have foreseen the possibility. I should regret to wound the susceptibilities of any, whether New Church or old, who conscientiously hold total abstinence opinions, or who, for the sake of others, abstain. But I also regret what I can only call the tyranny of teetotalism, and the uncompromising condemnation, under opprobious epithets, not only of everything in the shape of alcoholic stimulants, and of those who think well to use them, but the employment of a mode of argument which transgresses good taste, if not charity.

Forty years' medical experience, and some amount of personal experience for I have tried fairly and well total abstinence-have convinced me that alcohol in proper forms and properly used, and not abused, is a gift of God to man; that in many cases of acute illness it does what no other remedy can; and that, moreover, in everyday life there are conditions and constitutions that benefit by the daily use of alcoholic beverage, and that many are enabled to lead more active and useful lives with the daily consumption of a moderate portion of wine or malt liquor, than they otherwise would. I have known individuals greatly injured in health because of obstinate, if conscientious, perseverance in total abstinence; and I have known many who, after years of total abstinence, have wisely, under advice, resumed or begun the use of wine and beer in moderation, greatly and permanently improved in health. I could say much more upon this practical side of the question, did I not fear to occupy your space. Let me ask, however, before proceeding, whether there should not be, even in such a discussion, mutual forbearance and charity? The sarcastic tone which your correspondent "H." has chosen to impart into it, is calculated neither to advance fair argument nor to promote kindly feeling. Nevertheless, a few of his remarks call for answer.

As to the possibility of procuring pure fermented wine, which seems a difficulty with "H.," I must say that it has always appeared to me that the Churches, both new and old, were culpably careless in this matter, often using as they do, for this most holy rite, any chance wine, good or bad-perhaps not real wine at all, that was procured anywhere. I have never been able to see the difficulty of a Church, or associated body of Christians, having their one common store, from which the sacramental wine might be obtained, such store being carefully supplied with pure wine, such as claret, which is generally used in India for Communion purposes. That, with care, pure fermented natural wine is to be had, is true.

The assertion of "H." as regards the necessity for the yeast tonula or fungus, from extraneous sources, coming in contact with the expressed grape-juice does not apply. Grape-juice, in virtue of its grape-sugar, is perhaps the most fermentable vegetable juice known, and carries with it in its albuminoid constituents the means and excitants of its own rapid fermentation. That such fermentation, without care, is liable to pass on into other chemical changes, is no argument at all—"H." must know that in all circumstances nature's chemistry, working out God's laws, yet requires man's caretaking.

"H." mistakes the purport of my argument with respect to the correspondence of fermentation, so illustrative of purifying temptations. "Leavening," says Swedenborg, "denotes spiritual combat, by which the truth is purified of the false." In the grape-juice, after its separation from the containing skin, the leavening or fermenting process almost at once commences in a warm climate; if heat is evolved, it is not correspondentially pure, but is of evil significance; if change takes place, it is not as "H." puts it, change tending only to "rank degeneration and decay," but change tending to purify by separating impurities. To say that carbonic acid gas is not deadly is-I would not use the word if another would do-disingenuous. A gas that cannot be respired, even in minute quantity, without injury, and which in larger quantity proves quickly or immediately fatal, cannot be called otherwise than " deadly." Its being drank mingled with a fluid is totally beside the question. Gases and vapours are judged by their effects upon the respiratory organs. Mr. Deans bases his objections to my remarks upon more practical grounds than "H.," and his objections are, I believe, greatly answered by what I have already written. I have seen too much of the evils of intemperance not to join heart and hand with every movement that goes justly and wisely to repress it; but over-zealous teetotallers have not gone about their work either justly or wisely, and so have greatly hindered a good cause. Their wholesale condemnation of those who differ from them, either theoretically or practically, is most unjust and unwise, and has alienated the support of many who would have gone with them. The teetotaller claims liberty for himself not to use fermented wine; by all means let him have it, but let him grant equal liberty to those who do not place "good wine" in the same category as the "cat-o'-ninetails and the hangman's rope, etc.," but, I repeat it, receive it as a gift of God to be used and not abused. Wine, like truth, may help to save those who "are ready to perish" if rightly used; if abused, it may do the reverse.

1

I would say to all, if you have health, strength, and usefulness without alcoholic stimulants in any form, be thankful, and for many reasons abstain, more especially if by doing so you can help a weak brother; but beware how you judge others whose constitution, condition, and external circumstances render the God-given aid necessary. I would also say, beware in upholding your opinions, whether in pulpit, or on platform, or paper, you support the cause of temperance by intemperate language, loose statements, or studied sarcasm. These are, unfortunately, too often prominent in teetotal utterances, can do no possible good, and are not required to support a good cause. S. T.

Miscellaneous.

now exceedingly numerous, particularly in the large provincial towns, and the collections of money for missionary and

in any other community in the kingdom. All this is admitted by the leading journal, but, contends the writer, the party is not what it was. And this is admitted by Canon Ryle, who writes: "I admit freely that other schools of thought have come to the front in the Church of England which are quite as zealous and as popular in some quarters as the Evangelical school, and can point

longer any monopoly of Evangelical truth, and I am not ashamed to say that I thank God for it."

