has determined to publish them at the smallest possible cost-one shilling per dozen. Taking the members and friends of the New Church at 4200, if each can be induced to take a dozen copies this work is accomplished. In a communication respecting this publication, Mr. Pitman gives a number of facts relating to the biographical notices of Swedenborg, and reflections on the preparation making for the reception of his doctrines, which, as they will doubtless interest our readers, we transfer to our pages:

"For about seventy years, that is, from the time of Swedenborg's death in 1772 to the publication of the article 'Swedenborg' in the 'Penny Cyclopædia,' about 1840, the name of Swedenborg was loaded with more obloquy by the compilers of cyclopædias and biographical dictionaries, and also by the religious world, than perhaps the name of any other person who could not be accused of crimes against society. The

Penny Cyclopædia' first set the laudable example, now generally followed, of inviting contributions on the various religious denominations and their founders, from competent persons who belong to those communions. It is strange that this just rule should have been neglected so long, From the time of the publication of the Penny Cyclopædia,' whose article 'Swedenborg' was contributed by Dr. J. J. Garth Wilkinson, (an eminent writer, and translator of Swedenborg's philosophical works,) to the present day, nearly every article in such publications has been favourable. Before

that time the encyclopædias set forth the character of his writings in so repulsive a manner that people were frightened, and very few people took the trouble to procure one of his books, and read and judge for themselves. It is in connection with the righteously restored character of this eminent man that I now wish to engage your attention a few minutes.

"To my own mind it appears that all the commotions in the religious world are tending to the establishment of a RATIONAL faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as the Divine Being. The Bridgewater Treatises prepared the way for a rational consideration of Christianity, but they did nothing to expound, and reconcile to reason, the standard creeds. Oxford Tracts awakened a large amount

The

of religious life, which is still increasing, sometimes in spite of, and sometimes as the effect of, Ritualism. The Parker Society has given us loads of books from the Reformation period, that we may have the means of judging of the character of the Protestant Reformation, which was good in its time, but could not be considered final. And now Dr. Colenso, and Chunder Sen, and a numerous and influential following, have shaken from thoughtful religious minds the principal doctrines that are comprised in the creed of what is called modern Evangelical Christianity. But

Colenso and his school can make no impression on the conviction of the bulk of Christians that somehow the Lord Jesus Christ is Divine. Yet even their own convictions on this subject are so weak that they seldom pray to Him, but pray to another Divine Person or Being to extend mercy to them 'for Christ's sake,'-a phrase and an idea that is not to be found in the Bible. It is true that the words occur once, and only once, namely in Ephesians iv. 32. As every educated man knows, it is a mistranslation of the Greek Θεὸς ἐν Χριστῷ, which should be rendered 'God in Christ,' and not 'for Christ's sake.' The writings of Swedenborg place the Lord Jesus Christ in the true scriptural light, as the Ruler of the Universe, in whose Divine Person exists the Trinity, the Father being in Him, as the soul is in the body, according to His own words in John xiv. 8-14, and the Holy Spirit -His own Holy Spirit-proceeding from Him.

INFIDELITY.

A correspondent has sent us a copy of the Sword and Shield, a Christian magazine of weapons for attack and defence. This magazine is the organ of the "Christian Evidence Society,' which has been formed under the auspices of the Bishop of London to oppose infidelity. We give below an extract from the statement of "Great facts with regard to Christianity," by Mr. Barker, one of the Society's lecturers. If this extract expresses the general sentiment of the managers of the Society, it is, in the language of our correspondent, "a striking proof of the advance and spread of New Church views, and appears to be a tacit admis

sion that modern infidelity cannot be met, much less vanquished, by the old creeds, but requires a new agency and a new theology.' The paper from which we quote gives a number of "Facts" relating to Christianity. We give the statement respecting God and Christ:

"Its leading doctrines respecting God and His Providence, Christ and redemption, retribution and a future life, are the grandest and worthiest conceivable. God is set forth as our Father -the best, the kindest of fathers. He is so good that no other goodness, compared with His, deserves the name. He is love itself. He is good even to the unthankful and the unholy. He would have all to be saved. His providence extends over all. A sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice. He numbers the hairs of our head. He orders all with a view to the welfare of His creatures. He makes all things work together for good to those who love Him. And His grand aim is to make all the nations of the earth one happy family in Christ.

