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imposes upon her. One great duty which the church is required to perform is to educate those who have been born within her border, that the offspring of New Church parents may themselves become New Church men and women, children of the church, and heirs of immortality. From the commencement of the New Church in this country, efforts were made to build up the church by the education of the young, the members justly judging that the germs of true and holy principles could be most easily and successfully formed in the mind in early life; and several of our excellent day schools bear testimony to the benefits which have resulted from these benevolent endeavours. But useful as these institutions are, they do not supply all the educational wants of the church. After all that they do, the education of the children of members is still but partially provided for. In selecting schools for our children, the object sought must almost necessarily be the strangely negative one of securing for them the best possible secular education, with the least possible amount of systematic religious instruction. This subject well deserves, if it does not demand, the serious attention of the members of the church. Yet, as a practical matter, it requires to be proceeded with cautiously, since some well-meant attempts have failed, partly, it is to be feared, from the originators expecting too much, and those for whose benefit they were made doing too little. Let the education of the young be regarded by the church as one of the most important of her uses, and when this is duly impressed on the minds of her members, Providence will open a way for its accomplishment.

Meantime, in the absence or defect of daily scholastic religious instruction and training, the duty is the more urgent on the church to provide the young with regular and careful instruction in the heavenly principles of the New Jerusalem, both by the families and the societies of the Church. The Conference has for many years drawn attention to this by inserting, in its circular to ministers and leaders, an inquiry as to what opportunities are afforded them of instructing the children of members in the doctrines of the church. This is a matter of the greatest importance, and the Conference desires earnestly to impress upon the minds of both societies, parents, and ministers, the duty of heartily co-operating in a work the regular performance of which concerns the best interests of the souls whom Providence has committed to the nurturing care of his church.

A kindred use and duty of the church consists in providing for the religious instruction and improvement of its adult members. This

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includes the whole of our means and arrangements for the orderly and efficient performance of Divine worship. Foremost among the means for effecting this eminent use is an educated, earnest, and pious ministry. The church is now, happily, alive to the immense importance of this instrumentality; and it may be hoped that ere long our societies will enjoy the pastoral care and services of devoted men, who have been instructed and trained to the duties of the sacred office. If our societies and friends see this condition of things to be desirable, they must do their duty by affording the aid required for advancing and securing it. "He that loveth the end, loveth the means by which it is to be attained." This is a law of universal application; but it is most requisite for the present necessity that it should be operative here. In no case is it more necessary for the rich to aid the poor-for the larger and wealthier societies to assist the smaller and humbler-than in doing what is needed to prepare for them, and in aiding them afterwards to support, those who will minister to the spiritual wants of the members themselves and their children.

This, too, will provide the best means of effecting another great use for the sake of which a church exists. The command of the Lord to His apostles was to preach the Gospel, but to go first to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. To disseminate the truth to those who have the Word, but who have lost its true meaning, seems to be one of the first missionary uses which the New Church has to perform. This is a work which cannot be efficiently performed but by men unencumbered with other and absorbing duties, who have devoted themselves to the work of the ministry. The first Christian church, begun by missionary labour, has all along continued its missionary work, culminating in that splendid missionary achievement, the circulation of the Bible in almost every tongue and nation under heaven. And this brings out the capabilities of the Press as a new agency with which the Lord ushered His New Church into the world, and which is destined to produce the most important results under the New Dispensation. By this agency indeed the opening of the Word, by which the Lord's Second Coming was effected, was first proclaimed to the world; and by the same agency that exact and copious exposition of the Word, which verbal teaching alone could never adequately convey, is now capable of the widest diffusion, and will in due time follow the Word into whatever corner of the earth it may penetrate.

And this brings us to one other use, for the sake of which the Church exists the diffusion of life and light to the whole human race. The

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Church is to universal humanity what the heart and lungs are to the human body-the centre and source of its vitality. This is a truly wonderful fact, and is one of those beautiful, consolatory, and encouraging truths which have been made known for the use of the Church which has no need of the sun of human intelligence, neither the moon of human faith to shine in it, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the light thereof. Human intelligence has hitherto regarded the light possessed by the Church rather as an exclusive privilege than a sacred trust, a means of condemning rather than of saving those beyond her pale. Now we know, to the glory of the Lord and the welfare of man, that our riches are also the world's wealth; and that the Lord's seeming partiality, in bestowing His best gift, the revelation of His will and the knowledge of His redemption, on the few, is an eminent instance of His love to all, and of His desire to bring all within the sphere of His saving influence and operation. But it may be asked, what saving influence and operation can really proceed from so small a centre to so large a circumference? How reassuring is the answer to this! It does not, we are told, signify whether the Christian religion be received by a greater or smaller part of the world, provided there be a people who are in possession of the Word; for thence light is received even by those who are not of the Church, and have not the Word. (D. P. 256.)

