"Of what consequence is it to me that I should persuade any one to embrace my opinions? Let his own reason persuade him. I do not undertake this work for the sake of honour or emolument, but for the sake of truth, which alone is immortal."-Econ. of the An. Km., 218.

"In writing the present work (the "Principia") I have had no aim at the applause of the learned world, nor at the acquisition of a name or popularity. To me it is a matter of indifference, whether I win the favourable opinion of every one or no one, whether I gain much or no commendation; such things are no objects of regard to any one whose mind is bent only on the truth." The temple of wisdom "cannot be seen by him who thinks himself very wise, much less by him who thinks himself wise enough, and still less by him who thinks himself wise from himself; the reason is, that such persons are not in the reception of the light of heaven from the affection of genuine wisdom."-Apoc. Rev. No. 875.

Another accusation follows. Swedenborg and the spiritualists of America" soon perceived," says Mr. Dixon, "that the commentary divorced from the text would alone suffice for them, and, accordingly, they rejected and explained away altogether the place the Bible held at first in the system of Swedenborg." Whether true or not of the systems of spiritualistic writers, this sentence is utterly untrue of Swedenborg. Speaking of preachers who are unfitted for their office, Swedenborg says, "they do not frame their discourses from the Word, and thus from the Spirit of God, but from their own rational light, and thus from their own spirit." (T. C. R. 810.) In his system of spiritus! philosophy, the letter is essential to the preservation of the spirit. Th. two senses of the Word are connected together by the living bond of a perfect correspondence, which renders one essential to the correct interpretation of the other. The spiritual sense does not obliterate the literal sense, but confirms and establishes it. It shines through it, heightens its importance, and gives it an ever-increasing value. To no body of Christians is a correct understanding of the letter more important or more precious than to the students of Swedenborg, and by none is it regarded with greater reverence and esteem.

The author finishes with a statement so startling that we are utterly unable to find the least ground for it. 66 'Here, too," he says, "we trace an unconscious tendency to withdraw God from the world of public association and order, and to see Him there only as a mere manifestation of necessity, while He appears more and more in this narrow circle

of personal rights and duties as the dispenser of freedom, absolving the soul from habits of deference to external forms of law, and justifying its first impulses, needs, determinations, even though these are felt in the conscience to be contrary to the generally prevailing sense of right and fitness. The last result we thus discover to be a sort of arbitrary and unregulated autotheism." The tendency to withdraw God from the world and to see Him there only as a mere manifestation of necessity, is one which many thoughtful readers would be very apt to retort upon this writer. The system of thought which sees the origin of religion in a naturalistic impulse, and traces its progress in the crystallization of this impulse into dogma and the developed harmony of the individual consciousness with the common consciousness of the race, is one which has the least possible necessity for the idea of God, and which confessedly retains the feeblest conviction of His presence in His creation—" the dim shadow," to use the writer's own illustration, "of a divine idea, obscured as in a palimpsest, by being written over by human statute and precedent." But such a notion is "wide as the poles asunder" from the entire system of Swedenborg. His philosophy wasto render infidelity a mental impossibility by demonstrating the Being of God and the existence and immortality of the soul from the side of nature. His theology is full of the idea of God, and occupied from beginning to end with a sense of His Divine presence. God is the wonder-worker in His creation. He sustains and animates all things by His presence. Every pure affection and every wise thought has its beginning in Him. The Word is the revelation of His wisdom and the medium of His communication with His children. His laws are the laws of life, which it is our wisdom and happiness to obey; and so far from His being a kind of necessity, He is the all and in all both of Swedenborg and of his system. To ascribe to this great writer the idea of autotheism, is to give the most outrageous contradiction to his entire life and teaching. Man, in himself, he teaches is nothing. He is mere evil. He is entirely dependent on the unlimited mercy and loving-kindness of the Lord. Any idea of "self-Godhood" is to him utterly repulsive. It is an idea that could not gain the slightest admission into his system or into the mind of any one whose mental character was fashioned by his teaching.

How is it, then, that such ludicrous mistakes are perpetrated? In the first place, we find the writer setting out with a foregone conclusion, and we find that, like many others, he sees what he brings eyes to see.

But the real ground of his mistakes is his implicitly following such unsafe guides as Dixon and White, combined with the jumbling together of Swedenborg and modern spiritualism-systems having the slightest possible affinity with each other, and often the most perfect antagonism. If Swedenborg is to be understood, he must be studied in his own writings, and the more carefully this is done, the more completely will he rise above those mists of false conception which so strangely pervert his teaching, and obscure a system of truth so much needed for the instruction and guidance of the present and future ages. RICHARD STORRY.

MEMORIAL FROM THE CENTRAL ASSOCIATION FOR STOPPING THE SALE OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS ON SUNDAY.*

To the President and Members of the Conference of the New Jerusalem Church.

Dear Sirs, We beg to invite your attention to a subject with which we anticipate you will fully sympathize-the stopping of the sale of intoxicating liquors on Sunday; and we solicit also your approval of a special effort now being made by our Executive Committee to obtain this most desirable measure. The evil we seek to remove causes the land to mourn, but, under the Divine blessing, it would yield to a general, united, and simultaneous attack on the part of all branches of the Christian Church.