"Jesus is presented as God's image and likeness; the visible revelation of the invisible Jehovah; God manifest in the flesh. So that when we look on Christ we see unfolded the eternal attributes of the Deity. In Christ's words we have the wisdom of God; in His disposition we see the heart of God; in His life and works we see in substance and spirit the principles and history of God's eternal providence. He that sees Christ, sees God; he that knows Him, knows God. Thus through Christ we come to God; we come to know Him, to love Him, to trust Him, to be one with Him in spirit and in life. This is one of the most wonderful, important, and beneficent doctrines possible.

"Christ is more than God's image; He is God incarnate; the one great mediator between God and man; and He gives Himself for us, to redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people zealous of good works.

"The Christian doctrine of retribution is, that whatsoever a man soweth that shall he reap; that as a man lives so shall he fare.

That every one shall receive according to what he hath done. But no man will be called to answer for what he has not received."

MADAGASCAR.

One of the marvels of modern mis-. sionary labour is presented in this island. Twelve months have elapsed since the public burning of the Malagasy idols, and the work of the missionaries seems to have gone forward with uninterrupted success. "Three years ago only the larger and more important villages had a Christian congregation; now almost every village has its assembly of worshipping people. In some of these places large brick churches, equal to some of those in the capital, are being erected." The capital is being reconstructed under the impulse given to the social life of the people by the teaching of the gospel. "Houses have been demolished, and new ones on the models of civilization and comfort are fast rising to supply their places, so that the city which was recently all wood will speedily be bricks and stone. The de

sire for instruction, and the facilities for imparting it, have greatly augmented. This desire has induced larger purchases of the Scriptures, hymn-books, and issues from the press than heretofore. There is also a more earnest manner in worship, while the attendance keeps up with considerable regularity.' Some of the buildings put up are of considerable pretensions. The churches erected are large and ornate. This is particularly the case with the chapel royal, which is now approaching completion, and is said to reflect great credit on the taste and skill of Mr. Pool, who has designed and superintended the whole, and hardly less so on the native masons who have carried on the work. Mr. Pool has shown the people in this work the capabilities of their own materials. The religious body which has been instrumental in effecting this great change in the social and religious habits of the Malagasy is the Independents. Others have entered, or are now entering the island to share their labours and enter into their rewards. Of these the missionaries sent out by the Society of Friends seem to work very cordially with them. Two others are looked upon in a less favourable light, and their presence makes manifest the divisions of the Christian Church. These are the Roman Catholics, who seem to have obtained a considerable hold on the people, and the Church of

England, which has just appointed a Bishop of Madagascar to superintend, and, we suppose, extend the mission they have established near the coast. Two systems of ecclesiastical polity are thus being introduced, and are setting up their rival claims among these simple converts to the Christian faith; and strongly contending with the influences of this faith to promote their moral, their social, and their spiritual elevation, are the "old habits," which have been completely thrust aside. "It is like a life-work with the people, so very deeply, nay, so riveted to their very existence some of these habits are. Easy as it was to destroy their fetish, it is another thing to destroy that which seems part and parcel of themselves, in order that their social well-being may be promoted." The success of the work has thus far been wonderful, and we can only hope that the dangers which threatened its peace and prosperity may be avoided, and that it may go forward into a still richer and more abundant fruitage of Christian faith and life.

THE SPIRITS IN PRISON.

Mr.

WE are indebted to the English Independent for the following,-"The Rev. Fergus Ferguson, one of the ministers of the Edinburgh Presbytery, in the course of his Sabbath lectures on the Epistle of St Peter, came upon the knotty passage which says that Christ 'preached unto the spirits in prison.' In his endeavours to explain it, one of his elders named Dodds thought he could distinctly scent heresy, and he complained to the presbytery that his pastor appeared to be propounding the dogma of the existence of a middle state, in which infants and the heathen had the gospel preached to them. Ferguson was called upon to make his defence, and generally stated, that in his opinion Christ addressed 'spirits in prison' in a 'department of the invisible world,' 'between His death and His resurrection,' on the subject of 'Himself and His finished work,' and with a view apparently to set before them such a knowledge of salvation as they had not when upon the earth.' Assuming that this had been done to the antediluvians,' he suggested the possibility that the course might not be exceptional, and that the thought 'is fitted to cast a ray of hope upon the

awful question of the destiny of the heathen world.' He also said that he held the Confession of Faith as honestly as any thoughtful individual in the nineteenth century could be expected to hold a document produced in the seventeenth, but that our views are not to be finally shut up and sealed in it. If so we should be 'spirits in prison,' sadly in want of emancipation. This explanation was not considered to be sufficient, and he was accordingly subjected to a running fire of questions, until, as one of the members said, he was put into the confessional, and asked to state what he believed and not what he had said on the occasion referred to. "It seems," concludes the English Independent, "incredible that while there are so many real heresies to be combated these Scotchmen should set up an Inquisition about such matters. If it is wrong to speculate on this text, St. Peter ought not to have put it in his Epistle.'

