been celebrated in the following manner. On Sunday, the 17th April, two sermons were preached by Mr. Rogers, from London, to good congregations. On the following Thursday a public tea was provided in the church, at which about a hundred persons were present. In the evening, a very instructive lecture was delivered by the Rev. Dr. Bayley, the church being well filled with attentive hearers. This has been the most successful anniversary we have had, both with regard to the interest it has awakened and the number of persons present at the services. The finances are also in advance of any previous year. During the year we have been favoured with visits from the Revs. E. D. Rendell, J. B. Kennerley, Messrs. Gunton, Potts, Goldsack, and Rogers, under the auspices of the Missionary Society. We thank those gentlemen and the Missionary Society for the help they have afforded us, and humbly hope the efforts employed to advance the interests of the church in this place will be made a blessing to many.

RICHARD CULPIN, Sec.

RAMSBOTTOM.-On Sunday, May 8th, the School Anniversary Sermons of the Society were preached by the Rev. Dr. Bayley in the Odd Fellows' Hall. The room, which is double the size of the chapel, was crowded at both services, and in the afternoon considerable number was unable to gain admittance. In the morning of the same day Dr. Bayley delivered an address to parents, teachers, and scholars, from the words "Come, ye children, hearken unto me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord. (Ps. xxxiv, 11.) The collections at the close of the services amounted to £27. On Wednesday, the 11th, Dr. Bayley delivered a lecture on the Resurrection of Man. The chapel was crowded, and the audience was held in deep attention for an hour and three quarters. These services have been attended with the most satisfactory results; and the society begs to offer its sincere thanks to the committee of the Argyle-square Society, London, for having spared Dr. Bayley on this occasion. J. LEES.

BRIGHTON.-ANNUAL MEETING.-The annual meeting of this society was held on the evening of Tuesday, March 8th, in the Meeting-room of the church, in

Ship-street gardens, After tea, the chair was taken by Mr. Colling. The reports of the Secretary and the Treasurer were read, in which the financial condition of the society was stated to be very satisfactory, there being a small balance in hand beyond the society's liabilities. A building fund has also been established, with the view at some future time, of purchasing or erecting a building more suitable than the present room for the purpose of Divine worship, in connection with the Lord's New Church. The nucleus of this fund was formed by a small subscription of the members, before the departure to the spiritual world of the late Mr. Slight, to whose liberality (which has been continued by his family since his decease) is owing, under the Lord, not only the exemption of the society from larger pecuniary demands than can be met by the contributions of the members, but also by the under-letting of a portion of the premises, a constantly recurring addition to the building fund. harmonium has likewise been purchased chiefly from the donations of members and friends of the society, and has been occasionally found, by the kindness of friends, a pleasing and important assistance to the praise of the Lord in our worship. The report having been adopted, the officers for the ensuing year were then appointed, and votes of thanks were cordially voted-to Mrs. Slight, for her kind present of a very handsome Bible and cushion for the Communion table, in addition to her continued favours; to Mr. Colling, for his arduous services as Leader during the past year; and to Mr. Grenier, for his assistance in the services during the same period. The usual vote of thanks to the chairman terminated the proceedings of a very pleasant evening.

An

SHEFFIELD.-The society here was favoured, near the close of last month, with a visit from the Rev. E. D. Rendell, who delivered, during his stay, four dis. courses illustrative of our doctrines. On the morning of Sunday, the 24th of April, he opened the course with a sermon on "The Progression of Regeneration." He showed the necessity of regeneration, and that it is not an instantaneous, but a gradual and orderly change-" First the blade, then the ear; after that, the full corn in the ear." This

cheerful Christian spirit, ever trying to weave the web of life with the purest and brightest patterns, has taken the result of her toils and pleasures into the presence of Infinite Wisdom. Her trials are over, her fears calmed, her doubts removed, and truth in light has now dawned upon her unfettered spirit. How gloriously bright and near seems the society of angels, as, one by one, we see our friends and those we love pass amongst them! To die, indeed, is gain. What expanses of wisdom, what depths of love, are opened in the eternal world, to "the spirits of just men made perfect!" And as, one by one, these loved ones go up higher," the power of the New Jerusalem above becomes increased on earth, to bless us and all men. Joyous thought-help to us, and aid for us, now and for evermore! She is not here, she is risen.

Атом.

On the 26th of March, Jervis Ridge, of Longton, in the 66th year of his age. He had been an affectionate recipient of the Heavenly Doctrines for upwards of forty years, and he never seemed so happy as when explaining some portion of the Holy Word, or expatiating upon the beautiful writings which unfold it. Of his approaching death he spoke with the same composure and familiarity as if it had been no more than the passing out of one room into another. murmur ever escaped his lips during his illness; and at last, like a child sinking to rest, he peacefully resigned his spirit into the hands of his Heavenly Father. C. B.

No

Departed this life March 31st, 1864, at the residence of his son-in-law (C. P. Alvey, Bloomsbury street, London) John Wood, aged 57 years, last surviving son of the late Charles Wood, of Cheltenham. He became acquainted with the doctrines of the New Church under the ministrations of the late Rev. D. Howarth, of the Temple, Salford, Manchester, and always strove to unite an intelligent perception of the Heavenly Truths wth a life in accordance thereto. A beloved wife and daughter, with many sincere friends, mourn their earthly loss, yet cherish his memory, and rejoice that he has

Gone from earth's toil and struggle
To mansions of the blest,
Where wearied ones reap double
· Of solace and of rest.