Believing this, we are sending to the ministers of all religious bodies the following resolution of our Executive:

That this Committee, appreciating the sympathy with its great object shown by the ministers of the various religious denominations, would respectfully, but most earnestly, request that a general and simultaneous effort be made to rescue the Sunday from the sale of intoxicating liquors, and from the vice, immorality and irreligion resulting from it. This Committee would, therefore, ask each minister throughout the land to preach a sermon on this important subject, on Sunday, the 18th October 1868, or as near to that date as convenient; and would further ask that at the close of such sermon, wherever practicable, a collection might be made in behalf of the funds of this Association, so that the Committee may be encouraged and enabled vigorously to prosecute the agitation until the object be accomplished." We request the sanction and approval of this Conference to the above proposal for the following reasons :—

1. That although an immense number of well authenticated facts have been placed before the Parliamentary Committee appointed to consider this subject, showing the benefits of further restriction, that Committee has, by a majority of one, made a report against it.

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By an unfortunate oversight this document was not inserted, as it should have been, at a much earlier date. The Editor expresses a hope that the request of the memorialists and the intention of the Conference may still be substantially carried out by ministers who approve of the object and desire to promote it in the way proposed.

2. That, on the Sabbath, when shops for the sale of useful articles are closed, and THIRTY THOUSAND MINISTERS are striving, by the preaching of the Gospel, to save the people from their sins, at least THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND persons are engaged in selling intoxicating drinks.

3. That owing to this temptation, vast numbers flock to the public-houses on Sunday, and amongst them crowds of young people, of whom many are Sunday scholars.

4. In Manchester, on a single Sunday, the number of visits to 1456 publichouses and beer-houses was 212,243; in London 50,000 persons visited 80 such places; in Halifax between 3000 and 4000; in Liverpool not less than 140,000, and 10,000 persons are engaged in the sale in that town alone. In Stockport 800 persons were counted in 30 public-houses and beer-houses; in Macclesfield 350 persons in 42 places of this character; and in Ashton 300 persons in 31 of such houses.

5. The present system produces poverty, misery, crime, and in some instances death. In Scotland, the Isle of Man, Jersey, Guernsey, Tasmania, Melbourne, and Canada, the Sunday liquor traffic is legally prohibited, and drunkenness and crime have been thus diminished.

That there is a strong feeling in favour of this measure is clear from the petitions to Parliament, which in 1863 were 5393, with 903,987 signatures, of which 1772 were from licensed victuallers and beer-sellers. Meetings have been held in nearly all parts of England in favour of entire Sunday closing, and, after the fullest discussion, the vote has been taken, and has been all but unanimous in favour of the measure.

Our Committee has aided to canvass 180 localities from house to house, with the following results:-Manchester, householders only, for total closing on the Sunday, 28,259; against 4091; neutral, 2212. Salford for, 9210; against, 1188; neutral, 709. Other towns in England: for, 202,700; against 18,955, neutral, 22,445.

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Wales is almost unanimous for entire Sunday closing, viz.,-North Wales: for, 33,202; against, 403; neutral, 549. South Wales: for, 21,506; against, 818; neutral, 633. Many large workshops in various districts have been canvassed, with the following results: for, 10,627; against 1190; neutral 514. Such are a few extracts from a full list of the returns enclosed.

On these grounds, and especially that the day set apart for rest and religious privileges may no longer be instrumental in the degradation of our people, and counteract the gracious ends for which it was appointed, we beseech you, the members of this Conference, from the pulpit, by petition, and by every legitimate influence, to give all the support in your power to our movement for suppressing the sale of intoxicating liquors during the whole of Sunday.

OFFICES, 43 MARKET STREET.

Manchester, August 14, 1868.

EDWARD MATHEWS, M.A., Travelling Secretary of the Association.

THE HOLY SUPPER.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE

INTELLECTUAL REPOSITORY."

DEAR SIR,I have read with special interest that portion of the Rev. Mr. Woodman's essay on "Practical Considerations," &c., which treats of the Holy Supper. With every desire to view the subject in an affirmative light, I should like to see several questions answered, in

order to make the case, as the essayist puts it, more exhaustive and complete.

In commanding the Israelites to observe any of the more important ceremonies of their worship, the Lord's injunctions were very precise as to the persons by whom, the times when, and the manner in which, the ceremony was to be observed. If the Holy Supper was intended to be an ordinance of perpetual and universal obligation, and if the Lord's administration thereof is to be regarded as an example which is to be literally, regularly, and outwardly imitated, then information is very desirable on the following fourteen topics:

1. How frequently ought Christians to partake of it? The Lord administered it but once to His disciples, and that was just prior to His death.

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2. To whom ought it to be administered? The Lord gave the bread and wine to His disciples alone. Not one of the seventy" preachers were there. No women were present: not even the Virgin Mary, nor Mary the sister of Lazarus, nor Mary of Magdala, though among the Saviour's most devoted disciples, and having the highest of representative significations. Not one of the other disciples at Jerusalem were invited to be present, or permitted to partake. If the ordinance is to be observed by all persons of both sexes, why were all these absent? 3. How old ought a person to be, or what progress in the regenerate life should he have made, before partaking of the Holy Supper? The Lord's administration of it furnishes no clue, as the disciples were all adults, and as one of them the Lord knew to be a devil" at the very time He administered to him the bread and wine along with the rest. 4. In what manner ought it to be administered? In the only case mentioned in the Word, it was administered after they had all been eating and drinking; of the very bread and wine of which they had all been previously partaking; there were no preparatory prayers, the only form of worship connected with the administration was the Lord's blessing of the bread and wine, and the singing of a hymn by them all.

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5. At what time of the day ought it to be administered? The feast of the passover was an evening meal: the term Holy Supper also indicates an evening repast.

6. By whom ought it to be administered? The LORD gave. He did not command the disciples to give it to others, but to partake. The literal injunction was Take, eat," and "Drink ye all of it." The direction is not to administer; only to partake!

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7. Can any one, except the Lord Himself, administer His Holy