From what has just been said, it follows that the parentage of the two rationals is the same on the paternal side, but different on the maternal. They both spring primarily from the human internal or from the divine influx through it; but they are conceived, the one from the love of science, and the other from the love of spiritual truth. In this respect they stand related like Ishmael and Isaac, the sons of Abraham, but the former the son of the Egyptian bond-woman, and the other of the Hebrew free-woman, which are Scriptural types of the two: and they are like their types. The first rational is antagonistic, aggressive, harsh, unyielding, and even cruel; and man so long as he is in that principle is a spiritual Ishmaelite, his hand is against every man's and every man's hand against him. Like Ishmael, too, he is a wild man, or as expressed in the original, "a wild ass man," most stubborn and intractable, and unwilling to submit to any restraint and law. And yet out of this a preparation is miraculously provided for man's regeneration. The internal rational is the reverse, because its truth is permeated by goodness. It is thus kind, considerate, gentle, and yielding. In short, in the interior rational is contained all things belonging to the interior memory. Likewise all the thinking principle which is perceptive of what is equitable and just. Goodness and truth, with conscience, also belong to this rational mind, and the spiritual affections which are truly human, and distinguish man from brute animals.

The use of this mind is, as already has been intimated, to serve as a medium of communication between the two extremes-the inmost on the one hand, and the outmost on the other; and by virtue of its thinking principle, and the spiritual affections proper to it, it flows into the natural mind, and stirs up the things that exist there, viewing them also by a kind of vision, whereby it forms conclusions and judgments, discovering what is in order there, and what is contrary to order. Its office is thus to rule and arrange the natural mind as a master rules his house, whilst the principles pertaining to the mind are intended to subserve to the requisitions and requirements of the rational principle. The interior rational thus first reduces the external rational to order, and by its means the natural. For unless the natural degree is brought into accord, and conjoined with the interior, man is not rational. He may appear so in corporeal or worldly matters; for the Lord preserves to man the capability of thinking and reasoning, and even of understanding spiritual things for the sake of his reformation, but as respects spiritual subjects he is, nevertheless, insane.

(To be concluded in our next.)

88

THE CAPTIVE MAIDEN.

TIMID, I glanced, and round me saw the yellow wheat
Daily in grace enhance; while I, in sad retreat,

Poured out in plaintive tones my heartfelt grief,
And daily sighed, in vain, for sweet relief!
I said within my soul: "E'en as the ripening grain,
I hasten unto womanhood, yet cannot burst this chain
That holds me fast to one whose heart is steel,
Who knows not love, and will not pity feel."

And Autumn came-while ever and anon I heard
The flutter that betokened some migrating bird;
And then my soul, with direful anguish torn,
Groaned 'neath the weight that heaped on me his scorn.
For I could not, alike the swallow, take my flight
To regions far away, but dwelt in one perpetual night:
And sinking low, within my heaving breast

I longed for death that I might be at rest!

Again, I saw the reapers fling the golden grain
Upon the sward; and heard at eve the harvest strain
Rise as a hymn of gratitude on high,

While deep oppressed, my heart found no reply:
And once methought the golden grain did then reveal
A likeness to the captive maid, when with his gleaming steel
The reaper Death spared not the ripening bloom,
And more I longed to see him seal my doom.

And when I listened I could hear the busy mill
Proclaim, with rattle loud, the riches of God's will;
Then, as I sate within my humid cell,

Methought I heard a voice that bade me well:
That voice was FAITH-it came to bring my soul relief,
To set the maid at liberty, to end her toil and grief.

Yet, lo! all was but some weird dream that broke
My tranquil sleep, while I in pallor woke.

It was a dream: yet we may captives be through life,
Shut in the castle of Despair, in mental strife;

But through the vale of tears the crystal stream

Of HOPE pours forth its flood, with hallowed theme;

While swift upon its silver tide, with ceaseless flow,
The captives of Despair are borne far from the hand of woe:
Till, rescued by the arm of Love, they dread

Jersey.

Nor bondage nor the bane around it shed.

