is renewed day by day; for our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." (2 Cor. iv. 16, 17.) He was instructed in the doctrines from childhood, and his chief delight was to converse about their beauty, and to reduce them to practice. He has left behind him a loving wife and two sons to mourn his loss. S. J. man On the 15th of February, the Dalton society experienced the loss of one of their Deacons-Mr. Benjamin Sykes, a of irreproachable conduct, and beloved by all who knew him. He has been connected with our society for upwards of thirty years, and was much esteemed for his unobtrusive virtues by every member. If active work was to be done, he was always ready with a helping hand. His attendance was regular at church, and his life in harmony with his profession. It has long been evident that he was mellowing for eternity. Latterly he had to pass through deep waters of affliction, and in addition to heavy losses, was called upon to attend the sickness of his daughter, which ended in her removal into eternity only a fortnight before he himself was also called away. The painful visitation was improved on Sunday, 13th March, by Mr. Marsden, in a discourse grounded on the words of Elisha addressed to the Shunamite:-'Is it well with thee? Is it well with thy husband? Is it well with thy child? And she answered, it is well." (2 Kings iv., 25, 26.) There was a good attendance, and the audience -amongst whom were many strangers -seemed to listen with profound attention as the speaker opened out the spirit of the subject and unfolded the divine consolation offered in the Word to the true Shunamite in the triumphs of temptation. Our esteemed friend was consoled in the happy manner in which his daughter Alice, aged 18 years, took her departure but a few days before himself. He was a pillar, we believe, in the temple of God, and saw our church through many of its phases in the last thirty-eight years. He was about sixty years of age, has left a widow and seven children, and a memory behind him that is embalmed in all our hearts. T. L. M. Early on the morning of Sunday, Feb. 28th, Mr. Henry Nockolds, of Nor wich, departed into the spiritual world, in the 61st year of his age. The deceased gentleman was one of the oldest mem. bers of the New Church society in this city, having been in close attendance upon its services during the long period of forty-one years. It may be interesting to many of the readers of the Repository to know that he formed one of the congregation of the Rev. C. Beaumont, whose opposition to the principles of the New Church was the occasion of the publication of "The Appeal," by the Rev. Saml. Noble. When the latter gentleman paid a missionary visit to this city, in July, 1823, he delivered a course of nine lectures, the last of which was attended by nearly 1,000 persons. He also, during that visit, baptised twenty adults (among whom was the deceased) and sixteen infants. One of the results of the success of Mr. Noble's mission, was the delivery of a lecture, by the Rev. G. Beaumont, in opposition to the doctrines of the New Church, and the consequent resignation of twenty-seven of the members of that gentleman's congregation, inclusive of the subject of the present notice. In June, 1825 (two years after his first visit), Mr. Noble again came on a mission to Norwich, and delivered a second course of lectures, in reply to Mr. Beaumont, whose discourse had in the meantime been published under the title of Anti-Swedenborg." These lectures, it is well known, formed the basis of "The Appeal," which was published shortly afterwards. During the excitement occasioned by these events, the deceased gentleman was actively engaged in promoting the advancement of the cause, and in performing the duties of secretary, an office which he continued to hold during nearly thirty years. was an intelligent student of the writings of Swedenborg, and an earnest and zealous worker in behalf of the church. He On the Sunday following his decease, the writer of this sketch sought to make the occasion profitable by preaching a discourse on the subject of death and eternity, which was attentively listened to by the congregation. J. S. On the 18th of March, Mr. Silvester Riding, aged 25. His death was caused by a lamentable accident that occurred at Oswaldtwistle, on the 16th. While engaged, with a number of teachers of the Sunday-school, in whitewashing the school-room, he overbalanced himself, and fell from a height of 18 feet to the floor, from which he sustained such severe injuries that he survived only two days. He had been connected with the society from his childhood as a Sunday scholar, and afterwards for thirteen years as a teacher, and was always esteemed for his conduct and worth. Usefulness from a religious principle was the great aim of his life. It may not be out of place to mention here, that about three years ago he received a medal from the Humane Society for having saved a woman from drowning. He was an excellent and beloved member of the society, and an affectionate husband and father, as he had been a son and a brother, and has left a widow with one child to lament his