SON OF MAN AND THE SON OF GOD       Rev. N. D. PENDLETON       1906


NEW CHURCH LIFE.
VOL. XXVI.     JANUARY, 1906.     NO. 1.
     The two descriptive titles of the Lord, the Son of Man and the son of God, occur in the New Testament with nearly equal frequency. To the casual reader they appear to be used interchangeably. Nevertheless each has its own distinctive meaning and special usage. That is, wherever the term "Son of Man" is employed, the subject referred to, both in the spiritual and literal senses, differs from that which is treated of when the "Son of God" is mentioned. In fact, these two titles designate two distinct phases of the Divine manifestation, which must be clearly seen before certain important arcana of the Word can be understood.

     At first sight we are apt to conclude that the expression "Son of God" testifies to the fact that the Lord was conceived of Jehovah, and on the other hand, the title "Son of Man" gives like testimony that He was born of woman. This view, however, is primitive. For as we shall see, the "Son of Man" involves much more than the fact of ultimate birth into the world, yet the general idea of an assumption of the human is not dissociated from it. That is to say, the "Son of Man" is always employed to express an idea of the Divine under finite human form. There can be little doubt, however, but that the origin of the title arose from the ancient knowledge that the God of the Universe was, in time, to be born into the world as a man. In this connection we note that in the most ancient prophecy concerning the Messiah He was called the "seed of woman," (Gen. iii. 15). But so far as we know He was not called the "Son of Man" either in the Most Ancient or Ancient Churches, nor yet in the early stages of the Jewish Church. The historical appearance is that the title "Son of Man" was a later derivation from the original expression "Seed of Woman." This much is certain, that the prophet Daniel was the first to employ it as distinctly descriptive of the Messiah. "I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the son of Man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought Him near before Him." (Daniel vii. 13.) Ever after this the title "Son of Man" was recognized as a distinct appellation of the Messiah. When the Lord called Himself by that name, no Jew of His day was in doubt as to the meaning of His claim.

     Before Daniel, several of the prophets, especially Ezekiel, spoke of themselves as the Son of Man. It is said in the Writings that they did this because of their representative character, that is, they, as prophets, represented the Great Prophet, the Son of Man, who was to come into the world. It might be argued from this that before Daniel's time the "Son of Man" was recognized as one of the Messianic titles. This may, of course, be so, but to my mind the inference is not necessary. However, Daniel's employment of the phrase is unmistakable. But, as before indicated, much more is involved in the usage of the term than the mere fact that He was born of Mary. In truth, when that is distinctly referred to, He is called neither the son of God nor yet the Son of Man, but the son of Mary, by which title the maternal human is signified, which had in itself nothing more of Divinity than that of any other man, but was in all respects mortal. A true conception of the subject leads to the conclusion that the Son of Man was no more born of Mary than was the Son of God. Both are titles of the Divine Human, which was not only conceived by also born of Jehovah God. Yet in this respect there is a marked difference between the Son of Man and the Son of God, which will become clearer as our subject progresses.

     By these two titles the Divine Human is presented under two different aspects. Stated in the most general form the Son of Man signifies the Divine Human as to Truth, while the Son of God has reference to the Divine Human as to Good. This is seen when the subject is viewed under a spiritual idea, i. e., when the thought of the mortal human is removed.

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The distinction here made at first appears abstract, yet as we shall see it is most definite, and will receive ample confirmation from the literal usage of the terms in the New Testament. We gain a more concrete idea of this distinction when we see that the Son of Man refers to the Lord as the Word, while the Son of God has special reference to His Human as Divine. It can at once be seen that the Word and the Truth are the same thing. On the other hand, Divine Good in the Human and the Divinity of the Human are one idea.

     The Son of Man, then, is the Lord as to Truth or as the Word, but we must think of the Word as spiritually understood. For the spiritual understanding of the Word is the true Son of Man, even as it is the true Word. There is a perfect parallel between the letter of Scripture and the Human assumed from Mary, for both by the process of glorification are put off. The letter of Scripture, in itself, is only a verbal containant of the Word; even as the human assumed from Mary was only a mortal vestment of the Son of Man. Since the Son of Man is the Word spiritually understood, or the Word as it is in the heavens, we conclude that the Son of Man is the Divine Truth as it is received by the angels.

     Beginning with the celestial heavens, and coming down through the successive spheres, there is an emanation of light from the Divine. This light is the Divine Truth in the heavens, and by virtue of its accommodation to human minds it is called the Son of Man, and this for the obvious reason that such accommodation is nothing more than a clothing of the truth with finite forms, ever more gross as it descends through the several expanses down into the world where it reaches its finality in the literal Scriptures.

     We note that this descending Truth, which in itself is Divine and Infinite, adds to itself finite forms, whence it becomes clear that this process not only involves but is an assumption of the human by the Divine; for the finite forms assumed by the descending Truth were human forms taken from the minds of the angels. In this sense the human was assumed from the very beginning of creation. The actual assumption of the flesh, in time, was nothing more than a furthering and completion of that which was begun at the first. The Human called the Son of Man in the heavens was assumed from the beginning, but the deep fact is that this human was not Glorified until the assumption had reached the last degree,--until the Son of Man came into the world.

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Then the process of Glorification was instituted from highests to lowests and from lowests to highests.

     The Human was assumed from the beginning. It has been assumed in all times and it will continue to be assumed to all eternity. For, under a most exalted idea, the assumption of the human and the act of creation are one and the same thing, from which we draw this conclusion that the coming of the Lord into the world was involved in and necessitated by the first act of creation; and, furthermore, that when He did come, it could only be as the Son of Man, as the Divine Truth, veiled and accommodated by finite vessels. Remember the teaching that the Lord descended as the Divine Truth, yet He did not separate the Divine Good. This Divine Truth, by virtue of its finite veilings, subject to mutations and, in the minds of men, to temptations. Hence the oft-repeated statement that the Lord as the Son of Man was tempted and suffered even to the passion of the cross. He thus suffered because He was the Truth finited, the Word become flesh. And in His person He suffered at the hands of the Jews in order that their treatment of the Word might be thus represented.

     This touches upon the grand distinction between the Son of Man and the Son of God, and gives us the reason why New Testament so often speaks of the suffering of the one, but never of the other. The point is that Truth clothed with finite forms can be afflicted, but not Good, especially the Divine Good signified by the Son of God. Truth can be afflicted, even such truth as that which is in the heavens. Therefore the Son of Man underwent temptations much deeper than the sufferings of the mortal human. This human endured toil and pain even to the anguish of death. But his real temptations,--those by which the heavens were purified, the world of Spirits cleansed, and the hells subdued,--He sustained in His character of the Son of Man, the Truth, the Word. Yet it would not be right to exclude the sufferings of the mortal part and say that these had no reference to the process of Glorification. On the contrary, they afforded the material basis for every affliction, however internal. For while the Son of Man, strictly speaking, is the Truth in the heavens, yet that term includes the truth in the world, and, in its broadest sense, the body of the Lord assumed on the earth.

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For this reason we conceive that when the Lord, as the Son of Man, was tempted, there was conflict throughout the whole sphere of creation, for such is the range of the truth called the Son of Man. When He was Glorified, as the result of His final temptation on the cross, the heavens trembled, the earth quaked, and the veil in the temple of Jerusalem was rent in twain.

     It is said that the heavens trembled, by which is meant that they, on that occasion, were moved from inmosts to outmosts, this movement causing a readjustment of all things thereof, so that they stood before the Lord renewed. Moreover, the fact stands out that this movement, resulting in a reformation of the heavens, was the consequence of a gigantic conflict. This we learn from Arcana Coelestia, 4295, where it is said that the angels tempted the Lord and that in consequence He fought with the whole angelic heaven. This combat was represented by Jacob's wrestling with the angel. The reason the angels could tempt the Lord was that the truth with them was not pure. This was especially the case prior to His Glorification. These impure truths, inflowing into His mind, brought on an inmost conflict whereby the supreme ends of life were touched, moved and readjusted; for of temptations of this class, it is said, they are the inmost of all, inasmuch as they act upon ends, and with such subtlety as to escape observation.

     The purifying of the world of spirits and the subjugation of the hells was the well known consequence of the Lord's Glorification. Very many arcana are revealed to us with reference to this phase of the subject, which are more or less familiar. But as to the coincident reforming of the heavens not so much is known, and this, perhaps, for the reason that angelic temptations can hardly he understood by men. Yet the fact of such temptations is revealed, and we are allowed to draw one conclusion with regard to their effect, which is of more than passing importance. When the Lord fought with and overcame the devils, they were cast down and hound forever in hell. On the other hand, as a result of His contention with the angels, they were enlightened and lifted up into a higher and more celestial order. This conclusion is obvious and is confirmed by A. C. 4075, where something of the nature of these supreme temptations is revealed, i. e., that they had reference to the appearances of truth and to the seeming good which prevailed in the ancient heavens.

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In this number it is said that when the Lord made His Human Divine, He called to Himself societies of spirits and angels, for He willed that all things should be done according to order. We must understand that the Lord's mind, that is, the mind which is below the soul, was, in its form and construction, like that of another man in its relation to the spiritual world. But there is this grand difference, man is brought into intimate relations with only a few societies, while the Lord's mind encompassed and thus included the whole angelic heavens, yea the entire world of Spirits. His mind also encompassed all the hells, but did not include them. By his Glorification they were excluded, though in a sense they were still encompassed, for otherwise they could not have continued to exist.

     Again, there was a difference between the mind of man and that of the Lord in this that man derives his goods and truths from the angelic societies with which he is associated, but of the Lord it is said that He did not derive anything of Good and Truth from the angels, but only by them from the Divine. Angelic societies were serviceable to Him as instrumentalities for receiving the Divine Life according to the angelic degree, and in serving Him in this capacity those societies were themselves purified and exalted. Thus are we to understand the mutual relation and reciprocal action between the mind of the Lord and the angelic heavens. Hence, it is said that He called to Himself societies of spirits and angels according to His good pleasure, and so far as they were serviceable. This action and reaction between the mind of the Lord and the heavens, was as an inmost temptation to Him, and also to the angels, because of the angelic influx with impure truths and apparent goods, which He resisted and corrected. On these occasions He was most intimately moved, and they were thrown into a commotion so great as to call for an entire re-adjustment.

     The number before us gives several examples of these temptations, but we can at present consider only one of them, i. e., the one which refers to certain societies which were in love to God, and believed that if they looked upon the Infinite and worshiped the hidden God, they could be in love to Him. But it was shown them that they could not, inasmuch as it was necessary that the Infinite should be made finite by intellectual ideas.

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It is said that these societies were serviceable to the Lord in introducing Him into their ideas, and through them into a knowledge of the Divine Truth itself, which was that they could not be saved unless the Human was made Divine and thus rendered an object upon which men and angels might look. The point here is that the Lord was not instructed in this latter truth by those societies, but, as said, only by them from the Divine. Perceiving their apparent truth, He by it as a means entered into the real Divine Truth. And by His so doing those societies were corrected, that is, were thrown into commotion and afterwards were lifted up and instructed.

     In this way the Lord passed through the entire heavens as He was being Glorified. Or, perhaps it would be better to say, that in this way the entire heavens were passed through His mind successively, serving as the highest human instrumentality in His Glorification, and being by that process corrected, reformed, and re-established into a new and superior image of the Divine Human. This view gives us an exalted idea of the meaning of the Son of a Man who suffered, and at the same time it places a proper limitation upon that in the Lord which was capable of suffering.

     The Doctrine teaches that suffering cannot be predicated of the essential Divine, for no angel or spirit can in any degree approach this. The same is true of the Divine Good, and of the essential Divine Truth which, being above all appearances or finite forms, cannot be brought within the reach of affliction. To be explicit, that in the Lord which suffered is called the "Truth Divine bound." This Truth is represented in the Word by the binding of Isaac by Abraham. We quote:

     Truth Divine when bound was what could be tempted in the Lord.... It was this Truth that was no longer acknowledged when the Lord was in the world, wherefore it was that by virtue of which the Lord underwent and sustained temptations. This Truth Divine in the Lord is what is called the Son of Man. but Good Divine in the Lord is what is called the Son of God. Concerning the Son of Man the Lord frequently declares that He should suffer, but never concerning the Son of God. . . . "Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and the son of Man shall be delivered to the chief Priests and to the Scribes, and they shall condemn Him, and shall deliver Him to the Gentiles to mock and scourge Him, and to crucify," (Matt. xx, 19).

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In all of which, by the Son of Man, is meant the Lord as to Truth Divine, or as to the Word in the internal sense, i. e., that it should be rejected by the chief Priests and Scribes, should be spitefully entreated, should be scourged, spat upon, and crucified. . . . The Lord's rising again upon the third day implies also, that 'Truth Divine, or the Word, as to its internal sense, as it was understood in the Ancient Church, should rise again in the consummation of the Age; which also is the third day: wherefore it is said that there should appear the sign of the Son of Man (i. e., a revelation of the internal sense of the Word). A. C. 2813.

     Again,

     Truth Divine in the Lord's Human Divine which underwent temptations . . . is not the essential Divine Truth . . . but it is Truth Rational, such as the angels are in, consisting of appearances of truth, and is what is called the Son of Man, but before Glorification. . . . In order that a distinct idea may be had of this most mysterious circumstance, it may be expedient to call the truth appertaining to the Lord, which could be tempted and which underwent temptation, Truth Divine in the Lord's Human Divine. But the truth which could not be tempted,. . .by the appellation Divine Truth in the Lord's Divine Human. A. C. 2814.

     This rational Truth Divine was with the Lord prior to His Glorification. He acquired it by the ordinary human method of learning. The Written Scripture was His teacher. This is clear from the fact that He began life in total ignorance and by degrees learned all things. From first crude beginnings He successively passed through all outward appearances to inward angelic realities, even to the inmost, receiving into his mind the sum of finite thought and affection. As to this totality of human good and truth He was called the Son of Man. It appears, therefore, that He became the Son of Man in an even higher degree as He ascended from lower to higher forms of truth; that He as a man assumed the heavens to Himself and made of them a basis for His ascension to the Divine. The heavens served in this capacity as a higher human than that assumed from the world of nature, which yet was one with the worldly human, even as a man's internal is one with his external, or as his mind is one with his body.

     Mary clothed the Divine Soul with a material body; the heavens vested it with an angelic mind; the Lord Glorified both. For as to both He was the Son of Man who was tempted and by temptations Glorified.

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From this we would anticipate that the Gospels would predicate Glorification of the Son of Man but not of the Son of God. And such is the case. Nowhere is it said that the Son of God should be Glorified but of the Son of Man, Jesus said: "The hour is come that the Son of Man should be Glorified. . . Father Glorify Thy Name. Then a voice came from heaven, I have both Glorified and will Glorify it again." John xii, 23, 28.

     As it was the Son of Man alone who could be tempted, it follows that of Him alone could Glorification be predicated, for Glorification was the result of temptation. And as we have seen, this Son of Man was none other than the Truth Divine bound, which was truth in the heavens in the minds of the angels, or what is the same, the Truth infilling the heavens and descending thence into the world, which Truth was the same as the internal sense of the Word, including also its literal sense.

     This infilling and descending Truth being the characteristic of the Son of Man, and being that by which the Divine manifests itself, is none other than that which we know as the Truth of Revelation. Hence we would expect to find the coming of the Lord, in and by revelation, spoken of as a coming of the Son of Man; and this especially of the Second Coming, when the truths of the internal sense of the Word were to be revealed in angelic brightness. And in this connection we observe that it was the Son of Man whom Daniel saw in the clouds of the heavens; which vision is the well-known representation of the Second Advent.

     In the New Testament also the invariable custom is to speak of the Second Coming as a coming of the Son of Man. The disciples said, "What shall be the sign of Thy coming?" Jesus answered, "The Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven," which signifies a revelation of the internal sense of the Word, i. e., of angelic Truth Divine.

     If we trace this matter further and inquire into the first pronounced effect of the coming of the Lord, we shall find it to be that of Judgment; because He never effects a general coming unless the condition in both worlds is such that a separation between the good and evil has become a prime necessity. This separation, we are told, is accomplished by an influx of Truth from Him, and is, moreover, an influx of that Truth signified by the Son of Man. Hence we read that it was the Son of Man who placed the sheep on His right hand and the goats on His left. (Matt. xxv. 31, 33.)

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It was the Son of Man who judged the twelve tribes of Israel. (Matt. xix. 28.) Of Him, also, it is said that He should render unto every man according to his deeds, (Matt. xvi, 27). And before Him the worthy should stand. (Luke xxi. 36). Furthermore it is directly stated that "The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment to the Son . . . and hath given Him authority, because He is the Son of Man." (John v. 22, 27.)

     Judgment is the first effect of revealed Truth. It separates the evil from the good, which separation is mainly accomplished in the world of spirits, but not so manifestly in this world. Still the difference is only an appearance. Involved in every general judgment there are innumerable particular ones pertaining to individual men. By the reception of the truths of Revelation evils and falses are parted from goods and truths in the minds of men. This separation is the first and also the last step in man's regeneration. That is, by it he is reformed, regenerated and saved. Such, then, is the special function of the Son of Man with the individual. Hence we are taught: "The Son of Man came to give His life a redemption for many," (Matt. xx. 28). "The Son of Man came to save," (Luke ix. 56) "The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost," (Luke ix, 56). "The Son of Man forgives sins," (Mark ii. 10). "He is the Lord of the Sabbath," (Luke vi. 5). "He is the meat which endureth unto everlasting life." (John vi. 27).

     Now we observe that wherever in the New Testament the term "Son of Man" is employed, one or more of the following subjects is treated of: 1st. His sufferings or passion and thence also His Glorification; 2d. His advent into the world, either First or Second, especially the Second; 3d. Judgment on the occasion, either general or particular; and 4th. Reformation and Regeneration, that is, salvation.

     Considering, then, that it was the Son of Man who could be tempted and thus undergo Glorification, and that neither of these things could be predicated of the Son of God, and observing that the Son of Man is predicated of the Divine in the heavens, we must conclude that the Son of God is the Divine above the heavens, for only that which is above the heavens is beyond the reach of temptation.

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And if in this connection we would complete the Trine, we must say that the Father is the Infinite Divine in Itself; thus making an apparent distinction between the Divine in Itself and the Divine proximately above the heavens. Contrasting this with the usual Trine of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we observe that the Son of Man and the Holy Spirit are parallel. Moreover, the teaching of the Writings concerning these two as the Divine infilling the heavens is constant. In one passage they are mentioned together as having the same significance in this respect. However, there is a remarkable distinction between them which must be noted. It is said that the Son of Man was Truth Divine in the Lord prior to His Glorification, while of the Holy Spirit it is said that it was "not yet" because Jesus was not yet glorified. The conclusion is obvious that the Son of Man became the Holy Spirit by Glorification.

     Both remain the last named in the Trinity, but the change from the one to the other indicates that great change which occurred in the heavens at the time of the Glorification, which we may indicate by saying that the Truth Divine bound became the Divine Truth proceeding and infilling. The difference between the two is a grand one, for the Holy Spirit is also free from all temptation. The Son of Man, glorified, can no more be afflicted. No longer can He be touched by the sphere of evil. And this leads to a consideration of that other distinction made when it is said that a sin against the Son of Man may be forgiven, but not a sin against the Holy Spirit. There is not time, at present, to trace this matter into its details, but it is interesting to note that inasmuch as regeneration is a type of glorification, so with the individual a sin against the Son of Man is the same as a sin prior to regeneration; while a sin against the Holy Spirit is to sin after regeneration. The first may be forgiven but not the latter.

     It would appear, then, that by Glorification the Son of Man became the Holy Spirit. And we might expect a discontinuance of the use of that term after the Glorification was accomplished. Such, however, is not the case, for it was predicted that the Lord as the Son of Man should come again, and this because the Son of Man signifies the internal sense of the Word, or the angelic understanding thereof, which was to be revealed in the latter days.

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This angelic understanding was not the same before as after the Glorification; but it was similar in this that Divine Truth could only be comprehended, and therefore revealed, under finite forms or human appearances, find Divine Truth thus accommodated is the Son of Man, whether before or after Glorification, and call only by adequately expressed by that term.

     All the names of the Lord, when resolved into their supreme significance, merge into one idea. Yet wisdom consists in seeing this one idea under several aspects and according to different degrees. Hence the Trine is given Its, not a trine of Persons, nor even of essentials, but a trinal progression of the One Essential. Such a trinal progression is necessitated by the fact that the human mind must contemplate the absolute Infinite on the one hand, and the concrete finite on the other; and by the further fact that the finite was produced from the Infinite,--that creation is and can only be a result of the uncreate. Thus we must conceive of the absolute Divine in itself; then of the Divine in the conatus or effort to pass into creation, and finally of the Divine in creation. These are not three but one essential. The Father is the Divine in itself. The Son is the Divine passing into creation The Holy Spirit, or Son of Man, is the Divine in creation.

     For this reason it was said above that while the Son of Man was the Divine in the heavens, the Son of God was the Divine above the heavens. Of course, the Son of God is and always was one with the Father; the Divine conatus is one with the Divine Esse. Yet we are allowed to conceive of the distinction here made and think of the Divine conatus as it touches the plane of first finition above the heavens producing the appearance of the Spiritual Sun. A philosophic idea of this Divine, here regarded as the Son of God in the abstract sense, is given in Swedenborg's work Oat the Infinite, where it is called the "Divine Nexus" between the Infinite and the finite. That Nexus, while it serves as a medium between the Infinite and the finite, is said to be altogether Divine and one with the Infinite, yet by virtue of its action as a medium, a distinction is made. Human reason certainly demands a medium, yet nothing but Divinity can be predicated of it, and therefore also unity with the Divine Esse. This raises the question whether we may with any degree of propriety speak of the Son of God as prior to the actual assumption of the flesh.

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This can not be done in any individual sense. But the point is whether we may discover in this Divine nexus, existing from the beginning of creation, a parallel with the Son of God, the only Begotten, born in time. The passage referred to in the work On the Infinite speaks of the nexus as the Son of God from eternity, and I am mindful of the fact that that phrase is suggestive of a grave heresy. It should be noted, however, that Swedenborg, while treating of this matter, plainly indicates that the heresy we fear is not entertained by him.

     Certain it is that the term "Son of Man" signifies something which was in existence prior to the assumption of the flesh, and of which we may gain a distinct idea. That something was also Divine in itself, yet it was so clothed with finite appearances as to outwardly appear human, i. e., the Truth Divine in the heavens before the Advent. By Glorification this Divine so infilled those investing appearances as to render them also Divine. Such is the remarkable truth concerning Glorification with reference to every plane assumed, even to the last which consisted of flesh and bones.

     The phenomenon of Glorification with the Lord, and in a limited sense of regeneration with man, is produced by the reflex of the Divine after it has entered created forms by influx. For as by influx all things were created, so by reflux all created things were redeemed, and in the highest sense glorified. Creation by influx has reference to the internal creative process. It presupposes external vessels for the reception of influx, produced by the original Divine Proceeding through the instrumentality of the natural sun.

     In order, then, that the inmost purpose in creation might he accomplished, it was necessary that that which was created should be redeemed. To this end it was needful that every plane of creation should be rebound to the Divine by an indissoluble link, which rebinding consisted in this that the Divine should go forth, enter into, compose, and return, bearing the impress of that which was created back to itself. Now, in order that this might be done, the Infinite Divine sent itself into nature by the process of conception, generation, and birth. Wherefore the Holy Thing born of Mary was "called" the Son of God. The Soul of our Lord thus born, was one with the Infinite Divine; hence by conception. He was the Son of God. By ultimate birth He was the Son of Mary.

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By the gradual opening of His mind, in the degree below the Soul, to the reception of Truth Divine. He became the Son of Man. And by Glorification of both mind and body He re-entered into supreme union with the Soul, which was one with the Infinite Father. Thus Glorification was the return of that which was sent into nature. It was the reflex of the Divine back to the Infinite, bearing with it, however, a certain impress or appearance of creation. Thus the Divine became Human and the Human Divine, by the process of the assumption and Glorification, whereby: creation from firsts to lasts was indissolubly linked to the Divine in the Person of Jesus Christ our Lord.

     It is clear, then, that the Lord was called the Son of God by virtue of the Divine Soul which from the beginning, and at all times, was one with the Father. Wherefore Glorification was not, and could not be, predicated of the Son of God, or this Divine Soul. But on the other hand, His Mind was that which was called the Son of Man. This could be and was Glorified. Hence we would naturally expect to find a different series of subjects treated of in the New Testament, where the Son of God is mentioned, i. e., different from those discovered as pertaining to the Son of Man. And this is certainly the case. We have seen what the predicates of the Son of Man are. Let us now briefly consider those of the Son of God.

     In the beginning of this paper it was noted that the Son of Man was the Lord as to Truth, while the Son of God was the Lord as to good. A variant of the same teaching is, that the Son of Man is the Lord as to the Word, while the Son of God is the Lord as to the Divine Human. Observe that the Divine Human was not only conceived, but also born of Jehovah God! Now it is this Divine Human, thus conceived and born, which is distinctively the Son of God. Therefore, where the Lord's Divinity and His oneness with the Father are treated of, He is called the Son of God, as, for instance, in the case of the overshadowing of Mary. The Divine conception is there insisted upon. Hence the Holy Thing born of Mary was "called" the "Son of God." The term is also found where other subjects are treated of, but these subjects are invariable derivations of this central idea. Thus, from the idea of the Lord's Divinity, and His oneness with the Father, flows the thought of the Divine power resident with Him.

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Hence as the Son of God He performed His many miracles. As the Son of God He cast out devils, calmed the storm and raised the dead.

     The purpose in all these deeds of power was that men might believe in Him as the Son of God, and by belief receive life through Him. Hence these two, i. e., faith in Him and life from Him, are predicated exclusively of the Son of God. "Jesus said . . .Dost thou believe in the Son of God? (John x. 38). "He is condemned already because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten son of God," (John iii. 18). Again, "the hour cometh and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the son of God and they that hear shall live; the Son hath life in Himself," (John v. 25). "These things are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ the son of God, and that believing ye might live through His name," (John xx. 30).

     Thus the Son of God is the Divine Human conceived and born of Jehovah God. His predicates, therefore, are personal Divinity, Oneness with the Father, Divine power thence, and, with men, faith in Him and life from Him. But the predicates of the Son of Man are Temptations, Glorification, Advent in revealed Truth, judgment on the occasion, and regeneration. It can be seen at a glance that these two series are entirely distinct. In fact, they differ at all points. Generally speaking, one is a descending and the other an ascending series. That is, the Son of God, the Divine Soul, descended into the world, while the Son of Man by Glorification ascended up to the Divine. When this was accomplished, the Divine Human was the result, and this Divine Human is both the Son of God and the Son of Man.


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LEVI-CHARITY 1906

LEVI-CHARITY       Rev. C. TH. ODHNER       1906

     "And Leah conceived again, and bare a son, and she said, Now this time my man will cleave unto me, because I have borne to him three sons: therefore she called his name Levi." (Genesis xxix:34).

     It was shown, in the preceding sermons of this course,* that the kingdom of the Lord is established within the regenerating man in an ascending order, described in the Word by the successive births of the twelve sons of Jacob. First the man must learn to know and understand the truths of the Word, which, when believed, make faith, or spiritual sight. This introductory state is represented by Reuben, "the son of sight." Then, as he compels himself to follow the truth in life, there is awakened within him the sense of spiritual hearing, which is called obedience and is represented by Simeon. And finally, as by continued obedience he grows accustomed to the life of faith, this life becomes more and more delightful to him; he begins to become affected with the truth on account of the blessings which it bestows. He begins to love it because he sees in it the hope of eternal salvation for himself and others, and this love of the Lord's truth on account of salvation creates in him a new will, the will of doing what is good, the will of uniting truth with good, the love of ultimating his faith in a life of uses. And thus there is born within him the third great universal or essential of the Church, the one which is called charity and which is represented by Levi, the third son of Jacob.
* See New Church Life, June, 1903, and January, 1904.

     This representation of Levi is involved in his very name, which signifies "conjunction," from a root meaning "to wreathe, to twine, to adhere or cleave unto anyone." From this natural idea of joining, there is but a step to the spiritual idea of mutual love, or charity, and from this we advance to the celestial perception of the Lord's own Divine Mercy and Love, which is charity in the supreme degree, the Divine desire to draw all men unto Himself, to join them to Himself and to each other, and to bless them to eternity with the supreme good of Salvation.


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     This Divine Love of saving mankind is communicated to the regenerating man and burns upon the altar of his inmost heart as the highest and, most enduring of all blessings. It is the love of saving the souls of men, a love which, because it is inmost and most exalted, stands before every other love, and therefore it is called the priestly love. For the word "priest, [from prae-stare], means "one who stands before," one who from a supreme love of serving the Lord and the neighbor in the highest use of charity, acts as leader in the worship and life of the Church. It is this priestly love, the love of the salvation of souls, that is especially represented by Levi, and on this account the office of the priesthood in the Israelitish Church was given to the tribe of Levi.

     As a person Levi figures but once in the Word, and then in a character which represents the very opposite of charity, that is, in the tragic story of the cruel and treacherous massacre of the people of Shechem by Simeon and Levi. Simeon here stands for blind, unthinking obedience, intolerant of opposition and lending itself as the willing tool of Levi, who here stands for the priestly love perverted, the love of the salvation of souls turned into the love of destroying the souls of men. Because of this their crime Simeon and Levi were cursed by their dying father: "Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce; and their wrath, for it was cruel. I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel." (Gen. 49 : 5, 7.)

     In the story of his birth, and in the story of the cruelty of Levi at Shechem, we have the epitome of the role which the priesthood has played throughout the history of mankind. When in its integrity, the priesthood has stood for the highest and holiest form of charity, and has been the chief human instrumentality in the hands of the Lord for the upbuilding of His Church. But when perverted, the priesthood has been of all things the most profane and hypocritical, an "instrument of cruelty" in the hands of the devil, and the chief means of the destruction of every Church.

     As Levi, in his evil representation, was cursed by Jacob, so, in his good and proper significance, he was blessed by Moses: "And of Levi he said, Let thy Thummin and thy Urim be with thy Holy One, They shall teach Jacob thy judgments, and Israel thy law; they shall put incense before Thee, and whole burnt sacrifice upon thine altar. Bless, O Lord, his substance, and accept the work of his hands." (Deut. 33:8-11.)


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     In the Most Ancient Church the office of the priesthood reposed with the father of each family, with the chieftain of each tribe, and with the patriarch of each nation; and each head was not only the priest, but also the judge within his own sphere, thus representing most closely the union of the Divine Priesthood and the Divine Royalty in the One Lord. This union of the two offices continued throughout the history of the Golden Age, and also during the first period of the Ancient Church, as with the early priest-kings of Chaldea, or as with Melchizedek, the priest and king of Salem. But inasmuch as in the Silver Age the two faculties of will and understanding were separated, the two offices naturally became more and more distinct from one another, and gradually there arose in each country a distinct hereditary class or caste of priests, to whom belonged not only the care of the sacred mysteries of oracle, worship and spiritual teaching, but also the cultivation of the arts and sciences.

     Thus also in the Israelitish Church the priesthood was at first according to the patriarchal system, the first-born son of every family being set apart for the sacred office. But when the need arose for a more compact organization of the Church, when the Israelites in the wilderness became a militant nation, the tribe of Levi, the tribe to which Moses and Aaron belonged, was set apart as an hereditary priesthood, a priestly caste such as we find in ancient Egypt and Chaldea and in modern India.

     "And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Bring the tribe of Levi near, and present them before Aaron, the priest, that they may minister unto him. And they shall keep his charge, and the charge of the whole congregation before the tabernacle of the congregation, to do the service of the tabernacle. And I, behold I have taken the Levites from among the children of Israel, instead of all the first-born. Therefore the Levites shall be mine." (Numbers iii:3-12.) And in Deuteronomy we read. "The Lord separated the tribe of Levi, to bear the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord, to stand before the Lord, to minister unto Him, and to bless in His name unto this day. Wherefore Levi hath no part nor inheritance with his brethren; the Lord Himself is his inheritance, according as the Lord thy God promised him." (x:8, 9.)


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     By the tribe of Levi, as a whole, including Aaron, his sons, and all the families of the tribe, was represented the whole work of salvation? that is, every office which the Lord from His Divine Love performs as the Savior of His Church. But by the priesthood of Aaron, especially, was signified the work of salvation of those who are to be of the celestial church; by the priesthood of the sons of Aaron was represented the salvation of those in the spiritual degree of the Church; and by the priesthood of the Levites in general, the salvation of the great multitude of those who remain in the natural degree of good and truth. (A. C. 9809, 10017.) Or, in a more universal sense, by Aaron and his sons is represented the good of the priesthood itself, that is, the love of saving souls, and by the associated Levites are represented the truths which minister to this love. (A. C. 10083; A. E. 710.)

     It is noteworthy that the word which is translated "service," the service of the Levites in the tabernacle, in the original Hebrew means "warfare," (Tsabha), and we are instructed that this was in order that the Levites should represent the Lord, who, "from His love of saving men, saves them by means of truths from the Word, and thereby removes their evils and falsities, continually fighting against them." (A. E. 734; A. C. 1664, 2276). And, this, to priests of the genuine Church, involves the lesson that their office and the whole of their work is a militant one, that they are not set to cry "peace, peace" to the people, but that the Word of God has been placed as a sharp two-edged sword in their hands, to be wielded in continual warfare against evil and falsity. And the fact that no special part of the land of Canaan was given as an inheritance to the Levites, but that they were distributed amongst all the tribes, and received their support by the tithes of all the people,--the Lord Himself being their inheritance,--involves the teaching that the priestly love the love of saving souls, must be universal in the Church. Every man of the Church, from the highest to the most lowly, must be inspired with this love, must work for this one supreme end, the salvation of mankind, which is the sole reason for the existence of the Church on earth. And for the Clergy itself it involves the lesson of supreme trust in the Divine Providence, and the necessity for complete and exclusive devotion to their one use, which in itself is the greatest of all blessings, the richest, the most delightful and the most glorious inheritance that can possibly be given to immortal man.


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     Knowing that the love of the salvation of souls and the service of this love are the supreme and most important of all loves and uses in the Church, we may now understand why so great a part of the Letter of the Word, especially the books of Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy, is devoted to laws for the Levites and their service in tabernacle, temple, and synagogue, laws which in the Letter appear tedious in their often repeated details, but which all of them were given by the Divine Providence to be studied in their internal sense and then to be seen as spiritual and at the same time most practical instructions not only for the priesthood itself, but also for every member of the Church, in their common work for the salvation of souls and the triumphant establishment of the Kingdom of Truth and Justice. Of these laws we cannot speak further at present, but would invite your attention to the consideration of some general aspects of the priesthood, in its good and in its evil character, in the history of the successive Churches that have existed in the world.

     In the Most Ancient Church, as was said above, the priestly office reposed with the father of each family, and to him were given immediate revelations from God through heaven in paradisiacal visions and dreams by night and by day. Each father and chieftain was thus a prophet of God as well as priest and leader of his flock, and his rule was that of most tender and patient love, even as his teaching was all of living wisdom. But mankind fell, and the voice of prophecy was silenced. The love of dominion invaded tents and tabernacles; family strove against family, and patriarch against patriarch. The celestial church was filled with profanation and blood, and the glory of the Golden Age was extinguished in a universal Flood of monstrous evils.

     The scene shifts, some thousands of years pass by, and we find ourselves in the magnificent cities on the Nile or the Euphrates, inhabited by the descendants of Noah in the days of the Silver Age. On all sides we behold avenues of sphinxes and other colossal representations of spiritual truths and virtues.

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In lofty temples, of grand but simple outlines, a well organized priesthood is busy with holy rites, with the teaching of the young, and with the inscription of sacred legends upon the temple-walls, on roils of papyrus, on tablets of clay or slabs of alabaster. It is an age of spiritual love and wisdom, of peace and usefulness. Contentment and happiness reign everywhere, and the light of charity shines upon the faces of people and priests.

     Again some thousands of years pass by, and we find ourselves In the same cities, now more magnificent than ever, but within the temple reign nothing but hypocrisy, idolatrous mummery, and the cruel lust for power over the souls of men; while outside, among the people, we find nothing but gross ignorance, moral corruption, and grinding servitude. Religion has become esoteric. The simple doctrines of the Church of God have been clothed in obscure, artificial mysteries. The Ancient Word has been taken away from the people, and has been hidden in the recesses of the temples, where finally it has been lost. Spiritual truths and the knowledge of the sacred science of correspondence are jealously hidden by the priests who profess that thus only can they prevent these sacred things from being profaned by the uninitiated. Magical arts have been invented, enchanters and pythonic priests are in open intercourse with devils, and by this means take possession of the will-power of men. A gorgeous ritual is offered to the people in lieu of rational teachings. The altars are streaming with blood, and processions of mothers are seen, offering their little ones to the arms of burning idols. Hell reigns triumphant on earth, and the corrupted priesthood has been the primary cause of it all!

     In the midst of these tragic scenes the forgotten Jehovah reveals His holy name to a lonely shepherd in the wilderness of Midian, Moses, the Levite, becomes the revelator of a new Word, the organizer of a new Church, which is to be pure, if not in heart, yet at least in its representative worship of the One God. For a thousand years and more the Levites remain the guardians and teachers of the only Monotheistic religion in the whole world. But for them Polytheism and Idolatry would have gained complete victory. But for their jealous care the Word of the Old Testament would have been lost.

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Christianity would never have become possible, and mankind would ultimately have been destroyed by the powers of Hell. But, like the other tribes, the Levites often proved unfaithful to their stewardship. They never understood what they were doing, even at their best. They were the bitter enemies of any innovation or progress. They falsified the Word by their fanciful kabbalistic interpretations, and by their absurd "traditions of the elders." They laid useless ritualistic burdens upon the people; they stoned the prophets of God, and it was they and their high priest, Caiaphas, who, in conjunction with Herod, finally secured the unjust condemnation of the Lord Himself. Thus, again, Levi and Simeon, the priesthood and its blind followers, joined hands in the persecution of Innocence. "Instruments of cruelty "were in their habitations." The greatest crime ever committed in the history of the world, was a crime committed by the priesthood.

     The Christian Church was established by the preaching of the Lord Himself, who, in His human, made himself our "high priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek," and He Himself instituted and "ordained" the Christian priesthood among His apostles who afterwards transmitted their office to their associates and successors Shall we of the New Christian Church think lightly of the labors of these priests of early Christianity, their patient work, their tribulations and bloody martyrdoms? What would have become of the Lord's Church but for these faithful and fearless leaders, who counted as nothing all the contempt and persecution that the world and hell could waste upon their mortal bodies; who gladly suffered horrible tortures and forms of death such as can scarcely be described, rather than deny, by the least compromising, their faith in the Lord their Savior.

     Where would our modern civilization be but for the courage of the devoted missionaries who, with the Gospel in hand, invaded the regions of the dreaded Northern barbarians from whom have sprung all the Teutonic nations? And where would Christian Theology be but for the conscientious and enlightened labors of the early Fathers, who drew from the Letter of the Word those universal truths of Christian Doctrine, upon which, in the fulness of time, the Lord in His Second Coming founded the Doctrine of the New Jerusalem? All this service of the Christian priesthood,--this essential service in the work of the salvation of souls,--must be gladly acknowledged by the men of the New Church, for we, too, are Christians, and their work is now our work, though on a higher, more internal plane.


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     Though the Christian Church as a whole soon fell away from its purity, like a star that falls from heaven, yet the Lord provided that a remnant of the true priesthood should be preserved, through whom the simple good could still be fed with the bread of life. And so we find, throughout the Dark Ages and the era of the Reformation, a chain of eminent teachers who kept alive the flickering light of Christian truth until it was finally extinguished in the Old Church during this present era of the Last Judgment. And beside these there has been in every nation many an honest priest in town and country, who has been thoroughly filled with the sacred love of the salvation of souls, faithful shepherds who through the long and awful night have been watching on the hillside beside their flocks, in the patient expectation of a new revelation from heaven that would betoken the advent of a New Day.

     But among the leaders of the Christian Church, among the rulers of Temple and synagogue in the Old Church, what scenes of strife and cruelty, what a history of corruption and spiritual degradation. The Christian priesthood, whom the Lord Himself appointed the bearer of His Divine Light, "O Lucifer, son of the morning, how art thou fallen from heaven? For thou hast said in thine heart. I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the North. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High." (Isaiah 14:12-14.) The Catholic priesthood which claimed for itself the power of opening and shutting the gates of heaven and of hell, and which proclaimed its human head the "Vicar of Christ" and the "infallible" God on earth! The Protestant priesthood that laid the human understanding in chains under obedience to their false dogmas; and then proclaimed faith in those dogmas to be the sole means of salvation! The Christian priesthood, Catholic and Protestant, which has betrayed its One Lord, forsaken His Word, and extinguished the flame of Charity in the Church,--"how art thou fallen from heaven," how "hast thou been brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit!" (Isaiah 14: 15)

     But we need not dwell, here, upon the abomination of desolation brought about in the sanctuary by the Christian priesthood.

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Its history is written in letters of fire and blood in the annals of the Catholic Church; and in the Protestant Churches its story is written in the ecclesiastical "black-letters" of sectarian dogmatism and strife, perversion of truth, arrogance, self-seeking, sanctimoniousness and hypocrisy, until the sacred office has become an object of contempt with thinking people, and all the Churches find it increasingly difficult to induce manly young men to enter their pulpits.

     No wonder, then, that in the New Christian Church it has been so difficult to establish a true regard for the priestly office. No wonder that the early members of the New Church have regarded with jealous suspicion the effort to establish a distinct and self-perpetuating priesthood- in the Church of the New Jerusalem!

     And yet, without such a priesthood, how can the New Church be established among men, and advance into interior understanding and life? We have, in the New Church, a Revelation containing the most profound Theology that has ever been given to any Church. The mastery of its mere outlines involves the study of a lifetime, and how can a man whose mind and time are occupied with the cares of this world hope to accomplish such a task without the aid of those to whom Providence has given the opportunity and, above all, the desire to enter more interiorly into the arcana of faith and of the spiritual sense of the Word?

     But, a more important consideration, since we acknowledge the doctrine of degrees in all things, we must acknowledge also that there are degrees in that inmost affection of charity which is the love of providing for the salvation of the souls of men. Some are more affected by this love and some are less. Some feel impelled to serve in this use directly, devoting the whole of their life to it, while others feel it their duty rather to serve it indirectly by supporting those who have thus devoted themselves to the service of the Lord and His Church. And so, in spite of prejudices on account of the past abuses of the office, and in spite of the democratic tendency of the human proprium which will not acknowledge anyone superior to itself in any sense or respect, considerations of common sense,--not to speak of the positive teachings of the Writings,--compel us to admit the necessity for a distinct priesthood in the New Church.

     A receiver of the Heavenly Doctrine has no excuse for remaining in willful prejudices against the priestly office simply because of past abuses, for there is no truth or good in heaven or on earth that has not been abused, but this fact should not cause us to reject the good and the truth itself.

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And the very fact that the office has been abused to such a direful extent of profanation, and has been so powerful an instrument of destruction and damnation, this fact by itself indicates how holy that office must be, and how powerful it must be for good and salvation, when in its proper use.

     For those who believe in no other priesthood than the one which is universal, the Writings of the New Church contain this warning disclosure: "There were some who have rejected the priestly office, saying that the priesthood is universal, thus with all. Some of these had read the Word quite diligently, but, inasmuch as they had lived in evil, they had seized upon abominable dogmas thence. Of these there are many. These, also, were cast down from heaven, but from behind, because they had preached clandestinely." (S. D. 4904) Of these, also, there have been a great many, even in the New Church; lay preachers who, by their stubborn self-will, combined with a woeful misunderstanding of the interior truths of the Doctrines. have destroyed society upon society in the Church; men who by their heresies have direfully infested the Church with celestialism, spiritism and other "isms," thus abundantly illustrating the force of the teaching that "good call be insinuated into another by anyone in the country, but not truth, except by those who are teaching ministers. If others do it, heresies come forth, and the Church is disturbed and torn to pieces." (A. C. 6822.)

     But enough has been said on the necessity of a distinctive priesthood, since this office is not, at present, being actively denied in the New Church. But there is an aspect of our text which needs special consideration at this time, as at any time, and that is the proper significance of the term "universal priesthood." For in spite of the abuses and misunderstandings to which this term is liable, the fact remains that there is and must be such a universal priesthood in the Church, and that without it no distinct priesthood can be possible, and no actual and effective service of the Lord for the salvation of human souls.

     This fact is involved in the words of our text, which, being the Word of the Lord, are of universal as well as specific application.

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The birth of Levi is the birth of Charity, the birth of the highest form of Charity, which is the love of saving souls, and this love is the gift of the Lord to every regenerating man and woman. For a man cannot be a living member of the Church unless he have Charity, and he cannot have genuine Charity unless his Charity has regard for the spiritual and eternal good of his neighbor, that is, his salvation from internal misery and want, from falsity and evil and everlasting death. All other ends and motives of Charity, unless this supreme end be present in it, are but temporary, superficial, and of no real use.

     Every true member of the Church has this supreme end inmostly, even though more or less unconsciously, present in all that he does. With the mother who bears and nurses and teaches her little ones, it is the priestly love that burns in her heart when she does this great use of charity in order to increase the Lord's Kingdom on earth and in heaven. The father who clothes and feeds his children, who instructs and corrects them, is a priest unto the Lord not only in the worship of the home but in every least act of his daily use, when his inmost end is to provide for and bring up moral members of the Church and future angels of Heaven. And so in every use and calling, but especially in the use of providing for the needs of the Church itself, it is the priest in the individual man that brings his sacrifice of inmost love,--be it the widows mite or the gold of the wealthy,--to the altar of the Lord, in order that the means of eternal salvation may exist on earth.

     How little we think, when we offer our gift at worship, that we do, or should do this as priests and ministers of the Lord, that we are inmostly one in the priesthood with him who officiates at the altar and expounds the Word of God. His responsibility is our responsibility, his work is our work,--for without our co-operation he can do nothing; nay if all men were to refuse their co-operation, the Lord Himself, the Divine High-priest, could do nothing for the salvation of the race!

     While emphasizing the necessity for a distinct priesthood in the Church, for the sake of the order without which no organic service of the Lord is possible, let us not dwell so much upon, his distinctiveness that we lose sight of the essential unity of Clergy and Laity in their love and their faith. What has been the results of such overdrawn distinction in the former Churches?

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On the one hand, a Clergy that has regarded itself as the sole possessor of the means of salvation, and which for the sake of dominion, has closed the understanding of the Word to the people; and, on the other hand a Laity in whom all spiritual interest is extinct, a worldly, sensual people who leave all internal things, all thought of the Lord and the eternal life, to the ministers who are paid to do the thinking for them. Even in the New Church there has been this tendency of the Clergy and the Laity to separate from one another, and to look upon one another either with jealousy or with indifference, a tendency which may be compared to the Roman Catholic custom of separating the wine and the bread in the Holy Supper. It has been felt in various ways in the New Church, and we need not wonder at this, since we inherit this tendency from many generations of Protestant and Catholic ancestors. But it is felt especially and most harmfully in the tendency of the Laity to forsake the thought and study of spiritual things, and relegate it to the Clergy alone. In the beginning of each society and general body of the Church this is not so, for then the Writings are eagerly read, the doctrinal classes are replete with questions the private conversations turn on subjects of spiritual interest. But as the new organization becomes settled, and the charm of novelty wears off, a period of lethargy generally sets in. The conversations are still, perhaps, on subjects of the Church, but most often on the external things of the Church, Church policy, government, or personalities. There is not the same hunger for the Doctrines themselves; the reading of the Writings falls off; the doctrinal classes are tame and unresponsive; there is impatience with doctrinal sermons. In short, there is a lack of reaction on the part of the Church, and as a result the Clergy itself no longer enjoys the same gift of influx and illustration as in "the early, halcyon days."

     The Clergy cannot live on bread alone, for it draws its energy and its very existence from and according to the spiritual support which the men of the Church give it; it lives on the spiritual affection of truth, on the love of the salvation of souls that must prevail in the Church if it is to remain a Church. In so far as the love of salvation is active among the members of the Church; in so far, therefore, as the Lord's priestly love is universal amongst them, in so far will that love seek the truths and the intelligence by which it may accomplish its heavenly ends.

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And then will the specific Clergy be supported and born upward and onward by this universal sphere of love and intelligence, and the Kingdom of the Lord and His work of salvation will then prosper and bear blessed fruit.

     It is, therefore, of the utmost importance that every member of the Church should bear in mind that he, as well as the ministers, should consecrate his life to the service of the Lord in the universal priesthood; that he cannot entirely cast his individual priestly responsibility upon any special class of men; that in all that he does he must strive for the highest good of his neighbor, which is eternal salvation; that as a priest it is his duty as well as his inestimable privilege to prepare himself for this work by entering interiorly into the mysteries of the faith and of the Word; that as a priest his "lips should keep knowledge and seek the Law, for he is the messenger of the Lord of Hosts." (Mal. ii:7.)

     For it is to the whole Church, and to every member thereof, man or woman, that the Lord hath promised that "If hearing ye shall have heard My voice, and shall have kept My Covenant, then ye shall be unto Me a peculiar treasure above all the peoples; and ye shall be unto Me a Kingdom of priests and a holy nation." (Ex. 19:5, 6.) "Unto Him that loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and His Father,"--that is, Unto Him who from love and mercy reforms and regenerates men by His Divine truths from the Word, and fills them with spiritual wisdom and the love of saving souls.--"Unto Him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen."


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SWEDENBORG THE WONDERFUL 1906

SWEDENBORG THE WONDERFUL       RANDOLPH W. CHILDS       1906

     The final revelation of the Divine Truth is the revelation of the Internal Sense of the Word. By it was established the New Church, the crown of all churches. All previous churches have been representative and temporary, the New Church is real and eternal.

     All prior revelations have been preparatory to this final revelation; hence this final revelation includes and completes all former revelation. It is a revelation not on a single plane but on all planes. It is a revelation that conjoins the Lord and man, heaven and earth,--a revelation accommodated to the wisdom of angels and at the same time to men, consequently above all, a rational revelation.

     All Divine revelation has been effected through a human instrumentality. This crowning revelation since it is a rational revelation required a rational instrument. Such an instrument must stand in an intermediate relation between the natural world and the spiritual world. He must be equally present in both spheres in order that he may perceive the relation or ratio between the two worlds. This perception of the relation or ratio between the spiritual and the natural is the keynote of this final revelation. Such an intermediate instrumentality must receive truth in the spiritual mind and set forth that truth through the natural mind. So only can the Divine Truth as perceived in the celestial heaven be accommodated to the understanding of man in the world.

     These conditions are fulfilled in the case of Emanuel Swedenborg. In him the scientific and rational plane was developed to an unparalleled extent. His spiritual mind was then opened to a celestial degree. Truth inflowing from the Lord could now find a resting place on every plane, for his mind, open both to heaven and earth, could draw correct comparisons. Emanuel Swedenborg was a vessel fashioned to receive the fullest of Divine Revelations.


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     With these general aspects before us we can better take up the subject of this paper--Swedenborg the Wonderful.

     In a wide view he is wonderful as the instrumentality of the Second Coming of the Lord in the Internal Sense of the Word. In particular he is wonderful, extraordinary, unique in being the only man who has been the rational instrument of revelation. In the Diary (3963) We read: "The state with me has been so ordered by the Lord that I could be possessed by spirits and still they could not injure me at all. Others who have been obsessed were not in their right mind while I am exactly like myself." Swedenborg is thus the only man who has stood in an intermediate state between spirits and men.

     In this capacity he could receive and embody in human writing this crowning Divine revelation. In the Arcana (11) we read: "It has been given me to hear and see stupendous things which are in the other life and which have never come to the knowledge of any man and not into his idea."

     As a rational instrument of the Second Advent Swedenborg saw the Lord in the highest view possible to man. He saw the Lord in person in His Glorified Human, in the Internal Sense of the Word and as the Sun of heaven. Throughout his life his conception of God was unerring. From his childhood his idea of God was of one God, and this idea stored up in the interior rational of his mind could be later expanded indefinitely. The verity of his idea of God at the time of the writing of the Adversaria may be seen in the following passage: "There is no other (God) than Jesus of Nazareth, Saviour of the world and Redeemer of His people, who is here called Jehovah the Redeemer (Adv. I. 503) Swedenborg in this idea was Divinely led even from the first.

     This Divine guidance is evident in all Swedenborg's career. He himself notes this and wonders "how the tenor of Divine Providence has ruled the tenor of my life from adolescence itself, and has governed so that at last I arrived at this end--that I could understand through the knowledge of natural things, and could thus of the Divine mercy of God Messiah serve as an instrument for the opening of the things which lie inmostly concealed in the Word of God Messiah" (Adv. I. 839).


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     Early in the Adversaria "the representations of the Messiah Himself, such as were given in the ancient times," occurred to Swedenborg in a state of waking sleep. His general idea of the Lord was filled with innumerable particulars as he progressed in writing the Adversaria, until in the Arcana we find the doctrine of the Lord in its fullness. In this paper, however, we cannot follow the progression of this idea of God throughout the Adversaria--it is a deep subject by itself.

     Being circumstanced as he was, namely, being a rational instrument or revelator, Swedenborg was particularly exposed to the assaults of hell. Countless of the evil crew lust to return to earth and destroy men. This return to earth is ordinarily impossible since the devils do not know with what men they are associated, and hence cannot gain actual possession of men's bodies. But in Swedenborg they saw a man equally conscious in both worlds, through whose eyes spirits could see into the natural world. Here was a man who bridged the two worlds; if they could control him their plan could be effected. In this assault not only the imaginary heavens but also the deeper hells joined, and the result was a most terrible combat imaged in such passages as these from the Adversaria: "I could never express the horrible temptations which have occurred to me, for they would surpass all human faith" (4512). "Those temptations which I have experienced are such as ought rather to be consigned to deep oblivion than published before man, for they could not do otherwise than overwhelm all minds. The Divine Power of the Lord alone saved me from these last temptations" (7529). It may be possible that such temptations as these could not be shunned even "as from self," but were removed by the Lord immediately. There are instances of spirits trying to suffocate him, to stab him, to obsess him, and at one time he was surrounded "by all the powers of hell, both within and without." But the Lord was ever present with His Divine Power to save.

     All these attacks of hell ware permitted for an end--and this end was that Swedenborg might perceive from actual experience the nature of evil, and especially that all power and lift was from the Lord, and that man of himself was altogether helpless and dead.

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When he "consulted himself in heavenly matters he fell back," and was only restored by the power of the Lord. Again, when restraint was taken away he rushed headlong into evils, till at length, from living experience, he could admit most humbly that of himself he was utterly base, and it was in this state that the Lord could come in fulness. The servant of the Lord must be above all others a little child.

     Swedenborg saw that the Lord was life, and that men were receptacles of life, and from this most general truth he could readily come into particular truths. He was, perhaps, beyond all other men, a man standing in a perfect stream of influx. Early in the Adversaria he perceived the going forth of the Divine Truth, its reception by man and its return to the Creator; perceived--and in a sensible manner--this influx and reflux, this action and reaction, this involution and evolution, this revolution.

     This experience occurred in the following manner: "The Kingdom of God was first shown to me in the repose of sleep and afterwards in the middle of the day, or in the time of wakefulness, so that I perceived it most clearly with the very sense itself, that is to say, how angels from Jehovah, the Only Begotten Son of God, descended and ascended as by a ladder, and by means of voices, oft repeated, conveyed a voice from on high to my ear" (Ad., 541). A remarkable passage! for it indicates that Swedenborg was granted a perception of the general plan of life--the relation of God and man. On reference to the Arcana where the subject of Jacob's ladder is treated of, we can better understand the meaning of the above quotation. "All goods and truths descend from the Lord and ascend to Him, that is, that He is the First and the Last; for man is so created that the Divine things of the Lord may descend through him into the ultimate things of nature and thus by man as but a uniting medium the very ultimate things of nature might have life from the Divine, which would have been the case if man had lived according to Divine order." By this perception Swedenborg was, as it were, conveyed to the top of a great mountain whence he could view life in a universal view.

     This understanding of the relation between the Infinite and the finite also involved the relation between the spiritual and the natural.

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As an inhabitant equally of both worlds he could form a judgment of them; he could draw between them a ratio, and hence obtain a rational view. As has been previously said, this experience is wonderful because altogether unique. It surpassed the communication with heaven and earth enjoyed by the men of the Most Ancient Church, in that their minds were not so developed on the rational plane, and hence they could not so accurately draw the ratio between the two worlds. Indeed, so lucid was Swedenborg's perception in this matter, that is, the relation between the spiritual and natural, the celestial, spiritual and natural, that he could instruct the highest angels on this subject. In De Verbo we read: "That there is such a difference between the natural, the spiritual and the celestial, no angel knows. The reason is that an angel does not change his state nor does he pass from a spiritual state into a natural one so as to be able to explore the difference. I have spoken to them on this subject and they said that they did not know the difference. . . . Concerning this thing it has been granted me to instruct the angels themselves, because it has been granted me to be in both worlds by turn, and from one to explore the other, and they afterwards confessed that it is thus." (10). Again, Swedenborg was aided in his Divinely appointed work by the experience of all men who had lived previous to his advent. His intercourse with spirits was not confined to one race or generation, to one world or era, to one solar system or age. His view extended to all peoples in all planes in all time. He could view universal life in a moment of time. It is probable that no other man has ever enjoyed such an outlook. This vast storehouse of experience was laid open to Swedenborg in order that the Lord might present through him the fullest and crowning revelation of Divine Truth.

     As an illustration of how Swedenborg was taught by experience, we may cite his experience of resuscitation. Here was a process which might have been described to him by words. But a rational understanding demanded experimental proof, and consequently he experienced this process several times. It is probable that Swedenborg is the only man who ever experimentally passed through the process of resuscitation.


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     Swedenborg's natural experience was necessary to his spiritual experience, for thence he saw the mutual dependence of one world upon the other. It is impossible here to consider the matter at length. Let this one instance suffice. While in an angelic state he perceived the relation of all spiritual forms to the human body. If, now, he had not studied the human body he could have grasped but little of this truth. But by the Providence of the Lord he had been led to a particular study of the human body; he had penetrated to the inmost fibres; he knew more about the human body than any other man of his time, and perhaps of all times. Hence the spiritual truth in all its fullness could flow into natural truth. Just as the disciples from becoming natural fishermen had become spiritual fisherman, so in this case. Swedenborg from a natural anatomist had become a spiritual anatomist.

     From the wealth of material on Swedenborg's experiences opened to the student of the Writings and the scientific works, it is difficult to discover the few threads that connect all. It will require prolonged investigation--so we must pass on. In conclusion, it may be well to consider why we have all this account of Swedenborg's personal history, wonderful as it is, presented in the Writings and the scientific works. Some have asked the question and without waiting for an answer have used the scissors on what they considered extraneous. Foolish ones! Swedenborg's experiences are given that revealed truth may be seen in actual operation in the light of heaven, that we may see the laws of the spiritual world working, and that we may apply these laws to our own life. In our reception of the Lord's Truth we ourselves must in some measure pass through the same preparation undergone by Swedenborg. In the descriptions of his temptations do we not see pictured our own temptations? In his despair do we not recognize our own hopelessness of delivery from our evil nature? In his utter humility do we not see presented our own helplessness and dependence on the Lord? All men on earth are, as to their interiors, in the spiritual world; they are there unconsciously. Swedenborg was in the spiritual world consciously. Therefore, to clearly view our own spiritual experience we must first see his spiritual experience. The development of Swedenborg's spiritual biography, as has been said, is a work of the future--and an important work.

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When this biography is written we shall be better able to understand the expression, "Swedenborg the Wonderful."

     Finally, the wonder we experience at the study of Swedenborg is not a wonder at anything inherent in the man. It is not a wonder founded upon any such personal quality. It is a wonder at Swedenborg the instrument by which was effected the crowning revelation of Divine Truth. Let each one of us lift his eyes above and pray that he may be worthy to call himself, as did this first
Newchurchman, "the Servant of the Lord."
SWEDENBORG 1906

SWEDENBORG       Jr. CHARLES R. PENDLETON       1906

     IN THE DAWN OF THE NEW DISPENSATION.

     The Dawn of the New Dispensation properly begins about the year 1736, eleven years before Swedenborg commenced the Arcana. It was about that time that he began to have preternatural experiences.

     These experiences came first in the form of peculiar dreams; later, fiery lights; afterwards, in dreams which he could partly interpret; then came visions, while he was, as he says, "Neither awake nor asleep;" also infestations by evil spirits, causing tremors to pass over his whole body: and finally, one day in a vision he saw a man who spoke to him, at which, says he, "I was greatly astonished." (S. D. 2951)

     That same night he was introduced into the spiritual world, and was permitted to speak with spirits and angels (Dec. 5). Then, for two years or more, he was led about in the spiritual world studying its phenomena, and at the same time studying the Word in its original language. Finally, about the middle of the year 1747, he was sufficiently prepared to begin his work of revelation.


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     Nothing definite can be known about his earlier dreams, for his account of them has been lost. The first mention of any peculiar occurrence, is at the end of a small tract, the Corpuscular Philosophy in Brief, written in 1740, where he says, "these things are true, for I have the sign." This "sign" was probably a fiery light, which he later describes as having seen very often about this time.

     The next experiences we find in his private Dream-book for the years 1743 and '44, which describes by far the greater part of those experiences which led up to the opening of his spiritual eyes. In this diary there are many accounts of dreams, by which he was instructed about the work he was then doing, as, for instance, about the state of the lungs in the embryo. He was also instructed that the key to the lungs is the pulmonary artery: that he should not make the notes to the Animal Kingdom so long; that he must not complete the Economy of the Animal Kingdom as he had intended; that he should proceed to the work On the Brain; that he had not properly arranged and carried out a certain subject, etc. (Dream Book, nos. 1, 6, 14, 70, 148, 165.)

     A very good illustration of the character of these dreams is found in the following extract:

     [In a dream] I came into a splendid chamber, where I conversed with a lady of the court. She was just on the point of telling me something, when the Queen entered, and passed through into another room. It seemed to me that she was the same woman who [just before] represented our successor, [the heir-apparent, Adolphus Frederick], upon which I left the room, for I was rather meanly dressed, as I had just come from my journey, and wore a long worn-out over-coat, and was without hat and wig. I was surprised that she, the [Queen], deigned to come after me; she informed me that a certain person had just given his mistress all his jewels; but had received them back again, when she was told that he had not given her the best; [upon hearing which] she threw away the jewels. She [the queen] urged me to enter, but I excused myself by the plea that I was so negligently dressed, and had no wig, so I must go home first. She said that this did net matter.

     The meaning of this is that I should then write and commence the epilogue of the second volume [of the Animal Kingdom] to which I wanted to write a preface, which was not, however, required. I acted upon this instruction. (Dream Book, n. 5.)


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     Besides being instructed, by these dreams, on the subjects upon which he was then writing, he was also instructed upon many other subjects, as, for example, that there was danger of his falling into an abyss unless he received help; that there was nothing wrong in what he was doing ii he would do it right; that a great deal of evil was rooted out of his thoughts the day before; that God spoke to him, but that he understood but little because it was by means of representations; that he should send his work to England to be printed; that he was to receive assistance in his work from a Higher hand, so that he should be employed simply as an instrument; that what he had written, with God's help. would lead him to see still more glorious things; that his book, the worship and Love of God, was a Divine book, and many other things. (Ibid, 3, 72, 75, 116, 117, 167, 176, 182.)

     Although Swedenborg, until his spiritual eyes were opened, continued to have dreams, the signification of which he partly understood, he also soon began to have visions when he was not asleep. It seems that he saw spirits in the other world, either as they were or under representative forms, though he did not fully realize what they were until several years afterwards. A good example of these is the following:

     Something very wonderful happened to me. Violent tremors came over me. . . . I expected to be thrown on my face, as happened the last time, but I was not. With the last of these tremors I was raised up; and with my hand I felt a person's back; I passed them over the whole back, and over the chest below. Immediately the person lay down and I saw the countenance in front, but very obscurely. I was then upright upon my knees, and was considering whether I should lie down beside him, but I did not, as it did not seem permitted. . . . This took place in vision when I was neither awake nor asleep, but when I had all my thoughts collected. After I was fully awake, several tremors similar to the former passed over me. It must have been a holy angel, since I was not thrown on my face." (Ibid, 147.)

     Swedenborg, during this period of his preparation, passed through many very severe temptations and infestations by evil spirits. His private diary for the year 1741 is one continued record of them; though many are not very fully described. For the most part they were so grievous that they caused tremors to pass over his whole body.

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The following are a few extracts from his description of them:

     The infestation was, indeed, so strong that: unless God's grace had been stronger, I must either have succumbed, or become mad. During that time I could not direct my thoughts to the contemplation of Christ. (Ibid, 34)

     Whilst I was in the first struggle I called on Jesus for help, and it ceased, I also folded my hands under my head, and it did not come a second time. I was, nevertheless, in a tremor when I awoke, and I heard now and then a dull sound, but I do not know when. (Ibid, n. 34.)

     Afterwards I dreamed how the Evil One led me into various deep places and bound me I cannot remember it all. Being thus tied, I was cast into hell. (n. 88.)

     Before I fell asleep to-day, I was deeply engaged in my thoughts about the things on which I am writing. "Hold your tongue," I was told, "or L shall slay you," and I saw some one sitting on a piece of ice. I was frightened. I then restrained my thoughts and one of the usual tremors came over me. (n. 174)

     In between these states of temptations, however, Swedenborg had times of tranquillity and rest, which he describes as follows:

     Both in my mind and body, I had a sensation of an indescribable delight, so that, had it been more intense, the body would have been, as it were, dissolved in pure bliss." (n. 25.)

     The spirit came with its heavenly and almost ecstatic life in so high a degree, and permitted me, as it were, to rise higher and higher in it, that, if I had ascended still higher, I should have been dissolved in this real life of joy. (n. 78.)

     Finally, in May, 1744, Swedenborg's eyes were fully opened into the spiritual world. Swedenborg describes this occurrence to a friend in the following manner:

     I was in London and dined rather late at the inn where I was in the habit of dining, and where I had my room. . . . I was hungry and ate with a good appetite. Towards the close of the meal I noticed a sort of dimness before my eyes; this became denser, and I saw the floor covered with the most horrid crawling reptiles, such as snakes, frogs and similar creatures. I was amazed; for I was perfectly conscious, and my thoughts were clear. At last the darkness increased still more; but it disappeared all at once, and I saw a man sitting in a corner of the room; as I was there alone, I was very much frightened at his words, for he said: "Eat not so much." All became black again before my eyes, but immediately it cleared away, and I found myself alone in the room.


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     Such an unexpected terror hastened my return home; I did not let the landlord notice anything; but I considered well what had happened, and could not look upon it as a mere matter of chance, or as if it had been produced by a physical cause.

     I went home, and during the night, the same man revealed himself to me again, but I was not frightened now. He then said that He was the Lord God, the Creator of the universe, and the Redeemer, and that He had chosen me to explain to men the spiritual sense of the Scriptures, and that He Himself would explain to me what I should write on this subject; that same night also were opened to me, so that I became thoroughly convinced of their reality, the world of spirits. Heaven, and hell, and I recognized many acquaintances of every condition of life. (Dec. 5.)

     According to the Adversaria it seems that this occurrence happened in Apri1, 1745; but a notable fact in this connection is that Swedenborg himself fixes the date of the opening of his spiritual eves in three different years: First, in the Adversaria, as 1745; later, in the Divine Wisdom, as 1744; and finally, in a letter to Hartley, as 1743. This apparent disagreement seems to indicate that it was a gradual process, which he understood better as he became more fully acquainted with spiritual phenomena.

     Very soon after the opening of his sight into the spiritual world, Swedenborg began to write the Adversaria, which he continued until about the time he began the Arcana, i. e., for about two years.

     The first time Swedenborg mentions being among spirits and angels, is in the beginning of the Adversaria in a little tract, called the "History of Creation," where he says, that no idea of celestial language can be known, "except by one who was introduced into heaven, . . . that it is so, I know from experience, by the grace of God." (Adv. Vol. I., p. 15.)

     A much more definite statement comes a little later when he says:

     I can surely attest that I have been intromitted into the Kingdom of God, by the Messiah Himself, Jesus of Nazareth, and have spoken with heavenly genii, with spirits, . . . with the dead who have risen again. (Ibid, I., 475.)


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     Swedenborg had many interesting experiences during those few years, by which he became thoroughly acquainted with the other world. For instance, he says he was taught things by little children, who spoke through his mouth, and directed his very hand (I., 459); that he was introduced into heaven, not only as to the mind, but as to the body with all its senses (I., 475); that he was led about the streets and ways, into an inn, and round about, whenever it was pleasing to the spirits who governed his will, and ruled the very movements of his body (I., 943); that he was instructed about the various kinds of revelation, Including his own (I., 1353); that he was compelled to say things which he did not understand, but that he was afterwards instructed (I. 1409); that he was made to obliterate everything he had written which was not dictated to him by the angels of God Messiah (II., 181); that he was instructed about his former life, so that he could see the Divine Providence leading him to his use (II., 839); that he was made destitute of knowledge heretofore given him, by infestation of evil spirits (II., 1063); that he spoke with spirits in various languages, all of which they understood (III., 678);that things happened to him, "such," says he, "as I dare not as yet reveal" (III., 3340); that spirits impersonated persons known to him, but that he was given in some manner to know that they were deceiving him (III., 5021).

     These experiences were not always pleasant, however; for in one place he says:

     I could never express the horrible temptations which have happened to me. (III., 3512.)

     And in another place:

     As regards diabolical temptations, they are so unspeakable, and so horrible that they can never be described; their deceitful machinations are so unspeakable, that man could never induce it upon his mind; for nothing further could be given in evil, which they do not call forth to deceive a man; . . . these temptations, which are many, I have known from experience. (III., 7529)


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     In contrast with these fearful temptations, Swedenborg had states profoundly calm and delightful; as where he says:

     The sweetness and bliss flowing thence were so great that it cannot be expressed in words; for it deeply penetrated, in an unspeakable way, the fibres and inmost marrow, and affected them. . . . To me, the Messiah has given to feel the above-named effigy at various times, and so frequently within the space of two years, . . . that I pass over enumerating the occasions. (I., 511.)

     After about two years of such experiences in the spiritual world, Swedenborg reached such a state that he could begin the actual work of revelation. Wherefore, about the time he began to write the Arcana, he writes: "There was a change of state in me, into the celestial kingdom, in an image;" at which time his state of full illumination is considered to have begun. (Annals, 1747.)

     A coincidence in this connection is the fact that the first: 148 numbers of the Spiritual Diary, which were written before this time, have been lost while number 149, the first number in the Diary, was written after he had commenced the Arcana,--after he had come into the "celestial kingdom."


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Editorial Department 1906

Editorial Department       Editor       1906

NOTES AND REVIEWS.

     The Rev. Albert White, of Southend-on-Sea. England, who lately came into the New Church bringing his whole Society with him, has commenced the publication of a monthly paper. The Essex New Churchman.

     A member of the Young People's League criticizes the League Badge (a "Swastika" cross) as wholly without meaning. "One might be a member of the Santa Fe railroad or a heathen devotee for all that the badge indicates." She suggests in its place "a pin representing the open Word with the motto "Nunc Licet." The suggestion has the merit of embodying a spiritual idea; but it is hardly likely to be adopted since the very meaninglessness of the present badge was the special feature that commended it to the League, enabling the members to "put what they like into it."

     Mr. C. W. Daniel, of Paternoster Row, London, has recently issued as one of his series "The People's Classics," published at one penny each, a little tract, entitled "Swedenborg on Marriage." It consists of extracts from the work on Conjugial Love compiled by F. E. Worland. In his introduction the compiler deprecates classing Swedenborg "with the ordinary mystic or spiritualist. It is rather as though Darwin or Huxley, Edison or Marconi announced that they had made discoveries in the Spirit World." Of Conjugial Love itself Mr. Worland says that it is the "most remarkable" of Swedenborg's works, marking "a new era in religious development." "Up to Swedenborg's time," He continues, "chastity without the separation of the sexes was scarcely considered to be possible."


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     A case of what is perhaps unconscious cerebration is afforded by a writer in the Messenger for December 6, who, speaking of the inscription ADVENTUS DOMINI, Written by Swedenborg on two copies of The Brief Exposition, says "one of these copies has been found and is now in the possession of the Academy of the New Church." The Academy has so often and persistently referred to this important inscription that it is not surprising that it should be thus identified as the depository of the book in which it occurs. But the fact is that this book is in the possession of Mr. James Spiers, of London, who discovered it among a lot of books brought into the house of the Swedenborg Society about the year 1876.

     The Rev. Arthur E. Beilby, in the Australian New Age for November, again treats to samples of extraordinary wit and power of second-sight. This time he reveals an astonishing vision which has come to him from the antipodes,--through the earth and the inmost depths of the sea. The Adelaide Society arose before him in the awful shape of "a herring, or a mackerel,"--he is not quite sure which; it was about to be swallowed up a "a shark," (the Academy), and all the while the poor thing was "stoutly declaring to the surrounding fishes that it had 'no connection' with the maw down which, in another moment, it would disappear." It is unfortunate that Mr. Beilby has such a reputation for imaginativeness that the parties concerned will be sure to regard his tale as just-a fish-story.

     A writer in the New York Outlook, speaking of thirty-seven reasons which have been given recently as causes for divorce, quotes a case where a separation was allowed because the wife failed to sew buttons on her husband's vest; another, because she would not rise early and call him in the morning; and separation was allowed to one wife, because the husband did not come home until ten o'clock at night, and then kept his wife awake, talking; in another case, because the husband never offered to take her out driving.


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     "A book published by the Columbia University, on Economics and Public Law, asserts that Canada, Great Britain and Ireland, France, Italy, Switzerland. Belgium. Holland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Germany, Austria, Roumania, Russia, and Australia, granted a total of 20,111 divorces, while in the same year the United States granted 23.472 divorces,--an excess over all other countries in the Christian world of 3,361. In a period of twenty years, when the increase of population in the United States was sixty per cent., the increase of divorces was one hundred and fifty-six per cent. In Connecticut there is annually one divorce to every ten marriages; in New Hampshire and Rhode Island one to every eleven; in San Francisco one to six." (Bibliotheca Sacra, October, 1905, p. 627.)

     An English atheist, calling upon Coleridge, bitterly complained against the rigidity of instruction in Christian homes. "Consider," said he, "the helplessness of such a child. How selfish is the parent who thus ruthlessly stamps his ideas and religious prejudices into the receptive nature as a molder stamps the hot iron with his image. I shall prejudice my children neither for Christianity nor for Buddhism, but allow them to wait for their mature years, and then let them choose for themselves." A little later Coleridge, leading his aesthetic friend into the garden, suddenly exclaimed, "The time was, in April, when I killed the young weeds, and put my beds out to vegetables, flowers, and fruits; but I have now decided to permit the garden to go on until August or September, and then allow the beds to choose for themselves between weeds and fruit. I am unwilling to prejudice the soil either for thistles and cockleburrs or roses and violets."

     The November number of True Christian Life contains a reprint of the sermon on Conjugial Love published in our issue for April. The sermon is republished, as explained by the editor, "for the purpose of enabling those who are in the love of truth for the sake of truth to understand the attitude of the Academy towards the most vital element of the true Christian life."

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The editor adds some appreciative remarks concerning the Life.

     The same number contains a short but vigorous editorial on "Prevention of Birth," making our Australian contemporary the second New Church journal that has raised its voice against this abominable and devastating evil.

     Dr. Ernest A. Farrington contributes to The New Philosophy for October a carefully studied article on "The Relation of the Chemical Elements to Swedenborg's Doctrine of Atmosphere and Salts," wherein he attempts an identification of some of the finites and elements of the Principia with the elements known to modern chemistry. He treats at some length of the third and fourth elements, their salts and pressure products, contenting himself merely with a few tentative suggestions as to the first and second elements. It will be for those students of the Principia who are skilled in chemistry to enter upon a particular examination of the many suggestions put forth by Dr. Farrington, and it is to be hoped that his paper will stimulate study and discussion of the subject. For certain it is that to the ordinary student of the Principia the work would be easier of comprehension if he could obtain a more tangible idea of the various compounds than is given by the bare terms elements, salts, etc., and without doubt, this will be done in time, at any rate, so far as concerns the grosser compounds. Work in this direction has already been done by Mr. Samuel Beswick, and Miss Lilian Beekman, and Dr. Farrington is continuing along the same lines. His suggestions are offered as "purely tentative" and in "the hope of arousing an interest in the subject and of calling forth useful criticism."

     Alexander Wilder, M. D., in his History of Medicine, published last year by the Maine Fanner Publishing Company, devotes several pages to a highly eulogistic discussion of Swedenborg's contributions to medical science,--in fact, he has more to say about Swedenborg than of any other of the many philosophers and investigators mentioned in his voluminous work.

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He describes him as a man who has "explored every department of learning and brought away treasures from them all;" and of his writings he says, "they are a perfect mine of treasure for the earnest investigator," particular mention being made of The Animal Kingdom, The Economy of the Animal Kingdom, The Infinite, and the Red Blood.

     Swedenborg as a theologian is also not neglected, and Dr. Wilder says, respecting the oft-repeated charge of aberration of intellect, "His scientific works certainly exhibit no such obliquity or aberration. Many things are recorded of him to show that his memorabilia were not all [!] hallucinations of disordered faculties, but the testimony of a clear-headed as well as conscientious man. In the same connection the Doctor adds, that despite past persecution by the Churches, "his doctrines now furnish much of the material for sermons and religious essays,--great diligence being employed to prevent any divining of the source from which it was derived."

     Some lengthy and interesting excerpts from Dr. Wilder's book are contributed, with the author's consent, to the pages of The New Philosophy for October, from which we have taken the above brief extracts.


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SEXES IN PLANTS 1906

SEXES IN PLANTS              1906

     A correspondent sends us the following letter, which we publish with pleasure, as it opens up a most interesting and important question which in former years was much agitated in the Church, but which has never yet been discussed in the pages of New Church Life.


EDITOR New Church Life.

     DEAR SIR.--There are doubtless at the present time many New Church students studying Botany under modern scientists. All at the very outset must meet with a flat contradiction of the Doctrines in the theory of the hi-sexuality of the vegetable kingdom. It has taken science some two hundred years to establish this theory, but to-day no recognized botanist would think of questioning it. The theory is, in fact, the very basis of all the departments of modern Botany, for by its means of reproduction the plant's position in the grand system of evolution is determined.

     The bi-sexual theory is undoubtedly founded upon striking appearances. The process of fertilization of the vegetable egg nucleus by a sperm nucleus certainly seems analogous to the fusion of the animal egg and spermatozoid. The phenomenon seems also to be almost as universal in the vegetable kingdom as it is in the animal kingdom.

     The Writings of the New Church tell us, however, that the vegetable is male while the earth is female, or the mother. As Doctrine we must accept this teaching, but we cannot comprehend, without full explanation, the details of the application of this truth.

     The earth, as a mother, seems dead, incapable of reaction, unable to supply food in other than inorganic and unusable form. And undoubtedly the vegetable seed involves far more than the animal spermatozoid.

     As the subject is scientific, the Life is not, perhaps, the proper place for an extended discussion of the problem. A few suggestions, however, as to general lines of application may help some readers to keep the mind free from doubt.

     1. Literally translated, the teaching in question reads as follows:

     That the vegetations not only of trees, but also of all shrubs, correspond to the prolifications of men, has been delivered by many of the learned, on which account I will add something concerning these things in place of an appendix. In trees and all other subjects of the Vegetable Kingdom there are not two Sexes, a masculine and a feminine, but each thing there is masculine, the earth alone or the ground being the common mother, thus as it were a woman.

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For the earth receives the seeds of all fruits, opens them, carries them as in a womb, and then nourishes them and gives birth to them, that is, ushers them into day, and afterwards clothes them and sustains them.

     When the earth first opens the seed, it begins from a root, which is like a heart from which it sends forth and transmits the sap, as it were blood, and thus makes as it were a body furnished with members. Its body is the stem itself, and the branches and their twigs are its members; the leaves which it brings forth immediately after birth are in the place of lungs, for as the heart without the lungs does not produce motion and sense and by these vivify the man, so the root does not cause the tree or shrub to grow without the leaves. The blossoms which precede the fruit, are the means of straining the sap, their blood, and of separating its grosser parts from the purer, and of forming in their bosom, for the influx of these, a new little stem by which the strained sap inflows and thus initiates and gradually forms the fruit, which may be compared to a testicle in which the seeds are perfected. The vegetative soul which reigns inmostly in every particle of the sap, or its prolific essence, is from no other source than from the heat of the spiritual world, which, because it is from the spiritual Sun there, breathes nothing else than generation, and thereby continuation of creation; and because essentially it breathes the generation of man, therefore whatever thing it generates, it induces upon it the similitude of man.

     Lest anyone should wonder that it is said that the subjects of the Vegetable Kingdom are nothing but masculine, and that the earth alone or the ground is as it were the common mother, or as it were a woman, let this be illustrated by a similar thing among bees; these, according to the observation of Swammerdam in his Biblia Naturae, have only one common mother from whom are produced all the progeny of the whole hive; when these little animals have only one common mother, why not all fruits?

     That the Earth is the common mother may also be illustrated spiritually, and it is illustrated by this that the Earth in the Word signifies the Church, and the Church is the common Mother, as it is also called in the Word. That the Earth signifies the Church, see the Apocalypse Revealed. n. 285, 902, where this is shown. But that the earth or the ground is able to enter into the inmost of the seed, even to its prolific, and bring this out and carry it about, is because each single little grain of earth or dust from its essence breathes out a subtle something as an effluvium, which penetrates; this takes place from the active force of the heat from the spiritual world. (T. C. R. 585.)

     2. The above teaching, so manifestly and so deliberately in conflict with the universally accepted theory of the learned world, has given rise to no end of controversies in the New Church, and has always been a kind of test-question as to the infallibility and Divine Authority of the Writings. Those who have been disposed to follow the lead of Modern Science have always asked "if Newchurchmen for all future time are to accept certain dicta of Swedenborg's, given a hundred and more years ago upon points of natural science?"

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"Swedenborg was no specialist in the field of Botany, but a mere general observer, who followed the old-fashioned theories of Malpighi, and others, who were entirely ignorant of the wonderful discoveries of Modern Science." The editor of the Intellectual Repository even went so far as to say on this subject: "If Swedenborg was infallible, of course his doctrine must be true I but as his doctrine is not true, his having delivered it proves that he was liable to err." (Int. Rep., 1878, p. 390.)

     3. Newchurchmen should be careful, however, how they decry Swedenborg's qualifications as a botanist, (not to speak of the Divine Authority of the inspired Writings). Swedenborg was by no means a mere "general observer" of the phenomena of the vegetable kingdom. As is well known, he was an enthusiastic lover of plants who, as is shown by the notes in his Almanack of 1752, Spent an almost paternal care upon the culture of his flowers. He was, moreover, a practical gardener who had had some fifty years of experience with plants when he penned the controverted passage in the True Christian Religion. He did not, as far as is known, write any special work on the vegetable kingdom, but he was a man of universal genius acid learning, a natural philosopher whose equal the world has never seen, a mind possessing a cosmic grasp upon the inmost secrets of nature, from the supreme aura to the lowest atmosphere, and from the mineral kingdom up to the human soul.

     4. Are we to presume that such a mind, at whose prophetic insight and anticipations on almost every plane of human knowledge, the high-priests of Modern Science stand aghast,--are we to presume that such a mind had allowed the most elemental features of the science of Botany to escape his eye? That he was not only behind the science of to-day, but behind the Science of his own age? The bi-sexuality of plants, which had been observed by Alpini as early as 1585, and scientifically recognized by Grew in 1676, had been reduced to a system by Linnaeus in 1736, thus at a time when Swedenborg was at the height of his scientific career. It is to be noted that it was Linnaeus who, in 1740, proposed Swedenborg for membership in the Royal Academy of Sciences of Sweden, and who introduced him at his initiation into that body.

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That Swedenborg was well acquainted with the botanical theories of his day is well established by the various references in the Writings to "those learned in Ars Botanica, who have drawn parallelisms between the animal and vegetable kingdoms" (A. E. 1203). Is it to be supposed that Swedenborg was so foolish and so presumptuous as to go out of his way to deliver a formal and dogmatic denial of the theory of his learned friend and countryman,--unless he had been thoroughly acquainted with his subject, and for weighty reasons had been impelled to contradict a false doctrine which at that time had captivated the whole scientific world?

     5. But it is not merely Swedenborg, the scientist, that is to be considered here, but Swedenborg the inspired seer and revelator, whose eye was opened to, and above, the celestial heaven, and who as such enjoyed,--as no man ever did or ever again will enjoy,--a universal view from the very mountain-top of revealable Truth, whence he could clearly see all things beneath in a Light such as no mere biologist, groveling in his protoplasmic cells, can even dream of. The fact is that the Writings of the New Church are fairly teeming with references to the subjects of the vegetable kingdom and with astonishing revelations not only concerning their spiritual correspondences but also concerning their interior structure, processes and functions. Volumes consisting merely of references to these teachings have been collected, and some attempts have been made to digest and systematize them, resulting in a complete conviction that the Science (not the facts) of Botany, will have to be thoroughly reconstructed in the light of the New Church.

     6. The future Botany of the New Church will differ as much from the Botany of to-day, as a flower in the sight of an earthly botanist differs from the same flower in the sight of the angels. "There was once opened before the angels a flower, as to its interiors which are called spiritual, and when they saw it they said that there was a whole paradise therein which consisted of things ineffable." (De Verbo xix:2.) Botany will have to be reconstructed and regenerated as completely as the Science of Physiology, which in the New Church will be something entirely different from that soul-less heap of theories which at this day masquerades as "Science." What does this Science know about the body, when it knows nothing of the Soul, nothing of the spirituous fluid, nothing of the three degrees of the blood?

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And what does modern Botany know about the vegetable kingdom, when it knows nothing of the internal difference between that and the animal kingdom, nothing of the vegetative soul, nothing of the three degrees of the sap? (See S. S. 66; A. E. 1084.)

     7. Modern Science, by virtue of its enormous collections of observed facts, and by virtue, also, of its equally enormous conceit and self-assurance, looms up like a very Goliath, of the sons of Anak, in whose presence the men of the Church seem to themselves as mere grasshoppers, "and so also we were in their sight," (Numb. 13:33) Herein lies the danger, especially to the young people of the New Church who are pursuing a higher education in the universities of the world. They find the teachings of the Church in open conflict with "well-established" dogmas of the learned. They are apt to become overawed by the gigantic proportions of Modern Science with its air of Infallibility and its good-natured but complete contempt for all things spiritual. Can the Church maintain its teachings against the Giants of learning, with their innumerable microscopic proofs and demonstrations! No, not if we at once venture to fight them on their own low plane! Not if, like them, we reason from external things as to internal things, from the sight of the eye in respect to the things of the understanding, from the incomplete and imperfect in regard to the complete and perfect, from forms as to functions and uses! We have no fault to find with their facts and observations, but with their deductions and theories. We must, therefore, like young David, choose a few smooth stones out of the brook of living water,--a few incontestable truths from our Divine Revelation,--and with these smite the Philistine in his forehead, in his weak reasoning-power. If the theories of Science can be proved irrational, no amount of facts and observations can uphold them, and it will then be seen that the Anakim of Science are, themselves, nothing but grasshoppers and locusts, jumping about in an erratic manner from one theory to another, continually shifting their ground, and at loggerheads one with the other.

     8. It is well known that Modern Science has adopted the invariable method of reasoning from forms as to uses. "Whoever from use investigates organic things, can see the connection of the parts. It is different when from the parts he speculates respecting the use." (S. D. 2510)

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"Before the organic forms of the body existed, the uses were; and the uses produced and adapted to themselves the forms, but not vice versa." (A. C. 4223.) Instead of beginning their observations and deductions among the higher forms of organic life, the uses and functions of which are well known, modern scientists at once carry you down by the microscope into the lowest forms, the uses of which are unknown. They term these forms the simplest forms, and immediately attribute to them human and animal predicates, such as sex, when yet these forms are the least organized, the least complete, the furthest removed from the perfect form, which is the human form. That from which you start your reasoning will accompany and qualify your whole thought. Start your observations and analogies from the germ of the tadpole, and the tadpole will wriggle itself along all your inductions and you will see the tadpole everywhere. On the other hand, start your reasoning from what is Divine, heavenly, and human, as revealed by the Divine Truth itself, and the light from above will infil all lower forms with light and life. As Swedenborg says, "Thought from the eye closes the understanding, but thought from the understanding opens the eye." (D. L. W. 46).

     9. Our correspondent,--differing from the usual attitude of those who have been disturbed by the evident divergence of the New Church Doctrine from the bi-sexual theory of the botanists, asks not whether the Doctrine is true, but wants to know how it is true. This is an eminently proper attitude, and on this basis alone can we proceed to the discussion in which we hope that all the botanists in the Church, and others interested in the subject, will take part. Doubts and difficulties will and must arise, and these cannot be dispersed merely by appeals to the Divine Authority of the Writings. Let our scientific friends bring forward their facts and difficulties. We are quite convinced that there are those in the Church, who, from the Writings, and from enlightened reason, will be able to satisfy them. Here, for the present, we will only offer a few suggestions, by way of introducing the subject to a more general discussion.

     10. That there is an appearance of bi-sexuality in the vegetable kingdom,--that a general similitude or comparison may be drawn between the sexuality of the animal kingdom and the functions of the stamens and pistils of plants, no Newchurchman would wish to deny, inasmuch as it is clearly recognized and taught in the Writings of the Church.

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For the conjugial sphere, the marriage of good and truth or of the active and the passive, fills the universe, produces all things, and stamps its image upon all things,--not only upon all organic forms, but upon the whole mineral kingdom and upon every least finite of the universal atmosphere. (C. L. 389.) Oxygen and hydrogen, for instance, have a strong affinity for each other and join lovingly in a chemical union, and thus it is with all things of the universe. As we ascend into the vegetable kingdom this image of the conjugial becomes still more strong and definite. We are told in the Writings that plants "have certain things similar to marriage, and after this prolifications." (D. L. W. 61.) "The blossoming before fruit is compared to the voice and joy of the bride and the bridegroom." (A. C. 10185.) "Vegetables in many things refer to the subjects of the animal kingdom,... as in this that they bloom out as brides before the nuptials, and after this expand as it were wombs or eggs, and bear fruits like a fetus, in which are new seeds, from which, as in the animal kingdom there are prolifications or fructifications of the same species or stock. These, with many other things, have been observed by those who are learned in the science of Botany, and who have drawn parallelisms between the two kingdoms." (A. E. 1203. See also C. L. 222.)

     11. Though this general analogy is freely granted, we would violate reason and common sense were we to claim that on this account every single thing in the universe is hi-sexual. Both men and women possess will and understanding and a duality which pervades every fibre of their bodies and the whole substance of their souls, but does this make each sex bi-sexual? If the reproductive organs of a plant are actually male and female, it is self-evident that the plant itself must consist of two plants, united in a "hypostatic union" of a masculine nature and a feminine nature. For if certain parts are male and others female, there must be a cause for this in the plant itself; the fibers which go to the stamens must be as masculine as the stamens themselves, and the fibres which go to the pistil must in a similar manner be feminine. And since all the fibres come from the root, there must be masculine roots and feminine roots,--a manifest absurdity!

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A thing cannot be two distinctly different things at one and the same time. Every created thing in the universe consists of parts similar to itself, homogeneous with itself. If there is anything heterogeneous in it, then the heterogeneous thing is not a component part of the thing itself, and the homogeneous parts will labor with all their might to expel the foreign elements.

     12. Sex means separation, separation as to quality and function as well as to form. The masculine sex and the feminine sex, though equal, are absolutely different from one another. They are different in kind, thus heterogeneous, and cannot therefore exist together in the same individual unit. What are the qualities and functions of the feminine sex, and in how far are these found among plants? The feminine function is to conjoin itself--not unite itself--with the masculine. The pistil, however, is united with the stamens at their base, and they are no more separated than the thumb is separated from the other fingers of the same hand. The feminine function is to conceive and to supply the embryo within it with three things essential to life, viz., heat, moisture, and food. The pistil, however, supplies none of these in a degree sufficient to sustain an independent individual life. The feminine function is to bring forth, no, seeds, but individual living beings capable of reproducing their own species. But the pistil simply ejects the seed, hard and dry, upon the really maternal bosom of the earth, and without contact with the earth or earthy matters, the seed never develops into individual life, but remains dormant, rots, or is dissolved into dust. The feminine functions are, therefore, absent in the vegetable kingdom?

     13. The vegetable kingdom as a whole is masculine, because the vegetative organs and processes are completely corresponding to those of the male in the animal kingdom. "The seed of man is conceived interiorly in the understanding, and is formed in the will, and is thence transferred into the testicle where it clothes itself in a natural covering, and is thus carried into the womb and enters the world. Moreover, there is a correspondence of the regeneration of man with all things which are in the vegetable kingdom; wherefore also in the Word man is described by a tree, his truth by the seed, and his good by the fruit." (T. C. R. 584). And therefore the stamens actually correspond to the truths in the male understanding, and the pistil actually corresponds to the good in the male will.

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"The fruit may be compared to the testicle, in which the seeds are perfected." (T. C. R. 585), and, on this basis, the body which is misnamed "ovary" is really the seed-vessel and the "ovule," or germ-cell, is to the sperm-cell what the first fluid coating is to the vital seed of man in the epididymis.

     14. It is claimed by the botanists that the whole plant is in the seed, because of the presence of: plumule and radicle in the germ, but it is really present there only in image and potency and not in actuality, for these parts are not yet active in their distinctive functions which constitute their whole life. The plumule is not yet a leaf, for it does not breathe, and the radicle is not yet a root, for it does not suck in nourishment. But an animal fetus possesses not only animal organs but is actually in the function of the essential organs, since, immediately upon conception, the brain-cell and the heart-cell begin to be active. The plant is present in the seed in an image and potency, but so also is the whole future man present in image and potency in the paternal spermatozoid, since each spermatozoid can transmit to the ovum a whole human soul. "In the seed of every one, from which he is conceived, there is an offshoot or propagation of the soul of the father in its fullness, within a certain covering from the elements of nature," (T. C. R. 103) "By the father is implanted the soul itself, which begins to clothe itself with a bodily form in the ovum. Whatever is afterward added, both in the ovum and in the womb, is of the mother, for no increment is received from any other source." (A. C. 1815 Compare D. L. W. 432). The production of the human seed cannot, indeed, be followed by the eye so well as the production of the vegetable seed, since the former is effected by internal processes and by means of fluids, while the latter is effected by external means and dry coatings, but the correspondence is complete when viewed from functions and uses.
     
     15. And the maternal functions of the earth, are they not self-evident even to the most hardened "bi-sexualist'" "No," he would answer, "for there are not in the earth any individual ova to be impregnated by the vegetable seed." Again he reasons from forms instead of functions. Regarded from use, the earth itself is the one common ovum, and every particle of the soil is a particular ovum, since it receives the seed, conceives it, breathes it into actual existence, and finally, supplies to it all its food and substance.

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Far from being "incapable of reaction," as it seems to our correspondent, the Writings teach that "every single little grain of earth or dust from its essence breathes forth a subtle something which penetrates into the inmost prolific of the seed, (T. C. R. 585). "The internal of a particle of soil, by which its external is moved, is its endeavor to fecundate seeds. It exhales from its little bosom something which introduces itself into the inmost of the seed and produces this effect; and this internal follows its vegetation even to new seeds," (T. C. R. 785). The earth "opens the seeds, carries them as in a womb, nourishes them, gives them birth, and afterwards clothes and sustains them," (T. C. R. 585) Are not these functions sufficiently reactive and maternal? What more can an earth-mother do for her child?

     16. A final suggestion as to the reason why there are two sexes in the animal kingdom, but only one sex, the male, among plants. Animals are forms of affections, and affections are twofold, the affection of good and the affection of truth,--the former active, the latter relatively passive. Hence the masculine and the feminine in the animal kingdom. But plants are forms of uses, and all uses are active. Hence all plants are of the masculine sex.


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Church News 1906

Church News       Various       1906

FROM OUR CORRESPONDENTS.

     BRYN ATHYN, PA. Our District Assembly has come and gone, but the delight of it and the use of it to all whose good fortune it was to attend are not likely to be forgotten. The attendance (about one hundred and twenty) was not what we had hoped for, and perhaps this is the reason why the social part was not as much of a feature as it is in Canada or Chicago, but it is altogether likely that when the absentees hear what a splendid success we had, from the more interior point of view, and what a feast of good things was spread before the members and visitors, they will hardly allow another such opportunity to escape them.

     The secret of the success of this meeting, beyond the inscrutable disposition of things in the spiritual world, was the reading at each of the four meetings of a carefully prepared paper upon a timely and important topic.

     On the first evening, (the evening of Thanksgiving Day), we listened to the Bishop's address, upon the subject of "The Need and Use of External Worship," which was followed by a discussion in which all the ministers and several of the laymen took part. On Friday evening, at the banquet table, we listened to a notable paper from the Rev. N. D. Pendleton, upon the subject of the "Son of God, and the Son of Man," which is published elsewhere in this issue. The whole subject of the Divine Human and the Glorification, was discussed, and received much new light. Saturday evening was devoted to a paper by the Rev. Homer Synnestvedt, upon the topic "The Most Difficult Side of Education," wherein, after a discussion of the development of the Academy's view of Education as the hope of the ultimate growth of the New Church, he showed that the leading forth of the will into line with the Divine Order, through the agency of habits of life and the early insinuation of reverence for things Divine, as well as by the aid of social influences and a prudent discipline, was more difficult to attain than the imparting of knowledges to the memory alone.

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The worship on Sunday included a well-written sermon by Rev. E. S. Price giving a general view of the internal sense of the Book of Isaiah, and especially of the first chapter.

     The paper on Sunday evening, by the Rev. C. Th. Odhner, upon the subject of "Our Attendant Spirits," was not only a masterly presentation of the general doctrine on the subject, but also addressed itself to the solution of several puzzling questions not hitherto understood. Of this paper, as also of that by the Rev. N. D. Pendleton, it is hardly too much to say that they were in the nature of original research, and that they have contributed to definitely extend, the frontiers of our theological knowledge.

     After the usual formalities of opening and minutes, the Bishop called for verbal reports from the workers in this District.

     The Rev. E. S. Price reported that he visits the Allentown circle monthly during nine months of the year, the meetings being held at the various houses. The dwindling of this society is not due to disaffection by any means, but to deaths and removals to other centers, the active love of the Church leading its young people to settle down, when possible, in centers where we have regular worship and social life.

     The Rev. J. E. Rosenquist reported a very gratifying growth of the Advent Church in Philadelphia. Their Wednesday evening doctrinal and social meetings have shown marked development since they secured the use of the hall for that evening. As to the work in Baltimore, the average attendance is about twelve. Mr. Rosenquist visits them monthly throughout the year. Their Sunday School is carried on regularly and successfully by the laymen, and numbers twenty-five pupils.

     The Rev. Alfred Acton reported the work in New York quite fully, as he thought many were not well aware of what is being done there. Mr. Acton now visits them twice a month. They have a central location, (a music parlor near the Flatiron Building), and the members, though scattered widely, attend quite regularly. Doctrinal classes are held on Saturday evening in Brooklyn, and on Sunday evening in Yonkers. The work seems very promising.


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     The Bishop alluded to the gradual but steady growth of the Church in Bryn Athyn.

     At the conclusion of the meeting, on Sunday evening, Mr. S. H. Hicks voiced the sentiments of the Assembly in the following words and resolution:

     I do not rise to offer a motion to adjourn, but before the meting closes, I want to say that I believe I express the feelings of all present, and of all who have attended the meetings, when I state that this series of meetings of the Philadelphia District Assembly has been the best we have yet held. The other World has been opened to us, and we have been kept in an elevated state and lofty thought concerning the most sublime things. The result has been brought about by the careful preparation for this meeting on the part of the Bishop, the ministers, and the professors, and we should not close without some expression of appreciation and of the great success of the meetings, and the benefits received. I would therefore offer this resolution:

     Resolved, That the affectionate and grateful acknowledgments of the people here assembled be tendered to the Bishop, and those ministers, professors and others, who have labored and have done so much for the instruction and interest of those who have participated in this meeting of the Philadelphia District Assembly.

     The motion was unanimously adopted, and the meeting was closed with singing and the benediction.     H. SYNNESTVEDT, Secretary.

     ERIE, PA. On Friday evening, November 17th, the members and friends of the Erie New Church Circle enjoyed a supper and social entertainment at the home of Dr. Edward Cranch and family. The number present on the occasion was forty-two. The program consisted of instrumental music and charades, followed by a supper and social conversation. The music was inspiring. The charades were skillfully arranged and successfully carried out by Mrs. Cranch. All the children, (except perhaps the baby that was present), the young people and even several of the adults, in their turn, were the performers.

     The Erie New Church Circle is blessed with a sphere of harmony and mutual good will among all the members. This is encouraging, and gives assurance that the growth and increase of the past will continue in the future. It was said to the writer, that the Erie people have had several pleasant socials during the year.


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     On Sunday, November 19th, we held services at the home of Dr. and Mrs. Cranch. The attendance was thirty-one; and at the close of the sermon the sacrament of the Lord's Supper was administered to twenty-one persons.     JOHN E. BOWERS.

     CHICAGO, ILL. We were very gay in Chicago during the Thanksgiving week, with our dance and social at the Sharon Church on Wednesday, a dance at Mr. Schreck's North Side Parish on Friday, and a social at Glenview on Saturday. Some of our more energetic young people attended all three functions, and did justice to Thanksgiving Day besides.

     At the Sharon Church social we were well provided with music; Mrs. Brewer and Mr. John Forrest each played two violin solos; Mrs. Brewer and Mr. Wm. B. Caldwell gave a violin duet accompanied, skillfully, by Mrs. Colley, whose talent is always at the service of the Church.

     The music was not the only good feature of the entertainment. Mr. C. F. Browne posed one of the young men as an Indian chief in a tableau called "The Pipe of Peace;" there were some good charades illustrating "forefathers" and "abundance;" Mr. Junge recited a poem, and Mr. W. B. Caldwell sang himself into favor with our Glenview guests in an original song, to the tune of "A Picnic for Two."

     The dancing was much enjoyed by our young people, especially a go-as-you-please lancers, which was danced with true Western independence, each couple following a "mental image" of the dance peculiarly his own, which was rather confusing to the on-lookers.

     Our Church and Wednesday Class are well attended, notwithstanding the fact that each member has so many other irons in the fire."     E. V. W.

     MILVERTON, ONT. A useful visit of a few busy days was paid to Mr. Ferdinand Doering and family, at their home on the farm, six miles from Milverton. The weather was cold and wintery, but Sunday, December 3d, was a fine day and favorable for our meeting. Mr. and Mrs. Albert Doering came fourteen miles, Mr. Emil Baumann ten miles, and Mr. and Mrs. Solomon Baumann and their little boy, six miles. The services were much appreciated.

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The number present was fifteen, of whom eleven took part in the Lord's Supper. All remained and took dinner and supper together. As they had not had services for more than a year, it was a pleasant reunion of the members who are left of the Milverton New Church Circle. J. E. B.

     HAMILTON, ONT. Services were held at the house of Mrs. and Miss Brierly, Jackson street, on Sunday, November 26th, with an attendance of nineteen adults, eighteen of whom partook of the Holy Supper. The nineteenth was a lad fifteen years of age. His parents are old church people, but he says the preaching in the Old Church is not edifying, and he prefers to attend the New Church meetings with an uncle and aunt. There is an average attendance of about ten at the Sunday afternoon reading meetings, led by Mr. William Addison. All the members of the Hamilton Circle seem to be steadily advancing in a rational understanding of the Heavenly Doctrines.     J. E. B.

FROM OUR CONTEMPORARIES.

     
     UNITED STATES. At the annual meeting of the MARYLAND ASSOCIATION, held in Baltimore. October 21-22, a net increase of five was reported in the membership. This net increase includes a gain of sixteen in the Richmond Mission, but takes no account of the African Mission, which suspended operations some months ago. As an encouraging feature of the work being done, the Washington Society reported that nineteen essays on doctrinal topics, assigned by the pastor, had been read by young men of the Society engaged in professional and business occupations. Among the items reported by the treasurer was the sum of $225 held for investment for missionary work in Virginia; this sum includes about $125 resulting from the "sale of an interest in certain property in Abingdon, Va."--The Missionary Pastor, the Rev. J. B. Spiers, spoke at length of the receptive state which he had found among the simple people whom he had visited in Virginia and North Carolina, making particular reference to the hospitable mountain people and to their interest in his explanations of the Doctrines.


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     In his missionary trip through VIRGINIA, the Rev. J. B. Spiers recently visited two families,--in the neighborhood of Harrisonburg and Staunton, respectively,--receivers of the Doctrines who had never before met a New Churchman, and he is quite eloquent over the warm welcome he received. In both families he administered the rite of baptism. In the case of one, the husband had come into the Church in, so far as we know, a unique way. He is interested in phrenology and among the phrenological charts in his possession was one of Swedenborg. This made him "curious to know something of the man whose head was considered worthy of the association of so many well-known great men." After considerable inquiry he got hold of some of the Writings, and ultimately he came to see "that even a phrenological chart, under Providence, may lead one to the heavenly doctrines."

     The Rev. John Whitehead will close his engagement with the DETROIT, Mich., Society, and is desirous of entering into a correspondence with a Society in need of the services of a pastor.

     At a meeting held in CHICAGO, November 27, about forty New Church women formed themselves into a "Woman's Council" as an affiliated body of the Illinois Association. A simple constitution was adopted, providing that Council shall embrace "all women who are members of New Church congregations."

     The New Church people in KANSAS CITY, MO., have rented a hall, and have held several services under the leadership of Mr. A. H. Cline. The attendance has been good, and it is hoped to arrange for visits, at regular intervals, by the Rev. L. G. Landenberger.

     CANADA. Increased activity is reported in the BERLIN Society, the attendance at worship being larger than for years; the doctrinal classes are also better attended. Among the worshipers are a few strangers who attend regularly. Three converts have also been gained through the series of lectures delivered by the pastor on "The Irrational beliefs of So-Called Christianity." Extracts from these lectures appear in the local papers and are attracting attention. In addition to this, missionary work has been instituted among these who were shown by a recent religious census of Berlin and Waterloo to have no religious preference.

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With this renewed activity of the society has come the decision to erect a parsonage. The subscription list is headed by a bequest from the late Miss Anna Mary Doering. The site of the parsonage will be a portion of the church lot, to the right of the church.

     GREAT BRITAIN. The New Church ORPHANAGE at its twenty-fourth annual meeting, held October 31st, reported thirty-two wards, of whom all but two are under the care of their mothers or other natural guardians. No provision is made for their instruction in the doctrines other than the attendance, where possible, at Sunday School, though they are occasionally visited by one of the officers of the Orphanage.

     SOUTH AMERICA. In our February issue mention was made of the work of the Rev. G. G. Daniel, a colored preacher who is preaching the Doctrine of the New Church in Georgetown, British Guiana. From a letter by the Rev. S. S. Seward, printed in a recent Messenger, it appears that this work is being attended with some success. Mr. Seward writes that Mr. Daniel, who is a colored man of excellent education and fine address, received his first knowledge of the Doctrines while preaching at Bayshore, L. I., a few years ago. Soon afterwards he began to preach them to his people. Later, he was transferred to Jamaica, W. I., and from there to Georgetown, where he has been for the past three or four years. But the support which he formerly received from the African Methodist Episcopal Church has been cut off and he is working on entirely independent lines. He has a large following in Georgetown and has established missions in the mining districts. In the city itself he is preaching in a ramshackle building, not large enough to hold the large congregations that gather outside and listen at the windows. Mr. Daniel has expressed the wish to come to the United States to receive ordination, and Mr. Seward appeals for contributions to assist him in this purpose, and also for the support of his work.

     AUSTRALIA. The new Society in SYDNEY continues to hold regular weekly reading meetings, with an average attendance of fourteen persons, and also weekly Sunday services at which "excellent sermons from New Church Life have been read by Messrs. Hellberg, Morgan and Morse."

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These services are now held in a rented hall,--a hall associated in the minds of the members with many pleasant memories as having been the home of the Sydney Society for over twenty years. In addition to these meetings, a Sunday evening class has been commenced for the systematic reading of Arcana Coelestia. The question of a name for the Society has been discussed for some time, and the general inclination is to adopt the name "Society of the True Christian Church." but some are in doubt as to the advisability of this name, and, guided by the principle laid down as one of the "principles of the Academy," the Society has resolved to wait before taking final action until "essential unanimity" can be reached.
WILLIAM HENRY BENADE 1906

WILLIAM HENRY BENADE       Rev. C. TH. ODHNER       1906



Announcements.






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FEBRUARY, 1906.          No. 2.
(Continued from New Church Life for December, 1905.)

A BIOGRAPHY

VIII. THE FOUNDING OF THE ACADEMY.

     The establishment of a New Church institution of learning, "in the vicinity of Philadelphia," had been one of the most cherished objects of the Rev. Richard de Charms and his friends in the Central Convention, and this aim became the central life-purpose with Mr. Benade.

     It was with this in view that he founded the school in Cherry street, in 1856, hoping that this small beginning might gradually develop into a College and a University. His young friend, Dr. Rudolph L. Tafel, enthusiastically entered into this idea, and plans were made, as early as 1857, to establish an educational institution, in which Mr. Benade was to preside over the theological department, while Dr. Leonard Tafel was to take charge of the linguistic, and Dr. Rudolph Tafel, the philosophical and scientific branches.

     The plan fell through owing the absence of ultimate support, but the idea grew and advanced into a movement for a union of all those, throughout the Church in this country, who were working separately for the same end, viz., the internal upbuilding of the New Church by means of a sound and distinctive Theology; in other words, an internal Church within whose protecting arms the educational work of the Church could be nursed and developed.

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The first steps towards such a union were taken in the year 1859, as we learn from the following letter from Mr. Benade to Mr. Stuart:

     Now, to speak of another matter, which I think will interest you. You remember our talk about the "Academy." Three of us met together on the 25th of last month, [November], to talk about a work which we find absolutely necessary as preliminary to the proper management of New Church schools, i. e., a complete digest of the Writings, which shall enable the student to turn at once to any subject and find all that E. S. has written upon it, etc. As we talked it over, it became clear that this was the work for the "Academy." With the thought came the deed. We organized ourselves into a preliminary meeting; resolved to found the Academy, and to invite yourself and Messrs. Hibbard, Rodman, Wilks, Cabell, and Dr. Hatch, (of this city), to unite with us, and make up the first nine members. The three here are the two Tafels and myself. We Propose for the present to keep our organization private, (not secret); therefore, please do not speak of it;--to admit no members except by a unanimous vote, and to proceed systematically to work, doing one thing at a time, and doing it as well and thoroughly as in our power lies. We ought not to enlarge our numbers until we have well digested our constitution and consolidated ourselves into an institution which shall be permanent. A hasty enlargement would endanger our existence. The parties named would harmonize, I think, and act together as one body. This body might, in time, become the General Church's organ to do those important uses which are now given into the hands of these loose-jointed, wiggling committees, which after every yearly pretended or attempted incubation of the eggs given them to hatch out, give forth--"voces (reports) et praterea nihil." What the Church wants is not reports of work to be done, but work done. Will you join us? And, if so, will you send on your suggestions in full? We must mature our plan well, so that me may start right and fair. (December 5th, 1859.)

     To this invitation Mr. Stuart replied as follows, (and we may assume that at least Dr. Hibbard and Mr. Wilks answered in a similar manner):

     You are right about the Academy, and you may consider me with you in t. You will please say to the others associated with you, that I accept the place as a member, and tender to them my sincere thanks for the trust reposed in me. I will assist as much as I can in perfecting the organization, and in performing the uses proposed; and after further thought I will send you whatever I may have to offer touching the Constitution. (December 31st, 1859.)


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     Nothing further is known of this first "Academy." Mr. Stuart, indeed, in a letter dated April 30, 1860, writes to Mr. Benade, "I am glad to hear that you are working away at the Academy; this institution will have a work to do as soon as it is able to do it. Mr. Scammon. I think, would make an excellent member." It is probable, however, that this preliminary organization was allowed to lapse, but the fathers of the future Academy nevertheless drew nearer together, by correspondence and by conferences at the annual Conventions. There is frequent reference, in their letters, to the "Pre-established Harmony" between them, and there is evidence that some sort of informal organization was kept up throughout the sixties, the brotherhood always being referred to by the symbolic sign of a circle enclosed within a triangle, significative of the union of good and truth.

     The desire for a more definite and open organization continued to be cherished, but there was much perplexity as to what form it ought to assume and how to proceed in its establishment. Mr. Stuart on November 8, 1865, writes thus to Mr. Benade:

     The Academy I believe in, but how shall we begin? Must we not risk an Educational Convention called for the purpose of devising ways and means for increasing the Ministerial force? There is some way to begin. What is it? Can we call a meeting of parties to meet with us, to take the matter in hand?

     Mr. Dike and Mr. Silver and I had ever so much talk about this interest, and I pressed the question, What shall we do? I found these men quite without plan, purpose or thought on the subject, further than that something must he done. I proposed a College for the Education of Priests, located near New York, with Mr. Benade at the head of it! This was a bold push, and was received with seeming favor, but nothing definite.

     And Mr. Benade, replying two days later, insists that "the Academy lives, it is, it exists, for life is in act. And now there is something for us to do, and therefore I ask you to lend me your ears, (a temporary loan only, to be returned when called for),--to receive the announcement of the fact that an Academician of the first grade, and chief of the class Philolog, has perfected a work which may be considered as beginning the work of the Academy." The work referred to was Dr. R. L. Tafel's excellent volume, Swedenborg the Philosopher, and Man of Science, which was published by Myers and Chandler at Chicago, 1867, and Mr. Benade urged upon the other "Academicians" not only to labor for the distribution of this work, but to sustain Mr. Tafel in the work of collecting and copying the manuscripts of Swedenborg and Documents referring to him, which might be found in Sweden and elsewhere in Europe.

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For this purpose he now proposed a definite organization, with a treasurer, but as the "treasure" did not materialize, he transferred the undertaking to the Convention which a few years afterwards was prevailed upon to send Dr. Tafel to Stockholm to commence the work of reproducing the manuscript.

     The plans for the Academy continued to mature. Mr. Stuart, in a letter to Mr. Benade, dated January 31, 1866, makes the following suggestions:

     From the first of the Harmony I have felt the want of a body that everyone would see, as well as a heart and lungs that they could not see. The time has now come when we can find out, I hope, how to put on this indispensable body. . . . The use that we contemplate, as I understand it, includes

     1. An Academy of Academicians.

     2. A sacred College of Priests.

     3. A School where our Priests and Academicians will be educated.

     4. A Cathedral Church, in the chapel and halls of which the work of education would be carried on and the young priests at times employed.

     5. A House of the Church, where Churchmen could live, and where people of the Church, male and female, would find employment.

     6. A publishing house.

     7. A broad society of contributors, constituting the orderly basis of the whole.

The first and second of the above would properly be the Harmony, holding the work together and bending it to useful ends. The third ought to come forward as a prominent part of the work. The fourth, fifth, and sixth could be held in reserve by the "Harmony," and could be set forth as desirable ends and uses whenever practicable. The seventh would constitute the visible basis of the movement.

     Numerous letters on this subject were exchanged between Mr. Benade and Mr. Stuart, the former dealing chiefly with ends and principles, the latter with suggestions as to forms and methods of organization. Mr. Benade insisted upon an "acknowledgment of the Divine Authority--of the Writings as a sine qua non of membership," (March 11th, 1866), and Mr. Stuart painted a fascinating picture of a "College for the Education of Ministers, and under that broad banner our machinery of radical investigation,--involving a Library as is one,--a Board of translators,--a Board of antiquarians, (the Tafels and such like),--a Board of practical theologians, able to make Theology a Science and to teach it,--a Board of practical priests, able to find out what the Priesthood is and how it ought to be produced,--a Board of linguists, philosophers, etc.," and he suggested as future members the Glenns, the Boerickes, Tafels, Iungerichs, McCandlesses, and other earnest and prominent New Church families. (April 11th, 1866.)

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Much might be quoted from the correspondence, but space forbids. Their day-dream was not to begin to materialize for yet another decade, and then "in a way they knew not." Their beautiful castles were yet in the air, and it was no; until the early seventies that they began to draw near the solid earth.

     The plans having finally matured, and the men and the means having made their appearance, it is of interest to find the following in a letter from Mr. Stuart, dated January 3d, 1874, in response to a letter from Mr. Benade, which has not been preserved:

     In re Academica: All right, Most Ancient Magnate, go forward. The way you mentioned is good. I would strongly favor a Quarterly at once. But you yourself must organize the movement and continue to be its head center. The young men of Pittsburgh will help into existence a splendid institution when they help to inaugurate this Propaganda. Therefore, buckle on the armor,--and on to the work!

     The "young men of Pittsburgh" were Mr. John Pitcairn, Mr. Walter C. Childs, and Mr. Franklin Ballou, who, on the fourteenth day of January, 1874, took dinner with Mr. Benade at the Atlantic Garden, a restaurant on Diamond street, in Pittsburgh. The young laymen being thoroughly indoctrinated in the principles of the "Harmony," the conversation turned upon the deplorable state of the New Church in America and England, the widespread spirit of negation towards the inspired Writings of the Church, the lack of recognition of the vastated condition of the Christian world, the evident failure of so-called "missionary work," and the necessity for a systematic propaganda of reform in the New Church.

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Mr. Benade suggested that this propaganda be carried on either through a quarterly magazine or by the publication of occasional monographs, in the form of pamphlets, and he was himself, at the time, engaged in the preparation of such a pamphlet, dealing with the state of the Christian world. It was Mr. Childs who first suggested that those present form themselves into a definite organization and invite others to join in the proposed propaganda. Mr. Pitcairn, at the meeting, wrote out a check for $500.00, as an initial contribution towards the expenses of the proposed publication, and Mr. Ballou was appointed treasurer to take charge of this and other contributions to the fund. And thus the Academy of the New Church, as wet an unnamed babe, was born into the world.

     The members of the old "Harmony" were at once invited to join the new movement, and the first to respond was the Rev. J. P. Stuart, then resident in Wyoming, O., who, in a letter to Mr. Benade, dated February 16th, 1874, expresses his pleasure in being given "a place in the-well, what do you call the body? It is well to keep the organization non scripta. Such constitutions are often the most potent. You ask me for a name, but how call I give it? Possibly The Academy, or The New Academy would answer." Other invitations were issued, but as no records have been preserved, it is not known when the other members of the "Harmony" united with the embryo Academy. The Rev. N. C. Burnham visited Pittsburgh in April, 1874, and probably joined at that time. Mr. Pitcairn and Mr. Childs left for an extended European journey in May of the same year, and did not return to America until May 27th, 1875. In the meantime the proposed publication was kept in abeyance, and the nest-egg of five hundred dollars remained undisturbed in the bank for more than a year.

     Nothing was done until the meeting of the General Convention in New York, June 4th, 1875, when the Academy met at St. Nicholas Hotel. There were present the Rev. Messrs. Benade, Burnham, Stuart, Hibbard, and Warren, and Messrs. Pitcairn, and Childs. After some discussion in regard to the selection of a name, it was agreed to leave the question open for the present, using the name "Academy" until a better one should be found. A ballot for officers being taken, Mr. Benade was unanimously elected presiding officer and secretary, and Mr. Ballou re-elected treasurer.


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     There is no record of any further meetings during the year, but on September 6th the Academy entered upon its first uses, the first of regular monthly contributions being then paid to Dr. Burnham, to support him in his work on Discrete Degrees, and to Mr. Stuart as an aid in the education of an intelligent young Chinaman, Wong Chin Foo, with whom the Academicians had become acquainted and who appeared to be a hopeful subject for the New Church. The first uses of the Academy thus on the one hand looked interiorly to the development of the systematic Theology of the Church, and on the other hand exteriorly to the extension of the Church to the Gentile world. The interior work proved a success, as is well known, but the external effort was a failure, the Chinaman readily accepting the arguments of the Writings versus the absurd dogmas of the Old Church but without getting any rational grasp of the positive truths of the Heavenly Doctrine. He afterwards became editor of a Chinese newspaper in New York.

     The next meeting of the Academy, of which we have any knowledge, was held in Pittsburgh, April 10th, 1876, as is evident from various letters by Mr. Stuart, who greatly desired to be present but finally found it impossible to come.

     What was actually done at the meeting on April 10th we do not know, but from a previous letter from Mr. Stuart to Mr. Benade it seems that additional members were to be selected. "I vote," he says, "for your nominees to membership in the Academy. They are the right men. And why not add the Rev. George Nelson Smith and Dr. O. P. Baer?" Neither of these gentlemen were then elected, but it is probable that the Rev. Louis H. Tafel and Dr. Francis E. Boericke were at that time chosen as members of the Academy.

     In Philadelphia the preparations for the Academy were going on apace. The Rev. L. H. Tafel, then pastor of a flourishing German Society, was intimately connected with Mr. Benade and also with the Rev. William F. Pendleton, who had been ordained into the ministry by Mr. Benade, in 1873. In the same year he was chosen pastor of Mr. Benade's old society in Cherry street, but did not remain there long as he at that time was filled with "broad and liberal" ideas of charity and external unity in the New Church.

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His sermons and his propaganda for union with the Philadelphia First Society, then worshiping at Broad street, were offensive to the sound old elements of the Cherry Street Society, and to Mr. Benade as President of the Pennsylvania Association, and brought upon him the severe yet kindly censure of his superior officer. Mr. Pendleton on July

     6th, 1874, accepted the invitation to the pastorate of the Broad Street Society, and for a year or two had no relations with Mr. Benade. He continued, however, to attend the monthly meetings of the Pennsylvania Conference of New Church Ministers, and through the discussions at these meetings, through actual contact with the self-willed and head-strong leaders of the Broad Street Society, but chiefly through an intense study of the Writings themselves, his mind during the year 1875 underwent a process of theological repentance and reformation, so that, on January 21st, 1876, he re-opened communication with Mr. Benade, frankly acknowledging that "I look at things now pretty much as you do. It is hard for the natural man to make an acknowledgment like this, but it is right that it should be done, and I feel that you will receive it in the spirit of truth. Let the Divine Truth reign, the consequences be what they may."

     This change of attitude, as might be expected, was anything but agreeable to the ruling powers of the Philadelphia First Society, and when the young pastor undertook to preach a series of sermons on the Twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew, and to exhibit the state of the Christian world as it is disclosed in the Writings of the New Church, he was treated as Mr. De Charms had been treated in 1845, and as Mr. Benade was treated in 1854. In the entire society Mr. Pendleton at first could find but a single man in harmony with the principles of the Academy, viz., Dr. Ernest A. Farrington, but before long the families of Mr. Starkey, W. E. Aitken, and Edward S. Campbell. Esq. were gained for the cause of genuine Truth.

     Such, then, was the situation in Philadelphia when the Conference of Ministers met there, on May 31st, of the Centennial year, and listened to readings from Dr. Rudolph Tafel's volume on Authority in the New Church. This was followed by the meetings of the General Convention, beginning on June 9th, when Mr. Benade led the forces of the Academy in a great and, on the whole, successful battle against the supporters of the unjust and illegal action of the New Church Board of Publication in refusing to publish the Liturgy, prepared at the request of the Convention by a Committee of the Conference of Ministers.

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This Committee consisted of J. P. Stuart, J. R. Hibbard, W. H. Benade, N. C. Burnham, G. N. Smith, L. H. Tafel, and J. R. Phelps,--all of them members or friends of the Academy,--and it is a significant fact that this Liturgy, providing for a new and orderly external worship in harmony with the new movement of faith and life in the Church, was issued by the Committee on June 19th, 1876, the very day when the Academy completed its organization and stood forth before the Church and the world as an independent and responsible body.

     The Convention having adjourned, the members of the Academy met on June 18th, at the house of Dr. Boericke, 222 Franklin street. Mr. David McCandless was chosen as the twelfth member of the Council. The Rev. J. P. Stuart was elected Secretary, and Mr. Walter C. Childs assistant Secretary. Mr. Benade, (now for the first time entitled "Chancellor"), together with the Secretaries and the councilors in Pittsburgh, were appointed a Board of Finance to take charge of the funds of the Academy and of its business affairs in general and in particular. The Rev. W. F. Pendleton, the Rev. J. E. Bowers, the Rev. Richard de Charms, Mr. I. Gillespie, and Dr. David Cowley were nominated for membership, and arrangements were made for a meeting to be held next day.

     On Monday, June 19th, the Academy met again at the house of Dr. Boericke, at 8 p. m. A full quorum of the twelve members of the Council was present for the first time, viz., W. H. Benade, J. P. Stuart, N. C. Burnham, J. R. Hibbard, S. M. Warren, Rudolph L. Tafel, Louis H. Tafel, John Pitcairn, Walter C. Childs, Franklin Ballou, F. E. Boericke, and David McCandless. The Chancellor presented a "Declaration of Principles" as the basis of the organization and institution of the Academy. The document was read and after due deliberation was adopted and signed. The persons nominated for membership on the previous day were now approved and selected. The Sacrament of the Holy Supper was then administered by the Chancellor to the members of the Council, and also to the ladies present, viz., Mrs. R. L. Tafel, Mrs. L. H. Tafel, Mrs. F. E. Boericke, and Mrs. D. McCandless, whereupon the meeting adjourned.


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     The summer of 1876 passed quietly except for a controversy in the Messenger about the scholastic qualifications of Mr. Benade, which were disparaged in a sneering and underhand manner by the editor, but ably defended by Rudolph Tafel. No meeting of the Academy was held, as far as is known, until November 9th, 1876, when the Council met at the house of Dr. Boericke and Mr. Pendleton and Mr. Bowers were initiated. It was now decided to publish a serial magazine, and Mr. E. C. Bostock, of Chicago; Mr. John Whitehead and Mr. Adolph Roeder, of Philadelphia, and Messrs. Andrew Czerny, E. J. E. Schreck, and Mi. H. Schliffer, of New York, were adopted as students for the ministry, to pursue their studies, for the present, under the direction of Mr. Tafel and Mr. Pendleton, in Philadelphia, and Dr. Leonard Tafel, in New York. Mr. Stuart, who had removed to Vineland. N. J., was to take editorial charge of the proposed journal.

     In the beginning of the following year the outlook in the Broad Street Society seemed more encouraging. From a letter to Mr. Benade from Mr. Pendleton, dated January 10th, 1877, we learn that the opponents of the pastor had been out-numbered in the annual meeting, and that Mr. W. M.--is now working as zealously on our side, as he was formerly against us. He makes no secret of his change of view, talks of it publicly, acknowledges that he had, until a short time ago, any amount of 'bosh' in his head. But still I am not fully satisfied, on at least, I do not understand." According to a letter from Mr. L. H. Tafel "Mr. W. M--- is a veritable converted Saul," but this state lasted but a few months and before long Saul was himself again, "making havoc of the Church, and breathing but threatening and slaughter"-moral slaughter,-"against the disciples."

     In the meantime arrangements were being made with the Lippincott Co. for the publication of the magazine, as to the name of which there was much perplexity. It was first proposed to call it "The Academy," but this was abandoned on account of the British journal of that name, while the name "The New Church Academy" was condemned as involving "a literary crime."

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Finally, at a meeting held on March 17th, the beautiful and appropriate title "Words for the New Church" was proposed by Mr. Benade, and unanimously adopted. At the same meeting the Rev. George Nelson Smith, of Knoxville, Ia., and the Rev. F. W. Tuerk, of Berlin, Canada, were selected as associate members of the Academy, as were also Captain Alfred Matthias and the Rev. H. C. Vetterling, of Pittsburgh, and Dr. E. A. Farrington, Dr. George R. Starkey, and Mr. E. S. Campbell, of Philadelphia.

     In April, 1877, it was first proposed to hire the ground floor of the building of the Cherry Street Society as class-rooms for the growing Theological school, and as, at this time, it had become evident that the majority of the Broad Street Society had been brought into line with the leading opponents of the Academy, it was also proposed to organize a new Society of the Church, out of friends of the Academy in Cherry Street, Broad Street, and Mr. Tafel's German Society.

     During the meetings of the General Convention, held in Cincinnati, June 1st to 5th, 1877, the Council of the Academy met frequently, the Rev. Richard De Charms and Mr. Nicholas Wade were initiated, and the form of the seal and coat-of-arms of the Academy was decided upon. At the Convention itself the members and friends of the Academy were present in full force and exercised considerable influence. The meetings were remarkably peaceful, and Mr. Benade and Mr. Pitcairn, who were about to leave for a journey in Europe and the East, were appointed messengers from the General Convention to the General Conference in England. Before they left America, the Academy held its second annual meeting in Philadelphia. The name "The Academy of the New Church" was now formally adopted, and it was decided to apply for a charter and to advertise the existence of the organization in the Philadelphia newspapers. As at the first so at this second annual meeting it was by the leading of Providence, and not by the design of the members, that the Academy met on the Nineteenth day of June. At each of the meetings attention was drawn to the significance of the date, and on this account it was now decided to celebrate this day annually, "as an important and joyous day for the Academy as well as for the whole New Church."

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On the same occasion the Rev. J. P. Stuart was chosen vice-Chancellor, to have general charge of the Academy's affairs during Mr. Benade's absence abroad. The Rev. Samuel M. Warren having declined to sign the articles of Incorporation, the name of the Rev. W. F. Pendleton was substituted as one of the twelve incorporators. The next day Mr. Benade and Mr. Pitcairn left New York for their long wanderings in foreign lands. (To be continued.)
REPENTANCE 1906

REPENTANCE       FREDERICK E. GYLLENHAAL       1906

     Yet if they bethink themselves in the land whither they were carried captives, and repent, and make supplication unto thee,...then hear thou their prayer and their supplication in heaven...and forgive thy people that have sinned against thee. (I Kings 8:47-50).

     Repentance is absolutely necessary that man may be saved and be conjoined to the Lord, for it is the first act of the rebirth or regeneration of man. Every man is born into evil and with inclinations to do evils and afterwards he does evil or thinks and wills to do evil, and of this he must repent,--of the evil which he does, thinks, and wills or intends.

     Therefore, repentance is a very broad subject and involves much that must be done by man. First, he must desire to be saved and to be conjoined to the Lord; then he must confess his evils before the Lord as sins against Him; and finally, he must act repentance, which is to desist from willing, thinking and doing evil, and to perform uses.

     Man must desire salvation. He must, from a knowledge that there is a heaven and a hell, want to live in heaven, because to live there is to be saved. This is necessary as a motive for repentance, because otherwise he will not confess his evils nor desist from them and live a new life.


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     The desire for salvation comes from remains implanted by the Lord in infancy and childhood, and when the proper time arrives they are awakened so that man may choose between good and evil, heaven and hell, the Lord and self. If man had no remains stored within him and from which he might be inspired to choose heaven and the Lord, he would never elevate his mind above self nor think about anything else than what would be to his selfish advantage. He would dwell in his evil proprium, and know no other than that he was in heaven. Therefore, in infancy and childhood he learns, in general, that to do harm is wrong or evil, and to do good is right or good; and good affections are implanted among his inherited evil ones; and then, when he has become a man, he is told to choose which way he will go, whether to the right or to the left, whether on the broad road or by the narrow path.

     "One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life." (Ps. 27:4.)

     Salvation is of the Lord alone, and they who are saved by Him dwell all their days to eternity in His house, and this is the one thing that is to be desired by man; for to dwell in the house with another is to be conjoined to the other, and thus to dwell in the house of the Lord is to be conjoined to the Lord. This is the one thing to be desired by every man, and when there is such a desire then the man will not rest until he learns that which it is necessary for him to do that his desire may be gratified, and, having learned the things he must do, he will do them.

     The first thing to be done is to confess his sins before the Lord, but as he cannot confess sins unless he knows what they are, sees them in himself, acknowledges them, holds himself guilty of them, and on account of them condemns himself, therefore, these must be done in order that confession may be complete, and the confession must be made in the presence of the Lord that it may be genuine and sincere.

     The question then arises, what is evil? Evil cannot be known from itself nor by an evil man except from, and in contrast with, good. The delight in evil loves causes man not to know evils and so he must, as it were, outside of that delight and from others learn what evil is. All knowledge must he revealed and the knowledge of good and evil is revealed in the Decalogue, in the Word of God, and in the Writings of the New Church, and it is taught children and men by parents and teachers as mediums, and also immediately to those who go to the Word of God.


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     As a child, man learns in a very general way that it is right to do certain things, and wrong to do others. When about to make confession he should enquire more particularly as to the difference between right and wrong, good, and evil, but especially should he seek after their origin to see why good is good, and evil is evil.

     Evil is to be known from good and falsity from truth. But good cannot be known from evil because evil is dead, nor can truth be known from falsity, for falsity is of evil. Good and truth are living, and they are from the Lord and in the Lord. To know what good is it must first be known what love to the neighbor is and what love to the Lord is, for these two loves are the inmost of good. And to know what evil is it must first be known what the love of self is and what the love of the world is, for these two loves are the inmost of evil. Love is the inmost of both good and evil, but the love of evil, that is, the inmost of evil, is really hatred, for it is opposed to the Lord and even wills utterly to destroy Him.

     Love conjoins; hatred disjoins. Good and truth are ever endeavoring to effect conjunction: evil and falsity continually disrupt and destroy conjunction. Therefore, man is to shun evils, and it is added, "as sins against God." because they attempt to separate man from God.

     We read that, "The love of self is that which least of all agrees with heavenly life; for it is the source of all evils: lot only of hatreds, but also of revenges, cruelties and adulteries; and still less does it agree when it enters into worship and profanes it." (A. C. 1307.)

     To choose wisely between two things we should know the true quality of each. From the number just quoted we learn that the love of self least of all loves agrees with the heavenly life, and thus with heavenly loves, and that this love is the source of all evils, as its opposite, love to the Lord, is the source of all good. In other places in the Writings it is said that "in all evil there is anger against the Lord, and against the holy things of the Church," "for evil is nothing but aversion and hatred against the good and truth of the Church." (E. 693; A. 4836)

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It is clearly evident that evil and good are opposite to one another, and that their inmost, love of self and love of the World, and love to the Lord and love towards the neighbor,--are opposite loves, the evil loves breathing forth destruction.

     Evil assumes many forms all of which, considered in themselves as evil, are unbeautiful, ugly, horrible and monstrous, but which may appear to men as beautiful and lovely. The man, therefore, who is studying what evil is must look for it in all its guises. He will not always see it manifested in the light as love of self or love of the world, in fact, he will seldom meet it undisguised, for evils love to work in the dark and to insinuate themselves into man's will and thought stealthily, and to appear as good to him and right for him to do.

     To really know evil it is necessary to know the great evils which the Decalogue commands not to be done, and to know their particulars and to see that they are evil because against God. When a man has such a knowledge of evil and also knows what good is, then he can proceed to the second step of confession, which is to explore himself and see the evils which are in him, in his will and thought.

     Self-exploration or self-examination is very difficult, especially at first. It is easy enough to shout with our mouth that we are sinners, guilty of all evil, and unworthy of the Lord's blessings or the kindness shown by friends, but when we so shout the words are not heard in heaven, for they do not come from the heart but from the mouth alone. Such confession is like the prayer of the hypocrites, and is made merely for the appearance. But true searching out of evils is to reflect on all which has been done, thought and intended, examining each deed and thought carefully to see whether the source or affection was good or evil, whether the deeds were done for advantage to the neighbor or for his harm: whether the thoughts entertained were pure, clean, holy and unselfish or filthy, lascivious, unholy and selfish; whether the affections and loves which inspired the thoughts and deeds were for God and towards the neighbor or against God and against the neighbor. If man explores both his exteriors and his interiors in this manner and in a humble spirit, acknowledging that there is evil in him to be found, and that there are certain evils, particularly grievous and active, within him, then he will see them, recognize them in their enormity, and be brought face to face with them, and thus place himself in the situation where he will have to acknowledge them or deny them, where he will have to hold himself guilty of them and condemn himself on account of them or hold himself innocent of all evil and deny that there is such a thing as evil.


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     Acknowledging evil in one's self is very difficult. It is much easier to point out evil in another and to condemn the other. Even when we see the evil clearly defined in us the very nature of its love, of our self love, whispers excuses and denials. But if confession is to be made man must acknowledge the evils which he has found in himself as his own, and he must hold himself guilty of having entertained them, perhaps of having cherished them, or even of having done them, and then he must condemn them and condemn himself for his evil.

     Self-examination is not necessary every day, except of the work and thoughts of that day. Too frequent exploration or constant brooding over one's evils depresses man and destroys his usefulness by not allowing the full use of his mind on the work before him to 30. Still there must be times of searching self-examination, and it might be noted that the time of preparation for the Holy Supper is indicated in the Writings as a time especially suited for self-examination, the sincere confession of sins, and for actual repentance. But at all other times, daily, throughout his life, man must be continually on guard against evil and ready to fight it, but he cannot always be advancing into the enemy's country, for he has uses to perform towards the neighbor, and provision to make for himself and those dependent on him.

     The importance of self-examination was known to the ancient Greeks and to other nations of that age, and was summed up by a philosopher in the words, "Know thyself." Also the early Christians recognized its importance, but especially the importance of confession in general, for they instituted the custom of confessing to priests one's sins, and the priest would appoint what penance was to be done for absolution. This is continued at this day in the Catholic Church.

     Also the Jews made confession of their sins, and they had certain ceremonies connected with sacrifices representing confession and purification.

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But their confession was not of the heart, for they were a people merely in externals, and were constantly departing from the Lord and sinning against Him. With them sinning was simply the failure on their part to observe the laws imposed on them, and their repentance only involved expressions of sorrow, usually because their sins had returned upon them, and the return to the literal obedience of the law, all on the natural plane or in their exteriors, not penetrating to their interior or spiritual man.

     King Solomon, recognizing the weakness of his people, that they continually turned away from the Lord their God to other gods, at the dedication of the temple, in his prayer said:

     "If they sin against thee, (for there is no man that sinneth not), and thou be angry with them, and deliver them to the enemy, so that they carry them away captives unto the land of the enemy far or near; yet if they shall bethink themselves in the land whither they were carried captives, and repent, and make supplication unto thee in the land of them that carried them away captives, saying. We have sinned and have done perversely, we have committed wickedness; and so return unto thee with all their heart, and with all their soul. . . . Then hear thou their prayer and their supplication in heaven thy dwelling place. . . . And forgive thy people that have sinned against thee, and all their transgressions wherein they have transgressed against thee. For they be thy people and thine inheritance." (I Kings viii, 46-52)

     To be carried away captives into the enemy's land is to be in evils, or what is the same, to be in hell. Hell by evil and its delights captures men and holds them as captives depriving them of all freedom. It is the truth which makes men free, and whatever is opposed to the truth takes away freedom and brings captivity and slavery. Men are slaves of sin, and what is remarkable, the evil reacts on them and punishes them when they attempt to act freely in sin, that is, when they indulge their lusts and appetites, overstepping all limits and bounds of order. It is in this captivity that they are to bethink themselves, to stop short, to reflect on their condition, to examine their bodies and souls; to see why it is that they are captives and not free men; and wherein they must mend their ways to set themselves free and thus be able to return again to their land, to the land of Canaan, a land overflowing with milk and honey.


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     We have seen that a man from a desire for salvation must make confession, and that confession consists in knowing what evils are, in seeing them in himself,--in his works, in his thoughts and in his loves or intentions,--in acknowledging them as sins and as his, and in condemning himself because he gives them lodging. "This when it is done before God is to confess sins." This is a part of repentance.

     Now let us consider the crowning work of repentance which makes it effective in our life of regeneration. This is to act repentance, by which is meant to desist from evils and to lead a new life according to the precepts of charity and faith, which new life is to be the rebirth or regeneration of man.

     We read in the Arcana Coelestia, that "it is impossible that a man should be saved unless it be allowed him, inasmuch as he is born in evil, to do evil and to desist from evil; when he desists from evil of himself in freedom, then the affection of good and truth is insinuated." (A. 8700)

     The man knows that he is in evil and that evil is in him and he must resist it by fighting it, and also desist from doing it by breaking off all communication with it. The hells are within the evil attacking man and communication with them must be severed, for otherwise they will continue to inflow and infest and destroy. To only resist is not sufficient. He must resist and desist; or, as we read, "he repents truly. . . when he is in the delights from the evils and is free to do them, and then resists and abstains." (T. 532) To abstain and to desist are the same thing, and this is what every man must do; he must desist from his evils.

     But how is man to desist from evil? We read, "that man cannot at all desist from evils from himself; for this would be of his own life to desist from his own life; wherefore, it is provided that he may be able to desist from them from the Lord." (A. E. 938.) Here we are told how man desists from evil and the means are the universal means of all warfare on every plane. Of himself man is unable to do anything; all things are done by the Lord, for the Lord is the one and only active, and He acts through His agents, angels, Spirits, and men, who, when they do not oppose His action, react with Him, and in the appearance that they are acting of themselves.

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So, after confession, man is humbly to pray to the Lord for help to desist from his evils, recognizing that of himself he cannot desist from them but that the Lord will help him if he, the man, prepares himself and co-operates with the Lord. "Yet if they bethink themselves. . .and repent, and make supplication unto thee, then hear thou their prayer and their supplication, and forgive thy people."

     The Israelites were bondmen in Egypt and would have remained bondmen there forever or until destroyed, hall not Jehovah with a mighty arm led them out of Egypt to the land of Canaan; and whenever, during their forty years of wandering in the desert, they were defeated or captured, because of their sins, it was the mighty arm of Jehovah which rescued them and again led them on to victory, they having repented and made supplication to Him. And so it is with the individual man; he must descend into Egypt and can be led out only by the arm of the Lord, and throughout his forty years' wanderings he can only co-operate with the Lord, for the Lord alone is powerful enough to fight his enemies, the hells. To the Lord belongs all power, and he lends his power to man only when man will use it against the hells. Therefore man is able from the Lord to desist from evils.

     As far as man desists from evils so far the Lord removes them from man. We learn of the remission of sins that this does not mean taking them away so that they no longer remain, for this is impossible. By remission is meant that the hells are sent back to the place allotted them, or rather, that the devils and evil spirits infesting are sent back to their hells, and that the hells are thus reduced to order. Therefore, it is said, "God cannot according to His laws remit sins to any man, except in proportion as the man according to His laws desists from them," (T. 73), which is the same as what is said in the Arcana Coelestia, namely, that "the Lord removes the hells in proportion as man desists from evils." (A. 9937)

     Desisting involves continued action, and this is necessary in desisting from evils; for we have just seen that evils are never wholly cast out of man.

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They remain a part of his proprium but are inactive, excepting at times when they renew the assault, and at such times man is said to be in temptation.

     Desisting also involves the idea of abhorrence, because when man desists from evil from the Lord, then from love to the Lord and love towards the neighbor he regards evil with horror and gradually his delight in evil loses its pleasantness to him, and finally, evil becomes undelightful to him, and then it may be said of him, "but his delight is in the law of the Lord." (Ps. 1, 2.)

     When man begins to desist from evil he will at the same time begin to lead a new life according to the precepts of charity and faith. For he knows evil to be harmful to the neighbor, and he now wishes the neighbor well, and so he seeks to show his good will by some means. Use is the means of performing good, that is, it is the active means. He acts well to the neighbor when he desists from evils, but this is a negative use. There are active uses of life which he has to perform, and which he performs even though he be an evil man. Considered in itself use is a fixed thing. It is the duality of the use or the love in the use which determines whether a man is or is not in charity. The man who desists from evils and leads a new life performs his use in life from a new love, in general from love to the Lord and love towards the neighbor. At the same time "he daily acts repentance, reflects upon the evils which are in him, acknowledges them, guards against them, and supplicates the Lord for help." For he knows that even in his new life he would fall were not the Lord continually raising him up and leading him to good. He knows from experience his weakness and sinfulness and the Lord's power and mercy. He places himself in hands of the Lord and co-operates with the Lord and thus makes it possible for the Lord to save him.

     To lead a new life according to the precepts of charity and faith, in itself is to repent and to keep on repenting. And so to repent involves leading a new life, which new life is to continue forever, if the repentance be genuine and sincere. And when man has truly repented then the Lord hears his prayer and forgives his sins, and brings him out of his captivity, leading him to the promised land.


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     "Yet if they shall bethink themselves in the land whither they were carried captives, and repent and make supplication unto thee in the land of them that carried them captives, saying, "We have sinned, we have done perversely, we have committed wickedness; and so return unto thee with all their heart and with all their soul, . . . then hear thou their prayer and their supplication in heaven thy dwelling place. . . and forgive thy people that have sinned against thee. . . . For they be thy people, and thine inheritance, which thou broughtest forth out of Egypt, from the midst of the furnace of iron."

     The application of repentance and its need to the man of the Church is very evident. It is necessary for every man to repent that he may enter the Kingdom of God. Regeneration is impossible without repentance.

     The Lord causes man to reflect on his state and then the man,--unaware, however, that the promptings came from the Lord,--examines himself and finds evils in himself and perhaps tries to rid himself of his evil loves without asking help of the Lord. He fails maybe several times until he is reduced to a state wherein he feels shame and sorrow for something he has done, and then with a humble heart he confesses his sins and asks help to shun his evils, and promises the Lord that he will begin life anew. Then the Lord forgives him and comforts him and helps him in his new life to resist and desist from his evil loves. This may happen many times in a man's life, but every time he repents he draws nearer to the Lord and farther away from the hells, and if he will but persist to the end he will be saved.

     It is the Lord who makes the beginning, and He throughout continually lifts the man up, and guards him, and guides him, and all the time unknown to the man. It is only after the man has successfully passed through the enemy's country or has been led out of captivity that he looks back and sees how the Lord was with him, and how he would have fallen by the way had it not been for the help of the Lord; and then he will truly give thanks and say. "I love the Lord because He hath heard my voice and my supplication." (Ps. 116, 1.) Amen.


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ORGANIZATION OF SOCIETY 1906

ORGANIZATION OF SOCIETY       J. B. S. KING       1906

     The spiritual correspondences of the various organs of the human body are dwelt on with such fullness and with such a wealth of detail in the Writings, that incidental to the main purpose of those holy books there is developed an entirely new science of Physiology and Anatomy. Since the human form is of such supreme importance, so fundamental in its order and so universal in its application, it follows that there is not a single subject of human interest that is not illumined by the light derived from its study.

     A knowledge of the new Physiology applies especially to social organizations because the human body is an orderly association of organs, and each organ is an orderly association of cells or parts bound together by a common interest, the key-note of which is use.

     In this wonderful kingdom of the human body, in which the inhabitants are living cells, the utmost peace, order, harmony and industry prevail; there are no brawlers on the quiet streets, no idle individuals are tolerated, no disturber of the peace is to be found within the corporate limits. If by chance or disinclination for use, any member refuses to do his share of the work he loses the regard of his fellows, ceases to receive that influx of life from the brain which is the free gift to all, and is hurried out of the way of the busy workers into a back street or by-way, thence into the common sewers, and like dead matter, cast out of the kingdom.

     The various organs and tissues of the body of man correspond to the greater and lesser societies of angels in the Gorand Man of Heaven, and in the exquisite harmony of the bodily functions in health we catch a glimpse of the ineffable and supernal harmonies of heaven, just as we see in the morbid states of the bodily organs something of the disorder and confusion of the hells.

     In the multitudinous activities of the body each cell performs a use to all the others, especially to the other cells of the organ of which it is a part; in an equal measure, it receives from all the others.

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Influx is according to efflux, and in that degree and quality that each cell performs uses to others, in the same degree it receives benefit from the commonwealth; a rapid, pure, warm, stream of blood, lymph, or other fluid bearing all the elements that the individual needs for its own happiness to its very door, so to speak. "Everyone in Heaven is, as it were, the center of all, for he is the center of influxes through the heavenly form from all." Probably in no other way can we get so comprehensive an idea of this truth as by a study of the functions of the cells of some particular organ such as the liver.

     The organs, members and viscera of the body are extremely different from each other, so different in form and function that there seems to be hardly any resemblance,--and yet they make one, having relation to one man and to one soul. The harmony and perfection of the whole consists in this very diversity of form and use, working towards a common end. Each company of cells and also each cell has a work to perform, and no matter how humble it may be no other individual or company in the whole commonwealth can do it as well, and here is a source of the highest happiness and contentment. We all like to do what we can do well; in that in which we stand pre-eminent we find delight. Here, then, is no room for unsatisfied ambition, for jealousy, bickering and strife, for all have found their proper use and function. No liver-cell has aspirations to a heart-cell and thus rise in the world, for purifying the portal blood from the bitter bile for a specific purpose of the greatest use to the rest of the body, is the highest delight of its life. The heart-cells have no ambition to be brain-cells; they find their greatest happiness in that noble function of receiving the blood through winding and devious ways from far out-lying districts and forcing it up to the lofty regions of the lungs for purification and aerial food. As the whole vascular system is organically bound together for a common use, it once again receives the purified blood into the muscular cavities of the left heart and then with a mighty propulsion sends it to all parts of the kingdom, laden with the precious merchandise of life.

     There being no selfishness, no passion for accumulating more than can be used, no desire to rule over others, each one is left free to do his work according to order.

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As all work for the common good, all are taken care of gratis; they are robed with their tissues, they have their proper home and abiding place, they are bathed in nutrient juices and surrounded by pipes and tubes which bring them the raw materials for their manufactures and convey thence the finished product. Through another system of tubes the debris and waste matter is taken away; no garbage lies at their doors and all the busy streets are kept scrupulously clean.

     To see a type of the disordered condition of society and of social evils, we have to study the diseased or pathological states of the body.

     Congestion is an undue afflux of blood to a part, producing a stasis at that part. Owing to some irritation the blood corpuscles are crowded in innumerable multitudes in one organ; the containing vessels are distended to the utmost; the free flow of the fluid is retarded or stopped, and; with its cessation all healthful activity ceases. An analogy to this is seen in the enormous cities that encumber the earth. If some uranic intelligence were to survey our earth, without the means of entering into our motives, how they would wonder at the perversity that leaves deserted so many miles of fair, green fields and crowds into black, smoky, muddy spots called cities, where we live in layers one above another, and are conveyed about the streets in stuffy boxes on wheels, from the ceilings of which we hang suspended upon leather straps

     Inflammation. Congestion, if long continued, soon passes on into inflammation, which is also an undue afflux of blood to a part, but now with heat, swelling, pain, and the formation of morbid products. It is simply a worse congestion than that already described. It occurs in every ill-governed city, with over-crowded tenements, contagious diseases, stopped sewers, and smoky air.

     Cancer. A disorderly aggregation of cells, deviating from normal cells in form, with a strong tendency to overpower and encroach upon neighboring and contiguous tissues; drawing a large proportion of nutrient juice to itself, and thriving at the expense of the general health. Waste matter is no longer taken care of; it clogs the avenues; a thin, toxic juice comes from the cancer and disseminates misery and contagion to every part of the kingdom.


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     This is a concrete picture of self-love, which would rob the populace for the sake of self; of the love of accumulating more than enough; of exalting one's self above the neighbor.

     This paper is only a slight introduction to a study which deserves more time than is usually given to it, and it is written with the hope of inciting others to enter into it.
DOCUMENTS OF NEW CHURCH HISTORY 1906

DOCUMENTS OF NEW CHURCH HISTORY              1906

(From the Archives of the Academy of the New Church.)

LETTERS OF THE REV. JOHN CLOWES TO THE REV. JOHN HARGROVE.

I.

MANCHESTER, Dec. 29, 1802.

My Dear Sir:

     Ill health added to a variety of Engagements, which at times exhaust all the strength of my infirm constitution, must be my Apology for not returning an earlier Answer to your Favour dated the 17th of June last, and I trust you will accept it in the spirit of that Charity, which is ever disposed to make all favorable Allowances for involuntary Failings.

     Your name was not strange to me, nor is it less dear because we differ in Sentiment about external things; for the question about true spiritual Union of Minds, has little or nothing to do with opinions, especially when those opinions do not relate to the Essentials of Christian Life and Worship. If the LORD JESUS CHRIST be acknowledged as the Only GOD in Heaven and in Life, true Christian Charity muse needs prevail in that mind, and where true Christian Charity is, there is the very cement of all spiritual Conjunction, and in such case, whatsoever Variety there may be in points of outward Speculation, (as Varieties there will be), it will be only like the variety in the shapes and forms and uses of the bodily members and organs, which, so far from destroying Unity, tends rather to establish and perfect it.


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     If I have judged it right to continue in the Ministry of the Old Church, I trust it has been solely from a conviction in my own mind that a sudden Separation from, and violent opposition to the Externals of that Church, would have tended to excite unnecessary prejudices in the minds of many against the New Doctrines, and that therefore the Wisdom of Heavenly Love required rather a temporary toleration of some Abuses and Corruptions, than such a hasty rejection, as might have given Birth to an Idea, that the New Church was intent more on outward than inward Reformation, and that she was, besides, sectarian in her practices and intolerant in her principles. On the other hand, if you, Sir, have thought it right to pursue a different Line of Conduct. I am ready and willing to indulge the same Hope, that you also have acted in Agreement with the Conviction of your own Mind, and from the best intention of promoting the prosperity of those Doctrines which your Understanding approved. It is possible, therefore, (and I humbly trust, probable,) that we may both have acted right, and in a manner the best calculated, in our respective stations, to recommend and disseminate the truths which we each of us most ardently love.

     The Divine Providence of the LORD, we know, has in all Ages permitted the Children of Wisdom to be influenced by a Variety and even a Diversity of Sentiment, and has even rendered that Variety and Diversity subservient to its own blessed purposes of making known to Mankind the Counsels of its own Mercy. And who can say but that some procedure of this kind has been in operation under the New Dispensation, and that the Descent of the New Jerusalem, has been accomplished by these very means which, (to judge only from human Appearances) seemed likely to retard it. At all events. I am persuaded you will agree with me in the opinion, that the surest and most effectual method of recommending and establishing the Truths of the LORD'S New Kingdom is, first to form them well into our own minds, so that we may be enabled to press them upon others, not so much from Intellectual Light, as from Voluntary Life, and may thus convince Mankind that in making them Converts to the New Jerusalem Verities, we are not eager to change their persuasion only, but their principles, by calling them out of all disorderly Love, to become happy and undefiled in the Love of GOD and their Neighbor.

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Is not this what is meant by casting the Net on the RIGHT Side of Ship?

     I have mentioned to our Society* here your Want of the Writings of our Enlightened Author, and they have generously commissioned me to send you at their Expense and for the use of your Society, such of the Works as they have been engaged in publishing, particularly the volumes of the Arcana Coelestia in which your Set is deficient, Letters to a Member of Parliament and some smaller Tracts, all which I hope you will receive safe. The Apoc. Exp. is not let printed in the English Language, nor do I hear of any probability of its publication at present, altho' our good Friend, Mr. Hill, I am informed, has completed the Translation some time ago.
* That is, The Manchester Printing Society, of which Mr. Clowes had been the president since 1782,--ED.

     By a letter received lately from Paris, I find that your Friend, Mr. Mather, is at present settled in that city, where there is a small Society of Readers, amounting to 10 or 12 who meet every Week at his House.

     It will give me pleasure to hear again from you, whensoever you are at leisure, and to know that you are well, and that your Society continues to increase and grow, not only in the Science but in the Love of the best things.

     Commending you and yours to the Divine Mercy and Protection, I remain, dear Sir, with sincere prayer for your eternal Welfare, Your sincere Friend and Brother, J. CLOWES.

     P. S. The 10th Vol. of the A. C. I trust, will be ready for publication towards Midsummer. In the meantime I am proceeding in the translation of that important Work, and also in a New Translation of the Gospels, intending to publish each Gospel separately, with all the Interpretations and Elucidations of our enlightened Author, collected from all his Works, together with observations of my own, on those passages on which our Author is silent.


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II.

MANCHESTER, Sept. 20, 1803.

My dear Sir:

     Since the beginning of July last I have received two letters from you. It gives me particular satisfaction to hear of the progress of the LORD'S New Church and Kingdom amongst you. And it is my daily and devout prayer that it may continue to increase and grow, as I doubt not it will from its Mustard-seed state until it becomes a great tree, so that the Fowls of the Heavens may lodge in its branches.

     The Divine prediction was that the Woman should fly into the Wilderness,-where she hath a place prepared of GOD, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days. (Rev. xii. 6). And therefore we ought to be prepared to expect this Wilderness state and to regard it as an Accomplishment of the Divine prediction, and also as a preparation for further growth, until the church shall be enabled successfully to wage War against her Enemies, the Devil and His Angels, which she cannot do until she attains a full state of life, or a conjunction of the Good and the True. For the two Witnesses, we find, (Rev. xi. 7), before such conjunction was effected, were overcome by the Beast, and slain, nor did they receive strength unto victory, until the Spirit of Life from GOD, entered into them, and they stood upon their feet, and great fear feel upon them which saw them, (Verse 11). Therefore, my dear Sir, let us not despise the day of small things, seeing that it is the order of the Divine Providence that His Church, like every thing else, should commence from small beginnings, and proceed thence in a regular and gradual progression, through successive and various states of growth, to the Attainment of its full size and strength and just proportions of Beauty and of Excellence, which, (let us not doubt), will be accomplished in due time.

     In regard to the attack which you mention, meditated by the young Methodist against the New Doctrines. I would advise you not to be in the slightest Alarm about it, because there is every reason to conclude that it will revert upon himself, by tending to a fuller Display and confirmation of the Truth.

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It would afford me real satisfaction to be at all instrumental in assisting to repel the Attack, by supplying you with my own observations, (agreeable to your request), on the point at Issue. But as it is impossible for me to suggest any hints on the subject, except such as are to be found in the Writings of our illuminated Author, I am of opinion it will be by far your wisest mode of Combat, to select your arguments from that inexhaustible Store of spiritual Weapons, both of Attack and of Defence. Besides, it is impossible as yet to conceive in what manner your Adversary intends to conduct his Assault, and until this is known, it is alike impossible to devise the means of repelling him, which, it is probable, may consist rather in exposing his weakness, than in putting forth your own strength. At all events, I think it will be best to wait until his Book appears. before you give yourself any further concern about it.

     You are desirous to know the number of Preachers of the New Doctrines in England, with their names, &c. and also whether any more clergy-men of the Established Church have received the Doctrines. In reply to your first Inquiry. I wish to say, that as yet I have heard only of six, viz. Messrs. Proud and Sibley in London, Mr. Dean of Bristol, Mr. Farrady of Birmingham, and Mr. Gardiner of Manchester, who are all supported by the rent of the seats in their respective Chapels or by voluntary contributions. In reply to your 2d Inquiry, I am sorry to say that the blessed Truths of the New Kingdom are almost entirely rejected by the Clergy of the Established Church, who, in this particular, incur the terrible sentence pronounced against the Scribes and Pharisees of old, by neither going in themselves, nor suffering them that are entering to go in. There are not wanting, however, some exceptions on the occasion, and I am happy to be acquainted myself with seven very respectable worthy clergymen who cordially receive the New Doctrines. Two of them are rectors of Churches in this county, and three are Vicars in the County of York, but as I am not sure whether it would be agreeable to them, that their names should be made public, you will excuse my saying more about them at present.


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     To your remarks on No. 277 of the Divine Providence,* I have to reply, that Swedenborg could never mean his Assertion in that Number to be understood merely in a Spiritual sense, as applying to the color of the mind, because this has nothing to do with the Argument which the Assertion is intended to support. He must therefore needs mean it to be taken in its obvious and literal meaning as applied to the Body, and it is still a Question with me whether he is not right in his position, and whether a sufficient variety of well authenticated Facts would not tend to confirm it.
* That the soul is from the father follows not only from the things mentioned above, but also from many other indications; also from this that a child of a black or Moorish father by a white or European mother, is born black, and vice versa." (D. P. 2773.)--ED.

     I come now to the contents of your Second Letter, and shall begin with satisfying the curiosity of your Society in their desire to know how I perform the Liturgy of the old church &c., by informing them, that I now never do perform it. But the reason is, not that I have any scruples of conscience about performing it, but that I am prevented by a nervous complaint, which, for several years past, has attacked me in reading the Lessons appointed by the Church, but yet allows me to preach. The reason why I am not afflicted in preaching, as well as in reading the Lessons, I conceive to be this, because the greater exertion necessary in the former case overcomes the disorder and does not permit it to exert its influence so successfully as in a more tranquil and calmer state of the bodily organs. Possibly, however, there may be some more hidden and remote cause, which I do not as yet apprehend. At all events I feel it a duty to abide in the Externals of the Old Church and am much confirmed in my purpose by a remarkable passage in the Apocalypsis Explicates, relating to the two Witnesses spoken of in chapter xi. of whom it is said Verse 12, that they ascended up to Heaven in a cloud. Now these two Witnesses according to our Author's testimony, represent the New Church, and yet in his Explication of the above passage, he says expressly, that their ascending up to Heaven in a cloud, signifies a Separation as to internals, but not as to Externals, and in explaining what he means by Externals or by a Cloud, he says that by a cloud is signified the External of the Word, of the Church, and of Worship.

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It appears, then, that there is to be a separation of the Witnesses, or of those who are of the New Church, from those who are not of the Church, but then, according to our Author's testimony, it is to be a separation as to Internals, but not as to Externals, in other words, the Members of the New Church must be content still to abide in the Externals of the Word, of the Church, and of Worship, as in a cloud, although separated as to Internals, by an Elevation thereof into Heaven.

     On the subject of Miracles, and the difficulties with which your mind is beset in the contemplation of them, it is impossible for me in the compass of a letter to say all that I could wish. I am of opinion, however, that many if not all your Difficulties would be done away, if you would reflect seriously, that all the Miracles recorded in the Holy Word are Figures, and were intended to be so, of the Nature and perpetual effect of the Divine Agency on, Mind, as well as on Matter, and thus that they were not designed merely for the use of the Spectators present at the time they were brought, but of all Mankind, in all Ages, who should be blessed with the perusal of the Divine Volume, and in a state of life capable of believing and of being affected by its Testimony. As to what you observe concerning the nature of Miracles in general, as being Interruptions and Inversions of the established Laws of Nature. I would ask what are the established Laws of Nature, but the Laws of the Divine Operation in Nature, and controlling Nature? A Miracle, therefore, is neither an Interruption nor Inversion of the Law of Nature, but rather a change in the ordinary mode of the Operation of its Laws, demonstrating the overruling power of that Divine Omnipotence, which governs and directs nature. You seem to stumble particularly at the Miracle of the Shadow going backward, and of Lot's wife turned into a pillar of Salt, and of the Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah &c. But if you consider that the first of these Miracles was intended to figure to all ages the effect of Repentance in delaying the Consummation of the Church: whilst the second was designed as a Figure equally instructive of the dangerous consequences of Truth averting itself from Good; and the third of the destructive Effects of Sin.

