'The resurrection body is that part of our present being to which the essential life of the man pertains. We may not be able to see it, to handle it, to analyse it, or to describe it. But we know that it exists, because we know that we ourselves exist. It constitutes the inner essential vitality of our present bodies, and it lives again in another state, because it never dies. It is immortal in its own nature, and it is called a body-a spiritual body-because the poverty of human language, or perhaps the weakness of the human mind, forbids the adoption of any more fitting term by which to express it. It is, however, a body which has nothing to do with the gross material particles which enter into the composition of our present earthly tenements.' P. 70.

'It would seem, then, on the whole, from a collation of all the grounds on which an opinion is to be formed, that the judgment of reason would be, that a spiritual body is developed at death. By the development of a spiritual body, we mean the disengagement-the extrication-of that psychical part of our nature with which vital and animal functions are, in the present life, intimately connected.' P. 78.

"Nor does this writer believe," says the Rev. Mr. Barrett, in his reviewal of this work in the American New Jerusalem Magazine, "that the spiritual body of which he speaks is a subtle and formless vapor, but that it is a substantial thing, and in human form. In his mind the material is evidently not the substantial. He discards the

common notion that the soul, when it leaves the material body, exists as a mere conscious intelligence or bare power of thought, without any form, and treats the idea as sheer hypothesis,' having no warrant either from Scripture or sound philosophy. The following are some of his remarks on this point :—

'On no subject in the whole circle of human knowledge are we more in the dark, than in regard to what is usually termed the soul. It is common to speak on this subject as if the soul were abstract thought-pure intellection-capable of subsisting in another world in the most absolute and isolated state, without any kind of connection with any kind of body. But is thought substance? In order to thought, must there not be something which thinks?-something of which thought is the attribute and not the essence? Granted it may be, and must be, that we are unable to detect or define this mysterious substance; but we may still affirm that it must exist, and that no error is greater than to suppose, that, at death, the soul goes forth from the body as a bare power of thought-bodiless and formless mens-which is, indeed, in our present constitution, lodged in a body, but to which a body is not necessary, and to which a body is, in fact, rather an incumbrance. Now to all this we do not hesitate to reply, that it is nothing more than a sheer hypothesis. It is impossible, on the ground either of revelation or philosophy, to make good the position.' P. 72.

"So we think; and so we should suppose that all who reflected upon the subject must think. But so the great body of the Christian Church have not thought; and when they do, the doctrine of the resurrection of the material body will be abandoned by all intelligent and reflecting people.

"The argument from reason against the commonly received notion of the Resurrection, which is presented in the first part of the work,

is clear and cogent, although one with which New Churchmen are generally familiar. And we are utterly at a loss to know how it can be fairly refuted. The author writes like a man who has carefully examined his subject, and who feels sure that he has solid ground to stand upon; yet at times he seems to shrink beneath the weight of responsibility which he thinks he incurs by publishing views so contrary to the current belief of the Church for many centuries, and which he is aware will be regarded by many of his brethren as heterodox and unscriptural. For he sees, and knows that others also must see, that, if his views of the Resurrection be correct, several other doctrines of the Old Church which are intimately connected with this, and which have been much discoursed upon from the pulpit, must necessarily be false. He sees that he is here opening a sluice into the Old City, which cannot fail to sweep away many things that have been regarded as treasures, and the loss of which will inevitably draw down upon him the anathemas of many of its inhabitants. The author does not attempt to wink out of sight the consequences which legitimately flow from the truth of his main position, but alludes to them with great candour on the very first page of his book." We quote the paragraph entire :—

'It is, I am persuaded, but seldom that a work is presented to the public under a more oppressive load of conscious, solemn responsibility than which presses upon my spirit in delivering over to the verdict of the Christian community the present volume By no possibility can I disguise from myself the fact, that the results which it announces are of very momentous import to the interests of revealed truth. From the inevitable relations of the doctrine of the Resurrection to the cognate announcements of the great scheme of Scriptural Eschatology, or the doctrine of the last things, a course of reasoning, or a theory of interpretation, which goes cssentially to change the established view of that tenet, must necessarily work a correspondent change in our estimate of a whole class of subjects bearing upon the theme of human destiny in another life. Now it is certain that the conclusions to which I have arrived, and which will be found embodied in the ensuing pages, must, if built upon sound premises, present the grand future under an entirely new aspect. The resurrection of the body, if my reasonings are well-grounded, is not a doctrine of revelation.

'I cannot be unaware of the shock which such a declaration is calculated to give to the settled preconceptions of a great portion of Christendom. Nor can I be insensible to the imputation which it can scarcely fail to draw after it, of an uncommon degree of temerity in thus virtually assuming to arraign and to convict of error the current creed of the Church for the space of eighteen centuries. The severity of judgment reasonably to be expected on this score, I know, can be propitiated only by an overwhelming cogency of proof of the truth of the main position. I beg him [the reader] also to believe, that nothing short of the most intense conviction of the truth of the principles on which my conclusions rest, could have prevailed upon me to stand forth so much in the attitude of an impugner of the fixed belief of good and great men both of the past and the present.'

