more human. When glorified, the Lord as to His Humanity was perfect man; indeed, He is the only perfect man, because in Him alone humanity is infinitely perfected. It was, therefore, when He arose from the dead, in a Humanity so perfected, that He came more completely and fully into the relationship of brother to the human race than He had been before, and that He called His disciples brethren, saying—“ Go, tell my brethren."

As the Lord by glorification became more truly and fully the brother of the human race, so did He, by the same perfecting work, become more truly and fully the Son of God, which is the correlative of brother to man. So that He expressed a great truth when He said "I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God." The Lord was more the Son of God and the brother of man at His resurrection than at His birth. At His birth the Lord was indeed the Son of God, but He was also the son of Mary;-He was conceived of God, and born of the virgin. His soul was from the Father, His body was from the mother. But by glorification, completed in His resurrection, He was the born of God, as well as the begotten of God. He was the Son of God by glorification in the same sense that His disciples are sons of God by regeneration. When He rose from the dead, He was no longer the son of Mary, but wholly the Son of God; not only His soul but His body was from the Father; so that He was the Son of God purely and solely. "For when the son of Mary died, the Son of God arose.'

Thus considered, how divinely true, how ineffably blessed, are His expressions to Mary of His filial relation to the Father, of His fraternal relation to man! Need we wonder doubtingly at this? Did not the Lord become the Son of God, that He might make us sons of God? Did He not become Man, that He might make us men? Did He not glorify humanity in Himself, that He might regenerate Humanity in us? Yes, these were the Divine purposes which the Lord had in view in the incarnation! these are the great, omnipotent truths of the Gospel! It was to bring Himself into nearer relationship and affinity with man that God assumed man's nature, and it was also to bring man's nature into near relationship and affinity with Himself. Jesus as to His Humanity is the Son of God and the brother of man. The first expresses the truth that the Lord's Humanity is Divine; the second expresses the truth that His Divinity is human. By making His Humanity Divine and His Divinity human, He has brought Himself and man relatively nearer to each other. But at the time our Lord addressed Mary, something of this great work remained to be accomplished. The Lord had not yet ascended to His Father, and this was the reason He assigned for not allowing Mary to touch Him.

The ascension as distinguished from the resurrection consisted in the Lord making His Humanity Divine good, as distinguished from His making it Divine truth, which He did while He was in the world. In this respect, we are instructed, the Lord's glorification was like the regeneration of man, who first acquires, and so as it were becomes, truth in which there is good, and afterwards acquires, and so as it were becomes, good from which truth proceeds. It is sufficient for our purpose to know that as the Lord, in proceeding from the Father, and coming into the world, descended through all the heavens, and through the world of spirits, into the world of nature, so, in returning to the Father, He in like manner ascended. The forty days which intervened between His resurrection and ascension, He was in the world of spirits; and thence He ascended, through all the heavens, into the bosom of the Father. In this ascent He accommodated Himself to the reception of the angels in their different degrees of perception and reception. The ascension was to angels what the resurrection was to men. It was the glorification of the Lord to them, so far as it consisted in bringing the Lord into a special relation to them, in the degree and condition of life in which they were. The Lord may therefore be said, in this sense, to have been glorified successively, so as to bring Him into relation with the several degrees of finite intelligences, from the lowest on earth to the highest in heaven. On this principle it is that we can understand the reason of the Lord's words to Mary-" Touch me not, for I have not yet ascended;" and which we now come to consider.

And here we meet with another remarkable circumstance. What the Lord after His resurrection prohibited Mary from doing, He invited Thomas to do. Thomas, who was not with the eleven when their risen Lord appeared in the midst of them, not only refused to believe his brethren on the evidence of their sense of seeing, but declared He would be convinced by no lower testimony than His own sense of feeling; he must thrust his hand into the Lord's side, and put his fingers in the print of the nails. Jesus, when He next appeared, invited Thomas to accept the proof that he had demanded. It has been surmised the disciple did not require so much as he had demanded; but that the presence and words of Jesus so penetrated his soul as at once to draw from him the sublime acknowledgment--" My Lord and my God!" It is of no importance to our present argument whether Thomas touched the Lord or not. It is enough that He invited him to do so. But this would seem not to be the only instance of the Lord's disciples being allowed to touch Him immediately after His resurrection; and if we follow the letter in its strictness, we might even conclude that Mary herself was

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one of those who were thus privileged. In the 28th chapter of Matthew we read (verse 9.)—" And as they went to tell His disciples, behold, Jesus met them, saying, All hail. And they came, and held Him by the feet, and worshipped Him." These worshippers are distinctly mentioned in the first verse as "Mary Magdalene and the other Mary." A comparison, or what is called a harmony, of the Gospels, would indeed make it appear that although these two Marys only are mentioned by name, the company might include several others. Luke mentions Mary Magdalene, and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, and other women." (xxiv. 10.) It would further make it appear that Mary Magdalene, to whom, according to Mark, (xvi. 9.) the Lord first appeared, was not one of those whom the Lord met. It is also considered that the expression "held Him by the feet" may only mean that they prostrated themselves befor Him. In reading the different accounts of the circumstances connected with the Lord's resurrection, one can hardly fail to be struck with the little regard which the inspired writers, or rather their Inspirer, seems to have for historical unity, which men seem so much to desire, and take so much pains to produce. Inspiration seems to have higher aims. Why else those seeming discrepancies that lie upon the surface of these narratives? If we take the narrative of each Gospel by itself, and the exposition by itself, we do not obtain the same result, but we have another and a better. Instead of sameness we have variety, and variety that blends into unity of saving truth, and fulness of spiritual instruction. If we admit that the different Gospels describe different states of mind, then may we see that what would be unfitting in the Gospel of John may be fitting in the Gospel of Matthew.

