treasurer of the Northampton Society, Mr. J. Greeves, 4 Abington Terrace, Northampton, contributions may kindly be sent. Obituary. strumentality of Mr. Thomas Wilson of Failsworth, near Manchester, some fifty years ago. As a consequence of the intimacy existing between them, the young disciple became deeply imAnn M. Brayley, who departed this bued with the spirit of his teacher, and life November 14, aged seventy-six, was one of the especial characteristics of his one of the oldest members of the Cross reception was a clear and thorough comStreet Society, and one of those devoted prehension of the truths of the New friends who, as mentioned in his obitu- Dispensation. He shortly after removed ary, were eyes to Mr. Noble during his to Daventry, where he resided for nearly several years of blindness. She was a forty years, but here his interest in the woman of great talent and extensive Church still remained, and as an isolated acquirements, which she employed in receiver he delighted to hear of and aid the uses of an active Christian life. She its prosperity. Some ten years since he was a considerable contributor to the removed to London, and shortly after literature of the Church, addressed both he associated himself with the Society to juvenile and advanced readers, chiefly then worshipping in Buttesland Street, Hoxton. through the medium of our magazines. A cloud at that time hung Besides several smaller pieces, both in over the affairs of the Society, and it verse and prose, she wrote an intelligent was actually proposed to close the doors; little lesson-book for Sunday-school but the determination on the part of a children; but the work by which she few earnest members led to the idea is best known is her volume entitled being abandoned, and a fresh effort was "Natural Phenomena and their Spiritual the hopeful ones stood Mr. Castle, and made. Amongst the most energetic of Lessons," a work which displays both scientific knowledge and spiritual dis- by his practical assistance and sound cernment in tracing out the beautiful advice he did much to further the analogies which exist between the works prosperity of the effort. and the Word of God, and between the world of matter and the world of mind. There was a great charm in her society, for she had the happy faculty of unobtrusively bringing out the treasures of her well-stored and intelligent mind, her conversation being always seasoned with womanly gentleness and modesty. Appreciated most by the friends who knew her best, her memory will be cherished as that of an earnest Christian, whose life adorned the doctrine of her Lord and Saviour. Ann Brayley was But she had, as we never married. believe, entered, while on earth, into practical, he won the love and esteem of that marriage which cannot be given in all who knew him, and his removal has heaven, the marriage of goodness and left a gap both in his family circle and truth. In that higher world to which the Society he loved to serve which will she has gone, where the good who have not easily be filled. died old "renew their youth," she will find one, the exact counterpart of herself, on whom she can bestow her virgin affection of conjugal love, and with whom she will live in a perpetual and happy union, the image of that which exists between the Lord and His Church. On Friday, November 21st, Mr. Robert Castle was removed to his eternal home at the ripe age of seventy years. Mr. Castle first received the doctrines of the New Church through the in In 1874 he was elected secretary, a position to which he has ever since been unanimously free exercise for that ardent love of the Church which he cherished; and the success (sure, if slow) which has since then attended the efforts of the Society is mainly attributable to the enlightened zeal which characterized his labours. Seven times he represented the Society at Conference, and he always looked forward with delight to the opportunity thus afforded of meeting his brethren in the faith. Unassuming, affectionate, re-elected. In his new duties he found He retained his faculties clear and bright to the last, and looked peacefully forward to the realization of the hope of a useful and happy future, which the truths of the New Dispensation had enabled him to cherish. Birth. the wife of John Johnson of a son. ERRATUM.-In the last obituary in the December number "Hanbury" was a misprint for "Stanbury." THE omnipotence of the Saviour and the faith of man have a necessary connection, and in a certain sense an invariable proportion. All things are possible with God, and all things are possible to him that believeth. Yet the power of God in itself is infinite, and the faith of man in itself is finite; and between infinite and finite there is no ratio. In making these statements we have no wish to affect anything like paradox. The same things are said or implied in Scripture, and are every day repeated by Christians. And some of the current notions and remarks seem to justify us in saying that these apparently contradictory statements of Scripture seem to have settled down into the common Christian mind into something very much like contradictory propositions. We not unfrequently hear of the omnipotence of God as if absolutely no being, no power, could resist it; and yet we hear of feeble man going on from day to day, from year to year, in opposition to his Maker. If the power and the grace of God were irresistible, there could be no just reason assigned for the existence of these two apparently contradictory facts. The only conclusion that can be drawn from two unexplained and unharmonized notions is, that God has indeed the power to do everything, but that He has not always the will; and that men run on in sin, because God has given them up to a reprobate mind. Hardly anything could be more derogatory to the Divine character than such a notion. Yet it would D seem that Christians would rather consent to limit the goodness of God than His power; and it is but too evident that, with such notions, bounds must be set to one of these attributes. Happily all truth is consistent with itself. Any inconsistency that appears to the finite mind arises from its own imperfect or false views of the truth. God is infinite in goodness as well as in power. Both attributes are employed for the benefit of men, and would save them all; and all would be saved if salvation depended on the will and power of God alone. It may to some minds present the appearance of limiting the power of God to speak of man's will as successfully resisting the will of God. If we think of the Divine will and the human will as two most unequal forces acting in opposition to each other, each exerting its power to resist or overcome the other, we cannot but conclude that the greater must overcome the less, since the will and power of man can be as nothing compared with