and at half-past seven Mr. E. Austin, the minister of the church, entered the pulpit, whence he from time to time read the selections from the Bible which linked together the musical pieces. The service selected was one of the admirable series published by the Sunday Union, entitled "The Desire of All Nations." Containing as it does music culled from all sources old and new (we recognized friends as old and dissimilar as "Christians awake" and "Beautiful Star"), it is difficult to criticize the service as a whole, but it must be admitted to supply efficiently tuneful airs suited to juvenile singers. Interpolated solos from Handel's "Messiah" and Mendelssohn's "Elijah" were given by Miss Andrews and Mr. Walter Penn. 66 the New Church respecting the employments of the future life, and explained the true doctrine on the subject. BIRMINGHAM (From the "Manual of the New Church, Wretham Road, Birmingham).-On Sunday, August 5th, a highly interesting meeting was held in the Lecture Room of this Society. The sunday-school teachers of present and former times, feeling that Mr. I. A. Best's official connection with the schools for upwards of forty-six years ought not to lapse without some formal commemoration, invited him to meet them at tea on the Sunday stated above. After tea, Mr. John Osborne having taken the chair, the secretary of the school, Mr. T. C. Lowe, preAt the quarterly business meeting of sented to Mr. Best, in the name of the the Society the chair was taken by Mr. School Committee, a beautiful album, E. Austin, the minister. In his opening containing the portraits of about 120 remarks, the chairman congratulated former and present teachers who had at the audience upon the fact that their various times co-operated with Mr. Best esteemed secretary, Mr. Alfred Braby, in Sunday-school work. Mr. Best had so far regained his health as to be having expressed the gratification he able to fulfil his duties on the present felt in receiving such a memorial by occasion. The minutes of the last meet- a letter to the meeting, read by the ing having been read, two new members secretary, the meeting terminated by were admitted, making the number of registered members 120. The Committee, having at previous meetings been instructed to devise plans for increasing the accommodation afforded by the existing buildings, now made a report advising the Society at once to purchase an iron room, which had been offered on the most advantageous terms, and which could be built upon the vacant land at the back of the church, without prejudicially interfering with the future erection of the permanent building, for which plans have been already prepared. After considerable discussion a resolution empowering the committee to forthwith commence the work was carried with but one dissentient. special votes of thanks to the members of the sub-Committee, who had zealously done almost all the work connected with the presentation, and to Mr. G. F. Jones, whose artistic taste and skill had been of the highest value in the decoration of the album. CLAYTON-LE-MOORS.-On Sunday, August 19th two sermons were preached in this place of worship by the Rev. G. H. Smith of Bolton, on the occasion of its reopening. This church has just undergone important repairs, which have greatly improved it. The north and south walls and west end have been lined with a casing of pitch pine, rising about four feet from the floor. This has given a warm and comfortable appearance to the interior. The lighting of the place has been also improved by placing handsome gas brackets along each side-wall. The roof and walls are neatly coloured, and the east end, upon which the Commandments are suspended is of a pale green tint. These alterations and improvements have both increased the comfort and added to the beauty of this neat little church. The sermons were well attended and attentively heard. The collections for the day amounted to £35. Obituary. doctrines he professed was always strong and enthusiastic. (From the "Messenger.") LONGTON.-We cut the following from the Potteries Examiner of September 1st-"A discourse was delivered at On the 11th of May 1877, at Onargo, the meeting-room of the New Jerusalem Illinois, United States, Henry Benson, Church, Wharf Street, Longton, on aged 65 years, passed into the spiritual Wednesday evening last, by the Rev. world. Mr. Benson was one of the R. Storry, of Heywood, the president of oldest New Churchmen in Illinois, the General Conference, on the relation having identified himself with the New of religion to intellectual development. Church at Accrington, England, about The text selected by the preacher was the year 1832. He was a member of Zechariah xiv. 20: In that day there the Batavia Society of the New Jerusalem shall be on the bells of the horses Holiness at its organization, and so continued to unto the Lord.' The prophetic expres- the time of his death, though he had sion that day,' the preacher remarked, removed from Batavia several years had relation to the day of the Lord's before. He was a kind neighbour and coming to the Church and to the souls father, a good citizen, and a consistent of men. The horse was a Scriptural Christian. His faith in the beautiful symbol of the understanding of man, and the bells of the horse, of the motion and music of enlightened intelligence At Owl Hall, Accrington, on the and rational thought. This interpre 27th of June, Susan Grimshaw, widow tation might appear fanciful, but was of the late James Grimshaw, J.P., decapable of much Scriptural illustration. parted this life in the 77th year of her The preacher reviewed several portions age. She was daughter of the late of Scripture in which the horse