At Nottingham, February 18th, 1879, aged sixty-six, Mary, the beloved wife of Mr. Horatio Black. She was brought up in the faith of the New Church, and was ings, of which she had a very clear and extensive knowledge. For many years Mr. and Mrs. Black were the entertainers of New Church friends and ministers when the Society here was in adversis. The writer, who knew Mrs. Black for above thirty years, always regarded her as a woman who had never had a doubt, so ardent at all times was her faith, and so unwavering her concarefully educated their large family in the heavenly doctrines, and the survivors are all warm supporters and consistent members of the Church. Confined to her room for above a year, she patiently bore her trials and sufferings, and cheerfully looked forward to the great change that awaited her. Full of faith, full of trust, ever cheerful, hopeful, and resigned, she passed away quietly in her sleep-and awoke with the angels. a zealous and careful reader of the Writ fidence and trust. She and her husband J. D. B. Mrs. Watson, of 19 Highbury Crescent, London, passed away from us on the 25th February 1879. She was a sincere and liberal friend of the New Church at a time when but few ladies belonging to our communion had both the ability and willingness to help us largely with their purses as well as with their presence. Having been introduced to a knowledge of the heavenly doctrines by myself before our church in Argyle Square was built, she commenced her attendance on New Church services at Burton Street, Burton Crescent, under the ministry of the Rev. T. C. Shaw. She enjoyed his teachings as well as those of his coadjutors in the ministerial work, and embraced the principal doctrines before reading a page of Swedenborg's Writings. Her quality of mind was indeed adverse to his mode of instruction. After putting the treatise on the Divine Providence into her hands, she returned it to me, saying, "If you had not taken me to church before giving me this book to read you would never have got me there. Her case is an illustration of the truth long familiar to Christians, that "faith comes by hearing" to some minds better than by reading, and that Swedenborg's Writings are not suited to every state even of the lovers of truth and goodness. In our efforts to erect a fitting temple for the worship of the then Mrs. Philpot, was a kind and Lord in Argyle Square, Mrs. Watson, liberal helper. She also contributed in equal proportions with myself the first £100 towards the foundation of the New Church College and the New Church Bible Society. Our hope was that the College would be connected with the church in Argyle Square, but the Society worshipping there having then a large building debt on its hands, overburthened by the additional weight was afraid to incur the risk of being of the College requirements. Our departed friend was not only zealous and generous in public matters relating to the Church, but was also kind and hospitable in her conduct towards her fellow-members. On her marriage with Mr. Watson she found a companion whose heart, like her own, was set on praying for the peace of Jerusalem and seeking her prosperity. Henceforth, like a true wife, Mrs. Watson merged her benevolent impulses into a common channel with those of her husband. Under his guidance their home became a centre of hospitality and use, which has added greatly to the strengthening of mutual love amongst the brethren, and extended the influence of the Church. For several years past Mrs. Watson has held a very precarious tenure of earthly life. Those who knew her only "in the sere and yellow leaf" of mundane existence could form no adequate idea of her real character. Those only who had the pleasure of being acquainted with her in bygone years can tell of her love of truth and goodness, and her genuine nobility of mind and character. H. BATEMAN. At Heywood, February 20th, Mrs. Elizabeth Muir, in the thirty-fourth year of her age. Mrs. Muir had been during her whole life connected with the Sunday school and church in this town. For some years past she has been largely occupied with the attention needed by a sick and bedridden mother and the cares of her children, After uprightly discharging the duties which fell to her lot in this life, she has somewhat suddenly passed away to the higher uses of the world to come. Died at sea, January 3rd, on his voyage to Melbourne, undertaken for the improvement of his health, Pickering Butterworth Edleston, Esq., eldest son of Richard Edleston, Esq., of Highfield House, Heywood, aged thirty-three. Mr James Vallack, coroner for the borough of Derby, and a solicitor in that town, departed this life on the 4th March 1879. He was the son of Colonel Vallack, a member of the Devonshire family of that name, and was born near Torquay on the 30th April 1799. Our departed friend was thus nearly eighty years of age; and although, for several years past, greatly enfeebled in body, he retained his mental faculties almost perfectly to the very close of his earthly career. On Saturday the 1st of March he drove to his offices as usual, and before leaving in the afternoon conversed with the landlord and landlady of the house in which they were situated in his accustomed lively manner. Mr. Vallack was naturally full of humour, and told his witty stories so well as frequently to set the table in a roar. He had, however, beneath his vivacious manner and amusing language strong good sense, a loving heart, and a generous hand. He was firm in his friendships and stedfast in his convictions. Having occupied a desk in the same office at Burton-upon-Trent as the late Mr. James Knight, so long the legal adviser of the Conference, Mr. Vallack was introduced by him to a knowledge of the heavenly doctrines of the New Jerusalem somewhere about the year 1823, probably in the twenty-fourth year of his age. At first they did not appear to enter very deeply into his mind. saw and acknowledged their truth, but displayed little of the zeal of a convert. Once, however, in his understanding the doctrines never lost their hold upon him. As time went on he associated himself more and more with New Church people, and interested himself more and more about the propagation of the doctrines. He at length settled in Derby to exercise his profession as a solicitor, and he became a seatholder in the chapel. Mr. Vallack's strict honour, courtesy, and integrity in the performance of his professional duties He the 10th December 1857. Mr. Vallack For retained his post to the day of his Mr. Vallack married twice, Both John ALL religions have had their founders, all have their sacred books, and