nected with all the arts of life, of that ubiquitous science which is valuable to the agriculturist, to the mariner, to the astronomer and the chemist, which cheapens food, multiplies luxuries, aids in discovery, protects property, watches and records the phenomena of nature, regulates time throughout the land, beautifies our houses, subserves the purposes of the engraver, makes books more beautiful, abundant and accessible, dogs the steps of criminals, and facilitates commerce, and intensifies friendship, and acts as the world's peacemaker by approximating the distant, so that the living voice that speaks in New York has been overheard in Boston, while from our beacons it thrusts deeper into the darkness that circle of light which from rock and headland shines like an aureole round our land, which thus is begirt by the glory that defends.

Astronomy is recognized in this inaugural address by many allusions, which remind us that although there has been an astronomy since the magicians and priests of Babylon and Egypt sought to learn the course of events by tracing the movements of planet and star, yet at the era of the Last Judgment, except a few facts and principles detected by Galileo and Kepler, Brahe and Newton, nothing was known of the true constitution of the universe. But scarcely was the cloud withdrawn before the era of truth set in for the student of the heavens.

Swedenborg had declared that though men looked for the destruction of the earth it should remain an everlasting seminary of heaven. In 1772 he entered that other world with which he had so long been familiar, and almost at once this assertion of his was confirmed by Lagrange, Laplace, and afterwards Poisson, who, beginning in 1773, established the fact that the solar system is arranged for a duration apparently indefinite. The history of practical astronomy may also be counted from the publication in 1767, by Maskelyne, of the "Nautical Almanac." Sidereal and telescopic astronomy had first a vigorous life in connection with the labours of Sir Wm. Herschel, who constructed his first reflector in 1774, and discovered Uranus seven years later.

The solar investigations in which chemistry and optics aid astronomy date from Herschel's examination of sun-spots in 1774, and from Brewster's investigation of the absorption of light, which prepared the way for the interpretation of the lines in the solar spectrum discovered by Wollaston and mapped by Fraunhofer. It is the study of these dark bands crossing the solar spectrum that more than anything else has elucidated the nature of the sun and confirmed all those essential elements of New Church theology which are so intimately connected with the physical constitution of the great centre of our planetary system.

We must, however, draw to a close. This inaugural address is indeed like a catalogue of some recent topics of scientific thought and work, but such a catalogue, however unattractive in form, has a fascinating interest from the wealth of its suggestiveness.

For us at the present moment the prominent idea brought before us

is this, that every science, every enterprise celebrated in the presidential discourse, originates in that grand revival of physical learning, which, taking effect a few years posterior to 1757, has in a single century inscribed on the rolls of fame more and more illustrious names than had been written there in all previous milleniums.

The signification of the fact is plain. In simple truth, Swedenborg, unfolding the laws of human thought and those of the spiritual world, indicates that every year of the decay of the first Christian Church rendered discovery more difficult and less probable. Light, like every other good and perfect gift, comes to man through the spiritual world, but there an accumulation of the evil and false, like a thick cloud, stopped out the light which should have reached men on earth. When, however, by the Last Judgment, the cloud era in the other world was terminated, then on earth the dark ages came to an end. Now, by revelations of spiritual and natural truth, a new period is inaugurated, which will be distinguished by a New Church in a new world, according to the will of Him Who has made all things new. W. C. BARLOW.

LORNE STREET, EDINBURGH.

Review.

CORRESPONDENCES OF THE BIBLE-THE ANIMALS. By the Rev. JOHN WORCESTER. Boston: Lockwood, Brooks, and Co.

WE have read this volume with great pleasure, and can congratulate the author on having produced a volume which is not only readable and interesting, but instructive in a very high degree. Mr. Worcester has followed a first-rate plan, and has managed to combine the interest of a work on natural history with the spiritual lessons, which it is the main object of the volume to supply, in a way that is sure to fascinate young readers. The plan is this. The author draws upon a few well-known works of travel in the Holy Land and of Bible history, in addition to the large and popular work on general natural history by the Rev. J. G. Wood, for the descriptions of the form, habits, and uses of the animals, with their illustrative anecdotes. These are therefore thoroughly reliable, and told in clear language by writers familiar with the subject. From all the details of the life of each animal a parallel on the spiritual plane is drawn, which is in every respect attractive. For Sunday School use, as the basis of a course of lessons, nothing could be better, affording at once matter which will not fail to fix the attention, and by which correspondences may be taught in a striking manner. For this purpose many of the chapters are very rich in material; others are only suggestive, and require further research and thought on the part of the teacher. The correspondences of the various animals, birds, etc., are illustrated in many cases by extracts from the writings of the Church, which certainly are to us even more authoritative than the “authorities" which are quoted to give us an idea of their natural habits. These extracts are in most instances general, but the corresponding details to the material ones are skilfully, and generally correctly, given

by its pains-taking author. In this respect the reader has the authorities both natural and spiritual presented to him, as well as the deductions of the author. There are a few things in the volume which might, we think, have been improved. Thus the horse, which occupies such a prominent place in Scripture, ought certainly to have been treated in a separate chapter, instead of in the chapter on the ass, merely by way of contrast and comparison with it. Further, as the bird of paradise, which though frequently referred to in Swedenborg is not mentioned in Scripture, has a pleasant chapter in the work, the tiger, which is similarly placed, might surely have been considered sufficiently important to be treated more fully than in a chance reference in the article on the leopard. Of course, as the work only undertakes to give the correspondence of Bible animals, we can hardly find fault that it does not give more than it has undertaken to do. Concluding our remarks by hoping that many may avail themselves of this volume to provide pleasure and instruction for our younger members, we append an extract from the article on the camel, to give an idea of the style in which the whole is written. After referring to its peculiarities of structure, to its being able to masticate thorns as sharp as needles, to its plodding powers of endurance, to its stern gravity that characterizes even its young, to its slender attachment to its kind and to its master, to its fondness for a plant called Ghada, for which, though beaten on every occasion, it will every time it sees it again turn out of the way, to its stupidity in going straight forward on such occasions instead of turning back again to the path, and to the fact that if its master falls off it never dreams of stopping but goes plodding on, Mr. Worcester sums up thus:

