Ring the bells merrily On this happy morn Christ our Lord was born, Ring the bells merrily. VERUS. TO LIVE ACCORDING TO TRUTHS IS TO LOVE THE LORD. WE are told on the highest authority that the first and great commandment is, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind." This precept has, as it deserved, attained great prominence in the teaching of the Church. Preachers of every sect and in every age have urged the great necessity of loving the Lord above all things. But in reference to this, as to many other topics of Christian faith and life, the members of the Church have suffered from a lack of definite teaching, until the injunction "Love the Lord" has become a mere cant phrase, without meaning to the great majority of people; just like the terms "gospel," "blood of Christ," etc. It is, however, futile to exhort men to 66 COME to the Lord," unless men are taught how to come to Him: it is useless to repeat the command, "Love the Lord," unless they are instructed as to what the love of the Lord means, how acquired, and how recognized. It is necessary that we should teach (or be taught) the meaning of the words of Holy Writ, else we might as well revert to the practice of the church of "mystery," and preach and pray in an unknown tongue. It is the mission of the New Church to give unto the world teachings "clear as crystal" and solid as stones. The "love" that we are required to manifest to the Lord is not a mere vague sentimentalism, analogous to that described in the words "To love: It is to be all made of sighs and tears; It is to be all made of phantasy, All made of passion, and all made of wishes." "To live according to truths is to love the Lord;" and the converse is equally true, "To love the Lord is to live according to truths." In this declaration, which occurs in Heaven and Hell, 225, and there given as the reason why angels of the celestial genius delight to listen to the preaching of those of the spiritual genius, we have a tangible idea and a useful one, more valuable than all the sentimental talk about "giving the heart," and "coming just now," and "free grace," that was ever uttered. Truths teach us what is right, and if we live according to them we shall manifest our love to the Lord by regarding Him as our Teacher and Example. Towards this end all preaching should be directed, even if preachers have to display less of their own ingenuity and more straightforwardness, and to quote less poetry (?) and more Scripture. Long prayers, or short ones; loud professions, or no profession; liberal contributions, or stinginess, will never conjoin men to the Lord unless they live according to truths. John Wesley, with all his orthodoxy, was constrained to write with a frankness that did honour to him: "I find more profit in sermons on either good temper or good works, than in what are vulgarly called Gospel sermons. The term has become a mere cant word. It has no determinate meaning. Let but a pert self-sufficient animal, that has neither sense nor grace, bawl out something about Christ or His blood, or justification by faith, and his hearers cry out, What a fine Gospel sermon !'" One of the great needs of our time is a definite knowledge of religious truth and its mission. The statement that "to live according to truths is to love the Lord" is, however, interesting and instructive viewed in another aspect. It is a strong protest against that indifference to truth which, under cover of the pretence to "liberality of sentiment" and "broadness," endeavours to frown out of existence all efforts to acquire and propound definite religious views. An idea is current that preachers and writers who freely criticise opinions which they believe to be without Divine authority, and who object to the disestablishment of creeds and articles of faith, are "narrow-minded," "bigoted," "wanting in liberality," "opponents of advanced thought." To this view we entirely demur. "Breadth" without solidity is not a characteristic of great strength; and that "liberality of sentiment" which has no particular sentiment to be liberal with, is not nearly so desirable as a rational acceptance of definite truth. He who believes that the views he accepts are Divine in their origin, and therefore uses every lawful means to disseminate them, may be quite as "broad" in his sympathies as he who has no positive faith to offer; he who regards his own creed as the best in existence is not necessarily more of a "bigot" than he who denounces all creeds; he who from principle argues against the particular belief of his neighbour may be more deeply imbued with the spirit of Christian charity than he who regards all beliefs with indifference; he who objects strongly to the demolition of existing forms of belief until better ones are presented, is in quite as good a position to love and air the cause of "religious progress" as he whose mission is purely iconoclastic. Intolerance on religious questions is greatly to be deplored, but the intolerance of the churches is far preferable to the intolerance of the sect of one man, the Ishmaelites of religious thought. To deny the value and importance of definiteness in religious truth is to deny the value and importance of religious truth itself; and this is a position which few of the advanced (?) school would deliberately assume. The school of thought that possesses no precise knowledge upon the subjects that it discusses must necessarily be vague and untrustworthy, and must, however pretentious, turn out very poor scholars in its own class of subjects. The Apostle Paul was much more philosophical, when in his Epistle to the Hebrews he laid down the proposition, "He that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him." Here we have a solid foundation upon which to build up a system of religious faith and life. The belief that God is (which must be a belief founded on evidence and rationally accepted), is founded upon truth; a truth, however, that requires to be supplemented by the knowledge of WHO God is, and WHAT God is. These preliminary truths being seen clearly in the light of the Word, we are in a position to approach the