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pieces with my critical pick-hammer; perhaps I may loosen a stone and make a hole to penetrate through the wall, nay, I may even shake a cornerstone!" Or he says" Well, I find some lichens growing on the surface; it can't be a divine structure; how should moss grow on it? it ought to be polished altogether." Or he detects some spots "It is rust," he says; may be there have been hinges here; and, from antiquity, that which has been a gate before is now out of joint, or is patched and crammed by human hands. Let us use our pickaxe and inquire what it is, the whole temple is perhaps only a reconstruction from older ruins." It is needless to say that all this criticism is fancy and labour in vain, because the vain critic mystifies himself and digs somewhere in the ground, where he has found heaps of stones, which he mistakes for the basis of the sacred structure. The acute reasoner has, without being aware of it, entangled himself in the labyrinthine ways of self-derived wisdom, of his own selfconfident imagination, and Providence covers him and his doings with a dark mist, in which he turns round as in a maze. The structure itself, which he fancies to belabour, stands far aloof from him, on a platform, from which he more and more has removed himself to an immeasurable distance. He has deviated from the high road of truth into the wilderness of mere appearances.

The sacred structure is only there where you meet the solution of all the moral and spiritual problems of life, where the voice of the Lord himself is heard, saying "I am the way, the truth, and the life; I am the door to spiritual life; whosoever does not enter through the right gate is lost; my yoke is easy, and sweet is it to bear it. Those who come to me and adore the Divine Human, and who do my words and precepts, shall have peace and eternal life. My Father and I will make our abode with him; the Divine a quo, the first infinite source of life and love, from which I, the divine saving truth, have descended into the letter of the Word, which I am myself, and which is one with its source, will teach you all that is needed. Those are my sheep who hear my voice and follow it, and no power shall take them from me. Those who will not hear me, are condemned by their own free will and choice." Where you hear this voice, there is the sanctuary; and where it speaks and is heard, there is the Word of God, and nowhere else. All sorts of criticism are allowed, provided you do not shut your ears to that voice, and deviate in any way from that faith which is spiritual truth in man, from that faith which consists prima facie in hearing the voice, speaking through the Word to your better affections.

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The astronomer may inquire about the spots in the sun, but when his reasoning goes so far as not to see the sun and not to receive the heat from it, and thus to deny, then he is engaged in a frivolous contestation, not very short of mania.

Professor N., with his criticism, is like the man who reads the Bible and sticks to some errors in printing, which he has detected in such or such an edition, and then denies the divinity of the Word, on the ground that God could not allow errors to be committed in printing His Word.

If the letter of the Word, as it is, is sufficient to express that divine voice which speaks to the divinely-impulsed heart, and to the enlightened intelligence, you are justified in calling it divine and the Word of God altogether, leaving the doubts about this or that part of the letter to a consideration which has nothing to do with faith or spiritual understanding. It is not the letter which you worship, but the Lord,-the divine truth manifested in that letter. Nothing else could command or

fix your attention. You have to justify your faith and your perception of the divine voice in the Word. It is not your business to justify the letter where it is unconnected with your faith and with spiritual truth.

If God in His wisdom has allowed that there should be appearances of contradiction or error in the letter, and if this letter itself gives rise to scientific discussions and doubts as to correct and genuine tradition or meaning, you easily see why such apparent imperfections have been even providentially allowed to be introduced, and why they, contrariwise, add to the veneration due to the Word of God. Evidently the Word is revealed to the intent of saving mankind. Those who perceive the voice of God, speaking to the intent of salvation, will not trouble themselves with apparent imperfections. "What is that to me?" they say; "I hear the voice of the Lord speaking where I understand its meaning and its call; that is sufficient." But those who prefer their own proprium and intelligence, and who, from love of self, suffocate the aspirations which would open their eyes and ears—what of them?

It is natural, and will invariably come to pass, that if faith does not precede investigation, the result will and must be doubt, and ultimately rejection. I suppose you do not object to the notion of faith as being a spiritual intuition, arising from God's presence in the internals of the created soul, moving it in its nucleus of love and in its sensational affection, and thus expanding into light and truth. Faith is thus the offspring of inborn and divinely-animated and developed love of truth. This aspiration meets the expression and revelation of truth in the Word,

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and the firm conviction, arising from the correspondence, and from the veneration which naturally is conjoined with it, constitutes spiritual or saving faith. The more perfect the form is in which the Spirit of Truth, revealing itself in literal forms, expands, the more perfect is the faith; and thus the Christian faith, as to its form, is more perfect than the Jewish, the Mahomedan, the Bhuddistic, &c., and its essence may consequently ultimate itself more perfectly. And so it is with the Christian sects, the Catholic having mixed the expression of truth up with legends, or even obliterated it, the Protestant having imprisoned it in mere forms, words, and dogmas, or perverted truth into its opposite by the doctrine of faith alone; and so the New Church form is more perfect than the old Protestant and Catholic, because it does away with their errors and false admixtures. Why, then, lay so much stress on the relative imperfection here and there, while all perfection only is approximative? (To be continued.)

SPIRITUALISM IN ANCIENT TIMES.

