incorrect: take as one instance the ordinary cocoa-nut. Few, if any, animal eggs contain as large a supply of nutriment for the “ germ or spiritual principle" as this vegetable egg, if we may so call it; whilst in other plants, such as the leguminous, all botanists know how large the amount of nutriment laid up in the cotyledons for the first nurture of the young germ. As to the greater amount of fluids or juices required by or afforded to the animal germs, this is merely a question of degree, and has nothing to do with the main question, which Dr. Tafel entirely evades.

That question is, as I stated in my former letter, the necessity, whether in animal or vegetable, for the concurrence of two distinct and separate cells, the male or sperm cell and the female or germ cell, without which concurrence there can be no prolification even in the "womb of mother earth,"-a concurrence, moreover, which stamps the new being with the characters of both parents, totally irrespective of earthly influences. As in the animal, the vegetable sperm cell conveys the paternal plant influence, by whatever name called, to the germ cell, around which the needful substances are gathered in the ovary or womb of the plant mother.

The whole argument reduces itself to the above short summary, all the rest is mere accessory; and until Dr. Tafel can meet the summary, his position, I take it, is quite untenable.

I must now crave space to direct attention to what appears to me to be another scientific error committed by Swedenborg, and one even more easy of recognition than the above. In No. 643 of the "Arcana" Emanuel Swedenborg writes: "Gopher wood is a wood abounding with sulphur, like the fir, and many others of the same kind," and then, throughout the note, proceeds to base the spiritual interpretation upon this alone. Now the fir tribes do not abound in sulphur, indeed, contain none. How are we to receive an assertion directly opposed to the evidence of so exact a science as analytical chemistry. Are we to quote "Authority"? If so, let us return to the days of Galileo, when the equally exact science of astronomy was attempted to be crushed by Authority." It has been said to me that the firs contain abundance of inflammable resins and oils. Undoubtedly, but resins and oils are totally different from sulphur, and it is evident, from the references, that Swedenborg meant sulphur and nothing else. I wait for an explanation.

In conclusion, let me once more repudiate the idea that in thus impugning assertions of Emanuel Swedenborg in the domain of natural science, made more than a hundred years ago, I could mean in any way, "craftily" or otherwise, to undermine the spiritual teachings of the New Church. They are far too highly prized by me for that, but the questions at issue belong to a lower degree, and must be judged accordingly. When men, whether receivers of New Church doctrines or not, are told they must stultify themselves under the claims of authority, we may be sure that the foundation of those claims will be strictly scanned. S. T.

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Miscellaneous.

THE FUTURE OF FAITH.-Under this and Catholicism can no more abide than title the March number of the Contemporary Review inserts an article, from the pen of Mr. Mallock, which reviews the present position of Protestantism in its relation to Modern Science and Biblical Criticism, and which puts forth some very bold claims for Roman Catholicism. Recent science and modern criticism have so undermined Protestant doctrine, that many who call themselves Protestant hold no fixed creed whatever. "Of course," they say, "the Apostles' Creed is true, and of course the Athanasian Creed is false. And then, after all, suppose neither is true, the meaning of the thing is the real heart of the matter. Such," says Mr. Mallock, "is the Protestant language of to-day; nor is it the language of foolish or of ignorant people; it is the language of countless clever men who have much to do, and of countless clever women who have nothing to do. . . . To all except a small minority, faith, in the old sense of the word, is growing a cold and shadowy thing. The dogmas, the services, the ministers of the Church, are coming all of them to have a belated look for us. They seem out of place in the busy world around us." Protestantism confessedly rests upon the Bible. Biblical criticism has, in Mr. Mallock's opinion, utterly destroyed the old faith in the Bible as a Divine Revelation. "But," says Mr. Mallock, "it seems to escape the assailants that though they may have burnt the outworks there is still a citadel inside, which, although it seems to them almost too contemptible to take account of, may yet not prove combustible, and when the conflagration outside has subsided, may still remain to annoy them. They forget altogether, I mean, the Church of Rome.

To its past history, and to external evidence, Protestantism bears one relation, Catholicism quite another."

