On Tuesday, June 19, 1877, Mrs. Mary Low, the beloved wife of Mr. John Low, of Ramsbottom, was removed into the spiritual world, in the sixty-third year of her age. Deceased was the daughter of one of the pioneers of the society at Ramsbottom, and received an early training in the doctrines of the New Church which she maintained to the end of her life. During the last four years she had been afflicted with frequent and painful attacks of rheumatism, which kept her much confined at home and greatly impaired her general health. Her end was sudden and unexpected, yet calm and peaceful, and the beginning of a new state of existence where we trust that the trials of sickness, suffering, and sorrow that afflict us are for ever unknown. At Ramsbottom, on Saturday, June 2, Mrs. Betty Ashworth, the beloved wife of Mr. John Ashworth, passed into the spiritual world at the age of forty-two years. The deceased became connected with the New Church Society at Ramsbottom through being led to see the truthfulness and beauty of the doctrines as presented by her husband. Mr. Ashworth, who is a highly esteemed and most active member as well as a warm supporter of the society, has lately recovered from a long and serious illness, during which the deceased attended him with all the affectionate care and tenderness of a truly devoted wife. Whilst she was still experiencing the pleasure and satisfaction of seeing her husband restored to health, the time of her confinement arrived, and in giving birth to a daughter she passed in almost the same hour into the eternal world on the date mentioned above. Three days later her babe followed; and as a mother she possessed in a high degree all the good qualities implied by that endearing name, there can be no doubt that they are re-united in that better world where maternal and filial relations are unspeakably more intimate and blessed than can be possible even in the happiest home on earth. Died at Dalton, May 29th 1877, aged forty-three years, Mrs. Mary Ann Armitage, wife of Mr. Robert Henry Armitage. in early life, and was actively engaged in Deceased was brought into the New Church its various uses from her youth upward. As a Sunday-School teacher, she was greatly beloved by a large circle of scholars. As a member of the Church, she was most constant in her attendance upon public worship. She showed great interest in the welfare of the Church by her active services in the ladies' sewing meetings, and in all the operations engaged in by the Dalton Society. As a wife and a mother she has left precious memories behind her. affectionately remembered by all who enAs a friend, she will be joyed the privilege of her acquaintance. A short J. W. Hancock LL.B. We have to world of this esteemed member of the New record the departure into the spiritual Church, which took place at Melbourne, time since, he furnished to a friend a May 23rd, at the age of 72 years. narrative of his life and labours, which has been placed in our hands, and which we publish almost entire :-"Many years ago a Mr. Colyer first opened a large room in Nottingham for New Church worship, but some alleged misconduct soon caused him to quit the society, and I became its leader, at the earnest instance of the late Rev. W. Mason. I declined for some time on account of my youth, but finally surrendered to the force of the argument that there was nobody else who could keep the society together. "I officiated twice every Sunday, and held a meeting for reading and discussion every Tuesday evening. The meetings were numerously attended, and much interest was excited by the discussions. I have still the record of those meetings and of the subjects discussed. These labours established the society firmly, and I was myself re-baptized into the New Church by Mr. Mason. "In about two years business matters caused me to remove to Derby, and very soon afterwards the society there, being without a minister, invited me to become their leader. I consented, and was assiduous in the duties of that office for about four years, after which my business again caused me to remove, and my connection with the Derby society ceased. I began at a very early age to write for the Repository, and continued to do so with great regularity and increasing appreciation for many years, under the signature of Minimus'-'Lucius '-'Iota'. Philo-Lucius' and others. The first efforts of my pen caused Mr. Mason to make a journey to Nottingham to find me ་ out, and procured me his invaluable friendship, and that of Mr. Noble, who was then Editor of the Repository. "After leaving Derby the Swedenborg Printing Society requested me to make a new translation of the Heaven and Hell,' which I did at great personal inconvenience, and without any payment. After the first edition was sold out I revised it at the same request, and the revised copy was stereotyped and pronounced by the Society to be the most perfect of all their works.' Their official letter of thanks is still in my possession. "I went to Upper Canada in 1855, and while studying for the Bar at Torontowhich is the seat of law and learning for that province-I held New Church worship in my own house on the Sunday evenings, at which several friends attended besides my own family. 