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ing to be held on the second Thursday a remark, before another has fully of every month; reading, and conversation thereon, from half-past seven till nine, when that part of the proceedings will be closed by offering up the Lord's Prayer; after which, tea and coffee will be introduced, and the enjoyment of reciprocal conversations, or the communication of intelligence respecting the church, will continue till the close of the meeting at ten.

Members consist of both ladies and gentlemen, the member's annual ticket, transferable, being 5s. Visitors from the country to be admitted without charge. Other friends may be introduced by a member at any of the meetings, on the payment of sixpence,gentlemen members to act as chairman in rotation,-ministers of the two societies appointed to read on alternate evenings. Treatise on Heaven and Hell the first work to be read. The names of thirty-six persons have been entered as members.

closed. No well bred person ever does it. A well bred person will not even interrupt one who is in all respects his inferior. If you wish to judge the good breeding of a person with whom you are but little acquainted, observe him, or her, in this respect, and you will not be deceived. However intelligent, fluent, or easy one may appear, this practice proves the absence of true politeness. It is often amusing to see persons priding themselves on the gentility of their manners, and putting forth all their efforts to appear to advantage in many other respects, so readily betray all in this particular." CONTRIBUTOR.

APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED.

To the Editor.

Sir,-In the excellent remarks which you have appended to the communication of "T. O. P." in your last number, Yours truly, you have fallen into a slight error which R. GUNTON, Secretary. I trust you will allow me to correct.

January 17th, 1853.

INTERRUPTIONS IN CONVERSATION.

To the Editor.

Sir,-In meetings for business as well as social meetings, I have had occasion not unfrequently to lament the singular fact, that two persons speaking together, in their eagerness to be heard, are unaware that neither of them has a hearer; and that several speaking together at once are unaware that it is impossible that either should be heard, quite as impossible as that any one should be occupied in reading three books at the same moment. I lately saw the following remarks in print, and as I judge them worthy a place in your Repository I send them to you, believing that minor utilities not a little subserve the greater interests of true religion, and that practical matters, highly conducive to social comfort, are too apt to be passed by, merely because they are not esteemed as holding the highest place in religion or morals:

"Mark of ill-breeding.-There is no better test of ill-breeding than the practice of interrupting another in conversation by speaking, or commencing

It is stated that the Apocalypse Explained was published by the London Printing Society in 1812-15. The facts connected with the publication of this important work are as follows :—It was, as you state, translated by Mr. Hill, and the MS. revised by Mr. Clowes, but the first and second volumes were printed and published by Messrs. J. and E. Hodson in 1811-12.* The last four volumes were published by the London Printing Society in 1813-15;+ and the MS. of these volumes wss again subjected to revision, this latter revision forming one among many of the important labours which Mr. Noble gratuitously performed for the London Printing Society. In 1830, a second edition of the first volume was put to press by the Society, but was not completed till 1834; and in 1836, § they reprinted the second volume: both these volumes were then revised for the press.

Yours in the cause of truth,
ALFRED ESSEX.

London, 11th Jan., 1853.

* See the Reports of the London Printing Society for 1810, 1813, 1814, and 1821.

+ Reports of the Society for 1813, 1814, & 1815, Ibid for 1830 and 1834. Ibid for 1836.

Cave & Sever Printers, Palatine Buildings, Hunt's Bank, Manchester.

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TRACES OF THE INFLUENCE OF THE ANCIENT WORD IN MONGOL TARTARY AND THIBET.

[The following paper was written some months ago, but the writer's engagements prevented its completion. When in the October number of the Intellectual Repository he saw the announcement of an article on "Researches in Respect to the Ancient Word," he anticipated that as the author was resident at Paris, the French work he had taken as the basis of his remarks would have formed a feature in the promised article. On its appearance in the November number, he saw at once that his trifling labours might, in some measure, assist rather than interfere with the more learned researches of Dr. R., and he therefore proceeded to finish his paper as originally intended.]

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THE thoughtful reader of the theological works of Swedenborg cannot fail to be struck, and deeply interested, in the frequent mention made of a Word more ancient than that of our day, the existence of which is confirmed by the latter, since reference is made to it under the title of The Book of Jasher,"* "The Wars of Jehovah," as the historical portion, and "the Enunciators," "Speakers" or "Composers of Proverbs;" or, according to Swedenborg, (T. C. R. 265,) "Enunciators or Prophetical Ennunciations," as the prophetical portion. Nor is the interest lessened, but on the contrary largely increased, by the statements made by the illuminated author of the New Church

* 2 Samuel i. 17, 18; also Joshua x. 12.

N. S. NO. 159.-VOL. XIV.

+ Numbers xxi. 14.

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exposition of the Word as it is given to us, that the ancient Word still exists in Tartary.* (T. C. R. 279.†)

In the present state of the world, and the rapid progress mankind appear to be making towards the solution of many of those problems, both mental and physical, which have served to exercise the faith of the " simple in heart" who "see God" in all things, and to perplex the worldly minded so-called philosophers of a school now happily becoming daily more limited in its influence, it may not be without profit to investigate how far the remarkable statements made by Swedenborg, as to the existence of an ancient Word of God, is so far at least confirmed by modern discoveries in that region of the world in which he states it still exists; and amongst the people who may be supposed to be still, in some measure at least, under the influence of its teachings, either directly or traditionally. Not that we can expect, in this our day, to find such teachings or such traditions in that pure state which obtained amongst the most ancient people of the world, since the wide-spread influence and evil tendencies of mankind would of necessity affect the pure teachings of the primitive doctrines of the first Word, as it has done that of the Divine Revelations vouchsafed to the Jewish and Christian churches.

