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a certain charm of originality. In the volume under notice, while there are sentiments expressed and embodied from which the New Church reader may dissent, there is also much that will receive his cordial approbation.

Two ruling ideas are presented in it. One of these is the power of reaching the hearts of others, as channels for good and holy influences, possessed by individuals whose hearts and lives are penetrated and permeated by a vital belief and trust in God as a God of love. The second is the danger of spiritism, and the difficulty of deliverance from thraldom, and that only by an earnest seeking of Divine aid-of those who surrender themselves to the will of another, in the degree implied in some of the asserted phenomena of biology and mesmerism. This part of the tale may be considered highly instructive, when allowances are made for the licensed exaggerations of fiction; only, it unfortunately happens that admonitions thus conveyed are seldom read by those to whom they are specially applicable. The following extracts will be generally appreciated.

"Would you do nothing that other people should know God, then, David? Onything 'at he likes. But I wad tak tent o' interferin', He's at it himsel'

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frae mornin' to nacht, frae year's en' tae year's en'.

"But you seem to me to make out that God is nothing but love?"

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Ay, naething but love. What for no?"

"Because we are told he is just."

"Would he be lang just if he didna lo'e us?"

"But does he not punish sin?"

"Would it be ony kin'ness no to punish sin? No, to use a' means to pit awa' the ae ill thing frae us? Whatever may be meant by the place o' meesery, depen' upo't, Mr. Sutherland, it's only anither form o' love, love shinin' through the fogs o' ill, and sae gart leuk something verra different thereby. Man, raither nor see my Maggy-an' ye'll no doot 'at I lo'e her-raither nor see my Maggy do an ill thing, I'd see her lying deid at my feet. But supposin' the ill thing ance dune, it's no at my feet I wad lay her, but upo' my heart, wi' my auld arms aboot her, to haud the further ill aff o' her. An' shall mortal man be more just than God? Shall a man be more pure than his Maker? O my God, my God." (p. 65.)

"Is not salvation the uniting of all our nature into one harmonious whole-God first in us, ourselves last, and all in due order between? Something very much analogous to the change in Euphra takes place in a man when he learns that his beliefs must become acts; that his religious life and his human life are one; that he must do the thing that he admires. The Ideal is the only absolute Real; and it must become the Real in the individual life as well, however impossible they may count it who never try it, or who do not trust in God to effect it, when they find themselves baffled in the attempt." (p. 376.)

MESSRS. HARPER AND BROTHERS have commenced the publication of a series of books for girls, between the ages of eight and eighteen, by the author of "John Halifax." Two have been published, "Little Sunshine's Holiday," and "The Cousin from India." The first is a simple narrative of a journey to Scotland, and the experiences and exploits of a little girl of three years old. The other volume sketches the experience of a little girl of six, brought to England from India, where she had no training, and had been petted and spoiled by native nurses. She makes sad work in the wellordered English household, but is finally tamed, and becomes a thoughtful, conscientious child through the sickness and death of little Davie, whom she loves with a most absorbing affection.-N. J. Messenger.

Miscellaneous.

SOCIAL SCIENCE CONGRESS.

ONE of the prominent signs of the times is the increased attention given by thoughtful persons to social questions. Leaving the thorny paths of party conflicts, large numbers of intelligent and inquiring minds are becoming intensely occupied with the actual condition of society, and the best and most prudent means of promoting its improvement and elevation. To aid in the necessary inquiries, the discussion of ascertained facts, and the diffusion of knowledge on subjects relating to social life, an annual Congress is held in one of the large provincial towns. This year this Congress has been held in Leeds, and attended by an unusual number of distinguished visitors. The subjects discussed had relation to jurisprudence, education, health, economy, and trade. Advantage was also taken of the assembly to hold a series of public meetings on popular and important social questions. These meetings were open to the public, and were largely attended. Two subjects obtained unusual prominence. These were education and sanitary regulations. The former of these subjects was introduced by the president, Sir John Packington, Bart., in his inaugural address. In the course of this address, he discussed at length the several phases of this subject which are at present engaging public attention. The work begun thirty years ago by the grants in aid of popular education, and more earnestly sustained by recent legislation, was made the text for an elaborate discussion of the present condition and future prospects of this important question. The work done is but the prelude to the work requiring to be accomplished. Large numbers are still absent from school, and the course of instruction in many of the schools established and aided by Government grants, is narrow, and the teaching inefficient. A great difficulty has also arisen on the question of religious instruction, and strong objections are being made to the payment of fees from the school rates to denominational schools. These objections threaten to