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I conceive that your judgment of them will be totally changed, so that you will no longer say of them that they were not efficient to answer any great general design, or scarcely any at all, because you will be enabled to see, that they are perpetually answering a very great general Design, by bearing the most striking and forcible testimony to the most remote Ages, of the most important Truths, relative both to the Universal and individual Church of the LORD.

     I was much gratified by the account of your Interview with the President, though sorry to find that he had been so inattentive to your excellent Sermon, as to confound your ideas with Dr. Priestly's. I was concerned also at the answer you gave him, in reply to his Question about the preparation of a Body in the Womb of the Virgin Mary, because it does not appear to be so right an Idea to say, that a Body, was PREVIOUSLY prepared, as to say that the Divine Itself took to Itself a Body there.

     As to the Difficulties which your Friends suggest about the passage in the treatise On the Worship and Love of God &c. I have only to observe, that that treatise appears to have been written before the Author's Spiritual Eye was opened, and therefore, though very instructive, does not claim the same authority with his other theological Works. Besides, the translation is exceedingly incorrect and not to be depended on.

     You enquire about the number of Volumes of the English translation of the A. C. The whole will be comprized in twelve, and I am already entered upon the 2d part of the 11th vol., so that through the Divine Blessing I trust the Work will be completed in about 3 years.

     I have nothing to say in reply to your doubts on No. 27 of Divine Love and Wisdom, because I am afraid of getting into the mouth of one of those Monsters of which the Author speaks in No. 31, of the True Christian Religion.

     Thus my dear Sir, have I endeavored to reply to the various contents of your two letters, and now I am sorry to say that I must, for the present, take my Leave of you, being called to attend to other important Engagements. I cannot, however, conclude my letter without expressing my most devout prayer for the Divine Blessing on all your Labors, and for the Growth and Prosperity of the LORD'S most glorious New Church and Kingdom, throughout the Earth, in the Spirit of which prayer, and with Christian Love to all the Brethren in your Neighborhood, I remain dear Sir

Your sincere Friend and
affectionate Brother
J. CLOWES.

P. S. In your Sermon you make Job's Wife say, according to the old translation of the passage, Curse God and die, but in the original it is expressed, Bless God and die.


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     Why should we be afraid of death? Need we fear to meet our Heavenly Father, who is not only merciful but Mercy itself? Need we fear to meet the angels who are willing to suffer the torments of hell for our sake? Need we fear to meet the devils who are utterly impotent in the presence of our angel guards? No, there is one only being of whom we need to be afraid, the only one who can harm us, the only one who will judge us; and that being is with us now,--our own self.

     "Reasoning concerning Divine things, whether they are so or not, comes from the reasoner not seeing these things from the Lord, but wanting to see them from himself; and that which man sees from himself is evil. But still the Lord wills that man should not only think and speak concerning Divine things, but also reason about them, to the end that he may see that a thing is so or not so; and this thought, speech, and reasoning,--provided the end is to see the truth,--may be said to be from the Lord with man, but is from the man until he sees the truth and acknowledges it." (D. P. 219.)


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Editorial Department 1906

Editorial Department       Editor       1906

NOTES AND REVIEWS.

     The Rev. C. J. N. Manby announces the publication of the sixteenth volume of his Swedish translation of Arcana Coelestia. It includes the 21st Chapter of Exodus.

     The celebrated chemist, Professor Bamberger, of Zurich, on a recent visit to Stockholm, stated that his "respect for Swedenborg is growing every day. If he lived at this time he would capture twenty Noble-prizes." (Nya Kyrkans Tidning, Dec.)

     As the result of the discussion entered into at the meeting in Boston (see New Church Life, 1905, p. 500) the General Convention has issued a Calendar of Daily Reading from the Word and Writings. This Calendar, which is sold for five cents, is issued as a four-page folder, and is got up in the same style as the former Calendars issued by the General Church. Like these also the readings begin with the first chapter of Genesis and the first number of the Arcana, and the lessons average a chapter a day from the Word and from one to two pages of the Arcana. On the outside pages are printed suitable passages from the Word and Writings, and directions for using the Calendar.

     As a contribution to a discussion, carried on in The New Age, as to whether "isolated New Church people should attend the services of the Old Church." Mr. J. Fi. Bennett sends to that journal a long extract from the discussion of that subject in the recent British Assembly of the General Church, as reported in the Life for October, pp. 620-621. The extract is introduced by the remark that "the following extract from New Church Life should be of interest." Mr. Bennett is secretary of the Australian Conference, and in the recent meeting of that body, he voted to rescind the motion dismissing Mr. Billings's resolutions.


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     The Messenger for December 27th contains a leading editorial on the "Importance of the Heavenly Doctrine" which is somewhat of a surprise and wholly a gratification. It is, probably, the strongest statement of the supreme importance of the Writings and the necessity of reading them, that the Messenger has made, editorially, for a great number of years. The truths of the New Church are described as "the genuine truths of the Word of God given through heaven from the Lord," and the editorial then continues, "This is what we confess as Newchurchmen; is it not then enough to convince us that we ought to read some of these Heavenly Doctrines containing truths from the Lord for those who will be of the New Church, daily, with prayer to the Lord to help us understand them and apply them to life? The Word is not understood without doctrine."

     This editorial plea is a necessary one and is forcibly made. Yet it will largely fail of lasting effect unless it is followed up by consistent teaching respecting the Divine source of the Heavenly Doctrines, and respecting the newness and distinctiveness of the Church that is based upon them.

     The editorial on "Sexes in Plants," in the January Life, has called forth some interesting letters on the subject, opening up questions which we hope will be discussed by our readers. One of our correspondents protests against what he conceives to be an undercurrent, in our editorial, of "apparent or implied condemnation of all investigation by the senses,"--"a fling at protoplasm and the study of microscopic structures." Nothing was further from our purpose. We most heartily approve of investigation by the senses,--since there exists no other method of investigating; what we condemn is the method of investigation from the senses. And we have the utmost respect for the study of microscopic structures, since the further we enter into the interiors of Nature, the closer may we approach the Infinite. But when men remain in the structures alone, as do all but an infinitesimal portion of the learned, they become bound more than ever in the very lowest spheres of the finite, and the microscope, instead of rendering them more humble and more sane, then becomes the means of greater pride, blindness, and insanity.


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INCORPORATION OF THE GENERAL CHURCH 1906

INCORPORATION OF THE GENERAL CHURCH              1906

     Our readers have already been informed of the completion of the incorporation, under the laws of the State of Illinois, of "The General Church of the New Jerusalem," (see New Church Life, 1905, p. 748), but as yet nothing has been published respecting the meeting at which this was effected. We have now received from the Secretary of the incorporated Body a copy of the official minutes of this meeting. The proceedings were, in the main, of a formal nature, and it will be sufficient to present merely a brief outline of them.

     The meeting was held in Chicago on October 6, 1905, and was attended by eleven of the eighteen incorporators, namely, Messrs. J. Pitcairn, S. H. Hicks, F. A. Boericke, Jacob Schoenberger, G. A. Macbeth, S. S. Lindsay, H. L. Burnham, S. G. Nelson. P. Carpenter, and Richard Roschman. After a temporary organization, there was some discussion on one or two of the by-laws, but they were all eventually passed in form as printed in the Life for 1905, pp. 558-562. The following officers were then unanimously elected to serve for one year: President, John Pitcairn; Vice-President, Samuel H. Hicks: Secretary, Paul Carpenter; Treasurer, Charles E. Doering. Among other business transacted was the adoption of a corporate seal, consisting of a representation of the seven stars and the seven golden candlesticks of the Apocalypse, with the words, in Greek, "Behold, I make all things new," the whole enclosed within a double circle bearing the inscription "The General Church of the New Jerusalem."
ATTENUATED HERMENEUTICS. 1906

ATTENUATED HERMENEUTICS.              1906

          The Spiritual Exodus, by Dr. T. F. Wright. (Massachusetts New Church Union), is evidently an attempt to give a popular exposition of the second book of Moses. In his preface the author magnanimously admits that he "has made use of the interpretation given in the Arcana Coelestia, anonymously published . . . and known to have been written by Emanuel Swedenborg, whose training as a man of science qualified him to study rationally the symbolism of Holy Scripture which Philo Judaeus, Origen, Boehme and other good men had sought to explain, but without the necessary scientific preparation."

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Not a word about Inspiration or Revelation, still less about the New Church. Swedenborg is merely the "rational student" of Scripture "symbolism," and his efforts are more successful than those of equally "good men," solely because he had "training as a man of science." Is this really the author's candid opinion? or does he feign it in order to enlist public attention? Neither position, we should think would befit a leading professor in a New Church Theological School.

     The Preface indicates the quality of the book itself. Its keynotes are accommodation and attenuation, even to the vanishing point. The "spiritual meaning" is little more than a series of moral lessons with, for the Newchurchman, just a suggestion of the spiritual; but to view them as being the "interpretation given in the Arcana" requires some imagination. Where, for instance, does Swedenborg teach that conscience "is the still small voice of God's good guidance?" Correspondences become "symbols" whose origin is traced to purely natural circumstances. Because of the genial climate and rich soil of Egypt "its spiritual significance should be given as that of the early life of man when the mind is happily gaining knowledge through the senses," and when, if in a state of vigor, he may "worship great muscular power" as the Egyptians worshipped "the young bull." "Isaac with his digging of wells and his thoughtfulness stands for the Lord's youthful period of quiet meditation and acquisition of truth; and Jacob in his hard life of struggle and tribulations represents the young Jesus serving as the Carpenter of Nazareth."

     To Old Church readers the book map appear as a plausible and pleasing explanation of Scripture, but teaching little if any more than the general moral truths which they already know. And, if, perchance, they should ever become readers of the Arcana, they will doubtless wonder how much the author "made use" of that work, or whence he derived that quietistic air which ventures to patronize sacred things and complacently purrs forth its human characterizations of the Lord Himself.


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FAITH ALONE IN MODERN SCIENCE 1906

FAITH ALONE IN MODERN SCIENCE              1906

     In the modern world Theology is generally regarded as an extinct science, and theological dogmas and creeds receive but small attention. The remaining intellectual interests of the men of the Christian world are almost exclusively confined to the things of this earth. Nature is their god, and Natural Science is their Theology. And in this earthy Theology the ancient Dragon of Faith Alone sits enthroned as proud as in the imaginary heavens of old, for here he found refuge when he "was cast into the earth."

     A striking and unexpected illustration of the sway of Faith Alone in the Science of today is furnished by one of the pet theories of modern Botany. In every botanical text book in the world it is solemnly announced that the reproductive organs of plants--the stamens and the pistils--are nothing but "modified leaves." Even Gray's little manual, How Plants Grow, which is one of the most popular introductory guides to Botany, declares that this is so "in the mind of the botanist who looks at the philosophy of things." Among these philosophers, however, the exact morphological relations of the parts of these organs to the various parts of the leaf is not definitely settled. A great variety of opinions prevails, but all are agreed that the stamen is only a leaf, the two halves of which have become swollen and filled with pollen, while the pistil, also, is nothing but a leaf, the two halves of which have rolled up towards the midrib. The top of this leaf becomes the stigma; and the main part of the leaf, swollen with flesh and juice, becomes the ovary and the fruit. The fruit, therefore, is simply a leaf, or the product of a modified leaf.

     It is difficult to see the reason for this theory of the learned. Leaves are the lungs of the plant, and if the stamens and pistils are leaves, then, by eminent analogy, why are not the reproductive organs of animals simply modified lungs? And how is it that we find "midribs" in these supposed leaves which develop in the midst of a mass of petals, none of which have any midribs? It is true that stamens, but never pistils, are sometimes seen approaching the form of petals (though never ordinary green leaves), especially in certain cultivated, ornamental flowers but these are exceptions in, the vegetable kingdom, and it is unreasonable to base a universal law upon exceptions.


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     But when we apply the touchstone of Correspondence, which as a universal mathesis is applicable to all sciences, where will the theory land us if we accept it as genuine natural truth? Leaves most distinctly correspond to intellectual things, to the knowledges of truth in the natural memory, being the vessels by which the sap is purified by coming in contact with the outer air, just as the blood is purified in the lungs, or as the love of a man is purified by contact with the atmosphere of spiritual truth. The leaves, like the lungs and like the understanding, are only the means of purification, but if it is actually true that the fruit is nothing but a modified leaf, then, by the law of Correspondence, it must be equally true that good works are the fruits of Faith Alone,-which is the main contention of the Dragon.

     The Writings of the New Church, on the contrary teach that the pistil is "a new little stein" within the petals. (T. C. R. 585), and stems and branches always correspond to the affections derived directly from the life's love. The pistil, as a new little stem, corresponds to the regenerated affection of truth, and "from the marriage o these affections good works are produced as fruits from a tree." (B. E. 48). And therefore modern science is just as wrong in teaching that stamens and pistils are leaves, as the old theology is wrong in teaching that good works are the fruits of Faith Alone.

     The example is but an incidental illustration of the tendency of modern science to run into natural falsities exactly corresponding to the spiritual falsities of the fallen Church, but the serious element is that we are surrounded with such scientific falsities everywhere, especially in the biological sciences, and that these false vessels, stored in the natural mind, retard the reception of spiritual truth. It will therefore be necessary for the New Church to enter more and more into a study of natural science, in order to discover there the ultimate basis of the falsities which the Church has combated on the spiritual plane. The Heavenly Doctrine being the Divine Sensual as well as the Divine Rational of the Lord's Divine Human, will then be able to expel these falsities and substitute scientific truths in their stead, and the Church will then gain an immensely increased power, not only in its educational work among the young, but also in its evangelistic work among the intelligent classes of the remnant in the Old Church.


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MR. ALDEN'S RESIGNATION 1906

MR. ALDEN'S RESIGNATION              1906

     Our readers will be deeply interested in the following letter, which appeared in the Messenger for December 27th:

     EDITOR MESSENGER:-My work in the Philadelphia Book-room will soon be closed. In stating the fact: that I am open to a call to another field of ministerial work I desire to present the conditions which compel a change.

     Somewhat more than two years ago I became convinced that the belief, held by many members of the Convention, that some of the teachings of the Academy tended to immorality and that, as a result of such teaching, immoral practices existed among the members of the General Church of the New Jerusalem, had no foundation in fact. In this conviction, it seemed to me right to express to the brethren of the General Church at Bryn Athyn my regret that I had misjudged them, and to offer friendly relations with them. This action was prompted by more than the wish to do justice. I had for a long time felt it to be a serious injury to the cause of the New Church, that her adherents should be divided into two hostile camps, and I rejoiced that the incubus of suspicion against a body of men and women who professed allegiance to the New Church, which made such antagonism seem necessary, had been lifted from me. My offer was cordially accepted. A friendship has followed which has been to me an increasing satisfaction. I have found the friends at Bryn Athyn a community of earnest New Church people, striving to learn the truth and live the life taught by the Lord in His Second Coming. I have found their teaching respecting marriage and the relation of the sexes to be such as inculcates clean thought and life from childhood up, and eventuates in pure homes, and happy families. It seems to me that this life, which is open to anyone, who will, to know about, is sufficient answer to unfortunate interpretations which have been made of certain publications of the Academy.

     It seems to me that I have done right in cultivating this friendship, which, while involving no pledge of doctrinal agreement, has been simple and straightforward, has, for myself, removed many misunderstandings, and is, as I hope and believe, an earnest of that happy state which shall yet be in the New Church, when all who acknowledge the Lord in His Second Coming shall be brethren, and work together, united in a common faith, in the bonds of charity.

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For me to longer refrain from this friendship would, as it seems to me, have been to give silent support to slanders which hare been sadly current among those connected with the Convention against those connected with the General Church. This I was not, and am not willing to do.

     Much to my grief, however, my attitude and action in forming friendly relations with the members of the General Church at Bryn Athyn, have brought about a serious lack of harmony between myself and the Managers of the Tract Society and of the Book Association. They feel that I no longer represent them, and in response to their expressed wish I have resigned my office as agent of these two bodies.

     The work which I have done has been well known in the New Church for twenty years. My attitude with regard to the teaching of the church is tolerably well known and need not be enlarged upon. I am a minister of the Lord's New Church. I desire to do the work of that ministry. In that work I desire to do or to say nothing of my own, so far as in me lies, to receive and teach the distinctive Doctrine which the Lord has revealed for the establishment of His New Church in the Theological Works of Emanuel Swedenborg. Whosoever he be that acknowledges the Lord in His Second Coming, and seeks to live the life which the Lord teaches in that Second Coming, he is my brother in the New Church; I would be joined with him and work with him so far as opportunity permits. WILLIAM HYDE ALDEN. 2129 Chestnut St., Philadelphia, Pa.

     The Messenger, in a brief editorial on Mr. Alden's resignation, expresses its regrets "that circumstances should have arisen which caused this step. Mr. Alden is a conscientious and energetic worker, and has seemed to fill usefully an important place in the Church." This recognition from the official organ of the General Convention is a tribute of the merest justice to the services of Mr. Alden in a use which the Convention has most specially at heart,--the dissemination of the Doctrines of the New Church by means of tracts and other publications of a missionary character. For twenty years he has labored faithfully and enthusiastically in this field, as agent of the Tract Society and the Book Association in Philadelphia, and as editor of The Helper, which, under his management, has become the most widely circulated publication in the Church. His devotion to this use has in nowise abated, and no accusation of unfaithfulness to his office has been raised against him.

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There is not, on his part, any "lack of harmony" with the professed aims, or even, as far as we know, the policy and methods of the work of the institutions by which he was employed.

     If use had been the paramount consideration of the managers, they could have had no issue against Mr. Alden, but their minds seem to have been filled with other things than uses. On the surface the issue appears to have been confined to dissatisfaction with his attitude towards the members of the General Church of the New Jerusalem. Mr. Alden had become unable to believe in the atrocious slanders which for a period of thirty years have been circulated against the Academy by members of the General Convention, and most especially by certain influential persons residing in Philadelphia. "Harmony" with them would seem to involve as an essential sine qua non an undoubting zeal in the dissemination of scandals against the neighbor rather than a single minded devotion to the propagation of the Heavenly Doctrine. Mr. Alden for years had believed the stories which he heard from persons supposed to be trustworthy, but he finally began to investigate, traced the slanders from tongue to tongue, and at the head-waters found them deliberate and malignant inventions.

     This rendered him a dangerous person, but had he been content to rest merely in the disbelief of the scandals, he might have been suffered to remain in his recognized usefulness since, as we are happy to know, there are many other members of the Convention who are similarly convinced of the innocence of their maligned brethren. But his conscience did not allow him to remain in the faith alone, but he felt impelled to act upon his conviction, and to offer the hand of Christian fellowship to brethren in the Church against whom he felt he had sinned in thought if not in words. Without professing complete doctrinal agreement with them he approached them in the hope of thus promoting a state of internal unity in the Church which can be established only on the basis of mutual confidence and brotherly love.

     Beneath the personal issues there is one deeper, more internal, one of which the persecutors of their brethren are not fully conscious.

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The offense of the members of the General Church, their single offense, is that they accept the Heavenly Doctrine in its entirety, without reservations. Mr. Alden, also, has accepted the whole Doctrine, including the work on Conjugial Love, as it is written. It is this Doctrine that is offensive to many members of the Church on account of "the fear of the Jews," lest the Old Church should invent against them the same slanders that they have invented against their brethren in the New Church. The hatred and the persecution, therefore, are directed in reality against the Doctrine itself, against the Lord in His Second Coming, and the real persecutors are not those who are gossiping and whispering in this world, but the spirits of the Dragon in the other world who are pouring out of their months their filthy waters as a flood against the woman with the male child. Our brother, Mr. Alden, is therefore to be congratulated that he no longer in any sense represents the tools of these spirits, but instead, as a faithful and fearless priest of the Lord's New Church, represents the whole pure Doctrine of the New Jerusalem, the eternal and victorious cause of Justice and Truth.


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CIRCULAR OF THE ROTCH EDITION COMMITTEE 1906

CIRCULAR OF THE ROTCH EDITION COMMITTEE       B. A. WHITTEMORE       1906

To THE READERS OF New Church Life:--

     Many of the circulars of inquiry sent out by Mr. C. W. Barron, of Boston, have already been filled out and returned; but a large number of people have as yet failed to reply. From the answers already received it is believed that the summarized results will be interesting to all Newchurchmen, and that they will contain valuable suggestions for those who are in any way engaged in the dissemination of the truths of the New Age. Before the work of tabulating and summarizing is completed, however, it is very desirable that as many replies as possible be included. We consequently wish to urge those who have not yet done so, to fill out the blanks and return them without further delay. If you can also assist in the distribution of the blanks by handing the duplicates to New Church acquaintances, we earnestly beg you to do so. B. A. WHITTEMORE, Sec'y, 16 Arlington St., Boston, Mass.
SEXUALITY OF PLANTS 1906

SEXUALITY OF PLANTS       ELIZABETH A. SIMONS       1906

Editor of New Church Life.

     DEAR SIR:--The article on Sexes in Plants in the January Life is a powerful presentation of many phases of the subject in question. It certainly behooves all those instructed in the sciences of the world to examine every detail of their accumulated facts and theories, carefully discriminating between the two. Many times have I read T. C. R. 585, and never till now have I seen that if one does not accept it as true, then he must reject the authority of the Writings and look upon them only as on other books. Will you answer this question for me:


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     Why are scientific facts, as stated in the Writings, to be taken as literally true any more than those of the Old and New Testaments? The men of the early Christian Church fell into gross scientific errors by confiding in the Word for their interpretation of natural phenomena. Why may we not err just as seriously?

     I thoroughly agree that Swedenborg must have known of the prevailing idea during his time concerning the bi-sexuality of plants. The matter had been debated almost from the time of Aristotle. It is interesting to read of the men who disagreed, especially of Andrea Caesalpina, (1583), who came to the conclusion that vegetable seed grains were analogous to the male seed in animals.

     Paragraph eight brings to me the remembrance how diligently our minds were disabused, while at the University, of the notion that various plant structures existed for the use of man primarily. For instance, we learned that cotton seeds have long hairs attached to them in order that they might be transported from the mother plant. The plant was thus providing for future generations, but to say that the Lord made those hairs for the use of mankind, that He had that purpose in their creation, would from a scientific point of view, be an absurdity. Apples are made juicy in order that we and other animals may be tempted to eat them, may discard the core and thus disseminate the seeds. The apple was simply endeavoring to propagate its kind.

     These illustrations will serve to show the false attitude of mind induced by scientific reasoning--from fact to cause, without the acknowledgment of God. How sadly we need revelation to start us thinking in true order, so that facts may be so correlated as to confirm truths established by God and not theories concocted by men!

     The terms of science are confusing. If we do away with the words masculine and feminine as applied to stamens and pistils, and use instead active and passive, acknowledging that here, as elsewhere, there is a continual union of the two, we take one step forward.

     But even then to me two things are not clear:

     1. Why is not the embryo in the seed a perfect little plant?


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     Are stem and leaves really not such until they perform their respective functions?

     2. Lower plants, Cryptogams, do not have embryos in their reproductive resting bodies. The earth receives these "spores" and from them gradually the organs of the plant are formed. Biologists have laid a sharp line between the seed and the spore. Is there really any such? If all plants are masculine then that resting organ produced at the end of a plant's life is the seed, whether one-celled or many-celled.

     As I think of this side of the question in relation to ferns and mosses. I am amazed at the change it would bring about in the aspect of the life of each. It would mean no "alternation of generation," but only finer and finer vegetative growth, looking toward the production of the spore.

     A wonderful field of thought opens up when one contemplates the vegetable kingdom in this new light. ELIZABETH A. SIMONS. Philadelphia, January 14, 1906.
SEXUALITY OF PLANTS 1906

SEXUALITY OF PLANTS       E. BENNINGHOVEN       1906

Editor of New Church Life.

     DEAR SIR:--AS a reader of your magazine and as a student I cannot agree with your explanation of sex life in plants as given in the January number in answer to a reader's question. Swedenborg is right when he says that the Earth is female, but he ought to have added that the Sun is made, to be understood more easily. The plants are not merely male, any more than mankind is male only; plants are bisexual, male and female, as we are, from a microcosmic view; yet the Earth with all therein or thereon is female from the macrocosmic standpoint. When Christ says, "I am the Bridegroom" and the Church is the Bride, He means the same, utters the same Truth. We all,--male and female, are members of one Body, the Church, which is female, although consisting or made up of males and females, the Bride, passive towards the positive,--one magnet with two poles. Every atom is male and female, and every magnet is made up of both sexes. In the Universe our solar system is nothing but an atom, that is, a magnet with two poles (male and female), a small part of the great Universal Body. So the great Milky Way might be called the Ovary of the universal female body.

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God is male and the Universe is female in symbolic relation, although made up of male and female units, (the macrocosmic heaven made up or consisting of microcosmic individual heavens). As the Church cannot have real Life without Christ, so can a wife not know a true life without a husband. If people understood this thoroughly, they would not ask for divorce so readily or regard the marriage relation so superficially as they do. Preachers and religious magazines fail utterly in making this clear, in showing that it would be just as logical to discard Christ for Mohammed or Buddha, as to be divorced or married to a second husband. True Life of Christ is symbolized by true marriage as between Him: and His Church. Yours truly, E. BENNINGHOVEN. San Francisco, 1624 O'Farrel St.
SEXUALITY OF PLANTS 1906

SEXUALITY OF PLANTS              1906

Editor New Church Life:--

     It is seldom that anything from the able pen of the Editor of New Church Life seems to call for criticism from its friends, but in the interest of New Church science, and of the efforts now making, and, we hope, to be made in this field to solve some of our many questions. I feel impelled to raise my voice against what seems to me a wrong method of approach. I refer to the recent editorial upon the subject of "Sexes in Plants." The editorial in question is a straightforward, though not exhaustive presentation of the Heavenly Doctrine upon the subject, and also of the general principle that man must approach the sensual plane from above if he would have any interior light whatever. Also that he must look at structure or form in the light of use, and not vice versa. But what strikes our correspondent amiss is the apparent or implied condemnation of all investigation by the senses and thus of the whole field of modern science. Such an attitude puts into a false light all who would attempt to delve in the wonders of histology and of biology, whether for selfish ends or not. Undiscriminating condemnation defeats its own purpose with the discriminating. To condemn those who reject Divine teachings if they conflict with their own appearances, as Old Church scientists in general do, and as does the writer quoted from the Intellectual Repository, is certainly according to the Doctrines.

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But to add to this a fling at protoplasm and the study of microscopic structures, and even at the much martyred tadpole, is to convey an unreasonable prejudice against some of the very means and methods of investigation on the sensual plane, which we must use to confirm and clothe our heavenly truths. The Editor very justly arraigns those who regard the apparent, units of structure as the real beginnings or "simples" of organic life, but seems to conclude, therefore, that we should not descend to such "groveling" considerations He says, "Start your reasoning from what is Divine, heavenly, and human, as revealed by the Divine Truth itself, and the light from above will infil all lower forms with light and life." Just so! But why does he leave off here, where the problem really begins! It is only when one has acquired these forms, and tries to see their relation to his spiritual truths, that the trouble begins. Our real problem in field just now is this very matter of brining to bear the new heavenly light upon these "lower planes" in order that may found our heavenly ladder more firmly upon the earth. This we are not only permitted, but commanded to do. Besides it is by seeing wider applications of our truths in ultimates, that they themselves become clearer and stronger with us.

     To sum up then, your critic, while heartily in accord with the attitude of the editorial towards those who are openly negative toward Divine Revelation, thinks that in spite of its expressed commendation of the attitude of the questioner, it is likely to discredit scientific research per se.

     A better method of approaching this question with an affirmative questioner is that attempted elsewhere in the editorial, where some effort is made to throw new light upon the doctrine, little can be done, however, without years of study. Such discrepancies as this question involves, show not only the insufficiency of natural science to correctly interpret the phenomena of life without Divine aid, but also they show most impressively the inadequacy of our understanding of the most fundamental laws of life and reproduction.

     Do we understand what the Doctrines cover, when they say the earth is the common mother? Does it include exhalations? What is the essential maternal function? If it were merely gestation and parturition, it would be easier to see the parallelism as to the seeds and their final lodgment in the earth.

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But, as we know, the ordinary course of gestation and parturition can largely be provided for apart from the mother, and, in all but a few the higher forms of the animal kingdom, are so provided, showing that the essential maternal function is rather the production of ova. This also agrees with what Swedenborg says--"The entire woman is as her ovum." The difficulty here is the appearance that most vegetable seeds, before they enter the bosom of the earth, seem to be already impregnated, and even to contain a well developed embryo. All this, however, takes us beyond the limits of public discussion, but it must be notice, in order to realize what is involved in the question.

     More in place, here, is the consideration of the question: Why is this teaching important? The reason given in the Writings in opposition to the view of the scientists, based upon the phenomena as they appeared to their senses, was a truth of Revelation, viz., that the earth corresponds to the Church, which is the common ground, and thus the mother of all spiritual seeds or truths. Behind this, also, was doubtless the doctrine concerning the nature of the Human assumed from a woman. It is very important in this connection to see just what the maternal functions are, in order to render clear our idea of the Lord Himself, for we are taught that what a man receives from his mother is all external relatively, and that therefore when the Lord glorified His human He entirely cast off all that He received from the mother. This suggests that even the production of the ovum, which is the essential maternal function, is but a higher womb or soil. It also suggests how the woman, in this deed, typified the function of the whole human race in relation to the reception of the Divine of the Lord. This would accord entirely with the Doctrine, and also with the observed phenomena, and would indicate that the difficulty in the popular mind has arisen from supposing that the embryo appertains to the ovum, needing only the addition of some element by the spermatozoid, to cause it to fructify, when, as a matter of Doctrine, the whole embryo is contained in a complete miniature in the seed, and fertilization is thus only the implanting of this in a soil of its own degree and kind, preliminary to its final implantation in the earth or common matrix.

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     Some have asked, Would it necessarily destroy the similitude, if the earth in some cases is taken up into the plant to perform the highest part of its function? Is there not something like this when we consider that something of the soul of the wife is present in man's understanding when it gives to the new soul-vessels or initiaments their first clothing? Some have even ascribed to this influence the production of female seed from the father. But the soul of the wife is conjoined with that of her husband, not united. Still the question remains, Is not his soul itself modified or influenced in the performance of its genetic functions by this adjunction? The objection to this is that the same thing could be said of the female functions in the animal kingdom that some are here trying to ascribe to the vegetable, i. e., that maternity is merely a function of the earth carried up to a higher degree. Yet is it not just this fact, that the reactive functions of the earth are here carried up and used by living organisms to produce ova, that makes sex in animals?

     The conclusion seems to be that the allotment of sex-functions varies according to the plane of life. The differentiation varies not only between the different kingdoms, the mineral kingdom being the mother of the whole vegetable kingdom, but the different planes in each kingdom are much confused--many forms being called bi-sexual, for instance. Still, exceptions need not overthrow the rule. Swedenborg in the Worship and Love of God goes so far as to say that originally the vegetable kingdom was the mother of the whole animal kingdom.

     The feminine function which in human beings makes wifehood possible, is a degree higher than the maternal functions, which they share with animal creatures, for the sake of reproduction. The fact that the latter function is left behind at death, while the former is not, shows what is meant. In this view, we should have to say that sex is not complete and perfect save in man alone, and this is probably true, since the differentiation of sex functions in this world was doubtless given to us as a mutual need in order to serve as an ultimate basis for Conjugial Love. As to other created forms, the Divine creative afflux and the vital energies of the spiritual world are wrapped up in nature in all its planes.

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If not in fulness of potency in each least particle of dust, it could never be unfolded out of it in succession to all the higher forms prepared for the service of man. In no part of nature, however, is sex activity more than a conatus, or emulation of real sex, which exists truly in man alone, though it remains closed in evil men.     H. S. Bryn Athyn, January 12, 1906.

     The Rev. Samuel M. Warren has kindly sent us a paper written by him on the subject of sexes in plants, which was published in the New Jerusalem Magazine for April, 1877. It is strongly affirmative of the teaching in the True Christian Religion, n. 585, and follows the same line of reasoning that was presented in our editorial on this subject in the January Life. We quote the following additional arguments:

     "It has been held--and the idea seems plausible at first sight--that the seeds of plants are equivalent to the eggs of oviparous animals; but a careful consideration of all the elements of the problem will show that this is not the case. The egg, containing within itself, as it does, both the paternal and the maternal elements of organization, will develop into the perfect animal, simply by a favorable temperature. It contains within it all that is necessary to the organization of the animal. This is a well-known fact, and it is attested by our author, as follows:

     "'In the egg lies concealed the rudiment of a new bird, encompassed with every element necessary to the formation of the foetus, from its beginnings in the head to the full formation of all things of the body.'"--A. E. n. 1198.

     "It is not so with the seeds of plants. They have not within them all the elements necessary to the organization of the plant. The paternal is there, but not the maternal. They must, therefore, like the seed of the male, be implanted in the womb of the earth; and the earth, like the mother, actually contributes of her purest essences to the development of the seed, causing it to germinate.

     "The fact that water, or moisture, will cause seeds to germinate, and that some seeds will grow in water, or in air, without striking their roots into the ground, is no valid objection, of course; because water and air themselves are of the earth, and, moreover, are always more or less impregnated, by solution and exhalation, with other earthly substances, from the essence of which this necessary subtle sphere may emanate and impregnate the seed.


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     "To follow this beautiful analogy still further, it is remarkable that the first thing formed from the germination of the seeds is a little root, by which the embryo plant becomes attached to its mother earth, and through which it afterwards receives of the grosser essences of the earth, for its formation and further development. So, in a manner strikingly analogous,* the embryo animal becomes attached to its mother in the womb; and through the means of this attachment it afterwards receives of the grosser essences of her body, for its further formation and development. It thus appears that the embryo plant in the womb of the earth passes through stages analogous to conception, gestation, and finally parturition, when, in the fulness of its time, the infant plant is ushered forth into the open day."
     * [Corrected from the March NCL p. 192.]


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Church News 1906

Church News       Various       1906

FROM OUR CORRESPONDENTS.

     BRYN ATHYN, PA. With the Christmas celebration held the twenty-third of December, the holiday season began, and was unusually gay; with lots of holly and evergreen to give it the touch of festivity. However, the festival was imbued with the serious spirit of Christmas, and in the chapel where all assembled at four in the afternoon Bishop Pendleton and Mr. Synnestvedt held a service especially adapted to the children. There was the singing of anthems and the Christmas offering, before adjourning to the gymnasium. Here the scenes of the shepherds and wise men were realistically represented; and while the story of the Birth of the Lord was read from the Word a series of magic lantern pictures, reproductions of some masterpieces, was exhibited, perfect in detail and coloring.

     On Christmas morning service was held followed by the Holy Supper.

     A round of gaiety caused the remainder of the holidays to speed quickly away. A most delightful evening was spent at "Cairnwood" by the "young folks," while the "old folks" had their party on New Year's night in the Assembly room of the College. There were selected readings, and some very amusing German figures led by Mr. Synnestvedt, and then all flocked to the gymnasium to a light supper and speeches. Mrs. Glenn entertained a large number of the Society at "Glenhurst" later in the week, and at the same time there was another dance at the college. On Sunday evening Mrs. Colley, of Chicago, gave a most enjoyable lecture-recital at Mr. and Mrs. Hick's, when she explained the child's study of music, and the development of the higher forms of the art in the elementary grade. She played admirably Chopin, Schumann and Wagner.

     There was a host of visitors during the past month. A number of former Bryn Athynians came home for the holidays. The Misses Pendleton, of New York; Messrs. Curtis Hicks and Edward Bostock, of Pittsburgh, and Mr. Warren Potts, of Hartford, Among those from other societies were: Mrs. Peter Bellinger, Mrs. Ray Brown, the Misses Waelchli, Messrs. Harvey Lechner, Paul Carpenter, Walter Faulkner, and Arthur Carter.     R. H.


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     PHILADELPHIA, PA. On November 1st, a very enjoyable Hallowe'en party was given by the Social Club of the Advent Church.

     Bishop Pendleton preached on November 12th, while Mr. Rosenquist filled the pulpit of the Bryn Athyn church.

     Professor Odhner, of Bryn Athyn, delivered a very interesting lecture on "The Spiritual Geography of the Holy Land" in the Hall of Worship, on Wednesday, November 8th, in place of the usual Doctrinal class. On Wednesday evening. November 22d, Mr. Alfred Stroh lectured in the same place on "The Development of Swedenborg's Science," and Bishop Pendleton read a very instructive paper on "Imagination" on the evening of December 6th.

     The Christmas services of the church were held on Sunday morning, December 24th, fifty persons being present, of whom thirty--nine partook of the Holy Supper. The usual Christmas offering to the pastor was presented. On Christmas day the Sunday School's Christmas celebration was much enjoyed by both children and adults.

     ALLENTOWN, PA. It has been some time since so momentous an event as a wedding has taken place in the Allentown Circle of the New Church: The monotony has been broken; on December 16th, a very pretty wedding was celebrated at the house of our oldest member, Mr. John Kessler, when his daughter. Miss Mathilda, was married to Mr. Charles F. Theyken.

     The house was tastefully decorated with flowers and greenery; about thirty friends were assembled to witness the ceremony. When the time arrived six little girls holding ribbons formed an aisle through which the bridesmaids and the happy couple made their entrance to the accompaniment of the wedding march. The Rev. Enoch S. Price officiated.

     After the ceremony Mr. and Mrs. Theyken held an informal reception for the friends, who were present. Toasts were offered and the prosperity and eternal happiness of the newly married were wished in speech and song.

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After the congratulations of friends had been received a dainty supper was served by the six little girls who had before so prettily assisted at the ceremony. Three musicians were in attendance and discoursed sweet harmonies until late into the evening.

     Mr. Theyken is a new acquisition to the Allentown Society and to the New Church. He was baptized by the Rev. Enoch S. Price on August 27th last, and at that time made confession of the faith of the New Church.

     PITTSBURGH, PA. A large party rambled down to the town of Ingram one evening in November to surprise Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Lechner in their new home. Perhaps we did surprise them. Anyhow we spent a lively evening amid songs, sandwiches and coffee.

     The young (unmarried) people have organized a euchre club to meet once a month at the different homes, and so far two enjoyable evenings have been spent.

     Three names are likely to be added to the General Church membership list, as during November three of our young ladies read their confession of faith.

     The holiday season commenced with the children's Christmas celebration on Saturday afternoon, December 23d. The church was beautifully decorated with holly, laurel and pine, Christmas red and green predominating. There were fifty-eight presents prepared, and nearly all the children, down to the very babies, went up themselves to the chancel rail to receive their gifts. In some cases the little arms were not equal to their bundles, and some big sister or brother must needs come to the rescue.

     On Sunday morning Mr. Pendleton's sermon on the beautiful though so many centuries old "Unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given," brought to all present a realizing sense of the greatest miracle of all the ages. The Holy Supper was administered on Christmas morning.

     The following persons have registered in Pittsburgh since my last report: Miss Helen Grant, of Kansas; Mr. and Mrs. A. E. Nelson, of Glenview; Miss Loomis, of Zanesville, Ohio; Mr. and Mrs. R. E. Caldwell, of Coshocton, Ohio; Mr. C. A. Gilmore, of Kenosha, Wisconsin. Mr. Alex. P. Lindsay has also been spending Christmas holidays at home. K. W.


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     BALTIMORE, MD. Our Christmas celebration was held in the hall on Sunday afternoon, December 24, 1905, with a total attendance of forty-one persons. The superintendent gave an address on the incarnation, in the course of which questions were put to a number of the children, who replied by giving notations from the letter of the Word, the responses by the children of the infant class being especially well given. The address was interspersed by singing from the Hosanna. During the singing of "Holy Night" each child was presented with a small lighted candle, which was significant of the light. This made an exceedingly impressive scene. At the proper time three wise men entered, singing "We wise men of Orient are." After the close of the exercises candy and fruit were distributed. The offering, amounting to four dollars and a half, was donated to the Orphanage B. R.

     GLENVIEW, ILL. Our holiday season opened with the church celebration Christmas morning. The weather was exceptionally fine, and the attendance better than for several years. With the exception of two babies and four adults every person in the Park was present. Our seven visitors helped to make the grand total nearly one hundred. The decorations were beautiful, consisting of garlands of evergreen, wreaths of holly and one hundred and fifty candles. The school children took an active part in the services, and their songs and verses added much to the Christmas sphere. It was a lovely sight to see the tiny ones running toward the chancel and even upon it in their eagerness to present their gifts to the Church. After the celebration was over, all passed into an adjoining room to view the two scenes,--the angels appearing to the shepherds. and the Wise Men approaching the stable in which the Lord was born. The service was impressive from beginning to end and was enjoyed by all.

     A surprise party to Mr. and Mrs. Burnham was the next event of the season. And it was a surprise! It being their twentieth wedding anniversary the society presented them with a large, beautiful china platter. A novel feature of the evening was an autograph album in which each guest was requested not only to write his name, but also to draw an original sketch.

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Great interest was taken in the would-be artists and their results. Speeches were made, old times were recalled, and a loving cup passed around in honor of our genial host and hostess.

     Our New Year party and Watch Meeting was held at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Alvin Nelson, instead of the Club House as heretofore. It was a great success! Music and literature were the program for the evening. At midnight a short service was held followed by toasts and speeches. Then the scalloped oysters and dancing.

     Our Friday Classes were discontinued during the holidays but recommenced on the 5th of January, on which occasion Mr. Junge gave an exceedingly interesting account of the Assembly in Canada. E. J.

     CHICAGO, ILL. On Wednesday evening, December 20th, five gentlemen from the Sharon and Immanuel Churches gave a dramatization of "Dickens's Christmas Carol."

     It was not "Dickens as he is wrote" exactly, but all the local jokes and allusions enhanced the general effect. The acting and stage setting were quite up-to-date even to the gruesome ghost saying blood-curdling things to an accompaniment of slow and melancholy music. The acting was enthusiastically applauded. The Christmas services called out the largest attendance we have ever had. To the usual attractions of the day and the service was added a fine representation of "The Nativity," arranged by Mr. Jesse Burt. The gifts were deposited on a table to the left of the chancel, and after an impressive service the little ones first gave and then received their gifts. The sphere, as ever, was touchingly peaceful and beautiful.

     On the Friday following, a children's party was held in the club-room of the church. A large delegation from Glenview made a happy and desirable addition to our numbers. The chief attraction was a play from "The Bird's Christmas Carol," acted by the Chicago children. The leading parts were especially well taken, and the play, on the whole, was a success. E. V. W.


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     TORONTO, CAN. Christmas this year came to us with all the usual happiness and delight of anticipation realized. The visits of a number of our New Church friends enhanced the season's festivities, and the joyful report of the Ontario Assembly awakened an increase of affection and enthusiasm for the Church which will he felt throughout the work of the coming year.

     On Sunday morning, December 24th, a Christmas service was held, the subject of the sermon being "The Human of the Lord." In the evening a special service was conducted for the children, including a representation of the Nativity. The offering was donated to the uses of the Orphanage. The Sacrament of the Holy Supper was administered on Christmas morning.

     One of our chief holiday events was a short visit from Bishop Pendleton, on his way home from Berlin. At an informal reception, tendered him by the pastor and his wife, at 99 Tyndall avenue, several interesting accounts were given of the Assembly, which were much appreciated by those of us who were unable to attend it.

     During the vacation a Christmas social and dance was held under the auspices of the Young Folks' Club. The prize winning competition in this case was one of peculiar interest, and calculated to tax our knowledge of Canadian agriculture, the contestants being provided with numerous samples of domestic woods and grains, to which their were required to affix the correct names.

     Several of our young people have recently come of age, and on Monday evening, January 15th, a celebration was held in their honor. A delightful little supper was provided, including a program of toasts, in response to which the young men expressed in an earnest manner their affection for the Church, and their desire to be loyal to her Doctrines. The pastor, in a brief address, pointed out the grave responsibilities of the new state entered into by the young people. At the close of the speeches each guest of honor was presented with a volume of the Writings from their companions in the Club. M. S. C.

     BERLIN, ONT. On December 5th, the members of the congregation of the Carmel Church met in the school-room on invitation of Mr. and Mrs. George Schnarr, for the celebration of the fifth anniversary of their wedding.

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The room was beautifully decorated, and a festive sphere prevailed which was much enjoyed by all. Some excellent speeches were made in response to toasts.

     Our Christmas services were held on Sunday, December 24th. In the evening of Christmas Day the school had its festival. After worship, adapted to the state of the children, fruit was distributed, and the pastor and the head-master each received a present from the children of the school.

     The Fifth Ontario Assembly has come and gone, and was in the opinion of all "the best ever." Perhaps the most remarkable feature was the large attendance, there being present about one hundred and forty members, visitors and young people, representing seventeen different localities. Among these were four members of the Executive Committee of the General Church from outside Ontario. The meetings opened on Saturday afternoon, December 30th, with worship conducted by Bishop Pendleton, after which followed the Bishop's Address on "The Relation of Baptism to the Holy Supper," and the discussion of the same. In the evening a most successful banquet was held, at which rousing speeches were made. Afterwards there was dancing, the music for which was furnished by the orchestra of the Carmel church. On Sunday morning services were held, the Bishop preaching a sermon on "Fulfilling the Law." (Matt. 1, 17.) In the afternoon the sacrament of the Holy Supper was administered to eighty-nine communicants. Previous to the Holy Supper the rite of Baptism was administered to Mrs. Homer Bellinger. In the evening all gathered in the hall of worship and sang some of the new hymns and selections from the Psalmody. Representations from the Word were also presented by the young people. On Monday morning the Rev. Emil Cronlund read a paper on "The Ignorance of Infancy," which led to an interesting discussion. This was followed by a paper by the Rev. E. J. Stebbing on "The Limitations of Local School Work." The paper raised the old question as to how far it is necessary to keep in view preparation for a life in the world, and a lively discussion followed, which was continued into the afternoon session. The latter part of the afternoon was devoted to business. Two papers which had been prepared for the meetings could not be read, owing to lack of time. In the evening a Men's Meeting was held, at which "Education for Marriage" was the subject considered.

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A supper followed, at which, after some time spent in a flow of soul and humor, a number of toasts were proposed and responded to. At the same time a Ladies' Meeting was held at the house of Mr. and Mrs. Richard Roschman, at which all present had a delightful time. The interchange of messages between the two meetings added much to the enjoyment of each. W.

     CLINTON, ONT. I visited the New Church families in Huron county once more, after an absence from that part of the country of more than six years, during which the Rev. F. E. Waelchli has been preaching for them once or twice each year.

     On Sunday, December 10th, we had a meeting at the home of Mr. and Mrs. James Cartwright, seven miles north of Clinton. The New Church people and the old church neighbors that came made a congregation of thirty-seven, twenty-four adults and thirteen children.

     On Sunday, December 17th, a meeting was held at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Izzard, three miles west of Clinton. The attendance on that occasion was twenty-one adults and four children. Rut with one or two exceptions, these were all New Church people.

     Although several members have passed into the spiritual world, the New Church in Huron county, as to numbers, has been holding its own pretty well for many years. JOHN E. ROWERS.

FROM OUR CONTEMPORARIES.

     UNITED STATES. Two cases of religious fraternal mixture are reported in the Messenger for December 13. The first is from CAMBRIDGE, Mass., where Baptist, Congregational, Methodist, and Unitarian churches united in thanksgiving services with the New Church, "all the ministers taking part." The second case is unique in some of its features. It is reported from LA FORTE, Ind., where all the Protestant churches, including the New Church, united in thanksgiving services. This is a usual annual feature in La Forte. But this year it was decided to hold the services in the New Church, and the pastor of that Church, the Rev. E. D. Daniels, seems to have been bent on introducing some new feature.

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All the ministers took part in the service, the sermon being preached by a Baptist, and the service used being an adaptation of the regular New Church service. But the really unique feature came at the offertory when "the New Church and Baptist pastors sang a duet of adoration to the Lord."

     The participation of the English New Church Society in BALTIMORE in a union Thanksgiving service at the Unitarian church, including the Unitarian and Universalist bodies, is reported as "a new experience in Baltimore New Church life." New Church life! Wherein did the "union" thanksgiving consist? Did the Unitarians unite in giving thanks to the Lord Jesus Christ, or did the Newchurchmen unite in giving thanks to the Unitarian Antichrist? No matter; the occasion is said to have "proved most pleasant in every way."

     The society in ELKHART, Ind., to which the Rev. C. H. Mann is ministering, in a recent circular describes itself as "composed of inquirers and investigators, not necessarily of those who understand and believe the doctrines of the New Church." The Messenger terms this body "a unique New Church society," but why "unique?"

     The Rev. E. W. Shields, a New Church preacher in Hot Springs, Arkansas, reports thus to the Messenger for Jan. 10th: "I have captured the king infidel of the neighborhood, who has been the terror of all the religious meetings in the past. He is well educated and has been furnishing infidel literature. But he is now holding up both hands and says that I have got the drop on him. He is a little hard of hearing, but he is on hand early and sits as close to the pulpit as possible, eagerly absorbing every word." There is still some "muscular Christianity" left out in the Southwest!

     FRANCE. The PARIS Society has decided to hold English services on the second Sunday of every month, the other services to be continued in French. The first English service was held in November, with an attendance of 17 persons. Presumably these services are conducted by Mr. Ackroyd, late of the Port Louis, Mauritius Society.


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     AUSTRALIA. In our December issue (p. 775), we reported the action of the Adelaide Society, which, at its quarterly meeting last July, expelled one of its members on the ground of his attitude of opposition to the fundamental views and aims of the Society. Since then the member in question, Mr. E. Hastwell, brought action against the Society,--the latter being an incorporated body,--and judgment was given by the Supreme Court of South Australia on September 28. The Court declared Mr. Hastwell to be a member of the Society and that the resolutions to the contrary, passed at the July meeting, were null and void; his name was also ordered restored to the roll, together with a record of the Court's order. The plaintiff was awarded the costs of the action, amounting to over $60.

     In the Annual Report of the SYDNEY Society, Mr. W. J. Spencer notices the separation of eleven members a few months past to "form a second Society on Academy principles." He excuses himself from making any overtures for reconciliation with the late members on the ground that they would hardly accept such "offices from one whom they deem it their duty to publicly stigmatize as a persistent rejector of the Lord's Authority," but at the same time he himself tacitly admits his rejection of the Lord's Authority in the Writings by stating his belief that "the Writings are immeasurably superior (why 'immeasurably' if not 'Divinely'?) to any other books except the Word," while the seceders "maintain that they are the Word." Mr. Spencer concludes this part of his report by expressing delight at the reported unanimity of the New Society, and the hope that they will continue to prosper until the clouds that now separate them from the parent Society are dissolved.


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Directory of the General Church 1906

Directory of the General Church              1906


ANNOUNCEMENTS.


A DIRECTORY of the Places of Worship of the General Church of the New Jerusalem.

     Atlanta, Ga.
Place of Worship, 226 Crumley St.
Sunday services at 11 A. M.
Doctrinal class, Sunday mornings at 10 o'clock.
The Rev. RICHARD H. KEEP, Pastor, 182 Juniper St.

     Baltimore, Md.
Place of worship, Wurtzburger's Hall, 318 Exeter St., near Gay.
Sunday services, conducted the first Sunday of each month, at 7:30 P. M., by the Rev. J. E. Rosenquist of Bryn Athyn, Pa. Sunday School every Sunday at 11 A. M.
H. W. GUNTHER, Secretary, 292 Henrietta St.

     Berlin, Ont., Canada.
The Carmel Church of the New Jerusalem.
Place of worship, Ring St., West, opposite High School.
Sunday services at 11 A. M.
Weekly supper and Doctrinal class, Friday evenings, at 7 o'clock.
The Rev. F. E. WAELCHLI, pastor.

     Bryn Athyn, Pa.
Sunday services at 11 A. M.
Weekly supper and Doctrinal class every Friday at 6:30 P. M.
The RT. REV. WILLIAM F. PENDLETON, pastor. The Rev. HOMER SYNNESTVEDT, assistant pastor.

     Chicago, Ill.
Sharon Church of the New Jerusalem.
Place of worship: 434 Carroll Ave
Services every Sunday at 11 A. M. Sunday School at 10 A. M.
Supper and Doctrinal class on Wednesday evening at 7 o'clock.
The Rev. WILLIAM B. CALDWELL, pastor; 1662 Fulton St.


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     Denver, Colo.
Denver Society of the Lord's Advent.
For information respecting services, address the Rev. GEORGE G. STARKEY, pastor; 543 South 13th St.

     Erie, Pa.
Services on alternate Sunday evenings at houses of members. For particulars address Dr. Edward Cranch, 109 West Ninth St.

     Glenview, Ill.
The Immanuel Church of the New Jerusalem.
Sunday services at 10:30 A. M.
Weekly supper and Doctrinal class every Friday evening at 8 o'clock. The Rev. DAVID H. KLEIN, pastor.

     Middleport, O.
Sunday services at 10:45 A. M.
Doctrinal class on Sunday at 7:30 P. M.
The Rev. WILLIS L. GLADISH, pastor.

     New Orleans, La.
Meeting to read the Writings every Sunday afternoon at 4 o'clock, under the pastoral charge of the Rev. R. H. KEEP. For further information address the Chairman of Executive Committee, J. A. Fraser, Esq., 614 Hibernia Bank Building.

     New York City.
Place of worship: 11 West 21st St.
Sunday services, the 1st and 3d Sunday of each month, at 11 A. M. except during July, August and September.
Doctrinal class at 18 Overlook Terrace, Yonkers, on the same Sundays, at 8 P. M.; and at 1133 Broadway, Brooklyn, on the preceding Saturdays, at 8 P. M. Mr. William I. Parker, Secretary, 332 W. 22d St. The Rev. ALFRED ACTON, pastor; Bryn Athyn, Pa.

     Philadelphia, Pa.
The Advent Church of the New Jerusalem.
Place of worship: 555 North 17th St.
Sunday services at 10:45 A. M.
Sunday School at 9:30 A. M. Doctrinal class, Wednesday evening, at 8 o'clock.
The Rev. JOSEPH E. ROSENQUIST, pastor; Bryn Athyn, Pa.

     Pittsburgh, Pa.
Place of worship: Wallingford near Morwood Ave., East End.
Sunday services, at 11 A. M. Sunday School at 10 A. M. Doctrinal class Wednesdays at 8 P. M.
Monthly supper, third Wednesday of each month.
The Rev. N. D. PENDLETON, pastor; 5920 Ellwood St., E. E.

     Toronto, Ont., Canada.
Place of worship: Corner of Elm Grove Ave. and Melbourne Ave., Parkdale.
Sunday services at 11 A. M.
Supper and Doctrinal class every

     Wednesday evening at 6:45
Doctrinal class for Ladies every other Wednesday at 5:30 P. M. Young Folks' Doctrinal class Monday evenings at 8:15
The Rev. EMIL CRONLUND, pastor, 99 Tyndall Ave., Parkdale
SPERMATOGENESIS 1906

SPERMATOGENESIS       Rev. C. TH. ODHNER       1906



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NEW CHURCH LIFE.

VOL. XXVI.      MARCH. 1906.          No. 3.
     THE ANALOGOUS PRODUCTION OF VEGETABLE AND ANIMAL SEED.

     The Writings of the New Church, in teaching that all plants are male, and that there are not two sexes in the vegetable kingdom, at the same time indicate the line of observations and reasons which will lead to the scientific confirmation of the teaching. This line is that of the Analogy between the animal and the vegetable kingdoms, an analogy which is continually pointed out and dwelt upon in the Writings. We need only follow up the lines of investigation thus indicated by our Divine Teacher in order to become thoroughly convinced that the vegetable seed is formed in a manner completely analogous to the production of seed in the male animal or man, and this even to the least details. The bi-sexualists themselves base their theory upon the principle of analogy and cannot therefore object to our use of the same method. Their analogy, however, is admittedly incomplete and variable, and is governed by no principle of universal applicability. They admit that very many plants have no sex at all; others reproduce themselves by "Isogamy" or marriage between plants of the same sex, while with most plants there is "Heterogamy" or bi-sexual reproduction.

     The analogy indicated in the Writings, is, on the contrary, complete, invariable, and universally applicable. In following out this analogy it is, however, necessary to observe that while "there is nothing in the created universe that does not have a correspondence with something of man, not only with his affections and thence his thoughts, but also with the organs and viscera of his body," yet this correspondence "is not with these things as substances, but with them as uses." (D. L. W. 324)

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Let us, therefore, keep our mind upon the uses or functions of the analogous parts rather than upon the external structures, though the correspondence even on this lowest plane is truly remarkable.

     I. THE ROOT. "When the earth is first opening a seed, it begins from the root, which is like a heart" (T. C. R. 585) The root, indeed, performs not only the functions of a heart, but also those of a mouth and stomach, drinking in the nutrient waters and chemical foods of the earth by the extremities of the rootlets, digesting and assimilating them to its own internal structures, and sending the juice, like chyle, to the main root, where it is converted into plant-blood, or sap, which is sent up to circulate through every part of the plant. The root; like the heart, corresponds to the native will or proprium of man, which fixes his individuality to the soil of ultimate existence. Being the lowest of the sensual man, the proprium, like the root, works in secret, absorbing and grasping, with a downward tendency.

     II. THE SAP. AS the root is the heart, so the sap is the blood of the plant. As with man there are three degrees of the blood, or three bloods, so with a plant there are three degrees of the sap. This is a scientific fact unknown to worldly science, but revealed from heaven, and most important to our analogy. "From the food when it has become chyle, the blood-vessels draw out and call forth their blood; the nerve-fibres their juice, and the substances which are the origins of the fibres, their animal spirit. In the vegetable kingdom a tree with its trunks, branches, leaves and fruit, stands upon its root, and out of the ground by means of the root it extracts and calls forth a grosser juice for the trunk, branches, and leaves, a purer for the flesh of the fruits, and a most pure for the seeds within the fruits." (S. S. 66, comp. A. E. 1083, 1084.) The sap like the blood corresponds to the love in the will and its branching affections, a love which is at first natural but in the progress of regeneration becomes successively spiritual and celestial.

     III. THE STEM. By means of the sap, the root produces "a body provided with limbs; the body is the stem itself, and the branches are its limbs," (T. C. R. 585), and this body is furnished with hard wood for bones, and barks for skins.

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The stem as a whole corresponds to the growing rational man who lifts himself upward, in a direction opposite to the tendency of the sensual proprium, and the branches are his out-reaching natural affections. The wood is the good of the natural-rational, or natural good.

     IV. THE LEAVES. "The leaves which the plant puts forth immediately after birth, are for lungs." (T. C. R. 585; A. E. 1203; A. C. 10185.) That leaves are the respiratory organs of the plant, is well known. In the fine veins of the leaves the first sap from the root is strained and purified; its grosser elements are cast out through the open leaf-cells, while the remaining sap is refreshed by contact with the outer air, exactly as the venous blood is purified in the lungs of man. The leaves correspond to the rational understanding of man, with all its knowledges of truth, in and by which the love of the natural man is first corrected, instructed, and purified.

     V. THE FLOWER. "The flowers which precede the fruit are the means for straining the sap, which is its blood, and for separating its grosser parts from its purer." (T. C. R. 585) The flower, with its sepals, petals, and interior organs, constitutes the head of the plant. All its functions are those of a head. It is the varicolored eye which the plant lifts toward the sun and by which it follows its great father from horizon to horizon. It is the tongue by which the plant laps up the nectar of the dew. It is the delicate nostrils by which it inhales the purer atmosphere and in grateful exchange breathes out its scented effluvia. The minute veins of the petals still further strain and purify the sap, even as the fine capillary blood-vessels in the brain strain the arterial blood, leaving as a residue the pure animal spirits. The flowers as a whole correspond to "the things connected with man's initiation into the marriage of good and truth, or the spiritual marriage: spiritual truths are the petals of those flowers, and the primitives of the spiritual marriage are as the inchoaments of the fruit." (D. P. 332.) "The flowers signify the primitive spiritual truths in man's rational; its fruits signify the good of love and of charity." (A.R.936.)

     VI. THE STAMENS. "The flowers form in their bosom a new little stem by which the strained sap may inflow and thus initiate and by successive steps form the fruit which may be compared to the testicle in which the seeds are perfected." (T. C. R. 585)

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"Man's seed is conceived interiorly in the understanding and is formed in the will, and is transferred thence into the testicle where it clothes itself with a natural covering, and is thus conducted into the womb and enters the world. Moreover, there is a correspondence of man's regeneration with all things in the vegetable kingdom." (T. C. R. 584)

     Since, in the body, the cerebrum corresponds to the understanding and the cerebellum to the will, it is evident that the human seed is conceived interiorly in the cerebrum,--i. e., in the simple cortex,--and is formed in the cerebellum, whence it is transferred to the testicle. And since, in the plant, the seed is conceived interiorly in the stamen,--i. e., in the anther,--and is formed in the pistil and its fruit, we are justified in concluding that the stamen corresponds to the cerebrum and the pistil to the cerebellum with its medullary, fibrous, and nervous system; and that the filament or thread-like stem of the stamen corresponds to the simple fibre or finest capillary leading up to the cortical gland, while the anther, or glandular body at the summit of the filament, corresponds to the cortical gland itself.

     The spiritual correspondence of stamens and pistils is suggested by the teaching in the Brief Exposition, n. 48, where it is said that "the affection of good and the affection of truth united together constitute a marriage, from which good works are produced as fruits from a tree."

     It is the affection of good that develops into charity and good works, when made prolific by the Divine Truth inflowing through the affection of truth, just as the pistil develops into seed-bearing fruit when made prolific by the ether inflowing through the pollen-grain of the stamen.

     VII. THE ETHER. The influence of the Ether upon the formation of vegetable seed is entirely unknown to science but is clearly taught in the theological as well as philosophical writings of Swedenborg. We cannot enter, here, upon a scientific demonstration of the doctrine concerning the atmospheres, but must content ourselves with a mere summary of the teachings, hoping that some other writer, better qualified, will some day more fully present to our readers this great and wonderful doctrine.


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     We read in Conjugial Love, n. 183, that "all fructification, all propagation, and all prolification are originally from the influx of love, wisdom, and use from the Lord: from immediate influx from the Lord into the souls of men; from mediate influx into the souls of animals; and from still more mediate influx into the inmost of plants."

     From a comparison of numerous teachings we learn that there are in general four atmospheres: I. THE SUPREME AND UNIVERSAL AURA OF THE SPIRITUAL WORLD,-a first finite yet purely spiritual atmosphere, in which and out of which the soul of man, or the human internal, is immediately created, and which in the body of man constitutes the vital essence of his spirit, the blood of his spiritual body, termed the spirituous fluid. II. THE HIGHEST AURA OF THE NATURAL UNIVERSE, which is the medium of influx into the inmost forms of animals, and which in the animal as well as the human body produces that inner degree of blood which is called the animal spirit. III. THE ETHER which supremely surrounds each planet, above and within the air, and which in men and animals produces the red blood. IV. THE AIR, which, as such, does not enter into the composition of the blood. The Ether, we are taught, is also the medium of influx into the inmost of all plant-structures, constitutes the essence of their common vegetative soul, and produces and actuates their third or inmost sap. (See A. E. 1203-1214, especially 1208; Gen. Org. 102; Worship and Love of God, 20, 55, and the whole of the Corpuscular Philosophy, besides other passages too numerous to mention here.)

     VIII. THE POLLEN. The fine flower-dust or pollen, generated in the anthers of the stamen, consists of minute grains within which is developed the prolific cell itself,--an essential seed-globule organized without by the bullae of the third sap, nucleated, vitalized, and furnished with vegetative soul and the inflowing Ether. It is thus completely analogous to the verimost seed of man, which is first conceived in the cortical gland of the cerebrum by the influx of the spiritual aura or spirituous fluid into the animal spirit, the two assuming the shape of "globules or most pure spherules, in the inside of which are contained the first, simplest, inmost, highest substances of the animate body; while the animal spirits constitute the surface, which extends around like a crust, and completes the actual globule. (Gen. Org. 100.)


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     IX. THE PISTIL. This body consists of three parts, 1), a spongy, porous head called the Stigma; 2), a hollow stem or tube called the Style; and, 3), a bottle-shaped base, the rudimentary Fruit or Ovary, which is divided into various cavities or rooms by their interior walls. The pistil, as a whole, corresponds to the cerebellum; the stigma corresponds to the medullary substance of the cerebellum which consists of nothing but the convoluted, almost jelly-like mass of simple fibres from the cortical glands. As the human seed-globule is transferred from the cortical substance of the cerebrum to the medullary substance of the cerebellum, so the pollen-grain passes from the anther of the stamen to the stigma of the pistil. And as the seed-globule travels from the cerebellum through the Intercostal or Great Sympathetic Nerve, and through the spermatic nerves and fibres into the testicle, so the pollen-grain penetrates through the pores of the stigma and through the tubular style into the so-called ovary, which is actually the testicle of the plant. "The fruit may be compared to the testicle, in which the seeds are perfected." (T. C. R. 585.)

     X. THE FRUIT, (misnamed "Ovary"). The base of the pistil, or the rudimentary fruit, has been built up by fibres from the leaves conveying purified sap, just as the testicles of man are supplied with finest arterial blood. And as the second sap, on the interior walls of the fruit, builds up the seed-capsules which have been misnamed "ovules," so the refined blood, which is conveyed to the testicle by the spermatic arteries, there builds up minute cells which again have been misnamed "male ova" or "mother cells." In the present discussion, however, we will for the sake of the argument retain the designations commonly adopted by the learned.

     In the spiritual growth of the regenerating man, the development of fruit corresponds to the actual birth of spiritual good, the good of charity, the new will or new-born proprium of the regenerated man. And as new seeds are developed within the fruit, so within spiritual good there are born celestial truths, the truths of good, containing within themselves inmost perceptions and affections of Divine Good and Truth, for the prolification and propagation of spiritual and celestial states to all eternity.


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     XI. SPERMATOGENESIS. Thus far the analogy has been found perfect as to all the general outlines of human and vegetable seed-production. We will now enter upon an investigation of the more interior processes of seed-birth, as they are revealed under the microscope, and for this purpose it will be necessary to introduce a number of scientific terms and details. The following summary of animal and vegetable spermatogenesis has been gathered from the most recent authorities,* with the valuable aid of George M. Cooper, M. D., of Bryn Athyn, Pa. The processes will become more clear by reference to the accompanying diagram.
     * The Text-Book of Histology by Boehm, Davidoff, and Huber, Philadelphia, 1904, pp. 69, 372-377.
     Shafer's Essentials of Histology, Philadelphia, 1902, pp. 275, 276.
     Coulter's Plant Structures, New York, 1900, pp. 203-206.
     Strassburger's Text-Book of Botany, London, 1898, pp. 454-458.

     Figure I represents the general course of spermatogenesis in man. Figure II represents the corresponding general process in the plant. Figure III is copied from Boehm's Text-Book of Histology, p. 375, and is a schematic diagram of a cross-section through one of the convolcted seminiferous tubules of a mammal, showing the birth of the spermatozoon in its progressive stages of development. Figure IV is similarly a schematic diagram of a cross-section through the fruit or ovary of an angiosperm plant, showing the progressive stages of development within an ovule. The angiosperms, (plants bearing seeds within closed seed-vessels), have been chosen for this analogy, because they not only form the largest group of fruit-hearing plants, but at the same time present the most perfect and highly developed organisms in the vegetable kingdom; and as such they most closely emulate and typify the human and animal forms and processes. The same image, however, is stamped upon all the lower groups of the vegetable kingdom, and the same analogy in the production of seed will be found among cone-bearing plants, ferns, and mosses, down to the lowest fungi and algae though in ever varying forms and in ever decreasing measure. They are all male,--producing seeds--as we are prepared to show, on the evidence of the botanists themselves, whenever called upon.

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The processes, in a male animal and in a plant, are in general as follows.

     a). The microscopic tubules, of which the testicle mainly consists, are lined within by a first stratum of clear, cubical cells, called "spermatogonia." or primitive seminal cells, in a quiescent state.

     b). Some of these spermatogonia, actuated by the arterial blood in the capillary vessels which surround the tubule, become active and begin to undergo division, accompanied by an increase in size. These active cells are termed "mother-cells" or "spermatocytes."

     c). Other spermatogonia, pressed upon by the active mother-cells, assume an elongated shape and become the basis of support and sustenance for the future "daughter-cells" They are hence called "sustentacular" cells. (Fig. III, 3.)

     d). The process by which the mother-cells divide and multiply is called "mitosis," which means that two separating nuclei are held together, while forming, by a skein of fine threads. (Fig III. 4; Fig. IV, 10, 12.)

     e). The new cells, thus formed by division of the mother-cells, are called "daughter-cells," or "spermatids." (Fig. III, 5.)

     f). The daughter-cells affix themselves to the top of the sustentacular cell, and become fertilized by the influx of nervous fluid from the brain, containing the human seed globule. The latter flows in through the almost fluid tunics of the testicular tubule, and passes up along the walls of the sustentacular cell until it reaches and impregnates the daughter cells, which then become elongated. Fig. III. 6) and develop into mature spermatozoa.

     g). The sustentacular cell, having accomplished its sustaining and nourishing function, dwindles away. (Fig. III, 8) and disappears, while the free spermatozoa pass into the tubules and are collected in the vas deferens, and the vesiculae seminales, where as also in the prostate gland, they are successively enveloped in fluid coatings, which again are cast off, in the same succession, on their way to the ovum of the future mother.


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     h). In the plant, the original nucleus of the embryo-sac in the ovule, (Fig. IV, 9), undergoes a similar mitotic division (10) into two distinct nuclei, (11), and these again into four, (12) and finally into eight,--four at each end of the sac,--just as in the animal the mother-cell is divided again and again into daughter-cells; and during the process they assume shapes which often are completely identical with those found in the animal testicle, (compare 4a with 10, and 4b with 12).

     i). Two groups of four nuclei having been formed in the sac, one nucleus from each end moves toward the center and the two fuse into one large nucleus (13), called the primary endosperm nucleus, which develops albuminous food for the future seed.

     j). In the meantime these nuclei remain at each end of the sac and develop into nucleated cells,--one group being known as the "egg-apparatus," (14, 16), while the other is called the antipodal group, (17) The latter remains inactive and finally dissolves.

     k). Of the egg-apparatus, the two cells (which are nearest the "micropyle" or tiny opening into the ovule), remain in a quiescent state and are known as "synergids" or "helpers," (14), their function being simply to afford rest and nourishment for the third cell, (16), and in this use they correspond exactly to the sustentacular cell, of the animal (3); and like the latter the synergids dwindle away after having accomplished their passive functions.

     l.) The third cell, resting on the synergids, is the actual germ-cell, called by botanists "the true egg," and it corresponds in every way to the "daughter-cell." (5), which rests upon the sustentacular cell, and which, when ready for fertilization, is called the "spermatid."

     m). Finally, when the germ-cell, (16), is ripe, and the pistil has received a pollen-grain, this latter is surrounded with a viscous coating on the stigma, and in the shape of a "pollen tube," (18), floats or sinks down through one of the tubules of the style, into the ovary; it enters through the micropyle of the ovule, and passes along the walls of one of the synergids, until it reaches the germ-cell.

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The pollen-tube opens and discharges its nucleus, which merges with the gem-cell. The product is now called an "oospore," or egg-spore, or true fertilized plant-germ, (19),--a vegetable spermatozoon which is afterwards surrounded with various nutritive coatings and protecting skins or shells; and these are successively opened and discarded in the womb of mother earth.

     
SUMMARY.
The root               corresponds to          the heart.
The sap                    "               the blood.
The root-sap               "               the red blood.
The leaf-sap               "               the purer blood.
The flower-sap               "               the animal spirit.
The stem                    "               the body.
The branches               "               the limb.
The wood                    "               the bones.
The bark                    "               the skins.
The leaves                    "               the lungs.
The flower                    "               the head.
The stamen                    "               the cerebrum.
The filament               "               the simple fibre.
The anther                    "               the cortical gland.
The ether                    "               the spiritual aura.
The pollen-grain               "               the seed-globule.
The vegetative soul          "               the spirituous fluid.
The pistil                    "               the cerebellum.
The stigma                    "               the medullary substance.
The style                    "               the spermatic nerves.
The fruit or ovary          "               the testicles
The embryo-sac               "               the testicular tubuls.
The first seed-nucleus          "               the spermatogonia.
The dividing nuceus          "               the mother-cells.
The divided nuclei          "               the daughter-cells.
The synergids               "               the sustentacular cell.
The germ-cell               "               the spermatids.


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     The pollen-tube corresponds to the nervous fluid in teste.

     The ripe seed-germ corresponds to the spermatozoa.

     XII. CONCLUSION. The production of vegetable seed is thus seen to be completely analogous in its particular as well as in its general processes, to the production of human and animal seed. The vegetable seed is therefore a seed, not a whole plant, just as the human spermatozoon is a seed, not a whole man. And since the plant produces seed, IT IS MALE.
MANNA OF THE WILDERNESS 1906

MANNA OF THE WILDERNESS       Rev. N. D. PENDLETON       1906

     "And thou shalt remember all the way which Jehovah thy God hath led thee these forty years in the desert, that He might afflict thee and prove thee, and know what was in the thine heart. Whether thou wouldst keep His commandments or no; and He afflicted thee and made thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy father know, that He might teach thee that man doth not live by food only, but by every word going forth from the mouth of Jehovah doth man live; thy raiment waxed not old upon thee, and thy foot swelled not, these forty years." (Deut. viii. 2-4.)

     The temptations which the faithful must endure before they become spiritual are depicted by the events of Israel's journey from Egypt to Canaan. This journey led through a desert inhabited by fiery serpents and scorpions, and subject to drought and scarcity,--adverse conditions entailing grievous hardships on the wandering Israelites for the space of forty years. The lesson in endurance thus given was a needed preliminary to their after conflict with the nations inhabiting the land of Canaan.

     In Egypt they were slaves, and therefore totally unfit for war. Only by the severe schooling of the desert could they acquire sufficient discipline to undertake the conquest of the land promised to their fathers. And even this would not answer for the one-time slaves accustomed to the lash of the Egyptian master, wherefore all of that generation, with the exception of two, were allowed to die in the wilderness.

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Only those born in the desert, and inured to hardships, could be rendered fit for the grave work which lay before this people.

     It is proverbial that the soul of a slave is timid. This is strikingly illustrated by the story that has come down to us from ancient times of a certain people who sent all their armed men on a distant war of conquest. The army, returning after the lapse of some years, found their servants and slaves in open revolt, and in possession of the kingdom. The soldiers in contemptuous indignation threw away their arms and advanced against the rebels with whips in their hands. On seeing the whips the courage of the slaves departed and they fled in dismay.

     Courage and endurance are the attributes of freedom and not of a freedom suddenly acquired, but of that freedom which is regarded either as a birthright or as the slow achievement of a long series of efforts. Life in the wilderness thus formed the necessary break between the slavery of Egypt and the freedom of Canaan. And the spiritual significance of this fact is both broad and deep. As the slave of Egypt by trial and hardship is prepared to become a freeman, a warrior, and a conqueror, so the natural man by temptations is prepared to become spiritual through conquest over evil.

     For this reason the spiritual man is termed a "conqueror," inasmuch as no one can possibly become regenerate unless he first subdue those affections and appetites which are connate with his natural man and which, as long as they remain active, hold him bound in things natural. This is the bondage of Egypt, or spiritual slavery, which is the first estate of man, and is represented in the Word by Israel's dwelling in Egypt. Spiritual freedom consists in rising above the dominion of these first natural affections, in departing out of Egypt and entering into Canaan.

     This journey, however, is long and beset with trials of every kind. This is the same as to say that the way from Egypt to Canaan is the way of temptation. There is no other way. The difference between the natural and the spiritual man is so great that man can with difficulty be transformed from the one into the other; and such transformation for the same reason can take place only very slowly.

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Before man can become spiritual it is necessary that many antagonistic things in the natural man first die. This was represented by the many and frequent deaths in the wilderness. In every such death something which prevents the development of spiritual life is put aside, and the occasion of such death involves a temptation.

     We are, indeed, punished by temptations, for they invariably occasion suffering more or less acute; nevertheless they are not put upon us for the sake of punishment, nor to satisfy a righteous wrath, but because they are incidental to that process whereby our soul is cured of sin. As physical pain is incidental to the effort of restoration made by the body, so temptation is the suffering of that mind which has sufficient spiritual vitality to endeavor to free itself from those evil and selfish passions which cling to the nature of every man.

     Thus rightly understanding temptations, we see that they are inevitable with those who are becoming regenerate. And we observe that the only escape from them is either by pressing on to the final end, which is spiritual peace, or by remaining content, a mere natural man. In this latter case man will avoid the hunger and thirst of the wilderness; he will have the flesh-pots ever at hand, but he will remain a slave. He will live and die a man-animal, which is to fall altogether short of the purpose for which he was created,--to fail in the fulfillment of his spiritual destiny.

     The Lord, therefore, by the full operation of His Providence, endeavors to induce man to undertake the journey from Egypt to Canaan, to enter on the way of life, to become spiritual from being natural; and though man is warned of the difficulties in the way, of the trials and hardship which he must undergo, yet he is assured that for the faithful the end is certain, and even the way secure. No one who is worthy will be allowed to fall by the way. And. moreover. it is pointed out that the hardships to be encountered are designed to aid in the accomplishment of the end.

     "Thou shalt remember all the way which Jehovah thy God hath led thee these forty years, that He might afflict thee, and prove thee, and know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldst keep His commandments or no."


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     It can not be told what is in the heart until the man be tried by affliction. Affliction not only proves but also aids in the development of his character; in other words, it is by encountering adverse conditions that strength grows. And it may be noted that this results not so much from violent effort as from quiet persistence. Evils are to be overcome as any other great work is accomplished; but man must first prove his fitness by his steady determination in overcoming the obstacles, and as to this he is soon proved. Many start out with an eager spirit and a confident heart. Failure after failure may be necessary before they learn the true nature of the undertaking which lies before them, and the lesson of steady application and patient endurance, which are needful in any worthy accomplishment.

     This is pre-eminently true in the work of regeneration. It required Israel forty years to pass from Egypt to Canaan, and during this time they had to encounter thirst and hunger, the fiery serpents and the poisonous scorpions, the Amalakite and the Canaanite. In time all those faint of heart and those who ignobly wished to return to Egypt were cut off. So that when the army sallied forth from Pisgah and crossed the Jordan, a body of men better trained for the work of conquest could not be found.

     But they were, by the trials of the wilderness, to be proven not only for courage in war, but especially as to whether they would keep the commandments of the Lord, and hold themselves aloof from the false and degrading worship of the nations in the land of Canaan. In this latter direction they were especially prone to weakness. Life in Canaan was the work of conquest itself, while life in the desert was a preparation for conquest, a training for battle. Thus also it is with temptations: the first which man experiences are rarely effective in removing evil; they are mainly for the sale of proof, trial and discipline. They reveal what is in the heart of man, whether he will keep the commandments, whether he can be trusted to enter Canaan. In this matter the Lord's inquiry is most searching, for it is of prime importance that the work once begun should be finished; wherefore it is said that the Lord allows no one to receive the good and truth of faith unless he can be held therein to the end of his life.


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     Thus the first temptations are designed to prove man as to whether he is fit to enter with success on the way of life. And if it is found that man can not sustain the first test, the second is not put upon him. If he can not endure the hardship of the desert, he may not group in battle against the inhabitants of the land. Tried and proven thus were those warriors who crossed the Jordan, and the fear of them went before them so that the hearts of the people of the land melted because of them. The walls of Jericho fell down at the blast of their trumpets, Ai was trapped and devoted to destruction. Gideon surrendered under false pretense. The armies of the five kings were routed while the sun and moon stood still. And the whole land lay prostrate at Joshua's feet.

     This work was not and could not have been accomplished by slaves born in Egypt. But only by freemen of the desert, by men inured to hunger and thirst, living on the manna of the wilderness. "He afflicted thee and made thee to hunger and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not neither did they father know." The meaning of which is that in affliction or temptation man is sustained from heaven for else he could not endure. Sustentation from heaven is signified by the manna which in a single night covered the camp of Israel like hear frost. It was round and white like coriander seed and good for food. At first the sons of Israel were delighted with it, but it did not entirely satisfy all the demands of the body for nourishment, and at length their souls began to loathe it; they called it the bread of affliction, and began to sigh for the flesh-pots of Egypt. Spiritual food, which is nourishment for the soul, does not satisfy the intellectual cravings of the merely natural man; in fact, this natural man loathes the bread of heaven, and turns from it with aversion. This explains why we at times are affected with cold towards spiritual things, even to the point of distaste or aversion. If spiritual affection be excited we open our minds with delight to the reception of spiritual truth and our souls are nourished; but let natural states supervene, let bodily and worldly affections gain dominion for a time, and if spiritual truth be presented to the mind, a distinct aversion may be perceived. We become oppressed; for relief we turn to those natural things which delight us. The soul of Israel loathed the vessel of affliction.


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     When man perceives this state in himself it is time for him to make an interior effort, which may be termed a mental stricture or compression, which is at once an affirmation of the truth and an opposition to the supremacy of those natural delights which made the truth distasteful. Such an interior effort, because of its far-reaching consequence, is of more value than a world of complaining and bemoaning of our natural failings. Such an interior effort is effective in altering the state of man, in subduing the evil Mandishments of the natural mind, and in opening the way to heaven and rendering the mind sensitive to the things which inflow thence. And in this case man realizes that he does not live by bread only but by every word from the mouth of God. "He afflicted thee and made thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna...that He might teach thee that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word going from the mouth of Jehovah doth man live."

     As was said, the truth of this statement can only be appreciated by those who experience delight in spiritual things, for these are the things which come forth from the mouth of God, and by his delights man lives. Wherefore to delight in spiritual things is to live upon the words going forth from the mouth of God. If you would know a man, discover his pleasures, not merely those superficial things which entertain, but his real pleasures. If you would understand yourself, discover your delights. These tell the story of your actual character better than any other thing. The sensation of delight arises from the excitation and consequent expansion of love; and love is the very life of man. According to the nature of love which makes the life of a man, will be the manifestation of the delight. From this we may with certainty conclude that no better sign could be discovered in us than that we find delight in spiritual things. For just in the degree that this delight exists, do we live, not by bread only, but by the words going forth from the mouth of God.

     Temptations are the means used to introduce man into the delight of spiritual things, for by temptations natural delights are suppressed, thus giving scope to and opportunity for the play, of spiritual delights, for both cannot be active in the mind at the same time. The sons of Israel in the desert were deprived of their food and made to hunger, and then the Lord gave them manna.

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At any time they were ready to reject this manna for the flesh-pots of Egypt. And thy could only be induced to eat it by the pangs of hunger. And so the natural man is always affected toward the bread of heaven or the spiritual food represented by the manna. We will not cat of it until by temptation we have been reduced to the extremity. But when this is the case, we perceive the delight that there is in the word of God by which we may and ought to live.

     It appears to be a distressing circumstance that our natural affections must die before those which are spiritual may come into existence. But the real truth is that only abnormal natural affections must be cut off and devoted; those which are normal only require subjection to the spiritual. For, in fact, the natural man is in no way injured by the regenerative process, though during temptations it appears otherwise. The Lord most perfectly guards him during the hardships of temptation. This is illustrated by the concluding words of our text. "Thy raiment waxed not old upon thee, and thy foot swelled not these forty years."

     We need not take these words too literally, but regard them as a beautiful expression significative of the Lords miraculous guarding of all that is good or capable of receiving good in the natural man. The "raiment" is the truth of the natural, and the "foot" is the natural man itself. (A. C. 730.) That the "raiment waxed not old" signifies the permanence of genuine truth in the natural, and that the "foot" swelled not these forty years signifies that the natural man is preserved in a state of integrity during the whole period of regeneration, which is the same as to say that it is in no way injured, much less destroyed, by being rendered subject to the spiritual man.

     Sometimes it may appear as if violence were done to our natural affections by the requirements of spiritual truth. For instance, many have been hurt by the statement that the natural relationships like those of brother and sister, or mother and child, are not known or are disregarded in the other life; this seems to do violence to what are certainly normal and in some respects the best of our natural affections. But the fact is that everything essential in these relations is preserved in the other life, in fullness and perfection, the difference between that world and this being that the mere blood-bond which pertains to the body has no place there.

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All the kindly and loving sentiments of a brother for a sister or a mother for a child are transferred from this to the other world without any loss save of the selfish element. However, it appears that this teaching is given us not that we may love our kindred less but the neighbor more. So it is with all those spiritual teachings which appear to constrain our natural affections; the constraint is directed only towards the selfish element in those affections, and this element can be eliminated without any real injury.

     It has been said that to become a spiritual man appears much like a hardening process, but this is far from the truth. While man is putting on the faith of the Church and is engaged in rejecting spurious sentimentalities, there is produced an appearance of severity in the judgment and opinions expressed. But tenderness is always the result of regeneration. No more severe strictures have ever been pronounced than of our Lord against the Pharisees and the hypocrites; and, yet, His tenderest and loving kindness are beyond words. The celestial angels, who are the most highly regenerate, are described as being most tender, so tender that they may be called forms of love, but least of all will they be inclined to countenance anything spurious. If corning into the faith of the Church tends to make any one artificial, it is because he has forced upon himself an outward mode of life which is not a genuine product of his internal state. Far be it from us to ape the life of the celestial or even of the spiritual man. Nothing of the kind is called for. Internal reformation, not external imitation, is that which is demanded by our faith, and in yielding to this demand we look to a spiritual rather than a natural ideal of life.

     The saying is true that it is what we are and not what we appear to be that counts, but more important still is, what we are striving to become. Is our journey through life to be a journey from Egypt to Canaan? If so, it is certain that we have chosen the better part, nay, the only true part, since only thus, or by this means, can God's purpose with us be fulfilled. Amen.


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AUTHORSHIP OF "THE WHOLE DUTY OF MAN." 1906

AUTHORSHIP OF "THE WHOLE DUTY OF MAN."       Rev. ALFRED ACTON       1906

     In the Spiritual Diary, 5958, mention of "The Author of The [Whole] Duty of Man" and some interesting particulars are given of his experiences in the Spiritual World, where Swedenborg appears to have met him a number of times. The same man is referred to, though not by name, in Last Judgement (posthumous) 213, giving a somewhat shorter account of the same experiences, and in number 9 of the same work, and in Continuation of the Last Judgment, 46. Briefly summed up, these passages show that the author of The Whole Duty of Man held that, while charity was necessary to salvation, yet charity was merely the fruit and manifestation of faith, and therefore that it was faith that was truly saving. Nevertheless, because he saw the necessity of charity he endeavored to conjoin the two, but in such a way that faith should still be the first and only saving thing. His ideas were "produced" by him, and appeared in the spiritual world as roads along which he went. But he always met with some impenetrable obstruction to his further progress, and he was then told by angels that he would never arrive at the conjunction of Faith and Charity by such road. He would then think out and try other roads, but always with the same results. He continued in these experiments for two years during which he met and discoursed with Swedenborg. Finally, led partly by his experiences and partly by what he had learned from Swedenborg, he became convinced of his error. Nothing is said as to his final lot, but there can be no doubt that he is among the happy.

     As to the identity of the author of The Whole Duty there has been much dispute in the literary world. The book was first published at Oxford in 1658, under the title "The Practice of Christian Graces, or The Whole Duty of Man, laid down in a Plain and Familiar Way for the use of all, but especially the meanest reader." Between that date and 1700 at least thirty editions were published, in most, if not all, of which the first part of the original title is dropped.

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One of the editions of the work, (London, R. Norton, 1680), which is now very rare, is in the library of the Academy of the New Church, having been secured at Stockholm by the Rev. C. Th. Odhner in 1892.

     In place of a preface the book is introduced by a letter "To the Bookseller," written by H. Hammond and dated March 7, 1657 Dr. Hammond, one of the most learned divines of the time, states that he had "very willingly read over all the sheets" and he heartily recommended the work, adding the hope "that the author which hath taken care to convey so liberal an alms...so secretly, may not miss to be rewarded openly" in the benefit of his work on the nation. This letter has led one writer to the conclusion that Dr. Hammond was himself the author of the work, (see New Church Life, 1892. p. 62), and that this letter was an endeavor to cover up his identity. But the conclusion is hardly borne out by the nature of the letter itself, which, coming from the author, would indicate a great conceit entirely incompatible with the teachings of the work itself. Moreover, although the authorship of the book was a matter of dispute from the time of its first appearance, yet Dr. Hammond's name has never otherwise been even suggested in this connection. Dr. Hammond was a voluminous writer, but all his works appeared under his own name.

     In addition to The Whole Duty there were six other works written "by the Author of the Whole Duty of Man." These were The Causes of the Decay of Christian Piety; The Gentleman's Calling; Lively Oracles; The Christian's Birthright; The Art of Contentment; and the Government of the Tongue. There is also in the Bodleian Library an unfinished manuscript by the same author on The Government of the Thought.

     The Whole Duty and the other works have been at various times attributed to at least nine different authors--two arch-bishops, two Bishops, four clergymen (all of the Church of England), and one lady. But most of these are little more than mere guesses entirely unsupported by evidence. Only three of them are worthy of serious consideration. These are Lady Dorothy Pakington, a royalist who was a prominent befriender of the Anglican Divines during the persecutions of the Puritan government; Richard Sterne, Archbishop of York, who attended Archbishop Laud before his execution, and suffered bitter persecution afterwards; and Richard Allestree, D. D. (b. 1619, d. 1681), a learned royalist Divine who played an active part in favor of Charles I. and III and, after the Restoration, was appointed Canon of Christ Church, Oxford, and Provost of Eton College.


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     The grounds for attributing the work to Lady Pakington are, that she was on very intimate terms with Dr. Hammond; that it was stated (in 1697) that her intelligence and virtue "entitled her to be thought the author;" and that her daughter is reported to have seen a manuscript of the work in her handwriting,--though the daughter admitted that her mother was not the author of the other works "by the Author of The Whole Duty." Lady Pakington's name, however, is generally dismissed, partly because the books themselves indicate the work of a practiced Divine and a learned man acquainted with Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Syriac and Arabic; and partly because, in the preface to the collected works of the Author of the Whole Duty, published by Bishop Fell in 1684. Dr. Fell, who is universally conceded as being well acquainted with the secret of the authorship, says that the works were all written by the same author, lately deceased; and he speaks of that author in the masculine gender. The Writings also support this last point, and the name of Lady Pakington need not therefore be further considered.

     Coming to Archbishop Sterne, the only reason that his name is considered, is that the manuscript of the book is said to have been in his possession; there is no other evidence pointing to him. Here again we can find guidance in the Writings, for in Spiritual Diary, 5358, it is said that the author told Swedenborg "that, in the world he had seen another way (to the conjunction of faith and charity)--that is, the way of charity--and that he had wished to go on that way, but had been dissuaded by a celebrated prelate." These words hardly point to an Archbishop, one of the two supreme ecclesiastical heads of the kingdom, as the author of the work.

     The weight of all the evidence points conclusively to Richard Allestree as the undoubted author, and this is now the generally accepted opinion of all who are competent to speak on the question.

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"The preponderance of evidence seems so strong as, practically, to admit of little doubt of the matter." The main external evidence in favor of Dr. Allestree is the following anonymous note found in a copy of the Decay of Christian piety (1675) now in the Coodleian Library: "Dr. Allestree was the author of this book, and wrote it in the very same year wherein he went through a course of chymistry with Dr. Willis [the celebrated anatomist], which is the reason why so many physical and chymical allusions are to be found in it. And the copy of it came to the press in the doctor's own handwriting as Tim Garthwaite [the publisher] told the present Archbp. of Cant., and his Grace affirmed to me in Sept. 1713." The is also a passage in the "Lively Oracles" wherein the writer--for the nonce, slightly lifting the veil covering his identity--states that he had travelled "in popish countries," among those "whom the late troubles or other occasions sent abroad," a statement which exactly fits Dr. Allestree, but will not apply to any other of the supposed authors. The whole of the argument for Allestree as drawn from agreement of time, learning, character, and friends, may be found stated in the Journal of Sacred Literature for July, 1864; while his authorship is convincingly shown in a series of three articles in The Academy for November, 1882, the writer of which relies mainly on the evidence of style and vocabulary as supplied by the works themselves. The evidence, in addition to what has been already given, briefly stated is: Allestree was an intimate friend of Dr. Hammond's (when the latter died in 1660 he bequeathed to Allestree his whole library), and the two men were in intellectual sympathy. This would account for Dr. Hammond's introductory letter "To the Bookseller." In his edition of Allestree's sermons, published in 1683, Bishop Fell prefaces a life of Allestree; and the characteristics which he here gives him (rare enough in that age) are in entire agreement with the characteristics which he gives to the anonymous author, in the Introduction to his edition of the complete Works by the author of The Whole Duty, published in the same year. In the latter also, Fell implies the recent death of the author, and makes it evident that the closest friendship existed between them.

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Allestree died in 1681. And it is well known that, while Fell dwelt much apart and had few friends, Dr. Allestree, who was a little older than Fell, was the most intimate of these; in their youth they studied together, and, as Bishop of Oxford and Canon of Christ Church, they were thrown into intimate contact with each other in a friendship which lasted till death, when Allestree left Bishop Fell as his literary executor. Three years later. Dr. Fell published the Sermons and the Works, between which there is a marked similarity in style and verbiage.

     The undoubted connection of Dr. Fell with the production of The Whole Duty, etc., led Hearne to the supposition that these works were produced by a committee of which Fell was the head (Collect. p. 299); while Prideaux supposed that Fell himself was the author. (Life, pp. 17-19.) But convincing objections to these suppositions are contained in Fell's Introduction to the Works, where he speaks of their author as a man recently deceased,--a man on whom he bestows the most unstinted praise. Dr. Fell, also, did not travel "to popish countries" as did the author of The Whole Duty; moreover, he himself persistently declined to admit any complicity in the authorship of that or the other works (Hearne, Collect. p. 299).

     In a word while some of the facts are consistent with the authorship of this man or that, it is only Allestree to whom all the known facts apply. It is probable, and is now the generally received opinion, that Allestree's work was edited and more or less revised by Bishop Fell. This is also in entire agreement with the statement from the Diary, quoted above, that the author of The Whole Duty was dissuaded from his original purpose "by a celebrated prelate." It seems to be proved beyond reasonable doubt that Dr. Allestree was the sole author of The Whole Duty of Man, etc., but that he was influenced in its writing by his intimate friend the "celebrated prelate," John Fell.

     It may be added that the biography of Richard Allestree, which may be read in the encyclopedias, shows him to have been a devoted follower in the cause of his King, for whom he gave up his literary studies to serve as a common soldier "with a musket in one hand and a book in the other." He was a learned Divine, and noted for his pious (not pietistic) life and kindly deeds.


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     Besides the authorities already quoted, we are indebted for the facts related above to The National Dictionary of Biography (s. v. Pakington), and to information supplied by Mr. G. K. Fortescue, of the Department of Printed Books, of the British Museum.
LAST JUDGMENT, ON FAITH ALONE 1906

LAST JUDGMENT, ON FAITH ALONE              1906

     [MINOR WORKS BY SWEDENBORG.]

      (Continued.)

     210. I have spoken with Melancthon about faith alone to the effect that he could see, merely from reason, that faith alone is not saving because every man is his own good and his own evil; and that every spirit is a form and image of his own good and his own evil; and this not only as to his face but also as to his whole body. For according to the quality of a spirit's affection such he is in respect to his mind, and at the same time in respect to his body. This may be manifestly known from the fact that when anyone speaks contrary to the affection of any spirit or angel, he immediately changes his countenance, yea, becomes invisible and disappears. And, therefore, because faith alone is merely of the thought and not of the will, and thus only of the memory and not of the life, it follows that it is as yet outside the man and not within him. Wherefore, since a spirit is a complete spirit in the degree that he is his own good or his own evil, and since faith separate from good is not within the man, it follows that it is merely like a skin, and that men of faith separate are not men except as to the skin; and thus that they are to be called cutaneous.


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     211. The truth is, that he who confirms faith alone with himself both in doctrine and in life cannot be reformed, and thus cannot be saved: that is, he who, while in the world, has thought. Since I am justified by faith nothing of evil will condemn me, because it is not imputed, and nothing of good will save me, and has thus cast out of his thought all reflexion upon the evil and the good of life with himself. And if he notices any evil or good he is not concerned about it as being a matter of no importance in respect to salvation. Such men are spirits who cannot be reformed, for they think like things after death.

     212. That the Lord is love; that hence the universal heaven is ordinated according to the genera and species of love, and thus according to its varieties; that in like manner every society of heaven, and every spirit and angel; that it is similar in a spirit and angel in whom heaven is, in that all things in them are disposed from love and. according to it, their understanding, yea, their whole body.* How then can there be such a thing as faith alone, since faith is according to love?
     * This paragraph appears to be a relation of the thoughts of certain spirits who were engaged in reflection on the subject of love and faith. This would explain the fragmentary character of the sentences at the beginning of the paragraph as involving the introductory words, "They thought" or "reflected." That the paragraph is probably a relation of the reflections of certain spirits seems indicated by what appears to be a parallel passage in the Spiritual Diary, (5940), where practically the same things are said, being introduced by the words, "spirits were with me who were in thought as to what faith and love are, but for more than an hour they thought about affection which is of love, as: That the universal heaven is disposed according to its varieties," etc.--TR.

     213. There was a certain Englishman* who had written learnedly and skillfully shout faith and charity, and this from considerable ingenuity. But he had come to the conclusion that faith produces charity, and that when man is justified by faith he is in the endeavor to do good, and that this is the effect of faith; thus that faith first leads to charity and afterwards in charity.

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It was told him by angels that it so appears to man, and yet that it is not so; and, because it so appears, that this is the may of reformation, for thus man learns many things which must be matters of faith, believing that in this way he is saved; but when man is not regenerated the order is inverted. And, moreover, that if he wished to make enquiry he would never find that faith produced charity, but that faith was produced by charity. And, therefore, because he was gifted with much ingenuity, he thought out many reasons for confirming the idea that it is faith that produces; and it was permitted him to produce these reasons** and to show whether the case was so. Wherefore in his meditation he was left to follow out each reason; but when he came to the end of his production there always appeared, as it were, an obstruction to the way*** which he was unable to penetrate so as to arrive at charity. Therefore, abandoning this reason, he acted in a similar manner with another reason, and so on with a hundred. In this way he went on in his ingenious meditation every day for an entire year,**** and not once did he see a conjunction on the part of faith. Wherefore he afterwards confessed that the thing was impossible, and that the fact that some said they had felt it with themselves was due either to their having thought of charity outside of faith, or to other causes, etc., etc., which arose from the fact that the things which art of faith have taught them,--for the truths of faith teach and man acts according to them,--and that iron a principle either adopted or heard, they have attributed it to faith.*****

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Moreover, after a man has done charity faith is then living, and then, in the single things [of his life], charity and faith work together, and it can hardly be seen which is prior and which posterior. The truths of faith which are of the thought and understanding are prior,--but still truths do not live and become truths of a living or saving faith, until man lives according to them.******
     * The Englishman referred to is the author of the Whole Duty of Man, (S. D. 5959), a work which is briefly reviewed in Continuation of the Last Judgment, 46, where it is characterized as an effort to establish the conjunction of charity by an interior influx and operation of the Holy Spirit, which affects man unconsciously without either moving his will or exciting his thought to deeds; and thus as "excluding the external works of charity from having anything to do with salvation, but favoring them on account of the public good."--TR.
     ** In the Spiritual World the bringing forth or production of reasons, results in the appearance of roads which the reasoner traverses. From this phenomenon has come the common use of the word road, or way, in connection with matters of thought, as when we say, one has thought out a way of explaining a subject, etc.---TR.
     *** The Latin here is tegnum obvium (a covering obstructing the way); but in the corresponding passage in the Spiritual Diary, (5958), the reading is tignum et quasi antemurale (a beam and, as it were, an obstruction).--TR.
     **** In the Continuation of the Last Judgment, 46, it is said that he wandered on in this way for two years.--TR.
     ***** The meaning is brought out more fully in S. D. 5958, where it is said that Swedenborg showed this Englishman that "the thing was impossible and that the appearance taken from the experience of many persons arises from the fact, that these persons are such as have lived a life of charity, but have taken from their clergy the doctrine of faith alone...; yet they had not led a life according to that faith . . . Because with suck persons there is a conjunction, therefore experience had been taken from them, and he (i. e., the Englishman) had added this to his confirmations." As appears from the text, the Englishman himself afterwards confessed that this was true.-TR.
     ****** The experiences of this Englishman in the spiritual world, are also recounted in C. L. J. 46, L. J. (post.), 9, and particularly in S. D. 5958. In these passages it is stated that as he was investigating each of the ways he had thought out, his eyes were opened and he received illustration, (L. J. post., 9); on many occasions he also heard a voice from heaven telling him that he was not in the way of truth, and informing him as to the obstructions in his path (S. D. 5958) It also appears that after each of his attempts, he made open confession, before the spirits who were present, of his failure to reach the desired goal (C. L. J., 46).--TR.

     214. I read before Englishmen their Exhortation used before the Holy Supper, [wherein it is shown], how they should act that their sins may by forgiven, and in which there is no mention of faith; and I said this is religion itself. Certain preachers who were in favor of faith alone, hearing this, said that when reading that Exhortation in their churches they had fully believed it to by the way of salvation, but when thinking from their doctrine of faith alone they had thought differently. The English were praised for that Exhortation, and many of them believed that it belonged to their doctrine; but a greater number of them said that this was for the common people, faith alone being for the learned. They were asked whether they wished to thus invite the curse expressed in the words, that unless they do this Satan would enter into them as he entered into Judas. They then went away and spoke about the matter among themselves.*


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     * Further particulars concerning this conversation and the subsequent consultation are given in S. D. 5970-5971, from which it appears that the English here referred to were clergymen; see also No. 9 above.--TR.

     215. I once saw some leaders of the English clergy, among whom were also one or two bishops, who fought for faith alone as for their dearest possession. And from the ideas of their thought concerning faith alone and justification thereby they formed an image, that it might represent that faith. In the spiritual world this can be done artistically and easily. They there made their images* by means of ideas, and these images also became visible,--for appearances are merely from ideas. Into their image they fitted all things of their faith. But when it was finished it appeared in the sight of the angels as an enormous monster, and as though it would frighten them away. This was in the light of heaven; but before their own eyes it assumed a different appearance, as monstrous things are wont to do, when seen in darkness and from phantasy. They gloried in it at first, but afterwards they became ashamed.
     * A description of this image is given in No. 10 above, and also in C. L. J. 44, where its destruction is spoken of. In forming it these English clergymen were assisted by Carl Arnell (S. D. 6007), one of the Royal Senators of Sweden, and afterwards royal secretary to Charles XII.--TR.

     216. The English said that faith produces charity as a tree produces fruit. But it was shown them that by a tree there [i. e., in the passages of the Word where tree and fruit are mentioned] is meant, not faith but man, and that by the branches and leaves are meant the truths of faith, and by the fruits the goods of love; also that natural affection or natural good, which is of the love of self and the world, cannot be conjoined to a faith which is spiritual; if it is conjoined, the result is an adultery; and that spiritual good is not possible except by means of the good of life, which is the good treated of.

     217. An argument on which they lay stress is, that man cannot do good which is good of himself. This is true, but still unless man be in good as from himself it is not appropriated to him, and so he is not conjoined to the Lord. In order for conjunction there must be something reciprocal and thus a covenant, which is, If you do that I will do this.

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And, therefore, that man may do it as if of himself freedom is given him, and this freedom is freedom to think, to will, and to do; reason is given him that he may see what salvation is; will is given, and choice and election; and he is commanded to act. All these are given in order that he may act as if of himself, and yet it is not from him but from the Lord. If he did not act of himself he would be an automaton, and all influx would pass through him. The Lord is continually with man pressing and urging him that he may act, and that, for the sake of appropriation and conjunction, it may appear no otherwise than that he acts of himself. A thousand passages can be adduced showing that man is condemned if he does evil and rewarded if he does good; those where doing and works are mentioned might be brought forward.

     218. Exploration was made of many evil spirits who at the last hour, when they had received the Sacrament, believed they would be saved by that faith. They said they had believed with trust and from confidence; yet it was the life of evil that remained and not the faith. They were told to hold their breath and, at the same time, retain that faith, but still, as soon as they breathed, the delight of evil, from which was their life, returned; and they were cast into hell.

     (To be continued.)


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Editorial Department 1906

Editorial Department       Editor       1906

     NOTES AND REVIEWS.

     A Swedish lady, Miss Bertha Johanson, of Salt Lake City, writes thus in the January issue of Nya Kyrkans Tidlling: "It is with pleasure that I am able to tell you that many persons here in Salt Lake City have found light from Swedenborg's revelation. I own nearly the whole collection of the Writings of the New Church, and they have been good missionaries. Those Mormons whose eyes have been opened to the darkness of their doctrine, stand quite bewildered, not knowing what to believe, several doubting the existing of a God. But a number of these truth-seekers have found the Lord in the glorious revelations of the New Jerusalem." This reminds us of a letter from Utah, published in a New Church periodical some years ago, stating that one of Brigham Young's wives was reading Conjugial Love with great pleasure and profit!

     In a sermon by the Rev. E. C. Mitchell, recently published in the Messenger, occurs the statement, descriptive of the Writings, "Swedenborg was the locksmith who handed us the key, and we use the key for ourselves, after proving it to be the right key." This is a terse statement of the intrinsic position held by the great majority of the members of the General Convention,--the Writings are fashioned by Swedenborg and proved by man; and on this stable foundation is built the crown of Churches!

     The Rev. C. J. N. Manby, pastor of the Swedish New Church Society in Stockholm, has sent us a copy of a pamphlet, entitled "Var Swedenborg Forryckt?" (Was Swedenborg Insane') in which the author refutes the old slanders about Swedenborg's supposed insanity, which have been resuscitated and made to parade before the Swedish public in a series of newspaper articles in various parts of the country. The author does not pretend to shed any new light on the subject, but refers to information given in Tafel's Documents.


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     The recent discussion in the New York papers on the subject of the sex of angels, was enlivened with some ray of light amidst the darkness and chaos of wild and fanciful opinions, by the New York Evening Post, which printed a number of very full extracts on the subject from the Writings of Swedenborg. We have not as yet heard of the conversion of New York,--or even of the Evening Post.

     The British and Foreign Bible Society has recently published a small pamphlet containing in alphabetical order all the Masoretic notes on the Hebrew Bible, together with translations and explanatory notes. To students of the Hebrew this publication will come as a great boon. There is probably not one of them who has not been desirous of learning more about those notes, with their curious letters, at the foot of the page of the Hebrew Bible and at the end of the various Books, but few are able to read them. To say nothing of the Rabbinical characters, the words themselves are in many cases more or less strange to the Bible student, and their meaning can be got only by searching in books which are not often met with. These notes, which tell of the number of words, letters, etc., in each Book. the middle word and letter, and the peculiarities of large, small, and inverted letters, etc., etc., should be of great service to those in our schools who are teaching Hebrew. They will perform a great use in exciting the affection and imagination of the children, and illustrating the wonders of the Divine Providence in the preservation of the Hebrew Word. By means of the work of the Masorites that Word has come down to us through centuries of darkness and ignorance, practically intact. But not only should the child be told about the work of the Masorites, but that work itself should be placed before its eyes as the ultimate manifestation of the teaching. And the recent publication of the Bible Society makes it now possible for every teacher to do this. The work consists of about 100 pages, and is issued as Bible House Paper, No. x.; its price is one shilling.


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     In an editorial on Swedenborg's Birthday, the New Church Messenger comes out with a panegyric of the Scientific Works which is a welcome innovation in the pages of our contemporary. It says (January 24, 1906), "While we claim no Divine authority for Swedenborg's scientific and philosophic works, it becomes constantly more evident that he was led to such a grasp of natural truths and such an understanding of the Divine origins, causes and processes. in the macrocosm and in the microcosm, as were not only in advance of the learning of his day and of this day, but also indispensable to his receiving with the understanding the spiritual truths to be revealed. The more one grows in these studies the more he realizes their importance, as foundations for the apprehension of the spiritual truths of the Writings." The editorial concludes by recommending the consideration of the scientific attainments of Swedenborg, their processes and results, at celebrations of his birthday.

     There are some evidences of a growing interest among members of the Convention and Conference, in the scientific works, but with many, alas, it is to be feared that this belated interest is the result not so much of an appreciation of the intrinsic worth of those works, as of the suddenly aroused (and as suddenly collapsing) interest among some of the learned.

     The True Christian Life for December contains a long communication on the subject "Who are the Disturbers," written by Mr. W. H. Bannister, which was refused admittance to The New Age. Mr. Bannister condemns the leader of the Sydney Society in allowing doctrines to be preached from the pulpit, totally at variance with the Writings and by a man who openly "repudiates the teachings of the Church." The leader himself is also criticized as favoring Christian Science. Harrisism, and other vagaries, and it "is small wonder that members have been driven out of his church." The services of a Leader are described as a failure, and the letter urges the calling of an active minister.

     On the subject of Conjugial Love Mr. Bannister writes: "Swedenborg carried out his mission, and he evidently knew men better than most people do to-day. Don't talk about a future Babylon, [the Academy!], while we have a perfect Babel to-day."

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The letter concludes with an affirmation of the Writings as "the Word of God given by the Lord, written by Swedenborg, and containing Divine Truth in every proposition. The writer adds that he knows "from experience that many New Church people, besides himself, hold in the main the same views as the Academy."

     The Critic and Guide, a New York medical journal which is waging an especial warfare on nostrums and patent medicine frauds, bewails the fact that "thousands of young wives go down every year to premature graves, victims of self-induced or criminally induced abortion, and tens of thousands drag about, unhappy, hopeless invalids, . . . as a result of the barbarous taboo put upon the discussion of the question of conception-prevention." We are not aware that there is or ever has been any "taboo" put upon the "discussion" of this question; the President has been freely discussing it, and he has been followed by thousands of men, either with or against him. The taboo is upon the spreading of information leading to prevention or abortion; and it is this that the Critic and Guide is really complaining of. It bewails the sad results of ignorant and "unscientific" race-suicide, and laments that it is not permitted to promulgate its own "sure" and "scientific" methods of destroying the future race. "There are safe, harmless, sure contracepts," it continues, "but the spread of information about them is a punishable crime." Thank heaven! Better for the people to suffer, if their sin against nature, than for science to step in and help them to sin and not suffer--if that be possible.

     Race-suicide still continues to force itself upon public notice, and, whatever may be the private practice, quite often the general sentiment, as expressed in the papers, is unequivocally opposed to it. Thus the New York Journal, (commenting upon Health Department figures recently compiled for the city of New York, which show the poor to have five times as many children as the rich), proceeds to draw some striking contrasts: "In one exclusive Fifth avenue block there was found one baby to every 167 persons.

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In a crowded upper east-side block there was found one baby to every 30 persons. Four hundred and forty-five babies have been born this year on First avenue, and only 33 on Madison avenue below Ninety-fifth street. In six blocks in Bayard street there are 102 babies: in the four blocks around Gramercy Park there are only 3!"

     To a somewhat similar effect was an address recently delivered by Dr. W. L. Felter, principal of the Girls' High School, of Brooklyn, N. U. After Showing the low marriage rate among college girls, he continues. "Birth rates are the indication of national growth and decay, and only the constant immigration of foreigners prevents us from occupying the position in which France finds herself. In New England the birth rate has steadily declined for a half century at a very rapid rate, until now it is actually lower than that of any European nation. France itself not excepted. Native marriages averaged 2.3 children each, while those of foreign born averaged 7.4 each." He continues. "It is evident that if the race depended upon the educated classes for replenishment it would he doomed to speedy extinction. Any college that depends upon the children of its graduates for fresh students would be doomed to extinction. An examination of the question thus far inclines one to the view that if higher education became universal [as the Critic and Guide would have its special medical knowledge of contracepts], posterity would be gradually eliminated, and the schools and teachers would progressively exterminate the race.

     "There is actual danger of the possibility of higher education among women becoming a fad. If the women's colleges are established chiefly to devote their energies to the training of those who do not marry, or if they are to educate for celibacy, their point of view is entirely correct. If their ideal is that of maiden aunt or bachelor woman they are certainly realizing their ideal."


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SCIENTIFIC TEACHINGS IN THE WRITINGS 1906

SCIENTIFIC TEACHINGS IN THE WRITINGS              1906

     One of our correspondents, in the February issue of the Life asks the question: "Why are scientific facts, as stated in the Writings, to be taken as literally true any more than those of the Old and new Testaments? The men of the early Christian Church fell into gross scientific errors by confiding in the Word for their interpretation of natural phenomena. Why may we not err lust as seriously?"

     The same question has often been raised in the past, and can be answered only by pointing out the difference between the two Revelations. The letter of the Word is written in sensual appearances, every one of which becomes a fallacious appearance if interpreted according to the mere letter. The Writings, on the contrary, are written in rational appearances, every one of which is in itself a genuine truth which needs no other interpretation than that of the Writings themselves,--the final and crowning Revelation.

     The Writings of the New Church constitute the Second Coming of the Lord. They are the revelation of the Lord in His Divine Human,--the Human which He assumed on earth and made Divine on every plane. They are not only the Divine Rational but also the Divine Sensual; and "the scientific facts, as stated in the Writings, or, rather, the scientific teachings delivered in the Writings, are on the very plane of this Divine Sensual. The Lord, when on earth, acquired by means of His infirm human senses sensual impressions and scientifics of every kind, and these He glorified in Himself, from within, by casting out all fallacious appearances and by infilling them, instead, with the Divine Truth and the Divine Good. And this Divine Sensual, or these Divine scientifics. He has now, in the fulness of time, revealed in the Writings of the New church, as the most ultimate firmament or is of the Divine Ration which is the interior Doctrine itself.

     The scientifics of the Writings are not Swedenborg's scientifics, but the Lord's. The Lord revealed these scientifics to Swedenborg, first, mediately, in the philosophical works, and Writings. They are truths, not errors, because they absolutely agree and correspond with the Divine Doctrine which they confirm and illustrate in a natural yet not less Divine light.

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They are the Brazen Serpent which has been lifted up before us, and which, if we will but look to it, will heal us of the wounds inflicted by the fiery serpents which are continually sent forth by the godless science of the consummated Church.

     As to the latter part of the question stated by our correspondent, it would be well to remember that it was not the men of the early Christian Church who fell into the gross scientific errors referred to, but the rulers of the perverted Church of the Dark Ages. And they did not fall into these errors "by confiding in the Word for their interpretation of natural phenomena," but by confiding in the falsified Aristotelian philosophy of the Scholastics, who simply used the appearances in the letter of the Word to confirm their own notions and heresies. No one can go wrong by confiding in the Word for any and every purpose. Even the scientifics as stated in the letter of the Word are truths, if correctly understood. The story of the creation of the world in six days is scientifically true, as Swedenborg shows in the Adversaria, if by "days" we understand "states,"--as was understood by the men of the Ancient Church to whom that portion of the Word was given. And every portion of the Creation story involves a profound scientific truth, if interpreted in the light which those enjoyed to whom that story was originally delivered,--a light which is now restored to the New Church.
FUTURE CONFLICT 1906

FUTURE CONFLICT       W. F. P       1906

     In the Apocalypse we read these words: "Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea: for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time. And when the dragon saw that he was cast into the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child." (xii:12, 13.)

     These words are said of the dragon after he was overcome by Michael and cast down from heaven to the earth; that is to say, after the Last Judgment, those meant by the dragon were cast out of their imaginary heavens into the world of spirits, whence they will continue to infest and assail the Church in the world of spirits and on earth, with the endeavor to destroy it.


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     By the dragon, or the old serpent, which is called the Devil and Satan, is signified the pride or conceit of human intelligence, or the belief and persuasion that man lives from himself and not from God, and at the same time the belief and persuasion that nature lives from itself, and not from the Divine.

     We are, therefore, to believe and expect that the New Church will for a long time be in a position of danger from the assaults of the dragon, or from the insidious attacks of the pride of human intelligence, as arrayed against the truth of Revelation, which truth is believed and loved by those who are of the New Church.

     The New Church on earth has indeed suffered from such attacks from its very inception, and is suffering from them now, and it will continue to be in danger from this source in all probability for centuries to come,--how long no man can say or know, for no one knoweth this but the Lord; the future is not revealed to us, and those who are wisest only know that which actually is and exists in the present. And so when we speak of the future conflict, we mean properly the present conflict, from which we may be able to draw some slight forecast of that which is to come.

     The New Church in its beginning is openly assailed by the false theology of the Old, or by the falsification of the letter of the Word, or by those who in the pride of their own intelligence have taken possession of the letter of the Word, and have fortified themselves in the falsifications and perversions of it.

     Falsifications of the Writings follow, or of the Word as to its internal sense; and a false theology formed from the Writings wages a bitter and relentless war against the life of the New Church.

     When these two forms of a false theology are met and resisted, the dragon then descends lower into the earth, and by means of a false science of nature continues his assaults upon the life and faith of the Church.


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     There is reason to believe that the New Church is now in the midst of this latter conflict, engaged in a life-and-death struggle for its existence. The appearances of nature are so powerful, and so persuasive, that it is a question whether the Church is not in greater danger than ever before; since these sensual appearances are of such a character as to deceive even the very elect; and if the surging tide of this great sea cannot be met and turned back, those who are of the New Church in the Christian world will be drowned in its mighty depths, and there will be no longer any hope for its establishment among Christian people.

     To be forewarned is to be forearmed, however, and the first important step in the preservation of the Church is to see clearly the danger that environs it, and adopt such measures as will best tend to protect the faith which we hold dear, and which is life itself to all who love it.

     It so happens in the Providence of the Lord, that the means provided for defense and protection are most abundant: and all that is needed is the seeing eye, the hearing ear and the courage born of conviction, to meet and combat that which looms up with threatening mien, and which with wrath would destroy the only hope of the human race for salvation and eternal life.

     The instrument of defense is the truth itself. The truth of Revelation is its own defense, and needs not the help of man to protect it from assault. But we need the truth to so form our understandings that we may he brought under its protecting aegis, and sheltered from the wind and storm.

     In addition to the letter of the Word, we have the Writings, where Divine Truth is given us in a scientific and philosophic form, and thus accommodated to the needs of our age and time; and if it were not given us in this form now, no flesh could be saved; there would be no hope for mankind in the midst of the flood of falsities that beat upon the ark from every side. This abundant store of truth, given us from the Word as it is in heaven, is at the service of every man, to form his understanding, and establish his rational mind as a citadel of defense against all attack from the false persuasions of merely human intelligence.

     Next to the Writings we have the scientific and philosophical works of Swedenborg, the like of which, as a system of natural truth, does not exist in all the world; and in which, as joined with the Writings, we have a sure defense against the insidious attacks of a merely sensual and rational science.


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     These works of Swedenborg have been neglected in the Church, and their true value and use have scarcely been seen or admitted by its members; but there is greater hope now, for the scientific works of Swedenborg are being studied, as they never were before, which is itself a sign of the great need that is upon us; and we are beginning to find out that these wonderful works have been given in the Providence of the Lord for the use of the New Church; and we are beginning to see, as we never saw before, that not only were they in the mind of Swedenborg a preparation for the Coming of the Lord with him, but that they are to serve the same use in the Church itself, especially in the work of the education of the young.

     Besides all this, and in addition to the infinite store of truth we have mentioned, we have modern science itself, which in the light of Revelation is also to be arrayed in defense of the truth, when it is brought into its place of order and service. For the truth of nature, in the form of science, is not to be blamed for the misuse that is made of it by the worshipers of nature, by men who see and acknowledge no light beyond that which nature affords. For we read that "inasmuch as the sciences have closed the understanding, the sciences must open it again." (S. D. 5709) And also that while scientifics are the means of becoming insane, they are also the means of becoming wise, to those who are in the life of good. (A. C. 4156) And that "on our earth the sciences are means of opening the sight of the understanding, which sight is the light of heaven." (E. U. 62.) And "that no knowledges are hurtful or injurious. provided man does not regard them as everything, but looks to another end." (S. D. 773.)

     The duty of the hour, therefore, is, that in addition to the understanding that has been formed in the Church by the spiritual Word of Revelation, we should understand the science of Swedenborg; and in the light so formed modern sciences must be explored, that the immense stores of natural truth now existing in the world may be brought to the service of the Church, that the position of the Church in its work of education of the young be made unassailable and secure, and the Church be established in its appointed mission of saving all who are willing and ready to receive and accept the fruits of salvation and eternal life. W. F. P.


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DICECIOUS PLANTS 1906

DICECIOUS PLANTS       JAMES POWELL       1906

Editor NEW Church Life:--

     I have read your article on "Sexes in Plants," in the January Life, with a considerable degree of interest and pleasure. While I have had doubts, I am one of those who do not let them keep me from being a partisan for the Writings. Of course, we all recognize the fact that doubts have their uses, and when overcome we are better and stronger for them. But this is hardly what I started out to write about. I have felt impelled to make this tiny effort, because I think you have not come up against some of the things in the way of scientific facts that are apt to cause doubts in some minds. Possibly you covered the ground in a general way in your statements of principles, and many will recognize the truth and soundness of your observations; but I think it would be so much more direct and effective if we could go right at several leading scientific facts, whether real or apparent, and explain their relation to the Doctrines. I am speaking of observed phenomena, not scientific theories. I am aware this may be thought a great enterprise,--rather doubtful as to results; but on the other hand, why cannot the facts of what men call nature, or natural phenomena, be used on the side of truth, rather than in formulating a great many false scientific theories and conclusions?


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     I am perhaps a little disappointed or expect too much,--being a "tenderfoot" in scientific matters myself. But when you state that "the pistil is united with the stamens at their base, and therefore are no more separated than the thumb and fingers of the same hand," and when you base on this an analogy between the conception of the human seed and that of the plant, you make use of only one instance of a kind, viz., when the pistils and stamens are united at their base, while so many instances of a wholly opposite character exist, or seemingly do so, and, to use a homely saying: "It's a poor rule that won't measure either way.

     Now, we can't get around the fact that flowers with pistil and flowers with stamens may be formed separately on the same individual, as, for instance, the Begonia, or upon different individuals, as the Nettle and the red or white Campion.

     We have a striking instance of the separation of stamens and pistils in the common Date Palm. We are told, among many other curious things concerning it, that one male stem may be found among forty or fifty female trees. The Arabs from time immemorial have been accustomed to aid artificially the fertilization of these trees by cutting off the male inflorescence just before the stamens ripen, and suspending it among the female trees, thus avoiding risks and losses of ordinary wind fertilization.

     Now, as before stated, could we not pave the way to a clearer understanding of the truth and relation of the Doctrines to these phenomena by considering them along with the instances that seem to confirm the doctrinal idea, that all plants are masculine in sex, and the earth is the common mother of plants? JAMES POWELL. Richmond, Ind., Jan. 17, 1906.


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     ANSWER.

     Our correspondent refers to the so-called "dioecious" plants,-- those having staminate and pistillate flowers on separate plants of the same species. These are, in appearance, the strongest illustration of the supposed bi-sexuality of plants. But the appearance is only in external form, not in function, and therefore not in reality. It must be remembered that the vegetable kingdom as a whole represents the animal kingdom, and that which represents is more external than that which is represented. That which in the animal kingdom is effected by internal means, in the vegetable kingdom is effected by external means. In the male animal the seed passes, by means of internally connected fibres, from the cerebrum to the cerebellum and thence into the testicle, but in the plant the pollen is carried by the wind or by an insect from the stamen to the pistil. Since, therefore, stamens and pistils are always separated by intervening space, even when found in the same flower, it makes no fundamental difference to the law of vegetable reproduction if they are in some cases found in separate flowers or separate plants. In either case there is intervening space, and in either case the stamens perform the functions of the cerebrum, and the pistil the functions of the cerebellum and testicle.

     If it can be shown,--and we think it has been shown,--that stamens and pistils are not bi-sexual organs when in the same flower, it follows inevitably that neither are they male and female when in separate plants. The dicecious plants are exceptions, not the rule, in the vegetable kingdom: they form a decided minority among plants, and it will not do to formulate a law for the majority, from certain facts observed among the minority. If plants were really bi-sexual, then dicecious plants alone would be complete, and all the other plants--the overwhelming majority--would be hermaphroditic monstrosities. Moreover, it sometimes happens that a pistillate plant will suddenly "change its mind" and produce both kinds of flowers, or only staminate flowers, and then there comes a long and learned discussion about "change of sex" and the possibility of such phenomena.


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FIFTH ONTARIO ASSEMBLY 1906

FIFTH ONTARIO ASSEMBLY       F. E. WAELCHLI       1906

     The Fifth Ontario Assembly of the General Church of the New Jerusalem was held in Berlin in the hall of worship of the Carmel church from Saturday, December 30th, 1905, to Monday, January 1st, 1906.

     There were present in all 144 persons, of whom 81 were from Berlin, 29 from Toronto, 4 from Milverton, 3 from Wellesley, 3 from Guelph, 2 from Randolph. 2 from Crosshill, 1 from Constance, 3 from Clinton, 2 from West Montrose, 1 from Windsor, 1 from Stratford, 1 from Peterboro, and 1 from St. Thomas. Ont.; 4 from Pittsburgh, Pa.; 3 from Bryn Athyn, Pa.; 2 from Glenview, Ill., and 1 from Chicago, Ill. Of the attendants, 92 were members of the General Church, and 52 were visitors and young people.

     Among those present were several members of the Executive Committee of the General Church, which held its quarterly meeting on Sunday evening.

     The first session on Saturday afternoon, was opened with religious services conducted his Bishop Pendleton.

     The minutes of the last Assembly were read and approved.

     THE BISHOP ADDRESS.

     The Bishop delivered an address on 'The Relation of Baptism to the Holy Supper." It was shown that in the two rites are involved all things of life and of worship. In baptism is their beginning, and in the Holy Supper their culmination. Baptism introduces into the presence of the Lord, and the Holy Supper into conjunction with Him.

     Mr. Carswell: The address enables us to see more fully than ever how essential New Church Baptism is to the establishment and growth of the Church. The great power of this rite is shown by the strong sphere prevailing when it is performed. It is a protection against the enmity and infestation of evil spirits.

     Mr. Stroh: There has been much controversy as to the need of baptism into the New Church, on entering it from the Old. Much of this has been due to its not being seen that by Christian baptism, spoken of in the True Christian Religion, is meant baptism into the New Church, which is the true Christian Church.

     Mr. Rudolf Roschman: When is the proper time for a person coming from the Old Church to be baptized? Is it as soon as he acknowledges, in general, the Truth of the Doctrines, or should he wait until by instruction in particulars he has attained to a fuller grasp of the teachings of the Writings?


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     Bishop Pendleton: Simple affirmation is all that is necessary. Instruction in particulars can follow. Baptism introduces into the Church, and thus prepares for the reception of instruction.

     Rev. J. E. Bowers: I have often met new converts who thought they would trot be ready for baptism until they had done much reading and study, and who felt that this was so great a work that it would take them a long time to be prepared for the step. It is my practice to tell them that as soon as they call acknowledge the essentials of the Church they can come in through the gate of baptism. They can then have all eternity to learn. In the Old Church, baptism is a mere form, and they do not see any use in it: but in the New Church we have profound teaching on the subject. Baptism protects those of the Church from doubt and perplexity coming from the sphere of Christians in the spiritual world.

     Rev. F. E. Waelchli: The address has brought before us the subject of the relation of Baptism to the Holy Supper, which, as was shown, is the relation of all in life and worship that prepares for conjunction with the Lord, with the state of conjunction itself. Man, in his preparation, must be constantly baptized, that is, washed by the Truth; this involves temptation; conjunction follows. We are taught that the Holy Supper confirms the remission of sins with those who perform repentance. Herein we find the answer to the question as to who come worthily to the Holy Supper. Often pastors meet with persons who feel that they are not sufficiently in a state of good to partake. But the truth is that not those are worthy who imagine themselves to have attained a certain goodness, but those who are performing repentance. These are being prepared by spiritual baptism for the Holy Supper. The address calls to mind the teaching that Baptism is as a lower room in a temple which the Gospel of the Lord's New Advent is preached, and the Holy Supper as a higher room where the Holy Supper is celebrated, and whence there is a passage into heaven. That which constantly prepares for the Holy Supper is the Gospel of the Lord's New Advent. This Gospel, given from beginning to end in the Writings, brings the presence of the Lord, and that presence leads to conjunction with Him.

     Rev. E. J. Stebbing: The teachings presented in the address show us how much is involved in Baptism and the Holy Supper, and what interior truths are contained in the doctrine concerning them. We have realized that these rites are important, but we have not seen how great is their importance. Herein becomes evident the necessity of an interior study of the Doctrines. We can never acquire a full grasp of any doctrine. There are always things more interior to be seen. In fact, we are relatively always only in generals, within which are infinite truths to be unfolded.

     Rev. Emil Cronlund: That Baptism is commanded by the Lord is evident from the letter of the Word and from the Writings of the Church.

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Baptism is like a uniform, which distinguishes a man from others in the spiritual world and in this world. It is a sign that he is of the Church, and a memorial that he is to be regenerated. Thus it distinguishes him as one of the army of those who are to fight against evils. For although all are redeemed, yet only those are saved in whom the Lord effects a particular redemption, which takes place with such as fight against evils by means of the truths of the Church. In this combat man must have spiritual light from the Word, and this he cannot have unless he be in the company of good spirits. Into this baptism introduces him. Through them he can have illustration from heaven, and thus from the Lord.

     Mr. C. Brown: We are taught that as soon as infants are baptized, angels are appointed over them by the Lord, to take care of them. Thus by baptism we enlist a power for the promotion of their well-being, greater than anything that can be done for them on earth.

     Mr. Pitcairn: The importance of this subject can be seen from the teaching that the Lord, when He came into the world, abolished the representatives, which were all external, and retained but two, Baptism and the Holy Supper; for, as we are taught in 4904 of the Arcana, the image vanished when the effigy itself appeared. In the two sacraments is everything of worship that is representative of the Lord.

     Mr. Wm. Junge: Does baptism in the various Churches introduce among those of their perspective faiths in the spiritual world?

     Bishop Pendleton: Every ceremony introduces into that in the spiritual world which it introduces into here. What is done here is also done there. Baptism introduces into the sphere of those who are of like religion in the spiritual world. Only when a person is here introduced by baptism among those who acknowledge the Divine Human of the Lord, is the same done also in the other world.

     Mr. Stroh: Are we not taught that children who are not baptized are subject to the influence of Gentile spirits?

     Bishop Pendleton: The inclination of all children is to go among Gentile spirits. They have much in common. Both are in simple good, and both are fond of stories. But when a child has been baptized there has been established a center to which it can constantly be brought back.

     Mr. Schoenberger: I was pleased to hear that by the Christian Church, spoken of in the chapter on Baptism, is meant the New Church. I would like to hear whether a man can be among those of this Christian Church in the other world, if he has not been baptised into the New Church, and yet is an earnest New-churchman?

     Bishop Pendleton: I would answer that question in the affirmative.

     Mr. Stebbing: What is the effect of infant baptism which is afterwards repudiated?

     Bishop Pendleton: It seems to involve that the person repudiates what is in baptism, which is the acknowledgment of the Lord and of the life according to the commandments. This leads to hell, unless there be repentance. In reply to Mr. Schoenberger's question, I would say further, that it will not do to apply too rigidly to individuals what is taught concerning baptism.

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There must be these who are baptized, in order that men may be saved. These are the medium of communication. When this exists then any man anywhere may be saved.

     Mr. Caldwell: Those of us who have come in from the Old Church have had to face the question of the repudiation of our former baptism, and the reception of that of the New Church. The address was a most useful one. Many of us probably thought that we knew about all there is to know about the doctrine concerning baptism. But we have learned otherwise.

     Bishop Pendleton: I would call attention to the point in the address, that we are in worship continually confessing what was confessed at our baptism. Thus we are looking backward to our baptism, and at the same time also forward to the Holy Supper. All worship is a larger expansion of those two rites. All the worship of the Jewish Church is involved in the Holy Supper, and the worship of the New Church is evolved from it. When this is borne in mind, it gives to worship a dignity and importance that is perhaps not realized.

     BANQUET AND SOCIAL.

     In the evening at 7 o'clock a banquet was held in the school-room, which was beautifully decorated for the occasion. Nearly one hundred and fifty persons were present. The Rev. E. J. Stebbing acted as toastmaster. The first toast was to the Church. Then followed a series of toasts to the principal uses of the General Church. "Worship in the General Church" was responded to by the Rev. Emil Cronlund: "Education in the General," by the Rev. F. E. Waelchli; "New Church Life," by Mr. Rudolph Roschman; and "The Orphanage," by Mr. Robert Carswell. This concluded the toast-master's list. Someone then proposed "Our Visitors from the United States," to which Mr. Junge responded. This led to a toast to "The General Church in England," in response to which Mr. Pitcairn told of the recent successful Assembly there, at which he was present. "Our Friends in Australia" was the next toast, and the Glenview poet sustained his reputation by producing the complet "Here's to old Australia, may she never know a failure." "The Ontario Assembly" was proposed by one of the visitors. As no one knew of any other country having General Church societies, this series of toasts had to come to a close. The banquet was concluded with a rousing toast to the Academy.

     A Social then followed, of which dancing was the principal feature.

     WORSHIP.

     On Sunday morning services were conducted by Bishop Pendleton, assisted by the Rev. F. E. Waelchli. The Bishop preached a sermon on Fulfilling the Law. (Matt. v:17.)


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     In the afternoon the Holy Supper was celebrated, Bishop Pendleton officiating. There were eighty-nine communicants. Previous to the Holy Supper, the rite of Baptism was administered to Mrs. Homer Bellinger.

     The sphere of the two services of the day was present at the gathering in the evening, when representations from the Word were presented by the young people of the Carmel Church. In the intervals selections were sung from the new Hymnal and from the Psalmody. Afterwards there were also solos by Mrs. Caldwell, Mrs. George Schnarr, and others.

     THE IGNORANCE OF INFANCY.

     On Monday morning, after opening services, the Rev. Emil Cronlund read a paper on "The Ignorance of Infancy." The object of the paper was to show the harmony of the passages in the Writings which teach that it is provided by the Lord that man should be born into total ignorance, with those that teach that if man were in the order of his life he would be born with all necessary knowledges. It was held that the latter passages do not mean that if man were in the order of his life his mind would be stored with knowledges at birth, but that he would then be born with an inclination to love truth rather than falsity, and this inclination would enable him to recognize and see truth when presented to him. The key to the harmony of the passages is the teaching in Conjugial Love (134), that "connate knowledges and affections limit progression, but connate faculty and inclination limit nothing."

     Mr. Bowers: The paper is an illustration of the fact that we cannot obtain the truth from the Writings by consulting one passage or one class of passages. Others must be considered in connection with them. We must not cease our investigations until we have viewed the subject in all its various aspects. Only then will our knowledge be comprehensive.

     Bishop Pendleton: The study of the relation of passages is most important. Often there are sets of passages which seem contradictory, though we known they are not so. The harmony will be seen by comparison and reflection. This has been done in the paper, and there is no doubt but that the conclusion reached is correct.

     Mr. Stroh: The paper is an interesting one and answers many questions. It is an illustration of how the New Church rescues us from the utter darkness of materialism. One truth which it strongly brings out is that the Lord always preserves man's freedom of choice. Another teaching which it presents is that if man is in the affection of truth, he will receive truth without limit in the other life. The Writings contain many passages that are encouraging to as. In the True Christian Religion we learn that if a man believes that the Lord is the one God, he will be able to speak many truths when he comes into the company of angels. Some years ago, when Bishop Benade visited here, I asked him whether children who were deprived of New Church education, through lack of means or other causes, would be inferior in the other life to those who obtain it.

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He replied that all who desire spiritual knowledges will obtain them in the other life if not in this. We cannot plead ignorance when we come into the other life; for we can be in a state receptive of the truth, if we wish. Every time we gather at these Assemblies, we are given something that is most instructive. New truths are always brought forward. I am very grateful for the papers which are prepared.

     Mr. Carswell: The other day I read that a certain simple man, because he acknowledged Jesus as the Lord, had all wisdom in the other world. He who is in simple faith comes into all knowledges. When we enter the other world, we need not learn the spiritual language, but know it at once. A number from the Arcana, quoted in the paper, teaches that if man were in the order of life, and in love to God and his neighbor, he would be in all sciences and in all intelligence and wisdom, and would not need to learn them. I still find it difficult to harmonize this passage with others quoted. May we not ask the question: In how far do connate knowledges limit? It seems to me we are still only on the threshold of an understanding of the subject.

     Mr. Stebbing: Mr. Carswell raises the question that is in my mind. There are passages in the Writings which cannot be qualified, and others which can. We need to adhere to at least some degree of literalness in this passage. We are taught that animals are born into their affections, and, therefore, into their proper knowledges; and that if man were born into orderly affections, he would likewise be born into knowledges. Such was the case in the Most Ancient Church. But in the Divine Providence this is not now the case: for if man were born into knowledges, he would by them ultimate his evil loves, and thus there could be no hope of salvation.

     Mr. Waelchli: There is the teaching that if man were in order, he would find his way home, wherever he might be, just as animals do.

     Mr. Stebbing: He would have natural knowledges; but would need revelation for spiritual knowledges

     Mr. Carswell: The angels increase in knowledges to eternity, and so it cannot be said that if man were in the order of his life he would be in acknowledges. The teaching of A. C. 7750 is that he would be in all requisite knowledges, and also in intelligence and wisdom, and would not have to learn them. His knowledges would thus be limited to what is requisite.

     Mr. Stebbing: The use of the word "requisite" seems to enlighten the subject somewhat. The infant would have its necessary knowledges, if born in true order. But man must acquire things which animals do not need, and these would come afterwards.

     Mr. Waelchli: The first men on earth were similar to animals. They were born such. They had from birth a similar faculty of providing for and preserving their natural life by means of what we may call connate knowledges.

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Otherwise they would have perished. Gradually, under the Lord's guidance, they came into spiritual knowledges, and finally became the Church Adam or Man. Nevertheless, they continued to have, like animals, the connate knowledges of natural things from birth. But, having also a higher life, they could perceive heavenly things in those which were natural. Also, because they were in the love of use, they could see uses in natural things, and put these to use. Their connate knowledges did not limit them, because their lives were not limited. The Most Ancients were able to have connate knowledges, because will and understanding with them were one. But when mankind fell, there took place a miraculous separation between will and understanding, and since then man must acquire all knowledges by an external way, being born in total ignorance.

     Bishop Pendleton: It seems to be that in one set of passages the celestial man is in view, in the other the spiritual. The celestial man was born into the order of his life, like animals; but this does not mean that he was born into all knowledges. An animal is born only once, but man is constantly re-born to eternity. The faculty and inclination of the celestial man is such that he sees at once what is necessary for his life. The Lord descends from within and gives him the perception of what he needs at the time. This is so in every new birth and in the state which follows. In each state he has the necessary perception. The celestial man is enabled by this to fully approach to the Lord: to perceive and receive all. But it is otherwise with the spiritual man. He is born into ignorance; but the celestial man relatively not, because he at once perceives. The spiritual man has to labor to learn; the celestial man learns without labor or effort. The spiritual man weighs and considers his doubts and takes a long time to learn; the celestial man does not have to learn, that is, he perceives so quickly that he does not seem to learn. There is a sense in which animals also learn, that is, perceive by instinct. When a thing is presented they at once see whether it is something that they need for their life; but they remain in that state throughout life, there being no re-birth with them. If we could imagine the celestial man as having only one state, he would be like the animals.

     Mr. Caldwell: There is a passage in the Writings which speaks of business men who lead good lives, but are not able to store their minds with spiritual knowledges, owing to lack of time, and who come into knowledges in the other life. This is a comforting teaching for many of us.

     Mr. Carswell: If the word "omnes" in the passage from the Arcana were translated "every" instead of "all," the truth might appear more clearly. Man would be born into every requisite knowledge. If he were born into all knowledge he would be a god.

     Dr. Schnarr: Man acquires knowledge in two ways: by his senses, and by the enlightenment of what is received by the senses, which enlightenment is from the Lord with those who are in good. Learning through the senses is hindered because we are born into evil. If man lives a good life his senses take on their proper form, and he then sees the true significance of what he acquires through them.

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Man as he is would be in an awful state if he had all knowledges by which to ultimate his evils.

     Bishop Pendleton: That is undoubtedly correct. General truths enter by the senses. The celestial man perceives, but the spiritual must study and acquire.

     Mr. Stebbing: Children have been lost in the woods and have been able to find what is needed to sustain life. This is no doubt because they are not then in the sphere of man but in that of the animals.

     Mr. Rud. Roschman: Would there not be a great difference between animals and children lost in the woods? The lives of animals are governed by a general influx from the spiritual world; but children lost in the woods would, like all men, be under a particular influx, and, being watched over by the angels, would be led to know and perceive what was necessary to sustain them.

     Bishop Pendleton: Children lost in the woods would come under general influx like that of animals. If they remained under special influx, evil spirits would very soon destroy them.

     Mr. Schoenberger: I have read that a child lost in the woods was reared by a bear-mother and took on the nature of a bear. Afterwards it was caught by men and taught by degrees.

     Mr. Carswell: Would not the bear destroy it?

     Bishop Pendleton: No doubt such things can take place. There are passages in the Writings that seem to support it. We find the same thing mentioned in mythology, and the stories must have some foundation in fact.

     Mr. Stroh: Dr. Im. Tafel made a study of this subject, and in one of his works cites a number of authentic cases of this kind. The scientists make use of such cases to prove that man comes from an animal, and would be an animal if he were not educated. But with us they serve an altogether different purpose, as has been shown.

     Mr. Brown: If a man were born into the order of his life, would he not be a celestial man?

     Bishop Pendleton: Yes: he would become a celestial man.

     Mr. Cronlund: It was asked, would not man, if born into true order, be born into sciences. Our conclusion is that he would not know anything of the sciences. He is born totally ignorant. We are taught that man when he is born is like ground in which no seeds of any kind have been sown; but he learns by instruction, experience, and revelation. The ancients were born thus: and there will be no difference when the New Church comes into true order.

     Mr. Stebbing: The subject is most interesting, but it is not yet clear to me. In Spiritual Diary 3339, we are taught that all animals from infancy possess spheres of knowledge of various kinds, and that man would also, if he were not in phantasies, that is, if he were in the order of his life. The knowledges would come with the activity of his affections.


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THE LIMITATIONS OF LOCAL SCHOOL WORK

     The Rev. E. I. Stebbing read a paper on "The Limitations of Local School Work." The paper reviewed the progress of New Church education in the local schools, showing that more and more had been attempted, until, under the pressure of the needs of the different centers, some of the schools had undertaken to prepare for the High School. It was stated that the Church recognized the necessity of sending pupils to the universities, high schools, and special schools, but that there was great objection to sending them to the Public Schools at an earlier age, to prepare for the High School. The paper raised the question whether local schools should attempt to prepare for the High School, when the teaching-staff is limited, or whether they should carry on the work up to a certain grade, doing more thorough work, and then send them to the Public Schools to be prepared for the High School.

     Mr. Carswell: Whatever we do should be well done. Every stage has its own period of development, and what belongs to that should be thoroughly carried out. I should hope that the schools would carry on the work until the High School, so that the tree may be well-rooted to withstand adverse winds.

     Mr. Junge: The period just before High School seems the most important of all. Do we not attempt too much in the early years? Would it not be better to send the children to school later, and not attempt to do so much with them in the beginning, and then press them harder later on? Does not the anxiety to give our children so much secular knowledge arise in the fear that they may not get along in the world?

     Bishop Pendleton: Formerly, when our schools were not what they now are, our position was that the advantage was greater to be in the sphere of the Church, even if the work was not so efficient in a worldly way.

     Mr. Rud. Roschman: I believe with Mr. Junge that the years just before High School are the most important in the way of forming character. If we cannot cover the course of instruction by the fourteenth year, let us take to the fifteenth or the sixteenth. It is dangerous to hand over the children at a young age to the spheres of schools which we know are anything but desirable. They have absolutely no control over the moral training, and give no instruction in spiritual things. When a child reaches the age of fourteen, it has a certain conscience and love implanted, and knows that it should not enter into certain things which are wrong, and can fight against them. It is not so easily misled as before that age. We have come to recognize that it is necessary to give our children a good common school education, so that they may be prepared for their life in the world, and I hope the time will never come when we will have to cut down the course of instruction.

     Mr. Brown: It is of the utmost importance that our children be kept in the sphere of our schools as long as possible. If any modification has to be made, let them start schooling at a later age.

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We must guard against permitting the desire that they succeed in the world to influence us too much.

     The discussion of the paper was continued in the afternoon session.

     Mr. Waelchli: Where there is a school having pupils of many grades, and not a sufficient number of teachers, thorough work cannot be done. Yet if there can be fairly good work, I believe it would be better to have this than to send the higher grades to the public schools. Still, there would need to be a full understanding that the results cannot always be up to a proper external standard; otherwise there will be dissatisfaction, and the cause of New Church education will suffer. We must be careful not to place too light an estimate on the work done in the first years in school. There is certain work which can only then be properly done. You cannot obtain the same results by letting a child get along as best it may for some years, and then putting on pressure. You may be able apparently to make up for what was lost, but cannot really do so. The rack of proper attention during that period will follow the child throughout life. Thus there would be something of great value gained by limiting our efforts to thorough work up to a certain age, when it cannot be done all along the line.

     Mr. Caldwell: It would be much to be regretted if we cannot maintain our old ideals of distinctive New. Church education. Our end is to train up the children for the Church and for Heaven, and when we do this they will be properly trained for the world. Even if they should be somewhat lacking in worldly knowledges, their rational faculty will be developed, and they will have superior ability in the performance of their uses. They can soon acquire the knowledges they need. Why should we be so anxious for their worldly success! Let us do our duty on the higher plane, and the Lord will provide for the rest.

     Rev. Charles E. Doering: I was pleased to hear what Mr. Caldwell has said, because of the depressing effect of a number of the preceding speeches. We are in danger of too great anxiety to see our children attain worldly knowledges, and in our anxiety are apt to lose sight of the higher and more important side of our work. There are two sides to education: the bread and butter side and the ethical. We can get all we require for the first without anxiety, by eliminating those things which are useless from our text-books, by cultivating the child's affection for knowledge and by training it to think in an orderly way. By doing this it will have what is essential, and will readily acquire the necessary knowledges.

     Mr. Rud. Roschman: I am not aware that anyone here has departed from old ideals. And it seems to me that everyone must acknowledge that there is a certain standard of external requirements below which a school must not fall. We cannot ignore the practical side of education, or brush it aside as of little value.

     Mr. Junge: The point at issue seems to be: Is the poorest New Church school better than the best Old Church school!


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     Mr. Brickman: The Old Church has a grip on the world, and the New on heaven. In our schools we can well give what is of heaven, and we can also "borrow of the Egyptians" so as to give what is of the world. There should be no need of going to the Old Church for any grade of education. We should not go to the University, but bring it to us. Let those few who go, come and give us what they have that can be of use to the New Church. We have the doctrine of use, and this is the end of education. The young must be trained that they may become forms of use. All that conduces to this end should enter into the work of education.

     BUSINESS SESSION.

     A telegram was read containing New Year's greetings from the Immanuel and Sharon Churches to the Ontario Assembly. The message was received with applause, and, on motion, Mr. Junge was delegated to express our thanks to these churches for their kind remembrances, and to convey similar greetings from us to them.

     The secretary read his report, in which he stated that owing to the pressure of other duties he has resigned his office, and that the Rev. Emil Cronlund has been appointed to the position.

     The treasurer read his report, showing a balance on hand.

     A report of the Olivet Church was read by Mr. Cronlund; of the Carmel church by Mr. Waelchli; and of the general mission work in the Province by Mr. Bowers.

     Mr. Pitcairn spoke of the meeting of the Executive Committee of the General Church, held on the previous evening, and, at his request, Mr. Doering, the treasurer of the General Church, read a statement showing the financial condition of the body. On motion of Mr. Carswell, the Assembly expressed its thanks to the retiring secretary for so ably filling that post since the organization of the body.

     On motion of Messrs. Junge and Carswell, a vote of thanks was passed to the members of the Carmel church for their entertainment and hospitality.

     Several of the members spoke of the pleasure they had found in attending this Assembly, which had been a most successful and useful one.

     Bishop Pendleton said, in conclusion, that the Assembly had certainly been successful. What especially impressed him was the large attendance. It brought back to his mind the first Ontario Assembly, which was also the first of all the District Assemblies. No Assembly since had been so delightful to him as that of 1901. This was no doubt because it was the inauguration of an important use. There was something about it that he had seldom felt at any meetings of the Church. The success of this meeting recalled that Assembly to his mind. The state of the General Church is a hopeful one. There is increase in interest everywhere.

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We have had a remarkable growth, and there is every reason to believe that this will continue indefinitely.

     The meeting closed with singing "The voice of one crying in the wilderness," and the benediction.

     MEN'S MEETING AND LADIES' MEETING.

     In the evening a Men's Meeting was held, at which a paper on "Education for Marriage," by the Rev. F. E. Waelchli, was read and discussed. Afterwards there was a supper the chief feature of in the school-room, which was Mr. Caldwell's response to the toast to "Friendship in the New Church."

     At the same time a Ladies' Meeting was held at the house of Mr. and Mrs. Richard Roschman, which was much enjoyed by all present. F. E. WAELCHLI, Secretary.


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Church News 1906

Church News       Various       1906

     FROM OUR CORRESPONDENTS.

     BRYN ATHYN, PA. Through the kindly agency of our beloved "mayor," Mr. Sam. H. Hicks, the Bryn Athyn Society on January 22d enjoyed the unusual privilege of being entertained and instructed by a "real Japanese," Mr. Honda, a professor of the Imperial University of Tokio, now visiting this country. His lecture on "The Manners and Customs of the Japanese," his many and beautiful lantern-slides illustrating life and scenery in the land of the Cherry Blossom, and, above all, his own delightful personality, will not soon be forgotten in Bryn Athyn.

     Swedenborg's birthday was celebrated by a school-social, to which the whole Society was invited. Members of the graduating class constituted the committee of arranging the program. A new feature of the celebration was the display of the valuable collection of "Swedenborgiana" owned by the Academy,--portraits of Swedenborg and his contemporaries, original letters, photolithographs, first editions, etc., including Swedenborg's own copy of the Vera Christiana Religio, besides many other interesting and instructive things. Some quaint and interesting essays on Swedenborg, by the younger pupils, were read and much enjoyed. A "Swedenborg game." (consisting of puzzling questions with prizes for the best answers), was "played," and, as usual, there were songs and dances.

     Dr. George M. Cooper, on February 10th, favored us with an illustrated lecture on Modern and Ancient Athens, dwelling especially upon the wonders and beauty of the Acropolis. Fine lantern views and other illustrations were exhibited, and all enjoyed this instructive and delightful occasion.

     For the first time since their establishment in 1877, the Schools of the Academy have been temporarily closed on account of a contagious disease. A genuine case of small-pox suddenly developed, on February 11th, in the family of the Rev. Homer Synnestvedt, who resides in Stuart Hall, the Boys' Dormitory, and another case appeared simultaneously in Glenn Hall, the Dormitory of the young ladies.

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A few days later another of Mr. Synnestvedt's daughters was stricken, but the patients are now all recovering, and no further cases have developed so far. The Schools were closed on February 12th, and strict quarantine was at once established.

     PHILADELPHIA, PA. The annual meeting of the Advent Church was held after the morning services on January 21st. The treasurer reported a surplus, and the pastor in his address announced an increase in the regular attendance at the Sunday morning services, and also at the Wednesday evening doctrinal class, which, from an average of seven (whilst held in a private house) had increased to sixteen, since the class has been held in Glenn Hall.

     The formation of a Board of Finance was decided upon, the members of which were to be chosen at a future meeting of the Society.

     On Sunday, January 28th, the Advent Church celebrated Swedenborg's Birthday with a very enjoyable social, at which fifty-four persons were present. The Social Club had made all necessary arrangements, and as the members and friends of the Advent Church arrived a little after six o'clock, they found the hall of worship prettily decorated in red and white. The program was successfully carried out, thanks to the many willing co-operators. After the supper was over there were a number of toasts, responded to by the pastor and Messrs. K. Knudsen, S. Simons, R. Cranch and E. Iungerich. Appropriate songs were also sung after each toast, among others three of the hymns in our new Hymnal Many of the ladies wore Swedish costumes, and a number of these "Swedish girls" sang Swedish songs, which were more enjoyed than understood. A beautiful poem, "Nunc est Adventus Domini," written for the occasion by Miss Emilie Schneider, was recited by the author; two duets sung by Mrs. Muller and Miss Schneider in Swedish; a clarinet solo by Mr. R. Cranch, and two Swiss songs sung by Mr. A. Steiger, were much appreciated. The sphere was excellent, and our guests expressed themselves as highly pleased with the entertainment, which reminded them of "olden times in the Philadelphia church.


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     LONDON, ENGLAND. Since the Assembly held at Colchester last year, the General Church in London has been making steady progress. In addition to an increased appreciation of the Sunday services conducted by the pastor of the Society at Holland Rd., Stockwell, there has been increased interest taken in the reading meetings which are held on the Sundays when Mr. Czerny is preaching at Colchester.

     The doctrinal class, which has met almost uninterruptedly for several years, is well attended. The work on Heaven and Hell was concluded at the end of last session, and the Divine Love and Wisdom was commenced this session.

     At the service held on the Sunday after Christmas a number of gifts were handed to the pastor for the use of the church and the school.

     Regular singing practice has been resumed, and socials for the adults are held monthly. The school children also hold their socials monthly.

     On January 29th Swedenborg's Birthday was commemorated in a most enjoyable manner. The ladies of the Society provided a supper, which was fully appreciated by the many friends present. The tables were handsomely decorated with flowers, etc., every seat was occupied, and the result was that a happy sphere pervaded the whole of the meeting. The toasts to the "Church" and to "Swedenborg the servant of the Lord" were proposed by the pastor. He then announced that instead of the usual subjects referring to Swedenborg as a man, he had arranged a program in which the speakers would deal with various aspects of the work performed by the Lord through Swedenborg. The following subjects were then taken in order:

     "The Lord made His Second Advent through Swedenborg;" answered by Mr. S. Ball.

     "The Lord sent out His Light and revealed the state of Darkness prevailing in the Christian Church;" by Rev. A. Czerny.

     "The Lord removed the state of spiritual Captivity in which the man of the Church was, and restored spiritual freedom;" by Mr. Howard.

     "The Old Church Judged, and a New Church established;" by Mr. McQueen.


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     "Through Swedenborg the Lord prepared the way for a New State of Faith and Love;" by Mr. Waters.

     "Through Swedenborg the Lord prepared the way for a New State of Intelligence and Wisdom;" by Mr. Denney.

     In addition to the foregoing a number of impromptu toasts were proposed and heartily responded to. Mr. Anderson bringing down the house by his success in responding to the toast to "The Ladies."

     COLCHESTER, ENGLAND. On October 29th a social was held to welcome Mr. and Mrs. Carswell, of Toronto, Canada, who paid us a short visit. Mr. Gill, as toastmaster, spoke of the very great pleasure it was for us to have this personal contact with the Church in America, and to hear of the state there. In the name of the Society he asked the visitors to convey affectionate greetings to the members in Canada. Mr. Carswell responded by giving a splendid account of the work of the Academy and the General Church, dwelling particularly on the work of the College and Schools at Bryn Athyn, as laying sure foundations for the enduring growth of the Church. We thoroughly enjoyed Mr. Carswell's visit, and were strengthened and stimulated by his warn affection for the Church and its uses, and instructed by having the results of his long experience in the Church placed before us.

     On December 10th the Rite of Coming of Age was administered to Mr. Fred. J. Cooper by our pastor, who prepared a special service for the occasion. Mr. Cooper attained his majority on December 8th, and to celebrate the event his parents invited the Society to a social at the room in Priory street. It proved to be a most interesting and enjoyable occasion. Speeches were made by various members, on the state of man's life, while other members read confirmatory passages from the Writings. And finally Mr. Czerny called upon the young man himself to read a paper which he had prepared for the occasion. This was, in brief, an expression of thankfulness for the benefits of a New Church education and training, and, in particular, to those ministers who had been the means of giving it,--Messrs. T. F. Robinson, W. H. Acton, E. C. Bostock and A. Czerny, all of whom were mentioned with affectionate gratitude. In many respects the education had been necessarily limited and imperfect, but it exceeded all that could have been given outside the Church, because it taught the pupil to think rationally, and trained him that he might be able to come into the love of spiritual things.

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As expressed by Mr. Appleton, the reading of this paper made the hearers realize the value of New Church education, and it would stimulate them to further efforts and self-denial for the purpose of again establishing a school in their midst. Mr. Czerny then, on behalf of the Society, presented Mr. Cooper with a set of the Arcana and of the Apocalypse Revealed, as a memento of the present and an appreciation of past services.

     Our next event was the Children's Christmas Social, which was held on December 28th, with 57 persons present. After the usual games, etc., the younger children presented a little play called "Jessie's Dream." The acting was well done and the costuming, etc., left little to be desired--indeed, the audience would not be denied an immediate repetition of the performance. Then followed "Dick Whittington," presented by the older children, which would also have been repeated but for the lateness of the hour.

     Our time-honored New Year's Social at the Studio was held this year on January 4th, and Mr. and Mrs. Gill were again our delightful hosts. After music, and a talk by Mr. Gill on the Channel Isles, illustrated by a series of lantern pictures, all sat down to a bounteous repast. Toasts and songs, followed by dancing and games, took us well over midnight. Finally we parted, after drinking a loving cup and joining (with the usual rites) in "Auld Lang Syne." F. R. C.

     FROM OUR CONTEMPORARIES.

     UNITED STATES. From an address recently delivered by the Rev. T. F. Wright, it appears that the New Church ministry has enacted a new role, besides entering into Old Church pulpits and receiving the Old Church into its pulpits. When Dr. Wright first went to CAMBRIDGE, Mass., he found at the East End a Christian Union established for carrying forward non-sectarian Sunday Schools and temperance and industrial work, etc. Dr. Wright and members of his congregation at once began to co-operate by working in the schools, etc.

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But soon afterwards the Unitarians, hearing of the Union's success, started up a similar institution of their own. The competition led to a proposed amalgamation of the two forces. But the Unitarians refused to join the East End Union unless Dr. Wright, as intermediary, should be made President. So this was done, and all has since gone on smoothly, with a New Church minister as the intermediary conjoining Unitarians with Christians!

     Of the course of four lectures on Swedenborg and Modern Science, delivered in the National Church, at WASHINGTON, two were given by Mr. Alfred Stroh. Mr. Stroh's subjects were Swedenborg's Connection with the European Universities and Academies, and The Development of Swedenborg's Science and Philosophy.

     Swedenborg's birthday was celebrated by the BALTIMORE MISSION, on Sunday, January 28th, when there was the unusually good attendance of 30 persons. Above the platform appeared an inscription from the Rules of Life, facing which was a portrait of Swedenborg. The Rev. L. H. Tafel preached on Swedenborg and his mission. On the following day two of the leading Baltimore papers contained three-quarter column articles on Swedenborg, written by the Rev. G. L. Allbutt.

     The Society at BUFFALO, N. Y., reports an attendance at worship which, while exceeding the membership, "has not been as large as was hoped for." Apparently the pastor finds consolation for other people not coming to the New Church, in that he is allowed to take his congregation to other churches. For he continues his report by noting that he gave the address at a Thanksgiving Union Service participated in by the Universalists, Unitarians, Jews and New Church people. What a jumble! People denying the existence of evil,--denying the Divinity of the Lord,--and (save the mark), New Church people, all uniting to thank--whom? and for what?

     The LAKEWOOD and CLEVELAND, O., parishes joined in a celebration of Swedenborg's Birthday, held in the home of Mr. and Mrs. Frank Wagar, on the evening of January 29th. More than a hundred persons were present. Addresses were delivered by Mrs. Dr. Ashley on Swedenborg's ancestry, showing that Swedenborg's training for his office extended far back into his ancestral line; by Miss Effie Wagar on his University life and travels; by Dr. Thompson on Swedenborg as a Scientist, showing that it was necessary for the revelation of the Doctrines that Swedenborg should be familiar with all the processes of natural science; and by the Rev. J. Whitehead on Swedenborg's preparation as a Revelator.

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The speeches were concluded by the pastor, the Rev. Thomas A. King, who gave a stirring address on Swedenborg the Theologian.

     The Englewood parish of the CHICAGO, Ill., Society, observed Swedenborg's Birthday by a Sunday School celebration on January 27th, at which representatives of the North Side Sunday School were also present. After an introduction by the pastor, the Rev. E. J. E. Schreck, accounts of Swedenborg's life were given, including an account of his life in the Spiritual World as shown in the Memorable Relations. The papers were interspersed with songs, and were followed by a "Swedenborg Game," prepared by Mrs. Schreck.

     The celebration by the adults was held on the following evening, (January 28th), at the North Side Parish, where there was also a good attendance of members from Englewood. Church services were conducted in the afternoon and were followed by a dinner. Addresses were then given by Dr. Bergman on Swedenborg's Youth; by Mr. Houts on Swedenborg in his Manhood, as a Scientist and Statesman, and by Mr. Schreck on Swedenborg in old age.

     Swedenborg's Birthday was also celebrated--for the first time-by the LA FORTE, Ind., Society. The celebration was on the evening of January 29th, and was well attended. A brief outline of his life, an account of his only love affair, his propounding the nebular hypothesis, his philosophy and his influence on modern thought, were the subjects of the different addresses. Then followed the singing of the hymn attributed to Swedenborg, after which came other short addresses on Swedenborg as a seer, on his London life and last days, the whole being concluded with a general talk bringing out several anecdotes. Most of the speakers were ladies. On the same day the La Forte Daily Herald printed a column-and-a-half article on Swedenborg, written by Mr. William Niles.