THERE lived in the first century of the Christian era an apostolic man and writer, by name Hermas.* To his authorship is ascribed a literary document of very original character, called in Greek Пony and in Latin Pastor, because under the appearance of a herdsman, a guardian angel acts the principal part in this religious romantic drama. This wonderful book contains abundance of good moral maxims and theological statements, now and then clothed in emblematical and mystical dress, under three different titles, namely, Visions, Mandates, and Similitudes, which all are intended to prove the existence of supernatural influence from the spiritual sphere over the minds of men, and the existence of intercourse between the visible and invisible worlds.

In the four visions we have from his hand, Hermas mentions how he several times was entranced, and in spirit conducted into another world; how he saw heaven open, and a heavenly being, under the image of a young or old woman in splendid garments, greeting him,-speaking to him in kindly words of warning, admonition, and consolation, and instructing him in Christian truth and heavenly virtues. In a few words, this woman appeared to Hermas as a faithful female companion, or tutelary genius, during his journey in the interior regions of the universe, almost as Beatrice presented herself to Dante, in his * See Codicis Apocryphi Novi Testamenti pars tertia, curante Joh. Alb. Fabricio, Hamb. 1743, pp. 736.

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Divina Comedia. But in the Mandates and Similitudes it is not a beautiful woman; it is a venerable pastor or a heavenly messenger,an angel, who is his spiritual guide and instructor. As the Visions, so also the Mandates and Similitudes are written in the form of dialogue. In the sixth mandate the guardian spirit says to Hermas :—

"I have ordered thee in the first mandate to observe faith, fear of God, and penitence; now I will show to thee the virtues of these mandates, that thou mayest know their effects,-how they can lead to the just, as well as to the unjust. Believe, therefore, in what is just, and not in what is unjust; because justice has a right way, but injustice a wrong one. Take the right way, and abandon the wrong. The bad way has not a happy issue, but many causes of offence; it is rugged and thorny and leads to destruction, and is noxious to all men who come into it. But they who go by the right way, proceed equably without stumbling, because it is not rugged and thorny.

"Hear now first about faith. There are two geniuses with every man: one the genius of uprightness, and the other the genius of iniquity.

"How, asked Hermas, can I know that two geniuses are with man?

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Hear, answered Pastor, and understand. The genius of uprightness is tender, lenient, reverent, meek, and peaceful; therefore, as soon as he ascends in thy heart, he continually speaks with thee of justice, modesty, chastity, benignity, forgiveness, charity, and piety. When these virtues ascend in thy heart, thou shalt know that the genius of uprightness is within thee. Believe, therefore, in this genius and his works.

"Hear now, also, the works of the genius of iniquity. First, he is bitter, ireful, and furious, and his works are pernicious and destructive. When these ascend in thy heart,—when wrath, bitterness, concupiscence, luxuriousness, ebriety, avarice, haughtiness, and similar bad passions possess thee, be assured the genius of iniquity is within thee."

So far, Hermas is characterising the good and bad spirits who influence all our thoughts and intentions.

Like Hermas, Swedenborg also insists upon the presence of supernatural beings about and over us, and their intimate relations to us. As we know, he asserts that whatever we think and will is inspired by means of them. But he goes further in his extraordinary intuition, reasoning, and instruction. He not only teaches us that God governs the universe by inanimate physical forces, but also by living and intelligent entities. He investigates and exhausts also the whole doctrine which Leibnitz called Theodicea, and in a very rational and speculative manner he shows how Divine Providence and human liberty can co-exist without prejudicing or destroying one another. He demonstrates more evidently and intelligibly than any philosopher or theologian before or after him his transcendental and sublime theory, and enables us almost palpably to comprehend how "there does not

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exist in any man one grain of will or prudence that is proper to him." With the strongest arguments he convinces us "that the Divine Providence, not only with the good but also with the wicked, is universal in things the most particular, and yet that it is not in their evils; that the wicked continually lead themselves into evils, but that the Lord continually withdraws them from evils; that the Lord cannot entirely lead the wicked out of evil and into good, so long as they consider self-derived intelligence to be all, and the Divine Providence nothing; that the Lord governs hell by opposites, and the wicked who are in the world He governs in hell as to interiors, but not as to exteriors," &c.; as we read in Swedenborg's excellent work, "Angelic Wisdom concerning Divine Providence." (§ 285 and following.) If this book does not contain a true religious and Christian philosophy, we may well ask, What is truth, what religion, Christianity, philosophy ? Lund.

CONFERENCE AND THE BIBLE SOCIETY.

To the Editor.

A. K.

Dear Sir,-One excellent result of the deliberations of the late Conference is a resolution drawing the attention of the church to the desirableness of congregational and organised efforts in support of the British and Foreign Bible Society.

The claims of this society have been repeatedly set forth and urged in your pages by correspondents; but now for the first time the subject is brought forward, and definite action thereon recommended, by the General Conference. May we not indulge the hope that now, therefore, something will be done by us to remove the reproach that whilst we profess a higher reverence for the Bible than is held by any other religious body, we yet do less than any towards its circulation!

I am aware that some receivers of the New Church doctrines decline to subscribe to that society, on the ground that New Churchmen ought to devote their whole energies and means specially to the printing and circulating of New Church works. But surely we can wisely arrange to suitably support both these objects! However full our hearts may be with our special work, surely there ought to be room in our affections for the Bible Society; and, if the desire exists, means will be found to do something, however little, towards carrying out its noble aims.

This is the only great institution in the religious world in which New Churchmen can cordially and thoroughly co-operate with their