Siberian winter, I bore the banner of the New Jerusalem, rejoicing in the conviction that sooner or later the sunshine of summer would dissolve the icebound channels of the church, and chase away for ever the wintry desolations of her vastated state.

The enclosed documents will interest all the friends of the church. It is my wish that the whole should be published in the Intellectual Repository. I may state that Dr. Lewis Johnston is a gentleman of the first respectability in this province; he is a brother of our present Attorney-General, J. W. Johnston, Esq. The doctor for many years edited a monthly religious magazine in this province, and is extensively and favourably known in the religious world here, especially in the Baptist denomination. Owing to his personal influence and family connections, the publication of his reasons for resigning his membership among the Baptists will subserve a very important use, especially in this colony. I may state that it was at my request that Mr. Johnston had this document prepared for publication. He is far advanced in life, and nearly blind. The paper was written by an amanuensis. Yours fraternally, ALEX. MC. ARTHUR.

Mr. Gunton.

AFRICA.

New Churchmen have a special interest in watching the disclosures of what may be the religious doctrines of the Africans; and when those disclosures are made in a spirit of rational inquiry, rather than with sectarian colouring for sectarian opposition, they become important as well as interesting. A writer in the Times, over the signature "African," supplies the following interesting information :

"The religion of the natives of Western Africa is monotheistic: When I refer thus to the natives of Western Africa, I include more precisely among them the inhabitants of the districts of Accra and Cape Coast, and of the independent kingdoms of Ashantee and Dahomey. But I think that with some shadow of confidence, I may hazard an opinion by stating that, on closer examination, the religion of Africa will be found in general to be monotheistic. I will, however, confine myself just now to the Fantees and Accras. The Fantees and Accras have a pretty exact know

ledge of the one God, whom they call the Father,' the 'Eternal God,' the 'Almighty,' the 'Highest,' or 'Oldest.' The Fantees have a most decided notion of the existence and omnipotence of one Supreme Being, for they put into the mouths of adopted children this plaintive and yet haughty sentiment:Mootshyah yammie nah mintshyah inwoorabbah,'-'I look up to God, and not to the stars.' Such an expression is used by adopted children when they desire to console themselves for having been upbraided by other members of the family not in possession of the domestic right to reprove; for the head of the family is here regarded superiorly as God, and the other members are viewed inferiorly as the stars. The Ga language, or the language spoken by the inhabitants of the district of Accra, does not even own a plural form of the word 'God,' and a most intelligent missionary once assured me, that while engaged in the translation of the Bible into the Ga language, he was obliged to 'coin a word' for the purpose of expressing the plural noun 'Gods.'

"You must never forget-and it is frequently forgotten-that the African considers God to be too high,' too 'mighty' a Being, too 'far' from the earth, to trouble himself about the small affairs of men; and therefore it is ordained in African theology that the African mortal creature should be placed during the present life under the protection of the Fetishes.' Around the desire to satisfy or conciliate the Fetishes revolve the terrible 'customs' of Africa. It is the voice of the Fetish which calls on the African king to immolate his units to thousands.' For this reason which I have given the Africans do not often advance their supplications directly to the Deity; but they feel that the necessity of a mediator or of mediators exists. They therefore proceed to relate that God created a number of 'spirits.' The 'spirits' they call their Fetishes. They aver that to the 'spirits' God has intrusted the details of the management of the world, and has delegated the office of mediators between Himself and man. They address the 'spirits' as the 'sons of God,' and sometimes they go so far as to address them as God's firstborn,' but they have never attributed a wife to the Deity. They regard the earth as next in priority to God; but

though they allude reverentially to the earth, no attempt is ever made to link it with the Creator as His wife.

"The spirits, or Fetishes, are the souls of every visible thing. The sea, the rivers, the mountains, the trees, the animals, are so many habitations or incorporations of the 'spirits.' Indeed, the fervidly-poetical temperament of the African endues all matter with a spiritual background. We strangers are prone to lose sight of this spiritual background, or are unacquainted with it altogether. We deliver our judgment dogmatically. Their God,' we exclaim, 'is a cloud; and so is the mud, and so are the streams, the beasts, and storms.' If we could master their language we should pause before we branded their style of adoration as the style of Paganism. In ignorance of their mode of giving vent to their thoughts, we hastily infer that the black face is the incarnation of a stolid school of idolatry; and, in the deceptive strength of self-sufficiency, we degrade them to the condition of one who deifies and worships a cork, a bottle, and a few feathers. With equal show of logic, and with equal manifestation of tolerance, we might stigmatise the Roman Catholics as heathens, and might declare that their saints, their relics, and their amulets, are nothing less than their gods.

"The Fetishes are as numerous, then, as are the visible things in creation. Besides, each tribe, each township, each family, each man, and each woman have, or may have, a peculiar or local Fetish. Altars ingeniously contrived out of reeds, and roofed with the branches of the palm tree, are erected upon the most public sites, and dedicated to the service Fetishes. These altars cannot be polluted with impunity. An act of such irrevence as pollution of the fane of the Fetish carries with it the pain and penalty of being sold into slavery for

William Bayley to Miss M. Spink, both of Leeds.

January 14th, 1864, at the New Jerusalem Church, Cross-street, Hattongarden, London, by the Rev. W. Bruce, the Rev. O. Prescott Hiller, minister of that church, to Miss Emma Ann, second daughter of Charles Stokes, Esq., Ladbroke Gardens. No cards.

Obituary.

Departed into the spiritual world, Nov. 21st, 1863, Mrs. John Seed, in her 68th year. This departed friend had from her childhood been connected with the society in Peter-street, Manchester. Her exemplary Christian conduct, in which it may be said that "she adorned the doctrine of God her Saviour," endeared her to all who knew her, and especially to her beloved family circle, who, in their grief over her departure from amongst them, have the tenderest emotions of love and gratitude awakened in their minds at the remembrance of so much self-sacrifice and devotedness to their good as was through many trials manifested in their affectionate parent. For, her husband having died about thirty-two years ago, she was left with a young family to contend with the difficulties and hardships of life in bringing up her children without the help of a father. But her great consolation and support in these arduous duties was her trust and confidence in the Lord's providence and mercy, whom through the whole of her experience she found to be truly a "Husband to the widow, and a Father to the fatherless." Her love for the Word, and her affection for the doctrines of the New Church, were in these times of spiritual apathy and deadness very delightful; and seldom was she absent, either morning or evening, from her place in the public worship of the Lord. And at the week-day meetings for spiritual edification in the divine truths of the Word, she rarely missed for many years together the opportunity of instruction and edification in those blessed truths so clearly opened in the writings of the New Church. She often stated to the writer of this notice that her mind had been greatly benefited at these meetings for social conversation on the truths of the Word and the doctrines of the New Church; and her great astonishment was that so few, comparatively, attended these meetings. During