loses its life, and thus renounce and abhor it, we may be quite certain that, of the Lord's mercy, we have gained in spiritual strength. This spiritual strength is of immense importance; it is a sure sign of spiritual health, that is, of salvation. With the Psalmist, therefore, we ought often to pray-" O spare me, that I may recover strength before I go hence and be no more." (Psalm xxxix. 13.)

With Joshua, therefore, in the words of the text, let us each resolve and declare—“As for me and my house we will serve the Lord," not only during the coming year, but all the days of our life.

MINUS.

PRIDE, AND ITS EFFECTS IN THE CHURCH.

PRIDE is one of the forms of self-love from which others are estimated, in proportion to the degree in which they can contribute to its gratification. Its worst form is, when it takes the shape of the love of domineering over others, breathing contempt, despising others, and pursuing those who are not willing to submit to its domination with relentless hate, persecution, and cruelty.* These deeper developments are not ordinarily seen, in consequence of the powerful external restraints which prevent its manifesting itself in all its enormity; except with those who, being above the power of the laws, can give full rein to their will.

The evils which this principle has inflicted on society are patent in the history of every age since the fall, and are more inveterate when it assumes the form of spiritual domination, and claims authority over the souls of men. With those principled in this form of spiritual pride and domination, where the opportunity waits on the will, there are no bounds to its virulence, except those imposed by impossibilities.

The spiritual pride which aims at having the character and credit for greater sanctity than others, is only another phase of the same passion. Underneath the pretended humility of the saint lurk the most ardent aspirations after power and influence, which the external garb of sanctity is merely assumed to conceal. Such was the character of the Pharisees in the days of the Lord, and of the Dunstans and à Beckets of our own history.

To say that there is a proper or becoming pride, simply implies, that in its disorderly form it is the perversion of a principle implanted in man's mental constitution, which in its normal condition is beneficial and useful; and where it operates to preserve the character from low

* A. C. 8678.

8

PRIDE, AND ITS EFFECTS IN THE CHURCH.

tastes and mean, dishonourable actions and practices, it is of unquestionable advantage. It is not the honest pride of conscious integrity of purpose, nor the feeling that would scorn to evade a duty, which is here treated of, but that perverted form which springs from the selfishness and depravity of the heart.

Under the form it ordinarily takes, pride is an inordinate self-esteem, an unreasonable conceit of one's own superiority in talents, beauty, wealth, accomplishments, rank or position, &c.; and manifests itself in lofty airs, distance, reserve, and not unfrequently in contempt for others. The most prevalent form under which this kind of pride is manifested is that of worldliness,—the valuing of ourselves and others from wealth, position, or rank in life. The distinctions which obtain in society are beneficial and useful, where they are not estimated beyond their true value. The same holds good, also, with distinctions within the church, where they are based on uses, and use is the end regarded in them. But the misfortune is, that the pride of position, rank, and wealth obtrudes itself into the sanctuary, and mingles in the worship. Even the more honourable places within the church are sought on account of the emoluments attached to them, and the position and influence they give, rather than for the sphere of use they open. In the New Church ministry no prizes are found large enough to tempt the worldly spirit, and it will be some generations before the danger of her attracting hirelings of this class exists.

A worldly spirit may obtain, nevertheless, and indeed has obtained in many instances among us; and every generation of the church has, during her short history, suffered from it in a greater or less degree. It is to be seen, among other forms, in the spirit of exclusiveness which reigns in too many of our societies, where persons have attended the same place of worship for years, without exchanging a single Christian greeting with their fellow members lower in rank than themselves. True Christianity breathes community of feeling, community of aim, and community of uses; and nothing can be more opposed to the genius of New Church Christianity, based as it professedly is on the doctrine of a pure charity. Under the first impulses of Christianity in the primitive church, they had all things in common. "The multitude of them that believed were of one heart, and of one soul; neither said any of them that aught of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things in common."* Though the application was mistaken, the principle was correct, and is, indeed, the only vital principle of spiritual religion. No one has the right to claim aught that he

*Acts iv. 32.

possesses as his own, to be used for his exclusive benefit. Wealth, position, social influence, and every other worldly advantage, are no less "talents" committed to the charge of, and held in trust by the possessor, than are his mental gifts. They have been given with the condition,Occupy till I come," and are to be consecrated to the building up of the Lord's sanctuary. But where they are buried in the sordidness of mere worldly gains, or enfolded in the refined selfishness of what passes in the world for respectability and fashion, there will be but a sorry return to show in the day when the Lord "taketh account of his servants."

