but the radiation of the New Church doctrines that God is love; that charity, in its highest sense, is the main part in religion; and that life, not belief, will fix man's final state. More than 3000 clergymen have petitioned Parliament to remove the Athanasian Creed, or at least its damnatory clauses. Is this no sign of progress of what are indeed the essentials of the New Church-LOVE, LIGHT, AND LIBERTY? The great Congregational body is not the Calvinistic. denomination it once was, but is largely penetrated with truer views of the Divine character, of the Trinity in the Lord Jesus Christ, and of the gradual change of character in man, which in the New Church is called Regeneration. The same may be said of those great and respectable Christian bodies, the Methodists and the Baptists. All are on the move; and the move, with many obstructions and struggles, is towards higher, wider, grander, better life. The New Jerusalem Church has the wonderful part assigned of standing near the Well Head, and seeing the living waters pour forth. But they go to all, and they are the preludes of that glorious day when there shall be one King over all the earth; when there shall be one Lord, and His name One (Zech. xiv. 9). "Even so, come, Lord Jesus."

THE ROYAL NORMAL SCHOOL AND ACADEMY OF MUSIC FOR THE BLIND.

WESTON STREET, UPPER NORWOOD, NEAR THE CRYSTAL PALACE. Patron-Her Majesty the Queen. Vice Patrons-His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, K.G.; Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales; His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh, K.G. President-His Grace the Duke of Westminster. Chairman of the Executive Committee-The Hon. William Ashley. Treasurer-Sir Rutherford Alcock, K.C.B. PrincipalF. J. Campbell, Esq.

THE Principal of this excellent institution, on the part of the Executive Committee, invited the New Churchmen of London to witness the method of instruction for the blind pupils, including a musical performance, on December 21, 1876. The Rev. Dr. Bayley was invited to take the chair. The Revs. Messrs. Bruce, Presland, and Dr. Tafel were present, and a good company of friends, and all were delighted with what they saw and heard. The pupils-about seventy in number-displayed great skill in geography and arithmetic, but especially in music.

Seven years ago Mr. Campbell, a blind American gentleman, came to London from Germany, where he had been preparing for his work,

with a strong desire to elevate the condition of the blind. He had the conviction that a merciful Providence compensates the blind in special ways for their great loss, and to a large extent by the gift of musical talent. He believed that if this musical endowment were properly cultivated the blind would be able to provide for themselves as well as any other portion of society. And he believed that his mission in the world was to develop this idea. He addressed himself on all sides to benevolent public men, and enlisted their help. He interested the kind-hearted Duke of Westminster, and through him many influential gentlemen. The Duke was kind enough to have Mr. Campbell and his blind pupils to give two or three concerts in his London drawing-room to very select audiences, and ultimately interested Her Majesty the Queen in the project. She permitted a concert of the blind at Windsor Castle, and treated them in the kindest manner.

The result of all this was the purchase of several acres of land in an admirable situation, and the college named at the head of this paper has been erected. The buildings have been erected in excellent taste, with every convenience and appliance for study, exercise, and health. The rooms are airy, spacious, well-warmed, and everywhere admitting plenty of light. There is a music hall for public performances, a gymnastic ground, and every adaptation to promote health. There are more than fifty pianos, one organ already on the premises, and two others preparing, including a grand organ for the music hall. The concert we listened to was given in that large hall. The grand piano was played with great skill and effect, singly, in duet, and with eight hands. The vocal pieces were given with tenderness, taste, and power, according to the requirements of each, and were constantly applauded, and the whole was a decided success. Some of the company were inclined to think that so commanding a view as the college has, and its abundance of windows, were rather thrown away in a blind institution, but Mr. Campbell maintains that light is essential to health as well as to vision, and doubtless he is right. He manages to remove the idea that blind people are subjects of pity, and declares that they have enjoyments and blessings peculiarly their own. A story was told to the writer that sets this idea in an unusual light.

His Grace of Westminster, who is a most tender and amiable nobleman, on one of his visits to the institution, had sat for some time in a room having a splendid prospect, and speaking to Mr. Campbell on some matters of business, hastily rose, and said, "I must go into another room; I can't stand this any longer."

"Why, what is the matter, your Grace ?" said Mr. Campbell.

Here," said the Duke, "is one of the finest prospects in the world, and you poor fellows can't see it a bit.”

"Oh, sit down, your Grace," said the blind principal; "we can see it in our minds, and to us it is always bright. When others come they see it according to the weather, and many a time it is gloomy. But we hear the description of it from others when it is brightest and best, and it always remains so."

'Well," said the Duke, "I am glad it is so. You seem born, Campbell, to help the blind to consider that they labour under no disadvantage at all.”

While the concert was going on there was a little boy about nine years of age, who sat on a chair apart, neatly dressed in blue, a pretty boy, evidently one that had been carefully brought up so far. Mr. Campbell brought the little boy forward, and said his name was Wright, and he was a little New Church boy from Horncastle. He said he is being brought up by a grandfather, and his work was rather precarious, and it had been intimated that the boy might not remain after Christmas, as his friends could hardly bear the expense; and it would be a great pity the child should be withdrawn, for he was a bright boy, and quite one that would come out well. He commended the matter to the kind consideration of the New Church people present.