banish all direct religious teaching from the schools, and to confine Government aid and local rates to exclusively secular instruction. Sir John is strongly in favour of the continuance of religious instruction, though evidently conscious that it cannot be continued in the interest of any of the religious sects, not even of the Established Church. Hence he gives the following suggested solution of this difficulty::-"A solution of this question, which seems well worthy of consideration, has been suggested by a reverend friend of mine, Canon Melville, to the effect that in schools in which religious instruction is to be given Boards should authorise the teaching of the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Commandments, and the outline of the Christian faith. The best mode of accomplishing this latter object would be by the Apostles' Creed, but if that should be held to be inconsistent with the restrictions in the Act, there would be no difficulty in selecting passages from the New Testament well adapted to effect the same object."

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The chairman of the educational department was Mr. Baines, M.P. Mr. Baines more than to any other single individual was owing the hostility of the Dissenters to the Government interference with the public Day schools when grants in aid were first introduced. As a leading Nonconformist he could not be indifferent to the painful controversy on which the religious party with which he is connected is now entering. After reviewing the present state of this controversy, he says, "Whilst I feel that the state of things is not agreeable to Nonconformists, I confess my judgment regards the replies to their objections as unanswerable. It is for statesmen to consider whether the law can justly and wisely be modified; but I do not believe it is morally or politically possible (even if it be legal) to punish a poor man for declining to send his child to a school of which he conscientiously disapproves and if it is not possible to punish, the power of compulsory education is lost for that very class of children for which it was thought most necessary."

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CHURCH CONGRESS.

The annual meeting of this assembly of the Established Church has this year met at Nottingham. Its session was preceded by a large meeting of working men to whom addresses on church principles and aims were delivered by the Archbishop of York, the Bishop of Manchester and others. The sermon at

the opening was by the Bishop of Manchester. The following extract will give some idea of the liberal character of this remarkable discourse. The sentiment it expresses was also introduced into his very able address at the meeting of working men :

"One word of explanation before I proceed. I have been using the word Church' in a way that would be utterly unreal, if I limited it to the senses that are often imposed upon it by this or that narrow ecclesiastical school. I am not thinking of the primitive Church merely, nor of the Eastern Church, nor of the Western, nor of the Anglican Episcopal Church, nor of Protestant non-Episcopal Churches; but my conception was generalized from all these concrete, individual bodies (under none of whose forms is the perfection of the typical idea adequately realised), and was meant to express the aggregate of those spiritual forces radiating from Christ, which even under the limitations of flesh and blood, of earthly passions and human alloy, have done so much for man, and, if they had free course and were glorified, would seem to be capable of the entire regeneration of the world. We all remember Bishop Butler's description of a perfectly virtuous kingdom, when he argues for the future triumph of good over evil from present apparent tendencies in the nature of things. The dream might have been long since realised, if, according to the measure and scope of the Divine purposes, the kingdoms of the world had become, in any true and sufficient sense, the kingdoms of the Lord and of His Christ. Of these regenerating spiritual forces, the visible organisation to which we belong, may fairly be allowed to claim her full share. But she has no exclusive proprietorship of them: and though I am preaching to a Congress of Churchmen, I should be defeating my own purpose if I tried to fortify them in what would be a superstitious rather

than a rational belief, that the Church, to which we are justly and loyally attached, and whose power of influence we desire to strengthen and extend by every means at our command, enjoys any monopoly of divine grace, or can presume to invite members of other communions, certainly not destitute of tokens of the Divine Presence, to seek refuge within her pale, on the ground that their salvation is impossible, or at best precarious, where they are. Untenable pretensions react in honest minds on those who make them. We shall not strengthen our cause, but the reverse, by associating with it prepos terous or unsubstantial claims."

