way the world is moving; The real pioneers of progress are not always in the foremost ranks of change."

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The speaker from this point goes on to anticipate objections and to give reasons for his theme. There are those who are not so much enamoured of novelty as impatient of custom. Change delights them for its own sake. It is emancipation; it is liberty. There are others who are not insensible to the spells of the past, or in love with novelty for its own sake. "What does it matter," they say, what theories you hold about faith, or regeneration, or justification, if men are really brought to repent and believe and live holy lives? But it does matter. "The destruction of systematic theological thought, unless the abandoned systems can be replaced by nobler, truer, sounder systems, may nevertheless prove an immense loss; none the less, but all the greater, because neither its magnitude nor its results immediately appear. It may not be wise to overrate the changes in religious thoughts which are taking place, or have taken place. It is not safe to underrate them, nor honest to ignore them. There has grown up a class of preachers, of whom Mr. Conder is one, who have resolutely declined the use of certain set phrases which, in not a few ears, were regarded as tests of orthodoxy. "More than this, is it not true," asks the speaker, "that whatever place systematic theology may maintain in the studies of our pastors, it has been for many years in steady course of disappearance from our pulpits; and that the number has been continually increasing among our hearers, who account this disappearance a blessed riddance?" The change is not one, therefore, that exclusively affects the preachers; it pervades the Churches, and is vitally connected with other great intellectual changes of the times. He has no wish to earn the reputation of a theological Jeremiah, or to stand forth as the champion of old-fashioned Calvinism. "It would be," he says, an unwise as well as vain endeavour to drag from their dignified and dusty repose the mammoths and megalosauri of an extinct theological period, and bid them again walk the earth. If a personal reference might be pardoned, I might say that my own training and natural bent were such, that I entered the ministry with an intense conviction that my business was to preach not system but Scripture, not the metaphysics of the Gospel, but the Gospel itself. Few perhaps inhaled, with more satisfaction, the freer air before whose breath a store of dry old phrases vanished like withered leaves, and the sacred Assembly's Catechism itself melted from off our children's minds like snow in spring-time."

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The changes that are here indicated naturally excite anxiety for the future. The decay of theology shows the want of a clear apprehension of the leading truths of the Word of God, of their logical arrangement and harmonious adjustment. Mr. Conder's feeling on this subject is expressed in the following paragraph :

"All the more serious is the deep conviction. . . that there is a blank, a yearly widening chasm, in the religious thought of our Churches, especially of their younger members, which demands our most diligent consideration, as trustees of the future and guardians of the sacred altar-fire of truth. There has been of late no lack of hard words about the narrow,' 'gloomy,' 'rigid' old theology, and not a little jubilation over the progressive tendencies of modern thought. Each age, it is said, must make its own formulas, even as with each spring the living tree clothes itself with new foliage. With much of this I can sympathise. But I should like to see these new formulas. I have been watching for the green leaves; and amidst the full-clothed luxuriance of other great departments of intellectual life, our religious thought looks to me, I confess, a little too much like the fig-tree, which remains bare when forest and field are robing themselves in full summer, though, like the fig-tree, the bare branches lack not fruit." That the Churches have been in the main faithful to the truth, Mr. Conder thinks is proved by the fruitful energy of Christian benevolence. "But," he continues, "is it not true, that modern religious life is far less robust on its intellectual than on its practical side! Is not the popular and fashionable style of religious thought largely of the invertebrate type-molluscous-with no head or limbs, but only feelers? Grant that our forefathers were too apt to substitute anatomical preparations of truth for its living presence. They loved to dangle before you the skeleton of the Gospel till all its joints rattled, when what you needed was a tone of her comforting voice, a Divine smile on her countenance, the warm grasp of her helping hand. But let

us not forget that the anatomist's knife lays bare nothing but what is essential to life, health, and beauty. And the higher the life, the more complex the system in which it is embodied. Creatures which can be cut to bits or turned inside out, and live on all the same, are of a very low type. And a religious life strong

in feeling and action, but intellectually feeble; a faith unintelligent, hazy, unable to distinguish doctrine from doctrine or truth from error;-these are not worthy the disciples of Him who said, 'When the Spirit of Truth is come, He will guide you into all truth.' . . . 'Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.' Nor is it in such characteristics that we can trace the features of the Church of the future."

