived. Opinions we have upon a thousand matters which depend for their determination upon our own observation and judgment. These will indeed vary with the varying intelligence of the individual. But his religious belief is based upon Divine Revelation, given him to advise surely of spiritual verities. The truth of Divine Revelation he holds and relies upon as the Rock of Ages, which stands sure and unmoved among the uncertain things of his earthly life. Whatever is inconsistent with that Truth is false, not to be received, and even on occasion to be combated.

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     Holding religious belief thus, what ground, then, can we advocate toleration? It must be On the ground of a belief in something which is superior to belief, in the realization that there is in man a possession more precious than the holding of a right faith; and that something, which the Lord preserves as the apple of the eye, is freedom. Because the Lord has made man free, not only free to choose between varying faiths, but also free to believe the false, if he will, and to do evil, if he will, save as civil law or fear for his reputation restrain;-because this freedom is man's most precious possession, without Which heaven would bring no happiness, and with which hell itself has no terror, we should leave other men free to use or abuse this gift of the Lord to all men.

     Moreover, the New Churchman has from Revelation a knowledge of the nature and origin of all the faiths which he observes in the world about him. He knows that they all have an origin in a true revelation from the Lord, that a knowledge of God and of His will is denied no nation upon the face of the earth, a knowledge originally from Revelation. He knows of the succession of Churches Upon the earth; how the Divine message was given by open perception in the beginning, and then handed on by tradition and by representatives. The New Churchman knows that the perversions and falsities, which have taken the place of the true religion with many, are due to the wilfulness of men, which has gone so far as to claim that the progress of man, in religion as in external knowledge, has been upwards, and that man has invented for himself such knowledge of God as he possesses. With the world at large this has led to the general denial of Divine Revelation, and in large degree to the denial of the very being of God;

     Over against all this welter of perversion, the New Churchman stands firm in his knowledge of the crown of all the Revelations which have been since the creation of the world. He knows of that free-will, from the exercise of which the various forms of religion spring; and, humbly following the example of his Lord and Master, he holds the free-will of other men sacred from any interference, whether by persuasion or persecution. His toleration springs, not from indifference, still less from belief that his faith is no better than that of other men, but from firm assurance that his faith is the true faith, based upon that Revelation which is excellent above all previous Revelations.

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     In this essay on Toleration, Mr. Bigelow quotes from Swedenborg as "one whom I am disposed to regard as the profoundest of ethical philosophers, living or dead." The Writings are quoted by him for two purposes,-the one to affirm the teaching of toleration, the other to affirm man's utterly lost and evil condition and consequent inability to see the truth. But it is to be noted that Swedenborg, in affirming that variations of faith would not have divided, if men had lived in charity, also affirmed that they all lived in belief in the Lord, and in obedience to Him. In fact, in a passage which Mr. Bigelow does not quote it is said specifically that in Christian lands there must be belief in the Divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ. "The denial of God makes hell, and in the Christian world the denial of the Divinity of the Lord." (D. L. W. 13.) And in the affirmation of man's lost state it is to be noted that this is his natural state, from which he can be rescued only by a life according to the truth revealed from the Lord.

     The remaining studies in the book demand little attention. The Unfailing Moral Standard is the Golden Rule, which the author finds applicable to all people in all times, whether enjoying the blessing of a Divine Revelation or not. Charity is defined as the performance of use from love for others, rather than the giving to those in need, which is commonly called charity. The spiritual uses of one's state in life, under the Divine Providence, are dwelt upon in the essay on Poverty and Riches.

     In general, the book is written under the light of the Revelation to the New Church; but the light is not clearly perceived, and leaves the writer open to many misconceptions and some errors. These essays were not published by Mr. Bigelow; it may be doubted whether he would have approved their publication.
     WILLIAM HYDE ALDEN.

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ANCIENT WORD 1927

ANCIENT WORD       STANLEY E. PARKER       1927

     WHAT IS MEANT BY THE DIRECTION TO SEARCH FOR THE ANCIENT WORD?

     SEE APOCALYPSE REVEALED, NO. 11.

     (For the convenience of the reader, we print this passage at the end of Mr. Parker's communication .-Editor.)

     The agreement between what we regard as revealed truth and historical fact lends support to the weighty reasons, advanced by the Rev. R. J. Tilson in his article appearing in the LIFE for October last, for diligent search to be made for the Ancient Word, but the disagreement between what has been revealed and the literal truth of the words in which the revelation is given, as well as the difficulties attending such a task, make one very skeptical of the search being successful.

     While it is of striking interest to find that the course of this world's history was so ordered by the Divine Providence as to make it literally true that, when Swedenborg enjoined that search be made for the Ancient Word, the Emperor of China was from Great Tartary, and that friendly relations were existing between the Chinese and the peoples of that country, it is very perplexing to find it frequently stated in the Writings that the Ancient Word was "lost," and then to read, in three subsequently written passages, that "it is still preserved among the peoples of Great Tartary." Most of the statements emanated, as it were, from Swedenborg himself. But it is to be particularly noticed that those regarding the loss of the Word were related to him by angels of the third heaven, while those regarding its preservation on earth (later in date than the first mentioned) were made in consequence of what he learned from spirits and angels in the spiritual world who came from Great Tartary; and the circumstances affecting the acquisition of the information in each case should be carefully considered.

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Some of the questions and answers propounded by Mr. Tilson first demand respectful consideration, namely:

     (1) What was the Ancient Word?

     In the almost inconceivable event of the extant portions and the lost books being discoverable in one volume containing intrinsic evidence of its completeness, it seems impossible for us to say of what books the Ancient Word was composed. In A. C. 2897, we read that it consisted of the Wars of Jehovah and Enunciations; and the statement is confirmed by T. C. R. 279. But it would appear that the books of that Word were legion; for, besides the frequently specified books there were the "many" referred to in A. C. 1756. The Wars of Jehovah is sometimes referred to as a "book" and sometimes as "books," and the same remark applies to the Enunciations. And if there were an indefinite number of books, no search that humans could make would enable us to say that we had discovered "The Ancient Word" in book form. But then, with regard to this it may be remarked that were it not for what has been revealed in A. C. 10325, no search that we could make in Europe or elsewhere would enable us to say that we had discovered "The Hebrew Word-that is to say, the whole of that Word, and nothing but that Word. And the same must be said with regard to the Word of the New Testament.

     (3) In what language war the Ancient Word written?

     From what is said by the writers of cyclopedias it would appear that "the Chinese is undoubtedly the oldest living tongue, having been spoken at least 5,000 years ago on the banks of the "Yellow River," that the Manchu language was of Syrian origin, and that the first Chinese (whose descendants were subsequently conquered by Manchu Tartars) in all probability came from the heights of Tartary, traces of their Tartarian origin being very discernible. They also state that the origin of Chinese script was pictorial, and a few of the existing characters ("pictograms"-the age of which it is very difficult to determine) are still recognizable as slightly conventionalized pictures. The language is monosyllabic, and does not represent a sound, but an idea or thought, the syllables being based on a syllabarium, rather than an alphabet. In view of the information here given of the reputed origin of the Manchu language, it is interesting to recall what is written in A. C. 1992 and elsewhere, concerning the remains of the Ancient Church in Syria, and the mode of conveying speech seems to suggest that it may have been derived from the ancients' manner of writing spoken of in A. C. 4442, to which Mr. Tilson refers under the fifth head of his article. (See also A. C. 9942.)

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But if the Ancient Word were originally written in Hebrew, it must, of course, have been subsequently translated into a language understood by the peoples for whose use it was intended.

     (4) What portions of the Ancient Word are now extant?

     From a number of passages in the Writings (notably A. C. 1664, 2686, 2897, 8273 and 9942; De Verbo 37; A. R. 11; S. S. 103 and T. C. R. 279) the following seems to be a summary, namely:

     (a) Portions enshrined in the Hebrew Word.

     The early chapters of Genesis.

     Numbers xxi, 14-16 (from the Wars of Jehovah).

     Numbers xxi, 27-30; XXiii, 7, 18; XXiv, 3, 15; Jer.: xlviii, 45, 46 (from the Enunciations).

     Joshua x, 13; 2 Samuel i, 18 (from the Book of Jasher).

     (b) Not incorporated in the Hebrew Word.

     The Book of Job.

     With regard to "the early chapters of Genesis," it is to be noted that these are called " the first seven" in D. V. 37 and "the first eleven" in S. S. 103.

     (5) What influences of the Ancient Word may yet be traced?

     Profane history relates that the inhabitants of "Great Tartary" were a fierce and warlike people, who, in spite of intervals of friendliness, were perpetually making raids on the Chinese. Being so little disposed towards peace, and having so little acquaintance with the arts of peace, it is difficult to understand how such peoples could have been influenced by the Ancient Word at the time of the Second Advent, and still more how they could have been custodians of it. But they were not all of a bellicose nature; the Writings tell of gentle spirits from Tartary (L. J. Post. 133)-who do not, however, appear to have known of the Ancient Word-and there were those from Great Tartary, referred to in A. R. 11, who cultivated peace with the Chinese. Those spirits from Great Tartary, moreover, "worshiped Jehovah, some as an invisible, and some as a visible God."

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And it is of interest to find an historian of the middle of the last century saying that "Poo-ta-la," the most spacious, celebrated and wealthy of the temples of Tartary, is consecrated to a religion which is "a mere modification of the doctrines of 'The Sons of the Immortals' who borrowed all their notions from the priests of the Delai Lama of Tibet, and that while " this singularly stupid religion" which is the only one to which the Chinese government affords any support or protection-is uniformly embraced by the Tartar officer of state, he disclaims all participation in the impious principle set up by the 'Sons of the Immortals'-meaning apparently that the Tartar officer of state only embraces the faith for imperial reasons. (China, Illustrated, pp. 21, 22.)

     Though hardly relevant to the scope of this head of the subject, it may also be of interest to refer to a rather curious passage in an old-fashioned primer in the writer's possession, published in London in 1859, and entitled "Far-Off-Asia Described," by the author of "Peep of Day," etc. In describing China, the author (or authoress) writes:

     "Confucius was a very wise man. . . . When he was fourteen, he began to read some old books that had been written not long after the time of Noah. In these books he found many wise sentences such as Noah may have taught his children. The Chinese had left off reading these-books, and were growing more and more foolish. Confucius, when he was grown up, tried to persuade his countrymen to attend to the old books. Had he known the true God, how much good he might have done to the Chinese!"

     The author then purports to quote "some of the sentences written in the old books," from which it is pretty evident that they were no part of the Ancient Word! That the author was much deceived in his idea of him who was commissioned to give genuine information concerning that Word is strikingly shown by the preface to the book, in which he exhorts parents to train up their children to serve God, "and if there be amongst them an extraordinary child, train him up with extraordinary care, lest instead of doing extraordinary good, he should do extraordinary evil," and emphasizes this advice by contrasting a number of celebrities whose vices are to be shunned, with a corresponding number of other celebrities whose virtues are to be imitated, the exhortation including one to "Train up the child of ardor, not to be the herald of delusions, like Swedenborg, but to be the champion of truth, like Luther." (!)

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     The Encyclopedias gravely state as historical fact that the Chinese "Book of History" "goes back to the time of Noah," but the writer has not yet discovered anything in them quite so explicit as the statement made by the "Peep of Day" zealot. Whence came the influence which furnished him with his information?

     (8) What efforts have been made to find the Ancient Word?

     The description of "The Tartar Word" . . . "written on the rinds of some trees," mentioned in the anecdote quoted by Mr. Tilson, clearly shows that the searcher was looking for some very literal things, but one cannot help thinking that he would have been much surprised had he found it. Although it is said that, more than 150 Years B. C., the Chinese wrote on the leaves and bark of trees, (and the Asiatic climate seems peculiarly suited to the preservation of such records), it must be supposed that unless some tribe of Tartars made copies of the Ancient Word in medieval times, any written copies which they formerly possessed must have long since perished.

     II.

     But now to examine the before-mentioned circumstances affecting those who gave Swedenborg information concerning the Ancient word. Swedenborg lived in the reigns of three Emperors of China who were from Great Tartary-Kang-he (1661-1720), Yung-ching (1721-1735), and Keen-lung (1735-1795)-and during a period, or periods, when peaceful relations were cultivated between the Tartars and the Chinese. And in view of the interesting, if not important, bearing which these historical facts have upon the subject of the search for the Ancient Word, a table, shewing the approximate chronological order of writing the passages referring to its loss, and preservation, may be useful, namely:

     (a) Passages shewing that the Ancient Word is lost.

     A. D. 1747. Statement shewing that some of the ancient books compiled by profane writers in times when the most ancient manner of writing was in vogue, and that the Book of Job and Solomon's Song of Songs were thus written; also the two books mentioned by Moses (Numb. .xxi, 14, 27) "besides many which have been lost." (A. C. 1756.) (Note. The quoted words are taken to relate to books of the Ancient Church.)

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The Word of the Ancient Church ...in process of time was lost. (A. C. 2897.)

     1748_1752. It is no longer extant. (A. C. 3432, 8273.)

     1753. Reference to "sacred books of the Ancient Church, which are now lost." (A. C. 9942.) (Note. This statement does not refer to the Book of Job, here referred to as a book of the Ancient Church.)

     1758. The ancients had a Word . . . which is now lost. (A. E. 734)

     (b) Passages shewing that the Ancient Word was lost, but is still preserved in heaven.

     A. D. 1762. A whole chapter on the subject. Information told "by angels of the third heaven." (D. V. XV.)

     (The statement written in this year in L. J. (Post.) 131, concerning a "holy book" in Tartary seems not to relate to the Ancient Word.)

     1763. Information contained in D. V. XV repeated, but stated to have been related" by the angels of heaven." (S. S. 102.)

     (C) Passages showing that the Ancient Word was lost, but is still preserved on earth.

     1764. New information given: "It is still preserved among the peoples who inhabit Great Tartary." Search directed to be made for it, but little hope given of discovery, (A. R. 11.)

     1771. Information given in A. R. 11 confirmed, but pronouncement as to preservation in Great Tartary less emphatic-"this new thing may be stated" being substituted for "this new information is to be given." No direction to search. (T. C. R. 279)

     "It is still preserved in Great Tartary." No direction to search. (Coronis 39. See T. C. R. 266.)

     T. C. R. 279 refers to the preservation of the Word in heaven, and to its disappearance from the earth, as well as to the new information as to its preservation in Great Tartary, but there seems to be some significance in the second group of statements as to its preservation in heaven coming between the other group as to its loss and preservation on earth. In connection with the whole matter it is, of course, to be borne in mind that Swedenborg knew, before his conversation with angels of the third heaven, that the Lord's Word is "forever . . . settled in heaven."

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He had been instructed by its Divine Author how such is the case, and how the angels so understand it. He also knew, from what he had previously learned, that "the angels of heaven cannot keep the mind in the idea of land, since the idea of land is material, nor in the idea of any nation, for this idea also is material. . . . And if you are willing to believe it, it is impossible that any material idea should enter heaven, it being put off at the very threshold." (A. C. 10568.)

     The angels would not therefore have known, without some special permission or instruction, whether the revelation made to the Ancient Church did or did not exist in book form in any earthly country; but in the year 1764 upon his conversation with certain spirits and angels who were in the spiritual world from Great Tartary, Swedenborg was made aware that the Ancient Word was still preserved among the peoples who inhabit that country.     

     In connection with this specific preservation, it must be remembered, as Mr. Tilson points out, that the Ancient Word was diffused over numerous countries. And, therefore, when Swedenborg wrote A. R. 11, it may have-one may indeed say that it must have-in some sense existed in other countries besides Great Tartary. We have no information as to this. Swedenborg does not refer to it, and the angels who told him that it was lost knew nothing of it. So far as they were concerned, the Ancient Word was lost, and until Swedenborg met the spirits and angels from Great Tartary he wrote from their viewpoint. "The angels and spirits from Great Tartary ... are separated from others by dwelling on a more elevated expanse and by not permitting any to come to them from the Christian world. . . . The cause of such separation is because they possess a different Word." (T. C. R. 279)

     The case was therefore different with the spirits and angels from Great Tartary. When Swedenborg wrote that the Ancient Word was still preserved among the peoples of that country, and that they performed their Divine worship according to that Word, such was of course the case. But, how is this to be understood? For ages past those peoples had been rude and belligerent nomads, and it does not seem possible that they could have either discovered a written Word which had been lost, or have preserved it in that form from the time they had first possessed it.

436


Their ancestors must apparently have read and understood such a Word; but from the varying notions entertained by the Tartars of the eighteenth century regarding the Object of their worship, it would appear that their knowledge of the Word was of a very crude kind, and their worship "in conformity with it" somewhat like that performed by many Christians in the world today in conformity with their Word. Such worship, however, as they did perform, was founded upon that revelation which, by permission of Divine Providence, tradition said had been with them in writing; and in that form those peoples were permitted to remember it on earth, to give information concerning it in the spiritual world, and to use it in heaven. With regard to the Tartars cultivating peace with the Chinese, it would seem that these friendly relations, which had been greatly improved during the important reign of Kang-he, diminished during the reign of Yung-ching, and still more during the reign of Keen-lung. And when Swedenborg wrote of this peace, he may have had in mind that these altered conditions would add to the difficulty of discovering the Word, and consequently spoke doubtfully of the success which would attend the search for it; and the waning of the friendly relations may have been the cause of his not repeating the injunction to search. If this were not so, it would seem that, as time went on, Swedenborg regarded the transactions between the two nations as unimportant, and their friendliness, or otherwise, as quite, immaterial to what he was commissioned to write. On the other hand, the direction is not given to the Chinese, but to the. Lord's New Church; and relations which formerly existed between the Tartars and the Chinese can scarcely be regarded as affecting our present obligations.

     It does not appear that such portions of the Ancient Word as are still extant have ever been lost. No new information as to this is given to us. The "new information" is, that the Ancient Word is still preserved in Great Tartary,-in that wild and dreary region inhabited by the descendants of that terrible race which has been described as " more inhuman in aspect and spirit, and more utterly devoid of all civilization, than any of the destroyers of mankind who a have been let out from the Tartarian regions to desolate the earth." (Encyclopedia Metropolitana, Vol. XII, p. 54) Even among such peoples were some who were capable of being regenerated, and, even in their country, there may still be found evidences of the Ancient Word-not, indeed, in material but in traditional form.

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The realization of it in such form would give men a better knowledge of the wonderful dispensations of the Divine Providence from whom it originated, and possibly for this reason it was directed that search be made for it.

     It seems difficult to know precisely what we are to understand by the direction to search for the Ancient Word, but we do know that more than 160 years have passed since it was written that a search might result in its being found. We also know that vast changes have been made in, the geographical boundaries and political conditions affecting the country in which, at the time of the Second Advent, it was still preserved. "The peoples who inhabit Great Tartary" no longer cultivate peace with the Chinese; the Chinese Emperor is no longer from their country; and it is no longer credible that they should believe that there is no other country in the world more populous than theirs. Do not these circumstances indicate that it is more and more improbable that any search for the Ancient Word would result in its being found in tangible form "in China ... among the Tartars?"
     STANLEY E. PARKER.
          Deal, England, 23d May, 1927.

     EDITORIAL ADDENDUM.

     The Ancient Word in Great Tartary.

     "As to the Ancient Word, which was in Asia before the Israelitish Word, it is fitting to relate this news: That it is still reserved there among the people who dwell in Great Tartary. I have spoken with spirits and angels in the spiritual world who were from that country, who said that they possess that Word, and that they had possessed it from ancient times; that they conduct their Divine worship according to that Word; and that it consists of nothing but correspondences. They said also that the Book of Jasher is in it, which is mentioned in Joshua (x:12, 13) and in the Second Book of Samuel (i:17, 18); as also that among them are the books, the Wars of Jehovah and the Prophecies, which are mentioned by Moses (Numbers xxi:14, 15, and 27-30); and when I read in their presence the words which Moses had taken therefrom, they searched whether they were extant there, and found them.

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It was made manifest to me from this that the Ancient Word is still among them. While speaking with them, they said that they worship Jehovah, some as an invisible God, and some as visible. They related further that they do not suffer foreigners to come among them, except the Chinese, with whom they cultivate peace, because the Emperor of China is from their country; as also that they are so populous that they do not believe any region in the whole world to be more so; which is credible also from the wall so many miles long which the Chinese constructed long since, as their safeguard against invasion from them. Seek for [that Word] in China, and perhaps you will find it there among the Tartars." (A. R. 112.)

     The Book of Job.

     So far as we are aware, the Writings do not speak of the Book of Job as a book of the Ancient Word, but only as a "book of the Ancient Church." Among the many statements in regard to that Book, the following seems to be conclusive on this point:

     "That the Book of Job is a book of the Ancient Church, is evident from the representative and significative style in which it is written; but it is not of those books which are called the Law and the Prophets, because it has not an internal sense which treats solely of the Lord and of His kingdom; for it is this alone which makes a book of the genuine Word." (A. C. 3540 end. See A. E. 543 end, etc.)

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Church News 1927

Church News       Various       1927

     LONDON, ENGLAND.

     On Sunday, April 3d, our Pastor, the Rev. R. J. Tilson reached the seventieth anniversary of his birth. At the morning service on that day his sermon was an appropriate and memorable one, being on the subject of "Life," expounding the text, "For with Thee, O Lord, is the fountain of life; in Thy light shall we see light." (Psalm) During the service the Holy was administered to forty-four communicants.

     On Tuesday, April 5th, there was a special gathering in honor of the anniversary under the auspices of the Michael Social Club, whose Secretary, Mr. Leonard Lewin, has been indefatigable in his efforts throughout the year. There was a large attendance, including the Rev. F. E. Gyllenhaal, of Colchester, and visitors from Chelmsford, Enfield Lock and Ilford, while many others sent letters of regret at their inability to attend. Mr. V. R. Tilson was Master of Ceremonies, and an interesting musical program was followed by refreshments, during which the toast to "The Church" was proposed in particularly happy terms by Mr. Lewin, grandfather of the aforementioned Secretary, and the doyen of the Society. He is now eighty-two years young. A toast to "The Pastor" was next proposed by Mr. Orme, Secretary of the Board, who embodied in his remarks many old memories-both pacific and militant-in connection with Mr. Tilson's work in the Church since he came to London forty-one years ago.

     Then came the toast for which we had been waiting-to "Our Pastor as a man-R. J. T."-this being proposed by Mr. Priest, the Chairman of the Board. The culminating point of his affectionate, appreciative and occasionally humorous remarks was the presentation to the Pastor of a cheque for seventy guineas from the members of Michael Church together with a number of friends, some belonging to the Conference, at home and abroad. Mr. Priest emphasized the willingness and pleasure with which the money had been subscribed, and the enthusiastic appreciation of our Pastor's character and work expressed in many of the letters which came with the donations. The presentation was accompanied by a framed testimonial, executed by the Vestry Deacon, Mr. V. Cooper, which read as follows:

     "To grow old in heaven is to grow young." (H. H. 414.)

     "Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, and honor the face of the old man." (Leviticus xix, 32)

     To the Rev. R. J. Tilson, Pastor of Michael Church, Burton Road, Brixton, London.

     Beloved Pastor:

     We, the undersigned, desire to offer you, on behalf of the members and friends of Michael Church, our sincerest congratulations on your attainment of the age of seventy years, and to ask your acceptance of the accompanying token of our deep appreciation of the invaluable work, both as Pastor and Preacher, which you have carried on among us for forty-one years. During the whole of that time you have unflinchingly upheld the banner of the supreme authority of the Writings of the Church, and have led your people under that standard.

     We would also take this opportunity of offering you our respectful congratulations upon your prospective elevation to the Third Degree of the Priesthood, and of expressing our deep joy and satisfaction that the Bishop of the General Church has seen fit thus to honor you.

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May you long be spared to continue the uses of the high and holy office to which, in the Divine Providence, you are called, and which are so well and truly done."
     (signed)
          WILLIAM PRIEST, Chairman of the Board.
          F. A. HARRISON, Treasurer.
          A. E. ORME, Secretary.
April 3, 1927-157.

     The toast having been honored with great acclamation, and a bouquet of red and white carnations presented to Mrs. Tilson, the Pastor rose to reply. He expressed his gratitude to all who had contributed to the gift and testimonial, and proceeded to recall to the memory of his hearers somewhat of the history of his work in the Church, its ups and downs, its lights and shadows, its joys and its struggles, in which many of those present had had their share. There were three members of Michael Church to-day who had been with him at the beginning of his work in Liverpool; several more had shared that work since its beginning in London. "The main platform-the unalterable cry-still a cry in the wilderness-is that the Theological Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg are the third of the Trinal Words of the Lord Jesus Christ, Who is the only God of heaven and earth. This has been the soul of the forty-one years of work. May the Lord keep it that!"

     The Pastor concluded his speech with a generous acknowledgment of the assistance in his use which he had received from Mrs. Tilson and his family, and by asking all present to repeat after him-standing-the following quotations:

     "To grow old in heaven is to grow young." (H. H. 414.) and "The Lord God alone lives." (S. D. 1313.) The singing of the National Anthem then brought this memorable meeting to a dose.
     R. M. D.

     REPORT OF THE VISITING PASTOR.

     Probably the best visit thus far made to DETROIT was that beginning with services on Sunday, April 24th. There was an attendance of twenty-four, including children. In the evening there was a doctrinal class, with twenty-two present, at which the subject was the Word as the Divine Truth Itself in its natural, spiritual and celestial senses. At WINDSOR, ONT., on Monday afternoon a children's class was held, and in the evening a class on the doctrine that man can know his spiritual quality by examining the ends of his life. On Tuesday evening there was another class at Detroit, with seventeen present, when the nature of man's external and internal thought was considered. This meeting was, we believe, the most delightful of all those held, because of the manifest sphere of the affection of truth which prevailed.

     The evening of Wednesday, April 27th, and the next forenoon were spent with friends at CLEVELAND,-Mrs. Rouette Cranch and her daughter, Edith, and sister, Miss Hunt, and Mr. and Mrs. William Parker and daughter. It was a great pleasure to meet them again. No formal meeting was held, but we passed the evening at the Parker home in conversation on various doctrinal subjects.

     At ERIE, PA., on Thursday evening, April 18th, class was held on the doctrine of degrees, specifically that the ultimate degree is the complex, containant and base of the prior degrees. On Saturday afternoon there was children's class, and in the evening another doctrinal class, on the subject of man's ruling love. Services, including the Holy Supper, were held on Sunday. Due to various causes, including illness in some of the families, the attendance at all meetings was small. On my way home from Erie, I stopped for three days at Pittsburgh, where I had a most enjoyable visit.

     On May 13th, I was again at Erie, to officiate at the funeral of Mrs. Benjamin Evans, who for many years has been one of the most active members of our circle in that city.

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She will be greatly missed, not only because of the part she took in the external life of the church, but also because of her contribution to the sphere of the Services and classes by her love for the Heavenly Doctrines.
     F. E. WAELCHLI.

     BRYN ATHYN.

     The Doctrinal Classes, which this year had been devoted to a study of the Tabernacle, came to a close on Friday, May 6th. The classes were well attended throughout the season, and great interest was shown in the treatment of the subject as Mr. de Charms dealt in detail with the various parts of the Tabernacle and their uses, and brought out their representation of the spiritual mind of man in the process of regeneration.

     On May 11th, the Spring Meeting of the Society was held, following the last Friday Supper of the season. An interesting feature of this occasion, as we still sat at the tables, was the presentation of a short play by the girls of the 7th and 8th grades, assisted by the 3d grade. It was a delightfully simple and artistic production of "Epimetheus and Pandora," well adapted to the capacities of the children and much enjoyed by the audience. It was under the direction of Miss Sigrid Odhner and Miss Erna Sellner, assisted by the other teachers.

     Following the play there was an intermission while the tables were removed in preparation for the business session of the meeting, and during this period the parents had opportunity to examine a very interesting display of work done by the children, illustrating what the school was doing for them. This is a very much appreciated feature of this Semi-annual Meeting.

     The formal business included a report from the Bishop devoted almost entirely to a statement of the unusual number of changes in our Elementary School Faculty. We feel deep regret in the loss of three teachers who have beep with us for a number of years,-Miss Creda Glenn, Miss Sigrid Odhner and Miss Venita Roschman. Other shifts necessitated by altered conditions include the loss of Miss Iris Briscoe, who has been giving halt-time in the Elementary School, but is called next year to devote her full time to the Girls' Seminary, and that of Mr. Frank Bostock from the grade work that he may take charge of the Bryn Athyn Church Choir and teaching singing throughout the school. We have been fortunate in securing the services of Miss Louise Gladish, Miss Anna Hamm, Miss Margaret Bostock, and Miss Anne Meisel to carry forward the teaching work next year.

     A new feature of the meeting was a report from the Secretary of the Pastor's Council, outlining the subjects discussed and the actions taken by that body, all of which were of vital interest to the Society.

     Mr. O. W. Heilman, Principal of the Elementary School, presented a report as usual in which he spoke of the steady and very promising growth of the school during the past twelve years. Miss Lucy Potts delivered a Paper on "Habit Formation," speaking of the importance of careful training, both at home and in school, especially during the earlier years of the child's life, since habits then formed are deeply impressed, and produce far-reaching results in the development of mind and character. Miss Sigrid Odhner said a few words of farewell, expressing the delight she had felt in her work, and her regret at leaving the treasured associations Of the past several years. Mr. Heilman closed the formal program by a speech on Mathematics and the Curriculum, illustrating especially the trend of development toward a simplification of process. He presented figures to show that, at a conservative estimate, considering the present rate of growth, we might look forward in 50 years to an Elementary School of 1000 pupils, and a membership of 50,000 in the General Church!
     G. de C.

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     WASHINGTON-BALTIMORE ASSEMBLY.

     The fourth joint Assembly of the Washington and Arbutus Societies was held on May 14th and 15th. The visiting clergy were: The Bishop, Dr. Acton and the Rev. T. S. Harris. The meeting on the 14th was held in Washington at the home of Mr. and Mrs. A. C. V. Schott, when the Bishop read a most interesting paper on "The Ministry of Blessing." The subject was a new one to most of us, and has been very little dwelt upon in the past. One has often wondered, for example, what difference it made that Jacob by deception received the blessing belonging to the first-born Esau, but an understanding of what is involved in all "Blessing" makes this clear. After the reading of the paper, we had an enjoyable dinner together, at which twenty-one were present. Following this the gathering came to order, and the Bishop's address was discussed. There were seven visitors from Arbutus, and as they had a trip of thirty-five miles to make, the meeting dosed at nine o'clock.

     On Sunday, the eight of the Washington Society motored to Arbutus, where services were held in the church. The Rev. Mr. Harris conducted the service, and the Bishop preached on "Regeneration." He spoke of the signs which are occasionally given to man from which he may derive comfort that he is traveling the road that leads to heaven. He is never sure, as the knowledge would be harmful to him, but he is given hope. The whole service was intoned, and was affecting, but it is questionable whether every society could do it as well as they do it at Arbutus.

     After the service, and while dinner was being prepared, a number of us took the opportunity to visit around. Twenty-seven sat down to a bountiful repast. Dr. Acton was toastmaster, which implies that we had instruction interspersed with humor. Most of the speakers read short papers: The Rev. Mr. Harris on "Worship"; Mr. Emil Gunther on "The Business Man and the New Church"; Mr. Fred Grant on "Social Life in the New Church"; and Mr. David Stebbing on "Education in the New Church."

     Impromptu remarks were made by several of those present, and the Bishop then spoke a few words in dosing. This was followed by the singing of "Our Glorious Church," which brought our Assembly to an end. Our two gatherings were small, but we feel that the instruction we received and the opportunities for social intercourse were of great benefit to us. The Lord's words come to our minds, "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them."
     MARGARET M. STEBBING.

     REPORT OF THE VISITING PASTOR.

     The final visit of the season to MIDDLEPORT, OHIO, was made from Wednesday, May 29th, to the following Sunday. Two evening doctrinal classes were held, and afternoon instruction was given twice to eight children. At the service on Sunday there was an attendance of nineteen, including children; and at the Holy Supper there were thirteen communicants. After the service all went to the farm of Mr. and Mrs. Boatman for a social dinner and picnic, which was very greatly enjoyed. During the afternoon a special meeting was held, and a resolution passed expressing appreciation of a gift of $2,000.00 to the Society by Mrs. Mary Bradbury, the widow of Mr. Oliver Bradbury, and thanking the donor for her kindness. Several members spoke of the great help this gift would be in maintaining the uses of the Society, and of the indication of Providence given thereby, that all are to look forward hopefully to the future of the Church in this community, and to labor all the more earnestly in the promotion of its welfare.
     F. E. WAELCHLI.

     CHICAGO, ILL.

     On Saturday, May 21, the ladies of Sharon Church entertained the ladies from the Immanuel Church, Glenview, with an additional few from the parishes of the Chicago Convention Society.

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It was a brilliant summer day, and the big porch at the home of Mrs. Farrington, where the social was held, was well filed with lively groups. After luncheon, we were entertained by a program of varied numbers:-A little play by O. Henry, Presented by Mrs. Neville Wright and Miss Emily Wallenberg; a mirth provoking personation of a great tenor, a prima donna and their gifted accompanist, given by the Misses Kitty Wright, Volita Wells and Virginia Junge; some sweet little love songs by our newest bride, Ruth Paulson and a song by Dr. Farrington.

     A meeting of our Philosophy Club was held on Sunday evening, May 22d, With an attendance of eleven persons. Dr. Farrington gave an interesting talk on "The Sense of Touch."

     At our last Friday Supper, Mr. Alvine E. Nelson gave us an account of his recent visit to the Holy Land, illustrated with fine pictures and souvenirs which Mrs. Nelson had collected and brought for us to enjoy.

     The Annual Meeting of Sharon Church was held on April 10th. The Pastor reported the accession of five new members. In spite of the removal of three families to Glenview, the attendance at services and classes had not diminished. The Treasurer reported the finances in good condition, the debt on the building having been reduced to $4500.00.
      E. V. W.

     GLENVIEW, ILL.

     The Pastor has been giving talks at the Friday Supper table, based principally upon separate chapters of the True Christian Religion, and has frequently followed the talks with the reading of one of the Memorable Relations appended to the chapter discussed. A series was previously given in which a correlation was made between the Ten Commandments and the Ten Blessings. On one or two other occasions, chapters from other works of the Writings were treated, and the effort was made to touch upon the salient points in each chapter. The attendance has been good, and the interest in the talks unusual.

     The Women's Arcana Class meets regularly for one hour's reading each week at the home of Mrs. Thomas Pollock, the number attending being about 19. Much ground has been covered in the Arcana Celestia, and the sphere of the class has been delightful.

     Mr. Jean Rydstrom, who is musical instructor in our school, cooperating with Mrs. Hope Hagar, who has given some lessons dancing and physical development, gave a jointly directed program in June. The pupils played, sang and danced, to the enjoyment of the parents who were present. From the fourth grade soloists at the piano to the sailors' dance and sword dance by the older boys, the children performed well. Miss Volita Wells furnished the accompaniments for the dance numbers, which included several costume dances by the girls.

     Graduation Day came on June 11th, with six pupils completing the eighth-grade work satisfactorily; Claire Barnitz, Harry Cole, Alan Fuller, William Junge, Virginia Smith and Marvin Stevens.

     On May 14th, the Ladies' Guild gave a bridge party for the Society, charging an admission of fifty cents per person, the proceeds to go to the depleted Social Fund. There were fourteen tables, a very pleasant time Was spent, and about $50.00 went to the Fund. The great popularity of this game is indicated by the large attendance at a party of this kind. Time was, not long ago, when but a third of the number could be mustered, and the few skillful he-players were backward about participating in a mixed tourney.

     Under the skilled direction of Messrs George Fisk and Ralph Synnestvedt, much work has been done upon the construction of the new tennis courts in the Park, and when finished they will be a joy to the players and a credit to the Park.

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     We are looking forward with pleasurable anticipation to several weddings of our young folks: Mr. Victor Gladish and Miss Lucy Wright on June 18th; Mr. Archibald Price and Miss Marjory Burnham on July 2d; Mr. Wm. Hamm and Miss Maud McQueen, August 27th; Mr. Kenneth Synnestvedt and Miss Beatrice Nelson, September 3d. The engagement of Miss Gladys Brown, of Toronto, to Mr. Healdon Starkey, of Glenview, has been announced.

     On June 1st, Mr. and Mrs. John Fuller and family moved into their new little cottage in "Fullerville" on Glenview Avenue, adjacent to the Park. Several of the Park boys helped John get his place ready, working as carpenters, electricians, painters, etc.

     "The Life Meeting concluded a successful year about May 1st. It is composed of men of the Society who gather at the home of Mr. G. A. McQueen on Tuesday evenings to read and discuss matter printed in New Church Life.
     R. S.

     SWEDENBORG SCIENTIFIC ASSOCIATION.

     The 30th Annual Meeting of the Swedenborg Scientific Association was held at Bryn Athyn, Pa. on June 1st, 1927. The Board of Directors met in the morning, and public sessions of the Association were held in the afternoon and evening. Both sessions were well attended, the subject matter of the evening meeting drawing a record attendance of 110 persons.

     The annual reports were encouraging, Professor Doering announcing that 18 new members had been received during the past year, bringing the total membership to 247. The financial outlook is good, and the photostating work is almost completed. Dr. Acton urged that the Association continue the photostating until all of Swedenborg's scientific manuscripts are reproduced in the exact form and order in which he wrote them. To complete this undertaking would involve 1261 manuscript pages, or about 1200 photostat pages, at an estimated cost of $500.00.

     Addresses were delivered as follows: At the afternoon session, Mr. Wilfred Howard read a paper on "The Resuscitation of Plants from their Ashes," in which he presented the results of his investigation of this phenomenon, which is mentioned several times by Swedenborg. Dr. Acton spoke extemporaneously on some points suggested by his reading of The Worship and Love of God, with special reference to the Third Part, which seemed to him a forerunner of all that was later given in the Theological Works. In the evening, President Hite delivered his annual address, the subject being "Swedenborg's Early Studies in Physiology," which proved to be a treatment of the subject of tremulation, and led to the discussion of the nature of substance, spiritual and natural. Professor W. B. Caldwell then read a paper on " The Philosophy of Bird Migration," illustrated with maps and bird pictures. The paper was a scholarly and deeply interesting treatment of the subject, consisting of a complete review of the modern theories as to the causes of migration, and suggesting solutions of the problem in the light of Swedenborg's teachings. The papers will be published in The New Philosophy.

     The Officers of the Association, with one exception, were re-elected for the coming year. Owing to ill health, Dr. F. A. Boericke resigned from the office of Vice President, which he has so capably filled for many years, and Professor R. W. Brown was elected in his place.
     WILFRED HOWARD,
          Secretary.

     SUNDRY NEWS ITEMS.

     Lausanne, Switzerland.

     At the General Assembly of the Federation of French-speaking Societies, to be held July 30-31, 1927, the Lausanne New Church Society will celebrate its tenth anniversary, and "as a fitting memorial of this first period of its existence proposes to collect funds that will enable it to carry out a scheme long cherished by the Federation, namely, the creation of a traveling Swedenborg and New Church Exhibition, to be held in various towns of Switzerland and France, and perhaps elsewhere."

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The circular from which we quote this announcement states that "any document, book, manuscript, photograph or engraving likely to prove interesting will be gratefully received by the Evidence Society, Pontaise 35, Lausanne, Switzerland."

     In addition, the Lausanne Society would like to create an International New Church Information Bureau at Geneva, the seat of the League of Nations. The function of this Bureau would be to supply information concerning the New Church to the foreign visitors constantly flocking to Geneva to attend the numerous international Congresses held in that town. And a stock of New Church books and periodicals would be kept on hand.

     South Africa.

     From The New-Church Herald of June 4th we learn of the death of David William Mooki, on April 2d, 1927, in his 48th year. The Rev. E. J. Pulsford gives a biographical account of this prominent Native Leader of the Conference South African Mission, and it is accompanied with a photograph of Mr. Mooki. Mr. Pulsford shows how the New Church movement among the Natives in South Africa began in the year 1909 with Mr. Mooki's finding of a copy of the True Christian Religion in a second-hand bookstore. "Attracted by the title, and by a cursory survey of its contents, he bought the book; a diligent study of it convinced him that its teachings were true, and were what his people needed. He introduced them to a number of his colleagues, ministerial and lay, who also received them gladly." Although this was the only book they knew, they initiated "The New Church of Africa" in January, 1911, and at that time did not know whether any other New Church organization existed in the world, although they thought that there must be a Church somewhere that held the doctrines which they had accepted. In course of time they came into correspondence with the General Conference, and in 1917 were recognized by that body as "The New-Church Native Mission in South Africa." The movement has spread far and wide, largely under the influence of Mr. Mooki, who was an eloquent speaker and conversant with five Native languages as well as English.

     THE ACADEMY SCHOOLS.

     The Annual Meeting of the Corporation and Faculties of the Academy of the New Church was held in the Chapel on Saturday morning, June 11th, when reports from all the departments were heard. The President spoke especially of the many recent changes in the teaching and clerical staff, with words of appreciation and regret for those who are departing, and words of welcome to the new members. Among the many interesting reports, that of Professor Doering, Dean of Faculties, presented statistics of attendance a the Schools covering a period of years, showing the proportion of boys and girls, the different localities from which they came, etc., illustrated by diagrams. An early issue of The Journal of Education will publish all of the reports.

     The Closing Exercises of the Elementary School were held in the Chapel on June 15th at 9 a.m. The Rev. C. E. Doering addressed the children on the subject of "Food," and showed in a graphic way how the Lord builds up the human body by means of the foods which nourish it, and also how He builds up the mind by means of knowledges. There were ten promotions from the eighth grade to the secondary schools,-6 boys and 4 girls.

     At 10 o'clock, the Commencement Exercises of the Higher Schools were held in the Auditorium, a large audience being present, including many visitors from a distance, as the Faculty and Board entered in procession with the student body.

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President Emeritus W. F. Pendleton officiated in the opening and dosing prayers, and the Rev. C. E. Doering read the Lessons and conducted the exercises, while President N. D. Pendleton announced the awards and presented the diplomas. The schools sang many beautiful numbers, including the Ninth Psalm from the Psalmody, in a manner that showed the excellence of their training under Mrs. Besse E. Smith.

     The Commencement Address was delivered by Mr. Alvin E. Nelson, of Glenview, Ill., who, in a very practical and effective talk, dealt with the subject of "Preparation for Uses." He encouraged those who go forth from our schools to expect a welcome from those who are engaged in the world's work. There is much of co-operation today in the business world, even competitors working together more than formerly. Newcomers are welcome, provided they enter with the idea of giving rather than getting. As to entering into the uses of the Church, this is voluntary; there is no compulsion. Our country requires certain duties of its citizens; we must submit to law and order, and we may be drafted in time of war. But our co-operation in the uses of the Church is a matter of our free choice in freedom; and it is important that this should be the case, for without freedom there is no salvation. Here, however, is the field of self-government. The young who go forth from under the parental and school discipline come under the bonds of self-discipline, and they will often find it a more severe discipline than the former.

     The speaker went on to say that the true success is not that of worldly gain, but of the acquisition of spiritual riches, and this cannot be accomplished without sacrifice in the humbling of the loves of self and the world. We are taught in the Doctrines that the life which leads to heaven is not as difficult as some suppose; the only thing necessary is to prevent the loves of self and the world from becoming dominant, and thus to sacrifice them when they prevail. In this we need the Lord's help in the life of the Church. He is the Shepherd of the flock, as is often said in the Word. We would realize more fully the meaning of this, if we could see how important is the use of the shepherd in Palestine, where even today the sheep must be protected from wild animals and led to the green pastures, which are not very plentiful. So the Lord as the Shepherd, represented in the Church by our pastors, must protect us against the wild beasts of natural loves, and nourish us continually with spiritual truths for our salvation.

     The Girl's Seminary presented 11 pupils for graduation, the Boy's Academy 10, and these received their diplomas at the hands of the President of the Academy. Nine students of the College received Junior College Certificates. Members of the three groups made suitable acknowledgment of the benefits received during their sojourn with the Academy. The President then announced the following awards: Phi Alpha Epsilon Gold Metal-Philip Cooper; Sigma Delta Pi I Honor Student-George C. Doering, who also received the Silver Cup as Oratorical Prize; The Deka Gold Medal-Elizabeth Mary Field; the Alpha Kappa Mu Merit Bar-Katherine Macbeth Boggess; and Theta Alpha Scholarships-Phyllis Cooper and Alice Smith. At the Commencement Dance in the evening a large number of Athletic Awards were bestowed by Mr. Finkeldey in recognition of prowess in tennis, baseball and football.

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TWENTY-FIRST BRITISH ASSEMBLY 1927

TWENTY-FIRST BRITISH ASSEMBLY              1927




     Announcements.




     TO BE HELD IN COLCHESTER, JULY 30TH TO AUGUST 1ST, 1927.

     PROGRAM.

     Saturday, July 30th.

6:00 p.m.-Tea.
8:00 p.m.-First Session. Address by the President, the Rev. R. J. Tilson. Subject: "The Vanishing Shadows of the Word."

     Sunday, July 31st.

11:00 a.m.-Divine Worship. Preacher: the Rev. R. J. Tilson.
1:00 p.m.-Dinner.
4:30 p.m.-Administration of the Holy Supper.
6:00 p.m.-Tea.
7:00 p.m.-Second Session. Address by the Rev. G. A. Sexton.

     Monday, August 1st.

11:00 a.m. Third Session. Address by the Rev. F. E. Gyllenhaal. Subject: "The Ways of Knowing."
1:00 p.m.-Dinner,
3.00 p.m.-Fourth Session. Address by Mr. J. Potter, F. R. A. S. Subject: "Accommodating the Truth"
5:00 p.m.-Tea.
7:30 p.m.-Assembly Social.

     The services and meetings will be held in the church of the Colchester Society, Maldon Road. The meals will be served in a marquee at the rear of the church. Meal tickets at 9/- for the five meals, and single meal tickets, may be obtained from the Treasurer, Mr. A. J. Appleton, 3 Drury Road. Hotel accommodation may be arranged through Mr. John F. Cooper, 30 Culver Street.

     Gentlemen attending the Assembly are cordially invited to the 76th meeting of the New Church Club, London, which will be held at Ye Olde London Restaurant, Ludgate Hill, on Friday, July 29th, at 7 p.m. The Rev. G. A. Sexton will deliver the Address. Subject: "Modern Science and Swedenborg."

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MEDIATION 1927

MEDIATION        W. F. PENDLETON       1927


NEW CHURCH LIFE
VOL. XLVII AUGUST, 1927           No. 8
     "And Joseph knew his brethren, and they did not know him." (Genesis 42:8.)

     The story of Joseph, of the cruelty of his brethren, and of his final elevation to supreme power in Egypt; has delighted young and old from the earliest times. But men are mostly ignorant of the source of this delight, because they do not know, or do not believe, that angels are present with men, endeavoring to inspire good affections, especially when men are reading the Word. But the delight of the angels is not so much in the things of the outer world, as recorded in the letter of Scripture, but in what these things signify,-the spiritual things which they represent. For the Word is essentially spiritual, and the spiritual Sense is the Word to the angels of heaven. To them Joseph is not Joseph, nor is Benjamin Benjamin, nor the ten sons the ten sons: The delight of the angels is in what these persons represent; but with men it is changed into a delight in the historical narrative. Let us now endeavor to see what it is that these Biblical characters represent, especially what is signified by the words, "And Joseph knew his brethren, and they did not know him."

     Joseph was in Egypt, and his ten brethren had come to buy corn, but Benjamin was not with them. He had been left with his father Jacob in the Land of Canaan. The ten sons did not know Joseph when they saw him, and Joseph was unwilling to reveal himself, because they had not brought Benjamin with them. In the light of the spiritual sense, this fact is most significant, revealing an essential spiritual law, which we shall now endeavor to show.

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     The events recorded in the chapter from which the text is taken occurred in the Land of Egypt, and hence a knowledge of what that land represents is important for the understanding of the spiritual sense. In that sense Egypt is the natural mind, or the essential characteristic of that mind, which is reasoning from appearances, or from things in the natural world outside of man, things that enter through the senses of the body. Thinking from these outside things, and forming conclusions from them, is what is called "science" in the Writings, and constitutes the understanding with the natural man. In the time of the consummation of the Ancient Church, the Egyptian priesthood reasoned from these appearances of nature, such as were used as representatives in their worship; and they formed conclusions from them concerning the things of heaven and eternal life. But these conclusions were mostly false.

     It may be remarked here that this science of the Egyptians was the origin and beginning of all science and philosophy, ancient and modern. In the modern world, science takes a twofold form,-reasoning from appearances in the letter of the Word, producing a false theology, and reasoning from the phenomena of nature, producing a false science. Let it be known, however, that the discovered facts of nature are in themselves true; and so are the literal statements of Scripture; but it is the conclusions from them concerning things spiritual and Divine that have produced a false theology or a false science. It is because of this that the Christian World is also called "Egypt" in the prophecies of the Word. Joseph represents the Lord, especially the Lord in His Second Coming, now present in the midst of the Christian World,-the modern Egypt,-revealing Himself as the One only God of heaven and earth, coming to be the one supreme Ruler of the nations, King of kings and Lord of lords, even as Joseph was ruler in Egypt.

     Benjamin, who was left in the Land of Canaan with his father Jacob, is representative of the Lord as to charity or love to the neighbor, as that love is in heaven and with spiritual men in the world; just as Joseph is representative of the Lord and love to Him in heaven and in spiritual or regenerating men on earth. These two, Joseph and Benjamin,-love to the Lord and charity to the neighbor,-are the two grand essentials of spiritual life in all the heavens and in all the earths,-signified also by the two great commandments which the Lord gave to His disciples.

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Let us note here that charity or love to the neighbor is the only means of approach to the Lord, the only means of introduction to love to Him. Hence the oft repeated statement in the Arcana Celestia that Benjamin represents a medium, that is, a medium or means of approach. This medium, which is charity, is, abstractly or more interiorly considered, the affection of truth. Those who have in themselves this medium, which is charity or the love of truth for its own sake, are they who come worthily to the Holy Supper, in which Supper the Lord is present.

     The ten brethren of Joseph, who were in Egypt without Benjamin, are those who are not or not yet in charity or love to the neighbor, not or not yet in the spiritual affection of truth. Their natural mind is occupied, or as yet occupied, with the love of self and the love of the things of the world, regarding these as the only desirable ends in life. This is the reason it is said that Joseph made himself strange, and said hard things to them, and called them spies coming to see the nakedness of the land. Joseph assumed this appearance because they had not Benjamin with them; and he demanded that Benjamin be brought to him. He treated them in a hard and harsh manner, but he really loved them, which is shown by the fact that he turned aside and wept, and also by his kind treatment of them afterward. Such is the appearance of the Lord to every man who draws near to Him, and who has not genuine charity in his heart. The Lord appears to such a man as a harsh and angry God, when yet His love for every man, for all men, is infinite. But every man must approach Him with clean hands and a pure heart, with charity and love, that he may be able to receive what the Lord has to give.

     The leading idea of the text, in its supreme sense, is that the Lord knows man, but man does not know the Lord. The natural man does not know the Lord, or His Word, or His works. Joseph knew his brethren, but they did not know him. The natural man does not know the Lord, and if he remains ignorant of Him, remains merely natural, remains confirmed in his natural loves, he will never know the Lord. He will never see the Lord, either in this world, or in the world to come to all eternity; and if he seeks for Him, he will seek in vain. It is only the pure in heart that shall see God. The impure and corrupt in heart,-they who hate God and the neighbor,-are forever cut off, forever separated from the Lord God, the Creator of the world and the Savior of men, forever separated from the angelic heaven.

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Such is the final and everlasting lot of those who do not take with them the spiritual Benjamin, when they begin their search for the Divine Man, Jehovah, Jesus Christ, who came into the world to bring salvation to mankind.

     Those who do not know the Lord do not know the Divine things which are from Him,-the Divine things which are Himself with angels and men, the things which reveal Him, the Divine Truth of Revelation, the Sacred Scripture as the Word of God, the Revelation now given to men in the Writings of the New Church. Not knowing the Lord, they do not know these things. Men see them, indeed, but see them as books, as literature, as philosophy; but they do not see the Lord in them, do not know that the Lord is there; even as the ten sons, now in Egypt, did not know Joseph; even as that new king who arose in Egypt, and who enslaved the children of Israel, did not know Joseph.

     Those who are joined with the Lord by love to Him, and by charity to the neighbor, are also meant by Joseph. And because they are in the Lord, and the Lord in them, they know many things which the natural man does not know. And so the text treats also of the knowledge, intelligence, and wisdom of the angels of heaven, some share of which the regenerating man on earth may have. On the other hand, the text treats of the dense ignorance of the natural man, who is separated from heaven by a life of evil,-his dense ignorance of spiritual and Divine things. The wisdom of the one and the ignorance of the other are placed in striking contrast. "And Joseph knew his brethren, and they did not know him." The spiritual man, standing in the bright light of Revelation, knows many things of which the natural man is ignorant.

     This truth is variously illustrated in the Writings. For instance, we are told that the angels in the heavens, from the spiritual light in which they are,-the light of spiritual intelligence,-can see everything that is taking place below in the world of spirits; those who are in that world beneath the heavens being in a state similar to men in the world. The angels can see and understand the state of every spirit in the world of spirits, even to the minutest particular, as they can see and understand the state of men in the natural world. But spirits in the world of spirits, and men in the natural world, cannot see or understand the state of the angels of heaven or of their heavenly life, except with those relatively few who are in the light of revelation from heaven by the Word; and the spiritual light even with these is as yet dim and obscure.

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But after death, in heaven, they will know as they are known.

     The angels can see, not only the state of the natural man in the world of spirits and on earth, but they can see the entire state of the hells, in general and in particular. But those who are in hell cannot see the state of heaven, nor can they see a single angel of heaven. Much less can they see the Lord. They do not believe that there is a heaven, or that there are any angels, or that the Lord exists. So dense is their ignorance, they do not believe that there is a life after death, having lost all knowledge of the fact of their own death and entrance into the spiritual world. It is but a deepening, dense impact, a mighty confirmation and permanent establishing of their complete ignorance while they lived as men in the world. How little spiritual light there is abroad in the world, is plain to anyone who has allowed the light of the new Revelation, now made from heaven, to penetrate the thought of his mind. But "the light shineth in the darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not." (John 1:5.) Yea, "light is come into the world, but men love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil" (John 3:19), because they love only the things of the world.

     In all this we have an explanation of the reason why, in the literature of spiritism, in all the revelations of their mediums, no knowledge appears of the true angelic heaven, nor of the Lord of that heaven. So far as they have any communication with the spiritual world, it is with spirits who are as densely ignorant as themselves, who know nothing of the true heaven and its Lord. But their own state is plainly seen in angelic light. They do not know the angels, but the angels know them, even as Joseph knew his brethren, but they did not know him.

     And the reason they do not see is because there is not present in them a true medium, a genuine mediation. They are as the ten sons of Jacob, who were in Egypt without Benjamin, and hence were not permitted to know Joseph. That is, they are without that charity which is represented by Benjamin. And he who is without charity is without spiritual light, is in the darkness of evil, the falsity of evil, even as the Lord said in the Sermon on the Mount, "If thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness.

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If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness." (Matt. 6:23) This is the darkness predicted by the prophet Isaiah, when he said, " For, behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people." But there immediately follows the expression of a hope for mankind, a hope which is spiritual and Divine in its origin: "But the Lord shall arise upon thee, and His glory shall be seen upon thee. And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising." (Isaiah 60:2, 3) These words of the prophet are a prediction of the Lord's Second Coming, when spiritual light, the light of the Sun of heaven, will be spread abroad upon the earth, and find a lodgment with all who are willing to receive it in understanding and will, in heart and life.

     It is according to the historical narrative that, when Benjamin was brought, the ten sons would be permitted to know Joseph, and not before. Benjamin was to be the means of the reconciliation of Joseph and his brethren. Otherwise there would be none, and the ten sons would never know Joseph. There could be no other means of expiating the fault they had committed,-their sin against Joseph. This is not merely history, but it is the expression of an all-pervading law, a principle of universal operation, whether in the spiritual world, in human life, or in the domain of nature,-the principle, the necessity, of mediation, that one thing may approach and be adapted to another, or be joined to another, as it were in friendship, or be enabled to act in co-operation and mutual accommodation. The eye cannot see without the medium of the ether, the ear cannot hear without the medium of the air. The sun itself cannot give its light and heat to the earth without the medium of the intervening atmospheres. The Lord cannot approach and apply Himself to man without the mediation of the angelic heaven; and, in the supreme sense, God cannot be reconciled to man, nor can man draw near to God, without a Divine mediation. No man could live unless there were a Mediator between God and man. This Mediator is not, as is vainly imagined, another Divine Person, the second Person of a divided Trinity; but the Divine Mediator is the Divine Human of the Lord, His Divine Body, as it were, just as the body of man is the medium of approach, the means by which the soul of anyone draws near, applies itself, communicates, comes into touch with other men, and with the world of nature.

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There is no exception to the rule of mediation,-the law of approach, the principle of accommodation, the means of the conjunction of one thing with another, applicable and operative universally in the spiritual world, in human life, in nature, and in all the works of God the Creator, and of God the Redeemer. Without mediation, there is no conjunction of heaven with man, no approach of man to God, no salvation.

     And this is the law that is expressed in the historical fact that Joseph would not be reconciled to his brethren until they brought Benjamin unto him; and is the reason why it is said that Joseph knew his brethren, and they did not know him, and that he appeared rough and hard and angry with them. Reconciliation must first take place by the establishing of a medium or means of communication, and this medium was Benjamin.

     It has been shown in what we have said that Benjamin represents that spiritual charity which is the only means of approach to God, the only means of reconciliation, the only means to the conjunction of man with the Lord God the Savior, the only means to the reception of spiritual life from Him, the only means to eternal salvation. It is also the only means of introduction to the angelic presence, the only means to the opening of the spiritual mind, by which man enters into consociation with the angels of heaven, and by which he dwells with them in spirit while he is still on earth, and by which he is actually introduced into some angelic society after the death of the body.

     Now genuine charity is the same as the spiritual affection of truth; for he who is in charity loves the spiritual truth of the Word, and there is nothing he so much desires as that spiritual truth by which he knows how to love his neighbor, by which he knows who the neighbor is that is to be loved, by which he is led to know the evils that are sins against God and sins against the neighbor, and by which he is inspired to wage war against such evils, that he may be set free from infernal bondage, set free to love God and the neighbor, and by that love be reconciled to God and introduced into all the happiness that comes by consociation with the angels of heaven. Without charity, without the spiritual affection of truth, without the spiritual truth of the Word in his mind and life, he is without the medium of approach to heaven and the Lord.

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He is like the ten sons of Jacob who were in Egypt, who came to Joseph without Benjamin, and who therefore represented those who possess the truths of the church but are without charity or love to the neighbor, who acquire and teach those truths, not for the salvation of souls, but for the sake of honor and reputation, the applause of men, the acquisitions of the world.

     Representing the love of worldly gain, instead of the love of the salvation of souls, the ten sons were charged by Joseph with being spies, come to see the nakedness of the land. Thus is represented the state of every priest and minister, of every member of the church, who seeks and acquires the truth for the sake of the glory and honor of the world, and whose inmost thought is of himself and of the favor and applause of men. But it is a state that may be removed; and it is removed by the processes of the regenerate life, by which a genuine love of the neighbor is acquired. For we read that the ten sons of Jacob were reconciled to Joseph when they brought Benjamin and humbled themselves before Joseph as the lord of the land. Even so it is possible for man, during his life in the world, to be reconciled to the Lord God the Savior, by acquiring the truths of the Word and living according to them, taking heed to what is represented in the command of Joseph to his ten brethren: "Bring your youngest brother unto me; so shall your words be verified, and ye shall not die. And they did so." (Genesis 42:20) Amen.

     Lessons: Genesis 42:1-20. Isaiah 60:1-15. A. C. 8573.

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BIRD MIGRATION 1927

BIRD MIGRATION       Rev. W. B. CALDWELL       1927

     THE OPERATING CAUSES CONSIDERED IN THE LIGHT OF THE TEACHINGS OF EMANUEL SWEDENBORG.

     (Read at a meeting of the Swedenborg Scientific Association, Bryn Athyn, Pa., June 1, 1927. Reprinted from The New Philosophy, July, 1927, with the kind permission of the Editor.)

     It is the purpose of this paper to discuss what is known as the mystery of bird migration, to present the chief factors upon which various theories looking to a solution have been based, and to bring the teachings of Swedenborg to bear upon the problem. A full appreciation of the questions involved requires some familiarity with bird life, gained by observation or reading; and a thoroughgoing inquiry into the phenomenon of migration in detail could only be undertaken upon the basis of extensive data which there is not space to set forth here; but by way of introducing the subject for a consideration of its general outlines, it will be desirable to set down a few of the outstanding facts.

     GENERAL FACTS.

     Of the many species of wild birds to be found upon the earth, the great majority perform a periodical migration to and from their breeding places. This migration is most marked where the seasonal changes are greatest. In the tropics, it is little more than an annual return to the breeding locality after a period of wandering; yet it occurs with great regularity on given dates for different species, without respect to the seasons. But with most of the species which breed north and south of the tropics there is a seasonal migration to and from the breeding range. Thus the migratory birds which nest in the United States and Canada, in Northern Europe and Asia, migrate southward after the summer's nesting, and return the following spring to their breeding grounds. The distances of this southward movement vary with different species, but it carries not a few of them across the equator to spend a second summer during the northern winter.

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A number of our North American birds go to South America, some English species to South Africa, and some from northern Asia to Australia.

     There is a similar migration in the Southern Hemisphere, the migratory species coming north after the summer's nesting, and returning the following spring. With a few exceptions, however, these southern birds do not migrate north of the equator. Among these exceptions we may mention Wilson's Petrel, popularly known as the "Stormy Petrel" or "Mother Carey's Chicken," which breeds on Antarctic islands in February, and is found as far north as Labrador and the British Isles during our summer. For an explanation of the fact that so few southern birds come north of the equator, we would refer the reader to Professor A. Landsborough Thomson's Problems of Bird-Migration, pp. 32, 33. (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1926.) This recent work is a most interesting and thorough treatment of the whole subject.

     On the American Continent north of Mexico about one thousand species of birds nest in summer, and their breeding ranges are well defined and have been accurately recorded. Nor do these ranges change, except very slowly. The Bobolink, for example, which prefers moist meadows, extended its range in the Western States when the irrigation projects were introduced. A few of the North American species, like the Cardinal, are non-migratory; others, like the Song Sparrow, migrate from the northern parts of their range, but may be stationary in the southern parts. Most of our birds, after the summer's nesting season, and on the completion of the postnuptial molt, migrate southward to winter ranges, from which they return the following spring. The winter ranges are fairly well defined and recorded for most species, but are not as fixed as the summer breeding range; the nesting locality is the real home; in winter, food is the prime necessity, in search of which birds may wander widely.

     The distance between the summer and winter range varies from a few hundred miles to eleven thousand. Birds nesting in Ontario and New York State may winter no farther south than Virginia and the Carolinas; some that breed in the Arctic regions migrate as far as Patagonia and the Antarctic. Many species breeding in Canada and the Northern States migrate to Central and South America.

     There is also a movement up and down mountains, notably on Mount Orizaba, near Vera Cruz, Mexico.

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In the case of some species, a migration of three miles, from the tropical conditions at the base of this mountain to the limit of trees near the summit, parallels the journey from the tropics to Canada which is made by others of the same species.

     The routes followed in the journeys between summer and winter ranges are known in many cases, although this knowledge is somewhat restricted by the difficulties of observation, and especially by the fact that many birds migrate by night. In general, the migratory movement is in a north and south direction, modified somewhat by land contours, bodies of water, feeding areas, etc. Thus a movement from North to South America requires a deflection from due south.

     It is well known that birds observe regular times in their migrations. The records of spring-arrival dates reveal a remarkable uniformity, year after year-an important fact to be borne in mind in considering any theory of migratory causes. There is also a regularity in the fall departure, though not as uniform and exact, since it lacks the urgency of the spring movement to the breeding grounds.

     Innumerable facts as to bird behavior in relation to migration have been preserved by scientific observers, and the banding process is adding every year to this store of information. (This subject is fully treated in Prof. Thomson's work, referred to above.)

     And so, furnished with a wide knowledge of the facts of bird migration in its world-wide scope, students have labored, and are laboring, to ascertain the origin, causes and hidden forces operating in this phenomenon of the animal world; and many are the theories that have been advanced to explain it. Yet no theory so far proposed is satisfactory to the scientific world, because none conforms to all the facts. By common consent, therefore, migration remains a mystery and a problem. Nor can we hope for a solution at the bands of those who approach the question solely by the way of the senses and scientific observation, who never penetrate beyond the outer court of a knowledge of the causes and inner mechanism of natural phenomena. It is because Swedenborg penetrated beyond the veil of scientific evidence to the world of interior nature, and beyond it, that the light given us in his works has solved so many so-called mysteries of creation, and may be expected to furnish a solution of the problem of migration in the animal world.

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For it is not alone birds that migrate. The whole animal kingdom possesses the faculty, whether exercised or not-mammals, fishes, insects, bats, birds-a movement from one locality of land or sea to another, guided by an instinct and accurate knowledge which astonishes mankind.

     We marvel, because we lack that inner sense which leads unerringly to a distant place not obvious to our senses of sight, hearing or smell. That men once enjoyed such a faculty, is frequently asserted by Swedenborg, who was himself given to experience it. Moreover, it survives among primitive peoples, and occasionally with an individual of the civilized races. For the most part, however, men have lost that sense of place and of times which is common to animals, and which plays such a large part in the migratory phenomenon. "Yea, the stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed times; and the turtle and the crane and the swallow observe the time of their coming; but my people know not the judgment of the Lord." (Jeremiah 8:7.) "The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib; but Israel doth not know; my people doth not consider." (Isaiah 1:8.)

     VARIOUS THEORIES.

     Before citing the teachings of Swedenborg which bear upon the subject of migration, let us review briefly the theories which have been advanced in the attempt to explain it. In each of them we will, I think, find part of the truth, though no one of them explains all of the operating causes in migration.

     The factors upon which theories are based may be classified as extrinsic and intrinsic, having reference to causes operating either from without upon the animal organism or from within the organism itself.

     EXTRINSIC CAUSES-COSMIC.

     Temperature Theory.-A common idea with casual observers is that birds are simply driven south by the cold in the fall and winter, and return with the warmth of spring; which idea is well expressed in the familiar rhyme:

The north wind doth blew, and we shall have snow,
And what will poor Robin do then, poor thing!

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     Yet the American Robin can endure our severest winters, and a few of them, both singly and in docks, remain in the Northern States and Southern Canada throughout the cold months of the year. Many birds have a high bodily temperature which enables them to resist extreme cold, even 50 degrees below zero, as in the cases of the Ptarmigan, Snow Bunting and Hudsonian Chickadee.

     It is true that temperature and the weather have their influence in accelerating or retarding migratory movements, but they do not account for the regularity of arrival and departure dates; nor do they explain why birds may leave for the south during a September hot spell, and may be greeted by a blizzard upon their return in April. We must here take into consideration that conditions in the air may be different from those in the ether and aura. The latter exercise a more powerful influence upon the bird organism, and may produce a migratory advance which yet encounters adverse conditions of temperature, storm and wind in the air. (See S. D. 418, 1116, where it is shown that the air may be turbulent and tempestuous while the ether is calm.)

     The Sun Theory.-The theory of dominance by the sun fails to satisfy the scientific mind when it considers, for example, that the Arctic Tern and other species migrate from the Arctic to the Antarctic and back. We take issue with this objection, however, believing that it rather confirms the idea that the sun, in its changing position in relation to the earth as the cause of the seasons, must be accorded a predominant place in that seasonal movement which most migration is: The "pole-to-pole" migration is a movement with the sun, carrying such birds to an environment in the south similar to that which they preferred in the north. It is like the swing of the pendulum. Such migrations are extremes, between which there is great variety of movement back and forth with the sun. But we shall presently treat more fully of the influence of the sun and its aura upon bird migration.

     The Daylight Theory.-Allied to the Sun Theory is the one which holds that the birds seek the longer days for the sake of feeding, some species requiring a whole day to obtain sufficient sustenance. But this, too, would be following the sun, whose position in relation to the earth is the cause of the short and long days. It is a fact that birds find longer days in their southern winter ranges.

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Those which migrate beyond the equator enjoy the long daylight of the southern summer. The birds which breed in the Arctic "land of the midnight sun" find a similar condition if they migrate to the Antarctic region, as a few species do. Is this fact to be regarded as a cause of migration, or merely an effect?

     It is well known that light plays an important part in plant life, and that the whole vegetable kingdom tends to follow the sun's course across the sky, the trees twisting in one direction north of the equator, and in the opposite direction south of the equator. Swedenborg speaks of this as follows:

     "Plants spring up among the grass, and rise above the things with which they are surrounded, that they may look at the sun; others, from the rising to the setting of the sun, turn themselves towards him, that thus they may ripen under his auspices. Nor do I doubt that there is like tendency and effort in the twigs and boughs of every tree, though the act stops because they have not the elastic power of bending and turning about. That all whirlpools of water and quicksands of the ocean are spontaneously carried around according t, the common progression of the sun, is obvious to the attentive observer. (T. C. R. 767. See also no. 308)

     We may here cite a recent statement of the Daylight Theory, summarizing the views of Professor Rowan, of Boston. It will also serve to illustrate the nature of the present-day efforts to solve the problem of bird migration. We read:

     ". . . . Professor Rowan Points out that neither food nor temperature is of sufficiently regular recurrence to account for the extraordinary accuracy of arrival-date in a number of migrating species. The only environmental factor which would seem to fulfil the necessary conditions is length of daylight. The author's case is strengthened by reference to the well-known and important discoveries concerning the influence of day-length upon plants. If such extraordinary effects upon rate of growth and time of flowering can be exerted by this agency in plants, there is every reason for suspecting that it may be operative in animals also. In birds it might operate directly, or indirectly through length of time available for feeding. In addition to a critical summary and discussion, Rowan refers to the results of his experimental investigations on the subject.

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He has definitely established that an increase of 'day' in autumn, produced by artificial illuminations after dark, will cause precocious growth of gonads [germ-glands] (accompanied in the males by song) in the dead of a Canadian winter, in species which normally migrate southward in early autumn. He has further established that control birds liberted in midwinter when their gonads were at minimum size do not migrate southward, while light-exposed birds whose gonads are beginning to enlarge, if liberated at the same time, disappear; one may, with the author, surmise that the light has so upset their normal equilibrium that they move northward in spite of the arctic conditions. It therefore appears quite probable that relative length of day and light, acting via the gonads, determines the onset of migration." (LIBRARY DIGEST, May 21, 1927.)

     Now we do not question that the light of the sun, and also of the moon, have their influence upon the times of bird migration. Some species select the day for their migratory flights; others fly only by night; and moonlight nights during the migration season commonly witness a vast movement of birds. Feeding during the day, the advance to a new feeding-ground is made at night. In general, it is held that the night migrants are those species which commonly seek safety from enemies by concealment, while those species which fly by day are those that feed on the wing or which can rely upon their strong powers of flight to escape from their enemies. Thus various causes operate in this selection of times. And the fact of night migration shows that birds do not depend upon daylight to see their way, even supposing that vision has much to do with the direction of the journey.

     But while light does play its part as a factor, we must hold that it is secondary to heat as a fundamental cause of bird migration. This is true on general principles; for heat acts more deeply than light upon the animal organism; and this also can be proved by experiments with artificial heat.

     The Magnetism Theory.-This theory is favored by some scientists, who regard terrestrial magnetism as a potent farce in the migratory movements of birds. We shall note presently how Swedenborg, nearly 200 years ago, assigned to magnetism, as a phase of his second aura, an essential influence in the animal power of direction.

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     EXTERNSIC CAUSES-TERRESTRIAL.

     The theories we have so far mentioned are concerned with cosmic or meteorological influences upon bird migration. Terrestrial conditions also have their extrinsic effects upon the animal organism. Every animal has its own proper environment upon the earth's surface, and there it is at home, content and satisfied.

     In its natural habitat the animal finds its equilibrium, which may be defined as the balance of outer conditions with its inner states and desires. Man himself, if he follow his inclinations, will constantly seek such an equilibrium, mentally, socially and physically. He will, if possible, dwell where the climate and earthly surroundings most fully accord with his tastes, with his very pulse and respiration; for there he will enjoy the most perfect health. Animals seek such habitations automatically and instinctively. Indeed, "there is no substance in the created universe which does not tend to an equilibrium, in order that it may be in freedom." (T. C. R. 496 end.) And birds, equipped with superior powers of locomotion, born to travel the air, are better able to gratify this desire for equilibrium than other creatures of the animal kingdom.

     In its natural habitat the animal also finds the food best suited to its own sustenance and that of its young-the food that exactly corresponds to its desire and appetite, and which its blood craves. (See D. L. W. 420. A. E. 1212.)

     The animal attachment to places is well known, and this instinct must be regarded as a powerful factor in migration, which may be defined as a reluctant departure from the home environment, and a return to it. It is not unlikely that sight, as well as smell, plays a part in the finding of the immediate nesting site, and also that there is recognition from a kind of memory. There is at least a sphere of gladness and content on returning to former haunts.

     A Food Theory would also involve a vital factor in migration, as in the bird's very existence. That a deeper influence overcomes the reluctance to forsake the favorite food is proven by the fact that many species migrate southward when their proper food is most abundant, and when, for many months, they must be content with substitutes, which, however, they know how to find in southern dimes, and which must play a large part in determining the winter range.

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     Thus the ducks and loons of our fresh-water lakes and rivers find open water in the Southern States, or spend the winter out on the Atlantic; the swallows, swifts and flycatchers, as well as the warblers that feed upon the worms on tree and bush, go to Central and South America for their substitute dainties; the shore birds on North American seacoasts go south on both sides of the Continent, even to Patagonia. The Wheatear, whose summer nesting is in Greenland and Ungava, winters in western Africa, migrating thence through the British Isles and France. The Knot, breeding in Arctic America, and in Siberia, migrates on the seacoasts of all continents, to winter in Patagonia, South Africa, Australia or New Zealand.

     Those species of birds which endure our northern winters live chiefly upon seeds, unless, like the woodpeckers, they bore the trees for grubs, or find insects in the crevices of the bark, as do the Brown Creepers, the Chickadees, Kinglets and Nuthatches. The birds of prey, such as hawks and owls, may go south with the feathered flocks from which they select their daily fare, or remain in the north to live upon small mammals, chickens and winter birds.

     The non-migratory birds of our Northern States are chiefly those which can subsist upon seeds, berries and other products of the vegetable kingdom. Some migratory species remain all winter in considerable numbers when there happens to be an abundant supply of a favorite berry. Thus the Myrtle Warbler, when others of the Warbler family have gone far south, may remain along the coasts of New Jersey to feed upon the fruit of the myrtle or bayberry bush.

     Food, therefore, among the terrestrial factors, is a prime determining influence in bird migration.

     INTRINSIC CAUSES-PHYSIOLOGICAL.

     The Breeding Impulse Theory.-Among the impelling causes from within the bird organism, it is rightly held that the annual recurrence of the reproductive faculty, which is rhythmic or periodic, brings with it the impulse to migrate to the summer range, to mate, build the nest, lay the eggs and rear the young. After the winter's rest commonly follows a molt, known as the prenuptial molt, on the conclusion of which the bird, physically renewed, now in fine feather and full song, feels the "pull of the-north," as it has been called, and sets out upon the journey, perhaps of 10,000 miles, to the exact scene of last year's housekeeping; or, in the case of the young, to the vicinity of the place of their birth.

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There the environment is completely adapted to the business in hand. (This return to the location of the previous year's nesting is a well-established fact, and is abundantly confirmed by the banding process.)

     Let us remember, however, that this periodic return of the breeding impulse is seasonal with migratory species; that is, it comes with the return of the sun which makes the northern spring and summer. A like thing happens in the Southern Hemisphere. With the birds of that region, which are entirely distinct from the species of the Northern Hemisphere, the breeding season begins with the return of the sun from the north. In South America, the migrating species then go southward to their breeding grounds. The Penguin, which is resident on the Antarctic ice, then retires from the northern limits of the pack-ice, and goes toward the pole to nest.

     Except in the case of tropical birds, it would seem that the influence of the sun and the influence of the breeding impulse are closely related as factors in bird migration, this being a case where the intrinsic cause is dependent upon the extrinsic cause. In this connection we may mention the geese born in our northern latitudes which do not breed until the third year; the young of the year migrate southward with their species, and return the following year, though not to breed. With tropical species, the recurrence of the breeding impulse is periodic and regular, but is independent of the north and south movements of the sun. It is in November each year that the Pelicans repair to their nesting grounds on Pelican Island, on the east coast of Florida. The same is true of those maritime birds which come to land at regular times once a year for the breeding season.

     INTRINSIC CAUSES-PSYCHOLOGICAL .

     The Habit Theory.-This regards migration as an "inherited racial custom." (Thomson.) In the remote past, birds are supposed to have begun to migrate under some compelling necessity, perhaps the glacial period, which drove them south and forbade their return until the retreat of the ice, this forming the habit of regular migration, which has been handed down from generation to generation. That the instinct is inherited seems to be proven by the fact that the young quite commonly migrate southward before their parents.

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With the many species that flock after the nesting, adults and young together; it may be held that the parents thus initiate the young into the habit. But for the origin of migration, as a seasonal phenomenon, we prefer to go back to the beginning of the seasons following that perpetual spring which, according to Swedenborg, made the primitive earth a universal paradise. He says:

     "During that state of the earth in which its revolutions round the sun and its rotations upon its own axis were more rapidly performed, or when the earth measured out shorter days and years, the whole surface of the earth was surrounded with one perpetual spring-a season the most highly adapted to the purpose of generation and procreation. Without this perpetual spring no seeds would have germinated, nor could the various subjects of the animal and vegetable kingdoms have been produced. . . . The whole terraqueous globe was thus rendered one universal paradise." (Principia, Vol. II, pp. 358, 361. See also A. C. 10834, C. L. 1376.)

     Under the conditions of such a perpetual spring, each animal species would remain in the environment in which it was created and belonged, and would have no occasion to leave it; as is now the case with tropical birds. But the advent of the seasons, which was brought about by the slower rotation of the earth upon its axis, would compel a retirement of the birds from their summer ranges, and gradually bring about the migratory custom and its inheritance. Swedenborg also speaks of " accessories to instinct from custom" (T. C. R. 335 6), which phrase well describes such a gradually formed instinct as we may assume migration to be.

     Instinct.-What, now, of animal instinct, animal psychology, as a deeper intrinsic cause of the migratory performance? Science, as a rule, discards the idea that birds act from human intelligence, when, for example, they select Florida for a winter resort and the mountains of Maine as a refuge from the excessive heat of summer. Here the scientist, in attempting to account for the marvelous knowledge exhibited by the animal kingdom, is on the borderland of mind and spirit. And if he feels able to account for the mental development of mankind on the basis of an evolutionary process alone, he will find no difficulty in doing the same with the so-called development of animal psychology. But the devout philosopher, the Christian philosopher, in attempting to account for human and animal psychology, is unwilling to leave but the Creator and the higher world of the spirit and the mind and soul.

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And even if the investigator be one who is unwilling to accept Divine Revelation as affording a light superior to human reason, he may yet be willing to acknowledge a supreme intelligence and power as the final directing cause of the wonders of nature.

     The great Newton is reported to have said of the migration of birds "that it was directly inspired by the Creator, since no other explanation was possible," which leads Hudson to remark: "How odd it seems that just this one of the innumerable problems in the organic world that ask for solution should have been singled out for preferential treatment!" (A Hind in Richmond Park, p. 141) Yet Hudson is to be pardoned if his contempt is but a camouflage for the legitimate spirit of inquiry. The human mind aspires to understand. Faith in the Creator and His creation is yet moved by reason to learn how the Divine operates in the world, that its faith may thus be deepened in its worship. For the Divine does not operate without means, which are the causes of effects. It is for such minds that Swedenborg wrote in his earlier works, not for those who are content to believe without understanding. The beginning and ending of his philosophy is the acknowledgment of God, and of His creative and sustaining operation in the universe; but he seeks to demonstrate this to the rational mind, and so leads us into a realm of causes above and within nature. And without light from this interior realm, the rational understanding can never attain to a complete explanation of migration as one phenomenon in the plane of effects.

     THE WAY TO A SOLUTION.

     We will, I believe, find a way to the solution of the mystery of bird migration by taking all the factors into consideration, including not only those effects and natural causes which science has been so diligent in observing and recording, but also the fact of a Divine creation and sustenance of the animal kingdom by Him who "feeds the ravens" and takes account of the "fall of a sparrow," whose Providence leads the beast of the field and the fowl of the air to that part of the earth where they may be of greatest use to mankind,-a spiritual conception of the reason for migration.

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     Let us begin, then, from this tenet of Swedenborg, that animals are in the order of creation,-the order of life into which God created them,-and have never been able to destroy that order in themselves, as man, endowed with intellect and free-will, has been able to do, and has done. In the beginning, God endowed all created forms with an image of Himself, the living things, animals and man,-with an image of His love and wisdom. From His sun of wisdom, by means of its spheres, He is omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent, an image of which we also find in the presence and operation of the sun of nature in its system by means of its aura.

