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On the 22nd February 1875, Mrs. Louisa Lawrence of Birmingham departed from the natural into the spiritual world at the advanced age of 76 years. Her maiden name was Longdon, and she was a native of Huntingdon. She was born on the 20th August 1798. In the year 1813 she accompanied a lady to Madeira. Here she met with her husband, the late William Lawrence, a native of Birmingham, and was married. Soon afterwards they went to Jamaica, in the West Indies, and came to England in the month of October 1829. Mr. Lawrence had previously met with some of the works of Swedenborg and the New Church, and Mrs. L. also much approved of the views of religion which they inculcate. On her return to England they settled in Birmingham, and she very soon became acquainted with a lady who was a member of the New Church Society, then meeting for worship in the Temple in New Hall Street under the pastoral care of the Rev. Edward Madeley. accepted the invitation of the lady to

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was considered by the Committee needful to obtain a younger governess. Her husband was removed into the spiritual world in the year 1857. By him she had five children, three of whom, one son and two daughters, survive her. With her daughters she lived to the last. Her remains were interred by her beloved minister in the General Cemetery. She was greatly esteemed and respected by a large circle of friends for her intelligence, piety, and integrity. Very many of those who have been under her care have reason, under the Divine Providence, to bless her memory for the instruction they received from her, both in a moral and religious, as well as an intellectual point of view. "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord, for they rest from their labours, and their works do follow with them."

of the Birmingham Society, Mrs. Ann On the same day another old member Harrison, who was also the widow of an old member, was removed from the natural into the spiritual world, in the 69th year of her age. She was well where she occasionally resided, as well known in Jersey and in other places as in Birmingham, as an affectionate receiver of the truths and doctrines of the New Jerusalem, and was highly respected by all who knew her.

versation was so interesting to her that she determined to accompany her friend on the following Sunday morning to Church, and was much surprised to find that the gentleman to whom she had Departed this life on Sunday, March been introduced was the regular min- 28, John Westall of Accrington, in the ister. The text happened to be from 84th year of his age. His wife, whose the 62nd chapter of Isaiah and the 10th obituary appeared in your number of verse, "Lift up a standard for the last month, he has survived but three people." This subject afforded an op- months. The deceased was trained a portunity of briefly unfolding some of Baptist, and for some years before and the leading doctrines and truths of the after his marriage was a teacher in a New Jerusalem, and by the Divine Baptist Sunday school. Having marblessing the service and address were so ried, however, into a New Church overruled as to remove all her fears and family, he was frequently brought in doubts, and she became an intelligent contact with New Church people, and and affectionate recipient. In the year this led to many controversies, which following, the year 1830, our New were maintained with good feeling, and Church in Summer Lane was opened, not allowed to encroach upon the harand immediately afterwards a Sunday- mony of the disputants. At that time school was established. For some time his zeal for the old faith was strong, the minister and Mrs. Lawrence were and to add to his power of attack against the only teachers, and Mrs. L. con- the new doctrines, he sometimes walked tinued a teacher until the year 1839. twelve miles after six o'clock at night, At that time the Day-school was to hear lectures against the New Church. established, and she became the mis- His faith at last received its greatest tres of the girls' department. She con- shock from a Baptist and a co-worker in tinued the acceptable mistress until the the Sunday school. The deceased was Society resolved to place the schools teacher of the first class of girls in the under Government inspection, when it school, and his class contained twin

