before it was brought thither; so that there was neither hammer, nor axe, nor any tool of iron heard in the house while it was in building.” So it should be with us. We ought to do our hewing and shaping before we come together. We ought to put away our selfish and worldly loves, we ought to hew off our rough and irregular surfaces— the personal peculiarities that hinder our approach to others and union with them. Let each one look into his own mind and remove from it everything that opposes this unity. Let us put away the memories, the distrust, the suspicions, the jealousies, the fears, the animosities, the indifference, that exist. Let us earnestly strive to shun all evils as sins, and then nothing can prevent us from acting together in unity. It is an end worthy of our strongest and most persistent efforts to attain. We know not how much we lose by living apart so solitary and cold. We are like trees planted in a rich soil, which send out only a few half-withered roots just below the surface, and consequently attain only a stunted growth, with a few leaves and blossoms and a little imperfect fruit. When we ought to send our roots down deep into the ground of each other's hearts, and stretch them out wide as the Church itself, branching out into rootlets to every heart, that we may drink life and strength from all, then our principles would rise up into the air and light, strong as the shaft of the mighty oak, and stretch out broad arms, holding the banner of truths in innumerable variety as a tree spreads to the breeze its banner of leaves. We should blossom all over with beautiful thoughts and fragrant affections, and in the light of the Divine wisdom and in the warmth of the Divine love grow and ripen into the delicious fruit of heavenly deeds. Let us, then, open our hearts to the life which the Lord is ever seeking to give us through each other, and we shall know by blessed experience "how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity." Into every affection we exercise, and every good deed we do, we shall find the Divine love flowing as the dew of Hermon that descendeth upon the mountains of Zion. And that love will become to us the promise and fruition of eternal life. Through all his works abroad, BURNS. There is no humility like that of a very upright nature, and no frankness like the frankness of a very pure one. AUTHOR OF "VERA." Miscellaneous. THE FUTURE LIFE. The question of the lot of the wicked in the future life continues to occupy the attention of eminent members of the Church of England. Dr. Pusey has published a reply to Dr. Farrar's "Eternal Hope" under the title "What is of Faith as to Everlasting Punishment?" In a review of this work in the Guardian of August 18, we find the following statement respecting the intermediate state: "It is clear that the aspect of the future was affected in early times by the prominence and familiarity of the idea of the intermediate state in a degree which we in England find it difficult to appreciate, and that a great portion of what has been cited from the early writers, as countenancing possibilities of change after the final judgment, really has reference to possibilities, though for the most part very vaguely conceived, in the intermediate state. Protestants have been brought into difficulties, which they are now beginning to feel most keenly, by the shallow and stupid refusal to recognise the natural, almost irresistible, presumptions as to preparation, discipline, and purification which still remained after the scandals and monstrosities of the medieval purgatory were swept away. On this both Dr. Pusey and Dr. Farrar are at one, though they would express differently what they conceive to be the nature of what awaits imperfect souls between death and judgment." The answer to the question stated in the title of Dr. Pusey's book is what will naturally attract the greatest attention. On this answer we give the following from the writer we have already cited: "Dr. Farrar had challenged those who accept the common teaching of the Church on future punishment to say what they hold to be of faith as to four points. These four points were- —‘(1) the physical torments, the material agonies of eternal punishment; (2) the supposition of its necessarily endless duration for all who incur it; (3) the opinion that it is incurred by the vast mass of mankind; and (4) that it is a doom passed irreversibly at the moment of death on all who die in a state of sin.' Of these points ascribed to him and to the received teaching on the subject, the only one which Dr. Pusey admits as de fide is the endless duration when incurred. On the other three points he entirely refuses to accept the statements as expressions of the necessary doctrine of the Church, or of his own belief. Not only is, as he says, 'material fire no matter of faith in East or West,' but 'the belief,' he adds, 'insisted on by Dr. Farrar, that the pain of loss, far more than any pain of sense, is the essence of the sufferings of the lost, is already accepted by all.' 'I can hardly imagine,' he says, 'any religious mind which had taken time to think, thinking otherwise.' He further lays down that there is no ground for believing that the majority of mankind are lost." And, lastly, he holds that 'there is no ground to lay down who dies wholly out of grace;' he is sure 'that God parts with none who do not deliberately and finally reject Him.' He speaks of the 'unfounded fears' that (1) 'the lost are the greater part of the human race; and (2) that all are lost whom men's eyes cannot see to be in a state of grace.' 