But this is not our present question. The point we have at present to consider is not one of contradiction, but of contrast. What then may be the reason that the Lord prohibited Mary from doing what He invited Thomas to do? The reason of this, like that of many other singularities and difficulties in the Word, is to be found in the spiritual sense. Thomas represented the sensual; Mary represented the celestial. Thomas represented the lowest in the church on earth; Mary represented the highest in the church in heaven. Thomas represented the lowest of those to whom the Lord is an object of faith; Mary represented the highest of those to whom He is an object of love. How much is their conduct in regard to the Lord expressive of their different characters! Thomas demanded not only to see the object of his belief, but to thrust his hand into His wounds; Mary, her heart full of belief as well as of love, needed but to hear her Saviour's voice to give free course to the feelings of her soul. Thomas required a crucified Saviour; Mary desired a glorified one.

May we not, then, see the reason of the difference in the Lord's mode of dealing with these two disciples? The Lord was already in that state, in relation to His church, in which He could have conjunction with those represented by Thomas; but was not yet in that state in which He could have conjunction with those represented by Mary. He had already risen to the church on earth; but had not yet ascended through the church in the heavens. He had made His Humanity Divine Truth; but had not yet made it Divine Good. He had not yet ascended to His Father. The touch signifies communication and reception; it signifies ultimate and full communication and reception. These were provided for between the Lord and man by the assumption and glorification of Humanity; for in the glorified Humanity the Lord is present in fulness with men and angels; and in it He can have full conjunction with them, by the communication to them, and the reception by them, of a full measure of His love and wisdom.

Before concluding, we may briefly advert to an application of the subject which brings it within the range of our individual experience. In this application we must view the transaction as spiritually taking place within the limits of our own mind. The persons must be understood to represent principles. In every regenerating mind there are thus both a Thomas and a Mary,—a sensual and a celestial principle; and the sensual is developed and perfected before the celestial. We touch our Saviour through the sensual principle before we can touch Him through the celestial. In us also the Lord has both a resurrection and an ascension, and we may say, both a resurrection and an ascension body. He rises in our external man, which is our earth, and He ascends into our internal man, which is our heaven. The Lord rises in us as Truth, and in this character we have conjunction with Him by faith; and He ascends in us as Good, at least, He is good in us when He has ascended, and in this character we have conjunction with Him by love. And here we see the spiritual significance of the Lord's words to Mary, "I have 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." For the Lord's love must be our love, and His wisdom must be our wisdom, before His ascension can be to us a matter of personal experience, to be followed by a loving and living conjunction with Him as our Supreme Good and Truth. We must have His love and wisdom in our inmost affections before His truth can ascend into our internal man, and there enter into union with His goodness, and so itself become goodness. And it is not till the heavenly marriage has been there accomplished, that the Lord can become the object of that

inner sense, whose touch is not an evidence of sensual faith, but a satisfaction of spiritual and celestial love. When, therefore, the Lord said to Mary-" Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended to my Father," He delivered a saying that will be for ever memorable as a lesson of profound and practical wisdom,-teaching us that the celestial church and the celestial man can only have conjunction with the Lord, in His Divine Humanity, after His truth has been exalted into union with His love in the inner man, and both have descended as the Holy Spirit to sanctify the conversation and the life,-making the Lord's will done, individually, on earth as it is in heaven.

REMINISCENCES OF THE LATE REV. J. H. SMITHSON. By the Rev. W. WOODMAN.

AT the request of several of the mutual friends of our departed friend and myself, I have undertaken to record some of the earlier incidents of his history and experience in connection with the New Church,—a duty I have the more readily undertaken, from the fact of having had the advantage and pleasure of his friendship for a longer period than any other surviving minister in the church, and also from having been perhaps more closely associated with him at one part of our lives than any others of our clerical brethren. It is, moreover, but a just tribute to one whose memory I shall ever cherish with affectionate esteem, and whom I shall rejoice to meet in the land of heavenly promise.

My first introduction to our departed brother was in the latter part of the year 1825. We accidentally met in the study of the late Mr. Noble; and I believe it was the first introduction of both of us to that distinguished man. Our acquaintance has thus extended over a period of more than thirty-eight years,—no inconsiderable one in the history of the yet infant Church, to say nothing of the span of human life. The lapse of nearly forty years has naturally produced commensurate changes. The generation then active have, in great part, been gathered to their like, and the faithful garnered in the home of their Heavenly Father. At the period when I first became acquainted with our friend, Mr. Noble was not only in his prime, but was then engaged in writing the "Appeal,”—a work which, as it is emphatically THE BOOK OF THE CHURCH, Will immortalise the name of its author in its annals. Not only has he passed away, but a whole phalanx besides, with the venerable Clowes at their head,-Hindmarsh, Jones, Sibley, Madeley, T. Goyder, Howarth, Shaw, Mason, Cull, &c., together with their active