From this point Mr. Conder gives what he regards as some of the advantages already gained from the changes he has indicated. Among these he enumerates increased freedom, the lifting of theology from its narrow basis of controversy to a broader foundation of direct appeal to Scripture and to experience, the closer relation of theology and religious thought to the Bible, and to the most noteworthy of all," the doctrine of the Person and Work of Christ.' "On this doctrine," says Mr. Conder, "a change has almost imperceptibly pervaded our whole tone of thought and speech, which amounts to no less than a new and far more scriptural and effective method of presenting the Gospel. The old-fashioned theology viewed Christ as the mediatorial agent in fulfilling the Divine decrees for the salvation of the elect.. Our idea of preaching Christ has rather come to be the presentation of a living, present, personal Saviour; the Friend of sinners, the Shepherd of wandering souls, the Redeemer able to save to the uttermost, and casting out none that come to Him. We have learned too-and this is of immense importance-not to be afraid of preaching the Humanity as fully as the Deity of Christ. Orthodox Christians a generation ago (still more two generations ago), from the powerful revulsion against Arian and Unitarian heresy, felt a certain timidity in recognising the true manhood of the Son of man,' the Man Christ Jesus. Outgrowing this natural but needless fear we have learned that His manhood is precious to us in proportion to our full faith in His Godhead. We there fore love to trace His footsteps on our sad earth, to walk with Him by the way, sit with Him in the house, to watch Him weeping by the grave, or taking the little ones in His arms, and to hear Him say, Ye are my friends.' The life of Christ, and the words of Christ, have come to occupy a very different place in our estimation from what they formerly possessed. If either of the great divisions of the New Testament is in danger at present of being undervalued, it is rather the Epistles than the Gospels. Formerly the case was the reverse. The Epistles, chiefly St. Paul's, ranked high above the Gospels; and the Epistle to the Romans was the heart and crown of the whole Bible. I believe the heart of the Church was ahead of its theology. In the hymns of Dr. Watts many are to be found in which the Lord Jesus is addressed or spoken of with vivid acknowledgment of all that He is to us personally, and with tender earnestness of personal affection scarcely to be surpassed. But in nearly one hundred printed sermons of Dr. Watts, I find not one from any scene in our Saviour's personal history, and but three or four from His words, and those bearing on morals, conversion, or eternal punishment."

There are many other features in this address which will interest members of the New Church. The masterly summary of the causes that have produced these changes (albeit they are rather the evidences of the change, the causes of which are morely deeply seated), the connection between truth and righteousness, and thus the supreme importance of sympathetic love for truth in our efforts to rightly understand its teaching ("He that loveth not knoweth not"); the firm maintenance of the great truth that there is system in the Bible, and that "to deny that there is system, that is to say, intellectual unity, concealed beneath the fragmentary complexity of Scripture, and pervading the whole teaching of the Bible, is to deny that it is the work of God;" and the hope therefore that is thus expressed, "After all, I am hopeful that this decadence of systematic theology is not that decay which foreruns death, but rather like the fall of the leaf in autumn, which falls because it has done its work in nourishing the hidden life of that spring which shall unfold, and enriches the soil where it falls. The theology of

the future, as I venture to forecast it in my own mind, will not be the fruit either of the destruction of the past, or of the reproduction of the past, or of the fusing all doctrines into one featureless mass, where faith is replaced by feeling, although these three seem the prevailing theological tendencies of the present. It will be the fruit of deeper study of God's truth. Despising no ray of light from the past, it will fill its own lamp with fresh oil, and kindle it with altar-fire. Its great instrument will be neither controversy, which poisons, nor criticism, which freezes all it handles (indispensable though these are in their place); but Interpretation, which, because it has to deal with the spirit as well as the letter, is impossible without faith, love, and reverence."