Although the author says that his main results have been arrived at by a purely independent process,' yet he does not attempt to dis

guise the fact that the doctrine of the Resurrection advocated in his work is identical with that taught in the New Church. He makes honourable mention of Swedenborg and his doctrines, and has several quotations from Noble's Appeal,' which he speaks of as an able and interesting' work." The following paragraph occurs in a note to p. 75:'It may be deemed, perhaps, a somewhat presumptuous anticipation of the results which may hereafter accrue from the newly developed phenomena of mesmerism, to appeal to them in connexion with a subject of such grave moment as that under discussion; but as our own observation and experience, in circumstances that precluded the possibility of illusion, have fully established to our minds the leading facts of that science for science it assuredly is—we have no hesitation in expressing the full belief that very important light is yet to be reflected from that source on some of the profoundest mysteries of our physical and intellectual being. Nor is it any less clear to our convictions that the physico-psychical system of Swedenborg, in this connection, is destined to engage the study of all reflecting minds; for sure we are that no one can institute the comparison that we have, between the facts of animal magnetism and the doctrines of this remarkable man, without seeing that they stand in the same relation to each other as do the laws of gravitation in the universe to the philosophy of Newton. We have learned--and not a little to our surprise-that the system of Swedenborg, so far from being a mere wild, incoherent farrago of spiritual hallucinations, is really built upon a profound philosophy of matter and of mind, and that the question of the truth of his theology must be decided by that of his philosophy; and this, strange as it may appear, is rather receiving confirmation than refutation by the results of scientific research. Nor will a supreme regard to truth allow us to withhold the declaration, that the view of the resurrection advocated in these pages is substantially the same with that taught in his writings, though arrived at by an independent process, and before we were aware of the features of affinity between them.'

From the above paragraph it evidently appears that the New Church system of Theology is gradually making its way in the mental horizon, and that as it proceeds it will attract the attention of the thinking and the profound. Our brethren in America have cause to rejoice that such a work, by so able an author, has appeared amongst them.

On the Philosophy of a Divine Revelation, by Means of inspired writings, and of "God Manifest in the Flesh," in the Person of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, by A. J. LE CRAS. Pp. 132. In this work, which has deserved an earlier notice, there is a luminous exposition of many New Church doctrines and principles, which are powerfully contrasted with prevailing errors and fallacies. The difference between genuine and apparent truths is clearly demonstrated. This little work might be lent or presented, with every prospect of success, to those who, from the fallacies of the senses, and of the literal sense of the Word, have been led away into a denial of Revelation. It supplies many valuable arguments and illustrations, to such as have to contend with persons of the above description.

Poetry.

ON THE PYRAMIDS OF EGYPT.

Would you the difference between

Wisdom and knowledge

Perceive more clearly than 'tis seen

In school or college,—

Go to the Pyramids of Egypt. There

Has Science reared her proudest monuments,
And all for what? Just to declare

The founders' want of true intelligence!
Oh, wondrous waste of super-human energies,
To raise vast buildings, stretching to the skies,
Not for one living use with human weal connected!
Merely to form the tyrant's stony bed,-

A place to hold the corses of the dead,

Turning to dust, by crawling worms dissected! No wisdom's here, because the end is folly,

Though knowledge has that end with awe invested,An end so all-undignified, that melancholy

Steals o'er the mind by which its worth is tested.

And while we look with wonder on the scene,

A thought springs up beneath our awe-struck faces,

Prompting to laugh; for Judgment hangs between

What man's high powers extols, and power still higher-disgraces!

MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION.

"THE MIRROR OF TRUTH;" a new Pe

riodical published at Cincinnati. The first number of this work has arrived in this country. The following PROSPECTUS Shews its nature and objects:

"A Periodical devoted to the New Church, more especially in the Western States of America, is felt to be indispensable. It is needed as a means by which the brethren may communicate with each other, on matters in which they have a special and a common interest. Such a means for the interchange of sentiment, and the conveyance of information, may prove both interesting and useful to the Church.

"It is desirable that such a publication should issue from Cincinnati. The brethren are numerous here, the city is central,

W. M.

and is the rising metropolis of the West. Accordingly, Mr. Howells expected, by his intended removal hither, that he would be enabled to publish the Retina in a way to meet more fully the wants and wishes of the Church. His intention has been frustrated; but, being desirous to see a periodical conducted and published in this city, he has kindly offered to transfer the Retina to other hands, or let it be superseded by a new periodical, on the same principles, and having the same objects in view. His offer has been accepted, and a publication decided upon, to commence with the ensuing year. Its title will be the Mirror of Truth. It will be a sheet, containing eight pages, imperial octavo, and it will be published semi-monthly, on the first and third Saturdays in the month.