opened in the schoolroom attached to offered in addition to give £20 towards the cost of an iron church, or more the church. The stalls, which were if necessary. Another friend has expressed his willingness to let at a peppercorn rent a piece of freehold ground, quite suitable as to position, surroundings, and all else, for a permanent place of worship. And the future proceedings may be said to be under serious consideration. If encouraged by the committee, I shall continue the efforts; for I am of opinion that a good, useful, and permanent Society may be the result. I ought to mention that the cost of the Vestry Hall, ten guineas, was paid by five of the friends without any appeal to the congregations. unique in character, were designed by Mr. Holme of Milford, were tastefully decorated, and upon them were arranged a large number of fancy and useful articles, contributed by the ladies of the congregation and their friends. The opening ceremony was performed by the Rev. J. Ashby, minister of the church, in the presence of many ladies and gentlemen, including Mr. Alderman Roe, J.P., Mr. George Holme, Rev. W. O'Mant, Messrs. F. Ward, H. Ward, Clemson F. Duesbury, E. Morley, R. Appelbee, etc. After some introductory exercises and short addresses by Mr. F. Ward, Alderman Roe, and Rev. W. On December 5th, 12th, and 19th O'Mant, the Rev. J. Ashby proceeded I conducted evening services and to open the bazaar. He alluded to the delivered lectures in the Drill Hall, pleasure which he felt in complying Bermondsey. Major Bevington, who with the request of the ladies to perform owns this Hall, and has always given that duty, and gave expression to his the use of it gratuitously, was with us admiration of the arrangement of the last night and read the lesson for me; stalls, and of the numerous valuable and he has kindly granted the further and beautiful articles with which they use of the Hall both for week-evening were laden. He regarded them as reprelectures and Sunday-evening services, sentative of the wealth of love which for which we hope to make arrange- the friends possessed for the principles ments. Some very gratifying results and truths of their Church, and also for have come out of the efforts at Ber- the work which was being accomplished mondsey. One young man writes: in the Society. The object of the "It is with great pleasure I pen the following: Since the New Church lectures in Bermondsey, several young men whom I know to have been strict adherents to orthodoxy are now more or less imbibing the doctrines of the New Church; one of them no longer believes in the three persons in the Trinity, the material resurrection, nor the personality of the devil," etc. Mr. Jobson and I met three of these young men at Bloomsbury Street, and had over three hours' conversation with them. They all evinced a cordial reception of the views we had the opportunity of presenting, and thanked us very heartily. We are to meet them again, and I hope again and again. bazaar, he considered, would be thoroughly indorsed by Mr. Roe and the other magistrates of the town, the promoters having in their minds the execution of church-work, which was most helpful to the magistrates and the municipal authorities; for as church uses were accomplished, there was every reason to believe that domestic, social, municipal, and political affairs would be managed in a much better fashion. The bazaar was then declared open, and the sales immediately commenced. The sales were kept open for two days, and at the close it was announced, to the great gratification of all who had participated in the enterprise, that the sum of upwards of £130 had been realized. LONDON (CAMBERWELL).—The annual DERBY.-On Sunday, December 12, meeting of this Society was held on the anniversary services in connection Friday, January 14, the Rev. W. C. with this Society were held. Two most Barlow, M. A., presiding. Owing, doubtinstructive and beautiful discourses less, to the severely cold weather, the were delivered by the Rev. W. O'Mant attendance was smaller than last year, of Nottingham. The collections of the but about sixty members and friends day amounted to the sum of £8. On took part in the proceedings. The reTuesday, December 14, a bazaar was ports of the retiring committee, trea surer, and other officers were received and ordered to be printed under the direction of the new committee. In the first named of these it was stated that the ladies and gentlemen who had formed "The Brixton Association of the New Church" had recently resigned their membership of the Camberwell Society, but that their places had been already filled by new friends, and, moreover, that the Society now numbered 137 members, i.e. an increase of ten upon the figures supplied to the Conference in July 1879. Special reference was made to the loss sustained by the Society through the resignation of membership, in September, by its old friends and benefactors Mr. and Mrs. Braby, necessitated by their removal to Kensington; and the kindly expressions then exchanged with Mr. Braby were embodied in the report. A new edition of the Society's rules had been prepared, and copies were in the hands of the members. In these rules provision was made for the enrolment of junior members, and twenty-five young people have joined the Society in that capacity. The attendance at public worship and at the Holy Supper had been very satisfactory. Incited by the attack upon the New Church of some advocates of the "Annihilation" theory, a special series of