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     In the middle of January the three surviving members of the SAN DIEGO, Cal., Society met together for the purpose of reorganizing the Society. The result was the election of thirteen additional members, and the resumption of Sunday services. These are held at present in the morning at the homes of members, but arrangements are in progress to use one of the chapels of the city in the afternoon when the chapel is not being used by the regular congregation.

     GREAT BRITAIN. The Rev. H. Maclagan, whose book, "The Two Books of Kings Explained," was recently reviewed in the Life, owing to the infirmities of age has retired from the pastorate of the Melbourne Society and will devote himself wholly to literary work. He is now engaged in preparing commentaries on the books of Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, to be companion volumes to his work on the Kings. Mr. Maclagan entered the ministry in 1861 and from then till 1888 he served as pastor to the Newcastle Society. He then acted as a missionary minister in London until 1893, when he became pastor to the Melbourne Society, acting also as corresponding tutor to the New Church College.

     The immense sales of the popular editions of Heaven and Hell and God, Creation, Man, have been followed up by extensively advertised lectures instituted by the MISSIONARY AND TRACT SOCIETY. "Magnificent posters" have appeared in every district in London, and their style and size prompted an American visitor to observe that it was the finest advertisement for the Church he had ever seen. At five of the lectures advertised by these means, about thirty per cent. of the small attendance were strangers.

     At ACCRINGTON, a few weeks ago, there was a general interchange of pulpits between the members of the Free Church Council--of which, of course, the New Church minister is a member. The result was that the latter preached at the Baptist church, while the Baptist minister enlightened (?) the New Church congregation on the subject, The Power of the Word! If the congregation were "pleased" or "instructed," the only supposition we can make is that they had never read the Writings and knew nothing of the subject.

     Mr. Haslam, a lay member of the Accrington Society, has accepted a unanimous invitation to become the "Pastor" of the MELBOURNE Society, in place of the Rev. H. Maclagan, who recently resigned to devote himself to literary studies in the exposition of the Word.


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     FRANCE. Mr. Ackroyd is continuing to hold services at the Rue Thouin, PARIS, three times a month in French, and once month in English. It is to be feared, however, that there is a probability of these recently revived services being again discontinued, as Mr. Ackroyd intends shortly to move to London.

     ITALY. One result of the action of the London Swedenborg Society in placing the Writings in several of the Italian libraries has lately come to light in a letter from an evangelical clergyman of NAPLES, Printed in the Messenger. He writes that, desiring to know about Swedenborg, he was told by the professor of the theological college that Swedenborg was a great theologian of the past century, who taught that the Word contained three senses, natural, spiritual, and celestial, but he was never given any of the Writings. About this time he received from London a copy of the Decalogo (extracted from the True Christian Religion) which prompted him to make further enquiries as to Swedenborg. Many of his colleagues had never heard the name, but finally at the National Library he found copies of The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrine, and Heaven and Hell, and he writes, "I am reading these works with the utmost delight. Certain interpretations were opposed to what I had learned before, but the Holy Spirit comes to enlighten and comfort me."

     MAURITIUS. The Society at PORT LOUIS enjoyed a somewhat unusual event, in the celebration of a marriage, on December 12th. The bride was a daughter of the President of the Society, Mr. Auguste de Chazal, and the bridegroom was M. Carsvin, a member of the Roman Catholic Church. The marriage caused some stir in the city, inasmuch as the bridegroom, while willing to be married in his own church, wished also to have a second ceremony in the church of his bride. The head of the Roman Catholic Church in Mauritius, however, would not consent to this mixed arrangement, and the result was that the marriage took place only in the New Church--where it was solemnized by Mr. A. de Chazal, assisted by Mr. St. Fern, the Secretary of the Society.

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The papers took the matter up and appear to have approved the bridegroom's course.
Notices 1906

Notices              1906


     ANNOUNCEMENTS.



     A New Church woman who wishes to come to Bryn Athyn and enter a New Church family and is able to act as nurse and housekeeper, can obtain such a situation by addressing with terms Rev. R. de Charms. Bryn Athyn, Montgomery county, Pennsylvania.
Title Unspecified 1906

Title Unspecified              1906

     A CORRECTION.--The sentence "If, in a manner strikingly analogous,"--on p. 116, twelfth line, of the February Life.---should be corrected so as to read "So, in a manner strikingly analogous." in order to render the whole paragraph intelligible. [Corrected.]
PUBLICATION OF THE Mercury SUSPENDED 1906

PUBLICATION OF THE Mercury SUSPENDED              1906

     It has been decided to suspend the publication of Mercury. The chief reason for such action is, that the need for such a magazine does not appear to be sufficient to warrant its publication. Undoubtedly it performed some use during the past year, but the experience has shown that the time is not ripe for a young people's magazine in the General Church. We thank our patrons for the support they gave us, and for their patience. THE MERCURY PUBLISHING COMPANY.
EDUCATION FOR MARRIAGE 1906

EDUCATION FOR MARRIAGE       Rev. F. E. WAELCHLI       1906



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NEW CHURCH LIFE.

     VOL. XXVI.     APRIL, 1906.     NO. 4.
     (A paper read at the Men's Meeting of the Ontario Assembly, January 1st, 1906.)

     The New Church will grow and prosper according to its reception of conjugial love inflowing from the Lord out of heaven. This reception is weak today, but should become stronger and fuller with each successive generation of the Church; and that such may be the case, each generation must fulfill its duty to that next following, by preparing it by means of true education for that fuller reception.

     True education is education for marriage. The child that is properly educated for marriage is properly educated in every respect. The education of those who die in childhood and grow up in heaven has marriage as its end, and the education of the children in the Church should have the same end.

     In Conjugial Love we read:

     "All marriages of love truly conjugial are provided by the Lord. In what manner they are provided in the heavens, I have heard described by the angels thus: The Divine Providence of the Lord is most singular and most universal in relation to marriages and in marriages, because all the delights of heaven flow from the delights of conjugial love, as sweet waters from the fountain head; and on this account it is provided that conjugial pairs be born; and that they be continually educated for their marriages under the Lord's auspices, neither the boy nor the girl knowing it; and after a stated time, when she has become a marriageable maiden, and he a young man fitted for marriage, they meet somewhere as by fate, and see each other, and they then instantly know, as by a kind of instinct, that they are consorts, and by a kind of dictate they think inwardly in themselves, the young man, that she is mine, and the maiden, that he is mine; and when this thought has been seated some time in the minds of both, they deliberately accost each other, and betroth themselves. It is said, as by fate, by instinct, and by dictate; and the meaning is, by Divine Providence, because while the Divine Providence is unknown, it has such an appearance; for the Lord opens internal likenesses, that they may see themselves." (229.)


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     In this doctrine let us particularly note the words: "It is provided that they be continually educated for their marriages under the Lord's auspices, neither the boy nor the girl knowing it." The teaching contained in this sentence, and its bearing on the work of education in the Church, becomes more evident when we dwell upon the particular words which compose it. We are told that it is provided by the Lord that they be educated for their marriage; that it is provided that they be continually so educated; that this education is under the Lord's auspices; and that neither the boy nor the girl know that this is taking place.

     As the Lord provides for such education in heaven, so also He will provide for it in the Church on earth, in so far as the Church is willing that this shall be done. As the children in heaven are continually educated for their marriage, so should the children in the Church be. As the work is done in heaven under the Lord's auspices, so should it be done in the church under His auspices, that is, the parents and teachers entrusted with this work should have the doing of the Lord's Will as their only end. And as in heaven, neither the boy nor the girl know that this is being done for them, so also will this not be known by the children who are being similarly educated in the Church.

     The reason why neither the boy nor the girl are aware that the end of their education is marriage, is because this does not externally manifest itself; it is an end concealed in the mind of the educator, for the attainment of which he labors by seeking to make of the boy a true man and of the girl a true woman, that is, by seeking to make of the boy a man who is a form of the understanding of truth, and of the girl a woman who is a form of the affection of truth.


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     A man is a form of understanding, a woman a form of affection. This distinction exists in its beginning seven at birth. The form of mind of the infant boy, his disposition, and his body are masculine; and that of the girl feminine. And although this distinction does not so much manifest itself in the beginning, yet it soon makes its appearance, and as the years progress becomes more and more marked.

     Because the distinction is not so marked in the beginning, therefore in the earlier years the sexes can be educated together and according to the same methods, both in the home and in the school. But at about the tenth year a separation is necessary, if the work of education is to be well done. In the home the boy should come more fully under the care of the father, and in the school under the care of a master; while the girl remains chiefly under the care of the mother at home, and under that of a lady-teacher in the school. This separation should take place because the distinctive form of mind, genius, disposition, and manners of each now begins to manifest itself. The time has come when there must be entrance upon the work of so guiding the development of the boy that he may become a form of the understanding of truth, and that of the girl that she may become a form of the affection of truth. This work with each cannot be well done, if the two sexes are educated together.

     We have said that the boy is to become a form of the understanding of truth, and by this is meant, in a wider sense, that he is to become a form of the love of growing wise, so that led by this love he may acquire a genuine understanding of truth. This love, in its rudimentary form, exists with the boy as the love of investigation, analysis, experiment, and discovery, and the teacher who would successfully educate him must constantly make use of this innate love. He must exercise care not to tell his pupil too much, and instead seek to draw forth things from him, or let him find them by his own study. It is thus that the mind of the boy will be so developed that when he becomes a man he will be given to thinking, investigating, reflecting, and drawing wise conclusions, and be truly a form of understanding.


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     The girl is to become a form of the affection of truth, and, in a wider sense, a form of love of the wisdom which is with the male. This love with her, in its rudimentary form, is the love of being told things, and of then seeing them in manifold and various light. The affection which the teacher of girls needs to make use of is, therefore, not, as in the case of boys, that of investigation, analysis, and discovery, but rather that of delight in the things which are told, and in seeing the same exemplified, illustrated, and applied to use. It is thus that they can be led to become forms of the affection of truth.

     As a distinction must be made between a boy and a girl in their intellectual development, so also must there be in the development of character. Boys are to become forms of morality, and girls forms of beauty, that is, forms in which beauty is imaged in all they speak and do. The development into such forms cannot take place as it should where the sexes are educated together; there is necessary for each a distinct school order, discipline and life,-in short, a distinct atmosphere in which the plant may grow and thrive.

     From what has been said it may be evident that true education, which is education for marriage, is that by which there can be with the boy and with the girl a proper development of the mind and character of each. In this development there are successive stages, in each of which certain work is to be done on both the heavenly and the worldly planes. The state of a child at a certain time requires that certain things be then done for the sake of its orderly development; if they be not then done, if the proper work be neglected or put aside because of a desire to attain certain other results, as, for example, the filling of the memory with a specified number of knowledges, the true development is injured, and a harm done which can never be fully repaired.

     The important principles of education which have been presented, cannot be carried out in our schools as fully as they should be. We are compelled by external conditions to have co-education at the age when there should be separate education; and we seem also to be compelled to neglect, to some extent, the work of the true development of the mind for the sake of attaining certain external results.

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Nevertheless it is well that it should be recognized that these are defects in our work, and we should all entertain the hope that they may some day be remedied. In the meantime it should be the effort of parents and teachers to carry out the principles presented just as freely as is possible under existing conditions.

     It has been shown that the true development of the mind and character of a child is education for marriage. Everything that is done for the sake of such development prepares for true marriage, and thus for conjugial love. But there are certain instrumentalities in that development which, more than others, prepare for that state, and these we shall now consider.

     The first general period of a child's development is that in which there takes place the insinuation of good. The goods then insinuated, which, more than others, prepare for conjugial love, are those which come through the medium of the conjugial life of the parents. The love, the friendship, and the harmony between the parents make a deep and abiding impression on the child, and are the first, and perhaps the most important, of all the means by which the Lord prepares the child for its own conjugial life when it reaches adult age.

     After this period comes that in which takes place the insinuation of truth. This is effected by means of instruction adapted to the state of the child which the parents impart as occasion arises. In doing this work, various opportunities will present themselves from time to time to give such teachings as more than others prepare for conjugial love; as, for example, when a wedding takes place, something can be said concerning the Lord having brought the two together so that they may be happy forever; when a husband or a wife is called to the other world, the child can be told of the meeting of consorts in heaven, where they will never again be separated. Then, too, there can be instruction concerning the love of offspring, which makes a one with conjugial love. For this there will be many opportunities. The birth of a baby is always such an opportunity, and the child can then be told that the Lord has given the little one for the parents to love and care for. The passing of a child to the other world is another opportunity, for then there can be imparted something of the teaching concerning the education of children in heaven, where the Lord is their father.

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Besides such truths on the spiritual plane, there can be given many teachings on the natural plane which will serve in the child's mind as an unconscious ultimate for the truths concerning marriage. The parent can call attention to the duality of all things, especially in the human body, as the two eyes, two ears, two hands, etc; so likewise the affection which exists between mates among certain animals can be pointed out; then, too, the intent of the child can be awakened to notice how wonderfully a seed grows into an infant plant and afterwards gradually becomes full grown.

     After the period of the insinuation of truth comes that of systematic instruction in the school; though at the same time the work of the two preceding periods is still being continued in the home. In the school as in the home there will be some things which, more than others, tend to prepare for conjugial love. First among these are the teachings concerning marriage which are given in the religious instruction. During the first part of school-life, when the child is being instructed in the letter of the Word, the teacher will dwell on those parts which speak of marriage and of married life, the first of which is where Adam and Eve are treated of. The story of the formation of Eve from the rib of Adam conveys the foundation truth concerning love truly conjugial. The teacher will also call attention to the number two, wherever it occurs in the lesson. And especially will there be impressed on the child the Lord's teaching that He is the Bridegroom and Husband of the Church, which is His Bride and Wife. The things which are said concerning family life and the love of children will also be dwelt upon. To these and other teachings from the letter of the Word will be added the stories of the Memorable Relations which tell of the happiness of conjugial life in heaven. After the first period of school life is completed, and the child enters the college or seminary, or comes under the pastor's charge as one of the young people of the congregation, the time has arrived for instruction in the doctrine of conjugial love; for this doctrine needs to be systematically taught in order that there may be proper preparation for marriage.

     Just as these things in the religious instruction of the child serve more fully than other things in that instruction as a preparation for conjugial love, so also on the external or worldly plan there are certain things taught which more than others form a basis on which the truths concerning conjugial love can rest.

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Foremost among these are many of the teachings concerning the world of nature, and especially concerning the human body.

     These things, in the three periods of education, more than others, prepare for conjugial love. Yet it is important that it be borne in mind that the whole education of the child is such a preparation. In fact, the special things which have been mentioned are really nothing other than prominent and essential instrumentalities in the development of the boy into a true man, and of the girl into a true woman.

     The work of preparation for marriage by means of true education continues until adult age is reached. But before this period is completed there must begin something of active co-operation on the part of the youth and the maiden. The work done should show the result of an earnest desire manifested on their part to meet the conjugial partner and to enter into the happiness of the life of love truly conjugial. Unless this desire is awakened, the young man does not become a form of the affection of truth.

     A young man who does not earnestly desire to meet his conjugial partner may indeed seem to be a form of the understanding of truth, yet is not such; the things of knowledge and intelligence which he possesses, even those which pertain to spiritual things, lack a living soul; there is with him no reception of those heavenly influences all of which have the marriage of good and truth as their very end, and without which there can be no genuine understanding of truth; conceit, which is the enemy and destroyer of the understanding of truth, holds him bound in its chains. Far otherwise will it be with the young man who is of the number of those who, as the Writings describe them, "from an early age love, wish, and ask of the Lord, a legitimate and lovely connection with one, and scorn and shun wandering lusts." Such an one will be a form of the understanding of truth. May the results of New Church education be that all the young men of the Church so love and wish and pray,-and shun what is evil.


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     What has been said of the young man applies also to the young woman. She becomes an affection of truth as she looks to marriage, and desires to enter into the happiness of such a married life as is taught in the doctrines of the Church.

     The desire for a marriage such as the doctrines of the New Church teach, and a life which harmonizes with such a desire, are the preparation for conjugial love with the young man and the young woman of the Church. And not only with them are that desire and life such a preparation, but also with every husband and wife in the Church. They must desire to be married, that is, they must love the married life, and long for its continuance to all eternity. This desire, if accomplished by a life which makes a one with it, will prepare the husband to become more truly a husband, that is, a form of the understanding of truth, and the wife to become more truly a wife, or a form of the affection of truth. And as the form of each is thus perfected, their conjugial love will be perfected, and become ever more interior and heavenly.

     May there be with us all the earnest endeavor to come more fully into love truly conjugial, and also to more fully co-operate with the Lord in the work of education, so that He may do for our children what He does for those who grow up in heaven, namely, "provide that they may be continually educated for their marriages under His auspices." It is thus that we will promote our own happiness and that of our children, and at the same time do our part that the New Church may progress unto that glory and beauty which she is destined to attain.


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"BEHOLD THE MAN" 1906

"BEHOLD THE MAN"       Rev. W. F. PENDLETON       1906

     "And He saith unto them, Behold the Man." John xix. 5.

     According to the account of the crucifixion in the Gospels Pilate, the Roman Governor of Jerusalem, believed that the Lord was innocent of the charges brought against Him by the Jews; but he saw in Him nothing more than an ordinary unfortunate Jew, and though wrongly accused of crime, he thought best, account of the clamors of the people, to deliver Him over to be crucified. "Pilate therefore went forth again, and saith unto them, Behold, I bring him forth to again, that ye may know that I find no fault in Him. Then Jesus came forth, wearing the crown of thorns, and the purple robe. And He saith unto them. Behold the Man."

     Commentators and translators have supposed that it was Pilate who said. "Behold the Man;" hence the word Pilate is inserted in the translations; and so the words are made to read, "Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of thorns, and the purple robe. And Pilate saith unto them. Behold the Man." In the original it is simply, "He saith unto them, Behold the Man."

     The general contest does indeed look in the direction of the opinion of the commentators; but on the other hand, according to a strict grammatical construction, it should read "Jesus said, Behold the Man." for Jesus in the text is the immediate antecedent, and not Pilate. But the matter is settled for us in the New Church, by the distinct statement given in the Writings that it was the Lord Himself, when He was brought forth by Pilate and shown to the people--it was the Lord Himself who said the words. "Behold the Man;" and the reason is given why He spake thus to those who were around and before Him.

     He had been maltreated and abused. He had been scourged by order of Pilate, and in mockery He was spit upon, a crown of thorns was placed upon His head, the purple robe of kings was placed upon Him and with jeers and derision they cried out, "Hail King of the Jews! And smote Him with their hands."

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And when He was brought forth by Pilate, and exhibited to the people, He appeared as an object of pity or contempt, to be treated as an impostor and covered with shame and ignominy. It was then that He Said unto them, "Behold, the Man."

     The reason given in the Writings why He permitted Himself thus to be treated, and called upon the people to look at Him, in this condition of shame and humiliation, was because as the Greatest Prophet,--even as the prophets were sometimes commanded to do,--it was necessary that He should represent in His own person the state of the church especially the state of the church in respect to the Word; and it was therefore necessary that they should be permitted to treat Him representatively as they had actually treated the Word itself. For the Word is the Divine Truth proceeding from the Lord, and the Divine is a Man, is the Man, and it is from this that heaven is called the Maximus Homo, or Greatest Man. It was this Word, or Divine Truth, the Divine Man that had been so treated by the Jews, and it was permitted, in order to represent this, that they should so treat the Lord Himself, the Divine Man, the Word incarnate, or the Word made flesh, come to dwell among men.

     These words were also said by the Lord, because God is a Man, and God Man had now come into the world, and revealed Himself as a Man, that He might ever be known by men in the world as Man, and forever loved as the one only Man, who is at the same time the God of the universe. We beg leave therefore to present this subject before you for consideration to-day; for it is of supreme importance to know, acknowledge, and love this universal truth as the prime and first essential in the salvation of the human race, namely, that God is a Man.

     It is not known in the world that God is a Man, for it is a prime essential truth that is lost in a consummated church, and the fact of this ignorance is complete evidence of the vastation of the church. It is indeed known, but it is not believed, and what is not believed is not internally known, and has no place in the real thought or the heart, even thought may exist as a scientific in the memory. And where it is presented as a truth of the Word and of heaven, it is treated with scorn and derision, even as the unbelieving Jews treated the Divine Man when He appeared among them.

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It is this truth that is hated by natural men more than all other truths of heaven and the church. It is hated because men worship themselves, and they at the same time worship nature, and they are unwilling to acknowledge anything as God but themselves or nature. They are willing indeed to confess an invisible God, by which they mean nature in her inmost principles; but the idea that God is Man, arouses the mighty and fierce wrath of hell, more than any other truth that has been given by revelation to men--simply because of the powerful sell persuasion that man himself, poor, weak, finite man, is God,--a belief which is insanity itself.

     In the Writings the teaching is, not only that God is Man, but that He is Man himself; which words mean, that God is not only Man, but that He is the source and origin of all that is man, of all that is human in the created universe; that men are human, and all created things tend to the human form, because God is a Man, and since He is Man, and Man Himself, He cannot otherwise than impress His image upon all the things which He has made. It is for this reason that in all the heavens, in all angelic thought, there is no other idea of God, than the idea of a Man; for heaven itself strives perpetually to the human form, because it strives perpetually to become more and more the image of Him who made it: and so heaven in the whole and in all its parts is actually in the human form, and will become more and more perfectly human forever, as every angel becomes more and more perfectly a man. Heaven is in the human form, and all the thought of the angels flows according to the form of heaven, wherefore it is impossible for the angels to think of God otherwise than as of a man. And hence all in the world, who are conjoined with heaven, when they think interiorly, or when they think in their spirits, think in like manner concerning God, and cannot possibly think otherwise in their spirit; for their thought also, their interior thought, flows according to the form of heaven. And they who so think of God from being conjoined with Him, in this world or in the other, are images of God, and are continually more and more perfected in His image, tend and progress more and more toward a perfect human form.


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     In Genesis (i. 26, 27) We read that "God said. Let us make man in our image, and after our likeness. ...And God created man in his own image; in the image of God created He him." If man was created in the image and likeness of God, it follows that God is in the human form, that God is a Man, and there is no escaping this conclusion: there is nothing left for him who has faith in Divine Revelation but to affirm it as true that God is a Man; what is left then is to see how it is that He is a Man, how it is to be understood that he is the very Man Himself, from whom all others are men, and who are men only because they are in His image, and the more they are in His image, so much the more are they men; how it is to be understood that God is a Man, and is yet everywhere present in His universe, how He can be everywhere present as a Man, and yet at the same time how the mind may escape the error of pantheism, or not be caught by the persuasion that nature is God.

     All the evidence of Scripture learns to the same conclusion, teaches the same doctrine, that God is a Man. Whenever He appeared to the patriarchs of old, or to the prophets. He always appeared as a Man in human angelic form; and when He came into the world He appeared as a Man and lived as a Man among men in the world. In every religion, ancient or modern, God is thought of as a Man. and the idols of the gentiles are but expressions-even though in crude human forms-of their idea of God as a Man. Even when gods were multiplied, in every case they worshiped them as men, and the very statement of the idea of three Divine Persons in the Godhead, carries with it the picture of three Divine Men. But it was left for the learned of the Christian world to take away the idea of God as being in the human form, and speak of Him as invisible, and as a being without body, parts, or passions.

     Not only the Gentiles think of a Divine Man when they think of God, but all in the Christian world,--who are simple in heart and simple in faith, who believe in Divine Revelation and are in charity to the neighbor,--believe in God as Man, and always picture Him before the mind as a Divine Person, especially when they think of the Lord Jesus Christ as Divine or as God; for they know from the Gospels that He was a man in the world, and they think of Him as now a Man in heaven likewise.


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     It is the instinctive thought of children to think of God as a Man; and when their parents speak to them of the Heavenly Father, who created all things, and gives them everything that they need, they picture Him no otherwise than as a Man. Nor can they do otherwise since they are associated with angels and angelic spirits, and every man thinks according to his spiritual environment, or according to the sphere of thought of the spirits with whom he is associated. They who are with good spirits and angels, think of a Divine Man when they think of God, and they cannot possibly think otherwise, since the thought of those in the other world flows according to the form of heaven which is the human form and it is in the human form because God as a Man is the soul of heaven. It is only when these same children become adults and enter the sphere of the learned,--which is for the most part the same thing as to enter the sphere of the worship of nature-only then do these same children, now adults, begin to think of God as impossible or without form; for the sphere of the worship of nature arises from consociation with evil spirits in the world of spirits, who have denied God when they lived in the world, and believed only in nature, and that nature is the only thing that lives.

     It is supremely important to have a just and true idea of God, for the idea of God is the first thing of all theology and of all religion, and every other idea of theology and religion is modified and qualified according to the idea of God; for a man ever shapes his life according to his idea of God, which must be so since the idea of God is not only the inmost of all religion, but it is the inmost and center of every one; and so the quality of the whole form, of the whole mind and life, will be according to the idea of God, which occupies the inmost and center of the thought and life. If this inmost thought of God be false, the whole structure will be unsound and tend to spiritual disease and death; but if the first and inmost thought be just and true the structure will be sound, or will become so. For that which is the active center of a thing gradually shapes everything else into its own image and likeness, shapes everything into agreement with itself, even from the centre to the very circumference.

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And we are told that there is not any communication with heaven, where there is no just idea of God; and since a just idea of God is the idea of Him as a Man, that every one is allotted a place in the spiritual world according to his idea of God as a Man. This is the determining factor, the touchstone, the supreme test, that is applied to every one who enters the spiritual world. He who has a just idea of God, or the idea of Him as a Man, and is able to hold it after his arrival in the world of spirits, is allotted a place in some society of heaven; but he who enters the other world with a false idea of God in the centre of his thought, and who will not permit it to be dislodged by the truth when it is taught him--as it is taught to all--will be allotted a place in some society where all reject, hate, and spurn with contempt the idea of God as a Man, or the idea of a Divine Human--for indeed the idea of God as a Man, is the idea of the Divine Human; and the human of the Lord which He assumed in the world and glorified is the Divine Man, the God Man, that is the sole object of the worship of the Church. This is the reason, we are told in the Writings, (D. L. W. 13), that the denial of God, makes hell, and in Christendom the denial of the Divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ. He who denies the Divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ denies that God is a Man, and if this state of denial cannot be removed in the world of spirits after death, such a man cannot possibly enter heaven.

     God is a Man and yet He is everywhere present in His universe. He is everywhere present in the spiritual world, or spiritual universe, and He is everywhere present in the natural universe and He is everywhere present as a Man. This would not be true if God were in space, nor can it be seen if he be thought of from space. He cannot be in space, for then He Himself would be a created form, for space belongs to that which is created; and He who created space is prior to that which He created, and cannot be a part of that which He created. That which is created involves the Uncreate as its cause; and since the cause is not a part of the effect, so the Uncreate is not a part of the creation. God is then not in space as a part of space, space cannot be predicated of Him, He is not outwardly in space, and yet He is interiorly in all space, and thus Omnipresent in all space, and yet He is altogether distinct and discrete from space, or as the Doctrine teaches, "He is in all space without space, and in all time without time."

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It is therefore necessary to see that God is not in space in order to understand His Omnipresence in the universe as a Man. It is necessary to see that there is something prior to space, something before space existed, which created space.

     The Omnipresence of God in the universe may be in some degree illustrated by created things; as, for instance, by the presence of the sun everywhere in the solar system by means of its heat and light. The sun is thus constantly and instantaneously present everywhere in its own system. Man is present by the sight of his eye, wherever an object can be seen. But the presence of man extends to an immensely greater distance by this thought than by his eye, and the presence is instantaneous. This is especially true in the spiritual world. If this is true of man how immensely more true, how infinitely more true, is it of God Man, who is instantly and always present in all and every part of His two-fold universe-present with all His Divine Love, with all His Divine Wisdom, and with all His Divine Use, and thus present as a Man; for these three are everywhere, and these three are Man, these three are God Man. God is everywhere present as Divine Love in and by the heat of the Spiritual Sun; He is everywhere present as Divine Wisdom in and by the light of the Spiritual Sun; and He is everywhere present as Divine Use in and by the atmosphere of the Spiritual Sun. God is thus Omnipresent as a Man in and by the heat, light and atmosphere of the Spiritual Sun. The atmosphere is the containant of the heat and light of that Sun, and the heat and light is the containant of the Love and Wisdom of God; and the atmosphere of the spiritual Sun is everywhere present in the two-fold or double universe,-for since there is a double sun, there is also a double universe.

     God is therefore everywhere present by the heat, light, and atmosphere of the Spiritual Sun, and this presence is instantaneous throughout the two-fold created universe. But there is an Omnipresence prior to this-for His Omnipresence by the Spiritual Sun, by its heat and light, and by its atmosphere, is predicated of the created universe, spiritual and natural.

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But the created universe has its bound and limit, and beyond this bound and limit, and also within it, is the Infinity of God; and so the created universe is but a finite sphere launched in the immensity and Infinity of God. But since even the extent of the finite sphere of the universe is beyond the grasp. We may know that the Infinity is, that the created universe is in the Infinite, and that the Omnipresence of the Infinite-if we may so express it-is an Omnipresence that is prior to the Omnipresence of God in His created universe by means of His Spiritual Sun, its heat, its light, and its atmosphere.

     In order to understand, or have some comprehension of the teaching that God is Omnipresent as a Man, it is necessary to know what it is that makes a man; and it is first necessary to know and realize that a man is something more than the body or shape which appears before the eye. A man is his love, and he is a man according to the degree and quality of his love. But since wisdom is the form of love, it may be said that a man is his wisdom, or that his wisdom is the man, and that he is a man according to the degree and quality of his wisdom. But since love and wisdom together take form in use, and make use, so it may be said that a man is his use, and that a man is in his use, and is whatever his use is; or his sphere is wherever his use is, and he is present by his sphere wherever his use is, and is received. In a broad sense then a man is the active sphere of his love, active by wisdom in use, and a man is present by his sphere, and in his sphere, wherever his use is present.

     We see therefore that it is necessary to have an interior or rational idea of what it is that makes a man, as well as a physical or natural idea. In fact, it is far more necessary, for what is left of man if you take away from him his love, if you take away from him his wisdom, and if you take away from him his use? The body alone is left, and the body then is dead, and soon the body itself will disappear.

     And if it is necessary to have a rational idea of man in order to know what a man is, and what it is that makes a man, how much more necessary it is to have a rational idea, or a spiritual idea, of God as a Man, since God is very Man Himself.

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God is in the human form, and has even appeared in the human shape. This was to impress upon the sensorium of the human race that He is a Man; for the natural idea of a man comes first in order of time, and so the natural idea of God as a Man; but we are not to remain in this natural idea, however necessary it may be in order to introduce to the true idea of God as a Man. We are not to remain in it, but we are to rise to the spiritual idea of God as a Man, in order that the mind may think spiritually as well as naturally in order that the Church may become a spiritual Church, by the spiritual thought of truth, and in order that the thought of the mind of the man of the Church may comprehend the Omnipresence of God as a Man.

     And now since man is love, wisdom, and use, so God Man, Man Himself, is love, wisdom, and use; and God is present wherever His Love, Wisdom: and Use are present,--present as a Man. There is no place in the created universe, no spot, no particle, no created form even the most minute, where use is not. Every created thing is for use, performs a use, and is a use--every created thing that is in order and according to order. Everywhere in nature we find use, and in all the activities of human life on the earth we find use; a thing that is of no use cannot exist, or it cannot continue to exist. Use is its reason for existence, and when it is no longer of use it must die, its particles be dissipated and enter into other forms which are forms of active use. This is the eternal law from which there is no varying or shadow of turning; there cannot possibly be any exception to it. And even where an evil, deadly, or poisonous thing exists, the eternal law is still operative--it must be made to perform use, even though it be unwilling and strive against it, even as the devils of hell must become the instrument of use, whether they will or no. Every human being, and every created thing, must bring himself and itself under obedience to the law of use, so universal is it, so inexorable is it, so omnipresent is it.

     Yes, use is omnipresent, and God is Omnipresent in it. Wherever use is there God is, and since there is no place, no spot, in the created universe where use is not, so there is no place where God is not.

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And since there is no place where use is not, so there is no place where wisdom is not,--for what is use without wisdom? how is it performed without wisdom? And since there is no place where wisdom is not--wisdom in use--so there is no place where God is not, for all wisdom is of God, all wisdom is God, and He is present wherever wisdom is. And since there is no place where use is not, and where wisdom is not, so there is no place where love is not; for wisdom is but the means by which love does use,--love is in wisdom performing use; and what is use but something which love does for the sake of another? And so wherever use is, there love is; and these three are everywhere together, these three are omnipresent in the universe; there is no place, no thing, no particle in either universe, the spiritual or the natural, where these three are not, where God Man is not; for these three, Love, Wisdom, and Use, are God Man Himself present in His universe, everywhere present as a Man, everywhere present performing use for His creatures, everywhere performing use for His human images which are men, that a heaven may be formed of them to live with Him in happiness forever. Amen.


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PHOEBUS APOLLO 1906

PHOEBUS APOLLO       C. TH. ODHNER       1906

     A STUDY IN GREEK MYTHOLOGY.

     DIVINE MANHOOD,--this is the central idea in the manifold yet ever harmonious characteristics of the Greek sun-god, the god of light, beauty and joy,--the god of wisdom, intelligence and science,--the noblest, purest and finest of all the male divinities of Hellas,--Phoebus Apollo, who "to a form of ideal beauty, combining youthful grace and vigor with the fullest perfection of manly strength, added unerring wisdom, complete insight into futurity, an unstained life, the magic power of song, ability to save and to heal." (Rawlinson.)

     The worship of Apollo, like the etymology of his name, is clearly of oriental origin. Until of late years, it has been the custom to derive the name from apollymi, to destroy, but this is manifestly unsatisfactory as it describes but one of the offices of the god, and that only an incidental one. Knowing, as we do, that the Greeks received most of their religion, as they did their letters, from Asia and Egypt, through the Phoenicians, it becomes evident that in Apollo we have simply a purified and glorified Hellenic reappearance of the Assyro-Babylonian Bel, and the Syrian Baal,--"ha-Baal,"-"the lord,"--who, like Apollo, was distinctly the god of the sun. In fact, among the earliest Greek representations of Apollo, we find him depicted simply under the appearance of a human face, surrounded by the rays of the sun,--the exact reproduction of the most common Phoenician representation of Baal. Moreover, we can trace the westward progress of the worship of Baal, through the Cretan Abelios and the ancient Doric Apellon, to the Ionic Apollo, which finally became the fixed and generally accepted form of the name.

     As the god of the sun, Apollo was known as PHOEBUS, in order to distinguish him from the earlier sun-god, HELTOS, the Titan son of Ouranos and Gaea, whose office of driving the horses and chariot of the sun was inherited by Apollo, just as Neptune inherited the water kingdom of his uncle, Oceanos, Hellos, (whose name is clearly derived from the Semitic El or "ha-El," "the god," just as Apollo is derived from "ha-Baal"), stood for the idea of God as a man in the sun of the spiritual world, in the waning days of the Most Ancient Church, just as Apollo stands for the same idea in the decline of the Ancient Church,--Phoebus Apollo among the Graeco--Romans, the Horus of the Egyptians, the Krishna of India, or the Balder of the Northmen.

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Under the name of Hellos he was especially worshipped on the summits of certain high mountains which hence became known as Mounts of Helios,--later on Christianized in various places as "Mt. Saint Elias!"

     Apollo, as the sun-god, signifies in general the supreme love of the spiritual Church, that is, Charity, even as his twin-sister, Diana, the goddess of the moon, everywhere is the representative of Faith. The story of their birth on the island of Delos is the story of the birth of spiritual charity and faith among the Hellenic Gentiles, who lived remote from the corrupt nations in Asia where the Ancient Church had once flourished.

     According to all accounts, Apollo and Diana were the offspring of Zeus and Latona, or Leto, whose name means "darkness," (comp. lateo, to hide, and Lethe, oblivion), which fitly describes the state of spiritual darkness originally prevailing with the primitive Greeks, among whom a new Church was now about to be established. Juno, on discovering her husband's alliance with Latona, immediately outlawed her rival, at the same time threatening with dire vengeance any person or place that should extend aid or shelter to the poor exile,--all of which typifies the hatred of the old Church towards the simple gentiles who now were to receive a new and purer form of the Lord's Church.

     Among the many adventures of the suffering outcast, the following significant legend is told by Ovid. While wandering one day under a burning sun. Latona came upon a lake of limpid water. Kneeling down to quench her thirst, she was set upon by some Lydian laborers who were gathering sedges and rushes by the shore; they harshly forbade her to touch the water, and even began to jump about in the mud in order to render the water undrinkable, whereupon Latona cried out, "May you live forever in that pool."

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Zeus heard her wish, and the churls were at once changed into croaking frogs. The lake here seems to represent the Word of God, to which the inquiring soul comes for the water of life. But the laborers,--the priesthood of the perverted Church,--forbid the search for truth, and make the Word muddy and unintelligible by their false and clumsy interpretations, the result, however, is worse for them than for the truth-seeker, for they become spiritual frogs, croaking ratiocinators, forever dwelling in filthy falsities and jumping at false conclusions. (A. C. 1351; A. E. 1000.) The comedy,--or perhaps we should say, tragedy,--is repeated at the end of every Church.

     The whole world refused to give shelter to Latona, until she happened to see a small, barren island floating about in the Aegean sea; it "trembled with joy" on hearing her appealing voice, received her gladly, and was forthwith chained down with adamantine pillars and received the name Delos, forever blessed by the whole Hellenic world. And here, amid great sufferings, Latona gave birth to her divine children. The myth is filled with light when we learn that by "islands are signified those who live mutually together in charity, but still in ignorance, nor knowing anything about the Lord or the doctrinal things of the Church," (A. C. 1158), in other words "the Gentiles with whom there have been only the appearances of truth, but not as yet genuine truths." (A. E. 1024). Delos, as a floating island, clearly signifies such a simple or gentile state,--having been long "at sea" in regard to genuine religion, but joyfully receiving the truth when once revealed to it. Delos thus signifies the same in the Ancient Church as was represented by the neighboring isle of Patmos, where the Apocalypse was given to the Christian Church.

     The reason the revelation was made to John in Patmos, was that it was an island in Greece, not far from the land of Canaan, and between Asia and Europe; and by islands are signified the nations more remote from the worship of God, but who will nevertheless accede to it, because they can be illustrated; in like manner by Greece; but the Church itself by the land of Canaan; by Asia those belonging to the Church who are in the light of truth from the Word; and by Europe those to whom the Word will come. (A. R. 34.)


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     An island signifies a nation remote from true worship, but which still longs to be enlightened and which will receive the truths of Doctrine. Moreover, the isle of Patmos is in an archipelago where there are many other islands; and hence, too, it is that by "Greece," in the Word, such nations are signified. (A. E. 50)

     It was through the isles of Greece, and especially through Delos, that the light of the Ancient Word passed over from Asia to Europe, and it was similarly through Greece and her islands that the light of the Christian Gospel first spread among the European gentiles. In the Church of the New Jerusalem, also, an island kingdom has figured as the first place to receive the Heavenly Doctrine,--we refer to the British Isles,--and to us it appears very probable that the islands of Japan will in the future serve as the means of introducing the New Church to the gentile nations of the Orient. But we must now return to Apollo.

     Apollo, it is said, was born on the seventh of May, and hence the seventh day of every month was sacred to him. At his birth, a heavenly radiance flooded the island of Delos, and a troop of swans flew seven times around the island, while, growing between a palm and an olive tree, the sacred laurel sprang up iron the ground. Having been washed and swathed by the attendant goddesses, Apollo was fed with Nectar and Ambrosia. Suddenly attaining full stature, he called for a lyre and a bow, and announced that he intended to found an oracle and to declare to men the will of his Divine Father.

     Setting forth to accomplish this sacred purpose, he arrived at Delphi, at the foot of Mount Parnassus, where, from a chasm in the rocks, there issued a monstrous serpent, the Python, which had been born out of the slime and stagnant waters which remained after the Deluge had subsided. Him Apollo vanquished and chained in the chasm, and placed over it a tripod and built around it a temple which became the most famous oracle of all antiquity. Out of the chasm there exhaled a gas which threw into hypnotic trance the priestess,--known as the Pythia,--who was seated on the tripod above it, and who, when in this condition, gave utterance to muttered oracles which were caught by the listening priests and formulated by them according to the requirements of the occasion.


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     According to ancient custom the conqueror assumed as one of his surnames the name of his vanquished foe, and thus Apollo was frequently worshiped under the name of Pytheus, or the Phythean. Hence, in English, we have the word "Pythonism" as a generic term for all kinds of magic and spiritism, and it is only by a knowledge of this connection between the Python, (also called "Leviathan"), and Apollo, that we can understand the allusion in the True Christian Religion, n. 182, where certain spirits, who were teachers of the doctrine of justification by faith alone, were compared by Swedenborg to the "Abaddons" and "Apollyons," mentioned in the Apocalypse, (ix:11). To this they replied, "we are not Apollyons, but Apollos." Whereupon Swedenborg said, indignant: "If you are Apollos, you are also Leviathans, whom God shall visit with His hard and great sword." Elsewhere in the Writings of the New Church Apollo is always given a good signification.

     Having vanquished the Python and erected a temple at Delphi, Apollo next boarded a ship of Phoenician traders, whom he carried away to Delphi to serve as his priests there. This origin of his priesthood again points to the Phoenician origin of his worship.

     In antique art, Apollo is always represented as a glorious figure, combining the beauty of eternal youth with the strength and dignity of Divine manhood,-a naked, athletic, beardless figure, with a countenance radiant and genial, his long, curling hair hanging loose or bound in a large knot above his forehead. His broad, intellectual brow is nearly always crowned with a wreath of his favorite laurel, and in his hands he bears the dreaded bow and the inspiring lyre.

     Several famous representations show him in the act of killing an enormous lizard which is crawling up the trunk of a tree, (Apollo Saurokinos). As leader of the Muses he is known as Apollo Musagetes, and is then represented as fully garbed in long, ample robes, unarmed, and playing upon the lyre. Among the most famous statues of Apollo was the Colossus of Rhodes, 105 feet high, bestriding the narrow entrance to the harbor of Rhodes, the little ships of antiquity sailing easily between his feet.

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But the most beautiful statue of Apollo that has been preserved from classic times, is the far-famed Apollo Belvidere, which was discovered at the end of the fifteenth century, when it was purchased by Pope Julius II., and at the direction of Michael Angelo, placed in the Belvidere gallery of the Vatican. It represents him in the act of slaying the Python, and is remarkable for its air of moral grandeur and certainty of victory.

     As was said before, Apollo, more than any other of the Greek gods, embodies the ideal of Divine Manhood, or the idea of the Divine under a most perfect human form, and he represents especially the Human Divine, such as it was revealed to the Ancients, before the coming of the Lord Himself in the flesh. And since this idea of God as a Man was then the medium of conjunction and communication of God with man, so Apollo like Mercury, was the medium by which Zeus communicated with the human race. Like Mercury, therefore, Apollo represents the Divine Proceeding which is this medium of conjunction and communication, but while Mercury represents the Divine Proceeding in its office of Communication, Apollo represents it more particularly in its office of Divine Operation, or as Divine energy and power. If, now, we know that the first manifestation of the Divine Proceeding is the Sun of the Spiritual world, in which the Lord reveals His Divine Human form, and if we know at the same time that the Lord also reveals Himself as a Man outside the spiritual sun, we shall be able to understand and reconcile the three different and hitherto unharmonized types of Apollo, viz.: 1. as Helios, the sun; 2. As the god of light and wisdom, and 3. As an individual deity, or God revealed in a personal human form.

     1. Apollo, as representing the Sun of the spiritual world, is known as Phoebus, "the shining one," and in the later mythology of the Greeks he occupies the same position as the earlier sun-god, Helios. As the god of the sun,-or, as Byron expresses it, "the Sun in human limbs arrayed,"-he dwells in a gold palace far in the east, where he sits enthroned in ineffable glory, surrounded by a brilliant court made up of the Hours, the Days, the Months, the Seasons, the Years, and the Ages. Hence, every morning, preceded by "rosy-fingered Aurora," he proceeds on his daily journey around the earth, seated in his radiant chariot and drawn by four fire-breathing, ambrosia-fed horses.

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Concerning these we learn that

     The signification of a horse, as meaning the intellectual, was derived from the Ancient Church to the wise round about, even into Greece. Hence it was that in describing the Sun, they placed therein the god of their wisdom and intelligence, and attributed to him a chariot and four fiery horses...the food of whom they called ambrosia, and their drink nectar. For they knew that the sun signified celestial love; horses, the intellectual things thence derived; meats, celestial things; and drinks, spiritual things. (A. C. 2762, 4966.)

     It is highly significant that Phoebus Apollo, the sun-god, was also the god of the art of healing, and as such was the father of AESCULAPIUS, the god of medicine, who, in turn, was the father of HYGEIA, the goddess of health. The meaning of this whole genealogy becomes apparent when we remember that the Lord, the Savior of mankind, is described in the Word, as "the Sun of Righteousness," who "shall arise with healing in His wings."

     2. As the Sun-god, Apollo represents celestial love and wisdom, but he also personifies that which proceeds from the sun, viz., heat and light, and as such he represents spiritual love and wisdom, that is, charity and intelligence. He represents charity especially as the brother of Diana, the maiden-huntress, who clearly typifies faith. The ancients delighted in ascribing to Apollo a character of exalted morality and justice,-a deity who was never offended without righteous cause, never moved by caprice like so many of the other divinities, but forgiving and compassionate as mercy itself, and hence he became par excellence the god of expiation, to whom repentant sinners fled for redemption and protection against the Furies.

     But since true charity means justice, and justice involves the punishment of unrepentant evil-doers in order that the good may be protected, Apollo was also regarded as the distributor of just retribution, who with his fiery darts promptly punished deliberate sin, arrogance, and blasphemy against the gods. He thus pierced with his arrows the children of the boasting Niobe, flayed the impudent Marsyas, and put asses' ears upon foolish Midas,--not to avenge his own honor, but to impress upon men the inevitable consequences of sell-confidence, pride, and impiety; and he showed a divine impartiality in bringing pestilence and death upon his beloved Achaeans when these, on the expedition against Troy, had offered violence to Chryseis, the daughter of his priest.


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     As the god of intelligence he is armed with a silver bow, the beautiful emblem of the Doctrine of spiritual truth. Silver signifies what is spiritual, even as gold signifies the celestial. And a bow always signifies Doctrine; the round shaft signifies the good of the doctrine, its aim and purpose; and the straight string signifies the understanding which, when strained or made tense by the purpose, sends forth the truths which carry the point.

     3. As an individual or personal deity, apart from the sun, Apollo again represents the idea of God as a Man, or the Divine Human such as it was before the Incarnation of the Lord. From the beginning God had revealed Himself to men as a Divine Man, but before the Incarnation this revelation was effected by means of angels and spirits of whom God took possession. And whom He filled with His own Divine Spirit to such an extent and in so complete a manner that these media could, for the time being, serve to make God visible and audible to other angels and spirits. And by means of the human form thus as it were borrowed from a spirit. God could then reveal Himself to men on earth,--the prophets and seers and wise men of old,--and through these men make His Divine Word known on the earth.

     This revelation of God as a Man,-before the Incarnation,--was typified in Apollo and is to be clearly distinguished from the prophecy of the Messiah who was to come in the flesh, for this prophecy also existed among the Greeks in various forms, as in the legends of Perseus. Theseus. Achilles, but especially in the story of Hercules. By confounding these two distinct ideas, many Christian mythologists, swayed by the idea of three persons in the Godhead, have seen in Apollo a character analogous to the "Second Person in the Trinity," while Zeus is supposed to answer to the "Father" and Pallas Athene to "the Holy Ghost." Mr. Gladstone in his Homer and the Homeric Age, (vol. II, p. 132), sees in Apollo a representative of the "legendary anticipations of a person to come, in whom should be combined all the great offices in which God the Son is now made known to man, as the Light of our paths, the Physician of our diseases, the Judge of our misdeeds, and the Conqueror and Disarmer, but not yet abolisher of Death."

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And the devout Miss S. A. Scull, (in her Greek Mythology Systematized, p. 146), when treating of Apollo, speaks of him as "one who was so glorious and yet so grandly self-giving, that he typified Him in whom the world finds the way, the truth, and the life." Max Muller, however, condemns all such speculations as "unscientific," and to him "it seems a blasphemy to consider the fables of the heathen world as corrupted and misinterpreted fragments of a Divine Revelation once granted to the whole of mankind." (Chips from a German Workshop, vol. II, p. 13.)

     The learned author of the "Chips" had not the wings of a Gladstonian mind. Mr. Gladstone. and others of his school, were indeed mistaken in regarding Apollo as a prophetic representative of the Messiah, but nevertheless they had a correct perception of his character as a type of the Divine in the human, the God-Man. Apollo, standing for this idea, represents also "the spirit of Prophecy" or of Divine Revelation, and it is in this character that he presided over the most famous Oracles of antiquity. These oracles, such as those in Dodona and Delphi, were originally actual means of communicating with the Divine and of receiving answers from God, but in later times, by perversions of correspondences, they became means of communicating with the magical hells of the fallen Ancient Church. Nevertheless in the purer times, the Oracles were the means of perceiving the Divine Word in a literal sense, and, like the sense of the letter, the oracles were always of a more or less enigmatical and doubtful meaning, extending from opposites to opposites. The tripod, also, or altar of Apollo, with its three iron legs, seems to us a fitting symbol of the natural truth of the literal sense, in which the three interior senses are simultaneously present.

     Since, now, all wisdom, intelligence, and science are based upon and derived from Divine Revelation, or the Word of God, we can readily see how Apollo became the special God and inspiring patron of all wisdom, intelligence, science and art.

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From him came the gift of prophecy,--in the case of Cassandra a fateful gift. From him all bards and musicians received their inspiration. And from him, through his handmaidens, the Muses, came light and progress in every field of science, art, culture, and accomplishment.

     Hence, when the ancient Greeks described the birth of the sciences from the intellectual, they feigned a flying horse, [Pegasus], who with his hoofs burst open a fountain, [the Pierian spring], where the virgins who were the Sciences, [the Muses]. (n. C. 2762.)

     Again, we are taught that

     The Greeks placed Helicon on re mountain, and by it they understood Heaven; they placed Parnassus on a hill, below, and by it they understood scientifics; they said that a flying horse, called Pegasus, had there broken open a fountain with his hoof; they called the sciences virgins and so on. For they knew from correspondences and representatives that a mountain was Heaven; that the hill was that heaven which is below or which is among men; that a horse was the intellectual; that the wings by which he flew were spiritual things; that the hoof was the natural; that the fountain was intelligence; that the three virgins who were called the Graces, were the affections of good; and that the virgins who were called the Heliconian and Parnassian maidens, were the affections of truth. (A. C. 4966,)

     As the spirited snow-white, winged horse was the favorite mount of Apollo, so the fragrant, aromatic laurel, (Laurea Apollinaris), was his favorite tree, by which, we conceive, the perception of spiritual truth was signified. Himself always crowned with the laurel, a wreath of bay leaves was bestowed upon the winners in poetic and athletic contests, and was carried also by persons performing self-imposed penance, as a sign, perhaps, that the perception of truth concerning one's evils is the surest road to victory.


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LAST JUDGMENT 1906

LAST JUDGMENT              1906

     [MINOR WORKS BY SWEDENBORG]

     ON FAITH ALONE.

     (Continued.)

     219. After the judgment those who had been scattered amongst others round about were collected together. And when they had been thus collected there came into their mind a passionate heat for seducing the upright [by teaching them] that faith alone is saving. Wherefore the latter complained about them to the Lord. And then I saw them receding more and more even till they came to the bounds of the Christian world; there, at the back, were deserts, and I saw a great part of them driven thither. Afterwards it was granted me to see the nature of this desert. There were vile huts and hovels wherein they dwelt almost solitary, with some harlot, and all around them it was stony, with great heaps of rocks between which were a few roads. Nor does one dare to approach another. They hold each other in mutual fear that they will act from evil, nor do they believe even when they stand outside and invite them in. A piece of bread with water is given them daily; some send them something eatable. I saw no shrub, still less any tree; but all was sand and rock.*
     * In S. D. 6023, it is stated that the inhabitants of this desert "are occasionally taken out thence--some to be instructed, some into hells, according to their life."-TR.

     220. Many of them said they were desirous of being instructed and thus of rejecting that faith; but it was in vain; the inrooted faith clung to them because it had been the principle of their life. What is marvelous, the learned of that religion regard justification by faith alone as such a Divine mystery, that touching it is like touching the pupil of the eye; saying that they have bound themselves to it by oath.

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It was shown them that in the Apocalypse it is described by the beast from the sea, [Apoc. XIII. 1-10], and in Daniel by the little horn which waxed great towards all the quarters, and cast down from heaven the host thereof, [Dan. viii. 9-10]. But when they hear this confirmed from heaven, where correspondences are perceived, they still worship justification as their idol. The justification that is meant is justification by faith separate from charity. I also spoke much about the endeavor to good which follows justification, asking them whether this endeavor is anything of the will on man's part. They said that it was; others said that it was not, but was to be carefully separated.*
     * This question and answer are given in somewhat different form in S. D. 6023: "It was asked whether that endeavor was not the will. They say that it is not the will which belongs to the man but is something of God's in the will, which therefore is also imperceptible. They are exceedingly careful that faith be not conjoined with good works, because if they be conjoined faith is no longer faith. This is the reason why many have written about their conjunction, but in so mysterious a manner that it is intelligible only to the learned."--TR.

     221. Some say that we have no free decision but that it was destroyed by Adam; others, that we have some freedom of belief or faith, but none of action or works. But it was shown them that no man, not even Adam, had freedom from himself, but only as if from himself; and that everyone has freedom to act from the Lord, thus to be led by the Lord; and that each one is in this freedom so far as he is led.

     222. All preachers who in the life of the body have confirmed themselves in faith alone, and who cannot recede therefrom on account of their life, are not admitted to preach. Their priestly garment is taken away from them, and afterwards they do not know that they have been preachers. Very many are admitted to preach, but as soon as they preach faith separate from charity, and justification by it alone, all who are present go out, and the temple becomes empty.* In this way such preachers as can recede from that faith are amended, and receive the doctrine of heaven.

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The case is similar with those who separate the Lord from the Father and do not make them One,--and, what is new, all of them, after they have been in the spiritual world a month, reject the Third Person, acknowledging that the Holy Spirit is the Lord speaking through angels and spirits. The reason why they reject is because enthusiastic spirits--Quakers and many other kinds--who are infernal, call themselves the holy spirit from eternity. I have had much speech with them in respect to this matter, to the effect that they have rejected the third person of the Divinity and that now they think of two persons, in order that it may be seen,** whether from the two they would not now make one.
     * Another method by which those who have confirmed themselves in the doctrine of faith alone are deprived of the office of preaching, is given in a parallel passage, (S. D. 6029): "Although they strive to preach life and good deeds, still it is heard from the sound of their voice that they understand no other good deeds or works than such as are merely moral and civil. Thus their idea is discerned from the sound, and therefore they are no longer allowed to preach, save only those who, in the world, understood spiritual works." See also C. L. J. 42.--TR.
     ** The Latin is videant (they may see).--TR.

     224.* One with whom I was acquainted,** had, in the world, confirmed himself in faith alone by many arguments. I said to him that he should go and see those habitations in the desert.*** When he went he saw nothing but a sandy wastel with rough stones and rocks all around, but not a single shrub or blade of grass; and, therefore, returning, he grieved over their miserable lot. There also he met and spoke with some who in the world had been recognized by himself as learned men. And when he still wished to defend faith alone serpents appeared who darted at his feet and coiled themselves around them. He was afterwards led to plains where dwelt spirits who were in a similar faith, what charity is, what love, what truth and that affection and the inhabitants were of a cheerful disposition, and industrious in their work and business.

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They confessed that they had merely known of that faith from having heard it preached, but had thought nothing about it beyond the sense of the letters, and not confirmed it any further; and that still they had lived a life according to the Word; this that the faith was only a faith of science in their memory but not a faith in their life. They are afterwards instructed and receive truths which they had not known in the world.
     * The last part of the preceding paragraph is printed in the Latin edition as a separate paragraph, though it is not so written in the MS. Since, however, the Concordance has numbered the paragraphs as they appear in the Latin edition that numbering is retained in the translation, n. 223 being merely omitted.-TR.
     ** This was Jacob Benzelius, Archbishop of Upsal (S. D. 6044). His character is described in a number of passages in the Diary.--TR.
     *** See n. 219, above.-TR.

     225. A learned man who, in the world, had thought solely about faith alone was examined as to whether he knew any truth of the Church, whether he knew what faith is, or what the life of faith, what charity is, what love, what truth and the affection and perception of truth, what free decision, what regeneration, what spiritual temptation, what baptism, what the Holy Supper, what is heaven with man, and what and whence is hell, wherein is the holiness of the Word, what: Providence is, what God and whether He is one or three, what conscience is, also what is the Church in man and what heaven in him. And the angels heard; [and they saw] that he knew not one of these things. The responses which he made were falses derived from reasonings, and were also things from the Word which had been falsified. It was said to him, How could he be in the light of heaven, and hence in angelic wisdom, and from this in the felicity of heaven! Being convicted, he wished to learn, but because he had confirmed faith alone he could not.

     226. I spoke with angels concerning the progression of truth to good, saying that the angels have joy when an infant or child learns truths and acquires them from affection, thus when truths become truths of science; they have greater joy when they become truths of the understanding, still greater when they become of the Will, and the greatest joy when they become of the act. Then they love the man because truths have taught him and led him to good. And they are gladdened when he knows that it is not truths which lead to good but that it is good which leads him into truths. Man does not know this, but the angels perceive it and rejoice.

     227. How Englishmen who wish to acquire a reputation for erudition frame their discourses with great elegance and with the show of stores of wisdom, especially concerning the influx of faith, and the endeavor to the doing of good, with man's state then in respect to affection, reception and enlightenment by the Holy Spirit.

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Some of the English complained, saying that these elegancies delight their ears and are pleasing to them while they listen; but when they wish to apply anything therefrom to themselves they know not what the preachers have said, and whether it is allowable to adjoin the will, and thus to openly will and act, or not. When they ask them, they say such sounding words as, that they may, and may not, and finally that it is a transcendent mystery. They speak in this manner so that their hearers, being able to gather either meaning from them, may praise them. And yet, by reason of these words with their double meaning in which something lies hidden like a snake in the grass, those hearers do not love them. They tell them that they should remain in the doctrine that is taught in the Exhortation used at the Holy Supper, and that if they do not so from the will, the devil will, perchance, enter into them as he entered into Judas. Their discourses are also filled with the perception of trust and confidence in themselves.

     228. I have sometimes heard it said from heaven that that faith saves no one because there is no life in it; and that faith is truth; and that man has truth only so far as he shuns evils as sins. See [S. D.] 6065.--Particulars concerning the Decalogue and its Holiness.

     229. The truths of faith are compared with the ornaments and utensils in palaces; unless man lives according to them they are, as it were, in a dark room with the windows shut, but as soon as he lives according to them he is elevated into heavenly light, the windows are opened, and he then sees those things and they delight him.

     CONCLUSION.

     230. Lastly, it shall be told what the state of man is after death, whatsoever his religion may have been. They who have led a good life, who are such as have shunned evils because they are sins and have conducted their business with rectitude and sincerity, are not let into the evils Of their will, but are held by the Lord in good, and hence in intelligence and wisdom.

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But they who have lived in are let into the evils of their will, and then they can think in no other way than in agreement with those evils; and when in that state, they appear as if insane, and more like beasts than men. The love of doing evil then rules them, and they rush into all manner of things as their lust leads them on. They who have been in the love of ruling for the sake of self are more insane than others. A thousand times have I seen such spirits, and they appear as if utterly deprived of all rationality; and yet they then believe that they are wise, yea, the wisest of all. But it is allowed them at times to return into the rationality which they had in the world, when, from shrewdness, they had feigned themselves gifted with every virtue. Still, even then, the pleasure of returning into the delight of their will draws them on so that they cannot be led away except unwillingly; they wish to be insane. And because they are of such a character they are sent into hells, and then it is not permitted them to go out. They remain under the inspection of a judge who imposes tasks on them which they must do daily. If they neglect them, they receive neither food, clothes, nor bed; and if they do evil they are severely punished. Thus by means of tasks they are led away from the delights of their will. In such a prison all are held, both men and women, who have lived in, that is, who have given reins to their sins. But before they go, they are deprived of everything which they had formerly learned from the Word, and of everything which they had known concerning faith, and also of the knowledge of who they had been in the world, whether kings or officials, bishops or clergymen, rich men or poor, or of the common people. And they are then all alike among themselves, nor is one greater than another A low countryman may be together with an eminent man, nor does either know who had been the more eminent in the world; for elation of the mind exists equally with those who are of the common people as with those who are in the highest places. And, what is marvelous, they cannot go out to all eternity; for if, perchance, they put forth a foot, they are punished; and if they are taken out by others they become more insane than before. I have seen this done several times. They are like robbers who, from fear of punishment, live honestly in a city home, but as soon as they come to the woods they constantly think about robberies.


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     231. All the states of man can be recalled after death,--the states of age, as the state of childhood, of youth and of manhood; they who come into heaven come into the state of their youth. Recalled also are the states of innocence, of charity and of affection with all their delights, and this with ineffable increase. With those who have lived well good states are recalled, with those who have lived in evil states, concerning which various things have been said above.

     232. That at this day they crucify the Lord: see Lord,* and that they are like the Jews in their time,--experience.
     * The reference is to the Index to the Spiritual Diary.-TR.

     (To be continued.)
OUR ATTENDANT SPIRITS 1906

OUR ATTENDANT SPIRITS       Rev. C. TH. ODHNER       1906

     "It was the ancient belief," says Swedenborg, "that each and every man has with him his own angel." (A. C. 5849).

     These words call attention to a well-nigh forgotten tenet of ancient faith, which we find illustrated in every age and in every nation of antiquity. In Egypt this idea of a special spirit, appointed to guard each newborn soul, is strikingly depicted on the monuments. The kings, especially, are seen accompanied by their "doubles" or exact spiritual counterparts in the other life, the "double" stands behind the king and does exactly what the king does, but is distinguished from the latter by wearing on his head a feather, which is the symbol of truth, understanding, and spirituality. On the Assyrian monuments, also, an eagle-headed winged figure is almost always seen behind the man who stands in worship before the "Asherah" or sacred grove. Similar scenes are found also on the monuments of other ancient nations.

     From their Egyptian and Asiatic neighbors the Greeks inherited their ideas of guardian angels and attendant spirits, whom they called their good or evil "daemons."

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Hesiod speaks of the men of the Golden Age, who, after death, "became kindly spirits, hovering near the earth, guardians of mortal men." The poet Menander speaks of "the good daemon whom every man has from birth as his guide through the mysteries of life," and Plato and Xenophon frequently refer to the "daemon" of Socrates,--a spiritual "voice" or "sign," whose warnings and suggestions the grand old sage of Athens never disregarded. Plate says that these "daemons" were either good or evil beings, and intermediate between gods and men. Aristotle, also, had his "Pallas" or attendant spirit, who, in the form of a woman, sometimes appeared to him and as it were stroked his cheek. This was a representative appearance caused by such spirits as, when they lived in the world, had been delighted with abstract ideas and interior thought, and who therefore were in attendance upon the philosopher. (A. C. 4658; S. D. 3952)

     The "daemons" of the Greeks became the "genii" of the Romans, and these were so called, (from gigno, to be born), because it was supposed that they were born together with the person whom they accompanied through life. The Romans were very anxious to keep these genii in good humor by a cheerful and lively behavior, and hence a merry and jovial person was said to be "genial" and "in good spirits." They believed that there were two of these attendant spirits,--one good and the other evil, the former bringing good and the other ill fortune. Plutarch mentions the "evil genius" of Brutus, who appeared to him before the fatal battle of Philippi, and from him Shakespeare borrowed the idea for the famous ghost-scene in Julius Caesar.

     How ill this taper burns!--Ha! Who comes here?
     I think it is the weakness of mine eyes
     That shapes this monstrous apparition.
     It comes upon me!-Art thou anything!
     Art thou some god, some angel, or some devil,
     That makest my blood cold, and my hairs to stare!
     Speak to me what thou art!-
     Ghost. Thy evil spirit, Brutus!
     Brutus. Why comest thou?
     Ghost. To tell thee thou shalt see me at Philippi.


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     The early Christians, also, had a firm belief in guardian angels and attendant spirits, basing their faith upon the teaching of the Lord Himself concerning the little ones, that in Heaven their angels do always behold the face of My Father who is in Heaven," (Matth. 10:18), end on the teaching of Paul that "angels are all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation," (Heb. 1:14) We find that this idea was so prevalent at the time of the apostles that when Peter, after his miraculous deliverance from the prison, reappeared before the other disciples, they refused to believe that it was Peter himself, and said "it is his angel." (Acts 12:15.)

     From these Christian as well as the more ancient Pagan ideas our northern forefathers derived the notion of "wraiths" or "doubles,"--the still more or less common superstition that with each one of us there is associated a spiritual alter ego,--a spirit exactly similar to ourselves, in face, gesture, garments, etc., a mirror-likeness which sometimes appears and startles the man himself or his friends, and who is generally supposed to presage his early death.

     All these ideas concerning special spiritual associates are but shattered fragments of the faith of the Ancient Church, a faith that has been restored to the New Church, but now in a fulness and perfection of knowledge such as was never revealed before. The Writings of the New Church contain an almost bewildering wealth of information on this subject, of which we will endeavor, here, to present some general outlines.

     It is well known among us that every man, even while living in the body in the natural world, is at the same time living as to his spirit in some society of spirits in the spiritual world,--a good man in some heavenly society, and an evil man in a society of infernal spirits. (H. H. 438; D. P. 307, 296) Dwelling thus in a society of spirits, he is surrounded by many spirits, and, what is remarkable, none of these spirits is aware of each other, or of the man with whom they are associated, and yet each one thinks that he is the very man on earth upon whom, for the time, he is in attendance. (S. D. 123, 1928).

     The number of our attendant spirits is variable. In general, there are many.

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Some men associate with more spirits than others do. Those who think interiorly and live according to order, associate with more angels but fewer spirits in the world of spirits, while those who think externally and live grossly, have around them more spirits but fewer angels. (S. D. 160, 2339;A. C. 6612.) But, no matter what may be the number of our attendant spirits and angels, there are with every man "at least" four,--two angels from heaven and two evil spirits from hell. Of the two angels, one is celestial and the other spiritual, and by means of these man communicates with the two kingdoms of heaven. And of the two evil spirits, one is a satan who operates by means of falsities, and the other is a devil or "genius" who operates by infusing evils into the will, and by these two men communicates with the two universal realms of hell. (A. C. 50, 697, 5470, 5848, 5849, 5977, 5978, 6189). If the man turns to what is evil, then the two spirits from hell approach and the two angels from heaven draw back a little, but it is the other may if the man turns to what is good. (A. C. 5470) This is the universal and explicit teaching of the Writings, repeated again and again in the very same words, and the only exception from the rule,--a lovely exception,--is in the case of infants, who have no evil spirits attendant upon them, but only good spirits and angels." (A. C. 5857) And among those who attend upon the infants in this world are "infants in the other life, who are sent by the Lord to infants on earth, although the latter are altogether ignorant of it. They have most especial delight in such association," (A. C. 2295).

     The reason why we are thus associated with special spirits and angels, and are not in general communication with the whole of the spiritual world, is that the whole of our own life or proprium is by inheritance and actual life out of the general order established by God at the first creation, so that, since the Fall of mankind, we are no longer subject to the general flux or influx of this order, and therefore must be ruled by particular influx. (A. C. 5850, 5993; S. D. 2379). Being of ourselves nothing but evil, we would be destroyed, body and soul, were we to be subject to the general influx of all the hells, (A. C. 5993), and, on the other hand, we could not live for one moment were we not allowed to receive any influx whatever from hell, because the whole love and delight of our proprium consists in the love of self and of the world, (A. C. 5993).

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And therefore the Lord in His merciful Providence permits a particular influx from hell by means of special spirits who represent and act as the emissaries and subjects of hell in general. And since there would be no hope of salvation for us, were we to receive no influx from heaven, therefore the Lord implants in each one, by means of instruction received from without, remains of good and truth into which the angels of heaven can inflow--not the whole of heaven, however, immediately, for such influx would overwhelm our self-life,--but mediately, through representative subject-angels, or heavenly messengers, who carry with them the whole message of salvation and the whole protecting sphere of heaven. Thus balance and freedom are preserved. (A. C. 5982.)

     There are two angels,--one a celestial and the other a spiritual; and there are two evil spirits,--one from the hell of satans and the other from the hell of genii,--because there must be influx both of good and of truth in order that there may be both a new will and a new understanding; and also because there must be influx both of evil and falsity in order that self-will and self-intelligence may not be entirely destroyed, for if these are destroyed our proprium is destroyed and our individuality is annihilated.

     Man, however, undergoes alternating states throughout his life; now he is in a state when the understanding predominates, and now he is in a state when the affections of the will are especially active, and during the former states he is closer to the intellectual spirits, that is, to the spiritual angel or the satan; while during the latter states he is surrounded more immediately by the affectional spirits, that is, the celestial angel or the opposite devil or "genius." Hence came the ancient idea of two special attendant spirits, one an angel and the other an evil genius. And since, finally, man cannot be simultaneously in two states, but is either in a state of good or of truth, or in a state of evil or of falsity, we arrive, by a process of elimination, to the fact that each man is, most especially, in communion with one spirit, who is at the time nearer to him than any other being in the whole spiritual world.


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     This explains the ancient and modern notion of "wraiths" or "doubles" or "familiar spirits," and it also explains the apparent contradiction in the Writings in regard to the number of our attendant spirits, who are variously recounted as being "many, "four," "two," and "one. The latter number is mentioned especially in the True Christian Religion, n. 380, where it is said that "with every man there is a consociate spirit who is similar to the affection of his will and thence to the perception of his understanding,...an angel from heaven...or a spirit from hell;" and this is also taught in no. 137 of the same work.

     The ancients were mistaken, however, in the idea that a special spirit is born together with the man and remains with him throughout life. There is no such thing as a "wraith" or "double," for every spirit in the universe has a distinct individuality, different from that of every other spirit or man. Our attendant spirits are continually changing, according to our own changing states. (A. C. 5851). "The states of a man are changing every moment; but into whatever state a man may come, spirits with whom a like passion had been dominant in their lifetime, correspond and cooperate; thus they are not the same, but very many, and they all suppose themselves to be the man. (S. D. 1928). "Some spirits are with him in infancy, others in childhood, others in adolescence and manhood, and others in old age." (H. H. 295; S. D. 3525) "When a man changes his persuasions, other spirits are applied to him, (S. D. 4114, 4119). "They come, they go away; but whence, to whom, and from whom, they know not. They think they shall always remain there. (S. D. 123) And the reason why the spirits are changed at intervals is "to prevent their knowing that they are with a man." (H. H. 249). There is one spirit, however, that always remains constantly in attendance and communication, and that is the wife or husband of one who in this life has lived in love truly conjugal with him or with her. "With those who have lived in love truly conjugial, the spirit of the deceased partner dwells constantly with the spirit of the other." (C. L. 321).

     (To be continued.)


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Editorial Department 1906

Editorial Department       Editor       1906

     NOTES AND REVIEWS

     In the February issue of the Life mention was made of a proposition to republish Mr. Benade's Report on the Priesthood, but this has now become unnecessary, at least for the immediate future, as the Academy Book Room has recently obtained a number of copies of the Journal of the General Convention for the year 1875, in which the Report was published. It is sold at the price of 35 cents per copy, postage included.

     The Academy Book Room has commenced the publication of a series of picture postal cards, representing objects of special interest to members of the New Church, such as Swedenborg's Summer house, (interior and exterior views), his old home in Stockholm, pictures of the School building in Bryn Athyn, New Church temples, etc. The representations are very fine and interesting, and are for sale at 2 cents each.

     Mr. Harold S. Conant has been appointed Agent of the Tract and Publication Society, and also publisher of The Helper, both of which offices have been held for the past twenty years by the Rev. W. H. Alden. Mr. Alden's position as editor of The Helper is assumed by the Rev. William L. Worcester.

     In "Nature," (a London Journal), for February 11, Mr. Charles E. Benham, of Colchester, quotes from the Principia to show that the true theory of light and heat was laid down some sixty years before the theory was announced by Rennford and Young. Mr. Benham has been for several years a great student of the Writings, though he has never connected himself with the external New Church.


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     The New Church League Journal for January presents as a frontispiece a beautiful colored picture of the chancel of the chapel connected with the Convention's Theological School in Cambridge, Mass. It is all very pleasing to the eye, but there is one thing which does not show in the picture, and that is the representation of the dragon which sprawls his ugly but highly "orthodox" figure in a square of mosaic, right in front of the high altar and facing the prie-dieu. The dragon, of course, is inevitable in "correct" ecclesiastical architecture, but was it absolutely necessary to the Gothic style to put him just in the holy of holies of a New Church temple?

     "It must be confessed, not only that our young people do not as a rule remain in the Church, not only that many who do remain in the Church lead a free and easy life according to inclination and impulse rather than an orderly life of loyalty to duty, but that many of the older members, once active, have grown cold and negligent as to any responsibility and Obligation to the Church or for it. They go to Church when they feel like it. They wonder why the Church does not grown but they do nothing. They have no time for family worship, never read a New Church book, never talk of spiritual things in their families; and their children, after a few years in Sunday School...are allowed to go their own way.

     "What is the fault and whose is the sin? The fault is that the hedges are down; and the sin belongs in some measure to all of us for neglecting to cultivate a sphere of loyalty to the Lord, and a sense of obligation to the Church by keeping it distinct, and its life protected from the sphere of the world. . . . The fault is with Its all because we have not kept the fences mended and the boundaries of the Church clear and distinct and strong against all invasion from self and the world." (New Church Messenger for February 28.)

     Last May a manifesto was issued by clergymen of the Church of England asking for "authoritative encouragement to face the problems of New Testament criticism," with the object of securing "greater tolerance for advanced ideas with regard to such debated questions as the Virgin Birth and the Incarnation." (See New Church Life for November, p. 687.)

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This manifesto was eventually signed by some seventeen hundred Anglican clergy men. It appears now that the movement for "authoritative tolerance" has spread from England to the United States, where an identical manifesto, signed by nearly a hundred clergymen and laymen of the Protestant Episcopal Church, is being extensively circulated for further signatures. The movement appears to be welcomed by the religious press as a sign of a broadening of mind which will result in freeing the New Testament from gross "literalism'' as it has already freed the Old. We learn, however, that the High Church element has manifested some opposition to the movement, if this opposition, as seems to be the case, springs from the fear lest the movement lead to a weakening of the historical foundations of Christianity, it is certainly not unjustified. For with the lack of spiritual thought concerning the holiness of the Word, this "authorization" of a "scientific," that is, materialistic, investigation into "such debated (!) questions as the Virgin birth and the Incarnation, will, in all probability, result in nothing less than further external manifestation of that internal denial of the Lord's Divinity which now reigns in Christendom. Yet better it is for men freely to examine and reject than to be bound in the external bonds of a traditionary faith; for thus the Judgment on earth progresses, and the imaginary church is consummated.

     In the effort to determine what sort of an idea people have of God a Bryn Mawr (Pa.) professor recently submitted a series of questions to a class in psychology at Columbia University. Forty-two of the forty-five students returned answers. Of these, twenty-two regarded God as an impersonal being, four expressed greater or less doubt as to His very existence, while of the sixteen who professed to regard Him as a personal being some thought of Him as a man, others as a force or duality with the power of directing itself, but without any "physical characteristics" or definite image, and one as "an old man with white hair and flowing beard," The latter conception was shared by a well-educated woman, outside the college, who though of God as "of an old, long, white bearded, white haired man, towering in stature, and seated on a high throne."


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     Only two of the students made any mention of Christ. One of these thought of God as a person under two images; first, as Christ, the perfect man, as shown in pictures, and second as a "less definite" being sitting at the top of an enormous are and looking over the universe. The other had "no image at all of God," but if he tried to form an image it always took the form of Christ as portrayed by the great masters.

     Of the students who believed in an impersonal God some thought of Him simply as Nature, to be conceived of under the image of the sky, the wind and the storm, or under no image at all.

     In answer to a second question thirteen of the students stated that the non-existence of God would make no difference in their daily lives, one of them adding that, since he believed in the Golden Rule, it was not the fear of hereafter that kept him from doing evil. Another preferred the Aristotelian system of morals as the highest ideal; while a third has framed a system of morals for himself which he finds quite sufficient "to keep him a respectable member of society."

     The rest of the students thought that the non-existence of God would make some difference in their lives, but as to the nature of the difference there was great variety. One thought that, since in any event he would believe in some spirit or idol, the difference would not be very material. Another, a theological student, stated that if there were no God "he would not say his daily prayers and would probably be a little bit looser in his conduct." A third, that he would have "a terrible feeling of loneliness, though it would make no difference in his course of conduct." A third, that he would not act in "just the same way, but still would not be an altogether different, person." One student gave the unique answer that if God did not exist he would feel a much greater responsibility as to his conduct than he does, and would have a greater fear of doing wrong. In contrast to these opinions, a Japanese student, who believed in the personality of God, wrote, "If God does not exist, in my life there will be no hope, so no joy, no certainty, so full of anxiety, sorrow, just as we walk through unknown desert in the darkness without light."


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     This seems to have been the only on" of the answers having something of humility and of common sense. The "Christians" had practically no idea of God, and still less of the necessity of a God as regards the conduct of life; but with the Gentile it was different. Mutatis mutandis, we may say in the language of the Writings. Cidoris sit Gentili. (Let the prize be given to the gentile. )

     The American Swedenborg Society has issued the third volume of its Library Edition of the Arcana Coelestia, translated by the Rev. J. F. Potts, the first two volumes of which have been already reviewed in our pages. In the present volume we notice some inconsistency in the translation of proprium, the word being sometimes rendered "own" and at other times, "Own" (noun) without apparent necessity for the variation. (Cf. n. 2678 with 2880.) The inadequateness, also of the rendition by "Own" is markedly illustrated in a passage (n. 2880) where proprium, and suum occur together. In the present volume the passage reads, "Nothing else appears to a man as his (or what is the same, as his own)," etc. were the translator makes Swedenborg guilty of a needless and indeed meaningless repetition, of which he is quite innocent. A literal and more correct translation world be, "Nothing else appears to a man as his own, or, what is the same thing, as his proprium," etc.

     The volume contains about a score of foot-notes, most of which are adopted from the Rotch edition of the Arcana. Nearly all of these latter are concerned with the translations of passages from the Sacred Scriptures, and we note with regret that where Swedenborg departs from the original or from his own translation of the original as given in other parts of the Writings, the translator has taken no notice of the departure, except by a foot-note. Thus in n. 2781, tigris (a tiger) is changed to "old lion" as rendered in n. 3048; in n. 2405 nativitas (birth) is changed to "youth," as in T. C. R. 764. It is to be regretted that the translator has thus altered the specific words used by Swedenborg in these places, even though he includes those words (untranslated) in a note. Except, of course, in cases of manifest slips and errors, Swedenborg's rendition of a Scripture passage should be given in the text, and the varying renditions, when found in other parts of the Writings, if it be deemed necessary to note them at all, should be put in the foot-note, and this is indeed done in one case (n. 2576).

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To relegate the author's rendition to a foot-note while altering it in the text suggests somewhat the idea that Swedenborg was mistaken. A reading of the volume confirms our former observation that despite some blemishes, the new edition is the best available in the English language.

     The new Latin edition of the True Christian Religion, just published by the American Swedenborg Printing and Publishing Society of New York, will be hailed with joy by the ministers and students of the New Church. We have been patiently (?) waiting for it ever since the year 1889, when the late Dr. Samuel H. Worcester finished his editorial labor on the work. It is difficult to understand what has so long delayed the appearance of the new edition. but we are compensated by the fact that the work is now issued in the new quality of paper and style of binding which the Society has adopted for its English "Library Edition,"--an immense improvement on the other volumes of the Society's Latin edition.

     The new edition of Vera Christiana Religio is a revision of Dr. Im. Tafel's edition of 1857, carefully compared with Swedenborg's own copy of the original edition, (loaned for the purpose by the Academy of the New Church), in the margin of which the author inserted a number of emendations. These have been incorporated by Dr. Worcester, together with Swedenborg's corrections of typographical errors, which were noted at the end of the original edition. The editor was interfered but little with Swedenborg's use of capital letters, but an effort has been made to introduce a more systematic interpunctuation, though no changes have been made whole and danger to the meaning might have been involved. A general Table of Contents has been added, and the Index of the Memorabilia which in the former editions was found at the end, in the new edition has been placed in front of the work. The subdivisions of the Concordance have been introduced into the text, and the quotations from the Word are, as usual, printed in finer type.

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An Index to Scripture passages has been added. It would have been well, also, to have added Swedenborg's Reply to Ernesti, which was inserted by the author on a fly-leaf in the original edition.

     Many minor external improvements have been adopted for the convenience of the student, but the student would have been still more thankful if the work had been issued in one volume in- stead of two. The one volume would not have been too bulky, and ever so much more convenient when many passages in different parts of the work have to be consulted. Twelve pages of "Notae Criticae Editoris" have been appended, containing very many textual criticisms. The price of the work is three dollars for the two volumes, which may be obtained through the Academy Book Room.
CORRESPONDENCE, REPRESENTATION, AND SIGNIFICATION 1906

CORRESPONDENCE, REPRESENTATION, AND SIGNIFICATION              1906

     The questions asked by the Rev. O. L. Barler in the present issue of the Life are of interest to every intelligent student of the Heavenly Doctrines. To answer them thoroughly would require an exhaustive and systematic treatise,--a great desideratum in view of the loose thought generally prevailing in the Church upon this subject. We can here offer only a few generalizations of leading teachings.

     As to Correspondence itself, it is clear that it is essentially a relation; not a single or simple relation, however, but a three-fold relation,-a relation to be viewed in three most general aspects:

     a) the relation of the internal to the external.

     b) the relation of the external to the internal.

     c) the mutual relation between the internal and the external.

     This three-fold relation is involved in the very etymology of the word "correspondence," which is derived from the combination of cum, re, and spondere.

     Spondere means "to promise," "to engage oneself to contribute," and is the Latin form of the Greek spendein, to pour, to pour out a libation or offering: our English word "to spend" is from the same root.

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Thus the first and essential idea involved in the word "correspondence" is that of influx, or of the active operation of the cause upon the effect, of the internal upon the external.

     Re-spondere means. therefore. to pour back, to promise in return, to answer, and involves the idea of reflux and reaction, the answering or rebounding operation of the effect upon the cause, of the external upon the internal. And cum-respondere, or to co-respond, in its full meaning, expresses the idea of mutual, continual and harmonious action and reaction, influx and reflux, impulse and answer.

     I. CORRESPONDENCE, AS THE RELATION OF THE INTERNAL TO THE EXTERNAL, means the relation of the cause to the effect, which is the same as the relation or bearing of the formative upon that which is formed or to be formed, and in this sense we may correctly say that correspondence is a "creative relation," as is evident from the following teachings.

     "Whatever in the natural world comes forth from the spiritual world, is called a correspondent." (H. H. 89.)

     "Whatever comes forth in the body from the mind, is called a correspondent." (H. H. 90.)

     "Correspondence is the appearing of what is internal in what is external, and its representation there. (A. C. 5423)

     "The universal law of Correspondence is this, that the spiritual adapts itself to the use which is its end, and actuates and modifies the use by means of heat and light, and clothes it through provided means until it becomes a form fit to serve the end. In this form, then, the spiritual acts as the end, the use as the cause, and the natural as the effect." (Div. Wisd. II. 3.)

     "All that is a correspondent which exists and subsists in nature from Divine Order." (H. H. 107)

     That Creation was effected by and according to Correspondence, see T. C. R. 75, 78; A. C. 9272, 9396; D. L. W. 343

     That Existence and Subsistence depend upon Correspondence, see D. L. W. 390; A. C. 4525; S. D. 4064; H. H. 94.

     Correspondence, therefore, in the supreme sense, is a creative relation, and thus, in answer to the question by the Presbyterian minister, to which our correspondent refers, the reply should be that the understanding did, indeed, create the horse; not the human understanding, however, for it can create nothing, but the Divine Understanding, of which the horse is the noble, spirited and useful expression or type in the ultimates of nature.


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     II. CORRESPONDENCE, AS THE RELATION OF THE EXTERNAL TO THE INTERNAL, is no longer a "creative" relation, or an active relation, but a re-active ore returning relation, the relation of the answering echo to the original sound, agreeing with it, acting as one with it in tone and in words.

     "Natural things are correspondences because they have come into existence and perpetually exist, that is, subsist, from the spiritual things, and therefore they act as one, as end, cause, and effect. Thus the face acts as one with the affections of the soul, the speech with the thought, and the actions of all the members with the will." (Div. Wisd. II. 3.)

     "Correspondences are natural truths in which, as in mirrors, spiritual truths are represented." (A. C. 9300.)

     "Correspondence is such that what is spiritual is represented in what is natural." (A. C. 8904.)

     "When spiritual things are rightly represented in natural things, they are said to correspond." (A. C. 4044, 4053.)

     "In the spiritual world all things at a distance appear according to correspondences; which, when they appear in FORMS, are called representations of spiritual things in objects similar to those that are natural." (T. C. R. 388.)

     "That which in the Word is representative and significative, is in its essence that which is represented and signified, thus the Divine of the Lord. For a representative is nothing but the image of that which is represented, and it is, in image, the thing itself which is presented." (A. C. 3393.)

     From these teachings we learn that Correspondence, as meaning the relation of the external to the internal, means, essentially, its agreement with the internal. The external correspondent agrees with its internal correspondence, first, as to form, by which it represents it or presents it again in an image on the external plane, and thus it carries the thought back to the spiritual truth which it represents; secondly, it agrees with its internal correspondence as to quality, that is, as to function, use, or good, by which it acts as one with it,-in other words, re-acts with it in perfect harmony,-and thereby carries the affection back to the spiritual good to which it corresponds; and, third, since it agrees both as to form and as to essence, it actually is on the lower plane that internal thing which it represents and to which it corresponds.


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     III. CORRESPONDENCE, AS THE MUTUAL RELATION BETWEEN THE INTERNAL AND THE EXTERNAL, means the continual and harmonious inter-relation between the cause and the effect, between influx and reflux, between action and reaction, and thus the co-operation and inter-dependence of both. For it is evident, even in the most common meaning of the term that a correspondence means the exchange of letters between at least two parties. If there is no question there can be no answer, and if there is no answer there can be no correspondence.

     "When something from the spiritual as origin and cause becomes visible and perceptible to the senses, then there is a correspondence between them." (Div. Wisd. II. 3.)

     "There is said to be a parallelism between those things which mutually regard one another, and because they mutually correspond to each other, as an active and a passive, there is said to be a correspondence between them." (A. C. 1832.)

     The term "Correspondence" may therefore be used in either of the three senses, above indicated, and confusion sometimes arises in the mind by failing to observe, from the context, in which of these senses it is used in any particular sentence, though the "creative relation," being the inmost, is always involved, even if not plainly indicated. Thus in the passage quoted by our correspondent, "quickly" signifies certainly; and "to send" signifies to reveal, there is still the relation between cause and effect, for it is certitude that produces quickness of action, and it was the unveiling of Divine Truth that caused the sending of the angel to John.

     As to the difference in meaning between the terms "Correspondence," "Representation," and "Signification," it may be said, in general, that the first refers especially to agreement as to essential quality, use, or good; the second refers more particularly to agreement as to external form, appearance, or manifestation; and the third always refers to the expression of either, or of both, by a spoken or written word.


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     I. THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE THERE, IN GENERAL.

     "In general it is to be known that every significative which is in the word, draws its origin from the representatives in the other life, and these from correspondences." (A. C. 6048.)

     "All the laws of the Israelitish Church had their origin in the laws of truth and good in Heaven and refer to them in the internal sense, but partly by means of correspondences, partly by representatives, and partly by significatives." (A. C. 2567.)

     "All things which are in the world have correspondence they represent and signify spiritual and celestial things." (A. C. 9280.)

     From these teachings it may be seen that of the three, Correspondence is the most internal and the most universal, since both the representative and the significative are drawn from, and represent and signify according to their correspondences, which thus enter into the other two as the celestial enters into the spiritual and natural.

     II. THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CORRESPONDENCE AND REPRESENTATION.
"The natural is nothing else than as it were a face representative of the spiritual things which are of the internal man, and this face becomes representative, when the exteriors correspond to the interiors." (A. C. 5118.)

     When those things that are of the face act as one with those things which are of the mind, they are said to correspond, and are correspondences, and the features of the face itself represent, and are representations. It is similar with the gestures of the body and all the actions which are produced by the muscles; it is known that these are effected according to those things which a man thinks and wills. The gestures and actions themselves, which are of the body, represent those things which are of the mind, and are representations; and the fact that they are in agreement causes them to be correspondences." (A. C. 2988.)

     "There is a correspondence between spiritual and natural things; and there is a representation of spiritual things in natural things.

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Or, what is the same, when those things which are of the internal man are effigied in the external, then those things which appear in the external are representative of the internal; and the things that agree are correspondences." (A. C. 2989.)

     "In general, those things which inflow from the spiritual world and are presented in the natural world, are representations; and in so far as they agree, they are correspondences." (A. C. 2990, 3225. See also H. H. 175; S. D. 1714.)

     Correspondence, therefore, is the internal agreement between spiritual and natural things as to quality and use; and Representation is the external agreement between the same as to form and appearance, when at the same time there is correspondence. Every true and genuine representative at the same time corresponds to that which it represents, and it cannot be said that such a representative is "one-half of a correspondence," for it is altogether a correspondence. Thus a lamb is the true representative of innocence; it is innocence in form, because it corresponds to innocence, acts as one with innocence. And thus also a horse is a genuine representative of intelligence, is intelligence on the re-presented or reproduced lower plane of animal forms, because in its use it acts as one with, and thus corresponds to, the human intelligence in causing man to advance.

     Evil men and evil things may also represent spiritual and celestial things, but they are mere representatives, not genuine representatives, because they correspond only as to form, but not as to internal quality and essence. Thus a lion can represent Omnipotence because its form conveys the impression of supreme power, but it is not a true representative type; it does not correspondence to Divine Omnipotence, because it uses its power for harmful purposes. An eagle can represent Divine Wisdom on account of its penetrating glance and lofty flight, but it merely represents and does not at the same time correspond, since in itself is a cruel bird of prey. So also the Israelitish Church could represent a Church because they approached the one true God in name and in the forms of worship; but because the hearts of that people were far from him, their worship was only a theatrical performance; it was only the representative of a Church. And yet, even here correspondence entered in, or there could have been no representation whatsoever.

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David, for instance, being an evil man, merely represented the Lord, but his royal office was in itself a true representative because this office, as a use, acts as one with and thus corresponds to the Divine Royalty of Law and Justice.

     III. THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN REPRESENTATION AND SIGNIFICATION.

     "Here, [in Genesis xii], begin the true historicals, all of which are representative, and the single words are significative." A. C. 1401.)

     "In the true historicals all and single sayings and words signify other things in the internal sense than in the sense of the letter, but the historicals themselves are representative." (A. C. 1404, 1407, 1410.)

     "The historicals are what represented the Lord; the words themselves are significative of the things which are represented." (A. C. 1540. See also A. C. 1783, 2075, 2607, 2333, 3482.)

     "Whatever the Lord did in the world represented; and whatever He spoke signified." (A. E. 405.)

     Thus in the sentence "Abraham rose early in the morning, and took bread and water," (Gen. 21:14), the whole of this historical fact was a prophetic representation of "the Lord's clear perception, from the Divine, of good and truth." (A. C. 2672.) Here each single expression, as a written word, is significative, and the action and the things themselves are at the same time correspondences,--the rising early, the morning, the taking, the bread, and the water,--while Abraham alone is a mere representative, being personally an idolater and infidel. (A. C. 1992; S. D. 63.)


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QUERIES CONCERNING CORRESPONDENCE 1906

QUERIES CONCERNING CORRESPONDENCE       O. L. BARLER       1906

EDITORS of New Church Life:--

     There are some questions concerning Correspondence, and particularly its application to Scripture interpretations, that I have long wished to present to some competent New Church scholars.

     Early in my experience in the New Church, I preached a missionary sermon in an orthodox pulpit. The pastor of the church, who was present, listened with critical turn of mind, and when I was through expounding "Correspondence," as a creative relation, he asked me: "In what sense could it be said that the understanding creates a horse?"

     The questions I ask now are for information. I wish you to tell me, what would be the best reply to make this Presbyterian brother, who asked the above question. It can be answered, I know; and I want those who know more than I know to tell me how.

     It is my habit to think of Correspondence as the relation between discrete degrees. I have never seen, in Swedenborg Writings, or elsewhere, this exact wording of a definition; but it seems to me correct.

     I. Is this definition correct?

     If Correspondence is the relation existing between discrete degrees of life,--between distinct planes of life,--then it is a creative relation, as it seems to me. It so appears in the relation between soul and body; and between all things in the natural world and all things in the spiritual world.

     II. Is Correspondence always a creative relation?

     One of the most intelligent New Church ministers that I know, and with whom I have had much correspondence, wrote me,--(and he belongs to the Academy branch): "I do not think that we can say, that Correspondence is always a creative relation."


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     "It is from Correspondence that the eye signifies understanding." (A. E. 37.)

     From Correspondence the horse signifies "understanding;" and by the same law and order, quickly signifies "certainly;" to send signifies "to reveal."

     III. How would you proceed in these, and in every other case, to show the creative relation that exists in every Correspondence?

     "'I am the way.' Instead of way the angels perceive truth.... It was in order that the Word might be for angels, that all the historical revelations therein are representative, and each word is significative." (A. C. 2333.)

     In another place we read: The interior senses are reached, "partly by Correspondences, and partly by representatives, and partly by significatives."

     IV. Does this give the explanation? Let us see.

     "Correspondences exist between things spiritual and things natural. Representatives are things spiritual seen in things natural." That is, between bodily expressions and mental states there is Correspondence; and the bodily expression is the representative; and the words are significatives.

     Here, it would seem that a representative was one-half of a Correspondence. (?)

     On the other hand, the people of Israel were representative of spiritual things; but their interiors did not agree with spiritual things.

     V. Would you say, there was here representation, but no Correspondence? Expound this, and show that there can, or cannot be representatives without correspondences. O. L. BARLER.
MIXING THE NEW CHURCH WITH THE OLD 1906

MIXING THE NEW CHURCH WITH THE OLD              1906

]
EDITORS New Church Life:--

     For years, but especially of late, I have noticed accounts in various New Church papers about Ministers of our Church inviting to their pulpits ministers of other denominations to celebrate "Union" Thanksgiving services. In one case I remember five ministers of various faiths thus joining a New Church minister in the celebration.

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The ministers, of course, "meant well," but the question arises, How far is a minister, who after due preparation and confession has been ordained into the New Church, justified in doing this, after his church has been dedicated and consecrated for the uses of the New Church? The pulpit, the seats, the walls,--everything within the house of worship,--has been set aside and consecrated to the service of the One and Only true God. Let such a minister read True Christian Religion n. 108, and then ask himself if he has not desecrated the pulpit which was consecrated to the Lord in His Divine Human, by inviting those to preach and offer prayers there who do not worship and believe in the Lord of the New Church?

     Of what use are his professions and confessions, if he pays no heed to that to which he has agreed to do (in the presence of the people of the Church where he was ordained)! Of what use or purpose is it to consecrate a place of worship to the One and Only God in His Divine Human, if our "charity" is so foolish as to invite to His pulpits the preachers of the Dragon who deny Him? If such things are going to continue, and if such desecrations are to be kept up, would it not be better not to dedicate the churches?

     To think of ministers of the Lord's New and only Church, permitting and even going out of their way to seek such desecrations, and then calling this "broadness" and "liberality," while calling those "narrow-minded" who dare to protest against such things as being entirely disorderly, and in direct conflict with the Writings of the Church! I have heard old church ministers "cordially invite" New Church audiences to join with them in prayer, the New Church people knowing perfectly well that these prayers are offered to the GODS whom such ministers in their hearts and minds confess. Such prayers may, indeed, ascend to Heaven, but are perceived there "like bad smelling odors, and like eructations from diseased lungs, and although he may suppose that his prayer is like incense, it ascends into the angelic Heaven just as the smoke of a conflagration, which, driven downwards by a tempest, is thrown back into his eyes." (T. C. R. 108.)


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     How is the Lord's New Church ever to get out of the wilderness, when those who are ordained into it permit strange worship to be offered in the very temples which have been consecrated to the One and Only God? I am glad to acknowledge that this does not apply to the General Church, or what is known as "the Academy," but it is only too common among the members of the General Convention. To the writer it looks nothing short of desecration; and it is neither "liberal" nor "broad," but a narrow and illiberal treatment of the Divine Truth now revealed to the New Church. Can nothing be done? Are such abominations to continue in the Lord's visible Church, on earth? A. W. MANNING. Riverside, Cal.
Church News 1906

Church News       Various       1906

     FROM OUR CORRESPONDENTS.

     BRYN ATHYN, PA. Freed from the bans of quarantine. Bryn Athyn awoke early on the morning of March third, eager to resume the activities so unfortunately suspended three weeks before. Midnight had scarcely past when the college boys, to celebrate their freedom, serenaded the residents of the settlement with songs, accompanied by the gentle peals of the big dining hall bell captured for the occasion. In fact, everyone rather enjoyed the privilege of once again mingling with his neighbors. Church was held the following Sunday, and Tuesday morning, March 6th, witnessed the reopening of the College and Local School. Early in the month the directors of the Civic and Social Club met to reorganize that body and Bishop Pendleton was chosen president. There is a possibility that the "Civic'' will take under its protecting wing the Bryn Athyn Social Club, an organization which has provided the social life for those not in the College for the past five or six years.          R

     PITTSBURGH, PA. The Pittsburgh exodus still continues! Mr. A. C. V. Schott, an active and loyal member of long standing, has recently left for Washington, D. C., whither his family will follow him.

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Mr. Schott has faithfully served this society in the capacity of treasurer for many years, and Mrs. Schott's cheerful readiness to do anything and everything for the Church which lay in her Fewer is well known. They will both be greatly missed. Another regrettable departure is that of Mr. W. Thomas Grant, of Kansas City, Missouri. He has been with us about a year and we had all hoped him good for many more. But, sad to relate, he has heard the call of the wild and gone back to the "show me" country. Mr. and Mrs. Herman Lechner have also left Pittsburg. On account of Mrs. Lechner's health they have betaken themselves to the drier climate of Texas. We are hoping this is only a temporary absence. Swedenborg's birthday was celebrated by a banquet at the Church. There was only one prepared speech, that of Mr. Paul Synnestvedt, who used as his text Swedenborg's rule of life. "To discharge with fidelity the functions of my employment, and the duties of my office, and to make myself in all things useful to society." Mr. Synnestvedt referred to Swedenborg's career as a statesman as exemplifying this rule, and suggested that even though our particular walks in life require our best effort, still the public career of that great man may serve as an inspiration to us as citizens of this country. There were also informal remarks anent this same side of Swedenborg's character. Mr. Pendleton, in speaking of his philosophy, brought to our attention the remarkable character of certain statements in his scientific works, and cited one which is as beautifully stated as though taken direct from the Writings. The meeting closed after further words on the general subject.

     The Bellefield Club was again the scene of a dance and card party on the evening of February 9th. It was thoroughly enjoyed by all.                         K. W.

     MIDDLEPORT, O. During December and the greater part of January this society had no church services nor other meetings on account of a siege of diphtheria among the children of our pastor's family, all of whom are now safely recovered except little Philip, who passed away December 19.

     On January 21st we had services for the first time since December 3d. The Holy Supper was also administered.


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     In the evening the annual election of trustees for the coming year was held and the yearly reports of the minister and secretary of the Board of Trustees were read.

     The society celebrated Swedenborg's birthday Sunday evening, January 28th, with a supper at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Gladish. After several toasts and songs, we listened to a most interesting paper by Mr. Gladish on "Swedenborg's Love of Truth."

     Our only visitors in the past two months have been Mrs. Wallenberg, of Chicago, and her daughter, Miss Emily, who spent some time with our pastor and his family. A. E. D.

     GLENVIEW, ILL. Swedenborg's birthday was the one event of the month of January, and was celebrated in much the usual way, viz., speeches and toasts.

     A literary evening was devoted to Washington's birthday, the uses which Washington had performed being dwelt upon largely. The evening ended in a dance, which was intended to reward the young people for their considerate attention to the early part of the program. On the afternoon of the same day the school children had a Class Day ending in a dance. A patriotic drama was acted by four of the pupils. It was entitled "An Afternoon Tea," and gave a picture of Revolutionary times. It was much enjoyed by both pupils and visitors.

     But the event of the season was the Masked Ball held at the Club House, on March 5th. About sixty persons were present; the Sharon Church was well represented, and several visitors from other Chicago societies were present. Authorities on the masquerade question have said that there was a great variety of costumes. Old and young alike took part in the fun, and there is a strong sentiment toward making it an annual affair. E. J.

     CHICAGO, ILL. At Sharon Church, Swedenborg's birthday was celebrated on the 31st of January. About fifty persons sat down to the appetizing supper.

     We were pleased to have as guests Mr. and Mrs. Schreck, and a number of our Glenview friends, whose affectionate sphere added to the evening's profit and enjoyment.


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     A number of toasts were proposed,--to The Church, The Day, and to one of our best beloved members; and some thoughtful papers were read, and earnest speeches made. Mr. Charles F. Browne read extracts from Bishop Pendleton's article on "The Credibility of Swedenborg's Science," printed a few years ago in the Life, Mr. John Forrest read a thoughtful paper on "The Love of Truth;" Mr. Schreck and Mr. Caldwell made speeches, which were helpful and well-received.

     The evening's entertainment ended with dancing

     On Wednesday night, February 28th, a concert: quite professional in its excellence, was held at the Sharon Church, before an audience from Glenview, the North Side Pariah, and our own people. Mr. Lewis Blackman delighted the audience with his artistic playing, one Beethoven number for a viola and two violins, which he played in company with Mrs. Harvey Brewer and Mr. Wm. Caldwell, being specially enjoyed. Mrs. Colley and Mrs. Brewer performed brilliantly on the piano and violin; a sonata, by Grieg, calling forth enthusiastic applause for both players. Chopin's Twelfth Nocturne was played Miss Vida Gyllenhaal, with a delicate, sympathetic touch, which made it very enjoyable.     E. V. W.

     BERLIN, ONT. Swedenborg's birthday was celebrated by the Carmel Church at a gathering in the evening preceding the day, at which Swedenborg's life and work was made the subject of general conversation. The day itself was reserved for a school celebration. The children, including the last three classes that have left the school, together with some of the parents, gathered in the afternoon and spent the time in various social amusements. Then came a supper, prepared by the school-girls, which was a great success. While at table, one of the boys read a paper on Swedenborg. In the evening there was dancing and singing. It was a happy time for all, and will be long remembered.

     In the evening of February 19th, the married folks of the society had a genuine "surprise party" for Mr. and Mrs. Steen at their home, the occasion being the thirtieth anniversary of their wedding-day. The speeches and the conversation were chiefly of a reminiscent nature; but there was also a looking forward to the future, and this with much hope for the prosperity of the Church with the young people growing up in our midst.


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     FROM OUR CONTEMPORARIES.

     UNITED STATES. The annual report of the TRACT AND PUBLICATION SOCIETY refers briefly to the resignation of the Rev. William H. Alden as agent of the Society. Mr. Alden's resignation was accented in December "to take effect at a time convenient to the Society and Mr. Alden. The managers also voted to continue Mr. Alden's salary for six months from the time when the resignation takes effect. The Society is indebted to Mr. Alden for his faithful, earnest, and efficient service during twenty years."

     Mr. Harold S. Conant has accepted an invitation to become the assistant pastor of the PHILADELPHIA Society.

     An hitherto unknown society, more or less in sympathy with the New Church, has recently come to light in BALTIMORE, Md. Its inception was with Bishop Kurtz, a Lutheran clergyman, who became interested in the doctrines through the agency of the Rev. P. J. Faber. Before his death the Bishop ordained his son, the Rev. Alfred P. Kurtz, and commissioned him to preach the doctrines, and about a year ago the latter organized a new movement known as St. Luke's Church of the New Dispensation. The attention of the Rev. G. L. Allbutt was called to Mr. Kurtz's preaching several months ago, and shortly afterwards the secretary of St. Luke's Church approached the Swedenborg Society in regard to obtaining copies of the Writings. The letter was sent to Mr. Albutt, and the result was an open communication between the "new movement" and the Baltimore Mission. The former has also been supplied with a complete set of the Writings and a number of tracts.

     Mr. Kurtz attended the Ministers' Conference of the Maryland Association, on February 18th, and "reported" thirty-three members of his Society. He also invited the Rev. Messrs. L. H. Tafel and G. L. Allbutt to officiate for him on the following Sunday, when Mr. Tafel preached to an audience of thirty persons, including several visitors from the English and German Church and the Mission.


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     It appears that St. Luke's Church does not have a consecrated place of worship, as its services are held in a commodious parlor on the second floor of 1501 W. Lexington Ave. The form of worship is somewhat elaborate, as Mr. Kurtz attaches much importance to symbolism, and the wearing of robes, and "he has many candles burning upon what looks like a High Episcopal Church altar." Of late, however, he has been using the new Order of Services authorized by the General Convention, and on the occasion of Mr. Tafel's preaching, the Faith of the New Church was recited.

     The whole movement is suggestive of a somewhat similar movement which recently developed in England, when the Rev. Albert C. White and his whole Society (Episcopalian) embraced the Doctrines.

     At the Annual meeting of the NEW YORK ASSOCIATION the main subject of discussion was as to the best methods of reaching the "unchurched Protestant population of Greater New York." Dr. Walter Laidlaw, of the New York Federation of Churches, was present and gave an address, illustrated with stereopticon, prepared with a view of interesting the various churches in the work of the Federation. Several of the younger ministers gave suggestions as to the best methods of work, Mr. Sperry suggesting that tracts be put into the hands of all immigrants, and Mr. Arthur Mercer advocating a "new development in the Church, on the emotional side, to be attained chiefly by the practice of prayer." The position of the Church as a teacher of doctrine, he thought, had been "a positive hindrance" in approaching people.

     As a result of the recent missionary visit made by the Rev. W. H. Hinklely, the Society in GALVESTON, Texas, has been revived, and its chapel was reopened after having been rented to a Presbyterian congregation for over two years. The Society has invited the Rev. A. B. Francisco to preach regularly once a month.

     Mr. Hinkley has also organized a new Society at WINSLOW, Ark., the home of Mr. Francisco and of the Rev. W. H. Atkins, formerly of Iowa.

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About seventy persons attended the preliminary meeting, when a constitution was adopted and officers elected.

     SOUTH AMERICA. The Rev. L. G. Landenberger has recently received a communication from a Methodist preacher (not yet ordained) who is assistant pastor to the Methodist Church in Port de Paix Hayti. This gentleman is a native of St. Thomas, where, as a boy, he first heard the name of Swedenborg connected with "two old maids who were Swedenborgians." He writes that he "loves Swedenborg's works and views," and he asks for literature. The immediate cause of his interest was an article, in an English mystic journal, on Swedenborg the Mystic.

     GREAT BRITAIN. The Rev. George Meek, for several years pastor of the ST. HELIERS, Jersey, Society, has resigned that office.

     The authorities of the General Conference have granted the application of the Rev. Albert C. White to be recognized as a minister of the Conference.

     HOLLAND. Mr. G. Barger, who, so far as we know, is the only professing New Church man in Holland, has recently received an appointment as British Vice-Consul for the HAGUE. Although alone in Holland, Mr. Barger has been active in the literary work of the Church, being the translator of Heaven and Hell into Dutch, and the author of the only publication in that language giving a systematic exposition of the Doctrine. (See New Church Life for April, p. 231.)

     AUSTRALIA. The annual report of the ADELAIDE Society gives a general review of the eventful doings of the past year. After referring to the "now famous Adelaide Resolutions" which were passed without a single dissentient voice or vote, the report continues: "In the course of a few days a campaign of criticism and abuse against the Society and its minister was commenced; and this campaign shows no immediate signs of being terminated." The part taken in this campaign by the President of the Conference, the Rev. W. A. Bates, is referred to as "the opposition and interference of the Brisbane minister, who, when on a visit to Adelaide, seemed to feel it his duty to go about amongst members of this Society and warn them against the 'immoral tendencies' of the teachings of our minister, and to insinuate, and more than insinuate, that he was not a safe and proper person to be the spiritual leader of the Society."


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     The report briefly reviews the action taken by the Society in expelling one of its members. It appears that, before the matter hall been carried up to the supreme court, the committee, acting under legal advice, had restored the name of the expelled member, and refused to defend the suit, which, of course, went against them, and was at their cost. The result of the whole proceeding is that the Rules of the Society have been amended to avoid such complications in the future.
CONNATE KNOWLEDGES 1906

CONNATE KNOWLEDGES       Rev. EMIL CRONLUND       1906


     Announcements.




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NEW CHURCH LIFE.
Vol. XXVI. MAY, 1906.           No. 5.
     The Writings teach that it was provided by the Lord that man should be born in total ignorance, for otherwise he could not advance into intelligence and wisdom through the successive steps of regeneration, and so become in image of the Lord. But they also teach that if man were in the order of his life he would not be born in the darkness of ignorance, as is now the case, but in a certain degree of knowledge and thence of intelligence. An effort will be made in this paper to explain and harmonize these apparently contradictory teachings.

     It is a fundamental doctrine of the New Church that the Lord is wisdom itself, and consequently truth itself. From this doctrine as from a fountain flows another doctrine, namely, this, that man cannot be in the possession of any truth except it be given him from above. And that which the Lord gives man to know from above is called Revelation. It is when man consults revelation that he learns something about God. Heaven and eternal life, and the truths with which he is thus furnished are the means of introducing him into the life of regeneration and of leading him into that life more and more interiorly. Before regeneration there is nothing of truth in the mind of man, and, therefore: before regeneration, man is called "earth," "void and empty;" also "ground," in which nothing of good and truth is inseminated; void where there is nothing of good, and empty where there is nothing of truth; hence, there is "thick darkness," or a stupor and ignorance of all things which are of faith.


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     Thus man when he is born is like ground in which no seeds are implanted. Man is not born knowledge, as an animal is, but he is born faculty and inclination; faculty to know, and inclination to love. And he is born into no knowledge in order that he may come into all knowledge.

     With animals it is very different, for they are born; with all the knowledges necessary to their life. An animal, when it is born, is like ground already sown and filled with grasses and herbs, a ground which receives no other seeds than those which have been sown in it, and if it were to receive any others it would choke them. Thus connate knowledges and affections limit progression, but connate faculty and inclination limit nothing; and, therefore, it also follows that the imperfection of man at his birth becomes his perfection and the perfection of an animal at its birth is its imperfection.

     But from certain teachings in the Writings it would appear as if man would not be born in entire ignorance if he were in a state of order and that his state of ignorance at birth is the result of evil. In Heaven and Hell it is said: "The reason why the animals of the earth and the fowls of the air are born with all the knowledges proper to their life, and man is not, though he is more excellent than they, is because animals are in the order of their life, and have not been able to destroy what is in them from the spiritual world, since they have no rational faculty. It is otherwise with man, who thinks from the spiritual world. Because he has perverted what is in him from that world, by a life contrary to the order which his rational faculty approves, he must, therefore, be born entirely ignorant, and afterwards be brought back, by Divine means, to the order of Heaven." (108.)

     That man would not be born ignorant, if he were in the order of his life, is again taught in the Arcana Coelestia, where it is said: "If man were principled in love to God and towards his neighbor... in this case he would not only be in all requisite science, but also in all intelligence and wisdom, neither would he have occasion to learn them for they would flow in from Heaven into those lives, that is, through Heaven from the Divine.

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But whereas man is not in those loves, but in opposite loves, . . . therefore, he must needs be born into all ignorance and unskilfulness." (7750)

     From these teachings we might be led to conclude that as man is now born in ignorance because of his fallen state, therefore, before men fell, or in the Most Ancient Church, they did not require to be instructed. Thus it might appear as if the knowledges of good and truth were connate with them, and that they did not need to be taught by any one. But that this could not be the case is evident from the teaching that connate knowledges would limit man's progress.

     And when we investigate the teachings of the Writings in regard to the Most Ancients, we find that they did not have connate knowledges, and that, therefore, they had to be instructed. In the Arcana Coelestia we read: "The men of the Most-Ancient Church had the knowledges of true faith by revelations, for they spoke with the Lord and with the angels, and were also instructed by visions and dreamless, which were most delightful and paradisiacal to them." (125.) And in another number of the same work it is said: "In the most ancient times men were informed concerning heavenly things, or those which relate to eternal life, by immediate intercourse with the angels of Heaven; for Heaven then acted as one with the man of the Church, inasmuch as it flowed in through the internal man into their external, whence they had not only illustration and perception, but also discourse with the angels." (10355.)

     Thus the most ancients were taught by means of revelation from the Lord. In other words, they were taught by means of the Word, for although they did not have a written Word, still the things which the Lord revealed to them were to them the Word. And the inhabitants of the other planets, who are in a state similar to that in which were the most ancients on this earth, and thus are in a state of order, are also instructed by means of immediate intercourse with the angels and by visions and dreams.

     And the celestial angels themselves who love the Lord mere interiorly than do the other angels, and are, therefore, in a state of heavenly order so far as it is possible for finite beings to reach that state, also receive instruction. Although they have perception and are in inmost angelic wisdom, pet they are continually being taught by others.

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We read in Heaven and Hell that "although the angels who are in the celestial kingdom perceive and see truths, still preachings take place there, as they are thereby enlightened in the truths which they have known, and are perfected by many things which they had not known before; as soon as they hear them they also acknowledge them, and thus perceive them." (225.)

     Thus not only celestial men but also celestial angels are in need of continued instruction by means of the Word, by means of perception, and by means of the influx of the Holy Spirit through the clergy to the laity.

     The teaching that if man were in the order of his life he would not be born into mere ignorance, does not mean, therefore, that he would then be born with knowledges of any kind, but it means that by virtue of being in love to the Lord he would see and accept the truth as soon as it was presented to him. That this is so is evident from the following teaching of the Heavenly Doctrines: "In course of time, by instruction, experience, inspiration, and revelation, it was given to the sons of the Most Ancient (Church to know all the things of faith, to which they at once assented, inwardly, so that they had a perception of them, because they agreed with their affections." (D. Min. (4636)

     This passages shows that the sons of the Most Ancients received the truth because it agreed with their affections, and this explains the whole question as to what is meant by the teaching that if man were in the order of his life he would not be born into mere ignorance. Love to God and to the neighbor have within them an intelligence and wisdom. The Most Ancients were in these loves and their children inherited from them an inclination and preference for those loves, and so they readily accepted the truth, for good longs for truth, and the affection of good is what enables man to see the truth and to love it.

     If, therefore, man were in the order of his life, he would not doubt revelation, but he would accept at once whatever the Lord teaches: he would "follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth." He would not then be born into mere ignorance; that is, while his memory would not be stored with knowledges at his birth, yet the inherited inclination to love the Lord and the neighbor would enable him to see the truth at once, as soon as presented to his understanding.

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Intelligence and wisdom are stored up in the inclination to love the Lord and the neighbor, and, therefore, if man were in the order of his life he would enter at once into the life of intelligence and wisdom. Every one seeks to confirm that to which he inclines, and such confirmations appear to him at once as soon as they are presented, and he accepts them with delight. Therefore, a man whose inclination it is to love the Lord, seeks for truths, and when he finds them he sees them clearly and accepts them with delight.

     Man does not inherit from his parents actual affections, either good or evil, nor does he inherit knowledges. He inherits only inclinations and faculties. What children inherit from parents who are in a state of order is clearly taught in Conjugial Love in the following words. "The offspring of two who are in love truly conjugial, derive from their parents the conjugial of good and truth,--whence they have the inclination and faculty, if a son, for perceiving the things which are of wisdom, and if a daughter, for loving the things which wisdom teaches. But they do not derive or inherit from their parents the affections themselves, and thus the lives of their parents, but only inclinations and faculties for those affections." (202.) Thus man cannot inherit conjugial love nor any other heavenly love or wisdom from his parents. But each one must acquire spiritual things as of himself. In regard to the offspring of the Most Ancients we are taught that they inherited inclinations for the conjugial of good and truth, and were easily initiated into it more and more inwardly by their parents by means of education, and that afterwards as of themselves, when they became capable of judging for themselves, they were introduced into it by the Lord.

     The Most Ancients, by virtue of the good in which they were, were able to perceive what was true. But by perception is not meant ability to acquire truths and to see them without any instruction from revelation or from others. By perception is meant the ability to see the truth when it is presented, and also to see the particulars that are contained within the general principles made known by: means of revelation.

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Such particulars are revealed to man when he reflects upon the truths that he knows from revelation. "Reflection," the Writings teach, "is the mental view of a thing, as to how it is circumstanced, and also as to its quality: from this is perception." (A. C. 3361.) By means of reflection and meditation the Lord reveals to man, and thus gives him to perceive the particulars of the general truths of revelation. There are countless myriads of particulars of truths contained in the letter of the Word and in the Writings that will never be seen except by him who reflects upon the general truths revealed in them. These particulars are not revealed in so many words in the letter of the Divine revelation, but yet they are all in that revelation, for, as has been said, they are contained within the general truths that are given. Divine revelation, for the most part, is of such a nature that generals only are revealed in the letter, and the particulars are revealed to man by means of perception.

     That general truths were revealed to the Most Ancients and that it was given them to perceive the particulars, is taught in the Arcana Coelestia in the following words: "The man of the Most Ancient Church had revelations, whereby he was initiated from his infancy into the perception of things good and true; but since they were sown in his voluntary part, he had a perception of innumerable things without new revelation, so that from one general he was acquainted with particulars and singulars from the Lord which at this day must first be learnt, and thereby known. (895.)

     Here it is taught that particulars of truth were perceived by the Most Ancients without new revelation, that is, without new instruction from without. The particulars were made known to them by means of internal revelation, that is, by means of perception They could not have had this perception of particulars unless they had first been informed concerning general truths by means of objective revelation, for the Lord inflows into those things with a man which he knows, but not into those things which he does not know. In emptiness there can be no Divine operation, and. therefore, in order that the Lord may operate with a man and enlighten him, he must acquire truths for himself from the Word.


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     It was as true in the most ancient times as it is now that without the Word there could be no knowledge of God, Heaven and eternal life,--and this always will be true. The Word will always be a necessity, it will always be the fountain of wisdom and the source of light. When men of the New Church become celestial men, enjoying the celestial faculty of perception from the Lord, the letter of the Word and the Writings will be held in even higher esteem than they are now, and will be studied even more than they are now.

     Thus in the Most Ancient Church men were not born in the darkness of ignorance, for the reason that the men of that church were in love to the Lord, and all intelligence and wisdom are stored up in this love, and their children inherited a tendency to this love, and, therefore, they were easily enlightened in the truths of faith. But at the present day men are born in the darkness of ignorance for the reason that they are born with a tendency to evil instead of a tendency to good, and in this tendency there is nothing of intelligence and wisdom. Therefore, it is that at the present day spiritual things are held in little or no esteem, for the truths of the Word are doubted and denied, or else falsified. There is no perception either of the general truths of the Word or of the particulars contained within them. The tendencies with which men are born at the present time are at their source ignorance itself. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and when children are taught to fear the Lord, the seeds of wisdom are implanted in them. But when they are not taught to fear the Lord, and when they are brought up in the sphere of contempt and denial of spiritual things, the seeds of darkest ignorance are then implanted in them, and they experience great difficulty in seeing any truth.

     The affection of truth is really that which teaches man, for no truth can flow into man unless it be conjoined with its own affections. When man is in the affection of truth then the Lord can inflow from within and illustrate him and teach him.

     Thus, if man were in the order of his life he would not be born in the darkness of ignorance, for then he would be born with a tendency to love truth, and this tendency would enable him to recognize truth and to perceive it, but he would not be born into actual knowledges, so that he would require no instruction, for "connate knowledges and affections limit progression, but connate faculty and inclination limit nothing." (C. L. 134)


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BEHOLD THE MAN 1906

BEHOLD THE MAN       Rev. W. F. PENDLETON       1906

     II.

     "Anal He saith unto them, Behold the Man." John xix. 5.

     When the Lord was brought forth by Pilate and exhibited to the people, He called upon them to look on Him, saying. Behold the Man; and the reason in general why He said this, was, that He might represent in His own person the state of the church, especially the state of the Jewish Church in respect to the Word. And in order that the representation might be full. He permitted them to treat Him, as they had treated the Word.

     A more interior idea is involved, which has relation to the last Judgment in the Spiritual World. The judgment is performed by the truth. Every one is judged by it; and in order to be judged by it, he must come face to face with it. And so it is provided by the Lord that every one shall be taught the truth when he arrives in the World of Spirits, or not long after his arrival; and his lot is determined in accordance with his acceptance or rejection of the truth. It is the man who judges himself, and not the truth; for the truth has come to save and not to condemn; and by its presence it gives the opportunity of salvation.

     It was still possible for the Jews to be saved, to save their nation, and become a true church of the Lord. It was the truth itself, it was mercy itself, it was innocence itself, that said unto them, Behold the Man. And the Roman governor had testified that he saw no fault in this man, who had called upon them to behold Him. But the Gentile saw in a measure what the Jews were too blind to see; and in their madness they rejected Him who alone had power to save them; and in rejecting and crucifying Him, they judged themselves to eternal condemnation.


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     In the other world, when the final judgment takes place, the truth is given, especially the truth concerning God. A true idea of God is the prime essential of salvation, and this true idea is given to every man after death; the Divine Mercy can do no otherwise than give it, for it wills to save all.

     The true idea of God is the idea of Him as a Man; and as He said to the unbelieving Jews, so He says to every one at some period of his life, in this world or the next, Behold the Man; and his lot will be determined according to his hearing of the message.

     What the Lord said to the Jews, the same He had said in spirit to those who then formed the imaginary heavens, which were about to be judged. He had revealed Himself unto them as a Divine Man. And the Jews but represented the spirit of the imaginary heavens, when they reviled, rejected, and crucified Him. What the Jews did representatively, the imaginary heavens did actually, they rejected with hatred and contempt the Divine Man. who had revealed Himself unto them. The Jews were also of a similar spirit to those in the false heavens, and their representative rejection of the Lord was also an actual one; and so they forever lost their opportunity to become a true church of the Lord, and cast themselves into eternal condemnation because they were unwilling to see God as a Man, were unwilling to become like Him, to enter His image, by repenting of their sins.

     The idea of God as Man is the angelic idea, and reigns in the universal heaven. But this idea in heaven is a spiritual idea, such as natural men are not able to receive or comprehend. The natural man does not know what a spiritual idea is; and when the spiritual idea of God is presented to him, so far as he is able to see it, he rejects it.

     All men are born natural, and no man can come at once into a true or spiritual idea of God. It is necessary that he should have at first a natural idea of God as a Man, as a prelude and preparation for a spiritual idea of Him; into which spiritual idea, that man will come by degrees who is disposed to a life of charity, or to a life of religion in the true and sincere spirit of religion.

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Such a man will eventually see God as a Man in a spiritual idea of Him, being led and introduced to it by a natural idea of Him as a Divine Man, or a Divine Person. But the evil minded man, one who more and more confirms himself in a life of evil, will eventually reject even the natural idea of God as a Divine Man, will do in spirit, what the Jews did both in the letter and in the spirit,--crucify Him.

     This leads us to a consideration of the necessity of receiving a natural idea of God as a Man, first in order of time. That which comes first in time is natural, but that which comes last is spiritual; but because it is spiritual, it is essentially first, for it exists in end or potentially from the beginning, and thus is prior even to that which is natural; and what is prior, and so really first, even though it does not so appear, must manifest itself, and become actually, as it was potentially, the first.

     Now since the spiritual idea of God as a Man is first in potency, though not as yet in actuality the spirit and mind of man must be prepared by a natural idea of God to come into a spiritual idea of Him, and he is prepared for this by means of the letter of the Word. For the letter of the Word presents the natural idea of God, but in the spiritual sense there is given the spiritual idea of Him as a Man.

     Throughout the Word in the letter God appears as a Person, a Divine Man; and when He reveals Himself by the Incarnation He reveals Himself as a Divine Person, or Divine Man. But the mind does not see Him, and cannot see Him at first under the spiritual idea of a Man. This must wait until the spiritual sense of the Word is revealed; for a truly spiritual idea is not possible without light from the spiritual sense of the Word. And since it is necessary first to have a natural, and even a sensual idea of God as a Man, the letter of the Word is given first, and no one can enter into the spirit of the Word, or its spiritual sense, except by means of the letter or literal sense. For it is only the literal sense of the Word that can reach the most simple states. Without the letter of the Word the simple, infants and children, could not possibly be saved. For their minds can no more enter into the spiritual sense of the Word than a bird can fly in the ether. But this parallel holds good only so far, for the minds of the simple, the minds of infants and children can gradually be prepared to enter into the spiritual sense of the Word, and thus into a spiritual idea of God.


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     As we have seen, the chief thing of the Word, and thus prime essential of all truth, is the idea of God as a Man. The chief thing, the prime essential, of the literal sense of the Word, is the natural idea of God as a Man; and the chief thing, the prime essential, of the spiritual sense of the Word, is the spiritual idea of God as a Man.

     And as the natural idea of God as a Man is the chief and essential thing of the letter of the Word, it therefore serves the same use as the letter of the Word does; and whatever we read in the Writings concerning the literal sense of the Word, we may in our minds apply to what is said of the natural idea of God as a Man. In it is fulness, in it is power, in it is holiness; it is a basis, a foundation, a support for the heavens, and the means of introduction thereto. So in the natural idea of God as a Man, there is fulness, power, holiness, it is a basis, a foundation, a support; and without it, there cannot possibly be any entering to a spiritual idea of God. And so we have this general truth of fundamental importance that a spiritual idea of God is founded in a natural idea of Him, just as the spiritual sense of the Word is founded in the natural sense.

     On the other hand, the spiritual idea of God is as superior to the natural idea of God, as heaven is superior to the earth, as the spiritual world is superior to the natural world, as the spiritual sun is superior to the natural sun, or as the spiritual sense of the Word to its literal sense. And so the whole work of the Church involves this that men are to be led out of a natural idea of God into a spiritual idea of Him; this is the burden of the work of the priesthood, and the chief thing for our educators in their religious training of the young.

     The natural idea of God is, as we have said, given in the letter of the Word. It is that of a man like other men, except that He has Divine Wisdom, and Divine Power. He is wiser than all men, because He spake as never man spake. He has immeasurably greater power than men have, for He performed miracles, which no man can do.

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In this is the beginning of the idea of a Divine Human, a Divine Man. even in a rational or spiritual idea of Him; and if it can be preserved, all will be well with such a man for a spiritual idea will surely follow the natural idea, for it is already involved in it.

     The coming into a spiritual idea must not be delayed too long. There is danger in remaining in a natural idea of God, danger of being led away into a false idea of Him. For there are many appearances in the letter of the Word, and in nature also, which may be bent to suggest or confirm false ideas; such as the idea of three Divine Men, or Persons, or the idea that God is not a man at all, but merely an invisible essence in nature. But the mind is rescued from this by the rational and spiritual idea of God as given in the Writings.

     The spiritual idea of God as a Man, we have already attempted to give in a previous sermon. We endeavored to show that a spiritual idea is an idea from which the thought of time and space, or thought from time and space, is removed--or that the thought from time and space must be removed in order to come into a truly spiritual idea; and that a truly spiritual idea is the idea of love, wisdom, and use.

     If you wish to know what it is that is spiritual, in order that you may cone into a spiritual idea, think of love, find out what love is, and you will know. Love is what makes the spiritual world spiritual--love from God. And Love Itself in God is what makes God to be God. And Love proceeding from God as Wisdom is what created all things; and when all things are created, Love by Wisdom in Use sustains and preserves all things. A spiritual idea then is the idea of love, wisdom, and use together; but it is all love, for wisdom is but the form of love, and use is the activity of love by wisdom. And when you come into the idea of love, you then come into the spiritual idea of a man, yea, into the spiritual idea of God as a Man--an idea that is essential in order that the interior heaven of the Lord may be opened, and communication be established with the angels of heaven, who are ever and always in such an idea of God; nor can they dwell together with men who have any other idea.

     Where can such an idea of God be found? By what means can we come into a true idea of Him?

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We have already indicated where it is to be found. Nowhere else than in the spiritual sense of the Word. The letter of the Word prepares for it, and something of a spiritual idea appears even in the letter. But in the Writings of the Church; wherein is revealed the spiritual sense of the Word, we are to find the true idea of God, the spiritual idea of Him as a Mall; and he who enters into those Writings and views them in their spirit, will in that degree see God as a Man, for just in that degree will he see the Divine Human as Love, and from Love Wisdom, and from Wisdom Use.

     Love appears in the spiritual world as a Sun. but Love is a Man nevertheless, the Man who is in the Sun, the Man who as Love is the inmost of heaven, the Center of the Universe. This Divine Love as the Center, Soul, and Life of the Universe, as God Man, is that which is exhibited everywhere in the Writings--exhibited as God, the Creator of the Universe, who came as Love into the world, to be the Savior of men, our Lord Jesus Christ. Read the Writings and enter into their spirit, and your idea of God will become like that of the angels, and they will dwell with you, and you with them.

     The Lord in all the Revelation that He has made of Himself to the human race, has always revealed Himself as a Man, and as one Man--not as two, or three, or a hundred men, who are gods, but as one Man--not as a God invisible, unknowable, incomprehensible, but as a God that may be seen, and known, understood and loved.

     In His first coming He revealed Himself as a Divine Man, under a natural idea of Man, but still a Man with Divine Wisdom and Divine Power,--having in it something of a spiritual idea of a God Man.

     In His Second Coming the Lord has also revealed Himself as a Divine Man. under a spiritual idea of Him as a Man. In fact, this is what the Second Coming consists in, the revelation of God under the spiritual idea of Him as a Divine Man. In this we see the cause of the difficulty in seeing that the Writings are the Second Coming of the Lord, because in order to see this clearly it is necessary to be in a spiritual idea of God as a Man; without this, we may know that the Lord has made His Second Coming, but we cannot see Him in that Coming. For His Second Coming is a spiritual Coming unto men, which is the same thing as to say that the Second Coming is the revelation unto men of a spiritual idea of God as a Man.


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     The first coming was a coming of the Lord in person. He revealed Himself in a personal form as Man unto men. This was necessary, this was essential to the salvation of the human race. Without the idea of God in a personal form impressed on the sensorium of the human race, no salvation would have been possible. For already the insidious idea of God as invisible, or the idea of more than one God, had invaded and taken possession of the human mind. Men had begun to worship themselves or nature; and so it was necessary that those who could be saved, should be saved from such a worship, and this could not be done without the idea of God as a Man.

     The same is true in the Second Coming. It is necessary that men should be saved from the worship of self or nature. But as the worship of self and of nature has in modern times become more subtle and dangerous than ever before; in order to meet this state, and save those who can be saved, it is necessary that God should reveal Himself as a Man under a spiritual idea of Him, which revelation is the Second Coming of the Lord.

     Therefore, the Lord in His Second Coming does not reveal Himself in person to men in the world. This has already been done, and the Divine does not repeat itself. It merely confirms that which has already been done. But He reveals Himself as a Divine Man under a spiritual idea, under such an idea as the angels in heaven have, as Love, Wisdom, and Use, which are Man--and nothing else is man. Take these away, and what is there left of man?

     This brings clearly before us the reason why it is necessary to know, to acknowledge, to see God as a Man. as Level Wisdom, and Use; as Love Itself, as Wisdom Itself, as Use Itself; as Love Itself, that is, as the source of all level as Wisdom Itself, that is, as the source of all wisdom; as Use Itself, that is, as the source of all use. The reason why it is necessary, is to save man from the worship of himself, to save him from believing and confirming himself in the belief, that his love is his own, that he loves from himself, and thus that he lives from himself; to save him from the belief that he is wise from himself, and from all the dire evils that arise from the pride and conceit of human intelligence; to save him from the belief that his powers of use are his own powers, and that he does all that he does from himself


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     And so we come to the important fact of human life, that if a man does not believe in a Divine Being, who has all human qualities in infinite perfection, from whom all human qualities with His creatures are derived, the natural result will be--and there can be no other result--that man will attribute all his human powers to himself, and in this state he cannot possibly be saved.

     When, therefore, the Lord Jesus Christ was brought forth by Pilate and exhibited to the Jews, and when He said unto them, Behold the Man, there was involved in the simple words an infinity of truth, freighted with all the possibilities of human salvation, of a heaven from the human race, of a Church on earth that is to endure forever. Amen.
NEW CHURCH FRIENDSHIP 1906

NEW CHURCH FRIENDSHIP       ROBERT S. CALDWELL       1906

     The friendship of love, contracted with a person without regard to his spiritual quality, is detrimental after death. The friendship of love is internal friendship and distinct from the external friendship which we exercise toward the world, generally, for the various uses of the world.

     If we contract internal friendship indiscriminately it will go hard with us in the other world, when separations must take place.

     A New Church friendship is a friendship based upon an acknowledgment of one's own evils rather than a friendship based upon a knowledge one may think he has of the commendable qualities in another.

     Commendable qualities in another's character are necessary to friendship, but can we really judge of these? We can judge of them in a way, and it is perhaps necessary that we should pass some judgment in this respect, but the value and justice of one's judgment upon others will largely depend upon the judgment he has previously passed upon himself and his evils.


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     If we have not judged our own evils and taken an antagonistic attitude toward them we will not be in a light clear enough to pass judgment upon another's evils, and the process of executing a just judgment, each one upon his own evils, will greatly modify the severity and possible injustice of the judgment he is likely to pass upon the character of another.

     Friendships in the New Church, differently from friendships in the Old Church, do not so much involve one in a critical observation of one's neighbor's character and standing to see if he is fit for our friendship as they do an examination of ourselves to see if there is anything within ourselves worthy of the good-will and friendship of others.

     In our friendships, it is true, we must be discriminating; but like all the operations of regeneration, the spiritual must flow into the natural, never the reverse. This work of discrimination must be an interior work within each one, discriminating there between the good and the bad, and until this has been done, thoroughly, outward discrimination, or, in other words, the orderly regulation of our social relations with the Old Church and others, can but be an unavailing and imperfect work.

     The outward separation from the Old Church in our social life would simply set forth an external, void of an internal, if each one, at the same time, were not carrying on a warfare within himself in which an effort is being made to bring about a separation from his own evils, the Old Church within himself.

     The outward separation of persons will take place as a natural result of the inward conflict against evil. The Writings teach that he who shuns an evil as sin, shuns the society which is in that evil. (A. E. 971 and 1164.) The friendship which should exist between members of the New Church can only prosper and become a lasting and comforting tie in so far as each one takes note of his own evils and enters into combat with these. Worldly friendships are interiorly based upon regard and love for each other's evils, and this friendship, as we know, can only be kept alive by flatteries and various mutual contributions to each other's natural loves or feelings.

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When these mutual flatteries for any reason wane, a falling off of the pretended friendship results,--often painful collisions take place, because two or more persons bent upon gratifying a selfish love, are bound to collide sooner or later; for the internal antagonism to others, latent in all selfish friendships, may remain cloaked and disguised under shows and forms of etiquette and outward politeness for a time, but its true nature will burst forth sooner or later. Selfishness has little power of endurance. The Doctrines of the Church come to us to show us a way by which genuine New Church friendship may be fostered and perpetuated. To command oneself is to exercise the greatest of all commands. Until a man sets himself against his own evils he is incapable of New Church friendship. There can be no reciprocal good will, because this call only exist between those who know their evils and shun them. An appearance of friendship may be kept up for a longer or shorter period, based upon community of interest, resulting from a mutual regard for each other's evils, but a lasting friendship, which will hold to the end of life and throughout eternity, can only be with those who explore themselves, discover their evils, shun them, and implore the Lord for help to come into a state of abhorrence of evil.

     We can form an interior, that is, a New Church bond of sympathy, only by being comrades in the warfare which each one must carry on against his own evils. The suffering entailed in this warfare creates a peculiar union which can exist only between those who have carried- on a successful conflict against a common enemy--their own evils.

     By this warfare against his own evils, a man removes the common tendency to take offense and to see and act upon slights which are fanciful and imaginary. The man who is in a New Church attitude toward his own evils will say to himself: "If another wishes to, or tries to, wrong me, that is his concern, not mine." He will see what suffering and humiliation that man must undergo in order to arrive at a state wherein he will have no heart to do another an injustice. He will know that all regenerating men must undergo a painful process to get rid of the spirit of injustice, and he will leave his neighbor's case, as he should leave his own, to Him who is good to all, and whose tender mercies are over all His works.


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     Then, as to the wrong which another may do to you, it is to be remembered no act of another can make you internally good or evil; man must perform this office for himself, and we would do well to bear this in mind, for it may save us a lot of the trouble which we are all inclined to give ourselves over slights and wrongs that we fancy we have received from others. It is a truth, and no amount of thought which we may give it will change it, that there never has been a case in all time or eternity where a man was made bad by the act of another. He always has done and always must do this office for himself. It is one of the acts the responsibility for which cannot be transferred to a deputy.

     Then why trouble over the fancied slights and wrongs perpetuated by others? The apparent wrongs that others may; do us are permitted by the All-wise for a wise end. Let us be wise, then, and strive to see why they are permitted. We can know beyond a doubt that all the things which happen to us, whether they be sad or happy, are provided for our good. They take place in order that in some way we may be made better, and if this result be not realized, we can rest assured that we ourselves are at fault. Thus a New Church friendship, when once thoroughly established, will mark the disappearance of the too common disposition, (an Old Church inheritance), to see slight and to take offense. The angels never indulge hatreds toward others, never recognize injuries, never give in to cunning stratagems or artifices, and never wish ill to any.


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OUR ATTENDANT SPIRITS 1906

OUR ATTENDANT SPIRITS       Rev. C. TH. ODHNER       1906

     (Continued from the April number, p. 232.)

     Sometimes strange spirits come about us,--spirits not belonging to the society of spirits with whom, for the time, we dwell, but different ones "who are emitted from some infernal society into the sphere of man's life;" and these infesting strangers always induce upon us anxieties, melancholy, and worry about the future; they excite evils otherwise dormant, and put a wrong interpretation upon all the good that we may do, but on such occasions the angels with us engage in combat with those spirits and finally put them to flight, (A. C. 6202). When such strange spirits are around us, we are quite correctly said to be "out of sorts," or "out of spirits," or "dispirited."

     THE OFFICES OF OUR GUARDIAN ANGELS.

     The offices of our guardian angels are fully described in the Arcana Coelestia, n. 5992.

     Their office is to inspire charity and faith, and to observe whither the delights of the man turn themselves, and to moderate and bend them to good so far as they are able without interfering with the man's freedom. They are forbidden to act violently and thus break man's cupidities and principles, but they are to act gently. It is also their office to rule the evil spirits from hell, which is done in innumerable ways.... When the evil spirits pour in evils and falsities, the Angels insinuate goods and truths, which, even if not received, yet are the means of tempering. The infernal spirits are continually attacking, and the angels are protecting; such is the order. . . . The Angels are also observing if any hells are opened, which were not opened before, which takes place when man turns into a new evil. These hells the Angels close, so far as the man allows, and they remove the spirits who attempt to emerge thence. They also dissipate strange and new influences which might produce evil effects. Especially do the Angels call forth the goods and truths which are with man and place these in opposition to the evils and falses which the evil spirits excite. . . . By such means do Angels from the Lord lead and protect man, and this every moment and moment of a moment; for if the Angels were to intermit their care for a single moment, the man would be cast headlong into evil from which afterward he never could be brought out. These things the angels do from the love which they have from the Lord, for they perceive nothing more delightful and happy than to remove evils from man and lead him to Heaven. (See further S. D. 3525; A. C. 5979.)


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     ARE THEY ANGELS AND DEVILS OR ONLY INTERMEDIATE SPIRITS?

     We come now to the consideration of an apparent contradiction, in the Writings, respecting the nature of our attendant spirits. Though the teaching is explicit and repeated, that these attendants consist of two angels from heaven, and two evil spirits from hell, we find, on the other hand, the teaching that "the conjunction of man with heaven and with hell, is not immediately with them, but immediately through spirits who are in the world of spirits; these are the spirits with man, and none from hell itself and from heaven itself. By evil spirits in the world of spirits man is conjoined with hell; and by good spirits who are there, he is conjoined with heaven." (H. H. 600.) "Angels cannot inflow manifestly into a man's thoughts except through subordinate or mediate spirits." (S. D. 2390.) "All spirits, before they are cast into hell, or are elevated into heaven are first in the world of spirits and are then with men unto are in the world: evil spirits with those who are evil, and good spirits with those who are good." (A. E. 537; A. C. 5852; D. L. W. 140.)

     In all cases of apparently opposite teachings in the Writings, we shall, if we search, find intermediate teachings which explain and harmonize both. So also, in the present case, we learn that "the evil spirits who are with man, are, indeed, from the hells, but when they are with the man they are not then in hell, but are taken out thence, and are then in the world of spirits.... And when they are there they are not in any infernal torment but are in the delights of the love of self and the world, and in the delights of all the pleasures in which the man himself is,...but when they are sent back into their hell, they return into their former state." (A. C. 5852.) It is evident from this teaching that these evil spirits from hell, when with man, are in the state of the intermediate spirits in the world of spirits, and thus, for the time, are intermediate spirits.


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     It is to be observed, moreover, that the state of vastation often continues for some time even after a spirit has been taken up into heaven or cast down into hell. Those, for instance, who are in the love of dominion, "are cast down into hell immediately after death in order to be devastated there," (S. D. 5047), and while "none who have been fully vastated can be taken out of the hells, yet sometimes those may be taken out, who have not been fully vastated." (S. D. 5361) The duration of the state of vastation in the world of spirits varies with different spirits. "With some it lasts only for a week after they have come from the world; with some for months, with some for years, even unto fifty years.... If these are cast into hell, still they return; but those who are vastated and at the same time are in hell, do not return." (S. D. 5529, 5693; A. E. 537)

     Thus, also, the angels who guard over men are such as have not yet lived so long in Heaven as to have lost all means of immediate communion with them: that is, they are still in a state more or less similar to the state of man on earth? but as they progress more interiorly into Heaven they gradually become more remote from us. These nearer angels, therefore, can still serve as subject-spirits for the more remote societies in heaven; may, whenever the interior spirits "concentrate their thoughts upon one of their own number, he then comes into the world of inferior spirits," (S. D. 3632), and is thus an intermediate spirit for the time being.

     But besides the two angels from heaven who are with man, there are also other spirits, actually living in the world of spirits, "one, two, or three, who are subjects of the world of spirits, who suppose themselves to be the man with whom they are, and these spirits are changed according to the general changes of the man's affections, and are ruled by the angelic spirits, of whom they are entirely ignorant." (S. D. 3525); or, as stated in another place, "When a man indulges in external things, ire is removed from the manifest company of the angels, and is ruled by spirits, and these by the angels." (S. D. 185)


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     Though our attendant angels and spirits are as really present with us as if we lived openly in their heavenly or infernal societies, (D. P. 50), yet they are totally unconscious of our presence,--as unconscious as we are of them. (A. C. 6192; S. D. 4683) The angels, indeed, know that they are ministering to men,--they know this from Doctrine, just as we know of their general presence, from the same source of information, (A. C. 5862),--but "neither the angels nor the spirits know with what men they are, even as men do not know with what angels and spirits they cohabit. The Lord alone knows and disposes this." (L. J. 9.) And the reason why they do not know us and cannot see us, is that our spirits, though indeed present in the spiritual world, do not live consciously on that plane. Our every thought and affection is covered over with a gross mantle of corporeal, sensual, and worldly ideas and loves which veil us from their sight. Their sight is the sight of the spiritual understanding, and the spiritual understanding sees only the things which are on its own plane.

     HOW OUR OWN SPIRIT APPEARS TO THEM.

     "Usually," we are taught, "spirits are not allowed to look into the corporeal things of man. When they do look, these things appear to them as mere darkness." (A. C. 5865.) When spirits are permitted to look upon the man with whom they are, he appears merely as "a black, inanimate something, or as a black mass void of life," (A. C. 5865; S. D. 4060); or as "an inanimate machine," (S. D. 3633); and, even with the best of us, our corporeal life appears to them, if not black, yet as something wooden and of the color of wood. (A. C. 5865) Swedenborg relates that "a certain evil spirit was sent into a state of the body, which was effected by his thinking from the sensuals of the body, thus from the external memory; he also seemed to me as a black mass, void of life. The same spirit, when restored, said that he supposed himself, to have been in the life of the body." (Ibid.)

     There are times, however, when our spirits, while we still live in the natural world, actually appear to the other spirits in whose society we are sojourning, and this is when we are "in deep meditation" and thus, for a while, are divested of the veil of corporeal thought. (D. P. 296)

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Or, as stated in a deeply interesting passage in Heaven and Hell:

     Man does not, indeed, appear in that society as a spirit, while he lives in the world, because he then thinks naturally; but those who think abstractly from the body, because then in the spirit, these sometimes appear in their society, and when they appear they are clearly distinguished by the spirits who are there; for they walk about engrossed in meditation, do not speak or look at other spirits; they are as if they did not see the others, and as soon any spirit addresses them, they vanish." (H. H. 438) As an instance of this kind, Swedenborg relates that once, in company with a spirit who had been a preacher in our earth, he beheld the spirit of a very beautiful woman dwelling on another earth in the universe. The preacher, inspired by admiration, took hold of her hand, but she, "perceiving that he was a spirit, hastened away." (A. C. 10754)

     To this should be added Swedenborg's declaration "It has often been given me to see, in their Societies, the spirits of men still living, [in the natural world],--some of them in angelic societies there, and some of them in infernal societies, and it has also been given me to speak with them,-and I wondered that the man himself, still living in the body, knew altogether nothing about this." (T. C. R. 14.)

     Innumerable things might be added respecting the nature of the intercourse of spirits with men, but time and space forbid. Nor need we dwell, here, on the danger to our freedom and reason, were the evil spirits to become conscious of our presence and of their own influence and power over us. This danger is well understood among us, though the time no doubt will come when our Church, also, shall have to suffer infestation from some subtle form of Spiritism. But, "sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."

     HOW THEY TAKE POSSESSION OF OUR MEMORY.

     Returning to the special subject before us, we are taught that the spirits about us,--though unconscious of our personal presence,--yet enter into all our states and perceive all our interior thoughts and affections, even the most minute, just as if they were their own,--with this limitation, however, that they only perceive that in us which agrees with their own states, (S. D. 190); just as we, unconsciously, receive the life of their thought and affections only in so far as these can find ultimate lodgment in corresponding things within us.


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     The reason why they enjoy this perception is that they are able to take possession of all the things of our memory from the very moment they become associated with us, (S. D. 78; A. C. 5853, 5857, 6200),--the angels entering into our interior memory, the lower spirits into the exterior memory. (S. D. 3104) In an instant they know all our scientifics and cognitions, and grasp in one instantaneous perception all the sensual impressions which have been stored up in our internal sensories, together with all the ideas which are hidden within this epitome of all our sense-images. Not that they actually know these things so as to retain them permanently in their own memory, but the knowledge is as it were not or transferred to them for the time being by means of a communicating spiritual sphere. (A. C. 4726.) How this transfer is effected can be explained, we think, or at least illustrated, by a study of the supreme aura of Nature, in which they live as well as we, and of the "limbus" or inmost natural substance and form, which they possess in common with us. Every impression which we receive from without causes a vibration in our whole sensitive system, from the outmost organ of sense to the inmost fibre, and from the lowest blood to the highest spiritous fluid which is on the plane of the limbus and of the supreme aura in which that limbus lives. And here this finest vibration or contremiscence causes a corresponding trembling in the limbus of our nearest spirits, resulting not only in a telepathic transfer of sensation and thought, but in a reflection into them of all that which is stored up in our inmost sensory or natural memory. We introduce this only in the way of suggestion. Time forbids our entering further into this branch of our study on the present occasion.

     THE PHENOMENON OF "SECOND MEMORY."

     But whether we may be able to explain this psychic phenomenon or not, the thing remains as a fact,--a fact which may be illustrated by another remarkable fact,-that men on earth at times enter into the sphere of the memory of the spirits.


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     As a rule the natural memory of a spirit becomes quiescent immediately upon his rising into the other life;--it is laid aside and remains in a dormant state, inasmuch as he has no need of it in the spiritual world where all things are spiritual, that is, relate to good and truth or evil and falsity. The spirits do not lose it, however, but retain everything they ever knew; and at times, for special purposes, they are allowed to enter into certain earthly recollections. As a rule, again, they are not permitted to enter into their own memory, when they are with a man, for then "the greatest confusion would ensue." (A. C. 5858), inasmuch as "it would not then be possible for man to think from his own memory, but he would be thinking from the memory of the spirit, and thus man would not be in freedom, but would be obsessed," (A. C. 2477; H. H. 298)

     Nevertheless, as there is no rule without its exceptions, the spirits about us at times do think from their own memory probably when some special thing in our situation awakens a recollection of something similar in their own past earth-life. On such occasions "man knows not otherwise than that the things which he then thinks are his own, when yet they are of the spirit. It is like the recollection of a thing which man has never heard or seen. That this is so," says Swedenborg, "has been given me to know by much experience. Hence it was that some of the ancients had the notion that after some thousands of years they were to return into their former life, and into all its acts, and also that they did so return. They formed such a conclusion from the fact that sometimes there came upon them as it were a remembrance of things which nevertheless they had never seen or heard. This took place because the spirits from their own memory flowed into the ideas of such mens' thoughts." (H. H. 256.)

     This kind of reflected recollection is a well known phenomenon of Psychology, and has been termed by some "the second memory," but is generally classed by modern scientists among the various "illusions of the memory,"--as if such a designation were a sufficient explanation. The experience of this kind of recollection is almost universal. Everybody-or almost everybody,--has found himself in a situation when he suddenly seems to remember that he has long ago heard or seen or smelled or tasted exactly what he is sensating at that moment, when yet he is perfectly sure that he is now experiencing the sensation for the first time.

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Hence there arises a somewhat distressing sense of confusion and bewilderment, as if he were haunted or had lost his bearings. (Comp. Encyclop. Brittanica, vol. XX, p. 63.)

     With most persons such experiences take place especially in childhood or youth. The present writer often experienced it, himself, as a boy, and can well remember his pleasure when finding the explanation of the phenomenon in the Writings of the New Church,-the only explanation that has ever been given. Swedenborg dwells on it in a number of passages, and also mentions it as the kind of recollection "of which Cicero speaks,--that he had, as it were, known it before." (S. D. 3285, 3917; A. C. 2478.) We have introduced the subject here, simply to show that the memory of spirits can be transferred to us, just as our memory can be communicated to them.

     THEY ACT AS ONE WITH US IN ALL THINGS.

     The angels and spirits attendant upon us are all of the some general quality with ourselves, (A. E. 537), that is, "similar as to the affections of the will and the perceptions of the understanding" of the man with whom they are consociated, (T. C. R. 380),--the evil spirits similar to our worse, and the angels to our better self. "All the things which the man then thinks and wills, the spirits also think and will; and, vice versa, all the things which the spirits think and will, the man thinks and wills, for they act as one by conjunction. Yet it is supposed by both parties that such things are in themselves and from themselves. So spirits suppose, and so man supposes, but this is a fallacy." (A. C. 5853.)

     In all things they act as one with us. They fall asleep when we are sleepy,--especially the evil spirits, who thus are prevented from doing us harm when we are helpless; and we are then surrounded only by the angels and guarded by the Lord alone who watches over all, (S. D. 3231, 3232, 3418.) They dream when we are dreaming, (S. D. 7, 1664, 1882, 2436, 3792), and "they enjoy their spiritual food, along with the spirit of the man, while his body is enjoying its natural food." (S. D. 3566)

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In a word, they do what we do, think what we think, and love what we love, nor are they removed until that love has ceased. (S. D. 5181; A. C. 6196, 10422.)

     But it is especially as to spiritual things,--as to the things of religion,--that we are associated with angels and spirits similar to ourselves. "Every man is in society with spirits who are of the same religion," (De Verbo, 132), and such as are the religious ideas of the man, such are the ideas of the spirits. "The spirits with those who are in heresies, fallacies, and illusions as to the truths of faith, or in falses, are in the like, without the slightest difference," (A. C. 5860),--and "when a man changes his persuasions, other spirits are applied to him; and, therefore, such as is the persuasion of the man, such is the persuasion of the spirit." (S. D. 4114, 1204.) "This is so in order that the man may be in his freedom, and may not be disturbed by anything belonging to the spirit himself. (A. C. 5860.) On this fact is based one of the three fundamental uses of Baptism,--that man thereby may be inserted among Christians in the spiritual world and wear upon him a sign, the sphere of which is recognized as forbidding the approach of the spirits of a different religion. (T. C. R. 678.) To us, who are of the New Church, this is, indeed, a teaching of the utmost comfort,-- the knowledge that the good spirits around us are New Church spirits, spirits who are continually exciting things which confirm us in our faith, (S. D. 4114) although, on the other hand, there are always present with us evils and fallacies which serve as planes for the influx of evil spirits, of opposite religious persuasions, who are continually tempting us, and thus make possible our freedom of choice.

     Again and again we find the teaching that the spirits are so much in a state similar to the man with whom they are, that they think they are that very man himself. (A. C. 6195; S. D. 123, 2954), and Swedenborg relates that "once when I had been writing, a spirit thanked me for having helped him to write; he thought that he was I." (S. D. 1533.) "The nearer spirits believed altogether that they were I; those who were more remote believed less so, and those still more remote, still less so." (A. C. 6194.)

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They are in this persuasion so long as we do not reflect upon them, for when we reflect upon them they become conscious that they are spirits, and are with a man, and then they are removed. (S. D. 18, 164) Otherwise "they suppose that they are the man, but this does not last long," inasmuch as they are continually being changed. (S. D. 1581.) We are not to imagine, however, that they think they are we, as individuals, since they know nothing of us individually, but simply that they are men, (S. D. 207), enjoying the possession of our memory and all our states as fully and at the same time as unconsciously as we enjoy (or suffer from) their affections and ideas.

     THEY ARE ALL "EMISSARY" OR "SUBJECT" SPIRITS.

     All the spirits attendant upon man,--whether they be angels or infernal spirits or intermediate spirits,--are nothing but "emissary spirits" who are also called "subject spirits," who are sent forth from societies in heaven and in hell and in the world of spirits. (A. C. 5983; H. H. 601.) This sending forth is effected by a whole society concentrating their thoughts and attention upon one of their number, who then becomes infilled with their simultaneous presence, and then immediately finds himself in the intermediate world of spirits, where he is associated with the spirit of some man on earth. (A. C. 5985; D. P. 96; S. D. 3632.) "The angels and spirits send some spirit to the man, and the spirit who is sent turns himself to the man, and those who had sent the spirit turn themselves to that spirit, and thus concentrate their thoughts, which the spirit then utters. At the moment the emissary or subject spirit knows no otherwise than that he is speaking from himself, and they who had sent him know no otherwise than that they are speaking. Thus is effected the conjunction of a number with one, by means of conversion or turning." (H. H. 255; A. C. 5985-5987) The greater the number of those who thus concentrate their view into one subject spirit, the stronger is the power of that subject in thinking and speaking. (A. C. 5987.) When a man comes into the other life, he is shown, if he so desires, the society of spirits in whose company he had been, and from which emissary spirits had been with him. (A. C. 5861.)


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     THE NOTION AS TO "FAMILIAR SPIRITS."

     Having before us all the teachings which have been outlined in the preceding pages, we are now, in conclusion, be prepared to examine the curious account about the "familiar spirits" of the Queen of Sweden and of Dr. Ernesti, which is related, as coming from Swedenborg himself, by Mynheer Jan Christian Cuno, a gentleman of Amsterdam who was often in Swedenborg's company during the later years of his life, especially in 1770 and 1771, while the True Christian Religion was being printed. According to Cuno, Swedenborg once told him that

     Every man has his good or bad spirit, who is not only constantly near him, but sometimes also withdraws from him and appears in the spiritual world. But of this the man, still living, knows nothing; the spirit, however, knows everything. Such a familiar spirit has everything in common with his human companion; he has in the spiritual world visibly the same figure, the same countenance, the same tone of voice; wears also the same garments as the man on earth. In short, Swedenborg said, the familiar spirit of the Queen of Sweden appeared exactly as he had so often seen the Queen herself in Stockholm and had heard her speak. In order to lessen my astonishment, he added, that Dr. Ernesti, of Leipzig, had appeared to him in a similar manner in the spiritual world, and that he had had a regular disputation with him. (Dec. II, p. 485)

     Comparing this account with the consistent teachings of the Writings themselves, it is evident that Cuno in many respects has inaccurately reported what Swedenborg told him, in part misunderstanding what he heard, and in part mixing it up with old-time superstitions about "wraiths." etc.

     First, as to the term "familiar spirit." This is a designation which is not mentioned once in all the Writings of Swedenborg. It has become quite common in the New Church to apply this term to our attendant spirits, but this custom has crept in from Cuno's account, and not from the Writings of the Church. It is a wrong term to use in this connection, for a "familiar spirit" is a magical spirit who is in open communication with a witch, wizard, or spiritistic medium.

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It is used sixteen times in this sense, (and never in any other sense), in the Old Testament, especially in the story of Saul and the witch of Endor. (I Sam. 28:14.) If all our attendant spirits were familiar spirits then were we all worthy of a direful death for "a man, or a woman, that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely he put to death; they shall stone them with stones; their blood shall be upon them." (Levit. 20:27.)

     Secondly, it is evident from the Doctrine itself that there is no special spirit "constantly near us," inasmuch as our attendant spirits are "constantly being changed;" and it is self-evident nonsense to say that our spiritual attendant "sometimes withdraws and appears in the spiritual world." Further, there is no evidence in the Writings that the spirit appears with the same figure, countenance, tone of voice, and garments, as the man on earth; and it was not with Dr. Ernesti himself that Swedenborg had a disputation in the other world, but with the spirit then attending upon Dr. Ernesti.

     THE ATTENDANTS OF DR. ERNESTI AND BISHOP LAMBERG.

     This brings us, finally, to a consideration of the remarkable and interesting account of attendant spirits, which is found in the Memorable Relation in the True Christian Religion, n. 137, and which, as an isolated passage, may not be easily understood.

     Swedenborg here describes a "Synedrium," or council, in the spiritual world, of most eminent theologians, ranging all the way from the Apostolic Fathers to the solafidian professors of his own day. Over the whole assembly presided a great man,--"a judge and critic of the writings of the present age," who, ascending the pulpit, groaned aloud, and opened the meeting with the exclamation, "O, my brethren! O, what an age! There has arisen one from the herd of the laity, who, without either gown, mitre, or laurel wreath, not only has pulled down our faith from heaven, but even has thrown it down into the Styx! O, nameless scandal!" And so he kept on reviling Swedenborg and the Doctrine of the New Church, and receiving the enthusiastic applause of his shaved and bewigged contemporaries, but meeting with indignant rebuke from one of the ancient Fathers.

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Being called upon by the latter, Swedenborg, from the Formula Concordiae, convicted the presiding officer of worshipping the merely human nature of Christ, and then said to him:

     "I know that each one here is consociated with one like to himself in the natural world. Tell me, I pray, whether you know with whom you are?"

     He replied in a solemn tone, "I know! I am consociated with a famous man, a captain of the phalanxes of illustrious men in the hosts of the Church."

     And because he spoke in so solemn a tone, I said, "Excuse me if I ask whether you know where that famous captain dwells," and he said, "I know,--he dwells not far from Luther's tomb."

     At this I said, with a smile, "Why do you say 'his tomb" Do you not know that Luther has risen, and that he has now renounced his erroneous notion of justification by faith in three Divine Persons from eternity!"

     After some further conversation, Swedenborg requested him, in a tone similar to that of the presiding spirit,

     "Inspire your famous man, with whom you are consociated, with this message, that I am afraid that he, contrary to the orthodoxy of his Church, has robbed the Lord of His Divinity, or has allowed his pen to plow a furrow in which unwillingly he has sown Naturalism, at the moment when he wrote against the worship of the Lord our Savior."

     To this he replied, "I cannot do this, because I and he as to this matter make almost one mind; but the things which I say, he does not understand, while I clearly understand all things that he says."

     As soon as this conversation had been finished, another man jumped up, saying, "I also am consociated with a man in your world, who is placed in eminent honor there. This I know because I speak from him as (he) from me." I asked him where that eminent person lived, and he answered, "At Gottenburg; and I once thought from him that your new Doctrine savored of Mohammedanism." To which I replied, "I know that a man of such eminence wrote some such thing in a letter which was afterwards printed; but if he had known at the time what a blasphemy that is, he would have torn the letter to pieces with his fingers, or thrown it into the stove to be burned."

     The two famous men on earth, with whom these spirits were associated, were Dr. I. A. Ernesti, of Leipzig, and Bishop Eric Lamberg, of Gottenburg.

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The former was the most celebrated theological critic of his day,--the leader of the "grammatical" or extremely literalistic school of interpreters. He had, in his Neue Theologische Bibliothek, attacked Swedenborg and the Doctrines of the New Church with extreme virulence, and drew upon himself a brief but stinging reply from Swedenborg, which was published on a little fly-leaf appended to the True Christian Religion. The reference to his "dwelling near Luther's tomb" is a delicate bit of irony, for the dogmatic orthodoxy of Ernesti, while strictly Lutheran in form, was totally lacking in the devout fervor and life which always animated Luther. Eric Lamberg was the Bishop of the Lutheran diocese of Gottenburg, and was one of the chief persecutors of Dr. Beyer and Dr. Rosen. It was he who, in a letter to a friend in Gottenburg, dated November 16, 1769, charged that Swedenborg's doctrinal system was "to a considerable extent tinged with Mohammedanism" (See New Church Life, 1891, p. 54)

     TWO PROBLEMS CONSIDERED.

