loved minister to Cannon Street, and of the New Church Society in Salford, finally to Hockley. He has had ten under whose influence he was led to read children, four of whom survive him, and are affectionate receivers of the New Church verities. He was for many years chosen one of the Guardians of the Poor for Birmingham. As a husband, a father, a master, and a friend, he was exceedingly beloved and greatly esteemed by all who knew him. His religion, indeed, was one of life rather than profession, of reality rather than appearance, of usefulness rather than display. And though his severe bodily indisposition prevented him for some time from taking an active part in the external duties of the Society, yet he felt an increasing interest in all that related to the progress and success of the New Jerusalem. the writings of Swedenborg, and other New Church literature, and to go and listen to the preaching and lecturing of the Rev. David Howarth. The result was that he fully embraced the New Church doctrines, and became a zealous and most active member of the Salford Society. He has been a member of the Church Committee for eighteen years, a member of the Day-School Commitee for sixteen years, and treasurer of the DaySchool for six years. He was also indefatigable as churchwarden, ably discharging the duties of the office for about fourteen years. For four years he had likewise been a member of the Board of Guardians for the Salford Union, and all On the 20th of July, at Kearsley, in the offices enumerated he held up to the the eighty-sixth year of her age, was time of his death. His loss will be long removed into the spiritual world, Jane, and keenly felt, both by his family and a the relict of the late Ralph Entwistle. wide circle of friends. He was an affecShe was for many years a member of the tionate husband, a devoted father, and a Kearsley Society, and with her husband faithful friend. He was generous and attended its services. For several years kind-hearted, and the sick and distressed past, however, increasing age and in- were always sure to secure his sympathy firmities prevented her from attending and help. He was ardently attached to public worship. She was, nevertheless, the Church, and most liberally contributed fully attached to the doctrines. The to its funds. He was most regular in his cause of her decease was the natural decay of a frame worn out with age, and for a few weeks she was confined to her bed. Her state was tranquil and submissive, no murmuring or repining escaped her lips. Resigned to her state, she waited patiently for her summons that should release her from earth, preparatory to her rejoining him who had gone before. Mr. Peter Warburton Lowe, of The Crescent, Salford, passed into the spiritual world, August 1st, in the sixty-first year of his age. He was a native of Rainott, near Macclesfield, in Cheshire, and received his education in a school kept by his mother in his native village. In early manhood he came to Manchester, where he struggled hard for many years for the position he at last gained in this busy metropolis of the cotton industry. In 1850 he became a resident of the borough of Salford, where he made the acquaintance of a Mr. Brooks, a member attendance at worship, and his cheerfulness and geniality of mind gave a charm to the social meetings of the Society. And now the place where he has shewn forth these qualities is a place that will know him no more, for he has been translated to the spiritual world, where, after the processes of judgment have been gone through, his qualities will shine forth with greater glory and excellence in the abodes of just men made perfect. At Rhodes, near Manchester, August 15th, in the eighty-first year of her age, Mrs Helen Storry, relict of Mr. Christopher Storry, of Rhodes, and formerly of Pickering, in Yorkshire. The deceased was distinguished through life by the gentleness of her disposition, her patient industry, and her constant readiness to minister acts of kindness and usefulness to others. She had been from early life a cordial receiver of the doctrines of the New Church, which she adorned in her life and character. CONFIRMATIONS OF NEW CHURCH TEACHING.1 THERE is a remarkable statement by Swedenborg in A. C. 286, that the first, second and third chapters of Genesis, in the spiritual sense, treat of "the most ancient people, and of their regeneration; primarily, of those who had lived like wild beasts, but at length became spiritual men; then of those who became celestial men and constituted the Most Ancient Church; afterwards of those who fell away, and their descendants." This declaration, made more than a century ago, seemed startling to those who had implicitly taken the account of Adam and Eve as the divine literal history of the first man and woman. Geology had not then made its disclosures, and there was nothing repugnant to known science, in the belief that the universe was created in a week, and was about six thousand years old. Swedenborg's assertion would not unnaturally appear unauthorized, and opposed to the teachings of truth, and probably has been to many a reader a very difficult statement to accept. But, at the present day, the disclosures of scientific research are so marked and so complete as to leave no doubt in the minds of those acquainted with the facts, that man has existed on this earth A MILLION OF YEARS AT LEAST, and that Swedenborg's teaching in this respect is completely verified. The book whose title I have given at the foot of this page is an extremely interesting compendium of the present teachings of science upon the subject of the antiquity of the human race, and the facts and 1 "Ancient Stone Implements of Great Britain." Evans. Pp. 640. 'details in relation to it, are illustrated by an immense number of engravings of stone implements. The stone objects of human manufacture give evidence of a rude race, existing through an enormous duration of time. We propose to give our readers some conception of this work, and of the present state of research on the important subject to which it relates. Before proceeding, however, we would remark, that fera, the word rendered in 286 A. C. wild beasts, does not imply furious savage animals, such as Swedenborg would call EVIL BEASTS, but only wild in opposition to domesticated. Rabbits, deer, chamois and hares are feræ naturæ. Wild or undomesticated animals would better express what Swedenborg means, for men such as he is describing were not evil, but innocent and uncultivated. That the ferce which corresponded to them were good and gentle animals, will be evident to every one who will refer to A. C. 45, 46, 143, 246, 908, 916. The Pre-Adamites, who subsequently were formed into the Adamic Church, are described by