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eleven years he has filled the same Treasurer, William Milner, Esq., 212 Tottenham Court Road, London, or to the Secretary, Mr. Jobson, 26 North Villas, Camden Square, London, N.W."

office to the Missionary and Tract Society. The duties of both these important offices have always been discharged with fidelity and care, and in the matter of its accounts we think it can be safely affirmed that the New Church has not a more faithful, or more conscientious servant than Mr. Gunton. "Again, through his instrumentality the funds at the disposal of the Conference have been largely increased, the debts on the buildings of our Societies have, in many cases, been greatly lessened, while in others they have been entirely removed. In this particular sphere of usefulness Mr. Gunton has been eminently successful, greatly owing no doubt to the confidence reposed in his integrity and judgment by many of the best friends and benefactors of the Church, as well as to his rare and unrivalled talents as a collector.

"For ten years Mr. Gunton has also acted as the missionary of the National Missionary Institution, and in that capacity he has, accompanied by his "Silent Missionaries" and tracts, travelled far and wide, in summer and winter, holding Sunday services and delivering lectures in city, town, and village, and otherwise aiding in the dissemination of those heavenly principles we all hold so dear. In this field of labour he has been an earnest and untiring worker, and to render his services all the more valuable and acceptable, they have been freely and ungrudgingly given, and that for a very modest remuneration. In this, as in other respects, his heart has been in his work. He has been no mere hireling in his Master's service. He has worked from love for the sake of use, and not for the sake of pay, and his friends and fellow-labourers in the Lord's New Church have the satisfaction of feeling and acknowledging that his long and faithful services are the best offering he could make to so good and worthy a cause.

"For these, and other reasons, we feel that the time has now come for a more substantial recognition of his services. We therefore invite your hearty co-operation and generous sympathy towards the testimonial fund. On behalf of the Committee, Robert Jobson, Secretary.

"Subscriptions to be forwarded to the

LONDON NEW CHURCH SUNDAYSCHOOL UNION.-The quarterly general meeting of this Union was held at the New Church College, Devonshire Street, Islington, on the evening of Wednesday, the 21st February. About twenty friends partook of tea, after which the chair was taken by the President, Mr. S. B. Dicks. The minutes of the last meeting having been read, the President called upon Mr. G. W. Thomson, Treasurer of the Union, to read a paper on "Sunday-schools; their spiritual, moral, and social aspects and influences."

In the course of his address, Mr. Thomson dwelt upon the desirability of cultivating the social element in Sunday. schools, suggesting, amongst other things, the usefulness of occasional gatherings of old scholars and teachers. He desired particularly to impress upon Sunday-school teachers the importance of cultivating a personal acquaintance with their scholars. He was satisfied that the full benefits of Sunday-school teaching would never be secured until the teachers took a more lively interest in the affairs of those with whom they had to deal. Another point enlarged upon was the necessity of providing healthy and entertaining literature for the children of our schools. In this respect Mr. Thomson thought the New Church was deficient, and suggested that means should be devised for increasing our stock.

In conclusion, Mr. Thomson referred to the aspect of the Sunday-school in relation to the Church. He pointed out that the largest societies of the Church were those who had the largest and most successful schools, and argued from this that the Sunday-school did much for the building up of the Church.

LONDON (Argyle Square).-The Easter Services at this Church were of a most delightful character, and the Children's Service, on the following Sunday afternoon, was a complete success. Notwithstanding heavy rain, which commenced an hour before the service began, and continued until late at night, the congregation was admirable in numbers, and seemed animated by

delight in the entire proceedings. The plan of a Children's Liturgy is found to be a vast improvement on the former custom of using the general Liturgy of the Church; indeed, there are not a few of the congregation who would like all the services to be Children's Services. The chancel was decked with choice and fragrant flowers, generously sent from Hopetoun House, near Edinburgh, by the Countess of Hopetoun, or contributed from the conservatories of members of the congregation.

A plan has been adopted on Communion Sundays which has already nearly doubled the number of communicants. We greatly shorten the service and sermon, and invite all the congregation to remain during the Sacrament, if not as partakers, yet as devout participants in the prayer and praise, and as willing hearers of the doctrinal expositions. The entire service is thus concluded at about the same hour at which the congregation is usually dismissed. A very great accession in the number of those receiving the Sacrament is the consequence. Moreover, encouraged by this success, the Kensington Society has, we learn, adopted a similar plan.