     The animal, therefore, derives this image from the Creator, that it is gifted from birth with a love and its own wisdom,-a science of all things proper to its love and life, a kind of omniscience, or a complete knowledge of all things necessary to its existence and use,-of its food, its means of propagation, and where these things are to be found in the world in which it has been placed, together with the power to attain them. "Doth the hawk fly by Thy wisdom, and stretch her wings toward the south? " (Job 39:26.)

     We might go further in describing this image of God in the animal, and show, for: example, how migration itself is an image of the Divine Proceeding, which goes forth from God and returns to him; but this is a large field of philosophical thought, and we must be content with the above brief indication as to the origin of animal instinct in God the Creator. Newton spoke well when he acknowledged that the migration of birds is "directly inspired by the Creator."

     Let me now cite a few of Swedenborg's statements on the subject of animal endowments from birth. These passages have been carefully selected from among many, as having a direct bearing upon the subject under consideration:

     CITATIONS FROM SWEDENBORG.

     Animal Instinct.

     "Every beast, bird, fish, reptile, and insect has its own love natural, sensual and corporeal, the habitations of which are their heads and the brains therein. Through these the spiritual world inflows into the senses of their bodies immediately, and through these senses determines their acts, which is the cause that the senses of their body are much more exquisite than human senses.

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That influx from the spiritual world is what is called Instinct; and it is called Instinct because it exists without the medium of thought. There are also accessories of Instinct from custom (assuetudine). But their love, through which, from the spiritual world, comes the determination to acts, is only for Nutrition and Propagation, but not for any science, intelligence and wisdom, by which love comes successively with men." (T. C. R. 335 6.)

     "From the Lord through the spiritual world into the subjects of the natural world there is a General Influx, and there is a Particular Influx; a general influx into those things which are in order, a particular influx into those things which are not in order. Animals of every kind are in the order of their nature, and therefore there is a general influx into them. That they are in the order of their nature is evident from this, that they are born into all their own things, and have no need to be introduced into them by any information. But men are not in order, nor in any law of order, and therefore there is a particular influx into them; that is, angels and spirits are with them, through whom is the influx. (A. C. 5850. See H. H. 296, 247.)

     "There is no man with whom there are not spirits; but as regards brute animals, it is otherwise, for they live according to the order of their nature, neither have they need for any spirit to be with them." (S. D. 2377, 2378.)

     Here is an answer to those who may suppose that birds, in their movements and migrations, are led by spirits. The general spheres of angels and spirits inflow with animals and sustain them, but do not control their acts. (S. D. 167) Every animal is the form of some human affection, good or evil,-, lamb the form of innocence, a fox the form of cunning, the dove a form of purity, and the owl a form of falsity; and the spheres of such human states inflow from the spiritual world, and are received by their corresponding animal forms in the natural world.

     On animal instinct we read further:

     "Those who judge from the mere appearance to the senses of the body conclude that beasts have will and understanding as well as men, and hence that the only distinction is that man can speak, and thus describe what he thinks and desires, while beasts can only express this by sounds. Yet beasts have not will and understanding, but only an image of each, which the learned call an analogue.

471


That a man is a man, is because his understanding can be elevated above the desires of his will, and thus can know and see them from above, and also moderate them; but a beast is a beast because its desires impel it to do whatever it does.

     "The will and the understanding in beasts always cohere; and because the will in itself is blind, for it is of heat and not of light, it makes the understanding blind also. Hence a beast does not know and understand its own actions; and yet it acts, for it acts from an influx from the spiritual world; and such action is instinct. It is believed that a beast thinks from the understanding what it does, but this is not so; it is impelled to act only from natural love, which is in it from creation, with the assistance of the senses of its body.

     "That beasts act according to the laws of order inscribed on their nature, and some beasts as it were morally and rationally, differently from many men, is because their understanding is blind obedience to the desires of their will, and therefore they are not able to pervert these by depraved reasonings, as men do." (Influx 15.)

     That the will and love in the animal, as the source of its actions and movements, is kindled by natural heat as an extrinsic cause, will be shown by later citations. That still the animal is not to be regarded as a mere "inanimate machine," but exhibits the image of human affections and faculties, though not of the intellect, is thus stated:

     "Animals, in common with ourselves, possess the affections of anger, envy, fear, hatred, friendship, etc.; also appetites of various kinds; in a word, all the peculiar attributes of the animus, which indeed furnish them with the incentives and fires of life. Therefore it would be wrong to liken animals to automatons or inanimate machines." (Economy of the Animal Kingdom, Vol. II, No. 346.)

     "Brute animals all have perception, each its own kind, and this because they are in their own order, on which account also they are born into all their own nature, and are in it from first nativity; neither have they need to learn it. They know their own food, their master, their enemies, their companions, and very many things which natural history records. It appears as if that were from a certain smelling, but it is not; for perception is the beginning (origin) of
smelling. . . . This also is the reason why sparrows know how to, pluck up the first shoots of the chick-peas, because they know from perception that the chick-pea which they wish to extract lies hidden beneath (the soil)." (D. M. 4730, 31.)

472




     These statements will briefly illustrate Swedenborg's teachings concerning the inborn animal love and its science,-the animal soul and its wisdom,-with which it is endowed by creation, and whose life is sustained by an influx of the Divine life, when yet it functions only under the stimulus of natural exciting causes. This animal endowment must be accorded a prime place among the operating causes of bird migration. They know when, where and how to migrate. But lest we be accused of mere statements of fact, unsatisfying to the mind desirous of seeing how it works, let us now turn to what Swedenborg teaches concerning the animal organism and its relation to the organic world in which it is placed.

     In general, the teaching is that the human soul or love,-or the spirituous fluid and fibre, which are the substance of the soul, is formed in and of the first or celestial aura of the universe, under the dominance of the Sun of wisdom; and that the intellectual mind of man is formed from the soul in and of the second aura. But the animal soul or love,-its purest fluid and fibre,-is formed in and of this same second aura,-the aura of the natural sun. The statements having a direct bearing upon the subject before us are as follows:

     The Four Atmospheres of the Universe.

     "The auras are the forces of the world, because they are the forms of the forces of the universe. The phenomena of the world plainly declare that these auras are four in number, perfectly distinct from each other, and one prior and superior to the other, and more universal and more perfect than the other. Thus, that there is an air by which we are surrounded is incontestably proved by hearing, respiration, the air-pump, and the whole range of experimental physics. That there is an ether subtler air, is proved by the sight, as well as by the air-pump, for light and shade are still distinct, and colors survive, even though the air be exhausted from the receiver. That this ether is a real but higher atmosphere, is demonstrated in its own light by the organism of the eye, and by the whole of optical experience; for the matter of the organ is seen to be exactly determined to the form of its modifications, in order that it may be suitably touched, modified, and affected; for a vacuum admits of no affection, and has no organic forms corresponding to it.

473


That this aura is prior to the air, is also evident from the fact that it can subsist without the air. That it is higher and more perfect than the air, is clear from the fact that the sounds of the ear correspond to the images of the eye, or of the animus. Modified forms are also similarly reflected, infracted, are resilient at the angle of incidence, possess the highest elasticity, contain crowds of effluvia, carry about and agitate them, giving rise to phosphoric appearances, wandering meteors, and many other phenomena, which, from their mysterious nature, carry away the rational sight into a sort of ignorant astonishment, and occasion perpetual discordance in accounting for their origin, so long as we deny the existence of such an aura.

     "That a still purer ether or higher aura exists, distinct from the ether just spoken of, is evident from the magnetic force (see my Principia), also from the vortex of our earth, within whose sphere the moon is carried round, and which great vortex has lesser vortices circumgyrating exactly in the same manner as itself; for from the form, nature, and mode of acting of aggregates, are discoverable the form, nature, and mode of acting of their parts (Part I., n. 631); each part being a type of its universe. (Ibid. n. 105, 159, 306; and above, passim.) The existence of this aura is proved also by the instincts of brute animals, whose purest fluids owe their origin to it, and are affected by it; for they know how to turn accurately to the quarters, and by the sole guidance of a natural force to return to their homes many miles distant, by ways they have never before smelt or tried; they know how to extricate themselves at once from labyrinthine mazes, and so they act as living magnets; not to mention innumerable other circumstances.

     "That a yet purer aura exists, which is, in fact, the first, the highest, the most universal, and the most perfect,-this position is the consequent of the antecedent positions, because the aura itself is the antecedent of the consequent auras. Now if the aura just mentioned describes vortices around the earth and the planets, there must be a vortex, or corresponding universe, embracing and directing all other vortices or universes; and this grand vortex, and that previously spoken of, must mutually correspond with each other in the relation of superior and inferior.

474


So, too, if the magnetic aura just touched upon affects the fluids of brute animals, there must be a superior aura that affects the higher human fluid; for without the mediation of such an aura, no light from the sun, much less from the stars, would ever reach the eyes of the inhabitants of our earth; for, as we before observed, a vacuum, or what is the same, nothing, admits of no affection. And without this supreme aura the minutest forms could not be held together in connection, nor could effects flow from their first causes according to the order of nature." (Economy of the Animal Kingdom, Vol. II, no. 272.)

     We are thus introduced into a realm of superior or interior atmospheres, and of human and animal fluids, which are unknown to modern science. And yet, without a knowledge of the operation and interaction of these organic forms we cannot but be in obscurity as to the real causes of natural phenomena. But let us quote further:

     The Animal Soul.

     "We have said that the purest fluid in brute animals, or their soul, derives its origin from the second aura. That this is the case, is evident from an examination of their instincts, or of those natural effects which flow from the soul as their principle. For instance, it is clear from this that in numerous cases animals have shown the most exact and complete capacity to turn to the different quarters of the world, and to return to their homes over miles of ground, and by paths which they had never before smelt or attempted; and in like manner to betake themselves to their pastures, stables, hives, streams, houses. We allude to dogs, horses, bees, ants, crabs, etc., all of which may be compared to living magnets, since the magnet has in it a similar directive force to these animals. (That this force owes its origin to the second ether, was shown in my Principia, Part I, Chap. IX, and in the present work, Part II, no. 272.) With man this force cannot be connate, because the direction of the first aura is universal, as the direction of the created universe. I need not mention other proofs in the several instincts which flow derivatively from the same kind of animate direction." (E. A. K. Vol. II, no. 339)

     "The soul of brute animals is-in the sphere of our intellectual mind, by which soul they are actuated (feruntur). It is connate with them, and is not formed, as it is in man. Wherefore their genera and species are according to the form of their souls. There is also an influx from heaven into their souls, but only a universal conatus, which acts according to the forms of their souls.

475


Wherefore, also, they are affected with conjugial love and the love of off- spring, and know innumerable things from nature which man can never know by all his sciences." (S. D. 2770.)

     "The purest fluid in brute animals receives its form from the ether of the second order, not in a higher degree than their organism, but in the same degree, which corresponds to that of our mind. In consequence of this circumstance, they are born to communication between the soul and the body, or to all the conditions of their life, and are carried, suitably to the order of nature, into ends of which they themselves are ignorant." (E. A. K. Vol. II, no. 338.)

     Soul and Body.

     "In animals, the way of communication from the external senses through the fibers to the soul cannot fail to be open from birth. The reason is, that those things which are insinuated by the way of the senses, or a posteriori, correspond in their degree with the natural power of the very souls of animals, so that what touches the fibers extrinsically is of one and the same order and purity with that which modifies them intrinsically; whence it follows that the little tunic of the fibre is at once accommodated." (E. A. K. Vol. II, no. 344.)

     "In animals, the organs of the external senses are for the most part more excellent than in man, to the end that animals, which possess no reasoning power to infer the whole cause of their instincts, and to apply it to themselves and their own nature, may enlarge their capacity of sensation to the utmost, and supply their wants from present objects." (Ibid., no. 343.)

     Here we may remark that the "purest fluids" of animals, above referred to, are the "animal spirits," which are generated in the cortical glands of the brain, and course through the fibers and nerves, and also vivify the red blood. We read further:

     "Animals are born to communication between the soul and the body, or to all the conditions of their life, and are carried, suitably to the order of nature, into ends that they themselves are ignorant of. Thus, of themselves and their own nature, they know and seek out those particular aliments that are suitable to them, and actually use vast skill in discovering them whenever and wherever they happen to be concealed; and, on the other hand, they reject, separate, and loath things that are not suitable to them.

476


They lay up provisions for the winter season; such at least is the case with bees, ants, birds, and various little animals. In many ways they correct anything amiss in their natural functions, yea, even by recourse to herbs and different kinds of waters. With admirable art and ingenuity they build their nests, lining them with feathers, and making their walls with layers of clay, skilfully intermingled with twigs. They are acquainted with modes and ways, too subtle for the most penetrating sight to follow, of copulating or propagating their species. They know how to lay their eggs; how to hatch their young; to nurture them with affection until the new brain is competent to supplant their parental care; they know when to discard them; how to distinguish their foes, to elude or baffle them, to provoke them to battle, vanquish them, and defend themselves and their offspring; they know how to form a mimic commonwealth, and how to express the common affections of their animus by the heightenings and modulations of a single sound. But these are the general endowments of animals; the particular endowments of each species are almost innumerable. In fact, from their soul, as being the order and truth of sublunary nature, they seem by their very birth to enter on the possession of this world's sciences,-natural chemistry, mechanics, medicine, in a word, universal physics; although they cannot reduce a single one of these into a systematic form, this being reserved for humanity. These are plain and sufficiently demonstrative proofs that, from the first to the last of life, all the ideas representative of ends are involved and connate in the soul." (E. A. R. Vol. II, no. 342.)

     Under the Government of the Atmosphere.

     "Animals derive their nature from that of the auras, and lead lives under the government of the world, and of the instincts thence arising. For the beginnings of the nerves, or the cortical Substances, borrow the causes of many of their changes from the auras. 'So exquisite is the structure of the cortical glands,' says Malpighi, 'that when the atmosphere is ever so slightly vitiated or altered, the brain is the first part to sympathize, and to undergo a change of state.'" (E. A. K. II, no. 201.)

     Since, as we have seen, the animal soul is formed in and of the second aura,-the aura of the sun,-animals are especially subject to the sun's operation through that aura.

477


Therefore it is that the sun in nature is like a common father, and the earth like a common mother, as we read:

     "From the Divine celestial sphere arises a natural sphere, which is of love towards infants and children, which is most universal, and not only affects men, but also birds and beasts, even to serpents; and not only animate, but also inanimate things. But that the Lord might operate into these, even as into spiritual things, He created the sun, which might be in the natural world as father, and the earth as mother. For the sun is like a common father, and the earth like a common mother, from whose marriage exist all the germinations that adorn the surface of the globe. From the influx of that celestial sphere into the natural world exist those wonderful progressions of vegetation from seed to the fruit, and to new seeds. Thence also it is that there are many kinds of shrubs which in the day time turn, as it were, their faces to the sun, and turn them away when the sun sets; and that there are flowers, which at the rising of the sun open themselves, and close themselves at his setting. And thence also it is that the nightingales sing sweetly at the first dawn of the morning, and in like manner after they have been fed by their mother earth. Thus do all these honor their father and their mother." (T. C. R. 308.)

     That this government of the sun by its aura is exercised chiefly through its heat, is thus explained:

     "The wills and actions of animals, that is, their instincts, are excited simply by external motives or moving causes,-namely, by those things which strike their senses, or that affect their blood in a general manner. The changes and conditions of the air and ether, recurring with the four seasons, send heat into their fluids, which burn and boil accordingly; and with the fluids, as determinants, a corresponding change is wrought in the organic forms of the body and brain. In this way the principle of motion is at once excited, and animals are carried, agreeably to nature's order, into rational-seeming effects involving ends. Hence their loves, and hence the periods those loves obey. Hence the wonders they display in building their nests, incubating their eggs, and hatching their young. Hence their amazing parental care. Hence their public consultations as to the manner of providing for themselves and their progeny in the coming winter; as well as a number of other effects which proceed from a soul like theirs, accommodated to the reception of life according to its own peculiar character, whenever it is excited (by external causes).

478


Experience attests the truth of these remarks. For we know that the same effects are produced on animals by the warmth or heat of a room as by the heat of the sun, and when the season is neither spring nor summer. We may therefore say that the soul of animals resides in their blood, because it is always actuated by a cause extrinsic to itself. Not so the soul of man. He indeed is likewise moved, yet is not governed, by external causes. The affections of the external world pass a posterimi in some measure into the sphere of intelligence; yet in man they are determined into act by a foregone will arising from an appropriate principle and cause. Thus men are stirred to action by a fire kindled alike in winter and summer, in the very sphere of the mind." (E. A. K. Vol. II, no. 347)

     Elsewhere we read:

     "With beasts, heat opens all parts of the body, and causes their natural love to act freely. This is why, in spring and summer, they return into the instinct of propagating and rearing their young,
which belongs to the ruling love implanted in them by creation." (T. C. R. 496.)

     From the passages we have now quoted we may gain something of a concrete view of the inmost of the animal organism, and of its relation and reaction to the world in which it is placed. Its soul or purest fluid is seen to be the seat of its love, will, desire, appetite,-the source and mainspring of all its actions, and containing within itself all requisite knowledge, in like manner as the sun produces its own light. The way of communication between the animal soul and body is open from birth, and its actions are determined, not by any conscious rational choice, as with man, but by natural excitant causes, which are both physiological and mundane, that is, both intrinsic and extrinsic to the animal. Thus the mating and breeding of birds is dependent upon cellular renewal; with tropical species this is periodic and regular, though not seasonal; with others it is seasonal, and dependent upon the position of the sun which causes the seasons.

     With regard to bird actions and movements, as in the case of migration, we may see that, in general, these are motivated by natural causes affecting their instincts or souls externally; these causes being in part physiological, having reference to propagation and nutrition, and in part cosmical, which are influences in the atmospheric and terrestrial world, especially in the sun's aura, wherein we find the primary and fundamental natural cause of migration.

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Let us now turn to those secondary causes which operate by other spheres, and those which affect the external senses of sight, hearing and smell.

     FURTHER CITATIONS FROM SWEDENBORG.

     Spheres of the Animal, Vegetable and Mineral Kingdoms.

     It is according to the doctrine of Spheres taught throughout Swedenborg's works that all terrestrial substances and organic forms give off their own peculiar spheres, which surround them and are extended to a greater or lesser distance, affecting other substances and organisms. In this respect, terrestrial forms emulate the order of the greater world, in that every sun has its own sphere, which fills its system and communicates its heat and light to every part; likewise that every planet is surrounded by its own ether and air; this order being after the pattern of the universe itself, wherein God Himself is immanent by the Divine celestial sphere of the Sun of wisdom. So it is that every part and particle of earthly substance gives forth its sphere, and that these terrestrial spheres affect the animal soul and sense, and thus determine animal action. Concerning these natural spheres we read:

     "Every metal, stone, and grain of sand absorbs the ether, emits its natural exhalations, throws off its worn-out elements, and restores itself with new. From this there is a magnetic sphere around the magnet, an iron sphere about iron, a coppery one about copper, a silver sphere about silver, a golden one about gold, a stony sphere about stone, a nitrous sphere about niter, a sulphur sphere about Sulphur, and a various one about every particle of dust." (T. C. R. 499) Radio-active spheres about subtle chemical elements are now well known to modern science.

     "There is not the smallest particle which has not its own sphere around it." (S. D. 1846.)

     "From every man there goes forth, yea, waves forth, a spiritual sphere from the affections of his love; and this imparts itself to the natural sphere which is from the body, and the two conjoin themselves.

480


That a natural sphere flows forth continually from the body, not only from man but also from beasts, yea from trees, fruits, flowers, and even from metals, is commonly known. . . . There is no part in man which does not renew itself, a renewal which is effected by dissolutions and reparations, and thence is the sphere which continually pours forth." (C. L. 171.)

     It may be remarked that such spheres are not alone odors affecting the sense of smell, but also more subtle effluvia affecting the brain in general, thus the common sensory and animus of both man and animal, producing sympathies and antipathies. It is in this field that we find an explanation of the animal knowledge of its mate, its friends and enemies, its food, its proper environment, and of its ability to find them even at a distance. For these subtle spheres may extend themselves to great distances through the ether, imparting to the animal organism a sense of where they are, thus in what direction they are from where the animal is. As the eye quickly detects the source of a bright light, the ear the origin of a sound, the nostrils the source of a pungent odor, and the skin the warmth of a fireplace, so the animal knows the direction to those terrestrial things which are harmonious to its loves. For the spheres of these things are brought to it through the ether, not only affecting the sense of smell, but also the common sensory in the brain, and thence the soul. Bearing upon these things, we read further:

     "That the sense of smell may be wonderfully perfected and exalted appears from the animals which by smell and sagacity trace and perceive the friendly effluvia of their master and the unfriendly effluvia of other animals, indeed often at an immense distance. But we human creatures take in by smell only those forms which swim in the air, while the beasts we have mentioned take in also those which float in the ether. There is an ocean of these forms; for the atmospheres are filled full of exhalations." (Rational Psychology, 48.)

     So it is that the vulture quickly finds the carrion, and that "wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together." (Matthew 24:28.)

     But the operation of spheres with animals is still more fully described in the following:

     Various Spheres Affecting the Animal.

     "Brute animals sense from spheres what they would never otherwise perceive. Thus there are spheres in nature which are altogether unknown to man, but which rule with beasts.

481


This is the case with dogs, who smell where their master has put things, which they search for and find. A dog knows his master among thousands of men, this from a sphere of subordination and friendship, thus of a kind of glad abiding with him, having an aversion to others; neither does he rest until he stands at his master's feet. This is ascribed to effiuvia, but it is not effluvia, unless it be those which cause such a sphere.

     "Animals have a sphere of knowing the quarters of the world, which man never knows. In thickets and forests man continually goes astray, but an animal never. It knows its home, even if it goes to it by a way which it has never before seen or trod. So do dogs run back home by other ways (than they came), and through many places which they have never before seen; horses likewise, and other animals too, as bees to their hives. Thus there are no animals which have not this faculty. They also have a sphere of gladness when, after some years absence, they come to a certain locality, even though they have never been in that place, only from the proximity of the place [to the one in which they have been before].

     "Animals have certain spheres of knowing by what food they are nourished, and are never deceived; this they know from infancy, and without instruction. Every animal has such a sphere, but not man. They are immediately averse to what is unsuitable; they seek, search for, and find what is suitable.

     "Animals have a sphere of times, and of flying then to a distance, like geese, swallows, etc. Thus all animals have a sphere, as birds for constructing their houses or nests, never having learned. They have a sphere of educating their young, as doves, and others in another manner. Wherefore, such spheres reign with them, but they are corporeal and natural. But such spheres are not given with man, because he is in fantasies. Man would also have not only such spheres, which are of the lowest kind, but also a sphere of knowing his companion immediately on seeing him, and indeed his companion's natural inclination toward himself and others." (S. D. 3339-3341.)

     SENSE OF PLACE.

     We come now to a brief consideration of what has been called the "sense of direction" or "sense of location "possessed by wild birds in common with the whole animal kingdom.

482


We prefer to call it a "sense of place," since it has regard to that place on the earth's surface where the land, water, and vegetation make the bird's proper environment,-its home and nesting site. With pigeons and domestic animals, it is associated with houses, barns, persons, etc., and is called the "homing sense," but we are here treating specifically of wild birds, whose home is the nest and roost in a natural environment.

     We can readily understand the influence of the magnetic flow in the second aura as imparting a sense of the north with birds. In Asia, they are said to verge in their migrations toward the Taimyr-Peninsula, the seat of one of the magnetic poles. According to Swedenborg, the very lay of their cortical glands lends itself to the flow of magnetism, and so he compares them to " living magnets," because the magnet has "a similar directive force." Such a force would operate to guide birds from their southern to their northern ranges. But once these are gained, and they begin to nest, they have a sense of direction to their home environment from every quarter, and from great distances. The Passenger Pigeon, we are told, would make a daily flight of zoo miles to a favorite feeding-ground, and return to its roosting trees in the evening. Then there is the well-known experiment with the Sooty Tern, which nests in the Florida Keys. Two of these birds were removed from their nests on June 13, marked, and taken in the hold of a ship to Cape Hatteras, 1,081 miles north of their range, and released on June 16. Both were found back on their nests on the morning of June 21. (Chapman's Birds of Eastern North America, p. 54.) In this case, the birds found their way southward from a region more than a thousand miles north of their accustomed range.

     As before noted, we can account for this "sense of place" on the basis of spheres conveyed through the ether, but it is more difficult to see how magnetism plays a part in such a sense of place. Nor does Swedenborg says that in so many words, but he likens the animals to "living magnets," which have a "similar directive force." It is possible, therefore, that he is but making a comparison, unless he is referring to magnetic influences operating in the ether, which is a common thing in electrical phenomena. Certain it is that what the animal loves attracts it as with the force of a magnet, and it turns in that direction with the accuracy of the needle of a compass. But let us quote further on this subject:

483




     Sense of Quarter in Animals.

     "The human race lacks an interior sense with which brute animals have been furnished, namely, a sense of quarter, or that they know again what quarter of the world it is by which they may return home and regain their meadows and streams. They know this even though they go by an entirely different path, and one they have not before trodden or scented. Thus they are like living magnets. Such a sense arises from the form of the cortical glands themselves, which is vortical, which form cannot be excited by the fluxion of the substances without a determination of the poles, and of the greater and lesser circles, such as is, seen in the great system. But men are wanting in such a sense, because of the intellect, or that we enjoy a certain superior perception, which induces activity itself in those glands, so that the sensations of sight may be rightly apperceived. This intellect is not pure, but mixed, consequently does not attend to the least moments of the objects of sight, and it governs the state of its own gland from its own will, and not from nature or natural intelligence. Therefore such a sense cannot but be wanting with man, and be present with brutes, which enjoy no such intellect." (Rat. Psych. 90.)

     Sense of Home in the Spiritual World.

     "Since the Lord as a Sun, thus the East, is before the face of all the angels of heaven, it follows that at their right is the south, at their left the north, and at their back the west, which is the case in every turning of the body; thus all the quarters in the spiritual world are determined from the east." (D. L. W. 132.)

     "Since the quarters are such to the angel, and are also as it were inscribed on the universal heaven, therefore the angel knows his home and habitation, wherever he goes, otherwise than man in the world. The cause of man's not knowing his home and habitation from the quarter in himself is that he thinks from space, thus from the quarters of the natural world, which have nothing in common with the quarters of the spiritual world. But still such a science is within in birds and animals, for it is innate in them to know their homes and habitations of themselves, as is known from much experience; an indication that there is such a thing in the spiritual world; for all things that exist in the natural world are effects, and all things that exist in the spiritual world are causes of those effects.

484


The natural that does not derive its cause from the spiritual does not exist." (D. L. W. 134.)

     Swedenborg Given to Experience the Sense of Place.

     "If man were in order, he would still enjoy a certain sense which brutes enjoy. There is a certain sense which brutes enjoy, but not man, namely, to know the way home, even from a distance, as may be known of horses, dogs, bees, and many others. Nor do they err in dense forests as man does. Thus they not only know the way home, but a bee knows its own hive among many. This sense is common to those who live according to order, which order has been impressed upon their souls. It would have been similar with man also, if he had lived in order. It has been given me to experience it, not only by my being led home when I was ignorant of the way, but I also felt something similar at a place which I had previously known, in that I knew the vicinity in a wonderful way, from the internal, so that the vicinity affected me, and thus I knew whose house it was." (Spiritual Diary, 2209. See A. C. 3702.)

     Hudson gives a graphic description of the operation of this "sense of direction" among the plainsmen of South America, and also tells how he himself experienced it on one occasion, when it came to him as a kind of "intuition." Treating of the subject, he also says: "There must be a specialized nerve in the brain, which, like the magnetic needle, swings faithfully round infallibly in the direction to which we desire in the end to return. This, at all events, is how it must be in the lower animal and in savage men." (A Hind in Richmend Park, pp. 129-137) Instead of a "specialized nerve in the brain," however, we think this faculty with animals must belong to the whole brain and the common sensory, as we have before stated. For we may compare it to the faculty of generalizing in the mental equipment of men. When the thought of the mind is involved in particulars, without a perception of where they belong in the general scheme, it is only extricated by a recourse to general principles. In this connection we might study what was meant by the "general involuntary sense" enjoyed by the most ancient men. (A. C. 4325-4327.)

     SUMMARY.

     Before stating in succinct form my own view of the operating causes of bird migration, and illustrating this with a concrete example, let me recapitulate the leading points in the citations from Swedenborg.

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     1. The animal soul, formed in and of the second aura, has all its companion knowledge from birth, which, however, is not intelligence, but blind instinct. This instinct or knowledge is given by an influx from God through the spiritual world, thus through the general sphere of spirits, but not through particular spirits, as in man's case. Consequently, animals are not controlled by spirits.

     2. The animal is born into all the order of its life, and to an inner sense of all things in the organic world of nature. As its soul is formed in and of the second aura, it is primarily sensitive to the states of that aura, especially to the heat of the sun, as also to magnetism, the very arrangement of the cortical glands in the brain being adapted to its flow.

     3. The animal is born into a perfect connection between the soul and the body, and has more perfect senses than man. Because of this, it knows the foods corresponding to its love, and where to find them, even at a great distance. The spheres of its home environment-its terrestrial place-come to it through the air and the ether, and it is able to sense them at a distance; not only by smell, but by its common sensory.

     4. Animal actions are determined by external causes, both physical and cosmical, and its soul, love and instinct respond. In this way it responds to the positions of the sun which produce the seasons, and to influences coming to it through the air and ether,-sounds, light, objects, temperature, climate, winds, storms, wet and dry weather. So also does it respond to terrestrial conditions,-land and water, vegetation, spheres of the mineral kingdom, of places, persons, but especially of food supply. (We would not say that attachment to persons has anything to do with bird migrations, although it is a fact that tamed wild birds become attached to the one who feeds and cares for them.)

     Animal actions are also determined by their own physiological conditions, such as the state of the blood induced by different foods, the state of weariness or quiescence, the molting period, as well as the states of renewed vigor and highest blood circulation, upon which depends the periodic recurrence of the reproductive faculty. But in normal conditions with migratory species these physical states are also determined by extrinsic causes, especially by the heat of the sun.

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     CONCLUSION.

     Migration is animal action, motion,-a movement from place to place on the earth's surface. And all the factors-all the influences-affecting the bird organism, from within and without, play their parts. Sometimes one factor predominates, sometimes another. In studying the migratory movement in general, or the actions of any species in particular, we must take all possible factors into consideration, endeavoring to ascertain which factor is the predominating one in a given case. We shall go astray if we attempt to assign to any one factor the sole cause of bird migration; unless, indeed, we ascribe it to the operations of the Divine Providence, and to those marvelous instincts which are the gift of a beneficent Creator. These are universal truths which the devout investigator readily acknowledges, even while he seeks to understand the ways of God in His universe.

     To state my own view of the general operating causes of bird migration, I would say that the northward movement in the spring is brought about by the advance of the sun and the attracting heat vortex thus produced in the Northern Hemisphere; and the direction of movement and flight is determined by the magnetic flow in the second aura. That heat is primary, is evident from those birds which do not go north but ascend the mountains, as we noted in the case of Mount Orizaba in Mexico. The northern migratory movement brings the birds to their summer ranges, and then they come within the sphere of their home place, brought to them through the ether. This terrestrial place then becomes the dominant center with them, and the other is quiescent until after the nesting and the molt, when the southern march of the sun and its heat brings the "pull of the south" into play as the predominating influence upon them. Then they may even desert a late brood of young. On the other hand, a superabundance of the favorite food may overcome the impulse to go south, and detain them for a period of time, and even throughout the winter.

     To illustrate by a single example: The Golden Plover arrives on the pampas of Argentina in our autumn, the southern spring. By rest and feeding it is physically renewed. The sun begins its return north on December 21st, and by March 21st has crossed the equator.

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During February and March, the Plover, physically renewed, and experiencing the recurrence of the breeding impulse, feels the attractive vortex of the sun's heat and the directive influence of the magnetic flow northward. It knows by instinct that the time for a change has arrived, and begins to manifest that agitation which precedes the migratory movement. Under the influences we have described, the Plover follows the most direct route to its breeding range on the shores and islands of the Arctic Ocean. Once the breeding range is reached, the instinct and sense of place carries individuals to their nesting sites.

     After the nesting season, the Golden Plover gathers in Labrador, led there by the sense of the food-the crowberry-upon which old and young fatten until the southern pull of the sun's heat vortex renews the migratory impulse to return to the southern feeding-grounds, where they will find equilibrium, rest and food. And so they set out from Nova Scotia upon a notable flight of 2400 miles to South America,-a journey that is paralleled by a 2000-mile flight of kindred plovers from Alaska to the Hawaiian Islands.

     ADDENDUM.

     In answer to a question we would state that our northern birds do not breed during their winter sojourn in the south. The migrating birds of both hemispheres have but one breeding range, and an annual nesting during the summer of the region. The winter is known as their "off-season."

     The breeding of tropical birds, as we have noted, is periodic and regular, being dependent upon the recurrence of the reproductive faculty, which is usually annual though not seasonal, since there are no seasons, properly speaking, in the tropics. "In stationary tropical birds," Thomson observes, "the reproductive cycle is not necessarily an annual one; different times of year may be the breeding seasons of different species in one and the same area." (P. 292.) He also cites an interesting parallel in the vegetable kingdom: "Tropical trees, which are subject to no seasonal influences, and do not show the growth-rings in their wood, have regular cycles of flowering and fruition, but at any one time different individuals may be found in all stages." (P. 17.)

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     [Map of the North American continent.]

     MIGRATION OF THE AMERICAN GOLDEN PLOVER.

     (See Yearbook, U. S. Department of Agriculture, 1903)

     Shaded areas show the summer and winter ranges; the dotted lines indicate the routes of migration. At the left is shown the flight of the Pacific Golden Plover from Alaska to the Hawaiian Islands.

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CHINA AND GREAT TARTARY 1927

CHINA AND GREAT TARTARY       STANLEY E. PARKER       1927

     WHY THE EMPEROR OF CHINA WAS FROM GREAT TARTARY.

     "The Peoples of Great Tartary... do not suffer foreigners to come among them, except the Chinese, with whom they cultivate peace, because the Chinese Emperor is from their country." (Apocalypse Revealed, no. 11:2.)

     We are instructed in many passages of the Writings of the New Church that the Ancient Word was among those of the Ancient Church in Asia for untold ages, but that in process of time it became lost. At the time of the Lord's Second Advent, however, this new information was given, namely, "It is still preserved among the peoples of Great Tartary," and search is directed to be made for it in China among the Tartars. And in view of the Rev. R. J. Tilson's article on the subject which appeared in the LIFE for October, 1926, and of the editorial notes on "The Chinese" in May, 1927, the following account, showing how it came to pass that, when the Apocalypse Revealed was written, the Tartars cultivated peace with the Chinese, and that the Chinese Emperor was from their country, will perhaps be of interest.

     From what we read in profane history of the peoples inhabiting that region of the globe formerly known as " Great Tartary," they appear to have been barbarous, cruel and belligerent nomads, who, until their subjugation of China in the year 1650, had raided that country "from times immemorial." Nor do they seem to have changed their character after that date; for when they subsequently became the more effective military force of that country, and what some of the missionaries have called "the tigers of war," it was a part of their duty to conscript labor for imperial requirements. And, in connection with the performance of this duty, an apparently well-informed writer says: "In vain, parents plead the tender age of their offspring, or their own declining years; Tartar ears are ever closed against appeals of mercy; and fathers, husbands, sons are indiscriminately enrolled in the service of the state." (China, Its Scenery, Architecture, Social Habits, Etc., Illustrated, Vol. II, p. 24.)

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Another account calls them "disturbers of the peace of settled nations," and says that they have "consisted, both in ancient and modern times, of numerous associated tribes, whose origin and wanderings lie without the domain of history." (Annandale's Popular Encyclopedia, Article on "Tartars.")

     Yet another account, dealing with the military exploits of Zingis Khan, says: "About the first years of the 13th century, . . . a race described as countless in number, and as more inhuman in aspect and spirit, and more utterly devoid of all civilization, than any of the destroyers of mankind who had been let out from the Tartarian regions to desolate the earth, were precipitated by Zingis upon the plains of China, the Great Wall proving but a feeble barrier against his innumerable cavalry." (Encyclopedia Metropolitana, Article on "Moguls," Vol. XII, p. 54.)

     In view of what is recorded in the Encyclopedia Britannica concerning Jenghiz Khan (as he is there called), the blackest of these terrible descriptions seems to be fully justified; for it appears that "when that great conqueror was laid to rest in 1227," he "enjoined his children, as a last act, to complete the conquest of China." (Encyc. Metro. XII, 54) And this was done by Rublai, one of his grandsons. It is to be noted, however, that, after the death of Jenghiz, the Mongols, under one of his sons, invaded Georgia and Armenia, and that while this expedition was "accompanied by frightful atrocities," neither man, woman nor child being spared, with the exception of those who were saved to minister to the wants or passions of the invaders, the before-mentioned advanced by Kublai into Southern China is stated to have been a "vastly different campaign, and for the first time in history the inhabitants were treated with humanity." This is of striking significance, in view of what is stated in the Writings regarding the cultivation of friendly relations between the Tartars and the Chinese. It is still more striking to find that the way for this happier state of things was further prepared by what was done after the conquest of China by the Manchurian Tartars through the instrumentality of K'ang Hsi.

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Although accounts differ as to the importance of the reign of K'ang Hsi (or Kang-he, as he is sometimes called), it seems to be agreed that he was "one of the best and wisest Emperors that ever sat on the throne of China."

     What Mr. Gutzlaff, the author of a memoir of this Emperor, has written, is especially interesting to us. In his Life of Kang-he, Emperor of China," he writes:

     "In the seventeenth century, and at the beginning of the eighteenth, there lived three great princes, who ruled over three large nations, entirely distinct from each other, but exhibiting the same greatness of talents in their respective spheres. We allude to Louis the Fourteenth, Peter the Great, and Kang-he. The first restored the royal power, and saved his country from the despotic rule of favorites; he waged war for the sake of aggrandizement, and kept Europe in a state of agitation during his whole reign; yet France arrived at the summit of power; literature and the kindred arts rapidly advanced, and have not been surpassed by posterity; the nation became henceforth the lawgiver of manners and taste to all Europe. Peter the Great was superior to Louis; for he rescued a people from barbarism, and created a new empire. Few princes proved such a benefactor to the world as the Russian autocrat. Kang-he's province was different from both. He had to consolidate an empire over the most numerous nation on the globe, which had just been subjected to the sway of barbarians. Born a Tartar, without those advantages which Peter enjoyed, and a barbarian when compared to Louis the Fourteenth, his capacities were not inferior to those of either prince: but the task he had to perform was far more gigantic. The most polished of these sovereigns, who had ample means of doing good, left the nation in a wretched state; the monarch of the North raised his country to greater glory than it had reached at any previous period; Kang-he transmitted a flourishing and extensive empire to his successor. . . . Peter traveled for instruction; but Kang-he invited the most celebrated scholars to his table, to discourse with them upon the principles of science. If Peter became the apprentice of a shipwright, Kang-he, like a diligent schoolboy, learned his lesson from despised foreigners; if both overcame national prejudices, those over which Kang-he triumphed were far greater.

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Estimating the magnitude of events by their results, the good this Chinese potentate performed in his time ceased with his life. His dominions were extended, and secured against foreign aggression; but the country relapsed into that inert state so characteristic of the Celestial Empire. . . .

     "Viewing the great ends of Providence which were accomplished by these three monarchs, we cannot but adore the wisdom of God. He who calls forth men from nothing, and endows them with gifts to do His work on earth, forms them also for their station. As soon as they have fulfilled the Divine will for which they were called into being, they are summoned to give an account of their stewardship. These three princes had a very wide sphere of usefulness assigned to them. History appears quite in a new and different light when we study it as a detail of events ordained by the wise Director of the universe. . . . None of these kings knew the truths of the Gospel. Louis proved a persecutor to its adherents; Peter appears to have been indifferent to religious tenets: Kang-he favored Popery for mere political reasons and respect for its teachers....

     "It was reserved for Kang-he to have intelligent but bigoted foreigners around him. . . . For the first time the superiority of western sciences was acknowledged at the palace of the Chinese Emperors. The monarch admired the fertile genius of men denominated Barbarians; but though he showed this great predilection, none of his courtiers exhibited the same inclination. It was a weak attempt of a potent monarch to reform the taste and habits of millions by his own example.

     "The ardor with which Kang-he entered upon his studies proves how much he intended to do for his country. But finding no cooperation, he stopped short, measured the difficulties he would have to encounter, and then, timidly recoiling, was content with improving himself, whilst he never attempted the reform of his people. Scarcely had he closed his eyes, when his son at once discarded scientific improvement, and endeavored to restore the ancient times of mental torpor. In this he succeeded too well." (Preliminary Discourse to the Memoir, pp. 1-4.)

     In proceeding with this "Preliminary Discourse," Mr. Gutzlaff necessarily refers to the "Mantchoos and their Conquest," and very interestingly tells how it came to pass that Kang-he, though only eight years old when he ascended the throne, was "enabled to stand at the head of the greatest government in the world." (See Addendum below.)

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The accession was a grand affair. All princes, lords, civilians and military officers at the capital, with the presidents of the tribunals, were prostrated at his feet, and performed three genuflexions and nine ko-tows, according to the established regulations. . . . His reign was announced by a pompous proclamation in which a remittance of taxes, great rewards to loyal officers and subjects, and amnesty to the refractory, were promised. A new era was now to commence. Chinese and Tartars shared in the administration of government-a thing unheard of. The constitution was remodeled; and whilst a new order of public officers was gradually striking root, a new generation, less incensed against the rule of foreigners, also arose. The gracious expressions of the infant emperor sounded more agreeable, therefore, than the warm and well-meant declarations of his father, issued to the same purpose." (P. 20.)

     Kang-he died in 1721, after what the historians call "a glorious reign of sixty years." It is a little disappointing to find Mr. Gutzlaff saying, that "scarcely had he closed his eyes, when his son endeavored to restore the ancient times of mental torpor," but we need not attach too much importance to this statement, for the Encyclopedia Britannica says that his successor, Yung-ching, who reigned from 1721 to 1735, "reaped the benefits of his father's vigorous administration." It is more disquieting to find from the same source of information that his successor, Keen-lung, "despised the conciliatory measures by which his father (Yung-ching) had maintained peace with his neighbors," and that during his reign, which, like that of his illustrious grandfather, was also of sixty years duration, a number of considerable military expeditions were undertaken. Remembering, however, that Tartars were soldiers of the Emperor of China, it need not be assumed that these military expeditions put an end to the friendly relations of which Swedenborg wrote.
     STANLEY E. PARKER. DEAL,
          ENGLAND, May 20th, 1927.

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     ADDENDUM BY MR. PARKER.

     CITED FROM GUTZLAFF'S "LIFE OF KANG-HE."

     The Mantchoos and their Conquest.

     The territories of China which we comprise under the name of Mancliuria are in many respects superior to the Mongol steppes. . . . In the south, some better regulated states existed. The inhabitants were fierce, and the implacable enemies of the Chinese. . . . Native as well as foreign historians have bestowed lost labor upon tracing the origin of the Mantchoo family which occupies the Chinese throne.

     During the Sing and Tang dynasties, the ancestors of the Mantchoo tribes were known under the name of Muh-cho. Their heroes served in the Chinese army as generals. . . . In the tenth century they endeavored to imitate the Chinese in their way of governing the people, and appeared to be intent upon the entire subjugation of the Chinese Empire. . . . (Then they seemed to have been swept away, and lost in the desert, to re-emerge and disappear again.) Such has been the appearance and disappearance of mighty Tartar tribes from times immemorial. . . . Meanwhile, the scattered Mantchoo tribes appeared periodically on the frontiers to exchange their horses and cattle, furs and drugs, with the Chinese dealers. The trade proving profitable to both parties, it was conducted with the utmost spirit. At length, unhappily, a dispute occurred between the barbarian merchants and the mandarins, to decide which these rude children of nature appealed to arms. . . .

     [During the sixteenth century the Mantchoos increased in power.]

     And now the mysterious ways and workings of an Almighty Providence became visible. Amongst the many tribes, and hordes, and families which traversed the steppes, there was one more particularly favored. The eloquent Mantchoo historian who compiled their biography two centuries afterwards ascribes to the patriarch of this house nothing less than a Divine origin. A magpie dropped upon the garments of the youngest of three sisters who lived at the foot of the Long White Mountains (near the northern frontiers of Korea) a beautiful red fruit, whilst they were bathing. She tasted the unexpected gift, and in consequence became the mother of a lovely boy.

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Asking her eldest sister what name she should bestow upon the child, she replied, "Heaven has sent this son to restore peace to the kingdoms, and you must therefore call him Aisin-ghiori, adding the surname of Balkhori Yong-Shou." Soon after this, his mother died, and the orphan boy attracted the attention of one of three contending Mantchoo chiefs.... The youth, being acknowledged as a saint, and born to calm the dissensions which then reigned among the scattered tribe, was courted by all as a prince of peace. He commenced his ministry, therefore, by uniting the various families and reestablishing order. And, having happily concluded his career, left the government to his posterity.

     Feuds, however, soon again separated the nations. The adversaries of this illustrious family in their turn acquired power, and put all its members to death, with the exception of one young prince who fled to the desert. . . . He escaped his pursuers, and became the grandsire of the reigning house of princes. We are not informed when these miraculous events occurred. Tradition is seldom scrupulous about chronology. But this one fact is evident, that the Mantchoos remained in obscurity just as long as the tribes continued to make war upon each other. In 1616, the principal tribes were united by Tae-tsoo. . . and from the time of his reign they were called Mantchoos, a name they have retained to the present day.

     At length the Chinese were defeated on all sides, and the Tartar king, Tae-tsung-wan-hwang-te, in 1627, proclaimed himself Emperor of the Chinese.... There were strokes and counter-strokes, but "Fate had resolved on giving this country to the Tartars." . . . Tae-tsung died without leaving any son to succeed him, but "the princes" carried on and established themselves at Peking. In order to avoid disputes, the Tartar princes chose for Emperor "a child of seven years old, the nephew of Tae-tsung, and future father of Kang-he....On his accession he delivered a speech to the assembled nobles, which was, of course, prepared by his ministers, in which he promised security of property and life to the people. . . ."

     Weak and divided as the Chinese were at that time, the Tartars were still more so. A child on the throne, many ambitious nobles, an army of feudatory vassals, an immense country before them, of which they did not even know the geographical position, no human prudence could have promised them success. For what were one hundred thousand strangers, scattered over a large surface of the empire, amongst myriads of Chinese, who hated the very name of foreigners!

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But He who gives the kingdoms of this world to whomsoever He pleaseth had destined China for the Mantchoos; they overcame all obstacles, and traversed the whole kingdom from north to south, from west to east. . . . Surely it was not man, but God, who wrought this great revolution. . . . They overran the country. ...The mere mention of the Mantchoo name was sufficient to strike the Chinese with terror; and the Tartars, having dispersed the whole Chinese army by their appearance, took quiet possession of Nanking.

     [This by no means completed the conquest, for there was much further resistance in other quarters.] And even the neighboring Mongol tribes engaged to join against the common enemy,-the Mantchoos. At length, "In the year 1650. . . . after a struggle of eight years, the whole empire bowed submissively to the barbarians."

     In reviewing this bloody war, it appears that engagements were of short duration, though of frequent occurrence. No party fought with determined valor, but fled with consternation as soon as any disaster happened. The carnage commenced after the defeat, and horrible were the atrocities committed upon a prostrate enemy. . . . All the baser passions were here set to work; the innocent blood, so cruelly and so profusely shed, cried to God for vengeance; and, therefore, the Lord gave the country to the Mantchoos to re-establish peace and order. [Gutzlaff's Memoir of Kalzg-he.]

     In connection with Mr. Parker's communication we reprint below from NEW CHURCH LIFE, 1904, an editorial by the late Rev. C. Th. Odhner, in which he gives the results of his investigation of the meaning of "Great Tartary" and "Lesser Tartary" on the maps of Swedenborg's time. We should be pleased to hear from any of our readers who can supply further information on the general subject.

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     GREAT AND LESSER TARTARY.

     A correspondent in the January issue of the LIFE calls in question the identity of Manchuria with the "Tartaria Minor" spoken of in the Spiritual Diary. Acting upon his suggestion, we have examined several old maps of Asia, published during Swedenborg's life-time. One of these we found in the Library of the Academy of the New Church, in an old volume entitled Histoire Genealogique des Tartars, published at Leyden by Abram Rallervier in the year 1726. Here we find "Magna Tartaria" printed across the whole region of Central Asia, including Russian Turkestan, Chinese Turkestan, the Desert of Gobi, Mongolia and Manchuria. There is no trace of any "Tartaria Minor," but to our surprise we found the legend "Petite Tartarie" printed across the whole southern coast of Russia, from the Dneister to the Don, including also the Crimea. This continued as the current geographical designation during the greater part of the eighteenth century, as is evident from the following entry in Diderot's and D'Alembert's Encyclopedie ou Dictionaire Raisonne de Science (Geneva, 1779): "La Petite Tartarie est une province tributaire de la Turquie, et qui est situee au Nord du Pont-Euxin; elle est habituee par divers Tartares. On la nommee Petite Tartarie pour la distinguer de la Gorand Tartarie en Asie."

     It is evident that this "Petite Tartarie" is not the "Tartaria Minor " to which Swedenborg refers in S. D. 6077, for the region which is there described is said to be "near China," and in the parallel passage in the posthumous work On the Last Judgment we are told that the same region is "outside the Chinese wall,"-that is, a distance of some seven thousand miles from the Crimea and Southern Russia.

     There is, however, a second map in the Histoire Gelzealogique, showing Northern Asia as it was at the time of "Zingis-Chan," where we find the word "Tatars" printed across Mongolia and Manchuria, this region being the original ancestral home of all the Tartars; and thus it may be called "Tartary" in an especial and restricted sense. In another map, published at Leyden in 1739, we find Turkestan called "Tartarie Independent," while Mongolia and Manchuria are called "Tartarie Chinois." It is undoubtedly this Chinese Tartary which Swedenborg designates as "Tartaria Minor" in the passages in question.

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     For the sake of further identification we will present here, in full, all the passages in the Writings, referring to both Great and Lesser Tartary.

     Taking first the briefer references, we learn that the Ancient Church was propagated " through all Asia, . . . and in the course of time came into Great Tartary, and thence back again even to the Black Sea," and that the Ancient Word, "by the Divine Providence of the Lord, is still preserved in Great Tartary, and that their Divine worship is from it even to this day." (Coronis 39) And the "angel conductor" who guided Swedenborg while visiting the heaven of the Bronze Age, told him that the Ancient Word "is at this day lost in the kingdoms of Asia, and is preserved only in Great Tartary " (C. L. 77); "it is still with the nations (Gentes) in Great Tartary." (T. C. R. 266.) Swedenborg also speaks of "spirits from the regions of the Northern part of Asia" as able to receive the Heavenly Doctrines. (S. D. 4779)

     We come now to the more extended references:

     "Respecting this Ancient Word, which was in Asia before the Israelitish Word, this news is worthy of being told,-that it is still preserved there among the peoples who dwell in Great Tartary. I have spoken with spirits and angels in the spiritual world who were thence, and they said that they possess a Word, and had possessed it from ancient times, and that they conduct their Divine worship according to that Word, and that it consists of nothing but correspondences. . . . They related further that foreigners are not allowed to enter amongst them, except the Chinese, with whom they cultivate peace, because the Chinese Emperor is from thence. They said also that they are so populous that they do not believe there is any region in the whole world more populous,-a thing which is, indeed, credible on account of the wall of so many miles, which the Chinese erected in olden times, in order to protect themselves against invasion from them. Seek for it [the Ancient Word], and perchance ye will find it there amongst the Tartars." (A. R. 11.)

     This passage is repeated, word for word, in the True Christian Religion 279, with the added information that "the angels and spirits from Great Tartary appear in the southern region at the side of the East, and are separate from the others by this, that they dwell in a more eminent expanse, and that they do not admit amongst them any one from the Christian world, and that if any ascend, they guard them lest they go out.

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The reason of that separation is, that they possess another Word."

     In the Spiritual Diary, under the heading, "The Inhabitants of Tartary close to China-Lesser Tartary," we read:

     "There were some from that country with me. They came while I was asleep, and I slept tranquilly. On my awakening, they noticed that they were not at home, but somewhere else. They wondered where they were, because they did not recognize such things as were in the world of spiritual things as at all like [those they were accustomed to seeing]. They spoke of the country where they lived, that it was populous, and that they knew nothing about war. They knew of China and of Siberia. They said that, with them, he governs who is able to govern, and if he is not able, he is dismissed with a fine. They accord him no other honor than as a wise man who can tell them whether this or that is just. They stated that they are all engaged in their work at home, in making clothes, cultivating the land, and the like. When they came, they marveled that they should be questioned by Christians as to God being a man; inasmuch as they believed that all knew this, without any question whether it be so. In like manner respecting the precepts of the Decalogue; for example, regarding only one wife, whether they live so, as if they did not know that every one so lived, since the Lord wills it, etc. They stated that they have houses where they are taught about life, and about the commandments of God. They said that they had a book, respecting which people elsewhere do not know that they have it. They called it the Divine Book: they read this, and are instructed by it, and understand it. Inquiry was made, and it was the Psalms of David. They said that strangers are indeed admitted among them, but they do not give them the leave to go away. They give them necessary food; and if one wishes to work, he is accepted. They also possess the Decalogue. They call the Chinese their friends, because they are of their nation; they do not think of wars amongst them. They have some fear of Siberia, but say that they have nothing, and that, if they came, they would at once surrender to them; but still they would all go away with their belongings, unawares to them." (S. D. 6077.)

     The substance of this passage is repeated in the posthumous work On the Last Judgment 133, where we are further told that these spirits were "from Tartary, where they dwell outside the Chinese wall," and that "they are of a tranquil mind."

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     From a comparison of the passages respecting "Tartaria Minor " with those concerning "Great Tartary," it seems evident to us that both treat of the same region, viz., Manchuria, although, in a very wide sense, and in different ways, they apply also to Tibet, Mongolia, Korea, and Japan. The Manchus, however, seem to be the people which most closely answer to the description given in the two sets of passages, for they are the only "populous" nation living near China, "outside the Chinese wall," and at the same time cultivating friendly relations with the Chinese, "the Chinese Emperor being thence," and the whole governing class of China being of Manchu origin.

     (Rev. C. Th. Odhner, New Church Life, 1904, p. 142.)
CATHOLIC PROHIBITION OF BIBLE-READING 1927

CATHOLIC PROHIBITION OF BIBLE-READING       HENRY G. DE GEYMULLER       1927

Editor of NEW CHURCH LIFE:
     Your May number (p. 308) contains a review of my article on Modernism which appeared in LA NOUVELLE JERUSALEM, and while I am grateful for the kind appreciation expressed by your reviewer, the Rev. E. E. Iungerich, I am anxious to correct a false impression which was bound to arise in the reader's mind on seeing the following sentence in the review: "The article is ... a timely one, even if its conclusion, though carefully qualified, as to the propriety of Catholics forbidding the reading of the Word, is unfortunate." Such a remark is hardly fair to my point of view.

     First of all, my brief comment upon the Roman Catholic attitude towards Bible-reading is in no way the conclusion of my article on Modernism, but is simply a note appended to it in the form of a Nota Bene. I admit with Mr. Iungerich that any vindication of the Roman Catholic veto* concerning the reading of the Bible would indeed be "unfortunate;" yes, unfortunate from every point of view, except the one at which I placed myself,-a very special and limited point of view.

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I did not examine the question of moral right and wrong involved in the Catholic attitude, but only dealt with a question of fact, as to the practical effect of this attitude upon the historic development of our Western civilization.
     * This veto is extremely elastic. There are Catholic societies for the diffusion of the Bible, although it is a fact that those Bibles are often "expurgated" for the use of "unqualified" readers.

     Though it cannot be denied that unenlightened Bible interpretation is responsible for an enormous number of the miseries that have befallen Christianity, a New Churchman cannot but resent the placing of undue restriction upon the reading of the Word of the Lord. This is why, having Swedenborg in mind, and dealing with the question of absolute right or wrong, I began my note with the following declaration: "It goes without saying that no New Churchman could ever approve of the prohibition against reading the Word, as it is sometimes practiced in the Roman Church. Even without being an individualist, one may estimate that the right to read the Word of God is one of those rights which cannot legitimately be withheld from the human individual." So much for the question of principle involved, as judged from the New Church point of view (which, of course, cannot be the Catholic one!)

     But there is another side to the question, a more material side, perhaps, but still one that involves far-reaching spiritual consequences. If we wish the New Church to enjoy the maximum of efficiency in the world, we would do well to take into account the laws that govern natural existence, in order to possess a certain number of empirical rules that will enable us to deal intelligently with natural contingencies. Some of the worst enemies of mankind have been men who most ardently desired its emancipation and happiness. Even the Writings entitle us to consider that an intelligent egotist, placed in a responsible position, is more useful and beneficent to society than a foolish idealist. I venture to say that the Church of Rome is such an intelligent egotist, and an extremely clever opportunist. We need not approve of its selfishness (inspired by the Babylonian love of rule), but we may admire its cleverness, and admit that practical results have often been happy.

     Nobody will deny that the Catholic Church has been the heiress of the Roman Empire, and has transmitted the Greco-Roman culture, and brought about the unity of our Western civilization,-a unity that was broken by the Reformation, which did not bring Truth to the world, but added new errors. . . . Though the Church of Rome has sometimes strangely misused its strength, it cannot be denied that its respect for order and hierarchy are of the utmost value to civilization, and literally made our Western civilization. . . .

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[Our correspondent treats of these points at length, and concludes.]

     While I do not approve of the principle of forbidding Bible-reading, I think that historically it has had some good effects by keeping a certain unity in the Christian mind, and by preventing men from perpetually claiming Divine Revelation as a support for every heresy and revolution. We must not forget that the spiritual sense was unknown, and that the literal sense of Scripture can easily be used to confirm the most extravagant errors. Now the New Church has the spiritual sense and the genuine doctrine, and there is no longer any excuse for placing a restriction upon the reading of the Word, except that it should be interpreted according to the truths of the New Revelation, which, after all, will be considered in some quarters as equivalent to the Romanist veto against studying the Scriptures! Let me also call attention to a slip of the pen in Mr. Iungerich's review (p. 309), where Heraclitus and Parmenides have been interchanged. Heraclitus was the father of the philosophy of change, and has nothing in common with Thomas Aquinas and Swedenborg.
     HENRY G. DE GEYMULLER.
          Altenberg sur Munster, Haut-Rhin, France,
June 5, 1927.
REFORMATION 1927

REFORMATION              1927

     "The only cause why the Reformation was effected was that the Word, which lay buried, might be restored to the world. For many centuries it had been in the world, but at last it was entombed by the Roman Catholics, and not a single truth of the church could then be laid open from it. The Lord thus could not become known, but the Pope was worshiped as God, in the Lord's place. But after the Word had been drawn forth out of its tomb, the Lord could be made known, truth could be derived from it, and conjunction with heaven could be given. For this purpose the Lord raised up simultaneously so many men who contended. He moved Sweden, Denmark, Holland, England, that they might receive it. And lest it should be blotted out in Germany through the Pope, He raised up Gustavus Adolphus, who stood for the Reformation, and rose up against [the Pope]."-Invitation 24.

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JAPANESE TRANSLATOR OF SWEDENBORG 1927

JAPANESE TRANSLATOR OF SWEDENBORG       ALBERT J. EDMUNDS       1927

Editor of NEW CHURCH LIFE:
     To the accounts in Who's Who in America (1910, etc.) and Who's Who in Japan, I should like to add a few personal recollections. It was on my first visit to La Salle, Illinois, in June, 1901, that I met Teitaro Suzuki. We had already been corresponding about questions of Buddhist doctrine, and now I met my correspondent. At once I felt in the presence of a superior spirit, and I shall never forget my walk with him up Marquette Street. In those years Suzuki was on the staff of The Open Court, of Chicago. Paul Carus, the editor, lived at La Salle, and entertained many men and women interested in the scientific study of religions. Suzuki had already studied for five years in Japan under the severe discipline of the Zen sect. He had learned to sit in rapt meditation for hours, with an attendant to stir him up with a long pole if he went to sleep. Born at Kanazawa in 1870, he was now thirty-one, quiet, unassuming, spiritual.

     In 1903 I again visited La Salle, and this time stayed ten days, doing temporary work on the magazine. Suzuki and I had meals together, and long walks on the prairie. It was upon this second visit that I introduced him to Swedenborg. When I returned to Philadelphia, I asked the Rev. W. H. Alden to send him the Gift Books, on the ground that he was a public teacher of religion. This was done, and to my great delight I discovered, years afterward, that Suzuki had translated Heaven and Hell and Divine Love and Wisdom into Japanese. In his own magazine, THE EASTERN BUDDHIST (Kyoto, November, 1922, p. 92) he says: "It was Mr. Edmunds who initiated the present writer into the study of Swedenborgian mysticism."

     Teitaro's religious name is Daisetsu, which means Great Simplicity.
     ALBERT J. EDMUNDS.
213 Ryers Avenue, Cheltenham, Philadelphia, Pa., June 6, 1927.

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Church News 1927

Church News       Various       1927

     CHICAGO, ILL.

     The members of Sharon Church joined with the friends of the Immanuel Church in celebrating the Nineteenth of June at Glenview, the pastors of both societies taking part in the morning service, and each delivering a short sermon. The Rev. Gilbert Smith treated of the first part of the message, namely, That the Lord God Jesus Christ reigns; the Rev. W. L. Gladish dealt with the latter part, That they are blessed who come to the marriage supper of the Lamb. A congregation of 220 was in attendance, and the wish was afterwards expressed by some that the Nineteenth might always be celebrated on the nearest Sunday, so that all the men might be present.

     In the afternoon at 4 o'clock a pageant was given representing the Sending Forth of the Disciples, and also a Marriage in Heaven, as described in the Writings. In the evening there was a very fine song service, led by Mr. Jesse Stevens.

     The people from Chicago were entertained at dinner in the homes of The Park, and all together, both hosts and guests, partook of a cafeteria supper on the green by the church. The members of Sharon Church deeply appreciated the hospitality of the Immanuel Church friends especially in view of the fact that they were about to entertain the Sons of the Academy a few days later.

     On Sunday, June 12th, Mr. Victor Gladish delivered the sermon at our service in Sharon Church, and on the following Saturday, June 18th, he was united in marriage with Miss Lucy Wright, the ceremony taking place in the Immanuel Church, Glenview, the groom's father officiating, and Miss Louise Gladish being the maid of honor. The Church was charmingly decorated under the able management of Miss Adah Nelson, and the spacious home of Mr. and Mrs. Alvin E. Nelson was opened to the wedding party for the day. In other ways, too, our Glenview friends manifested their generosity and hospitality. A delightful sphere pervaded the occasion, and one lady, who had never before attended New Church wedding, was heard to remark, "This seems to me like a bit of heaven." That is undoubtedly true of all our church weddings.
     E. V. W.

     WASHINGTON, D. C.

     "June the Nineteenth, Day of Days!" We were fortunate in having our Pastor's visit fall on this day. He informed us that this was the first time the Nineteenth had been celebrated in the Capital. Our meeting, as usual, was held at the home of Mr. and Mrs. A. C. V. Schott. While we were not so fortunate as to have Mr. Walter C. Childs with us, our Pastor delivered the speech which he assured us Mr. Childs would have made, if he had been present! It included the prophecy that, within the next thousand years, this house would bear a suitable plate to commemorate the memorable event!

     Doctrinal class was held on the previous evening, Dr. Acton concluding his series of talks on Swedenborg's preparation (a long one) to receive the Divine Revelation given through him to the New church. The class was followed by our usual Society dinner.

     On Sunday, the 19th, the service included the Rite of Confession of Faith, administered for Miss Lois E. Stebbing. The congregation now consists wholly of adults.

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The Pastor delivered an address appropriate to the day, which was followed by the administration of the Holy Supper. After the service we met and honored several toasts-"The Church," "Our Academy," "Our New Member"-accompanied with several songs. Unfortunately, Dr. Acton was obliged to leave early for home, which had the effect of shortening our happy celebration.

     Out Sunday services are discontinued for the summer, and will be resumed on September 18, 1927.
     MARGARET M. STEBBING.

     DENVER, COLORADO.

     We have read with great interest the news reports from other centers which have appeared in the Life since our last report, six months ago. We feel guilty, but our unregenerate nature has prompted us to consult the Directory of Societies, and lo, we find that we are not the only one that has not reported! This being the case, we make bold to take pen in hand.

     Our regular uses have been carried on as usual throughout the active season, with special celebrations at Christmas and Easter and on Swedenborg's Birthday. We have also had a number of social occasions, with cards and other forms of entertainment, given under the auspices of the Ladies Meeting. At one gathering we had radiopticon views of the Houses of Worship (interior and exterior) which have appeared in the Life, together with views of the Bryn Athyn Cathedral, and of various groups of New Church people. At another party, readings from Mr. Donald F. Rose's Stuff and Nonsense furnished the entertainment.

     Our recent celebration of the Nineteenth was greatly enjoyed. In the morning we had a purely devotional service, with the Holy Supper the ruling theme in the lesson, music and prayers. In place of the sermon, the reading from the Heavenly Doctrine was lengthened. We had planned for a picnic in the park in the afternoon, but the weather forbade. According to the statistics we are supposed to have 358 days of sunshine in the year, but of late we have had reason to doubt said statistics. Jupiter Pluvius, we think, has a secret source of grief; for he weeps often. Accordingly, at the last minute we decided to foregather at the chapel, where we had a fine, informal time, and an excellent informal supper, after which a short service was held. The subject of the sermon was: "The Gospel of the Disciples,-the Lord God Jesus Christ Reigns." The special point brought out and elaborated was that, as this Gospel is most central, so it is most universal.

     What lent added interest and enjoyment to the day was Mr. Bergstrom's announcement of the engagement of his daughter, Mildred, to Mr. Stuart Synnestvedt, of Bryn Athyn, and of their approaching nuptials on June 25th. In the evening we had the pleasure of congratulating the bride-to-be, and of welcoming her sister, Angela, who had just returned from Bryn Athyn. Later we also had the pleasure of welcoming the bridegroom, as well as Edward Allen.

     The Rev. Homer Synnestvedt arrived on Thursday, June 23d, and at the Bergstrom home that evening administered the Rite of Confession of Faith for the Misses Angela and Mildred Bergstrom. Following this he solemnized the Betrothal of Mr. Stuart Synnestvedt and Miss Mildred Bergstrom. The wedding took place at the church on Saturday evening, and was followed by a reception at the Bergstrom home, attended by the members of the Society. At the service on Sunday, Mr. Synnestvedt officiated and delivered the sermon. All of these occasions were delightful, and the members greatly appreciated his visit.
     HENRY HEINRICHS.

     KITCHENER, ONT.

     The Nineteenth of June brought to us what was probably the most successful banquet of the year. There was a very good supper, and the tables were made beautiful with many bouquets of flowers, including a large number of very fine irises.

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     After the singing of "Our Glorious Church," the Pastor made an introductory speech, pointing out three events which took place in the spiritual world, and which have been recorded in the natural world in such a way as to be historical, each having a definite date in time, and each being very significant for the New Church. The first was accomplished in 1745, when Swedenborg was fully introduced into the spiritual world to have communication with the angels there, while at the same time he was living in the natural body in this world. This made it possible to give on earth in an ultimate form the Doctrines from the Lord out of heaven, which are the Writings of the New Church. The second was the Last Judgment that took place in 1757, which was a general cleansing of the spiritual world, whereby was made possible the creation of the "New Heaven and the New Earth." The last of these events was on the 19th of June in the year 1770, when the Lord called together His Twelve Disciples and sent them forth in the spiritual world to proclaim as an accomplished fact the Second Coming of the Lord and the establishment of the New Church.

     Mr. Fred Stroh then spoke on "Prophecies of the New Church," and showed with quotations from the Word and the Writings that the Second Coming was promised as a spiritual opening of the Word, and not as a coming in Person to rule in the natural world. "For He will come in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory"-the "clouds of heaven" meaning the Letter of the Word, and the "glory" the internal sense revealed therein.

     In concluding, the Pastor presented two quotations and proceeded to compare them; the first from the Coronis, "The New Church will not be established, as the former, by miracles, but by the manifestation of the Lord Himself;" the second from Micah 4:5, "For all the people will walk every one in the name of his god, and we will walk in the name of the Lord our God forever and ever." Each church and sect is distinguished from others by the idea which it has of God. This idea is the Name of God to that church. The Jews, to whom the prophet addressed his words, were set apart from other peoples by the idea of Divine Unity when the, rest of the world was densely polytheistic. The first Christian Church, in turn, was separated from both Jews and pagans by the idea of God in the flesh,-Jesus Christ the Man who is at the same time God. This is the Name in which all Christians must walk. And again, in the New Church the God-Man is revealed to the rational mind in the Writings, and in this spiritual-rational idea He is worshiped and followed. The Writings are "the manifestation of the Lord Himself" to the New Church; they are the Name of our God, in which we will walk forever and ever.

     Our day school was dosed on Wednesday, June 15th, with an appropriate service. The children received the Various colored ribbons in token of advancement and special accomplishments. After the service everyone was busy saying farewell to Miss Louise Gladish, who has been our teacher for the past two years, but is now leaving us to teach in the Bryn Athyn Elementary School. "Louise" had won a warm place in the hearts of the Kitchener friends, and she will be very much missed. We wish her prosperity in her new work.

     The preceding evening the children of the school had given several scenes from, a dramatization of Pilgrim's Progress, depicting incidents in the journey of Christiana to join her husband in the Celestial City.

     With the quarterly meeting of the Society on June 24th the activities of the season have come to a close, and the summer quiet is upon us.

     On July 1st, Mr. and Mrs. Victor Gladish arrived from Chicago, and were accorded a very warm, indeed a sweltering, reception, owing to the very hot weather. Mr. Gladish has been sent by the Bishop to assist in the services during the summer, and it will give us added interest and stimulus during this quiet period of the year.
     G. K. D.

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     BRYN ATHYN.

     Wedding bells, coyly blushing brides, dainty bridesmaids with great bouquets of flowers, little flower girls dropping petals from their baskets uncertainly along the aisle! Processions, receptions, parties, farewells! These are dominant memories of June this year. There were so many weddings that our recollections are apt to be a little mixed. Besides, no man should be asked to give an account of a wedding. What does he know about it, anyway? He is certain to miss the most essential things, and though he carry away with him a delightful sense of harmony, and beauty, and dignity, of romance and innocence, he cannot give expression to what he has thus deeply felt. We shall not attempt this embarrassing task, but content ourselves with saying that each of the recent weddings was remarkably distinct from all the others, expressing the individuality of the bride, and possessing a charm and loveliness all its own.

     First came the nuptials of Mr. Addison Lyman, Jr. and Miss Rhoda Ebert, a distinctive feature being that the wedding march was sung by a quartet of mixed voices. The reception was held at the home of the bride's parents in Huntingdon Valley, the parents of the groom having come from North Carolina for the occasion. Then a week later, on June 11th, came the marriage of Mr. Francis Frost and Miss Elsie Harris. The bride's gown was the quaint creation of an earlier day, redolent with memories, and the dresses of the bridesmaids and flower girls were charmingly in keeping with it. As Miss Harris has been a teacher in the Academy for several years, the reception was appropriately held on the campus in front of the dining hall, where the soft light of the Japanese lanterns under the trees made a delightful setting. The marriage of Dr. Frank Doering and Miss Elizabeth Richardson was solemnized on the 19th, at 5:30 in the afternoon. It was planned to hold the reception in the Undercroft, but owing to the rainy weather it was held in the Council Hall above. The last of this unusual series of weddings took place on the 29th, when Mr. Edreth Acton and Miss Henrietta Broadbridge were united in marriage, this time the Undercroft proving a very pleasant place for the reception.

     The 19th of June, falling upon Sunday, was observed by special services of worship. At the morning service, the Bishop administered the Holy Supper, assisted by four ministers; at the usual missionary service at 4 o'clock in the afternoon, the Rev. Theodore Pitcairn preached on the subject of "Judgment," and in the evening there was a musical service at which the Rev. George de Charms delivered the sermon, which treated of the sounding of the trumpet at the Coming of the Lord, and showed that this means a powerful influx of Divine Truth performing a judgment in both worlds. (Matthew 24:31.) The musical features included beautiful numbers by the Bryn Athyn String Quartet and an appropriate selection by a vocal quartet.

     The celebration of the Nineteenth was continued on Monday evening, the 20th, when the members of the Society gathered in the auditorium for a banquet that was delightfully served. The room had been made additionally attractive by artistic table decorations of flowers. Mr. Winfred Hyatt had contributed a most effective cover-design for the programs, representing the White Horse. (Rev. 6:2.) The Rev. George de Charms was toastmaster, and after introductory remarks in which he spoke of the reasons why the 19th of June is the real birthday of the New Church, he turned the discussion in the direction of considering the present-day problems of the Bryn Athyn Society. Two young men made their first appearances on this occasion as public speakers before a New Church audience. The first, Mr. Lester Asplundh, spoke of the effect upon the Church of changing conditions in the world, especially of the multitude of mechanical inventions which have exerted a revolutionary influence upon the customs and modes of life, helping to bring about that new spirit of freedom from established conventions which has swept into its current the rising generation of New Church boys and girls.

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The result is a necessity for new modes of approach and adaptation, if the Spirit of the early Academy is to be perpetuated. Mr. Arthur Synnestvedt followed with an analysis of the altered conditions which have arisen in the Church itself, particularly in Bryn Athyn, because of a rapid increase in numbers, and in the complexity of its organization.

     The formal program of speeches was dosed by Mr. Raymond Pitcairn, who, in speaking of the "greatest present need of the Church," stressed the immense importance of the teaching of the Writings concerning conjugial love. The bonds of marriage are rapidly breaking down in the world, the indications of which are unmistakable. Nowhere, except in Divine Revelation, is to be found a source of inspiration adequate to the preservation of the integrity of the home and the spiritual purity of the marriage covenant, when yet these are the keystone upon which the whole structure of the Church must rest.

     The speeches were interspersed with songs, a group of singers introduced by the toastmaster as "the famous Mendelssohn Choir of Toronto" taking the lead. Mr. R. B. Caldwell, Jr. sang "The Song of the Younger Generation," in the chorus of which all joined to pledge continued loyalty to the spirit of the Academy, regardless of what external changes might come. "An Ode to the New Speakers" was recited by the toastmaster to the time of the "Humoreske," and there were other lighter touches to enliven the evening. An active discussion from the floor followed the formal addresses, and the banquet came to a close with the singing of "Our Glorious Church." An unusual number of our citizens are spending the summer at home, and there is promise of a gay social time. Some, however, will seek relaxation in the mountains or at the seashore, while a few will go to Europe. Miss Clara Hanlin, Miss Dorothy Davis, and Miss Venita Roschman have sailed, and Miss Sigrid Odhner has departed for Stockholm, where she will shortly be married. On July 16th, the Rev. and Mrs. Theodore Pitcairn and their little daughter, together with the relatives and friends who have been staying with them at their attractive new home, will sail for France. The Society has received a welcome addition to its membership in the coming of Mr. and Mrs. Geoffrey S. Childs, who are residing for the present in Huntingdon Valley.

     On July 5th, we received a sudden shock when the news came that Mrs. S. H. Hicks had met her death in an automobile accident. She had been with us for the celebration of the Fourth, joining with her usual happy spirit in all the activities of the day. She was returning, after midnight, with her son Darrel and his wife, to their home in East Orange, N. J., when their car collided with a large truck parked without lights on the roadway near New Brunswick, N. J. Mr. and Mrs. Hicks suffered cuts from broken glass, but escaped permanent injury. Mrs. S. H. Hicks came to know of the Church soon after the beginning of the Academy movement, in Erie, Pa., where she was brought up. She and her husband, together with their family, were among the early pioneers in the settlement of Bryn Athyn, and their children were all educated in our Schools. We shall greatly miss her genial personality and her affectionate interest in all things of the Church.

     On July 7th, Mr. Jacob Ebert, for many years a faithful reader of the Writings and a staunch member of the Society in Allentown, Pa., but who had recently been living in Huntingdon Valley, was taken to the other world in his seventy-eighth year. For a long time he had been in poor health, but he passed away suddenly. While we shall miss him here, we cannot but rejoice at his awakening into the other life with health and strength restored.

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     The month of July, not to be wholly outdone by June, has seen another wedding in the cathedral. Immediately after the morning service on July 17th, and in the presence of a large congregation, the Bishop officiated at the marriage of Mr. Raymond Synnestvedt, of Bryn Athyn, and Miss Katherine Riefstahl, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Louis V. Reifstahl, who reside near Glenview, Ill.

     Our Sunday afternoon missionary services will continue during the summer, and the Rev. Karl R. Alden is to deliver a series of sermons on the general subject of the Divine Love and Wisdom.
     GEORGE DE CHARMS.

     GLENVIEW, ILLINOIS.

     New Church Day was fittingly celebrated here, beginning with a service on Friday evening, June 17, at which the Holy Supper was administered. On Saturday afternoon the marriage of Mr. Victor Gladish and Miss Lucy Wright was solemnized in the church. Hosts of friends of the couple attended the ceremony, and also the reception on the plaza in front of the parish hall, where refreshments were served and there was a generally happy time.

     Sunday, the Nineteenth, opened with a very full service attended by the members of both Sharon Church and the Immanuel Church, a short sermon being delivered by the pastor of each society. In the afternoon, a lovely pageant, elaborately costumed, was presented by the Immanuel Church School, having to do with Swedenborg in his garden and other themes. Incidental music added to the strong sphere that was aroused by this living representation. It was given on the lawn in front of the church, and was followed by an outdoor cafeteria supper for old and young. This was very festive, and perfect weather smiled upon us. In the evening, there was a service of sacred music in the church, the attendance testing its capacity. There was special organ and violin music, and an augmented choir sang the 45th Psalm and other numbers. The congregation joined in the singing of the processional and recessional hymns with such a volume as has never before been heard in our church building.

     The Rev. Homer Synnestvedt paid us a brief visit while en route to Denver, where he officiated at the wedding of his son, Stuart, and Miss Mildred Bergstrom on June 25th. The young couple reached Glenview on July 4th, in time to participate in our festivities.

     Our people are dispersing on vacations to various places,-the Scalbom and Cole camps in northern Wisconsin, others to Michigan City, and many to the New Church rendezvous at Palisades Park and Linden Hills, on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan. But in spite of the absentees the attendance at our Sunday worship continues at about the yearly average. The pastor will have the assistance of Candidate Hendrik Boef, who is spending the summer in Glenview. It is planned to maintain services every Sunday in the year, and also to have a choir composed of those singers who are at home. For it is agreed that empty choir seats do not add to the worship, and that there is a distinct loss in the effectiveness of the singing when this link between the organ and congregation is lacking.
      R. S.

     SONS OF THE ACADEMY.

     Glenview, June 21-25, 1927.

     The gathering of the Sons of the Academy this year, as for several years past, was not only the occasion for the annual business meeting, but was also inspirational in its social and instructive features. There were fewer visitors than we had hoped for, but those who came "made the party" for us. Mr. Louis Cole and his Committee managed the arrangements quietly and efficiently, and Mr. Felix Junge engineered two very pleasant midday luncheons and the banquet, this last being graced by the presence of the ladies.

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     The smoker which initiated the meetings on Thursday evening was dignified by the Rev. K. R. Alden's excellent paper entitled "In the Hand of God,"-referring to the whole Academy idea, and how its work has been miraculously preserved and blest, from the beginning to the present. The speaker introduced a note of concern as to the modern spread of Atheism, and much was said of this in the discussion of the address, with a general recognition of the call upon us to renew our zeal for the New Church. But we did not feel that we were fairly started until the sine-qui-nons, including our President, had arrived, or until the occupants of the famous Locomobile from Bryn Athyn finally came through, and all explanations had been made. Then Mr. Childs gave us one of his finest sidelight speeches, describing the hardships of the journey.

     Friday,-the first business session, with a great combination of efficiency and affability, of attention to reports and humorous comment from the floor. At luncheon that day, much singing, and joshing, and good humor. And after the afternoon session there were golf foursomes and threesomes, with intersectional rivalry between the players of Bryn Athyn and Glenview.

     On Friday evening, the Rev. Alfred Acton spoke on "The Vital Spirit of the Academy," and to the present writer the address seemed unsurpassed for eloquence, depth and inspiration. "The Academy spirit is the conviction that the writings are the truth," he said, and we have never heard a more succinct and satisfactory definition of that which we talk about so much without definition. We Sons in Glenview shall long remember Dr. Acton's speech, and especially his forceful appeal for humility in our spirit of approach.

     The session on Saturday morning was chiefly devoted to a discussion of the official organ,-The Bulletin of the Sons of the Academy. The resignation of the Editor, Rev. William Whitehead, was regretfully accepted, and after lengthy consideration the future of the periodical was left to the action of the Execution Committee. The following Officers were elected: Mr. Harold F. Pitcairn, President; Mr. Sydney E. Lee, Vice President; Mr. Ariel Gunther, Secretary; Mr. Fred J. Cooper, Treasurer. Executive Committee: Messrs. Goeffrey S. Childs, Wilfred Howard, William Whitehead, Alexander P. Lindsay, J. Edward Hill, G. Ray Brown, Louis Cole, and George Fiske.

