The early years of Mrs. Johnson's life were spent in Wigan, and in that place she became acquainted with the heavenly doctrines of the Lord's New Church. She After her marriage she came to Liverpool, and made her home the welcome resort of all the members in this city. Her genial hospitality, her meekness, and her lovable disposition made her the friend of all, and the ready helper in times of sorrow or sickness. was a most devoted wife, and though in His good Providence our Father did not permit her to have children of her own, she acted a mother's part to many, and always took an active interest in the young. Her bodily presence will be much missed by all who knew her, but the best of remembrances concerning her will ever linger in their memories, and her life will ever remain as a worthy example. She has now entered a more congenial sphere, and while we know it is well with her, our hearts go out in earnest sympathy to the bereaved husband, and our most sincere prayer is that he may be strengthened to say "Thy will be done.' "She is not lost, but gone before." Departed this life at Paisley on Wednesday, May 4, Mrs. Barbara Lindsay, aged seventy-six years. Mrs. Lindsay received the doctrines of the New Church many years ago from reading Noble's "Appeal," and ever since she has remained thoroughly attached to them. During the last three or four years she has been almost entirely confined to bed, the infirmities of old age pressing heavily upon her. On Sunday, January 19, 1879, Mr. Allbutt at her express request baptized her into the New Church, and she has received the Holy Communion frequently since, her veneration for this latter sacrament having been always very great. Lindsay in the earlier part of her life wrote a great number of sacred poems, rising between three and four o'clock in the morning to engage in this work ; her ordinary duties as a warper commenced at six. One of these poems was about six years ago handed to Mr. Nicol (our present librarian), with the request that a portion of it should be read over her grave when she died. Mr. Allbutt, who conducted the funeral Mrs. services, complied with this request, and the verses extracted from the poem and read are here given :— "This is not I, for I am gone To fairer lands where I'm best known: To Jesus Christ my living Head; And now what glories round me shine! Mark Haward went to his eterna home on the 7th of May 1881. Aged twenty-six years. Mary Ann Dalton, the beloved wife of William Ashton, whom the better to know was the more to love, was born at Liverpool, in the vicinity of Cleveland Square, during the eventful European epoch of 1795. Her father, Richard Dalton of York, was a gentleman of great scientific acquirements, and closely allied by blood and associated in friendship with Dr. John Dalton of Manchester, from whom John Dalton Street takes its name. Her mother, descended lineally from the Vandykes of Belgium and (collaterally from) the Hildyardes of Scaiborough, was a devout New Churchwoman, and intimately acquainted with the early members of the Society; amongst others the Rev. Mr. Jones and his family. The pre-eminent sermon which on the Mount of Olives fell from the Divine lips of the preeminent Preacher was to the beloved subject of this brief memoir "A law of life." The grand and all-predominating principle of Divine love “shed abroad in the heart," and radiating therefrom in all the blessed charities of love to the neighbour, was in her esteem the essence and reality of true religion verified by the new commandment of our Incarnate God, and those other words on which He declared hang all the law and the prophets. ORDER is heaven's first law. From this it is that such perfect order reigns throughout all the works of God, on which their conservation and progression depend. Our subject leads us to consider the law of order as exemplified in one of the many departments of creation. Of this law we have the highest example in the collocation of parts in the human body, and the resulting perfection of the whole. The human body consists of several general divisions, and of innumerable particular parts, the arrangement and connection of which in their order produce that fearfully and wonderfully formed piece of mechanism which it is universally allowed to be. And yet this highest study of art and most perfect form of use is but the earthly and temporary instrument of the soul, which is to live for ever in a higher and more perfect state of existence. Now one ground of the perfection of heaven arises from the fact that the order which pervades it is analogous to that which exists in the human body. To obtain a just and comprehensive view of this sublime subject, it may be expedient to consider the nature and origin of order. Order consists in the right disposition of the parts that enter into the composition of a thing; and as every whole consists of parts, it will be found that the perfection of every general results from the perfection of the order in which all the particulars are arranged. Such is the nature of order. T Order has its origin in God. God is Order itself. And He is order itself, because the Divine essentials of Love and Wisdom, which constitute His very nature, and the Divine attributes which belong to it, are in the most perfect harmony; so that one cannot act without the concurrence and co-operation of all the rest. Love cannot act but by Wisdom, Wisdom cannot act but from Love. without justice, justice cannot act without mercy. Mercy cannot act As God is Order itself, He necessarily introduced it into creation both generally and particularly. And here we must remark that no rational idea can be formed of the introduction of order into creation, unless the origin of creation is rightly understood. If it be supposed that God, by a simple act of power, created all things out of nothing, it must naturally be concluded that all things at once arose and assumed their present constitution and form merely because God willed that they should do so; but it cannot be seen why they have this present constitution and form rather than another; why they might not have been entirely different, if God had only been pleased to make them so. To conceive of creation aright we must conceive of it not only as having been produced by God, but from Him. It has indeed been objected to this view that it makes God a material Being, which, it is said, He must be if matter had its origin in Him. An objection of the same kind might be made