The lengthened extracts we have given, together with the entire tone of this striking and able address, suggests many reflections, some of which, even at the risk of extending this already too long notice, we will make. It must strike New

Church readers that these changes often force upon those who discern them the tacit, though, perhaps, to themselves unseen recognition, that they are closely associated with the Second Coming of the Lord, and the fulfilment of the promises that are connected with His advent. There is less of the direct expression of this truth in this address than in some similar utterances; but here the simile of the fig-tree, perhaps unconsciously to Mr. Conder, is clearly supplied by our Lord's discourse, where He says, after announcing His appearance in the clouds of heaven and the gathering together of the elect,-"Now learn a parable of the fig-tree; when his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh; so likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors." And Mr. Conder has not only used this simile, he has caught correctly its spiritual lesson. The fig-tree is a symbol of the natural man, who is first affected by the great changes which at the Lord's coming are to be operated in the Church. The putting forth of its branches, apparently dead, but with the prospect of fruit and the promise of leaves, is the projection of new affections and the direction of new thoughts in the Church. These in the beginning are more the result of newly-awakened natural feelings than of clear scriptural intelligence. They produce the works of benevolence and the deeper feelings which Mr. Conder has so eloquently noted, but they lack the clear insight, the systematic thought and the intelligent faith which he as clearly sees is yet in the future.

There is another feature in this address that will interest members of the New Church. It is the firmness with which the speaker maintains the authority and the rightful ascendancy of the written Word of God. Though not using the words, there is a marked acknowledgment of the sentiment so forcibly expressed by pastor Robinson in his address to the Plymouth pilgrims, "we want more light to break forth from the Word of God.' The Lord's coming is by the Word. The clouds, which constitute the chariot on which He rides, denote the letter of the Word; and the careful study of the letter is essential to a right understanding of the spiritual sense, in which is the power and great glory of His second appearance. The utter rejection, therefore, of the contemptible figment of the Church as above the Word, and the firm maintenance of the Word, not as "a book of texts, but as the text-book of the Church”—a book to be carefully studied and accurately interpreted-is surely one of the most promising signs of the times. And although there is a haziness in Mr. Conder's conception of the inspiration of the Word, and there are great and difficult questions looming before the Church-the questions of the canon of Scripture, the nature of its inspiration, the law of interpretation, and some others—yet we cannot doubt that where there is earnest faith in the Word, combined with a reverent love of its teaching, there will also be an interior opening of the mind to the discernment of many of the secret treasures of its wisdom and love. "The meek will He guide in judgment; the meek will He teach His way.” An accurate interpretation of the Word, however, and a satisfactory acquaintance with its teaching, is inseparable from a rational and truthful system of doctrine. And on this question we cannot but think that some at least of the expectations of Mr. Conder are doomed to disappointment. He who has given the Word must also give the interpretation. Doctrine, says Swedenborg, is to be formed by one who is enlightened; and the doctrines which are for the Church of the future, will be found in the writings of this enlightened messenger of the Second Coming

of the Lord. True doctrine is a key to the Word. It opens the seals of the book, brings to view its hidden treasures, and admits the soul to a clear knowledge of the secret wonders of its mysterious teaching. It makes manifest the wonders involved in our redemption, and presents in the sunlight of rational vision the absolute personal oneness of God in harmony with the Deity of the Saviour, and the exaltation of the Human union with the Divine in His glorious person. The doctrine of Christ is the doctrine of a Divine Human Saviour, "in whom dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily," and who is, therefore, in very truth “the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the ending, the first and the last, who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty." To this doctrine the Church of the future must rise if she is to fulfil her great mission. And when wearied of her fruitless efforts to discover the truth by her own searching, she comes at length to accept the provident help of her Divine Head, she will find the doctrines of the future prepared for her guidance in the writings of His servant, Emanuel Swedenborg.