     The session was followed by another luncheon, and it is wonderful what songs and quips, what light and enjoyable speeches, a roomful of Sons can produce. Mr. Boef met the demand for a song sung in four languages. Others were glad, no doubt, that Messrs. Alden and Smith could speak but one language.

     The Banquet in the evening was most pleasantly conducted by Mr. George Fiske of the Glenview Chapter, and by invitation the ladies were prevent with us on this occasion. The serious part of the program did not come first, but in between. Mr. Goeffrey Childs tried to make a presentation of ten-cent golf clubs to the two golfing clergymen of the previous day, but never got to it. Mr. Harold Pitcairn, of Aviation and Locomobile fame, made a fine speech. Dr. Acton spoke again, to the pleasure and profit of all, and the Rev. George de Charms delighted the audience, as usual. A chapter flag, designed by Mr. Marshall Fuller, was brought before the gathering, with the thought that it might find acceptance as an emblem for the general body. It was very beautiful, and appropriate to the spirit of the Sons of the Academy. Later in the evening, between dances, there was an impromptu presentation of a pasteboard eagle to our retiring President, Mr. Geoffrey S. Childs, who made a delightful speech of acceptance.

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     The Banquet was the final event on the regular program of the Sons of the Academy, but the visitors remained until the following day, Sunday, when a large congregation filled the church, and an inspiring sermon was delivered by the Rev. Alfred Acton.

     On Sunday afternoon, there was a Music Festival in the perish hall, presented by Mr. Jesse Stevens and his Orchestra and Chorus. It had been prepared in the spirit of New Church Day, but was purposely postponed until the time of the Sons' meeting. The effort has been made in Glenview, under Mr. Stevens' enthusiastic leadership, to bring into the sphere of worship the finest that we know and can produce in music. At this Festival, the 45th and 48th Psalms in the Psalmody were given with full chorus and orchestra, and with the reading of the sentences giving the spiritual sense of the various sections of the Psalm. The sentences were read by the Easter in robe. And also, before each musical number sketches were read describing the piece and the composer, so that the hearers might have, in addition to the music, some idea of the significance of what they were listening to.

     All expressed themselves as very much delighted with this concert. At the dose, although Mr. Stevens retired too quickly from view, a presentation was made to him in acknowledgment of his work with the Immanuel Church singers and players. It was a paper folio, entitled "Another Unfinished Symphony," and containing gold pieces glued to the clefs like a musical score, the same as the Schubert Unfinished Symphony which had just been rendered by the Orchestra.

     The 1927 gathering of the Sons of the Academy will be remembered as a notable inspiration to the Glenview people, and as excellent meetings throughout. With a little sadness,-and some misgivings, perhaps,-a little group gathered around the last departing guests, to bid farewell to Mr. Harold Pitcairn's Locomobile party.
     GILBERT H. SMITH.

     BRISTOL, ENGLAND.

     During the week commencing July 4th, the Rev. R. J. Tilson visited the members of the General Church resident in the city of Bristol. He was the guest of our ever loyal friend, Miss Hauser, who at the time was also entertaining Miss Janet Elphick of London.

     The prime object of our Pastor's visit was to administer the Sacrament of the Holy Supper, and also to dedicate the house of Mr. and Mrs. Dawson, who, with their son and daughter, have again come to reside in Bristol. On Tuesday evening, July 5th, all met at the home of Miss Hauser, and Mr. Tilson read a most interesting and instructive paper on "The New Church and the Old." This was followed by a very profitable conversation regarding the Church in its past, present and future states. Questions were asked which called forth most delightful and lucid explanations from the Pastor. The evening was greatly enjoyed.

     On Wednesday, July 6th, all gathered at the house of Mr. and Mrs. Dawson, where the Dedication and Sacramental Services were held. On this occasion we were joined by Mr. and Mrs. S. Lewin of Bath, making a total of nine persons. The services were most beautifully and reverently performed, and one and all felt spiritually helped and blest. It was remarked how perfectly the two services blended, and how fitting it was they should be held together, as the administration of the Holy Supper served to sanctify the whole.

     After the service a Feast was served, at which toasts were honored and speeches made by the Pastor, Mr. S. Lewin, and Mr. and Mrs. Dawson. It was a most enjoyable time, and greatly appreciated by the Bristol members.
     J. D.

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POSITION AT CAIRNWOOD 1927

POSITION AT CAIRNWOOD              1927




     Announcements.



     Mrs. Raymond Pitcairn desires a young lady to take the place of Miss Dagne Hanson, who is to be married the latter part of September.

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GLEANINGS FROM NEW CHURCH HISTORY 1927

GLEANINGS FROM NEW CHURCH HISTORY       ROBERT HINDMARSH       1927


NEW CHURCH LIFE
VOL. XLVII SEPTEMBER, 1927 No. 9
     THE FIRST PUBLIC MEETING.

     In one whole year after my reception of the Writings, I found only three or four individuals in London with whom I could maintain a friendly intercourse on the subjects contained in them. In 1783, I invited these few to hold regular meetings for reading and conversation in my house in Clerkenwell Close, not far from the spot where Swedenborg died. These meetings were continued every Sunday morning, till it was thought expedient to endeavor to make them more public. I was possessed of all the Writings in Latin, and these were constantly on the table before us while we read in them those illustrations of the Holy Word, and those extraordinary Relations in reference to the state of things in another life, which so peculiarly distinguish our Author's theological works from those of every other man.

     In this manner we went on for a time, our first meeting consisting of only three persons, namely, Mr. Peter Prove, of the Minories, Apothecary; Mr. William Bonington, of Red Lion Street, Clerkenwell, Clock-case Maker; and myself, of Clerkenwell Close, Printer. Afterwards, John Augustus Tulk, Esq., of Kennington Lane, Vauxhall, a gentleman of independent property, joined our little Society, and by his zeal, ability, and judgment, added strength to our hands.

     It was now agreed to call a public meeting of all the friends and readers of the Writings in London of whom we had any certain information; first, that we might become better acquainted with each other; and secondly, to unite our forces and make known to the world what we could no longer in conscience conceal from their notice.

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Our first public meeting was accordingly fixed to be at the London Coffee House on Ludgate Hill, where we met, five in number, at 5 o'clock on Thursday evening, the 5th of December, 1783.* But finding, when we were assembled, that no private room could be allotted to our party, and that it would be inconvenient to transact our business in any of the open boxes of the Coffee Room, we immediately adjourned to the Queen's Arms Tavern, now St. Paul's Hotel, on the south side of St. Paul's Church Yard, where we had a room to ourselves and drank tea together.
     * It was observed by some of our friends that several remarkable coincidences were frequently presenting themselves to our notice in the various occurrences that took place at this early period of the New Church. Thus the number of persons who assembled at the first public meeting was five; the hour of the day was five in the evening; the day of the week was the fifth (Thursday); and the name of the month was the number five doubled (December). . . . Five, in the science of correspondences, denotes what is just sufficient for future use, or the lowest degree of remains which can preserve spiritual life, and from which a New Church can be formed on the destruction of a preceding one. .. . Not that the five persons assembled actually formed the remains here spoken of, but only that, as to their number, they may be said to represent the remains still subsisting in the Christian Church at large. . . . I may add, as rather a singular case in relation to myself, that my grandfather had five children, my father five children, myself five children, and my three sons each five children, and no more.

     The following persons were present on this occasion: Mr. John Augustus Tulk, Mr. Peter Prove, Mr. William Bonington, Mr. William Spence, of 17 Great Mary-le-bone Street, Surgeon, and myself. Another gentleman, Mr. Henry Peckitt, of 50 Old Compton Street, Soho, a retired Apothecary, went to the London Coffee House, after we had left it, in hopes of joining our company, but hearing no tidings of us there, although we had left word at the bar where we were gone, returned home without seeing us.

     At this first public meeting, if it may be so called, we mutually congratulated each other on the good fortune and happiness we enjoyed, in having become acquainted with the Writings of a man so highly distinguished above his fellow men by the Divine favor, and by gifts from heaven of the most extraordinary description, as was the late Emanuel Swedenborg.

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To hear the story of each other's first reception of the Doctrines, and to observe the animation that sparkled in the eye and brightened up the countenance of each speaker, as it came to his turn to relate the particulars of that by him never-to-be-forgotten event, was itself a little heaven, a foretaste of those pure delights which we foresaw would spring up in the minds of all future recipients, when they should, in years or ages to come, first meet together in little bands or societies, to see and converse with each other, to talk of all the wonders of the new revelation, to help each other in the way to the heavenly Zion, to point to the gates that open into the Holy City, and to spread widely, and more widely still, the happy news that the New Jerusalem is in the act of descending from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her Husband; that the angels are already stretching out the curtains, lengthening the cords and strengthening the stakes of a new habitation on the earth for the Most High to dwell in; and that the tabernacle of God is about to be set up with men, who will dwell with them, and cause them to be His people, while He Himself shall be acknowledged and worshiped as their only Lord and God. No more tears; no more death; no more sorrow, nor crying, nor pain; for the former things are passed away; and, behold, all things are become new. (Rev. 21:3-5.)

     After our mutual congratulations, and the reading of some letters from absent individuals who resided in the country, we began to consult on the best means of making known the new Doctrines and enlarging our Society. It was agreed that we should meet again at the same time and place on the Thursday following, unless a more convenient situation could in the meantime be procured. Our spirits were elated by the meeting. Three or four hours swiftly passed away, and soon after nine o'clock we adjourned, highly gratified with this first public interview of congenial minds, and determined to prosecute our plan of holding up to the view of the world a Light which could no longer be concealed in a secret place, nor hid under a ed or bushel.

     [Rise and Progress of the New Jerusalem Church pp. 14-16.]

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CONJUGIAL LOVE 1927

CONJUGIAL LOVE       Rev. W. L. GLADISH       1927

     "Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder." (Matthew 19:6.)

     Among the new things revealed for the New Church is the truth concerning the eternity of marriage; also the truth that marriage exists in heaven; indeed, that all heaven is a marriage, and that all the happiness of heaven is in and from marriage. It is also revealed from heaven that true marriage love, in its purity, is celestial, spiritual, holy, pure and clean above every other love with the angels of heaven and the men of the church. Further, that marriage derives this holiness from its origin, which is in the Lord Himself, in the union of the Divine and the Human in Him, and thence in the marriage union of the Lord as Bridegroom and Husband with the church as His bride and wife; from which marriage are conceived and born all regenerate men of the church and angels of heaven. It thus follows that the secondary origin of marriage is in the regeneration of the men and women of the church, in their reception of the doctrine and life of the church in their understanding and will; for no one can enter into true and eternal marriage unless he have in himself, from the Lord and the church as his Father and mother, a true and spiritual union of will and understanding, of thought and life. As man, if he is to enter heaven, must have heaven in himself, so, if he is to enter marriage, he must have marriage in himself.

     These spiritual truths concerning marriage could not be revealed to the first Christian Church, because it was foreseen that that Church would not remain in its integrity, but would fall into evil, and thence would falsify its doctrine. For this reason, genuine truths were not revealed to that Church, lest they be profaned. And so the truth concerning the nature of the heavenly marriage was not revealed, lest that too should be profaned beyond the power of restoration. But now, at the end of that Church, the danger of profanation is taken away by the fact that men in general will but laugh in spirit at the doctrine of the holiness and eternity of marriage.

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For that doctrine will be believed only by the few who accept the revelation made by the Lord for His New Church.

     The eternity of marriage-true marriage-appears in some places in the Word where genuine truth shines through the letter, as in our text: "What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder." Since God is eternal, what He joins together must be joined for eternity. And there has always been a perception in the hearts of true lovers that they were united in an eternal covenant which death could not dissolve, and that the joys of heaven would be worthless if husband and wife were separated there. Yet that hope seemed forbidden by the Lord's saying, "In the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven." (Matt. 22:30.)

     It is of the loving Providence of the Lord that the truth of the literal sense of the Word should sometimes seem to be in opposition to the genuine truth of the internal sense, lest merely natural men should defile its precious pearls, both for themselves and others, with the impurities of their sensual and lascivious thought. Marriage, as it is known in heaven, and as it may be known from heaven by a man of the New Church, although it is a full and complete marriage, is utterly incomprehensible to one who thinks from the light of the world. In the first place, such marriage is derived from the Lord, the God of the Word; it is His crowning gift to the man of His church, and can be given only to those who approach Him in His Human as the God of heaven and earth, and who shun their evils as sins against Him. It cannot be given to any who worship a tripersonal Deity or a formless, unknown God. In the second place, such marriage is derived from the reciprocal union of the souls and spiritual minds of husband and wife; these are of the internal man, and are not opened in the unregenerate, but are as if non-existent, or present only potentially; indeed, they are tightly closed, and as it were sealed, with those who deny the Lord, and who love themselves and the world supremely.

     True marriage requires not only the opening of the internal mind by a knowledge of the genuine truths of faith and a life according to them, but also the desire to be united in soul and mind with the married partner alone, and the shunning of the love of any one else as perdition itself.

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For true marriage is one with religion, and with heaven itself. Conjugial love is the jewel of human life, and the sanctuary of the Christian religion. Yet, to derive marriage from such an origin-from heaven itself, and from a degree of life opened only by religion, and by looking with love to one's married partner alone-cannot but seem utterly fanciful to the merely natural man, who thinks in the light of the world. In that light, marriage is thought to be of the body and the flesh, and even sex is regarded as solely of the body. And then no special reason is seen for monogamous marriage, except for the sake of order in the State, and on account of the children, that they may be properly cared for. In fact, the man who has no religion, or who, like the Sadducees, does not believe in a life after death, sees no essential difference between marriage and adultery, except that one is allowable and the other is forbidden by law; and in his spirit, when alone and uninfluenced by the thoughts of others, he thinks of adultery as freely as of marriage; when yet adultery is from hell, and from the union of evil and falsity there, while marriage is from heaven, and from the union of good and truth there.

     II.

     The essential ground of marriage is in the fact that the Lord created the man a form of the love of wisdom, thus of knowing, understanding and thinking truth, while He created woman a form of the love of the good of truth, or of carrying out in life what wisdom or truth teaches. These two things are essentially one, but in outward form are distinct; and by human beings they are realized successively. Each truth has its own good, which consists in doing what the truth teaches; and no truth can have any other good than its own. This is self-evident. Obedience to any truth gives the good of that truth, not the good of any other truth.

     So every man who by creation and regeneration by the Lord becomes a form of wisdom, or of intelligence, or of truth, has his own wife provided for him by the Lord; and she is the love of the good of his truth,-the love of realizing in life the good that his truth teaches. They are, therefore, no more two, but one; two, indeed, as to form, but one as to life; just as there are two eyes, but one sight, two ears, but one sense of hearing, and so forth. For everything in the body is twinned.

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If there are not two organs uniting in one use, there are two parts to the organ, a right and a left side; as the two lobes of the brain, and the two chambers of the heart. And in every case the right side has reference to good, and the left to truth. Thus there is an image of male and female, and of their marriage, in every part of the body.

     And we are taught by the Lord through heaven that in a marriage of conjugial love, where the minds and souls of the consorts are open to the Lord and to the angelic heavens, there is a similar twinning of all the faculties of the soul and mind, and even of the body, so that the faculties of one look to, and act as one with, the corresponding faculties of the other. One mind is in them both, so that the husband sees and thinks both from himself and at the same time from his wife, and the wife similarly feels and thinks together with her husband. It is because of this intimate union that, in the higher heavens, husband and wife are not called two, but one angel. Verily, what God hath joined together cannot be put asunder. To separate the partners of such a marriage would be to destroy them both.

     Such a love between married partners was known in the Golden Age, and has always been known in heaven; but it has scarcely been known upon the earth for some thousands of years, except as a beautiful dream of lovers. And as it is now a new thing, so it is given a new name,-not conjugal love, nor even marriage love, but conjugial love. It is a spiritual love,-the Lord's crowning gift to those who love Him and keep His commandments. It is a love that can by no means be given to unregenerate men.

     Swedenborg relates that he was once taken up into an angelic society, where they asked him, What is new from the earth? He told them of the new revelation which had been given concerning the spiritual sense of the Word, the life after death, the Last Judgment, and so on. And he added: "Something further is being revealed in the world by the Lord. They asked, What is that? He said: Concerning love truly conjugial, and concerning its heavenly delights. The angels said, Who does not know that the delights of conjugial love exceed the delights of all other loves? And who cannot see that into some love have been collected all the blessedness, happiness and delight which can ever be conferred by the Lord, and that the receptacle of them is love truly conjugial, which can receive and perceive them to the full sense?"

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Swedenborg then replied: "They do not know this, because they have not approached the Lord, and lived according to His precepts by shunning evils as sins, and by doing good. And 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, which is meant by the New Jerusalem in the Apocalypse. But I am in doubt whether, in the world at this day, they are willing to believe that this love, in itself, is a spiritual love, and thence from religion, because they cherish only a corporeal idea concerning it." (C. L. 534.)

     In another place we are taught that "the most perfect and the noblest human form is when two forms become one form by marriage. For then the mind of the husband is elevated into superior light, and the mind of the wife into superior heat; and then they put forth and blossom and bear fruit, like trees in the time of spring; from the ennobling of this form, noble fruits are born, spiritual in the heavens, natural on earth." (C. L. 201.)

     Hear also the following teaching given in the Arcana Celestia:

     "They who, in the life of the body, have had happiness in marriage from genuine conjugial love, also have happiness in the other life, so that with them the happiness of one life is continued into the other, and there becomes a union of minds, in which is heaven. Even the most universal kinds of celestial and spiritual felicity therefrom are more than can be numbered." (2734)

     "Genuine conjugial love is the image of heaven, and when it is represented in the other life it is done by the most beautiful things that can ever be seen by the eyes or conceived by the mind. It is represented by a virgin of inexpressible beauty encompassed by a bright cloud, so that it may be said to be beauty itself in essence and form; for all the beauty in the other life is from conjugial love. Its affections and thoughts are represented by diamond-like auras, sparkling, as it were, with rubies and carbuncles, and these with delights which affect the inmosts of the mind; but as soon as anything lascivious enters, they disappear." (2735.)

     "Genuine conjugial love is innocence itself, which dwells in wisdom. Those who have lived in conjugial love are in wisdom more than all others in heaven; yet, when viewed by others, they appear like little children, in the age of bloom and spring; and whatever then happens is joy and felicity to them.

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They are in the inmost heaven, which is called the heaven of innocence. Through this heaven the Lord flows into conjugial love, and angels from that heaven are present with those who live in that love. They are also present with little children in their earliest age." (2736)

     "With those who live in conjugial love the interiors of the mind are open through heaven even to the Lord; for that love flows in from the Lord through man's inmost. From this they have the Lord's kingdom in themselves, and a genuine love toward children for the sake of the Lord's kingdom. And hence they are more receptive of heavenly loves than all others, and are in mutual love more than others; for this comes from that source as a stream from its fountain." (2727.)

     Many, many pages might be filled with statements from the Writings concerning the blessings, joys and delights of conjugial love; its innocence, purity, beauty; its being the parent love whence comes love of offspring, and love of children for the sake of the Lord's kingdom, and for the sake of their eternal happiness; whence also comes mutual love, which is the love that makes heaven and the happiness of heaven; and the love of society and of one's country.

     III.

     But perhaps it is of more practical importance at this time to consider the means by which we may hope to attain this love.

     Marriage does not always confer it. The means are mostly negative, and consist primarily in shunning as sins against God all the evils forbidden by His Word, including evil lusts and desires, as well as deeds. Conjugial love, with all its blessings, joys and delights, is the gift of God. Man can by no means attain it of himself; and the Lord can give it to those alone who desire it, and who make themselves worthy to receive it.

     The first essential of genuine marriage is unity in religion; unity in thought or faith, as well as in affection and purpose. The spiritual mind is opened and formed by one's thought of God, and thence of the nature of His kingdom. Husband and wife who differ in these things cannot be internally united. External differences, as of wealth, station, education, nationality, manners, culture, are comparatively unimportant.

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All these, being of the external or natural man, can be accommodated, overcome or overlooked; but religion is vital and formative. He, therefore, who desires a marriage of conjugial love will not marry one of a different faith.

     The Lord teaches us that His care is most minute and particular over marriages; for they are the seminaries of the human race and of heaven, as well as the source of all human and angelic happiness. Therefore He teaches us, nay, urges us, to ask of Him a happy conjugial marriage; and He promises it to those who, from early youth, have sought such a marriage, and have shunned all wandering lusts.

     An essential of marriage is freedom; dominion of one partner over the other is destructive of conjugial love. Another essential is the desire for children. The fruit and reward of conjugial love is offspring, both natural and spiritual. Unwillingness to have children contaminates and destroys marriage at its source.

     Still another essential is the thought that marriage is for eternity, and the desire that it be so. After marriage has been contracted, the thought of any other partner, the thought of the termination of the marriage, even by death, is to be shunned as sin.

     Marriage is most holy, because of its Divine and heavenly origin, and because of its great use. On this account, marriages are in no case to be violated or desecrated, or lightly regarded. Yet how lightly, and with what contempt, marriage is regarded by this evil and adulterous generation!

     Lastly, conjugial love is cultivated just as the religious life is cultivated. For religion and the human conjugial go hand-in-hand; and every step and advance in the life of religion is a step and advance in conjugial love. Therefore, this love is given to man as he shuns all evil as sin against God, and so loves and does good from God. Thus is he purified of his evils, and conjoined with the Lord; his will and understanding are united in the heavenly marriage, and he is prepared for the full happiness of a conjugial marriage. If not given in this life, it will be given in the life to come. Amen.

     Lessons: Isaiah 62. Matthew 19. A. E. 984:2.

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SCIENCE OR LAW OF CORRESPONDENCES 1927

SCIENCE OR LAW OF CORRESPONDENCES       WILFRED D. PIKE       1927

     (Read at a meeting of the Young People of the Colchester Society.)

     One of the greatest duties of the man and woman of the Lord's New Church on earth is to obtain a clear understanding of the Word of the Lord. In the Doctrine of the Sacred Scripture, no. 79, we read: "The church is nowhere else than where the Word is rightly understood; and such as is the understanding of the Word among those who are in the church, such is the church." Of course, I do not for one moment assert that this is all we have to do,-simply to understand the Word and the truths therein; we have to ultimate these revealed truths in every detail of our lives, or else we cannot regenerate. But how can this ultimation be effected, if we do not get a true perception of the nature and character of the Word as the only authentic source of religious knowledge, and, therefore, regard it as spiritual meat and drink, and thus exclaim with the Prophet Jeremiah: "Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and they were unto me the joy and rejoicing of my heart." (Jer. 19:16.)

     When we look around in the world, we see men professing themselves Christian, distinguished for their learning and piety, but as widely at variance in their interpretations of the Word as daylight and darkness, supporting this theory and that theory, bolstering up tenets of religion which are irrational in themselves and totally opposed to each other, and this by the most confident appeals to its sacred pages. We find men who are gifted with great powers of investigating the secret laws of nature, and who can unravel the most perplexing mysteries of science, but who, when they come to examine the Word, or, as they know it, the Bible, openly proclaim their conviction that the same is at variance with nature, and to be regarded as a mere myth.

     And why? Simply this, I think; The Word in its literal sense cannot be understood when viewed purely in that sense. Turning again to the Writings, we find the following in the Apocalypse Explained:

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"It has been said of old that the Word is from God, Divinely inspired, and thence holy; but still it has hitherto been unknown wherein its Divinity consists. For the Word in the letter appears like a common writing, in a strange style, not so sublime nor so lucid as appears in the writings of the world. From this circumstance it is that the man who worships nature for God, or above God, and thence thinks from himself and his own proprium, and not from the Lord out of heaven, may easily fall into error concerning the Word, and into a contempt for it, saying in his heart, when he reads it, What is this? What is that? Can this be Divine? Can God, who has infinite wisdom, speak in this manner? Where and whence is its sanctity, except from the religious system to whose ministers it is serviceable? And like things. But that they may know that the Word is Divine, not only as to every sense, but also as to every expression, the internal sense thereof has been revealed, which sense is spiritual, and is contained in the external sense of it, which is natural, as the soul in its body. This sense is able to testify concerning the Divinity and consequent holiness of the Word, and to convince even the natural man that the Word is Divine, if he is willing to be convinced." (A. E. 1065.)

     We see, then, that the Word is so written that each expression corresponds to some distinct spiritual idea,-an idea which relates to the Lord, good and truth, love, wisdom, and life; these spiritual ideas being so wonderfully connected with those of the letter that when we read that letter with these ideas in mind we do not "walk in darkness, but have the light of life."

     The laws which thus unfold the true character of the sacred words are called the laws or science of correspondence. This term is derived from the Latin con, re, and spondes, meaning "to answer with" or "to agree," which, in a New Church sense, so to speak, denotes the relation between spiritual and natural things, a relation of objects in higher and lower degrees, the concord of cause and effect. We may therefore perceive that the science of correspondences is not, as many have thought, a fanciful theory, a mere clever device, but a systematic rule of interpretation founded upon the nature, qualities, and uses of all terrestrial objects.

     The science of correspondences, the Writings tell us, "was so cultivated and esteemed by the ancients after the flood, and by which they were enabled to think with spirits and angels." (A. C. 2763.)

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"The ancients who were in the knowledge of correspondences made themselves images which corresponded to heavenly things, and took delight in them, because they signified such things as pertained to heaven and the church; and for this reason they not only placed them in their temples, but also in their houses, not to worship them, but to call to mind the heavenly things which they signified." "Hence worship with the ancients was also in gardens and in groves, according to the kind of trees in them, and also on mountains and hills; for the gardens and groves signified wisdom and intelligence, and every tree something thereof, as the olive the good of love, the vine truth from that good, the cedar rational good and truth, a mountain the highest heaven, a hill the heaven below it." (T. C. R. 204, 205.)

     But as time went on, and man fell, and the good of life ceased, this knowledge was perverted, and desecrated to vile and superstitious purposes, and for ages was lost. Hence sprang up all idolatry, in which the corresponding forms in nature and representations in art were deified and worshiped, instead of the attributes and perfections of God which they signified. The Lord, ever mindful of His own, has in His good time again revealed the knowledge of correspondences, through which the spiritual sense is given, because, as we read in T. C. R. 206, "the Divine Truths of the church are coming forth to light," and of these the internal sense of the Word consists; and while these are in a man, he cannot pervert the literal sense of the Word.

     To the New Church, then, is given this knowledge, by which we can see the correspondence and signification of many places, characters, and objects mentioned in the Word. And, my friends, as we are within a few weeks of the celebration of the establishment of the Church, should we not reflect upon what a priceless heritage we possess, as members of this Church on earth?

     This paper is dealing with correspondences. What should we know of these correspondences, if we had not the Writings of the Church? What a glorious and refulgent light is thrown upon many things in the letter of the Word which, superficially viewed, seem at the best uninteresting, until we know the correspondence of these things! How much more the various incidents related in the Word mean to us when viewed in the light of their correspondence!

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Take, for instance, the journey of the Children of Israel from Egypt to Canaan. Interesting as an historical fact, yes. But when we know of Egypt as denoting the natural mind and externals; the forty days in the wilderness, a state of temptation; the River Jordan, invitation into the cognitions of good and truth; and the Land of Canaan, the Lord's Kingdom; have we not then presented to our minds the great fact that in order to regenerate we must subordinate our natural mind to higher things, must encounter temptations, and by the help of the Lord overcome in them, and finally enter the Kingdom of the Lord?

     When, again, we read of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and apply our knowledge of correspondences and representations, we perceive that in the inmost sense these names relate to the Lord Himself, as to the assumption and glorification of the human, and His threefold operation for our redemption and salvation; Abraham signifying His supreme or essential Divine, Isaac His Divine Rational, and Jacob the Divine Natural; in a relative sense, what is celestial, spiritual, and natural with man, thus with the Lord's Church on earth.

     As men, by virtue of their freedom, are capable of perverting the richest blessings into curses, of profaning the holiest truths by falsifying them, and of abusing, as well as using, God's best gifts, so there are numerous opposites in creation, such as tame and ferocious animals, useful and obnoxious plants. And with regard to correspondence, we have objects which have both a good and evil correspondence. For example, let us take "fire," when mentioned in the Word. In a good sense, fire signifies love,-the love the Lord bears His creatures, and the love they bear to Him. "I, the Lord, will be unto her," that is, His Church, "a wall of fire round about." (Zech. 11:5.) Also in 2 Kings 6:17, where we read of the horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha. When we know that the opposites of truth and love are fantasy, falsity and soul-tormenting lusts, we can quite easily see why evil lusts and torments in hell are called "unquenchable fire," "devouring fire," and "everlasting burning."

     How wonderful, too, is the teaching with regard to man's correspondence with the Gorand Man! We are told that "all parts of the body correspond to the Gorand Man; indeed, there is not the smallest particle in the body which has not something spiritual and celestial corresponding to it." (A. C. 3021.)

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For example, we have the correspondence between the natural organ of vision, the eye, and the mental eye or the understanding. "Open Thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of Thy law." (Psalm 119:18.) Then the ear, having reference to obedience,-the willingness to learn and obey the principles of Divine Truth. "He that hath an ear to hear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches." (Matt. 13:9.) On the other hand, a disinclination to obedience, arising from evils, is described by the prophet Jeremiah in the words: "They hearkened not unto me, nor inclined their ear, but hardened their neck; they did worse than their fathers." (Chap. 7:26.)

     One of the most striking of these correspondences, however, is that of the heart and lungs. The heart, as the most vital organ of the body, denotes the will, the seat of the affections, the vital principle of the soul, the more immediate seat of all spiritual life. Excitements of the passions always disturb more or less the movements of the heart, and thence influence the whole body; and just so the affections of the mind produce changes in the will, and thence in the life. That the heart has reference to the will can also be seen from many passages in the Word; as, for example: "Search me, O God, and know my heart." (Psalm 139:23); "create in me a clean heart, O God." (Psalm 51:10.) The lungs, as the respiratory organs, have reference to the understanding and the truths of faith. Now we know well that no natural man can live unless the heart and lungs perform their uses; in like manner the spiritual man cannot truly live unless his affections are developed in the right way, and unless his understanding is infilled by the truths of faith. We are taught in the Writings that "so great indeed is the similitude between the heart and the good of love or charity, and between the lungs and faith, that in the spiritual world it is known by a person's breathing what is the nature of his faith, and by his pulse what is the nature of his charity." (Faith 19.)

     What difficulties are removed from one's mind, as to the account of the creation in Genesis, when we know of correspondences! By "days" are signified "states,"-successive states of man's regeneration, from infancy onwards, the storing up and manifestation of remains, repentance, temptation, confirmation in truth and good, and the doing of good deeds from faith and love, right on to the formation of a celestial man.

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     So, then, we see what a truly marvelous, yet thoroughly rational, thing is this law of correspondence which has been revealed by the Lord at His Second Advent, in His Word to the New Church which we know as the Writings. And by means of this law, as with all the other teaching therein, we are enabled to see more clearly His will, leading us on towards the goal of regeneration.

     Let us diligently study His trinal Word, doing so in a spirit of humility, and ever respecting the freedom of our fellows. Indeed, this knowledge provides a means whereby we can help our friends outside of the Church. It is not of our merit, but only through the Divine Providence, that we have either been born in the organized New Church, or have subsequently been brought into it. We must ever go forward, devoid of any tinge of personal conceit, looking to the Lord, and ultimating His precepts. "Ye that hear my words, happy are ye if ye do them."
NEW CHURCH AND THE OLD 1927

NEW CHURCH AND THE OLD       Rev. R. J. TILSON       1927

     (A paper read at a meeting of the New Church Club, London, June 10, 1927.)

     There can be but one living and true Church of the Lord upon earth at any given time. This has ever been so, even from the creation of the world. One God and one true Church! For it is written: "The church on earth is the foundation of heaven; for the influx of good and truth through the heavens from the Lord ultimately terminates in the goods and truths which are with the man of the church." (A. C. 4060) And again: "The church in the heavens cannot exist unless there be also a church on earth which is in concordant love and wisdom. . . . The reason why a church cannot subsist in the heavens unless there is a church on earth in conjunction with it, is because heaven where the angels are, and the church where men are, act as one, like the internal and the external with man; and the internal with man cannot subsist in its state unless the external be conjoined with it; for the internal without the external is as a house without a foundation.

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From this it may be seen how absolutely necessary it is that somewhere in the world there be a church where the Word is, and where by means of it the Lord is known." (A. R. 533.)

     Accepting this teaching-this doctrine-as from the Lord, the vital question arises: Where is that church on earth to be found today which is "in concordant love and wisdom" with the church as it exists in the heavens? To ask that question before such an audience as this is, of course, to answer it; for where else can such a church be found than in the Church of the New Jerusalem,-that Church which is signified by the "Holy City, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven," spoken of in the last chapter but one of the Letter of the Word,-the Word of the New Testament. Of that City, it is most interestingly said: "John saw it first as a city and afterwards as an espoused virgin; as a city representatively, and as an espoused virgin spiritually, thus under a twofold idea, the one within or above the other, precisely as the angels do." (A. R. 881.) As to the angels, in the matter of their thought concerning the church, it is revealed: "When they see, or hear, or read in the Word of a city, then in an idea of inferior thought they perceive a city, but in an idea of superior thought they perceive the church as to doctrine; and if they desire it, and pray to the Lord, they see it as a virgin in beauty and apparel according to the quality of the church." (Ibid. )

     The human instrument of the Second Advent tells us in the same paragraph that he also was permitted thus to see the church, both representatively and spiritually. And then, under Divine inspiration, he adds: "The church is no otherwise arrayed for her espousals, and afterwards for conjunction or marriage, than by the Word, for this is the only medium of conjunction or marriage, because the Word is from the Lord and concerning the Lord, and thus is the Lord." (Ibid.) The true and living Church, the only living Church now upon the earth, is that Church which is arrayed in the garments, the "beautiful garments," of the Divine Word, which is the "only medium of conjunction" with heaven and thus with the Lord. The New Church, the New Jerusalem Church, therefore, is the only living Church at this day upon the earth; for it is Divinely revealed of that Church that "the New Church is not established before the former Church is consummated." (Coronis, Syllabus III.)

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     And now another and equally vital question arises: Who compose that only living church? And the answer comes in the Gospel of the Second Advent, as follows: "It is believed that the church exists where the Word is, and where the Lord is known; but still the church consists only of those who, from the heart, acknowledge the Divine of the Lord, and who learn truths from the Lord by the Word, and do them. The rest do not constitute the church." (A. E. 388.) And again: "They alone are of the church in whom the church is; and the church is in those who are in the affection of truth for the sake of truth, and in the affection of good for the sake of good, thus who are in love towards the neighbor and in love to God. For the neighbor is good and truth, and also is God, since good and truth are of God, thus are God with them. They who are not such are not of the church, howsoever they may be in the church."

     In this Divine teaching, it will be noticed that the term "church" is used in a twofold sense. It is used to denominate those who are in the true and living church;-the church comprised of those in whom the church is; and it is also used to designate those who are in the so-called church, which professes to be a church, but is not more of a church than a mere name; the church as a mere institution, the church as a mere profession of faith; but not characterized, either by the affection of truth for the sake of truth, or by the virtues of love to the neighbor and God. Thus there are some who, although they are in the church, as an external, are not of the church as an internal; and that only is a true and living church which is internal and at the same time external.

     That which is merely external, and has not a living internal, is dead and consummated. It is, spiritually considered, a "carcase" and a corpse. This is especially true of the church; for there are many churches-so-called churches but there is only one true Church, only one living Church, even the Church of the New Jerusalem, the Specific Church of the Lord upon earth.

     Surely this is a self-evident truth and conclusion. But because it is a self-evident truth,-the product of that "self-evidencing reason of love" by which alone the true church can be established,-because it is so self-evident a truth, the hells rise up, in the natural mind, ever seeking to undermine and pervert it.

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To this end, sentiment, natural feeling, and spurious charity lend their devastating aid. Such teaching is said to be harsh, because it is unpalatable; and those who so regard it forget that the world needs mental and spiritual physic for the healing of its all-too-patent evils and falsities; and the world had better take it, and grin and bear it.

     But is such teaching harsh and uncharitable? Only when, through ignorance, or hardness of heart, it is not rightly understood. The Truth is never anything else or less than the manifestation of Love-Divine Love.

     II.

     As it is with the Lord, the Word, and heaven, so is it with the church, namely, that man can form no true judgment, nor have any correct knowledge concerning it, save that which comes from Divine Revelation. Nothing is true, concerning the church, save that which is revealed in the opened Word. In that wondrous Book of the Second Advent, by title Invitation to the New Church, it is written: "That man cannot discover a single Divine Truth, except by approaching the Lord immediately, is due to this, that the Lord alone is the Word, and that He is very Light and very Truth, and that, except from the Lord alone, man does not become spiritual, but remains natural; and the natural man, in spiritual things, sees everything in inverted order." (N. 22.)

     Let those closing words be burnt into your thought,-burnt by the holy flame of the sincere affection of truth-"The natural man, in spiritual things, sees everything in inverted order." That is the Lord's statement, not Swedenborg's, still less mine; for the Scribe testified that that only which came from the Lord was written. (A. E. 1183; De Verbo 13; A. R. Pref.; D. P. 135.)

     Now, turning to Divine Revelation, to the end that in the Lord's Light we may see light, let the question be asked and answered: How and When was the only living and true church, now on earth, established? To reply to this query, we must first go to the spiritual world; for all causes are in that world. The Church of the New Jerusalem, the Crown of all the Churches, was instituted in the spiritual world on the 19th day of June in the year 1770. To institute it there, the Lord called together His twelve disciples who followed Him in the world, and sent them "out into the spiritual world to preach the Gospel, that the Lord God Jesus Christ reigns, Whose reign will be for ages of ages." (T. C. R. 791.)

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     Would it not be well, Brethren, if, more frequently than we are wont to do, we turned our eyes to the work done by the Apostles there? We are there too, as to our spirits. There is much revealed as to what they did, and how they carried out their holy mission. What part do we play there by thinking with the angels about this great theme? For we do think with the angels; yea, spiritually we speak with them when we study and reflect upon the teachings of the Angelic Word, as revealed in the Writings of the Church.

     Having formed the New Heaven, and thus the New Church in the spiritual world, the Lord caused the Holy City, New Jerusalem, to descend to earth. And He instituted that Church in this world by giving to man the Heavenly Doctrines of the New Jerusalem, through the instrumentality of Emanuel Swedenborg. And when the theological writings of this man were published, or rather when they were written, then the Lord made His Second Advent, and, making it, instituted in potency His New Church in this world.

     This institution of the Church of the New Jerusalem on earth assumed its full ultimation, in lowest organic form, in the year 1783, when three or four earnest receivers of the Heavenly Doctrines met Sunday morning in the house of the ever-to-be-honored Robert Hindmarsh, in Clerkenwell Close, not far from the spot where Swedenborg died. The first meeting consisted of a true of persons,-an apothecary, a clock-case maker, and a printer,-Messrs. Peter Prove, William Bonington, and Robert Hindmarsh. Shortly afterwards they were joined by Mr. John Augustus Tulk, from Kennington Lane, Vauxhall. Towards the end of that year, "it was agreed to call a public meeting of all the friends and readers of the Writings in London, of whom we had any certain information; first, that we might become better acquainted with each other; and, secondly, to unite our forces, and make known to the world what we could no longer in conscience conceal from their notice." So wrote Robert Hindmarsh in his classic Rise and Progress of the New Church. (See p. 14.)

     Men and Brethren, speaking from use and for use, be it remembered that we meet, at this present, on holy ground. In this very building the first public meeting in connection with the Lord's New Church on earth was held.

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Hindmarsh continues in his precious record: "Our first public meeting was accordingly fixed to be at the London Coffee House, on Ludgate Hill, where we met, five in number, at 5 o'clock on Thursday evening, the 5th of December, 1783." In this building, however, sufficient privacy could not be found, and so the little party,-the saintly five, adjourned "to the Queen's Arms Tavern," afterwards called St. Paul's Hotel, in St. Paul's Church Yard, at the corner of Dean's Court. There they "drank tea together," indulged in "mutual congratulations," reading letters from absent friends in the country, and realizing, to quote again from Hindmarsh, "that the New Jerusalem is in the act of descending from God out of heaven, prepared as a Bride adorned for her Husband; that the angels are already stretching out the curtains, lengthening the cords, and strengthening the stakes of a new habitation on the earth for the Most High to dwell in; and that the Tabernacle of God is about to be set up with men, Who will dwell with them, and cause them to be His people, while He Himself shall be acknowledged and worshiped as their only Lord and God." (Rise and Progress, p. 16.)

     Thus was the Church of the living God-the Church as a New Dispensation-instituted for the last time upon the earth; for that Church, unlike its forerunners, will endure for ever. The New Jerusalem had now descended from God out of heaven. The Lord had made His Second Advent; for upon all the precious Books by which that Advent was made, in the spiritual world, was written: "Hic liber est adventus Domini." And what did this institution and establishment of the Church to be called the New Jerusalem (A. R. 886) involve?

     First, it involved the salvation anew of the human race. Nothing less. What a mighty involvement! Is it not written: "Unless the Lord had come into the world, no flesh could have been saved"? This of the first advent. It is, however, added: "It is the same today; wherefore, unless the Lord had come again into the world, in Divine Truth, which is the Word, no one could be saved." (T. C. R. 3) This assuredly means that unless the Writings of the Church, which are the spiritual sense of the Word, had been given, the human race would have perished. Is this rationally appreciated and realized? It is a stupendous fact.

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It means nothing less than this, that man's salvation depended upon the spiritual sense of the Word being revealed, and that only by the power of that system of Divine Truth which, in it's turn, "is the Word," can the world today be saved from destruction. What a privilege and responsibility are cast upon all those who have been called into the only living church on earth at this time, by the stupendous fact just stated. In the face of this fact, what else can every honest and sincere man and woman, thus called, do than to put the church first,-first in love, in thought, and in deed; and so cause the "world" and the "flesh" to take a subservient position, that the "devil" may be nowhere?

     This much, then, concerning the New Jerusalem,-the true Church of the Lord, which the Divine Word asserts is "builded as a city that is compact together." (Psalm 122:3)

     III.

     But, what of the Old Church,-the consummated first Christian Church? The only possible answer, in the light of revealed Truth, is that it is "dead-dead as any carcase which has ceased to breathe." According to Revelation, that Church was a Church "in name only, not in reality and essence." (T. C. R. 668) To that Church, spiritual truth was never given higher than on the natural plane. The True Christian Church, "such as it is in itself," began when the Church of the New Jerusalem was instituted, thus at the Second Advent of the Lord; for then Divine Truth was given on the rational plane, wherein resides the truly human.

     In replying to the query: What of the first Christian Church? it is necessary to recall the teaching before referred to, that "the natural man, in spiritual things, sees everything in inverted order." (Invit. 22.) What, then, does Revelation say in respect to the first Christian Church, after the birth of the New Jerusalem? In the Invitation to the New Church it is written: "At the present day there are none other than false churches, owing to this circumstance, that they did not approach the Lord, when yet the Lord is the Word, and the very Light which enlighteneth the whole world." (38.) Again: "The idea of God as a Man is engrafted from heaven in every nation on the globe, but . . . it is destroyed in Christendom." (A. E. 1097.)

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     This, then, is the teaching of Divine Revelation, and only those who are willing to abide by such teaching are able to see the true character of the first Christian Church in its consummation. In this connection, the only question worthy of thought is: What is the Truth as revealed? But why dwell upon or revert to so sad a picture? Simply and solely from this spiritual law, that as it is necessary for regeneration that a man must shun evils before he can do that which is truly good, so, to this end, must man know the real character of falsity, before he can intelligently receive the gems of Divine Truth.

     Now, in order to avoid seeing things in inverted order, one must be careful to guard against those things which always attend upon and sometimes sway merely natural thought; namely, those things which are said to vanish when spiritual thought is exercised,-the thing of time, of space, and of person. (A. C. 5253.) Thought must be from principles,-even the principles of revealed doctrine. Names such as Roman Catholic, Protestant, Established Church, Nonconformist, Unitarian, Methodist, Christian Science, Theosophy, or Modernist, prove nothing, and condemn nothing. They simply indicate merely external differences in government or ritual, or in the application of certain fundamental principles. They are sects, either of the consummated church, or of the world which is dominated by that church and its deadly sphere. So far as any sect, or community of men stands for the tripersonality of the Godhead, for faith alone, for the denial of God as a Divine Man; for the replacing of the authority of Divine Revelation with the standard of human experience; for the dragging down of lying spirits into this world; for materialism, placing nature in the place of God; for the domination of man over man from self-intelligence in spiritual things; so far they are, one and all, of the consummated church, or under her mental and moral sphere and sway.

     The sine qua non of membership in the only living Church of the Lord upon earth is:

     1. Belief in the Lord Jesus Christ as the one and only God of heaven and earth.

     2. Belief in the Divine Word, that it is verbally inspired in it's original, that it's letter contains within it, as its soul, a spiritual sense, that that spiritual sense has within it a celestial sense, and that within the celestial sense there is a Divine sense which is the Lord.

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     3. A living belief-that is, a belief which lives-that all evils must be shunned as sins against God.

     These are fundamentals, and all who deny or equivocate as to these are not of the Church of the New Jerusalem, and therefore are without, or are outside of, the one only living Church of the Lord now upon the earth. Never lose sight of these basic truths of Divine Revelation: "Unless God is approached in thought as a Man, all idea of Him perishes." (T. C. R. 538) And, "Things not true communicate with evil spirits." (A. C. 6769.)

     There is not the slightest excuse for those professing to be of the Lord's New Church to be in any uncertainty as to the real state of the first Christian Church in its desolation, or as to the true state of the so-called Christian World. Let the mind be raised above persons, yea, above institutions of sinful men and women,-raised into the light of the truths of Revelation, and the truth will be seen in its force and beauty, and will reward the diligent searcher with the realization that the Truth is none other than the covering of, and conveyance of, infinite Love.

     Above all, let those who would see, in Divine Light, the true state of the Old Church, and of the world environing it, be careful lest they be deceived by mere appearances. In the judgment you form, be most careful that you go from internals to externals, and that you judge not from the appearance. Heed especially the teaching of the work on the Last Judgment, in which it is written: "The state of the world hereafter will be precisely similar to what it has been hitherto, for this great change which has been effected in the spiritual world does not induce any change in the natural world as to the outward form. . . . But as for the state of the Church, this it is which will be dissimilar hereafter; it will be similar indeed as to outward appearance, but dissimilar as to internals." (L. J. 73.) Remember, it is the internals which count in everything. Externals are mere coverings. Internals are the soul, and the soul is the life, the real thing. The internal of the Old Church is dead; the internal of a true belief in God has gone; and when the idea of God is erroneous, everything flowing from it is saturated with that wrong, and is perverted and dead.

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     IV.

     But it may be asked, and there is not much doubt but that it will be asked: What about those in the Old Church, who form the vast majority of mankind? Are they outside the pale of salvation? The question is largely a futile one, and should afford no real difficulty to any thoughtful person in the Lord's New Church. In His infinite mercy, the Lord has provided that the good of all religions shall be saved. Read that which the Lord has revealed in the Arcana Celestia concerning Abraham's petition that Sodom should not be destroyed if "ten just ones" should be found therein:

     "It is a very common thing, with those who have conceived an opinion respecting any truth of faith, to judge others, that they cannot be saved except by believing as they do, which nevertheless the Lord forbids. (Matt. 7:1, 2.) Accordingly, it has been made known to me by much experience that persons of every religion may be saved, if only by a life of charity they have received remains of good, and of apparent truth. . . . The life of charity consists in thinking well of others, and willing well to others, and perceiving joy in oneself at this fact, that others may be saved; whereas they have not the life of charity who are not willing that any should be saved but such as believe as they themselves do, and especially if they are indignant that it should be otherwise." (A. C. 2284.)

     This is the teaching of the spiritual sense of the Word, and the spiritually minded man rejoices in the all-glorious message and assurance from heaven. But recall the statement, mentioned twice before in this paper: "The natural man, in spiritual things, sees everything in inverted order." Have not many in the organized New Church forgotten this teaching, in their almost frenzied zeal for that which is called Missionary Work in the world? May it not be that many of those who have remains in them are safer within the folds of the former Church than they would be within the congregations of the so-called New Church?

     It is suggested, with all seriousness, that it would have been better for the New Church as an organization in the world if it had heeded more carefully the Divine command, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and its justice," by concentrating upon the interior instruction of those who willingly came into the Church, by ways we knew not, it may be, and had concentrated upon their children, giving them the benefits of real solid New Church education, rather than to have been consumed by a care of the world, making strenuous efforts to haul in the strangers.

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     Further, has it been realized as fully as might be that the very falsities of the Old Church may, in the wondrous workings of the Divine Providence, be a greater protection to the simple good than a superficial knowledge of the truths of the New Church, bereft of an acknowledgment of their Divine authority, would prove to be? Heed this teaching of the Arcana Celestia: "When a man is being regenerated, he is let into combats against falsities, and he is then kept by the Lord in truth, but in that truth which he had persuaded himself was the truth; and from this truth combat is waged against falsity. Combat may be waged even from truth not genuine, provided only that it be such that, by some means, it can be conjoined with good by means of innocence; for innocence is the medium of conjunction. Hence it is that those within the Church are capable of being regenerated, in whatever doctrine they may be, but especially those who are in genuine truths." (A. C. 6765: also 8051.) Also this: "Many are regenerated by the Lord, holding every kind of dogmatic belief." (A. C. 1043; also 8521.)

     The Lord is ever mindful of His own. He knows best how to effect His desire for the salvation of all; and man's anxiety to "add unto the Church" may easily be tinged with proprial conceit, and may very easily overstep the bounds of lawful effort, especially when instigated by abounding sentiment, and urged by the itch of proselytizing, so dear to the "natural man" which, "in spiritual things, sees everything in inverted order."

     It may be well that those in the Old Church organizations who are good at heart, that is, in a natural charity, and innocence largely accompanied by ignorance, may be blinded by the falsities of doctrines which they superficially embrace, so that they should not yet come into the acknowledgment of the higher truths of the Word, which if they knew, they would, under their present conditions, profane. It may be. The Lord knows, and He alone. It should never be forgotten that we do not know the interior states of our fellow men; neither do we know the interior states of communities of men; yea, we do not know even the interior states of ourselves, our own souls. Therefore, "Judge not," either in favor or disfavor. It is as harmful to do the one as the other.

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Appearances are ever deceptive; and the evil, as well as the good, may show an appetite for the truth, yet not for the sake of the truth.

     Some who have contended for the state of the so-called Christian World, as being such as is revealed in the Writings, have been charged with being uncharitable and harsh by those who judge from appearances, and have "seen spiritual things in inverted order." That is not true. Folly and cruelty have been with those who have endeavored to persuade those in a false religion that their darkness is really light, instead of showing them, from charity, that their light is really darkness. Be it frankly and unmistakably said, that the rightful condemnation of the consummated first Christian Church is an act of charity, a deed of mercy, and is expressed in the spirit of heaven, and from a love for the salvation of souls. The natural man may not believe this, but so it is, and "in spiritual things, he sees everything in inverted order."

     V.

     In conclusion, then, what is the duty of those who, in the Lord's mercy, and not for their own merit, have been called into the only living Church of the Lord-the Church of the New Jerusalem? What other can that duty be than to preach, to teach, and to live these Divine Truths, by the revealing of which the Lord has made His Second Advent, and has no longer come to men mediately through representatives and correspondences, as in the Words of the Old and New Testament, but immediately in His Divine Human to the rational mind of man, opening to man's spiritual sight the mansions of heaven, that man may be conjoined with Him for evermore. But these Divine Truths must be taught in the Lord's way, and not in man's. No unholy accommodation. No pretense that by some mysterious way these Divine Truths are coming to man from within the folds of the consummated church, or by the aids, and from the sources of, material science. No playing up to loves of self and the world, or looking to mere social life as the door into the fold of the church.

     The world is afflicted and sore; its downward trend is towards hell; for self and the world are dominant. Externalism and indifference have crept into the very organizations calling themselves of the Church, both the so-called New and the rejected Old.

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To those of the so-called New Church,-and they are to be found in all the various schools of thought,-to them the words of the Lord come with terrible force: "Woe to them that are at ease in Zion, and trust in the mountain of Samaria!" (Amos. 6:1.)

     Again, the Lord says to those who embrace the Doctrines of the New Church: "Arise, let us go hence,"-hence from the influence of the former Church, breeding indifference, laxity, and self-complacency; "hence" from the mere profession of faith upon the authority of man, be he Swedenborg or another; "hence" into an open and candid confession that the Doctrines of the New Church come with the authority of a "Thus saith the Lord"; "hence" into the full-hearted acknowledgment that the Theological Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg are veritable scriptures from heaven, by and through which the Lord is redeeming a second time the souls of men.

     Such is a clarion call of the Lord at this day, appealing to the heart, the mind, and the life of man. And be it known that the most powerful and living distinction between the New Church and the Old will be, and must be, not a mere matter of organization, not a question of his doxy or my doxy, but the creation, within the New Church of a New Church sphere,-a sphere of affection, of thought, and of conversation; a sphere originating from the affection of truth for the sake of truth, and radiating, as a spiritual radium, from the personalities of all who profess to be disciples of the Lord at this, the time of His Second Coming. Everything has its own particular sphere, from man, as the crown of creation, to the very dust upon which he treads. (S. D. 1846.)

     But the New Church sphere should be, and can be, the most powerful of spheres. For when true, it is full of the presence of the Lord, full of the Spirit of His Word, radiant with all the joys of heaven, and brilliant with all the various hues of the jewels of spiritual truth. We plead for this sphere, which shall be none other than that of the Holy Spirit. We ask not for merely an "atmosphere," too often the product of self and the world. The word "atmosphere" comes from the two Greek words, atmos, which means "vapour," and sphaira, which means a "sphere." We desire not mere "vapour"; the world is full of the devastating vapours of sentiment; community this, and community that; reeking with that which is really sensual.

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We plead for the "sphere,"-the sphere of the New Jerusalem, flowing from the gardens of the heavens, even from that paradise of " Adramandoni," the garden of conjugial love; for this shall be the most powerful force in the world for the realization of the "Marriage of the Lamb."

     One final word. The outlook today, as the appearances come to us, is dark-dark with disappointments, and deadened with indifference. Policy still stalks the land of the Church. But the Lord rules. He has mercifully protected His Church. There are bishops, pastors, priests and laymen who have not bowed the knees to the Baal of expediency. We thank the Lord for all the institutions of His Church-His New Jerusalem-all working for His Kingdom, that it may be established among men.

     As the ultimate of our thought, as expressed in this paper, we would call to your attention the fact that the site of the house in which Swedenborg lived in Hornsgatan, Sweden, is indicated by a tablet placed on a building erected thereon, and that tablet bears his name, the date of his birth and death, and the quotation: "Tempus venturum est quando illustratio," which translated is, "The time will come when there will be illustration." (A. C. 44023.) That time has come. The Lord has completed His Word in its external manifestations. "The temple of God is opened in heaven." (Apoc. 11:19). Over the gate of that temple is written: "Nunc Licet," which signifies that "now it is allowable to enter intellectually into the mysteries of faith." (T. C. R. 508.) To all who have been called to His New Jerusalem, the Lord says: "Arise, be thou enlightened, for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord hath risen upon thee."

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PARANOIA VERSUS REVELATION 1927

PARANOIA VERSUS REVELATION       Rev. HUGO LJ. ODHNER       1927

     SWEDENBORG, EN LEFNADSSKILDRING. (Swedenborg, A Biography.) By Emil A. G. Kleen, Ph.D., M.D., Hon. M.D. 2 vols., 940 pp., Stockholm, 1917, 1920.

     In the July, 1914, issue of NEW CHURCH LIFE (P. 428), brief mention was made of a lecture delivered by Dr. Emil Kleen before the Swedish Medical Society in which he asserted that Swedenborg's "case," which had worried materialistically minded medical men for a century and a half by its unique and unclassifiable features, could at last be shelved and pigeonholed as "paranoia." Since that time the learned Doctor has published two bulky volumes in which he more or less thoroughly traces Swedenborg's ancestry and life in a desperate endeavor to prove his contention from symptomatic grounds. These 940 pages have waited seven years for a review in our journal, perhaps because so few students of Swedenborg are adepts in the Swedish tongue. The book appeals only to a Swedish public, and is intended especially for medical men and-as the author in his bald way puts it-for those who are "completely developed," an expression which, I fear, is used to exclude the reviewer and his coreligionists!

     The book is the work of a morose man, whose hand, as was said of Ishmael, is "against every man, and every man's hand against him"; the work of an experienced literary free-lance whom we must occasionally suspect of the moodiness of the-dyspeptic, and whose blunt personality we are never allowed to forget throughout our reading of the biography. But he has edited his prosaic material skillfully and to his purpose, and arranged it into a strangely fascinating piece of writing, too discursive, indeed, and too comprehensive, yet full of dry wit and interesting detail which make us forget the perverse intentions of the author, and instead make us feel more at home with Swedenborg and his day than any New Church writer has as yet succeeded in doing.

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     When, we wonder, will the eventual New Church biographer come along, who will produce that really readable "Life of Swedenborg" for which we all long?-a book that will wisely balance the romance of the great seer's personality against the romance of God's guidance for the giving of the final Revelation; presenting it all in the historical setting of that remarkable century when the hammers of the present met the anvils of the past, for the forging of the rod of iron which shall feed the nations; a book that will garments of a piquant style and a wise selection.     

     The force and occasionally vivid glamor of Kleen's biography come from the, fact that this author knew the men whom Swedenborg knew, and the Sweden of the times they lived in. Always a writer and a student, Dr. Kleen began his Swedenborg researches in 1913, and his book required six years to complete. While still a child, he became somewhat acquainted with the doctrines of the New Church through his maternal grandmother, Fru Ehrenborgho was a prominent but somewhat unorthodox New Church authoress (ob. 1876). But in early years he forsook the faith, and finally all religion, although maintaining to his death, a few years ago, the marked superiority of Swedenborg's theology over all the great Christian orthodoxies.

     Even as Emerson was chronically pursued by the problem of how to explain Swedenborg, so Dr. Kleen shows an impatient and lingering undercurrent of bitterness against all things New Church. The more recent acknowledgments of Swedenborg's unique position in the history of the Sciences, by such men as Gustave Retzius, Max Neuburger, Svante Arrhenius, Nathorst, Ramstrom, and Lamm, and perhaps also by the psychiatrist Gruhle, and by Prof. R. Eucken of Jena, and still more the admittedly too unqualified claims which Swedenborgians of the more expansive type will sometimes make for their author's scientific originality, all contributed to Dr. Kleen's decision to put Swedenborg once for all in his proper place.

     His book, therefore, is far from being a mere biography.

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He reconstructs for us the history of every science, and tries to prove that Swedenborg was not the "universal genius" or original thinker which some had thought him to be, nor the father of all the modern sciences, from Aviation to Zymology. Swedenborg, he protests, is of importance only as a student of remarkable "receptivity" and unbelievable capacity for work, and as a literary critic and a polyhistor without equal in Sweden, perhaps in Europe, next to the phenomenal Leibniz. (Op. cit., pp. 202-204.) He wants to be precise: Swedenborg was a genius, but not one of the world's foremost geniuses! The Doctor has his own method of invalidating Swedenborg's standing. A genius, it seems, must not deal in derived ideas; so what Dr. Kleen does is to dig up parallels of Swedenborg's philosophic doctrines from his contemporaries, and from various schools of thought down through Paracelsus to Aristotle and the earliest Pythagoreans. This makes the book intensely readable, even if it does not convince a man of common sense that a genius must rest his knowledge upon the air or pick his thoughts out of the clouds! Nor will he persuade his stubborn New Church readers that there is nothing really new in Swedenborg. For newness comes from the selection and recovery of old truths seen in new light. Kleen, however, must have it that the only thing which Swedenborg "fathered" was the modern spiritualistic movement, which he tries to link up with the New Church. This being settled, he proceeds to pour contempt upon Swedenborg's revelations.

     II.

     No sane man with an eye to his reputation, and furnished with even a superficial knowledge of Swedenborg's life-work, would now dare to assert that our revelator was insane. Dr. Kleen himself points out that a man who, at the age of eighty-three, could edit and publish a monumental work on abstract theology, who advanced no actually "crazy" notions, evinced no bewilderment and no sensational changes in his speech or manner of living, and especially showed no prominent apathetic dulness, could certainly not have been demented.

     But there appears to be a disease, the name of which has recently been extended to take care of all who are in any special sense different from the ordinary run of humanity,-great geniuses and great fools alike.

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This new medical convenience, which is henceforth to hide the ignorance of unbelief under its beneficent wings, is called "Paranoia."

     Paranoia is defined as "a chronic form of insanity developing in a neuropsychopathic constitution, presenting systematized delusions of more or less definite scope, while in other directions there may appear a fair amount of mental health." The Century Dictionary, which we have cited, adds that "the prognosis is extremely bad." But modern paranoia shows far greater elasticity than may be seen from this definition. Almost any human being might be suspected of this disease, and suspicion will itself fabricate the symptoms to support its claim. It is no longer necessary, with Job, to wish: "O, that mine adversary had written a book!" All that is needed is to take him to a psychiatrist, and have him declared a paranoiac.

     One that is subject to paranoia has a restless, suspicious, easily embittered nature, which develops and nurses the fixed idea that he is persecuted. A strong egocentricity, or sense of self-importance, grows with him into plainly megalomaniac fantasies about his own greatness. Either through asceticism or through sexual anomalies he is then thrown into a character-crisis, and the final stage of the disease is that in which he suffers actual hallucinations, which Kleen defines as mental illusions originating from within, and having no corresponding external sensation as a source. Either hysteria or epilepsy should be associated with these symptoms, but Dr. Kleen clearly could not make up his mind as to which of these Swedenborg had. (P. 720.)

     From a distance of nearly two hundred years the imagination is free to read all manner of alien things between the lines of a man's biography, and Dr. Kleen takes advantage of this in his attempt to interpret Swedenborg as a paranoiac. Swedenborg's occasional words of complaint-always very natural and well-grounded-when he, as a young man imbued with vision and ambition, and learned far above the ordinary level, tried, in the interests of science and national welfare, to cut the red tape of unprogressive 18th century procedure, or when he expressed his disappointment at being the obvious "stepson" of his family, are regarded by Kleen as the seeds of a suspicious nature. Later, when Swedenborg notes instances of the continual efforts of evil spirits to work their mischief against him, and against all others who resist hell's designs, this effort to display the state of the world of spirits is classed as a fixed idea of "persecution."

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His healthy young enthusiasm, ready to "remove mountains" in both science and philosophy, becomes to Dr. Kleen nothing but megalomania. And when the "Servant of the Lord Jesus Christ" becomes the privileged explorer of the heavens, this again is the sign of the egocentricity of the man. It never occurs to the Doctor that this solemn claim might be true!

     Swedenborg was never an ascetic, although he always lived simply, and, in the year 1744, passed through a period of very severe temptations which had their physical reactions. As to the other extreme, Dr. Kleen indeed exonerates him from blame, and certainly explodes the charge made by Dr. Maudsley and by Lehman, by showing from medical testimony how impossible it is to suppose that he was in any sense a decrepit voluptuary. But still Kleen, who poses, not as a puritan, but as a very experienced and suspicious medicus, triumphantly exaggerates every statement Swedenborg ever made about sex into a sign of his having possessed a morbid preference for that subject. Indeed, he hints at depths of darkness, and points to the exalted correspondence which Swedenborg gives to the generative organs, to Swedenborg's bald descriptions of the hells and the correspondences assigned to "spiritual adulteries" there, and to the doctrine that all things relate to the marriage of good and truth, as testimonies to his "seeing sex in everything"; which latter, all things considered, is hardly escapable.* And then there was that "awful" Journal of Dreams, a perennial bon mot for all like Kleen, to give their fantasies free play. For herein Swedenborg, in the innocency and candor of his heart, being already fifty-six years of age, and author of an important technical volume on Generation, records for his own exclusive use the privacies of his dreams. And these, in some cases, were couched in sexual forms, because, as he observes, "all the objects of the sciences are represented to me by means of women." (J. D. 213.) That to the pure all things are pure is above the mentality of such as the misanthropic biographer to perceive.
     * Swedenborg's vision of a marriage of good and truth, of active and passive, in all of spirit and of nature, hallows and beautifies life. How differently with the degrading psychological theories of moderns such as Freud, who see sexual perversions as the subconscious inspiration of all human emotion, in the form of repressions that pursue the innocent in their dreams, and profane the sanctities of the soul!

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     But quite apart from that, any fair-minded reader of Swedenborg's voluminous writings will admit that he does not give the subject of sex more than its due proportionate space; and this although writing in the 18th century, when such matters were even more openly discussed than today. And having felt the wholesome ring of Swedenborg's doctrines about marriage, combining a high idealism with a remarkable absence of any hypocritical effort to close the eyes to actualities, the New Churchman is forced to smile at Dr. Kleen's muck-raking.

     III.

     The real reason why certain opponents of the New Church strive to assail the sanity of Swedenborg is that they think thus to defeat the end of Providence which is involved in the "immediate revelation" given through him, and given in order that the present ignorance about the spiritual world may be enlightened, and unbelief and denial dissipated. (H. H. 1) Of course, this effort of theirs looms in their minds as a labor for the "truth." For they are generally convinced beforehand that there is no spiritual world, and that consequently Swedenborg could not have seen it. Now Swedenborg is so transparently sincere that no one can doubt but that what he related as "seen and heard" was founded in some sort of experience. What, then, was it that he saw? Dr. Kleen, along with many others, does not recognize the existence of the spiritual eye or the internal senses of man. He can only conclude, therefore, that Swedenborg's spiritual visions and revelations were a vast, coherent, and more or less subconsciously organized mental delirium, possibly grounded in hysteria, a network of hallucinations perfectly connected, and sensed as super-realities!

     The New Churchman must at times wonder at the lengths to which men will go to avoid the fact of the spirit-world's existence. Rather than acknowledge it, they would dismiss the whole spiritual experience of the human race as fantasy. Its great men,-its prophets, saints and revelators, who in a manner have lived at the fringe of the spiritual life,-they would consign, if not into the insane asylum, yet into the limbo of paranoiacs and self-deluded maniacs. The Lord Jesus Christ Himself, they would condemn for His constant consciousness of the presence of angels and demons.

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The men of vision who have seen the purpose of God beyond the face of nature and the fate of man, they would disparage as dreamers and ghost-seers, unworthy even of a place in the history of philosophy. And when they have thus relegated all genius to paranoia, and all vision to hallucination, what remains to them and to the world? The deadly "average-man," with an earth-bound mind domesticated to the grooves of a sophisticated civilization, becomes the norm of perfection. The dry little thinking-machine, emancipated beyond passion or perception, becomes the official leader of our progress. From these dangers, worse than the Norsemen's rage, may heaven preserve us!

     IV.

     After all, the reasonings of Dr. Kleen lose much of their force in the light of common sense. And he makes two admissions that are fatal to his argument. The first is the allowance that "there is nothing within the pathological or morbid which has not its counterpart within the limits of what is physiological and normal." (P. 708.) Fantastic visions of varying degrees of intensity with paranoiacs and lunatics indicate abzcses of the spiritual sight, which was opened with Swedenborg for a normal purpose and in a lawful way. And while, with a paranoia patient, "the prognosis is extremely bad, "Swedenborg lived in good health to the advanced age of eighty-four, a rare old man, until he died-of a different disease. We understand that a German psychiatrist recently wrote an article on "Strindberg, Van Gogh and Swedenborg," in which our Seer was exonerated from any form of insanity. A psychiatrist in Bologna stood out for the same thing in another learned journal. When this very restricted and highly specialized profession shows such wide divergence, surely common sense has a right to an opinion.

     We have discussed the symptoms of paranoia with a number of physicians, two of whom are specialists upon the staff of an asylum for the insane. One of the latter confided his doubts as to there being any such thing as pure "paranoia," saying that paranoia-suspects usually turned out to be actual dementia-cases. This seems to be the burden of Swedenborg's own teaching in A. C. 1040, that he who is insane is insane in every single thing of his will and of his thought. The other specialist held that paranoia was exceedingly rare, but that occasionally passing paranoidal phases might mark the progress of some other ailment.

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He was averse to drawing too strict definitions of "hallucinations," and pointed to the wireless telephone and the radio as indicating the possibility that what is thought to be hallucination might in certain cases be grounded upon actual sense-perceptions of finer vibrations (perhaps purely mental waves?) from some unknown source. And he agreed to our suggestion that in the unfathomed parts of the mind of man there might be a set of spiritual sense-faculties not operating with all men or at all times. The specialists held that paranoia, by itself, is not a disease, but a condition. The other physicians were New Churchmen, and their viewpoint is akin to our own.

     The second admission which Dr. Kleen is compelled to make is that "Swedenborg's paranoidal mental affliction, although accompanied by diverse and very often recurrent hallucinations, must be regarded as a tolerably mild case." Even with his powerful magnifying glasses the Doctor can but suspect a "mild" case-and this to explain the most unique mental phenomenon of history, in Kleen's opinion the most extensive, intensive, persistent and pretentious self-delusion of all time. It seems such a very small mouse to have disposed of such a big cheese! And it makes the careful reader feel that the task of making a fool out of Swedenborg is a very ungrateful one.

     V.

     Dr. Kleen treats of Swedenborg's personality with the effort to bring out the symptoms he is watching for. Into Emanuel's relations with the Polhem family are thus interpolated motives of jealousy and sensitiveness. Kleen thinks (p. 377) that his break with the Polhems was due to chagrin at the father's and brother's consenting to and abetting Emerentia's fickleness in wanting to break off her engagement to Emanuel. The story of Swedenborg's supernatural knowledge of the Queen's secret, which the Revelator confirms in a letter to the Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt (Docu. 247), Kleen turns into a political plot in which Swedenborg lent himself as a tool.

     That Swedenborg's disposition was "intolerant" is frequently insisted upon by Kleen. As instances, he avers that all Swedenborg's secret or open enemies were forthwith assigned to some gruesome hell! Here Swedenborg "placed" Paul and Arius, Calvin and the Popes, the Catholic saints, and nearly the whole Jewish race, with Dippel, Charles XII, and a number of his other personal acquaintances and connections such as most of the Benzelius family, Gyllenborg, Polhem, and in general all who differed with him!

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And the biographer concludes that this is Swedenborg's private revenge against his doctrinal rivals and enemies, and that it often amounts to an intolerant damning of people to perdition merely because of their belief. He cites the case of the satanic hells, where those go who are in evils from falsities.

     This again raises the question (which natural good seldom suffers to slumber) whether it is just that "those who have made themselves atheists by confirmations in favor of nature " (D. L. W. 350) must be condemned after death. The matter is clearly explained in T. C. R. 382, and it is clear that falsity does not by itself condemn, any more than faith alone saves. The fact that the salvable who are in simple good and of open heart will also have their minds opened to the true relationships of man with God and man with man, and that before this is done they are unable to enjoy heavenly blessedness, can hardly be made to mean that Swedenborg, from dogmatic ill-will to those who differed from him, condemned them all to hell. A physician is not intolerant because he has to prescribe some unpleasant remedy or self-discipline to a patient; and Dr. Kleen must by now realize that the scribe of the Second Advent was not speaking his own opinions or making up a fantastic universe to his own liking-in which case he would have been morally wrong, whether he introduced errors or not-but that he was only reporting the laws of spiritual existence, and this without personal bias. If we do not like those laws of salvation, but regard them as intolerant and arbitrary, still we cannot do away with them. Happiness can be gained, here and hereafter, only by acknowledging the true laws of life and obeying them. Upon that fact rests the whole necessity for Revelation and for the Church.

     Though the history of Paranoia is examined by Kleen, he finds no case so elastic as to include or parallel Swedenborg's remarkable and varied experiences! Even St. Therese (about A. D. 1537), whom Ballet compared to Swedenborg, falls short. To explain the Revelator's case, Dr. Kleen is compelled to combine the more usual pseudo-hallucinations and psycho-hallucinations with "sensorial" and "motor" hallucinations.

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All these terms for various mental states involving some degree of spiritual vision are classed by many in the world as abnormal and imaginary in tote. The recently intensified study of the "Subconscious," with which psychologists are occupied, will no doubt yield valuable by-products of analytic knowledge to the New Church. But the world is entirely unequipped to determine where, among these states, the line between the normal and the abnormal should be drawn.

     The sane, consistent spiritual narratives of the Membrabilia, always convincingly charged with the elements of spiritual laws (of presence, of development, and of correspondential representation) will forever remain a puzzle, and an isolated instance, to the unbelieving medical man who deigns to read them carefully. We must, however, make allowances before blaming men who are steeped in naturalistic habits of thought for criticisms such as Dr. Kleen's. When such a man reads statements like those in the Spiritual Diary, nos. 2357-2358 about the situation of spirits in quarters and planes of the Gorand Man, we can hardly expect that this profound celestial law should seem to him other than a madman's dreams. And when Swedenborg, in recording the conversations of angels, perforce translates this ineffable interchange of subtle ideas into the prosaic and heavily rationalized verbiage of medieval Latin, we cannot require our negative critic to understand the truth that "all these various spirits talked remarkably like Swedenborg himself" (1) simply because whatever they had to say had no other ultimates or vehicles than the ideas of the Seer's mind.

     VI.

     Kleen makes Swedenborg less heroic and more human; often justly, but sometimes with a view to minimizing is sincerity. He charges Swedenborg with concealing the sources of many of his ideas (p. 229 ff.),-to our mind a very strange charge not borne out even by the one-sided evidence presented in support. Still it might be useful here to cite some of the suggested sources of some phases of the Principia system and of later teachings: Friedr. Hoffman-"experimentia et ratio" (Princ.). Repler-"geometry" (Princ.). Anaxagoras-cosmogonic scheme, gyres, solar vortex, chaos, fire-actives and atmospheric passives, origin of planets from sun (the latter perhaps also from Ovid).

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Wolff-(Cosmol. 215-8) the point "of Zeno" (Cosmol. 44 f. and Ontol. iii., p. 597) finites (Ontol. 112, 114, 214 f.) determinations. Democritos-elementary particles. Descartes-passives (sic!). Lemery-actives and passives. Becher and Lemery-various chemical ideas. Bruno-construction of elementary particles. Hobbes, Leibnitz, Wolff (Cosmol. 166, Ontol. 149, 150, 653, 728, etc.)-idea of conatus. Descartes, Musschenbroeck-magnetism. Descartes (Med. et Prin., tome ix., pt. 3)-speed and distance of planets.

     In the physiological field, the biographer acknowledges that our philosopher has won himself a rightful place in the esteem of his people for his success in allocating a place for the soul's functions in the cortex of the brain. But where it is possible to do so the Doctor has dug up or suggested precedents for ideas or doctrines generally traced to Swedenborg's original mind.

     Discrete degrees, spoken of in his later works, Swedenborg is made to have derived from Iamblichus and Proclus and many others; influx from Plotinus and Neoplatonism; free-will from Malebranche. The derivation of the soul from the paternal seed came from Aristotle. The vitalistic conception of the spirituous fluid and the fibre was, of course, a prevalent idea, and the animistic ideas of Stahl gave form to his psychological doctrines, while Hermes Trismegistus contributed the mystical idea of Correspondences, and Locke suggested the mathematical doctrine of universals.

     As a matter of fact, Swedenborg most faithfully gave his "sources" whenever feasible, as every reader of his anatomical tomes knows very well. That each truth has its pedigree, a sane man takes for granted. And we may well agree with Prof. Ramstrom of Upsala in proclaiming as a work of genius Swedenborg's immense task in successfully "digging out his material from a chaos of erroneous observations, false interpretations and curious conceptions, and afterwards. . . still further sifting and elaborating it before he could draw his conclusions from it." (Em. Sw. Invest., Stockholm, 1910.)

     An important charge made by Dr. Kleen is that Swedenborg was once a disciple of Dippel. "Taken as a whole," Kleen goes so far as to assert, "the doctrine of Swedenborg and of the New Church is an echo of Dippelian pietism modified by Swedenborg's megalomaniac fantasies and paraphrenic hallucinations"! (P. 659 f.)*

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As we may see from Spiritual Diary 3485-6, Swedenborg was once an "adherent" of Dippel or of some of his views, and Dippel is there charged with making his followers delirious, and filling them for the moment with absurd ideas, which, however soon faded from memory. Dippel, who died in 1734, is also described as a vile devil. Later, in a letter to Swedenborg (1766), Oetinger stated that Swedenborg explained the Trinity, Justification and the Atonement "according to Dippel's method"; but this was far from the truth.
     *A full discussion of Dippel's life and character is to be found in New Church Life for 1911, pp. 654-662.

     Dippel's ideas on creation smack of gnosticism, in presuming angelic intermediators in the act of creation; but they do resemble Swedenborg's to the extent of denying a creation from nothing. Dippel also denied the tripersonal trinity, but had no constructive doctrine to replace the denial. As to the Word, Dippel held it to be inspired only in the modernist sense, or as to ethical contents. As to the sacraments, he denied their usefulness. He did indeed hold that hereditary evils come from the corruptions in the parents rather than as "original sin" from Adam, and disputed the efficacy of sudden conversions. On the other hand, Dippel was a universalist, and even believed that Satan himself was improving. On the whole, there is no real resemblance between the two systems.

     VII.

     The great weakness of Dr. Kleen's biographical researches is that his treatment largely rests upon the second Life of Swedenborg which William White published in I8671 and which Dr. R. L. Tafel clearly shows to be the repayment of a grudge against the New Church after Mr. White's deserved expulsion from his position in the London Swedenborg Society. This latter biography by White, which abounds in slurs and sneers, calumnies and insinuations, against Swedenborg, has served as a basis for all the attacks against Swedenborg's character, from the time of Maudsley (1870) and Fryxell (1876) to the present day. But Dr. Kleen has fortified and embellished his assault with studies of his own.

     Notable among these studies is a sketch of the history of Spiritism and Superstition.

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The motive, of course, is to show that all belief in the supernatural is grounded upon subjective delusions. He detects the influence upon Swedenborg's mind of the ideas about spirits with the classical and rabbinical writers and the Church Fathers, of the seventeenth century outbreaks of witchcraft, (which, he especially claims, deeply stirred Bishop Swedberg's imagination), and of the mystical and occult teachings of Mirandola (d. 1494), von Nettesheim (d. I535), Paracelsus (d. 1541), Bruno (d. 1600) and von Helmont (d. 1644). Bohme and L[aw], whose writings Swedenborg denied having read, are not mentioned as real ancestors to Swedenborg's "mysticism," but this is not so much because of Swedenborg's denial (Letter to Beyer, 1767) as because Dr. Lamm, whose biography of Swedenborg came out in Stockholm just before the one under review, shows that the Seer must have known parts of Bohme's system through his acquaintance with Dippel.

     The progress of spiritism since Swedenborg's time, Kleen tries to connect at every possible point with the New Church. He has, of course, a number of facts to advance. The earliest New Church-men in Sweden, England and Germany, before the birth of modern spiritism in the middle of the last century, did not always recognize the errors of that superstition. Consequently, the seeking for experimental and sensual "confirmations" of the existence of the spiritual world has been a constant temptation to the New Church, as witness the meteoric career of Thomas Lake Harris.

     Jung-Stilling, in Heidelberg, is regarded by Dr. Kleen as the father of German "pneumatology"; but his spiritualistic career was really only superficially influenced by Swedenborg, whose state he regarded as one of somnambulism! Davis (1826-1910), in America, was more under the influence of our Revelator. But the story of spiritism, as outlined by Dr. Kleen, in no wise supports the claim that Swedenborg gave any great impetus to the movement. Rather do we see it as the revival and organization of the trickery and black art of the past, and as the natural development of that superstitious curiosity which, affected by modern skeptical empiricism, heeds neither Moses nor the Prophets.

     In conclusion, we must confide to the reader our facetious suspicion of certain marked symptoms of paranoia in the late Dr. Kleen himself. After a couple of centuries have elapsed, we shall be better able to make a diagnosis, especially as we have no present means of studying his private life.

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But it is evident from the book under review that the old doctor was of a touchy and self-conscious nature, forever anxious to see opponents in everybody. The reader finds himself wearied by the recurrent use of the first person singular, and this especially as the superiority complex, not to say egocentricity, of the author evinces itself in a most inflammable and vitriolic combativeness against colleagues who in the least differ from his opinions,-against Dr. Lamm, Dr. Gadelius, and most of Sweden's scientists. And-mark the symptom-he seems to have been long pursued by the fixed notion that we "fanatical Swedenborgians" are a particularly dangerous lot whom it is his destiny to confute; and one has a feeling that even in his boldest attacks he is really on the defensive. He therefore glories in the smallness of our numbers, and finds consolation in the charge that the New Church (he hates to use the name) recruits "most of its adherents from the women of the lower middle class," and that "the number of Swedenborgians who possess higher culture or higher intelligence is very small." The male attendance at our meetings makes part of this statement sound very spurious; as for the rest of the charge, our modesty forbids us to debate it. Coached by William White, he has no use for our collateral literature, and our scholars suffer the same fate. Stroh is called to task for his "tasteless exaggerations"; R. L. Tafel is "mediocre, bat conscientious"; his worthy uncle, Immanuel Tafel, is "a dry little soul without wider flight"; Noble, he thinks, might have made a mark even in a larger congregation, but Hindmarsh was an ignorant, insolent cockney; while Clowes escapes as apostolic and saintly, although branded by his superstition.