Our attention has been powerfully called to this subject by the perusal of the narrative of the travels of M. M. Huc and Gabet, two French Lazarite Monks in Tartary, Thibet, and China, and we think it will prove both interesting and useful to the New Church reader to endeavour to follow certain traces of the influence of a high state of spiritual teaching to be still found in those remote regions of the earth; as also certain remarkable identities between the purer forms of Buddhism and the teachings of Christianity. The less profitable parallelisms of the corruptions of primitive worship in Tartary and Thibet, and that of Rome, are left for the consideration of controversialists. These are, however, remarkable in an historical point of view, and as a proof that the substitution of man's authority for that of his Divine Teacher is ever attended by the same results, and that as externals progress beyond essential points, internals retrogress; and the intelligent reader of

* See Table of Contents, (page xxi.,) T. C. R.

+ Memorable Relation concerning the two Books mentioned by Moses, Numbers xxi. 14, 15, 27, 30, called the Wars of Jehovah, and the Enunciators; also of the Book of Jasher mentioned in Joshua, &c.

Travels in Tartary, Thibet, and China, during the years 1844-45-46, by M. Huc, translated from the French by W. Hazlitt. 2 vols.-National Illustrated Library.

M. Huc's narrative will be amply repaid by the singular coincidences, even as stated by the French Missionaries themselves, between the Lamanism of the East and the Romanism of the West.

The brief preface of the English translator (Mr. Hazlitt) to the work to the testimony of which attention is about to be directed, gives, in a few words, the origin of the remarkable mission, in the execution of which M. Huc has been happily spared to narrate the results. It states

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The Pope having, about the year 1844, been pleased to establish an Apostolic Vicariat of Mongolia, it was considered expedient, with a view to further operations, to ascertain the nature and extent of the diocese thus created, and M. M. Gabet and Huc, two Lazarists attached to the petty mission of Si-Wang, were accordingly deputed to collect the necessary information. They made their way through difficulties which nothing but religious enthusiasm, in combination with French elasticity, could have overcome, to Lha-Ssa, the capital of Thibet, and in this seat of Lamanism were becoming comfortably settled, with lively hopes and expectations of converting the Talé-Lama into a branch Pope, when the church minister, the noted Ke-Shen, interposed on political grounds, and had them deported to China. M. Gabet was directed by his superiors to proceed to France, and lay a complaint before his Government, of the arbitrary treatment which he and his fellow missionary had experienced."

The translator then alludes to certain matters connected with the preparation of the narrative by M. Huc, and states

"Thus it is that to papal aggression in the East, the Western World is indebted for a work exhibiting for the first time a complete representation of countries previously almost unknown to Europeans, and, indeed, considered practically inaccessible; and of a religion which, followed by no fewer than 170,000,000 persons, presents the most singular analogies in its leading features with the Catholicism of Rome."

The singular enthusiasm and utter abnegation of self displayed by these excellent Lazarists, was worthy of the cause, speaking in its widest sense, as applicable to the diffusion of Christian Truth, in which they were engaged; for we cannot bring ourselves to regard these labours in a mere sectarian point of view. Their narrative bears internal evidence of truthfulness and perfect sincerity; and however wonderful some of the statements put forth may appear, still we ought not to feel inclined to condemn and reject because such experiences are not our own. Their investigations appear to have been those of intelligent, and, apart from the peculiar characteristics of their own faith, by no means superstitious men. The statements of what they heard and saw are given without exaggeration or personal bias, apart from a somewhat strong feeling against the Chinese, which, however, their experience of

the thorough duplicity and external characteristics of that singular people would appear fully to justify.

The earnestness, zeal, and devotion of these two unaided men cannot be over-rated; for with the exception of a Tartar convert to their faith,— a species of eastern Sancho Panza, who accompanied them as camel driver, cook, ostler, and valet extraordinary,—they may be said to have accomplished this journey of many thousand miles, through countries to which no modern traveller appears ever to have penetrated, and under circumstances the more remarkable since they never appear to have concealed their object; but with the most perfect reliance at all times on that Divine Providence which the better portion of their faith taught them to look up to, they went forward on a work which they well knew was beset with innumerable difficulties, but over which their faith, their prudence, and absence from all offence, enabled them to triumph.

Setting out with the full determination to visit the seat of Lamanism, Lha-Ssa, or Lassa itself, and there teach the doctrines of the Christian faith as it had been given to them to understand it, their course lay through the very centre of Tartary, and they could not fail to see all that remained of that nomadic life in which the first inhabitants of the earth lived, and of which the early portions of the Divine Word give us such touching pictures in the lives of the patriarchs of Israel-Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The attachment of the Mongol Tartars to the nomadic life,—their constant wanderings in search of pasturage, and their pilgrimages to the shrines of Buddha in the lamasines or monasteries of the Buddhist priests, are especially striking in this respect; and M. Huc says (vol. i. p. 41.)—

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No danger, no expense, no privation, deters the Mongols from their prosecution. The Mongols are, indeed, an essentially religious people: with them the future life is everything; the things of this world nothing. They live in the world as though they were out of it; they cultivate no lands, they build no houses; they regard themselves as foreigners travelling through life, and this feeling, deep and universal, developes itself in the practical form of incessant journeyings."

Here, then, we have the external correspondence in the natural life of that conviction which, century after century, has continued to exist from the teachings and observances of that ancient time, the very existence of which mankind doubt, and too frequently deny. When to this is added the constant enunciation of the fact that the Tartars believe, and act upon the conviction that all men are brethren, that no hospitality is too great to show to the stranger, and that all the trouble they may take to serve him is no more than a duty, that duty being their highest pleasure, nothing can be conceived more confirmatory of a

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