H. W. ROBILLIARD.

89

UNION IN CHURCH SOCIETIES.1

WHATEVER may be the knowledge which we, as individuals, possess, or the desire we may have to put that knowledge into practice for the good of others, one thing is essential to the efficient performance of our wishes, and that is a healthy, or comparatively healthy bodily frame; if any organ in that frame lacks the power to perform its functions-if the lungs or the heart are diseased-if the stomach or liver are deranged, the whole body suffers more or less, and the individual is unfitted to carry on the everyday work of life. Perfect action of every part permits perfect combination of all the parts, and furnishes a bodily organism thoroughly fitted to be used as the responsive and capable instrument of the soul which animates it.

As it is with an individual organism or human body, so is it with a society or combination of individuals; each person is a unit, a separate organ in the little community, and just in proportion as each unit throws his or her energy and power, his or her intelligence or love unselfishly into the general effort, is the combined result-weak or strong, abortive, or tellingly active. If one or more of the units be either listless and inactive, or strongly opinionated, or peculiar in method or obstructive in movement, the community becomes disturbed, deranged, or fermenting, till the offending member voluntarily modifies his course into accordance with the general good.

Swedenborg tells us that a band of individuals combined into a society is only an individual in a larger sense. In the world, those of similar thoughts and affections usually incline to each other's society, and unite more or less perfectly, drawn together as they are by a peculiar affinity originating in the spiritual world, and which is regulated by wonderful laws. By such combination their united thoughts and feelings are exercised with an increased and cumulative energy. This law of affinity operates in all spheres of life. The necessity of providing for the wants of the body compels some of us to follow one line of industry and some another the particular industry being, in a proper state of things, determined by our peculiar bent or talent. Thus the retail establishment forms its community, the workshop and the mill theirs, and the professions find their ranks recruited after the same impulsive determination. Thus, each in his or her pursuit after the meat which supports bodily existence, is, by the influence of Divine Providence, so associated and combined with others, as to minister to the good secondarily of a particular community, and ultimately of the whole nation. The same affinity rules in the theological and religious worlds: those with similar beliefs associate together to seek their own improvement, and to influence those around them in the method of thinking and acting, which they accept, and, passing out of this world into the eternal, like draws to like; good spirits aggregate into societies, and become associated by neighbouring affinities into one vast body, constituting the universal heavens, which, in the sight of God, our author tells us, appear as one man, which he calls the Grand Man-the societies of this Grand Man appearing as men in a lesser form, each angel being a man as to the least. Similarly, the evil congregate by societies, and form one hellish monster, and even the transitional Hades or middle state-the world of spirits-finds its inhabitants grouped into bodies, the evil gravitating downwards, the good ascending heavenwards, till fixed in their eternal dwelling-places. From all of which we learn, that the ultimate of all thought, feeling, and action, is a union into similarity and likeness-the more perfect in that all think and feel with each, and each

Paper read by David Goyder, Esq., M.D., at the Quarterly Social Coffee Meeting of the Bradford New Church Society.

with all. All perfect action, in a word, depends upon the individuals of a group or society working unselfishly for a common object, each being willing to submit to a principle of order in submission to that object, each being content with the talent and capability peculiarly his own, doing what he or she feels best fitted to perform, and not usurping duties that others are better fitted by endowment or cultivation to effect. If selfishness or dissatisfaction be permitted to creep in, immediately the unity is broken, strife and revolution follow, and the society is rent asunder and destroyed.

