close, and the meeting adjourned from the church to the noble school-room, which had been appropriately decorated for the occasion. Here upwards of 360 friends assembled to tea, and at halfpast six the evening meeting commenced; the Rev. E. D. Rendell, President of the Sunday-school Union, presiding.

Previous to the moving of the first resolution, Mr. Broadfield advanced to the front of the platform, and, amidst much cheering, announced that he was about to fulfil a most grateful and interesting duty, by reading an address from the members and friends of the Union to their excellent and esteemed secretary, Mr. Potts. The address expressed their sense of gratitude for his eminent and successful services, and recognised the importance of the admirable undertaking which owed so much to his disinterested and indefatigable labours. In addition to the address, Mr. Broadfield presented a handsome gold watch and chain, which, with a beautiful inkstand, had been subscribed for by a large number of teachers, scholars, and friends in a great majority of schools in the Sunday-school Union. Mr. Potts, to whom the whole was a complete surprise, expressed his thanks in a few heartfelt words, which were received by the audience with every mark of sympathy.

The Rev. President then rose to move the first resolution

"That this meeting, recognising the beneficial results of Sunday-school education, earnestly recommends continued and more active labours on the part of members of the New Church." In supporting it, Mr. Rendell rapidly reviewed the various efforts which had been made during the last century to counteract the spread of ignorance, due justice was rendered to the many excellent methods from which had resulted so much good; and he said that specially successful had been the Sunday-schools, for in them had been kept alive the love of religion and the knowledge of the Word of God.

The Rev. J. Boys, in seconding the resolution, alluded to the importance of education being grounded in true religion. Religious education must be considered in a twofold point of view-external and internal. Our part is to sow in the minds of children the seeds of truth. Mr. Boys concluded by urging

the importance of Sunday-school education, and the duty of all to assist to the extent of their power.

The Rev. J. B. Kennerley, in moving the second resolution-"That this meeting, fully alive to the importance of the work carried on with so much success by the Sunday-school Union, pledges itself to use every effort to realise the permanent Memorial Fund now absolutely required for its increasing uses," -called attention to the various uses performed by the Union, and specially to the importance of its mission as an instrument in making known the truths of the New Church to the minds of the young, who, in the pages of the Juvenile Magazine, and in the more important writings of Swedenborg, were induced to reflect upon the nature of true religion, and to contrast its beauties with the empty vanities of the love of self and the love of the world.

Mr. Potts, in seconding the resolution, offered statistical evidence in support of Mr. Kennerley's statement, and gave a most cheering account of the successful labours of the Union.

After an earnest appeal from Mr. Broadfield in favour of the Union and its mission, the resolution was passed; and a collection in aid of the Memorial Fund was made, which, with the profits resulting from the sale of tickets, amounted to £24. 10s.

The Rev. W. Woodman moved the third resolution-" That the religious education of the children of the church is preeminently the duty of the members of the New Church." In considering the importance of the subject, he alluded to the unfortunate fact, that compara tively few of the descendants of New Church parents have received the doctrines, and appealed to the parents on the magnitude of the interest dependent on their efforts, not merely to their children, but the church generally.

The Rev. R. Edleston, in seconding the above, contrasted the difference between the training of the intellect and the training of the heart, and urged the importance of the latter as the great want in our educational systems.

The resolution was supported by the Rev. J. H. Smithson, who, in demonstrating that the great work of the present day is the preparation of the young for the reception of the truths of the Lord's Second Advent, dwelt vividly upon

the glorious character and essential importance of conjugal love. He concluded by urging his young friends to prepare their minds, by the Lord's aid, for this holy state, proving its connection with the universal marriage of goodness and truth.

After a vote of thanks to the President, and the gentlemen to whose labours the meeting was indebted for the excellent arrangements, the meeting conIcluded with singing and prayer.

The proceedings were considerably enlivened by the introduction of a selection of really excellent vocal and instrumental music, by New Church friends from Manchester and Kersley. The congregational singing was accompanied by the harp and pianoforte, which instruments were also successfully brought into requisition by the introduction of several appropriate duets. A more agreeable meeting has seldom been held, and we are inclined to concur in the general opinion, that this meeting had proved not only the most numerously attended, but the most useful and profitable, under the auspices of the Sunday School Union since its first establishment. Not the least interesting feature was the evident sphere of social harmony; friends met friends, and strangers became friends. From such gatherings, the church has much to hope; they tend to elevate and enlighten the minds of her children, and the oftener her members can meet together for purposes of mutual and general good, the better will it be for all of us.

CORRESPONDENCE ON THE DOCTRINES OF THE NEW CHURCH IN THE DAVENTRY CHRONICLE.

Between the Rev. G. O. Bate, Wesleyan

Minister, and Mr. J. K. Applebee. It will be gratifying to our readers, as it has been to ourselves, to find so able an advocate of our doctrines in a town where it was not known that anyone favourable to them resided. The fact has, however, been brought most un questionably before us, in a correspondence between Mr. Applebee and the Rev. George Osborn Bate; in which the former has sustained the cause of the New Church in a manner highly honourable to himself, and one, we doubt not, which will prove highly beneficial to the cause of truth.

