already received amounts to £17, 16s. 6d., and are acknowledged on the wrapper. -JOHN PRESLAND, 25 Rochester Square, London, N. W.; THOMAS WATSON, 19 Highbury Crescent, London, N. Birth. At No. 4 Lawford Road, Kentish Town Road, London, N. W., on the 11th December 1873, the wife of Mr. Joseph Gallico of a daughter. Marriage. At the New Jerusalem Church, Heywood, December 18, 1873, by the Rev. R. Storry, Mr. Thomas Wild to Miss Syllena Dawson, both of Heywood. Obituary. On August 31st, 1873, Mr. Hirst Benjamin Mason of Skipton passed into the spiritual world, in the 24th year of his age. He was trained up in the New Church doctrines at Embsay, became a member of the Society, and made himself especially useful in the choir. He was a devoted lover of the New Church, and by his unassuming manners and kind disposition gave promise of being a careful and constant liver of his belief. He has left a widow and other relations who sorely feel his sudden removal from them, and their loss of him; but they are consoled with the belief that their loss is his eternal gain. On the 8th inst., at 97 Corporation Bridges, Ray Street, Clerkenwell, Mr. J. Taylor, aged 58. Mr. Taylor had been an artist, but for some time past was un able to work, through failing sight. He was led to the New Church in rather a curious manner. Lecturing in 1858 at Birmingham (as a local Methodist preacher) on "The Resurrection," he was questioned by a hearer if "he was not a Swedenborgian." "Never heard of them," said he. "But you have exactly propounded their views was the reply. He was thereupon induced to read the writings, and from that time became a staunch advocate for the Church. Afterwards he came to London and struggled for subsistence as an artist and temperance lecturer, etc., until his failing sight obliged him to give up his profession. Since then it seems he has often been in want; but so gay, cheerful, and contented was his manner, that some of his friends, who would have helped him, hardly guessed how much he needed it. He has literally spent himself in the cause of the Church and of temperance. He would trudge on foot in cold and wet to Camberwell to aid the friends in their weekly meeting. The writer has often and in various localities heard him defend the doctrines with vigour against all comers; his truthful manner always gained for him a respectful hearing. Wherever, in fact, he could say a good word quietly for the doctrines he was there to say it, lecturing or discussing till a late hour without fee or reward. Thus he has in an unostentatious manner succeeded in doing much good especially among the working classes. Mr. Taylor was a rigid teetotaller and a (free) contributor of many useful articles to the Temperance Star; many a time too poor to pay postage, he trudged to the editor's office on foot. He used to say "If I cannot be paid for doing good, I must do it without-but I must do it." Mr. Taylor was also Honorary President of the Social Progress Society, a little body of workers representing a much neglected department of Church work. For some time before his decease he was preparing a set of education primers on a new system (derived from Swedenborg's works) uniting with the teaching of the alphabet, primary instruction in arts and sciences. These books will, it is believed, be published if sufficient subscribers are sudden bronchitis,-caught in pursuing forthcoming. Mr. Taylor's death was his self-imposed labours, which, combined with want of sufficient food and clothing, rapidly carried him off. Many friends had they known his condition remains for these to assist those whom he would gladly have relieved him; it only leaves behind unprovided for. Mr. D. W. M'Quire of 50 Dame Street, Islington, N., will receive contributions with pleasure. W. S. Departed this life, December 9th, 1873, in the ninety-first year of her age, at 14 Studley Terrace, Leeds, Mrs. Mary Boothroyd, relict of Thomas Boothroyd, Esq., Halifax; daughter of the late Dr. Maples of Thorne; and grandmother of Mrs. Arthur Allbuth, Russell Lodge, Leeds. She was a good wife and mother, of a generous and loving disposition, and was respected and beloved by a large number of friends. She retained all her faculties till a few hours of her death. Her end was peace. THE history of the early Christian Church is very interesting and instructive, and would be still more so if we had more materials to assist us in forming a judgment of its state. The value which the members of the New Church attach to the sayings and doings, to the ecclesiastical polity and dogmatic teachings of the early Church, is not, it is true, so great, nor of the same kind, as that at which it is commonly estimated. The writings of the early Fathers are generally esteemed for the assistance they are supposed to lend to the interpretation of the Gospel, and the information they afford respecting the true constitution of the Christian Church. On many disputed or doubtful points the teaching of the early Fathers, could their clear and unanimous opinion be obtained, would be considered decisive. Almost all Christian sects think they come nearest to perfection the nearer they think they come to "the simplicity of the Gospel," as, in ascending to primitive times, they find it in the period nearest to the beginning of Christianity. We of the New Church attach less importance to what the primitive Church thought or did respecting doctrine and discipline. We do not profess to be governed by its 1 A History of the Catholic Church of Jesus Christ from the Death of St. John to the Middle of the Second Century; including an account of the original Organization of the Christian Ministry and the Growth of Episcopacy. By Thomas Wimberly Mossman, B.A., Rector of Torrington, Lincolnshire. London: Longman, Green, & Co., 1873. D authority, or look to it as a model of perfection. We do not desire so much to look backward as to look forward. We do not so much study envelopment as development. We do not believe so much in retrospection as in prospection. We do not seek to return to the oldness of the letter, but to advance to the newness of the spirit. To us old things are passed away, all things are made new. Yet the old is not to us a matter of indifference. It is a subject of interest and a means of instruction. The Old was the radicle, or, we may say, the matrix of the New, There is therefore a relation, and this a relation of correspondence, between the first Christian Church and the second. To see this relation we must ascend to the Church of the early times; for in the Church of the present day the correspondence does not exist. The Church has fallen away from its original integrity. It is therefore neither in harmony with the Primitive Church nor in correspondence with the New. So far as the faith and practice of the primitive Church can be ascertained, we shall know with more or less certainty what the simplicity of the Gospel really