A good deal of emphasis has been placed on digitizing early New Church
journals which have not been available on the Internet. With the assistance
of additional grants from the Haas Trust, William Penn Foundation and The
Carpenter Fellowship Fund, the Library was able to hire Bryn Athyn College
students to scan and correct digital files from all 56 volumes of The Intellectual
Repository and add them to the Library’s online Digital Collections.3 This
amounts to 31,620 pages of digital material, chronicling 70 years of early New
Church history (from 1812-1881), which is now searchable by keyword or
browsing.
So if a student, scholar or historian desires details about prominent
advocates of the New Church such as Robert Hindmarsh, John Clowes,
Thomas Hartley, or even a virtually unknown figure, it is simply a matter of
entering a name or topic in the search field and the program will highlight all
references to that person or subject in the entire collection.
After finishing The Intellectual Repository in 2012, work began on digitizing
The New Jerusalem Magazine, published in Boston from 1827-1893. While
The Repository (printed in London) naturally emphasized the development of
the New Church in Europe, The Magazine focused on the Church in North
America. So the two journals complement each other very well. The threeyear project was completed in August of 2015 when the final volume of The
New Jerusalem Magazine was added to the Digital Collections, totaling 41,421
pages of material – the largest collection to date.
The pages of The New Jerusalem Magazine (NJM) are filled with articles,
notes and references to early, influential New Church people in America such
as James Glen, Francis Bailey, John Young, Hetty Barclay, John Hargrove,
Richard de Charms, David Powell, Thomas and Samuel Worcester, James P.
Stuart, Chauncey Giles, Samuel Warren and William Benade. Sermons and
papers on a wide variety of theological topics are also included which are still
relevant today. Some noteworthy articles and addresses include:
• The Planting of the Mustard Seed by Rev. Frank Sewall
Centenary of the New Church in America. NJM 1884: p. 449
• Annals of the New Church in America by William Roberts
A series of 18 articles about New Church History. NJM 1871-82
• Historical Sketch of New Church Periodicals in America by Willard H.
Hinkley
10 articles about early New Church journals. NJM 1884, 1885 & 1886
• Emanuel Swedenborg: A Man Unjustly Branded by Julian K. Smyth
Correcting misrepresentations of Swedenborg. NJM 1884; p. 65
3 See Classic New Church Journal Enters the Digital Age in July/August 2012 New Church Life, p. 395396.
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