the exquisite skill and workmanship manifested in man's body, heading up and presiding over all animated substances, and directed by means of a reasonable soul-it discerns the work of Supreme Intelligence. Again, when the mind of man considers the order and number of the seasons, producing such wonderful results upon the earth-the wonderful, yet silent, rule of the sun and the moon, also the arrangement and order of the stars of heaven-it would, indeed, be unnatural to suppose that there is not an unseen and intelligent spirit ruling over all, whom we agree to call God-the Author of life-the Fountain of all intelligence-the Creator of the fine instincts of sense, and of the wonderful operations and retentive powers of the mind. Wherefore, considering all these things, we may reasonably infer that as God is a spirit unseen, and beyond the reach of the bodily organs of perception, that there are also created beings justly termed spirits, or souls of men, because of their existence beyond human perception and observation; existing, indeed, in hope, and in the assurance of being permitted one day-in the day appointed, fixed, and settled in the purpose of Godto take up, and clothe themselves with their own bodies, and thus fully and outwardly to develop the powers of their minds, and of their secret souls, or

spirits, now hidden in the region of the invisible world called the world of spirits. In the primitive Church these truths were boldly asserted, even to the unbelieving world. Tertullian, speaking of a gifted person, who, while under the ecstasy of the Spirit, writes that she sometimes conversed with angels, sometimes with the Lord; she heard Divine mysteries, and discovered the secrets of the hearts of some, &c. This Christian minister continues:-"We had some discourses touching the soul while this sister was in the Spirit, after the public services were over, and most of the people were gone; she acquainted us with what she saw, as the custom was; for these things are heedfully digested, that they may be duly proved. Among other things she told us that a material soul was set before her in the Spirit, and in the Spirit was beheld by her-being of a quality not void nor empty, but of the colour of the sky, and of a thin brightness preserving the form throughout of the human body."* If we believe the words of Him who uttered this truth, after the death

*These words were addressed by Tertullian to a philosopher named Hermogenes, whom he upbraided by saying, "Thou wilt not believe unless the thing itself in all particulars do persuade thee." Tertullian lived in the latter part of the second century, and the beginning of the third.

of the Patriachs, saying, "I am the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob"-proving thereby that He is not the God of the dead, but of the living; and that, as the spirits of the just, they are now actually living unto Him then we have no difficulty in receiving such things when duly proved, and faithfully and honestly attested, as the things just mentioned, which are in perfect analogy with the faith delivered unto us.

CHAPTER III.

THE BEATIFIC VISION.

God spake these words and said, I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.-EXODUS iii. 6.

In the Book of Genesis, which contains the history of the Patriarchs-the inspired record of their words and deeds-we have but little information given us concerning the state of separate spirits, or the condition of the soul of man separated from his body. Of the Patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and others, it is declared by St. Paul: "These all died in faith, or according to the faith delivered unto them; not having received the promises in their life-time, but having seen them afar off, they were fully persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth." For they that say such things, argues the Apostle, declare plainly that they seek a country—and, truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might

have had opportunity to have returned. But nowi.e., at this present time-as the spirits of the just, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly: wherefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He hath prepared for them a city. And of all the faithful who had gone before, he teaches us saying: "These all having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise, God having provided or foreseen some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect."

Of Abraham, it is written that he gave up the ghost, and died in a good old age, an old man, and full of years; and was gathered to his people. Now the gathering to his people could not refer to his body, but to his soul, for his body was buried in the cave of Machpelah, where only the body of Sarah, his wife, was deposited. His being gathered to his people must refer to his soul being gathered to that place where the souls of the faithful were, who had exercised like faith in God, there to remain until the blessed resurrection. The words found in the latter part of the sentence already quoted, concerning the death of Abraham, are used by the inspired penman in recording the deaths of Ishmael, Isaac, and Jacob. Of Ishmael it is only said that he gave up the ghost, or expired, and died, and was gathered to his people. The