and an interested member of that Society, the Rev. Augustus Clissold. He had had the pleasure of visiting him at Tunbridge Wells, and of frequently conversing with him with respect to that Society. Mr. Clissold had expressed to him the continued great interest he felt in its welfare; and when he had told him that the date of its anniversary meeting was approaching, Mr. Clissold had said he should be with them in spirit, he only wished he could be present with them in body. There was one thing he had said that their Society was doing which could not be over-estimated, the benefits to society in the knowledge of the internal sense of the Word it was impossible to overrate, and the means by which that was accomplished by giving those works to every public library was one of the best things they could possibly do. Mr. Clissold had mentioned one thing to him with reference to his own experience. He had never known anything of Swedenborg's writings until he had met with a volume, he thought it was the "Heaven and Hell," at the Royal Institution. He had then read it in

such a way as he could not describe to him, and since that time he had never had a doubt in his mind of the truth of Swedenborg's writings. Mr. Clissold had concluded his remarks by commending that Society to them all, and by saying he should always take great pleasure and interest in it. Mr. Williams thought that these observations would call to their minds many circumstances attending the presence of Mr. Clissold at so many of their anniversaries.

Mr. APPLEBEE said he had the privilege of seconding the resolution. He did not think he need say anything as to the qualifications of Mr. Teed. He had been long connected with them, and he thought that upon no other gentleman could their choice so well have fallen as upon Mr. Teed himself. He had much pleasure in seconding the resolution.

The CHAIRMAN then submitted the resolution to the meeting, and it was adopted unanimously.

Mr. TEED said he was told that it was the custom to expect the Treasurer to say something to thank the two gentlemen who had proposed his re-election. They would have learned from his own accounts and from the Secretary's Report that in financial respects the past year had been very satisfactory. Several large sums had indeed been received, but it seemed to him that the Society was scarcely supported as it ought to be. They had about five or six thousand registered members of the Church, and at least ten times that number of regular readers, but notwithstanding that very large number, those who contributed to the Swedenborg Society were not above two or three hundred. So possibly if they could get a Treasurer with more time on his hands to obtain new subscribers it might be better for the Society. They could not expect to obtain one like their late friend Mr. Watson, but at the same time if they could find any one more suitable than himself he should be very willing to resign the honour.

Mr. J. H. SPALDING then said he had to submit to them the resolution "That Messrs. Gibbs and Pitman be the Auditors for the ensuing

year." The nature of that resolution seemed to suggest what might be called the business part of that Society. It was scarcely necessary to say that however good people's intentions might be, when they came to operate upon the world, unless their plans were wise and judicious, their intentions might be frustrated and crippled, and so far therefore they should be convinced that the policy of the Society was a wise and a good one, likely to result in the dissemination of the doctrines they advocated. Now the policy of the Society, while of course providing that all the works of Swedenborg should be kept in print, was also to distribute those works with very great liberality wherever there was a chance of their being favourably received. As Mr. Williams had said, that policy was a very right and a wise one. He had been brought up in the publishing trade, and in that trade, as they knew, advertisements formed a very important matter. Now that Society might be regarded as a means mainly of advertising the works of Swedenborg to bring them before the public, and as far as possible to diffuse right ideas as to what they were. In the publishing trade there was a maxim, or at least a very generallyaccepted belief, that the very best means of advertising a work was to get it into the hands of the retail booksellers. As they all knew, the mere description of a book in an advertisement was not so likely to procure it readers as an examination of the book itself. Unfortunately, they were not at present in a position to circulate their books widely by means of the booksellers of the country. Perhaps that would come in course of time. But if they could get the books on the shelves of all public institutions it would be as good as getting the books on the shelves of private libraries. Every one who belonged to the New Church was bookish, fond of books, studious. Every student as opportunity offered turned his eye to the book-shelves of those with whom he came in contact, and he had often had occasion to remark, as Mr. Williams had said, how very striking an impression was always evinced by those who saw for the first time one of Swedenborg's works, and which impression might be productive of great effects. Therefore he thought the Society did wisely to distribute these books with great liberality, being neither too chary nor too scrupulous in giving them away. Like those seeds of which we read as having been found in the Egyptian pyramids, and after centuries and thousands of years springing up, they too might become vigorous plants, and, like the bread cast upon the waters, find their home at last. He thought they might go farther than that, and hope that with their very imperfect means of judging where those works might be best placed they were guided in their deliberations by the Divine Providence. There was an old proverb that "every bullet had its billet ;" and might they not hope, would it be surprising to find, that not one of those works had ever entirely failed of its aim, or to produce some useful result? It ought to encourage them in the work that lay before them to remember that they were ever controlled by the Lord's Divine Providence. It was an interesting thing to remember that it was the policy of Sweden