     Be it so. We, on our part, make no claim that the New Church is sustained by specially gifted champions, or by unusually saintly and faultless members, but rather by the intrinsic and self-evidencing power of the revealed Truth we proclaim.

     We have reviewed this most recent biography at some length, partly because it will doubtless exercise some influence in Sweden, and partly because-whatever its faults of misrepresentation and occasional errors-it is full of keen observations, analyses, critical opinions and learned references, which in themselves may become the departures for useful studies that will throw light upon Swedenborg's philosophical writings.

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It may also have the effect of stirring some New Church scholar to formulate the position of our psychology in regard to modern criteria of mental health, to sift the results of the modern research in the realm of the "subconscious," and correlate them with our knowledge of that "superconscious" world of spiritual life into which Swedenborg's senses were lifted.
ON INSANITY 1927

ON INSANITY              1927

     The longer a man is held in certain troublesome reflections of thought, the more he is infested by evil spirits. "This, with many, is the origin of melancholy, mental debility, and delirium, as also of insanity and fantasy. For they who are thus kept in thought about spiritual things and the life after death, and about misfortunes, have many things which are of their memories poured into them by spirits, who hold them long in them, even to insanities and fantasies. Wherefore, they who are in solitude of life easily fall into such things; for they are dispelled by variety and society. And the more there is of the solicitude of the love of self and of gain, or of reflection on the future, or if some misfortune occur, the more easily do they fall into fantasies, and at last into insanities.

     "Some are so led by spirits that they cannot return into truths; but their fantasies are rooted to such a degree that, whenever they fall into those thoughts, they are so completely immersed in them that they cannot be dispelled by variety. . . . When such persons are manifest to men, they are called open insanities; for they do not suffer themselves to be brought out of that insanity or fantasy. Jn all other things they appear sane, as is the case with many of the insane. . . . But there are very many of such who do not manifestly appear so. All fantasies about spiritual things also originate thence, in so far as they have induced persuasion." (Spiritual Diary 3625, 3626.)

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APPEAL TO SPIRITISTS 1927

APPEAL TO SPIRITISTS       Rev. GEORGE DE CHARMS       1927

     MAN, SPIRIT, ANGEL. By the Rev. G. A. Sexton. London: Arthur H. Stockwell, Ltd., 1926. Cloth, 196 pages.

     This book is of a missionary character, and is addressed especially to such as are under the influence of spiritism. Knowing the dangers which beset them, wandering in a morass of moral and spiritual dependence upon mischievous spirits, Mr. Sexton seeks to follow them into the unwholesome atmosphere of their psychic environment, and to chart for them a path of escape to the higher ground of rational belief and religious conviction. Knowing that they are, for the most part, not deeply philosophical, he makes a direct appeal to common sense, conveying a perception of the reality of the spiritual world by portraying its phenomena without attempting to explain the modus operandi by which those phenomena are produced. He quotes largely from the Writings, expounding their teachings as to the nature of the life after death, with simple and apt illustrations drawn from every-day psychological experience. While citing contributory evidence, which by similarity of description seems to confirm what is said in the Writings, and which is more familiar to them because of their spiritistic associations, he places Swedenborg on a distinctly higher plane, claiming for him Divine inspiration. By thus bringing the sincere inquirer into affirmative contact with the Heavenly Doctrine, he hopes to lead him away from spiritism and into the New Church. With his evident desire to bring the deluded follower of the dance and the medium to the light of revealed truth, we have every sympathy. But after a careful reading of the book we have serious doubt as to whether it will accomplish its intended purpose.

     Whatever the appearance of external similarity between the descriptions of after-death conditions given by automatic writing or the pronouncements of mediums and those contained in the Writings of the New Church, they stand in absolute opposition to each other. The attitude of mind that gives rise to the dance is one that rejects Revelation and seeks to penetrate the veil between this world and the next by unlawful means.

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It is an attitude that demands so-called scientific evidence, personal experience, and external miracles, as the only basis of proof concerning the other life. It is one that entangles the mind in trivial details, in the discovery of secret information not obtainable by ordinary methods, in the unfolding of future events, and in other matters that affect the worldly interests of the inquirer. It is one that forfeits a man's spiritual freedom, hinders his regeneration, closes his understanding to the truth of heaven, and prevents the normal operation of the laws of influx and Providence for his own salvation. It is one that places him increasingly at the mercy of spirits whose greatest delight is to dominate his life, and who hesitate at no subterfuge of falsehood and personal flattery to bring him under their control; for which reason, a most general characteristic of their influence is to induce upon the man a belief in his own goodness.

     That this is diametrically opposite to the attitude of mind essential to a real acceptance of the New Church, we need not pause to demonstrate. Yet it is woven into the very fabric of spiritism. No one can come into spiritistic associations without being caught in the sphere of it; and in the degree that he yields to its influence, he is bound to be contaminated thereby. It appears to us that, if one sincere and well-intentioned, but none the less so contaminated through ignorance, is to be rescued from the consequence of his dabblings in spiritism, it is first of all essential that he be withdrawn from the attitude of mind by which spirits are given power over him. He needs to have the dangers of his position forcibly demonstrated. He needs to be taught the character of a man's regenerative process, and the Divinely appointed means of the Lord's operation in it. He needs to have his mind lifted above the petty concerns which give rise to his desire for open communication with the other world, that it may be brought into the contemplation of Divine and heavenly things. He must be led to look for rational guidance from the Lord through the understanding of spiritual truth; led to a recognition of his own ignorance, and to the desire to search the Scriptures in a spirit of reverence, and of dependence upon the Lord's teaching there. Then first can he be brought into a state capable of accepting the teachings of the Heavenly Doctrine in such a way that they may bring about a sharp break with his former associations and a complete rejection of his former practices.

559




     With all this, no doubt, Mr. Sexton is in agreement. It is with regard to the means of accomplishing this end that our view would diverge from his. Evidently with the thought that he must accommodate himself to the predilections of those whom he is addressing in his book, he does not attempt to produce a complete break with spiritism. He essays only to help those who are floundering in uncertainty to "sift the true evidence of the future life from the mass of speculation." Believing that the testimony of the Writings is indisputably true, he seeks to impress the spiritist with its truth by adducing "independent witnesses" from the field of investigation with which his chosen audience is most familiar. By an "independent witness" he means one who, without a previous knowledge of Swedenborg, has made genuine discoveries as to conditions in the other world by way of spiritistic communications. From the mass of available literature he has chosen the writings of Sir Oliver Lodge, and those of the Rev. Vale Owen, as best fulfilling these requirements. Of the first, he says that his "works may safely be taken as the summation of what can be revealed with certainty, through the methods investigated by him, and his judgment cannot be questioned as to what is, and what is not, evidence." The second is introduced because his writings "agree with Swedenborg in such remarkable detail of actual fact, while differing so radically in explanation and expression, as to prove beyond doubt that they are not copies from Swedenborg, but descriptions of the same conditions of life through an independent witness."

     In the first place, it is altogether probable that both of these men had a previous knowledge of Swedenborg, in which case their works would be ruled out as proof, on the very premises which Mr. Sexton has laid down. He has adduced no evidence to show that this is not the case. In view of the fact that the Writings are widely distributed, that they are well known to spiritists generally, and that they contain descriptions of conditions in the other world so attractive that the temptation to make use of them can scarcely be resisted, we would certainly take the "agreement in remarkable detail of actual fact" as strong presumptive evidence of contact with Swedenborg, either direct or indirect, lacking any conclusive evidence to the contrary.

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     That Sir Oliver Lodge was familiar with the Writings, there can be no shadow of doubt. He wrote, in 1913, an introduction to an edition of the Divine Love and Wisdom published as part of Everyman's Library by J. M. Dent. and Sons, Ltd., and therein he gives evidence of a first-hand knowledge of the Doctrines,-a knowledge which he himself has already rejected as unworthy of serious belief. Indeed, the attitude of the writer toward Swedenborg is so patronizingly superior that his introduction would rather discourage further inquiry than stimulate affirmative interest in the Writings. He has no confidence in Swedenborg's teachings, as witness the following comparison with William Blake, quoted from the same introduction: "Swedenborg was a man of science, Blake a poet; and this gave Blake an immense advantage in dealing with mystical things. The language of science is surely far less appropriate than the language of poetry for embodying the results of spiritual vision, unless or until really precise and explicit information is forthcoming. Swedenborg no doubt considered his statements exact, and based on trustworthy information; but in adopting the form of dogmatic assertion, he must be held to have abandoned the language of science, while he made no attempt at poetry." (The italics are ours.)

     We introduce this merely to illustrate Sir Oliver Lodge's state of mind with reference to the New Church. Yet he is introduced in Mr. Sexton's book as one whose works "may safely be taken as the summation of what can be revealed with certainty, through the methods investigated by him, and his judgment cannot be questioned as to what is, and what is not, evidence." With this, his book Raymond, steeped as it is in the atmosphere of spiritism, and redolent of all that spiritism stands for, is commended to the attention of the prospective converts to the New Church as a reliable and independent witness to the truth of the Heavenly Doctrine! That this should be considered a reasonable and effective made of extricating them from their difficulties is frankly beyond our comprehension. If it did lead to an acceptance of Swedenborg's evidences of the spiritual world, would it not give the impression that his revelations were but a more comprehensive and explanatory description of the same kind as those to be found in Raymond?

     As regards the Rev. Vale Owen, we have no such explicit proof that he was acquainted with Swedenborg's statements concerning conditions after death.

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It is admitted that he knew of the Writings, but it is claimed that his direct knowledge was limited to The New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine, wherein he could not have found those details which are in "such remarkable agreement" with the "actual facts." This may be true, but no proof is given, and the burden of proof would seem to rest upon those who desire to establish his position as an "independent witness." Granting it, for the sake of argument, what of the possibility of indirect knowledge?

     Mr. Owen was not isolated from contacts with other men. He was surely in touch with other spiritists, and their literature was not unknown to him. We understand that New Churchmen also were within the circle of his personal acquaintances. It is neither impossible nor improbable that many of the "actual facts" with which his writings are in agreement had come to him from other sources than the spiritual world. That his observations on the future life were not "copied from the Writings" is of course admitted. That they do not represent conscious plagiarisms is also possible, and we have no just grounds upon which to base any charge of insincerity against their author. But that they were not present in the mind of Mr. Owen, and that spirits finding them there, did not draw them forth from the memory, to present them as original experiences, has at least not been proved. Certainly this would be in accord with the general law of influx.

     In the Doctrine of the Sacred Scripture, no. 26, it is said that "the Lord teaches everyone by means of the Word, and He teaches from those truths which are with a man, and does not infuse new truths immediately; wherefore, unless man is in Divine truths, or if he is only in a few truths and at the same time in falsities, he may from these falsify the truths." That there is a similar restriction placed upon the operation of spirits, is implied in the statement (Diary 4001): "It is not conceded to any spirit to teach man, nor consequently to lead him, except from cupidity." Does this not mean that, when men voluntarily place themselves under the influence of spirits, they are led by their cupidities, which, when aroused, gather out of man's memory such things as are in agreement with them, whereas instruction in spiritual things cannot be given in this way? And is not the fact, admitted by Mr. Sexton, that "there is not a single detail of reliable fact revealed by more modern evidences that is not already told by Swedenborg "at least suggestive in this connection?

562


Why not? If reliable evidence of conditions in the other life were obtainable through spiritistic mediums, is it not reasonable to suppose that there would be at least some details revealed which are not specifically contained in the Writings?

     Be that as it may, the writings of Vale Owen are in the same category as other similar disclosures through automatic writing. They are imbued with the same spirit of antagonism to the New Church. They are subject to the criticism cited above, and are, therefore, destructive of any genuine acceptance of the Heavenly Doctrine. How can they be brought forward as an "independent witness" to the Truth of the Writings, without conveying a fatally false impression that will obstruct rather than facilitate a real entrance into the New Church?

     No "reliable proof" of the teachings of the Writings can be found in the utterances of spiritists. Whatever the appearance of truth involved in their supposed disclosures, no one should be encouraged to place confidence in them. Note the following explicit warning given in the Spiritual Diary: "When spirits begin to speak with man, he must beware lest he believe them in anything; for they say almost anything; things are fabricated by them, and they lie; for if they were permitted to relate what heaven is, and how things are in the heavens, they would tell so many lies, and indeed with solemn affirmation, that man would be astonished." (S. D. 1622.) It is here implied, not only that things received from spirits are not to be trusted, but that they are not permitted to "relate what heaven is, and how things are in the heavens." It is just this reliance upon spirits, and upon their pretended revelations, that must be relinquished, before the teaching of the Writings can be truly received. Unless this be broken, no genuine approach can be hoped for.

     Apart from this encouragement to maintain some kind of faith in spiritistic utterances, using care only to "sift the true evidence of the future life from the mass of speculation," there is much in the book under review that may be sincerely commended. The author shows a sincerity of purpose, a power of accommodation, and a simplicity of style, which combine to make his book, especially in the later chapters, convincing. He is completely loyal to the Writings, and straightforward in his presentation of their teachings.

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It is to be regretted that he confined himself entirely to the descriptive material to be found in them, without presenting the spiritual laws and principles which they are given to illustrate. For herein lies the great difference between the Writings and the results of the spiritistic dance. It is just this that would, we think, be most helpful to any sincere seeker after truth among the ranks of the spiritists. Possibly he considered this beyond the comprehension of those whom he was addressing, and as a thing to be introduced only after an affirmative contact with the Writings had been established. Yet, simply stated, the spiritual truths of the Heavenly Doctrines can be brought within the range of most minds, and they lift the thought to a plane altogether above anything that spiritism can approach. At any rate, Mr. Sexton has essayed the task from a sincere conviction of the efficacy of his methods, and while we have been obliged to take exception to them, we are in accord with him in the spirit of his attempt to help all who have been caught in the toils of spiritistic influences, and to bring them out of obscurity into the clear light of a well-founded knowledge concerning the other life.
IN TEMPTATION. 1927

IN TEMPTATION.              1927

What man is he, that boasts of fleshly might,
And vain assurance of mortality,
Which, all so soon as it doth come to fight
Against spiritual foes, yields by and by,
Or from the field most cowardly doth fly!
Ne let the man ascribe it to his skill
That thorough grace hath gained victory;
In any strength we have, it is to ill;
But all the good is God's, both power and eke will.
     EDMUND SPENSER, Faery Queen, Book I, Canto X.

564


RENOUNCING CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 1927

RENOUNCING CHRISTIAN SCIENCE              1927


NEW CHURCH LIFE
Office a Publication, Lancaster, Pa.
Published Monthly By
THE GENERAL CHURCH OF THE NEW JERUSALEM
BRYN ATHYN, PA.
Editor                    Rev. W. B. Caldwell, Bryn Athyn, Pa.
Business Manager          Mr. H. Hyatt, Bryn Athyn, Pa.

     All literary contributions should be sent to the Editor. Subscriptions, change of address and business communications should be sent to the Business Manager.

     TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION
In the United States, $3.00 per year; Elsewhere, $3.25 or 14 shillings; payable in advance
Single Copy          30 cents
     NOTES AND REVIEWS.

     RENOUNCING CHRISTIAN SCIENCE.

     "I venture to conclude with this-and it will be corroborated by the many Christian Scientists who have become New Churchmen: No spiritually minded, intelligent Christian Scientist, reading Swedenborg with an open thought, could thereafter remain a member of the Christian Science Church, in spirit and in deed, without thereby doing violence to his conscience."

     So writes Mr. Leslie Marshall, one of a group of Christian Scientists in Akron, Ohio, who, a few years ago, renounced that belief and organized themselves into "The Church of the New Jerusalem, Akron, Ohio." His declaration comes at the close of a booklet entitled "A Sign of the Times," a copy of which has recently been sent us. It consists wholly of extracts from THE NEW CHURCH MESSENGER of 1925 and 1926, in which Mr. Marshall gave his reasons for leaving the Christian Science Church and thus terminating a membership of seventeen years. To quote:

     "The events which led up to my withdrawal had their beginnings when reports came to me as Sunday School superintendent that some of the Sunday School teachers were reading literature not 'authorized' by 'Boston.' I proceeded to investigate. In the instance of two teachers I found the 'unauthorized' books to be of a most unusual spiritual character. . . . "

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He found many terms therein which he had always considered to have been originated by Mrs. Eddy. "Therefore, my astonishment may be imagined when I noted that these books were the works of Emanuel Swedenborg, penned nearly one hundred and fifty years ago."

     Mr. Marshall goes on to speak of the evidence that Mrs. Eddy was acquainted with the Writings, and points out some of the inconsistencies in her teachings. He might have stated more emphatically that the New Church does not regard physical healing as a function of the Church. He indeed says that "the New Church has not emphasized physical healing," and thinks that Mrs. Eddy did not intend that the curing of bodily ills should have the important place in her church which it now has, but also states that he found physical healing to be "among the fruits of the New Church," which is misleading, unless by "fruits" are meant the indirect benefits of a life of regeneration.

     On the central pantheistic error of Christian Science, he is abundantly clear. Noting Mrs. Eddy's teaching that, "As a drop of water is one with the ocean, a ray of light one with the sun, even so God and man, Father and Son, are one in being," he remarks: "When this line of thought is followed out-to take the ocean analogy-we find that man's individuality is totally submerged. One cannot twice locate any one drop of water within the ocean. . . . It is the teaching of man's oneness with God, his co-existence with God, that leads so many Christian Scientists to the awful conclusion that man is a part of God."

     Copies of the booklet may be had without cost by addressing: The Secretary, 1683 East 82d Street, Cleveland, Ohio.
SWEDENBORG AND CEDERCREUTZ. 1927

SWEDENBORG AND CEDERCREUTZ.       HUGO LJ. ODHNER       1927

     Among various interesting things found in Dr. Emil Kleen's book on Swedenborg, reviewed elsewhere in this issue, is a citation from a letter dated March 20, 1726, Written by Bishop J. Steuchius to his father, Archbishop M. Steuchius, which runs as follows:

     "My dear daughter, Stina Maja (Christina Maria), has recently had several suitors, such as Mag(ister) Ar(tium) As(sessor) Swedenborg and the Gentleman-Usher Cedercreutz; and although . . . still I notice that she is more minded towards Cedercreutz."

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     The Swedish is somewhat elliptical, and the last phrase, "att hon mera hogfuller Cedercreutz," perhaps means "that Cedercreutz is more fond of her."

     The letter was found in 1904 by Archdean H. Lundstrom in the Library of Skara Diocese and High School. The above citation was made by Kleen with the object of exploding the poetical, New Church idea of Swedenborg as a lovelorn swain, faithful to the memory of his lost first love, Emerentia Polhem. To complete the story, the lady mentioned in the letter married the gentleman in question the following year, and they presumably lived happily ever after, or until the death of "Stina Maja" in 1739. (Kleen's Swedenborg, PP. 378, 379.)
     HUGO LJ. ODHNER.
TWO EDITORS. 1927

TWO EDITORS.       ARTHUR CARTER       1927

     H. W. Massingham, one of England's greatest journalists, passed away in August, 1924. His mastery of a wonderfully clear and vigorous style obtained for him early in life an assured position high in the ranks of his chosen vocation. Although he wrote for and managed important London dailies during his long career, he is probably best known by his brilliant contributions to the NATION, which he edited for eighteen years. A selection from his writings, made by his son, has recently been published in handsome book form, entitled H. W. M. Of special interest to New Churchmen is Massingham's tribute of love and veneration to the memory of James Spilling, under whom he was initiated into the craft of journalism. Spilling was editor of the EASTERN DAILY PRESS, of Norwich, and in New Church circles is well known as the author of Amid the Corn, Swedenborg and the Brownings, and other collateral works. The testimony of his former apprentice would indicate that he was a man in whom life and doctrine were one. To quote:

     "I came to the DAILY PRESS a boy of seventeen, fresh from the Grammar School, a great hand at Latin hexameters and Greek iambics, and with about as much knowledge of nineteenth century England and Norwich as if I had been brought up in Babylon.

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Being a strict Nonconformist, I acquired an instant taste for tobacco, socialism, the theater, and the Roman Catholic ritual, and every heretical book I could lay my hands on. . . . It was an extremely jolly life, redeemed intellectually for me by the love and admiration I formed for my old friend, Mr. Spilling, who tried to make me a Swedenborgian, and did, in fact, convince me that it was possible to be both an editor and a saint. The miracle stands, in my later experience, on that single example, but since then I have never given it up as impossible."

     Again he writes: "My friendship with Mr. Spilling, despite the disparity of years, was both a comradeship and a lamp to my unguided youth. . . . He made a good editor, and an occasional vein of satire in his writing as 'Cherub' gave the paper a tone of liveliness and independence. But his vital interest was not politics but religion; he wanted to popularize Swedenborg, much more than to unfold the banner of Nonconformity, and hold up the arms of the Gorand Old Man. . . . But, as I have said, it was his sweetness of character, and the gentle determination of his mind to goodness and charity, which drew me even more than his intellectual gifts."

     Bereft of religious faith during his journey through life, Massingham championed the cause of social reform, of pacifism, and seems to have become what is termed a "little Englander." The War and its aftermath left him baffled, disillusioned, and out of harmony with the majority of his countrymen. It is therefore touching, and perhaps significant of his state, to learn that in the approaching end of his life his thoughts turned back to the kindly old friend of his boyhood and the faith that he taught. Says Massingham's son: "James Spilling was editor of the EASTERN DAILY PRESS from 1873-1897. My father carefully preserved the presentation copy of a religious work by him, published in 1879 (when H. W. M. was working under him). He re-read part of it during the last month of his life."     
     ARTHUR CARTER.

568


Church News 1927

Church News       Various       1927

     SOUTH AFRICA.

     The June issue of Tlhahiso (The Expositor), published by our enterprising friends of the General Church Mission at Ladybrand, qualifies as one of the few polyglot or many-tongued magazines in the world by printing articles in four languages, Sesuto, Zulu, Xosa and English. As appropriate to the observance of New Church Day, the Nineteenth of June announcement in True Christian Religion, no. 791, appears in all four languages. A very useful article on "Education and Religion," by the Rev. F. W. Elphick, is published in Sesuto and English; and there is a sermon in Zulu by Mr. John Jiyana, who treats of the "ax laid to the root of the trees." (Matt. 9:10.) A Sesuto version of selections from Mr. Pitcairn's Book Sealed with Seven Seals, and extensive News Notes in the Native languages, fill out this interesting 16 page number.

     SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA.

     The department in which our society seems to achieve its greatest success is the Sunday School; that is, if numbers count. The roll book now records the names of fifty scholars. More teachers are the urgent need, but they do not appear to be forthcoming. It is not everyone, I suppose, who can develop the love of teaching, or acquire the ability just when required.

     The children's celebration of June Nineteenth was held on the 18th. Our seating capacity was heavily taxed with the sixty persons present, especially at the tables when a tea was given the children and their parents. We find this annual festival our best missionary effort. Our pastor is then able to tell the parents what the New Church really is. We have not yet lost a scholar through plain speaking; on the contrary, we always have new ones sent the following Sunday. Evidently it is a repetition of the Scripture saying that "the common people heard Him gladly." The New Church Doctrines appeal to the common sense in people who have that estimable quality. In this celebration, at the request of most of our members, we repeated the tableaux presented last year, depicting The Five Churches. Hymns, and also songs from the Social Song Book, were lustily sung by the children.

     On June 19th, our Sunday service was suited to the Day. The subject of the sermon was "The Fulfilment of Final Prophecies," based upon Matthew 24:29-31, especially the last verse, "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." During an interval in the service, Mr. Taylor sang the beautiful solo, "Father in Heaven," by Handel.

     In the evening, the members and older young people had tea together. Twenty-seven persons sat down to a tempting repast. A one-time honored custom was revived this year when a bowl containing slips of paper, on each of which was written a short quotation from the Writings, was passed around, each guest taking one. The passages were afterwards read aloud, and the effect was remarkable, some saying that in this manner they received just the truth that they were needing. Three papers were read: "The Necessity for the New Church," by Mr. Guthrie; "Reasons why we Celebrate June 19th," by Mr. Kirschstein; "Why the New Church must be Internal," by Mr. Morse.

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     Our pastor acted as toastmaster, and proposed three toasts: "The Church;" "The Day we Celebrate;" and "Our Distant Friends." Suitable responses were made by various speakers. In introducing the toasts, Mr. Morse spoke to the young people about the high correspondence of wine, or the fermented juice of the grape. He also pointed out the truth that the higher the use of anything, the greater was the possibility of its abuse; and he exhorted his hearers always to keep in mind the true significance of wine in their associations in the world. Mr. Guthrie proposed an impromptu toast to "Our Pastor, and his Helpers in the Sunday School." He spoke ably on the many abilities of our pastor, and of his great capacity for steadfast work in the face of many difficulties.

     We love to sing the New Church songs on these occasions, and many of them were interspersed throughout the evening, dosing with "The Brotherhood." Mrs. Barnes, of Martinsville, who has been unable to be with us for some years, added to our pleasure at this meeting by her presence with her little son.

     Our new members, Mr. Guthrie, and Mr. and Mrs. Thomas R. Taylor, have been making their presence felt in many and various uses. It was on Sunday, March 20th, that Mr. and Mrs. Taylor and their two children were baptized. The means of their first being interested in the Doctrines was the sending of their children to the Sunday School. Mr. Taylor has interested himself in the young people. He conducts their singing practices on Sunday mornings and Wednesday evenings, and has also started a physical culture class.

     At last we have a notice board,-our pastor's gift and work. Under the name "New Church" is printed the following: "This Building is Dedicated to the Worship of the One Only God, Jesus Christ, in His Divine Human." Another gift is that of a maple hymn board by Mr. Taylor, and the pastor has printed the order of service upon it. Still other gifts center in a large bookcase, the materials of which were donated by Miss Taylor, and the work of construction by Mr. Kirschstein.

     Our doctrinal class, though small in numbers, provides ample food for intelligent interest. The new members are finding pleasure in the reading of the Writings. We are again reading the work on Heaven and Hell, and finding it ever new.
     M. M. W.

     GENERAL CONFERENCE.

     The 120th Annual Meeting of the General Conference was held at North Manchester, beginning May 21st. A report of the proceedings, illustrated with photographs, appears in The New-Church Herald for June 4th and following numbers.

     The Rev. Charles A. Hall, retiring President, opened the meeting, and presented Certificates of Ordination to the Revs. Lee Proctor and Frank Hodson Rose. At the next session, Mr. Hall delivered an address, and then, in accordance with last year's nomination, the Rev. H. Gordon Drummond was elected President, and addressed the Conference on the subject of "Towards Reality." The Rev. W. T. Stonestreet was made President Nominate for next year.

     The Rev. Paul Sperry, of Washington, D. C., attended as a delegate from the General Convention, addressing the Conference on several occasions, and preaching at the morning service on Sunday. The Rev. E. L. G. Reissner, Minister of the Society in Berlin, Germany, was also present and addressed the meeting.

     The Conference sessions were largely devoted to business, with considerable time devoted to the presentation and discussion of the overseas activities in Europe, Africa and Asia. This year, however, an hour was given to the consideration of a doctrinal subject, with several addresses on "The Life of Religion."

     The report of the Committee on a New Church Version of the Word would indicate that some progress is being made in this undertaking. It will be recalled that the project was proposed and financed by Mr. George Marchant, of Australia, and that Committees of Conference and Convention were appointed to co-operate in the work.

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Not finding it feasible to produce an entirely new translation of the Scriptures, we understand these Committees are engaged in revising existing texts in the light of New Church standards of interpretation.

     GENERAL CONVENTION.

     The New-Church Messenger for July 6th and subsequent numbers contains a report of the annual meeting of the General Convention, held at Chicago, Ill., from which we gather the following items of special interest:

     The Council of Ministers met on June 14th at the Sheridan Road Church, and there was an attendance of 40 ministers during the sessions. The Secretary brought before the meeting the application of the Illinois Association for the investiture of the Rev. Charles Samuel Mack, M.D., as General Pastor of the Association. Three theological students were presented for ordination: Mr. Paul Dwight Hammond, who has been called to Indianapolis; Mr. Othmar Tobisch, who, it is expected, will return to Vienna as minister there after more experience in this country; and Mr. Bjorn Johannson, who has been called to Bath, Maine. The applications for ordination and investiture were referred by vote of the Council to its Committee of General Pastors, and the ceremonies took place on the following Sunday.

     "For the Committee on the Translation of Conjugial Love, Mr. Hoeck reported progress, and the Rev. William F. Wunsch supplemented the report by saying that the work of translation was going slowly on, each year seeing some new sections translated, and that there was no attempt to hurry the work because it was better done slowly, and because there was no pressing call for a new translation at present."

     The Rev. John W. Spiers reported that, in Newtonville, Mass., the method of personal calls by two members of the society on those known to be without church affiliation had proved valuable. The campaign had brought two members, eight others were thinking seriously of joining, and a number of people were attending the services.

     Most of the papers read at the Council are printed in the Messenger report, together with the discussions. The first paper was entitled, "Can Theology Be Based on Experience)" by the Rev. Frederic R. Crownfield. We had always thought that Theology dealt primarily with the Godhead, but at the opening of his paper Mr. Crownfield states: "By theology I mean the systematic description of the spiritual world and the exposition of its laws, while by experience I would be understood as meaning experience of that world." His treatment savors strongly of the pragmatic idea. The paper was followed immediately by another entitled, "Swedenborg's Other World Experience, and its Determining Character on New-Church Theology," by the Rev. John Whitehead. The two papers brought on a lively and pointed discussion, during which we note that the Rev. H. C. Small expressed his "total disagreement with everything said in the first paper, and his complete agreement with everything said in the second."

     Other papers were: "Our Young People and the New-Church Pastor," by the Rev. Horace W. Briggs, who deals mainly with practical methods; "Interpreting Swedenborg and Scripture in Terms of Experience," by the Rev. Charles W. Harvey,-a digest of thirty pages of the Concordance under the term "Natural"; and "The Interrelation of Language and Thought Images," by the Rev. Adolph Roeder, who treats of the absence of the articles "a" and "the" in the Latin language, and of the effects of this fact in the translating of the Writings, which he illustrates with the terms "The New Church" and "The Divine Human."

     In the course of a well-written paper on "The Modern Quest of an Adequate Religion," the Rev. E. M. Lawrence Could says in part: "We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ has come again to His world, and is seeking to make all things new.

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And that our more open-minded neighbors are coming to feel so clearly the inadequacy of the old faiths is for us a confirmation of the fact that the world is standing on the threshold of the new religious era, the coming of which was foretold by Emanuel Swedenborg a century and a half ago. But of course the Second Coming is not just an action on the Lord's part." It involves also "a change on man's part,-the development in man of new capacities for the reception of the Divine Presence. . . . And yet, of course, we believe that there has been also a direct action on the Lord's part. By means of newly revealed body of Divine Truth, we think that He has provided the very religion which the world needs and, with growing consciousness of need, is seeking. But the world, generally speaking, cannot seem to see the matter from our standpoint. It is true that there has been and is a wide-spread permeation of religious thought by certain phases of the New-Church teaching. It is also true that the world has developed a new and increasing respect for the name and character of Emanuel Swedenborg. But when it comes to avowed acceptance of the New-Church system of thought as a system, the world still seems hopelessly reluctant. Our churches remain comparatively empty, and our membership grows very slowly, if it can be said to grow at all. If people are hungry, and if the food they need is available, why do they refuse to eat? . . . We are apt to deny the existence of the hunger, to say that men do not really want religion after all. I assure you that this is not so. Men do want religion. They are hungering and thirsting, they are actually dying for it. . . . " Mr. Could then goes on to show how the religion of the New Church is adequate to the interior faculties of reason and freedom, natural, spiritual and celestial,-very well said, but with a sanguine idea as to the numbers in the world who are prepared to receive it. The paper was warmly approved by several speakers, but the Rev. H. C. Small said: "I certainly did not agree with everything which Mr. Could said. I don't believe that the world is hungry for religion. I don't find people acting like hungry people. I heard no reference in the paper to the description of present conditions which is found in the Writings or the Scriptures. The Lord did not find everybody hungry, and we are now in a similar situation. Being as good as we please will not get people hocking to us. That's my experience. As for living our religion, Amen to that!"

     The 106th Annual Session of the General Convention opened at the Kenwood Parish Church on June 18th. President William L. Worcester presided, and spoke of the presence of the Rev. and Mrs. E. J. E. Schreck, visitors from England, whom he warmly welcomed. At the noon religious service, Mr. Worcester delivered an address on "Tithing in the New Church," which is printed the Messenger report.

     At the afternoon session, the Rev. George E. Morgan, reporting for the Urbana Committee, stated "that there was little to criticize about Urbana University except the indisposition of our people to patronize it. Its one immediate need was more New-Church students." Mr. George C. Warren said "that he was particularly impressed with the beauty of Urbana's environment; he deemed it second to that of no college in this country. Furthermore, if anyone should say that Urbana is not a real school; that it has not a real faculty; that it is not teaching New Church principles; that its morale is of low grade; or that its students do not stand as high as those of any college in the country, tell that person, said Mr. Warren, that he is sadly misinformed. Let our New-Church people send their children to Urbana this fall, and if they do not agree in these matters, he would pay the traveling expenses, and the tuition as well."

     After the session, a motor coach drive through the city park system brought the members finally to Lincoln Park, where floral tributes and a large floral wreath were placed at the foot of the monument upon which is the Swedenborg Bust.

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     On Sunday, June 19th, the morning service was held in the Kenwood Church, and the sermon, on "The Song of Moses and of the Lamb," was delivered by the Rev. Arthur Wilde. In the afternoon, there was an Ordination and Communion Service, when three candidates were ordained, and the Rev. Charles S. Mack invested with the office of General Pastor, as before noted. The Rev. Louis G. Hoeck preached on "The New Covenant, or The Law in the Heart," and at the close of the sermon spoke of the significance of the Day. The administration of the Holy Supper followed. In the evening, there was a meeting under the auspices of the Board of Missions, when the Rev. E. J. E. Schreck gave an account of the British Conference activities in Africa and India, illustrated with stereopticon views. He was followed by the Rev. Paul Sperry, who described his recent tour of the New Church centers in Europe, also with pictures.

     On Monday, at the noon religious service, the Rev. E. J. E. Schreck delivered an address on "The Significance of the Place, Time, and Manner of the Giving of the Ten Commandments." In the afternoon, there were papers and discussions on two subjects: "Methods for Carrying the New-Church Message to the World," and "Sunday Schools." In the evening, papers on other phases of the subject of The Ten Commandments were read and discussed, and this was the theme of still another address on Tuesday morning. In the afternoon, Mr. Schreck, in an extended speech, brought greetings from the Conference, though not as an official representative. This was the last day of the Convention sessions.

     We also gather from the Report in The Messenger the following matters of general interest:

     An effort is being made to raise an endowment fund of one million dollars for the Convention Theological School, and it is hoped that this may be attained in the course of a few years. The Board of Managers of the Theological School has formally voted that no more students will be admitted without the equivalent of a college degree, except in the most unusual circumstances.

     The question of publishing an annotated edition of Conjugial Love, to contain the notes prepared some years ago by the Rev. Wm. F. Wunsch, came up for lengthy consideration in both the Council of Ministers and the Convention, the publication of such a volume having been delayed for various reasons. Finally, it was voted "That Convention request the American Swedenborg Printing and Publishing Society to issue an edition of Conjugial Love in consultation with a committee of the Council of Ministers upon that subject."

     The Rev. John Whitehead, reporting for the Committee on the (Marchant) New-Church Edition of the Word, said that progress was being made.

     By a vote of 36 to 15, the following amendment to the Constitution of the General Convention was adopted:

     "A pastor, after a suitable term in the pastoral office, may, by request of an Association of the Convention, consisting of at least three Societies and employing at least three ministers, or, in special cases, by a three-fourths vote of the Convention, and with the sanction of the Convention, be invested with the office of General Pastor, with power, in addition to those previously conferred, to authorize candidates and ordain ministers, while acting as Presiding Minister of an Association, or of the Convention, or at the request of any such Association." In the course of the discussion, it was explained that the purpose of the amendment was to dignify the office of General Pastor.

     The Editor of the Messenger stated in his Report that "a plan of somewhat unusual interest is in mind for next year. For ten months, beginning with September, the first number for each month is to be planned especially as a 'Missionary Number,' with the idea of arousing interest in non-New Church readers. The American Swedenborg Printing and Publishing Society has agreed to co-operate in this plan by providing a series of articles by various writers, each containing a description of one of the major works of Swedenborg.

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The Society will also furnish a list of some hundreds of newly-interested readers to whom copies of these numbers will be sent."     
     W. B. C.

     STREET, SOMERSET, ENGLAND.

     On July 6th, the small circle of receivers here had the pleasure of a visit from the Rev. R. J. Tilson. A service was held in the evening at the house of Mr. and Mrs. J. L. Summerhayes, and in addition to the administration of the Sacrament of the Holy Supper the home of the above-named and their sister was dedicated. An address was given on the subject of the Dedication of the Home, based on the teaching of the 20th chapter of Deuteronomy, and this was followed by a very clear exposition of the teachings of the Church on the Holy Supper.

     The visit of Mr. Tilson was very much appreciated, and was felt to have been of great encouragement to the small circle.     
     J. L. S.

     HOLLAND.

     The July issue of De Ware Christelijke Godsdienst is devoted to reports of the sixth annual meeting of the General Church Society and of The Swedenborg Society at The Hague. The latter organization has a membership of ninety-two, and forty-eight of these are members of the General Church, showing an increase during the year.

     The reports give evidence of fruitful activity. Sunday services, doctrinal classes and suppers, and public lectures have been held regularly, and the attendance indicates that most of the members have taken an active part in these uses. We are unable, however, to participate in the sphere of the social and church life of the Society, as little of this appears in the reports. The announcement of the organization of a tennis club among the members, which is printed in this number of the periodical, leads us to invite our friends across the sea to give us a more detailed account of their social life, that we may become better acquainted with this phase of their activities. We are all interested in the doings of our New Church friends, and by knowing more about them we would undoubtedly profit, and be strengthened in the realization that the New Church is growing constantly and becoming more and more established.
     H. W. BOEF.

     BRYN ATHYN.

     Missionary Services.

     In addition to the usual morning services in the Cathedral, Missionary Services have been held at 4 o'clock on Sunday afternoons throughout the Spring and Summer. These have been advertised in the Philadelphia newspapers, and the average attendance at five recent services was 176, the highest being 281. While there are always New Church people present on these occasions, the great majority are strangers, and it has been observed that a number attend more than one service. Strangers also attend the morning service, often to the number of fifty or sixty.

     Until the middle of July, the afternoon services were conducted by the Rev. Theodore Pitcairn, who preached on a variety of subjects. Beginning July 11th, the Rev. K. R. Alden has delivered a series of discourses based upon the work on the Divine Love and Wisdom, the titles of the sermons being as follows: "Atheism"; "God is Love"; "The Spiritual Sun"; "Hell, and the Life after Death"; "Creation for the Life after Death"; "Salvation." Following this, a series of sermons will deal with the fundamental teachings of the New Church.

     At the conclusion of the services each Sunday, many strangers visit the Cathedral Book Room to ask questions and purchase copies of the Writings and other New Church literature. The weekly sales amount to $20.00 and more, and several sets of the Arcana Celestia have been sold.

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     To meet the growing congregations, the seating capacity of the Cathedral has now been increased by the placing of chairs in the side aisles. These chairs are of a substantial and comfortable type, the gift of the Rev. Theodore Pitcairn.

     MINNEAPOLIS.

     The Swedenborgian is the title of a four-page monthly leaflet issued by the Rev. Herbert C. Small, Pastor of the Minneapolis Society. It is made up largely of quotations from the Writings, and sets forth the distinctive doctrines of the New Church in no uncertain terms. The August number quotes from the Writings to show that Swedenborg derived the Doctrine from the Lord alone, and also in answer to the question: "What Wrecked Christianity?"

     GLENVIEW, ILLINOIS.

     The only church use active at this midsummer season is the regular Sunday worship, which is now being conducted by Candidate Hendrik Boef in the absence of the pastor and his family, who are spending their vacation a; Linden Hills (Covert), Michigan. Regardless of the absence of many members and their families on vacation, the attendance at the services is within twenty per cent of the yearly average. Your correspondent has always maintained that there were many people who would welcome the opportunity to worship together in church during July and August, and the results this summer fully prove it.

     The regular bimonthly meeting of our General Council, set for the fourth Monday in July, fell upon the hottest day of the year, and was therefore called off. The next outstanding function will be the marriage of Miss Maud McQueen to Mr. William Hamm, which will be solemnized on August 27th.

     Among recent visitors in Glenview are the Rev. and Mrs. E. J. E. Schreck, of Birmingham, England, who are spending some weeks in America, and attended the General Convention in Chicago last June. They have also been entertained at the Nelson summer home in Palisades Park, Michigan, where Mr. Schreck was a pioneer summer resident years ago. Palisades Park and Linden Hills, adjacent summer resorts on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, are still favorite gathering places for New Church cottagers and visitors. Services are held in their church every Sunday, and this, with the many social activities, combined with the natural advantages, makes a sojourn there very delightful. Many of our members also go to the north woods in Wisconsin, where they are entertained at the Scalbom and Cole camps.

     Mr. Edwin Burnham is completing his new house on the family homestead grounds, which he expects to occupy in October after his marriage to Miss Elva Zent. Most of the labor on the dwelling has been done by himself and his friends. Mr. Archibald Price and his bride (Marjorie Burnham) are looking forward to building on another part of the same property.

     The new tennis courts by the lake have been beautifully graded and rolled, but completion is awaiting the top dressing; and this, in turn, awaits further funds, to be paid in on subscriptions. These courts are like folks-it takes money for dressing.

     We are looking forward to the Jubilee celebration of the Immanuel Church, to be held in October at the usual time of the District Assembly. Among the features will be the Memorial Book, now in course of preparation under the editorship of the Rev. William Whitehead, of Bryn Athyn. Mr. Seymour Nelson has compiled an account of the origin and progress of the Society, and there will be chapters by those who have been pastors during the fifty years. The book is to be illustrated, and should be of interest to the members of the Church at large. It is to be sold at the nominal price of $1.00, and may be obtained by addressing Mr. G. A. McQueen, Glenview, Ill.
     R. S.

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     SWEDEN.

     The May-June number of Nova Ecclesia, edited by the Rev. Gustaf Beckstrom, contains a sermon by Pastor S. Chr. Bronniche, of Copenhagen, and a Swedish translation of Louis Pendleton's article entitled "The Personal Appearance of the Christ," which appeared in New
Church Life for September, 1926.

     THE WORD EXPLAINED.

     In these columns last April we mentioned that the first volume of The Word of the Old Testament Explained (hitherto known as The Adversaria), translated by the Rev. Alfred Acton, was ready for the printer. We are pleased to state that this first volume is now in type and will be completed and on sale at an early date. Dr. Acton has been engaged during the summer in writing a Preface, but as this has assumed the proportions of a treatise upon the whole work it is likely that it will be published in a separate volume.
NEW CHURCH SERMONS 1927

NEW CHURCH SERMONS              1927

     Expounding the Scriptures in the Light of the Heavenly Doctrine of the New Jerusalem.

     Selected Discourses by Ministers of the General Church.

     Suitable for individual reading, and for use in family worship and other services, as well as for missionary purposes.

     A PAMPHLET ISSUED MONTHLY FROM OCTOBER TO JUNE INCLUSIVE.

     Sent free of charge to any address on application to Mr. H. Hyatt, Bryn Athyn, Pa.

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WAYSIDE NOTES 1927

WAYSIDE NOTES       G. A. MCQUEEN       1927




     Announcements.




          
NEW CHURCH LIFE
VOL. XLVII OCTOBER, 1927 No. 10
     VIII.

     Some years ago, it was the custom with the great organizations of the Temperance Movement to invite ministers of the various churches to preach a special temperance sermon on a Sunday set apart for the purpose. One of our New Church ministers, the late Dr. R. L. Tafel, pastor of the church at Camden Road, London,-complied with the request by preaching a sermon on "The Sin of Drunkenness." It is probable that his treatment of the subject of temperance was not quite what was expected by the organizers of the Temperance Sunday, but it was a faithful exposition of the teaching of the Word and the Writings concerning the use and abuse of intoxicating drink. The sermon was afterwards published in pamphlet form. In it, Dr. Tafel showed that "abuse does not take away use," and that drunkenness is not merely a misdemeanor, but a sin against God which should be shunned as such. He spoke of the spiritual causes of drunkenness, and of its sad effects, not only upon its victims, but also upon the members of his family. A very comprehensive statement is to be found in the Spiritual Diary which confirms this position. It is as follows: "I spoke with spirits about drunkenness, and it was confirmed by them that it is an enormous sin, both because a man thus becomes a brute, and no longer a man, seeing that it is the intellect that makes a man to be a man, and because he injures his body, and so precipitates death, besides wasting in luxury what might be of use to many. It appeared to them so filthy that they abhorred such a life." (S. D, 2422.)

     At the period when Dr. Tafel preached his temperance sermon, there were societies of Teetotalers, even in the organized New Church.

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As we have met many people of the present generation who have never heard the word "teetotaler," it may be well to explain that it refers to a person who has taken a pledge of total abstinence from the use of intoxicating drink in any form. These total abstainers were the cause of much controversy and disturbance in some New Church centers. Ignoring the clear teaching of the Word as to the proper wine to use in the Lord's Supper, they were influential enough to have unfermented grape juice introduced as a substitute for genuine, fermented wine. The fallacies from which this practice originated were exposed by New Church writers of ability, who were willing to accept the Writings as their final court of appeal. And after some years of discussion an article entitled "The Wine Question" appeared in Words for the New Church, published by the Academy of the New Church in the year 1882. The treatment of the subject in that article was thorough and conclusive, and seemed to leave nothing more to be said. At any rate, little on the subject has appeared in the literature of the Church for a number of years. But there are still some societies of the Church where grape juice is administered in the Holy Supper.

-----

     The Academy has sought from the beginning to teach and practice the orderly use of wine and other alcoholic beverages. Taking its stand upon the doctrine of freedom so clearly laid down in the Writings, it could not be in sympathy with the effort to reform mankind by compulsion such as is involved in the prohibition laws of this and other countries. In the General Church of the New Jerusalem, there exists no doubt as to the proper wine to be administered in the Holy Supper, and there is no feeling against the orderly use of wine and other alcoholic beverages in social life. It was well pointed out in the early literature of the Church that wine is not in itself an evil, but that the evil lies in the abuse of it by man.

-----

     Having established our position in relation to total abstinence and prohibition upon what we believe to be true principles, we yet do not minimize the evils of intemperance and drunkenness. Although there is a preponderance of teaching in the Writings relating to spiritual drunkenness, it does not follow that the teaching about physical drunkenness is of small importance, for it is very emphatic, as shown by the one passage cited above.

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It is among the sad phases of the excesses to which people go at the present day that women are becoming victims to evils that were formerly associated with men only. There was a time when women exercised a restraining influence upon the licentiousness of men, but from many published reports one would conclude that such restraint is passing away. The distinctive functions of the sexes are being lost sight of, and it is difficult to conceive that anything but evil can result. It is often said that "only the truths of the New Church can save people," and to be saved by those truths means to know and live them. So it is with the teaching concerning the evils of intemperance, which must be our protection against the conditions existing in the world today.
SPIRITUAL CHARITY 1927

SPIRITUAL CHARITY       Rev. GEORGE DE CHARMS       1927

     "By thy sword thou shalt live, and shalt serve thy brother. And it shall come to pass when; thou shalt have the dominion, that thou shalt break Iris yoke from off thy neck." (Genesis 27:40.)

     True religion has for its end that men should live in a state of charity and good-will toward the neighbor. Heaven itself is such a state of life. There enmities, jealousies, contentions for supremacy, are banished, because mutual love prevails, and in the heart of each there is no other wish than to bring an increase of happiness and prosperity to others. That such a universal love of the neighbor is an ideal condition, in which every individual receives the greatest joy and blessing possible to him, is readily recognized. But it is a condition which cannot exist except with angels, that is, with human beings who have become perfect through regeneration, and out of whose hearts all evil has been expelled. Thus it is a condition which we cannot attain on earth, where the good and the evil are mingled together. And yet it is just this condition that has ever been the professed ideal of the Christian Church. Certainly it was the goal set before the disciples by the Lord when he said: "A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.

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By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another." (John 13: 34, 35)

     There is no shade of Christian belief, and, indeed, there is no pagan religion embraced by intelligent men anywhere in the world, that does not attempt to establish mutual love and charity in human society. There is no man who openly embraces the life of religion who does not profess to love his neighbor, and who does not seek to give proof of that love by acts of charity, by deeds of self-sacrifice, by showing kindness, thoughtfulness, and consideration for others. And yet, after nineteen centuries of opportunity to practice and perfect this simple precept of the Savior, it can hardly be said that mutual love, mutual trust and confidence, and the desire to sacrifice self for the welfare of the neighbor, are the most striking characteristics of the modern world, even in those countries where Christianity reigns supreme.

     The charity of early Christian times did not long continue. The sense of its loss has been keenly felt, and many have been the efforts to revive it, to bring back again those simple virtues which made the society of the Apostles, and of those who immediately succeeded them, a sort of golden age in which heaven came very near to the earth. So many have been these attempts, and so universal has been their failure to accomplish their purpose, that most thinking men of our day have reached the conclusion that the effort is vain. They believe that unselfish love is contrary to human nature. To seek it as a practical goal is therefore foolish. To proclaim it as the purpose of religious life may have a sentimental value, but those who are wise will accept this precept with some mental reservations, taking into account the conditions of life as we find them, and will accommodate their religious notions to them.

     The widespread attitude of modern Christian thought is, that religion, as a theoretical ideal of life, is altogether desirable, but should be kept in its proper place. It should not be given too much power or control in the direction of practical human affairs. Business is business; politics is politics; religion is something quite apart. Success in any field of human endeavor must be based upon a practical recognition of the evil and selfishness in human nature, and must meet these enemies with adequate weapons, that is, with concern for our self-interest.

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The sentimental idealist, however faultless his logic, and however exalted his principles, will only bring ruin upon us, because he mistakenly supposes conditions to be as they should be, rather than frankly acknowledging them for what they are. For him, the practical mind feels only contempt.

     And yet this attitude is one that destroys religion. It makes its professions hypocritical. It deprives its teachings of their power. It prevents its influence from penetrating into the deepest recesses of the heart. It makes it impossible for religion to change that human nature which is so obviously opposed to the ideal of charity in the Church. To be saving, religion must be sincere; that is, the love of religion must have its seat in the very depths of a man's nature. There must be nothing back of it which contradicts the profession of the lips or the action of the hand. Religion, to be effective, must enter into every phase of a man's life, actually controlling his thought and deed, in all those daily decisions by which character is slowly formed. Religion will be neither sincere nor effective so long as there are mental reservations. And yet it does demand of us a standard of life and conduct which is contrary to unregenerate human nature. The Lord commands His disciples to love one another, not with mental reservations, not after they have amply provided for themselves, and assured the success of their personal ambitions, but under all circumstances, with the whole heart, and without thought of self. It was by this kind of love to the neighbor that they were to be known as His disciples. This was the test of their love to Him. Failure in this meant failure in the one thing needful to a Christian life.

     We need hardly ask ourselves whether, in our own hearts, we have realized that ideal. Candid investigation of our secret ends and motives will discover self at the center of our universe. This is true, not of some, but of all. The love of self is what men call "human nature." We are born with it, and we cannot escape its dominance. Then we may ask: Does not the Lord, in commanding us to "love one another" as He "has loved us," require what is impossible? Does He not lay an unjust burden on our shoulders which we are unable to carry? No! For while it is true that human nature is inherently selfish, and that we are born into that nature, it is also true that human nature itself can be changed by regeneration, and that the means of effecting that change is a sincere and earnest effort to lead the life of religion.

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     Curiously enough, the way, the means, by which we may eventually attain to that love of the neighbor which the Lord enjoins is illustrated and taught in the Sacred Scripture by a story of deception and wrong which leads to hatred between two brothers. The story of how Jacob, taking advantage of his father's age and blindness, pretended to be Esau, and obtained for himself the coveted blessing, is very familiar to us. It was by putting on the garments of Esau, by covering his hands and the smooth of his neck with the skins of kids, that they might appear hairy like those of his brother; by bringing savoury meat from the flock, so prepared that it might taste like the game of Esau's hunting; and finally by deliberate and unconscionable lies; that Jacob convinced Isaac that he was the one upon whom he wished to pronounce a blessing. The blessing thus given was intended for Esau, not for Jacob; and yet, when, with Esau's return, the deception was discovered, it was not retracted. Esau was made second unto his brother; the inheritance of the Land was given unto Jacob; and only after a time of patient service and hard conflict did Esau regain that which was his by the right of primogeniture. Nevertheless, the promise that he would eventually prevail over Jacob was contained in the only blessing which remained in the power of Isaac to give him: "By thy sword thou shalt live, and shalt serve thy brother. And it shall come to pass when thou shalt have the dominion, that thou shalt break his yoke from off thy neck."

     By Isaac is here meant love to the Lord and charity toward the neighbor in the rational mind. He represents the acknowledgment of the Lord's commandment to love one another, as the ideal of human character, as the rational goal of religious life. This we can see to be true, and can interiorly desire, even when our whole nature rebels against it. We can recognize it in principle, even though we do not see how to keep it in practice. And this rational acknowledgment is the first essential of regeneration. But in itself it is not sufficient. In itself, it does not change our character. Religion must become of the life, before we can be worthy of our ideal. The principle of charity in the rational mind must be succeeded by the principle of charity in practical intention, in thought, speech and conduct, if our religion is to become vital. The love of the neighbor in the rational mind longs to establish itself in the practical issues of external life.

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There lies the fulfilment of its ambition and the achievement of its goal.

     This passing of religion from a rational belief to a practical reality is what is meant by the death of Isaac and the transmission of his possessions to his sons, Esau and Jacob. Esau, the first-born, is the one upon whom the affection of Isaac is centered. He represents the sincere and whole-hearted expression of love to the neighbor in outward life. At first Esau is a simple, childlike impulse to do good to others from a natural disposition of kindness. But an unrestrained yielding to these natural impulses will not accomplish the purpose of religion. Those impulses are indiscriminate, and serve the good and evil alike. How to direct them into useful channels, in the midst of the perplexing conditions of society, wherein the love of self reigns, is difficult for us to understand. To act without judgment places us at the mercy of the unscrupulous, who take advantage of us, and bring ruin upon us. The rational mind, of itself, is unequal to the solution of this problem. This is why Isaac is said to be old, feeble, blind. Nevertheless, the desire must be there. The endeavor must be there. And it must be utterly sincere. Isaac wishes to place the succession, to pronounce the blessing, upon Esau; Jacob obtains that blessing only by pretending to be Esau, only by giving the impression that he is Esau. He obtains it by putting on the outward appearance of Esau,-the garments and the skins,-in which Isaac discerned only the smell of Esau, "as the smell of a field which the Lard hath blessed." The aged father was doubtful; for he said: "The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau." Yet he gave the blessing, because, so far as he could-judge, it was his eldest son who stood before him.

     Jacob represents the intellectual acceptance of religion in the external mind, and the outward appearance of a life of charity, in which there is, none the less, something of self. But this self-interest is deeply hidden. It is not consciously perceived. And so it is not hypocritical. This is the only religious life possible to us before we are regenerated. We cannot escape from the core of self-interest which is inherent in our nature. Even when we do what seems to be in accord with the most exalted ideals of love to the neighbor, later reflection will reveal a motive of selfishness, unconscious at the time, but still present within. We ourselves are continually deceived by the outward appearance of our acts.

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We are deceived, because the true quality of heavenly charity is not clearly understood, and we mistake for it something that appears like it in outward form.

     This self-deception is what is represented by Jacob's deception of Isaac. It is inevitable. It is beyond our power to prevent it. And for this reason we are not held accountable for it. It does not condemn us, because it does not proceed from the conscious will to defraud, but is a thing of which we ourselves are the dupe. The Lord does not hold us responsible for that which we cannot help. He does not require of us more than we can do. All He asks is that we live up to the best light we have, ever seeking more light, ever acknowledging our errors, ever recognizing that there is evil within us which contaminates all the good we do. By such a life as this He can lead us, and give us heavenly blessings. He can gradually root out the evil from our hearts, and replace it with genuine love to the neighbor. If we are averse to all pretense; if we strive for sincerity; if we really try to love our neighbor from the heart, because it is the Lord's will and law; then will our mistakes be overlooked, and our errors pardoned by a merciful God. "If Thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? But there is forgiveness with Thee, that Thou mayest be feared."

     If the Lord did not come to us, even in the midst of our evil, He could not draw us to Himself. It is by keeping the laws of religion sincerely, according to the best understanding of which we are capable, that the Lord saves us, even though in doing this we are deceiving ourselves, mistaking for good itself something that is good only in outward form, and which is interiorly marred by the love of self. For with each such act we may be led to greater wisdom, and at last to a true, heavenly love of our fellowmen. When the deception was discovered by Isaac, he "shuddered with exceeding great shuddering," yet he confirmed the blessing saying, "Who then is he that hath hunted hunting and brought it me, and I have eaten of all before thou camest, and blessed him; yea, and he shall be blessed." But He gave another blessing to Esau, with the promise that he should at last have the reward of his primogeniture: "By thy sword thou shalt live, and shalt serve thy brother. And it shall come to pass when thou shalt have the dominion, that thou shalt break his yoke from off thy neck."

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     "By thy sword thou shalt live." It is only by a continual conflict that a true religious life can be attained. We must ever fight to maintain our spiritual ideals of life. We must ever defend, as from death itself, the internal desire to do good to the neighbor. To act knowingly from a selfish motive is destructive of all heavenly good. This we must constantly shun as a sin; for this cannot be pardoned; by it we condemn ourselves, because we thus reject the influence of the Lord in our hearts. To adopt the attitude of separating religious truth from the affairs of life, and accepting a code of conduct contrary to it in our everyday relations with our fellow men, is fatal to regeneration. Even when it appears to be opposed to our own natural desires and ambitions, we must faithfully follow the teaching of the Lord, doing unto others as we would that they should do unto us. And this we must do in thought and intention, as well as in speech and action.

     Let us remember, however, that we shall continue to make many mistakes. Self-love will still try to rule within us, putting on the garments of love to the neighbor to deceive us. Jacob will still come pretending to be Esau; and because our sight is dim, we will give him the blessing, supposing that we are giving it to Esau, only afterwards realizing the fraud. Yet if we are sincere, though for a time Esau will serve his brother, and continually defend his own life with the sword in the bitterness of temptation, we shall still remain true to the best we know, and the Lord will secretly prepare us to receive a higher love from Him.

     This struggle must continue throughout life. To acquire a heavenly character, we must fight for it every day and every hour. Wherefore the Lord said, "I am not come to send peace on earth, but a sword." Without daily conflict we cannot maintain the integrity of our religion, or prevent it from becoming a mockery of hypocritical pretense. Only as a result of this battle can real charity, real love to the neighbor, deep, true, spiritual, be given. But that it will be given, as the crown of victory in temptation, is involved in Esau's blessing: "It shall come to pass, when thou shalt have the dominion, that thou shalt break his yoke from off thy neck."

     Lessons: Genesis 27:1-29. Genesis 27:30-40. A. C. 5603.

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SWEDENBORG UNDER THE SCRUTINY OF MODERN LITERARY RESEARCH 1927

SWEDENBORG UNDER THE SCRUTINY OF MODERN LITERARY RESEARCH       Rev. HUGO LJ. ODHNER       1927

     SWEDENRORG, EN STUDIE OFVER HANS UTVECKLING TILL MYSTIKER OCH ANDESKADARE. (Swedenborg. A Study of his Development into a Mystic and Spirit-seer.) By Martin Lamm. Stockholm: Hugo Gebers Forlag, 1915. PP. 334, 8vo, Illustrated.

     It is impossible for the New Church public to dismiss this scholarly work, which has already been translated into German, with no more than the brief notice by Mr. Alfred H. Stroh in THE NEW-CHURCH WEEKLY of September 11, 1915, which was reprinted in NEW CHURCH LIFE for November, 1915, PP. 719-721, and the short resume by the Rev. Albert Bjorck in NEW CHURCH LIFE, 1926, p. 345. So far as we know, the volume represents the first serious effort to apply the evolutionist point of view to the revelator's life and work.

     Dr. Lamm, a Professor of History and Literature, is a critic, but one whose learning and conservative scholarship overrides those prejudices which commonly render the criticisms of "outsiders" valueless to us, because obviously unfriendly and unfair. His book is a work of literature, dignified and to the point. Despite occasional reiterations, nothing in the book is impertinent, nothing is irrelevant. It earned for itself columns of reviews in the Swedish press, and for the author, we suspect, a doctor's degree. He indeed covers his field most carefully, displaying an astonishing insight into the theology of the New Church. And he never indulges in tirades, thus furnishing a happy contrast to the Swedenborg of Dr. Kleen, which has a rambling, personal and informal style, and does not hesitate, as did Jude and Michael, to use "railing accusations."

     We learn through Mr. Alfred Stroh (who is mentioned in the Preface, and is also cited occasionally in the text), that Dr. Lamm, like many other Swedish literary men, is of Jewish descent.

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He does not, however, accept either the Jewish, the Christian, or the New Church position. Yet a sincere vein of admiration for the beauty and general consistency of Swedenborg's system runs through his treatment of his subject. From the Preface it is at once seen that his object is to place Swedenborg in the history of thought and literature, promising in the future to bring out, in some other connection, Swedenborg's significance to his contemporaries and to later ages. In studying "the mystico-sentimental stream in our (Swedish) literature of the 18th century, which prepares the way for romanticism and later is dissolved into it," Dr. Lamm seemed to have found "the genesis of the Swedenborgian theosophy" worthy of a better analysis than had as yet been offered. And the new interpretation he wants to impress seems to be that Swedenborg's theological system is firmly based on his early studies in natural science and philosophy, or at least categorically developed and elaborated from the general standpoints of the earlier works. He therefore debars the view that Swedenborg's theological works are merely the paranoiac dreams of a ghost-seer, but regards them as the crown and culmination of Swedenborg's own rational activities.

     In the last two or three decades, the Academy of the New Church has stressed the relationship of the earlier works of Swedenborg to the Theological Writings, and many have been disposed to regard his philosophy as the basic preparation of Swedenborg for receiving the revelation of the Heavenly Doctrine. The tendency has been, not only to give authority to those teachings of the scientific works which are more faintly echoed in the inspired Writings, but also to enhance the credibility of Swedenborg's other philosophical teachings which possess no later doctrinal confirmation. Dr. Lamm's attitude, of course, in no wise resembles this. In his field of research there is no other authority than reason, and revelation is a foreign idea. Yet we can learn one thing from his work, and that is better to realize that Swedenborg's mind was progressive, and that there was a constant natural development in his views, so that his philosophical position was not finally taken, either in the Principia or the Economy or the Worship and Love of God, or even the Adversaria, but was matured into finality after his theological period had well begun.

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     To trace the natural evolution of Swedenborg's mind and opinions, quite apart from any elements of providential guidance or inspiration, is the task to which the present biographer addresses himself. He is not immediately interested in the abstract question of whether Swedenborg's doctrines of this life and the other, of salvation and redemption, are true! I gather that he regards all of Swedenborg's spiritual experiences as subjective,-as tangible reflexes in the brain from the philosophical reasonings of the man. This is typical of the pessimism now pervading the learned world, which has quite given up hope of knowing anything definite about the realms beyond matter. In any other fields than that of Science, its interest is merely historical-motivated by the desire to know how on earth this or that notion arose!-to know what the process of its evolution was. And when men have, from circumstantial evidence, built up a line of descent for animals, men, institutions, morals or ideas, then they lose interest in the whole thing and mark time, not knowing what way to proceed. So Dr. Lamm's book,-a piece of beautiful and delicate dissection,-seems, from our point of view, to lead nowhere, certainly not to any riper judgment of the truths which Swedenborg proclaims. For the undertone of the book is that of Pilate's agnostic question, "What is truth?" But below this, again, we seem to scent a surviving regret that Truth should be so evasive.

     What Dr. Lamm seems to himself and to the unwary reader to do, is to demonstrate the actual thought-processes by which Swedenborg "built up" the doctrine of the New Church. What the biographer actually does is to show some of the rational processes by which Swedenborg was prepared to receive the revelation of the Second Coming, a rational revelation; for until the rational mind of Swedenborg was opened, and the dogmatic fallacies of his environment had been weeded out, he could not perceive the spiritual truths of heaven in their coherence and unity, but only in detached glimpses.

     II.

     But let us see how the author traces the story of the building of Swedenborg's personality.

     First, old Bishop Jesper Swedberg is portrayed,-straight-backed and fearless, an irrepressible writer, a thundering preacher of repentance and of the judgment day soon to come; who believed that he was the object of angelic guidance and satanic interference, and who had a penchant for exorcism; who hoped impatiently (and with unconscious unorthodoxy) for the coming of a new Luther who would emphasize and restore Christian life into its proper place beside Christian faith.

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     Emanuel was not like his father, but was in genius an analytical thinker. The superstitions and miracles with which his childhood was saturated, and which the old Bishop absorbed with childlike avidity, became to Emanuel's mind so many problems that needed solution. And although "he begins by turning himself, for an answer, to those sciences which seem to him to be most exact in their methods and results, and asks of Mathematics and. Mechanics that they explain the rise and subsistence of the world, and trusts Anatomy to yield dim the adequate explanations of the riddles that pertain to the soul's life." Yet there is always something that eludes all rational inquiries, and he tends subconsciously to introduce into his cosmic concepts more and more mystical elements,-survivals from the paternal home which finally comes to dominate his mind. Thus Dr. Lamm.

     Eric Benzelius, as a humanist and polyhistor, and as a man of universal scientific enthusiasm; and Professor Olaf Rudbeck, as a daring, constructive conqueror-spirit, learned, practical, with no patience for detail, but ready with optimistic hypotheses to build up his logical system on insufficiently tested premises: both these men are deftly sketched (pp. 17-22) as having a strong influence on the making of Swedenborg.

     Next, the writer pictures the influences which focused on Emanuel, young and impressionable, during his first stay in England. He notes the rise of the empirical method in the sciences,-the method of experience so stressed in the Principia; but he also analyzes the teachings of Locks at some length, to show that the latter's famous Essay on the Human Understanding teaches, not only empiricism, but also the dependence of all certainty and evidence in our collective knowledge upon Intuition,-a concept which paved the way for the mystical and idealistic reaction then beginning, and which allied itself with the Neoplatonizing Christian rationalism of the contemporary Cambridge School.

     Christopher Polhem is granted the position of young Swedberg's chief scientific cicerone.

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As Swedenborg later confirms (S. D. 4722), Polhem was a mechanic by genius and secretly an atheist by choice, who held not only that "all the properties of nature are founded on mathematical and mechanical principles," but indeed that even "the living in man and beast is quoddam mechanicum." (Ibid.) This mechanical point of departure, which is reflected in Swedenborg's earlier scientific works, Polhem worked into a revised Cartesian cosmology. Dr. Lamm cites Polhem to the effect that the elements of matter must be round, and that God, as infinite motion, fills the interstices. (P. 34). And he shows that Polhem urged the existence of an atmosphere finer or subtler than the ether, which would convey thought telepathically; and that he advocated the doctrine of tremulations later developed by Emanuel in the Daedalus. With Polhem, the finite and the material are identical, and Swedenborg at first takes the same nominal position. As Dr. Lamm shows, Swedenborg was not yet critical towards his learned friend's ideas. He joined Polhem in tearing down the discrete wall which Cartesianism had built between spirit and matter. Polhem's ideas of the spiritual as simply a higher potency of matter, and of thought as a refined form of motion, were carried over by Swedenborg, and retained even beyond the Principia period. In De Infinite he assumes without much hesitation that the soul must possess spatial extense and materia, and contents himself with showing that it is imperishable.

     But another philosopher, represented in Swedenborg's library, must have supplied Swedenborg with material on this subject. This, Dr. Lamm says, was Rudiger, whose reasonings in Vom Wesen der Seele (1727) remarkably coincide with the De Infinite, even inclusive of the traducianistic idea of the origin of the soul from the paternal seed. Swedenborg, at that time, 1734, was beginning to be reckoned among the materialists (Acta Erud. 1735, on De Inf.) He had not only made the soul a part of the body, but had awarded it such natural properties as elasticity!

     But gradually, says Dr. Lamm, the great cosmic Machine which moves by mechanical laws only is crowded out of Swedenborg's mind by the idea of the Gorand cosmic Man. He had seen the unity of the cosmic whole, and henceforth he began to realize increasingly that it was a spiritual organism, and that all life and knowledge was an irradiation of the Divine Light from within it.

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     The burning question before European thinkers at that time was that of the, character of the soul and its connection with the body. Swedenborg had already offered a tentative mechanistic solution, but his interests now veered in earnest towards the organic conception of the cosmos which he met with, Dr. Lamm relates, in almost all the modern philosophical and medical works which he consulted. The strictly mechanical Cartesianism was losing out. Leibnitz's idea of animated monads as the units of all things; Stahl's animistic doctrine of the body being built up and maintained by the soul, and the stressing of psychic cures for bodily ills; Leeuwenhoek's discovery of living cells by his microscope; all these were symptoms of a mystical reaction. The doctrine of spontaneous generation was revived. Even Newton's assumption (?) of an insubstantial attraction between distant bodies was in tone with a mystical tendency.

     Characteristic of the whole 18th century, says Dr. Lamm, was the endeavor to conceive of nature as a living thing. And especially in the medical field, to which Swedenborg is now turning, there was much mystical speculation mingled with legitimate experimentation. Demoniacal possession, the influence of the stars, the bearing of amulets, and the magical creation of worms in people by the devil, were still recognized realities to medical writers. Dr. Lamm shows that Swedenborg cites, in the Economy, not only Aristotle, Plate and Neoplatonist writers such as Plotinus and Pseudo Aristotle, but also other ancient mystics like Iamblichus, Hermes Trismegistus, Philo, and the patristic writers who were especially affected by Neoplatonic views. Medieval and modern mystics are not cited by Swedenborg, and he denies having read Jacob Bohme. But (Lamm thinks) he must have read Paracelsus and van Helmont in their originals, and no doubt also Mme. Guyon and Mme. Bourignon, popular representatives of the French "quietism." "It is a fearful anachronism to assume that any cultured man could have been unacquainted with the mystical views of an age when mysticism to a large extent controlled religion and science," says Lamm. "The mystical doctrines which he already knew in the paternal home met him again in Science in the form of alchemy and speculative medicine. But just because this familiarity with the mystical systems dates so far back in Swedenborg's life, I am not disposed to consider that the study of mystical literature was the chief cause of his sudden change from the philosophy of the Principia.

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And for similar reasons I am not inclined to ascribe to the influence of Dippel-which is also eagerly denied by Swedenborgians-any transcendental reason for his change." (Pp. 57, 58)

     Dr. Lamm rather ascribes the altered direction of Swedenborg's mind to personal supernatural experiences, such as confirmatory signs, lights, dreams and trances, progressively encouraged by suspended (or internal) breathing. (Adv. II, 7012; DOC. II, 145.) These began in August, 1736, and three weeks later he was at work on the Economy, in the opening of which (n. 19) he speaks of the born scientist being cheered and confirmed by mysterious lights, irradiations from the soul, which was thus brought back into a state more resembling that of the Golden Age, before Sin had cut off the way of a priori knowledge. Here an intuitional theory of knowledge, somewhat similar to that of Locke (Econ. II, 276) is suggested, and offers a strange solution to the implied difficulties of the Principia utterances to the effect that the way of knowledge is now closed to Adam's seed.

     From this time on, thinks Dr. Lamm, Swedenborg steadily increased the emphasis upon this light of intuition, and found its origin at last in the Neoplatonic idea of the spiritual Sun, "dear to all mystics since Plate"; whose Divine Inner Light, by creative emanations, made the universe, and whose rays inflow into the souls of men. An early symptom of the developing "emanationist" system of the Economy period, Dr. Lamm finds in De Mechanismo (Sc. and Phil. Treat., pt. II, p. 24), wherein Swedenborg tries to postulate some higher spiritual media for conjoining the infinite and the material, by assuming the existence of souls subtler than our own, and which would transcend the world of nature. (Lamm, p. 44)

     But in the Economy the great universe becomes organic; matter is but the dead clothing, and the infinite the source of the irradiation of all-pervasive life. By the mediation of the Spiritual Form,-the first sphere of the Divine operation,-can it inflow into the angels and into human souls which are created for its reception. (Fibre, 269.) This view, Dr. Lamm avers, when elaborated with the doctrine of series and degrees, worked with Swedenborg an almost unconscious remolding of his cosmos into a purely Neoplatonic universe.

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     III.

     It is, of course, impossible to follow the detailed argument of this biography in its many steps, or to cite all the interesting suggestions of Dr. Lamm as to the sources for the opinions incorporated or developed by Swedenborg. He seeks to reconstruct historically the very reasonings which weighed with Swedenborg in taking his positions, and points out where he hesitated, or where he revised his first judgments. The question as to whether the soul was material was thus one of the problems that lingered with Swedenborg until the time of the Writings, wherein he retains the material side in the form of the limbus, and the spiritual in the spiritual body. Especially, however, does Dr. Lamm interest himself in that phase of Swedenborg's philosophic evolution which is first expressed in the doctrine of correspondences as taught in the Hieroglyphic Key (1741). This he traces directly to Plotinus, the Neoplatonists, and to Plate's creative "logoi." Indeed, Swedenborg there refers to the pseudo-Aristotelian work known as Aristotle's Theology. Cabalistic nature-philosophers, like Pico della Mirandola and Agrippa von Nettesheim, are quoted with effect to show many features similar to Swedenborg, although Swedenborg's teachings are always purged from the magical elements of the former. The view that the visible world is but a type and a symbol of the invisible was the gateway to his later philosophy of the spiritual world and the Sacred Scriptures.

     In a later chapter of the book, headed "The Exegete," the author carries further the "evolution" of Swedenborg's doctrine of the Word and its internal senses. Philo, the Jewish philosopher of Alexandria, Origen, and the Cabala are cited for remarkable parallels to Swedenborg's interpretation of the internal sense of the Old Testament. And the biographer concludes: "It is evident that we are here confronted with an unbroken tradition whose late-born champion Swedenborg is." (P. 233.) Still, he warns against the undue assumption that Swedenborg had directly borrowed from any of these, his precursors. The method and the application were both similar; that was all.

     Swedenborg's unconscious aim in his Bible-interpretations, Dr. Lamm asserts, was to gain Scriptural authority for his Economy system!

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In the Economy, his theological system is to be found in nuce (which we interpret "in a nutshell"); the views of the Economy have never yet been given their due in the study of Swedenborg's biography. (P. 106f.) In that work are to be found the forecasts of all the later dogmas,-that of marriages in the heavens (p. 312), regeneration, liberty of will, etc., etc. But all these doctrines are elaborated in the Writings in greater detail. Not that Swedenborg's mind was never revised in regard to these and other questions! Dr. Lamm shows conclusively that, in the history of Swedenborg's opinions, there are definite changes, retractions, expansions; that it is only by degrees that, at the opening of his "theosophical period," he acquires any concrete ideas about the bodies of angels and their functions; and he recognizes also that Swedenborg's original ideas of the atmospheres are revised, beyond recognition and correlation, in his later system.

     At the close of his book, Dr. Lamm feels that he has proved that Swedenborg's final system originated in that period which the world recognizes as his "rational" period, namely, the years before the religious "crisis" of 1744; and that it was, therefore, not the mere dreams of a spirit-seer, as so many of our enemies, beginning with Kant, have claimed. The revelator's announcement that he received the doctrine of the New Church "from the Lord alone while reading the Word," our biographer, of course, does not accept, although he never charges Swedenborg with deliberate insincerity. Swedenborg, he says in effect, felt the dictate of reason in an ecstatic way as the voice of God. Spirits and angels, and the whole spiritual world, were the more objectified visualizations of his own mental imagery-and Swedenborg saw what he knew by conviction must be there to see.

     While Dr. Kleen, in his Swedenborg, paints our revelator as a paranoiac hiding a morbid mania which fills his mind with ghosts and contorted fancies, Dr. Lamm, in the present interpretation, draws the portrait of an energetic philosopher ecstatically pursuing the vision of further conquests of truth, until this vision so realistically objectifies itself in symbols that he sincerely thinks himself to live in, and claims to have explored, the rational world of his own creation! Which is all very clever, but does not explain how such a marvelous self-delusion could be possible, especially in a man of such rational stamina as Swedenborg, whose scientific empiricism followed him unto death, and was applied even to his spiritual experiences.

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The theory asks us to deny the one reasonable cause of Swedenborg's remarkable story,-namely, the existence of that spiritual world which all the demands of life imply and necessitate, and which tradition, founded on revelation and the psychic experience of mankind, upholds. Instead, it asks us to believe in a miraculous and unique case of a rational man, for thirty years seeing a perfectly ordered universe-in his imagination! It ignores the Divine beauty and perfection of the Heavenly Doctrine, and the convincing cohesion of its philosophic truths with all the facts of every field of life. It blinds itself to the order of Providence in the working out of the destinies of the human race, and to the logical position of the New Church as the last phase of prophecy. It pretends that the laws of allegorical interpretation used in the Writings are so lax and loose that through it Swedenborg was "liberated from all dependence upon the Bible" (p. 242), and that "it was actually possible for him to fit his whole (prior) system into the Biblical Word and with full logic evolve it into a coherent theological structure of doctrine" (p. 234),-a thing which the very laws of exposition would have made a futile task unless, as was the case, those doctrines of heaven had already been the inspirers of the Word, the soul of it, the heavenly Word itself which the Letter was constructed to contain and express.

     Such a theory as that of Dr. Lamm's is palpably made to order, and resorted to as a last means of explaining spiritual things without a spiritual world.

     IV.

     However much we New Churchmen may differ from the viewpoint of the literary critic to whom all things are humanly acquired, we are pleased to find that he at least does his best to end the Kantian tradition which has buried Swedenborg outside the pale of philosophy and written him down merely "among the mystics." Dr. Lamm indeed cites elaborate parallels between Swedenborg and the great mystics, and considers that several of his views which are referred to as thoroughly rationalistic have actually arisen from a "mystical" premise. But he regards Dippel, for example, as far more of a mystic than Swedenborg (p. 288), and enlarges upon the enormous difference in logical clarity and internal continuity between Swedenborg's "theosophy" and that of the mystics Bohme and Fludd, who are full of undigested reminiscences of ancient systems, and vague occult ideas originating from magic, and alchemy and antique demonology, and whose doctrines dare make no pretense to be grasped by any faculty other than that of credulity. (P. 108.)

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     In Swedenborg every point is closely reasoned, and even the doctrine of Correspondences, which is of a mystical nature, receives such a methodical form that it loses every trace of magical implication. Swedenborg does not offer any secret spiritual recipes for contemplation, or for intercourse with spirits, nor for the attainment of mystical ecstasy. He only marks out the sober way of spiritual morality. (P. 100.)

     Neither is it possible for Dr. Lamm to think that Swedenborg's doctrine has emerged as a mere critique upon Lutheran dogmatism. It is not a mere patchwork, created out of the mottled collection of sectarian peculiarities in which his time abounded. But it represents an attempt to carry out certain fundamental principles fully and consequentially. He shows, for instance, that it was the logic of the vitalistic and organic doctrine of the mind, laid down in the Economy, that required the rejection of sudden conversion and salvation by faith alone, and claims that the rest of Christian theology was revised to accord with that amendment. He shows that the question of free-will was treated by Swedenborg along lines similar to those of Malebranche, and claims that Swedenborg was led on to his final doctrine by the philosophical necessities of the logic.

     In line with the same attitude, Dr. Lamm defends the consistency of Swedenborg's theological doctrines of the after-life and the Gorand Man, against the attacks of those who would pounce upon isolated details to prove the whole a wild and incoherent outbreak of sickly fantasy. He shows the inevitable logic of Swedenborg's teaching that the spiritual world, as to divisions and forms, is a reflex of man; the premises being granted that heaven is only from the human race, and that the human form is the very form of the Eternal, and thus the norm for all things created. He shows the reasonable simplicity in the revelator's descriptions of the externals of the other world, in the light of the principle that the internal projects itself there into corresponding forms, according to the rich symbolism which the doctrine of correspondences supplies. To Dr. Lamm, the most genial trait and the saving artistic grace of Swedenborg's whole eschatology, is the theory of the projection of representative creations around the angels and devils.

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He favorably contrasts Swedenborg's spiritual world with that of antiquity, especially as this is reflected in Dante (from whom he believes Swedenborg received no influence), pointing out the absence of arbitrary vindictiveness in Swedenborg's hells, and the sober, dispassionate truth of Swedenborg's review of the nations and people of his time at the Last Judgment, and commenting upon the fact that no glowing partisan hates, such as those which color Dante's descriptions, are met with in Swedenborg.