In what circumstances the correspon

dence originated, we have not been able to learn, further than that Mr. Bate was the assailant, having affirmed "that Swedenborg added to the Bible as a Rule of Faith ;" and moreover revived the exploded slander to which Mr. Wesley gave circulation in his Armenian Magazine, to the effect that Swedenborg, whilst residing with Mr. Brockmer, was attacked with a fever, and in a state of delirium rushed naked into the street, rolled himself in a place called the Gully Hole, and proclaimed himself the Messiah. Mr. Applebee fully meets both the allegation of Swedenborg adding to the Bible, and this scandalous fabrication. On the latter he observes,-“I could have wished, for the sake of the reputation of the great founder of Methodism, that Mr. Bate had abstained from reviving John Wesley's gratuitous slander of the great Swede," and then explains that Mr. Wesley professes to have had his information from Mr. Brockmer, but that when Mr. Hindmarsh waited on this gentleman, "he positively denied the fact, positively declaring that he had never opened his mouth on the subject to Mr. Wesley, nor had he given such account to any other person." Mr. Brockmer added," Swedenborg was never afflicted with any illness, much less with a violent fever at my house; nor did he ever break from me in a delirious state, and run into the street, and there proclaim himself the Messiah, as Mr. Wesley has unjustly represented." With equal success does Mr. Applebee expose the utter groundlessness of Mr. Bate's allegation, that Swedenborg has added to the Bible as a rule of faith, that he denies the Trinity, &c. With respect to Mr. Bate, we regret that truth compels us to characterize his conduct as most disingenuous. On Swedenborg's assumed adding to the Bible rule of faith, he urges that he "could not see how Swedenborg could publish various 'UNKNOWN arcanaseen' by him, or revealed' to him concerning God, &c., without ranking himself with Isaiah and Malachi ;" and that "if such visions do not constitute an addition to Revelation, he does not know what does." Possibly, or rather probably, not. Mr. Bate claims pity for his dulness, and we heartily ac

* M. Sandel, in his eulogium, states that he was most remarkable for good health, having scarcely or never been known to be sick.-ED.

cord it; for evidently he has no definite idea of what really constitutes revelation, nor in what inspiration consists. We have; and we are indebted for it to the much-maligned Swedenborg. The universal confusion in which everything relating to these subjects has fallen, is one great evidence of the want of a new church to restore light and order, where darkness and disorder reign. But apropos of his disingenuousness. Mr. Bate gives, so we gather from the correspondence, what he styles a "fair specimen of Swedenborg's visions from the Heaven and Hell." Mr. Applebee requests to be informed where it occurs, not having, in hastily glancing over the pages of that work, been able to find any thing that answers to it. Catching at the expression "hastily glancing," Mr. Bate converts it into an admission that Mr. Applebee has never read the book, and on that ground declines to give him the reference ! Here are his own words:" It is better that he should read the treatise carefully through, and consequently that I should not give him the requested page, but set him searching for the passages, which I can assure him and your readers he will find, if his copy be genuine!" Our readers will strongly suspect that Mr. Bate employed the above as a subterfuge to cover his own unscrupulousness.

Another point is the Trinity, which Mr. Bate affirms Swedenborg to deny, a charge which Mr. Applebee scatters to the winds. What is Mr. Bate's reply? "Mr. Applebee knows very well that Swedenborg's doctrine of the Trinity is not that which everyone reading my letter and his would understand by the phrase!" So, then, because Swedenborg does not take the same view of the Trinity as Mr. Bate, he denies it! Such an evasion might be expected in a Jesuit, but is a deep stain on the character of one professing to be a Christian minister, and is a scandal on the office itself. Another instance in which his disingenuousness is shown relates to the tale of the fever circulated by Wesley. In his first letter he merely says that "to a mind equal to the conception of Swedenborg among Augustine, Luther, Calvin, &c., as a Colossus among dwarfs,' it may appear credible that John Wesley should in his glorious old age deliberately forge and circulate a lie, which, on Mr. Hindmarsh's authority,

Mr. Applebee dares impute to him!" But this assumption of injured innocence will not serve. Mr. Wesley gives currency to a slander proved to be utterly unfounded. Here is, if Mr. Bate insist on calling it so, "a lie,"-perhaps a "deliberate" one. Mr. Applebee charges it on no one; it is the general impression among us that Mr. Wesley suffered himself to be imposed on. But the falsehood remains notwithstanding, and if Mr. Bate is determined Mr. Wesley's character shall be bound up with it, be it so; we cannot in justice suffer any considerations of his "glorious old age" to stand in the way of vindicating a character of one incomparably greater and better than Mr. Wesley, from a foul and unfounded aspersion. Mr. Applebee most conclusively disposes of Mr. Bate's evasion, asking in conclusion-"Is it more morally wrong in Wesley, on insufficient grounds and without due inquiry, to have given currency to a sad slander, than it is in Mr. Bate, on grounds just as insufficient, coolly to charge me with daring to affix on the glorious old age of John Wesley the stigma of a deliberate falsehood?"

