had for many years been in the Sundayschool, both as a scholar and a teacher. His worthy parents, still living, are probably the oldest members of the society, and at a very early period initiated their departed son into a knowledge of the New Church doctrines, and into the regular public worship of the Lord. In respect to this latter sacred duty of life, our deceased brother was most exemplary, for rarely was he, together with his beloved partner, absent, except when from home, morning and evening, from his place of worship, in Peter-street. And this exemplary attendance, whatever might be the state of the weather, was not a mere habit of his Sunday-life, as is the case with some, but it was a habit glowing with delight at the truths which he heard unfolded from the Word, and applied to the life, as his countenance frequently evidenced, and as his lips often confessed. For many years our late dear friend was, in a variety of ways, of great service to the society, and to the different institutions of the church. Thus he was for a long series of years in succession an active member of the committees of the Missionary and Tract and School Societies, as well as of the Church Society. He was also for many years assistant or sub-treasurer, and in this respect rendered valuable assistance to our worthy treasurer, J. Broadfield, Esq., in collecting the pew rents and subscriptions, and in keeping the accounts, &c. His modest and unassuming manner in the performance of these and of many other duties so important to the well-being of a society, won for him the affection and respect of his fellow members, who, when his health, about 12 months ago, began rapidly to decline, presented him with a handsome testimonial of their affection and esteem. On Sunday, January 31st, his affectionate pastor, the Rev. J. H. Smithson, improved the occasion of his death by a discourse on Psalm xxiii. 4—" When I walk through the valley of the shadow of death," &c., in which some of the great truths relating to death, resurrection, and eternal life were impressed upon a numerous audience. Two mistakes made by the writer of Mrs. Penn's obituary will be best corrected by inserting the following card:" In affectionate remembrance of Charlotte, the beloved wife of Mr. J. C. Penn, of 13, Brecknock-place, Camden-road, N.W., who departed this life on Tuesday, December 15, 1863." TO READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS. All communications to be sent to the Editor, the Rev. W. BRUCE, 43, Kensington Gardens Square, London, W. To ensure insertion in the forthcoming Number, communications must be received not later than the 15th of the month, except recent intelligence, which will be received till the 18th. National Missionary Institution, and Students and Ministers' Aid Fund.—In future the Committee of the above will meet, not on the second Thursday, but on the fourth Monday in each month, at 36, Bloomsbury-street, at 6-30 p.m. F. PITMAN, Sec. Received from Mr. Binnie, Glasgow, seventeen numbers of the American New Jerusalem Magazine, for Mr. Boyesen. Any other friends disposed to assist our Norwegian brother in the same way, may send their parcels to the care of Mr. Alvey, publisher of the Repository. We fear there is too little poetry in the lines on the Lord's Prayer, &c., to entitle them to a place in the Repository. The same must be said of the poem by J. R. Erratum. In the list of subscriptions to the Memorial to the late Rev. W. Mason, published in the January number of the Repository, instead of Mr. Jonathan Robinson 5s., read 10s. CAVE & SEVER, Printers by Steam Power, Hunt's Bank, Manchester. By teaching very plainly that we live for ever; that what we are in heart and intellect, as the result of our life-long action here, sends forth the edict that determines the quality of our eternity, the Word indicates what should be the master-end of life. But the Word does not leave us to inference on matters of such moment. The purpose of Perfect Wisdom in making us such as we are must be ours also; and we are taught what that purpose is. The end for which humanity was created issues, indeed, from the essential quality of the Divine nature. For as the ends which prompt men to the deeds they do are themselves at one with that ruling motive which in its all-pervasive influence determines and is the character, so the end which moved the Creator to His work is at one with the love that constitutes His essential nature. But how shall we express its quality, how define that which is itself illimitable, how find images for that of which only the faintest and poorest shadowings come within our experience? We think of human love, but how narrow its range, how uncertain its continuance, how poor its quality! How little it helps us to rise to that height from which a conception of the Divine Love becomes possible! In all human affection there are always limitation, uncertainty and weakness, nor is there wanting in it an element of self-love demanding a reciprocation of its benefits. But in the Infinite the desire to give is boundless as Itself, and is wholly without thought of return for the benefits accorded. Between the Infinite and finite, indeed, no reciprocation of benefits is possible; for He to whom belong all love, wisdom, and power, can receive no additions to 154 THE PURPOSE OF LIFE. His Infinitude. He gives from a boundless love of giving, and the only reciprocation He demands from finite natures is that of receiving what He gives. Nor can they better express their thanks to Him for the great gifts He offers than by opening wide their natures to a larger reception of His benefits. We thank men by gifts,—we best thank God by receiving. That Divine Love is with us always and everywhere. It meets us when the soul first beholds the world through that body which is the common ground of both. Our eyes open to the genial sunshine bathing in its brightness the fair scene of mountain and valley, hill and dale, meadow and woodland, running stream and shining lake. The seasons come and go, and bring their beauty and their wealth. All flowers, fruits, roots, and seeds are about us to delight or to satisfy. That nice fitness which the Maker has established between the body and the world makes the physical man receptive of delight through every sense. Still the body is only a tent pitched for a time in a land to which the soul is a stranger, to be struck and laid aside when the spirit departs to tread its native soil and breathe its native air. But upon the spirit, which is the man, He has accumulated countless evidences of His goodness. He has endowed it with faculties capable of development to such a height of power and beauty, that here they remain, in a large part, but as latent possibilities, and need eternity for their glorious bloom and fruitage. Desiring to give He would give what is