     In studying this Memorable Relation, several problems present themselves. How was it that these spirits were aware of the personality, dignity, and geographical situation of the men with whom they were, when yet the Doctrine is plain that spirits and angels do not know with whom they are consociated? The answer to this question is, undoubtedly, that the attendant spirits of Ernesti and Lamberg became conscious of these individuals, while they were in Swedenborg's sphere, for though, as a rule, "the spirits associated with man do not know that they are so,...it is otherwise in my own case," says Swedenborg, "for the Lord has opened my interiors to see the things in the other life; hence spirits have known that I was a man in the body, and there was given to them the faculty of seeing through my eyes the things of the world, and of hearing those who speak with me, in companies.'" (A. C. 5862) Being on this occasion associated with Swedenborg, the spirits were able to read in his memory all that he knew about Ernesti, with whom he was well acquainted by reputation. and about Lamberg, whom he knew personally.


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     The second problem presents itself thus: How was it that Ernesti's attendant declared that he could not communicate Swedenborg's message because Ernesti could not understand what the spirit said, when nevertheless Lamberg's attendant said that "I speak from him as he from me?" In regard to this question it is to be observed that we do not actually think and speak from the spirits, for this would constitute open communication and obsession. The doctrine is that men and spirits "are not conjoined as to thought, but as to affection." (T. C. R. 607.) The spirits cannot communicate particular thoughts, for then we would not be able to think in freedom, as of ourselves; they can only inflow with their general affections into our general affections, and their affections may awaken corresponding thoughts in us, or they may not, according to the state of our memory, understanding, uses, and applications.

     THE PRACTICAL VALUE OF THE SUBJECT.

     The subject of the intercourse between spirits and men is in itself altogether inexhaustible, and will, no doubt, become the study of a life-time for some theological specialist of the future. It is not merely of intellectual interest, however, but of the utmost practical importance, as may be evident from the fact that each one of us is surrounded by attendant spirits, and that all of us, before many years are over, will ourselves become spirits, in attendance upon men on earth. The more we learn, in this world, about our future life and work in the world to come, the more intelligently and efficiently will we be prepared to live that life and to do that work. And the more we learn, from the Divine Revelation, about our spiritual associates, the better shall we be able to select our company in the spiritual world.

     For such selection is quite within our power. We can, if we want to, force our evil associates into the background, and enable the angels to draw nearer to us. Every evil that is shunned, every false and ignoble thought and motive that is put away, causes such a withdrawal of satans and genii, and we can effect the same, also, by deliberately and persistently seeking and remaining among good associates in the natural world, for the good angels of these associates then become also our good angels.

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We are not, indeed, to reflect upon or inquire into the personality of our surrounding spirits, but we are to examine into their quality, and their duality can be known from the affections and thoughts that come to our consciousness. Such reflection is most unpleasant to the evil spirits, for it discovers to them their dependence upon us and our ability to rule them. Well, therefore, wrote the apostle John, "Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits, whether they are of God." (I John 4:1.)

     DESTRUCTIVE DOUBTS.

     "The animal kingdom and the vegetable kingdom so correspond, that when man thinks of the one, the spirits and angels at the same time can think and speak of the other. I spoke of a certain vegetable, to demonstrate a certain truth, namely, that the truth is not to be denied simply because doubts arise which cannot be explained, and if these persuade, they are as it were destructive of the truths." (S. D. 2830.)

     RACE-SUICIDE DIABOLIC.

     "Since marriage is for the sake of the propagation of offspring, and thus for the propagation of earthly and thence heavenly societies, it is Divine. And, therefore, whatever destroys or perverts marriages and destroys propagation is diabolic." (S. D. 3697)


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BRYN ATHYN 1906

BRYN ATHYN       Rev. J. E. BOWERS       1906

     Bryn Athyn is an exceedingly interesting place; and, as a New Church center, all things considered, it is unique. The writer of this, therefore, wishes to make an attempt to communicate a little information concerning the place, to the readers of New Church Life, especially for the sake of those who have never had an opportunity to visit Bryn Athyn.

     It is not an easy task to write a full and complete description of that beautiful center of New Church life and activity; and this we will not undertake to do, but shall only try to give the reader an idea of its general features. To be fully appreciated. Bryn Athyn must be seen, not merely on paper, but as an objective reality. And not only must the place be viewed as to its externally attractive surroundings, but as to what it represents, and as to its significance, in respect to the distinctive and important New Church uses which are being carried forward there, vigorously and with a commendable zeal derived from intelligence in the Heavenly Doctrines. Of some of these uses a general statement will be made presently.

     Bryn Athyn is situated in Montgomery county, Pa., fifteen miles northeast of the city of Philadelphia. From Bryn Athyn station on the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, on the banks of Pennypack creek, you ascend a hill a distance of one hundred and sixty yards. Then the road divides, one branch passing around the hill to the right, and the other to the left. Nearly six hundred yards further up the hill these roads meet at an acute angle, thus enclosing a tract of ground in outline like the shape of a pear. Still a little farther on, the road again divides, and one road leads to the Academy building southward, and the other northward in the direction of "Cairnwood." the residence of Mr. John Pitcairn, about one-fourth of a mile distant.

     These roads were built, at great expense, with a solid foundation of stone, and are macadamized so that they will last for ages.

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With the walks, grass strips and rows of trees, principally maple, the roads are indeed fine, shady avenues. The avenues all run in graceful curves, everywhere presenting lines of beauty; and a pleasing feature is that they are skirted with honeysuckle and other vines.

     On the avenues just described are the dwellings of most of the families residing at Bryn Athyn, and there is room for more. At "The Orchards," half a mile away, there is a group of seven or eight dwellings,--a romantic spot among the fruit trees. And several families live in other places in the vicinity.

     The New Church people at Bryn Athyn,--regarded by some, who have no definite idea of how things are there, as a "peculiar" people,--form a community. They have a common interest in the affairs of the Church, and in the education of their children according to the doctrines and principles of the Church. But they are not a community in the sense of having anything else in common, as, for example, the early Christians had, in the primitive Church. Every family has a home, and a distinct home life is maintained in every way, according to the order of society as it exists at the present day.

     Bryn Athyn has much the appearance of the suburb of a city. The houses are of quite a variety of styles of architecture; and they have all modern conveniences.

     Bryn Athyn is located in a section of country of picturesque landscape scenery, such as may truly be called magnificent. From any point in the place and vicinity there are presented most beautiful views in every direction. It is a country of hills and valleys of groves and orchards, of gardens, fields and meadows. At the roadsides in many places there are hedges; and all the lanes are lined with shrubs, vines and trees. What enhances the beauty of the landscape is that many of the fields are also dotted with trees of different kinds. Along the banks of the Pennypack, a good sized creek, there are shady dells; some large old forest trees; natural growth shrubbery of endless variety, an immense wealth of rich foliage, and scenery wild and romantic, just as nature made it.

     It is gratifying to think of so noble an institution as the Academy of the New Church, and also the chief center of the General Church of the New Jerusalem, being located in the midst of such charming environs.

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For, of its beauty of the scenery is not surpassed by any we have seen or heard of, and is all that one could desire. Speaking of this reminds us of the passage of the Word, in the spiritual sense of which is expressed admiration for the Lord's glorious kingdom on the earth, which is the Church: "Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is Mount Zion." (Ps. xlviii:2.) Already many people have had good reason to rejoice that, in the Providence of the Lord, such an Institution as the one which now exists at Bryn Athyn was established. And in the future many more will be thankful to the Giver of all good, On account of the spiritual blessings which the Academy will be the means of bringing to them and to their children.

     The Academy building stands on high ground, overlooking the residential part of Bryn Athyn. It has a frontage of one hundred and sixty feet, and is ninety feet deep through the central part. It contains fifty rooms, several of which are very large. In the centre of the building is the Chapel, which has a large and beautiful window of stained glass, and is well lighted by other windows. Its capacity is about two hundred seats. The building is of light grey stone, and is roofed with Spanish tile, the contrast in the colors giving it a handsome appearance.

     About one hundred yards from the building, or the College, as it is often called, are "Stuart Hall," the dormitory for boys and young men; Glenn Hall," the dormitory for girls and young women: and between the two a spacious Dining Hall. All of these are good sized buildings, and are in every way perfectly suitable for their respective purposes. The boys' dormitory and the dining hall are of the same stone as the main building, and also have Spanish tile roofs. The girls' dormitory is built partly of stone and partly of wood. On the ground around these buildings, covering eighteen acres, are also the house of the caretaker of the Academy building, and a steam heating plant supplying all the buildings. The Academy also owns sixty-eight acres of land, now used as a farm, adjoining the eighteen acres around the buildings. Thus the Institution will have room to expand and extend in the future; and to provide the space to do this was a wise thing.

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The work of the Academy has grown steadily, in the past, and that it will continue to advance in the future, there is no reason to doubt.

     The Academy possesses an extensive and invaluable Library. Additions have been made thereto during the past thirty years, till now it contains about eleven thousand volumes. For a full description of the Library the reader is referred to the Journal of Education, annually published by the Academy. In the Library are also two original oil portraits of Emanuel Swedenborg; and a large collection of portraits of persons prominent in the history of the New Church.

     The original Academy building, at Bryn Athyn, used after the erection of the new building above described, as a dormitory and dining hall, is now occupied as a family hotel, named "The Inn." It is open throughout the year for the accommodation of guests.

     "Cairnwood," mentioned above, is beautifully situated on the highest ground in the immediate vicinity of Bryn Athyn. The environs of the residence,--gardens, yards and lawns,--are adorned with plants and flowers, vines and shrubs and trees, of great variety. Bounding the lawn on the northwest side is a grove of grand old original forest trees. At Cairnwood is presented a fine view of the College of Bryn Athyn and the surrounding country. On a clear day the tower of the City Building in Philadelphia can be seen.

     It is only a fair acknowledgment, to say here, that Bryn Athyn, and also the Academy and the General Church of the New Jerusalem, owe much, in many ways, to the unassuming New Church gentleman, who established the home known as Cairnwood, for his family and for himself; and at the same time a home also, in which to extend his hospitalities to others; and to say, furthermore, that he has been a signal instrumentality in the hands of the Lord, with regard to the ultimate means required, to establish, on an enduring basis. the spiritual uses of the Academy of the New Church, and of the General Church of the New Jerusalem; all of which has been done in the true spirit of the Heavenly Doctrines. It is, indeed, right for us to honor those to whom honor is due, but "they who are wise ascribe all such honor to the Lord," and not to themselves.


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     The Academy is the leading and the most extensive New Church Educational Institution that has hitherto been established in the world. It is incorporated under the laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and holds a Charter "most liberal and comprehensive in its provisions, conferring upon the Academy all the rights, privileges, and immunities common to Scientific Academies, Colleges, and Universities."

     The schools of the Academy and the local school of the Bryn Athyn Society, are distinctively New Church schools. Admission as a pupil or student into the Schools requires that the person shall have been baptized into the New Church. The uses, therefore, alluded to at the beginning of this paper, as being done at Bryn Athyn, are the uses of the education of the young, according to the principles deduced from the Writings of the New Church, and the preparation of young men for the ministry. This work is done as thoroughly as possible, and by no means in a perfunctory manner. The men and women engaged in this important work, from an intense love of their use, and realizing their responsibility in the faithful performance of it, are all most diligent workers. It is a "strenuous life" for them, but they have their reward in the delight they experience in doing spiritual and heavenly uses. Besides their regular duties, each and all of the Professors have done much valuable literary work, such as making translations of portions of Swedenborg's scientific, philosophical, and theological Writings, which had never been translated before; and also other kinds of literary work serviceable to the Church.

     A few words may here be said as to the nature and the aim of the education in the Schools of the Academy. The endeavor is to train the young that they may be fitted for a life of active usefulness in the world; for by such a life there is effected preparation for the life of heaven. This is the true object of all education. In the Schools of the Academy the young receive a religious, at the same time that they receive a secular, education. This is education in the full sense of the word, because the natural, the rational, and the spiritual planes of the mind are formed and cultivated. In the sphere of education on this principle, there is that which tends to kindle the fire and the light of the essentially human life in the mind.

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The young who are trained in this sphere, on coming to the age of maturity, and on entering into the states of manhood and womanhood, will be imbued with the love of truths of doctrine which lead to the good of life, and thus will have an affection for the things of heaven and the Church. They will know the distinction between the New Church and the Old, as it is clearly taught in the Writings; and will become intelligent members of the Lord's New Church.

     The young people of Bryn Athyn have a delightful social life which is thoroughly appreciated by all. Proper amusements, diversions, and social life, so necessary for the young, have been encouraged and promoted in the Academy from the beginning. The number of children and young people, and thus the number of pupils and students, in the Schools, at Bryn Athyn, is steadily increasing. The past two years the number of pupils and students in the Schools was about one hundred and twenty-five. In forty families living in Bryn Athyn and vicinity, there are one hundred and thirty-two children under eighteen years of age. The parents there recognize the significance of the Lord's words: "Suffer the little children, and hinder them not, to come to me; for of such is the kingdom of the heavens." (Matthew xix:14.)

     It was in the year 1895 that the Schools were transferred from Philadelphia to Bryn Athyn; and since then only six children have been removed by death to the spiritual world,--where they are educated in Schools in heaven, and become angels by growing up as to the body, and by coming into a state of intelligence and wisdom as to the mind.

     The Academy is not now, as it was some years ago, a Church body, as well as an Educational Institution, having a ministry and conducting Divine Worship; but the body of the Church, of which those known as "Academy people" are members, and in which they are active and earnest workers, is the General Church of the New Jerusalem. And this body is growing in numbers and in spiritual strength, by having distinctly New Church schools in its societies, and thus by an education the fruit of which is that practically all the young people who grow up in the societies, remain in and become active members of the Church.


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Editorial Department 1906

Editorial Department       Editor       1906

     NOTES AND REVIEWS.

     We wish to call special attention to the communication from the Trustees of the Rotch Legacy Fund, in which our readers are invited to express their opinions to the Trustees as to the "best translation of the title page of the work hitherto known as "Conjugial Love." It is to be hoped that our readers, all if possible, will avail themselves of this invitation to take part in a "plebiscite of reasons." And we hereby invite them to express their views also through the pages of the Life, as well as directly to the Trustees.

     The New Church League-Journal takes exception to our statement, in the March issue of the Life, that "the very meaninglessness of the present badge was the special feature that commended it to the League, enabling the members to 'put what they like into it.'" We had formed this impression from the confession of the designer of the badge that "the 'Swastika' has absolutely no distinctively New Church meaning, per se; that is why I suggested it." (See New Church Life for March, 1905.) The editor of the League-Journal, however, would now revise this statement so as to read: "The very universality of meaning to the present badge was the special feature that commended it to the League, enabling the members to read a new spiritual significance into it."

     And the special new significance which the editor thus "reads into" the Swastika cross is that it means "that the Lord from eternity, who has been worshiped under different names by all nations since the world began, governs all our acts and keeps us in one universal, harmonious, upward movement, even though we be scattered to the four winds. The universality of this emblem makes it especially appropriate, for how can there be anything distinctly New Church that is not for the whole world!"

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While this is very good, so far as it goes, the emblem even with all the "meaning" thus ingeniously "read into it" by our contemporary, still does not seem especially appropriate for a distinctive association of the New Church, since the principle thus read into it is nothing more than what is acknowledged by any member of the Old Church. "The Lord from eternity," the invisible Divine Esse, is not the special object of worship in the New Church, but the visible Lord Jesus Christ, whose glorified Human is revealed in the Heavenly Doctrine of the New Jerusalem.

     The London Swedenborg Society has issued a popular edition of the Work on "The Divine Providence." It appears in large 8vo. containing 184 pages, and is a companion work to "Heaven and Hell," and "God, Creation, Man," already noticed in these pages. The work is for sale at the Academy Book Room.

     "The New Church and Chicago" is the title of a book recently published by the W. B. Conkey, Co. The work appears anonymously, but we are assured by the New Church Messenger that "the author is known to be a prominent member of the Church in Chicago--Col. Rudolph Williams."

     The greater part of the book necessarily deals with the actions of two men, the Hen. J. Young Scammon, and the Rev. J. R. Hibbard,-one the founder and the other the first pastor of the Chicago Society who held that office for about thirty years.

     The Society certainly began in a small way. "There was but one male receiver of the Doctrines in the city--Mr. Scammon himself. But Mr. V. S. Lovell having come in from Elgin on business one day, was invited to Mr. Scammon's house. Mr. Scammon called the meeting to order: Mr. Scammon, chairman; Mr. Lovell, secretary; Mrs. Scammon, audience. They resolved themselves into "The Chicago Society of the New Jerusalem, and elected Mr. Scammon and Mr. Lovell trustees." A record of the proceedings was made and certified, and, armed with this Mr. Scammon applied to the Canal Commissioners for a lot. The Commissioners were not unnaturally surprised at the large demand from the small body, but they eventually yielded when the indomitable Mr. Scammon assured them that the New Jerusalem, though now very small, "was destined to become the largest if not the only church in the world."


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     This was in 1843; two years later the Society had six members. In 1846 the number was increased to fifteen, and in 1849 the Chicago Society was formally inaugurated, and obtained the services of the Rev. I. R. Hibbard as Pastor.

     As illustrative of Mr. Scammon's Swedenborgian activities the author quotes from a newspaper of 1852, an interesting and little known historical fact. The clipping describes a five-dollar bill issued by the Marine Bank of Chicago, of which Mr. Scammon was President. "It is finely engraved, having for a vignette the bust of that distinguished philosopher and theologian, Baron Swedenborg, with rays emanating therefrom, placed between two beautiful women." It would be interesting to know if any of these notes is still in existence.

     Col Williams' work, which is illustrated with a number of portraits, is a valuable contribution to the history of the New Church, and will be welcomed by the student and historian, as well as by those who are particularly interested in the Society whose growth it chronicles. It is to be hoped that members of other New Church Societies will follow Col. Williams' excellent example.
"CENSUS OF THE NEW CHURCH." 1906

"CENSUS OF THE NEW CHURCH."              1906

     Under this caption Mr. Clarence W. Barren has published the results of the recent census instituted by the Rotch Trustees with a view to discovering how best to lead people to the New Church. About 3,000 blanks were sent out to as many Newchurchmen, asking them a number of questions, the leading ones being as to the way in which they first heard of the New Church. The replies received numbered about 800, and it is on these that the observations and conclusions of the author are based.

     The introductory observations are truly remarkable, though more for strangeness than for sensibility or soundness. Thus, apparently in defense of an exclusively, or at any rate, mainly, missionary propaganda for the Church, he avers that "introspection" with regard to our communal relations is more important than individual introspection;

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"It is more our duty to see if our trust relations with our neighbor are being satisfied, than it is to see if within ourselves we are headed aright. It is more the duty of every man aboard ship to keep his outlook than to keep his inlook." In other words, it is more important to look out for collisions than for leaks! This appears to be the policy of many of our Church bodies for while the interest of their own members is slowly but surely decaying with the new generation, nothing, or worse than nothing is done to stop the decay; the whole cry is for missionary work. The "outlook" upon the world, and the means to bring in the world, to avoid offence to it,--this "outlook" is keen, but the "inlook" is rare, and the sight it reveals is not pleasant. Witness the following from the pen of the Rev. W. L. Worcester, which appears in "The Helper" of April 4th: "It has happened often in the New Church, that the members of a family in one generation study earnestly the Scriptures and the doctrines of the Church, they read them for their very life. The members of the same family in the next generation have an inherited respect for the doctrines but give them little personal thought or study. The children's children know little about the truth which was so precious to those of two generations back....and drift to one form of religion or another with indifference." And yet, in the face of this appalling fact, we are still assured that the "outlook" is more important than the "inlook!"

     Mr. Barron further observes that "the descending light of the New Age has been more without our organizations than within them:" that the organized New Church "has been caught on a 'dead center' for the last generation, while the light is flying in fragments all around about outside us." And with this illuminating remark he proceeds to lay before his readers the results of the census.

     Of the eight hundred replies received, 535 were from persons not brought up in the New Church, and it is with these latter that the paper deals. A tabulation of their replies shows that 228 (42-1/2 per cent.) came into the Church as a result of conversations with a friend: 95 (17-3/4 per cent.) from reading the Writings, and the same number from reading of collateral works; 42 (7-3/4 per cent.) from reading other printed matter-advertisements, cyclopaedias, etc.


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     From these figures, Mr. Barron draws the natural conclusion that, after "conversations with a friend," the reading of the Writings is the most important agency in bringing the New Church to the attention of strangers; for though as many people, (95), came into the Church from reading collateral literature, on the other hand the distribution of the latter so far outweighs in quantity and number that of the former as to conclusively indicate that the Writings themselves are the most powerful agency, though collateral works also have an important place. But the most remarkable indication of the statistics, duly noted by the compiler, is the smallness of the number brought into the church by direct personal missionary efforts. It would seem to indicate the printing press as the main missionary agency of the Church.

     Mr. Barron then proceeds to draw lessons from the fact that of the eight hundred replies only 260 (32-1/2 per cent.) were from persons brought up in the Church. On this he comments, with apparent approval, that in these figures "the striking new fact is brought forth that the growth of the New Church is entirely dependent upon the spread of the light without its borders. In other words, the New Church is not within itself a growing organization. Within itself, it is a decadent organization." And in explanation of this "striking new fact," the writer continues: "Great or deep thinkers (Newchurchmen?) are seldom great fathers or great grandfathers. Libraries are not the family creators. Shakespeares and Newtons do not spawn (!).... The New Church does not go by family descent or inheritance." Most certainly not,-so far as most of the Bodies of the Church are concerned. But we were not aware that this was a "new fact" though it is most certainly "striking." Attention has been called to it again and again in the pages of the Life. Nor will the devout Newchurchman meet with aught but denial the statement that the New Church "is a decadent organization;" or the dreadful suggestion that coming into the light of the Church will result in the (natural) limitation of offspring. Where the Lord is there is growth and increase; and, according to the Writings, man's virility and potency are the fruits of the love of spiritual truth.


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     Yet it is a fact, and a fact becoming daily more apparent, that with the exception of the General Church, the organizations of the New Church are not, within themselves, growing organizations; that "their forward life is in the fresh life of their new recruits." And the reason is not abstruse nor far to seek. These organizations do not grow because they more or less neglect the only true source of growth,-an increase in the reading, and preaching of the Doctrines of the Church, in the reception of them as new and spiritual truths, and in the inculcation of them in the minds of the children of the Church. The New Church cannot really grow unless there is a growth in the knowledge of the Lord, and this growth lies essentially in the birth and education of children whose inheritance is the fruit of Conjugial Love. And how can this essential source of both internal and external growth be attained when the bodies of the Church are favoring marriage outside the Church, and fraternization, religious and social, with the Old Church?-when they are favoring these and opposing with vigorous acrimony any movement for the real distinctiveness of the Church as obtained by a distinctive education, and distinctive social life? Is it any wonder that the organizations decay from within and continually need recruits from without? And yet, though this "striking new fact" is now acknowledged, the old cry is still continued: The outlook is more important than the "inlook."
HYBRIDIZATION AND SEXES IN PLANTS 1906

HYBRIDIZATION AND SEXES IN PLANTS              1906

     The following letter raises an interesting question in connection with the discussion on Sexes in Plants:

Editor New Church Life:--

     I have read your article on Spermatogenesis with great interest, but in some instances I am unable to see how your analogies can be carried out to their logical conclusion. I have the greatest difficulty in applying your analogies to the phenomenon of Hybridization. I fail to see how two males, (take for examples a blackberry plant and a raspberry plant), can produce a hybrid seed.

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Would not this be, according to your analogies, as if a soul should proceed from the cerebrum of a Negro into the cerebellum of an Indian and in him be formed into a half-breed sperm! Hoping that you will elucidate this matter, I am, Yours respectfully, ARTHUR B. WELLS.

     Our correspondent has here brought out the most plausible argument of the bi-sexualists. The fact of Hybridization, the possibility of producing a new variety by the crossing of two distinct species of plants, is held to be proof irrefutable of the theory that plants possess bi-sexuality as surely as do animals, who may be similarly crossed.

     The appearance of sexes in plants is certainly strong, an appearance which is freely admitted in the Writings, but the question at issue is not one of appearances but of principle and truth.

     Plants are not individuals in the same sense that men and animals are. Plants do not have individual and independent souls, as men and animals have but the "vegetative souls" are all varying forms of the common Vegetative Soul, which is Use. We must distinguish between animal souls and the vegetative soul. "That every animal has a soul is known, for they live, and life is a soul, wherefore also in the Word they are called 'living souls.'" (A. E. 1199). But plants are not living souls because "their prime substances are destitute of life." (Ath. Creed 26.) "The things in the animal kingdom are correspondences in the first degree because they live; the things in the vegetable kingdom are correspondences in the second degree because they only grow, (H. H. 104), and this because "plants are uses, but animals are affections," (D. L. W. 346).

     If, therefore, plants be looked upon as uses rather than as forms of actual life, it may be seen that different plants of the same species are nothing but forms of the same use. In the case of diaecious plants, a staminate plant is not a complete use, nor even a complete vegetative form, without its corresponding pistillate counterpart, but together they form one complete use and one complete vegetative unit. Now, tall plants are diaecious in the sense that cross-fertilization is the general rule in the vegetable kingdom. It is seldom that the pollen of one plant fertilizes the pistil of the same plant, and to prevent self-fertilization nature has generally placed the stamens lower than the pistil, so that the stigma shall not come in contact with the pollen produced by the stamens of the same flower.

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The almost universal rule is that the pollen of one plant is carried over, by the wind or by insects, to the pistil of another plant of the same species,--the two plants thus acting as one use in this relation, or as one complete vegetative unit, a unit which, according to the Writings, is always male.

     If our correspondent is ready to admit that the analogy, (which is not our analogy but the analogy of the Writings), between human and vegetable Spermatogenesis is in general correct, and if he is able to see that cross-fertilization between two plants of the same species is the act of one individual vegetative soul or use, there may be less difficulty with the phenomenon of hybridization. "It is obvious," says the writer on Horticulture in the Encyclopedia Britannica, (vol. XIII p. 216), "that hybridization differs more in degree than in kind from cross-fertilization. The artificial process is practically the same in hybridization as in cross-fertilization but usually requires more care." Moreover, "species belonging to distinct genera can rarely, and those belonging to distinct families can never be crossed." "When pollen from a plant of one family is placed on the stigma of a plant of a distinct family, it exerts no more influence than so much inorganic dust." And, as is well known, "as a general rule, plants belonging to distinct species are not able, when crossed with each other, to produce offspring. (Ibid. pp. 422. 425.)

     Hybridization, therefore, can be effected only between nearly allied plants, (and but seldom among these), from which it is evident that there is, in such cases, so close an affinity, (whether internal or external), between the uses of the two plants that they represent practically the same use, and thus, in the act of fertilization, act as one individual vegetable unit. Vegetable hybridization, therefore, is no more analogous to the influx of the soul from the cerebrum of a Negro into the cerebellum of an Indian, than ordinary cross-fertilization, is analogous to an influx from the cerebrum of one male man into the cerebellum of another male man of the same race.


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     Men and animals are affections,--men spiritual, and animals natural affections; but plants are merely forms of natural use. Among affections there are two universal kinds: the affection of good and the affection of truth, and it is from this origin that there are two distinct sexes amen men and animals. Plants, however, are not affections, and hence there is not amongst them the universal duality of sea, but all of them, in relation to the earth, perform the function or use of the male sex, even as, in relation to each other, they perform the function of the various seed-creating organs of male man, and this because, on the spiritual plane, all of them represent TRUTH and things of Truth.
REV. E. S. HYATT 1906

REV. E. S. HYATT       F. E. WAELCHLI       1906

     IN MEMORIAM.

(Extracts from an address at a memorial meeting held at Parkdale, Toronto, Canada, March 25th, 1906.)

     In the life of Mr. Hyatt were exemplified the words of Scripture: "He that is least among you all, the same shall be great." Most humble, modest and unassuming, he was as one who was least; yet he was great,--great in love of his use, in devotion of his energies to it, and in ability to perform it. He was a profound student of the Writings and possessed an interior understanding of the various general doctrines of the Church. But the doctrine which he loved more than any other was that concerning the Word, and especially this teaching therein, that the Writings of the New Church are the Word of the, Lord in its internal sense.

     It seems a matter of regret that not more of the results of Mr. Hyatt's theological studies has been preserved. He published but little, probably because he thought that what he produced was not worthy of publication. Fortunately we have something of his work remaining in the New Church Tidings, of which he was the editor for some time after the separation from the Canada Association.

     It is said that a man's work lives after him. And most excellent work of Mr. Hyatt's lives after him in the pages of the Tidings.

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Everyone who loves to read interior presentations of the truth of doctrine will find much to benefit and delight him in the numbers of that periodical that appeared' during Mr. Hyatt's editorship.

     Another work living after him is that which he did on the Swedenborg Concordance. To this he made many additions and noted cross-references. It is to be hoped that the results of this labor may some day be at the disposal of all students of the Writings.

     But the greatest work of the man, living after him, is the Parkdale Society of the New Church. When he came to Parkdale, eighteen years ago, there was but one layman here affirmative to the principles of the Academy. To-day we see this large and flourishing society, in which old and young are devoted to advancing the cause of the true New Church. Truly he must have been a great man,--a worthy and capable instrument in the hands of the Lord,--who could accomplish such a work. In him this society had as its pastor a deep theologian; not, however, an abstract theologian, but one intensely practical. Some of you may remember his once saying in the course of discussion at a meeting of the Canada Association: "The doctrines of the New Church are nothing if not practical." He was ever looking for that which was practical in doctrine, for the application to life; he was one of those faithful shepherds who led by truth to the good of life. In his sermons all teaching centered in the shunning of evil as sin. It was because such was his teaching that we see today so grand a result of his work.

     Besides being an able theologian, he was also learned in science and worldly knowledge. But this did not much appear, for in his company spiritual things were almost always the subject of conversation.

     There were few who knew Mr. Hyatt intimately. To most people he seemed reserved and taciturn. But the truth is that he was exceedingly shy and timid in his intercourse with others, and often, in order to cover up these qualities, he put on an exterior that seemed hard and cold. But when in the pulpit or in the teacher's chair, all shyness and timidity would always disappear.

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He was then ever positive, strong and courageous.


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     Of Mr. Hyatt's early life I know but little. He was not given to speaking of himself. Before he entered upon his studies for the ministry, he was. I believe, engaged in some commercial pursuit. He began his studies in the Theological School of the English Conference. But neither he nor his fellow-student, the Rev. W. H. Acton, were satisfied with the instruction given, and on the completion of their course they refused ordination, and came to Philadelphia to continue their studies in the Academy. This was in the year 1885 At the close of the first year Mr. Hyatt returned to England for the vacation and was there married, and then brought his wife to America with him. At the close of his third year, on the 10th of June, 1888, he was ordained, together with Mr. Price, Mr. Odhner and myself. After ms ordination he went to Erie, Pa., where he had worked during the preceding summer, and after three months there he received a call to Parkdale.

     I cannot say that I learned to know Mr. Hyatt well during the three years we were together as students. It was not until we became closely associated in the work here in Canada that I cane to truly know the man,--to know him better, perhaps, than he was known by any other minister of the Church,--and willingly and gladly I looked to him, as did all those acknowledging Academy principles, as our leader in the struggle through which the Church in Canada passed. A great and able leader he proved himself,--a strong champion of the Truth.

     This tribute I wish to offer to his memory: That I am the better for having known him. And I am sure that all those who were under his ministration can say the same. His work here is ended. He has gone to resume that use which he loved so much, and to which he devoted the best energies of his life. The Lord has work for him to do in His heavenly kingdom, and his happiness will be, as it was here, in the doing of it. He has entered into the eternal fulfillment of the words: "We that is least among you all, the same shall be great."
F. E. WAELCHLI.


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ACKNOWLEDGMENT 1906

ACKNOWLEDGMENT       J. A. POWELL       1906

EDITOR New Church Life:--

     In respect to your answer to my communication regarding the "Diaecious Plants" in the March number of the Life, I feel it may not be out of place to say that you have done all that I asked you to do, in explaining the "knotty points" indicated in my communication.

     I recognize that I was somewhat at fault in some cases in not understanding certain principles, and in total ignorance, in some other cases. I refer to representation, function, and so-called "change of sex" in this class of plants. I may further say that I have modified my opinion considerably as to it being such a difficult matter or enterprise to explain these "scientific facts" so as to Show them to be in accord with the statement in the Doctrines that plants are masculine in sex.
Very truly yours,
J. A. POWELL.
Richmond. Ind., March 28, 1906.
"CONJUGIAL LOVE" OR "MARRIAGE LOVE." 1906

"CONJUGIAL LOVE" OR "MARRIAGE LOVE."       Various       1906

Editor New Church Life:--

     The Trustees of the Rotch Fund in completing their new Edition of Swedenborg's Works, which it is expected will be accomplished nest year, have decided to ask the consensus of opinion of the members of the New Church as to the best translation of the Title Page of the work hitherto known as "Conjugial Love." In view of the fact that Rev. J. F. Potts in his Concordance the abbreviation "M. L" when he desires to refer to it, and in view of the fact that there seems to be a growing impression among the scholars of the Church that it would be well to translate all of the Latin into idiomatic English where it can properly be done, the Rotch Trustees would like to get the opinions of those who care to give them as to whether the present Title of the Book is the best. It is hoped and expected that this new Edition when completed will be the standard for the New Church for a long time to come.

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The Trustees have in mind, of course, the fact that the present title has been universally used, and is endeared to all New Church people, and they realize that any change in the Title should be made only after a strong and intelligent demand has arisen for it. The Trustees, through the medium of your paper, request any who may be interested to send their views on this subject to James E. Young, No. 910 Pemberton Building, Boston, Massachusetts.
HORACE. P. CHANDLER,
WARREN GODDARD,
JAMES E. YOUNG,
Trustees of the Rotch Legacy,
March 23, 1906.
HEAVENLY DOCTRINE DEFENDED AGAINST SCANDAL 1906

HEAVENLY DOCTRINE DEFENDED AGAINST SCANDAL       WILLIAM HYDE ALDEN       1906

(The following letter was offered to the New Church Messenger, but was rejected.)

EDITOR New Church Messenger:--

     I desire to call attention to, and to protest against certain language used in the long article by Mr. William McGeorge. Jr. entitled "Gleanings from the Sunday School Lessons," with the subhead, "The Functions of Moses and Aaron," contained in your issue for March 7th. The whole article seems to me seriously misleading, but certain brief assertions in it are conspicuously false, and convey a grievous charge against not only "the most learned men" of the New Church, but against the Doctrines themselves. The writer says on page 154:

     "If doctrine was drawn only from the internal sense of the Word, would some of our most learned men teach that violations of the sixth commandment were 'allowable?'"

     The writer does not directly say who these "learned men" are who are the objects of this charge, but from the fact that the Academy is mentioned early in the article, and from other earmarks, it may reasonably be inferred that it is the leaders of the Academy who are thus charged, and that we are to understand that it is the teaching of the Academy that in certain cases "violations of the sixth commandment are 'allowable.'"

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I wish to declare from full knowledge that this charge is, without reservation, false. The Academy does not and never has taught any such thing.

     But the writer of the article offends even more grievously, for he makes a similar charge against the second part of the work on Conjugial Love. He says:

     "The doctrine which teaches that certain violations of the sixth commandment are 'allowable' is drawn only from the second part of the book on Conjugial Love, which on its face treats only of

     'Insanities' and nowhere pretends to be drawn from the Word, and concerning which Swedenborg himself wrote that 'it does not treat of theology, but chiefly of morals.' (See Tafel's Documents, Vol. II., Part I., p. 306.) Is it not doctrine run wild, that will cause one to affirm from things therein found, and the purpose of which is plainly misunderstood, that those very things are 'allowable,' which in Swedenborg's other writings,--when he is explaining the very commandment in question, at which times he received instruction only from the Lord Himself,--are said to 'close heaven and open hell, so far as they are believed to be allowable.' (A. E. 982.) In this connection see n. 16. Continuation Last Judgment as to the effect of any one believing that such things are 'allowable.'"

     This language, on the face of it, asserts that Swedenborg teaches in the second part of Conjugial Love that certain things are "allowable," which in other of his works he teaches will "close heaven and open hell." If this is what is intended, the statement is either deliberately false or is due to deplorable ignorance, There is no contradiction between the teaching of Swedenborg in the second part of Conjugial Love and that found in other portions of his works. I shall not even undertake were to defend this proposition which seems to me self-evident to anyone who will examine with candid mind. The teaching of the second part of Conjugial Love, is, quite as much as the first part, as much as the rest of the works of Swedenborg, given to men in the Lord's Second Coming, a past of the revelation made in that Second Coming, and is, with the rest, essential to the establishment of the New Church and to the salvation of men.

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Nowhere does it contain any teaching that it is "allowable" for men to enter into the evils forbidden by the sixth commandment.

     The implication of the article that "the doctrine that teaches that certain violations of the sixth commandment are 'allowable'" can be drawn from the second part of Conjugial Love, risks far more serious consequences than are involved even in the unjust accusation against the Academy. For, let it be supposed for a moment that such a doctrine as the writer describes, was taught, even by implication, in any one of Swedenborg's works, then the whole of his teaching would he tainted. The work on Conjugial Love was published by Swedenborg in the series of works which are incontestably the Revelation made by the Lord in His Second Coming. It was prepared and published among the latest of these books, barely two years before the final and crowning work, The True Christian Religion, containing the Universal Theology of the New Church, which indeed refers back to it, and to this very part of it, which our writer asserts to teach that "certain violations of the sixth commandment are 'allowable.' " If then this charge were true, even by implication, every one of the theological works which are the very charter of the New Church faith, would be condemned. Admit for a moment that such a doctrine is contained in one of the theological works by which the New Church is established, and the whole structure of the doctrine of the New Church falls like a house of cards. Admit this, and all the beautiful things which are contained elsewhere in the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg are but the ingenious gilding which hides the seed of rank corruption; it is the fly in the ointment of the apothecary; it is the drop of pollution at the fountain-head which poisons all that proceeds from it.

     Do we think that the fact that Swedenborg, in others of his books, declared that violations of this commandment "closed heaven and opened hell" would save him from this condemnation? This would be "Satan casting out Satan." How then could his kingdom stand? This would be "a house divided against itself," which we are assured by the Divine Word, would "come to desolation."

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Is it supposed that the fact that Swedenborg declared in a private letter that this work was a work treating not of "theology, but chiefly of morals," would ward off the condemnation which would be justly visited upon this work, if what our writer says of it were true' The opponents of the New Church might readily smile at such a puerile plea. No, the doctrine that "certain violations of the sixth commandment are 'allowable,'" is not found in all the length and breadth of the books of Swedenborg, neither in the second part of Conjugial Love nor anywhere else.

     The doctrine of the New Church respecting marriage stands alone in an evil world as the means by which men may be raised up out of the adulterous conditions of a fallen and vastate church. To strike at the purity and consistency of that doctrine is to strike a blow at the Heavenly Doctrines of the New Church in their most vital part. We may indeed be thankful to the Lord that the Doctrine itself can suffer nothing from such an attack; but let us beware how we suffer such an attack to be made: for he who makes it, and those who follow him, will, by the falsity which they have conceived and accepted, destroy in themselves that faith in the truth of Divine Revelation upon which their very salvation depends.
WILLIAM HYDE ALDEN.
Philadelphia, March 12, 1906.


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Church News 1906

Church News       Various       1906

     FROM OUR CORRESPONDENTS.

     CHICAGO, ILL. On Wednesday, March 14th, Mr. Charles F. Browne gave a lecture upon the History of American Sculpture, illustrated with a stereopticon. The lecturer pointed out the crudities of the earlier workers in marble and bronze with witty and good-natured appreciation of their lack of artistic conception and handling. He led up gradually to the work of the present day, in which the American sculptors are taking a leading part. Even with very little knowledge of the subject one could see the great strides which have been made by our countrymen in this exquisite department of art.

     The lecture was given in place of our regular doctrinal class, and was attended by members of both the Immanuel and Sharon churches.     E. V. W.

     TORONTO, ONT. On the 21st of March Mr. Hyatt, our former pastor, passed into the Spiritual World, and, on the Sunday evening following, March 25th, the memorial service was held in the church.

     A short account of Mr. Hyatt's work in the Church, up till the time he took charge of the Toronto Society, was given by our pastor, Mr. Cronlund, who dwelt particularly on his love of the truth for its own sake, always shown in his work both as student and priest.

     Mr. Waelchli, of Berlin, gave an eloquent address on the work, character and influence of Mr. Hyatt. In speaking of his work as teacher, pastor and student of the Heavenly Doctrines, he declared we had had a "great man" among us,--a man who was always a deep and thoughtful student of the Writings. Mr. Waelchli also spoke feelingly of the friendship that developed between them after he himself became pastor of the Berlin Society.

     Several members of the Society spoke affectionately of the work Mr. Hyatt had done among us, and Mr. Carswell read a letter he had received, while in California, from Mr. Hyatt, at the beginning of his pastorate in Toronto, outlining his duties as a priest of the Academy.

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The personality of our late pastor was vividly recalled as we listened to the familiar style of his written words.

     Two of our young men, former pupils of Mr. Hyatt, spoke affectionately of his work in the school.

     Mr. Hyatt was a worthy instrument in the Lord's hands, and, it is owing to his earnest and unceasing labors that we now have a firmly established society of the General Church in Parkdale.

     Although our thoughts on this occasion were naturally serious they were also blended with a feeling of joy that our faithful pastor would now be enjoying, in greater fullness than ever before, the use of those faculties of loving and understanding the truth, which had, for so long been in abeyance.

     On January 3d Mr. and Mrs. Cronlund held a reception in their home to welcome Bishop Pendleton, who had stopped over on his way from Berlin, and whom we all enjoyed having with us again. Toasts were the order of the evening, and the speeches which followed gave a newsy description of the events of the District Assembly.

     Swedenborg's Birthday was celebrated at the church on the evening of the 28th of January. An interesting and instructive paper was read by the pastor on Swedenborg, and the toasts were to The Love of Serving, The Love of Learning, The Love of Truth, The Love of Country; in all which loves Swedenborg had excelled.

     The Young Peoples' Club has given two very enjoyable socials this season--one on the 27th of December, the other on the 16th of March. Another interesting event was the banquet, given by the Club after the Young Peoples' Class on the 15th of January, in honor of four of the members who had recently come of age. Suitable toasts were replied to by the guests of honor, and each of the four was presented with a copy of the Writings.

     Our Society has been strengthened by another marriage--that of Miss Margaret McColl and Mr. Fred Longstaff, which took place on the 12th of February. The church was beautifully decorated for the service, adding much to the sphere of joy and gladness.

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The young couple have the best wishes of the Society for a happy future.

     One of the pleasantest social gatherings we have had for a long time was the German given at the church by Mr. and Mrs. Ernest Bellinger, on the 19th of February, in honor of the anniversary of Mr. Bellinger's 50th birthday. At supper the cake, with its fifty candles, was a pretty sight, and the quaint German custom of crowning the host with a green wreath, and tying flowers on his arm, was carried out, before he rose to welcome his guests. Afterwards, with Mrs. Caldwell at the piano, favorite songs were indulged in, especially German ones, until the wee small hours. S.

     BERLIN, ONT. On the 22d of March a number of the men of the Carmel church men and organized a club for the study of Swedenborg's scientific works. The reading of the "Animal Kingdom" was begun, under the leadership of Dr. Robert Schnarr.

     On Friday evening, March 236. the monthly social took the form of a Masquerade. About forty persons were in costume. The designs were in most cases perfect, and there were many surprises when the time came for unmasking. Prizes were given for the best and also for the most amusing costumes.     W.

     THE MISSIONARY FIELD. On the evening of February 20th. I was at the weekly doctrinal class held by the members and friends of the New Church in the city of LONDON, CAN. Nine persons, all adults, were present. The reading was the Universals and Particulars of the Faith of the New Heaven and the New Church. The phase of the subject considered was the assumption of the Human, the Glorification, and the work of Redemption. The explanations of the doctrine given, were received with evident appreciation. The meeting was held at the home of an aged lady, Mrs. Catherine Gunn. The following evening, at the home of Mr. and Mrs. H. B. White, with a smaller number present, the subject was further considered in conversation.

     In GORAND RAPIDS, Mich., an evening was passed in conversation with a new reader of the Writings, who is a nephew of a devout member of the General Church. Mrs. E. N. Grigg.


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     Sunday, March 4th, I was at KALAMAZOO, Mich. Our meeting was held in the office of our venerable brother, Judge Wm. W. Peck, and lasted four hours. A sermon was read, after which we had conversation on several important points of the Heavenly Doctrine. There were only three of us. Judge Peck, Mr. B. C. Henyon and myself. But there was a delightful sphere.

     Three days were passed with Mr. and Mrs. John D. Fogle, BOURBON, Ind. who always give the missionary a true New Church welcome.

     I was with the New Church people at KOKOMO, Ind., over Sunday, March 11th. The number present at our meeting, in the afternoon, was seven, all being adults. A sermon was read, and an animated conversation followed. The Kokomo friends are diligent readers of the Writings, and consequently are intelligent, warm and earnest in the faith, and full of zeal for the distinctive New Church, according to the spirit of the Revelation in which the Lord has made His Second Advent.
JOHN E. BOWERS.

     FROM OUR CONTEMPORARIES.

     UNITED STATES. The Rev. S. H. Spencer, editor of The New Christianity, died on March 26th. Mr. Spencer has been in the ministry of the New Church for upwards of thirty years.

     The BOSTON, Mass., Society has inaugurated a series of Vesper Services on Sunday afternoon, which are reported to be remarkably well attended. On one Sunday over a hundred people were unable to obtain admission owing to the crowded state of the church, which is capable of seating some eight hundred people. These vesper services are a new experiment in the Boston Society, and are designed principally for the general public.

     The Rev. John Whitehead, formerly the pastor of the Detroit Society, is now engaged in giving a course of lectures, at Metaphysical Hall, Boston, on The Soul and its Kingdom. Some of the lectures have been noticed in the Boston Transcript. Mr. Whitehead's family is still in Detroit.

     At the request of the DETROIT, MICH, Society, which is now without a pastor, the Rev. W. H. Alden visited Detroit some time ago and preached before the Society for two Sundays.

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The Rev. E. J. E. Schreck has also visited Detroit for the same purpose.

     The Single Tax Settlement at FAIRHOPE, Ala., where are some twelve or fourteen persons, more or less receiving the Doctrines, was visited last February by the Rev. W. H. Hinkley. Mr. Hinkley preached in the only church in the town, the Campbellite Baptist and the services were well attended. As a result of his visit the New Church people have formed a Reading Circle and have inaugurated a small circulating library.

     CANADA. The BERLIN Society celebrated Swedenborg's Birthday by a social meeting at which various papers on the Life of Swedenborg were read. In the middle of February, the pastor, the Rev. W. E. Brickman, delivered an address to the local branch of the Y. M. C. A., on the subject of Sports and Recreations. The address was published in full by the Berlin Daily Telegraph.

     GREAT BRITAIN. On February 25th, the Rev. R. R. Rodgers, pastor of the BIRMINGHAM Society, celebrated the fortieth anniversary of his ministry to the Society. Mr. Rodgers took as his text the words of Moses. "I have led you forty years in the wilderness," with which text he "connected" a discourse taking a general review of his pastorate. Mr. Rodgers' is, with one exception, the longest continuous ministry in the Church in England. The exception is the Rev. James Boys, who was minister of the Radcliffe Society from 1840 to 1886.

     On March 7th the Junior Members' Society at KEARSLEY presented to the parent society a fine portrait of Swedenborg, handsomely framed. The presentation had been intended as a commemoration of Swedenborg's Birthday, but it was found impossible to have the enlarged portrait ready by January 27th.

     The Rev. James Hyde has resigned the pastorate of the Argyle Square (LONDON) Society.

     The pastor of the Kensington Society, the Rev. Thomas Child, passed into the Spiritual World on March 23d, at the age of sixty-six years. Mr. Child was one of the most prominent ministers of the English Conference, where he was especially noted as an Eloquent public speaker and an able controversialist. He is also the author of several small works, the last being written in answer to Haeckel's "Riddle of the Universe."


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     The Rev. A. C. White, pastor of the new Society at SOUTH-END-ON-SEA, is reported as suffering from nervous breakdown and has been obliged to discontinue all active duties. Mr. White is quite a young man, being only twenty-two years old, but be has been speaking in public since he was sixteen, and he is said to be of a maturity beyond his years.

     FRANCE. On the 11th of March Mr. Ackroyd, who for the preceding eleven months had conducted the services of the PARIS Society, gave his farewell discourse to the small English speaking congregation that assembles on the second Sunday of each month. On the following Sunday, March 18th, Mr. Ackroyd took leave of the French congregation. In recognition of his disinterested and devoted work for the Society he was presented by the members with a copy of Tafel's "Documents concerning Swedenborg." As yet no arrangements have been made to secure a successor to Mr. Ackroyd.

     SWITZERLAND. The death of Miss Philippine von Struve at ZURICH, on January 3, 1906, marks the departure of one of the most interested and interesting members of the New Church in the German speaking world, the last link which connected the present with the days of Prof. Immanuel Tafel. Having received the Doctrines of the New Church in 1848, she was one of the most intimate friends and assistants of Prof. Tafel, and after his death, in 1863, she, together with Prof. Pfirsch and Miss Julie von Conring, solemnly pledged themselves to carry forward his work to the best of their abilities. A New Church publishing association was forthwith founded, a use which was continued afterwards by Mr. Theodor Mullensiefen, and later on by Mr. J. G. Mittnacht, and which still is active in Stuttgart.

     Having settled in Zurich, in 1861, she became the center of the New Church activities there, and has been intimately associated with the important and successful uses of the Rev. Fedor Goerwitz. Her home at the quaint and ancient "Zum Frieden," in Oberstrass, (which is also the home of Mr. and Mrs. Goerwitz, and the place of worship of the Zurich New Church society), was the social center of the Church, where, at her weekly Thursday afternoon receptions, old and young were inspired by this wonderful old lady, whose talents, culture, rich experiences, doctrinal knowledge, undoubting faith and never-tiring zeal were of encouragement to all with whom she came in contact.

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Thus she lived, a blessing to the whole Church, until she reached the high old age of ninety-seven years, when she quietly passed away.

     BRAZIL. In a letter to Morning Light of March 13th a member of the Church in Brazil, who is now travelling in Europe, gives a brief but interesting account of the state of the Church in Rio de Janeiro. The founder of the Church in Brazil was Senor L. C. de la Fayette, who brought the doctrines to Rio de Janeiro in 1896 (1894? See New Church Life, 1991, p. 567.) The congregation then formed has grown from six members to over a hundred and fifty, some of whom are men prominent in the Brazilian world. But the finances of the Society at present hold out little prospect of their being able to build a place of worship. The services are now conducted in a private house, where one room is also set apart for the business of The General Association of the New Church in Brazil. This Association is the publisher of La Nova Jerusalem, and is also the manager of a fund which has been started for the translation and printing of the Writings in Portuguese.

     Outside of Rio there is no New Church public worship in Brazil, but there are a number of isolated receivers scattered over the country, singly and in small groups, all of whom, with one exception, have come to a knowledge of the doctrines through the agency of M. de la Fayette.

     M. de la Fayette is now on a business undertaking in Chili, which, if successful, will result in giving ampler means for the expansion of the Church in Brazil. M. de la Fayette, who, in Rio de Janeiro, was engaged in the teaching of history and languages, devoted almost the whole of his private means to the propagation of the Doctrines.

     An account is also given of the manner in which M. de la Fayette himself came into the New Church. It was in 1892 while he was Chancellor of the Brazilian Consulate in Paris. He was at that time much interested in a study of the occult sciences.

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Early one morning, while he was at the public library uncertain as to what book he should ask for, "he distinctly heard a voice say 'Demandez Swedenborg,' and turning in surprise to see who had spoken, he found himself quite alone." However, he obeyed the voice, and was given a volume of Arcana Coelestia, which he read with interest and at once accepted. Soon afterwards se was baptized into the Church by M. Human.
LORD'S RESURRECTION 1906

LORD'S RESURRECTION       Rev. ALFRED ACTON       1906


     Announcements.


     


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NEW CHURCH LIFE.
VOL. XXVI.     JUNE, 1906     NO. 6.
     In the early days of the New Church the subject of the Lord's Resurrection was one which excited the deepest interest and the most thorough research on the part of the leading theologians of the Church. The doctrine has been comparatively little discussed since those days, and the views now held in the New Church with regard to it are in no way an advance on those which were so ably promulgated by the students of over seventy-five years ago, whose writings indeed form the only literature on the subject. In these writings two distinct views are sought to be established, the one that the Lord rose with the material body glorified, and the other that the material body was rejected in the sepulcher. This difference of view, which has come down to our own day, has its basis in two distinct and apparently contradictory teachings in the Writings of the Church, and it is the purpose of the present paper to examine these two teachings and to endeavor to indicate the intrinsic harmony between them.

     TWO SETS OF PASSAGES.

     The principal passage to which those appeal who uphold what has been called the "dissipation theory," that is, that the material body was cast off in the sepulcher, is found in The Athanasian Creed, a posthumous work which was written by Swedenborg about the year 1761. The passage in question is as follows:


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     "That the Lord put off all the maternal in the sepulcher, and, rising thence, glorified Himself, and that therefore He died, is evident from what the Lord said concerning the seed cast into the earth, that it first died; and also from what He said to the woman that she should not touch Him as yet, because He was not yet ascended to the Father. For in the sepulcher every such thing [i. e., the maternal] was to be dissipated.

     "That in the sepulcher, thus by death, the Lord rejected and dissipated all the human from the mother, from which He underwent temptations and the passion of the Cross, and this because it could not be conjoined with the Divine itself; and that thus He assumed a Human from the Father; thus that the Lord arose with a Human wholly and fully glorified,-this also is from the Faith of the Church, that He conquered death, that is, hell, and rose again triumphant. The third day on which He rose signifies complete, and entire." (Ath. Creed, 161-162.)

     It is to be observed that the unique importance of the above passages lies, not as may be supposed by some readers, in the teaching that the maternal human was wholly rejected in the sepulcher, but in the teaching as to the manner of that rejection, namely, by being dissipated. So far as we know there is no other passage where this is stated quite so emphatically, though in the Apocalypse Explained, 706, (quoted below), it is said that the Lord's Body "would be dissolved."

     But there is abundance of teaching to the effect that the maternal human was wholly cast off, and that the final act of expulsion was in the sepulcher; this, in fact, is what is involved in the oft-recurring statement that the Lord "successively put off the human from the mother and put on the Human from the Father." Thus we read:

     "The body of Christ, in that it was of the substance of the mother, was not life in itself, but a recipient of life from the Divine in Him, which was Life in Itself.... As far as He took on Life in Itself from the Divine in Himself, so far he put off the human from the mother and put on the Human from the Father." (Canons, Redeemer, ix. 3, 5.)

     Here it is evident that "the body," which was a form "recipient of life from the Divine," was also cast off. Of the maternal human we read, further, that it was entirely expelled so that nothing of it remained. (A. C. 2150, 2288, 2635, 3318); that it was separated and fully rejected (ibid. 2649), utterly exterminated (ib. 4563), expelled forever, (ib. 4593); blotted out (ib. 5134), utterly destroyed and extirpated (ib. 6872), died on the cross (ib. 2818). And again we learn that "the Lord put off nature, which in itself is dead, and yet is a receptacle of life, and put on the Divine" (D. L. W. 234).


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     That the final expulsion was effected in the sepulcher is also plainly taught:

     "Sepulchers from the corpses and bones therein, signify things infernal, but burial signifies the rejection of these and hence resurrection.... In respect to the Lord, burial signifies the Glorification of His Human. For the Lord glorified His whole Human, that is, made it Divine, and therefore, with it glorified He rose on the third day." A. E. 659d; see also 655b, and A. C. 8573.

     "By 'temple' (in the Lord's saying, 'Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up), the Lord meant His body, namely, that this would be dissolved, that is, would die, and would rise glorified on the third day." (A. E. 706b.

     "By His death the Lord rejected all the human from the mother, and put on the Human from the Father; on which subject see Apocalypse Explained, 899 ad fin." Ath. Creed, 106.

     And turning to the passage thus referred to, we read, "Because men rise after death, therefore the Lord willed to undergo death and to rise on the third day; and this for the reason that He might put off all the human which He had from the mother and might put on a Divine Human. For all the human which the Lord took on from the mother, He rejected from Himself by temptations and finally by death, and by the putting on of a Human from the Divine Itself which was in Him He glorified Himself, that is, made His Human Divine. Hence it is that in heaven by His death and burial,...is understood the purification of His Human, and glorification. That this is the case, the Lord taught by the comparison with wheat falling into the earth, that it should die in order that it might bear fruit. Also what the Lord said to Mary Magdalene, ("Touch me not for I am not yet ascended to my Father," John xx, 17), involves such thing. By ascending to His Father, the human from the mother being fully rejected." A. E. 899.

     "The Lord did not transmute the human nature from the mother into Divine Essence, nor commingle it therewith, as the Athanasian Creed teaches, (for this cannot be done). And yet it is according to that same Creed that the Divine took on a Human, that is, united itself therewith as a soul to its body, so that they were not two but one Person. From this it follows that He put off the human from the mother which, in itself, was similar to the human of another man and thus material, and put on a Human from the Father which, in itself, is similar to his Divine, and thus substantial from which the Human also was made Divine." Doct. Of the Lord, 35


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     "That the Lord was buried, signified the rejection of the residuum from the mother; that He rose on the third day, signified the Glorification of His Human or its union with the Divine of the Father." T. C. R. 130; Doct. of the Lord, 16

     From these passages it is clearly manifest that the maternal human even to the very ultimate was wholly rejected, and that the final rejection was in the sepulcher; and. therefore, as was noted above, all that the passage from the Athanasian Creed adds is the manner of the rejection.

     On the other hand it is undoubtedly true that there are several statements in the Writings which appear to teach that the very body which was crucified was the body that rose on the third day, according to the appearance in the Gospels.

     In a conversation with some Mohammedans Swedenborg says, "that the Lord was conceived of Jehovah, and that He therefore called Him Father; and that it is from this that He is the Son of God, and that the Divine is in Him; and that therefore He was able to glorify His whole body, so that that part of the body which is rejected by those born of human parents and rots away, was, with Him, glorified and made Divine from the Divine in Himself, and with this He rose again, leaving nothing in the Sepulcher; thus different from what happens with every man. L. J. (post.), 87; see also A. E. 1087, 1112; D. L. W. 221.

     "The Lord rose from the sepulcher with His body. No man rises again in the body with which he was clothed in the world; but the Lord alone so arose, and this because He glorified or made Divine His Body while He was in the world." A. C. 5075, 10825; T. C. R. 170; H. H. 316; L. J. 21 fin.

     "The Lord rose from the sepulcher with His complete body which He had in the world, and left nothing behind Him in the Sepulcher. Consequently He took with Him thence the real Natural Human complete from first to last." T. C. R. 109; A. C. 10252, 10738.

     These two representative sets of passages, contradictory of each other as they may seem, are both true, and therefore an understanding of their agreement is essential to any true comprehension of the sublime subject of the Lord's Glorification. The confining of the attention to the one teaching, namely, that the Lord rose with the body which He had in the world, has led some to a belief in the transmutation of the material body, though this is distinctly condemned in the Writings.

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Others have been led to hold that, in the sepulchre, that body was dissolved by a resolution into its first principles which are essentially Divine. But this would simply mean a return to the Divine and not a Glorification of the Human.

     On the other hand to neglect the teaching that the Lord's body was glorified and merely to emphasize the teaching that the assumed human was wholly rejected, would tend to a similar position, namely, that the Advent of the Lord was simply a coming into the world and departure therefrom with the total dissipation of everything natural.

     THE HARMONY OF THE TEACHINGS.

     We may be led to see the real agreement between the two teachings which have been adduced above by a careful consideration of an apparently paradoxical statement, frequently made in the Writings, to the effect that the Lord wholly expelled the maternal human and made it Divine.

     "The human with the Lord was nothing else than a servant until He cast it off and made it Divine." A. C. 2159; see also 1921.

     From this it would seem that the infirm human was made Divine by being wholly expelled. But that this is not the true meaning is evident from the continuation where it is shown that as the Lord successively put off the human from the mother so He put on the Divine Human. And this doctrine is still more explicitly stated elsewhere.

     "The Lord admitted into Himself temptations in order that He might expell from the assumed human everything that was merely human, and this even till nothing but the Divine was left remaining." A. C. 2816.

     "The Lord altogether expelled the human which He derived from the mother, and in its place He put on the Divine Human." A. C. 2265.

     Glorification, therefore, was a continual expulsion of what was merely human and a putting on in its place that which is Divine.

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Apply this to the glorification of the Body and the true meaning of the teaching respecting this subject will in some measure become evident. The Lord glorified the whole of the Human which He had in the World even to the very body, by expelling everything which was merely human and putting on in its place the Divine, so that He rose a Complete Man even in ultimates. In other words, the Glorification of the human consisted in its total expulsion.

     THE GLORIFIED HUMAN TO BE THOUGHT OF SPIRITUALLY.

     How this work was effected is a matter which in itself transcends the understanding even of the angels of heaven, and still more that of the men of the Church. Yet although thus transcendent it can "in some manner he comprehended by its likeness or image in the regeneration of man." (A. C. 10021, 3212.) For the Lord was glorified in the same manner in which man is regenerated, with the difference, however, that while man becomes no more than a form receptive of the Divine Life, the Lord became life itself even as to the human. It is of the utmost importance to keep this distinction in mind, for without it the idea concerning the Lord's Divine Human will be a sensual one, or an idea as of the human of another men. On this subject we read:

     "As concerns the separation and putting off of the maternal human, they do not comprehend it who have merely corporeal ideas concerning the Lord's Human, and think of it as of the human of another man. Thence to such persons these things are stumbling blocks. They do not know that as the life is such is the man and that the Divine Esse of life or Jehovah was with the Lord from conception, and that by union a similar Esse of life existed in His Human." A. C. 2649.

     "From corporeal things in Himself and others man gets a finite idea of the Lord's Divine Human; and unless he be removed from this idea he can comprehend no other than that the Lord is like another man." S. D (Minor.), 3609.

     The Human with which the Lord arose is not to be thought of as the human of another man, whether that Human be conceived of as in this world or the other. It is to be thought of as wholly Divine, as the Divine Man. It was as the Divine Human that the Lord showed Himself to His disciples when He was transfigured, (A. C. 3212 fin.; Doct. of the Lord, 35; T. C. R. 104, 777; A. E. 64; Ath. Creed. 146); and it is as the Divine Human Man that the Lord has revealed Himself in the Writings of the New Church.

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This, then,--the Divine Good and Truth now revealed, the Lord as a Divine Human Man,--is what we are to think of when we would reflect on the Glorified Body with which the Lord rose. We are not to think of His Human as of the human of another man.

     "They who have thought of the Lord's Human as of another man cannot but think materially of His flesh and blood." A. E. 30.

     The Divine Human was indeed from eternity, but, before the Incarnation, it was made manifest to the natural mind by means of the celestial in whose love and perception the Lord was immediately present, thus representatively. Hence, as in the Most Ancient Church, the Lord was only mediately or representatively present in the natural, where, indeed, men saw Him as in a dream. (T. C. R. 109.) This presence, however, was effective so long as men could be held in a state which could serve as a basis for communication with the celestial angels. But there came a time when this was no longer possible,--when evil became so triumphant that the communication between God and man could no longer be preserved, when there was no longer a man who could be held in a state receptive of influx from the celestial heaven, and hence of resistance to the hells. It was then that the Lord himself became a man, that the Divine which was no longer received through the celestial might make a receptacle for itself where Itself might meet the hells, might subjugate them from its own power, and might be immediately present with men.

     The Lord chose to do this by birth into the world from a human mother. And it was by means of what He assumed from this mother that the Divine both came into the world and came as it were face to face with the hells.


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     THE PATERNAL AND MATERNAL HEREDITY OF MAN.

     The Lord assumed from Mary what every man receives from his mother, namely, a body--a covering for the soul formed from the purest to the grossest substances of nature; man receives from his mother nothing more than this, as is manifest from the very nature of his birth. But, it may be added parenthetically, that the mother also contributes to the soul of the offspring,--not directly, however, but through the father. For the life within the seed is the life of the husband conjoined with that of the wife.

     By the body is not meant primarily the material of which that body is composed, but the organic forms in which that matter is disposed. It is according to these forms that life is received either from heaven or from hell, and it is they, therefore, that determine the hereditary quality of the offspring.

     "The interior man, or the spirit itself, is from the father, but the exterior man or the body itself is from the mother. Everyone may comprehend this merely from the fact that the very soul is implanted by the father, which begins to clothe itself in a minute bodily form in the ovary. Whatever is afterwards added, both in the ovary and in the womb, is of the another, for there is no increase from any other source. A. C. 1815; see also T. C. R. 92. 167; Ath. Cr. 216; D. P. 277

     The soul received from the father is also an organized receptacle of life, but this is composed of spiritual substances. These are organized inmostly after the image of the Lord, and externally after the image of the ruling love of the father. Their inmost is the human internal; their external constitutes the paternal heredity.

     "The soul which is from the father is the very man, and the body which is from the mother is not the man in himself but is from him. It is only a covering woven of such things as are from the natural world, but the soul is woven of such things as are in the spiritual world. T. C. R. 103, D. L. W. 6.

     "The soul is procreated from the father but in its descent, while be coming seed, it is veiled over by such things as are of his natural love; from this springs hereditary evil." C. L. 245; D. P. 177 (1).

     "In the seed from which man is conceived there is a graft or propagation of the soul of the father in its fullness within a certain covering from the elements of nature by means of which the body is formed in the womb of the mother.

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This may be done after either the likeness of the father or that of the mother, the image of the father still remaining within, which is continually laboring to bring itself forth." T. C. R. 103.

     At birth, therefore, man consists of an inmost or human internal, an internal man consisting of spiritual substances organized by the ruling love of the father, and an external man or body with which the internal is clothed. This internal and external together constitute the natural mind where is the seat of the parental heredity. From his inmost he has the faculty of rationality and liberty; from his internal the inclination to follow the love of his fathers. This internal may be more or less modified by the external with which it clothes itself, but in any event it is continually striving to bring itself forth. This hereditary inclination, however, is at first no more than inclination or leading. It does not become the man's own except so far as he has consciously entered into it and established it in his mind by the removal or overcoming of all that opposes it. If man makes the paternal heredity his own he becomes an evil man. In this case, though the paternal heredity is continually striving to conform the maternal heredity to itself, yet since both are evil they can be conjoined together. And, therefore, the evil may retain not only the evils derived from the father but also those derived from the mother.

     But by reason of the faculties of rationality and liberty man is capable of being re-born as to the natural. The beginning of his rebirth is by truth in the life whereby the organic spiritual substances of the mind, which of themselves look downwards or outwards, are turned upwards or inwards to the ord, and as it were opened to the full and free reception of life from Him through the soul. By this opening the interior substances, of which the substances of the natural mind are compounded, and by which the influx from the inmost or first substance passes to that mind, become active and from their activity the natural mind becomes, as it were, recreated, and enlivened, and the man becomes a new man.

     But though the natural mind is thus changed, it still remains in the general form in which it was transmitted from the father, for without it there would be no conscious reaction to influx and thus no individuality. But it is now turned to the Lord and not to self.

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Thus, if man has the heredity of the love of dominion, when he is regenerated that love, which becomes the man's proprium or own, remains, but it is ruled and directed by the Lord flowing from within. The paternal heredity, therefore, is not expelled but it is as it were placed at the circumference where it serves the interiors which rule but cannot expel it.

     But this is not the case with the heredity from the mother.

     "The infirm that man derives hereditarily from the mother is a corporeal something which is dispersed when the man is regenerated but that which he derives from the father remains to eternity." A. C. 1414, 1444, 1573, 4317.

     It will be noted that it is here said that the maternal heredity is dispersed when the man is regenerated, from which it would seem to follow, that in the case of the unregenerate, it is not dispersed, or, at any rate, is not necessarily dispersed. The maternal heredity is not, considered essentially, merely the body, but the tendencies which come to man from the interior organic forms of that body.

     With the regenerate man these can be wholly subjugated, and when the body dies, they are "dispersed." But with the unregenerated man they are confirmed and are made the man's own and thus of his spirit or of his internal natural mind, and then they are never "dispersed" to eternity.

     THE LORD'S HEREDITY.

     We have dwelt thus at length on the birth of man and his rebirth, because it is only by an understanding of this subject that we can gain some little comprehension of the Glorification of the Lord.

     What man derives from his father was, with the Lord, Divine: what he derives from his mother was, with the Lord, the infirm human. And as man can "disperse" the maternal heredity, so the Lord wholly expelled all that He derived from the mother; and in like manner as man from his paternal heredity remains ever a finite receptacle of life, so the Lord from His Father became Life itself even as to the human.


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     The inmost with the Lord incarnate, was not a human internal, but was the Divine Itself or Jehovah. It was this Divine which took on itself a human from the mother and which was inmostly present in that human. (Can. Trin. ii. 10.) But a distinction is to be made between the Divine which was the inmost of the Lord, and that which was from it in the assumed human. The latter was, indeed. regarded in itself, Divine, but, because it was covered over, veiled and obscured by the infirm organic vessels derived from the mother, with respect to that human it is called in the Writings the Human Essence. (A. C. 1426, 1603, 1675. etc.), i. e., the Essence of the assumed human.

     "The Lord was not like another man in this, that His interior man (the Human Essence) as to celestial things or goods was Divine and from very birth was adjoined to the internal (the Divine Itself). The internal with this Interior was Jehovah Himself, His Father. But He was like another man in this, that His Interior man as to spiritual things or truths was adjoined to the external and thus was human; but this also was made Divine." A. C. 1707

     "The Divine was indeed in the Lord because He was conceived of Jehovah, but it appeared only as remote so far as His Human was in the heredity from the mother." (A. C. 6866. See also 4963, 5417, 4971, 5041-2.)

     It was this Human Essence and not the infirm human that was glorified. i. e., united to the Divine, and the unition was effected by the total expulsion of the infirm human. The Human Essence may be compared in man with the hereditary nature that he receives from his father, from which, however, man is prone to evil; or more properly it may be compared to the remains stored up in man by the Lord from which he has the faculty of seeing truth from somewhat of heavenly affection. This faculty is the human itself with man and the first exercise of it in the formation of the rational is the beginning of the establishment of that human in the natural mind. (A. C. 2194, 2625, 3175, etc.) And it is established so far as the man removes what is contrary, for the man then appropriates it to his whole being and makes it his own. Thus he becomes a son of God.

     But with the Lord this faculty was a Divine Faculty and was with the Lord from birth.

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For from the Divine Itself which was His soul, He had from birth the faculty of perceiving truth, and it was because of this that He could enter into temptations even in infancy.

     "Every man is born ignorant of truth and lustful for evil because his soul from his father is an evil affection. But the Lord alone was born eager after good and desiring truth because His soul from the Father was the Divine Itself, thus the affection of Divine Love, or Divine Love, from which He overcame the external which was from the mother." De Dom. 70.

     It is the Divine Love in the Human of the Lord on earth which is meant by the "Celestial things or goods" mentioned in A. C. 1707, quoted above; and the perception therefrom that is meant in the same number by the "Spiritual things or truths" as to which the Lord "was adjoined to the external and thus was human." It is said He was Human as to these because the perception of truth was obscurer, so far as evils were present in the Human. But when they were absent He was Divine also as to these. And, therefore, the Lord could be so often in "the state of glorification." But because the perception itself was with the Lord from birth, therefore, we are taught that He, unlike all other men, was born a Spiritual-Celestial Man. and became a Divine Man.

     "The Lord alone was born a Spiritual-Celestial man; all others are born natural, with the faculty or potency of becoming, by regeneration from the Lord, either spiritual or celestial." A. C. 4594.

     The infirm human which clothed or veiled this Divine Faculty or Potency, consisted of organic vessels derived from a human mother. And since, in this mother were gathered together the hereditary evils of the human race, the organic vessels derived from her were prone to the reception not of the Divine but of influx from the hells. Therefore, in respect to its organic forms, the body assumed by the Lord was a form of the falses of the human race. (see I Ad. 934-935), into which the hells could inflow. And, therefore, as to this body, the Lord "derived infirmities such as are the infirmities of man in general." A. C. 1414.

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The body itself is, therefore, the infirm human, and, in respect to its internal from the Divine, it is therefore called "the organics of the Lord's Human Essence" which He purified by expelling therefrom all evil. A. C. 1603; see also 5077-8, 3318, 4559, A. E. 1071. In the assumed Human, therefore, the Human Essence which was from the Divine could meet the hells which were present in the organic forms of that human. For by it the Divine was veiled, and in it the hells could find their like.

     The Lord's Glorification consisted in the descent of the Human Essence which was born of Jehovah, and this descent was effected by the removal and subjugation of the hells by means of temptation combats.

     The whole process is finitely imaged in man's regeneration. With man the beginning of regeneration is the first formation of the rational from the Lord; and as man from this rational removes obstructing evil, so that which is of the Lord with him becomes more fully present, and. as it were, more his own.

     So with the Lord. Into the infirm human flowed all the hells, and with a malignity of assault comparable only with the Divine Power of the resistance. But from His own proper power the Lord put off the appearances, the falsities and the evils thus brought in; and as this Divine work was successively done from earliest infancy, the Lord established in His Human a Divine Rational born from the Divine Itself. This Rational which was successively purified of everything springing from the infirm Human, was the internal of the Lord's Human from which He successively made His external Divine,--from its sensuals and corporeals even to the very body. (A. C. 2084.) And this work, we are told, was accomplished by the continual "dissipation'' of the evils and falses which assaulted and resisted the entrance of the Divine. (A. E. 178. 538.)

     THE GLORIFICATION OF THE HUMAN SUCCESSIVE.

     It must be noted, however, that the work of successive glorification, did not consist, as some have supposed, in a successive "union" of the Divine with the Human but in a continual "unition" or progression to union.

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The union itself, or, as it is called, the "plenary union," was accomplished at the Resurrection.

     "The unition of the Lord's Human Essence with His Divine Essence was not accomplished at once, but throughout the whole course of His Life. . . . Thus He continuously ascended to Glorification." A. C. 2033, 2144.

     The Lord even to the end retained the infirm Human in order that the hells might approach, and so long as anything of that human remained, so long there could not be full union of the Human Essence with the Divine. But there could be and was a more and more perfect correspondence.

     "It is also described how the Lord could expel the maternal human, namely, that the maternal human was the infirm which adhered to nature. Because this evil it corresponded to hell. When it was expelled, those things succeeded which concord with the Divine and correspond to it; for the body is nothing but a correspondent of the soul or spirit of man. He retained the infirm human while in the world." Ath. Cr. 192.

     By the expulsion of the maternal human in this passage is evidently not meant the expulsion of the body as to either its interiors or exteriors, for the language is clear, that things which corresponded to the Divine took the place of the things maternal. But the meaning is that the organic things of the assumed human were reduced to order by the expulsion therefrom of evil and the reduction of those organic forms by the infilling Divine to a form corresponding to Itself. This also is what is meant by the frequent teaching that while He was in the world the Lord made His Human holy before He made it Divine.

     "Between making Divine and making holy there is this difference, that the Divine is Jehovah Himself, but the Holy is that which is from Jehovah. The former is the Divine Esse, the latter that which exists therefrom. When the Lord glorified Himself. He also made His Human the Divine Esse or Jehovah, but before this He made His Human Holy. The process of the glorification of the Lord's Human was such." A. C. 4559.


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     The same teaching is also involved in the statement, frequently occurring in the Writings, that while He was on earth the Lord made Himself Divine Truth, and at His resurrection He made Himself Divine Good. (A. E. 28, 10692, A. C. 4577, 6864, 10730.). For as long as the infirm human was retained, the Human was a holy recipient of the Divine, but it was not yet united with the Divine itself.

     THE LAST ACT OF GLORIFICATION.

     The infirm human being retained resulted in this, that to the last there was the appearance that the Human lived from itself. By means of this appearance it was that the Divine within could still be veiled: and the hells could still approach. Appearances, and especially the appearance that man lives from himself, all spring from the natural. These appearances were the plane in which evil originated, and by them evil acts its ends. The time had come when no man could resist these appearances or subdue them. And therefore the Lord, in assuming an infirm human, took on Himself these appearances, which were gathered together and as it were focussed in that one prime appearance, that the human lives from itself, it was by the retention of this appearance even to the end that the Lord could receive the assaults of the combined power of the hells, that He could suffer temptations even at the hands of the angels who from their finiteness would have held the human in their own appearances. He successively subjugated the hells, and put the heavens in order. He successively cast off all fallacies and appearances until in the last great temptation He wholly conquered the power of evil by totally expelling even the most ultimate appearance that the human lives from itself. He cast the hells forth from the very body in which is the last seat for the assault of Hell, and with their final expulsion, all that was human, all that was a vessel, all that had aught of finiteness, was dissipated, and at the Resurrection the Lord stood forth as the Divine Man Glorified even as to the flesh and bones. As He had the Esse of Life from conception, so a similar esse of life existed in His Human by Union. (A. C. 2649.)


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     "After the Lord had expelled hereditary evil and thus purified the organics of His Human Essence, these also received Life; so that as He was Life as to the internal man. He became life also as to the external. This is what Glorification means." A. C. 1603.

     "In the Lord the Divine Love itself which was the esse of His Life formed the body to a likeness to itself, thus to a reception of itself, and this to such a degree that all things were forms of the Divine Love, and when the Body was made Divine they are Divine Love. Nothing there is closed as in finite man, but all things are formed after the idea of the Infinite" S.D. 4845.

     "The Lord reduced all things in Himself into Divine Order so that nothing of the human which He had derived from the mother remained; so that He was not made a new man like another man but was made altogether Divine. (Man still retains the inclination to evil.) But the Lord altogether cast out all the evil which He had hereditarily from the mother, and made Himself Divine even as to the vessels, that is, as to the truths." A. C. 3318.

     "The externals of the natural are what are properly called corporeals and sensuals of both kinds, together with their recipients, for the latter with the former constitute what is called the body. The Lord made the very corporeal with Himself Divine, both its sensuals and their recipients, and therefore also He rose from the sepulcher with the Body." A. C. 5077-5078; A. E. 581.

     THE FINAL DISSIPATION OF THE MATERNAL.

     As to how the "dissipation" of the body in the sepulcher was effected, we are not informed. Some eminent theologians of the Church have supposed that it was effected by the near approach of the Divine Love from which the body was consumed in a moment. (See A. C. 6849.) Others have supposed that the dissipation was effected by the Glorification of the lowest sensuals of the mind, which were thus separated from the body, which then was dissipated into dust as of itself.

     But neither of these opinions seems to us to give the true idea of the last act of Glorification, for both of them involve that the final act of Glorification was effected in a different way than the preceding acts: and in addition to this, the latter opinion, especially, involves that the Lord was not glorified as to the very flesh and bones, but that the Glorification ceased with the sensuals and corporeals, while the material vessels themselves were dissipated.

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When yet we are taught that the Lord glorified "the sensuals and their recipients" which together "constitute the body." (A. C. 5077.)

     It seems undoubted that the "dissipation" of the body was effected in a manner similar to that in which evils and falses had been "dissipated" throughout the Lord's life, that is, by a total rejection of the evils and falses which with man constitute his proprium. These are the very life of his ultimate individuality, and, in the world, of his body itself. Thus we read that "Flesh and Blood signify the human proprium, because the Human consists of flesh and blood." (A. C. 4735, 3318, 6135.) These words are true in a very real sense, for it is by birth in flesh and blood that man first acquires his individuality, and the appearance that he lives from himself. This appearance is his proprium which can never be put off to all eternity, for man is a spiritual recipient of life as well as a material one, and when the material body is dissolved, the spiritual receptacles of life still remain. If man could by any possibility wholly put off all the fallacies and appearances which constitute his proprium, he would at once cease to be as an individual. But the supposition is impossible. Man's appearances call he held in subjection to influx from the Lord, but they call never be cast out. And even subjection cannot be effected as regards the ultimate appearances of the lowest sensual and of the material body. And, therefore, it is of Divine Order that when man is regenerated he shall put off the lowest or corporeal parts of his natural mind and shall rise in the spirit freed from the grosser fallacies of time and space, and thus able to hold in fuller subjection those appearances which are inherent to receptacles of life. The grosser things of man die with the body and are left behind. But that which with man "rots in the grave," with the Lord was glorified or made Divine. For the Lord was born, not a recipient of Life, but Life itself: and thus He could banish every appearance even from the body itself,--banish by temptation-combats everything finite received from the mother and strengthened by the evils of all mankind. And as He expelled them, so everything which made His human finite was cast out, and that Human became no longer an ultimate recipient of Life but Life itself in lasts, and the Lord stood forth as Only Man and Perfect Man.

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His Proprium was made Divine by the expulsion of the finite, and it is this Divine Proprium which is meant by the Flesh and flood of the Lord. (A. C. 4735.)

     THE DIVINE NOW IN LASTS AS IN FIRSTS.

     By His Glorification the Lord came into lasts as, from eternity, He was in firsts. Essentially considered, the Lord was always in lasts since He is omnipresent; but before the Incarnation He manifested Himself in lasts by means of men and angels in whose interiors He was immediately present, and thereby He preserved the universe in order. But when evils grew to such a height that lasts could no longer be held in order by influx through angels and men,--when the hells were taking possession of this very body of man and were preparing to invade nature itself and pervert and destroy its order, the Lord made Himself immediately present in lasts also that He might subdue the hells. From Him in the Divine Natural Glorified there now proceeds the "Spirit of Truth." (A. E. 1071), by the power of which the hells are kept in eternal subjection, and by which every man who looks to Him can be guarded and enlightened. He has removed every opportunity from the hells whereby they might molest man without his consent.

     As the Divine Man, revealed, He is now to be approached and worshiped As the Divine Man He was seen by the Disciples and others when their spiritual eyes were opened, (A. E. 53; T. C. R. 777; A. R. 36; H. H. 76; Doct. of the Lord, 35 fin.), and is to be seen by the spiritual eyes of the man of the New Church. He has been and is to be seen with the spiritual eyes because the eyes of the body can never see the Lord. They are dead, and, of themselves, do not see even matter. But the eyes of the Spirit can see the Lord operate even in the lowest creation, preserving and guarding and guiding man that he may be led to heaven.

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As the Divine Human man He is now revealed to the New Church, in the Writings which are Himself in His Divine Natural. And that He may he fully manifested as a Man. He has not only given the direct revelation of Himself in the Writings, but has also provided a natural science which shall open the eyes of men, and has raised up those who, even on the lowest plane of matter, shall bring forth to view the wonders of His Divine Human; that those who turn to Him may be able to see Him present in the Human inmostly in every created thing. (D. L. W. 285), and from His nearer presence receive of that Power over Heaven and Earth which He has taken to Himself.
PREPARATION 1906

PREPARATION       Rev. W. B. CALDWELL       1906

     Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning: And ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their Lord, when he will return from the wedding; that when he cometh and knocketh, they may open unto him immediately. (Luke xii:35, 36.)

     When we learn from Revelation that the New Church now beginning is to be the crown of all the churches that have hitherto been in the world, and that it has been foreseen and provided from first creation, (Canons iii), we cannot but grant that it is a great honor and blessing to a man if he has been brought to a knowledge of this New Church, and has been given the privilege of preparing himself to be a worthy member thereof, and to partake of its interior happiness,--to enjoy the fruition of the Divine promise that in this New Church there is to be spiritual peace, glory and internal blessedness of life.

     But to feel that membership in this Church is an honor and a privilege will be a matter of natural pride only unless a man also conceive it a privilege and a necessity to fit himself for that membership, to make a preparation within himself, both in understanding and life, for the interior reception of the Lord at His second coming, which reception alone establishes the Church in him, and makes him spiritually a member of it.

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External membership of the organic body in the world does not constitute the reception of the Lord, though it is a most desirable ultimate. But, the internal preparation to receive the Lord is what makes the external membership valid.

     It is of great importance, therefore, that we should keep before us the need of this preparation which is to be made by every man, as of himself in freedom, continually while he lives in the world, and while he acknowledges that it is of the mercy of the Lord that he is privileged and moved to it. Hence we are exhorted in our text. "Let our loins he girded about, and your lights burning; And be ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their Lord, when he will return from the wedding; that when he cometh and knocketh, they may open unto him immediately."

     Those are ready to receive the Lord at His coming, who are in the good of love and its affections of truth,--who have girded themselves. and kept their lights burning,--lest they be like the five foolish virgins, who failed to provide oil for their lamps.

     And thus, at the coming of the Lord, the few in the world who are in a state of good as to life, and in longing for the truth, are "like unto men who wait for their Lord, when he returneth from the wedding:"--they will be of that Church which is the "bride prepared for her husband," for the Lord in His Glorified Human, that "when he cometh and knocketh, they may open unto him immediately."

     The text, therefore, teaches us to make spiritual preparation to receive the Lord in His second coming, that we map be in a state of spiritual readiness, and not as those who are found sleeping. It involves the whole doctrine of preparation for things to come, specifically that preparation which is of the freedom of man, but also the preparation for things to come which is of the Divine Providence alone, looking always to the fulfilment of the ends of Divine love, and regarding the angelic heaven, the Church upon earth, and the happiness of the human race in time and eternity.


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     In the beginning and establishment of the New Church we will see these two forms of preparation,--the one made by the immediate Providence of the Lord, the other made by man as of himself, but still from the Lord. The one is of the Divine action, the other of human reaction and reciprocation. And while our text treats of the preparation to be made by, man for this reciprocal action on his part, we must consider also what is involved in the Divine action, without which there can be no human action whatsoever.

     As to the preparation made in the Divine Providence for the New Church, we are told that this Church was foreseen and provided by the Lord from the beginning of creation. Everything in the life of the race upon this earth from the beginning, and before that from eternity, looked to and provided for this, the crown of all the Churches, and to the states of wisdom and happiness which could not be given to men and angels before the coming of the Lord in His Glorified Human, and before the giving of an ultimate Revelation of Divine Celestial and Spiritual Truth. All was a preparation made by the Lord for this end.

     The immediate preparation made by the Lord in the Christian world for the New Church took place in the Protestant Reformation, and the revival of learning; in the performing of the Last Judgment in the year 1757, by which the minds of men were placed in greater freedom to think spiritually; in the raising up and preparing of a man to act as servant of the Lord and revelator; in the guidance of the Divine Providence, by which the books of the New Revelation were given to the remnant; finally in the actual collection, inauguration, and instruction of this remnant, who thus form the beginning of the New Church, which is to grow and increase to eternity.

     Such is the order of the Divine Providence in general in the preparation for the New Church. And we may see the same order in the preparation for all the former Churches on this earth, as, for example, in the preparation for the Coming of the Lord into the world and the establishment of the Christian Church.

     An external reformation in the Jewish Church, analogous to the Protestant Reformation in the Christian Church, took place at the time of the restoration from captivity and the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem, five centuries before Christ; also a growth in learning and art among the Gentiles of Greece and neighboring parts.

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A more immediate preparation for the Lord's advent was made when John the Baptist came "preaching in the wilderness of Judea, and crying, Prepare ye the way of the Lord;'' and an actual preparation for the Christian Church, when the Lord Himself performed a Last Judgment upon the Jewish Church; when He chose and instructed His disciples, and Himself preached the Gospel; when, in the guidance of His Providence, the remnant were led to hear that Gospel, and. finally, were collected, inaugurated and instructed, and formed into the beginning of the New Church of that time.

     In general, let us note that this Divine preparation for a New Church took place by His manifesting Himself in His Word, and afterwards by His Divine presence continually in that written Word in the world, by which He leads men to Himself. That Word was first given in written form at the end of the Most Ancient Church, and therein the first prophecy was made of the coming of the Lord into the world. And by that prophecy the race was for ages kept in the hope of His coming, and thereby prepared for it, even as men were prepared for His second coming by the prophecies of the New Testament. Similarly, by the Word now revealed. He announces His Second Coming, and prophesies His perpetual coming to those who will be of the New Church. For those who receive and believe this announcement are "like unto men who wait for their Lord, that when He cometh and knocketh they may open unto him immediately."

     The readiness on the part of man for the Lord's coming, is as it were the man's part in the establishment of the Church, his preparation for co-operation with the Divine Providence, according to his free-choice. And this involves both the reception of the Lord as the Word, and the reception of the Lord in life. When man does this, as of himself, while acknowledging that it is the Lord alone who makes it possible for him to do it, then he "girdeth himself, and keepeth his light burning," he "prepares the way of the Lord," he opens the door when the Lord knocks. Who then enters and "sups with him.


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     Hence, we may see that in the upbuilding of the New Church the Lord provides, and man prepares; the Lord acts, and man reacts; the Lord wills and man reciprocates, as of himself, but still from the Lord. For "except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it."

     If now we consider the doctrine of preparation in a universal aspect, and in its wide application, we may see that nothing whatever takes place in the economy of Divine order without a preparation, nor without the Divine provision of means to the fulfilment of every end. Nothing exists that is not the result of a series of consequences, and there is nothing which in itself does not constitute a part of such a series looking to new consequences. Everything in creation, therefore, is the result of preparation, and everything is part of a preparation for new things. Such is the order of Divine Providence in the world, in the Church, and in heaven.

     In the creation of the universe a continual series of uses were necessary as a preparation for supreme uses. For in the order of creation all things proceeded from the Divine through ultimates to intermediates, and in the return from ultimates there was a continual preparation by uses of a lower degree for uses of a higher degree. In nature it was necessary to prepare an elemental kingdom for the reception of suns and earths. Upon the earths themselves, the mineral kingdom was created first as a preparation for the vegetable, this for the animal, and all for man. The human race itself is prepared in the natural world to enter and form the angelic heaven, which is the supreme of Divine ends and uses.

     In the creation of the first Church among men, the Most Ancient or Adamic Church, the pre-adamites had to be prepared before they could constitute a Church. Similarly, in the creation of all the following Churches, even to the New Church forming at this day, the beginning could only be made by a preparation, which consisted in the collection, inauguration, and instruction of the remnant of the former Church, as we have before seen.

     In the new creation of man, which is his regeneration and preparation for heaven during his abode on earth, the lower degrees of the mind must be opened and stored before the higher degrees can be opened.

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And thus the lower prepares for the higher, and through the lower the man ascends as by the steps of a ladder to the higher.

     In the education of the infant, the child, and the youth, the mind is successively opened by knowledges, truths, and practices, and thus a preparation is made for adult life, and for regeneration.

     Furthermore, a preparation is necessary before an entrance can be made by a man into the performance of any use, or any particular work. No wise man undertakes a work of any kind without fitting himself for it, nor without preparing all the means necessary, before he proceeds to the performance. If he rush prematurely into act, the work will be poorly done. The knowledges of ways and means are first to be obtained, thought and reason are to be exercised, and when the way has thus been prepared, the man is in readiness for the act. Then the work will be well done.

     The man who practices this method in all the affairs of life, even until it becomes a habit with him, thereby cultivates wisdom. He will always have more regard for excellence than for hasty fulfilment. He will think rather of the means and the preparation than the accomplishment, knowing that preparation is essential to right accomplishment. He will not neglect to meditate new uses and new works, and thus to formulate new ends continually, but he will guard himself against precipitate action, which destroys rather than fulfils the ends. And so in forming the habit of reflection upon wars and means, he gradually acquires a readiness for the contingencies that arise in life, for the uses that come to him to perform. He is prepared for events, and acts wisely in them.

     These considerations map be applied to the life of regeneration, which is, as it were, a spiritual work undertaken by a man, though in reality performed by the Lord alone. The Lord has made known to man the means whereby he may be prepared for heaven, if he choose. In his reformation and regeneration the first preparation is in the acquisition of the knowledges of spiritual life. By these his memory is to be opened and stored, his spiritual reason to be cultivated, and his understanding enlightened.

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This is reformation, but is to be followed by the work of interior repentance, and the removal of evils of life, the cleansing of the spirit, and thus the preparation of the state for the influx of life from the Lord, Who forms a new will within the new understanding. This order of progress, which continues throughout life in this world, is the order of preparation for heaven. It is only necessary for man to prepare the house of his mind by cleansing it of evil, and thus be ready to open the door to the reception of the Lord when He comes.

     But if this preparation for heaven be not completed in this world, it is completed in the next. Almost all require preparation in the spiritual world before they can enter heaven, and this is done in a thousand ways known to the Lord alone, which may be compared to the wonderful operations of the human body in preparing foods for the blood,--all performed under the immediate auspices of the soul, and without the conscious co-operation of man. In the Divine work of preparing newcomers for heaven, angels and good spirits assist, for it is their highest delight to perform kind offices, and to instruct in the truths of heaven. Evil spirits, also, of the Divine permission, are allowed to infest, and thus to be the means of vastation and deliverance from evils not yet removed.

     But those who have been instructed in the world, who have been in the affection of truth, and a life of repentance, and who have thus "girded themselves, and kept their lights burning," are easily prepared for heaven after departure from the earth. They ascend to heaven by another path, like foods which require little digestion. With such the external man is easily reduced to conformity with the internal, and in this the preparation for heaven primarily consists.

     How important it is, then, that we should cultivate sincerity in this world, cultivate the affection of truth, and reduce our natural lives to conformity with the truth. By so doing we prepare ourselves, or, rather, suffer the Lord to prepare us, for heaven, even while we live here below. We cultivate a readiness for the Divine call when it summons us to depart this life.

     But the preparation for heaven in this world is but the beginning of an eternal work.

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For in heaven itself the preparation for the reception of the Lord in ever new states of life and delight, is perpetual. In the Divine Love there are infinite goods, which the Lord can only impart to the human race, and the angelic heaven, as they are prepared by Him to receive. Their whole existence is a continual preparation for the increased reception of the blessings that are within the Divine gift. The readiness to receive is of the freedom of man and angel, but the gift itself is of the Providence of the Lord. It rests only with man and angel, in their freedom, to further the preparation. Therefore, "Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning; And ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their Lord, when he will return from the wedding; that when he cometh and knocketh, they may open unto him immediately."


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PALLAS ATHENE-MINERVA 1906

PALLAS ATHENE-MINERVA       Rev. C. TH. ODHNER       1906

     The central idea in all the myths and representations of Pallas Athene, or Minerva, is the idea of Doctrine, Divine Teaching, proceeding immediately from the fountain-head of Divine Wisdom, and adapted to the rational comprehension of man. All the Greek divinities represented the Divine Truth or the Word, but each one on a different plane, degree, or aspect, and in a sense each one of them also represented Doctrine, since the Word is Doctrine, on whatever degree or plane it may be. Nevertheless, there is a difference between the Word, specifically so called, and Doctrine from the Word. The former,--whether it be the Word in heaven or the Word on earth,--is a Divine Sun; Doctrine is the light from that Sun, adapted or accommodated to the rational understanding of finite beings. This discrimination may help us to understand the difference in the signification between such gods as Jupiter, Neptune, Mercury, and Apollo, on the one hand, and Minerva and Vulcan, on the other; the former represent the Word in its various degrees and senses: the latter two represent Doctrine from the Word,--Vulcan the doctrine of natural good and truth, and Minerva the doctrine of spiritual good and truth, such as it existed in the Ancient Church.

     From whatever side we may examine the glorious figure of Minerva, we shall find that this central idea prevails. In the story of her birth and deeds, in all her various offices and emblems, she uniformly and consistently represents spiritual doctrine, definite, systematic, rational and Divine; pure and undefiled by human self-intelligence; teaching, illuminating, and up-building; defending the right and opposing the wrong.

     The etymology of her names,--Pallas Athene, and Minerva,--must still be considered as unknown or at least doubtful. Pallas had been variously derived from pallo, to leap forth, or to wield or brandish a weapon, or from pallax, a maiden, or from phallus, (on the principle of hucus a non lucendo!) Athene, also written Athena and Athana, has been traced to the Sanscrit Ahana or Dahana, which signifies the dawn, the light of the morning, springing forth from the brow of the rising sun, and as such she has been identified with Ushas, the Aryan goddess of the dawn, in the Rig Veda.

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Others have derived the name from atkanatos, without death, immortal, and others, again, from the Egyptian war-goddess. Neith, by a not unparalleled transposition of letters. The name Minerva, finally, is an Etruscan word, which is clearly related to the Latin mens, mind, and the Greek menos, spirit, strength, and mimnesko, to remember.

     According to Homer and the earliest traditions, Minerva had no mother, human or Divine, but sprang forth, full-grown, and clad in full panoply of glittering armor, from the pregnant brow of Jove. The later poets have it, that Zeus, having been warned that a son of his would ultimately dethrone him, swallowed his pregnant consort. Metis, whereupon he soon began to suffer from a most terrific headache, from which he could find no relief until Vulcan obligingly split open his father's head with a brazen axe. Then out sprang Minerva with a shout at which Olympus shook, the earth resounded, the sea was moved, and Hellos himself checked his fiery chariot, until the newborn goddess took off her radiant armor and forthwith drove out of Olympus the deadly genius of Dulness,-daughter of Chaos and Nyx, who until then had infested heaven and earth.

     Whatever be the meaning of the obscure fable respecting Jupiter swallowing Metis, the essential feature in the story of the birth of Minerva is that she sprang forth immediately from the brow of the supreme god,--a virgin born by no mother, a doctrine conceived by no mortal mind, human or angelic, but revealed and descending immediately from the Divine Wisdom itself. There must have been such a Doctrine in the Ancient Church, for otherwise the Ancient Word could not have been understood; all facts of Archeology and Mythology point to the existence of such a fund of spiritual-rational doctrine of systematic Theology in the ancient world, and the Writings of the New Church frequently refer to it. Nevertheless, it could have been an immediate revelation only in a relative sense, for the Ancient Church was a representative Church in which the naked truth still had to be clothed in figures, types, emblems, and symbols. Essentially, Minerva stands forth as a prophecy, which found no actual fulfilment, until, in the fulness of time, the Heavenly Doctrine of the New Jerusalem descended from God out of heaven,--an immediate revelation in the absolute sense.


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     Minerva always remained a virgin, for the Divine Doctrine of the Church must remain pure and undefiled by the notions of finite intelligence. Hence she was called Parthenos, the Virgin, and her chief temple was called the Parthenon. And she is always represented as clothed, in long flowing garments, because no mortal eye can bear the sight of the naked Truth, such as it is in its inmost Divinity; even though rational, the Divine Truth must be clothed in appearances and accommodations. It is related that Tiresias, the Theban prophet and seer, once came upon Athene disrobed, in her bath, but the vision cost him his eye-sight.

     Chastity, nobility, and fearless strength are characteristics of the ancient representations of Pallas Athene. Her statues uniformly present the figure of a beautiful, majestic, yet maidenly woman, with a serious and thoughtful countenance, a broad, serene brow, large and steady eyes, and a somewhat stern mouth. On her head is a crested helmet, on her breast a cuirass with a small representation of the Gorgon's head; in her right hand is the figure of winged Victory or else a gleaming lance, and with her left hand she leans upon the famous aegis or shield, upon which is embossed Medusa's terrific head, encircled with serpents in the place of hair. And, finally, at her feet is seen a great serpent, and sometimes an owl. Among her other symbols and emblems we find a lamp, a scroll, a distaff, the olive-tree, the laurel, a ship, and also horses and a chariot.

     The most famous of all her ancient statues Was the one executed by Phidias, in the Parthenon, made of pure ivory and solid gold, forty feet in height,--Pallas Athene in all her glory and beauty, surrounded by all her weapons and emblems,--the crowning masterpiece of Hellenic art. But to our own taste the finest statue of the goddess is the "Pallas de Velletri," now in the Louvre, representing her as a helmeted virgin of superb beauty, unembellished by any weapons or symbols, but simply standing in an attitude of a spirited teacher, with one hand pointing to heaven, and the other hand out-stretched, explaining and reasoning.


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     At Rome, in the temple of Vesta, there was preserved an archaic image of Pallas, known as the "palladium," which was guarded as the apple of the eye, for upon its preservation the safety of the city was considered to depend. This statue, made of olive wood, was said to have been carried to Latium from Troy, by Aeneas; originally it had fallen from heaven, like the sacred black stone in Mekka, and it had been prophesied that when the palladium was taken, Troy would fall. To secure this event, Diomedes and Ulysses had stolen it, but it was in some way recovered by Aeneas; the Greeks, however, denied this, and a palladium was preserved in Athens as the most sacred possession of the city. From the extreme reverence paid to the image, the word "palladium" has come to stand for the holy of holies of any doctrinal system, and it is used in this sense in the Writings of the New Church, as where it is said that the dogma of Predestination was conveyed into the Church by the Supra- and Infra-lapsarians, as the palladium of religion, or, rather, as the head of the Gorgon or Medusa engraved on the shield of Pallas. (B. E. 66.)

     The Synod of Dort as it were kissed the dogma of Predestination as the Greeks kissed the palladium in the temple of Minerva. (T. C. R. 759.)

     According to the modern naturalistic interpreters, the worship of Athene was simply part and parcel of the archaic Sun-worship of their Aryan ancestors, Zeus being nothing but the natural sun and Athene the light from the sun. We accept the interpretation, with the modification that by the sun the ancients understood the spiritual sun, and by the light, the spiritual light of Divine Doctrine, or that "immediate influx of Truth from the Lord, from which is the Light which gives the faculty of understanding." (A. C. 8707) Hence Athene was regarded by the classic philosophers as a representation of the "universal Logos," the all-penetrating Divine Reason and Intelligence which they termed "the Insight of Zeus." And, in relation to man, she was looked upon as the embodiment of wisdom, intelligence, and science, on every plane of the human understanding and life.


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     She was the special patroness of the philosophers, whose lamps were ever burning in her honor. Many of the ancient sages believed that they were inspired directly by Pallas Athene, but this belief had its origin in the representations of the spiritual world, as may be seen from the following account of Swedenborg's interview with the spirit of Aristotle:

     A woman was seen by me, who stretched out her hand, desiring to stroke his cheek. When I wondered at this he said that while he was in the world such a woman had often appeared to him, who as it were stroked his cheek, and that her hand was beautiful. The angelic spirit said that such women were sometimes seen by the ancients, and were called by them Pallases, and that such a one appeared to him from those spirits who, when they lived as men in ancient times, were delighted with ideas and indulged in thoughts, but without philosophy. And because such spirits were attendant upon him, and were delighted with him in consequence of his thinking from an interior principle, therefore they representatively exhibited such a woman. (A. C. 4658.)

     In the Spiritual Diary, n. 3952, it is added that "such women were called Pallases, not Minervas, but Pallases,"-probably because the Greeks had a much more philosophical idea of their Pallas Athene, than the Romans had of their Minerva. Rawlinson justly observes that the universally received myth of Pallas Athene "acted as a strong reinforcement to the power of conscience, which the young Greek felt might be the voice of Athene speaking within him, advising him for his true good, and pointing out to him the path of honor and duty." (Religions of the Ancient World, p. 146.)

     In Rome, Minerva was the goddess of Memory as well as of Wisdom, and all schools were placed under her special protection. Her statues were to be found in most places of instruction, and it was a custom for the scholars each year to present to their teachers a fee or gift, called the "minerval." In common with Apollo she was also the patroness of all liberal arts, sciences, and learning in general, but more especially or skillful handicraft and inventions, and most particularly she was the genius presiding over the feminine arts of spinning, weaving and embroidering.

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She herself was the Divine and incomparable weaver who not only attired June in queenly garments but also is said to have "woven the robe of the universe," a beautiful way or stating the fact that Heavenly Doctrine not only clothes the Church specific with genuine truths, but also covers the Church Universal, for it is a universal Doctrine.

     To spin and to weave signifies to construct Doctrine. The first process is to spin, that is, to gather together loose ideas and knowledges into one connected train of thought, a continuous truth. Then comes the weaving, which consists in placing thought by the side of thought in a warp of parallel truths, which are connected together by the weft of rational comparisons in the loom of the mind. Hence comes the cloth of systematic Doctrine, which preserves and protects the spiritual body, preserves its own vital heat of good affections, and protects it against the deadening influence of evil.

     The Heavenly Doctrine is such a system of "Truth continuous from the Lord." firmly knit together by the Divine Wisdom, but the doctrines schemed by human self-intelligence are the flimsy structures spun from the tail-end of the spider. This difference between Divine and human doctrine is strikingly illustrated by the story of Athene and Arachne. The latter was a maiden so proud of her skill in the loom that she dared to challenge Athene to a weaving contest. The goddess assented and easily won the prize, but the defeat so embittered Arachne that she immediately committed suicide by hanging herself, whereupon Athene changed her into a spider, and condemned her to spin and weave forever webs of no consistency or use. Such is the fate of human reason, when in inordinate conceit it Dresumes itself superior to the authority of Divine Doctrine. Self-centered; like the spider, it spins its false reasonings by a backward process, sticky and excrementitious, to be torn asunder every day by the slightest wind of genuine truth. In the words of the prophets: "They trust in vanity and speak lies; they weave spider's web. Their webs shall not become garments, neither shall they cover themselves with their words." (Isaiah 59:5, 6.)


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     City-building, like weaving, signifies construction of Doctrine, but on a grander scale, the city with its system of streets being like a web with its warp and weft.

     Cities signify things of Doctrine, because doctrinal things were taught in the cities, for there were the synagogues, and in Jerusalem was the Temple. (A. R. 712.)

     A city also signifies Doctrine because men live spiritually in and according to the doctrines of their Church, as naturally they live in cities. In ancient times all cities were enclosed in walls,--fundamental doctrines protecting against the attacks of falsity; they had their gates introductory doctrines: their streets,--leading and general doctrines, their houses,--individual conceptions of doctrine; their high places. or citadels,--interior and supreme doctrines, to which men may flee in times of distress. Thus we may understand why Athene, the Divine Doctrine, was worshiped as the protector of cities in general, and of the high citadels of cities in particular, and most especially of the Akropolis of Athens, her favorite city which was named in her honor.

     The worship of Athene was the very, soul of ancient Athens. She it was who nurtured and educated the founder of the city, the autochthon Erichthonius, taught him the art of yoking the horse, and brought to his new settlement the Divine gift of fire. When the question of naming the city arose. Athene and Poseidon contended for the honor of bestowing the name. The dispute being referred to Zeus, he decided that the privilege should be given to that deity who should create an object of the greatest usefulness to man. Poseidon then struck the rock of Akropolis with his trident, and a noble horse sprang forth, the admiration of all the witnessing gods. Athene in her turn struck the same rock with her lance, and there grew up--a homely olive tree, at whose dusty-looking appearance the gods laughed in derision. But the tune changed, and to Athene was awarded the prize, after she had explained all the various and essential uses to which the fruit and every part of the tree could be put. The horse, the understanding of truth, was useful, indeed, as a means of conveyance, but the olive, the celestial good, was after all more necessary, not only for food, but also for habitation, by its wood, and for illumination in the dark, by its oil.


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     In Athens, therefore, the goddess was worshiped as nowhere else on earth, and here were raised in her honor the grandest temple and the nest famous statue of all ancient art. In the Parthenon she shone in transcendent glory as the champion of eternal justice, truth, and right: and the city of Athens itself, through the devotion to her and to the Doctrine which she represented, became that focus of intellectual Light, which, through the doctrines of her three greatest philosophers, Socrates, Plate, and Aristotle, shed its radiance not only: over all Greece, but over all the classic world. And that Light, the Light of Pallas Athene, survived the Dark Ages, reappeared in the Renaissance, paved the way for the Reformation, and finally prepared the mind of her greatest servant, the immortal Swedenborg, to receive the Divine Light itself, the crowning Light of the Heavenly Doctrine of the New Jerusalem.

     Athene was essentially a goddess of peace and of the peaceful pursuits of intelligence and culture. But she represented not only the doctrine of good but also the doctrine of truth, and as such she was the great goddess of War and of intelligent and systematic combat against falsity and evil, superior in might to Ares himself, who represented only the external side of warfare. With the exception of the spear, all her weapons are those of defensive war: the helmet, the breastplate, and the shield.

     Her crested helmet is an elaborate affair, adorned with sphinxes, and griffins, and, in front, by a rising line of galloping horses, and encircled by a crown of olive-leaves. The horse, as representing intelligence, was naturally sacred to Minerva, and it is said that she was the first to tame the horse and to bridle and yoke it to the chariot, a significant fact, representing the submission of the human understanding to the authority of Divine Doctrine. It was as "Athene Hippia," that she bridled the winged horse. Pegasus, for Bellerophron, and in the Trojan war it was she who taught Epeus how to frame the famous wooden horse by means of which the Greeks gained an entrance into Troy.


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     The Aegis, or storm-shield of Minerva, possessed the power of inspiring terror and dismay, by its movements collecting or dispersing darkness, clouds, thunder, and lightning.

     Her shoulder bore
     The dreadful Aegis with its shaggy brim,
     Bordered with Terror. There was Strife and there
     Was Fortitude, and there was fierce Pursuit.
     And there the Gorgon's head, a ghastly sight,
     Deformed and dreadful, and a sign of woe.
          Homer, (Bryant's transl.).

     The Gorgon, Medusa, was an infernal genius, of fascinating but horrible beauty, whose hair consisted of writhing serpents and who turned to stone all those on whom she fixed her eyes. This monster was finally killed by Perseus, and her head was given to Minerva, who affixed it to her shield to represent the fact that infernal falsity is forever exposed by Heavenly Doctrine. The significance of the shield itself is manifest from the letter of the Word, as where it is said: "I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress. His truth shall be thy shield and buckler." (Ps. 91:4.)

     A buckler, or helmet, because it defends the head, signifies protection against the falsities which destroy the understanding of truth; and a shield, because it defends the breast, signifies protection against the falsities which destroy charity, that is, the will of good. (A. E. 734)

     A spear, finally, signifies in general "truth combating," (A. C. 2799), "protection by the interior power of truth from good." (A. E. 734; A, C, 9141), "all things which are of Doctrine." (A. E. 257) and, in the supreme sense. the Omnipotence of the Lord. (A. C. 878.)

     Armed with these Divine weapons, Athene often descended to battle against the powers of darkness, and in the "War of the Giants" she overcame the monstrous Encelados, upon whom she threw the island Trinakria. She also vanquished and flayed the giant Pallas, who dared to assume her own name, and she took a very active part on the side of her favorite Greeks in the countless battles against the hated Trojans, whose city, as has been shown before, stood for the doctrine of the Old Church, the then already corrupted doctrine of the Ancient Church.


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     In every heroic expedition it is she who "nerves each heart for a hero's part on the battlefield of duty." She it was who assisted Theseus in slaying the Minotaur, she gave aid to Perseus in overcoming Medusa; she protected and counseled Hercules in all his labors and adventures, assisted Ulysses on the tempestuous seal and personally superintended the building of the ship Argo. Ships, which also signify doctrines, were under her protection, and it was she who first taught men the art of navigation. For the sea signifies the letter of the Word, and a ship signifies the doctrine by means of which alone the Word can be safely explored.

     There remain to be explained the two strange symbols of Athene, the serpent and the owl, which often are found at her feet. The serpent, in a good sense, signifies the sensual and scientific properly subordinated to the rational and spiritual. It also signifies prudence and circumspection as the lowest natural form of wisdom. The owl, though everywhere mentioned with an evil significance in the Word, may, in connection with Minerva, represent the power of genuine Doctrine to see in the dark as well as in the Light. By the poets the owl of Minerva was supposed to signify vigilant study, meditation, and learning, but it may be that the owl sits at the feet of the goddess only in order to afford a contrast between Heavenly Doctrine on the one hand, and the ludicrous conceit of self-intelligence, on the other.

     The great feast of Athene in Athens was called the "Panathenaia," and was celebrated with great splendor once in four years. On these occasions a sacred ship was carried in procession, on the mast of which there was spread out as a sail the new robe for the image of the goddess which had been woven by Athenian maidens. In Rome she had two festivals, one on the nineteenth of March, and the other on the Nineteenth of June, which day was celebrated as her birthday. (See Encyclopedia Britannica, vol. XVI., p. 437.) This adds to the significance of that day of days. The birthday of the "Doctrine of the Ancient Church" was celebrated on the Nineteenth of June. That day also, witnessed the fatal birth of the Doctrine of the tri-personality of God in the Christian Church, for it was on that day that the Council of Nice met in the year 325.

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And, finally, the birth of the Heavenly Doctrine of the New Jerusalem was completed on that day, when, in the year 1770, Swedenborg finished The True Christian, Religion. This recurrence of the date, always in connection with the birth of Doctrine, may, of course, be merely a coincidence. but it is certainly remarkable and noteworthy.


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LAST JUDGMENT 1906

LAST JUDGMENT              1906

     [MINOR WORKS BY SWEDENBORG.]

     CONCERNING LOVE.

     233. From the ideas of spirits passing into the world of spirits after death, may be known all the ideas which they have had concerning God, heaven, love, and faith. Concerning God most of them have an idea as of a cloud or haze, because they have thought that God is a spirit and of a spirit they have no other idea. Concerning heaven they have the idea that it is in the air, some that it is in the stars, others that it is in the universe, and scarcely any that it is with man; for they cannot remove the idea of space. Concerning heavenly joy they have ideas of delight,-each one of the delight of his own love, especially of the delight of ruling and of living delicately and in continual external pleasures. Few have an idea of the delight of living in internal pleasures; they do not know what they are. Concerning love they have so gross an idea that you may call it filthy. They think from the delight of the love of adultery. Some have no idea of love, because they have not known what love is. And so concerning mutual love; some have an idea of external friendship. In a word, all their ideas of love partake of the idea of lasciviousness. Concerning faith they have no other idea than as of the received faith, the quality of which has been spoken of above. This is no idea of genuine faith since it is an idea of faith separated from charity, and what this is, is unknown. When the angelic idea concerning God, heaven, love, and faith flows in, if it is not perceived, it becomes in their minds like an obscure dankness; for the light of heaven does not enter in. Such, from faith alone, is the world at this day. For when that faith enters in and is received, then nothing of truth is loved. They say, In this faith I know the truths of our church in one complex.


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     234. After death man comes into the world of spirits which is midway between heaven and hell; and there he changes, his societies, and is thus prepared either for heaven or for hell. This change appears like a translation from one place to another, and also like a journey. He goes to various quarters, now ascending to higher regions, now descending to lower; and yet it is perceived that these journeys are only changes of state. This has been the case with me when I have been in the spirit. And when, at last, the man has been prepared, then that love leads him which is the head of his other loves. And he then turns his face to the society where is his ruling love, and thither he betakes himself as to his own home.

     235. That knowledges of truth are inscribed on the affection or love, so that it is the affection that produces them as though they had been known to it. Affection sees those things which are consonant and concordant with itself, for some men have the faculty of confirming.* Wherefore if the affection is good-and it becomes good by means of life-it straightway has inscribed on it the knowledges which favor it; and when it hears and sees them, from things in itself which are similar and analogous, it discerns them wisely; this therefore is of the love. But he who is in faith alone and in the love of self and the world, can be affected only by such things as are concordant with his love; these are inscribed on his love. They are contrary to the truths of faith, which are: That God should be loved above oneself, heaven above the world, the good of the neighbor [above one's own good], and every use for the neighbor [above oneself], and the like truths. The truths of faith are then cast out, which is also actually the case after death, and those things remain which are of the love, or, which are of the will.
     * This statement appears to be part of an argument which is left incomplete. The argument intended is, perhaps, that the presence and exercise of this "faculty of confirming" is evidence that it is the affection which produces knowledges, since it is only that which agrees with the affection that is made the object of this faculty.-TR.


     236. All who have the love of ruling for the sake of self and not for the sake of uses, retain that love after death; and wheresoever they come they wish to rule. This love rushes on as its bonds are relaxed.

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It spurns everything Divine, unless this afford it the means of ruling; in which case, so long as it serves as a means, it loves it; but when it does not serve as a means it not only rejects it but also holds it in hatred. The reason is, because this love is opposite to heavenly love. They are not admitted into heaven, and if, like hypocrites, they insinuate themselves therein they fill the whole neighborhood with an idea and image of themselves, and this even when they speak of God. This love turns aside the ideas of the angels, which are directed away from themselves and towards God; therefore they are driven away. This has been seen. For the most part they are corporeal because immersed in the proprium, and not elevated above it. Such spirits are taken to the boundaries of the world of spirits of our earth where is seen a lake smoking with fire; and first they are rolled* in the dust and let into their life in the world, and thus they are cast into the lake.
     * Volvitur,--literally, "he is rolled." From this point to the end of the paragraph, the singular of the verb is used ("he is let," "he is cast"). In the translation, this has been changed to the plural for the sake of harmony with what precedes.--TR.

     237. Let all who are in the world and read these lines know that the love of ruling for the sake of self and not for the sake of uses is diabolical love itself and in it are all evils. Let them know this and be on their guard. All evil loves are in that love and with it,* even those of which the man had been wholly: ignorant while in the world. I have examples in all abundance, showing that those who, in external form, appear to be moral and Christian men but interiorly in themselves have thought of nothing else: but themselves and the world, after death are consociated with devils. There was one whom I saw during a long period of time, who was so haughty in his disposition that hardly anyone could be more haughty; and yet in the world he could talk with theologians and speak morally with other men; and he feigned justice and fairness more than anyone else. But after death he became such a fiery devil that he not only denied God, but he also wished to be the devil himself in order that he might continually fight against God and destroy heaven; and he blazed with hostility against all who were in the acknowledgment of the Lord.

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He was punished frequently, but in vain. If I should mention his deeds of malice, his cunnings and crimes I would fill whole pages. In him I saw what the devil is, both in his own hell and with men.. (C. XII.)** Such men do not acknowledge God, but believe all are gods who are powerful; and they wish to become gods themselves, and be worshiped.
     * Apud illum et cum illo.
     ** C. XII. indicates Kingi Charles XII. of Sweden as the one here referred to. In the parallel passage to the above. (S. D. 4748), among other additional particulars, it is said that "Car. XII. wished to become the devil himself and ruler of hell and then to enter into a compact with those in heaven and with the Divine there, in respect to authority, but with the intention that he himself should rule all things in hell and that those in heaven should obey him, and if trot that he would reduce them to subjection." See also 8. n. 4884.--TR.

     238. There was once some conversation respecting the love of ruling, to the effect that many believe that those who worship the Lord in the world, although they are His enemies, [will be saved and will rule over all in heaven].* And it was said that a devil can be brought to worship the Lord, if only he be promised that he himself will thereby become a great man, and still more if he would thereby become the greatest of men. It was then permitted that they should take from hell one of the devils there who was most bitterly hostile to the Lord; and it was told him that [if he would worship and honor the Lord] he would be made by Him the greatest of men. He then put his whole mind to this object, and this to such a degree that he wished to lead all men to the Lord and to drive them by threats; saying, that the Lord should be honored and worshipped, and repeating it with earnestness and persuasion: but in his mind he cherished the thought that he would become the Lord's vicar. When, however, he saw that he had been deluded, he began to detest the Lord, and became as before. His most bitter enemy; but he was cast into hell.** In a word, the delight of commanding exceeds every delight of the body.
     * These words, supplying an omission in the original text, are taken from a parallel passage in the Diary, 4817, where also it may be seen that the conversation here recorded had particular reference to the Moravians.--TR.
     ** The same experiment, or one similar to it, is recorded in A. E. 1029.--TR.


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     239. Concerning the two rules or dominions, one from the love of self, the other from love towards the neighbor, see in the work on Heaven and Hell, in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem, and in the little work On the Earths in the Universe, all of which works may be adduced.

     240. With those who are in the love of commanding the interiors appear black, and this because they are closed for the influx of heaven; but their inferiors appear as it were misty because they are opened to the hells. It is said that with those, who are in the love of ruling, the superiors, thus the interiors, can never be opened towards heaven.*
     * The Latin is Quod exteriora superiora nequaquam possint aperiri, ita interiora versus coelum; after aperiri comes the word versus, which, however, is crossed out. It would appear that of the words interiora superiora the latter was intended as a substitute for the former, which, however, the author omitted to cross out. The author then proceeded to write of these superiors, nequaquam possint aperiri versus, but before finishing the sentence he crossed out the last word and added ita interiora, apparently as an interpretation of superiora, as though, if completely rewritten, the sentence would have read Quod superiora ita interiora nequaquam, etc.--TR.

     241. There were seen men who belonged to the nobility* of various nations. They had cordons lying over their breasts suspended from the shoulders, and also a diadem. A number of them were seen. And being inspected by angels it was found that they were continually directing their looks to themselves, and were thinking about their own superior eminence and excellence, and desiring that all men should turn their eyes to them. And because they believed that they were more worthy of being set over others than other men, therefore offices were given them. But when they were making conclusions with respect to subjects that concerned the common welfare,** they were seen to have no affection for the community, nor for uses; thus they were unable from judgment to discern good from evil, or truth thence from falsity. But could only speak in a high sounding manner from the memory. And because they were of such a character they were cast out of their offices; and it was allowed them to travel about and get offices for themselves.*** But wherever they came they were told by the spirits there that they were thinking only of themselves and not of them, thus that they had no thought except what was from the sensual corporeal; therefore they were nowhere received. They went on in this way for some time. I afterwards saw some of them reduced to extremities and seeking alms. Thus is the love of ruling brought low. One spirit who also wore the uniform of a nobleman confessed that when he wore that uniform**** he could not think as before because he was interrupted by thought concerning himself; but whenever he was at home and put it off he returned to his own judgment as before.***** Diabolical spirits are skilled in the art of seducing the upright.

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They do this by turning their thoughts to themselves and their own proprium: by praising them in various ways; by placing themselves at their back and breathing into them the level of self; and where they see anything black, which is the proprium, they enquire what [of self]****** is there, they then infuse it with their own thought and pervert the man, yea lead him.******* Some look into the forehead and act in like manner; others proceed in a different way.******** Wherever blackness appears, there is the love of ruling, because this blackness is the proprium.
     * Equestris ordo, literally, "Equestrian Order" or "Order of knighthood." From a comparison with a parallel passage (S. D. 5461) it would seem that the men referred to in this paragraph were mainly members of the Equestian Order of Sweden,--a term which includes the whole body of the nobility.--TR.
     ** This was done at a consultation "in a certain senate" in the world of spirits (S. D. 5461).--TR.
     *** The scene of these journeys was "remotely at the west," whither they were sent after being deprived of their offices (S. D. 5461).--TR.
     **** Cunt in illo insigni esset, literally, when he was id that badge."--TR.
     ***** The man here spoken of was Count Sven Lagerberg, a member of the Swedish nobility. See the parallel passage in the Diary (5461-1/2), in which it is added that Lagerberg found that, even at home, whenever he put on the uniform of his nobility. he came into a state of thought concerning himself; which state left him when he put the uniform off. He therefore decided not to wear it at all at home, and to wear it in public only when necessary. Lagerberg, (b. 1672, d. 1746), was an Officer in the army of Charles XII., under whom he distinguished himself for his bravery; and in 1717 he was raised to the rank of major-general. In 1721 he became a Senator, an office which he held until the time of his death, and in the fulfilment of which he was highly praised for his superior industry, judgment and patriotism. In S. D. 4683 and 5461-1/2 it is stated that Lagerberg was "in the truth of some good," that "he consulted the good of his country," and that it was "well with him." But later on, S. D. 5479, he is described as having been sent into a gulf because of his adulteries, revenge and denial of the Divine, and it is stated that in the world he had been delighted merely in reading the acts and revisions of the Senate. Still later, S. D. 5867, he is reported as being stupid. In the latest statement concerning him, S. D. 6028, it is said that on account of his denial of the Divine, "he appeared half dead," but the statement concludes with the Words, "His future lot I do not know."--TR.
     ****** So in S. D. 5464--TR.
     ******* It is stated in a parallel passage, (S. D. 5363), that these arts of seduction can be exercised only against those whose thoughts can be turned to themselves, but are of no avail whatever against those "who turn their thoughts to others whom they regard as being just as worthy as themselves, especially if they turn them to the Lord."-TR.
     ******** Various other ways of seducing the upright are set forth with some detail in S. D. 5464--TR

     242. The fact that love, which is of man's will, corresponds to flame, and faith, which is of the thought from the understanding, corresponds to light, comes from the Lord's influx from love and wisdom, or from the Sun of heaven. From this Sun proceeds Divine love and Divine wisdom,--love into the will and wisdom info the understanding. But only so much of intelligence [is received] as there is of love; just as is the case with light from flame.

     243. They who worship the Lord from love worship Him from all the truths of faith; therefore the more the truths the fuller and more acceptable is the worship. The reason is, because love excites all the things which have entered from love into the understanding. When the man is in worship only those things appear before him which he then speaks or prays, but still all the others are in connexion and in their own series.* When love produces truths, then these latter are disposed by the Lord into the form of heaven, and the man then adores the Lord as it were from heaven.

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This has been made known to me from experience in the spiritual world. When I see anyone [there] all those things come up which I know and have heard about him. The angels see these in their series, and so forth. Hence it is evident of what quality is worship of the Lord by those who, from love to Him are in genuine truths.
     * At omnia reliqua in nexu sunt, et non sunt in sua serie. Literally translated this would read, "Yet all the others are in connexion and are not in their series." But the word non (not) appears to be in contradiction to the idea expressed in the context. Possibly it is a lapsus pennae, or, as is frequently the case in the manuscript of this work, the author may have omitted to erase it.--TR.

     244. For the sake of instruction it sometimes happens that one spirit is allowed to change the affections in another, even into contrary affections; and according to the changes of his affections his face is changed so that it becomes wholly unrecognizable; there is also induced a monstrous form of face, and also blackness according to the affections. Moreover, the body also is changed, becoming taller or shorter,--taller from haughtiness and pride and shorter from humility and the disparagement of self. It thence became evident that affection or love makes the man from head to foot. A like change takes place when a spirit is carried transversely through various societies, which was also witnessed, namely, that he becomes unrecognizable. Hence it is evident that he is absolutely such as his love is. It was also shown that faith, which is of the thought, conjoined to corporeal love, and which therefore is of the love,* makes man to be deformed according to the kind of love. And therefore in order that faith be faith it must be conjoined to spiritual affection.
     * The words translated "and which, therefore, is of the love" are very obscurely written in the original manuscript. Chastanier's reading is "qui etiam varius est" (which, i. e., corporeal love, is also various). With this reading Dr. Im. Tafel agrees, except that he would omit the word etiam. As the words seem to the present translator they might be read ita quae amoris est. This reading has, therefore, been adopted.--TR.

     245. The quality of the delight of the love of commanding was perceived, namely, that the sweetness within it is ineffable. From this sweetness man believes that it is heaven and heavenly joy, when yet it is hell. This delight is also turned into what is direfully infernal.*

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It is similar with the love of doing evil,--the love of hatred and revenge, the love of theft, and also the love of adultery, and their delights. Man does not know that when, by means of reformation by the Lord, these delights recede, then for the first time the delights of heaven enter in; which delights infinitely surpass the former. Nor does he know that the delights of those evils are then undelightful and stinging. Before reformation he does not know that such is their quality.
     * Vertitur etiam jucundum in tale dirum, literally, "The delight is also turned into such a direful thing.-TR.

     246. I saw many who had lived in this and former centuries,--some of them military officers, of higher and lower rank, and others civil functionaries--all of whom, under the favoring influence of fortune, had contracted such a delight of commanding that they aspired to dominion over all things. Their delight was perceived as being to them like heaven. Moreover, they were gifted, above others, with talent and natural light in regard to civil affairs. After their decease, they had at first spoken about God; but after a short time they denied God and acknowledged nature; and at last they became like fools, sitting in dark shade; and in this way they lead a miserable life. The reason is because the love of commanding is opposite to heavenly love.

     247. After death every man is bound to many societies according to the number of his loves but after vastation he comes into that society where is his ruling love, for this is the center of his other loves.

     248. There was a certain man (Fr. G.)* who in his childhood had cultivated piety, and who remained in the acknowledgment of God from that time even to the end of his life.

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And yet under the favoring influence of fortune he came into the love of commanding and hence into evils of every kind. He did not indeed perpetrate them, but still he excused them and accounted them lawful. In the other life he prayed to God as he had done in the world, and with such fervor that hardly anyone could pray more ardently; but it was to God the Father, for he delivered that by doing this all things were forgiven him. But he began to burn with such hatred against the Lord that he denied Him; and afterwards he persecuted those who adored the Lord.** At last he denied God and became like a fool; and he was sent among those who have little life.***
     * This was Count Frederic Cryllenborg (b. 1698. d. 1759), who, during his lifetime, was one of Swedenborg's friends. Born of a noble family he passed his earlier years as an officer of the Royal court where he remained until 1733. In 1731 he appeared in the House of Nobles where, although a silent member, he became one of the leading spirits of the "party of the hats," a party which sought to bring Sweden to a mar with Russia in the hope of regaining the Baltic provinces wrested from Charles XII. In 1750, after Swedenborg had left the College of Mines, Count Gyllenborg was made its president, and he continued to hold this office until his death in 1759. He was one of the founders of the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences. He is represented to have been man of benevolent disposition, a zealous patriot, and a promoter of learning. But his true character was very different. In the spiritual world he continued his life of external piety, but at the same time he was seen to be a cunning hypocrite who cherished the most murderous hatred against the Lord and all who worshiped Him. S. D. 4740, 5160. See also the following note.-TR.
     **In S. D. 5976, a parallel passage to the above, it is stated that after these prayers to God the Father, which were all directed to and answered by a certain spirit who impersonated God. (S. D. 6026, 5977). Gyllenborg invariably gave himself up to persistent attacks on Swedenborg, in whom his hatred of the Lord and the Lord's worshipers was concentrated. He would gather together immense companies of spirits for the purpose of destroying him. Failing in direct methods, he tried indirect and more subtle ones (S. D. 5983). He also endeavored to inflict terrible torments on Swedenborg (Ath. Creed 201). So great was his hatred that even when, for his plots, he was suffering one of the most dreadful punishments of the spiritual world, he still exclaimed that he would rather die than desist from his attempts. (S. D. 5983.)-TR.
     *** In S. D. 5984, it is stated that he was finally dismissed to be vastated in a cavern where he was "among those who sit almost half dead, and on whom, in front, a tablet is hung on which is written what they are, so that passers-by may read."-TR.

     249. They who are in the delight of the love of commanding cannot become spiritual; and this for the reason that they immerse everything of affection and hence of thought in their proprium, which in itself is corporeal and evil, so that they cannot be withdrawn from the proprium. Everyone who acknowledges God in heart, is elevated above his proprium; for man cannot look to God, acknowledging Him in heart, from himself; and he who cannot be elevated above his proprium has heaven closed to him.

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And since through heaven there flows in from the Lord intelligence, because spiritual light, therefore when heaven is closed they become stupid and like fools.

     250. I once saw what kind of love to the Lord exists among Christians at this day. A number of them* were let into their loves; and in phantasy it was granted them to see as it were the Lord.** And they then came into such fury that they dragged him down and wished to butcher him. They were all in faith alone, and, at the time, in the love of self. Thence it became evident that the Christian world at this day are against the Lord as were the Jews of old. In a word, all who are in faith alone and in the love of self and the world, and hence in evils, come into fury if they merely feel the Lord's Divine sphere.
     * In S. D. 5978 We learn that these were "Benzelstierna and many others." The Benzelstierna here referred to is assumed by Dr. R. L. Tafel to be Gustav Benzelstierna, (b. 1683, d. 1746), a younger brother to Archbishop Eric Benzelius who married Swedenborg's sister. It might, however, as is recognized in Dr. Kahl's Narratiunculae, equally, if not better, refer to Lars Benzelstierna, (b. 1680, d. 1735), a brother at Gustav. Both men are frequently mentioned in the Diary, and both are shown to have been wicked.--TR.
     ** This appearance of the Lord is said in S D. 4725 to be "an imaginary appearance, not real."--TR.

     (To be continued.)


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Editorial Department 1906

Editorial Department       Editor       1906

NOTES AND REVIEWS.

     A reviewer of John Bigelow's The Useful Life, in the Princeton Theological Review for January, finds the general teaching of the book "certainly in accord with Scripture," but adds: "Swedenborg has been too long before the world to call for review. If having failed to understand Swedenborg's system as a whole, we turn to this volume of extracts in the hope that upon a single practical theme he may seem more simple, the expectation is doomed to disappointment, for here are the same combinations of beautiful and suggestive expressions of truth with sentences and clauses that may mean many things or nothing, and we are still left wondering whether the fault is with Swedenborg or the reader." We submit that the fault is with neither, but with the reviewer who evidently is not a reader.

     The death of the Rev. S. H. Spencer has resulted in the permanent suspension of The New Christianity. This paper was established by the Rev. B. F. Barrett in 1887, with Mr. Spencer as co-editor. as an undenominational publication (more or less devoted to the principles taught by Henry George), whose object was to further the permeation of the Old Church by the New. After Mr. Barrett's death, Mr. Spencer became sole editor of The New Christianity, of which he was the leading spirit; but during the past year he received the co-operation of the Rev. A. Roeder as associate editor.

     Commenting on some recent effusions on the necessity of less "doctrine" and more "zeal" and "love," in the work of spreading the New Church, the Rev. O. L. Barler, writing to the Messenger, is sounding a timely warning: "I have noticed of late the little currents drifting toward the Niagara of No Doctrine! What would the New Church be without its heavenly doctrines?

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And what would we he if we did not study them with devotion? It would take but a generation to forget them. O, I recall how, fifty years ago-forty years ago, and even less than that--I labored to galvanize my poor soul into some indefinite passion for saving souls! I had then no light of doctrine to lead me, and how could I know the way?"

     The Messenger of April 18th quotes approvingly from the editorial by "W. F. P." on The Future Conflict, which was printed in our March issue. The editorial is spoken of as an "important warning" and a "timely appeal," and the Messenger urges to a study of the "natural truths which Swedenborg taught concerning origins, series, and degrees," as being, together with the Heavenly Doctrine, the only way to successfully meet the all-prevailing sophistry of evolution. Of the neglect of the study of Swedenborg's science, which is so general in the New Church, the editorial truly observes. "We have the truths; but we do not know them, have not used them to form and found a truly rational mind, except only a few who are beginning to realize the greatness of their value, and to see the duty of understanding them."

     Little by little, though very slowly, the remaining manuscripts and early treatises by Swedenborg are being published and translated into English. The latest addition is Part I, fascicle I, (fascicle 2 has already been published), of the collection of "Scientific and Philosophical Treatises by Emanuel Swedenborg," edited by Mr. Alfred Henry Stroh had published by the Swedenborg Scientific Association. The present fascicle, (of 64 pages), contains 1) the sketch "On the Causes of Things," translated by Mr. Stroh; 2) "On the Nature of Fire and Colors," translated by the Rev. C. Th. Odhner; 3) "Remarks on Mussels, Snails, etc., in Limestone," translated by Mr. Stroh; 4) "On the Height of Water and the Strong Tides in the Primeval World." translated by the Rev. Joseph E. Rosenquist, and 5) "On the Falling and Rising of Lake Wenner," translated by Mr. Stroh. All these little works date from 1717-1720.


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     Till Fragan om Swedenborgs Sjalstillstand. (A contribution to the discussion in regard to Swedenborg's mental condition,--a lecture delivered at the memorial service in Stockholm, on January 28th, 1906, by the Rev. C. J. N. Manby.) This is a second pamphlet recently issued by Mr. Manby defending Swedenborg against the ancient charges of insanity which of late have been revived in Sweden. Mr. Manby reviews the whole array of these allegations and ably disposer of the "allegators," among whom we find the poet Kellgren who declared that "Swedenborg was a fool, pure and simple;" the famous chemist Benzelius who called Swedenborg "one of the world's greatest thinkers until he became demented;" the celebrated writer Wieselgren who termed the Arcana Coelestia "the Exegesis of Bedlam," the philosopher Kant who termed Swedenborg "an arch-fantast, a brainless brooder," and characterized the Arcana Coelestia as "eight quartos of insanities," in which "he was ashamed to have attempted to find sound reason." [But he was not ashamed to steal from Swedenborg and to claim as his own the only reasonable elements of the Kantian philosophy.] And finally Prof. Maudsley who professed to have made a special study of Swedenborg's mental condition, and who declared him to have been, during the latter part of his life, "an incurable although learned and brilliant madman." These charges are like so many nine-pins which have been set up again and again during the course of a century and a half, and as often struck down by irrefutable proofs,-only to be merrily set up again just as if nothing had happened. And so it will go on for ages and there is no use in being impatient.

     In an editorial on the Census instituted by Mr. C. W. Barren, which was commented on in our last issue. The Messenger for April 11th dwells particularly on the fact that "the returns do appear to accentuate the cry over the loss of the children of the Church." "This situation." says our contemporary, "raises two questions: the one as to whether the external organization of the New Church, with its knowledge of the Lord's reason for creating men, and its further knowledge of the laws governing the spiritual and the natural universe, is guilty of the crime-doubly wicked, in such case--of 'race suicide;' the other whether we have been drifting with the current of the world's thought respecting the ends and means of the education of children, rather than being guided by the magnetic current that swings our spiritual compass."


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     The reference to race suicide in the above extract is in welcome contrast to the very opposite utterances on that subject which appeared in one number of the Messenger under its former editor. But the remark about "the ends and means of the education of children." while it may indicate some thought about distinctive New Church education, is, to say the least, beautifully indefinite.

     
The Messenger is desirous of getting at some statistical facts on the point as to whether the children are leaving the Church or not, and for this purpose it suggests that another census be made which shall deal, not with newcomers, but with those born in the Church. The suggestion is a good one, though we can hardly agree with the adoption of some of the questions suggested by the Messenger. Few people, for instance, to whom the circulars would be sent, would care to answer in the negative such a searching question as "Do you really care for its spiritual interests!" But if a census could be instituted which would learn, say, from the heads of families, or from pastors, how many of the children of the family had remained in external connection with the Church and how many had married out of the Church, and whether the partner and children came into the Church, it would result in some instructive and also startling figures.


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"CONJUGIAL LOVE" OR "MARRIAGE LOVE." 1906

"CONJUGIAL LOVE" OR "MARRIAGE LOVE."              1906

Editor New Church Life.

     DEAR SIR:--In reply to the letter of the Trustees of the Rotch Fund, in New Church Life for May, in respect to changing the title-page of Conjugial Love, permit me to suggest that the present title-page of the work is the correct one, because given by the Lord's servant. Who should know better than the writer of the work what the "face" of the work should be? If it is changed to "Marriage Love," the "face" of the whole work is changed, so that it would appear to treat of the "marriage love" of the sexes, instead of the conjugial conjunction of the human soul with the Divine. The effect of such a change would tend to destroy the idea of this spiritual and inmost conjugial.

     The first part of the work treats of "the Delights of Wisdom concerning Conjugial Love?" and the second part treats of "the Pleasures of Insanity concerning Scortatory Love. Hence it may be seen that the work is not treating of "Marriage Love, but of the conjugial union of the human soul with the Divine of the Lord, and Its opposites. "Conjugial Love" is the spiritual love of good and truth, and "Scortatory Love" is the love of evil and falsity, and "thence insanity of spiritual things," which destroys all love and perception of the spiritual sense of the Word and the representatives which teach it.

     We are taught that "Love truly conjugial is here treated of,"--and this in the whole work,--and not the common love, which love is called conjugal. . . . but love truly conjugial is with those who long for wisdom." (C. L. 98.) "Conjugal" is a word which presents a natural idea, but the letter "i" which is added to it in "conjugial," makes it spiritual and changes its form and use. The title to the work was provided immediately from the Lord through His servant, and should not be changed. "Conjugial love is the fundamental of all the loves of heaven and the church, because its origin is from the marriage of good and truth." (C. L. 65.) D. L. THOMPSON. Toronto. Ont., May 11, 1906.


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ANOTHER "REJECTED COMMUNICATION." 1906

ANOTHER "REJECTED COMMUNICATION."       WILLIAM EVANS       1906

Editor New Church Messenger.

     In the Messenger of March 7th there appears an article entitled "The Functions of Moses and Aaron" in which the writer tries to point out the root of the differences between the Academy and the Church generally.

     It is stated that "faith is absolutely necessary, but faith alone is the crowning falsity of the Church, and it takes on its deadliest form in those of the professed New Church who put doctrine above life, and that true doctrine which is based on and drawn from the internal meaning of the Word." The writer has been a member of the New Church for more than thirty years, but he has never yet met with any of the professed New Church, who, in their teachings, placed "doctrine alone above life." either in or out of the Academy. However, it is plainly evident that it is the Academy which is accused of this, and several passages from the Writings are quoted, "as teaching the source of the genuine doctrine for the Church, namely, the internal sense of the Word."

     The article strikingly illustrates the danger of accepting general statements made in the Writings without giving due weight to other passages in which the particulars are given, and which may frequently modified the doctrine taught to a very great extent. Let us see how it is in this case.

     In T. C. R. 230 we read: "It may be supposed that the doctrine of genuine truth might be obtained by the spiritual sense of the Word, which is given by the science of correspondences: but doctrine is not obtained by that, but it is only illustrated and corroborated; for, as was before said, 208, a man, by some correspondences which are known, may falsify the Word, by conjoining and applying them to confirm that which is fixed in his mind from a principle which he has imbibed."

     In T. C. R. 225 it is stated "that the doctrine of the Church should be derived from the sense of the letter of the Word, and confirmed by it," but in 226 it is shown very plainly "that the Word, without doctrine, is not understood."

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In this number are given several illustrations from the Word in which it is shown that in order to understand the Word we must have true doctrine, "for doctrine is like a chandelier with lighted candles." T. C. R. 227. In this, and the following number it is shown that the Reformed. Roman Catholics, and Jews, each understood the Word from false doctrine, and that those who read without doctrine "could confirm from the Word whatever they would." In 229 it is said that the literal sense of the Word is "like a man clothed, whose face is bare, and whose hands also are bare. All the things which appertain to the faith and life of man, consequently to his salvation, are there naked or bare, but the rest are clothed;" and in 231 it is shown that illustration is from the Lord alone, with those "who love truths because they are truths, and make them uses of life."

     There can be no doubt that the sincere searcher for truth can find many a gem shining through the literal sense of the Word, but he will meet with many difficulties which can only be overcome by accepting those Divine Writings in which the Lord has made His second coming, as is so beautifully set forth in T. C. R. 779. "That this second Coming of the Lord is effected by means of a man, before whom He has manifested Himself, and whom He has filled with his Spirit, to teach the Doctrines of the New Church through the Word from Him, I testify in truth: and also that, from the first day of that call. I have not received anything which pertains to the doctrine of that Church from any angel, but from the Lord alone, while I read the Word." In the first number of the T. C. R. is given "The Faith of the New Heaven and the New Church;" if, then, we accept the doctrines contained therein, we can find them "illustrated and corroborated" by the spiritual sense of the Word, and also confirmed by the literal sense.

     In another part of the article it is said that "the doctrine that teaches that certain violations of the sixth commandment are 'allowable' is drawn only from the second part of the book on 'Conjugial Love.' which on its face treats only of 'Insanities,' and no where pretends to be drawn from the Word. . . . Is it not doctrine run wild, that will cause one to affirm from things therein found, and the purpose of which is plainly misunderstood, that these very things are 'allowable' which in Swedenborg's other writings, when he is explaining the very commandment in question, at which time he received instruction only from the Lord Himself, are said to 'close heaven and open hell,' so far as they are believed to be 'allowable.' " (A. E. 982.)

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On turning to the above number we find it stated that "adulteries close heaven and open hell, and this they do so far as they are believed to be allowable, and are perceived to be more delightful than marriages." Allow me to ask, Who has taught that adulteries are allowable? The writer cannot find any such teaching even in the second part of Conjugial Love, nor does he know of any New-churchman, learned or unlearned, who has ever taught any such doctrine. The writer of the article in question refers to 16 Continuation Last Judgment as to the effect of anyone believing that such things are "allowable." On turning to the above number we find that the things mentioned are "adulteries, various kinds of theft, lying, revenge, hatred, and the like." To those who know anything about the Academy and its teachings, it is entirely unnecessary to state that such things are not believed to be allowable. But, if we turn to A. E. 1010 we may learn something of the distinction between adultery and fornication, where it is said that "all whoredom that destroys the marriage principle and extinguishes the love of marriage is adultery or pertains to adultery; while that which does not destroy the marriage principle and does not extinguish the love of marriage, is fornication springing from a certain instinct of nature towards marriage, which for serious reasons cannot yet be entered into." The "various reasons' are given in C. L. 450.

     A careful perusal of what is said in other parts of the Writings ought to convince anyone that the man who was filled with the Lord's spirit was not napping, nor laboring under temporary mental aberration when he wrote the second part of Conjugial Love: but that on the contrary, the teaching therein contained is in perfect harmony with that which is contained in the other books. Thus, in C. L. 470, a reference is made to 252, 253, which numbers are contained in the first part of Conjugial Love, and certainly it cannot be said that those passages contradict each other.

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In C. L. 1 Swedenborg solemnly declares that the Lord sent him "to teach the things relating to the New Church." Now, then, is it possible that any professed believer in the New Church can say that the Lord did not send him to teach what is in the second part of the book as well as what is in the first!

     In T. C. R. 313 a great many passages in the second part of C. L. are alluded to, and their titles given, but there is not one word to show that this part of the book was not intended for the New
Church, as some suppose.

     Many years ago, (about the year 1890 in the month of June), an answer was given in New Church Life to a question asked by the writer, which created no small stir throughout the New Church. The writer was horrified at the teaching contained in New Church Life, and as a consequence ceased for some time to take the paper. On the other hand, it has been evident to him for many years past that the second part of C. L., as well as the first, is for those who will be of the New Church, and that it is an integral part of the doctrines of that Church which is to endure for ages of ages, and which is to be the crown of all the churches.

     There appear to be many in the New Church who believe that Swedenborg received instruction from the Lord alone only when expounding the spiritual sense of the Word, whereas he distinctly and solemnly states in T. C. R. 779, "From the first day of that call. I have not received anything which pertains to the doctrines of that Church from any angel, but from the Lord alone, while I read the Word." Now, it can scarcely be maintained that the second part of C. L. does not pertain to the doctrines of the New Church; and if it does pertain to the doctrines of the New Church, why is the Academy blamed for teaching exactly what is contained therein?
WILLIAM EVANS.
Randolph. Ont., March 20, 1906.


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Church News 1906

Church News       Various       1906

     FROM OUR CORRESPONDENTS.

     BRYN ATHYN, PA. Our past month has been notable for several happenings--first among which may well be considered the climax of the Bishop's lessons on Creation and the Spiritual Sun at the Friday classes, in which he developed the most recent advances that have been made by our specialists in this line, giving an insight into the connection between the two worlds, which is startling in its simplicity, and which may make the Principia, hitherto a sealed book to many, quite simple and comprehensible.

     Intellectually we have been treated to two Monday evening lectures. The first by Dr. Geo. M. Cooper, on the Brain, illustrated by the stereopticon, was distinguished by its lucid presentation of the broad, general outlines of structure and function, suggesting to some of the teachers a possible best way to begin the presentation of the great subject of the human body. The second, by Dr. Farrington, on Nutrition, illustrated by experiments, was chiefly remarkable for its wide scope, interesting demonstrations, and deep insight into the relations of the physical to the interior vital functions.

     Socially there has been an especially fine dance social, the last function of the Young Folks' Club under its old organization. This club has done such excellent service to the Society that its functions are to be considerably extended hereafter, and its organization merged with the erstwhile Civic and Social Club, which carries with it a valuable charter.

     On Easter Sunday the Holy Supper was administered. The chapel was very simply decorated with palms and Easter lilies, and the service itself seemed unusually peaceful and impressive.

     On account of the temporary closing of the schools, during the quarantine which was established earlier in the season, the college and seminary confined their Easter holiday to Good Friday and the following Monday. The pupils, however, accepted with good grace the deprivation of the usual week holiday.


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     The school has had two socials, each bristling with original and entertaining features. Just now we are all agog over the preparations for the school closing next month, when there will be a large class of girl graduates, though not so many young men. The series of preliminary banquets and parties will be well initiated before this reaches the public.

     The usual tree planting occurred a week or so ago. Each class planted a young sapling, and buried in the earth with its roots facetious essays in Greek and Latin, which were read by members of the class, and appreciated by the learned present.

     A party of the graduating class of the seminary chaperoned by Mrs. Glenn, journeyed to Washington during the past month, and spent a week at the National Capital. The trip was taken in connection with the course in civics, to obtain a practical idea of the working of the United States government.

     There have been two ball games in which our boys developed unexpected skill. We had the satisfaction of beating our old rivals. Abington Friends School.

     Among the Bryn Athyn visitors since Easter were Mrs. Hyatt, of Toronto, and her little daughter, Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Roschman, are with us indefinitely, and also Mr. and Mrs. Alden, of Philadelphia, who, with their family, will occupy "Inglehame" during the summer, while Miss Hogan is abroad. S. R.

     PHILADELPHIA, PA. On the invitation of Mr. and Mrs. W. H. Zeppenield the members and friends of the Advent church met in the hall of worship at 8 o'clock P. M.. on March 25th, to celebrate the silver wedding day of their host and hostess. The hall had been beautifully decorated. A large number responded to the invitation. The program provided for several songs, speeches, Toasts, responses, and dances.

     On Wednesday evening, April 4th, at the usual doctrinal class, Dr. E. A. Farrington gave a "talk" to the members of the Society on the very interesting topic. "The Spiritual Signification of Foods and Digestion." The Doctor has a peculiar ability to give in an easy and pleasant way instruction which proved to be real mental food, and which all seemed to enjoy, nor has any case of indigestion caused by it been heard of. We hope the doctor will "talk" to us again.


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     A "Men's Meeting" was held on Monday evening, April 9th, in Glenn Hall. Friends from Bryn Athyn were invited.

     Both natural and mental foods were provided, and all present were satisfied that the meeting was both useful and pleasant.

     An opportunity to give a hearty welcome to the new members of the Society and to those of the newly formed "Board of Finance" was perhaps the special use afforded by this occasion.

     The Easter services were attended by forty-nine persons, thirty-four of whom partook of the Holy Supper. The Ladies' Aid had provided a great number of flowers and palms, which were artistically grouped in front of the platform and on the altar.     J. E. R.

     PITTSBURG, PA. On Easter Sunday the Holy Supper was administered. The chancel was decorated with spring flowers. The morning was clear and cool and everything seemed to conspire to make the service particularly impressive.

     The Philosophy Club meets as usual, and its learned members are still discussing esoteric problems. On one particular evening at the home of Mr. Pendleton after "pondering weak and weary, over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten love," they were awakened by the stimulating presence of Mr. Walter C. Childs, of Yonkers, U. S. A. In his own inimitable way he entertained them with many a song and tale of old Academy spirit, and they had just as good a time as befalls the Glenviewites once a month!

     Mr. Pendleton completed his series of Wednesday evening classes on "Creation" early in April, which were immediately followed by a course of lectures on the subject of "Conjugial Love." Needless to say, they are very instructive, and a goodly attendance testifies to the interest taken.

     The unmarried element gather once a month to indulge in cards and other social diversions. The latest meeting was the occasion of a first-class German monologue by Mr. Walter Faulkner, and some musical oddities by local talent.

     April 18th, Mr. Edgar Lindsay's birthday, brought together the Pittsburgh Society for a social evening at the home of his parents. During the course of the evening a toast was offered to the health and prosperity of the "new man."


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     The list of visitors to Pittsburgh was overlooked in the last correspondence. The following have been seen hereabouts: Mrs. A. G. Gilmore, of Boston; Mr. John Pitcairn, Mr. Seymour Nelson, Mr. S. H. Hicks, Mr. R. W. Hicks, Mr. Walter C. Childs, Mr. Clarence A. Gilmore, Miss Clara Hanlin, Miss Eva Davis, and Miss Julia Boggess, from Middleport, and Mr. Cole, from Glenview.
K. W.

     GLENVIEW, ILL. On the ninth of April a very enjoyable musical was held at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Seymour Nelson. The program consisted of both vocal and instrumental solos, many of which were contributed by our Sharon church friends.

     The park is more beautiful than ever. Base ball is popular with young and old. The Friday classes are enthusiastically attended, and the school is prospering. E. J.

     MIDDLEPORT, PA. The Easter services this year were very beautiful and impressive. In addition to the regular service the rite of baptism was performed, also the Holy Supper was administered. The church was prettily decorated with apple blossoms and other spring flowers.

     The ladies of the society enjoyed a very pleasant afternoon at the home of Mrs. Allen, the first of April, the occasion being in honor of Mrs. N. D. Pendleton, of Pittsburg, who was visiting here at the time.

     Miss Evelyn Gilmore was also a visitor here during April, having come down from Pittsburg to spend her Easter vacation.

     A six-hand euchre party was given at the home of Mr. L. O. Cooper on April 26th, by the ladies of the society. Everybody had a delightful time.

     We spent a very pleasant evening on May 11th at the home of our pastor, having been invited there to meet the Rev. W. L. Alden, of Philadelphia, who was spending a few days here. We also had the pleasure of hearing a sermon from him on the following Sunday morning.

     We were glad to see quite a number of our out of town members, who, on account of the bad roads, are unable to get in to church during the winter months. A. E. D.


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     FROM THE MISSIONARY FIELD. On Sunday, afternoon, March 18th, we held a reading service, including a sermon, at the home of Mr. and Mrs. F. P. Burkhardt, of Springfield, O., and in the evening the sacrament of the Lord's Supper was administered to Mr. and Mrs. Burkhardt. I met two gentlemen who, being dissatisfied with the old beliefs, seem to have become deeply interested in the doctrines of the New Church and are reading the Writings. One of them had purchased some of the books, which was an indication of a real interest in interior revealed truth.

     On Sunday, April 8th, a meeting was held in Wheeling, W. Va., at the residence of Mrs. E. A. Pollock and family, at 3 P. M. A sermon was delivered, and the sacrament of the Lord's Supper was administered to nine persons. After the service there was an animated conversation, lasting an hour or more.

     On Sunday morning, April 29th, I preached in the church at Greenford, O. The number present was sixteen. Circumstances prevented the attendance of some half a dozen members who live (or at the time were) in the city of Youngstown. The New Church friends in the vicinity of Columbiana and in Greenford kindly entertained me for ten days, and we had many talks.

     From May 2d till the 4th, I was with Mr. J. S. Webster and family, at Columbus, O. We had an interesting little meeting, the last evening of my visit.     J. E. B.

     FROM OUR CONTEMPORARIES.

     UNITED STATES. At the annual meeting of the WASHINGTON, D. C., Society, held during Easter week, the pastor. Dr. Frank Sewall, was presented by his congregation with a purse of gold.

     Over $17,000 have been subscribed for the building of a new place of worship by the members of the CLEVELAND Society, and work will be commenced in a few weeks. It is proposed to move the present church building to the rear of the lot, and to adapt it for use as a parish house.


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     The various parishes of the CHICAGO SOCIETY all united in contributing to a fund for the relief of the San Francisco sufferers.

     Reports from SAN FRANCISCO show that the two New Church buildings in that city suffered comparatively little injury in the recent earthquake and fire. The O'Farrell Street church, of which the Rev. Wm. de Ronden-Pos is pastor, was damaged to the extent of about $zoo, while the church on Lyon Street, to which the Rev. Joseph Worcester ministers, came off unscathed; services were held there on April 30th. One New Church lady, a member of this latter society, lost her life by the fall of a chimney. This is the only fatality among the New Church people, but some of them have suffered financial loss, in the destruction of buildings. Among these was Mr. M. Manning, the proprietor of an apartment house, which was entirely destroyed. On the other hand. Mr. Worcester's home hall a remarkable escape, being one of a little group of houses on Russian Hill which the fire surrounded, and yet left practically untouched. The saving of both this house and the remarkable little building on Lyon street are noted and commented upon by the San Francisco press.

     GERMANY. The BERLIN Society of the New Church has lately drawn up a constitution in conformity with the Prussian law and also a statement of principles in conformity with the doctrines. Both documents have been deposited with the President of Police and have been printed. Services are held regularly every Sunday evening at a rented hall, and are followed by a class for reading from the Writings. The attendance is from fifteen to twenty persons, and the membership twenty-six.

     ITALY. Signor Vittorio Risegari, president of the New Church society at Trieste in the Monatblatter for March describes the life and death of Signor Francesco Swedenborg Gnocchi, who departed to the spiritual world on February 12, 1906, at the age of thirty-one years. His parents, residing at Santagata di Militello, (Sicily), had left the Catholic Church and had received the Doctrines of the New Church, and his father, Giovanni Gnocchi, was a zealous co-worker with the late Professor Scocia.

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Their son, at the age of nine years, was baptized at Florence, in the year 1884, by the Rev. E. Ford, an American New Church minister, whom for many years, resided in Florence. His younger sisters, Eden and Loreta, were baptized on the same occasion, and these were the very first New Church baptisms in Italy. At the age of seventeen years, young Francesco Swedenborg Gnocchi entered the royal marine and made extensive journeys to Asia and Africa. After a protracted sojourn in China and Japan he returned sick to his home, where he was lovingly nursed to the end by his father and sisters. In his traveling bag he carried the Word and the Italian translations of Swedenborg's Writings, which, during his last illness, were to him a source of great consolation.
CORRECTION 1906

CORRECTION              1906


     Announcements.

     In our last issue, p. 256, under "Births" supply after Norma Ruth, "born February 9, 1906." [Corrected.]
LAUGHTER AND WEEPING 1906

LAUGHTER AND WEEPING       Rev. W. B. CALDWELL       1906



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NEW CHURCH LIFE
VOL. XXVI.          JULY, 1906.           No. 7.
     In the Writings of the Church are to be found many interesting teachings concerning laughter and weeping, some of which it is the purpose of this paper to present, though in such a limited scope it is manifestly impossible to treat these subjects exhaustively, or to include extensive psychological or scientific consideration. From Revelation we can obtain the spiritual light necessary to an interior understanding of all subjects, and thus from an eminent standpoint view the results of experience, observation and modern investigation, unfolding truths which will not only enrich the intellect, but also improve the life.

     I. LAUGHTER.

     From what we are told in the Writings concerning laughter,* it is evident that the term, as there used, covers several varieties, ranging all the way from what is of evil origin to what is of good origin, and in general they may be divided into three kinds.
     * See in special A. C. 2273, 2216.

     1. The mocking and derision which is from evil, having in it the glory and exultation of self-love, contempt for the neighbor and for things spiritual and Divine.

     2. An intermediate kind, which may have either good or evil within it--the laughter which is from the natural rational and its perception of contrasts. With the man who is in the affection of truth this laughter is caused by the perception of the contrasting falsity, but with the man who is in the affection of falsity, it is caused by his perception of the opposite truth.

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In each case there is something of the delight of triumph over another, and thus there is something that is not altogether good in both. But the good man has love and respect for the neighbor within his laughter, while the evil man has self-love, hatred and contempt within.

     3. This kind is wholly good. It is the laughter and cheerfulness of innocence, the manifestation of heavenly joy in a glad and smiling countenance. It may be seen especially with infants, and with conjugial partners, who from innocence and mutual love sport with each other as if from a playful love of dominion. And it is this kind in which spiritual good and the affection of truth manifest themselves with all, for it has its cause in the superior or spiritual rational.

     In the Word laughter is sometimes attributed to the Lord, for we read in the second Psalm, "He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh, the Lord shall have them in derision," (v. 4), but here it refers to laughter and derision with the evil, which breaks forth when their self-love is aroused by the approach of Divine Truth, and when they realize their nothingness before the Divine. Laughter cannot be predicated of the Lord, except as an appearance, as in the letter of the Word, for the Lord cannot act from evil, or from glory and exultation over any, but only from good, from the Divine Good of love toward all, and for the salvation of all. But judgment of the evil is effected by Divine Truth separate; for the evil, by refusing to live according to the truth, make that separation in themselves, and so cast themselves into the judgment. It is this effect of the Divine Truth separate which is called "laughter" in the verse quoted, because it excites derision with the evil, having its origin in the chagrin of self-love. (See also Psalm xxxvii:13.)

     It is not necessary for us to look beyond our own tendencies, if we would realize what feelings give rise to derision, the evil form of laughter, and what we must shun if we would overcome the present state and tendency of the world in ourselves, even in so simple and habitual a thing as laughter. With those who are not in charity there is continual contempt and derision of others, and, when external bonds do not prevent, the setting forth of the errors of others to their humiliation. This is only one form assumed by the infernal love of self as it comes forth from its internal hiding place.

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Concerning this we read in the Arcana as follows:

     From the love of self springs contempt for others in comparison with oneself, mockery and vituperation of others, an enmity against all who do not favor one, these at length becoming the delight of hatred, the delight of revenge, and the delight of ferocity, yea of cruelty. That love ascends to such a degree in the other life that unless the Lord favors those who are is it and gives them dominion over others, they not only despise Him, but also mock the Word which is concerning Him, and at length act from hatred and revenge against Him; and so far as they are not able to do this, they exercise their ferocity and cruelty against all who profess a belief in the Lord. (9348)

     This, we may well believe, is a picture of the present internal state of the Christian world. For the love of self is the ruling love of the day, as we may know by self-examination, and by observing the widespread contempt for the neighbor and for spiritual and Divine things, also the actual blasphemy of the Word, and the jesting and joking concerning sacred things. The more holy the subject, the more pronounced and blatant is the derision. Above all, the Divine Truth is despised. But let Newchurchmen endeavor to turn away from this unhallowed state. "Let us tear off their bonds, and cast away from us their cords."

     In the second kind of laughter mentioned,--that which is caused by the perception of contrasts in the natural rational,--we may see the origin of all laughter, namely, the affection of truth or of falsity in the rational. It is peculiar to mankind, because the rational faculty is not enjoyed by the animals. Laughter comes forth in the face as an effect from a cause, and that cause is the perception of contrasts or opposites in the rational, with the consequent delight. This contrast by its reaction from the normal and serious state of the mind, first excites the animus, next the smile upon the face, the expansion of the lungs, the rapid inspiration of the breath, and finally the whole series of physical phenomena summed up in the term "laughter." With the evil, however, as we are told, laughter and cheerfulness are only of the external skin, and not in the fibres from the internal. (A. C. 8247) For their loves and delights are sensual and have no genuine soul within them. They have no perception of truth, but only the appreciation of that which opposes them, though the rational faculty always remains with them, and gives them the power of laughter, even if it be but hollow and soulless.