     Thinking of the Heavenly Doctrine as the production of Swedenborg's own mind, Dr. Lamm of course views it as an unconscious molding of a universe nearer to Swedenborg's heart's desire. Heaven becomes the Utopia of Swedenborg's civic ideals; the conjugial life of the angels becomes the expression of his personal bachelor-dreams, disappointed in this world; his picture of uses as the source of delights in the heavenly kingdom is visioned as betraying the untiring student and the genuine scion of that century of toil which is distinguished by weaving-machines and national economy.

     And when he comes to the claims which Swedenborg made, of having witnessed the Last Judgment, and of being the herald of a New Dispensation that was to replace the corrupted Christianity of the old churches, Dr. Lamm asserts that "originally" Swedenborg regarded his mission to be to explain the spiritual sense of the Word, and only gradually was it expanded to include the establishment of a New Church and the proclamation of a new doctrine! To us this view would hold true, in that the Lord did not inform Swedenborg in one moment or one year of the full purport of his mission. But as used by Dr. Lamm it is made to imply that Swedenborg took his time thinking out the next step of his chimerical career.

     Dr. Lamm has little patience with the many misrepresentations which Swedenborg has suffered at the hands of his opponents. He minimizes many claims of resemblance between Swedenborg and other writers which are based only on coincidences and superficial similarities. In this connection, he shows that Dippel had little influence upon Swedenborg. While Kant charged that the idea of the Gorand Man was a symptom of insanity, (calling it eine ungeheure und riesenmassige Phantasie), Lamm calmly points to Plato and Paracelsus for the antiquity of this perception of the universality of the human form, and notes the rationalized and spiritualized form of this doctrine in Swedenborg.

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The anthropomorphic idea of God he also shows to have been a rational necessity to Swedenborg's system, rather than-as is charged-a survival of paganism. He points out that the teaching about the trinity of Divine essentials within the One Person is well adapted to avoid the dilemmas of the old tri-personal doctrine. (P. 249)

     But in describing Swedenborg's state in the critical year of 1744, when the Lord appeared to him in Person, and he turned to Him in humble renunciation of his own reason, Dr. Lamm makes an interesting criticism. He calls attention to Swedenborg's temporary interest in the Moravian Church, and his emotional reaction to that form of pietism, and remarks (pp. 158, 145) that Swedenborg's state at the time was characterized by an expectation of instantaneous regeneration, and by a "personal" love of Christ which smacked of Catholicism. These elements of Swedenborg's "conversion-period" disappear almost entirely in Swedenborg's later theology, wherein he does not recommend the same process for his followers as that which he himself had experienced, but wherein the logic of his philosophical system reasserts itself in the necessity for a tedious and deliberate transformation of character, and where "the historical figure of Christ is given a very small place"(!) "In Swedenborg's doctrine," says the biographer, "the personal human traits of the Christ-figure are altogether expunged." (P. 249)

     This criticism no doubt fits the teaching about the putting off of the maternal human in the Glorification, and is in spirit with the statements that to love God is not to love the Person, but to love the things which proceed from Him (A. E. 9732, 10993, 4332, D. Love xiii., D. Wis. xi., H. 15), and that one must not think of the Divine essence from the Person, but of the Person from His essence. (A. R. 6117.) The New Churchman recognizes that the ultimate features of the Lord were already revealed in the New Testament, and that Swedenborg's mission was to reveal the mind of God, the Divine within that Human, the glorifying principle which eradicated the merely finite personality and elevated the Human into the blaze of Godhead-as a universal form of the infinite powers balanced in their symbolic perfection.

599


An accentuation of racial and national characteristics is what makes finite personality; but the personal aspect of the Lord is providentially not transmitted to us with any certainty, for the reason that the ideal Human Form which we worship is not the outward Jewish body of Christ, but the Divine Human which was expressed and glorified through its temporary instrumentality.

     The biographer feels further that the importance of the Advent and the Incarnation of Christ is minimized in Swedenborg's system, by the exclusion of the vicarious atonement. But here, as in the treatment of the Second Advent and the Last Judgment, Dr. Lamm never rises to any insight into the subject, because he refuses to take any serious view of the role played by the spiritual world. That world is not (and was not to Swedenborg) any mere symbolized reflex in the subconscious of forgotten dreams. Upon the spiritual world all things of mental life depend intimately, and the purification of that world is far more important than the external progress of our own. The Truth, which is the law of that world of minds and the agent of judgment there, is its most objective reality. Unless this is understood, the whole life of Swedenborg is pointless, and the soul of his doctrines ignored.

     V.

     The book before us seems, in general, to be as sincere an interpretation of Swedenborg as can reasonably be made from a standpoint which deprives him of inspiration and Divine sanction, and which closes itself to spiritual acknowledgments. Unfortunately, despite modern inventions, a camel cannot yet pass through the eye of a needle; nor can religious truth be either discovered or refuted by the direct empirical methods which are adding conquests to the more objective sciences. Dr. Lamm does not presume to refute Swedenborg's claim to inspiration; he merely dismisses it as of merely psychological interest. He leaves us to infer that there is no surer way of invalidating such a claim than to intimate that all mystics were trying to become revelators, and that Swedenborg's faith in Locke's "intuitional" way of certainty grew into a sight of the "inner light" of Neoplatonism, and so into the ecstatic vision of the mystics, which amounted to revelation.

600


We believe that he nearly describes the process. The soul itself is the source of certainty (T. C. R. 8), as Locke suggested; and the fact that the spiritual sun really exists makes it less surprising that Swedenborg learned of it-as the chief fruit of his first period of study. I am sure that Swedenborg felt as embarrassed as we are about finding himself in the unpleasant company of the mystics and the supercredulous of all ages. But Truth is not invalidated by having shabby friends; and besides, the truths of science, now so self-conscious, were once walking serenely in the same company.

     The assignment of the concept of a spiritual sun to the Neoplatonists does not entirely satisfy us, for the idea is far more universal. It was, of course, not until late Christian times that the discrete line was didactically drawn between matter and spirit. Swedenborg himself, in 1719, seriously argues with Benzelius as to whether the sun be the abode of the blessed, or, as Benzelius economically thought, of the damned! But the ancient mythological truths about a divine Sun of moral powers, prevalent, in philosophical form at least, among the Egyptians and Persians, and traceable to a prehistoric past, were later recovered and preserved in the Bible, whence Swedenborg drew his "mysticism."

     The New Church welcomes studies of these hoary lineages of truth, preserved through the ages, as it was, by the strangest media. But it insists that to find the outward channels for this transmission is not to find its source, nor to account for the Divine organization of those ancient truths into a new and living Revelation-into a field of ideas born from a Divine impulse of inspiration. Every virgin-birth of Truth is an evolution, but its character is determined by the involution which is implied in its inspiration. The law of Preparation is not thrust aside by that law of Inspiration. The descending Divine Word moulds its own preparation before it can at last "become flesh" in written revelation; and when it is here in its Incarnate Glory (which it had before the world began), only fools and soul-barren specialists will spend their time vivisecting it to discover its genealogies or crucifying it to test its miraculous powers! Those who feel the convincing Divinity of the system of truth laid down in the Writings of Swedenborg, or who, like the biographer, are at least struck with its beauty, should, we think, be urged towards a reverence for its holy birth by their very ambition not to profane the truth.

601




     The selective processes within Swedenborg's mind prior to 1749, when the new Revelation, born by the press, came to the light of day,-seem to the reviewer to be somewhat comparable to a gestation period during which the Spirit of inspiration was working in secret to assume the human form, rejecting the cloudy obscurities of the Letter and the fallacies of the senses, and constructing the final doctrinal symbolism of the Second Advent, the man-child of Revelation. (Apoc. xii.) Consciousness is obtained only by birth, and the preparatory writings of Swedenborg are therefore not given out as revelations, although there were not lacking, within Swedenborg's consciousness, the premonitory signs of the quickening of the unborn revelation. There might have come to Swedenborg some definite "annunciation," corresponding to the coming of Gabriel to Mary. Certainly there were supernatural moments of guidance and extraordinary illustration,-lights (photisms, as the psychologists love to call them), dreams, passing visions (D. 2951, Adv. III: 7011f), gradually leading to spiritual intercourse, and to the conviction that inspiration was preparing its body of truth within his consenting mind. Many a Magnificat is voiced in Swedenborg's preparatory theological notes.

     But during this gestation the Divine logic of the Heavenly Doctrine-fully patterned beforehand in glorified actuality as the Divine Human in the heavens, but only gradually taking shape within Swedenborg's rational understanding-was as yet undifferentiated from its matrix. There were doubts, tentative theories, hesitations; and the apparent identity of the man and the revelation he was to write,-like that of a mother and her unborn babe. In the Arcana and the works which follow it, this confusion disappears. Hesitation ceases, the functional relations of all truths are suddenly clarified, the revelation is publicly announced with a sure pen, and is presented devoid of prudential restrictions.

     Inspiration thus supplied a formative Divine Soul by involution or influx into Swedenborg's mind; and his own personal opinions, as well as the current ideas of the world of his day, were the matrix and nutritious fluid from which the body of revelation was built up for presentation in the natural world. With this reservation, I think we may in large part accept Dr. Lamm's view of the evolution of Swedenborg's doctrines, before and after his call.

602


We would point out, however, that the simile of "birth," when used of the Heavenly Doctrine, holds good only as far as the revelator is concerned. The Doctrine was foursquare and complete in heaven before Swedenborg received it. At its birth it assumed no maternal heredity from Swedenborg's mind, but came forth glorified, yet clothed in the symbols of rational thought. The Divine Word made His Second Advent in the Writings, springing like Pallas Athene full-grown from the brain of Zeus.
DUTCH VERSION OF "DE CONJUGIO." 1927

DUTCH VERSION OF "DE CONJUGIO."       HENDRIK W. BOEF       1927

     HET HUWELIJK. (De Conjugio, or On Marriage.) By Emanuel Swedenborg. The Hague, Holland: The Swedenborg Society,1927. Cloth, 18mo, 126 pp.

     This first Dutch translation of the posthumous work, De Conjugio, brings one more proof of the active part which The Swedenborg Society at The Hague is taking in the great use of making the Writings available to Dutch-speaking people. The volume bears all the marks of a careful study of the original Latin text, which has resulted in a translation that may be said to be one of the very best we have of this work. With the assistance of Dr. Alfred Acton, as mentioned in a prefatory note, the translator was able to make marked improvements and corrections, which render his version more accurate than the Latin edition published by Dr. Immanuel Tafel at Tübingen in 1860, on account of a better reading of the original manuscript.

     Since it is rather difficult for one who is not familiar with the general doctrines revealed in the work on Conjugial Love to understand the particulars concerning marriage given in this little work, the present volume premises nos. 981-1010 of the Apocalypse Explained, which give the internal sense of the Sixth Commandment; and with reference to the notes in no. 126, nos. 6110 and 6027 of the Spiritual Diary are added, and also nos. 5660-5668 from the same work.

     As a frontispiece, there is an excellent portrait of Emanuel Swedenborg, and on the front cover a drawing in pencil of a female figure with wings. The Swedenborg Society is the first, we believe, to publish volumes of the Writings with illustrations on the cover, beginning with the first volume of the Arcana Celestia last year; and I feel that there is serious objection to this form of bringing the Writings before the public.

603


I believe it is not according to order to place upon the cover an illustration which, after all, is but an interpretation of what the artist reads in the book, with the result that the contents may then appear in a different light to the reader, and create impressions in his mind that do not come immediately from the work itself.

     In voicing this, my objection, I do not mean to discuss or criticize the illustration itself, but it seems to me that the Writings, being a Divine Revelation, and therefore adapted to all men, independent of their differences in genius and taste, ought not to be published with illustrations, no matter by whom, which may be objectionable to some readers. And in the present case there is no choice in the selection of copies of the book, because they are the only ones available to those who are limited to the use of the Dutch language.

     To my mind, nothing should be added to the Writings which might be disturbing to readers to whom the very external form of the volume is sacred, because it represents the means used by the Lord to reveal Himself to them. The Writings were given to spread and increase the knowledge and acknowledgment of the Lord, not only among those who are of the New Church, but also among those who are outside of the Church. They consequently represent the Lord in His Second Coming. It is undesirable, therefore, to envelope them in any form that may cause them to lose this ultimate representation. And so I would suggest that volumes of the Writings be published with nothing else on the cover than the title given by Swedenborg, which at once reveals the nature and contents of the book. Or, if there be a desire to embellish the cover, it would be suitable and effective to quote in golden letters some passage peculiar to the book.

     The purpose of these few lines is to call this subject to the attention of our friends in Holland, and if they believe that there is a real use performed in thus illustrating the Writings, I shall be glad to be enlightened.
     HENDRIK W. BOEF.

604


NEW CHURCH WORK ON MYTHOLOGY 1927

NEW CHURCH WORK ON MYTHOLOGY       ALICE E. Grant       1927

     THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE GREEKS AND ROMANS. By Carl Theophilus Odhner. Edited by William Hyde Alden and William Whitehead. Bryn Athyn, Pa.: The Academy Book Room, 1927. Cloth, crown octave, 125 pp., illustrated with twenty-five full-page plates. Price, $1.25.

     The valuable papers originally published by Professor Odhner in NEW CHURCH LIFE for 1905 and subsequent volumes, under the title "Mythology in the Light of the New Church," are now brought together in the volume before us, which is well printed and bound, and beautifully illustrated with twenty-five of The University Prints, Boston,-photographs of celebrated sculptures and paintings of the mythological figures. The book has been carefully indexed, and also furnishes a list of the author's writings on other branches of Mythology and allied topics. The editors and publishers have thus performed a distinct service in bringing before the present-day New Church public Mr. Odhner's scholarly treatment of a subject so often referred to in the Writings, where also the characters of this ancient lore are so frequently employed to illustrate spiritual truths of doctrine. The book should be in every library of the Church as a work of reference, and will be especially welcomed as a great convenience by those parents and teachers who have not always found the original articles readily accessible.

     We take pleasure in adding the following appreciative letter from one who has long been a teacher of Mythology in the Schools of the Academy:

Editor of NEW CHURCH LIFE:
     It has been a pleasurable relief to me, after so many months of anticipation, to hold in my hand the latest publication of the Academy Book Room,-The Mythology of the Greeks and Romans, by Carl Theophilus Odhner. The title seems strange to one who for many years has used the material here reprinted from NEW CHURCH LIFE, Where it appeared under the title of "Mythology in the Light of the New Church," but one soon becomes accustomed to such a change. The form in which these tales of Greece and Rome are now presented is so attractive and convenient that I am moved, through you, to send a word of appreciation to the editors for their fine work, and to the Academy Book Room for putting into book form the scattered articles which have been of such great use to me in my teaching of the subject of Mythology in the Academy Schools.

605


These studies of Mr. Odhner complete a series that will form a background for future students of Mythology and Comparative Religions. He was the pioneer New Church student along these lines, and his work has inspired others to look for a deeper meaning in the myths and folk tales of all nations, seeking to find preserved in them, though often in horribly distorted form, the remnant of ancient truth which had been sufficient to hold these nations until the Lord revealed Himself anew to them.

     Mr. Odhner's form of mind often grasped these visions of truth where another, with less of that spiritual imaginative quality, would have failed. He visualized these truths very vividly, and presented them in a way that enabled more earthly plodders to grasp them. I have always been grateful to him for the work he has left behind him for the service of New Church Education, and I am sure that this last book of the published series is, with the others, a worthy monument to the memory of one of the most honored and distinguished members of the Faculty of the Academy of the New Church.     
     ALICE E. Grant.
A RESPONSIVE SERVICE 1927

A RESPONSIVE SERVICE               1927

     A SPECIAL ANTIPHON, AND A RESPONSE TO THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. Arranged by the Rev. R. J. Tilson. Music by Mr. C. J. Whittington. London: Published by the Compiler, 1927. Paper, 8 pages. Price 4d, or 3/6 per dozen.

     As we learn from a statement on the title-page of this booklet, the contents are taken from A Form of Divine Service, published in 1896, and used in "The Academy of the New Church," afterwards called "The Michael Church of the New Jerusalem," Burton Road, Brixton, London. When the Society recently began to use the General Church Liturgy, the congregation felt loth to abandon altogether the form of service which had been in use for thirty years, and to which, deservedly, the worshipers were strongly attached. In recognition of this, the Pastor has published this Special Antiphon, in which he has retained a part of the Form of Divine service, consisting of Scripture passages for Priest and People, the responses being sung to music by Mr. Whittington similar in beauty to the selections from Scripture in the Psalmody.

606


There is also an "Amen" to music by Mr. E. W. Misson.

     While the Special Antiphon was prepared for occasional use in Michael Church, it may well be used by other societies of the General Church. The music is not difficult, and, so far as we know, is not available in any other publication.
NEW EDITION OF MR. PITCAIRN'S BOOKLET 1927

NEW EDITION OF MR. PITCAIRN'S BOOKLET              1927

     THE BOOK SEALED WITH SEVEN SEALS. An Invitation to the New Church signified by the New Jerusalem. By Theodore Pitcairn, B. Th. Second Edition. Bryn Athyn, Pa.: Cathedral Book
Room, 1927. Paper, 96pages. Price, 25 cents.

     The large sale of this excellent missionary booklet having exhausted the first edition, published by the author at Durban, Natal, in 1925, the Cathedral Book Room, where the demand for the work is great, has now brought out a second edition. The text has been revised, and the author has added two chapters, one entitled "Human Judgment Forbidden," and the other, "The Sacraments." The style of treatment is frank but appealing, and invites the thinking mind to a contemplation of the wonders revealed to the New Church, in a way that is reasonable and convincing.

607


REINCARNATION 1927

REINCARNATION              1927


NEW CHURCH LIFE
Office a Publication, Lancaster, Pa.
Published Monthly By
THE GENERAL CHURCH OF THE NEW JERUSALEM
BRYN ATHYN, PA.
Editor                    Rev. W. B. Caldwell, Bryn Athyn, Pa.
Business Manager          Mr. H. Hyatt, Bryn Athyn, Pa.

     All literary contributions should be sent to the Editor. Subscriptions, change of address and business communications should be sent to the Business Manager.

     TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION
In the United States, $3.00 per year; Elsewhere, $3.25 or 14 shillings; payable in advance
Single Copy          30 cents
     NOTES AND REVIEWS.

     REINCARNATION.

     Among the many interesting papers which feature the July number of THE NEW-CHURCH REVIEW (Boston, quarterly), we find an essay by the Rev. J. I. Janecek, of Prague, in which the writer presents the satisfying results of his study of the subject of Reincarnation. His conclusions as to the nature and origin of this error are based upon a wide knowledge of the literature dealing with it, as well as personal observation of the baneful effects of the notion among its devotees. The opening paragraphs read:

     "Moving through the world like a great flood, spread by theosophy, anthroposophy, occultism, spiritism, and other agencies,-reincarnation is a subject much talked of today. One really wonders why such an unusual idea should spread so quickly, and find approval, especially among the intelligencia, almost everywhere. It is remarkable how some men, from pure materialism and atheism, could make such a wild leap to a diametrically opposite pole; from one extreme to the other-to a pseudo-spiritualism. It is good evidence how frail is human wisdom when it does not stand upon the foundation of Sacred Scripture.

     "As to a cause for this condition, it does not seem improbable that here, in addition to other reasons, one factor which lies in the nature of man plays an important part.

608


Man does not like to die; and since he is much attached to the world, he willingly accepts the teaching that he will not only live after death, but that he will come again into this world, to return anew to his favorite interests. Thus we have a materialism in an apparently spiritual form; for one cannot concede that a really spiritual man would long to be reunited even once, to say nothing of hundreds and thousands of times, to a gross material body. Added to this is the thought, wholly acceptable to many modern men, that an eternity can exist without a personal God; yes, that he himself, after many incarnations, will unite with God as with a universal original force, and begin anew his cycle of life. It is very flattering to the ear of the man of today to be told that he does not need a personal God, that he himself can become a 'superman' who has searched out the secrets of eternity, and who knows much more than other mortals. All of these, according to our view, are reasons for the rapid spread of the teaching of reincarnation."

     Mr. Janecek then traces the source of this teaching to the so-called sacred books of India, and considers it "highly probable that the religious books of ancient India were derived from the Ancient, already falsified, Word, as well as from the Hebrew Word," and that among the falsifications was the idea of reincarnation, which replaced the original idea of spiritual regeneration. Many Christians have been led to embrace the idea by the strange psychic experience of seeming recollection which is described in Heaven and Hell, no. 256, where it is also stated that from this same experience "the ancients had the opinion that after some thousands of years they would return into their former life, and into all its acts, and also that they had returned." Such seeming recollections, we are told, are produced when a spirit occasionally speaks to man from his own memory: "It is like the recollection of a thing which yet the man never heard or saw." (H. H. 256.) From this reference to "the ancients," Mr. Janecek infers that the "teaching of reincarnation was already cultivated in the remnant of the Ancient Church, and was indorsed in new religious books," from which it was derived by the writers of ancient India. Without doubt, we would suggest, the men of the Ancient Church also knew of those lapses of the angels into the states of their earth-life whereby they are successively purified (S. D. 2823); and this idea was afterwards perverted, giving rise to the belief in reincarnation.

609




     The spread of this belief in modern times is next traced by Mr. Janecek, who shows how Theosophy, drawing upon Indian sources, has taken hold of many with its view of "an automatic refinement through many successive embodiments," and adds that "the rapid diffusion of this view owes much to the parallel extension of Darwinism in intellectual circles." He also describes how the teaching of reincarnation has been widely disseminated by modern spiritists and occultists. To quote:

     "Modern occultists, who usually go over to occultism from the ranks of the spiritists, have also accepted the theory of reincarnation. Of late they have sought to prove this teaching 'scientifically' and experimentally in the following manner. The hypnotizer (who is, naturally, an adherent of the teaching of reincarnation) hypnotizes a subject, and commands him, while in an hypnotic state, to recall his former lives. The subject, following the suggestion thus made, 'remembers,' naturally, and relates several events of which it is said that these happened in a 'former' life. As a matter of fact, the cause lies in this: that in such an involuntary state the conceptions and thoughts of the hypnotizer mirror themselves in his own mind and are transmitted. Or it may happen, as with the Indian 'yogi,' that the spirits, who are near to the subject, unite with the subject, and transmit to him representations from their own lives; and the subject relates the same as experiences of his own life. That such `scientific' experiments have no convincing worth is quite plain to everyone who is acquainted with hypnotic practices."

     Both theosophists and spiritists, however, try to confirm the reincarnation idea by the Scriptures, citing, for example, the Lord's words to Nicodemus, "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." But, as Mr. Janecek observes, the Word nowhere speaks of reincarnation. "If there really were such a thing, it would be such an important matter for us to know that it would wind like a red strand throughout the Sacred Scripture, quite plain and clear." Nor do we find any such doctrine in the Writings of Swedenborg. In setting forth the teaching of the New Church bearing upon the subject, the essayist depicts the unhappy effects produced by the hope of reincarnation upon those who thus escape a life of repentance:

610




     "When one becomes convinced that he has many, yes hundreds, of life-cycles before him, what reason has he for earnestly troubling himself, in this present life, to fight against the evil propensities which he loves? He is therefore very willing to put off his improvement farther and farther into the future. Death comes, and although he has perhaps busied himself in this life with lofty thoughts, still he has done nothing toward his real regeneration. From my personal experience, covering thirty years, I have come to the conviction that such people make no real spiritual progress; that after twenty years they have the same range of thought and tendencies as they had twenty years before. Among these there is no real regeneration. They think only of reincarnation; and the 'spiritual progress' of which they speak so much they picture as the acquisition of knowledge from the realm of spiritism, occult science, and yogi practice. Many of them are convinced that in a former incarnation they were some prominent, historically well-known, person-a conception that can be ascribed only to self-conceit.

     "A repelling picture, and proof of the condition into which the teaching of reincarnation can lead the individual, as well as an entire nation, is presented by the same land in which the teaching originated, and where it is believed in as fact,-India. If we read descriptions of journeys through that country, we everywhere see the frightful consequences of this teaching. It saps the energy and intellectual development of individuals and of the whole nation alike."
DECLINE OF INTEREST IN DOCTRINE. 1927

DECLINE OF INTEREST IN DOCTRINE.       Rev. Lewis F. Hite       1927

     In the same number of the REVIEW (fury), the Rev. Lewis F. Hite, Managing Editor, treats of "Our Doctrines and Our Understanding of Them," contrasting the present-day trend away from doctrinal teaching and standards with the loyalty and affection prevailing in the not very distant past, both within the New Church and out of it. Mr. Hite paints a dark picture of the existing conditions in the world as to morality and religion, and deplores the influence of this upon the young:

     "It is much the vogue at the present time to disparage doctrines and to contrast them with life.

611


This is, in part, if not primarily, a reactionary movement against certain features of tradition. In any case, the habit and the tendency seem to be having disastrous consequences, in unsettling convictions and leaving men in the complexities of modern life without definite aim and light.

     "For the lack of definite principles formulated in definite terms, steadiness, and solidity, seriousness and elevation of life and of literature seem to be giving way to recklessness and self-assertion, lawlessness and vulgarity. The older people are setting the example, and the young people are infected. . . . The level of public taste and public morals is so low that the constituted authorities have to single out and ban certain intolerably indecent books and plays. . . . What is worse, the so-called decent elements of the community have joined in the outcry against 'the violation of free expression.' Standards of taste and morals are ignored, denied, and defied." The extent of this may be magnified, indeed, but still "the actual life of the world is full of distractions, incitements, and depravity."

     "At a tender age, the children are turned over to the schools; in the home and at school they are infected by the tainted social and moral atmosphere which they breathe. Then, as young people, they enter upon the business of life. Without proper religious instruction, without definite moral precepts, with a spirit of reaction against custom and tradition, and a spirit of self-sufficiency and self-assertion, they enter without guide-posts upon life in the world. They seek satisfaction and find none. . . . They want to create something new, and they paint the future with glowing colors; but the colors float in moonshine. They have yielded to the spirit of reactionism against definite statements of belief, whether religious or moral. They wish to live and act in creative freedom, with nothing in particular to create.... They turn their backs upon the past, and despise the wisdom of their elders. They must experience for themselves, and find out what is good."

     Granting that something of this state must be manifested in every rising generation, we think that Mr. Hite has not overdrawn the picture of the extremes exhibited in Christian-world society today. We are living in a post-Judgment, post-war era, and extremes are to be expected. But what of their effects in the New Church? And what of our means of defence?

612


Like the walls of the New Jerusalem, the Divine Truths of the Heavenly Doctrine must be our protection against the tides of the vastate world. As to this service of doctrine, let us note further what Mr. Hite so well says:

     "The youth of today will be the leaders of tomorrow. To win and deserve leadership they must have well-defined and steady purpose. Clear thinking and definite statement are the pre-requisites for guiding the course of true progress. . . . Doctrine is the light in which we live, and life is lived according to doctrine. . . . Whether as practical precepts, ideals of conduct and attainment, or formulations of abstract conceptions, doctrines give form and direction to our emotions, feelings, and sentiments. We live in doctrine, for doctrine, and by doctrine."

     The writer then reviews the great doctrines to be found in the Writings, and continues:

     "As New Churchmen, and as preliminary, we should get some acquaintance, even if only a verbal acquaintance, with the body of doctrines as a whole. In the early days, New-Church people were enthusiastic and industrious in getting this acquaintance, and in this way they got new light and understanding. We often hear of the immense delight people find in reading Swedenborg's books; they really enter a new world of joy and light. This was especially true of our forefathers, but too often the younger generation failed to find interest and satisfaction in the reading. The reasons for this are rather complicated to allow confident statement, but it is safe to say that worldliness, indifference to religion, and reaction against dogmatism, were among them. The men of the old days, like all earnest people, were apt to be insistent dogmatists. The wealth of doctrine, and the real difficulties in the way of full understanding and clear exposition, made dogmatism more or less inevitable, certainly an easy and natural way to proceed. It may be that, in those days, positive and reiterated assertion of the truth of the doctrines was the most effective method of teaching, as it is an effective method of teaching in all subjects at all times. We may, therefore, quite rightly admire the doctrinal habit of reading and teaching, both now and then; at the same time we should appreciate that the task of reading and teaching is only begun at this stage. We may suppose that if our forefathers had understood more fully what they read, and had taught more clearly and systematically, they might have had more success in winning and convincing their hearers, especially their children.

613


However this may be, and however important it really is to learn the doctrines, to reiterate them, and to teach them simply, directly, and dogmatically, we must still recognize the fact that such teaching is inadequate, and at best only preliminary.

     "There is at this day, whether unhappily or not, a widespread and ingrained indifference and aversion to doctrinal teaching. The naturalism and rationalism of the day, aggravated by the influence of modern science, would seem to be radically antagonistic to doctrinal teaching, although it must be said that dogmatism is a common and favorite method even with these mental attitudes. Nevertheless, the New-Church teacher is faced with these conditions, and he must deal with them to the best of his enlightened ability. It is always a fair demand that teaching should be clear and definite, and that it should be adapted to the learner."

     In other words, there must always be an element of accommodation, in contrast with mere dogmatism, though not that accommodation which hides where it ought to reveal and enlighten. So long as there is an element of leading in all teaching, the reception will be in affection, thus in freedom. The condition Mr. Hite discusses so frankly is a real one, and if we would avoid the failures of the past we must heed the lessons they clearly indicate. We shall see less of the rebellion and revolt so characteristic of the mental attitude of today, if we learn how to preserve the affirmative of childhood in our later efforts to impart the precious truths of doctrine to the growing mind of youth and adult. The spirit of reaction against dogmatism is not wholly bad; in it there is the instinct of individual liberty, without which there is no interior appropriation of doctrinal instruction. We cannot take away this instinct, nor should we attempt to stifle it, even though it be mixed with the proprial self-will and self-intelligence, the removal of which is a matter of individual repentance before the Lord. Under compulsion, it resents further instruction; and if it prefer a life of evil, it flees into the wilderness of doubt and denial, never to return. There will be fewer of these Ishmaels in the desert when those who guide and instruct are more skillful in tiding over the interval between the receptive state of childhood and that of the rational adult.

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     Let us quote briefly from the Heavenly Doctrine upon this natural avidity of the child, as contrasted with the change that follows:

     "When children first begin to learn, the deeper the knowledges the more they desire them, and still more when they hear that they are heavenly and Divine." (A. C. 1492.)

     "Everyone in his childhood, when he is first imbued with goods and truths, is held by the Lord in the affirmative that what is said and taught by parents and masters is true. This affirmative, with those who can become spiritual men, is confirmed by scientifics and knowledges; for whatever they learn that has any connection insinuates itself into the affirmative and strengthens it, and this more and more even to affection; and these are they who become spiritual men according to the essence of the truth in which they believe, and who conquer in temptations. But the case is otherwise with those who cannot become spiritual; these, although they are in the affirmative during childhood, in the succeeding age admit doubtings, and so break down the affirmative of good and truth; and when they enter upon adult age they admit negative things, even to the affection of falsity. And if they were led into temptations, they would fall therein. But the real cause why they admit doubtings, and afterwards negative things, derives its origin from a life of evil; they who are in a life of evil cannot do otherwise." (A. C. 2689.)

     By "those who cannot become spiritual" we understand those who, in adult age, choose to depart from the instruction they have received in childhood, and to be carried away by the world and self-life. This choice is foreseen by the Lord, who protects them from spiritual temptations in which they would succumb, and their last state become worse than their first. The choice and responsibility is thus individual. Increasing numbers will make the better choice as the great work of teaching and guiding-of saving souls-is the more effectively performed by those who have that blessed privilege and responsibility.
Title Unspecified 1927

Title Unspecified              1927

     We may also mention an important historical compilation from Mr. Hite's pen, bringing together testimonials concerning Swedenborg by his contemporaries and later prominent men. The fifth instalment of the series of articles appears in this number of the REVIEW, and records the opinions of John Wesley, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and others.

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IGNORING SWEDENBORG. 1927

IGNORING SWEDENBORG.              1927

     We are moved to reproduce for our readers a few paragraphs from another article in the July REVIEW in which Mr. Benjamin A. Whittemore deals frankly with the trend among Christian intellectuals today. He is reviewing a five-volume work entitled An Outline of Christianity: The Study of Our Civilization. (New York: Dodd, Mead and Co., 1926). Many writers contributed to its making, and portions receive favorable treatment at the hands of the reviewer. But when he comes to Volume IV, treating of "Christianity and Modern Thought," he has this to say:

     "When we turn to the fourth volume, it should be noted that the spirit of rationalism pervades the book; and to one whose religious views are unsettled it would not tend to relieve his condition. We are minded that Jesus Christ warned His disciples to beware the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees; and we have no doubt that He would warn us today against giving credence to the views of many of the authors here presented to us. The spirit of the volume as a whole is decidedly modernistic, and a considerable number of the writers are unquestionably Unitarian, or of that general type of mind.

     "When a man has reached in some important institution of learning a position implying high attainments in scholarship, we are altogether too ready to think of him as an authority whose opinions are worthy of tentative acceptance by educated men in general; but in the field of religion at the present day there are many men in important positions whose influence is destructive of values that are most precious. In view of what Jesus Christ said concerning the relative proportion of the saved in His day, and of what Swedenborg said to the same effect less than two centuries ago, it is a safe assumption that many such leaders of thought, however brilliant in intellectual attainments and in style, are spiritually unregenerate, and therefore cannot exert an altogether wholesome spiritual influence. In this age, characterized by the agencies of religious vastation, New-Churchmen especially should view with critical eye those who stand forth as leaders of thought. We are altogether too ready to esteem those whom the world esteems, and to allow ourselves to be favorably influenced by the drift of thought as expressed by such leaders. If such is our attitude of mind, we cannot be spiritually benefitted by reading such material as is here presented to us.

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     "But if we wish to understand the aggressive thought-world by which the True Christianity finds itself surrounded, and increasingly so, here is something to the purpose; here we gain some knowledge of the adverse conditions we are facing and must face. For instance, the section devoted to Christianity and Science shows clearly that the modernist mind has no use for revelation or for belief in miracles; the parts devoted to psychology and philosophy furnish evidence that these branches of human cogitation are today practically anti-Christian in general effect; the division dealing with Christianity and Criticism (the most important in the book) gives in concise form the results of rationalistic scholarship in the field of the literary foundations of the Christian religion, and shows that the idea of inspiration in the old sense has practically vanished." (Pp. 333, 334)

     Mr. Whittemore here cites sample sentences from the book under review, among which the following are sufficiently illuminating:

     "Theology must accept the scientific standard of searching for truth, and in fact is doing so. The old theological method is fast vanishing; indeed, it is altogether gone from the higher plane of religious thought." (P. 45)

     "Prophecy thus preceded the Law. This discovery is the greatest single contribution made by modern criticism to the understanding of the Old Testament. But it clearly contravenes the surface indications of Scripture, and involves a surrender of the historicity of a large part of the Pentateuch." (P. 360.) "The allegorical use of Scripture had long been established in the Church. . . . It has long outlasted its usefulness in modern times." (P. 312.)

     This kind of thing leads Mr. Whittemore to express a frankly pessimistic view as to the approach of modern Christian thinking toward the theology of the New Church. He says in conclusion:

     "If a New-Churchman looks here for evidence of general progress towards New-Church positions on the part of the world around us, he will find practically none, except as the papers furnish testimony concerning general vastation; but the evidence of the general drift towards Unitarianism and naturalism is abundant.

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If the world were moving New-Churchward, one would expect to find at least some mention of Swedenborg; but to us that 'servant of the Lord' is very conspicuous by his absence, most of the authors (we can affirm with assurance) knowing practically nothing about him, and being unwitting and inevitable parts of what has been called 'the conspiracy of silence' against him. The spirit of our times, as represented in this work, has no use for Swedenborg."

     Here we have a healthy pessimism which faces realities, and beneath which we may discern that true optimism which recognizes the open reception of New Church doctrine as the only way to a restoral of Christian verity in the world. This attitude is in pleasing contrast with that false optimism, so prevalent among New Churchmen, which is forever creating fanciful pictures of a Christian Church revived in subtle, invisible ways-among those who "have no use for Swedenborg."
DR. CADMAN ON SWEDENBORG. 1927

DR. CADMAN ON SWEDENBORG.              1927

     A friend has sent us a clipping from the NEW YORK HERALD- TRIBUNE of July 28th in which the Rev. Dr. S. Parkes Cadman, President of the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America, answers a correspondent who asks: "Will you tell me something about Emanuel Swedenborg and his work and influence?" Thus prominent Christian theologians cannot wholly escape "looking up Swedenborg," although we fear the Reverend Doctor did not look quite far enough. Our readers would be interested in his account, but we cannot reprint a copyrighted article. Commenting upon it, "F. R. C.," in the NEW-CHURCH MESSENGER of August 24th, rightly says: "On the whole the answer gives a very favorable impression of Swedenborg, and suggests in conclusion that the Swedenborgian point of view 'has corrective values for the extreme materialism and rationalism of our day which we shall do well to heed. Since it is the general impression which will be left with most people, we may be very grateful for it. Yet a closer glance makes it plain that the writer of it really knows very little about Swedenborg, who certainly never claimed to have died to the natural world, and obtained full fellowship in the spiritual realm beyond while still living on earth.'"

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     But we cannot agree with the MESSENGER when it says that Swedenborg "never claimed to have been 'commissioned to establish the Church of the New Jerusalem.'" For Dr. Cadman's statement reads: "He (Swedenborg) also believed that in 1757 he himself became the vehicle of a still more luminous and complete revelation, by which he was commissioned to establish the church of the New Jerusalem." To quarrel with a statement like this is captious indeed; for it is in harmony with many declarations by Swedenborg, notably this: "Since the Lord cannot manifest Himself in Person, and yet foretold that He would come and establish a New Church, which is the New Jerusalem, it follows that He will do this by means of a man, etc." (T. C. R. 779)
DOCTOR LEHMANN ON SWEDENBORG 1927

DOCTOR LEHMANN ON SWEDENBORG              1927

     In a work entitled Mysticisnt in Heathendom and Christendom (London, 1910), by Dr. E. Lehmann, Professor of Divinity in the University of Berlin, the author gives an estimate of the teachings of Swedenborg which is of interest to New Churchmen. It is treated editorially in THE NEW-CHURCH HERALD of August 19th, 1927, from which we herewith quote Dr. Lehmann's view:

     "Yet how easy and gentle could be the transition of mysticism into Rationalism, even within the sacred precincts of scientific culture, we have already had occasion to notice in the case of Leibnitz and Fenelon, but a more violent breaking through of the mystic vein took place in the mind of a man who occupied a high position in the physical-mathematical world of his day, and whose moral strength and refinement placed him on a line with the noblest intellects of his period. We refer to the Swedish seer, Emanuel Swedenborg. The Dreams of a Visionary, as Kant styled Swedenborg's ideas, are not merely a product of northern phantasy, such to this day leads excitable minds into all kinds of mystical extravagances, nor was Swedenborg in the first instance a clairvoyant and spiritualist. He was rather an all-embracing mind, who set himself the enormous task of building up a system of nature which, after the manner of the Areopagite, was to encompass and bring into natural harmony the spiritual and the material scopes of the world.

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He did not set to work ignorantly and amateurishly, like a Boehme had done, but with all the means of science at his disposal he built up a ladder, with naturally graduating and mutually corresponding steps, landing one ultimately into the world of spirits with whom man can hold intercourse even in mortal life. This latter adjunct was the mysticism in Swedenborg. The boundaries of knowledge set by his contemporary Rant, he either did not know or ignored. The way to God also he made direct, plain to the Christian mind, because the invisible is incorporated in Christ, and, existing in Him alone, is accessible to the receptive mind as an historical fact."

     Another passage in the book is also cited by the HERALD:

     "The distinctive principle of Swedenborg's theology, however,-that the spiritual is only visible in the corporeal, the divine only comprehensible in the human,-is a foreboding of the Romantic School. Swedenborg is not a Romanticist, nor a Rationalist, properly speaking. Both these schools looked upon him as eccentric, but his influence was not as great as that of that other eccentric, his contemporary, Jean Jacques Rousseau, who also stood midway between Romanticism and Rationalism; Rousseau brought the forces of Rationalism to bear upon Romanticism, and his ideas are therefore to this day of universal significance for the spiritual life of Europe. Swedenborg's influence was the influence of a sectarian-only sectarians have followed him."

     The HERALD rightly comments that "any comparison of Swedenborg and Rousseau is out of place at this day. The two men were utterly different, and of the two it can be said that it is not the thought of Rousseau, but that of Swedenborg which is of universal significance for the spiritual life, not merely of Europe, but of the whole world. In this regard, Rousseau can hardly be mentioned in the same breath as the great Swedish seer."

     The New Church, of course, organized as an ecclesiastical body by the followers of Swedenborg's teachings, is not "sectarian," in the sense of being a sect of the Christian Church, but it is a religious "denomination," having a Name given to it by the Lord in His Revelation to and for that Church. In this sense, too, it is "sectarian,"-"cut off" and distinct from every other ecclesiastical body or Church in the world. The New Church on earth, we hold, is made up of those who are genuine receivers of the Heavenly Doctrines, whether they are actual members of an organized body of the Church or not.

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And we would not confuse this New Church with what is called the "church universal" in the Writings, which consists of the good of all religions, who will enter heaven after death. These are not of the New Church on earth, not knowing and receiving the Heavenly Doctrine in faith and life, although they have the capacity to receive it in the other life.

     Holding this view, we are not sure that we entirely accord with the HERALD'S further comment upon Dr. Lehmann's statement; for it seems to smack of the permeation idea, which affects to believe that all good people in the world are "New Church," and confuses the post-Judgment state with the actual descent of the New Jerusalem. The HERALD editorial reads:

     "Dr. Lehmann's assertion that 'Swedenborg's influence was the influence of a sectarian' almost staggers us. Surely nothing is farther from the truth. Swedenborg saw bigly and universally; he had cosmic vision. True enough, he wrote of the 'Church' and the 'New Church', but he was careful to indicate that the Church is charity and faith in man animated by the Divine good and truth. The New Church, with him is no sect or denomination, but the New Spiritual Order, with the Lord in His Divine Human as its center and life. It is a spiritual disposition in the spiritual realm making impact on men in the flesh, and appearing variously according to human reception response. Swedenborg saw that this New Order is affecting men of all races and religions. To call him sectarian is to do him the greatest injustice. It is equally as unfair to say: 'Only sectarians have followed him.' There may be men and women who seem to act as if the New Church were a sect, but even they, if they are properly indoctrinated, would insist that it is not a sect! If there has been apparent sectarianism in the followers of Swedenborg, it has arisen from their frailty of understanding or from a certain accommodation to the ecclesiastical temperament. A further answer to the accusation of sectarianism in Swedenborg is found in the fact that his influence is active far beyond any organizations founded to foster the teachings given to the world through him."

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CLOWES' CHURCH. 1927

CLOWES' CHURCH.              1927

     THE NEW-CHURCH HERALD of August 20, 1927, speaks editorially of the prospective demolition of St. John's Church, Deansgate, Manchester, of which the Rev. John Clowes (1743-1831) was Rector for over sixty years, during the greater part of which he fearlessly preached the Doctrines of the New Church. THE HERALD notes that St. John's was built in 1768 by Edward Byrom, the poet, a kinsman of the Rector. The neighborhood, now given over to commerce, was then residential, and "so large and fashionable a congregation attended, that it was commonly called the Carriage Reed to Heaven, from the number of carriages which lined the streets before and after service."

     It was in 1773, five years after the erection of this church, that Clowes became acquainted with the Doctrines of the New Church, his attention being drawn to the Writings through a remarkable vision of the words "Divinum Humanum." (Annals, p. 106.) Thereafter he devoted his whole life to the preaching and discrimination of the truths of the New Church, translating the Theological Works and writing extensively upon doctrinal subjects.

     Clowes never withdrew from the Church of England, being opposed to the establishment of a distinct New Church organization; and his advocacy of this "non-separatist" view has had considerable influence among receivers of the Doctrines to this day, leading them to hold aloof from the organized New Church. Yet, in Providence, he was instrumental in spreading the Doctrines far and wide during his long pastorate at St. John's. THE HERALD pictures this in several quotations from Theodore Compton's Life of the Rev. John Clowes, which is still in print.
FROM BRAZIL. 1927

FROM BRAZIL.       E. E. IUNGERICH       1927

     Letters from the Rev. Joao de Mendonca Lima and Senhor Xafredo, and the arrival of nos. 20 and 21 of A NOVA IGREJA, spanning the first six months of 1927, bring us information as to the activities of our friends of the General Church Society at Rio Janeiro.

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     The main feature of the journal is a controversy, begun in the first of these numbers and apparently concluded to the satisfaction of all in the second, on the question as to whether Judas Iscariot was among the Twelve Apostles sent out by the Lord on the 19th of June, 1770 Senhor Xafredo, while granting that Judas' salvation seemed assured, yet raised the question as to whether, since a cleavage had taken place between Judas and the eleven others, and the place had been filled by Matthias, it was not more reasonable to expect that Matthias, at the Second Coming, would be among the group who had worked together in establishing the Christian Church after the Lord's resurrection. Writing on August 8th, he says: "I have always been in full agreement as to Judas' being saved, and for this it is sufficient that Swedenborg has affirmed it. . . . It seems to me, however, that it would be more prudent to reserve this teaching for theologians, as laymen and neophytes might interpret it in a way not conducive to their spiritual progress. For I have heard comments to this effect: 'If religion is in life, and in its uses, and if a life of condemned uses [such as those of Judas] can lead to paradise, is it worth while making great sacrifices to keep the law?'"

     The reply to this writer's contention is made in no. 21 of A NOVA IGREJA by the Rev. Henry Leonardos, in what is probably the most complete treatment ever given the subject. In the same issue Senhor Jeudy translates from LA NOUVELLE JERUSALEM three editorials by the late Rev. Ernst Deltenre bearing upon the matter. The undersigned, not anticipating that there would be such an avalanche from Brazilian sources, had privately sent a reply to Senhor Xafredo, in which The Word Explained (Adversaria), Vol. II, no. 1479, was quoted in full as follows: "As has been narrated to me about Judas the betrayer, of whom there is said to be hope, because he was one among the elect who had been given to God Messiah by Jehovah the Father, as God Messiah Himself says." The point was then made that the Lord, in His original choice of the Twelve, had selected men whom He perceived would all eventually be saved. His indwelling Divine, called Jehovah the Father, had enabled Him to choose such infallibly to be His immediate followers. Judas, being among these, would naturally, when saved, wish to serve the Lord in a similar capacity in the hereafter.

     The Rev. J. M. Lima, who edits the journal, writes that the discussion of this subject has been closed.

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He says that some new receivers were led to wonder how there could be such a divergence of view among well-instructed New Churchmen, and that for their sakes he judges it "best not to prolong a controversy over the question about Judas, which after all has no great importance, seeing that it does not touch our spiritual life. . . . I prefer, therefore, not to ventilate it further, but to wait patiently to satisfy my own curiosity in the matter until I can speak personally with Judas in the spiritual world."

     In no. 20, the Rev. Lima accepts with pleasure the editorial comment in NEW CHURCH LIFE for February, 1927, upon his article on "Spiritism and the Heavenly Doctrine," published in the same issue, and translates it in full. To it he then adds the following:

     "In entire accord with the judicious commentaries of NEW CHURCH LIFE, we should add further that though spiritism is by no means a frequent, much less a normal, way of coming to the New Church, still, in our country [Brazil] it is a powerful element for the destruction of the Old Church, whose believers are being contaminated in large numbers by spiritistic practices. These, therefore, are weakening the legions of great Babylon. Communications with spirits, prohibited by the Word and condemned by the Writings, which clearly show us what they are exposed to who indulge in such communications, can only exceptionally, and in very special cases, lead anyone to the Doctrines, and even then, not by direct action, but indirectly, through the disillusionings they experience and the sufferings that may have been occasioned. As the comment of NEW CHURCH LIFE Well stresses, faith in the New Church must be received by internal ways, that is, by the rational comprehension and free acceptance of its doctrines, and not by the external effect of miraculous deeds or communications with spirits who remove freedom of thought and are consequently opposed to the New Church lemma,' Freely according to reason.'"

     Of special note in no. 21 is an article on "The Resurrection," by Senhor Xafredo, which, emphasizing the fact that the Lord alone rose with the whole body, which man lays down at death, proceeds to further contrasts between the two, and to the consideration of the need of His incarnation and the relation of His glorification to the Second Advent. In many respects this paper is a contribution to the thought of the Church on the subject, and should be accessible to English readers.

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     In no. 20 there is an interesting financial statement, setting forth year by year the subscriptions to the support of the Church in Rio de Janeiro, from April, 1921, to March 31, 1927. It is gratifying to note that eighty-four names are on the roll, and that there is no deficit in the treasury.

     Writing on August 7th, the Rev. Lima says: "It was with great pleasure that I could see through the pages of THE VOICE OF THE CAMPUS the intense life which reigns in the Academy. I can picture the brilliant future reserved for the mother society of the General Church." Speaking then of their own lack of social bonds, owing to their being widely scattered, and to the fact that their pastors are engaged in secular work, he adds: "Still, I observe a growing animation among us, the love of the Church ultimating itself materially." Since May of this year an offering has been taken up at services, the brothers De Roure having presented a box for that purpose. Before services, also, they sell envelopes, which are then placed in the box with the sums for which each was sold. In this way the weekly contribution ranges from four to eight dollars. In a few years, Senhor Lima feels, they can go to a building and loan association, and buy a plot of ground and construct a building upon it, the sums now going for rent being sufficient to pay the interest.

     We are much pleased to learn that Pastors Lima and Leonardos both expect to attend the General Assembly in London next year, and to visit Bryn Athyn an their return journey.
     E. E. IUNGERICH.
BRITISH ASSEMBLY 1927

BRITISH ASSEMBLY       Editor       1927

     A Report of the Twenty-first British Assembly, held at Colchester, July 30-August 1, 1927, together with papers read at the meeting, will be published in our November issue.-EDITOR.

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CRITIQUE 1927

CRITIQUE       L. H. STADEN       1927

     [EDITORIAL NOTE: In this communication, Dr. Staden is commenting upon the views set forth by Mr. A. W. Manning, of Riverside, California, in a pamphlet entitled This Miracle God's "Masterpiece," published by the New Church Book Center, 2129 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, Pa. The matter is reprinted from THE HELPER, Vol. 79, No. 18. The writer of the pamphlet holds that "creation was instantaneous; it was a miracle; it was the miracle of all miracles." The idea is based chiefly upon the well-known statement in T. C. R. 78 to the effect that creations in the spiritual world are instantaneous, and that in the natural world forms were "created in like manner in the beginning." Mr. Manning also says: "Swedenborg had been studying creation for many years after he was admitted wholly into the spiritual world with his spiritual eyes and senses open. So he was well-informed on the subject of creation; and yet there was one surprising thing which he and the angels to whom he related his meditations did not know; (for if he had known of it he would have written of it; and he also would have repeated it to the angels, as they did not know); and that was, as stated in T. C. R. 78, that creation was instantaneous at the beginning, like all the Lord's miracles, and by the Laws of Correspondences: a miracle on such a mammoth scale that some of the angels had never heard of it, and not even Swedenborg, or I suppose any other modern." (P. 10)]

Editor of NEW CHURCH LIFE:
     Our venerable Brother Manning considers the creation of the universe to be a miracle and God's "Masterpiece." I presume I do not go wrong when I say that many look upon the incarnation of Jehovah God by a human virgin as a miracle, even the greatest miracle. We know, however, that it was not a miracle, and least of all an instantaneous one, though the Lord could have chosen to incarnate Himself in such a manner. We look upon the incarnation as an event,-indeed, the greatest event known on earth,-and upon the process of incarnation as a precedence.

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     Since the Lord is Himself the Law in all degrees, He submitted Himself to the natural laws, correspondingly to the spiritual and Divine laws, thus offering us a more or less rational conception of this hitherto greatest arcanum. Beginning from this fact, we can conclude without error that He did not create the universe instantaneously, but in like manner as He incarnated Himself, that is, according to a process of natural laws corresponding to spiritual and Divine laws. Hence it follows that every created thing, being finite, even as was the case with the Lord's body from the virgin, must originate in a natural process of evolution, keeping pace with a spiritual process of involution.

     Now let us expound the passage in question, T. C. R. 78, which reads: "The difference is, that in our world such things are created by God from moment to moment in accordance with the affections of the angels. In your world they were created in like manner in the beginning; but it was provided that they should be renewed unceasingly by the propagation of one from another."

     This passage is indeed correct, and, what is more, it is in harmony with all and everything that has been said in our Writings concerning creation, especially in the book, The Worship and Love of God, and even what has been said in Swedenborg's scientific works. That Swedenborg gave up certain theories of creation long before he wrote the True Christian Religion is an immense error. We read nowhere that he had changed his mind in one way or another, nor a word of correction, which undoubtedly he would have done in canceling former theories. Everything he has written, beginning with his scientific works, and on to the last of his theological ones, is a harmonious whole. He could not have made the slightest error, because the Lord controlled every word he wrote, since He had prepared him for his sacred office from the womb.

     In the Address to the Reader at the beginning of the London, 1885, edition of The Worship and Love of God, the translator, T. M. German, quotes from The Word Explained (Adversaria) as follows:

     "In my Tractate, On the Worship and clove of God, Part First, I have treated of the origin of the Earth, Paradise, its verdant bower, and the birth of Adam, but still according to the leading of the intellect or the thread of reason.

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Inasmuch, however, as human intelligence is in no wise to be trusted, unless it be inspired by God, it is of importance to truth that those things which have been taught in the little work just mentioned should be compared with the things revealed in the Sacred Codex, and herein with the history of Creation revealed by God to Moses, and thus submit to examination the point-in what way do they coincide. For whatever does not straightway coincide with what has been revealed must be openly declared as wholly false, or as an aberration of our rational mind. With this end in view, I felt bound to premise a careful study of the first chapters of Genesis. Now when I had compared these things together, with unremitting care, I was amazed at their agreement. For the first thing treated of in our little work is the universal Chaos or greatest Egg of the Universe, which contained in itself the heaven and the earth, according to the first verse of the first chapter of Genesis, etc., etc."

     I draw special attention to the words,-"unless it be inspired by God," testifying that this Tractate was so. The author of the Address to the Reader remarks upon this: [Italics his.]

     "It is thus a clearly defined and fixed position of Swedenborg, writing two years after his call to his sacred office, that the account of Creation which he has given, as a Christian philosopher, coincides wonderfully with the historical statements recorded in the first chapter of Genesis."

     The preceding declaration ought to convince anybody who is willing to understand, that Swedenborg had no cause whatsoever to give up or to change any theories concerning the creation in this jewel of a Tractate. They are, moreover, not theories of Swedenborg at all, but genuine truths inspired from the Lord. And since this is an irrefutable fact, the passage in question (T. C. R. 78) cannot contain a contradiction of former so-called theories. What is meant by it shall be explained now.

     In the Spiritual Diary, we read as follows concerning the creation of the first man:

     ". . . Since it is a fact that angels and spirits in the Gorand Man correspond to man and his single members and parts, and that thence are endeavors (conatus) which are active wheresoever powers or passives (copia vel cedentia) are given, as may be known from certain truths of human philosophy, if they are attended to, wherefore the scruple had arisen as to how the first man, and those who were born at first, could exist before this Gorand Man was formed received the answer in a spiritual idea which persuades, and it was confirmed that the first man, and those who were born at first, were not led by any other than the Lord alone.

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For the Lord is all in all; nor is there any endeavor (conatus) from the single things in heaven and the spiritual world unless it be from the Lord, as well before man was born as after man was born; for man, as to all his degrees, existed similarly before his nativity as afterwards. Without Him nothing could be created, nor exist created; wherefore, also, He alone sustains the human race, as of old, but now by mediate angels and spirits, as also immediately without angels and spirits, which also is confirmed by experience. For the human race was of Him from the beginning; wherefore He has all care." (S. D. 2591.)

     Who cannot see from this "spiritual idea which persuades" that man, or the human race, existed in the mind of the Lord from the beginning, which means that man existed even before the formation of the Gorand Man, thus before his nativity in respect to his soul from the Lord, comparatively as the child or children of a man exist before their nativity as soul or souls in the seed of their father, in complete organized form and substance.

     And since the soul of man is created, it must be finite, and be a receptacle of the Infinite, thus an image of the Lord. Consequently, all the faculties of this soul, having a capacity for the reception of all the affections and thoughts from the Lord, formed, as it were, all the societies of the angels, that is, the Gorand Man to be. The Gorand Man is, so to speak, the Gorand Soul of Heaven. Hence all the affections and thoughts of the angels are represented by the organs, members and viscera of the human body, which is the soul in its grossest form; and since the world of angels is based upon the world of men, without man nothing could be created and exist created.

     When the angel said, "In your world things were created in like manner in the beginning," it means that the soul in the universe was created from moment to moment. However, the soul, consisting of the finest spiritual substances, in accordance with each kingdom to which she belonged, would have evaporated and vanished immediately in the natural world; and for this reason she became fixed right away within an egg substantiated by the primary chaotic elements, from which the soul was able to clothe herself externally and internally, in the same manner as the soul of a chick clothes herself within the egg.

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The above-mentioned momentaneous creation of the soul appeared then as an instantaneous creation in the natural world when the shell broke and out stepped the chick, or whatever kind of living creature it was that came forth.

     The same process applies to the creation of the first man, who was the crown of the creation, because the whole creation was in him, and he could not appear and exist in the natural world unless this world had been created in fulness, and through him could be continued to eternity. We can clearly understand this process from Genesis ii. 7. When the Lord fixed the soul of man within the clay, and breathed into her the breath of lives, she was conceived; and from this moment the soul lived, and began to clothe herself with flesh-in exactly the same way as the soul within the seed of man clothes herself in the ovum with the material substances from the blood of the mother-and finally the clay (that is, the egg) broke, and the first man was born a baby. And so it was with all those who were born at first. For this reason the spiritual idea has it that the first men were led by the Lord alone, Who was their Father, from physical and spiritual infancy to physical maturity and, in the course of a long time, to spiritual and celestial maturity. Adam had then become the real first man collectively,-the first Church.

     Let us consider one point more,-the hatching of the egg, or the immense multitude of eggs from and within the great universal egg. This means nothing else than the process of evolution from the first conception of life to the ripe birth of each creature in due time, while the conception itself was the endowment of life from the Lord in each soul of each egg, and, in respect to man's soul, her spiritual growth after her natural birth is the process of involution. These two processes are still going on in and through man, and will go on to all eternity, with the sole difference that men are no longer born by the Lord Himself, nor led immediately by Him alone, but mediately by angels and spirits. In the beginning, heaven and earth was in the great universal egg; now they are in the human race.

     Such is the idea or theory of creation presented to us in that charming work, The Worship and Love of God, as far as the writer of these lines understands it.

630


Yet, strange to say, Brother Manning completely ignores this book, which, if we may again quote Mr. T. M. German, "contains the only true and wholly intelligible theory (to use the popular term) of the creation of the first human pair on this earth that has yet been given to the world, that no other is needed, and that all others are erroneous. They are forced to concede this, or to deny the fact of Swedenborg's Divine call to his sacred office." (P. xiv.)

     Others will write better explanations of the creation than I can, in accordance with the grand and wonderful theories, or, more correctly expressed, truths, revealed to us in that book, and we shall welcome them all, but let us have done with creation wisdom which is from any other source.
     L. H. STADEN. Brooklyn, N. Y.
NEW CHURCH SERMONS 1927

NEW CHURCH SERMONS              1927

     Expounding the Scriptures in the Light of the Heavenly Doctrine of the New Jerusalem.

     Selected Discourses by Ministers of the General Church. Suitable for individual reading, and for use in family worship and other services, as well as for missionary purposes.

     A PAMPHLET ISSUED MONTHLY FROM OCTOBER TO JUNE INCLUSIVE.

     Sent free of charge to any address on application to Mr. H. Hyatt, Bryn Athyn, Pa.

631


Church News 1927

Church News       Various       1927

     REPORT OF THE VISITING PASTOR.

     On my way to Los Angeles for the usual summer's work, I stopped off for three days at DALLAS, TEXAS. On Sunday, June 24, services were held at the home of Mr. and Mrs. P. V. Connell, at which six persons were present, of whom five partook of the Holy Supper. Monday evening two enjoyable hours were spent in conversation with the Connells on various doctrinal subjects.

     At LOS ANGELES the season opened with a social on Friday evening, July 1, and there was every indication that a successful period of church life was before us. The program of meetings was determined, namely, Sunday School, followed by services, on Sunday morning and doctrinal classes on Wednesday and Friday evenings. One of the families of the Circle, that of Mr. and Mrs. Abram Klippenstein, numbering six persons, was not with us this summer, as they were visiting their old Western Canada home. On the other hand, there were several new attendants. At Sunday School there were nine pupils; at services the average attendance was twenty-six, including children; and at doctrinal class sixteen. Most of those attending had long distances to come, some as much as twenty miles. On Wednesday evening there were two classes, first a class on Conjugial Love, alternating one week for the ladies and the other for the men, and then the general class. As a rule, our classes were followed by a social hour.

     Probably the most delightful of all occasions was the outing of the Circle to the home of Mr. and Mrs. Emil Stroh, at ONTARIO, forty miles distant, on Sunday, July 17. At noon there was a dinner out-doors, under a palm leaf covered arbor. Thirty-six persons, including children, were at table. At the close of the dinner there were a number of speeches, the general theme being the end of Providence with reference to the Church in bringing together, as it were by chance, those who constitute the General Church in Southern California, from so many localities in the United States and Canada. The fact was mentioned, in passing, that the pastor had ministered to nearly all the members in their former homes,-in Western Canada, Kitchener, Cincinnati, and Middleport. At four o'clock, services were held, and afterwards all enjoyed themselves socially until late evening. The entire day was one continuous happy time for each and every one. "A perfect day," said one; and in this all agreed. Among those present was Miss Creda Glenn, of Bryn Athyn, who was visiting the Strohs. At the dinner she told of Bryn Athyn and its life and uses, to the great pleasure of all. Later she was with us for some days at Los Angeles.

     I remained at Ontario over Monday, when instruction was given the Stroh and Frankish children, and a doctrinal class held in the evening. On Tuesday I visited Mr. Manning and the Rev. Mr. Shuster at RIVERSIDE, and spent a pleasant day with them.

     The following Sunday, July 24, at Los Angeles, there was the celebration of the Holy Supper. The Stroh family came in from Ontario for the occasion, and we had an attendance of thirty-two, including children. Of these, fifteen partook of the Holy Supper.

     One more service was held, on the 31st, and during the week following our season came to a sudden close, as I was called home by the death of our daughter, Mrs. Harry Hilldale.

632


There was a final gathering on Wednesday evening, August 3, the day before I left, to say farewell and also to make certain plans for the future. As the Unruh family, at whose home the meetings have hitherto been held, were about to move to beyond Ontario, it was decided that the meetings be now held at the Davis home in Hollywood. Although this place is not so central as the former, and the distance some will have to come will be considerably greater, all expressed their determination to attend as faithfully as ever; and in this they were encouraged by Mr. Unruh's saying that he and his family intended to come in the fifty-six miles to all the meetings. Such is the spirit of this circle-a spirit which assures growth and progress.

     It was with regret that I left Los Angeles with only half the allotted time completed; also that I could not visit San Francisco, Portland and Spokane, as planned. But Providence indicated that it should be so.
     F. E. WAELCHLI.

     DURBAN, NATAL.

     The New, Age (Australia) for August, 1927, under the title of "A Visit to Durban," prints a letter from a correspondent who recently attended a service in the church of the General Church Society at Durban. She describes the edifice and the worship in most appreciative terms, as follows:

     I will not dwell upon the interesting day spent in the beautiful city of Durban, with its wonderful growth of tropical flowers and fruits and picturesque population, but will pass on to Sunday morning. My friend and I made our way to the beautiful little New Jerusalem Temple, Musgrave Road, at about 10:30, and found a children's service, which is held at 9:30, just dispersing; there is an attendance of between to and 30 children. I introduced myself to some ladies, who took me into the minister's residence, which is in the church grounds, and introduced me to Mrs. Acton. Several other members of the congregation came in, and we sat on the 'stoop' and chatted till it was time to go into church. I learned that Mr. Acton had been in Durban two years, and that the society has prospered under his pastorate. Beside the church and minister's residence there is commodious hall, rather larger than that in Melbourne, which is used as a New Church day school, with 25 scholars on the roll. Miss Champion, the teacher, went to Bryn Athyn to be trained for the work. Mr. and Mrs. Acton both assist in the school, the latter having a kindergarten class, which she conducts on the stoop of the residence. The church is a little gem of architecture, simple and satisfying in design. The exterior walls are red, and the interior white, with dark wood roof; the windows are lattice work, in opaque glass, with red and blue border, and are Norman in shape. The organ and choir are in a small transept; there is chancel railing of dark unpolished wood, similar to the roof, with red kneeling cushions. The furnishings of the chancel are also in the same dark wood, ornamented with carvings of Maltese crosses and Alpha and Omega monograms. At the back of the chancel is a small apse, containing the sanctuary, and lighted by a three-light window in most beautiful stained glass in a Richelieu design. On either side of the sanctuary was brass bowl filled with flowers, and in the chancel was a beautifully carved pedestal, holding a large flower-filled brass bowl.

     No announcement was made of the hymns or the service, except that of the boards on either side of the chancel. The service opened with a hymn, at the close of which Mr. Acton entered, robed in a white linen robe or cassock, with a golden girdle, over which he wore a linen surplice and a white silk stole, the whole effect being very dignified. The service was choral and very largely responsive, and very different from the English liturgy, which we in Australia are accustomed to.

633


I have never in my life attended such a beautiful service. It gave me the feeling of having found at last something I had always been seeking. The externals of worship were in perfect accord with the internal spirit, and seemed to express perfectly the glorious truths of the New Church. There was a wonderfully reverential atmosphere pervading all. The whole congregation knelt in prayer, just as all stood to praise or sat to listen to the reading and preaching. The reading consisted of three lessons-first from the Old Testament, second from the New, and third from the Writings. Another special feature of the service was a short interlude, in which the congregation sat in silence, broken only by the soft playing of the organ.

     The sermon was taken from the chapter which had been read as the first lesson, 'Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people, etc.,' and was a beautiful and lucid exposition, with practical application to the state of the Church at the present day and to the individual problems of life. Just before the Benediction, the offertory, which is received in two small baskets on either side of the aisle as the worshipers enter, was carried to the chancel railing, and there received by the minister and reverently presented, the congregation standing with bowed heads. I omitted to say that the minister, on entering, at the commencement of worship opened a receptacle in the sanctuary, revealing an open copy of the Word, with a golden rising-sun design at the back on a white background. The minister left the church during the singing of the closing hymn, after which the congregation reverently filed out, leaving the buzz of greetings and conversation till they were outside. The congregation numbered about 40. I was told it was usually somewhat larger, as several families were away in the country on holidays.

     After church I met Mr. Acton and was also introduced to many of the congregation and took a snap of the church, with Mr. and Mrs. Acton. Several people expressed regret that my visit did not coincide with their June 19 celebration, which is their great day of all the year. I am told they also keep up Swedenborg's Birthday with a social gathering. I said good-bye with great regret that I could not see more of these delightful people, but also with thankfulness that I had been privileged to be there at all.
     AMY I. NOAR.

     LINDEN HILLS, MICH.

     Services in Sharon Church, Chicago, were discontinued for the summer on July 31st, when the pastor and many of the congregation migrated across Lake Michigan to enjoy the beauty and restfulness of Linden Hills, which adjoins Palisades Park.

     On the second Sunday in July, Candidate Hendrik Beef preached in Sharon Church, and the service was enhanced by the violin music of Mr. Jesse Stevens, of Glenview. Later Mr. Boef also preached at Linden Hills, where he and a party of friends from Chicago and Glenview were visiting at the cottage of Miss Emily Wallenberg.

     We were rich in clerical guests at Linden Hills this summer. The Rev. and Mrs. E. J. E. Schreck spent five weeks at the Nelson cottage in Palisades Park, and Mr. Schreck preached on one Sunday in August at the earnest request of his many friends. The church was filled that Sunday, and also at a reception and supper given for Mr. and Mrs. Schreck the previous Friday. On this occasion, Mr. Schreck spoke to us about his work in England, dwelling upon the earnest and affectionate interest which his parishioners take in the work of the Church and Sunday School, and paying high tribute to their loyal cooperation. Again, we had the opportunity to hear many things from him about the activities of the New Church in England, when thirty of the New Church friends attended a delightful luncheon given by Mrs. Morley, of Benton Harbor, Mich.

     The Rev. W. L. Gladish officiated and preached at the services in our little church on four Sundays in August.

634


During the summer, we had seventy or more visitors at the church from Chicago, Glenview and Michigan, as well as from more distant places.

     On August 24th, Mrs. Seymour G. Nelson entertained the ladies of the church at her home. It was also a business meeting of the society, the most important transaction being the appropriation of funds to defray the cost of repairing the damage of the church by a destructive hail storm in May. As the Ladies Society had $167.00 in the treasury, they were able to help in a substantial way.
     E. V. W.

     KITCHENER, ONT.

     The summer has passed very pleasantly in Kitchener. Our having Mr. and Mrs. Victor Gladish with us has been a fine thing. The two months have slipped by all too soon; but however quickly the time has passed, there has sprung up an abiding friendship for the Gladishes in the hearts of the Kitchener people. This friendship was evidenced on the evening of their last Sunday here, when a large number of the members of the Society gathered to bid them farewell, and to spend the evening in a party-like way. It was fortunate that Mrs. Gladish could come with her husband. They were able to keep house and dispense hospitality in a very happy, domestic manner, Mr. and Mrs. Niebergall having offered their house for this purpose, as they were absent from the city for the greater part of the summer.

     During August, an exchange of pulpits was arranged between Candidates Gladish and Reuter, the latter coming up from Toronto, thus affording us an opportunity to hear him preach and become acquainted with him. The two Candidates and some others cooperated in arranging a dance on August 27th for the young people of Toronto and Kitchener, and it was a very delightful affair.

     The Rev. and Mrs. F. E. Waelchli, traveling by auto with Mr. and Mrs. Richard Kintner, paid us a brief visit in August. Owing to motor trouble, their stay was reduced to about a day, but a good deal was crowded into that day. The Mens' Club meeting was scheduled for the evening, and the Revs. F. E. Waelchli, Hugo Lj. Odhner, and Candidates Reuter and Gladish, were invited to participate. The subject for the discussion was "Distinctiveness," and some fine speeches bearing upon different phases of the subject were made.

     The ladies of the Society were invited to the homes of Mrs. George Schnarr and Mrs. Robert Schnarr to meet Mrs. Waelchli and her daughter, Mrs. Caroline Kintner. Mrs. Kintner had not visited her native city for eight years, and so there was much to be seen, heard and talked about.

     Our Day School opened on September 6th with Miss Anna Heinrichs as teacher, and we look forward to a progressive and successful year. The attendance is rather small to start with, owing to illness among the pupils, but when it reaches one hundred per cent, we expect to have fourteen pupils.
     G. K. D.

     NEW SWEDENBORG MONUMENT.

     Adolf Jonsson, sculptor of the notable bust of Emanuel Swedenborg which was dedicated a few years ago in Lincoln Park, Chicago, has completed the model of a new and more elaborate Swedenborg Monument, the site of which has not yet been chosen, but which is arousing a great deal of interest on the part of those who have seen it. A photograph of this model is reproduced as the frontispiece of our present issue. Mr. Jonsson says that he derived the inspiration for his sculpture from the famous passage in The True Christian Religion (no. 508) in which Swedenborg describes a temple seen in the spiritual world.

     The monument depicts Swedenborg at the moment of receiving from an angel a copy of the Word of God as it is in the heavens.

635


This will be inscribed with the text, "Nunc licet." About the pediment will be carved the saying from The Divine Providence: "The Divine Providence has as its end a heaven from the human race." [N. C. Messenger, Sept. 7, 1927.]

     GLENVIEW, ILLINOIS.

     Writing these notes during a mid-September hot spell, with the temperature at a record-breaking 95 degrees, we look back to the month of August as the Coolest in our history, with its unreal contrast of bright sunlight and an autumn atmosphere.

     The outstanding features of our social life have been two weddings,-that of Mr. William Hamm and Miss Maud McQueen on August 27th, and of Mr. Kenneth Synnestvedt and Miss Beatrice Nelson on September 10th. Both ceremonies were very beautiful and festive, and were marked by the presence of many friends and relatives to add to the interest. Bryn Athyn sent a splendid delegation of Synnestvedt relations to welcome the thirteenth Mrs. Synnestvedt!

     Our Day School will open on September 19th, several days later than usual, owing to the delay in painting the school rooms. Miss Gladys Blackman has returned from her European trip, and will resume her duties as principal. Forty-eight pupils, probably our largest enrollment, will attend. Kindergarten and ninth grade are included, and a corps of five regular teachers will have charge of the classes. In addition, our pastor gives much time to the school, incidentally teaching Hebrew in all the grades. It is also hoped that the services of Mr. Rydstrom can be secured again for the instruction in vocal music.

     Choir practice, under the direction h of Mr. Jesse Stevens, will be resumed on September 14th. The General Council meets on the last Thursday in September, and many matters of community interest will be taken up. This Council does not confine itself to strictly church matters, but covers a large field of community activities. Its membership consists of all the it male members of the Immanuel Church. All of our society activities will be resumed in full force with the annual meeting on the first Friday in October, and later in the month we shall hold our fiftieth anniversary celebration as the chief feature of the Chicago District Assembly.

     Candidate Hendrik Beef has just departed for Bryn Athyn to resume his studies after summer spent among us during which he assisted our pastor and officiated at services in his absence. His work has been much appreciated he was well liked, and left a very pleasant impression behind him.
      J. B. S.

     TORONTO, CANADA.

     It is so long since our last news report was sent to the Life that we suggest that these notes be regarded as "chronicles" rather than "news," as they are penned with the idea of preserving something of continuity in the record of our activities.

     All society activities usually kept going in summer have been maintained. We have been able to hold Sunday services regularly, and there has been little, if any, falling off in attendance. So far, the advent of the automobile, and the tendency to make of Sunday a day of recreation rather than one of rest and worship, appear to have made no serious inroads with us. While most of us try to get away for our regular vacation, we always have a number of visitors during the summer, and these appreciate the opportunity to attend services. Of course, this has only been made possible by our pastor's arranging his vacation in such a way that church could be kept open, and matters have been facilitated this year by the presence of Candidate Norman Reuter, whose visit the society has enjoyed to the full. He has made many friends amongst us, and has given us of his best; his sermons have been thoroughly enjoyed, and we believe that in every way his stay will be productive of good. We trust it will have been as useful to him as it has been appreciated by the Olivet Society, which voiced both verbally and in a tangible way its feelings toward him at the close of the service on Sunday, September 11th, wishing him every success in his future career.

636




     Going back to earlier events, we would first speak of the visit of the Rev. William Whitehead, on April 5th, under the auspices of the Forward Club. His lecture on "The Need of a Distinctive Moral and Ethical Philosophy for the New Church" was much enjoyed by a large and attentive audience, and the subject matter met with a favorable reception and much appreciative comment both in and after the meeting.

     On April 10th, we had the pleasure of a second visit from the Rev. C. E. Doering, by appointment of the Bishop, who came primarily in the interests of our Day School, and generally of New Church education. Mr. Doering is indeed an able exponent and champion of this worthy cause, and the stimulus and encouragement derived from his stay amongst us was especially appreciated by the teaching faculty. His lecture on "The Purpose of New Church Education," given before the whole society, was a masterpiece of its kind, replete with evidences of the ripened judgment and experience gained in Mr. Doering's years of educative endeavor in the Academy Schools. The paper evoked a brisk reaction in the form of comment and questions in the meeting. We are grateful to the Sons of the Academy for making this visit possible. Mr. Doering also preached for us on Palm Sunday.

     June the 19th, falling on Sunday this year, did not lend itself to the usual method of celebration by the holding of a banquet. We try to have our annual full-dress picnic about this date, but it was marred by cold weather when held on June 18th. The Sunday service was of a special nature commemorative of the Day, and in the evening an informal gathering was held at the home of the pastor, when suitable toasts were proposed, and responded to by several of the gentlemen present, and occasion was taken to welcome Mr. Norman Reuter, to whom a very cordial reception was given.

     Something of an innovation was the observance of Dominion Day on July 1st, as the whole of the Dominion held a three-day celebration of the Diamond Jubilee of Confederation, 1867-1927. And we may say that the nation-wide celebration of this event seemed to be animated by an unusual sphere of dignity and thankfulness for the blessings vouchsafed our Country during the formative years, and for the rich promise which the future holds for it. Our society celebration took the form of a picnic on the grounds of the homes of Mr. and Mrs. Potts and Mr. and Mrs. White. The location was ideal, the weather perfect, and there was a good program of games, races, and speeches appropriate to the occasion, as well as patriotic and church songs. After supper, a bonfire, fire crackers, songs, and cheers for our hosts and hostesses brought to a dose an occasion that will be memorable amongst us. Mr. T. P. Bellinger was the very capable master of ceremonies. On the Sunday which was the final day of the celebration a special service was held, with special hymns for the event. The sermon, from the text of Deuteronomy 8:1-9, was a powerful exposition of true patriotism and thanksgiving, and we trust it will appear in print. Its teaching based upon universals of truth, is universal in its application, and should be available to all New Churchmen. The sphere of this service was very powerful, and was a fitting climax to a great occasion.
      F. W.

637


ONTARIO DISTRICT ASSEMBLY 1927

ONTARIO DISTRICT ASSEMBLY       Rev. L. W. T. DAVID       1927




     Announcements.



     The Sixteenth Ontario District Assembly (postponed from May) will be held in the Olivet Church, Toronto, Canada, October 13th to 16th inclusive. All members and friends of the General Church are cordially invited to attend. Accommodation will be provided for intending visitors, who will please notify Mr. Theodore Bellinger, 122 Springhurst Ave., Toronto 3, Canada.
     REV. L. W. T. DAVID,
          Secretary.
CHICAGO DISTRICT ASSEMBLY 1927

CHICAGO DISTRICT ASSEMBLY       Rev. GILBERT H. SMITH       1927

     The Twenty-third Chicago District Assembly will be held at Glenview, Illinois, October 21st to 23d, 1927. We will take the form of a Jubilee celebration of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Immanuel Church. A cordial invitation is extended to all members and friends of the General Church. Please communicate with the undersigned.
     REV. GILBERT H. SMITH,
          Glenview, Ill.
PITTSBURGH DISTRICT ASSEMBLY 1927

PITTSBURGH DISTRICT ASSEMBLY       Rev. HOMER SYNNESTVEDT       1927

     The Eighteenth Pittsburgh District Assembly will be held at the House of Worship, 4928 Wallingford Street, October 28th to 30th, 1927. Members and friends of the General Church are cordially invited to attend.
     REV. HOMER SYNNESTVEDT,
          Secretary.

638


STATEMENT CONCERNING THE ORPHANAGE BOXES 1927

STATEMENT CONCERNING THE ORPHANAGE BOXES       ALFRED ACTON       1927

     It is almost a year since the first returns from the Orphanage Boxes were received, and the Members of the General Church will be interested in learning the results, as shown in the following Table:

                              No. of          Total Number
                         Collections          of Boxes
Miscellaneous                         35                $147.88
Arbutus                     1               2.00
Bryn Athyn           3                 215                461.30
Cincinnati           2                12                    19.39
Chicago           1                    8                         13.15
Glenview          1                22                    56.23
Kitchener           2                15                    22.35
Los Angeles           1                    6                    7.07
Middleport          1                    8                         37.55
New York          1                    7                         12.94
Philadelphia                     5                         36.58
Pittsburgh           1                24                    28.92
Toronto           2                45                    63.18
Washington                     2               20.00
                         405               $928.54

     (Average Per Box=$2.41)
Total Expenditure-Boxes and Postage                57.73          

     NET RECEIPTS                               $810.81

     A blank under the heading "Number of Collections" indicates that there are no local collectors, the collections from the boxes having been sent direct to the undersigned. Sometimes also checks have been sent direct by members of societies where there are local collectors. In such cases the amount of these checks has been included in the total amount credited to the society in question.

     There are several points upon which we would like to speak in connection with the above Table, but these we reserve until the next issue of the Life.
     ALFRED ACTON,
          Secretary of the Orphanage Committee.

639


GOING TO THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY 1927

GOING TO THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY       GEORGE DE CHARMS       1927

     "Are you going to attend the General Assembly in London next Summer? " Everyone is asking this question, and all would like to answer it in the affirmative, if only time and means would permit. But many are uncertain as to just what this trip across the Atlantic will involve. It is our purpose to give in the pages of the LIFE reliable information such as may help each one to come to a decision in the matter; and first with regard to traveling expenses.

     It was at first thought possible that we might obtain reduced rates by going together on the same vessel. This has not been found feasible. We are too small a group, too widely scattered, and our interests are too various. Some will go directly to London, and return immediately after the Assembly. Others wish to take the opportunity to do a little traveling in England or on the Continent, each according to his means and the time at his disposal.