Dr. Bayley replied, expressing what he was sure would be the feeling of all, the utmost pleasure and satisfaction at all they had seen and heard. He complimented the pupils on their advancement upon what he had observed in times past, when he had been amongst them before, and especially Mr. Campbell on the great success of his labours and the realization of his hopes. Grounds and a building worth £20,000 had been already secured, and nearly seventy pupils were in training. It is, indeed, a wonderful reward of perseverance. "And," as said Dr. Bayley, "when the plan is completed, and 120 pupils can be received, I have no doubt that your great energy will be crowned with success."

"As to little Wright," said Dr. Bayley, "I am sure the New Church friends will do what is necessary to keep him here. Let his friends know they don't need to take him away. What is needed shall certainly be made up."

In completing this account, the writer is authorized to say that Dr. Bayley, or the Treasurer of Conference, will be happy to receive subscriptions, which will be duly acknowledged, to pay for the maintenance of this little New Church blind boy.

76

"INSPIRATION IN AN UNCONSIDERED ASPECT."

(To the Editor of the Intellectual Repository.)

DEAR SIR,-In your November number a very interesting article appeared under the above title, in which the theory of the synchronism existing between breath-inspiration and thought-inspiration was very forcibly put. Mr. Lofft's work on "Self-formation" being referred to therein as having suggested the idea to the author of the paper, it may not be uninteresting to lay before your readers what Mr. Lofft actually says on the subject, since his work is so scarce. I make, therefore, a few extracts from the book, which I have by me. "Whatever may be the origin of thought, its process is purely mechanical” (vol. ii. p. 206). "In conversation, in studious reading, and in oratory, I have already stated my conviction that the management of the breath is of very great importance, and I am thoroughly persuaded that this is true likewise of meditation-that it governs in a great degree the thinking faculty" (p. 208). "There is, at all events, a very close connection, if nothing more, between the faculties of thought and of respiration, and this their observation will prove to them if they will only give themselves the trouble to exercise it. For instance, let any man hold his breath, and endeavour to think upon any subject-he will find it impossible. He may attend, for attention is passive, but he cannot think actively" (p. 209).

After pointing out that in every modern tongue within his knowledge, soul, spirit, and breath are signified by the same word, he says (p. 209): "My new thinking method was precisely the same, mutatis mutandis, as the one I had before practised for the furtherance of my reading and other faculties. I breathed my thoughts forth instead of suffering them to lie in stagnature. My breath was the current wherein they ran. By its action and gentle agitation it set my whole mental frame in movement. I despatched every sentence in a breath, -sentence I mean in its strict literal sense of an unspoken sentiment, -and then, ingeminans ictus, a second idea having flowed into the interval of vacuity, I applied myself to it in the same way, and so proceeded through the series. This I am confident is no more than what must necessarily be practised by every good thinker and orator, ay, and even reader" (p. 210). "Accordingly, I threw this soul into the body of my reading; I read-and this is what I would counsel others to do, if they would read to any purpose, I mean in the way of study and for service of the intellect I read intently, beginning

every sentence smartly, and finishing it in a breath; remitting my stress upon it gradually towards the end; then collecting myself for the next by a new effort, an effort of the breath only, and not of the voice necessarily, and so on, proceeding through the book" (p. 167). "It is established that we can think only in words; they are our necessary instrument for the purpose. I believe it to be equally clear that we can employ words in the way of thinking only by the agency of our breath; my experience assures me that it is so, and that it cannot be otherwise; but this is more than I need assume; it is sufficient to state that as we use words for the purpose of talking, that is, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred where we use them at all, by expiration, with our breath, it would, therefore, be difficult, from the known laws of association, to use them for any other purpose, for instance, that of thought, except in that same conjunction; where we are in the common continual habit of using two things together, we can hardly use either separately, even when only one is necessary to the service" (p. 212).

Judging from correspondence and analogy, a New Churchman would readily receive the idea of the inspiration of thought being synchronous with the indrawing of the breath. Do not the two last extracts, however, in which Mr. Lofft defines his method, show his idea to be that the inspiration of thought, or as he calls it, the use of words for the purposes of thought, comes with the expiration of breath-not its inspiration? If I read him rightly, then, his theory and practice-a practice to which he ascribes, in no small degree, his mental advancement-would appear to be the converse of the theory given as his by the author of the article. I certainly read Mr. Lofft so at first, and put into practice his recommendation of reading each sentence in a breath (expiration), and "collecting myself for the next by a new effort" (inspiration); but, perhaps through want of perseverance, I derived no benefit from it.

Whatever may have been Mr. Lofft's actual view and experience, however, we are indebted to his work for having suggested a very valuable paper to the author of the "Tremadoc Sermons." "Self-formation" cannot indeed be praised too highly. To all that acute selfanalysis, self-insight, and wealth of interesting biographical detail, so attractive in Rousseau, he adds this, that he carries with him in every chapter the touchstone of use, and tries everything by it; and it need scarcely be added, he is entirely free from Rousseau's sensuality and morbidity. To crown a work full of original and suggestive thought,