duties of public worship, in which he had for many years so much delighted. But he had abundant resources of light and of consolation in the doctrines and truths from the Word which he had embraced, and in the darkest hour of bodily sufferings and infirmities this source of consolation, through the Lord's mercy, never failed him. As a member of the society in Peterstreet, Manchester, he was universally respected and beloved; and his warmhearted interest in everything relating to the New Church and its progress, shewn during his life, by his regular subscriptions to its various institutions, was abundantly obvious. And, in this respect, "though dead, he yet speaketh," by the legacies which he has bequeathed to the following institutions of the New Church :-first, £100. to the "Swedenborg Society" in London (free of legacy duty); second, £200. to the "Incapacitated Ministers' and Ministers' Widows' Fund;" third, £80. to the "Students' Aid Fund;" fourth, £100. to the "Sunday School Union." These latter sums will, it is thought, be subject to certain deductions arising from legacy duties, and from other expenses. On Sunday, February 16th, the Rev. J. H. Smithson, minister of the church in Peter-street, endeavoured to improve the occasion of his death, when those who had known him fully sympathized with what the preacher stated, respecting the exemplary life and conduct of our departed friend; for, it may be truly said of him, that he "so let his light shine (not so much in talk, but in deeds of good-will and of charity, by the faithful performance of duties, and in states of humility, piety, modesty, &c.) before his fellow-men, that they could see his good works, and glorify their Father which is in heaven." On February 12th, 1862, Mrs. Henry Barber, of Cooper's Row, Tower Hill, London, departed this life; and three days afterwards she was followed by her infant son, born prematurely a few days before. Mrs. H. Barber had been a much-beloved Sunday-school teacher, at Devonshire Street, prior to her marriage, which was celebrated in the College Chapel. She (as well as her excellent husband) was a highly esteemed member of the society at Islington. All her duties were most lovingly performed; and the spirit of heavenly gladness appeared to pervade her countenance and manner. She was attacked with inflammation of the side and pericorditis; and when her sufferings were somewhat relieved, and she fell asleep, she sang in her dream "Heaven is my home." She has left a young husband and a little boy about a year and a half old to feel her loss. But our gracious Lord has restored her infant to her, to be educated in the world of the blessed angels,-to know no other home than heaven. Her remains, with those of her infant, were interred in the Highgate Cemetery, the service being performed by the Rev. D. G. Goyder, who also delivered a funeral discourse, at the chapel in Islington, on the Sunday evening after the interment, to a large congregation. Died at Heywood, on the 17th of February, Mr. John Aspinal, in the 42nd year of his age. The family of the deceased have been connected with the society at this place almost from its commencement, now fifty years ago. His love of the church and interest in its welfare, had endeared him to many of its members, to whom his departure will be felt as a bereavement. To none, however, who knew him was it unexpected. He had been for a long time the subject of severe and painful affliction; for nearly twelve months he was confined to his room, and during a considerable portion of that time reduced to the most dependent condition. All his afflictions were borne with the most exemplary patience. He placed the utmost trust in the merciful intentions of his Heavenly Father, and manifested an unshaken faith in His constant Providence. His afflictions weaned him from the world, and made him anxious to depart. His departure was so peaceful, as to realize the words of a hymn he had often repeated in his sickness : "So fades a summer's cloud away; R. S. CAVE and SEVER, Printers by Steam Power, Hunt's Bank, Manchester. IT is the lot of all men to experience, in their journey through life, more or less of the various afflictions which evil has introduced into the world. Although all these afflictions, whether of body or of spirit, owe both their origin and continuance to the disordered state of human nature, yet they are all under the Divine control, and cannot therefore be supposed to be permitted but for a wise and merciful end. It may be difficult for natural reason to conceive how suffering, which owes its cause to sin, can have its commission from righteousness. If the righteousness or justice of God were retributive, it might be concluded that pain is dispensed as a punishment for sin, as an effect and mark of Divine displeasure. Much of the suffering endured by men in this world, and all the sufferings endured by wicked spirits in the other, are very generally believed to be retributive, being regarded simply as the award of infinite justice in vindication of its violated laws. But even the punishments of the evil in the other life, when correctly viewed, will be found to be no exception to the law of Divine Providence, that no suffering is permitted but for a wise and merciful end. That use may not always result in positive good to those who suffer; but even to them, if the result be not positive, it will at least be negative, good. Suffering produces positive good when it is reformative, or leads out of sin into righteousness; and it produces negative good when it is preventive, or deters the wicked from repeating the same, or rushing into greater evils. All punishment and suffering, especially in the other life, is regulated by the law of equilibrium, which is ever in the effort to preserve all [Enl. Series.-No. 101, vol. ix.] 13 ensue. beings and things in the order of their creation; and which, when it cannot preserve them in, operates to restore them to, that harmony which evil is ever in the effort to destroy. The confirmed evil have destroyed divine order in themselves, and are continually in the desire, and often in the effort, to destroy it in others. Were not the desire and the effort restrained, the destruction of all order in the universe, and consequently the destruction of the universe itself, would ultimately The desire to do evil can only be restrained by the fear of punishment; and actual evil can only be checked by punishment itself. But punishment is never actually inflicted, even in the other life, except when the law of order is actually transgressed, and which happens as often as the wicked give way to their direful passions of hatred and revenge. Then it is that the law of equilibrium, which holds even hell in the iron bond of external order, falls with its awful but beneficent power on the head of the offender, and ceases not to act till it brings him to submission. The very evils which had been meditated and attempted recoil upon the evil doer; and in his own sufferings, by which alone the evil can form any estimate of the evil, the sufferer is turned for the time into a living