     The Steamship Rates for the leading transatlantic lines are all virtually standard, and the following figures will give a fair idea of the expense for various classes of passage, the rates varying, of course, according to the location of berth, etc.

New Pork to Southampton: "quitania," "Berengaria," "Mauretania"
1st Class, one way minimum                          $286.00     
2d Class, one way minimum                                    147.50
New York to Southampton: "Caronia," "Carmania," "Lancastria,"
     "Tuscania," "Andania."
     Cabin, one way minimum                          145.00
     "Tourist round trip"      minimum                     170.00
                              maximum                                   190.00
Montreal or Quebec to Plymouth and London:
     One way minimum                               145.00
New York via Halifax to Plymouth, Havre, and London:
     One way minimum                                        145.00
New York to Liverpool and Queenstown: "Laconia," "Samaria,"
     "Scythia":
     1st Class, one way, minimum                     218.00
     2d Class, one way, minimum                               135.00
     3d Class, one way, minimum                     87.50
     Tourist 3d Cabin round trip minimum                170.00
               maximum                               190.00
New York to Glasgow-Londonderry: "Caledonia," "California," "Transylvania," "Cameronia":

640



     1st Class, one way minimum                     198.00
     2d Class, one way minimum                          132.50
     3d Class, one way minimum                          85.00
Railroad rates to London from:
     Glasgow                                    $20.05
     Liverpool                                   10.05
     Plymouth                                    11.35
     Southampton                                   4.00 (13/4 hours to London)

     For those going early to travel on the Continent before the Assembly, Cunard steamers go to Cherbourg, an additional charge of $5.00 being made to that port, and a debarkation charge of $2.00.

     It is to be remembered that in addition to the cost of passage the following expenses must be incurred:
Revenue Tax (For U. S. Citizens)                          $5.00
Alien Tax (For Aliens) in addition                          8.00
Passport (Birth certificate necessary)                     10.00
Deck chairs                                         1.50

     Tips on vessel (waiter in dining salon, cabin steward and stewardess, bath steward, and deck steward).

     It is also to be noted that bookings should be made not later than January 31, 1928, in order that comfortable accommodations may be assured. This is especially true of those sailing the latter part of June or the first part of July, and those returning the latter part of August or first part of September. This involves the payment of one-fourth the passage money, the balance to be paid not later than three weeks before sailing. Passengers must know the name of the vessel on which they intend to sail in order to obtain a passport.

     A Vise must be obtained for every country visited, the cost of this varying somewhat. That to England is $10.00.

     Miss Florence Roehner, Bryn Athyn, Pa., is an official agent of the Cunard Steamship Company, Ltd., for the Cunard and Anchor Lines. She will be glad to furnish information regarding ocean passage, tours in Europe, Traveller's Cheques, etc., and to book passages, arrange tours, and sell cheques.

     It is proposed to publish each month further information regarding the Assembly as plans develop.
     GEORGE DE CHARMS,
          Secretary.

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ACCOMMODATING THE TRUTH 1927

ACCOMMODATING THE TRUTH       J. POTTER, F.R.A.S       1927


[Frontispiece: Photograph of Rev. R. J. Tilson and F. E. Gyllenhaal.]

NEW CHURCH LIFE
VOL. XLVII NOVEMBER, 1927 No. 11
     (A paper read at the British Assembly, 1927.)

     At the British Assembly held in Colchester last year, great prominence was accorded the subject of New Church Education. The view was expressed that the Christian World is so antagonistic to our Doctrines, and so indifferent to them, that it is a waste of time, money and energy on our part to prosecute missionary efforts in that direction. It was affirmed that the Christian World has no use for the Heavenly Doctrines; that, on the one hand, people are absorbed in the acquisition of wealth, and, on the other, are wholly given up to the pursuit of worldly and sensual pleasures. Under these circumstances, it was maintained, the wise policy of the General Church and the Academy is to devote their resources, both financial and intellectual, to the education of the children of New Church parents. We all know how successful those efforts have been, and everybody earnestly desires that those efforts should be continued and extended as far as circumstances permit. The Academy of the New Church having laid a firm foundation for the present and future education of our children and young people, we should endeavor to ascertain whether there are indications of Divine Providence that steps ought to be taken to bring a knowledge of the Heavenly Doctrines to the so-called Christian World. I think those indications are quite obvious.

     It is not denied, of course, that the vast majority of people in the Christian World are indifferent to religion, and that they care only for wealth, luxury and worldly pleasures; but it is our duty to inquire whether there is not a remnant among them who are sincerely religious, who are honest, conscientious, straight-living citizens, who are what the Writings call the "simple good," and who possibly would be responsive to our teaching, and gladly and joyfully receive the Heavenly Doctrines, if presented to them in a form they could understand.

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I think there are many such.

     Only recall the casual meeting in a train in Norway of Mr. Baeckstrom and a business man of Bergen, who recognized Mr. Baeckstrom from having seen his photograph in the newspapers. (NEW CHURCH LIFE, 1927, p. 370.) They talked of the Heavenly Doctrines for hours during a long journey, and although the stranger knew nothing previously of New Church teaching, several times there were tears in his eyes; and when at last they parted, he firmly pressed Mr. Baeckstriim's hand, saying, "God bless you for coming to Bergen! There we shall see each other again, I hope." On this, Mr. Baeckstrom's second trip to Norway, 152 people attended his first public lecture at Oslo, and 270 attended his second lecture, each person paying for admission, while on the whole trip he actually sold New Church books to the value of over ?45.

     It may be argued that conditions in Norway are very different from those in England, the United States, Canada and other countries of the Christian World, and that Norwegians are of a different genius and character. This argument may fairly be set aside as one without any foundation. My contention is that if the methods employed in Norway, if the Evangel of the Second Advent could be proclaimed in other countries, in a form that people could understand, the result would be as successful and gratifying as was experienced in that country.

     Missionary work in the Old Church has not yet been seriously attempted by the General Church, because the belief has been so strongly held that all efforts in that direction would be quite useless, and that our energies could be more profitably concentrated upon the work of imparting New Church education to our own children. I feel convinced, however, that Divine Providence has recently afforded such unmistakable indications that there is a rich harvest among the "simple good" of the Christian World, that if the General Church adopts proper methods, and employs rational means, that harvest may be gathered in, and a great accession of members of the Old Church may well be the gratifying result.

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     If our missionary efforts in the past have been relatively fruitless, may it not have been because our methods were wrong, and because we have not accommodated the Truth of the Heavenly Doctrines to the capacity and perception of strangers to those Doctrines? We have yet to make the experiment in public lectures of a popular character, of house-to-house distribution of New Church literature, and of judicious advertizing in daily and local newspapers. It is true that some Societies advertize their services and doctrinal classes in local newspapers; but having thus invited the public to attend, can it be said that any attempt has been made to accommodate our Doctrines to a public ignorant of their character and significance? They hear the Writings spoken of as the Word of the Lord; they hear a profound exposition of the internal sense of the Old or New Testament; they listen to a Third Lesson which sometimes consists of a Memorable Relation or of a reading from the Spiritual Diary. Can we wonder that those people are mystified and bewildered, and that they form quite an erroneous opinion of the teaching of the New Church?

     I venture to affirm that even our own young people do not always understand the exposition of the Doctrines as usually presented at our services and doctrinal classes. It has been argued that the priest should preach up to the best educated and the most intelligent of his congregation. With this view, however, I do not agree. The older members of a society have regularly read and studied the Old and New Testaments and the Writings for many years, and can very well take care of themselves. But if we are to retain the interest of our young people, great care must be taken to provide spiritual nourishment of a nature and quality that may be easily assimilated and digested by them. In my opinion, our younger members would derive much greater benefit, and would manifest more interest, if the instruction given them was of a simple, educational and interesting character. That the Heavenly Doctrines of the New Jerusalem can be presented in such a form is proved by the phenomenal success attending the public lectures of the pioneers of the New Church. Mention need only be made of the works of Robert Hindmarsh, Joseph Proud and Samuel Noble, later of Dr. Bayley, Thomas Child and Chauncey Giles, and recently of Mr. Baeckstrom in Sweden and Norway.

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     If the General Church is successfully to prosecute missionary work among the "simple good" in the Old Church, the presentation of the Heavenly Doctrines must be accommodated and graduated to the intelligence and comprehension of those people. Generals should first be given, particulars later. In his valuable book, the Science of Exposition, Bishop W. F. Pendleton remarks: "The Word is to be expounded on all planes, even the historical, and thus accommodated to the states that are to receive it. A function of the parent in the home, as of the priest in the Church, is to accommodate the Word according to the capacity of reception with those who are taught."

     We read in the Arcana Celestia: "In the Word are essential truths, but in the literal sense are truths which are accommodated to the apprehension of those who are in external worship." Again it is stated in the same work: "Divine Truth is not received by anyone unless it be accommodated to his apprehension." Throughout the Writings there is much teaching to the same effect, namely, that Divine Truth, in order to be received, must be accommodated to the various states and conditions of mankind in general.

     There is an exact parallel between the education of children and the initiation of members of the Old Church into the Heavenly Doctrines. Each must first be taught introductory truths in the simplest form. Even Swedenborg, the Revelator and Herald of the Second Advent, the man who lived consciously in both the spiritual and natural worlds at the same time, was gradually prepared by the Lord for his great office. His biography, and especially the Spiritual Diary, prove conclusively, not only that his transition from a philosopher to a theologian was a gradual one, but also that his spiritual world experience and his apprehension of Divine Truth were accommodated and graduated to his progressive states of perception. The Writings inform us that the Lord Himself tempers His Divine so that the angels may endure His presence; and when He came and dwelt among us, it was by assuming our human nature, and thus accommodating Himself to men.

     That numbers of people are skeptical of the teaching of the Churches, is proved by the fact that a little while ago one of our great daily papers invited twelve popular writers to give their views of religion, and that nearly all expressed themselves as dissatisfied with the teaching of the various sects in the Christian World; also that many of these literary men, in stating their own views of religion, came surprisingly near to our own Doctrines.

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     That there is among Christians a Widespread dissatisfaction with their own doctrines, and a longing for something better in the Old Church, was strikingly shown in a paper read by the Rev. Julian K. Smyth, at the Swedenborg Congress in London in 1910. In it he quoted a statement made by Dr. G. A. Gordon, an acknowledged leader of the Congregational Church in America, who said: "The loudest call at the present time is for the man who shall fathom the Word that is nigh our humanity. There is little hope for the profounder and more vital ascertainment of the content of the Christ fact and conception, unless there shall be sent from God a man with the gift of sight. He will possess the equipment of learning, and he will surprise the world with new revelations of the eternal realities of Christian faith." We might well reply to Dr. Gordon: "Such a man has been sent; let us introduce him to you."

     Another prominent preacher, Dr. Howard Robbins, preaching at St. Margarets, Westminster, on June 8th, 1924, said: "What conversion is to the individual, revivals of religion are to the Church. Every now and then, when things have appeared to be at their worst, suddenly there has come a change, great, authentic, unmistakable, reminding men of the first Pentecost. This is what the world is waiting for today. What is needed is a healing and renewing which can only come through a great revival of religion. In the interest people are taking in religious problems, in the books being written, in the questions men are asking, in the very doubts which trouble them, there are indications that it is approaching. In faith and hope and quiet courage we should be making ready for the dawn of a new day."

     In the face of such pronouncements as these, are we, as New Churchmen, deliberately to close our eyes to facts as palpable as the noon-day sun! Are we to turn a deaf ear to hopes and aspirations so forcibly and earnestly expressed by leaders of the consummated Church? Is it not our bounden duty to bring a knowledge of the Heavenly Doctrines to these People who are searching for something better than they now have?

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     Surely it is evident that, among the simple good of the Christian World, there is a fair and promising field for our missionary work, and that a bountiful harvest is waiting to be gathered in. The Lord, having bestowed upon us the inestimable privilege of a knowledge of the glorious Truths of the Heavenly Doctrine, revealed from Heaven to the New Church at His Second Advent, it surely will appear that our love for those Doctrines, our gratitude to the Lord, and charity to our fellow men, will prompt and encourage us to spread abroad a knowledge of those things we hold so dear and sacred, that others may be blessed as we have been blessed. So shall we be doing our part in hastening that glorious time when the Golden Age shall return to the earth, and when "the knowledge of the Lord shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea."
REMEMBRANCE DAYS 1927

REMEMBRANCE DAYS       Rev. F. E. GYLLENHAAL       1927

     FOR ARMISTICE DAY-NOVEMBER ELEVENTH.

     "To be stones of remembrance." (Exodus 28:12.)

     The Lord commanded Moses that garments should be made for Aaron, who was to be high priest in the congregation of the Children of Israel,-garments of stated design, one of which, the ephod, should have on the shoulders two onyx stones, upon which were to be engraved the names of the sons of Israel, six on each stone, according to their birth. The two stones, with their inscriptions, were to be a perpetual remembrance of the names of the twelve sons of Israel.

     Primarily the two stones, with their twelve names, were to bring the Children of Israel to the Lord's remembrance, in which case they represented and now signify God's eternal mercy and His preservation of good and truth, and thus of all things of the church; but they were also for the Children of Israel for a remembrance of their fathers, and of the Lord's mercy toward them, by which they had been preserved and abundantly blessed. (A. C. 9849.) Thus the two onyx stones, with their twelve names, were principally for remembrance of Divine and spiritual mercies, and as such they served to perpetuate the knowledge of that which they represented and signified, and accordingly preserved the great means by which the Children of Israel, if they availed themselves of it, could continue to be worthy of the Divine mercy and its blessings.

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     The Word of God contains many other examples of memorials. And it tells of remembrance days,-of days set apart for specific purposes,-the faithful observance of which would perpetuate a knowledge of those purposes, and thereby would be a powerful means of preserving the human race, or that portion of it which remembered, from evil, and of inspiring it to a purer, nobler and higher life.

     The sabbath was the principal remembrance day of the Jewish Church. "Remember the sabbath day!" was the Divine command. But why was the sabbath to be remembered? The Third Commandment of the Decalogue tells why; and to that explanation we may add that the sabbath day represented a great event that was to come and which was to change universally and singularly the life of the world, or human life everywhere on earth. In the supreme sense, the sabbath day represented the complete glorification of the Lord Jesus Christ; and the supremacy which was to be acknowledged as belonging to Jehovah, who had made heaven and earth and everything in them, represented, and even was the same as, that supremacy which the risen Lord claimed when He declared, "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth." (Matthew 28:18.) These things were not known prior to the advent; yet: it was known then that the sabbath was a remembrance day representative of a great event toward which all life and events were moving. Its position at the end of the week was indicative of that. And it was set apart for the purpose of enabling people, by the proper observance of it, by intelligent remembrance of it, to prepare for the Lord's advent and the coming of His kingdom, and at the same time to prepare individually for their own death and resurrection.

     And the sabbath day, in a relative sense, represented the conjunction of the risen and glorified Lord with the heavens, and through the heavens with the church on earth, thus with the human race. So, too, it represented the conjunction of good and truth, or of spiritual heat and light, in every man remembering the day, by which conjunction, and the consequent, even simultaneous, reciprocal conjunction with the Lord, the man would be saved and receive eternal life.

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     This remembrance day, by reason of its extensive representative character, was so important that the Lord continued it after His advent, and inspired His Christian Church to continue it. But in the Christian Church the position of the day was changed from the seventh to the first day of the week, in order to mark the fact that the Lord had come, and had been resurrected and completely glorified; as also to signify that He should be First in the loves and thoughts and actions of Christians. It is still the greatest remembrance day of the year, and should be so regarded by all who desire to be worthy of the name "Christian." It is consecrated by the Lord to special and particularly congregational worship of the Lord. Not that the Lord demands or requires worship of Himself for His own sake, but that man needs to render it to the Lord, in order that he may be receptive, and perpetually receptive, of salvation and eternal life. And the principal means of keeping worship living and pure is instruction in Divine and spiritual things from the Word. Instruction, therefore, is the most important element in all worship, and the sabbath day may now rightly be regarded as a day for such instruction. By sincere instruction the true significance of the day is perpetuated, and its purposes are fulfilled by the consequent redemption and salvation of men. Sunday, therefore, should be dedicated to the worship of the Lord.

     The Passover days were also days of remembrance to the Children of Israel. The annual feast was a perpetual remembrance of liberation from bondage by Jehovah, and represented the liberation of men from damnation at the advent of the Lord.

     The Old Testament records many covenants made between Jehovah and the Children of Israel, and between Jehovah and various men; and some memorial or sign was always taken for remembrance of the covenant. By such means a recollection of Divine and spiritual things was kept alive with that nation. And although their nature was such that they developed no love for spiritual and Divine things, nevertheless they were serviceable to the Divine in His preparation of the whole human race on this earth for His incarnation.

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     The Christian Church has had many days for remembrance, but most of them have been adopted voluntarily. In fact, the Lord did not command the Church which He established to observe any day, not even the sabbath, but He instituted the Holy Supper, and commanded its observance in remembrance of Him. Even in this instance He did not specify the time of its celebration; nor did He command that a man should take it more than once. The freedom given to all who would take up the cross and follow Him was in every respect complete and genuine; and in the enjoyment of it, the truth, which alone made it possible, and which alone could preserve it, gave perception of the useful applications of the Lord's doctrine, and at the same time imparted an elasticity which permitted of a gradual development of the Church, of its extension to every nation and race or universality, and of its accommodation and adaptation to every man, woman and child. The Christian Church, in the exercises of its freedom, rightly decided that the whole of the Lord's doctrine on the subject, and His example in annually keeping the Passover, pointed to the usefulness of a frequent partaking of the Holy Supper. And it should be evident that only its frequent repetition, enjoyed by all of the communion of saints, could preserve perpetually the remembrance of its significance in the minds and hearts of all, and thereby make possible the universal accomplishment of the purposes for which it was instituted.

     But the Christian Church gradually adopted remembrance days, chief among which have been these: Christmas Day, in remembrance of God's incarnation, or of the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ; Palm Sunday, in remembrance of the Lord's triumphant ascent as King to Jerusalem, representing the supremacy of Divine Truth, its beneficent dominion over the church and the world, and its acknowledgment by the church; Good Friday, in remembrance of His crucifixion, which represented the total rejection of the Lord and His Word by the consummated church, and the inherent hatred of Him, and opposition to Him, of all that is evil and false and merely worldly and utterly selfish; and Easter Sunday, in remembrance of His resurrection and glorification, which represents the Lord triumphant, and thus the certain accomplishment of all His purposes, all of which relate to the redemption and salvation of men, and their acceptance of eternal life from Him.

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     Great remembrance days are these! They are like treasure-houses full of the marvellous riches of the earth. The recollections which they hold have universal extension on earth, and in heaven, and above the heavens to the Lord God Almighty. And they bring down from Him out of heaven into the world the hope of universal deliverance from evil, of universal peace on earth and universal good-will among men. What greater and more glorious hopes can we have? Are they not enough to inspire us to a truly Christian life!

     To our national remembrance days there has now been added the one we are solemnly celebrating. It is unique in the purpose of its origin, in its immediate, universal appeal, and in the fact that it is shared by many nations and races which regard it with similar reverence, because it has the same general significance to all. The day is particularly in remembrance of all who fell in battle during the Great War. But it holds a host of other recollections, and directs the thoughts and bends the affections to the living as well as the dead,-to all who served their country in that great struggle; to the men, and women, and children, who helped to defend the right and oppose the wrong, and to achieve a victory over the infernal influences and the miserable dupes of hell that threatened the world with a destruction of all that is held good and noble.

     That terrible event is still too close for us to contemplate it unmoved. Nor can we yet see all the lessons it involved for us and our posterity, with such clearness as to enable us to apply them with the certainty of spiritual conviction to national and international life and its complex relations. But by steadfastly and perpetually raising our thoughts to that other world, wherein those who died now live, and to which we are all drawing closer day by day; and by reasonably bending our affections to the doing of the works that will effect a reformation and regeneration of the national and international life; we shall be given by the God of heaven and earth in the light of His eternal truth, and in the warmth of His infinite love, the perception and will so to live that the Great War shall not have been fought in vain, nor the victory rendered void of good, and that our posterity may be assured a security unknown in the world hitherto.

     We celebrate this day, then, not in remembrance of the dead, the maimed, the miserable, the uncomforted, but in remembrance of the noble deeds by which they testified to a God of love and a kingdom of heaven.

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We hold in remembrance, not the hatred, malice, cunning, deceit, cruelty, all the wickedness which ran riot during those four terrible years of warfare, but the love, service, kindness and goodness which came to the surface of mankind and gave assurance that the Lord's coming and His great redemption had not been in vain. Some recollection of the evil of those days is inevitable, but our reverence is for that which is Divine among men. We do not worship the dead, nor indeed the living among men, but Him who is Life Itself. And as long as we remain true to the worship of Him only, this great Day of Remembrance will be a powerful means of redeeming us from the power of hell and its evil, and of preparing us for greater, and truer, and nobler efforts to bring to pass the coming of the kingdom of heaven and the universal doing of the will of our Heavenly Father. May His Divine Truths ever be our "stones of remembrance." Amen.

     Lessons: Psalm 103. John 15:10-17. A. C. 8885.
VANISHING SHADOWS OF THE WORD 1927

VANISHING SHADOWS OF THE WORD       Rev. R. J. TILSON       1927

     (A paper read at the British Assembly, July 30, 1927.)

     The term "Shadow" in the title of this paper is used with the meaning given to its equivalent in the Letter of the Divine Word, and in agreement with the definition given of the term in a leading Dictionary: "Obscurity or deprivation of light, apparent on a surface, and representing the form of the body which intercepts the rays of light." (Webster.) In the original of the Old Testament, the word used for shadow is tza-lem, the fundamental signification of which is to cover, or to veil.

     Now the Word, which "in the beginning was with God, and was God," has many shadows,-many veils and coverings, rendered necessary by the finite and fallen condition of mankind. Prior to the Fall, the coverings of the Word itself were found in the varying perceptions of the men of the Most Ancient Church; for those perceptions were the Word written upon their hearts.

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To those of the Ancient Church, the Word assumed the coverings or shadows of the allegories which made up that Word. It was the first written Word; for fiction may be said to have been the first form of literature. Examples of this shadowing or covering of the Ward are given in the Word of the Old Testament in the first nine or eleven chapters, and in the other extracts from the Ancient Word which are to be found in the Old Testament.

     The lowest and densest veilings of the Word are to be found in the Old Testament Scriptures, in the histories of the Jewish people, which formed the "density of a cloud" mentioned in Exodus 19:9, where it is recorded that the Lord said unto Moses, "Behold, I come unto thee in the density of a cloud." In these histories, the Lord shadowed the mighty truths by which the glorification of His assumed human, and the regeneration of man, were made possible. Thus were the words of the Lord in Isaiah realized: "Verily, Thou art a God that hidest Thyself, O God of Israel, the Savior." (45:15.)

     Dealing thus with the term "shadow" in relation to the Word, it is of no little interest to find that man himself is called a "shadow" in the allegorical Word,-that Word of the Ancient Church, for the Hebrew word translated "image" in Genesis 1:26, 27 also means a "shadow." In the statement that " God created man in His image, in the image of God created He him," the word translated "image" is the self-same root-word which is used in Psalm 23:4, "Yeah though I walk through the valley of the shadow, of death, I will fear no evil."

     The Creator said, "Let us make man," to teach and emphasize the great truth that, in the regeneration of mankind, the Lord uses the ministry of angels (A. C. 50), which angels are also, in their turn, shadows on a higher plane; for they are instrumentalities, manifestations, of the Divine Truth, by which alone man can be regenerated,-that Divine Truth which is the "veriest reality " (A. C. 5272 2, 6880e), and which was God, and is " God with us."

     Angels and men, therefore, are shadows of the Divine by creation. They are but finite, and that very finition provides the plane of interception, inasmuch as angels and men are not life, but merely forms receptive of life; they are not, in themselves, actives, but passives gifted with the power of reaction.

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Yea, everything below the Infinite is relatively a shadow, a veiling, a covering of that Divine Truth which is the Veriest Reality, and within which is the Divine Good. These two essentials, Divine Good and Divine Truth,-are one in the Divine Itself, and are its essential Being and manifestation (A. C. 2803, 6880), even as the Divine Name YEHOWAH itself implies; for its very composition expresses Is, Was, and Is To Come. (A. R. 13 2.)

     In the Arcana Celestia it is written: "With respect to the Divine in the Word, the case is as follows: The Divine Itself is in the supreme sense of the Word, because therein is the Lord. The Divine is also in the internal sense, because therein is the Lord's kingdom in the heavens; the Divine is also in the literal sense of the Word, because therein is the Lord's kingdom on earth; hence this sense is called the external, and also the natural sense, for in it are gross appearances very remote from the Divine; nevertheless, all things in general and particular therein are Divine." (A. C. 3439.)

     Thus, though all things of the Word are Divine in every one of its several senses, yet on each plane the Word itself, as it is in the Divine Himself, is shadowed by the plane upon which it is given, and by which it is made manifest or known. Still, because it is spiritually lawful and right to call the instrumental by the name of the essential (A. C. 5948), therefore the Divine Truth, on whichever plane it is revealed, may justly be called the Word of God.

     RELATIVES AND APPEARANCES.

     To appreciate this fact rightly, one may with benefit appeal to the interesting doctrine of Relatives, bearing in mind the inspired statement: "Whatsoever is said in the Word is to be understood relatively to that of which it is said." (A. C. 10265). From the teaching of the True Christian Religion, no. 62, we learn that "relatives have respect to the disposition of a variety and multiplicity of things in such an order that they fit together and harmonize." It should be borne in mind, however, that relatives are not opposites, for "things relative are between what is greatest and least of the same thing." (C. L. 425, A. C. 2694, 5356.) Further, not only may the doctrine of relatives be profitably appealed to in the study of that which is now under consideration, but in addition the doctrine of Appearances will shed a brilliant light upon the theme now engaging attention.

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     Again we read: "But it is to be known that never are any truths pure with man, nor even with an angel, that is, without appearances; each and all are appearances of truth; but still they are received by the Lord for truths if there is good in them." (A. C. 3207.) Thus appearances of truth, as shadowing forth the real truth, are very necessary in the presentation of the Word. Angels need them; for it is written: "The angels of the higher heavens do indeed speak from appearances, but they think from the truth." (D. P. 162) And again: "There must always be some appearances from sensual things on which the thought may rest." (A. C. 2209.) In the Spiritual Diary 3428, Preface, there are enumerated "appearances according to which it is allowable to speak but not rightly to think."

     Appearances are indeed part and parcel of our finite being. The only Reality is the Lord, and we are only relatively real when we are the images-the shadows-of the Almighty. Man is born; indeed, that from appearances and shadows he may go on to relative realities; and in that respect "man never is, but always is to be." "Never is," because, to be a man, he must ever grow in the life of being "born again"; and "always is to be," inasmuch as he can never attain unto the end of his finition, still less emerge into the Infinite.

     All appearances, on their own respective plane, are realities, and all so-called realities are, from the plane above them, but appearances. But further concerning this when we come to deal with the true idea of "vanishing."

     TIME AND STATE.

     A wonderful illustration of this inter-relation of seeming realities and of appearances is given us by the Lord in the Arcana Celestia, in the spiritual interpretation of Joseph's natural interpretation of the dream of Pharaoh, as narrated in Genesis XLI. At the beginning of the revealing of the spiritual sense of that narrative, the following statement occurs in no. 5253:

     "There are, in general, three things which vanish from the sense of the letter of the Word, when the internal sense is unfolded, namely, that which is of time, that which is of space, and that which is of person."

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Latin:" Sunt tria in genere, quae ex sensu literae Verbi pereunt, dum fit sensus internus, nempe id quod est temporis, id quod est spatii, et id quod est personae."

     Now these three things,-those which are of time, of space, and of person,-perish, or vanish, from the sense of the letter of the Word when the internal sense is present, because time, space and person not only obtain, but also largely dominate life in this world, and very rightly so. They are the necessities of this world, being the natural outcome of the inertia of matter. Life here would be impossible and unbearable without them.

     Truly, indeed, did P. J. Bailey write in his "Festus" (1839):

"We live in deeds, not years;
In thoughts, not breaths;
In feelings, not in figures on a dial."

     But that applies to another plane of being than this mundane one; and is undoubtedly the expression of an innate desire in man to free himself, as to his mind, from the limitations of mere time and space. Herein is a confirmation of the spiritual teaching that the soul is, and must be, free from the claims of time; but it by no means follows that the body ought to be or can be so.

     There is no time in heaven; the angels know it not. Time is too thick a shadow for life in that inner world. Therefore, the spiritual or internal sense is above time, and pays no heed to its confining influences. But whilst there is no time in heaven, and thus no time-demands in the spiritual sense, which is mainly for heaven, and for those who are heavenly-minded, yet there is a perfectly analogous condition there to that which is of time here. It is written: "Angels do not know what time is, although with them there is a successive progression of all things, the same as in the world, and with no difference whatever, for the reason that in heaven, instead of years and days, there are changes of state." (H. H. 163.)

     Thus with the angels there is a perfect equivalent of time in the successive progression of states. And between time and times in this world, and the successive progress of states in the other world, there is the ever-living bond of correspondence,-that all-pervading link between heaven and earth.

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That which the angels have spiritually, man has naturally, and, though of a far different texture, these two correspondential things make a one in the use which they serve on their several and distinct planes. So much is this the case that it is written: "When these angelic ideas, which are spiritual, flow into men, they are turned in a moment, and of themselves, into natural ideas proper to man, which correspond perfectly to the spiritual ideas." And it is added: "Neither angels nor men know that this takes place, but such is all influx of heaven into man." (H. H. 168. See Swedenborg's experience with an angel ignorant of time.)

     Does the natural mind suggest that there will be a glorious muddle in that other world, in the absence of time and the presence of states which fluctuate and change so rapidly? Ah! the natural mind, we are taught, is prone to see things upside down. (Invitation 22.) One of the marvelous things of that "other world" is that state governs there, even more exactingly and more surely than time governs here. Those of a similar state will dwell together, according to their harmonizing variety; and this similarity of state will produce the utmost order, and there will be no muddle there; for in heaven muddle, haste and hustle are unknown. Order reigns supreme in that inner, higher, and more real world.

     Now, because of the exact correspondence between time and state, though time does not actually exist in the spiritual world, there are nevertheless appearances of time, even in heaven. There is the shadow of time there; for, as an example, is it not written, in the chapter on "The Joys of Heaven" in the book of the Angelic Word, called Conjugial Love, that the angel guide said to the novitiates that "every morning, from out of the houses around the public places, are heard the sweetest songs of virgins and young girls." (C. L. 17.) Again, he said to them: "It is not yet noon" (no. 13); and yet again, it is said that "toward evening there came a runner, who invited them to a wedding to be celebrated the following day." (No. 19.) "Morning," "noon," "evening" and "the following day" mean time, at least as an appearance; but it was governed in reality by state, before which, as a natural thought, time vanishes. The "shadow," time, vanishes before the relative reality of state. In reality, time is only an appearance, as is often discerned even in this world; for "time flies" when the state is agreeable, but passes very slowly when the state is unpleasant.

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     Time, therefore, in its apparent actuality, belongs to this world, and so it belongs to the letter of the Word, which is like its body. But time changes into state when the soul of the Word, its internal sense, is in the mind; as is evidenced by the statement in the Apocalypse: "There was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour." (Ch. 8:1.) In itself, as to its letter, this statement conveys but a natural idea to the mind, not conducive to any deep thought; but when the letter vanishes, and the spiritual sense comes into view, then, devoid of its shadow, the truth beams forth that "the angels of the Lord's spiritual kingdom were greatly amazed" at the state of those who were in faith alone; for it is added, "Half an hour signifies greatly, because an hour signifies a full state." And further the spiritual light beams forth that "a half signifies as much as corresponds, and as much as is sufficient." (A. R. 389. See also A. E. 487.)

     In Revelation 10:6, the letter says, "There should be time no longer," which is difficult of apprehension; but when the letter vanishes at the shining of the spirit, this great truth stands forth: "That there cannot be any state of the Church or any Church, unless one God be acknowledged, and that the Lord is He." (A. R. 476; A. E. 608-610.) Thus the vanishing of the natural thought of time, which is a shadow, gives place to the brighter light of spiritual truth.

     SPACE AND STATE.

     The second of the trinity of things which vanish from the letter of the Word when the spiritual sense is known is that of Space. As with time, so with space. Both give place to state when the shadow of the letter perishes at the brighter light of the spirit, but with this difference, that time gives place to states of truth, while space gives Place to states of good. (A. C. 3938, 8325.)

     It is written: "There are no spaces and times in heaven, but instead of them states; states of good, or being, for spaces; and states of truth, or manifestation, for times." (A. C. 8325; also 8397, 8898. S. D. 5623-5627. A. E. 870. Div. Wis. VII.) But it is also written: "All things in heaven appear, just as in the world, to be in place and space, and yet the angels have no notion or idea of place and space." (H. H. 191.)

     In that inner world, thought is where, in this world, time would be; and affection is where, in this world, space would be.

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This with gradations, as it were; for in the world of spirits, space and time appear much more real, and "as something," than they do in the heavens. (A. C. 2625.) Further we read: "Although there are spaces in heaven as in the world, still nothing there is reckoned in accordance with spaces, but in accordance with states. The primary cause of this is, that the Lord is present to everyone in the measure of his love and faith, and it is in accordance with the Lord's presence that all things appear near or far away; for it is from this that all things in the heavens are determined." (H. H. 198, 199.) And in a previous paragraph it is succinctly stated that "spaces in the heavens are simply the external conditions corresponding to the internal states." (No. 193)

     In the spiritual idea, to be near to anyone is to be in similar states as to affections and thoughts. Hence married partners, if the conjugial is to be with them, must be of one mind and heart, each seeking to love that which the other loves, and to think that which the other thinks, and both under the guidance of the Lord in His revelation of truth. To this end there is the greatest use in reading together, and in patiently and sympathetically talking over that which is read. Thought is spiritual presence, and must precede love, which is spiritual conjunction.

     The True Christian Religion teaches that "spaces and times were created together with this world." (No. 27.) Space, therefore, is of this world, and so also belongs to the letter of the Word, which is peculiarly for this world; but it vanishes as a shadow, if, when reading the letter, one raises the thought to the spiritual sense, as revealed. This is evidenced by the fact that when the Lord, on one occasion, left Judea for Galilee, it is said that "He must needs go through Samaria," that He came to a city "which is called Sychar," and that "Jacob's well was there." (John 4:3-6.) This is interesting on the natural plane as an historical fact, and deals with a beautiful phase of the Lord's life on earth as a Man among men. But, in all reverence, what a mere shadow it is, in comparison with the living meaning of its spiritual sense. Samaria is, spiritually considered, the spiritual church; Sychar, formerly called Shechem, signifies "interior truth," and the well, or rather, the Fountain of Jacob, signifies the Word.

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Work this out, by careful thought, in the light of this passage from the Arcana Celestia: "Inasmuch as the 'Fountain of Jacob' signifies the Word, 'water' truth, and 'Samaria' the spiritual church, as appears abundantly from the Word, therefore the Lord discoursed with the woman of Samaria, and taught that the doctrine of truth is from Himself, or, what is the same thing, from His Word. It is a 'fountain of water springing up into eternal life,' and the truth itself is the living water." (A. C. 2702; A. E. 537)

     Does not this take you nearer unto the Sun of heaven? Is not the letter a "shadow" in comparison? And, when recognizing that the letter is also Divine; indeed, that it is the Golden Casket, holding Divine Truth in its holiness, its fullness, and its power;-recognizing this, yet, in the brilliancy of the internal sense, does not the letter, in itself, seem but a vanishing shadow? And does not the earthly locality give place to the heavenly state of thought and love? Hence, that which in natural thought is place becomes state in spiritual conception. And realizing this, may not one adopt the language of the poet, and ask: "What if earth be but the shadow of heaven; and things therein each to other like, more than on earth is thought"? (Milton, Paradise Lost, Book V.)

     PERSON AND ESSENCE.

     The last of the "three things which perish from the letter of the Word, when it becomes the internal sense," is that of Person. Of all the three, perhaps that of Person makes the darkest shadow. Personalities are blinding and suffocating. Hence the teaching: "The idea of persons and places bounds the thought, but an idea abstracted from persons and places extends itself into heaven on every side. Such an idea is spiritual." (A. E. 405.) And also: "In angelic speech, the person is not mentioned, but that which is in the person, and makes it." (A. R. 879. Also A. C. 7002, 1876.)

     The passage from the Arcana Celestia, which mentions the "three things" that vanish from the letter when the internal sense is known, contains also the following remarkable teaching: "The reason why, in the spiritual world, there is no respect had to anything determined to a person, is, that looking to a person in conversation contracts and limits the idea, but does not extend and render it unlimited; whereas what is extended and unlimited in conversation causes it to be universal, and also to comprehend and express things innumerable and likewise ineffable." (A. C. 5253)

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     The idea of person, also, when made central or first, is a thick shadow, especially when applied to the Lord. The instrument of the Lord's Second Advent, writing in the Apocalypse Revealed about a master who was instructing some children in the world of spirits concerning heaven, for which they were being prepared, said to them: "Everyone who thinks of God from His Person only, and not from His Essence, thinks materially; so he who thinks of his neighbor from his form only, and not from his quality, thinks materially; and he who thinks of heaven from place only, and not from the love and wisdom which constitute heaven, thinks also materially. Therefore, my pupils, think of God from His Essence, and from that of His Person, and not of His Person, and from this of His Essence." (A. R. 611.)

     To this let there be added the forceful passage: "To love the Lord as a Person, and not uses, is to love Him from self, which is not to love." And further: "Therefore, in heaven, when one sees another, he indeed sees him as a man, but he thinks of him as a use." (Div. Wis. XIII. See also A. E. 973; H. H. 15.)

     Does not this latter teaching from the opened Word confirm the idea of mere personality being a shadow? "He does indeed see him as a man, but he thinks of him as a use." The manly form is the shadow, the use is the relative reality,-the soul of the manly form.

     THE VANISHING SHADOWS.

     This brings us, in conclusion, to the urging of the absolute need of getting a right idea of what is meant by "vanishing,"-"The Vanishing Shadows of the Word." That right idea can only come from the doctrine of Relatives, and, coming thence, will be found of greatest use in the true understanding of the letter of the Word.

     The careful student of the Writings of the Church, when he comes to the Twelfth Chapter of Genesis in the Arcana Celestia (no. 1401), will meet with these words: "True histories begin here." And, as to the spiritual sense of the Word in those histories, he is thus instructed: "The internal sense is so circumstanced that all things in general and particular are to be understood abstractedly from the letter, just as if the letter did not exist; for in the internal sense is the soul or life of the Word, which does not appear unless the sense of the letter as it were passes away. (A. C. 1405)

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     Be it noted that the Latin word translated "passes away," or it vanishes," is evanesces, which means passes away, or vanishes, or evanesces. The Latin word used in the passage which speaks of the three things that vanish from the Letter when the spiritual sense is disclosed, is pereunt, from the word pereo, which, the Dictionary says, means "to pass away, come to nothing, to vanish, to disappear." (Lewis and Short.)

     The above quoted passage continues with this pregnant sentence: "Thus do the angels, from the Lord, perceive the Word." (A. C. 1405.) Now, the New Churchman is not expected to go to the Word as even the most learned and devout member of the First Christian Church would go. To the New Church is given the inestimable blessing to know the soul of the Word. And from the soul to the body, that is, from the Writings to the Letter, the New Churchman must look at the Word. To proceed, in the understanding of the Word, from the Letter to the Writings, is to act from that natural mind which, "in spiritual things, sees everything in inverted order," that is, upside down. (Invit. 22.) And when the New Churchman follows the true order in his study of Divine Truth, then he will find that, as he rises in his thought to a higher plane, the lower plane of thinking will "vanish," will "disappear," will "perish." For, seeing in the more glorious light of the Spiritual Word-the "Angelic Word " (A. C. 4122), he will lose sight of the mere literal meaning, and thus, relatively, the literal meaning will vanish. It is said relatively, because the Word, in all its senses, is related to the Lord. In its highest sense, He is the Word; and, as the Word, by gradations, even to the lowest,-the Letter,-He was made " Flesh." (John 1:14)

     But now, can the Word, in any of its senses, really "vanish"? To natural thought, it can; for it vanishes when it is not understood. (S. S. 50) But to spiritual thought, which is the really rational thought,-the thought in which the angels are-the Word, in none of its senses, can or does ever "vanish." Listen to the following from the Word of the Second Advent:

     "The Word is like a Divine man; the literal sense is, as it were, his body, but the internal sense is, as it were, his soul; hence it is evident that the literal sense lives by means of the internal sense.

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It appears as if the literal sense vanishes or dies by means of the internal sense, whereas, on the contrary, it does not vanish, still less die, but lives by means of the internal sense." (A. C. 8943 2. See also A. C 5948 2)

     The "Shadows" of the Word,-its varying revealments,-therefore, do not vanish in the sense of ceasing to be, but only in the sense of giving place, in the mind, to more interior declarations of Divine Truth. Nothing of the Word can ever die or perish. It is the bond of communication between the world and all the heavens. In this world, it finds its darkest shadows, and that in the Word of the Old Testament. This, because of the character of the inhabitants of this world, in general, and of this earth, in particular.

     Time is absolutely necessary here; space is vital here; person and personality are essential here. Their spiritual equivalents obtain, as equally necessary, in the world beyond, and reach unto the Divine Itself, in the "Divine Manifesting." In both worlds, thought and being need to find an ultimate in a form or figure. This is very definitely taught in A. E. 151 as follows: "The thought which is not determined to some particular form is diffused in all directions; and what is thus diffused is dissipated." (See also A. C. 2209.)

     Passing hence, the soul of man needs its limbus, composed of the "purest things of nature." (T. C. R. 103.) With the angels, the states of thought need the real appearances of time; the states of affection need the real appearances of space; and the performance of uses needs the actual and real appearances of personalities, not in the inconceivable shadows of mere cerebral phantasmagoria, but in the relatively solid shadows of physical forms, the higher, because spiritual "images" of the Great Creator, the One and Only Divine Man.

     The Word of the Lord is our greatest Treasure. It exists in this world in a trinal form of lessening relative "Shadows,"-the Words of the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the Writings; each form taking the man who knows, understands, and lives it, nearer to the Divine Himself, who alone is the Word. In the letter of that Word we get the darkest shadow of Divine Truth suitable to natural thought and life. In the spiritual sense we receive the clearer light for the rational mind.

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By living the truths of that spiritual sense, and forming a true conscience thereby, we prepare a way for the celestial sense to be realized, in the form of inward perceptions. Thus, step by step, leaving the darker shadows behind, by the Lord's Mercy, we shall emerge into the greater brightness of the Eternal Sun of Righteousness, dwelling to all eternity under the shadow of the Almighty Wings of His never-failing Providence.
DRUIDS 1927

DRUIDS       ARTHUR CARTER       1927

     THE PHILOSOPHY OF ANCIENT BRITAIN. By Sir John Daniel; London: Williams and Norgate, Ltd., 1921. 9. 277; 8s. 6d.

     This fascinating volume is a study of early British Druidism in the light of the Science of Correspondences. Erudite, well and clearly written, the amount of unusual information it contains implies on the part of the author a prolonged and diligent research among sources difficult of access or little known. Pioneer work in the interpretation of the past by means of correspondences has been done by such writers, as the Rev. Thomas Wilks, Dr. Garth Wilkinson and Prof. C. T. Odhner, Each future decade, however, should prove more ripe for such performances, since the vast accumulations of knowledge in the present century pertaining to ancient religions, mythology, folk lore, and the languages of remote antiquity, are only paralleled by the progress of the natural sciences.

     So long ago as 1898, the Rev. Thomas Wilks contributed to the NEW CHURCH REPOSITORY a series of articles entitled, "The Druidism of Ancient Britain: its Doctrines, Rites, correspondences, etc., as discovered in ancient British manuscripts, reviewed and compared with those of the Ancient Church." With due acknowledgments, Sir John has made use of these exceedingly thorough articles in the preparation of his work, and New Churchmen will feel gratified that valuable material has thus been rescued from oblivion, and incorporated in the handsome pages of The Philosophy of Ancient Britain.

     That he might be correct in his interpretations of Swedenborg's teachings, Sir John Daniel took the precaution to submit his manuscript for examination to two clergymen of the New Church in England,-the Revs. C. A. Hall and W. H. Claxton.

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And we are further informed that W. Tudor Jones, M.A., Ph.D., who read the book for the publishers prior to its issue, passed the following favorable judgment upon it: "The author, who was unknown to me except by name when I read the MS, possesses, without doubt, a rare mind for producing such a work. It is a great pleasure to find such scholarly attainments, coupled with such clarity of style and diction, in a non-professional writer on philosophy and religion. His whole terminology is exact and scientific in an exceptional degree." A work thus accredited merits more than ordinary attention.

     The prehistoric races of the British Isles,-the men of the Old Stone, the New Stone and the Bronze Ages,-were submerged by the invasions of the Gaels and Celts. A branch of the latter race, known as the Cymry, settled in England, it is conjectured, seven or more centuries before the Christian era. This was the people that resisted Caesar, and that Aulus Plautius subsequently conquered in the interest of Rome.

     Ancient Britain was long supposed to have been a land of wild and warring tribes ruled by a priestly caste called the Druids. This hierarchy exercised an absolute and despotic sway over its votaries, and the Druid's curse was even more dreaded than the Romish bull of excommunication in the Middle Ages. The Britons of that distant time, it is said, worshiped the sun and other heavenly bodies, and practiced the terrible rite of human sacrifice, the manner of which is thus described in the pages of Caesar: "They have cages of immense size, the limbs of which are framed with twisted twigs and filled with living persons. These being set on fire, those within are encompassed by the flames."

     The veracity of these and other statements of a similar character is challenged by Sir John Daniel. In the instance of the famous wicker cages, he maintains that Caesar prepared his Commentaries from material submitted to him by sycophantic correspondents who sought, perhaps, to ingratiate themselves by providing incidents calculated to astonish. And it is not improbable that the mighty Julius, mindful of the audience he was addressing, was not above playing to the gallery.

     However this may be, neither in the doctrines nor the worship of the Druids is there any evidence in support of the beliefs and practices ascribed to them by Roman writes, whose accounts of this remarkable people are singularly scanty.

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The Druids had no idols, but preserved a pure monotheism and inculcated the life of charity in a decadent age; and the Romans, by their brutal policy of extermination, destroyed a civilization intellectually and ethically superior to their own.

     So able a student as Matthew Arnold, after an examination of the literature of the Druids, places them on a level with the philosophers of Athens and Alexandria in point of science, and the most favored of the Biblical Patriarchs in point of religious doctrines. "There existed in the island of Britain," he says, "before and at the time of its invasion by Julius Caesar, a class or caste of under the name of Druids, formed a powerful hierarchy; who were the depositary of great and extensive learning, and possessors of civil power; acquainted with letters, arts and sciences, conversant with the most sublime speculations of geometry, with measuring the magnitude of the earth and' of the world; philosophers of a sublime and penetrating spirit, adding the study of moral philosophy to that of physiology, skilled in mechanics, and acquainted with rhetoric and other polite sciences. The people of whom this remarkable class of gifted men were the priests, the judges and the instructors, were by no means a nation of wild barbarians or painted savages, but a people 'maintaining regular commercial relations with the most polished nations of the world'; who were, when they first colonized the island of Britain, possessed of considerable general information, brought by them from Asia soon after the dispersion of mankind at the building of the Tower of Babel, and had not, at the time of Caesar's arrival, greatly degenerated from their original condition."

     The memorials of the Cymry describe their migration from the east and settlement in Britain, and scholars have long conned them in the endeavor to extract some intelligible meaning, but in vain. These memorials, in the form of poetical triads, are too lengthy for quotation, but the following is a Summary of their contents, in the natural sequence of the events related:

     Hu Gadarn brought the Cymry from the Land of Summer, called Deffrobani (animative high-places), to the Isle of Prydain (Britain), passing in their journey through the vapory sea.

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Before it was inhabited, this isle was called Clas Merddin; afterwards Y Fels Ynys; and when Prydain, the Son of Aedd the Great, organized its government, it was named the Isle of Prydain. Dyfnwal Moelmud was its great lawgiver. Two other tribes which sprung from the primitive Cymry also came,-the Sleogrians from the Land of Gwasgwyn (gentle ascent) and the Brython from the Land of Slydau (flowing breadth). These three tribes came by mutual consent in peace and tranquillity.

     The singular meanings of these Cymric names,-"animative high places," "gentle ascent," and "flowing breadth,"-give them every appearance of possessing a correspondential value. It is not surprising, therefore, that despite the efforts of competent scholars the identification of Deffrobani, Slydau and Gwasgwyn has never gone any further than conjecture. "The simple reason is," says Sir John, "that they are not, in the strict sense, geographical terms at all, but terms significant of spiritual experiences, and applied to those places which were associated with those experiences." In like manner the names of Hu Gadarn, the guide; Prydain, the organizer; and Dyfnwal Moelmud, the lawgiver, are not necessarily to be regarded as actual men, but as personifications of principles.

     It is interesting to follow Sir John in his interpretation of this ancient traditional lore, bearing in mind, of course, that place names represent states, and personal names principles.

     "When we are told that the Cymry came from the Land of Summer which is called Deffrobani (animative high-places), it must mean a land where the knowledge of God was full and ripe like a fruitful summer," and whose people possessed spiritual intelligence for the understanding of spiritual things. "These first comers, then, arrived richly endowed with the treasures of knowledge inherited from the Ancient Church. Those who followed them were not in quite so happy a situation. The Brython came from Slydau, the place of 'flowing breadth,' where they at least were not hemmed in through total ignorance, but where their minds moved with freedom in the broad fields of truth." "The Sleogrians, from the land of Gwasgwyn (gentle ascent), were of another order, for they had taken the first upward steps along the slopes leading from the level of the plain to the 'high places' above. Here we have presented three degrees of religious knowledge or spiritual intelligence which the teaching of correspondences tells us these very terms denote."

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     "The British word 'tawch' (vapor) contains the idea of something offensive to the nostrils," and the vapory sea through which they passed "may mean that the course taken by these early settlers lay among people where the external things of the Ancient Church had been corrupted into gross superstitions, and its truths perverted into false teaching. Such seems to have been the condition of the greater part of Europe, its southern portion in particular, in the early ages when the settlement took place."

     The three names of Britain signify three spiritual states through which it passed, from the time before its settlement to the establishment of order and true religion. Clas Merddin, its first name, means the pervasion of stagnant waters; Y Fels Ynys, the Honey Isle; and the third name, Prydain, the Isle of Beautiful Extension.

     Before the coming of the Cymry, Britain was a region where nothing of the church existed-a land pervaded by stagnant waters. After settlement, and the implantation of the principles of the church, it no more was Clas Merddin, but Y Fels Ynys, the Honey Isle; and when a social state was organized, and the order of government regularly established, it became Prydain, the Isle of Beautiful Extension.

     As to the three personal names in the narrative, it will not be necessary to say more than that Hu Gadarn signifies the Mighty One who pervades, overshadows and inspects; Prydain, the Son of Aedd the Great, represents the order produced by truth out of the natural principle which is disorder; and Dyfnwal Moelmud, a deep laid rampart.

     Such, in barest outline, is Sir John's interpretation of these very old Cymric triads. To what extent his application of correspondences may be regarded as final, we must leave to the scholars of the Church, but step by step he supports each correspondence by an appropriate quotation from the Writings, and it is at least evident that the Cymry possessed an extensive knowledge of this once universal science.

     An especially apposite illustration of this fact is to be found in one of the Taliesin poems quoted by Sir John. Standard works of reference constantly refer to it as evidence of the belief of the Druids in the doctrine of transmigration of souls:

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My afflictions have been related in Ebrew in Eber,
A second time have I been formed,
I have been a blue salmon; I have been a dog;
I have been a stag, and a roe-buck on the mountain;
I have been the stock of a tree; a spade; and axe in the hand;
I have been a pin in a forceps for eighteen months;
I have been a variegated cock;
I have been a stud;
I have been a bull; I have been a buck
Of yellow hue, yielding nourishment;
I have been a grain concealed
Which vegetated on a hill;
And the reaper placed me in a smoky recess
That by means of tribulation my virtue may be brought forth;
A fowl with a divided crest and ruddy feet received me;
Nine nights I remained in her womb male child;
When I came forth from my entombment
I was presented an offering to the Sovereign.
I was dead, I have been vivified;
And rich in my possession, I am made a medium of conveyance.
In my prior state I was poor,
For the heat-enkindling re-instruction
Of the ruddy footed I was received,
Scarcely can be expressed the great praise which is due;
I am Taliesin.

     It is not difficult for the New Churchman to perceive that in this poem, by means of correspondences, is depicted the progress of regeneration in the individual or in the church. Commencing with the sensuals of the scientific, represented by the salmon and the dog, as the lowest things of the church,-placed, as it were, between the good and the evil, as a guard to prevent the profanation of holy things,-the bard describes phase after phase of experience until he reaches the highest.

     The mention of Eber in the first line of the poem will naturally direct the reader's attention to Genesis 10:21, where it is said that "Unto Shem also, the father of all the children of Eber, the brother of Japheth the elder, even to him were children born."

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The Writings state that by Eber is signified a new Church, which may be called the Second Ancient Church, and that by Shem being 'the father of all the sons of Eber' is signified that this Second Ancient Church, and the things appertaining to it, had existence from the former Ancient Church. (A. C. 1217.) Sir John is of the opinion that "the Druids must have had a knowledge of this Church, and must have known it to be a reform of the Ancient Church which had preceded it, for they speak of their own system as being the same as that of the Church of Eber."

     The name "Taliesin," which occurs in the last line of the poem, is not that of a bard who lived in the sixth century, as is generally stated in works of reference, but it was in the nature of a title commonly assumed by the Arch Druid of the British Church, and consequently is a guide neither to date nor authorship.

     No similar body in Europe ever possessed greater power and privileges than the English Druid hierarchy. They were the priests, the legislators and instructors of the nation. That they wisely exercised their prerogatives may be inferred from the fact that throughout many troublous centuries the loyalty and attachment of their adherents was consistently maintained. The Druid was not permitted the use of arms; none dared unsheath a weapon in his presence; and though a battle between hostile tribes were at its height, the appearance on the field of a Druid in his unicolored robe was an instant signal for combat to cease and submission of the dispute to his arbitration.

     "The Bards of the Isle of Britain," as the Druids are unitedly called in the Triads of Social State, comprised three orders, each with definitely formulated uses. The Chief or Presiding Bards were the governors; the Druid Bards, the religious functionaries; and the Ovate Bards, the men of science and letters. Also, from the Druidic organization as a whole was elected an Arch Druid, virtually the high priest and king of the British nation, inevitably bringing to mind Melchizedek of the Book of Genesis.

     Though not so imposing as the habiliments of the Jewish priesthood, the garments of the Druids were picturesque and strikingly representative. Made of linen, they flowed down from the shoulders to the ankles, and were unicolored.

     The Druid or teaching priest was robed in white. "White is predicated of truths, by reason that it derives its origin from the light of the sun." (A. R. 167)

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The Druids held that light and truth were one.

     The ruling priest was robed in sky-blue. "Blue is two-fold, from what is red or flaming, and from what is white or lucid; that which is from red is the celestial love of truth, or the external of the good of the celestial kingdom; but that which is from white or lucid is the spiritual love of good, or the internal good of the spiritual kingdom." (A. C. 9868, 9870.) Sky-blue evidently corresponds to the latter.

     The ovate, or scientific priest, was robed in green. "Green signifies the scientific and sensual." (A. C. 7691.)

     Other details relating to the garlands, necklaces, girdles, jewels, the emblematic use of the crescent, and various insignia of the several orders must here be omitted, but it may not be uninteresting to learn that "the Privileged Bard, whenever he officiated, wore a cowl or hood of the same color (as his robe), as a graduated badge or literary ornament. This custom was borrowed from the British bards by the Druids of Gaul, and from them by the Romans; whence this cowl, on its being made use of at Rome, obtained the name of 'bardo-cucullus,' or the bard's hood, which was adopted by the monks, and is still worn by the Capuchin friars." The Druid wore his beard long and hair short, whereas the people kept the beard short, except on the upper lip, but allowed the hair to grow.

     The three colors worn by the Druids, corresponding to the functions of the three orders, harmonize remarkably with the teachings of the Writings. Speculation naturally arises as to whether the harmony is accidental, or whether this long-vanished priesthood actually possessed a knowledge of the Science of Correspondences. Sir John is convinced that the latter was the case, at least with the founders, and that the Cymry migrating from the East brought with them the treasures of knowledge inherited from the Ancient Church.

     The Druids, like the ancient Persians, believed it impious to worship God in covered temples, and accordingly convened their religious gatherings in the open air, under trees, in groves, or around circles of huge upright stones, with a central altar. Widely scattered, numbers of these Druidic circles are found in England, France and Spain. They vary in magnitude from the simple circle of twelve stones to the mighty concourse of 140 at Stonehenge; and the frequent repetition of twelve, nineteen, thirty and sixty stones suggests a correspondential import.

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Mystery yet enshrouds the Druid circles, and even in this mechanic age the proportions of their wonderful megaliths continue to astonish and perplex.

     "The education and training of a Bard," says Sir John, "was one in which the greatest care and caution were exercised. Before he was allowed to 'teach morais' or to impart any of the sacred doc trine, known only to the Bards of the Mystic Circle or Cylch Cyfrin, he had to undergo a probation of twenty years. He had to recite by heart, word perfect, all that was known of 'Doethineb y Cymry,' the wisdom of the Welsh, before the assembled Bards who sat in judgment for his examination at their chief conventions held four times a year. Any error or deviation from the exact rendering was easily detected, and until the candidate could recite the whole of the doctrines without error, he was not admitted to full privilege. When the extensiveness Of their Arcana is considered, it will be realized how arduous this training must have been. They cultivated the memory to a degree perhaps unknown in any other land."

     It was indispensable that a Druid or priest should possess the poetic gift, as religious instruction was imparted and ancient lore transmitted by means of poetry. The terms "Bard" and "Druid" were therefore used synonymously, and "Bardism" is the word invariably employed in Cymric records to designate the theology and maxims of the Druids. Their doctrines and precepts were set forth in a series of aphorisms and poetic triads which probationers committed to memory, and of which they became perfect masters before they were admitted to the order.

     The following quotations are from the Institutional Triads:

     "The three memorials (or mediums of memory) of the Bards of the Isle of Britain: The memorial Of song, the memorial of conventional recitation, and the memorial of established usage."

     "There are three things without which no man can be a Bard: A poetical genius, a knowledge of the Bardic Institutes, and irreproachable manners."

     "There are three indispensables of a Bardic Instructor: A poetic genius from God, instruction by a master, and his office confirmed by the decision of the convention."

     The arrangement of doctrine and practice into aphorisms and poetic triads materially aided the memory, upon which the Druids wholly relied for the preservation and perpetuation of their intellectual possessions.

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Nothing of their system was reduced to writing. A written memorial could easily be altered in secret, but as all Druidic lore was recited annually before one or more of the four great conventions, perversion or interpolation might readily be detected. Long before the Christian era, England was the seminary of Europe, in respect to Druidism, and so continued down to the sixth century, when Llanwit Major and several other seats of learning were at their height.

     The religious gatherings of the Druids synchronized with certain regular astronomical events. The two solstices and the two equinoxes were the times appointed for principal meetings; those of lesser importance took place at new and at full moon; and others, chiefly for the instruction of disciples, at quarter-moon days. In common with many nations of antiquity, the Cymry, knowing nothing of the Hebrew Sabbath, grouped the days into sevens.     

     The Druids summoned their followers to worship by sounding upon a horn, and the stranger and neighboring inhabitant were invited to attend, assured of protection. When all had assembled, on the hillside, in the oak grove, or round about the imposing circle of megaliths, a sword was sheathed upon the central altar as the opening ritual, the Presiding Bards assisting. This was followed by a short and suitable address, commencing and concluding with the fine words: "Truth in opposition to the world." Clad in their unicolored robes, the Bards always stood bareheaded and barefooted throughout the ceremony, the audience preserving a reverential silence. The meetings, as observed above, were invariably held in daylight in the open air, agreeably with their motto, "In the face of the sun and in the eye of light."

     The Romans, after the conquest and occupation of England, resolved upon the extermination of the Druids, because of their absolute control over the population of the country. Persecution and systematic murder slowly, but none the less surely, diminished the number of this venerable priesthood, until it was feared that the orally transmitted wisdom of which they were the custodians might eventually perish. Then it was that a commencement was made of setting down in writing the doctrines, practice and traditional lore of the Druidic order.

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Much has been lost during the course of so many centuries, but what has survived the destructive forces of war, conflagration and the ravages of time is gathered in three volumes entitled, "Myfyrian Archaeology."

     The supposed belief of the Druids in the transmigration of souls has been explained as a misconception of correspondential language. Another belief with which they were accredited is disposed of by Sir John in the following words: "I have sifted the evidence adduced by the critic in favor of the charge of sun and moon worship, and can find nothing more than a deeply reverent regard due to these heavenly messengers of the Divine Will." The author is careful to admit, however, that superstition became associated with the Druidical system, probably during and after the persecution, when it became difficult or perilous to practice the ancient rites, and when the popular mind was left without authentic guidance. "There is no doubt," he says, "that in the early centuries of the Christian era, certain Bards-some half-Christian-did much to promote the spread of myth and fable, passing over unnoticed subjects of greater moment and more intrinsic worth." In treating of the Druidic idea of God, of the soul and the future state, Sir John ignores the later accretions, classical testimony and the vagaries of modern research, basing his exposition upon the oldest memorials in which these doctrines are to be found in their purest form.

     Abstract thought concerning the Divine, and profound philosophical aphorisms on related subjects, characterize the theological triads. This is all the more remarkable in view of the fact that they emanated, not from centers of culture such as Athens, Pome or Alexandria, but from the Ultima Thule of the ancient world. Many of them read like selections from Plate; and others, not infrequently, like quotations from Divine Love and Wisdom.

     The Greeks and Romans associated their gods with certain natural phenomena, usually the terrifying or impressive. Thus Zeus or Jupiter is called the "thunderer," "cloud compeller," "god of the murky cloud," etc. The Druids, with loftier conceptions of the one God whom they worshiped, had no such practice, but made use of terms much resembling those familiar in the phraseology of the Christian Church; as, for example, The Invisible One, The Eternal, He Who Wills, The All-Pervading Spirit, The Author of Existence, The Governor, The Eternally Ancient One or The Ancient of Days.

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     Monotheism is clearly and positively affirmed in the triads quoted below.

     "There are three primary unities, and more than one of each cannot exist: One God; One Truth; and One Point of Liberty, the point where all opposites equiponderate."

     "Three things of which God necessarily consists: the greatest Life; the greatest Knowledge; and the greatest Power; and of what is greatest there can be no more than one of anything."

     A well-known aphorism of the ancient Druids conveys their idea of the nature of the Divine: "Nid Dim Ond Duw; Nid Duw Ond Dim." "There is no essential substance but God; God is not but what is essential substance."

     Another triad sets forth the trinity of Divine Essentials, and their mode of operation, in language strikingly similar to that of the Writings:

     "Three causes have produced rational beings: Divine Love possessed of perfect knowledge; Divine Wisdom knowing all possible means; and Divine Power, possessed by the joint will of Divine Love and Divine Wisdom."

     A few passages selected from many will serve to illustrate the high character of the theology of ancient Britain.

     "The three essentials of the Being of God: Substance, Life and Action; by the proceeding forth from these are all (derived) substance, life, and action."

     "Three things evince what God has done, and will do: Infinite Love, Infinite Wisdom, and Infinite Power; for there is nothing of Power, of Knowledge, or of Will that these attributes want in order to perform."

     "The three Gorand Attributes of God: Infinite plenitude of life, Infinite Knowledge, and Infinite Power."

     "The three fundamentals of underived existence, that is to say, the three essentials of God: Love, Essential Knowledge, and Power: Being and Existence are by virtue of the union of these three."

     "The three essentials of Life: Essential Heat, the Existere of Knowledge, and Action."

     "Three things that none but God can do: To endure the eternities of the Circle of Infinity; to participate of every state of existence without changing; and to reform and renovate everything without causing loss of it."

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     Sir John describes a ceremony performed by the ancient Druids, which he thinks is representatively pictured in, and may be the origin of, the mystic sign of the broad arrow,-an emblem, according to some authorities, "used by the Kelts to signify holiness and royalty." Gwyddon, the officiating priest, stood upon the altar in the centre of the Druid circle; and upon three of the outer stones which formed it stood three principal bards. Celi, the Invisible One, it was understood, spoke through Gwyddon, and his voice passed along three diverging lines to the three principal bards. This progression of the Divine through the human was called the voice of three-fold utterance.

     In elucidation of this rite, Sir John says: "The voice of threefold utterance symbolized this inaage of God from the point of view of both God and man, and in a manner which spoke volumes for the perspicacity of the Druidic mind, both in the discernment of truth and the mode of teaching it. Though of three-fold utterance, it was yet One Voice, and this was mirrored in Gwyddon at the centre from which it proceeded. He stood for its unity, and looking towards him, that was the truth meant to be conveyed-God is One and speaks with undivided voice. But, looking towards the three principal bards, was seen the representation, not of three voices, but of the three inseparable forms of utterance in which the One Voice of God makes itself manifest, for it is only in looking towards man, and to creation as represented in him, that this tri-form expression is apprehended. At the centre there is but Unity; the Trinity is one of manifestation, not essence." This remarkable ceremony can hardly fail to recall the appearance of the three angels to Abraham. (Genesis 18.) It will be recollected that the patriarch evinced no surprise at the vision, and addressed the angels collectively as "Lord." Might it not be possible that what Abraham saw was the replica of a long-forgotten rite familiar to him, and which was practiced by the Ancient Church?

     The study of a long series of triads has convinced Sir John that the Druids believed in the survival of the soul in a substantial form; that if, during human life, or the state of probation, the soul attached itself to good, it passed after death into a higher state of existence where good necessarily prevails. No finite beings, they taught, could possibly bear the infinity of eternity without change; they were, therefore, relieved from such a monotonous burden by passing periodically into new states of existence, which, unlike death, would be eagerly wished for, and approached with joy.

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Every state would impart its peculiar knowledge, for consciousness and memory remained forever, or there could be no such thing as endless life. Rewards and punishments were so established by the eternal laws of creation that they inevitably followed human actions. Pride was the acme of human depravity, and supplied the motive for perpetuating every kind of wickedness; it was the passion by which man assumed more than the laws of nature allowed, and by which he attached himself to evil in such a degree that his soul fell at death into the lowest deep,-Annwn. "Man, by attaching himself to evil, becomes in the passions of his soul depraved and brutalized, and at death he falls into such a state as corresponds with the malignity acquired." Hell is pictured in the works of the British bards as a place abounding with quagmires, frost, and snow, and infested with every variety of noxious and loathsome beasts. Reads one of the ancient Druidic poems: "Before the covering stone, I tremble in the Presence of the Sovereign of boundless dominion, lest I sink, adhesive, to the quagmire of that multitude which peoples the depths of hell."

     The Philosophy of Ancient Britain deals at length with the interesting theory that Druidism was an important factor in the intellectual advancement of Europe-at least in its southern portion-several centuries before the Christian era. The successive steps by which the learning of the Druids is said to have been diffused may be stated in condensed form as follows: The Cymry, migrating from the East, carried with them much of the wisdom of the Ancient Church. Establishing themselves in Britain, the island became the chief center of instruction in the philosophy and theology of Druidism. Of Pythagoras it is related that, in his many wanderings, he journeyed to Gaul and Britain, and there sat at the feet of the Druids. Returning to his native land, he imparted his knowledge by oral methods only, and, like the Druids, committed nothing to writing. His disciples, spreading over Greece in a formative period, profoundly influenced the thought of that country, the philosophy of which subsequently became one of the intellectual possessions of mankind.

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Confirmation of this is to be found in the statement of Aristotle, that Greek Philosophy was derived, not from the Egyptians, but from the Celts. Should this theory be correct, the memorials of the Druids might prove to be a more promising source of information concerning the Ancient Church than the literary remains of Eastern nations.

     Before entering upon the consideration of Druidical doctrine and practice, Sir John devotes a chapter to the Ancient Word as the common source from which many nations, widely scattered, have derived their early traditions. He has ransacked the past for confirmation of this important fact; and from the imposing array of evidence collected it is evident that substantially the same story as that related in the early chapters of Genesis was current among the peoples of antiquity long before the Hebrew Scriptures were written; and that the story has Subsequently encircled the globe. This latter circumstance may be illustrated by the examples of Britain, Egypt, Tartary and North America.

     Commencing with Britain, we are informed by Sir John that, in memorials handed down from a period anterior to Abraham, the ancient Druids possessed a story of creation, a golden age, the serpent, the fall of man and the deluge, all bearing much resemblance to the same incidents as recorded in the Old Testament. Now moving eastward, an almost exact representation, using the same symbols which Moses himself used, is found in an Egyptian tableau in the Hamilton Collection: "In the center a serpent is coiled round an apple tree; on the right side the woman appears; on the other side the man hastening toward her; while Hercules, the man to come, is represented as re-ascending from hell, dragging up the three-headed dog of Death." Still keeping eastward and northward across Asia, we are told that "'The Mirror Book,' found among the Tartars of North China, contains much that is in accord with our Scriptures. It teaches that, before the creation there was chaos, that then there was produced, first the heavenly dynasty, then the earthly, then the human. It contains the tradition of a golden age, the serpent, the fall, and the flood, and what is still more remarkable, a pre-intimation of the Lord's miraculous conception and birth, in which a virgin is said to have given birth to a son of celestial sanctity and divine origin. The Manchurians have their account of the creation in six days, of the fall of man, together with a prediction of his future restoration."

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     Spanning now the Pacific, and crossing the North American Continent to its eastern shore, many will be surprised to learn that "the North American Indians had a religion in which ate discovered a faith, rites and traditions almost identical with those of the Jews. When that noted Welshman, William Penn, or to give him his original name, William Tudor, the founder of Pennsylvania, came across these remarkable people, he imagined that he had discovered the ten lost tribes of Israel. Like the Druids, they had no images, but worshiped One Invisible 'Great Spirit,' practiced circumcision, observed days of separation and purification from uncleanness, in some cases precisely as described in the Levitical Law, carried an ark before them in battle, celebrated feasts of the new moon, referred to an ancient time when the angels of God walked on the earth with their ancestors, to the two first people and the two first brothers, one of whom slew the other, and had an account of the Flood and of the escape by an ark or canoe.

     The Philosophy of Ancient Britain should attract the studious attention of New Churchmen generally. It blazes a trail in unfamiliar regions of research, and, pleasing to note, it openly and honestly acknowledges the Writings. The view presented in this work on Druidism and the Druids is radically different from that found in standard works of reference or the encyclopedias, but the author has presented a convincing case in favor of a long-maligned people. Sir John Daniel is to be commended for his courage in submitting a volume of this kind to the learned world today, hag-ridden as it is with theories of evolution and the bestial origin of man.

     Although a student of Swedenborg for over thirty years, Sir John is not a member of any New Church organization. From the approving manner in which he quotes the Rev. John Clowes and others of his school, it is fair to assume that he does not believe in any such thing. With this attitude we cannot agree. Isolation and permeation are manifest futilities. Sir John should be identified with one of the gallant little groups of receivers, scattered over the world, who are endeavoring to keep alive the feeble, flickering flame of truth in a pleasure-mad, indifferent age.

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NEW CHURCH AND PHYSICAL HEALING 1927

NEW CHURCH AND PHYSICAL HEALING              1927


NEW CHURCH LIFE
Office a Publication, Lancaster, Pa.
Published Monthly By
THE GENERAL CHURCH OF THE NEW JERUSALEM
BRYN ATHYN, PA.
Editor                    Rev. W. B. Caldwell, Bryn Athyn, Pa.
Business Manager          Mr. H. Hyatt, Bryn Athyn, Pa.

     All literary contributions should be sent to the Editor. Subscriptions, change of address and business communications should be sent to the Business Manager.

     TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION
In the United States, $3.00 per year; Elsewhere, $3.25 or 14 shillings; payable in advance
Single Copy          30 cents
     NOTES AND REVIEWS.

     THE NEW CHURCH AND PHYSICAL HEALING.

     A correspondent has suggested that we publish a letter in which we responded to his request for passages in the Writings against physical healing being "among the fruits of the New Church, unless by 'fruits' are meant the indirect benefits of a life of regeneration," as was stated in our editorial entitled "Renouncing Christian Science" in the September issue, p. 565. Acting upon this suggestion, we give herewith the substance of our reply:

     In speaking of the "indirect benefits of a life of regeneration," we had in mind especially the statement in no. 423 of the Divine Love and Wisdom, where it is said that, with the spiritual (or regenerating) man, the animal spirit is purified, and that from this the blood of the body is also purified. The passage reads:

     "With the spiritual man it is the purer blood, called by some the animal spirit, which is purified; and it is purified so far as the man is in the marriage of love and wisdom. It is this purer blood which corresponds most nearly to that marriage: and because this blood inflows into the blood of the body, it follows that the latter blood is also purified by means of it. The reverse is true of those in whom love is defiled in the understanding.

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But no one can test this by any experiment on the blood; but he can by observing the affections, since these correspond to the blood." (D. L. W. 423)

     From this statement it is evident that the regenerating man is purified as to the sources of health in the animal spirit, and that this gradually affects the red-blood of the body itself, which would be an aid in the healing of diseases.

     That evil and sin in the mind or spirit are the interior cause of disease, and that the removal of evil and sin by the life of regeneration will have its effect upon the bodily health, is also taught in the following passage in the Arcana Celestia:

     "As death comes from no other source than from sin, and sin is all that which is contrary to Divine order, it is for this reason that evil closes the smallest and altogether invisible vessels [of the human body], of which the next greater vessels, which are also invisible, are composed; for the smallest and altogether invisible vessels are continued to man's interiors; hence comes the first and inmost obstruction, and hence the first and inmost vitiation in the blood. This vitiation, when it increases, causes disease and finally death. But if man had lived a life of good, his interiors would be open to heaven, and through heaven to the Lord; thus also the smallest and invisible vessels would be open also, and hence the man would be without disease, and would merely grow to extreme old age, until be became a little child again, but a wise one; and when in such case the body could no longer minister to its internal man, or spirit, he would pass without disease out of his terrestrial body into a body such as the angels have, thus out of the world immediately into heaven." (A. C. 5726)

     It is clear from these teachings that the primary benefits of a life of regeneration have reference to the removal of evil and falsity from the will and understanding in the mind, and that the secondary or "indirect" benefits pertain to the purification of the body through the blood. Undoubtedly, therefore, regenerating New Churchmen will, in course of time, produce a healthy race. But we cannot claim that a life of regeneration according to the Doctrines of the New Church will heal a man of his diseases. To claim that, and to teach it, would make physical healing a function of the Church, promising men that reward as a "fruit" of the New Church.

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It would be a form of alluring men to the Church by means of miracles, closing their minds to the rational reception of the truth, which is given for the spiritual healing of men from their evils, and not, except indirectly, for the healing of their physical ills.

     We are familiar with the declaration, frequently made in the Writings, that the New Church is not to be raised up by means of miracles. The reason for this is given in the following brief citations:

     "It is asked at this day, why miracles are not performed as of old; for it is believed that, if they were performed, everyone would acknowledge from the heart. But the reason why they are not performed at this day, as before, is because miracles compel, and take away free choice in spiritual things, and from spiritual make a man natural." (T. C. R. 501.)

     "No one is reformed by miracles and signs, because they compel. . . . A faith induced by miracles is not faith, but persuasion, for there is not anything rational, still less anything spiritual, in it." (D. P. 130, 131.)

     "Miracles are not performed at this day, because they seduce men, and make them natural, closing the interiors of the mind, in which faith ought to be rooted; and then mere falsities come forth. What else are the miracles of the saints and images with the Roman Catholics? By them men have been made natural; and the natural man rejects or perverts all spiritual truth." (Invitation 46.)

     "As regards miracles, they would be nothing but snares to seduce men, as the Lord says in Matthew, 'For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.' (24: 24.) What are the miracles with the Papists but snares and deceptions? What do they teach but that they themselves should be worshiped as deities, and that men should recede from worship of the Lord? . . . What have these miracles taught about Christ? What about heaven and eternal life? Not one syllable." (Invitation 52)

     Such teachings as these warn us against making physical healing a function of the New Church.

     In the pamphlet which we were reviewing in our editorial, Mr. Marshall was addressing the Christian Science Church, giving his reasons for withdrawing from it.

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When he said to them that he had found physical healing to be "among the fruits of the New Church," he gave them the impression that we practiced healing as a function of the Church, even though he also said that the New Church had "not emphasized physical healing." For elsewhere in the pamphlet he said: "It is my experience that physical healing can be effected more quickly and usefully through the teachings of the New Church than even in Christian Science, and this is the experience, I understand, of Christian Science practitioners who have lately turned to the writings of Swedenborg. This better healing work is accounted for in part by being able to put correctly into practice the rule, well defined by Mrs. Eddy, 'If we would open the prison doors for the sick, we must first learn to bind up the broken hearted.'"

     We are of the opinion that statements like these, especially when made to Christian Scientists, give an incorrect impression of the attitude of the New Church toward physical healing. And so we remarked in our editorial that Mr. Marshall "might have stated more emphatically that the New Church does not regard physical healing as a function of the Church." By this, of course, we do not mean that New Churchmen should not engage in the work of the medical profession, for Divine Providence concurs with natural means of healing. (A. C. 5713.) Nor would we rule out "faith-cure"-the power of mind over matter, of the spirit over the flesh-as an interior force which may cooperate from within with medicinal remedies in the curing of certain diseases. But when we assert that physical healing is not a function of the Church we mean that the ministers of the New Church do not practice physical cures as part of their ecclesiastical functions; that the members of the Church, as such, are not healing practitioners; and that the New Church does not go before the world with the claim that the Heavenly Doctrines will heal men of their diseases, but teaches that the Doctrines will heal them spiritually if they live the life of regeneration. Incidentally they will learn that one of the indirect or secondary benefits of such a life is a better physical health, if not in one generation, then in the next or a later generation. But this latter is not to be confused with the former.

     Where physical healing is made a function of the Church, or where a Church makes a religion of bodily healing, it is attended with danger to the souls of men.

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The danger is that the healing of a bodily disease will be taken as identical with deliverance from evil and the soul's salvation. This is what happens when disease and evil are regarded as one and the same. It abolishes the discrete degree between the spirit and the body.

     There is indeed the appearance in the Gospels that people were saved from sin by the Lord's miraculous healing of their diseases, as where He said to one, "Thy faith hath made thee whole" (Matt. 9:22), and to another, "Behold, thou art made whole; sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon thee." (John 5:14) Because the very simple minds of that time could not distinguish clearly between the ill health of the body and the ill health of the spirit, therefore the Lord spoke at times according to the appearance that the cure of the one was the cure of the other. Yet He also taught the distinction between sin and disease, and that His miraculous cures were but representative and correspondential of His Divine power to save, as where we read: "But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, He saith to the sick of the palsy, Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thine house." (Matt. 9:6.)

     It is of great importance that New Churchmen should observe this distinction, and not confuse the function of the physician with the function of the priest,-the cure of the body with the cure of the soul, because such confusion is fraught with danger to the spiritual welfare of men. In rational light, we are now given to see clearly the discrete degree that exists between the spirit and the body. By reason of this distinction, an evil man may be in good physical health, while a good man may suffer from disease. The state of the body is not then in correspondence with the state of the spirit; and this condition may exist for a time, and even throughout life with some men; when yet the spirit is striving to bring the body into correspondence with its own state, evil or good.

     This latter is also a fact. It is necessary to emphasize the discreteness of the spirit and the body, in order to avoid the pitfall of confusing physical healing with the salvation of the soul. But while the spirit and the body are thus discrete, they are contiguous, and have their influence, one upon the other. The correspondence between them is not merely figurative and symbolical, but real and operative. The states of the body affect the mind or spirit, and vice versa.

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An overindulgence of the bodily appetites cultivates the selfish cupidity of the animus and debilitates the rational; and this mental state vitiates the blood, and inflows into the diseases of the body produced by such intemperance. Evil spirits are also present in such cupidities, with the effort to inflow into the bodily parts, and to foment disease there. "But they are not permitted to flow in so far as into the solid parts of the body, or into the parts which constitute the viscera, organs, and members of man, but only into the cupidities and falsities; only when a man falls into disease, they then flow into such unclean things as appertain to the disease." (A. C. 5713) If the infernals were not thus restrained by an omnipotent Providence at this day, there would be little health in the world, because of the interior evil which reigns, and through which the bells would inflow to destroy mankind. But it is one effect of the Last Judgment, that the world of the spirit and the world of the body are kept distinct at this day, lest the devils of hell should obsess men, depriving them of all natural and spiritual freedom, without which no salvation is possible. The widespread operation of natural modes of healing at the present day is also an instrument in the hands of Providence for the preservation of the race.