sisters so much alike that when apart he could not distinguish the one from the other. The Society with which the school was connected had no stationed minister, but depended upon supplies, and if the preacher failed to appear, which was not unfrequently the case in severe weather, the conductor of the school officiated in the pulpit. It was on one of those occasions when the conductor was preaching, and while enforcing the doctrine of predestination (rather strongly taught in those days), that he drew his illustrations from the twins in the deceased's class. He asked, who could tell that the mother who had dandled those twins upon her knees, at the same time, and with the same loving affection, had not dandled one for heaven and the other for hell, and this through no fault of their own, but by the eternal decree of God? The effect of this illustration upon the deceased's mind was simply astounding. His faith reeled under the blow it gave him, and could never again be rallied to the old creed. For a time he took refuge in the writings of Paine, but the pious training he had received prevented him feeding long upon the husks of worldly and irreligious thought. After a brief period he ceased to read such works altogether, believing them injurious to the best interests of his soul; and "Noble's Appeal," on its first publication, he read with interest, and its perusal opened his eyes to the truth of New Church teaching, and brought conviction to his mind. Soon after he connected himself with the New Church Society and Sunday School at Accrington, to which he grew increasingly attached with his advancing years. His habit was to rise at four o'clock in the morning, and read the Word and the writings of the Church before commencing the labours of the day. A few friends would meet him thus early in the day, to read and converse together about the new truths, and their practice was always to close these morning meetings with prayer. In latter years, when unable to teach, it was his great delight to walk round the school every Sabbath, and see the work engaged in by others. For years his deafness rendered him unable to follow a sermon through, yet his delight in public worship increased rather than diminished. His bereavement by the death of his wife he felt

acutely, and it was seen by his family that he would not long survive her. Three months after hers, his call to the eternal world came, where, doubtless, that marriage union which continued for more than 60 years in this world below, will be restored and confirmed in the world above; and where their affection for one another, their integrity of character, and their patient devotion to duty and to use, will be made to flourish in those more blessed homes of the Lord's Kingdom in Heaven.

Departed into the spiritual world, on the 2nd of March, Mrs. Mary Marshall, of Doncaster, at the age of 73. Her son, who is still at Doncaster, received the New Church doctrines some years ago while residing at Boston, Lincolnshire, his attention to them being excited by a lecture by the Rev. Dr. Bayley, on "The End of the World." His mother was very much opposed at first to her son reading the writings of the New Church, as she at that time was a believer in Methodist teaching, but in a short time she became a true-hearted receiver of the leading doctrine of the New Dispensation. More particularly was she delighted with the doctrines of the Lord; it gave her great comfort to know that Jesus Christ was her only God and Redeemer. The writer of this has frequently called at the house of her son, with whom she lived, and she was always glad to see a New Churchman, especially if he came to Doncaster to spread the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. She and her son have always done what they could to help our missionary work in Doncaster. She had been ill for some time and very weak, but shortly before her departure her lips were inspired with strength to sing:

"Jesus, lover of my soul,

Let me to thy bosom fly;
While the angry billows roll,

While the tempest still is high." The writer is certain she would not be disappointed.

Died, March 27, 1875, at Villa Rosa, Clarendon Road, St. Heliers, in her 73rd year, Esther, widow of Mons. J. B. Le Loutre. Our deceased friend was devoted to the doctrines of the New Jerusalem, and was wont to declare that they were the great support and consolation of her declining years. By her death the Jersey Society receives a legacy of £100.

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"I have refined thee, but not with silver;

I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction."-ISA. xlviii. 10.

"His overthrow heaped happiness upon him,

For then and not till then he knew himself,

And found the blessedness of being little."-SHAKESPEARE.

No one who has lived an observant life for forty years can fail to have seen a marked distinction between the cares which tried the endurance of men in his early days, and those which are common now. Never was the universal brain so much taxed as now, and never was the weight of general responsibility so heavy and so destructive to peace of mind. We might all be prime ministers burdened with vast cares of state; or generals commanding active forces in the field, with the lives of thousands in our hands; or judges weighing and balancing perplexing evidence from morning to night. At all events, cares closely resembling those of the rulers and dividers of men are spread over a far greater surface of society than formerly; while that competitive system which is the boast of modern business, and the torment of the age, makes the conducting of great industries as difficult as the conduct of a campaign, and every large town a battlefield of openly conflicting interests.