SYMPATHY WITH THE POPE.

A public meeting of sympathizers with the Pope has been held in St. James' Hall. Archbishop Manning, who presided, delivered a lengthened address in opening the proceedings. The Pope was a prisoner, not confined by bolts and bars, but by moral wrong, which rendered it impossible for the Vicar of our Divine Lord to set his feet in the streets of Rome. The streets of the city were deluged with evil and impiety of every kind; and the Cardinal Vicar of Rome had been compelled to issue an order that the Blessed Sacrament should be no longer carried openly to the sick. The meeting was not, said Dr. Manning, a voice, but the echo of a voice from all the Catholic countries of the world; and he referred with marked satisfaction to the expression of sympathy for the Pope in America and England. Divine Providence had given the solution of Italian unity and of the relation in all earthly governments of the state to the Church, by establishing the temporal power of the Pope in a neutral kingdom; and this solution was rejected by the violent removal of the Pope from his Roman territory.

The meeting, consisting of Catholics and addressed by Catholic noblemen, was quite unaminous in its conclusions.

But what now are the facts of the

case.

These can scarcely be better expressed than by a correspondent of the Times, who writes over the signature of "An Italian":—

"The English Catholics take it for granted that the Italians are Catholics, and so they certainly are, although they are by no means bound to be so. But they are Catholics in their own way, and they claim to be Catholics in their own way. In England itself, among Dr. Manning's congregation, there are Catholics that admit the Pope's infallibility and Catholics who deny it; there are Catholics who accept the temporal power as a dogma and Catholics who look on that power as the bane of the papacy. In Italy, in the same manner there are Catholics and there are Papists. There are those that believe all that the Pope teaches and there are those who allow themselves the free use of their reason and discretion. But there are none who think that the Pope, by the exercise of his temporal power, should possess the means of enforcing his spiritual rule against all reason and discretion.'

It is useless, however, to argue against accomplished facts. The temporal power of the Pope has departed. Henceforward increased liberty of thought will be claimed by the members of the Catholic Church, and even his spiritual authority will become more and more dependent upon his compliance with this great requirement of the new age on which the world has entered. Will the papacy be able to adapt itself to the great changes which are in progress? We shall see.

NEW CHURCH COLLEGE.-Devonshire St., Dec. 7, 1870. I have this day given a whole day to the examination of the pupils of the College, and am very happy to say that, in English Grammar, Geography, History, and Latin Grammar, and Latin Reading and Translation, &c., I was completely satisfied with their attainments.

The

boys had applied themselves well and had been well taught. The elder students were examined separately in English, Theology, Latin, and the rudiments of Greek, and, considering the short period they had been under training, their attainments were very satisfactory.-J.BAYLEY, Pres. of Conf.

LONDON. From our correspondent we learn several items of information. The Notting Hill lectures and Sunday services have been brought to a close. They were doubtless useful, although not attended by such numbers as might have been reasonably expected. The

Sunday services were felt by some to be pervaded by a true spirit of heavenly devotion. They terminated for the present on Sunday evening, Dec. 4, by a lecture, from our friend Mr. Bull, on the Resurrection. Mr. Ramage has officiated, principally at Buttesland St., with unabated success. He has also visited Snodland and Northampton; the Rev. T. L. Marsden taking his place at Buttesland St. on the day he was at Snodland-the exchange being highly appreciated by all concerned. Mr. Gunton has conducted two additional Sunday services at Ladbroke Hall, and given one additional lecture. He has also lectured at Spalding and Peterborough: at both places the attendance was good, varying from 150 to 250. The audiences listened attentively, several questions were asked, and over 25 copies of the Brighton Lectures were sold during the lectures. At Spalding the chair was occupied each evening by Henry Watkinson, Esq., the proprietor and publisher of the Spalding Free Press. Mr. Watkinson kindly entertained the lecturers, both Dr. Bayley and Mr. Gunton, and inserted in his paper a somewhat lengthy report of the lectures, which would doubtless be read by many who did not attend. Both Mr. and Mrs. Watkinson are favourably impressed with the new interpretations of Scripture thus presented to their minds, and are continuing their examination of them with great delight and earnestness. At Peterborough, too, the lecturers and committee found themselves greatly aided, in every way, by our esteemed friend Mr. Barton; and altogether the proceedings, at both places, were encouraging for missionary labours. Mr. Gunton has also again visited Brightlingsea, and attended their annual meeting, on which occasion he urged the members to continued perseverance in promoting the general uses of the Church; especially addressing the young men, of whom there are a great number, to unite themselves with the Society by becom

