Marriages. On Friday, the 8th of November, 1844, at the New Jerusalem Church, Birmingham, by the Rev. Edward Madeley, Mr. George Carter Haseler, to Miss Juliana Emma Johnstone. On the 8th of January, 1845, at the New Jerusalem Temple, Salford, by the Rev. D. Howarth, Mr. John Holt, of Hulme, to Sarah, youngest daughter of the Rev. James Bradley, of Ardwick Cemetery, Manchester. Obituary. DIED, at Colchester, on the 8th day of July last, of consumption, Mrs. Harriett Gentry, relict of Mr. John Gentry, a notice of whose obituary is recorded in the pages of this Magazine for Sept. 1842. Mrs. Gentry, from early life, received a religious education in accordance with the Catechism and Creed of the Established Church, to the worship and discipline of which she was warmly attached up to the period that the heavenly doctrines of the New Dispensation-which were presented to her notice by her late affectionate husband-began to arrest her serious thoughts and attention, and in which she was very soon after enabled to discover superior excellences and beauties, and to derive therefrom much pleasure and satisfaction for the succeeding days of her life,-administering consolation and support to her mind in the hours of trial and affliction, and the prospect of her speedy dissolution. During her illness several attempts were made by some of her acquaintance to weaken, and if possible to erase, the impressions which the sublime verities of the New Jerusalem had made upon her mind, but without effect, for these attempts were all futile and vain: she zealously defending themagainst their assaults to the utmost of her ability, and as long as her weak state of body would permit, declaring that she never knew what true religion was until made acquainted therewith through the medium of those doctrines. The affliction which terminated her earthly existence was long and painful, but which she was anxiously desirous of bearing with a calm and perfect resignation to the divine will of the Lord, under a full conviction that in all His providential dispensations towards his rational offspring, He does all things well! By the removal of this lady into eternity, the society of the New Church, in Colchester, have lost a liberal subscriber towards the support of its external worship; several poor families in the neighbourhood a generous benefactor; and her surviving relatives and acquaintance a valuable and sympathizing friend. N. W. M. Colchester. On the 2nd of November, at Preston, in the 80th year of his age, Mr. Joseph Clare. He was one of the oldest and most affectionate receivers of the doctrines of the New Church in that town. He has been known to the writer for many years, who always saw him as a person of the strictest integrity, and of the most patient and placid deportment: evincing the superior efficacy of the doctrines of genuine Truth in subduing the asperities of fallen nature, and in raising the humble spirit into the region of heavenly beatitude and peace. The circumstance of public worship being instituted in agreement with his long-cherished ideas, was very gratifying to his feelings-to the support of which he contributed in a pecuniary way, and attended the services as often as convenient, and as long as he was able to ascend the flight of stairs which led to our place of meeting. The last time that he was at any of our services, was at the laying of the foundation stone of the New Temple that has been erected through the munificence of our very worthy friend Mr. Becconsall. He always expressed a hope that he might live to see it opened; but the weight of years and infirmities prevented his seeing the place afterwards. He, however, had the happiness to receive, by the hands of our respected minister, the Rev. Mr. Rendell, the Holy Supper, a few days previous to his death. His end was calm and peaceful. "He died in a good old age, and was gathered to his fathers." G. S. On the 23rd of January last, in his 30th year, William Oliver, fourth son of the Rev. James Bradley, of Ardwick Cemetery, Manchester. Cave and Sever, Printers, 18, St. Ann's-street, Manchester. THE great duty of singing hymns or psalms of praise and thanksgiving to the Lord is so clearly enforced in the Scriptures, that it would fill a volume to enumerate all the precepts in which it is enjoined. Numerous examples, too, as well as precepts, of the expediency of this duty, are continually proposed to our imitation in the Word of God. Thus Moses, we read, composed a holy psalm after the passage through the Red Sea, to thank God for this miraculous deliverance of his people. In like manner, Deborah and Barak sang a triumphant hymn to celebrate the praises of the Most High on the wonderful defeat of Sisera and his host. Hannah, too, the mother of Samuel, and Hezekiah, the king of Judah, returned thanks to God in solemn and spiritual songs, for the favours they had respectively received. Of the same nature, and for the same high purposes, were the songs pronounced by the Virgin Mary, by Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist, and by the devout Simeon, when he was permitted to see, and to receive into his arms the infant Messiah. The Great Redeemer, too, in the days of his flesh, we read, was accustomed to join in spiritual songs with his disciples, for it is written, that when they had sung a hymn, they went out into the Mount of Olives. (Matt. xxvi. 30.) I will now endeavour to point out some of the principal benefits resulting from the discharge of this duty. The tendency of singing in public worship is to elevate and strengthen, in the human mind, the principle of holy and heavenly joy. We find, from experience, that singing in general is attended with joy and delight, insomuch that people of every description, whether religious or irreligious, whether natural or spiritual, whether living merely for this world or for the world to come, never fail to resort to N. S. NO. 64.-VOL VI. P the practice of this recreating exercise, in order to heighten the relish of their several gratifications. Hence we may account for the numberless exhortations to religious singing, which occur so perpetually in the volume of Revealed Wisdom; for the all-merciful Author of that volume doubtless intended his creature man to be the subject of the purest and most elevated joy. But the same Eternal and Infinite Being must of course foresee, that such a joy could never possibly become the portion of those creatures for whom it was intended, until it was exalted to, and connected with, the divine source of all bliss; that is to say, with Himself. For every merely human and worldly joy, (by which I would be understood to mean, every joy separated from God and His angelic kingdom,) we learn from experience, is neither pure nor elevated; consequently, so far from promoting the true happiness and consolation of man, it frequently tends only to plunge him into a deeper misery, by widening the distance between him and his Creator. Behold here, then, the solid ground and wisdom of all those heavenborn precepts in the Word which call us to sing unto