66 After four years hard study, and seven severe but successful examinations, both oral and written, as well in English and the Ancient Classics, as in mathematics and the law, I obtained my degree of LL.B. at the university of Toronto, and was admitted to practice, and called to the Bar by the Honourable Society of Osgoode Hall, an Institution which would compare favourably in every way with any of the kind in this country. "I now went to Berlin, in the county of Waterloo, to begin the practice of my profession; but before going I compiled a large volume containing the principles of conveyancing, with a system of forms used by eminent conveyancers.. The work was stereotyped in the United States, and is in extensive use now. "I found at Berlin a thriving New Church society, consisting almost entirely of Germans, under the pastoral charge of the Rev. F. W. Tuerk, a Prussian gentleman of distinguished learning and simplicity. He preached in German, which he spoke with singular beauty and purity. He taught me to understand his preaching, which I regularly attended, and I taught him to improve his English. 66 As Mr. Tuerk preached to another society at least one Sunday in every month, I took his pulpit and preached in English when he was absent, both morning and evening, during the whole of my five years' residence in Berlin. I also visited Toronto-about fifty-two miles off-and preached in a room of the Mechanics' Institution there to a growing band of receivers. Afterwards the society rented a chapel, which at their request I opened for New Church worship. "While at Berlin I wrote and published a complete synoptical index of the Statutes of Upper Canada, which is now in the library at Osgoode Hall, and is or was in that at Manchester. "I also drew up a set of rules for a New Church society. On my return to Toronto to practise in the Courts there, conducted service morning and evening in a room not far from my residence in the Town Hall of Yorkville-the municipality next north of Toronto-and continued to do so until the rigour of the climate forced me to return to England in 1869. "Through my influence with Mr. Henry S. Huber, one of my clients at Berlin, he made the Swedenborg Society one of his residuary legatees, and they will be entitled in that right to some hundreds of pounds. "The Toronto society is now strong and prosperous, under the care of the Rev. G. Field, to whom they give a competent stipend. They worship in their own freehold church, which seats about 200, and have bought and paid for a piece of land to enlarge it. They have a paid organist, and a Sunday-school of about 60 scholars. The morning congregation is about 100, and the church is filled to overflowing in the evening, a condition which contrasts very pleasingly with the very small beginning of the society in my own hired house.' "My ministerial labours at Nottingham, Derby, Toronto, Berlin, and Yorkville, and my contributions to the literature of the Church down to the time of my return to England, were all gratuitous. "The Canadian Association wished me to be ordained; but I declined ordination as inconsistent with my practice of the law, which some said was sufficiently injured already by that public and fearless advocacy of the truth from which I never shrunk." at Mr. Hancock's last labour was Leicester, where he conducted a successful course of missionary service. He was prevented by the loss of health, and his departure, from furnishing, as he intended, an account of this service. His health seems to have failed at Leicester, and he removed to Melbourne in the hope of improvement. He reached this town in a state of extreme physical prostration, from which he never rallied, but departed at the time we have stated. SINCE our last issue, the Annual Meeting of the Conference has been held in the new and beautiful church recently erected by the Birmingham Society, and though the session has not been distinguished by the discussion of any measure of unusual interest, we are glad of the opportunity of calling the attention of our readers to the proceedings. In another place we have given an extended report of the session, and propose here simply to make a few remarks of a more general character on some of its more prominent incidents. To begin with, it should never be forgotten that we have no cause to be discouraged by the apparently slow growth of the external Church: and to conceal from ourselves that the growth is slow would be equally injudicious. The stages of development in the growth of institutions are not dissimilar to those of the human body; excessive manifestations of energy in one direction are often a sign of waste or attrition in others; and we are happy to be able to state that while general and steady progress is observed, it is to be noted in nearly every department of the Conference work. The Conference is now a comparatively rich body, and if some of the special funds are not so well supported as might be desired, not as indeed they would be probably if the Church generally were better acquainted with the work they support, it is surely a hopeful sign that the endowments are applied to so many different and such varied uses. Alarm is sometimes expressed at the possible danger of the extension of these endowments, but no one can