animal body to another, by an authorized agent who acts in the name of God, and who is filled therewith, is as much in accordance with the laws of nature as for water to seek its own level; air its equilibrium; or heat and electricity their own mediums of conveyance.

"This law of spiritual fluid, its communicative properties, and the channel by which it is imparted from one person to another, bear some resemblance or analogy to the laws and operations of electricity. Like electricity, it is imparted by the contact of two bodies, through the channel of the nerves.

"But the two fluids differ widely. The one is a property nearly allied to the grosser elements of matter; not extensively endowed with the attributes of intelligence, wisdom, affection or moral discrimination. It can therefore be imparted from one animal body to another, irrespective of the intellectual or moral qualities of the subject or recipient. The other is a substance endowed with the attributes of intelli

gence, affection, moral discrimination, love, charity and benevolence pure as the emotions which swell the bosom, thrill the nerves, vibrate the pulse of the Father of all.

or

"An agent filled with this heavenly fluid cannot impart of the same to another, unless that other is justified, washed, cleansed from all his impurities of heart, affections, habits or practices by the blood of atonement, which is generally

applied in connection

remission.

with the baptism of

"A man who continues in his sins, and who has no living faith in the Son of God, cannot receive the gift of the Holy Spirit through the ministration of any agent, however holy he may The impure spirit of such a one will repulse the pure element, upon the natural laws of sympathetic affinity, or of attraction and repul

be.

In other words, the Spirit of God will not dwell in unholy temples, hence repentance and baptism for the remission of sins go before the baptism of the Spirit that men may be cleansed of their sins, justified before God, and their bodies by these means made fit dwelling-places for the Holy Ghost-the living temples of God.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE HOLY GHOST.-CHARACTER AND SOURCE.

CAN the naturalist find out and comprehend

the secret of the endless variety of life in the vegetable and animal kingdoms? Can the chemist find out the essences of substances, or make himself master of the secrets of great nature's laboratory where those wonderful combinations are wrought which produce the sub

* Key to Theology, pp. 96, 97, 98.

stances that constitute the material universe? Can the physician or surgeon with scalpel and microscope "trace to its source the lightning of the soul"-trace out the secret springs of life and intelligence in the human organism? Can the astronomer, even with his mightiest telescope, penetrate to the outside curtains of space where worlds and planetary systems do not exist -can he circumscribe the creations of God, within the scope of his vision or knowledge?

To all these questions a negative answer must be given; when man has done his best, when his whole life has been spent in seeking knowledge and finding out wisdom, even then the facts which he has mastered, compared with those beyond the power of his intellect to comprehend, are insignificant; and the fields of knowledge which he has explored, compared with those wherein man has never yet set his foot, are as the few grains of sand compared to the untold millions of such grains that form old ocean's beach.

The great Sir Isaac Newton at the close of his life a life devoted to the search for knowledge in which pursuit he had been more than ordinarily successful, and most men thought he had accomplished something of which he could boast said in accents most humble, “I have been like a child playing upon the beach; I have succeeded in finding a few pretty shells,

and picking up a few pretty pebbles, but the great ocean lies before me unexplored."

Questions and considerations like these, are calculated to reveal the fact that man, with all his boasted intelligence, is, after all, in this sphere of existence, "cribbed, cabined and confined" to limits extremely narrow, so far as his ability to comprehend facts is concerned.

The naturalist will answer "No," to the question I have set down to him. He will tell us that he can classify the various forms of animal and vegetable life, basing his classification upon certain similarities of structure or habits; but when it comes to accounting for the great variety and forms of life in animated nature; or to telling why it is that one seed produces the mighty, sturdy oak, and another the supple willow; or why each species of animals produces its kind. —he cannot inform you. His most careful investigations and patient watching have failed to rob nature of these secrets.

The chemist of a century ago, who thought he had reduced compound substances to their primary elements, and had discovered all the primary elements of substances; could he live today, he would see his "elements" separated and reduced, and a multitude of other elements unknown to him, brought within the compass of chemical science; and yet the existence of the universe itself, remaining as great a mystery as ever. Indeed, the wonder grows rather than

diminishes with each succeeding discovery; for these things increase the mystery by revealing the complexity and delicate combinations of substances as they exist in their varied forms.

To the physician, the surgeon, the scientist, the mystery of life remains as much an unsolved problem as it ever did. It is true they claim to have traced it down to its beginning; they say it originates in a substance known to them as protoplasm; that a single cell of this wonderful substance has the peculiar power of producing another cell, and this one still another. This multiplication of protoplasmic cells continuing until it develops in the varied processes of nature into the great variety of animal organisms known to us. Yet after all his work, the scientist at last, with nervous hand and throbbing brow reaches a point beoynd which he cannot go, and the single cell of protoplasm, with the peculiar power to multiply itself, is as great a mystery as man with his complex organism of bones and nerves and muscles.

To the question I have put to the astronomer, he would doubtless answer, with some impatience, that his best instruments but revealed to him the nearest outposts of the stellar worlds; and that beyond these few street lamps within his vision, with whose positions he has become acquainted and marked down on his chart, are numberless planetary sysems out of the reach of his insruments, but whose existence is revealed by masses