929 66 It is admitted both by Dr. Farrar and the reviewer that Dr. Pusey has given in this volume a very serious correction to much of what is popular theology and teaching." Dr. Farrar in a letter to the Guardian says: "If he [Dr. Pusey] holds that most men do not die in a state of such sin as excludes them for ever from the presence of God, and also that some purification of imperfect souls is possible in the world to come, he holds all that I ask. All that I ever desired in this matter was the liberation of men's minds from fearful and fallible inferences as to the future, which I believe to be unwarranted by the voice of God, whether in Scripture or in the heart of man. I must again repeat, in answer to all the ignorant obloquy with which my views were misrepresented, that I never denied for one moment the existence of hell, and that I never denied even the possibility of its endless duration for souls obstinately hard and finally impenitent." The reviewer, however, demurs, we think justly, to one feature of Dr. Pusey's treatment of his subject. "We cannot," he says, "but think that Dr. Pusey has been too sanguine in confining these harsh statements about the number of the lost and the hopelessness of the majority of lives to Calvin and his disciples. Partly through want of thought, still more from rhetorical exaggerations, supposed to be necessary for the sake of edifying, or for enforcing some appeal, such as a missionary enterprise, they have extended further." It is unquestionable that the teaching of the material torments and unchanging misery of the lost has formed through long ages the popular teaching of the Church. The descriptions of these torments in the writings and preachings of revivalists and others is sometimes horrible. The revulsion of feeling which has now taken place leads to the welcoming of any milder and more humane statements on the subject. Public religious teachers find themselves compelled to modify popular beliefs. They can no longer deal in the terrible descriptions of their predecessors with out shocking and disgusting their hearers. They still need, however, a sound doctrine on the subject, and for this they must accept the revelation made through Swedenborg. The truth on this subject cannot be obtained by any speculation of the intellect, or by any effort of the imagination. The fearful pictures of the Word must be interpreted by the law of correspondences. The fire that is never quenched is the burning rage of unsubdued lusts and passions; the brimstone with which it commingles, the sulphurous fumes of utter falsity and evil. The torments of the lost arise from the compelled repression of this fire of their life, and the restraint which is thus placed upon the outflow and indulgence of the evils to which they secretly incline. The hell of the finally impenitent is the outbirth and final issue of the life they have made their own, and which constitutes their secret delight. BURIALS ACT. One of the controversies which has for a long time excited strong feelings in the minds of leading members both of the Established Church and Dissenting communities has been closed by the passing of this bill. The measure does not satisfy the desires of the extreme members of those who most desired it, and is naturally very distasteful to those who have always been strongly opposed to its enactment. Members of the New Church will see in the passing of this measure another evidence of the progress of the age, in which all things are to become new. One of the most prominent features of this age is the ascendency of the principle of Christian charity, and the gradual removal of the feelings of distrust and jealousy which have so long divided the different sections of the Church of Christ. And although it is unreasonable to suppose that the Act will be everywhere carried into effect with perfect cordiality, yet there is little doubt that it will be generally adopted, and tend to sweeten the intercourse between the clergy and Dissenting ministers, and also between the members of their respective flocks. In its passage through Parliament the measure was supported by the Archbishop of Canterbury and several of the bishops, to the extreme dissatisfaction of many of the clergy. Since it has become law Bishop Claughton, in a letter to the Times, expresses his hope that its result will be the lessening, if not the removal, of certain causes of animosity which have been at work for some time past. "The clergy will doubtless have a sense of disappointment and even of wrong that they conceive has been done to them; but, as wise men, they will not suffer these feelings to deprive them of their well-deserved character for Christian charity and forbearance." The Bishop further expresses the hope that happier relations may be brought about by the late change than either party has anticipated, and that "if the origin of the measure was political in its character, its effect may yet be religious." The same conciliatory spirit has been manifested by other eminent Churchmen, and also by the Guardian, the recognised organ of the High Church party. Scarcely had the bill passed before advantage was taken of its provisions, and apparently without disturbance or difficulty. At Heywood the passing of the measure was anticipated, by consent of the clergyman having charge of the consecrated portion of the cemetery. selves of the liberty which it grants, but will do so in a manner, and in a spirit, which will give the best answer to those who have predicted that the resting-places of the dead will become scenes of profanity, indecorum, or strife. And it is equally probable that when the new law has come fully into operation its just and beneficent character will be acknowledged by most of those who have felt bound to protest against it." CLOTHING IN RELATION TO HEALTH. Replying to an address congratulating him on the passing of the bill, Mr. G. Osborne Morgan, who has been its most prominent advocate, said: "It was said not to be perfect; but considering that it was carried through the committee, so to speak, against time during a Saturday sitting of ten hours, in a House of Commons tired by a previous consecutive sitting of more than thirty hours, and in the teeth of more than one opposition, he did not think it was altogether a piece of discreditable workmanship. At any rate he hoped that those who wished to abuse it would first Under the above title the following read it. It threw open every church- curious paragraph appears in the Times yard and every parochial cemetery to of September 6th, and has been copied every funeral service, with the single into several other papers. If the statelimitation that they should be Christian ments are true, they go far to show the and orderly. In the present state of established sympathy and close relation feeling upon the subject, to talk of pass- between the mind and the body. This ing a bill authorizing antichristian or we are prepared to expect from the innon-Christian services in the