the will and power of God. But such would be a most fallacious view of the subject. Under such a view there is one fact that we entirely lose sight of. The freewill and power of man were originally bestowed, and are still preserved, by the will and power of God; for the same will and power which bestowed it are necessary to preserve it. To force the freedom of the human will—if such an inconsistency could be supposed-would be for Omnipotence to act in two contrary directions at the same time, and thus to neutralize its own action. If it is the will of God that human freedom should be maintained, it can never be His will that man should yield that freedom up even to Omnipotence. The omnipotence of God must ever act in consistency with the liberty which it has bestowed and upholds; and on this important truth is based every consistent view of the dealings of God with His creatures. When Jehovah appeared in the world as its Saviour, He manifested His power in the performance of those mighty and beneficent works which showed forth at once His Godhead and His object in clothing it with humanity. In dispensing His saving health to the bodies of His suffering creatures, He conferred upon them the greatest natural blessing that humanity can enjoy, and presented to them and to all succeeding generations a type of the spiritual and eternal blessing of a diseased and suffering soul restored to health and happiness. His power of dispensing this greatest of all blessings is indeed in itself unlimited; and the will to give it is unlimited as the power. "Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." But man limits in himself as the receiver that which is unlimited in the will of God as the Giver. The offered gift is even determinately refused, the offered rest is despised and rejected. The omnipotence of the Saviour and the faith of those who need salvation have therefore a necessary connection, without which no mighty work of deliverance from sin can be effected. "Canst thou believe that I am able to do this?" was the question which the Saviour sometimes put to those who desired the benefit of His word or His touch to heal them. And so great was the faculty which this faith possessed that all things were possible to him that believed. Faith brings the soul into connection with the Saviour. It opens the mind to receive the power and virtue which go forth from the Lord, and which have life and immortality in them. But what is that faith that enables the Saviour to do His mighty works within the soul of the believer? It is not the cold intellectual conviction of the truth of a creed, but the living reception of the Lord as the way, the truth, and the life. It is not a belief with the understanding merely, but with the heart. It is a belief, moreover, that the Saviour is able to do for us what the power of man is unable to effect. Those who applied to the Saviour for the cure of their bodily diseases and infirmities were generally such as had no hope of restoration by human help. The withered limb, the palsied frame, the unstanchable issue; the blind and lame, the deaf and dumb; the possessed with demons, as maniacs and as raving madmen; and, of His own accord, the still greater work of raising the dead to life. A faith that has in it a consciousness of sin and a sense of helplessness, and that seeks Divine deliverance for maladies beyond the power of human aid—this is the faith that admits of the manifestation of the Lord's saving power. Faith is not simply a condition on which certain mercies are granted, it is a state to which certain results are given. It is the heart's acknowledgment that in ourselves we are lost, and that our restoration can be effected by the power of the Lord Jesus only. Where this faith does not exist the Lord's saving power cannot be exerted. Therefore we read that among His own kinsfolk and those of His own country He could do no mighty work because of their unbelief. The faith which enabled the Lord to perform miraculous cures upon the bodies of men was not necessarily of the spiritual character which enables Him to save their souls. Both works were equally within His power, and they were sometimes combined. "For whether is it easier, to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and walk?" But the faith which sufficed for the miraculous cure of bodily disease was faith in the Lord as the temporal Physician. "Believest thou that I am able to do this?" It was a belief in His supernatural power to perform a natural cure. No doubt the miracle which followed faith might help to strengthen the faith that procured it. And this is true of spiritual faith also. Faith is increased by what it effects and obtains. But the faith which obtained the miraculous cure was in some sense miraculous faith-faith in a miracle. This was the immediate object, and it might be the final end, of their faith. Yet even here, where the faith and the cure were both superficial, compared with spiritual faith and the cure of spiritual disease, the faith was not produced by the miracle, but the miracle through the faith. This leads to a very important consideration. Nothing is more common among the doubting and unbelieving than the demand for signs and wonders. And no doubt many who desire or demand miraculous evidence in favour of revealed religion are under the impression that they would believe if that evidence were granted. Little do they think of the danger to which a compliance with their wish would expose them. A miracle cannot produce belief even in the miracle itself, much less in that which is unconnected with the miracle. But the miracle which does not produce belief, makes unbelief more unbelieving and less excusable. And this, we may be certain, was the kind and merciful reason that the Lord did no mighty work because of the unbelief of the people. But there was, no doubt, another reason. Suppose that miracles could and would produce belief in all that was asserted by him who performed the miracle, what would be the probable or necessary result? Men forget that belief, considered as intellectual conviction, is but a small part of faith, or of the faith that saves. "Although I had all faith," says the apostle, "so that I could remove mountains, and had not charity, I am nothing." That which convinces the understanding without amending the heart is nothing, and is worse than nothing, for it is sin. No man is more guilty than he who knows and believes the truth, and yet lives contrary to the truth. "If ye were blind, ye would have no sin: but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth." This does not indeed apply altogether to the blindness of unbelief, but to the blindness of ignorance. But unbelief is partially ignorance—and especially is it so when compared with belief; for he who believes the truth has the truth more within himself: and |