THE PRESS-SIGNS OF PROGRESS.

MAN'S PROGRESS IN HEAVEN.-But man progresses without cessation; without cessation he pursues new developments without change. of nature, without the loss of humanity, without the loss of personality and his individual identity. A new manifestation, is a new progress, and this progress, which we pursue here below, can never be completely accomplished. Upon this earth, which we traverse at a rapid pace, we long for the sun of to-morrow; and, when we have seen the solar revolutions mark a few years upon the eternal calender, we wish for another life, a manifestation more conformable to our desires and our needs. Our old body is used up, infirmity and suffering assail it, the horizon contracts around us, nature no longer invites us to her feasts, we are isolated from society, our old companions leave us one by one, and our aspirations turn towards heaven, as the imprisoned bird turns towards liberty. If in these lower regions we cannot live isolated without affections, what shall then become of us with knowledge, sentiments, and sensation? With the greater faculty of knowing, the grand desire is to know more. With more delicate sensations, senses more exercised, more perfect, emotions more softened, more profound, with sentiments more pure, we shall have a more imperious need of love, and the remembrance of what we have known and loved shall participate in the extention of existence, the expansion of the soul. Then we shall feel more happy to live, to know, to love, and above all to be loved. We shall carry back our love towards God, for then we shall know better the true source of happiness and love. We shall love and see again those we have known and loved in this earth, and, if we are separated from the objects of our affections, we shall begin to make knowledge of them again, by memory, by thought, by experience, and by ways unknown to man. We shall carry back our love towards God, because we shall know him better. We shall know the true sources of love. We shall love, and we shall know those whom we have loved. We shall be known, even as we are known.-Les Horizons du Ciel, by M. Ronzier-Joly.

THE LAW OF SPIRITUAL DEATH.-Sin is its own punishment. It is itself the "sting of death." It is that moral leprosy of the soul, which, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. It needs no external aggravation to invest it with all the intensity and anguish with which the strong imagery of the Scriptures of truth depicts it. Our minds being less occupied with the radical inward forms of evil, we are

led to adopt a coarse material counterpart of what is an awful spiritual reality. That this is so is clear, from the fact that what men ordinarily hope to escape, is not sin itself, but the punishment supposed to follow it. It is a fundamental law of God's government, a part of the original constitution of things ordained by His wisdom, a law which must extend throughout the universe of moral being, that alienation, or separation from God, who is the fountain of all true life, should be the death of the spirit, as the death of the body is the loosing of that bond which joins it to the soul. If the knowledge of God and communion with Him is our life, and in His 'presence is joy, to be without Him, which is the state of sin, is necessarily to be in an antagonistic state, a state of moral corruption and decay, which, "when it is finished, bringeth forth death." This consequence follows by no arbitary act of divine sovereignty, but by the necessary and eternal law of moral being.Thoughts on the Doctrine of Eternal Punishment, by F. S. Williams.

AN ACKNOWLEDGED OBSTACLE TO PUBLIC WORSHIP.-There is, perhaps, no greater hardship at present inflicted on mankind, in civilised and free countries than the necessity of listening to sermons. No one but a preaching clergyman has, in these realms, the power of compelling an audience to sit silent and be tormented. No one but a preaching clergyman can revel in platitudes, truisms, and untruisms, and yet receive, as his undisputed privilege, the same respectful demeanour, as though words of impassioned eloquence or persuasive logic fell from his lips. Let a professor of law or physic find his place in a lecture-hall, and there pour forth jejune words and useless empty phrases, and he will pour them forth to empty benches. Let a barrister attempt to talk without talking well, and he will talk but seldom. A judge's charge need be listened to, per force, by none but the jury, prisoner, and gaoler. A Member of Parliament can be coughed down or counted out. Town-councillors can be tabooed. But no one can rid himself of the preaching clergyman. He is the bore of the age, the old man whom we Sinbad's cannot shake off, the night-mare that disturbs our Sunday's rest, the incubus that overloads our religion, and makes God's service distasteful. We are not forced into church! No; but we desire more than that. We desire not to be forced to stay away. We desire, nay, we are resolute, to enjoy the comfort of public worship; but we desire also that we may do so without an amount of tedium which ordinary human nature cannot endure with patience— that we may be able to leave the house of God without that anxious longing for escape which is the common consequence of common sermons.-Barchester Towers, by Anthony Trollope.

SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY, AND RELIGION.-Science is an edifice, all the parts of which are bound together by secret affinities by intimate and indissoluble relations; and philosophy is as the flambeau which lights up the entire edifice; and when this flambeau becomes dim, or dies away, the whole edifice is obscured, or thrown into total darkness. This is a truth which has been, in some manner, instinctively felt in every age, and acknowledged by all nations that have attained a certain degree of intellectual cultivation; and 'tis only in our own times that this truth seems to be contested, or brought into doubt. . . . The human mind, and philosophy,—which, whatever may be advanced to the contrary, is the highest representative of the human mind,—— yield not up their rights. But we thought it our duty to point out this strange state of things in the interest of philosophy; nay, still more, in the interest of science and art, and we shall add, of religion itself: for our opinion is, that neither does true philosophy profit by the falling off in religion, nor does religion profit by the falling off in philosophy. Philosophy and religion are sisters, two who now and then fall out, 'tis true, (and who is not subject to quarrel here below ?), but are the children of one and the same father, and who have constantly their eyes fixed upon him; in other words, philosophy and religion have a sole and like object, which is the human mind on the one side, and the absolute and eternal truth on the other. Far, therefore, from mutually combatting and counteracting their legitimate influence, they should inter-aid each other, in order that each of them, in its own sphere, and under the form, and by the processes peculiar to both, may reach the great result towards which converge all the efforts of humanity-the constant and real progress of the human mind,—and the knowledge and triumph of truth. Emporio Italiano Review, copied by Literarium.

THE DEPARTED.-Nor do we cease to live with them! They remember and love us still. Bearing their friendships with them to the skies, purified, sublimated, and enlarged, they yet think of us, yearn over us, and long to have us with them there, with a tenderness of interest, and an intensity of affection, such as they never felt on earth. For aught that we know, they still hover around our persons, encompassing our path to the abodes of bliss. Angels are ministering agents to the heirs of salvation; and may we not suppose that many of the glorified spirits of "just men made perfect," are clothed with a like embassy.-Octavius Winslow, D.D.

NO. XIII.-VOL. II.

3

CLOSING CELEBRATION OF THE CENTENARY YEAR.

To the Editor.-Sir, The New Church generally, in connection with the Conference, and many of the Societies independently, have celebrated the Centenary Year of the New Dispensation, in such manner as by each was thought best and most suitable for marking so rare and important an occurrence. One mode of celebration, however, seems to have escaped public notice, or, if entertained at all, it has not been very favourably. I had carefully watched the various propositions put forth; but the one I particularly looked for was not among them. I, therefore, settled to adopt it myself, as it appeared to me to be one in every way appropriate to the occasion; and in May last I opened the necessary negotiations for accomplishing the object, which, I am happy to say, is now completed; it is the erection, in the Swedish Protestant Church, Prince's Square, Ratcliffe Highway, London, (out of the Fund at my disposal,) of a Marble Tablet to the Memory of the honoured and venerated Messenger of the Lord's New and Imperishable Dispensation of Truth "Emanuel Swedenborg, Servant of the Lord Jesus Christ." (Tr. Ch. Rel., title.) This took place on Tuesday, the 8th of December, 1857, in the presence of the Rev. Mr. Carlson, the Minister of the Church, the Rev. Mr. Bruce, of Cross Street, and two or three other members of the Church.

The Tablet is fixed on the south side of the edifice, nearly opposite the pulpit, and overlooking the spot, in front of the altar, where the body was buried. It is 4 feet 6 inches high, by 3 feet wide; and consists of a frame-work of Caen Stone, wrought into a moulded corbel and moulded jambs, from which springs an arch having carved cusps; the whole enclosing two pure white marble slabs, the larger one bearing an inscription as follows:

HE

IN THE VAULT BENEATH THIS CHURCH
ARE DEPOSITED THE MORTAL REMAINS OF

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG,

THE SWEDISH PHILOSOPHER AND THEOLOGIAN.
WAS

BORN IN STOCKHOLM, JANUARY 29, 1688;
AND DIED IN LONDON, MARCH 29, 1772,
IN HIS 85TH YEAR.

THIS TABLET IS ERECTED BY ONE OF HIS ENGLISH ADMIRERS
IN THE YEAR 1857,

BY SPECIAL PERMISSION.

And on the smaller slab the following is inscribed in Swedish:

UTI DENNA KYRKAS GRAFHVALF, UNDER ALTARET,

FÖRVARAS

DE JORDISKA LEMNINGARNA

AF

PHILOSOPHEN OCH THEOSOPHEN

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG.

The English inscription is surmounted by a sculptured figure (also in statuary marble) of The Word opened, and on the corbel moulding at the bottom is carved in relief Swedenborg's Shield of Nobility. [See Illustration.]

It is possible that the propriety of this proceeding may be questioned by some, who think that Swedenborg's memory does not require any monumental com