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     We have been careful to state that the origin of laughter is in the natural rational, because the spiritual rational does not produce laughter. The Writings state that "so long as there is such an affection in the rational as puts itself forth in laughter, so long there is something corporeal or worldly, thus merely human, therein. Celestial good and spiritual good does not laugh, but expresses its delight and cheerfulness in the face, speech, and gesture in another manner; for there are many things in laughter, and for the most part something of contempt, which is hidden there even though it do not appear. (A. C. 2216.)

     This statement is made concerning the Lord Himself and His glorification, and shows further that laughter cannot be predicated of the Divine, although the Divine Rational is represented in the Word by Isaac, whose name in the original means "laughter." The state of the natural rational of the Lord, which belonged to the human alone, was represented by Abraham and Sarah who laughed when Isaac was promised and given to them as a son of their old age. Sarah's laughing represented the state of the human rational of the Lord when it perceived that it was to be put Off, and that the Divine rational was to be put on, "not that it laughed, but that from the Divine it perceived what its quality still was, and how much of the human there was still within it, which it should expel." (2216.)

     It is similar with the regenerating man in an image, for when he first learns of the defects of the natural rational in himself (or others), and the superiority of the spiritual rational, he is moved with contempt for the higher rational, and as it were to laughter. But the state in regeneration which follows the entrance into the good of spiritual rationality does not produce such laughter. "The affection of good which is in the rational does not put itself forth by laughter, but by a certain joy, and by a delight of pleasure, which does not laugh." (A. C. 2072.) For the joys of the love of use, love of the neighbor, and love of the Lord, and of all things sacred and holy, are as it were serious joys, manifesting themselves in a form of laughter which is easily distinguished from the others.


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     This brings us to the third kind in the series, which, as we have stated, is wholly good, for it is the laughter and cheerfulness of innocence, the manifestation of heavenly joy in a glad and smiling countenance. Such is the laughter of the angels, full of goodwill and devoid of contempt. We are not to suppose, however, that the angels never enjoy natural pleasantries, for in their recreations they descend into the natural, and into its contrasts or relatives, with consequent natural delight, though never into the opposite, or merely natural. For with the evil the only contrast enjoyed is in the derision of what is good and true.

     As to the practical bearing of what the Doctrines teach in regard to laughter, it may be said, as in all other cases, that the man of the Church is to avoid extremes. In Heaven and Hell we read that "a man has no need to walk with a devout look, with a sad and sorrowful face, and a bowed head, but ought to be glad and cheerful." (358) And in the Doctrine of Charity we are taught that "there are diversions of charity, which are the various delights and pleasures of the bodily senses, useful for mental recreation." (Lat. Ed. 189, Am. 126. See T. C.R. 433.) And among these diversions we find mention of "decorous jestings" (jocularia decora). From these and similar teachings we may conclude that the exhilaration of the mind such as produces laughter has an important use.

     On the other hand, we must shun the evil that lies hidden in most laughter. As regeneration advances and there is growth in spiritual rationality, there will be a very vivid perception of falsity and evil, and also a growing aversion for them. There will also be inclination at times to descend into the natural apart, and to delight in ridicule and derision, which come from evil. So far as this takes the form of ridiculing the neighbor, there will be something of contempt and the delight of triumph in it, thus something of the love of self. We know from the Writings that "in laughter there is generally (communiter) something which is not so good," (A. C. 2072), and if we examine closely, we will find that this is true, and that almost everything we laugh at is something we ought to be internally grieved about, as it is so often the misfortunes and shortcomings of the neighbor. For almost all jokes play upon some calamity of the fellowman. If there is a distinct contrast in our minds between what we really feel and what we pretend, we may hope that we are not encouraging contempt for the neighbor in ourselves when we occasionally delight in a reflection upon his deficiencies and misfortunes.

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But a rigid self-examination will no doubt reveal much that might profitably be shunned. Suffice it to say that we have important Doctrine upon the subject, which it were well to study and heed.

     II. WEEPING.

     Literally the word "weep" means to raise an outcry, (A. S. wepan), but by usage it has come to include the shedding of tears and other effects of grief and sorrow. In the letter of the Word we find a variety of expressions to denote these effects, and from the internal sense, as given in the Writings, may be gathered a distinction between weeping (Retus), wailing (planctus), crying (clamor), shedding tears (lamentatio), mourning (luctus) lamentation (lamentatio), and other similar expressions. We cannot stop here to enter into the different significations of these terms, but merely cite them to indicate how vast the subject is, and to show that "weeping" is here adopted as a general term. It is our purpose to make a comparison between laughter and weeping, and to enquire briefly into the causes of these two phenomena with men.

     The causes of all physical phenomena are both external and internal, both bodily and mental. Tears will flow as a result of physical irritation or pain, and laughter may also be produced by external irritant causes. Even then. However, they are but the result of the sensations conveyed to the brain and to the animus or natural mind, which in the extreme of suffering or enjoyment produces weeping or laughter as its external and corresponding manifestations in the body. Sensation map also penetrate by correspondence to the internal or higher mind (mens), which likewise reacts and produces its effigies in the body, especially in the eyes, which are the windows of the internal man. And thus we may see that external causes may excite internal causes, which are the states of the mind itself.

     But the states of the mind, with or without external causes, are the most potent and direct causes of these two phenomena, especially with those who are sincere, and whose affections and thoughts are manifested involuntarily in the countenance and actions.

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With many hypocrites, however, tears or laughter are easily produced by voluntary effort according to the simulation desired.

     Every state within has its corresponding state and action in the body, which, with the sincere, comes forth spontaneously. Thus, by correspondence, humility of heart produces a bending of the knees, humility still greater and more interior produces prostration to the earth; gladness of the animus and joy of the mind comes forth in cheerfulness, singing and laughter, but internal grief and sadness are manifested in the shedding of tears, weeping and wailing. (See A. C. 4215.)

     And thus tears from the eyes represent the grief of the mind, the eyes signifying the understanding, and the tears therefrom being a physical result of a state of dejection of thought with consequent pain and grief. With a regenerating man, tears may represent pain of conscience, caused by the infestation of falsities from hell, which take away delight in the truth, and felicity of life. In the shedding of tears the water which comes forth from the eyes is bitter and astringent, and this also is a correspondence, because in the other world bitter water corresponds to the want of truth on account of the presence of falsities, and to the grief therefrom. (See A. E. 38333.) For the same reason weeping represents the state of grief in temptation because at such times the mind is clouded by falsities from hell.

     There are, indeed, innumerable states of the mind which cause both weeping and laughter, innumerable affections of the animus, or natural mind, and of the superior or spiritual mind, and thus innumerable states of the brain, each producing its external representative in the face and action.

     Those in special which excite tears are the good affections of mercy and compassion, admiration for others, intense love, joy and tenderness, and the evil affections of anger, envy, self-pity, and grief at any injury to self-love. Indeed we may say that either joy or sadness, in their extreme states, may cause weeping. The weeping of mercy, for example, is, as it were, "love grieving." (See A. C. 5480)

     The good affections which excite laughter are cheerfulness, love of truth, love of the neighbor, innocence, and in general all heavenly joy, but such laughter, as we have seen, is very different from that which takes the form of derision and mockery, excited by such evil affections as the glory of self-love, contempt for others, hatred, malice, revenge and cruelty.


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     From all these considerations it may now be evident that weeping and laughter are closely allied phenomena, for the highest joy sometimes comes forth in tears, as it usually manifests itself in laughter and cheerfulness. Similarly the deepest sadness and dejection of mind, which usually manifests itself in weeping may also produce hysterical laughter. But as a general thing joy causes laughter and sadness produces tears, and they represent the highest degrees of both. The state itself within, for which we cannot always account, may cause the external effect, or the state itself may be excited and aroused by external causes, and then produce the effect.

     A state of joy is excited by things harmonious, concordant and agreeable, and a state of sadness by things inharmonious, discordant, and disagreeable, and these latter actually hurt and pain the mind. To quote from Swedenborg's Rational Psychology, (No. 202), "Sadness compresses the brain and torments it, casting the mind as it were into fetters and chains, and depriving it of its liberty. This constriction of the brain and anxiety of the mind appear in the countenance, and in its organs of sense, which are likewise compressed so that tears are forced out; as also is the whole body, which, before expanded, is now manifestly contracted." The effects of a state of joy, he says, are just the opposite, for joy expands the mind, the brain, and the whole man from inmost to outmost, slacking the bridle, as it were, so that there is complete freedom. This expansion is visible in the face, in its organs of sense, and in the whole body, which, before constrained, now swells freely with joy. In a state of joy, also, an agreeable and pleasing tremulation is set up, and this lively trembling is manifested in the eyes, and by the speech, and every action. And beside this subtle trembling, a more visible vibration, or laughter, arises; for the brain leaps and oscillates, and in the same way the lungs, windpipe, articulated sounds, the face, and the members of the body. (See Ration. Psych. 201.)

     Such then is the operation from cause to effect in the production of laughter and weeping with men.


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     In conclusion, a few words in regard to the practical bearing of the teachings just presented. As laughter and tears are the result of the highest degree of joy or sadness, their real causes are internal, that is, in the perception of the rational mind, which sees or foresees happiness or undelight, and, therefore, they are peculiar to human beings, who alone can reflect upon the past, present and future. In the earth Jupiter, we are told, almost all the inhabitants appear with cheerful and smiling countenances; and this because they have no solicitude about future things, nor worldly cares. (A. C. 8247.) They are content with their lot, and do not permit natural passions to lead them into states of sadness, as the men of this earth now do to such a great extent. The man of the New Church can come into this better state if he shuns discontent, and cultivates a trust in Divine Providence, if he is "neither despondent in misfortune nor elated with success," and is content with his lot. Inmost content with one's lot is the supreme cause of joy, while inmost discontent is the supreme cause of sadness, one from the perception of present and future good, the other from the fear of present and future evil. And thus only those who are inmostly in good can be in genuine content and cheerfulness, while those who are inmostly in evil cannot but be discontented from a love which can never be gratified to all eternity. The inmost love of the evil man is no deeper than the natural, while the inmost love of the good man is in the superior or spiritual mind, and from their inmost proceed the effects of which we are treating, because they represent extreme states.

     Tears which represent the state of the superior mind are from grief at the loss of spiritual things, while laughter thence is from joy in the possession of spiritual things. On the other hand, weeping which represents the state of the lower mind alone is from grief at the loss of natural things, while laughter thence is from joy in the possession of natural things. In the present state of this world, these two minds cannot but be at warfare with each other during the regenerate life, when both good and evil are striving for dominion, and when it is necessary for the man who would be saved to undergo temptation, but, as the Gospel says, "Blessed are ye that weep now, for ye shall laugh. But woe unto you that laugh now, for ye shall mourn and weep." (Luke vi:21, 25.)


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     Let us remember that a state of joy is excited by things harmonious, concordant and agreeable, and that with the man who loves spiritual things, this state of joy will be aroused by spiritual things, and thence by all good natural things, while with the man who, from evil, loves only natural things, a joyous state will be excited only by natural things, and to him spiritual things will seem inharmonious, discordant and disagreeable. This is the state with us all at first, for we find that spiritual things induce sadness and undelight, because they deprive us of merely natural delight. But we must be willing to weep first, in order that we may afterwards rejoice. For as the Psalmist says, "They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. And he that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing his cast of seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him. (Psalm cxxvi:5, 6.)
SPIES 1906

SPIES       Rev. WILLIS L. GLADISH       1906

     Ye are spies; to see the nakedness of the land are ye come. Genesis xlii:9.

     It is said that Joseph remembered the dreams which he dreamed of his brothers, and he said to them, "Ye are spies; to see the nakedness of the land are ye dome."

     The dreams were those he dreamed as a boy and told to them. He dreamed, first, that they were binding sheaves in the field, "and lo! my sheaf arose and also stood upright; and behold your sheaves stood round about and made obeisance to my sheaf."

     And he dreamed again and told it to his brethren, and said, "Behold, I have dreamed a dream more, and behold the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me." And his brethren said to him. "Shalt thou, indeed, reign over us? or shalt thou indeed have dominion over us?" and they hated him yet the more because of his dreams. And when he saw his brethren prostrating themselves before him he recalled the dreams now fulfilled.

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And he spake harshly to them and called them spies.

     It is not made clear why Joseph did this. He did not hate his brethren. While talking with them he turned from them and wept. He may have wished to prove them before making himself known to them, that he might know what manner of men they had become during the twenty-two years since they sold him into Egypt; to know whether they had also mistreated Benjamin; whether they were loyal and obedient to their old father.

     Perhaps with this end in view Joseph called his brothers spies and put them in prison three days. Afterward he released all of them but Simeon, gave them food for their families and charged them that they should bring their brother Benjamin; then would he know that they were not spies but true men and all the sons of one man as they had said; and they should be free to trade in the land.

     The natural reason in Joseph's mind for his harsh treatment of his brethren is not revealed; its spiritual significance is revealed. And this is what most concerns us. And it was probably the spiritual reason that had most to do with Joseph's actions. The glorification of the Lord's Human and the establishment of the spiritual Church were being represented by Jacob and his sons; and they were impelled from the spiritual world to do many things for the sake of their representation.

     Joseph represented the Lord; specifically the internal of the Lord's Human before glorification; therefore, he represented the Divine Truth which receives the Divine itself. This is called the celestial of the spiritual. Its seat is in the rational. It is the internal light of the Lords presence, which illuminates all the lower planes of the mind in proportion as they are in subordination and correspondence with the internal.

     Joseph's ten brethren, born of Leah and the handmaids, represent the truths of the Church in the natural. Between the internal, represented by Joseph, and the external represented by his ten brethren, there must he a conjoining medium that they may act together and make one.

     Joseph is, comparatively, like the head, while the ten brethren represent the body. Head and body must be conjoined by the neck.

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That conjoining medium is represented by Benjamin. It was for this reason, that is, for the sake of the correspondence and representation, that Joseph could not make himself known to his brethren until Benjamin was present. And it was because they were without Benjamin that he called them spies.

     The man of the Church who has not this conjoining medium which was represented by Benjamin is a spy in the Church. He is not in the Church for use to others but for his own gain. He sees the evils of his fellow church members and feels a delight in condemning them. He if looking for the "nakedness of the land," that is, the Church's weak places, her lack of goods and truths. He does not love the Church or her truths for their own sakes but only for the benefits they bring to him.

     In this state man is not able to see truths for himself. He accepts them on the authority of others. He has no faith of his own but only a persuasion that what those in authority say is true. Therefore, internal truths appear strange and harsh to him. They are distasteful to him, contrary to his thoughts and affections. And although he may profess to understand and love them yet in his heart he does not.

     But when the natural mind is instructed and is obedient to the truths of the Church so that it comes into correspondence with the internal; when it humbles and submits itself to the spiritual and there is a conjoining medium between the internal and the external; then spiritual truth can illuminate the natural, the Celestial of the Spiritual can be present in the natural, enabling it to understand and rejoice in spiritual truths. Joseph can make himself known to his brethren and can be conjoined with them when Benjamin is present, and not before.

     But let us inquire a little more fully concerning this medium represented by Benjamin. First, what it is; and second, concerning the state of the man of the Church when this medium is not present.

     Jacob represents the natural in general. His two wives represent the two affections of truth in the natural. Leah, whom he first married, thinking her to be Rachel, represents the affection of external truth. Rachel, for whom he served another seven years, represents the affection of internal truth.


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     By the affection of internal truth there are finally brought forth in the Church, after all her external truths have been implanted, two internal principles. The first of these was represented by Joseph. When Joseph was born Rachel said, "God hath gathered my reproach and he will add to me another son."

     When all the principles of the Church have been implanted in the natural then the Church itself can be implanted in the internal. All the various goods and truths received in the natural are, as it were, gathered into one and implanted in the rational. This is why Joseph was named from "gathering." And when the Church is in the internal it will put forth from itself that which will enable it to be present in the natural and to conjoin the natural with itself. This is meant by "adding;" and this is why Rachel said "The Lord will add to me another son." The son who was added was Benjamin.

     In the internal sense Benjamin has a double signification because this conjoining medium must look on the one hand to the internal, and on the other to the external, that it may unite them.

     When with Jacob, Benjamin represents truth from good; when with Joseph, he represents the medium conjoining the internal and external man.

     What is meant by "truth from good?" Man first learns truth; by obedience to it he comes into the affection of truth, thus to the good of it. He is now in good. From this state of good he is able to receive new truth heretofore beyond his ken. This new truth is truth from good, or the truth of good. This is the new truth given to the regenerating man. And indeed it is the only truth of the Church: for before truth is conjoined with good it is not truth.

     What is meant by a medium was shown to Swedenborg by this experience. There was once shown to him a large and beautiful city in the spiritual world which he saw clearly because communication was opened through intermediate spirits; but spirits who were with him to whom no medium was given saw nothing of the city. Those in a lower heaven can see nothing in a higher one because they are separated by a discrete degree. But if a medium be given to those below, formed of angels intermediate in genius between the two heavens, then those in the lower heavens see clearly what takes place in the higher.

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The case is similar with truths. The internal truths of the Church cannot be seen as true by those in general and natural truths until intermediate truths be given to connect them with those already known.

     That all man's life is from the Lord, that of ourselves we cannot think or love, hence that thought and love do not originate in man but from the Divine; this cannot be seen without the mediumship of other truths which enable one to rise out of merely natural light and to put away appearances. Without these truths to serve as a medium the internal truth seems strange and harsh to the natural man. To accept this as true seems to take away all one's individuality and manhood. This is what was represented by Joseph making himself strange to his brethren and speaking roughly to them. The harshness is not in the internal truth. Such truths abound with mercy. The harshness it altogether with those who have no intermediate truths which enable them to understand it. But to such the truth seems harsh. The medium meant by Benjamin is not, however, mere explanatory truths. They are referred to only as an illustration.

     The medium meant by Benjamin is, indeed, truth, but truth implanted in charity; thus truth not merely in the memory or even in the understanding but in the will.

     The man who is in love to the Lord and the neighbor does not find the truth of man's absolute momentary dependence on the Lord harsh or strange. Though he may never have heard it before, he loves to believe that it is so because he loves to depend upon the Lord: while he who loves his proprium finds it repugnant though he may have heard it fully explained and proven.

     The medium represented by Benjamin is given to those who are is charity, and those who lack charity have it not. Those in the Church who lack charity are represented by Joseph's ten brethren to whom he spoke harshly and accused of being spies.

     As a spy in a strange land seeks only its weak places where it can be successfully invaded and harmed, so those in the Church who are not in charity, or not yet in charity, seek out her weak places and points of attack. They pride themselves on seeing the evils, the faults, the mistakes of other members of the Church.

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They see only the human imperfection in the Church and do not consider the Divine strength working through these frail men. Therefore, they are disheartened and discouraged. They foresee only failure. They are not friends but spies in the Church. They do not help to build up but to tear down. They are not really in the Church except in name. Faith only in the understanding and not yet in the will is not in the man. And he who has not the faith of the Church in his will is not yet within the Church. At best such men form but, as it were, the outside skin of the Church. In the spiritual world spirits of this character are called cutaneous spirits.

     Those who are in faith without charity may not reveal their true character. They may be leaders and teachers in the Church, may profess to delight in the deepest arcana of the word. From the desire for their own gain they may show more zeal than others for the upbuilding of the Church. But with such there is no internal love of truth and no knowledge of it except from others who do have the love of truth. However loud be their profession of love for the Church they have no real love of her. Should they speak frankly what they think they would call many of the doctrines of the Church and the arcana of the Word "hard sayings."

     The ability to see and believe the interior truths given in the Writings depends wholly upon charity; upon love for the neighbor. To those who are in charity good spirits are adjoined. Through them communication with Heaven is given and the light of Heaven flows in by which truths are seen and no longer appear strange or harsh.

     These good spirits are the conjoining medium meant by Benjamin. When they are present man sees the spiritual truths of the Church, sees in himself that they are true and needs not to ask others whether they are true or not. And not only does he see them, he also loves them. The good in which he is desires truth, seeks for it and rejoices in it.

     There are, therefore, two ways in which the man of the Church can examine himself to see whether he is really of the Church or not. The first is by examining whether he loves truths for the sake of life. The second is to examine himself and see whether he delights in seeing the weakness of the Church, her errors in policy and government; and whether he delights in criticizing those who belong to the Church.


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     It is man's duty to be in charity toward all men, to look for good in them, to excuse evil, to attribute it, if possible, to error, to bad teaching, to temptation rather than to a confirmed state of evil. But it is especially a duty to do these things with those who are in the Church. If we love the Church we will love others who love her. The fact that they have been attracted by her truths is an indication that they are internally in the love of truth. Their faults are, therefore, probably only external ones which they themselves are in the effort to put away; or they will make that effort as soon as they recognize them to be sins against God.

     The attitude of the man who from charity loves the Church should be one of greatest tenderness toward all who are in her fold. Every attack on a member of the Church is an attack on the Church. He who loves the Church will defend her from attack. He will not himself be the one to sow seeds of discord in her sacred body. The life of the Church is charity, and charity is love toward the neighbor; it is especially love for those who are in the goods and truths of the Church. Where this love does not prevail the Church is not. How quickly we defend the members of our own families from slander. He is a bold man who dares to sharply criticize to our faces one related to us. We should more quickly defend our brethren in the Church than those related to us by merely natural ties; for more is involved; the welfare of the Church is involved and the means of spiritual life among men.

     This does not mean that we should ever defend evil or try to prevent punishment to wrongdoers because they are members of our Church. That would be a woeful perversion of charity. But we should often excuse and defend him who does evil, at the same time that we condemn the evil. What is meant is only the carrying out of the Golden Rule, "Do unto others as you would that they should do unto you."

     Be not quick to believe evil unproven. Attribute the best possible motive rather than the worst to those who offend. Do not condemn and withdraw all kindly feeling from those who have done wrong.

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Forgive as you would be forgiven. The spiritual man knows that he falls seven times a day. He craves the indulgence of those he wrongs in thought, word and deed. He hopes they will consider that he spoke hastily and repented almost as soon as the words were out of his mouth. And he extends the same charity to others.

     This spirit in the Church is what will build and establish the Church. We will confess that we sin against it times without number. Yet just this charity is what we are to seek to establish in our hearts, rising up every time we fall, and pressing forward toward it with new humility and anxiety for salvation.

     Love of truth without this practical love of the brother in the Church is but an empty word. It is for this that all the truths of the Church are given. We do not have a single truth until we have attained something of this spirit of charity toward others. Early and external states are always harsh. We see the evils of others by the clear, cold light of truth alone. But in more internal states, when charity is joined with truth and truth is therefore living, the evils in one's life are seen so clearly that the evils of others sink into insignificance. In this state, when charity reigns, a medium is given conjoining man with Heaven; angels are present; the internal truths of the Word are no longer strange and harsh; they are seen in Heaven's own light and are received with joy of heart.

     The Lord is present and conjoins the Church to Himself, and makes her a blessing in the midst of the land. Amen.


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IDEALS OF BOYHOOD 1906

IDEALS OF BOYHOOD       HUBERT HYATT       1906

     The subject of ideals has always been a favored subject of consideration, but ever since ancient times men have not had a really true idea of what ideals should be. They have lacked the fundamental knowledge which the men of the New Church possess in the Writings. The common ideal of a man or boy is the ideal of one who comes up to all the moral standards, and this is the best they can have. But the New Church has a far superior standard of ideals to look up to the standard: given to us in the Divine Revelation. It is this standard which I shall try to bring out, the ideal which we may look forward to seeing in our schools in the future.

     A child in his first years is in a state of innocence and charity towards his parents and teachers and towards other children of his own age. Whatever he does of himself is done according to impulses from his will. This is the first stage of the boy's development. The second stage is one of the development of his understanding, and this is done by the acquiring of knowledges and sciences.

     Everyone in his early years, when he is first taught knowledge, is held by the Lord in an affirmative attitude as regards the truth of that which he is taught, and this helps him to store up that which he may use afterwards and thus make his own.

     A young boy thinks only from the exterior natural part of his mind, for he forms his ideals from sensual things; but when he grows older and forms his ideas from causes, he then begins to think from the interior natural part of his mind, for then he forms truths for himself from sensual things, truths which rise above the sensual but still remain within the natural. When, however, he becomes still older, so that he may be called a youth, he cultivates his rational, and forms principles of reasoning. He can then decide between good and evil and between truth and falsity, and as he does this he becomes a man.

     Those who are born within the Church begin when children to learn from the Word and the Writings what good and truth are, and a boy begins to either appreciate or reject these, even before he becomes a man.

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Thus, we see that this is a very important period of a man's life, a period when he begins to decide for himself whether he will choose the right or the wrong. And it is then important for a boy to have the correct ideal to follow.

     During a boy's life in the Church he is gradually developing into an intelligent man. At first he cannot form any conclusions for himself nor can he discern between truths and truths, nor even between truths and falses. That is, he cannot do this from himself but from others. He at first only thinks and speaks from his memory, thus from knowledge alone, nor does he perceive whether a thing be so, except on the authority of his parent's or teachers, consequently because another has said that it is so.

     But later on he develops into a state of intelligence, since at this time he begins to think from himself and therefore is able to discern and conclude. What he then concludes is his own and not another's. At this time also his faith commences, for previously he has believed in the persons who taught him rather than in the truths themselves. Hence from this time he no longer thinks from his parents and teachers but from himself.

     The development of a boy from his first state to the state of a man is very gradual, indeed, and can hardly be noticed. For a man becomes a man only so far as he permits the Lord to open his mind. In order to see how gradual the change is, it is necessary to know that a man's mind is organized into three degrees. These degrees are called, in order of ascent, the sensual, the scientific, and the rational. A boy is not fully developed into a man until these three degrees are successively opened. At first the boy is in the first or sensual degree, and then he cannot distinguish between truths and falses and has no choice but to obey the laws set down for him by his teachers and parents. The boy who has the second degree of his mind opened, is acquiring knowledges and sciences, and a little later he begins to gradually develop his rational, while at the same time obeying the laws which he has been told are right to obey. But as he grows older he does not obey these laws because he has been told to do so but because he can understand for himself that they are right and good.


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     We are taught in the Word that "It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth." (Lamentations iii. 27)

     A yoke signifies temptation, and we, therefore, learn that it is good for a young man to undergo temptation. Temptations make changes of state, and it is these temptations which change a boy into a man, provided he can resist them. So far as he can resist his temptations, so far the boy will become a real man, and so much farther he is on the way to regeneration. And also the greater number of temptations he resists, the stronger he will be, and the man who has overcome temptation in his youth will have a greater strength of character than the one who has not.

     The ideals of the New Church boy must necessarily differ from the ideals of a boy in the Old Church, because the former has an internal basis and foundation which others do not have. For it can be easily seen that a boy who is continually taught to look forward to the good of becoming an angel in heaven, must necessarily be different from the boy who looks forward to nothing beyond the life of this world. The one boy has only a number of moral laws held up for him to obey, while the other has all the commandments and promises of the Writings set before him.

     One of these promises especially ought to be noticed, and that is the definite promise which the Lord gives to the young man of the New Church, that he shall meet his conjugial partner if from an early age he has loved, wished and asked from the Lord a legitimate and lovely connection with one maiden, and if at the same time he has shunned the opposite.

     This is the promise which is given to us, the boys of the New Church. and it is a promise which we should keep ever before us in order that we may try to keep up to the standard of our ideals.

     Again, the conscience of a New Church boy must differ greatly from the conscience of even an ideal boy in the Old Church, for that which a boy has heard, acknowledged and believed, makes conscience with him. And as the conscience of the former boy has been formed from hearing and believing the truths of our faith, his is necessarily a more internal and real conscience than one which is formed only from certain natural moral laws, such as are taught to the boy of the Old Church. Of course, these moral laws are all true, and very good in their place; in fact, we cannot do without them; but, nevertheless, they alone do not make a sufficient foundation for the building of a boy's faith and conscience.


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     This difference in conscience call even be noticed in such a common thing as plain honesty. The one boy may be externally as honest as the other. but each has a different end in being honest, and according to this end the one boy's idea of honesty excels the others. This can also be noticed in the shunning of other evils.

     The one boy tries to shun evils because they are sins against God, while the other tries to shun evils only because they are sins against society and a public opinion and not because they are sins against God, for he does not really know who God is and what He is.

     And thus it will be similar with all the various accomplishments and virtues which it is generally understood that the ideal boy should have, such as the love of religion and truth, sincerity, industry, generosity, prudence, rationality and many others. The New Church boy might not necessarily excel in the outward manifestation of these virtues, but the end for which he acts is so very different that the more genuine quality would be sure to excel at times of importance.

     I do not mean by all this that the boys of the New Church are better than others, far from it. But I mean that our boys have the better opportunity before them. As our system of education is perfected, so will our boys come more and more up to the true ideal of boyhood, for, as was shown before, the boy's rational must be developed as he approaches the age of manhood. And this is what our education does more than any other. This is What "our own academy" was established for,--to develop a boy's rational so that he may think for himself from the Lord.


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Editorial Department 1906

Editorial Department       Editor       1906

     NOTES AND REVIEWS.

     The German Missionary Union reports that the German translation of the Adversaria has reached the third volume.

     Owing partly to the stimulus of the Calendar for family reading of the Word and Writings issued last year by the General Convention, the American Swedenborg Society has printed a second edition, of a thousand copies, of the first volume of the Library Edition of Arcana Coelestia.

     The New Church League Journal in its issue for April has reprinted from the Century Magazine the beautiful prose poem by Julian Hawthorne, "Lovers in Heaven." The Young People's League proposes to issue the story in pamphlet form if there is a reasonable demand for it.

     With its May issue our newsy little contemporary The New Church Bulletin bade farewell to its readers. The editorial note giving this announcement explains that the publication of the Messenger in Chicago filled to a large extent the uses intended by the Bulletin. This resulted in a decreased support of the paper and led to the conclusion that its further publication would be
unwise.

     The Bulletin was begun nearly seven years ago for the purpose of supplying news and other items of particular interest to those within the sphere of the Chicago Society. This purpose has been creditably accomplished, and the editors of the paper are to be congratulated on the interesting character of their publication, which has been the best of all the local New Church periodicals that have come to our notice, and which we doubt not, has proven of interest to many others than those resident in the Chicago district.


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     We not unfrequently read of some amazing misstatements regarding things taught in Swedenborg's writings, but the following, which is quoted by Morning Light from Pearson's Weekly (April 26th) is probably unique for its ludicrous display of ignorance: "Emanuel Swedenborg, the renowned mystic of the north, declares the Martian to be much like a man, except that he has no chin and has a tail and hoofs!" It may be added that an English Newchurchman wrote to the editor of Pearson's, correcting the above statement, with the result, that in a subsequent issue of the Weekly the description of the Martian as given by Swedenborg was "fairly set out."

     The Annual report of the American Swedenborg Society makes mention of a meeting at New York between the directors of the Society and Mr. George Sale, an Englishman resident in Japan, for the purpose of discussing the question of translating the Writings into Japanese. Mr. Sale advised that such translations were unnecessary at this time, for three reasons: Because the Japanese language is now undergoing rapid changes; because a translation at the present time might contain many errors of which the publishers could have no means of judging; and because English is being more and more taught in the public schools of Japan, and all the more intelligent Japanese read and speak it. Mr. Sale also supplied data and pointed out opportunities for the prosecution of the work in Japan, and the Society reports that "all these openings will be followed up with vigor."

     Dr. Alfred Russell Wallace, the famous English scientist, has written a letter to the secretary of the English New Church Evidence Society wherein he gives unstinted praise to the doctrines advanced by the late Rev. Thomas Child in his work Root Principles. This book is an endeavor to set forth the New Church doctrine of creation and existence in opposition to the materialistic dogmas enunciated by Haeckel in his Riddle of the Universe.

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Dr. Russell writes: "It expounds a new and very remarkable view of all the great ideas and principles which underlie the Universe of Man. So far as I know it is the most complete and satisfactory theory of the nature of matter and mind, of force and life, of spirit, immortality, and free will, that has yet been given to the world." He makes no mention of Swedenborg, and does not appear to know that his writings are the source from which Mr. Child drew his principles, and while speaking of the author as "a thinker and reasoner of the very first rank." he concludes his letter by asking, "Who is Mr. Child?"

     Through the public press we learn that the annual parade of the Brooklyn Sunday School Union "this year had a significance it has lacked in the past, as the Union decided to admit to the fellowship of the parade the children of the Unitarian, Universalist and Swedenborgian Sunday Schools. The color line has never been drawn in this celebration, but the sectarian line has heretofore been drawn for the exclusion off the children whose orthodoxy, or the orthodoxy of whose parents, was open to suspicion. It is probable that the bars will be let down still further in the coming years." (Philadelphia Public Ledger.) This reminds us of the trite comments of the first editor of New Church Life, when, in the year 1881, the children of the New Church Sunday

     School in Brooklyn were first prohibited from joining in the annual parade of the Sunday Schools of the Old Churches: "Had Peter and James, and other primitive Christians, sought fellowship with the Pharisees and Sadducees of the consummated Jewish Church, it would have been just as consistent as it is for Newchurchmen of the present day to seek to affiliate with the Old Church organizations." (New Church Life, July, 1881, p. 3.)

     The committee of the General Convention having charge of the Calendar propose, in the issue for nest year, to omit "from the assignments portions of the Word which are unsuitable for family reading." The proposal is based on Arcana Coelestia, 2466, which speaks of words in the Letter which "hurt ideas and chaste ears." But nothing is said to indicate that therefore these portions of the Word should be omitted.

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Undoubtedly there are times and circumstances when it may be preferable to omit the reading of certain portions of the Letter of the Word before a mixed audience. But this is a matter for individual judgment and decision. The course contemplated by the Convention's committee removes this decision from the individual and, in effect, it makes the Church to teach and advise that such and such portions of the Word should not be read in family worship; and the effect of such teaching will often result in weakening or in drawing the mind away from a reflection of the Holy things within the Word and fixing its attention on the Jewish garb with which it is clothed. Indeed, the position taken by the committee would need little stretching to lead to the conclusion that certain parts of the Word should not be read at all by "chaste" eyes. And pet the Word is written in one continuous series, an image of the order of Heaven,--of the Divine Man; and with him who reads it with some acknowledgment of its holiness, the angels are present with their perceptions of this wonderful series. To such a man do the Divine Words apply: "To the pure all things are pure," for the purity of the Word rests in the sense of its holiness.

     As we have said, however, there undoubtedly are times when it may be advisable to omit reading certain portions of the Word,--as, for instance, at public gatherings; but it does not seem that this should, generally speaking, be the case in family worship. For in family worship the center is the husband and wife, and around them are the children, the fruits of their love, and who, from that love, are in the sphere of innocence. If Conjugial Love rules in the household, then, indeed, are all things pure, and the reading of the Word--of all the Word--is but the means of entering more deeply into an acknowledgment of its holiness and a perception of its purity. It may be, however, that some, even in the privacy of their own altars, may prefer to make certain omissions; they must be free to do so, but it is not the part of the Church to teach them that they ought to do so, as a matter of right. The Church is to teach the holiness of the Word, its wholeness, its unity, its Divinity,--not that a portion of it is unfit for the purposes of worship, or for reception by chaste ears.


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SWEDENBORG'S DOCTRINE OF SERIES 1906

SWEDENBORG'S DOCTRINE OF SERIES              1906

     The following letter calls attention to a doctrine which is but seldom considered though fundamental to a rational comprehension of the Theology of the New Church:

EDITOR New Church Life:--

     I should be happy to have your statement of Swedenborg's doctrines, of "series." There is a little confusion or difficulty in my mind in making a clear and satisfactory statement. There are passages in the Writings where the term seems to be used in different senses, as

     1. Synonymous with discrete degrees.

     2. In connection with continuous degrees.

     3. Apart from any doctrine of degrees.

     If you would clear up these points in the Life you would greatly oblige. A READER.

     In regard to the special points raised by our correspondent, we would say that the term "series" is never used by Swedenborg "apart from any doctrine of degrees," but always in connection with either discrete degrees, or continuous degrees, or with both. The word "series" comes from the Latin serere, to bind together, to connect, and in itself, therefore, means simply a connection of things. As commonly used in the world it means "a number of things or events standing or succeeding in order, and connected by a like relation; a sequence, order, or course; a succession of things," while in mathematics it has a more special and philosophical signification, meaning "an indefinite number of terms succeeding one another, each of which is derived from one or more of the preceding by a fixed law, called 'the law of series;' as, an arithmetical series; a geometrical series," etc.

     Thus far the Dictionaries. By Swedenborg, however, this "law of series" was recognized as a universal Divine law of Order impressed upon all created things, and expounded by him as a fundamental Doctrine which, together with the Doctrine of Degrees and the Doctrine of Correspondence, forms that trine of all-pervading principles of philosophical Truth upon which the whole Theology of the New Church is founded. And we may say that this trine of Doctrines in itself affords a beautiful example of a series, a spiritual jewel, in which the doctrine of series forms the general setting, the doctrine of degrees the precious stone, and the doctrine of correspondence the internal light which radiates from it.


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     The doctrine of series is frequently referred to in the Writings, but was first definitely formulated in the work on The Economy of the Animal Kingdom, where it is introduced by these words:

     "By the Doctrine of Series and Degrees we mean that Doctrine which teaches the mode observed by nature in the subordination and co-ordination of things, and which, in acting, nature has prescribed for herself." (Econ. 580.)

     The author then proceeds to define the idea of series, and to differentiate it from the idea of degrees, as follows:

     "Series are what successively and simultaneously comprise things subordinate and co-ordinate. . . . When the things themselves are subordinate and co-ordinate, and thereby distinct from other things, their whole complex, in such a case, is called a series, which, to the end that it may co-exist, must exist successively." (Econ. 582.) Whereas "degrees are distinct progressions, such as we find when one thing is subordinated under another, or when one thing is co-ordinated in juxtaposition with another; in this sense there are degrees of determination, and degrees of composition." (583.) The word "series." therefore, in the terminology of the New Church, means simply the whole complex of any succession of degrees, either continuous or discrete.

     Since universal nature consists of nothing but effects, it follows that these effects have their causes, and these causes their ends. Consequently, universal nature consists of nothing but continual series of discrete degrees. And since there is not a single thing in nature that does not consist of parts,--external, interior, and inmost,--it follows that universal nature, again, consists of nothing but series of continuous degrees. Or as Swedenborg states it: "Everything is a series and in a series; there is no such thing as absolute simplicity in nature." (A. K. 44.) "It is by series that we speak, reason, and act. Our sensations, also, are series of varieties, more or less harmonious. whence result agreement, imagery, idea, and reason. For where all is equality, or where there is no series, nature perishes." (Econ. 586) "Whithersoever we turn our attention, all things we meet are merely series, originating in the first and terminating in the first." (Ibid.)

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"In universal Nature there is not anything that is not confasciculated into series; every tree, every shrub, bush, or vegetable, nay every blade of grass and herb, in general and particular, is thus constituted. The universal cause of this is that Divine truths are thus conformed." (T. C. R. 313.) It is of the Divine Esse Itself, in which infinite things are distinctly one, that series and degrees alone cannot be predicated.

     As the Doctrine of Series is inseparable from the Doctrine of Degrees, and as the latter universally involves a trine, so also into series can be complete or effective without involving at least a trine, that is, a first, a middle, and a last," as may be seen "in every science and art; in which the binary is ever the imperfect, but the trine constitutes the perfect series." (An. King, 229.) This universal trine in every perfect series has its origin in the infinite series of Esse, Existere and Procedere, or Love, Wisdom and Use, or end, cause and effect, which with men produce the series of will, understanding and operation, or affection, thought, and action, or charity, faith, and works. (D. L. W. 313.)

     In the formation and arrangement of a series, the following law is to be observed: "All truths joined to good are arranged into series, and the series are such that in the midst or inmost of every one there is truth joined to good, and round about this center or inmost are the truths proper and suitable thereto, and thus in order even to the outermost where the series vanishes; the series themselves are also arranged in a similar manner one among another, and are varied according to the changes of state." (A. C. 5343.) The arrangement of the series "varies with each individual; for the ruling love gives them their form, this love being in the midst and arranging everything around it; it places those things next to itself which most agree with it, and everything else in order according to agreement. (A. C. 6690.) And every change and variation of the state of the human mind, especially as to the affections of the ruling love, "produces some change and variation in the series of things present and, consequently, in the things that follow." (D. P. 202.)


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     That every series involves successive as well as simultaneous degrees, is evident from the following teachings:

     "There are series and orders of successive things, but there are also series and orders of simultaneous things, or of substances and forces of one and the same degree, as between the largest and the least volume." (Econ. 222.) "A series embraces in it everything which exists and co-exists, for there are both successive and simultaneous series, but the latter always arise from the former." (An. King. 23 n.). "From the successive series of efficient causes there constantly arises a simultaneous series and co-operation of all things, which is termed the effect. . . . A single action, be it ever so little compounded, is made up of an infinite number of forces, all of which at first generally succeed each other in a continual series, but ultimately unite in a kind of simultaneous series. For everything simultaneous arises from things successive." (An. King. 367, z.)

     The Series, therefore, are formed by successive degrees, but coexist in ultimates by simultaneous degrees. "That the ultimate of each series, i. e., use, action, work, and doing, is the complex and containant of all the prior, has not yet been comprehended." (D. L. W. 215) "That all those things which precede in the mind, form series, and that the series are collected together, one beside another, and one after another, and that these together compose what is last or ultimate, is as yet unknown in the world; but as it is a verity from Heaven, it is here adduced: for it explains what influx effects, and what is the duality of the last or ultimate in which the above-mentioned series, successively formed, co-exist." (C. L. 313.)

     This arrangement of series, this co-existence of successive degrees in simultaneous degrees, is illustrated by "families and their generations," (A. C. 6690), as, for instance, children, parents, and grandparents,--representing successive degrees,--living simultaneously in, the same house and at the same time. Or it may be illustrated still more perfectly by the order of heaven, where celestial, spiritual, and natural angels co-exist most distinctly and at the same time most conjointly in the Kingdom of their Heavenly Father. Here, also, series of societies are arranged beside other series in the most perfect order, the very type of order itself, and it is according to this order, again, that the truths of the Heavenly Doctrine are arranged inasmuch as this Doctrine descended from God out of heaven.

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The Writings point for an illustration to the first chapter of the True Christian Religion, which treats of God the Creator, and which "is distinguished into series, of which the first treats of the Unity of God, the second of the Esse of God or Jehovah, the third of the Infinity of God, the fourth of the Essence of God which is the Divine Love and Wisdom, the fifth of the Omnipotence of God, the sixth of Creation. The subdivisions of each of these constitute a series, which bind the truths there into bundles as it were into sheaves. These series, in general and in particular, thus both conjointly and separately, contain verities, which according to their abundance and at the same time according to their coherence, exalt and perfect faith." (T. C. R. 351.)

     The same number goes on to show that there is an organization or ordination of all things "into series, thus into bundles, and that the verities which are of faith in the human mind, are thus disposed;" and this is further illustrated by: the two substances of the brain, "of which the first or glandular substance, is disposed into clusters, as the grapes in a vine; these clusterings are its series. The other substance, which is medullary, consists of perpetual confasciculations of little fibers proceeding from the glands of the former substance; these proceeding from the glands of the former substance; these fasciculations are its series.... All these things are thus disposed because they correspond to the series into which the organism of the mind is disposed. Moreover, in universal nature there does not exist anything that is not confasciculated into series; every tree, every bush, shrub and vegetable, nay, every blade of grass and herb, in general and in particular, is thus conformed. The universal cause is that Divine verities are thus conformed; for we read that all things were created by the Word, that is, the Divine Truth, and that the world also was made by it. From these things it may be seen that unless there were such an ordination of substances in the human mind, man would not possess anything analytical of reason, which each one enjoys according to the ordination, thus according to the abundance of verities cohering as in a bundle, and this ordination is according to the use of reason from freedom." (See also A. C. 5339, 5530, 5881, 7408.)


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     This ordination may be seen also in the Letter of the Word, which is arranged in series according to the subjects treated of, each series being conjoined with the preceding by the word "and," the more important of the series being introduced by the words "and it came to pass," (A. C. 3921, 4987, 5578; H. H. 241). All these series co-exist simultaneously in the letter of the Word by continuous degrees, while each one is formed by the discrete or successive degrees by the succession of the celestial, spiritual, and internal-historical senses.

     The importance of the doctrine of series is but little recognized, when yet "the science of natural things depends upon a distinct notion of series and degrees, and of their subordination and co-ordination." (Econ. 580.) "The very knowledge of effects depends upon a distinct notion of the subordination of causes in any given series." (An. King. 230) "Mere series, and series of series, constitute arithmetic, geometry, physics, physiology, nay, all philosophy." (Econ. 586) "Unless there were such an ordination into series of the substances in the human mind, man would not possess anything analytical of reason." (T. C. R. 351) Hence it is that all irrational thinking and all irrational acts, have come from confusing the series of things,--by mixing the things of one series with the things of a totally different series, or by not following one series to its own legitimate conclusion. Thus the whole doctrine of the tripersonality of the godhead in the Christian Church was the result of confusing the infinite series of Divine essentials with the finite but incomplete series of a human father and his son. And so also, in the New Church, the present incredible confusion in regard to the character of the crowning revelation, has arisen from a failure to follow up the series of Divine Revelations, each of which has been the Word of God,--(all, except the last and most perfect!), and from confusing this series of Divine Revelations with the finite series of stages in the mental development of the human race.


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GENERAL CONVENTION 1906

GENERAL CONVENTION       Rev. WILLIAM HYDE ALDEN       1906

     A REPORT AND COMMENT

     In presenting a view of the recent meeting of the General Convention, which met at Cincinnati, May 19 to 24, I desire not only to describe the events which, indeed, were of no little interest, but to indicate to some extent the meaning of the meeting, to show somewhat the tendency of that which we may call the soul or life of the Convention. This body is the oldest organization of the New Church in the United States; it has the prestige of age, and of the claim to include in its intended scope all of the New Church name in the United States and in Canada. There have been those who have separated from it from time to time, the Central Convention and the Western Convention in an earlier day, and in more recent times the General Church of Pennsylvania, but these bodies have either given up their organization and their membership been received back into the older body, or, as in the case of the General Church of the New Jerusalem, its members are regarded as rebels and schismatics, not to be recognized in the roll of the New Church, not to be fellowshipped among her organizations. The General Convention, then, essentially claims to be the New Church, and claims to open wide enough its doors to permit the entrance of all who will bear the New Church name. In view of this claim it becomes of peculiar interest to mark the trend of Convention's thought and activity. Does she, in her ruling spirit, stand for the New-Church faith and life? Does she offer hospitality and opportunity for all who profess that faith and life? Does she offer liberty of speech and action for all who make that profession? Some of these questions, I believe, will find an answer from a candid study of the recent meeting of the Convention.


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     The meeting of the Convention in Cincinnati was not a large one. Meetings in the West are naturally not so large as those in the East, where there is a larger local membership. But the meeting this year was notably small in the attendance of ministers, of whom only thirty were present out of a list of about one hundred. The number of delegates was sixty-one. There was a marked absence of the older laymen from the East, of whom there was not one from New York, only one from Philadelphia, only one or two from New England. The deficiency was partly made up by women, of whom there were eighteen in the several delegations,--eight out of ten in the delegation of the New York Association being women; and by the young people, of whom there was a goodly number. The meetings were held this year for the first time in the admirably appointed new buildings of the Cincinnati Society, which offered in its beautiful church auditorium, cheerful Sunday School building, well-appointed rooms for lunches and various committee uses, excellent facilities for the several needs of the Convention sessions. The hospitality of the Cincinnati friends was abundant and hearty.

     The meetings of the ministers were marked by the presentation of fewer papers than has been customary. The three which were read were heard without debate. The one of chief value among them was by the Rev. E. J. E. Schreck upon "Paris and his Miracles," which not only gave an illuminating study of the man Paris, whose miracles are referred to by Swedenborg in several places, but included an admirable study of the general subject of miracles. A characteristic discussion was excited by the annual sermon, which was this year delivered to the ministers by the Rev. L. G. Hoeck, of Brockton, Mass. The subject of the sermon was "The Internal Sense of the Word." Starting with the premise that the internal sense is the Word as it is in heaven, and with the statement made in the Writings that one who is in the good of life is in the internal sense of the Word, although he knows it not, the extraordinary deduction was drawn that while one who is in the knowledge of the doctrines of the New Church may thereby intellectually acknowledge the Divinity of the Lord and of the Word, and have a knowledge of the internal sense,--yet one who has never heard of the Doctrine of the New Church, provided he is in the good of life, could by that fact be in all these graces, and this even though he had been in the lip denial of them.

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From this followed easily the further deduction that the New Church is not alone among those who have the doctrines revealed by the Lord in His Second Coming, but that these comprise the good in the Christian world of whatever professed doctrine they be. Hence was derived the comfortable conclusion that those of the nominal New Church should find themselves in spiritual sympathy with the good in the Christian world, without distinction of creed or sect, and should join with them in Christian work and worship.

     The paper seemed to the present writer characteristic in a high degree of the present state and tendency of the Convention, a state and tendency which progressively breaks down the line of demarcation between the New Church and the Old by breaking down the walls of the New Jerusalem. He therefore urged the consideration of the address by the Council.

     In opening the discussion, after giving a brief resume of the address as above indicated, he pointed out a distinction which, it seemed to him, had been overlooked, namely, the distinction which is clearly taught in the Writings between the Church Universal which consists of all those in the whole world who are in good from religion, and the Specific Church which exists only where the Word is received and by it the Lord is known. This church, it was shown, is today the New Church, and the argument of the paper seemed to him to destroy that distinctiveness which, for the very spiritual life of men, must be maintained by the New Church.

     The discussion which followed seemed to show a very hazy notion of what constitutes the Church. By Mr. Sewall the church was thought to be the spiritual life of mankind. Mr. Mann declared that if there was anything that was of human construction it was the New Church. Swedenborg did not organize a church. The Church was organized to realize the truths of the New Jerusalem in the world, but by the truths of the New Jerusalem he meant those ideas which the members hold from their interpretation of the statements of the doctrines which they find in the Writings, and there are often differences as to what these Writings mean.

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Mr. Ager declared that the distinction between the church universal and the church specific had never before entered his mind. That, in his opinion, made two churches, unless all were a part of one church and in that case the term New Church applied to them all. If the New Church was the Lord's kingdom upon the earth, then it was constituted of everything that looked heavenward in human life here on earth. In it was to be found every degree of reception of goodness and truth. One thing we should ever keep in mind, and that was that so far as we had anything of the truth of heaven we should endeavor to communicate that truth to others in the way that would be most helpful. That summed up the mission of the New Church. But we were not to think that we were the only ones doing that work in the world. The truths of the New Church were getting into the minds of people who did not profess to be Newchurchmen. A young preacher, a friend of his, had preached a sermon in which he had said, "We must recognize the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ because the Lord Jesus Christ is the only God we have anything to do with." Mr. Ager thought this a pretty good acknowledgment of the Lord Jesus Christ and His Supreme Divinity, and that came from a Baptist pulpit. That was to him simply an instance of the light which was getting into the minds of the spiritual teachers of the world today more and more. Mr. Hinkley found in the address the broad catholic teachings of the New Church. He could not believe that there was nobody in the church except those who read the writings of Swedenborg and acknowledged the "Arcana" and the "Apocalypse Revealed." Mr. Smyth thought that the author of the address was carried off his feet by his over-emphasis of one side of his subject. Mr. Daniels was quite willing to be carried off his feet in the same way. As a New Church minister he wanted to be known as standing right on that platform. Mr. Saul was pleased with the address, although it had seemed to him to perhaps overemphasize one side of the question pretty strongly. Mr. Sewall denied that the address conflicted with the distinctiveness of the New Church.


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     These remarks seemed to voice the prevailing sentiment in the Convention. But another view was not without representatives. Mr. Schreck confirmed the distinction which had been pointed out by Mr. Alden between the Church Universal and the Church Specific, and felt that is was injurious to the organization of the New Church to fail to make such a distinction. It must be recognized that there was deadness wherever there was denial of the Lord Jesus Christ. He knew of no church except the New Church where the sole Divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ was believed and taught. The tendency of the present day was not toward but away from that. The reason for the establishment of the church was clearly pointed out to be, not the lack of the simple good, but the absolute necessity that there should be the conscious acknowledgment of the Lord and of the Divine truth as it is in heaven, that there should be an organization of men and women who have come to see that the Lord Jesus Christ is the God of heaven and earth, and that He has made His Second Coming. Mr. Schreck also spoke an apt word as to our duty to try and get closer together to find out what is in the minds and hearts of each other. We were apt to take what this, that or the other man said, and put our own interpretation upon it, instead of trying to find out what the man who uses it means by it. Take the statement that the Writings are the internal sense of the Word. Of course, it was not meant that they were the whole of the internal sense of the Word. The heaven and heaven of heavens could not contain that. But he challenged anyone to get at the internal sense of the Word except by means of this revelation. So with the expression that the Writings are the Word. Of course, this did not mean that they are the whole of the Word. Even the Word in the letter as it is given to us is not the whole of the Word in the letter. When we speak of the Word, we mean the Divine truth. Here in the Writings is the Divine truth which has come from the Lord, and because it is from the Lord it is His Word, and is to be obeyed and done.

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Mr. Spiers called attention to Swedenborg's warning against worshiping with those who do not believe in the Lord's Divine Humanity. He had talked with hundreds of ministers and had never yet found one who believed in the Divinity of the Lord's Humanity. They could not see how what was human could be Divine. Mr. Spiers' narration of his experience in speaking with these ministers strongly reminded the hearer of the relation found in T. C. R. No. 111, in which the endeavor was made on the part of a company of priests of the Catholic Church and of the clergy of the Reformed Church, to pronounce the words Divine Human, which no explanation would enable them to do. Mr. Landenberger agreed that there was the Universal Church and the Specific Church, and called attention to the fact that the question was the old one as to what constitutes the New Church, which had been exploited by Mr. Barrett. He might have added that the position of the address and that of those who favored it was essentially that of Mr. Barrett. Mr. Hoeck in closing the discussion said that many things had been said to be in his mind which were not in his mind at all. He did not deny the necessity for the New Church nor the necessity for a distinct organization. But he insisted that one might deny with the lips and yet in heart receive the doctrine both of the Divinity of the Lord and of the Internal sense of the Word. He believed that there was but one church,--the church universal,--and that those in that church had the internal sense of the Word whether they knew it or not. He had said in the address that no one could see evils of life so clearly as a Newchurchman who was in the knowledge of the internal sense of the Word, but if a New Church person with this knowledge did not make a proper use of it, he was preaching the internal sense of the Word as an abstract thing. Because of the tremendous light in which we of the New Church are from our knowledge of the internal sense of the Word, we could help others outside of the church, help them to see evils and co-operate with them in a very powerful way. We were not doing more in the world because we were too much in the internal sense of the Word as an abstract thing, and too little in the knowledge of evils in the light of the internal sense.

     The same lack of clear thought as to what constitutes the church was developed in the discussion as to the inclusion of a Rite of Betrothal in a temporary publication of a Revised and Extended Book of Rites and Sacraments.

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When one speaker urged that there should be instruction of the young as to the importance of marriage in the church, he was asked, if he meant the church as an ecclesiasticism. Reply was made that by the church was meant not the ecclesiasticism, but that in man and that among men which was formed by the reception in mind and life of the truth revealed from the Lord out of heaven for the making of the church. The organization of the church externally was based upon the profession of that faith in revealed truth, which, if actually received, made the church in the individual and among men.

     The discussion seemed to show so vague an idea in the minds of many as to what constitutes the church, as to make impracticable and so of none effect the solemn teaching of the Heavenly Doctrines respecting the vital spiritual importance of marriage within the church and the heinousness of marriage between those of different religions. That this is indeed the case is sadly confirmed by the practice, generally prevailing in Convention circles, of marrying with those not of the New Church. As the result of the discussion the original notion of Mr. Schreck to instruct the committee to insert in the proposed book a Rite of Betrothal was not even pressed to a vote, but instead, the committee was merely requested to give further consideration to the subject of Betrothal.

     A special committee upon clerical vestments made a report of a somewhat heterogeneous character, which included valuable studies of the subject, and gave rise to some animated discussion but led to no action. Mr. Sewall, in his remarks urging action called attention to the increasing custom of using vestments in the societies of the Convention and to the desirability that there should be consideration of the subject and some consensus of opinion as to what should be worn and why. He believed that the dignity of the Church required this.

     It is hardly to be expected that there could be on a subject life this any consensus of opinion in Convention, a body which includes all degrees of belief and non-belief in the importance of external forms, all degrees from full belief to non-belief that the instruction of the Writings is to be sought or observed on such a subject.

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Each society acts as it will. In one society the minister preaches in a black robe; in some others white robes with various insignia are employed. Some have vested choirs, in some cases made up of boys only. In Cincinnati there is a vested choir of women, and all ministers officiating at Convention services, with the exception of the President of the Convention, wore white robes, as is the custom in the Cincinnati Society.

     The Committee on the Translation of the Word reported the completion of the translation of the Psalms, which has been put into the printer's hands, together with a supplementary vocabulary of the synonyms used in the Psalms, by the use of which the student will be enabled to make with the translation the synonymic discriminations of the original text. There was also reported from this committee the completion by Mr. Tafel of the Hebrew portion of the Vocabulary of Swedenborg's Latin translations of the Word. In recognition of the arduous labors of Mr. Tafel in preparing this work a resolution was offered and unanimously adopted, expressing appreciation and gratitude.

     THE CONVENTION CONFERENCES.

     There were provided upon the program of the Convention three conferences, each led by an appointed essayist. The most important of these was that upon "Educational Needs of the New Church?" which was opened by Mr. Schreck, who forcibly emphasized his plea for the need of New Church education by quoting from a recent utterance of the Rev. W. L. Worcester, which commented upon the fact that, while the fathers in the church read for their lives, and their children to some extend in the third generation the Doctrines were read little, if at all, adding the warning, "Unless the men and women of the church stand on their own feet before the Lord, unless they remember their responsibility as members of the church, unless they think for themselves and go themselves to the fountainhead of revelation, religion must grow weaker and more diluted until its power is gone." "Our children." Mr. Schreck continued, "grow up so full of the thoughts and life of the world, that there is little interest in the distinctively spiritual teaching and life of the church. The cry is for sermons and teaching and work of an external character, religious, yes, but wholly on the natural plane."

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He recalled the injunction of the Lord, "these words that I speak unto you shall be in thine heart, and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children," and asked, "How many have obeyed this Divine injunction? What is the attitude of parents even when both are favorable to the Heavenly Doctrines?" There was the pious wish that the children might grow up spiritual men and women, and the actual relegation of this Divine injunction to the background as something impracticable in this age. We spent money and time in securing the accomplishments of the world, but, in training the soul of the child, we spent not one cent in salaries, and were indifferent or desultory in keeping our children to their lessons. The educational needs of the New Church were homes and schools in which the revelation regarding the high heavenly destiny of man, and regarding the faculties and opportunities with which he is endowed by the Creator and Savior Jesus Christ, shall be recognized and practically applied. He referred to the recognition of these educational needs of the church in the early days when a New Church School was established in Boston. From that day to the present there had not been wanting men and women who had earnestly striven to carry out this end. We could profit by their successes and their failures. And there had been failures. Failure to recognize the mental equipment needed for actual use in the work-a-day world; failure to make provision for distinctively New Church teaching; failure to provide properly trained teachers; failure to provide proper New Church social environment, for without a strong social sphere, without a number of homes in which love truly conjugial reigns, a New Church school encounters the greatest difficulties, especially when it must receive children from distant homes. cut there had been splendid successes, as evidenced in boys and girls who have become New Church men and women, lead a beautiful spiritual life at home, and successfully perform their uses in the world.

     The discussion upon this paper developed favorable expressions toward New Church schools from Mr. Mercer, who drew the contrast between our solicitude for the worldly education of our children to which we devote six days of the week, and for their spiritual training, to which we assign a half hour one day in the week; from the present writer who ventured a word of commendation of the work of the Academy Schools, and expressed the belief, that while these were now larger in point of members than both Urbana and Waltham, they would be much more availed of if the prejudice born of ignorance could be removed; from Mr. Hunter, who believed firmly and thoroughly in New Church education; and from Mr. Hite, who dwelt upon the need as a plain fact, and urged that a New Church University be provided in order that we might have New Church homes and New Church schools. But others struck a different note.

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Mr. Hoeck would have New Church schools, provided we could have as good New Church schools as we had public schools, but as we could not, he felt it to be our duty to support the public school. Mr. Hay thought it a beautiful theory, that of distinctive New Church education and distinctive settlements of New Church people, but he questioned whether such attempts were not contrary to the doctrines of the church and contrary to the Word of the Lord. We were taught by the Lord Himself that we were to be in the world, but not of the world. We were not to withdraw into distinctive homes and distinctive settlements, but were to live in the world with other people. And Swedenborg said that we could not practice the religion of the New Church if we withdrew from the world. We must live in the world in order to practice religion at all, and so the very ideal, which was apparently being realized,--he had never been at Bryn Athyn, but had heard very delightful accounts of it from those who had,--this very ideal, though in a measure successful, seemed to be condemned by the Scriptures and by the Writings of the church because it withdrew people from the world, from the practice of religion in the world for the good of the world, to devote their effort to the good of themselves and of their children: for unless our children were brought up with others to meet the evils of the world from childhood, how could they ever be prepared for the Christian life, for the life of the Lord in the world? Therefore, his hesitation to accept the new theory. The experiment had been tried many years ago in Boston, but he understood that it had been unsuccessful in the very way that what he had said would lead us to expect.

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Moreover, the plan was not practicable, as it had been in the earlier and simpler times. We could not possibly maintain schools which could compete with the public schools in excellence.

     Others thought that we were already giving good New Church education. Mr. Sewall wished to bear testimony that if the young men and women were attending services regularly, living the normal life of the church, even though we had no religious day schools, they were still embodying the great conceptions of New Church culture in their own homes. He protested, however, against the evil effect of the Sunday newspaper with its hideous array of profane pictures, and of the vaudeville play with its profanity against everything holy in marriage or in religion. He had traced profanity and levity respecting holy things among Sunday School children to the vaudeville habit. Mr. Mann spoke of the new educational ideal which was coming into the world. Instead of teaching from books about things, the modern method was to study the things themselves. On the same principle we wanted a new religious education which would consist not in telling the child certain words, but in bringing it face to face with great religious principles. The child should learn the love of God and the neighbor, not by repeating the commandments, nor by learning from parents the statements which contain that truth. but by practising the love of God in his own home, in his relation with his playfellows. Mrs. Louis F. Post thought the speakers presumed too much in implying that the New Church organization was the New Church. It was never with sorrow that she saw the children grow up out of the church, for if we had done all we could, and they went out, it was because they needed other spiritual nourishment and training than we could give. It was possible that, going out of the church in this world, they might come into touch with heavens not in the influx of the New Church, that they might become a part of a larger church, and, it might be, come into touch with heavens more interior than our organization knew how to make use of, and be regenerated to a finer life than we knew how to teach them. Mr. Schreck, in closing the discussion, regretted that no one had referred to that which was his chief point. He had not intended to inaugurate the establishment of New Church Schools, the time for that was evidently not yet, but to call attention to certain teachings of the church which had a very present application.

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Here were certain teachings of the church. We accepted them. Were they simply for us to study as history of the past, or intended for us to live by?

     The conference upon mission work was exceedingly disappointing. The opening address by the Rev. Frank Sewall was simply a suggestion of an impracticable development of the present methods of work. Mr. Earron, who followed, found apt material in the paper for a severe arraignment of the general spiritual ministries of the church as at present carried on, and set forth his own idea of the methods of work which should take their place. A few remarks from Mr. Mercer closed the conference, and the meeting was turned over to the Mission Board which, under the chairmanship of Dr. Wright, made brief presentation of the Report of the Board, and offered two addresses, one from the Rev. George G. Daniel, of British Guiana, whose story of how he came into the New Church out of the Methodist Church would be worth repeating here if there was space for it.

     The Conference upon New Church Periodicals calls for no lengthy comment. There was the customary approval of "The Messenger," and lack of any practical suggestion of improvement. Mr. Barron made some little stir by drawing upon his journalistic experience, and contrasting "The Messenger," not to the advantage of that periodical, with the editorial page of the New York Journal. He claimed that the essential good of the New Church was being taught outside our borders much more efficiently than within, and declared that the editor of The Messenger should be content to clip from the writings of such men as President Elliott, of Harvard, who spoke of the joy of achievement, by which he was promulgating New Church truth, as was evident when we put for his "achievement," the New Church term "use." He claimed also that Andrew Carnegie, who had been taught in a New Church Sunday School, was making practical application of that teaching. The Rev. L. P. Mercer made apt reply to Mr. Barren. He thought all this talk about the New Church lying around in the world, hung up in the sky, was all gabble with not a particle of sense in it. The reason we did not have New Church journalism was because we were possessed with the idea that every movement under heaven was New Church.

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He had never yet found anything in President Elliott's writings which was of the New Church. President Elliott's "joy of achievement" was not the love of use. The joy of achievement night as well be selfish as unselfish, as well the lust which moved a devil as the love which inspired an angel.

     The address of the President of the Convention was an attempt to set forth such a doctrine of "Authority in the New Church'' as should differentiate the Convention from the General Church.

     Such at least appeared to be the purpose to the present writer. In considerable part the Academician would find himself in agreement with it. The President of Convention said, for instance, that "an authoritative Divine Revelation is necessary" "that the Lord has provided such a means in the Word and in the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg;" "that the power and authority of the Word, and, of course, of the Writings, is according to the understanding of them;" "that, as we prove our will to do the truth by actually doing it in our daily life as far as possible, we shall not only recognize the authority of the truth, because it claims to be authoritative, but shall recognize it as a living principle, active and operative in our own heart and experience, for salvation and eternal life. We shall know the truth and the truth shall make us free." With all this, I believe, the Academician would agree, as also with the affirmation of the necessity, since man has no source of truth within himself, that he have some higher basis of authority; that while man cannot by searching find out God, God can reveal Himself to man. There would be agreement also where Mr. Seward sails, "Though it must be difficult to understand because it is a Divine book, and written according to a Divine language, different from that of any human book, it is the only authority, other than that of men, which we possess, and must be acknowledged as such, that we may rise above our human limitations. And what is true of the Word must be true in a different, though not less real sense of the Writings of the church, by means of which the inner meaning of the Word is revealed.... The Writings of the Church constitute a Divine Revelation. As the Word itself is Divine, and contains infinite and Divine truths which none but the Lord can understand, so the opening and explanation of the Word must be Divine.... The Writings of the Church must be regarded, like the Word itself, upon which they are based, as of Divine origin and authority and as a direct revelation from the Lord to man.... The two must stand or fall together.

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We may differ as to their character, as to the nature of their inspiration, and even as to their meaning, but we must accept and acknowledge then as Divine, if we would rise even relatively above our own finite and human conceptions of the truth." All this sounds very much like the Academy doctrine. But, as if to guard against too strong affirmation, the address adds, "But to suppose that must accept the Word and the Writings with a kind of blind faith, or merely as a matter of authority, is a grave and fatal error. Not the Word but the understanding of the Word makes the Church." And "We learn the danger of making a shibboleth of the doctrine of authority, of teaching it dogmatically, as a matter of intellectual perception, and not as the out flowering and fruitage of the life of charity, which alone can open the mind to the understanding of truth. To be guilty of this conduct is to reverse the true order. It is to place the acknowledgment of truth before the understanding of it, and the understanding of it before the will to do it. It is a form of faith alone." One is in doubt as to what Mr. Sewall means here. I confess an inability to square the strong affirmations of the necessity of an authoritative revelation given in the earlier part of the address, with the later assertion that it is disorderly to place acknowledgment before understanding and understanding before doing. I cannot understand, consistently with the necessity for authoritative revelation which is so powerfully asserted how this authority can be the fruitage of a life of charity, when the authority itself is necessary and must be recognized and obeyed before the life of charity can have any being. Does Mr. Seward mean that man must first live the life of charity in order that he may understand Divine truth, and that only after he understands it, is he to admit its authority? This would seem to be the force of his words. But this would make regeneration first in time, and the understanding of the truth, and the acknowledgment of the truth a consequence of regeneration. But in such event, whence arises the charity in the first place?

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Is it self-derived? To my understanding the necessities of the case require just the order of procedure which is condemned in the address. We receive the Word of Divine Revelation in the first instance because for some reason or other we think it worth while to attempt to understand it. This is acknowledgment or authority. And assuredly, if we are wise, we endeavor to understand the truth before we seek to do it. Would it not be blind faith to put doing first, before understanding? If we say that we must first be in the love which is charity, do we not assert the power of man to have the love which is charity, of himself? Is not this like attempting to lift oneself by one's own bootstraps? Is it not placing the very Divine Revelation itself, which the address postulates must be in authority over us, subject to the human understanding. subject to the human will?

     Of the work of Convention only a word need be said. The reports of Associations and Societies contained little to distinguish them from similar reports of past years. The statistical reports show a net loss in membership during the year of upwards of two hundred. This lack of growth in the external church has aroused considerable discussion in Massachusetts, both in the meetings of the ministers and in the Boston New Church Club. The latter organization passed resolutions which came to the Convention with the endorsement of the Massachusetts Association, urging such reorganization of the means of missionary work as shall secure more concentrated and responsible service, and awaken a greater degree of interest and active co-operation. The resolutions suggest the holding of New Church services, lectures and conferences for all classes of people in the larger centers of population; the wider circulation of New Church literature, especially to theological students; the provision of literature for the public press, both to make known the doctrines of the New Church, and to refute false doctrines; efforts to relieve suffering of every kind, as a preparation for the higher ends of spiritual culture for which the church stands; the founding of an institution, or, of courses in existing institutions. for the higher study of history, philosophy, and science in the light of the New Age, etc., etc.

     At the Alumni Association the address was by the Rev. L. F. Hite, upon the Reading and Study of Young Ministers.

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Mr. Hite asserted that the language of Swedenborg was the common scholastic language of his time, and a knowledge of history was declared to be necessary to get into its point of view. The value of the study of Leibnitz as the best introduction to the reading of Swedenborg, was strongly urged. Books of Leibnitz, Russell, Bradley, James, and Payne were especially recommended for study. The knowledge of Augustine's "Confessions" was pronounced an almost indispensable preparation for the appreciative study of Swedenborg. "The Messenger" reports that the paper was thoroughly enjoyed and that remarks were made upon its unique value. Unique such a paper certainly is thus far in the history of the New Church. Only a few years ago, Mr. Hite was urging upon the students in the Convention Theological School the usefulness of the study of the Philosophers in order to understand the state of the public mind; now it is asserted to be necessary for the understanding of the doctrines of the New Church: one step more and Swedenborg may be left out altogether in favor of those upon whose forms of thought his teaching was based(?), from which it may yet be said to have been derived, Augustine, Leibnitz and the rest.

     Convention has become a bit tired of the Evidence Society. In years past it has been the custom for a long report from this body to be read at a meeting of the Society itself, and then repeated before the Convention. Some years ago, Convention decided that the reading of the Report before the society was sufficient, and declined its repetition. This year the Program Committee assigned an hour for the hearing of the Report by Convention and in this expectation the Society passed over its reading in its own meeting. But when the hour arrived, the Convention mercilessly voted that the Report be printed in the Journal without reading.

     The Sunday School Association showed a step in advance in the adoption of a scheme for graded lessons for the Sunday School, also retaining, however, the uniform lesson plan. The address to the Association by the Rev. Paul Sperry, of Bath, Me., was remarkable for its lack of New Church thought, and for the assertion that "New Church schools, and probably nest others, would certainly decline numerically, relying alone for increase upon births into the church," and that in consequence, for the maintenance of the school, children must be sought from the outside.

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One wonders whether this was intended to imply out Race Suicide was an accepted fact in the churches, the New Church among the rest, or that it was not to be expected that parents would send their own children to the Sunday School, but rather that the school was to be filled by children of those not of the church. The printing of this paper was specially requested by vote of the Convention, and in seconding the motion the Rev. Mr. Sewall declared the address to be one of the most stirring addresses the Convention had heard.

     The Round Table dealt with the subject of the Juvenile Delinquent, and for the most part with the consideration of the benefits of Juvenile Courts and George Jr. Republics. The Round Table voted its hearty support to the Resolutions from the New Church Club of Boston.

     The meeting of the American League of Young People's Societies was one of the most interesting of all the meetings. The young people have the enthusiasm of youth. Their organization is in its twentieth year, and it has shown growth and increasing power. This year it had seventy-one delegates representing thirty-one organizations. Inaugurated amid doubt of its value among the young people themselves, and against a veiled prejudice on the part of the older leaders in the Church, it has made its way, until it now occupies more time than any other meeting outside of Convention and the Ministers' Conference. The hope for the future of the Convention, if there be hope, lies in these young people. One of the truest words spoken at any meeting of the Convention was in a paper read before the young people by Mr. William F. Wunsch, of Detroit. The subject of the paper was "What kind or Degree of Emotionalism is Possible or Proper in Our New Church Worship?" The general answer of the paper was "None at all," since emotionalism is of the natural man, ephemeral in its character, and departing with the causes which produce it. The speaker deprecated the idea that emotionalism was the cure for coldness in our societies. We needed not less, but more study of the doctrines of the church. We needed not emotionalism, but love; but that our love might be spiritual charity it was necessary that we learn and apply the truth to the removal of evil.

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We must study the doctrines before we could live according to them. Man must reform his life by means of the truth; the Lord alone could regenerate him. The more the mind mounted to ward the spiritual source of life, the higher the loves; the higher the sun would rise in the mind, and the more warmth would come with it. This was spiritual emotion, the true love of truth and of true life. This was zeal which would attract all who were sensitive to spiritual life. Emotionalism might excite the natural devotion to religious frenzy, and attract people to the views of the church, but would these become of the real church? Would they even become permanent members of the worldly organization? The church needed quiet, enduring spiritual love and life. The church needed rational emotion and the zeal of the spiritual man. This was not suddenly excited. It came only with growth in the spiritual life. A second paper, presented by Miss Mabel Elizabeth Shaw, of Brooklyn, fitly complemented the paper of Mr. Wunsch. Agreeing with him in essential points, Miss Shaw yet urged the need of emotionalism in the sense of that affection which gives power and effectiveness to the truth. She found no ground for the claim that we were over-intellectual from over-study of the doctrines. Our young people were underfed, and if we were cold it was because we knew too little and not too much of the doctrines. It is good to report that these papers met with strong commendation, that they will be printed, and that Wunsch was elected President of the League for the coming year.

     The work of the young people has been earnest, and in many ways effective. By them the Reading Circle has been established and maintained. They have for several years published an annual chart of readings from Swedenborg, which has resulted in the sale of upwards of six hundred of the book selected each year. They have established a League Journal, which, from an external point of view, sets the pace for New Church Journalism; and their courage and energy were marked this year by action looking to the placing of this periodical in the hands of every member of all the societies connected with the American League. The League has interested itself in missionary work, in the making of a directory of the isolated in the Church. All these things are good.

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Yet one cannot help the feeling that all these are things which the Convention itself should do, and that what the young people did in them should be with the counsel and under the inspiration of the church body itself. It is all amateur work with the young people. They are taking up in their eager, enthusiastic way, work which the church has neglected. It does not seem quite of order that the work which is being done in the Young People's League should be originated with them. The maxim, "Old men for counsel, young men for action," seems in a way reversed. It is a note of encouragement, indeed, at the present juncture of affairs, that the young people are interested in attempting such things as have been neglected by those who should be counseling and leading in them. But how much better it would be if the Convention itself were alive to the need for the study of the Heavenly Doctrine and for the application of it in living ways. If that were the case, there would not be found the tendency to leave the fountain of living waters, to seek the cisterns of external reforms: the forsaking the distinctive mission and use of the New Church for the sake of fellowship with the denominations and the world. Is not this as if the Olive, the Vine and the Fig of Jotham's parable had consented to leave their God-given use in the providing of their own delicious fruit that they might attain the doubtful honor of ruling over all the trees?

     For there can be no doubt as to the course which Convention has set before itself. More and more it is impatient of learning from the Doctrines the way of life; more and more it is disposed to conform its standards and its ways to the standards and the ways of men. It is not strange that there is impatience with the doctrine of the authority of the Writings, when there is no desire that the life should be ordered by those Writings. It is not strange that there is revolt from the doctrine of the leadership of the priesthood, when men are unwilling to be guided in spiritual things and desire as their priest only such a one as shall preach the things which shall be well-pleasing to those who employ him.

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It is not strange that the Convention societies will not hear, nor the Convention organ print, teaching respecting the state of the consummated Christian Church, when the professions by that Church of a Divine and saving faith, and its external good fellowship, are believed to be actual spiritual assets effective for the heavenly uplift of men. It is not strange that the teaching of the Heavenly Doctrines respecting conjugial love and marriage within the Church, is not understood, when that teaching has been persistently disregarded until the membership of the Church is now permeated with those who are of the Church in name only and are affiliated by the closest ties with those not of the New Church, who must not be offended by the distinctive preaching of the New Church. All this would be easily intelligible, together with the prevalent opposition to the education of the children of the church by the church, if it could be admitted that the spirit of the Convention is no longer the spirit of the New Church, but the spirit of love of the world, and love of self. There is much that I am at a loss to account for on any other ground.

     These lines are written under a deep sense of responsibility. The writer has for many years been a minister of the Convention. He has believed in the Convention as the professed exemplar of the New Church; he has written in no spirit of captious criticism, nor of antagonism to the General Convention and its members. But he is convinced that there is danger to the very existence of the New Church, so far as the Convention is concerned, if the tendencies which are marked in this late meeting, which are confirmed by other evidence which seems unmistakable, are not in some way checked. Convention is no longer a growing body; it is losing ground; and coincident with this decadence is to be noted an accumulating neglect of the Heavenly Doctrines upon which the
Church is founded. One cannot but place these two facts together and note the relation between them. The distressing state of the Convention is indeed recognized, and many are the external panaceas, palliatives, and salves proposed. But only from a few, and unheeded, is heard a plea for the only true and sure remedy, namely, "To THE LAW AND TO THE TESTIMONY." The writer cannot but agree with the Rev. O. L. Barler in a recent Messenger, that "we are drifting toward the Niagara of No Doctrine." And where there is no Doctrine, there is no Church; and in such a case even the forms of the Church cumber the ground and will inevitably shrivel and disappear.


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Church News 1906

Church News       Various       1906

     FROM OUR CORRESPONDENTS.

     BRYN ATHYN, PA. The graduation festivities culminated June 15th with the formal closing of the college and seminary. Throughout the week, however, there have been numerous social events; to wind up the school year.

     To go back to the early part of the month, the juniors of both seminary and college tendered the graduates a banquet. "Ideals" was the keynote of a series of speeches delivered by the youths of the college. Mr. Roy Faulkner acted as toastmaster, and proved a happy choice. Later on, dancing followed in the assembly room, interspersed with a number of tableaux complementary to the speeches.

     Miss Lois Graham several evenings afterwards gave a most successful exhibition of her achievements in the class in physical culture, which she has conducted with the young ladies of the seminary throughout the winter.

     The final week, however, was the gayest and busiest. Monday evening, June 11th, the graduation ball was given in the gymnasium. The room was a veritable bower of wild roses, the class flower. Besides the dancing the graduates were generous in their entertainment, which included the imitation by Mr. Gerald Glenn of a complete orchestra under the strenuous leadership of Mr. Hubert Hicks, a la Sousa. There were poems, caricatures of every member of the class, and descriptions of those who should next be seniors. Unfortunately the banner chosen as a gift from the joint classes was not completed in time to be presented. Despite the fact of its absence, Mr. Glenn made a graceful presentation speech, and the Bishop accepted the spirit of the gift, and thanked them on behalf of the Academy.

     Thursday morning witnessed the closing of the local school, and in the evening we were again entertained by the college and seminary, who presented the cantata "Ruth," and two scenes from "The Midsummer Night's Dream."

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Owing to Mr. Heath's supervision this was probably the most successful of the recent attempts in the dramatic held. The "Pyramis" of Mr. Glenn and "Thisbe" of Mr. Hubert Hicks provoked great merriment.

     On Friday morning, June 15th, the formal closing took place. After the opening services four of the young ladies delivered essays, Miss Cyriel Odhner describing the career of "Johnny Appleseed," the New Church pioneer of the early west. Her narration proved one of excellent literary worth. The "Nature Sketches" of Miss Vera Pitcairn were delightfully refreshing, presenting charming pictures of nature in her ever changing garb. Miss Madeleine Glenn recounted in a very unique manner the studies accomplished by her class. The valedictory delivered by Miss Eliora Pendleton will appear in a future number of the Life, as will also the essay by Mr. Arthur Wells concerning "The Africans."

     A short, dignified valedictory by Mr. Hubert Hicks completed the program prior to the conferring of the degrees of Bachelor of Arts upon the two male graduates, and gold medals upon the eight fairer graduates from the seminary, who, moreover, were crowned with wild roses by their junior sisters. After the granting of the degrees and medals. Mr. Arthur Wells, on behalf of the graduates, presented to the schools a complete set of the works of John Burroughs in twelve volumes. The exercises then closed with the benediction.

     Now, alas, the population of Bryn Athyn is gradually dwindling, and soon the land of honeysuckle will be sadly deserted by many who have called it home during the winter. The first to leave us was a small party of ladies, consisting of Miss Hogan, Miss Sophie Falk. Miss Alice Grant and Miss Emelia Nelson, who sailed for Europe in the latter part of May, and will visit England, Scotland and the Continent in a tour of several weeks. A smaller party of European travelers also left us on June 21st, when the Rev. Reginald Brown and Mr. Alfred Stroh sailed for Sweden, where Mr. Stroh will continue a sojourn of two or three years in the prosecution of the work of superintending the publication, by the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences, of Swedenborg's scientific works.


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     Two of our Bryn Athynites have taken part as graduates in the commencement exercises of the universities. Miss Venita Pendleton having received a degree from Columbia University, where she has been taking a course in the Teacher's College, and Mr. Stroh having been granted the degree of M. A. by the University of Pennsylvania.

     On May 25th, after the regular doctrinal class, the Rev. W. H. Alden gave us a well told account of the recent meeting of the General Convention. One remarkable statement he made was that more people were assembled to hear this account than had been present at any of the Convention meetings.

     The occasion of Mr. Alden's talk to us was the last of our Friday suppers and doctrinal classes. Owing to the illness of the Bishop the class on this occasion was conducted by Mr. Synnestvedt. The Bishop's illness, however, did not last very long, and he now seems to have quite recovered his normal health.

     Only a word can be said about the celebration of the Nineteenth of June. There was a very large attendance, there being quite a number of visitors, including, in addition to a large contingent from town, Mr. W. C. Childs, of Yonkers, N. Y.; Prof. Brickenstein, of Bethlehem, and Dr. Cranch, of Erie. The gymnasium was tastefully illuminated with a multitude of Chinese lanterns (supplementing the electric light), and its wall and pillars were adorned with shields bearing pictures of the fathers of the Academy. A somewhat new departure in the method of celebration was that instead of having speeches in response to toasts, eight short papers were read by as many ministers on subjects connected with the day celebrated. The papers were all of great interest suggesting new thoughts and enkindling our affections for the Church. It is not necessary to speak of them in detail, as they will probably appear in the Life as a symposium on the Nineteenth of June.

     The celebration began at half past five in the afternoon when the Holy Supper was administered by Bishop Pendleton in the chapel. Then followed the banquet in the gymnasium, which commenced about half past seven. The reading of the papers was interspersed with songs and toasts. Some of the former were selections beautifully rendered by an octette of our young people, whose work was deeply appreciated and loudly applauded after the papers followed some informal toasts and speeches, including a notable speech from Mr. Alden on the "Academy" doctrines, and a toast to Father Benade, the first chancellor of the Academy.

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It was after half past eleven before this, one of our happiest and most instructive celebrations of New Church Day, was brought to a close.

     PHILADELPHIA, PA. At the usual doctrinal class of the Advent church Bishop Pendleton, on April 25th, delivered a lecture on Ceremonies, in which the uses of external rites were interestingly set forth.

     On invitation by the pastor, the Rev. W. H. Alden preached at the morning services, May 6th, the sermon being much appreciated by the audience.

     Dr. George Cooper lectured on the Brain at the doctrinal class, Wednesday evening, May 16th. The lecture was followed with great interest.

     On Sunday morning, May 20th, we had the pleasure of listening to a well written discourse by Mr. F. E. Gyllenhaal, one of the promising candidates for the ministry studying at Bryn Athyn. Mr. Gyllenhaal led the whole service very acceptably.

     On Sunday, June 3d, Bishop Pendleton officiated and preached in the absence of the pastor, who was in Baltimore, Md.

     The Social Club, which since last fall has met the expenses of the hall for the Doctrinal Class, and performed other uses for the Society, held its final meeting for this season on May 23d, when the Doctrinal Class was discontinued to be reconvened in September next. The results of the work done since the club was started in August, 1905, are very encouraging. After all expenses had been, paid there was still a snail surplus on hand.     J. E. R.

     CHICAGO, ILL. During the Easter vacation an interesting children's party was given at the Sharon church for the children in Chicago and Glenview. The most interesting feature of this party was a series of beautiful tableaux, arranged by Mrs. Riefsdahl, representing scenes in winter and spring. The first was Jack Frost and the Snow Queen, who came in to the music of "Old Jack Frost," which was sung by the children.

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Then the little bear came out to show that we might hope for spring. The sight of little bruin inspired the children to sing "Spring, Spring, Why Don't You Hurry Along?" It did "hurry along," bringing with it beautiful little human flowers,-spring violet and tulip, and afterward summer roses and peonies, tall white lilies and brilliant poppies. In the next scene all these nodding, smiling flowers were put to sleep by Jack Frost and the Snow Queen, to the tune of a lullaby hummed by the children.

     After the tableaux the children enjoyed dancing and a series of fine pictures, which were exhibited while the ladies prepared luncheon.

     No mention has, as yet, been made of the Ladies' Club, which meets once a month at the different homes to discuss and prepare for social functions. A luncheon was served during the afternoon. E. V. W.

     GLENVIEW, ILL. On the afternoon of May 25th, the monthly school social took the form of an exhibition of the work done through the year by the music and dancing classes. Dancing was at first the order of the day, and was made specially attractive by the pretty German figures and the odd toys bestowed as favors. When the parents and friends had gathered as audience, the children assembled about the piano to render the musical program. Mrs. Colley opened the exercises with a brief address, the substance of which was as follows:

     The music class welcomes the parents and friends who come to-day to hear what we have done through the year. We hope that they will not expect a great deal of us. We have not fine voices and we should have two lessons each week instead of one lesson in two weeks, so our rate of progress is slow.

     The main part of our work in the beginning is songs learned by rote. Rote songs play an important part in the work of the primary school. Their object is to give rest after the efforts for greater concentration, to develop the sense of melody, rhythm and harmony, that is, the musical sense as a complete faculty, and to give delight.


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     After the primary work of rote singing is well under way, the next step is to develop a more intimate and exact knowledge of music by means of sight reading. We need to train the ear to hear accurately, the eye to grasp musical relations and the voice to reproduce them, thus to give the pupil an open sesame to the stores of musical literature. A very small degree of personal skill is a sufficient basis for genuine appreciation. The slight personal experience opens the doors, and one penetrates to the deeper sanctuary by listening, hearing and feeling.

     The uses of music on the physical side are a muscular effort and deep breathing in unison after intellectual concentration, moments of congenial bodily action, socially enjoyed. The mental uses of such musical training are the development of memory, discrimination, judgment and motor response.

     But the uses to the affections are of first importance. Music gives an added faculty of expression, enlarges the personality and develops new aspects of the human nature. To open up to children the means for this sort of expression is to make them inheritors of a new world. We wish to imbue the children with a love of the Lord and the neighbor. One means to this end is to teach them hymns of praise, songs of the Church and school, songs of home and country, lullabyes, songs of nature and of occupations.

     We are told that heaven is as one man in the Lord's sight. To come into the order of heaven we must be filled with a spirit of unanimity. Action in chorus is an ultimate form of unanimity expressing a harmonious relation to the neighbor. So that singing together as well as speaking and acting in unison is useful training for children, leading them into the externals of mutual love.

     We have only to examine the Writings to find thorough instruction as to the value of music in developing the affections. In many of the Memorable Relations we are told of choirs singing in the heavens, expressing the power of various good affections.

     "Heavenly songs are in reality sonorous affections, or affections expressed and modified by sounds; for as the thoughts are expressed by speech, so the affections are expressed by sounds; and from the measure and flow of the modulation, the angels perceive the object of the affection." C. L. 55.


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     Also "The singing of heaven is an affection of the mind, sent forth through the mouth as a tune; for the tone of the voice in speaking, separate from the discourse of the speaking, and grounded in the affection of love, is what gives life to the speech." C. L. 255.

     "The affections particularly display themselves in sounds. It is from this cause that the art of music has the power of expressing various kinds of affections. Lofty musical sounds are employed on such themes as Heaven and God." H. H. 241.

     "In ancient times gladness of heart was testified not only by musical instruments and by singing, but also by dances; for jays of the heart or interior joys in the body burst forth into various acts, as into singing and also into dances." A. C. 8339

     "Singing exalts and causes the affection to break forth from the heart into sound, and to present itself intensely in its life." A. R. 279.

     The school is divided for singing into two classes which sang a number of songs in alternation. The older class sang "Our Glorious Church" and "Academia" as well as other songs of varied character. The little children illustrated a lesson on the scale, and a sight singing exercise in response to hand signs. Mr. Seymour Nelson improvised an exercise on the blackboard which was sung by the older class in good time and tune. The final song was a kindergarten game sung and acted by the younger children standing in a circle.

     Mr. Nelson closed the exercises with a short address on the use of music in the service of Divine Worship. The pupils of the school presented Mrs. Colley with a beautiful fan. The club room was beautifully decorated with flowers by the children. Much merriment was caused by the shower of snowballs with which the enthusiastic pupils pelted their teacher as she left the club house. E. E. C.

     NEW ORLEANS, LA. The New Church is again struggling for a foothold in this old Southern city, where a generation ago there existed a strong society. There are but few members of the old society left, and some of these, and the descendants of others have united with the Old Church. A remnant, however, remains loyal.

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These coupled with a few others, some from afar, and late receivers, constitute a nucleus who seek to rekindle the smouldering embers of truth so long neglected, and restore to the Church the priceless legacy left by a former generation.

     For a decade or more this promising field has been almost wholly neglected, and until recently abandoned entirely, and it is gratifying to know that the present efforts are being directed by an Academy minister, the Rev. R. H. Keep, of Atlanta, Ga. Mr. Keep first visited New Orleans three years ago. But little if anything was accomplished at that time, other than becoming acquainted with two or three members of the old society, and no encouragement was given him. He continued, however, to keep in touch with the situation here through an old-time friend, who became a resident of the city after his first visit. In December last two travelers from Bryn Athyn, sojourning here for a week and co-operating with Mr. Keep, were instrumental in bringing together two or three persons who before were strangers to one another, from which time active interest may be said to date. This visit was followed in January by a second one from Mr. Keep, who came of his own initiative. During his few days' stay he discovered about twenty persons more or less interested in the doctrines, and the first New Church service ever held in New Orleans under the auspices of the Academy was conducted on Sunday, January 14, 1906, attended by upwards of twenty persons. Following the services, some of those present expressed themselves as desirous of forming a circle, to meet once a week for reading and discussion, and it was so arranged. These meetings have been continued now for over four months, with gratifying results and an average attendance of eight persons.

     In April Mr. Keep accepted an invitation to pay us a pastoral visit, and remained seven days in the city. This visit resulted in the discovery of several others who had long been interested in the Church, but for years had been deprived of the pleasure of listening to a New Church sermon or meeting New Church people. Worship was held and the Lord's Supper administered, fifteen persons partaking, the attendance on this occasion being twenty-four persons. A delightful New Church sphere prevailed, and general joy was expressed at the thought of again establishing the Church in this city. LAGNIAPPE


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     TORONTO, CANADA. Again we chronicle the successful completion of another year of labor in our society, and anticipate with delight a summer of rest, recreation and social intercourse. Such respites are useful, not only as opportunities for recuperation, but also for reflection upon past achievements and upon means of improvement for the future.

     Our last weekly supper was held on Wednesday, May 30th, the usual doctrinal class being replaced by a delightful social, at which our newest married couple, Mr. and Mrs. Fred. Longstaff, proved themselves charming and efficient hosts.

     The doctrinal classes for children not attending the school were discontinued May 7th.

     As a result of labor voluntarily contributed by the gentlemen of our society, a vast improvement can be noted in the appearance of the grounds surrounding the church building. The necessity for an effort in this direction became urgent, and those participating in this use have earned the thanks and commendations of the whole society. The church is our common home, and in every home it is not only a duty but a source of joy and happiness to maintain beauty and order. The gentlemen, I believe, have wisely worked on the principle that "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy," and upon concluding their labor of flower planting, grass mowing, etc., have indulged in games of quoits and cards. M. S. C.

     BERLIN, ONT. The Annual Bazaar of the Carmel church was held on the 16th of April. The booths did a flourishing business, and a neat sum was realized.

     On the 2d of May the ladies' meeting was held at the house of Miss Emma Kuhl. After tea the men called, and a delightful evening was spent in celebration of the birthday of the hostess.

     On May 11th, Dr. Robert Schnarr gave an interesting lecture on the Senses, the correspondence of which is being studied at our general doctrinal class.

     On May 13th, the pastor conducted services at Milverton. Eighteen persons were present. On the 27th, he conducted services at Clinton. Attendance, twenty-nine. During his absence the Rev. E. J. Stebbing officiated in Berlin.


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     On the 22d of May the young people's doctrinal class, which has been held regularly every Tuesday evening since last fall, came to a close for this season. The young people followed a calendar for home reading of their own in the work on Heaven and Hell, and at class a paper by one of the young people on the portion for the week was read and discussed and questions followed. The average attendance was about fifteen.

     The 24th of May, Victoria Day, was celebrated by a picnic on the school grounds. There was a good program of games and sports, which ended with a dance in the school room in the evening.

     FROM OUR CONTEMPORARIES.

     UNITED STATES. At One of its services in the month of May the BATH, Me., Society took up a collection, amounting to $50, for the relief of the San Francisco sufferers,--primarily those of the New Church. Over $1,000 had already been sent by individual members of the Society.

     Further examination of the damage done to the O'Farrell Street church of the SAN FRANCISCO Society shows damage from the recent disaster to the extent of $400. Services were resumed on May 6th, when Mr. de Ronden-Pos preached on the subject of Earthquakes.

     The NEW YORK Association, at its meeting in February, received from the trustees of "The Charity Fund of the New York Association," a fund created two years ago under the will of the late Mr. John Sly, for the relief of "aged, infirm, or distressed ministers of the Church, their widows and minor children. The fund at present yields an income of $105 a year.

     The Rev. A. B. Dolly, for many years the pastor of the LANCASTER, Pa., Society, has retired, and will make his home in the South.

     At its recent meeting in Cincinnati, the General Convention in answer to a Memorial from the SWEDENBORG SCIENTIFIC ASSOCIATION, granted to that body the sum of $300, to be used, in conjunction with a like amount to be contributed by the Academy of the New Church, in maintaining Mr. Alfred H. Stroh in Sweden for the purpose of superintending the publication of Swedenborg's scientific works by the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences.

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The grant was made with the understanding that a like sum of $300 will be voted annually for the same purpose until Mr. Stroh's work is completed, which will be in three or four years.

     On Sunday, May 27thl during the meeting of the General Convention at Cincinnati, the Rev. George G. Daniel, the colored preacher of Georgetown, British Guiana, who has become an ardent receiver of the Doctrines, was ordained into the ministry of the New Church. The ordination, which was performed by the Rev. S. S. Seward, was authorized by the General Convention in answer to an application from "the Committee of the Georgretown New Church Mission." Mr. Daniel separated from the Methodist Church some three years ago, and since then has devoted himself to preaching the doctrines of the New Church.

     GREAT BRITAIN. The annual report of the MISSIONARY AND TRACT SOCIETY Of London, shows a marked falling off in the attendance at public worship at the various small societies to which it ministers. There are ten of these societies all situated in London or its environs within a radius of about sixty miles. The total average attendance in 1904-5 was 403, while in the year just ended, the average attendance has fallen to 345, a decrease of 58. The decrease appears in all the societies except one, the largest decrease being in Reading.

     The Hillhead and Bothwell Street Societies of GLASGOW, which are under the pastoral charge of the Rev. J. J. Thornton, have agreed to amalgamate, and have decided upon a suitable site on which to erect a church building. The former of these two societies was formed some three or four years ago with the Rev. James Buss as pastor; the latter is one of the two bodies formed from the Cathedral Street Society two years ago, when the Cathedral street property was sold.

     From a note in the advertising columns of Morning Light it appears that the Rev. George Meek continues to act as minister of the ST. HELIERS Society, although he "is still open to correspond with any Society wishful to secure the services of a minister."

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The note continues: "Although some of Mr. Meek's friends wish him to remain in Jersey, still, in his opinion, it will be the wisest, in the best interests of all concerned, that a change be made."
ANNUAL MEETINGS OF THE GENERAL CHURCH 1906

ANNUAL MEETINGS OF THE GENERAL CHURCH              1906


     Announcements.


     The annual meeting of the Council of the Clergy of the General Church of the New Jerusalem will he held at Bryn Athyn, Pa., from Tuesday, September 4th to Friday, September 7th, 1906.

     The Executive Committee of the General Church will meet at the Fame place on September 7th, and a joint meeting of the two councils will be held on September 8th.

     The Teachers' Institute will meet at Bryn Athyn on September 10th and 11th.
BRITISH DISTRICT ASSEMBLY 1906

BRITISH DISTRICT ASSEMBLY              1906

     Special Notice.

     The Assembly of the General Church in Great Britain will be held in London, August 4th-6th. All the members and friends of the General Church are cordially invited to attend. Visitors are requested to send notice of their coming to the secretary of the London Society, Mr. W. H. Stebbing, 128 Narbonne Ave., Clapham Park. London. A. CZERNY.


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CENSUS OF THE GENERAL CHURCH 1906

CENSUS OF THE GENERAL CHURCH       C. TH. ODHNER       1906

     An effort has recently been made to take a "Census" of the New Church, with the view of ascertaining the most effective means of promulgating the Heavenly Doctrines. As a result of this effort it has been claimed that "the growth of the New Church is entirely dependent upon the spread of the light without its borders," and that "the New Church is not within itself a growing organization. Within itself, it is a decadent organization."

     From a general acquaintance with the members of the General Church of the New Jerusalem we know that this condition does not prevail in that organization, but it has been thought useful to obtain definite statistics relating to this subject, and for this purpose we invite the members of the General Church to answer the following questions:

     1. Are you married or single?

     2. If married, is your partner a member of the New Church?

     3. Was your father or mother, or both, connected with the New Church?

     4. Through how many generations in your family can you trace a connection with the New Church?

     5. If not born of New Church parents, by what means did you first become acquainted with the Heavenly Doctrines? Please describe fully.

     6. How many children have been born to you, and how many are still living in this world?

     7. Of your children above eighteen years of age, how many are connected with the New Church?

     All members of the General Church are earnestly requested to respond to these questions, husband and wife answering individually except to the last two questions. The replies should be returned to the undersigned before the first of September of the present year.
C. TH. ODHNER,
Sec. of the Gen. Church.
NINETEENTH OF JUNE AND THE TWELVE APOSTLES 1906

NINETEENTH OF JUNE AND THE TWELVE APOSTLES       Rev. W. F. PENDLETON       1906



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NEW CHURCH LIFE.
VOL. XXVI.      AUGUST, 1906.          No. 8.
     We read in the True Christian Religion of a most remarkable thing, namely, that the Lord chose for the work of Evangelization in the spiritual world the same twelve men whom He had chosen for this use in the natural world. The fact of the choice of the same men to do a similar work in the spiritual world, seventeen hundred years after the accomplishing of their work in the natural world, is indeed a remarkable circumstance; and it raises the interesting question as to the reason why this should be done. Why were not others chosen?

     We learn from the Writings elsewhere that the Apostles are not held in more estimation than others in heaven, (H. H. 526), that there are myriads in heaven more worthy than the Apostles, (S. D. 1330). They were chosen by the Lord in the natural world from the ignorant and uneducated fishermen of Galilee. Concerning this we read as follows:

     "There was inquiry among spirits concerning the disciples, that they might instruct those who were from the planet Jupiter, why it was that men of inferior condition, such as fishermen, were chosen, and not any from among the learned; and because I heard the inquiry, it is permitted to relate here, that at that time most of the learned were immersed in trifles and the like, to such a degree, that they could not comprehend those things which are of faith, as the unlearned can; hence it was, that the unlearned were chosen in preference to the learned." (S. D. 1216.)

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In the next number we learn also that each disciple represented that which a tribe of Israel represented, and that those were chosen who should resemble the things which they represented; that is, the character and disposition of each Apostle corresponded in a pleasure to the things which they represented, as Peter to Faith, James to Charity, and John to the fruits of Charity, and so with the rest.

     It is safe to assume that the Apostles were young men, and with their minds as yet unformed by the learning of the world, and untainted with the conceit of learning, the Lord was able to educate then Himself, each one according to his character and disposition, each one to actually represent that which a tribe of Israel represented. The Apostles could therefore become, both in profession and practice, that which they were intended to represent, and a true representative priesthood could be thus inaugurated in the Christian Church.

     The reason therefore appears why the Apostles were chosen in preference to other men in the natural world; and we may readily infer that the same reasons continued to be operative with them in the spiritual world. They were chosen, not because they were better than other men, but because they were peculiarly adapted to the work they were to perform; and in the spiritual world they did not cease or intermit their labors, nor did their character change. The zeal that took them to a martyr's grave continued with them; and through all the seventeen centuries which followed they continued their work, preaching the Lord Jesus Christ, and repentance and faith in Him, as they had done in the natural world. But after the Last Judgment in the year 1757, a new light dawned upon them; and thirteen years after, namely, in the year 1770, they were again called together by the Lord, and commissioned to go forth and preach the Gospel anew, in the new light they had received, to spirits in the spiritual world as they had hitherto preached to men in the natural world.

     In addition to the fact that they were trained and educated by the Lord Himself while in the life of the body, there is this most important consideration, namely, that they actually saw the Lord Himself in the world; they heard His voice, they lived with Him every day for several years, they ate with Him, drank with Him, slept with Him, journeyed with Him, and His image as a Man was impressed upon their sensories in a manner such as was not the case with other men.

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How important then was their testimony to men in the natural world, after the Lord had disappeared from human eyes! And as we have already indicated they continued to bear this testimony after their entrance in the spiritual world; and who else could hear such testimony, who else could testify as they that God had become Man, that He had taken on a human form, that He had been made flesh, that He had lived as a Man among men in the world. And such testimony was necessary in the spiritual world. It was necessary that all in the spiritual world should know that God had become Man, and that they should hear it from the lips of those who had actually seen Him.

     On one occasion, spirits of a distant earth in the universe were assembled together for judgment, and the Lord was seen by them; spirits were present from our earth, who testified that it was the same Lord and the same God, who had appeared to them in the world. And, though we are not told so, these spirits from our earth were presumably some of the disciples of the Lord, performing the function for which they had been prepared in the world.

     It was not necessary that all men should actually see the Lord in the flesh, but it was necessary that some should see Him; and the Apostles saw Him for all men. You may remember in this connection what He said to Thomas, "Blessed are they who have not seen, and yet have believed." (John xx. 29.) It was necessary that men should have faith without the evidence of actual sight, or the evidence of the senses; they were to see rather by the internal sight, or by the perception of the understanding. There is something similar to this in the Lord's Second Coming. It was not necessary that all men should see into the spiritual worm, should see the spiritual sun, and the Lord in that sun: but it was necessary that some one should see, and seeing see for all men, and testify and write concerning that which he saw. We have heard and believe his testimony; and of the New Church truly it may be said. "Blessed are they who have not seen, and yet have believed."


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     And the man of the New Church will have a testimony to bear when he enters the spiritual world; for has he not seen the Lord in His Second Coming while still in the natural world? He has seen the Lord, not indeed as Swedenborg saw Him by actual sight, but through the eyes of the Revelator,--a sight of the Lord differing vastly from that of other men; and it will be incumbent upon them, and a use they will have to perform, to bear testimony to all in the other life, that the Lord has made His Second Coming into the world.
NINETEENTH OF JUNE AND THE SECOND COMING OF THE LORD 1906

NINETEENTH OF JUNE AND THE SECOND COMING OF THE LORD       Rev. RICHARD DE CHARMS       1906

     The relation of the Second Coming of the Lord to the Nineteenth of June, when viewed in. the light of Doctrine, reveals events in the other world so momentous and stupendous as to plainly influence the destines of the human race for all time, and to eternity.

     The two events which the Lord's Second Coming usher into and through the opening doors of the future, and which are to be set in the firmament thus disclosed, as stars of the first magnitude, growing brighter and brighter unto the perfect day, are the Redemption which the Lord accomplished? and the Revelation of the internals of His Word, by which the Word is opened in glory to the enraptured eye of the spirit, even until the Lord Himself is seen in His Divine Human, transfigured, the Infinite Love in Human Form, the only source of all love, wisdom, and light, of all things good and true in heaven above and in the earth beneath.

     The thought to which I would now invite your earnest attention, is, the finality of this Redemption and this Revelation. From the establishment of the foundations of the earth, from the beginnings of human life down to the present, the Lord has come, repeatedly to redeem and save the human race, and these successive redemptive acts as they have left their impress upon humanity, have prepared and brought that humanity to the point where it can mount upward to ever increasing planes of righteousness, without danger of retrogression or decline.

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Now, every step upward to heaven and the Lord, be it ever so feeble and trembling, will stand, and give strength for another step upward. Every ray of light and heat has come to stair and grow brighter and give increasing warmth. The Sun of Righteousness with healing in His wings, now to be seen on the horizon of human thought and affection, though it is only the day-dawn and though only the first quivering and pulsating rays of light are as yet visible, is gradually to arise more and more, dispelling the cold, clouds, darkness, mists and miasms of error, falsity from evil, and ignorance, until, shedding its increased light and warmth to the four quarters of human thought and activity, it is to remain stationary only to grow brighter and warmer, for ages of ages, and never more to descend into the West of spiritual darkness and death.

     And now, briefly, in regard to Revelation and its finality, it may be said that this, toot is a vast subject, covering the whole of the historic past, reaching back over unknown centuries of time to that Golden Age of innocence and infancy, when men spake face to face with the Lord, angels instructed through the open heavens, and delightful visions with the sign of the attendant angel, giving authentication to the things taught, were revealed to men and instilled into their sinless and celestial minds the arcana of heaven. From this remote period, to the present time which finds the human race standing on the threshold of the twentieth century, has revelation marked with luminous impress each great division of history.

     The history of the Churches, now revealed, bridges this gulf of time, and gives a lucid and connected story of the Lord's revelations to men. In the study of these Churches, we are to find not only the record of these wondrous openings of the Divine to men, but also the true because the religious groundwork of all history,--the history that has yet to be written. All the buried treasures of past civilizations, whether still stored in the earth, or in those mute monuments of the past, the ruins of ancient cities, or preserved in museums, all records awaiting the application of the key of the Science of Correspondences to unlock their meanings, all the facts contained in the vast volume of historic lore and research, will be but material out of which the future historian is to construct the enduring temple of true history.

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And no one call do this aright, but he who has studied profoundly and fully the Comings of the Lord, the accommodated givings of His Word, the Judgments, the Churches--in a word, Revelation.

     Going back again, as we must, to the beginnings of human life on this earth, and viewing humanity as a man in the human form, from that time to the present, what do we find? That there has been a growth of the mind of this humanity, by which it has advanced from a state of infancy to manhood, and all this growth with its mutations and experiences, has been a preparation for the Revelation now given, Revelation in a spiritual and rational form. Revelation which only the manhood of humanity can receive. Revelation, in such a spiritual and celestial form, that the whole Word is opened from earth to heaven, and all the heavens are opened to the Lord Himself. Revelation is thus final, because complete, there is nothing more to be added, it is finished, the heavens are finished, and its form is such that the profane hand of man may no more drag it down into the filth of falsity and evil--into the filth of rain tradition and self-intelligence. Now it is the privilege of men as men to enter more and more fully into the glory of the opened Word, to make it a ladder reaching up to heaven on which the angels may descend and ascend, to bring to ever-increasing clearer vision the Lord in His Divine Human at the top, and to raise up all men that will to a spiritual and heavenly life, found alone in the faithful keeping of the truths which this last and crowning Revelation has now made known, and which will surely bring to the one who so acts, that blessed conjunction with the Lord, which is eternal life. The Word now established on the ever-lasting foundation of finished and perfected Revelation, in the final coming of the Lord, the final unfolding of its spiritual and celestial senses, the final General Judgment, and the final establishment of the crowning Church of the ages, brings into focal view all the conditions of future progress, growth, happiness and blessed fruition to the human race. Now, on all planes of life and human activity, as time rolls on and spiritual-natural life grows stronger, we may look with hopeful and trustful eye to the workings of the Divine operative mercy, love, and power, and we will see clearly and judge aright the trend and present and future effect for ultimate good, of this Divine operation, only as we follow and apply the heaven descended truths now given us by Divine revelation, and behold the unfoldings of the Lords Redemptive work.

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So we say of Revelation, as we have said of Redemption, it is the hope--the only hope--of the future well-being and salvation of the human race. Now it is this presence of the Lord, by Revelation, and the redemptive and saving work which He comes to effect, that makes the Nineteenth of June, a day to be celebrated with joy and thanksgiving, as the day of days, by all those who truly love Him and His Church, and desire to see His kingdom established upon the earth.

     And this brings us to our concluding thought. It is said in direct connection with this event, as we find it spoken of in the True Christian Religion and written in prophetic words in Rev. xi 15. "The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Christ; and He shall reign for ever and ever." The Lord has begun His reign upon the earth, and that reign will last for ever! Can you think of anything more inspiring? He has come as a King with power and might to dominate and rule first in the minds and hearts of men, and, then, through such dominion, in all things. Think what it is for the Lord to reign in men! It is for them "to be in truths and goods and thence from the Lord to be in the power of resisting evils and falsities which are from hell." It is for them to "be in the Lord's kingdom and there one with Him," "to be wise and do uses," and thus to "have power and wisdom from the Lord." It is for them to have the Lord and His truth in everything of the thought, and of the will, so as to constitute the very mind or life. This is the reign which has begun and is to go on forever, and every human soul today who has vitally received the Lord's truth is a living witness to the truth of this beginning, and every such one has the highest and best reason for rejoicing in this day we celebrate, for this is what the day most deeply and truly means to him or her.


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NINETEENTH OF JUNE AND THE LAST JUDGMENT 1906

NINETEENTH OF JUNE AND THE LAST JUDGMENT       Rev. ALFRED ACTON       1906

     It is a rule of universal extension that the state of judgment and separation must precede that of instruction. In man's regeneration this is seen in the fact that before he can be truly instructed he must first see the quality of the state in which he is, and must separate himself from it. In the establishment of the New Church, as of every former Church, it is seen in the revealed fact that such establishment can never be effected until the doctrines of the former church are seen and rejected. (B. E. 102-104.)

     This is the principle involved in the inter-relation of those two events, the Last Judgment, in 1757, and the sending forth of the apostles on the nineteenth of June in 1770, thirteen years later.

     In the Last Judgment there was a nearer approach of the Lord to those societies in the world of spirits who, externally, were in all the form and life of heaven. These societies were, essentially, Christian societies,-societies of spirits who had the Word, who knew the Lord, and who, on earth, had lived, to all human judgment, a more or less pious and Christian life. Their life and worship were continued in the World of Spirits, and because their words and deeds were, at all events, in appearance, Christian they were associated with the heavens and became, as it were, ultimate or natural heavens or societies. Doubtless, in the first period of the Christian dispensation, the simple good were abundantly present in these natural societies: but as the Church on earth declined, so the number of spirits who were Christian in externals only but not in internals grew apace until the societies became filled with interior iniquity and the denial of God.

     It is these societies that constituted the First Heaven which passed away in order that a New Heaven might be established. They were called Heaven because they assumed the externals of the Christian Church--belief in the Lord and the Word--which were to be the externals of the New Heaven.

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For the same reason they are called in the Writings Seeming or Imaginary Heavens.

     The first step in the establishment of the New Heaven and of the New Church was the exposure and dispersal of these imaginary heavens. As was said, this was effected by the nearer approach of the Lord. By such approach the eyes of the simple were enlightened, and the evils of those who were astute and hypocritical impostors in their societies were laid bare; so that the latter, as of themselves, entered into open rejection of all they had hitherto professed, and were then dispersed, while the former, with illumined minds, saw the rottenness concealed beneath the veil of hypocrisy, and, as of themselves, separated from their former companions.

     This was the first step in the establishment of the New Heaven, and, consequently, of the New Church on earth--the Last Judgment which, commencing in the beginning of the year 1757, was the final culmination of many preceding premonitory signs and lesser judgments. (L. J. Post. 134)

     The second step was the arrangement of the good spirits who had been separated from the imaginary heavens, together with others who by reason of greater intelligence and love had been separated previously and been kept by the Lord in another place--the arrangement of these into heavenly societies and their instruction in the heavenly doctrines.

     By this instruction a new heaven was formed, that is, a new internal of the World of Spirits. The former internal had been the imaginary Christian heaven, a false heaven which instead of enlightening the World of Spirits and men on earth, had interposed itself between angels and men and had obscured the light of Divine Truth. With the formation of a new internal by the Lord, or of a heaven of genuine Christians approaching the Lord and worshiping Him in the perception of Divine Truth, the light of heaven flowed down into the minds of spirits in the World of Spirits, and enabled them to see, if they would, and discriminate between what was true and what was false, what was real and what maginary.

     It was from this new influx of light into the World of Spirits that the understandings of men on earth could be first truly enlightened to see and acknowledge the truths now revealed by the Lord.

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And it is interesting in this connection to note a repeated statement of the Writings, to the effect that no revelation could be given for the New Church until the Last Judgment had been effected. As a matter of history, the largest work of the Writings, the Arcana Coelestia, was completed and its last volume published in 1756, one year before the Last Judgment; but it is a significant fact that until the year 1760, thus two years after the Last Judgment had been accomplished, there was not, so far as is known, a single receiver of the new revelation. In that year Mr. Thomas Cookworthy is reported to have fully accepted it, and he was followed, in the years preceding the sending forth of the Apostles, by Beyer, Rosen, and Hartley, and perhaps one or two others. It is undoubtedly in the light of this fact that we are to understand the statement as to revelation not being possible before the Last Judgment. There was no reception until after that event, and the reception was then possible by reason of the light in the New Heaven then being formed.

     Still, though there was this little handful of men who received the Writings of Swedenborg, their's was but the dim light which precedes the dawning of the day. There was, apparently, no thought of a New Church in the full sense of the word; there was certainly no external separation from the former church, no new baptism, no priesthood, no worship. The institution of the Church was still in the future.

     The Last Judgment had been accomplished; the New Heaven was in course of being formed and ordinated; but still another step was necessary before there could be a descent of the New Church from the New Heaven and its establishment on earth. This step is what is represented by the Nineteenth of June. On that day, in the year 1770, the twelve disciples who had followed the Lord in the world were sent forth into the whole spiritual world to preach the gospel. They were to preach a doctrine known to the First Christian Church--that the Lord reigneth and that His Kingdom is to eternity,--but it was in reality a new doctrine, because preached from the light of a New Heaven, and filled with new and interior truths theretofore unknown. This New Heaven was, as it were, a new heart and lungs from which the whole spiritual world was to be renewed, vivified, and held in order, and, from the spiritual world, men on the countless earths of the universe.


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     During the twelve years which intervened between the Last Judgment and the sending forth of the Apostles, the process of instituting, ordaining and forming the New Heaven was going on; and it was undoubtedly for the further accomplishment of this work that, during this period, a few men, even on earth, were led to receive the doctrines and to thus become instrumental in strengthening and completing the sphere of the New Heaven.

     The Nineteenth of June in the year 1770 marks the time when this New Heaven had reached such a stage of formation and ordination that from it could be sent emissaries to regenerate the universe. At that time this heaven had not yet been completed, (Documents II, p. 383), but still the very fact that the Apostles were sent forth, itself indicates that its formation had then reached a certain stage of completion. It would seem that the evangelization of the spiritual world was itself one of the means by which the New Heaven was to be completed in order for its descent to earth. Before this final descent the light of the New Heaven was first to descend to spirits in the World of Spirits by which means the New Heaven itself approached to fuller completion.

     The Nineteenth of June also marks the completion of the written revelation on earth, which was to provide true vessels in the minds of men for the reception of the light from the New Heaven. And the descent of this light by the evangelization of the spiritual world, commenced in 1770, was finally ultimated seventeen years later, when, in 1787, the New Church was instituted, completely separate from the former church, and with its distinct priesthood, baptism, and worship. As that Church remains faithful the light of the New Heaven will continue to be received therein as in a center, and itself will in turn contribute to the fuller perfection of the Heaven from whose light, pervading and enlightening the spiritual world, it will grow in heavenly beauty.

     These three stages in the establishment of the New Church are what are suggested by the title of this paper: The separation from the imaginary heavens; the formation of a New Heaven; the descent of light from that Heaven.


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     The same stages are observed in the regeneration of man. First is the confession of evils and separation from them; thus the formation of a new internal in the perception of the light of heaven: and finally, a descent of that internal to revivify or regenerate the whole man.

     These three stages, moreover, are to be observed in the actual establishment of the Church on earth, both in the individual and in the common body, for without them the Church cannot be said to exist.

     First there must be a judgment and complete separation from the former Church; for the vastated Church is, in reality, an imaginary Church or an imaginary heaven on earth. This separation is to be effected by the Writings, that is to say, by the Lord in the Divine Truth in which He draws near to man. That this judgment of the Old Church from the Divine Revelation of its quality, and a consequent total separation from it, is the first essential to the establishment of the New Church is not only indicated by the fact of the Last Judgment, but also by the teaching of the Writings that without such separation the doctrines of the Church will effect only a palliative cure. (Inv. 25.)

     It is this perception of the state of the Old Church, of its evils and falses in theology, in religion, in science, that has been one of the great factors in the establishment of the New Church. By seeing these things in the former church we are first enabled to see the state of the New Church,--that it is spiritual, not natural. But failing this acknowledgment with respect to the vastated Church, there is bound to be a blindness as to the true nature of the New Church, and a consequent seeing of the presence of that Church where it is not,--of something spiritual and real where there is naught but what is merely natural and imaginary.

     By the separation from the vastated Church actually, and, what is more important, in thought and life, there is formed among men a new internal of thought and life by communication with the New Heaven. It is the descent of the new internal into externals to form new ideas, new thoughts, new actions, a new education, a new life, which, it seems to us, is peculiarly represented by the Nineteenth of June. And it may be remarked as an interesting fact, that this day has been celebrated as a festival of the Church only where there has been a recognition of the vastated state of the Christian Church and the Christian world, a separation from it, and an endeavor to receive a new and spiritual conception of the Church.

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And I think I am safe in the assertion that the Cody or Society which observes the Nineteenth of June as a day of the New Church, by that same token has something of an acknowledgment of the state of the Old Church, some actual desire and endeavor to separate from it, and some perception of the genuine nature of the New Church.

     This day, therefore, peculiarly represents the intrinsic quality of the New Church, whose religion is interior or spiritual, and fundamentally opposed to the religion of the world around us. It is peculiarly a day of the New Church, representing the descent of that Church from the New Heaven. And the man who sees this heavenly duality in the Church and her heaven-born doctrines will hardly disregard this her festal day. He may not actually celebrate it, but he will revere and prize all that it represents; and this state will not long exist in the Church without leading to the actual celebration of the Nineteenth, when the mind may be more fully directed to the Lord in gratitude for that new spiritual life and light which, now over a hundred and thirty years ago, the Apostles were sent forth to carry to the dwellers of the universe. Where that new light and life are seen and prized there will this day be celebrated, where they are unseen or unacknowledged, there the day will be passed by in silence.
NINETEENTH OF JUNE AND THE NEW CHURCH IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD 1906

NINETEENTH OF JUNE AND THE NEW CHURCH IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD       Rev. JOSEPH ROSENQUIST       1906

     The spiritual world is the world of causes. Whatever takes place in the world of nature has, therefore, its root or origin in the spiritual world: the natural world itself is but a representation of its spiritual prototype. That the New Church should have its beginnings in the spiritual world is, therefore, in full accordance with the Divine Laws of Order according to which all things are called into existence.


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     What, now, does the Nineteenth stand for in relation to the New Church in the spiritual world?

     The day we celebrate is of very great importance because of the spiritual movement inaugurated in the spiritual world on the Nineteenth Day of June in the year of our Lord seventeen hundred and seventy. On this day, we are told in three different places in the True Christian Religion, that "the Lord called together His twelve disciples," now angels, and sent them forth on the day following into all the spiritual world, with the command that they should there preach the gospel anew. (T. C. R. 4, 108, 791)

     The calling and mission of the apostles on this memorable occasion must of necessity bear a very important relation to the establishment of the New Church in the spiritual world. What now, might this relation be? The answer to this question will also explain that for which the Nineteenth of June stands in relation to the New Church in the spiritual world.

     It has often been asserted that the Nineteenth inaugurates the beginning of the New Church in the spiritual world. I do not understand this to be the case. The New Church in the spiritual world existed long before the Nineteenth day of June seventeen hundred and seventy. There are, to my recollection, no teachings in the Writings of the Church to the effect that the New Church began on that day. The beginning of the New Church must have been earlier than that. When the First Christian Church came to an end, the true Christian Church was undoubtedly already called into existence to take the place of the former church; for there must always be a church, and, therefore, when the Old Church ceased to exist the New Church had its beginning. It was given to the Revelator to see the institution of the New Church.

     In the work on the Last Judgment, published as early as 1758, we have the following teaching as to the establishment of the New Church in the spiritual world: "It was granted me to see from beginning to end how the last judgment was accomplished....and how the new heaven was formed, and how there has been instituted a New Church in the Heavens, which is meant by the New Jerusalem." (L. J. 45.)


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     It is, therefore, reasonable to assume that the New Church counts its beginning in the spiritual world from the year of the Last Judgment, 1757, and not from the Nineteenth of June, 1770. In the work on Conjugial Love, published two years before the calling and sending forth of the Apostles, Swedenborg speaks of the New Church as beginning and of the New Jerusalem as then descending from the Lord out of heaven. (C. L. 26.)

     Neither is it possible for us to regard the Nineteenth as the day when the New Church was fully completed in the spiritual world for on April 30, 1771, Swedenborg makes the statement that "The New Heaven out of which the New Jerusalem will descend, will very soon be completed." (Doc. 245) It, therefore, seems to be certain that the New Church in the spiritual world existed before, but was completely established first after the Nineteenth day of June, 1770. The New Church in the spiritual world was not established in a sudden or miraculous manner. It was a matter of growth, and means were used by the Lord to this end. The New Doctrine which was being published on earth through the instrumentality of the Lord's Servant, Emanuel Swedenborg could not be promulgated in the spiritual world except by means of preachers. Swedenborg himself preached the Doctrine of the New Church in the spiritual world. The twelve Apostles, now angels, represented all the truths of the New Church, and as all the truths of this church must be received as coming from the Lord, therefore, the twelve Apostles were called together by the Lord and on the following day were sent by the Lord to preach the new gospel, to announce the Second Coming of the Lord in the Doctrine of the New Church to all in the spiritual world. The Nineteenth thus stands for the universal promulgation of the Doctrine of the New Church in the spiritual world by the very men who once were the first promulgators of the New Evangel of the First Christian Church. The New Church, as a church, had already been instituted by the Lord in the spiritual world when the twelve Apostles, who had followed the Lord on earth, were called together and sent out to preach the Evangel of the New Church in that world, and their calling and mission bear the same relation to the New Church in the spiritual world as does the priesthood of the Church on earth to the New Church in the world of nature; both are evidences of the existence of the Church of the New Jerusalem.

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Moreover, the calling and mission of the Apostles signalize the external organization of the New Church in the spiritual world, for the Church there is also external and internal. This organization of the New Church is indicated by the teaching that, on this occasion, "every apostle had his province assigned to him. (T. C. R. 108.)

     The event we to-day celebrate teaches us that the New Church could not be fully established and maintained except by means of organization, and a priesthood zealous and devoted to their work. The priesthood, represented by the twelve Apostles, were commanded to preach the Doctrine of the New Church, and we are told that they are executing this command "with all zeal and industry." (T. C. R. 108.)

     We are distinctly taught that the New Church on earth can grow only in proportion as the Church grows in the spiritual world. It is well for us also to remember that the means of growth there must be the means of growth here. The calling and mission of the twelve Apostles on the Nineteenth Day of June in the year of our Lord seventeen hundred and seventy, are related to the New Church in the spiritual world as are means to an end. Without these means, organization and the faithful and zealous preaching of the Doctrine of the New Church, the Church in the spiritual world could not have been universally known, much less could it have been permanently established. Thus we might say that, though the Nineteenth may not stand for the beginning of the New Church in the spiritual world, still it does stand for the external establishment of the organized New Church in that world, and as such the Nineteenth will ever be the Day of Days in the organized New Church on earth.


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NINETEENTH OF JUNE AND THE NEW CHURCH IN THE NATURAL WORLD 1906

NINETEENTH OF JUNE AND THE NEW CHURCH IN THE NATURAL WORLD       Rev. E. S. PRICE       1906

     The question has been asked. "Was it necessary that the work, of the Apostles should be inaugurated before there could be a New Church in the natural world?" The query is answered in a general way by the doctrine that all things of the natural world are the effects in the world of effects arising from causes in the world of causes. It follows then that it was necessary that there should be a New Church in the spiritual world before there could be a New Church in the natural world.

     Notwithstanding the danger that there may be a repetition of the same passages on this special New Church day let me quote the message concerning the incipience and establishment of the New Church in the spiritual world.

     In the True Christian Religion, n. 791, We read the following memorandum: "After this work, (The True Christian Religion), was finished, the Lord called together His twelve disciples who had followed Him in the world; and the next day He sent then all out into the whole spiritual world to preach the Gospel, that the Lord God Jesus Christ reigns, whose reign will be for ages of ages, according to the prediction by Daniel vii. 13, 14, and in Rev. xi, 11, and that they are blessed who come to the wedding supper of the Lamb, xix, 9. This was done on the 19th day of June, in the year 1770. This was meant by these words of the Lord: He will send his angels and they shall gather together His elect from one end of the heavens even to the other."

     Let it be noted that this sending out and this preaching was after the completion of the True Christian Religion containing the Universal Theology of the New Church. The New Church was now to be established in the natural world by the Word of God in its interior and internal sense; but the Word is with men according to the quality of their understanding; in fact, the Word is not the Word except as it is understood; it is, therefore, with individuals in all degrees of actuality, from no understanding, thus no Word, to the profound understanding of the celestial angels, or the Divine Truth Itself, as it is in the heavens.


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     In the fulness of time, when the Lord was to make His Second Coming, there was in the world no understanding of the Word except with extremely few and with them the understanding was obscure--so obscure that "unless those days should be shortened no flesh could be saved." What was the cause of the obscurity with the few who could be enlightened, and of the dense darkness with the great masses of the Christian world! It was caused by the dense clouds of commingled spirits in the world of spirits who had been collected there all through the ages of the Christian Church. True, the Last Judgment had been performed, but the elect who should be of the Lord's New Church in the heavens were still in ignorance, and these must first be instructed in order that they might become a transmitting medium through which the Divine Light might how down and illumine the pages of Divine Revelation in the natural world.

     The True Christian Religion was written and ready to be published, but who in the natural world could understand it except only the especially prepared scribe who wrote it?

     In the spiritual world those who live on one plane see the heavens of those of the plane above them as bright clouds; but at this time the world of spirits on account of the ignorance of its denizens was as dark clouds to the minds of the man of the natural world, and there was no power with the man of the natural world to produce a light by which they might see; for the natural man has no means in himself for investigating spiritual things. The world was and is sunk in naturalism which paralyzes all spiritual power.

     It was as though a man who was paralyzed in both arms, but still had a thirst for knowledge, should be presented with a beautiful book in elegant binding, with illuminated title-page and initials, containing the most perfect illustrations and the words of wisdom; as a whole, it is the masterpiece of the bookmaker's art. The book is placed on a table by the donor before our paralytic; but he can make nothing of it; for so thick a cloud covers the sky that there is barely light enough to see that the book is before him.

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Perhaps he can make out the large letters of the title-page, The Word of the Lord, but it is altogether impossible for him to read the book or perceive the beauty of its illustrations. He must wait until the winds of heaven disperse the cloud and let in the light of the sun; then he can see and read and be filled with joy at the merciful promise he finds on the very first page of the book, and, what is wonderful, as the warmth of the sun flows in with its light his paralysis leaves him and he is able to turn the pages of his book and peruse it from end to end, to understand its wisdom and in turn become himself wise.

     This cloud which shut out the light of the heavenly sun is the division of the Divine Trinity into three persons, each one of whom is held to be God and Lord, whence a sort of phrensy has issued forth into the whole of theology and thus into the Church, which from the name of the Lord is called Christian. It is said a phrensy, because the minds of men have been driven by it into such a delirium that they do not know whether God be one, or whether there be three; there is one in the speech of their lips, but three in the thought of their mind, wherefore there is a disagreement between their mind and lips, or between their thought and speech; from which disagreement results the idea that there is no God. The naturalism which reigns at this day is from no other source.

     The spirits in the world of spirits, even the elect, were in obscurity concerning the Lord, Jesus Christ, for they were all from the Christian world; and this obscurity had to be dissipated before the Divine Light could flow down and illumine their minds.

     But the ultimates of the revelation were first, for light has no effect upon the sensories of men or angels except by reflection from something that reflects, that is, determines and directs it. All revelation is in the natural world. If there were no Word in the natural world there would be no perception of truth nor reception of good even by the celestial angels, for there would be no ultimate determinant. But the Word would be nothing but material ink and paper if there were no light to flow down from above upon and into it. Thus the cloud of obscurity must first be blown away by the breath of the preaching of Divine Truth by the Apostles.


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     Let me say in conclusion, that the Apostles themselves were instructed preparatory to their mission throughout the spiritual world in the Doctrines of the New Church from the written doctrines and in the presence of Swedenborg.

     After the elect who were to be gathered together from the one end of the heavens even to the other had been instructed, then the perceptions of the angels could flaw into the minds of the men of the natural world, who were to be of the New Church, and by communicating their perceptions enable men also to perceive, and by the warmth of their love, warm them into a state to receive and cherish as well as to understand.
NINETEENTH OF JUNE AND THE EARTHS IN THE UNIVERSE 1906

NINETEENTH OF JUNE AND THE EARTHS IN THE UNIVERSE       Rev. C. TH. ODHNER       1906

     Among the most strange and wonderful things in the Heavenly Doctrine are the arcana revealed there concerning the life and worship of the inhabitants of the Earths in the Universe. To the student of archeology it is evident that some of these arcana were known to the men of the Golden and Silver Ages; they had at least a general knowledge or perception of the correspondence of the nearest planets and stars, but this knowledge was finally lost amidst the superstitions of Astrology. And now, after all these thousands of years, this forgotten knowledge has been restored to the New Church, but in a fulness of Divine light such as probably was not enjoyed even by the wisest of the ancient magi and sophi.

     What can be the reasons why such a wealth of knowledge has been revealed on so recondite and so strange a subject? Why is it that an entire book of the New Revelation has been devoted to it, and so much space in the other books? The most immediate reason, no doubt, was to reveal how boundless is the Lord's Kingdom and how infinite is its God and His love and mercy. We think of Heaven as the grand collection of all good men and women that have ever lived on this globe of ours,--a vast assembly the numbers of which are as the sand of the sea. Think, then, or try to think, of all the heavens from all the earths that circle about all the fixed stars,--seen and unseen,--and the thought is lost in the incalculable and inconceivable.

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And yet each of these heavens and their planetary systems stands for a distinct and definite series or plane of celestial good and spiritual truth and natural use in the grand economy of nature, the qualities of which are at present as unknown to us as some of these planets themselves, whose central suns are beyond the reach of the most perfect telescopes.

     The second reason for this revelation was, undoubtedly, to bring the New Church on this earth into spiritual communication with the heavens of all the planets and earths in the starry heaven of which we are told in the Writings. For communication takes place by means of influx, and spiritual influx is received altogether according to the plane of knowledge in the natural mind. Where there is no knowledge there is no influx, and where there is no influx there is no communication. But the New Church is a universal Church, founded upon a "Universal Theology;'' in this Church there is to be a communication with the universal Heaven, and to this end it was necessary to reveal certain scientific facts of a universal import which could not be discovered by the unaided scientific mind. Among these revealed facts was the knowledge concerning the Most Ancient Church and of the Ancient Church, the very existence of which had been forgotten by mankind. Why were these knowledges revealed but for the purpose of establishing in the natural mind of Newchurchmen a scientific plane for the reception of influx from the heavens of these ancient churches, in order that the sphere of their wisdom, innocence, charity, and love, might be communicated to the crown of churches? It was for this purpose, also, that the arcana of the earths in the universe were revealed.--to establish in the minds of men a scientific basis for influx from the universal heaven, by means of which all the spiritual blessings of the Lord's universal kingdom may be communicated and bestowed upon a truly universal Church in this natural world.

     In order to be universal and thus all-inclusive, this Church had to be established in the lowest ultimates, on an earth which, in relation to the other earths, performs the functions of the most external skin and membranes of the macrocosmic Man, and such a function is represented by the inhabitants of our globe, where in consequence of a deeper and more general lapse into evil, mankind has become more sensual, corporeal, and externalized than the races of all other globes in the universe.

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Here men no longer possess any internal perception of good and truth and in consequence cannot receive any immediate instruction from heaven, but every Divine Truth, even--the most simple, has to be implanted from without, demonstrated to the senses and by the senses, and finally be enforced by commands and penalties, in order to be at all received and established in the external mind. On every other earth in the universe men still enjoy the celestial faculty of perception and still are able to receive personal revelations from the Lord by means of dreams and open visions. On every other earth but ours, men clearly perceive this most essential truth of religion that there is but one God and that He is a Divine Man; and in consequence the spirits from those earths are much wiser than the spirits of our earth, who, they say, "talk much and think little." (A. C. 8031.)

     Nevertheless, in order to preserve the eternal balance of things, the Divine Justice in compensation for our greater disadvantages has bestowed upon the inhabitants of this earth a more permanent treasure and a more fundamental use than have been given to any other planet. This treasure, the most precious in the universe, is the Written Word in which the Divine Truth exists permanently in fixed and unperishable forms, whereas in the other earths the Divine Truth is manifested by word of mouth through spirits and angels to the priests and the fathers of families. While this is a far more plastic, living, and internal form of Divine Revelation, it nevertheless "cannot be conveyed far beyond the limits of the families, and unless a new revelation constantly succeeds, Truth is either perverted or perishes," (E. U. 120). And on this account the Word which has been given to this earth is, in itself, the most perfectly complete fern of Divine Revelation, for "when written, it can be published throughout the whole world, and once published it can be preserved for all posterity, so that thereby it may be made manifest also to all in the other life that God became Man." (A. C. 9351.)


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     There is not, indeed, a single earth in the entire universe, where it is not known that God is a Divine Man, but "hardly any there know that the Lord assumed the human on our earth," (H. H. 321). "Among the inhabitants of other earths all (who are not idolaters), acknowledge the Lord as the only God; but they do not know, except a very few, that the Lord assumed the Human on this earth, and made it Divine," (A. C. 6700) For "on this earth it is known from science that God is man, but elsewhere not from science; the difference is as between those angels who know from perception and communication, and those angels who know from themselves," (S. D. 4782)

     The perception of the Lord's Divine Manhood among the inhabitants of the other earths is therefore like the same perception among the wise men and prophets of old to whom the Lord revealed Himself through the human assumed from an angel. They, indeed, enjoyed the light of the Sun of Heaven, but when the Lord had actually assumed and glorified His Human, and the prophecy of the Ages had been fulfilled, this light became as the light of seven days. The joy of the ancient heavens in this fulfillment of prophecy, this actual sight of that which before had only been perceived by the eye of faith, is expressed by the words of the aged Simeon when he saw the child Jesus: "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace according to thy word, for mine eves have seen thy salvation which thou hast prepared before all people; a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel." (Luke 2:25-32.)

     The celestial perceptions of our siderial brethren on other earths need therefore to be complemented by our scientific knowledge of Divine Truth, in order to be rendered complete, full, strong, efficient and permanent I and to communicate such knowledge in the other life is the universal use and service of the angels from our earth. "It pleased the Lord to be born here, and to make this manifest by the Word, so that this could become known not only on this earth but also to all in the universe who come into heaven from any earth whatsoever, for in Heaven there is a communication of all," (A. C. 9356). And when the spirits from the other earths "are told by spirits from our earth that the Lord here took upon Himself the Human, they ponder for a little while, but soon say that this was done for the salvation of the human race," (E. U. 8).

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"When they are informed by the spirits and angels of our earth that God is actually Man, they receive that Word, acknowledge it, and rejoice that it is so," (E. U. 121). And not only can this instruction be communicated to the spirits and angels from those earths in the other life, but "also to the inhabitants themselves of those earths, whose interiors have been opened," (A. C. 9438) and in this way can the Word which is with us be made known to all human beings in the entire universe.

     This written Word on our earth after the Second Coming of the Lord includes also the Heavenly Doctrine of the New Jerusalem, revealed in the inspired Writings of the New Church. And therefore it was that after the "Universal Theology of the New Church" had been finished, and the revelation of the Third Testament had been completed, that the Lord called together His twelve apostles who had followed Him in the world, and the next day sent them all out into the universal spiritual world to preach the Gospel that the Lord God Jesus Christ reigneth, whose Kingdom shall endure unto ages of ages. This was done on the Nineteenth Day of June in the year 1770, and this is what is meant by these words of the Lord: "He shall send His angels, and they shall gather together His elect from the boundaries of the heavens even unto their boundaries." (Matth. 24:31; T. C. R. 791).

     They were to go forth into the universal spiritual world from the boundaries of the heavens even unto their boundaries, a mission and a field of labor inclusive of all the heavens of all the earths in the universe. And they were to carry not only the Word of the Old Testament, in which the Advent of the Lord was foretold, and the Word of the New Testament in which that Advent was fulfilled, but also the Word of the last Testament or Testimony, the Heavenly Doctrine of the New Jerusalem, the True Christian Religion. They could not go forth upon their mission until that last and crowning Revelation had been completed for they were not only to announce to all spirits the glad tidings that the Lord had been born in Bethlehem, but they were also actually to show to them the Lord Himself in His Divine Human as now for the first time revealed in the Heavenly Doctrine.


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     That this Doctrine could be and would be propagated throughout the universe, is explicitly stated in these teachings: "When the Heavenly Doctrine concerning the Lord has been known in one earth, the rest also are able to know when they become spirits and angels." (S. D. 4781) "In the region further to the right but more behind, were those who were in the faculty of receiving the Heavenly Doctrine because they had not by means of sciences extinguished the gift of perception that it was so. . . . Hence it was made manifest that the Heavenly Doctrine would at last be propagated from these people to spirits who are from various regions of this earth, and thence to spirits of the other earths," (S. D. 4780).

     It is for the men of the New Church on this earth to prepare themselves to follow in the footsteps of the Apostles in their mission of a universal evangelization. For we are taught that although the men of this earth are external, corporeal, etc., "they nevertheless possess the knowledges of the truths of faith, which serve as it were for soil in which spiritual and celestial truths of faith can be sown, . . . wherefore they easily come into the interior and inmost heaven after their exteriors have been vastated; and as some of them bring with them such knowledges from the life of the body, they serve as ministers for the instruction of others who do not possess such knowledges from Revelation; on which account the Lord has loved our earth above the others; for, to the end that order may be perfect, celestial and spiritual truths must be rooted in natural truths." (S. D. 1531.)

     The statement that "the Lord has loved our earth above the others," means, of course, that the men of our earth, being more external than all others, can receive of the Divine Love in a more ultimate degree. Moreover, those in the lowest condition are most deeply in need of the Lord's Mercy. But being born in the lowest depths, the men of this earth, can, if they will, rise to the highest, most fundamental and most essential uses, and there is no use more elevated, more fundamental, and more essential, than the use of teaching spiritual truth from the plane of natural knowledge. These possibilities of spiritual elevation, open to the men of our earth, may be illustrated by an incident related of certain spirits of the planet Mercury, who on one occasion exhibited a considerable degree of conceit on account of their abstract knowledges and an equal amount of contempt for the grossness of thought prevailing among the spirits of our earth.

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They volunteered the remark that what Swedenborg was writing was very gross, and they asked if it could be possible for men of our earth to become angels: "to which it was given to reply that those become angels who have lived in the good of faith and in charity, and that then they are in greater light than the spirits of Mercury," (A. C. 6929), and this fact was further emphasized by an angel being permitted to tell these spirits from Mercury great many conceit of knowledge had been humbled, it was told them "that the angel who had conversed with them was from our earth," (A. C. 7077).

     The students of the Writings have as yet barely begun to scratch upon the surface of that inexhaustible mine of information concerning the inhabitants of the other earths, which is contained in the new Revelation. We believe that the possibilities of extending our knowledge and understanding in this direction are simply illimitable. And as this knowledge is extended, as this study is pursued in the Church, in the same degree, also, will spiritual communication be opened for influx from the heavens of all those earths, and the men of the Church be prepared to enter into the work of the Apostles for the universal spiritual world. The possibilities of Science are also without limit. Where is the boundary, for instance, to the development of the science of astronomy? Where the limit to the science of the Atmospheres as it may be cultivated in the New Church? Who knows but that means may be discovered for direct communication, even in this world, with the inhabitants of our sister planets--some ten thousand or a million years hence? Be this as it may, of one thing we can be certain and that is that the Gospel of the First and the Second Advent of the Lord will be evangelized to the utmost corners of the Universe; that the Word and the Writings are intended not only for our one little earth, but for every race of the Lord's children upon every planet; that the Church of the Universe will not remain simply the Church Universal, but will in time become the Lord's Specific Church, the New Church; and that the Nineteenth day of June will some day be commemorated as the day of days by the universal human race.


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NINETEENTH OF JUNE AND THE ACADEMY 1906

NINETEENTH OF JUNE AND THE ACADEMY       Rev. C. E. DOERING       1906

     The Rev. Samuel Noble in giving the historical significance of the career of Robert Hindmarsh to the future generations of the New Church. says: "So long as the New Church exists, which will be as long as the earth endures, the great promoter of the establishment of the New Church distinct from the Old, will be spoken of with honor, and the name of a Peter and Paul will not be remembered longer than that of Robert Hindmarsh." (Int. Rep. 1835)

     The reason for the remembrance of the name of the great pioneer in the New Church is because other men have entered into and will enter into the fruits of his labor, which he accomplished while he was here on earth, for we are now enjoying and others after us will enjoy the sphere and influx from the spiritual world, coming from him and his associates, for the upbuilding of the Church on earth.

     The work of Hindmarsh was pioneer work for the New Church. No sooner had he become a firm believer in the Heavenly Doctrines than he at once began to look about him for means for bringing those Doctrines to the attention of others, and thus in 1784 we find him associating himself with a few other gentlemen and organizing "The Theosophical Society, instituted for the purpose of promoting the Heavenly Doctrines of the New Jerusalem, by translating, printing and publishing the Theological Writings of the Honorable Emanuel Swedenborg." The purpose of this society here indicated gives in epitome the life-work of Robert Hindmarsh, or as the Rev. C. Th. Odhner says in his "Life of Hindmarsh" (p. 32): "The work of Hindmarsh seems to have been especially that of announcing and defending the Doctrines of the New Church through the press." As comparatively few could read the Writings in the original, it was necessary that they be translated and published in English so that the common people could have access to them, and he in the Divine Providence seems to have been chosen for this work; and he did it faithfully and well.

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The bringing of the Doctrines to the people was a necessary work as being preparatory to the study of them and the formation of one's life and character by them.

     We cannot here recount all the work done by Hindmarsh in translating and printing, but sufficient has been stated to indicate that his work in this world was similar to that of the Apostles in the spiritual world, namely, "announcing the Gospel that the Lord Jesus Christ reigns," to which must be added this that he also proclaimed, namely, that in order that the Lord Jesus Christ may reign in the hearts and minds of men, it is necessary that there be a New Church established which is separate and distinct from the old and vastated Christian Church.

     Before considering the work of the Academy, its ends and purposes, let us pause a moment and consider how the Writings themselves were regarded by Hindmarsh and his immediate associates.

     In the "Rise and Progress of the New Church," p. 10, Hindmarsh speaks about his preparation "for the reception of the genuine truth immediately on its being presented by the extraordinary and I may say superhuman Writings of the great Swedenborg." In the rules and regulations of the Theosophical Society we find among other things this: "The truths of the New Church are alone contained in the Word and the Theological Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg." Among the rules and regulations adopted for the use of a society of the New Jerusalem Church we read, "The design of this society is to the utmost of their power, by the Divine Mercy of the Lord, to promote the knowledge and practice of the Doctrines contained in the Theological Writings of the Honorable Emanuel Swedenborg, by meeting together as often as convenient, to read and converse on the said Writings, in order thereby to become more and more acquainted with the spiritual sense of the Holy Word." (R. P. p. 56.) But probably the dearest statement of how the Writings were regarded appears in the first resolution adopted by the first Conference. It is "Resolved unanimously, That it is the: opinion of this Conference, that the Theological Works of the Hon. Emanuel Swedenborg are perfectly consistent with the Holy Word, being at the same time explanatory of its internal sense in so wonderful a manner that nothing short of Divine Revelation seems adequate thereto.

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That they also contain the Heavenly Doctrines of the New Church signified by the New Jerusalem in the Revelation; which Doctrines he was enabled by the Lord alone to draw from the Holy Word while under the Inspiration and Illumination of His Holy Spirit." (R. P. p. 101.)

     This general statement of how the Writings were regarded, would probably he accepted by most Newchurchmen now, and it is not inimical to the belief as expressed and expounded by the Academy; nor, on the other hand, is it a sufficient definition of the true character of the Writings. To the men who uttered it the Writings were authoritative; and they regarded them as authority, but they did not seem to see fully why they were so. In this there has been a gradual growth which may be said to have culminated in 1861 when a report presented to the Pennsylvania Association, signed by Mr. Benade and Mr. Wilks, declares: "As the Lord has made His Second Advent through the instrumentality of Swedenborg, the truths which he has been the means of revealing are Divine; that they are the Lord's Spiritual Word, being the spiritual sense contained in the natural sense of the Sacred Scriptures, wherein the Divinity of the Word resides; that these truths have all Divine Authority as the Lord's Word to His New Church, as Himself in His Spiritual Coming for the establishment of His last and crowning dispensation to the world; and that therefore, because this is the crown of all former dispensations, it is also and must be received as a finality." This may probably be considered as the first distinct declaration of the Academy doctrine--the rock on which the Academy was founded; and it is easy to see the difference in positive statement as to what the Writings are, between this and the one quoted above as the first resolution of Conference. It is not said that the Writings are perfectly consistent with the Holy Word, but that they are the Lord's Word to his New Church; nor is it stated that they are explanatory of the internal sense but that they are the spiritual sense contained in the natural sense wherein the Divinity of the Word resides. Again we contrast this statement of the resolution, viz., that they contain the Heavenly Doctrines of the New Church signified by the New Jerusalem in the Revelation" with this in the report "they are the Lord's spiritual Word," "they are the (Lord) Himself in His Spiritual Coming for the establishment of His last and crowning Dispensation to the world."


478



     Positive teaching such as is contained in the Report could not but have its effect on the New Church. There was here nothing apologetic, but a definite statement as to the source from whence the New Church comes, its reason for being, and Divine Authority for its standard. Nothing so concise and definite exists anywhere in the early literature of the New Church.

     Now what was the effect of such teaching? A gradual separation of Mr. Benade from those who only considered the Writings as giving some information about the other world and about the spiritual sense, and a closer drawing together of those who saw with him, which culminated in formally organizing, on the nineteenth of June, in the year 1876, the Academy of the New Church, whose purpose as stated in its charter is "propagating the Heavenly Doctrines of the New Jerusalem and establishing the New Church signified in the Apocalypse by the New Jerusalem; promoting education in all its various forms; educating young men for the ministry; publishing books, pamphlets and other printed matter, and establishing a library." We see in this a much broader purpose than that of the Theosophical Society of which Hindmarsh was one of the founders; the object of which as stated above was "promoting the Heavenly Doctrines of the New Jerusalem by translating, printing and publishing the Theological Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg." All this and more, much more, is contained in the purposes of the Academy.

     The acknowledgment of the Divine Authority of the Writings brought with it more light to see how the New Church could be established on earth, and chief among these means is education.

     There are many in the world who believe that education will do away with all evil, and there is a truth in this because it is true in Heaven; but their kind of education will not do it, for there is not in it that which alone can cause one to recognize evil as evil and as a sin against God. But education, real education, the kind of education that will do away with evil, is preparation for the Church and for Heaven, and this is the kind of education that the fathers of the Academy planned when the Academy was organized.

479


To get this kind of education they saw that there must be those who are in the love of it and specially prepared for it, and, therefore, the education of young men for the ministry was one of the first, if not the first, of the uses undertaken by that body.

     How the various other departments of education have from time to time been added is recent history, and so it will not be necessary to take up time in describing the development of the work of the Academy, but I will say a few more words before closing, as to what our education stands for. In the work on Heaven and Hell it is stated that "every little child when he dies is received by the Lord and is educated in Heaven and according to Divine order is taught and imbued with the affections of good and through them with the knowledges of truth." (n. 329) In other passages in the Writings too numerous to quote much is said about education in Heaven, and that all who die in infancy are educated there and become angels.

     Such education is the kind that we desire in our schools, and to this purpose it will he necessary that in all our work our human frailties and weaknesses be relegated to the background so that those intrusted to our care may become "imbued with the affections of good and through them with the knowledges of truth"--that good may be conjoined to truth and that thus they will have their character so formed that when they enter life's work with its trials and temptations, they will ever have the assurance and the confidence that the Lord is with them that He is present in His Divine Human to guide, protect and to save.

     This I verily believe has been the mainspring of the work of the Academy, and it behooves us to have this spiritual love ever before us, that the young may also have enkindled in them the sacred flame, the spiritual affection of good and of truth, which when once enkindled the Lord will ever foster and nourish that it may warm the heart and enlighten the mind. If we can do this we need not fear for the results, for these are in the Lord's hands and He will protect and be with them and with the work and with us so long as we look to Him and follow the leading of His providence. Then future generations will enter into and enjoy the fruits of our labor as we have entered into and enjoy the fruits of the labor of Hindmarsh and his generation.


480


NINETEENTH OF JUNE AS A CHURCH FESTIVAL 1906

NINETEENTH OF JUNE AS A CHURCH FESTIVAL       Rev. HOMER SYNNESTVEDT       1906

     A Festival of the Church takes its quality from the celebration at that time of something of the Lord.

     Among the stated things of worship, a Festival takes highest rank because it involves in eminent degree the two essentials of all worship, namely, perception from love of the Lord's goodness or majesty, and at the same time a realization and confession of the utter unworthiness of self.

     In heaven the glorifications and celebrations of the Lord take place from the Word, and for the most part by choirs, for the convocation of many is involved in the root of the word. The use of a celebration or feast, therefore, differs from the worship in the closet which is commanded in the Sermon on the Mount. It is, as it were, a bringing forth into the common sphere of states which have been prepared through the daily prayers, and the fruition in a united and thus exalted sphere, of the affections which have been stored up by the Lord during the daily performances of uses, whereby alone man is continually praising God.*
     * Hence it is fitting that we should at such times expend a part of our savings, and share with each other of the fruits of our toil itself. Mutual gifts are also in order at every great festival.

     In the work on the Divine Providence, (n. 254), We are taught that while it is impossible for the Gospel to reach all corners of the earth, yet it has been provided that no nation or tribe should be left without a religion of some kind, and that each of these religions should contain in general the ten great laws of the Decalogue, as "that God is to be worshiped, that his name is not to be profaned," and, as representing the third commandment, "that some Festival is to be observed."

     Thus do they all celebrate their deity, and keep his deeds and qualities perpetually in mind. Thus also do they strengthen each other in the faith.


481



     This, then, would seem to be the root idea of the religious festival, when reduced to its lowest terms. In our Word there are several religious feasts mentioned, at each of which something of the Lord was to be celebrated. In the Decalogue, all these are included in the observance of the Sabbath, which thus became the principle thing of the Jewish worship. Elsewhere in Moses they were commanded to keep three feasts each year, whereto every male was commanded to come, upon pain of death. (Jerusalem was later chosen as the place where these feasts should be held.) By these frequent convocations especially they were able to perpetuate their intense natural feeling, and keep the people from idolatries. In general, they celebrated and kept in remembrance through these feasts their deliverance from slavery in Egypt, by the "mighty stretched out arm of Jehovah."

     In the Christian Church, after these prophetic symbols had been fulfilled and the Jewish observances had been abrogated, the Sabbath became Sunday, or the Lord's day, a day of rest, of worship, and of instruction in Divine things. The Passover was continued as Easter, when the Lord's Resurrection and the institution of the Holy Supper were especially celebrated.

     The feast of tabernacles or of the ingathering has a counterpart in some lands in the Harvest Home, and in Thanksgiving Day.

     As we are told (in A. C. 7893e): "But afterward the same feasts were retained for the sake of heavenly life on those occasions, and for the sake of doctrine, that they might then learn what faith and charity are." At the present day most of the church festivals remain among the great mass of people merely as occasions for social enjoyment. Even the patriotic holidays are little else. But where the Lord is not known, nor the Word revered, all nobler things must fail in time.

     As it is written in Isaiah: "Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them. And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you. Yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear; your hands are full of blood." Blood signifies falsified truths.

     The essence of a feast and the fountain of its delights, is the initiation at that time into something new of the marriage of heaven with earth in man through love.

482


What delight is possibly to the modern "Christian" who is devoid both of faith in the Divine, and of spiritual charity toward the neighbor, but the very shallow and ephemeral delight of the senses and of external uses? Is it any wonder that even those who attend the celebrations of the church, find them artificial and pietistic, and are glad to turn away to feed their souls upon more external pleasures?

     But in the New Church we are to have again Church Festivals which are not empty rituals nor enthusiastic ravings, nor yet mere social indulgences; but we are to "seek first the Kingdom of God, and its justice, and all these things will be added" unto us. Even the festivals already in use will doubtless in time take on a different quality in various parts of the New Church. But the question now before us is not this, but whether we are to have a New Church Festival, to celebrate the Second Advent of the Lord.

     In the Jewish Church all things of worship were matters of exact statute, since the Jews were entirely in externals and were not a living church capable of growth. These misfit representatives and significatives which were thus bound upon them, were mainly external forms in which formerly real spiritual life of the Ancients had, as it were, spontaneously expressed itself. Hence the Christian Church was set free from the Jewish ceremonial law, the Holy Supper and Baptism being the only sacraments commanded by the Lord while on earth. As to the rest, the Christian Church was left free to develop its own worship. The Disciples themselves did not at first discard many of the Jewish forms. It was only gradually, as the new state itself grew, that new rituals were introduced to clothe that state.

     Probably the most important and useful among these is Christmas, or the festival in celebration of the first Advent. Does it not appear that a similar festival in celebration of His advent to our own Church is needed? The fact is, this need was felt long ago, and a beginning made, almost by accident, the Nineteenth being chosen, than which, as has since been shown in the pages of New Church Life and in the discussion here to-night, no more suitable date could have been found. Already many powerful remains of affectionate remembrance have clustered themselves around that date.

483


Do we not already love it, and have not our predecessors in the Academy endeared it to us by the concentration into it of their love and loyalty? True, the celebrations of the Nineteenth by the Academy have not always been all that a church festival involves, but they have contained the germ of it. The jubilation over the success of our arms in conflict, or of our work in peace, and the mere social pleasure of a very congenial and convivial set, have indeed their place in this "vale of tears," and were doubtless needed to refresh and encourage the heroic little band who fought under the Academy banner. Besides, loyal devotion to so good a cause must have humility and worship within, even though these qualities do not appear during conflict.

     To sum up, then:

     The Jews kept their Passover to celebrate the coming of Jehovah to them, and their delivery from the bondage of Egypt. Christians have their Christmas to celebrate His Advent to them and deliverance of them. Is it not eminently fitting, then, that there should be added in the New Church a festival of the Second Advent? If, as it is written, "To make a feast, or to hold a feast signifies the worship of the Lord from a glad mind on account of deliverance from damnation," (A. C. 9286), and if the great festivals of the former dispensations "were instituted on account of the bringing forth of the human race, who are willing to receive new life from the Lord, out of Hell, and their introduction into Heaven, and this by the Lord through his advent into the world, (A. C. 9294e); then surely no mortal men ever had greater need and greater cause for celebrating such a festival than we of this age. Did not a "total damnation stand again at the door and threaten?" And is not this final Advent the most glorious of all His Comings, the crown of all the rest, when He has come in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory? Is it too much to expect that the Nineteenth of June will in time be celebrated in some way by all in the world as the day of the Second Coming of the Lord? "For the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." (Heb. ii. 14.) "The Lord shall gather again the second time the remnant of His people. . . .And there shall be a highway. . . from Assyria, like as it was to Israel in the day that he came up out of the land of Egypt."


484



     It may require many centuries before this comes to pass in this world, but we shall not have to wait so long. Already we see the small beginnings of the heavenly kingdom here, and are permitted to labor in it. But in a few score years at most we shall all finish our contribution to the hard struggle with the unyielding elements of this world, and go forward, we hope, into that land of the blessed where even now the banner of the Authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, whose dominion is to ages of ages, is waving in triumph over the myriad heads of all the ransomed saints.
NINETEENTH OF JUNE AND THE GENERAL CONVENTION 1906

NINETEENTH OF JUNE AND THE GENERAL CONVENTION       Rev. W. H. ALDEN       1906

     We are told in the True Christian Religion. No. 791, which tells of the sending out of the Twelve Apostles by the Lord, that this is what is meant by the words in the Gospel of Matthew xxiv. 311 "And He shall send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together His elect from the four winds, from the one end of heaven to the other." And we are told of the spiritual significance of this passage in several places in the Writings of the New Church. And this significance is said to be not the sending forth of literal angels, but an influx of holy good and truth from the Lord and evangelization and election. (A. C. 4060.) The time of the fulfilment of these words is declared to be the end of the church, when there is no longer love, and thence no faith, and it is declared that at that time the Lord will open the Word as to its internal sense, and reveal arcana of heaven. "That at this day such immediate revelation exists is because that is what is meant by the Second Coming of the Lord." (H. H. 1.) We are further taught that by the angels who are sent forth is meant heaven whence the New Church is, and by the gathering of the elect is meant a New Church as to faith and love. (S. S. 14)

485


And again that by the angels are meant the Lord alone by His Divine truths. (A. E. 130.) And still again we read, "Not that any angels are to be sent to gather them, but that the Lord by His Divine truth does this. For by angels are signified Divine truths." (A. E. 910.)

     From all of which it may be gathered that into the significance of this Nineteenth of June, with its sending forth of the Twelve Apostles, is gathered the full significance of the Second Coming of the Lord effected by the revelation of Divine truth through Emanuel Swedenborg. For the gathering of the New Church at the end of the former church these Divine truths are revealed to men. They are the banner set up before those who will be of the Lord's New Church. It is by them, and by them alone, that the New Church is formed, and is to be formed among men. They form a standard of faith, not for intellectual assent merely, but for the life of men. For except those days had been shortened there could no flesh be saved.

     It is essential to the very existence of the New Church, and so for the salvation of men, that these Writings shall be acknowledged as the very Word of God for His New Church, not indeed superseding the earlier Word of the Old and the New Testaments, but fulfilling it, and opening it to the rational comprehension of men. By these Writings alone the New Church is to be established. They constitute the final court of appeal, both for the interpretation of Scripture and for the life of men. No human interpretation is to be accepted in the stead of them, nor is such interpretation to be permitted to stand between them and the individual soul; still less is any man-made conception of good and truth to be permitted to stand over them in judgment.

     To use a very common illustration--the weights and measures of a country are preserved with the utmost care, with the utmost power of the government. The standards are held inviolate at the Seat of government, and to these standards every man in the land has the right to appeal. The right of coinage is reserved to the government alone. The integrity of trade depends upon the vigilance of the governing power in preserving inviolate its standard weights and measures, and its coinage from debasement or counterfeit.


486



     The Lord has committed to those who will be of His New Church this sacred trust. The Writings which establish the New Church; and. humanly speaking, the integrity of the church depends upon there being an organization which preserves those Writings inviolate, and which, so far as in it lies, provides for the instruction of its members in the Heavenly Doctrines contained in those Writings, and for leading them in the life thereof.

     The General Convention, of which I am a minister, professes to do this. In its constitution it professes to be composed of all those who "acknowledge the doctrines of the New Jerusalem, as revealed by the Lord from His Word in the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg, and who unite with this body in performing the uses of a General Church." This is the standard which it has set before itself. And the Convention, because it has set up that standard, I have loved, and those who hear me have loved it for its profession of these principles, and so far as it has given expression to them in the life of those connected with it.

     The Convention has not lacked affirmations of the importance of the charge which has been committed to it and which it has professed to hold sacred. One foremost leader in the Convention councils accepts without qualification the system of spiritual truth contained in the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg. (N. C. Review. Vol. 1, p. 161.) "They are a new revelation of Divine truth, descended from God out of heaven." (Ibid., p. 175.) And he further declares: "There is no rivalry between the two revelations; they are simply different. The one supplements and completes the other. The one is Divine text: the other Divine exposition; both are indispensable." (N. C. Rev. Vol. XI., p. 551.) "They are the truths which the Lord has made known through His servant. Emanuel Swedenborg. They come by his agency in the form best suited to our needs, and to the needs of men throughout all time. They are the opening of Scripture to human minds. By means of them the Lord Himself is newly revealed, and His Second Coming is effected. To receive them is to receive Him, and to be brought freshly under his influence. Yea, it is to form a new relationship and to enter into a new covenant with Him." (N. C. Rev. Vol. VII., p. 326.)

