very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear ye not, therefore; ye are of more value than many sparrows." Which means that the Lord knows indeed all the miseries and all the distresses to which men are exposed in this life, and that He allows them to take place for some wise purposes, and, indeed, in order to work out, by their means, the eternal salvation of men; for He says again in the Apocalypse, “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten."

The Lord, therefore, knows everything that befalls man, and in the hands of the Divine providence the very miseries and distresses among men are means by which their affections are weaned from temporal things, and are directed to the eternal things of the Lord and His kingdom.

The soul that trusts in the Lord is also willing to believe all this; it submits everything to the Lord, and says, "Thy will, and not my will, O Lord! be done;" but still much of the infidelity in this world arises from the fact, that men are not able intelligently to reconcile the existence of public and private calamities with the idea of a loving and tender Father in heaven. They wish to know why it is that the scourges of pestilence and famine are allowed by the Lord to decimate mankind, and why the good and the evil are alike exposed to the fury of the elements, and why many perish during a tempest at sea, while others are rendered indescribably miserable by the ravages of fire?

Let us, then, in the light of the doctrines of the New Church, determine the laws of the Divine providence, in the permission of public and private calamities among men !

But, in the first place, let us remember that the Lord saith, "My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways; for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts." The object, therefore, which the Lord has in directing us in our ways, is quite different from the object that we have in following our own ways; and the misfortunes and calamities which the Lord in His Divine providence allows to overtake us, appear quite differently in the Lord's eyes from what they do in our own. For the Lord in His ministrations has always eternal, while we have generally only temporal ends in view; and for this reason He says, "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways."

Things temporal, such as wealth and honours, with us are generally ends, while with the Lord they are simply means for eternal ends. Swedenborg therefore says, "The Lord provides for the good, who

receive His mercy in time, such things as are conducive to their eternal happiness. He provides wealth or honours for those who are not injured by them, and He does not provide them for those who are injured. In the place of honours and riches He gives, however, to these, in time, a disposition of enjoying a few things, and of being more contented with them than the rich, and those who are in places of honour." (A. C. 8717.) And again he says, "Places of honour and wealth in the world are not really Divine blessings; although man from the satisfaction which he feels in them calls them so; for they perish, and also seduce many, and turn them away from heaven. Life eternal and its felicity, however, are real Divine blessings." (N. J. and H. D. 270.) It follows, therefore, that many misfortunes that appear as such to men, are not such in the eyes of the Lord; and the loss of a man's possessions, and the loss of his children and of his wife, and of his dearest friends, yea, the loss of his own natural life, in the eyes of the Lord, is but a means of saving his soul, and of leading him to heaven.

Swedenborg says, "Spiritual temptations are little known at the present day, nor are they permitted as formerly, because man is not. in the truth of faith; wherefore he would succumb in such a case. In their place there are other things, such as misfortunes, calamities and anxieties arising from natural and bodily causes, such as are distempers of the body and diseases, by which the life of man's pleasures and lusts may, in some degree, be restrained and broken, and by which his thoughts may be directed and elevated to interior and pious things" (A. C. 762). And again, he says, "When evils are removed, as happens with those who are in misfortunes, misery, and diseases, then the influx of good from the Lord may be received by man, and he thinks then well concerning God, and the neighbour, and he also intends well towards the latter" (A. C. 5353).

We see, therefore, that misfortunes and calamities, with all those who are not in the genuine truths of faith, and who, therefore, cannot be admitted into spiritual temptations, are means by which evil is removed from them, and by which good may be received in their souls; and, in their case, misfortunes and calamities may be compared with thunderstorms and tempests, by which the clouds and miasmas encompassing the earth are cleared away, and the beneficent rays of the sun can penetrate again to the surface of the earth.

All men, therefore, at the present day, are exposed to such natural and bodily misfortunes, by which their affections may be weaned from

natural and transitory things, and may be fixed upon eternal things. For, with very few persons, even among those who have access to the doctrines of the internal sense of the Word, these doctrines have become living powers in their souls, so that they can bear the onslaught of the hells, and are able to conquer in spiritual temptations.

When, however, any person has conquered in temptations, and when the love of the Lord and of the neighbour is finally established in his spirit, then, we are assured by Swedenborg, that temporary misfortunes and calamities will no longer happen to him, for, he says, "It was perceived by me that no misfortune and no casualty can happen to the man who is with the Lord" (A. C. 4138).