The president of the year is the Bishop of Lincoln. As was to be expected of Dr. Wordsworth, he dwells in the past rather than the present. He looks back to the year 1571 as the culminating point of the English Reformation, and traces what he considers the grounds of the Church's success in her maintenance of the authority of the Scriptures, the adoption of a system of sound doctrine, and episcopal ordination. The power which has resulted from the setting up of Holy Scripture as the rule of faith will be admitted by most thoughtful inquirers. The Thirty-nine Articles will be less generally accepted, and the Bishop himself has drawn a sufficiently gloomy picture of the state of the Church after the Restoration, when episcopacy was restored to its lost ascendency ::

"The principles of doctrine and discipline which the Church of England had promulgated in 1571," he says, “she firmly reasserted and maintained at the Restoration in 1660; but in looking back at that period, we cannot fail to observe that it would have been well if some of our rulers in Church and State had shown more of meekness and moderation, more of suavity and gentleness in the hour of victory, and if the maintenance of sound principles had been more richly adorned and beautified with the loveliest of Christian graces-charity, earnestness, and holiAt the Restoration, Puritanism by an excess of reaction generated Libertinism. For the most part, under the Second Charles there was more antipathy to Puritanism than there was zeal for Catholicity; and under his successor there was more fear

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of the Pope than there was love of Christ and in the following reigns (as even a Whig prelate, William Warburton, Bishop of Gloucester, complained to Lord Mansfield, in the preface to one of his books on the Divine Legation) many in high places were led by their hatred of Jacobitism to patronise Erastianism, and even to encourage scepticism, and to discountenance Christian zeal and spiritual vitality, as if they were no better that rhapsodical fanaticism. The consequence was, that when John Wesley and George Whitfield appeared in the middle of the last century, our spiritual rulers did not care to make use of their enthusiasm, and to give it a right direction and application, so that it might refresh and fertilise the parched places of our land; but they allowed it to flow away in irregular channels of its own making."

GERMAN CATHOLIC CONGRESS.

The hostility felt by some of the leading minds of Germany to the decisions of the Vatican Council has led to intense excitement and extensive departures from the papal community in Austria, Bavaria, and other parts of Germany, and has issued in a Congress held in September last at Munich. The Congress was attended by three hundred delegates, "among whom were a Professor from St. Petersburg, an Archimandrite of the Greek Church, a special envoy from the Spanish Government, Père Hyacinth," &c.

The programme submitted to this assembly seems to have been inspired by Dr. Döllinger; and, with some modifications, it was adopted. As passed, it expresses attachment to Catholicism as interpreted by the Council of Trent, rejection of papal infallibilty and supreme authority, episcopal autonomy and lay participation in Church direction. It declares that "articles of faith are to prove themselves to be in accordance with the belief of the Church, in the immediate conscience of faith of the catholic people in theological science." A desire was also expressed for union with other churches, the scientific training of the clergy, and the suppression of the Jesuits.

Here Döllinger and the more cautious members of the Congress would have stayed further progress. The more

ardent pressed on, and adopted against a minority of twenty voices, the following resolutions:-1. In all places where the necessity exists, and where there are the resident persons, a regular cure of souls is to be instituted. The local committees are to decide whether this necessity does exist. 2. We have a right to the acknowledgment of our priests by the State, as authorised to the performance of Church functions, wherever and so long as the same involve civil rights. 3. Wherever this is possible, this acknowledgment is to be claimed. 4. The individual (priest) is conscientiously authorised by the circumstances of our necessity to ask from strange (fremde) bishops the exercise of episcopal functions; we have the right, as soon as the proper time has come, to provide for the introduction of a regular episcopal jurisdiction."

The Congress was closed by two public meetings, which were crowded and enthusiastic. The movement seems to be chiefly taken up by the middle and educated classes. The great anxiety of some of the leaders is to avoid ruptures with the Church, which seems, however, scarcely possible. Whether a movement which appeals to history and church councils for its authority will be able to abide remains to be seen. Meantime it is a powerful protest against the insane love of dominion in the papacy.

SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION OF SPIRITUAL PHENOMENA.

