and doing good as far as our ability will enable us. This the master very properly confirmed by quotations from the Scriptures, and especially from what the Lord says about the wise man who not only heard, but who did the things which the Lord said, and who consequently built his house upon a rock. He thus appealed to the children, and said, that on the following morning he should be happy to receive any donations, however small, for the poor woman and her fatherless children. consequence was that on the following morning very many of the children brought their halfpence, and some brought larger sums, for the poor widow.

The

Now in this case the master educated the affections of his pupils, and by wise instructions from the Word of God, trained them, in very deed, to love their neighbour. Opportunities of this kind ought not to be neglected in training the liberal dispositions, and the sentiments of love for our neighbour.

There is action and reaction in nature, and no result can be produced without this law, as is well known to all who have studied science. There is also the same law in the human mind, and universally in things spiritual. All our primitive ideas are the result of the action of influx from within, and of the reaction of the rays of light reflected from objects without us. Thus both the subjective and the objective are here necessary for the development of mind, and the production of ideas.

Now, when the evil tendencies of the mind are acted upon, the re action is, if not resisted and overcome, for evil. Hence come the sensa tions of resentment and revenge, which are so much opposed to heavenly order, and consequently to all real moral training. This pernicious tendency to revenge we consequently find in nearly all children. No sooner do they receive either a real or a supposed injury, than they immediately endeavour to avenge themselves by retaliation. This, of course, is more the case with some than with others, according to the strength of the innate tendencies. This most wicked propensity, so contrary to heavenly life, must, in a proper system of moral training, be counteracted by every possible means. But examples will teach how this propensity to revenge is brought out and cultivated in many family circles, where it should be the first object to repress and subdue it.

Little Charles was much loved by his parents, and when any thing befell him that disturbed or annoyed him, they were, of course, very sorry. When he fell over a stool or a stone he began to cry out aloud, and alarmed his mother, who, ascertaining the cause, scolded the stool or the stone for standing in the way, and threatened to thrash it; upon

which she gave Charles a stick and told him to beat it, when his excitement was appeased. Charles was, of course, very young, otherwise he would easily have seen the absurd conduct of his mother. But mark the effect of this training;-when little Charles became a boy and went to school, he was ready to avenge himself, either in word or deed, on every boy, especially on the little boys not so big as himself, for every supposed insult and injury he received. Having been trained by his mother to beat the stone, when a child, over which he had stumbled, he was ready to beat a boy who in any way counteracted his wishes, howsoever selfish they might be. Nor was this all;-when he became a young man, he even avenged himself on his father, and attempted to strike him, because he opposed his disorderly conduct. The result was, that both the father and the mother were often brought into states of great anxiety on his account. Let parents, therefore, beware against bringing out the passions of resentment and revenge in their children. No pains should be spared to counteract these malignant emotions, and to subdue them in the very earliest periods of mental development. It is never too soon to begin this salutary moral training, and this heavenly work. The germs of these evils should be checked in their first growth; otherwise the mind cannot be trained to become the habitation of that meekness and lowliness of heart in which, we are divinely assured, the true rest and happiness for our souls can alone be found. One way to counteract this tendency to revenge is to lay the blame always upon the avenger, to shew that himself is the cause of his own annoyance and suffering, and that if he had been more careful and thoughtful, it might have been avoided. The child would then soon be brought to a proper mode of reflection on his own conduct and actions, and would be led to see that the cause was not in the objects around him, but in himself, and that he must consequently be watchful over his conduct and proceedings. Thus a habit of watchfulness is contracted, which is one of the most blessed habits, especially when directed to the interior life,-watching over the motives and springs of our conduct, and of the various influences which actuate us,-that can be formed. Hence the Lord says,--"What I say unto you, I say unto all,--WATCH."

[To be continued.]

ON THE WRITINGS OF AUGUSTINE, BISHOP OF HIPPO, IN AFRICA.

[Concluded from page 94.]