LONDON (Palace Gardens Church, Kensington).-Alarmed at the increasing popularity and steady growth of the Society worshipping in this church, some of the extreme evangelicals in the neighbourhood, with the help of the Young Men's Christian Association, provided during January and February last a course of four lectures, in which Swedenborg and his teachings were to be "weighed in the balance and found wanting." These lectures were given by a Mr. Owers in a small hall in the Mall almost opposite the church, and created a good deal of excitement among the sympathizers of the lecturer; but there can be no doubt that the New Church has more reason to be satisfied with the results than the promoters themselves. Each evening there was a good sprinkling of New Church people, and in fairness to the lecturer be it said, they were allowed every facility to speak. Availing themselves of this opportunity, they were able not only to correct many erroneous statements respecting the teachings of Swedenborg, but to supply the omissions of the lecturer, and present the doctrines in their entirety.

Dr. Bayley was prevailed upon to attend the third and subsequent lecture, and at the suggestion of one of the warmest of the lecturer's friends, represented the New Church side of the question. Confining himself very conspicuously to Scripture, Dr. Bayley was able to show that the New Church was anxious to be judged by "the law and the testimony.' The impression made on the audience was on the whole favourable to the New Church, and it has led several strangers to attend the services in the church.

Judging it advisable, while public attention was directed to the New Church, to take advantage of it, Dr. Bayley at once advertised four lectures, to be delivered in the schoolroom of the church, in reply to Mr. Owers' attack. These have been given to good audiences. Books have been sold and tracts given away at each of the lectures, and it is hoped that a considerable number of inquirers will be interested in the doctrines.

The second Easter gathering of the members and friends of the Working Men's Bible Class took place on Monday, April 2nd, in the schoolroom. The proceedings consisted of a tea-meeting, at which over eighty were present; followed by an entertainment, at which several persons not connected with the class kindly assisted. The Rev. Dr. Bayley occupied the chair, and spoke warmly in favour of the uses which such a class is able to perform, and encouraged those concerned to further efforts for the spreading amongst the working classes the truths of the New Church. It may be useful to add that the class was started about two years ago by a few of the working men attending the church, and who felt desirous of studying in their own degree the spiritual truths of the Word. The Committee of the Church granted them the use of the library, where the meetings are held every Monday evening.

LONDON (Deptford).-On February 28th a concert was given at the church, Warwick Street, by the choir, assisted by several friends from outside. The programme was varied and extensive, and the performance was very good, reflect. ing great credit on Messrs Cardwell and Priest, who, under great difficulty, got it up. The proceeds were applied

to the reduction of the debt on the church.

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of Swedenborg has been instituted in this suburb, which is remote from any New Church society. The meetings are held each alternate Monday evening at eight o'clock, at the houses of Mr. Tarelli, 38 Londesborough Road, and Mr. Trent, 85 Whinstone Road. The numbers attending are few, but doubtless other members of the church resident in the neighbourhood, when they learn of the meetings, will be glad to attend.

A course of four lectures has been delivered in the Lecture Hall, High Street. The first and second, on March 20th and 22nd, were by the Rev. Dr. Bayley, the subjects being "Science and Revelation, what they teach on the beginning and end of the world, and the resurrection body of man;' and "What is meant by the New Jerusalem ?" The third and fourth lectures were given on March 27th and 29th by the Rev. John Presland. ALLOA.-On Sabbath, 11th March, The subjects of Mr. Presland's lectures Mr. Gunton preached at this church in were, "Is there a Personal Devil?" the morning from Deut. viii. 7. From and "Heaven, Hell, and Hades, or the Intermediate State." The weather was very unfavourable, and the attendance, notwithstanding great efforts had been made to secure a good audience, was small, ranging from 80 to 100. The attention was all that could be desired, and questions were put and answered at the close of each lecture. A very cordial vote of thanks was given to each lecturer at the close of their respective lectures. A number of tracts was given away, and 61 of the "Silent Missionaries" were sold, and there is good reason to believe that a favourable and lasting impression has been made. The lectures were reported in the Kentish Mercury.

