him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the house of the Lord God of Israel, (He is the God,) which is in Jerusalem" (i. 2, 3). From this and more ample statements in other parts of the Scriptures it has been inferred that Cyrus acknowledged Jehovah as the true God; while the testimony of profane history so far corroborates this opinion as to make him a great Monotheist, in whose conquest of Babylon the knell of Polytheism sounded throughout the world. The recent discovery of a document in the ruins of Babylon sheds a new and less favourable light on this subject. A broken clay cylinder, found in one of the ruins, arrived in England in the course of last autumn, on which had been written, in the cuneiform character, a proclamation of Cyrus. The cylinder is imperfect, but what remains of the inscription has been translated. It is of considerable length, but we only quote the sentences which throw light on the religious character or policy of Cyrus. "The ancient royal family of which Bel and Nebo had sustained the rule in the goodness of their hearts faded away when I entered victoriously into Dintir. With joy and gladness in the royal palace I established my seat of sovereignty. Merodach, the great lord, and the ancient guardian of the sons of Dintir, and

To the work of repairing the shrines of Merodach, the great lord, I addressed myself. To me (Cyrus the king), and to Cambyses, my son, the offspring of my heart, and to my faithful army, [the God] auspiciously granted His favour, so that we succeeded in restoring the shrine to its former perfect state. The gods who dwelt among them to their places I restored, and I assigned them a permanent habitation. All their people I assembled, and I increased their property; and the gods of Sumir and Akkad, whom Nabonidus had introduced at the festivals (or processions) of the Lord, I assigned them an honourable seat in their sanctuaries, as was enjoyed by all the other gods in their own cities. And daily I prayed to Bel and Nebo, that they would lengthen my days and increase my good fortune, and would repeat to Merodach, my Lord, that Thy worshipper, Cyrus the king, and his son Cambyses. It is the opinion of Canon Rawlinson, from whose article in the Contemporary we quote, that Cyrus can no longer sustain the character which has been given him of a Monotheist and an Iconoclast; since he not only set up the gods of the Babylonians, and repaired the shrine of Merodach, but himself daily prayed to Bel and Nebo. Those who desire to see the question discussed at length, and the testimony of the recently discovered proclamation compared, and endeavoured to be reconciled with what is predicted and recorded of him in the Bible, can refer to the article itself. The case, we think, strengthens the New Church view respecting those who were types of the Lord Jesus, that they needed not to be personally but only functionally suitable for the purpose.

We have received the December number of Arthur's (American) Home Magazine. It is said to be one of the most attractive issues of the year, but the January number is promised to be exceptionally rich

in every department. It is, besides, to be enlarged and reduced in price. The staple matter consists of stories, mostly by female writers. There is a short sketch of Peter the Great, with portrait, and a description of the Turkish town of Sivas with illustration. An article on Kent, the garden of England, being No. 6 of Our Travelling Club, gives a very interesting description of its natural beauties, its cultivated fields, and hop-gardens. "The ridges are covered with dark Scotch firs and close thickets of spruce, and every rock has its thickly-grown copse. Every seven years there is a cutting of wattles, hurdles, and hop-poles. The next year 'a flush of primroses covers the ground,' and the banks of wild flowers, the dainty bluebells, and the windswept anemones and wild daffodils make an English spring in Kent so beautiful, that even its remembrance is 'a joy for ever.' The great beeches, purple in the shadows of twilight, and golden-bronze in an autumn noonday, grow to magnificent size here, as do also the elms, while the oaks stretch their huge branches far across the hedgerows, throwing broad shadows over green pastures and sloping hillsides.” Besides the stories and sketches there is a variety of other matter: Boys' and Girls' Treasury; Evenings with the Poets; Housekeepers' Department; Fashion Department, with a profusion of illustrations, etc. There is one item that will afford a few crumbs of comfort to "the angel of the house" in our native homes, whose gentle spirit is sometimes vexed by the same cause. It is entitled "The Servant Question." Great annoyance and discomfort in American families are caused by the incompetence and bad discipline of servant-girls. These have driven some of the prominent housekeepers of Chicago to attempt some reform. Among the reforms contemplated are-service to be paid according to efficiency and skill; payment by the month instead of the week, and each party to give the other at least a week's warning in case of a desired change; the vicious and dangerous practice to be put down of furnishing servants with night-keys, and the maids to be housed and in bed at reasonable hours. One other item of a different and more pleasing kind we quote. Mrs. Lydia Maria Child (author of the "Mother's Book" and other works) lives in a quiet home in Wayland, Massachusetts. The house is an old one of only a story and a half, and of Quaker simplicity. She is now in her seventy-eighth year. The Home Magazine can be ordered through Mr. Speirs.

Gleanings.

Is not money what we make it? Dust in the miser's chests; canker in the proud man's heart; but golden sunbeams, streams of blessing earned by a child's labour, and comforting a parent's heart, or lovingly passed from the rich man's hands into the poor man's homes.

MRS. CHARLES.

ETHICS.

Miscellaneous.