carefully study the rules of Conference which regulate expenditure without being convinced that all possible care is taken to guard against abuse on the one hand and lassitude on the other. We quite admit that if the Conference could raise by annual subscriptions all that is required to carry on its work, there would be cause for more complete satisfaction, and it cannot be denied that in at least one department difficulties have arisen from the restrictions of the original conditions of the endowment. But on the other hand we have often experienced the necessity felt by many other institutions from the want of a more permanent and regular supply of means than annual subscriptions afford. The Students' and Ministers' Aid Fund has frequently suffered from defficient supplies; the stipends granted to small societies and the assistance granted to students for the ministry have not seldom been diminished for want of funds, and the same drawbacks to extended usefulness have been felt in other branches. We have therefore no hesitation in commending to the attention and generosity of the whole Church the new Augmentation Fund, especially as this may be supported either by donations towards an endowment or by annual subscriptions. We have never been unmindful of the difficulties pointed out by many friends in and out of Conference in connection with the work of this fund. It is quite possible that some societies might have been tempted to trust rather to the Conference for means to pay a minister than to their own exertions had the Conference left itself free to make grants without any restrictions. Opinions will probably differ about the limits adopted. Some may think that it is too much to expect that every society requiring the help of a minister should be compelled to raise £60 annually; yet the new rules do not permit any supplementary aid where less than this is forthcoming. Others will urge that £100 per annum is too small a sum to be recognized as a fitting remuneration for a minister; but the most careful consideration has been given to these and many other points, and the result has been the adoption of a code which is likely to ensure perfect justice in the administration of the fund, and to prevent anything like a premium being granted to the indifference or want of generosity of individual societies. The local committees which will have to investigate all applications will be bound to consider every case with the utmost care, and safeguards for the prevention of improper grants has been provided. A Church that encourages young men to enter the ministry, and renders pecuniary assistance to congregations which without their aid could not obtain the services of a regular minister, ought assuredly to ensure to itself the means of regularly fulfilling its obligations; and cordial and general support to the Augmentation Fund will relieve this important work from its recent unpleasant if not equivocal position. The position of the Education question very properly occupied a considerable amount of attention. It was comparatively easy ten years ago to comply with the rules of Conference as modified according to previous changes in the condition of things. But more recently schoolmasters and school committees have found it very difficult to include instruction in the doctrines of the New Church in their educative courses, and several schools have declined to apply for the grants awarded annually by Conference for the purpose. It was stated that several committees, in view of these impediments, had requested the minister to take the entire charge of instructing the children in doctrine and scripture history; and this solution of a growingly perplexing problem seems so sensible and so excellent that we trust it will not be found impossible to apply it or something analagous to it in all cases. For some years past efforts have been made to induce the Conference to adopt a service analagous to the rite of Confirmation, and there can be no difference of opinion about the propriety of encouraging anything likely to increase and utilize the general desire to interest the young in the knowledge and study of Divine Truth. But at present opinions apparently differ too widely to permit the hope of a common understanding on the scope and characteristics of such a service, and it is better to wait, trusting meanwhile to the isolated efforts of separate ministers and societies, rather than to publish a service with rubrical instructions likely to be adopted by only a few. The operations of the Foreign and Colonial Missions Committee were also debated at length, and it was evident to most of the members that past experience had not removed all the difficulties foreseen when the Conference first extended its undertakings in this direction. To assist our foreign friends in their efforts to make known the doctrines of the Church is unquestionably a duty, and one not likely to be overlooked, but it is not yet quite clear that such assistance can be better carried out by the Conference than by an independent institution. We cannot, however, shirk the responsibility already accepted, and we do not doubt that the course taken by Conference in treating the question of the Italian Mission will commend itself to the Church. |