beauty and harmony. The resolution was seconded by Mr. Bruce in a speech full of eloquence and energy. He said that charity is the essence of all religion, and that consequently wherever charity is found, there is the church of God. Charity is the foundation of the church, because man is judged not according to his opinions or his faith, but according to his, love. However, therefore, a man's intellect may be darkened by erroneous and false principles, if his heart and affections are placed upon the Divine Goodness, he belongs to the communion of saints, and is a member of the Lord's mystical body -the church. False principles, said the speaker, are of two kinds-those originating in a corrupt heart, and those originating in ignorance or simplicity. Between them there is a distinction wide as the world; for false opinions, where confirmed, pass from the understanding into the heart, and thence into the life, producing all that discordance and contention-that division and hostility which abound in the world. Widely different, however, is it with those who have imbibed error in simplicity or ignorance. Having their hearts grounded in charity, any errors they may have contracted will be so subordinated as to leave no lasting impression on their lives. When, therefore, they enter on the life beyond the grave, if not before, their errors will be swept away, and the truth being presented to them in all its purity and brightness, will be accepted and made their own.

After a pause and refreshment, Mr. Madeley rose to propose the third resolulution "That the several dispensations which have existed on the earth are to be regarded as the gradual unfoldings of the Divine plan for the salvation of mankind; and that the New Church is the completion of this plan, or the crown of all former churches." Having given a rapid sketch of the several dispensations which had existed on this earth, he shewed that they were the gradual unfoldings of the Divine plan for the salvation of mankind, and for the establishment of a final and crowning dispensation, in which the brightest predictions of the prophetic Word should be realized, and which is there described under the figure of the New Jerusalem. The church might be compared to an individual man, and the successive dispensations of the church to the successive developments of the human mind from the earliest to the latest period of life. The first dispensation, like man

in infancy, was in innocence, when the will principle is more active and is more especially developed; the second, like childhood and adolescence, when the understanding is unfolded and formed by the truths of the Word;-the third, which was not a church, but the representative of a church, was like the transition state from adolescence to manhood; and the first Christian dispensation was like the state of manhood, when the powers of will and understanding come into free and vigorous activity; and the last and crowning dispensation is like that advanced period of life when man comes into the innocence of wisdom, which comprehends in itself all previous states, and is their completion, their crown, and their end. The New Church, therefore, contains in its principles the accumulated perfection of all former dispensations.

Mr. Prescott closed with prayer one of the most edifying and delightful meetings which the members north of the Tweed have ever experienced.

The next annual meeting was appointed to be held in Glasgow, on the second Friday of September next year.

Next morning a number of the friends breakfasted together, and again enjoyed the pleasure of social intercourse. After breakfast the minutes of last year's proceedings were read; after which a resolution was adopted by the meeting, recommending the societies of the New Church in general, and the Glasgow society in particular, to establish a depôt for the sale of New Church Literature in some city in Scotland, from which societies and members might be readily supplied. A second resolution was passed appointing the Rev. T. O. Prescott and Mr. A. Bain, of Glasgow, as a committee to carry the former resolution into effect. L.

MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.

The Rev. T. Goyder, of Chalford, has recently made a missionary visit to the Potteries, Staffordshire. He preached on Sunday, morning and evening, in the School-room occupied by our friends as their regular place of worship in Longton. It is but small, and will contain scarcely 100 persons. In the morning about 40 were present, but in the evening the room was pretty well filled, and the stillness that prevailed in these services showed that much interest was taken in the discourses. On Monday, June 19th, Mr.

Goyder gave his first lecture in the Union Town Hall, Longton. The following was the subject of the lecture;-" The strict Unity of God, in Essence and Person, shown to be in Harmony with the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity." The hall was well filled with a most attentive audience. The lecture occupied nearly an hour and a half, after which the lecturer invited the people to further inquiry. No objections were made, except a few quibbling questions put by two or three gentlemen professing to hold the Unitarian persuasion. These were soon disposed of, and our friends seemed much delighted and pleased. On Tuesday evening, June 20th, he gave his first lecture in the Town Hall, Hanley, in a splendid room that will hold more than 400 people. It was tolerably well filled. The lecture was "On the Signs of the Times, and the Second Advent of the Lord." The people were very still, and appeared much interested. On the lecture being concluded, one or two of the people called Latter Day Saints got round Mr. Goyder, and pressed their views, but nothing of moment transpired. This is the first time the doctrines were preached in this populous town, and they have caused some excitement. One gentleman said "The doctrines of this New Church are quite new here, we never heard of these things before! They must and they ought to be examined!" Tracts were distributed among the people, and these will work silently in the minds of the well disposed, and effect, under Divine Providence, the good desired. On Wednesday, June 21st, Mr. Goyder gave a second lecture in Longton, "On the Plenary Inspiration of the Word of God, and the rule given for its correct interpretation." At the conclusion of which there was a little controversey carried on with some few Unitarians, which was rather interesting. On Thursday, June 22nd, another lecture was delivered at Hanley, to a more numerous audience than the first,and the doctrines of the New Church on man, death, resurrection, and the future state, seemed to rivet the people's attention. After the lecture, Mr. Goyder was asked if, upon payment of his expenses, he would come again and lecture, and afterwards publicly discuss the subject? He replied that he should not have the least objection, and Mr. G. expects soon to be written to respecting a second visit. After the lecture, groups of people outside the hall were busy in discussing the points of the lecture; some approving and some