EVANGELICALISM. -One of the prominent and most active parties of the Established Church is the Evangelical. The revival which took place towards the close of other Church purposes are larger than the last and the beginning of the present century was largely promoted by this party. Its members maintain the authority of the written Word against the tradition of Rome and the Romanizing practices of the Establishment. In their interpretation of the Word they adopted the doctrines of the Reformers; and as these are fading away from the active thoughts of men, the question of the very existence of the party, as its great to numerous adherents. We have no teachers laboured and taught fifty years since, has been called in question. The death of Dr. M'Neile has afforded an occasion to the Times to raise this question, and their leading article on the subject has caused quite a flutter among the remnants of the party. The Times of January 31st wrote: "To men of the present generation, indeed, the old Evangelical party of the Church of England, once so powerful and triumphant, must wear somewhat of the aspect of one of those seaports of ancient fame, from which the sea, with all its storms and currents, all its busy burden of life and turmoil and contest, has long since ebbed away. Its mouldering buildings and forsaken quays still attest its former importance and its lost place in the world; but the life and commerce of modern times now sweep past it to newer havens, and it remains a goodly but decaying monument of past activity and forgotten warfare."

This discussion has naturally attracted the attention of the organs of religious opinion. The existence of great changes is admitted by all parties; the cause of these changes is not seen. Society has entered on a new condition, thought is free, and the dogmas of the past are impossible in the present. To maintain the position of the Church much external zeal is manifested, and doubtless much of this earnestness is sincere. But the Church will not be preserved by public shows or gaudy decorations any more than by the narrow creed of the old Evangelical party. Earnest zeal and fervent external worship must be united with rational faith and Christian conduct to secure the assent of the thoughtful and secure the hold of the Church on the hearts and lives of the people.

This statement of the Times is chal- ART.-William Morris, Esq., M.A., lenged by Dean Close, whose great age the well-known poet, writer, and artist, and long connection with the party who this year fills the office of President makes him acquainted with its history to the Birmingham School of Art, deduring nearly the whole of the present livered an address to the students on century, and by Canon Ryle, one of the most eminent of its present active members. These writers appeal to the large number of professed Evangelicals in the Church. The Islington meeting, which commenced in a private room, now assembles three hundred strong. The churches and congregations of the party which at the commencement of the century could be counted on the fingers are

Art, in the Town Hall, on the 19th February, of which some brief extracts will probably interest our readers by their breadth of view and by the somewhat novel way in which he applies the doctrines of uses and delights to his subject.

After an historical sketch, showing that in every age and in all nations whose art remains are famous the com

on to some one else's shoulders; or we the public-how can we bear to pay a price for a piece of goods which will help to trouble one man, to ruin another, and starve a third? Or, still more, I think, how can we bear to use, how can we enjoy something which has been a pain and a grief for the maker to make?"

THE APOSTOLIC EPISTLES.-The Louth Times, in a review of the "True Christian Religion," which is described by a New Church correspondent as "evidently the expression of a careful and unprejudiced opinion formed after a perusal of the book," repeats the objection to Swedenborg that he rejects the writings of the Apostles and other books of the Bible. This objection was quite natural in the beginning of the New Church, when the orthodox Churches held very extensively, if not generally, the doctrine of the verbal inspiration of the Scriptures; but at the present day, when the most lax opinions prevail respecting the inspiration of the Divine Word, the objection seems sadly out of time. To the remonstrance of a New Church writer who takes the signature of "Auxiliary," the editor responds "Notwithstanding what the evidently honest writer of the above remarks so earnestly pleads, by way of apology for Swedenborg's estimate of so many books of the Bible, as books devoid of a continuous spiritual sense, we still think we do him (Swedenborg) no injustice by our statement that he flings away half the Scriptures because they cannot be made to square with his system. With what Swedenborgians may be doing with the said books now we are not concerned; the question is, How did Swedenborg regard them? We would at once retract or modify our somewhat strong assertion if we could be shown, from his own words, that he looked at them from much the same point of view as that of orthodox Christians." Swedenborg gives the following statement respecting the writings of the apostles in one of his letters to Dr. Beyer (Documents, vol. ii. p. 240, Document 224) :

"In respect to the writings of the Apostles and Paul, I have not quoted them in the Arcana Coelestia,' because they are doctrinal writings, and consequently are not written in the style of

the Word, like those of the prophets, of David, of the Evangelists, and the Book of Revelation. The style of the Word consists altogether of correspondences, wherefore it is effective of immediate communication with heaven; but in doctrinal writings there is a different style, which has indeed communication with heaven, but mediately. They were written thus by the Apostles, that the New Christian Church might be commenced through them; wherefore matters of doctrine could not be written in the style of the Word, but they had to be expressed in such a manner as to be understood more clearly and intimately. The writings of the Apostles are, nevertheless, good books of the Church, insisting on the doctrine of charity and its faith as strongly as the Lord Him self has done in the Gospels and the Book of Revelation; as may be seen and found evident by every one who in reading them directs his attention to these points."

"RECEIVING STRANGERS."-One of the marked features of the New Age is its broad and widespreading charity. And this charity which, in its outburst of generous feeling, has often been administered in an indiscriminate and sometimes in a mischievous manner, is gradually being brought under the control of prudent thought and useful regulations. It is a teaching of the New Church that charity to be genuine must be united with faith, and directed by laws of wisdom. To this law of charity many of the benevolent are awakening. They have been led to deeper thought on the subject by the teaching of the political economists, combined with their own experience of the effects of indiscriminate almsgiving. Kind feeling is thus brought under the guidance of knowledge and understanding, and led to improve its methods of working. The change seems difficult, and at first not pleasant. " Schemes for alleviation and reforms meet us at every turn; but in our attempts to solace ourselves by giving alms we are met by innumerable difficulties, and hampered and bewildered by unanswerable admonitions both from within and without about the danger of pauperising, till some of us scarcely dare offer a cup of beef-tea to a sick neighbour for fear of demoralising him and offending