loss. While we deplore the accident which has deprived us of a worthy friend, and sorrow our own loss, we do not sorrow as those who have no hope; we have reason to believe that he has entered into his Heavenly Father's kingdom, for which he seemed to be well prepared. His funeral sermon was preached by Mr. John Story, of Church, from 1 Cor. xv. 44—" There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body." Departed this life, at the residence of his son-in-law (A. B. Craigin, Cambridgestreet, Liverpool), Thomas Jones, aged 78 years, late of Her Majesty's Customs of that port. He was a native of Neston, in Cheshire, and when a young man came under the influences of the teaching of the late Mr. Leadbetter, and with avidity imbibed the then deemed eccentricities of the New Church, which have for upwards of 60 years been to him the pearl of great price. After an illness of two months, he, on the 25th of March, joined his friends in the spirit land. Departed this life, on Monday, April To join the faithful blest, TO READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS. All communications to be sent to the Editor, the Rev. W. BRUCE, 43, Kensington Gardens Square, London, W. To ensure insertion in the forthcoming Number, communications must be received not later than the 15th of the month, except recent intelligence, which will be received till the 18th. National Missionary Institution, and Students and Ministers' Aid Fund.—In future the Committee of the above will meet, not on the second Thursday, but on the fourth Monday in each month, at 36, Bloomsbury-street, at 6-30 p.m. 20, Paternoster-row, London. F. PITMAN, Sec. General Conference of the New Church.-The ensuing General Conference will be held in the New Jerusalem Church, Summer-lane, Birmingham, and will commence on the 9th of August next. Societies desirous of becoming connected with the Conference, or having information to convey, should take an early opportunity of communicating with the Secretary. Each of the Secretaries of the various Committees, which were appointed with a view of reporting to the next Conference, are requested to forward their reports at an early opportunity to the Secretary. F. PITMAN, Sec. The sermon on John xx. 17, will appear next month, and with Mr. Potts's sermon in the present number, will be printed as No. III of the New Church Pulpit. The verses of J. R. on the departed Mr. Smithson, though breathing a pious and affectionate spirit, are hardly equal to the subject. An interesting article by the Rev. W. Woodman, entitled "Reminiscences of the late Rev. J. H. Smithson," and also some verses on his memory, are unavoidably postponed. Communications from Birmingham and Ipswich are also held over till next month; also “Religion, Philosophy, and Literature," No. X. The Twenty seventh Annual Meeting of the subscribers and friends of the Manchester and Salford New Church Tract Society will be held in the Schoolroom, Peter-street, on Monday evening, May 9th, 1864. Tea on the table at six o'clock. President, Mr. Broadfield. The meeting will be addressed by the Rev. Dr. Bayley, the Rev. G. B. Porteous, and several other ministers. Societies are requested to send representatives. CAVE & SEVER, Printers by Steam Power, Hunt's Bank, Manchester. "Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended to my Father; but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God."-JOHN XX. 17. THE incidents recorded by the evangelists respecting the disciples of the Lord, at and after His crucifixion, are beautiful in their simplicity, admirable in their fidelity, and affecting in their tenderness. The devotion of the Lord's female followers, as contrasted with that of His male disciples, has always been a theme of just admiration. "The last at the cross, and the first at the sepulchre," those pious 66 women who ministered unto Him" are the patterns, as well as the types, of that love which clings to its object in the hour of danger, and in the extremity of despair. Among these, the most eminent is Mary Magdalene. "The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre." Seeing the stone taken away from the sepulchre, she ran to Simon Peter and the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and said "They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid Him." She returned accompanied by the two disciples, who examined the sepulchre, and found it empty, as she had said. The two disciples then returned to their own home. Mary, however, departed not with them, but stood without at the sepulchre weeping. It was here, when she turned herself back, that she saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus. To the Lord's tender inquiry-" Woman, why weepest thou? whom seekest thou? she, supposing Him to be the gardener, saith unto Him, Sir, if thou have borne Him hence, tell me where thou hast laid Him, and I will take Him away. Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turned herself, and saith unto Him, Rabboni." It was then, no doubt, to restrain an act of devotion, prompted by her feelings, that the Lord addressed her in the singular words—“Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended to my Father; but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God." This passage has always been a subject of difficulty. Various solutions have been proposed. Proceeding on the literal, or at most on an arbitrary figurative sense, none of the attempted explanations have been satisfactory. We take higher ground. We look at the Lord's words in their spiritual sense; and we hope to find in this not only the solution of a difficulty, but a divinely instructive lesson. The text consists of two principal parts,-the prohibition, and the reason for it. We will consider the reason first, which will enable us the better to understand the prohibition. "I am not yet ascended to my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God." It is remarkable that never before His death did the Lord so markedly distinguish Himself from God, and identify Himself with man, as after His resurrection. During the whole time of His humiliation, when He hungered and thirsted, and sorrowed and wept, and betrayed all the other signs of human frailty, His language never indicated more, if even so much, of the human aspect, as after He had arisen from the dead, with His Humanity divested of all human frailty and finiteness, and fully glorified and made Divine. He had spoken, indeed, often of His Father, and on the cross He uttered the cry-" My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken Me!" He had also stretched out His hand towards His disciples, and said—“Behold my mother and my brethren!" but here His language is peculiar and striking, and seems as if intended to make Himself more completely one with His disciples, and to express more emphatically His and their mutual relation to God and the Father, than at any former time. Surely there must be not only a reason for this, but a profound and instructive one; for He, all whose words were wisdom, could say nothing which did not express eternal and edifying truth. This, we have no doubt, will be seen to be the case in the present instance, if we only reflect rightly on the subject. To understand the meaning and force of the Lord's language, we must consider the nature of humanity, and the Lord's object in assuming it. There are two aspects under which humanity may be viewed, two sides on which it may be contemplated. On one side it is like God, on the other it is unlike Him. Man is like God as having been created in His image, viewed as to His original nature as it is in itself;-man is not only the noblest of God's works, but the highest possible result of His creative power. God could not create any being higher than one who bore His image and His likeness. But the likeness of man to God is seen more clearly when it is understood that God Himself from eternity was Man. God was not and is not a mere essence, of whom no form can be predicated; but was and is the form of all forms, as He is the essence of all essences; and man is an image of God as to form as well as he is as to nature. This is a truth which it is necessary to know, in order to understand the incarnation of God, as well as the creation of man; for God could not have assumed man's nature, and so become man in ultimates, had He not been in Himself from eternity man in first principles,—the prototype of man as created by Him. But man is unlike as well as like God. God is uncreate and infinite, and man is created and finite; and between infinite and finite there is no proportion. Still more unlike God is man in being not only fallible but fallen, not only frail but sinful. Truly unlike God is man in this respect. "God is not a man, that He should lie, neither the son of man, that He should repent." (Numbers xxiii. 19.) As a created being man can never destroy the image of God in himself, because he can never destroy the faculties which make him an immortal and accountable being,--the faculties of liberty and rationality. But as a moral being, he can destroy in himself the Divine image. For the moral image of God consists in love and wisdom, or goodness and truth; so that, in a moral or spiritual sense, man is human so far as he receives the love of God into his will, and the wisdom of God into his understanding. We therefore read in the Word-"I beheld, and there was no man." (Jeremiah iv. 25.) So the same prophet was sent to " run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, and see, and know, and seek in the broad places thereof, if ye can find a man,—if there be any that seeketh after judgment, that seeketh the truth." (Jeremiah v. 1.) The state of man at the time the Lord came into the world was such as it is here represented. Human nature had become morally and spiritually dehumanised, and as a consequence alienated from God, and at enmity with Him. Now, the Lord came into the world, and assumed man's nature, in its fallen and degraded state, that He might restore it to the perfection of order and beauty. The Lord took man's nature dehumanised, in order that He might make it human. Now, the more the Lord's Humanity was perfected, the more human it became. Nay, although it may sound like a paradox, the more Divine His Humanity became, it became the |