The citadel, then, behind whose ramparts we are to find security is the Papacy. But when an invading army has destroyed the outworks of a citadel, and cut off communication with the outer world, the fall of the citadel is only a matter of time. It may hold out a little while, but its capture is certain;

Protestantism if the Bible be banished
from the faith of the Church, and its
precepts from the lives of its members.
But in the estimation of Mr. Mallock
the Papacy, like the beast named by the
Prophet Daniel, will "think to change
times and laws." An infallible teacher,
she is not bound to the Word, has de-
termined nothing respecting its inspira-
tion, and "may shape her teaching by
the learning of this world, though it
may have been gathered together for the
express purpose of overthrowing her.
Atheistic scholars may be quoted in her
Councils; and supercilious and sceptical
philologists, could they live another
hundred years, might perhaps recognise
their discoveries, even their words and
phrases, embodied in an ecclesiastical
definition." And then, again, we are
told what must, we imagine, surprise
all who have formed their opinion of
Roman Catholicism from its past his-
tory, that "of all religious bodies the
Roman Church has the largest hope and
charity for those outside her own pale.
She condemns men not for not accepting
her teaching, but only for rejecting it;
and they cannot reject it until they
know it, what it is-know its inner
spirit as well as its outer forms and for-
mulas. Such a knowledge, in the
opinion of many Catholics, it may be a
very hard thing to convey to some men.
Prejudices, for which they themselves
are not responsible, may have blinded
their eyes; and if they have been blind
they will not have had sin. They will
be able to plead invincible ignorance;
and the judgments the Church pro-
nounces are not against those who have
not known, but against those only who
have known and hated."
After this,
what becomes of the doctrine that there
is no salvation out of the Church? Mr.
Mallock is certainly "wiser than his
teachers."

MR. MALLOCK'S CLAIM ON BEHALF OF THE CHURCH OF ROME.-To this claim, to which we have alluded in the preceding article, two papers are devoted in the July number of the Contemporary. The first of these is by Principal Reynolds of Cheshunt College,

the second by Rev. Eustace R. Conder perfect embodiment the world has ever of Leeds, both ministers of the Congre- seen. Shortsighted eyes, whose focus, gational body. Immediately following though the lips speak of heaven and one of our extracts from Mr. Mallock is eternity, is limited by things seen and the following:temporal—wealth, worldlypre-eminence, "Protestantism offers itself to the prestige, visible splendour, political world as a strange servant might, bring- influence, power (spiritual in name, but ing with it a number of written testi- in essence temporal) over the liberties, monials. It asks us to examine them, fortunes, bodies, and lives of men. and by them to judge of its merits. It You have claimed and used liberty when expressly begs us not to trust to its own you had not power, but invariably word. 'I cannot,' it says, rely suppressed it when you had; and unless upon my memory. It has failed me you are prepared to condemn your often; it may fail me again. But look whole past, your supremacy over manat these testimonials in my favour, and kind would be the death-warrant of judge me only by them." And the freedom throughout the world." world looks at them, examines them But what, then, is the real result of carefully; it at last sees that they look sceptical criticism? We quote again suspicious, that they may very possibly the words of Mr. Conder: "Then,' be forgeries; it asks the Protestant the sceptical critic triumphantly exChurch to prove them genuine, and the claims, the faith of the future will be Protestant Church cannot. But Ca- a diminishing quantity, doomed to certholicism comes to us in an exactly tain extinction. For have we not opposite way. It, too, brings with it proved, if not positively that Christithe very same testimonials; but it knows their apparent weakness, and it does not at first lay much stress upon them. First, it asks us to make some acquaintance with it; to look into its living eyes, to hear the words of its mouth, to watch its ways and works, and to feel its inner spirit; and then it says to the world, ‘Can you trust me? If so, you must trust me all in all, for the first thing I declare to you is that I have never lied.''

