begin to thank God that with them the battle of the new truth is already more than half won. CHARLES H. WILKINS. Obituary. Departed this life for the spiritual world on 25th January 1877 at Rodborough Vale, Majorca, Victoria, Australia, Mr. Edward Gittings Bucknall, aged eighty years. Mr. Bucknall was born in Gloucestershire, England, of New Church parents, and came to this colony in the early period of its history. His love for the heavenly doctrine seemed to increase with his years, till finally, when through infirmity he was for the last ten years of his life almost confined to his house, his chief consolation and happiness consisted in the contemplation of heavenly things, producing the most implicit trust in the Lord's goodness and mercy. And he had great cause for joyful thankfulness, for not only was he surrounded by a numerous family, all of whom had adopted New Church principles, but he had also greatly prospered in worldly affairs, having realized a handsome property in land and stock. Some years before his decease, prompted by a feeling of rare generosity and justice, he was enabled to portion off each of his children by an equitable division of his fine property among them. The Melbourne Society of the New Church has lost from their number by the departure of Mr. Bucknall a greatly valued friend, whose sympathy was constant, and whose judicious and timely aid greatly assisted the members to build the present church in Melbourne; and although personally never able to be present at its services, in spirit he was ever in unison with, and took a lively interest in, all that could advance the cause of true religion both in the New Church and also among other religious bodies. Of a warm, generous, and ardent disposition when in health and strength, the last years of his life were marked by loving gentleness, patient endurance of illness, and cheerful sincere piety which will ever endear his memory to a large circle of friends, who cannot but exclaim, "Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord." At Leeds, Mr. Samuel R. Tattersall was removed on the 5th of May to his spiritual home, in the 56th year of his age. The deceased was a well-known and much esteemed member of the church meeting for worship in Albion Chapel. He had been many years connected with the church, and had taken an active part in the management of its affairs. His life was distinguished by integrity and industry. He held for many years the office of manager of a large establishment, in which he gained the esteem and confidence of the principals, and others who were brought into connection with him. The esteem in which he was held was manifested at the funeral, which was attended by the masters and workmen of the establishment, and by a large number of members and friends of the Church. His departure is felt as a bereavement by his family, and a loss, humanly speaking, to the Church, of which he was an active and warmly attached member. To himself it is doubtless gain. He will enter in a higher sphere on still nobler uses than on earth, and find in their performance the endless delight of an ever-increasing joy. Died on the 14th of May at Mayon, Fydenham, the residence of her son, deeply regretted by a large circle of loving friends, Eliza, wife of John Wickham Barnes, aged forty-three. For five months previous to her decease her sufferings, which she endured without murmuring, were constant and severe. Her chief aim during life was the happiness of others, and her last words at death were asking God's blessing upon her sorrowing husband and children. By E. G. DAY, New Church, Housen Street, Adelaide. (Inserted by request of the Society.) "The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear Him, and delivereth them."-Ps. xxxiv. 7. In this declaration of the Psalmist, angelic ministrations are clearly recognized, and the uses they perform for such as fear God plainly affirmed. The presence and guardianship of angels has been a doctrine of the Christian Church from its commencement, as it was of the Jewish Church. In this modern Sadducean age, however, it is not much insisted on; and having all along been connected with the idea of angels as a distinct order of beings created prior to man, and having superior powers and faculties, the doctrine of angelic ministries has necessarily been obscure, and wanting in that practical application to the wants of the human mind, which the subject possesses when viewed in the light of the New Church. For in that light we see clearly that "angels are men," who, having attained to the heavenly state for which they were created and designed, really have a common nature with men on earth, and having travelled the same upward road as they are essaying to travel who have set their faces Zionward, know our dangers and our weaknesses, and can help us from a .common sympathy of kin. But the idea that angels are a distinct T race, and a higher order of beings, has taken such fast hold upon modern theological thought that few would be prepared to accept the statement that no angels were so created originally, but that all are from the human race; and yet such will be found to be the teaching of the holy Word, when rightly interpreted. To a careless reader it might appear otherwise, since they appear suddenly in the Mosaic history as coming from the unseen world, acting as messengers, as indeed the very word "angel" implies, from the Invisible Jehovah to His creature man, and some indeed so invested with the spirit and power of the Divine, that they become in an especial manner the representatives of Jehovah Himself, and the individual angel so representing is called the angel of God, or the angel of Jehovah. Yet there is nothing in all this to warrant the conclusion that angels are other than good men in the state of heavenly happiness for which they were created. Their sudden introduction into the historical record is no proof of their having been a creation prior to man. Indeed, the very record into which they are introduced relates the beginning of the creation of God, and thus cuts off, as it were, all idea of any prior creation. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. There can be nothing prior to the beginning but Him who in the beginning created all things. The order of creation is detailed. It proceeded from first principles to ultimates, and thence from first principles, by ultimates, to the production of things intermediate. And if nothing of the development theory can be admitted as harmonizing with the history of creation, certain it is that the lower types of each kingdom existed before the higher, and were necessary to prepare the way for those higher and nobler forms of vegetable and animal life. And all the forms of vegetable and animal life existed as preparatory for the crowning form of all, the human-the image and likeness of the Divine Creator. Nothing superior to the human form can be conceived, because no other form is an image of the Divine. And even those who imagine the prior creation of angels never for a moment suppose that they are other than human, except in the "matter of wings;" although it is very evident that the addition of wings would be no improvement to the human form, and could by no possibility aid the angels in their aerial flights. The human form is the only form by which love and wisdom can be manifested. Love and wisdom, in their origin and essence, exist in God. Man was created in His image and likeness, because he was designed to become a recipient of love and wisdom, and thus to be free and intelligent. Angels could not have been created in other than the human form; and if created at once in the full possession of love and wisdom as their highest intelligence, such intelligence would necessarily have been instinctive, and consequently non-progressive, and by the same law it would have been impossible for angels to have fallen. If a separate race, therefore, the angels must be lower in the scale of creation than men, and, as we have seen, lower also in that all their supposed superior love and intelligence must have been instinctive, and consequently non-progressive. We also find one of the angels who attended the Seer of the visions of the Apocalypse solemnly declares his human birth, when refusing to accept the Apostle's grateful homage for the wonders he had shown and the wisdom he had revealed: "See thou do it not, for I am thy fellow-servant, and of thy brethren the prophets, and of them that keep the sayings of this book: worship God." Here the identity of men with angels is plainly affirmed,—so plainly, indeed, that Dr. Watts, a believer in the commonly received opinion of the separate origin of angels, remarked on this passage: "It would seem that the angel had been a man upon the earth; perhaps Isaiah or one of the Old Testament prophets." There was nothing to distinguish this angel from the others with whom John held intercourse. If he had been a man on the earth, why not the others? The angel that had the golden reed to measure the Temple is called a man, i.e., an angel, for in writing his visions, John possessed the information quoted above, and must have been sensibly alive to the manhood of the angels. Some passages, indeed, read in our version of the Scriptures as if angels were beings distinct from man; but this arises partly from the Jewish idea of such distinction and superiority, which the angel corrected in John's mind, and partly from inaccurate reading of what is affirmed respecting. angels. Having attempted to show that the angels are our “fellow-servants," working in the upper rooms of our Father's house, we proceed to inquire the motive of their work, and whether their work has any relation to or in any way aids ours. Our text broadly affirms the guardianship of angels,—they actually encamp around us, though we see them not. Man in this world is travelling through the wilderness. While the sun is shining on his path, and the beasts of the forest are lying down in their dens, man is not aware of danger, although enemies among his fellows are following on his trail, and only awaiting the cover of darkness to attack him from behind. And here it is that the work of the angels conjoins itself with our work. We are rẻquired to watch, but, alas! our eyes are too often heavy with sleep; and when it is so with us, we should most assuredly be overcome if the angels were not encamped around us. Men who journey through forests, and must needs halt for food and sleep, guard themselves from wild beasts by lighting fires around their camp and arranging that some should watch while others sleep; but these fires burn low, and the tired watchers sleep while the cruel wild beast, or more cruel savage, stealthily approaches. The angels, however, are encamped around the sleepers, and they are aroused to see their danger and to resist it. But not always do the angel guardians save us from physical danger; their especial work is to guard from that approaching ill that threatens destruction to our spiritual life, and prevents the completion of our heavenward journey. The angelic ministry, as exercised for man during sleep, is affectingly exhibited in the narrative of Jacob's lonely journey from his father's house, when he lay down, because he could no longer pursue his journey on account of the darkness, and slept on the ground with his head pillowed on the stones. For there was revealed to him in a dream the merciful provision of angelic ministries, and earth was seen to be in connection with heaven by a series of intermediates, represented by a ladder resting on the earth and reaching to heaven. On this "mystic ladder" angels were seen ascending and descending, and above it, as receiving and despatching His messengers, the Lord was seen to stand. In this dream the very ground and necessity for angelic ministries lie concealed, as well as the answer to a question which might possibly be raised in reference to the position "that all angels are from the human race;" for it might be asked, If angelic guardianship is so necessary now, how was it that the first races on earth could have been preserved, seeing that no angels could have existed before men had passed out of the natural world, and an angelic heaven had been formed from the good men who had been made meet by the Lord for their heavenly inheritance? We think the answer is to be found in the fact that, the Lord having made man upright, he would, so long as he preserved his original integrity, be capable of receiving the life of love and wisdom from the Lord by immediate influx. The primeval age was the infancy of the race, and like as infants should draw their entire sustenance from the breasts of their mothers, so mankind in the infancy of their being would seek no other food than that which Infinite Love would pour into their souls. When, however, man |