Now, in view of these truths, we come to our special subject to-night; we, as New Church men and women, have freely associated ourselves into a society, with the double object of improving ourselves, and influencing for good those around us. We believe we possess the knowledge of the highest development of Christianity, by the practice of which we can attain the greatest happiness possible to us in the present stage of the world's development--a knowledge which we further believe is destined by promulgation to elevate and regenerate the world throughout all future time. How can we best consolidate ourselves for this individual and collective work of regeneration? The answer lies in a repetition of what has already been said or implied in the foregoing remarks: by unselfishly, intelligently, and lovingly doing each what we have the power to do, to make the services in this place pleasing, interesting, and instructive. Hitherto, as a society, we have met for public worship, we have met to read the writings of the Church, we have met quarterly and annually to transact the business of the society, and very occasionally we have met at a tea meeting for social intercourse. To-night we meet in an especial way to inaugurate a series of social gatherings, to add, in a regular and periodical manner, an element which, rightly conducted, is more than others calculated to bring us personally into contact, to enable us to know each other better, to furnish us with opportunities of more thoroughly developing each other's kindly affections and sympathies -to draw out each other's knowledge, so that that knowledge and those feelings may circulate through all of us as members of one body, that the experience and love of each may become the property of all, and the combined wisdom and affection of all the privilege of each: this is the order of heaven, and is fraught with the highest and most interior good and happiness. Moreover, such meetings will open our minds as to the best means by which each of us can contribute to the fulfilment of the other duties of the society; we shall, I trust, be enabled to show each other, for example, that it is not sufficient that a few of us should attend the Sunday worship, but all should attend, and that we should miss no opportunity, when health permits, to be present at every service of worship to God, and mutual instruction; that it is not enough that a few should attend the readings, but that all should be present who can, because all who speak or ask questions multiply opinion and elicit knowledge. That again, it is not enough that a few should attend the business meeting, but that all who can be present should be present, seeing that, as the proverb says, "in a multitude of counsel (that word counsel means much, because it implies a candid unselfish wish for the good of the society) there is wisdom." Thus, in a word, that every one who takes an interest in our well-being and progress, should assist that progress at every service, every meeting, and seize every opportunity to further it to the utmost. But let us for a few minutes consider these interesting points in a little detail, under the heads I have stated, as best answering the question, how we can consolidate ourselves for our own and others' good. The answer was, “by unselfishly, intelligently, and lovingly doing each what we have the power to do, to make the services of the society pleasing, interesting, and instructive.""

And first "unselfishly."

Our Heavenly Father has made us all to bear a common likeness, we are either men or women, and our features and forms are human. Yet each face and form differs in some essential peculiarity from every other. Why is this? It is because each mind, each soul which inhabits each body, has some mental or affectional peculiarity which moulds the bodily features in accordance with itself. If we wanted the highest ground of this distinction of minds and faces, we should find it in the truth, that each creature of God in some sort represents one of the phases, in some single idea or affection, existing in and emanating from the Infinite Divine mind. In this view lies the solution of some of the most recondite problems of the age, of the increase of population for example, and the questions of over and surplus population, etc.; but this line of thought is not within our province to-night. I mention it to show you by implication that God creates none of His children in vain; thy brother has as much right to live as thee; he has a mission as well as thee; that phase of the affectional element which a single woman represents cannot be replaced by any other woman's affection, because hers is a different phase. That mental quality which one man exhibits is peculiarly his, and yours peculiarly yours neither can be replaced by the other, and yet this diversity constitutes the very perfection of man as a race, because each unit in the mass can add something which another cannot; and thus, all the units contribute from their diversified gifts towards a never-ending change of thought, feeling, and action, which combines the mass into a gloriously varied and compact unity. But you will ask, What has this to do with selfishness? Everything! It shows you that every man, woman, and child, can be of use in a society like this, and that we should permit every one in an orderly way to exercise that use-that we should invite them to co-operate with us, and that we should never usurp all action and direction ourselves, thinking that our own ideas and ways are the only right and possible ones, for then we are not only exercising that selfishness which is the root of all evil, but we are in danger of claiming as our own the thoughts and feelings we express, forgetting that they, as far as they are good and true, are really God's, and only lent to us to amplify and perfect while we are working out our regeneration in this world. Each one of us, therefore, while we freely express our views, should submit that the mode of action to be followed in any given case shall be that of the wisest single or combined opinion arrived at after due deliberation of the whole. Again, each one should be invited to fulfil some use, and be permitted to continue in it, so long as in the eyes of all that use really contributes to the general good. Let me illustrate this matter in another way-take singing for example. Now remember my remarks are not personal; some persons can give greater expression to singing, some greater power, some greater sweetness; some can order the time of that singing better than others. Now it would be selfish for the one who had the strength, the expression, or the sweetness, or the time, to think that only strength was needful, or that only expression was needful; the truth is, that they are all needful, and what the one has not, he or she should permit the other to give, and that in the kindest, most receptive, and welcome manner, and thus perfect the singing by a judicious combination of all the elements. Again, we are all more or less possessed of knowledge; those who are less so should be ever ready to receive from those who are more so, and those who have more should neither scruple to give, nor be backward in receiving the views which even the least instructed may, from their peculiar method of interpreting what they do know, be capable of conferring. Again, some persons are peculiar for breadth of thought, others for definiteness of thought; let him who can