few weeks of his final illness, constitutes not only an unusually minute and faithful autobiography, but also, in all probability, the fullest register in existence of interesting events in the history of the New Church for nearly the last fifty years. In a remarkable degree he united the energy and decision of a resolute and successful man of action with the pacific gentleness of a man of repose. Clear and definite in the formation of his opinions, and uncompromisingly emphatic in any statement of his convictions which seemed necessary for the establishment of right, he yet never offended even those whose ideas he most opposed, but was unvaryingly considerate, patient, and full of lovingkindness. Those who knew him best can testify how often he proved himself a peacemaker, and how effectually, by his genial humour, or the sheer force of his own sunny good temper, he would dispel the threatening clouds of discord. His sympathizing manner and cheery voice made him everywhere a centre of exhilaration and blameless mirth. His home, a scene of graceful elegance and, until inevitable circumstances prevented, of refined hospitality, to which many memories will cling with fond regrets, was the abode of every social charity. His sons and daughters found him not only a wise and affectionate father, but, as one of them feelingly testified to the writer of this notice, their most intimate and confidential friend.

Mr. Watson was twice married: firstly, to Mary, eldest daughter of the late Mr. John Johnson, a former member of the Cross Street Society, by whom he had six children, five of whom, two sons and three daughters, survive; and secondly, to Mary Ann, widow of the late Captain Philpot, the Mrs. Watson whose decease was noticed in our obituary for last April. For some time previous to her departure her husband had suffered from a heart affection, which caused him much occasional distress, and excited the grave apprehensions of his friends. A sojourn at Hastings in the spring afforded temporary relief, and he attended, apparently in no very impaired health, the anniversary of the Swedenborg Society on the 17th of June and the annual meeting of the Argyle Square Society on the 16th of July. On Thursday,

On

August 14th, he paid a brief visit to the
General Conference, then in session at
Palace Gardens Church, Kensington,
where he exchanged greetings with
several old friends. It was the last
occasion on which he left his home.
the very day following the heart difficul-
ties violently increased, complicated by
a slight attack of paralysis and other
organic derangements; and although he
rallied for about three weeks, the slight
improvement was at length followed by
a relapse, which, after a week of severe
suffering, terminated in his release.

The funeral, which took place at Kensal Green Cemetery on Saturday, September 27th, was attended by official deputations from the committees of the Argyle Square and Swedenborg Societies and by many private friends. The coffin was nearly hidden by many exquisite devices in fresh and fragrant flowers, which at once affectingly witnessed to the tender love with which he is mourned, and aptly symbolized the "beauty for ashes" wherewith the Divine Consoler transfigures such grief with the radiance of confidence and hope. On Sunday the 28th, in presence of a congregation evidently in deepest sympathy_with_the object of the service, the Rev. John Presland preached a memorial sermon from the appropriate words, “LORD, I have loved the habitation of Thy house, and the place where Thine honour dwelleth" (Psalm xxvi. 8).*

On Oct. 2nd Frederic Allen, aged fifty-two years, at the house of his brother, L. P. Allen of Beckenham, Kent, from typhoid fever, contracted at Dinan, Brittany. The subject of this notice was a member of the Camden Road New Church Society, and was baptized into the Church by the late ministry at Cross Street, Hatton Garden, Rev. O. Prescott Hiller, under whose he for many years joyfully listened to the unveiling of the spiritual sense of the Divine Word as taught in the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg. Mr. Allen was an intimate friend and a devoted admirer of Mr. Hiller, and on the death of this gifted preacher he collected and edited a number of his unpublished papers and sermons, which were afterwards printed in the form Papers of the Rev. O. P. Hiller." Mr. of a small volume, entitled "Posthumous Allen was unmarried, but for many years he lived in the house of a brother, the writer of this notice, to whose family he be

*This sermon is printed in Morning Light for October 11th.