bed Repentance possible?" An opportunity was given for asking questions, and a very pleasant hour was spent after the lecture in hearing and answering points of difficulty raised by strangers. Mr. R. Gunton was present, and seemed to be regarded by the audience as a sort of "big brother" of mine; he certainly acted as a brother towards me in supplementing my replies.

brought to the front. In substance the lecturer said, "As a philosopher Swedenborg showed great wisdom, and in his theological writings gave expression to many rich thoughts and glorious truths. But he taught that the Scriptures were not a sufficient guide to us, that the doctrine of the Trinity is a mistake, that we may know all that God knows, that there are three heavens. Though a man of giant power and brilliant genius, he was a mystic, and must be put down as an impostor." No opportunity was given for questioning the lecturer publicly, but at the close I introduced my self to him, and asked him for the loan of his manuscript, which he promised. He changed his mind, however, and next day sent me a note to tell me so.

From Deptford I returned to Brightlingsea, where I arrived on Saturday, October 25, and found that usually quiet spot in a terrible commotion. It appeared that about a fortnight previously Mr. J. R. Boyle of Bacup had given our friends a lecture, and the Independent minister (Rev. J. Colclough) having given a lecture on the same subject, "The Resurrection," he On the Tuesday evening I gave the (Mr. Colclough) imagined that Mr. lecture on Death-bed Repentance to a Boyle's lecture was intended as an at- crowded audience, and at the close antack upon him, and he had, acting under nounced that I would reply to the lecthis mental hallucination, attacked the ture given the previous evening on the New Church in a most violent manner, following Tuesday. On Thursday evenin a lecture given on the preceding ing I went to hear the Rev. J. ColThursday, and had announced another clough; I was rather late going in, and for the week following. Our Bright- the first remark I heard was, "I am lingsea friends, and in fact the whole the only speaker here to-night, and I village, were anxious that something will not permit any person to make himshould be done in the matter. They self conspicuous by coming to speak to said that Mr. Boyle's lecture was in no me at the close of the lecture.' After sense an attack upon anybody, and sundry elegant remarks about "blubknowing Mr. Boyle, I could scarcely bering," and "butchers' dogs," and imagine him capable of attacking any- "black eyes and bloody noses, body. However, I wrote and asked him, turer proceeded to criticise the contents and he assured me that he was in bliss- of our four-paged tract on the Resurrecful ignorance of the fact of the existence tion. His criticisms were original; he of such a luminary as the Rev. J. Col- told his audience that just as the body clough, or of any lecture upon the Re- changes every seven years, and the man surrection having been previously given is the same man, so if the body of flesh in Brightlingsea. and blood is taken away, and in the next world there is not one particle of substance that was in the body we lived in below, our body there will be the same body by the law of identity. He amused the audience by telling them that according to the Swedenborgian doctrine if a man committed a murder and managed to escape detection for seven years, he ought to be exempt from punishment, since he was not the same man. He said it further followed that the wife he married seven years ago wasn't his wife, nor he her husband

On the following day we had crowded congregations, probably in the expectation that something would be said in reply to Mr. Colclough, but I allowed the matter to pass unnoticed, simply announcing that on Tuesday evening I should lecture on the subject of "Deathbed Repentance."

On Monday morning we heard further notes of war, it being announced that in the evening a lecture would be given by the Rev. J. G. Hopkins (United Methodist Free Church), on "Impostors and Imposture." I went to hear it. I am afraid my presence somewhat disturbed the lecturer, who seemed very nervous. After a brief review of the career of Mahomet, Swedenborg was

the lec

indeed, "I'm not myself at all." This classical quotation is of course a settler. Mr. Colclough next informed his audi-. ence that he had procured one of the secretly disposed manuals of the Sweden