ing members, and prepare themselves for filling useful offices in the Church. Mr. Gunton is at present at Horncastle, where he will give two lectures, and conduct two services in the Corn Ex

change. This little Society grows stronger; the attendance in their own meeting-room having increased since Mr. Hyde's visit in October. We learn also that a gentleman in Salisbury, the proprietor of the Assembly Rooms, has intimated his readiness to give the use of the rooms, and pay the local expenses, if the committee could send a lecturer. This is a noble act, and arrangements are already made for the National Missionary to go down and give four lectures, and hold two services on the Sunday, the first lecture to be given on Dec. 15th. We learn also that a friend is vigorously proclaiming the doctrines at Tunbridge Wells. Fifty copies of the small Hymn Book, referred to below, have been sent him. After the Christmas recess it is intended to prosecute missionary work in several districts, some new, some old.

The Swedenborg Society's Committee, at its last meeting, passed a resolution that Dr. Tafel be engaged to translate the documents as a first step: this seems, to some extent, receding from their original resolution two months before, that Dr. Tafel should translate the documents and write the life. By some members this recession will be regretted in the opinion of some the commitee would have consulted the best interests of the Church by keeping to their original proposition, and getting what may be called a foundation biography of Swedenborg from the pen of Dr. Tafel, which would furnish materials for any number of smaller biographies, suited to the great public, from other pens. Every one who knows Dr. Tafel admits his painstaking industry, his untiring perseverance, his correctness and exactness, and a biography from his hand as the completion of his labours would indeed be the crown of the whole. The committee also decided to send to each of the following ministers, viz., Rev. C. Vosey and Rev. Fergus Ferguson, a copy of the True Christian Religion. Mr. Ferguson is accused with teaching that the passage in 1 Peter iii. 19, By which also He (Christ) went and preached unto the spirits in prison,'

infers the existence of a middle state, in which infants and the heathen may have the gospel preached to them.”

The missionary committee has performed an important use by printing 52 hymns in a neat paper cover, containing the creed of the Church, to be sold for 1d. These hymns, with the exception of two, "Sun of my Soul" and "Abide with Me," are selected from the "Conference Hymn Book." There are no peculiar metres, and they are some of the sweetest to be found in the book; for missionary Sabbath services they will be very useful. most satisfactory account of Mr. Moss's labours in Jersey, both at St. Aubin and St. Heliers, has reached us, and there seems reason to conclude that Mr. Moss's sojourn will be accompanied with very satisfactory results.

A

SOUTH LONDON.-The third festival of the South London New Church Mutual Improvement Society was held on 1st December at the Gresham Institute, Angell Town. The president, Mr. E. Austin, opened the meeting with a brief address, and then introduced various ladies and gentlemen, whose musical abilities afforded very great gratification. Appropriate speeches were also made during the evening by Dr. Bayley, and Messrs. Dicks and Higham. The elegant hall was well filled by an appreciative audience, which represented all the churches in the metropolis, and at the close of the proceedings, it was universally acknowledged that, thanks to the kind aid rendered by various non-members (including Mrs. Tafel and Mrs. Lindley of Cross Street), the gathering had been the most successful which the society has yet organized. As intimated in last month's Intellectual Repository, a course of week-night lectures has recently been delivered under the auspices of the Missionary and Tract Society in Gloster Hall, Brixton, by Messrs. Bayley, R. Gunton, Austin, and Ramage. On the whole, the attendance was satisfactory, and judging from the interest awakened, and the number of books and tracts disposed of, it is hoped that some good will have been effected by the effort.

BUTTESLAND STREET, SHOREDITCH. -A course of six lectures, under the auspices of the New Church Missionary and Tract Society, has just been con