Page:Swedenborgs Maximus Homo.pdf/149

 to be drawn from it is equally obvious, and the passages in which it is found are all referred to in the Memorial. But I cannot help thinking that the committee failed to give them the consideration they deserve; for had they done so, they would hardly have referred to certain old dogmas still patent in the creeds of some of the churches, in justification of the Convention's attitude toward such bodies, or as an adequate reason for refusing the Memorialists' request. They would have seen or reflected that these are but the dry husks of a decaying orthodoxy, beneath which lie concealed and germinant the spirit and principles of the New Jerusalem; nay, that these very churches constitute the bulk of the visible New Church to-day, containing within their several inclosures a multitude of sweet and saintly souls who have had an inward experience of the Lord's new and glorious advent, and who make by far the largest part of the invisible but real New Church now on earth.

No: It is a great mistake to imagine that the pulpit of to-day dwells often or lays the chief emphasis on "doctrines which are directly contrary to the principles of the New Church." Far oftener and with much stronger emphasis does it dwell on the great fundamentals of the New Church—love to the Lord and charity toward the neighbor. The burden of its teaching is not what it was in the middle of the last century—the tri-personality