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advancing as a deluge, black with agonies, joys, and alternations, he states destruction, resistless in might, uproot- the Lord was pleased, in April 1745, to ing our most cherished hopes, engulf- open the eyes of his spirit, and enable ing our most precious creed, and burying him by absolute wakeful vision to comour highest life in mindless desolation. municate with the spiritual world, that The floodgates of infidelity are open, he might give to mankind sure and cerand Atheism overwhelming is upon us. "tain information of its scenes, its laws, Can this desolating torrent of falsehood and its inhabitants." be driven back by relinquishing the vantage-ground of faith in the written Word of God? We need, not to lower the standard of Christianity, but to enter more deeply into its true teaching.

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THE STATE AND RELIGION IN AUSTRIA.-The Christian World of December 20th publishes a letter from a correspondent in Vienna, describing the sufferings endured by a number of Christians for conscience' sake in one of the leading provinces of the Austrian Empire. The facts of the case cannot be better stated, says the writer, than by a few quotations from a petition drawn up and forwarded to the Minister of Public Worship and Instruction at Vienna in June 1878. From these quotations we give the following extracts :

"By God's providence we came into possession a short time since of the Bible, and found in it a peace and rest of soul which the Roman Catholic Church had never been able to give us. We could not without hypocrisy remain any longer members of this Church, and accordingly determined to withdraw. We could not, however, enter the communion of any other Church recognised by the State, since we perceived that in all, in spite of greater or less purity of doctrine, the forms of Church government were unscriptural.

SWEDENBORG: THE MAN OF SCIENCE, THE PHILOSOPHER, THE THEOLOGIAN.An interesting and instructive weekly and monthly periodical, entitled Social Notes, edited by Mr. S. C. Hall, has admitted a notice of Swedenborg under the above title. The writer is Dr. Bayley, and the notice appears in the weekly numbers for January 4th and 18th. In the space at the editor's disposal a lengthened notice would have been impossible. All that could be attempted was a brief sketch of the author's life, writings, and general opinions. This is done in a frank and pleasant statement. There is no concealment, and no attempted vindication of any portion of the life and experience of Swedenborg. Dr. Bayley treats the tales respecting Swedenborg's insanity, as we think all intelligent persons ought to treat them, as "" 'totally unworthy of attention." Although no external change," he writes, was remarked in the conduct of Swedenborg in the year "In giving notice to the authorities 1743, a great internal change was taking of our withdrawal from the Roman place. He had, as we now know from Catholic Church, we were obliged to his Spiritual Diaries, great self-explo- admit that, according to existing laws, rations, deep humiliations before the we were without a Confession of Faith; Lord, impressions of sinfulness and but that we are by no means irreligious heart-searching, and afterwards com- the following facts sufficiently prove : forts full of peace and consolation. His Formerly we used to spend our trials and agitations were continued leisure, and more especially our Sunsometimes during the night, inducing days, in public-houses, in drinkingstrange dreams and vivid impressions not seldom in drunkenness-in gamof the nearness of the eternal world. bling, dancing, and godless, immoral,. We know that suchlike states of spiri- and seditious talk. Since we have tual experience have been detailed learned to know the Gospel all is changed, in the mental history of sincere Chris- and we now take delight in faithfully tians, both in ancient and in modern fulfilling our duties towards God, the times, especially in the case of eminent Government, and all men. Moreover, servants of God, as with Augustine, we delight now to spend our leisure Luther, Colonel Gardiner, Wesley, and time on Sunday and other days in the multitudes of others; but with this common study of God's Word. On addition in the case of Swedenborg, Sunday, -, 1878, while the family of that after TWO YEARS of these mental A. H., in S- were holding morning

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family worship, at which none but the family and two lodgers were present, the police appeared, drove us all out of the room, and bade the household to get to work, telling them that if they wanted to pray they must go elsewhere. When the owner of the house complained to the authorities of this treatment, explaining, at the same time, that these were not 'Versammlungen' (meetings in the technical legal sense), he was told that the police were acting under the orders of the district magistrate. From this time four policemen came, usually both in the morning and afternoon of Sunday, and if they find us together, even whether we are holding family prayer or not, they drive us out of the house, telling us that they have orders to remain in the room till we have separated." These policemen, they further state, "search our houses, our rooms, our closets, every Sunday, as if we were suspicious characters, patrol our gardens the whole forenoon, and allow no one to enter the house."