"It is no kindly charity that is thus described, nor gentle spiritual affection for truth. It is a stern mind, comprehensive in it grasp of natural principles, unpitying and unwearying in its application of them. It is a mind that applies general principles, regardless of their particular consequences (A. C. 2781, 3048, end). It is the faculty which trains youth for physical contests through hardship and severe discipline. It is the reformer who would cut off abuses by sweeping laws, heedless of the injuries which they must also inflict. It is John the Baptist, who came, as his name implies, to cut off the abuses of life into which the Jews had fallen, and compel them to straight, honest, upright ways, in which the Lord could come to them. A fearless rebuker of kings, soldiers, Pharisees, and common people alike, he was clothed in camels' hair, he lived in the wilderness, and braved the death his own righteous severity provoked. "The camel lives in the desert because the camel-mind cares not to produce, but to destroy the growth of abuses; it thrives upon hard, negative prohibitions, where others would starve for want of pleasant, kindly words and acts. He chews the cud, because such a mind meditates upon and generalizes all its knowledge. He does not divide the hoof, because it does not consider the kindliness and usefulness of its steps; it cares only for their rightfulness. The breadth of the foot is its power of generalizing the facts upon which it depends. His water-stomach is its ample memory of cleansing truth; his hump the memory of the good results of discipline and reform."

ERRATUM.--In the article in the October number of the Repository "On Swedenborg's Visions of other Worlds," at page 485, and the 31st line, for "These are variable stars" read "There are variable stars."

Miscellaneous.

SACRAMENTS.-The New Jerusalem them all; and when they are abandoned, Messenger, of September 13th, gives the the result must necessarily be 'the exfollowing extract from an article on tinction of every Christian body that Spirit and Form in Religion," pub- has tried to do without them."" lished in the Liberal Christian, an Unitarian periodical :

of a certain amount of exclusiveness one-sided conceptions of what this higher taking possession of each separate Church, life is; and that they have one-sided a tendency to think more of a special conceptions as to the way in which it member than of the whole body, of manifests itself. The higher Christian themselves and their own institutions life does not show itself in the singing rather than of the universal Church, of hymns or in offering prayers, or in must be resisted. Congregationalists repeating creeds, or in receiving sacrasometimes suffered reproach because their ments. The Christian life shows itself old name of Independents seemed to hint in deeds in the daily walk and conversathe idea of self-containedness-a disin- tion." Of this the preacher gave several clination to be interfered with-and in- examples; our space allows us to give difference to others. But that would be only the following:-"Look at that an unfair interpretation, both of the business man. He works hard, puts his word and of the people, whom the word soul into his business, is a clever man, only partially described. It was the but cannot get on. There is his friend duty and privilege of each separate fold across the road who is in the same busito realize its relationship with other folds ness, and is making a fortune. He is outside its enclosure. looking at the methods he is pursuing, and sees clearly how it is done; and he, too, if he would bribe the managers and heads of departments and overlookers, could get on. He, too, could pass off inferior goods; but he won't stain his conscience with a lie; he won't resort to tricks to make things pass for what they are not; his word is his bond; he is as true as steel. Yet he is not envious of the prosperity of that man. He is not sour-minded.

SWEDENBORG'S DOCTRINE OF LIFE IN A WESLEYAN PULPIT.-During the Conference of the Wesleyan Free Church, which this year assembled at Sheffield, the Rev. Marmaduke Millar, of London, preached a remarkable sermon on "The Higher Life." His remarks were founded on the text, "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling" (Phil. ii. 12). After contending that salvation is a life work, he pleaded for earnest, active, personal service. "Would not the close observer," he asked, "be ready to think that some of us had taken for our pattern some Roman Cæsar, rather than the houseless wanderer of Galilee, who had not where to lay His head? We Christian people want saving out of this love of ease, and this love of money, and this bad temper, and this envying, and this unforgiving spirit. And this salvation we are to work out. We are to regard it as the great work of our life, and thus to grow up into Jesus Christ our living Head in all things. It is a matter of deep thoughtfulness that during the last two or three years we have heard a good deal about the higher Christian life; and we need to hear a good deal about it. In our prayer meetings we frequently pray that the Lord would revive His work, and that sinners might be converted. We need to pray that prayer; but we need also to pray that the Lord would carry on His work in the hearts of those who are converted. We need a higher quality quite as much as we do a larger quantity. Those who are converted should be pure specimens of what Christians ought to be. It seems to me that some of our good friends have very

He is cheerful, and full of trust in God. His great aim in life is not to make money, not to get ease or comfort. His great aim in life is to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with his God. There is the higher life! Talk about sermons driven like nails in sure places; those are the sermons that stick. There is more eloquence in that man's life than thousands of sermons that will be preached to-day."-Abridged from the " Sheffield Independent."

UNITED PRAYER MEETINGS.-Ever since the settlement in Hull of Mr. Layland as leader of the Society here, he has been in the habit of attending the weekly noon-day prayer meeting, which is held in the Royal Institution, and in which "Christians of all denominations" are publicly and earnestly invited to take part. At these meetings he has frequently engaged in prayer, and sometimes delivered a very brief address. He has, however, on every occasion, studiously avoided the use of any language save that which was likely to lift the people to higher levels of thought and feeling. became known, at last, that he was an avowed and pronounced "Sweden

It