     As states of the body may affect the mind in the manner we have described, so the states of the mind affect the body. A rational control of the bodily appetites, even with unregenerate men, forms a plane of physical order conducive to health. With those who are regenerating, as we have seen, the purification of the mind by repentance affects the purer blood and the inmost vessels of the body, and thence the red blood. In this way the mind or spirit strives to regenerate the body also, and to bring it into correspondence with itself. And so a regenerating man, if he live an orderly bodily life, should benefit physically by the better spiritual state in which he is. But this may not be fully realized in one short lifetime. And let him beware lest he regard physical health as an infallible sign of regeneration, or judge of others by such evidence. At best it can be no more than a secondary or indirect benefit of regeneration,- a by-product, as it were, for which he may be thankful as a means of continuing his uses during his brief sojourn in the natural world.

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TALE FOR BOYS AND GIRLS. 1927

TALE FOR BOYS AND GIRLS.              1927

     MYSTERY OF CASTLE PIERREFITTE. By Eugenie Foa. Translated from the French by Amena Pendleton. With Illustrations by Frank Dobias. New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1927. Pp. 226. Price, $2.00.

     A lively and amusing story of the adventures of two French boys. It would interest either boys or girls from about nine to twelve years of age. The scene is laid in the Pyrenees Mountains at the close of the eighteenth century, and we note that the translator wrote the Foreword last summer at Argeles, Hautes-Pyrenees, during a visit to the region where the incidents of the story are placed.
ANGELIC CHOIRS 1927

ANGELIC CHOIRS              1927

     "I heard a large number of angels of the interior heaven, who together or in concert formed a representative. It was a choir, in which many together thought the same thing, and spoke the same thing. By representatives they formed a golden crown with diamonds around the Lord's head, which was effected by a quick series of representations; and, what was wonderful, although there were very many of them, still they all thought and spoke as one, thus all represented as one, and this because none wished to act at all from himself, still less to preside over the rest, and lead the choir; for whoever does this is instantly dissociated of himself; but they suffer themselves to be led mutually by one another, thus all in particular and in general by the Lord. All the good who come into the other life are brought into such agreements. Afterwards I heard a large number of choirs, which exhibited various things representatively; and although there were many choirs, and many in each choir, still they acted as one, because from the form of the varieties there resulted a one, containing in it what was beautifully heavenly. So the universal heaven, which consists of myriads of myriads, can act as one, in consequence of being in mutual love; for thus they suffer themselves to be led by the Lord. And, what is wonderful, the greater their numbers are, that is, the greater the number of the myriads who constitute heaven, so much the more distinctly and perfectly they all, in general and particular, become one." (A. C. 3350)

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FROM A CHRISTIAN SCIENTIST 1927

FROM A CHRISTIAN SCIENTIST       AARON E. BRANDT       1927

To the Editor of the NEW CHURCH LIFE:
     For reasons which need not be closely analyzed, the September issue of the NEW CHURCH LIFE has given publicity to an avowed renunciation of Christian Science by Mr. Leslie Marshall, one of a group of Christian Scientists said to have become New Churchmen.

     That Mr. Marshall has a right to a choice among religions, and is in good company, is duly conceded, but his reasons for making a change, in so far as they appear in your publication, are not well-grounded. I venture to deny his assertion that "many Christian Scientists . . . have become New Churchmen," although they may, because of their knowledge of Christian Science, more readily comprehend and appreciate, than some others, the "law or science of correspondences."

     The critic's allegation that "No spiritually minded, intelligent Christian Scientist, reading Swedenborg with an open thought, could thereafter remain a member of the Christian Science Church, in spirit and in deed, without thereby doing violence to his conscience," has so wild a flavor, and evidences such a reckless disregard of fact, as to vitiate anything he might say on the subject of Christian Science. I wonder that it should receive space in a publication of fair pretensions.

     The warped judgment of this critic is again shown in his assumption, as published, that Christian Science is pantheistic and that Mrs. Eddy's illustration of the oneness of a drop of water with the ocean submerges the individuality of man. In my researches covering a number of years I have never yet found a religion so far removed from Pantheism as Christian Science, and no real Christian Scientist has ever been led to the critic's conclusion "that man is a part of God." There is no statement anywhere in Christian Science to warrant such a conclusion. The oneness of a drop of water with the ocean refers to quality, not to quantity nor to individuality, and Mrs. Eddy plainly says so in connection therewith.

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The critic is simply misrepresenting the facts, and this accounts for his so-called renunciation of Christian Science. To so misrepresent it to the public, and then claim his own religion to be superior, has an inconsistency which speaks for itself.

     The basis of Mrs. Eddy's discovery she explains thus in Science and Health With Key to The Scriptures (p. 126): "I have demonstrated through Mind the effects of Truth on the health, longevity, and morals of men; and I have found nothing in ancient or in modern systems on which to found my own, except the teachings and demonstrations of our great Master and the lives of prophets and apostles. The Bible has been my only authority. I have had no other guide in 'the straight and narrow way' of Truth."

     Although many people come to Christian Science from other denominations, the Christian Science periodicals do not make them occasions for publishing animadversions upon other religions.
     AARON E. BRANDT,
          Christian Science Committee on Publication for the State of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia, Pa., September 14, 1927.
EDITORIAL NOTE. 1927

EDITORIAL NOTE.              1927

     We are glad to accord the above communication a prominence equal to that of our brief review of Mr. Marshall's pamphlet, overlooking the implication involved in the term "animadversion," which is unwarranted, either in the case of our review or the pamphlet itself. We are interested solely in upholding what we believe to be the truth, and in contrasting this with what we believe to be error. In these days it should be possible to do this without exciting odium theologicum or denominational rancor.-EDITOR

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ORPHANAGE BOXES 1927

ORPHANAGE BOXES       ALFRED ACTON       1927

     A Further Statement.

     In the statement published in NEW CHURCH LIFE last month, showing the amount collected from the Orphanage Boxes during the past year, the reader may have noted that in most cases only one collection was made during the year. It is desirable that there should be three or four collections during the year. The uses of the Orphanage demand a monthly expenditure of over two hundred dollars, and it would seem fitting that this continuous need be reflected in as frequent a collection as is practicable. The fact that a box may contain but a little should be no deterrent to its being collected. However small the amount, it represents the continuous support of the "good works" of charity.

     In the Writings, these "good works" are distinguished from charity itself. The latter is to perform the uses of one's calling justly, faithfully and sincerely; but among the "good works of charity" is giving to the poor and needy, and especially the support of orphans and widows.

     Some societies have their own peculiar uses in this direction, but the Orphanage is the only avenue open to the members of the General Church at large through which they may support these "good works." Most persons are moved to contribute from time to time to the "good works" which are carried on in the world; as, for instance, to country outings for children, Christmas dinners, etc.; but until the institution of the Orphanage Boxes, our members have not had directly before them the support of these "good works" within our own Body.

     So far as the return from boxes collected is concerned, the result has been gratifying, but one could wish that there had been a larger response to the call that was made last year. About seven hundred boxes were sent out, and only about two hundred and thirty have been returned. While the receipts from these two hundred and thirty boxes, some of which have been sent us two or three times, have been extremely gratifying, they are below what is necessary to support the uses of the Orphanage, even with the comparatively small expense under which it is operating at present.

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To meet this expense, the Orphanage Committee has been obliged to borrow from the treasury of the General Church from time to time, the total amount borrowed during the year, as covered by the present report, being $525.00. This borrowing is the only alternative open to the Orphanage Committee, if it is to avoid selling some of the securities, the interest on which supplies a steady portion of its annual income; but the borrowing is done in the hope that the voluntary contributions, including the collections from the orphanage boxes, will in time be sufficient, not only to render further borrowing unnecessary, but also to repay the amount borrowed.

     We have spoken of the Collectors who have been appointed in the different societies. In societies where the membership is scattered, these collectors will necessarily have difficulty in covering their ground, and their labors would be considerably lessened if members would bring the boxes to the collectors at some meeting in the church.

     The names of the Collectors are as follows:

Bryn Athyn, Pa.-Miss Benita Acton.
Chicago, Ill.-Mr. Neville T. Wright, 5911 North Paulina Street.
Cincinnati, Ohio.-Mr. Donald Merrell, 67 Reilly Road, Wyoming, Ohio.
Denver, Colo.-Mr. Harold Lindrooth, 1125 Vine Street.
Erie, Pa.-Mr. Charles Edro Cranch, 1309 East 20th Street.
Glenview, Ill.-Miss Elizabeth Fuller.
Kitchener, Ont.-Miss Stella Bellinger, 53 Mary Street.
Los Angeles, Cal.-Miss Annie Unruh, 1234 West 41st Street.
Middleport, Ohio.-Mrs. P. A. Thomas, 189 South Third Street.
New York, N. Y.-Rev. Alan Gill, 708 Tenth Street, College Point, L. I.
Pittsburgh, Pa.-Miss Frieda Schoenberger, 340 North Craig Street.
Toronto, Ont.-Miss Edina Carswell, 1534 King Street West.
Washington, D. C.-Mrs. Roland Trimble, R. F. D. 1, Laurel, Md.

     In addition, the Rev. F. E. Waelchli has consented to receive boxes from any of the isolated receivers whom he may visit; and he is also prepared to supply them with new boxes.

     The greatest difficulty in the way of collecting has been in the case of isolated receivers not visited by Mr. Waelchli, or visited but once a year. As will be seen from the Table of Receipts published last month, many of these receivers have sent the contents direct to the undersigned; but there are many others from whom we have not heard, probably because they have delayed in communicating with us.

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     Of those who have sent in the contents of their boxes, some have sent the box itself. This is, of course, satisfactory, but it entails considerable expense in postage, and we would suggest that the better way would be to open the box, and send the contents by check or money order. The boxes should then be sealed. On request, the undersigned will be glad to famish materials for this sealing, or it may be done with ordinary paper and mucilage.

     One of the principal uses which the boxes have performed is the initiation of little children into the support of the good works of charity. Many parents have made contributions to the Orphanage a regular weekly feature of their family worship, and we have heard on more than one occasion of the beneficial results of this practice. The children, and especially the little ones, are keenly alive to this use, and this must tend to Promote their spiritual development. In this connection, the reader may recall what is taught in the Writings as to children giving to the poor. (T. C. R. 426.) To give money to beggars has many objections, but children can easily be encouraged to give to our orphans; indeed, experience has shown that this is a delight to them.

     Perhaps we cannot close this communication more appropriately than by giving an illustration of the very practical turn which the interest of one of the little children in Bryn Athyn took in the Orphanage. Meeting one of his playmates, he asked him, "Are you an orphan?" On receiving the answer "Yes," he said, "Wait a minute, we have something for you in our house." Whereupon he took the Orphanage Box and straightway handed it over. The little recipient took it to his mother, who, of course, duly returned it. Here is a case of very practical interest in the Orphanage, and certainly manifests an appreciation of its uses.
     ALFRED ACTON,
          Secretary, Orphanage Committee.

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TWENTY-FIRST BRITISH ASSEMBLY 1927

TWENTY-FIRST BRITISH ASSEMBLY       Various       1927

HELD AT COLCHESTER, JULY 30-AUGUST 1, 1927.

     The program of the Twenty-first British Assembly included two Divine services, four sessions and a social, all of which were held in the building of the Colchester Society. Tea on Saturday, and dinner and tea on Sunday and Monday, were served in a marquee on the church grounds, the charge for the five meals being nine shillings.

     First Session.

     1. The opening worship was conducted by the Rev. F. E. Gyllenhaal, Pastor of the Colchester Society.

     2. The Rev. R. J. Tilson, Pastor of Michael Church, London, taking the chair, announced that the Bishop had appointed him President of the Assembly and Celebrant of the Holy Supper, which would be administered on Sunday afternoon. He then read the following:

     LETTER FROM THE BISHOP.

To the British Assembly of 1927.
Brethren:

     Please accept my greetings.

     Your meeting last year gave cause for great encouragement. The accounts of it pointed to deepening unity. Upon this rests our hope for the future. We are not concerned for the Lord's New Church. Our responsibility is for those organizations which stand in its name. These depend for their efficiency and service upon the twin blessings of unity and freedom,-two things which will be in harmony in the degree that the Church is built by self-sacrifice.

     I promised myself the pleasure of meeting with you on this occasion, but other plans intervened looking to the holding of a General Assembly in London during the summer of 1928, and a proposed visit this summer to Rio de Janeiro.

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The plans for a General Assembly in London are happily under way, but it may be noted that, as these plans advanced, the need of an immediate visit to Rio de Janeiro was removed.

     We may anticipate that the coming General Assembly will be composed of representatives, not only from England, but also from a number of our Societies in other parts of the world. If so, that Assembly should be of signal importance in the history of the General Church, and this not merely because of it's widely representative character, but also for other reasons.

     I take pleasure at this time to make public the intention to ordain the Rev. R. J. Tilson into the Third Degree of the Priesthood on the occasion of the coming General Assembly.

     It is not necessary to speak of my confidence in Mr. Tilson as a priest of the Lord's New Church, and of my desire to honor him. Our thought should rather rest in the use to be served.

     In the first place, this ordination concerns the Priesthood, I have for some time felt the need of developing the Episcopal Degree of our Ecclesiastical Order. While that Degree should not be over large numerically, but in proportionate relation to the Priesthood as a body, and to the numerical strength of the Church as a whole, it should at least be sufficient to insure its own perpetuation and that of the Priesthood. This I have in mind as a first and fundamental need to be served at this time.

     It has also seemed to me to be a matter of no little importance that the members of the Third Degree of our Priesthood should not be confined to one country, especially in view of the fact that we claim for the General Church a non-nationalistic character, and base its right of existence upon its full reception of the Revelation, so full indeed as to allow of no derogation from the Divinity of that Revelation, whether in itself considered, or by comparison with the former Revelations which the Lord has given for the establishment of His Church.

     The ordination of Mr. Tilson is to be, as indeed every ordination must be, into the Priesthood of the Lord's New Church, and in this case into the Third Degree thereof. Our order is, that the appointment of any priest to an executive duty within the General Church must be preceded by a definite call thereto.

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This order would hold in the case of the appointment of a Bishop to preside over a divisional function, or over a separate diocese within the General Body.

     So far, within the General Church there has been no placing of one in the Third Degree over either a divisional function or a separate diocese, but that there will in the future be such uses to be so served would seem to be but a matter of orderly development; and in such a case we may take for granted that the orderly mode to be followed would be not unlike that which now prevails with reference to the appointment of a Pastor over a local society, differing however in degree and importance. If, therefore, the Bishop of the General Church should recognize the need of such a step, he will doubtless take the initiative. It would be a prime necessity, however, in the placement of a Bishop over a separate diocese, that the desires of those composing such a diocese should be consulted, and their approval given. No other mode would be consistent with the freedom of the Church; and not otherwise could we gain that cooperation which is so vital to unity and peace.

     These things are said by way of instruction as to the principles involved in our mode of procedure. It is well to hold in mind, and also to have a clear sight of, the immediate needs of the Church, for only so may we be guided in the performance of those duties which indicate the leading of Providence.

     The coming General Assembly, and the necessary arrangements for it, will doubtless engage much of your thought. While, in a sense, the undertaking is a large one, and will call for your united strength, it will, I know, be a labor of love, and you will feel repaid for all you may do by your realization of the great good that will come to the Church.

     In the hope that your present Assembly may fulfill its highest usefulness, and that the General Assembly of 1928 may mark a distinct advance in the development of our General Church, I am     
     As ever yours, (signed)
          N. D. PENDLETON.

     3. The President then extended a hearty welcome to the Revs. W. H. Claxton and G. A. Sexton, of the General Conference, and to other visitors, and invited them to take part in the deliberations of the Assembly.

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     4. The President then commented at some length on the Bishop's letter and the development of the Church in England, referring several times to the work of the late Rev. Andrew Czerny, and quoting from some of Mr. Czerny's addresses to previous British Assemblies, after which he gave an Address on the subject of "The Vanishing Shadows of the Word." [See page 651.]

     5. In the discussion which followed, Mrs. Wm. Gill expressed gratitude for the paper, and said that she had enjoyed every word of it.

     Mr. Gyllenhaal thought that shadows are from man's proprium, and those appearing in the Word come from man's part in its publication, and properly speaking, they are actually only in man's mind.

     Mr. Claxton wondered whether the shadows of the Word are vanishing for New Church people as fast as they ought to. He said that all shadows have a use, and are necessary, owing to the qualities of human nature. He thought that in our study of the Word we perhaps dwell too much on space, time and person, or the facts of the letter, which need prominence and emphasis in teaching children, but not for adults. Personality, in the external sense of the Word, gets in the way. He instanced the personality of the kings of Israel. He thought also that we are apt to misunderstand one another, because we do not sufficiently detach our thought from the personality of the other. He was of the opinion that the approach to the Word from the Writings, to the letter from the spiritual sense, has been lost sight of by many.

     Mr. Sexton said that in meditating on the paper there came before him the painting called "In Thy hands, O Lord." He vividly described the picture, which is of a knight on horseback going down into valleys where are shadows, and then interpreted and connected it skillfully with the subject of the Address. He said that a valley is in shadows only when the sun is not high enough, for the higher the sun rises the more the shadows vanish. The shadows cast by men never vanish, but may be under their feet, and thus may not darken the lives of others. The higher the Lord is in our understanding of Him, the deeper our penetration of the shadows of our propriums.

     Mr. A. H. Appleton thought that the Word had been much in the shadows for many ages, and its shadows can be removed only by letting the Lord Himself explain it.

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The light of truth reveals the shadows of evils.

     Mr. Colley Pryke asked if there were no shadows except from one's proprium?

     Mr. R. W. Anderson said that Primarily Divine Truth is light itself, and a shadow is caused by something that rejects or opposes the light. Divine Truth accommodated to the states of men must of necessity cast shadows, and therefore all degrees of Divine Truth are shadows.

     Miss Waters asked if there is not a difference between shadows and veils, and whether the accommodations of Divine Truth are not veils rather than shadows.

     Messrs. Wm. Priest, V. R. Tilson and H. Howard also took part in the discussion of the address, after which Mr. Tilson replied.

     Sunday, July 31st.

     The morning service was conducted by the Rev. F. E. Gyllenhaal, who also officiated in the Confirmation of the Misses Muriel and Jean Morris, Joan Stebbing and Mr. Rupert Lewin. The Rev. R. J. Tilson read the lessons, and preached on Exodus 14:15, "Speak to the children of Israel that they go forward."

     In the afternoon at 4: 30 o'clock, the Rev. R. J. Tilson administered the Holy Supper to seventy-seven communicants. He was assisted by the Revs. Sexton and Gyllenhaal.

     Second Session.

     6. The Assembly met at 7 o'clock on Sunday evening, when the Rev. G. A. Sexton addressed it on "The Relationship between the Material and the Substantial."

     7. The President, in inviting discussion, remarked that the address was outside our usual groove. Mr. Sexton had used the expressions, "Science says," "Science states." The more we know about the things of this world, the clearer we probably shall be about the things of the other world. The paper was remarkable, stimulative of active thought, but be was not prepared to say that he agreed with it all.

     Mr. E. J. Waters asked if spirits produce any change in matter outside man, to which Mr. Sexton replied that they can, within limits, and asserted that men are partly responsible for natural conditions, such as cataclysms, etc.

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     Mr. Potter pointed out that the Children of Israel were prosperous when they lived according to the Commandments, but the reverse when they disobeyed. He regretted Mr. Tilson's doubt about the authority of modern science.

     Mr. V. R. Tilson said that science is only coordinating facts and thoughts into order. Mr. Sexton, in his address, talked about facts which we cannot deny.

     Mr. R. W. Anderson was disturbed by the address, which he thought failed to give the difference between the material and the substantial. Each acts on its own plane. He doubted the example given which spoke of the effect of angry words on walls and then on people. He thought that no arrangement of material particles could affect what is substantial.

     Mr. Gyllenhaal spoke of the traditional position of the Academy in relation to modern science, from the days of Words for the New Church, and urged the younger people particularly not to be carried away by the plausible theories and admitted fascination of modern science. He thought that the most serious conflicts of the New Church would be on the plane of modern science, and that this is in part the meaning of what is said about the dragon cast down to earth.

     Messrs. Colley Pryke, Charles Ashley, S. E. Parker, A. Godfrey, Victor Cooper and A. H. Appleton, Mrs. Dyne and Miss Horton also contributed to the discussion, at the close of which Mr. Sexton replied.

     Third Session.

     8. The next meeting of the Assembly was held on Monday morning at 11 o'clock, when the Rev. F. E. Gyllenhaal read a paper on "The Ways of Knowing."

     9. Mr. Sexton said that the use of discussion is to add something by way of illustration to make the subject clearer. Knowledge may be obtained by either the synthetic or analytic method, but one must go from the one to the other, or must have both. We can say, "We know," only when the two are combined, or have made the connection. He then spoke of the difference between knowing and believing. We only know that the Divine Providence will protect us by having the material experience of its protection.

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     Mr. R. W. Anderson pointed to the two universals of instruction, one by influx and the other by afflux. Information and instruction build up something within, upon and in which influx can rest. The circle of life is to know, understand, will and do, and only when we travel round this circle do we really know and believe.

     The President and Messrs. H. Howard, E. J. Waters, F. R. Cooper, S. E. Parker and A. Godfrey also joined in the discussion, at the close of which Mr. Gyllenhaal replied.

     Fourth Session

     10. At the session held on Monday afternoon at 3 o'clock, Mr. J. Potter gave an address on "Accommodating the Truth." [See Page 641.]

     11. The Rev. R. J. Tilson said that we must trust in the Divine Providence to bring people to the Church. Wherever any one is thirsting for the truth, the Divine Providence will give him drink. He strongly dissented from the idea that any old man can look after himself without the ministrations of the priesthood. Where is anything in the doctrines of the Church, in the Writings, which is not accommodated to men? Mr. Bjorck had said that people in Norway and Sweden had the interest now that people in England had seventy-five years ago. Times were changed. Since the war, people wanted to know about the other world. We should inform them about it.

     Mr. Colley Pryke, after expressing the hope that the Assembly would not lose the wonderful sphere it had, which was a great treasure, agreed with the President that the Lord never will let a man go thirsting for the truth, and not satisfy his thirst. We must not allow doubts of the Divine Providence. Nor should we doubt our leaders, and the wisdom of what they are doing. At the same time, he thought we might possibly improve our methods of approach to those outside the Church.

     Mr. Sexton told about his methods of evangelization in Jersey.

     Mr. R. W. Anderson thought the essayist seemed to doubt whether the Divine Revelation is best accommodated. "Have we the Writings in our houses? Are we reading them? Are we studying them? We may be too much engaged in recommending remedies for other people, while we fail to swallow them ourselves."

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     Mr. S. E. Parker told of experiences in missionary work in Deal, all of which had been most discouraging in recent years.

     Mr. Victor Cooper thought it true that the ministers are inclined to preach above the heads of the younger people.

     Mr. A. Godfrey noted that, in opening the gate to let people into the Church too quickly, we also open the gate to let our own people out.

     The Rev. F. E. Gyllenhaal and Messrs. V. R. Tilson and A. S. Wainscot also spoke, after which Mr. Potter replied, and Mr. Tilson closed the subject with a few fitting words.

     12. The Reports of Michael Church and of the Colchester Society were then read, and briefly commented upon by the President.

     13. Greetings from absent members and friends were read on several occasions during the Assembly, and among them was a most welcome letter from Miss Celia Bellinger, of Pittsburgh, who was with us last year.

     14. The Assembly closed with the singing of the 45th Psalm, after which the Benediction was pronounced by the President.

     Social.

     The Assembly Social Committee had provided an excellent entertainment. After the guests had sung "The Assembly Song," a varied program of vocal and instrumental numbers was given, including selections by the Colchester Glee Singers, under the leadership of Mr. Potter; a string quartette, whose members are Mrs. John F. Cooper and Messrs. Wainscot, Cooper and Boozer; besides vocal solos, duets, violin solos, and "Humor at the Piano." The entertainment ended with a clever, well-acted and produced shadowgraph entitled, "The Shady Affair of Mary Jane."

     After a brief interval, toasts were proposed by the toastmaster, Mr. Colley Pryke (the "find" of the season as a toastmaster), Mr. Tilson responding to "The Church," Mr. Gyllenhaal to "The Uses of Worship," Mr. Anderson to "New Church Education," and Mr. Boozer to "New Church Home Life." Then followed in quick succession toasts to the Rev. T. F. Robinson, "NEW CHURCH LIFE," the four young people who were confirmed on Sunday morning, Mr. and Mrs. E. J. Waters ("Ted and Gladys"), who were soon to sail for South Africa to join the staff at "Alpha," Mrs. Stebbing, who was absent for the first time from an Assembly and whose absence was due entirely to advancing age, to "Our Visitors," which was responded to by Mr. Sexton, to the Bishop, and finally to the Colchester Society.

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     The attendance was as follows: Saturday, tea 50; first session 72. Sunday, 11 a.m., 106; The Holy Supper 96, with 77 communicants; second session 88; dinner 85; tea 77. Monday 11 a.m., 89; 3 p.m. 85; social 90; dinner 72; tea 71. This record shows how well-sustained the Assembly was throughout its whole course. The weather was not as fine as last year, especially on Monday, when there were frequent and long showers.

     The usual Assembly photograph was taken on Sunday afternoon, and is obtainable from Miss Muriel Gill, "Maldune," Errington Road, the price being sixty cents or half a crown.

     Among the visitors were: The Rev. W. H. Claxton; the Rev. G. A. and Mrs. Sexton and Miss Cooke, Of Jersey; Mr. and Mrs. Parker, of Deal; Miss Horton, of Camden Road, London.

     Preceding the Assembly a meeting of the New Church Club was held at Ye Olde London Restaurant, Ludgate Hill, London, at which the Rev. G. A. Sexton gave an address on "Modern Science and Swedenborg."

     The Assembly was, if possible, even better than that of last year, the sustained sphere of good will and sociability making it unusually enjoyable and useful. The large attendance of younger people was encouraging for the future. The Committees excelled all previous records in the splendid arrangements, and the new building of the Colchester Society again proved equal to all demands.
     Respectfully submitted,
          F. E. GYLLENHAAL,
               Secretary.

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Church News 1927

Church News       Various       1927

     THE ACADEMY SCHOOLS.

     The fifty-first school year of the Academy of the New Church opened on September 14th with exercises for the Elementary School at 9 a.m. and for the Higher Schools at 10 a.m., when Professor R. W. Brown delivered an Address on the general subject of Progress.

     The total enrollment for 1927-1928 is 275, an increase of 23 over the attendance at the opening a year ago, which was 252. The enrollment in the different departments is as follows:

Theological School      4
College-Men      22
College-Women      24
Girl's Seminary      34
Boy's Academy      43
Elementary School     148
               275

     STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN.

     The Nineteenth of June was celebrated in the home of our pastor at Appelviken, where thirty-three members and friends of the Church met. Long tables had been placed upon the lawn in front of the house, and when all were seated coffee was served. Afterwards all assembled indoors, where speeches were made. First, our pastor spoke of the reasons why we consider the 19th of June to be the great missionary day of the New Church. Mr. B. Smart then spoke on the subjects of Symbols in a very interesting way; and Miss Senta Centervall, our Librarian, pointed out the importance of reading the Writings, and of lending books from the Library of the Society more than has been done hitherto. This pleasant meeting came to close with mutual expressions of thankfulness and good will.

     During the summer Miss Harriet Loven returned home from her two years' studies in Bryn Athyn. And some weeks later Miss Sigrid Cyriel Odhner arrived from the same place, and her marriage to Mr. Torsten Sigstedt took place on Saturday afternoon, August 6th, at four o'clock.

     In the August issue of New Church Life, Mr. George de Charms wrote about the weddings in Bryn Athyn, and said: "No man should be asked to give an account of a wedding. What does he know about it, anyway? He is certain to miss the most essential things; and though he carry away with him a delightful sense of harmony and beauty and dignity, of romance and innocence, he cannot give expression to what he has thus deeply felt." I feel that Mr. de Charms is perfectly right, and I therefore say with him: "We shall not attempt this embarrassing task." And, like him, I will now give you an account of the wedding anyway!

     It took place in a rented room in a little restaurant, nicely decorated by Mr. Sigstedt himself. An altar had been arranged with lights burning upon it. A wedding march was played, and the bridle couple entered, preceded by two little boys and two little girls who strewed flowers in their path. And now I suppose the ladies will want to know something about the bride's gown. This, however, seems to me to be the most hopeless thing for a man to describe, and I can only say that I have been told that it was an exceptionally fine one. And I have no reason to doubt it. But this further information may be added, that it was made in New York.

     The impressive ceremony was followed by a social, with refreshments and wine and toasts and songs, and three cheers, and one cheer more for the bride and bridegroom, and for Our Country, as well as for the second Fatherland of the bride.

     We now have another place of worship, considerably larger than the former one, and seating 200 persons. It is rented by us for Sundays and special occasions only, but we are permitted to keep our library and other effects in the place.

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The stock of our book room is at the home of the pastor.

     In a few days I shall be leaving for Norway on my third missionary trip to that country, and I have been invited to broadcast a lecture on Swedenborg from Bergen. Next to Oslo, the capital, Bergen is the largest city in Norway.
     GUSTAF BAECKSTROM.

     GLENVIEW, ILLINOIS.

     Our local school has begun its classes with a large roster and five teachers, and bids fair to have a successful year. Miss Helen Maynard, after some years' absence, is back on the teaching force, giving the children the advantage of her experience and training. Miss Sophie Falk, with her pleasant personality, engages the attention of the little ones with stories which instruct and entertain them. Professor Rydstrom is teaching singing, and I believe he actually succeeds in getting the big boys to sing parts in chorus. Such work as he is doing will redound to the benefit of our church body, when these pupils later on take their places in the choir and congregational singing.

     The activities of the Society got into full swing on October 7th with the resumption of the Friday suppers. Following this first supper the annual meeting was held, nearly every one being present. A vigorous and friendly sphere prevailed, the result being a profitable and harmonious meeting. The report of the Pastor carried some straight, albeit friendly, talk on the subject of unnecessary absentism from church services and a the habit of unpunctuality. It is discouraging to the minister and the choir to begin the service with only a part of the congregation in the pews. His instruction bore fruit on the following Sunday, when an unusually large congregation assembled for worship, practically all being in their seats at the opening of the service. I remember our Bishop's answer to one of our worthy members who questioned him as to the desirability of additional services, such as an evening service on Sunday or something like a Wednesday evening prayer meeting. He replied that, in his judgment, no further services are needed at present, but that all should attend the one service.

     The Treasurer's Report at this annual meeting was again encouraging, and showed renewed efforts on the part of subscribers, with a spirit to relieve the church officials from the worrying specter of a shortage of funds.

     Again I have the pleasure of reporting a wedding-that of Miss Elva Zent to Mr. Edwin Burnham. Miss Zent is the foster daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Gerhard Wille (Vivian King), and the groom is a son of the late Hugh L. and Mary Burnham. The ceremony took place in the church on October 9th at 8 p.m., and was a charming event, with many of the friends and relatives of the couple in attendance. Also, a feature of the occasion was the attendance of many folks from the Village of Glenview, who know and like the bride and groom. Edwin has completed the building of a home on the Southeast corner of the Park, where he and his bride will reside. The house, though small, is very modern and complete in all its appointments.
     J. B. S.

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NEW CHURCH SERMONS 1927

NEW CHURCH SERMONS              1927




     Announcements.






     Expounding the Scriptures in the Light of the Heavenly Doctrine of the New Jerusalem.

     Selected Discourses by Ministers of the General Church. Suitable for individual reading, and for use in family worship and other services, as well as for missionary purposes.

     A PAMPHLET ISSUED MONTHLY FROM OCTOBER TO JUNE INCLUSIVE.

     Sent free of charge to any address on application to Mr. H. Hyatt, Bryn Athyn, Pa.

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GOING TO THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY 1927

GOING TO THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY       GEORGE DE CHARMS       1927

     Supplementing the information given last month with reference to traveling expenses on the leading transatlantic steamship lines, we would call your attention to three particular lines, each of which has been recommended to us for particular reasons.

     The Holland-American Line. The vessels are of moderate tonnage, and they take a day or two longer than the large Cunard or White Star Liners. The rates are approximately the same as those on vessels of similar size on other lines. But they are especially recommended for a very high standard of service, for the cleanliness characteristic of their country, and for an excellent cuisine.

     The American Merchant Line. These vessels are, for the most part, converted war-transports. They carry only one deck of passengers, the number being limited to about 75. They cross from New York to London in about 9 days. Accommodations are said to be in every way on a par with the second-class cabins on the larger lines, while the rates are cheaper. The fare is $100.00 each way ($125.00 with private bath), as compared with $130.00 to $150.00 Second-class on Cunard or White Star liners. The service is said to be excellent.

     The Cosmopolitan Line. This offers the cheapest rates we have been able to find, the fare being $75.00 each way. There are accommodations for men only. We have no further particulars to offer, except that it has been well spoken of, and we mention it because it might offer a feasible mode of travel for young men who could not otherwise find the means to go.

     Miss Florence Roehner, Bryn Athyn, Pa., was announced last month as the official agent of the Cunard Steamship Co., Ltd. She has since arranged to act in a similar capacity for any of the lines, and is prepared to give information or assistance to any who may inquire.
     GEORGE DE CHARMS,
          Secretary.

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WAYSIDE NOTES 1927

WAYSIDE NOTES       G. A. MCQUEEN       1927


[Frontispiece: Photograph of William Frederick Pendleton.]

NEW CHURCH LIFE
VIOL. XLVII DECEMBER, 1927          No. 12
     IX.

     On Christmas Giving.

     The greatest of all festivals of the Church is drawing near. Wherever the Christian Religion has obtained a foothold there will be found some form of celebration. The observance of the birthday of our Lord has persisted through all the changes and vicissitudes which have attended the Church from its commencement. The reason for this must be because of the belief that the incarnation of the Lord was the greatest of all miracles, and that it was fraught with eternal consequences to the human race.



     It is not surprising, therefore, that the early Church kept the anniversary of the Lord's birth, as each year it was brought to mind when they thought upon the wonderful events which had happened on the first Christmas morning. A sense of profound gratitude must have filled their hearts as they sang their thanksgiving hymns to the long-expected Messiah. At first from actual personal contact with the Lord, and later from the simple records of the Gospels as handed down by the disciples, the primitive Church continued the observance of Christmas Day. Remembering how the Wise Men from the East brought presents to the infant Jesus, it would naturally appear to them that the offering of gifts to the church, and to those in need, would be a fitting expression of their love to the Author of their salvation.

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     We know that in course of time the Church grew in riches and power. The outside world came under its influence, and became what is known as the Christian World. What was at first a religious festival was adopted by the world at large as a season of enjoyment and feasting. Whether Christian or otherwise, Christmas became a time of giving and receiving. At this season, if at no other period of the year, the poor and destitute were remembered, and were given presents which would help them to spend a happy Christmas Day. Many good deeds were done in this way, and still are being done.



     In these later days, what was formerly done by individual initiative is gradually being replaced by organizations, both in and out of the Church, which collect large sums of money by means of advertising and other forms of persuasion, in which the appeal is made to what is styled the "Christmas Spirit." So general has this mass-method of giving become that leaders in the Churches are becoming alarmed. Protests have been printed about the "commercializing of Christmas." To many people the custom of giving at Christmas is becoming burdensome. As one said to me recently: "There is no enjoyment in making gifts these days."



     From time to time reference is made to customs which existed in the early days of the Academy. There was one relating to this matter of Christmas gifts which we have not heard mentioned. With a view to bringing out the real meaning of Christmas, and impressing it upon the minds of the little ones, some families stressed the fact that it was the Lord's Birthday they were to celebrate, and that the first thing they should consider was what they could offer to Him. The first thing to be done was to make their gifts to the church during family worship, or in the Lord's House. This should precede all other giving on that day: Gifts to the family and friends would follow. By adopting this plan of procedure, the giving of Christmas presents would be placed in its true relation to the event being celebrated.



     Would it not be well if some such custom as mentioned above could grow and prevail in the New Church, and ultimately take the place of the misleading stories told about Santa Claus?

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The stories in the Word concerning the rejoicing of the Heavenly host, seen and heard by the simple shepherds who were watching their flocks by night, and of the wise men who came from the East, being led by the star to the place where Jesus was born, would furnish delight to the imagination of the children, and produce thoughts about Christmas which would remain with them during the rest of their lives. The men and women raised under such auspices would, year by year, see more clearly the interior things involved in the Christmas Stories. The central idea with them would be that all their Christmas giving should come from grateful hearts to the Giver of all things, for His love to the human race in bringing salvation by means of His birth into the natural world.
LAMB OF GOD 1927

LAMB OF GOD       Rev. W. L. GLADISH       1927

     "On the morrow, John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." (John 1:29.)

     The Lamb of God is the Divine Human, the sinless One, pure and innocent of all transgression, Who, because of our sins, suffered death upon the cross.

     Why was it necessary that He suffer? The heart cries out against His cruel suffering, and the mind demands some adequate reason for it. Why should a God of infinite power permit His beloved Son to suffer death on the cross?

     Many answers were offered during the first centuries of the Christian Church, but finally the doctrine of the sacrificial atonement prevailed and was established. This doctrine was, that Divine justice demanded it. Death had been decreed as the penalty for eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." Adam and Eve and all their posterity were sentenced to eternal death. The law must he vindicated; the penalty Pronounced must be inflicted. Divine forgiveness could not be extended unless a victim could be found to suffer in man's stead.

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     Then the Son of God-not the Son born of Mary, mind you, but a Son of God born from eternity-moved by pure mercy and love for fallen men, came into the world and suffered in our stead, taking the curse of sin upon Himself. By the sight of His suffering, God the Father was moved to compassion, and accepts His death on the cross as adequate payment for the broken law. And in order that He may extend salvation to us, He lays the sins of all men upon Christ, and imputes the merit of Christ to the repentant sinner. So is the sinner washed clean in the blood of Christ.

     This is the explanation which has been almost universally accepted in the Christian Church as the means by which the Lamb of God takes away the sin of the world. But such a scheme of salvation will not stand before the least ray of rational light. The wonder is that any thinking man could ever have accepted it. If it were possible for God to exempt man from the penalty of his sin, why could He not do so before as well as after an innocent person had suffered? Why was it necessary that God, Who is Love, should be moved by the death of His Son? Would not love forgive as readily without that suffering?

     How can guilt be laid upon another, or the merit of righteousness be transferred? This plan makes of salvation a mere matter of barter on the part of an arbitrary deity who has no regard to character-to good or evil life-but at his good pleasure imputes sin to the innocent and justice to the guilty. Moreover, it divides the Divine into two different natures as well as two different Persons.

     The teaching of the Word, as given in the Heavenly Doctrine of the New Jerusalem, is that the Lord came into the world for two purposes, namely, to subjugate the bells and to glorify His Human, and that the passion of the cross was the last temptation by which He fully accomplished both of these purposes. The power of hell among men was triumphant over the power of heaven. That power sought the Lord's life, and aroused men to put Him to death. He submitted Himself to their power, and out of their seeming triumph brought forth His own victory,-the victory of love over hate, of good over evil. He lay down His life for His sheep, and rose in triumph over death and hell. At the same time He lay down the merely human life that He might rise with and in the Divine Human Life, that He might thenceforth be present among men in His own Human, and might thus to eternity be the visible God, and also that He might in His Divine Human hold hell in perpetual subjection.

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This is meant by "the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world."

     But let us draw nearer, and seek to understand this doctrine of the Lamb of God, and His taking away the sin of the world. For He Himself enters as His truth enters the understanding; and He makes His abode with us to the extent that we love that truth. To love Him is to love the truth which is from Him and about Him. It was bound up in human freedom-and freedom is the essential human principle without which there could be no human life-that the race would, in time, turn away from God to self and the world. This involved that the organic vessels of the natural mind, instead of turning inward and upward to the spiritual world and the Lord, as they did turn by creation, would turn outward to this world and downward to self, and would be so transmitted to posterity. Thus in time no one would be able either to see the truth or to love it.

     The fall of man also involved the increase and preponderance of the power of hell over the power of heaven among men. The two powers of heaven and of hell continually strive for the mastery among men; and at the time of the Lord's advent the power of hell was in the ascendant. Men were no longer in freedom; the devils did what they pleased with men, even to bodily obsession. The Lord looked, and there was no man. The light of truth, even of sensual and representative truth, was gone. The power of heaven, or of the Divine acting through heaven, was inadequate to save men. Unless something were done, the human race was doomed. The hells would soon destroy men, even as to bodily life.

     But there was a way of escape and salvation foreseen and provided from the beginning, a way in which even the wrath of man could be made to praise God. That was for God Himself to come into the world by virgin birth; to take upon Himself this perverted human nature, so that through it the hells might approach Him and tempt Him as they tempt every man. But He, from the Divine within Him, was able to see the genuine truth, and was able to love it and so embody it in a human life. Thus He became Man, the Man, the only Man in ultimates, as from the beginning He had been Man in first principles above the heavens.

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And thus He brought the Divine Truth and the Divine Good into direct contact and conflict with the powers of darkness and death which held man in thrall. In doing this He accomplished a general judgment in the spiritual world, delivered men from the hand of the infernals, and shut these up in their hells.

     But do you ask why God could not have done these works of redemption directly from His own omnipotence, without taking our nature upon Him?

     First, God in His own Divine unclothed could not approach either the infernals or fallen men. He must take on some medium of approach, some accommodation, in and by which the Divine could be seen and comprehended.

     Second, if He could have approached in His own unclothed Divine, the ardency of that Divine life would have consumed them, even as the sun, if it should draw near, would consume the whole world with its heat. And He would not come to destroy, but to save.

     Third, what the Divine does He does in ultimates, and thus in fulness. By taking upon Himself an infirm human, like that of other men, admitting into it the full power of all the hells in temptation, even as they would tempt other men, and then asserting against their falsities, not merely a statement of the truth, but a life of truth embodied in flesh and blood,-by this alone could God fully conquer all the power of evil, and hold it in subjection; and thus, at the same time, not override the human faculties of freedom and reason, but appeal to them, and judge even the devils and satans through their own faculties.

     This subject,-the coming of Almighty God into the world which He created, to redeem men from the power of hell, and to make Himself known to the children of His love, so that they might believe in Him and love Him, and so that to eternity He might dwell among them, and they in Him,-this is the subject of supreme interest and importance, worthy of our highest endeavor to understand aright. As now revealed, it appeals to reason at every step; never does it contradict human reason. I will not say that it is easy to understand without effort; but I will say that a simple straight-forward understanding of the reason for God's coming into the world, and of the redemption and salvation He thereby accomplished, can be gained by anyone of sound mind who will try to understand it in the light of revelation.

711




     The inner way to God was closed. The upper door and window, by which the first men had access to heaven at their pleasure, could no longer be opened; even the way to them was lost. Men lived in the world and for the world. They believed what they saw and felt in the flesh, and nothing more. God had gone out of their lives. If they retained any idea of God, it was only as a tribal god who was altogether such a one as themselves,-a man loving his friends and hating his enemies.

     The only way to restore a true knowledge of God was to come and live the Divine life in our human life. Thus God could present Himself before men, not merely as an Object of sight and touch, but could also present the Divine qualities in terms of human life, thus in forms that man can understand. And when it is remembered that man by creation is an image and likeness of God; it does not seem impossible that God could live in that human which He had formed in His own image.

     Had He assumed a human form out of the elements, as He might have done, this would not have revealed the Divine nature in terms that would have meant anything to sensual men. But to take on our own nature by virgin birth, and so inherit all the ills and evils flesh is heir to; to grow as man grows, gaining knowledge as man does by the way of the senses, and hence to live in mists and doubts, in appearances and the fallacious light of the senses; thus to be tempted at all points as we are, and yet always to act from the Divine Love and according to the Divine Wisdom;-this was to reveal the God who created us in terms that we can understand.

     This He did, not to take away the necessity for our obedience to the Divine law, not to suffer in our stead, that by the mention of His Name, as some kind of magic talisman, we might go free from the just punishment of our sins. Not that at all. But that we might follow in His steps. He has opened a way for us, and has cleared it of thieves and robbers, that we may walk safely therein. He has shown us the perfect human life. And all who know that life as revealed in the Word, and look to Him, receive from Him power to follow Him. "Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world."

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     Never are we to forget that He was here as our God. We cannot become like Him except as the finite is like the infinite, as the image is like that of which it is an image, like the image of a man seen in a mirror.

     His soul, even from birth, was the Divine Itself. His ruling love was the love of men; while the hereditary love of every finite man is some form of the love of self or of the world. From His love of men, of saving them and drawing them to Himself, He fought in every assault of the bells. And as He rejected from His assumed human the forms of thought and affection inherited from His mother, which were stirred into life by the presence of evil men and spirits, He brought down into His Human new forms and substances to take the place of those cast off. Thus He was continually glorifying His Human, making it Divine.

     This process was completed on the cross. By submitting to the passion of the cross, the Lord met the last and supreme attempt to make Him act from a merely human love, the love of saving His own life. By laying down His life He revealed the nature of the Divine Love, brought the Divine forth to view; and this, not only abstractly, but actually and organically. For by this He put off the material body from the mother, and put on a Divine Body from the Father. Therefore He rose from the tomb with His whole Body, no longer material, but Divine; yet a Divine-Natural Body in which He remains visible to men and angels.

     This is truly the Lamb of God; not the imperfect human which He took on from Mary, but the Divine Human which He put on as a result of His glorification. It is by the presence and power of this Divine Human that He redeemed mankind from the power of hell, and holds the powers of darkness in eternal subjection to Himself, so that they now serve only for the purposes of temptation and purification for all who can be led to follow the Lord in the regenerate life.

     "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." Amen.

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VISIBLE GOD OF THE HEAVENS 1927

VISIBLE GOD OF THE HEAVENS       Rev. ALBERT BJORCK       1927

     (A sequel to the paper entitled "The Visible God of the New Church," Published in New Church Life, December, 1926.)

     To a New Churchman, the expression "The Word of the Lord" means not only the books of the Old and New Testaments which have a continuous spiritual sense, but also the Writings, in and through which the Lord has revealed the teaching or doctrine of the spiritual sense that is hidden within the letter of the previously given revelations of Divine Truth. In order that spiritual truths may be understood by men living in the natural world, they must necessarily be stated in natural language. They must, therefore, be revealed through a man living in the natural world. In the Writings, Divine and spiritual truths are stated in the language of Swedenborg, and in the light of his spiritual-rational understanding. This was given him by the Lord through preparation from youth, through his introduction into the spiritual world, and through reading the Word, where the Lord Himself is the inmost, and from whence He illumined Swedenborg's mind. The Writings, therefore, are a revelation from the Lord to those who will be of His New Church.

     The natural language of Swedenborg is the literal sense of the Writings; and, because it is natural, it more or less veils or clouds the truth revealed through it. This veil or cloud becomes thinner, and admits more of the light of heaven to the man of the Church, as he develops an interior rational sight by reflecting upon the meaning of the many different statements in and through which the truth is revealed in the Writings. Differences in the understanding of particular doctrines, as they are there stated, should therefore stimulate reflection upon the statements in the Writings, whose literal sense gives rise to these differences. When that is done for the truth's own sake, and not for the sake of defending any position personally held, then progress in the interior understanding of the doctrines can be promoted in the Church.

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And such reflection is, as I understand it, what is meant by the statement that "all doctrine should be drawn from the letter of the Word." (S. S. 50)

     We are told that the difference between what is natural and what is spiritual could not have been made known to us, unless the Lord had granted Swedenborg to be in both, worlds intermittently, and thus, when in one world, to reflect and compare what he had observed in the other. (Divine Wisdom VII:5.) Comparing and reflecting upon what he had seen and learned in each, the Lord gave him to understand the difference between them, and to describe the laws that govern the spiritual world so circumstantially that we, in our turn, reflecting upon what has thus been revealed, can learn to understand them.

     But the reality itself of the spiritual world, and its apparent similarity to the natural, as the Writings describe it, may easily fasten itself in the mind of the reader in such a way that he overlooks, or does not pay enough attention to, the great underlying differences. This is, I think, the reason why there have always been, and still are, different conceptions among New Churchmen concerning some truths revealed in the Writings.

     II.

     "All the visible things of the spiritual world are the correspondences of the affections which are in the spirits and angels." (C. J. 23.)

     "From what I have seen for so many years I can relate the following: There are lands in the spiritual world just as in the natural, and also plains and valleys, mountains and hills, springs and rivers; paradises, gardens, groves and forests; cities, with palaces and houses in them; writings and books; employments and business; gold, silver and precious stones; in a word, all things whatsoever that are in the natural world. But those in heaven are beyond measure more perfect. The difference is, that all things seen in the spiritual world are instantaneously created by the Lord, as houses, paradises, food and the rest; and they are created in correspondence with the interiors of angels and spirits, which interiors are their affections and consequent thoughts; while all things in the natural world arise and grow from seed." (T. C. R. 794)

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     These two quotations give concisely and clearly the general and fundamental leaching of the Writings regarding the similarity and the difference between the things that appear to the eyes of spirits and angels and those which appear to the eyes of men living in the natural world. The same teaching is given in all parts of the Writings, especially in Heaven and Hell and Divine Love and Wisdom, several chapters in each of these works being devoted to it.

     The first of the two statements quoted above teaches us that all the visible things in the spiritual world are correspondences of the affections which are in spirits and angels. The second amplifies the teaching by saying that all the visible things, or "all things seen in the spiritual world," are instantaneously created by the Lord in correspondence with the interiors of angels and spirits, which interiors are their affections and consequent thoughts. The expressions "all visible things" and "all things seen" seem clearly to state that everything without exception, which appears to the eyes of spirits and angels, is an instantaneous creation by the Lord in correspondence with the affections and thoughts of spirits and angels. Nevertheless, many intelligent New Churchmen have held, and still hold, that the spiritual sun seen by the angels, and also the Divine Human of the Lord, as seen in or outside of the sun, are objective existences independent of the affections and thoughts of those who see them, although the aspect of the sun and of the Lord corresponds to their reception of heat and light from the Lord in the sun.

     At first glance, it may not seem to be much difference, whether we say that the aspect of a thing corresponds to the state of the beholder, or that the thing is created by the Lord instantaneously in correspondence with the state of a living being, who, in the instant it is created, sees it, or becomes a beholder of it, but the difference is really great. The two differ as much as the common-sense view that the natural sun exists independently of the fact that blind men do not see it, or that men, on account of the movement of the earth, do not always see it, differs from the idealistic conception that the natural sun does not exist, except in the mind of man. Substitute the spiritual sun for the natural, and it becomes plain that those who apply to the spiritual sun a conception like the commonsense view of the natural sun controvert the teaching that all things visible to angels and spirits are instantaneous creations by the Lord-projecting, so to speak, outside them what is within them, and so making it visible in corresponding forms.

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     That way of understanding the teaching of the Writings seems to introduce elements of time and space from the realities of the natural world, and on that account alone its correctness must be questioned. But many statements in the Writings seem to support that view. A few of those commonly referred to are the following: [Italics mine.]

     "All things in the universe have been created from the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom of God-Man." (D. L. W. 52.)

     "The Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom appear in the spiritual world as a sun." (D. L. W. 83.)

     "That sun is not the Lord Himself, but from the Lord. It is the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom proceeding from Him which appear as a sun in that world." (D. L. W. 86, 93.)

     "God is a Man. The first proceeding of His Love and Wisdom is that spiritual fiery thing which appears before the angels as a sun." (D. L. W. 97.)

     "The sun from which the angels have light and heat appears above the lands on which the angels dwell, at an elevation of about forty-five degrees, which is the middle altitude; and it also appears distant from the angels, as the sun of the world from men. That sun, appears constantly in that altitude and at that distance, nor does it move." (D. L. W. 104.)

     In their literal wording, these statements clearly set forth the eternal truth that the spiritual sun, or the first proceeding of the Lord's Love and Wisdom, is and exists before the created universe. Through and from that sun the Lord created the spiritual atmospheres and the natural sun; and through this, as a middle cause, He created the natural world in which we live as men. Everyone agrees with this. But the question that gives rise to different answers is: Is it that sun which the angels see? or, can that sun, and the Lord who is in the midst of it, ever be seen by any angel?

     There are many statements in the Writings, which, when we consider them, seem conclusively to show that the sun in which the Lord is, and through which He creates everything, cannot be seen by any created beings, but that what is seen by them is a mirrored image of what they have received of the Lord's Love and Wisdom through the Word which is with men on earth.

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     In D. L. W. 108, we read about apparent truths which become falsities when accepted for truths themselves; and examples are given of such apparent truths in the world. Then the passage continues, "It is the same with innumerable other appearances, not only in natural, civil and moral things, but also in spiritual things. It is the same with the distance of the sun in the spiritual world, which sun is the first Proceeding of the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom of the Lord. The truth is that there is no distance; but the distance is an appearance according to the reception of the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom in their degree by the angels." (D. L. W. 109.)

     That the angels appear to themselves to be in different quarters in the spiritual world is also an appearance, not the truth itself. For in the same work it is said that "the Lord is not in a greater or lesser degree of Love and Wisdom, or, He as a sun is not in greater or lesser degree of heat and light with one than with another, for He is everywhere the same. But He is not received by one in the same degree as by another; and this causes them to appear to themselves to be at a greater or lesser distance from one another, and also various as to quarters. From which it follows that the quarters in the spiritual world are nothing else than various receptions of love and wisdom, and thence of heat and light from the Lord as a sun. The Lord is in an angel, and an angel in the Lord; but because it appears as if the Lord as a sun were outside of him, it also appears that the Lord sees him from the sun, and that he sees the Lord in the sun, almost as an image appears in a mirror." (D. L. W. 124, 125.)

     The quarters of the spiritual world are indeed "determined" by the spiritual sun, but they are "from" the inhabitants themselves. "An angel changes his quarter according to the increase or decrease of love with him; from which it is plain that the quarter is not from the Lord as a sun, but from the angel according to reception. It is the same with man as to his spirit." (D. L. W. 126.)

     If we reflect upon these statements, the conclusion seems to me inevitable that everything which gives to the spiritual world its similarity to the natural,-that is, the appearance of objective realities like those in the world, and with them the appearance of space,-are created by the Lord, so to speak, through the angels and spirits there, including the sunshine, with the light and warmth which they perceive, in perfect correspondence with their reception or lack of reception of love and wisdom from Him.

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And, although these apparently external objects are all appearances, they are real, as real as the affections and consequent thoughts of the angels, and furnish them with a world, and with all the necessary means for a useful life, as real to them as this world is to us.

     Further we read: "The Lord is not in greater or lesser degree of love and wisdom, or, He as a sun is not in a greater or lesser degree of heat and light, with one than with another; for He is everywhere the same." (D. L. W. 124.)

     "On account of the differences in the reception of the Lord by the angels, the heavens also appear distinct from each other. The highest heaven, which is called the third, appears above the second, and this above the first; not that the heavens are distant from each other, but that they appear to be distant; for the Lord is equally present with those who are in the lowest heaven as with those who are in the third heaven. That which causes the appearance of distance is in the subjects, which are the angels-not in the Lord." (D. L. W. 110.)

     "That this is so, can scarcely be comprehended by a natural idea, because there is space in it; but it can be comprehended by a spiritual idea, because space is not in it. In this latter idea are the angels. This much, however, can be comprehended by a natural idea, that love and wisdom-or, what is the same, the Lord who is Divine Love and Divine Wisdom-cannot progress through spaces, but is with everyone according to reception."

     These quotations help us to see that, though we cannot see love and wisdom, we can be affected by them, perceive their presence in us, and, in accordance with that perception or experience, can form some idea of them; which idea, in the spiritual world, is given an external visible form outside of us; and this is the sun of the spiritual world, from which we have light and warmth, because the Lord is in it, and it is the proceeding of His own infinite Divine Love and Wisdom.

     The sun through which the universe was created, and which therefore was from eternity before all creation,-the sun which is "pure love from Jehovah God, who is in the midst of it, the heat of which in its essence is love, and the light of which in its essence is wisdom" (Influx 5, 6)-that sun is seen by us, if we become angels, though not as it is in itself, but in correspondence with our reception of it.

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That creating sun cannot be seen by any man or angel, because in its essence it is love and wisdom, but from it men and angels get spiritual heat and light; and the angels are given by the Lord to perceive this light and heat surrounding them in the atmospheres in a way perfectly corresponding to that whereby men on earth perceive the heat and light from the natural sun surrounding them in the natural atmosphere of the earth.

     III.

     It is said that the Lord from the beginning is Esse and Existere Itself. He is Esse, or Being, because He is Life Itself, uncreated Life, which alone is, and from which all created things exist. Because all created things and beings have their existence from him, He is called Existere Itself. In Him, Essence and Form, or what is the same, Love and Wisdom, are one and inseparable. But the word "existence" is also used for the manifest forms of creation, as indicated in the statement: 'L The reception of life is that of which existence is predicated." To quote more fully:

     "There are two things which make man, namely, being and existing (esse and existere). Man's being is nothing but a recipient of the eternal which proceeds from the Lord; for men, spirits and angels are nothing but recipients, or forms recipient of life from the Lord. The reception of life is that of which existing is predicated. Man believes that he is, and this of himself; when yet it is not true that he is of himself, but that he exists, as above said. Being (Esse) is only in the Lord, and it is called Jehovah. From Being (Esse), which is Jehovah, are all things which appear to be. But the Lord's Being, or Jehovah, can never be communicated to anyone, only to the Lord's Human. This was made the Divine Esse, that is Jehovah. Existing is also predicated of the Lord, but only when He was in the world, and where He put on the Divine Esse. But since He has become the Divine Esse, Existence can no longer be predicated of Him, otherwise than as something proceeding from Him." (A. C. 3938.)

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     The human in which the Lord dwelt while in the world, and which could be seen by the physical eyes of all who came within range of Him, that is, the human from the mother, was not Divine, and could never be made Divine, because it was only a recipient of life: Therefore it was not the Lord, and could not become the Lord. But the Infinite Life, which as to Essence is Love and Wisdom, dwelt within that finite human, and could therefore be said to exist in the world, revealing Itself through the finite human. By putting off the human from the mother, the Divine Human came down on the human plane of life. By so bringing down the Divine to the human sphere of life, the Lord humanized His Divine, if we may use that expression. When the human in which the Divine dwelt in time was wholly put off, the Lord could not be said to exist in the sense we commonly use the word, and as it is defined in the above quotation. He was then one with the Infinite Divine Esse or Being, Life Itself, which in its Essence is Love, and in its Form Wisdom from eternity. No change could be wrought in that Divine Love and Wisdom, which is from the beginning, but the change apparent to men and angels is in their reception of love and wisdom from Him through the Word.

     He is always the same. The life received by the ant, and the life received by a human being, is the same life; but, received by man as love and wisdom from the Lord in the Word, the invisible Life reveals itself in a degree incomparably higher than it does in the ant.

     The human from the mother which the Lord took on, and in which He dwelt in the world, I was the means by which He could combat evil, overcome it, and reveal true human life in the image and likeness of the Divine Life. His human thoughts, words and actions revealed the Divine Life upon the external human plane of life; that is, they revealed the Infinite Love and Wisdom, which were His very Soul. It was His own Infinite Human that revealed Itself, and could be seen by, those who had eyes to see; and, therefore, "when the Lord manifests Himself to the angels in Person, He manifests Himself as a Man, and this sometimes in the sun, sometimes outside of the sun." (D. L. W. 97)

     And although, when the external form recipient of His Divine Life had been fully put off, "existing can no longer be predicated of Him, other than as something proceeding from Him," He is still with men, and in a fuller sense than before, in that proceeding from Him who is the inmost of the Word.

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     "Jehovah's being seen is the appearing of the Lord's Divine in His Human, as is evident from this, that His Divine cannot appear to any man, not even to any angel, except by the Divine Human; nor the Divine Human, except by the Divine Truth which proceeds from Him." (A. C. 6945)

     "Those who are in the light of truth from the Word are also in the light of heaven, for the light of heaven is from Divine Truth, and the Word is that in which this is." (L. J. 58.)

     "All who are in heaven are instructed by the Lord from Truth Divine which is with men, thus from the Word." (A. C. 9430)

     "In the inmost of the Word is the Lord as a sun, from which Divine Truth and Divine Good, light and flame, radiate and propagate themselves through mediates even to ultimates." (De Verbo XI.)

     "Without the Word there would be no heaven, even as, without the Word, there would be no church in the world; thus there would be no conjunction with the Lord. . . . Such as a man is as to his religion in the world, such he is as to his religion after death when he becomes a spirit; and the whole heaven does not consist of any angels created before or with the world, but of those who have been men, and were then interiorly angels. These, through the Word, come in heaven into spiritual wisdom, which is interior wisdom, because the Word there is spiritual." (De Verbo XIV.)

     IV.

     A man's understanding is his spiritual sight. Even here we say, "I see," when we think we understand something told us. Just as the eyes are formed from natural substances, so the faculty of understanding is formed from spiritual substances. It is the organ of sight with spirits and angels, corresponding to the physical eyes of men in the world. The truths they understand appear outside them as objective realities, instantaneously created by the Lord, or by Life Itself.

     Spiritual truths,-truths concerning the Lord our God and heavenly life,-can come to the knowledge of men only through the Word.

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The truths about the Lord's Love and Wisdom which a man has learned from the Word, and which he has tried to follow in his life here, appear to him in the other world as the sun of heaven, from which, to all appearance, proceed the light by which he sees and the warmth that he feels. But the manner in which the sun appears to him, its aspect, and the amount of light and heat he appears to receive from it, depend upon his individual understanding of these truths, and correspond exactly to it, and to his affection for being guided by them.

     When an angel thinks of the fact that the truths of spiritual life which he knows, understands and is guided by, are given him by the Lord through the Word, he may be given to see the Lord in the sun as a Man. In other words, his understanding is illumined to see that the Lord is the inmost in the Word. When his thoughts are fastened upon the Lord as a Person, without consciously connecting Him with the love and wisdom that proceed from Him, he may be given to see Him outside of the sun. When he sees the Lord, he always sees Him in human form, because the whole teaching of the Word presents Him to the human mind as a Man; and love and wisdom are unthinkable except as proceeding from a man, or as human qualities.

     The men of the Most Ancient Church had no written Word. The influx of life from the Lord was received in their will, and gave them an intuitive perception of what was right, good, and wise. The love and wisdom which thus revealed themselves in their human activity, in their words and teaching to the rising generation, were from the Lord, and were therefore a revelation in human form of that degree of the Lord's love and wisdom which they could receive and give expression to. And as that degree could be developed indefinitely, we can understand how it could be said in the Writings that, if the Most Ancient Church had remained in its integrity, there would have been no need for the Lord to come into the world.

     The human life in and through which the Lord's love and wisdom then became externally manifest in the lives of men on earth was the humanity of loving and wise men, but finite and created men, receiving love and wisdom from the Lord, and who therefore became angels of heaven after the death of the body.

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The Lord's Human was thus represented by created human beings receiving life from Him, and revealing that life as love and wisdom through their feelings, words and actions. When they saw the Lord, they saw Him in the form of an angel filled with love and wisdom from Him.

     When the Most Ancient Church lost its integrity, and human beings no longer received life from the Lord in a good will, and consequently could no longer reveal love and wisdom from Him in their affections, words and actions, that Church ceased to exist spiritually. Men of the Church on earth could not become angels of heaven; in other words, the growth of the heavens ceased.

     But the precepts and teachings of angelic men while the Church was still in its integrity were handed down, and became the nucleus of a written revelation of Divine Truth or the Word with men. Through this Word, men who obeyed its precepts could learn to understand spiritual truths, and could receive a new will born in them by the Lord. New teachings and precepts could be added to the Word on earth through men so made good and wise by the Lord in the Word.

     When the men of that Church became angels, they also saw the Lord as a sun, but its light, in comparison with that enjoyed by the angels from the Most Ancient Church, was like the moon's light compared with that of the sun. It was other men's wisdom and love reflected in their faith and spiritual understanding, even though they understood that this love and wisdom came from the Lord, and was given them by Him. This was due to the fact that their Word, in its external, had come to them through the former Church; or, what is the same, in proceeding from the Lord or Life Itself, it had passed through the heaven formed from the men of the Most Ancient Church.

     There came a time when the men of the Ancient Church no longer understood that the Word they possessed was a Divine Revelation, or that it proceeded from the Lord. Its Precepts and teaching were regarded as originating with men. The spiritual significance of ritual and worship was lost sight of. The Church came to an end, and its Word, no longer understood, was allowed to be lost.

     A new Church was raised up, not a real or spiritual Church, but a Church which, by its organization and worship, could represent the Lord and spiritual truths from Him.

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But the Word given to that Church was also a continuation of the Word of the former Churches. Portions of the Word of the Ancient Church were preserved, and served as a nucleus. To this were added commandments, precepts and Divinely prescribed ceremonies and rituals, given in an externally miraculous way, thus making men, at least externally, to believe in, and fear, an Almighty God. Later the historical events of the Church itself, and of individuals in the Church, were made an integral part of that Word, because, guided by the Lord's Providence, they could prophetically represent spiritual truths concerning Him and from Him. Thus the Word to the Jewish Church,-the Old Testament of our Word,-came from the Lord, passing through the heavens formed from the men of the two previous Churches. Through that Word a belief in One God was preserved with men in the world; and because its representative and significative meaning was understood by the angels of the heavens formed from men of the former Churches, the light of the sun of their heavens was preserved, and the hope of the coming of a greater light was kept alive. For " all who are in heaven are instructed by the Lord from Truth Divine which is with man, thus from the Word." (A. C. 9430)

     There came a time when the external representative Church could no longer serve that purpose, because there was within it no understanding of the Divine Truth in the Word, and no real obedience to the commandments of God as plainly stated in the literal sense of that Word. There was no man through whom the Lord could reveal the spiritual truths represented in the literal sense of the Word given to the Jewish Church. Unless there are men, or at least one man, on earth, through whom spiritual truths representatively given in the letter of the Word can be stated in natural words which bring them to other men's understanding, the existence of the heavens themselves is threatened. The merely natural understanding of the Word must give place to a spiritual understanding of its truths among men on earth, or religion and the Church ceases to be, and no one can be saved. For unless the Word is understood by men in a true way, and unless such true understanding is ultimated in natural language which can preserve and keep alive that understanding, the Word practically ceases to exist, and with it the Church on earth.

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And "without the Word there would be no heaven, as without the Word there would be no Church in the world, and thus no conjunction with the Lord." No one could have been saved, if the Lord Himself, in His infinite love for the salvation of men, had not taken to Himself from a human mother a human nature like ours, and if He had not, by His own power in that nature, overcome the evils of human life, and made manifest the Divine Human life.

     In doing that, He brought out, and made men see, truths hidden beneath the representative language of the Word given to the Jewish Church. The involution or wrapping up of spiritual truth in the natural language of the Old Testament was laid bare, as far as men could then be made to see it, as He in His human life fulfilled the Scriptures in such a way that men on earth could get somewhat of a spiritual understanding of it. Through the human nature which He had taken from the mother He had the means by which His Divine Truth could be stated in natural language, exemplified by His actions. The record of that teaching and those actions constitutes the main part of the Word given to the Christian Church, revealing in its literal sense as much of the internal sense of the Old Testament as men then, and for ages after, were able to receive.

     The truth so revealed by the Lord Himself in actions and teaching, and in the Word to the Christian Church, added sevenfold to the light from the sun in the spiritual world, or, what is the same, it added wondrously to the angelic understanding of the Lord and His Divine Love and Wisdom. For angels understand spiritually the truth that is stated in the natural language of the Word with men. What to them had been a promise and a hope through the Word of the Old Testament now became a reality.

     But even the Lord's own disciples did not understand that it was God from the beginning, Life Itself, the Jehovah of their Word, who dwelt in, worked and spoke through, the human from Mary; or that, as He overcame the evils of that nature-all the accumulated evils to which that human nature since the fall has a tendency-He put away that nature, and thus revealed His own Divine Human. And because His disciples, through whom the literal sense of the New Testament was given, did not understand this, it could not be made known directly in that literal sense to the Church established upon it.

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For the sense of the letter mirrors men's understanding, or lack of understanding, of Divine Truth, as it comes down to their minds from the Lord out of heaven.

     And when, in the Christian Church, the first vague natural-spiritual understanding of the Divine Truth in the Gospels and the Revelation of John was lost, and the literal meaning alone was dwelt upon, that meaning itself became corrupted and twisted to give support to human opinions and ambitions. False heavens were established in the world of spirits, and no one could have been saved, unless the Lord Himself, as the Truth proceeding from His Divine Human, had come again into the world, and given that truth in natural language through His servant, Swedenborg Through that language, or the literal sense of the Writings, the Truth of the Lord's Divine Human is stated in such a way that men, reflecting upon it, can learn to see it in rational-spiritual light; for in its ultimate form the Divine Truth is in its greatest power.

     Men who understand the Truth proceeding from the Lord's Divine Human in the Word, and who love to be guided by it, see the Lord in the sun of the spiritual world when they become angels. His Love and Wisdom is their sun, and He Himself is in its midst, but the Human Form they see, and the light and heat coming to them from the sun, are instantaneously created by the Lord in accordance with their understanding of the truth from Him in the Word, and their affection for it.

     The Lord Himself in His Divine Human is the inmost in the Word to the New Church, as He is the inmost in the Word given to the previous Churches. But in the Word to His New Church,-the Word upon which the New Church is established,-that inmost, or the Divine Human, comes down into, and shines through the very ultimates, its literal sense. Therefore, the light and heat from the spiritual sun can be increasingly perceived, and the Lord's Human seen in ever increasing glory and splendor, by the men on earth in whom the Church is, and by the angels of heaven. The same thing can be stated in this way,-that the growth of spiritual life in the Church, and the progress toward the Lord in love and wisdom with men and angels, can go on to eternity, as men, the truth, reflect upon and learn to understand the truth expressed in the literal sense of the Writings.

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     "The Divine Truth in the Lord's Divine Human is above appearances, nor can it ever come to any understanding, and still less to any apprehension, of man, not even to that of angels. It appears in heaven as the Light which is from the Lord." (A. C. 2814.)

     No finite being, man or angel, can ever behold the infinite God-Man, the Lord in His glorified Human, nor the whole truth proceeding from Him, which also is infinite, like Himself. But men's vision of His Human, and their perception of His Love and Wisdom, can become ever clearer, though always finite and subject to imperfection, as they understand that the Word which "in the beginning was God, and was with God,"-the Word that was "made flesh" in the Lord's life on earth,-is the inmost of the Word with men, their Spiritual Sun, the Lord Himself with them, and that His Truth comes down into, and shines through, the very letter of the Word to His New Church.
BEFORE AND AFTER THE INCARNATION 1927

BEFORE AND AFTER THE INCARNATION              1927

     "The Ancient and Israelitish Churches, as to all their worship, were representative Churches. The cause of this Divine providence was that Jehovah had not yet put on the Natural Human, which He took on by incarnation in the womb of Mary, thus according to the order established from creation; and prior to this He could not be conjoined to man as to the interiors of his spirit, and thus manifest there to man's perception His Divine things, which are celestial and spiritual, and thus far above the discernment of the senses of the body. This also was as impossible as it is to make a bird fly in the ether, or a fish to walk in the air. . . . It was otherwise, however, after He assumed the Natural Human, and united this, when glorified, to His Divine, and thus conjoined into one in Himself the Divine Celestial, Divine Spiritual and Divine Natural. He was then able, by means of this, to conjoin Himself to man in his natural, yea, in his sensual, and at the same time to his spirit or mind in his rational, and thus to enlighten his natural lumen with heavenly light. . . . Now, before the incarnation of Jehovah was accomplished, conjunction with Him could not take place except through an angel, thus by means of a representative human; on which account, also, all things of the Church were made representative; consequently, men worshiped Jehovah by types affecting the senses of the body, and at the same time corresponding to spiritual things. Hence it was that the men of the Ancient Church, and still more the men of the Israelitish Church, were external and natural men, and could not become internal and spiritual, as men can since the Advent of the Lord." (Coronis 51)

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PASSING OF THE BISHOP EMERITUS 1927

PASSING OF THE BISHOP EMERITUS       Editor       1927


NEW CHURCH LIFE
Office a Publication, Lancaster, Pa.
Published Monthly By
THE GENERAL CHURCH OF THE NEW JERUSALEM
BRYN ATHYN, PA.
Editor                    Rev. W. B. Caldwell, Bryn Athyn, Pa.
Business Manager          Mr. H. Hyatt, Bryn Athyn, Pa.

     All literary contributions should be sent to the Editor. Subscriptions, change of address and business communications should be sent to the Business Manager.

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     When one who is loved and honored among us is taken to the eternal world, our sorrow at losing his earthly presence is solaced by the thought of his release from bodily infirmities and his glad entrance into a new life of activity in his chosen use. And we, who are aware that the growth of the New Church among men depends upon its increase in the spiritual world, will acknowledge the Providence which has now taken to that higher realm one who has played such a notable part in the development of the Church during the last half century. It seems especially significant that this transfer, with its renewal of activity in the Lord's service, should occur at this time of anniversary observance. And it will be of undoubted benefit to the Church to review the career of one who has so worthily filled its highest offices, and who has so long been held in highest esteem as a beloved leader and teacher.

     William Frederic Pendleton was ordained into the priesthood of the New Church by Bishop Benade in the year 1873. His first pastoral charges were in Wilmington and Philadelphia. In 1877 he accepted a call to Chicago, and the story of his pastorate there is told in the recently published book, The Early Days of the Immanuel Church, and in the Report of the Jubilee of that Society given elsewhere in our present issue.

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In 1884 he returned to Philadelphia as a Professor of Theology in the Academy of the New Church, and in 1888 was consecrated Bishop of the Church of the Academy and invested with the office of Vice Chancellor. With the changes that came in 1897, he was chosen Bishop of the General Church of the New Jerusalem, which office he held until his voluntary retirement in 1916. During this twenty-year period he also became Pastor ex-officio of the Bryn Athyn Society and President of the Academy of the New Church. He gave instruction in the Theological School, devoted much time to the preparation of the Liturgy, which was published in 1908, and was active in plans for a church building at Bryn Athyn, this culminating in the laying of the corner stone of the Cathedral in 1914.

     After his retirement, he was not content to suspend his ministerial activities altogether, but preached occasionally, and wrote the many doctrinal papers and articles which have appeared in these pages during the last ten years, notably the series of "Notes on Ritual" and his "Topics from the Writings," concluded in November, 1926. He also continued his teaching in the Theological School, until his classes were interrupted on October 12th by the illness which then overtook him. The Degree of Doctor of Theology was conferred upon him by the Academy at its Commencement in June, 1926.

     While we are too close to Bishop Pendleton and his times to make a full appraisal of his place in the history of the Church, we may well profit by such a biographical account of his life and works as we shall hope to lay before our readers at an early date. In our next issue we shall print the very fitting addresses delivered at the funeral service by the Rev. George de Charms and Bishop N. D. Pendleton. The photograph which appears as our frontispiece this month was taken in the Bishop's cottage at Ocean City, N. J., in April, 1926.

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TWENTY-THIRD CHICAGO DISTRICT ASSEMBLY AND IMMANUEL CHURCH JUBILEE 1927

TWENTY-THIRD CHICAGO DISTRICT ASSEMBLY AND IMMANUEL CHURCH JUBILEE       G. A. MCQUEEN       1927

     HELD AT GLENVIEW, ILL., OCTOBER 21-23, 1927.

     With ideal Indian Summer weather, and the Park arrayed in beautifully tinted autumn foliage, our District Assembly this year was held under most favorable conditions, and was of exceptional interest and importance, having as its main feature the celebration of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Immanuel Church. In addition to visitors from a distance, most of the members of Sharon Church came from Chicago to take part in the proceedings, and it was very fitting that they should participate, because both societies originated from the same beginning.

     Bishop N. D. Pendleton, for many years pastor of the Immanuel Church, presided over the Assembly. The Rev. W. B. Caldwell, also a former pastor, had come in response to an invitation of the Society. The wives of these gentlemen were also with us, and added greatly to the enjoyment of the occasion. Our local pastors, the Rev. Gilbert H. Smith and the Rev. W. L. Gladish, had their share in making the meetings a success. As this report will show, things happened at this Assembly that will cause the members of the Immanuel Church to remember with delight and gratitude that the Lord had permitted them to take part in their first Jubilee.

     The Assembly opened on Friday evening, October 21st, with a Reception in the Parish Hall, affording the members an opportunity to greet the Bishop and Mrs. Pendleton, and to exchange felicitations. The walls on both sides of the Hall were adorned with photographs illustrating the history of the Society from its inception, and these were viewed with much interest. Besides the portraits of the members, there were pictures of the Park and its buildings, showing its progressive development. The first views of the Park, with its baby trees, were here seen in contrast with their grown-up condition at the present time.

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And the same applies to the human babies, whose pictures depicted their advance from the boy and girl to the father and mother, and in some cases to the grandfather and grandmother.

     Finally the chairs were placed in a circle, and the audience sat down to listen to a symposium of addresses dealing with the history of the Immanuel Church. The Rev. Gilbert H, Smith had charge of the program, and introduced the speakers. It came as a delightful surprise when he announced an address by the first pastor of the Society,-the Bishop Emeritus William Frederic Pendleton. Through failing health he was unable to be present in person, but his message was brought to us by means of a phonographic record. We were fortunate indeed to be able to listen to the beloved voice, which has meant so much to the Church for over fifty years. The record is an excellent one, and was clearly audible to all present. When we had heard it once, there was an urgent call for a second hearing, and so it was repeated. The Message was as follows:

To the Members of the Immanuel Church:

     I have been informed of a decision by your body to celebrate this year the fiftieth anniversary of the beginning of a distinctive Academy work in the city of Chicago, having its inception in the month of August, 1877. As I was identified with the work in its beginnings, and as I shall probably not be present at the proposed celebration, it has been suggested that I send a message of greeting to the members, which I gladly undertake to do, giving thanks to the good Providence of the Lord for the successive growth of the Church with you, from the small beginnings made half a century ago.

     I would first remark that, like all important work, there was preparation for it. I have in mind the doctrinal class of young people conducted by the Rev. J. R. Hibbard. The beginning of interest in the Doctrines with some of the young people of this class had much to do with the growth which followed. There was a beginning also on the North Side. Father Forrest, teaching in the little Sunday School on Lincoln Park, took hold at once. His warm interest in the Doctrines, and in the distinctive Academy uses, was an inspiration to us all.

     Then there was the first Council, which became such a strong support to the minister.

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The members of this Council were T. L. Forrest, Swain Nelson, and O. Blackman. Other members were added later. Some of the older men and women-old now, but young then-will remember the first visit of Father Benade, and his approval and pleasure in the work that was being done. In a stirring address he mentioned in particular the formation of the Council by the Pastor, as a move in the direction of true order in the Church.

     The starting of a school will also be remembered; but the school was afterwards suspended when Mr. Bostock was called to Philadelphia to take charge of the Boys' School of the Academy. The work of our school, however, was renewed by Mr. Bostock when he returned from Philadelphia to take charge of the Society. But fruits of the early school work continued in the classes, with a preliminary supper, on Friday evenings,-thus inaugurating a happy feature of our work that has continued to the present time.

     The interest in the study of Hebrew was a striking feature of the early work, at first under the conduct of Professor Maimon, a converted Jew; but his work was not satisfactory, and Professor (afterwards President) Harper was engaged, whose teaching was most efficient. The study of Hebrew by a minister with nearly his whole society, excited the wonder of Professor Harper, as something unusual.

     I want to say that the early work done by the men and women of the Society, young and old, in support of the uses, is, perhaps, unparalleled in the history of the New Church, in the sacrifices made that the work might not cease.

     The interest of the members in the reading and study of the Doctrines in that early time is a matter of grateful remembrance by the one who held the position of leader in those days of small beginnings, and can never be forgotten.

     Finally, let us say that the work of the Church is either from the Lord or from man. If it is from man, it will and ought to fail; but if it is from the Lord, it will bear fruit always. I pray a blessing on the uses of the Immanuel Church. May the Lord plant and His angels water to an eternal fruitage.

     After the hearing of this Message, a series of papers and speeches were given by laymen, each dealing with a period of about seven years in the history of the Immanuel Church.

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     Mr. Seymour G. Nelson read the following paper on "The First Seven Years of the Immanuel Church":-

     No finer appreciation has even been expressed than the words of Bishop Benade in connection with the genesis of the Immanuel Church. Speaking before the Annual Meeting of the Society on December 30, 1890, he said that this was the only Society he knew of that had a true and orderly beginning. "This Society was not formed by a number of laymen coming together and deciding to organize a church, as had been the case in almost every other instance, but it had been formed by a priest-a representative of the Lord, locating in this place and calling around him all those who were in sympathy with his work, thus making a genuine beginning of a church,-from the Lord's office in the Church, the Priesthood."

     All these words recall a picture to the minds of those of us who were privileged to be among the ones who were in sympathy with the work which Father Pendleton initiated fifty years ago. Picture a young man of thirty-two, slender, tall and soldier-straight, but rather frail and war-worn; with brown hair, and wearing a full beard, looking through kindly eyes, his countenance expressing earnestness, a winning smile upon his lips, and a voice firm and appealing though never persuading. In the pulpit his manner was dignified and reverential, with but few gestures. To us his message, so new, so different from the previous simple teachings given us, opened to us the vision of what the New Church should mean to each one of us, impressing upon us the necessity of studying the Writings, and of coming thereby into a state of affection for spiritual truth. We were young then, and the novelty of these teachings appealed to us; but in due time conviction took the place of an awakened interest, opening the way to a more intelligent understanding of the Doctrines.