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The investigation of phenomena supposed to arise from the intervention of spirits has recently engaged the attention of scientific men. Science," says Sir Wm. Thomson, "is bound by the everlasting law of honour, to face fearlessly every problem which can fairly be presented to it. Influenced by this conviction, Mr. Crookes, F. R. S., the editor of the Quarterly Journal of Science, has entered into a series of test investigations respecting the phenomena we have indicated, and has given the result of his inquiries in two papers in the July and October numbers of the journal he edits. These experiments show the exercise of force apparently without mechanical pressure, and are regarded as a physical demonstration of the existence of an hitherto unrecognised power in nature. This power the writer

designates psychic force; and, while carefully avoiding all theory on the subject, is evidently disposed to regard it as a natural power. It is spoken of as nerve power, natural action, etc. “M. Thury, it is said, refutes all those explanations [which are based on the intervention of spirits], and considers the effects due to a peculiar substance, fluid, or agent, pervading, in a manner similar to the luminiferous ether of the scientist, all matter, nervous, organic, or inorganic, which he terms psychode. He enters

into full discussion as to the properties of this state or form of matter, and proposes the term ectenic force (éктévia, extension), for the power exerted when the mind acts at a distance through the influence of the pyschode." In a note Dr. Crookes informs us that "the report of the Dialectical Society on Spiritualism will appear in a few days, and it will be seen that the investigation committee, though commencing their experiments with the entire conviction that they should expose an imposture, have ended by affirming that they are convinced of the existence of a force emanating from the human organisation, by which motion may be imparted to heavy substances, and audible sounds made on solid bodies without muscular contact; they also state that this force is often directed by some intelligence.' The experiments of Mr. Crooks are supposed to establish the same results, and the tremulous pulsations by which it acts are said by one who witnessed the experiments, "to confirm the opinion that assigns its source to the nerve organisation, and it goes far to establish Dr. Richardson's important discovery of a nerve atmosphere of various intensity enveloping the human structure."

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Phenomena, therefore, which many regard as furnishing evidence of direct intercourse with spirits and the spiritual world, is now being interpreted in agreement with the materialistic philosophy of the age. The facts are undeniable. The experiments made demonstrate the existence of a power impalpable to the senses. The existence of spiritual powers are not to be admitted. The phenomena can only be ascribed, therefore, to some force inherent in nature, psychic force, or psychode― whatever these terms may mean. Thury is said to have refuted all these

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explanations which are based on the intervention of spirits; and therein offers us another proof that the knowledge of spiritual things will not be obtained from the side of nature. Without the written Word and some knowledge of the distinct degrees of life which are involved in its teachings, and which distinguish things spiritual from things material, men will continue to stumble in darkness. The result of these inquiries may satisfy all who are willing to be convinced of the inutility of one class of these much-boasted evidences of spiritual influences. They are admitted as facts, and converted into evidence of the existence of hitherto

undiscovered natural powers. Meantime the investigations are not without their use in evolving natural facts which may contribute towards the illustration of spiritual truths. A nerve-atmosphere enveloping the human structure is but the material counterpart of the sphere which surrounds the spiritual body.

JOURNAL OF THE GENERAL CONVENTION OF THE NEW JERUSALEM IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

The Journal of the fifty-second annual session of this Convention has reached us since the preparation of our last number. The Convention met on the 9th of June, and continued in session until the 13th, in the temple of the Chicago Society, in the city of Chicago -a city whose sad fate has filled the civilized world with feelings of deepest commiseration for the serious losses and painful afflictions of her inhabitants. In the absence of the President, Rev. Dr. Worcester, the Vice-President, Mr. J. Young Scammon, took the chair, and presided over the deliberation of the assembly. There were present during the session thirty-two ministers, ninety-two delegates, and thirty-eight visitors. An application from the Canada Association for admission to the General Convention was unanimously complied with, and the delegates formally received by the Vice-President, all the members of the Convention rising from their seats. Thanks were voted to Rev. Wm. H. Benade, "the chief promoter in America of the measures taken to secure copies of the unpublished manuscripts of Swedenborg, for the indefatigable zeal and fidelity which he has exhibited in the discharge

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