Swedenborg in the Diary as not evil, but as being men with little development of life. Their externals were in perfect harmony with their internals, but their internals were weak. (Diary 3390.) They formed the babyhood of the human race; and out of them, slowly, during very long periods of time, through the stages of spiritual, and then of celestial life, the Most Ancient Church was formed. When Geology had proceeded beyond the crude condition in which its dislocated strata were taken for granted to be evidence of enormous convulsions, cataclysms, and violent disturbances of the most tremendous character, and a better acquaintance with the phenomena shewed that nature worked in former times as she works now, by slow and gradual, almost imperceptible changes, the thought would often come, Did mankind also live in those times? What had been accepted as the evidence of vast and sudden convulsions only appeared so, because we looked upon the results of myriads of ages, the upheavals or depressions which had operated during millions of years. During those vast periods the remains of animal life were stored up in stratum after stratum from the simplest forms to the most elaborate, from the most uncouth-looking monsters to the fossil remains of animals precisely similar to those which people the seas, the land, and the air of to-day. The question again recurs, Since the rocks are so filled with animal remains, are there no similar records of men? Various reasons have been suggested why we might not find the remains of men although they might have lived in very remote times. The human race in those distant ages might be comparatively few. The bodies of men were burnt in ancient times; and, if not burnt, they were so cared for, that they would be placed in situations unfavourable to their preservation. Yet, there was a feeling still realized in many minds, that we ought to expect evidences of the existence of man in the early world, and at length discoveries began to be made which lent strong confirmation to that conjecture. Discoveries have been made of fossil skeletons, or parts of the human form in situations indicating great age; but these are as yet few in number, and being so very exceptional, there is not the convincing character about them which the subject demands. Another class of evidences, however, has become very numerous. Stone implements have been found in every part of the known world; celts, instruments so called from their chisel-like form, knives, hammers, spear-heads, arrow-heads, many perforated and otherwise varied balls for crushing grain, and various other articles, all of stone, chiefly flint, but occasionally of other stone, of at least a dozen different kinds. Similar instruments continue to the present day, fastened to handles, in very rude and savage tribes. These stone implements are found all over the world, in mounds, in barrows (ancient graves), in the very ancient Swiss lake-dwellings, and in other situations, which indicated a period when as yet there was no metal in use, neither bronze prepared from copper, nor iron; a period which closed, in the countries, where afterwards civilized nations were formed, Greece, Rome, Carthage, Gaul, Britain, Denmark, about 500 years before Christ. Stone knives were in use in the times of Moses and Joshua, for in Exodus iv. 25, Josh. v. 2, what are called sharp knives are in the original knives of flint, as we may see from Swedenborg, A. C. 7044. Such is the abundance of these ancient implements now found, so distant the localities in which they have been detected, and such the varied circumstances with which they have been associated when discovered, that the learned in archæology have denominated the period in which they were in common use THE STONE PERIOD. They believe it continued a very long time, probably some THOUSANDS OF YEARS. At the present time, this period is called the NEOLITHIC, or NEW STONE PERIOD. But long as this New Stone Period carries us back beyond the period of history, and hence it is also denominated the Prehistoric time, there have been discoveries which have demonstrated the human race to have existed in ages far more remote than the Neolithic Period. It has long been known, that there was a time very remote in which a climate much warmer than that which now prevails in Great Britain continued there for a long period. Mammoths, elephants, lions, tigers, bears, hyænas, and numerous other creatures, different in some respects from those of the present day, have been found in a fossil state, in large numbers, and in such situations as to shew they lived and died here. This country was then joined to the continent of Europe; the English Channel had not been formed. Similar animals, similar plants, and similar fossils are found in France, Belgium, and Great Britain, and the chalk strata are so much alike on both sides as to leave no doubt that the countries were formerly joined, but it was a very long time ago. From a great variety of considerations, and from abundant research, it has been concluded that the great fossil monsters, whose remains are shewn in the British and other museums, must have been buried at least a MILLION OF YEARS AGO. They were formerly thought to have existed, and had the world to themselves long before man lived; and it seemed until a few years ago that man's age on the earth began long after these fossil animals had perished. But fifty years ago Dr. Buckland, subsequently Dean of Westminster, undertook some researches into caves in this country, and some others, which were situated far above the reach of water in ordinary circumstances, some 100 feet, others 150 feet above, and in which there were animal remains to be seen. He concluded there were evidences of an extensive if not UNIVERSAL DELUGE. After a time, and on greater research and more mature consideration, he altogether renounced this opinion. One of the caverns to which he directed attention was Kent's Hole, Torquay; another was Brixham Cave, in the same neighbourhood. In Kent's Cavern there was found a first floor consisting of fallen pieces of rock cemented together by dripping lime, hardened into what is called stalagmite, but beneath that floor a black mould, from 3 to 12 inches in thickness, itself probably the result of animal remains. This mould contained hundreds of man-made stone objects, with animal and human bones, and pottery of very ancient character, belonging to Roman and pre-Roman times. In 1846, a committee was appointed by the Torquay Natural History Society to explore Kent's Cavern more fully, and it was found that beneath the black mould there was another floor of stalagmite, from 1 to 3 feet thick, formed by still more ancient dripping, and on breaking this up, there was dis |