best and purest, knowing no decay in the lapse of ages, but growing ever stronger and fairer through unending duration. And so He would fill all hearts, and does where not opposed, with that love which is chiefly blessed in blessing, chiefly enriched in giving, and in the completeness of its deep, unselfish sympathy, is filled with the joy and peace of all within the range of its action. He would give, too, wisdom swift to devise and do all that the pure heart feels it right and good to do; and all faculties and powers the ready executives of the love and truth that rule within. Nor is that Infinite Love satisfied when it has thus endowed one generation in one world. The myriads of stars that cover, like clusters of silver islands, the boundless oceans of space, in their countless multitudes of systems and of worlds, say something of the limitless power of that love which needs an area thus immeasurable to satisfy its desire to give and bless. And the generations that in endless succession come and go, in these seminaries of humanity where men are trained for their eternal home, make it possible for us to approach to some shadowy conception of the infinity of the love of God. For each generation as it comes into being seems to ask room and place, for that God desires to bless it also; and each as it goes, its probation fitly ended, advances to the gates of heaven and again asks room and place, for that God desires to bless it evermore. It is, then, love such as this that has determined, beforehand, the purpose of our lives; nor is there any obstacle to the attainment of the ends which that love proposes save the obstructions which we ourselves oppose. Still the working of Divine Love is conditioned by wisdom, which has established the perfect order through which alone the ends the former desires to attain can be reached. Love is never, indeed, withdrawn or diminished, it glows with an equal warmth for all in every state and condition. But the gifts offered demand, that their reception may be possible, certain conditions of heart, mind, and life, in the absence of which they are tendered to palsied hands that cannot take them. And these conditions are declared by the perfect order and eternal fitness which the wisdom of God has established. For, as in every perfect work there must be goodness in the substance, so must there be in the form, order and beauty that the substance may get fit expression. And love, the great underlying principle of every Divine work whether in the world of nature or of the soul, can only find acceptance for its best gifts with those who have been moulded into that form of order and beauty which wisdom alone can give. Hence the whole universe acknowledges the dominion of law. The beginning, process, and end of every work are fixed by principles as immutable as their Author. Laxity, uncertainty, and unsteadiness are unknown in the realm governed by this stern master. Everything is sharply marked off. The growth of a leaf or a flower proceeds on a clearly defined plan, and the clear markings of genus and species evidence an order not less exact than that which controls the seasons, or regulates the movements of a system. Equally present is this all-pervasive law, order, and fitness in the spiritual sphere; and the growth of the soul from the chaos and darkness of sin to the order and light of righteousness proceeds according to fixed and determinate principles. Your soul is capable of receiving the best things God can give, but wisdom has fixed laws which must be obeyed, before the gifts offered can be taken. Thus the love of God in nature and in man passes to its objects through strictly defined courses; for while love desires to bless without measure or cessation, wisdom requires that man should become such a form of spiritual order under obedience to the law as to be capable of receiving and enjoying the offered gifts. Out, then, from history, psalm, prophecy, and evangel come the lessons that man's intrinsic worth is immeasurably greater than that of all things about him; that God desires to endow him with the best gifts; that wisdom imposes the conditions under which the acceptance of these becomes possible. What, then, do these things teach as to the object for which we live during a brief space in this world of time? Clearly it is no part of the work of our lives to propitiate an adverse deity. The obstacles to our happiness cannot be in Him from whom all the elements of happiness flow. In the Immutable because Perfect we can effect no change. Religion, indeed, which has but two terms, God and Man, and is itself the expression of the relationship between them, knows but one element capable of change. And since that element is neither God nor the truth of which He is the source, it is man. Hence the chief work of a man's life is within; and his effort must be to change himself. How many lives are failures both as to peace in the present and sure hope for the future, because this one work is not well done! An uneasy sense of want, defect, and unhappiness presses upon many, and they strive to exorcise the demon not by effecting a change in themselves but in their circumstances. They are poor; poverty is the tooth that bites them most sharply; and wealth would heal every wound that the cares of indigence have made. They are obscure and would be honoured, weak and would be powerful; or they appear to have all forms of outward good but one, yet that one thing wanting makes all present blessings seem of little account. But when the things desired are possessed, it is found that change of house, furniture, and acquaintance, that wealth, luxury, travel, pleasure leave the demon where he was or, perhaps, more firmly seated. The surroundings of men touch but lightly even the life of time; and it is well to know early that the largest alteration of outward conditions leaves the essential man unchanged. And it matters not at all when we enter that world where we and not our belongings are subjected to scrutiny, whether, in the flesh, we were clad in shining cloth of gold, or knew no other covering than homely cloth of frieze. We e escape, when we cross the narrow line which separates the spiritual from the material, the bitterness of foes, the bite of poverty, the heel of oppression, and all the ills that are of alien growth. But from ourselves we do not escape; we are with ourselves always. If the demon that torments is within us, he will still keep close to us, ride with what swiftness we may. Evident though it is that the work we are here for lies close to the core of our own hearts, still there are religious theories widely accepted, which are based upon the assumption that this solid inward work need not be done, because something else has been done as a substitute therefor. As though heaven were possible for any human being so long as |