is, and see the correspondence between the first Church and the second. Yet the correspondence is not between the Old and the New as ecclesiastical institutions, but as the conscious recipients of spiritual principles. Truth and goodness are the living principles that essentially constitute the Church. And although the Church must have an outward visible form, both in a body of doctrines and in a body of believers, yet these are only so far the Church as the principles of the Church are faithfully embodied in them. This being the case, we are rather to judge of the Church by the principles than of the principles by the Church. And these principles can only be learnt with certainty from the sacred Scriptures themselves. On this important point the author of the work before us holds a view, not peculiar to him, which is opposed to this. He says: "Sacred and venerable and priceless as the canonical Scriptures must ever be held to be, yet the Christian Church is in no way dependent upon them, either for its first foundation or for its continued existence, in such a manner that if the Scriptures were lost or destroyed the Church herself must therefore cease to be. It is well for Christians not to forget that the Catholic Church is the living body of a living Christ, and dependent for its perpetual life and being upon one only thing, the ever abiding presence of the living SPIRIT, God the Holy Ghost. It is for bringing out into clear relief such truths as this, so needful in these latter days, that the writings and lives of what are called the Apostolic Fathers are peculiarly valuable. It has not been altogether for the glory of God that the Church has ceased more and more to assert her direct commission from Heaven to go and to make disciples of all nations, and to rest instead her claim to authority upon the words of a written book." If the study of the Fathers had any tendency to lead to this conclusion, we should regard them as unworthy of attention. But this the Fathers themselves do not teach, nor would we regard them as true teachers if they did. It is true that the Christian Church existed before the written Gospel, as it is true that the Israelitish Church existed before the written Law. But the inspired Scriptures were given to the Church through the first inspired teachers to be the teachers of those who do not enjoy inspiration, and to convey the truth to future generations through a more certain channel than that of tradition. It is quite true that there can be no living Church without the influence of the Holy Spirit. But the Spirit does not teach truth independently of outward revelation, oral or written. The Spirit does not give the knowledge but the understanding of the truth. Both are necessary to form a true and living Church. The great evil of these latter days is, that the Church places herself above the Scriptures. The Spirit and the Word are one, like soul and body. They are two of the things which God has joined together, and which man must not put asunder. Their testimony must be united in the mind, in order that any one may be a living disciple of the Lord, a real member of His mystical body, the Church. But the misfortune is, so low an idea is entertained of the inspiration of the Scriptures, that they are not very accurately distinguished from the writings of men, and for that reason are not invested with due authority. The author says of the Apostolic Fathers that they are "writers whose works it would be impossible to prove were regarded by their immediate successors in any different light from those other works which have since been called the Canonical Scriptures of the New Testament. There is not a single test which could be applied to the latter for a generation or two after their first publication in which we should find the former to fail. This alone is sufficient to show the necessity for some modification of popular views and ideas upon the grave question of Inspiration, using the word in application to Holy Scripture. The contemporary history of our own times shows us that if any wise and learned men set themselves to give an answer to the question, What is Holy Scripture by saying that it must be determined by the voice of the great congregation, there is a howl of rage and indignation which resounds from one end of Christendom to the other. And after all the question remains, and seems likely for the present to remain, unanswered. It would almost appear as if vast multitudes of persons, holding the traditionary ideas about Christianity, were unwilling to say to themselves, in plain and intelligible words, what they mean by inspired Scripture, and were also unwilling that any answer should be given by others to this vitally important question. What then must be done? If the orthodox would only see that in such an age of intellectual activity as this, the tide both of honest doubt and absolute scepticism is rising ever higher and higher, and that this, as well as some other questions, must be answered sooner or later; and if others would only either fairly face such questions or allow others to face them, the signs of the times would be more hopeful than they are." The subject of Inspiration is a large as well as an important one, and it cannot be expected that we can here enter very fully into it. The first question is, What is Inspiration? and where is the line which separates inspired from uninspired writings? Inspiration, which entitles a writing to be called the Word of God, is essentially an expres⚫sion of the mind of God, and only formally an expression of the mind of man. Revelation is the wisdom of God expressed in the language of men, and according to the ideas of men. It contains therefore a profounder wisdom than the writers themselves possessed, and than appears on the surface to those who read it. This is the distinguishing character of Divine revelation, and that which makes the essential difference between inspired and uninspired writings. Inspiration is entirely different from enlightenment. Enlightenment is the reception of as much light as the intellect can receive, and therefore there are degrees of enlightenment, for one mind can receive more than another. Not so with inspiration. The wisest and the simplest, nay, the best and the worst, can be equally inspired to express Divine wisdom, for in their case the Holy Spirit does not enlighten the mind, but takes possession of it. By inspiration God speaks through men; by enlightenment He speaks to them, and leaves them to speak of themselves from Him. We need have no difficulty in recognising the difference the Scriptures themselves display it. In the burning bush the angel did not speak from the Lord; the Lord spoke through the angel "I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of. Jacob." Balaam was the subject of Divine inspiration when he blessed Israel, though his natural disposition and his previous intention was to |