(destruction of the weakest.' This struggle may be traced in the evolution Under the title of the "Data of of conduct up the scale of increasingly Ethics" Mr. Herbert Spencer has pub- complex organism, with evidence of lished a treatise, which may be regarded steadily increasing violence on the one as the crowning effort of a long preli- hand and laceration on the other. minary course of labour. The appear- Growing strength, with more powerful ance of the work has been hastened by weapons of offence, may present evoluthe author's fear that, through failing tion of conduct, appearing at length in health, the final work of the series on fiercest encounters. But such evolution which he has been so long engaged is not in the direction of morality, nor might remain unexecuted. Professor is it any help towards the evolution of Calderwood has made this work the thought bearing on higher conduct. subject of a critique in the pages of the Nothing can conceal-or even Contemporary Review, dwelling at the rially obscure-the vastness of the consame time on the general question of trast involved when we pass from such moral conduct.

The philosophy of existence maintained by Mr. Spencer is that of evolution from lower to higher forms. This doctrine he seeks to carry from the physical creation and sociological arrangements to the region of moral conduct. This is the goal of his philosophical inquiries and literary labours; and "either," says Professor Calderwood, "the ethical theory must be a manifest outgrowth of the evolution theory-a crowning feature in it-or that theory itself must be abandoned as insufficient to meet the difficulties connected with the higher order of activity. Accordingly Herbert Spencer defines ethics in the following terms: 'Ethics has for its subject-matter that form which universal conduct assumes during the last stages of its evolution.""

mate

conflict to actions which come within the ethical region. We are introduced into a new sphere; as Mr. Spencer has said, it is introduction 'by antithesis.' But antithesis is not to be found in evolution of structure and function and action. The evolution which leads to increased power of attack does not at the same time lead to restraint upon the disposition to be violent. It cannot warrantably be said that 'this imperfectly evolved conduct introduces us to conduct that is perfectly evolved.'

Morals, according to Swedenborg, are either natural or spiritual. The natural man, from merely natural motives, can do good and find pleasure in it. Interiorly in this good is the love of himself and the hope of his own selfish or worldly advantage. The spiritual man does good, which is similar in external The relation of morals to religion is appearance, but different in interior so intimate and vital that nothing which quality, because proceeding from difaffects moral conduct can be matter of ferent motives and aiming at higher indifference to the religious student. ends. The motives of the spiritual man Religion itself has been defined as have regard to the good of others, and 'spiritual morality;" and every effort his delight is to fulfil the royal law of to shed light on the data of ethics must love by ministering to the wellbeing of of necessity have a special interest for his fellow-creatures. His aim, therethe religious inquirer. The theory pro- fore, is not personal happiness, although posed by Mr. Spencer does not solve the this also is a common result of right problem. "The struggle for exist- conduct. His aim is to do good to ence' the well-known auxiliary of the others because it is agreeable to the will evolutionist-proves a source of great of God, and therefore in itself intrinsi perplexity, as he seeks to become a cally right. This discrimination is remoralist, vindicating an evolution cognised by Professor Calderwood, theory as adequate to explain ethical though not in the form in which it is actions. The struggle for existence here stated. Mr. Spencer, in dealing has as its consequent survival of the with the upholders of an absolute fittest," and that as its concomitant morality, says: "The moralist who

thinks this conduct intrinsically good, hearts of men the old moral basis of and that intrinsically bad, if pushed national and individual life. New home has no choice but to fall back on doctrines were abroad which did not their pleasure-giving and pain-giving seem to be coined in the interests of effects. To prove this it needs but to morality. Take the new political observe how impossible it would be to doctrine, for instance, accepted in high think of them as we do if their effects places, that a nation had no morality; were reversed. Suppose that gashes was that compatible with high national and bruises caused agreeable sensations, aims? Read Mr. Herbert Spencer on and brought in their train increased what were called the morals of trade, power of doing work and receiving en- and see what it came to. Trade had no joyment, should we regard assault in morality; it was simply to buy in the the same manner as at present?" cheapest and sell in the dearest 'When," says Professor Calderwood, markets, and everything would be regu"murder turns out to be something else lated by the simple law of supply than killing, and falsehood something and demand. Most people were beelse than deception, we shall have to ginning to feel that the controversy of adjust our vocabulary to the unexpected the age was going to be a battle of first change; but we shall not thereby show principles, and those first principles that pleasure-giving or pain-giving effects were as stern in their alternity as that alone decide moral distinctions, and it contest of old between Elijah and the will remain true as at present that in- prophets of Baal, and ten thousand fliction of injury and deception of others times more fatal than that of Athanasius are actions intrinsically wrong, whether against the world. Yet most of us went the pain consequent upon them be great dreaming along with our heads and or small. We admit that the two hearts full of our petty plans and sordid actions described under the names aims, laying out our lines of business or 'murder' and 'deceit' could not be in our pleasure, according to the paramount terpreted without reference to their con- attractions of each of us, for to-day, or sequences, for both are actions done to to-morrow, or the day after, never others. Nevertheless the measure of pausing or caring to think whither the consequences is not the measure of things are drifting, or whither we ourour thoughts. It is this fact which Mr. selves are being borne. He was perfectly Spencer has not faced, and which is sick of the aimless remedies which were essential to the discussion. So far is suggested almost on every hand by an our mode of thinking from being deter- optimistical fatalism for the purpose of mined by the consequences that follow, alleviating national disasters and althat two men might lose their lives by most national ruin. Things must get the hands of two of their fellows in right, people said. Why must they? exactly the same manner, and we should Things had no tendency of themselves call the one a case of murder, and the to get right. We were placed in the other a case of accidental death. Thus world for the purpose of putting things it appears that we think as we do, not right if they got wrong, and of keeping merely by reference to consequences, them right after they had got right. but also to the intention of the agent He admired the protest with which the and a rational law of self-direction. Manchester Chamber of Commerce had sprung forward to the rescue and said, There was no fraud in selling sized cloth.' Who ever said there was? If a buyer of sized cloth knew that it was sized, and bought it as such, the Manchester Chamber of Commerce was perfectly right. If there was a demand for sized The Bishop of Manchester, who is dis- goods let the world have them. There tinguished for his broad and catholic could be no fraud between the Lancateaching respecting the Christian life, shire producer and the Bombay merin a sermon at Eccles, near Manchester, chant. But was there no fraud between from the text Matt. iii. 1, said: "We the Lancashire producer and those long need to-day some such voice as that of series of transactions which conveyed John the Baptist to re-vindicate in the that piece of sized cloth from the Man