is in- Joseph Cronshaw, one of the founders of troduced, and where no intelligible the New Church Society at Accrington, sense can be obtained from the letter. and from her youth was actively engaged These were shown to yield a consistent in fulfilling those duties which loving meaning, when interpreted, of the intellectual nature of man. Religion also was intellectual. True, it was emotional, but this was only one side of religion. It embraced the whole nature of man, and when the Church obtains its perfection and glory, religious truth will be seen to be the perfection of wisdom as well as the fountain of holiness. Died on the 3rd of August, at Preston, Interiorly all true intelligence is the aged 89 years, Mrs. Lamb. The subject spirit of holiness, for genuine truth of this notice had been an admirer of looks upward to goodness and onward the New Church doctrines for more than to God. Nothing is more beautiful fifty years. A small band of receivers than a sanctified intellect, which fears of New Church truths used frequently no inquiry, welcomes all discovery, to meet at the residence of Mrs. Lamb seeks to penetrate all the mysteries of for the purpose of mutual instruction creative wisdom and all the miracles and encouragement. Later on she of grace, and gains from all the acquisi- regularly attended the services held at tions of knowledge increased evidences the church in Avenham Road, until of the power, the wisdom, and the benevolence of God. Faith is not an impediment in the way of knowledge. Christian faith is not the blind accept ance of mental contradictions and intellectual obscurity and confusion, but the light of truth. 'The pure in heart shall see God.' They that love the Lord will not lack knowledge respecting Him, and knowledge of the Highest will irradiate all inferior subjects and make all knowledge cheerful to the mind and musical in the life." hearts and willing hands ever delight in doing for the advancement of their beloved Church. Failing health and accumulating years had for some time back prevented her taking any active part in the Society, yet her deep interest in its welfare and progress continued to the last. prevented by old age and bodily infirmities. During her last illness she manifested a spirit of peace and submission to the Divine will, and at last passed calmly and peacefully away. At Wood-Green, near London, August, in the 64th year of her age, Ann, the wife of John Clemson, Spa House, Derby, passed into the spiritual world. The deceased had gone to the above place for the benefit of her health, which had been failing for some time past. During the first week after her arrival hopes were entertained of her recovery, but soon after that other symptoms appeared which gave alarm to her friends, medical aid proved of no avail, and on Sunday morning, August 26th, 1877, she breathed her last. Her remains were interred in the old cemetery, Derby. In early womanhood our departed friend became a sincere believer in the doctrines of the New Church, For several years she laboured earnestly in the work of the Sabbath school, and many are now living who testify to her uniform Christian conduct and teaching. Her love for this important field of Christian work, and for those engaged therein, was warm and constant. Her cheerful presence will be very much missed from the social gatherings of our Society. In this phase of Church life she took a most active and prominent position. As a friend she was liberal and true. Her husband loses in her a faithful and loving helpmeet. Into all his labours for the Church of the Lord she entered with all the strength of woman's devotion and ardent zeal. A funeral discourse was preached by the minister of the Derby Society on Sunday evening, September 2nd, to a large and most attentive congregation. Died at Liverpool, August 12, aged 79, Mr. J. Bolton, a well-known old Lancashire New Churchman. For some time past he had been in failing health, and though unable to attend the services of the Church, was ever with them in spirit. He was interred on the 16th, the service being conducted by the Rev. R. Goldsack, who came from the Conference to perform that duty, as Mr. Bolton had particularly requested he should do so. The following extract from Mr. Goldsack's funeral sermon will be interesting as the memoir of a character somewhat unique: -"Fifty or sixty years ago, we find him an active young man, ardently promulgating the truths of the New Church. He was leader of the Wigan Society, before the present race of ministers was known; in the days when Noble, and Sibly, and Jones, and T. Goyder, and Mason, were the leading men; one of that band of determined and devoted servants who struggled through the difficulties of organization and settlement, working freely and lovingly without any other pay than the reward of duty. It would be of little service to detail this portion of his life. Those years of duty were years of joy. In quiet and unostentatious manner his uses to the Church were performed, and he always spoke of them as things forgotten, rather than remembered with any self-adulation. Yet there are points in our friend's career which deserve notice. That he was of a peculiar character no one could doubt; that within and beneath the mere external world in which he lived to those around him he had another world, and another life, was certain. It was not only that continual reading of the doctrines of the Church had thoroughly turned his mind towards spiritual things, but it had a remarkable effect upon him physically. Call it fancy, or delusion, still the fact is undoubted, that in later years, whenever engaged in reading the writings of the Church, his whole body