TO THE EDITOR.

SIR,-In the following we have the doctrine of faith, hope, and love, united. He says,—

"Now concerning love, what shall I say, without which faith profiteth nothing; but hope without love cannot be. Finally, as the apostle James saith, 'The devils also believe and tremble,' yet they do not love or hope; but rather what we hope for and love, they, in believing that it will come, dread. For which reason the apostle Paul approves of, and commends faith which worketh by love, which assuredly without hope cannot be. Wherefore, neither is love without hope, nor hope without love, nor both without faith." (Page 90.)

Again. He confesses his ignorance of the nature of ANGELS, and yet appears to have an intuitive idea approximating to the truth on this subject; for he says,-" Who can explain with what kind of bodies they have appeared to men, so as not only to be seen, but also to be touched: and again, not by bodily bulk, but by spiritual power, they bring certain visions, not to the bodily eyes, but to the spiritual, that is, to minds; or speak something not to the ear from without, but within the soul of man, themselves also having their place there; as it is written in the book of the prophet-And the angel who was speaking in me said unto me;' (Zech. i. 9.) for he says-not who was speaking to me, but in me, as also appear in dreams, and converse after the manner of dreams; as for example, Matt. i. 20."

Now, on this point our author says,—

"At times, when spirits have spoken with me in the midst of the company of men, some of them have supposed, because their speech was heard so sonorously, that they would be heard also by those who were present; but reply was made, that it is not so, inasmuch as their speech flowed into my ear by an internal way, and human speech by an external way. Hence it is evident, how the spirit spake with the prophet, not as man with man, but as a spirit with a man, viz., in him; Zech. i. 9, 13; chap. ii. 3; chap. iv. 1, 4, 5; chap. v. 5, 10; chap. vi. 4, and in other places. (A. C. 4652.)"

His conjectures respecting the first men are very ingenious, but incorrect; a subject which has baffled all the ingenuity of the learned, and which, under the divine Providence, was reserved for solution until the opening of the present New Dispensation of Christianity. Augustine writes as follows:

"Nor is it now necessary to inquire, and put forth a definite opinion on that question, Whence could exist the progeny of the first men whom God had blessed, saying, 'Increase and multiply, and fill the earth; or whether the body was not

made spiritual in the case of these men, but at the first animal, in order that they by obedience might after become spiritual, to lay hold of immortality, but not after death, which by the malice of the devil entered into the world, and was made the punishment of sin. Thus, therefore, there might take place generations of such bodies, as up to a certain point should increase and grow, and yet should not pass into old age; or if into old age, yet not into death; until the earth were filled with that multiplication of the blessing. For, if to the garments of the Israelites God granted their proper state, without any wearing away, during forty years, how much more would he grant unto the bodies of such as obeyed his commandments, a certain most happy temperament of sure state until they should be changed for the better, not by death of the men, whereby the body is abandoned by the soul, but by a blessed change from mortality to immortality, from an animal to a spiritual quality.”

Let us, however, pass from these modest and pious conjectures to the reality, as furnished in the writings of the New Church. Our illuminated author says,

"If man had lived the life of good, in this case his interiors would be open to heaven, and through heaven to the Lord; thus also the smallest and invisible vascula would be open also, and hence man would be without disease, and would only decrease to ultimate old age, until he became altogether an infant, but a wise infant; and when in such case the body could no longer minister to its internal man, or spirit, he would pass without disease out of his terrestrial body, into a body such as the angels have, thus out of the world immediately into heaven." A. C. 5726.