witness of the enormity of his own evil, and the certainty of suffering, as the consequence of the evil love, in the actual commission of the sin which it prompts him to do. It is in reference to this return of evil upon the head of the evil doer that the laws of retaliation were permitted under the Old Testament dispensation, which awarded the loss of an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, stripe for stripe, burning for burning. For every act of hostility against order must of necessity bring in the law and power of order, to bring the transgressor within the bounds he has transgressed. But although, like enormous criminals on earth, the wicked in the other life can be brought by suffering to submit to, and even to acknowledge the law of judgment in their punishments, they are unable to see in it anything of love or mercy. On the contrary, they regard justice as vindictive, and even full of wrath. And when justice is regarded as of this character, spirits, and even men, must believe that they are punished for the evil that is past, not for the good that is to come; or as an infliction of justice, not as a correction of love. Every one will judge of the motive or end for which punishment is inflicted, by the motive from which he himself inflicts punishment on others. This, at least, will be the secret judgment of the heart, whether or not it may be the confession of the lips. With the froward, the Lord will ever seem to be froward,-to the merciful only can He shew Himself to be merciful, especially in His severer corrective dispensations. He who receives correction in wrath, will ever conceive that it proceeds from wrath; while he who receives correction in love, will ever perceive that it proceeds from love. So far as it regards its end, all divine correction, whether experienced by the evil or the good, must be of the same character. The Divine Being cannot do or permit anything but for the sake of good, as an end. That end is, the restoration and preservation of order,—and this regards the welfare of the evil as well as of the good. Order is that from which all comfort and happiness proceed; but it cannot produce comfort and happiness except when it is loved, and thence lived. It can only, therefore, be productive of positive happiness to the good,-because, with them, it is an internal bond which they delight in. With the evil it can never be more than an external bond, to which they yield obedience from the selfish fear of incurring blame or suffering punishment. With the evil, in the other life, there cannot be more than a forced compliance with the laws of divine order. And although such a compliance cannot bring positive enjoyment, it may secure from positive outward suffering. And so far and so long as the inhabitants of even the lowest mansions of the kingdom of darkness can be restrained from the actual infringement of the outward law, so far and so long their outward sufferings are intermitted. But when such an infringement takes place, and punishment follows as its necessary consequence, the Divine Providence, which regulates and moderates what Divine Love itself cannot prevent, is free from all vindictiveness,-it is tender but inflexible. The mercy and wisdom which are in punishment cannot be seen by the evil, but only by the good. By these two opposite classes the divine character must ever be regarded as opposite. To the one the Divine Love will always seem to be a consuming, while to the other it will be seen to be a refining, fire. The Lord and His operations are described in Scripture according to these opposite appearances; for the Word represents things not always as they are, but as they are apprehended by the human mind,-since, by this means, the truth operates beneficially upon them. To the evil, therefore, the Lord is represented as rendering His rebuke with flames of fire, and chastising them seven times for their sins, while His anger burns to the lowest hell. The good, on the contrary, He corrects in love, and in correction they are to look for evidence of His paternal care. "Whom I love, I rebuke and chasten." It is only an appearance, then, wisely permitted to the natural man and evil spirit, that the Lord punishes in wrath, and chastises in hot displeasure. When the veil of the letter is removed, and we enter into the spirit of the Word, we are enabled to see clearly that the Lord is Love itself and Wisdom itself; and that Infinite Love can have no end but good, which all the resources of Infinite Wisdom must ever be employed to effect. But when we have once passed out of the shade of the apparent sense of Scripture, and attained to a knowledge of the truth as it is in the unclouded light of its internal sense, are these appearances of no practical use or benefit to us? Are we thenceforth to repose in the undisturbed conviction that since God is love, there can be no such thing as wrathful punishment? Are we to rest in the belief that we have no longer and no further interest in those darker predications of the Divine character and dealings, as if they had no place in the Divine records, and as if we had escaped not only all the chastening of anger, but all apprehension of its possible existence? Let us not so deceive ourselves. Although that which is called the wrath of God has no possitive existence in the Divine mind, it has more or less of actual existence in every human mind not yet entirely freed from evil. And long after we have been intellectually convinced that God in all His dealings is love, we may be the subjects of that rebuke which is of wrath, and of that chastisement which is of hot displeasure. It is of much consequence, therefore, for us to know the nature of this rebuke and this chastening, and the signs by which they may be discerned, that we may deprecate their infliction. Man's opposition to the Divine love is that which gives rise to the appearance of Divine wrath. Before there was actual resistance against God in the human mind, there could be no appearance of wrath in the Divine Mind. And we cannot suppose that a new and sinful passion in the mind of man could produce a new and imperfect feeling in the mind of God. The predication of such feelings in the mind of the All-perfect One, is the effect of sinful imperfection in the creature; and its use is to remind the good of the existence and activity of their yet unconquered evils, and to lead them, as well as others of an opposite character, to restrain and correct in themselves what is contrary to Divine order. Such language in the inspired Volume is not therefore intended for the use of the evil only. If it were, such language would not have been put into the mouths of those who either were, or represented, righteous and pious persons. How frequently does language of this kind occur in the Psalms. The Psalmist prays-"Lord, rebuke me not in Thy wrath; neither chastise me in Thy hot displeasure." Yet David is not a type of the unconverted and rebellious, but of the converted and obedient; and the prayer which he so frequently offers up must be true of the afflicted, and must be such as in the course of |