would be permeated and filled with warmth, and to such a degree that on the coldest days in winter, as he read, he could not endure a fire in the room, and would be compelled to divest himself of a great part of his clothing. He called it internal heat, as it affected him only while with the works. The fact is well known to all who knew him; it was no matter of boast, but a continual experience that he used to smile at again and again. But his belief in the verities and existence of the spiritual world was not limited to mental associations. Say what we may about it, he had a firm conviction lately of seeing and speaking with those who had gone before him, and he used to talk of his departed wife and other friends as if he was often with them, and conscious of their presence, and conversing with them. Knowing that his time of departure was drawing near, it had not the slightest effect in disturbing his tranquility, nor did it interfere with his regular duties, as far as he could perform them; and thousands every day give themselves more trouble over a simple journey than did he in this joining the friends above who were waiting for him. As he lay on the bed from which he rose into the spiritual world, fully alive to the great change taking place in his existence, he seemed quite prepared for it, sometimes speaking as to unseen visitors, yet perfectly sensible, and conscious of all around him, and uttering as his last words on earth those in our chosen text, "the Morning Star."—REV. ii. 28. THE relation which exists between the essence and the form of religion, both in regard to life and worship, should be clearly recognized by the members of the Church, otherwise they are liable to fall into idealism on the one hand or into formalism on the other. The essence and the form of religion can have no existence separately, nor can one exist in greater proportion than the other. The graces of religion cannot exist separately from, or in greater measure than, its virtues, nor its virtues separately from, or in greater measure than, its graces. The same is true of piety and devotion, by which we mean the feeling and the exercise of Divine worship. The members of the Church may attend to the one more than to the other. Some may more carefully cultivate the essential, others may more scrupulously attend to the formal; but whatever is really defective in one part produces a corresponding deficiency in the other. Like goodness and truth, which are essence and form, whatever is in excess of the other passes off, until they come to exist in a state of equality. This fact, so clearly set forth in the Writings, is of great practical value. It teaches us to combine as far as possible these two things, which, by action and reaction, strengthen, enlarge, and confirm each other, and constitute a full and perfect one. In the partial apprehension and application of this truth, to which we are all more or less liable, we are perhaps most in danger of erring on the side of the external observance, not in the attention which we bestow upon it, but in the importance we attach to it compared with that which we assign to the inward principle. We are initiated into the externals of worship in our earliest years, and the practice of them becomes to a greater or less extent the habit of our lives. And a very necessary and useful habit it is. Youth is the time for forming habits as well as for acquiring knowledge. Right habits keep the external man in a state of order, on which the principles of order afterwards to be established in the inner man can rest as on their true bases, and by which they can bring themselves into orderly manifestation. It is possible, of course, that nothing more than the habit may ever be acquired, in which case it will either be abandoned as a useless encumbrance or be retained as a superstitious observance, as a decent covering of respectable indifference, or a cloak for designing hypocrisy. But this possibility does not lessen the value of early habits, but only reminds us of the necessity of cultivating the spirit while attending to the form of holy worship. There is, however, one act of Divine worship, and that the highest which the Christian is enjoined, or rather commanded, to perform, into which we are not introduced by early habit, but which is to be the spontaneous or voluntary result of the feelings and convictions of our riper years. In instituting the Holy Supper, the Lord enjoined on His disciples its solemn observance, saying, "This do in remembrance of Me" (Luke xxii. 19). Nor are the members of the Lord's Church to do it once for all. The Primitive Church frequently revived, through this Divine ordinance, the solemn and loving remembrance of the Lord's death, and the redemption which He sealed by His passion of the Cross, the breaking of His body and the shedding of His blood for the salvation of His lost creatures. There is no doubt that where a sense of the Lord's mercy in our redemption is sincere and deep, no persuasion will be needed to bring us to the Lord's table, but we shall be able to say with the Apostle, on another occasion, "The love of Christ constraineth us" (2 Cor. v. 14). For the Lord's Supper is not an arbitrary appointment, nor is it an artificial form of ritual observance intended only to impress the feelings or refresh the memory. It is the very form which, by the law of correspondence, the entire result of the Divine work of redemption assumes, when embodied in a commemorative institution and act of Divine worship. There is, therefore, not only a fitness but a correspondence between the state of mind produced by a deep sense of the Lord's mercy in our redemption and the ordinance |