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No remedy could be obtained for these cruel persecutions. The sufferers describe themselves as simple unlearned people, who were obliged to ask friends to draw up in their name this petition. In answer to their appeal to the city authorities they were told "that the privilege of family worship is permitted to members of a Confession not recognised by the State on certain conditions." To secure, therefore, the privileges they desired, they declared themselves "Old Evangelicals." "On making this declaration," they say, we were informed, both by the district and city authorities, that the 'Alt Evangelisch' Confession was not recognised by the State; and yet the same authorities, only a few weeks before, informed us that the law expressly refers to members of a 'Confession not recognised by the State."" They have since suffered fine and imprisonment for their faith and their practice of family worship. The correspondent in concluding this painful narrative says: "The law in avowed accordance with which these Christians have been fined and imprisoned bears the date 1854, and was enacted solely for the Lombardo-Venetian provinces, which have now ceased to belong to Austria. It forbids all meetings and discussions in theatres, assembly-rooms, coffee-houses, railway

stations, steamers, etc., by which the pleasure of the public can be disturbed, or the Government endangered,' and fixes the maximum penalty at 200fl., or fourteen days' imprisonment. It is scarcely necessary to point out how such a measure, obviously framed to hinder political disturbances, found a sufficient raison d'être in the condition of these Italian provinces under Austrian sway. This law does not apply to the whole of the Austrian Empire, and even if it did, its elasticity of interpretation must, indeed, be unlimited, if the little private gatherings of these Christians for family worship be supposed to disturb the pleasure of the public, or endanger the security of the Government. petition from which I have quoted has not yet been answered, and, to judge from experience in similar cases, it is likely to remain unanswered for months, if not years, to come. Meanwhile our fellow-Christians are subject to constant and intolerable annoyance, and are always liable to fines and imprisonment, and this in an empire which, in Bosnia, proclaims religious liberty to all its subjects.

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REV. T. MACKERETH, F. R.A.S.-The friends of this esteemed minister determined that he should not quit his scene of labour in the Salford day-schools without a testimonial of their esteem and appreciation of his labours. A meeting was therefore held in the schoolroom, Irwell Street, Salford, on the 17th of December. Tea was provided, and a meeting held afterwards, which was presided over by Rev. W. Westall, who opened the proceedings in an appropriate address. The testimonial consisted of an illuminated address, beautifully framed, and a purse of gold. In making the presentation Mr. Benson said that the Committee of the Salford day-schools had from the first the greatest confidence in the manner in which the schools were conducted by Mr. Mackereth, and for many years the management was left almost entirely in his hands, and the results had showed that their confidence was not misplaced. Mr. Mackereth said that a good deal had been said by the various speakers about the success of the school. Outsiders generally thought that this success was due to the fact that children of a superior class had for a long time

script, then proceeded with his address. He said, as before, that he did not come there to attack, or speak about persons, but about principles, and as a brother who had himself had doubts, endeavouring to rescue those willing to be rescued from doubts upon the subjects he had brought before them. The subject of his lecture that evening was 'Scepticism and God.' He mentioned on a previous occasion the necessary difficulty there must be in any thought about God. The very endeavour of the mind to encounter this great conception had in itself a tendency, as it were, to overwhelm them; the mind could not reach up to the vastness of it. Had they,

attended the schools. This to a certain extent was true, but from his long experience he could testify that it was neither the texture of the jacket nor the pecuniary character of the home of the boy that aided in his school success. The great body of his pupils was and always had been children of the poor labouring class, and the greatest successes of his school had been achieved by the poorest of his pupils. The plans of instruction in the school well worked out had wrought the success of the school, and wherever these plans had been so worked success had been the result. Wigan, Oldham, and Middleton were proof of this, for the masters of these schools had been reared from therefore, no conception of God? He childhood in our school. He was thankful to them for this handsome and beautiful recognition of his humble services. These things for his services were the farthest thought in his head. He hoped, if he understood himself at all, that he worked from a pure and earnest love of education. It never was a thought with him, What can a child pay? but, What can he do? This he must learn to do even if the child could not pay a penny for it. He had always had a good committee who had always paid him well. Therefore this present was no make-up for wages that should have been paid, but he doubted not that it was a real and an affectionate souvenir, and as such he accepted it with deep gratitude, and with all his heart.

