tended naturally to their decrease. Their speciality was to preach the atonement made for sin by the blood of Jesus, and happiness in communion with Him. In the dark days, when they came over, this doctrine was far less commonly believed than now, and in proportion as it has been preached by Churchmen and Dissenters has there been a decline of Moravian influence. In reality, what they came here to do has been done by others who had learned how to do it from them. All Evangelical sects teach now what they teach, and even where they now break fresh ground it is found those whom they have influenced prefer to take part with churches of a more native origin or British character. As regards London the position of their chapel is very much against them. An out-of-the-way situation is as undesirable in a spiritual, as in a commercial point of view. In their church government they are Episcopalian, and meet at certain great occasions in synod. At one time they much favoured the lot, but now that is rarely used, and their marriages are not arranged by it as was formerly the case. A bishop is an elder appointed by the synod to ordain ministers of the church. The latter are sent to a congregation, but it exercises a veto. The congregation
is ruled by a committee chosen by the communicants. They claim not to be Dissenters; it was the opinion of Archbishop Potter they were not. They trace their pedigree from Zinzendorf to Huss, from Huss to the Greek monks, Theodorus and Cyril, who in the ninth century introduced Christianity into Moravia and Bohemia. But after all they chiefly glory in the fact of preaching, to use one of their own hymns—
“That whoe’er believeth in Christ’s redemption
May find free grace and a complete exemption
From serving sin.”
CHAPTER XIII.
the swedenborgians.
If the reader be told that there exists in this enlightened age a sect who believe that the day of judgment is passed, that it took place nearly a hundred years ago, that the Christian dispensation is at an end, that Emmanuel Swedenborg daily visited the spiritual world, and made acquaintance with its inhabitants, that he was directly appointed by God to describe to men the scenery of heaven and hell, and the world of spirits, and the lives of their inhabitants, and that through him the Lord Jesus Christ makes his second advent for the institution of a new Church described in the Apocalypse under the figure of the New Jerusalem, at once you exclaim, this is “one of the things no fellah can understand.” Nevertheless, such actually is the fact—nay more, it may be observed, that the number of Swedenborgians is on the increase; that they have a hundred chapels in England,
and a larger number in America, and that this sect, while it has excited the rude laugh of ignorant folly, has attracted to itself some of the greatest intellects of the day. Emerson claims for Swedenborg that he was a “colossal soul;” and Mr. Kingsley speaks of him, though not very correctly, as a “sound and severe and scientific labourer, to whom our modern physical science is most deeply indebted.” The Swedenborgians, says Theodore Parker, have a calm and religious beauty in their lives, which is much to be admired. I should fancy the artist Blake was a Swedenborgian. Amongst the active Swedenborgians of the past I find such names as John Flaxman, sculptor; William Sharpe, engraver; the Rev. Joseph Gilpin, curate to Fletcher of Madely; and James Hindmarsh, one of Wesley’s preachers; Charles Augustus Tulk, a friend of Joseph Hume, and M.P. for Sudbury in 1821; Samuel Crompton, the inventor of the spinning-mule, of whom it was truly remarked by his biographer, “Few men, perhaps, have ever conferred so great a benefit on their country and reaped so little profit for themselves.” In our time Swedenborgianism was represented in Parliament by Mr. Richard Malins, now Sir Richard, and a Vice-Chancellor. Mr. Hiram Power, the American sculptor,
is a zealous missionary of the Swedenborgian faith. The chief of the living Swedenborgian literati in this country are Dr. Garth Wilkinson, and the Rev. Augustus Clissold, formerly of Exeter College, Oxford. Other well-known names in connexion with the sect are Mr. Isaac Pitman and Mr. George Hartly Grindon.
The Society shows signs of life. In Islington there is a college for the education of young men for the ministry. Mr. W. White, no friendly witness,—he was driven from the community on the question of spiritualism,—writes on the testimony of Her Majesty’s inspectors:—“There are no better schools of their class in England than those maintained by the Swedenborgians of Manchester and Salford, in which about fourteen hundred children are educated.” The Swedenborgians have besides a national missionary institution, with a very limited income, and two societies for the production of tracts, one in London and the other in Manchester. The London Missionary and Tract Society of the New Church had in 1865 an income of 209l., and circulated 32,000 tracts. The Manchester New Jerusalem Tract Society had the same year an income of 154l., and circulated 100,000 tracts; their chief society is that for printing
and publishing the writings of Emmanuel Swedenborg, established in London in the year 1810. “For half a century,” writes Mr. White, “this society was the happy meeting place of all who had any lively interest in Swedenborg, whether citizens of Hindmarsh’s New Jerusalem, or Churchmen like Clowes, or Quakers like Harrison, or unattached like Tulk.” In 1845 the Swedenborg Association was formed in London to promote the sale of Swedenborg’s writings, which were translated by Dr. Wilkinson, the Rev. Augustus Clissold, and Mr. Strull. In 1854 it was thought advisable that the Society should establish a book depôt of its own. Accordingly the Rev. Augustus Clissold subscribed 3000l. for the purchase of suitable premises. A house was taken in Bloomsbury Street. In 1865 there were 3016 volumes disposed of, valued at 217l., and the income of the Society from subscriptions and donations was in that year 205l. The operations of the Society are not, however, confined to its sales. Swedenborg’s works are kept in print, and often are given away to libraries and to persons of eminence at home and abroad. It does not appear that Swedenborg’s writings have ever been very popular. The first volume of the “Arcana Cœlestia” was published in 1749, and was completed
in 1756, in eight quartos. The book fell stillborn from the press. In his “Spiritual Diary” Swedenborg describes the fact, and thus accounts for it:—“I have received letters informing me that not more than four copies have been sold in the space of two months. I communicated this to the angels. They were surprised, but they said it must be left to the Lord’s providence; that His providence is of such a nature that it compels no one; and that it is not fitting others should read the ‘Arcana Cœlestia’ before those who are in the faith.”