"Suppose any one fresh from the study of the history of the Popes, of the Councils, of the Roman Church in Italy, Spain, France, and England, should reply: 'No; I cannot trust you. I have watched your ways and works, and they inspire me with intense distrust. I have looked into your eyes, and the longer I look the less I like them. Cruel eyes; that have smiled approval on the massacres of the Albigenses, the Huguenots, the Vaudois; on the fires of Smithfield, Oxford, Gloucester; on the inconceivable horrors of the Inquisition; on the Armada, whose success would have meant the strangling of free thought and life in England, as they were strangled in Spain. Worldly-wise eyes they look to me, full of that subtle policy of which Jesuitism is the most

666

anity is a fiction, yet negatively that
there is no valid evidence that it is a
fact?' And he appeals to Mr. Mallock
in support of his averment. But the
critic over-estimates both the range and
the force of his art. He can deal with
documents; he cannot alter facts.
When criticism has done its best, or its
worst, the Gospels and the Epistles re-
main unconscious of assault, calmly
inviting our faith, appealing to
hearts, and speaking out in clear tones
what they declare to be eternal truth.
If we accept all the emendations of the
text which have any show of evidence,
we have but brushed away some dust, or
inflicted a few scratches on the surface,
not touched the substance.'

our

THE FORMATION OF CONSCIENCE.There is at present a great tendency and persistent effort to account for all phenomena, mental and moral as well as physical, apart from spiritual causes. Creation is the result of evolution, taking place during long ages by the action. of natural laws. The Rev. T. W. Fowle, rector of Islip, in a paper on "The Place of Conscience in Evolution," published in the Nineteenth Century, endeavours to trace the origin and growth of conscience. This is the stronghold of many persons, "among whom Mr. Charles Kingsley may be cited,... who appeared determined to reserve conscience as something inexplicable by any

effort of human thinking, and there- arises the perception of the right to live, fore as a direct gift of God to His crea- and, after long ages, the perception of tures." Mr. Fowle persuades himself the equal right of others to live and that the discovery of the genesis of con- to enjoy life. From this germ of conscience, and the determination of its science has been evolved under conplace in the process of evolution, is not trolling circumstances, as the family, difficult. "Whatever difficulty there society, politics, etc., the moral and remay be in accounting for the evolution ligious conscience. The author makes of man lies not in his moral but in his a large leap from the animal to the mental growth. How he became con- rational human being, in whom there is scious of himself we may possibly never present the assurance that he has a right be able even to imagine, but that, being to himself-a right, by the way, which conscious of himself, he was by mere is questionable, for the Maker of this force of circumstances possessed of the germ of conscience, is a statement that presents no difficulty at all."

Conscience is defined as "the power which the mind possesses of discerning rightness. Just as we discern something called beautiful which we admire, or something called pleasurable which we must seek, so do we perceive something right which we must do. And so our specific question comes to this, How did the idea or the fact of rightness enter into the world?"

In the solution of this question the writer does not take into account the fact of revelation. The aim is to account for conscience, as for all other mental and moral qualities, from the action of merely natural causes. Man in his animal state, the " ape-like man,' ""had been cradled, so to speak, under conditions which prescribed a continual struggle for existence, and which permitted only the strongest and fittest to survive and multiply. His 'conduct,' up to the moment or epoch when he became self-conscious, was confined to these two spheres of action-flying (by combination or otherwise) for life and killing for life. There were creatures whom it was natural for him to kill, and others who, it was equally natural, should kill him. . . . Having arrived at this point, let us, as our next step, remind ourselves that it is impossible to imagine a rational human being in whom there is not present the assurance that he has a right to himself to be allowed to live, in the first place; afterwards (as the result, may be, of long years of evolution), to be allowed to live happily." Conscience is thus the struggle for existence become aware of itself in the mind of a thinking person. (The italics are the writer's.)

The beginning of conscience is thus the self-consciousness of life, whence

rational human being has reserved this right in His divine statement, "All souls are Mine." But were this process of the evolution of conscience as certainly true as it is merely speculative, it is, in the form in which it is presented by Mr. Fowle, utterly inadequate to account for the formation of conscience. Conscience consists of the truths which we hold sacred-which we recognise as the authoritative requirements of the Being on whom we are altogether dependent, and by the observance of which we form the character which is agreeable to His will and conducive to our own eternal wellbeing. It is not, therefore, born naturally with man, nor evolved by merely natural progress. It is formed by the reception and practice of truths revealed for its formation. It hence varies according to the extent and rightness of religious instruction, and it attains a quality according to the sincerity and diligence with which the truth believed is practised. From the reception of the truth in the heart and its development in the life arises the tenderness of the conscience, its sensitiveness to the approach of the evil, its firmness in the resistance of the evil, and its endurance in the maintenance of the good, i.e. of rightness.