I have already given a quotation shewing the deep reverence which the Bishop of Hippo entertained for the Old Testament writings. In the following, he appears to have had some idea of another than the literal sense only, as contained therein :—

"All that Scripture, therefore, which is called the Old Testament, is handed down in a four-fold form to them who desire to know it, viz., According to history, atiology, analogy, and allegory. It is handed down according to history, when there is taught what hath been written, or what hath been done; and what has not been done, but only written as though it had been done. 2ndly, According to ariology, when it is shewn for what cause any thing hath been done or said. 3rdly. According to analogy, when it is shewn that the two Testaments, the Old and the New, are not contrary the one to the other. 4th. According to allegory, when it is taught that certain things which have been written are not to be taken in the letter, but are to be understood in a figure. All these ways our Lord Jesus Christ and his apostles used. For when it was objected that his disciples plucked the ears of corn on the Sabbath day, the instance was taken from history. "Have ye not read," &c. (Matt. xii. 3, 4.) But the instance pertains to atiology, that, when Christ had forbidden a wife to be put away, save for the cause of fornication, and that they who asked him had alleged that Moses had granted permission, after a writing of divorcement had been given. This, saith He, Moses did because of the hardness of your hearts. For, here a reason was given why that had been allowed by Moses for a time, that this command of Christ's might shew that now the times were changed .3rdly. Analogy; whereby the agreement of both Testaments is plainly seen; for that both the history of the Old Testament, and ætiology, and analogy, are found in the New Testament, has been, I

think, sufficiently proved; it remains to shew this of analogy. Our Redeemer Himself, in the Gospel, uses allegory out of the Old Testament, in reference to Jonah and the Ninevites. (Matt. xii. 39, 40.) For why should I speak of the apostle Paul, who in his 1st epistle to the Corinthians, shews that even the very history of the Exodus was an allegory of the future Christian people? (1 Cor. x. 1-11.) Here is also in the apostle a certain allegory, which indeed relates to the cause in hand, for this reason, that they themselves (the Manicheans) bring it forward, and make a display of it in disputing. For the same Paul says to the Galatians, (Chap. iv. 22.) For it is written, that Abraham had two sons,' &c., which things are an allegory," &c.

Here at least is a recognition of the PRINCIPLE of another mode of interpretation than that which the literal sense of the Word affords. And now that the divine science of correspondence is known, and the spiritual sense of the Word is revealed, the darkness is past, and the true light shineth. Before closing this communication, I may remark, that, although Augustine spent several years in fastings and in prayer, as well as in a close study of the Sacred Scriptures, previous to his becoming Bishop of Hippo in Africa; and although when there set over the church, he sent out other preachers to disseminate Christianity, yet it is doubted by many of the early writers whether he ever wore the "girdle," or instituted the orders commonly attributed to him, such as "begging monks," &c. That he was no friend to them, nor even sanctioned the system, will appear from the following quotation;— writing to the propagators of the Christian religion, who were pious men, he says,

"Oh, ye servants of God, soldiers of Christ, is it thus ye dissemble the plottings our most crafty foe, who, fearing your good fame, that goodly odour of Christ, lest the good should say, 'We will run after the odour of thine ointments,' and so should escape his snares, and in every way desiring to obscure it with his own stenches, hath dispersed on every side so many hypocrites, under the garb of monks, strolling about the provinces, nowhere sent,-nowhere fixed,-nowhere standing,-nowhere sitting. Some hawking about limbs of martyrs (if indeed of martyrs); others magnifying their fringes and phylacteries; others with a lying story, such as their having heard that their parents or kindred are alive in this or that country, and therefore that they are on their way to them; and all asking, all exacting, either the costs of their lucrative want, or the price of their pretended sanctity. And in the mean while, wheresoever they be found out in their evil deeds, or in whatever way they become notorious, under the general name of monks, your purpose is blasphemed ;—a purpose so good, so holy, that in Christ's name we desire it (as through other lands, so through all Africa) to grow and flourish. Does not your heart wax hot within you, and in your meditations a fire kindle, that these men's evil works ye should pursue with good works, that you should cut off from them all occasion of a foul trafficking, by which your estimation is hurt, and a stumbling-block put before the weak ?" (Page 509.)

From the whole, then, it is obvious that this good man did not embrace Christianity for no better reason than some have embraced and