church- flux of the soul into the body and its yards was simply idle; and was it reason- action in and by the bodily organization, able to keep four millions of Noncon- from the doctrine of spheres, which is so formists knocking at the churchyard perceptible in the future life in the action gate for years because a handful of of the spiritual body, and which unsecularists wanted to enter with them? doubtedly extends to, and is often very The battle had been fought by the distinctly manifested in, the action of Nonconformists alone, whose practical the natural body, and from the general grievance it was, and now he would only doctrine of correspondence. Whether express a confident hope that those who Professor Jaeger has reached the exact had known so well how to fight the truth on the subjects he has investibattle with spirit would know also how gated or not, his statements are suggesto use their victory with moderation." tive, and his inquiries may lead to disclosures the full value of which can only be intellectually appreciated by members of the New Church. The following is the Professor's statement as given by the Times:— The Executive Committee of the Liberation Society have passed a series of resolutions relative to the Act. These resolutions warmly congratulate the friends of religious equality on the abolition of the distinction between consecrated and unconsecrated ground in English parochial burial-places, but at the same time express regret that the Burial Laws Amendment Act contains restrictions which are inconsistent with the principle on which it is professedly based. They request the Society's Parliamentary Committee to take steps for making the provisions of the new Act known, with a view to its general adoption; and also to consider what further measures will be required to bring the burial laws of the country into diseases. To the well-known properties complete harmony with the principle of of wool, as regards moisture and heat, religious equality; and in a circular Professor Jaeger makes a curious addiissued by the committee the belief is tion. He claims to prove that in our expressed that "those for whose benefit organism there are certain gaseous this important Act of Parliament has volatile substances-Duftstoffe (odorous been passed will not only avail them- substances)—which are continually be "In the practical working out of his views on health (which seem to gain in favour with German scientists), Professor Jaeger of Stuttgart commends so-called normal clothing, which (1) consists exclusively of wool, and (2) is specially arranged to keep warm the middle line of the front of the body. The general object is to prevent accumulation of fat and water in the system; the author's leading principle being that the greater the specific gravity of the human body the more it is able to resist epidemic ing liberated in the acts of breathing ber of the Magazine. We give this month and perspiring, and have important rela- the addresses from Adelaide, South tions to mental states. Two distinct Australia, and the Mauritius, and the groups appear, those, viz. of Lust and answers to them, and hope next month Unlust Stoffe (substances of pleasure and to give the others sent to us. disliking); the former are exhaled during a joyful and pleasant state of mind, and produce this state with heightened vitality if inhaled. Of the latter the reverse is true. It may be readily verified that during joy and happiness the odour of perspiration is not disagreeable, while during anguish and great nervous excitement it is offensive. The substances of disliking have therefore a bad odour, and in an atmosphere of them the vitality is lowered; hence in a state of anguish and fear the body is more susceptible to contagious diseases. Now Professor Jaeger contends that sheep's wool attracts the 'substances of pleasure' (and this is distinct from its great odour-absorbing capacity in general), while clothing made of plantfibre favours the accumulation of the offensive substances of dislike with their evil consequences. A large amount of experimental evidence is adduced in support of these views. The experience of the many persons who have adopted his normal clothing, both for summer and for winter, is stated to be very satisfactory." Address of the Adelaide Society of the New Church in South Australia to the General Conference of the New Church in Great Britain. DEAR BRETHREN, -It is now twentysix years since the Adelaide Society of the New Church first addressed their brethren of the English Conference. On that occasion I was appointed to write on its behalf. I had then only been four years absent from the brethren in England after an association with them of twenty-one years, during which period I had had the honour and privilege of sitting at the feet of the late Rev. Samuel Noble, so that in that first address referred to I was literally writing to "my brethren and companions" according to the flesh. Now, however, in the quick succession of time, "the flesh profiteth" no longer as a bond of consociation, for only a few familiar names remain amongst those with whom I walked to the house of God in company, and laboured and prayed with them for the peace of Jerusalem. But what of this! I feel that the present representatives of the Church in the old home country are brethren still. And that now I have been again requested to address the English Conference on behalf of the Adelaide Society of the New Church for the first time since my somewhat altered relation to its members as their "ordained minister" instead of their lay officiating brother, I feel more closely associated in spirit to the ministers of your Conference by virtue of my official labourer in the Lord's vineyard; for recognition among them as a fellow now there seems an "actual contiguity established between us by the "laying on of hands," our dear friend and brother the Rev. J. J. Thornton having become the connecting medium which establishes the actual communication existing between the Church in England and the Church in Adelaide, so that there is now nothing wanting which order requires to "keep the channel open" for the free circulation of the spiritual magnetic currents of love. It is therefore with all the delight |
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