     And he further affirms that "the attitude professed by us toward the truth which we profess to believe, and which we call Divine, should be that of reverent and unqualified acceptance.

487


The truth should come to us with all the power which resides in the phrase, 'Thus saith the Lord.' The fact that we do not fully understand it, which must needs be the case with all--should not cause us to reject any part of it, but should rather make us humble, more sensible of our own limitations, and ready to wait till the light more clearly shines." (N. C. Rev., Vol. X., p. 229.)

     In such phrases as these the standard is held up high before the people. And if the Convention would but stand on this high plane, the Academy need never have been formed, but there would have been one general church organization in one united affirmation and life.

     But in the Convention there have been and are to-day other affirmations made, without rebuke, which vitiate and destroy the force of the true standard. One says, indeed, "What duty can be more imperative than that of living as far as possible in the higher atmosphere of the spiritual sense?" N. C. Review, Vol. I., p. 166), but another says with apparently equal acceptance, "We ought not to exalt too much the study of the pure spiritual sense. It has not been revealed so much that we may live it." (N. C. Review, Vol. XI. p. 358) And another, "We cannot live the spiritual sense of the Word, for this is abstract." N. C. Rev., July, 1905.)

     Here is confusion of standards. It is as if you should go into one store and find in use one yard stick, and in another next door another an inch or so shorter; as if, without reproof two coins of the same name but different weight or degree of fineness were permitted to circulate in the same community or state. We know what happens in a state which permits such tampering with its standards; the baser drives out the better, and the whole world of trade and commerce hastens to decay. Even so it is in Convention. The permission of variant and contradictory statements respecting the doctrines of the church, the refusal to permit in its organ the correction of glaring errors, or to admit important statements of the doctrine of the church, intimates a sad lack of clearness of thought and paralysis of action. The New Church is confused with the first Christian Church which is vastate and dead; care is assiduously taken lest the heaven-revealed doctrines of the New Church should be so taught as to offend the prejudices of men; children grow up under the instruction of Sunday Schools with no clear idea of what constitutes the New Church and with no knowledge of the Second Coming of the Lord; societies and preachers join in worship with those who deny the Lord's Divinity.

488


It is not strange that under such conditions the membership of Convention is declining and becoming indifferent.

     I say these things not as an attack upon the Convention. But Convention, as an organization standing for the New Church before the world, has been wounded in the house of its friends; it is infested by a spirit which is not of the New Church, which, if suffered to continue, must finally sap its vitality altogether. I would that I might be able to call all those who love Convention for what it professes by its constitution, to rise up and protest with me against the destroyer. I am not permitted to say these things in the Convention organ. But I would that they might be proclaimed throughout the length and the breadth of the Convention membership. I would that the real truth about the Academy and the General Church might be made known to those who are kept in ignorance of them by the present policy of the Convention leadership. I would urge that the duty rests upon the General Church and upon the Academy, in that they represent in profession and in life, unswerving allegiance to the Lord in His Second Coming, not only of missionary propaganda to the world, but to the body of the General Convention membership, "that ignorance may be enlightened, and incredulity dissipated." And may it ever be remembered, as it is now emphasized within the Academy and the General Church that the integrity and power of those organizations for use must rest, not upon the intellectual ability or moral excellence of their personal membership, but upon their holding before men a banner with one only motto, namely, "The Heavenly Doctrines revealed by the Lord in His Second Coming through Emanuel Swedenborg."


489


Editorial Department 1906

Editorial Department       Editor       1906

     NOTES AND REVIEWS.

     With its issue for April, The New Christianity announces that it will be discontinued after April 30th. The number contains a biography of the late editor, the Rev. S. H. Spencer, together with his portrait.

     The American Swedenborg Society has purchased from the Rev. Samuel Mr. Warren his translation of Conjugial Love, with the understanding that the Rotch Trustees are to have the use of the MS. for their edition. Mr. Warren has been engaged on this translation for many years and has devoted much pains and study to it. In conformity with its custom the translation has been criticized at the expense of the Society, the criticism having been done by the Rev. Dr. Wright. The work will not, however, be published for some time.

     In a report to the Provincial Board of Health, held in Toronto, July 3d. Dr. C. A. Hodgett has some strong words on the subject of Race Suicide. After referring to criminal abortion, he says: "But what shall we say of the respectable (?), the non-criminal cases, which constitute an unnumbered roll, and, coupled together with the destruction of human embryonic life, which today is freely and indifferently indulged in by all classes of the community,--is an evil hydra-headed in character, greater than the drink question, and more far-reaching in its effects than all other social evils put together."

     This is the view of a health officer who is looking at the matter merely from its physical and economic side. But how much worse the picture when seen from the moral and spiritual point of view!


490



     Our friend, Dr. J. B. S. King, of Chicago, has written a work on The Chemistry of Foods, (The Blakely Printing Co., Chicago, 1906), which has received flattering notice in medical and other journals. Dr. King has had a long and extensive experience in chemical work, and in the present book he has combined scientific skill and the accuracy of modern investigation with the most refreshing application of good plain common sense. In addition the doctor has written in his usual racy style. His book is not only eminently instructive, it is also most delightfully interesting, and places the important subject of dietetics within the reach of all. The work will, perhaps, be read with more especial interest by those who are concerned with the dieting of children, who will find much that is valuable on the subject in the chapter on Infant's food.

     In an article on Swedenborg the Man and Swedenborg the Revelator, the Rev. John Goddard, writing in The New Christianity of April, endeavors to steer a middle course between those who regard Swedenborg's Writings as mere human productions and those who regard them as absolute Divine Revelation. This leads him to a position not remarkable for its clearness, and culminates in the conclusion that, while we must observe profound humility in regard to the Writings, which "in a sense" are the Second Coming of the Lord, still we may be justified in rejecting what is contained in them when it does not square with our own "independent reason!" "While Swedenborg's Writings are of such a character and such a depth that all believers must hold in deep reserve any doubts or questions which may arise; while there will be profound humility on the part of every one who has lived in the presence of these wonderful unfoldings of religious truth, yet they do not demand any surrender of one's independent reason."

     Mr. Goddard's attitude towards the Writings is not to be wondered at, since he does not look upon them as a finality, but expects further and clearer revelations, suggesting "that, since the giving of the Word involved thousands of years of national history. . . so may the full and clear opening of its inner sense involve the gift of further prophecy. . . . As yet, but little of the Word has been opened, and this little only very abstractly, and, to most people, very obscurely (!); but in this opening we have the prophecy and promise of clearer and clearer utterances."

491


We wonder where this "promise" is to be found in the Writings.

     Under the heading, "A Romance in Missionary Work," Morning Light describes some interesting incidents that recently happened in the east end of London. A lady member of the New Church received a letter from an unknown correspondent who informed her that he had received her address from the caretaker of the Swedish Lutheran church (where Swedenborg was buried) to whom she had given a tract. He then went on to say that he was to open an informal discussion on Swedenborg at Toynbee Hall on the following Sunday evening, and, as he knew no Newchurchmen, and was to speak merely from an independent study of Swedenborg's writings, he thought it would be an advantage to have some members of the New Church present. This letter was handed over to the Secretary of the Swedenborg Society who sent it to a member of the New Church Evidence Society. The result was that two members of the latter Society, armed with a bundle of "Silent Missionaries," attended the meeting at the appointed time. The audience consisted of over a hundred working men. The lecture lasted for about three-quarters of an hour, and the two New Church visitors were "astonished and delighted to find this entire stranger to the New Church organization so much in sympathy with Swedenborg, with a clear and intelligent knowledge of his principles and doctrines, and, above all, with a strong belief in Swedenborg's personal character and sincerity, and of [in?] the mission he was especially called to perform." (A condensed report of the lecture printed in Morning Light does not quite bear out this eulogistic description.)

     After the lecture the two visitors received permission to distribute their "Silent Missionaries," which were gladly and even eagerly received, many asking in vain, as there were not enough to go round. However, a further supply was promised for the following Sunday.


492


REV. L. P. MERCER 1906

REV. L. P. MERCER              1906

     On July 6th the Rev. L. P. Mercer passed away at his home in Cincinnati, O. The death was quite sudden and wholly unexpected. The immediate cause was diagnosed as angina pectoris. The Messenger of July 11th contains an appreciative editorial on Mr. Mercer and also a brief account of his life. He was born in Chester county, Pennsylvania, in 1837, and commenced his ministry in Cleveland in 1870 Two years later he was ordained, and accepted the pastorate of the Detroit Society. In 1877 he left Detroit; and from that time till 1901 the scene of his labors was in Chicago. He served for many years as General Pastor of the Illinois Association. During his stay in Chicago Mr. Mercer became intimately associated with Dr. Burnham, for whom he always retained a high regard, and whose theological abilities he greatly admired. Five years ago he became pastor of the Cincinnati Society, and was soon thereafter elected General Pastor of the Ohio Association. He was made president of Urbana University in 1905, and formed plans for the development of that institution, but death overtook him while he was yet in the beginning of their execution.

     Mr. Mercer was also active in the literary work of the Church, not only as a contributor to the periodicals but also as the author of several small works. He always took an active interest in the various movements to which he greatly contributed by his zeal and eloquence. He was especially interested in the development of Swedenborg's Science, and from its very inception took a leading part in the work of the Swedenborg Scientific Association, giving freely of his time and thought, and continually encouraging by his indomitable energy.

     By his death the Convention has lost a man whose place will be hard to fill,--a man distinguished alike for eloquence, ability, fair mindedness and for zeal for the spiritual welfare of the New Church.


493


GENERAL CONVENTION AND NEW CHURCH EDUCATION 1906

GENERAL CONVENTION AND NEW CHURCH EDUCATION              1906

     The paper on the Educational needs of the Church, read before the General Convention at Cincinnati, by the Rev. E. J. E. Schreck, is printed in the Messenger for June 13. It is a strong and fearless plea for New Church education and all that it involves. The writer draws attention to the admitted but "melancholy fact" of the large percentage of loss in the Church caused by the defection of the young. He also calls attention to a concomitant and equally strong, though less admitted indication that "we are not succeeding in the work of educating spiritually-minded men," in the fact that "the goodly proportion of our children" who remain in the Church, have, for the most part, "little interest in the distinctive spiritual teaching and life of the Church. The cry is for sermons and teaching and work of an external character; religious, yes, but wholly on the natural plane."

     Mr. Schreck then dwells on New Church Education as the true remedy for this state of affairs, but, at the same time, he seems to recognize that such education, desirable as it is, cannot be established except in a sphere distinctively of the New Church. And so his plea is for distinctive New Church life and thought as well as New Church schools. "We need a more interior family life and social life for the practice and cultivation of the spiritual graces and virtues. . . . We need above all a spiritual awakening of the New Church to the imperative need of the New Church education of their children."

     These are indeed the great needs. And underlying them is the fundamental need for the living acknowledgment of the New Church as the only; church in which the Lord is present in spiritual light, and of His actual presence there in His Divine Revelation. Fill these needs and it will not be long before a distinctive New Church life and thought will begin to be formed, from which a new and true education will necessarily follow. But without them the establishment of church schools will avail little or nothing. Witness the "New Church" schools, maintained until very recently, in England.

494


"New Church," yes, but in name only; and when the new Education Bill was passed, they experienced no difficulty, as regards the quality of the education given, in being transferred to the control of the civil authorities. Very different from Mr. Schreck's paper are the remarks of "H. C. H." giving an account of the Convention meeting in the pages of the New Church Review. "The usual (!) plea for distinctive New Church schools was made by the Rev. E. J. E. Schreck, who added also an able presentation of distinctive New Church homes. Some dissented to carrying this so far as to separate the New Church Schools and homes from the world." As if anyone is desirous of separating home and school from the world, even if such a thing were practicable! What is desired, and what was advocated by Mr. Schreck was a separation from the interior sphere and influence of the world, and this is the separation that is meant by the Lord's words to His disciples that they should he in the world but not of the world.

     The subject of New Church Education has also received editorial notice in the Messenger, which in its issue of July 4th, has some strong and excellent words on the subject (written, we understand, by the Rev. L. P. Mercer). One cannot but be struck by the coincidence between the date of publication and the independent tone of the editorial which, from a Convention standpoint, is extremely radical. Says the writer, "The claim that the secular schools are sufficient for education, and that remains of good can be insinuated and religious truths adequately taught in the home and Sunday School, is nothing less than preposterous." "Ignorance of the spiritual truths of the church, lack of affection for religious instruction, worldliness, indifference to religious worship and life, are the natural results of the course the church has been pursuing in the education of its children. It may be expected that the result will grow more alarming, till at last the church will be compelled to recognize its short-comings." This matter of the education of the young, for "even the self-preservation, of the church, is, in the opinion of the writer, "so transparently clear that it would seem that it must be recognized."

     He has also something to say as to the reception, by the Convention, of Mr. Schreck's paper: "We were surprised at the discussion, in the recent Convention, of the Rev. Mr. Schreck's able paper on this subject, that neither the fearful disproportion of the time given to the religious instruction of our children, nor the inability to take up in the home and discuss with the children in the light of the church, the subjects taught in the day school, seemed to make any impression.

495


They were wholly overlooked in felicitation upon the wonderful things the Lord in His providence is able to do with the meagre fruits of our doings in Sunday School and home!"
NEW WORK BY DR. SEWALL 1906

NEW WORK BY DR. SEWALL              1906

     Somewhere in the beginning of his work on The Infinite, Swedenborg speaks of two classes of men; one which receives spiritual truths because revealed in the Scriptures, and the other which must be approached on the grounds of pure reason and philosophy. It is to the latter class that the work on The Infinite is specifically addressed, in the hope that they may be convinced concerning the existence and nature of God. It is to some similar audience that Dr. Sewall addresses himself in his latest work, REASON IN RELIEF (Eliot Stock, London, 1906). Apart from all arguments drawn from revelation, he proposes to show that the Christian faith is "a faith for an age of science,"--that it is true both philosophically and scientifically.

     So far as his rational arguments are concerned, the author has been undoubtedly successful in his task, for it is difficult to imagine what possible answers can be made in refutation of his powerful line of reasoning. Commencing with Hume's bold denial of the doctrine of cause and effect, on the ground that the relation between these two has no real existence but is a mere impression of the mind, he dwells at some length on Kant's famous doctrine of the reality of mind as a form of thinking. "Experience itself," he thus concludes, "which is so often thought to be the only sure ground of knowledge, gives us no knowledge at all, except through the mind, which has the faculty of seeing the relations between the facts of experience."


496



     Having thus cleared the way by showing the supremacy of the mind over the senses, Dr. Sewell proceeds to show in a series of highly interesting and well written chapters, the existence and personality of God; the necessity and actuality of revelation; the Why and the How of the Divine Incarnation; the reality of the spiritual world; and, finally, the doctrine of sin and salvation. The whole is presented with a constant rational development of the leading idea of the book,--the reality of God.

     Though the work is especially addressed to those not members of the New Church, nor indeed of any church, yet by reason of its instructive array of rational arguments, its perusal cannot but be of profit to the man of the New Church as strengthening and confirming the ultimate foundations of faith. Indeed, to the Newchurchman more than others; for it is doubtful whether there are many of the audience addressed to whom the author's reasoning will deeply appeal. Not that this is a fault of the reasoning, still less of the clearness of style. In both these respects Dr. Sewall is at his best. But, while assuming to speak to "an ape of science," he, in fact, addresses himself to an age of philosophy. But the present age is, in reality, so far a mere age of science that it has no desire to see God and spiritual things by the eye of reason and philosophy, but to see them only by the eye of the body, and to have their existence demonstrated solely by the facts of sensual experience. And with those who still delight in metaphysics, their conclusions savor rather of speculative hypotheses than of the solid perception of truth. Still, even in such an age, if any choose to appeal for a recognition of rational and spiritual truth, their efforts need not be discouraged, and may indeed meet with some measure of success. Certain also it is that there are few if any men in the Church so well equipped for this task as the learned author of the book under review.

     But we could wish that in his work there were less evidence of an apparent endeavor to hide Swedenborg. Measured by its largest standard of possible success, this book will probably go do further than to lead the reader to believe in the Lord, the Bible and the Spiritual World: it will still leave him in practical ignorance of the doctrine of Swedenborg, and in a still greater degree, of the supreme fact, that in Swedenborg is to be found a light and a philosophy altogether and discreetly new.

497


We can well understand that in a book of this nature the authority of Swedenborg the Revelator would naturally not be appealed to. But this affords no excuse for putting him apparently in the background. The whole trend of the work indicates the author as equally, if not morel an admirer of Immanuel Kant and James Ward, than a follower of Swedenborg. Kant's philosophy is referred to as "a mighty shaft of light from the distant city on the shores of the Baltic," while Swedenborg is merely "Kant's great contemporary," find while the text contains frequent quotations from Kant and Ward, Swedenborg is quoted but twice (once in a foot note), cited once, and casually referred to two or three times, and little indication is given that any "mighty shafts of light" proceed from him. In some cases the author has endeavored to insinuate Swedenborg's doctrines rather than to openly proclaim them as his. While Dr. Sewall makes no statement from Kant or Ward without acknowledging it as theirs, this is not always the case with Swedenborg. Thus he writes: "We are told that Moses copied these first eleven chapters of Genesis from an Ancient Word, purely symbolic, a copy of which existed in Asia;" but the reader is left to vainly imagine by whom this important statement is made. Surely the author is not ashamed of Swedenborg! Is it rather that he thus accommodates himself to a senseless prejudice against Swedenborg! But how shall he successfully address himself with the voice of pure reason to those who can be supposed capable of entertaining such unreasoning prejudice?

     This treatment of Swedenborg is a serious blemish to an otherwise excellent work. It has, probably, prevented the author from developing his themes as much as he might have done, as in the chapters on the Bible and on the Spiritual World, and has also lessened the usefulness of the book to those readers who have so far held themselves free from the sphere of an age of science, as to still see with the eye of reason.


498


CORRECTION 1906

CORRECTION       WILLIAM HYDE ALDEN       1906

EDITOR New Church Life:

     Will you permit me to call attention to an error in your report of the General Convention, in the July number, as regards the Evidence Society? Your reporter states that in years past it has been the custom of that Society to read at its own annual meeting a long report, which was afterwards repeated at Convention. "Some years ago the Convention decided that the reading before the Society was sufficient and declined its repetition. This year the Program Committee assigned one hour for the hearing of the report by Convention, and in this expectation the Society passed over its reading in its own meeting; but when the time arrived the Convention mercilessly voted that the Report be printed in the Journal without reading."

     As a matter of fact, however, in which an ex-secretary of Convention should have been better informed, it has been the practice for many years past for the Evidence Society to hear its own report only in outline, and send it up to the Convention, where, without exception, until at the recent session, it has been read by special appointment in the order of business just prior to the Mission report, to which it bears a kindred relation. The order to "print in the Journal" can hardly be interpreted as showing a lack of interest in the Report, unless the same be true of all the important "reports in print" which are never read. FRANK SEWALL, President, New Church Evidence Society.

     As far as the formal fact is concerned, Dr. Sewall is right, and his correction is accepted. It would appear that, since the formation of the Evidence Society in 1895, its annual reports have been regularly presented to the Convention up to 1905, but in that year, as well as the recent meeting, the report was ordered printed without reading. WILLIAM HYDE ALDEN.


499


NINETEENTH OF JUNE 1906

NINETEENTH OF JUNE       L. C. B       1906

Editor New Church Life:

     Perhaps some words of comment on this year's celebration of the 19th of June at Bryn Athyn, written by a visitor while impressions are fresh, may be welcome to readers of the Life, and may serve to emphasize the profound value to the Church of this festivity, inaugurated, in the first place, by the "Academy."

     The immense significance of the spiritual event commemorated by this celebration cannot be over-estimated, being a vital fact for both worlds. This significance to many newcomers into the Church may only gradually dawn upon the mind. Indeed, the mention of this date,--the 19th of June, 1770,--in the True Christian Religion, while it at once strikes the attention of the reader may, at first, seem odd, as importing a date of a day belonging to worldly chronology into the records of the spiritual world, where dates and time and place have no existence. But a celebration, such as that of yesterday, develops the fact that the day is a day of days, that it is deliberately mentioned for adequate and necessary reasons, and. like everything else in the Writings, not only needs no apology, but claims recognition and study on its intrinsic and profoundly important merits.

     So far as the writer knows this precise fixation of art earthly day in connection with a spiritual event is unique, and in so far forms an historical nexus between the sequence of events in both worlds, mutually responsive to each other. It imports into the spiritual world, through the memory of men in this world, an ultimate, drawn from this world's history, as, in fact, the whole phenomena of Swedenborg's life and experience also does.

     Reasons for this were clearly given in several of the addresses yesterday. Testimony of eye-witnesses at first hand, evidences drawn from human experiences, and conditions connected with the First Coming of the Lord on this earth, and; with the establishment of the long foretold and long awaited Second Advent, involving the initiation and organization of a new and final church in both worlds, was needed in order to procure a full and rounded conviction in the minds of men and angels of the actual occurrence of the stupendous facts narrated,--a conviction, which, as was also pointed out, is to extend throughout all the earths of the whole universe.

500


It is this testimony that the men of this earth are peculiarly called on to give, and specific dates are always necessary as aids to memory and associations.

     Such points and many others were brought out in yesterday's celebration, commemorating the Lord's new commission to His disciples to preach the new and rational doctrines of the crown of all the churches throughout the spiritual world, whence these forces could energize the new revelation through Swedenborg.

     The wonderful statuary on the east pediment of the Parthenon at Athens, giving a magnificent conception of the birth of Athene, with the horses of Hellos rising in the east, and Selene's horses plunging into the western sea, has been called a day in the Olympic heaven: while on the opposite pediment, was a day on earth when Athene and Poseidon emulously strove with divine gifts for the guardianship of the Attic state.

     Ought we not to be delighted, and in far greater degree than was possible to the devout Greek for his vision of Olympic events, to possess, and to increasingly commemorate our great spiritual day, picked out and specifically dated from our own world's calendar by Divine Providence? And should we not greet each new 19th of June, as it cones around in the annual cycle, with growing love and devotion? L. C. B. June 20th, 1906.
PREVIDENCE OR PROVIDENCE 1906

PREVIDENCE OR PROVIDENCE       ROBERT FAULKNER       1906

EDITOR New Church Life:

     The Rev. W. H. Benade in his book, "Conversations on Education." p. 39, quotes the following number from "Heaven and Hell, i. e.:

     "Such spirits are adjoined to man as he himself is as to affection, or as to thought, but good spirits are adjoined to him by the Lord, but evil spirits by the man himself. But the spirits with man are changed according to the changes of his affections, Hence one kind of spirits are with him in infancy, and others in boyhood, others in adolescence, and others in old age.

501


In infancy spirits are present who are in innocence, thus who communicate with the heaven of innocence, which is the inmost or third heaven. In boyhood spirits are present who are in the affection of knowing, thus who communicate with the ultimate, or first heaven. In adolescence and youth those are present who are in the affection of truth and good, and hence in intelligence, thus who communicate with the second or middle heaven. But in old age spirits are present who are in wisdom and innocence, thus who communicate with the inmost or third heaven. But this adjunction the Lord brings to pass with those who can be reformed and regenerated. It is otherwise with those who cannot be reformed and regenerated; to these good spirits are adjoined that by them they may be withheld from evil as far as it is possible." (H. and H. No. 295.)

     Then Mr. Benade goes on to say "This explains why some children cannot be reached in the same manner as others. What is done with some, with others is of no effect because they cannot be reformed and regenerated. It is, therefore, necessary to recognize the individual child and not treat all children alike, or in mass." I wish you would explain what Mr. Benade means by the statement that some children cannot be reformed and regenerated. This seems to teach predestination.

     Hoping you will take up and explain this in your next issue of the Life. I remain, Yours very truly,
ROBERT FAULKNER.
Allegheny, Pa., June 26, 1906.

     REPLY.

     There is, indeed, an appearance of something like predestination in the passage quoted by our correspondent, and in Mr. Benade's comments upon it, but since we know that the Heavenly Doctrine, (of which Mr. Benade was a faithful disciple), universally condemns the "insane and cruel heresy of Predestination," we may be sure that the appearance is merely an appearance. The universal doctrine is that "no one is ever predestined to hell, but all to eternal life," and that therefore the possibility of repentance, reformation, and regeneration remains with every man even to the end of his earthly life.


502



     There is, nevertheless, such a thing as Divine Providence. The Lord, indeed, foresees that some men will, by a life-long series of free determinations, chose evil instead of good, and of such it may be said, in the language of appearance, that they "cannot be reformed and regenerated," the real truth within this appearance being the fact that they will not repent. This, however, the Lord alone call foresee, and on this account we cannot accept Mr. Benade's application of this appearance to the problems of education. No human teacher can possibly foresee whether a child is finally going to chose the way of regeneration or not, but must take it for granted that all the children under his charge are going to be saved. He cannot and he must not permit any doubt as to this point, or any imaginary providence of his own, to influence him in the treatment of the "individual child." On the contrary, as regards the possibility of reformation and regeneration, it is absolutely necessary to "treat all children alike," since all are predestined to heaven. Mr. Benade believed in this as much as any one, but in his desire to emphasize individualism in education, his words assumed an appearance which dill not convey his real meaning.--EDITOR.


503


ORPHANAGE FUND 1906

ORPHANAGE FUND              1906

     We have received from the treasurer. Mr. Walter C. Childs, a report of the Orphanage Fund for the year ending June, 1906. The report will be published in full in our October issue. In the meantime, our readers will doubtless be interested in the following summary:

     RECEIPTS.
     CR.
Balance, June 12, 1905                         $673.53
Contributions, Bryn Athyn          $103.11
Philadelphia                         1.50
New York                         78.75
Baltimore                         5.00
Pittsburgh                         48.40
Erie                              12.00
Glenview                              1.00
Toronto                         42.30
Berlin                              10.98
Denver                         73.50
Colchester, England                    1.68
Miscellaneous                         7.00
          $385.22
          $1,058.75

     EXPENDITURES.
     DR.
Mrs. Mary Hyatt               $312.00
Printing, etc.                         9.60
          $321.60

     Balance, June 14, 1906                         $737.15


504


GENERAL CONFERENCE 1906

GENERAL CONFERENCE              1906

     The ninety-ninth session of the General Conference was opened in Manchester, on June 18th, with a membership of 35 ministers and 95 laymen. The inclusion of the Nineteenth of June in the meetings might be supposed to have suggested some sort of observance of the day, but apparently no notice was taken of it, business going on as usual, and the communion service being held on June 20th. At this service there were only 110 communicants.

     The out-going president, the Rev. R. R. Rodgers, reported the answers of ministers to the annual presidential queries. To the question as to the greatest need of the Church, the usual run of responses was varied by the following: "Loyalty to Swedenborg. A model deed. Conference sacrament every morning at 8. A. M. Abolish the dance. Intensify the sympathy given to the young. And hasten the translation of the Word." "If we are not good after that," comments Mr. Rodgers, "we ought to be." The replies to the question as to how many members of the Church come from the Sunday School, indicated a proportion varying from ninety per cent, to only one per cent. On this the report comments: "There is clearly something wrong somewhere with many of our Sunday Schools, and no greater service could be rendered to the world, not less than the Church, than by getting to know the remedy for the terrible loss to the Church of those who have been trained and educated with the hope that one day, they would be added to the Church." This portion of the report received some discussion by the Conference. Mr. J. W. Toaks urged, apparently as a remedy for the failure to retain New Church children that the doctrines ought not to be regarded as "an intellectual luxury" for ourselves, but as intended "for those who came from the outside as well as those who were blessed with home influence in the Church." The Rev. G. W. Wall contended that when it was reported that fifty per cent. of the members were from the Sunday school, it did not mean that the other fifty per cent. were lost: "many of them would be included in those coming in the way of additions from without." The contention is comforting but curious. Mr. E. J. Broadfield, on the other hand, seems to have been more seriously impressed with the situation.

505


He gives "valuable statistics" for London and Lancashire, showing that on a comparison of the past three periods of ten years each in cases even where membership had increased, the average attendance had decreased, and he suggested that the Council of Ministers and Leaders consider how the doctrines might be best adapted to the minds of children.

     The Secretary's report showed a net increase of 103 in the membership of Conference societies. Also that 36 societies have made collections for local charities amounting to $2.200, while 67 societies have contributed about $6,000 to New Church institutions! An increase was also reported in the sales of the New Church Magazine, amounting to 300 copies.

     The only other matter of general interest that came up for discussion were some proposals looking to rendering the meetings of the Conference of a more devotional character. The committee which had been appointed to consider this subject, in its report, "frankly recognized that the Conference was a business body;" still, as it was composed of men of religion, they recommended greater attention to "the spiritual and devotional sides of Newchurchmanship." Their proposed "a short, bright religious service" on the opening evening and also on the following morning, and some extension of the opening services on the following three mornings! These proposals were adopted unanimously.
LONDON SWEDENBORG SOCIETY 1906

LONDON SWEDENBORG SOCIETY              1906

     The ninety-sixth annual meeting of this Society was held in London on June 20th.

     The report of the Committee showed, as usual, a large amount of work done during the past year. Nearly 23,000 of the Society's publications had been distributed, including presentations of over 2,000 volumes, and sales amounting to more than $1,800. Of the gift books to students and ministers (T. C. R. and A. R.) only 28 sets have been distributed, almost all the applications coming from Wales. The case was similar last year, and it has suggested to the committee the advisability of further encouraging the work in the Principality. Among other gifts have been 67 volumes to the Rev. G. G. Daniel, of British Guiana; 34 copies of the New Jerusalem and other works for distribution in St. Petersburg; several copies of Heaven and Hell, in Dutch, to various towns in South Africa; six copies of the Doctrine of Charity to a native at Rangoon, Burmah; the same number to an independent missionary in Calcutta "wine had become greatly interested in our teachings," and to a free library at Cuddalore, India.


506



     The report deals at some length with the sixpenny editions of the Writings commenced by the Society two years ago. During the past year this series has been added to by the publication of Divine Providence, translated by the Rev. Isaiah Tansley. Thus far 10,000 copies of this edition have been sold, making a total sale of the three works now included in the People's Edition, of 38,139 for the two years. Truly a notable showing. Letters are quoted written from the Transvaal, Burmah, Calcutta, Bombay and New Zealand showing the wide extent to which these works, published through Messrs. F. Warne & Co., have circulated. From New Zealand a correspondent writes: "Formerly an occasional copy of a New Church book might be seen, but not very often, in a booksellers shop in this country, and old copies, usually shabby, might be found at a second-hand dealer's; but now the bright new copies may be seen in the bookshop windows, prominently displayed, and the dealers have the same inducement to push their sales as they have with other books."

     As the fourth of the People's Editions the Society have adopted, not another work by Swedenborg, but a biography of him, written by Mr. George Trobridge, and prepared for the general reader. This decision on the part of the Committee raised up considerable discussion towards the close of the meeting. The uses to which the Society is limited, as defined by its Constitution, are the "printing, publishing and distributing of the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg," and a resolution was offered to the effect that the words "printing, publishing and distributing" be held to include "translating, editing, advertising, publication of biographies, and such other methods as the Committee may from time to time determine." Letters had been received protesting against the resolution, one especially from Mr. Whittington, which was read before the meeting. The Rev. Mr. Wall could not see how the publishing of Swedenborg's works could be held to include a biography of Swedenborg, which was certainly not one of the "writings of Swedenborg."

507


Mr. E. G. Dow criticized the wording of the resolution if it was intended to include a biography of Swedenborg only, this should be stated. The chairman, Mr. Howard J. Spalding, thought that the resolution did not extend the powers of the Society, but merely described more fully the work it was actually doing. They had already translated, edited and advertised, and had also bought biographies and distributed them out of the Society's funds. He held that the powers of the Society involve that they would do all such things as any intelligent business man would do to increase his business. The resolution did not extend these powers but rather defined them, and thus, in fact, constituted a greater limitation on their interpretation. For this reason he felt an objection to it. Mr. Gardiner, however, held that the Society had been carrying on a work which it was not authorized to do. They were not even authorized to translate, or to advertise, and all they desired was to be authorized in black and white to do what they had been doing. He considered the publication of a biography of Swedenborg to be a means of advertising. The motion was then put to the meeting and carried.

     To return now to the report. In the reproduction of the Index Biblicus, 120 more pages, have been completed, making in all 376 pages printed and passed. The small amount of work done was owing to the illness of the late Mr. Wennman, of Stockholm, but the committee has now "secured the services of one professionally trained for this kind of work, who was employed on former prototypic reproductions of the Swedenborg MSS."

     The publication of the Principia, which last year was reported ready for the printer, is to be still further delayed. It has been found "that the quotations from other writers, which are so numerous, required to be verified and the references made specific." It has also been determined to adopt the plan, used in the Animal Kingdom, of giving brief accounts of the authorities cited by Swedenborg. Even with these changes the work has been completed as to the first volume and some progress has been made with the second, but printing will not be commenced until the whole work has been completed.


508


Church News 1906

Church News       Various       1906

     FROM OUR CONTEMPORARIES.

     UNITED STATES. The WALTHAM NEW CHURCH SCHOOL closed its forty-sixth year on June 20th. The number of pupils during the year has been 63, but all of these have not attended during the whole term. During the closing exercises a reunion of all old scholars was held, and it was decided to form an Alumni Association.

     The Rev. George G. Daniel, the colored minister of Georgetown, British Guiana, is spending the summer months in the Eastern States where he is visiting various New Church Societies, partly with the object of enlisting support for the work in Georgetown. His society consists of some 60 members, and is known as the Georgetown Society of the New Jerusalem. It Is Mr. Daniel's wish to build a new place of worship for this Society and also a school, where he proposes to teach "the industries of life to young men and women." To assist in this work he appeals for a contribution of $10,000, "or the Lord's sufficient sum." He has visited Chicago, where he preached to three of the parishes, Philadelphia, New York, Brooklyn, Providence, and Boston and its neighboring towns. At the Convention meeting a collection was voted to be taken for the support of his work, and the sum of $117 was realized. Over $75 was contributed in Chicago, and contributions have also been made in other societies.

     Mr. Daniel, whose portrait is printed in the Messenger of June 13th, is reported to be a man of fine presence, a good speaker, a well educated man, having a knowledge of English, French, Hebrew, Greek and Latin, and with a wide knowledge of men. From a worldly point of view he gave up flattering prospects to enter the New Church, but his whole heart seems to be in work. He was baptized by the Rev. W. L. Worcester on May 19th, the day preceding his ordination, noted in our last issue.


509



     The pulpit of the BATH, Me., Society, was recently occupied by the minister of the leading Congregational Church, in exchange with the pastor, the Rev. Paul Sperry, "and the two societies seemed pleased with the cordial relations!" Presumably, the sermons did not differ materially as to doctrinal quality.

     According to its invariable custom the BALTIMORE (Md.) mission celebrated "New Church Day" on the nearest Sunday, which this time came on June 17th. The Rev. L. H. Tafel gave an excellent address on The Events of June 19, 1770.

     The cornerstone of the New House of Worship of the ALLEGHENY (Pa.) Society, at the corner of Sandusky and Pearl street, was laid on Sunday morning, June 3d, the ceremony being conducted by the pastor, the Rev. John Stephenson.

     The Messenger for July 4th reprints from the LA PORTE (Ind.) Herald, a report of a lecture delivered to the Old Settlers' Meeting by the Rev. E. D. Daniels. Mr. Daniels' subject was "Subduing the Wilderness," a term which he applied to the childless home. He spoke strongly against race-suicide, which he described as "a slaughter of the innocents more terrible than that committed by Herod." "In other words," he continued, "for we must be understood, children are murdered before they are born. Either this, or else the provision of Divine Providence for their procreation is regarded as low and beastly, and abhorrent and disgusting."

     At its meeting on June 4th, the Woman's Council of the ILLINOIS Association listened to six papers on the different degrees of the neighbor, five read by women, and the last, on The Lord Himself as the neighbor, by the Rev. E. J. E. Schreck. During the discussion in the morning session, Mrs. Schreck made a plea for a more thorough study of the doctrines by the women of the Church.

     The Rev. Alexander Henry, pastor of the DENVER Society has resigned from that charge.

     CANADA. The corner stone of the new House of Worship of the TORONTO Society was laid by the pastor, the Rev. F. L. Higgins, on Sunday, May 26th.


510



     GREAT BRITAIN. The Federation of YOUNG PEOPLE'S SOCIETIES reports 28 societies with 1,335 members. During the past year two successful "mass meetings" have been held. The young people seem to have appropriated this name of "mass meeting" to themselves, (or have had it appropriated to them), as peculiarly their own. But if the term is appropriate it is so as being expressive of a wish rather than of a fact. We have as yet failed to see any report of one of these "mass meetings" where the was existed elsewhere than in the name. A not uncommon sample is the following report of a meeting held on May 9th, when "there was a mass meeting of young people. There was a good attendance, but there were very few young people present!" But perhaps we have enlarged ideas of a "mass.

     The ACCRINGTON Society reports a membership of 547, and an enrollment in the Sunday School of 763 scholars and teachers. No mention is made of the attendance at worship.

     The LOWESTOFT Society, after many attempts made to carry on the work, has finally dissolved, the Society property being let for a parish hall.

     Owing to an affection of the throat, the Rev. A. Ryland, who was converted to the New Church some two years ago, has been ordered a twelve months' rest, and has consequently resigned the pastorate of the NOTTINGHAM Society.

     On Monday, June 11th, the Place of Worship erected by the recently formed Society at SOUTHEND-ON-SEA, was dedicated by the Rev. R. R. Rodgers, president of Conference, assisted by the pastor, the Rev. A. C. White. The ministers were robed in surplices and stoles, and entered the church during the singing of an introit. Mr. White carrying an open Bible "to signify the revelation now made of its internal sense.

     SWEDEN The Rev. C. J. Manby reports having done extensive missionary work in the Swedish provinces, with interested audiences of from 25 to 125 hearers. At Stockholm he reports an average attendance of 43, due largely to small advertisements inserted in two or three papers stating that preaching would be "according to Swedenborg." On Sunday evenings a Bible class is held with an average attendance of 37. After the class "we take notice of many things in foreign New Church journals, and on."


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     DENMARK. From COPENHAGEN the Rev. S. C. Bronniche reports a subscription list to his monthly journal, which was started last October, of 90 subscribers, with 125 copies in all sent out. The journal is issued at the editors own expense, and does not pay expenses. Mr. Bronniche has been engaged by the London Swedenborg Society to offer Danish translations of the Doctrine of the Lord, and the Doctrine of the Sacred Scripture, free to all ministers in Denmark, Faroe, Iceland, Greenland, and the Danish West Indies. Over 1,500 circulars were sent out, but thus far only 70 applications have been received.

     GERMANY. The London Swedenborg Society has made arrangements with the SWEDENBORG SOCIETY of Stuttgart, authorizing the latter to the expenditure of $1,000 in producing German editions of Heaven and Hell, Divine Love and Wisdom, and Divine Providence, to be offered to every library in Germany, Austria, and German-speaking Switzerland. Two of the works are now being printed, and of the third a new edition will be printed if the present stock of 500 copies should be exhausted. The Stuttgart Society is to pay all the incidental expenses connected with this offer.


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CHICAGO ASSEMBLY 1906

CHICAGO ASSEMBLY              1906


     Announcements.



     Notice.

     The Sixth Chicago District Assembly of the General Church will be held at the Immanuel church, Glenview, Ill., August 24th, to 26th. Members and friends of the General Church are cordially invited to attend. The Immanuel church will provide for the entertainment of visitors, who are requested to send notice of their coming to Mr. W. H. Junge, Glenview, Ill.
RESURRECTION BODY OF THE LORD 1906

RESURRECTION BODY OF THE LORD       Rev. WILLIS L. GLADISH       1906



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     NEW CHURCH LIFE.

     VOL. XXVI. SEPTEMBER, 1906.          No. 9.
     The importance to the Church of the fact that the Lord rose with His whole Body is indicated by the care with which it was taught to the Disciples by the Lord and by the frequency with which it is stated in the Writings. When He appeared among His Disciples that first Easter evening and they were terrified and affrighted supposing they had seen a spirit, He said to them, "Behold my hands and my feet that it is I myself; handle me and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have." (Luke 24:39.) Then He showed them His hands and feet; and to convince them beyond doubt that He was not a spirit but a Man, He asked for food, and when they brought broiled fish and honeycomb, He took and did eat before them. To doubting Thomas He said, seven days later, "Reach hither thy finger and behold my hands, and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side and be not faithless but believing." (John 20:27) Thus did the Lord convince them beyond the possibility of a doubt, and through them the Christian Church, that He rose with the whole Body, leaving nothing in the tomb. And we can see the necessity that they and the Church should believe this, for to sensual men such as they were, and of whom the Church for the most part consisted from its beginning to its end, the resurrection of the spirit without the body would have meant nothing tangible.

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Belief in Heaven and the life after death, hence in the super-natural, and thus in all things of faith, could be awakened and sustained only by the faith that the Lord's whole Body was raised from the dead, and that as He rose so shall we.

     But the Lord would not deceive these men even for their own salvation. If He taught them that His whole Body was raised it must have been so.

     And the fact that it is insisted upon and so frequently repeated in the Writings indicates that it is fully as important that the Church of the New Jerusalem should know that the Lord rose with His whole Body, as it was for the Christian Church to know it.

     Indeed, the whole faith of the New Church throughout the ages hangs upon this, and takes its quality largely from her understanding of the nature of the Lord's resurrection Body.

     This is evident from the following considerations. If He did not rise with the Body He took on in the world and so retain it, He remains, as He was before His coming, the invisible God. The perfection of the Crown of all Churches is to be that she worships the visible God, God in His Human, and hence can see the object of her worship. But if the Lord put off the Body which He took to make Himself present among men, He is no more visible than He was before. Before His advent He made Himself visible through the human of an angel whom He filled with His presence. But the human seen was not His own human but a representation of His own Human. Hence the churches and the worship, before His coming were representative and derived their existence from the fact that He was to come in His own Human and raise up a Church that should know Him really and not representatively.

     But if He put off the Human He had in the world, it, too, was only a representative. If it were His own it was Divine, it was eternal, it was Dart of Himself and could not be put off. If His Body was put off God is still the unknowable Infinite whom no man hath seen at any time. There remains no Divine medium or nexus between God and man. In this case while it is possible for the Infinite to present Himself representatively before His children, it is not possible for Him to make Himself visible in His own Human. And it has been erroneously taught by some in the New Church that the Divine Human, being also infinite, is invisible, and that the Lord cannot now be seen by man or angel.


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     It is to guard against this falsity, which would destroy the Church, that it is so insisted upon that the Lord rose with His whole Body, and that He alone in all the spiritual world has a Body such as spirit and angel has not and such as man in the world has; a Body of flesh and bones, visible before the minds of men and angels.

     Moreover, the New Church is to worship the Lord in His Human. We cannot look back and worship a Human that existed for a time only, and then ceased to be. The object of our worship must be living and present. We can worship the Lord Jesus Christ only when we believe that He rose from the sepulcher with His whole Body fully Divine; and that He forever retains this as the visible Boyd of the invisible Divine.

     Those who do not so think of the Lord do not worship Him but an imaginary, invisible God whom they think of as having dwelt for a time in a body of flesh, which was then put off and ceased to be. To them the Body never was any part of the Divine.

     Such is not the true faith of the New Church. The Divine Human is the only object of her love and worship.

     But the Body which rose from the tomb was not material. This is evident from several reasons. First, because we are definitely taught so in the Writings. He rose with His Body fully glorified, therefore, not material but Divine, that is, of Divine Substance. After His resurrection He was seen only by the spiritual sight of the Disciples. And the whole process of glorification consisted in putting off what was from the mother that He might put on what was from the Father, and so bring the Father forth to view.

     It is also evident to reason that the Body which rose was not material. For the Lord appeared among them when the doors were closed. He appeared and disappeared at will. Matter cannot do these things. And besides matter is dead. It is not and cannot be any part of the Divine for He is Life Itself. The Body in which He rose ascended above all the Heavens and is at the heart of the Sun of Heaven. Then it was not material, for matter can no more enter the spiritual, much less the Divine, than a camel can go through the eye of a needle.


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     We are also taught, "that the Lord in the sepulcher, and thus by death, rejected all the human from the mother and dissipated it. . . ." (Ath. Cr. in A. E.) How could the Lord be said to rise with His whole Body if the Body which arose was not natural, when to our ordinary thought the body of man is wholly material, and, when the matter is gone, there is no natural body left?

     The Lord glorified the whole of His Human, therefore, He must have risen with His whole Body. But that He glorified His whole Human even to its flesh and bones does not mean that He glorified the material substances of His Body. Matter cannot be glorified, cannot be made Divine. It consists of substances originally from the Divine from which the life has been withdrawn; substances at rest, dead and inert. Glorification did not in any case mean the changing of what was from the mother into what was Divine, but in putting off what was from her that the Divine might appear. There is no reason to think it would be different with the material substances of the Body.

     THE CORPOREAL BODY.

     But we make a mistake if we think of the body of man from its matter alone. Matter serves to fill the forms of the body and give them extension in space, to fix them and make them permanent. Matter makes the body present in the natural world and enables it to perform uses there and makes procreation possible. But considered in itself the body is a living thing, the complex of all forms of uses. The body is that living, organic thing which organizes the matters and gives them a human form. Nor is this body a mere abstraction. It is substantial. Nor is it the spiritual body. It is the natural body. It is composed of substances from the spiritual sun which organize the body in the whole and in all its parts and holds it in being.

     That there is such a body and that it is the real human body may be clearly established from the Writings.

     "But as regards man's spirit that also is created from infinite things. . . . The finite things of which it is are spiritual substances which are in the spiritual world and are also brought together into our earth and stored therein.

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Unless they were together with material things no seed could be impregnated from the inmosts, and there in a wonderful manner grow up, with no departure from the right way, from the first shoot even to fruit and to new seed; nor could any worms be procreated from the effluvia from the earth and the exhalations from the vegetable matter with which the atmospheres are impregnated." (T. C. R. 470) If there are spiritual substances brought together and stored up in the earth and this is necessary that seeds may be impregnated and may grow and produce new seeds and that worms and insects may he procreated. it is evident that the life of the body is not merely the life of the soul or spirit in the body but is a distinct degree of life from the spiritual sun, indeed, and thus living, but a part of nature from which it cannot be separated, for living but a part of nature from which it cannot be separated, for it dies and is buried with the body, as we are taught in the Spiritual Diary 4627:

     "Inasmuch as it is unknown of what duality man is as to his interiors let it be stated that it is the corporeal of man that sees terrestrial things, and those things which are of the world, hears those which are spoken, tastes or relishes those things which are eaten, smells those things which float in the air and feels by touch throughout the entire body. This is man's corporeal. This dies and becomes a corpse with those things which most directly concur in establishing those sensations; wherefore it is likewise the muscles which are properly denominated flesh.

     "The interiors of man which do not die succeed one another in the following order. There is the sensual, there is the natural, there is the spiritual-natural: these are of the external man. Afterwards there is the celestial of the spiritual, the celestial, and the inmost. . . . These are of the internal man.

     "All these do really exist in man and succeed each other; and with every individual one of them has dominion; they are also distinct from each other."

     There are several things worthy of note in this number. It describes more discrete degrees than we usually think of in man, and says that they all do really exist, and succeed each other and are distinct from each other.

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That each is not only a degree of substance but also of life, that is, of love and wisdom, is shown by the statement that, with every individual, one of these degrees has indicates clearly what is from the father and is retained in the spiritual world, and what is from the mother and is not retained. But, especially, it teaches a fact that so far as I know is new to the general thought of the Church, namely, that there is a corporeal degree of substance from the spiritual sun which makes the living body, which is laid in the tomb and perishes as does the matter of the body. By perishing is not, of course, meant that it ceases to be, but that its substances pass into new forms as do the matters of the body. This corporeal from the spiritual sun is a part of that formative substance which holds the dead matters of the earth in form and makes them plastic to the operations of life. (See T. C. R. 470, quoted above.) These substances, not from the dead but the living sun, are meant by the substances and matters so often spoken of in Divine Love and Wisdom, where the words are not used tautologically, but the substances are spiritual in their origin and the matters are from the dead sun. (See D. L. W. 5, 302, 303, 305, 307, 310, 311, 313, etc. In all these numbers the substances and matters compassing lands are spoken of.)

     It is customary to think of the degrees of life as being only above nature and the degrees in nature as being merely degrees of dead substances. But that there are both degrees of life and of substances in nature is declared in the True Christian Religion, 33:

     "One thing has been formed from another and thence have been made degrees, three in the spiritual world, and as many in the quiescent things of which the terraqueous globe consists."

     We are also taught that "there are in man three degrees of natural affections, and the same in beasts." (A. E. 1201.)

     Again, "Every man is born corporeal, becomes sensual, afterwards natural and successively rational; and, if he does not stop then he becomes spiritual." (C. L. 447)

     It is possible for any man to sink bank into any one of these degrees and establish his ruling love in it. This could not be unless each one of these, even the corporeal, was a discrete degree not only of substance but of life, capable of being infilled with love and wisdom.


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     The body then is not merely the matter which we see and touch; it is not primarily such matter. The body is primarily that living, organic thing composed of substances from the spiritual sun which make the body to be a human body, and give form and quality to the whole body and to each part of it. This was especially true of the Lord who is Life. Dead matter could be no part of His living Body. When it is said that His body was glorified, and that his Body was raised, His living Body is meant. The matters which infill the substantial forms of the body and which we call flesh and bones (and which indeed are properly so called in regard to man) are not meant by the flesh and bones with which the Lord rose from the sepulcher. He rose with His whole Body, leaving nothing in the tomb; but the matters which served to make His Body visible before the material eyes of men were no real part of His Body; they were only added to that Body for a time for the sake of uses in the world.

     THE BODY FROM THIS MOTHER.

     When it is known that by the body is not meant merely the matters of the body but the living corporeal degree, which, when infilled with matters, makes the body of man, it can be understood what is meant when it is said that the body is from the mother; when yet man inherits evils from his mother which must be fought against and put away. And the Lord inherited all His evils from His mother. There is no evil in matter. Matter has no quality either good or bad. Nor can evil tendencies be transmitted through matter alone.

     Think how little of the matter of the body the mother gives. And that little is successively cast off, and the whole body is renewed every few years. At maturity man has no particle of the matter that his mother gave to him. And yet his body is still from his mother, because that living thing which is the formative force and substance of the body and which is the ultimate of the soul is from the mother. Its loves are rejected only by regeneration. But as a degree of substance it is left behind at death and perishes. Its loves, however, may be received by the sensual degree of the spirit and so incorporated into that degree and endure forever.


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     Here in this body formed by substances from the spiritual sun which yet are natural (but not material), woven by the mother, she incorporates her whole disposition. This is superinduced over the three degrees of the soul, received from the father, (D. L. W. 332), and forms its ultimate or body. (See S. D. 2751.) Man therefore, receives hereditary evils from his father, which cannot be put of because they are a part of his immortal soul. They need not be accepted or lived; they can be covered over, but they remain.

     Man also receives the whole disposition of the mother, including, of course, her evils. This clothes the degree received from the father. And although the soul from the father continually strives to bring this body into its own likeness, yet because the corporeal both is more external and comes more to view and also because it is the ultimate, and spiritual things take form according to the ultimates into which they flow, therefore, for these two reasons the mother's nature often seems to be stronger with the child than the father's.

     This corporeal body is what is meant when it is said that the Lord's Body was from the mother, that He had hereditary evil from her, that He put off what was from the mother, that the whole material was expelled on the cross. This is the Body that was glorified and made Divine. With man this body is left behind at death and decays in the tomb. (S.D.4627) It is indeed a degree of life but of earthly life. It belongs to the natural world and cannot be separated from it or raised above it. Man has no use for it in the spiritual world. He leaves it that he may rise to a more perfect life.

     The Lord could not put off this Body because it is a degree of life, and all life is in Him and is His. There is no life but is in Him and from Him. The Lord could not enable man to live in the body had He not the corporeal degree of life in Himself. He could not impart life to the Letter of the Word had He not retained the lowest degree of life. All power is in ultimates. He would not be omnipotent had He not this lowest degree of life. Therefore, He rose with His whole body clearly and fully glorified.

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All its finite vessels and forms and substances had been put off, and it was now altogether Divine. But the whole Body as to all that is living was raised so that the Lord alone in all the spiritual world is complete Man, having Divine flesh and bones.
LAST JUDGMENT 1906

LAST JUDGMENT       Rev. ANDREW CZERNY       1906

     "After these things I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in heaven; and the first voice which I heard, as it were a trumpet talking with me, said, Come up hither, and I will show thee things which must be hereafter. And immediately I was in the spirit; and, behold, a throne was set in heaven, and One sat on the throne. And He that sat was in aspect like jasper and a sardine stone; and there was a rainbow round about the throne in sight like unto an emerald." (Apoc. iv.:1-3).

     The fourth chapter of the Apocalypse treats of the arrangement and preparation of all things in heaven for the judgement, which was to be executed from the Word and according to it. The judgment referred to is the Last Judgment which took place at the Second Coming of the Lord, foreseen and foretold at the very beginning of the Christian Church. For, as we are instructed in the opening words of the Apocalypse, the visions described in that book are predictions concerning the last state of the Christian Church, also concerning the judgment upon it when its state had become such that it could no longer be in conjunction with the heavens without infesting them and threatening their existence: and lastly of the establishment of the New Church, with which the Church in heaven is again to be united.

     Our chapter, as stated, treats of the arrangement and preparation of all things in heaven for the judgment; wherefore a throne was seen in heaven by John, and One sitting upon the throne, who was the Lord as to the Divine Truth or the Word. In the spiritual world judgment is executed according to the Divine Truth. It is in the light of the Divine Truth that the state of the Church appears, and can be seen; as also the state of every individual man.

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Unless the state of the Church is seen, the good cannot be separated from the evil. In the world this is not seen; the spiritual states of men do not appear; hence also in the Church in the world such a separation as that effected by the Last Judgment, cannot take place. The wheat and the tares grow together, and are not separated. The separation takes place in the other world.

     But it is to be noted that the visions which John saw and described were merely representative and significative. Neither the mode and manner in which the Judgment was executed, nor the preparation for the same preceding it, could be shown him except representatively for the time had not yet come when these things could be openly revealed. Hence they were shown him in representative forms, that they might be described as seen by him, and form a part of the Word in the Letter. We are taught in many places in the Word that interior things could not be revealed to the Christian Church, because, if revealed, they would not have been believed. But to this must be added another reason, which is this, that the Word in the Letter serves a use which the internal sense can not serve. It is the basis upon which all the interior degrees of the Divine Truth rest. It is for this reason that the Letter of the Word is written in correspondences and representatives. Hence the Word in the ultimate is natural, and what is natural is the basis on which spiritual things are founded. And we have this additional teaching, that if the word in the Letter were also spiritual it would have no basis, thus it would be as a house without a foundation. (A. E. 260.)

     Thus it is evident that the visions described by John were written, not for the purpose of revealing the manner in which the preparations for the Last Judgment were to be made, or how that Judgment was to be executed, or how the New Heaven and the New Church were to be formed; but in order that that which could not be received in a spiritual form, might still be with men in a form which would he received by them, and might at the same time serve as a basis for the spiritual things described by them. These were seen and perceived by the angels; and were to be revealed in after time, when the external Church had come to its end, and an internal Church could be established upon the earth.


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     As already stated, the subject treated of in our chapter is the arrangement and preparation of the heavens for the Last judgment. This did not take place as seen in vision by John. There was no throne set in heaven, when the Lord came to Judgment; there were no Elders sitting on thrones; none of the things described by John. But the things represented and signified by the vision all took place, and these are what the Internal Sense reveals. Thus by the throne set in heaven is signified judgment; by Him that sat on the throne is signified the Lord; that in appearance He was like a jasper and a sardine stone, signifies the appearance of the Lord's Divine Wisdom and Divine Love in ultimates. The jasper being of a white color signifies the Divine Wisdom, and the sardice stone, which is fiery, signifies the Lord's Divine Love. There was also seen a rainbow around the throne, in appearance like an emerald, which signified the appearance of the Divine Truth in the heavens, surrounding the Lord. The reason the rainbow was in appearance like an emerald, was because it indicated judgment, for the color of this stone is green, and green signifies truth in obscurity. Thus by the appearance of the throne, and of Him that sat on it, and by the rainbow around the throne, is signified the appearance of the Lord's Divine Wisdom and His Divine Love, and His Divine Truth in ultimates; for in the world of spirits where the judgment took place, the Divine Truth appears somewhat obscured. In the heavens it appears in its brightness and glory, especially in the highest heaven; but as it descends it passes through spheres less and less pure. Indeed, the Divine never appears as it is in Itself; as no finite being could endure its presence. So also at the Last Judgment, the Lord was seen in a bright cloud, a cloud surrounded Him, to temper the Influx emanating from Him.

     But the Lord did not come alone. He was surrounded by angels. Moreover the superior heavens were brought down nearer to the ultimate heaven, by means of which the interiors of those upon whom judgment was to be effected, were disclosed.

     To understand why such special arrangement and preparation of the heavens for the judgment were necessary, and especially why the angels were permitted to co-operate with the Lord at the judgment, we must first know what was the end to be accomplished by the Last Judgment.

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The general idea of judgment is that of punishment executed upon the evil. This idea is derived from certain statements in the Word in the Letter. But the Letter of the Word is written in appearances, from which many erroneous conclusions can be drawn and have been drawn. The spiritual idea of judgment is that of separation of the good from the evil. Many of the good, as we are taught, had been held in bondage by the evil for ages, and for certain Divine reasons could not be separated from them until the measure of the evil was full. "Let both grow together until the harvest, (said the householder to the servants); and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them; but gather the wheat into my barn." It was to separate the good from the evil, to free them from bondage, that the Lord came to judgment, and all the holy angels with Him. The angels were not only willing but desirous to assist in saving the good from the power of the evil. We read: "There is nothing which the angels more earnestly desire, than to receive additional angels, as new guests among them." (H. H. 71.) The Judgment was effected by Divine Truth, and according to it; but not by Truth separated from Good. It was not Judgment without Justice, and all Divine Justice is of Good. It was the Lord's Mercy and Love coming down to protect and save His own; and the angels were filled with the same Love, inspired into them by the Lord. The effect upon the evil, indeed, seemed like punishment. But this was merely all appearance. As they had assumed good in the external, it was possible for them to ascend even into the sphere of the ultimate heaven which should have been occupied alone by the good. What enabled them to remain there, was the good which was not theirs. By the Last Judgment this good was taken away from them, and, as thus their connection with the heavens was severed, they sank into the abyss, where they had been as to their internals.

     Since the heavens also co-operated with the Lord in saving the good from the power of the evil, therefore, it is said in our chapter. "And round about the throne were four-and-twenty thrones, and upon the thrones I saw four-and-twenty elders sitting, clothed in white raiments, and they hill on their heads crowns of gold."

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These words signify the arrangement of all things in the heavens before the Last Judgment. By "all things" are meant all truths from good. The four-and-twenty thrones signify judgment, and the four-and-twenty elders signify the superior heavens; and in an abstract sense, all the truths of these heavens in all their varieties arranged before the Judgment. That the elders signify the angels of these heavens, as well as the truths from good there, is because the angels are angels by virtue of the Divine which is with them. They are forms recipient of it. Thus the arrangement of the truths from good preparatory for judgment, effected at the same time an arrangement of the heavens grounded in these truths,--the infinite varieties of which are expressed by the number, which signifies all. They were clad in white garments. This signifies the truths from good in the inferior heavens. For garments signify external truths clothing things internal; and what is external in the superior heavens, constitutes the internal of the inferior heavens. And it is added:

     "And they had on their heads crowns of gold." This signifies truths disposed in order from the Divine Good. It must be known, that all the truths of heaven and of the Church are from the Divine Good; and as the four-and-twenty elders sitting upon thrones signify the truths of the heavens, therefore they were seen with such crowns.

     Thus we can see that the vision seen by John was one of those representations frequently seen in the spiritual world. Its signification was not revealed to the Church until its end had come. The vision describes the Lord arranging and preparing the heavens for the Last Judgment. But why was all this necessary? it may be asked. Could not the Lord by His own Power, without aid from the heavens, have accomplished the Judgment? The Lord, we are taught, operates from inmosts through intermediates into lower things. He is, as it were, the Soul; heaven is His Body. He flows through the heavens into the world of spirits, and into the Church on earth. And the arrangement and preparation of the heavens before the event were necessary, because, through the Last Judgment, in the heavens as well as in the world of spirits a great change was to be effected. Countless numbers of spirits who had congregated there and had by their presence affected the heavens, were about to be removed out of that sphere.

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And it is a law of Divine Order, that before any change takes place, all things are prearranged and prepared for the future event. We can only form a very general and obscure idea of the change effected by the Last Judgment. There was a new heaven, called the ultimate heaven, added to those already existing. The sphere occupied both by good and evil spirits was purified, the evil removed, and the good spirits formed into a new heaven. So great a change of necessity also affected the superior heavens, for which they had to be prepared. These heavens had been almost separated from the Church. Now a new heaven was to be formed, and through that a Church on the earth, into which the superior heavens could inflow, and which in its turn would react upon In other words, order was to be restored from inmosts to outermosts, so that the heavens could act as one, and by their united influx affect men on earth, who had long been almost separated from them. We may truly say with the Psalmist: "This is the Lord's doing, it is marvelous in our eyes. Amen.
AFTER THIRTY YEARS 1906

AFTER THIRTY YEARS       Rev. HOMER SYNNTESTVEDT       1906

     It is now a generation since the fathers of the Academy came to the conclusion :hat the expectation of large growth of the New Church through its missionary efforts in the old church, was not well founded in doctrine or in experience.

     How was it, they asked, that in spite of the utmost efforts of the heroic little band of believers,--in spite of missionary efforts probably unparalleled in self-sacrificing zeal in these later days of religious indifference, the growth of the Church by converts from the old, had become less and less? Under the guidance of the great theological leaders of the day who saw that the Revelation given to the New Church was to be the only source of light and guidance to that Church, they began to study what the Doctrines had to say about the state of the Christian world, and the reasonable expectation of growth from that source.

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The result of their inquiry is sufficiently familiar to us, for they soon found that the lack of success was not at all to be wondered at, since a Church which the Writings describe as sick unto death can scarcely be expected to imbibe with much relish or benefit, any spiritual food whatsoever, no matter how palatable and nutritious to the soul. It was found that a New Church can never grow to any extent from the old or vastated church, but is only received by a remnant (and their posterity) and eventually receives its principle growth among the gentile nations. Again and again was this said to the Jews, and later to the apostles-and the same thing is repeated in the Writings, as to the New Church.

     The few who saw this clearly endeavored first to convince their brethren that they were misdirecting their efforts and neglecting the slower but more promising source of growth from within. In this effort they met with little success, as only a score or so of persons could e found who would join with them in this slow and arduous task and rely upon it as the chief source of the Church's growth. However, it seemed the only hope of the future, so they diverted most of the thought and time and means heretofore expended upon missionary work into this new channel of Education, taking this term in its broad application to old as well as young. For this use the Academy was formed, and the experience of some thirty years has tended strongly to confirm the wisdom of the movement. The body seems to be growing slowly but steadily, and, what is best of all, our young folks as they mature, seem prepared to take up the banner of their fathers without any loss of the old-time enthusiasm and hope. Much of this changed condition we attribute to our schools, though it is doubtful if the work would prosper, even with the best of schools, without the other work, namely, of educating adults, i. e. ministers, teachers and laymen into a stronger and clearer faith by diligent reading of the Doctrines, and a strenuous effort to carry them out in our individual and organized life. This is the prime need of the Church, and the first condition of her growth. Thus by giving over the lust for numbers in favor or more solid and interior development, we have been gifted with what is probably today, in spite of its limitations, the strongest body in the Church.

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Education is thus the main reliance of our Church. As to the adults, experience has shown that only those who study the Doctrines are really able to lead in the Church, or even to keep in touch with our development, and become active and profitable members. As to our children, we see that there is no other hope of perpetuating whatever ground we may win, then by handling down our priceless patrimony of truth and freedom without discrimination to them; and this is the work of Education. This hope is the mainspring of all our efforts, and this work is our chief delight and inspiration.

     While the General Church is thus seen to be steadily holding its own, and even gaining ground, the other bodies have continued to fall off, especially in the percentage of loss among their young, until the losses seem to overbalance the accessions from without. The worst result of this lack of success in the very thing which they place in the forefront of their desires, is a state of anxiety and almost discouragement, so that, while the old veterans will stand to their posts with dogged faithfulness, there is not with the body at large that zeal and courage which are born of confidence and hope, and this itself is doubtless a cause of the loss of some of their young; for youth especially needs the encouragement of success and hope. A losing fight cannot be maintained indefinitely, and when men see that they are in this case, is it not the part of wisdom and humility before the Lord, (whose Providence is indicated to us through the disposal He makes of our endeavors,) to pause and reflect, to go back to Him and ask at His mouth some further word upon the subject of our duty? It is no excuse that the whole religious world, especially among the Protestants, is experiencing a similar difficulty in holding its young and in reaching new converts.

     A very little reflection will show that there is something radically wrong when the New Church, which is living and rational, can thus become entangled in the downfall of the old. Yet what else is to be expected, where New Churchmen continue to cherish the old delusion that the Old Church is itself to be revived some day, and draw breath from heaven? It is never the dead body which is resurrected, but the eternal spirit, the Spirit of verity, which is to "be revived," and in a new body "to draw breath again from heaven."

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It will not do to cling to the moldering tombs of the past. If the Old Church died in 1757 because the Lord then left it, surely its immortal spirit must be sought for elsewhere, viz., where He is now acknowledged and worshiped in His Divine Human, and not in the Old Church, which in the midst of the crumbling of its old dogmas, has shown no sign of any return to this chief of all its duties, the acknowledgment of the Sole Divinity of the Human of the Lord. They have rejected and they still reject this, the cornerstone of all living faith. The Lord is not there, He is risen. Let us then leave the dead past to bury its dead, and strike out boldly into new paths, under the guidance of a distinctively new spirit, the true religious spirit of the ages, in a new body, both provided by the Lord, through His new and crowning revelation. And first of all let us recognize that it is new and distinctive, for as long as our ideal is the restoration of the dead body of the old church, according to the appearance in Ezekiel's vision, we shall remain in spirit under the "covering which is spread over the face of all the nations," and greatly obscured by their persuasions and their standards. Internally, the first thing necessary in order to start a really new church, is to dissipate the clouds of the old prejudices and persuasions, and, in ideal at least, to detach ourselves so that we may come into the clear light of the new revelation and set up a new standard. This must be done, however, with a discrimination which can come only from Spiritual light, revealed out of heaven. That the Old Church is dead spiritually, that an entirely new one is to be established among men who have not yet been irrevocably prevented by the old, we know from the Angels. We know also that he Gentiles, the simple good, and the young, answer to that description, and are thus to be regarded as the hopeful fields of our labor. Of these, the last is nearest at hand, and seems most strongly indicated at the present time. History warns us, however, as well as doctrine, that while seeking distinctness from the Old Church as to ends and ideals of Spiritual life, we are not to separate our lives from their natural uses. And this means that we must have the schooling or other training which prepares for these uses. How can we secure the necessary schooling for this world and not neglect or injure the needed foundations for the other?


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     In examining the civilization about us with both of these teachings in view, we find abundant confirmations on both sides, the world never knew before. These are of heavenly order, and are the means without which the New Church could never come into actual existence. Such are the business honor, mutual confidence, self-restraint, respect for law, courtesy, natural intelligence, and from all these, external order, security and free opportunity to develop almost anything that the Church desires to undertake in the direction of bettering the race. On the other side, we see that all these natural excellences are only cultivated for selfish ends, and hence are cut off them their true source and true inward quality. Hence evils are not being shunned as sins against God, but on account of fears of various sorts, imposed by the mercy of the Lord from without. Hence their fine external is fatally lacking in at least three respects. First, the moral standards tend to become less high and pure with the progress of generations. Second, in a crisis, when desires are very strongly excited, or when there is none present to make afraid, the conscience is cast to the winds, showing that it only binds from without; and, Third, in the other world, where all men come into entire freedom, and their inmost lives or ends alone remain to determine their lot, we are told that the majority at this day go to hell, in spite of such externals.

     Among the schools of the world there are some where our children can get much of the rich store of knowledge, and of the careful training of their various faculties of body and mind which will enable them to do their part in the world's work, and to receive a share of its rewards. "But what will it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" No, their Schools will not do, even the best of them, because they do not train the children to love the Lord Jesus Christ" with all their heart, and with all their soul, and with all their mind as the first and the great commandment. Religion is not the center there, especially a religion of life, a true or spiritual religion. But the indictment is worse than this. These schools are so impregnated with the sphere of the ends of those who control them, which is a sphere inwardly hostile to the life of the New Church and its ends, that it constantly tends to smother its aspirations, disregard the weighty things of its conscience, and cause distrust of the reality of the spiritual world.

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The very things which are necessary for salvation, and which above all else must be nursed and protected during the plastic formative period, namely, the states of reverence for the Lord and the holiness of all the word, with confident belief in the life after death,-all these things are not only wanting in the sphere of the Old Church schools, but are actually discredited. The very atmosphere which they breathe, and from which their faith is being formed (or deformed), is the public opinion of their companions, and this in turn is influenced largely by their teachers. Now what can we expect in the sphere of those who do not acknowledge the sole Divinity of the Lord, which is the stone rejected of the builders, but which is to become the "Head of the Corner,"-who do not believe in the literal inspiration of the Bible, and have little or no idea of its Holiness,-who regard Swedenborg as a madman, and his Writings as the dreams of a ghost seer? No! Such schools will not in the long run tend to produce Newchurchmen. With a strong spirit at home, with diligent worship and instruction, aided by a good Sunday School, something can be done in spite of these adverse spheres. But it will not do to cling to the delusion that because childhood is the age of the natural, and because they get in these schools the same scientifics that they would get in a New Church can be left till a later age. The very rational which is then to judge of these priceless truths has by that time been formed-and it is formed by the persuasions and spheres which affect the will, more than by the scientifics inserted into the understanding.

     To enable it then to receive spiritual truths, it will have much to unravel and weave over again. It will already have entered upon the state which makes the Old Church adult incapable of receiving the new doctrines. Experience shows that minds already filled with weeds seldom receive the new seeds.

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Weeds there will be at best, but it is a poor gardener who does not endeavor to start his good seed first.

     Some time ago a proposition was laid before the General Convention to have separate hours in the afternoon for the pastor to give daily instruction to the young, instead of the brief weekly period of the Sunday School. If this movement is backed with enough zeal, it ought to bring something to pass. If the morning school is weak, and the pastor a gifted man, he will succeed. But if the case be reversed, or if no deduction from the regular work be made, the afternoon hours may become like a mere imposition. In other words, the two spheres will be in danger of working against each other, instead of being one and harmonious.

     Why set the pastor at such a disadvantage? Why not begin by engaging a well-trained lady teacher, such teachers as the Academy is now preparing, and make all the naturally delightful studies of their age to lend themselves to the sphere of the school, and add both their light on the wonders of God's world, and their delight from use, to the one prevailing sphere, where the things of this world and the things of the other world, though distinct, are allowed to stand in proper relation to each other?

     The worldly side of education it is no doubt proper for the State to provide, but at present it is powerless to do so in the way which we see to be necessary. There is no alternative, except as a makeshift, but for the Church to take on that burden also, and see that we do it well, as loyal citizens. Fortunately, in this country, the State only insists upon taking from its citizens what they themselves fail to do,-and is entirely willing to let us do this work, if we prefer, in our own way. It looks almost as if a few hundred dollars a year were about all that stands in the way of the assured growth of the church, at least in such places as are already blessed with pastoral leading and an active interest in the Church, without which a New Church school would starve more surely than it would for lack of money.


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APHRODITE--VENUS ASTARTE 1906

APHRODITE--VENUS ASTARTE       Rev. C. TH. ODHNER       1906

     Of all the Graeco-Roman divinities there is none whose signification is so self-evident to a Newchurchman as that of Aphrodite or Venus Astarte, the beautiful goddess of love. Love is a general term, including every variety and degree of affection, and all the goddesses represented some special affection or love. Aphrodite, however, personified a most distinct and yet most universal love, a love which is beauty itself, attraction itself, happiness itself, and innocence itself,--the love which conjoins man with woman and good with truth, and which therefore is termed Conjugial Love. Hence the goddess of beauty is also the goddess of marriage and domestic happiness, the patroness of laughter and innocent pleasure, the genius presiding over gardens and flowers, and the special guardian of children and young people.

     As to the origin and birth of Aphrodite there are two different accounts, which, when viewed internally, blend into one. According to Homer in the Iliad, she was the child of Zeus and the sea-nymph Dione who gave birth to her beautiful daughter in a cave beneath the waves. The name Dione, however, is only the feminine form of Dis, or Zeus, and was the archaic name of Juno, and the legend therefore really makes Aphrodite the daughter of Jupiter and June, and teaches that conjugial love has its origin in the conjunction of the Lord and the Church.

     But according to Hesiod's Theogony, which we regard as the earliest compendium of Hellenic Theology, Aphrodite was the direct though posthumous offspring of Ouranos, the most ancient of the gods. The legend tells that when Chronos had mutilated his father, a part of the celestial body fell into the sea. The white sea-foam gathered around the rosy flesh, and out of the waters there arose, in surpassing beauty, the loveliest of all beings, human or divine.


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     Look, look, why shine
     Those floating bubbles with such light divine?
     They break, and from their midst a lily form
     Rises from out the wave, in beauty warm.
     The wave is by the blue-veined feet scarce pressed,
     Her silky ringlets float about the breast,
     Veiling its fairy loveliness; while her eye
     Is soft and deep as the blue heaven is high.
     The Beautiful is born; and sea and earth
     May well revere the hour of that mysterious birth.
                                   (Shelley.)

     All the higher deities were present at her birth, as is shown by Phidias in the bas-reliefs on the base of the statue of Zeus at Olympia; and a beautiful ancient intaglio of profound significance represents Eros, the winged god of love, tenderly lifting the virgin Aphrodite out of the waves. This is significant, we say, for Eros or Cupid is usually represented as the child of Aphrodite, but here he assists at her creation, even as he was present at the creation of the world, as the primeval god, more ancient even than Ouranos.

     It is said that she was first carefully taught and educated by the ocean-nymphs in the depths of the sea, but, begotten by Heaven, (Ouranos), she longed to ascend to her glorious celestial home. And finally she arose from the waters, seated in a chariot of glistening sea-shell, drawn by snow-white swans, with turtle doves fluttering around her head, and as she shook the water from her golden, ambrosial locks, the falling drops became a shower of opaline pearls.

     Softly wafted by balmy Zephyr, she first approached the island of Cythera and thence took her course to Cyprus, where, as she lightly stepped ashore, the arid sand was changed into a verdant meadow and the loveliest flowers sprang up at every step of her delicate feet. Here the four beautiful "Here" or Seasons, were the first to greet her, and they, together with the three divine Graces, decked her in garments of immortal fabric, encircling her fair brow with a wreath of purest gold and adorning her neck and ears with the most precious chains and jewels. Thus garbed, she was led to the assembly of the Olympian gods who without dissent hailed her as the queen of beauty; then a strife arose, for every one of them desired her for wife, but the all-wise Zeus, to the astonishment and disgust of the immortals, settled the dispute by giving her to Vulcan, the homeliest but most industrious of the gods.


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     As we have indicated in the story of Ouranos, the birth of Aphrodite has a two-fold signification, one historical, the other of universal application. Historically, it represents the birth of conjugial love in the Ancient Church after the Flood, when, after that love had been lost in the Most Ancient Church, (Ouranos), a remnant was preserved, to be received and developed by the Gentiles, (the Sea), among whom it was at first external, (the foam), but gradually became spiritual and internal,--the most precious love in the Ancient Church.

     Thus in the internal-historical sense. But in the universal internal sense of the Ancient Word this story, which is clearly derived from that Word, represents the birth of conjugial love with every man in every age. For the human conjugial with every man is begotten from Heaven, from celestial remains implanted in earliest infancy, but it is actually born in the midst of the sea, surrounded by foam, the scum of the raging waters. The sea here represents the external and general love of the sex, a merely sensual love which is easily stirred by the gusts of animal passions and never quite free from the scum of filthy lusts. (A. C. 8408) But with the regenerating man this love is merely the rough matrix which contains the jewel, the shell which contains the pearl of the human conjugial; and when the real Love, (Eros), comes, as the winged messenger of the Divine Love,--the love for the one partner in life and after death,--it takes the human conjugial into its arms and raises it out of the scum and the waters. It lifts it up above the sensual love of the sex, and love truly conjugial is born, the grace and beauty, the joy and blessing of human and angelic life. (See C. L. 447) And this most precious love cannot remain as the permanent partner of any other love than the love of performing uses, and therefore Aphrodite is represented as the wife of Vulcan alone.

     The name Aphrodite is generally, and very plausibly, derived from the Greek affrays, foam, and as such would seem to signify simply "foam-given," born out of the foam, but it is quite possible that it has a far more remote etymology. At any rate it is singular that the radicals of the name, (f-r-d), appear almost without change in the name of the Scandinavian goddess of love, Freda, or Freya, the root meaning of which conveys the ideas of "peace" and "freedom." (The name remains in the word Friday, the "dies Veneris" of the Romans.)


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     The Latin name, Venus, is derived by Cicero in a rather naive manner from venire, to come, ("Venus, quo ad omens venial," Venus, because she comes to all,--see De Nature Decorum, ii:27), but modern philology traces it more scientifically from the Sanscrit vanita, beloved, whence the Latin venustas, pleasure, and venia, favor; the German Wonne and the Anglo-Saxon wynn, pleasure, from which, in English, we have the word "winsome."

     The name "Astarte," on the other hand, is clearly of Oriental origin, and is, in fact, identical with the Phoenician and Canaanitish goddess Ashtoreth, "the queen of heaven" to whose worship the idolatrous Jews were so prone, find Ashtoreth, again, is none other than the Egyptian Athor and the Assvrian Ishtar, whose name signifies "Blessedness." (See New Church Life, 1889:191.) This goddess was from hoary antiquity identified with the beautiful evening-star; and thus from Ishtar, Ashtoreth, and Astarte, through the Greek aster, the Latin stella, and the German sterne, we have received our English word star.

     "The love of the sex," we are taught, "is like a fountain from which both conjugial love and scortatory love may be derived," (C. L. 445), and therefore we find in Greek Mythology two radically differing, nay, opposite types of sea-born Aphrodite. "Who doubts," says Plate in the Symposium, "that there are two Aphrodites? One, the elder, is the daughter of Ouranos, and has no mother, her we call Aphrodite Ourania. The other is younger, and daughter of Zeus and Dione, and we call her Aphrodite Pandemos." As, therefore, we distinguish between conjugial love and its perversion, scortatory love, so we must carefully separate Aphrodite Ourania, the heavenly Venus, from Aphrodite Pandemos, the "Venus Vulgivaga," the degraded, sensual, and adulterous Venus, whose worship was imported into Greece and Italy from Syria and Phoenicia.

     The Aphrodite Ourania was the earlier and distinctly Hellenic type of the goddess of love, as is evident not only from the purely Hellenic conception of her origin from Ouranos, but from the fact that Homer places her among the Olympian gods, and as such she is the fitting personification of that pure and holy love which comes from heaven and leads to heaven.

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As the inspirer of this love, she was the protectress of conjugial fidelity, the sanctity of the home, and of domestic felicity, and in this character she is represented as a beautiful and stately woman, fully and modestly draped in starry garments; her countenance is noble and serious, and on her head she wears a golden crown. She is often depicted as seated upon a swan, serenely sailing through the sky, and holding in her hand either a long scepter or a delicate spray of flowers.

     Venus Ourania appears also in two special forms,--as Venus the Victorious, ("Venus Victrix"), and Venus the maternal, ("Venus Genetris"). As Venus Victrix she represents not only the love which conquers and rules over all hearts, love invincible and irresistible, but also the more spiritual idea of the conjugial love which through the combat of temptation conquers all the lower passions in the regenerating man. In this character she is sometimes pictured as clothed in armor, holding a spear in her hand, and with her loot resting on a helmet.

     As Venus Genetrix she represents conjugial love as the great mother of the human race, the benign deity who, according to Athenaeus, "fills the majestic heaven with desire to let its rain fall upon the earth, from the union of which is begotten and nourished all that gives life and increase to the race of men." As is well known, Venus was, herself, the mother of a numerous progeny, whom, as in the case of Aeneas, she guarded and defended with the greatest tenderness and maternal solicitude. Of Venus Genetrix there is a very beautiful classical statue, now in the Louvre, representing her as a noble matron, holding in her hand an apple, the symbol of fruitfulness.

     In ancient as in modern art, Venus has been a most inspiring subject for sculptors and painters; the Greek artists, notably Praxiteles and Apelles, rivaled each other in expressing in her image the most noble conceptions of "das ewig weibliche," the ideal of feminine beauty, grace, and loveliness; and the most charming maidens of Greece considered it an undying honor to stand as model for the statues of Aphrodite.

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The usual type is that of fully developed yet youthful and slender womanhood, a young matron rather than a maiden, of medium height, faultless proportions, and perfect symmetry in form and outlines. In her earlier statues she is always represented as dressed in a star-spangled robe, wearing a crown on her head, and with a turtle dove tightly pressed against her breast. Sometimes she appears rising out of the sea and wringing her wet tresses; sometimes she is drawn over the waters in a pearly shell, or riding upon a dolphin, a swan, or some other marine animal.

     When represented as rising out of the sea she is known as "Aphrodite anadyomene," (i. e. coming "out of the bath"), and as such she forms the subject of a painting by Apelles, the most celebrated picture in ancient art. It was originally preserved in the temple of Aesculapius on the island of Cos, but was bought by Caesar Augustus for the sum of one hundred talents and transferred to the temple of Julius Caesar in Rome. The lower part of the figure having been injured, no artist: could be found in Greece or Rome, able or daring enough to venture to restore it; its subsequent history is unknown.

     Among the thousands of ancient statues of Venus the most famous are the Venus de Medici now at Florence, and the Venus de Milo, now in the Louvre. The Venus de Medici, by Cleomenes Apollonios, is supposed to be a copy of a Venus Anadyomene by Praxiteles, and remains as a noble specimen of ancient art, and as an exalted conception of womanhood, preserving a marvelous equipoise between the charming dignity of the matron and the severe chastity of the virgin. In this statue, it has been said, "art reaches its highest degree in depicting feminine beauty."

     The Venus de Milo is even more celebrated, though of comparatively recent discovery: it was dug out of a garden by a poor Greek peasant of the island of Melos, in the year 1820, and is a pure Parian marble. It is supposed to represent Venus Victrix, and in its grave and unaffected beauty, free alike from coquetry and mock modesty, comes nearer than any other statue to the conception of Aphrodite as a divine being. The expression, though dignified, is joyous, the head is not too small as is the case in most of her statues; the rich waves of hair descend gracefully on her low but broad forehead, and are caught up in a knot at the back of her charming neck.

539


The body is the perfect ideal of the feminine form, and the drapery falls in free and careless folds from the waist downward. But words cannot describe the perfection of this the most beautiful work of art that has been preserved from among all the lost masterpieces of the ancients.

     Very different, indeed, from Venus Ourania, Venus Victrix, and Venus Genetrix, is the faithless, scortatory, free-for-all "Venus Pandemos," or "Venus Vulgivaga," the Phoenician deity in whose temple at Corinth the famous heterae of corrupted Greece were brought up for their meretricious calling. In her we see conjugial love in its diametrical perversion, the holiest of all human loves now the most filthy and profane. A modern writer has well said:

     As human life became degraded, the central idea and accompanying rites of the worship of Aphrodite became the most grossly sensual of all the ancient rites, until it comprehended but little save perversions and corruptions of that Divine principle of love, which, as heaven-sent, should have been a heavenward guiding power in human life. (S. A. Scull, Greek Mythology Systematized, p. 285.)

     And we may here quote also, in application to Venus Pandemos, the words of Rawlinson, who, however, does not distinguish between the heavenly and the vulgar Venus:

     Silly and childish, easily tricked and imposed upon, Aphrodite [Pandemos] is mentally contemptible while morally she is odious. Tyrannical over the weak, cowardly before the strong, frail herself, and the persistent stirrer up of frailty in others, lazy, deceitful, treacherous, selfish, shrinking from the least touch of pain, she repels the moral sentiment with a force almost equal to that wherewith she attracts the lower animal nature. (Ancient Religions, p. 76.)

     She is, in short, the embodiment of all that is weak and erring in perverted womanhood. She is still beautiful, but her beauty is altogether physical and sensuous, divorced alike from intellectual power and moral good. The ancient sculptors, who were philosophers and theologians as well as artists, fitly represented Aphrodite Pandemos as a slightly garbed hetera, who is seated upon a he-goat galloping on the waves of the sea, while poor little Cupid, left behind, is crying and remonstrating with his vagrant mother.

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The ancient cameo which depicts her thus is a powerful sermon in a very small compass, a striking contrast to the stately flight of Venus Ourania through the heavens, seated upon the swan. The sea, as we have shown before, typifies the merely sensual love of the sex, the tumultuous prey of every transient passion, and the he-goat, lustful and rank-smelling, the symbol of all that is lascivious. Here Priapus and Pan, and all the fauns and satyrs, are represented with the horns and legs and tail of the unchaste he-goat. (B. E. 316; S. D. 5070; A. E. 817.) A Venus drive by lascivious lust over the wild sea of sensual passions, has no room in her arms for heavenly Love or for the love of her innocent child.

     It is this meretricious Venus that is described as the paramour of Mars by some interpolator of the Odyssey, and it is in this character that she is represented in the story of the judgment of Paris. All the gods had been invited to the marriage-feast of Thetis and Peleus, with the sole exception of Eris, the sour-faced goddess of envy. The latter, in revenge, threw into the midst of the festive gathering a golden apple bearing the inscription. "To the most beautiful," whereupon Juno, Minerva, and Venus each claimed the prize. As each of the gods prudently declined to settle the dispute, the final decision was referred to Paris, the son of Priam, king of Troy. The three rival goddesses thereupon appeared before him, each promising a most precious reward for a favorable judgment. Juno promised wealth and unlimited power; Minerva offered the gift of profound wisdom, and Venus held out the promise of a bride as beautiful as herself,-and she won the prize. Venus here appears as the rival and enemy of Juno and Minerva,-as Love separate from and opposed to Religion and Wisdom,-conjugial love no longer, but the merely natural love of the sex,-and the downfall of Troy followed, as the downfall of any Church or nation follows upon the separation of the marriage-covenant from religion and wisdom. As we have observed before, Troy represented the Ancient Church in Asia in its later state of corruption and decline, and the chief cause of its fall was the corruption of conjugial love within it, the separation of charity and faith, and the inevitably resulting destruction of the conjugial.

541


This story, therefore, is a lesson to the New Church that marriage-love must be based upon harmony in religion and doctrine, or the Church will be destroyed and will pass over to the Gentiles, as surely as Troy was destroyed and the center of civilization passed over to the Greeks.

     The special emblems of Venus were, besides the usual paraphernalia of the feminine toilet, a magic girdle, known as the "Cestus," and also the torch. Her representative birds were the turtle dove and the swan, and her special flowers the rose and the poppy.

     The Cestus, (cognate to castns, chaste), possessed, according to Homer, the magic power of investing the wearer with every attribute of grace and beauty, inspiring irresistible fascination, desire, and love. It was frequently loaned to unhappy maidens suffering from unrequited love, and even June did not disdain to borrow it, on occasions, to try its influence upon Jove. A belt or girdle, being that part of the dress which holds all the garments together, signifies "the external bond which connects and keeps in order all the interior things," (A. C. 9372); it therefore. Also, signifies "conjunction, by which all things are kept in their order." (A. C. 7863.) From this it may appear what was signified in the representative Church by the girdles by which the garments were gathered into one. (A. C. 9828.)

     The girdle of Venus, therefore, is that external bond which holds together in one complex all things of conjugial love, and what is this but the ultimate virtue of chastity, which is the basis of all true love, confidence and conjugial friendship? This is the magic girdle which, with a moral youth, inspires pure love for a maiden, and without it the first essential of conjugial love is impossible. In Heaven "the angels grow cold all over the body at the thought of unchaste love, but grow warm all over the body from chaste love." (C. L. 44.)

     The dove and the turtle-dove by universal consent typify the tender affection between two lovers, but the swan is not usually regarded as an emblem of such love.

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But in the New Church know from "things seen and heard" from heaven, why the Ancients so often associated the swan with Aphrodite.

     In one of the Memorable Relations Swedenborg tells of a lofty palace which he once saw in Heaven, and as he was looking, he beheld a pair of swans fly into this palace through the open windows of the lowest story, while a pair of birds of paradise flew into the windows of the middle and a pair of turtle-doves into the windows of the highest story.

     When I had observed this, an angel, standing by me, said, "Do you understand what you have seen!"

     I replied, "In some small measure.

     He said, "That palace represents the habitations of conjugial love, such as they are in human minds. Its highest part, into which the turtle-doves betook themselves. represents the highest region of the mind, where conjugial love dwells in the love of good with its wisdom; the middle part, into which the birds of paradise entered, represents the middle region, where conjugial love dwells in the love of truth with its intelligence; and the lowest part, where the swans flew in, represents the lowest region of the mind, where conjugial love dwells in the love of what is just and right, with its knowledge." (C. L. 270.)

     The bird of paradise is not associated with the worship of Aphrodite, for the obvious reason that it is a South American bird which was unknown to the ancients. but its place seems to have been taken by a mysterious bird, called "Iynx," or "Frigillus." sacred to this goddess, of which the ancients made much use in amatory magic. But the turtle-dove, symbol of purity, holiness, and tender love, was the constant companion of the goddess of love in every mythological system of the ancient world, from the Ishtar of hoariest Chaldean antiquity, to the Freya of our own immediate ancestors But the clean and graceful swan, snow-white and gentle, is a purely Hellenic attribute of Aphrodite, and they must have derived it as such from the representatives of the spiritual world.


543


NEW CHURCH AND THE AFRICANS 1906

NEW CHURCH AND THE AFRICANS       ARTHUR G. WELLS, A. B       1906

     Concerning the genius and characteristics of the Africans the numerous teachings of the Writings may be summed up in the following quotations: "In heaven the Africans are the most loved of all the gentiles; they receive the goods and truths of heaven more easily than the rest; they wish to be called the obedient, not the faithful." (A. C. 2604) They are "the meekest of all spirits." (S. D. 480.) They are "of the genius in which are the angels in the celestial kingdom." (S. D. 5518) are "more interior than other gentiles," and, in the other life, "readily perceive from interior sight many truths about God, the Lord the Savior, and the interior and external man" (T. C. R. 835, 837) They are of an "interior character" because "they live according to their religion and its laws," and, "more than other nations they are capable of being in illustration." (S. D. 5518-5518 1/2) They "are more receptible of the heavenly doctrines than others on this earth, because they freely receive the doctrine concerning the Lord, having it, as it were, implanted in them that the Lord will appear as a man. (L. J., post. 118.) Of their state with respect to conjugial love we learn that, in the other world, they told Swedenborg "it is indeed permitted them by law to have a plurality of wives, but still they take only one, since love truly conjugial cannot be divided." (Cent. S. W. 77) With this may be compared the well known Relation in the Writings, of the African who, in a discussion concerning the origin of conjugial love and potency, took the prize against representatives of all the European nations; he derived the origin of conjugial love, which he calls "a chaste, pure, and holy love," from God Himself, and its potency from "the state of man's conjunction with the God of the Universe, which state we call a state of religion, but you, a state of the church" The African then received the prize, a turban, which was put "into his hand, but not upon his head. (C. L. 113-114)


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     The above passages, in a summary, comprise the statements of the Writings, with regard to the general characteristics of the Africans

     We also have some teaching as to the existence in Africa "from ancient times" of a Book somewhat similar to our Word. Concerning this we read in the Spiritual Diary, n. 594, "Africans who dwelt in Abyssinia were with line; and it was stated that there are in that land many psalms composed by a pious man, which are sung in their churches, which psalms mere written in a style similar to that of the Word; and as the spirits from that country were unaware that our Word had an influx into heaven, their ears were opened to hear a certain song being sung in a church of theirs on earth; and it was granted me to hear also. They sang about One God, the Redeemer of the human race; and those spirits were then touched with affection of heart to sing it in like manner. And presently their ears were closed, so that they might not hear the singing from those on the earth--which still continued; and then the spirits were affected with great joy from the singing. They said they have such joy sometimes, and intelligence also, but were unconscious that it was from that source. It is similar also with the Word." (See S. S. 108.)

     In the number immediately preceding, it is said, "Furthermore I was conducted in spirit to others in Africa; and this region is known to Europeans, and in the maps is called Ethiopia, where a noble race dwells in tents." (S. D. 5946) And further, from the same work, "The Africans have a book which is to them the Word, written by correspondences by enlightened men." (S. D. 5809.) This book is also mentioned elsewhere in the Writings, where we read, "It was said that in a certain region of Africa there has been from ancient times a book written by correspondences in a similar way to that in which the Word is written with us, and which they regard as holy." (L. J. post. 121.) I think that there can be no doubt that the region here spoken of is Abyssinia, and that the book is the book of Enoch; for Abyssinia is the only non-Mohammedan country in Africa in which reading and writing is used. This book could not be in a Mohammedan country, for it is said that it is considered as the Word, and referred as holy by the people among whom it is, and in Mohammedan countries the Koran also is regarded as the Word.

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This book of Enoch moreover is probably written by correspondences, for it has been in Abyssinia since ancient times, and is written in the style of the Old Testament. It was known by the early Christian Fathers, and is quoted from by St. Jude, but was lost sight of by Europeans, from about the end of the 8th century till, in the year 1773, the traveler Bruce brought 3 complete manuscripts of it to London.

     We now come to the statements in regard to modern revelation in Africa. But before adducing these, it should be premised that the teachings on this subject must be considered together in order to ascertain whether the revelation spoken of is in Africa in this world or in the Africa in the world of spirits. For it is evident that some of them, while apparently treating of this world, are found, on further study, to treated of the spiritual world. It must be remembered, however, that conditions and events in the latter world are causes of conditions and events in this world, and that the genius and internal quality of a nation is the same in both worlds.

     We commence with a quotation from the Continuation concerning the Spiritual World, "Such being the character of the Africans (i. e., interior and receptible of truth), also in the world, there is, at the present day, a revelation among them, which, commencing in the center of their continent, is communicated around, but does not reach the sea. They acknowledge our Lord as the God of heaven and earth, and laugh at the monks in those parts they visit, and at the Christians who talk of a threefold Divinity, and of salvation by mere thinking, saying, that there is no man who worships at all, who does not live according to his religion, and that whoever does not, must become stupid and wicked, because, in such case, he receives nothing from heaven. Ingenious wickedness, too, they call stupidity, because there is not life but death in it. I have heard the angels rejoicing over this revelation, because, by means of it, a communication is opened from them, with the human rational, hitherto closed up by the blind which has been drawn over the things of faith. It was told me from heaven that the truths now published in the Doctrine of the New Jerusalem concerning the Lord, concerning the Word, and in the Doctrine of Life for the New Jerusalem, are orally dictated by angelic spirits to the inhabitants of this portion of the globe." (C. S. W. 76.)


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     The also in the sentence of the number just quoted would certainly seem to indicate that our world was meant, but the last clause of this sentence is either written correspondentially or else treats of the world of spirits, for there is a number to follow which states that the New Church and revelation in Africa in this world is to begin at the entrance of Africa and near the Indian Ocean; and, besides, such a statement would fit conditions in the world of spirits exactly, for there the most enlightened are in the center and those less enlightened round about them, so that their revelation would be received in the center first and afterwards in the circumferences. That the rest of the number, at least to the mention of the rejoicing of the angels over the new revelation, treats of Africans in the world of spirits is evident both from the fact that the inhabitants of Central Africa know nothing about Jesus Christ, and from what the Africans said, for their speech was the speech of the other world rather than of this.

     Before saving anything about the truths from certain books of the Writings being dictated orally to the Africans. I shall quote some more statements bearing on this point. In the Spiritual Diary, n. n 5946, we read, "They (Africans in the world of spirits) afterwards received the Word and read it, but at first did not perceive anything holy, afterwards more and more holy, and then they gave it to their instructors, who said that they had it, but had not divulged the fact. They said that they dictated it to men in Africa, with whom they have communication, as the Lord leads. Hence it is evident that there is now revelation there." It is said in the same number "There was afterwards given to them (those who received the Word) the work on Heaven and Hell, which they received and preserved; also the Last judgment, the Earths in the Universe, and the White Horse, and afterwards the Doctrine of the New Jerusalem, for them to chose what they saw to be useful." From this passage we see that there is actual revelation in Africa on this earth; it may also be seen that the books of the Doctrine of the New Jerusalem, (the truths of which were said to be "orally dictated" to the inhabitants of Africa) was given to Africans in the world of spirits.

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The nature of this revelation and how the truths of the Writings are orally dictated to Africans on this earth is told in the posthumous work in the Last Judgment, no. 124, which says, "At this day some speak with Africans in the world, instructing them orally; this speech falls with them into their interior perception, and they perceive the influx, and thus receive revelations with illustration. Such is the speech that takes place with the instructors."

     We shall now proceed to quote the passages in the Writings which indicate where in Africa this revelation is, and among which of the Africans the New Church is to be established. From Spiritual Diary, n. 4774, we have, "(Certain spirits) afterwards related that they have long had revelations Prom heaven and that thence was their religion, and that it has been promised them that many things should be revealed to them, and finally, touching God. They knew many things about heaven and hell which Christians are ignorant of. It was perceived that those on earth, with whom there is then communication and influx, were about the region of Africa, partly also in Asia, rather near the Indian Sea, but not in the immediate neighborhood of the sea." I think what the spirits related to Swedenborg about their revelations, refers to the world of spirits, for if any nation on this earth had long had revelations we would have heard about it by this time: and, besides, the passages already adduced indicate that the revelation taking place on this earth is a new thing. In regard to the region spoken of there can be no doubt that it lies in Arabia and part of Abyssinia and Ethiopia. It is stated in the next number that the spirits a little to the right of these were told that they were about to receive a new Bible. It also gives their conversation with Swedenborg about this new Bible. Further, we read, "The ones with whom took place the conversation about a bible were a little to the right of the former, as was said; and it was perceived that they were in the entrance to Africa," (S. D. 4776.)

     The words "entrance to Africa" seem to refer to Abyssinia, for the Abyssinians, as was said before, are the only Africans who have a Bible and therefore the only ones who could be said to receive a new Bible.

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The next number, 4777, treats of the course which the Heavenly Doctrine will follow in Africa. "It was afterwards shown in dim vision how that Heavenly Doctrine would proceed in Africa, namely, from this place towards the interior of Africa, but not to the middle of it, and then it would bend itself to those inhabitants who are in the interior of Africa, but nearer to the Mediterranean Sea, and so it would advance lengthwise, but not to the coasts; and then after a time it would turn back through an interior tract even towards Egypt, and also would afterwards advance thence to same in Asia under the Empire of the Turks. and also into Asia round about. Hence the angels were glad that the Lord's Advent is now at hand, and that the Church, which now perishes in Europe, will be established in Africa, and that this will take place from the Lord alone through revelation;, and not through emissaries from the Christians. The people in those countries were also cautioned not to receive any doctrine from Christian missionaries, but that they should indeed hear them, but not believe them. For which reason also that heavenly doctrine is not divulged to those who are near the coasts, for Christians come thither and introduce scandals; for Christians surpass all in believing nothing and in living impiously." I think that the last statement refers to the world of spirits. My last quotation is from the Last Judgment (posthumous), n. 124, "The best and wisest are in the interior of Africa, those who are not good, are near the Mediterranean Sea, near Egypt, and at the Cape of Good Hope. . . . The mountains where are the good ones of Ethiopia are near the middle."

     It had been my intention, in this connection, to discuss the map of Africa, given by Swedenborg in the Spiritual Diary. n. 5946, but space will not permit. It may be remarked, however, that some things which are said or the people in certain reigns cannot apply to this world, but can readily apply to the world of spirits.

     I shall now live a resume of the peoples in Africa with a view of seeing which are the ones who are to receive the New Church and which are not.

     There are three races which together male up practically the whole of the population of Africa, These three races are the Haniites, the Aborigines (which by some are also classed as Hamites), and the Semites.


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     The Hamites are the Egyptians, Moors, Berbers, the nomadic tribes of the Sahara and the Hottentots. Ever since the fall of Ancient Egypt, the Hamites have been proverbially, unreliable, treacherous, and cruel. The Egyptians have been especially noted for their treachery, and the Carthagenians, from whom part of the inhabitants of Tunis, Algiers, and Morocco are descended, have always been noted for their cruelty. Another thing against them is that slavery is an established institution among them, except in Egypt, where it has lately been abolished by the English. All of the tribes mentioned above, except the Hottentots, are Mohametans and live for the most part north of the Sahara, though the Berbers or Mauresques are found mixed with, Negro blood in Darfour, Kordofan, among the herdsmen of the Upper Nile, and east of Sierra Leone on the west coast of Africa. I think these last are those through whose country it was said above (S. D. 4777) that the heavenly doctrine would "turn back," from those near the Mediterranean who had received it, "through an interior tract even towards Egypt, before advancing to some in Asia under the Empire of the Turks." I think also that by those near the Mediterranean are meant the Moors and Berbers. They are Mohametans and many of them are upright and peaceful. Some tribes, however, are the scourge of the Sahara, dealing in slaves and robbing caravans. It would not seem improbable that these Mohametans would be willing to receive the doctrines of the New Church from the neighboring tribes in the interior; and besides the Mohametans in Asia might readily receive the doctrines from their converted co-religionists, but be unwilling to receive from those whom they consider as Gentiles. This, however, is only conjecture.

     The Hottentots live in South Africa. They are a low and degraded race and seem to be an isolated group of the Mongolian branch of Hamites. They have high check bones, a yellowish complexion, and scanty beards, all characteristics of the Mongolian Hamites.

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They are probably among those who are "not good" and dwell at the Cape of Good Hope.

     The aborigines are of two distinct types, the pigmy and the true Negro.

     The pygmies inhabit the thick African jungle of the upper half of the Congo basin and also the isolated bits of jangle in the upper Nile Basin. They are cannibalistic savages, living by hunting, trapping, and robbing, and by trading with the agricultural Negro settlements, which are afraid of them. It is mainly due to them that there are so many dialects in the forest region, for the pygmies are such robbers and cannibals that the Negroes of agricultural communities only ten miles apart dare not visit each other except in large parties. They are of some rise to the Negroes, however, for when Arab raiders approach they warn the Negroes and league with them against the common enemy. Like most savages they are very suspicions, but, when once won over, they become devoted servants; also like most savages they hate civilization and culture. All things considered, I hardly think the New Church is to be established among the pygmies.

     The true Negroes with their characteristic kinky hair, thick lips and broad flat noses are to be found all through Africa, south of the Sahara, either pure blooded or mixed with other races. The pure blooded Negroes are to be found mainly on the eastern coast, all through the basin of the Niger, all through the lower part of the Congo basin, in German Southwest Africa, and all along the western coast from Sierra Leone to the Cape of Good Hope. In Western Africa they are savages and to some extent cannibals, but are not as vicious as the pygmies. These are the same race of Negroes from whom slaves were taken to be used on the plantations in the South. These Negroes have proved quite docile and teachable under the influence of civilization, but I do not think that the Negroes in Western Africa nor their brothers in America are the ones among whom is revelation; for, in Providence, most of the African missionaries from Christendom go to Western Africa to make converts, and it was quoted above from the Writings that even the Africans in the other world with whom Christian missionaries communicate are not given revelation lest the missionaries should introduce scandals.


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     The Negroes of the agricultural communities in the forest region, surrounded by the pygmies, are gentle and industrious. They clear the forest and grow manioc, corn, and bananas in the clearings. Though they are naturally gentle, however, the pygmies and Arab raiders molest them so often that their villages are well fortified with walls, and paths studded with poisoned stakes, and they themselves are good fighters. These also, I think, have not revelation; for amidst such conditions they would not be apt to receive or even care about revelation. Besides, a passage quoted above, (S. D. 4777), says that the Doctrine is to start in the East and not to reach the middle; these Africans, however, live west of the middle. There are also some pure blooded Africans in the upper Nile basin and in the Lake Region, but I wilt treat of these together with the Semitic inhabitants of that part of Africa.

     The Semites are the Arabs, the Abyssinians and the Ethiopic tribes which extend from Abyssinia through the upper Nile basin, through the lake region, and into South Africa. The Arabs are found all through Northern Africa it the countries bordering on the Mediterranean. They are evidently not those with whom there is revelation, for they are Mohametans, and the Mohametans are treated of separately in the Writings, so we will pass on to the Abyssinians.

     There are three great tribes or races in Abyssinia. The principal is Semitic and comprises the ancient Abyssinians and the Abyssinian Jews; the second is Negroid in features and has thick hair which verges on woolliness; the third is called the Calla, and has somewhat Semitic features, but the lips are thickish and the hair kinky.

     The Ancient Abyssinian stock is Christian, and has been so since about 350 A. D. The Abyssinian Church, however, has been distinct from the Churches of Europe ever since the year 451, when the fourth Oecumenical council met at Chalcedon and condemned the doctrine of Eutyches, its leader, who taught that after the death of Jesus Christ the human nature was absorbed into the Divine nature. This doctrine, though not correct, still preserved the Divinity of Christ and His oneness with the Father, and is far better than the doctrine of the tri-personality of God hatched out by Athanasius, or, than the doctrine of Arius, that Christ was merely a man.

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After this council the Church in Euwas merely a man. After this council the Church in Europe paid rope paid little attention to the Church in Abyssinia, Lord soon lost sight of it. It was then unknown to Europe till 1540, when the Abyssinians besought the Portuguese to aid them in defending their country against Goranie, Sultan of Natal. The Portuguese complied, and soon sent traders and missionaries to them, who were well received. The Portuguese missionaries gained so much influence over the king and his family that they persuaded him to formally unite the Church of Abyssinia to the see of Rome. But the people and priests objected so strongly that ultimately, in i632, all the Catholic priests in Abyssinia were expelled or put to death. After that the country again same into oblivion till 1770, when the traveler Bruce explored it. The church there is now national and independent, but its chief priest or Abuna is ordained by the Coptic patriarch of Alexandria. Among the religious books of this church are the Old and New Testaments and the Book of Enoch. Besides baptism (by immersion) and the Holy Supper, they have the rite of circumcision and the observance of the Mosaic laws concerning food, etc., etc.; they also have love feasts like those of the primitive Christians.

     From what is said in the Writings about the Abyssinians or Ethiopians, from their devotion to their religion, and from their possession of the Book of Enoch we would naturally judge that the Abyssinians are a good people, the most enlightened in Africa, and that the revelation spoken of takes place first with them; and yet, according to the reports of travelers to that country their state of mothers and morals "is as low as might be looked for in a country so long a prey to anarchy and violence." "Human life is lightly valued, the administration of justice is barbarously negligent and corrupt, and the marriage bond is tied and loosely with extreme facility." "The land generally yields at least two crops annually; but the agriculture is miserable, and the condition of the lower classes proportionately wretched."

     Now before judging, from what is said in the Writings, that the travelers have given false reports, I think we would do well to call to mind the state of the gentiles, especially of the Greeks and Romans, at the time of the Lord's first coming into the world, and at the time of the Apostles, and to contrast it with the state of the Jews at that time, for history repeats itself.


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     The Greeks were sunk lower from their pristine virtue and glory than ever before, and were in many grievous sins; that the Romans were in, if anything, a Averse condition is shown by Paul in the first chapter of his epistle to the Romans, in which he enumerates their sins and evil practices. The Jews on the other hand were at this time more obedient to the laws of the Old Testament than ever before, and were externally incarnations of righteous conduct.

     Now, if the Greeks and Romans, who had such evil practices, and were so corrupt, could receive the Doctrine of the Lord in His First Coming, what reason have we to suppose that the Abyssinians, (who though they have grievous faults, are not nearly so corrupt as were the Greeks and Romans), cannot receive the Doctrine of the Lord in his Second Coming. We also know full well from the Writings that though the Christian world is highly civilized and abounding in natural good and truth it is internally dead and corrupt.

     We now pass on to the Semitic tribes in the interior. They extend from the southern part of Abyssinia through the upper Nile basin, the lake region, and down into South Africa, wherever there are grass-lands, for they are herdsmen. The Gallas mentioned above are a Mohametan tribe of this race. As to where these tribes with kinky hair but Arab features came from I shall quote Stanley. "The herdsmen of the lake region are true descendants of the Semitic tribes, or communities, which emigrated from Asia across the Red Sea and settled on the coast, and in the uplands of Abyssinia once known as Ethiopia." "From this great center more than a third of the inhabitants of Inner Africa have had their origin." "As they pressed southward and conquered the Negro tribes, intermarriage produced a mixture of races; the Semitic became tainted with Negro blood, the half-caste tribes intermarried again with the primitive race, and became still more degraded in feature and form, and in the course of ages lost almost all traces of their extraction from the Asiatic peoples." As the Semitic tribes advanced, wherever there was not pasture land they left isolated groups of pure-blooded Negro agriculturalists, and even in the grass-lands there are quite a few Negro tillers of the soil.


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     The herdsmen are warlike, but very obedient to the government laws in their own kingdom. Another good quality they have is respect for women. They give their women certain rights which may not be infringed upon. The only trace of a religion among them, however, is a belief in a certain evil spirit in the form of a man, whom they seek to propitiate by dedicating a certain part of their produce to him. The Negroes live on amicable terms with the herdsmen, but at the same time are looked down upon by them as an inferior race. They are meek and unwarlike. What is said in the Writings about the good Africans in the interior of Africa applies in some cases to the Negroes and in other cases to the Semitic tribes. For example, the statement that they are the meekest of spirits, and the statement that they are the blackest of the Africans evidently apply to the Negroes, while the statements about their treatment of missionaries and the statement that they like to discuss the things of religion (S. D. 5946) apply to the Semitic tribes. On this account of think that the nations in interior Africa composed of Negro and Semitic tribes are meant in the Writings by the good Africans in the interior.

     Having thus attempted to show which of the Africans are receiving the revelation spoken of in the Writings, I shall end this paper with a few remarks on the nature of that revelation. The following extract from the Writings, already quoted, gives us the key-note on this point, "At this day some speak with Africans in the world instructing them orally; this speech falls with them especially into their interior perception, and they perceive the influx and thus receive revelations with illustration." "Such is the speech which takes place with the instructors." (L. J, post., 124.) From this passage it may be seen that the revelation spoken of is not an external revelation like the Bible or the Writings, but is an enlightenment from within. This internal enlightenment will, in time, doubtless result in external enlightenment, for everything internal, sooner or later, has its effect in the external. The Abyssinians will doubtless become more civilized and receive more and more enlightenment from the Bible until they are ready to receive the Writings.

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I believe that the Writings are the "new Bible" promised to the Abyssinians (S. D. 4775), for the Writings are the Word of the Lord in His Second Coming to all nations,-the new Bible which is to enlighten the world. The tribes in the interior will doubtless receive something of civilization and then the Bible, either from Abyssinia or from the Christian converts near the eastern coast. By means of the Bible they will doubtless become more and more civilized and enlightened till they also will receive the Writings, and then the Lord's New Church will be established in its fulness in Africa.


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"JOHNNY APPLESEED." 1906

"JOHNNY APPLESEED."       CYRIEL LJ. ODHNER       1906

     A SKETCH

     I.

     A GARDEN IN THE WILDERNESS.

     Light was dawning over the broad Ohio one summer morning in the year 1806. Just as the sun's rays first pierced the darkness of the forest that stretched interminable on either side of the river, the all-pervading silence was broken by the sound of a hymn:--

     "Behold the tabernacle of God is now with men,

     And He will dwell among them and heal their grief and pain. And be that overcometh shall be the Father's heir.

     Within the Holy City, and dwell forever there."

     As the rich, full voice came nearer, two canoes appeared gently drifting down the river. One of them, laden with sacks, was fastened to the other, which contained the singer, a tall, young man, with a spare, sinewy frame, dressed in the buckskin garb of the frontiersman.

     He glanced to the right and left, and finally landed where a small stream joined the river, and there, in a natural clearing on the bank, he deposited his sacks.

     Working lustily with pickaxe and spade, he quickly prepared the ground for planting, and then opening his sacks took out handfuls of appleseeds which he put into the ground with great care. All day he toiled, but when the sun was going down he laid aside his tools, Unlade a small fire, and began to prepare his evening meal, and to set up camp for the night.

     Before retiring he took out a memorandum book and under the date of July 20, 1806, made the following entry:

     "I drifted seven miles during the night, found a good place for planting on the Ohio about six miles west of Steubenville, and have put in my first orchard. May heaven grant that my labor be of some use to the settlers whom the prospects of the future may bring to this western land of promise, a land flowing with milk and honey for those who will but renounce idle pleasure and turn their faces to the setting sun."


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     The explorer then brought out a large book, and as he opened the volume reverentially before him, the red flames of the flickering log fire fell on the pages of The True Christian Religion.

     His devotions finished, the voting man dropped into a quiet sleep. The next morning he commenced his toil again. This day a rude fence was put up to protect the future orchard from the ravages of wild beasts. His task completed, he once more turned his canoe to the west, to plant more seeds in other places.

     This lonely toiler in the wilderness was Jonathan Chapman, better known as "Johnny Appleseed," who was born at Springfield, Massachusetts, in the year 1775, a man who, filled with a boundless love for his fellow beings, without a thought of recompense, prepared the way for future settlers, while at the same time he sowed, wherever he found a listening ear, the more precious seeds of the new Divine Revelation which the Lord had revealed in the fulness of time.

     II.

     A LOG-CABIN.

     The suit was disappearing, and his last rays found their way through the open door of a tilde log cabin. Before the fireplace were gathered a man and his wife with a large family of children. They were weary with the day's hard labor, and evening and rest were always welcome. The man's countenance bore the marks of much exposure, but his set features told" of a firm determination which was well backed by a strong, manly physique. Such men as this were needed to build up our country, men who would dare the task of settling in the wilderness, with danger as their next door neighbor, deprivation and labor as their constant companions. The woman was less robust, yet the courage that told of New England stock was not lacking in her comely face.

     Although the single large room, containing all the family belongings, was homely and rudely furnished, there was still an air of comfort, and peace, the element most essential to a home, be it cottage or palace, reigned undisturbed in this abode.


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     While the husband and wife were speaking to one another in low, earnest tones, a stranger entered.

     "Ah! Johnny Appleseed," said the father, "you are welcome, as always, to our cottage." The garb of the visitor consisted of a coffee-sack with holes cut in it for the arms and the head. This was for a number of years the only kind of garment he wore. Instead of a hat he wore on his head an inverted mush pot, which, on occasion, could be made useful as well as ornamental. His feet were bare, and by their looks had seen many a hard day's journey through the forest.

     But it was not the peculiar figure nor costume that held the attention when one looked of Johnny Appleseed, but the wonderful clear, blue eyes. You had to look a second time to fathom the tenderness, the courage, the determination within their depths.

     Johnny entered, threw himself before the fire, and opening a book before him, began to explain its contents.

     "My friends, here is news right fresh from heaven."

     And his hearers, wrapped in wonder, would listen while he told of the glorious New Church that was to descend from heaven to be the crown of churches upon the earth. He earnestly implored them to look to the Lord for light, and to pray that their hearts be kept from evil.

     "The last time you were here, Johnny," said his host, "you gave me some chapters from a book called Heaven and Hell. Have you brought some more this time? There are many questions I should like to ask about this wonderful book. But how do you get books enough to supply so large a region as you distribute these writings over?"

     Johnny smiled. "You may think my method peculiar. I get the books from judge Young, in Greensburg, my friend and fellow worker in the Lord's vineyard. He gives me, for instance, one of these writings of Emanuel Swedenborg, which I take with me on my journey. At the first cabin on my way I leave the first few pages or chapters, then proceed to the next house, and so on, at each place leaving a few sheets. Then, on my return trip, I collect these sheets again, giving the next in order; and so on until each family has read the book through. In this way a few books may do for a library."


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     Long they sat there, the rough backwoodsman and the enthusiastic missionary, talking of the wonderful new revelation. What joy it was to the husband and wife to hear the welcome promise of a reunion in the other world, and a life of real uses instead of mere idle existence such as they had been taught was the life of angels. And as he spoke, the eyes of the missionary shone with the fire of zeal for the Truth, his tongue was inspired with simple eloquence, and the hearts of the hearers glowed within them. Forgotten was the curious habit of the evangelist, and forgotten the rumor that he was but a half-witted vagabond who had lost his senses during a long illness, alone in the forests. It is said that after some years he resumed more civilized garments.

     III.

     JOHNNY VERSUS METHODISM.

     Out on a clearing were gathered a number of pioneers from all the neighboring country. They were listening to the excited words of a preacher, who, standing on an overturned barrel, thus addressed his audience:

     "My friends, only believe in the Son! be washed in the blood of the lamb, and you shall be whiter than snow, and sit on the right hand of God and rule over heaven. For if you do not believe you shall be among the damned and burn forever in the fire of Hell. The world is to be destroyed by the anger of God! The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and no man knoweth when the vials of wrath are to be poured forth. The only salvation is by Faith alone. Think of the faith of the early Christian martyrs, how they renounced the world and died, and sealed their faith with their blood! Where now is the primitive Christian who cared nothing for the vanities and comforts of the world, but only for their reward in Heaven?"

     The orator paused to catch his breath and looked fiercely upon the company.

     "Here is Your primitive Christian," came the unexpected answer, from a man who had been lying stretched out on a log in the sun, and now lifted his bare and muddy feet into the air.

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It was Johnny Appleseed, clad in the picturesque garb described before. The Methodist was dumbfounded, but the people laughed heartily.

     Some one called loudly, "Come, Johnny, you also have told us of God and the life to come, but Your words were very different from those we have heard today. Have at hill, Johnny!"

     At this the Methodist, who was an ignorant circuit rider, grew very angry. "Let him try," he shouted. "Does not the Bible say that we were all accursed for Adam's sin, and that the only salvation is in believing in the blood of Christ, the Sea, who was crucified to propitiate the wrath of God the Father?"

     "Nay, there you are wrong," Johnny interrupted, "for God is Love itself, and Divine Love cannot be angry. Is not God Wisdom itself? What wisdom or justice is there in transferring the sins of one person to another? The Scriptures say, 'The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father.' For 'to every man it is given according to his works,' and the Lord says, 'He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me.'"

     To this the preacher answered, "Paul says, man is saved by faith alone without the deeds of the law."

     "You are wrong again," returned Johnny Appleseed. "By this is meant the Jewish ceremonial law, which was no longer necessary, but not the laws of charity. And the term 'alone' is not in the original text, but was inserted by Luther to emphasize his doctrine."

     "But, you abandoned heretic, if you deny the salvation by faith alone, you deny also the vicarious atonement, nay, the whole doctrine of the Trinity, which is the cornerstone of the Christian Religion!"

     "Truly I believe in the Trinity," answered Johnny, "but not like you, in three persons, each of whom is God.. What is this but three gods! And yet you call yourself a Christian, and cry out for the primitive Christian! Shame upon you! Did not the primitive Christian believe that in Jesus Christ, and in Him alone, dwelleth the Fullness of the God-head bodily! Did not the primitive Christian believe that Jesus Christ, and He alone, is the true God and life eternal. Where, then, are your three Divine Persons?

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Little children, keep yourselves from idols! Let all here who believe in one God, even Christ alone, hold up their hands."

     The hands of the entire assembly flew up with one accord, and the circuit rider, enraged and vainly expostulating, beat a rapid retreat, vowing that he would keep his eyes open after this for any more such "primitive Christians."

     IV.

     A RACE FOR LIFE.

     One evening in the town of Mansfield, Ohio, in the year 1814, all the people were gathered together in the blockhouse, which stood in the center of the town for the protection of its inhabitants in times of peril. The voices of women and children raised in loud cries and excited speech told of expected, calamity. The news of General Hull's surrender of Detroit to the British had just come like a thunderbolt on the frontier, and men were listening with horror written on their faces to the words of a messenger, who breathless, gasped out his dreadful story:

     "Yes, there are hands of hostile Indians from the north roaming around in the forest, destroying everything before them, murdering women and children. We may any moment expect an attack."

     Even the sturdy backwoodsmen, used as they were to danger, grew pale at this word, and gazed at the panic stricken women.

     One tough old trapper strode up to the commander of the blockhouse. "What can we do?" he demanded. "Did I not tell you that it was unwise to let so many of the troops leave this blockhouse at a time like this, with hardly a dozen men in the garrison for protection? What can we do now? We, a petty score or so of men, poorly armed, against a host of red devils, Indians and British. Think quickly. Is there no way to get word to Captain Douglass at Mt. Vernon?"

     The suggestion was met on all sides with cries of dismay. The leader called in vain for volunteers. Who would venture out on a trip of thirty miles through the forest at night, over a newly cut road? Thirty miles of wilderness infested with savage beasts and still more savage men? It would be sheer madness.


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     Despair had reached its crisis. Finally the words of the old trapper rang out. "Is there not among us one hero who will risk his life to save the settlement?"

     In the intense silence that followed, while men looked into each other's strained faces, no one noticed the tall, lank figure of a stranger who had quietly entered, and now stirred the whole assembly with the words, quietly, meekly spoken, "I'll go."

     Bareheaded, barefooted and unarmed, Johnny Appleseed undertook the journey on foot over the newly blazed trail.

     As he sped by the isolated cabins, he would rouse the inmates and bid them fly to the blockhouse. Many a family was awakened that night by a piercing voice uttering the prophetic words.

     "The spirit of the Lord is upon me, and He hath, anointed me to blow the trumpet in the wilderness and sound the alarm in the forest. For behold, the tribes of the heathen are round about your doors, and a devouring flame followeth after them."

     Then the wild looking herald of danger, refusing food or rest, would disappear again into the moonlit night, leaving the prophetical words still ringing in the ears of his listeners.

* * * * * * * * * *

     Once as he ran, gasping for breath, the silence of the forest was refit by a wild war-whoop, and the next instant the savages were upon him with raised tomahawks, ready to strike.

     Some of the foremost had seized him, when one of the hand called out in the Indian tongue, "Nay, he is harmless. He is a medicine man, and a friend of the Indians." And another shouted, "Yes, he is a white prophet, who has helped many of our people with his curing herbs. He will not harm the red man."

     So Johnny, pushed through them, calling and gesticulating "Do not stop me, I command thee, by the hand of Gitchie Manito, the mighty. For the spirit of the Lord is upon me, and he hath anointed me to blow the trumpet in the wilderness, and to traverse the forest by night. Disperse, ye tribes of the heathen, and lay not hands on me."

     His words and actions, together with his peculiar dress and eccentric manner, were well suited to impress the Indians and they drew back, allowing him to pass, while each touched his head with a finger, as though to say Johnny was crazy, and therefore sacred.


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     With a prayer of thanks for its deliverance, the brave man again pursued his mission.

     All night he traveled in the wilderness, and just as dawn was breathing, rushed planting into the fort at Mt. Vernon, and rousing the garrison, informed the commander of the state of affairs at Mansfield. So rapid was the journey that the next day Johnny a, rived with the troops, and the colony was saved. He had made sixty miles between sunset and sunset.

     V.

     DEPARTING WEST.

     Johnny Appleseed seemed to live a charmed life. During the whole of the war of 1812, although roaming among the infested forest by day and night, he was never wounded. The courage with which he bore physical stiffener, his skill in the healing arts, but most of all his generous and kindly nature, made him an admired and welcome guest wherever he went, both with the Indians and the white man. He never carried a weapon, believing it wrong to kill any living thing. Many amusing stories are told about him, founded on this peculiarity.

     Another way in which his generous heart showed itself was in his fondness for old, broken down horses. It was his hobby to collect these poor, overworked beasts and keep them in a kind of hospital until they were strong again. Then he would lend them out to places where he knew they would be well taken care of.

     He was very fond of children, especially little girls, who all loved him and looked forward to his visits with keen anticipation Whenever he came he brought these tiny admirers a collection of bright colored calicoes and pieces of ribbon. These were very much prized by the little western maidens to whom silks and satins were almost unknown.

     It was a common thing to find Johnny Appleseed surrounded by all the children of the settlement, telling them stories and wonderful things about their Heavenly Father and the kingdom of the angels, with many another beautiful truth, which delighted their young, untaught hearts.


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     The steady march of civilization turned the Ohio territory, which only a few years back was a wilderness, into a prosperous and settled country.

     In 1830, Jonathan Chapman, thinking that his mission called him farther west to plant orchards against the coming of settlers, solemnly bade farewell to his friends. With words of encouragement and admonition he gave them his blessing, and again turned his face to the unknown west "to seek new lands and stranger destinies."

     VI.

     THE DEATH OF "JOHNNY APPLESEED."

     The sun was sinking and the shadows grew deeper on the hillside, as an old man wearily climbed toward a cottage on the summit. The wanderer paused, and gazed wistfully at the late winter sunset which yet held a prophecy of coming spring,

     Always a wanderer on the face of the earth, this man had never tasted the joys of a home of his own. Love has indeed come to him in youth, but its blessings were not to be his in this world.

     He had imposed upon himself a burden that was humble, yet heavy to bear, and of earthly reward there was none. But the true nobility of the task satisfied his simple, true-hearted soul; to show men the way to heaven, and to help them in their earthly struggles, had been his whole ambition.

     He had never before, this day felt old, but now, all at once, his seventy-two years seemed to weigh heavily upon him. He had been on another trip of inspection to his orchards in the State of Indiana, and now was arrived at the house of Mr. Worth, near Ft. Wayne.

     The family gave him a hearty welcome, but were sorry to see their once so lively friend in so feeble a condition. He partook of some slight refreshment and begged that he might hold family worship.


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     In the night he grew worse, and in a few hours was beyond medical aid, just as dawn was breaking he called them all to his bedside.

     "My friends, my mission in this world is now completed. The finger of the Lord has touched me. He beckons me home. The clouds are lifting, and the veil is drawn. Oh, may the Holy Spirit guide you, and show you the path to heaven. Love one another and comfort the afflicted. Oh, Father, let the light of thy Wisdom shine among men that they nay see in the darkness, and that at last all may receive they Truth."

     The voice of the dying man grew faint, and his pulse beat low. For a few minutes all was silence. Then he continued: "Behold, the dawn is breaking and I see before me a glorious city in the clouds of heaven; a city of eternal day the New Jerusalem wherein the sun shall never go down. Lo, I am floating in a golden vessel to that celestial shore, and the purest angels lift me gently, gently, and with a kiss they welcome me to life eternal."

     So with a smile on his lips Johnny Appleseed entered the gates of that heavenly city which had been his goal through all his wanderings,

     His was a heart as pure as the apple blossoms he loved so well, casting its beauty and fragrance over all that came in contact with him.

     Every springtime there is renewed in the West he memory of his good deeds, which still bear fruit. And who shall count the fruits of those spiritual seeds which he so diligently sowed?


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Editorial Department 1906

Editorial Department       Editor       1906

     NOTES AND REVIEWS.

     The American Swedenborg Society has issued the fifth volume of its Library Edition of the Arcana Coelestia. This brings the work to number 4228, and includes the exposition of the thirty first chapter of Genesis.

     The Rev. E. A. Beaman has been contributing a series of articles to the columns of the Messenger, which were warmly introduced by an editorial wherein they were described as goodly reflections of a ripe and mature mind. Mr. Beaman's design is to give a fundamentally new understanding of the leading doctrines of the Church. In carrying it out, however, he gives neither anything fundamentally "new," nor any "understanding" of the doctrines, but, on the other hand grafts old heresies on a misunderstanding of the doctrines if indeed the later have been taken much into consideration, which seems doubtful.

     Thus in his paper on Revelation he says: "At the time of what is called Incarnation, a fear, had advanced into the, style of a higher consciousness of the Divine Omnipresence. This resulted in a greatly improved revelation. It has been ascribed to a special coming of the Lord. But all that was special, we are now compelled to believe, was not in any change in what the Lord did, but in human recipiency." (The italics are Mr. Beaman's.) These words are prefaced by the dictum that "God-our God-never had anything to do with Revelation as commonly received;" and the essay is concluded by an assurance to the reader that if he accepts the teachings of the author he will find himself "in possession of a theology which will surely bear the test of the brighter light of his perception." It may be so: but will it bear the test of the light of Divine Truth, which reaches that the Lord Himself came on earth to reveal Himself and to conquer the hells?


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     It is little wonder that a writer holding such views as to the Lord's Revelation of His Divine Human, should readily become an expounder of other equally "new" understanding of the doctrines; and we are not surprised when Mr. Beaman advocates, in his latest essay, the abolition of all public worship and the substitution for it, of buildings which shall be scenes of the "uses of love and charity" such as are genera by represented in the term "people's palaces." The wonder is, not in Mr. Beaman's effusions, but in their favorable reception by the Messenger.


     In a sermon delivered before the Cincinnati Society the Sunday after the meeting of the General Convention, the late Rev. L. P. Mercer gives some timely and needed rebuke to the opinions of those who would see the New Church everywhere except in the acknowledgment of the Lord in His Second Corning. The burden of his discourse is "that the New Church grows by, the Divine truths opened in the heavenly doctrines revealed from the Word, is qualified by the life of them, and does not exist apart from the knowledge and life of them." And looking from this central principle he points out "that this wave of enthusiasm for companionship, for finding men and women who are really of the New Church in all classes of Christians, among reformers out of the churches, and in all the strenuous activities which witness to a new age this tendency to self-depreciation and to the belittling of the organized New Church, with the hope of its unconscious yet efficient establishment in the goodness and good works of those who know nothing of the truths of the church..... that this activity of awakened conscience, so manifest in some of the addresses and speeches in the Convention is in its first stages of hysterical anxiety, rather than in the sane faith of intelligent trust in the Lord and His revealed method of planting and extending his New Church." And further on in the same discourse, he directs himself more specifically, to the apparently growing tendency in the church "to explain the slow growth of the church by the suggestions of its unconscious spread among good people who are ignorant of its truths, and to mistake the general growth of tolerance and the expression of good sense, for a perception of spiritual truth, to conjure up substitutes for the ordinances of the Word . . . as a means of teaching and winning men to the knowledge and love of spiritual life."

568


"One listening to some of these suggestions in Convention might ask: Do our people seek a panacea, a religious specific that shall cure everything without intelligence, temptation, or effort, and make us all wise, good, and happy by tomorrow's midday?"

     There is more in the discourse to the same effect, but the words we have quoted will sufficiently show the alarm with which Mr. Mercer viewed a tendency to "broadened" views which is not confined merely to a few in the Convention and its leaders. Mr. Mercer's arrayal of this tendency, interiorly destructive of the distinctive existence of the New Church, constitutes almost his last official utterance.


     Members of the General Church who have not yet responder to the Secretary's Circular respecting the Census now being taken, are earnestly requested to supply the desired information without delay, so that a full report can be published in an early number of the Life.
BOOKS RECEIVED 1906

BOOKS RECEIVED              1906

     Arcana Coelestia. Library Edition. Vol V. American Swedenborg Society.

     Commentary or the Gospel of Matthew. Compiled from the works of Emanuel Swedenborg, by Robert S. Fischer and Louis G. Hoeck. Massachusetts New Church Union.

     Swedenborg och Nya Kyrkan, (Swedenborg and the New Church). A popular edition, by the Rev. C. J. N. Manby. Nykyrkliga Bokforlaget, Stockholm.

     Spinoza and Religion, by E, E, Powell. The Open Court Publishing Co.

     The Vocation of Man, by Johann Gottlieb Fichts. The Open Court Publishing Co.


569


Church News 1906

Church News       Various       1906

     FROM OUR CORRESPONDENTS.

     PHILADELPHIA, PA. At the semi-annual meeting after services on June 10th it was decided to suspend services on the following Sunday and resume same on September 2d. At this meeting Mr. Samuel Simons was chosen secretary of the Society.

     At the closing services on June 17th the Holy Supper was administered to thirty communicants.

     Owing to the kind invitation of the Bryn Athyn church to celebrate the 17th of June with them, the Advent Church had no special celebration of the day. The sermon on June 17th dealt with the significance of the 19th.

     The Young folk's class has also been discontinued for the summer. R.

     PITTSBURGH, PA. At the cordial invitation of Dr. Heilman and family arrangements were made for the Pittsburgh friends to spend the nineteenth of June at their country home, an ideal spot lip the Allegheny Valley R. R., about two miles back of White Rock station.

     A happy party of over fifty-two men, women and children boarded the special car provided for them at East Liberty station at 8:25 A. M. About it 11 A. M. all had reached the sylvan spot the Heilmans call and were accorded a hearty welcome by that same delightful family. As soon as babies and baskets were disposed of our pastor, the Rev. N. D. Pendleton, called us together for a short service, which consisted of the Lord's Prayer and reading from T. C. R. concerning the sending out of the twelve apostles on June 19th, followed by the singing of "Our Glorious Church."

     After the service luncheon was set out picnic fashion on the tables made by the Heilman boys, and when our ravenous appetites were somewhat appeased, Mr. Pendleton rose to make a few remarks. One thing he said, which voiced the sentiment of everyone present, was: "I think I can safety say that this picnic is a complete success; in fact, it is the n test delightful 19th we have had in many years."


570



     Mr. Jacob Schoenberger then made a few remarks from the opposite end of the table, referring to the delightful sphere, which, he said, was largely due to the fact that we were a united New Church party on this occasion, cut off from even a suggestion

     Then Dr. Heilman rose from his seat at the center of the table, and said: "if the sphere seems delightful to you people, what must it be to us, who are so isolated? I cannot find words to express to you what this is to us, and we hope that you will all come out often." With a few more words in this strain he sat down amid hearty applause.

     It should here be mentioned that much of the success of the celebration was owing to the excellent management of Mr. Walter Faulkner.

     After the luncheon was cleared away, the afternoon contests bean. There wore races by the boys, large and small, by the girls, by the married men, and even the married women took their turn. There were foot races, three-legged races, sack races, ball throwing, the lead-put, and contests in jumping. One very amusing contest was the potato race by the married ladies, won by Mrs. Lindsay. When the prizes came to be awarded, the Lindsay family proved to be prize winners--all but two of the eight present won a prize, some two, and Mr. Edgar Lindsay won three--the fastest runner, the farthest thrower and the champion lead-putter at the "pushing contest," as one of the ladies defined it. A very heavy, weight was propelled through the air by a forward push of the hand, throwing or pitching not allowed.

     A unique feature of the prizes was that each winner received a large gilded medal attached to a ribbon to hang around the neck. These medals, which Mr. Ben. D. Fuller had cast at the Westinghouse works, were made of iron. On them, in plain, good sized letters, were cast the words, "White Rock, June 19th, 1906, winner." They were rather heavy to wear as ornaments, but the prize winners were so proud of the distinction that they stood the discomfort for most of the afternoon,


571




     The Academy Look Room was represented at this picnic, as our enterprising book agent grouped a number of the Academy publications around a picture of Swedenborg on some old steps under a tree.

     After the contests were over, some of the ladies and all the children had rides on Glen Heilman's little pony. Some amused themselves with the fine swing that Mr. Marlin Heilman had hung for the occasion, while those of a more serious turn of mind sat about in little groups, conversing. Still others wandered through the woods to gather ferns, through the fields for wild flowers, down to the spring for a delicious drink, or up on the hills to see the distant mountains.

     At tea time the baskets were opened, and all were gathered around the festive board once more. After baskets and babies were again made ready for the wagon ride, we started on our homeward journey. The hour's ride was spent in singing the dear old songs from the little song book. The time passed quickly, and we soon reached East Liberty once more, and all dispersed to their several homes, carrying with them happy memories of June Nineteenth, 1906.

     Almost as lively as this picnic was our semi-annual Church meeting on the evening of June 6th. Our treasurer, Mr. S. S. Lindsay reported a goodly surplus to the society's credit, the first in many a year, and the good news took us off our feet.

     The summer days have marked the departure of a large portion of our society, on vacations, and during the month of August. Sunday services have been suspended. Mr. Pendleton and his family are summering in Bryn Athyn.

     Miss Lucy Boggess, of Middleport, and Mr. Hubert N. Hicks, of Bryn Athyn, have been making extended visits to the Smoky City; Miss Mabel Lindh, of Chicago, and Miss Nellie Smith, of Bryn Athyn, have made us flying visits; Mr. John Pitcairn and Mr. Seymour Nelson have also been seen hereabouts.

     MIDDLEPORT, O. The nineteenth of June was celebrated here this year by a supper at the home of Mrs. Esther Grant. Toasts and songs, together with several very interesting speeches on appropriate subjects, served to make the occasion most delightful and one long to be remembered.

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The following afternoon the Sunday School had a picnic, which, notwithstanding the threatening weather, was greatly enjoyed by all the children as well as by a number of the older people. We have also had a book social, where each one represented the title of some well known book. There were many clever and mirth provoking representations, which kept everyone's wits nimbly working the greater part of the evening in the attempt to guess them.

     A very pleasant afternoon was spent by the ladies of the society at the home of Mrs. Gladish, who entertained in honor of Miss Clara Wallenberg, of Chicago.

     The society held its semi-annual meeting July 1st. After the secretary's report the pastor, Mr. Gladish, gave his report, after which he added a very useful and interesting, talk on the general welfare of the society.

     At the Sunday evening class we have recently completed the reading of Divine Love and Wisdom. Since their the meetings, have been discontinued until September. A. E. D.

     GLENVIEW, ILL. Somewhat different from Bryn Athyn, the summer population of Glenview is increasing, and we are looking forward to more visitors.

     Our celebration of the Nineteenth of June covered two days--the 19th and the 20th. A morning service at which many Sharon church people were present; an attempted base ball game which was called off on account of the rain, and a banquet in the evening, were the special features of the first day. The morning of the 20th, children's day, was spent in playing games; at noon a dinner was served at the club house, for young and old, more than 130 being present. In the afternoon the Glenview school children presented a play, "King Persifer's Crown. They had learned it before school closed under the supervision of the teachers, and judging from the applause, it was a success.

     The Immanuel Church celebrated July, 4th after a rational fashion, and, be it understood, to the loudly expressed satisfaction of those who might have been expected to miss fireworks. The program for the day embraced a picnic dinner: a flag raising, with songs, and a procession; a closely contested game of base ball; a supper at the club house for young and old, and a patriotic play in the evening, followed by a jolly good dance. E. J.


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     BERLIN, ONT. The Nineteenth of June was celebrated by the Carmel church with a banquet, at which over eighty persons were present. The leading idea in the toasts was that of discipleship and apostleship-the calling together of the twelve disciples in the spiritual world being their discipleship, or their state as learners, and their sending forte being their state as apostles or workers in the Lord's Kingdom. It was shown that what was done on the Nineteenth of June, 1770, at the institution of the church, must be done at this day that the church may be perpetuated: those of the church must be disciples or learners, and thereby become apostles or workers in the church. Dr. Schnarr responded to the toast: "Discipleship in the New Church," Mr. Rudolf Roschman to "Apostleship in the New Church:" Mr. John Schnarr to "The General Church of the New Jerusalem," and Mr. Emil Schierholz to "The, Carmel Church." In the two last named toasts the principles set forth in the two preceding were applied to the life of out church bodies. The speeches were excellent, and the celebration one of the most enjoyable we have ever had.

     The school closing took place in the evening of the 22d of June. The program consisted of songs and recitations. In the course of the evening the pastor, on behalf of the Society, presented copies of Conjugial Love to the eleven pupils who left our school a year ago, and spoke to them of the need of their entering upon private reading and study of the Word and the Writings to the end that they may be prepared to become true men and women of the Church.

     On the 2d of July, Dominion Div, the Ladies' Meeting was held at the farm of Mr. and Mrs. Albert Doering, eighteen miles from Berlin. Most of the gentlemen were also present A delightful day was spent, both in the drive there and back, and in the enjoyment of the hospitality of our hosts. Dinner and supper were served on the lawn. During the supper there were toasts, songs and speeches, closing with three hearty cheers for Mr. And Mrs. Doering. W.


574




     THE MISSIONARY FIELD. Randolph, Ont., is the name of a post office in the country, five miles west of Penetaguishene, a little town one hundred and two miles north of Toronto. There is the home of Mr. and Mrs. William Evens, and their family of nine children. Their farms are situated three miles from the Georgian Bay. A fire view is presented of the water and the surrounding country. The writer was with the family from July 3d till 10th. All of us had plenty of work to do, but between times we had many talks, and some readings, on the Doctrines of the Church. On Sunday, July 8th, we held services, with sermon and the administration of use Holy Supper, During the week two picnic trips were also made to points on the Bay, five miles from the Evens's home. The visit was mutually, useful and enjoyable. E. B.

     FROM OUR CORRESPONDENTS.

     UNITED STATES. At the closing exercises of the THEOLOGICAL SCHOOL, at Cambridge, Mass., which were held on June 20th, "certificates of graduation" were presented to Messrs. William H. Beales, Harold S. Conant and Horace H. Werren.

     The members of the Englewood (CHICAGO), Parish tendered a pleasant surprise party to their pastor, the Rev. E. J. E. Schreck, on the occasion of his birthday, June 30th. About seventy persons were present, including nearly all the members and a few visitors. The Society presented Mr. Schreck with a purse of money, and the children of the Sunday School gave a copy of the New Church Birthday Book. Appreciative remarks were made as to Mr. Schreck's work among the young and old, and the hope was expressed that he would remain as their pastor and teacher for many years. Then followed social entertainments and refreshments, the latter including a birthday cake with ten candles, "the number ten being selected on account of the correspondence."

     The funeral services for Mr. Mercer were held in CINCINNATI, O., on Sunday, July 8th. The funeral address was delivered by the Rev. E. J. E. Schreck, who was assisted in the service by the Rev. Messrs. Eaton and King. There was a large attendance, including visitors from other societies and also many strangers. Mr. Mercer was buried "clad in the robes of his sacred calling."


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     The DETROIT, (Mich.), Society reports that it "hopes to be in condition to extend a call to a pastor in the near future." January the services have been conducted by a number of visiting ministers with an average attendance of sixty-seven. There were, also well attended celebrations of Swedenborg's Birthday and of June the Nineteenth.

     The Rev. E. C. Mitchell, who has been pastor of the ST. PAUL, (Minn.), Society for the past thirty-four years, received a pleasant testification of the regard in which he is held by his congregation in the shape of a surprise party, given him on the occasion of his seventieth birthday, July 21st. The birthday cake, when cut by Mr. Mitchell, was found to contain a little box within which were seventy dollars in gold. In thanking the members, Mr. Mitchell expressed encouragement in the work of the Society where during all his pastorate, the members had lived "in peace and love, without quarrels among themselves, or with the minister, or with any other church:" and "he felt especially encouraged by the fact that the young people all remain with the church, and grow up to take the places of the older ones, who are passing into the spiritual world."

     GREAT BRITAIN. In place of the Sunday evening sermon, the Rev. W. T. Large, of PRESTON, on July 22d, gave a spirited address on the subjects referred to in the presidential report to Conference. He wholly deprecated the statistical comparison of the New Church with the Old; New Church men were in the highest sense separatists and only as such could they truly and rightly grow,-a truth "which the Church has not yet grasped." The greatest work now before the Church was, generally, "to 'lick' nor own people into, shape to turn hybrids into real Newchurchmen,--if that be possible; specifically, it is to feed the young with New Church truth in its purity and not adulterated." Commenting on the President's advice not to slacken our efforts in the Church because of the present great modification in theology, Mr. Lardge calls attention to the "mischievous and dangerous fallacy of supposing that the Old Church sets are doing our work for its. He believed that it was solely the fact that men did not like our revelation that made our own people neglect it,--it was unpopular.

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What was the rise of advertising for strangers when our own people did not come to our meetings?" He concluded by saying additional emphasis on the importance of reaching the children. They should be untiringly impressed with the great truths that "the New Church--uncomely as it may be in many respects in its outward garb--is the Crown and Glory of all the Churches in the past, not is to be."
PITTSBURGH DISTRICT ASSEMBLY 1906

PITTSBURGH DISTRICT ASSEMBLY       N. D. Pendleton       1906


     ANNOUNCEMENTS.



     Special Notice.

     The Pittsburgh District Assembly will meet at Middleport, Ohio, Friday evening, October 19th to Sunday 21st, 1906. Members and friends are cordially invited and will be entertained. Kindly advise Mr. Fred G. Davis in time so that all guests may be assigned before the meetings begin.
N. D. Pendleton,
Secretary.
DISCRETE DEGREES AND SPIRITUAL SUBSTANCE 1906

DISCRETE DEGREES AND SPIRITUAL SUBSTANCE       Rev. C. TH. ODHNER       1906



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NEW CHURCH LIFE.
VOL. XXVI.     OCTOBER, 1906.     NO. 10.
     The Doctrine of Creation and the nature of spiritual substance are subjects which of late years have occupied the minds of many. New views and conceptions, drawn from Swedenborg's Scientific and Philosophical works, have been presented from time to time,-views which have appeared so new, so starting, so revolutionary of previous conceptions, that many have been deeply disturbed by the fear that the Doctrine of Discrete Degrees was in danger of being broken down among us; that our thought of spiritual things was in peril of running into materialism; and that God was becoming so identified with the natural universe, that Pantheism seemed to be standing threatening before our doors.

     These fears have been shared in the past by myself as much as by any one, but they have gradually disappeared as I have entered upon a re-examination of the Doctrine of the Church relating to these subjects, especially during the past summer, when, in addition, I have had the opportunity of studying and reflecting upon a forthcoming work by Miss Beekman, which presents in an epitome a systematic general view of the doctrine of creation as set forth in Swedenborg's Philosophical works.

     AN OUTLINE OF SWEDENBORG'S COSMOLOGY.

     In this work nature is represented as a creation, out of the Divine Substance, by a continual series of discrete degrees, each successive degree being formed by a composition of the simpler substances of the prior degrees, and this without a break in the chain, from the first natural points or vortex-rings of definite motion in the Infinite substance itself, down to the metallic and chemical particles of ultimate matter.


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     The first finiting of the Infinite is described as taking place by means of "vortex-rings small as points" arising within the Infinite substance of God. While not in themselves finite, these vortex-rings, assuming a definite form, first defined the Infinite substance, and tended towards actual finition. As such they formed the medium or nexus between the Infinite and the finite, between the Creator and His creation, and are identified with the Logos, the Divine Existere, the "only Begotten." In themselves they are immediately Divine, yet the Divine defined, manifested, standing forth.

     From the composition of a number of these vortex-rings or first natural points into a larger vortex-ring, describing a still more definite diameter and circumference, arose the first finites, so called because with them began actually finite forms of substance, no longer immediately Divine, yet living substance, from the presence of the Divine life within. These first finites constitute the substance of the Sun of the Spiritual world, and the immediate radiation of these substances of the Sun of Life, together with a second degree of veiling or accommodation, (produced by their further composition into second finites), form those two "radiant belts" which shield the heavens from the consuming heat and blinding light of the spiritual Sun.

     These substances, in proceeding from the primitive Sun throughout the Universe, form an atmosphere called the first aura, which is the immediate atmosphere of the celestial heaven, and which inmostly creates and fills the whole natural world as well as the spiritual world. It is identified with the Divine Proceeding, the Divine as to use, the Divine in the Heavens and in the world. It is an inmost fluid which, with human receptacles, forms the highest life-blood, the spirituous fluid, or human formative substance, and as an atmosphere it consists of most minute bullae, the walls of which are formed of second finites, while within these bullae the first finites remain as first actives. From the further composition and compression of these bullae, accompanied with a final withdrawal of spiritual life, is formed the third degree of finites, called third finites, which, together with a fourth degree of finites, similarly formed, constitute the substances which form the suns of the natural world and their immediate auras, called the second aura or magnetic ether.


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     Such, in general, is the introduction to the cosmological system which is outlined in Miss Beekman's work, a system which is not claimed to be simply the theory propounded by Swedenborg in the Principia, but the Principia theory developed, systematized and explained in the light of all his subsequent Philosophical and Theological Writings. It is not necessary to this paper to follow up this system in its description of the further creation of earths and satellites, with their immediate atmospheres, waters, salts, minerals and organic kingdoms. For the present the introduction alone will suffice as affording a basis for the discussion of the main questions and the main difficulties involved.

     The principal objection that is being raised against this system is that it seems opposed to the Doctrine of Discrete Degrees. It is claimed that finite spiritual substance arose by a process of composition out of the Infinite Substance of the Divine Itself, while natural substance, dead matter, was formed by a similar process out of living spiritual substance. The general conception of spiritual substance is that it consists of nothing but good and truth, but how can we think of good and truth as being formed into "vortex-rings," "bullae," and "corpuscles," and finally be composed and compressed into actual material particles? How thus can we retain a spiritual idea of spiritual substance? It is acknowledged that by no process of sublimation can material substance be reduced to spiritual substance, and, vice versa, how can spiritual substance, by any process of comparison, be precipitated as matter?

     THE LAW OF THE FORMATION OF DISCRETE DEGREES.

     Such is the objection that is immediately presented, but if we review the doctrine of discrete degrees we shall find that the system is supported by the authority of Divine teachings. For while it is true that a lower degree, once formed and fixed, cannot as such enter into a prior degree or be reduced to it, (T. C. R. 32), yet the whole Doctrine of the New Church unquestionably teaches that EVERY lower degree comes forth and is produced by the composition of the simpler substances of the next higher degree.


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     "Degrees," in their simplest definition, are nothing but "the passings-over [transitus] from one to another in successive order,' (A. C. 87603),--a definition which postulates not only the "passings-over" or the steps, but also the person, or thing, or substance, which takes those steps in passing over. Degrees are in themselves nothing, apart from the subject of which those degrees are predicated. Degrees are not in themselves subjects, but predicates of a subject. They are degrees of something, and--in any given series-they are degrees of one and the same thing. They are simply varying forms and conditions of that one thing, and no matter how many be the degrees, the thing itself remains essentially THE SAME. How, otherwise, could discrete degrees be formed? They could not be formed out of nothing,--since we all admit that "ex nihila nihil fit." They must therefore be formed out of the prior degree, and out of the substance of the prior degree, and this out of the substance of the first, which is the only, substance.

     This seems self-evident, and is abundantly taught in the Heavenly Doctrine.

     Every created thing is finite, and in the process of creation one thing was formed from another. Thence were made degrees. T. C. R. 33.

     The interiors with man are distinguished into degrees, and in each degree there are things terminated, and by the termination they are separated from the lower; thus it is from the inmost to the outermost. A. C 5145.

     The distinction between discrete degrees is as between things prior and things posterior; for a posterior degree comes forth from a prior one A. E. 1125.

     Discrete degrees are as the inmost things of a seed in relation to its exterior things. These degrees are discriminated, thus are distinct, as the thing producing and the thing produced. A. C. 10181.

     The seed furnishes a striking illustration of discrete degrees, so far as these can be illustrated by merely natural things in which, after all, degrees are only relatively discrete. The discrete degrees in a seed are: its inmost germ, its cotyledons or heart-eaves, and its outer skin or shell.

581


Each is discrete from the other by means of the terminations or skins of each part, yet each is a discrete degrees of that seed, not of something else. The substance remains essentially the same, though varied as to form by different compositions and contextures, each fibre of the whole tissue nevertheless remaining a continuous prolongation from the substance of the germ.

     But we will return to the testimony of the Doctrine itself.

     The goods and truths of every degree are most distinct and are not in the least confounded. Those things which are interior are the things composing [componentia], and those things which are interior are the things which are composed [composita]. A. C. 4154.

     Myriads, nay, myriads of myriads of things which are distinctly perceived by hose who are in a superior degree, appear only as one thing with those who are in an inferior degree; for interior things are nothing but composites of superior things. A. C. 3405.

     Discrete or non-continuous degrees are discriminated as what is prior and what is posterior, or as cause and effect, or as the thing producing and the thing produced: be who explores may see that in all and single things in the universal world, whatsoever they may be, there are such degrees of production and composition, viz., that from one thing is another, and from the other the third, and so on. H. H. 38

     All creation has been effected by means of these degrees, and all production is effected by means of them, and all composition in the world of nature in like manner; for if you unfold any compound thing, you will see that one thing therein is from another, even to the outermost which is the general of all. Div. Love xi:2.

     Degrees of attitude are like the generations and compositions of one thing from another; as, for instance, the composition of some nerve from its fibers, and of any fibre from its fibrils; or the composition of some piece of wood or stone or metal from its parts, and of any part from its particles. Influx 16.

     The derivations into lower degrees are only compositions or rather conformations of the singulars and particulars of the higher degrees in succession, with such things added from purer nature, and then from grosser, as may serve for containing vessels; and on the dissolution of these vessels the singulars and particulars of the interior degrees, which had been conformed therein, return to the degree next higher. A. C. 5114.

     And the great text book on the Doctrine of Degrees, the Divine Love and Wisdom, reveals no other law in respect to the formation of discrete degrees, than this one universal law of succession by composition of substance. At the very outset we are taught:


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     Discrete degrees are as things prior, posterior, and postreme, and as end, cause, and. effect. These degrees are called discrete, because the prior is by itself, the posterior by itself, and the posterior by itself, but still, taken together, they make a one. The atmosphere from the highest to the lowest, or from the sun to the earth, which are called ethers and airs, are discreted into such degrees and are like simples, congregates of these, and again congregates of these, which, taken together, are called a compound. These degrees are discrete because they exist distinctly, and are meant by degrees of altitude. D. L. W. 184.

     All things in the world of which trinal dimension is predicated, or which are called compounds, consist of three degrees of altitude, or discrete degrees. But let examples illustrate: It is known from ocular experience that every single muscle in the human body consists of least fibers and that these fascicularly composed present greater fibers which are called motor fibers, and that from sheaves of these there exists the compound which is called a muscle. It is the same with the nerves . . . and with the rest of the combinations, bundlings and groupings out of which the organs and viscera are made; for these are compositions of fibers and vessels variously conformed by similar degrees. It is the same also with each and everything of the vegetable and mineral kingdoms. In wood there are compaginations of filaments in threefold order. In metals and stones there is a massing together [conglobationes] of parts, also in three-fold order. From all this it is manifest what is the quality of discrete 4egrees, viz., that one is from the other, and by the other the third, which is called the compound, and that each degree is discreted from the other. (Ibid. 190.)

     From these examples it may be concluded as to those things where do not appear before the eyes, because the case is similar with them. It is thus with the organic substances which are the receptacles and habitations of thoughts and affections in the brains; it is thus with the atmospheres; if is thus with heat and light; and it is thus with love and wisdom. For the atmospheres are the receptacles of heat and light, and heal slid light ate the receptacles of love and wisdom; wherefore, since there are degrees of atmospheres, there are also similar degrees of heat and light, and similar degrees of love and wisdom. For there is no other relation of the totter than there is of the former. (Ibid. 191.)

     In every ultimate there are discrete degrees in simultaneous order. The motor fibers in every muscle, the fibers in every nerve, also the fibers and little vessels in all viscera and organs, ire in such an order. Inmost in them are the most simple things which are the most perfect; the outmost is a compound of these. There is a like order of these degrees in every seed and in every fruit, also in every metal and stone; it is from the parts of these that the whole exists. The inmost, middle, slid outermost things of the parts are in these degrees; for they are successive compositions, or bundlings and conglobations of the simples, which are their prime substances or matter. (Ibid. 207.)


583



     And we are further instructed that "the first degree is the all in all things of the subsequent degrees," and that this is because the degrees of each subject and of each thing are homogeneous; and they are homogeneous because produced from the first degree For their formation is such that the first by confascuiations or conglobations, in a word, by congregations, produces the other, and by this the third and discretes each from the other by a covering drawn around it; from which it is evident that the first degree is the principal thing and that which solely reigns in the subsequent degree; consequently, that the first degree is the all in all of the subsequent degrees. (Ibid. 195 )

     When it is said that degrees are such in relation to each other the meaning is that substances are such in their degrees. This manner of speaking by degrees is abstract speaking, which is universal, thus applicable to every subject or thing which is in this kind of degrees. (Ibid. 196 )

     Many more definite teachings such as these could be adduced. They are perfectly well known to all of its, and yet there seems to be an hesitation in accepting this law of the formation of discrete degrees as universally applicable,--despite the fact that no other law is known or has been revealed. There is a willingness to accept this law as applicable to the formation of discrete degrees of spiritual substance, and to the formation of discrete degrees of natural substance, but when it comes to the formation of natural substance from spiritual substance, then the thought rebels. And yet we know that the successive degrees of natural substance are only relative discrete, (D. L. W. 256), while the relation between natural substance and spiritual substance is one of real discreteness. If, therefore, the law referred to is a real law, or has any real truth in it, it ought to be most especially effective and applicable in the case of these really discrete degrees. The examples of the natural atmospheres, the fibers, nerves, muscles, etc., are given only by way of natural illustration. The law itself, the law of the formation of lower degrees by the composition of the simpler substances of the higher degrees, this is the real and universal truth, which, if anything, is more true in respect to those degrees which are most discrete than in respect to those which are less so.

     The Heavenly Doctrine certainly makes no exceptions as to the universal applicability of this law. It does not state that some special degrees were thus formed, but speaks of discrete degrees generally and universally.

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This law applies to "all creation;" "from the inmost to the outmost:" it applies to "all and single things in the universal world, whatsoever they may be;" it is "universal, thus applicable to every subject which is in this kind of degrees." How, then, can we make an exception of the discrete degree between the spiritual and the natural?

     In our anxiety to preserve the proper distinction between the spiritual world and the material, we have, it is to be feared, to some extent lost sight of the continuity and unity of God's creation,--the continuity, through discrete degrees, by which the spiritual world is present in the natural world and acts into it,--the continuity of substance by means of which God created both the spiritual and the natural universe in and out of His own infinite substance, which is the only Substance in Itself, and by which He is Omnipresent and solely regnant in ultimates as well as in primes. This supreme and most essential truth--that God is substance itself, and the only substance,--is alone sufficient to prove the essential consubstantiality of Divine Substance and spiritual substance and natural substance. Substance, therefore, remains forever and essentially one and the same.--Infinite and uncreate: the things of creation, whether spiritual or natural, are simply forms produced in and out of that one Substance,--finite, because compounded and no longer simple, forms of life. (D. L. W. 204.)

     NATURAL SUBSTANCE IS NOTHING BUT THE TERMINATION OF SPIRITUAL SUBSTANCE.

     Not only are we compelled by sound reason to accept this law of the formation of discrete degrees as the universal law and the only law possible, but we have also direct and unmistakable Divine teaching which shows that natural substance or matter was created out of spiritual substance by and according to this very law.

     We are taught over and over again that "the substantial is the primitive of the material," (T. C. R. 797), and that "things substantial are the beginnings of things material: what is matter but a congregation of substances " (T. C. R. 280:8, C. L. 328.) And we know, as a general rule, that "natural things are material, and these come forth and subsist from spiritual things, as the posterior from the prior, or the exterior from the interior." (Canons. God. iv:8.)

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What does this mean but that material things not only derived their substance from spiritual substance in the first instance, but that they continually derive their substance from this source, and thus subsist?

     But to gain a more complete view of the subject it will be necessary to adduce the doctrine as delivered in the Divine Love and Wisdom in the chapter on the Atmospheres.

     There are three atmospheres both in the spiritual and in the natural world, which are separate from each other according to degrees of altitude, and which in their progress towards lower things, decrease in activity according to degrees of latitude. And since the atmospheres, in their progress towards lower things, decrease in activity, it follows that they constantly become more dense and inert, and finally in ultimates become so dense and inert as to be no longer atmospheres but substances at rest, and, in the natural world, fixed, like those on the earth that are called matters. D. L. W 302.

     Observe this statement: "become substances at rest, and, in the natural world, fixed." It is the substances of the spiritual atmospheres, spiritual substances, which in their own ultimates become "substances at rest," to which, in the natural world, is added the further quality of fixedness. This will appear still more clearly from what follows.

     There am perpetual mediations from the first to ultimates, and nothing can exist except from what is prior to itself, and finally from the first. And the first is the Sun of the spiritual world, and the First of that Sun is God-Man, or the Lord. Now because the atmospheres are those prior things by which that San presents itself in ultimates, and because these prior things continually decrease in activity and expansion even to ultimates, it follows that when their activity and expansion ceases in ultimates, THEY become substances and matter such as are in the earth, which, from the atmosphere from which they originated, retain in them the effort and conatus to bring forth uses. These who do not evolve the creation of the universe and all things thereof by continuous mediations from the First, cannot but build hypotheses which are broken and torn from their causes like heaps of rubbish. D. L. W. 303.

     And further:

     The substances and matters of the earth are the ends and terminations of the atmospheres, whose beat has died away into cold, their light into darkness, and their activity into inertia.

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Nevertheless, by continuation from the substance of the Spiritual Sun they carry with them that which was there from the Divine, which, as was shown above, was the sphere encompassing God-Man, or the Lord. From that sphere, by continuation from the Sun, by means of the atmospheres, have arisen the substances and matters of which the earths are formed. D. L. W. 305

     And lest there should remain any misunderstanding as to the fact that it is the spiritual Sun and the spiritual atmospheres that are meant in the above passages, the whole argument is summed up as follows, in n. 310 of the same work:

     That there is this conatus in the earths, is evident from their source: that the substances and matters from which are the earths, are the ends and terminations of the atmospheres which as uses proceed from the spiritual sun, as may be seen above, n. 305 and 306.

     The reaching that the sun of the natural world was created simultaneously with the sun of the spiritual world, (T. C. R. 76), seems to have been taken to mean that the natural sun was created as it were parallel with the spiritual sun, but not out of it and by it. The idea seems to be that the further creation of the two worlds, the natural and the spiritual, from their respective suns, proceeded according to parallel and analogous lines, independently of each other. But the Doctrine clearly teaches that the natural world and its arms were created out of the substance of the spiritual world, and that this again was created out of the spiritual sun, the substance of which was created immediately out of the Divine Substance.

     Jehovah God, by means of the Sun in the midst of which He is, created the spiritual world, and by means at this, mediatory, the natural world. Canons. God, iv:7.

     The Sun of the spiritual world is of the substance which has gone forth from Him, the Essence of which is Love. T. C. R. 33

     There is one only substance from which all things are, and the Sun of the spiritual world as that substance. D. L. W. 300.

