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Thompson, Esq., M.D., of Burton-onTrent, for whose kindness our warmest thanks are due. We are pleased to acknowledge a subscription from the New Church Society, Snodland (per Rev. J. B. Kennerley), of £1. 10s.; from the New Church Society, Birmingham (ladies' contribution), £1. 10s. Total amount received in cash, £18.

The above sum has been expended as follows:

In purchase of calico, flannel, and linsey

Ditto of hose

Ditto of various articles of

clothing

Expended in repairing shoes,

&c.

£. s. d.

2 12

5 100
0

3 10 0

231

Families assisted with money 3
Balance on hand....

To the Editor.

8 0

0 0
0 O

£18 0 0

E. HOLT, Treasurer.

BLACKBURN.

Dear Sir, I beg to acknowledge the following amounts, in aid of our distressed members, which have been received up to the 14th February:

£. s.

Amount previously announced 50 17
The Operatives in Messrs.

d.

O

O

Hodson's employ (3rd don.) 0 10 Per the ex-Mayor of Blackburn 1 00 Ladies of Birmingham Society,

per Mr. Whitehead (2nd and
3rd donations)

Mr. W. E. Rowed, Hounslow,
London

Snodland Society, per Mr.
Townsend Hook

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The donation from the London Committee has been used in redeeming clothing from pawn, &c., in compliance with their instructions.

For the liberal aid received thus far I have to return the warmest thanks of our Committee; and as our funds are now nearly exhausted, we anticipate a continuance of practical sympathy from distant and more fortunate friends, who are not so much affected with this unparalled cotton crisis. It it is true that labour is more plentiful now than it was when we first made our appeal, but in many cases the remuneration received is very little, and our Committee find it necessary to supplement the earnings of those in employment who cannot obtain sufficient for their maintenance. Notwithstanding these facts, there are at present more than 3,000 operatives again under notice, in addition to upwards of 12,000 who have long been unemployed; and there is a general fear that many others in employ will have again soon to share a similar fate.

Thanking you for the kind publicity 6 4 you have given us, I am, Sir, yours very gratefully,

1 0 0

1 2 4

57 15

8

THOS. PEMBERTON, Treasurer,
Darwen-street, Blackburn.

RAMSBOTTOM.

I beg to acknowledge the following sums of money, as well as clothing, which we have received from our kind 10 18 10 friends of the New Church in Manchester, London, and Birmingham :

£68 14 61

£. s. d.

694

and Educational Classes.. 12 2 8 Carriage, Stationery, Postage, &c.

Distributed to 34 families, in food

....

0 16 7

38 14 10

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MISCELLANEOUS.

We have also received a parcel of excellent clothing from the Peter-street Relief Committee, which has been distributed as directed by Mr. Broadfield on his kind visit of inquiry. A parcel of clothing from the London Relief Committee, with the money, has been distributed amongst 133 members, seatholders, and scholars, as stated in the list sent to the London Relief Committee. The money sent by our kind female friends of Birmingham has been reserved for sick purposes, which we very much fear will be soon required, as fever has made its appearance in our neighbourhood. For all of which, on behalf of our society, and particularly of our distressed friends, I beg to return sincere thanks.

As for the future, the prospect is a very gloomy one; for although some of those relieved have been working more time for these few weeks, the material to be worked is so bad that they cannot obtain half their former wages by working full time. This, with the uncertainty of the cotton market, renders our situation every day worse; add to this the fact, that some of the largest concerns in our neighbourhood have, after working short time for above twelve months, been closed altogether for now seven months, with no prospect of commencing work again for months to come; and another large factory, at which many of our friends and their families work, after short time for two years, are now threatening to stop altogether, unless a great reduction in the raw material takes place.

I could relate to you many instances of individual loss and suffering sustained by our poor friends and members; for instance, a man with a large family, who has been a hard-working man, having saved a little money, he with his whole family, after working short time for above twelve months, is out of work now eight months, together with the greater portion of his family. Having money, he could not (if he wished it) have relief from the Local Relief Committee; that man has expended nearly £70. of his savings, with no other prospect before him than of spending his little all; and then nothing but the Relief Committee or parochial relief for him, unless there be an improvement in trade, which at the present time is very uncertain. Many more might be cited. But let

143

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Dear Sir,-Please to allow me space in the Repository to render the following account of subscriptions, raised in Birmingham, in aid of New Church families in Lancashire. I beg also to state that parcels of clothing, for the same object, have been kindly contributed by Mrs. Wilkinson, Mrs. Bragg, and Mrs. Best; Mr. Newby, tailor, has also presented four suits of clothes, and Mr. Simkiss, boot and shoe maker, forty pairs of boots and shoes, all of which have been most gratefully received by the friends at Blackburn and Heywood, amongst whom they have been distributed.-I am, dear Sir, yours truly, J. WHITEHEAD, Treasurer of the Fund.

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144

Bragg Mr. Joseph..... Hastings Mr., Oporto

Ditto

MISCELLANEOUS.

Donations.

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On the 22nd of January, at the New Jerusalem Church, Bedford-street North, Liverpool, by the Rev. C. G. Macpherson, Mr. John Roberts to Miss Elizabeth Ormes, both of Chester.

Obituary.

