study of the general interests and relations of the universal corporate Church, from its attitude towards the highest teachings of science as to the primal life, to the principles which enter inmostly into its very being as the Church of God? ”

If it is competent for men so to say and so to do, our whole point is made good; and it is evident that there is a tangible, real, and true sense in which the Church may be held to "be," and to be capable of concrete action, between the universal and individual extremes. If it is not competent, why is it not? May not men employ joint or collective action for the uses of the Church? If any two may agree together, why not any dozen, or any number unlimited? The objection, then, is not to the numbers, or to the joint action. Cannot men perform uses in joint action? This also cannot be denied. Now, is it true everywhere but in the Church that joint action may issue in uses? Why may not collective Church uses be discharged? Answer The uses of the Church can only be performed in a life of religion. Profound discovery!—therefore-the more restricted you can make your "life of religion" the better! How inclusive or how exclusive this Church life or life of religion shall be—is that not the whole matter? "The life of religion is to do good;" truly, but in what amount, how, and in what directions, degrees, and spheres? The fewer the better? Is there no good, for example, to be done by a conference for united action? Is there no good to be done by discovering the whereabouts of science that we may thus lead those who lead others? Add this then to the other saying-To do good universally is the life of religion completed. In effect, Church "life," i.e., the feeling, thought, and action of the collective Church, is as wide as the object upon which it has to act; as wide, that is, as human nature in all its degrees of faculty, and in every sphere of its operation.

We may here leave the question of "the Church," and turn to the special objections to the cultivation of natural science. The way appears to be rationally and righteously open for the united action of the Church in any country (or in all countries together for that matter); why may not its action take the direction of providing the means for the study of science? The assumption that science must be studied as 66 mere science," and for its own sake, is somewhat too glaring, on the back of the universal admission that without scientifics progress, natural or spiritual, is impossible. One would have thought that if science be "from the Lord" (as we are told it is), and

"necessary" to regeneration as well as to civilization, its study could have been compassed for the Lord's sake, and in order to the spiritual life. "Hold! Science is not necessary' to these ends; natural scientifics are.” So, those who must have the distinction, may; but they shall take its consequences with it. If this distinction means anything, it means that the facts of science are necessary to progress, but that the study of science is not necessary; that is to say,—that dis-organized knowledge is a mean of good, but that or-ganized knowledge is wholly evil! It is a good, and may be an eternal blessing, to pick up a thing haphazard, "promiscuous-like," and with all the instinct and profound insight of our natural faculties into the facts of nature, but to try to understand the thing from any study of it, to get at its meaning, place, worth, use, is so purely scientific a proceeding that one can only flee with outstretched hands, like Joseph, from the terrible temptation, and the ruin it would entail. Certainly this is not promising for the spread of science in the Church, nor for the intelligence of the Church itself, one thinks. Yes, but it's true nevertheless; for knowledge tacitly received need not imply self-love, as the study of science or cultivation of organized knowledge must; for in that case it is sought as an end whose promptings and effects are the self-loves of fame, honour, and display." Practically rendered, that is to say, that no man could learn Hebrew or Greek for the sake of understanding the Word, because his very prompting to study them shows him to be "a vain man" already, and its inevitable effects will be before long to make him an entire fool in the vanity of his glorying self-love. But seeing that Hebrew and Greek come to Englishmen by nature, they cannot be among the studies condemned, nor, by the same rule, is Language a science at all. It can only be such products and prompters of self-love as Astronomy, Chemistry, Physics, and the rest, that the Church is bound by her pure character not to touch on pain of the most direful devastations. We have no wish to jest; but if this is not what is meant by such talk, what is meant? Are these things not sciences; and is not the Church counselled to have nothing to do with sciences? It is all very well to escape in the vague use of vague words, but, beaten to precision, science means these or nothing. Now, these are not to be studied, because they are the results, and will be the causes, of every evil love! Let the Church lay that to heart; but if she asks for proof, she must not expect to get it.

Yea, there is one thing yet to be urged anent science and scientifics alike, they are not to be studied because they are to be "destroyed."