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BATH.-The Rev. T. Child has recently given a course of three lectures, on Scepticism and Belief, in the Guildhall of that city. The subjects discussed were, Scepticism and the Popular Theology," "Scepticism and the Bible," and "Scepticism and God." The lectures were distinguished by marked ability, and excited considerable interest. Mr. Isaac Pitman, who presided, introduced the lecturer and the several subjects with appropriate remarks, lengthened reports appeared in the local papers, and Mr. Pitman has since published these reports in tract form at the small charge of 3d. per dozen. The spirit in which the lectures were conceived, and which was well sustained in their delivery, appears in the opening of the third lecture, from which we give the following extracts: "The rev. lecturer, who, as is his custom, spoke without the use of manu

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thought they had, as He should strive to show. But if any one for one moment thought that because he (the lecturer) had granted the difficulty in the conception of God, he had conceded anything like insuperableness in this difficulty, he thought such a one would possibly find himself very much mistaken. He believed that the person who was best able to speak of ultimate things, and of the highest things, was he who felt them most. It was impossible for any man to think about God and not in some measure to realize the vastness of the problem; inherent difficulties were in the very nature of the case. would quote to them the words of Mr. W. R. Greg, 'The difficulty of conceiving the eternal pre-existence of a personal Creator I perceive to be immense; the difficulty of conceiving the origin and evolution of the actual universe, independently of such personal Creator, I should characterize as insuperable.' And that, he (the rev. speaker) thought, was precisely how the case stands; it might be difficult to conceive of God, but it was simply insuperable to think of this world as it is without some agent, some intelligent pre-existent Mind which brought it to what it is." In treating his subject Mr. Child took both sides of the question. The side of the sceptic was given in the words of those whose names and writings are at present most prominently before the public. "The first point," said the lecturer, "that occurred to him was the denial by the sceptic of any intuition in him of a God or of any conception in him of such a Being. Let them look at the point, and he would again read them

a sentence showing how the matter arguments upon the one side or the stands; he was reading from 'The Free- other. As Wordsworth says, 'The wish Thinkers' Text-Book :' The atheist is father to the thought,' and lest any says, 'I know not what you mean by sceptic should think he (the lecturer) God; I am without idea of God; the dealt unfairly with him by saying that word "God" is to me a sound conveying his (the sceptic's) wish was that there no clear or distinct affirmation. I do should be no God, he would speak on not deny God, because I cannot deny the other side, and be honest and say that of which I have no conception, and that he as a theist had a decided wish the conception of which, by its affirmer, that there should be a God, and his is so imperfect that he is unable to define thought about God precisely came out it to me.' Here, then, was the sceptical of his wish, and, whether he knew it or position: he not only says he has no not, the sceptic's thought that there intuition of God, but no conception of was none, precisely came out of his wish God. First of all, in regard to an also. Our thought must be the product intuition of God, let him ask whether it of our wish. Let atheists take this to be quite true that a man-even a sceptic heart." With equal clearness and point -could divest himself of such intuition? Mr. Child discusses a number of imporBy 'intuition' was meant 'an hereditary tant particulars connected with his aptitude of the mind,' and whatever general subject, sustaining his argument direction it took this definition would fol- by the admissions of those who were low it. They might define intuition, there- not contending for the great truth he fore, to be, as he had said, 'the hereditary was seeking to establish. The lectures aptitude of the mind.' Now sometimes were well suited to the requirements of it happened that a man inadvertently the times, and could not fail to leave a spoke out from this intuition without salutary impression on the minds of knowing he was doing so; in the force and those who heard them. hurry of his argument he would bring out something which inevitably pointed to a deeper fact than he would acknowledge. He thought he had a case in point. The book he was now going to quote from was by Mrs. Besant, and was entitled 'My Path to Atheism.' She writes, "A command to persecute must be either right or wrong: if right, it is the duty of Christians to obey it, and to raise once more the stakes of Smithfield for heretics and unbelievers; if wrong, it can never have come from God at all, and must be blasphemously attributed to him.' He wanted to know how Mrs. Besant knew that. If she knows, thinks, or believes there is no God, how does she know what is blasphemy in regard to God? How can she take upon herself to say, this, that, or the other thing is blasphemy when she tells us just before that she has no conception of God at all, and knows nothing of the matter? How, then, does the atheist get out of this difficulty-that he or she is here speaking out of that very instinct or intuition which they in other words deny. The statement that it would be blasphemous to say so and so about God was a judgment concerning God. They knew very well that if they wished a thing to be true or untrue they could soon find