On Monday, March 26th, the annual tea and public meeting was held under the same disadvantage as regards the weather. About 35 took tea, and a few more attended the meeting after. It being their twenty-first anniversary, Mr. Rhodes, the leader, gave a brief and interesting history of the Society, pointing to the somewhat remarkable coincidence that just twenty-one years had elapsed since the New Church doctrines were first publicly taught in Deptford, and that in the same hall, at almost the same date, was now being delivered a course of lectures in connection with the Church, which are reported above. During the evening also were given several addresses and recitations by some of the members, and a selection of music by the choir, which made a very agreeable and enjoyable entertainment. The Society, though small, gives promise of a hopeful future.

LONDON (Stoke Newington).-A reading meeting for the study of the writings

the text he showed the necessity of travelling to the land of brooks of water, &c.; and, in an earnest and impressive manner, gave the directions whereby this good land could be reached. In the evening he discoursed from John iii. 16, on the love of God in the gift of His Son. He insisted that love was the moving cause of the Lord's coming as a man into the world. The doctrine of the Father and Son could be easily understood if people would search the Scriptures and carefully think for themselves. The Father is the Infinite Jehovah, the Son is the Humanity veiling the Divinity, which is within the human. The Lord Jesus Christ is therefore God-Man, God manifested in the flesh; and, since His ascension, our Father in the heavens. The Lord's coming into the world was from His infinite love, and for the regeneration and salvation of mankind. Both meetings were well attended, especially the latter. On the Wednesday evening following, Mr. Gunton gave a lecture in the Corn Exchange to a most attentive and respectable audience; Subject

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God the Creator, the Lord the Redeemer, and the Holy Spirit, not three Gods, but One God, in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ." Also on the Friday evening of the same week he gave a second lecture in the New Church; Subject-"The Scriptural way of Salvation shown to be not Substitution, but Salvation from Sin." At both lectures the doctrinal points of these subjects were clearly exhibited, and, judging from the manner in which the audience listened, it was quite evident they were not at all dissatisfied with the New Church explanation of these doctrines.

On Sabbath the 18th, Mr. Gunton

again occupied the pulpit of the New what has been supposed to be the Church. In the forenoon his text was doctrines of the Bible, and as one of Deut. viii. 1. In this discourse the friendly alliance between science and beauty of the New Church doctrine of the faith of the rising New Church. obedience to the commandments of the The Bath Chronicle gives a somewhat Lord, and of the true life thence re- extended notice of the lecture, from sulting, was clearly delineated. In the which we give the following extract. evening Mr. Gunton lectured on Re- After a clear statement of the present generation, showing that it was the relations of science and religion, of the work of a lifetime, accomplished amidst scientific method, and the necessity of temptations and trials; a constant correct doctrine for the exposition of fighting against our own evils, and Scripture, Mr. Child said :-"He bea gradual rising, by the help of our lieved that from the Bible a legitimate Great Regenerator, from a lower to a rational doctrine could be obtained. higher state in the Christian life. The The first charge that science brought attendance at both the services was against revelation was that it gave a again good; the evening the most suc- wrong account of the history of the cessful of the course, the church being heavens and the earth. Now, he (the nearly filled. During the services there lecturer) said it gave no account of the was sold about 60 of the "Silent Mis- natural heavens and earth at all. sionaries," 5 "T. C. R.," a few of the said that was simply a misinterpretation, Spiritual Columbus," and a few of the a misreading of the whole thing, and "Philosophy of Swedenborg;" there were for this reason. In the first ages of the also distributed 200 of the New Church world all religious writings were symAlmanac for 1877, with 3 tracts en- bolic, and this was the case with regard closed, 1 on Mystery, 1 on the New to the opening chapters of the Bible. Church, and 1 on Substitution; as many of Dr. Bayley's lectures on Essays and Reviews, Nos. 11 and 12, with quite a host of other interesting New Church publications. The Society feels that much good has been done by Mr. Gunton's visit, and will hail with joy another visit.

