pleasures of the world, and are never heard to speak on any religious subject, nor ever known to trouble themselves about their own state of heart. They consider themselves sound in the so-called orthodox faith, and this, they think, is all that is required-supposing there to be a future, they will be quite prepared for it. Another portion, however, cannot be so easily satisfied. They are extremely observant of external forms of religious service, and of an outward propriety of conduct, but more especially are they careful that their faith is in exercise. No doubt in many of these there still lurk unsatisfied doubts, and these, mingled with fear of damnation, and an indisposition to a thorough scrutiny, cause a desperate clinging to the old forms of faith as the easier and safer course, and hence that irritable bigotry and extreme sensitiveness of prejudice which characterise many of them. Offer to expose to them some of the inconsistencies in their dogmas, and you meet, not with a quiet, calm confidence in their truth, and consequent kindly and pitying feeling towards the unbeliever, but frequently with heat and bitterness, a shew of zeal which only covers a sense of innate feebleness, and finally, an angry an anathematising dismissal of your unbelief, or a warning, that if you believe not their mysteries there will be no salvation. From what has been said it will appear that the Church itself is to blame for the unbelief which has become so prevalent. It is because it has given husks instead of the bread of our Father's house. And so far from considering avowed unbelief as necessarily a sign of degenerate men, we rather believe it to indicate that men are growing ripe for the new age which is coming. It denotes an expansion of mind which the old faith cannot fill, which breaks down the old barriers of thought, and which advances from the shadow to the substance. This cannot be done at once. The same men whom the old has satisfied cannot receive the new. A preparatory stage ensues. The old must overlap the new for a time. The winter comes, and all leaves are shed, and the earth looks desolate; but this is only the sleep in which nature renews her strength. The bud of the coming spring was formed under the last year's dying leaves, but we observed it not. When the year has rolled round, the genial heat will come, and the snows melt, and the streams murmur, and new life shall break forth in a thousand manifestations. Every twig of the tree will swell with it, and gently unfold in marvellous order leaf after leaf, and from their winter's hiding-place the flowers will raise their beautiful heads in salutation and adornment of the advancing year. And thus will it be also with the new influx of spiritual life into man. There must be a time of change. The old has produced its crop,-its fruits are gathered,— its vital forces are expended, and now there come the late autumnal winds, agitating all things with the rude breath of an unsatisfied inquiry, and thousands of leaves of mere profession are roughly shaken from the boughs upon which they had long been suspended without any vital adhesion, and then succeeds the bare and mournful winter of the soul. But there will shortly come a more genial season. Already our days begin to brighten, and welcome harbingers of returning spring have visited us. All things indicate that "a nobler morning" than that of the old faith is now dawning upon the earth. The holy warmth of an all-embracing love shall steep this old world in a new glory, and all men be wrapped in the mantle of universal brotherhood. But to return to our subject,—that which is most deserving the name of infidelity is what we may term practical unbelief. He who, professing to believe that there is a Supreme Governor of the universe who approves of virtue and benevolence, and disapproves of vice and all selfishness, yet pursues the vicious or selfish course himself, contradicts by his conduct his outward profession. He is what Paul indicates as a possibility "worse than an infidel." It has been a source of difficulty with some sceptics that (supposing a revelation to have been given) God has not made it clear that such revelation is what it professes to be, by giving some unmistakeable external sign thereof, so that there should be no possibility of avoiding conviction. But a moment's consideration will shew, that if there were no possibility of self-delusion, there could be no disinterestedness in virtue. Goodness would not be loved and followed for its own sake, but for selfish ends, from which it would be impossible to separate it. As it is now, there is at first uncertainty as to the future, and in this uncertainty the choice must be made between good and evil. Goodness is loved for its own sake, and then the scales fall from the eyes, and a bright vision of the future is presented. As we have seen in a former article, the will is the primary source of belief; and although the good man feels that he cannot be deceived in his belief, the bad man may arrive at such a self-blinded condition as to have a complete confidence in his own state of absolute negation. LIBRA. N. S. NO. 109.