     The Spiritual Sun is not only the first substance, but is also the only one from which all things are. D. P. 5.

     That there are degrees of both kinds in the feasts of all things, is because the Spiritual Sun is the one only substance from which are all things. D. L. W. 304

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     That substance which is substance, is one only; and all other things are formations thence; slid in the formations this one only substance reigns, not only as to form, but also as to non-form as in its origin. A. C. 7270.

     This one only substance, in its first origin, is of course nothing else than the Divine Substance itself, and material substances, as "ends and terminations" of spiritual substance, are therefore, at the same time, nothing but the ends and terminations of the Divine Substance, in its last degree of finition.

     The first proceeding was continued down to ultimates through discrete degrees, exactly as an end is continued through causes into effects, or as the thing producing and the thing produced, in a continual series. (Angelic Idea of Creation.)

     The Divine proceeding is what is extended into the universe, and is the Divine Truth and the Light of that Sun. Hence this is the inmost of the Spiritual world; and it is this from which nature has drawn its origin, and this is extended in the created universe; IT is afterwards formed successively into spheres, of which the ultimate is the atmosphere of the natural world. (Ath. Creed, 191.)

     IDEALISM IS AS DANGEROUS AS PANTHEISM.

     This teaching, at first sight, may appear to some as Pantheism, but it is the very reverse, and we ought not to be frightened away from essential truth because of the phantom of this monster. For we are taught in the Divine Doctrine that

     Every one who thinks from clear reason also sees that all things are created out of a substance which is substance in itself, for this is the Esse itself from which all things that are, are able to exist. And because God alone is substance in itself, and thence Esse itself, it is manifest that the existence of things is from no other source. Many have seen this, because reason causes it to be seen, but they have not dared to confirm it, fearing that thus perchance they would come to think that the created universe is God since it is form God, or that nature is from itself, and thus that the inmost of nature is that which is called God, For this reason, although many have seen that the existence of all things is from God alone and out of His Esse, yet they have not dared to go beyond their first thought on the subject, lest their understanding become entangled in a so-called Gordian knot, beyond the possibility of release. (D. L. W. 283

     It is this very fear that has caused many, even in the New Church, to halt at the very threshold of the Doctrine of Degrees, and of the Doctrine of God the Creator,--a Doctrine which in itself is the very threshold of the whole Theology of the Church,--the very first chapter of the True Christian Religion.

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But there is nothing to be feared if we firmly grasp the Heavenly Doctrine in our band. for this Doctrine at the same time Universally teaches that "although God has created the universe and all things thereof out of Himself, yet there is not the least thing in the universe that is God." (D. L. W. 283.) For as soon as the Lord finited substances tit of His Infinite Substance, these ceased to be immediately Infinite, thus ceased to be in themselves Divine. The substance nevertheless remained, since there is and can be no other substance, but it was now spiritual substance,--called spiritual because breathed out or proceeding from God. There was still in it, but not life in itself. And from this spiritual substance, as it became more and more composite, the Lord any withdrew internal life until it finally ceased. The substance still remained, but it was now natural substance, so called because the seed of creation, conceived fit spiritual substance, was now born (nata) in ultimates, the last of which is matter, so called because it is the dead and passive mother (mater) of organic life in its ascending return to its Creator. In all this there is not the least of Pantheism, which recognizes but one plane--the lowest plane of creation-as self-created and self-subsisting, and thus Divine.

     From the very vagueness of our first thought about spiritual things, there is less danger of our falling into Pantheism than of falling into a kind of Idealism in regard to the nature of spiritual substance and of the spiritual world. We are unconsciously so impressed with the reality of material substance as being the only real substance, that the idea of discrete degrees at first produces upon our minds the impression that that spiritual substance is so utterly different from natural substance as to have nothing whatever in common. And yet, if they had nothing in common, there could be no correspondence between them. Material substance consists of parts, and these of particles--and immediately we imagine that spiritual substance is a kind of vague and continuous something from which every idea of particles, corpuscles or bullae must be removed. From the Doctrine we learn that the Divine Truth is the only actual and real substance,--and of Truth men are apt to conceive the idea that it is only a statement of laws, principles, and facts.

589


Hence spiritual substance is regarded merely as statements and principles, and how cm statements and principles ever be so composed and compressed as to produce a solid particle of actual matter? We take up the Divine teaching that "the Kingdom of God is within you," and the additional teaching that plants and animals in the spiritual world, though indeed substantial, are not fixed quantities as in the natural world, but transitory creations produced in correspondence with the thoughts and affections of the spirits,--and from this we are apt to deduce the idea that the whole spiritual world is a merely subjective world, in reality existing only within the angels and spirits. But if we follow up this conception to its logical conclusion we will find ourselves face to face with the necessity of regarding not only the plants and animals in the spiritual world, but also the human inhabitants of that world, as mere appearances corresponding to the affections and thoughts of some one spirit and angel. The whole population of the spiritual world will thus be reduced to some one single individual, within whom alone God and the whole spiritual universe exists. But from this insanity of the Gnostics and Idealists we are rescued by the teaching of the Heavenly Doctrine that God, and consequently His Kingdom, "is both within and without an angel." (D. L. W. 130.)

     SPIRITUAL SUBSTANCE IS CORPUSCULAR, NO LESS THAN NATURAL SUBSTANCE.

     Spiritual substance, and spiritual things and beings, are therefore objective as well as subjective, and, being objective, spiritual things can be seen, heard, smelled, tasted and touched, and can be measured according to their trinal dimensions, just as things in the natural world, by those who are consciously living on the spiritual plane. And this is simply because spiritual substance as created form, is not one continuous and infinite substance, but consists of parts, and these of particles, and these of corpuscles and molecules and bullae or cells, visible by a spiritual microscope just as their material correspondents and outbirths are by means of the material lens.


590



     For spiritual substance is ere fed and, therefore, finite, being nothing else than the extension of the Sun of the Spiritual world which is the first creation and the first finition of God-Man. As we are taught in the Doctrine:

     God finited all things by means of His Sun, which consists of the Divine Essence which goes forth as a sphere from Him. There and thence is the first of finition. T. C. R. 29.

     The things which constitute the Spiritual Sun are from the Lord, but are not the Lord; whence it follows that they are not life in itself, but are deprived of life in itself. D. L. W. 294.

     The Spiritual Sun is the first of creation. . . . for the Sun of the spiritual world was also created by the Lord. D. L. W. 152.

     God first finited His Infinity by means of substances emitted from Himself, from which there came into existence His proximate compass, which makes the Sun of the Spiritual World; and afterwards, by means of that Sun, He finited the world more and more. T. C. R. 33

     And that spiritual substance is not only created and finite, but also corpuscular and molecular, is evident from the following teachings:

     The spirit of man is also created from finite things, which are spiritual substances. T.C.R. 470.

     These auras or atmospheres, which are spiritual because they have sprung forth from the Lord as a Sun, when acted upon in volume present heat, and when modified molecularly [singillatim], present light. A. E. 7264

     The spiritual atmospheres are discrete substances or least forms, originating from the spiritual Sun; and as they receive the Sun molecularly [singillatim], the fire of the Sun, thus divided into so many substances an forms, and as it were enveloped by them, and tempered by these developments, becomes heat;....similarly the light of that Sun. D. L. W. 174.

     So concrete, in fact, are these least forms of spiritual substance that they can actually be "brought together into our earth and he stored up therein," and can afterwards exhale as a real effluvium from each particle of dust, touching and penetrating into the inmost of seeds and opening them up to vegetative life and growth. A phenomenon such as this cannot be explained by a vague reference to analogical correspondence, but only by an influx of actual formative substance.

     The difference between natural and spiritual substance is therefore seen to be simply the difference between what is more and less finite, more and less quiescent, more and less fixed, concrete, compressed, composed, and void of life in se.

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Both are created, both are finite, both are corpuscular or consisting of least parts. There is not the incomprehensible and unbridgeable abyss between God's spiritual creation and His natural creation that has been supposed to exist. There is a discrete degree between them, but not infinitely discrete. It can be crossed,-from the spiritual to the natural, though not vice versa. It is wonderful, indeed, that spiritual substance could be composed and transformed into natural substance, but not more wonderful, nor by far as wonderful as that infinite substance could be composed and transformed into finite spiritual substance.

     But, it may be asked, is there not a danger of our thought about spiritual things becoming sensual and degraded by the introduction of this scientific!, corpuscular, mechanical and geometrical conception of spiritual substance? The writer has entertained many such fears, but has finally concluded that man does not necessarily think spiritually and wisely simply because his thought is vague and indefinite. Thought absolutely abstracted from natural forms is impossible. It is no thought at all. All spiritual thought is based upon clear natural thought, and the highest use of the exact sciences is to furnish definite forms for spiritual ideas. This does not obstruct spiritual thought, but advances it, provided we do not remain merely in the form of things. The idea of the first finiting of the Infinite taking place by means of "vortex-rings small as points," does not prevent our thinking of the Infinite Substance and Form as purely Divine Love and Wisdom. It simply provides a definite expression to the conscious mind for what formerly was an inexpressible idea in the subconscious perception. We can thus think of the circular form as a first form of definite motion, describing a first definite circumference and diameter in the substance of the Eternal and the Infinite, which in itself is all activity, all motion. It is a first form of the Divine Love standing forth as a love, expressing some definite purpose and end in the infinitude of ends and purposes. And we can think of the circulospiral form as corresponding to this definite end and purpose in proceeding and reaching forth as a conatus towards its accomplishment. And we can conceive of the "vortex-ring small as a point," as this same Divine purpose and conatus not only defining itself, and going forth, but also as the Divine arm and hand and finger of God pointing towards the Divine use of Creation.

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The idea of the vortex-ring does not destroy the idea of God as man, but falls in with it and furnishes a further, more ultimate, more definite, because scientific and philosophical expression to the corresponding higher and more living perception. And the Writings themselves are full of such scientific expressions and ideas, everywhere illustrating spiritual and Divine things.

     It is impossible in this paper to discuss all, or even a thousandth part of what is involved in this new conception of the formation of discrete degrees, and of the creation of natural substances out of spiritual substance, which has been presented from Swedenborg by Miss Beekman. It is wonderful, nay, incomprehensible, that these truths have not been more generally recognized when yet openly taught in the Divinely inspired Writings as well as in the Philosophical works of Swedenborg. But the wonder is lost in a sense of profound gratitude to our merciful Lord who day by day is giving to His Church her daily bread.
LOVE TO THE LORD IN THE PERFORMANCE OF USE IN THE CHURCH 1906

LOVE TO THE LORD IN THE PERFORMANCE OF USE IN THE CHURCH       Rev. F. E. WAELCHLI       1906

     When they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou Me more than these? He saith unto Him, Yea, Lord; Thou knowest that I love Thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs. He saith to him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou Me? He saith unto Him, Yea, Lord; Thou knowest that I love Thee. He saith unto him, Feed my sheep. He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou Me? Pet was grieved because He said unto him the third time, Lovest thou Me? And he said unto Him, Lord, Thou knowest all things; Thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep. John xxi:15-17.

     Peter signifies faith, and those in the Church who are in faith.

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In our text he signifies those in faith from love to the Lord, who are to instruct others; for they who are in faith from love to the Lord are also in truths, and they who are thence in truths instruct concerning good and to good. That Peter here signifies those who are in truth from love to the Lord is evident from the Lord's interrogation, Lovest then Me? and from Peter's answer, Yea, Lord: also from his being called Simon, son of Jonas, for by this name is signified faith from charity,--Simon signifying hearkening or obedience, and Jonas a dove, by which is signified charity which has its origin in love to the Lord. That those signified by Peter are to instruct those who will be of the Lord's Church, is meant by the words, Feed My lambs, and My sheep.

     In the Church there are those ordained to perform the use of instructing others; and they, if they love the Lord, are meant in our text by Peter, This is evident from the following words of Doctrine, given in explanation of our text: "To feed lambs and sheep signifies uses or goods of charity with those who preach the gospel, and love the Lord." (Div. Wis. xi, 3.)

     He who would be a true priest of the Church, or be truly in the priestly use, must hear the voice of the Lord saying onto him "Lovest thou Me?" and be able to give the answer "Yea, Lord." He can give the answer if he is shunning his evils as gins against God; for the man who shuns his evils loves the Lord, in accordance with the Lord's teaching that those who keep His commandments are they who love Him. In the answer, "Yea, Lord," there will be no pride and self-exaltation, but humility and recognition of unworthiness.

     The Lord questioned Peter three times. By this is signified the full time of the Church from its beginning to its end. For the number three signifies what is complete even to the end. Therefore, when the question was put the third time, it is said that Peter was grieved, for the third time signifies the end of the Church.

     The first three the Lord said "Feed my lambs." By lambs are signified those who are in the good of love to the Lord, and thence in innocence. In this good were those of the Church in its first state. Love to the Lord ruled their hearts and entered into all things of their lives.

     The second time the Lord said "Feed My sheep." By sheep are signified those who are in the good of love to the neighbor, and thence in charity.

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Here are specifically meant those who are in this good and from affection. In such good were those of the Church in its second state. Love to the neighbor was the fountain whence flowed their deeds and words.

     The third time the Lord said again "Feed My sheep." By sheep are here also signified those who are in the good of love to the neighbor, but now, because at the end of the Church, those in this good not from affection, but from obedience, In such good are those of the Church who lead a good life, when the third state, or the end, is at hand.

     In these three successive states of the Christian Church, which the Lord foresaw, those represented by Peter were to teach the truth by which men could be led to good. And now that the Church has been consummated, and the New Church has been established in the place of the former, those who in this Church are represented by Peter must take up and carry on the use of teaching; they must feed the lambs and the sheep.

     A priest, that he may be truly fitted for this work, must be in love to the Lord. This does not mean that he must be in that highest state of regeneration signified by lambs in our text. There is love to the Lord also in the two lower states, although it is not the all in all therein. Wherever there is anything of genuine good, there is in it interiorly love to the Lord; for this love is the soul of all good. The very beginning of regeneration, or entrance upon good, consists in looking to the Lord and following Him. And in such looking to and following of the Lord there is love to Him.

     It is sufficient, therefore, if the priest be a regenerating man, or one who is shunning as evils as sins. He can then answer "Yea, Lord," to the question "Lovest thou Me."

     Evils, against which men must contend, take on various forms with various individuals. This variety is not so great in transgressions of the literal sense of the decalogue; but very great in transgressions of the spiritual and celestial sense, that is, in those evils which are opposed to the love of performing uses to the neighbor and to the love of performing uses from the Lord. The variety of the latter is great, because of the great variety of uses in which men are engaged; for evils take on those forms in which they can most readily come forth in a man's peculiar use.

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These evils with a priest are those pertaining to the love of honor and praise, whence flows the desire to so perform the duties of his office that honor and praise may be obtained. With some there will be back of this love some other love, as that of attaining a position wherein there may be fuller opportunity to govern the Church from self, or that of obtaining greater emolument. Where the rein is given to these evils, the motive in the work will be to please men rather than the Lord. Consequently human prudence will enter in and be the guide. The use will be performed from the man and not from the Lord.

     When these evils are shunned, love to the Lord inflows, and this love is the love of performing the use of teaching from the Lord, that is, of performing it according to his Will, and not according to the conceits of self-intelligence or the dictates of human prudence. He who is in this love regards himself as nothing other than an instrument in the Lord's hands for teaching the truth by which men can be led to good, and thus to the Lord. Yet he realizes his great responsibility as such an instrument, and most earnestly endeavors, from zeal for the salvation of souls, to be faithful in the work that is given him to do. He preaches the truth without fear or favor.

     The Lord says to such a priest "Feed My lambs, and My sheep." He calls him to his use. And because the Lord calls him, the Divine blessing rests upon his work. Success will crown his efforts, even though appearances may be otherwise; even though it may seem as if the Church were not prospering under his ministrations, as if men were not growing in knowledge and in the affection of truth. The good results of his work are something deeper than eye can see; for they pertain to the up-building of that Kingdom of God which cometh not with observation, and of which it cannot be said, Lo here or lo there. A true priest, knowing this, does not become discouraged. He faithfully fulfils the Divine command, "Feed My lambs, and My sheep," confident that the Lord is by his labors establishing His Church upon an ever firmer foundation and effecting the salvation of men. He finds delight in his work, and with it contentment and peace.

     It is otherwise with a priest who does not heed the question "Lovest thou me?" who does not shun his evils, and therefore is not in the love of performing his use from the Lord, but of performing it from self, with selfish gain and advantage as the end.

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To him there does not come the Divine command "Feed My lambs, and My sheep." He is not called to his use by the lord. But since he insists on performing it, the lord permits him to be in it, and so guides that the best possible results for the salvation of men may come from his efforts. Nevertheless, because his mind is not open to the Lord, and because he does not look to Him for guidance, his work will, sooner or later, end in failure, if not in this world, then in the other. It is likely to so end even in this world. The time will come when he will depart from faithfulness to the Heavenly Doctrines, when he will cease to feed, no longer imparting heavenly food as it comes from the lord, but as it is perverted by him in order that he may gain favor and applause. Men may perhaps not recognize the failure. They may be deceived by the zeal which the priest manifests and which he also inspires with others, and by the apparently successful results in building up the Church. Yet the approval of men cannot make such work prosperous. A priest who thus performs his use will indeed find delight in his work, the delight which attends the attainment of selfish ends, but he will not find in it happiness, contentment and peace.

     It is true not only of a priest but of every man, that love to the Lord consists in the love of performing his use, to which he has been led by the Divine Providence, from the lord and not from himself. A man's life centers in his use, and is such as is his performance of his use. And if in his use his end is to do the Lord's Will, and not his own, then his life of love to the Lord. Love to the Lord must be a thing of life; else it is not real.

     This applies not only to an individual man, but also to a collective man, that is, to a society or organization. Such a man exists for the performance of some use, and must do this use from the lord, that is, the members of the man must be in the united endeavor to so do it. When such is the case, love to the Lord is in that man. This is true in an eminent degree of the Church.

     What is the use which a church must perform? It is that which we have spoken of as being the use of the priesthood, namely, teaching the truths by which men may be led to good. It is true that all the members of the church are not actively in the work of reaching; for if this were the case, heresies would arise and the church be destroyed.

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The priests, who devote their life to the study of the truths of doctrine, and who are in special illustration from the Lord, are set apart for the active doing of the work. Still the work is the use of the Church as a whole. For a Church exists for no other purpose than that in it the truth may be taught which leads to salvation.

     A church performs this rise by co-operating with the priesthood. Co-operation with the priesthood consists in many things: as in so leading and guiding children that when they grow older they may be receptive of the teaching which the priesthood gives; in endeavoring to interest those who are not of the Church in the Heavenly Doctrine, and in bringing them to hear the reaching given in the Church; in encouraging one another in devotion to the cause of the Church: in one's own interest fit the Doctrines and study of them; in faithful attendance at worship and at other occasions when instruction is given: in doing one's part that the distinctive worship, and the distinctive education, conjugial love, and social life of the Church may be promoted and preserved; in giving the necessary and due financial support; and in administering the external and civil affairs of the Church. Co-operation further consists in the recognition that the government of ecclesiastical things should be in the hands of the priesthood, and that the priesthood must be left in freedom in such government; but that nevertheless there should be on the part of the Church as a whole the deepest interest in all the priesthood does, for unless the Church is in close touch with the uses that are being performed, and unless there be zeal for those uses and a desire to be helpful in them in every possible way the Church cannot grow and prosper. We are taught that "the priesthood is the first of the Church" (A. E. 229): but a Church cannot exist unless it have a last as well as a first, and all that is intermediate. And what pertains to the first, its love for the uses of the Church, its appreciation of their importance, and its devotion to them, must be present in all that follows, be present from the first to the last of the Church. Otherwise the Church is not a one, that is, unity is lacking; and where this is lacking there is no strength to progress and endure.

     Where there is a co-operation on the part of the Church with the priesthood, the use of the Church is the use of the priesthood, and, vice versa, the use of the priesthood is the rise of the Church.

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From the first of the Church to the last thereof, in the whole and in all its parts, or in the entire man, there is one reigning love, the love that the Church may fulfil its use of reaching the truth for the salvation of men.

     To the Church having before it this rise, there comes the question, "Lovest thou Me?" It is well for a Church if it can answer. "Yea, Lord." And this answer it can give in so far as it shuns its evils. It must shun the evils which are opposed to co-operation with a priesthood that is faithful to the Lord in the performance of its duties. But there is something more than this that needs to be shunned, something which if not removed will cause all cooperation to be of little value for the true up-building of the (church, and is the love of cooperating from self and not from the Lord. The Church must look to the Lord, and be in the earnest endeavor to fulfil its duties in accordance with His Will. It must inquire of Him what is its duty and how to perform it. Unless this is done, a Church, which may have been led to an external recognition of the principle that there must be co-operation with the priesthood, will in time depart from that principle, and human prudence instead of the Lord's Will, self-intelligence instead of Divine Revelation will become its guide, And where this state comes into existence, there will follow the evils of unwillingness that the truth be taught in its purity; unwillingness to recognize that growth in the spiritual affection of truth is the true growth of the Church unwillingness to carry out the truths of the Heavenly Doctrines in the life and order of the Church.

     The evil which the Church must shun is, therefore, the love of fulfilling its use from itself. If it does this, love to the Lord will inflow, or the love of performing its use from the Lord. A Church wherein this love reigns will regard itself as an instrument in the Lord's hands for the salvation of men, and will recognize the great responsibility of its stewardship. There will be in it true zeal and earnestness for the cause of the Lord's Kingdom.

     To such a Church the Lord says, "Feed My lambs, and My sheep." It is called to its rise as a Church by the Lord, and therefore is a Church of the Lord, a Church wherein He reigns as God and King. His blessing will rest upon its work; He will crown its labors with success. For even though trials and adversities come, sometimes apparently threatening its very existence, it will under the Divine Guidance pass through them safely, and endure forever.


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     But it will be otherwise with a Church which does not shun its evils, and endeavors to perform its use from itself. Such a Church is not called to its rise by the Lord, and is not a Church of the Lord. Because it insists on being a Church--as did the Israelites of old--the Lord indeed permits it to seem unto itself to be such, and in His Providence so guides that it may perform uses by which salvation may be effected, especially with the simple who are in its midst. Yet its work cannot prosper, even though it seem for a while to do so. It will in time cease to feed, for the Divine Truth will be despised and rejected. And in the end it will go down in the darkness of night.

     From what has been said concerning the Church as a wrote it is evident what each of its members must do, in order that he may fulfill his part in prancing the use of the entire man. He must not inquire of himself what and how much it is his inclination to do for the Church, or what and how much he ought to do to preserve his reputation among those of the Church; but he must inquire of the Lord what it is His Will that he should do. The Lord answers every, such inquiry. He opens the eyes of man to his duty. And that duty the true man of the Church will fulfill-fulfill before the Lord, from love to Him. Thus he will do his part that the Lord may say to His Church, "Feed My lambs, and My sheep."

     Love to the Lord exists in the love of performing use from Him. Unless it so exists it is not real. A state of affection of the will directed to the Divine Man is not in itself alone love to the Lord. Such a state may be the beginning of that love but in itself alone it is a mere sentiment, which now is and soon is not. That the love may become real it must that beginning descend into all things of the life of man even to ultimate deed, where it then exists in its fulness, holiness and power.

     If a man is in some love, the entire man is such as his love is even down to the ultimate things of his body. The love gives to the substances of his brain their own peculiar form: and from the brain by means of fibers thence proceeding it is impressed upon the entire body. Love must and will come into intimates; it cannot rest until it is in intimates; unless it can reach ultimates it perishes.


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     Therefore love of the will ever seeks to come into outward act. And unless it is hindered and resisted by some other love which is stronger, it does come into act. It may not always do so in this world, for here external conditions often prevent the ultimation of one's love: but it does in the spiritual world. For man is a spirit and as to his spirit dwells in the spiritual world, and whatever a man wills is done in that world; and it will also be done in this world as soon as circumstances make it possible, hence it follows that if a man, either individual or collective, be truly in love to the Lord, that love is a thing not only of will, but or deed, a thing coming forth in the man's peculiar use,--fully in the other world, and as far as possible in this. A Church, therefore, which is fit love to the Lord, cannot do otherwise than perform uses from Him. As all entire man, and in all its parts, it is urgent and pressing to perform its use; and does it in this world to the very fullest extent of its ability. Only actual and real hindrances stand in the way; and not such as are imaginary, or arise in indifference.

     Love to the Lord and the love of performing use from Him are inseparable; in fact, they are so much a one that it can be said that to love the Lord is to do uses from Him.

     It is a law of order that if a man would receive a Divine gift, he must make preparation in ultimates for its reception. Therefore a Church which would receive from the Lord the love of performing use from Him, must not wait for that love to inflow, but must enter upon the ultimate performance of use according to His Will, by shunning the evil of unwillingness to perform it, and also the evils of the desire to perform it from self. When this is done, the love of rise will in time inflow. And as the Lord has been removing the obstructions which are interior at the same time that man has as of himself been removing those in intimates, the love will flow freely from the interiors of the will even to things most ultimate, and make the whole man its abode.

     When such is the case, then the state of affection directed to the Divine Man, the Lord, will no longer be a passing sentiment, but will be real: for it will not be merely a love of Him as to person, but a love of Him as Life Itself, as Which He is present in all things of the man from inmosts to outermosts, and as Which He is received and loved. Genuine love to the Lord is not a love of Him as to person, any more than genuine love of the neighbor is a love of the neighbor as to person. An evil man as well as a good man can love the Lord as to person; for when he hears preaching and teaching concerning the Lord's love and mercy and goodness, his heart is moved to affection towards Him, at least for the time, just as it is towards the neighbor when he thinks of some favor which the neighbor does him.

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But this is not to love the Lord. Genuine love to Him is to love what is from Him, which is Divine, and in which is the Lord. And this is to love Use. For the Lord is Use Itself, and as Use and in Use He is omnipresent. He creates all things to be forms of use, and is present in their use, and loves them for their use. But of all created things, he alone can reciprocate the loves for he alone can be in the love of use, and in this he is when he loves use as something which is the Lord's, yea, as the Lord Himself present with him. Thus in loving use he loves the Lord; and his performance of rise he regards as something which is from the Lord with him, whereby the welfare of his fellow man is promoted.

     A Church whose love of the Lord is the love of use, will perform its rise from the Lord. For it looks upon its use as a holy thing,--a thing that is the Lord's, to be done according to His Will. Both the priests in their part of the rise and the laymen in their part of it, will so regard it. Their earnest effort will be to be faithful in that work which the Lord gives them to do. And in the doing of the work there will be no thought of merit. For it will be realized that the love of the rise is not their own, but the Lord's,--that the Lord has put it into their hearts to the end that by it He might ultimate His love of serving mankind by means of the preaching of the truth which leads to good. The thought that the Lord makes the love of use and the doing of use on the part of the Church the means whereby, His Love can operate among men for their salvation, should fill those of the Church with deepest humility; and their earnest prayer should be that the Lord may strengthen them in their love and in their doing, helping them to put away all the evils which oppose, so that they may be evermore fully able to say "Yea, Lord," when He asks, "Lovest then Me?" and so be prepared to enter more and more into the fulfilling of the command. "Feed My lambs, and My sheep." For thus will the Church become the Lord's in ever fuller measure, and they who are of it enter more interiorly into that conjunction with the Lord which is life eternal. Amen.


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INTERNAL UP BUILDING OF THE CHURCH 1906

INTERNAL UP BUILDING OF THE CHURCH       Rev. ANDREW CZERNY       1906

     The first duty of every one who has been led by the Lord to see the truth of the Heavenly Doctrines is to strive to attain to a clear understanding of the same, and to apply the same to his life.

     The Church, to be a Church fit the true sense of the term, must consist of men who are grounded in genuine truths, and endeavor to ultimate the same. In other words, it must consist of men who love spiritual things, and strive to become spiritual men. This is evident from the following teaching:

     "The spiritual man is a Church in particular, and a number [of such] are the Church in general. It is the congregation in general which in common conversation is called the Church; but each one in the congregation must be of the same character, in order that there may be any Church; [for] every general thing involves parts like itself." A. C. 4288.

     
Still it is to be remembered that men in themselves do not constitute the Church, but that which is from the Lord with them; namely, the Divine Influx proceeding from Him, and received by them. Now the Divine Influx is two-fold, immediate and mediate. The Lord's immediate influx does not come to man's perception, because it flows into his inmost. "But the simultaneous immediate and mediate influx of the Lord does come to his perception, and gives affection; for it is an influx not only into the inmosts of man, but also into his middle and outermost things." A. C. 8690.

     By mediate influx is to be understood that which comes to man from the Lord through means, or media, which, briefly stated, are the Word in all its Senses, as revealed to man; likewise instruction from the Word, and the Lord's operation through the instrumentality of spirits and angels with man. In brief, by influx is meant all that is instrumental in leading man to a knowledge, perception, and reception of Divine and holy things. All this is the Lord's immediate influx. And in so far as it is received and appropriated by man, it is the Church in him, and constitutes him a Church in the least form.


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     Thus, generally speaking, there are two things which constitute the Lord's Divine Influx, namely, teaching and leading. The former is directed to man's understanding, and so comes to his perception. The Lord's Divine Leading affects man's will and nothing of it comes to his perception. Nor is it intended that it should; for the Lord wills that man should act in freedom according to reason. The Lord leads man by his affections by a silent Providence, we are taught, and when man has been led to good, then and not before, are truths implanted. (A. C. 4364.) Man is not conscious of this leading, and this for the reason as already states, that he may act in freedom according to reason. Hence, although he is continually led to good and truth, if he suffers himself to be led, yet in all that concerns his spiritual life he acts, to all appearance, from himself. He acquires knowledges of good and truth, explores their meaning and application, resists evils and rejects falses, and all this as if the power to do so were in himself;--while in reality he would not take the first step in spiritual life, if he were not led by the Lord, by an influx into his interiors. Hence as only the Lord's influx into his understanding comes to his perception, what really concerns him is to open his mind to its reception; thus to acquire the means whereby a true understanding may be formed in him, and through it a new will. Then will he be able truly to act in freedom according to reason. In a certain sense, all men possess reason, but its quality depends upon whether man's mind has been imbued with truths or falses; and the kind and degree of truths or falses; and to what extent he has made them his own.

     A truly human reason can only be formed from Divine truths received with affection. These come to man by an internal way, but they are received into the knowledges of good and truth which man has acquired, and manifest themselves through them. That this is so, is evident from the fact, that the same statement of truth will convey a clear idea to one, an obscure idea to another, and to a third no idea at all. There is something needed besides the mere statement of a truth, and that is the influx of truth from above into the mind; and this is received according to the state of the mind,--fully, if there is an affection of truth and good; obscurely, where falses have been received, even if there is a desire for truth; and not at all, if evils and the falses thence occupy the mind.

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Hence only when the Divine Truth manifests itself to the perception of mail, and is received with affection, is it appropriated by him, and enters into the formation of his understanding. It is from an understanding thus formed, that man ought to act. It is not knowledges that constitute his understanding, but the perception and reception of truths inflowing into them and reflected as it were by them. The influx of good and truth tales place constantly with everyone, but, as just stated, it is not received unless there are knowledges of good and truth stored in the mind. That the understanding is formed, not from knowledges but from truths, is taught in many places. We read, for instance, that the scientifics and cognitions, which a man has learned are not truths, but only recipient vessels; and that goods and truths are implanted by the Lord by means of them. But still more clearly is this taught in the following:

     "No one can perceive what he does not know and believe, thus he cannot be endowed with the faculty of perceiving the good of love and the truth of faith, except by knowledges, in order that he may know what it is, and of what quality it is." (A. C. 1802.) "The understanding truly human is formed and perfected by truths. . . . The interior understanding by truths spiritual, but the exterior understanding by truths civil and moral. Hence as the truths are such is the understanding which is from them." (A. E. 715.) The term "truths" is here used in the sense of knowledges.

     Concerning the formation of the understanding there are some wonderful things revealed to us. Thus we are taught that the truths which flow lit by an internal way, as well as the knowledges of good and truth which serve as vessels for their reception, must be arranged into the heavenly form, in order that an understanding truly human may be formed. This is the Lord s work, and is alone man's perception and comprehension. This is taught in the following:

     "With respect to goods and truths, the case is, that they form a society between themselves: and at length constitute, as it were, a state. In such manner also have they consociation together, which formation and consecration originate in the form of heaven, in which from the angels are arranged according to consanguinities and affinities of good and truth, and thus together form one kingdom and one state.

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And hence the goods and truths flow in with man and are arranged into a similar form, and this from the Lord alone." (A. C. 3584.) In another place we are taught that the Lord disposes the things in the internal man, the man knowing nothing about it. Each and all things with a man. who is truly rational, are so arranged, that they mutually regard each other, All things are arranged in an order like that of heaven, and this by influx. The reaching contained in the passages just quoted shows what we must do to become individually Churches, or spiritual men, which is the same thing; that we become such by receiving the Divine things of faith and of love; thus by the formation of a new understanding in its, and through this, of a new will. Both are the Lord's work in man, man co-operating. In the fornication of the understanding, as we have seen, man can do little more than to open his mind for reception. The means to this are provided by the Lord. All he can do is to acquire them, to reflect upon them, and to endeavor to understand their meaning and application. But unless the Lord operated from within at the same time, and flowed in with truths, and arranged them as well as the knowledges of good and truth which man has acquired into the heavenly form, all man's efforts would be in vain. And yet the little he can do is absolutely essential to the end desired; for as we are taught, the Lord cannot operate unless man co-operates with Him.

     And the case is very similar with respect to the formation of man's will. Man must search out his evils, and must fight against them. But here again the Lord must remove the evils from within. He operates from within; bends man's affections in ways unknown to him, and inspires him with new ones, in so far as man does not oppose. Now opposition to the Lord's work, or interference with it, can only come from one of two causes; namely, either from evils not yet subjugated, and so rendered quiescent; or from ignorance of certain principles of truth. (Of course, we are here speaking of a regenerating man. To such a one alone the statement just made applies.) But whether man interferes with the Lord's work in him, from evils still adhering to him, or from ignorance, in either case something has to be removed before the work can continue, and its removal can he effected only by means of the Divine Truth; from which it is evident, how necessary it is, that our understanding he formed anew, and be continually perfected by knowledges of good and truth.


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     And we have been led to see where these are to be found. We have been led to see that the Writings in which they are made known to us are of Divine Origin. And we are taught that the Revelation given in these books is more excellent than any Revelation given to man, since the foundation of the world. And this can be seen to be true, as far as the Word in the Letter, now extant, is concerned; for this has to be read in the light of these Writings before the genuine truths which it teaching can be seen; in other words, before it [i. e., the Word] can be understood. And all this is provided that man may become spiritual, a Church in the least form, that a true Church of the Lord may exist on earth.

     And this we become in the way intimated above; namely, by a diligent study of the Writings: by reflecting and mediating upon their teaching. The dogma, that the understanding is to be kept in obedience to faith, is not a dogma of the New Church. On the contrary, we are commanded to exercise our understanding in matters of faith; for "Now it is allowable to enter intellectually into the mysteries of faith, because the Doctrines of the New Church are continuous truths, laid open by the Lord by means of the Word." We are allowed to think and to reason about them provided the end is a clearer and fuller understanding of the same. But while we are allowed to exercise our reason, we are not allowed to approach them in a negative attitude. The truth does not reveal itself when so approached. Man's self-intelligence stands in the way. And while in that state the slightest objection prevails over a thousand truths, (A. C. 1676, 6469; S. D. 2727.) Such is the teaching.

     Thus, though, on the one hand, we are not to receive the teaching of the Writings persuasively, i. e., without attempting to understand them, on the other hand, we are not to approach them in a negative state. We are to try to understand their meaning and application. In doing so we prepare ourselves for a fuller influx of truth, and our understanding is more fully enlightened. We shall then also see more clearly the imperfections and evils that still adhere to us.

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And in the degree that we are willing to have them removed, the Lord is enabled to remove the more interior evils in us, which do not come to our perception. In this way we become Churches individually. The Church as a whole becomes more perfect, even if it consists only of a few. True, the Church, like heaven, becomes more perfect as it increases in numbers. But this is only the case when each and every member looks to spiritual ends. It then becomes more perfect, because each member receives the Lord's Influx differently from others; and variety increases the perfection of any organized whole, if the parts constituting it all conspire to one end. But unless this results, there is no real gain in numbers. Hence the one thing we ought to strive after, above all others, is a fuller reception of good and truth; thus a clearer understanding of truth, and a more interior love of good, a fuller presence of the Lord, and conjunction with Him, and closer consociation with those who have reached this state.
EXTERNAL LIFE OF HEAVEN 1906

EXTERNAL LIFE OF HEAVEN       GEORGE A. M. MCQUEEN       1906

     Heaven is inhabited by men and women, who, having passed through the preparatory life of this world and the world of spirits, have come out victorious from the conflict with evil. From the endeavor in this world to guide their actions in accordance with revealed Truth, they have reached that glorious state where they rest from their spiritual labors, and are free to progress to eternity in the life of charity and faith.

     The change in their state is not an internal one, but a change in the conditions of existence which permits of the ultimation of their affections and thoughts in a manner previously impossible.

     It is not the purpose of this paper to dwell upon the internal life of the angels, but rather to see them in their outward life, living and performing uses as do the citizens of this world. This is made possible to the members of the New Church because it has pleased the Lord to reveal particulars as to the other life in great abundance.


608



     Let its then imagine that we are visiting one of the heavenly societies, and, if possible, imprint on our minds a concrete idea of the doings of our departed friends, and of the kind of life we may hope to enjoy in the course of a few years from now.

     The general scenery is so life what we are accustomed to that we are scarcely conscious that we have entered the spiritual world. The only difference is in its origin. (A. E. 926.) We visit on the present occasion a large city consisting of many thousands of inhabitants. There are many people living in the suburbs, also in the towns and villages, and on the, mountains, but we must limit our visit to the city. We are at once struck with the order which prevails. The arrangement of the streets, the style of the houses and public buildings, although varied, unite in producing an effect of perfect harmony. It is a veritable Garden City. Many of the houses are surrounded with trees and shrubbery. The mansions of the priests are centrally situated, and near these is the palace of the prince who rules over the city and of the subordinate governors, councillors, officials, and other leading men. Among the public buildings are the gymnasia, museums, colleges and libraries. (T. C. R. 694.)

     This is a progressive city. As the inhabitants advance in the spiritual life the city increases in beauty and perfection. There is continual purification and new creation, and this without end (A. C. 4803.)

     We arrive on the morning of the Sabbath. The dawn has been ushered in by the usual morning glorification of the Lord. From the opened windows might have been heard delightful singing by the young girls of the households,--singing, full of affection to the Giver of Life both internal and external. This is of daily occurrence. Here nothing can interfere with the family worship. Even here there are, however, general states which need the stimulus to increased love of Divine Things, and this is produced by cessation from ordinary occupations, and the taking part in public worship. (C. L. 23.) When such a state exists the Sabbath is proclaimed. We may now see streams of people entering a large semicircular building, which holds about three thousand worshipers. These people have the written Word as we have it here. They also sing songs of which they are very fond. (S. D. 5603.) We enter the building and notice that there are no empty seats. We are informed that everyone has his own seat, and that no one else could possibly occupy it.

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The service lasts about two hours. (C. L. 266.) The preacher, clothed in the robes of his office, gives forth the fruits of his study of the Divine Word. The teaching must be that which exactly meets the states of the congregation, and the benefits resulting from the faithful preaching of the Word in this work, will enable us to form some idea of the glorious light which results from the preaching in a heavenly society.

     The Sabbath day is closing. Twilight approaches, and it is an indication that the inhabitants are preparing for sleep. There is no night there. (A. C. 8426.) They pass from twilight to dawn, from dawn to twilight, but actual darkness never prevails.

     We now visit the city on the morning following the Sabbath. After the morning praise, all windows are closed and the work of the day begins. Everything is quiet and no loiterers are seen in the streets. Everyone is employed, whether rich or poor. Each has work to do which can be done by no one else. The heart of the worker is in his use of love to his neighbor. "There is a certain vein or current latent in the affection of the will of every angel which draws his mind to the execution of some purpose or employment in which he finds tranquility and is satisfied." As in this world there are many employments which would be unnecessary in heaven, so in heaven there are innumerable uses not known here. Could we enter the houses we would see all the usual household duties it full swing. In the houses of the rich and opulent we would find many domestic servants of varying grades, while in the abodes of the less wealthy they would be fewer. Some of the ladies are embroidering and knitting presents, while others are writing letters to their friends in other societies. (C. L. 207; S. D. 5563.) The heavenly nurses are caring for the little ones who have come to them from the earth. That there must be an immense number engaged in this use we may conclude from the fact that a third part of heaven is formed from such infants. The priests are engaged in the study of spiritual subjects. The prince is taking council with the subordinate governors and framing laws for the benefit of the people, for both he and the lesser officials govern according to the law, but in doubtful matters they are enlightened immediately by the Lord (H. H. 215). The judge is engaged at the Court of justice hearing a case in which some of the more simple angels are concerned. (T. C. R. 694.)

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Some error has crept into their minds, and it is the function of the judge to decide, from his greater knowledge, what is right. The scribes are at work making copies of the writings of the wise men of the city. Some of these writings are being printed. (C. L. 207.) Students may be seen going to the public libraries to confer with the wise met there who instruct them in matters of doubt. (S. D. 5999.) There are also mechanics and manufacturers of various kinds of articles for use in heaven. To do uses in heaven is to act sincerely, justly and faithfully in the work which belongs to one's office." (D. L. W. 431.) This the angels call charity. All the uses are performed without thought of recompense. As soon as the idea of reward enters the mind all happiness vanishes. (A. C. 6388.)

     Time will not permit of detailed reference to many of the uses that exist in such a society, but there are some which we cannot overlook because of their importance. Here is seen a party of warrior angels descending to the world of spirits. They are of the society called Michael. In the intermediate world there are some good spirits who are in danger of being overcome be the sphere of false teachings with which they are surrounded. The Lord has seen their need, and these Michaels are going forth in the strength of Divine Truth and their presence in a society is a sure protection to those who are in trouble. These warriors were members of the New Church on the earth, and their swords are spiritual truths rationally understood. Their battles are sometimes severe, but more often the evil spirits flee at the mere appearance of the heavenly troop, which never yet was vanquished.

     In the heavenly city many are engaged in the glorious use of receiving those who enter the spiritual world by the gate of natural death, while others give attention to those who have passed their period of vastation and are ready to be received as members of the community. Consider the hundreds of thousands who enter the other life every day, and the vast number engaged in this use may to some extent be realized. The gates of this city are carefully guarded, but several distinguished looking strangers have just passed in company with a guide. They will be shown over the city and will be entertained at the palace of the prince; they are guests from other societies, invited to be present at a wedding.

611


On the street is noticed another strangers peculiar character. The appearance of his garments is continually changing, and the expression of his face is inconstant. This is an indication to the angels that he will not be with them for long. (S. D. 5172.) He is in an unsettled state and will soon be leaving. The inhabitants of the city are clothed, with pleasing variety, in a general style common to all. They rarely change in this respect except on special occasions. The reason is that their characters are fixed. They have settled convictions, and their reception of Truth is similar.

     At the hour of noon the regular work of the day ceases, and the afternoon is spent in recreation. The children are to be seen playing in the streets, while their masters and governesses watch over them and keep them in order. Some of the elders play at tennis, hand-ball and other games.

     On the day of our visit, a period of special festivity has commenced which may last several days. This has been arranged by the prince, in order that the minds of the inhabitants may be refreshed and strengthened by relaxation from the usual routine. Among many kinds of entertainments in progress there may be mentioned a vocal and instrumental concert in the public park. The orchestra is surrounded with pillars formed of vines wreathed together, from which hang bunches of ripe grapes. Sitting in rows, one above the other, are the musicians with wind and stringed instruments, also the singers of both sexes. These are entertaining the citizens with music inexpressibly sweet, both in concert and solo. There are exhibitions of various kinds, dramatic entertainments, trials of skill among the boys in order to discover their readiness of wit in speaking, acting and perceiving,--everything, in short, to meet the tastes of the citizens.

     Twilight is descending, and the vision fades, but the vast subject of the uses in heaven remains in the mind.

     Teaching concerning these is given in abundance in the Heavenly Doctrines of the Church. Enough has been said to show the great similarity between the external life in Heaven and the external life in the world. If only the existing internal difference was removed from the hearts of men and women. Heaven would be present here. It was present in the days of t he Golden Age, and it will be present again in the future. Then this material world will be in correspondence with the heavens.

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Then, "as in Heaven so upon the earth," will the Lord be seen in all created things, as beautifully expressed in the following teaching:

     "He who looks at externals from internal things, when he views the sky, does not think at all of the starry heavens, but of the angelic heaven; and when he beholds the sun, he does not think of the sun, but of the Lord who is the Sun of heaven; so also when he beholds the moon and the stars. Yea, when he beholds the immensity of Heaven, he does not think of its immensity, but of the immense and infinite power of the Lord; so with the rest: for there is nothing which is not representative. In like manner he regards the things on earth; when he beholds the dawn of the day, he does not think of the day-dawn, but of the origin of all things from the Lord, and of the progression into the full day of wisdom. Again, when he sees gardens, orchards, and flowerbeds, his eye does not dwell on any tree, its blossom, foliage and fruit, but up in the heavenly things which they represent; nor upon any flower, its beauty and amenity, but upon those thing,, which they represent in the other life; for there is nothing beautiful and delightful, either in the sky or an earth, which is not representative of the kingdom of the Lord." A. C. 1807.
HOW THE LAYMAN CAN HELP TO BUILD UP THE CHURCH 1906

HOW THE LAYMAN CAN HELP TO BUILD UP THE CHURCH       W. A. HANLIN       1906

     The question involves the very life of all Newchurchmen. Upon the character and quality of this life depends the possibility of his being a help towards the up building of the Church in himself as an individual,-this a help to the Church as a whole.

     We are taught first and foremost in the General Church that a daily reading of the Writings is most important. We know this to be true; true because it is a daily going to the Lord for spiritual instruction and nourishment, that we may be the better enabled to live a life according to the Ten Commandments,--a life of true usefulness to our neighbor; that we may, be it ever so slowly grow into a love of use and thereby keep around us the influence of spirits who are ever endeavoring to draw and influence us to what is right.


613



     We cannot over-estimate the importance of this daily seeking the Lord through those sacred Writings which are His own revelation of Himself, mercifully provided by Him that men of this day and age may, if they will, be saved from their evils.

     As we follow a daily reading of the Writings, it is almost always at first from a sense of duty; we have been taught that we should do so; we gradually begin to feel additional interest in what we read, and finally a love of it, varying fit quality, as we progress and continue the habit.

     This brings around us spirits in the other world, who are continually in the effort to lead us away from our evil inclinations, giving us a new interest and desire for the true uses that present themselves in our life's work. It gives an increasing love of those truths we learn by our daily reading, with a desire to communicate them to others, and many a hungry seeker after the truth has in this manner been led to Divine Revelation as revealed from the Word in the Writings.

     There has recently been made a serious inquiry as to which of several methods has been the most fruitful source of the growth of the external organization of the Church, and statistical information has been gathered on this subject. I am not familiar with the opinions formed as a result of this investigation: but I am most certain that the teaching made so prominent by the General Church with regard to this reading by the layman, together with instruction of the young in the Doctrines of the Church, are the principal avenues through which this growth must come.

     Without a diligent study of the Doctrines as revealed in the Word and the Writings, and a life according to their teachings, there is no way in which the layman can contribute any lasting help in the up building of the Church.

     The daily reading of the Writings by the layman, then, we think is the first and most important step we can take toward the building up of the Church. Our success or failure will depend on our loyalty to the truths there found, to the influence they have on our life and our life's work.


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Editorial Department 1906

Editorial Department       Editor       1906

     NOTES AND REVIEWS.

     A correspondent to the Morning Light for September 1st, thus gives voice to his impressions of the English Conference:

     "I am not alone in stating that representatives to Conference have been disappointed and mortified time after time at the stereotyped and exclusive methods adopted by Conference in the deliberations, and we have returned home feeling that the time has been utterly wasted. We have spiritually gone expecting bread and been offered stones, so that instead of being the delight and pleasure to represent a Society, friends are with difficulty persuaded to act. We see our Churches and small Societies declining and closing all around us, and what steps are we taking to remedy this? Someone is commissioned to visit them and remonstrate with them and give a course of lectures in their declining state, but as for real practical help, that is a matter for further consideration, until it is too late. I am fully persuaded, and it must be enforced upon the mind of every member of the New Church, that this apathetic state of the Church at the present time lies at the doors of Conference and its members downwards, and must be looked for within, and we should do well to ask ourselves the question. Does everyone, minister and layman alike, attend from an internal desire to be blessed and helped in the spread of her doctrines and furtherance of a better life, for these, and these only, should be the feelings and desires of every individual."

     Similar testimony to the state of the New Church in England is given by the Rev. W. T. Lardge, who, in a sermon on New Church Education, delivered at Preston, last July, draws the following somber picture: "Not a few of our Societies have well-nigh gone over bodily to the Old Church, in some form or another, simply and solely because of the want of proper training and instruction when their members were children.

615


If all the money that had been spent in trying to get accretions from without the Church had been expended on beautifully constructed buildings for New Church uses--day and Sunday--then we should not today have had to mourn the great leakage in the general church, but should have had what we so much need--a strong, solid, united church. But, alas! we have allowed ourselves to be influenced too much by what the Old Church and its sects said and did. Our ministers, we have been informed, have tried everything that ministers of other communities have tried, so that nothing should have been left undone. Perhaps that is why we are where we are. You cannot fit a square peg into a round bole. When will the Church learn her lesson aright? It is not on account of a lark of experience and of trying first this fad and idea and then another. If the New Church as a Instinctive Church (as she is) is to hold her own in the future, she will have to look to her young during the week as well as one day in seven."

     The death of Thomas Lake Harris, on March 23d, closes a long and sinister chapter in the history of pseudo-celestialism. The career of this arch-impostor has been commented on from time to time in the pages of New Church Life, (1885, p. 47:1900, p. 204). It has certainly been dramatic--though full of tragedy. His first appearance at New Orleans, in 1850, with a new revelation of the "celestial" sense of the Word,--the furor of enthusiasm which his lurid works and lectures created in prominent New Church circles in New York and London, culminating in the terrible strife in the Swedenborg Society in 1861,--his "celestial" community at Salem-on-Erie, where Lady Oliphant and her son, Laurence, practiced "internal respiration" under his inspired guidance,--the free-love community of the "Brotherhood of the New Age" at Santa Rosa, Cal.,--the scandalous exposures of the San Francisco Chronicle in 1885, and again in 1891,--Dr. Holcombe's persistent defense of this spiritual fraud in the pages of the New Church Independent,--his claim of earthly immortality,--all these things pass in rapid review before our eyes as we learn from the British Weekly of July 26th that even now the deluded followers of Harris "declare that their master only sleeps," and that they still "cling to his creed that immortality on this earth is possible."


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     The journal of Education for 1906 opens with an interesting article on The Normal School, by the Rev. Homer Synnestvedt; wherein Mr. Synnestvedt shows the necessity of such a school in the development of the educational work of the Church, and briefly deals with the problems which arise in its establishment,--problems, which, as the report of the past year's work shows, are being successfully met.

     The reports of the various departments indicate that the year's work has been a prosperous one, and that the attendance has been somewhat larger than in previous years. The number of pupils was sixty-five,--two in the Theological School, three in the Normal School, twenty-two in the College, and thirty-eight in the Girls' Seminary.

     Of special interest among other reports, is that of the librarian which gives a list of donors from whom a total Of 827 volumes have been added to the library. The largest contributors were the estate of Mrs. Margaret P. Starkey 515 volumes, and Mr. Bennet Yarnall with 229. Among the more unique contributions are copies of Swedenborg's scientific works containing autographs of Robert Hindmarsh, T. Clowes, and John Flaxman.

     The library has also been enriched with ten "new" portraits of Swedenborg donated by Mr. Alfred. H. Stroh, and with a small water color painting of Swedenborg's summer house, given by the Rev. R. J. Tilson.

     Altogether, with its full and interesting reports, and its varied and detailed information concerning the practical carrying on and development of the work of the Academy, the Journal of Education for igo6 will be welcomed by those interested in New Church Education, and will, we doubt not, like its predecessors, bring that work to the attention of some who have little definite idea of what is being done. We would mildly suggest, however, that it is eminently desirable that the publication of our educational institution be more free from printers' errors than is the case in the volume before us.


617


SWEDENBORG AS A GEOLOGIST 1906

SWEDENBORG AS A GEOLOGIST              1906

     Nearly every year in recent times there is added some new voice to the swelling chorus of tribute from the learned world that is being raised in belated recognition of Swedenborg's merits as a man of science. The most recent eulogist is Prof. A. G. Nathorst, of Stockholm, the most eminent geologist of Sweden, a man of international reputation, who is associated with Prof. Retzius. Prof. Arrhenius, and others, in the "Swedenborg Committee" of the Royal Academy of Sciences. In a pamphlet of twenty-four pages, I (reprinted from the Transactions of the Swedish Geological Society for igo6), Prof. Nathorst treats of "Emanuel Swedenborg as a Geologist," and in his treatise opens up a chapter in Swedenborg's life-work of which but little has hitherto been popularly known. While it does not appear that Prof. Nathorst possesses any thorough knowledge or understanding of Swedenborg's cosmological system as a whole, yet he is deeply impressed with the remarkable investigations, anticipations, and contributions of our author to the science of Geology, at a time when this science was still unborn. He testifies that Swedenborg "exercised a direct influence upon the system of Werner," (Abraham G. Werner, 1750-1817, the "father of modern Geology"), and believes that what Swedenborg (and Linnaeus) accomplished on this field "would alone have been sufficient to gain for them a respected scientific name."

     The professor refers to the efforts made by him in a work published some twenty years ago "to do justice to Swedenborg's activity in the field of Geology," and acknowledges his indebtedness to the assistance of Mr. Alfred Stroh in the preparation of the present essay. He gives a list of no less than ten different works and manuscripts of Swedenborg dealing with geological subjects, which will be included in the magnificent new edition of Swedenborg's earlier treatises now being published by the Academy of Sciences under the title Opera quaedam aut inedita aut obsolete Emanuelis Swedenborgii de rebus naturalibus. The contributions of Swedenborg to the development of the science of Geology are taken up in chronological order, and are examined critically but at the same time in a spirit of astonished admiration.

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Among these contributions he describes Swedenborg's arguments in proof of a primeval ocean, the rising and falling of lake Venner, his observations on the strata of mountains, on the formation of metallic veins, hot springs, etc., and publishes a number of plates reproducing Swedenborg's own illustrations of vegetable and animal fossils.

     It is infusible in the present notice to review Prof. Nathorst's treatise as it deserves, but it is to be hoped that some competent scholar will translate it into English and thus make it known to the scientific world in general, Great would be the astonishment of that world if it were to gain even a glimpse of that wonderful, rational, and thoroughly homogeneous system of natural and scientific Truth, contained in Swedenborg's preparatory volumes, of which Prof. Nathorst has exhibited a few, very remarkable but still detached, details. As the professor himself observes: "Wonderful, indeed, is that versatility of which Swedenborg's Geological works bear witness; almost all the contemporary questions of a wider geological significance are touched upon by him, and yet these works constitute but a minor part of his entire scientific activity which in many respects was far in advance of his age. For, of course, he was also a mathematicians astronomer, cosmologist, physicist, mechanic, chemist, anatomist, and physiologist. What Anders Retzius said of Swedenborg's Regnum Animale, that it was 'a miracle,' in which will be found 'ideas belonging to the most modern times, and a comprehensiveness, induction and tendency which are only to be compared with those of Aristotle,'--this may now, after recent experiences, be applied to almost the whole of his scientific activity. He was, indeed, a mighty spirit, of whom our country has all the more reason to be proud, as it was combined with a personality which in all respects was modest and noble."

     Among other interesting matters in Prof. Nathorst's pamphlet, we are informed that the author, on account of Swedenborg having been the first Swede who had described and interpreted vegetable fossils, in the year 1876 gave the name of "Swedenborgia" to a whole family of petrified plants; and that, in the year 1898 a certain mountain at Belsund on the Spitzbergen was named "Swedenborg's mountain." This is of interest, but some day a new scientific world will honor Swedenborg's name with more than archaic and arctic associations.


619


TRANSLATION OF "CONJUGIALIS." 1906

TRANSLATION OF "CONJUGIALIS."              1906

     Some months ago the trustees of the Rotch Legacy issued a circular letter which appeared in the New Church periodicals, asking for "the opinion of the members of the New Church as to the best translation of the Title-page of the work hitherto known as "Conjugial Love." The enquiry was instituted as an aid to the trustees in deciding upon the policy to be pursued in their forthcoming edition of that work, the idea having been suggested that "Marriage Love" would be a translation equally correct with "Conjugial Love" and having the advantage over it of being "idiomatic English." The circular has aroused considerable interest, and communications with regard to it have been sent to the Life and to the New Church Messenger. But the most thorough discussion of the question involved that has yet appeared is contained in art editorial article by the Rev. S. M. Warren, which appeared in the New Church Review for July. This article, which has been reprinted in separate form and been widely distributed by order of the Rotch Trustees, embodies all the arguments which have been made for the change from "Conjugial" to "Marriage," and may be taken as fully representative of the position of those who advocate this innovation.

     Mr. Warren confesses to a complete change of mind, a thorough restudy of the question having led him, "at first reluctantly," to the conviction that he had been mistaken in his past opposition to the substitution of Marriage for Conjugial. This conclusion, he states, has been reached solely on the merits of the question itself, and entirely uninfluenced "by any notion that the Writings in translation should be accommodated to the reading public." Indeed he contends that "in view of what we now know of the subject, to continue the use of the word Conjugial lest the reader fail otherwise to mark the distinction between the true and the false marriage love, would be to accommodate the translation to supposed requirements of the reading public,--a thing which has been much and rightly deprecated and condemned."


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     Mr. Warren opens his discussion with a consideration of Swedenborg's use of the word conjugalis. This word occurs only five times in the Writings,--Conjugial Love, nos. 98 and 203; and True Christian Religion, nos. 805 and 847 (twice). In Conjugial Love n. 98. ("It here treats of love truly conjugial, and not of the common love which also is called conjugal"), Mr. Warren contends that the word "also" (etiam) indubitably indicates that conjugialis is a misprint for conjugialis. From the context he judges that there was a similar misprint in n. 203 of the same work, the "conjugal" there referred to being referred to later on in the same passage as "that "conjugial." The passages in True Christian Religion speak of "love truly conjugal," but in Conjugial Love, n. 534, where one of these passages is given literatim the word is "conjugial."* According to Mr. Warren, these latter instances indicate either that Swedenborg was "not exact about the rise of the term" Conjugial, or, what he thinks most highly probable, that conjugalis is in every case a misprint.
     * It may be added that elsewhere in T. C. R. Swedenborg uses the word conjugialis.

     He then quotes a number of passages from the Writings showing the wide application of the word Conjugial, from the Divine itself to the plane of the natural, and even, in a few cases, (A. C. Index, S. D, 3319, and C. L. 534), to what is infernal. "Everywhere else (i. e., except in the five cases noted above) the word used in the Writings is conjugialis,--in application alike to true and to perverted love, and to the marriage desire or inclination in all degrees of its descent, from its source in the Lord Himself down to the very last and lowest things of His creation." And, therefore, he concludes, being applied solely to marriage desire on every plane, should be tendered "marriage." This rendition, he adds is also preferable as reflecting in English the rotation of conjugialis to conjugium (marriage) from which it is derived. Yet he admits that "conjugial" is just as exact and true a translation.

     He then discusses, what, to him, is "the most serious and apparently weighty" objection to such a rendition of conjugialis, namely, the "apprehension that we should fail to impress the reader quickly with the fact that the love treated of is far above the natural love commonly associated in these days with marriage, but is a spiritual, pure, and heavenly love.

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This apprehension, however, he considers to be more apparent than real." "The purpose of the great work on 'Marriage Love,' and in all the Writings. is, not to drop the sacred name (of marriage) even in any partial degree, and substitute another love for marriage love under another name, but to redeem and rescue the holy marriage relation and marriage love from their abasement."

     The word Conjugial, against which Mr. Warren's arguments are directed, holds a strong and entrenched position. By long and universal usage it has become fixed in the terminology of the New Church as being the full and fit expression of a new and spiritual idea: around it are centered affections for a spiritual love hitherto unknown; and, moreover, it has for many years back its place in the dictionaries as an accepted word of the English language. For these reasons, if for no other, it is evident that before introducing a change the strongest and weightiest considerations must be advanced, and the advantages of the change must be plainly apparent. This must be the case even if the question were merely one of translation. But the reasons set forth by Mr. Warren, and the action tentatively contemplated by the Rotch trustees, involve, as their logical outcome, far more than a matter of translation. They involve the entire abolition of the word Conjugial; for if that word is not to be used as the translation, of conjugialis then it is not to be used at all. Some would view its loss with complacency,--as, for instance, Dr. T. F. Wright, who states in the Messenger that the word Conjugial was an addition to out language of very doubtful value! But whatever may be thought of the expediency of thus impoverishing our language, the task itself is truly a stupendous one. Language is a living thing whose words have come into rise not by any artificial process, but because they are genuinely expressive of the ideas of the people. The word Conjugial has become established amongst us, not because Mr. Clowes adopted it in his translations, for Mr. Clowes used other words, e. g., "principle," which are gradually falling into disuse. But the word Conjugial was at once adopted and has come into established use because it was seen to be the true exponent of a living idea.

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Both history and reason dictate that the effort to dismiss it will be attended with failure. Nevertheless this effort, if carried out, will have the result of increasing that deplorable and useless variety in the terminology of the Church which has been already initiated by some of our modern translators.

     The reasons prompting to the substitution of Marriage for Conjugial may be summed up as follows:

     1. The Writings never use the word conjugalis, the few places where it occurs being misprints.

     2. The word Conjugial is used to describe all degrees of "the universal marriage love," and even its opposite.

     3. The substitution of the word Marriage will redeem that word "from any affiliation in the reader's mind with what is now known as marriage;" and, finally,

     4. It will reflect in English the relation of conjugialis to conjugium.

     The first two of these reasons have little, if any, real bearing on the question at issue. It may be admitted that conjugalis in the rare cases where it occurs is possibly or even very probably a misprint, though, so far as the work on Conjugial Love is concerned, sufficient can be said on the other side to withhold us from any dogmatic utterance on the subject.*
     * Mr. Noble thought that it "generally appears most probable" that where conjugalis occurs it is a printer's error. (See his note to H. H. 367.) The same view seems to have been held by the Rev. Samuel E. Worcester on his Latin reprints. With the exception of the Rev. Warren Goddard, author of the "Boston translation," the translators of Conjugial Love (Mr. Clowes and Mr. Searle) and its revisers have all acted on the presumption that Conjugale in n. 98 is a misprint; and, with the further exception of Mr. Clowes, that the same is true of n. 203.

     But even granting that the word is everywhere a misprint, this would establish nothing more than that Swedenborg never uses calling. It has no real bearing on the question of the proper translation of conjugialis. Or, rather, such bearing as it has inclines to the retention of the word Conjugial. For the occurrence of conjugale, whether by error or not, has certainly served the purpose of calling closer attention to the distinction between conjugial love and ordinary marriage love; and of confirming the adoption and retention of the word conjugial in place of conjugal.

     The second consideration advanced by Mr. Warren is that the term conjugialis is applied to all marriage love even to the infernal.

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Mr. Warren himself had formerly been of the opinion "that by amor conjugialis Swedenborg meant distinctively and exclusively a spiritual and heavenly love, and that he meant by the use of the term conjugialis to distinguish this true heavenly love from the debased love of marriage which is now most common in the world." And it is apparently in correction of this opinion that he quotes a number of passages showing the varied senses it which conjugialis is used. The collection is of interest and value, but it would be misleading if it were taken to obscure the very patent fact that amor conjugialias is practically everywhere in the Writings used to describe "distinctly and exclusively a spiritual and heavenly love." That in a few cases it is used for the opposite indicates that a revelation of the interiors of the love of marriage is also a revelation of the interiors of the love of adultery. But as a rule and almost invariably this latter love is spoken of as adulterous or scortatory love. Of the ordinary marriage love, considered as something merely external, Swedenborg very rarely speaks, for he deals always with the interiors within that love, which are either conjugial or adulterous. The specific bearing of Mr. Warren's passages upon the translation of conjugialis is therefore not apparent. Had he shown that the term conjugialis is generally applied to infernal as well as to heavenly love then indeed there might be some show of reason in the contention that by amor conjugialis Swedenborg meant merely marriage love, leaving to the context or to an adjective to indicate whether the heavenly or infernal love was meant. But this cannot be shown, for the reason that it is not the fact. And the truth still remains that the word conjugialis expresses something heavenly and hitherto unknown which is to enter into the marriages of the Church and distinguish them from marriage in the world; and that the word itself, while not entirely new, was sufficiently rate as to emphasize the newness of what is expressed.

     It is further contended that the adoption of the proposed change of Conjugial to Marriage will have the effect on the reader of the Writings of elevating the name of marriage above the conceptions with which it is ordinarily associated. But this contention is more ingenious than weighty. It has no basis in experience. For where is the reader of the Writings who has gathered any spiritual idea of the teachings of Conjugial Love, with whom the "sacred name of marriage" is not elevated far above the conceptions of the world?

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And, without doubt, it will be found that, in most cases, with this elevation comes also an attachment to the very word Conjugial as being the distinct embodiment of that which elevates, the ultimate verbal expression of that new spiritual love which distinguishes marriage in the New Church from marriage in the Old.

     Mr. Warren's remaining argument is that by adopting the tern Marriage Love we shall reflect in English the derivation of conjugialis from conjugium. The same argument might be applied to the translation of scortatorius and scortum. But in both cases the gain to be derived is more theoretical than real. For who that has read anything about conjugial love, does not know that it is a love pertaining to marriage and the things of marriage? The change to Marriage Love would merely reflect the fact of the relation between conjugialis and conjugium,--a fact which every reader knows. But this very problematical gain would be more than offset by a very real loss. The word conjugialis is derived from a root meaning "conjunction." Now the unlearned reader, while he may be wholly ignorant of this derivation, yet knows that conjugial love is a love conjoining souls and minds, and the word itself conveys to him doctrinally the whole of the idea involved. in its derivation. But the word Marriage does not so fully convey this idea. Derived from the word mas (a male), it properly or etymologically means masculine or marital love; while, as a matter of ordinary usage, it brings the idea, not of the conjunction of souls, but of the marriage relation of husband and wife and of the natural loves which usually characterize that relation. Rather than change Conjugial to Marriage there would be more reason in desiring a new word for Marriage,--a word that will involve, like conjugium, the idea of conjunction. But the fact that our language affords us no such word, is no reason why, merely for the sake of reflecting a manifest etymological connection, we should I've up another word that we do have, that we should lose a pound in order to gain a penny.

     Such, then, are the reasons advanced for abolishing the word Conjugial, And so unsatisfactory do they seem that we are led to seek for another and deeper reason. The movement for a change in the translation of conjugialis is but part and parcel of a general movement to modify or do away with many of the words which have become distinctive of our theology.

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And the soul of this movement is an undue looking to the world, as the criterion of our translators. We do not mean that Mr. Warren is influenced by this end indeed, he distinctly disclaims it. Nevertheless this looking to the world has been more or less present in every attempt to change our terminology, and, to us it gives the only sufficient reason for the present movement.

     The question may well be asked, Is the world benefitted by these changes in the changes of the Church? Take the word Conjugial. It is true that to an Old Church man the word would appear strange, but as he read concerning conjugial love he would soon gather the spirit of its meaning. If, on the other hand, it were tendered marriage, he would indeed at once understand it, but his understanding would not be that of the New Church. And though as he reads on he would learn its true meaning better, yet his learning will not be hastened by the old ideas clinging to the old word. With a new word, which is yet to receive its definitions, the ground is, as it were, empty for the reception of many ideas; but with the old word old ideas are apt to remain and hinder the free entrance of the new.

     The word conjugialis is of very rare occurrence in classical literature, being found only in Ovid who uses it in a few places in his Fables. It is entirely unknown " medieval Latin, and, so far as we know, is not to be found in any of the more modern Latin writers, with the single exception of Swedenborg. Swedenborg, however, uses it exclusively, not only in his theological but also in his scientific works. It is most highly probable that his choice was based on the derivation of the word,-conjugialis being derived through conjugium from conjungo, to conjoin, unite; while the common word conjugialis is derived from conjungo, to yoke together. Certain it is that, even in his scientific works, Swedenborg had a very different view of the love of marriage than that generally obtaining in his day as in cuts. To him conjugial love was a union of souls and not merely a yoking together in the bonds of civil contract and moral order. No wonder then if he chose a practically new word as better expressive of his ideas. But whatever may have been his reasons, when the time of revelation came there was, in the Divine Providence, laid up in his memory this new word with more or less of new ideas attached to it, to serve as the vehicle for the expression of new spiritual ideas.

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"Novis rebus nova ponenda nomina," wrote Cicero, and his words have received confirmation in every field of human activity. In religion, in politics, in the professions, the arts and the sciences, new ideas have ever led to, the introduction of new words. And the literary world, far from refusing to recognize these words, has always willingly adopted them; and they have become a part of the language, embodying in ultimate form the progress of the people. It would sometimes seem as if Newchurchmen alone would deny to the Church that right to new expressions for new ideas which is enjoyed by every body of thinking men. Fortunately our early translators, Clowes, Noble, Hindmarsh and others, took a different view, and whatever may be the faults of their translations, it is to their theological perception, their scholarly instincts and their literary good taste that the Church now owes its distinctive and expressive terminology.

     It is in particular to the first two of these men that we owe the word "Conjugial." Clowes retained it from some perception of its importance, and from a refined literary spirit which sought to faithfully reflect his author's peculiarities of style and diction. To quote his reason, as given by himself, it is: "that the author himself constantly uses the Latin term conjugiale in preference to conjugiale, when yet the latter term is equally classical and appears alike expressive;" and he gives it as his opinion, based on the occurrence of conjugiale in n. 203, that "the author did this intentionally and not of caprice." The reason for this preference, he conjectures, "was the peculiar softness of conjugiale above conjugiale arising from the insertion of the vowel i; in consequence whereof it is better adapted to express the pure and celestial affection which it is meant to denote." Mr. Noble seems to have had a clearer theological insight as to the importance of the term Conjugial. He traces the author's preference for it to its root meaning of conjunction, as opposed to the root of conjugalis which is "a yoking." "Now as a Yoke carries with it the idea of compulsion and domination," be continues, "which is abhorrent from all that our author reaches of the genuine nature of marriage love, whilst the idea of conjunction is in perfect harmony with it, it can be no matter of surprise that he preferred the term conjugialis to conjugalis."


627



     Without doubt Mr. Noble was right. The leading idea of conjugiale is conjunction,-an idea which etymologically is not contained in our word Marriage, and is but partially expressed by it as defined by common usage. Conjugial is a more universal term than Marriage: a term directly involving not merely the union of husband and wife but also conjunction of two into one on every plane of life. Essentially, it is the conjunction of truth with good and of good wide truth. (A. C. 3952.) Hence "it is predicated of the Union of the Divine and the Divine Human." (A. C. 6179.) And from this Union in the Lord comes the universal conjugial sphere which inflows through heaven and into each and all things of the universe down to its ultimates, becoming celestial, spiritual, natural, animal, corporeal, and, with plants, devoid of life. (C. L. 222, 225.) Received by men this conjugial sphere becomes conjugial love, a love which is in its ultimate and fullness in the state of marriage of one mm with one wife.

     The term Conjugial, therefore, involves a universal idea of conjunction as springing from the union which is in the Lord. And in like manner the term Conjugial Love also involves a universal idea,-an idea of the celestial and spiritual conjunction of souls having its origin in the universal conjugial sphere and its ultimate in the love of marriage and the state of marriage. To call it Marriage Love, in view of the etymology and ordinary usage of the word Marriage, would greatly tend to draw the attention away from the interior and towards the ultimate, or to what we might call the personal manifestations of Conjugial Love as seen in the state of marriage.

     The universality of the idea entering into the word conjugialis becomes most apparent when that word is used in its abstract or neuter sense as "the conjugial." In the case of the phrase Conjugial Love, the difficulty is not so apparent, for conjugial love, being also an ultimate love, is "Marriage Love," though, it must be added, "it is the spiritual love of marriage which when it descends into the body becomes the natural love of marriage. (A. E. 983, 992.) But it is very different when Conjugial is used as an abstract noun. In such cases, it is not intended to lead the mind of the reader to any ultimate manifestation of the conjugial, but rather to lead his thought to its purely spiritual aspect.

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And it is precisely in these cases that Mr. Warren confesses to the greatest difficulty of substituting Marriage for Conjugial; but he is significantly vague in suggesting a remedy for the difficulty. It is easy enough to say that Swedenborg's "own definitions and usage furnish a happy means of solving the difficulty by making him his own interpreter" and that with Swedenborg's "clear and authoritative definition of the Christian conjugiale and of the abstract term in general, (in C. L. 142, 187), as our guide, we need not go astray in the interpretation of it,"-but this leaves us in as great a, difficulty as before, or even greater, for the definitions of the Writings while all harmonious are quite varied. Apparently Mr. Warren would suggest using some such phrase as "the desire for marriage," But the greatness of the difficulty and the titter insufficiency of the suggested remedy can best be seen by an illustration. Take, for instance, the phrases The Conjugial of good and truth and the marriage of good and truth. The former refers to the influx of the universal Conjugial sphere from the Lord breathing on every plane of life the conjunction of good and truth (C. L. 209); the latter refers to the conjunction itself received in the minds of angels and men. But translate Conjugial as "the desire for marriage," or by any other rendition bringing out the idea of ultimate marriage, and the full meaning of the phrase is obscured; the mind is at once drawn from the interior spiritual idea of influx from the Lord to a contemplation of the effects of that influx.

     Equally great would be the difficulty encountered in interpreting numberless other similar phrases, and equally serious the loss to clear and distinct thought which interpretation would bring about. A few only need be mentioned, such as the Human Conjugial, the Internal Conjugial, the Masculine Conjugial, the Conjugial of Love.

     And these insuperable difficulties will be met not only in the numberless cases where Conjugial is used in its abstract sense, but also and to an equal degree in the equally numberless cases where it is used as an adjective. The conjugial life. (C. L. 59); is not necessarily the "marriage life:" nor is the "extra-conjugial life," the "extra-marriage life." These who are born "conjugial pairs," are not "marriage pairs" until they are actually united in marriage.

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And it would be quite misleading to call "conjugial love of the sex," "marriage love of the sex."

     The fact that the word Conjugial involves and suggests ideas not otherwise so well expressible, is not the only reason for its retention. The necessity of interpretative renditions, if we should discard that word, and the great and apparently insurmountable difficulties of such renditions, are in themselves positive reasons of no mean importance,

     Abolish the word Conjugial, and we are at once launched upon a sea of useless and false interpretations, and of endless doubt and confusion, and all this, when we have at hand a word enrooted in the affections of the Church, fixed in her literature, and accepted in our language.
"CONJUGIAL LOVE" OR "MARRIAGE LOVE." 1906

"CONJUGIAL LOVE" OR "MARRIAGE LOVE."       CHAS. A. MORGAN       1906

EDITOR New Church Life:--

     Replying to the letter from the Trustees of the Rotch Fund in the New Church Life for May in respect to the above, I am of opinion that the alteration of the title of the work, from "Conjugial Love" to "Marriage Love" would be out of order. If the Writings of the Church are from the Lord, and consequently Divine, they must be whole and complete, the title as well as the contents, then why alter same in any way? They require no "padding," or modernizing, as many Newchurchmen contend, and it is this fact that future translators will have to keep in view.

     Mr. Thompson's letter in the June Life I fully endorse.
Yours faithfully,
CHAS. A. MORGAN. Alexandria,
New South Wales, Australia, Aug. 7, 1906.


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WORDS OF APPRECIATION 1906

WORDS OF APPRECIATION       THERESE S       1906

EDITOR NEW CHURCH LIFE:--

     I want to tell you how very much we value the Life. It is certainly in my opinion the beat New Church paper that I ever saw or had any knowledge of, and I think it most successfully and satisfactorily performs a very important use in the Church. My wife and I wait anxiously for it every month, and when it comes it Louis to bring with it an influx of the sphere of the General Church, a state of peace and elevation, which excites and confirms our affection for the Church and inspires anew our great desire to come into closer spiritual and social companionship with the other members. During my recent long illness the Life was one of the very few things which I had to keep me in touch with the Church, and it is no exaggeration to say that I do not know how I could ever have gotten along without it. My wife also is quite as sincere an admirer of the Life as I am myself. E. C. B. Orange, N. J., Aug. 15, 1906.

EDITOR New Church Life:--

     I must tell you how much, how very much, I enjoy the Life. It has been to me my daily bread, and I eagerly look for each succeeding number. I would gladly do with one meal less each day, if necessary, in order to get the Life. It has opened my eyes to the position I am to take in the New Church, and to the position the Convention is taking, and it is in making the dearly beloved Doctrines still dearer to my heart.

     I hope that you will before long give us an article on the title of Conjugial Love. This title seems to me so much more internal and spiritual than "Marriage Love."
Sincerely yours,
THERESE S-.
Meriden, Conn., July 20, 1906.


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ECHOES OF THE NINETEENTH OF JUNE 1906

ECHOES OF THE NINETEENTH OF JUNE       E. N. G       1906

EDITOR New Church Life:-

     What a grand number was the August issue of the Life. Every article in it was good, but the one on "The Nineteenth of June and the Earths in the Universe" implanted knowledges and aroused emotions that moved me greatly. I had never taken into thought the consideration that the heavens meant more than the heavens of our one little earth. Somehow I had not yet thought that it meant all the heavens of the whole universe. I shall always have a different idea after this of what may be included in the expression "the reversal spiritual world," and in the passage from the Word, "from the boundaries of the heavens even onto their boundaries." Sincerely yours, E. N. G. Gorand Rapids, Mich.
FROM A MINISTER OF THE GENERAL CONVENTION 1906

FROM A MINISTER OF THE GENERAL CONVENTION              1906

EDITOR New Church Life:--

     The August number of the Life contains so much that very many New Church people ought to know concerning the relation of the Nineteenth of June to the Second Coming of the Lord, and thus to the New Church, that I wish to rise it in my missionary work in this State by distributing it gratuitously to those who need the instruction there given. I find in my work in this State, as, indeed, I have found in all places where I have worked, a crying need for instruction and knowledge among those who call themselves New Church people. There is a state of indifference which to an earnest worker is appalling. This state is increasing in degree among a large number because of the false idea that the truths of the New Church are gradually being accepted in the Old Church. Where this notion is held, it is no longer thought necessary to read the Writings.


631



     This state of indifference and spiritual laziness is induced by inexcusable ignorance, and there must come a state of judgment and separation before instruction will be thought necessary, I think I see this state approaching, if, indeed, it has not already commenced. Some of the young people of the Convention are awakening to the necessity for a deeper study of the Doctrines. Many of the older members, clergy and laity, deploring the state of the organized societies of the Convention, recognize as the only cure a better knowledge and understanding of the Divine Truth in the Writings. My brother! There is a large number of the Convention slowly finding their way into the Genera Church. The same spiritual power, which, as Mr. Doering says in the Symposium, "culminated in formally organizing, on the Nineteenth of June, in the year 1876, the Academy of the New Church,"--is still existing. It is gaining power by the gradual accession of true Newchurchmen from this world into its sphere. The name "Academy" is losing some of the virus associated with that word in the minds that did not understand it, because they do new begin to understand it as "propagating the Heavenly Doctrine of the New Jerusalem and establishing the New Church" by "promoting education in all its various forms." And they are also beginning to see that education, real education, the kind of education that will do away with evil, is preparation for the Church and for Heaven." All this, and much more, adjoined to the acknowledgment of the Divine Authority of the Writings, is growing in the spiritual world, and must therefore conic down to us from thence. Fraternally yours, X. Aug. 20, 1906.
FIFTH ANNUAL ASSEMBLY OF THE GENERAL CHURCH OF THE NEW JERUSALEM IN GREAT BRITAIN 1906

FIFTH ANNUAL ASSEMBLY OF THE GENERAL CHURCH OF THE NEW JERUSALEM IN GREAT BRITAIN              1906

     The Assembly commenced its meetings at 99 Holland Rd., Stockwell, London, on Saturday evening, August 4, 1906, when there were present seventy-two members and friends. The Rev. Andrew Czerny presided, and opened the proceedings with religious exercises.

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Reports were received from the secretaries of the Colchester and London Societies, and from the collector of subscriptions to the General Church membership Fund.

     The President then real his annual address, the subject being "The Internal Upbuilding of the Church."

     A discussion followed on the subject of the address. Mr. Appleton said that he fully appreciated the teaching presented, and expressed his desire that "we should co-operate with our pastor, in order to effect the uses referred to within the Societies represented at the Assembly. The Doctrines had been taught us for some years and the more we read of them the more we appreciated and loved those Doctrines for the use they were in regenerating our souls from the state of evil in which we were born."

     Mr. Ball said he was thankful for the address, and pointed out that the teaching contained in it "summed up the trend of thought we had been passing through during the past year as the result of instruction received from sermons, addresses, and the study of the Writings at the doctrinal classes." He also emphasized the importance of aiming at harmonious and united action in all the work of our respective Societies.

     Mr. Elphick also appreciated the address, especially as to the necessity and usefulness of being in an affirmative state, which leads us to have open minds for the reception of truth.

     The address was further discussed by Messrs. Waters, Gill, and Cooper.

     Mr. McQueen then read a paper, entitled "The External Life of Heaven."

     The discussion which followed revealed the fact that there existed more or less obscurity in the minds of the friends as to the substantiality of the things which appear in Heaven, especially when the writer of the paper asserted that there is "time and space" in Heaven. It was difficult also to understand the teaching concerning the existence of mechanics, manufactures, etc., in connection with the statement which teaches that the Lord provides houses and many other things freely and apparently without the aid of the angels. Some interesting speeches were made in which the attempt was made to reconcile these teachings.

     The President pointed out that we had definite teaching as to the existence of buildings, but as to how they were built, we had very little information.

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There might be those who are in the affection of mechanical things and not so much in internal things but who, nevertheless, had the spiritual love of use in all that they did, It seemed reasonable, but we must not speak too positively on these points.

     The writer of the paper explained his object in introducing the subject as being to emphasize the fact of the actual existence of the things described in the Writings, and to combat a tendency to revert to the Old Church idea of Heaven, as being a kind of vaporous something. He argued that the fact that we were taught as to the "how" and the "why" of the externals of Heaven did not alter the fact of their external actuality any more than the understanding of the causes of things in the natural world did away with the impression received in childhood of the actuality of this world.

     The discussion of this paper occupied the latter part of Saturday evening, and was continued on the evening following.

     On Sunday, August 5th, the Assembly met again at 7 o'clock, and after the usual opening the adjourned discussion on Mr. McQueen's paper was concluded.

     The next paper was read by Mr. F. Rose, entitled "The Church in the Wilderness."

     In the discussion which followed, the general teaching of the paper was fully acknowledged to be in agreement with the Writings.

     Some difference of opinion existed, however, as to the aim of the paper. From questions put to Mr. Rose it appeared that he was advocating the importance of missionary work, a subject upon which there was general agreement in the General Church.

     Mr. Appleton pointed out that there had been a good deal of missionary work in the past, but it must be acknowledged that there had been but little success. Mr. Rose thought we could approach the rational mind of the scientific men, and prove that the world must have been created by the Lord, and so with the other doctrines of the Church.

     Divine worship was held on Sunday morning at 11 o'clock, conducted by the Rev. A. Czerny. The sacrament of the Holy Supper was administered to forty-six communicants.


635



     At the conclusion of the service, the pastor read a letter from Bishop Pendleton conveying fraternal greetings to the Assembly, and the wish for a useful and happy Greeting. Mr. Czerny was asked by the Assembly to convey to the Bishop its hearty appreciation of his letter, and their gratitude for the uses tendered to the Church in England by the priesthood of the General Church.

     Monday, August 6th, was devoted to social pleasures. A number of the members and friends met in Brockwell Park in the morning, and in the afternoon a garden party was held at Mr. Elphick's grounds at "Innisfallen," East Dulwich. About too friends were present, and spent a delightful time.

     After tea, a number of the children performed a cantata, entitled "The White Garland." Amidst beautiful natural surroundings the young performers presented a delightful picture, and sang and spoke their parts in a manner which reflected great credit on themselves and on Miss Waters and those who assisted her in the production of the piece.

     Three of the school girls then read selections from the poem "Hiawatha's Wedding Feast." Later on in the evening, after the grounds had been illuminated and the refreshments served round, various toasts were proposed accompanied by much cheering and singing. The subjects are too numerous to mention, but among others were "The London Society," "The Colchester Society," "The General Church in Scotland," "New Church Life," "The Cranch Brothers," etc., etc.

     Mr. Raymond Cranch, of Philadelphia, responded to the last named toast, and expressed the delight he and his brother, Walter, had experienced in visiting the friends in England, and wished success to the Assembly and its increase to eternity.

     Cheers were given for Mr. and Mrs. Elphick for the use of their grounds, and for the ladies who had worked so hard in providing the entertainment.

     The rest of the evening was spent in games and dancing on the lawn, and thus ended another series of meetings which constitute such an important item in the life of the General Church. G. A. M.


636


Church News 1906

Church News       Various       1906

     FROM OUR CORRESPONDENTS.

     BRYN ATHYN, PA. Upon the whole, there has been a good deal of social activity among us this summer. This, no doubt, was due partly to the great number of visitors who have cheered up by their presence and who kept "The Inn" well filled the whole season.

     The Fourth of July was celebrated once more with picnic dinner and supper at Glenhurst, accompanied with patriotic speeches and songs, youthful sports on land and water, and fireworks and dancing in the evening. It was a day to fill the heart of any boy or girl.

     Early in August a party of ten boys spent a week in camp at Lake Hopatcong, amid the mountains of northern New Jersey. They declared it was fine, though the first two nights, before the tent arrived, were decidedly rocky. The mosquitoes, however, enjoyed the opportunity. The fishing was fine and the boys returned full of enthusiasm for the simple life.

     About the middle of August we had a "corn-fest" down in the beautiful wooded amphitheater by the Penny-pack creek. It was an enchanted scene and the picturesque gypsy costumes, the hot corn and the juicy steaks broiled on the coals,--followed by recitations, songs, dances, and "stunts" of various kinds,--all made the occasion a memorable one. A day or two afterwards the juniors, who had been left at home to mind the babies, had their turn, but the wet weather constrained them to turn it into a porch party at Stuart Hall.

     There were several ladies' meetings during the summer, at which we had the pleasure of greeting some of our visitors. Twice, also, the ladies gathered to put up fruit for the coming Friday suppers and to discuss the proposed change in the school hours.

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The Rev. N. D. Pendleton and his family spent the vacation here, and the Rev. W. H. Alden and family occupied the residence of Miss Hogan during her absence in Europe. Mr. and Mrs. Chas. Ebert, of Pittsburgh, also made a stay of several weeks here. They and other visitors gave an impulse to the social activity, and the appearance of advance sheets of Miss Beekman's new book on the subject of Creation furnished subjects for animated discussion at a number of learned but none the less lively meetings.

     Willow Grove also has claimed its usual share of our attention, though after the annual "Damrosch fever" had passed, there was necessarily a reaction, as our musical enthusiasts had to make up for lost sleep. As a matter of fact, Willow Grove is providing a liberal musical education for our young people.

     During the summer three different parties of our folks have been visiting Europe. The "dove-party,"-consisting of Miss Maria Hogan and Miss Alice Grant, of Bryn Athyn; Miss Sophie Falk and Miss Amelia Nelson, of Glenview, and Miss Katharine Norris, of Pittsburgh,--extended their flight as far as to Greece, and they have now returned filled with the spirit of the ancients. Raymond and Walter Cranch have been visiting England, Norway, and Sweden, and were last heard from in Belgium. The Rev. Reginald W. Brown and Mr. Alfred Stroh have been pursuing scientific investigations in Sweden, where they have been enjoying unusual advantages through the courtesy of Prof. Retzius.

     Bishop Pendleton, his wife, and Miss Vera Pitcairn spent a month at Glenview, Ill.; and Mr. Pitcairn, with Raymond Pitcairn, Gerald Glenn, and Prof. Odhner, enjoyed unsurpassed fishing on the Nepigon River, to the north of Lake Superior, which they declare to be the finest trout stream in the world. Some magnificent mounted specimens bear witness to the truth of their wonderful tales.

     Our artistic friend, Mr. Charles F. Browne, of Chicago, was with us for a few days as the guest of Prof. Price; and Mrs. Colley, with son and daughter, also of Chicago, have taken up their permanent residence at Bethayres.

     But the largest influx of visitors was brought by the meetings of the Council of the Clergy and the Executive Committee of the General Church, and the subsequent 'meeting of the Teachers' Institute, early in September.

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Among the visiting ministers we had Mr. Powers, Mr. Waelchli, Mr. Stebbing, Mr. Gladish, and Mr. N. D. Pendleton. Seventeen in all sat around the hospitable board of Cairnwood at the initial banquet given to the ministers. Mr. Schoenberger, Mr. Lindsay, and Mr. Paul Synnestvedt, of Pittsburgh; Mr. Rudolph Roschman, of Berlin, and Mr. Seymour Nelson, of Glenview, came on for the meeting of the Executive Committee. Among other visitors were Mr. and Mrs. Trautman, of Allegheny: Miss Evelyn Gilmore, and Mr. Alex. Lindsay, of Pittsburgh, and Mr. Breen and Mr. Lown, of New York.

     The ministers' meeting began on Tuesday, September 4th, and on Wednesday evening, at the public session, Mr. Odhner read a paper on the formation of discrete degrees and on the nature of spiritual substance. The conceptions presented were new to many and will require much thought and study. On Thursday evening Mr. Price delivered the annual address, which dealt with the spiritual influence of our little speck of a globe upon all, the other earths in the universe. On Friday afternoon all were present at the wedding of Mr. Samuel Simons and Miss Gertrude Alden. The chapel was beautifully decorated, and the ceremony including the music, was profoundly impressive. At the reception upstairs we sang the glorious songs of our Church, which must have come with something of surprise to the numerous visitors from the Chestnut St. Society. In the evening a reception was held in honor of all the guests, and a varied program of dancing and music was enjoyed.

     On Saturday evening Mr. De Charms read a paper on "Spiritual Watchfulness." Mr. Waelchli delivered the sermon on Sunday morning, and Mr. Bowers, in the evening, read to us several chapters from a book he has under preparation on the subject of "The Great Imposture," (Christian Science). This proved exceedingly interesting, and was followed by a long and animated discussion, The Teachers' Institute met on Monday, and in the evening a public discussion was held on the subject of "Story and Song" in the work of education. The Alumni had a very lively social meeting on Tuesday evening. And now the visitors have all departed, and the work of the year is before us.
O. S.


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     COLCHESTER, ENGLAND, Our children's social on Easter Monday was a record one, especially in point of numbers, the attendance being seventy-five--they weren't all children, though. Our own room in Priory street was not large enough for the purpose, so the party was held at the "Studio."

     It may be mentioned in passing that our Society boasts of an orchestra, and quite recently the orchestra has been enriched by a piano and an additional violin.

     June 19th was the occasion of an interesting and instructive celebration. Subjects in a series were responded to by several speakers, while others read interesting confirmatory passages from the Writings. The day was also celebrated by the children, who had a picnic at Stanway Green.

     On June 28th we were delighted to have a visit--all too short from six American friends, Miss Hogan, Miss Falk, Miss Alice Grant and Miss Lucy Potts, of Bryn Athyn; Miss Nelson, of Glenview, and Miss Katherine Norris, of Pittsburgh. We are beginning to look forward to having some of our American cousins visit us every year. Some time we hope it will be our good fortune to reciprocate by visiting America,--perhaps next year. If an assembly is held then, who knows but that Colchester may be represented.

     But we must return to our lady visitors. They were accompanied from London by Mr. Czerny. Tea was taken together at the King's Head, Lexden, after which, returning to Mr. Gill's studio, an opportunity was afforded for our guests to meet the children, and some even found time to pay flying visits to the Castle and other points of interest. Truly a great deal was done in the short stay of four hours. But short though the time was it was sufficient to raise considerable and very delightful enthusiasm. A number of the friends accompanied the visitors to the station and gave them a send-off.

     Mr. Colley Pryke's marriage to Miss Nora Gill in the afternoon of July 29th, was a notable happening in our Society. The wedding was celebrated at the room in Priory street, the chancel of which was decorated with festoons of roses and presented a most charming appearance. In the evening, after the wedding party had left, Mr. and Gill gave a informal social for the married people of the Society, at their home "Maldune." Only a week previously Mr. and Mrs. Gill's son had, been married in London, and we heartily congratulated our host and hostess on the double wedding in their family. These weddings are first fruits of a distinctive New Church Education. F. R. COOPER.


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Home for Sale in Bryn Athyn 1906

Home for Sale in Bryn Athyn              1906



     Announcements.




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SABBATH OBSERVANCE 1906

SABBATH OBSERVANCE       Rev. DAVID H. KLEIN       1906



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NEW CHURCH LIFE.
VOL. XXVI. NOVEMBER, 1906. No. 11.
     In considering the statutes, judgments, commandments and ceremonials of ritual worship given to the Jews, it is repeatedly taught that they were representative of spiritual and celestial things. This is as true of the apparently trivial and insignificant forms of their life and worship as it is of the great laws of the Ten Commandments, which to this day, on the natural plane, are the basic principles of all laws of civil order and moral rectitude. The details of the sacrificial worship of the Jews, the handling and cleansing of their utensils, the minute particulars regarding the contraction of the tabernacle, with its courts and furnishings,--all these, in the internal things which they represented, treat of the life of heaven and the things of man's regeneration. They were representatives existing with the Jewish race. The people of this race were not a spiritual Church, since they had no love for the things of heaven and its life, and thus, in themselves, there was nothing which would keep them in spiritual accord with the life-giving influences from the other world. But by means of the representatives which existed with them, which were representative of holy things, the angels could be present with them, and there was thus established a bond of connection between the angelic heavens and the human race on earth. Unless such a communication had existed, the human race on earth would have perished.

     The Jews were commanded to fulfill the ordinances of their law with scrupulous exactness and with the strictest regard to its every letter; and in order to hold them to this the punishments for its infringement were severe and drastic.

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The reason was, that if the least canon had been altered or violated, it would no longer have been a correspondential form and receptacle of the heavenly thing of which it was an expression; it would no longer have been an abiding place for the influx of angelic life from the other world, and the communication between heaven and earth would have suffered in consequence. It was for this reason that, among other things, the observance of the Sabbath was so strictly enjoined upon the Jews, and why the command to do no work of any kind was so absolute as to extend even to the beasts of man's possession. If the command had been disobeyed, the sacred thing which it represented would have been violated.

     The breaking of the Sabbath was punishable with death. The command to hallow it was therefore given to the Jews at various times. It was known to them before the promulgation of the Law on Mount Sinai, for the command reads, "Remember the day of the Sabbath." Some time before that promulgation, also, the Jews were told not to go out to gather manna on the Sabbath. Indeed we have the teaching that a day of rest, or Sabbath, was observed in the Ancient Church. In confirmation of this, it has recently been discovered that among the records on Assyrian monuments and tablets, references to a Sabbath have been found, which were written before the time of Moses. It was well known also in Egypt. In the thirty-first chapter of Exodus it is written: "Speak thou also unto the sons of Israel, saying, Verily, my Sabbath ye shall keep, for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations; that ye may know that I am the Lord that doth sanctify you. Every one that defileth it shall surely be put to death, for whosoever doeth any work therein, that soul shall be cut off from among his people. The sons of Israel shall keep the Sabbath to observe it throughout their generations for a perpetual covenant." Again in Isaiah we find that the following reward is promised to all those who keep this precept: "If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing my pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable, and shalt honor him, not doing thine own ways nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words; then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord, and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob, thy father; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken." (58:13, 14.)


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     The sons of Israel were commanded not to kindle a fire on the Sabbath day. For fire signifies Jove, and co perform that work on the Sabbath represented man's acting from the love of self or proprium. For this reason the man described in the book of Numbers, who was found gathering sticks of wood for this purpose, was put to death. This was in order that the punishment of death which he suffered might represent the death of all spiritual life, which takes place when man permits himself to be governed by the love of self or the proprium. In one place in the Old Testament the Jews were forbidden to cook their meals on the Sabbath, a provision that was observed in later days in our New England Puritan Sabbath.

     But when the Lord came upon the earth, the observance of the Sabbath with its former hard and strict literality became unnecessary, as, in fact, did all the things of the Jewish ceremonial worship. This was because the Lord Himself had come on earth, that men might know Him in His Divine Human form. By His presence among them as the living Divine Word made flesh, He established a perpetual bond of communication between heaven and earth which is to endure unto the ages of ages. Thus the necessity for the Jewish representative worship as a means of communication between the spiritual and the natural world ceased, and with the coming of the Lord the ceremonial observances of that worship were abrogated. But this did not abolish those laws of civil and moral order given to the Jews, which, to this day, are among those that hold society together in something of external order. We are particularly taught which of the Jewish laws are still to be observed by all spiritually minded men of the New Church, and among those enumerated are all the laws of the Ten Commandments, for these still remain natural laws on which spiritual laws may rest. The single exception is made of the latter part of the law concerning the Sabbath, which forbids work of any kind whatever, enjoining rest upon man, his son, his daughter, his servants, his beasts, and the sojourner within his gates.

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This may be called the strictly ceremonial part of the commandment, and in regard to it we are taught that man is left free to observe it or not, as he wills.

     The Lord while on earth did not follow the observance of the ceremonial part of the commandment as to its letter. So the hypocritical Pharisees, exact in fulfilling the mere external requirements of the law, and ignorant of its spirit, accused Him of breaking the Sabbath when He and His disciples went through the field of corn and the disciples began to attack the ears of corn and to eat. So they also plotted against Him and sought to make Him guilty of sin when He healed the sick on the Sabbath.

     But the command, "Remember the day of the Sabbath to hallow it," still stands as a law of life and a sacred obligation on every man and woman of the Church; and the general manner in which this obligation is to be fulfilled is included in the teaching in the Writings that, in the New Church, the day is to be made "a day of instruction in Divine things"--a teaching of which the Lord was a living example when He repeatedly preached in the synagogues on the Sabbath.

     After the six days of labor, of engrossment in the temporal things of life, of contact with the world and its spheres and influences of things-merely natural, it is necessary for man's spiritual development that be learn and meditate on the things that concern his eternal salvation, at this period of time appointed by the Lord. In this he hallows the Sabbath, and makes it distinct from and above the ordinary affairs of life, and finds in it a spiritual peace and rest that comports with the external rest which he enjoys from the cessation of his daily labors.

     "A day of instruction in Divine things." This is the teaching, and it is the spirit of this teaching which is to rule with man, if he would obey this commandment, If this spirit is to rule, man will, on the day of the Sabbath, seek the Lord's house, to come into His presence in the temple of His holiness, to worship with his fellow man of the Church, and hear concerning the things of spiritual life, from those whom the Lord has provided as instruments toy this special use. Or if this be debarred from him, he will himself go to the Word and the Writings, and read what the Lord teaches in His revelation. And if even this be not possible, he will at least give some period of time to thought, meditation and prayer concerning heavenly things.

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It is all-important that the spirit of the Sabbath be kept alive within him. Else holy shall he be fully prepared to go forth to his labors at the week's beginning, to meet the temptations and trials of the world, with its leading towards sin?

     But with the knowledge of the necessity and importance of external worship in mind, it is manifest that the most complete observance of the Sabbath is to be found in the attendance at public worship on the Lord's day, first mentioned. As man makes this a habit of life, he will find that it becomes more and more an object of his cherished regard and that its absence becomes a real loss. Besides the instruction in spiritual things, man needs the peculiar strength, comfort and support which comes from the worship of many in a choir,-the sympathy which he feels from others who are united with him in a common end. As man grows in appreciation of what is involved in the reaching that the Sabbath is a day for instruction in Divine things, he will grow more solicitous as to his manifest duty to attend worship, and will strive to resist the disinclination to do so which comes from too close an absorption in things of worldly honor, gain or ease,--a disinclination which at some time or other besets nearly all men.

     The statement in the Arcana Coelestia that man is to be left in freedom as to his observance of the ceremonial part of the third commandment, indicates, therefore, that in the New Church no hard and fast formula can be laid, down as to externals, in observing the Sabbath, beyond what has just been indicated. But in the True Christian Religion, (n. 301), several general conditions are outlined which define what is useful and orderly in the keeping of the Sabbath in the New Church. We read: "When the Lord came into the world, and the representation of Him therefore ceased, that day became a day of instruction in Divine things, and thus, also, a day of rest from labors, and of meditation on such things as relate to salvation and eternal life; as also a day of love towards the neighbor."

     We note that the Sabbath is here designated a "day of love toward the neighbor." One form of love toward the neighbor finds its ultimation in social life, and it has been told the writer that in the early days of the Academy, the Sabbath as a "day of love toward the neighbor" was regarded as a day peculiarly suited to social occasions.

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However this may have been, it does not now seem that we need to construe these words to mean that the Sabbath is the day of all days in the week for general social gatherings. Such a feeling, probably does not now prevail among us. But, being a day of love towards the neighbor, there is no question of the usefulness of the social amenities of life on that day when man is free from worldly cares or concerns, the whole matter being subject to the taste and discretion of the individual.

     In the extract given from the True Christian Religion the Sabbath is also called "a day of meditation on such things as relate to salvation and eternal life." This perhaps would find a place in the regular exercises of public worship. But of the great use of meditation and thought on these things, apart from regular worship, there can be no question. In view of what has been taught us in the past regarding preparation for Divine worship, it would seem of great use to man to enter upon such a period of mediation and thought, before attending services; and indeed, after public worship, also, he would gain much were he to devote some thought to that which has been brought to him in the way of instruction. In these things the Sabbath would become for him more fully, "a day of meditation on such things as relate to salvation and eternal life." Such states, of course, can not be forced upon man, but they are described in the Doctrines as things of order and of use, and should therefore be brought forward.

     There remains to note, finally, the use of the Sabbath as a "day of rest from labors." On purely physical grounds, man has for ages found this useful and necessary. On such grounds the seventh day seems peculiarly appropriate. A longer or a shorter period between the days of rest would not seem to answer so well. During the French Revolution, if the writer recalls aright, when society in France became a chaos, and all existing order was changed or done away with, the Sabbath was abolished, and in its place was given a holiday on every tenth day, but this did not prove satisfactory. Clearly, however, man must have periods of rest from labors if he is to give concern to the spiritual activities which are to prepare him for heaven, for it contributes to that natural basis, a sound body, in which a sound mind may dwell.


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     Rest from labors, with many, involves the question of recreations, and it is the question of recreations that points a great difference in the external observance of the Sabbath. On the one hand there is the Puritanic Sabbath, which frowns on all forms of pleasures, amusements and recreations. On the other hand there is the Continental Sabbath, which makes the day essentially a day of pleasure if not of frivolity, as is the case especially in France and Germany. The average Newchurchman man would choose neither of these extremes. Certain it is that recreations, as a form of rest from labors, if they are orderly and pursued in spirit of brotherly love, are in harmony with the keeping of the Lord's Day. In this connection we may, with advantage, quote the words of a writer on this subject: "The recreations of Sunday, to be even tolerated, must be made entirely secondary to its spiritual uses. When there is an interference between spiritual interests and the pleasure of the natural man, the latter must of course give way. First and foremost always should be the question, How can I so spend this day that it will best serve those infinite spiritual benefits for the service of which it has been instituted? And secondly, What recreations of body and mind will best rest and refresh me for the accomplishment of this end? And evidently, every kind of recreation which from its nature will interfere with the purpose for which Sunday has been set apart, is disorderly. In reference to the body, anything which brings it into a state of fatigue or lassitude, or excitement which would unfit it to enter into the purposes of the day, would be a violation of its sacredness. In reference to the mind, anything which so diverts its thoughts to subjects foreign to those to which the day is especially to be devoted as to unfit it for contemplation of spiritual things, is a Sabbath desecration under this definition." (The Rev. C. H. Mann, in the New Church Messenger.)

     In other words, the Sabbath is dedicated to the interests of the spiritual man, and, as in all other things, the natural man is to serve and not to rule.


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JUDAH-LOVE OF THE LORD 1906

JUDAH-LOVE OF THE LORD       Rev. C. TH. ODHNER       1906

     "And Leah conceded again, and bare a son, and she said, This time I shall confess Jehovah; therefore she called his name Jehudah." (Genesis 29:35.)

     The twelve sons of Israel represent all things of Heaven and all things of the Church and thus all the successive states of the regenerating and of the regenerate life. The first four sons represent the life of man while be is being regenerated, while he is ascending from the merely natural life to the celestial, and the remaining eight sons represent the life of the regenerated -man, while be is descending with power from on high, to infill all the lower degrees of his being with new light and life. The first process may be compared to a king, who with a small force of loyal soldiers invades a rebellious kingdom,--at first fighting his way under many difficulties, but gradually winning victories upon victories and finally gaining his throne. The second process is his triumphant descent from the Capital, restoring all things to obedience and order in the kingdom itself, even to its uttermost provinces.

     In previous sermons* we have followed this step of Regeneration through the first three stages which are represented by the first three sons of Israel, i. e., Reuben, Simeon, and Levi, Reuben, it will be remembered, represents the first sight, knowledge, and understanding of the Divine Truth; Simeon represents the consequent obedience to the truth thus seen, obedience at first compulsory, then self-enforced, and gradually becoming willing obedience; and Levi, finally, signifies the will of truth, the affirmative good-will towards the Truth, which results in good-will towards the neighbor,--in other words, Charity. But Judah, the fourth and last of the first group, represents the crowning fruition of all the preceding states; he represents the regenerate state itself, the actual birth of the new man, the new-born will of good, which is the celestial love to the Lord.
     * See New Church Life, Jan., 1903, Jan., 1904, and Jan., 1906.


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     Many reasons might be presented to show why Judah, and the tribe of Judah, the kingdom of Judah, and the Jewish nation as a whole, could represent this supreme and purest and holiest of all loves, and this in spite of the profane and filthy character of the man Judah and his descendants. But one single reason will be sufficient for the present discourse. The name "Judah" or "Jehudah" literally signifies "confession of Jehovah," and it is in historical fact that the posterity of this fourth son of Israel, alone among all the tribes and nations of the entire world, remained most persistently in the confession of Jehovah as the one and only God of Heaven and earth. It is true that their confession was mostly lip-worship, external, formal, selfish and dead, but still, such as it was, it distinguished them for nearly two thousand years, and in the midst of universal polytheism and idolatry, as the only remaining Monotheists in the world, and this persistent confession of Jehovah affords a sufficient basis for the representation of Judah as the confession and worship and love of the Lord.

     Knowing, then, that Judah represents love to the Lord, the question arises, what is meant by this love? And in order to answer this question, apparently so simple, we must know, first, who the Lord is, and, secondly, what the Lord is, and, thirdly, what love is.

     In order to know what is meant by love to the Lord. it is of the first importance to know who that Lord is whom we are to love, for it is manifestly impossible to love one of whom we have no knowledge and of whom we can form no idea. It is impossible to love a God who is completely invisible and utterly incomprehensible,--a God who is "without body, parts, and passions," such a God as the vastated Christian Church professes to love and worship.

     Those who do not know the Lord cannot possibly love the Lord, They may indeed possess the love of the neighbor, since they know the neighbor, but "those who are in the love of the neighbor are not all on that account in love to the Lord; as, for instance, the upright Gentiles who are in ignorance about the Lord, and also others, within the Church." (A. C. 2023.)


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     "And also others, within the Church,"--all, in fact, both within the Old Church and within the New Church, who know who the Lord is, but do not know what the Lord is, For vote may, indeed, know who a person is, and you may love him for what he has done for you, but unless you know at the same time what kind of a man he is, what his real character is, there is no sound foundation for your knowledge or for your love.

     The early Christian Church for a short time knew who the Lord was; they knew Him as "the true God and Life eternal;" they knew that "in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily,"-but they never at any time had a clear idea of the Lord is. They knew and loved His Divine Person, but they did not know Him as the Divine Love itself and the Divine Wisdom itself, and therefore their love for Him was a simple and external love, a love which was easily seduced. And ever since the days of the great Councils, the Christian Church has not even known who the Lord is, for they acknowledge Him only as one of three equally Divine Persons, each of whom is to be loved and worshiped separately as God and Lord. Such a love cannot be any true love to the Lord, any more than the love of a woman for three husbands can be love truly conjugial. Love divided is love no more. And though they speak much of love of Jesus, they love Him only for that which they think He has done for them, and they totally misunderstand that which He has done. They love Him as one who vicariously has paid their debts for them, and who has taken their just punishment upon Himself,--the love of an evil-doer for a scapegoats love utterly selfish and based on injustice and folly. Such a love is not love of the Lord, but love of self.

     In the Lord's New Church love of the Lord was rekindled with a purer flame by the revelation of the Lord as the only Lord-as the God-man who Himself is the Divine Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in one Person. The Divine personality of the Lord Jesus Christ was restored to the vision of the Church in a light so clear as to surpass the light of the very Apostles, and with this light the love of the Lord was again made possible.

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The Lord Himself made known to His Church who He is, and also what He is, but as yet the Church has been more impressed with the introductory idea of His identity and personality, than with the more internal idea of His Divine quality and essence.

     The belief in God as a Divine man made visible in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ,-this belief is, indeed, essential and fundamental to the worship and love of God, for without it the thought and worship and love of God has no definite object, and is therefore dispersed and falls into nothing. The thought of God as a Divine Man, is, indeed, the first truth to be taught to our children, to remain throughout this life and to art eternity the rock-foundation of all their thoughts and affections.

     But though this idea is most necessary, yet it is dangerous to the interior life to remain in it alone, for it is an external and literal idea and the letter killeth, but the Spirit maketh alive. And therefore, though the Doctrine of the New Jerusalem is emphatic in teaching that God is a Person, the Divine Person of Jesus Christ, it is equally emphatic in urging that we should not think of Him or love Him merely as a Person, for this would he to worship and love the mere form, devoid of living substance and actuality. It is not the human form alone that makes its men, but the quality of human love and human understanding, and this is so because it is not the Divinely Human form alone that makes the Lord the God-Man, but His infinite Love and Wisdom.

     The Doctrine is unmistakable. "In heaven, by love to the Lord is not meant to love Him as to His Person, but to love the good which is from Him, and to love good is to will and do good from love. And by love to the neighbor is not meant to love one's companion as to his person, but to love the Truth which is from the Word, and to love the Truth is to will the truth and do the Truth." (H. H. 15.)

     "It is material to think about persons, but spiritual to think without the idea of person." (A. E. 100.) "For the idea of persons, like the idea of places, bounds the thought, determining it to these things," (A. E. 405); "it limits the idea and concentrates it to something finite," (A. C. 5225), and therefore, in the spiritual sense of the Word, as in the spiritual world, every idea of person is put off." (A. E. 333.)


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     "In a spiritual idea man is not a person, but a use; for a spiritual idea does not contain any notion of personality, just as it has no reference to ideas of matter, space, and time. When, therefore, one angel sees another in heaven, he does, indeed, see him as a man, but he thinks of him as a use," (D. Love xiii), that is to say he thinks of him and loves him as a form of good, and "he who loves the neighbor from charity conjoins himself with his good, and not with his person except so far and so long as he is in good." (D. Faith 21.)

     So essential is it to elevate the thought from the idea of men personality, not only in respect to the neighbor but also in respect to the Lord, that in heaven even the young are taught this interior truth, as is evident from the Relation in the Apocalypse Revealed, n. 611, where the angel-teacher is earnestly in impressing it upon his class of boys, ending his lesson with the admonition, "Therefore, my pupils, think of God from His Essence and from this of His Person; but do not think of Him from His Person and from this of His Essence. For to think of His Essence from His Person, is to think materially even about His Essence; but to think of His Person from His Essence is to think spiritually even about His Person."

     They who think materially and not at the same time spiritually about the Lord "think no otherwise, because they can think no otherwise than that the Lord is to be loved as to His person, and likewise the neighbor as to his person; whereas they who think both naturally and spiritually perceive that both an evil and a good man can love the Lord as to His person, and in like manner the neighbor." (D. Wisd. xi.)

     That the evil as well as the good are able to love the Lord as to His person, is evident from the whole history of the Christian Church, and it has often been the case that the more interiorly evil men have been, the more fervid and ardent has been their love for that one Person who, according to their persuasion, has set them free from the Law and placed them under "Grace," who has taken away from them the necessity of shunning evils as sins, and has made faith alone the one thing essential to salvation.


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     Who have loved "Jesus, and him crucified," with greater fervor than did the fanatical hermits and pillar-saints of the Dark Ages, and the monastics and saints and "quietists" of the Catholic Church,-men and women who would draw up solemn contracts of marriage with "Jesus," signing with their blood their complete surrender to Christ as their Divine bridegroom, withdrawing themselves from all occupations useful to the neighbors devoting their lives to rapturous personal communication with--not the Lord, indeed but the filthy spirits who love to personate Christ. And did not these ardent "lovers of Christ" at the same time take the greatest delight in persecuting, torturing, and burning fellow-Christians suspected of the least heresy?

     In the Roman Catholic Church this kind of love to the person of Christ became known as "Quietism," that is, the complete withdrawal of the mind from all active uses, and its constant employment in the "quiet" and passive contemplation of the sufferings and merits of Christ, and in the exstatic adoration of a blood-stained, crucified corpse. In the Protestant sects this same kind of love found expression in the "Pietism," which is nothing but an extreme development of Faith Alone,--the fervid devotion to the vicarious Atoner, who took upon himself all the sins of all the ages, and who "made himself sin and a curse for us." Incredible as it may seem, such is the prevailing love of the Lord among Pietists of all the sects,-Lutherans, Calvinists, Episcopalians, Quakers, Moravians, Baptists, Methodists, Salvationists, etc. The Writings of the New Church reveal the quality of this merely personal love of Christ as it exists essentially in all the sects of the Old Church, by exposing it as developed especially in the Moravian Church, where we find the "love of Jesus" as a mere person, expressed in profane terms of erotic passion.

     The Writings of the New Church reach that "the Moravians believe that good works, and, in general, the life of good, effects nothing, but only the faith of truth and love to the Lord as a man. They believe that when they love the Lord as a man, they can do whatever they please, and that this does not hurt because they are in the Lord. . . . But they were told [by Swedenborg], that they are in falsity as to the Lord being a were man,--for He is God,-and that it is most dangerous to love the Lord if they are not in the good of life according to the precepts of faith, because the Lord is holiness itself, while they, from their life, are filthy and profane." (S. D. 4791, 4792.)


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     And, moreover, "as the Moravians said that they had loved the Lord, because he had been received by God the Father as a Son, on account of the passion of the cross, they were told that such love does not at all conjoin them, except with some simple ones in the lowest heaven." (S. D. 5988.)

     The Moravian Church is now a small and dying body and all the Protestant Churches are admittedly in a declining state of vitality, having lost their hold upon the vast multitude of the people even as they have lost their ancient landmarks of faith and life. They are dying because they have worshiped and loved the human of the Lord instead of His Divine Human, and they are all becoming more or less openly Arian and Unitarian, denying the Divinity of the Lord and His Word. This is the thought and love of the Lord that fills the entire Christian world, and as long as the New Church courts this world, its love of the Lord is bound to be infested and defiled by this thought and love of the Lord as a mere man. That the New Church is being thus infested and defiled is evident from the public teachings of some who speak much about "loving the Lord," They dwell at length on His "Divine experiences" while on earth and the "lessons of sympathy which He then learned;" they speak of His "cheerfulness." His "patience and resignation and hopes and comforts;" they expatiate on the "influence of Mary upon His after-life" the "helpfulness of the quiet home in Nazareth," "His sad, sweet face," "His feminine" characteristics, with other things of like Uniarian import.

     Forgetting that the Lord in His second advent has not come in Person, but in the Word and as the Word, they regard with horror, as almost profane and blasphemous, the teaching that "Faith in the Lord means, to Newchurchmen, faith in the Heavenly Doctrine of the New Jerusalem."

     And yet, both in the letter and the spirit of His Word, the Lord has openly taught the meaning of genuine faith in Him and genuine love to Him,--that it is not mere personal faith and love, but faith in His teachings and a life according to them.


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     "If ye love Me, ye will keep my commandments. He that has My commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me; and he that loveth Me, shall be loved of My Father, and I will love Him, and will manifest Himself to him." (John xiv:15, 21.)

     And the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, the Lord in His Second Advent, who both come to teach us all things, declares again and again that "to love the Lord is not, to love Him, as to His Person, but to live according to His commandments. (A. E. 433.) "To love the Lord is not to love the person but to love the things which proceed from Him, for these are the Lord with man." (A. E. 973.) "Love to the Lord is to love and will the things which are of the Lord; thus the things which the Lord has commanded in the Word." (A. E. 707.) "To love the Lord is to love that which is from the Lord, because He Himself is in everything which is from Him." (H. H. 481.)

     Again and again we find the same Doctrine repeated. "By love of the Lord is not meant to love the Lord as a person; by such love alone man is not conjoined with Heaven, but by the love of the Divine Good and the Divine Truth which are the Lord in Heaven and the Church." (A. E. 1099.) "To love the Lord is to love to do His commandments, The reason is that He Himself is His own commandments, for they are from Him and consequently He Himself is in them." (A. R. 556.) "Hence a spiritual-natural man concludes that to love the Lord is to love that which is from Him, which in itself is the Divine in which the Lord is, and that this is to do good to the neighbor; and that thus and no otherwise can man be loved by the Lord and be conjoined with Him through love. But a natural man cannot think spiritually about this matter, unless these things be delivered distinctly, before him." (D. Wisd., xi.)

     In all these teachings, the universal lesson is that love to the Lord means to love and to do the Lord's Commandments, which are the same as the Lord's teachings or the truths from the Lord. He who loves and does the Lord's Divine Truth loves the Lord, but he cannot love the Truth unless he first learns to know it, then learns to obey it, and finally learns to 11 it, even as the birth of Reuben was followed by the birth of Simeon, and this by the birth of Levi. To know and to obey the Truth is of the natural man, to will the Truth is of the spiritual man, but to do the Truth from a willing heart, this is of the celestial man who is represented by Judah.

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Few actually attain the celestial state, but nevertheless something of this celestial love must be gained by every regenerating man or he cannot be admitted into Heaven where all the angels,-natural, spiritual, and celestial,--not only know the Lord but also love the Lord. For "love to the Lord is the universal love, and hence is in each and all things of spiritual life, and in each and all things of natural life., for this love is the highest, and inflows into the lower loves." (T. C. R. 416.) "In the heavens the good of all are from one love, thus from one origin; and this one love is love to the Lord from the Lord." (H. H. 72.) "True love is love to the Lord. There can be only one true love." (A. C. 33.)

     Rejecting as useless and dangerous all speculation as to the relatively, spiritual or celestial character of ourselves, or as to the state and degree which will be our lot in Heaven, (if, indeed, we shall in any way be admitted there), we must all, with all our heart, and with all our mind, and with all our strength, strive to attain that supreme and only real love which is the love of the Lord,--for this is the first and great commandment. But there is no way to this love except by keeping that other commandment which is like unto the first, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."

     Levi represents Charity, and Charity consists essentially in good-will towards our neighbor, and in the supreme sense, in good-will towards the Lord's Divine Truth which is most eminently our neighbor or not to us. Good-will towards the Truth, the willing of truth, the affirmative spirit, the desire that the Lord's Will be done as in Heaven so upon the earth,-this is the nearest stepping-stone to that summit of love which is love to the Lord. This willing of Truth involves two things: the ascription of all things to the Lord, and the shrinking of all things which would detract anything from the Lord.

     Man actually becomes a love of that to which he attributes and ascribes all things. "If he attributes all things to self and to nature, his soul becomes the love of self; but if he attributes all things to the Lord, his soul becomes the love of the Lord." (D. P. 199.)

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"The ascription of all things to the Lord opens the interiors of man towards Heaven, for thus it is acknowledged that nothing of truth or good is from self; and in proportion as this is acknowledged, the man comes into innocence and into the love of the Lord. Thence come conjunction with the Divine, influx thence, and illustration." (A. C. 10227.)

     That Doctrine which ascribes and attributes all things to the Lord and nothing to man, that Doctrine is the very Doctrine of the Celestial Church, and is the only gate to the Celestial Church itself where love to the Lord reigns supreme. That Doctrine is a celestial Doctrine, for it answers with an instant "Yea, yea" to all that the Lord teaches, and with an unhesitating "Nay, nay" to all the notions of self-derived intelligence. It is a celestial Doctrine, for it ascribes all things of the Divine Revelation to the Lord alone, and nothing to the human medium through whom it was given. It is a celestial Doctrine, for it trains its believers into self-subordination and humility before the voice of the Lord, into willingness to see things as the Lord sees them and into willingness to love the things which the Lord loves. And he who is willing to see all things as the Lord sees them, and to love the things which the Lord loves, he is well on the right and only road which leads towards love to the Lord.

     But the ascription of all things to the Lord is only introductory to the second step towards this love, and this second step consists in the shunning of all things which would detract anything from the Lord. This means the shunning of all evils, external as well as internal, but in the supreme sense it means the shunning of all that can do injury to what is Divine among men. Thus we are taught that "to love the Lord above all things is nothing else than not to do evil to the Word, because the Word is the Lord; and not to do evil to holy things of the Church, because the Lord is in the holy things of the Church; and not to do evil to the soul of anyone, because the soul of everyone is in the hand of the Lord. They who shun these evils as enormous sins, love the Lord above all things, but no others can de this than those who love the neighbor as themselves, for these loves are conjoined." (D. P. 94.)

     The love to the Lord does not stop here, however, for it consists of more than intellectual and voluntary ascription, and it consists of more than abstinence from evil.

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Being the supreme love, the celestial love, it is also the most active of all loves, and its activity is manifested in the performance of uses for the sake of the Divine Good which, by means of uses, is ultimately communicated to men.

     "To love the Lord and the neighbor is, in general, to perform uses." (H. H. 112.) "Mutual love descends proximately from love to the Lord, because the Lord's love is to do uses to the community and to every society in general, and He effects these uses by means of men who are in love to Him." (A. R. 353.) "The reason why by loving the Lord is meant the doing of uses from Him and for His sake, is that all the good uses which man does, are from the Lord, and to love Kim is to do them; for that which a man loves, that he does. No one can lose the Lord in any other way, for the uses which are goods are from the Lord, nay, are the Lord Himself with man. These are the things which the Lord can love. . . . The angels know that to love the Lord is nothing else than to love uses, saying that uses are the Lord with them. By uses they mean the uses and goods of ministry, of administration, and of function,-with priests and magistrates, and with business men and workmen, The goods which do not flow from their offices and functions they do not call uses, but they call them alms, benefits, and things gratuitous." (D. Love xiii.)

     "He that hath My commandments and keepeth them, be it is that loveth Me." He who loves the Lord's Divine Truth, he it is that "hath" the Lord's Commandments. And he who loves to performs uses according to the Divine Truth, he it is that "keepeth" the Lord's Commandments. And he who loves both, is actually in love to the Lord because le is actually in the conjugial of good and truth. In love truly conjugial, therefore, love to the Lord exists in its highest perfection, beauty, innocence, power and heavenly happiness, for in that love the love of the Truth, conjoined to the love of Good, effects the most universal and most blessed of all uses.

     The love to the Lord described in the Writings of the New Church is very different, indeed, from the conception generally prevailing.

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To the natural mind it may seem a cold and unsentimental love, not as attractive as the fervid devotion to the mere person of the Lord. There is but little external sentiment about this spiritual Doctrine; the love to the Lord as Divine rational Truth is not a sentimental love; there is nothing sentimental about the shunning of evils or about the faithful performance of our regular uses in every day life. But, on the other hand, it is the only true and actual love to the Lord, the only love that is recognized by the angels of Heaven, the only kind of love to the Lord that is from the Lord and is acceptable to Him.

     And it is eminently practical and attainable love,--attainable by every man who desires to gain it. The Glorified Person of the Lord in His Divine Human is far above the highest Heaven, but the Divine Truth, the Comforter whom He hath sent, is near at hand and open to every man if he will only go to it, read it, study it, and thus learn to know what is meant by the Lord's Commandments. And if he receives this Truth in his heart as well as in his mind, he receives the Lord in his heart, and will come into love to the Lord.

     And there is nothing mysterious or unattainable about the love of use. If we will love our uses, our calling, our function and business whatever work Divine Providence has appointed for us, we shall find the Lord and Heaven in this work when we realize that this is our Divinely given opportunity to serve the Lord and the neighbor. The love of use is love to the Lord, and uses are ever with us. If, then, we devote ourselves to these uses,-not from a "sense of duty," but from a thoroughly interested and thankful heart,--putting into our work our whole heart, and our whole Fund, and all our power,--we are actually and practically loving our Lord and our neighbor. And to him who sincerely loves the Truth, and sincerely devotes himself to his use, love truly conjugial will finally be given as the crowning glory of his life. For the love of Truth and the love of Good will then be conjoined within him in the one love to the Lord; and the Lord, who is Love itself and Wisdom itself, will love him in return and abide with him forever. "He that loveth Me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest Myself to him. And we will come unto him, and male our abode with him." Amen.


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PRAYER 1906

PRAYER       EDWARD CRANCH       1906

     Revelation teaches us that prayer is a most necessary factor in regeneration, and in all the life of charity.

     True prayers are inspired from the Lord into the affection and thought of man, for the Lord knows what things we have need of before we ask Him, but He wills that man should pray, to the intent that he may ask as from himself, for so what is granted can be appropriated to the man in freedom as his own, but coupled with the acknowledgment that all things are from the Lord.

     Abundant examples are given in the Word of the Old and New Testaments, from which we can perceive the most obvious essential of prayer to be the approach of man to the Divine Being in humility and in love towards the church and towards the whole human race.

     In the Psalms especially are many such prayers, asking for the presence of God, and for His help in trouble, and in the assaults of evil on every hand. The Newchurchman will read these prayers in the deepest possible humility, knowing them to be the prayers of the Lord to the indwelling Father, in His combats with all the hells, solely for the redemption of mankind from the power of evil, providing only that man desires to be redeemed, and prays to the Lord Himself for aid.

     We can only look up from the infinite difference between man and God, and in the Lord's mercy hope for a little of that Divine radiance to reach and save us in our fallen state. For man is not led out of the bells into which he has fallen, until he recognizes that he is there, and desires and prays to be delivered.

     The 130th verse of the 119th Psalm is full of hope for the men of the New Church, who are privileged to stand before the opened Word, in the Second Coming of the Lord. In the common version this verse reads. "The entrance of thy words giveth light, it giveth understanding to the simple." It is not quoted by Swedenborg, but in the revised version instead of "entrance, we read "opening."

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The Hebrew word here for "simple"-pathayim, is from the same root as the word for "opening," namely, pathahh, hence the whole verse may properly be rendered: "The opening of Thy words enlighteneth, giving perception to the open-minded." The simple, or open-minded, are they who have not closed their faculties to all truths of revelation, by negative doubts, or by obstinately confirmed denials.

     In the light of the now newly opened Word what does the Newchurchman learn of prayer?

     First, of the One Divine Humanity of Our Lord, to whom alone all prayer is to be made.

     In the Heavenly Arcana, (nos. 6884 and 6887), it is said, "They who are it; heaven, by 'the God of your fathers' do not perceive 'the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob;' for Abraham. Isaac, and Jacob are not known in heaven, but the Lord, who is represented by them. . . . The Divine Human is the quality of the Divine Itself. . . . In the Lord's Prayer, also, by 'Our Father in the heavens, hallowed be thy Name' is understood the Lord as to the Divine Human, and also everything in one complex whereby He is to be worshiped."

     From this, and from many other passages we know that the Lord Jesus Christ, "the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last, who is, who was, and is to come, the Almighty," is alone to be approached in prayer.

     In regard to the essential nature of prayer we read again in the Arcana, (n. 2535), as follows:

     "Prayer, considered in itself, is speaking with God, and at such times a certain intuition of those things which are in objects of prayer, to which corresponds something like an influx into the perception or thought of the mind of him who prays, so that there is a kind of opening of man's internal towards God, but this with a difference according to man's state, and according to the essence of the thing which is the object of prayer. If the prayer be from love and faith, and it be only heavenly and spiritual things concerning which and for which he prays, then in the prayer there exists somewhat resembling revelation, which is manifested in the affection of the person paying, as to hope, consolation, or some internal joy; hence it is that to pray, in the internal sense, signifies to be revealed, here still more, because it is said of a Prophet, and by a Prophet is meant the Lord, whose prayer was nothing else than internal speech with the Divine, and then at the same time revelation.

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That there was revelation appears from Luke. "It came to pass, when Jesus was baptized, and prayed, that heaven was opened, (the transfiguration is also referred to); and in John, When He prayed, saying, Father, glorify thy name, then came there a voice from heaven. I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again, where it is evident that the prayer of the Lord was discourse with the Divine, and revelation at that time."

     Without further direct quotation, it may be said that approach to the Lord in prayer must not be made for the sake of self alone, but only for the promotion of the life of charity.

     We should all pray earnestly for the welfare and extension of the Lord's New Church, for the peace and prosperity of our friends and companions in the church, and for the enlightenment of those not yet within its gates. We should pray for the presence and conjoining power of the Lord, that He may make us instruments of His Divine love, and employ us as His messengers or angels, and we should pray for right perception of His wisdom, and for the realization in us of the uses of His love and faith.

     Whatever anyone asks from the Lord, and not from himself, he indeed receives, but the manner and time of the reception are often hidden from him.

     It is common in evils and misfortunes of the world to fall to prayers for deliverance, but such prayers are of no avail if for selfish ends. When in difficulties and temptations, however, it is right to pray for strength and a proper state of mind to bear them, and he Lord will surely hearken, for His ear is ever open to the sighings of the contrite spirit, and though He may seem far off, He is truly nearer then than ever, and guiding us to the final end, which is salvation.

     When in states of anxiety and sorrow we seek the Lord, He will often reveal Himself by an influx into the thought, suggesting good resolutions, and recalling to our minds passages of His Word adapted to our states, and addressed to the overthrow of the evil spirits who assail us.


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     After self-examination, and in the presence of our known evils to which we are inclined, we should earnestly pray for the Lord's help in their removal, and this help, thus asked, is never refused.

     If, like the angels, we live mostly in the present, with no care for the past, or solicitude for the future, we will find that life is nearly all pleasant, and states of confidence and peace from the Lord will be multiplied to us.

     Then, with prayerful study of the whole Word, the letter and the spirit, our periods of self-examination will bring forth lasting fruits of repentance, of reformation, and the life of charity; in place of anger and revenge we will find love for others, with patience, innocence and peace flowing through us from the very Prince of Peace. In place of idleness and love of selfish ease, will come new energy and diligence, and we will so conduct our affairs that, when we come into the world of spirits, we will not be ashamed by the reproaches of creditors, In place of drowsy doubts and slumberous forgetfulness of God, He will find us awake and watching for the coming of the Bridegroom.

     He will not hearken when we make many prayers that we may be heard of men, but He will note our secret prayers, and help in our inmost combats. Above all, He will be with us in His own Prayer, in which He taught His disciples to approach Himself alone.

     The Lord's Prayer is an epitome of the whole Word, and can never be exhausted to eternity. It is full of blessed revelation and peace to him who prays it devoutly, and with due pondering upon its endless fulness.

     "Our Father who art in the heavens,"--is the Divine Truth filled with Love, by which He dwells in heaven and in the church, "Hallowed be thy Name,"--help us to worship thy Divine Humanity. "Thy Kingdom come,"-may thy truth rule all our lives. "Thy will be done,"-may thy Love give us life, "as in Heaven, so upon the earth,"-may the Lord in our inmost humanity be not hindered from coming down to the outmosts of our minds and bodies, and may, the good resolutions conceived within, be brought forth in deeds of charity. "Give us this day our dairy bread,"--show us each day our duty, and give us needed strength in each temptation as it may arise, "and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors,"--if we look from good-will on others, the Lord will look with favor upon us.

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"Lead us not into temptation,"--help us to put away our evils before they have gained such hold upon us as to make the combat bitter, "but deliver us from evil,"--of ourselves we can do nothing, but the Lord does alliance to Him be the glory, and dominion, and power, now, and evermore. So be it.

     In the Apocalypse Explained, (n. 1148), after speaking of those who do not comprehend how neither evil nor good are from themselves, a prayer is recommended to them, which may be paraphrased thus,--"O Lord, be ever with us, lift us up, and turn Thy face toward us, teach us, enlighten and lead us, and grant unto us to live, for of ourselves we can do nothing of good. Suffer us not to be led astray by the devil, and let him not pour evil into out hearts. For we know, O Lord, that he is ever ready, as a serpent, to fill us full of all evil as with venom, with hatred and revenge, with cunning and deceit, and with all other evils, and if we, O Lord, do not suffer Thee to lead us, but turn away our hearts from Thee, we invite the indwelling of the devil, who ever seeks to draw our souls down to hell. O Lord, deliver us!"


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LAST JUDGMENT 1906

LAST JUDGMENT              1906

     [MINOR WORKS BY SWEDENBORG.]

     CONCERNING THE JEWS.

     251. Before the Last judgment, the Jews, for the most part, were at the left in the plane of the heel. I have often spoken with them there. They were then under the middle region where is the Christian world.* But after the Last Judgment they were driven away, and now they dwell there far off to the left in certain cities where the streets appear filled with filth and impurities and where the houses are undergoing continual variation. This arises from the fact that newcomers are ever arriving and departing. They are there explored in order to find out who among them are able to acknowledge the Lord as the Messiah, whom they still look for in the world, and who are not. The former are taken to synagogues where they are instructed.
     * Elsewhere in the Writings the situation of the Jews before the Last judgment is described as being "at the from in the lower earth under the plane of the left foot," (A. C. 3481); and also as being "in a valley at the left of the Christian center." (T. C. R. 841.) The reason why they dwelt under or within the Christian center is because they had the Word and knew about the Messiah and could therefore serve some use to the angels. (S. D. 5619, 5421.) Here they had many synagogues where they observed their worship. But at the time of the Last judgment their synagogues were destroyed and they themselves were for the most part scattered about, and "now they wander around without worship in any place." (S. D. 5421, 5610.)--TR.

     252. In that city an angel with a rod sometimes appears on high; and he gives them to believe that he is Moses.

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He exhorts them to desist from their madness in expecting the Messiah, when yet the Messiah is Christ, who, one with the Father, now rules the universal heaven: adding that he knows this himself because he had known it in the world. They hear what he says; and when they depart those who cannot acknowledge, because of their life, forget it, but those who can retain it in their memory.*
     * These latter, who are few in number, are sent to synagogues of converted Jews to be instructed; and they are given new garments, and also a copy of the Word "neatly written." (T. C. R. 842.)--TR.

     253. Of Abraham they have a Divine idea; of Jacob, and also of their fathers they have some Divine idea, but a lesser one.*

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There is always set over them by the Lord, some converted Jew in whom Judaism lies hidden within or in the heart, and Christianity, without or in the mouth; and he is taught by certain angels from the Lord, in order that he may rule them according to their genius and disposition.
     * It is said that in their synagogues "they adore Moses and Abraham, and other men mentioned in the Word." (S. D. 5619.)--TR.

     254. They still retain from the world the carrying on of trade, especially in precious stones. These by certain methods they procure from heaven; for thence come precious stones of which much more might be said. For in heaven are all things which are in the world. There is gold and silver there, also gold and silver in the, form of coins, and also stones of every kind. Like all other things which appear before their eyes, they are from a spiritual origin, and hence are correspondences. They appear just as in the world. Divine truths are their origin; and therefore, with those angels who are in truths, the decorations in the houses are resplendent with silver and gold, and diamonds. Precious things of this kind are given from heaven to those below who are studious of truths; and because of their origin they also remain for ever. The Jews get them from these and sell them. The reason why Jews have this business in the world, and also after their departure from the world, is because they love the Word of the Old Testament in the letter, and the literal sense of the Word corresponds to precious stones of various kinds. It is this sense that is meant by the twelve stones in Aaron's ephod, which were the Urim and Thummin; by the precious stones in Tyre, concerning which in Ezekiel; and by the precious stones with which the foundations of the wall of the New Jerusalem were adorned. Now because it was foreseen by the Lord that Christians would not hold the Old Testament so holy as do the Jews, therefore, the Jews have been preserved up to this day, and have been scattered throughout the whole Christian world, in order that, the Word might still be in its holiness by means of correspondences.

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This also is the reason why it is still allowed the Jews to trade with similar things as in the world. If there had not been this reason, that whole race by reason of its perversity, would have perished.

     255. There are also those who make precious stones for themselves artificially, so that they can be hardly distinguished from the genuine. But these, when they are found out, are severely punished; they are put into a prison where they suffer harsh things, and are cast into the hells.

     256. The Jews have no other delights than to acquire gain. Of interior delights they have no knowledge. Most of them are external men.

     257. I have often spoken with the Jews on various subjects. First, Concerning their sacrifices,-that they refer to things heavenly; and in what way their various sacrifices signify the Lord. Second, Concerning Isaac, why he might have been sacrificed by Abraham; and that these things had not been disclosed to them in the world because they were so external that they would not have received, for they were not willing to receive; and that they would have profaned them. Third, Concerning the things which are contained in the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah. At this they became absolutely silent; for the chapter was explained, so that they could make no answer. They were afraid lest it should be read again, for they were not willing to be convinced. Fourth, Concerning eternal life,--that it consists in the unanimity of all and in delight therefrom; and that as for them, they are at enmity with each other and thus cannot have the felicity of heaven. They answered, that they look for the Messiah who will unite them. Fifth, I spoke with them about the signification of Jacob's sinew which was put out of joint, about Esau's heel which Jacob caught hold of, and about the heel which the serpent bruised, that these signify themselves; about their origin from a Canaanitish woman, and from harlotry with a daughter-in-law. And it was explained what all these signify, and that the things there understood are such as are signified; also that the Jews and their tribes mentioned in the Word are not they but are things celestial and spiritual. I spoke about the land of Canaan, to the effect that they believe they are to be introduced into that land by the Messiah when He comes; that He will walk before them with a rod, and will dry up the rivers: that a wall of fire will be round about there: that they will go through Christendom, and that Christians will take hold of their garments and beg to be allowed to follow them: and that they will admit these and hold them as slaves provided they give their wealth; and many other things of like import.

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They were asked weather the dead and those in the World of Spirits are also to follow the Messiah, or whether it is only those who are in the world; whether the land of Canaan would be able to hold them; where the Messiah was to be born; whether they know the line of David, or the situation of Bethlehem; and many similar questions; why they look for an earthly kingdom when the kingdom of the, Messiah is a heavenly one,--which these who have now departed from the world might know. All this was said and heard. Those of them who were evil could not be convinced, but some who were upright wished to be instructed. Sixth, It was explained to them what the land of Canaan signifies, and what Jerusalem; why these are called holy; what Zion signifies; what the twelve tribes represent and hence signify; also the passages where it is said that they who had been in captivity would return,--to the effect that it was by no means they who were meant, but that it was so written on account of the spiritual sense in each particular. Seventh, I spoke with them about the spiritual sense: at which they first slid that they knew there was a mystical sense in the Word, and that they knew that mystical sense, which was that they receive gold and that they are able to make gold. To which I answered that, mystically, that is, Spiritually, this also is true, because gold signifies the good of love, and they who are in that mystical or spiritual sense of the Word, receive this love. But they wanted gold, not love, saying that the possession of gold is love.*
     * The answers made by the Jews to the questions contained in this paragraph are recorded in detail in T. C. R. 845. See also S. D. 2256-7 and 4388.--TR.

     258. Before the Last judgement they called the two cities* Jerusalem. But after the judgment they changed the name by command because the name Holy Jerusalem, mentioned in the Apocalypse, then cattle everywhere into general rise.

669


By the Holy Jerusalem is signified a New Church into which none shall enter who does not make the Messiah one with Jehovah, thus only he who worships the Lord alone. The Jews are treated of in the Arcana Coelestia.
     * The cities here referred to are the "two great cities into which Jews are carried after death." They are situated in the northern quarter, to which quarter, the Jews from the valley at the Christian center were dispersed at the time of the Last judgment. In the cities themselves all intercourse with Christians is strictly forbidden but it is allowed, so far as concerns wandering spirits, outside the cities. (T. C. R. 841.) Both cities are described as to their situation and appearance in A. C. 940-941 and S. D. 750 and 751. That which is for the evil, is situated "not far from Gehennah but more to the left." It was the place where the dragon sometimes appeared for the purpose of convening evil spirits for an assault upon the good, and is described as being unutterably horrible. On account of its extreme filthiness it is generally called the "filthy" or foul Jerusalem;" it is also sometimes referred to as the "Old Jerusalem." (S. D. 3042, 3409.) The other city is between Gehennah and the pool and is the abode of the better disposed Jews. Its appearance varies from somewhat of magnificence to a condition of squalid fifth, according to the state of the inhabitants. This is the city referred to in n. 251, above, where spirits are first explored.--TR

     259. The Jews strive much after heaven, believing that heaven is theirs, and that to inherit the land is to inherit heaven, that the land of Canaan is in heaven, and that the Messiah is with then. They marvel that He does not descend to them from heaven, but I answered that He does not will to do this because there is so much discord among them and such enmities and hatreds, and contempt for others; and because they pray to the God of Israel not for the sake of salvation but that they may became rich.

     260. Those of them who are evil are last down into the hells which are under their great tract; many into woods and deserts where they commit robbery, but still they are miserably punished. The Word is taken away from them.

     261. They have been preserved also for the sake of the Hebrew language. They also have the Word written in the ancient Hebrew language where all the letters are curved, because in such a letter the Word has a more immediate communication with heaven.

     [THE END.]


670


Editorial Department 1906

Editorial Department       Editor       1906

     NOTES AND REVIEWS.

     In response to several inquiries respecting the continuation of the biography of the Rev. W. H. Benade in New Church Life, we would state that the account, as published, presents that part of Mr. Benade's life-history of which but little was previously known. The rest of his life and work, subsequent to the founding of the Academy, is too well known and too recent to demand description at the present time. Finally, a greater historical radius seems necessary in order to obtain that perspective which is needed for a just judgment of so great a man, (and of his contemporaries, many of whom are still living.) For the present, therefore, the biography will not be continued.

     Did the Last judgment cease in the year 1757? All history indicates that it only began in that year, and all evidences show that it is still going on, the present time especially appearing to be an era of judgment on this earth. Imaginary heavens are tumbling down before our very eyes and ears. Who cannot hear the crash of the Imaginary heaven in Russia, where the Revolution is not so much a judgment upon the autocracy as upon the Greek Church which was its mother and chief supporter? And the recent story of the Catholic Church in France, the bundling of the monastic orders out of their comfortable nests, the repeal of the Concordat, the inventory of the churches, the impotent wrath of the pope at this sudden collapse of his establishment in the land where once reigned "the eldest sons of the Church,"--all this reads much like some page from the Spiritual Diary describing the judgment upon Babylon, the downfall of its mountains, the collapse of its cities and treasure houses, and the liberation of its captives. Thus the "Gallican Church" is working out its destinies, and the way opened for the possible introduction of the New Church among "the noble French nation." And now there are rumblings of approaching judgment even in Spain, "his most Catholic Majesty" not being quite as superlatively Catholic as were his fore-fathers.

671


And the judgment is going on every day, all over the world, among Protestants as well as Catholics, among Pagans as well as Christians,-all in preparation for the Lord's New Church.

     The Rev. John Whitehead, in the Messenger for October 3d, appears with an article on the "Difference between Doctrine and the Word." He classes the Divinely inspired Writings of the New Jerusalem among "doctrinal writings" such as the Epistles, and on this basis he proceeds to the conclusion that "to confound doctrine with the Word is to ignore essential distinctions and lose the clear thought and intellectual perception that doctrine was revealed to develop."

     It is to be regretted that the writer himself here ignores the essential distinction between Divine Doctrine and human doctrine. He forgets the fact that "the Word" is Doctrine, Divine Doctrine, Doctrine from beginning to end, nothing but Doctrine. There is lurking in his mind the old idea that the Word is something else,--an undefinable magical something "written by correspondences." Because he does not see that the Word is Divine Doctrine he cannot see that Divine Doctrine is the Word. If he charges that this is to "confound" doctrine with the Word, then it is against the Heavenly Doctrine itself that be raises the charge. "Divine Doctrine is Divine Truth, and all Divine Truth is the Word of the Lord. The Divine Doctrine itself is the Word in the supreme sense, in which it treats of the Lord alone; thence the Divine Doctrine is the Word in the internal sense, in which it treats of the Lord's Kingdom in the heavens and the earths; Divine Doctrine is also the Word in the literal sense, in which it treats of the things which are in the world and on the earth. . . . For it is known that the Lord is the Word, that is, all Divine Truth." (A. C. 3712.)


672


BUDDHISTIC PROPHECY OF THE SECOND COMING 1906

BUDDHISTIC PROPHECY OF THE SECOND COMING       W. L. G       1906

     "The Opening of Tibet" by Percival Landon gives an account of the English expedition to Lhasa under Col. Younghusband. In it he describes a visit to "the sacred heart and center not of Lhasa alone but of Central Asia. . . the Jo Kong,"-the temple of the Jo, the most sacred statue of Buddha. This statute is said to have been fashioned without hands. It represents Buddha as a youth full of hope and aspiration, instead of the usual representation of a man who has explored all of life, and having found that all is vanity, wears a look of placid content with the wisdom he has acquired. There are many interesting things in the author's description of this temple; but nothing is of more interest to the Newchurchman than the following:

     "In this central court [of the Jo Kong] two statutes sit, one-that to the left-is of about life size, the other is of gigantic proportions. Both of them present the same peculiarity-one which cannot fail to arrest the eye at once. Each is seated upon a throne in European fashion, and this identifies them at once. Of all the Bodisats, heroes or teachers which fill the calendars of Lamaism, only the image of the coming Buddha is thus represented. How this tradition arose the lamas themselves are unable to explain, but it is of great antiquity and it is to Europe that the eyes of Buddhists are turned for the appearance of the next reincarnation of the Great Master." (P. 388.)

     There is a passage elsewhere in the same work which indicates that such statues representing the coming Buddha are to be found wherever Buddhism prevails, and that they are always understood to mean that the next coming of the Great Master is to be in Europe. What is this but a prophecy handed down from the days of the Ancient Church of the Second Coming of the Lord by means of a European?

     One-third of the earth's inhabitants are Buddhists; and when these begin to read the Writings the fact of this prophecy will doubtless have a strong tendency to lead them to believe that Swedenborg was a teacher come from God. It will also serve to connect the faith of their fathers with that of the New Jerusalem and show that the same God who led them, through Buddha, by a religion adapted to that day, now offers then a more rational faith through His servant, Emanuel Swedenborg. W. L. G.


673


MODERN ANTAGONISM TO PAUL 1906

MODERN ANTAGONISM TO PAUL              1906

     Of late years we have observed not a few signs of a growing opposition among Protestants to the teachings of Paul in general and to the supposedly Pauline doctrine of faith alone in particular. In England this modern crusade against Paul has a most ardent preacher in Marie Corelli, and in Germany a. Herr Michel, formerly a high army officer, has lately created quite a sensation by a work, entitled "Follow Christ; Away with Paul." The following extract from the book will be of interest to every reader of Swedenborg:

     "Paul was the destroyer of the Law, the destroyer of the only tutor which is able to elevate man from the stage of crude and formless immaturity to moral and religious freedom. Paul has set up, in place of the slow education of the Law, an idea of Redemption which makes men believe that they are able without any work or self-education on their part, through means of grace that operate in a purely objective way, to enter the Kingdom of God at once. Not the work aiming at perfection, but faith in the atoning death of Jesus, accepting as true the redemptive virtue of the effects of Christ's death and resurrection, it is which brings about salvation. By these teachings Paul has destroyed the work of the greatest prophet of Israel, the work of Jesus. It was Jesus' purpose to have the people accept the Law in a way that would educate them from the letter to the spirit. Paul, on the other hand, preached revolution instead of evolution. In his eyes the Law is not only purposeless, but it is even harmful, and is a curse that weighs heavily upon mankind. But the destructive effects of his idea of Redemption appear on all hands. They break down all the barriers of nationality, society, social relations, and family ties by preaching a liberty that destroys all human order and fills their adherents with an intemperate notion of equality and freedom.

674


This super-terrestrial idea of Redemption, in which not moral worth but faith alone decides, has at all times been a welcome luxury for all preachers and criminals, but it was an easy way of finding excuses for everything. But historical accuracy compels us to declare that Paul was the creator of this anti-legal and non-legal idea of Redemption, and that he was the destroyer of Christianity, and was the Anti-Christ. For the poison that has found an entrance through the Pauline system, has become the ruling dogma of the Church, has produced immorality and ignorance, has called forth the persecution of the Jews and of the heretics. The Christianity of Germany, and of Western Europe, too, has been corrupted by Paulinism. Notwithstanding all his other excellent works, Luther was not able to throw off this system in his teachings concerning Baptism, the Lord's Supper, and the Atonement. Indeed, modern Protestantism is to the present day yet the headquarters of Paulinism, For this reason it is a good thing that the Catholic Church is yet a power in these lands to serve as a counteracting agency. If this were not the case, our social and moral conditions would have been utterly hopeless through the non-legal equality and liberty visions of Paul s teachings. Hence only one thing is necessary, namely, to get rid of Paulinism entirely in the interests of the Church, the State and Society, and to return to the real original teachings of Jesus." (Literary Digest.)

     While this writer apparently comes close to the truth in his protest against the doctrine of faith alone. it should in justice be noted that this dogma is not taught by Paul but is "founded upon one saying of Paul falsely understood." (A. R. 675.) His rejection of "the law" refers to the Jewish ceremonial law, not to the Ten Commandments, as the context plainly shows. Though he himself was a follower of faith alone, and now is among the lost, yet in his Epistles "he rejected faith without good works equally with James." (A. R. 417.) It was Paul that asked "Do we then make void the Law by faith? By no means, but we establish the Law." (Rom. iii:27-37.) And it was Paul that taught "Not the hearers of the Law shall be justified by God, but the doers of the Law." (Rom. ii:13.) And there are many indications which cause us to apprehend that this modern movement against faith alone is inspired by the merely natural morality of Unitarianism, which pretends to follow Jesus the "ideal man," and not by the spiritual obedience of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as the one and only God.


675


NEW CHURCH AND CHICAGO 1906

NEW CHURCH AND CHICAGO              1906

     "THE NEW CHURCH AND CHICAGO, A HISTORY." (W. B. Conkey Co. 1906.) This publication of 400 pages, by an anonymous author, purports to be a history of the birth and growth of the New Church in Chicago, but is little more than a collection of official letters and documents relating to the external feature of that history, with interspersed biographical sketches of the leading members of the Church. The documents,--most of them reprinted from old reports and journals,--are useful as a basis for a better work; and the sketches, generously illustrated, are interesting though somewhat rambling and superficial. But when the author claims it to be "A History," he claims too much, as it is a mere chronicle, (and an inaccurate and deficient one at that), rather than a well digested and connected story. The style is awkward, at times illiterate, and there is an evident lack of knowledge of the internal movements and developments of the New Church in the West. There seems to be an effort to impress the outside world with the importance of some of the Chicago New Church people in the civil affairs of the city, but there is no effort to impress the world, at the same time, with the importance and beauty of the Heavenly Doctrines, The author here misses a fine opportunity for "missionary work," but this failure is not to be regretted as he could not but create prejudices by his angry attacks upon those who differ from him in the Church. While minute details are presented in regard to the congregations of the Chicago Society which are still connected with the General Convention, the existence of the General Church in that city is dismissed with just two lines: "There is a small Society in Chicago and another in Glenview, a suburb, the latter being Immanuel Church." (p. 319.)

676


This belittling of an important development within the New Church in Chicago is the work of a partizan spirit which removes the author from the category of impartial historians or truthful chroniclers. He is perfectly well aware that the two congregations, thus referred to, are active and flourishing churches, counting together about two hundred souls,-the only New Church congregations in the city that subsist entirely upon the voluntary contributions of living members instead of vested funds gained from the bounty of the town ages ago. The Sharon Church in Chicago and the Immanuel Church in Glenview possess property and places of worship of their own and support pastors of their own, and the Immanuel Church, besides, conducts the only New Church Day School in or about the city. And these uses have been carried on for twenty years and more. Were an outside reader of this "History" of the New Church in Chicago to find out these facts, he might accuse the author of deliberate concealment of facts, with intent to mislead.

     The saint partizan spirit is manifested in his treatment of the labors of the Rev. W. F. Pendleton and the Rev. E. C. Bostock in Chicago during the years 1877-1885, The author insinuates that these ministers were sent as a kind of Jesuit emissaries "from the Academy of the New Church in Pennsylvania." The fact is that Mr. Pendleton was formally called to Chicago by the West Side congregation at a time when that congregation was in danger of extinction. But of the remnant (left without care by the Chicago Society), he built up a vigorous and self-supporting Church of forty-nine members, of whom, in 1884. Only sixteen had formerly been connected with the older Society. As for Mr. Bostock, he was, himself, a Chicago man, and his return to his native city can scarcely be regarded as a foreign invasion The faithful and self-sacrificing labors of these ministers in building up the New Church in an unoccupied field is characterized by the author in a manner unbecoming a Christian and a gentleman.

     The work under review is copy-righted by the "Western New Church Union," and it is therefore, we presume, a more or less official publication, from which it would appear that the powers-that-be" in the Chicago Society have not yet repented of the crime against the New Church which was committed in the year 1885.

677


A chapter is devoted to the justification of the act whereby the Society expelled the newly-formed Church from the chapel on the North Side and the temple on the West Side for the sole reason that that Church had connected itself with the General Church of Pennsylvania. It is to be noted that the latter body was then an integral portion of the General Convention, and that the Immanuel Church, by its action of 1885, not only did not separate itself from the Convention, but acted in entire harmony with the Rule of the Convention, adopted in Boston, two years previously, which reads:

     "Resolved, That while for convenience, or other external reasons, it is expedient, and perhaps necessary, that an Association of the Church should have certain geographical metes and bounds, which ought in general to be observed, yet the rule of geographical boundary should not be so rigidly applied as to interfere with the freedom of any Society to choose, from doctrinal or other internal considerations, to affiliate itself with any Association with which it can conveniently act.

     Where was the spirit of Charity in the Chicago Society in thus expelling from their church-homes brethren of their own faith and of their own general body? Where was the love for the New Church in refusing even to rent the temple on the West Side to these brethren, and, instead, immediately renting it to an Episcopal congregation,--prostituting to the worship of three gods a temple which had been consecrated to the worship of the One and Only God? (Why, by the way, does not the author mention this fact in his "History?")

     The General Church of the New Jerusalem comes in for an entire chapter in the book, made up mostly of extracts from an article in New Church Life, (August-September, 1904), which deals with the history of that body, We have no objection to the extracts, for unwittingly the author has done real service to the General Church by presenting, in words of Mr. Benade, a correct account of our attitude towards the Writings. His own view of the General Church is decidedly unfavorable, but, being based on ignorance, requires no notice.


678


"IVORY FROM THE CAMEL." 1906

"IVORY FROM THE CAMEL."       B. E. W       1906

EDITORS Church Life:--

     Not long ago I received a letter from a friend, who spoke of having met one of the Clergy of the General Convention. A conversation arose on the Divinity of the Writings. My young friend was shocked to learn that their infallibility was ridiculed "on no firmer ground than this: Swedenborg somewhere speaks of ivory as being obtained from the camel!"

     In view of the above and of the fact that the "camel mistake" is not new to the Church, I felt constrained to look up the paragraph referred to, with the following result:

     It is in the Apocalypse Explained, 1146:2, and in exposition of this clause in Rev. xviii:12: "And all thyine wood and every vessel of ivory," that the statement is made, "The reason 'ivory,' signifies rational truth is that by the camel is signified what is natural; hence by 'ivory,' which is from its tooth and from which it his its power and also because it is white," etc., etc.

     So article for the passage in Apocalypse Explained. Let us now turn to this identical passage as explained in the Apocalypse Revealed, n. 774. We here read, "The reason 'ivory' signifies natural truth is that it is white and can be polished; and because it is pretended from the mouth of the elephant, and also constitutes its power."

     This is a case of verbal error, a slip of the pen. That is all. And even here the Divine Providence overrules the liability of human misapprehension by the accuracy of the corresponding passage. This teaches its not to be mere verbalists, slaves of the letter, but to concern ourselves instead with the intended meaning or the truth itself. It also teaches us to use reason when entering into the understanding of the Heavenly Doctrines, but it does not warrant its by reason of our shortsightedness, to cast a slur on their Divinity. B. E. W.


679


QUESTION AS TO THE NINETEENTH OF JUNE 1906

QUESTION AS TO THE NINETEENTH OF JUNE       G. BARGER       1906

EDITOR New Church Life:-

     The many interesting and valuable articles on the subject of the Nineteenth of June in your August number have set me to consider nos. 4, 108, and 791 of the True Christian Religion, and I have no doubt you will be pleased to answer a difficulty I have met.

     The most remarkable, perhaps unique, circumstance that a purely spiritual event, occurring in the spiritual world where natural time is not, is here connected with so much precision to the definite chronicle of natural time, must naturally force us to fix that spiritual event without the least amount of hesitation in the chronicle of natural time on that very date.

     We must look upon it as a point in the natural history of the world, dividing time into two periods, one before and one after that date. From this we must conclude that Swedenborg finished his work on the True Christian Religion before the 19th of June, 1770: that after this he added the memorandum contained in no. 791; and that the publication took place later on in 1771. But how does this agree with nos. 4 and 108, where Swedenborg says that the 19th of June had already passed when he wrote those passages, consequently before finishing his work? May we explain this apparent discrepancy by assuming that after writing no. 791, Swedenborg interpolated these numbers a few months after the 19th of June and while the work was going to press?
Yours very sincerely.
G. BARGER.

     Voorburg, near the Hague, Holland, Aug. 20, 1906.

[ANSWER, The apparent discrepancy is explained by the fact that Swedenborg wrote two separate drafts to the True Christian Religion, just as he did in the case of the Arcana Coelestia and the Apocalypse Explained. The first draft was finished at Stockholm, on June 19th, 1770, and the second,--a clean copy for the printer,--after he had arrived in Amsterdam. It was on this draft that he was at work when Cuno visited him on Jan. 26th, 1771, and it was thus on rewriting the work that he inserted the statements in nos. 4 and 108, that the Lord had called together His twelve apostles "some months ago." The work was published in June, 1771. (See Doc. Vol. III, p. 1016.)-[EDITOR.]


680


PROTEST AGAINST MR. ALDEN'S REPORT 1906

PROTEST AGAINST MR. ALDEN'S REPORT       J. C. AGER       1906

EDITOR New Church Life:--

     I have just been reading the summer numbers of your periodical, and you will perhaps allow me to protest against what Mr. Alden, in his account of the Convention meetings, reports me as saying in reply to his own remarks about the Church, namely, that the distinction between the Church Universal and the Church Specific had never before entered my mind. Such a remark could only be construed as a confession of gross ignorance in regard to an important doctrine of the Church. What I did say was that Mr. Alden's contention that the Church Universal and the Church Specific are two separate bodies, was in idea that had never before entered my mind. I had supposed that all were agreed that these two terms designate two phases of spiritual life in the kingdom of the Lord, which is a single body.

     I can hardly refrain from protesting also against Mr. Alden's denunciations of the Convention. There have been, now and then, hopeful signs of the dying out of the animosities between the Convention and the General Church, and efforts have been made to unite in some general uses. As I have been reading these three numbers, the tendency seems to be all in the opposite direction.
Yours very truly,
J. C. AGER,
Brooklyn, N. Y., Sept. 24, 106,
MR. ALDEN'S REPLY 1906

MR. ALDEN'S REPLY       WILLIAM HYDE ALDEN       1906

EDITOR New Church Life:--

     Mr. Ager's own words may perhaps make the best answer to his protest, and I will therefore quote from the stenographic notes of his remarks at the Minister's Conference, the substance of which appeared in the Messenger as well as in the Life: "The question which we all seem to have settled down to discuss is the nature of the Lord's Church on the earth, and in the remarks made by Mr. Alden in his criticism of the address, he makes a distinction which never entered my mind before, that the universal church is not the New Church; that there is the New Church on earth, and the universal church on earth. That makes two churches, unless they are all part of the same church, and then the term New Church applies to them all."


681



     I have no stenographic report of my own remarks. As I reported them at the time from memory, they were as follows:

     "Mr. Alden thought that Mr. Hoeck had confused the teaching of the New Church respecting the Church Universal and the Church Specific. The Church Universal consists of all those, not only in the Christian world but in the whole world, who are in good according to or from religion; the Specific Church is today the New Church and consists of all those who consciously receive the Lord in His Second Coming and live according to the truths revealed in the Lord's Second Coming. The Specific Church thus today the New Church, is the heart and lungs of all mankind, the center of influx from the Lord and heaven, by which there is life to men."

     I did not contend at that time or at any other, that "the Church Universal and the Church Specific are two separate bodies." In answer to a question by Mr. Sewall I declared on the floor of Conference that there was but one living Church upon the earth at one time; and in the Messenger of July 11. I more fully explained this thought by saying that the Church Universal was related to the Church Specific as the whole body of a man to his heart and lungs.

     Mr. Ager points out how unnecessary has been this whole controversy when he says, "I had supposed that all were agreed that these two terms designate two phases of spiritual life in the kingdom of the Lord, which is a single body." Precisely so, and had Mr. Ager put it this way on the floor of the Conference;-had others entering into the controversy accepted my statement, as quoted above, which is hardly more than a paraphrase of this statement of Mr. Ager's;--had he and they been willing to accept the further thought, which alone is worthy, that that Church which is called the Crown of all churches, which, without it, is reduced to the position of a struggling sect among the powerful denominations of Christendom,--THAT THIS SPECIFIC CHURCH IS INDEED THE NEW CHURCH AND NOTHING ELSE:,--then there would have been no occasion for confusing the question as to the nature of the Church, no occasion for assuming any contention as to whether the fact of the existence of the Church Universal and the Church Specific implied two churches or not.