At Kersley, on the 28th of October last, aged 23 years, Thomas Partington. The deceased was educated in the Kersley Sunday-school almost from infancy, and grew up in its uses. From his childhood he manifested a decided preference for the church, which, in after years, ripened into an intelligent appreciation of its doctrines, and respect for its interests. There were few of its uses on which he had not entered; and as a teacher in the Sunday-school, of which he was the secretary at the time of his removal-an office he filled with efficiency-as a member of the Mutual Improvement class, and of the choir, he acquitted himself with credit and with advantage to the church. His loss will consequently be felt proportionably great. He was never robust, and, it is to be feared, had over-taxed his energies. He was attacked with typhoid, and although he received every attention, and seemed at one time to give hopes of recovery, his frame was too much exhausted to contend successfully against the inroads

of the disease; and he ultimately sank under it. Removed at so early an age, his character had not had time to ripen; baving nevertheless been characterized by great filial affection and obedience from his childhood, by attention to his duties in youth, and industry and perverance, he gave promise, had he lived, of becoming a useful member to the church. Providence, however, ordained it otherwise. What makes his removal the more painful, he had been married but a few months, and has left a young widow to mourn his loss. There is, however, the most confident ground of hope that the bereavement of his earthly friends has been his eternal gain. W.

At Prestolee, aged 65, Jane, the wife of James Shaw. The deceased was one of those who are distinguished rather for simplicity of character than what usually passes current for intelligence, although true simplicity is the highest wisdom. Though she had not had the advantages of education, she worthily filled the position of wife and mother; and, what is too often neglected by many whose pretensions are greater, she made herself conversant with the doctrines of the New Church, to a degree which shows how easily these are understood, where there is singleness of heart and a sincere desire to put them to practice. Her removal was caused by a heart disease which ultimately brought on dropsy; but though her sufferings were great, the patience with which she bore them, and her thankfulness to and dependence on her Heavenly Father, showed that her religion was one of life and experience.

W.

P.S. This notice has been delayed through an oversight.

On December 8th, 1862, Mrs. Eliza Clarke, aged 48, the beloved wife of Mr. Wm. Clarke, Forest Grove, Nottingham. She was the most active female member of the Shakspere-street Church, and was regarded by all as the mother of the society. She was a kind, obliging, cheerful friend, and a most attentive and affectionate mother and wife,

"A form of heavenly light and love,
Prepared to live in Heaven above."

CAVE & SEVER, Printers by Steam Power, Hunt's Bank, Manchester.

B.

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"And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living. And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want. And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him."— LUXE XV. 13-16.

FROM the circumstance mentioned at the commencement of this exquisite parable, that the father of the two sons, at the request of the younger, divided unto them his living, I endeavoured to shew, in the last discourse, how the Divine Mercy of the Lord provides for His rational offspring everything that is requisite to their attainment of all the perfection and happiness of which they were intended by creation to be the subjects. On the Lord's part nothing is wanting,-nothing is left undone which is needful to prepare them for the full development of all the noble powers which it has pleased their Creator to implant in the nature of beings formed after His own image and likeness, and for their rising to the highest finite degrees of good and blessedness; if they fall short, all the fault lies in themselves. For, in order that man might indeed exist in the likeness of his Creator, it was necessary that he should be endowed with a faculty of self-determination, or be created with a capacity of having a power of self-determination continually, and from moment to moment, communicated to him by the Lord; and if he has the power of self-determination, so as not to be compulsorily acted upon even by the divine and benignant influences of his Creator, he must necessarily

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be at at liberty to take a course different from that which his Creator has marked out for him, and thus, through his own choice, and consequently his own fault, to fail to realize the state of good and blessing which is the true end and object of his being.

In the Lord all the attributes of Divinity, infinite goodness and infinite wisdom, exist in their very essence; they are truly and essentially His own. In order that man might be a likeness of the Lord, it was necessary that whatever qualities or principles exist in Him, should exist in him apparently as his own; on account, then, of this necessary appearance, he cannot but be liable to conclude himself, that the truth is as it appears to be, that the excellent endowments which are communicated to him from his Creator actually do exist independently in himself; in inclining to which persuasion consisted the first fall of man; and thus, in order to be an accountable being, without which he could not be the subject of any spiritual or moral good, he necessarily was created with the liability to fall into evil. If, however, he does so, he has none to blame but himself; everything that can be given him, independently of his own coöperation, to promote his attainment of those excellencies for the acquisition of which his own coöperation is necessary, is abundantly bestowed on him by his Heavenly Father. From infancy provision is made for the successive opening of his faculties; and, notwithstanding the evils of nature into which he is now born, principles of goodness, and knowledges of truth, are inseminated into his mind through the constant operations of the Lord, by wonderful ways, both internal and external, provided by Him for the purpose. Thus, as he completes his growth in stature, the rational faculty is formed and opened. As he comes into the full exercise of this, and acts from his own thoughts and concludes from his own faculty of self-determination, the furniture of his mind is appropriated to him as his own; and the arrival of this state is, we have seen, what is meant when it it is said that the father in our text, at the request of his younger son, 66 divided unto them his living."

But, alas! how apt human nature is to abuse the glorious privilege of thinking and acting for self-determination! In youth, on arriving first at adult age, and on thus coming into the liberty of thinking and acting altogether for themselves, how much disposed is the pride of man to evince this liberty by thinking and acting in contrariety to the salutary maxims which parental tenderness had been careful to instil into his mind, and even by throwing off that regard to religious principle which had been inseminated by the Lord of himself, though operating through the medium of outward instruction. How many young persons

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