England) Missionary Society was founded, chiefly to provide preachers for the smaller churches in its area; in 1857 a National Missionary Institution was founded and endowed, to which most of the local ones have been affiliated. Other denominational agencies have been concerned with the printing and circulation of Swedenborgian literature, a training college for the ministry (founded in 1852), and a Ministers’ Aid Fund (1854), and an Orphanage (1881). The centenary of the New Church as a spiritual system was celebrated in 1857, as an external organization in 1883. A few Swedenborgians still hold to the non-separating policy, but more from force of circumstances than from deliberate principle. The constitution of the New Church is of the Independent {Congregational type; the conference may advise and counsel, but cannot compel the obedience of the societies. The returns for 1909 showed 45 ministers, 8 recognized leaders, 10 recognized missionaries, 70 societies, 6665 registered members, 7907 Sunday scholars. There are also five or six small societies not connected with the conference.
The New Church in Europe.—In Sweden the Philanthropic Exegetic Society was formed by C. F. Nordenskiold in 1786 to collect documents about Swedenborg and to publish his writings. The introduction of alchemy and mesmerism led to its dissolution in 1789, but its work was continued by the society “Pro fide et charitate,” which existed from 1796 to 1820. For many years the works of Swedenborg and his followers were proscribed, and receivers of his writings fined or deprived of office, but in 1866, when religious liberty had made progress, the cause was again taken up; in 1875 the society of “Confessors of the New Church” was formed in Stockholm, and since 1877 services have been regularly held. There is also a church in Gothenburg, and lectures are given from time to time in most of the towns of Sweden. In Norway there is no New Church organization; in Denmark a church was founded in Copenhagen in 1871. In Germany Prelate Oetinger of Württemberg translated many of Swedenborg’s writings between 1765 and 1786, but the great name is that of Immanuel Tafel (d. 1863), librarian of Tübingen, who not only edited, translated and published, but in 1848 founded a “Union of the New Church in Germany and Switzerland” which held quarterly meetings. There is a church in Berlin, but otherwise activity in Germany has taken shape in the German Swcdenborg Society with headquarters at Stuttgart. In Switzerland, on the contrary, there is an organized body of the New Church; divine service being held in the Society at Zürich and by circles at Berne, Herisau and Nesslau. The Zürich pastor is a member of the American Convention, and has oversight also of the Austrian societies at Vienna and Trieste. In Hungary there are societies at Buda Pesth and Gyorkony. In France there were early Swedenborgians of rank and learning, and much translation was accomplished before 1800. About 1838 J. F. E. Le Boys de Guays began his masterly translation of all Swedenborg’s theological works and instituted public New Church worship, which was carried on at his house for thirty years. Sunday worship is now held in the New Church Temple on the Rue Thouin. In Italy (Rome), Holland (The Hague), Belgium (Antwerp and Bruges), there are small societies, and nearly every European country has some known adherents.
In America.—About 1784 James Glen, a London Scot, delivered lectures “For the Sentimentalists” on the new doctrine in Philadelphia and Boston and circulated some of Swedenborg’s works. Francis Bailey, state printer of Pennsylvania, was attracted by them and became active in their promulgation. During the next ten years a number of prominent men gave their support to the teaching, which gradually spread inland and southward. The first society for worship was formed in Baltimore in 1792 (reorganized 1798), though a short-lived one had preceded it at Halifax, N.S., in 1791. Other churches grew up in Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Boston and New York, and the General Convention, which meets annually, was formed at Philadelphia in 1817. In 1907 there were 102 ministers and 103 societies with a membership of 6560. Of these, 4 societies and 140 members are in Canada, while the German Synod counts for 11 societies and 325 members.
In Australia, &c.—The formation of societies in Australia began at Adelaide in 1844. Melbourne and Sydney followed in 1854, Brisbane in 1865, Rodborough, Vict., in 1878. There is a circle at Perth. New Zealand has a church at Auckland (1883) and scattered members in the south island. An Australasian conference met at Melbourne in 1881 and has continued to meet in alternate years. There is a society at Mauritius, and correspondents in various parts of South and West Africa, India, Japan, the West Indies and South America.