If ever we are disposed to lament that our numbers are few, and the progress of our cause is slow, let us remember that the Lord " can save by few as well as by many," and that it is as true of the church as of the individual, that if the kingdom of God exists but as a grain of mustard seed, “which is the least of all seeds," it exists as truly as if it appeared in such imposing grandeur as to attract the gaze and command the admiration of all men. Small as the church is, it is not without its beneficial effects upon the world, of which the progress of mankind, in almost every respect, and not least in religious thought, bears abundant testimony. It is true there is another and higher finite agency at work. Besides the church on earth there is the church in heaven. But here again we are to recollect that influx through the New Heaven could not effect all these uses without the instrumentality of the New Church, since everything in the spiritual world must have a corresponding basis in the natural world, that it may exist and operate. So long as the church on earth is faithful to her mercies and to her mission, it is a matter of no essential consequence to the uses for the sake of which a church exists, whether the church be numerically

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great or small, and whether it be grand or insignificant in the eyes of men. And what are those mercies, and what is that mission? Her mercies are the most precious and abundant that have ever been vouchsafed to any church since the world began. They are the accumulated treasures of all past dispensations, and may all be expressed in this one gift-the Divine Word opened-opened in its genuine doctrinal meaning, and in its spiritual and celestial sense; for therein are contained all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge that can enlighten and bless mankind. To be faithful to these mercies the church must preserve them in their purity, and cherish them with an ardent and constant affection. Her mission is to employ those mercies so as best to effect the double use for which they are entrusted to her to dispense them to her own children, and to disseminate them by her teaching, and diffuse them by her influence to all around, to those who are near at hand and to those who are afar off.

How earnestly then, Beloved, should we, each and all, endeavour to perform our part of the work which lies before us! Individually we should strive after a holy and useful life, as equally necessary for securing our own salvation, and enabling us to be the means of turning others to righteousness. Collectively, as a church, we should strive to do all that a church is required to do to accomplish the purpose for which it is established in the world. Living in the unity of the spirit and in the bond of peace, we should endeavour to build up the church among ourselves, by providing for the edification of her members, young and old, and by as far as possible extending to others the benefits and blessings which we ourselves so abundantly enjoy.

On behalf of the Conference,

W. BRUCE.

THE LORD'S GLORIFICATION.

(Continued from page 360.)

THE object of glorifying the Humanity was twofold. First, that He might for ever keep the hells in subjection; and secondly, that through the medium of the Humanity glorified, He might pour into men and angels a stronger Divine influx: as He said "I am come that they might have life, and might have it more abundantly."* Let us consider briefly both these points.

It has been before shown, that the essential or inmost Divine, being infinitely removed from the gross natural state in which the hells are,

* John x. 10.

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could not possibly reach them except through mediums. The medium made use of, before the incarnation, was the heavens; through this, the Divine sphere of love and wisdom, or good and truth, flowed down and kept the opposing evils and falses of the hells in subjection. But when the hells had enormously increased, through the increasing wickedness of mankind, the influx through heaven was not sufficiently strong to keep them down; for the receptive medium modifies that which flows in, and qualifies it altogether according to its own nature and degree; and as the heavens were composed of finite and therefore imperfect beings, the influx through it was comparatively weak. In consequence of this, the hells (as shown in the preceding essay) had risen, as it were, in insurrection; and pouring out of their dark places, filled the whole world of spirits, and even assaulted the heavens themselves.* Hence the necessity of the incarnation. The Divine, assuming a human nature, filled with hereditary infirmities and evils, was thus enabled to meet the hells, as it were, on their own ground, and there combat them. He did combat them, and overcame them again and again, and in regular series, till all were cast down and brought into subjection. But, this being done, suppose that the Divine, instead of glorifying the Humanity, had simply thrown it off, and retired again into His essential Divinity in which He was before, what would have been the result? The consequence would have been, that the hells would have immediately risen again. Then the Divine would have had to descend once more, assume humanity, and fight the battle over again, and this process would have had continually to be repeated. To obviate this, the Divine, instead of throwing off the humanity which He had assumed, glorified it, and so made it a part of Himself. He thus retained the medium which He had assumed, namely, the humanity. He held fast in His right hand, so to speak, the sword with which He had gained the victory, and He for ever sways it over the heads of the infernals. By glorifying the humanity, and thus making it a part of Himself, He has in His own person a Divine Natural principle, by which He can for ever keep the hells in subjection, and be thus a perpetual Redeemer.

But, in the second place, through this medium-namely, the Divine Natural principle, or the Divine Humanity—not only did the Lord cast down and keep down the hells, but by means of the same He poured out a Divine influence which purified and vivified the good who were in waiting in the world of spirits, and from them formed new heavens. * See the Universal Theology, n. 121.