all have teachers to expound their doctrines and enforce their lessons. The religions not derived directly from the Bible are considered by those within the Church to be false religions. All Gentile religions have many errors as well as defects, but they should, in most instances, be regarded as spurious rather than false. Religion itself is Divine in its origin; and all forms of religion, ancient and modern, have been and are but the different embodiments of previously existing religious ideas, or systems of religious truth. What Bunsen says of the race may be said of their religion. The farther back our investigations go it becomes more evident that all existing races have sprung from one primeval pair, and that all existing dialects have sprung from one primeval language. All existing religions have sprung from one primeval revelation. The earliest revelation was not indeed a written one. Divine truth was inscribed upon the mind, and was thus a subject of inward instinctive perception. It came, however, to be a subject of outwardly acquired knowledge. Enoch, the "seventh from Adam," collected the truths which had been subjects of perception among those of the primeval Church, and preserved them in a tangible form for the use of their posterity. The founders of religion were not, therefore, the creators of the religious idea, but only the formers, N sometimes the reformers, of the religious systems in which it is embodied. Swedenborg's place among religious teachers is like that of the instruments whom the Lord has at various times raised up and employed for the purpose of effecting changes in the religious condition of the Church and of mankind, which the ordinary teachers of religion were unable, and perhaps unwilling, to accomplish. Such an instrument was Moses, when the Israelitish Church was to be established; and such an instrument was John the Baptist, when the Christian Church was to be commenced. John came to prepare the way of the Lord at His First Advent; Swedenborg came to prepare the way of the Lord at His Second Advent. John represented the Word, especially as to its literal sense; Swedenborg may be said to have represented the Word especially as to its spiritual sense. Both in His First and in His Second Advent the Lord came as The Word. At His First Advent He came in the flesh; at His Second Advent He came in the spirit. Swedenborg's place among the teachers of his times may also be said to be like that of the apostles among the teachers of their times, especially after the day of Pentecost. When the Lord had ascended on high, He, according to His promise that He would not leave His sorrowing children orphans, but would come to them as the Comforter, poured out His Spirit upon them, and thus made His spiritual descent through them into the world. This spiritual descent of the Lord through the apostles was the real commencement, or rather the establishment, of the Christian Church. It was the fulfilment of the Lord's promise respecting the Holy Spirit: “He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you." He Himself was that Spirit. He had, before His crucifixion, been with His disciples; now He was to be in them. Swedenborg therefore claims no more for himself than the Scriptures themselves assign to the apostles. Henceforth the apostles diffused the Gospel by their preaching and writings. Their epistles may justly be regarded as an exposition of the Gospel, suited to the states not only of those who lived in their time, but of all who were to form the first Christian dispensation. Swedenborg's writings may be assumed to be to the Church of the Second Advent what the apostolic epistles were to the Church of the First Advent. If we can suppose the Christian Church never to have fallen away from its primitive purity, it still would have been succeeded by another and more perfect dispensation. This the Divine law of progress requires and prophecy leads us to expect. The difference between the first Church and the second would in that case have been simply the difference between the letter and the spirit of the Word; and the herald of the Second Advent would have been among religious teachers as the teacher of the spiritual sense of the Word among the teachers of its literal sense. Great as would have been the difference between his teaching and theirs, there would have been no real antagonism. There might not have been at first sight a perfect agreement; for although there is an exact correspondence between the literal and the spiritual senses of the Word, yet as the letter consists for the most part of appearances of truth, those who were in the literal sense only must have been, to some extent, in fallacies. Fallacies are, however, very different from errors. Fallacies only become errors when they cease to be believed in simplicity, and come to be confirmed as real truths by reasonings. When the appearances of truth come to be confirmed as real truths, they become errors. So long as men believed in simplicity that the sun rose and that the earth stood still, they only believed what they saw; but when they began to confirm this appearance by reasonings they fell into error. So it has been in the Church with those who confirmed the appearances of truth in the letter, and required them to be received as matters of faith. And to these appearances the men of the Church have, in the course of centuries, added errors of their own, as the result of false Scripture interpretation. The messenger and instrument of the Lord's Second Advent had, therefore, not only to teach the truths of the New Church, but to correct the errors of the Old. In order, therefore, to see the nature and extent of his work, and to understand the place which he occupies among religious teachers, we shall consider his labours, as the Apostle of the New Church, under the two distinct heads of Construction and Development. I. It may seem inconsistent to speak of construction respecting that which is represented as coming down in a state of completeness from above. The descent of the New Jerusalem, or the doctrine of the New Church, from God out of heaven certainly teaches its Divine origin and heavenly nature, but it does not teach its descent at once as a completed structure into the human mind. Even the first mind into which the Heavenly Doctrine descended did not receive it as a finished system. The Doctrine entered his mind as the light of truth, and first existed there as a spiritual idea, which he had to embody in a doctrinal form. He was like Moses, who saw the pattern of the tabernacle in the mount, and after his descent had to construct it out of the materials |