Here nature's tears are flowing,
And loving kindred mourn;
There greeting eyes are glowing
A joyous welcome home.

Departed this life on the 8th of April last, aged 25 years, Agnes, daughter of Mr. Neil Mc.Callum, Paisley. Her complaint was a decline, the symptoms of which had appeared above twelve months before. She was greatly respected and beloved by a numerous circle of friends, because of her gentle and amiable disposition, and her general life and conduct. She was in church membership with a society belonging to the body named the "Evangelical Union," or more commonly "Morrisonians," although she adopted but partially their doctrinal views. During her illness, being led to consider carefully the doctrines of the New Church, she embraced them cordially, seeing how they agree with Scripture and reason. In doing this, she was no doubt, influenced more or less by her father, who had been a highly respected elder in the Morrisonian body, and had recently come into the New Church faith.

H.

On Monday, April 11th, 1864, in her 74th year, Mrs. Mary Goyder. She was the widow of the late Rev. T. Goyder, one of the recognised ministers of the church, who departed this life on the 15th of October, 1849. In 1850, a committee was formed in London for the purpose of taking measures for establishing a fund to assist incapacitated ministers and the widows of ministers, and at the general conference in the same year, the committee placed the fund that they had raised in the hands of the conference, to be under its entire management and control. The sum that had been collected was £388. 12s. 4d.; and of this amount, Mrs. Goyder gave the little property she possessed, being £150. She was the first pensioner placed on the fund, with an allowance of £30. a year. She also gave to the conference the remaining stock of her late husband's printed books, the proceeds from that also to be applied to the pension fund. The stock was sold entire for £8. 8s. In 1859, Mrs. Goyder's pension was increased to £40., and that amount she continued to receive during her life. As the wife of a minister, it is almost superfluous to say that she was well acquainted with the doctrines of the

Departed this life, on Thursday, April 12th, 1864, aged 67 years, Alice, wife of the late Mr. John Atkinson. She had been a member of the Salford Society for about forty years, and ever delighted in its welfare, and prayed for its success. If any use she could render would insure these, to her, great blessings, it was cheerfully and heartily performed. To converse respecting the doctrines after the manner of the early receivers, now so little thought of, was a precious spring of intellectual and affectionate pleasure. She was not only a receiver, but a reader of the doctrines of the New Jerusalem. Quick in perception, lively in imagination, persevering in spirit, she braved many difficulties, survived many storms of life, and lived to see her children grow around her in the fold of the Lord's New Church here and abroad, more or less useful and active. Her attendance at public worship, even when the feebleness of infirmity and advancing years came upon her, was a pattern and an example to more professional and pretending receivers. Nothing could shake her faith in the truth, and no worldly advantage induce her to forsake the "Israel of God." Her passage into the eternal world was indeed a scene of peace and serenity unmarred with pain and suffering, such as rarely realises the very sentiments of the poet in the hymn, when he says

A holy quiet reigns around,

A calm no earthly care destroys; Nought can disturb that peace profound, Which this unfettered soul enjoys. Yet it was literally so. A patient child slumbering upon the bosom of its mother in all the passive confidence of maternal love, preserved by the Lord's influx through the parent, and received by the plastic innocence of the babe, seemed by no means an overdrawn symbol of the quiet meekness with which our departed sister leaned upon the Divine bosom of the Saviour. Indeed the angels must have been there; and it would have aroused a holy aspiration in the heart of every one, could the scene have been witnessed as it was by

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the members of her family. To rejoin her husband, should God permit, and their respective states of regeneration have prepared their spirits, and to spend her next birthday in the land of her Father's interior kingdom, were her only expressed desires. Her last conscious effort was to breathe a prayer for her children, which one present devoutly assured her would certainly be heard and answered. So another mother in Israel has in some sort done her work in the porch, and by Divine permission has entered within the temple. PASTOR.

At 2, Regent's Park-terrace, Glasgow, on the 26th of April, Mrs. Mackie, widow of the late Mr. Robert Mackie. Mrs. Mackie and her excellent husband, whose name occurs in the minutes of conference as far back as 1822, as representative from the Glasgow society, were among the earliest members of the New Church in that city, and did much by their exertions, and more by their influence, to promote a cause which they both had much at heart. Mrs. Mackie was a somewhat remarkable woman. She combined in no ordinary degree the qualities of strength and sweetness, the co-existence of which in the same person has been a riddle from the days of Samson downwards-arare union, which forms a character we can at once admire and love. A vigorous and cultivated intellect made her society exceedingly interesting and instructive, while true feminine delicacy and great sweetness of disposition rendered it no less agreeable and improving. With her these were not merely natural qualities improved by worldly means for worldly purposes, but were the fair form of which religion was the animating soul, and the virtues of the world spiritualised by the graces of heaven. Age softened, but did not dim the lustre of those qualities that shone out so brightly in the earlier period of her life. At the age of eighty she was the beau ideal of an old lady and the model of a true Christian. She had not become less intelligent, but more wise-not less spiritual, but more celestial. Like every real Christian, her strength was, and had always been, exhibited in her weakness. In the great trials of life, she strove to submit her own will to the will of Him who is the sole Disposer of all events, and who, she knew, does all things well, so far as