of our

Charity, the leading grace of New Church Christianity, estimates everything according to use, and values every person according to his 'moral and spiritual qualities. In itself it is a fountain welling forth from its inmost depths, and overflowing with kindness, beneficence, sympathy, and mutual aid. It finds its brotherhood with the good and true; its life in the cultivation within itself and others, of the graces and virtues which grow out of, and cluster around these principles. If it was said of the early Christians—“See how they love one another," what ought the love exhibited by those who claim to belong to the Bride, the Lamb's wife, to be? Where is there a relationship so calculated to bind the sympathies of men in the bond of interior union as this? What object so fit to knit their hearts in one, as the welfare and growth spiritual Jerusalem? But when pride steps in, and separates those who should form integral parts of the Lord's mystical body--when they meet on the Sabbath without the slightest greeting-where are the "bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness in mind, meekness, and long-suffering; the consolation in Christ, the comfort of love, and the fellowship of the Spirit," enjoined by the apostle? In such a condition the church, like a body where the circulation of the vital energies are impeded, the limbs, in consequence, paralysed, and the functional powers impaired, lies languid and prostrate; and has as yet learned nothing of that unity in Christ where there is "no schism in the body, but the members have the same care one for another; and whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member rejoice, all the members rejoice with it." The broad principles of New Church faith, and New Church life, ought to be the basis of the association between New Church members, and may be carried out without impairing the legitimate distinction of rank and position; whilst the influence of the latter may, on the other hand, be utilized in the promotion of spiritual order in its external form. The primitive Christians had their

* Phil ii. 1; Col. iii. 12.

diversoria their feasts of charity, of which we have not the parallel among us. Our reading meetings, mutual improvement meetings, and even our social tea meetings, are mainly intellectual; whilst of all that should feed the sympathies, and nourish the mutual affections, there is but too great a dearth. Speaking of the social condition of the church in the primitive times, Swedenborg remarks,-" Social intercourse was kept up in the primitive church among those who called themselves brethren in Christ; hence it was the social intercourse of charity, because they were a spiritual brotherhood. This social intercourse consisted also in administering consolation to each other under the distresses of the church, and in expressions of mutual joy for its increase, and also recreation of mind from study and labour, mixed with conversation on various subjects; and because all these flowed from spiritual love, as from their proper fountain, they were rational and moral from a spiritual origin. In the present day, social intercourse of friendship has no end in view but the pleasures of conversation, the exhilaration of the internal mind (mens) by discourse, and thence the expansion of the external mind (animus), the liberation of the imprisoned thoughts, and the consequent refreshment of the bodily senses, and their restoration to their wonted vigour.' "'* Most truly does Swedenborg add-" BUT THE SOCIAL INTERCOURSE OF CHARITY IS NOT YET REVIVED," assigning as the reason that "it is the consummation of the age, or end of the church, when because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.'"

The intercourse of the world is based on purely worldly maxims. Pride and fashion, wealth and position, are its guiding stars; and it is as impossible to amalgamate these with the principles of the church as it is to serve God and Mammon. The attempt to effect this reconciliation is the rock on which too many have split. It is to this that the fact of so many families having left the church, and gone into the world, is to be attributed. It is in great part also attributable to the same cause that our congregations languish. The world has its own standard, according to which all earnestness in religion and all respect to practical use are vulgar. It is not "respectable" to hold intercourse with those in a lower social sphere than themselves; and hence when social meetings are attempted, if there is not absolutely a "great gulf" between the two classes, there is a degree of restraint which forms a serious impediment to that spiritual intercourse-that community of feeling and sympathy which is the soul of the church.

In the world, as it goes, the sphere of the New Church will not be *T.C.R. n. 434.

tolerated in respectable society. Those who hold intimate association with the world must smother their New Church yearnings and preferences; hence they contract a sphere from which they can neither feel comfortable themselves when surrounded by New Church influences, nor do others feel comfortable in their presence; there is a collision between the spheres, and an uncongenial atmosphere of mutual restraint. Then as to the young, for whom the apparent has so much greater attraction than the real, and by whom the world as yet has been seen only on its brightest side, they are especially open to be seduced by the dazzle and glitter of that which bears the stamp of the world's approval. If New Church associations are eschewed, and associations in the old are sought on the ground of the worldly advantages of the latter, what can be expected but that they will be led to form their estimates on worldly principles rather than on spiritual, and value everything just in proportion as it conduces to their worldly advancement? Their religious preferences, too, will decide in favour of that form of religious belief and worship which entails the least amount of sacrifice; they will contract a religious sphere of mere formalism, with which the truths of the New Church can have no sympathy, and sink into a kind of spiritual gentileism. It is to this cause that so many in. stances may be traced, where zealous members of the church have had to lament the secession of their children from the doctrines themselves have so highly prized; and till the New Church preferences of parents are more thorough, we may expect to see the repetition of these lamentable results in each succeeding generation of the church. How different would the condition of the church be were all her members animated by the spirit breathed into the inspired words" If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I prefer not Jerusalem to my chief joy."

Before closing this paper, the writer would add, that he is fully aware of the fact that, when a child has out-grown the period of tutelage he will act for himself, and on his own free determination; but this does not relieve the parent of his responsibility to direct the religious preferences of the child into the right channel. A judicious moral and religious training, so to speak, is so much vantage ground secured to the child in his spiritual journey; and though it does not follow he will use it, it is the duty of the parent, as far as practicable, to provide it. Lastly, the writer disclaims any intention to depreciate the advantages of worldly rank or position, or even wealth, considered in themselves.

They have their advantages, and with some they are made