A highly intelligent corn factor, with a fair capital, told me lately that he found it impossible to do a moderate business in the old style and live by it. Not only must all he had in the world be constantly floating at great risk-which he thought very unwise-but, to carry

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on the large "operations" which are necessary now to make business pay, he must also strain the resources and endanger the credit of others, which he thought was very unprincipled, and so he retired while he could do so safely. I applauded his conduct, and was the more ready to do so because he was not an incapable but a shrewd man of business, as well able as others to hold his own in the melée of trade if he had chosen to go on; but he chose "the better part,” and I could not doubt the refreshing purity of his motives. I did not ask him whether in his business he had met with "operators," with or without money, who bought a crop before the seed was sown to grow it; though I could have told him that such gambling is not unknown in one of our largest imports, and adds to the general ferment of anxiety among men of the old realistic, simple school.'

Legislation may in the end do something to repress the sale of things which do not exist, or are not at once transferred; but the best remedy lies in a purification of conscience, which shall lead men to think that such transactions are unworthy of the Christian character. How is this purification to be brought about? Not by dogmatics, however rational and true; nor by the metaphysics of spiritual religion, however much they may delight us; nor by stock phrases about applying truths to life, without learning how to do it; but by making every element of religion converge its rays upon concrete facts of actual business, and by seeing, and feeling, and proclaiming that even "holy light" is not degraded by the contact, but rather is in the unsullied fulness of its beneficent power when beaming on dark doings, whether in corn or cotton. This is to bring religion into life, and nothing short of this will do it, and make the Church, as it ought to be, the greatest reformatory and conservative power on earth.

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It must be confessed that the pulpit is not yet equal to the mighty task, and that people look in vain for authoritative teaching in the house of God to guide them in the way of life, and make them blush to be less than Christians in their daily doings. Even that splendid preacher Robert Hall was open to the not unkind though severe remark of his friend John Foster, that the most avaricious man in his congregation might have enjoyed his fine sermon on avarice, and have gone away rejoicing that he was not as other men! This is the defect of merely abstract teaching; nevertheless abstractions are

1 The Liverpool Daily Albion of March 30th has a leading article in which the new and the old styles of business are shortly and graphically contrasted.

necessary to the formation of principles, and dogmatics are necessary to their embodiment and defence; but a special scientific knowledge of worldly affairs, and that wisdom which only actual experience can give, are necessary to their effective direction as living powers. Such qualities rarely exist to any large extent in the same mind; but they will do so more largely as the Church becomes purer by becoming more practical, and then men will attend Divine service not only to worship, and to enjoy a sermon, but to learn how to live.

To come back to our general review of the conditions of care in these days. On the one hand there is a new and larger distribution of those great intellectual and moral responsibilities which used to be confined to a few; and on the other, there is a more intense pressure of the old cares upon every class which does not ignore responsibility altogether, and live from day to day upon the wages of the day, in a state of blind security that somebody must provide for them if they come to want what their own thrift and care might well have provided for themselves.

Universality and intensity are therefore the conditions which distinguish the cares of these times from those of the past; but we shall philosophize about them to very little purpose without we go a little deeper, and at least indicate a remedy.

Every real Christian must know that the end and aim of true religion is to raise the very purpose of life from the world and its selfish allurements to the nobler, purer, chaster, holier, unselfish, and therefore happier uses and delights of the world to come; but how few intelligently and persistently set before them this "more excellent way!" Great numbers in the world have no settled purpose whatever, but just to do what they like-anything that comes first and takes their fancy. Their consciousness is made up of vagrant thought, and thoughtless action, and the tenor of their life, except during the hours of necessary labour, is from one sensual enjoyment to another, if they can get it. What is the discipline of such appetites to those who have no other? And how can they taste or believe in the existence of the superior delights of sobriety who have no pursuits which can grace and refine their leisure, and who, uneasy and vacant, do not know what to do with themselves when they are sober? Is not their condition aptly described in the sacred text: "And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep" (Gen. i. 2). This class indeed has no monopoly of impurity, and, therefore, only shares in the condemnation implied

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