To ignore this is merely to shut our eyes to facts and attempt explanations while looking only at a part of the thing to be explained.'

PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY.

NEW ZEALAND.

The Rev. S. Edger continues his labours in this colony, and the members of his congregation continue the insertion of his discourses in the Auckland Evening Star, for which they seem to pay as for advertisements. In this manner the press as well as the voice are employed in the dissemination of the truth. The discourses published are headed "E. Swedenborg on" the several subjects discussed. There is no concealment, therefore, of the author's name. The lecture given on Sunday evening, August 10th, is on "The Lord Jesus Christ, the Divine Redeemer." Mr. Edger opens his discourse by the statement: "There are three theories possible to be held; with what degree of consistency we have now to consider: there is the humanitarian or man theory, the Divine or God theory, and the intermediate theory, which regards Christ neither as man nor God, but as an intermediate being, the highest of all created beings, or the first emanation from the Supreme."

chester warehouses to the homes of the the Lord Jesus Christ came to redeem poor? The two pieces lying upon the the world from all iniquity, to teach counter could be discriminated, but them and him that they were, if they when the poor cultivator of the soil were to be His peculiar people, to be made his purchase he had not the two zealous of good works, to live soberly, pieces before him. Some reels of cot- godly, and righteously in this present ton had marks on them representing world, then he ventured to say that that they contained 250 yards, but that every word he had spoken to them had was a mere conventional phrase between been of the very essence of Christianity, manufacturer and tradesman, and they that all those things had to do with were never supposed to contain more Christ's Gospel, and that Christ's Gosthan 175 yards. But the poor seam- pel had to do with every one of those stress had a right to say, 'A fraud has things." been committed upon me,' if the cotton did not measure 250 yards. There was no use in disguising these things. When things got into a wrong groove, and when radically unsound principles were recognised as bases of action, either in politics or trade, or when the tone of society became palpably deteriorated, less high-minded, more selfish, less pure, then things did not right themselves. Their tendency, if left to themselves, was to go from bad to worse. . . . They that could not discern the signs of the times, though they were so plain that even a little child might read them, slept on as the careless virgins with their untrimmed lamps slept on in the fool's paradise in which they delighted to dwell, which supplied the pleasant but delusive images of their dreams. But let them take heed, for sometimes disasters came at once, in the twinkling of an eye, in a moment, as the disaster came upon Babylon in the days of old. Let them take heed lest, in the midst of their security, some such catastrophe befell them as that which, in the midst of the fury and wildness of the storm, plunged that illfated mail train, last Sunday evening, while they were in their churches, saying or professing to say their prayers, into the depths of the pitiless sea. What has all this to do with Christianity?' perhaps some of them would have been saying in their minds while "To Swedenborg evil as sin, involving he had been preaching. If they ruin, is of stupendous magnitude. thought Christianity was merely a bun- know of no one who has said so much dle of formulated, theological dogmas, to drag men out of all moral indifference. of which they were to believe as many Here again all is real. Sin is a positive, as they could, but which were to have deadly plague of the soul-not a fanciful no conceivable relation to human life imputation; hell is a deep reality—only and human conduct, then he admitted men cast themselves, God does not cast that not one single word that he had them, into it. In like manner desaid that morning had anything to do liverance from it is real-not another with that type of Christianity; but, on fanciful imputation. Sin is subdued the other hand, if they believed that by a greater power, cast clean out of a

After discussing these theories, and presenting a clear exposition of the Deity of the Saviour, Mr. Edger proceeds to the subject of redemption. We give his remarks on the necessity of redemption :