borg, who might be said to have been the Swedenborg Society of his time. He offered his works for sale, and also distributed them very liberally wherever he found the slightest probability of their being accepted. They carried on his work, and his books were now spread almost broadcast through the land. Theirs was a

quiet way of working, but it was not for that reason the less sound and less likely to be pre-eminently useful. They were not to be frightened nor discouraged by their merely numerical strength. Numbers were not of importance. If they were frightened by them they were giving way to a kind of doubt in the overruling power of the Lord. They should realize the vastness of creation itself. He had had that brought home to him very strongly indeed in the rooms of the Royal Society in Dublin. Hanging on the walls he noticed a picture which was so striking that he inquired its subject. On a black ground was delineated a sort of wavy muslin or gauze full of strange convolutions, reminding one of the form of the brain when the skull is taken off. He was told in the off-hand manner characteristic of some men of science that it was a picture of the great nebulæ in Orion, supposed to be another universe altogether than this. It seemed to bring home to one's mind the immensity of the universe. He had since learned that that nebula was believed to be composed of suns like ours at such a vast distance from us that they appeared little more than a patch of golden haze. But if they considered the immensity of the Divine Love and Wisdom the whole wonder was solved. To love there was nothing small, nothing trivial. They had no difficulty in believing that although there were thousands of millions of worlds, and each with its own inhabitants, yet that the salvation of every one of them was cared for just as perfectly and minutely. They need not be frightened by the mere number of the people against them, nor because their progress was slow. The only thing they had to look to and to be anxious about was that their own part of the work should be realized in their own lives, and when that was done, and their subordinate works were conducted with prudence and fidelity, then the best conditions would exist for the extension and success of the Swedenborg Society.

The resolution was seconded by Mr. H. W. BROWN and carried unanimously.

The SECRETARY (Mr. T. H. Elliott) then said that it had been intended that the Rev. Dr. Bayley should move the resolution, now arranged to be proposed by the Rev. J. Presland, but he had found. himself unable to be with them. Perhaps on such an occasion they expressed their feelings better by saying but little, and he would therefore only move, "That this meeting hereby expresses its warmest sympathies with Dr. Bayley under his recent painful loss, and trusts that he will be supported under the trial by the consolation which the Divine Providence has graciously prepared for those who suffer from its wise dispensations."

The resolution was seconded and unanimously adopted.