     Mother Pendleton, too, lives in our memories as the gracious lady who quickly endeared herself to us all, but most to the young women of our number. She contributed her aid to our social life. We had good times in those days and enjoyed festivities, even though we were considered by some to be a serious-minded people. Father Pendleton, too, with his sense of humor, which he retained throughout his life, entered whole-heartedly into our social life, active in promoting and encouraging us to provide interesting and enjoyable entertainments, teaching us the while to seek our social life within the sphere of the Church. The expense for those good times, though kept necessarily small, did not dampen our ardor or hamper the enjoyment of the occasion. We can commend this reflection to the young people of today.

     Mention has been made of the novelty of the teachings introduced by Father Pendleton, and this suggests that a number of new features in the life of the Church were first promoted by him. We can enumerate the following: The study of Hebrew by laymen, for a spiritual use; the inauguration of the Friday Class, that well-known institution which has since been copied by other New Church centers; the opening of a New Church day school, of which ours is the successor; teaching according to the Writings concerning the subject of Conjugial Love; formation of a symposium for intellectual development; not seeking our social life outside the sphere of the Church; holding the first Watch Night meeting to usher in the New Year.

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He had the vision to see into the future as to certain developments in the Church. The move to the country and the founding of a New Church community were foreseen by him, and we might say foretold at one of the Watch Night meetings. There he brought out the importance of each owning a piece of land,-the most ultimate plane in nature, the mineral kingdom.

     His mind grappled with the problems of church government, and in those early days he formulated principles of government which apply with astonishing aptness to the conditions of today. His ministry has had a profound and lasting influence. The Immanuel Church today owes much to his wise teaching and leading in those early days. By his wise leading he united his flock into a harmonious group, eager to be led and guided by the teachings of the Doctrines which he was able to set forth so dearly. He was their hero, admired for his courage and loved for his devotion to his use. Together with him they worked on without the thought of rule or dominion, but with united loyalty to the cause of our Glorious Church. Now as he lies on a bed of suffering, let our hearts and minds unite in a loving message of sympathy and affection.

     Mr. Alvin Lindrooth, of Denver, Colorado, then spoke of the succeeding period:

     As children, our mother sent us to Sunday School in a Little church on the North Side, Chicago, presided over by Father Pendleton, with Seymour Nelson as our Sunday School teacher. This, with occasional visits to the West Side Chapel, together with many pleasant social events, was our first beginning in New Church life. In 1884, Father Pendleton left us for the east, but he remained with us in spirit, and his work for us will live forever. He was followed by the Rev. George Nelson Smith, and in 1885 the Rev. E. C. Bostock became our pastor. His lessons in anatomy and physiology, and his learned lectures on Egyptian history are outstanding features in our early recollections. We then saw the necessity of affiliating with the General Church of Pennsylvania, and this made it necessary for us to seek other quarters for our meetings. For a time we met for worship at the home of Mrs. John G. Falk on the North Side; and West Side services were held in a hall over Mr. Maynard's drug store, and at other places. Finally, in 1888, we were established in our new building on Carroll Avenue, where we enjoyed unusual advantages for a number of years under the able instruction of Mr. Bostock and later of the Rev. N. D. Pendleton. Our Friday suppers and classes in the back room of the Chapel on Carroll Avenue stand out in my memory as something never to be forgotten. It was there that I met my life companion and our three boys have had the glorious opportunity of attending school in Bryn Athyn. Among many things that kept the society together was the social life. The Nelson home on Superior Street was always open to us, and many good and instructive times were spent there. When the move to Glenview came, I was among the few left behind in Chicago, but the Rev. N. D. Pendleton continued his ministrations by regular visits, and I was happy to be one of those who assisted him.

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     Dr. J. B. S. King then gave a brief account of his coming into the New Church and into the Immanuel Church. He had been advised by a New Churchman in Chicago to go to the "little church around the corner," and there he heard the Rev. L. P. Mercer, to whom he was afterwards introduced. As the result of this meeting, he bought several of the Writings and read them for a year. At the end of the year he went to church, and it was remarkable how it affected him. He was so impressed by the sphere, that he felt as if the Lord was present in the church and in a way he never had felt before. He later heard that there was a little church on the West Side, where they had the "genuine stuff." He went, and there saw Mr. Bostock, and in the school became acquainted with Rev. N. D. Pendleton and Miss Susan Junge. He remained with that society, and when most of the members moved into the country he was among them. He had seen the Immanuel Church grow up through all its struggles and difficulties as well as its victories.

     Mr. William H. Junge now dealt with the period from 1891 to 1898, as follows:

     This is a most interesting period, as it embraces the beginnings that have resulted in this, our settlement in Glenview. It was in January, 1892, that my wife and I returned from a seven-years' sojourn in Boston, bringing four children, all Yankees. The memory of our welcome will never fade. During our absence we had always kept in touch with the church in Chicago, had been contributing members, and so on our return were able to enter into the work of the society intimately and whole-heartedly. The Rev. N. D. Pendleton had just become full pastor of the Immanuel Church, and we found the society highly organized and at the peak of prosperity. The uses were carried on adequately, there were no idle members, hospitality and good will prevailed, and great progress had been made in segregated social life, one evidence of which was the orchestra, of which nearly all the men, young and old, were members. Even vacations were planned so that several families might enjoy outings together.

     The society was under what might be termed an autocratic form of government, and, by virtue of this, was able to initiate the selection and purchase of the Glenview property, and to conduct the preparatory work in a signally efficient way. Of course, it is common knowledge that Providence led us to build better than we knew. In 1893 moving out began. The families with children got out, and either could not or would not move back to attend the school; and so we found ourselves with two societies, almost before we knew what was happening, and the school in Glenview. Our financial burdens had been planned with what seemed to be due regard to our ability, but unexpected difficulties developed. A great many contracts for the purchase of lots were canceled, business changes led strong supporters to move to other cities, the incomes of some members were reduced, and finally hard times came to us individually and collectively.

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     It must be remembered that the present beautiful park was then rather immature and quite desolate looking, the houses scattered and often inelegant, comforts not plentiful; and, taken altogether, we could hardly explain to pitying friends why we persisted in holding on. The "old guard" that could not be stampeded remained, and to that small group of men and women is due the credit for carrying the enterprise through those very dark days. It is not a small matter to develop a project that requires new doctrine, new ethics and new housing, but to do this in the face of impending disaster, with decreasing means and defections in membership, is something so much more as to be stupendous. I pay tribute tonight to the women of the Church who bore so willingly and unflinchingly the hardships of those days, and as for the men, I, for one, after my association with Glenview people, trained in the school of self-abnegation, do not find it easy to make close friends in other circles.

     The tide turned many years ago. During this period the Immanuel Church began to learn tolerance-"intelligent tolerance," to use a phrase coined by Seymour Nelson. This is not indifference, but rather the refusal to attempt to compel others. This quality assures the cooperation of all in all work, no matter how much some may be disturbed by the method. We have gone far with this, but the beginning was in the nineties. Those early days of 1891-1898 have served their purpose, and their spirit has never left us. It is a joy to be able to look back, and a greater joy to look forward.

     Mr. Harry E. Blackman, treating of the period of 1903-1909, said: This was a very happy period of the Church. The loyalty of years had brought about a state of harmony never exceeded. This was due in a large measure to the work in the school and the pulpit of that well-loved scholar and gentleman, the Rev. David H. Klein. We recall that the condition of harmony and loyalty that characterized this period was augmented by the influx of a number of British friends from Colchester. Some of them have since been assimilated. Their influence, through the virtues of steadfastness, thoroughness and uncompromising honesty, helped to fix the quality of loyalty and harmony which I claim is still conspicuous in the Immanuel Church. As my contribution to this symposium, I have borrowed a few words from Mr. Klein himself on the subject of Loyalty and Harmony, which I would like to read into the record.

     The speaker here quoted from a paper on "Loyalty and Harmony," by the Rev. David H. Klein, published in New Church Life for February, 1903, from which we cite these typical paragraphs:

     "What a vista of bright pictures present themselves in the contemplation of an earthly condition where the laws of heavenly harmony and unity are applied, and where the common weal is the center of all social effort and conduct, where nation, no longer struggling against nation, but realizing with a sense of the Lord's Providence that the world is for all human souls of many classes and conditions, seeks not to rise on the ruins of its neighbor's welfare, but takes its place within the limits of its greatest usefulness in response to a loyalty to a common use. It is the same with the individuals of society, who are men and women.

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     "Discord among men in the Church arises from the effort of one to impose his will on another; and charity and harmony require that man be left in freedom to seek his own salvation in his own way, with the Lord's help, and to fill his station in the Church independent of what may be another's will or opinion that he ought to do, so long as he does not interfere with the freedom of others. The interference in the affairs of the neighbor is one of the most pernicious agents in destroying the unity and beauty of brotherly love, never effecting a remedy for that which it assails."

     Dr. Harvey Farrington spoke from the point of view of those who were left behind in Chicago when the move into the country took place. Amid many difficulties, they continued to worship in the Carroll Avenue church, where they still clung to the sphere of the good old times and the messages given within its walls. At first they could only have Pastor N. D. Pendleton's ministrations on Sunday afternoons and at doctrinal class during the week. But at length, in 1903, they were formed into a separate society, taking the name "Sharon Church." The Rev. W. B. Caldwell was our first pastor, continuing as such for a time after his call to Glenview in 1909, and until the Rev. Gilbert H. Smith came to Chicago. During this period, we left the old building in Carroll Avenue and worshiped in halls, but eventually a house provided by the Forrest family proved a comfortable home after all our wanderings, and here we began to live again. Then Mr. Smith was taken away,-promoted, so to speak, to Glenview. We were then taken care of by the Rev. David Klein, who had a great affection for the work, and he became our pastor. He was at that time teaching in the public schools. The spiritual food he gave us was measured only by his health and strength. Finally, Sharon Church was threatened with further trouble because Mr. Klein had to leave, and there appeared to be no other man to take his place. Then, in the Lord's Providence, the Rev. W. L. Gladish came to Chicago, and was willing to conduct our services. Through increase in membership and greater interest in the things of the Church we were ultimately encouraged to invite Mr. Gladish to become our regular pastor. Our present place of meeting is owned by the society, and serves our present needs. We have our services and other meetings there, and enjoy it. Weak in numbers in the beginning, there was a remnant that was loyal, and ingrained in the doctrines by Father Pendleton years ago. And others have now come to increase our numbers to their present strength.

     Mr. A. E. Nelson, in dealing with the sixth period (1909-1918), said: It has often been said that the most critical period in the life of a church society is when they attempt to build. It was in this sixth period that we undertook our great building operation. The Immanuel Church had built four structures and remodeled one. In looking for a neighborhood in the country, we had no idea at first where it would be. And when we came out to Glenview we had not the means to build, so the Immanuel Church Club was formed, and the members pledged to pay $150 each. Under that arrangement the Club House was built, and it served for the school, and for the church meetings, and provided rooms for the bachelor friends who came out to stay over the week-end.

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But the time came when the society needed the building for its exclusive use. The Club then did a fine thing, in turning over all its assets to the church, and dissolving its own organization. Within a few years the fire occurred, and the church property was destroyed. We still had a mortgage, and fortunately we had insurance with which to pay it oh. We immediately got together, and the day after the fire discussed plans for buildings which were practically what we have today. We were fortunate at that time in having Mr. Caldwell with us, as he could not only keep us together as a church, but also do considerable work in connection with the building operations. A great deal is due to him that the church is so well fitted for its purposes. The Immanuel Church has been very fortunate in its pastors. The Bishop once said: "A Church can make or unmake its pastor." We think we have made them, and they have made us.

     Mr. Sydney E. Lee then spoke on the Immanuel Church of the present day: What a story we have heard! What examples of sacrifice and devotion we have seen portrayed tonight! All obstacles pushed aside; all difficulties overcome; inconvenience considered of no account! A picture to give us pause. And what of the present?

     This story of the past, made living again, brings us face-to-face with a most startling question: What have we done toward the building of the Temple, toward the strengthening and upholding of the Church? For while some future generations may look back-we hope with affection, as we do-and see our part as an important link in the chain, the most that we can claim is that we have tried to "carry on." That we have, during this latest period, had the most enlightening and instructive teaching from the pulpit and in class, is something we are very thankful for; but that brings to me most forcibly that we have no special accomplishments as an organization to which we may point. Our church attendance has been fairly good; our school has been maintained with the devotion and affection of our teachers, and we have tried to back them up; some laymen have organized a very useful reading class which has been kept up for several years; the Sons of the Academy have been active in our midst, and the men have had their meetings. The ladies, of course, have been faithful and true to the Guild and Theta Alpha. All these things continue, and so we have "carried on." No startling things have happened to us, and we have caused no startling things to happen. And while some unkind critic might with justice say, "You have just been marking time," still we can in truth reply that we have "carried on."

     Our Chicago friends, however, have been more progressive than we. They have consolidated and forged ahead in a remarkable way. Our hearts go out to them in friendship and admiration. From a few scattered families they have welded together a compact and prospering society in a very noble way. They have "carried on."

      But with the knowledge of all that the Church means to us, and with this wonderful background of the past filled with accomplishment and inspiring example, we all have an inheritance and a responsibility.

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With the same truth teaching us, and the same affection guiding us, with new states opening up ahead, with wonderful vistas and unknown possibilities, we still must "carry on"-on into the unknown future, to which, we firmly believe, the Lord in His Providence is guiding us, to do our little part in bringing to fruition His New Church on earth, leading us into new states in which we may go onward and upward, bearing on high the standard of Our Own Academy.

     At the conclusion of the program of addresses, Mr. Smith stated that Mr. Otho W. Heilman, of Bryn Athyn, had kindly sent fifty copies of a photograph of the Bishop Emeritus W. F. Pendleton for distribution at the Jubilee. It was a portrait taken at the age of eighteen in the uniform of a captain in the Confederate Army. When the pictures had been passed around, one for each household, the Rev. W. B. Caldwell gave a brief account of the Bishop's experience as a soldier, which had carried him through many of the great battles of the Civil War. The Bishop had a remarkable knowledge of the history of that conflict, and a fund of interesting stories to tell in after years.

     A Jubilee Gift.

     Mr. Caldwell then stated that he had been asked to make an important announcement to the Assembly:

     "You are all familiar with the meaning of the Year of Jubilee in the Israelitish Church. Its observance included, among other things, a proclamation of liberty throughout the land, a setting free of those in bondage, and a release from debts, on which account it was called a year of release. It represented a new state in the church, as at the coming of the Lord, when there was a remission of sins and forgiveness. In the Jubilee year there was great rejoicing, and a thankfulness to the Lord for all that He had done for men.

     "In such a spirit of thankfulness, and in keeping with the significance of this Jubilee of the Immanuel Church, two of your members desire to make a gift to the Society. They wish to do this in acknowledgment of the Lord's Providence in the progress of the church hitherto, and in the belief that it will be the means of furthering the spiritual uses of the church in the future.

     "Mr. Seymour G. Nelson and Mr. Alvin E. Nelson wish me to announce that they have retired the mortgage upon the property of the Immanuel Church, amounting to about $11,000, and offer this as a gift to the Society upon the occasion of its Jubilee.

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I hold in my hand a Release Deed which embodies this transaction in legal form, and take great pleasure in presenting it to your pastor."

     Needless to say, this announcement, coming so unexpectedly, and fraught with so much of import to the church, produced a tense situation. The desire to applaud this generous gift was momentarily suspended while the members present were convincing themselves that they had heard aright. But rounds of hearty applause soon came, and the gathering broke out into the singing of "Our Glorious Church."

     Our pastor, in accepting the document, said that he was unable to express what he felt, but accepted the release, with all that it involved, on behalf of the Immanuel Church. We had been hearing of many things which happened in the past, but he felt that history was being made this evening. He then asked the Bishop to address the meeting.

     Bishop Pendleton said: "The Jubilee is a great idea, and this is truly a great celebration. Mr. S. G. Nelson and Mr. Alvin E. Nelson have done a great and generous thing in giving to your pastor what is aptly termed a 'release,' the spiritual idea of which is the end of bondage, a release from debt. Spiritually, it is the lifting up of the life of the church to a new spiritual state. One speaker has expressed the idea that you have 'carried on.' If you have carried on, you can carry forward, and in so doing increase the life of the church in the world, particularly the life of the New Church, and that of the New Church for which the Academy stands. It is curious to think how profoundly our lives have been influenced by this spiritual conception of the church which we call 'Academy.' You have often referred to the fact that I served you as pastor for a number of years. That stands out in your minds as my connection with this church. But it does not express my deepest connection with the Immanuel Church, nor the profoundest influence that this church has had upon my life as an individual. The eighteen months that I spent as a member of the congregation under the Rev. W. F. Pendleton as a spiritual brother has qualified the whole of my life. I have no doubt that all of you have in like manner been influenced by this church, so that it stands for all things most essential in your lives.

     "It is a great thing for us to come together at this time of Jubilee, to celebrate, not only the present, but also the past, from the very beginning of it.

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A wonderful thing, and a powerful thing, has entered the world with the New Church, but the world little knows of it as yet. But its future is more glorious and more powerful than you or I can conceive. That is our faith. The Bishop Emeritus said, in what will probably be his last words to you: 'If it is of the Lord, it will prevail; if merely of man, it deserves to fail.' The faith in men's hearts that the thing is of the Lord is the thing which gives them power to do and to accomplish. It is the thing which has raised men to the highest endeavor since the beginning of time. That faith has been the heart of all other religions, and that faith must be at the heart of the New Church. An age may pass before the Church has gathered much force. Slowly, but surely, the impetus increases until, from small beginnings, the whole earth is covered. That is the story which has been repeated many times in the history of life in this world-the belief that it is the Lord who is speaking; that is what gives the power and strength to the thing that is spoken. It is a great privilege for me to be with you this evening to take part in your celebration."

     Thus concluded what will stand out as a red-letter day in our history. Before adjournment, our pastor announced that the Souvenir Book, Early Days of the Immanuel Church, was now on sale at $1.00 per copy. This had been compiled by Mr. Seymour G. Nelson at the request of the Society, and edited by the Rev. William Whitehead, and its contents will doubtless be of interest to New Churchmen everywhere. Copies may be obtained of Mr. G. A. McQueen, Glenview, Ill.

     The Assembly Banquet.

     On Saturday evening, members and friends to the number of nearly 200 sat down to the Assembly Banquet in the Parish Hall. What with the floral decorations, the many-hued costumes of the ladies, and the sweet music discoursed by our orchestra under Mr. Stevens' direction, the scene was a very festive one. Before the speeches began, Mrs. Bert Henderson stepped forward, and, on behalf of the Ladies' Guild, presented large bouquets of roses to each of five ladies: Mrs. N. D. Pendleton, Mrs. W. B. Caldwell, Mrs. W. L. Gladish, Mrs. John Headsten, and Mrs. Gilbert H. Smith.

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In well-chosen words, Mrs. Henderson referred to what had been done for the church by these ladies and their husbands. The ladies of the Immanuel Church wished to show their appreciation in this way-a sentiment that was received with general applause. Mrs. Pendleton made a brief speech of acknowledgment.

     The Rev. W. B. Caldwell was toastmaster, and in addition to the usual duties of that function contributed two new songs and injected some elements of humor at suitable intervals, especially by an exchange of pleasantries with Mr. Smith. Introducing the subject of the evening, he said:

     "Last night we were retrospective; tonight we look more to the future. We are interested in the history of the Immanuel Church, but also in thinking of the next fifty years, and having somewhat of a vision of the celebration to come at the next Jubilee. 'The past is history; the future is mystery,' runs the well-known aphorism. We know that the Lord does not reveal the actual future to men. The Old and New Testaments contain both history and prophecy, but in the Writings we find little of prophecy, and this only in very general terms. We have, for example, the statement: 'Certain it is that this New Church will be established, and certain it is that the falsities of the former Church must first be removed.' (A. R. 547) This may be regarded as a Divine prophecy, but we do not know whether it is to be fulfilled with us. The New Church is to be a rational Church, and men cannot exercise that faculty if they know the future. We are also warned not to be anxious about the future; but this does not mean that we are to make no provision for the future. Indeed, we can only have confidence if we are making some provision for the transfer of the Church to future generations. The General Church has endeavored to make such a provision, especially by means of education, that the Church may be perpetuated. Elsewhere in the New Church this is not being done, and they cannot but be anxious, unless the anxiety be lulled by the permeation fallacy. While we do not know for certain that our provision for the future will succeed, we do know that it will only succeed with those who adopt some such means. The Immanuel Church has prospered hitherto by following Academy principles, and we shall hear tonight as to the means whereby we may hope to maintain the Church in the future."

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     The Rev. W. L. Gladish then spoke on "The Teaching of Genuine Doctrine" as follows:

     "It was said last night that the laymen were to tell about the past fifty years, and tonight the clergy were to speak of the future of the Church. I thought of the past, that the prophets were judged by their ability to foretell the future. That was the test of their Divine Authority. Yet we would hardly undertake to foretell the future. You may remember the description in the last Memorable Relation in Conjugial Love, when Swedenborg was telling the angels about the new things that had been revealed. There was a hostile murmur from below, and they asked him to do miracles, and tell what was to come. He replied that, so far as man knows what is to come, he loses his ability to think. Prophecy was not given in such a way that men knew exactly how the Lord would come. When it was fulfilled, then it could be seen that the Lord had fulfilled all prophecy. He has given the prophecy of the Second Coming, and the men of the Christian Church do not recognize that He has fulfilled this prophecy. Yet these must always be teaching, in order that there may be hope and aspiration and work. We do not know what form the vision of the fathers of the Academy will take in the future. We do not know of the numbers who will come in, nor the material prospects, but this we do know, that if we are true to the doctrines given by our fathers years ago, we cannot fail,

     "There are two kinds of life, one from above, the other from below. The only way we can get the life we desire from above is by reading the Writings, in order that we may perfect ourselves in uses. We have learned to think of the Heavenly Doctrine as the Lord present with us. That Doctrine is the Divine Human; and when we read that Doctrine, it is according to the law of the spiritual world that we are brought face-to-face with the Lord. It is His Love, His Wisdom, His very Personality. If we form our minds to that Doctrine, we become forms of Divine Truth or images of the Lord. We also become associated with others in uses, and will find our place in the city New Jerusalem. As we so approach the Lord, we become perfectly organized to perform uses for the sake of men-for the sake of the Divine Love which the Church is to receive from the Lord. This is the very much needed work of saving the human race.

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There is no greater use than this one of fitting ourselves by regeneration, through the Heavenly Doctrines. There is no other way of saving men from sin."

     Introducing the next speaker, the toastmaster remarked that he believed the Immanuel Church had always kept its heart in the right place, adhering to the essentials of the Church. In its present group of buildings the chapel and school are like two arms cooperating for the upbuilding of the society; for the sphere of worship must pervade the work of education, and children are thus prepared for the life of the Church.

     The Rev. Gilbert H. Smith then spoke on the "Maintenance of Worship," and showed how a regular attendance at the services of the church is an essential of progress. In the course of his remarks he said that he would like to call to mind the work of the Rev. John Headsten in Chicago. After he had passed into the spiritual world, the members of his society had been absorbed by the Sharon and Immanuel Churches, bringing valuable elements into both. Mr. Headsten had put his whole heart and soul into his work, and it had contributed in signal measure to the growth of the General Church in the Chicago District.

     Mr. Smith also read a number of telegrams of greeting to the Jubilee gathering from societies and individuals of the General Church. Among these was one signed by all the Glenview students at the Academy Schools in Bryn Athyn. We quote this one from Pittsburgh: "Greatly regret my inability to attend. Surely the Lord sent a priest after the order of Melchizedek. And the work begun so humbly and done so faithfully has borne fruit. All life's choicest blessings have come to some of us through the brave faith and brave heart that dared, with his wife, to fare forth into the wilderness, trusting Providence to lead them. Let me share your love and gratitude.-Homer Synnestvedt."

     The toastmaster, noting that the future stability of the Church will depend upon its unity, and the welfare of societies upon their connection with the general body of which they are parts, asked the Bishop if he would speak upon some phase of the General Church organization.

     Bishop Pendleton: "If I should in any way trespass upon what might be regarded as the proprieties of this festive occasion, I hope you will pardon me, and attribute it to the fact that I am speaking in my own native town. (Applause.) I do not know the future.

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We have certain prophecies in which we implicitly confide. From this moment the future is hidden-veiled to finite minds, angelic or human. Nonetheless, there are certain things which we do know, Divine prophecies concerning the future, and the facts of the past. A wise man bases his judgment of the future upon those things which he knows from the past, and his judgment is verified if his conclusion has been rightly based. Now, although we know not the future, and cannot see where we are going, yet we have certain mile-posts to which we can look back, and thus check our direction, and go forward with some degree of certainty. It is also true that an organization truly lives only so long, and so far, as it is enabled to return upon its own soul, and draw thence new inspiration. This is true of churches and nations. Only as they return upon themselves, and draw their vital spirit from their past and their traditions, are they able to advance. Otherwise they will become something quite other than was their original.

     "I am not a strict traditionalist; but mark you, we may make a great mistake; we may not steer our course truly; we may not be right in insisting upon our own way. Every new generation wearies of the formulas of the fathers. The oncoming generation says: 'This is old stuff; give us something new, of we will give you something new.' Yet their 'something new' may be but another 'old stuff.' This tendency is native to our race and people. It is our duty to see that those who come to us may be deeply stung with the spirit of our beginning. Then they may accept or reject in their good pleasure. It is possible that the older they grow the more they will see that there was deep meaning in the things said and done by the fathers; and they may not turn our Church from its moorings, but consecrate themselves to the great fundamental principles which gave the Church its being. So far as I am concerned, if it be separated from those principles, it can go where it pleases.

     "The Academy was not an original thing. It was an outgrowth, a development, from things that were deeply in the Church from the beginning, and with such men as Hindmarsh and Noble. The Academy took the stand it did, because it was felt that the Church was drifting away from its foundations. There will always be drifters, but some of them will come back and say: 'This is the way we must go.' I agree with the younger generation that the 'old stuff' may become somewhat wearisome, and that renewal is called for.

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Still it is also true that the realities of life-all its coloring-come from the depth and strength of traditionary remains.

     "The subject of the priesthood and church government is one that we have touched upon rather delicately for a number of years. There was a marked reaction against what was once recognized as a serious doctrine of the Church; and, like so many doctrines, it was not understood. It was feared that there was an effort to establish an external dominion. That was not the case, howsoever it may have appeared to some. The truth is that the Academy's foundation was the acceptance of the Writings and all that they taught. It appeared from the Writings that the government of the Church belonged to the priesthood, and that there was need of such a priesthood as a representative, because of the fact that our Lord, when a man on earth, must needs disappear from the sight of man. He said, when entering the invisible Divine, that He would send another Comforter to take His place among men. This Comforter was the Holy Spirit, which 'was not, because Jesus was not yet glorified.' But after He was glorified, it came forth to take the place of His personal presence among men.

     "We are told in the Doctrines that the chief human representation of the coming and transfer of the Holy Spirit was by the priesthood, and this not only to interpret the Doctrines, but to give living administration of the Divine law and worship. This was entrusted to the priests, and in this there was given to the Church a representative government. Men may say: 'How dare you say that you represent the Lord?' or, 'Is it you who speak the Word of the Lord?' The Lord is represented in the ritual and worship of the Church, and in the administration of the Divine Law, and this by means of the priesthood, but never by command or by any kind of force. Government in heaven is by influx, and this is priestly government. In the world it is effected by teaching, suggestion, and leading. That is what is meant by government in the Church. I believe that if and where the priesthood fails, the Church will fail.

     "Now really these things are in the Writings, and I want the younger generation of the Church to consider them. I would again say that a church can either make or break its pastor. You can best make him by acknowledging his mission, even if he perform it imperfectly. Look to your priest for this thing. If you don't get it, I am sorry; but try again. Put away little prejudices, and get the best you can out of your pastor.

747


If you go to some professor of science, you will do your best to get all you can from him. We have set up a high ideal for our priests, and, of course, it is beyond them to live up to it. The tendency may be growing to disregard and set aside this matter. It comes up a little here and a little there, and in ways that seemingly are small and insignificant. Yet the tendency is there. An open-hearted acceptance of the Doctrines, and an open mind to your pastor and teacher, will safeguard our order, and preserve us for the day when enlightenment comes. If you run off into other things, you can bring the church into the state from which our beginning separated us. Nothing would be easier than such a reversion. I mean that we should be true to the underlying principles of the Academy, which I think were given by Providence in the be, ginning-a platform which we could stand upon as the true interpretation of the Doctrines. The principles of the Academy are as much needed today as they ever were."

     This concluded the program of speeches, which were interspersed with songs, one of which, sung by the members of Sharon Church, was especially enjoyed.

     An interesting ceremony now took place. Mr. Sydney E. Lee, Chairman of the Board of Finance, and Mr. George Fisk, Treasurer, came forward and publicly burned the mortgage, which drastic performance had been made possible by the gift announced the previous evening. Mr. Lee spoke feelingly of the gratitude felt by the whole Society, and Mr. Fisk said that he hoped the present generation would live to see similar things done at the next Jubilee, through the generosity of the young people who were now entering into the responsibility of maintaining the expenses of the church.

     Assembly Sunday.

     A large congregation of members and friends attended the morning service. The Bishop preached on the text, "The Lord is in His holy temple; be silent before Him, all the earth." He was assisted in the service by the Rev. Gilbert H. Smith and the Rev. W. L. Gladish.

     In the afternoon, there was a special service for the children, who, with the adults present, made an overflowing congregation.

748


The school children, following the choir in the procession, were clad in robes of gold and red which had been prepared especially for this event, and which will also be used on special occasions hereafter. The Rev. W. B. Caldwell gave the address, in which he explained the meaning of the Jubilee celebration. The children then arose and recited the following words addressed to the Bishop:

     "We understand, Dear Bishop, that long ago the Lord commanded Israel to celebrate a Jubilee every seventh year, and a great Jubilee every fiftieth year. It has been fifty years since our own Society had its beginning, through the zeal and devotion of a former generation; and we realize the Providence of the Lord in blessing that beginning. We have entered into their labors. This is our great Jubilee in the fiftieth year.

     "We today enjoy many advantages. Instead of the blowing of the trumpet, we have the Heavenly Doctrine revealed; and to us the release of the land and of all people in bondage means freedom and light in spiritual things. We hope that our Church may prosper, and that our work may succeed, and that our love for the Church may never fail."

     The Bishop made a fitting response to this address by the children, expressing the wish that they might all live to observe the next Jubilee of the Church, and that, by the Divine blessing, the hopes expressed in their recitation might be fully realized.

     In the evening there was a special service for the administration of the Holy Supper. As Celebrant, the Bishop was assisted by the Rev. Gilbert H. Smith and the Rev. W. B. Caldwell. The peace and quiet of this service were a fitting dose to the meetings of the District Assembly.

     After the Assembly, the local chapter of the Sons of the Academy held a meeting, on Monday evening, October 24th, which was attended by about 100 men, including visitors from Chicago and elsewhere. The Rev. W. B. Caldwell gave a talk on "The Effects of Regeneration upon Physical Health," and this led to an extended discussion.

     On Tuesday afternoon, the Bishop addressed the Ladies Guild on the subject of "Results in Education." The men were also invited to this meeting, and those who were able to attend were well repaid by the Bishop's enlightening remarks.
     G. A. MCQUEEN.

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DIRECTORY OF THE GENERAL CHURCH OF THE NEW JERUSALEM 1927

DIRECTORY OF THE GENERAL CHURCH OF THE NEW JERUSALEM              1927

     OFFICIALS AND COUNCILS.

     Bishop.
The Right Rev. N. D. Pendleton

     Secretary.
Rev. George de Charms

     Treasurer.
Mr. H. Hyatt

     Consistory.
Bishop N. D. Pendleton
Rev. Alfred Acton                    Rev. F. E. Waelchli
Rev. C. E. Doering, Secretary      Rev. W. B. Caldwell
Rev. Homer Synnestvedt                Rev. E. E. Iungerich
Rev. R. J. Tilson                    Rev. George de Charms

     Executive Committee.
Bishop N. D. Pendleton, President
Mr. Raymond Pitcairn, Vice-President
Mr. Geoffrey S. Childs, Secretary
Mr. Hubert Hyatt, Treasurer
Dr. Felix A. Boericke                Mr. Alvin E. Nelson
Mr. Edward C. Bostock                Mr. Seymour G. Nelson
Mr. C. Raynor Brown                Mr. Harold F. Pitcairn
Mr. Paul Carpenter                    Mr. Colley Pryke
Mr. Randolph W. Childs                Mr. J. H. Ridgway
Mr. Alexander P. Lindsay           Mr. Rudolph Roschman
Mr. Samuel S. Lindsay                Mr. Jacob Schoenberger
Mr. Nils Loven                    Mr. Paul Synnestvedt
Mr. Charles G. Merrell

     Honorary Members.
Mr. Walter C. Childs                Mr. Richard Roschman
Mr. Robert Carswell

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     THE CLERGY.

     Bishop.

     PENDLETON, NATHANIEL DANDRIDGE. Ordained, June 16, 1889; 2d Degree, March 2, 1891; 3d Degree, October 27, 1912. Bishop of the General Church. Pastor of the Bryn Athyn Church. President of the Academy of the New Church, Bryn Athyn, Pa.

     Pastors.

ACTON, ALFRED. Ordained, June 4th, 1893; 2d Degree, January 10, 1897. Pastor of the Society in Washington, D. C. Dean of the Theological School, Academy of the New Church, Bryn Athyn, Pa.
ALDEN, KARL RICHARDSON. Ordained, June 19, 1917; 2d Degree, October 12, 1919. Principal of the Boys' Academy and Housemaster of Stuart Hall, Academy of the New Church, Bryn Athyn, Pa.
ALDEN, WILLIAM HYDE. Ordained, 1st and 2d Degrees, May 30, 1886. Instructor, Academy of the New Church. Manager of the Academy Book Room, Bryn Athyn, Pa.
BAECKSTROM, GUSTAF. Ordained, June 6, 1915; 2d Degree, June 21, 1920. Pastor of the Society in Stockholm, Sweden. Address: Svedjevagen, Appelviken, Stockholm.
BJORCK, ALBERT. Ordained, 1st and 2d Degrees, August 17, 1890. Address: Calle de Los Banos, 15, El Terreno, Palma de Mallorca, Spain.
BOWERS, JOHN EBY. Ordained, 1st and 2d Degrees, May 11, 1873. Address: 37 Lowther Ave., Toronto, Canada.
BRICKMAN, WALTER EDWARD. Ordained, 1st and 2d Degrees, January 1, 1900. Address: 419 South Evaline St., Pittsburgh, Pa.
BROWN, REGINALD WILLIAM. Ordained, October 21, 1900; 2d Degree, October 12, 1919. Professor and Librarian, Academy of the New Church, Bryn Athyn, Pa.
CALDWELL, WILLIAM BEEBE. Ordained, October 19, 1902; 2d Degree, October 23, 1904. Editor of NEW CHURCH LIFE. Professor of Theology, Academy of the New Church. Address: Bryn Athyn, Pa.
CRONLUND, EMIL RORERT. Ordained, December 31, 1899; 2d Degree, May 18, 1902. Address: Bryn Athyn, Pa.

751



DAVID, LLEWELLYN WARREN TOWNE. Ordained, June 28, 1914; 2d Degree, June 19, 1916. Acting Pastor of Carmel Church. Address: to Willow Street, Kitchener, Ont., Canada.
DE CHARMS, GEORGE. Ordained, June 28, 1914; 2d Degree, June 19, 1916. Secretary of the General Church. Assistant Pastor of the Bryn Athyn Church, Bryn Athyn, Pa.
DOERING, CHARLES EMIL. Ordained, June 7, 1896; 2d Degree, January 29, 1899. Dean of Faculties, Academy of the New Church, Bryn Athyn, Pa.
ELPHICK, FREDERICK WILLIAM. Ordained, February 7, 1926; 2d Degree, June 19, 1926. Superintendent of the South African Mission. Address: P. O. Box 78, Ladybrand, Orange Free State.
GILL, ALAN. Ordained, June 14, 1925; 1d Degree, June 19, 1926. Pastor of the New York Society. Address: 708-10th Street, College Point, Long Island, N. Y.
GLADISH, WILLIS LENDSAY. Ordained, 1st and 2d Degrees, June 3, 1894. Pastor of Sharon Church, Chicago, Ill. Address: 5220 Wayne Ave., Chicago, Ill.
GYLLENHAAL, FREDERICK EDMUND. Ordained, June 23, 1907, 2d Degree, June 19, 1910. Pastor of the Colchester Society. Address: 162 Maldon Road, Colchester, England.
HARRIS, THOMAS STARK. Ordained, 1st and 2d Degrees, April 8, 1897. Pastor of the Society in Arbutus, Maryland; Visiting Pastor of the Abington, Mass., and Meriden, Conn., Circles. Address: Halethorpe P. O., Maryland.
HEINRICHS, HENRY. Ordained, June 24, 1923; 2d Degree, February 8, 1925. Pastor of the Society in Denver, Colorado. Address: 543 Delaware Street.
HUSSENET, FERNAND. Ordained, 1st and 2d Degrees, October 10, 1909. Pastor of the Society in Paris, 84 Avenue de Breteuil. Address: 31 Rue Henri Regnault, St. Cloud, Seine et Oise, France.
IUNGERICH, ELDRED EDWARD. Ordained, June 13, 1909; 2d Degree, May 26, 1912. Dean of the College and Professor of Theology, Academy of the New Church, Bryn Athyn, Pa.
MORSE, RICHARD. Ordained, 1st and 2d Degrees, October 12, 1919. Pastor of the Society in Sydney. Address: Dudley Street, Hurstville, Sydney, N. S. W., Australia.
ODHNER, HUGO LJUNGBERG. Ordained, June 23, 1914; 2d Degree, June 24, 1917. Pastor of Olivet Church, Elm Grove and Melbourne Avenues, Toronto, Canada. Address: 176 Cowan Ave.

752



PFEIFFER, ERNST. Ordained, June 20, 1920; 2d Degree, May 1, 1921. Pastor of the Society at The Hague, Holland. Address: Laan van Meerdervoort 229, The Hague, Holland.
PITCAIRN, THEODORE. Ordained, June 19, 1917; 2d Degree, October 12, 1919. Second Assistant Pastor of the Bryn Athyn Church. Instructor, Academy of the New Church. Address: Bryn Athyn, Pa.
PRICE, ENOCH SPRADLING. Ordained, June 10, 1888; 2d Degree, June 19, 1891. Professor, Academy of the New Church. Address: Bryn Athyn, Pa.
ROSENQVIST, JOSEPH ELIAS. Ordained, June 19, 1891; 2d Degree, June 23, 1895. Address: Skanstorget 7, Gothenburg, Sweden.
SMITH, GILBERT HAVEN. Ordained, June 25, 1911; 2d Degree, June 19, 1913. Pastor of the Immanuel Church, Glenview, Ill.
STARKEY, GEORGE GODDARD. Ordained, June 3, 1894; 2d Degree, October 19, 1902. Address: Glenview, Ill.
SYNNESTVEDT, HOMER. Ordained, June 19, 1891; 2d Degree, January 13, 1895. Pastor of the Pittsburgh Society. Address: 7463 Pennfield Place, Pittsburgh, Pa.
TILSON, ROBERT JAMES. Ordained, 2d Degree, June 19, 1892. Pastor of Michael Church, Burton Road, Brixton, London. Address: 7 Templar Street, Camberwell, London, S. E., England.
WAELCHLI, FRED. EDWIN. Ordained, June 10, 1888; 2d Degree, June 19, 1891. Visiting Pastor, General Church. Address: 232 Worthington Ave., Wyoming, Ohio.
WHITEHEAD, WILLIAM. Ordained, June 19, 1922; 2d Degree, June 19, 1926. Professor, Academy of the New Church. Address: Bryn Athyn, Pa.

     Ministers.

ACTON, ELMO CARMAN. Ordained, June 14, 1925. Minister of the Durban Society. Address: 125 Musgrave Road, Durban, Natal, South Africa.
CRANCH, RAYMOND GREENLEAF. Ordained, June 19, 1922. Address: Bryn Athyn, Pa.

753




     Pastors, Pending Ordination.

LEONARDOS, HENRY. Authorized, May 2, 1921. Address: 25 rua Sachet, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
LIMA, JOAO DE MENDONCA. Authorized, May 2, 1921. Address: 25 rua Sachet, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

     Authorized Candidates.

BOEF, HENDRIK WILLEM. Authorized, June, 1927. Address: Bryn Athyn, Pa.
GLADISH, VICTOR JEREMIAH. Authorized, June, 1927. Address: Bryn Athyn, Pa.
ODHNER, VINCENT CARMOND. Authorized, June, 1927. Address: Bryn Athyn, Pa.
REUTER, NORMAN HAROLD. Authorized, June, 1927. Address: Bryn Athyn, Pa.
PITTSBURGH DISTRICT ASSEMBLY 1927

PITTSBURGH DISTRICT ASSEMBLY       HOMER SYNNESTVEDT       1927

     OCTOBER 28-30, 1927.

     The Bishop's yearly visit is a benediction in more ways than one. And this year our Assembly was especially favored as to the number of visitors. First, there was our genial editor of the Life, Mr. Caldwell. He spoke at the sessions and also addressed the Sunday School. Of our Ohio friends there was a good representation: Mr. and Mrs. Harrold, of Leetonia, with Miss Laura Renkenberger, now of Chicago; from Youngstown, Dr. Renkenberger, Mr. and Mrs. Charles McElroy, Mr. and Mrs. Woods, Mr. and Mrs. Will Norris and their son and daughter. The Misses Altai and Minnie Renkenberger came from Columbiana, Miss Lydia Rhodes from Greenford, and Miss Edith Cranch from Cleveland. In addition, Mrs. Harvey Farrington, of Chicago, and Miss Iona Doering, of Kitchener, Ont., were visitors from a distance.

     To begin at the beginning, most people do not realize how important is the local minister's uninterrupted opportunity, usually before the public meetings begin, to have a heart-to-heart talk with his chief.

754


There can, of course, be no such opportunity when we visit Bryn Athyn, with its dizzy round of appointments and duties. There was also an informal meeting of the teachers with the Bishop, which was much appreciated by them.

     The Assembly opened on Friday evening with a Banquet, which was in charge of Mrs. A. P. Lindsay, and all can testify what a lovely setting it made for the Bishop's address. He spoke extemporaneously on the general subject of the aims and accomplishments of Education, and his very interesting and stimulating remarks were followed by questions and speeches. About eighty persons sat down to the banquet. The second session came on Saturday evening, when the Rev. Homer Synnestvedt gave a paper on "Telling it unto the Church" (Matt. 18:17). The subject was discussed by a number of speakers, and the Bishop spoke at length in answer to several questions. The meetings closed with the service on Sunday morning, when the Bishop preached on the text, "The Lord is in His holy temple; be silent before Him, all the earth." He then administered the sacrament of the Holy Supper, assisted by the pastor.

     On Saturday afternoon, the Bishop met the ladies of the society at the home of Mrs. J. G. Blair. Here, as at all the meetings, he dealt with the two subjects which seem nearest his heart at the present time, namely, the education of the young, and the preservation of our order as to the responsibility of our leadership. That these two subjects were not unconnected in his mind, became clear from his repeated call to us to renew our Academy spirit, by going back to that which is the soul of it,-the zeal and the great new truths which created and inspired our movement. As we grow, we develop many variations of our policies and methods, but the essential spirit of undivided loyalty to the Heavenly Doctrines, as the sole guide and authority for our Church, cannot change without the loss of our soul as an organization. Moreover, we must see that the new things that are proposed from time to time are not old things that have been tried in the Church long ago, and rejected as being contrary to our one only Law. At the same time we must not be so attached to outgrown states as to be unable to progress and adjust ourselves to new needs as they arise.     
     HOMER SYNNESTVEDT.

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Church News 1927

Church News       Various       1927

     THE SOUTH AFRICAN MISSION.

     Since our last report, which appeared in the May issue of the Life, the Mission Headquarters have followed the usual course of routine work. The ordinary School duties at Alpha have been maintained, the Mission Press has been fully occupied, and the semi-weekly Doctrinal Class has met regularly.

     The last six months, however, have covered a round trip to the majority of our Mission Stations, in Basutoland and the Union of South Africa.

     A week's stay at Sterkstroom last March revealed both favorable and unfavorable conditions relating to the Xosa center, which has been at this place since 1921. The issue involved is the need for further instruction in the New Church Doctrines, and so the experiment will be tried of having two young Xosa students called to Alpha for a fairly long period, in order to provide for consecutive study. By such a method it is hoped that a firmer foundation will be provided for the eventual spread of the New Church in the Cape Colony.

     At Easter time a visit was made to the South of Basutoland at a place calling Quthing. Here Jonas Motsi is forming a center. The service was held in his home, from which there is a beautiful view of the Orange River, as it winds its way through the mountains. Fifty-one natives were present. In addition to the usual service, there were eight baptisms and Communion Service, while Motsi and his wife had their civil marriage solemnized according to the rite of the New Church.

     Those of our readers who have seen Jonas Motsi and John Jiyana in the familiar class rooms, library and corridors of the Academy at Bryn Athyn, will be very glad to hear that both are doing good work. Both are married and have especially neat and tidy homes in their respective native countries of Basutoland and Natal. The Natal visit we shall mention hereunder.

     Sunday, April 24th, witnessed a service in a native home at Chester, Transvaal, about sixty miles northwest of Pretoria. Berry Maqelepo, one of our oldest Leaders, but who had the misfortune, when a boy, to lose the sight of both eyes, assisted in the service, and was instrumental in arranging for the visit.

     From here the journey was made to Greylingstad, the Zulu center in the Transvaal about ninety miles southwest of Johannesburg. At the present time, Maqelepo is the Leader at this center, where a building suitable for Church Services and Day School has been erected. A week was spent here, the school visited daily, and classes given to the Leaders and Teachers. On Sunday, May 1st, Divine Service (including Baptisms and Communion) was held for a gathering of 178 people, of which 40 were children.

     Dannhauser, Natal, was the next place visited. This is in a coal-mining area. Maqelepo, with his boy guide, accompanied me, and on Sunday, May 8th, service was held in the home of Johannes Lunga, who is the Leader in this district. John Jiyana joined us, having cut across country on horseback. With the presence of three Leaders of the Mission, it is hoped that the natives in the district will feel that Lunga's work is being backed by a live Mission; for it was found that many had the impression that Lunga was establishing a Church of his own. Baptisms and the Communion Service were also administered, and in the afternoon a class was held on the subject of "Man's Resurrection."

     While on this visit it was necessary to stay with a trader and his wife, as there was no hotel within eight miles. This brought an unsought chance for conversation on mission work and the Native problem, which led spontaneously to the teachings of the New Church.

756


The whole of Sunday evening was devoted to an exchange of views on religious subjects, and has since resulted in correspondence with Alpha, and the distribution of New Church literature. Thus mission work among the native races leads to missionary work among our own people. Results may never be seen in this world, but it is our plain duty to sow the seed and leave the outcome to the Divine Providence. Moreover, an experience of this nature leads to the conviction that to do mission work property it is necessary to be definite about the distinct New Revelation which has been given to the world.

     But to return to our journeyings. From May 10th, a week was spent with John Jiyana at Cundycleugh. The usual services were held, and classes during the week. The problem of erecting a suitable building for Church and School purposes was also discussed. Conditions of land-tenure differ in the various countries of the Union, but in Natal the natives have a chance of holding property. So it is to be hoped that some members in Jiyana's group will settle the question of a site, and commence building. They have promised to do this, and it is gratifying to find a spirit of co-operation. On leaving Jiyana the return trip was made to Alpha via Ladysmith after nearly five weeks' absence.

     During June the Alpha group and Stations near at hand were attended to, and, for the celebration of New Church Day, Jonas Motsi was sent to Greylingstad, at which place the Leaders managed the entire work themselves, arranging the program and defraying all expenses without drawing on Mission funds. The 19th of June was celebrated for the Basutoland section of the Mission at Mafika-Lisiu-near the famous Thaba Bosiu. At this place the church building is still in process of erection, and so the service was held in the open air, but in a most delightful spot under trees, and facing the majestic Maluti Mountains. Such experiences provoke thoughts, and give rise to reflections upon the environment of public worship in ancient times.

     The Durban Section of the Mission, which is under the immediate direction of the Rev. E. C. Acton, is also making progress. Although fully occupied with the needs of the Durban Society and the New Church School connected therewith, Mr. Acton conducts regular semi-weekly classes for the Durban Leaders, and visits the districts of Mayville and Tongaat periodically. Moffat Mcanyana has made an extended trip into Zululand, and spent a month in the Cape Province. Mr. Acton has sent one member of his class to the Theological Class which commences at Alpha in October. To follow up Mcanyana's visit to Zululand, Julius Jiyana is being sent to that territory to provide for a permanent center. The Tongaat group is also large enough to require a resident Leader, and Mr. Acton is providing for that need.

     Traveling for the Mission brings contact with our "isolated receivers" and other friends in the New Church. Thus, while in the Cape Province, the writer had the pleasure of a week-end visit to Mr. and Mrs. Rogers, at their home at De Hoek, Saron. As they had spoken about the New Church to acquaintances in the district, opportunities were given for conversation, and so we had several pleasant tea-table talks on such subjects as Christian Science, Telepathy, Spiritism, and Haunted Houses-all, naturally, from the standpoint of the New Church Doctrines. On Sunday, two services were held,-a Communion Service in the morning and a short service in the afternoon at which thirteen were in attendance. A second visit to De Hoek in September was not under such happy conditions. Owing to the sudden illness of Mrs. Thuddichum, the wife of one of the employees on the De Hoek Estate, Mr. Rogers wired for me, but my arrival at De Hoek was only in time for the funeral. The burial service in our Liturgy was used, and about 120 people attended.

757


This was a very sad parting, as the couple were very devoted to each other, and three little children are left motherless. On Sunday, services were held morning and evening.

     During my visit to the Transvaal, and while passing through Johannesburg, I met the Rev. and Mrs. E. J. Pulsford and their two daughters. Mr. Pulsford is the Superintendent of the Conference New Church Native Mission, and I spent two evenings with them. As recently as September 27th, Mr. Pulsford visited Alpha while making his circuit in this part of the country. He was invited to address the Mission doctrinal class at Alpha, and also gave an address on the "Aim of the New Church" to the Alpha Staff on their usual doctrinal class night.

     In July, the Mission Finance Committee met at the home of Mr. and Mrs. J. H. Ridgway near Durban. This also afforded Mr. Norman Ridgway and the writer a pleasant ten-days' stay in Durban and the consequent benefits of meeting the friends of the Durban Society. Owing to a special and urgent need, the Committee met again at Alpha during the first week of September, for which Mr. and Mrs. J. H. Ridgway and the Rev. E. C. Acton made a hurried motor trip. Our Spring month has also seen the arrival of Mr. and Mrs. Ed. J. Waters and their two children from the Colchester Society of the General Church. Mr. Waters has come out to assist in the increased office work of the Mission and Estate.

     Not being the holiday season, visitors have been few; but there is always a coming and going. In March, Mr. and Mrs. Melville Ridgway were here from Durban, and later Mr. and Mrs. Garth Pemberton. Miss Champion also spent a part of July for a well-earned teacher's rest. Our social activities, however, would not be complete without mentioning the wedding of Mr. Fred Parker and Miss Lilian Maitin-Casalis, which took place on April 6th. The ceremony and reception were held in Ladybrand, while the Betrothal Service was solemnized according to the rite of the New Church at a private gathering in the home of Mr. and Mrs. Maitin-Casalis on March 23d.

     Alpha is again in her Spring dress. And with the now maturing orchards, the nicely channeled irrigation lands near the Caledon River, the steady hum of the tractors, turning veldt into orchard, wheat or mealie lands, we have a picture of industry and development. Indeed, Alpha, with her Mission and Estate, is a busy center, and it is owing to this that our contribution to these columns is more than overdue.
     F. W. ELPHICK.
          ALPHA, LADYBRAND, O. F. S., October 4th, 1927.

     DURBAN, NATAL.

     The activities of the Durban Society are in full swing again.

     The new social committee, which was appointed in May at the annual elections, bids fair to being a lively one. Theatrical entertainments seem to be the most popular form of social life. Dances and social evenings are difficult because everyone is "either your sister or your cousin or your aunt," so stunts and plays will be given.

     The 19th of June Banquet was quite an event in our new hall, almost everyone in the society attending. Mr. J. H. Ridgway was toastmaster. The first speech was on "The Church," by the Rev. E. C. Acton; the second one, on "Freedom and Esprit de Corps," was given by Mr. R. M. Ridgway. Then followed four other speeches: "Reverence," Mr. Ivan Ridgway "Punctuality," Mr. Scott Forfar Sport in Relation to Religion," Mr. Gordon Cockerell; and "Church and Country," Mr. Rex Ridgway. All the speeches were enjoyable and instructive, the last four being unique, in that they were given by young men of the Society, who are to be congratulated on their calm and dear delivery, as it was a first attempt for most of them! A pleasant musical program followed.

758


There were songs by Mr. and Mrs. Garth Pemberton and Mrs. Ken Ridgway, a recitation by Miss Audrey Eraser, and piano items by Miss Doris and Mr. Ivan Ridgway.

     The day after the 19th the Theta Alpha gave a Banquet to the children. The Rev. E. C. Acton addressed the children on the meaning of the 19th of June. Then followed very creditable speeches by the boys, mostly about Swedenborg. As it is too hot in January to celebrate Swedenborg's Birthday, we always try to bring in something about his life and work at this Banquet.

     A pretty evening's entertainment was given by Kainon School before it broke up for the summer holidays. Miss Champion had trained the small children to recite little poems; Miss Doris Ridgway was responsible for the pretty, lively songs given in chorus during the evening. Miss Enid Cockerell and Miss Sylvia Pemberton produced the trial scene from "The Merchant of Venice," while four of the older girls, under the direction of Mrs. R. H. Ridgway, gave a scene from the life of Queen Elizabeth. They displayed plenty of histrionic ability, and promise to be of great use in that line to the Society when they leave school.

     The next event was a gramophone concert and two plays arranged by the Social Committee. Mr. R. M. Ridgway very kindly lent his fine gramophone, and took charge of the musical program. The first play was a curtain raiser done by Miss Yveline Rogers and Miss Elsa Ridgway, and an effective back drop had been painted for it by Miss Rogers, who is very talented in that line. The other play was "The Burglar and the Lady." Miss Enid Cockerell and Mr. Scott Forfar took part, and gave us a very thrilling performance.

     Our first social supper in the new hall was held at the end of August, and proved a great success. There were twenty-eight people present, which is the largest number we have ever had at one of these suppers. All agreed that they should be held once a month from now on.

     Another Bazaar is announced on an attractive poster, painted by Miss Rogers. Also, there are rumors that another play is in progress. So the Durban Society is always busy. We only hope our spiritual progress will be able to keep pace with our natural progress!     
     V. H. R.

     DEATH OF MR. MANNING.

     Through the kindness of the Rev. Leighton C. Shuster, Minister of the Riverside, California, Society, we have been informed of the passing into the spiritual world of Mr. Alfred Washington Manning on September 30th last, after an illness of one day. Mr. Manning was an ardent New Churchman, and a diligent reader and student of the Writings, evidence of which was given in his occasional contributions to the pages of New Church Life and other periodicals of the Church.

     Mr. Shuster's address at the Resurrection Service on October 3d was printed in the Riverside Daily Press, from which we quote the following:

     "Very early in life Mr. Manning became acquainted with the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg, and never once in his whole long career were these books laid aside to be superseded by the mundane affairs that captivate the worldly-minded. Early in life he became identified as a charter member with the Church in San Francisco, but over twenty years ago transferred his membership to the Riverside Society.

     "Many of us who knew the virile Christian character of the friend, to whom we wish God-speed to his new estate of life, know that these heavenly qualities are already being awakened to their perfection in the spiritual world.

     "Mr. Manning was a man of strong convictions, as to what was right for him personally, and his convictions were matched by an equally unswerving determination to express in word and deed what he believed to be right. I had the honored privilege of being most closely associated with him during the last three years of his life.

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His integrity and honesty were always in evidence in everything that he said and did; and his fountains of wisdom were to me a never-ending source of the greatest delight I have ever experienced."

     Like testimony has been given by the Rev F. E. Waelchli, who, on his trips to the Pacific Coast in recent years, has greatly enjoyed spending a day or more with Mr. Manning. While not a member of the General Church, his warm interest in the uses of this body was shown by a bequest of $2000.00, made several years ago. Mr. Manning was born in London, England, on March 25, 1840. Writing the undersigned on his last birthday, the beginning of his 88th year, he expressed the hope of visiting Bryn Athyn during the summer, but this hope was not realized.
     W. B. C.

     REPORT OF THE VISITING PASTOR.

     Services were held in DETROIT, at the home of Mr. and Mrs. William Walker, on Sunday, October 9th. There was an attendance of twenty-two, of whom eighteen partook of the Holy Supper. Included in the service was the administration of the rite of Confession of Faith for Mr. Norman Synnestvedt. During the afternoon a number of the members and friends went to the home of Mr. and Mrs. George Field at ANN ARBOR, and there, together with several of the New Church people resident at Ann Arbor, enjoyed a delightful social supper. This was followed by a class, at which the subject was the Doctrine of Correspondences. On this occasion the attendance was again twenty-two. On Monday afternoon, at WINDSOR, Ont., instruction was given to four children; and in the evening there was the baptism of the infant of Mr. and Mrs. Harold Bellinger, and then a class on the subject of Baptism. On Tuesday evening another class was held in Detroit, at the home of Mrs. Violet Day, when the doctrine was considered that man's external thought is intrinsically the same as his internal thought, both deriving their character from the ruling love.

     From Detroit I went to Kitchener for a day, and then to Toronto, where it was my privilege to attend the Ontario District Assembly. I had planned to remain for a few days after the Assembly, and then go to Erie. But telegram called me to MIDDLEPORT, OHIO, for the funeral of Mr. Ferry Thomas. Mr. Thomas was a railroad engineer and was killed in a collision. For a number of years he attended the services and classes of the Middleport Society, together with his wife, who was born in the Church; and in 1924, he became a member by baptism. The services were held at the church on Tuesday afternoon, October 18th. About two hundred and fifty persons were in the building, and many more were not able to find room. The sermon was on Divine Providence, and we learn that many were impressed by the teachings, new to them, that were presented.
     F. E. WAELCHLI.

     GLENVIEW, ILL.

     The big news in Glenview is the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Immanuel Church. We date this from the time the Rev. William F. Pendleton came to Chicago as our Pastor, in August, 1877, although the Society did not organize as a corporate body until several years later. This, however, was a mere formality.

     Our Jubilee celebration was the principal feature of the annual Chicago District Assembly this year. The members of Sharon Church joined with us and were generally entertained by the Park people. Among the visitors from a distance were: Bishop and Mrs. N. D. Pendleton; Rev. W. B. Caldwell, former pastor, and Mrs. Caldwell; Mr. and Mrs. Alvin Lindrooth and Mr. Harold Lindrooth, of Denver; Mr. Charles Merrell, of Cincinnati; Mr. Ray Brown, of Toronto; Mr. Geoffrey Childs, of Bryn Athyn; Mr. and Mrs. Pierre Vinet, Mrs. Bernadine Wuesthoff and Mrs. Virginia Lowndes.

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     For the details of the meetings we must refer to the Report of the District Assembly. The most substantial feature of the Jubilee was the announcement of the presentation by Messrs. Seymour and Alvin Nelson of a release of the encumbrance which has rested upon our church property. This munificent gift relieved the Society from the payment of about $11,000.00, and thus will release corresponding funds for other very important uses.

     It was a rare pleasure to enjoy the company of Mr. and Mrs. Caldwell, whom we feel to be very dose to us. And it was also a great pleasure to find the Bishop and Mrs. Pendleton so very kindly and alert. Needless to say, the folks well enjoyed renewing their acquaintance with these ladies also. We managed to keep Mrs. Caldwell with us several days after her husband's departure, and feel that she probably had good time attending all the functions in her honor.

     News of the death of Bishop William F. Pendleton came to us several days after the dose of the Jubilee, and although it was not unexpected it was a great shock to us all. A Memorial Meeting was held on Monday, November 7th, and was attended by all. It gave an opportunity for the expression of the great affection in which he was held by everyone who knew him. Your correspondent first met him when he was the Pastor of our Society in the very old days, and has a very affectionate remembrance of him in the early '80's as a dignified, kindly and friendly gentleman. Your correspondent also remembers the first time he saw his wife, with their three little graces, Augusta, Luelle and Venita.
     J. B. S.

     A SUMMER'S VISIT IN THE NORTHWEST.

     On my summer's trip this year I visited circles and families in eleven places,-three in the States of Oregon and Washington, and eight in the Provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, Canada. Totaling the largest attendance at the services or classes in each place, I ministered to 104 adults and young people, and 56 children,-a total of 160 souls. The Holy Supper was administered to 54 persons; Baptism was performed for 6 infants and children; and 3 young people made their confessions of faith.

     I arrived at BAKER, OREGON, on Friday evening, June 24th, and was given a warm welcome by Mr. and Mrs. Blake, at whose home I gave three lectures on three successive evenings, attended by nine, eleven, and thirteen persons, respectively, and conducted a service on Sunday morning, five being present. The subjects discussed in the lectures were: "Man's Memories and the Immortal Life"; The Laws of Presence in the Spiritual World"; and "The Resurrection, and the First State after Death." While the majority of those present had little or no acquaintance with the Doctrines of the New Church, the subject matter of these lectures seemed to be affirmatively and appreciatively received by all. During my stay, Dorothy, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Blake, returned from Bryn Athyn, where she had attended college as a special student. This event had been much looked forward to, and was happy in realization. Mr. and Mrs. Blake are enthusiastic about the schools in Bryn Athyn, and it was a great satisfaction to them that Dorothy had been able to attend them and live among the people of Bryn Athyn, and that during her sojourn there she had elected to become a member of the New Church.

     I arrived at LA GORANDE on Tuesday afternoon, June 28th, but as it was their civic election day, there was no lecture that evening. Instead I spent the evening in conversation with Mrs. Lee Fine, and was able to give her much information concerning the associates of her school days in Bryn Athyn. The following afternoon I repeated the lecture on "Man's Memories and Immortality" to an audience of five persons at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Niederer, a sister and brother-in-law of Miss Hug.

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That evening and the one following I repeated the other two lectures in the Community Club rooms before the same audience. On two afternoons I took the four children of Mrs. Lee Fine and the daughter of Mrs. Green on a hike-the first afternoon into the hills on the outskirts of town, and the second in the opposite direction to the river and the natural park. While they were resting I told them of the rainbow mentioned in Genesis 8, and about rainbows in the spiritual world, and also told them the story of Gideon. La Gorande is beautifully situated, as implied in its name, and these hikes were enjoyed both by the children and their preceptor. On the final evening of my visit I conducted a service and administered the Holy Supper to six communicants. My reception here was most cordial, and I was urged to repeat the visit next year.

     Leaving La Gorande at an early hour, I arrived at WALLA WALLA at 1:30 p.m. on Saturday, July 2d. While here I was entertained at the home of Mr. and Mrs. E. R. Pribilsky. That evening I gave an extemporaneous talk on the "Internal Sense of the Word" before a circle of friends and neighbors of Mr. and Mrs. Littlejohn at the latter's home. On Sunday, there was a morning and an evening service, and the following three evenings I repeated the three lectures mentioned above, these being given at the Pribilsky home, and attended only by the Pribilsky and Littlejohn families. No effort was made to interest others, as the town was virtually deserted owing to the fact that the national holiday fell on a Monday and the people took advantage of the two and a half days of vacation to go into the country. It was a pleasure to see more of Mr. Wilbur Pribilsky, who had come home for the Fourth from the vicinity of Baker, and whom I had met at several meetings in that place.

     From Walla Walla I went directly to CALGARY, ALBERTA, a journey of two nights and a day, part of which leads through the famous Canadian Rockies. I had learned previously that Mr. Hugh Bourne was very ill, and therefore lost no time in calling upon him. He told me, and it was very evident, that his time on earth was very short. As he has now entered the spiritual world, it may not be out of place to include something of a memorial of him in these notes. He recalled Mr. Iungerich's visit of last year, made memorable to him by the administration of the Lord's Supper, for which he expressed the greatest appreciation. It was the first time he had partaken of it in the forty years that had elapsed since his removal from Toronto, where he had been connected with the New Church Society. The Communion, as the most complete act of worship, had meant much to Mr. Bourne. It was the satisfaction of a long-felt want, a need of his nature. He was a humble man of fine sensibilities, simple, but having a dear insight into the Doctrines of the New Church. Also, he was a lover of his fellow men. These two, his humility and his love of mankind, prompted him to seek to worship in the society Of other men. On one of my former visits he related to me how, during his isolation from the organized New Church, he had attended many services of the Old Church congregations, in order to satisfy his urge to worship in a larger sphere than his own; but there had always been something discordant, and he had come away dissatisfied, until finally he had given it up, devoting more time to private worship. He looked upon it as the greatest of mercies that the Lord had in recent years provided an annual visit by a minister of the General Church. That the Lord was permitting him to partake of the Holy Supper again, he regarded as the greatest blessing, and when I administered it to him in the afternoon his cup of happiness was full. Mr. Bourne departed from this world on July 28th, in his 78th year.

     Leaving Calgary, I spent four days at DIDSBURY With Mr. and Mrs. E. Marshall Miller. The day before my coming, their crop had been completely hailed out, and as their time was taken up with insurance adjusters it was not possible to have as many classes as had been planned.

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Nevertheless we had two classes and a service. At one of the former two visitors were present, and there was considerable discussion.

     From Didsbury I was taken by automobile to SUNNY SLOPE, a distance of thirty miles. This was the first visit to this place by a minister of the General Church. Through my father, a cordial invitation had come from Mr. William Reddekopp on behalf of himself and his brothers, and this was afterwards confirmed by correspondence. The Reddekopps are New Church people of long standing. Their father was one of the first group of receivers among the Mennonites in Manitoba. Afterwards they lived for some time in Oregon, where they had received occasional visits from the Rev. W. R. Reece, of Portland. I was entertained at the home of Mr. and Mrs. David Reddekopp, and was made most welcome. Soon after my arrival, Mr Reddekopp announced to his family that the four days that I would be with them would be a complete holiday. And the holiday spirit of feasting and good fellowship was indeed in evidence at all, times. Including Mr. and Mrs. Henry Reimer, parents of Mrs. David Reddekopp, there were in the house three generations of New Church people, representing as many points of view and states. Each was keenly interested in the Church and the Doctrines, and throughout the four days of my sojourn, from morning until night, these were the constant topic of conversation on Thursday and Friday evenings I gave two lectures, one a missionary discourse on "The Internal Sense of the Word," delivered in a Public hall in the village of Sunny Slope, and the other on the "Laws of Presence in the Spiritual World," presented in the farm-home of the David Reddekopps Sunday was the great day, and saw the largest gathering of my whole trip. In addition to those already mentioned-the Reddekopp brothers with their families, and Mr. and Mrs, Henry Reimer-there were present two sons of Mr. and Mrs. Reimer, who came a distance of forty and sixty miles respectively, and another daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Reimer, with their families. All these, together with a bachelor neighbor, made an audience of thirty-five, or eighteen adults and seventeen children. There were two services, one in the morning, and the other in the afternoon. At the morning service, four children were baptized, and at the afternoon service there were three confirmations and the administration of the Holy Supper.

     After a day and night of travel, I came to OYEN, ALBERTA, being now on familiar ground. Ah the above-mentioned places, with the exception of Calgary, were new to me; but from here to the end of the trip I was greeted by old friends. The six days that I was at Oyen were occupied as follows: I was entertained at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Evens. In the mornings Mr. Evens kindly placed his automobile at my disposal, and I motored to the farm of Mr. Wm. Evens, a distance of four miles, where I gave instruction to the children in the forenoon, and immediately after dinner read a paper to the parents. The evenings were spent with the Nelson Evens family. Owing to the fact that Mrs. Evens had not fully recovered from the effects of a recent operation, we had doctrinal classes on only two evenings. On Sunday there was service at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Evens, which was attended by four friends of the host and hostess, one a young lady school teacher. The latter, after the service, remarked on a point mentioned in the sermon, and thus opened a discussion which continued throughout the excellent dinner provided by the hostess, and touched upon most of the fundamental doctrines of the New Church. Shortly after dinner I again motored to the Wm. Evens' place, where, at a private service, I baptized their infant son.

     A number of things conspired to make this year's visit to the ROSTHERN circle of more than usual interest. The John Hamm family had reestablished their home here, and Miss Anna Hamm was visiting them; the Abram Klippenstein family, formerly of Laird, Sask., but now residing in Los Angeles, Calif., were spending the summer at their old home; and the Rev. Isaac Ens, Pastor of the New Church Society at Pretty Prairie, Kansas, was in Rosthern, and attended one of our meetings, and I called on him once at his father's home.

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The presence of all these added much to the interest of the meetings, and swelled the attendance, so that, with a few other visitors, there was an average of twenty-one persons at the evening classes, with thirty-three as the maximum. During the nine days spent in Rosthern my ministrations included two services, at one of which the Lord's Supper was celebrated, children's classes held daily with the exception of Sunday and Monday, and six classes at which I presented papers on the "Laws of Presence in the Spiritual World," "The Resurrection and the First State after Death," "Hereditary Evil and the Spiritual Man," "The Word made Flesh," and two on "Conjugial Love." By way of diversion I spent a day with Mr. and Mrs. Klippenstein, motoring with them, to Waldheim, to the home of their son-in-law and daughter, Mr. and Mrs. John Nickel, and to their former home near Laird. Following the service held next to the last evening of my stay there was a surprise social which deserves mention. No one had talked about a social or presumably had made any preparation for one, and so all were surprised when refreshments were brought out. About the time these had been disposed of, musical instruments were produced, and there was an hour and a half of dancing.

     I next went to DAVIDSON, SASK., and WINNIPEG, MANITOBA. The visit of a minister to these two places had this to distinguish it from others on such a trip. At both places one of the family comes from the Kitchener Society, and has had some experience of church society life, and a larger personal acquaintance with members of the General Church. Consequently there is a more intimate interest in the people and doings of the New Church societies at large, which leads to many enjoyable conversations and personal reminiscences. Since the removal of Mr. and Mrs. Harold Bellinger and their son to Windsor, Ont., the General Church has only one family at DAVIDSON, that of Mr. and Mrs. Pagon and their five children. I spent four pleasant days with them. In the mornings I had a half-hour class with the older children, after which I took the two youngest on a walk out of town and related to them stories from the Word. To Mr. and Mrs. Pagon I read two of the above-mentioned papers and another one on "Infants in the Other World." On Sunday morning there was a children's service and one for the adults of the family, to whom the Holy Supper was also administered.

     At Winnipeg, I spent three days in relaxation with Mr. and Mrs. Fred Roschman. I accompanied Mr. Roschman on his business rounds, which, as city salesman for a rubber firm, takes him to every part of the city. While motoring we talked about the Church. On two evenings we went to ball games, and on the third I read to them the paper on the "Word made Flesh," which, Mr. Roschman declared, connected with and recalled much that he had been instructed in.
     
     From Winnipeg I went to MORDEN, MANITOBA. Mr. Erdman Heinrichs, who has been teaching in Saskatchewan district schools for a number of years has now moved to his farm near Morden. This year, also, the Misses Clara and Anna Heinrichs were home for their summer vacation, Miss Clara from Bryn Athyn, and Miss Anna from Saskatchewan, where, like Mr. Erdman Heinrichs, she had been engaged as a teacher in district schools. There was thus quite a reunion of the Heinrichs family, in itself a very enjoyable event. I had arrived on Saturday; on the following Tuesday, Miss Anna Hamm joined us, so that altogether we were nine adults and four children. During the course of the week I read five papers and conducted two services.

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The Holy Supper was celebrated at one of these, and at the other the infant son of Mr. and Mrs. Erdman Heinrichs was baptized. The gathering here had quite a professional atmosphere, as it included four teachers and one minister. The subject of New Church Education, therefore, was much to the front in the conversation, the more so since two of the young ladies,-Miss Anna Hamm and Miss Anna Heinrichs,-were about to assume positions in New Church schools, the former in Bryn Athyn and the latter in Kitchener.
     HENRY HEINRICHS.

     BRYN ATHYN.

     It looked as if the weather was going to be kind to us for Charter Day, when the last week of October was perfect in a golden sheen of autumn sunshine. And then, as if to take us unawares, the north wind sent a wintry blast, and it was under a drab sky that the students, ex-students, and Faculties marched from the School Buildings to the Cathedral as in other years. Once within the peaceful shelter of the church, the weather was forgotten in the warmth and light of that other Sun which has brought a new Springtime to the world. The praise and joy of grateful hearts were lifted on the wings of song, and this brought a sphere of heaven which was felt by all. The Rev. E. E. Iungerich delivered stirring address on the significance of the White Horse of the Apocalypse, with a strong appeal to join the army of those who rode on white horses, clothed in white linen, and who follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth.

     The service over, the procession returned to the Academy grounds, and passed in review before the Faculties in front of Benade Hall. There a gift of flowers was presented by the Schools to the two surviving Founders of the Academy,-Bishop Emeritus W. F. Pendleton, and Mr. Walter C. Childs. To the Bishop it was sent as a token of affection destined to be of deeper significance than was at the moment realized; for it proved a last expression of our love for him before his departure to the other world. Mr. Childs, who was present with us, seemed, as always, to radiate health and the spirit of youth. He is one of those rare souls who has the secret of cheating even Time itself, and consistently refuses to grow old. In accepting the floral gift, he said that he would meet us all, on this same spot, fifty years from now; and he looked as though he might well keep his promise.

     The Banquet in the evening was even more than usually successful. Mr. Heilman had replaced the horseshoe patties, so famous last year, with dainty samples of the highest culinary art, and the arrangement and decoration of the tables was in admirable taste. Mr. Randolph W. Childs as toastmaster was at his best, providing a happy blending of humor and sentiment. The speeches were all on subjects of present interest, and commanded close attention. Professor C. R. Pendleton, addressing himself to the problem of Science in its relation to the Academy, provided material for a very active discussion, which enlivened the informal part of the program. Rev. K. R. Alden gave an interesting interpretation of the spirit of youth, and Mr. Loyal D. Odhner made an appeal for the building up of the smaller societies in the Church. There was keen interest in all that was said, and a response from the door that apparently would have continued to a very late hour, had not the toastmaster wisely counseled moderation.

     The next morning brought the news that Bishop W. F. Pendleton had been called to join the Academy in the spiritual world. Although his death was not unexpected, it came with a certain suddenness, and with a deep sense of loss. All activities in connection with the celebration of Charter Day were canceled. Funeral services in the Cathedral were conducted by Bishop N. D. Pendleton and the Rev. George de Charms, on Monday afternoon, November 7th. The Church was filled to capacity, and a very strong sphere was felt.

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Both addresses will be published in a later issue of the Life. At the close of the service, the casket was taken from the Undercroft, between two lines of students with Academy banners, to the road, and thence in funeral procession to the cemetery, where the last rites were performed, by which, it seemed, that one chapter of the Church's history was closed,-a chapter rich in gifts of blessing upon the future.

     In the evening, a Memorial Meeting was held in the Auditorium, with an opportunity for numerous speakers to express something of the love and gratitude we feel to Father Pendleton, and to recall the days of affectionate service under his wise and gentle leading. The occasion was notable for a feeling of charity and mutual love that seemed to bind us closer in bonds of spiritual friendship and common brotherhood.
     G. de C.

     KITCHENER, ONT.

     Upon receiving word of the passing into the other world of our beloved Bishop Emeritus, the Society gathered on Sunday evening, November 6th, to hold a Memorial Meeting. It was a very wonderful meeting, in that so beautiful a sphere prevailed. A number of men spoke, recalling Bishop Pendleton's work in the past, and all expressing the deepest love and veneration for him.

     The Pastor, in addressing the meeting, took as his text the Lord's words: "Ye have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain." (John 15:16.) He spoke of how men were raised up by the Lord to lead His Church, and to be the prophets and teachers therein.

     Mr. Rudolph Roschman read a short address, which was adopted by the meeting as expressive of its feeling. It is as follows:

     Memorial to the Bishop Emeritus.

     "The Carmel Church, being assembled tonight to pay honor and respect to the memory of our Bishop, is not only fulfilling a duty which we feel we owe, but is expressing our feeling of thankfulness and affection for our beloved leader of so many years.

     "He was a worthy successor to our beloved Father Benade, who was the guiding leader in the foundation of the Academy. While Father Benade was the leader, in Divine Providence, firmly to establish the Church, and gather together those who were convinced that the really true and internal Church can be established only on the foundation of the acknowledgment of the absolute authority of the Writings, it has been the life work of Father W. F. Pendleton to consolidate the Church into a harmonious whole, teaching and leading it in such a marvelous and wise manner that its growth and expansion, and its usefulness to mankind, are assured to the future. If the Church holds fast to those principles of government which our Bishop has established, which are based on the infallibility of the Writings, and on mutual love and toleration, we will indeed pay the highest tribute to the memory of our beloved Bishop, William F. Pendleton.

     "But, besides his work as our leader, he has endeared himself to all for his sterling qualities as a man. He has been a shining example as a gentleman, a true and truly pious New Churchman, who exerted a profound influence on all who had the privilege and pleasure of personal and social contact with him.

     "His memory will be deeply cherished by all, and will live with us for all time."

     At the Ontario Assembly, held in Toronto, Oct. 13-16, which was very fine meeting, about thirty Kitchenerites enjoyed the hospitality of the Toronto friends. After the Assembly, the Bishop and the Rev. W. B. Caldwell came to Kitchener. At a meeting of the Society the Bishop presented the resignation of the Pastor, which was accepted. As his time was limited, only one other meeting was held with the Bishop.

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This was a Women's Meeting at the home of Mrs. Rudolph Roschman, attended also by Mr. Caldwell and Mr. David. The Bishop, in addressing the women, gave a resume of the paper he had read at Toronto dealing with the results we are striving for in education. We were very much interested to hear the paper, or "outline," as the Bishop called it. A certain clarity of idea is given in the phrase,-"to educate children for regeneration. This, and the fact that certain results can be obtained by a given method of education, seem to give the keynote to the paper. It was delightful to meet the Bishop and Mr. Caldwell socially.

     The children had a very fine party on Hallowe'en, when about thirty of them gathered in fancy costumes to do all the time-honored "stunts" so dear to their hearts. They ducked for apples, hunted peanuts, and were blindfolded for various reasons, and, after many happy games, partook of a party supper.

      The Young People and Antiques (who are only one step removed from the Young People) held a party at a later hour, but, desiring as much fun as the children, they came dressed as children, and proceeded to act in the same capacity. The committee had thoughtfully provided warm milk and bowls of bread for each individual, but this was too much! Some stopped acting like children at once, and didn't feel normal until they saw the pumpkin pie and coffee.

     On Thanksgiving Day, a supper was served at the Church, and an unusually large number turned out, including a number of visitors from Toronto. The room was decorated with the returns of the harvest,-fruits, flowers, vegetables, and grains. The evening was enjoyably spent in card playing, guessing contests and dancing.
     G. K. D.

     STOCKHOLM CHURCH DEDICATED.

     On September 31 1927, the new building of the Convention Society in Stockholm was dedicated in the presence of a congregation numbering over 200. The Pastor, Rev. David Rundstrom, was assisted in the service by the Revs. H. Clinton Hay (Boston), H. Gordon Drummond (England), Gustave Regamey (Geneva), Adolph L. Goerwitz (Zurich), S. Chr. Bronniche (Copenhagen), and E. L. G. Reissner (Berlin). Other visiting ministers were the Revs. W. A. Presland and W. H. Claxton, the latter contributing an account of the occasion to The New-Church Herald of October 29, 1927.

     The edifice has a central location on the south side of Tegner's Grove, and with the lot was estimated to cost $165,000. It is of several stories, with living apartments above the chapel, public rooms and offices. A photograph of the building features The New-Church Messenger of October 26, 1927.

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FEBRUARY MEETINGS 1927

FEBRUARY MEETINGS       GEORGE DE CHARMS       1927




     Announcements.



     The Annual Council Meetings of the General Church, and the Philadelphia District Assembly, will be held at Bryn Athyn, Pa., from January 31st to February 5th, 1928.

     Visitors.

     Those who expect to come to Bryn Athyn to attend these meetings are requested to notify Miss Florence Roehner, Bryn Athyn, Pa., in order that provision may be made for their entertainment.

          GEORGE DE CHARMS,
          Secretary.
THIRTEENTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY 1927

THIRTEENTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY       GEORGE DE CHARMS       1927

     By invitation of the London and Colchester Societies, the Thirteenth General Assembly of the General Church of the New Jerusalem will meet in London, England, from August 3d to August 12th, 1928. All members and friends of the General Church are cordially invited to attend. Those expecting to do so are requested to notify Miss R. M. Dowling, 11 Overton Road, Brixton, London, S. W. 9, England, at the earliest possible date.

     Further particulars as to program, cost of rooms and board, etc., will appear in the next and following issues of the LIFE.
     GEORGE DE CHARMS,
          Secretary.