paramount practical question, "In what relationship does God stand to us?" The Scriptures teach us that God is our Creator and Preserver, that He is the Source of all love and wisdom and power, that He is our Lawgiver and King, our Friend and Father. Around these central truths cluster a great number of other truths, each of which, when known, gives breadth and solidity and definiteness to our conceptions of God, and of our relationship to Him. In this respect, religious truth is analogous to every other kind of truth; every truth we learn and grasp gives us a better hold of the general subject. To become a geometrician, one must learn and acknowledge the definitions and axioms of Euclid as truths, and any would-be teacher of the science of geometry who should commence to initiate students into a knowledge of that science by telling them not to allow their minds to be unduly, trammelled by the "definitions" and "axioms" (for they are very old-fashioned), lest they should become bigotedly attached to them, and perhaps ultimately become opponents of advanced geometrical thought, would be accounted an eligible candidate for a residence in an asylum. It may be objected that the parallel will not hold good, since geometry is an exact science, while theology is a speculative one. To this objection we reply, "If theology is a speculative science, it is because of the refusal to accept the definitions and axioms given in the Word, and that the more rigidly we adhere to the lines laid down for us, the more definitely shall we know and acknowledge spiritual truth." The mere fact that any man does not now know sufficient of religious truth to enable him to affirm that theology is an exact science, is no argument to prove that it is necessarily a speculative one: things that were equal to the same thing were equal to one another long before either Euclid or any one else said so. Our AIM should be to acquire exact and clear views of religious truth. If we do not know all truth, or the whole of any one truth, we may know in part, and what we know we must live. The purpose of truth is to lead man to good, and if we have any affection for God and heaven and goodness, we shall strive to know all that we can about them. If we thus strive we may be ever learning new truths, each of which will enlarge our perceptions of God's goodness and wisdom and power. 66 There are many motives to induce us to be diligent in our search after truth. Without truth we cannot know the Lord, nor seek Him, nor obey Him, nor love Him. Without truth we are "tossed to and fro, and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men." Without truth we are enveloped in thick spiritual darkness, so that we grope for the wall like the blind." Without truth we are defenceless against the attack of our infernal foes, who only succumb to "the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God." Without truth we must live in the bondage of sin, "but if the truth shall make us free, we shall be free indeed." We cannot more fitly display our gratitude to the Giver of every good and perfect gift than by learning and living His truth; for though the merely intellectual reception of truth will not save man, "To live according to truths is to love the Lord." SEDAN. CELL LIFE. THE minds of many persons at the present day are evidently anxious with regard to the attitude lately taken by many eminent scientific men as to the relations and teachings of science and religion. And certainly some of the statements of Messrs. Huxley, Tyndall, Spencer, and Mill are capable of such interpretations as warrant this anxiety. It is, however, gratifying to know that many of the scientific statements of these gentlemen are entirely contradicted by certain other scientific persons, and especially by Dr. Lionel S. Beale of London. Dr. Beale is a renowned original investigator in histology, and he has written many controversial works, which should be very interesting to receivers of the teachings of Swedenborg. He states of the cell that "we may speak of it as existing of matter of very different states and stages of existence, matter which lives (germinal matter), and matter which is formed and has ceased to manifest purely vital phenomena (formed material)." With respect to this matter which lives (germinal matter) it will perhaps be more in accordance with the New Church teaching to say that it is matter which is the immediate recipient of an influx of life from the spiritual world, and when we give this interpretation to Dr. Beale's writings, they then become confirmatory in a remarkable degree of New Church teaching. There is one passage in his works which evidently shows that his theories require our teaching to complement and make them perfect, and that he feels such a want. He says: "It is unsatisfactory to many minds to be thus compelled to admit the action of a force or power of the nature of which nothing is yet known, but it is better to do this than to pretend to be able to give a satisfactory explanation of phenomena which science in its present state is incompetent to account for." Our teaching steps in and gives an account of his unknown power, by giving the laws of the relationship between the spiritual and natural worlds. In the examination of the tissues of animals by such high powers of the microscope as those used by him, of course the greatest care is requisite, as he uses 3, 6, and at times even of an inch objectglass, as but few persons are competent to use profitably these extreme powers, yet the greatest confidence may be given to the doctor's observations, on account of his acknowledged ability with the microscope. It has been found that carmine can be so used in the preparation of specimens for the microscope, so as to colour only the bioplasm or germinal matter (or matter receptive of spiritual influx), and when this is done, the object seen through the microscope shows those parts red where bioplasm is, and not so where the formed material is, thus giving us the power to observe the germinal matter or bioplasm with certainty. The influx of life is into the bioplasm, which is structureless, and |