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SECTION VI.

PAGANDOM.

THE Oneness of men's minds on the great vital truth, THAT THERE IS A DEITY; is not only seen in the religious faiths in three quarters of the world; but it is sown broad cast throughout the nations, or the empires of the other two divisions, Asia and Africa.

seer."

nation of a trinity of powers."

Mahometanism is "There is one God, and Mahomet is his Brahminism is the belief in "one God and the incarChina revels in the same faith of "one God;" and their faith in a future world is so strong, and the desirableness of getting there is so weaved in their very being; that the choicest present you can give a Chinese, is a handsome coffin. Africa teems with the idea of the "Great Spirit." Go where you will, and you have the upheaving of this belief, this certainty, in various forms, depending on the climate, and the scenery by which men are surrounded. If you read their books, or listen to their legends, or to their narratives of personal experience, all are magnetised to this truth as the needle to the pole--spirit manifestations as developed in the tropical climates of the east, far exceed in power any manifestations in temperate or arctic regions. However varied may be the details of religious ideas, the GREAT GRAND PIVOTAL FACTS stand out:-There is a God-there are Spirits-and man is Immortal.

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The various phases of spirit development may be seen in the books of magic, and the forms and ceremonies of various nations; but as there is no need for consuming our time in collecting distant proofs, while at our doorsteps we have them in abundance; the subject narrows its bounds for the purpose of our testing its nature and capabilities.

SECTION VII.

A FRAGMENT.

THE painter has before his mind the ideal of that which he attempts to perpetuate on the canvas; he perceives forms of beauty; but his materials have not the transparency, the brilliancy, the fluidity he wishes; they do not etherealise as he would wish; but yet he works, and works, till his body is weary, and his eye is faint-he is weary in, but not of his

work.

The chemist, in the midst of his chemicals and retorts, perceives principles, and he works and fags, he elaborates his knowledge into fresh combinations; the magnitude of his subject, and its various phases, would fill volumes; but he has to group and condense all to perhaps a few lines, which may be called the life of his thinkings and observations; but the very plodding of his mind from effect to cause, by the monotonous step after step, of practical research and reasoning, reacts upon the body, produces fatigue, and by sympathy, reacts upon the mind, and produces inertness; notwithstanding the vitality of the principles in nature, and the important results which are to flow to society from the proper application of them.

A feeling akin to the foregoing, has been stealing over me; even in the knowledge of the vastness of the subject of spirit life, and the importance of its demonstration to my fellow men as a FACT-the importance of being an instrument for rivetting the truth of the reader's immortality in the mind, thereby giving firmness of hold to his faith. The mass of proof at disposal, taken from the annals of past time, in the ordinary history of Christendom, as well as in the biographies of the eminent men of all the kingdoms wrapt in its mantle. And again, in presence of the thousands of proofs under various circumstances, which shine out in so-called Pagan theology; the mind is subdued and paralysed; at the task of selection and condensation from the vastness of all, to within the space of the

few pages now at disposal. The feeling is-If the public mind was prepared for supporting any man in the task of issuing a suitable number of volumes by a sale of the work, equal to any of the ordinary every-day three volume novels ;-then the dead weight would be removed. How happy the mop-headed, shirtless boy is, ragged and bare-footed, as he runs into the hay-field, and romping in the little banks of hay, tumbles about, and kicks his heels in the air;-give him a crust of bread, and a handful of water, pure, clear, and cool, from the hill-side stream; and you have a care-nought and dread-nought urchin, who knows and cares nothing about the anxieties and toils the farmer has had to produce the scene around;-he knows nothing of the process in the animal system by which hunger is created; and why certain substances are in combination: He feels hungry, and he knows food will remove it. So is it with many Christians, their knowledge of innate laws hangs as tatters around them; but they are happy-they trust that their bread will be given them, and their water will be sure; and they revel in the perception of present and future pleasures.

Reader, have you ever felt as I do now? "O that I had the wings of a dove, then would I flee away, and be at rest" -not the rest of laziness, but the rest of change-ever active, ever receiving, and giving: IMMORTALITY-living for ever, is man's birthright: flee away to the loved one of boyhood, and the wife of manhood-flee away to the sons and the daughters who have taken their flight-flee away to the loved brothers and sisters, the playmates of youth-flee away to gaze on those bright spirits who have scattered pearls of wisdom among their fellow men when on earth-flee away, and bask in the sunshine of God's attributes as unfolded to those unseen millions of our fellow men, who have worked, and struggled, for their fellow men on earth-REST.

While thus feeling, and totally unfit for perceiving how in wisdom I should so order my thoughts for the remaining sections of this work, I strolled out, and passing an old book stall;

I,while peering over the collection, saw a book labelled "Dick on the Future State;" and when turning listlessly its pages, I saw the words "CAPITAL of the Universe." I was roused, I liked the idea, turned to the heading of the section, and found it to be "The Throne of God." I read, and was so gratified, that whether in or out of place, it must have a place as an introduction to the phenomena of spirit life. "It is as the sound. of many waters." I felt as a child up-gazing, and listening to the thoughts of a man. It reminds me of my thinkings in contrast with John Martin's on the appearance of the angel in the Revelations with one foot on the sea and another on the land. I conceived a man six foot high, one foot in the waveripple, and the other out of it; but "Martin," in his picture, has an angel, one foot in the sea, the other on the land; and his body towering above the clouds, the clouds in the sky only reaching his waist: his heart, his shoulders, his head, are up in the deep blue sky: a conception worthy of the theme, and akin to that of David after his examination of the laboratory of the universe; he looking at, or rather trying to comprehend the presence of the GREAT CHEMIST at work-burst out with the expression" who weigheth the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance." Dare I alter, and say, who weigheth the Suns in scales, and the Planets in a balance.

SECTION VIII.

THRONE OF GOD.

COPIED from Dr. Dick on the Philosophy of a Future State,—a life-book which every man ought to read. Referring to previous arguments, he states:

"There is just one idea more that may be suggested, in addition to the several views exhibited above; in order to raise to a higher pitch of sublimity our views of the grandeur of the Divine Being, and of the magnificence of his works.

The Scriptures frequently refer to a particular place, circumstance, or manifestation, termed the throne of God, as in the following passages: -Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool.' 'The Lord hath prepared his throne in the heavens.' 'A glorious high throne from the beginning, is the place of thy sanctuary.' Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple.' 'Blessing and honour, and glory and power, be unto him that sits upon the throne.' These, and similar expressions and representations, must be considered either as being metaphorical, or as referring to some particular region of the universe, where the Divine glory is reflected in some peculiarly magnificent manner from material objects, and where the manifestations of the divine character are most illustriously displayed. If there be a reference to the splendour and magnitude of a particular portion of creation, there is an astronomical idea which may help us to form some conception of this glorious high throne' which is the peculiar residence of the Eternal. It is now considered by astronomers as highly probable, if not certain, from late observations, from the nature of gravitation and other circumstances, that all the systems of the universe revolve round one common centre, and that this centre may bear as great a proportion, in point of magnitude, to the universal assemblage of systems, as the sun does to his surrounding planets. And since our sun is five hundred times larger

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