The Rev. JOHN PRESLAND said the resolution he had been asked to move was: "That in the opinion of this meeting the near conclusion of the labours of the Committee for the revision of the Bible presents an opportunity for expressing the gratitude of every Christian to the Lord for the boon of a translation of the Divine Word which will afford a truer basis than heretofore upon which the natural mind can rest. And to the members of the New Church at large, and more particularly to the members of the Swedenborg Society, the revision of the Bible is an object of especial interest, coinciding as its completion does with this the seventieth anniversary of the Society, the new translation supplying a wider sphere of usefulness to this Society from the evidently growing desire on the part of its readers to become acquainted with the spiritual truths which are contained in the Divine Word." He could not move that resolution without expressing his great regret that he should occupy the position of Dr. Bayley from such a cause. It was always a great pleasure to them there, and in every New Church meeting, to be addressed by their friend Dr. Bayley, and they could well imagine the kindly sympathy and the wide range of observation and thought which he would have brought to bear upon the resolution now before them. That resolution, he observed, alluded to a circumstance that had more than once been referred to, that they were now celebrating the seventieth anniversary of the Society. He had had the curiosity before coming to that meeting to turn to the first Report of the Swedenborg Society, and he could assure them that its comparison with the Reports that had that evening been presented was peculiarly interesting and significant. The whole would probably have been read in about two minutes, because then the extension of the Swedenborg Society's business had of course not embraced so wide a field as was at present the case. On the list of the Committee was the name of John Flaxman the sculptor, and the only other name that connected it with the present was that of his own grandfather. If they attempted not only to measure the extent of the business of the Swedenborg Society seventy years ago in comparison with the present day, but also the condition of the world in regard to New Church truth and light and life, how vast was the stride they there beheld! Swedenborg was scarcely known or named, and if named, only to be received with scorn and calumny. There existed at the present day much of misunderstanding and misrepresentation regarding the author whose works they circulated; but, on the other hand, it was impossible to read an article in the daily newspapers, it was impossible to read any literature which was at all abreast of the times, without recognising distinctly the truths which Swedenborg was the first to communicate to the world. There was no effect without a cause; and he believed the operations of that Society, quietly pursued as they had been towards placing the literature of the New Church in every likely situation, afforded the explanation for that very generally-observed fact to which he had referred. He could assure them that in that first Report there was no record of the presentation of Swedenborg's works to the library of the Parliament of

Greece. Indeed the old and the new seemed to come together when they heard of a Welsh translation of Swedenborg on book-shelves in Athens, so that this very fact had an amount of significance and suggestiveness for them which might be his excuse for having again referred to it. The resolution also spoke of the approaching completion of the new translation of the Sacred Scriptures, and that was a work which the Christian Church, and the New Church in particular, could not but regard with the very utmost interest. Every approach towards greater accuracy in the literal meaning of the Divine Word in its original languages must be a strengthening of the cause which the New Church had at heart. Everything that produced and encouraged the dissemination of truth on the natural plane must be conducive of the extension of truth on the spiritual plane, especially when the natural and the spiritual had such a vital relationship with each other. It was probable, perhaps certain, that they would see much cause for satisfaction and delight in the newly-revised version, but they would also find some reason for dissatisfaction and disappointment. They knew that with

out doctrine the Word could not be understood, that without sound doctrine as to the real purport of the Scriptures they could not rightly appreciate some of the deepest truths the Scriptures had to communicate. They had a notable illustration in the translation of the New Testament by a man so clear-minded as the late Dean Alford, who in his rendering of the well-known last verse of the fourth chapter of the Epistle to the Ephesians, which in our present translation formed the only allusion in the whole of Scripture to any doctrine that God forgave us for the sake of Christ, instead of adopting the simple, the clear, and to a New Churchman the most expressive version, "Be ye kind one to another, even as God in Christ hath forgiven you," was so far biased, apparently by his previous conceptions, as to perpetuate the old rendering "for Christ's sake," thereby perverting the simple truth that the apostle wished to enunciate. They knew that early prepossessions and early education was such that the translator of Scripture, even with the best and purest intentions, could not but import into his work much of his former state of mind. They must prepare themselves, therefore, for somewhat of disappointment, mingled, however, with unquestionable delight and satisfaction, in contemplating the new authorized version of the Sacred Scriptures. The resolution went on to speak of the wider sphere of usefulness which the new translation would supply, and there could be but little doubt that the production of the revised version would give an impetus to the operations of the Society in the direction referred to in the resolution. It sometimes did a man's mind good to receive an intellectual shock, to be reminded that things were not such as he had been complacently, and with a certain amount of sluggishness perhaps, regarding them. would do many minds good if in coming to some of the familiar passages of Scripture they found, as he trusted they would find, considerable alterations. It might arrest some men with somewhat the shock of a cold douche, and have a similar stimulating and healthy