the human mind to pry into the mysteries of the spiritual world; nay, in the blessed life of a chosen few who were now and then so privileged under Divine Providence as to take a good survey of the outskirts of the vast spiritual region, that the rest of mankind who would be so inclined might benefit themselves by their teaching, most confirmative of their own now tottering belief in the existence of the spiritual world, and in their own future existence, happy or miserable, when they have left their earthly tabernacles; not to speak of the great moral influence which such confirmation is calculated to exercise on the human mind.

"There yet remains one most important fact to be brought to your notice, and then I shall have done with the introductory part of this epistle. Along with the studies briefly noticed above, it affords me great pleasure to assure you that I have constantly kept before my eyes the Holy Bible as my infallible guide, and as a sure clue in my hand wherewith to walk in the mazes of a labyrinth in order to get to the opening upwards. Though a heathen, having not been baptized as yet with the holy water in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, I have made Christianity the favourite study of my life, having at first mastered all its outlines and prominent features, and gone somewhat deep into its philosophy and rationale.

"But what struck and almost puzzled me most for a long while, was the obvious fact of its continuous division, even from the time of the Apostles down to our own, into a larger number of sects under various denominations than perhaps any other of the religious systems of the world, with the exception, if there be any at all, of the religion of the Vedas. But then there is this most important and vital difference between the two, viz., that while the Vedas have allowed themselves to be turned and twisted in the hands of their followers into all sorts of contortions and deformities, so as to be now nearly on the point of being extinct, Christianity, with all those numerous modifications of its forms and phases-produced not unfrequently by various manipulations in the hands no less violent than those of the Brahmins themselves has ever continued to be stronger and stronger, and brighter and brighter, as its adherents and devotees have advanced under its reviving influence more and more in the race of enlightenment and civilization. I had long pondered over the subject, and wondered at the fact that a religion said and believed to be founded by God Himself, incarnated in His kind Providence, for the guidance and salvation of man-and calculated as it is, from its simple

unsophisticated, but at the same time most sublime doctrines of faith, charity, and atonement, so admirably adapted under every state and condition of the human understanding, from that of a child to that of the highest and most prodigious intellects of a Newton, a Bacon, and a host of Christian philosophers and divines,—that, I say, a religion so constituted should be subject to so many doctrinal divisions and subdivisions in which we now see it, is a fact which, I must confess, has presented to my mind a most formidable mystery, to the correct and satisfactory solution of which, I must again confess, I felt myself for a long time quite incompetent.

"My further long and deliberate reflection on the apostasy of man, not only as a moral but also as an intellectual and rational being—a doctrine inculcated at the very threshold of Christianity-helped me not a little to set my mind at rest on that point. The same cause, said I to myself, which had hitherto deformed truth, the genuine truth, and turned and twisted it into the various forms, not unfrequently fantastic and grotesque, in which we now see it in this world, operated no less in Christendom than in heathendom.

"Ignorance, superstition, vanity, hypocrisy, self-interest, pride, and other evil passions of the human heart, which constitute the chief cause of the non-perception, the concealment, the discolouring, and the darkening of truth, have exercised alike their sway on the minds of men in all countries and in all ages. Christianity, when viewed in the light of religious truth, must undergo the same metamorphoses as all other truths at the hands of subsequent generations of mankind. It is in the hands of nature, and it must follow the course of nature in the assumption of forms and outward appearances; but its substantive essence, which constitutes its life and soul, is the same,-the same conscientious individuality in childhood and in youth, in mature age and in old age; though it is blooming and frisky in childhood, comely and attractive but irresolute and violent in youth, sedate, calm, and resolute in mature age, and wise, solemn, and venerable in old age.

"While I was writing this, and coming to the consideration of this point, I most happily met with a still more satisfactory solution of this very question in n. 479, Chapter VIII., on Free Determination, in the True Christian Religion.' In enumerating the general considerations which confirm the general proposition that man has free determination in spiritual things, the author alludes to the fact of the Christian Church being divided into several sects, and each of these overspread with heresies. The author characterizes this division with

such other evils as the existence of many wicked people in the Christian world, and of some who even glory in their wickedness, and contrive stratagems against the pious, just, and upright. So, according to Swedenborg, the free determination which man has, and which he has amply shown throughout the chapter as a necessary condition of man's existence in this world, accounts, and accounts most satisfactorily indeed, as I now perceive, for the division of the Christian Church into so many sects in which we see it has continued to be divided and subdivided ever since the time of the Apostles. Thus I have now disburdened my mind before you of a doubt and perplexity which had long disturbed its peace, and also disclosed the satisfactory manner in which it has now been relieved.