I

This is a portentous argument, no doubt, but then, fortunately or unfortunately, it applies equally well to my old shoes, they must some day be "destroyed," it is surely to be inferred; but I use them and get the good out of them meanwhile; and, moreover, it is some consolation to think that, as regards them at least, that good lasts when themselves "have had their day and ceased to be." Are science and scientifics unworthy to have this thought extended to them also? One wonders when there was a true use that did not last, spite of this "destruction" theory, in the ultimate end sought by it. But with this "destruction" before me, turn as I will, what can I do? To be sure it is morally wrong to discipline at all my material body, or cultivate my natural mind, seeing that these are only the destructible containing-vessels of spiritual things; and it is no slight moral delinquency in a builder to erect and strengthen and perfect his scaffolding whereby to build his house, seeing that that and all such things are to be "dissolved," or for a potter to make his cups and platters of any but the most enchantingly ugly and detestable material and pattern. For, in solemn truth, will they not all be destroyed? "But this is trifling; there is the difference of a gulf between the two things; shoes and scaffoldings and cups do not incite to the evils of self-love as do scientifics:" which is equivalent to the wise dictum that scientifics do not incite to the evils of self-love as do scientifics! But, in point of fact, it is not a question of the inherent evils of scientifics themselves leading to their destruction, but of the spring and motive from which they are studied, a something quite apart from the thing studied, and not arising from it. Shoes may be made and worn, scaffoldings built, vases cast, or the Bible read, or physiology studied, with an equal motive of evil or of good. But perhaps we are not to study anything for fear of this demon self-love? Truly so, since one wonders what the term "scientifics" will not cover. Pity 'tis we should have come to this world at all where these perilous scientifics so abound.

But what has all this to do with the Church? There creeps up the hydra again! One more stroke. True it is that the Church hasn't a material body, nor wears shoes, nor makes scaffoldings; but it is worth while noting that the Church uses their naturalistic equivalents when she endeavours to manifest to the world by the instruments of natural knowledge the good and truth that may be in her; that the more perfect these instruments the more efficiently she can work with and through them in and upon the world, and the special age in which the Lord has placed her; and therefore is the conclusion unjust? the blacker the Church's guilt and the more direful her devastations, when she carefully cultivates, in the spirit of the Lord, and for the spread of His truth, the instruments of natural knowledge

given to her hand by His good Providence! Will any reasonable man shew cause why this conclusion should not be drawn from the denial of science, of colleges, and of collective agencies for the New Church?

But truly, if science and scientifics are to be totally and irrevocably destroyed when we pass from this world, it may give the timid pause before they dare them, and may be made the ground-work of a seeming answer to our appeal on behalf of worldly learning. The fallacy, therefore, of this destruction-idea should be seen. If it were really so that these containing vessels, scientifics, were destroyed, what would become of the things contained? Is this pushing a metaphor too far? I deny the metaphor: it is fact. Surely, every fifth page of the A. C. might be quoted from, to prove that it is the scientific not made spiritual that is destroyed, that is, scientifics which are mere scientifics. But how does this alter the complexion of the matter! Scientifics, therefore, need not be destroyed if they "become spiritual." "In proportion as scientifics are acquired with a view to use, whether for the sake of human society, or the Lord's Church on earth, or his kingdom in heaven, and more especially for the Lord's sake, they are more open towards the Lord, and become spiritual" (1472). Yet, it is said, that the New Church knows no science but the science of knowledges from the Word! And as if expressly to shut out this and the scientific-destruction idea, what follows that quotation? "Wherefore also the angels, who are principled in the science of all knowledges, and that in such a manner that scarce a thousandth part can be unfolded to man's apprehension, yet esteem knowledges as nothing in comparison of use. To which we say, "Amen; even so lead us.'