lectures had been given in the early part of the past year by Rev. W. C. Barlow, followed by a like number of discussion meetings. The latter were largely attended. The New HymnBook, adopted by the Society at its October meeting, would come into use upon the first Sunday in February. The practice of paying the travelling expenses of the Society's representatives at Conference had been initiated in 1880. The "Ladies' Committee" suggested at the July meeting of the Society for visiting and in other ways assisting members of the congregation who may need such help," had been duly established, and was now in active operation. The treasurer's financial statement showed that every debt incurred by the Society during the preceding twelve months had been paid, and that there was a nominal balance in hand. This happy result, viewed in connection with the fact that it occurs at the end of the first complete year throughout which the Society has possessed a minister wholly devoted to its 66 service, was felt by all present to be most encouraging, more especially as it was made evident by the statistics also furnished that the success had been attained by an increase in the subscriptions of all the members, and by a regular use of the opportunities afforded by the weekly offertory. The Sundayschool reported its possessing 144 scholars, 14 teachers, and a library of 167 volumes. Its success at the first of the series of examinations instituted by the Lancashire Sunday-School Union was the theme of general congratulation, and was noted in a special vote of thanks to the teachers passed later in the evening. The reports of the Theological Class, the Junior Members' Class, the Library, the Band of Hope and Temperance Society, and the Ladies' Committee, evinced the performance of steady work and the attainment of cheering success. The appropriation of sittings in the church stated that all, the seats in the body of the building, save sixteen, were now allotted. selection of officers for the coming year resulted, with but few exceptions, in the replacement of last year's staff. Notice was given that at the next quarterly meeting the desirability of adopting the Introductory Service for the admission of junior members would be proposed for discussion, after which the meeting was closed by the benediction. The The Mutual Improvement Society in connection with the Society holds a separate annual meeting, which this year took place on January 6. The report of its executive was almost entirely satisfactory. This year it recommences the publication, quarterly, of the Camberwell New Church Chronicle, which contains not only the programme of the "Mutual," but also information as to the doings of all the other agencies at work at Flodden Road. CORRESPONDENCE. (To the Editor of the "Intellectual Repository.”) THE FINAL DESTINY OF THE WICKED. SIR, I have read and thought much during the last twenty years on the subject of the final destiny of the wicked, and I am inclined to believe in that destiny as described by Swedenborg. Yet there appears to me to be something so awful about even the merciful hell of Swedenborg that it admitted there can be nothing objechardly appears to me to be compatible tionable in his whole system. It with one position which I think all appears to have been on this point good men must hold with respect to that Emerson split. But I think the true nature of hell. The position I that had his mind dwelt properly on allude to is this: I think that no good Swedenborg's hell in the light here man, in the light of the true character presented, he would have had no fault of God, and in the light of the true to find with any part of his theological character of man as a moral and system. Of course Swedenborg's hell spiritual agent, could ever suppose that involves the doctrine of the eternity of God has so constituted man that he can evil. And so does the orthodox hell. by persisting in wilful sin to the end of But what a wide difference there is his days place himself in a hell which between them with respect to comwould be intolerable to be borne. It patibility with the infinite love and appears to me that all good men must wisdom of God! The latter couples suppose that hell, when viewed from the the eternity of evil with the horrible standpoint of one of its inhabitants, doctrine of eternal and never-remitted must be a place or state in which he excruciating torment of the condemned. can be happy. It may be true, and The former couples the doctrine of doubtless is true, that a man's nature eternal evil with the benign though as to good or evil cannot be changed mysterious doctrine of the eternal after he has left this world; and it happiness of the condemned, along doubtless is true that that is the reason with so little of pain and disquietude why a condemned spirit can never be as scarcely to mar that happiness, yet remitted from hell. But that truth so much of pain and disquietude as is can never annul the principle I have necessary for governmental purposes. insisted on, that hell must be a place With respect to the theory of annihilaor state in which condemned spirits are tion it is plainly on the face of it not happy. The evil must doubtless be tenable, because according to the nature for ever separated from the good, yet of Swedenborg's hell a condemned we cannot get rid of the idea that if spirit would rather dwell there to God be love itself, and wisdom itself, eternity than be annihilated, and God the place or state of their separation most