DERBY.-The anniversary services in connection with this place of worship were held on Sunday, December 8th. The Rev. J. Ashby, the resident minister, was the preacher on the occasion. There was a good attendance both morning and evening. In the evening the minister chose for his subject "The Life-giving Waters which issued from under the Threshold of the Sanctuary" (Ezek. xlvii. 1). In his opening remarks he observed that God's revelation to mankind assumed many forms; now it took the form of history and narrative, then of prophecy and psalm, and again of dreams and visions, all these methods being necessary to give fulness and completeness to the unfolding of Divine truth. The writings of the Prophet Ezekiel had been supposed by some to be the least interesting and instructive of the Old Testament records. But this vision of the holy waters, at all events, must be regarded as both interesting and instructive. To the prophet's mind, doubtless, this vision would image the abundant blessing which might yet be realized by the faithful Jews who were then in captivity. The stream ran from the temple, because every Israelite knew that if faithful to the rites of the temple all

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would be well with him. From the collections of the day amounted to temple flowed, like these waters in £10, 16s. 9d. Ezekiel's vision, the stream of com- On Christmas Day service was held mercial prosperity, of agricultural fruit- in the church, which was tastefully fulness, and of domestic, social, and decorated for the occasion. According national wellbeing. But the Divine to a resolution passed by the Committee, teaching involved in this vision was the Christmas tea and social meeting grander and more universal than this. was held on Thursday evening, DecemIt was for those who "were not Jews ber 26th. The arrangements, decoraaccording to the flesh, but according to tions, etc., were intrusted to the young the spirit, whose praise is not of men, people of the Society, and were of an enbut of God." The waters issuing from tirely successful character. A capital the holy place denoted that the princi- programme was provided, and it was ples of love and wisdom descended from gone through to the satisfaction of the Lord, who filled the heavens with all present. The Christmas meeting light and glory, and the Church on of 1878 will be one long remembered earth with life and fertility. The vision for its cordiality, genuine good feeling, was further prophetic of the progress of and real enjoyment. Many generous Divine truth among men. The waters friends gave trays for the tea, which, were said to proceed from the house, or with the sums realized at the tables the temple, because this was representa- and the entertainment, amounted to tive of the real dwelling-place of the nearly £11. The Committee has deterLord, which was the Church, being com- mined to place offertory boxes at the posed of all those who acknowledge the entrance doors of the church, so as to Word, and sought to obey the Lord in afford all the members of the congrega all things. The forefront of the tion the opportunity of making weekly house toward the east" signified that contributions for the support of the the true Church looked continually to- Society. ward the Lord, who is "the dayspring," or the east. The threshold" of the KEARSLEY. -The members of the door of the house typified the lowest church, in consideration of the prevailmeans provided for the admission of ing distress in Kearsley and the neighmankind into the Lord's Church, even bourhood, arranged to give a free tea to the human nature which Jehovah as- poor children and others in distress on sumed in the world. The Lord Him- Saturday last. During the week nearly self declared that He was the door by 700 free tickets had been distributed. which if any man entered he should be The large room was beautifully decosaved. Thus the waters coming from rated, all the windows being curtained, under the threshold were representative giving the appearance of a huge drawingof those lowest Divine truths which pro- room. Here 600 sat down to tea, while ceeded from the Lord, such as the com- in the adjoining infants' room about 160 mandments in the letter of the Word, of were accommodated, ladies of the conwhich it was said, "They are your life." gregation presiding at the various tables. As these waters caused "everything Teachers and Sunday scholars to the to live whithersoever they came," the number of 50 admirably performed the "living waters," so often spoken of in duty of waiters. The whole of the arthe Bible, were those truths which rangements reflected the highest credit flowed from the Lord through the Church upon the members of the New Church, into the world, and which preserved who originated and generously carried therein all that was truly living. The into act their charitable feelings. After truth existing in the minds of indivi- the tea a public meeting was held, at duals filled with spiritual life was the which it was estimated that not fewer great healer of the world's afflictions than 1000 people were present. The Rev. and sorrows. By the reception of these P. Rainage, the minister of the church, truths human society would be elevated occupied the chair. He was supported and quickened, and men would enjoy by the Rev. W. Hewgill, M. A., Rev. "the days of heaven upon the earth." J. F. Munro, and later in the evening The choir sang the anthem "Glorious the Rev. C. Lowe of Kearsley Moor. is Thy Name" in a most pleasing man- Mrs. Fletcher and Mrs. Grimshaw were ner at the evening service. The also accommodated with seats on the

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