to push about them; and one of their first discoveries was a river, where none was marked upon any chart, and up this they steamed three hundred miles, without finding the least obstruction. Having now passed round this continent, let us look into the interior. For half a century, the English government has been expending lives and treasure in a partial exploration. They have found that this whole tract of country is one of amazing fertility and beauty, abounding in gold, ivory, and all sorts of tropical vegetation. There are hundred of woods, invaluable for dyeing and architectural purposes, not found in other portions of the world. Through it for thousands of miles sweeps a river, from three to six miles broad, with clear water, and of unsurpassable depth, flowing on at the rate of two or three miles an hour, without rock, shoal, or snag to interrupt its navigation. Other rivers pour into this, tributary waters of such volume as must have required hundreds of miles to be collected, yet they seem scarcely to enlarge it. This river pours its waters into the Atlantic through the most magnificent delta in the world, consisting of perhaps a hundred mouths, extending probably 500 miles along the coast, and mostly broad, deep, and navigable for steam-boats. Upon this river are scattered cities, some of which are estimated to contain a million of inhabitants, and the whole country teems with a dense population. Far in the interior, in the very heart of this continent, is a nation in an advanced state of civilization. The grandeur and beauty of portions of the country through which the Niger makes its sweeping circuit, are indescribable. In many places its banks rise boldly a thousand feet, thickly covered with the richest vegetation of tropical climes. But all this vast and sublime country, this scene of rich fertility and romantic beauty, is apparently thrust out for ever from the rest of the world. It is the negro's sole possession. He need not fear the incursions of the white man there; for over this whole lovely country broods one dread malaria, and to the white man it is the "valley of the shadow of death." In expedition after expedition, sent out from the English port on the Island of Ascension, not one white man in ten has ever returned alive; all have fallen victims to this seemingly beautiful but awful climate. It seems impossible for any Englishman to breathe that air. So dreadful is it, so small the chance of life, that criminals in England have been offered pardon, on condition of volunteering in this service, more terrible than that of gathering the poison from the fabled Upas. This country, tempting as it is, can only be penetrated at the risk of life; and it is melancholy to think, that those who have given us even the meagre information that we have, did it at the sacrifice of their lives. OBITUARY. she was considered to be scarcely able to speak, and seemingly dead to all about her, with uplifted eyes she called, for some time, on her "precious Jesus— her blessed Jesus-her compassionate Jesus;" and also uttered the lines, "I could leave the world without a tear, Save for the friends I hold so dear." DIED, at Airdrée, on the 1st of July, 1844, in the twenty-third year of her age, GREZELL, daughter of William Thomson, late merchant of that place, whither she had been removed for the benefit of her health. She had been a scholar and teacher amongst the Association Methodists for upwards of nine years; but was, nevertheless, a full believer in the chief doctrines of the New Jerusalem, which, however, was unknown to her father until she was seized with an alarming illness in February last. In her sickness, she seemed to be favored with a foretaste of the happiness of heaven; for, when ERRATA IN No. 58.-At page 383, line 10 from top, put a comma after the word 'spiritual,' and dele the one at well' in the same line; and in the 3rd line on the next page dele the word 'that.' During her illness she never had the smallest fear of death; still, like many others under that fatal malady (consumption), she cherished strong hopes, till almost the last, of being restored to health in this world, but her motto always was, "What Jesus wills is best." W. T. CREATION is an outbirth of the Creator, and, in all its parts which are according to divine order, is illustrative of His infinite Love, Wisdom, and Power. The old hypothesis, "that all things were created out of nothing," is now for the most part exploded as a groundless fancy, irrational, and absurd. Those who still cling to this old fancy, prove that they have not attained to a knowledge of what is truly philosophical and spiritual. This idea of a creation out of nothing, if such an idea can be possible, is supposed to have some ground to stand upon in an assertion of the apostle: "The things which are seen were not made of things which do appear." (Heb. xi. 3.) These words, however, by no means teach, that the things which are seen were created out of nothing, but that they were created out of things which do not appear to the bodily sight; and these things which do not thus appear, are the things which exist in the spiritual world, and which are substantial, and the proximate causes of the creation and existence of things in the natural world, which are material. Without a knowledge of the spiritual world, and of its relation to the natural; and likewise without some discernment of the nature of the substances and objects which exist in that world, and also of the laws by which they are governed, it is impossible to have proper ideas concerning the creation of all things by God. The natural universe is as a theatre representative of the spiritual and heavenly things which exist in the spiritual universe, and especially in the Lord's kingdom; and the things which exist in this latter are representative of the infinite things of Love, Wisdom, and Power which exist in the Lord Himself. Thus "the invisible things of God from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead." (Rom. i. 20.) The WORD, by which all things were made, is the DIVINE TRUTH, acting as one with the Divine LOVE, or GOODNESS. Truth is not a mere conception of the mind in N.S. NO. 60.-VOL. V. 3 K conformity with the true nature of things; still less, is it a mere fiat or declaration of the mouth, but it is the very essential substance of all things. When therefore the Lord said, "I AM THE Truth,” He divinely declared that Truth is a substance and a form, which in its divine origin, or in the Lord, is the divine and infinite substance and form, from which all other substances and forms, both in the spiritual and natural worlds, are only derivations and formations. (A.C. 7270.) In the spiritual world, these substances and forms, constituting the infinite variety of objects and scenery there beheld, are called spiritual and substantial; and because they exist from the Sun of the spiritual world, as their proximate origin, they are of a different nature and are governed by laws essentially different from those by which objects in the natural world are governed; because these latter objects are from the sun of nature, as their proximate origin, and hence they have a nature, and are governed by laws peculiar to themselves. To think, therefore, of the substances and forms of the spiritual world, with the same ideas as we think of the substances and forms of