came endeared in a way not often seen. In where she might do a little good, as, for that little circle he is mourned as a second instance, in sending magazines monthly father. Nor is his loss felt much less to the Bath Public Library. It need acutely in the wider circle of his numerous hardly be said that she was a lady brothers and sisters, to all of whom he was a loving and faithful friend. Outside widely respected, for to know her was his own family many who knew his sterto respect her. ling worth will grieve for the sudden and, humanly speaking, untimely departure of At Burnley, on the 4th of September, one who was always ready in deeds of William Metcalf, in the fifty-sixth year friendship and neighbourly charity. One of his age. who knew him well, and who has himself and while residing in that village beHe was a native of Embsay, lately passed in safety through a dangerous illness (Mr. Henry Bateman), thus writes of our dear brother: "He was a charming man, admirable alike in person, will, and understanding. Of course, to him to die was gain. He had made friends with the angels before he quitted earth, and life in heaven will be no new thing to him except as to the intensity of its satisfaction and blessedness. He has been a loving and faithful disciple of the Lord

Jesus Christ for so long as to be fully prepared to enjoy alike His priesthood and His kingship for eternity." With thankfulness we testify to the truth of the above description of our beloved brother, for we feel sure that as he sat waiting by the "wayside" he has joyfully heard the solemn words, "Rise, He calleth thee;" and at that Divine command "he, casting away his (fleshly) garment, rose, and came to Jesus.'

C. H. A.

Removed to the spiritual world, on August 11th, Jane Sutherland of Laurel Villa, Sion Hill, Bath. Miss Sutherland had been a member of the Bath Society for twenty-two years, having been elected during Mr. Keene's She was a ministry in April 1857. lady of culture and of artistic taste, and had considerable technical skill in painting, having produced many works in

oil.

While she had a keen interest also in scientific matters, and used to attend yearly the meetings of the British Association, her reception of New Church truth enabled her to fuse in her mind the ideas of natural and spiritual truth into a consistent form of belief. Her interest in the Church was true and deep, and she showed it practically by the help she gave to the funds of the Society with which she was connected. Whatever she did in this way was done without ostentation, a characteristic which marked all her benevolences, which were also extended beyond the circle of the Church into any sphere

came a receiver of the doctrines. He was for many years active in all the duties of the Society and Sunday school. On his removal to Burnley he tried with two or three others to form a Society in that busy town. After a few years the Burnley Society was dissolved. Mr. Metcalf still continued his membership with the Embsay Society, and came to visit was on August 31st to the ordinaservice a few times each year. His last tion of the Rev. E. Jones. On the following Wednesday, while superintending the hoisting of some bales of cotton at the mill where he was employed, one of the bales fell upon him, causing such injuries that he died the following morning. Thus suddenly in the midst of duty was our brother called to the duties of the higher life. "Blessed are those servants whom the Lord when He cometh shall find watching.”

Went to her eternal home on 3rd October, in the seventy-fourth year of her age, Mrs. Nanny Riley, widow of the late Wm. Riley of Accrington. Our aged cal weakness from the active duties of life, friend has long been laid aside by physibut found her pleasure in waiting in peace and patience for her change to come. The inclemency of last winter compelled her to take to her bed; and she has lingered on till now, when her heavenly Father took His weary child to her welcome rest. Her end was what we might expect of one whose life was given to the Lord, tranquil and hopeful.

On Tuesday, October 7th, Mr. J. Bragg, of Northwood House, Hamstead Road, Handsworth, Birmingham, after a short illness, passed to his eternal home. The memory of our departed brother will be long cherished by those who shared his friendship and knew the kindliness of his disposition.

THE near approach of the time appointed for commemorating the birth of the Saviour invites us to anticipate the occasion and make some reflections on the event.

Grand in itself, in its purpose, and in its results, the Incarnation must ever continue to be a theme of wonder and admiration to angels and men. No event can be conceived of as approaching in greatness and grandeur the manifestation of God in the flesh. It transcends the conception and exceeds the belief of the natural man. The idea could only have entered the mind through Divine Revelation. Glimpses of the truth have indeed been found in other religions than those derived immediately from our Holy Scriptures; but these have been received from an older Revelation, an ancient Word, the origin of all ancient and most modern religions, which we speak of as heathen, but which are only the traditional forms of a once universal faith. Whatever is true in any of those religions has been revealed, not by flesh and blood, but by the Father of light, who has never left Himself without a witness in any age or in any land. The highest of these revealed truths is that which has given the faith and inspired the hope of the Divine Incarnation. Although this event was far distant, belief in it had the power of giving the mind of fallen man an upward and onward direction. When the minds of men had be