disapproving, so that there was a regular uproar among the people. Tracts were again distributed, and thus ended the visit to Hanley.

On the following Sunday, June 25th, Mr. G. preached to the friends in Longton, both morning and afternoon, and baptized four adults. In the evening the members took tea together, when the time was most agreeably spent in conversing on the doctrines, after which the evening concluded with prayer and singing. On Monday evening, June 26th, Mr Goyder again met the friends at Longton, and delivered a short discourse on the origin of good and evil, which afforded much instructive conversation for the whole evening. Thus ended Mr. Goyder's visit to the Potteries, which it is hoped will help to extend a knowledge of those heavenly doctrines which are given by our Heavenly Father to enlighten and bless the world.

On Sunday, July 2nd, Mr. Goyder preached morning and evening at Birmingham, to most attentive congregations, and returned home on Tuesday, the 4th July, after being absent three weeks.

TRANSLATIONS OF THE WOrks of SWEDENBORG.

TO THE EDITOR.

SIR,-It is your practice to leave New Church publications which you do not approve, unnoticed, but I presume that unapproved translations of the works of Swedenborg do not come under the same rule. The society for printing and publishing the writings of Swedenborg has its distinguished use as much in preserving to the public the best translations, as in making the books themselves accessible. Hence it cannot but be matter not only for regret but for grave consideration, when any translation is put forth by individuals calculated to retard rather than further the object for which translations are made.

In the year 1840 the Printing Society printed a posthumous work of Swedenborg's (De Domino, &c.) in the original Latin. Why they have not published a translation I know not. But owing to its absence, some zealous individual has published what he calls a translation, but which, as it does not answer the purpose of one, I call no translation at all; for, as a whole, it is calculated to make the author, so defectively translated, appear contemptible rather than the con

trary. I beg, then, through your medium, to suggest to the Printing Society, whether it be not advisable to print a translation of De Domino, in order to supersede this unfortunate effort. The work alluded to is called "The Divine Personality, Incarnation, and Glorification of the Lord, &c. By Emanuel Swedenborg. A Posthumous Work, first printed in Latin in 1840, but now translated. Dedicated to the Archbishop of Canterbury" [without permission, it is presumed]. Now, should His Grace condescend to look at this work (not very likely) and not have the original Latin edition to help him, I fear he would be sadly puzzled on reading such sentences as the following, copied liter atim, from page 50:"That from the body of the Lord being placed on the sepulchre, by death, which was dissolved, rejected, and dispersed with every thing human derived from the mother, is evident, by which means He had submitted to temptations and the Passion of the Cross." This was the first sentence which met my eye after obtaining the work from the bookseller. I will not pain your readers by citing similar un-English and unintelligible passages.

Now, are we not justified in saying, that if the Latin of this posthumous work was so carelessly written by the author, as not to be fairly translateable into good English, it was a double injustice to publish what is called a translation; an injustice to the author, who could have had no intention to publish untranslateable Latin; and an injustice to the reader, who is led to pay his money for a so-called translation which is of no use, but only productive of pain to him.

SWEDENBORG ASSOCIATION.

TO THE EDITOR,

W. M.

SIR,-Permit me to inform your readers that the Council of the Swedenborg Association, desirous of fulfilling as far as possible the obligations of the institution, have resolved to invite the members and such of their friends as may be interested in the subjects, to a series of monthly meetings, for the purpose of mutual aid in philosophical inquiries and instruction by means of essays.

I will not trespass on your space by urging the vital importance of such meetings to an Association which is pledged to represent the union of religion and philosophy, since it is sufficiently known that

the correspondence between their fundamental principles is the basis of all we value in the intellectual tendencies of the age. It may be remarked, however, that the Church of the past, in its more Catholic period, was anxious above all things to promote the development of its faith in the schools of philosophy; and if an institution, sullied by so many errors, acted on the principle that the human mind, as the interpreter of nature, ought to conform its utterances to the written Word, with how much zeal should the New Church endeavour to promote a like conformity? It is one of her principal doctrines that the fulness and majesty of truth are always proportioned to its development in externals, and among the best of these may be reckoned science and art.