HERESY IN SCOTLAND.-At the time we last wrote, the cases before the Synods of the United Presbyterian and the Free Church were undetermined. The former had appointed a committee to confer with Rev. Fergus Ferguson, and, as we anticipated, their report led to a restoration of Mr. Ferguson to his pulpit and place in this community. The Committee reported that Mr. Ferguson had stated it to be his deep conscientious conviction that while, in some things, he may go beyond the positions formulated in the Confession, he is in

fundamental harmony with its essential on Deuteronomy have been declared doctrines.' While the Committee was such as the Free Church cannot sanction, not unanimous in its acceptance of Mr. and the case is remitted to the Aberdeen Ferguson's explanations on all the Presbytery-the other charges being counts of the libel, there was a gen- dismissed. The question in dispute is eral agreement in relation to the first, thus brought into narrow limits, and in the one respecting the Atonement, which the end the Professor will in all prohad been determined against him. If bability, retain his place in the Church. Mr. Ferguson's concession went as far The discussions of the Assembly preas the resolution proposed by Dr. Cal- sented many features of interest. Mr. derwood, the greatest sticklers for Colquhoun, an elder, "would have the orthodoxy could scarcely fail to be Free Church of Scotland raise and resatisfied. This resolution stated "that echo the cry, Truth, truth, truth! At Mr. Ferguson holds that Christ's satis- all hazards let us have truth, which faction to Divine justice consisted in the could bring no danger." We join in the endurance of the holy indignation of cry-but what is truth? and where God against sin, and in harmony with shall we find it? "Thy Word is this holds that the sole meritorious truth," says the Scripture; and it is ground on which the sinner is pardoned, only by sympathetic and accurate interregenerated, and sanctified by the Holy pretation that the truth which shall Spirit, and ultimately saved, is Christ's give freedom to the Church can be sacrifice as it was completed on the obtained.

Cross.

The Synod expresses regret that Mr. THE PAN-ANGLICAN SYNOD.-This Ferguson has not on all the subjects Assembly of Bishops of the Anglican involved in the several counts expressed community, from all parts of the world himself fully in the language of the where the English Church is established, Confession, yet "accepting the explan- is at present in session at the palace of ations of Mr. Ferguson's views on the the Archbishop of Canterbury at Lamgreat fundamental articles of the Chris- beth. It is the second meeting of this tian faith, the Synod agrees that he be kind, the first being held in 1867, under restored to the exercise of his ministerial the presidency of Archbishop Longley. functions; at the same time the Synod In opening the proceedings the Primate tenders to him the solemn and affection- said: "The Church of Christ must ate admonition to present his doctrinal beware of wasting her energies on minor positions in such a manner as to set forth matters and mere questions of detail their harmony with the fundamental while greater things are at stake. Among doctrines referred to in the first part of the subjects to come before the Conthis resolution." ference one stood pre-eminent in imThe case is ended, therefore, by some- portance-that, namely, which related what of a compromise, although the to the best modes of meeting the preconcessions made to orthodoxy have valent infidelity of the day. When been larger than, from Mr. Ferguson's every common periodical was filled with previous utterances, could have been anticipated. The decision "can hardly," says the Scotsman, "be supposed to be perfectly satisfactory to any of the parties interested, unless, perhaps, to the bevy of theological 'ladies,' who are described as 'giving expression to their feelings by waving their handkerchiefs,' and a handful of less demonstrative outsiders who may be attracted by what may seem to them another sign of the breaking up of the ice of dogmatic tradition." The case of Professor Robertson Smith, which has for some time occupied the Assemblies of the Free Church, was not so completely disposed of. By a small GENERAL CONFERENCE.-The Seventymajority, the views of the Professor first Session of the General Conference is

questionings whether there is a personal God, whether there is a life hereafter, whether a revelation is possible, the Church had something else to do than to confine herself to these details."

The several subjects arranged for discussion are first placed in the hands of Committees, and the work of the Conference is thus delayed for some time. The meeting is one of deliberation and consultation. It possesses no legisla tive power, though its deliberations may not impossibly lead to some modifica tions of current Church practices.