come too gross and sensual to think of God as a Spirit, and to worship Him in spirit and in truth, faith in the incarnate God was necessary to preserve them from falling into a state of ignorance or atheism, so as to be without God in the world, a state from which there could have been no redemption. If the patriarchs who "all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth," secured to themselves a better country, that is, an heavenly, so was it to some extent with those among the nations who had so much of the same faith that the Lord the Saviour had become the Desire of all nations.

The manifestation of God in the flesh is no doubt the great mystery of godliness. But it is, like the other mysteries of the kingdom, capable of being understood. Revelation is higher than reason, but is in nothing contrary to it. The Word of God reveals what human reason could not have discovered, but it reveals nothing that reason cannot comprehend. Although God is infinite and man is finite, and between infinite and finite there is no proportion, yet God is infinite man and man is finite god; and there is thus a relation between them that is capable of being exalted to the highest degree, which is that of conjunction and even of union. It was on this ground that the Lord justified to the cavilling Jews His claim to being the Son of God. "If I called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, say ye of Him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest, because I said, I am the Son of God?" But the manhood of Christ was different from that of any other human being. He was not created but begotten of God. He was the Son not only of a human mother but of a Divine Father. The soul, or the essential nature, of the Lord's Humanity was therefore Divine from His birth; and this Divine soul gradually made Divine the Lord's body also, the glorification of the humanity being completed at His resurrection. In Jesus Christ therefore dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. He is the visible God in whom is the invisible.

The purpose of the Incarnation was as great as the event itself. The salvation of the human race was its object. This all Christians joyfully acknowledge, but it is the peculiar glory of the New Dispensation to know how that purpose was wrought out by God manifest in the flesh, and how it was that it could be effected by no other means. The only rationale of the Incarnation which the Churches of the present day can see is that, as Man had sinned in the flesh, it was necessary for

Christ to suffer in the flesh; and, in this way, with His stripes we are healed. How incomparably grand is the true view of the subject, that the Lord assumed man's fallen and sinful nature, that He might restore it, and reconcile and reunite to Himself those whom sin had turned away and alienated from Him! Here is the grandeur of the Incarnation: "God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them." This great truth has almost been lost sight of in the notion of God being reconciled to man. The primary idea of the Atonement is that of satisfaction to God by Christ suffering the penalty due to the sins of men, and men's acceptance and salvation for Christ's sake. When we regard the Atonement as consisting in God reconciling to Himself the human nature which He Himself assumed, how perfectly in harmony with the Divine Nature, which is infinite Love and Wisdom, does the Lord's Incarnation become! No anger to appease, no vindictive justice to satisfy. Love is the moving cause, and Wisdom is the operating power; and the Divine work has no other purpose than to reconcile the human to the Divine, and ultimately man to his Maker. How truly sublime is the doctrine, how consistent with the nature of God and with the condition of man, that the Lord reconciled His own manhood to His Godhead in the same way and by the same means as those in and by which He reconciles His rational creatures to Himself! The Lord's work in the flesh, His life of perfect righteousness, His temptations, His sufferings, His death, his resurrection and ascension, as they were the means of perfecting His humanity, and uniting it with His Essential Divinity; so are they not only the archetypes, but the producing causes, of the same works, and experiences, and changes of state in us, by which we become, in our degree, perfect as He is perfect. When we see that our regeneration is an image and a result of His glorification; that our vile bodies are changed so as to become like unto His glorious body by a similar work; that we become heavenly as He became Divine, we have attained to a true view of the purpose of the Incarnation. and of the atoning or reconciling work which the Lord accomplished in the world.

And what is the legitimate result of the Lord's redeeming and saving work? By overcoming the powers of darkness, the Lord effected the redemption of the whole human race. He delivered them from captivity, and restored them to a state of spiritual freedom, in which they are able to serve Him without fear in holiness and righteousness all the days of their life. By glorifying His humanity and uniting it to