-VOL. X. C 34 Poetry. SONNET ON THE NEW YEAR. Another year upon the Book of Mind By many closed, alike in youth and age, Of life unrolled, in Grace and Truth enshrined. Our hearts to cheer, to gild our path designed. Light of all worlds! where God divinely glows, And Wisdom's self the way to her life-crowned temple shows. R. A. MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION. DEAR SIR,-Having gathered, in the course of a late tour on the Continent, a few items of information in regard to the New Church, I offer them for insertion in the pages of your Magazine, thinking that they may, perhaps, be of interest to my brethren in America. The first receivers of the doctrines I met with on the Continent, were those in Paris. I called on M. Hartel, (36, Rue de Mail,) the leader of the society, and was received by him with great cordiality, as also by Madame Hartel. They are sincere and excellent people, and I felt at once at home with them. M. Hartel informed me that the New Church society in Paris was formed in 1838; he was elected minister, and he has officiated in that capacity constantly since. He estimated the number of receivers of the doctrines in Paris at about thirty; but a small part of these, however, attend the usual meetings for worship. Other members of the society with whom I conversed estimated the number of receivers at nearer fifty; and were of the opinion, that if a place of public worship were opened, there would be no want of hearers. At present the society holds its meetings at M. Hartel's. I was pleased to see on the shelves of the society's library, several works presented by visitors from America, as "The Book of Worship," Worcester's "Sermons on the Lord's Prayer," Kinmont's Lectures, Reed's "Growth of the Mind," and others. I was both surprised and gratified also to see so many of the New Church works in French; I believe they are nearly all translated now. I observed that many of the translations were by M. Moet. That zealous and distinguished labourer in the good cause, M. Le Boys de Guays, is proceeding rapidly, I under stand, with the translation of the Arcana Cœlestia, and when completed, which will be in a few months, he proposes to take in hand the Apocalypse Explained-the only work, I believe, as yet untranslated. I learned that at Versailles, in the neighbourhood of Paris, there are a few receivers of the doctrines, and at their head M. Oegger, who was formerly a clergyman of distinction in the Catholic church, and, as I understood, held the post of Confessor to the Queen; but he became a receiver of the New Church doctrines, and gave up all. There are genuine and disinterested lovers of the truth, it thus appears, among all ranks and professions,-men who are ready to make sacrifice of all worldly prospects for its sake. Distinguished proofs of this interesting and promising fact have lately been witnessed in our own country-I rejoiced to hear of like ones here in France. On the Lord's day following, I attended the society's meeting for worship, which was held at two o'clock in the afternoon. There was but a small number present, only seven or eight. The sphere, how ever, was very agreeable to my feelings; and the services were conducted by M. Hartel, in a spirit of sincere devotion. They were short, consisting chiefly of prayer and reading from the Word; there was no discourse or reading from the writings. A stranger can, perhaps, hardly form a correct opinion-but it struck me, from what I could learn, that there was not so much exertion used as there perhaps might be, for the dissemination of the doctrines in Paris. It certainly must be a grand field, that vast city-vastated, too, as the French mind now is, of religious prejudices. It seemed to me that if some brave spirit were to take the matter up there, and come forth boldly and preach the doctrines of this new and philosophical theology, there would be found many a noble and longing mind in Paris that would respond quickly and gladly to the call. I should suppose the same to be true, in a great degree, of France in general. I should think it a noble field for missionary exertion. And the first effective step should be, I think, to call a Convention of the receivers in France, as has been lately done in Germany. Let the word but go forth, that there was to be a general meeting of those favourable to the doctrines at Paris, in July next, or at any other time that might be set, and I have little doubt that the call would find a ready and warm response. And even if there assembled but a dozen persons, and they did no more than greet each other as brethren, hold a little pleasant converse, appoint the meeting for the next year, and adjourn-it would be something;-the first step would be taken. The next year there would be double the number; and they would soon begin to act, lay plans for the strengthening and increase of the church-for the appointment of missionaries, the distribution of tracts, and other uses, such as must necessarily result from zealous men combining their efforts in the promotion of a good cause-the Lord's presence and providence inspiring and coöperating with them. From Paris I proceeded north to Brussels and Antwerp, thence to Cologne, and up the Rhine to Frankfort. Here I found a brother of Dr. Tafel's, who was in Frankfort as a member of the German Diet. He very kindly introduced me into the Hall of the Assembly, where I had an opportunity of witnessing for a short time the proceedings of that body, which has done much and promises to do more for the freedom of Germany. This gentleman, Dr. Tafel's brother, is understood to be favourable to the doctrines, but, as Dr. Tafel afterwards remarked to me, he is so absorbed in political matters just at present, as not to take great interest in other things. From Frankfort I went by railway to the beautiful town of Heidelberg, thence by coach and railway to Heilbrom and Stuttgardt, the capital of Wurtemburg. From this city it is about twenty miles to Tübingen, the residence