the Lord a new song! The Lord hereby intended to elevate our joys to His, and thus, by connecting them with Himself, to put us in possession of an immensity and eternity of bliss. He meant to point out to us a source of happiness as durable as it is complete, and to conjoin our minds with that source by an everlasting bond of obligation and thanksgiving. Our gratifications were thus to be exalted above the fluctuations of time and sense; and, advancing to communication with a principle of delight ever new, ever permanent, ever encreasing in purity, in sanctity, and in fulness, were to convince us that God alone is the fountain of unmixed joy, and that if our joys are of a contrary description, it is because we have never yet rightly obeyed the divine precept, by singing unto the Lord a new song. The singing of holy songs, however, is not only beneficial in conducting us to a solid principle of heavenly joy, and fixing us in that principle; but it is beneficial also in its tendency to cherish and confirm all other virtuous principles and energies whatsoever. This follows as a necessary consequence from the effect of singing in general, which, it is well known, is especially conducive to cherish and strengthen the principle from which it proceeds, whether that principle be good or evil, virtuous or vicious. Thus the profane and irreligious, the sensual and worldly-minded, the trifling and the vain, by the temper and character of their respective songs, give a stronger impulse to the bent of their respective dispositions; and, by a sad perversion of the powers of that harmony which was intended to be the minister and supporter of the graces of heaven, afford a melancholy proof, that vice never becomes so formidable as when it prostitutes the means of virtue, and thus renders them subservient to its own guilty and mischievous purposes, by encreasing their energy and extending their operation. But shall we say that singing is favourable only to the corrupt affections of the human heart, and that it denies its aid to pure and virtuous principles ? Shall we conclude that the lover of this world, by his song of folly, can confirm himself in his polluted love, whilst the lover of God, by his song of wisdom, acquires no confirmation of his righteous and elevated love? Surely this is to contradict the experience of all ages; and what is still more unreasonable, it is to oppose, in the most direct manner, the gracious designs of the Almighty in ordaining the practice of singing in his Church and amongst his children. For let us ask, what is this kind of song which the Lord recommends, and what are its probable consequences? It is surely not the tone and modulation of a voice only, neither is it any artificial skill in using it, nor yet any sacred form of expressions which may be adopted, that can properly constitute a holy song. For if the voice and its expressions be not animated by holy thought and holy affection, so far from constituting a holy song, which is acceptable to the Divine Being, they become, in such case, a most unholy abuse of all the powers of harmony, and thus tend rather to provoke than to gratify the Supreme Object of all praise. A holy song unto the Lord, then, is nothing else but the vocal expression of holy thoughts and affections. Now as every song tends to strengthen the principles in which it originates, so a holy song must also needs tend to cherish, to enlarge and confirm the principles of renewed life in which it originates, and thus to establish more fully the influence and dominion of those new and holy affections and thoughts from the Lord, which are at once the source and the soul of its tone and modulation. Let us not suppose, then, that in singing holy songs, the effect of the duty ceases with its performance, and that its consequences terminate with the tone of our voices. No; this is to deny to a song of divine praise the property which we ascribe to every other song, viz., the property of fixing and extending the principle in which it originates. Let us therefore rather believe that the Lord, in calling us to sing praises unto His holy name, intended thus to strengthen in us all holy principles of faith and love; that He meant our song to purify our hearts, to give greater energy and extent to our good affections and thoughts, to fix us more firmly in the grateful acknowledgement of our infinite obligations to His mercy and providence. Let us believe, I say, that when our song is ended, its beneficial consequences remain with us; and though we no longer hear the outward voice of harmony, and are no longer recreated with the external sound of grateful thanksgiving, yet their blessed effects are grafted for ever in our hearts and lives, encreasing perpetually the sweet tone of internal humility and thankfulness, and thus purging us perpetually from our natural corruptions, by rendering us more just, more holy, more humble, more charitable, and more abounding in every good thought, word, and work. But the benefits to be derived from the duty of singing spiritual songs will appear yet more manifest, if we proceed to consider the tendency of that duty, when rightly performed, to introduce the devout mind to a blessed consociation with the holy angels in heaven, and to conjunction with the Lord of heaven. Nothing can be more plain and certain, from the testimony of divine revelation, than that the holy angels are occasionally employed in singing spiritual songs to the praise and glory of the Lord. For thus it is written,—“I looked, and lo, a Lamb stood on the Mount Sion, and with Him a hundred forty and four thousand; and I heard a voice from heaven as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder; and I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps; and they sung as it were a new song before the throne, and before the four beasts, and the elders." And again,-" After these things I heard a great voice of much people in heaven, saying, Alleluia, salvation, and glory, and honour, and power unto the Lord our God." To the same purpose it is written in the book of psalms, "Praise ye Him all his angels; praise ye Him all his hosts." Nothing, therefore, can be more plain and certain, from the same divine testimony, than that holy and devout men here on earth, whensoever they lift up their voices to chaunt the glory and praise of their Creator and Redeemer in songs of thanksgiving, associate themselves with the heavenly host, and enter into a living and eternal communion and fellowship with them and their God, of blessing, of peace, of security, and of protection. For it deserves well to be considered, that our distance and dissociation from heaven and its inhabitants, is not so much a distance and dissociation of space and place, as of disposition, of inclination, of voluntary purpose, of spiritual joy, and of free operation. Whensoever, then, we become of the same mind with the holy angels, in consequence of being influenced by the same pure love, the same enlightened wisdom, and the same heavenly delights, from that moment we are elevated and |