their debts, and preserve a balance at their banker's, comprise nearly the "whole duty of man." They make it a point of conscience to keep their business appointments, and yet, judging from appearance, regard the same punctual attention to their religious duties as of secondary obligation; whereas, if the subject were rightly estimated, they would make it as great a point of conscience to be regularly and punctually in their place at the Sabbath services as to be in their counting-house every day in the week; and would hold every religious duty, whether in the sanctuary, the Sunday-school, the office held in connection with the external uses of the church, or that of private and family devotion, as imperative as those on the faithful discharge of which their very livelihood depends.

Unfortunately this inconsistency of conduct is not limited to one class; it is equally prevalent with many who hold a subordinate position. Many who are punctually at their occupations, whether at the plough or the loom, at an early hour every day during the week, cannot prepare themselves in time for the school, and some not even in time for the morning service at the church; whilst others do not find the opportunity on two out of three Sabbaths to present themselves among the worshipers of the Lord.

Were there no other causes, then, demanding a revival, we have instanced sufficient in the above, which are unfortunately too notorious to be questioned; especially, too, when it is considered how prone the mind is to sordidness, and how rapidly sordidness is apt to grow where once it strikes root. Independently of this, from whatever other causes it may have arisen, there is a large amount of apathy towards the uses of the church, and of coldness felt in its services, whilst the interest felt in its growth and progress is proportionately small. The previous causes may go to make up the sum total of our defects, but the great want that underlies the whole, is that of a living spiritual principle. There are doubtless some whose affections yearn after the prosperity of Jerusalem, and whose sympathies are ardently excited towards her; but their number is too small to give a tone to the character of the church, which, as to her affections, lies languishing under a kind of spiritual torpor, like the daughter of the ruler of the synagogue waiting the awaking of the Lord.

This condition in which she lies has not escaped the attention of her members many have not only deplored it, but attempted to remedy it. Some societies have instituted meetings for reading and conversation, and others mutual improvement meetings. Others, again, have introduced social meetings, to make the members better acquainted, and

thus to cultivate the social affections;* not to mention the labours of the ministers and conductors of our Sunday-schools, to remove the defect, and inaugurate more healthy and energetic action; and yet, with the united energy of all these, we are in a wintry, icy condition. The rivers have been arrested, and cease to flow in limpid streams; the forms of life divested of their beauty, and the vital energy itself indrawn, and everything wears the general aspect of torpidity.

We have remarked that the great want among us is spirituality. A revival of spirituality would re-invigorate the drooping affections, and cause the heart to glow with a new fervour; the light of the church, too, which is now cold and wintry, would become genial with heavenly warmth; "the wilderness would blossom as the rose, and the desert become the garden of Jehovah!" In other words, it is the revival of CHARITY in its genuine form which is the great desideratum. Charity lying at the basis of spirituality in the church, the church becomes a living spiritual body, in the proportion that charity is a living, animating principle within it.

The restoration or "revival" of charity would reinvigorate all its energies, and concentrate them to more earnest usefulness; revivify its worship, and develop its piety-of which there is most urgent need; kindle anew its affections; impart a genial warmth to the atmosphere of New Church society and intercourse; heal its divisions, and, harmonizing all the elements of which it is composed into brotherly union, distil peace like the dew of Hermon on our Zion,— the Zion of Love to God and the neighbour, where “ the Lord hath commanded His blessing, even life for evermore."

To add that the means for bringing about such a revival consists mainly in the cultivation of charity, might be regarded as the utterance of a mere truism, were it not that there is far more implied in the term "charity" than even the majority of professing New Churchmen have hitherto made themselves acquainted with; and that hence this grace has not yet been pursued among us except in an isolated and desultory manner. Had it been otherwise—had the professed readers of Swedenborg studied the doctrine of charity as propounded in his writings-we should have heard far less of the "life aspects" of Mr. Harris's "new

The very need of employing means to make New Church members of the same congregation and society mutually acquainted, is of itself a striking (may we not say lamentable?) proof of a great and fundamental defect among us. There is much truth in the remark of a New Churchman belonging to a society in an agricultural district, who, on meeting a New Church member from a distant part, whom he had not seen before, said-" We are strangers to each other; but we both love goodness and truth, and that will make us better acquainted."

movement," as though they were superior to the "life aspects" presented in the teachings of Swedenborg; nor would his vague generalities, and poetic sentimentalities upon love, have been extolled as "the preaching of righteousness," as an esteemed correspondent has done. All that Harris has propounded on love, except what he has borrowed from Swedenborg, is a mere flimsy and intangible abstraction, when placed in contrast with the solid, well-defined principles of life and practice laid down in the writings of the latter. But as respects the present aspect of the church in relation to charity, Swedenborg shall speak for himself:

"Doctrinal [or what appertains to doctrine] is two-fold; the one is a doctrinal of love and charity, the other the doctrinal of faith. Every church of the Lord in its beginning, whilst as yet it is youth and virgin purity, has no other doctrinal, and loveth no other, than what is of charity, inasmuch as this appertains to life. But the church successively declines from this doctrinal, until it begins to esteem it of little value, and at length to reject it, and then it acknowledges no other doctrinal than what is called the doctrinal of faith, which, when separated from charity, conspires with the life of evil. Such was the primitive church, or church of the Gentiles, after the coming of the Lord. In the beginning it had no other doctrinal than what was of love and charity, for this the Lord himself taught; but after His time, as love and charity began to grow cold, the doctrinal of faith by degrees had birth, and with it came dissensions and heresies, which increased more and more, in proportion to the stress laid upon that doctrinal.”