of Dr. Tafel, to which place I proceeded by coach, and arrived in the evening. The following morning I called on Dr. Tafel. He has a suite of rooms in the old castle, which stands on an eminence in the outskirts of the town, commanding a very beautiful view of the surrounding country. I had written Dr. Tafel from Paris, that I was about to do myself the pleasure of paying him a visit, and he now received me in the most kind and cordial manner, and at once insisted upon my leaving the hotel and taking up my abode with him during my stay in Tübingen. He is a person of about middle stature, rather slightly made,-face not broad, as is so common with Germans, but rather thin than otherwise; his hair somewhat grey: he is in his fifty-third year, having been born, as he informed me, on the 17th of February, 1796. He wears spectacles. The lithograph portrait of him we have in America does not convey a very correct idea of his appearance; there was one of them hanging up in his room, but he remarked that it was not a very good likeness. His countenance has a very gentle and sincere expression, and there is an almost child-like simplicity in his manner, with the most entire freedom from pretension and self-conceit, accompanied with a slight air of abstraction, natural to a student. You feel at once that he is a single-hearted, faithful, and good man; he is one whose society it is purifying to be in. Mrs. Tafel, too, is a very intelligent, sincere, and warm-hearted person; shall long remember her kind and thoughtful attentions. They have a fine family of seven children. Dr. Tafel is librarian of the university, and his duties occupy him from nine o'clock till four; the library rooms (containing 200,000 volumes) are in the same building. His office is a permanent one, and he cannot, as I understood, be removed from it but by process of law; he is therefore likely to enjoy a support from it during the remainder of his days; a providential provision, by which he will be enabled, I trust, to go on performing the high uses for the church in which he has been so long engaged. He became acquainted with the doctrines, as he told me, at the age of seventeen, first hearing of them from a person, if I remember rightly, in whose employment he was, or with whom he was studying, and who was a partial receiver of them, but rather more inclined to the views of Jacob Behmen. (What great uses are oftentimes unconsciously performed by feeble instruments! This instance should teach us to despair of no efforts, however seemingly ineffectual, to make the doctrines known; one who becomes but a partial receiver of them, may be the means of introducing them to another who will become a full receiver, and a most efficient man to the church.) After passing through the Tübingen University, Dr. Tafel studied divinity, and began to preach; but on his views becoming known, was soon suspended. At the early age of twentyfive he began to labour in the cause of the New Church. I spent four days with Dr. Tafel, and, as may be supposed, had much interesting conversation with him on a variety of topics. He speaks English remarkably well for one who has never been in a country where that language is spoken. He informed me, that in consequence of a decree of the German Diet, tolerating to a partial extent meetings of religious dissenters, it had been determined at once to take advantage of it, by calling a Convention of the receivers of the New Church doctrines in Germany and Switzerland, which was to be held at Canstadt, near Stuttgardt, on the 1st of October. This seemed an excellent movement. He shewed me the manuscripts of Swedenborg's Adversaria, and also of the newly-discovered scicntific work On Generation. The hand-writing is exceedingly difficult to read, and it would seem to require a degree of patience and perseverance possessed almost peculiarly by the German mind, to edit such manuscripts. The eminent use which Dr. Tafel is now performing in this way, it seems as if he was peculiarly fitted for, and it surely behoves the church at large. to sustain him in it. He was a little discouraged, just at this time, by having received information from the London Printing Society, that, on account of the embarrassed state of their finances, they would be unable to aid him any further for a considerable time to come. I trust that efforts will be made in America, east and west, to sustain Dr. Tafel in the prosecution of his important labours. our The last day of my stay was Sunday. We held a little meeting for worship, and at Dr. Tafel's request I read them a short discourse, the first New Church sermon, as he remarked, that he had ever heard. It was a pleasant time for us; number, indeed, was small enough,there were none but Dr. and Mrs. Tafel and myself; but we thought of the Lord's words, "Where two or three are gathered together in my Name, there am I in the midst of them." On the same evening, at nine o'clock, I took leave of my kind friends, with many affectionate words at parting; thus concluding a visit which had been exceedingly interesting, and one to be remembered as long as I live. I entered the "diligence" for Strasburg, where I arrived the next day about noon. Thence I proceeded south to Basle, in Switzerland, and thence across Switzerland, through Zurich, Lucerne, Berne, to Lausanne, on the lake of Geneva, the well-known residence of the historian Gibbon. From that place I proceeded by steamer a few miles up the lake to Vevey, where I wished to pay a visit to a young clergyman, a receiver of the doctrines, M. Jacquier, of whom I had heard |