Doctrines, the world over, will gather about these twelve folio volumes in white vellum, so neatly executed within and without. New feelings are awakened as we handle them, seeming to ourselves to be brought thus so much nearer the original penman of all the Doctrines. We cannot but regard it as a happy providential coincidence that a new art should spring thus into existence to render the execution of this enterprise possible, and that almost the first work of this new art should be devoted to rescuing from decay the original form, or transcript, of truths so inestimable in value to all mankind. It may be appropriate matter of congratulation, too, that a man having the necessary literary acquirements and intellectual aptitudes for the use, should be found to make the proper examinations, to superintend the process, and carry forward the work to its completion.

The new interest which this enterprise, together with Prof. Tafel's other labors and inquiries, has excited in the minds of the Swedish people with reference to Swedenborg and the New Church, must be alluded to also as among its most interesting, and perhaps most important, results; while the new materials which have thus been acquired for another and fuller biography of Swedenborg, will be regarded with pleasure and satisfaction by

all.

In a manner less systematic and official than in the above-mentioned enterprise, the receivers in our two countries have also co-operated with each other in affording some aid to endeavors that are being made to spread a knowledge of the Church in Norway, in Sweden, and in Italy. All these we believe to be important movements: the Italian Mission, especially, presenting features of peculiar interest in connection with events transpiring in that country.

Swedenborg tells us, in A. R. 738, while commenting on Rev. xvii. 10, that, in his day, there was still one divine truth, which had not yet come into discussion, in the Romish Church, viz.: that the Lord's Humanity is Divine; but that when it comes, it will not remain with them. In other words, it will be denied and rejected by them. Some have supposed this prediction may have been fulfilled in the promulgation, by that Church, not many years since, of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary, whereby is logically cut off the possibility of a glorifying work done by our Lord in the human part which He received from the mother. Whether this is its real or entire fulfilment may not be possible for us to decide, but it cannot be denied that this promulgation, with the decrees of the recent Council, form an important era in the history of that body, marking a progress in what is meant by the Downfall of Babylon in the Book of Revelation. Events now in progress indicate, too, an interesting stage in the development of the Italian mind. We know that many things connected with that form of religion have become exceedingly distasteful to a large portion of that people; and we know, also, that Italy is receiving illustrating and renewing influences from the Lord through the New Heaven. These things point out that country as an interesting field for

New Church effort, and the few faithful workers there should receive our heartfelt sympathy and support.

It is impossible to contemplate these broad general uses without indulging in sentiments of the most lively hope and satisfaction. We behold in them a field for future co-operative work, and, therefore, as offering a new bond of union between the different widely-scattered portions of our Church. Mutual aid in these great and good enterprises develops a reciprocal interest, and increases our mutual love; and we are taught in the writings that conjunction, through mutual co-operation in good uses, is a heavenly conjunction, forming the bond which draws and cements angelic communities together.

The unexampled facilities for intercourse between distant countries, so marked a feature of our times, rendering this co-operation every year more easy and efficient, presents to the mind's eye the future New Church of the world as one man, —a united, consentaneous and co-operative Society, one fold under the care and auspices of the one Shepherd. Such a union, when perfected, cannot fail to have a powerful influence on the peace, happiness, and general well-being of the world.

The condition of our brethren in France, too, in the terrible ordeal through which their nation is passing, calls for our sincere sympathy and earnest prayers to the Lord Jesus Christ that He will protect and comfort them in their trials, and bring them forth at length into a large place.

In conclusion, dear brethren, our hearty desire and prayer for you is that your counsels may be guided by that wisdom which cometh from above, and that the blessings of heaven may continue to descend upon the Church in your country, giving you both spiritual and temporal prosperity.

WM. B. HAYDEN.

From the Conference of the New Church Societies, which met at Newcastleon-Tyne in Great Britain, August, 1871, to the General Convention of the New Church in the United States of America:

BELOVED BRETHREN, - Your admirable letter, by the hand of the Rev. W. Goddard, was heard by the Conference, and its sentiments welcomed by the assembled brethren with hearty esteem and affection, and to me was deputed the agreeable duty to reply, in the name of the Conference, to its kind and estimable suggestions.

We may, as you justly remark, aid each other. From the similar general condition of the two nations in race, language, institutions, and religion, we have very much common ground; and yet, from geographical, governmental, and other variations, our points of view will be sufficently distinct to assist each other to discern the moral quality of the atmosphere by which we are each surrounded, and to aid in the production of that great change from the turbulent world in which we now live, to the happy world, founded on wisdom, goodness, justice, and peace, which is being

formed by the Lord our Saviour, who is now fulfilling His divine promise, "Behold I make all things new."

Those who have been born and brought up in a misty, murky region, have but a faint idea of the softness and brilliancy of sunny skies; and only by the reports of others are they led to yearn for the higher blessings of lands more richly endowed than their own.

We have all been born and reared in the gloomy atmosphere of the Old Dispensation; only very faintly touched and modified yet with the morning splendors of the New.

There are a thousand bad things we do not see, and feel, and loathe, as we one day shall, because we have been accustomed to them, and, as we think, have got on pretty well. We have been living in a fog, and but dimly see our way home.

Yet, every now and then, we are rudely shaken from our self-complacency by some terrible reality, causing wide-spread devastation, where we had thought that all was tolerably healthy and fair. Your own late fearful war was of this kind; and in Europe we have been shocked to see two millions of armed men engaged in the dreadful arts of mutual destruction, and we wonderingly and pityingly look on, and ask, in the name of the Prince of Peace, When will these sad calamities cease? When will men learn that mutual help, not mutual slaughter, is the will of the God of Love? Not from Him, but from the false principles upon which old society has been based, come these horrors we so much deplore.