In Mr. Bate's final letter he says "It is clear Mr. Wesley believed what he said." We ask, Who has denied it? "He published his statement," he adds,

66

during the lifetime of the parties, and tacitly appealed to them in his account as living when he left London in 1782.'" Who were the parties? Mr. Brockmer, who denied having ever given utterance to such a report, and Mr. Mathesius, a personal enemy of Swedenborg, who was in a madhouse! having been seized with madness when about to preach. But even Mr. Mathesius professes to have received his information from Mr. Brockmer. This, in Mr. Bate's opinion, strikingly contrasts with Mr. Hindmarsh's statement that "the three other gentlemen," bis witnesses, were "since dead." From this it follows, if there be any force in the contrast, that because his witnesses happened to die, what they saw and heard could not be true! Oh, ingenious Mr. Bate! "It is probable (!) (continues this gentleman) that near half a century elapsed between Wesley's and Hindmarsh's conversation with Mr. Brockmer, and possibly (!) that the latter meanwhile may have lost some of the details of it from his memory!!" The result of these "possibilities" and "pro

babilities" is, that it seems pretty certain some one has made a mistake in the matter, which, we apprehend, most of our readers will admit. But this argument, if it proves anything, proves too much. "The charge against Swedenborg of mental derangement is built upon circumstances alleged to have occurred forty years before the charge was brought forward, and which had never been heard of in the whole of the intermediate period.* So that the probabilities and possibilities are equally in favour of Mr. Wesley "having meanwhile lost some of the details of it from his memory." But why, we demand to be informed, was this charge suffered to stand over during the life of Swedenborg, and only preferred when he could not answer for himself? From which side soever it is approached, it bears all the marks of fabrication.

We beg Mr. Applebee to accept our thanks and congratulations for his successful defence of the church. We regret our space will not admit of transferring the correspondence into our pages, whilst it did not seem possible to do justice to it by merely making extracts. There is one point, that of Swedenborg's alleged insanity (of which Mr. Bate merely says it "was mysterious, but not incredible on psychological grounds "-what these are, however, we are not informed), so well met by our friend, that we cannot forego the pleasure of extracting it;"Mr. B. says that 'Swedenborg's insanity is mysterious, but not incredible on psychological grounds.' I wish he would condescend to inform me on what 'psychological grounds' it may be made to appear credible. Shakespere furnishes us with the truest test of insanity, a test recognized by all who have had experience in the phenomena of mental disorder'It is not madness

That I have uttered; bring me to the test,
And I the matter will reword:
Which madness

6

Would gambol from.' Bring Swedenborg to this test and you will find that when he 're words' a thing, he never gambols' from it. There is a coherence about his writings that could not have been the product of a 'mind diseased.' I am sick of the mad theory: the fact of its ever having been broached proves that we live in a mad world, and that Swedenborg was one of the few * See Noble's Appeal, Monumental edition, p. 243.

perfectly sane men that ever blessed it." For the rest, Mr. Bate appears any thing but satisfied with the result. In a letter to the editor he complains that he has been permitted to be "bullied;" and that "if gratuitous lecturers are to be rewarded as he has been in this case, such friends are likely to become few." We can only add, that where it refers to those who, like Mr. Bate, deal in gratuitous slander, the fewer the better.

THE PATRIOT NEWSPAPER AND SWEDEN

BORG.

The great pressure of miscellaneous and other matter in the pages of the Repository has invariably led to the standing over of several subjects beyond the date when they should have appeared. In our last number, we brought up a considerable portion of these arrears; and hope, ere long, to bring all up to the current date.

Among the subjects which have thus stood in abeyance, is a notice of Swedenborg, in the Patriot, a newspaper in the interests of Independency. The occasion of the remarks in question was a brief review of Mr. Clissold's excellent reply to the articles of Mr. Bennett, in the Old Church Porch, and appeared in the Patriot of March 5th; and the remarks themselves are such as might be anticipated from a respectable journal, the organ of the pseudo-evangelism of the orthodox Nonconformity. There is an absence of the gross abuse which formerly characterised notices of Swedenborg and his doctrines in the public prints; and in the article before us, several admissions of an indirectly favourable nature. Take the following as an example:-"Now, it is quite impossible to find a variation of Christianity which contains nothing true. Most of them contain much that is true, and some of them give prominence to doctrines and principles which others have too much neglected. It is so with Swedenborgianism. It contains much that is true, and some things, perhaps, which other communities have not given due prominence to." The reviewer, however, "believes that all its truths are found in other systems, and most of them in a purer form." He does not, however, inform his readers what these truths are, or what the systems are in which they are to be found. From his remark on our "daring ambition " in attempting