"I shall now relate to you seriatim my reflections and doubts regarding all the most prominent doctrines in vital connection with Christianity which had, for many years past, perplexed my mind, as they have done that of many others, even amongst professional divines and learned theologians and schoolmen in Christian countries. I had failed to meet with a satisfactory solution until, by a happy chance, I hit upon it in the long and elaborate exposition of those doctrines in the books of Swedenborg and his followers in the Church of the New Jerusalem. I shall here briefly enumerate their headings before I enter into their details in the following pages :—

I. The Doctrine of the Trinity.

II. The Origin of Evil or Sin, as related in the early Chapters
of Genesis.

III. The Eternity of Future Rewards and Punishments, and their
Nature and Description.

IV. The Doctrine of Justification by Faith and Charity.

V. The Doctrine of the Resurrection.

VI. The Doctrine of the Last Judgment.

VII. Free Will or Free Determination.

VIII. The Doctrine of Salvation through the Sacrificial Atonement made by Jesus Christ.

IX. The Fate or Future Destiny of the Gentiles or Heathens, as it is understood by Christians in general.

"It requires no great stress of mind to perceive that to persons who are born and brought up as Christians, some of the above difficulties may never occur at all; but to the minds of others, who are educated and edified from their infancy under different systems of religion and

creeds, and who are moving as if it were in a quite different religious atmosphere, many such difficulties might present themselves almost irresistibly which would naturally escape the scrutiny and penetration of the former. Ask even the child of a Christian, and it will at once, without the least reflection or premeditation on the subject, tell you how absurd and foolish it is to believe in trees and stones as one's gods; while thousands and tens of thousands of the grown-up men and women in India would be at their wits' end to come to that conclusion. Nay, some of the most learned Brahmins would chop logic with you on the affirmative side of the question, which it would not be an easy task even for a learned bishop to subvert. On the other hand, ask a common school-going Mahomedan boy in Constantinople, and he will at once laugh outright at the idea of three Gods, or three different personages in one Godhead; while a synod of learned prelates and Church dignitaries will be discussing this eternal question to no end.

"There is nothing in the world, I imagine, which is so easily, and with such a degree of complacency or self-deception, gulped down by the votaries of a religion or a superstition as the articles of faith and religious dogmas, however vague, irrational, and puerile they may be, coming from the mouths of their priests. Christianity, as it is now prevailing from the Carpathian Mountains to the Andes, far from presenting an exception, may, on the contrary, afford as many illustra tions confirmative of the truth of this assertion as any other religion in the world."

In our next we shall adduce some of the writer's reflections on the comparative merits, from an Oriental point of view, of the doctrines of the Old and of the New Church.

THE CALL OF ABRAM.

A SERMON PREACHED BEFORE THE CONFERENCE AT SALFORD, 13TH AUGUST 1878.

BY THE REV. GEO. HY. SMITH.

"Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will show thee: and I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: and I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed."-GEN. xii. 1-3.

LIFE in any of its manifestations and at all stages of its progress is a sublime spectacle. It is one, too, which is open to the inspection of

all men. But it is reserved to the Christian mind, to the truly rational among men, to view it in its highest and most interior planes of action, and know something of what there constitutes its true nature and rarest delights.

For a naturally-minded person to be told that the text is descriptive of the life that brings man most nearly and consciously into fellowship with God, may indeed surprise, but it will not inspire him. It is a matter of which he has no experience. How different is it with him, the higher plane of whose being has thrilled and throbbed again to the inflowing and quickening Love of the Great Jehovah! Here is a theme congenial to his soul. To it he will turn with eager haste, on it he will gaze with reverential joy.

I invite you, therefore, to draw near with me and look upon one of the many records the Lord has given us of the soul's true life, or, more definitely, the manner in which, as respects spiritual and eternal things, we really begin to be.

I am aware there is a deeper meaning in the passage than this. The inmost of the Word is ever occupied with the Lord. There it treats of Him alone. There we may see displayed the transcendent mysteries of the Glorification; the steps by which, at so costly a price, He redeemed and sanctified every human principle, and opened for evermore the way through which man may rise to God and God descend to man.

But fascinating and profitable as such a theme would be, it is not the work we have before us now. Rather would we linger over that which lies nearer to hand, and busy ourselves with that of which the Lord's Glorification is the sublime Anti-type, the Ineffable Substance -the regeneration of man. This is no less worthy of our aim, this will amply reward our prayerful study.

It is no new discovery that finds in the incident before us "a representation of the life of faith, the walk with God," to which the Lord calls all His people. Pious readers of the Word have long been in the habit of regarding the call made to Abram as an invitation to man generally "to forsake all worldly pursuits and sinful connections, to deny himself, and become the Lord's spiritual worshipper and devoted servant." And the practice is one well worthy of retention and constant repetition. The parallel between the call of the patriarch to quit the land of his nativity and the home of his father, and the Gospel message that bids us forsake all that we have for Christ's sake, is exceedingly just and pertinent. To every man the wide world over does the voice of the Father in the heavens address itself, "Get thee