See L. P. Mercer, The New Jerusalem in the World’s Religious Congresses of 1893; Minutes of the General Conference of the New Church (annual); Journal of the Annual Session of the General Convention of the New Jerusalem in the United States of America. (A. J. G.)
NEW KENSINGTON, a borough of Westmoreland county.
Pennsylvania, U.S.A., on the Allegheny river, 18 m. N.E.
of Pittsburg. Pop. (1900) 4665 (1042 foreign-born and 86 negroes);
(1910) 7707. It is served by the Pennsylvania railroad
and by electric railways to neighbouring towns. There are a
variety of manufactures. The borough was founded in 1891
and was incorporated in the following year.
NEWLANDS, JOHN ALEXANDER REINA (1835–1898),
English chemist, was born in 1838. He was one of the first, if
not quite the first, to propound the conception of periodicity
among the chemical elements. His earliest contribution to the
question took the form of a letter published in the Chemical News
in February 1863. In the succeeding year he showed, in the
same journal, that if the elements be arranged in the order of their
atomic weights, those having consecutive numbers frequently
either belong to the same group or occupy similar positions in
different groups, and he pointed out that each eighth element
starting from a given one is in this arrangement a kind of repetition
of the first, like the eighth note of an octave in music.
The Law of Octaves thus enunciated was at first ignored or
treated with ridicule as a fantastic notion unworthy of serious
consideration, but the idea, subsequently elaborated by D. I.
Mendeléeff and other workers into the Periodic Law, has taken
its place as one of the most important generalizations in modern
chemical theory. Newlands, who was of Italian extraction on
his mother’s side, and fought as a volunteer in the cause of
Italian freedom under Garibaldi in 1860, died in London on the
29th of July 1898. He collected his various papers on the
atomicity of the elements in a little volume on the Discovery of
the Periodic Law published in London in 1884.
NEW LONDON, a city, port of entry, and one of the county-seats
of New London county, Connecticut, U.S.A., coextensive
with the township of New London, in the S.E. part of the state,
on the Thames river, about 3 m. from its entrance into Long
Island Sound. Pop. (1890) 13,757; (1900) 17,548, of whom
3743 were foreign-born; (1910 census) 19,659. It is served
by the New York, New Haven & Hartford, and the New London
Northern (leased by the Central Vermont) railways, by electric
railway to Norwich, Westerly, Groton, Stonington and East
Lyme, by a daily line of passenger steamboats to New York City,
and by two lines of freight steamers, and in the summer months
by daily steamboats to Sag Harbor and Greenport, Long Island, and Watch Hill and Block Island, Rhode Island. New London’s harbour is the best on the Sound. The city is the headquarters of a United States artillery district, embracing Fort H. G. Wright on Fisher’s Island, New York, Fort Michie on Gull Island, New York, Fort Terry on Plum Island, New York, and Fort Mansfield on Napatree Point, Rhode Island—fortifications which command the eastern entrance to Long Island Sound; and it is the headquarters of the Third District of the U.S. Engineers and of the Third District of the Lighthouse Department. The harbour was formerly defended by two forts, both now obsolete—Fort Trumbull on the right bank of the Thames, and Fort Griswold on the left bank, in the township of Groton (pop. 1900, 5962). The city is built on a declivity facing the south-east; from the higher points there are excellent views of Long Island Sound and the surrounding country. New London is a summer resort, and is a station of the New York Yacht Club; the boat races between Harvard and Yale universities are annually rowed on the river near the city. Among the places of interest are the Town Mill, built in 1650 by John Winthrop, Jr., in co-operation with the town; the Hempstead Mansion, built by John Hempstead about 1678; the old cemetery, north-east of the city, laid out in 1653; a school house in which Nathan Hale taught; and a court house built in 1785. There is a public library (about 30,000 volumes), and the New London County Historical Society (incorporated 1870) has an historical library. There are two endowed high schools, the Bulkeley School for boys and the Williams Memorial Institute (1891) for girls, and an endowed Manual Training and Industrial School (1872), all offering free instruction. In the 18th century New London had a large trade in lumber, flour and food supplies with the West Indies, Gibraltar