the natural world, is to think erroneously; and hence is the cause, why people in general, when they hear of a spiritual world filled with objects in varieties infinitely greater than can be seen upon earth, recoil at the idea, and treat it with ridicule, because they can only think of them in the same manner as they think of material objects. And indeed, before they are instructed how the case is, they must needs be excused. Let us take the spiritual body and the natural body of man as a basis of our contemplation and reasoning on this subject. These two forms of man, the one spiritual and the other natural, exist simultaneously,the one is the form of his mind, by which he is an inhabitant of the spiritual world; and the other is his bodily, material organization, by which he is an inhabitant of the natural world. That these two forms of man exist simultaneously, is plainly declared by the apostle Paul, when he says "there is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body;" the apostle speaks in the present tense,-es, "there is,"-in order to shew that these two forms exist simultaneously. And such is the uniform testimony of Swedenborg. This spiritual form is the seat of all man's mental life, but the natural form is the seat of all his bodily life. Man does not enter consciously into the possession and enjoyment of his spiritual form, or body, until he has left the natural body by death; no more than the chrysalis, so long as it is in the pupa-state, is in the conscious enjoyment of the power which it has, by virtue of its golden wings, of rising, when it becomes an imago or perfect butterfly, from the ground, and winging its flight in the aërial regions, skimming over the flowery meads, and feeding on ambrosia and nectar. Before it can do this, the pupa-state which bound it to the earth must be put off. So long as man is in a material body, he is comparatively in this pupastate, bound by the laws of space and of time, shackled as to his mental powers, earthbound as to many of his conceptions and ideas, and gross as to his affections and pursuits. The laws of creation and of order require him to pass through this state, which, although indispensable, is not intended to last long; because, as the apostle says in the same chapter, "that which is natural is first, and afterwards that which is spiritual." In this state we are trained and prepared for the heavenly world, and thrice happy are they who suffer themselves to be duly prepared, that is, to be regenerated! It is of the utmost importance that we should have correct ideas of the nature of spiritual substances and forms, since without those ideas there can be no genuine intelligence and philosophy concerning any thing above the mere senses. Now, the spiritual body, or the spiritual form of man, which is the seat of all his mental life and activity, is evidently subject to a different order, and to different laws from those which exist in the natural world, and to which the natural body is subject. Of mind we predicate expressions taken from natural objects, and we say, that the mind is great or little, enlarged or contracted, high or low, acute or obtuse, &c., but we never think that these expressions literally belong to the mind, except only in a remote and figurative sense. Hence we think of mental states and activities independently of the laws of nature; and we form, in some measure, spiritual ideas of mind and its phenomena. By the term spiritual, we mean what is separate from the laws and conditions of nature, and what is peculiar to the laws and conditions of the spiritual world. The spirit or mind of man, when in perfect freedom of thought, thinks already to a certain extent, in agreement with the laws of that world which it is destined to inhabit for ever. It thinks of departed friends as being exempt from the laws of matter and of space, and as existing in a state and world in which other laws are applicable and operative; it also thinks of them as being in the human form, infinitely more lovely and perfect than when upon earth. When, however, these things are brought in Swedenborg's "Heaven and Hell" as facts and truths directly under the mind's eye, and especially if they are urged upon the attention by various arguments, they are in general denied, and considered to be merely imaginary. This arises from the fallacy of the senses, which would fain persuade us, that there are no other substances and forms, and consequently objects, than those which we behold in external nature around us. We are liable to be led by these fallacies and their false persuasions, (unless the mind is grounded in genuine doctrine and philosophy,) in proportion as our selfish principle is excited, which in controversy is unhappily too often the case. One great means of being elevated above the fallacies of the senses, and their false persuasions, is to cherish a disinterested love, a love void of selfish regard for the object of investigation and discussion. The doctrine of Discrete Degrees,- a doctrine which belongs in a peculiar sense to New Church philosophy, teaches us that spiritual substances and forms, although existing in material substances and forms as, the causes of their existence and preservation, may be separated from them, and continue their existence in a more perfect state, in a world more fully accommodated to their nature and activity. But merely natural forms, when separated from their spiritual forms, can no longer exist, but are dissolved into earthly elements, and enter into new combinations, serving as new forms for the activities, in nature, of spiritual substances, and for the reception of the influx of life from God. This is evident from the case of the natural body, which dies and is dissolved when the spiritual form or body leaves it at death. Nature plainly shews us, that there are forms within forms, as in the wonderful transformations of insects; and also that an interior form can live in a higher state of perfection, than the exterior which is dissolved when the interior quits it. Thus when the imago emerges from the pupa, as in the case of the common butterfly which sports over our fields, the latter is abandoned, and the former needs it no longer. And this is not only the case in many provinces of the animal kingdom, but it is more general in the vegetable kingdom of nature; every fruit has its husk, its shell, or its rind, and every seed has its capsule. Nor does the fruit or the seed properly put forth its own use, or manifest its proper vegetative life until the husk, the shell, and the capsule are removed. These latter are necessary for the formation of the butterfly, and for the maturation of the fruit and the seed, just as the material body is necessary for the substantiation, formation, and regeneration of the spirit; nor can this latter properly put forth its spiritual and heavenly life, in all its beauty, lovliness, wisdom, and bliss, until the former is laid down by death. Thus even in nature we are instructed that there are forms within forms, and that the interior forms may continue to exist in a more perfect state, when the exterior are put off and dissolved. But all these facts, evident to our observation, are intended to instruct us, or to illustrate the case when we are instructed, that in man there is a spiritual substance and form, which continues to exist after the death of |