But whatever the Church should know of science, she should know something of universal principles, and of their capacity for universal application that nothing, from the highest heaven, through earth, to the lowest hell, can be exempt from their control; hence that the Church which possesses them for their use is bound, in allegiance to the God of truth, consciously to exclude nothing, moral, civil, or natural, from a direct relation to herself, who holds them; that one immediate inference from such universal solidarity is, that the Church is to esteem that alone disconnected from her, which, from will, chooses to reject relationship with the universal truth she holds; that, therefore, science, natural science, the proved knowledges and truths of nature, are heirs born of the kingdom, to be deprived of their birthright at the peril of that collective Church so turning them adrift. We have looked at this objection to science fairly. It stood in the way of our enforcement of the wider truth of the coming union between science and the Church. We here and now, after due inves

tigation, push it on one side as worthless; as, in sooth, a contradiction in terms, crass and cloudy. The possibility of that union, on the ground of the new attitude towards higher truth assumed by science, has next to be considered, as the essential feature of the great change passing over human thought. THOMAS CHILD.

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ONE BY ONE. Song. The words by the Rev. JOHN HYDE; the music by J. C. BAYLEY. London: J. B. Cramer & Co.

Mr. BAYLEY has set Mr. Hyde's pathetic verses to equally pathetic and beautiful music. The melody of the song is both original and graceful— and the accompaniment is scholarly and clever; there is also an obligato accompaniment for the harmonium, which adds considerably to the effect of one or two of the verses.

We believe the composer wishes the song to be accepted as a testimonial of his regard to the public and private character of the author, and we have much pleasure in expressing the opinion that it is not unworthy to be so considered.

TRACT SERMONS. It was a happy idea of the late Mr. Adam Haworth, a few years before his death, to reduce a number of his sermons to about half their original length, and publish them as Tracts. His aim as a preacher was to be simple and practical, and he carried it out successfully. We have seen a packet of these short sermons, printed in a neat form, and hope our friends will read them and help to give them a wide circulation. As they are paged consecutively, they are also bound in a volume, and would make an instructive book.

ANOTHER SUNDAY-SCHOOL ADDRESS, by Samuel Teed (Speirs), showing "What our Thoughts are like," contains much interesting and useful information on the character and symbolism of birds, and is a nice little book for children.

MAN A SPIRITUAL BEING. A Discourse delivered in Cavendish Rooms, London. By GEORGE SEXTON, Ph.D., LL.D. (Sexton, London). THIS Discourse is intended to counteract the materialistic philosophy, as taught or supported by some of the most eminent teachers of science at the present day. The subject is well treated. We give an extract

"The difficulties which most persons experience with regard to their conceptions of the spiritual, is that it must be something destitute alike of form, shape, and of everything by which it can be cognized. Matter they suppose to be real, tangible, and substantial, while spirit they imagine to be a vague indefinite something, lacking every conceivable attribute by which it can be perceived and known. Nothing can be more erroneous than this view. I have said that the spiritual man is the real man, and such it will be seen to be, when the material frame has been thrown off. The senseless discussions of the schoolmen, as to how many angels could stand on the point of a needle, and whether a spirit could pass from one spot to another without going over the intermediate space, were not much more absurd than the notions entertained by some modern philosophers on the nature of the soul, and the disputes which take place nowa-days as to the part of the body in which it is located. The general idea seems to be that the spirit is a sort of shapeless force, which passing away from the body, retains none of the characteristics of a man, save its consciousness and mental faculties; whereas the truth is, that it was from the spirit that the body took its shape, which shape is, of course, still retained when its material covering has passed away. spiritual body, then, is a real body, and the spiritual man a real man, retaining all the characteristics by which he was known when clothed with the material garb. Throughout the Scriptures, whenever spiritual beings are spoken of as visiting the earth, they are always described as men, and so real were they, that very frequently they were mistaken for human beings still in the flesh. This accords both with reason and our experience. Spiritual men are men in bodies formed of spiritual substance, with organs in every respect of the same character that they had while in the material condition. Man is, even whilst here, literally a spirit, but clothed in a material garb, which at death he throws off, without, however, affecting in any way his form, his organs, or his general appearance. There is a natural body and there is a spiritual body, and when the former is thrown off, the latter stands forth in all its own peculiar loveliness and beauty."

The

Our readers, who cannot but be pleased, will not be surprised, when they learn that Swedenborg is named and quoted in another part of the Lecture.