to one of the most common doctrines of the Bible, which all acknowledge. The human soul comes from God; and it might be said that because the soul is finite, therefore God must be finite also. The soul indeed is a spirit, but it is a created and finite spirit; and there is no more proportion between a finite and an infinite spirit than there is between any other finite substance and the infinite substance itself, from which the finite is derived. It is only, therefore, because creation is from God that His own Divine order is introduced into it, and reigns throughout the whole and every part of it-except where man has, broken in upon the moral order of the world, which ought to be the bright image of the moral order of God. In all created things there is one universal principle of order discoverable, which the observant mind cannot but ascribe to some important principle of order in the Creator Himself. In created nature everything exists in a threefold order; and this trinity may be traced in the greatest and in the least of all created things. Merely to mention some of the most obvious: In the sun there are heat, light, and active influence; in the world there are air, earth, and water, as universal elements from which all other natural things exist in infinite variety; in nature there are three kingdoms, the mineral, the vegetable, the animal. And if we limit our observation to any one of these kingdoms, it will be found to contain a threefold order in itself: as in the animal kingdom, which consists in general of beasts, birds, and fish; as the tenants of earth, air, and water: and even the insect world will be found to have the same division, and as distinctly marked. But to come to a much narrower field of observation: every individual of the kingdom of nature will be found, when closely examined, to disclose this all-pervading form of order. In the human being, for example, there is not only the general distinction of soul, body, and operation; but in the soul itself there are three degrees of life, celestial, spiritual, and natural; and the three faculties of will, understanding, and action. In the body there is a threefold division': the head, as the seat of the primary organ of life and of the soul, the brain; the body, as the seat of the secondary organs of life, the heart and lungs; and the extremities, as the members of locomotion and active usefulness. So universally does this order enter into all created things, that it exists in every particular, which is a composite, in the three kingdoms of nature. Thus it is known by ocular experience that each muscle of the human body consists of very small fibres, and that these being disposed in fasciculi or bundles constitute the larger fibres, which are called moving fibres, and that from collections of these exists that compound which is called a muscle. It is the same with the nerves; in them, from very small fibres are composed larger fibres, which appear as filaments, and from a collection of these the nerve is compounded. These are chiefly natural illustrations, but they may be useful in illustrating and even teaching us the grand divisions, which we shall first consider. It is well known that the Church is called by the Apostle Paul the Lord's Body: "Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular" (1 Cor. xii. 27). And therefore he argues that in the Church there must be a diversity of gifts and difference of administrations, that the body may be one; just as in the human frame there must be various functions, each organ and member performing that which is peculiar to itself, that the whole may form a one. But if this is the case in the Church on earth, much more must it be the case in the Church in heaven. For there every one is in the order of heaven, and in that peculiar part and in the exercise of that function for which, in the estimation of infinite wisdom, he is best adapted. There is no schism in the body there. Truly "God hath thus set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased Him. And whether one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it." If heaven is in the most perfect order that can be conceived in a collective form, it must present the grandest and most perfect image of the Lord's glorious Body. In heaven we may expect to find, in its greatest finite perfection, that order of arrangement, both in general and in particular, which every created thing exhibits as a mark of its derivation from an infinite Creator. That threefold order which all things exhibit may be expected to be there displayed most distinctly. We have the testimony of the Lord, that in His Father's house are many mansions, and of an apostle that there are three heavens. "I knew a man in Christ," says Paul "(whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth ;) such an one caught up to the third heaven. And I knew such a man how that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful [or possible] for a man to utter." As Christians in general have no idea that there are three heavens, they explain Paul's words so as to make them consistent with the idea of but one spiritual or angelic heaven. The atmosphere which surrounds the earth is considered as the first heaven, the starry heaven is considered to be the second, and the abode of angels is considered to be the third. The passage we have quoted is the only one in the Scriptures in which the third heaven is mentioned. Paul himself frequently speaks of heaven, and of the heavens; and in a more exalted sense than he could speak of heaven in reference to his own experience; as when he says that the Second Man is the Lord from heaven; and speaks of his Lord having entered heaven itself, to appear in the presence of God for us. Why should he, in the single case of his being caught up into paradise, use a specific term to point it out, were it not that he then was caught up into a specific heaven? Otherwise, he had only occasion, as on other instances, to speak of heaven, or of the heavens in general. But when he himself was admitted into heaven, it is only reasonable to suppose that, if heaven is distinguished into separate mansions, and he was introduced into any one in particular, he would declare which he was privileged to behold. But still it may be said that Paul's language does not limit the number of heavens to three; for since he only speaks of having been raised into the third, his words do not evince that this was the highest. Paul has, however, |