mercifully allows him to have his cannot be intolerable to be borne, but choice. And the universal restoration must in fact be a place or state in theory is equally untenable; because if which infinite love and wisdom must condemned spirits have to be restored, be satisfied they are happy. A pro- it will have to be by repentance and position contrary to this may be regeneration; but propose repentance unintelligently thinkable by a good and regeneration, and they would be man, but it cannot be intelligently refused with much greater intensity of thinkable by him. There is a sense spiritual opposition than ever they no doubt in which the bliss of the good were when in a state of probation in in heaven can be enhanced by their this life, and God mercifully allows viewing the state of the condemned in that opposition. The fault that we in hell. It can be enhanced when they this world commit in being so much see that their Father has so mercifully alarmed about the state of the conprovided for the evil in giving them demned in hell is that we look at their happiness even in hell. There may be state from our own standpoint instead punishments in hell arising out of of endeavouring to look at it from certain evil actions that may be com- theirs. It is doubtless well to look at mitted there, but still such punish- it from our own standpoint for purments must be perfectly compatible poses of our own reformation and with the position that condemned regeneration. Hell in that aspect is a spirits can be happy in hell. If what I have advanced above be in harmony with the hell of Swedenborg, and I think it is, then I believe that all good men will ultimately receive his whole system of theology, because on this view of the final destiny of the wicked being fearful state, and it is well that in a judicious way we view it as such, for our viewing it as such indicates that we are not yet assimilated to the character of its inhabitants, and so are still in a state which may be more or less a starting-point for heaven. But it is a fault to look at hell from our own was the last marriage at which the standpoint for purposes of estimating venerable rector officiated in Manchester, what it may be as to the pains and miseries of its inhabitants. To estimate it in this respect we must endeavour to look at it from the standpoint of the condemned themselves. If we do this we shall perceive that it is the place or state of their choice, a state even that they love and in which they are happy, for we cannot conceive that they would choose a state in which they are not happy in preference to any other state. THOMAS PATTISON. Died, on the 31st December, Mr. John Holgate of Marshall Place, Cheetham Hill, Manchester. The number of those who have been directly associated with the earliest receivers of the doctrines of the New Church in England is growing very small, and as the year was dying a few weeks ago one of the oldest of them passed to his eternal rest. The late Mr. Holgate was the oldest member of the Manchester Society. He was born in 1794 of New Church parents, and his life has been almost conterminous with that of the Peter Street congregation. His father was one of its first members; he was himself a regular attendant at the services of the Church from his earliest childhood, and he has seen his descendants to the fourth generation within its walls. The passing away of a good old man like Mr. Holgate would in any case have been a notable occurrence, but those who knew him have to lament the loss of a personal friend who was never wanting in loyalty, and whose fine qualities only became more delightful with the increase of his years. Mr. Holgate lived in Manchester all his life, and like other old members of Peter Street, he looked back with affectionate interest to the influence and teaching of the Rev. Richard Jones, who was for so many years pastor of the Society. He was married at St. John's Church in 1817 by the Rev. John Clowes. This No if not his very last; and it may perhaps THE Conditions of salvation revealed in the Gospel are most momentous, since God can require nothing of us but what is absolutely necessary to fit us for the enjoyment of heaven. If heaven were a place where happiness could be enjoyed by all who were admitted into it, independently of their inherent character, we might conclude that it would be given as a reward for the performance of any conditions which the sovereign will of God should prescribe. But if we believe that God desires the salvation of all men, and can refuse it to none, we must believe that the conditions of salvation are simply the means necessary.to make us what we must be before we can be partakers of heavenly bliss. All men have a perception that goodness saves and that evil condemns; and nothing but false reasonings can turn the mind away from this self-evident truth. In agreement with this intuitive belief, the Scriptures everywhere teach that men are to be judged according to their works; and in the New Testament the Lord Himself declared that if we would enter into life we must keep the commandments. In the New Testament there is, however, much said respecting faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as necessary to salvation. Faith is sometimes placed in opposition to the law, and said to be sufficient for justification without the deeds of the law. A just view of the subject would appear to be, that if several different conditions of salvation are separately mentioned all are required; therefore that G |