After explaining that a similar regard to love and charity existed in both the Ancient and Most-ancient churches in their first states, but that afterwards there were some in both churches who began to cultivate the doctrine of faith as a separate subject, till at length they separated faith from charity, those who so separated the one from the other in the Ancient Church being called Ham, and those in the Mostancient, Cain, he proceeds:

"That such a separation has [also] taken place at this day, may also appear from this consideration, that it is altogether unknown what charity is, and what the neighbour is. They who are principled solely in the doctrinal of faith, believe nothing else to be charity towards their neighbour, but to give alms to the poor and to have pity on all, for they say that every one is a neighbour indiscriminately; when yet charity is all good whatsoever appertaining to man in his affection, and in his zeal, and thence in his life; and neighbour is all the good in others whereby man is affected; consequently neighbour means all those who are principled in good, and this with all distinction. He is principled in charity and mercy, for example, who exercises justice and judgment in punishing the wicked and recompensing the good. There is charity in punishing the wicked, inasmuch as such punishment proceeds from

a zealous endeavour to amend him, and at the same time to secure others from suffering by his wickednesses; thus charity provides for, and wishes well to him who is in evil, or who is an enemy, and in so doing, provides for, and wishes well to others, and to the public in general, and this from a principle of charity or neighbourly love. The case is the same with the good of life in all other instances; for good of life can have no existence, unless it proceed from a principle of charity or neighbourly love, inasmuch as it has respect to, and involves such a principle. The nature and meaning of charity, and of neighbour, being involved in so much obscurity, it is plain from hence that the doctrinal of charity was lost as soon as the doctrinal of faith gained the ascendency; when, nevertheless, the doctrinal of charity was what was cultivated in the Ancient Church, insomuch that they distinguished into separate classes all the several sorts of good appertaining to charity or neighbourly love, that is, all who were principled in good, and this with much distinction, giving names also thereto, and calling some poor, some miserable, some oppressed, some naked, some hungry, some thirsty, some captives or in prison, some sojourners, some fatherless, some widows; others again they called lame, blind, deaf, dumb, halt, not to mention many other names. According to this doctrinal the Lord spake in the Word of the Old Testament, and this is the reason why these names so often occur therein; and according to the same doctrine the Lord himself spake in Matthew,* Luke, and in many other places hence it is that these names, in their internal sense, have a different signification from what appears in the letter. In order, therefore, that the doctrine of charity may be restored, it will be shewn hereafter, by the divine mercy of the Lord, who they are that are signified by the above names, what charity is, and what the neighbour, both in general and in particular." A. C. 2417.

Most clear, then, it is from this extract that as yet the church has but little practical knowledge of the doctrine of charity. That charity is the activity of love, and that it has precedence in importance to faith, is indeed known; but as respects the distinctions and details so familiar to the Ancient Church, even the New Church has not yet passed the threshold. In short, the doctrine has been completely lost in the Old Church, and, except in the works of the herald who proclaims it, has not yet been restored in the New. The means, then, of inaugurating the cultivation of charity, is first to study it as a doctrine. The ancients evidently made a science of it as much so as is any one of the modern sciences. They studied the mental and moral diagnosis of "the neighbour," as the skilful physician does of his patient, adopting the treatment best suited to recruit the mental powers and restore moral and spiritual health. This, it is true, is a consummation, however devoutly to be wished, nevertheless far beyond the capabilities of the present generation of the New Church,-far remote from her present Chap. xxv. 35, 36, 38-40, 42-45. + Chap. xiv. 13, 21.

*

spiritual latitude; but "who shall despise the day of small things" in charity any more than in numbers? Suffice it that the morning having dawned, and the day approaching, it is time to be up and active in the works of our Father, which are works of charity.

If a word may be offered on the plan to be pursued, the writer would suggest that reading meetings be instituted, for the express purpose of cultivating a knowledge of the doctrine of charity. Abundant means are at hand. The True Christian Religion has a whole chapter in which the subject is very fully treated, besides various isolated portions. There are also the smaller works, the Doctrine of Life, and the New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrines, and the larger ones of the Apocalypse Explained, and the Arcana, which would furnish an almost exhaustless source of instruction. In addition to these sources, the work on Conjugial Love may be instanced, developing, as it does, the form under which charity should exist between married partners, and what has reference to the subject, either with regard to those who have arrived at an age to think seriously of entering into the married state, or to the relationships which arise out of it, of which the education of children is the principal. The earnest adoption of the course recommended, with the view to a practical end, the further means suitable for carrying out the object, will suggest themselves as the work goes on. The main requirement is an earnest and determined effort, one on which the energies of both minister and congregation are concentrated, and the result, we are firmly persuaded, will not, under the Divine blessing, be doubtful.

In conclusion, we may remark, the urging of this subject on the church at large, as a body, does not preclude the individual study of it by each of her members; both modes should work coïncidently. The latter perfects the individual, the former edifies the church, and is the more important, from the fact that the church is designed to be a COMMUNITY,-to have a community of all mental goods and truths, without which charity cannot exist in any degree of fulness approaching perfection. By the adoption of the suggestion here offered, it is believed the church would experience a gradual revival of charity. The icy fetters which confine her activities would melt and fall off: the walls of partition between her members would disappear before the growing warmth of her state. Her deserts would smile, her wastes would be restored; and a new era would be ushered in,-a —an era of love and power. She would grow in perfection within, and in attractive power without, till she became the Jerusalem described as "beautiful for situation,-the joy of the whole earth." Stoneclough, January.

W. W.