And again, he makes the following memorable statement, "I spoke with angelic spirits concerning the misfortunes of the faithful, of whom it is known that they suffer just as much, yea even much more than the ungodly. The reason of this was stated, that some are led by their misfortunes into temptations, while with others they happened for this reason, lest they might attribute good to themselves; for if an exception was made in their favour, they would attribute this to their own goodness, and thus they would claim to themselves merit and righteousness; and in order that they might not do so, they are made to suffer in the same way by misfortunes or calamities, so as to lose their lives, riches and possessions, just like the rest. But if they were such as not to attribute to themselves any good, they would more frequently escape from the usual misfortunes. These are the hidden causes, by which these things are controlled. For it is well known, that when any general misfortune is imminent, many of the faithful ones think of their own goodness, and hope that, on account of their goodness, they may be spared; and if they were spared, they would glorify themselves for their goodness, and would exalt themselves over the wicked, and would thus claim goodness to themselves" (Diar. Min. p. 68).

We see, therefore, that all misfortunes and all calamities are under the Lord's control, and that in permitting them to take place, He has always eternal ends in view, and that His purpose in all His ministrations is to break the power of evil over man, and to remove it from him, so that He may confirm him in goodness and truth, and may thereby prepare a heaven in his soul.

The reason, however, why all these things happen by chance as it were, and why they seem to be in the hands of blind fortune, and not of an All-wise Providence, is in order that man may not be deprived

of his freedom, and that he may not be compelled, against his will, to acknowledge the existence of a Divine power; for such a compulsory acknowledgment cannot be productive of any real good to his soul. This we see plainly stated in the following passage:—

"Every contingency or every event which is commonly ascribed to chance or fortune, is of the Divine Providence. This operates thus invisibly and incomprehensibly, in order that man in freedom may either ascribe it to Providence or to chance. For if the Divine Providence acted visibly and comprehensibly to man, there would be danger, lest from visible and comprehensible things, he should believe that these things are controlled by the Divine Providence, and afterwards should believe the opposite. In this case, truth and falsity would be conjoined, and truth would thus be profaned, which would entail man's eternal damnation. It is, therefore, better for man to be kept in a state of unbelief rather than that he should at one time be in faith and afterwards recede " (A. C. 5508).

We see, therefore, that the writings of the New Church confirm, in every respect, the teaching which is contained in the words of our text, and that in truth the very hairs of our head are all numbered, and that as no sparrow can fall on the ground without our Father, so also no misfortune and no calamity can overtake us in this world without our Father—which means, that the Lord in His Divine Providence, foresees every misfortune and every calamity which is about to happen among men, and so leads and directs them, that the eternal good, not only of the sufferers themselves, but also of mankind in general, is thereby promoted. This is the great comfort which is contained in the words of our text, and this comfort the Lord allows us to take out of every affliction, and out of every temptation which He suffers to come over us. This comfort also He permits us to take from the great calamity which has overtaken one of our sister-cities in America, and by which more than 100,000 inhabitants, and among them many whole-souled and zealous New Churchmen, were made houseless and homeless in a very few hours. It seems hard, indeed, that so many of our fellow-men, at the approach of winter, should be thus deprived of all the necessaries of life, and should be compelled, certainly not by their own doing, to suffer hunger and cold, and to be exposed without shelter to all the rigours of an inclement season. The terrible lesson of this conflagration was no doubt needed, else it would not have happened; but the Lord also, in His infinite love to mankind, would not have allowed it to happen, if the misery and distress caused by it could not be alleviated and lessened by aid from other cities and other

countries. And if the burning of their beautiful city is really instrumental in lessening the hold of the loves of self and of the world upon the hearts of the distressed people of Chicago, and if the more fortunate inhabitants of other towns open their hearts and extend their help and sympathy to their unfortunate brethren, then surely both will be the gainers by this visitation, and the Lord and His Kingdom will be nearer to this earth, than He was before this terrible conflagration took place.

But the burning of Chicago comes also especially home to every New Churchman. For among the buildings destroyed by fire is the beautiful temple of the New Church Society in that place, and the many of its members are now actually without shelter and food, dependent upon the friendly offices of their brethren in the New Church at large.

The practical lesson which every misfortune and every calamity preaches to those that are not the immediate sufferers by it, is that they may open their hearts, and cheerfully part with some of the means which the Lord has put at their disposal, in order that they may apply them in doing acts of kindness and usefulness to their fellowmen. In conclusion, I would therefore call earnestly upon every member and every friend of the New Church here present, that he would make a practical application of the lesson contained in our text, by contributing of his abundance to the suffering New Church people of Chicago, in whose behalf a collection will be made at the close of this morning service.

In this world the Lord can only act by means of human instruments, and only by human instruments can He supply the natural wants of the suffering people in Chicago. Every member of His Church should therefore do his share, so that our afflicted brethren in America may exclaim: Surely the very hairs of our head are all numbered by our Father in Heaven, and as not one sparrow is forgotten before God, so also we have not been forgotten before Him.— AMEN.

RELIGIOUS ASSOCIATIONS AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEMS OF OUR TIME.1

To a man who mixes day by day in the busy throng of life, and who constitutes one of the atoms in the great mass of human beings forming

1 An Essay read to the weekly meeting of the Manchester Society, and printed at their request.