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It was not only given so, because it was accommodated to men's minds, but that it might be unfolded in these later days, and that there should be seen the history, not of the making of the heavens and the earth, but the history of men's minds. The second count of the indictment was that revelation gave a false account of the origin of man. BATH.-The favourable reception now He believed that man had had a lowly accorded to the heavenly doctrines in origin-not of the monkey sort, but this city, as propounded by the Rev. T. lowly, and that very thing was even Child during the last nine months (the detailed in the chapter he was talking New Church being full every Sunday about. The heavens and earth spoken morning, and crowded in the evening, of were the heavens and the earth of the aisles being filled with occupied man's mind, and it was that which was chairs), led the friends of the Church without form and void, and God moved to propose that a public lecture should upon the face of man's mind and thus be delivered in the Guildhall on the sup- brought him from a state of confusion posed antagonism, but the real affinity of and emptiness gradually into the perfect science and revelation. A series of six state in which they afterwards found science lectures, aided by the Gilchrist him in the other chapters of Genesis. Trust, had been given in this room If the revelation of God was to man it during the first two months of the year, must be for man, and not about the and when they were finished a lecture things which he could discover for on science and revelation was an- himself, but about those which he could nounced. The interest of the subject never so discover, the things which and the fame of the lecturer proved transcended his finding out. When sufficiently attractive to fill the room. inductively considered, they found in About 700 persons listened for above the Book a series of doctrines which an hour with the closest attention, were in harmony with the heart's best often relieved with approving cheers; instincts, the intellect's best percepto Mr Child's statement of the case, as tions, and external nature. All that one of hostility between science and was needed was a new aspect, a new

view, a new principle or mode of interpretation. Mr. Child then touched upon the subject of miracles, giving some illustrations of the method of interpretation he had been pointing out. With regard to the miracle of turning water into wine, he showed how the saccharine juice forming grapes was produced by the moisture from the earth and 'air and the sun's heat, and said the Divine influx from the spiritual world passed into the natural world and collected at once, instead of by the means of the ducts of the vine, the particles from the earth, and the air necessary to form wine. He explained the miracle of the five loaves and fishes, and the raising of the dead, by the same reasoning, and concluded by predicting that if the principle of inductive reasoning be carried out in regard to revelation, it would be the means of clearing away existing doubts and difficulties. The proceedings concluded with singing and the benediction."

BESSES O'TH BARN, NEAR RADCLIFFE.—The friends at this place, aided by members of the church in the neighbourhood, prepared a well-stocked bazaar, which was held in their schoolroom, March 15th, and two following days. The purpose of the bazaar was to remove a debt of £500 and provide for several necessary improvements. The attendance was large and respectable,

and realized the sum of £400.

MISSIONARY WORK IN NOTTINGHAM. -I have been asked by more than one of my friends to send to the Repository, "now that the lecture season is over,' a brief account of such missionary efforts as we have been recently making in our lively and enterprising town. We commenced the season by announcing that a series of six Monday evening lectures for the people would be delivered in the Lecture Hall of the Mechanics' Institute on Swedenborg and his Revelations." The titles of the lectures were as follows:

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1st. Swedenborg, his character and his claims.

2nd. The Revelations of Swedenborg concerning the Nature of Man.

3rd. The Revelations of Swedenborg concerning Death and Resurrection. 4th. The Revelations of Swedenborg concerning the World of Spirits.

5th. The Revelations of Swedenborg concerning Hell.

6th. The Revelations of Swedenborg concerning Heaven.

The town was well posted with plain bold posters of two kinds—one giving the entire series, the other giving only the subject for a particular night.

The audiences were invariably good, the smallest being that which listened to the lecture on Hell, and the largest that which listened to the lecture on Heaven. On every occasion I found myself faced by large numbers of earnest-looking men, evidently bent on following closely from my first word to my last. All through the course I spoke in the frankest and homeliest manner conceivable; telling out plainly the very best things that Swedenborg had told me, but telling them in words learned not from his writings, but from the fireside and the street. In the delivery of every lecture I was frequently interrupted by applause that was very gratifying, partly because of its unmis takeable heartiness, but chiefly because it was almost invariably given in restatement of a prominent New Church sponse to some unusually emphatic

truth. At the close of each lecture I generally found one or more strangers waiting to speak with me. One of these, the minister of the Christadelphian Church, subsequently spent three hours in earnest talk with me at my own home; and another, a gentleman well known and of good position in the town, invited me to spend an evening with his family and with his minister (a General Baptist), and told me that though he and his wife had come expecting only to be grieved or amused, they had gone away deeply rejoicing in all that they had heard. A day or two after each lecture had been delivered in the Lecture Hall, it was re-delivered to an incomparably larger audience by means of a partially condensed, but sufficiently clear report in the columns of the leading journal. Of the lectures as thus reported I have frequently heard kindly words spoken since by persons that would otherwise, apparently, have remained in total ignorance of our doctrines. But there were_good results nearer home. Some of our young men were driven by their companions, who had come to hear the lectures, to defend the positions which had been taken up therein. This led them to turn with new appetite to Swedenborg, and prepared them to

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