From Babylon, from the lust of being greatest, comes the terrible phantasy which makes men of one country contemn and despise the men of another country, equally dear to their heavenly Father, and go forth, willingly, to slay them.

The Babylonish spirit in religion, fostered by centuries of spiritual pride, flaunting itself forth with gaudy names, dresses, and pretensions, to attract the natural man, claiming salvation for themselves and their adherents alone, and denouncing, to eternal perdition, all who ventured to demur to these arrogant pretensions, is the deep seat of this hatred and contempt of others. This spirit, from the religious sphere, comes down to the political. It communicates itself to rulers and to peoples, and instead of their acknowledging the sinfulness of boasting over others, contemning others, ill-treating others, and, if possible, overreaching them, it induces them to blazon themselves forth, and to insult others, and call it patriotism. It generates inward hate, which is ready, at any time, to burst forth into wicked acts and wide-spread destruction.

This baneful spirit is the spirit of Babylon, the insane spirit which induces man to put himself in the place of God, and, decking himself with divine attributes, to demand slavish obsequiousness to him and his institutions, instead of free and loving obedience to truth, to right, and to Divine Goodness.

The wine of her fornication is a horrible mixture of a little truth with

the love of rule, from the lust of being greatest, the Manichean notion that evils cannot be overcome or avoided, but must be committed in some form or other, that good may come; that regeneration is not indispensable, for God has provided, by a substitutionary righteousness, for justification in His sight, and an admission into heaven.

These baleful ingredients are spiced with a thousand delusions, flattering, in each case, to national and personal pride; and this pernicious compound is given to the nations and kings of the earth. These drink of it, and are maddened. Hence come the horrors of war, and social and private crime and misery.

Millions are suffering under these pernicious errors who do not suspect that the sources of their suffering are the false principles they have been taught to revere as truth from heaven, confounded with the too-slightly checked evils of their unregenerate nature.

The mission of the New Jerusalem is to proclaim, and to exhibit, by example, the principles of a New Age, of a New Heaven, and a New Earth. We are feeble for the work, but the feeblest mouth may utter the grandest truths. "Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings Thou hast perfected praise."

We are to be as little children, but to publish to all that God is Love. His commandments are the only true laws of happiness; His Word is the treasury of the regenerate life; His heaven is the land of order, for which we must prepare, by having a heaven within us of love, wisdom, faith, purity and peace.

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We have to show that we believe these things by lives in accordance with them, and thus help our neighbors to believe in them, and be encouraged also to do them. The nations of them that are saved will thus walk in the light of the New Jerusalem, and bring their glory and honor into it.” We, on this side the Atlantic, are striving to do these things amidst many weaknesses and imperfections. We are as children yet, only learning to walk. We see you are doing similar things, and some of them you are doing much better than we. We rejoice at all your success, and are encouraged by it.

A few things we have tried, perhaps more largely than you, and we can give you the results of our experience, and commend them to your kindest consideration.

One of these is lay-preaching. This practice has been co-existent in this country with the development of the Church as a separate organization. It has been an important auxiliary to its progress. Lay-preachers have cultivated the ground, in numerous small societies, first broken up and sown by the regular ministry. Lay-preachers have supplied the places of absent pastors. Lay-preachers have enriched the meetings of societies with their varied researches and experiences. They have never hindered, but often aided, the organized ministry, and constituted a body

from which the ranks of those who can give their lives entirely to the ministry have been recruited and extended.

Another institution we highly value from long experience is that of Sunday-schools for the instruction of children whose parents are not competent to give them a religious training for true life in the world, and a commencement of discipline for heaven. We have learned from you to be more attentive than we had previously been to instruct our own children, and have instituted Sunday-schools for that purpose; but we have also found that Sunday-schools of the other kind have very great value in finding useful employment for the young and the enterprising, and diffusing truths into quarters which otherwise it would never have reached:

A third class of useful institutions, which experience has amply justified, is that of our Junior Members Societies. These, by giving exercises to the young people suited to their tastes and activities, by inducing them to read, to think, and to prepare papers, bringing them together into friendly association, have greatly tended to form their minds, strengthen their characters, and unite them with each other and with the Church. We can recommend these institutions for general adoption in every society in your vast country, as well as in ours.

We find New Church thought, at the present day, rapidly increasing around us in the public mind, and in all the various denominations of the disintegrating Old Dispensation. The dove of sweet heavenly wisdom finds rest for the soles of her feet, and returns with the olive-leaf in her mouth, far oftener than she did even a few years ago. We rejoice, and are grateful, that such is the case, and pray that these signs of a better life may a thousandfold increase. But, most of all, we pray that the New Church, as a visible body, may be distinguished by humility, by an earnest obedience to divine laws in every-day life, a striving for regeneration of heart, mind, and habits, so that her members may be recognized as denizens of a golden city, whose blessed atmosphere is all aglow with love to the Lord Jesus, and mutual love. Let us seek, by Divine mercy, to dwell on the mountain which is bright with the perpetual glory of heaven. Let us hear and obey the Divine exhortation: "Arise, shine, for thy Light is come, and the glory of the Lord has arisen upon thee."

Accept, my beloved brethren, the best wishes and kindest greetings of the entire Conference of Great Britain to all who may assemble in your forthcoming Convention; to which allow me to add my own warmest expressions of fraternal sympathy and esteem.

I am, yours affectionately and truly,

J. BAYLEY,

Pres. of the Sixty-third General Conference of the New Jerusalem Church. To the Secretary of the General Convention.