time afterwards. Anything new is fashionable, and a new church
always gives an impetus to the number of its worshipers. Those
assembling at the church created much curiosity, and not a little
cynical criticism, at first. They even do so now. Ordinarily
orthodox people look down censoriously upon believers in "the New
Jerusalem," and class them as a mysterious, visionary sect of
religionists, given up to dreams, pious eccentricity, and self-
righteousness. But they have, like other individuals, a reason for
their belief; if it is madness there is method in it; and they are
prepared to "argue the point," and make a respectable disturbance if
their creed is assailed.

We shall not criticise their belief--neither praise nor condemn it--
but just give its chief points for the benefit of unknowing ones.
Here they are: they believe in a trinity, not of persons but
essentials--love, wisdom, and power; they do not believe in the
doctrine of faith alone, but of faith conjoined with good works;
they do not believe in a vicarious atonement, but in a
reconciliation of man to God; they don't believe in a resurrection
of the material body, but a resuscitation of the spirit immediately
after physical death; they don't believe in a physical destruction
of the world by fire, but think that the world as it is now created
will continue to exist--for ever; they have no faith in the Noachian
deluge, and say that the sacred record of it refers to an inundation
of evil and not of water; finally they believe that there will be
marriages in heaven,--not wedding ring unions, not kissing,
courting, and quarrelling amalgamations, but conjunctions of
goodness with truth; and they have further an idea that there will
be "prolifications" in heaven, not of crying children with passions
for sucking bottles and sugar teats, but of truth and goodness.