682



     As for Mr. Ager's protest against my denunciations of the Convention, and his reference to "hopeful signs of the dying out of the animosities between the Convention and the General Church," and "efforts" "made to unite in some general uses," I have only to say that there were indeed very hopeful signs of a better feeling along in the years 1898 to 1901. Mr. Ager cannot but be aware that the influences by which this better feeling was sadly checked, arose, not in the General Church, but in the Convention, and that the gulf which has since then deepened and broadened between the two bodies has been enlarged, and the animosity against the Academy on the part of the Convention maintained by a campaign of slander, for a parallel to which we must go back to the scandals invented by Jews and pagans against the early Christians. I do not say that Convention, as a body, is responsible for these slanders, but it is a simple fact that as a result of them and of their poisonous atmosphere which has permeated the Convention membership, the members of the General Crutch have been denied by the Convention the rights of Christian fellowship. As I have said elsewhere, I do not denounce the Convention, but I do denounce and shall continue to denounce at every available opportunity, that traitorous spirit which has insidiously taken possession of the Convention organization, and which threatens to cast out from it the Heavenly Doctrine from which it takes its name. Mr. Ager may deplore this attitude, but I would remind him of words which the Lord Himself used at His first coming, which also have place in this His Second Advent, "I tell you if these should hold their peace, the very stones would cry out."
WILLIAM HYDE ALDEN.


683


SUBSTANTIALISM VERSUS IDEALISM 1906

SUBSTANTIALISM VERSUS IDEALISM       EDMOND CONGAR BROWN       1906

EDITOR New Church Life:--

     It has been with a peculiar and special interest that I have read Prof. Odhner's very valuable paper in the October Life on "Discrete Degrees and Spiritual Substance," for I have been for many years studying and meditating upon these subjects, and have been irresistibly led to the same conclusions as those reacted by Prof. Odhner, but have thus far found but little sympathy with my views. I hope, and confidently expect, that his paper, being as it is in some sense a foreword to the forthcoming work of Miss Beekman in which the positions advanced in the paper are stated and worked out in detail, will mark the beginning of a new epoch in the thought of the Church and the understanding of the Writings.

     The time has new come, it seems to me, for a thorough discussion of this question of idealism versus realism and substantilism, as regards spiritual things and operations. The case, briefly stated, seems to me to be as follows: While it is true, that with regard to merely natural, material, or external things and operations there is but one appropriate form of thought-the natural or external thought-which for those subjects is adequate and satisfactory with regard to spiritual things and operations a higher form or mode of thought--interior or spiritual thought--is possible. The question is, whether in dealing with spiritual subjects, interior or spiritual thought alone is to be employed, or are both spiritual thought and natural thought necessary? Or, to put the quotation more definitely, is clear and definite interior or spiritual thought possible with regard to any subject, without a corresponding external or natural thought to serve as a base, foundation or containant for the former?

     Now, there are two classes of minds, or rather two modes of mental operation, in dealing with these deep subjects of spiritual thought. One class of mind seeks to go at once to the interior thought, and is content to dwell in an interior or spiritual idea of love, wisdom, substance, influx, the Divine, Proceeding, etc, while the other class of mind cannot do this, but concludes that it must, in order to form any clear or satisfying interior idea, first form an adequate external or natural idea-must think of the spiritual things in a way which, for want of a more appropriate word, may be called "geometrical," and of their operation or activity as "mechanical," and, having done this, a basis is formed from which to rise to the interior spiritual idea.


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     To illustrate we are taught in the Writings that the "soul" is a "receptacle" for the "Divine Influx." Some minds are content to understand from this merely that the soul is an inmost principle" which in some occult way is vivified by the Lord. They do not form any well-defined idea of what may be called the Anatomy and Physiology of the Soul. The whole thought is abstract and vague, and the terms employed in discussion are little more than symbols for unknown quantities. The other class of mind to which I refer cannot do this, partly because it finds the proposition, stated abstractly, to be actually meaningless, and also because a state of mental disquiet is produced which compels an effort to form a definite external conception of the matter into which the interior thought may flow. And this state of mind is foreseen, recognized, and provided for, in the teachings of the New Church, where it is disclosed that the soul is a highly organized substantial thing--an organic fluid, formed out of the first aura or the universal atmosphere of the spiritual world; that this atmosphere is also a real, substantial fluid, composed of parts or corpuscles having definite mutual relations, and that it, as well as the soul which is organized or formed therefrom, is capable of being conceived of geometrically and its activity thought of mechanically; and that the Infinite Activity of the Lord's Divine Substance (in Itself of course incomprehensible to even the highest angels) finites Itself in this aura as a definite mechanical motion, which, acting upon the substance of the soul, excites a similar motion or activity therein.

     Of course, the esse of the soul is not this substance, but the Divine Activity communicated to it. But how can any clear idea be formed of this until an adequate idea is formed of an organized substantial something to be actuated? And how can the Divine Activity be communicated to this something in any other way than through an atmosphere which consists of distinct parts or corpuscles, whereby a mechanical activity imparted to it may be transmitted forward and finally impressed upon other similarly substantial things?

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Without this external idea of the matter, is it possible to have any definite interior thought about it? But when a clear external idea is formed, how quickly does the mind rise to an interior or spiritual view of the process, which, having then its appropriate and corresponding natural basis, is adequate and satisfying. As Prof. Odhner so well expresses it, the natural area "provides a definite expression to the conscious mind for what formerly was an inexpressible idea in the subconscious perception."

     Again, take the important and fundamental teaching of the Writings as to good and truth. Good is substance, truth is form, they are two and yet one, they are "distinctly one," truth is the form of good, or good formed is truth, etc. Personally, I must confess that from a merely spiritual area these phrases are absolutely meaningless to me, flow can "goods," considered either as "love" or as existing in "use," be "formed," and thus become "truth?" And the matter is not helped by thinking of good or love as spiritual beat, and of truth as spiritual light. But the fact is, that "good" is a real, substantial, geometrical, even mechanical, thing, composed of separate and distinct particles or corpuscles. And when these parts ate formed, or organized, into some definite arrangement whereby they are adapted to act upon or affect a human mind or soul, it is then called, or becomes, "truth." "Truth is good in a form which the understanding can apprehend." (A. C. 5337.) "Truth is the form of good, that is, when good is formed that it man, be intellectually perceived, then it is called truth." (A. C. 3049.) "Good without truth does not appear." (A. C. 9637.) But how is good "formed" so as to become truth? "What is formed is divided, as it were, into parts, and amongst these parts analytically considered are instituted various respects or various relations, this good is presented to the understanding and is rendered perspicuous; good in the understanding rendered perspicuous is the truth of that good." (A. C. 9781.) How clear and simple the mystery becomes when we satisfy our external thought with a definite "mechanical" conception of the matter, and how quickly then does the spiritual idea, being provided with a suitable body or limbus, come into existence!


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     There are many passages in the Writings which teach unmistakably the real and substantial nature of spiritual substance, that it is corpuscular and geometrical, and that its activity is mechanical. The fact that the spiritual thought may see higher and more interior aspects does not do away with the lower and more external ones. And an adequate idea on both planes, is, in my opinion, necessary to any definite thought or clear comprehension. But I do not see how the interior idea ran be formed until the external one has first been provided, from which the former may be, as it were, conceived and born.

     The teachings of the Writings concerning the continuity of spiritual and natural substance, or spirit and matter, are fully as clear and convincing as those relating to be nature and structure of substance. Many of them are quoted in Prof. Odhner's paper, and any student can easily find others. If they are read in an impartial and affirmative state, I do not see how they can fail to carry conviction. That many students have not so understood them heretofore, is due, I think, to a total misapprehension of the doctrine of discrete degrees. It is commonplace to say that this doctrine is the basis of the whole system of philosophy of the New Church, but most of its, I fear, instead of using it as a key to unlock the mystery of the relation of the Divine to spirit and of spirit to matter, have erected it into a barrier between spirit and matter and between both and the Divine. We have utterly ignored the plain teaching that discrete degrees, as such, must in order to exist at all, be homogeneous. "Things which are not of the same character and nature are heterogeneous, and do not harmonize with things homogeneous; thus they cannot form discrete degrees with them, but only with their own, which are of the same character and nature and with which they are homogeneous." (D. L. W. 192.) This and other like passages show unmistakably that, since the relation between spirit and matter is that of a discrete degree, they must be homogeneous. Spirit and matter cannot sustain that radically distinct, utterly independent, incomprehensible relation, or rather absence of all relation, to each other, that many have supposed, for in that case there could be no discrete degree between them.

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God did not create two distinct and independent creations which thereafter developed along independent lines, but the spiritual and the natural are parts of one universal creation; there is an unbroken continuity from the highest spiritual to the lowest material; in a word, each step or grade of substance is formed by and from the next higher, by mechanical aggregation or physical massing of parts.

     This is truly the key to the whole philosophy of the Writings. It is not materialism, for it leads directly to substantialism. But whether called materialism or not, it is the teaching of the Lord's Divine Revelation, and comes to us with authority. When correctly understood it makes many difficulties clear, and when fully received with all it involves we get glimpses of many wonderful interior truths which were before invisible because no external ideas were present by means of which they could come into the perception, To again quote Prof. Odhner. "Thought absolutely abstracted from natural forms is impossible. It is no thought at all."

     This question is not a purely theoretical one, as some may suppose, but has important practical bearings, aside from the general proposition that clear and definite thought is always desirable, even about spiritual subjects. If Miss Beekman's work will help us to the attainment of this thought she has performed a valuable use. I hope that the pages of "Life" may be opened to a discussion of this question, and that great spiritual benefit may result to the Church therefrom.
EDMOND CONGAR BROWN.
Orange, N. J., October 17, 1906.


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SIXTH CHICAGO DISTRICT ASSEMBLY 1906

SIXTH CHICAGO DISTRICT ASSEMBLY       DAVID H. KLEIN       1906

     The sixth meeting of the Chicago District Assembly of the General Church was held this year at Glenview, Illinois, on August 24th, 25th and 26th. As Bishop Pendleton and his wife were visiting Glenview during August, it was thought wise to take advantage of the Bishop's presence in the West to set the meeting at an earlier date than usual. The only drawback was the hot weather which persisted in remaining during the first three sessions, after which it moderated considerably.

     FIRST SESSION.

     The first session was held on Friday evening, the 24th. After appropriate religious exercises Bishop Pendleton read an address on the subject of "The Imagination." This subject was in the same line of thought as the address of last year on "Ceremonies," and the paper was followed with close attention and interest. A brief discussion followed the reading of the address, but, to allow time for the social reception planned for the evening, the session closed at an early hour.

     Following a fuller interchange of greetings, toasts were proposed to the Church and to the visitors. Of the latter, there was a fuller attendance than usual from distant places: Rev. Andrew Czerny, of England; Mr. Adolph Goerwitz, of Switzerland; Mr. A. E. Lindrooth, of Denver; Mr. Franklin Burkhardt, of Springfield, Ohio; Messrs. John and Thomas Pollock, of Wheeling, West Virginia; Mr. Thomas Ahlstrom, of Beloit, Wisconsin; Mrs. W. F. Pendleton and Miss Vera Pitcairn, of Bryn Athyn, Pa.; Miss Emma Hoffman, of Pittsburgh, Pa.; Misses Hertha and Edna Rauch, of Cincinnati, Ohio.

     There were several speeches, Messrs. Czerny, Burkhardt, Lindrooth and Thomas Pollock responding to the toasts to the guests.

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Bishop Pendleton took occasion to speak especially of the important work which the Rev. Andrew Czerny is doing in England, and expressed the pleasure it gave us to have him here among us.

     SECOND SESSION.

     The second session of the Assembly was held on Saturday afternoon. After religious exercises the Rev. W. B. Caldwell read a paper on "The Proprium," which was then taken up for discussion.

     Dr. J. B. S. King: Mr. Caldwell's paper presents in startling contrast the three kinds of proprium: first in order, the celestial, like the light of the midday sun; second, in a lower order, the spiritual comparatively like the beautiful, variegated, but reflected light of the rainbow; and the last, the black proprium of the evil, of no order at all, or rather of a certain inverted order, in the abyss. In the life of children the events of the early years are inextricably interwoven with what is peculiarly their own; and perhaps the very tender recollections of early scenes which most adults have, arise from this strong sense of its being their own, implanted at the time. I will put this in the form of a question to the essayist, as I am not quite sure that I am right.

     Mr. Klein: A question was once asked of a Newchurchman: "What is the most wonderful thing in the world?" The answer was, that the most wonderful thing in the world was the truth that man, who is so absolutely dependent on the Lord for life, should be able to be so fully in the appearance that he lives from himself, and thus to enjoy the freedom of acting as of himself in all things. Man has this freedom because he has a proprium. Otherwise he would be an automaton. As he regenerated and becomes rational he is able to rise out of the appearance that he lives from himself, and to know that all his life is from the Lord. This is when the Lord vivifies the proprium, or makes it new. An evil man confirms himself in the appearance that he lives from himself. The proprium of such a one, in the other life, appears as inanimate, bony, black and hard. The speaker asked whether the proprium could be called an organized form.

     The Bishop answered that it was rather a state; a state of man's spirit which is, of course, a form organized of spiritual substance. The body is an organic form and so is the will of man an organic form. Angels are all organic forms, and heaven itself is. The proprium is a state of man as an organic form, just as the body has a state of self-consciousness. The two trees in the garden of Eden treat of the proprium.

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The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is the appearance that man lives of himself. The tree of life, in the midst of the garden, is the perception that he lives from the Lord. When the tree of life is moved from the center of the garden to the circumference, then there is a loss of perception. The nearer man draws to the Lord, the happier he is, and the greater freedom does he enjoy. The more nearly man is conjoined with the Lord, the more distinctly does he appear to himself to be his own.

     The word "proprium" is a New Church word. Mr. Clowes, an early translator of the Writings, could find no word in our language to express the idea intended, and so carried over the Latin word. It has long been in use in the Church and has also found its way into some of our modern dictionaries as a part of New Church nomenclature. A changing of this translation is to be deprecated. The word appropriate, so often found in the Writings, is closely related. When man appropriate truth, he makes it as it were his own.

     Dr. King: In connection with the fact that the most complete acknowledgment of ones life being from the Lord, coinciding with the most intense sense that one lives of himself, it seems to me that it might be illustrated by the state of a bodily organ, in order and in disorder. For instance, the condition of health postulates transparent cells, with clear, well defined borders. The organ, in this condition, is most distinctly differentiated from all others, and yet most distinctly, depends upon the general organism. The first signs of disorder are a cloudy condition of the cells and a loss of distinctness in the outlines of cells; this is a step away from entire dependence upon the general organism, and with the inevitable consequence of loss of distinctness in both form and function.

     Mr. Caldwell, in answer to a previous question, stated that the early recollections then spoken of, belong to remains. They only become of the new proprium, when they are appropriated and made man's own during the regenerate life. Many of such recollected states are good and become part of the heavenly proprium by voluntary appropriation. Those that are evil most be combated and rejected.

     Mr. Czerny said that he desired to get some light on a question to which he had rot as yet been able to find an answer in the Writings. The term proprium is used in various sense in the Writings. It is generally used in an evil sense, as when it treats of the hereditary and the acquired proprium of man. He desired to ask whether men would always inherit an evil proprium. The teaching is that the proprium of man is nothing but evil; that be inherits tendencies to evils of every kind, etc. On the other hand, we have the teaching that those been of parents who are in conjugial love inherit inclinations to love Spiritual things. This teaching occurs only a few times, and is never brought out as prominently as the other. May not the tendencies to evil which have beet3 transmitted from generation to generation ever since the Fall, be so wholly overcome, as no longer to form a part of man's hereditary nature,(after many generations of regenerating men), and tendencies to good only, be transmitted to the offspring? That is the question.


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     Mr. Hugh L. Burnham stated that there are several fundamental things which man has to acknowledge in order to be saved. He must acknowledge that there is a God; also that it is merely an appearance that he lives from himself. This latter truth has been lost in the world, to all intents and purposes, and we ourselves need to be constantly reminded of it lest we dwell in the appearance. In regard to the use of the word "Proprium" he stated that of course a new word had been necessary, because the idea given in revelation concerning the subject, was a new idea.

     As to Mr. Czerny's question, he thought that as the Church progressed in spiritual life, the tendency toward hell with children would be weakened. The tendency toward spiritual things spoken of in the work on Conjugial Love concerning the children born of those who are in that love, was but a tendency or turning in the right direction. The potency of evil must remain with every ore or else there would be no freedom, and no appearance that man lives from himself. Yet evil will never disappear altogether from the posterity of the members of the Church.

     Mr. Alvin Nelson questioned whether there was not, in the very nature of the case, something of evil in the proprium, it being finite.

     Mr. Czerny said that he had never imagined that men would be born regenerated. When he asked the question he had in mind the teaching that man inherits tendencies to all the evils which his forefathers contracted by actual life. From this he had inferred that there was once a time when men inherited only tendencies to good, and not to evil, namely, before the Fall; so that what the First man hid to contend with was not tendencies to evil, but the desire to remain in external states, which inclined him to resist the Lord's endeavor t elevate him to interior states. If this view is correct and the first man was actually free from the tendencies to evil, then the speaker would like to know whether there was any teaching from which it might be inferred that after many generations of regenerating men, a state would arise in the New Church similar to that which must have existed in the beginning; a state when tendencies to evil would no I meet be transmitted, and man's temptation-combats would consist in overcoming affections of good and truth of a lower order. and in a reluctance on his part to rise to higher states.

     Bishop Pendleton stated that there will never be a day when man is born regenerate. He will always have to pass through the processes Of regeneration. This was true, even, of the men of the Most Ancient Church. The appearance that man lives from himself has in it the root of all evil. Every child will have this. The Lord Himself, in the Human as a child, was in this appearance. Essentially considered, there will be no difference between man now, and man in all future time to come, in this respect. Without doubt, however, the proprium will be modified in the succeeding ages of the Church. The appearance that man lives from himself will be more quickly rejected.


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     After the afternoon session of Saturday, some time was spent in social converse, while later a luncheon was served to the guests. The evening session was called for at eight o'clock.

     After the religious exercises, reports were heard from the Secretary of the Assembly, from the Immanuel Church of Glenview, and from the Sharon Church of Chicago. Mr. W. F. Junge then read a paper in answer to the question, "Is the Financial Support of the Church a Benefaction of Charity?" The answer was in the negative, and showed the distinction between the benefactions of charity and the public duties or debts of charity.

     Mr. Klein remarked that the subject presented was well illustrated by something which he had heard recently. A Newchurchman, some time ago, once asked a friend why he gave nothing to the support of the Church. The answer given was, "O, I believe in being just before being generous." The man evidently considered the support of the priesthood one of the benefactions of charity, in the same class of virtues as giving to the poor and relieving the needy. To a great extent in the world, the support of the Church is regarded as something extraneous to charity-among the last things to be considered, after all of man's other obligations have been fulfilled. Through the teaching in the Writings most of our members had come to regard this as an important duty to be done cheerfully and with delight.

     Mr. Burnham said that in the matter of giving, the question of the freedom of the individual had been consistently kept before us, and showed how a gift or contribution to the Church, in order to be of any spiritual benefit to the giver, must be given in freedom. He pointed out, however, that while man's freedom is thus respected, this should not be construed into a license to give nothing. He thought it not inconsistent with the duties of a treasurer to ask a man who was giving nothing, to make some contribution, however small, in support of a use.

     Mr. Junge thought that as these things were so clearly taught in the Writings, a man could hardly be called a Newchurchman unless he discharged the duties of charity.

     Mr. Caldwell: some people stay away from Church because they think they cannot given enough. Yet it is helpful and necessary to the Church uses, that they show their love in some form, for we looking to higher things than money contributions. First, there is the cultivation of charity by shunning evils as sins. In this there is love to the lord, and from this love proceeds the love and support of the Church. While the support of the Church is one of the duties of charity, yet we ought not to support the Church merely as a duty or mere obligation, but from a state of genuine affection.


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     Mr. Seymour Nelson said we could all agree with the conclusion of the writer of the paper,-the support of the Church is a "public duty' or debt of charity. In a sense it might also be called a private duty of charity, since by maintaining the uses of the Church and School, man is providing for the care and guidance of his children. Giving to the Church is man's ultimating his love for the Church. If he cultivates this love he will receive more from the Church through its spiritual uses. Otherwise he deprives himself of a real benefit.

     Mr. Czerny expressed pleasure that laymen should bring forward such questions as these and discuss them in the light of the teachings in the Writings. There had been times in the past when all this had to be done by the minister. He agreed with the last speaker, but thought it might be wise to add that in giving to the Church, man's central idea should not be concerning the reward ore benefit he is to receive in return. Although influx is according to efflux, yet man should not give for the mere sake of receiving.

     Bishop Pendleton: If a man loves the Lord's kingdom, he will also love the means for carrying on its uses on earth, and will use all his efforts in building up that kingdom in cooperation with the Lord's work. As he does this he becomes enlightened and learns to see his evils as sins, and so become in every way happier. The appearance is that man builds up the Church, and the Lord grants man this appearance, that he may be the happier in the work. It is not the amount of the contribution that counts, but the spirit in the giving. We need not dwell too much on the question of generosity. Think of being generous to the Lord! How can we ever repay His countless mercies? There are various means of giving to the Church, as there are different means by which the Lord's kingdom is built up. There is the regular attendance at Church, for instance, and the many uses of a New Church life in the home. Nor must we forget that the Church rests on the basis of the regeneration of the individual.

     A paper by Dr. J. B. S. King on the subject of "Generation and Regeneration" was then called for and read. This paper was listened to with the deepest interest. Bishop Pendleton commented on the sacredness of the subject, stating besides that the wonders of the spiritual and natural laws involved, were far beyond the mind of man to grasp, save in their most general aspects.

     A resolution looking to the publication of this and other papers in the New Church Life, if possible, was unanimously passed.

     A paper on the subject of "Sabbath Observance," by the Rev. D. H. Klein, was then called for and read.


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     Mr. Czerny stated that there had been some difficulty in the past regarding the matter of Sabbath observance. It had beer a mooted question, and considerable difference of opinion had existed and perhaps still exists as to what latitude was allowable in the way of pleasure. He commented on the statement that the Sabbath is a day of love to the neighbor, and the construction put upon this pirate as meaning a day for social life. He did not think too free a construction of this kind should be made.

     Mr. Klein stated that in the True Christian Religion, (n. 301), references from the letter of the Word were given regarding this phase of the subject. They all referred to visiting and healing the sick and the afflicted, and especially to the Lord's doing of such acts of mercy on the Sabbath. While these references need not necessarily confine us to the, idea that a day of love to the neighbor" in the New Church means a day for visiting the sick and the afflicted, they would tend to lead us from that construction of the phrase which regards the Sabbath as a day especially to be devoted to festivities.

     Dr. King thought there were two things to avoid, the Puritan Sabbath on the one hand, and too much pleasure on the other. The Puritanic Sabbath he thought had a bad effect upon children, and sometimes encouraged hypocrisy in small things. He recalled the horrors of the so-called "Sunday School Books," and told of how a certain boy surreptitiously read stories under cover of more serious tomes. There was q golden mean to be observed, the thought for one thing, that on Monday morning a man should, in the normal cotirs6 of events, feel rested both in mind and body.

     Mr. Czerny recalled how, in the Old Testament, the Jews were told to be glad at their feasts. Festivities, with singing, and dancing, had place in connection with or following their worship. Nothing of this seemed to exist when the Sabbath was observed by the primitive Christians. The day was more seriously observed. From this it would appear that the Sabbath was especially to minister to the wants of the spiritual man.

     Mr. Junge pointed out that the abrogation of the Jewish law gave greater freedom to the Christian Church, and thought that in the New Church this freedom should exist, subject to the conscience of the individual.

     Several remarks were then made regarding local conditions in the West and their influence on the observance of the day, and it was shown that conditions of external environment would necessarily often have a modifying influence, so that it not be wise to regulate the matter with too much minuteness of detail.

     Bishop Pendleton: We seem to have been prevented, from some reason in Providence, from coming to a full agreement as to the best manner of observing the day. The Writings, as has been shown, leave considerable freedom to the individual as to the application of the teachings given.

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Not much, if anything, is taught beyond what has been presented. One thing is clear, and that is that the day is in be a day for instruction in Divine things. The statement that it is to be a day of love to the neighbor is not so clear to all of us. There must be some application of this reaching, but as yet we have not come to a definite agreement as to what it is.

     The early Christians certainly made it a day of love to the neighbor. They had on that day their agape or love feast. At such times they comforted or consoled each other during the periods of adversity, of which they had much. They ate together on that day, it being their time for the Holy Supper. This was their application of love to the neighbor and it was suited to their needs.

     In the early days of the Academy, meetings on Sunday evening were frequent, and an important element at such times was conversation on matter, respecting the Church. At such times also the members found comfort and consolation in the face of trials and persecutions. At present it seems that we must admit a wide construction of the term "a day of love to the neighbor." It embraces all things of charity.

     On Sunday morning, Bishop Pendleton preached a sermon on the text, "Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall sing. For in the wilderness shall water break out, and streams in the desert."

     The sphere of worship was continued in the afternoon through the administration of the Sacrament of the Holy Supper, at which there were present some eighty communicants.

     The coming together for worship of our two societies is always a most delightful feature of the yearly District Assemblies, and usually the fullest attendance is on Sunday. This year proved no exception to the rule. But all the sessions were well attended, and the natural beauty of the surroundings at Glenview formed a fit setting for the gathering. Besides the reception on Friday night there was considerable visiting and social intercourse in the homes, and interchange of ideas in conversations between sessions.

     The Assembly closed with an interesting Men's Meeting on Sunday evening, where the subject discussed was "What is essential to the perpetuation of the Church?"
DAVID H. KLEIN,
Secretary.


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Church News 1906

Church News       Various       1906

     FROM OUR CORRESPONDENTS.

     BRYN ATHYN, PA. The re-opening of the Schools, following the resumption of the activities of the local Church, have been chief events of the past month. "Who is coming this year?" Is the eager question upon every lip during the summer, but it is seldom that any one can answer for certain, until the last minute, (or even after); the result is that we usually have to begin School with a trial Roster and experimental classes, until we have "found our bearings" after a week or two. This year we have two classes in the Theological School,--Mr. Eldred E. Jungerich, Mr. Walter Cranch, and Mr. Arthur Wells forming the first year's class, and Mr. Charles R. Pendleton, Jr., Mr. Fred. E. Gyllenhaal, and the Rev. Wm. H. Alden the third year's or graduating class. While Mr. Alden is the must "advanced" student we have ever had, (not in years only), he is just learning to spell--Arabic. In the Normal School there are five regular and seven special students, (though all of them are "special" in the way of being bright and fair). The College comprises fifteen stalwart young fellows, and the Girls' Seminary counts twenty-nine pupils. The local school has an enrollment of fifty-five,--making, a total of one hundred and seventeen souls receiving the benefits of New Church education in the halls of the Academy.

     The Girls' Seminary having suffered the simultaneous loss of the highly valued services of Miss Ashley and Miss Sherman, it was necessary to replace them by an entirely new corps of lady-teachers. Miss Alice Grant, as principal, has been fortunate in retiring the services of two voting ladies who have been especially well prepared, both here and elsewhere. Miss Venita Pendleton as teacher of the History group of studies, and Miss Rita Buell as teacher of the Literature, group, have entered upon their work with inspiring enthusiasm and energy. Miss Elizabeth Simons, who resigned a prominent position in the Philadelphia Normal School in order to attend this Normal School of the New Church, is also giving lessons in Botany in the Seminary, and Miss Korene Pendleton, in like manner, takes charge of the Physical exercises of the girls, who, besides, receive regular instruction from nearly all the professors in the College.


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     The annual meeting of the Bryn Athyn Church was held on October 12th, when we were gratified to learn from our secretary that there has been a substantial increase in our numbers. The average attendance at worship was 146 during the past year, as compared with 125 the year before. There are 123 members of the General Church now residing in Bryn Athyn, and 121 minors, exclusive of the voting people from other places who are attending the schools.

     A committee was appointed to interview the members as to preparations for the General Assembly which will be held at Bryn Athyn next June, and we are pleased to report that more than sufficient money was subscribed. Therefore, kind readers, begin your preparations for a visit to Bryn Athyn next year. We only hope that all our friends will be as anxious to come as the Bryn Athyn folks are anxious to have them. It will be the decennial of the General Church, and the meetings ought to "break the record."

     Through the efforts of our pastor, (Bishop Pendleton), the Civic and Social Club has been revived, under the active management of the younger men of the Society. Plans have been made for the year's social features, including the regular celebrations, and to fit up a room for the Club, with billiard table, etc. A large, well-lighted space has been secured for this purpose in the basement of Stuart Hall. O. S.

     PHILADELPHIA, PA. The regular services of the Advent church began at 10:45 in the usual place of worship, Glenn Hall, 555 N. 17th street, on Sunday, September 2d.

     On September 6th Miss Stella Zeppenfeld and Mr. Wm. Homiller were betrothed in the home of the former, the Rev. J. E. Rosenquist officiating.

     At the morning worship of September 9th the Rev. W. L. Gladish led the services and preached.


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     The Social Club met after services on September 30th, and decided to continue their work of last year, paying for the use of the hall for the Wednesday doctrinal class, and rating charge of the monthly socials, which now are to be held the last Wednesday of each month. A special committee of two have general charge of the work.

     On Sunday, October 7th, forty-five of the fifty-three persons present at the services partook of the Holy Supper.

     The Wednesday evening doctrinal class for adults was resumed on October 3d, and the young folk's class on September 30th.

     The Sunday School was again opened on Sunday morning, September 30th. It has been divided into three classes. Of the first class for young children Miss W. Boericke has charge. Mr. Eldred Jungerich (who is studying for the ministry in the Academy School in Bryn Athyn) teaches the second class of older children, and the Rev. W. H. Alden, of Bryn Athyn, conducts a class for adults. The pastor has general charge of the school.

     Four new names have been added to the roll of membership since the resumption of services this fall.

     Mr. Wm. Zeppenfeld has returned to Philadelphia from Berlin, Ont., Can., and Dr. E. Farrington, with family, has taken up his residence in the City of Brotherly Love. The doctor's address is 2004 Mt. Vernon street. R.

     NEW YORK. Services were resumed, after the summer vacation, on Sunday, October 7th, at the usual place of worship, 11 West 21st street, and will be continued regularly on the first and third Sundays of every month. The doctrinal classes, of which there are three, Brooklyn, New York, and Yonkers, which meet on Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings, respectively, were not resumed until October 2ist. We are looking forward to some increase in attendance over the past year, as one or two new members of the General Church have recently made their abode in New York. At our opening services there were twelve persons present, all of whom, excepting two children, partook of the Holy Supper. Several of our members were absent owing to unavoidable causes.


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     PITTSBURGH, PA. Sunday services were resumed on the 9th of September, and by this time everybody has returned from summer vacations and outings, and all seem eager for the winter's campaign. The doctrinal classes started on the third Wednesday in October. Instead of the regular service the Holy Supper was administered on Sunday, October 7th.

     The members of he local philosophy club, after resting their mighty brains for a few months, have again heard the call of the secretary, and he regular meetings have begun. Swedenborg's work on the "Infinite" is to be the text book for study.

     There has been a moderate amount of informal social life since last correspondence. As a season opener we had a dance at the Bellefield Club on the evening of September 28th. The smooth floor, the music, and the congenial party made it an enjoyable occasion in spite of the rather small attendance, Miss Vera Pitcairn and Miss Olive Bostock stopped over for a few days on their return t Bryn Athyn from the "woolly West," and several gatherings were the result of their presence here. Miss Gwladys Hicks, also of Bryn Athyn, has been among us for several weeks, and has caused some social affairs, mostly informal. Miss Luelle Pendleton, of Macon, Ga., is with us for the winter. Miss Nellie Smith, of Bryn Athyn, and Mrs. J. S. Boggess, of Middleport, are likewise visiting here. And last but not least, Mr. and Mrs. R. B. Caldwell, of Coshocton, stopped in to see us at Sunday service a short time ago, and gave the "glad hand" all around.
K. W.

     ERIE, PA. In the past summer the circle of the General Church in Erie has had a treat, and much spiritual edification, in a visit from candidate F. E. Gyllenhaal, of the Theological School, who has acted as our minister, most pleasingly and acceptably, devoting himself to the work of setting before us useful truths of the Lord's Second Corning.

     For two months or more we had weekly services in a hall, and evening studies at members' houses, giving a course of instruction in the facts concerning death, the resurrection of man, and the first stages of life in the spiritual world.


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     The children received religious instruction twice in each week, and the young folks once in two weeks, followed by social entertainment, and at the close of the summer the circle held a picnic supper in the woods at Glenwood Park, with an attendance of forty of all ages.

     Since Mr. Gyllenhaal's departure, we have resumed our meetings for doctrinal studies, and have added a Sunday School, attended by old and young from sixteen to twenty having been present thus far. We are also planning a series of socials for the winter.

     These various meetings we try to use not as ends in themselves, so much as for the promotion of the life which is charity. We are glad to read the pages of New Church Life, and note the evidences of new thought and progress in the General Church, and from our little corner we wish well to all in their work. EDWARD CRANCH, M. D.

     GLENVIEW, ILL. The social happenings of the month of August are of too much interest to be entirely passed over, although the proper time for telling them has slipped by. For some reason, perhaps the many visitors accounted for it, August was a month of unusual social activity. There were 'bus parties to Ravinia to hear Damrosch or Thomas, which included supper on the lake shot-- and a ride home by moonlight. Not infrequently we lost our way coming home, and "didn't get home till morning." There were Prances galore at both club house and private homes. A lawn party and dance at the Maynard home, a card party at the King's, and several informal entertainments. The month ended with the Chicago District Assembly. All the meetings were held in Glenview, and were both interesting and instructive. Although the Assembly took in the hottest part of the summer--and it was hot--the meetings were well attended, the Sharon church forming a large part of the audience. Among the visitors from a distance were Bishop Pendleton and his wife, Miss Vera Pitcairn, Miss Olive Bostock, from Bryn Athyn; two Miss Rauchs, from Cincinnati; two Mr. Pollocks, from Wheeling; Mr. Burkhardt, from Ohio, and Mr. Goerwitz, from Boston. Besides these there were many others who paid its short visits of only a day or two.


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     While the Bishop was here he conducted several ladies meetings, at which the subject for discussion was the Education of Little Children. The meetings were well attended, and the Bishop's talks were much enjoyed and appreciated by all.

     Sunday services were conducted by the Bishop during the whole month he was with us.

     Now the summer is over, and every one has begun another year s work. School has opened, Friday classes have begun, and every one is looking forward to a prosperous and happy year of usefulness. E. L.

     BERLIN, ONT. After a quiet summer, the new season of church life opened in the middle of September, and the school, the various classes and meetings, the weekly suppers, and the socials are now again in full swing.

     On the 27th of September Mr. and Mrs. John Schnarr invited the members of the Carmel church to the celebration of the twelfth anniversary of their wedding, and a delightful evening was spent. The celebration closed with a banquet, at which there were toasts to the Church, to Conjugial Love to the Home, and to the Host and Hostess, to each of which there was an able response.

     On Sunday afternoon, October 7th, the infant son of Mr. and Mrs. Homer Bellinger was baptized in the chapel. The boy is the first Bellinger of the fourth generation. Tracing this family through both the male and the female lines of descent, there are now living, in societies of the General Church, four persons of the second generation, twenty-one of the third, and thirteen of the fourth, a total of thirty-eight. We invite the attendance of those who have recently declared that "the New Church is in itself a decadent Church" to these figures, W.

     COLCHESTER, ENGLAND. The fifth Assembly of the General Church in Great Britain has come and gone, and we desire to place on record our deep indebtedness to our London friends for the splendid reception they gave us, and the provision they made for our comfort and enjoyment.


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     The great use of such gatherings becomes more apparent as time goes on. They are indeed, in the tiniest sense, home-gatherings, in the larger spiritual home of the Church, and as a home is for the nurture of children under a father's guidance, so I think we must realize in increasing measure the presence of our Heavenly Father, ever guiding and leading us.

     On August 23d, by invitation of Mr. and Mrs. Pryke (the newly married pair), a very delightful time was spent at the studio. Mr. Gill opened with a toast to "The Church," which was followed by a toast to the "Bride and Bridegroom," by Mr. Appleton, who, in a few well chosen words, dwelt upon the pleasure it was for us to be present on such an occasion, when in the sphere of the Church we could strengthen each other, and be helped to receive in some increased degree that priceless gift of the Lord, conjugial love. This was honored by the hearty singing of the old refrain. "Happy, happy may they be." Mr. Pryke, in thanking the friends, expressed the pleasure it was to his wife and himself to meet the friends in this social way. Then came dancing, songs, recitations, etc., in which the bride was one of the most successful contributors. The meeting concluded by singing the School Song and Auld Lang Syne.

     On September 2d the Rev. Reginald Brown visited us and also conducted service. He was the guest of Mr. and Mrs. Gill by whose invitation, in the afternoon and evening, we had the pleasure of becoming better acquainted with him, and hearing many interesting items in connection with his tour in Norway and Sweden. Mr. Brown left for London the same evening.

     On September 9th a social was held to welcome the return from the Continent of Messrs. Raymond and Walter Cranch, and to hear something of their doings. (We also had ten visitors from London.) Mr. R. Cranch gave us a most interesting account of the earlier part of their wanderings, Mr. W. Cranch covering the latter part. Their impressions and experiences were not only most instructive, but also kept us in a state of merriment throughout. Mr. Ball, Mr. McQueen, and others also spoke, and it was for all of us a thoroughly good time. F. R. C.


703




     FROM OUR CONTEMPORARIES.

     UNITED STATES. The SWEDENBORG SCIENTIFIC ASSOCIATION following the action taken at its last annual meeting has become an incorporated body under the laws of the State of Pennsylvania.

     The corner stone of the Church of the Redeemer, at LAKEWOOD, O., was laid by the Gorand Lodge of Ohio F. and A. M. on September 23d. More than 1,200 people were present at the service, which was conducted by the "Rector," the Rev. Thomas A. King. The edifice when completed will be the finest church structure in Lakewood.

     The Glendale (CINCINNATI, O.) Parish of the New Jerusalem has donated to the Congressional Library a complete set of the photo lithographed MSS., and has recently added to this, a copy of Schmidius' Bible with Swedenborg's marginal notes.

     The ALMONT (Mich.) Summer School reports an attendance during its two weeks' session, exceeding that of last year by over thirty per cent. The total attendance at classes was 106 persons, some of whom came in during the day from neighboring places. One of the features of the School was the "question box." This was placed on a table where it remained during the whole of the sessions, for the reception of such doctrinal questions as might be asked. The answers were given by the Rev. Messrs. Whitehead and King at the afternoon Question Class. This is all that is reported as to doctrinal instruction, though doubtless much more was given. Lessons were also given in nature work, plant fertilization, and basket work.

     The Almont Society is seeking means for enlarged and, improved accommodation for its Summer School, and a committee including Messrs. Whitehead, King and Mr. McGeorge, Jr., will set to work to gather funds for the purpose. Mr. Whitehead has been appointed head of the School with Mr. King to assist in the work. It appears that the Rev. E. J. E. Schreck, who founded the School some years ago and was an active worker in it up to last year, is no longer officially connected with the movement.

     A total sum amounting to about $2,000 has been contributed from various New Church sources for the relief of the members of the SAN FRANCISCO, (Cal.), Societies.

704


The O'Farrell St. Society, which received half the amount, reports various small donations given to those of its members who suffered from the recent earthquake and fire, leaving a balance of over $700, which will be used on the church building and parsonage.

     It is reported that the design of forming "The New Church Home and Orphanage" for which there was recently purchased a tract of forty acres of good fruit land at Napa, with the intention of there establishing a self-supporting Fraternity, (see New Church Life, 1905, P. 771), has had to be abandoned on account of the recent earthquake.
GENERAL ASSEMBLY 1906

GENERAL ASSEMBLY              1906


     Announcements.



     Special Notice.

     The Sixth General Assembly of the General Church of the New Jerusalem will be held at Bryn Athyn, Pa., in June, 1907, the meetings to include the Nineteenth of June. The exact dates will be announced in the near future. All members and friend, of the General Church are invited to be present. C. H. ODHNER, Secretary.
EFFECT OF THE LORD'S INCARNATION ON THE EARTHS IN THE UNIVERSE 1906

EFFECT OF THE LORD'S INCARNATION ON THE EARTHS IN THE UNIVERSE       Rev. E. S. PRICE       1906



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NEW CHURCH LIFE.

     VOL. XXVI.      DECEMBER, 1906.          No. 12.
     "When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and stars which thou hast ordained; what is man that thou art minded of him? And the son of man that thou visitest him?" (Ps. viii. 3-4).

     What visible object is so sublime as the starry heavens on a clear night? The correspondence of the full light of day is higher than that of the shades of night no matter how brilliantly glorified by the moon and stars: but we are too familiar with its aspects to be impressed with its grandeur--too many little things obtrude themselves upon our vision. But when the night has shut out the small objects lying close about us, and the imagination is in some degree set free, by not having new sensations continually thrust upon it, we look up to the glittering firmament, and begin to have a faint realization of the immensity of Creation. Even the unassisted eye perceives that, humanly speaking, Creation is boundless. To attempt to fathom its spaces is stupefying to the senses, and distracting to the imagination; still by means of the imagination we may gain some small idea of how great it is. The visible universe seen on a clear night, in a way not possible at any other time, is the best finite presentation of Infinity.

     Is it possible for a rational plan to look at the order of the heavens and doubt that Creation is the result of conatus looking to on end?

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And what conatus call be thought of but love, and what end can be thought of but an object for that love? With good cause a great observer once exclaimed. "The undevout astronomer is mad!"

     And what a little world is this on which we sojourn for a few short years! And yet the natural man thinks of no other natural world than this, still less of a spiritual world. In the religious world there is no recognition of any other inhabited world than this; in the scientific world there is the merest conjecture that some other spheres may be inhabited. But the scientist says of our moon and of some of the planets that they are absolutely impossible of habitation. But we are not left to conjecture or speculation in the matter; for it has pleased the Lord to give us information concerning the earths in the universe,--and what a strange sound has that expression to all except those of the New Church!

     Swedenborg says in Earths in the Universe, n. 2: "That there are many earths, and that they have men upon them and thence spirits and angels, is very well known in the other life; for it is conceded to every one there, who from love of truth and thence use, desires it, to speak with the spirits of other earths, and to be informed that there is a human race not only from one earth but from innumerable; and especially is it conceded to know of what quality, genius and life they are, and what kind of Divine worship they have.

     "I have sometimes spoken with spirits of our earth about the matter, and I said that a man who has understanding can know from many things of which he has knowledge, that there are many earths and that there are men thereon; for it can be concluded from reason, that so great masses as the planets are, are not empty masses, created only that their may be borne around, and may circle about the sun, and glitter with their little light for the earth alone; but that their use must be a more noble one than that. He who believes, as every one ought to do, that the Divine did not create the universe for any other end than that the human race may exist, and thence a heaven, (for the human race is the seminary of heaven), cannot but believe that there are men wherever there is an earth," and much more to the same effect.


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     But this paper is not intended to be an argument in favor of the belief in the existence of other earths--that point is settled for us. The intent of the paper is to study the matter or redemption and salvation as effecting other earths than our own.

     Now that by way of introduction we have established the existence of other earths than this let us look into the question. Why was the Lord born on this earth and not on some other? And how does His being born on this earth effect redemption in the other earths in the universe? For that redemption and salvation was and is universal follows from the nature of God that He is infinite and all His operations are infinite.

     In regard to the first question the doctrines teach us that "There are many causes why it pleased the Lord to be born and assume the Human on our earth and not on another, concerning which," says Swedenborg, "I have been informed from heaven. The principal cause was on account of the Word in that this could be written on our earth, and being written then could be published throughout the whole earth; and once published could be preserved for all posterity; and that thus it could be made manifest that God has become Man, even to all in the other life." E. U. 113.

     "That the Word could be written on our earth, is because the art of writing has been here from very ancient times, first upon the bark of trees, then upon skins, afterwards upon paper, and finally printing with type. This was provided by the Lord for the sake of the Word." E. U. 115.

     This, to a man unacquainted with the teachings of the New Church concerning Providence, must sound like reasoning in a circle: The Lord was born on this earth because the word could be written here. The Lord provided that the art of Writing be here in order that the Word might be written. Why could not the Lord have provided that the art of Writing and therefore the Word should have been on some other earth? The answer is, He could have done so had it been His good pleasure. It was the good pleasure of the Lord that He should create men of a certain quality upon this earth and none of a like duality on any other earth. Those of our earth are of such a quality that they could develop the arts; not so those of any other earth, at least not to any such an extent as on this earth.


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     Let us compare the interior character of the spirits of our earth and those of other earths in the Universe so far as they have been disclosed to us.

     We are taught that the spirits of our earth have relation in the Gorand Man to the memory of the natural and corporeal sense. (E. U. 102.) The spirits of Mercury have relation to the memory of things abstracted from material things. (E. U. 31) The spirits and angels of Jupiter are referred to that of thought which is imagination or to the imaginative thought. (E. U. 64) The spirits of Mars are referred to the middle between the intellectual and the voluntary, thus to the affection of thought. (E. U. 88.) The inhabitants and spirits of the planet Saturn have relation to the middle sense between the spiritual and the natural man. (E. U. 102.) The spirits of Venus have relation to the memory of things material, agreeing with the memory of things immaterial, to which latter the spirits of Mercury refer. (E. U. 107) The spirits of the moon of our earth refer in the Gorand Man to scutiform cartilage or Xiphoides, to which the ribs are attached in front and which descends from the fascia alba, which is the fulcrum of the muscles of the abdomen. (E. U. 111.) I do not know that the mental reference of the moon spirits is given.

     This gives in brief the characters of the different races of men found within our solar system, so far as it has pleased the Lord to give them to us. It is here plainly seen that no two races are alike, but that they approach in character, and one therefore can become a means for passing on whatever he receives of good and truth from one on one side of him in the scale of developments to one on the other.

     It will be seen also that those of our earth are the lowest or most ultimate men of all so far as given, and, I think we may believe, so far as exist. The Lord foresaw and provided that it should be so. I am not aware that we are told why; but knowing so much we can understand why the scientific plane was, and could be, developed here and not elsewhere; and therefore why the Word in its ultimate was, and could be, given here and not elsewhere.

709


The Lord assumed the Human on this earth for the sake of the Word and He was the Word. Here He came down into the very ultimates of nature and so became the last as He was the first, and being first and last could save all between who will accept the ransom. But the Lord does not operate without means, and the means of salvation are the men themselves who receive it. For while the Word is the means of redemption, it is not the Word until received by men first into their memories then into their rationality, and finally into their will and understanding conjoined.

     The ultimate resting place of the Word is not in a book, but in the natural and corporeal memory of men and angels; and if it were possible to destroy all the copies of the Word in the form of books in the world, it could be rewritten from memory. No man, probably no angel, knows the entire Word by heart. But even if all mankind together did not know it by heart, still very many men have read or heard the entire Word in its letter, and an impression has been made upon the substances of the corporeal natural memory, which can never be obliterated to eternity, and it is possible, were it necessary, for the Lord to draw that impression forth into expression, and so republish the Word. This I take to be the method of carrying the Word to other earths--not necessarily by drawing out from the memory of spirits and angels, but as it were by reflection or reaction, from those memories, of the Divine influx; in other words, a reflux of the Divine good and truth flowing into the letter of the Word in the minds of men and angels, infilling or fulfilling it in their hearts, goes forth carrying life and light to all in the universe.

     The doctrines say that "The principal reason why the Lord was willing to be born on this earth and not on another, for the sake of the Word, is because the Word is the very Divine Truth, which teaches men that there is a God, that there is a heaven, and that there is a hell and especially it teaches him how he must live and believe in order that he may come into heaven, and thus be happy to eternity. All these things, without Revelation, thus without the Word in this Earth, would have been entirely unknown, and yet man was so created that as to his internals he cannot die." E. U. 114.

     The Word has been published throughout the whole earth in order "That thus it might be made manifest that God was made Man; for it was first and most essentially for this end that the Word was given; for no one can believe in a God and love a God whom he cannot comprehend under some appearance; wherefore they who acknowledge what is invisible and incomprehensible fall in their thought into nature? and thus believe in no God; wherefore it pleased the Lord to be born here; and to make this manifest by the Word; so that this should become known not only in this world, but that by it, (the Word), it should be made manifest to spirits and angels also from other earths, and also to the Gentiles of our earth." (E. U. 118.)


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     We learn that all who are in good in the other earths believe in the Lord and worship Him, and by the Lord is meant the Lord Jesus Christ who was born on this earth. That this is what is meant when the Lord is spoken of throughout one entire work of the Writings there can he no doubt for it is so said, (T. C. R. 81), and that this is what is meant wherever the word Lord is used in the Writings there seems no reason to doubt.

     Since those on other earths believe in the Lord, and since He was not born there but here, the question naturally arises. How then do they know about Him? The answer is, By means of communication with those who have learned of Him from Revelation, which is incarnation on its various planes, on this earth; for there is a communication of all goods in the heavens, inasmuch as it is the property of heavenly love to communicate all its possessions to others; and hence the angels desire wisdom and intelligence; and furthermore since His glorification the Lord can and does appear to the men on other earths in His own Human and they can see Him.

     It was the great privilege of Swedenborg himself to be the Lord's instrument in carrying the Divine Truth, thus the Word and Salvation, to those on other earths on many occasions, as I shall adduce by quotations further on.

     The spirits of Mercury, although they seem to care for knowledges merely for the sake of knowing them, are nevertheless in all probability instrumental in conveying the truth from sphere to sphere, while they wander throughout the entire universe. These Mercurial spirits travel continuously in search of knowledge, and were on many occasions in Swedenborg's company while he was explaining the Word as to its internal sense.

711


At these times those spirits thought that what Swedenborg was writing was very gross and material. Swedenborg described the sensual character of the men of this earth to them. "The Mercurials asked whether such men could become angels, and it was given to answer that those became angels who have lived in the good of faith and charity, and that they are then no longer in external and material things but in internal and spiritual things; and when they came into that state they are in a light superior to that in which the spirits of Mercury are. To convince them that this was so, an angel was allowed to discourse with them, who had come into heaven from our earth because he had lived in the good of faith and charity." (E. U. 28.)

     On another occasion the Mercurials made what might be called a caricature of the writing and printing in our earth, in which they insinuate that our papers knew more than we ourselves.

     They were instructed how the real case was in this respect. They afterwards brought other representations of our printing; but not as before pasted together and irregular, but neat and handsome. They said that they were further informed that in our earth there are such papers, and books made from them.

     In no. 29 of our work we have this teaching: "Spirits retain in the memory what they see and hear in the other life, and they are capable of being instructed just as when they were men in the world, consequently of being instructed in the things of faith, and thereby of being perfected."

     I said above that doubtless the spirits of Mercury were instrumental in communicating knowledge throughout the Universe. This would evidently be against their will except with their own; "for it is their constant custom not to tell another what they know, but still they desire to learn from all others what is known to them; nevertheless with their own society they communicate all things, insomuch that what one knows all know, and what all know each one knows in that society." (E. U. 36.) But in the other life where "hearts speak," will they be able to conceal what they know, even though it seem to themselves that they do so? But whether or not they are able to conceal from others what they know it is thus seen that they are the means of passing what they learn to their own kind.


712



     There are many passages in the Earths in the Universe where Swedenborg narrates conversations which he held with the spirits of other earths, but it would be too prolix for this paper to quote them all. What I wish especially to show is that the men of our earth by reason of their actual and scientific knowledge of the incarnation of the Lord are the teachers of the Universe, and that therefore by the Lord's Advent on this earth is effected the redemption and salvation not only of the inhabitants of this earth, but of those of all others, through the inhabitants of our earth as media.

     In a conversation with the spirits of Jupiter Swedenborg told them very condemnatory things of the spirits of our earth. "They expressed the utmost astonishment at hearing of such variance between men's interiors and exteriors, and that they were able to think one thing and say another, which to themselves (the spirits of Jupiter) was impossible. They were surprised also when they were informed that great numbers who are from our earth become angels, and that they are in heart altogether different from the above (Jesuitical) spirits, the Jovials imagined at that time that all were alike on our earth; but it was said that there were many who were not of such a character, and there are also those who think from good and not from evil as those do, and that they who think from good become angels. In order that they might know that this was so choirs came from the angels from our earth, one after another, who together, with one voice and in concert, glorified the Lord. Those choirs so delighted the Jovial spirits who were with me, that they seemed to themselves as it were snatched up into heaven. That glorification by the choirs continued for about an hour. It was given me to sensate the delights which they received thence, as they were communicated to me. They said that they would tell this to their own who were elsewhere." (E. U. 61.)

     "The spirits of Jupiter from conversation with spirits of our earth who were in mere science, concluded that the sciences induce shade and cause blindness, but it was said to them that in this earth the sciences are the means of opening the intellectual sight, which sight is in the light of heaven; but because such things reign as are of life merely natural and sensual, therefore the sciences are also the means of becoming insane, namely, of confirming one in favor of nature against the Divine, and in favor of the world against heaven.

713


It was further said that the sciences in themselves are spiritual riches, and that those who possess them are like those who possess worldly riches, which are likewise the means of performing uses to themselves and the neighbor, and also the means of doing evil; then also that they are like garments which serve for use and ornament, and also for vanity as with those who wish to be honored for their clothes alone. The spirits of the earth Jupiter understood these things well; but they wondered that, since they were men, they should stop in means, and prefer things leading to wisdom to wisdom itself, and that they do not see that to immerse their minds in those things and not to elevate themselves above them, was to be in shade and to become blind." (E. U. 62.)

     I think it might also be said that the Jovial spirits hardly perceive that wisdom cannot be arrived at without the means thereto--not that they were not wise in their way in the things of good and truth, but the means lay with others. "Still they are of such a quality and genius that they cannot remain long with the spirits of our earth." (E. U. 63)

     "The principal thing of the Divine worship of the Jovials is that they acknowledge our Lord as the Supreme Being who rules heaven and earth; they call Him the only Lord; and because in the life of the body they acknowledge and worship Him they seek and find Him after death: He is the same with our Lord. Being Interrogated whether they know that the only Lord is a Man, they answer, that they all know that He is a Man. . . . They do not know that their only Lord was born a Man on our earth; they said that it was of no concern to them to know this, but only that He is indeed a Man and that He rules the Universe. When I told them that on our earth He is named Christ Jesus, and that Christ signifies Anointed or King, and Jesus Saviour, they said that they do not worship Him as a King, for what is royal suggests what is worldly; but that they worship Him as the Saviour. When by spirits from our earth a doubt was injected, whether their only Lord was the same as our Lord, they removed the doubt by this that they remembered having seen Him in the Sun, and that they had acknowledged that it was He Himself whom they had seen in their own earth.

714


Once also with the Spirits of Jupiter who were with me the doubt inflowed, whether their only Lord was the same as our Lord; but this doubt which inflowed in a moment was also dissipated in a moment. It inflowed from some spirits of our earth, and then, what I wondered at, they were affected with so great shame just because they had doubted this for a moment, that they said to me that I should not publish it lest they should be charged with any unbelief, when yet they were now convinced of the truth more than others. Those spirits were greatly affected and they rejoiced when they heard it said that the only Lord is alone Man, and that all have from Him what entitles them to be called men; but that they are only so far men as they are images of Him, that is as they love Him and their neighbor, thus as they are in good; for the good of love is the image of the Lord." (E. U. 65.)

     When the Lord assumed the Human on earth and thus descended to the very ultimates of nature which He glorified and made Divine He thus became the Saviour of all on all the earths, in whatever states they are or ever may be in; but as has been said there must always be means, and the means of salvation, the means of bringing the Divine Human to men wherever they are, is the letter of the Word; but that is not on other earths than ours. How then can the letter of the Word be brought to them. I think that it must be told them by word of mouth from the memories of men who have carried it over with them and also by the spirits of those earths hearing the reading of the Word by men still in the natural world. That the spirits of our earth hear us read the Word, we are distinctly taught. At such times the spirits who are in good are affected with delight from their perception of the internal things contained in the letter, and they inflow and affect the man who reads with those delights if he be in a devout mind, but the evil spirits who are present conceive scandals and they also inflow with the reader and affect him with their unclean sphere if he be in an undevout mind. Now that the spirits of the other earth hear and are affected when man reads the Word is evident from the fact that they were present with Swedenborg and heard him. He says:


715



     "There were with me some spirits of the earth Jupiter, while I was reading the seventeenth chapter of John, concerning the Lord's Love and concerning His Glorification; and when they heard the contents, a holy influence seized them, and they confessed that all things therein were Divine. But at that instant, some spirits of our earth, who were infidels, suggested various scandals, saying that He was born an infant, lived as a man, appeared as another man, was crucified, with other things of a like nature. The spirits of the earth Jupiter, however, paid no attention to these suggestions. They said that such are their devils, whom they abhor; adding that nothing of the celestial has any place in their minds, but only what is earthly which they call dress." (E. U. 66.)

     In another number, speaking of his own intercourse with the spirits of Jupiter, Swedenborg says: "Those spirits when they were with me, supposed at first that they were with a spirit of their own earth; but when I spake with them again, and when they perceived that I had thoughts of publishing what passed between us, and thus of telling it to others, and that it was not allowed them either to chastise or instruct me for so doing, they then discovered that they were with a stranger." (E. U. 75.)

     I shall quote but one more passage wherein Swedenborg gives instruction directly to those of the planet Jupiter, although there are several other passages showing that he instructed the spirits and angels of Jupiter and the other earths. He says:

     "I afterwards discovered with the angels (of Jupiter I understand) concerning some extraordinary particulars on our earth, especially concerning the art of printing, concerning the Holy Word, and concerning the doctrinals of the Church derived from the Word, and I informed them that the Word and the doctrinals of the Church were printed and published, and were thus learnt. They wondered exceeding that things of such a nature could be made public by writing and printing." (E. U. 81.)

     It may be noted, that the angels of Jupiter must be meant, although it is not so stated, because the angels of our earth, unless they had been from the savage races of the gentiles, could hardly have wondered at the art of writing and printing.


716



     A word might be said of the need of redemption and salvation to the other earths in the universe. That they were in need of salvation is evident from the fact that they are in evils of such a nature that unless regenerated they come into hell. The fall of man seems almost to have been necessary to his development into the highest type of manhood, and it further seems to have taken place throughout the Universe. Still from all we read it seems evident that the general state of moral and spiritual integrity is much greater in all other earths than in ours, so that while in our earth the majority of mankind are in actual gross sensual evils, in other earth the case is the reverse, and the majority are in the good of love to the Lord and love to the neighbor.

     Since the Lord came on earth and assumed the Human, He can and does appear in His glorified Human to the angels of all the earths and by the opening of the spiritual eyes of the men of other earths He can appear to them while still in the flesh, and these visual images serve for ultimates into which doctrines from the Word can be insinuated by their spirits and angels by inflowing into their memory and illustrating it--by suggesting true thoughts and affections--in other words, by a sort of constant inspiration. Further, there are many from this world in the Spiritual World who saw the Lord in the flesh or who from history, pictures, instruction of various kinds, have the visual image of him impressed upon their natural memories and which they also have carried with them into the other world. This could not have been without the Incarnation. This is carried to the inhabitants of other earths by their angels and spirits from communication with the angels and spirits of this earth from (I conceive it) their historical faith, corresponding to the historical faith which we derive from reading the Word, especially of the New Testament.

     The second coming of the Lord is to the rational of man, and this also is accomplished in this world by the opening of the spiritual sight of a man while yet an inhabitant of this life, and instructing his rational to understand the things of the Internal Sense of the Word, by which he becomes the instructor personally, as the Lord's servant, of all in every earth. Thus again showing that on this plane it is from this earth as a basis that the entire universe is instructed, and thus saved as they receive the instruction.


717


INCREASE OF THE NEW CHURCH 1906

INCREASE OF THE NEW CHURCH       Rev. W. F. PENDLETON       1906

     "But truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord." (Numbers XIV. 21.)

     In the True Christian Religion, n. 779, 781, we have this teaching. " The Second Coming of the Lord is effected by means of a man, before whom He has manifested Himself in Person, and whom He has filled with His Spirit, to teach the Doctrines of the New Church through the Word from Him;" and that "this is what is meant, in the Revelation by the new heaven and the new earth, and the New Jerusalem descending thence."

     The general idea contained in this teaching is, that the Second Coming of the Lord into the world is not to be in Person but in His Word; for since the Lord is the Word, He is in His Word; and so in His Second Coming He appears nowhere but in His Word; and no one sees the Lord in His Second Coming except he see Him in His Word. But the Lord in His Coming not only appears in His Word, but He comes forth from His Word, and causes Himself to be present with men in the form of the Heavenly Doctrine, which, since it is from the Word, is the Word in that form, and since it is the Word it is also the Lord, the Lord in His Second Coming.

     When it is said that the Lord is in the interiors of the Word, it is the same thing as to say that He is in heaven, for the interiors of the Word are in heaven, are heaven, or the Lord in heaven. The Lord's coming, therefore, is what is meant by the opening of heaven, and the descent of the New Jerusalem from God out of heaven; for by the New Jerusalem, the holy city, the city of God, is meant the Doctrine of the New Church, coming forth from the interiors of the Word, or, what is the same, coming down from heaven, which also is the same as the descent of the Lord into the world in His Second Coming. This Heavenly Doctrine is what is meant in the text, when it is said that "the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord."

     By the earth is meant the natural of man, especially the natural where the church is, where all its activities and uses are; and the text teaches that the church in the world or in the natural, will be primarily under the light of the spiritual sun, which is signified by the glory of the Lord; and the conclusion is involved, namely, that when the church reaches that state when the light of the spiritual sun, or glory of the Lord, shall shine in it, then will the church prosper and increase among men.


718



     Several important stages of development are necessary, however, before the New Church is fully established in the natural with men, or on the earth,--stages which fill a long period of time. The Lord has been preparing for this New Church ever since the beginning of the first Christian Church. The immediate culmination in this process of preparation was the Last Judgment, which took place in the spiritual world in the year 1757, and which consisted in casting the evil out of heaven, who had been gathering there for many centuries. Let us have this clearly before our minds, that the Last Judgment consists in the casting out or removal of the evil, and this in order that the next step may follow, which is the gathering together of the good, who had been shut out of heaven by the evil, and the forming a new heaven of them. It is called a new heaven, because no heaven had ever been formed before of men in the general state in which these were. The most ancient heaven was celestial, or in love to the Lord, and in consequent perception of truth; the ancient heaven was spiritual, or in love to the neighbor, and so in conscience or under the internal dictate of truth; but now another heaven was to be formed, a natural heaven--celestial and spiritual natural--a heaven formed of men who were in faith and good works, and whose general state was that of obedience. Those in this state were gathered together after the Last Judgment, and a New Heaven formed of them, and from this heaven the New Church descends and has its beginning; but in which afterwards, or in the course of time, the higher heavens are to be opened.

     This is what is meant by the teaching in the Writings, that "it is according to Divine Order that a new heaven should be formed before a new Church on earth;" that is, it is according to Divine Order that the Last Judgment should take place, and then the formation of a new heaven, before there can be a New Church upon the earth.

719


For the evil must first be removed, and with them their evils and falsities, before the new heaven can be established, and from that heaven a New Church on the earth. For the state of the New Heaven and New Church is a reception in heart and life of the Lord in the interior truth of His Word; and this cannot be received until the falsities and evils which oppose are removed, which can only be done by degrees or gradually.

     The subject that precedes the text in the fourteenth chapter of Numbers, is the pardoning by the Lord of the iniquities and transgressions of the sons of Israel. By pardon or forgiveness when ascribed to the Lord, is meant bringing into order by the removal of falsity and evil; and the prayer for forgiveness on the part of man, is a prayer that he may be brought into order by the removal of such falsity and evil, involving a willingness and purpose on his part to co-operate in the means which are provided for such removal. Concerning these means Divine Revelation treats throughout, in order that there may be no end of the provided means for the removal of evil, or for the pardon and forgiveness of man. And then the test treats of the result which follows the removal of falsity and evil, of the bringing man into order, or of the pardon and forgiveness for his transgressions, which result is the spiritual increase and prosperity of the Church, and which is Divinely promised in the words, "As I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord."

     As it is according to Divine Order in the universal sense, that the Last Judgment shall take place before a new heaven can be formed, or that the evil should be cast out of heaven and removed, before the good can he gathered together to form a new heaven; so it is according to Divine Order that a similar effect should take place in the individual man. For what Divine Order is in the greatest, or in the universal, so it is in the least or in the individual. In the individual man falsities and evils must first be removed by actual repentance, before the new heaven can be opened and formed in him, or before the internal or spiritual mind, the individual heaven, can be opened. But the new heaven must first exist in a universal sense, that is, there must actually be a new heaven in the spiritual world, following after the judgment, before there can be any opening of the spiritual mind of any man on earth.


720



     The opening of the spiritual mind involves consociation with the angels of heaven; and without such consociation, the opening of the spiritual mind cannot be maintained or endured; for if the Last Judgment had not taken place, and a new heaven formed, suffering the opening of the spiritual mind to take place with any man on earth, evil spirits would immediately rush in and cause him to profane every truth and good of heaven.

     We, read, therefore, that "as this New Heaven, which makes the internal of man, increases, so far the New Jerusalem, that is, the New Church, comes down out of that heaven; but this cannot be done in a moment, but it is done as the falsities of the former church are removed; for what is new cannot enter where falsities have been ingenerated, unless these are eradicated, which will be done among the clergy, and thus among the laity." (T. C. R. 784)

     It will be seen, therefore, that in the development of the New Church, the first grand stage consists in the Last Judgment, including all the preparatory steps to the judgment, which extended through many centuries; and the second is the formation of a new heaven; when this takes place the spiritual mind of man on earth can be opened, and this opening cannot take place before.

     It is important to know that the New Heaven must descend into the world of spirits, before it can descend into the natural world. It was shown that what heaven is in the universal, the spiritual mind is in the individual; that the opening of the spiritual mind in the individual man consists in insertion into one of the societies of heaven, and consociation with the angels there; and that without a heaven into which there can be such insertion and consociation, the spiritual mind cannot be opened, for if it were opened without this, profanation would result; therefore, the Lord does not permit it to be opened until there is a heaven of angels, into which man can be inserted as to his spirit, while he is still on earth; and without such a heaven, suitable to his genius, man is left in spiritual darkness, and his spiritual life in a state of suspension. We have now to show that the same is relatively true of the world of spirits.


721



     As heaven is related to the spiritual mind of man, so the world of spirits is related to his interior natural mind; and so there must not only be a new heaven following after the Last Judgment, but there must be new societies in the world of spirits, where the good are being prepared for heaven, or where a use is being performed,--a more advanced use,--but a use similar to that which the church performs on earth. In other words, the New Heaven must descend into the world of spirits, and establish the New Church there, before it can descend and be established with men in the natural world. For man is associated With spirits in the world of spirits as to his interior natural, just as he is associated with angels of heaven as to his spiritual mind. Societies of the New Church must therefore exist in the world of spirits, into which man can be inserted, as to the interiors of his natural mind, before a spiritual rational can be opened in his natural; that is to say, the spiritual mind opened in him as an individual, must immediately begin to d9scend into his natural and form in the interior of his natural a state of the church, a state of the affection of spiritual truth, and a state of the understanding of it, or a rational must be formed in him by means of instruction in the Heavenly Doctrine. But this cannot be done unless he be inserted among good spirits in the world of spirits who are themselves being prepared for heaven, and are being prepared by instruction and by the love and affection of the Heavenly Doctrine. There must be a state in the world of spirits, similar to that of heaven, out of which evil spirits have been cast, and who have received into their rational the truth of life of the New Heaven, or the church cannot be maintained in the natural of man. For as we have said, man on earth preparing for heaven must not only be consociated with the angels of the new heaven, but he must be consociated at the same time with the good spirits who are preparing for heaven, or it will be impossible for the church to be established on earth, and the individual man saved. And so when it is said that it is according to Divine Order that a new heaven be formed before a New Church on earth, it carries with it the idea, as we learn elsewhere in the Writings, of the formation of the church in the world of spirits, previous to its formation in the natural world.


722



     Those who receive the Heavenly Doctrines, and repent of their sins, are inserted into these societies of the world of spirits, after they have been inserted, as to their spiritual mind, among the angels of heaven; but unless the former he done the latter state cannot be maintained; the man of the New Church cannot remain in heaven as to his spiritual mind, unless he be consociated with good spirits in the world of spirits; and we are told that baptism effects insertion among them. Nor can man remain among good spirits, or the spirits of the New Church in the world of spirits, unless he De in the love of the Heavenly Doctrine; unless he be in the practice of daily repentance; unless he be in the practice of the daily removal of the falsities of the former church, and their correspondent evils of life; unless he be in a state that he rejects from his interior thought falsities and evils, when their present themselves, even as evil spirits are now rejected from the societies of the good, whenever they endeavor to enter. The New Church cannot otherwise be established in the world.

     The man of the New Church will be first of all conjoined with the Lord in the inmost of his spirit; he will then be consociated with the angels of the new heaven in his internal or spiritual mind; and in the interiors of his natural mind he will be associated with good spirits in the world of spirits,--all on the basis of a good life in the natural world, a life of repentance from sin, and a life of the love of use and the doing of uses.

     Conjunction with the Lord involves consociation with the neighbor; no man can be conjoined with the Lord who rejects consociation with the neighbor. The two go together, as love to the Lord and charity go together, and cannot be separated. And, as we have seen, there must be consociation on all planes, in order that man may be a full man. a complete human form; and the consociation must be with those who are in similar states of life, in similar states of thought and affection. He will be consociated in his spirit with angels of heaven, in some angelic society, where life is similar to his own; and he will be consociated with the good spirits, who are also in a similarity of life.

     And now how is it about consociation in the natural world? We have seen that the basis of consociation with the angels and spirits is a good life in the natural world; but there is something needed in addition, namely, consociation with those in the natural world who are in similar faith and practice.

723


This involves the necessity of church organization, in order that those who are in the faith of the New Church, and in the love of her Heavenly Doctrines, may be consociated together. If those who are in the faith and life of the New Church in the natural world, are consociated in church organization, or what is the same, church uses, there is a still fuller basis in the world for consociation with angels and good spirits. When this takes place, when there is consociation on all planes of those who are in similar love and faith, even down to an organized brotherhood in the natural world, the New Church may then be said to be established even though it be with a few.

     The necessity of this may be seen in the fact that such a consociate organization of the New Church provides for marriage in the church, and thus it provides for the conjugial itself; it provides that there may be married couples on earth, who dwell together in spirit, who dwell together in the same angelic society, who dwell together in the world of spirits, while they dwell together in the natural world. If there be but one such married couple, it may be said that the New Church is established. And it is a most essential truth, that provision for the conjugial is provision for the perpetuation of the church.

     There are many other things provided for by New Church organization, or by a mutual consociation of those in a similar faith and practice; but lack of space forbids our entering into a consideration of them at this time. We would, however, in passing, allude to the temptation which often comes to Newchurchmen to go away to themselves alone, to go away into the outer world, cutting off deliberately all communication with the organized body of the Church, and would merely make the remark here that such a course of action is attended with spiritual risk and danger, and may be followed by disastrous results.

     One further point in respect to New Church organization needs, however, to be considered. In the number which we have quoted from the True Christian Religion (n. 784), it is said, that the New Church comes down from heaven just in the degree that the falsities of the former church are removed; that this cannot be done in a moment, but will be done gradually, and that these falsities will first be eradicated or rooted out with the clergy, and through them with the laity.


724



     It has been thought by some that this refers to the clergy of the former Christian Church; and indeed in some slight degree this may be true; for whenever a minister removes the falsities of the former church, and receives into his understanding the doctrines of the new, and at the same time openly proclaims them, it cannot be without result with some of the laity who listen to him. This has occasionally happened, and will doubtless happen again; but it is exceptional and rare, and does nothing more than make a beginning of the church; for as we are told, the falsities of the former church are not removed in a moment. The most general falsities of doctrine only are removed in the beginnings of the church, but the innumerable particular falsities involved and contained in the generals, can be removed only in a long course of church experience, through much hitter tribulation, through much trial and temptation. This can take place but feebly except in the organized body of the church itself. The reference, therefore, is clear, in the teaching before us, to the New Church itself, the clergy of which will gradually root out the innumerable falsities of the former church, and through them the same will be done with the laity.

     The necessity, therefore, of a New Church consociate organization is clearly indicated in the number we have quoted from the True Christian Religion. And indeed, the very mention, the very use of the term clergy, priest, or minister, in the Writings, carries with it the idea of organization, or a consociate body of men who are in a similar faith and practice. For what is a priest without a consociate body of men to whom and for whom he ministers? The one thing goes with the other and the two are inseparable. And so when it is said in the text that the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord, the term earth refers not only to the individual man who is undergoing regeneration, or who has become regenerate, but to a number of such men consociated together in an organized body of the church; in which organized body there will be a clergy who will be laboring to remove and eradicate the falsities which each individual has brought with him from the former church; and in the degree that the clergy succeeds in doing this, it will be done also with the laity.

725


The New Church cannot be established in a moment, as we read, "but it takes place as the falsities of the former church are removed; for what is new cannot enter where falsities have been ingenerated, unless these are eradicated, which will be done among the clergy, and thus among the laity."

     When this condition exists, the condition of the removal of falsities, all the way down from the inmost in the spiritual world to the ultimate in the natural world; when those who were in the falsities and evils of the former church have been cast out of heaven, or when the Last Judgment has taken place and the new heaven formed; when societies of the New Church have been established in the world of spirits; when there are men in the natural world who are leading a regenerate life according to the doctrines of the New Church, and by this consociated with angels and good spirits; and when there is an organized body of such men consociated together in the faith and life of the church, in which the falsities of the former church are being actively removed in the light of the Heavenly Doctrine, both with the clergy and with the laity; then is being fulfilled, and will be more and more fulfilled, the prophecy of the text, "But truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord."

     The Lord says, "As truly as I live," indicating the certainty of this result, or as truly as the Lord lives in the church. When the Lord is present as the inmost, the center and life of the church; and when He is seen and acknowledged as its inmost, its center and life; then may we expect the increase of the church, increase in intelligence and wisdom, increase in the uses of spiritual life, and even increase in the numbers of the church; for then the sun of heaven will be seen, the glory of the Lord will shine everywhere, the tree of life will flourish in the midst of the garden, and the church will become a very paradise of God. Amen.


726


Editorial Department 1906

Editorial Department       Editor       1906

     NOTES AND REVIEWS.

     Another body is added to the already very numerous "missionary" agencies of the Church, which are doing so much in endeavoring to spread the doctrines abroad in order that the leakage at home may be compensated for. This time it is the "Swedenborg Printing Bureau" of Boston, with Mr. D. A. Whittemore as agent. The office of the Bureau is the Book Room of the Massachusetts Association in Boston, from which center it is actively striving to collect numerous names and addresses. The new body seems to be the fruit of the activity of Mr. Barron, of Census fame, the discoverer of the profound truth that "the New Church is essentially a decadent Church." No wonder the effort is to build it up from without!

     The New Church League Journal for September contains as its special feature a well written article descriptive of the recently awakened interest of European Scientists in the Philosophical works of Swedenborg. The article is illustrated with autograph portraits of Dr. Gustav Retzius, of Stockholm, and Dr. Max Neuberger, of Vienna; and the frontispiece is a fine reproduction of the painting of Swedenborg the Scientist now hanging in the library of the Academy of the New Church. The Journal also contains an excellent little editorial noting the fact that "The world applauds the Scientist and denies the Revelator.

     The Rev. Arthur Mercer, pastor of the New Church in Baltimore, addressing the young people of the New Church in the League Journal for September, "affirms" of the organized Church of the New Jerusalem, "that, as a Church, so far from having been a help in the popular diffusion of the New Truths, it has been a hindrance." What Mr. Mercer says is no doubt true of that kind of a Church organization which he represents,--a body which does not believe in its own use,--a body which brings up its young people to look for the real descent of the New Jerusalem outside of that Church which alone worships the Lord in His Second Coming.

727


Such a body undoubtedly is a hindrance to the "diffusion of the New Truths," and we look forward hopefully to the day when the preachers of the suicidal permeation theory shall act upon their conviction, and seek a more congenial association outside the borders of what then may become less of a "hindrance."

     In an editorial note in the New Church Review, the Rev. T. F. Wright quotes from various dictionaries their definitions of the word "Conjugial." From the Century he quotes: "Used by Swedenborg and his followers to distinguish their special conception of the nature of true marriage;" this definition is followed by a quotation from Conjugial Love, 62. Murray is quoted as saying that "the word is used by Swedenborg for a special purpose;" and he cites passages to illustrate this definition. The Standard definition is "In Swedenborgianism it relates to marriage conceived as a spiritual union." With these auspicious definitions by celebrated lexicographers, all tending to the retention of the word Conjugial, the reader will naturally be surprised to learn that

     Dr. Wright concludes his editorial with the proposal to change the title of Conjugial Love to "The Delights of Wisdom as to Marriage Love and the Pleasures of Insanity as to Licentious Love." To what lengths will Newchurchmen go to get away from the language of the Church.

     A correspondent in Morning Light of October 13, protests against the proposed publication in tract form of a lecture, by the Rev. W. T. Stonestreet, on What is Swedenborgianism. Among other things the lecturer says, "Swedenborgians exist to infuse a truer and more spiritual Christianity into the Church which is already founded." This the correspondent, Mr. Claude Toby, compares to putting new wine into old bottles, and he indignantly asks where in the Writings such a notion is taught. Similarly emphatic is he against the comparison of Swedenborg with Bunyan.

728


"Bunyan," says the lecturer, "believed he was called by God, Wesley believed his mission was Divine, and Swedenborg was called and chosen." On which Mr. Toby comments, "The Writings are the Lord's own unfolding of His own Word, or they are the speculations of an exceedingly clever man. Which? If the former, they are of Divine Authority, if the latter they are of no more weight than the writings of any other man, and we may take what we please, and reject what we don't like." He concludes with some apt quotations showing that the Writings themselves claim to be of Divine Authority. It is cheering to see the light still burning somewhere amidst the growing darkness of the English Conference.

     The Illinois Association held its annual meeting in Chicago, October 12-14. Among the visitors was the Rev. S. S. Seward who spoke in most optimistic vein of the "Encouraging Signs in the Church." One of the "negative" encouraging signs, manifested at the last Convention, was that the Convention "does not yield to doctrinal discussion but is intent upon doing things." He did not say what these things are which it is so intent upon doing, but we have the impression that they do not always savor of charity. This may or may not be due to the fact that it "does not yield to doctrinal discussion." Certainly it has not given much evidence of weakness in that direction; but whether this is an "encouraging sign" or not, depends on the point of view. Some might regard the lack of theological activity as a sign of decrepitude and decay.

     The Rev. E. D. Daniels spoke of "Outside Work," the real subject of his speech being himself and his own work in fraternizing with the Old Church. Of course, he believes in doing this; indeed he believes to have considerable affection for the Old Church, and certainly far more respect for its language than for the language of the Writings. What else can be thought of a man who boasts that he "presents the truth, but not in New Church lingo, or Swedenborgian cant"!! We may reasonably doubt whether one who is capable of such expressions does present the truth or any thing like the truth.

729


It is shocking to hear the language of Divine Revelation referred to in such flippant, disrespectful, we might even say blasphemous, terms, and that by a New Church minister! But can he be a New Church minister who would thus refer to the clothing of the Heavenly Doctrine? Would a Christian minister be longer considered Christian should he refer to the language of Scripture as "Biblical lingo and Christian cant?" Certainly not, if his thoughts squared with his words.

     Mr. Daniels adds that his work "does away with prejudice." We do not doubt it, bet we imagine that the prejudice that is done away with is such prejudice as the dragon might feel against an angel of Michael, which would naturally disappear if the angel should take on the garb of the dragon.
NEW COMMENTARY ON MATTHEW 1906

NEW COMMENTARY ON MATTHEW              1906

     COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW. Compiled from the Theological Works of Emanuel Swedenborg, by Robert J. Fischer and Louis G. Hoeck. Boston, 1906. ($1.25).

     The first New Church commentary on the Gospel of Matthew was that by the Rev. John Clowes, published in 1805.The preface to this work contains some interesting remarks on the Greek of the New Testament designed to show its adaptation to the minute expression of the internal sense. The chapters are translated anew by Mr. Clowes with a view to the fuller expression of the Spiritual Sense, each chapter being followed by the translator's Notes on the Greek, which contain some valuable suggestions looking to the better elucidation of the spiritual sense. After the Notes comes a connected account of the internal sense, drawn up by the compiler. And finally copious extracts from the Writings bearing on the chapter are quoted in extenso. The second commentary was that prepared by the Rev. William Bruce, first published in 1877 and recently reprinted. This work has been very popular in certain sections of the Church, but for students of the spiritual sense it has little more than suggestive value. It is rather in the form of series of sermonettes than a commentary, and is greatly marred by an entire lack of reference to Swedenborg or his Writings.


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     After Mr. Bruce's work came the Novum Testamentum of MM. Le Boys des Guays and Harle (1882). This is arranged in double columns and gives the Gospel, as far as possible, in Swedenborg's own translation, together with brief explanatory extracts from the Writings. It has the advantage over Mr. Clowes' work, in that the compilers had access to many of the Writings, including the Spiritual Diary and the Adversaria, which were not published until after Mr. Clowes' death; but the extracts are necessarily much shorter.

     It is to the last of these that the work now before us is most readily comparable. Both are devoid of any comment by the compilers, confining themselves solely to extracts from the Writings, and both include far more of the Writings than were known to Mr. Clowes. Except as noted before, the extracts in the work of Messrs. Fischer and Hoeck are much more copious than those in the Novum Testamentum and are frequently quoted at greater length. The compilers, however, are in error when they state that "For every passage of the Gospel of Matthew which is quoted or referred to in the Theological Works of Swedenborg, all that he has written is given." For no such statement can be made with accuracy when such important works as the Adversaria and the Spiritual Diary are omitted from the list of Swedenborg's "Theological Works," to say nothing of Swedenborg's Theological Correspondence published in Tafel's Documents. In these three works are several references to the Gospels which are of great value, (e. g. on the Lord's Prayer, Adv. III, 6889 seq, S. D. 361; see also Documents, Vol. II, p. 262). The first two of these works are included in the Novum Testamentum, and also in Le Boys des Guays' Index Generale. With the exception of this unfortunate and ill-advised omission, the Commentary under review is exemplarily complete, including every extract quoted by Clowes and in the Novum Testamentum, and a great deal more. Indeed the compilers have been untiring in their search among the Writings, and not a passage seems to have escaped their notice wherein Swedenborg specifically refers to the Gospel of Matthew. We emphasize the word specifically, because there are many cases where Swedenborg explains the meaning of a passage or incident in the Word without quoting chapter and verse.

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These cases are not noticed in the present work, but we would suggest to the compilers the advisability of including them in preparing the three remaining Gospels. Many such references can be found by means of the Concordance, but others can be found only in the course of reading. Wherever possible, however, they should certainly be included in the Commentary. An instance in point is afforded in Conjugial Love, 44, where Matthew xxii, 30 and xxv, 1-10 are explained; but as there is no reference to Matthew the explanation is omitted in the work before us. There are a great number of such cases in the Diary.

     The compilers seem to have used great judgment in deciding upon the length of their extracts; and though they quote from many hundreds of passages yet they present quite sufficient from each to satisfy the immediate wants of the most exacting student. Repetition is avoided by an admirable plan of cross-references, and by this means, despite the large number of extracts, the whole work is comprised in a compact volume of 450 pages.

     For the text of the Gospels, the compliers have used the American Revised Edition. This is to be regretted, as this version, besides a deplorable lack in the matter of diction, has also several glaring errors; see, for instance, the translation of the Lord's Prayer. The last sentence of this prayer is, in fact, omitted entirely. And though the compilers note that "Swedenborg refers to it as part of the Word," and though they quote passages giving its spiritual sense, yet they so far cling to their version as to omit it from the text. Such a course, in face of the direct teaching of the Writings, is indefensible. Indeed, it is difficult to see why the Revised Version was used at all, conflicting as it does in several cases with the version given in the Writings. Thus in chapter vi, 1, the word "righteousness" is substituted for "alms" as in the A. V., but the extract from the Writings speak only of "alms." A study of the Gospels ought to convince the Newchurchman that the A. V. can be improved on only in very few cases, find if the compilers in the future works will return to this version, they will remove what will otherwise he a considerable defect.


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     The general arrangement of the work and its typographical aids to students are above criticism.

     The volume is a valuable contribution to New Church literature, and we shall await with interest the appearance of the Commentary on John which is promised as the next of the series. These commentaries should be in the library of every Newchurchman, and will be almost indispensable to the expounder of the Gospels.
LIBRARY EDITION OF THE TRUE CHRISTIAN RELIGION 1906

LIBRARY EDITION OF THE TRUE CHRISTIAN RELIGION              1906

     THE TRUE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. Vol. 1. Translated by the Rev. J. C. Ager. American Swedenborg Society, 1906.

     This translation belongs, in General, to that class of translations where an apparent striving after pleasing diction has led to a greater or less sacrifice of Swedenborg's style, and where a lack of exactness has resulted in a loss of nice distinctions of words, and also, more or less, in the abandonment of terms peculiar to New Church literature. This latter statement, however, needs

     some modification. For we note with pleasure the retention of expressions, several of which our more modern translators have more or less discarded. Such, for instance, as the rational, the scientific, sensual, corporeal, scortatory, arcana. We also find civil matters and civil life (414, 415), though vita civilis is once rendered, "the social life" (406).

     On the other hand, however, for proprium we have Own (with small o), What is one's own (with the Latin word sometimes added parenthetically), and, in one case, Selfhood. For Science of Correspondences is substituted Knowledge of Correspondences. Phantasia is rendered phantasy (138, 448), Fantasy (80, 110), Imagination (80:4), Fancy (80), and Hallucination (296, 405). The Word Universal is sometimes retained, even as an abstract noun, and yet, just as frequently, it receives some interpretation. Thus in the Faith prefixed to the work, universale fidei is everywhere rendered "a universal principle of faith." And so, while "Universal theology" remains on the title page, the same Latin expression is elsewhere rendered "the entire contents of theology" (5).

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The disciples were sent "throughout the spiritual world" instead of "into the universal spiritual world." Universaliter is rendered "most generally" (8), and singulariter "most particularly" (ibid). Singularia is everywhere "smallest particulars" as opposed to particularia, "particulars." The translator seems to be ignorant of the essential distinction between universals and singulars and generals are particulars. Singulars are not "smallest particulars," for, however small particulars bet they still remain particulars, i. e., the lesser parts composing a general.

     For Conjugial Love the translator adopts the term Marriage Love. In one place the word Love is omitted? and we read, "On the Opposition of Marriage to Scortatory Love" (313). This is, perhaps, a printer's error, but we are rather inclined to regard it as an evidence of the translators adoption of Marriage as an adjective in place of Conjugial.

     The proper rendition of some of the words we have noted is a matter of dispute in the Church, but there are many other words in the work about the translation of which, surely, few will doubt that the translator has failed to give "the meaning of the original" with that "utmost attainable accuracy of fullness and clearness" which, as stated in his Prefatory Note, it has been his aim and effort to secure. "Holy Scripture" (5) is not the "accurate meaning" of Scriptura Sacra. Indeed this is tacitly admitted by the translator himself in the chapter on the Word, where he everywhere says "Sacred Scripture." "Consociation with angels" (347) is a correct translation, but when the same Latin words are rendered "affiliation with angels" it can hardly be called "accurate." Consociation is a much more inclusive term than affiliation. Pugna, likewise, is far from being accurately rendered by "Contest," and yet we read that the Lord removed hell "by means of contests with it" (2). A contest is between equal rivals for some common object. Elsewhere the words "combat," "conflict," and "warfare" are used. So when the translator says the Lord "subdued the hells" (2, 116) he fails to accurately render subjugare. Elsewhere in the same connection, he uses the word "subjugate" (84, 175) He cannot be "accurate" in both cases, for subjugate is a much stronger expression than subdue (Crabbe). Informatus is not "taught" (138), for man may be unformed without being taught. The Divine Virtue is changed to "Divine energy" (138 seq.), which, to say no more, is a most unfortunate rendering; for energy suggests the most external kind of activity, while virtus here refers to the interior operations of the Holy Spirit.


734



     Particularly inaccurate, and, theologically, most incorrect and misleading, is the translation, or rather unwarranted interpretation. "There is a universal influx [from God] into the souls of men of the truth that there is a God," etc. (5). Reference to No. 8 will readily show that the words "from God" are plainly understood, and it is almost unnecessary to put them in brackets, if indeed it is necessary to add them at all. But while thus punctiliously exact in this small matter, in a much more weighty matter, the translator has not hesitated to take the liberty of adding to the text the important words "of the truth," and this without a mark to indicate them as an addition. But the truth is that they are not only a gratuitous addition, but they are directly contradicted by the text itself, where it is shown that "the truths which shall be of faith flow in and are implanted in the mind through hearing, thus below the soul," while the influx referred to in the heading is from and through the soul.

     Esse and existere are generally retained in italics without translation, though sometimes they are followed by an English translation. In the case of the latter word, especially, this is rather an interpretation than a translation, and it is sometimes quite misleading; as in the passage where it is said, "The Divine Esse is at once Esse [Being] in itself and Existere [Manifestation] in itself" (21). Manifestation refers to revelation or showing; how then can there be a "Manifestation in itself." i. e., an eternal and infinite manifestation? The same objection may be made to the translation of Esse by Being. Esse is a more universal term than Being, and is applicable solely to the Divine Itself.

     In the matter of Swedenborg's style, it is quite evident, even to the cursory reader, that the translator has attached little, if any, importance to its preservation in his work. No regard is paid to the way in which a thing is said, so long as, in the opinion of the translator, the same thing is said. Has Swedenborg no rights in the matter? Quod argumentative is, of course, entirely discarded; sentences are recast, and active is put for passive and passive for active with the greatest unconcern, and this without even the justification of thereby attaining a smoother diction.

735


What, for instance, can be the necessity of saying "Jehovah means the Lord," instead of "By Jehovah is meant the Lord," or "Evidently then"' in place of "Hence it is evident," or "From this it is evident?" And does "simply means" have any peculiar literary advantage over "nothing else is meant" (non aliud intelligitur)? The use of expressions such as these has the effect of substituting a somewhat light and more or less familiar style in place of that dignified, philosophical and exact diction which to many is one of the charms of the Writings, and which is certainly one of their distinguishing literary characteristics.

     In the Memorable Relations, and in those numerous parts of the work where the concrete and illustrative element prevails, (and these together form a very large part of the volume), the translator is often happy in his rendition; and, here, particularly, his work will undoubtedly be a valuable basis for a future translator who will correct his inaccuracies while retaining its good features. It is mainly in the abstract and doctrinal passages that he fails in that element of exactitude which is required of every translator of philosophy and still more of Divine Revelation.

     Apart from the question of exact translation, the book will naturally recommend itself to many readers on account of the eminently satisfactory dress in which, as one of the Library Edition, it appears. Yet, to those who wish a translation which is faithful in detail, as well as in a general way, the Rotch translation, despite its occasional imperfections, will be greatly preferred. And still more will they prefer the Boston (double column) translation, which is decidedly the best of all. Unfortunately it is out of print, as is also the most desirable edition, published by Lippencott in two volumes, of the Rotch translation.


736


"DISCRETE DEGREES AND SPIRITUAL SUBSTANCE." 1906

"DISCRETE DEGREES AND SPIRITUAL SUBSTANCE."       W. L. GLADISH       1906

EDITORS New Church Life:--

     In his able paper on Discrete Degrees and the order of Creation in the October Life, Mr. Odhner has performed a service to the Church by emphasizing the substantiality of spiritual substance. We should gladly welcome anything that enables us to think correctly and even mechanically of the substances of the spiritual world. For while we are in this world we have no idea at all of any subject unless our idea finally rests in scientific and even sensual things.

     But the article uses old familiar terms with new meanings and appears to teach some things in a way that will not add to the rational light of students of these problems until they are further explained. To identify the spirituous fluid with the immediate atmosphere of the celestial heaven (p. 578) may be justified as an attempt to reconcile the Scientific and the Theological Writings; but what authority is there for putting third and fourth finites in the sun, when our only text-book, the Principia, says that the sun consists of actives of first and second finites, (Part I, Chap. vii, p. 20), and that fourth finites formed the crust around the sun which broke up to form the planets, (Pt. III, Chap. iv, p. 4)?

     If the Principia doctrines are to be changed would it not be well to use new terms instead of those used there?

     On page 586 it is said: "But the Doctrine clearly teaches that the natural world and its suns were created out of the substance of the spiritual world," etc. Then follow quotations from the Writings which are supposed to teach that doctrine, but not one of them makes the statement nor do they seem to me to imply it. They do teach that all things, both spiritual and natural, were created from the spiritual sun and thus had a common origin. But all Newchurchmen believe this. The first quotation does say, "Jehovah God, by means of the Sun in the midst of which He is, created the spiritual world, and by means of this, mediately, the natural world." (Canons. God iv:7.)


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     And every one who believes that the spiritual world is causative will agree to this. But to create by means of is very different from creating out of the substance of that world, man makes many things by means of his hands but no: out of the substance of his hands.

     The teaching of the paper is that each lower degree is created not only by means of but out of the substance of the degree just above it. Thus the whole spiritual world even to its mineral substances is created before the natural suns and they are created out of the substances of the spiritual world, if I get the author's meaning. If this were true it would follow from correspondence that the rational degree of the mind would be formed first; from this the scientific; and from this the sensual: and then from this and out of its substance the body would be formed. The truth is that the body is first created by the soul; then the sensual, scientific, and rational degrees are formed by the celestial and spiritual acting into the lowest to form and reform the intermediate degrees.

     If the position of the paper were true the atmospheres were all created in order to the last and then out of them by conglobation and condensation the planet was made.

     This also appears to be the teaching, as in D. L. W. 302: "And since the atmospheres, in their progress toward lower things, decrease in activity, it follows that they constantly become more dense and inert, and finally in ultimates become so dense and inert as to be no longer atmospheres but substances at rest, and in the natural world, fixed, like those on the earth that are called matters." As a general statement this is true. But it is impossible for the rational mind, which inquires how things are done, to think that the great globe of the earth was made by the simple condensation of air, and the air by the simple condensation of the ether. The Principia doctrine is that the stuff of which the heart of the earth is composed was created before the ether or air or water, and that then the sun, through its atmosphere, acting into the primitive earth as an ultimate, produced the earth's atmospheres and finally covered with mineral substances and with vegetable and animal life.


738



     "The Lord acts from inmosts and from ultimates simultaneously." (D. P. 134:4). . . . "He does not operate from primes through mediates into ultimates, but from primes through ultimates and thus into mediates." (A. E. 1086:6). This law is frequently stated in the Writings and seems to be a universal law of Divine operation that must be reckoned with in any useful explanation of the manner of creation. Since the writer of the paper ignores it what will he offer in its place?
W. L. GLADISH.
CONJUGIAL LOVE versus MARRIAGE LOVE 1906

CONJUGIAL LOVE versus MARRIAGE LOVE       JOHN FAULKNER POTTS       1906

EDITOR New Church Life:--

     I feel it to be my duty to say a few words to the members of the New Church in regard to the attempt that is being made to abolish the word "conjugial." I have privately made every effort in my power to avert this attempt, but so far vainly, and as the subject involved is one of the most vital possible, I do not think it would be right for me to withhold from the Church in general my reasons for so strongly deprecating the attempt to abolish a word of such importance, such ancient, and such sacred associations. It is new finally decided that the Rev. Samuel M. Warren's new translation of the work on Conjugial Love is to appear in the Rotch Edition with the title "Marriage Love," and that the word "conjugial" is to be dropped out of the work.

     I object to the use of the word "marriage" instead of "conjugial" first, because the word "marriage" is derived from the Latin word for "husband." so that "marriage love" means, fundamentally, "husband love." "Marriage love" has a fundamentally male meaning and signification. Now when we consider that it is one of the teachings of the Heavenly Doctrine that there is not one single spark of the fire of conjugial love in the male sex, and never can be, but that every atom of conjugial love in this sex shines into it from the female sex, it is surely one of the greatest and also one of the most revolting perversions of the truth relating to this subject that can possibly be conceived of, to call this love "husband love" or by an expression which is fundamentally tantamount to this.

739


It excites abhorrence in the mind of one who knows what love truly conjugial is.

     It may, indeed, be argued that people in general are ignorant of the fact that our word "marriage" comes to us through the French from the Latin word maritus, which means "husband." But in answer to this I would say that it is by no means safe in these days to base important action on popular ignorance. People are getting to be better informed every day, and already any one who has studied the etymology and use of the term "marriage," would have to be very ignorant indeed of the subject not to be aware of the truth in regard to this matter. The fact is, it is impossible to hide from the members of the New Church that "marriage love" has a fundamentally male reference and meaning.

     It may also be argued that this objection lies with equal force against the word "marriage" itself when used in other connections. And this is indeed the case, and it is perhaps a pity that in the New Church we have not always used the good old Saxon word "wedlock" instead of "marriage;" for "marriage" is ambiguous, being often used in the sense of "wedding" or the nuptial ceremony, as, for instance, in the phrase "the marriage supper of the Lamb," which ought to be "the wedding supper," as Swedenborg himself has taught us. "Wedlock" is a word which in its very form expresses conjunction, or a state in which two are locked together. "Locked in each others arms' is a well known phrase expressive of the right idea. The phrase "the marriage of good and truth," although we are accustomed to it, is really ambiguous, and by one uninstructed might readily be supposed to mean the mere wedding or nuptials of good and truth, whereas it refers to the eternal union in holy wedlock of these Divine things. In English we have the whole series "wedlock," "wedding," "wedded," and "to wed," a series of beautiful words, and it is very doubtful whether we have done well to allow them to fall into disuse among us. However, even if it is impossible now to bring "wedlock" into use instead of "marriage," we can at least refrain from perpetrating a perfectly new abuse of the French word "marriage" which will result in giving us an expression that I feel sure no one among us would use if he thought of its fundamental meaning.

740


I mean "marriage love." The meaning of "husband love" is in this expression and can never be removed from it. It is always secretly there.

     According to the Roman law a wife had no rights beyond those of the other members of her husband's household, including his slaves. She was on a level with these slaves. Among that brutal people the husband was everything in the matrimonial connection. And this is the source of our word "marriage," which we have borrowed from the French, a people whose language is directly descended from that of the ancient Romans. It is no wonder therefore that this word has a harsh male sound and also a distinctly male essence. These are plain and certain facts, and the better instructed people become, the better will these facts be known, and the more they will confront us.

     It may again be argued that as soon as any one reads the book he will gradually find out in what sense the expression "marriage love" is used. Yes, but even if this is true (which in my opinion is very doubtful), this involves that wherever ale use the expression "marriage love," we must present every one of our hearers with a copy of the book on the subject, and what is still more difficult, get him to read it until he understands what we are talking about. For in this connection it must be remembered that this expression, "marriage love," is a new one: that it never occurs in current literature: that almost no one has ever heard of it before, and also that it is a very ambiguous expression, and might possibly mean quite a large number of very different things. Those who are familiar with the expression "conjugial love" can readily carry over to "marriage love" some conception more or less adequate of what this means; but very different is the case with those who have not had this previous training. It is evident that all such must be in great danger of complete mystification. In my own private circle of acquaintance I have made the experiment, and have never yet found one person, either a receiver of the doctrines or otherwise, who attached to "marriage love" the meaning that its advocates expect and hope will be attached to it.

741


Some suppose that it means just the common love that prevails among married people everywhere; some that it means the love of marriage as an institution and a state; and some are quite at sea and can form no idea whatever that they would like to mention, on account of the great uncertainty they feel; but no one has ever imagined that the expression conveys any spiritual idea whatever.

     It is quite true that "conjugial love" is also an unusual expression, but with regard to this expression it must be said that it has been in use for a hundred years; it is now to be found in all the principal dictionaries, and moreover, it is so like the usual expression "conjugal love" that even one who has never heard it before has a clew to the true idea so far as it goes; whereas "marriage love" only now springs into being, and also in its very form is ambiguous and dubious. I do not forget that we have many other expressions in which the noun "marriage" is used in apposition to another noun, such as "marriage ceremony," "marriage settlement," "marriage vow," etc., but in all thee cases the noun "marriage" refers to the wedding and its attendant circumstances, and if this meaning is carried over into "marriage love" it causes this expression to mean the love we feel when present at weddings, or the love we might feel in getting wedded ourselves. So that these very expressions, which are so familiar to everybody, are a means of misconception and not of enlightenment.

     It is further urged that "conjugial level is an expression that is sometimes used by Swedenborg in a sense that is by no means spiritual or even good. Such is the case; but this objection applies to every expression whatever. Even the sacred word "God" is sometimes used in a bad sense. So is "heaven," so is the very word "good" itself. But this does not take away the genuine meaning of these words. "Conjugial love" as a general rule means the spiritual love that exists between married partners who are united as to their souls in an eternal union never to be dissolved. This is what it is quite generally understood to mean among us; and the fact that it is sometimes used in a lower sense does not destroy this its general, best, and sacred meaning. As I understand the advocates of the expression "marriage love," one reason they have for preferring it is actually because it does not convey any idea of a spiritual love such as I have specified, but is a perfectly general expression that covers all kinds of conjugial love whatever, however exalted or however gross and fleshly these may be.

742


And this is precisely where I join issue with them: I for one at least, (and I know that in this I by no means stand alone), prefer the expression "conjugial love" because it conveys a spiritual and chaste idea, being based on the idea of "conjunction," as its very form indicates; always pointing the way to all that is pure, chaste, and holy, and always pointing away from everything that is merely of the flesh and the world.

     The natural man feels a natural aversion to everything purely spiritual, and therefore the expression "conjugial love," or "the conjugial," grates on his ears, and he feels an inward aversion to it. On the other hand "marriage love" as an expression points to the married state as it actually exists with married people, which at the present day is usually a very natural state, and therefore this expression is in harmony with the feelings and ideas of the natural man. But this is a consideration that ought not to influence us.

     The title of the work in question, literally translated, is "The Deliciousnesses of Wisdom of Conjugial Love," or a little more freely, "The Deliciousnesses of Wisdom that belong to Conjugial Love." It is properly "Deliciousnesses," not "Delights," for Swedenborg here uses the very strong word delitiae which he customarily reserves to express the most intense and deep joys of which the human heart is capable. The preposition de here must be rendered "of" and not "concerning," as is clearly shown in Conjugial Love, n. 293. The wording of this title therefore plainly shows that the expression "conjugial love," used in it is used in its best and highest sense, and not in any of those lower senses which our friends on the other side of this question seem to have recently discovered, but which to other students of the subject are as old as the hills. In all those lower forms of this love which they have found covered by the expression "conjugial love" in certain cases, there are no "deliciousnesses of wisdom," but only natural delights of various kinds, some excusable and good, and others of the flesh and the world, but all natural and therefore more or less impure.

743


Complete purity is possible only where there exists love truly conjugial, and this state of complete purity must exist before there can be felt any "deliciousnesses of wisdom." The title of the book, therefore, as given by Swedenborg plainly indicates that the book treats of love truly conjugial, and this title does not include within it any direct reference to any other kind of conjugial love than that which is truly conjugial. It is true that the book does incidentally treat of lower forms of conjugial love, (not to mention its opposite), but this it has to do in order that by showing the darker side the good one may appear. Moreover, we all begin with a natural form of conjugial love, and therefore this natural form of it must be treated of; but still the book is not really concerning this kind of love, but is about love truly conjugial. This is its real subject, for this is what is new to the world, and is what is revealed in the book. It is the purpose of the book to reveal this love, and therefore its true and correct title is "The Delicious Things of Wisdom that belong to Conjugial Love." Our friends seem to have fixed their eyes far too much upon the darker side of the subject, and have thus unconsciously been led to try to throw the shade of that darker side over the whole book, and to keep out of sight in some measure that ideal of love truly conjugial which we now all think of, and rightly think of, in connection with this subject.
JOHN FAULKNER POTTS.


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PITTSBURGH DISTRICT ASSEMBLY 1906

PITTSBURGH DISTRICT ASSEMBLY       W. L. G       1906

     With considerable trepidation Middleport undertook this year, for the first time, to entertain the District Assembly. We estimated that there would be a dozen visitors from our sister society in Pittsburgh and perhaps as many more from other points. But we had scarcely a dozen guests all told. Pittsburgh, of whom we had expected so much, had but three here besides her pastor, and he returned for Sunday services at home. But in spite of these drawbacks we had a good, meeting.

     We began Friday night, October 19th, with a supper in the church followed by the Bishop's address. Rain kept away many of those whom we expected from the country. The number present was forty-four. While we were at table toasts were proposed to the Church and the Priesthood accompanied by the usual songs. Then the tables were cleared away and Bishop Pendleton read his address on "The Relation of Baptism to the Holy Supper." It was shown that Baptism involves all things of preparation for conjunction with the Lord and consociation with Heaven, while the Holy Supper involves all things of such Church, and all things of the Word are involved in both sacraments and indeed in each of them. The importance of Baptism as an external introduction into the Church on earth and in Heaven, in order that there may be internal conjunction, was made very manifest.

     At the Saturday morning sessions the ministers' reports showed substantial progress in both the Pittsburgh and Middleport churches; and Rev. J. E. Bowers gave a report of his tireless work among the isolated.

     At 11 o'clock Rev. N. D. Pendleton read a paper on "The Prophetical Function in Israel." The paper will be a valuable addition to the literature of the Church concerning the internal historical sense of the Word. It contains the results of wide reading among the modern critics, and shows the development or evolution of prophecy so as to make the Letter of the Word a thing of life and growth. In this and former papers of the same nature, such as "the Messianic Prophecies" and the "Urim and Thummim," Mr. Pendleton is working in a field peculiarly his own.

745


Scarcely any one else among us has studied the Word in this way.

     Saturday night Bishop Pendleton gave a paper on the three comings of the Lord as taught in Moses' blessing of Israel. "The Lord came from Sinai, and rose up from Seir unto them, He shined forth from Mount Paran." (Deut. xxxiii.) His coming from Sinai was when He appeared to Moses and the children of Israel and gave the law. His rising up from Seir referred to his glorification when He came in the flesh and fulfilled the law. These two comings are usually classed together as one. But the coming on Sinai was a preparation that His coming into the world might be effective. The third coming in this series, usually called, and properly so, the "Second Coming," is meant by His shining forth from Mount Paran.

     It was a new line of thought but very suggestive and stimulating, showing that there is a time in the Lord's appearings as well as in all other things. Yet the three comings are one and were all fulfilled in the incarnation and glorification; the first was in preparation for this, the third in this series or the "Second Coming," was its unfolding or the revelation of its full glory. In each of the three comings the Lord gave revelation. In the first He gave the Old Testament; in the second the New Testament; in the third the Writings. Each testament is Divine and contains the infinite fulness of the Divine Love and Wisdom. Each is able to open Heaven, associate man with angels and conjoin him with the Lord.

     Sunday was a bright, beautiful day, enabling nearly twenty New Church people to drive in from the country. There were sixty-six at the morning service, and forty-one partook of the Lord's Supper. The Bishop preached on the Lord's saying, "I am not come to destroy but to fulfill." (Matthew v. 17.) The Assembly came to a close with a Sunday evening service and sermon by the Rev. J. E. Bowers on "Opening the Gates." (Isaiah xxvi. 2.)

     The meetings were instructive, uplifting and thoroughly enjoyable, and we hope to alternate with Pittsburgh in the future, having the Assembly here every two years. W. L. G.


746


Church News 1906

Church News        Various       1906

     FROM OUR CORRESPONDENTS.

     BRYN ATHYN, PA. The past month has been a busy one, little interrupted by illness or celebrations. The new two-session daily schedule of the Schools has worked very satisfactorily so far, and gives us one period more of school time, which, in the younger classes, is devoted to supervised study, with excellent results. Besides, it affords us all a substantial meal at noon, which we find a distinct advantage to the strength and energy available for the last two periods. These afternoon hours, from one o'clock until two thirty, are supposed to be devoted to laboratory work singing, or other lessons combining physical with mental exercise. The pupils can reach home again at about the same hour at which formerly they used to finish their lunch. As a matter of fact, however, they do not for having lunched, and not being so tired, it is a great temptation to "just stay" in the library, the gymnasium, or the campus, and extra time with the teachers for any purpose is very conveniently arranged. In fact, the only objection seems to be that the school interests are so extended under this new arrangement, that the home duties are left almost entirely to the overburdened mothers. Servants are so scarce and expensive nowadays that twenty-five of our households are without any regular help.

     The Friday Suppers still move along successfully, although the numbers attending have increased nearly a fourth. We owe this to the excellent organization of the ladies, assisted by the young people. It is no small feat to feed so many people, then clear away, have choir practice and perhaps business meeting, and be ready for the Bishop's class at eight o'clock. The money, ten cents per person, is quietly collected while we sit at table, and is kept by one treasurer who apportions it to each of the seven committees in turn, who plan as they see fit.

     The bishop has resumed the series of lessons upon Heaven, giving some extremely suggestive new light upon the conditions in the other world, and its relation to this.

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During his recent absence in Middleport, Mr. Synnestvedt officiated.

     Twice, on Monday evenings, we have enjoyed lectures from Miss Alice Grant about her travels in England, illustrated by the reflecting stereopticon.

     The younger boys greatly enjoyed, in connection with their military drill, some instruction from Mr. Oscar Glenn, of Erie, who, with his wife, spent a week at "The Inn." Mr. Glenn has just retired from the United States Navy with the rank of chief master-at-arms, after a service of thirty-three years.

     The tennis tournament was won by Carl Alden and Ersa Smith, both in the singles and the doubles.

     Socially, the chief events have been sundry Hallowe'en parties, one for the College and Seminary, at Stuart Hall, and two for the younger children at private homes. The Civic and Social Club gave its "premiere" on the Wednesday following; it was truly a gala affair. With a special orchestra, special refreshments, and a profusion of flowers, is it any wonder that the "old folks," too, danced as in days of yore, and "showed the youngsters a thing or two?" We seemed to have been needing something like this, and feel greatly indebted to Mr. and Mrs. Hicks and Mr. and Mrs. Chas. E. Doering, who had charge of the occasion. We hope the experience will be repeated at the Assembly. The early reports of probable visitors in June have so delighted us that an extra b--l of w--e has been ordered. Don't forget to save up and come. O. S.

     TORONTO, Can. The Young Folks' Doctrinal Classes recommenced on October 1st. The True Christian Religion has been taken up for study in the class. Several of the young people who have entered the married state have left the class, but their places have been filled by others of the younger generation.

     On October 3d we had our first Wednesday supper of the season. Instead of the usual doctrinal class following the supper a social was held. Progressive euchre and a guessing contest were the features of the evening, which concluded with the customary dancing, despite our scarcity of young people, and especially those of the "stronger sex."


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     On Sunday, October 28th, the infant son of Mr. and Mrs. Carson, of Buffalo, N. Y., was baptized at the morning services. It has not been customary with us in the past to have infants baptized at church, but the administration of this sacrament made the sphere of worship seem particularly affecting and delightful.

     On Tuesday evening, November 13th, while a men's meeting was in progress at the church, the ladies of the society were entertained at the home of Mrs. Fred Longstaff. E. C.

     FROM OUR CONTEMPORARIES.

     UNITED STATES. An entire congregation of the M. E. church at WILLISTON, Md., has dissolved its connection with that body and is receiving the services of the Rev. J. E. Smith in connection with his regular missionary tours. More than two hundred people were in attendance at the last service. With few exceptions the members of the congregation know very little of the New Church, but they had known Mr. Smith, as a Methodist minister, for many years. Their position is one of independence "and willingness to know the truth whether it agrees with their former convictions or not."

     At the meeting of the MICHIGAN ASSOCIATION, held at Detroit, October 6-7, the Rev. John Whitehead declined re-election as presiding officer, and the Rev. James M. Shepherd was elected. The Association voted to extend financial aid to the Almont and Detroit Societies in proportion to their membership.

     The ALMONT, Mich. Society has elected the Rev. John Whitehead as pastor for the coming year.

     In accordance with the vote of the General Convention the Rev. S. S. Seward on October 7, ordained Mr. E. W. Shields, of HOT SPRINGS, Ark., into the ministry of the New Church. Shields was formerly a Cambellite preacher, but four years ago he received the Doctrines and for the past two years has been preaching them in Hot Springs. He is 68 years of age, and is an "indefatigable worker at his trade (sign painting) and in the Church."

     The First Society of SAN FRANCISCO has been sharing its building with the First Baptist Society, (who lost their church building in the fire), and therefore holds its services in the afternoon instead of the morning.


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     Mr. Warren B. Ewer, a lately deceased member of the First Society, has bequeathed $15,000 to the support of the ministry of that Society. This sum will form the basis of a "Perpetual Minister's Fund." Is this a new method of securing a "perpetual minister?"

     GREAT BRITAIN. THE NEW CHURCH COLLEGE opened its session in October with three Conference students for the ministry, students attending evening classes, and five correspondent students.

     At a recent meeting of the LANCASHIRE AND CHESHIRE UNION one of the speakers advocated the administration of the Holy Supper to young persons of sixteen and over, but with the understanding that until they are of age they should receive only unfermented wine! In the discussion of this novel proposal, the three ministers and one layman who took part in it, all deprecated this interjection of the "Wine Question." The Rev. Charles Griffiths and the Rev. J. Deans favored the administration to young people as a means of holding their affections in the church, and as a means of altering the present state of things, when, as stated by Mr. Deans, the men "drop away" as soon as the Communion is announced. "He had seen sometimes every man in a church leave before the Sacrament was administered, and he considered this a disgraceful state of things!" The Rev. W. H. Claxton and Mr. Jonathan Robinson, on the other hand, vigorously opposed the idea of admitting young people to the Communion. Mr. Robinson, in particular, made a telling argument, quoting freely from the True Christian Religion.

     On October 1st the Rev. George Meek, late pastor of the St. Heliers (Jersey) Society, entered upon the pastorate of the Society at NOTTHINGHAM.

     AUSTRALIA. The Rev. Percy Billings has resigned the pastorate of the ADELAIDE Society. and will leave Australia for America some time in November. Mr. Billings will visit the new society in Sydney, en route. He expects to be in Philadelphia, which he will make his permanent abode, about Christmas time.


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JOURNAL OF THE TENTH ANNUAL MEETING OF THE COUNCIL OF THE CLERGY OF THE GENERAL CHURCH OF THE NEW JERUSALEM 1906

JOURNAL OF THE TENTH ANNUAL MEETING OF THE COUNCIL OF THE CLERGY OF THE GENERAL CHURCH OF THE NEW JERUSALEM       Various       1906


     Announcements.



     


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HELD AT
BRYN ATHYN, PA.,
FROM TUESDAY, SEPT. 4TH, TO SUNDAY, SEPT. 9TH, 1906.

Tuesday Morning, September 4th, 1906.

1. The meeting was opened with worship conducted by Bishop Pendleton.

2. The members present were: Bishop Pendleton; Pastors Bowers, De Charms, Czerny, Alden, Price, Odhner, Waelchli, Pendleton, Rosenqvist, Synnesetvedt, Acton, Gladish, and Doering; Minister Stebbing, Candidates Pendleton and Gyllenhaal.

3. The Bishop read the following letter to him from the Rev. George G. Starkey:

     "In my last letter to you I should have resigned from the Council of the Clergy, since I am now led to another use. When mentioning my resignation to the Council would you kindly express for me a few words of farewell to its members and of appreciation of the privileges of past association and fellowship in priestly counsel and uses and in brotherly exchange of thoughts on the things of the Church. I will not try to say all that is in my heart, of the value I place on what I have derived from this consociation; I will simply wish you and them continued increase in the things of intelligence and of wisdom and of use, and voice the hope that as a layman I may be at least no less loyal and useful than when I was one of you, modest though that condition and aspiration may be in its implied responsibilities incurred."


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4. The secretary read a letter of greeting and good wishes from the Rev. Walter E. Brickman.

5. On invitation of the Bishop, the members of the Council greeted the Rev. William Hyde Alden as a minister of the General Church and a member of this Council.

6. Mr. Odhner read letters received by him from the Rev. R. J. Tilson, London, England, and the Rev. Percy Billings, Adelaide, Australia.

7. The subject of THE PRIORITY OF CHARITY OVER FAITH was taken up for consideration.

     Mr. Alden introduced the subject by reading a portion of a letter received by him from a minister of the General Convention, who is dissatisfied with both the Convention and the General Church, charging that in both bodies there is no charity, and nothing but faith. Mr. Alden in replying had opposed him, and asked him to adduce a single passage from the Writings in support of the priority of charity in time. In the discussion which followed, stress was laid on the doctrine that charity is really the prior, or the first both, and that faith is only apparently so because first in time. But it was also pointed out that we must recognize the appearance that faith is the first, and act in accordance with the appearance. The good which is prior is good of the Lord, and not the good of the man himself. It is interiorly in the affection which impels men to follow the truth which leads to good.

     Tuesday Afternoon.

8. Mr. Gladish read a paper on "THE INTERNAL DEGREES OF THE LORD'S HUMAN."

     The teachings of the paper was that the internal degrees of the Lord's Human were paternal, not maternal. Some of the members favored this view, others opposed it.

     Those who opposed it held that we must have a more extended idea of what is meant by the body taken from Mary, namely, that it includes all that with which the Lord clothed Himself in the heavens from the time of their creation. The Divine Human before the incarnation was the Divine accommodated to those in the heavens, and as the accommodation was according to the ability to receive, it was the Divine as received by the angels. This was the Divine Celestial and the Divine Spiritual. These degrees were not infinite, but finite, and at the incarnation were clothed or covered with the further finite degree taken from Mary. In the glorification all these degrees were made infinite or divine.

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At the incarnation, the Soul or Inmost only was paternal. All beneath it was maternal, or the mother in the broad sense. If the maternal was only that taken on from Mary, how could the Lord admit temptations even from the angels? The Lord did not take on the angelic degrees from Mary. We are taught that the Lord took on the evils of the entire human race, thus of those in the heavens as well as of those on earth. Against all these he fought, and became the Infinite God immediately present on all planes of both worlds.

     Those who held the view expressed in the paper said, in reply, that the two degrees, the Divine Celestial and the Divine Spiritual, were infinite and divine before the incarnation, thus paternal; for they were the Divine Human of the Lord. The Lord then also had the third degree, the Divine Natural, in potency. In what is celestial and spiritual there is no imperfection. The angels of the celestial and spiritual heavens had their imperfections from the natural. Good and truth were perverted in the natural, and so the Lord took on the natural, or an ultimate body in which all evil could be active, as well that in the heavens as that among men. Thus the ultimates brought the Lord in contact with the evils of the whole human race.

     In the discussion there was also consideration of the question as to what is meant by the teaching that the body is from the mother. The idea was put forth, and not dissented from, that by the body is not to be understood merely chemical substance, but also the living body, or the soul of the body, formed of substances of the spiritual sun. The mother supplies the coverings from what is spiritual derived from the father, and these coverings are forms, made by the soul of the mother, and having all her disposition in them. Hence it often appears as if what is from the mother prevails. But the inmost is from the father. This can be illustrated by a seed in the ground. The body it receives there consists not only of chemical atoms, but of the whole life from the sun. This does not alter the vegetative soul, but modifies it.

     Tuesday Evening.

     The Council was entertained at a banquet by Mr. John Pitcairn, at Cairnwood.

     Wednesday Morning, September 5th.

9. The meeting was opened with worship.

10. The reading of the Minutes of the last Annual Meeting was dispensed with.

11. The secretary read his report, in which he stated that he had received no reply to his letter to the Rev. L. G. Jordan, inquiring whether he desired to have his name continued on our list of ministers.


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12. On motion, it was Resolved, that as the Rev. L. G. Jordan has not reported to this body for a number of years, his name be dropped from our list of ministers.

13. On motion, it was Resolved, that the secretary be instructed to communicate with the Rev. Joseph Boyesen and ask him to report.

14. The desirability of dropping from the roll of membership of the General Church the names of some persons no longer showing active interest, was considered, but no action was taken.

15. The Rev. Messrs. Acton and Waelchli were appointed a committee to draw up a memorial respecting the Rev. E. S. Hyatt.

16. On motion, it was Resolved, that the Committee on Program for this meeting be a permanent committee, and that when a meeting is held elsewhere than Bryn Athyn, the pastor resident in that place act with the committee.

17. The time of the next Annual Meeting was briefly considered, and, on motion, it was resolved to refer the matter to the Joint Council.

18. It was Resolved, that the subject of printing the Journal of these meetings separated from New Church Life be referred to the Joint Council.

19. The subject of THE ORDINATION OF A PRIEST INTO THE THIRD DEGREE OF THE
PRIESTHOOD was brought up for consideration.

     The Bishop stated that only about two-thirds of the ministers had responded to his request made a gear ago that the members of the Council indicate to him privately their opinion as to the man best fitted for introduction into the third degree. As there was no unanimous expression, he had taken no action.

     Wednesday Afternoon.

20. The discussion of Mr. Gladish's paper on "The Internal Degrees of the Lord's Human," was continued.


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     Mr. Gladish stated as his understanding of the doctrine that the Divine in Himself is one thing and the Divine Human another. The Divine Human is the Divine Accommodated. We can know the Divine only by the Divine Human. The Divine Human is the Word in the heavens, thus the Lord making Himself known. The angels are organic forms of the Word; they are the living Word. Thus the Lord had the Divine Celestial and the Divine Spiritual before the incarnation. He had them actually. The Divine Natural He had in potency; for the Word in the natural existed among men. But it was not a living Word, and the Lord needed to take it on by being born of a woman in the world. The Lord received influx through the heavens as man does. He glorified the natural and thus there was a reaction by which the heavens were purified.

     To this view it was objected that it does away with the idea that the Lord had a spiritual body. This body, it was stated, was taken on through the heavens. It was not divine at the incarnation, but the Lord made it divine.

     It was also objected that the view does not sufficiently discriminate between what was the Lord's and what the angels.

     And further, it was objected that we cannot think of the Divine apart from the Divine Human. The Divine Human is above the heavens and thence descends. In the heavens it is the Word, yet the Word is not the heavens. If the heavens as recipients of the Word were the Lord's internal degrees, then the Lord made the heavens divine!

     At the conclusion of the discussion the opinion was expressed by several that much further study and meditation will be necessary to attain to anything of a clear view of this subject.

     Wednesday Evening.

21. A public session was held.

22. The meeting was opened with worship.

23. Mr. Odhner read a paper on "DISCRETE DEGREES AND SPIRITUAL SUBSTANCE."

     Thursday Morning, September 6th.

24. The meeting was opened with worship.

25. The RETORTS OF THE MINISTERS were read.

     The Rt. Rev. W. F. Pendleton, as pastor of the Bryn Athyn Church, officiated at one baptism of a child, five confirmations, and one marriage. There were also three baptisms in the Society performed by other ministers.


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     The Rev. J. E. Bowers, pastor and missionary, officiated at one baptism of an adult, five baptisms of children, one marriage, and one funeral. Administered the sacrament of the Holy Supper eleven times. Sixty-five places were visited in Ontario and in six of the States. Thirty-two of these places were visited twice; and three of them three times.

     The Rev. Richard De Charms, secretary to the Bishop of the General Church, preached several times for the Bryn Athyn Society. Also acted as teacher of English and History in the College of the Academy, to the first and second year classes.

     The Rev. Andrew Czerny, pastor of the London and Colchester Societies, officiated at three baptisms of adults, two betrothals, two marriages, and one funeral. There are many signs of internal growth in both societies. The interest in spiritual things continues, and there is peace and harmony among the members. There has also been an increase in the attendance both at the Services and the doctrinal classes. The chief event of the past year was the Assembly at Colchester in August, at which the Bishop and a number of visitors from abroad were present. It was by far the largest Assembly ever held; every adult member of both societies, and a number of young people, attending. The meeting was most useful and delightful.

     The Rev. Enoch S. Price, pastor of the Circle at Allentown, Pa., officiated at one baptism of an adult, one betrothal, and one marriage. Preached once a month in Allentown with the exception of the month of July. Administered the sacrament of the Holy Supper twice. Also preached once in Glenview, Ill., and once in Bryn Athyn. As heretofore, is engaged in professional work in the Schools of the Academy of the New Church.

     The Rev. C. Th. Odhner. Secretary of the General Church, had performed no special ministerial services during the year, outside of his general duties as professor of Theology in the Theological School of the Academy, and as editor of New Church Life.

     The Rev. F. E. Waelchli, pastor of the Carmel Church. Berlin, Ont., officiated at six baptisms of children and three funerals. Conducted services twice at Clinton and once at Milverton. The past year has been the most successful the Carmel Church has yet known, so far as interest in spiritual things and in the uses of the Church is concerned.

757


The activity of the young people, of whom there are more than thirty, contributed largely to making the Society's life delightful.

     The Rev. N. Dandridge Pendleton, pastor of the Pittsburgh Society, officiated at two baptisms of adults, six baptisms of children, four confirmations, two marriages, and one funeral.

     The Rev. Homer Synnestvedt, assistant to the Bishop as pastor of the Bryn Athyn Church, officiated at one baptism of a child and one confession of faith. Taught religion in the Academy Schools, and had charge of the Normal Department and of the Boys' Dormitory.

     The Rev. Alfred Acton, pastor of the New York Circle, officiated at three infant baptisms. Has preached twice a month at New York, except during the months of July, August, and September, and once at Bryn Athyn. Has continued in his duties as Assistant Editor of New Church Life, and as Secretary of the General Council, and, in the Schools of the Academy of the New Church, as professor of Theology.

     The Rev. Joseph E. Rosenqvist, pastor of the Advent Church, of Philadelphia, officiated at three baptisms of adults and two baptisms of children. Thirteen new members have been added to the roll. Has also acted as visiting pastor to the Circle at Baltimore.

     The Rev. Willis L. Gladish, pastor of the Middleport Church, officiated at two baptisms of adults, two baptisms of children, one betrothal, one marriage, and four funerals. The Society has lost three members by removal, and has added three new members. The great lack is social life, and there are so few young people that it is difficult to make social gatherings successful. But the need of more social life is beginning to be felt, and there is hope for some progress in the coming year.

     The Rev. C. E. Doering officiated at one baptism of a child and at one funeral. Preached twice for the Bryn Athyn Society. Has been regularly engaged in the work of the Academy, and acted as treasurer of the General Church.

     The Rev R. H. Keep, pastor of the Circles at Atlanta and New Orleans, officiated at one baptism of an adult and one baptism of a child.

     The Rev. David H. Klein, pastor of the Immanuel Church, Glenview, Ill., officiated at three baptisms of children and at one funeral. Ten new members have joined the Society during the past year.


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     The Rev. E. R. Cronlund, pastor of the Olivet Church, Toronto, officiated at three baptisms of adults, two baptisms of children, two betrothals, two marriages, and three funerals. Twelve persons have become members of the General Church during the year. Ten of these were brought up in the New Church, and two were converts from the Old Church. Besides the general doctrinal class, there is a young people's class and a class for those children who do not attend the School.

     The Rev. W. B. Caldwell, pastor of the Sharon Church, Chicago, officiated at one funeral. The Society entertained the Chicago District Assembly last October.

     The Rev. Ernest J. Stebbing continued as Head Master of the Carmel Church School, Berlin, and preached several times for the pastor.

     Mr. F. E. Gyllenhaal, candidate, preached twice for the Immanuel Church, once for the Sharon Church, four times at Bryn Athyn, and once in Philadelphia. During the summer worked in the Erie Circle, where the congregations averaged twenty-four. Besides preaching, conducted a doctrinal class, a young people's class, and Sunday School classes,

26. No reports were received from the Rev. Messrs. Boyesen and Brown, nor from Candidates Stroh and Pendleton.

27. The subject of THE TRANSLATION OF THE TERM "CONJUGIALIS" was taken up for consideration.

     A portion of the Rev. Mr. Warren's article, in which the translation of the word by "marriage" instead of by "conjugial" is favored, was read.

     All the members of the Council favored retaining "conjugial" as the translation. The reasons for this position, presented by various speakers, are included in an article in New Church Life for October, 1906.

28. The subject of MEMBERSHIP IN THE GENERAL CHURCH was next considered.

     It was pointed out that it should be well understood that persons first become members of the General Church. Then, if they desire, they can become members of a Society of the general body.


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29. THE CELEBRATION OF THE TWENTIETH OF JUNE was next considered.

     It was stated that it has for a number of years been the custom of the Immanuel Church to haven a children's celebration on the Twentieth, following the celebration of the Nineteenth. Two days are mentioned in the True Christian Religion, the nineteenth, when the disciples were called together, and the twentieth, when they were sent out to preach; though some have thought that the two days were the eighteenth and the nineteenth.

     A dinner is given the children and amusements are provided. At the dinner there is an address. The affections of the children are thus awakened for the things of the Church. The plan was considered a good one, which could usefully Be followed wherever conditions permit. But it was thought that the Twentieth should not be celebrated as the Twentieth, but as the Nineteenth. It should be the children's Nineteenth of June Celebration, so that their affections may be aroused for the great day of the New Church.

     Thursday Afternoon.

30. The session was devoted to consideration of THE NEW LITURGY. The Bishop outlined the general plan of it, and dwelt on certain features. He desired to have a committee go over it, after he has completed it. It was thought best to leave the matter of revision in the hands of the Bishop and the ministers resident in Bryn Athyn.

31. On motion, the question of the Publication of the Liturgy was referred to the Joint Council.

     Thursday Evening.

32. A public session was held.

33. The meeting was opened with worship.

34. The Rev. E. S. Price delivered the Annual Address to the Council. His subject was: "THE EFFECT OF THE GLORIFICATION OF THE LORD'S HUMAN ON THIS EARTH UPON THE OTHER EARTHS IN THE UNIVERSE."

     Friday Morning, September 7th.

35. The meeting was opened with worship.

36. The Committee on A MEMORIAL RESPECTING THE REV. E. S. HYATT, Offered the following as its report:

     "Our brother, the Rev. Edward S. Hyatt, having passed into the spiritual world since our last meeting, the members of this Council desire to place on record some testification of their affection for their late fellow-member and of their high appreciation of his work in the uses of the priesthood.


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     "As a theologian Mr. Hyatt was distinguished by a conspicuous power of clear and logical thought, a power to which he united an attitude of humble and unswerving loyalty to the teachings of revelation. He was devoted to the systematic study of the doctrines, and though comparatively little of his work in this direction has appeared in print, yet the effects of his study and of his clear thought and incisive speech have been felt and appreciated by those who came more intimately in contact with him and have left their impress on more than one of the larger meetings of the Church.

     "But Mr. Hyatt's name will be principally associated with his enduring work in the Toronto Society, of which he was for so many years the faithful and beloved pastor. Called there some seventeen years ago when the Society was still connected with the General Convention, he showed from the beginning fearlessness in teaching the doctrines, patience in leading the people, and a quiet but persistent devotion to his work which nothing could discourage. This work soon bore its legitimate and rich fruit in the growth among the members of a more real acknowledgment of the Lord in His Second Coming and of a spirit of loyalty and devotion to the teachings of the Writings, and it was not long before the Society united itself to the General Church. The existence of this Society, the love and esteem in which its members hold their former pastor, and the promise which it gives of continued and increasing growth, are living witnesses to the devoted and successful labors of our brother in the cause of the New Church."

37. On motion, it was Resolved, that this memorial to the Rev. Edward S. Hyatt be adopted, and that the secretary be instructed to send a copy of the same to Mrs. Hyatt.

38. The subject of THE INTRODUCTION OF A MINISTER INTO THE THIRD DEGREE OF THE PRIESTHOOD was again brought up.

     It was urged that something be done to preserve orderly succession. Anxiety as to this is beginning to extend to the laity. We have a fully developed priesthood and order in it. We do not want to depart from that order, and we should not leave that undone which will protect us from having to depart from it in the future.

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To look outside of our body for the ordination of a man into the third degree, or to have such ordination performed by one of our body who is not in the third degree, would be a departure from our order. Why should we not come to a conclusion now and take the necessary action at this meeting?

     It was held by some that there should be some other necessity for this step than that of preserving succession. If this is the only reason that can be given, it would be better to wait, and trust in the Divine Providence. But if there is the idea that the man is to perform certain uses as a priest of the third degree, there is no reason why action should not be taken. At the time that Mr. Bostock was introduced into the third degree, it was understood that there were certain functions to be performed, and that the bishop could give him certain uses.

     The Bishop stated that the man could gradually be called to perform certain uses. There is work he could do. He himself would be glad to have such a man to call on. The people, however, inevitably come to look on him as the bishop's successor.

     Some thought that in order to guard against the man's being regarded as the successor, more than one man ought to be introduced into the third degree. The freedom of the Church would thus be more fully preserved. It was said in reply that it is a law of order that there should be more than one reason for doing a thing. It would not be well to introduce more than one man into the third degree if there is no other reason for so doing than to preserve the freedom of the Church. Nevertheless, that freedom will be preserved if only one man is introduced: for when the time for the choice of a successor comes, some other man than the one who is in the third degree can be chosen and ordained into the office.

     In reply to a question, the Bishop stated that the Council uniting on a minister whom it desires to have introduced into the third degree, would be an active advisory to the Bishop. In reply to another question, as to whether it would not be better to leave the whole matter in the Bishop's hands, he stated that he desires the co-operation of the Council in the matter.

39. On motion of Messrs. Gladish and Rosenquist, an informal written ballot was taken in order to ascertain whether the Council was prepared at this time to choose a man to recommend to the Bishop for ordination into the third degree of the priesthood, but no unanimous choice was reached.

40. On motion of Messrs. Price and Odhner, it was Resolved, that the matter be left to the Bishop and his Consistory.

41. The Docket was revised, and the following subjects were retained for the next annual meeting:


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     Society organization.

     What is spiritual substance?

     The reality of appearances in the spiritual world.

     The two kingdoms and the three heavens.

     Smoking in social meetings.

     How can the priesthood best perform the function of leading men to live according to the doctrine of the Church?

     What is the nature of "the good of spiritual life" in which a wicked man may be, referred to in Divine Providence, n. 227?

     By what method may the exactness of unrevealed correspondences be ascertained?

     Who constitute the members of the universal and who of the particular Church on this earth?

42. The Rev. C. Th. Odhner was chosen to deliver the Annual Address to the Council at the next meeting.

43. On motion, the meeting adjourned.

     Friday Evening.

     The Bryn Athyn Church held a Reception for its guests in the gymnasium.

JOINT SESSION WITH THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE.

     Saturday Morning, September 8th.

44. The meeting was opened with worship.

45. The members of the Executive Committee present were Mr. John Pitcairn, Mr. S. H. Hicks, Mr. Paul Synnestvedt, Mr. John Wells, Mr. S. S. Lindsay, Mr. Seymour Nelson, Mr. Jacob Schoenberger, Mr. Charles Doering, Mr. Rudolf Roschman, and Dr. George Cooper.

46. The minutes of the last meeting were read and approved.


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47. The Bishop made a verbal report.

     With the assistance of Mr. Synnestvedt, he has continued as pastor of the Bryn Athyn Church. He has also taught classes in the Theological School. But the principal work of the past year has been that on the new Liturgy. There is now fair prospect that, with continued work during the fall and winter, the work will soon be completed. Mr. George Blackman, of Chicago, has been hard at work on the musical part, with valuable assistance from Mr. Caldwell. The Bishop also was very much assisted by Mr. Caldwell. The chants are nearly all ready, and about one hundred hymns, including the sixty-five in print. The Bishop would be able to complete his part of the work before the end of the year. The question arises whether to print the hymnal in the same volume or separately. The weight of opinion is in favor of one book. To avoid delay, it may be advisable to print in the first edition only the one hundred hymns now ready, and add others in later editions. The hymns are excellent. If there are no unforeseen obstacles, the Liturgy will be ready for printing some time after the first of the year.

     Some of the members of the Councils said that, while they recognized the excellence of the music of the hymns, they had been somewhat disturbed by two features,--one, the changing of the music of the old masters, and the other, the changing of the harmony of well known hymns. In reply it was said that where changes have been made in the music of the old masters, it was necessary to do this in order that it might be used for liturgical purposes. It needed to be adapted. These changes were in most cases not made by Mr. Blackman, but by others before him, who have arranged the music for use as hymns. Where he has changed the harmony of well known hymns, it was done in order to improve it. In this he acted according to his best taste and judgment. In certain cases he has certainly made improvements, in some others he map not. Besides, it must be remembered that old hymns exist in many modified forms in various hymnals. Mr. Blackman may in some cases have departed from a form to which we have been accustomed, and chosen some other which he considers better.

48. The Secretary of the General Church read his report.


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     REPORT OF THE SECRETARY DF THE GENERAL CHURCH.

     As Secretary of the General Church I have to report that this organization at present numbers 804 members, showing a net increase of 53 members over the membership reported in June, 1905. Altogether, 74 persons have been received since the last report, while, on the other hand, 12 names have been dropped,* eight persons have passed into the spiritual world, and one, Miss Mary W. Cresap, has resigned her membership.
     * Owing to a careful revision of the lift of members.

     The following members have died since June, 1905:

     Miss Emma Dahlman, of Chicago, June 4th, 1905.

     Miss Leila Gilmore, of Chestnut Hill, Mass., September 4th, 1905.

     Mr. Anders Leonard Gyllenhaal, of Glenview, Ill., October 17th, 1905.

     Mrs. Ida M. Childs, of Yonkers, N. Y., October 4th, 1905.

     Mr. John Waelchli, of Allentown, Pa., October 9th, 1905.

     Rev. Edward S. Hyatt, of Toronto, Ont., March 21st, 1906.

     Mr. John K. Reuter, of Middleport, O., March 9th, 1906

     Mr. Henry Schroy, of Greenford, O., April 1st, 1906

     The following new members have been received since the last report:

In Bryn Athyn, Pa.
The Rev. and Mrs. William Hyde Alden.
Miss Priscilla Alden.
Miss Clara E. Covert.
Mr. Gerald Glenn.
Miss Gwladys Hicks.
Miss Cyriel Lj. Odhner.
Miss Constance Pendleton.
Mr. Raymond Pitcairn.
Miss Vera Pitcairn.

In Philadelphia, Pa.
Miss Gertrude Alden.
Miss Winifred Boericke.
Mr. George Green.
Mr. William F. Homiller.
Miss Marie Louise Hunt.
Mrs. Edward C. Iungerich.
Mr. Eldred E. Iungerich.
Miss L. Klenk.
Mr. and Mrs. Edgar Parker.
Mr. Ernest F. Parker.
Miss Elizabeth A. Simons.
Mr. Samuel Simons.

In Allentown, Pa.
Mr. Charles F. Theyken.

In Leechburg, Pa.
Miss Goldie Heilman.

In Erie, Pa.
Mrs. Mary I. MacDonald.

In Pittsburgh, Pa.
Mr. and Mrs. A. G. Campbell
Mr. Harvey Lechner.
Miss Eleonora Schoenberger.
Miss Stella Schoenberger.

In Brooklyn, N. Y.
Mrs. Laura E. Lindsay.

In Chicago, Ill
Mrs. Besse E. Colley.
Mrs. H. S. Leonard.
Miss Elsie Ryckoff.

In Glenview, Ill.
Mrs. Myrtle T. Barnitz
Mr. and Mrs. Louis S. Cole.
Miss Vivian King.
Mr. and Mrs. Oscar L. Scalbom.

In Rockford, Ill
Mr. Alfred Larsen.

In Kyger, O.
Mr. and Mrs. J. S. Boatman.

In Langsville. O.
Mrs. Mary Fogg.

In Atlanta, Ga.
Mrs. Sarah Frost.
Mr. Benjamin Kaufman.
Mr. J. A. Worrell.
Mr. and Mrs. Benj. Glenn Smith

In Cordele, Ga.
Mrs. A. J. Comer.

In Macon, Ga.
Miss Philola Pendleton.

In Baker City, Oregon.
Mrs. Minna Crandall Blake.

In Toronto, Ont.
Mr. Charles Bellinger.
Mr. Doering Bellinger.
Mr. Norman G. Bellinger.
Mr. C. Ray Brown.
Mr. G. Percy Brown.
Miss Flora Edina Carswell.
Mr. George Carter.
Mr. W. A. Carter.
Miss Annie C. Hill.
Mr. Theodore Rothaermel.
Miss Alice Schweitzer.
Miss Mary Schweitzer.

In Berlin, Ont.
Mr. and Mrs. Homer Bellinger.

In London, England.
Miss Ruby Hart.
Miss Mary Posthuma.
Mr. Robert Archibald Stebbing.
Mr. Edward J. Waters.
Miss May Waters.


In Colchester, England.
Mr. Frederick J. Cooper.

In Glasgow, Scotland.
Mrs. Annie Bowie.

     The Clergy of the General Church numbers at present 22 ministers and three authorized candidates. The Rev. William Hyde Alden, on September 4th, 1906, was recognized as a minister of the pastoral degree in the General Church. The Rev. Edward S. Hyatt, on March 21st, departed into the spiritual world. The Rev. George G. Starkey, on September 1st, resigned from the ministry, and the name of the Rev. Leonard G. Jordan, on September 5th, owing to long-continued failure to report, was dropped from the list of the Clergy of the General Church.
Respectfully submitted,
C. TH. ODHNER.
Bryn Athyn, September 6, 1906.


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49. The Secretary of the Council of the Clergy stated that the Council had referred three matters to this meeting: 1. The Publication of a Journal separate from New Church Life. 2. The time of the next meeting of the Councils. 3. The Publication of the Liturgy.

50. The Secretary of the Executive Committee stated that at a meeting of the Committee held September 7th, the matter of having a General Assembly in 1907 was considered, and it was decided to report to the meeting of the Joint Councils that the Executive Committee unanimously favored having a General Assembly in 1907.

51. On motion, the subject of THE PUBLICATION OF A JOURNAL separate from New Church Life was taken up for consideration.

     It was thought that it would not be well to discontinue the publication of the Journal in the Life, as it would not then be so widely read; but that it would be advisable to make up some separate copies from the same type in the form of a Journal. The expense for this would not be great. Such separate journals could be bound, and it would then be far easier to refer to them.

52 On motion, it was Resolved, that the matter be left to the Business Manager for decision.

53. On motion, THE PUBLICATION OF THE CALENDAR was considered.

     Mr. Gladish, who has prepared the Calendar for the last two or three years, said that with the end of this year the reading of The True Christian Religion will be completed, and a conclusion will need to be reached as to what work shall be taken up next. The Bishop had a plan two years ago for a perpetual calendar, and Mr. Gladish did some work on it, but found that it was too great an undertaking.

     It was the opinion of all the members of the Councils that the publication of the Calendar should be continued, so long as there are some who use it. There are those in the Church who would not read the Writings, if it were not for the Calendar. It is an ultimate basis for reading which is useful to many. Some of the members thought that an effort should be made to awaken renewed interest in the Calendar, so that more would use it.

767


There is a great use in all of the Church being daily as it were one congregation, reading the same lessons. Family worship would become more general, and this is important for the growth of conjugial love in the homes. The preservation of the conjugial much depends on it. Where it is observed there is more happiness in the house. It was suggested that notes on the Calendar lessons be published each month in the Life. This would stimulate reading.

     It was held by some that it is difficult to use the Calendar where there are small children in the family, as they do not understand much of what is read. Therefore, in many families the use of the Calendar has been discontinued, and easily understood portions of the Word and of the Writings have been read instead. It might be useful if a Calendar were prepared which is adapted to the younger children. To this it was replied that the chief object of the daily reading should be worship, not study. The use to the children is not so much that they receive instruction as that they be in the sphere of home worship. There can be other opportunities for instructing them, just as there should be other opportunities for adult study. It would be difficult to make a Calendar adapted to small children; and if this were done, those who are older would not receive what they should. Children gain more from worship than we imagine.

54. On motion, it was Resolved, that it is the sense of this meeting that the publication of the Calendar should be continued.

55. In continuation of the discussion, the work that should be taken up for reading was considered.

     Some favored beginning again with the Arcana; others thought it would be well to take up one of the Posthumous works, either the Apocalypse Explained or the Spiritual Diary. One member suggested that the Spiritual Diary be taken up, but that certain portions, which are not desirable for family reading where there are older children of both sexes, be omitted. To this it was objected that the Church would do wrong in prescribing the omission of the reading of any part of the Writings, but that it would have to be left to individual judgment whether all portions should be read or not.

56. On motion, it was Resolved, that the Bishop appoint a committee on the Calendar.

     Saturday Afternoon.

57. Mr. Odhner read some letters, which he had just received from Australia.


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58. The subject of THE NEXT GENERAL ASSEMBLY was considered.

     The Chairman of the Executive Committee stated that the Committee favored the holding of all Assembly next year for three reasons: First, because three years will have elapsed since the last Assembly; second, that it will be the decennial year of the General Church; and third, that ii is desirable that the organization of the Corporation be perfected.

59. On motion, it was Resolved, that it is the opinion of this Joint Council that a General Assembly should be held next year.

60. On motion, it was Resolved, that the fixing of the time for opening the Assembly be referred to the General Council.

61. THE TIME FOR THE HOLDING OF THESE ANNUAL MEETINGS was next considered. Most of the members favored returning to the former custom of holding the meetings in June. The next meeting will be held in June in connection with the Assembly, and it was thought best to leave to that meeting the decision as to the time for future meetings.

62. The question was asked whether, in view of the large attendance at the General Assemblies, the time had not come to limit the attendance by having the Assembly constituted of delegates. The meeting did not favor taking any such action at present.

63. The subject of THE PUBLICATION OF THE LITURGY was taken up for consideration.

     Mr. Doering stated that the Liturgy is copyrighted by the General Church, but that this body has no money to publish it. Can we raise the funds to do it, or shall the Academy Book Room be the publication house of the General Church in this case? If the latter is desired, there should be some definite action requesting the Book Room to do so. In either case subscriptions would need to be called for, as the Book Room does not have sufficient available funds.

     All were of the opinion that the work could best be done by the Book Room, as it is in the line of its use.

64. On motion, it was Resolved, that the question of the publication of the Liturgy be referred to the Manager of the Book Room.


769



65. The committee on the disposal of such property of the Allentown Society as is not in use, reported progress.

66. On motion, the meeting adjourned.

     Saturday Evening.

67. A public session was held.

68. The meeting was opened with worship.

69. The Rev. Richard de Charms read a paper on "SPIRITUAL WATCHFULNESS."

     Sunday Morning, September 9th.

     The Councils worshiped with the Bryn Athyn Church. The Rev. F. E. Waelchli preached the annual sermon on the subject "Love to the Lord in the Performance of Uses in the Church." (John xxi. 15-17)

     Sunday Evening.

70. The Rev. J. E. Bowers read several chapters from a book he has under preparation on "THE GREAT IMPOSTURE" (CHRISTIAN SCIENCE). F. E. WAELCHLI, Secretary of the Council of the Clergy.

     DISCUSSION ON CHRISTIAN SCIENCE.

     In the discussion which followed the reading of Mr. Bowers' paper, Mr. Odhner spoke of the fact that Christian Science had drawn away a great many persons from the New Church, and he therefore rejoiced in the thorough and timely exposure presented in Mr. Bowers' paper. The ancient magicians performed their arts by means of correspondences perverted, and so also Christian Science had a certain magical power by means of truths stolen from the Writings of the New Church and perverted.

770


The fact was brought out in the New Church Review a few years ago that Mrs. Eddy some forty years ago went to Mr. Reed, of Boston, and had regular instruction from him in the Doctrines of the New Church. She thus got hold of certain truths, but immediately perverted them, and developed a pseudo philosophy, the basis of which was that as evil is nothing compared with good, then evil being a negative quantity is nothing, and if evil is nothing so also is all disease and suffering; being nothing you have only to establish that fact and teach the truth about it and the truth shall make you free. They also use the language of our Writings, talk about the Divine Love and Wisdom, the spiritual sense of the Word, etc. He called attention also to the publications of the late Dr. Holcombe upon the influence of thought in the production and cure of disease. He regarded these things as a recrudescence of the magical hells of the Ancient Church. There had been a similar movement in the early Christian Church, among the Montanists of the third century, and since that time there had been periodical outbreaks of this same hell. It is the dragon of faith alone that reigns supreme in this "Christian" Science, for if faith alone can cure the soul then faith alone can also cure the body. He believed that the spirits who wished to destroy the souls of men promoted the physical cures of Christian Science. They caused the disease, and it was in heir power to withdraw, and thus cause an apparent cure, in order to confirm the man in the belief that faith alone could cure the soul as it could cure the body. And thus the man in the other life would be the more completely in the hands of these devils. He believed that there was a crying necessity for such a publication as Mr. Bowers was preparing.

     Mr. Edward Bostock thought there must be something more than the simple appearance of truth in some of the Christian Science arguments. He believed that cures were effected by others than Christian Scientists in two Rays, one by what they claim to be and call personal magnetism. He had known of cures or apparent cures by that method. Another method was one in which passages from the letter of the Word were used to cure certain troubles, and that had been done not only with human beings but also with animals. In trying to think how such cures could be performed it had occurred to him that there might be some influence from the higher atmospheres through the lower, or through the atmosphere in which the mind is, into the blood, for the seat of the disease is usually in the blood.

     Mr. Price spoke of the belief in minor magic, which is among the common beliefs all over the world. The Pennsylvania Germans were full of it. They called it "pow-wowing." This did not begin with Mrs. Eddy but had existed ever since the Germans were in this country. They are all forms of the same thing, and it is only by the opening of intelligence on the external plane by modern enlightenment that belief in all kinds of magic for the curing of diseases had been dispelled in the community at large.

771


It seemed to him as if Mrs. Eddy's method was a recrudescence of the Middle Age superstitions with a lot of pseudo-science thrown around it as bait to the would-be intelligent. He thought that the "Uncle Hobart wart-cure" was just as good as Mrs. Eddy's

     It seemed to Mr. Synnestvedt that in outward appearances the Christian Scientist had a pretty good argument. To the sensual man the welfare of the sensual man is the chief end of existence. The more sensual a man was the more he was convinced that there was no use in dealing with religion or anything else if it did not promote that plane of existence. The worship of self, the doctrine of faith alone, comes down into that lower plane, and when he reads in the Word the passage where it says that if you have faith, this should be the sign, that if they laid hands on one sick he should get well, and that if they should eat of deadly things they should not hurt them, it is quite according to appearance. People thinking spiritually about this would see it differently, but people, as a rule, do not think spiritually about the Word. Some time ago he came across a number in the Writings which said that such was the power of phantasy that a person's state in this world was different according to his thought about it: that suffering and pain and the state of happiness were as men thought they were. The man is as well off or as badly off as he thinks he is. And if one thinks a thing is so it might as well be so as far as he is concerned. But there was an idea there on the interior plane that was of immense importance. It was, practically, that in cultivating a state of contentment and trust in the Divine Providence, and in trying to reach a state of balance and courage for fighting the battles of this world and to throw off the phantasies that weary us and keep us down, it must be recognized that it is phantasy from concupiscence that is doing most of the damage; that a man can not be hurt as to the good and truth in him. Concupiscences and phantasies are the things that make him vulnerable and disturb his peace, and by which men are punished in this world and in the other.

     Mr. Breen, of New York, related the instructions which are given to the would-be healer in Christian Science. The student was first supposed to study Science and Health, and when he was fully befuddled, the first thing laid down was the utter absence of matter. The method of healing a disease was this: Every disease was the outcome of some special thought, and to cure that disease all that was necessary was to introduce some kindly thought. Any repression of the fluids of the body come from what was called a constrictive thought; if you can get a better thought into your mind you are cured of that disease. Then the healer is told that all diseases lie within the scope and power of Christian Science; if the disease does not yield to treatment it is the fault of the healer, not of Christian Science. They taught that Christ was nothing but a perfect healer, that all our work was in copying Him, and when the excellence of Christ was reached, it would not make any difference whether it was a missing leg or arm, or anything else; it would all be restored by this kind of practice. It took about two courses to really comprehend it, at fifty dollars a course.


772




     Mr. Acton told of the story reported in the Boston papers on the occasion of the recent dedication of the new Christian Science temple there. The conveyance which was taking a party of Christian Science "minds" to where the affair was to take place, broke down, and the "minds" were dumped and several bones broken. They were taken to a worldly hospital and the bones were set and the "minds" bound down to board splints just as if they were ordinary bodies. He believed the cause of the success of Christian Science to be not so much belief in what the Lord said, as human selfishness. The Lord said many things which do not apply literally, for instance, that a man robbed of his coat should give his cloak also. Men take the statements respecting healing literally, not because they are in the New Testament, but because they appeal to their selfishness. To such this seems like Christianity coming down to the very flesh. He had read a comment on Mrs. Eddy's book in the London Times, showing how inconsistent the book was with itself. The parts of the book did not hang together. Sometimes a sentence could be understood, but you would not be able to understand why it appeared in that place; sometimes the sentence itself would be incomprehensible. It seemed a wonder that the book ever should have been written, or read after it was written. The claim that one can cure disease is powerfully attractive. People say, "There is a religion that is practical." He had read of some very remarkable cures by Christian Science, and the question arose, "How were these cures effected?" Of course, we could say they were effected by spirits, by magic, but this leaves the mind in some wonder as to how they are effected, in speaking of the miracles of Paris, Swedenborg states that the cures were effected by spirits entering into the memory of men, and the thought had occurred to him as to whether there was not something of the same operation in the cures of Christian Science, namely, that the healer produced such a mental state in the mind of the patient as to render him open to the influence of spirits, who flowed into his memory and produced some hallucination there. The indications are in the case of Christian Science as in the case of spiritualism that there is in the growing materialism of our time a vast flood of spirits who are merely material, who lust to enter again into the world, and spiritualism is one means by which they enter into man and influence him with their own materialism. For a proper study of this subject there would he required a considerable knowledge of the cures effected by the "Scientists," and also an understanding of how miracles were effected by the Lord and by the disciples.

     Mr. Charles R. Pendleton pointed out the disorderliness of Christian Science, in that it started at the wrong end. It started in the interiors of man and tried to reduce them to some sort of order, but did not at the same time attend to the exteriors.

773


This was not orderly as was to be learned from the teaching in the Divine Providence, in regard to the removal of evils. The Lord acts from inmosts and by ultimates at the same time, and this same order should prevail in the curing of the body.

     Mr. Waelchli believed that we ought to come very slowly to a conclusion that the cures of Christian Science are due to magic. There might be something of magic in it, but he did not think it likely. He believed it more likely that the cures were effected in such cases as might be called hysterical, and he believed this to be true not only of the Christian Science cures, but of the Dowie cures, the Faith cures, and the powwowing cures that Mr. Price had spoken of. He had formerly believed in the "magic" explanation, and had worked out a theory of it, but later investigation had convinced him that the explanation had very little value.

     Mr. Acton agreed in general with Mr. Waelchli, but thought that we ought to know much more about the facts of the case. He thought that many of the cures effected were like those of quack medicines, but there seemed to be some of another kind, and he could see the possibility of healers going about introducing these terrible persuasions in the minds of the people.

     Mr. Fred. Gyllenhaal related how a lady, a member of the General Church, had been bed-ridden for a long time and had been persuaded to listen to the Christian Scientists. She had been told by them that she was well and could get up and walk if she would. She tried it, got out of bed, walked a few steps and fell in a dead faint. She was sick for a long time afterwards and said she would never try it again.

     Mr. Waelchli recommended the reading of Mark Twain's articles on Christian Science which appeared some time ago in the North American Review.

     Mr. Odhner cautioned against the thought that all the cures of Christian Science were fraudulent. There was a great deal of fraud, as in the case of spiritualism, but there was a certain percentage of cures which were real, and it was those which we had to deal with. The tendency to laugh it down would not explain the persuasive power there was in it.

     Mr. Bowers stated that he had very fully dealt with the question of magic in other parts of his book, and had brought out the doctrine concerning magic and magicians. His conclusions from these were different from those of Mr. Waelchli. He believed that there was a great deal of fraud, but from the Writings we know that there was a great deal of magic. He believed that magic was an element in these cures, although of course, we know also that there was in it a great deal that was imaginary. It was stated in the Writings that many who come into the spiritual world become magicians and practice magical arts, and when they can find media, they delight to bring that art down into the things of the natural world.


774




DIRECTORY OF THE CLERGY
OF THE
GENERAL CHURCH OF THE NEW JERUSALEM.
1906.

Bishop.

The Rt. Rev. WILLIAM FREDERICK PENDLETON, Bryn Athyn, Pa.

Consistory.
The Rev. CARL THEOPHILUS ODHNER, Bryn Athyn, Pa.
The Rev. N. DANDRIDGE PENDLETON, 5920 Elwood St., Pittsburgh, Pa.
The Rev. HOMER SYNNESTVEDT, Bryn Athyn, Pa.
The Rev. ALFRED ACTON, Bryn Athyn, Pa.

Other Pastors.
The Rev. JOHN E. BOWERS, 37 Lowther Ave., Toronto, Ont., Canada.
The Rev. RICHARD DE CHARMS, Bryn Athyn, Pa.
The Rev. ANDREW CZERNY, 99 Holland Road, Brixton, London, England.
The Rev. WILLIAM HYDE ALDEN, Bryn Athyn, Pa.
The Rev. ENOCH S. PRICE, Bryn Athyn, Pa.
The Rev. FRED. E. WAELCHLI, Berlin, Ont., Canada.
The Rev. JOSEPH E. ROSENQVIST, Bryn Athyn, Pa.
The Rev. WILLIS L. GLADISH, Miiddleport, O.
The Rev. CHARLES E. DOERING, Bryn Athyn. Pa.
The Rev. RICHARD H. KEEP, 65 Forest Ave., Atlanta, Ga.
The Rev. DAVID H. KLEIN, Glenview, Ill.
The Rev. EMIL R. CRONLUND, 59 Huxley St., Toronto, Ont., Canada.


775



The Rev. WALTER E. BRICKMAN, Berlin. Ont., Canada.
The Rev. WILLIAM B. CALDWELL, 1662 Fulton St., Chicago, Ill.

Ministers.
The Rev. JOSEPH E. BOYESEN, Uplandsgatan 79, Stockholm, Sweden.
The Rev. ERNEST J. STEBBING, Berlin, Ont., Canada.
The Rev. REGINALD W. BROWN, Bryn Athyn, Pa.

Candidates.
Mr. ALFRED H. STROH, Odensgaten 54, B. iv, Stockholm, Sweden.
Mr. CHARLES R. PENDLETON, Bryn Athyn, Pa.
Mr. FREDERICK E. GYLLENHAAL, Bryn Athyn, Pa.


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STATISTICS OF THE GENERAL CHURCH OF THE NEW JERUSALEM.
Local               Members          Members of          Members of          Average
Churches &          of Local Church.     General Church     Congregation,          Attend. At
Circles.                         Not Members      Not Yet          Public
of Local Church.     Members of          Worship.
the General
Church.

Bryn Athyn, Pa.,          93               18               3          141
Philadelphia, Pa.,          48               9               8          41
Allentown, Pa.,          10                              1          16
New York City,          17                              3          10
Pittsburgh, Pa.,          106               3               32          61
Erie, Pa.,               12                              10          25
Baltimore, Md.,          18                                        14
Atlanta, Ga.,               12                              5          7
Middleport, O.,          48                              2          30
Glenview. Ill.,               49                              4          52
Chicago, Ill.,               43               7               12          33
Deliver, Col.,               10
Berlin, Ont.,               61               4               21          82
Toronto, Ont.,          62                              1          33
Colchester, Eng.          17               2               4          49
London, Eng.,               20               2               13          46
Isolated.               178

Total                     804               45               119          660

Aver.               Aver.               YP &          Births.          Bapt.
Attend. At          Attend. At          Child in               of
Communion.          Doc. Class.          Local                    Child.
Church.

Bryn Athyn, Pa.,               97          97               118          5          5
Philadelphia, Pa.,               36          18               26          2          1
Allentown, Pa.,               9                         7
New York City,               8          9               8          2          2
Pittsburgh, Pa.,               50          25               91          4          6
Erie, Pa.,                    18          8               16
Baltimore, Md.,               10          7               23
Atlanta, Ga.,                    7          7               2                    1
Middleport, O.,               18          16               31          1          2
Glenview. Ill.,                    44          41               48          3
Chicago, Ill.,                    27          23               31
Deliver, Col.,
Berlin, Ont.,                    50          47               84          2          6
Toronto, Ont.,               34          27               31          1          2
Colchester, Eng.               29          17               28
London, Eng.,                    21          15               35
Isolated.                    178                                             5

Total                          458          357               579          20          30

Baptisms of      Confirmations          Marriages.     Deaths.     Teachers      Pupils
                    Adults.     or Confessions                         in Day          in Day
of Faith.                              School.     School

Bryn Athyn, Pa.,                    5          1                    4          59
Philadelphia, Pa.,     3     
Allentown, Pa.,     1                         1
New York City,
Pittsburgh, Pa.,     2               4          2          1          2          11
Erie, Pa.,
Baltimore, Md.,
Atlanta, Ga.,          1
Middleport, O.,     2                         1          2
Glenview. Ill.,                                             1          4          28
Chicago, Ill.,                                             1
Deliver, Col.,
Berlin, Ont.,                                                       2          30
Toronto, Ont.,     3                         2          2          2          10
Colchester, Eng.                              1
London, Eng.,          3                         1          1          2          11
Isolated.          1                         1

Total                16               9          10          8          16          149



Teachers          Pupils in
In Sunday          Sunday
School.          School.

Bryn Athyn, Pa.,
Philadelphia, Pa.     1               9
Allentown, Pa.,
New York City,
Pittsburgh, Pa..     3               29
Erie, Pa.,
Baltimore, Md.,
Atlanta, Ga.,          4               26
Middleport, O.,
Glenview. Ill.,          3               14
Chicago, Ill.,
Deliver, Col.,
Berlin, Ont.,
Toronto, Ont.,     
Colchester, Eng.     2               28
London, Eng.,
Isolated,

Total,               13               106