The first of the proposed meetings will be held at No. 6, King-street, Holborn, on the fourth Tuesday in September, at eight o'clock in the evening, and it is trusted that the members resident in London will make a point of attending, either to aid in the efficient working of the present plans, or to offer suggestions for their improvement.

As one means of giving interest to the proceedings, literary and philosophical communications on subjects connected with the objects of the Association, are invited from distant friends. Those who feel disposed to contribute in this way to the success of the cause, are requested to send their communications, as a general rule, within a week of the time of each meeting; in consequence, however, of the notice being somewhat short, papers intended for the first meeting may be sent on the day preceding, if not ready before.

The members generally are respectfully requested to interest themselves in this effort, by inviting the coöperation of all within their reach whom they consider able and willing to lend their aid. E. RICH, Secretary.

108, Hatton Garden,

24th August, 1848. IMPROVEMENT IN THE VIEWS OF UNITARIANS RESPECTING ANOTHER LIFE.

In a Boston (United States) Unitarian Periodical of 3rd June last, in remarking on the character of a deceased person, the Editor, a Unitarian Minster, says of him :

"He had constantly been fitting himself, by the grace of God, for another sphere of existence. He was not so much wanted

for the discharge of duties upon earth, as in that very sphere to which God has summoned him."

When we see American Unitarians thus rejecting materialism, it qualifies the feeling with which we read the statement in the same publication, that the number of Unitarians in the United States has increased during the last forty years from one hundred to one million, including Unitarian Quakers!

The same paper gives an account of the Unitarian Anniversary week engagements, among which are found prayer meetings, at which fervent supplications against "earthliness' were offered up.

An evidence is here presented of the indirect advance of the New Church, apart from its visible manifestations. Wherever good exists, its tendency is to generate its corresponding truth, by which, more or less, approximation takes place towards the truth, in its genuine fulness, in the visible New Church.

MISS MARTINEAU'S EASTERN TRAVEL.

TO THE EDITOR.

SIR,-There is a remarkable passage in Miss Martineau's work on "Eastern Life, present and past," which perhaps the

readers of your periodical would be pleased to see, from so popular an authoress. After speaking of the "great religious ideas which have been the guiding lights of men from the remotest part, and which Christ presented anew, purified and expounded!" she says, "What an exquisite pleasure it is to stand where Jesus stood, and look around upon the old faiths and sectarian tenets of the world, and bring forth from them all a faith and hope which should, notwithstanding dreadful corruptions, elevate mankind through many future ages!--to have insight into the sacred mysteries of Egypt, and the national theology and law of Sinai, and the ritual morality of the Pharisees, and the philosophical scepticism of the Sadducees, and the pure and peaceable and unworldly aspirations of the Essenes, and to see how from all these together come the ideas, and from the unseen world the spirit, of the religion which Jesus taught!" Then after saying that this spirit and these ideas do not belong to the Christianity taught at the present day, she declares "that the actual kingdom has already come in the new heavens and new earth of the regenerated human mind.”

Died, on the 11th of March last, Mrs. Dorcas Grayson, wife of Mr. John Grayson, of East Sheen, near London, in the 64th year of her age. As, till very recently, she had always appeared to enjoy excellent health, her removal came most unexpectedly, and should operate as a solemn warning to all who knew her; teaching, as it does, the important lesson of the necessity of preparing for death, while, as yet, his visit is supposed to be distant. Happily, there is good reason to believe, that this lesson had been learned by her who is now gone. Living for many years as a companion with Mrs. Watson, widow of Captain Watson, R.N., who was one of the most affectionate and intelligent receivers of the heavenly doctrines that the New Church has ever possessed [see Intellectual Repository for 1822, page 277], Mrs. Grayson, though brought up in Unitarian principles, entered the same path, in which she steadily walked till the end. During the severe attacks of illness which her husband

J. B.

has latterly experienced, she ever ministered to him with the most tender and unwearied assiduity, and her loss is felt by him as a severe privation indeed. She had suffered for a few months from symptoms which were attributed to indigestion, and was not supposed to be dangerously ill till very shortly before her end. Her mind, however, became much occupied with spiritual things; she seemed to be conscious of her approaching change, and, at times, to be more in the other world than in this. On her husband's observing to her, with a view to cheer her, that spring would soon be here, and bring sunshine and flowers, she answered, "Oh yes! the bright sunshine in the new heavens;" and several such instances occurred. We may confide that she is gone to experience what she thus anticipated, and that the bright shining of that sun which is the first emanation of the Lord's divine love will recreate her happy spirit for ever. S. N.